Datasets:

iamketan25

/

cmv-instructions

like 0

Human: Change my mind: Gun violence, education reform, concussions in American football, the European far right, and the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot be resolved without fixing economic inequality. In recent years, a number of studies have shown that the US in particular has the lowest income equality, among the lowest income mobility, and among the highest indexes of social problems in the developed world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/time-end-extreme-inequality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better At the same time, American-style capitalism and inequality is becoming a global problem. The hopeful trend of convergence brought about by fast emerging-market growth from 2000 to 2007 has reversed:https://www.credit-suisse.com/upload/news-live/000000022801.pdf Emerging markets, while creating a ton of GDP, are not converting much of that to wealth and the US has actually *increased* its share of global wealth since 2007, with all of that going to the top. As a result, the average human being is poorer now than she was in 2010, even though global income and wealth as an aggregate have increased substantially. The median American is poorer than the median Canadian or even Italian and is at about the same wealth level as a Portuguese, a South Korean, or a Western Slav. Chillingly, much of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel are following on the same track. It is easy to see the links between high inequality and low mobility in the US, as well as increasing global inequality that is wiping out the gains China and other emerging countries made in the 2000-2007 period, and various US and international problems. Police brutality has proven to be among the most effective wedge issues keeping desperate black and Hispanic Americans from solidarity with slightly less desperate white Americans. Gun control has repeatedly been blocked by desperate white Americans voting in the Tea Party, by mistrust of the government, and, as Obama pointed out in 2008, clinging to firearm ownership as one of their few sources of power. At the same time, highly-armed but equal societies like Switzerland and Iceland have far less gun violence (and non-gun violence) than the US. Education reform is futile when 20-30% of the American population is struggling to make ends meet and 70%+ are one unlucky break or bad decision away from misery. At the same time, many Americans are not seeing any return in education and are taking out tens of thousands in student loans only to work at Starbucks or McDonald's. If the sons and daughters of the USA's white upper-middle-class are struggling to stay afloat, what does that say about the chances and return on investment for the white working class, much less blacks and Hispanics in the inner cities? American football will forever retain a steady pipeline of recruits so long as poor blacks, Hispanics, and rural folk see no path to college or wealth other than combat sports. Many parts of the US see gridiron football as their main lifeline and source of charity and economic activity. Europe has long been spared the extremes of capitalism in the American style; however, the ongoing economic crisis has resulted in parties left, right, and center in countries with credit ratings from AAA to junk making cuts in government programs and benefits that would have been political suicide just one decade earlier. This phenomenon has spread to Canada, Australia, and even New Zealand and Japan and in the Northern countries is accompanied by a housing bubble in major cities that results in crippling household-debt-to-GDP ratios, years of "hidden homelessness" and couch-surfing in cities like Stockholm, and near-US-like levels of wealth inequality. With no mainstream politicians willing to reject austerity, this Great Americanization has been a boon to far-left and far-right parties, including close allies of Vladimir Putin, as well as to conversions to radical Islam. The situation in Israel is similar. Ultranationalism has become a handy distraction from Israelis' day-to-day problems and antipathy that should be directed at the elite is instead being directed at the Palestinians. At the same time, the rise of radical Islamic groups such as ISIS that make the Taliban and al-Qaeda look like teddy bears has colored a lot of the anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab rhetoric, as have alliances of convenience with ex-neo-Nazis in the European far right. Assistant :

"You can fault shitty tackling technique on helmets. If people lead with their head then they will get injured. Is that the fault of the helmet? That's just a guy who is a crappy tackler. " 'So it seems like it would be poor tackling skills and not the helmets. Go figure. ' "No one cheers for injuries in football. You'll frequently hear a stadium go silent when someone goes down hard." "I guess they don't let the poor kids play with helmets in his world. " "So what if it doesn't" 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question' "The point being that the mass public doesn't really care about if the player gets hurt, they're there for the show, for their team. My favorite QB might snap his leg, but it's not gonna ruin my experience watching a football game, and I'm certainly not gonna leave the stadium because of it. This is true for 99.9999% of the public. " "But it sure doesn't stop them from watching it." "Sorry for the confusion. I issued my reply to stevegcook. You can see it there if you'd like." "You said people don't stop watching football because of injuries. Someone else replied to you, saying that's true of sports in general, via a rhetorical question. If anyone is being unclear here, it's you, because we're not sure why you made your original comment, or what the point of it was. " "I think if you're trying to make a point, you should make it. We both know the answer to your question. EDIT: It seems like that was exactly the point I was trying to make. I would think that there is a certain amount of tragedy that can occur on a field that would distress the audience enough to consider removing themselves from the stadium or as a fan of the sport in general. But I guess if the roman spectators could handle watching people get slaughtered, some members of an audience will put up with just about any injury." "I didn't think the point was clear. I asked for clarification." 'Something, something, educational glass ceiling, something something neo-slavery. ' 'Do soccer/football stadiums clear out when an injury occurs? '

Human: Change my mind: Driving a car is insanely risky and probably the most dangerous thing you do in your everyday life. I find it difficult to understand how so many people enjoy driving a car or can even relax while doing it. I am almost continually tense while on the road thinking about what's at stake (and I've been driving for almost 20 years). While I have never been in an accident, I often find myself thinking how dangerous even small motions of a driver can be. For example, a sudden small jerking movement of an arm on the steering wheel leading the car into oncoming traffic can lead to almost certain instant death. I cannot think of any other action in my daily life where so many small actions (of me or other people) can be lethal. Even leaving accidents and catastrophic scenarios out of consideration, driving a car seems extremely risky to me: For many, maybe most people their car is the most expensive single item that they own. Even small mistakes like a lack of concentration or a tiny miscalculation while parking into a small space, can lead to high damage and expensive repairs. Assistant :

