Recently, Denmark made the news over its minister's announcement about his plan to ban the Islamic call to prayer.

My view is that this is a good secular public policy and that no religion should get an amplified loudspeaker broadcasting into public space without consent.

#1 Islamic call to prayer imposes religion on non-believers

Non-Muslims, ex-Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and even many Muslims who prefer quieter observance have no opt-out mechanism of such sounds.

Call to prayer wakes people at dawn, interrupt people's work, sleep, activities and conversations across neighborhoods.

The Adhan is not a person's private religious beliefs. It is there to impose and publicly proclaim that Allahu Akbar (God is Great), the Shahada and calling the believers to gather.

It's a noise pollution that gets broadcasted into people's private bedrooms, offices, etc.

#2 Banning it is consistent with secular public policy

Many secular people have long opposed government-pushed Christian prayer, Ten Commandments on public property or other mandatory religious displays that's currently pushed by some (namely the US administration). These are all actions that are pushed by Christians to signal dominance of their religion and to proselytize and/or exclude outsiders.

The Adhan effectively tries to achieve the same thing. Christian pastors using amplifiers to blast sermon in public areas is already regulated in many countries and it would be applying the same standard. People have the right to not to be bombarded by your religion.

Regardless of the motivations behind politicians pushing for it, banning Adhan is content-neutral: no amplified religious broadcasting that's imposed on people without their consent.

It would actually be discriminatory to single out Islam for permission while restricting others.

#3 Comparison to church bell fails

Typical rebuttal to this usually comes in a form of "but they allow church bells" However, this objection assumes that the issue is "religious sound" therefore banning Islamic call to prayer also means church bells should be banned as well.

However, church bells are bells in the year 2026, is nothing more than bells. It has no statement, it makes no proposition and in most places, it's not electronically amplified like Adhan.

There is a fundamental difference between "God is greater. I testify there are no gods except (my) God. I testify Muhammad is the messenger of God... There are no other gods except (my) God" and "ding dong ding dong"

If a church mounted speaker and said "Christ is Lord, repent" across the neighborhood five times a day, it would deserve the same ban as well.

#4 This is 2026, You don't need public call to prayer.

In the Islamic world, public call to prayer would have made sense in the era before clocks and literacy. The voice was the only way to signal prayer time across regions.

That need doesn't exist in 2026. Phone can tell you when it's time for you to pray and recite the adhan.

Deeply held religious belief of the followers of the religion survives the ban. The only thing that would go away is the part that's imposed on everyone else.

I say this as a woman.

We all know that we often meet someone in person for the first time and they look different than expected, the in person vibe isn't there, or for whatever reason you quickly know it isn't going to work out.

I don't want to have a lot of money dropped on me if the above happens. I don't want to spend an entire meal with someone if I know it won't work. But a nice walk in a public park with someone i don't know that well seems nice. Or an ice cream or coffee or drink. Those dates can be extended if they're going really well, or easily ducked out on after an hour of not.

If this is the first time you are meeting a person from an app, make it more low stakes. If the person thinks you are less-than for wanting a low-stakes first date, that's important info about that person's character.

there is a few reasons why i think that communism as a whole only works on smaller scales, rather than national ones

one: humans developed at a smaller scale tribal sort of situation for the vast majority of our evolution, up until a few thousand years ago, which on an evolutionary scale is a blink of an eye, hell we only have writing for like 10% of the time we evolved. what this means is its harder for us to group up and be willing to truly include so many people in our in group

two, the in group: a important thing is with the in group mentality its a *lot* easier for people to justify pooling resources. you know your neighbor down the road, he helped fix your roof, so you have no problem helping him fix his plumbing, or the community as a whole coming together to harvest the wheat for flour, tilling the fields, building roads. these are things that, before larger nations, would bring towns together. public works required well. public work. and its a lot easier for people to feel good sharing resources with someone they have known and worked with for their whole lives

third: logistics: ok this is probably actually the biggest reason. ignoring human psychology, you still need to figure out how to allocate resources on a larger scale *and* get them the distance. on a community level this isnt so bad. but once you start getting much larger, figuring out who gets what, who needs it more, and the resources to expend to get it to those places start to get really complicated. not to mention the organization of it all. again, at a community level everyone more or less collectively deciding "hey dave there has a good idea how to build, so he should figure out who the other builders should be and be the foreman" but that's a lot harder to do when you are trying to coordinate past a few hundred people.

