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A variety of countries associate themselves with a certain religion through their constitution, from Australia and Poland to Switzerland and Ireland, yet they usually do not call for international recognition of this association.

Other countries do not require recognition by other states of their affiliation with a certain religion.

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All animals display the instinct to self-preservation, that is, the instinct to avoid pain or damage to their bodies.

All animals have a right to live and be free of suffering.

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Nuts are healthy for children who are not allergic to them. Discouraging these healthy staples only further encourages unhealthy options.

Banning nuts would prevent other children from enjoying their snacks.

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There is a stark difference in competencies of individuals in UK Parliament over the years. The current cabinet has very little experience. This is a marked contrast to the Thatcher years with experienced people working on foreign policy Zimbabwe, Hong Kong Falklands, the eu concessions as well as UK problems industry, strikes, Council Tax. The Thatcher team was wrong on policies but strong in individual competence.

The Conservative Government which since the 2008 crash has varied from a strong management even if incorrect under Cameron through a weak solitary performer Theresa May to a minority Government with no focus . Now Sept 2019 it has strong focus Brexit now, election afterwards and a team approach with Boris Johnson at the top acting in a more Chairman-like method.

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A referendum is an expensive project that would divert Governmental resources away from more important things, cost in the range of 250m, detract the opportunity for more impactful conversations, and widen tensions within the community. I am a gigantic believer in equality but, I understand the counterargument treating everyone equal means treating people differently difference between equal outcomes v opportunities actual equal opportunity v theoretically equal opportunity but, I still believe that our Constitution should treat everyone equally, and that means the less singling out certain groups the better. As to some more of my evidence i believe there was 170m set aside by Govt in the last budget private sector will also add in advertising funding and the Govt often overspends. It will clearly take up the time and attention of senior members of govt and parliamrnt. The Brexit referendum caused significant schisms within the british and european society and has reduced social cohesion. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, i fear unintended consequences would result, partly as i believe our high court is too activitist and wants to make laws instead of respecting them, and partly because i think the issue is intertwined with The Voice, and I fear that could slow down law making, add red tape and result in less optimal laws being made at greater cost and being slower. I accept its very hard to denegrate The Voice as there has been no firm suggestion put forward but i struggle to believe that there is no way that it wouldnt cost money, have unintended negative consequences and slow down some Govt business.

- Australian specific - Further aboriginal recognition in the Australian constitution is unnecessary, a bad idea and racist.

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I've seen posts on here before advocating for the marginal tax rate to be a continuous function. I gave that idea some additional thought and came up with a specific system which I will detail below Background The system itself requires some elementary calculus to understand. However, the calculation which a citizen would perform to estimate their tax needs nothing more than a scientific calculator. The marginal tax rate let's call it m x can be thought of as the tax rate on the x 1 th dollar of income. If someone has an income of I dollars, then their total tax is the area under m x between 0 and I . In calculus terms, this is a definite integral and can be computed simply as M x , where M is an antiderivative of m such that M 0 0 . The U.S. tax system has m x as a step function something like this However, I feel that the discrete bands are an unnecessary complication. Proposal I propose that we define m x as follows a logistic function. L is the asymptotic tax rate, x0 is the inflection point where the marginal tax rate is growing the fastest , and k determines how steep the curve is. At very low incomes, the marginal tax rate is negligible just as in our current system . At very high incomes, additional dollars are essentially taxed at a constant rate of L . The exponential growth in the middle section may give you pause, but k can be adjusted so that the middle class is taxed at a reasonable rate. The government will choose these parameters the same way it normally determines taxes I assume by considering how much revenue it needs, projected impact on the economy, etc. A little calculus gives us what we desire To calculate tax owed, all one has to do is plug their income level into the formula, as opposed to partitioning their income into brackets and then summing tax owed on each one. The summation over an infinite number of brackets was already done when we computed the integral. Oh yeah, so that I know you read the entire thing, please precede your reply with your favorite fruit. All a person needs to compute this is a scientific calculator and a basic knowledge of algebra. The government can also make calculators available online to make the process even easier. Overall, I believe this is a simpler and more elegant way to determine income taxes. Edit For people saying the math is too hard, consider mortgage amortization schedules. Consumers have resources to help them with that before buying a house. Edit 2 Additionally, a linear approximation would suffice to estimate your taxes. That would be no more difficult than the calculations you do under the current system.

The marginal income tax rate should be given by a logistic function.

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In the wake of Mozilla CEO making the choice to step down facing internal and external pressure , this board had a number of 's supporting him and stating we were all entitled to our differing opinions and should not be punished for them. There were many articles some from the left and more on the right supporting him and calling for tolerance of different opinion here are some examples I personally disagreed with them, but I understood that they believed all opinions are equally valid and no one should be forced to resign or suffer consequences at work for their personal views. I could disagree with them, but respect them for being ideologically consistent however Just a few weeks later, Los Angeles Clippers Owners Donald Sterling made some really offensive remarks about not wanting his wife to bring black people to their seats at games. The NBA has banned him for life, fined him 2.5M dollars and is looking to force him out of the league by a vote of the owners. At most, I have seen one and one article stating it was a private conversation, but nowhere near as many stating he has the right to his beliefs and the NBA and those of us who oppose him are wrong for standing up against him, despite the fact that Sterling's punishment is infinitely worse than Eich's resignation. Now let me be clear, I think his punishment is completely deserved. I thought his statements were out of line and tarnished the reputation of the Clippers and the NBA. I think there could have been boycotts and monetary damaged suffered by the league and the Clippers fans could have been hurt by an inability to recruit talent . So I fully support the league's actions. However, where are all of the Eich supporters? If someone is ideologically consistent as mentioned above , there should be tons of s, articles and comments for me to debate against. Instead, there's a stony silence here for a very equivalent act. We can nitpick how the news was leaked old records versus leaked private conversation or differences in position company CEO versus 1 of 30 franchise owners , but neither of those will as these are two very similar situations. Someone makes discriminatory remarks actions against a minority and faces public rebuke. This causes internal pressure or in Sterling's case direct action that leads to them leaving an executive role. So if you supported Eich, but are staying silent and not defending Sterling, then either you are acting like a coward allowing pot shots to be taken at gays but refusing to defend your belief when it is a racial minority affected or you are being hypocritical. So there it is. . Edit updated Obviously I woke up and was able to respond some more. Am actually about to go into productive mode for a few hours and won't be able to respond. But I will reply when I get back later on this afternoon. Thank you again to everyone for an engaging and civilized discussion on what I know can be a very controversial topic.

If you supported Brandon Eich Mozilla's former CEO, but are silent on Donald Sterling, you are either acting cowardly or hypocritical.

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Morris made a previous allegation of being assaulted by a police officer, but later admitted she lied about the location and was vague in her description of the officer. She also couldn't pick Holtzclaw out of a photo lineup and misidentified his patrol car.

Only 3 Ligons, Morris & Hill of the 13 accusers whose allegations resulted in criminal charges came forward without being sought out by detectives.

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I believe that David Dao, the doctor violently removed from the united airlines flight was not chosen randomly. He was discriminated against because he is a person of color on a mostly white flight and they figured it would be less hassle than moving a white or even black passenger who might have more confidence to speak up a stereotype which turned out to be false . Americans have a long history of discrimination towards Asians and although it may not be talked about so much as discrimination towards blacks or muslims. I am willing to change my view if someone can show me how it was truly random and simply a coincidence that the person selected was asian. I heard that 3 4 of the people chosen were asian although I admit I don't have a source . There has been outrage in my country Korea about this incident. Why are we wrong? EDIT thanks for all your responses, this has been very informative gt This is a footnote from the moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing

The Asian doctor removed from the United Airlines flight was chosen because he is Asian

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New York City babies are not given formula unless there's a medical reason to do so or mothers specifically request it they'll first have to listen to a mandatory speech about why breast is best.

The advantages of mandatory breastfeeding could be communicated through education, by merely encouraging it as a preferred default, without making it legally mandatory.

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Understanding consent from an early age will enable children to recognise instances of abuse in later life.

Comprehensive sex education from an early age is necessary to protect children from abuse.

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Hey I'm currently writing a research paper about culture in the Middle Ages and one thing that I find very interesting is the relations between people of different parts of the world in the past. Generally, when we today speak of prejudice or hate towards different peoples, it is considered racist, on the premise that races are inherently different. I think this is damaging to society. Many will ague that colorblindness is bullshit and I tend to agree. However, I feel that the emphasis on race as an identity in modern times is problematic to promoting equality. In the Middle Ages, prejudice was considerably less about skin and more about kinship. Not kin as in family, but as in community. Communities, like religions, nations, and empires seem to have had almost zero inclusivity discrimination based on skin, and instead actually desired to expand their influence upon those of other cultures. Sure there was always slavery, but that was again based not on race but on otherness, which could simply mean living outside one of the massive empires. Because of today's overemphasis on skin as a determinant of who you are as a person, I think even the most tolerant societies are more racist even if their laws do not discriminate. EDIT I just want to say that I'm not insinuating medieval culture was in any way better than how we have it now, especially in regards to how we treat outsiders. I guess my argument is that we play off of nonsense social constructs more now than we did in medieval 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

We live in a more racist society today than did people of the Middle Ages.

