This is not to say you can’t have any differing opinions in politics at all, but politics DO say something about who you are as a person and what your core values are and if that goes against each other too much I don’t actually see how you can have a proper friendship. Politics directly impact other peoples lives, you can only set those views aside to a certain extent.

If you’re a homosexual man married to another man, I don’t think you can truly be friends with someone who thinks gay marriage should be abolished and that ‘queer activity’ shouldn’t be something shown in public (there’s people who think worse should happen to gay people but let’s keep it less extreme). I know people who believe women’s voting rights should be taken away, I can’t just ignore that and be friends with them simply because it’s ’just a different political view and doesn’t determine who they are as a person’. You literally don’t view me as your equal. Yes, you’re more than your political beliefs but it’s still tied to who you are as a person.

If you don’t have to think about those things because they don’t usually impact you (a form of privilege/ignorance) then there’s a possibility you’d disagree with that. Maybe someone else can give me a different explanation.

Little side note to add that even if Id consider you privileged/ignorant I’m not saying that I believe that makes you a bad or immoral person.

While i was in college there was a guy who worked there (not a professor) who loved talking about "degrowth" and how we should stop buying stuff but merely rent and share everything (tools, supplies, cars, etc.). On the other hand there's quite a few people who say they take shorter showers or never take baths for environmental reasons (rather than financial).

My view is that all these small personal sacrifices in the name of the environment are insignificant overall and are like a drop in the ocean. Either way I don't think it's worth sacrificing small pleasures like a long shower or an ocasional bath for an uncertain and minimal effect. It might not seem much to you but added up it just reduces your quality of life.

In terms of the idea of sharing tools or car sharing, the main issue is you lose a lot of free time having to deal with the admin parts (going to get the tools, registering your name somewhere, etc.) and it's just incovenient.

Most important of all is the "class inequality". If everyone on the planet were making these sacrifices it would make more sense and I would understand, but the fact is most people aren't doing it. While you're timing your shower, an American, Chinese or whoever billionaire a new AI datacenter and ​flying on their private jet.

Why should the non-billionares of the world sacrifice their well being and enjoyment where any potential gains will be cancelled out by others not doing so?

My point is that ​unless the who world adopted degrowth (which I'm not a fan of anyway to be completely honest but that's not what we're debating here), people should stop depriving themselves of stuff in the name of the climate. To be clear, I don't mean we need to overconsume, I turn off lights when not using them as it doesn't incovenince me at all to have the light in a room I'm not using turned off. But to not buy a car when you need it just for the environment doesn't make sense to me.

EDIT: Basically, it's not fair that working people who already have an increasingly worse quality of life/buying power should are made to feel like they most voluntarily adopt these things to make their lives even slightly worse while billionaires have it good and don't even care.

Sources.

• British citizens excluded from the referendum: https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-british-expats-excluded-from-voting-in-the-eu-referendum-60127 . Estimated totals excluded from voting in referendum : 3.2 to 3.4 million British citizens living abroad
• Commonwealth citizens included / allowed to vote in the referendum : https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36316467

The referendum was unfairly constructed by excluding the population that have to live with long-term impact to their passports and mobility, whilst including the population that have vested interest for Leave campaign to win (which allowed them to expand their visa share).

It does not make sense that an Australian on a working holiday visa gets to have to a say on long-term economic, policial and immigration arrangement between the UK and EU, whilst a Brit on an overseas working arrangement in Spain does not have a say on the matter. The two populations are conflicted towards the Brexit vote.

Anecdotally from the above article, Commonwealth citizens living in the UK have vested interest that Leave vote as they would no longer have to compete for employer sponsorships and visa stays with EU citizens.

"Zila, on the other hand, who is on a British government-funded scholarship, supports an EU exit.

Her vote will be pinned on hopes that immigration policy will change in a way that benefits Commonwealth citizens if the UK no longer has to abide by free movement within the EU."

Voting rights change

Because of the backlash, UK changed its voting rules following Brexit by implementing "votes for life" for British expats. Under the Elections Act 2022, which came into effect in January 2024, the government completely abolished the previous 15-year time limit on overseas voting.