'' "And if we were invulnerable, we'd be even safer. " 'Yes. ' '∆ TBH, the fact that by this metric walking is more dangerous than driving blows my mind. I guess that it depends on where you walk? (Then again, the same is certainly true for driving.) Maybe I feel more in control when walking, so I underestimate its dangers? It seems that you have made an excellent point here.' 'Proving OPs point that cars are dangerous as fuck. The primary reason why all the others are worst than cars is because you die more when you get hit by a car. Without cars, walking would be the safest way by far.' "Got me. I'm just using the data, or perhaps completely making it up. " 'Being hit by a car, muggings etc ' "You're right. " 'The micromorts are calculated assuming that fatal incidents happen evenly distributed along all drivers. If you take into account that OP is driving sober and without an accident for 20 years, the risk is probably lower.' "I'd also like to see an analysis that takes into account the fact that exercise is good for you. It seems like it would be really trivial at first, but given how bad heart disease is in the USA, a little physical activity would extend the life of the average American. I wouldn't be surprised if walking was a net negative mortality risk." 'Your username is quite fitting. It should be well within your skill set to get that data using Google and two words. ' 'Well, I\'m aware that Wikipedia has a bunch of references at the bottom of the micromort artlcle and that googling "micromort" gives a lot of hits. But I can\'t be arsed to trawl through them.' "El Al is/was a state owned airline, that's a bit different. They fly in an area of the world that is much more prone to hijackings than in western countries. Air Marshals are also federal employees and US airlines would be prohibited from putting their own armed security by the FAA on flights even if they wanted to." 'Yes, I understand. The risk (as in percentage chance) of hitting a pedestrian while driving is not the same risk (as in percentage chance) of being hit by a driver while walking.' "What would be more fun for me? To say I made it all up if I didn't, or to let someone use Google and think of two key words? I made the whole thing up. There's no such measure as a micromort. But if there was, feeding rabbits would top the list of dangerous activities. Look at the bones!" "that's clear, but his point was that micromorts might simply not be a good way to measure in this case. risk assessment could include your risk of causing harm in general, not exclusively harm to yourself." "Well they are kind of fluke events and don't happen very often. It also isn't the fault of the transportation mode as a whole that they happen. Even if you add them in it's still much safer than any other transportation method. Specifically the one of the most dangerous maneuvers that can be performed is what is known as a Rejected Takeoff (abbreviated as RTO) at V1 speed. This is due to the extreme heat generated on the brakes and the risk of a fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr4V680UQ-k" 'The actor who is the CAUSE of realized risk is at issue. Very few pedestrians cause the death of themselves of someone else. Quite a few drivers of cars do. Moreover, death is not the only risk associated with driving. There is also potential costs involving incarceration, civil suits, lost wages, injury, and so forth. To presume rate of death is the one true measure of risk is taking a rather narrow definition of how most people use the term. ' 'Your numbers are way off from the numbers I usually see, and I would like a source please.' 'Unlikely, given all the articles and blog posts.' "I don't know about you, but air travelling is not part of my everyday life." 'Hell, yeah it would. ' "> It's a unit of risk representing a one in a million chance to die. To accumulate a micromort in a car, you have to travel 230 miles. Can I get a source on this?" "More dangerous to who though? You may face less risk of fatality in a vehicle (cars have very strong safety measures in place nowadays), but by driving on the road, you pose a massive risk to cyclists and pedestrians. By getting rid of automobiles, you'd substantially reduce the per-mile risk of all other travel." "Shouldn't acts of terrorism definitely be counted?" "It doesn't lower the risk of death by other drivers though. " 'Let\'s not get too hasty with those deltas. Most pedestrians (and cyclists) are killed by cars, after all. So if you consider killing someone else by accident a "risk" of driving, then... basically add those values together if you want to understand how dangerous driving really is. Unless you only care if you die, and everyone else can suck it...' 'I\'m saying that comparing the risk of walking to the risk of driving isn\'t valid if you discount the risk that cars pose to pedestrians. This is especially true because walking, as a complete alternative to driving, would be even more risky than walking normally, which is already "riskier" than driving. Discounting cars in a risk assessment, even if you are choosing to forgo cars, makes your assessment divorced from reality. The analogy presented is completely irrelevant to the situation, not to mention being a straw man. The main threat to pedestrians is cars. The main threat to bikes is cars.' 'Sure, but as an assessment of what style of transportation we should strive for, its not really relevant, since pretty much all of the walking an biking deaths are fairly obviously caused by vehicles. This makes their base death rate, attained when they are the privileged method of transportation, very hard to measure. US: 116 deaths per 1,000,000 people per year and 13,500 miles per year for average drivers --> 0.0086 is microhomicides/mile + micromorts/mile, so microhomicides per mile = 0.0042, roughly the same as micromorts. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate' 'It can be pretty handy. ' 'Since the whole micromort thing is based on statistics i meant the average risk of being hit by a car as one of the biggest risks when traveling with motorcycle, bike or walking. Most people who are walking do that in cities and not in some forrest so the average risk of being hit by a car is way higher than being attacked by a bear. OP said that "Driving a car is insanely risky and probably the most dangerous thing you do in your everyday life." and I\'d say that even the other means of transport presented here as more dangerous only are that dangerous because there are people driving cars. Therefore this doesn\'t really contradict OP\'s argument but in a way supports it. What do the dangers of being outside have to do with any of this? > Also while we may disagree that being hit by a car is one of the bigger risks, I assume we agree that it isn\'t the only risk. Obviously when I say that it\'s "one of the bigger risks" that implies that there are others.' 'How is walking more dangerous? What are the risks?' "The possibilities of a fender bender or small accident involving a car are relatively high. However, it's almost never fatal for drivers in cars. Small accidents involving cars and pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists are much, much more deadly for the latter groups." "I'm from the UK too, them statistics are scary man. But fuck it, life's short anyway! " 'You should know full well driving a car is not the most risky thing I do. Riding a motorcycle is the most risky thing I do. "Probably" doesn\'t enter into it, as I\'ve already stated I ride a motorcycle. ' "No they really aren't. The airlines don't screen passengers for security, they just issue the tickets. It is the TSA and government that performs security screening and it is the FAA that sets the regulations on what security measures must be followed. The only thing that an airline has a responsibility to is for the security from the crew members themselves. But I think they do a good job of this. I can't remember the last time an airline crewmember brought down a plane." "That's true, but disease is a different animal than accidents involving machinery. I feel like it's better to compare vehicle deaths to dangerous industries like oil digging, or coal mining. They're the result of our transportation industry/policies and so are more solvable than heart disease or cancer, say." '> The risk of a walker being hit by a car is not equal to the risk of a driver hitting a pedestrian Hmm, well, it must be in one sense... but I see what you mean since there are fewer walkers than drivers. ' 'All fatal accidents are fluke events. Airlines are responsible for security.' 'I\'m not talking about hypotheticals; I\'m talking about point of reference. If you want to define risky as "fatal for the driver," then sure the point stands. However, if you consider the sentiment of the argument rather than the semantics -- i.e. driving is risky because there\'s a lot at stake both in terms of your life as well as that of others -- then it becomes a more subjective point of debate.' "You wouldn't add those values together. The risk of a walker being hit by a car is not equal to the risk of a driver hitting a pedestrian." "I understand what you mean but it's still micromorts, a chance to die, not financial problems." "From the computer in my car that tells me my average speed. You may have noticed I used myself as a reference point. I have in no way spoken for anybody else's experience. " 'The risk is very low since most bears are great drivers. Except this one(http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1620933/y3C5t.gif).' 'Ok let me rephrase it: Although the risk of dying while driving is lower than the risk of dying while walking, the overall risk of dying involving someone (yourself or someone else) driving a car is higher than the risk of dying while walking/riding your bike... without any car involved. This makes me say driving a car really is very dangerous (just maybe not only for yourself).' "Just explaining since you were interested. I'm nice like that." "I'm right there with you. Keep two *on* the road, sister or brother. " "Ok, well in the case on 1 you need to determine how much you value the risk of hurting someone else compared to the risk of hurting yourself and add the risks together. Then you can compare that combined risk to the risk of walking. I don't know that anyone in this thread has done that properly." 'From a wikipedia source(http://understandinguncertainty.org/micromorts)' "We're on the internet. Use it." 'Air travel?' 'Thank you, this answers my critique perfectly.' "No, those don't have an effect on the risks of driving or riding in a car. I think OP is right, it's incredibly more dangerous than people think it is. There were 33,561 vehicular deaths in 2012 in the US alone(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year). We're a first world country and have that kind of death toll on the roads. We overhauled our entire security/privacy/transportation sectors to protect against terrorists who killed 10% of that number one time in 2001. We have an equivalent death toll to 9/11 every 4-6 weeks on the roads in the US and nobody says a word about it. I think OP is absolutely right that it's an under-feared danger." "That's fair. The primary point I was pushing was 1) so feel free to disregard the last sentence in my original comment if that makes things more coherent." '> the risk of dying while walking/riding your bike... without any car involved. This isn\'t a real world situation. How? Just how? Are you saying you can\'t die without any car involved? Trying to make an analogy imagine this answer in a discussion on the question if having a gun is dangerous: > the overall risk of dying involving someone (yourself or someone else) *using a gun* This is a real world situation. > the risk of dying while walking/riding your bike... without any *gun* involved. This isn\'t a real world situation. And that\'s where you are comparing the real world with a hypothetical one. We live in a world where people *have guns*. The risk of dying while walking in a world without *guns* is an irrelevant comparison. Everything you can do has some level of risk associated with it. For *having a gun* to be "insanely risky" it would need to be riskier than the real world alternatives, which it isn\'t.' 'You have not mentioned microhomicides associated with each mode of transport though. I would think most of the deaths while walking or biking are caused by cars, so individually you might be safer driving, but as a society if people avoided driving we would all be much safer. ' 'Air travel makes for good missing airliner 24 hour news coverage but 2014 actually had fewer air fatalities than most other years in the last 2 decades. The most dangerous part of any flight is your drive to and from the airport. http://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/transportation/comparing-fatality-risks-united-states-transportation-across-modes-time > Excluding acts of suicide and terrorism, commercial aviation was the safest mode of travel in the United States, with 0.07 fatalities per billion passenger miles: “A person who took a 500-mile flight every single day for a year, would have a fatality risk of 1 in 85,000.” (One variable to note: Takeoffs and landings are where the risk is, not in the number of miles flown, so risk-per-flight calculations are higher.)' 'What do you mean personal insurances? Like home insurance? ' "That's a separate point. There are two arguments here: 1) The risk of hitting someone is still a risk - I agree with this, although I fear that the statistics will be misused in measuring this risk, as they are being misused all over this thread. 2) Walking is only risky because of driving. If nobody drove then it would be less risky - This might be true, but it is irrelevant. We live in a world where people drive. The only thing OP can control is whether s/he drives or relies on another mode of transport. The latter is what I'm talking about." "In any case someone should be responsible for airline security. My original point was that I don't see a reason to omit terrorism related airplane deaths if it represents an actual risk of flying. Calling it a 'fluke' doesn't make the victims less dead." 