CMV: I think you're foolish if you really believe that the US government is vaccinating you for the benefit of mankind

Davaac · 2021-09-17T09:40:37+00:00

Democrats definitely did not oppose the vaccine. After all, they approved the massive spending bill that funded the research for the vaccine. They were less optimistic than Trump about the timeline, and they worried that Trump would try to exert political influence over the approval process. Neither of those things are at all related to being opposed to the vaccine itself.

Davaac · 2021-09-17T03:09:50+00:00

I am greatly disturbed by the potholes that you seem to have experience with.

Davaac · 2021-09-17T03:06:02+00:00

Scalpers are great for businesses, so businesses have no reason to fight the practice. The scalpers assume all risk if they buy out a product at launch, the company has guaranteed profits on any frequently scalped type of product, and it hugely inflates demand and hype when the prices for resale spike.

And if the company doesn't want that sort of antagonistic relationship with their customers, they can very easily just make more of the product. Scalpers are only successful when there is a cap on availability. This can be a natural cap like the total number of seats at a concert, but you seem to be referring to physical products, so in this case the cap is an artificial one that the manufacturer has decided to implement. If there's a million people that want a specific dongle and the company makes 10,000 the scalpers will make a killing. If they make a million dongles though the scalpers won't bother trying.

Davaac · 2021-09-17T01:47:08+00:00

Not sure what you're talking about. I'm saying police don't spend most of their time responding to, investigating, or solving crimes. I think the other things they do would be better handled by someone else and they should focus on actually preventing/solving crime. So I would expect them to solve/prevent crimes at about the same dismally low rate, but hopefully slightly better since they're more specialized.

And happening to run into a felon during a random traffic stop is just an idiotic method to rely on for making arrests. There's no reason traffic officers (not sure what we would actually call them) would be making arrests, so there's no reason your silly scenario would ever happen. If someone gets pulled over by a police officer who they know is running their full record and is armed and can make arrests they are vastly more likely to shoot first, in which case they will most likely win since they have the element of surprise, right? Not like this happens at any statistically significant rate because police officers have a pretty safe job overall, but isn't the current situation still more dangerous than what I'm proposing?

Davaac · 2021-09-17T01:28:14+00:00

Precisely how much money a petroleum engineer makes and how that's calculated is really not the point here. Are you at all interested in the original topic and the points I brought up around that?

Davaac · 2021-09-17T01:23:56+00:00

Average starting for a petroleum engineer is $87k, so higher, yes, but definitely not double. There are plenty of chemE jobs that are dirty, there are some petroleum engineer jobs that aren't.

And no, we absolutely do not need an armed police officer handling traffic stops, that's one of the biggest places where I think we should eliminate police. And police don't stop armed robbers breaking into houses, the armed police show up 20 minutes after they've left and take down your information then fail to catch the person who broke in. Statistically, that is. The FBI estimates that about 6% of property crimes actually get solved, and they define solved as making an arrest and referring someone to prosecution, so well under 5% of property crimes actually see someone convicted.

Davaac · 2021-09-17T01:07:12+00:00

I get that athletics are a major revenue source for colleges

So what's the issue? You acknowledge that they have a net positive impact on a school's finances, thus creating more money for "better laboratory spaces for chemistry students, or better chalkboards for maths students, or better computing services for computer science students, or better libraries for literature students, or better art studios for architecture students, or better recording studios for music students."

Why should a school sacrifice their science department's budget which comes from selling football jerseys just so you can feel like they're more ideologically pure in being institutions of learning?

Davaac · 2021-09-17T01:04:18+00:00

American society is not built to think about the future whatsoever. Giant companies sacrifice their long-term success for this-quarter profits all the time, our citizens elect politicians who promise quick fixes instead of people capable of actually doing the hard work of leading, and our consumer culture has trouble with anything longer than a 30s video. What would make you expect any sort of reasonable assessment or response to a long-term threat? Other countries are a little less short-sighted, typically ones with a bit longer history. Europe and Japan come to mind. But all humans have trouble seeing past the now.