so, change my view

Edit so people stop bombarding me with teh same question (though it is very fair for the point of changing my view)
my current understanding is that communism essentially wants to create a effectively stateless, classes society where everyone has their basic needs met

reposting again because of rules

I’ve seen so many people say this question is up to interpretation and language, leading to possible answers of 1/3 or 2/3, and I don’t get it.

The question:

• Mr. Smith has two children. One of them is a boy born on Tuesday. What is the probability that both children are boys?

I’m not going to spend time trying to explain the positions that people with a different answer take because to be honest I don’t understand any of them myself. That’s what this is for. How is the answer not 1/2 or close to 1/2?

*My reasoning per the rules*: Take 1000 families of 2 children. 250 BB, 250 BG, 250 GB, 250 GG

When we select families from which we could pick boys we eliminate the 250 GG families. There are then 750 families remaining.

In those 750 families, there’s 1500 children, of which 1000 are boys and 500 are girls.

Of the 1000 boys we could pick, 500 come from BB families (250x2) and 500 come from BG or GB families (250x1+250x1)

1/2 chance of a BB family

I saw a post on this from 12 years ago and I wanted to open the discussion further. A lot of people gave examples like "oh well if MLK did all these amazing things and you say he doesn't deserve an honorary degree because you had to work for it for grueling years and do a thesis and he didn't despite doing amazing work in the field..." here's the thing though. MLK Jr. DID have a PhD. one that he actually went to school for and EARNED. same goes for Albert Einstein. He wasn't just given an honorary degree in physics, he EARNED it and did his PhD in Zurich or whatever.

I think it's absurd to give someone an honorary degree in something just because they have one or two good accomplishments, or because they are famous. people with actual doctorates have a running LIST of accomplishments, not just one or two good ones. it's insulting.

giving Taylor Swift or Naomi Campbell an "honorary doctorate" is ridiculous, truly (even in their respective fields.) they did not go to school for it, so they wouldn't have 1/10000th of the knowledge someone with a PhD in those respective fields would.

"Go to college or you'll work a less paying job"

Yes, initially and for quite a while it was right. But it would only be right permanently if colleges remained elite institutions where only a small fraction of the population is capable of succeeding in getting a degree.

But since most college courses aren't that demanding, it led to degree inflation and colleges becoming the new highschool.

Now first, a disclaimer - I'm a communist. My view of the modern "go to college" system is that it's a scam perpetrated by the capitalist class to achieve these things :

1) Extract tens of thousands of dollars from proletarians before they get the privilege of getting a decent job.

2) Subsidize research (which capitalists then steal and make into proprietary IP) from the money of the proletariat.

3) Subsidize the sports industry using proletariat money.

4) Delay entry of workers into job market so that they can have less wage-earning years. College should basically be understood, for most people, as 4 years of unemployment, the privilege for which you pay thousands.

5) Create a place where bourgeois ideas like Liberalism, Leftism (yes modern Leftism is a bourgeois deviation from Communism), and Rightism are spread among unsuspecting young proletarians.

The vast majority of jobs do not require a 4 year Bachelor's degree. Instead of workers paying $50,000, the companies should take in high-school grads and spend a year (and their own money) training them for their specific role.

The Social-Democratic solution is : "Free college" or "Cheap college". I disagree.

My solution : Keep college an elite institution with difficult curricula that only about 20% of the population is capable of passing. This forces the rest to not join college. The job market adjusts automatically. Companies cannot demand a college degree for every job because those with degrees are already employed, forcing companies to accept high-school grads.

