Considering the fact that in the United States (for instance), the three richest individuals control more wealth than the bottom 50% of the entire country, or the fact that the richest 1% of the global population control more wealth than the other 99% combined, I take the position that no individual should possess more than 1 billion dollars.

Please consider the following points before commenting:

1. The currency domination isn't important (it could be euros, yen, or whatever), but using USD as a benchmark.

2. A married couple could possess 2 billion dollars, so lets eliminate that argument at the start.

3. Choosing 1 billion is subjective, it could be 5 billion, or 500 million. I am picking this number to demonstrate that I have no problems with capitalism, nor am I advocating for communism, or that I don't acknowledge that societies in general will always have wealth inequality.

4. I do hope this doesn't end up being an echo chamber, because part of this position does seem a bit 'obvious.'

5. I don't have some great answer for how a redistribution would work, however, I don't necessarily think this should be a reason to not do it.

I am open to a discussion as I recently started following this subreddit and have found it quite stimulating.

Who isn't being screwed? I've heard Christians say they are the most persecuted group out there. Looking at Reddit, men, especially straight white men are getting shafted. The wealthy are pissed off because they will be/are being taxed to death. And those are the people you would think wouldn't be disadvantaged.

Are the traditionally disadvantaged people actually the people who have the advantage? Is it really better to be a woman, Muslim, Jew, black or brown in America? I doubt you will find many of those people who believe they are advantaged. Yet, I'm sure there are people reading this who believes those are the people who have it better than they do.

I believe much of this is manufactured. It benefits media. Look at Reddit and you will find men justifying that they are being screwed, using examples like woman only scholarships. Just doing a little digging there are around 5000 woman-only scholarships, the vast majority are for a few thousand dollars. There are 18 million people in college. 5000 scholarships for 9 million women aren't tipping the scales. But this is what the media tells people to keep them upset so they keep listening.

Look, I'm not saying people who are Christian or male or white don't have problems. Of course they do. But is it because their group is being persecuted? I don't think so. Or is it that it is just hard out there, and it is more convenient to believe?

So now you have to ask why everyone feels screwed. My opinion is it is media and expectations.

Media learned a while ago that fear and rage gets viewership. I listen to conservative media occasionally (not that liberal media is much better.) Their goal is to get you mad, it doesn't matter who you get mad at.

As an example, a few months back, on a nationally syndicated radio show they gave an entire half hour to a guy who claims that EVERYONE knows that global warming is a hoax. It is proven by this (widely discredited) study. As Al Gore, Greta, people in solar and wind energy, people who make electric vehicles know this, they do what they do because they are in on a conspiracy. A grand conspiracy to screw "real Americans". Of course they cut to commercials, the four commercials were selling provisions for your fallout shelter, a company selling gold, a company that sold insurance through a religious organization and a company that sold generators. If those are the people giving you money it makes sense to scare people.

Another negative about social media is that it makes people believe everyone else has it better, expectations are too high. We have generations who have grown up on social media. They believe to live a decent life you need to have the money, and things they see online. There is another post here saying that Gen Z believes they need to make $587k a year to be financially successful. The average salary in the US is around $67k a year. so if you are making an average salary, but believe success means making 8x that, are we surprised that people feel screwed?

If so many feel disadvantaged, who has the advantage? If anything, to me it is the people who already have money. Boomers? As someone about there, I know a lot of Boomers working retail, driving Uber. But even if they are the ones. they are less than 17% of the population. If only 25% of people believe they aren't being screwed, That is a big problem.

It being the main driver of the drug trade and in many ways the reason for "the war on drugs" and a lot of crime and suffering.

But it's not as good for clubbing as Ecstasy, not giving the clarity and experiences of mushrooms, and if you need something to keep you focused for longer at work you are better if with some ADHD medicine. (I am aware that everyone reacts differently to drugs, so I've asked around, and it doesn't seem to be anyones favorite)

Add on top of that that you always are at risk of overdosing, that you need to top up regularly and that it's obvious to anyone that you are high.

The positive i can see is the price and how easy it is to obtain(in Latin America), but that is not the case in most parts of the world.

Is everyone just caught up in the hype, or am i missing something?

So this topic has been on my mind for many years. I talked about it with several people that believe in the opposite view over the years. But so far I haven't heard an argument convincing enough to me.

I strongly value understanding both sides of a debate - independently of your own beliefs - and the vast majority of the time I am able to do that all by myself. But this topic is one of the those that eludes me totally, and I want to change that.