EDIT.

To those who mentioned that this referendum was fair because it uniformly applied the existing electorate law where Commonwealth citizens were ordinarily included as electorate, then explain why it was fair that EU citizens who are UK residents (a population that would have been ordinarily included as electorate) were excluded? Was the electorate law for the referendum not bent?

The Government Position: During the Second Reading debate in the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond defended the exclusion, stating, "It would be a travesty to seek to include EU nationals whose interests might be very different from those of the British people." [1]

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/70401/html/

TLDR

The Brexit referendum was unfairly constructed by restricting a subset of their citizens from voting whilst allowing many temporary residents in the UK (owing to a dated Commonwealth-British subject interpretation) to vote instead.

The subsequent voting rules change in Elections Act 2022 recognize this disparity and remedy it.

This post is written almost purely by intuition, very shaky assumptions in hopes that you would share your own thoughts about this topic (frankly I haven't seen much posts about this and the depth requires more discussion)

I'd like to draw the similarities between AI and humans, both are created with some iteration of Darwinism/natural selection

As humans we can understand the basic layer of a genome/code (like isolating and understanding protein codes in amino acid sequences in a gene or the logic behind simple programming codes)

At the moment, we are really bad at understanding emergent properties in both AI and humans (the same way we don't understand how Ai works from its code and human behavior from its genome)

Let's say we wanted to 'cure' a condition that composes of a range of genes like autism.

What I'd assume would most likely happen is that Ai companies in the status quo ( Crisper-Gpt, among others) would run their programs and produce a 'cure' for autism.

At a point they will succeed, pass clinical trials and be open to the public, in which it will be adopted rather fast due to the apparent benefits.

However, we would not understand how the cure works similar to frontier Ai.

Extrapolate This would mean that designer babies would be 'coded' almost entirely by Ai (more accurately any artifical change would be influenced by Ai in a significant capacity)

What would this mean? ( treat this point on as weak assumptions)

Suppose ai wanted to take over or perhaps prompted to do so by some bad actors.

Perhaps in the autism cure, there are some minut changes to psychology that makes one more susceptible to propaganda. (in which it would be nigh impossible to detect or regulate unless other Ai is used to analyze it-which opens another can of worms)

And itself poses the more classical scenario of Ai creating super bugs and wiping out humanity

I recognise that the potential benefits are also significant and potentially out weighing the risk ( which is the classic pro Ai argument) but I'll skip it here for the sake of isolating the discussion.

Out of all the stuff I usually critique when it comes to anime, Isekai-shit is always going to be my go to. I hate isekai and will never not love tearing into how bad they are.

One genre I do dislike more is the kind where people will claim that it is "unique" and "breaks the norm" of most isekai. For this post, that lsekai will be Tensura.

My main issue is that the anime fails to create meaningful stakes. In political dramas, conflict arises from different ideologies clashing and real compromises being made. In Tensura, no matter the scale of the conflict, the protagonist, Rimuru, feels guaranteed to win or live, and usually gets exactly what he wants without having to make difficult sacrifices.

For a political story to be effective, there must be a possibility of loss, compromise, or significant change. Because Rimuru outsmarts or outpowers every opponent so handily, the "politics" feel like set dressing for a more traditional power fantasy.

Even the point where the story should get the darkest (iirc, it is a massive attack on rimuru's kingdom that results in massive loss of life), is just solved, like it's not an issue.

The issue with series like these is that, you can't try to impliment anything unique bc the MC being stronger than GOD is just gonna undercut it all.

Btw, this is a general critique thing.

Recently there were racist attacks from a lot of Japanese Twitter users against non white French protesters. People responded with racist remarks back. I don’t think this acceptable or helpful.

1. Many of the serious criticism of Japan’s society like cp, is something that other Japanese people are currently fighting against as well.
   
2. The majority of attacks are not serious criticism
   
3. The posts are not specifically targeted at racist Japanese people
   
4. Judging a people on their government and their governments history is wrong, especially when there is a sizable number of those people against the same things.