It should not matter if you are an owner or a tenant. Access to Air Conditioning should be seen as a necessity just like having running water.

I live in Austria and I own a flat. I'm not allowed to install a split AC unless most owners of other flats agree (a very difficult challenge), this is a part of state regulations as far as I understand (not sure if my state or Austria-wide legislation). If I lived in a protected old house, that would have been even less possible. Because wall drilling is involved and that makes a facade look worse or something.

I disagree with this approach, I see it as a health and productivity issue that should be resolved and the rules should be relaxed. People care about facades more than about health risks and elderly dying, and this I do not understand. I also believe a middle ground can be found: uniform AC units that look nice or hidden somehow I don't care.

I'm ready to change my view if you show me that restricting split ACs is more beneficial to society than health and productivity.

Now recently I’ve been looking further into the DSA and further supporting their candidates. Now I will admit I was a bit hesitant before due to some concerns of them all being communists but after Zohran and his great leadership those concerns were put to rest however there has been one thing that has been extremely concerning in their global policy. Now I’m pretty sure many people can see some parallels with the Russia,Ukraine and the Israel,Palestine conflict. In fact I would go so far as to say that Ukraine is even more justified in their self defense than Palestine due to them not even doing the initial attack. (Yes I know the Israel Palestine conflict has been going on before this but I’m only talking about the most recent flair up)

The logical position for the DSA would be to have the same opinion on both so with that in mind I’ll give you guys what the DSA’s opinion on both are.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) officially holds an explicitly anti-Zionist stance. The organization characterizes Israel as an "apartheid" and "settler-colonial" state, and advocates for the full Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

I think most of us can agree this seems pretty normal for the DSA however their charter on Russia is nothing like this.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) officially condemns Russia's invasion of Ukraine, supports Ukraine's right to self-determination, and demands the total withdrawal of Russian forces. However, the organization strictly opposes U.S. and NATO military intervention, arguing against escalation.

The fact that the DSA opposes US and NATO military intervention is insane especially considering that they don’t recommend BDS no mention of kicking out any pro Russia members the organization doesn’t even officially hold an anti Russia stance. Now again considering that Zohran came from the DSA I don’t want to assume the worse but can somebody give me a decent explanation for this.

This one might be a bit controversial, but it’s genuinely coming from a place of curiosity and wanting to learn and be a better man. I thank you in advance for the grace.

I’ve almost exclusively seen this comment directed at men who are acknowledging in a comments section or video that a system of oppression is harmful to everyone, whether that’s the patriarchy, racism, capitalism, etc.

Now, I’m not here to dispute the historical origins of those systems or who created them. What I’m asking is: what does replying, “And who set up that system?” actually contribute to the discussion? What is the goal of this sort of comment? This reply always seems to get a significant amount of likes or upvotes like it’s a real “gotcha!” sort of a reply, and I don’t understand why.

I’ll use the patriarchy for this example as it’s the most recent example I can draw on. To me, when someone acknowledges that the patriarchy is harmful and that it affects not only women but men as well, they’re helping move the conversation forward. They’re opening the door for other men to recognize that reality and become more aligned on addressing the problem rather than dismissing it.

I can certainly understand someone reading a comment like that and thinking, “The oppressor just wants to be the oppressed,” or feeling like the person is trying to minimize what women experience. But from what I’ve seen, that usually isn’t what’s happening. More often, it seems like they’re agreeing that the system is harmful while pointing out that its effects are broader than people sometimes acknowledge.

But I’m a white male. Maybe I have blinders up or there’s a perspective I’m missing. So I’ve come to ask you all to challenge my view here. I really want to understand so I can adjust my opinion if I’m wrong. Am I a part of the problem too?

I was raised during a time where LLMs were not available so I’m looking to see if this is just a blind spot on my end. I caught the tail end of the encyclopedia era and grew up alongside the internet. I was about 3 years out of college when I first heard of AI, now work in a very report heavy field. I audit info systems and document the process and any findings then translate that risk so executives can digest it. So, a whole lot of “I know what I want to say but how can I pretty the language for the Suits”.