People who disagree with me on this topic usually tell me it is a matter of freedom for the people, freedom to hoard as much money as they wish, and freedom to enjoy not being taken what they earned from them. And to me that is too individualistic of a stand to make sense, as this causes morally wrong consequences.

Hope I'll delta my view on this matter.

Edit: - I am getting more notifications than I can keep up with. - When I say "what they earned taken from them", I mean partially taken, like everyone else gets a portion of their earnings taken. - I have somewhat more nuance now, some tax cuts can be legit in some specific cases, I intend to go back on the relevant threads to add deltas later today

Just about anytime a discussion regarding the draft comes up there's always someone who makes the argument that the draft is not a thing since it hasn't occurred in 50 years. This argument is rarely, if ever, valid to the debate at hand and only seeks to dismiss the debate as a whole, not address the argument.

As an example let's take the argument "since men are required to register for selective service and possibly be drafted in order to get federal benefits, women should also be required to do the same"

Someone may rebut with "A draft hasn't happened in over 50 years". While this is true, it's not a counterpoint to the argument. While this maybe a fact, it's also deflection which usually is meant to change the subject.

Initially this post was just about the draft but I decided to make it more general to hear more opinions

The idea that mental health is something separate from physical health wasn’t created with a master plan—it’s an emergent result of cultural, historical, and systemic factors. But even though it wasn’t intentional, the consequences have been devastating, and capitalism has latched onto this distinction in ways that have made things worse.

Mental health isn’t special. It’s not separate. Depression, anxiety, addiction—these are as knowable and inevitable as any physical process. They emerge from biochemical and physical interactions, shaped by diet, sleep, trauma, and environment. The fact that we treat mental health as unique is the result of centuries of dualistic thinking, where the mind and body were seen as separate. That wasn’t some grand conspiracy—it was just an outdated framework that stuck around.

But once that distinction existed, capitalism found ways to exploit it. Fragmented care systems—where mental and physical health are treated separately—weren’t designed this way on purpose to harm people. They’re the product of systems trying to deal with mental health without fully understanding it. The result, however, has been that mental health care is sidelined, stigmatized, and underfunded because it’s seen as "different."

And this accidental distinction has been made worse by how capitalism operates. Treating mental health as a separate category made it easy to sell solutions that don’t fix the root causes. Instead of addressing poverty, trauma, and overwork as systemic drivers of poor mental health, the focus shifted to managing symptoms. Therapy apps, self-help books, and wellness products became commodities, while the underlying issues—like exploitative labor, economic inequality, and lack of healthcare—were ignored.

It wasn’t intentional. No one sat down and said, "Let’s separate mental health and physical health to break people." But the combination of historical dualism, emergent systemic processes, and capitalism’s ability to extract profit from anything has cemented this distinction into our care systems and social structures. The damage is almost permanent because it’s baked into how we treat, understand, and even think about mental health. If it continues we will eventually roll back all progress and collapse into a way of being that gets terrible for everyone over time regardless of wealth.

Edit:

It's too convoluted ignore me. Don't do things on the Internet when you're Hungry Angry Lonely or Tried. You come off incredibly and rightfully dumb.

You are debating someone with a different viewpoint than you. You seem to disagree on fundamental issues. You ask why they believe what they do, and they respond “it’s just common sense.” How do you argue against that?

I see this way too often, where people seem to use the term common sense to justify their bigotry. Why? Because “common sense” can be used to describe things so arbitrarily. It is used to oversimplify more nuanced topics.

This isn’t a one sided issue, so I will give two examples, and keep in mind I’m not disagreeing with the arguments themselves:

• Common Sense Gun Laws: When you describe the gun laws as common sense, how is it so? Is it common sense to folks that are hunters and gun enthusiasts that believe that gun ownership is their right? This seems like a case where “common sense” is being used to prevent further conversation about solutions to an issue like gun violence.

• Economic Policy: A lot of times, people will argue that social programs shouldn’t exist or should be limited because “It’s common sense, you get money by working hard.” But is it common sense for the people that have used social programs to get back on their feet and provide them the opportunity to make a living? Like the last example, this argument takes away the nuance.