I could not imagine being a random Japanese kid on Twitter who also happened to have a father that killed himself.

To change my view I would need to see proof that the majority of attacks are serious criticism without racial innuendo’s or be convinced that the racist attacks are productive.

(I don’t care if it’s technically not “racism”, we are all on the same page)

One of the biggest criticisms of contemporary Republican & by extension MAGA ideology is that they don’t follow the Bible’s teachings. The parts about loving your enemies, the meek shall inherit the earth, & it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man getting into heaven are often cited. The thing is, Republicans are using the Bible exactly as it was meant to be used. What’s often forgotten is that the creation of the Bible & modern Christian history begins with Emperor Constantine & his council assembling the Bible & voting on which parts to include so he could better unify a fractured Rome. European kings would later on use Christianity to unify their kingdoms. The Bible inherently creates an us vs them mentality, between heaven-bound believers & hell-bound non-believers, giving cause to unify against a common threat. (Pagans) All the anti-wealth parts were used to enrich wealthy people so the peasants would be happy having nothing. The Bible was later used during Colonialism to make the colonized & enslaved subservient. The strategy is working perfectly for MAGA’s goals, given the amount of impoverished Americans who love voting against their self interests. They are using the Bible’s teachings exactly as intended.

I am almost 23 and I really don’t understand the point in getting a credit card. I just graduated college and work full-time at an engineering consulting firm, so I make a decent amount of money. I understand getting a credit card if money is tight because of the “buy now, pay later” aspect, but I also think credit cards mainly just encourage people to spend beyond their needs on material items.

The concept of ”building credit” to prove that you are reliable/can pay stuff off makes no sense to me. If I can pay for something instantly with my debit card or have access to financial statements, proof of employment, active income, savings, etc., how is that not enough proof that I am reliable & able to pay for something? If I don’t have enough money to buy something, I won’t buy it? Obviously it’s different for emergency & medical situations, but what’s the point in building savings or having medical & dental insurance then?

Everyone says it’s great for emergencies, medical expenses, loans, buying a car, etc., but aside from emergency/medical, all of these are planned purchases. You can choose the type of car you purchase and the property you live at. As for emergencies, I have dental & medical insurance through my employer, as well as a Roth IRA & Money Market Savings Account that I contribute portions of my paycheck to.

I don’t plan on taking out loans to buy a new car anytime soon. I don’t personally like newer cars to begin with because they’re too high tech, but that’s besides the point. You can easily buy a used car on Facebook marketplace without needing credit information if you pay in full. If I don’t have enough money for a specific car at a certain point, then I just wouldn’t buy it. There are plenty of transportation options available (like carpooling, Uber, biking, public transit, etc.) that I could use until I saved up however much money to buy the car without needing credit.

I will say that my parents are allowing me to live at home for the meantime while I’m working to save up money, which I am very grateful for. I know that not everyone has access to this same opportunity, so I don’t want this to come across as out-of-touch. Had they not done this, I know that I would’ve gotten a credit card much sooner. I know I will probably need to get a credit card eventually either way, but I just wanted to vent about this.

I am as anti-Trump as they come. However, to me, the lopsided “we are not ok”/“nation in distress” flag seems like a symbol of surrender or declaring that the country is already beyond saving or not worth saving. It is not the same kind of cowardice as the MAGA hat of course. That is a symbol of blind loyalty to one awful figure. While the lopsided flag represents “succumbing”, so to speak. In my opinion, the best symbol of our movement is a rightsided flag saying “Pro-America”, “Anti-Trump”. If you believe as many do that the nation is in dire distress, then please get out and VOTE.

I don't think having a dating preference for certain physical or personal characteristics automatically makes someone prejudiced against people who don't possess those characteristics, even when the preferences in question may have been influenced by discriminatory societal standards.

For example, someone might prefer dating light-skinned people. I understand that colourism has been a significant issue for a WHILE now and that beauty standards have historically favoured lighter skin. However, I don't think an individual finding lighter skin more attractive is sufficient evidence to conclude that they hold racist or colourist beliefs.