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First off The basis for my statement is that I don't think there is any reason to believe there is life after death. Without debating this notion, and accepting the proposition that people's existences are terminated, I see no reason why being dead is so bad for the person who is dead. Someone dying is terrible, but for the living. For the dead, they cannot look back in retrospect and contemplate what happened to them. So in the case of murder, all crimes committed upon them must necessarily be worse than murder after the act has been committed because the victim can contemplate it. I understand there are concerns regarding the living, but I am speaking purely on behalf of the dead. And I thought of this purely as a language construct, but I am also interested in its morality.

I am not convinced that "worse than death" is a meaningful statement from the point of view of the victim because the victim is well; dead. And hence cannot contemplate what has happened to them.

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This is essentially a repost of something I had asked roughly 7 8 months ago. You can find the original here At the time, my opinion was slightly altered now, I'm not so sure anymore. In light of recent events, and in particular this viral video of a journalist responding to a reporter about the situation in Syria, I feel compelled to ask again. Long story short, I believe the journalist in that video makes an assertion that is in line with how most people see the conflict. Being that this is the same as before, I'm simply going to copy paste what I had written the first time around I've been following the Arab Spring since it first began in 2011. My opinion is that it is or was , depending on what parameters you are using to define its duration a regionwide popular uprising against tyranny and oppression. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen have successfully overthrown their dictators, and I was thrilled that each of these countries had the chance to chart a course for democracy and the rule of law although the aftermath has been messy to say the least . I wanted to see the same thing happen in Syria. Unfortunately, the situation has only deteriorated with each passing year as the conflict became multi faceted. Now there is hardly any hope for peace , let alone freedom. I am still opposed to President Bashar al Assad in Syria. Other groups may have committed war crimes, but none have reached the scale of those carried out under the aegis of the Syrian Armed Forces and their co belligerents. I also view their refusal to enact meaningful democratic reforms as the catalyst for the present day situation. Had they done so from the outset, I firmly believe that this war would not be happening, and that ISIS would still be ISI . However, I'm also starting to think that I'm part of a minority here. It seems to me that the popular opinion among ordinary people within Western nations is that the civil war is really between a hodge podge of Islamic terrorist organizations and the legitimate government of Syria. A lot of people even believe that the US secretly instigated this conflict, and that any condemnation of the Syrian government in the media is mere propaganda to brainwash people into supporting military action. I also think the Russian intervention has widespread support. If I said that I consider these views to be conspiratorial, then I'd be called a right wing neo con or something to that effect who believes everything he sees on TV. If I said that I support the secular rebels in the civil war, I'd be told that there simply aren't any that the rebels are almost universally fighting for the imposition of hardline Sharia law and have no real interest in democracy. Convince me that most people who follow this conflict do not hold these views.

Most people support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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It seems to me that the heart of human motivation consists in trying to gain good emotions and avoid bad emotions. For example, I go to the gym partly because I want the good feeling of working out, partly because I want the good feeling of being more attractive, and partly because I want the good feelings of potentially finding a partner who finds me attractive. Similarly, I do a job to gain money that I can spend on things that I enjoy good feelings and paying bills avoiding the bad feelings of being sued and going to jail . Apart from when one is in the grip of a strong mood like anger which I don't want to discuss because it does not involve EDIT considered actions , it seems to me that this is always the case? Can anyone change my view by coming up with examples of times when people do things, and they don't expect to get a good feeling out of it or avoid a bad feeling? Thanks

When we take any considered action ie not in the grip of fear or anger etc, we always do so in order to gain a good feeling or to avoid a bad feeling.

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I believe mandatory minimum laws are unjust, counterproductive to society, and lead to racial disparity. Mandatory Minimum laws i.e. California’s three strike law, Georgia’s Two Strike laws, and federal Crack Cocaine laws take away the discretion from the jury and the judge and give it all to the prosecution. This leads to a biased system that operates on behalf of the state. Let’s not stipulate in this discussion that the War on Drugs is a failed policy, but instead focus on Mandatory Minimums. I believe Mandatory Minimums are unfairly imposed onto racial minorities, and are typically for non violent drug crimes. I believe that the mandatory sentences should be removed and sentencing should be placed back into the hands of the community jury and the judge. The use of these laws does nothing but flood an already stressed system with low level offenders. .

I believe Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws are unjust, counter productive, and lead to racial disparity.

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It was claimed by the enemies of Christianity that the Disciples stole Jesus's body, which tacitly admits that the body could not be found.

Following Jesus's death, the tomb he was buried in was discovered to be empty.

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UPDATE There are too many comments to reply now, so I will summarize my opinion. I think that the subreddit did a great job at trying to convince me otherwise and provided many excellent counterpoints. I won't award anyone a delta since I haven't changed my view completely, but the following ideas deserve half a delta 1 The effect on friends and relatives of those who kill themselves is unclear and we cannot be certain the net effect is going to be positive 2 Allowing legal suicides could in fact cause a lot more people to consider that option. It is unclear whether the long term outcome would be positive or negative. Original post Assuming that a Each person has complete body autonomy b The government's goal is to maximize individual happiness of all citizens I don't see a reason why the government shouldn't provide suicide booths to all citizens for free, regardless of their current health condition. This would solve two problems a People who suffer from depression, terminal diseases, life in prison, lack of money, or simply general dissatisfaction in life will get the opportunity to end their suffering, fulfilling their right to body autonomy b Society as a whole will become more happy on average, fulfilling the goal of the government. Potential counter arguments 1 How can someone be 100 sure they want to kill themselves? Aka the False dilemma fallacy. Well, nothing is 100 sure. I'm not 100 sure I want to take out a loan, but I would still have to repay it later. A murderer was not 100 sure when he wanted to kill someone, but he still has to go to prison. Why not let people kill themselves when they're 51 sure? It's their choice, their responsibility. 2 Depressed people need treatment, not suicide. Yes they do. But someone who is depressed still has bodily autonomy over themselves and they are still responsible for their actions otherwise depressed people would never go to jail . Forcing them to go to a doctor instead of taking the easy route violates their basic human right. 3 The government will abuse their power and kill off innocent people It already does that with the law enforcement. Thousands of innocent people go to jail because of the government. There should be a complex system involved in the suicide booths to prevent misuse by the government, but ultimately nothing is 100 . We can't fix the system for all people, but why not try to make it right for 99 of them?

I believe that suicide should be legal and the government should provide a painless suicide options to all citizens.

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The value of UK exports has increased markedly by over 20% in just 2.5 years since the Brexit vote, whereas the value of exports was flat for the preceding four years.

The exceptionally strong performance of the UK economy since the Brexit vote indicates that a hard Brexit will significantly benefit the UK economy.

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Jen Dunnaway. "Latest Loony Argument Against CAFE Standards: High-MPG Cars Kill People". Car Domain Blog. 26 Mar. 2008 - "Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist claimed that requiring the automakers to eke up their mpg ratings was tantamount to murdering consumers—by forcing them into smaller cars, putting them at greater risk during collisions. His argument is based on one 2002 study that explored the effects of the diminishing body size of cars in the 70's. In addition to simplistically generalizing the results of that report to the new generation of compact cars, his position also ignores a lot of key realities about crashes, including the illusion of safety experienced by drivers of big vehicles, their greater likelihood of single-vehicle accidents and rollovers, and the tendency of large rides to transfer more energy to the bodies of occupants during a crash, resulting in worse injuries."

Fuel economy standards do not put drivers at greater risk

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I was recently reading an article on being trans in America and stumbled across the term LGBTQI. It made he raise an eyebrow because until now I've only seen it as LGBT and the Q and I portions were new to me. I did my research and have to admit that I'm more than a little confused as to why more terms need to be added. I've read on several different websites and asked a few of my LGBT friends what the difference was between queer and LGB and from what I've gathered it seems like an arbitrary term to just make people who feel like they don't have a label included in the movement. You can be bi, gay, a lesbian or and transgendered and still be queer, so why put it there? Also, another definition I received is that queer can also mean metrosexual or someone who just doesn't fit in with gender stereotypes. Well, my husband takes pride in his appearance and is pretty metrosexual but no one would consider him queer. I'm 100 down with the LGBT movement but am a straight married woman, by all definitions of the word queer as I've been told it, I don't fit into the stereotypical supporter I guess so would I be considered queer? All in all it seems like a very redundant term. The same with Intersex. The oxford reference definition is An organism displaying characteristics that are intermediate between those of the typical male and typical female of its species. From a medical perspective the Intersex Society of North America offers “Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. Whereas, from a LGBT standpoint, Intersex Initiative has an interesting perspective that simultaneously links Transgendered people with those who have intersex conditions First, intersex bodies are pathologized and erased in a way that is similar to how homosexuality has historically been treated within psychiatry. Even though homosexuality has been officially depathologized for three decades, transgender people are still labeled as having gender identity disorder and thus treated as something abnormal rather than a natural human variety. From this point of view, intersex is just another sexual minority that is pathologized and treated as abnormal. And seeks to break that link First, some people fear that adding the I would give the wrong impression that all or most intersex people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and or transgender. Obviously, some intersex people are, and some aren't but when we are dealing with young children and their parents, there is a concern that the association with LGBT would drive away parents of intersex children who would otherwise seek out information and resources about intersex conditions. Worse, the misperception might push parents to demand more surgeries to ease their concern about the child's future sexuality or gender identity. Among other things. My concern with Intersex comes from real life experience in having a nephew that was born with hermaphroditic genetalia. It seems like, just bringing up the Intersex Initiative webpage only, that choosing your child's gender is wrong. I guess this happens when there are people campaigning for a change that they themselves have nothing to do with, but choosing your child's gender because of medical necessity and fostering an environment where your child can grow up and like what they like and set a gender identity for themselves is more important than ideology. I digress. Please, if you can, change my view on what adding all of the most minute labels that actually kind of flow into each other can do for the LGBT community. Because in my most humble opinion, the movement is running itself into the ground with semantics. Sources Article that started this Intersex Initiative ISNA

I think that the LGBTQI movement is running itself to the ground.