'In Copenhagen, the average bike speed is 9.6 mph on a normal bicycle. I was referring to average bicycle speed, a better measurement rather than being based off of one particular person. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance' "That's great. Read my post and tell me where I used a micromort to make a claim about an average user. " "It is probably not more dangerous - the info is probably wrong. It's based on a wiki article which is based on a weird animation which is not based on anything as far as I can tell." "I'd assume being hit by a car is one of the bigger risks when you're traveling with one of the other options so it kinda shows the argument of OP to be true." 'To add, think of bing hit by a car while in another car vs being hit by a car while walking. Cars have safety systems in place to protect the people inside...where as being hit from the outside provides no protection. Mind you, not all car accidents kill or even injure severely for that matter.' "Or maybe I just made up micromorts and am just screwing with you. There's really no way to be sure. " 'Then feel free to give your data on microhomicides. ' "As far as you know. Look around, maybe there's tons of safe fun you're missing out on." 'On the micromort bandwagon. 1.4 cigarettes and a .5 liter of wine is actually equal risk to that my 230 mile car ride or 17 miles walking. Anyone who consistently smokes even a little is at way way higher risk than driving.' "Unless I'm on a long, non traffic light place, and on flat land, 5-7 is pretty reasonable." "Yeah but the driver most probably wont die. Not saying it's a good thing, but we're talking micromorts here, so you're still safer while driving." 'the micromort does only calculate the risk for the people inside the car. If killing someone with a car is also considered a risk, then driving a car might actually be the most risky thing of these alternatives. Seeing your risk measures for passengers and bicyclers makes you wonder how they die (mostly in car accidents, I presume). So driving a car is probably the most dangerous thing you do in your everyday life for you and your fellow human beings.' 'The statistics, presumable, are based on total number of miles driven, which would average properly over all speeds, or on hours driven, where a driving speed is assumed.' 'OP\'s position is about the world we live in, not some hypothetical world. "There exists a hypothetical scenario where non-driving is less risky" is not a good rebuttal to "non-driving is risky."' "Here's some data that suggests riding in a car is significantly more dangerous than you estimated (and affirms OP that it's a dangerous endeavor relative to other transport): >Lifetime Odds of Accidental Death (Source National Safety Council) - Bicyclist 1 in 4,838 - Car Occupant 1 in 242 >Leading Causes of Accidental Death in the US (As compiled from data reported by the National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 50, No. 15, September 16, 2002) - #1 Motor Vehicle - #6 Drowning - #9 Other Land Transport Accidents (including bicycling, walking, etc.) >Fatalities per Million Exposure Hours (Data compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc.) - Motor vehicle travel: .47 - Bicycle travel: .26 Source(http://overthebarsinmilwaukee.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/fear-mongers-be-gone-riding-a-bike-is-safe/)" 'Well airlines still have their own security policies. El Al for example is said to have 3 plain clothes armed air marshalls on every flight and is one of the safest airlines in the world.' "That's excellent. But I was more referring to the unnecessary sass and hostility. Feel free to do whatever, though, I guess." 'You too pal' 'The article also indicates that eating and having a beating heart are more risky than riding a bicycle, which contradicts the OP\'s assessment that driving is an "insane risk".' 'The numbers are completely made up. I invented micromorts as a ruse. Or not.' "Some adrenaline-inducing activities may be statistically safer than others, even if you can't perceive the difference subjectively in the heat of the moment." 'We live in a world with cars, though. OP is discussing personal risk.' "Then feel free to give me an accurate number of the OP's micromorts for driving. " "Oh, *now* you're aware of all the sources. Interesting. " 'It would be awesome if you just made all that up.' 'Although it\'s not that big of a risk for your own life when you hit someone I\'d still say it counts towards the risks of driving. If you only compare the risk of dying for yourself while traveling driving is safer than walking. But since the title says "Driving a car is insanely risky and probably the most dangerous thing you do in your everyday life." and the biggest danger for people traveling with other means is being hit by a car that makes driving pretty dangerous.' "That's true if you don't consider other risks to the driver. Prosecution and legal costs are costs, so from a perspective of economic risk they are considerably higher than for a pedestrian who is not likely to kill anyone if they bump into them. " "I disagree. He is keeping that on the road and more or less under control while the whole vehicle is on fire. While he is no Jason Statham, that's damn impressive!" "If you're going that far - being alive is a risky thing. Think of all those bacteria on your skin, in your skin, travelling through body. Think about how many of those bacteria are dangerous, and how you'd be suffering if you didn't have an immune system. Think about (before medical tech) how many babies died from just *being born*. This is why families had 13 siblings, cause half of them would die before they hit a couple of years old. Just being alive is more dangerous to you than driving a bloody car." "We're also a country that has over 300,000,000 people in it. More than 2.5 million Americans die every year. Those that die in car accidents are 0.001% of the population. 30k plus looks like a lot, but not compared to the population. 600,000 people a year die from heart disease. That's a 9/11 every day and a half. " "Personal experience isn't relevant for a statistical issue though. I thought it was common sense that car crashes are a major cause of death for pedestrians but of course common sense is just as irrelevant for a discussion as personal experience so I did some googling and found this(http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6215a1.htm). I think this supports that while walking may have a higher micromort per mile rate than driving it would actually be safer than driving if you don't count in deaths caused by drivers." "Hmmm, for the USA there were 33,561 traffic deaths(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year) for 4,274 billion passenger miles traveled(http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html) in 2012. That's 127 million miles per fatality, not 230 million. However, I think this is counting pedestrian and motorcycle deaths, and also truck and bus travel, each of which would shift the number in different directions. It does seem hard to get an accurate number, but 230 seems a bit high to me too. Unfortunately, when I click through for your source's source, it's 404. I wonder if the difference is just UK vs USA." 'Relax, yo.' 'As a motorcycle rider... Shiiiiit' "He's talking big about your average cyclist, as opposed to you specifically " "/u/MageZero provided it. The page you cited used 40 mph, but that just means you're comparing apples to 0.8 apples." "I didn't ask you to do anything. You're doing this by your own choice. " "Replies are also unnecessary, and I see you're feeling free to do whatever." 'Wikipedia' 'What is the risk of being killed by a bear driving a car? How many micromorts!?!' "But if there were no cars on the road, the numbers for walking would be much better, so it kind of shows how cars are dangerous. Other than being hit by a car, I don't see what is dangerous about walking." '> the overall risk of dying involving someone (yourself or someone else) driving a car This is a real world situation. >the risk of dying while walking/riding your bike... without any car involved. This isn\'t a real world situation. And that\'s where you are comparing the real world with a hypothetical one. We live in a world where people drive cars. The risk of dying while walking in a world without cars is an irrelevant comparison. Everything you can do has some level of risk associated with it. For driving to be "insanely risky" it would need to be riskier than the real world alternatives, which it isn\'t.' "The point was that walking is more deadly on average than driving a car. I'd say walking in a world without cars would score lower on the micromort scale than driving a car in this world does. My conclusion from that chain of thought is that the argument of other types of transport being even more risky in this world loses its weight if you think about it. I agree that walking still would have risks but the risk to harm yourself and others (like the people walking) when driving a car is far higher." "I think you're relying on that one misleading wikipedia article. A bunch of the information there is wrong/misleading. Please don't perpetuate wrong information and then refuse to provide sources. Here's a source that says there are about 0.6 fatalities per million hours driven, most of which are occupants of the car: http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving.html This suggests a micromort every 2 hours of driving, not 7." "I don't understand the source the wikipedia article relies on - as far as I can tell those numbers are made up. On the other hand, the source I linked to explicitly derives its numbers. >33134 fatalities/(2.9x1012 miles driven)x32 miles/hourx1,000,000 micromorts/fatality = 0.37 per million hours driven. Where did you get 32 miles/hour from?" 'As for the bicycle, it would be 1-2 hours, 10 to 20mph is much more average that 5-7 mph' "This point, combined with the fact that the risk is not only to death but injury and incarceration. In most states, if you run over a pedestrian, even if they don't die, if you're at fault you can face significant costs which are risk though they are not risks of death. " 'Driving being safer, *but* walking being more dangerous? Those are the same thing...' "A lot of driving also takes place in scenarios where pedestrians aren't even present, whereas very little pedestrian walking takes place in locations that cars don't access. I'll be honest though, that particular complication might not matter depending on how the statistics are gathered." "I didn't actually know that! How much did it go up by if you don't mind me asking? " "Neither of these are a danger of walking though, it's a danger of being near cars, or in dangerous locations. A person in a wheelchair could have both of those things happen to them just as likely." "Do you have sources for those numbers? I feel everything I've read suggested you're safer on a bicycle per mile vs a car." "So what? I was using myself as an example. You may have noticed I didn't make the claim that *my* micromorts were universal. " 'I assume these statistics are mostly based on US-oriented studies.' "I don't have the figures off the top of my head, but it's vastly safer than any of the others, as are trains. " "My blood pressure is currently 117 over 76. I don't really don't know what else you want from me. " 'What is the source?' 'And how, exactly do you know how fast **I** ride a bicycle? I find it interesting that *you* think *your* data on me is better than my own. ' 'He could be a risk analyst for insurance. Those guys are paid to take it that far. ' 'Do as you will. I enjoyed your post about risk assessment, but I looked through your post history and you seem like a massive dick. It\'s possible that you don\'t care what people on the internet who you will never meet think about you- in that case, do your thing. If that was not your intention, I thought I\'d let you know you know. If that is your intention, then I replied because you are playing a part in turning a sub that I enjoy for its discussion style into a hostile environment. I would like to prevent that if possible, but it\'s not like I can stop you from doing anything. So replies are unnecessary in the "air, water, food" sense, but necessary in the "I don\'t want this sub to suck" sense. >My blood pressure is currently 117 over 76. I don\'t really don\'t know what else you want from me. Was funny sarcasm to me. >Replies are also unnecessary, and I see you\'re feeling free to do whatever. Was in response/defense to how I replied to you. >That\'s great. Read my post and tell me where I used a micromort to make a claim about an average user. Was just pretty dickish to a presumably well intentioned poster. That is my reasoning, but like I said before. Do as you will.' 'Yes, but when you consider an activity "dangerous", it\'s valid (essential, maybe) to also consider the danger to other people. ' "That doesn't follow. The riskiness of anything is derived from the risk associated with the actor. In this case, the fact that one of the risks of walking is being hit by a car has no bearing on the risks of driving." "How do you know it's wrong/misleading. It seems like you're just choosing to rely on different statistics that have, as far as I can tell, the same level of veracity. Also, very basic math here, 33134 fatalities/(2.9x10^12 miles driven)x32 miles/hourx1,000,000 micromorts/fatality = 0.37 per million hours driven." "I wish I'd had these numbers when I was discussing safe driving practice and the pedestrian's right of way with some jackass on this sub. pedestrian killed every 17 million miles, atrocious." "Sure, but those aren't the only two options. You could find things you love to do that don't expose you to vastly increased risk of lethal injury."