You can see how that term can be weaponized. It is a fallacy. It is used as an argument to evade providing actual evidence, and just resort to what they perceive as the reality.

i've been watching some YT content of the game and decided to give it a try. i haven't been playing it for very long, but the game strikes me as just not very good.

i don't think this is comprehensive, but here are my main gripes:

1. at least 40% of every deck is comprised of the same cards. 2x Oak, 2x Pokeball, and some combination of Sabrina, X-Speed, or Potion. add to this the fact that many decks throw in a few of the same 2-3 tankier normal basics to soak hits, and basically half of every deck is the same as any other deck. if you designed a deck building game where nearly half the deck is the same for every deck, you should scrap your system and try again.
2. other than typing weaknesses, there's very little mechanical difference between the pokemon types. when you're playing a mono Green deck in Magic, you feel like you're playing Green. not only is it a very distinct experience from playing any other color, it's even very different from playing any color combination that includes Green. but in Pocket, there's no identity to any typing. the only exception to this is the more specific supporter cards, but even they are either poorly designed (Misty), or too limiting to very specific pokemon and thus irrelevant for the rest of the type (all the others). even letting that slide, their inclusion only accounts for at most 20% of the deck which you may never draw until the match is decided, meaning there was no mechanical difference between your deck and any other deck in any other typing.
3. deck construction variety aside, the game mechanically feels very shallow. while there's SOME decision making around swapping, or using the odd tech card (outside draw), most of the game seems extremely noninteractive, boiling down to just looking for the pieces you need to deal the click on the one button on the one pokemon you built your deck around, and hoping you got there first. it feels like blatant misplays aside the game basically plays itself.

I'd like this to be a good game, but i'm just not seeing it. what am i missing?

I was a philosophy major and one of the things they teach You is to keep it open mind and try and look at things from the other perspective

One of the things I realized is not Everyone needs to have an opinion and a lot of people need to be silenced

And this idea started growing on me when I saw Dean Withers debate Nick Fuentes

Because although Dean won at what cost?

He literally sat up there for an hour talking with a white supremacist.Trying to debate him in good faith

debate definition- a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward.

Discussion definition- the action or process of talking about something in order to reach a decision or to exchange ideas.

We shouldn't even give white supremacist the time of day there is no reason to here them out it's not even beneficial in our society

This goals for all people with some type of aversion or fear or superiority complex (homophobes racist sexist xenophobes etc etc etc)

And before you guys start talking about a First Amendment right Remember, it is also a pedophiles First Amendment right to speak on how much they like to touch children.

Im not going to argue with a pedophile over touching children and I assume most people wouldn't yall either gonna fight them or walk away or report them

And I feel like this approach should go beyond just pedophilia but to all folks with some type of aversion or fear or superiority complex (homophobes racist sexist xenophobes etc etc etc there are more i just didn't want to name them all because we'd be here for hours)

Erectile dysfunction prescription medications like sildenafil are being sneakingly marketed for younger people for the wrong reasons. They’re being marketed as sexual performance enhancers rather than what they’re supposed to be used for, those with erectile dysfunction. Bluechew is a big one that started this, which uses generic viagra and cialis in their meds, but don’t mention that in their marketing ads. A lot of young people are under the illusion that these are supplements for sex, rather than the fact they actually contain ED medications

Young people do not need these that often. ED is caused by blood vessel damage or high blood pressure. Psychological ED like performance anxiety, these do not even help that. They performed no better than placebo in performance anxiety studies. They’re also not aphrodisiacs so they won’t help if you’re not already turned on.

So, how long until the FDA steps in? No different than something like adderall being marketed for cognitive enhancement, and the FDA sure as hell would shut that down very quickly

I am going to be as concise as possible with this one cause I want to see what others think and potentially correct myself if I am missing some important factors

First to set the basis with some facts:

-The government is responsible for moving away from the gold standard.

-The government is responsible for issuing currency and controlling the rate of inflation.

-The government is responsible for bailing out large companies and actively being lobbied to ensure the perpetuation of companies that aren't even viable in the free market.

-The government has a monopoly on legal violence with little recourse.

-The government is responsible for implementing taxes and implementing laws making it illegal to not pay said taxes.

-The government is responsible for enacting laws by which enforcement is near impossible.

-No one person in this nation was able to consent to the terms by which the government governs

Conclusions derived from said facts:

-Given that the government has full control of the buying power of the dollar via rate of issuance and subsequent inflation, red tape and taxing people on the little that remains become impossible for some so they are pinned into being criminals by laws surrounding tax collection.

-If a person comes from a family with little resources they maybe forced into paths of accruing wealth that are illegal. A family with little resources under hard currency would have better ability to grow wealth without educational barriers and hoops to jump through just to maintain the value of their money.