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For most of the sports in the Olympic program, the pinnacle of every player's and team's dream is to win the Olympics but for some of the sports it is most definitely not the pinnacle of the sport, and the top players feel no reason to compete in the Olympics or sometimes aren't even allowed to . Football U23 besides 3, not in international window so almost all top players not playing , rugby only 7s, top XVs players not playing , basketball some top NBA players sitting out, FIBA rules shorter games , baseball when it comes back in 2020 MLB players not playing , tennis no ranking points, lots of top players sitting out , golf no ranking points, most top players sitting out , boxing played with amateur rules, almost all pros not playing . Considering that the raison d'etre of the Olympics is to be the pinnacle of all sports events, and that individual sports need the IOC more than the IOC needs them the Olympics are big enough with athletics, swimming and gymnastics alone it makes no sense that the IOC should continue to have sports in the program where the best players in that sport aren't playing. Basically, the IOC should inform each of the sports that if the Olympics isn't the pinnacle of that sport, and the top players don't attend that sport will be removed from the Olympic program, and replaced with one of the many sports that want to be part of the Olympics and are willing to make the Olympic event the peak of their sport. The only sport on that list that could be considered necessary by the IOC is football, and FIFA isn't willing to have any event compete with the World Cup but even in football, they could at least make the Olympics an official international tournament, so players wouldn't need their clubs' permission to attend if all top players attended, even with the U23 besides 3 rule, we could still have Messi, Higuain, Di Maria, Ronaldo, Pepe, James Rodriguez, Marcelo, Zlatan, Muller, Neuer, and Riyad Mahrez playing

Sports should only be in the Olympics if winning Olympic gold is the pinnacle of that sport

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There have been already many consultations about independence and a decision has not been made.

A referendum on independence does not solve the problems of Catalonia. Regional referendum

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The Northwest Passage and the Beaufort Sea remain difficult to navigate with their unmarked shallow areas, shifting sand-gravel bars, fog, and dangerous weather.

Using this strait comes with a number of risks that may counter any economic benefits.

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If the main problem with current welfare is the disincentive to work, a reworked version of workfare can solve that problem without the need for the high cost of a UBI. Requiring some level of employment before social benefits supplement that income for those physically and mentally able incentivizes employment and reduces overall welfare costs because the government is only supplementing, not providing the income.

Even if the existing welfare schemes are supposedly worse than UBIs, welfare schemes could be improved so that the disincentive to increase income is not as steep as the 1999 source of the parent's source illustrates. In other words, traditional welfare programs could be fixed rather than eliminated and replaced with UBI.

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It would provide equal access to the same health care regardless of level of income.

The US should adopt a single-payer health care system.

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Recently, there has been some debate about what role the moderators should take in a presidential debate. Some argue that the moderator should be more avidly fact checking the debates, while others argue that such a proposition would be overrun with bias. However, there were a few moments where candidates made statements that are objectively incorrect. It's true, matters of hypothetical policy cannot be objectively measured. However, matters of public record can be. Here is Donald Trump incorrectly claiming that he has not called global warming a Chinese hoax. Here's a long list of tweets plus one video where he does very clearly call global warming a hoax. And for the sake of fairness, Hillary Clinton absolutely did call the TPP the gold standard, no hope it would be anywhere to be found. Most of these are big talking points, and a candidate has to know that these topics would be brought up. Both Trump saying Clinton called TPP the gold standard and Clinton saying Trump called global warming a Chinese hoax are objectively true statements. They are on the record. And there needs to be a protocol for that objective evidence to be presented to the public. In both events, the candidate against which the claims were made interrupted with a form of protest. Trump claimed he never said that, while Clinton tried to twist the context into a hope it will situation, even though that is not how it was delivered. Particularly in a debate like this one, that means no minds will be changed. There is no debate of facts, it's simply he said, she said. Trump supporters will believe Trump is unfairly being attacked, even when it is undeniable fact that he said those things about climate change. Clinton supporters will argue her words were taken out of context, when in context they don't sound much better. I don't propose the moderator himself take the role of fact checker, but both camps should be able to present an indisputable piece of evidence to support them. Instead, they should simply admit or reject evidence presented by the campaigns. It's not a perfect solution, and it will change the format of the debates to some extent. However, there are cases where there is objectively correct, and objectively incorrect. Many situations in the debate do not fall into those two categories. However, it's mind boggling to think that one candidate can say I never said that, the other can say yes you did, and the moderator can say let's agree to disagree and move on to another question. When there is an objective truth, there should be a non partisan system in place to make it clear to the audience who is in the right, and who is in the wrong.

In presidential debates, candidates should be held responsible for objectively untrue statements in some capacity

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Terms like "white supremacist" can be interpreted in both stricter and broader ways. Even if now there are only true neonazis being silenced, the censorship could expand to other groups which don't directly advocate hate against racial minorities.

White supremacists, like followers of any other political ideology, deserve to have their voices heard.

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There is a longstanding tradition of suspending Habeas Corpus protections during times of war and conflict. For example, President Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War. Habeas was also suspended briefly during World War II, after the attacks on Pearl Harbour. 9/11 and other Al Qaeda plots against the United States and its citizens mean that we are engaged in just the same kind of conflict, and we must respond in just as determined a way. The war on terror may not follow the rules of traditional warfare, but it is a war nonetheless.

There is a longstanding tradition of suspending Habeas Corpus protections during times of war and co...

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This is important for young people as youth unemployment and poverty can lead to forced dependency on one’s parents, including for accommodation and income.

Younger members may thus pick on specific problems relating to housing, education and unemployment in a different way than older MPs would.

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For some cultures, whale-hunting is an integral part of their history and identity. Stopping these hunts can damage vulnerable communities.

Hunting whales in a population-sustaining fashion while minimising suffering should be allowed.

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Clarification of terms I'm using consciousness here to refer to any kind of subjectivity awareness interiority. I'm emphatically NOT using it to mean self reflective awareness , ie the kind of awareness that knows that it knows though that would of course be included as a form of awareness. Okay, to start off I don't see myself as just being my memories and inclinations. I say this because, when I'm dreaming, I have different memories inclinations than when I'm awake, but it still seems to be “me” that is dreaming and not somebody else. So my memories inclinations are totally changeable without changing my “me ness”. Now consider the somewhat cartoonish thought experiment of a brain transplant people tend to assign identity to brains, so we think that brain transplanted people would “switch bodies”. But what if you kept both brains in the same skulls, and altered them so that all memories inclinations swapped between the people? Who's who then? How about if you make an exact duplicate of me is it “really me”? I think people make this more complicated than it has to be. Remember Occam's razor entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity . My view is simple we're all the same thing person entity consciousness whatever in the first place, looking out through all eyes at once. Everybody's “really” the same person as everybody else. We're all literally different blobs of the same stuff we're the universe suffering from enjoying multiple personality disorder amongst itself. Some scientific sources to maybe make this seem less like empty word games Split brain patients can host two “consciousnesses” in the same brain I interpret this to mean that, whatever 'minds' are, they're divisible. These twins, conjoined at the brain, can experience each other's sensations. Even human brains and rat brains are, apparently, connectable by something like a more complicated USB cable. Lastly, to use an analogy for how this might relate to the idea of an afterlife what if somebody told you that, if Mars were to blow up tomorrow, its gravity field would just wink out like a TV set being shut off? That Martian gravity would return to the state of non existence it had occupied before Mars was formed? Most alarmingly, what if they told you that there was no place to safely warehouse the gravity fields of exploded planets so that, if Mars blew up tomorrow, Martian gravity would be lost forever? My answer is simple there is no such thing as “Martian gravity”. Gravity is just gravity. Similarly, whatever generates it, consciousness is just consciousness, and it's who what we really are. . EDIT I've already awarded a delta to mrmanuke for convincing me to drop the phrasing one consciousness in favour of common property of consciousness . So in my revised phrasing, we don't share one consciousness, but share the common property of consciousness . I see this property as being interchangeable between all of our brains the same way water is interchangeable between lake beds.