Human: Change my mind: I don't believe inmates should be eligible for organ transplants. Though it has been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court that withholding medical treatment for individuals incarcerated by the justice system is in violation of the 8th amendment. I do not believe this should extend to organ transplants. With organ waiting lists as long as they are, I don't believe law abiding citizens should die so a convicted offender can prolong his or her life. Organ transplants can cost taxpayers up to a million dollars in medical costs along with post-op medication and treatment. The prison may allow for medication to ease the pain of organ failures so as to not inflict pain by withholding such drugs. However i see no reason for an inmate, most of which are former drug and alcohol abusers to perhaps receive a new liver, free of charge. This does not mean I am against the possibility of inmates donating their organs. Assistant :

'> The punishment of prison is (supposed to be) a loss of freedom. Nothing more, nothing less. Actually, so far, I\'ve seen three vision of what a prison should do. The first one is yours, that prison is there to separate and resctrict freedom for the inmate. This lead to mexican style prison(not official name), in witch they have city inside the prison with people living there lives normally complete with elections, buying better houses and even a judicial system and a prison inside the prison! Then you have the old testament style prison (idem), in witch the goal of the prison is though to be to punish people, the prisons in the USA (please correct me if I am wrong, I would love to be wrong about this :). In it you have story of people evading from prison to get basic healthcare done (like going to the dentist after three week of pain!). And finally you have the Scandinavian style prison where the goal of the prison is seen as "reeducating" the inmate until they are again deemed "fit to the society". In it you have story like mass murderer complaining of "only" having a PS2 instead of a PS3 to play with. Personally I am a fan of the 3rd type but I\'ll admit that each type has its flaw and each correspond of a different worldview Now back to the point, you have to recognise that your point make sense under old testament style prison, but not under Mexican prisons and less under the Scandinavian one (if you\'re gonna spend money on getting someone to be productive again you want him/her to live linger so you get more for your work but it start being an economical decision)'

Human: Change my mind: I shouldn't get a job in this economic climate because it'll be automated anyway; I should just wait for a post-scarcity utopia. I think the world is automating fast enough that a utopia will arise where no one will have to work anymore. Within the next 2 decades or so, having a job won't mean much, and most people will be artists and scientists. My parents let me live with them, so I can just wait until the utopia happens. CMV. Assistant :

'No, resources would still be consumed, just we would theoretically be so efficient a finite amount of resources is not a problem. I mostly used the term post scarcity because op used it, but in reality the "utopia" to be expected in the short term from automation is just a form a socialism, so nothing to be excited about, unless you really hate working.' 'No the automation you are talking about has many historical precedents. Machines replace humans when they become better or more efficient at a job then a human could be. You are merely talking about a state when there are no jobs left that are better done by a human. However I am saying that this will never happen because throughout history when machines have taken over for what we are doing, this merely causes us to come up with something new to do. After some time we come up with a way to replace this new activity with a machine and so on and so forth. ' 'A drive is not enough if there is no possible oppertunity for it to succeed. I dont think you understand what I mean by automation. All humans do as workers is use their intelligence or strength to achieve goals. The human brain is akin to an organic computer, and we can design ones that are superior to it. The human muscle is nothing compared to machines, so all manual labor is also becoming unproductive. What does that leave for humans? Nothing large enough to employ the global workforce, or any significant proportion of it.' "Is post-scarcity even possible? How much of the earth would we constantly need to be consuming to upkeep that kind of tech? It wouldn't come from nowhere right?" 'Think about replicators from star trek. Assuming, for a moment, that they are possible, they would fundamentally alter the entire economy. I assume they would effectively take waste and trash, break them down into atomic or sub atomic components and rebuild them into whatever someone wanted. Resources become a lot less finite at that point.' 'Two things: A post scarcity economy is not defined by the absence of jobs, but by the lack of economic need for them. Secondly, the automation I am referring to does not have a historical precedence. This is not about replacing a weak human welder with a untiring robot, this is about replacing the slow human brain with an efficient and specialized ai. In many fields human intelligence would be akin to outdated technology. Think of how horses were replaced by the superior automobile. Very few horses still work today, because they are only viable in verry narrow circumstances. The same will occur for humans, and like the horses, there is no real reason we will find new work just because we lost our economic value.' 'You are also assuming there will ever be a "post scarcity" period... There is very little data supporting the idea that automation = less job opportunity overall. There is some data that automation advances in a a given industry can reduce job opportunities in that industry for a period however there are very few instances where this is not made up for in scale. I.E. higher automation leads to growth in the industry which then leads to it hiring more people again, despite needing less people per unit produced. ' 'Because no limit of human usefulness was conceivable 400 years ago does not mean that limit does not exist. If someone from 2400 told me of the things they were doing I imagine it would be equally astounding, but I doubt these tasks would be being done by humans.' 'Why? Economic value can not be forced onto a tool. When we have the technology that makes any possible task currently done by a human more cost effective, why would there be any need to hire humans? What can a human do that ais can not do better? Theoretically, nothing. In reality there are some functions that will take longer to automate than others, but time will eventually see all human labor as economically antiquated.' 'That is what someone in the 1500s would have said if you told them that in the future no one would ever have to farm again. "What else is there to do?" and then you would say "Well you can make huge contraptions made out of the black stuff that fire makes that fly through the air at 100x the speed of the fastest bird." And they would tell you to go get your head checked.' 'Because humans have an innate drive to do stuff. Horses never did, horses did what they were told to do, we dont, we do what we feel like doing. It used to be that everyone was a farmer, than technology progressed, now almost no one is farmer. Now we do other stuff, we do stuff that people in the 1500s would have though impossible or absurd. So its probably safe to say that 500 years from now people will be doing stuff that we now think is impossible and absurd.' 'See this is where I lose you. "Human Usefulness" is irrelevant, we don\'t need smart phones, we don\'t need airplanes, we don\'t need luxury watches or fancy suits or any of it. There are millions of things that exist and are beloved that serve no use in terms of base survival (reddit for example). But we do them because we enjoy it, I can create a machine that plays golf better than I play golf, but then I wouldn\'t get to play golf. We could create machines that argue about pointless shit on Reddit better than you or me, but then we wouldn\'t get to do that either and that\'s no fun. So long as humans are the judges of value, we will always have value.'

Human: Change my mind: I believe there should be a Death Race-esque Contest for Prisoners I think there should be a system in place similar to what happened in the Movie 'Death Race'. Better yet, something similar to the Hunger Games. What am I proposing? Get the Prisoners on Death Row to participate in a mandatory contest to death. The winner gets a reward. And the other Death Row Prisoners can be taken care of in a quick and effective way, while the Public gets a kick out of the Entertainment provided by the Event. Assistant :

'What could possibly go wrong with that plan?'

Human: Change my mind: i have a hard time feeling sympathetic towards ebola aid workers (and feel bad about it) in the uk there's a story going on right now of a nurse who got transferred to a london hospital/isolation ward, and that her condition is deteriorating rapidly. i don't take death lightly, i try and picture myself in that situation and everything i would be thinking, and it's awful to think about. at the same time though i think "what were you really expecting?" even worse than this i'm slightly resentful over aid workers sometimes, for instance she shared a plane on the way back with other people, imagine how they must have felt upon hearing they shared the same flight? parents getting given the idea "if we happened to get hit with awful luck, we may just have to watch our kids getting lowered into a grave in a coffin", or flight workers who could easily be you or me pondering "well I may never see my family again" if they happened to shake hands on the way out i dunno, is it really fair on those people? or her family who could have easily been exposed to it? i know she was trying to help people, but she's also creating a risk for innocent people who equally don't deserve to die. sometimes i just feel like saying "jeez, just stop it you idiot, don't you realise how foolish you're being? why are you risking leaving your entire family behind like that? it's not worth it" my rough thoughts, I guess Assistant :

"> i dunno, if it happened to your friend i think you'd be more angry than sympathetic, you'd think they were selfish. Am I right that you'd be angry because you feel like they're putting you in a position where you have to worry about their well-being and possibly deal with the fallout resulting from their injury or death - i.e., you'd be angry that they're betraying your personal interest in favor of the interest of strangers? That's selfish of you, because you are putting your interest (not wanting to get hurt by somebody else's actions) over the interest of your friend or relative, who presumably is doing this out of their own volition, and over the interest of many other people, who presumably want to get cured of ebola, saved from fires, etc. It's kind of how people get angry at somebody who died, as part of the grieving process: you feel like the person abandoned you to deal with all these unpleasant feelings and events. It comes from a feeling of powerlessness. Eventually healthy people accept that the world doesn't revolve around their wishes, they don't have control over everything that happens, and learn to live in an atmosphere of constant unwarranted change." "You said yourself that you can understand the need for this kind of work in the abstract, you're just having a difficult time bringing it home. Being able to empathize with others and sacrifice your time, efforts, or safety in order to preserve theirs is inherent to the human condition. Leaving behind that self-centeredness and recognizing that self-preservation is not the ultimate goal is one of the marks of maturity in modern society. An internet forum isn't going to convince you to be empathetic through reasoned argument, it is something you glean from life experience and time. >i dunno, if it happened to your friend i think you'd be more angry than sympathetic, you'd think they were selfish. i kinda view it like that, it's weird If I had a friend that made the choice to do something like this I would be proud of them, and try to help them be as safe as possible in their pursuit." "That anger is occurring because you're placing your friends life in front of those they are sacrificing to help. Imagine instead that your friend has ebola, and that no doctors will go near them. How would you feel about the sacrifice in that situation? "