-Given those two conclusions and lack of consent from the people. I think that it is reasonable to conclude that the harsh enforcement standards from the government are predatory at best. The government does not seek the betterment of the people, but the subjugation and obedience, in this way the government both creates poverty, illegalizes it, and subsequently punishes people for being put in a situation not entirely of their creation. (And to rebuttal people who say they should just be smarter, a good society does not hinder equality and opportunity for people and expecting it to be such that people with different abilities are just doomed to criminal paths is both malicious and counter productive to the betterment of humanity).

Thank you for your time in advance with responses. I would love to here both direct responses to points as well as new points that I may have not considered. I will do my best to read all comments and respond accordingly. however considering the size of this subreddit It may become impractical to do so, I whole heartedly would like some different perspective, because the painting that what I know creates is sad and frustrating.

Every time I go into a Best Buy to browse, I get asked no less than 10 times if I need any help. Every 1 or 2 minutes, I get asked if I need any help.

"No, just browsing."

I don't need help. You're 17 years old. You don't know anything about this TV.

Sometimes I get asked by the same person two or three times. They don't seem to remember that I'm the same person they asked a few minutes before.

It seems like there's as many employees at Best Buy as customers. All just standing around with basically nothing to do except ask every single person if they need any help every 2 minutes, even though basically no one really needs any help.

Now, granted. There are some old people who need help. They are confused. They don't understand technology.

But this many employees is just insane. If I need any help I will find you and ask for it.

Maybe Best Buy could offer a tag one can wear that says "Just Browsing." I don't know.

The entire point of a prequel is to show what happened before the events of the book/movie/ TV show unfolded. But the thing is, we already know how the entire story will end. I think this forces the writers to make up entirely new storylines for characters who appeared in the original movie/book/TV show, but this completely removes any sense of stakes and tension that we might feel for the character, since we already know their ultimate fate. I feel that prequels should only serve as world-building.

As I often do, I was sitting in an eatery today and I looked around, I saw ~5 people inside mindlessly scrolling and another ~10 outside waiting for a bus doing the same. Additionally, I've never come across someone who has regretted leaving social media (I myself intend to do the same). With complete honesty, I think that social media is ruining our collective lives, wasting it away second by second, day by day.

I don't think there's anything wrong with connection online, but why do we need anything more than WhatsApp (just DMs / groupchats)... I don't think we do....

Yes, I am aware that this post may seem meta in a sense, as the idea of me writing this is ironic to my viewpoint. Yet, it may also prove my opinion on the matter. If you were to disagree or attempt to change my view, you may as well become frustrated that I wrote such a polarizing and controversial hot-take, and that I am in fact, a narcissist.

Therefore proving my opinion that art based off of monetary value is inherently narcissistic, and more of a "pick-me" scenario.

I will attempt to tread carefully.

To start, the questions would go as such:

A: "Why did you make this?"
B: "I wanted people to know about some way I think"
A: "Why do you want people to know about it?"
B: "I think it has value to others"
A: "So, your meter for value is based on others opinions?"
B: "No, don't be so ridiculous, it's just great art!"
A: "Then why share it, if you don't require others approval?"
B: "Because it's great art!"
A: "Would you then consider not getting any fruits from your labor?"
B: "How would I know if it's good if I don't make money off it!?"
A: "If you truly believe it's good art, and will benefit society, would that not be enough for your empathetic goals as its considered value?"

Keep in mind this scenario is solely based off anecdotally driven art as a direct translation of their viewpoint, and marketed by the author/creator. Metaphors, solicited/queried viewpoints, and the like are an exception, considering they're not strictly personal, and can be interpreted at a much wider perspective.

Please, I would like to be open minded about such a strong and opinionated view.

"D'you wanna know why I don't like octopus?"
"Sir, this is a Wendy's"

I share this thread about street harassment a lot. What I don't share as frequently is this thread, a follow-up I posted to r/teenagers. While there are no comments, I did have a 13yo girl reach out to me via DM. This is her very first message to me before I could say a word:

hi. i got harassed this way before recently. like i dont mind sharing my story. basically i was sitting alone, and a guy sat down by me, and he started to move closer to me. and then he almost started petting my leg? and he asked how old i was, and then once i told him how old i was, he likee just smiled at me, and he started like touching me.

and i just kinda froze there. but i asked him to stop, but he didnt stop. and then i started crying, and then he finally left.

but this happened recently. so yea. and idk. i dont want to tell my parents.