Consciousness, whatever else it may be, is interchangeable between/across people, it's what we really are, and it's more accurate to say we're all one consciousness than to say that we're separate.

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Gryffindor house was founded for the bravest, Ravenclaw for the cleverest, Hufflepuff for hard workers, and Slytherin for those with great ambition.

The houses give students an opportunity to develop their greatest strength or most distinctive quality.

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As much as the idea of impeaching Trump sounds awesome, I have only one problem with it. Now of course Trump deserves to be kicked out of office considering all of the rules he's broken and his extremely authoritarian nature. He's becoming the despicable hypocrite he once criticized and is trying to bypass the Constitution by trying to get things to work his own way. At this point he needs to be sent out. But there's just one problem Mike Pence. If Trump is impeached, we're going to have a man who is much more worse than Trump ideologically. He's much more passionately anti LGBT. He wants to push for torture. He wants to escalate the conflict in the Middle East. He's part of the anti vaccination movement. Only he's much more stringently passionate about these ideas and other ones than Trump. Trump has been much more easily persuaded than we all thought simply because he greatly relied on advice from his cabinet especially Banner. Regardless he still showed only tiny restraint an example being that he rolled back on a few foreign policy ideas. And the fact that he's not ardently pursuing his campaign promises would mean that he's not taking his ideology so seriously as we feared. However Pence is much more ardent ideologically. He's not a man who can be persuaded. He is the persuader. He wouldn't give two cents about other opinions. And if that's the kind of person that would steer the White House, we are all in trouble. It's crazy to say this even for myself, but Trump is a lesser evil comparing to Pence. And I'm afraid that if Trump does get impeached, a crazier man would control the nation. Trump is already difficult to deal with, and I really don't want to imagine the nation under Pence. And I would not count on the Republicans to be willing to kick out one of their own for a second time.

Impeaching Donald Trump May Not Be The Best Idea

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Star Wars ships routinely switch between atmospheric flying and space. Meanwhile, one of the most common hazards in Star Trek is getting caught in and having to deal with a planet's atmosphere. Even when ships do enter an atmosphere like in Voyager, they have to be extremely careful and can't make any sudden or unexpected moves without danger to the ship.

Star Wars vessels, both the Empire's and the Rebels', tend to appear more solid and durable than Star Trek ships, particularly the Federation's/Starfleet's.

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Gun culture is a big deal in 'Merica hunting, plinking, protection, collecting, even gang banging. Hell, I learned to shoot in the boy scouts. There's nothing wrong with a rifle living in the wilderness they might even allow that in Australia . And if a little old lady in a city feels the need to carry a deringer in her purse, I have no issue with that. Now these shootings are tragic. But they have things in common. Lot of males, lot of young males, who either snag their family members weapons or legally purchase them. Having some way to flag folks with mental issues would help a lot, but that's not my argument today. But in the wake of this latest shooting, I've got an idea limited liability insurance. It'll be just like car insurance, stupidly expensive if you're a male under 25, higher if you've got kids in the home, lower if you've got a gun safe or trigger lock, discounts for being accident free and completion of approved classes, next to to nothing with futuristic fingerprint trigger locks, and totally free to honorably discharged veterans. Edit It seems you can't insure against criminal activity making it ridiculously expensive say 300 month for a 18 year old male to purchase an AR 15, but 0.08 for a 40 year old female with training, no kids in the home is trampling on one's 2nd Amendment rights of the most lethal shootings, AR like weapons and handguns are the most commonly used in mass shootings would we apply this to handguns? They account for 96 of gun deaths this might just create a super convoluted system, permit to purchase and red flags for mental disorders or violent behaviors might be easier

Liability Insurance for Assault Weapons

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I remember reading something about workers having a human capital. Every person has a dollar value of what they are worth to a company. One of the many factors that make a dollar value go up is experience on the job. It's unfortunate that many young women have to take time off work during pregnancy, and that it affects the amount of experience that they have by about a working year per child . I believe that the statistics are skewed, and that they've done too much averaging. The only real way to measure women up against men, is to measure women that have never had a child with similar experience up against men. Please .

I don't think women are unfairly paid any less than men in the corporate world. Please

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This is why the developers of Snapchat had to make so their app is taking a screenshot instead of taking an actual picture which then affects the image quality as a whole.

This also makes it harder for developer to make their app work on every possible phone.

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At a time where information, fake news and gossip is at our finger tips, the subject of Trump's mental health is particularly rampant with speculation. It would be strange for such important psychiatric knowledge to be withheld when already his mental health is closely monitored and the centre of conversation in public discussion.

The American public has a right to medical and psychiatric knowledge about Trump.

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By personal I mean just about anything that isn't directly related to the actual task that you are being elected to perform. This would include any drugs you do or used to do who you have sex with, what kind of pictures of your dick you send, etc rude comments or insults you made, clumsiness, speech errors, bad metaphors binders full of women, etc How fat you are or other appearance related things I'm mostly thinking of Rob Ford right now, and all the American politicians like Clinton who were attacked for their sex lives. Even Bush for all the dumb little things he did. We don't elect politicians to be model citizens, we elect them to do a job like any other. But the way politics works now reminds me of people running for Prom Queen, where its all about image and reputation and any embarrassment is seen as a failure. All the information you need to know before you vote for a representative is their positions and voting record for incumbents , and all you need to for an executive position is their experience managing an office, or their foreign policy if they have military power.

Personal matters weight, sex, drugs, "gaffes" are not appropriate criticisms of politicians.

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A Tarot reading forces you to examine questions you have in your life deeply and then ask further questions based on a random card draw. This has the tendency to take you through different thought patterns than you would on your own.

Tarot forces you to think through your problems in different ways.

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Fact In the U.S., school funding comes from a combination of three sources. The balance varies from state to state but, on average, looks like this 45 percent local money, 45 percent from the state and 10 percent federal. Source NPR ​ The article also has a graph which shows state funding gets far more cut than local funding after 2008. ​ As a childless person, I get that education is a public good, and an excellent public education system benefits every citizen, so we should all pay tax to it. ​ However, why should I care more about the kids who live close to me? I happen to own a house in a top school district, people who live here have a high income to contribute to the local school district. But there are other struggling school districts which are just a few miles away, who don't get enough funding. Why should I pay tax to contribute to generational inequality while education is supposed to be a 'public good'? I think generational inequality is 'bad', it's bad for the country and bad for me personally. ​ If we eliminate the local property tax which goes to public school districts and we make all the public school funding come from state or federal level, I'd be far happier with the tax I paid because I know I'm not personally contributing to inequality. I know my money would make the state, or even the country better because it would help to level the playing field, it would also help solve many problems associated with poverty including crime, homelessness, substance abuse, social unrest, etc., from the very beginning. ​ Please don't say I should just donate to the poor school districts. The inequality in public school funding can never be made up by people's donation. It is a systematic problem. ​ I don't care about what people do with private schools as long as they don't use my tax money.

Public schools should not be funded by local property tax

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Ancient religions - Greek, Roman and otherwise - have a remarkably free approach to sexuality, with a large amount of sexual activity for personal pleasure rather than procreation. Comparably, the religious distaste for sex is recent.

Religious moral imperatives are arbitrary and vary widely, they do not apply across all religions and certainly do not apply to the non-religious.

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A recent report estimated that the use of genetic modification has reduced the cost of corn-based products by 6% and the costs of soybean-based products by 10%.

GMOs have a greater economic viability which makes them a more efficient crop type.

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Everyone has a moral obligation to become organ donors anyway. Not signing up for the organ donors register condemns other people to death for almost no benefit to you – this is different from murder in all but name. Suppose you walk past a child drowning in a pond. You can swim, and are able to save that child. If you do not jump in to save the child because you don’t want to get your jacket wet, we may legitimately see you as some kind of moral monster – you have behaved monstrously in allowing the child to drown. Those who do not sign up for the organ donors register simply because they cannot be bothered are behaving in a similar way to the man who lets the child drown – they refuse to make even the smallest of sacrifices when others stand to gain a huge amount. We should not, as a society, tolerate such behaviour, and are perfectly justified in punishing transgressors in the way the policy sets out.

Everyone has a moral obligation to become organ donors anyway. Not signing up for the organ donors ...

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Many people have a skeptical view of genetically modified food as it is an example of 'man becoming god', an idea that has greatly been condemned and explored in many cultures and even within the modern world.

Even if GMOs are harmless or have proven benefits, some people may find it hard to reconcile with the idea that eating something unnatural is acceptable.

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Shame and guilt in addressing alcoholism only serve to perpetuate the vicious circle as, for many, drinking is a coping mechanism for dealing with these feelings.

AA manipulates its members through guilt Bufe, p. 76 The 12 steps include language like “our wrongs”, “our shortcomings” and “our defects of character.”

