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CMV: Western nations have a moral obligation to help the people of poorer countries

To be honest, I'm not sure I completely believe in the title opinion statement. The issue seems really complex to me, but at the moment that is what I think. Currently, the migrant crisis is one of the biggest items of concern for Europeans. Most Europeans say, with much accuracy, that the migrant stream has to be shut off because a) immigrants are a weight on the economy, and b) most migrants refuse to assimilate, creating a lot of social problems. However, I still feel like they have to own up to that problem. Western societies historically engaged in colonialism and imperialism and profited over it so much, that they achieved wealth that continues to earn their country the status of "developed/first-world." Often times when they did this, they ended up creating conditions in the colonized country that would be unfavorable to their future development. I know most Europeans/Americans would respond to this by saying "I had nothing to do with this, why should I take responsibility over the past?" but I find that to be a really weak argument. If my grandfather robbed somebody of something, died, and passed the stolen goods/money down to me, don't I have a moral obligation to return the stolen items, even if I had nothing to do with the crime? I think I would. Maybe the main problem with my view is that it is purely moral, and not legal/practical. But letting poor people work out the problems that are partly as a result of your people's past seems very selfish to me. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

I don't think most people have *that* much of a problem with the "my grandpa stole your grandpa's axe, I still have it in my garage, so morally I should give it back" unless it goes back so far that there's really no legitimate way to determine who it goes to, etc., etc. However, that's not really what's going on here. As typically presented, a better analogy would be "My great-great-grandfather raped your great-great-grandmother, so I should pay child support to you" or "My grandfather beat up your grandfather and kept him from starting his own business, so I owe you a restaurant". Or even more often, "some people completely unrelated to me or my ancestors, who happen to have also lived in the same country I live in now screwed up your country, so now I'm obligated to help fix it". That seems like a pretty morally questionable stance to me. Many people in the U.S. today didn't even *have* ancestors in the U.S. when slavery happened, should they have to pay taxes to pay reparations because we once had slaveowners?

I think ascribing responsibility based on past wrongs is begging the question. If you see someone drowning right in front of you, you have a moral obligation to try and save them even if you didn't push them into the water. Whatever our direct ancestors did or didn't do, each individual is born who they are by pure luck. Your consciousness didn't "earn" a first-world upbringing in the beforelife, you were just dealt better cards. If you let people starve and be oppressed and killed just because they were born somewhere else, you're saying that were the lottery of birth redrawn and the winners reversed, you'd deserve no help either, and should accept your miserable fate. Unless human rights are afforded to all humans, they are neither universal nor unalienable, a pretty lie that can be snatched away from you just as easily as someone else when it becomes convenient for the powerful.

CMV: 'Historical' films that are 'based on a true story' should be strictly monitored for accuracy, if not outright banned.

I just watched *The Imitation Game* (2014). Entertaining film, I enjoyed it ... until, as I usually do after watching a film, I went and read up about it. I was pretty annoyed to discover that [aspects of the film's plot were warped for the purpose of making it more dramatic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_Game#Accuracy). I do not think any good comes of this, and to be honest it makes me quite mad. For example, in the film, the main character Alan Turing is portrayed by the actor as obviously autistic to some extent, but according to a quote on Wikipedia (not sure exactly who said it) "the Asperger's-like traits portrayed in the film ... bear little relationship to the actual adult Turing". This, I think, is insulting to Turing's memory, to customise his personality as to make the film more interesting or to make the audience more sympathetic towards his character. Sometimes it's less minor than character modification. I distinctly remember watching *13 Days* (2000) in a high school history class to supplement our Cold War study. This film ramped up the 'Soviets are evil and JFK is a god' theme to the point of including an entirely fictional battle scene, but went out of its way to present itself as a historically accurate film, including real Cold War footage throughout. We watched it in history class for god's sake! It's also been criticised for attributing a major role in the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis to Kenneth O'Donnell - somebody who was *actually there* argues that "For God's sakes, Kenny O'Donnell didn't have any role whatsoever ... that's absurd." I think overblowing or underplaying real people's roles in history is just insulting, and cannot be justified. Thus, **I am suggesting that films which are 'based on a true story' should not be produced, unless historians can guarantee that they are a valid representation of what actually occurred.** I will pre-argue some anticipated arguments in advance: * "They're claiming to be *based* on a true story, not perfectly historically accurate." Yes, but these films spread misinformation all the same. People take 'based on truth' to mean 'mostly truth', especially when filmmakers go to an effort to make their films *appear* as historically accurate as possible (eg. including real dates/events/quotes and making the actors look as much like the real people as they can). It should not be the audience's task to read up on what really happened and what the writer made up for fun. * "The aim of a film is to entertain, it is not meant to be a history lesson." But to some extent, they are taken as such all the same. A person who knows *absolutely nothing* about JFK will undoubtedly feel at least somewhat more knowledgable after sitting down and watching *JFK* (1991). And you know what, they *should* feel more knowledgable, because parts of the film are correct. But other parts and hopelessly wrong. * "It would be boring if we saw films about the events as they actually happened." Suck it up. If you want to learn history, watch a documentary. If you want action, watch Avengers. Don't ever watch *Pearl Harbour* (2001). A quote from Wikipedia regarding that film: 'the producer Jerry Bruckheimer was quoted saying, "We tried to be accurate, but it's certainly not meant to be a history lesson".' This infuriates me. What was the purpose of making a film about Pearl Harbour if you weren't going to do it properly? Okay, I think I've ranted (more than) enough. I need to stop raging about so many movies (don't even get me started on *Pocahontas* (1995) and *Argo* (2012)) - please CMV! **EDIT: Great chatting everyone! Bad history will still annoy me forevermore, but nonetheless my view has been Changed! The most convincing arguments for me were that it would be incredibly difficult to draw the line between what is minor enough that the director has artistic license and what isn't, and that ALL secondary sources of history are a matter of perspective and interpretation anyway, as well as many other valuable and insightful arguments. Thanks for playing!** _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

>I am suggesting that films which are 'based on a true story' should not be produced, unless historians can guarantee that they are a valid representation of what actually occurred. What constitutes a valid representation? Art that depicts life invariably gets details wrong, compresses the complicated or what isn't as noticeable to the artist. It will always be a flawed representation because it isn't the event itself. At its best, the only thing art can hope to do is capture the *spirit* of the thing. So what does it need to depict and to what degree of accuracy before it is considered valid? Do you imagine historians could form a consensus on this? Different historians value different aspects of history and disagree with each other as to what precisely happened at any given time, so I highly doubt it. They would *all* tell you a given film got things wrong, but they would each care about certain errors more than others; one might dispute the ethnicity of a historical figure as cast, one might complain about anachronistic dialogue, another might object to the favorable/disfavorable view of group X doing thing Y at Z point in history. All the while, other historians will be saying it's as good as it needs to be to convey the necessary information. >A person who knows absolutely nothing about JFK will undoubtedly feel at least somewhat more knowledgable after sitting down and watching JFK (1991). And you know what, they should feel more knowledgable, because parts of the film are correct. But other parts and hopelessly wrong. That could be said about any depiction of history, including primary sources that describe historical events and provide the basis of our understanding of most of history. Herodotus is referred to as "The Father of History" because he was the first in European history to systematically gather evidence and form a historiographic narrative. He didn't just make errors, he produced propagandistic falsehoods to make Greeks (especially Athenians) look like the best thing since sliced bread. The idea that the Persian's brought over a million men to fight the 300 Spartans (and a few thousands allies) at Thermopylae comes from Herodotus. Some of the inaccuracies you see in "300" can be traced back to the first recorded account of the battle itself. >Suck it up. If you want to learn history, watch a documentary. *Zeitgeist* claims that it is a documentary, it is full of shit. Bill Maher's *Religulous* used some of the same evidence to try and argue that Jesus was a myth, he is full of shit. *Triumph of the Will* is, in a sense, a documentary. *Super Size Me* was a groundbreaking documentary...the results of which nobody has been able to reproduce. If you want to learn history, you shouldn't be trusting one source that claims to give you the full story; especially one that is deliberately packaged to entertain you. You should gather as many opinions on the subject as you can through any media you like and figure out what you think happened based on those opinions. If you're particularly competent and interested, you can try looking at original source material and try to interpret what it means. What you should *never* do is assume that the movie or documentary you just watched gave you significant historical education.

You seemingly answered and changed your own view by the end of your post. >Suck it up. If you want to learn history, watch a documentary If you want the most factual based experience from a movie watch a documentary, they are made to entertain AND inform you to the best of the filmmakers capabilities. If you want a dramatized version of historical events that is meant to entertain you then watch a narrative film based on something that happened ---- >What was the purpose of making a film about Pearl Harbour if you weren't going to do it properly? The purpose of 99.99% of movies is to make money. Its a business like any other and it sells 2.5 hours of entertainment to people.

CMV: I don’t see anything wrong with the legalisation of polygamous marriage

In the argument against gay marriage, people often use the ‘slippery slope’ argument that it’s legalisation would lead on to polygamous marriages also becoming legal. I’m not interested in arguing whether or not this *will* happen, but why it would be a bad thing if it did. This would be within the context of people being allowed to have multiple marriages, you would not automatically be married to your spouse’s other spouse, although you could choose to do this. While I personally am not interested in polygamy, what's wrong with it? It's natural for humans to live in groups. 'Tribes' or 'family' whatever you would like to call it. I don't see anything wrong with families that have several adults to act as role models for children. I just can't see why it would be detrimental to children to be raised in that environment. To be allowed to marry you need to be a consenting adult and in being one people can make their own relationship decisions. As long as there isn't a sex bias (e.g. men can have many wives but not the other way around), then I think that people can make their own decision about whether a polygamous relationship is something they want. They retain the right to get divorced if their spouse marries someone else when they want a monogamous marriage, just like people retain the right to get a divorce if their spouse cheats on them. People sometimes argue against polygamous marriages saying that people are already legally allowed to have polygamous relationships, why get married? Because of the legal privileges associated with it? When I get married the legal benefits of being married are going to be way down on the list of reasons. Getting married is a way to show your love for someone. A big argument going against it is that the legality of it would be very complex. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. If you died your possessions would be divided up amongst your spouses. Your children would either go to their other parent or be claimed by a next of kin who wants them, with fitness to look after them being determined by a court of law. As is the case currently with children whose parents die without leaving a will e.g. should they go to uncle A or uncle B? There are lots of examples of legal contracts which are binding to groups of people, why couldn’t this be applied to marriage? It could be encouraged, or even possibly mandatory, to have pre-nuptial agreements which define legal aspects of the marriage relating to property ownership, etc. prior to getting married if you’re married to more than one person. With current spouses also signing this document. I’m not really that interested in ethical arguments. Why should one person’s ethics determine how other people live their lives? For example, I don’t think I would ever have an abortion for my own personal ethical reasons. That doesn’t mean that I’m against other people having the option. I'm really interested to know if anyone has any good arguments against polygamous marriages. I think a lot of people are against them for their own personal ethical reasons, because they don’t want one themselves, rather than for an actually good, justifiable reason. So please try to CMV! I’m going to try to reply to every direct response to me. I get really p***ed off when people cherry-pick arguments and ignore the ones that don't suit them. If there are a lot of responses it may take a while though so please be patient! But in saying that if you reply purely because I’ve committed to responding; if you put forth a low-effort comment you will get a low-effort answer. Edit: I'm getting a bit tired so off to bed for me before anyone else comments & I feel obliged to stay up and discuss this some more! I will definitely be back so please keep the discussion going! Edit2: Right, there's a fair few replies so I will be going through them. Although a lot of later comments are using arguments that have been used before I'm still determined to reply to all of them. It may take me a while as I unfortunately have other things that I need to be doing, such is life, so I will get to you eventually! Edit3: I have finally awarded a delta! Apologies to anyone whose comment I missed, but thank you all for being part of the conversation. It was very entertaining and I definitely feel a lot more informed. So you don't have to scroll down & find the explanation for my delta, I'll give it here: "While I still think there is nothing wrong with polygamous relationships & the concept of some sort of legal commitment, this couldn't be marriage. You could have some kind of legally binding partnership with multiple partners which has some of the benefits of marriage, such as recognition of the partnership affecting things like visitation rights and a legal claim to be next of kin, but this wouldn't be the same as marriage as we have it now. It's not so much about when people in the marriage are living together, but if things later needed to be taken apart. There is just no way to predict every possibility for a pre-nuptial agreement, and the situation could get so complex that you couldn't have a standard that could be fallen back on every time." _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

The best arguments against polygamy aren't moral-there isn't anything morally wrong with multiple spouses if everyone agrees-they're practical. Marriage is a major status change that you choose to enter with another person. It means the law acknowledges who can visit you in the hospital, make decisions for you if you're sick, raise your kids if you die or make decisions for them if you're absent, who can share your bank account and affect your credit rating, and who gets half your stuff in divorce. Marriage is a major change in your rights and responsibilities towards specific other people. When you can only be married to one person at a time, both people have to consent to it. That changes with polygamy. I agree to marry my wife, but what if later she wants to also marry her boyfriend or girlfriend? Can this third partner make decisions for the children I had with my original wife? Does the third partner get part of the property my wife and I accumulated together if they divorce out? Does their debt affect my credit score? With polygamy, your rights and responsibilities towards specific people can change *without* your consent, if one spouse chooses to marry someone else. And what if the new spouse is also married?. You might end up with a lot of people you don't know/didn't choose having the ability to majorly impact your life. Edit: I see that you respond to these kinds of arguments by suggesting people contract around it, but this isn't a workable solution for marriage. 1) Ideally, marriages last for the rest of your life. 50+ years. There is just no way to foresee and contract for every situation where you will have the opportunity to impact your spouses over that kind of time span. Marriage is fundamentally accepting the risk of future uncertainties with another person, of having to deal with the unforeseen together. That's why it's so important that people explicitly agree to the person they take that risk with. They can't effectively contract for all the unknowns and separate risks, and they might not want to be bound by the exact terms of an agreement they signed 20 years ago anyway. Love lives are not great places for contracts. 2) Even in the seemingly simple areas where you would think you can contract, you can't. Like with property, income doesn't stay separated once it comes in to the household, and in divorce judges try to compensate people who sacrificed career opportunities in service of the family unit. There is no neat way to divide it into fractions or to give that paper fraction actual meaning out of your household property and bank account, and it will inevitably impact the spouse who did not marry the third spouse. Prenups between relatively simple two-spouse marriages are overturned, redrafted, or declared void all the time; the sense of predictability they offer is illusive, especially if you move states (every state has its own divorce laws). They wouldn't help much at all with polygamous marriages. Things can go wrong with your spouse, but you consented to the risk by marrying them. Things can go wrong with your children, but you accepted that risk by having and keeping children. Things go wrong with your spouse's spouse, and you didn't have to sign up for it to ruin your credit or garnish your wages or otherwise massively impact your life. That's an issue, and it can't be easily solved by introducing more contracts into personal relationships.

"Wrong" is a word that pertains to morality. So it's odd that you don't want a moral argument. But anyway: * Is everybody equal in such a marriage? Does it vary depending on the time they've been married? * Can new people be added? * How is it structured? Is it 3 women married to a man, do they form a ring, or a mesh? * Related to the above, how does divorce work? Can it fail due to disagreement? * Is there a size limit? What if a whole town decides to get married, imagine the work untangling that will be. * What if one person is in the hospital and there are two others that can make a life or death decision, and disagree? * There are practical social issues. Eg, rich man gets himself 20 wives. Enough of that will skew the ratio in the community, resulting in some really pissed off people. * Who do the children belong to? * The court system will probably need an upgrade. We're talking about dramatically increasing complexity and opportunity for conflict. I don't oppose the idea in principle, but the practical issues seem to be tough to solve, and I doubt they're about to get worked out tomorrow. Maybe as a society in a decade or two we'll reach some sort of general agreement about what such a thing is supposed to look and work like, but today it doesn't seem like we're there.