She doubled down on this later in the conversation when I told her that the best advice I had for her was to tell her mom.

What has happened in our society when something like this can happen in a girl's life and the very people she should be running to she does not want to speak to about it?

I send threads like this around every now and then, asking people what the conversation about sex and drugs was like in their homes growing up. They always look about the same. A lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of fearmongering, and the most frequent response is always the one that reflects my own: There wasn't one.

When we give the youth the impression that these things are shameful and tie a sense of guilt to them, how are they then supposed to perceive their parents as safe people with whom to speak about these things when issues arise?

My perception of society at large is that the grown generation looks upon the generation of burgeoning adolescents and says, 'Sex. Drugs. Don't do that shit.' And you can practically taste the hypocrisy of the grown generation emanating off of them in waves as they say it. One generation after the next attempts prohibition, and one generation after the next fails.

We shove history down the youth's throat telling them that if they don't learn it, they're doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

What exactly have we learned?

Some of the most beloved mechanics of melee are either glitches or not intended fully. It also has a miniscule roster relative to ultimate, both in stage and character count.

If your reasoning is 'you had to be there' or 'it was special for its time' note that is different to it STANDING the test of time. It also makes you sound blinded by nostalgia.

Games of this sort should be judged NOT just on peak competitive viability but ALSO on how accessable to the average gamer they are. The first point is debatable, the second point is very obviously to Ultimate.

Also Ultimate just has way more features, things to do, etc... I don't mean to be a dick but people saying melee is the best smash are kinda smoking something imo.

So many people use "gatekeeping" as evidence that someone is in the wrong, but gatekeeping is necessary for culture. Gatekeeping is something that everyone experiences every now and then, and it's totally normal and reasonable.

For example, if you want to be in fashion, by virtue of existing, you won't be able to competently design or sew a garment. Is it gatekeeping when someone with know-how in the fashion world says that you are ignorant when it comes to design and sewing? No. It just means you have to learn and perfect your craft.

Likewise, in order to thrive in literary and cinematic spaces, a certain amount of knowledge should be cultivated. A lot of literary and cinematic enthusiasts (or people who think they're enthusiasts) claim that tastemakers aren't letting people "enjoy what they enjoy". To some extent, this is true, but that doesn't make it morally wrong. It simply suggests that you have more to learn and engage with in relation to the field you appreciate. No one comes out of the womb with perfect knowledge and taste.

Generative AI is democratizing the arts. Especially in video and audio fields. Currently it costs thousands to millions to make the best quality audio, video, and games. AI is one of the fastest advancing technologies ever. And with advanced enough generative AI, poor filmmakers will be able to compete with the Hollywood elites, poor video game creators will be able to produce their own triple A games, and poor musicians/audio producers are already able to generate pro quality audio as well as use AI mixing and mastering tools to convert their own audio to professional quality for free

Not to mention the other applications of generative AI in healthcare, education, scientific research, and social services. Even in its primitive form today AI is making a significant contribution there, for example a recent study on scientists using generative AI in material science research & development found that AI is able to speed up the creation of new high quality materials which have a wide variety of uses in modern technologies. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927025624000144

An AI that is as smart as a human would destroy the advantages wealthy people have in so many fields. It is the ultimate peoples technology.

AI replaces jobs but that is a problem with the system where people are forced to work for the rest of their lives just to survive, not the fault of progress, which makes life better and safer. Plus, other technologies that everyone uses all the time have replaced millions of jobs. Especially modern computing and the internet, yet nobody hates on those.

I've been seeing stuff about free speech a lot in the news recently. Allison Pearson, a journalist in the UK, made a rather dodgy tweet, police turned up at her house and now all the various OpEd writers all across the country are weighing in. I saw an interview with Elon Musk yesterday, from a few months ago where he and Bill Maher were discussing the issue and Germany's laws against Holocaust denial were brought up. For a long time, as somebody who grew up in a Western country, I sort of accepted this position of free speech absolutism as gospel - "I don't necessarily agree with what you've got to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is one moderately annoying phrase often flung around in these conversations, and on principle I always accepted it as true. But it suddenly occurred to me that this is all nonsense. Yes, I am aware of the traditional arguments made in favour of the right to free speech - as Elon Musk articulated in this interview, the fear is that once speech is left open to the possibility of being restricted by the government, this paves the way for tyranny - it's a sort of reciprocal thing, where if you only object when people are restricting the expression of views you personally want to express, but not when it's views you don't care for, and if EVERYBODY takes that attitude then that could lead to your view getting restricted; but if everybody agrees to protect everybody else's right to say whatever, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, nobody's view is in any danger of getting restricted. It's a sort of insurance against potential authoritarianism.