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Similarly, to television and social media Youtube videos might have an impact on society that should be acknowledged.

Youtube content can impact public opinion, and this should be factored in, private institution or nay.

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Some past times are preserved and encouraged disproportionately at private schools. Some of these are formalised as societies; for example debating societies are common at private schools.

Private schools preserve traditions that are absent, or otherwise impractical to maintain, in the state system.

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I want to keep this vague because I don’t want bashing from people with strong opinions on the specific topic that started this. I just want to keep the focus on the more general idea. I’ve just had a fight with a friend because she kept on making fun of another friend’s life choice with every occasion. Her argument was that it is affectionate and she doesn’t really care about our friend’s choice. I fail however to see how this could be possible. If you don’t give a fuck, why bother making fun of it every chance you get? My assumption is that she has a problem with that specific subject but she refused to admit it. Her only argument is that friends bully each other her precise words and there shouldn’t be any hard feelings because it is fun. I very much welcome a moderate amount of banter but when it goes on and on, always focused on a specific subject just to have a laugh and there’s no intention to understand the other person’s choices, it bothers me. Am I too serious about these things?

Excessive mockery is a soft form of harassment and it is dull

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Climate change due to eating meat will make it much more difficult for humans to live by lowering their carrying capacity. Thus, raising animals to make their lives better is not a worthy endeavor.

If we keep farm animals around, we live in worse conditions or not at all, because they contribute to climate change. Humans should not raise animals at the cost of human life.

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I'm am a classical modern liberal in political philosophy, so as a liberal I hate what the NSA is doing. I don't think Snowden deserves jail time. I think the fact that this is happening is wrong. But I have seen redditors predict that this is the first step into the executive branch consolidating authority into a one party state, and be upvoted immensely for it. Redditors somehow think corporations are involved in the spying, and hold many other simply wrong views. Another redditor popularily suggested that the government was purging military officials and was now going to attempt to discredit the legislative branch as an attempt to dissolve the Republic. Now, I think this is a bit too much. There is no coup about the take place in the U.S.A. Justify these reactions to me.

I think people are overreacting to the NSA scandal.

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By making an exception for children, it opens up all kinds of loopholes which adults can exploit by taking advantage of children. It would not be difficult for an adult using their child as a salesperson in a street stand to bypass laws that they, themselves would have to adhere to. For a functioning society, it is important for all businesses and products even on the smallest scale to be regulated and monitored. If not then everything becomes unclear. What age is young enough to plead ignorant? What products are and aren’t allowed to be sold? I do not believe that fines should be issued regarding it and I’m not suggesting that we go out actively shutting them down. However if there is a complaint in any way and local authorities are informed then they are obliged to shut them down. Laws are in place for a reason and if certain laws are ignored due to a child’s ignorance then we set a precedent which is harmful to society as a whole. To summarise We have laws which should be upheld in society and by making exceptions could lead to the exploration of those exceptions.

Local authorities shutting down children’s stalls such as lemonade stands is perfectly reasonable.

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Throughout the US, many municipalities have set up automated cameras designed to snap pictures of drivers who exceed the speed limit and then mail them tickets. These cameras are created solely to squeeze money out of unsuspecting motorists. In the case of in the flesh speeding tickets, at least one other vehicle the issuing officer was present for the ticket to be issued. Automated cameras write tickets solely based on the vehicle's speed, not taking any other factors into account. For example, a ticket can be issued for the standard, safe speed of 35MPH in a 25MPH zone. These cameras are unethical because they motivate municipalities to engage in underhanded tactics to farm speed tickets. These tactics include setting artificially low speed limits and having speed limits that fluctuate over a given road, alternating between 35 and 25 MPH speed limits and placing cameras where the zones shift. Additionally, they train drivers to control their speed based on arbitrary speed limits, rather than the actual flow of traffic this leads to traffic patterns that change suddenly and thus have a higher risk for collisions. Most damningly, automated cameras enforce law for law's sake. An automated camera issues tickets when a vehicle is alone on a road, traveling at a non reckless speed 15 MPH over the speed limit . This is not a law whose observance serves the municipality's residents in any measurable form. Lastly, automated cameras raise concerns about individual rights against unwarranted surveillance. I feel like this objection is actually the weakest, as roads are public property. I've got a 100 notice on my desk right now, r changemyview. Convince me that the municipality's actions are based on anything other than greed. EDIT I'm seeing a lot of replies about how my issue seems to be more with Speed Limit laws than with automated cameras. This isn't entirely correct. I feel that Speed Limit laws have two primary uses to prevent reckless driving and to give a pretext for the police to pull a vehicle over. Reckless Driving is an upgraded condition from speeding and is considered a major moving violation, The laws vary by state but generally enforce a theme of driving well over the Speed Limit in addition to other factors such as disregarding traffic signs and or other vehicles. Speed Limits are useful against Reckless Driving by setting a safe baseline. Essentially, a Speed Limit of 35 can be translated to mean, Traveling this road at 50 MPH and or while significantly distracted is an act of criminal mischief. Speed Limits also give officers cause to pull over and investigate a vehicle that is behaving suspiciously and is traveling faster than usual. I don't support the right for cops to unilaterally pull suspicious vehicles over, but setting an objective measure for what constitutes suspicious, which violation of the speed limit as one of them, seems reasonable to me.

Tickets issued by automated traffic cameras are unethical

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Religion only organises charity for those they believe deserve it. Numerous indictments of those like the Salvation Army refusing to help people because they were LGBT, or even because they were Atheist.

In some occasions, religion is only charitable or helps those who believe.

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It instills a sense of creativity rather than complacency in the developers With less rehashes, we'll have opportunities to add so many new characters Every SSB game will be unique. Rather than being like last year's Madden, there will be reasons to own every single Smash game in your collection because each game will have characters the others won't. My proposed changes CUT Mega Man CUT Ryu CUT PacMan ADD 3 new third party characters CUT Charizard ADD Blastoise CUT Mewtwo ADD Mew CUT Lucario CUT Greninja ADD new Pokemon CUT Roy CUT Dr. Mario CUT Dark Pit ugh clones ADD Andy new ips Advance Wars ADD Saki Sin and Punishment ADD Isaac Golden Sun CUT Game Watch CUT ROB neither have had a game in a while ADD Dixie Kong more dk support ADD King K Rool CUT Sheik she doesnt need to be in 4 ssb games ADD Midna a significant zelda character CUT Ganondorf poorly designed clone ADD Toon Ganon great character, opportunity for unique moveset0

Super Smash Bros. should have less returning characters and more new characters

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Farming plants often has a similarly severe environmental impact. Humans no longer live in an agrarian culture where every family can farm for their own sustenance, so this ecological impact is a function of human civilization itself, not our choice of diet between plants and animals specifically.

Many approaches to farming plants leads to monocultural agriculture practices that have a harmful impact on the wider environment.

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"Turkey should sign Kyoto Protocol, says Nobel winner". Turkish Daily News. 13 May 2008 - "The scientific evidence for global warming is reviewed every five years and we are becoming increasingly convinced that it is caused by human activity. We can never say that we are 100 percent sure because all science is considered to be a balance of probability."

Kyoto is justified if global warming is merely considered probable

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For this , I am assuming that such a union has a significant likelihood of producing a squib. A squib is a child of a muggle and a wizard that does not receive the wizard gene, and has no magical powers. Most agree that incest is wrong because it has a high level of serious birth defects. From the point of view of a wizard, being a squib is a very serious birth defect. Wizards live in a magical world, which provides immense benefits. A squib is made aware of those benefits, sees the joy and potential of those around him, yet is unable to participate. Being a squib is like being born with no legs in a country where everyone loves soccer, where all schools exclusively teach soccer, where academic achievements and even professional achievements are determined by soccer ability, and where playing soccer can defend you from harm and also prepare your breakfast. Being a squib is so bad that most are sent away from their families to live with muggles, because squibs find it so difficult to participate in the wizarding world. I am not an expert on wizard genetics, but there if is a significant chance of producing the squib birth defect let's say 1 in 10 , then it is immoral for a wizard to reproduce with a muggle. gt This is a footnote from the moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing

It Is Immoral for a Wizard to Reproduce with a Muggle.

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The Federation has acquired cloaking technology. The Empire has cloaking technology as well, but there is no on-screen evidence that the Rebel Alliance has cloaking tech.

The Federation's ships are technologically superior to those of the Rebel Alliance.