The same applies to other characteristics. Someone might prefer skinny partners, but that doesn't necessarily mean they look down on fat people. Someone may prefer taller partners, but that doesn't necessarily mean they hold prejudiced beliefs against shorter people. Someone may prefer people from their own religion, but that doesn't mean they look down on the other religions (or their followers).

I'm aware that these groups have experienced different forms and degrees of discrimination, and I'm not suggesting that their experiences are equivalent. However, I don't understand why the degree of historical oppression should determine whether an individual's personal attraction is inherently discriminatory.

I also get that prejudice is not always conscious, but its existence cannot be established from a mere dating preference.

I'm open to changing my view if someone can explain why expressing a dating preference, without any additional evidence of discriminatory beliefs or behaviour, should be considered sufficient evidence of prejudice.

Preface

I've specifically chosen to not use relatively sensitive words (e.g. capitalism vs socialism vs communism, 1% vs 99%, etc, or even specific countries) as they have a lot of associated connotations. Of course some of their concepts will show up, but I am not up to date on the specific definitions/annotations for all of them, and I don't want to have to deal with any missteps.

Main Content

Looking at the stock market, it's pretty clear that current and potential profit margins are some of the most valued aspects of a company. Companies are incentivized to chase higher profit margins (or, perhaps, forced to chase higher profit margins for the sake of the stock price).

This is fine for companies in a growing industry. If profit is determined by how much you make vs how much you spend, companies can easily improve profits by selling more quantity or selling at a higher price. However once those options are removed due to a mature industry sector, the only option is to reduce costs. Either the company becomes more efficient or does layoffs/offshoring.

After the company stabilizes at this post-offshoring valuation, the next financial report in a couple months is expected to have similar or better profits. And so the pressure continues. And so this cycle is created. Obviously the company and offshore workers are benefiting but the previous workers are not.

tldr: There's a cycle of "high stock price" -> "chase profits" -> "layoffs/offshoring" -> "higher stock price" that happens after a growing industry matures. This will eventually result in all workers in that industry getting laid off.

Edit: Delta given for existence of cash cows like Coca Cola. They can exist in a mature sector without layoffs/offshoring/ However I would like to note that cash cows need to be relatively indifferent to investor pressure.

Edit 2: My bad for vagueness. I’d like to clarify that I’m working specifically under the assumptions that this is a mature (with competition) industry, and that this cycle happens within that specific industry rather than on a country level scale. And perhaps the “mass” qualifier is extreme.

I've been playing video games for a long time, and an attitude that I see repeated over and over in various communities is that you shouldn't be blaming your teammates when you lose, and should instead only focus on your mistakes. But this seems to he counterproductive advice in my experience. To give an example:

League of legends is a 5v5 competitive multi-player game. In a world of Spherical cows and perfect matchmaking, it would stand to reason that a player only has a one in ten chance of being the deciding factor in a given match. Of course, that's oversimplified as fuck, but I think it explains my thought process: there's ten people in the game. Five on the enemy team. Four on yours. And one you. The odds that you are consistently the main driver of a loss doesn't make sense. For an extreme example, it doesn't matter that you missed a cannon minion 15 minutes in when your mid went 0/9 and then rage quit. Yes, you could have played better, but it would not logically have moved the needle on the loss. So why dwell on that when the game altering mistakes were someone else's?

I concede that in games without skill based matchmaking, the sentiment of perpetually blaming oneself has a higher likelihood of being true for lower skill players, but it seems that the advice extends far beyond that group of players.

The "appeal to authority" fallacy is essentially saying that an argument is correct because it came from an authority figure. It takes the form of something like "statement X is true because this expert on X said so." Logically, sure, that is not the mechanism by which truth is definitively established, I realize that.

That said, I don't know if people realize how heavily they depend on the word of "authorities" in their day-to-day lives. It feels real good to one-up your debate opponent by pointing it out, but like, I can't help but think you are such a massive hypocrite if you do.