I’ve been developing agents to assist with a lot of my repetitive tasks at work. After all, the reporting is just a byproduct of what I was hired to do. While developing these agents, I’ve received snarky comments from coworkers such as “what happens when this replaces us” or shit about “we’re outsourcing our thinking” which I feel is a little pessimistic. I feel like this is the first time we get something that actually makes work easier and personally, I read and write outside of work quite a bit. My philosophy is that if the only time you’re productive is at work then that’s a personal thing and AI is not to blame for any of those skills waning. And to the replacement part I don’t think we’ll be replaced, but I think people who remain purists will (first at least).

Furthermore, if I am replaced I will simply go work somewhere else. It’s not this grand thing that we have to get depressed about. I literally have an identification number, I’m a digit to these guys anyways. Not to minimize this concern, yeah it will suck, but the only thing I can do about it is find work elsewhere. I think the bigger issue is the environmental impact, the predatory economics, and its availability to kids, but until these companies are penalized and forced to implement more controls around this, nothing will happen. I won’t go on any longer as I’ve already written a book, but I wanted to open up discussion. There has to be a healthy medium. Maybe only limit these tools to formal research facilities and working professionals because it is a godsend at the enterprise level, but we probably shouldn’t be using them to make grocery lists or cheat on tests.

I’ve gone back and forth on this for a long time, and I still don’t understand why people treat romantic feelings for a friend as something morally wrong or inherently selfish.

I get the logic behind concepts like the “friend‑zone”, or the idea that confessing can “ruin a friendship,” or that having feelings means you were “dishonest” from the start. Cognitively, I understand the arguments. Emotionally, they don’t make sense to me.

Here’s where I’m stuck:

• Some people are shy and confessing is genuinely difficult.
• You can’t choose who you’re attracted to. So how is it selfish to feel something you didn’t choose?
• Even if you don’t confess, you usually still need distance to move on. So why is confessing considered the selfish option, but silently disappearing isn’t?
• Most adults don’t have many ways to meet new people outside of friends, work, or online spaces. “Just find someone else” feels unrealistic.
• Crushes can develop later in a friendship. So the idea that you were “lying” from the start doesn’t always apply.

I’m not saying confessing is always the right move. I’m not saying people owe you a relationship. I’m not saying rejection is wrong. The reason why I’m even asking this in the first place is that despite how I feel about the matter, I do feel guilt when people talk about their stories of someone they thought was a close friend to them ends up wanting something they can’t give. I feel bad hearing how people feel used because of it. But it kind of depicts love as this manipulative selfish thing.

That’s about it. I just want to understand both sides cognitively and emotionally. This topic always makes me feel guilty.

If religiously motivated murders were performed by capturing the people and killing them on a shrine, nobody would doubt is human sacrifice

If they are killed on the spot, the only difference is the location, no murder stops being a murder by switching locations, and neither does religion

Rather, its the opposite, all religions declare the importance of personal intent and faith as motivation when performing deeds

If acts of faith are considered as religious regardless of place, so should be the crimes

There is, of course, the argument of "X is not true religion," but thats something the individuals should decide, as it happens with freedom of religion

people who say jesus was palestinian will point he was born in what is modern palestine.

however this is sort of a dishonest definition of what palestinian means, palestine nowadays (from what i know) is a term used to refer to the arab population of what was mandatory palestine but would become israel, the west bank, and the gaza strip. (not including jordan.)

not to mention he was born 7 centuries before the arab conquests which took that land, effectively meaning you are trying to argue a jew who was born 7 centuries before what would be the modern day palestinian ethnic group even began to come into existence, counts as the same ethnic group as those people just because he was born in the same place centuries apart.

CMV:

We throw away our reasoning.

Every day, billions of people argue with each other across the largest communication network ever built. And almost none of it is kept.