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Great, we've got the Maths, Sciences, and Language History set, but kids are still growing up affected with throngs of biases, lack of thinking, and emotional sensitivity all of which aren't necessarily bad nor avoidable, but are I think in a higher degree per capita than should be. I think there should be a second revolution in the education system. School as we know it isn't teaching us how to be smart per se. It's mostly about impractical information that students are expected to remember, but of course eventually forget later. I suggest that the education system implement classes that help you develop critical thinking skills and awareness no, English doesn't do this for everyone, and Science only elucidates about physical processes and not about civilization and people as they are which is also equally important in culture, morality, and policy making such as Psychology or Computer Science, subjects that modern students can actually relate to, and thus facilitate a better learning environment for success. This is in response to how today everyone is so easily swayed by smear tactics in media, how they rarely think for themselves, the polarity of politics, etc. Clarifications This is only pertaining to grade school K 12 . I sincerely hope you already know what you want to do before college. But why Psychology or Computer Science ? I explain this in r tit wrangler's post. Isn't Math and English History enough ? I'm saying our core subjects do not teach these important skills to us because the education system is organized to teach the dumbest person of average intelligence, the baseline needed to continue forth in our society. Extrapolated, science doesn't guarantee you come out more analytical but you better bet that now you're sure the earth isn't 2D like you thought it was a minute ago. More explained in the discussion. I brought up some more points in the first post by r I want to choose, so maybe read that discussion a bit before you comment. That'll help keep out the redundancy as well.

Students should be required to take classes on subjects that helps them become more self-aware, throughout their schooling.

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“My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor I was taught wrongly to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will” McIntosh

Critical theory presumes that our identity as individuals is inseparable from our group identity, especially our categorization as ‘oppressor’ or ‘oppressed’ with respect to a particular identity marker.

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Down syndrome should not be taken into account if students are able to demonstrate that they have the capacity to learn the material.

People With Down Syndrome Should Be Taught In Mainstream Education.

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As well all know, Atheism makes the claim that there is no God. This is a claim regarding the nature of being and ultimate reality. While the technical definition of religion involves the supernatural, you could expand the definition to include any sort of belief system used to explain the question of why there is anything at all. I also believe that most modern day atheists and agnostics in the West have formed a sort of scientific religion where they attempt to apply an almost religious significance to the perceived meaningless of the universe. Its essentially an attempt to apply meaning to the meaningless to cope with feelings of existential dread . I think this is perfectly encapsulated in what keeps being repeated by people like Carl Sagan and Neil Degrasse Tyson that We are all made of Star stuff . While this is factually true, if you think the universe has no meaning, why apply a spiritual significance to the fact that our atoms were created in the cores of stars? I both admire and like the two, especially for their role in science education, I think they have become de facto saints in this religion of science , and quotes like this are essentially becoming the cannon for their followers. Atheists also have the habit of trying to convert others to their ideas, almost like they are evangelizing to them. There is also the issue of Atheist or Agnostic people assuming that because a person has religion faith, he must be less intelligent than me . Im fairly confident that most Atheists who formed their opinions on the nature of reality did so at a young age. An age where they might not even understand the scientific process or make investigations of their own. Did they gasp maybe make a Leap of Faith and take someones else word for it? Or adopt a belief to fit in? I also think this line of thinking is dangerous. It keeps being repeated that We must return to the stars from where we came . I think that is an admirable goal, no one is disputing it utility to man kind. We need to expand as a civilization. The issue arises when Atheists who may hold militant beliefs decide that religious people are getting in the way of this noble goal. Basically, followers of this religion seek fulfillment and meaning by advancing our civilization through science, but in order for them to do that effectively they must have uniformity of thought. Its far fetched but could conceivably happen . Edit I am getting a ton of responses and I will attempt to answer all of them. Edit Reading some of these comments reminds me of a quote by some guy named Issac Newton Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors . Edit I'd also like to focus the conversation on the Religious like tendencies of Atheists . This is not intended to be a discussion on if God exists or not, we all know the type of rabbit hole that 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

I think that being an Atheist is just like being in another religion.

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Anarchist society would probably be even harder to replace if we assume that replacing government just requires taking control of the centralized authority whereas replacing anarchy would require forcing every single person to obey as there is no centralized authority that would affect them all.

An armed anarchist society with an organized guerrilla would be just as difficult to replace than any other statist solution.

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The Church of Christ has persisted for 2000 years despite many controversies, suggesting that there is some divine intervention.

Jesus' impact on the world demonstrates that he is the promised Messiah of the ancient Hebrew religion.

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This is in reference to the belief that being able to stop time is considered to be a very powerful ability, not necessarily a superpower if you saw the Twilight Zone episode. Now literally speaking stopping time would be irreversible as your brain would not be able to function afterwards to reverse it ,in a timeless world. So we have to have limitations right off the bat, if you stopped time everywhere but your body, you're in a better situation but you still can't move because you can't displace the air around your body as that would cause motion, creating time. You could simply make it so that others cannot perceive the passage of time, however that would not prevent them from continuing activities, i.e driving it would essentially blind everyone causing many deaths. Assuming you can't mix and match this two abilities either stopping time or the perception of it would be either useless or so destructive as to make it unusable.

Being able to stop time is worthless at best.

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Seeding is defined as gt A seed is a preliminary ranking that can be used in arranging a sports tournament. It is called a seed because of the analogy with plants where the seed might grow into a top rank at the end of that tournament, or might instead wither away. Players teams are 'planted' into the bracket in a manner that is typically intended so that the best do not meet until later in the competition. The term 'seed' was first used in tennis and is based on the idea of laying out a tournament ladder by arranging slips of paper with the names of players on them the way seeds or seedlings are arranged in a garden smaller plants up front, larger ones behind. 1 I think seeding just makes the top competitors stay at the top longer by giving them easier competition. I understand the reasons for seeding, like in football soccer it's to make sure the best teams stay in the competition longer to make the final stages more entertaining, but I just disagree with it. I think every team sports person should be drawn completely random, and the luck of the draw is what should count.

I don't believe in seeding in professional sports.

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Bernie Sanders supporter here, while Trump is a racist and I disagree with him on every social issue, Clinton has major issues too. Clinton supports the TPP which would give corporations way too much power by letting them bypass international law. Clinton had also came out against flag burning which in my view is as bad as Trump allowing people to sue the media in terms of 1st amendment rights. She wants people to sue gun makers for people using the guns for killing which is a slippery slope for banning guns. She is also bought by corporations which is very worrying for me because I can't trust anything she says. Lastly, the E Mail scandal makes me worried about all the things the Republicans will dig up on her if she is president.

Clinton would be as bad for the country as Trump

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For some context I know that this is something that's just fundamentally revolting to certain people. I've dealt with people before. But I don't think there's a real reason that this is so revolting to so many people, I think it's just based on gut feelings that are rooted in emotion and not reason. This could be extended to people creating soldiers who truly want to die for their country, or creating sex partners who I don't think I actually need to finish that sentence. But really, if we create beings that get a true sense of fulfillment from being sacrificed in ways, what's the problem here exactly? For what it's worth, I think that there is a difference between creating someone with a sacrificial desire and brainwashing someone into it you're effectively destroying someone who actually did exist without that desire at one point by brainwashing them. When you create someone who wants to sacrifice themselves, there wasn't anyone beforehand who didn't want to sacrifice themselves to destroy. In other words, someone who's brainwashed isn't probably operating in their correct state of mind. When you create someone who wants to sacrifice themselves, you can just define their correct state of mind from the getgo.

There is nothing ethically wrong with creating cows that want to be eaten, or any other variation of this problem

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I'm in my mid twenties and I'm often told by family, friends, psychiatrists, strangers, etc., that I should go to college for something in computers. Now I'm okay that some people go to college, and it helps them a lot but I genuinely don't see any real benefit of me going. I enjoy learning, I go out and seek knowledge on subjects that interest me on my own without anybody forcing me to do so. Programming, soldering, computer diagnostics and repair are all things I enjoy thoroughly and I am either self taught or learned how to do them online. Yet people still tell me that I really should be going to college. I've never bee successful in an environment where I had to do things, and even now I have very flexible jobs and I do freelance work for people and I enjoy it thoroughly. I feel like I could walk into just about any place that is hiring and repairs computers and get a job at this point, I could probably do some programming jobs but I'm still learning every day. I learn because I enjoy it, because it's going to help me in the future. What is the point of going to college if I have the drive all on my own already and I have access to the internet?

On going to college.

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The actual "experience" of the Absurd, of Revelation, is very real and profoundly disturbing. You can't blame people for reacting with Faith to this experience, like you can't blame someone for using crutches after breaking a leg but you can question them for clutching at those crutches for the rest of their lives.

Faith is to reason what concussion is to a brain, the resulting state of a shock, the shock in question is when a mind first experiences the Absurd the epistemological inability to grapple with the paradoxes of Existence and Death.

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A study revealed that alternative mutual help groups — Women for Sobriety SMART Recovery and LifeRing — perform about as well as the AA 12-step program.

The environment of Alcoholics Anonymous is often not safe for females.

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For a couple with no significant disparity in individual wealth at the point of marriage, the lack of a prenuptial agreement demonstrates commitment to building their household and growing their wealth together equally, regardless of which of them contributes by working and which of them by staying at home with kids.

Part of the purpose of marriage is to share each other's life. Signing a prenup goes against this purpose.