Take climate science, for instance. How many of us have personally reviewed all of this climate data across the globe, or would even have the first clue on how to do so in a way that helps us understand whether human actions have indeed driven changes in our climate beyond the natural fluctuation of things? Are we not all content to say, you know what, climate experts across the globe have all looked at and analyzed this data and come to a solid consensus that we have hurt our climate, and therefore climate change is real? Because that is 100% an "appeal to authority" fallacy. And I'm not ashamed at all to admit I take their word for it, that I'm willing to believe and trust climate scientists on this one. I don't even think I could make a good argument saying, well, I personally have observed some warmer winters lately and cite that as good, solid evidence of climate change, because clearly that is incredibly anecdotal and just a very dumb way to try and prove a point. In other words, I don't know how I could discuss this issue at all if I wasn't allowed to defer to experts.

Or how about medical care? Fuck if I have even the slightest clue how I ought to treat whatever ailment has befallen me. If my doctor says I need treatment X to deal with ailment Y, I'm more than happy to take their word on it and trust that it's the right decision. And, on top of that, if we were to poll all doctors on what treatment is best for ailment Y, and the vast, overwhelming majority of them said treatment X is best, I would happily take their word on it and consider it true, or at least supported well enough by an acceptable amount of evidence to permit myself to believe it is "true".

I very much worry that invoking the "appeal to authority" fallacy has become weaponized to an impractical degree, something that has gained a lot of power here in our fabricated version of reality of reddit but doesn't actually carry the same weight in the real, practical world, so why should I think it's such a big deal? I think we could have far BETTER conversations on reddit if we allowed ourselves to defer to the expertise of others, rather than dismissing someone's argument on the basis of "well I don't know you, I have no way of knowing you really are an expert on this and this is just the appeal to authority fallacy and so I'm going to just throw everything you have to say in the dumpster!" Like, you get how absurd and frustrating that would be, I hope?

I recognize this view is flawed since I am essentially saying a fallacy isn't a big deal, but I admit I can't really see why I should think otherwise. But I'm open to having my view changed here.

EDIT: so far a lot of responses are along the lines of "it's not an 'appeal to authority' fallacy if the expert really is an expert; it only is one if you incorrectly labeled a non-expert as an 'expert'". I don't think that's true at all, because even an 'expert' can be wrong about things, which is why such a fallacy is pointed out in the first place! I don't know the name for such a thing, but "appeal to the word of a dumbass" is still something different, I think.

EDIT 2: for real, let me be crystal clear on this point: I call BS on your stance that I defined the fallacy incorrectly and that it is meant to be defined as taking the word of a NON-expert. If you really want to dissuade me of this notion, you will need to do more than just say "no, you defined it wrong" and I am not replying to any comments doing just this.

I never believe people who say they're part of the "mile high club". If you ask a group of 10 people, there’s always at least 2 who will say that they’ve done it.

I mean… how exactly?

Plane toilet spaces are too small, only one person can fit at a time and the security on airplanes is too tight in general.
Am I missing something?

It just doesn’t seem possible to me. I guess if you go business class then you have more space and privacy… it still seems very improbable though.

Private planes, ok sure, but commercial? Seems impossible.

Is anyone here part of the ‘mile high club?’ And if so how did you manage it?

Edit: After you all giving me enough scenarios, like long overnight planes where most passengers are sleeping, empty flights etc, I have decided that it is possible after all.
I just need to work harder to join the club I guess 😂

I believe that if a seller has something they are selling, they are responsible for knowing the value of what they are selling and doing their research in most cases.

i’m sure you can give an edge case where someone can’t do their own research because they are homeless and have something they want to sell and are desperate, etc. but i have seen too many cases online where someone is selling something at a yard sale for instance that is worth a lot and they sell it for cheap or at a pawn shop, or wherever and people will be saying “they are scamming” etc.

part of the cost of selling is putting the time and effort into researching what you are selling, it’s not the responsibility of other people to put in that work for you.

That’s the fundamental reason why people sell things for cheap, because they want to get rid of them, there is always a cost for convenience. I can find the perfect buyer who would purchase something at the highest price but that takes effort or I can sell it cheap quicker to get rid of it or because i need money quickly.