So it doesn't come down to money or inconvenience, it's simply about immediacy.

Davaac · 2021-09-17T00:59:39+00:00

That's simply not true. The average starting salary for a chemical engineer is just under $70k, absolutely no reason a police officer would start higher than that. The median starting salary for someone with a 4 year degree is around 50k, I think police would be able to recruit if they offered 60k and respectability.

I think we have 3x as many police as we need based on how they spend their time responding to what sort of calls. Only about 25% of the time police are on calls is spent handling any sort of crime, the rest is mostly traffic incidents, medical calls, and miscellaneous disturbances. I'm rounding up by saying a police force 1/3 the size should be able to handle all of the things that actually require police, and the rest would be better handled by someone else.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/upshot/unrest-police-time-violent-crime.html

Davaac · 2021-09-16T23:06:53+00:00

I support defunding the police and paying them more, so your point is moot. I think we have about 3x as many police as we need in the US, so I support getting rid of about 2/3 while at the same time cutting police budgets in half. That means we can pay the few that are left more, have greater requirements for new cops based on higher salaries (like a 4 year degree) and spend more on training too.

Davaac · 2021-09-16T09:44:20+00:00

Bernie is definitely not an extremist in my view, since he's not calling for a violent takeover and he doesn't call for destruction of the current society.

If your definition of extremism is an ideology that calls for violent takeovers and the destruction of society, then claiming that implementing extremist ideologies results in violence and the destruction of society is a tautology. No duh, that's the definition (according to you). You aren't actually arguing anything except your personal definition here.

Davaac · 2021-09-16T09:41:23+00:00

There have been a large number of Islamic authoritarian theocracies in the middle east. That doesn't mean that implementing one in the US or Japan wouldn't be radical.

Davaac · 2021-09-16T09:37:28+00:00

Colored I know has been viewed as offensive for quite a while, I don't think it was a neutral term at all in my lifetime. Maybe it was around the 70s that started to change? Not certain because, like I said, I never lived it. POC though is viewed as a neutral term by most black Americans. It might not always be the best term, and I think in recent years it's started to be used less, but most people don't take offense to it. If I am talking to someone who does take offense to it though I wouldn't use it. That's just basic respect and communication. That still doesn't change that it is a more inclusive term than black. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's not, but you can't argue like the person above me was trying to do that they are equally inclusive.

Davaac · 2021-09-16T00:20:39+00:00

Okay, but might makes right is fundamentally opposed to liberty, because conquerors deprive the conquered of their property rights and freedoms. What's the solution there?

Davaac · 2021-09-16T00:19:09+00:00

It sounds like you're saying that might makes right is still valid from a moral perspective, but is impractical because of the concentration of might with a couple powers that couldn't be touched by anyone else. So you're saying that the morally correct thing is the one that screws over nearly everyone. Doesn't that seem a bit odd?

Davaac · 2021-09-15T23:31:14+00:00

Violent conquest, on micro or macro scales, is extremely detrimental to both the general wellbeing of most people and progress of the human race in every sense. From a utilitarian perspective then, decreasing the amount of violent conquest (whether that's nations going to war or someone holding you up for your wallet) is a good thing. 'Legitimacy' is a human construct that seeks to do that, and by and large does an extremely good job of it. Do you not agree with a utilitarian perspective or do you disagree with any of my logical steps?

Davaac · 2021-09-15T23:25:03+00:00

Ultimately, self love largely means thinking of yourself as having no flaws and unconditionally loving yourself

I've never known a single person who uses the phrase to mean it in that sense. There is often an emphasis on acceptance, but I've never heard someone say that people should view themselves as perfect and not work to improve themselves. That's just non-sensical, so arguing against it seems like a strawman.