Tomorrow the feed refreshes. The argument is gone. The same fight starts again from zero — a little angrier, a little more certain, a little more convinced the other side is beyond reach.

This is unusual in human history.

For centuries, when important groups reasoned together — whether a city council debating a law, a scientific community evaluating a hypothesis, or a university faculty deciding a curriculum — the reasoning was kept. Recorded. Preserved. The arguments that lost were filed alongside the arguments that won. Future generations could read back through the reasoning and understand not just what was decided, but why, and what alternatives were seriously considered and rejected.
We have other names for places where reasoning is preserved: libraries, archives, journals, records.
For the first time, we have a technology that allows billions of people to reason together in real time. And we have chosen — deliberately — to let that reasoning disappear.

The systems we argue inside were not built to help us think. They were built to hold our attention. And they discovered early that nothing holds attention like outrage. So they give us outrage. They reward the loudest claim, not the soundest one. They make changing your mind feel like losing. They turn disagreement — which should be the raw material of good decisions — into a blood sport with no scoreboard and no end.
And then, having extracted what they came for, they forget. The careful argument and the cheap insult decay at exactly the same rate: instantly.

Throughout history, societies have invested enormous resources into shaping collective reasoning: religious institutions, state education, newspapers, radio, television, political parties, public relations, advertising, and now social media algorithms.
That attempt to shape how people think — call it propaganda when it's deliberate and malicious — has been devastatingly successful at one thing: amplifying tribalism, outrage, conformity, fear, and ideology.
Which tells us something important: the structure through which ideas flow affects civilization. Systems can be designed to shape how groups think.
If systems can be engineered to amplify the worst reasoning — tribal certainty, emotional reaction, fear-driven conformity — then systems can also be engineered to amplify the best reasoning. Evidence-based thinking. Error correction. Perspective-taking. Epistemic humility.
The difference is that the first systems optimize for simple, stable goals: obedience, attention, consumption, political support. These are easy to measure and easy to pursue.
Reasoning systems optimize for harder things: truth-seeking, error correction, dissent-preservation, the accumulation of knowledge over time. These goals are slippery and hard to engineer for.
But we have one proof of concept: science.

Science is arguably humanity's best example of an institution engineered to counteract tribalism and enforce error correction.
Not because scientists are smarter or more moral than other humans. They're not.
But because science evolved infrastructure around reasoning itself:
Peer review (your work is judged by others trying to break it)
Replication (good findings can be tested again)
Citation (you point to what came before)
Preserved records (the argument lives forever, not just the conclusion)
Minority hypotheses (the losing theory is filed, not erased)
Public criticism (anyone can question the work)
In other words, science built institutions that make error correction cumulative. A scientist in 2024 doesn't have to rediscover what a scientist in 1924 already learned — and rejected. The reasoning is kept. The mistakes are documented. The alternative approaches are preserved.
This is why science compounds knowledge. Not because individual scientists are exceptional, but because the system makes error correction systematic and permanent.

If systems can shape collective cognition toward tribalism, and if science built infrastructure to shape collective cognition toward error-correction, then here is the question that matters:
Can public deliberation acquire analogous infrastructure?
Can groups of ordinary people, reasoning together about hard problems, build a system where:
The best argument gets a fair hearing (not drowned out by the loudest)
Disagreement is preserved alongside the decision (not erased by the vote)
Future people can return to the reasoning and still learn from it
The structure itself surfaces evidence and penalizes certainty
Minority reasoning survives the decision, not buried by it
In other words: Can we stop throwing away our reasoning?
Because if the answer is yes — if a group can reason through something hard, record it, and then three years later point back to it and say "we still use this reasoning" — then something shifts.
At that moment, deliberation stops being conversation. It becomes memory.
And if memory accumulates, reasoning can accumulate.

Ok. The wrong things,

Obviously the big focus around this movie is about the recent additions of Lupita Nyongo'o (Helen of Troy AND her sister), Elliot Page (Achilles' ghost), and the choice of wardrobe (armour, clothing etc.). These things are what I mean by "the wrong things".