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When I was in my early 20's I read some books by Robert Zubrin and was convinced that the human exploration of Mars was something of a moral imperative. I assumed that said exploration would only be better if it happened as soon as feasible. Eventually I met Robert Zubrin and many other Mars enthusiast but was kind of put off by that community for various reasons. I still believed that Mars was humanities best option for salvation though but more specifically that human exploration was the only way to really get Mars ready for people. However, after seeing the slow progress of space exploration in the past 10 years and the unrelenting deterioration of the Climate and of world politics I'm see human exploration of Mars as way too costly with no real benefits for almost all of our descendants for hundreds if not thousands of years a time scale that won't help us avoid much of the death and suffering that we could face for various reasons in the meantime. Now I believe that robotic exploration of space, and of Mars specifically is an important first step in preparing the planet to being a backup biosphere for descendants of Earth life but human exploration in our lifetime doesn't benefit that goal enough to warrant the cost and dangers. Maybe someday the equation will change and sustaining human exploration of Mars will be easy but now it seems like there are too many cost and too many obstacles to waste so many resources on what would basically be the equivalent of scaling Everest, satisfying for the people who do it and exploration nerds but pointless to almost everyone else. On a personal note I would still want to be a Martian colonist or at least explorer if give the opportunity but if I were in charge of the world I wouldn’t even bother spending the trillions it would cost to start sending people. If instead we spent the same amount of resources on robotic exploration we could greatly advance science without every putting a human in harm’s way. More advanced robotic exploration technology on Mars would set us up for terraforming the planet much sooner than for an equal investment in human exploration since robotic activities can be scaled up quicker and you don’t need to consider how terraforming projects might affect the humans that might do it. So yes making Mars inhabitable may be a worthwhile project but it doesn’t need people just large scale engineering. If Mars really did become a planet sized spaceship akin to Earth it could have a huge impact on human wellbeing for generations but the process of getting their would only possibly improve the lives of the human Martian explorers were there any and not the 99.99 of the population that wouldn’t get to go. After I think estimates for a first round of human exploration of Mars could run an extra 100billion a year for NASA’s budget whereas that amount put into robotic exploration of the planet could move automated exploration and engineering technology forward much much quicker than it would move human exploration technology and techniques. gt This is a footnote from the moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing

Human exploration of Mars in our lifetimes will have little to no benefit to humanity as a whole

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We cannot fully understand God's plan, but He has a plan that's greater than any of us can imagine. Evil is a part of it.

Humans are limited in their capacity to conceptualize God, and thus are incapable of accurately judging the relationship between evil and a divine being.

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The species Homo sapiens is unprecedented and unique among all life on earth. Human sentience and intelligence far surpass those of other creatures. These gifts have allowed human beings to populate the earth, construct industry, and affect the environment in a way that no other species can. This great power comes with great responsibility, and we should avoid abusing the earth, lest we cause irreparable damage - damage like the extinction of species and the consequent reduction in biodiversity cause by deforestation, over-fishing, hunting, the illegal trade in ivory and other species etc.

The species Homo sapiens is unprecedented and unique among all life on earth. Human sentience and in...

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Tom Brady did what he was supposed to do. He scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to give his team the lead. He even indirectly gave his defense as a boost, as the fact that he scored 14 points instead of 10 forced the Seahawks to go for a touchdown rather than a field goal. Tom Brady does not play defense. It's not his fault that Seattle drove down the field in the waning minutes of the game and were in position to win the game. Even if his team had lost, it wouldn't have changed anything about what he did. Really, the only way you can say a QB should be vilified based on a defensive failure by his team is if he put them in a position to fail by, for example, only giving his team a three point lead or smaller, instead of four or more , which he didn't. EDIT In case someone asks, yes, what I said about Brady applies to the entire offense. I singled out Brady because he's been through this more than once.

The fact that New England managed to win the Super Bowl against the Seahawks is a testament to the team, but Tom Brady should have been viewed exactly as he is now even if they had lost

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To start off with my first point, I sincerely believe that religion is detrimental in most aspects of life. There has never been a religion that actively empowers women. Many religions in fact oppress women in a very large scale. Even the bible has multiple passages about oppressing women, including my personal favorite, 1 Timothy 2 12. Religion can go as far as forcing every newborn male baby to have the tip of his penis removed. As for the positive effects religion has, I could say it gives people hope as false as it is and subsides the fear of death which is extremely irrational to begin with , but the bad far outweighs the good. We no longer need religion in our society. Religion was thought up in a time when it seemed like the best option, when it at least tried to give an explanation for why we are here. We've disproved nearly everything that was considered fact in the bible, yet many people still consider themselves Christians that just don't believe everything in the bible. What's the point then? Even if we can prove that Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark and The Exodus are indeed myths, people will still believe that Jesus was the son of God. As for my last point, I've noticed that reddit has a very strong anti antitheist attitude, even though it seems the majority of reddit users are atheist not sure of the statistics . People will often say that any criticism of religion is wrong and I often see any negative mention of a religious person or their beliefs downvoted heavily. This is highly hypocritical when often any atheistic comments are bombarded with fedora memes and euphoria comments. I see the argument from atheists and the religious alike that calling all atheists bigoted and narrow minded is wrong because the only bad atheists are the ones that are against religion. This is extremely shitty. Religion no longer has any use and deserves our criticism and hate. Please change my views.

Religion has more negative than positive outcomes, and the anti-antitheism mindset of reddit is ultimately harmful.

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Marriage is treated only as a cut-and-dry contract under the law. Under the law, therefore, incest cannot violate the "sanctity" of marriage. And, it certainly does not violate any marriage contracts.

Marriage is a contract with little sanctity for incest to violate

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I will talk mostly about the groups that fight for the empowerment of black people and some times natives and immigrants in the West. Yes, the slavery ended basically yesterday specially in my country . Yes, most of Africa makes India look like a developed country. Yes, black people have trouble getting jobs sometimes. Yes, black people are more likely to get shitty education and to be targeted by the police regardless of whether they committed a crime or not. But there are things that make the people that fight for race equality seem to be big whiners. Representation yes, it's hard to find major non stereotypical well developed black characters in media, even today, after the release of the Black Panther movie. Yes, the media seems to have preference for white men. But I still can't forget about that girl who held a sign I won't buy it if I don't see me in front of a lot of Barbie backpacks, like they are the only kind of backpack that a small girl is allowed to use. Also, why does every single professional group need to have a racial makeup similar to the overall country I can still see the issue with legislative houses, though ? What if black people are just less likely to want to be doctors, engineers or whatever? Why does everything need to be half white half brown black? Also, when discussing black representation, the left doesn't accept the representation by slightly miscigenated black people. Brown, mixed race people in my country, biracial multiracial is an official race category in the census. If you go to Brazil the country in question , you will see that many people fall in a spectrum between very European looking and very African looking or very Amerindian looking, depending on the region , and black people usually have the accent of their birth regions and don't have different names from white people. With a little effort, you can see people on the very ends of the spectrum. This is why I think affirmative action won't work in my country. But the race equality people treat them like white people in positive rankings like college attendance and like black people in bad rankings like probability of being the victim of a crime or being arrested . Cultural appropriation in my country, turbans are more often discussed on this topic than dreadlocks. Turbans may have some sacred symbolism in Afro Brazilian religions, but the people who complain about the supposed appropriation usually aren't part of these religions. Also, turbans aren't exclusive to African cultures, even the Europeans wore them sometimes. gt This is a footnote from the moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing

The anti-racist people are too whiny.

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Whites and Blacks in America have comparable rates of drug use but Blacks are much more likely to be incarcerated for drug crime. In Iowa, for example, Blacks are 8.34 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession despite similar levels of marijuana usage to Whites.

The disproportionate effect on minorities is not a problem that stems exclusively from felony laws but also from racial bias in the justice system.

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I took a history class a couple years ago which focused particularly on the rise of Islam. One thing that struck me was that I couldn't find any particularly convincing reason, from history or from the Quran, that Islam is true. Muhammad claimed to receive a series of messages from God while alone in a cave. After Muhammad's death, the ummah was quickly divided by sectarianism. It took many years for the text of the Quran to be assembled into a canonical text, and, even then, there were contradictions within the text. Please don't read this as me saying omg muslims is st00pid. I've just never seen a strong argument, historical or textual i.e., based on the text of the Quran , for the truth of Islam and yes, I've looked. NB I'm not asking out of a desire to be convinced of the truth of Islam I'm simply, but genuinely, curious.

I don't know of any historical or textual basis for believing Islam.

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Individuals should be able to sponsor refugees, in addition to national obligations based on treaties. Laws which prohibit the sponsorship of asylum-seekers, such as those in Denmark, prevent people from fulfilling these moral responsibilities.

As part of a global community we are all global citizens and have moral responsibilities towards each other that transcend national boundaries.

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We involuntarily shut our eyes against a strong light, and we can choose whether to shut our eyes against a weaker light.

Decisions are a balance between voluntary and involuntary, i.e. conscious and subconscious.