CMV: The government should be able to spy on us

This is a very sensitive topic so sorry for posting it here if I am not supposed to. This is a true CMV, I am on the fence about the issue ever since I joined reddit which is pretty liberal. I have always belived that the government is using any information they get fairly, catch criminals, stop possible terrorism stuff like that. The only time I think it has actually worked (to my knowledge) is when they caught a child pornography dealer through Gmail. I think its in the law abiding citizens best interest to be spied on. Please Chang my opinion if you feel thats wrong. Once again, I am on the fence on this so the most I will do is play Devils Advocate. To much I see in this subreddit people who obviously dont want their opinions changed. Edit: I dont know if I filled the 3 hour requirement but I came pretty close. Its 12 PM/AM (Midnight) here on the east coast and I have my last exam of the year (Biology, riding the line on a Low A or High B, wish me luck) and I need to sleep...or study...one of the two. Keep the replys coming, its been very interesting. As for the future replys I notice some of the ones we have now have nothing to do with the topic, try to keep it focused on the act of spying not corruption in the government. They can be viewed as the same thing but try to keep it about the topic. Thanks and Good Night _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

The best way to convince you is to show you the abuses that have happened. The government is not a monolith: it is composed of ordinary people, people that are susceptible to corruption. And corruption has happened in the past, and it will most certainly happen again in the future. Here's a link detailing abuse at the NSA: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/27/nsa-employee-spied-detection-internal-memo Here's a link about the time the FBI asked MLK to kill himself: http://www.aol.com/article/2014/11/13/fbi-letter-to-mlk-shows-sinister-side-of-government-spying/20993537/ Here's the NSA spying on MLK: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/nsa-martin-luther-king-jr_n_3995150.html And here's the FBI's COINTELPRO, which targeted dissidents. So, if your opinion differs from the popular one, the FBI will be watching you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO The above link includes law-abiding and non-hate groups: vietnam protesters, Native Americans, civil rights movements, and socialists. Is it so distant to say a program like this could be used to target people that oppose the president's agenda, like rival politicians?

Let me start by saying, I understand where you're coming from, and yes you bring some valid points. Why would any law-abiding citizen need to worry about government monitoring of the internet? I've heard some people compare it to the police, and that it is in our best interest. but there some major problems: For me personally, it worries me that by allowing the government to observe anyone's personal lives, at any time puts a lot of power into government hands, and opens even more doors for corruption and abuse of power. As it stands, there is no one in to hold the government accountable. We have no clue how broad the spying is or how much of it happens. Who is there to say, "hey, that's not right" or "hey you're not really working for the better of the people"? No one really. That's a scary thought to me. When the American people trade liberty for security, they have to put more and more faith in a government that has time after time proved itself to be unreliable. Politics are just like anything else in this world: there are good ones and bad ones. The other main issue is that it's not really working out too well. The FBI has admitted that they have not foiled any terrorist threats from spying on US citizens. The main point I'm trying to get at is that if we don't oppose this, then we are giving the US government a HUGE amount of power and pretty much giving it no limits to that power. Which is against everything America stands for (Limits and balances to power).

CMV: I think that having children is good for the country and bad for the individual.

Countries need children in order to sustain themselves, without a younger generation the country will not advance and will not be able to sustain itself. Elderly will not be able to get social security and many problems will occur. Aside from countries which have a serious overpopulation issue, such as china. I don't really think my view is going to change here, since it's pretty scientifically backed. Countries like Japan have a serious issue mostly due to lack of children. My other view, is something I'd be happy to change. Children are bad for the individual because of many reasons. First and foremost, they cost way too much. Even if you maintain a relatively frugal lifestyle, two kids will cost you as a much the house you live in (Just throwing numbers around, I know it's not the same across all household incomes). It's also too much of a commitment. This is literally the only thing in life to which a person would commit 18 years or more, that's a quarter of your life. It's constant work, and constant worry. Sure, there are good moments, especially when the kids pass a certain age and you don't have to work 24/7 to keep them from killing themselves. I know several people that have lost their children to accidents, war,drugs, etc. and their lives were destroyed. I think the potential for such great tragedy greatly outweighs any potential happiness that may arise from children. This may be an extremely pessimistic view, but to put it in perspective, would you bet your entire life savings along with everything you will ever make in the future in a place where it may yield 20%, or completely lose everything? I wouldn't. I'd not risk my future for any kind of returns. I'd really like my view changed. I like kids, well, some kids. But I believe my SO and I will be very good parents, and that we'll raise wonderful children. But I just can't imagine it being worth it. For reference, we're both ~30, lower middle class income, currently make around $60k a year. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

Japan does not have a serious issue. It's a myth. The statistics are scientific and objective, but their interpretation is subjective and biased. They needed to work hard in the past to repair war damage and establish a powerful, modern industry. Now that the have a functional infrastructure they only need to work as much as to sustain themselves. With the amount of automation and optimization in today's world, less manpower is needed than in the past. Of course, there is a point where a birthrate too low becomes a problem, but that point is probably much lower than what people usually expect.

The problem with your view is that it's completely subjective. Which is fine; if you look at all the relevant facts, think about how they comport with your values, and determine having kids isn't worth it for you, that's OK. But another person whom derives great emotional pleasure or satisfaction from being a parent could look at those same facts and conclude the opposite for themselves. So you can't really say parenthood is bad for the individual, all you can say is that parenthood is bad for **you.**

CMV: City life is hugely preferable to country/small town life

I've spent a couple of months living in the country near a small town/village, and I honestly do not understand how it would appeal to anyone. The differences are too many to list, but the big ones are: #Cities have significantly better municipal services. The difference is night and day. Cities have bigger and better libraries, schools, police/fire departments, hospitals, gas, internet, and so on and so forth. As 4G LTE rolls out, I can tell you exactly who's going to get it first. Everything about this makes city life so much safer and more comfortable. #Everything is closer in the city, and there is a greater range of things to do. A really small town will have one or two general-purpose shops. Cities can have huge malls filled with stores and restaurants of all varieties. There are theatres and large public events and strip clubs and meetings of like-minded people and clubs and just about anything to do if you ever get bored. There's a convenience store on just about every corner. #Cities afford a degree of pseudo-anonymity. If you move into an apartment building, lolwhocares. If you move into the country you've got a ton of people who have a **new neighbor** that they wanna get to know and everything. Even if you abstain from social interaction, you become "that weird neighbor that abstains from social interaction." This tends to temper individualism, and it's not like you can "just spend time with the people you like," because rumors and all travel fast with a community that small. #bugs holy fucking shit the bugs aaaaaaaaa #In the country, everything is high maintenance. Since just about everything that isn't a tractor was designed to operate in a man-made environment, everything keeps getting dirty and breaking. Cars and houses and electronics and appliances and furniture all need to be repaired and/or replaced noticeably more frequently than they would in the city.

It's very difficult to change someone's views on something that is entirely subjective. The answer is: City life is preferable to country life, unless you prefer country life more. Some people like the more slowed down/relaxed nature of the country. Some people like the big open spaces, with the ability to do more activities. Some people like that the country is less crowded. Some people like the ability to do things in public but still be private (ever fired off illegal bottle rockets in a massive field as a kid just for kicks, knowing that there's no chance anyone's around for miles to bitch at you for it?). Some people like having lots of animals. Some people like the lack of pseudo-anonymity and prefer to get to know their neighbors well. There's really no way to convince you that country life is preferable, because it all comes down to what you personally prefer. The best I can do, maybe, is convince you that country life is preferable to *some people.* For the record, I love city life and hate country life (I've done both). But I completely understand why some people might prefer country life.

I think there's a trade off for everything. You're accustomed to having everything as fast as you want it. Country people aren't. They know and accept some things are going to be a hike. It's also possible you don't really "hear" the noise around you all the time like someone who hasn't grown up with it or lived in it for many years, would. Silence is golden, and if you live in an area where you can never have that, it can drive some people mad. It's difficult to say one is "better" than the other. I'd vouch both have their bonuses. The quiet, the privacy the country affords, the beauty of it. Enjoying nature, having a big garden, maybe even some farm animals. You can't do those things in the city and those things sure can keep people, very busy. The bugs one though, come on. You know as well I do there are many cities with very nasty bug problems.

CMV: People who give their kids two last names are inconsiderate

I have a lot of fun at the expense of people with two last names. This is a tough one, because I do believe a woman shouldn't be socially pressured into taking her's husband's last name, and gay spouses also have a conundrum of their own. However, I think that a family should have a family name, because otherwise you are choosing to make everyone else's life difficult. One small example is if you work in an industry where you deal with a lot of names and families and meeting people blind (like I do). It's helpful to know in advance who is related to who by just looking at a piece of paper. BUT, if the wife and the husband choose not to share a last name, please God settle on one name for your kid. Just flip a coin for which last name your kid takes if that's what you need to do. Don't make everyone around him have to deal with saying and writing out Reginald Henry Lieberman-Montgomery. A metaphor I would make for this would be gender pronouns. You have the right to tell me whether you identify as a man or a woman, but I swear to God if you insist that everyone around you refer to you strictly with the gender neutral pronouns Ni, Nem and Nir, I will be having none of it. As a counterpoint, I will say that I can't ever imagine myself taking my wife's last name. And if she chose not to take mine, I think I would feel a little disappointed. Further, I can't imagine feeling comfortable with my kid not taking my last name. So I already recognize a bit of the hypocrisy. In that way, I see that I am posing a problem without an apparent solution. On top of your rebuttals, I would also be curious to hear alternative ideas/social structures that could work to level the playing field, AND prevent me from having to say a mouthful. **EDIT:** Apologies for the day long delay-- car emergency took all night and all morning. Thanks for all your responses! Here are some of my views you've changed. Spain > 'Murica. There's a clear system in place in Spanish countries that actually speaks to my "one family name" point. People consistently take the fathers, then mother's surname. Then the kid's kids will do the same. Gives you family history and also something to put on your mailbox. What I personally like about this is that it's uniform. If two last names were adopted country-wide in America, I would have much less of a problem with it. I also want to clarify: My problem with the "mouthful" of hyphenated last names does not mean that I would also suggest gentrifying the Krzyzewskis and the Chevaprevadumrongs of the world. To shorten your family name is to bastardize it. No ill feelings to those with shortened last names of course-- my last name was actually gentrified two generations ago. Finally, here is a post that very well summarizes my American sentiments: > While this drifts from your true argument, these lines of thinking quickly move into the larger name-choice debate, which in my experience usually boils down to “People who name their kids something I like or understand are exercising reasonable freedom of choice. People who name their kids something I dislike or don’t understand are selfish and stupid.” You have not said this, but I think it is worth pointing out that are cultural biases about names are deep-seated. > You want people to have choices about identity labels - - - as long as every choice is based on what you find easiest and most comfortable. If a stranger's choice is not based on your preference, they are selfish and inconsiderate. When a family you do not know fills out a birth certificate, you ask that the FIRST priority be guessing your experience if you meet their child at work in twenty years, and the SECOND priority be articulating their identity as a family in a way that feels personally appropriate. My American sensibilities that shorter is better are deeply ingrained and will probably be there 'til I die. That said, at least I can recognize them so that I know to keep them in check. While I will continue to make fun of people who have two last names, it will be with the same conviction that I make fun of everyone else. No hostility here. Thanks guys!

I think it's useful to be able to identify a family on the basis of last names, and so I think it's useful for everyone to share the same label. And this is exactly why hyphenation is such a useful thing. If you meet a group of people who share the last name "Montegue-Capulet" then you immediately understand that they are a family unit, and you also understand something about the ancestry from both sides of the family. Additionally, hyphenation also scores points for upholding some form of gender equality. Of course, it's impractical to expect people's names to grow exponentially in size with every generation - but this doesn't have to be a problem- it's easy to resolve: when someone gets married, the son keeps only the father's name and the daughters keep only the mother's - and then they hyphenate with their spouse. We can also adopt the convention that the man's name always comes first in the hyphenation - even better - now we know both their family ties and ancestry (I don't care about how it's ordered, we just need to decide). In summary, it only takes three names (one first, two last) to identify a person, their family unit, their family ties, and their ancestry in a complete and fair way. Saying two last names does take longer than one, but last names are only really used for official purposes, and under formal situations. And - people are already hyphenating. I figure we may as well adopt that system as efficiently and informatively as possible.

> However, I think that a family should have a family name, because otherwise you are choosing to make everyone else's life difficult. One small example is if you work in an industry where you deal with a lot of names and families and meeting people blind (like I do). It's helpful to know in advance who is related to who by just looking at a piece of paper. What about step-families with mis-matched names? Or non-married families where the mother and child have a different last name? Should we expect a child living with his/her mother to change his/her last name because their mother remarried and changed her last name? > where you deal with a lot of names and families and meeting people blind How many people work in industries where they meet people blind and need to know if they're related? My mom kept her last name and it has never been a problem in 30 years. > However, I think that a family should have a family name, because otherwise you are choosing to make everyone else's life difficult. What about people with very confusing names? I'd say the name Smith-Jones is much easier to say than something Krzyzewski. Does someone with a confusing last name owe it to us to choose a more traditional last name?

CMV: a significant % of non-voters do not vote because they do not have confidence in any party. Countries should have a 'no confidence' vote in elections if they want to increase turnout, while achieving a better understanding of the public's perception of the political climate.

In New Zealand between the last two elections there was a significant increase in funding pushing for a better voting turnout. For many years now they have made it compulsory to register, however measures such as these seem to be highly ineffective globally at getting an increased turnout in elections, not just NZ. There was less than a 5% increase in voting in the last election despite it being a far more prominent election due to the kim dot com saga. National, our right wing party won so promisingly they were able to not form a coalition with other groups (this is almost unheard of in NZ). Many of my peers did not vote, nor did I as we believed that john key was a poor choice for a leader, but there was a lack of any leader that appealed to this group of 10 of us. We all agreed at the time that if there was a vote that had no significance in the election other than to measure those people who do not believe we have any valid current person running for prime minister we would not only have a higher turnout at the election with little effort, but we'd also have a better idea of what the general perception was on the stability of the political scene. This would help us to build a better political scene long term and involve the voter, ultimately resulting in higher voting turnout at a fraction of the cost or social effort and would result in a better turnout. This would theoretically apply globally too, as in countries such as the US it could be used to show many things, not just the (lack of) confidence in either leader, but also other things. I don't know any hurdles that would stop this from being non viable. Implementation might be a challenge but it could easily be overcome and the benefits would well outweigh the costs and implementation efforts

What does a victory for the "no confidence" choice entail? If none, I think it won't have much effect. The US state of Nevada has had a choice called ["none of these candidates"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/None_of_These_Candidates) since 1975, but it lacks any force, and even if it gets more votes than any other choice, the actual person who got the most votes is elected. In the last Presidential election, [Nevada had slightly lower than average turnout.](http://www.electproject.org/2012g)

What would the purpose of this vote be? I mean, you can't just elect nobody? When there is an election, somehow, a decision has to be made. And in a democracy, it is normally the people deciding which one from the list of candidates they want to choose. However, electing nobody is not a choice. Therefore I think adding a "no confidence" would only encourage the average voter to distance himself from every candidate and refuse his vote. If someone is really unhappy about the way politics work, he should be able to participate himself as a politician. (I wrote should, because it is in many cases not very easy to do so) If many people are unhappy with the voting system, maybe this could be revised in a way which encourages more voters to participate instead of refusing their vote.