In the majority those cases the seller is responsible for deciding how much they want to sell something for because they have autonomy to decide to sell or not and selling something to someone who is willing to buy it at a good price and doing that research takes effort which the seller needs to take if they want to maximize how much they make.

and yes i am saying if you go to sell something that is worth $10,000 and you sell it for 5 bucks because you dont know what you have, that is entirely on you.

If you want to dress up as Spiderman, a comic book convention is an appropriate time and place to do that. Halloween is supposed to be a cultural event for reveling in and contemplating themes of death and decay, the eerie and spooky, spirits of the dead, etc. The specific imagery and symbolism can change and evolve, but I think the core, traditional themes of the holiday should be reasserted to push back against how it has become a meaninglessly eclectic affair about whatever pop-cultural touchstones people feel like dressing up as, irrespective of any thematic relation.

The collective contemplation of death, decay, fear, unease, mortality, and the lingering presence of those no longer with us and the atmosphere this creates seems like an important and cool annual occasion worth preserving. These are important, timeless, and difficult themes for a culture to grapple with—a holiday centered around playful engagement with them serves an important purpose, but seeing people dressed up as random, unrelated stuff distracts from what should be the focus. If people want a more whimsical costume day with different or no underlying themes, those exist, and new ones can be created instead of trying to cram it all into Halloween celebrations. Nobody should be forced to honor the spirit of the holiday, but I think the informal expectation should be to do so. CMV

I am trying to understand an opinion I have seen pop up more and more often, that eating certain animals like octopi or pigs is wrong because of how intelligent those animals are. I understand other reasons to avoid eating meat such as the environmental impact or the cruelty of the meat industry, but the intelligence of an animal seems irrelevant. I don't think it is fundamentally wrong to eat meat but I understand people who believe that more than I understand people who seem to be drawing an arbitrary line about an animal's IQ. Their intelligence doesn't change the amount of pain they feel and any animal can feel fear when confronted with a predator regardless of their intelligence.

So for those who hold this view please let me know what I am missing. I looked up similar posts but the replies mostly seem to come from people who don't believe anyone actually holds that view.

EDIT: Some common points I wanted to address:

• A lot of people are bringing up cannibalism but I think that cannibalism makes me uncomfortable because we know it leads to disease and there is an ick factor about knowing what our own flesh would taste like.

• Also some people seem to be arguing that there is something naturally uncomfortable about the idea of eating something intelligent. I don't disagree but that doesn't really address the morality of it.

EDIT 2: I think I should go to bed but may respond more in the morning. Thanks to everyone who shared their opinions. I think that my new view is that it's fundamentally about an animal's capacity for suffering and some people believe that intelligence is what determines that. I don't think more intelligent animals necessarily suffer more than less intelligent ones. For example my cats are much less intelligent than humans but they can experience pain, fear, and sadness. I'm curious if there is any actual scientific evidence on the matter.

For clarity, this is us trialing the migration of Fresh Topic Friday to Saturday.

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Every Saturday, starting at 12am Pacific Time (PT), posts are withheld for review by the moderators and approved if they aren't highly similar to another made in the past month.

We do this to reduce topic fatigue for our regular contributors, and encourage people to post about topics that aren't as frequently discussed. If you have a take about something that doesn't overlap too much with the most commonly discussed issues in the current zeitgeist, we'd love to see it here then!

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For those not in the know: the Non-Aggression Principle ("NAP" for short) is a libertarian principal that states people are not allowed to "aggress" on other people unless they "aggress" on them first. I would not identify myself as a libertarian, but this is a concept I generally find myself agreeing with the more I will learn about it.

I remember when I read the Wikipedia article for it, it was very clearly critical of the concept. But most of the things it's cited that were clearly meant to make readers think negatively of it just kind of made me like it even more. And when I looked it up on YouTube I mostly found videos critiquing it, and the more critiques I found: the more I found myself agreeing with that.