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Fiction merely provides entertainment. It doesn't help us grow at all. There are other sources of information that help us grow much better. If that is so, what is the point of fiction apart from a source of entertainment that may or may not help us in the long run? If all it does is provide short term joy, what is the point of it? Is our time not better spent trying to grow ourselves? Why waste our time trying to entertain ourselves when we could just use other forms of relaxation between sessions of growing ourselves? Is that not the goal of life? To improve and advance our lives and those of others? Or am I wrong? Is fiction truly of some use? Or if it isn't of any use, then should we still consume it? If so, why? Why not simply just exercise, meditate or sleep instead of reading fiction? What makes fiction a better alternative to those activities?

Consuming fiction in any form i.e. books, comics, movies, sitcoms, video games, music, etc is a waste of time.

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Terrorist organizations have used social media as a way of convincing followers to carry out attacks in their name.

Social media can be a useful tool to influence the mindset of a population.

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Zoo populations and environments can be controlled in ways that natural environments cannot be. This allows those that run zoos to ensure maximum safety and comfort for their animals and protect them from such hazards as deforestation and climate change.

Zoos and wild environments can exist together. Zoos provide a necessary backup, especially for animals with unstable populations and habitats.

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Having sex with an animal, as a non-consenting creature, contradicts the norms of sexual relations we should teach to the society. The mental approach we have towards sex should exclude all forms of non-consenting intercourse. Thus we should not permit its spread.

Animal labor is not unhealthy for the human society. Having animal sex, on the other hand, is.

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If when we advance as a species to a point where we can alter someones psyche to rid people of that thing that made them commit such offenses that are currently faced with the death penalty and guarantee that they will not commit a future offense that would warrant a death penalty, it is immoral to act with the death penalty because we can or may be able to fix them at a future date. It would be immoral kill someone who is fixed of his or her fault and could not act on such fault ever again. We don't know what the future holds and acting on something as valuable as life that has a permanent consequence is immoral.

Being pro-death penalty is immoral especially with not knowing what the future will bring to humans psyche.

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Barking Babes a Fenton business that primarily provides grooming and other dog care services, sells two or three puppies three or four times a year from an Atlas Township breeder. The reason they do that, apart from profits, is to get those puppies to come back for grooming and treats.

Small businesses that primarily provide grooming and other dog care services may also sell puppies a few times a year from a breeder, so that those dogs can come back to avail grooming services from their stores.

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An alleged sexual predator almost won just because he is aligned with Trump's policies, and he would have won if those accusations didn't come up. And almost certainly Jones will be replaced when his seat is up. As far as I can tell, Moore's loss is just a sign that Republicans will hesitate to vote someone in who might be a child molester. I'd love to believe the country is turning against Trump, but all I see is one small, temporary win for Democrats thanks to the timing of some serious allegations. For all we know, another wacko will campaign against Jones in a few years, and they will win so long as they aren't accused of murder or something equally awful.

Roy Moore's loss in Alabama is not a sign of any uprising against Trumpism

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Bear in mind I've only played at friends' places so I have not gotten to use the custom moves. What I have played, while excellent as always, is not worthy of its 60 price tag. The fighting may be slightly faster, but is relatively unchanged. Many of the fighters have the same movesets since the beginning Captain Falcon and even some of the same final smash moves. Many of the characters, including the DLC , are cheap clones of previously existing characters. The way people balance characters either nerfs them Meta Knight is now terrible to play with or there's still a clear person who is king Little Mac . Half of the stages in both the 3DS and Wii U versions of the game are not original, but are just remakes of the maps we've played before, including the DLC once again. We've played the Melee temple 3 times already, and among the DLC includes the original N64 Hyrule Temple. There should have been a bigger effort to create something original rather than rehash the same stuff. The campaign modes suck. Like it's awful, and far less fun than the Subspace Emissary. The creator of the series said he felt people got spoiled the game so he just excised the story mode entirely. Where is the logic in that? If you have the means to make something great, then do it. Don't bullshit. I've not gotten to play the DLC characters except the ones who existed previously such as Mewtwo and Lucas . The graphics are beautiful. I don't mind the transformative characters made separate, and the game is still Super Smash Bros. But honestly this should have been a 40 title and I feel like fans got ripped off compared to the other Smash titles.

Super Smash Bros. 4 gives far less value to consumers than Super Smash Bros. Brawl

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In both cases, the school offers curated materials and courses for students and teachers to use

In some ways, it's very similar to brick-and-mortar.

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According to the two main theories of corporate nationality, a company's nationality is either defined by its place of incorporation or its main seat of business. Under both of these definitions, Twitter and Facebook are US companies.

Since Facebook and Twitter are legally registered in the US, only US law should be applied to them.

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The main argument for this is that there is no reason why it should be considered immoral or unlawful. If people love each other, who's to say they can't be in a relationship. It's really no different than gay marriage in that respect. The only reason people don't like it is that most of us are evolutionarily inclined to find such relations gross myself included , but that doesn't give us the right to intervene in the relationships of people who don't find it gross. Think of people who never met their siblings until they were much older, and who fell in love. There have been cases where two people have gotten married, had kids, and found out later they were brother and sister. According to the law, their marriage would have to be nullified and their kids would be taken away. WHY??? This isn't even mentioning gay incestuous couples, who have zero chance of having kids with genetic diseases. You can argue that it messes up family relations, but isn't that the same argument homophobes use? Who are people to say what is the proper family? I really see no reason why these laws should still be in place. People are put IN JAIL for this They're not hurting anyone EDIT A commenter has informed me of the fact that genetic diseases under these relationships aren't as severe as I thought. Therefore, my contention before in parenthesis is nullified. gt This is a footnote from the moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing

There's nothing wrong with incest as long as you make sure you don't have genetically messed-up children

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Decided to post this after seeing a post on cultural appropriation. As a black girl I have WAY more things to worry about than white people with dreadlocks. Different people do have different opinions and I acknowledge I don't speak for every black person. But when people put the conversation to appropriation it takes away from more important issues that we have like colorism and police brutality. Even if those weren't issues I still wouldn't care about dreads. Maybe other POC care and that's the flaw in my logic but so far most complaints about white people appropriating POC culture has been from other white people. And as much as I appreciate the help, it just pushes the issue to the top of the racism todo list. And yes, I understand that the issue with appropriation is white people getting away and praised for looks that POC are shamed for, like box braids seen as ghetto on black girls but chic on white girls, but it's not even an issue that matters enough to warrant attention at this time. My bf and my close friend are both asian and they care more about being denied medical admissions because of too many Asians than white girls in cheongsams. Tl dr discussing cultural appropriation take the focus off actually important issues to POC.

Discussions about cultural appropriation are more harmful than helpful to POC.

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By holding developed countries to a greater obligation to fight global warming and by exempting China and India from certain emissions requirements, developed countries will be put at an economic and job-market disadvantage. It will be even more likely that jobs are outsourced to China and India, leaving the middle class of developed countries suffering.

Emissions exemptions for China/India will inflate outsourcing to them

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I've tried to keep such a complex topic as succinct as possible, but here are my three primary points 1 Any action one would not wish upon themselves is objectively immoral. If a person believes stealing from others is acceptable, but does not want to be stolen from themselves, then such a person cannot make the claim that theft is 'good' or 'just'. In the past, certain practices which in the modern area are nearly universally condemned , such as slavery, were once prevalent and widely regarded as 'acceptable'. However, had roles been reversed, and the masters become the slaves, their approval of the practice would vanish, preferring instead to be free. Since nobody wants to be enslaved, slavery therefore is objectively immoral. 2 For this second premise, I do not necessarily intend for my argument to serve as a proof for objective morality, but I do believe it discredits the contrary. Subjective moralists have no basis for judgment. Let's say Fred believes morals to be subjective. Also, let's assume that Fred views genocide as an unjustifiable atrocity I think most of us would agree with him . One day Fred meets Duncan, who as opposed to Fred, believes genocide is, or at least can be, justified or 'good'. While Fred may disagree with Duncan, he can never claim that Duncan's opinion on genocide is 'wrong', nor can he assert that his own opinion is 'right', for these are objective terms. Since Fred believes in subjective morality, he must be willing to admit that Duncan's position is as equally valid as his own. 3 This final point is more thought provoking than it is an argument, but nonetheless I think it's interesting to consider. Whenever this topic is debated, the most frequently mentioned acts are those of murder, theft, rape, slavery, etc. Notice that the antithesis of these actions are almost never discussed. It seems no one ever asserts that saving a life is wrong, or that charity is immoral. Thus, if morality truly were subjective, why haven't we seen people condemning benevolence and acts of altruism? There appears to be universal agreement that such acts are morally good. Now this begs the question why does disagreement only arise when determining which actions are morally 'bad' or 'wrong'? In order to change my view, point 1 will need to be refuted, and I'd like to see a satisfactory explanation for point 3. Point 2 concerns my present understanding on the nature of subjective morality, and if any of my logical conclusions seem flawed, I would like to see them addressed. Thanks.

Morality is objective - My 3 points

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Temptations that can lead to wrong-doing have to exist because God needs to give his creation a choice to choose to love him or not. Otherwise the creation would have been built on a lie as the creation would have been forced to love him. Much in the same way a dictator forces his/her subjects to love them.

God may have sufficiently good reasons for allowing such evil to occur.

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