CMV: Weinberg was wrong when he said that "for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

The full quote from Steven Weinberg can be found [here](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg). >Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. I've seen people use this quote many times. To me, it's inflammatory anti-religious nonsense. I'm interested to see the other perspective. Have I misunderstood his quote? Is there something about human nature that I've misunderstood? First of all, I recognize that religion can cause good people to do bad things. It has done it many times and it will continue to do so. ISIS is the most obvious example right now, but there are countless other examples as well. What I can't understand is the last sentence: >But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. He seems to be saying that **only religion** can cause good people to do bad things. This seems like total nonsense to me. TONS of things can cause good people to do bad things. For example, soldiers who commit war crimes sometimes do so because they were "just following orders," out of a sense of patriotism, or in order to protect their families. Poverty can make good people do evil things. Drugs can, too. They can temporarily taking away people's sanity, which causes them to do stupid things. Or drug addictions can drive people to such financial desperation that they're willing to do evil things to get their next hit. --- Let me explain what I understand by "good people" and "evil things." Perhaps I haven't properly understood what Weinberg meant by these words? A "good person" is someone who wouldn't normally do an evil thing without the influence of some outside force. In the case of this quote, the "outside force" is religion. An "evil thing" is anything that society generally sees as extremely bad, such as murder. In order to CMV, please: * convince me that religion is the only thing that can cause good people to do evil things. * show me that I could've misunderstood Weinberg. * show me that my definitions of "good person" or "evil thing" are wrong (in the context of Weinberg's quote, of course). * anything else that shows that anything I've said is wrong. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* Edit: Cleaned the post up a little bit.

This is my first time encountering this quote, but tis is my interpretation: This quote could be held as true only under the premise that "religion" in this case does not refer exclusively to theistic religions. Any system of rituals or beliefs that people follow, including the patriotic following of orders you referred to, is a religion in this context. As for your other examples, they might be countered in a small variety of ways, depending on the interpreter's beliefs, including something like the following: -Actions taken by a person in poverty in order to survive are not evil because the person has no alternative -People who are drugged are not themselves, in that they are controlled by the effects of the substance or addiction thereto.

>convince me that religion is the only thing that can cause good people to do evil things. That depends. When do you define a person by their actions whether they're good and when do you define them by their ideology? Indoctrination happens in mostly religious households and scenarios. Yes, political as well, but when it comes to beliefs and values I think religion does the indoctrination part a bit more. Especially with the whole "hell if you don't believe" idea. I think that someone isn't a good person if they have an ideology I disagree with. I think nationalists are bad, fascists are bad and so on. So when it comes to ideology, they're not good people doing bad things, they're bad people doing bad things. >show me that I could've misunderstood Weinberg. I mean it's all about interpretation. "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." He's certainly right when saying with or without religion, good people would do good things and bad people would do evil things. Some actions aren't evil, yet aren't good either. So maybe good people could do bad things yet not evil. Theft is an obvious example. It's not a good thing surely, and good people could do this whether or not they were religious, for different reasons. But it's hardly *evil*. Sometimes, theft is necessary or them to survive. Can't really think of anything else to add here. >show me that my definitions of "good person" or "evil thing" are wrong (in the context of Weinberg's quote, of course). I suppose I already said what I thought on here. >anything else that shows that anything I've said is wrong. I agree that drugs is a problem. But then you could have the philosophical discussion like... Are they really themselves when influenced by drugs? Religious people aren't drunk or intoxicated when doing things, they're fully aware.

CMV: The US should allow airline cabotage.

Cabotage is the practice of allowing foreign airlines to operate domestic routes. Currently, if your airline is not headquartered in the United States, you can't fly between two US cities. So Air Canada can fly a plane from Toronto to New York, but can't continue that plane on to Miami. I think this rule is dumb and protectionist. [Airline safety and protocols are subject to international treaties already,](https://www.faa.gov/passengers/international_travel/) and if we wanted, foreign airlines could be subjected to additional FAA safety checks as a condition of being allowed to engage in cabotage. With the current state of the US airline industry being [so close-knit as to promote collusion,](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-doj-investigating-airlines-20150701-story.html) a healthy dose of competition seems like it's in order. Opening up cabotage would allow a lot more competition in US aviation, which would be a big benefit to consumers as far as price. It would also likely allow a lot of airports which aren't presently hubs to get better overseas service. For instance, British Airways might not be able to justify a direct flight from Cleveland or St Louis to London, but it might be able to justify a flight that does St Louis - Cleveland - London. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

Do you want Chinese to be able to staff flights from Denver to Chicago as part of an airline that offers purely US domestic service? Even if they meet FAA standards, do you want that? I'm not talking a flight that enters from overseas, then continues domestically, I'm talking about a Chinese company with Chinese investors paying Chinese staff to fly Chinese planes *solely within the USA*. Cabotage stops that from happening, too, AFAIK.

No. Those airlines do not meet the same standards as US flights and there is no way for them to make them. There is also no way to tax them the same as the domestic flights. Having independent control of your country is vitally important and that includes the tranportation within it.

CMV: "Objectivism" is the most optimal way to go through life.

I have been a liberal (using the binary American political scale for simplicity) for my entire adult life. I have advocated for the rights of homosexuals, women, and other groups; however, I do not feel like this stance has benefited me in the slightest. In fact, given my regional location (the South or Southeast United States) it has probably hurt me personally more than anything. I have not read Ayn Rand, nor do I ever intend to, as I consider her philosophy to be frankly immoral. Moral people should look out for their fellow humans. However, I believe that I would be better served by pursuing my own rational self-interest rather than spending even an ounce of my resources on the betterment of others who will just attribute my good deed to their god anyway most likely. Donating to charity might prevent a child from dying from cancer, but I am not a child and I don't have cancer, so that extra dollar from my pocket is better spent being used as tax on my latest board game purchase. This could be extended to other people that I consider friends, but I think it is a better use of my resources for me to aid my own comfort than to save a stranger's life. Things that will not change my view: * "You aren't really describing objectivism! It really is a more nuanced..." I don't care. I am not here to argue the definition of objectivism. * "My wife/child/other family member was saved by..." Are you related to me? Probably not as I have never had these sorts of problems, so I don't care. It is good that your family member didn't die, but that has nothing to do with me. * "What if you needed help?" I probably wouldn't get it unless I was able to provide it for myself. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

You're not following through the game theory of optimisation. Take the Prisoner's Dilemma. As you know, the confession is always (by design) the best individual result for the actor with all things being equal, _assuming the game is only played once_. In a sequence of games, and with the ability to form a cartel with the other prisoner, the net benefit to an individual by arranging to both cooperate outweighs the single gain of betrayal given sufficient iterations, because betrayal ensures the cartel breaks and you end up back in the both-confess situation. All of society is in essence a multiparty cartel; agreeing to cooperate ensures a greater personal reward in the long term, and is thus the rational self interest to pursue - your betrayal of the cartel by pursuing short term personal interest by exploiting the others leads to them punishing you by refusing to cooperate back. Objectivism, in your description (ie one objectivist in a crowd of gulls) doesn't advantage you over the long term unless the gulls have fixed behavior, but in reality they do not - they will change their behavior to punish yours and your overall personal utility is reduced.

My biggest complaint against objectivism is that it is sociopathy elevated to the level of moral philosophy. Ignoring that You can indeed go through life as you describe and benefit enormously from it. As long as you're one of the few that do and that you do not do so in a manner that raises the ire of the rest of society. You can be one of the number of parasites that society can tolerate before it begin to hurt from the burden of too many of them. If everyone acted in that manner, society would crumble almost immediately and you would not likely enjoy its replacement. Everyone acting in a manner that is in their immediate self interest is not in the long term self interest of everyone as a group.

CMV: Coupes and manual transmissions are both novelty/useless items.

Edit: I get it. In adverse conditions manual will triumph over automatics, and in certain hill situations along with easy repair and longevity. I don't see many compelling arguments for coupes other than they look cool or may be easier to park in places you wouldn't want to be driving anyways. Economy coupes used to be a budget choice for younger people who didn't need the space, so auto companies can also save money on two doors. Marginally better gas mileage may be an incentive as well. High end luxury sport car manufacturers can argue that the coupe offers better aerodynamics/lower weight to improve performance and handling.Today, coupes cost the same if not more than the same model sedan. I don't believe a slimmer profile can noticeably improve performance in an economy 140HP car, similarly, I find the fuel economy improvement from 30 to 32 mpg hard to justify the loss of two doors at the same price. Automatic transmission performance used to be inferior to manuals, and an expert could handle a car with manual significantly better than an auto. Today, the highest performance cars come with automatics, and manual often isn't an option anymore. Even in models that offer both, the 0-60 and quarter mile speed is quite a bit better in the automatic, which offers "manual shifting" anyways. I believe that their long history and inferior counterparts has created a aura of superiority over automatics, similar to the Stradivarius violins. Due to production quantities, a manual transmission costs the same as automatic if not more. This leaves me with only a few situations where one would practically want a coupe: High end 400-500+ HP sportscars which accelerate and go fast enough that the profile and marginal weight makes a difference. And for manual transmission: Old classic imitation cars for the nostalgia? They're plainly under performing now. Whenever I see a Bentley or Benz S550/600 coupe, I cringe a bit since they're very obviously not performance based cars. Manual freaks who refuse to own any other cars also seem illogical as hell. Any thoughts? Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you! _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

Here's a small list: * I like how manuals handle much better than automatics. I feel more in control of the car. * Manuals can get better marginally better gas mileage on some cars. * Another point that is kinda tongue-in-cheek is that not a lot of people know how to drive stick so your car is less likely to get stolen. * Engine braking can extend the life on your brakes significantly. * Manual ~~engines~~ transmissions are simpler and easier to maintain. * Another I forgot originally, You can pop the clutch if your battery dies. (or your alternator is on the fritz) Honestly, to me, driving stick is much more enjoyable than with an automatic which is why I prefer it. edit: fixed typos and added last item

Something about a footnote at the the end of your post but delete it?Were you meaning to leave a line for us to copy and paste to show that we read your whole argument before responding? Anyways: I prefer manual transmission. I get some people don't like shifting in traffic or whatever, and that's fine for you. But I learned and grew up on one so it really is second nature and makes absolutely zero more conscious effort for me. Benefits of the manual: - Better gas mileage, no question if you actually know how to drive a stick. - More control over the car. Going up on down a mountain? Change to the gear you're most comfortable in based on what the slope is doing at the time. Erratic traffic pattern? Pop to a different gear when you need a quick jump to sneak between cars. In the auto the car decides what you need and is based pretty much just on RPM not letting you do those control things. - Downshifting is mechanically easier on your car than breaking - Manual transmissions tend to have a longer life and are easier/cheaper to repair because they are simpler - "Oh, honey, sure I'd et you take my car, it's not that yoour a bad driver and I love my car more than I love ou it's that you don't know how to drive a stick." ^^^^^^^It's ^^^^^^^just ^^^^^^^a ^^^^^^^joke ^^^^^^^^^people As for the super performance cars coming with automatic these days I can't speak as to if they're really better that way or not since I can't say I've driven an Aston Martin or such lately. But I know on your average car that your average person is likely to buy (I currently drive a '15 Passat TDI) performance is better with stick. Perhaps auto gets better when you enter super car land but the vast majority of us will never know that. Besides, everyone knows you look cooler driving a stick. And the first thing any new car buyer asks themselves is,, "Will this car help get me laid." ^^^^^^^again ^^^^^^^just ^^^^^^^jokes ^^^^^^^folks

CMV: Reading fiction is a waste of time compared to reading nonfiction

After the number of fictional books and nonfictional books I've read, I've come to the conclusion that fiction is always more of a waste of time than nonfiction. I've read more fiction than nonfiction so let me give some examples. In the fiction category, I've read stephen king's "the long walk", "needful things," and "the shining"; i've read pretty much all of crichton's books, and almost all of dan brown books. All are quite popular books. For comparison, the last 3 nonfictions I've read are [skunk works](http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433822539&sr=1-1&keywords=skunk+works&pebp=1433822538925&perid=1EH2CEACB9PWNS9GT84H)," "[the code book](http://www.amazon.com/The-Code-Book-Science-Cryptography/dp/0385495323)", and "[Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea](http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0385523912/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433822683&sr=1-1&keywords=north+korea&pebp=1433822683392&perid=11JG0BF3QCH819XQN6N9) " See, my view isn't that fiction is boring. However, in the limited span of time I have, I'd rather read 1000 pages worth of Introductory Chemistry, than 1000 pages worth of Needful Things; I'd have learned a lot more in The Code Book about cryptography than anything I would have learned from reading Jurassic Park (some basics about DNA and molecular engineering). Because it's such a time sink, the amount of enjoyment from reading fiction is not worth the time it takes to read it. (1000 pages would take 1-2 days to read; I'd rather spend those 1-2 days watching movies or doing other time-sinking things that provides a much greater amount of pleasure). On the other hand, reading 1000 pages of nonfiction, while it would take even longer time, but it would let me get more out of it to be worth my time. CMV that reading fiction is somehow worth the time that it takes. **edit:** I've changed my view in the sense that not *all* fiction are created equal and I probably had been reading too much shitty fiction. I will try to make some efforts to read more nonshitty fiction. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

Guys CMV that I don't like the taste of peas. Fiction isn't a waste of time anymore than reading nonfiction. Unless it's relevant to the profession you're in 99% of the knowledge you gain from nonfiction will be no more applicable in your daily life than what you might learn from fiction. I enjoy fiction and nonfiction equally, but I realize the goal in either case is mostly entertainment. It's fine to have a preference, but I don't see how you expect anyone to change your view, anymore than we could make you like broccoli if you just hated it. If you find movies 5x more enjoyable than fiction then you are clearly not getting out of it what many of us do. Movies are great, but the nature of the medium often requires a massive simplification of story and characters to keep the run time reasonable. I've read enough books adapted for film to see how crippling the transition can be. Movies make up for this in other ways, but they never serve as a true substitute for a good book. If managing your time is a big concern, there are always audiobooks. Listen while you drive, do chores, etc. You certainly can't do those things (at least not well) while watching a movie.