The only real problem I see with it is that taxation technically violates it. But even then: the only reason why I support taxation is because I believe it is necessary to fund programs then improve society in general, and are even necessary to keep society civil and peaceful (such as the fire department and the police force). And NAP is more about how we relate to each other in general than how we deal with broader issues. And people will not just follow good rules no matter how good they are. So it's kind of a consequentialist exception, where taking money from people is a necessary evil in order to stop greater evils.

The way I see it: NAP is good because it explicitly permits many things that would otherwise be condemned by society. So another way to frame the question is: what does NAP permit that is so bad that it outweighs all of the things it protects? Because I sincerely have a hard time comprehending what such a thing would look like.

It feels too good to be true, but it really does seem like, aside from taxation (which I wouldn't even consider "good" per se): all things that should be condemned or condemned by it, and everything it permits are things that should be permitted. And this opinion honestly strengthens as time goes on. And I honestly see less problems with it then the "Golden Rule" (just because you would like to be treated in a certain way, that doesn't mean other people would like to be treated that way as well).

So am I missing something? Or is the NAP largely just a good thing?

This CMV post is inspired by this news story.

Before you call me a CCP shill, this is not a pro-CCP post. I am Filipino-Australian and I am deeply dissatisfied at some of their actions.

I have been interested in science since I was a kid. As an Australian citizen, this is a country where the famous people are not scientists but instead TV personalities, influencers, artists and athletes (the Philippines is no better). In other words, science does not get the respect it deserves here. In contrast to China's pro-science attitude, which leads to it being #10 on the Global Innovation Index (and highest ranked country in the Upper middle-income group), our anti-science attitude leads to us being #20 on the Global Innovation Index (and the Philippines is all the way down at #52).

Now you may say, "it's a very simple matter, the government just needs to fund scientists more". But if the general public is uninterested in science, it would not be a vote-winner for governments to fund scientists more, nor will corporations and NGOs feel as much of a need to sponsor scientists.

Now you may ask "then how do you choose which scientist to put on?" in which case I say that it's less important to obsess about who gets to go on a billboard, but rather that it's an important first step that they put scientists on billboards at all.

Do you want our countries to stagnate with our future generations repeating our mistakes of looking up to TV personalities, influencers, artists and athletes? Shouldn't we be providing them better rolemodels like scientists?

Now on an anecdotal note :

• When I was in high school, most of my classmates aimed to be tradies. Most of them now earn far more than I did when I worked in science.
• Why don't I work in science anymore? Because I failed my PhD because I was incapable of keeping up with something that hard.
• Point is, the free market doesn't reward scientists, producing useful scientific discoveries is extremely difficult, and therefore, the least a country can do for its scientists is to get them the respect they deserve.

And finally, before anyone says "but what about Dr Lǐ Wénliàng", I think what the CCP did regarding him was wrong, but that's a different topic to this news story about putting scientists on billboards.

Businesses write lists of "best of the year" before all of the things have been released that year, sometimes even a month before.

They do this, I assume, because they'll get more clicks and ad revenue for an article published about 2026 in December 2026 than in January 2027.

Regular people have no reason to do this other than big businesses are doing it. Seems like hegemony to me.

This basically goes for any "posting like a business" thing people do. Talking about your "personal brand", making clickbait titles for things... stuff that has no reason to exist except that people treat behaviour of businesses as a model to follow.

I think the underlying goal of western geopoilitical intervention never or global contol never actually ended. They are aiming for the same, with modern less harsher terminology. Like a PR washing.

If we go back to the late 15th centurythe europe divided the world by saying they are cleansing the souls. The colonial atrocities, violent expansion, invasion, inqusition etc...are all wrapped in a neat "saving the sould of uncivilised" mission.

Now in the 21st, we see he label changed to saving "human rights" and democracy. But the outcomes in Lybia, Iraq, Afghan...are not much different of what we say 500yrs ago.

Like I said only the names/words changed. They want to shut people from questioning their hegemony and they invent these words mainting the semantic-hegemony and media hegemlny so thay they will not face any domestic or global accountability.

Again to be clear, I am not supporting or endorsing what the dictators or rulers of these countries did. But its more about the question of their intervention, which by the looks of the outcomes is more about protecting their geo-political power than about the people they claim they are rescuing.