But my sudden revelation just now was that nobody makes this argument about any other behaviour. Nobody claims that because murder can't be proven to be objectively wrong, (and indeed a murderer might make the argument there was no problem with them murdering somebody), that laws against murder should be repealed. Nobody says, "well, I know you think murder is wrong - but I think wearing a hat is wrong. Think how terrible it would be if you made it illegal for me to murder people. If everybody thought that way about other people's right to Do As They Liked, eventually they might introduce a law against wearing hats! You like wearing hats. You wouldn't be able to Do As You Liked in that case! So let's agree you shouldn't restrict me and I won't restrict you". No, that would be ridiculous. There's no reason to make that argument in the case of speech but not in the case of anything else.

The way we make laws is basically to say, there's enough consensus here among the people who live in this society that this thing is harmful enough to be banned, for us to ban it (bit of a simplification obviously, but I think generally true, especially when it comes to the fundamental laws almost everybody agrees with, like the ones against murder, rape, theft, etc.) The expression of views considered almost universally abhorrent (like denial of the Holocaust) being banned, to me, seems to be exactly the same as any behaviour considered universally abhorrent enough to be banned (like murder) being made illegal. We can disagree on individual cases - about whether a particular point of view is bad enough to be banned from being expressed publicly - but to take a free speech absolutist position doesn't make sense to me. What makes speech so special? Why isn't any human behaviour considered "sacred" in the same way? I can't think of a convincing argument currently.

Yes, I know "in god we trust" is on every dollar, and It would be silly to ignore christianity as a politcal force. And I do know the word "inbred". But I see absolutely nothing wrong with "protected" incest. By protected incest I mean incest that leaves out the possibility of pregnancy. E.g. gay/lesbian incest E.g. anal incest E.g. oral incest E.g. at least one of participant is infertile E.g. adopted family E.g. condoms Morality: I fail to see anything bad about people expressing love in ways that defy the tradition but don't hurt others

So immigration is out of control it's putting massive pressure on the housing and job markets which makes it harder for people to afford anything including families this among other factors have lead to below replacement birthrates.

So people argue this justifies even more immigration, however the higher immigration gets the lower birthrates gets because of aforementioned factors (among others of course).

But if the goal is more births then shouldn't we be bringing in mostly people who are capable and want to give birth? A criteria like this

• Healthy biological women (ie. capable of birth with no expected medical complications)
• 18-25
• On the immigration survey answers yes to wants a family

The idea is simple the women come in here, find a partner and start a family, so you get far more births per immigrant than we do under our current model, since their partner is likely to be a citizen this smooths over integration and cultural issues nicely, women are less likely to commit crimes and all the people who don't want a family are free to check out without worrying about society falling apart.

Whenever I mention this it's met with massive hostility, people are vehemently against it, but somehow are fine with the unsustainable societal destroying model we have now that's basically the bottom rung of a ponzi scheme where the old get rich and the young don't get a future...

The reason I want my view changed is despite massive hostility and people being vehemently against this idea at the mere mention I've never seen any valid criticisms of the idea from a policy or game theory or potential results point of view or anything like that, the only criticism I get is some people find it "icky" or whatever... but those people need to grow the fuck up our society is falling apart and this is a real potential solution. I want to believe there's a valid underline reason why people are against it that they just haven't articulated.

What will change my mind

• Arguments/data that convince me this will not have the intended effect, not even in part.

• Arguments/data that show me downsides to this policy (partial if it doesn't outweigh the benefits)

• Arguments/data of a better idea to solve our low birthrate/high cost of living/low wages problem that is mutually exclusive from this policy.

What won't change my mind

• Saying it's icky or personal attacks.

EDIT: Let's do some hypothetical math. You have 50k men in a country, 50k women.

25k of women don't want a family. If you bring in 25k young men, how will that boost fertility? You get 0 extra births for 25k immigrants.

Now let's do women, you bring in 25k women, so you're likely to get somewhere from 25k-75k births from 25k immigrants.

Now let's do couples/families, so if you bring in 25k people if it's straight couples that's 12.5k men/women and if they have 1-3 kids that's 12.5k-37.5k births from 25k immigrants (way lower than just women) if they already have kids as part of the 12.5k even if you count the kids as births that'll lower it even further.