Human: Change my mind: Serial killers cannot be rehabilitated. A serial killer, according to Princeton, is typically defined as a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. On the basis that serial killers have multiple murders under their belt and enjoy these acts, what incentive is there for them to stop if they obviously want to continue killing? Yes; Dahmer confessed and supposedly "became a Christian." But these people tend to be convincing, charismatic, and well spoken. Who's to say it wasn't just an act to get sympathy so he could start killing again or gain trust? Anyway, my view is that serial killers (such as Holmes, Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, Manson, etc.) cannot change and cannot be rehabilitated into normal society. Change my view! Assistant :

"Depends on the serial killer, I'm guessing. Why not? Plenty of serial killers are probably out on the loose right now. Some get caught years later, some confess years later, some disappear. Just because they did a string of murders, it doesn't mean they'll continue and the ones that continue eventually get caught. The smart ones that know they can't get away with it forever will stop. Being a psychopath, losing the freedom to even have the potential to kill again is probably worse than practicing self control and not killing. Also, it's a bit tougher to get away with serial killing these days. Especially if you have a modus operandi that has been analyzed already by law enforcement." "It's possible, but the person has to want to do it." "This is sort of why I brought up pedophiles. I guess I could add serial rapists to the mix? If violating another human being in a certain way releases all the fun chemicals that makes you feel good, it's probably gonna be mentally addictive. Just like how food becomes addictive for certain people going through depression, chopping a person into nice even pieces could be what works for a serial killer that's unable to fit into society. The only difference is that it's not chemically induced, so there's no chemical dependency to worry about. The big worry is how fucked their brain's wiring is that they've come to enjoy killing people in a methodical way and if they have the ability to rewire themselves into controlling those urges. If you look at an alcoholics anonymous program, that's pretty much all it is. A big, long self reprogramming." 'But would they be willing to control it? Is that even in the realm of possibility, if, as you say, it is an addiction?' '∆ This really put it in perspective for me. I understand the way addiction works (not personally, but through my own research), so thinking of it in this manner really broke it down for me in a clear manner. The only question that remains is does being a murderer affect the body in the same way (albeit obviously a bit differently) as a drug? If so, treatment would be a bit easier to figure out.' 'And if the serial killer wants to be rehabilitated, then they can find help. ' 'Once addicted to a drug, is it possible to be rehabilitated? '

Human: Change my mind : In most cases, the pirates that only download but do not upload copyrighted content are causing no loss to the copyright holder. Think about it. **If they have no means to pay the copyright holder, either because they have the money but not the compatible payment media (for example, Sony doesn't accept debit cards, at least from many countries), or they have no money at all.** All they're doing is downloading something that is available on the internet. **They would not have been able to pay the copyright holder even if they wanted to, and thus they are causing no loss to the copyright holder.** Whether it is moral to enjoy something without paying for it is questionable, I would allege, as much as overcharging for goods and services, as is the practice. However, that is not what I want a discussion on. I want only to discuss about whether and if yes, then how loss is caused to the copyright holder by people who illegally download copyrighted content without paying, as they have no means to make the payment. Assistant :