I mean, the things they did 500yrs are still the root causes to some of the problems many countries are facing and the now these countries they intervened also face many problems.

But why I am open to CMV?

I am fundamentally against outside powers intervening in the internal affairs of soverign nations reagrdless of the intent. However I am open to changing my view on the rhetoric surrounding it.

If someone can demonstrate that modern humanitarian justifications are built on genuine intent or equality, I think by showing an example where global south nation has the geopolitical power to fix the human rights issues of the west, I would reconsider.

Or, if you can prove that modern foreign policy decisions are structurally detached from corporate resources and geopolitical leverage, and instead operate under an entirely new, non-hegemonic paradigm, I am willing to adjust my perspective.

Maybe one can just strike this entire thing out as "its just the Victors world". But that I think thats even dangerous, cause it validates a double standard that strips accountability

Edit: When I say "humanitarian intervention" I am talking about use of military or armed forces across other borders. This is not about ngo, disaster relief etc...

The philosophy of Fight Club is no longer relevant to us today. It was the philosophy of Gen-X and was relevant in 90s. The problems they had were about materialistic social status. You had to buy the Starbucks cup. Not because you liked Starbucks, but because in a world where coffee was normally 98¢ a cup, it was status symbol to waste $4 on it.

Look at this quote:

"We work jobs we hate, to buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t like."

Other than the first line (which is universal for time immemorial), the rest of that is not relevant to us today. Yes, we work jobs we hate, but not to buy things we don't need. When was the last time any discretionary funds? Much less, enough disposable income for status and frivolity. We work one and a half times more than they did back then, and we struggle to afford basic necessities. Frivolity is not even in our heads.

Then you have, "to impress people we don't like." When was the last time you did that? When was the last you even gave a shit what someone you didn't like thought of you? If anything, our philosophy now is to be your authentic self, even to your detriment. We don't fake it anymore because we don't have the time or energy.

Also, did you notice that no one in the story ever has trouble finding or keeping a job? Did you notice that? It's actually a point in the story that Tyler works different jobs as he sees fit, and Project Mayhem is able to infiltrate these places because it was so easy to get a job. The view in the 90s was that if you didn't have a job, it's because you didn't want one or were too lazy to keep one. That's no longer the case today. ​​​​

"We're the middle children of history. We've got no great war, no great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives."

Not anymore. I don't think anyone would say Millennials are forgotten or overlooked. If anything, we're focused on for both good and bad reasons. Everyone notices us all the time. We so much as whimper and people pay attention with empathy or insult.

We are also stuck in a number of wars, both civil and foreign, kinetic and virtual, political and cultural, cold and hot, and even economic wars. Our Great Depression isn't emotional, it's economical just like the last one. The Narrator fills his home with IKEA to try to feel fulfilled...while we have trouble even affording a place to live. Just think about that comparison for a second.

The Gen-X rebellion and the Fight Club philosophy was borne out of an opulence that no longer exists. They had no great evil to fight against like their parents and grandparents, so they had to invent one. Let me say that again: they had to invent one. Everything was so good, they had to create something to be upset at. That's how decadent their world was.

The world they lived in no longer exists, therefore their philosophy is no longer relevant.

Thank you for your time, and I welcome the questions of the Court.

Edit: Many people have brought up the aspect of social media. I'll concede to that point.

To be clear I would say this is true of not just de facto one party states like Japan or Singapore but also more formal one party states like China

I would say overall multi-party states are better than both but far from perfect (see Israel), but if I had to choose I would pick a single party over just 2

Two party states end up with most of the same problems of a one party state but also end up getting.nearly nothing done. The USA has had the same problems for generations now because they don't even try to fix the problems. The politics becomes more like a match between two sports rivals, always just blaming the other side than getting anything done.

Yes a one party is clearly more effective, which can be good or bad depending on the policy. However, at least if they do bad policy they get it done with and they implement it to feel its actual effects. If they truly don't like it the people will respond in some way, and they will know very clearly what the problem is and who to blame. While in the 2 party state they just blame the other side no matter what and get stuck in an endless loop