- reading fiction is entertainment, if entertainment is a waste of time then also playing cards or watching any non-documentary film is a waste of time. - many fictional books are classical stories of our time: quixote, odyssey, lord of the rings, etc. Not knowing these stories is missing a piece of our cultural legacy, it's as bad as not knowing history, math or any other topic that distinguishes our cultures. - fiction opens your mind and imagination in ways nonfiction cannot, nonfiction only explains what is, whereas fiction tells you what could or couldn't be. limiting yourself to nonfiction is like only doing things for money, you will never go beyond a line

CMV: The authority of the police must always be challenged

I'm not a cop hater. I like to think I'm a relatively reasonable person but I'm honestly not even 100% sure how I really feel with the constant barrage of news stories about police breaking the law and victimizing regular citizens. I replied to another redditor saying to basically always do what a cop says [here] (http://www.reddit.com/r/AmIFreeToGo/comments/39xujz/are_any_of_you_lawyers_or_have_credible_sources_i/cs7s7x6) Section of his comment >If a police officer asks you to do something, you do it. Pretty much without exception. If you wish to challenge the police officer's legal right to do something, the proper venue is in Court and not in the street. and my reply >>That's horse-shit buddy >>Despite the sheer magnitude of the amount of recent cases of police blatantly abusing their power with zero retribution I am still of the opinion that most officers are genuinely decent people. But like any other human, they carry inclinations for benevolence AND iniquity. >>Honest intentions sadly don't always equal righteous actions and authority must be challenged. Always. Full stop. >>I'm not some edgy teenage anarchist. The police work for the public. They need to constantly be held accountable and should never be beyond reproach >>You say the proper venue to challenge the police's legal right to do something is in the courts; I say the proper venue is any and everywhere. I do believe this but reading it back to myself and trying to see it from someone else point of view I feel like I sound like some kind of deluded government conspiracy theorist. EDIT: It's been pointed out that my title is shitty and misleading. I'll restate my position better but as of now I no longer hold that view specifically. Cops have authority. I fully support that. I believe it's necessary for a society to function for there to be people to enforce the law by means greater than what the average citizen should be allowed. I also believe those enforcers should be held to a higher moral standard. That they should not violate the reach of the powers we give them. And that if they do, we, the very people that gave them the power in the first place, have our own duty to not allow it despite such disobedience being an often unsafe and likely consequential undertaking. Might doesn't make right. I definitely don't want to get my ass beat and/or thrown in jail for pissing off the wrong cop by not letting him violate my rights and despite my position I don't know if I would have the courage in the moment to stand up to a weaponized bully but I do know it would be the right thing to do. Maybe not the smart thing, but the right thing. I'm not saying to go around saying the fuck the police and disobeying them for no reason. I'm saying only show deference when they are acting appropriately.

If a cop pulls you over because you were speeding, are you really saying that you ignore the authority of the vehicle with the flashing lights behind you and just keep on driving. Or, when they ask you to show lis. and registration are you just going to ignore what they say?

> I'm not saying to go around saying the fuck the police and disobeying them for no reason. I'm saying only show deference when they are acting appropriately. I think the problem if everyone followed your view is that people could be misinformed about their rights and the law, or wrong about whether not the police are acting legally. Imagine a bunch of teens reeking of weed who refuse to comply with an exit vehicle request and argue because they believe that doing so is to consent to a search of their car. The cop must show them proof of wrongdoing for them to exit their car. If you're not a lawyer, you likely don't know all the nuances of the law, and a challenge in court has the judge there to decide who is in the wrong. A personal challenge has no third party to decide but does havd two individuals who probably both think they're in the right (and one is wrong).

CMV: We've gone way overboard lately with PC-ness and the Social Justice movement.

This may be surprising to some if you look at my history on this sub, where I posted several CMVs critical of Gamergate, the police and conservatives, but here goes... we've gone way overboard with this PC/Social Justice mentality. Recent examples are- -the furor this morning (at least on twitter) over Amy Schumer in the WaPo. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/06/dont-believe-her-defenders-amy-schumers-jokes-are-racist/ -Hannibal Burress had a minor run-in with several notable female twitter personalities including Gaby Dunn. https://twitter.com/hannibalburess/status/618179591140564992 (there's a whole list of responses, if it doesn't show up just go through his timeline) -Jerry Seinfeld made news when he said he wouldn't play college campuses anymore, to much reminding of his relationship with a 17-year old twenty years ago, and snickering over how his material isn't even edgy anyway. http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/10/living/seinfeld-comedy-colleges-feat/ -Chris Rock said the same thing last year. I guess he's a shitlord too. http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/chris-rock-frank-rich-in-conversation.html -Patton Oswalt, who at one point was booed in Philly for his anti-Bush beliefs back during 2004 or so, is now not worthy of being followed. He's in a category with Trump and Palin. http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/patton-oswalt-twitter-troll-unfollow/ -Not to pick on Gaby Dunn, but earlier this year she blew up at Josh Groban, because I guess young male celebrities being horndogs is completely new and has never, ever happened in human history. https://storify.com/amandataylor88/don-t-fall-for-this-famous-guy-s-flattery Hell, even amongst the more notable far-left twitter there's infighting. Suey Park and Lauren Chief Elk are going at it over DMs to an ex/stolen laptops https://twitter.com/suey_park/status/617747933987889152 And depending on who you believe, Rania Khalek is anti-black http://bad-dominicana.tumblr.com/post/87992874258/rania-khalek-such-an-antiblack-piece-of-shit-like or "bad_dominacana" is racist against Arabs https://twitter.com/raniakhalek/status/514920026236018688. I was, am and will be a dyed-in-the-patchouli liberal. I was ecstatic that gays can get married now. I will call Caitlyn Jenner whatever SHE wants me to. I'm a big fan of Bernie Sanders. I absolutely believe all fortysomething of Bill Cosby's accusers. That said, I'm starting to feel a little lost. I cringe when I see the word "thinkpiece." I hate that people get so caught up in a perpetual outrage machine and so high off their own self-righteousness they will destroy a life like Justine Sacco's (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=0) for sport. (Also, how great is Sam Biddle for basically admitting he'd do it all over again for "the clickz?") I have to believe that the right or, "The Man," are absolutely loving this infighting. Endless digital ink is spilled on Black Widow in The Avengers while cops are still shooting anyone with a skin tone darker than Burnt Sienna. Am I wrong? Am I the asshole here? Is all of this of vital importance? Will the 24/7/365 internet analytical news cycle bring us to the promised land? Or is this just a tool of cultural commentators on a deadline? EDIT: I'll add this since I'm getting a lot of advice to get off twitter. I definitely don't go on as much as I used to, but it's hard for me to stay off completely for two reasons. One, there's a lot of actually good, funny twitterers out there. It's also a good news source, it's how I found out we got Bin Laden. Two, as someone who, despite all warning signs, wants to be involved someday in the comedy/entertainment biz, it's kinda necessary for those on the come up to use it as a promotional tool. If I was Spielberg or Tarantino I'd get the hell off, trust me. But I'm a nobody from nowhere at the moment. Try not to focus on the Twitter thing as much. There's pieces on Gawker, WaPo and Daily Dot that I've used for examples. Here's a piece on the AVClub where the writer complains about female fans of Captain Marvel for... reasons. Not sure. They're problematic somehow. http://www.avclub.com/article/marvel-learned-wrong-lessons-carol-corps-218003 EDIT 2: Not sure how much longer this'll stay active, or how much I'll be able to check in tomorrow so I'll do a pseudo-wrap up here. I used mainly examples from the comedy world and Twitter since that's what immediately came to mind. Other examples I could've used were Donglegate (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes-got-two-people-fired-and-led-to-ddos-attacks/) and ScientistShirtgate (http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/11/18/scientist-shirt-feminism-comet-your-say/19248543/). I think those two, and there are others, are also worthy of discussion in that they involve nuance. Someone like Donald Trump, that's a black-and-white case of racism. Someone in the comments said this seemed like neurotic hand-wringing by an alienated individual, and that could very well be the case. I didn't really spend a whole lot of time making a comprehensive essay about this because a-it's just reddit and b-I posted from the gut with immediacy. If someone wants to take this theme and do it up better, by all means go for it. I never claimed to be a social scientist. Or even just social. Some good opinions here, with the major consensus being that these things seem big and important on the internet where everything is a hot take and people are either Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil with no in-between. So in stepping out from the cyberspace will keep the perspective in check. Good talk everyone! No name calling or trolling! _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

I am as Socialist as the 14 work-day is long. The type of Socialist that has a picture of Eugene Debs in a frame-level of commitment to the cause. So I get what you are coming from in your belief system. Remember, however, that those the shout the loudest on both the left and the right are the ones in the minority. If they were the majority, they wouldn't need to shout. The extreme minority always shouts the loudest, like the bleating of a sheep against the rain and winds of nature herself. Many people on the left and right, especially on the far out fringes, have a need to out-liberal or out-conservative those around them. I'm more "this" (PC, Worker's Rights, Pro-Christ, whatever...) than you, and that makes me to superior to you. Those people are not rational in the sense that you can change their views, because their views will change - but only to the next extreme position on the political spectrum when it becomes the cause de jour for their political affiliation. To put that into context, you see extreme liberals screaming about about trans-gendered rights because their most recent cause, Gay Rights, has ended. But you see none of them arguing for polygamy, which is surprising as that is a very logical leap and follows the much the same philosophical arguments as the Gay Marriage movement. But polygamy isn't on their radar because it's not "cool" yet. Perhaps it'll be cool in a couple of years - then it's all about the megaphone and how they were on the issue first, long before their fellow liberals saw the injustice on behalf of "Group P" they have a reason to rally for. The echo chamber of intelligent debate that is social media like twitter and facebook forces the conversation into shock tactic-like statements designed to be heard over then din of other tweets that support the same thing but are not written by those that need to be right/better than those around them. The world is indeed a strange place out on the fringes of the political spectrum, and while I reside here, I tend not to talk to my neighbors because they aren't too neighborly. They want to out-liberal me in a contest of PC-ness and other things that are frankly, dehumanizing towards all of humanity. Reducing people from society into roles, like "white", "black", "gay", conservative", allows for people to separate individuals from the group of humanity, and demand that we treat everyone in group "A" as equals. That's all well and good if you are group "A", but what about group "X"? Most educated people on the extremes of the left find that the "Throw a Brick Through a McDonald's Window to Protest the WTO" aren't wrong, they're just assholes. And, literally like assholes, they don't really think through their shit - they just try to get it out as quickly as possible while giving them the most comfortable result that allows them to feel better. Also, fuck the IMF, amiright? Oh, sorry - the IMF was *so* the 2006 issue for the liberals.

>I was, am and will be a dyed-in-the-patchouli liberal. I was ecstatic that gays can get married now. I will call Caitlyn Jenner whatever SHE wants me to. I'm a big fan of Bernie Sanders.*I absolutely believe all fortysomething of Bill Cosby's accusers.* One of these things is not like the others. (100% with you on those first four, btw). And herein lies the problem that you're talking about. *Why* do you believe them, despite having only heresay and no solid evidence to rely on? Because you've conflated the idea of their victimhood with your own open-minded liberalness. You think that to question them would be to reject your *political* beliefs. That not taking them for their word would betray your principles. This is an ideological response; and psychologically speaking it is very similar to the reaction religiously devout people have to something that violates the rules of their religion (Such as why so many Christians are mad that gay marriage is now legal). In reality, though without doubt it is highly likely that at least *some* of those women are telling the truth, you and I cannot possibly know that, and so to say that you "absolutely" believe *all* of them reflects that you *absolutely* do not want anyone to question where you stand on that issue, lest they challenge your ideological purity/sincerity, or worse: Accuse you of being a bigot. You aren't just a bad person for not sharing their views, You don't share their views *because you're a bad person*. There are remarkable parallels between the radical left and the religious fundamentalist in this regard. That's the problem: It's ideological. Not rational, not even about what's right or wrong. Political extremism is about "US" vs "Them". And ideological purity is expected by radicals. Social pressure deters people from questioning, criticizing, or disagreeing. To suggest that maybe we should wait until we know the facts before judging is tantamount to being a rape apologist and a misogynist to the far-left crowd. Then there's the media. Washington Post, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, etc. These publications primarily generate readership by pandering to those extremists. Washington Post is to Liberalism what Jezebel is to women's equality. I won't even get into the tumblr/twitter "opression olympics" (as a gay man, I am allowed to have *some* opinions, but they're not as valid as say, a gay *woman*, because she is by virtue of being female more oppressed than me, etc.) Ideological extremism ceases to be about justice, or right and wrong, or even the *truth*. In radical politics, the truth will always be viewed through the funhouse mirror of the ideologue. The key is to step back from the labels, and from what you've been *told* to believe, and just start thinking about the foundational goals of social justice. That everyone should have equal standing under the law, equal opportunities and equal protections within our society. That the horrors and injustices of history ( and the present day) must be stopped, and the damage done corrected as much as this can possibly be done. We have to get away from ideology and indoctrination, and encourage people to use their brains. Then it will become apparent who really wants a better world, and who is just looking out for their own selfish desires.

CMV: Country music is absolutely terrible.

Country music was not always bad. There were legends such as Johnny Cash who defined what country music was. However, today the country music culture is full of songs about booze, trucks, tractors, and women. Almost every song sounds exactly the same, following the same chord structure, tone, and melodies. There is no creativity when it comes to country music and it has not had a positive influence on the music industry. Although there may be a few exceptions to this, the majority of modern country is awful, redundant, and lacks any sort of meaning. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

It's doubtful words are going to convince you to like music that you don't like. I'm not a fan of (popular, modern) country either, largely for the same reasons you cited. I'm not much of a fan of pop music, either, and the country you'll find on today's radio is basically just pop with anything edgy or sophisticated taken out. Basically just pop without what pop is good at. On the other hand, there's no doubt an art to making music for mass consumption. It may not be the type of art that you particularly enjoy. It may not be the type of art that I particularly enjoy. But it's an art that takes a tremendous amount of skill, expertise, and talent nonetheless. In other words, country may seem formulaic, but if you thought it could be easily replicated you'd be out making millions and banging groupies right now. When I hear a popular radio song that doesn't fit my taste, I've learned to appreciate it by listening for what it does that has made it rise about the countless number of other songs people hoped desperately to be as popular. For example: the song I'm listening to may have dumb lyrics, but they're lyrics that still appealed to people in some profound way that other, similar songs did not. Or the song may have a cheesy hook, but what is it about that hook that made it so popular? That sorta thing.

It seems that you are mostly only familiar with pop country, which is the country commonly put on the radio. It has the same problems of general pop music in that it is very repetitive and formulaic as the goal is not to make good music, but to sell music. However, if you ignore the radio, it is fairly easy to find good country music.For me, I enjoy the subgenres of folk and bluegrass. [Here is a good example of bluegrass](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6kihlmvAfQ). Notice that it doesn't even need lyrics and relies entirely on the sound of the instruments. [Bluegrass also can use vocals, such as this one about a river where the signer grew up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCDHxPzrHgo) Sometimes, a band might also [cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMrAbPSUhA4) existing songs from [other genres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c7bISLhVl8). Folk you don't often see much originality in terms of lyrics, as it is often involves taking an existing song and putting your own spin on it (compare these [two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Bq_2soGIA) very different takes on the [same](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaS3vaNUYgs) song). [Here is an example that omits the lyrics, but is still highly recognizible to anyone familiar with it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFyvxxsm7RQ) In terms of relation to other genres of music, American folk music is very closely tied to [Scottish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k9YWf9gWaA) and [Irish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE9l2p0kLKk) folk music, to such an extent that they will [often blur together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuwzsFAFllA). I did have a comment about a year ago on a similar topic that was well received, but as you have posted a slightly different argument (focusing on currently produced music rather than the genre as a whole) I have tried to tailor this argument more towards your opinion. [However, there may be something I said or posted in the previous thread that might sway you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1tjzsv/cmv_that_country_music_is_boring/ce8scdg)

CMV: If college education was free, the value of a degree would decrease.

One main argument I've seen against the Bernie Sanders "free college tuition" idea is that if everyone has a college degree, the value of a degree goes down. Is this true? In countries like Germany and Denmark, only the best of students make it into higher education, whereas in American, our standards to get into a university or a community college are laughable. Would we need to raise the bar on admission requirements if college was free? The main argument here is that making college education free in our system would end up hurting the overachieving students.