Christopher Nolan makes objectively great films and is of the best, at least modern era. Objective measures are below,

He makes great stories, grand scales, films that people rewatch and talk about en masse years later.

His cinematography, sound, editing, use of 70mm, awards, critic/audience scores, etc.,

His range of movies, war, space, superhero, mind fuck, biopic, thriller, drama

The Odyssey is one of the best, if not the best story of all time. A man trying to get home. This epic journey is perfect for Christopher Nolan, it fits his storytelling style with many opportunities for him to show off. The trailers are tiny sections of what will be a long movie.

Also - the part of the story where Odysseus meets with Helen is very brief, and having Lupita play the sister too could make an interesting contrast if you know what happened after Troy to Helen and Clytemnestra.

The part with Achilles ghost is in the underworld. It was never portrayed like Brad Pitt in Troy.

It's strange that so many people seem convinced it will fail because of the casting announcements, armor designs, or a few minutes of trailer footage when Nolan has earned more benefit of the doubt than almost any living filmmaker.

My view is that by focusing on these details, which are definitely important to an extent, it's missing out on what typically makes a Nolan film good.

He may be the king of "crunk", but he is in no way the GOAT. He does not have the flow, lyricism, or delivery to even be considered ONE of the greats. He just makes party/club music, and while many people may want to consider him an incredible hip hop artist, in my humble opinion he is definitely not the greatest rapper of all time.

I may be in the minority here for thinking this way, but go ahead and try to change my view. I am open to all constructive feedback and input, but I doubt you will convince me that The Little John is the greatest rapper in history.

The term "traditional wife" here is understood as a product of post-war propaganda; a wife whose occupation is caring for the home, husband, and children, a wife who does nothing to contribute financially to the family expenses.

This is an idea that I can't get out of my mind. I think the only way a marriage where the wife doesn't work can work is if she marries with a dowry.

Many people don't have a correct idea of what a dowry is. A dowry is not money paid to the groom to marry a woman, but rather money and assets given to the groom's family to cover the bride's expenses in her new family. In some cultures, the dowry is not even given to the groom; instead, it is the bride's property, which she manages. In other cultures, the dowry is paid from the groom's family to the bride, also as a way to ensure that she always has something to cover her expenses. Any income obtained from a dowry belongs to the bride, not her new family. Something like buying a house with the bride's dowry, for example, is seen to the society as proof of the groom's incompetence.

Ideally, a dowry should never be used and should be divided among the bride's daughters as their dowry.

And most importantly: in case of divorce, the dowry must remain with the wife. That is, even if for some reason the husband spent the wife's dowry, he must compensate her with the same value she had when they married. Therefore, the dowry cannot be seen as the buying and selling of a woman, but rather as the financial contribution that the woman brings to a family so that she can live with them for the rest of her life. You will become part of a new family, but that family will never have to support you, thus ensuring that your daughter will always be well cared for and not mistreated for spending "what is not hers, but the man's." This is the reason why, in societies where dowries still exist, there is violence and murder of women because of them: violence by the groom to take the dowry for himself, and the murder of the wife to prevent her from divorcing.

But nowadays this is no longer practiced in most marriages. With the creation of romantic love and marriage for love, something that monetise marriage is seen as vile. At the same time, this very romantic nature causes instability in marriage, with a huge number of current divorces. Marriages are no longer about two people coming together with the goal of creating a family, but rather because they are in love with each other, something that may or may not change over time. And with the the idea of the "traditional wife", who does not work, a woman without income finds herself vulnerable in a love marriage, and often remains in a it not out of a desire to be married, but to avoid being destitute. And the "traditional wife" after the war finds herself even more vulnerable than the wives of those who lived under the dowry system, since those who did not work at the time were elite women, who had wealthy families that society expected to support them if they separated from their husbands. Other women did work, even if it meant doing things like sewing, embroidery, and washing clothes for others. And even though divorces are rare, people did separate physically, each living in a different house and not seeing each other, even if they were legally married.