'So in that case, you\'re not concerned with the monetary aspects of pirating at all - you claim they don\'t "deserve to make a profit" and "whether they see money or not is irrelevant." If that\'s the case, then this isn\'t the thread for you - OP is specifically concerned with the loss or lack thereof resulting from downloads. Just wanted to make that clear before moving forward (because I will address your points). > Whether they see money or not is irrelevant in my opinion. Nobody > deserves to make a profit. Additionally, there\'s no reason to expect > that recording music should be the way a musician makes money. > It\'s a relatively new thing and not a traditional thing for musicians to > do historically, and should really be more of an extra convenience to > allow people to hear your music. Historically, a great way of making money from mines was to buy a bunch of slaves, throw them in it, have them dig stuff out for you regardless of the dangers, and pay them nothing for it. I suppose you\'d be inclined to return to this time? What did or didn\'t happen historically is only relevant to the present in what mistakes we should seek to avoid making. Just because something isn\'t the "traditional way" of making money doesn\'t mean you shouldn\'t be expected to make money that way. Manufacturing wasn\'t a "traditional" way of making money, so should we deny them money by breaking into the factory and stealing all the sofas? After all, by your own argument, manufacturing is only a recent (on even the human timescale) invention, and therefore not a traditional way of making money (or sofas, for that matter), so let\'s go steal the damn things! Perfectly OK, right? You argument is so self serving that it\'s clear you care about nothing and no one except those you consider your immediate friends, family, and property. If you have a job, you\'d argue that you yourself don\'t deserve a profit, that you should be paid nothing for your job and you should be content with it? After all, you\'re making a profit when you go to your job - there\'s no monetary investment on your part in your job, but you get money out of it! BLASPHEMY! > Absolutely yes. My friends and I share music all the time, and spend > money going to concerts of bands we like. Listening to recordings is > nice but it is nothing compared to a live performance. If we go back > to the cookie reference, it\'s one thing to share a photo of a cookie > and another to physically eat one. Your cookie metaphor doesn\'t quite work. You\'re not sharing photos of a cookie - even if you argue that the live experience has an extra facet of reality to it, you can\'t simplify that to the picture of a cookie. You\'re still getting the essence of the cookie out of it when you pirate MP3s - you\'re just not getting the whole thing. You get the taste, but not the temperature, texture, crunchiness or softeness, smell, etc. It\'s closer to the difference between a real cookie and a cookie-flavored milk drink. And maybe you don\'t pay as much for a cookie-flavored milk drink as for a cookie, but somehow I doubt you claim "This isn\'t a cookie," grab said drink, and sprint out of the grocery store, avoiding guards and police. This is, however, what you\'re advocating. Your piracy of that music denies not only the musician, but also the recording technician, the track mixer, the CD burner, the CD printer, the distributor, and the retailer money. And say what you like about musicians, but as long as those other careers have existed, they are doing what they have traditionally done in those careers to make money. ' "> I would only note that it's not necessarily true that the infrastructure exists because it is monetarily profitable - it's true that it makes money, but many also sport donation buttons that I have no doubt are clicked extremely often. I'd agree that it's not necessarily true. The downloader is still culpable though, because they would be the ones sending donations. Unless the site administrators shoulder the whole cost of running the site, downloaders would still be responsible." "∆ Oh wow. This one finally convinced me. I didn't ever see it from this point of view. Could you give me some numbers, though?" '> Downloaders are the basis of an economy which hurts copyright holders, even if they themselves never uploaded anything. I disagree with this. Copyright holders are not entitled to make a profit by simply existing. Since they are not being robbed of money, nor physical copies of their media, nor are they (normally) being hacked and having their content stolen that way or deleted from their site, the existence of "piracy" has no actual impact on their sales. Generally, most piracy occurs through someone else making a purchase to obtain that content, then redistributing it in some way. Me sharing some MP3s with my friend of a CD that I bought is no more immoral than me buying cookies from a bakery, then finding a recipe to make them at home, and making them for my friend. The fact that I gave the same type of cookies to my friend doesn\'t mean that the bakery lost money. Maybe my friend would have gone to buy cookies there, maybe not, but they have no right to my friend\'s money.' "Your point 3 about the infrastructure being profitable is wrong for very large private trackers. I know of many huge trackers who are not breaking even. Many don't even run ads. And by large I'm talking trackers with 150k, or 40k, or 24k users(the ones I bothered to check the user count on). Even with tons of users these sites are making negative profit." 'Shh we don\'t talk about the failures of the industry here. Seriously though, I completely agree with you. Every time they sue someone for millions of dollars, citing the maximum fine for each individual seed, it\'s like "we are going to ruin your life over $0.99. Have a good day". It would be one thing if the individuals had any way of fighting this but as a multi-billion dollar organization, they can just stomp all over everyone.' "I would only note that it's not necessarily true that the infrastructure exists because it is monetarily profitable - it's true that it makes money, but many also sport donation buttons that I have no doubt are clicked extremely often. But it is definitely true that the people who run them believe that the act of running these sites justifies the leftover cost after advertising revenue." "The industry which has suffered the worst is the print publishing industry. The next worst off is the music industry. The next worst off is the movie industry. The next worst off is the video game industry. The extent to which these industries are suffering is almost entirely correlated to the size of their content, which in turn correlates to the ease with which it can be downloaded. It has little to do with how they've adapted, but still, not nothing." 'How do they keep their sites running? If they get donations, then these donations come from downloaders. If so, then the downloaders are still ultimately hurting copyright holders.' "Piracy gave us the idea that we could download individual songs. The result is iTunes and similar sites selling songs one at a time and pandora and songza letting you stream instead of buy. The music industry failed to properly adapt and that's what's hurting them. Game and movie industries are still doing record breaking sales and they have just as much piracy." "The difference between MP3s and cookies is that MP3s are not one time use. In that hypothetical situation, your friend likes the cookies you give him and asks where you got them. You tell him about the bakery where you first got the cookies, and now he goes there once a week to pick up a dozen cookies for himself. Your sharing of cookies ultimately leads to the bakery making money. Alternatively, if your friend is not me and can actually make food without burning down his domicile, you share the recipe with him and the market where you buy ingredients makes money (since clearly if you can replicate the taste at home, there isn't any need to go to the bakery). Either way, someone makes money as a result of the sharing of cookies. However, when you give that same friend a ripped MP3 off of a CD, he NEVER NEEDS TO BUY ANYTHING. He can re-use that copy of the MP3 a million and one times and still have the ability to do it again. The only point of sale is when you buy the MP3 - after that, the guys making the music, paying for the recording equipment, editing the tracks, burning the CDs, printing the inserts, distributing the CDs, finally retailing them DO NOT SEE MONEY. In a purely free market setting, there would only be copies of CDs sold until one person uploads the whole thing online. At that point, the CDs would not sell, unless people valued the case and insert for the CDs, as well as the support given to the artist (if they care about that at all), at whatever price they were being sold at. Are you telling me that your friend has the right to listen to that music that he never did a thing for? Because he didn't - you were the one that went to the effort of ripping the MP3s. He got goods without paying in any fashion, monetary, labor, or otherwise." "> The music industry failed to properly adapt and that's what's hurting them. Sure it is. No question about that. But what's hurting them even more, is freeloading." "A large number of users live in areas where there is no means for them to legally acquire the material they want, so there's no way that they can hurt copyright holders. Plus, while a percentage of pirates spend nothing on legal material, the ones who do spend spend a lot more than non-pirates. The ones who spend nothing are likely to be either too poor to afford material or in an area where the material is unavailable anyway. " "> The difference between MP3s and cookies is that MP3s are not one time use. That's why I tried to make it a little different by switching to a recipe instead of just an actual physical cookie. Specifically, this works like buying a CD, then making a copy of that CD to give to a friend (or instead of a D, making MP3s.) > However, when you give that same friend a ripped MP3 off of a CD, he NEVER NEEDS TO BUY ANYTHING. He can re-use that copy of the MP3 a million and one times and still have the ability to do it again. The only point of sale is when you buy the MP3 - after that, the guys making the music, paying for the recording equipment, editing the tracks, burning the CDs, printing the inserts, distributing the CDs, finally retailing them DO NOT SEE MONEY. Whether they see money or not is irrelevant in my opinion. Nobody deserves to make a profit. Additionally, there's no reason to expect that recording music should be the way a musician makes money. It's a relatively new thing and not a traditional thing for musicians to do historically, and should really be more of an extra convenience to allow people to hear your music. > Are you telling me that your friend has the right to listen to that music that he never did a thing for? Because he didn't - you were the one that went to the effort of ripping the MP3s. He got goods without paying in any fashion, monetary, labor, or otherwise. Absolutely yes. My friends and I share music all the time, and spend money going to concerts of bands we like. Listening to recordings is nice but it is nothing compared to a live performance. If we go back to the cookie reference, it's one thing to share a photo of a cookie and another to physically eat one. For the record, I play guitar and many of my friends are musicians. Maybe because none of us are famous we don't care, but I've got a few friends who are in bands and are some of the biggest music pirates imaginable (I'm not, but then again I prefer to pay my $7/month for Google Play music so I don't have to download anything.) From my perspective recorded music is no different than pictures of food on the internet. It's not the real thing and as much as I'd love to get rich doing nothing but playing guitar I don't see it as stealing from me if someone downloads an MP3 of me. I'd be happy that they like my sound." "I disagree with that. No other industry that suffers from piracy is hurting like they do. They failed to adapt. That's their main downfall." "It's pretty well-established empircally that P2P file-sharing has had a negative impact on music sales. The RIAA reports that music sales have dropped by 47 percent(http://smallbusiness.chron.com/illegally-downloading-music-impact-music-industry-27748.html) since the advent of Napster, and the studies cited here(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer_file_sharing#Music_industry) support the idea that piracy hurts the profitability of media in general with more detailed analysis. Like in most of the social sciences, this is of course not a fully falsifiable thesis (neither is the thesis that P2P *hasn't* had a negative impact), because you can't fully isolate one factor as the cause, however most economists recognize that the music industry is less well off than it would be without piracy. The argument I gave is all based on this premise in (1), that piracy hurts copyright holders and creators of content. While there may be individual exceptions, this is pretty intuitive and I think, obviously true." '> the existence of "piracy" has no actual impact on their sales. This has been empirically shown to be false. > Me sharing some MP3s with my friend of a CD that I bought is no more immoral than me buying cookies from a bakery, then finding a recipe to make them at home, and making them for my friend. This analogy is inaccurate. Buying cookies and then sharing the recipe with your friend is analogous to you downloading the song, then transcribing it it to musical notation and giving the musical notation to your friend. I agree that copyright holders have no right to your money, but you also have no right to their content. This is how property ownership works. Whether non-physical things should be able to be owned is an open question, but I think you probably agree that they should. Else, you\'d have no problem with someone hacking your bank account and deleting the contents.'

Human: Change my mind: Female-only gyms and women's shelters are not discriminatory… or are they? Well, while I was discussing the effects of feminism on another CMV post, a reddit user made a very good point in saying that female-only gyms and shelters are discriminatory. That was something I never thought about! I could honestly see how it could be discriminatory (men might like to have their own private workout areas, too, and they also can be victims of abuse). I can't refute that it's discriminatory, of course, because it is (or at least, I think it is). But I also believe it's important for women to be and feel safe. As I mentioned to this particular reddit user, my sister was harassed by her gym so badly that she ended up having to quit, so obviously I'm conflicted in my opinions! Now, while I consider myself a feminist, I consider myself more so an egalitarian and I believe that all people should be treated equally. So I would like to CMV to better my practice of that philosophy. As it stands, I would say that I still do think that female-only gyms and shelters are good things, but if someone can CMV and help make the issue a little clearer, I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you! Assistant :