If someone has a Harvard degree, do you think, "gee, this person is good enough to get accepted to Harvard, and has one of the best educations in the country," OR "wow, this person could afford to get into Harvard, they should work for me." Pretty sure it's the former, not the latter. Harvard may be expensive, but it's *also* hard to get into. I probably paid just as much in tuition as a Harvard grad, but my school was no Ivy League. We definitely view degrees based on the prestige of the school, not the expense. Schools are often expensive because they are prestigious, not the other way around. If Harvard were free, it would still be viewed favorably by an employer. Plus, I've read that Harvard and other Ivys make so much money in endowment that they could afford to pay for everyone's tuition as it is; so it's probable that the quality of an Ivy education wouldn't even go down if it were free. Don't know if this can be said about other colleges, though.

>One main argument I've seen against the Bernie Sanders "free college tuition" idea is that if everyone has a college degree, the value of a degree goes down. And in a free high school system, the value of everyone getting a high school diploma goes down. But it still matters quite a bit to those without one, and society as a whole still benefits because education doesn't exclusively serve to discriminate between potential employees. >In countries like Germany and Denmark, only the best of students make it into higher education, whereas in American, our standards to get into a university or a community college are laughable. Then free tuition isn't the issue, all tuition changes is whether the rich benefit from this. >The main argument here is that making college education free in our system would end up hurting the overachieving students. "Overachieving" students already show it by mechanisms other than simply getting out of university with a diploma. Getting an undergrad degree from Harvard isn't that hard compared to other schools.

CMV: I don't think the BlackLivesMatter protester should have interrupted Sanders' rally. However, it makes sense to choose Sanders as the candidate to interrupt, rather than anyone else

I know Sanders is probably the best candidate for BLM policies (though O'Malley is good as well), and that his supporters are probably the most likely to support BLM. This is exactly why I think he's the right choice. First, I think it means you get less backlash against the movement in general. If she were to interrupt another candidate, more people would use that as evidence against the BlackLivesMatter movement in general. That means more people would use the incident to negatively paint the entire BLM movement since they are less familiar with it, while the Sanders supporters who would be upset would be the least likely to do this. Second, it forces Bernie to make a bigger deal out of racial injustice in his campaign. Even if he doesn't support the people who interrupt him, he has to at least issue some statement that says "Why'd you pick on me? Here's everything I'm doing to help . . ." and suddenly, it's a major part of his campaign. Sanders *does* have a solid [page on racial injustice](https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice) on his site, but it is a little weak in terms of actual policy prescriptions. Compared to [O'Malley's page](https://martinomalley.com/policy/criminal-justice/), Sanders has a lot of work to do. Interestingly enough, O'Malley began to better flush out his policy on criminal just after he was interrupted by BLM protesters. Forcing his hand in making his stances on racial justice more public and more thorough is the best way to make it a bigger campaign issue, and is the best possible result for the BLM movement at large. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

The entire point of civil disobedience is to make uncomfortable or make inconvenient what is beloved by the mainstream. These things could be beloved things like first night in Boston for example, sit-ins, blocking off ramps. I can get behind shutting that down to raise awareness (I can't recall for certain if that was directly tied to #BlackLivesMatter, but it was certainly tied to the momentum begun under the Ferguson protests.) By interrupting the speech they were acting in that vein. By demanding four and a half minutes of silence they were acting in that vein. Even by making the statements about Seattle is a racist city they were acting in that vein (In response to the "Let Bernie Speak" chants). Where I think they made a miscalculation was in refusing to give back the mic. I suspect they refused to do that because people in the rally were no respecting the moment of silence (which was pretty tactless on the people crying "Let Bernie Speak"). If the objective was about exposing the hypocrisy of white progressive liberals, how does forcing him to leave, then give a scripted response, and making Sanders out to be another unappreciated advocate accomplish that objective? Sanders respected their actions by standing to the side, letting them speak and not speaking during the moment of silence. I don't mention that to make Sanders out to be some saint, only to outline a rationale for what could have happened had they given back the mic. I don't think its unreasonable he would have told the crowd that they shouldn't have spoken during the moment of silence, then speak on the topics, if only briefly, that #BlackLivesMatter want to have, and then resumed to the itinerary of the rally. But even a brief detour like that would have been a massive statement: #BlackLivesMatter has a primacy in this political cycle over other political issues, they can dictate the conversation if they so choose, and force others to recognize the issues at hand, which *is the entire point of the hashtag*. Instead, they created another martyr of under-appreciated advocacy. It was a miscalculation. Moreover, the fallout is reminiscent of the fall of the Puerta del Sol and OWS protests. Both fizzled out because they became about purity, infighting and diversifying of objectives unrelated to the root cause of the protest. #BlackLivesMatter advocates are already concerned about other groups trying to hijack the hashtag for their subgoals. I was at the end of the Puerta del Sol protests, and believe me, it can get all over the place politically very quickly and that is a fast way for a movement to die out. I am not saying that there isn't a hypocrisy and blind spot in the mentality and thought of white progressive liberals, but not acknowledging how purity and infighting brought down other recent social media driven protests, advocates like these two are making a big mistake.

I think this would be a reasonable response after Bernie was first interrupted by BLM. In response to that he gave a massive speech with SCLC about racial inequality, hired outspoken BLM supporter Symone Sanders to be his national press secretary, and truly made combating racial injustice a cornerstone of his campaign. Did you not hear or read the SCLC speech? I'm sure Marissa and Mara didn't. Here's a link to it https://berniesanders.com/remarks-senator-sanders-southern-christian-leadership-conference/ Important to note that speech was given before O'Malley posted his policy positions on racial issues. Bernie actually reacted faster. The interruption on Saturday did absolutely nothing to make Sanders more focused on racial issues. He had already hired Symone, she had already written her speech to introduce him Saturday night and speak out about how we need to end institutionalized racism in the country. The page on racial issues had already been written. Essentially, BLM asked Bernie to change in July, and by all appearances he has embraced the BLM message and changed in all the ways they asked of him. The "protest" yesterday did absolutely nothing to help their cause because they've already won Bernie over and he's already clearly the biggest supporter of the movement of all current candidates. All they accomplished was making themselves look bad. When you ask someone to change and they do it, you don't slap them and yell in their face about some of the changes being marginally slower than you would've liked.

CMV: Political party leaders resigning after a 'failure' in a national election is ultimate proof that they were only interested in power the whole time.

A political party leader has a duty to serve their country via their government or via their opposition (if they have not won election to government). Losing an election does not prevent a good leader from leading, it merely humbles them, but losing an election will cause a bad leader to give up. In the UK 3 major political party leaders gave up on Friday when they should be using their leadership skills and good vision to lead the opposition to keep the government accountable. If they had won the election I presume that they would not have retired. which makes it very evident that the leaders of the losing parties did not have leadership skills and/or a good vision but merely wanted to win for the sake of power. *** edit: This has already been eye-opening, there are details which I did not know before coming to light and for that reason I feel compelled to pronounce multiple delta's just for the nuance points which have changed my understanding although not necessarily my wider view; I'm not even sure if that's allowed. I have to go now, but I will read all the comments and get back to this tomorrow. Thank you. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

Don't you think its more bowing down and accepting the public (the people who *didn't* vote for you) has little confidence in you as a leader, so time to pave the way for someone new and hopefully more successful? A political parties aim, as a whole, is more power to do that which they think is right. If, at the top, you are a hindrance rather than a help, moving back into a backseat permission and bringing in a new leader can be more helpful to your party in the long run. On top of that, if it was really just a power play, then surely they'd remain at the head of their respective party? Where else are they going to have as much or more power than they already do? Stepping down from the top spot is a relinquishing of power, which would run counter to your idea that all they desire is more power.

Political parties are interested in making (what they see as) positive changes to their country through the political system. They aim do this by gaining power through an election. The leader of the party is the face of the party to the public, as well as the leading force of the parties visions, views and how they conduct themselves. If the electorate rejects the party at an election, the leader may stand aside to give someone else a more likely chance of gaining power and brining about positive change. As clearly the public does not have faith in the party with them at the helm. In the modern era with 24 hour news coverage this is much more true now than it was before. It could be argued that a real power play would try to stay in for as many election cycles as you can get away with before being ousted. The Labour and Liberal Democrats suffered bad losses that reflected poorly on the party and their leadership. If the leaders had stayed on through this the public would have viewed them as desperate and a spent force around the time of the next election. In order for the party to bounce back as quickly as possible and start moving itself in the right direction, they will step aside. You must also remember that the leaders you mentioned have been members of their parties from probably 16/18 years old. They dedicated their entire lives to the party so it's fair to say they may take the view that stepping down will be in the best interests of the party if not their own interests.

CMV: Anti-GMOers are the same breed of moron as Anti-Vaxxers

To my knowledge there are no peer reviewed sources that link GMOs to any negative health effects. There is as much reason to believe genes manipulated in a lab are inherently harmful as there is for genes selected through domestication. I am asking for a CMV because I have not done thorough research other than reading a few articles supporting my view including a recent cover story for Nat. Geo, a magazine I highly respect. However as a scientifically-minded person, I can't ignore the massive movement against GMOs without considering it first.

Also a fair point to make. Not all people who are Anti-GMO's have concerns because of negative health effects. There are also potential environmental concerns, concerns about increasing monocroping, shady business practices (may or may no be unfounded), potential lax government oversight on safety (GMO's have only been around since 1980, whereas vaccines in early 1900. Take that as you will). Additionally while GMO developers will argue that they are needed to be able to feed a growing population, the much larger problem is food transportation. So much food already gets thrown away. Also a fair point to make. You know you are getting a Vaccine, and know the ingredients that are in it. You don't always know you are eating a GMO, even if you wanted to know.

I disagree. I do not think overall that GMO's are bad, but I don't think GMO's are unequivocally good. GEMO's - much like any other technology have their share of risks. Why - specific vaccines have their own share of risks. Recently there was a controversy with the vaccine Pandemrix It was linked to increased risk of narcolepsy, and then those conclusions were withdrawn in one journal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix#Narcolepsy_investigations_in_the_European_Union The reason why I bring up this isn't that there is a direct parallel - but I want to ask >"What would a rational person believe when they haven't yet formed a belief" This is predicated on many things including our biases and our perceptions of risk. Making decisions on perceptions of risk is a rational decision I would argue. This is very difficult with vaccines. If there was a pending investigation with Pandemrix questioning it's safety as a vaccine - what do you do? What do you do when there's a swine flu outbreak and you have to choose whether to get a potentially risky vaccine or run the risk of getting a disease. Imagine a person in a similar position with respect to GMO foods. There is no "upside" to ingesting GMO foods like there is with vaccines. By avoiding vaccines - we run the risk of not only acquiring certain diseases, but also putting the public at large at risk. Vaccines are generally safe, and my concern for potential side effects doesn't outweigh my concern for safety from diseases and my concern for others. However, if I was to make a stand against consuming GMO foods - I do not have to make that stand against a greater threat. Yes - it is possible that in some places, the ONLY way to grow crops is GMO, and some people claim that only through GMO can we achieve food security (a claim I am highly skeptical about) and so my not wanting to consume GMO does have negative repercussions. However - for most people, there appears to be no such concern. To be clear - I am not particularly concerned about degradation of my health while consuming GMO, but I want to illustrate that it is a rational decision to oppose GMO. I also disagree with the premise that GMO is "basically the same" as regular crops. The methods of production (edit: added production and "and") and what can be achieved through GMOs are very, very different. You could never have a kickstarter for glowing plants https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit if you were growing plants traditionally, and even if it were possible - would likely be infeasible. Of course - some people have problems with the commercial practices of companies, and are concerned about things like IP issues and a lack of diversity. So in conclusion, I think most opposition to GMOs is unfounded, but there are rational reasons for individuals to not want to consume/support it.

CMV: Monuments to confederate soldiers are symbols of racism

Written hastily, but hopefully I can clarify any mistakes in comments, here we go: The Confederacy was racist according to the cornerstone speech and secession papers (tx): [Cornerstone Speech] excerpt (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/)t: > Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, **its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition** [Texas secession papers] excerpt(https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html): > She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. If the new government the Confederacy was trying to replace the current one with was based on that Cornerstone, there is no denying the Confederacy was racist. Those that fought for the cause of the Confederacy and helped further it, helped further "the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition" are culpable. Point 1: Someone who fights for a racist cause, helps create an institution to power that racism, and otherwise spread it is racist. People who have done this don't deserve to be monumented, or at the very least don't deserve to be monumented something as defining as a town square. Point 2: A monument with the words "Our Confederate Soldiers" cannot monument just the soldiers without endorsing their actions to some extent. Point 3: The image of a Confederate soldier being a defining landmark in the center of a city is an endorsement of the Confederacies actions and perpetuates racism by virtue of it being a defining part of the cityscape. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

>Point 1: Someone who fights for a racist cause, helps create an institution to power that racism, and otherwise spread it is racist. People who have done this don't deserve to be monumented, or at the very least don't deserve to be monumented something as defining as a town square. A similar example I can think of is Nazi Germany. Under this point, any soldier of WW2 fighting for Germany would not deserve to be honored even if they weren't fighting for *the idea* of Nazism, but rather their homeland. [Karl-Heinz Rosch](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/controversial-memorial-honor-wwii-german-soldier-karl-heinz-rosch.html) has a monument made of him, even though he was Wehrmacht. I believe he did heroic acts in the name of his country, not in the name of racism against the Jews.

Just because the Confederacy was founded out of a disagreement about slavery (which up until then, the north had been perfectly fine with, too), doesn't mean that you can just equate Confederate soldiers with racism. Most of the people fighting for the Confederacy weren't fighting for racism. They were fighting to save their own towns and homes and families. Look at it this way. Let's say another country has had enough of America's shit and decides to attack us. Iran or whoever starts landing ground troops in your hometown and is systematically working their way through your town, murdering your children, torching your homes, and raping your families. Are you going to ask yourself if you believe in America's cause before you try to defend your family? Or are you going to fight tooth and nail to save yourself? Does that make you a supporter of whatever made America go to war in the first place? Should we all forget what happened to you if it's later decided that we were actually in the wrong?

CMV: City life is hugely preferable to country/small town life

I've spent a couple of months living in the country near a small town/village, and I honestly do not understand how it would appeal to anyone. The differences are too many to list, but the big ones are: #Cities have significantly better municipal services. The difference is night and day. Cities have bigger and better libraries, schools, police/fire departments, hospitals, gas, internet, and so on and so forth. As 4G LTE rolls out, I can tell you exactly who's going to get it first. Everything about this makes city life so much safer and more comfortable. #Everything is closer in the city, and there is a greater range of things to do. A really small town will have one or two general-purpose shops. Cities can have huge malls filled with stores and restaurants of all varieties. There are theatres and large public events and strip clubs and meetings of like-minded people and clubs and just about anything to do if you ever get bored. There's a convenience store on just about every corner. #Cities afford a degree of pseudo-anonymity. If you move into an apartment building, lolwhocares. If you move into the country you've got a ton of people who have a **new neighbor** that they wanna get to know and everything. Even if you abstain from social interaction, you become "that weird neighbor that abstains from social interaction." This tends to temper individualism, and it's not like you can "just spend time with the people you like," because rumors and all travel fast with a community that small. #bugs holy fucking shit the bugs aaaaaaaaa #In the country, everything is high maintenance. Since just about everything that isn't a tractor was designed to operate in a man-made environment, everything keeps getting dirty and breaking. Cars and houses and electronics and appliances and furniture all need to be repaired and/or replaced noticeably more frequently than they would in the city.