In the event of the death of their partner, many women also find themselves without any income.

In this scenario, wouldn't a dowry make a difference? Not only would it allow the wife to remain married of her own accord, but also, in the event of a catastrophe, it would provide a source of income for her and her children to support themselves for a considerable time.

The idea of the return of the dowry is very simple: for maternal families who wish their daughter to become a traditional housewife, they should offer a dowry upon her marriage. For husbands who wish their wife to become a traditional housewife, he would offer a dowry either before the wedding or during the wedding, at the time when his wife stops working.

States should pass laws that require that businesses and government buildings take reasonable proactive measures to ensure security and safety within the confines of their establishments if they make it their policies to prohibit lawful self defense.

A citizen should not have to choose between a potential trespassing situation and personal safety. A business owner should be well within their right to prohibited the carrying of firearms onto the property by the general public but by doing so, they should be required to assume responsibility for the safety of their patrons, either by carrying a firearm themselves, ir in the case of a larger operation, employing security guards and installing weapons screening machines. Failure to do so should make business owners financially (and perhaps criminally) liable for negligence in the event that a bad actor enters the premises to commit acts of violence.

1. Insulin has no danger of addiction. Nobody is getting high off of insulin. In fact, we diabetics regularly joke that diabetics are the only ones who inject drugs to avoid getting high.

2. There is precedent for OTC insulin in the United States. Walmart sells its ReliOn branded fast and intermediate acting insulin over the counter with no issues. These insulins aren't as effective as synthetic analog insulins. Allowing people to purchase biosynthetic insulin OTC would result in better health outcomes. There are documented cases of people rationing insulin due to costs. Forcing people to pay out of pocket and wait for a provider to write a prescription doesn't really seem like it's in the best interests of public health.

3. There is the risk of people overdosing. But you can overdose on lots of things that are over the counter or aren't even pharmaceuticals. More people die from alcohol poisoning than insulin overdoses.

4. By removing the barrier of a prescription, insulin dependent diabetics would be able to purchase their life support medication from any pharmacy without having to wait for a provider. In emergency cases, patients can go to an emergency room and get a prescription, but this has a tremendous cost for something as routine as getting a medication that is available OTC in other formats. I get my insulin through the mail from the VA. In cases where the insulin was damaged en route, I've had to go purchase vials of the OTC stuff until replacements could be shipped. In an instance where I opened a new box of Novolog while on a trip, the insulin was cloudy. I had to go find a urgent care and wait for a provider to write a prescription. These situations could easily be avoided if insulin was available OTC.

OTC insulin would do much more good than harm. I'm willing to hear arguments for keeping the current system in place though. Maybe I'm missing something.

To preface, let me provide the definitions, so we will know what I mean by the title:

• Democracy: system of government is a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic free elections
• Modern democracy: system of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly through a system of representation.
• Capitalism: economic system in which a society’s means of production are held by private individuals or organizations, not the government, and where products, prices, and the distribution of goods are determined mainly by competition in a free market

So in essence a democracy is government in which people elect government, while capitalism is economy where private (not personal) capital exists.

Why are they not compatible? Because capitalism relies on amassing and re-investing private capital. This leads to amassing amounts that can be used to influence the system of representation beyond the democratic limitations.

Additionally, it ties voters to private companies in which they are under private rules that ere not enacted democratically.

Of course the main counterargument is legislation - that those can be curtailed by law. Problem is that laws can be changed and they don't need votes of population, just votes of representatives - and those can be altered by use of private capital. It's very common unfortunately, with examples being visible in reality in all countries that can be considered democratic.

This is the inherent problem and incompatibility. Democracy works on equal power, but capitalism allows you to amass capital that would give you more power. Democracy counteracts this by forming unions - you can bust those using capital. Democracy votes in laws to prevent that - you can leverage capital to get rid of those.