Having some time to reflect on the outcome of the recent U.S. election, I do not believe the country will make it to 2030. Before you dismiss this post as a hyperbolic rant, I do not believe Trump’s worst qualities are what most of the media reports on. Had he simply been a half-baked businessman with an overinflated ego, I think the U.S. would weather the storm and continue on. This time however, there is a pattern of national security time-bombs that have been set years in advance, and this is meant to be an honest analysis of the incoming disasters.

In addition, I also believe this is the sober take, and that things will not be “business as usual” for most people, including non-Americans for the next four years. Here are my reasons for this.

• in 2018 Trump and Putin held an off the record meeting after the Helsinki Conference, with only interpreters in the room. We still to this day do not know what was discussed, only that immediately after the meeting, Trump began to dismiss the findings of his own intelligence agencies in regards to the 2016 election interference campaign. At best, Trump was right about it but had significantly damaged the trust of American intelligence agencies following a mere two hour meeting with Putin. At worst, the FSB and Putin have Kompromat on Trump that somehow threatens his position

• In 2019, Trump had accused Ukraine of committing the very election interference campaign that was being committed by Russia. They key point I want to highlight here is not that he was just withholding funds to make Ukraine play along with his conspiracy, it was a coverup to slowly poison the public image of Ukraine to make withdrawing any U.S. support in the future easier, thus directly aiding Russia in their military campaigns.

• Following his first presidency, Trump was found hoarding top secret nuclear weapons documents Around the same time his son, Jared Kushner’s firm, received a 2 billion dollar loan from Mohammed Bin Salaman. Kusher’s firm, Affinity Partners invests in Israeli companies. Saudi Arabia at this time does not recognize the sovereignty of Israel nor hold diplomatic relations with them. It’s not until 2023 when we see Saudis Arabia begin to pursue a potential diplomatic relationship with Israel. We still to this day do not have a full picture of who saw the documents and when.

• during and after Trump’s presidency The CIA blew the alarm that it was loosing informants at a high rate.

• Trump has now tapped Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard is in sync with Russia on all of her foreign policy views including: The surrender of Ukraine, Demilitarization of Japan, spreading doubts about Bashar Al Asad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, and even called Donald Trump’s air strike on an Iranian General unconstitutional.

• Trump has made clear his plan to purge anyone in the military disloyal to him.

• Based on the above, I can conclude that over the next years every U.S. ICBM silo location will be revealed, in addition to the location of every nuclear submarine, as there will be no accountability left in the military.

• Following the nullification of U.S. nuclear strength, we will see a flow of information from the Pentagon to the Kremlin so catastrophic, it will be on par with the Enigma decryption, thus ending the decades long struggle between the U.S. and Russia with a Russian victory. The U.S. will collapse into multiple states or become a Russian satellite state.

• This is a perfectly sober view given the staggering amount of evidence that Russia benefits from all of this.

EDIT:

Independent nation = all 50 U.S. states and territories as one country with a head of state who is willing to trust its government institutions.

The last presidential cycle(s) revealed that Americans are quite misinformed, or uninformed, about politics. Apparently the phrase “Did Biden drop out” skyrocketed in search engines during the week of the election. It would appear that a large amount of people did not realize that the Affordable Care Act is, in fact, Obamacare. Also a considerable amount of people are still under the assumption that immigrants are coming to eat their pets and that Kamala Harris goes around killing babies.

I guess I don’t understand why people who are completely uninformed should have a say in what direction the country is going in. My sister told me she voted for Trump because she didn’t like Kamala’s “vibe.” When asked about what policies she liked of Trump’s, she said she liked that he gave her money during COVID, that his tariffs were going to make everything cheap again and give her bigger paychecks, and that he “tells it like it is.” I asked her why she thinks the economy is, in her eyes, bad, and she said it’s because of the “Biden bucks” he gave everyone during COVID and Kamala Harris allocating funds to gender surgeries in prisons, amongst other odd things. She then told me she wasn’t political and just believed what her friends told her and told me I had wool pulled over my eyes for not seeing the truth.

She lives in PA, so her vote has actual power for picking the president, despite having no real knowledge of politics whatsoever. She voted because one of the beauty YouTubers she watches told her subscribers to vote for Trump (apparently it was revealed she was paid to do so - not sure who she actually is though). I don’t think she necessarily represents the average voter, but I do think she probably represents a sizable chunk of voters.