>Cities have significantly better municipal services. While this is true, the people who live in the country don't value these things the same way as people who live in the city. They don't care about 4G LTE, and likely don't even have a phone to utilize it. They may not like it that the city is bigger (this isn't inherently a better thing), and while you mentioned that cities are safer, I'm not so sure thats a true statement. I think crime is much more common within the city than in rural areas. Plus, people in rural areas are likely confident in their abilities to defend themselves and their families in dangerous situations, and don't necessarily want to have to depend on the municipalities for that. Basically, if you are used to living in the city, then you place value on all the things you listed about municipal services. If you live out in the country, you're used to getting by without them and they don't necessarily have the same value. >Everything is closer in the city, and there is a greater range of things to do. Again, this is something that some people may actually see as a downside to the city. People used to living in a rural area might not like the hustle and bustle of the city, and enjoy spending recreational time doing things out in nature. People may not like malls, and they may not actually meet any like-minded people within the city. >Cities afford a degree of pseudo-anonymity This isn't something that everybody values. Some people enjoy daily interactions with the same people, and enjoy being in a community where they are recognized and have long standing histories with people. >bugs Maybe people in the country are indifferent to bugs? I don't know >In the country, everything is high maintenance I'm fairly sure its cheaper to live in rural areas than it is to live in the city. Even if it is true that more maintenance is required, people typically do their own maintenance and perhaps don't mind it. TL;DR People who were born in rural areas have a completely different set of values than someone born in a city. All of the things you listed as upsides to living in the city, they may see as downsides, and vice versa. Your world view is shaped by your experiences, so if your experience is living in the country, then your world view is vastly different than someone who has experienced nothing but city life.

I think there's a trade off for everything. You're accustomed to having everything as fast as you want it. Country people aren't. They know and accept some things are going to be a hike. It's also possible you don't really "hear" the noise around you all the time like someone who hasn't grown up with it or lived in it for many years, would. Silence is golden, and if you live in an area where you can never have that, it can drive some people mad. It's difficult to say one is "better" than the other. I'd vouch both have their bonuses. The quiet, the privacy the country affords, the beauty of it. Enjoying nature, having a big garden, maybe even some farm animals. You can't do those things in the city and those things sure can keep people, very busy. The bugs one though, come on. You know as well I do there are many cities with very nasty bug problems.

CMV: Your race should have no effect on your chances of getting into a good university.

I just read this [article](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-race-tutoring-20150222-story.html#page=1) stating that blacks and hispanics have an easier time getting into certain colleges than asians and whites. This just seems idiotic to me. Especially considering that only certain minorities have an easier time getting in, while others like asians have a much harder time. It should be based on your grade average and the score you get on your SAT (I'm from Canada so I'm not really sure how SAT score factors into that. I'm used to only your high school grades being counted). If an asian student gets a 90% average, his/her application shouldn't be tossed aside for a black student who only managed to get an 83% average. Maybe in the past affirmative action was necessary, due to racial bias. Nowadays it's completely useless and does nothing but inhibit asians and whites. I believe your race shouldn't matter when it comes to these things. It's like saying blacks and hispanics are more stupid than asians and whites and therefore should get some help to get into college. Also, before you say that it has to do with economic status, I would like to disagree. My family (including cousins and whatnot) came from very poor circumstances. However, most of my cousins have gone on to get degrees in things like engineering. If you don't do good in school, it's either because your capacity to learn in that certain subject or in general is lower than other people (say being bad at math or English) or you just didn't try hard enough. Edit: don't downvote me because you disagree with me. Write a post telling me your position and why your opinion differs from mine. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

You're right, race should have no effect. Non white people are at a disadvantage in many aspects of life. Standardized tests are biased towards white people, non-white people are more likely to be underserved, mistreated, or abused by law enforcement, non-white people are more likely to suffer poverty, etc. These disadvantages, to a large degree, are the direct result of racist laws and culture that existed a few generations ago, so even if you think that society is no longer racist (it is) you cannot deny that the effects of racism from a few generations ago is still being felt. The policies you're talking about in your post are meant to, in one small particular way, compensate for the huge disadvantages that non-white people are faced with during their entire journey to university. You cannot ignore the disadvantages faced by others which have given you a great benefit up until now, and then point out the very few instances where you lack a particular advantage and call that unfair.

> If you don't do good in school, it's either because your capacity to learn in that certain subject or in general is lower than other people (say being bad at math or English) or you just didn't try hard enough. This just isn't true. Some parents don't stress education as much. Some parents don't provide a good structure that allows their kids to value education and learn. Some parents can't be there to help their kid with math homework. A 9 year old can't be expected to be mature enough to understand how important an education is. That kid basically does what his/her parents tell them. And if education isn't valued or if the parents are absent, it makes it much more difficult for that child to succeed (not impossible, of course, but much more difficult.) > Maybe in the past affirmative action was necessary, due to racial bias. Nowadays it's completely useless and does nothing but inhibit asians and whites. So you're saying that racial bias no longer exists in modern society? Standardized tests favor rich, white and asian people. They are often better predictors of a student's race and wealth than their future success. So, in fact, the SAT is still a very biased test.

CMV: I believe any published lies should be illegal

I realize the OP is a bit vague, so let me clarify. Similar to false advertising, I believe that people who release lies (in a publishable, marketable format). This includes magazines, (information based) books, etc. Now, dont get me wrong. I fully agree with freedom of speech. But when the speech is being purposely distributed to the public to spread lies, my agreement tends to disappear. I'll just clarify a little bit more. if a book is saying something, claiming facts that are not true, (for the sake of argument) that the US faked the moonlanding but there is massive evidence against it, this book should not be allowed. same with "documentary" books that base arguments against fake studies etc. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

How can you reliably prove that something is a lie, and not a sincerely held, but factually inaccurate, belief? The only thing that differentiates them is really intent, which is a very hard thing to regulate. If someone cites disproven studies to make a claim that benefits them, how can you prove that this was the result of malice, and not simply ignorance? Giving the government the ability to regulate speech is dangerous, and should only be done when the speech causes direct harm, and I think most cases where speech does this would be covered by current defamation law. An independent commission that simply assesses works of non-fiction for factual accuracy and publishes a rating, or a review, on those grounds could be a useful thing, but it should not be something in a governments purview.

Honestly the difficulty in prosecution would be enough to make this an issue. Next is the question of who decides what is the "truth". Centuries of study were contradicted in an extremely short time by scientific advances, many of which were labeled as "lies" when they were first published. Is the inaccuracy due to intent or ignorance? How many inaccuracies would result in a book being banned? It would be too easy to circumvent, and prosecution would lend credence to the lies.

CMV: If a killer asteroid were headed to Earth, Humans would be able to stop it.

I say "killer asteroid" in the title for brevity, but I mean any celestial object (asteroid, comet, planetoid, etc) large enough to wipe out life on Earth. I have three basic reasons: 1. We know there are no planet-destroyers in the Asteroid Belt, which means anything that'd take out Earth would need to come from the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. Both of these are very far away, and would give us lots of warning, even if the object were presently on its impact trajectory orbit. More likely, we'd detect it multiple orbits in advance, and have decades or centuries before predicted impact. But I think we'll at least have multiple years. 2. Nuclear weapons would be pretty effective at deflecting an object. They are very energy dense, and [we can use a standoff detonation](http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/report2007.html) to cause ablation on one side of the comet/asteroid and nudge it. We only need a very slight nudge to push it off of an Earthbound trajectory when it is far away. 3. If an impact were imminent, humanity would throw all feasible resources into stopping it. A lot of the things which make present space travel difficult would be overcome fast. We would allow launches which have a high chance of spreading radioactive debris onto Earth for instance, or which have a high chance of loss of human life. We might even send astronauts on a suicide mission. Of course, money would be no object for this, and massive logistical resources would be poured into anything with a chance of saving us. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

>If an impact were imminent, humanity would throw all feasible resources into stopping it. A lot of the things which make present space travel difficult would be overcome fast. Right now we don't have a rocket capable of putting a large bomb on Earth escape trajectory. Throwing money at NASA won't get us an SLS instantly. Rockets take a long time to build and need lots of testing before actually flying. I am not saying it is impossible or that we wouldn't be able to get a rocket ready to launch in time but as of now it is a real possibility. It is also important to note that the longer we wait the larger payload we would need to divert the asteroid. Even if it is several years out, every month we wait would increase the size of the payload. Also, as the asteroid got closer it wouldn't be any easier to rendezvous with. Unless we were going for a high speed impact we would still need massive amounts of delta-v (enough to escape Earth's SOI and make the needed plane change maneuvers). So I hope we could do it but if we had a 5 year warning right now we would be in a very precarious position. Remember it could take several years to rendezvous with the asteroid even with an SLS block 2 payload. If we put another couple year delay on that the size of asteroid we could deflect would be smaller than you may expect. Of course all the numbers depend on the size of the asteroid and amount of warning we have but we could easily get into a situation right now where we could not deflect an asteroid in time. I would love to see an ask science post where someone with more knowledge could crunch some numbers and find out how big of payload would be necessary for an example asteroid.

>We know there are no planet-destroyers in the Asteroid Belt, which means anything that'd take out Earth would need to come from the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. Both of these are very far away, and would give us lots of warning, even if the object were presently on its impact trajectory orbit. More likely, we'd detect it multiple orbits in advance, and have decades or centuries before predicted impact. But I think we'll at least have multiple years. We don't have telescopes pointing in every single direction. The solar system is really big. Chances are, nobody is looking there. >Nuclear weapons would be pretty effective at deflecting an object. They are very energy dense, and we can use a standoff detonation to cause ablation on one side of the comet/asteroid and nudge it. We only need a very slight nudge to push it off of an Earthbound trajectory when it is far away. Without knowing for sure what the composition of the asteroid is, how can we be sure we will just nudge it and not cause it to shatter, making us have to deal with tons of small asteroids instead? >If an impact were imminent, humanity would throw all feasible resources into stopping it. A lot of the things which make present space travel difficult would be overcome fast. We would allow launches which have a high chance of spreading radioactive debris onto Earth for instance, or which have a high chance of loss of human life. We might even send astronauts on a suicide mission. Of course, money would be no object for this, and massive logistical resources would be poured into anything with a chance of saving us. That is assuming people won't just deem it off as a plot to make money for NASA, or a hoax for unknown reasons like they do with climate change. But even so, there may not be enough time to develop all the technologies necessary and to build the ship. You would need simulations and testing, to make sure the thing doesn't just shatter or get nudged too little. All these things take time.

CMV: If college education was free, the value of a degree would decrease.

One main argument I've seen against the Bernie Sanders "free college tuition" idea is that if everyone has a college degree, the value of a degree goes down. Is this true? In countries like Germany and Denmark, only the best of students make it into higher education, whereas in American, our standards to get into a university or a community college are laughable. Would we need to raise the bar on admission requirements if college was free? The main argument here is that making college education free in our system would end up hurting the overachieving students.

If someone has a Harvard degree, do you think, "gee, this person is good enough to get accepted to Harvard, and has one of the best educations in the country," OR "wow, this person could afford to get into Harvard, they should work for me." Pretty sure it's the former, not the latter. Harvard may be expensive, but it's *also* hard to get into. I probably paid just as much in tuition as a Harvard grad, but my school was no Ivy League. We definitely view degrees based on the prestige of the school, not the expense. Schools are often expensive because they are prestigious, not the other way around. If Harvard were free, it would still be viewed favorably by an employer. Plus, I've read that Harvard and other Ivys make so much money in endowment that they could afford to pay for everyone's tuition as it is; so it's probable that the quality of an Ivy education wouldn't even go down if it were free. Don't know if this can be said about other colleges, though.

>One main argument I've seen against the Bernie Sanders "free college tuition" idea is that if everyone has a college degree, the value of a degree goes down. And in a free high school system, the value of everyone getting a high school diploma goes down. But it still matters quite a bit to those without one, and society as a whole still benefits because education doesn't exclusively serve to discriminate between potential employees. >In countries like Germany and Denmark, only the best of students make it into higher education, whereas in American, our standards to get into a university or a community college are laughable. Then free tuition isn't the issue, all tuition changes is whether the rich benefit from this. >The main argument here is that making college education free in our system would end up hurting the overachieving students. "Overachieving" students already show it by mechanisms other than simply getting out of university with a diploma. Getting an undergrad degree from Harvard isn't that hard compared to other schools.

CMV: People's weight is none of your goddamn business.

Generally speaking, you have two sides on the "Fat Debate": the fat acceptance movement (Healthy At Every Size, etc.) and the fat shamers (who cajole fat people into losing weight, with either benign or malicious intentions. First of all, I don't buy HAES. I believe that anyone of any size can be *healthier* at that size. If I start jogging once a week, I probably won't lose weight, but I'll be a teeny-tiny bit healthier and that's good. Secondly, BMI is an overall population indicator. There are of course given people who are overweight who are healthier than given people who are within normal range. Same goes for given people who are underweight vs people in normal range. However, I would state that *in general*, the further you slide on the scale from 22.5 in either direction, the further you're getting from optimal. However, wherever people lie on that scale - underweight -> optimal -> fat is none of your fucking business whatsoever. You are not a stakeholder in a stranger's health and people would do well to keep their mouths shut about other people's appearance. If you *are* stakeholder in their health (and this is exclusively limited to loved ones and the person's healthcare practitioners) then maybe you get to say something. *Maybe*. The best analogy for this is smoking. I smoke and am slightly overweight (~10lb) and it is certainly the smoking that is more detrimental to my health than the few extra pounds. I *know* that smoking is bad for me - I'm not an idiot. I view the HAES as a bit like "Healthy No Matter How Much You Smoke". It's not true, it may even be damaging. On the other hand, encouraging hardened smokers to run around despite being smokers ain't a bad thing. Attack the campaign, if you must, but leave the people alone. It does not matter how many people tell me that smoking is bad for me. Their statements are uninvited, irritating and will do precisely nothing to change my habits. They may even reinforce them. It is *none* of their business if I smoke. You know when you're eating pizza and you have that one vegan health nut friend who tells you about how pepperoni is full of carcinogens and dairy will cause all kinds of damage to you? That, **at best** is what fat shamers come off like. I'm not saying there shouldn't be public health campaigns (much like we have anti-smoking campaigns), just that YOU PERSONALLY should never say a damn thing about a stranger's weight, EVER. *EDIT: Good discussion, guys. I'm going on a delta spree now, because as /u/ThereOnceWasAMan put it: "OPs view is that "others' weight is none of your business", not "you shouldn't shame people for being overweight". They are annoyingly correct in that that is how I *should* have phrased it. *EDIT 2*: Work has come up and I have to run off for the evening. I'll come back to this to give ∆s to the deserving. Sorry for the delay! Don't bully fat people, kids. It helps no one. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

If people on your health insurance plan are overweight, you'll have to pay higher premiums to cover their inevitable medical care. If people in your society are overweight, you'll have to contribute more money and effort to cover the cost of their choices. That's the fundamental argument behind why anyone else's concerns are your business. You can apply it to obesity, gun control, taxes, drug use or pretty much any other issue. As for whether this is a good argument or not, you can argue it both ways. Political philosophers from Aristotle to Plato to Hobbes have debated this point for centuries.