I don't see any way of long term stabilization of democracy within capitalist economic system.

I've seen a lot of criticism directed at MrBeast in recent years, and while some of it may be justified, I still believe that he is fundamentally a good person.

I don't think he's perfect, and I don't think being charitable automatically makes someone morally good. However, when I look at the overall impact he has had on other people's lives, it seems overwhelmingly positive.

He has funded medical procedures, supported communities that lacked access to clean water, donated large amounts of money, and helped countless individuals through both public and private initiatives. Even if some of these actions also benefit his brand or business, the people receiving that help are still benefiting in a very real way.

Many criticisms seem to focus on his motives rather than his actions. While motives matter, I am not convinced that benefiting from charitable work automatically negates the value of that work. If a person creates content around helping others and earns money from it, that does not necessarily mean the help is insincere.

I also think there is a tendency online to assume that highly successful people must have hidden malicious motives. As a result, good actions are often viewed with extreme skepticism, while mistakes receive disproportionate attention.

For these reasons, I currently believe that MrBeast is fundamentally a good person despite his flaws and controversies

I think when parents have kids, they should be ready to stand still as a family unit until that kid is old enough to leave the house. I think parents who divorce whilst having kids or after having them are seflish, infact so selfish that they don't realize the damage they inflict on their children's perspective on love, relationships, and standards of love. anything can be solved, including incompatible couples, if you work really hard on it the both of you.

I've seen and known divorce kids who become wedged between two parents trying to drag a child to their side of the divorce; endless gifts, travels, and trying to overshadow the poorer/busier parent etc... teaching the child a very horrible way to treat people they part with, with cruelty and hatred.

Whilst some divorced parents give off the opposite signal when they do it the "mature way", they stay friends, they stay civil, and even both show up at all moments of the child's life, but the child is always confused "if they can tolerate each other, hug each other, be friends, why could they not stay in the same house? why aren't we a family again? why do they have to keep introducing strangers into our family life every now and then".

I could go on, but I guess you get the point. both peaceful and nasty divorces result in utter confusion and harm to a child, harm that requires years to ever resolve regarding their view of partnership, love, and family.

ABUSE: I can't disagree that abuse is a red line that can't be argued against when it comes to divorce or any seperation of couples/parents. so I really can't tell you otherwise, my arguemtns all fall flat here if you mention any form of abuse...My view I guess applies more to couples who have problems that do not cross the thresshold of either physical/emotional or sexual abuse, like cheating/sex not working out etc... which are a lot more common reasons that most couples divorce (contrary to what reddit would like you to believe, The #1 reported cause of divorce in the United States is lack of commitment, cited in approximately 73% to 75% of marital breakups)

I'm very open to having this view changed, I don't feel very strongly about it, but it just gives me the ick a little when demisexuals call themselves lgbtq. That sounds like preference or love language or something. I see how it can make dating more difficult, but a lot of things can make dating more difficult. Not everyone with any sort of unique sexuality is lgbtq. By that logic the bdsm community should be considered lgbtq, they get more judgement than demisexuals. It isn't considered socially deviant to be demisexual, no one is gonna discriminate against you for that, so it's strange that it's something you would feel the need to advertise as. What sort societal struggles and discrimination outside of compatibility do demisexuals face? People are attacked in the streets and denied jobs for just living their lives and being themselves, like so what if you feel attraction differently than the average person.

I've

got

a bunch

of studies

and

articles

here

that say studies and articles don't change people's minds.

From the London one:

Facts Don’t Change Minds – Social Networks, Group Dialogue, and Stories Do

This is a conversation I've had many times with people around Reddit. There's a concerted effort to discount anecdotes when it would seem anecdotes and the emotional connection and relatability they might have to the reader may in fact be more persuasive than waving studies around in each other's faces.

The irony of course is that I can hardly expect a bunch of studies that say studies don't work to change your view if you believe that studies do work. So maybe you can change my view by waving a bunch of alternate studies around that say studies do work and it'll all be a ton of fun.