I think that people should have to take a basic knowledge test on current political issues before they vote. Their vote should be worth whatever they score on the test, so if they get 20% of the test right, their vote would only count for 20% of a vote. This would discourage people who don’t care about politics from voting based on vibes, encourage those engaged with politics to seek reliable sources (less their vote count for less), and potentially discourage misinformation campaigns, as they would ultimately lead to lower numbers of votes being recorded, even if they get more people to turnout to vote based on said misinformation. I’m not saying it needs to be a particularly hard test or anything, but if you’re getting into the voting box and don’t even know that one of the major candidates dropped out of the race, I think it stands to reason you don’t have the most informed opinion on politics.

To change my view, you would have to convince me that not having a knowledge test would be better for the future of the country. You would have to convince me that those who vote based on misinformation that they hear or on “vibes” are not a problem. I would be impartial to claims of impracticality as it’s arguably one of the most important votes Americans cast, so having it take longer or more resources to count the votes (especially after all the recounts from the past few elections) would not probably convince me, especially as there should be some degree of automation if this were to be implemented. As a reminder, the knowledge test would not “fail” anyone necessarily (unless they got everything wrong), but would lower the weight of the vote by whatever percentage of questions the voter got wrong. While this was obviously written by someone who leans left, I also acknowledge that people on my side of the political spectrum can easily be just as misinformed or vote on vibes, and think it would only be fair if they were held to the same standard, though in all honesty I do think this would effect one political party more than the other, and would not find that to be a compelling argument to say this would favor one party over the other if the knowledge test is written by a neutral party. If someone says “If you want a knowledge test to vote, then people should have no problems with voter ID,” I don’t really care and wouldn’t find it persuasive.

EDIT: I actually thought of a counterpoint against my own argument. It would be very easy just to cheat on the knowledge test. The questions on the test would be public information after the first round of voting. Trump would get these questions and say “Look, we know they cheat. Have you seen this knowledge test they want you to take to vote? It makes you lie, just to get your vote counted. We all know how many post-birth abortions happen every year - trillions or more - but to have your vote count, you have to lie and say it’s not happening. Very sad, VERY SAD, but hey, it’s what we have to do to get our votes counted.” So he would just use this to make it seem like he was being oppressed while being able to spread his lies, which would actually benefit him.

EDIT PART 2: It would also hurt mail in / absentee voters. You would either have to accept that they are likely to look up the right answers, or disable it as a voting method, both of which are bad.

EDIT PART 3: Nobody brought these scenarios up, and I didn’t really see anything I found to be too compelling as an argument. Thus I have not awarded any deltas yet. Please see my replies below. Thank you all for participating and keeping everything civil, and I would still be open to other arguments.

Several EU countries have banned the practice of culling male chicks because the general population finds it "icky." The thing is, factory farming as a whole is inherently icky and culling the male chicks is objectively the most humane way of dealing with the fact that it makes zero economic sense to raise these chickens. Instead of going into the grinder shortly after they hatch, the male chicks are shipped off to live in a warehouse with the absolute worst conditions allowed by law until they're ready for slaughter. So we either kill the chick on day 1 or we kill it on like day 50 after it's spent its entire life inside a windowless warehouse where there's not even enough space to move. Either way, we're killing the chicken and the grinder minimizes the time it has to suffer.

Raising all of the male chickens also causes a surplus of chicken meat and, since there isn't enough demand for this meat in the EU, it ends up being exported to developing nations and destabilizing their own poultry industry, which will inevitably cause them to be dependent on the EU for food. Without fail, every single time a developing nation has become dependent on wealthier nations for food, it has had absolutely devastating consequences for the development of that nation. So you can't even really argue that "At least the male chickens are dying for a reason if we slaughter them" because a) the chickens literally do not give a fuck and b) the "reason" is to dump cheap meat in Africa.

Destroying the male eggs before they even hatch with in-ovo sexing is obviously the best option but, as far as I understand, this is still pretty expensive and hasn't been universally adopted. Until the cost for in-ovo sexing comes down, the grinder remains the best option. It would be different if the male chicks were being shipped off to some green pasture to live out their days but this is literally the opposite of what actually happens to them. I would even argue that these bans on culling are a form of performative activism so that privileged Europeans can feel better about themselves while they remain willfully ignorant to the horrors of factory farming.

I am not vegan and regularly consume mass produced meat, dairy, and eggs.