Define stakeholder. Because here I agree with you. If your health has no impact on me, then it is none of my business. However your health DOES impact me financially. In any western country you are going to consume publicly subsidized healthcare services (the US is an odd duck but odds are you are either receiving medicare, medicaid, subsidized obamacare premiums, or health insurance through an employer which is receiving tax credits / driving up coworker's premiums). That means you being fat costs me money. In fact it costs huge amounts of money, which is being borrowed and which interest is accumulating on, to care for the fat people of our society. One of the catches that is never discussed in public healthcare debates is that as soon as I start paying for your unhealthy choices I become a stakeholder in your health, and I should then have a say.

CMV: there is no legal or moral argument against allowing incestuous marriage that hasn't been thrown away in pursuit of gay marriage.

To start: **I am *not* saying that homosexuality and incest are the same thing.** However, any arguments I would normally use against allowing incestuous marriage have been declared void. For example, you can't simply say it's disgusting, because a lot of people find homosexuality disgusting, and society has decided that people's rights shouldn't be inhibited by the disgust of others. Incestuous couples are more likely to have deformed children, but marriage is not about reproduction. Maybe there's some psychological affliction behind it, but homosexuality used to be classified as a disorder as well, but psychologists realized the error of their ways as it became socially acceptable. Of course, any religious objections are right out. So with the last defenses against gay marriage dismantled, I'm left without any good reason why siblings should marry each other. CMV Edit 1: Added emphasis. Edit 2: Stepping away for a bit. I'll be back in a few hours. (8:45pm, GMT) Edit 3: Deltas awarded to: /u/SquirrelPower for pointing out that there is a legal difference between types of classes. /u/the-friendzoner made a similar argument, that the sexual attraction of incest is different than an orientation. I don't consider these sufficient reasons to continue the ban, but they are distinct from the reasons given for banning homosexuality, so they fulfill the terms of my post. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

This whole situation is comparing apples with camels. Can a person attracted to their sibling be only attract to their sibling? I mean, to really allow this, we'd have to distinguish fetish from sexual orientation. Can they have a relationship with anyone else, if they are of the gender the person is attracted to? A gay man could potentially marry any other gay man, right? The pool of choice is large and diverse. Whereas, the person who is attracted to their sibling can only marry those one or two people. Gay marriage denial was a form of persecution due to sexual orientation, I think incest is more of a lifestyle application, maybe even one that might be impacted by life experiences: not having met any other X and having relationships with those individuals. If it is only due to proximity and lack of exposure, then it's not really a rights violation. It would also indicate that they didn't really have a choice in the matter because they were subjected to a limited population with whom to form relationships. That's the argument I've been using for a long time.

> marriage is not about reproduction. This is true, and I'll grant that a key component of the recent ruling was that marriage cannot be distinguished based on a couple's ability to have, or preference for, children. So, in that sense, I understand why you want to dismiss that factor altogether. However, there's a substantial line between a homosexual couple and an incestuous heterosexual one: the former can have sex or not have sex, but no matter what, their sexual lives will not impact the lives of anyone else; the latter, however, will result in a significantly higher chance of producing a child with a lower quality-of-life. True, marriage does not equal procreation, but by sanctioning that relationship, the government would be supporting a relationship that may negatively impact the lives of their future offspring. I imagine a common argument to this might be that we allow marriage for individuals who knowingly have a higher genetic chance of passing on an abnormal trait, but we cannot simply disallow marriage entirely for one person. Similarly, it's wrong to ban marriage of an entire sexual orientation. People have the right to fall in love and get married. However, that is not the same as banning the marriage of an incestuous couple, as those individuals can still fall in love within their desired orientation, outside of the family, and get married in a relationship that will statistically produce healthier children.

CMV: I don't think it's worth discussing politics in public.

I've been trying to figure out where I fall on this, but I don't think it's worth potentially ruining a relationship with another person (a friendly relationship or other) by discussing your political views in person or online. I live in the South, and recently there have been a lot of stuff going on with the Confederate Flag being taken down everywhere and the recent gay rights ruling by the Supreme Court. I think these are both great things, but the majority of my peers on Facebook/Twitter are aggressively against it gay rights and the fact that the Confederate Flag is now in the spotlight and being frowned upon. A part of me wants to speak my mind about it and tell them how I feel to reason with them a bit, but the other part of me thinks its a bad idea. Being vocal about my views could potentially cut off half of all people from even giving me the chance of meeting them and potentially being friends with them just because of my political views. I know a lot of people I consider friends that have political views that I don't agree with at all, and I don't know if letting everyone know how I feel about these situations is worth ruining that. I have also heard quotes about how doing/saying nothing is worse than being against it, and that during the civil rights movement most people were silent which was definitely a bad thing, but I'm not sure if it's worth speaking up. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

The short answer: Be selective about who you talk with about controversial topics. Some of your closer friends are probably already aware that you don't share their political views. So choose the ones among them who you think you could have a conversation with and roll with it. If you're sure you do want to discuss it it's a good idea to lay the groundwork and then talk about it in person. I've seen many facebook conversations that get very heated and completely unreasonable when controversial topics are discussed. Discussing it in person gets ideas across very well because tone and body language can be used to guide the direction of the conversation, which is often impossible on facebook.

Just find the right people to discuss these things with. I know exactly who I can talk to about political issues and who not to. It's not worth it for me to bring up what I think about Reaganomics to everyone I'm friends with because I know that may not go over well in the long run. Also, consider that discussion about politics can harbor new thoughts and change people's minds on how they see the world, either for better or for worse. What's wrong with stimulating the mind a little bit? Again, there's nothing wrong with other discussion topics but politics doesn't have to be taboo with everyone. I would also suggest, don't start talking about your radical stance on the eugenics of the human species by immediately aborting genetically deficient babies with people that you only just recently met (assuming abortion is your topic of choice when discussing politics) because I'm sure the general population doesn't sit well with that idea and/or have never even entertained that idea before.

CMV: As a feminist I'm really bothered how male-to-female trans-people portray what it means to be female

I feel like they're acting and it often feels very campy. I don't like how they say "well my brain is more feminine", like excuse me that's something that women have been trying to get away from for 1000 years. Why did Caitlyn Jenner feel the best way to become a woman was to get all trussed up in a corset on the cover of vanity fair? Why are so many m2f trans people so into makeup and fashion?! If that's what being a woman is to you then why not stick to drag? In conclusion, an article that lines up with my views. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/what-makes-a-woman.html

I get where you're coming from. I used to think similarly to you, but after I befriended some trans people, and other people in my life became comfortable enough to come out, I learned more. While some hyper-feminine trans women and hyper-masculine trans men are genuinely just someone who naturally acts like the gender stereotype, a good amount of people who are trans feel a need to overcompensate. I also know some trans people who don't feel the need to preform gender roles, but feel pushed to do so too by people around them or society in general. For example I know a trans woman, but she still doesn't feel like dresses or skirts are really her thing, nor does it bother her to have a bit of stubble, or hairy legs. She'll get comments along the line of 'she's not really trans,' or 'if she actually wanted to be a woman, she'd do x and y'. So non-gender-conforming trans people exist, but they're not really in the spot light. It's understandable, because we cis people do seem to have even more trouble wrapping our heads around why someone would feel like a man but still want to wear skirts, especially when we're still learning to accept the fact that some people we think of as women are actually men, and vice versa.

As a trans woman (and more importantly as a trans person in general), we are often backed into corners by society: you think that trans women portray themselves as too feminine with dresses and makeup and etc., yet if a trans woman would be seen with hairy legs or facial hair shadow, with no makeup and a short haircut, others might say that she isn't "trans enough" or a "real woman" because she doesn't conform to these gender roles/expressions or even that she "looks like a guy." We're judged by somebody either way, and I think most of us would rather lean toward the direction of gender expression that allowed us to be more often read as our true gender because we've been misgendered all our lives. Edit: I want to add another point. Why don't cis women get this sort of backlash? Cis women are all over magazines in all sorts of over-the-top feminine outfits and expressions. Why is one trans woman who looks nice and is all done up on the cover of *vanity fair* the enemy of feminists? And a final point about the language used in the title, trans women aren't *portraying what it means to be female*. They *are* female. They are just being themselves. As any cis woman is.

CMV:English should not be the international language

I think English should not be the international language for these reasons: It's proven that is really hard to understand how to pronounce some words here /u/BrotherChe makes a really good point in another thread I saw. http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/3aj3vc/udefstones123_realizes_what_grower_not_a_shower/csdbnl5. Other languages such as Spanish the pronunciation of a word is pretty straight forward. I understand that the conjugation is the only tough part and the whole gender thing might be confusing at first (not that crazy if it ends on an a it's female, except agua which can be both, the only tough part is if it end on an e). Also English is not even the most spoken language in the world where Mandarin is first followed by Spanish. English is rising only because it's commonly being taught as a second language, if you change the language it will also rise. Also the whole small scale system that English has does not even make sense like why a billion is a thousand of a million where in long scale it's a million of a million. I know this seems biased like I am arguing that Spanish should be the international language and it's my native language, but it makes more sense if it were. I didn't defend Mandarin because I've always had the impression of it being one of the hardest language to master. If it's otherwise I apologize and anyone who speaks other languages are welcome to support why your language should be the international language. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

There is a plethora of synthetic languages all better designed for both concrete communication, ease of learning and consistency than English. Or any other natural language for that matter. When calculating the "value" of an international language you also have to factor in the ability to force a better language on the people. But just to demonstrate how hard that is, consider computer languages. The most common language used today for programming frontends on the web is Javascript, almost universally agreed to be "a pretty meh language at best". Yet it is still dominating its landscape due to historical circumstances. basically meaning the drawbacks of using it do not supersede the benefits of the alternatives. Same applies to natural languages. The "value" of introducing a better language (be it some other natural language or esperanto or whatnot) just doesn't cover the cost(not monetary) of: 1. teaching a huge amount of people 2. getting said people to consent with your wild idea of teaching a new language 3. translating the huge amount of material already written in english and other main languages

The problem with spanish is that it doesn't have an economic powerhouse to support it. People are learning English because they want to do business with nations like the USA, and it is this economic motive that will continue to be the driving force behind any language becoming the international standard. As English is an official language of two of the BRICS countries (India and South Africa), I don't see Spanish closing the gap anytime soon. Keep in mind, we don't get to pick what "should" be the international language. It happens on its own.

CMV: The United States lost World War II

I believe that, at the end of the day, America (and to a lesser extent, the UK and USSR) ultimately lost the second World War in every way that matters. I am not disputing the fact that the United States achieved its principal military/political goals (defeat of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire), and I of course recognize the fact that the US managed to do so with virtually no civilian casualties/ destruction of the homeland, which is especially impressive given the sheer scale of civilian destruction seen in World War II. What I am arguing is that, having 'won' (as much as it is possible to win) the war, the United States promptly lost its soul, and has ended up in a worse position than Germany or Japan. The reason (I claim) that this is true is because, even before the last Germans had surrendered and the war in Europe ended, the Cold War had already begun. The United States quickly exchanged one enemy (Nazi Germany) for another enemy (The Soviet Union). From 1945 to 1990-ish, combating the Soviet Union and the spread of communism was perhaps the centerpiece of American foreign policy, and led the United States into a variety of fights where we otherwise had no business (such as Vietnam), and ultimately begat a lot of hatred for the United States, leading to many of the foreign policy difficulties America now faces (particularly anti-US terrorism). The Truman Doctrine and containment strategy eventually gave way to a neoconservative 'Pax Americana' ideal, that the United States is some kind of global police force tasked with maintaining order. I think it is clear from Iraq that US military presence generally does not breed goodwill, and therefore the United States (in trying to maintain global power) has led itself into something of a downward spiral. In trying to eliminate one enemy (for example, Iran), we adopt what may seem like a reasonable strategy (arming their enemies, the Iraqis), which eventually backfires and requires later invention (the Gulf War and Iraq war), which itself leads to further issues (like the emergence of ISIS), and on and on and on. It's a cycle that only leads to cartoonishly large military budgets and American blood spilled in conflicts where we don't belong. In short, hegemony has not been kind to the United States, and we would be better off if we weren't a world power. Contrast this with the Japanese and Germans, who are (arguably) doing rather well for themselves. Sure, each country was broken and defeated at the end of the war, and it took a very long time for them to recover, but they came out better. I say they came out better because neither the Japanese nor Germany have the 'obligation' to police the world. In fact, both countries forbid themselves from taking offensive military action. While these countries can be (and often are) considered 'western', and are sometimes the target of anti-western hate, they are not widely hated like the United States, and are not tasked with maintaining ridiculous global military presence. Rather (and forgive me for oversimplifying), Germany can focus on Germany and Japan can focus on Japan. One need not look long to find a wealth of statistics to indicate that these two nations have far superior social safety nets, education, healthcare, etc. than the United States. While this superiority can, of course, be attributed to a wide variety of factors, I believe that one cannot ignore the important fact that these nations have their priorities straight, having suffered the shame of defeat, having gone through the experience of rebuilding and being free of any expectation of global military prowess. What really solidifies this belief for me is the existence of universal health care in most of western Europe. I apologize that I don't have the source, but if I remember correctly, I remember watching an interview with a worker in the UK's NHS, who attributed the success of socialized medicine in Europe (versus the US) to the fact that Europe had to rebuild after World War II. Effectively, when you have to start from scratch and pick your life up from the rubble, there's a greater sense of common bond with the rest of your nation. The US, having not been hurt in the war in the same way, never had to rebuild and instead developed a more violently individualistic character, where the idea of potentially paying for someone else's health care is utterly repulsive. Americans, by virtue of having won World War II without civilian casualty, has ended up with a far worse society than those who 'lost'. If that's the case, aren't we the real losers? Sorry if this post got long. Please, CMV! _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. 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Interesting take. But the US benefited greatly from being the one of the few powers of the world who didn't have to rebuild their country after WW2. This placed us in a great advantage in the years after the war. Not to mention that WW2 helped get us out of the Great Depression. And it also helped to cement our alliances with Europe and Japan.

This is an interesting point of view, and I think it does have some merit. However, to apply your reasoning even further back, it's like saying that Germany actually won World War I because the conclusion of World War I led to the Treaty of Versailles, which through a long change of events, led to Nazi Germany, which started World War II, which, following the reasoning of your OP, ultimately led to Germany coming out ahead of the US in 2015. Perhaps you can reconcile the US achieving its principal military/political goals and Germany/Japan coming out ahead of the US in 2015 by calling it a Pyrrhic victory. But it would still be that, a victory.