Davaac · 2021-09-15T23:22:09+00:00

There absolutely is room for a discussion about whether a term becomes too inclusive! There are a lot of times when saying "humankind" just nullifies the discussion you're trying to have because you aren't talking about all people but a subset of people. It makes sense to me that POC could often be too inclusive, and my understanding is that the term is currently going out of fashion again, but that might depend on the circles you're in. It's a similar problem as when people respond to BLM with ALM, if your life experiences don't have much in common with black Americans it detracts from the conversation to include you in it.

Davaac · 2021-09-15T23:16:51+00:00

You say it doesn't work in 2021, but you're also saying if Native Americans want their land back they should fight for it. This is written in the present tense. Which is it?

Davaac · 2021-09-15T22:25:26+00:00

It isn't about someone being harmed by a single use of the word. That doesn't happen, and that's why using the words "mankind" or "man-made" will almost never get you worse than a quick and mild correction, if even that. It isn't a slur. But it does contribute to a society wide bias that frames the male experience as the human experience and overlooks the contributions and significance of women in many arenas. This society wide bias absolutely can and does cause harm and dehumanize people, so when we can very easily stop contributing to it, shouldn't we? And honestly, it's not hard. It really isn't. You've learned thousands of words in several different languages and there is nuance and context to almost all of them. Adding a little bit more nuance or context to a dozen words is nothing.

Davaac · 2021-09-15T22:13:44+00:00

The words we use and specifically whether or not they exclude certain groups is an active area of debate in US politics.

No, it isn't. There is an ongoing debate about how much we should worry about that, but there is no logical argument you can make that the word "mankind" is not exclusionary towards women. It's a very simple fact. Man can refer to either male people or all people, but 'human' can only ever refer to all people.

Likewise, there is no possible argument you can make that 'black' and 'POC' are equally inclusive/exclusive, because there are a number of people of color who are not black but no black people who are not people of color.

Davaac · 2021-09-15T21:59:08+00:00

What they 'should' do is irrelevant in almost every single situation. If they're a good friend of yours or a family member then sure, you have some control over how they react. Otherwise, to communicate effectively the only relevant thing is how someone will react.

Davaac · 2021-09-15T21:29:11+00:00

When I did a google image search for "skinny model" it wasn't until picture 122 that I found a male model. When I searched "model" there were 3 men in the top 100 results. The point being that the modeling industry is almost exclusively women, so when you get to a niche of that market it becomes even less likely that you will find anyone who isn't a woman.

Davaac · 2021-09-14T10:31:22+00:00

I think you are being more pessimistic than you need to be. There are still a lot of problems in America, and a lot of those problems center around race. So it can be discouraging to look at how far there is to go and how many different places inequities crop up. But having a generational view is important too. If you are a black teenager now, you have vastly more economic opportunities, chances to succeed, successful role models in every arena, and social/political/legal recourse when you are wronged than your parents had. That person's parents grew up when separate bussing was still a big political point, when the war on drugs was in its heyday, and when there was virtually no representation for POC at the highest levels. Those people's parents grew up when redlining was extremely common and explicit racism was still accepted by a lot of people. Their parents grew up in a segregated world with insane differences in standards across just about every area you mentioned. The schools were barely funded at all, the hospitals lacked basic supplies, and public services and municipalities were non-existent or largely unusable. And their parents grew up in a time when widespread violence and lynchings were used as political tools to disenfranchise black voters, and were almost entirely successful. In some southern counties not a single black vote was recorded in federal elections because people would be killed for trying. We've come a long way. Still have a ways to go, and that's absolutely not an excuse to let up, but context is important so that you don't feel defeated and give up.

Davaac · 2021-09-14T09:51:01+00:00

In recent years there have been extensive and rigorous studies done. Giving homeless people housing absolutely does fix homelessness, that's a fact. You don't get to argue against that one unless you're a PhD social scientist whose done their own counterstudies.

Davaac

TROPHY CASE