'Yeah, but not because of some arbitrary shit like race. Because of biological differences.' "Except that the reason there *aren't* men's shelters is that they're all women's shelters. If you started a trend of creating gender discriminatory soup kitchens you'd see the same pattern. The need is irrelevant, the sexist imperative to coddle women will ensure that when resource distribution is discriminatory the lion's share will go to women, because more people are interested in trying to help women *specifically* than men *specifically* regardless of need. Saying that it's morally fine to open a shelter that's discriminatory toward men when no resources exist for abused men is absolute bigotry. Let's make a great school in the middle of a poor black neighborhood with no services and only let white kids in. " 'This is the winner. Discrimination is not inherently a bad thing. Discrimination can be used to oppress or to make equal. In the case of a female-only gym, I would argue that its objective is to make equal because although most gyms are technically co-ed, many women might not feel safe or respected.' ">A women's shelter serves to make victims of abuse at the hands of men more comfortable, so in my book they're a good thing. However that is not to say we should not make these resources available to male victims of abuse in the same capacity. The problem here is that it's not a slight inconvenience like needing to go to the gym across town. Much of the time that gender discriminatory shelter is the *only* shelter. Men's shelters are almost non-existent because domestic violence against men isn't a socially recognized problem. It's as if the *only* gyms were gender discriminatory and men who didn't go got the shit kicked out of them by their girlfriends. " "<Still Devil's advocate> If you disregard the organs that make men and women different, they are the same as well." 'I think this is he best way to sum this up. We have this horrible connotation that discrimination is always bad, but look around there\'s plenty of it already. We have separate bathrooms based on gender, separate schools that folks can choose to send their children to ect. The key here is equality. A women\'s shelter serves to make victims of abuse at the hands of men more comfortable, so in my book they\'re a good thing. However that is not to say we should not make these resources available to male victims of abuse in the same capacity. Unfortunately I don\'t really know of any male support groups for abuse survivors out there, but I think we should certainly have them. A personal example of this that I can speak of came from my work. A little background I work at a public shooting range that in addition to holding public hours provides a number of free classes to people. Most of the classes are open to everyone but we have a few that are exclusively women\'s only classes. Our rationale is that when a female starts getting into firearms it can be very intimidating to shoot with a bunch of guys standing around watching. Because folks lets face it hunting and the shooting sports are primarily dominated by men. (There are tons of female shooters out there, just not near as many). So at one point we were short handed so I asked one of our volunteer instructors to come out and help. He said he could not in good conscious participate in a class that segregated by gender when there was no male equivalent (although he understood our reasoning for it). This didn\'t sit well with me, and made me think a lot. I started noticing that while I was helping some male customers in a shooting situation they seemed a bit put off. I\'m the only girl that works at the range, and I feel that these particular men might have had some sort of aversion to me helping them. I mean stereotypically they should have been the ones who knew what they were doing, not some girl in her early twenties. I talked to my guy friends and they said that some guys might just have been embarrassed by getting instruction on what is seen as a masculine activity from a woman. Until that point I had never really thought about it, I was there to help whatever struggling shooters that needed help. So we decided to do something about it. We now in addition to the woman\'s only class have a "Guy\'s day at the range" course. We didn\'t think it would do well but it has filled up just as quickly as the women\'s courses and has received good feedback! ' 'I have issues with the article that you linked. Here are a few of them: > leads us to hypothesize that it is primarily a matter of men abusing women, for at least the following reasons. First, the use of violence as one tactic in an attempt to exercise general control over one’s partner requires more than the willingness to do violence. It requires a credible threat of a damaging violent response to non-compliance (M. A. Dutton & Goodman, 2005). Such a threat is, of course, more credible coming from a man than a woman simply because of the size difference in most heterosexual couples. Second, experience with violence and individual attitudes toward violence make such threats more likely and more credible from a man than from a woman. (7) Although this is just their hypothesis, it does come from a biased viewpoint that men are more likely to be violent... because men are more likely to be violent? That type of circular reasoning rubs me the wrong way. Further, size difference doesn\'t matter much; a man might (maybe) be able to knock you out more effectively, but a woman is just as capable of slapping someone as a man is. > They found that traditional men were more likely to be involved in attacks on their partners than were non-traditional men (8) So what, exactly, is a "traditional man?" The implication is "one who is more likely to violence" for the reasons listed in the first section that I\'ve quoted, which again leads to the circular reasoning of "men who are more violent are likely to be more violent, because they\'re more violent." >When a woman slaps her Intimate husband in the heat of an argument, it is unlikely to be interpreted by him as a serious attempt to do him physical harm. Women’s violence is less likely to injure, is taken less seriously, is less likely to produce fear, and is therefore less likely either to be intended as a control tactic or to be successful as one. (8-9) This here is *outright* ignoring of woman-on-man violence. The paper clearly brushes the impact of WoM violence under the rug. > a view of marriage as a commitment “for better or worse,” ... can contribute to the entrapment of women in abusive relationships. (9) While technically true, this article completely ignores the fact that it could *also* contribute to a man feeling trapped in the relationship "for better or worse." That\'s just the first 9 pages, and there\'s already enough to discredit the paper. It\'s nothing but biased crap. Don\'t get me wrong--I\'m *all for* really reading into the data. I *wholeheartedly* agree that it\'s a very good tactic to read into the relationships between things, and sometimes to draw whacky, counterintuitive conclusions that nonetheless accurately describe something, and I think that doing so is the superior method of analyzing data. However, that\'s not what this paper is doing. It\'s clearly drawing a conclusion and then fitting data to that conclusion. EDIT: Let me rephrase something that I said. This article is mostly quoting other articles, so it\'s less true that "this article is brushing things under the rug" and more true that "this article is a collection of quotes from *other* articles that brush the issue under the rug, and as such retains that bias."' 'An exercise: Remove all gender-specific pronouns. Instead of thinking "A woman has hit a man" think "A person has hit a person". The severity of the attack should not be based directly on physical damage, but on the action itself.' ">It was shut down hard by feminists and is one of the major grievances that is responsible for the negative connotations around the word feminism I'm interested in reading more about that, do you have some books to recommend?" "To add to the issues with using tautological reasoning and fitting data to it in this case, research into domestic violence rates found that not only are the majority of abusive relationships mutually abusive but the majority of non-reciprocally abusive relationships have a male victim and, counter to the narrative that men are violent while women are not, lesbian couples are more likely to have at least one abusive member than straight couples and gay couples are less likely (I've seen some reasonable theories as to why but all we can really go off of is the data)." "No he wasn't. Silverman didn't get funding from the government because there are regulations in Canada about running shelters out of your personal residence. Silverman was a great man in many respects, but he knew nothing about running an NGO, how to lobby the government for funding, or what the necessary conditions were for obtaining said funding. He blamed the government for not giving him the funds to keep his shelter open, but he was never 'attacked' by proponents of women's shelters. He wasn't well known enough to garner their attention. His suicide note didn't say that he blamed feminists or proponents of anything, only the government. Should men get funding, sure. But it's not really a zero sum game either. There are plenty of legitimate avenues with which to successfully lobby the government that doesn't come at the cost of women's shelters. There are men's centres, for example, popping up in Canada that haven't been met with any outcry from feminists." ' ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.8836719029070366 > This comment has been overwritten by this open source script(https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/10380-reddit-overwrite) to protect this user&apos;s privacy. The purpose of this script is to help protect users from doxing, stalking, and harassment. It also helps prevent mods from profiling and censoring. > If you would like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension TamperMonkey(https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo), or the Firefox extension GreaseMonkey(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/) and click Install This Script on the script(https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/10380-reddit-overwrite) page. Then to delete your comments, simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possible (hint: use RES(http://www.redditenhancementsuite.com/)), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.' "I suppose that's right, but if you were to cut open a black man and a white man and compare what's inside each and makes em tick it would be the same. And I just realized how fucked up that sounded." "It certainly would have been possible. This is not, however, a matter of science, but one of history. The testimonies of those responsible is therefore important. One of the most prominent figures in making this change, and a person who faced persecution by government to bring about women's shelters identifies as an anti-feminist and it is her testimony from which I draw the claim." "> A women's shelter serves to make victims of abuse at the hands of men more comfortable, so in my book they're a good thing. I find this sentence discriminitory. Women are definitely abused by men... but NOT JUST men. Women's shelters help female victims of abuse. Back in April I was writing a paper for college and I wrote it on the inequity of gender. Here are the stats as of April 4th, 2014 as I recorded them for my paper. >Of the 22 shelters in Utah, 7 have “women” in their name denoting that this is a safe place for women or children in crisis. Only West jordan has a place for men and their families. Of the 22 shelters in Utah only 1 can accomodate men and their families. (source location http://utahbar.org/bars/umba/assets/utah_domestic_violence_shelters.pdf) When I was a victim of domestic abuse, there was no where for me to turn to for help." "What I posted was a sociological article. As such it uses some terminology in a context which is unique to the field. For example, a traditional man is somebody who is more likely to hurt people because a traditional man is aggressive and domineering. This is not all men by ANY means whatsoever, but it is the image of masculinity that society pressures men to live up to. Traditional masculinity is hegemonic masculinity, a search term that might get you some useful articles to help in understanding the concept. A lot of the other issues you take umbrage with are, I think, a result of a poor reading of what is being said. For instance, that first passage you reference is not saying men are more likely to be violent because they are more likely to be violent. It is saying that threats of violence are more credible coming from men because of the socializing institutions which imagine the ideal man as aggressive and the ideal woman as submissive. When a man threatens a woman, we view that as a serious threat because we have an image of how men ought to be. When a woman threatens a man, we don't take that threat seriously because that contrasts with traditional feminine gender roles. Threats of violence from men are more credible and serious because we expect them to be more credible and serious. That's all. I grant you that this article takes a lot of things for granted, and if you have a problem with how this article defines traditional gender roles there is a wealth of academic literature of that subject. I suppose I shouldn't have assumed that a sociological article in a nonsociological subreddit would have been read from a sociological lens, though." 