CMV: within the next few decades, AI will replace a sizable portion of our jobs. Within a few centuries, they'll replace almost all of them

It's already been happening with factory workers, online shopping, etc., and with self-driving cars on the horizon and computing technology getting better and better, the long-term job security for many professions is shaky at best. This surge in unemployment may even cause a great economic crisis. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU) explains the situation quite well. BONUS: With many humans out of jobs, I've heard talks of unconditional basic income eventually being required. Indeed, the idea that everyone should have a job may become more arbitrary as time goes on as fewer people are able to contribute to the economy. Robots will simply do everything better, making humans far less useful and needed. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

I've seen this video (love CGP), and I feel yes and no. Point A) *within the next few decades, AI will replace a sizable portion of our jobs.* Yes. This much is clear, and it's hilarious because, as genetic modification makes our food more vulnerable to disease, by creating specialization in our economy we have set ourselves up for this. No arguments there. Point B) *Within a few centuries, they'll replace almost all of them.* Here I disagree. We're going to go through a real rough patch, perhaps even causing a weird Great Depression style collapse, but 200 years ago, 90 percent of Americans were agriculturalists. Today, that number is two percent. We evolved, and if you remember the dust bowl struggles when industrial farming came about, you'll remember that was a struggle too. We'll remodel our society, as we have for the past forever, to fit needs that, in theory, robots cannot fill, including: 1. **Space exploration and colonization.** Yes, robots have been and are doing an amazing job exploring space for us already, but the value of having a human on another planet, or out in space exploring, is uncountable. AI would help us be able to focus more on the expansion of our species into space. 2. **Entertainment** My biggest disagreement with the CGP video is how he frames the idea of entertainers being replaced by AI. Sure, they can write beautiful music, but how much is recorded music going for right now, anyway? And people enjoy watching PEOPLE perform. There's nothing particularly beautiful about an arabesque, but what's beautiful is watching a person do it. Same with acting, singing, sports, etc. 3. **Engineering**: This one seems pretty simple. It'll be a long time (in theory) before we can automate robots that can out engineer us. 4. **Cyber Protection** This is the biggest one. If all of our medical information is on a universal collection of robot interfaces, we will need basically an endless army of humans to help defend this from hackers. The more AI we have, the more we need to protect it. People who would be able to take control of that AI would control the world. There's a lot more, and it's going to be a hard road, but at the end of it, our society will evolve so that our jobs will be more fulfilling and human-necessary. Just as you don't weep for the Iceman, the Lamplighter, and the Switchboard Operator, know that no one will be weeping for the barista, the paralegal, or taxi driver.

You are to a certain extent conflating automation (ability of a machine to do relatively simple, repetitive tasks) and AI. The implications of AI depend strongly on the abilities of that AI, which could be roughly classified like this: 1. Narrow AI. Can do specific tasks that are not purely automated, but still relatively low-level. 2. Analytical AI. Can effectively analyze (in a high-level way) problems with objective solutions. For example, this AI could determine the best treatment for a patient given information on research and the patient's symptoms and test results. 3. Innovative AI. Can come up with truly new ideas and create truly novel things on its own. For example, this AI could come up with the idea for a new product and design it. 4. Total AI. Can do literally everything the human mind can do, including things like creating art. AI of types 1 and 2 essentially increase productivity, but humans remain generally necessary to design new things. Although it will displace many types of jobs, society with type 2 AI will still have a very broad need for humans to work. Type 3 AI will start closing the loop and therefore cutting humans out of the loop in a more complete way. At that point, the need for humans will be limited to things like the arts. The question, then, is how far are we away from type 3 AI? We are increasingly developing type 2 AI, but we are conceptually very far away from type 3 AI. Far enough away that major conceptual leaps will be required to get us there, and it is hard to predict how long it will take us to make those leaps. It may occur in our lifetimes, it may not.

CMV: Women being underrepresented is not a real problem.

Hi. Whenever I read about people trying to - increase the number of women in science or engineering - increase the number of women in politics - increase the number of women in positions of power - increase the number of women that are firefighters or police I can't help feeling that it is a rather useless cause. I have no problem at all with there being less women than men in any place. What I would (and do) have a problem with is women having it more difficult than men to enter certain professions. That is the real problem we should, as a society, try to solve. The current approach is "forcing" the proportion of women to increase, by means of: - gender-specific student grants, - positions reserved for women, - lower physical requirements, - etc. As I see it this kind of solutions are problematic in two ways: - They involve so-called "positive discrimination", which leads to cases where a candidate gets ahead of a fitter one only because the former is a woman. This is absurd and can increase animosity in the male coworkers. Admittedly, that would be wrong on their part, but it still can create an hostile work environment. - They don't solve the real issue, which is the discrimination that would have stopped the women from getting the job. They may be able to overcome it thanks to external help, but even if we have solved the symptoms the problem is still there. The only benefits I see is that "artificially" increasing the number of women in certain places may make the presence of women in said place appear less "unusual" to society, thereby decreasing the discrimination, but I still think they do more harm than good. Reddit, change my view! PD: English is not my first language, so I apologize for any awkwardly phrased sentence I may have written, and welcome any correction. EDIT: In only a few hours there have been a lot of great answers that have confirmed my feeling that this was a more nuanced issue that I could even imagine. My view has been changed in that I had underestimated the benefits of this kind of measures. In particular I now see that: - Artificially increasing the number of women in certain fields makes said fields much less "threatening" to other women. - Makes male coworkers appreciate the capabilities of women, decreasing further discrimination. - Improves the selection process by eliminating male-favoring biases. Whenever a man less prepared than a woman would have got the position by conscious or unconscious biases a well-prepared woman will get it. I remain unconvinced that physical tests should have easier versions for women. Most people seemed to agree with me on this, though. I have realized, however, that jobs that at first seem to be mainly physical (police, firefighters, ...) would also benefit from having more women. Some of my favourite answers, where you can find studies supporting all of this, are: /u/Yxoque: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3bqwex/cmv_women_being_underrepresented_is_not_a_real/csompka /u/waldrop02: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3bqwex/cmv_women_being_underrepresented_is_not_a_real/csosztz /u/clairebones: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3bqwex/cmv_women_being_underrepresented_is_not_a_real/csorp8q /u/yes_thats_right: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3bqwex/cmv_women_being_underrepresented_is_not_a_real/csoy213 _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

> I can't help feeling that it is a rather useless cause. I don't think it is. Every field that is dominantly one gender over another is going to miss out on talented people with novel insights. We shouldn't miss out on a qualified nurse because some bloke was told it wasn't a manly profession. Neither should we miss out on a qualified scientists because some girl was told science was for boys. Unless you have a good argument as for why certain genders are almost universally better at certain professions any sort of gender imbalance is going to cause society missing out on qualified people in the right place. And I think the police force is a special case, in this regard. I've seen firsthand how some people react to both male and female police officers and having a good gender balance is going to help civilians a lot. A lot of people are more comfortable discussing certain things with people from their own gender. Children will gravitate towards female police officers (and yes, this is also due to harmful gender roles in society, but we need a police that functions in the society we live in, not in the society we'd like to live in). > They involve so-called "positive discrimination", which leads to cases where a candidate gets ahead of a fitter one only because the former is a woman. People often say this when talking about this, but I don't think this is completely true. We know from several studies that when applying for, well, anything, people are discriminated against based on their gender, skin color, sexuality, etc. Even if the resumes are completely identical, this still happens. So if a woman wants to enter a male dominated field, there's a good chance she's going to have to be **more** qualified than a man. Positive discrimination is intended to get (in this case) women accepted when they are "merely" equally qualified. > They don't solve the real issue, which is the discrimination that would have stopped the women from getting the job. They may be able to overcome it thanks to external help, but even if we have solved the symptoms the problem is still there. And as soon as we have good, viable way to stop the discrimination from happening at all, we should implement that. Unfortunately, we don't have one and we'll have to make do with measures we can actually implement.

One of the ways to combat the underlying problem is to ensure those who can combat it are in the right places. That means, in this case, creating a countervailing bias to fix the original one. People have biases about how well women can do a job? Putting women in those jobs will convince them they are wrong. Women are less willing to enter a field because it is male dominated? Temporary positive discrimination will fix them problem.

CMV: Instead of focusing on making self driving & eco friendly cars, we should focus on improving and expanding public transportation.

It is my belief that self driving cars and cars that pollute lesser than their gas powered counterparts are an unnecessary diversion in creating a safe cleaner people transportation system. We already have it! It’s the trains! If public transport such as railways are expanded and given priority over road vehicles in infrastructure, then we can achieve the goals that the automotive industry is trying to achieve very quickly. We should divert the resources that we spend on making smarter cars (finances and human capital) to making smarter, faster, safer, public transport and expand the rail network. If we just expand the rail network then people will automatically shift from driving a car to riding on a train as their preferred choice of daily commute. Some of the points I have against road transport for individuals. • Environmental impact- A vast majority of cars are running on fuels that emit pollutants in the environment. • Safety- Road injury was one of the top 10 causes of death in the world. According to WHO, road injury took lives of 1.3 Million people in the last decade. • Stress– While driving for enjoyment is really fun on your off days, daily commute hardly is. We are spending a nice chunk of our day that we can spend relaxing, reading or working to complete the last minute project on a rather stressful, and repetitive driving route facing traffic jams and asshole drivers. • Energy efficiency – A car owner takes a Ton of metal with him just to get from point A to B. Fuel efficiency of trains is superior to that of cars. • Maintenance – a car requires frequent upkeep and maintenance of its parts and components. • Economy – Transportation is lot more expensive in cars. Here are some points that I have for expansion of public transport. • Bonus free time – When I’m in a train I can browse my phone, read a news paper work on my presentation without the fear of killing someone. This is something driverless cars are trying to achieve and are still years away from it. • Potty Breaks – trains can be modified to have them, cars don’t. I’d have to pause my driving, find a gas station and then resume it again, why do that when you can go on the go. • Fuel Efficiency. • Noise reduction. • Skill Transfer- People who graduate in engineering and were thinking of joining an automotive manufacturer can just as easily join a locomotive manufacturer. I am not arguing for an absolute ban on using cars, I just think if we focus on public transport more than we would solve a lot of problems that automotive market is trying to eliminate. Problems such as energy efficiency, pollution, and vehicle automation can be achieved with technology that we have **today.** _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

I will be addressing this situation in the US, where public transit is generally not highly regarded and there is vast infrastructure for personal vehicles. I will also try to avoid cultural biases. I agree with your sentiment, However I don't view the two as alternatives to one another, nor is either one a complete solution to all transportation problems. most major US cities would benefit from better and cleaner public transportation. This is held back in large part by the fact that the US is heavily invested in the massive personal transport infrastructure it already has, and attempts to reform the entire system could be very disruptive to public life. There are also inherent limitations to public transportation. Traditional mass transit is not a good model for the widely-spaced, diffuse populations in a lot of the middle of the country. It is also an imperfect solution for people with disabilities: a member of my family is unable to drive due to visual impairment, and cannot walk very well due to partial paralysis in the leg. Even if suburban public transit provided a direct route from our town to where she works, it would be very difficult for her to make It to and from the station. A self driving vehicle could allow for a greater degree of mobility and autonomy for handicapped people.

One major point that I think you need to consider is personal preference. Like it or not, most people prefer the freedom to leave when exactly when they want, directly from their current location, and directly to their destination. These are things that public transportation requires compromises on, often quite significant compromises in the type of environment that most Americans live in. With that in mind, even if you were somehow able to fund and construct the *perfect* public transportation system, I don't think you'd get anywhere near 100% adoption by the public. I live in a fairly public transportation "friendly" city, by most standards, and while our system is far from perfect, it is fairly extensive. I find it personally more pleasant to take the bus when going downtown, rather than dealing with traffic. By the way, while we have a relatively good public transit system, we have a really poor infrastructure for driving. Everyone here complains about the traffic, and it's only continuing to get worse. I only point this out to say that my city is probably close to a best case scenario for giving people incentive to use public transit. However, most people here don't make that same calculation. Either the slight time loss waiting for the bus on both legs of a journey, or the time lost stopping to pick up passengers, or the inconvenience of buying tickets, or the loss of freedom, or something else causes most people around here to continue to drive. If a relatively good public transit system loses out in peoples minds to a relatively poor private vehicle system, then I don't think our time is best spent making a good public transit system marginally better. There's a parallel argument that might make this point better. A lot of people choose to drive large trucks or SUVs either because they use the hauling capacity for work or leisure, or honestly, sometimes just because they want to. Some environmental activists would prefer we oppose trucks at all costs, pushing everyone towards smaller and more efficient vehicles, even hybrids if we can. The problem with that is that we've had limited success so far. Trucks are still a hugely disproportionate part of the total auto sales in the US. With that in mind, is it still worth the effort and trouble to continue to fight against human nature and the incentives that push people into buying trucks, or is it better to limit the impact of the trucks that are going to be sold anyway? We've finally started to do the latter, with new trucks starting to come out with much more fuel efficient engines, lighter construction, and better aerodynamics. It's to the point that some full size trucks are talking about getting 30 mpg in the near future, which is better than my small hatchback. I see your argument as something similar. In ideal world, no one would buy a truck unless they actually truly *needed* it. In an ideal world, everyone would take advantage of a perfect public transit system should we provide one. In the real world, people just want what they want for a variety of complicated reasons. Ignoring that leads to solutions for ideal world problems which totally fail to do anything for real world problems.

CMV:The widespread belief of religion is a sign of human weakness

This is not meant as a disrespect to most organized religions, merely an observation i have come to. The widespread belief or following of most organized religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) is a sign of human weakness in a couple of ways. The need for an afterlife in most religions satisfies our general fears of death, and the impermanence and futility of our lives. The theory isn't backed by much scientific evidence as far as i know, so the reason to believe in an afterlife isn't that it makes more sense but that it makes life easier. A fear of death and impermanence so strong that one must believe in something that i would categorize as fairytale. This is what i would call a weakness. The need for moral guidance in life - to need guidance from religion to know the difference between right and wrong is also a sign of weakness in that it shows a lack of judgement and wisdom for one to decide for themselves what is right or wrong. Furthermore, the need of a consequence by eternal damnation as persuasion not to do "bad things", and the need of an incentive by eternal salvation to do good. Is a sign of weakness in that it shows that human-nature is bad, or barbaric in a sense. EDIT: Keep the comments coming guys - "i'll secede on that point - "moral guidance" is not evidence for human weakness. But a motivation to believe in a creator." > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

>The theory isn't backed by much scientific evidence as far as i know, so the reason to believe in an afterlife isn't that it makes more sense but that it makes life easier. A fear of death and impermanence so strong that one must believe in something that i would categorize as fairytale. This is what i would call a weakness. So things that make life easier make you weaker? That's incorrect. Humans have a limited attention span. Making things easier allows you to better focus on important tasks. >The need for moral guidance in life - to need guidance from religion to know the difference between right and wrong is also a sign of weakness in that it shows a lack of judgement and wisdom for one to decide for themselves what is right or wrong. So you're saying that learning how to behave from elders leads to you being weaker? That's also incorrect, humans are much more effective with teaching and aid from adults. >Furthermore, the need of a consequence by eternal damnation as persuasion not to do "bad things", and the need of an incentive by eternal salvation to do good. Is a sign of weakness in that it shows that human-nature is bad, or barbaric in a sense. So here you're saying artificially produced reward and punishment schemes are unhelpful and demonstrate barbaric behaviour? Also incorrect, humans are rational intelligent beings and it's fairly normal for them to create artificial incentive structures to aid proper behaviour, like golden stars for doing well at class, or setting artificial goals like having a bookshelf of a favorite author. None of your stated weaknesses are actual weaknesses. There are religious groups with genuine weaknesses like jehovah's witnesses who refuse to take blood transplants, or the Hindu practice of followers of the Vishnu Smriti burning widows, but vague non weaknesses don't mean much. If a weakness leads to physical harm then it's a bit more serious, but vague emotional ones mean little. There are many practices of religious people that humans in general do. Religious people speak. This isn't a sign of their weakness at nonverbal communication. Religious people exercise. This isn't a sign they are wasting calories. Religious people read. This isn't a sign of their lack of sociability. These are all common human traits that aren't weaknesses.

>The need for an afterlife >The need for moral guidance in life Doesn't the fact that not all humans 'need' these indicate that it isn't a 'human weakness' (if it is indeed a weakness)? Also, aren't coping mechanisms generally considered a strength, rather than a weakness? With the afterlife, for instance, the fear of death might be a sign of human weakness, but the ability to surmount that fear is a sign of strength and resourcefulness, isn't it?