'I agree with everything you say except for one important point. By pointing out that 40% of DV victims are men you are using data from the National Family Violence Survey, as I understand it. That fails to take into account the severity or frequency with which DV will happen. This article(http://www.personal.psu.edu/mpj/2012%20VAW%20General%20Surveys.pdf) draws a distinction between situational couple violence and intimate terrorism. Situational couple violence is less severe and more contingent. Intimate terrorism is present consistently in relationships and much more severe, too often to the point of death. If we look at the rates for situational couple violence the gender distribution does seem fairly high. However if we look at the rates of intimate terrorism it is almost (but not entirely) exclusively men as the perpetrators and women as the victims. Both are domestic violence, but one is far less severe than the other. Both should have services to address their respective issues but it is absurd to claim that, as a general group, there are as many men in need of shelter from abuse as women. For more reading, I recommend this book(http://www.amazon.com/Public-Private-Families-Andrew-Cherlin/dp/0078026679/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419959288&sr=1-1&keywords=public+and+private+families+cherlin+7th+edition), which, although absurdly expensive, has a chapter that very clearly lays out the distinction and points out more sources than I have. ' ">\t More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_executive_summary-a.pdf There are ~157 million women, and 152 million men in the US http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf 157,000,000*0.356 = 55.9 million women victims 152,000,000*0.285 = 43.6 million men victims. 43.6/(55.9+43.6)*100% = 43.8% of domestic violence victims are men. One thing to note is that this study doesn't count a female forcing a man to have sex with her, ie made to penetrate, as rape. Thus male, and some female, victims are not included in these numbers." "Have you ever seen the data when they include more classifiers? It's rather interesting from a sociological perspective (especially in light of the arguments for focusing on women in these matters) since simply focusing on non-reciprocal abuse flips the ratio. The data on abuse in same sex relationships is similarly damning for the currently prevailing view as male-male relationships have a lower incidence of abuse than male-female relationships which in turn have a lower incidence than female-female. Of course actually looking at the data (while ignoring the definitions that are designed to artificially support existing narratives) it becomes clear that things like domestic abuse and rape are not gendered issues but human ones and thus both far harder and necessary to solve. " 'Source to prove your statement: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020 >Results. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases. ' "As horrible as it is DV is a very interesting subject. I actually find it kind of strange that I discuss issues that fall under the umbrella if gender issues (admittedly from a rare standpoint, seeing all sides as equally important which has largely led to my disdain for the current narrative and it's supporters) so often while not particularly caring too much about them while I so rarely discuss the issues that I do care about (then again considering how rare it is for people to really care about said issue it isn't that surprising). Outrage and being a victim have been commercialized and that isn't simply slowing but utterly halting the ability of society to truly make progress, even for those who have been made to play the perpetual victim." '>The key here is equality So... Separate but Equal' '> What? No. That view assumes that there can only be as many shelters as what already exists. Would you agree that money is a finite resource? In Utah (my information is from April of 2014, so 8 months ago) there were 22 shelters. Of those only 1 was willing to help men. I was denied at the others because it would alarm the women. (I did this as part of a research paper, so I rehearsed the same script to each shelter) The earmarked money for shelters is limited, in Utah I would not expect that with 22 shelters, with only 1 taking male victims, that the budget for male victims is as large as the budget for female victims. Many of the services needed are the same. The argument that a male presence would alarm the other females at the shelter, demeans women, one they know that not all males are dangerous. Second, they should understand that other people need help too. ' 'I have, I have been very interested in DV stats once I learned that the traditional narrative is flat out wrong. I also think this paper is an interesting resource as well. >The second objective is to document the fact that the deniers of the research showing gender symmetry in PV have dealt with the denied research results by scientifically unacceptable tactics such as concealing those results, selective citation of research, stating conclusions that are the opposite of the data in the results section, and intimidating researchers who produced results showing gender symmetry. DOl: 10,1891/1 94.6--6560,13.332 http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V71-Straus_Thirty-Years-Denying-Evidence-PV_10.pdf' "> Men's shelters are almost non-existent because domestic violence against men isn't a socially recognized problem. There was a push for men's shelters shortly after women's shelters really caught on. This push had support from people who had been part of getting women's shelters established. It was shut down hard by feminists and is one of the major grievances that is responsible for the negative connotations around the word feminism. It isn't so much a problem that isn't socially recognized as a problem that is heavily downplayed in order to play up the gender aspects of domestic violence against women." ">The earmarked money for shelters is limited, There's nothing precluding that funding from being raised if you can show an adequate need for those services. Funding and earmarked money in budgets isn't static or cemented. They can change if enough of a fuss is raised." ">Continuing from this, I would posit that gender-segregated shelters are actively harmful as, by excluding the opposite gender, they promote them being stereotyped as dangerous in the eyes of the victims, likely further damaging their ability to interact normally afterwards. I would disagree with this. Shelters are mostly there for crisis situations and are there first and foremost for the safety of the victims. If victims don't feel safe, they might not get the help they need. I'd say deal with the immediate problems first, then deal with the longer-term psychological issues after." "The source he gave didn't corroborate his claim. While we can easily see that women's shelters get more funding, Silverman never claimed that he was constantly attacked by proponents of women's shelters, nor have I ever seen any evidence indicating that was the case except from sites like A Voice for Men and similar sites - but they are pretty short on providing evidence supporting that claim. As I stated in a comment above, Silverman was pretty much off the radar for most advocacy groups because his operation was exceptionally small. His shelter was run out of his house (which was the primary reason for him not obtaining funding - because Canada and Alberta don't fund shelters run out of personal residences) and not many people even knew that it existed. The closest that he came to saying what is being alluded to by /u/phengineer is that he noticed that there were plenty of services for women but none for men. That doesn't mean, however, that he thought he wasn't getting funding because women were receiving those services." 'Thanks!!' '>For example, a traditional man is somebody who is more likely to hurt people because a traditional man is aggressive and domineering. So that only reenforces the idea that a "traditional" (violent) man is violent because he\'s a violent man. That\'s circular reason and that\'s not rectified by the fact that it\'s an industry term. >It is saying that threats of violence are more credible coming from men because of the socializing institutions which imagine the ideal man as aggressive and the ideal woman as submissive. The quote says several things. 1) Men are "credible" sources of violence. 2) Implied: women are *not* credible sources of violence. 3) Physical size is the determining factor as to what constitutes a credible source of violence. 4) Men are inherently more experienced than women with violence. So what does that add up to? 4, men are inherently more experienced with violence, therefore 1, men are more credible sources of violence; men are more likely to be violent because men are more violent. That\'s not an issue with my reading comprehension. Even if we were to argue about the word "credible," which I don\'t care to, that still leaves the word "serious;" the article is clearly implying that threats from men are serious threats and threats from women are not serious threats, *even when the woman is actually hitting the man.* As I said, I\'m all for interpreting the data through whichever lens fits. But claiming that "oh, you wouldn\'t understand, it\'s a sociological thing" doesn\'t make up for the lackluster article. Yes, traditional gender roles pidgeonhole the men into the violent role and the woman into the submissive role. But that\'s an idealized version of a theoretical relationship, and trying to extract data from that is like trying to extract data on real relationships from a Disney movie. ' "Do you have a source for that 40% statistic?? I've searching for a place to back up my argument when I tell people that!" "> This push had support from people who had been part of getting women's shelters established. It was shut down hard by feminists Do you think it's possible that the people setting up women-only shelters may have also been feminists?" '> The key here is equality. I agree with you in spirit, but be careful here. "Separate is inherently unequal," as they said in Brown vs. BoE. I think that may be overgeneralizing, but the point is that equality is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for "proper" discrimination. You also need a good *reason* to discriminate, and that, I think, really gets to the heart of OP\'s question. Now, in the 2 cases mentioned, I happen to believe that the "reason" requirement is amply met, but that doesn\'t mean it always is.' 'I\'d say mostly the fact that segregation, "equal but separate", was mandated in a lot of places. Black people having a private club or white people doing the same isn\'t necessarily bad or immoral in my opinion. Forcing people to use one facility vs another based on race or gender is something I *would* consider immoral.' ">Further, size difference doesn't matter much; a man might (maybe) be able to knock you out more effectively, but a woman is just as capable of slapping someone as a man is. Or kicking them as hard as they can in the shins, scratching, biting, throwing things, hitting people with objects, pinching, pulling, and every other painful thing people can do to one another. " "Thanks, don't think it was necessary since I haven't gotten any messages asking for one but it's still appreciated." '> The argument that a male presence would alarm the other females at the shelter, demeans women Continuing from this, I would posit that gender-segregated shelters are actively harmful as, by excluding the opposite gender, they promote them being stereotyped as dangerous in the eyes of the victims, likely further damaging their ability to interact normally afterwards. It also throws up a number of issues when you consider victims of same-sex domestic violence.' "<Devil's advocate> But isn't race a biological difference, too?" "Being something that cannot be scientifically investigated (a set of historic events), my source is currently the testimony of Erin Pizzey. It's going to take a bit for me to assemble proper documentation to demonstrate the validity of her story, and I wouldn't accept the standard of evidence I currently have from an opponent. I will try to provide a sufficient standard of evidence in a timely manner." "> Do you really not think that there is a difference between a girl slapping her boyfriend in the face, and a man back handing his girlfriend? That's an unfair question. Yes, there's a difference, because you're describing two different things. No, there's not a difference between a girl slapping a guy in the face and a guy slapping a girl in the face. No, there's not a difference between a guy backhanding a girl and a girl backhanding a guy. >I know that if my girlfriend slapped me with all her force, I would be upset but relatively physically unharmed, whereas if I slapped her with all of my force she would be quite seriously injured. I disagree wholeheartedly with you. You're both underestimating your girlfriend's strength and overestimating your own. If you're stronger, there will be maybe a bigger bruise, but (as someone who does martial arts and *knows* the mechanics of hitting someone in the face, I can say:) a full-force slap from your girlfriend is more than enough to give you whiplash and a full-force slap from you is nowhere near enough to do more that. EDIT: This assumes that one of you isn't a bodybuilder or trained in some form of hand-to-hand combat. "

Human: Change my mind: Timed essays like the SAT don't properly measure one's writing skills, nor their critical thinking skills. Timed essays, especially with as little time as the SAT gives, force test takers to come up with a BS answer without really thinking about it. As a result, they are either forced to justify an answer that they really aren't confident about, or they don't have enough time to write about their well-founded conclusion. Consider the following essay question: Do memories hinder or help people in their effort to learn from the past and succeed in the present? This is a really interesting question. I wouldn't expect anyone but those that have already thought about it to formulate a truly essay-worthy opinion (one that they are confident in, and can truly justify it because they have thought through all facets that are apparent to them), and write about it in twenty-five minutes. If I don't have the time to truly form an opinion, how can you claim to measure this ability? It measures my ability to make a decent-*sounding* opinion in a short amount of time, and write about it. I understand that test-takers are given a quote to consider before writing their essay, in addition to the question itself. This may indeed help people formulate their opinion, but it will also make it easier for test-takers to take a cookie-cutter opinion from the quote, which is really what many are forced to do given the time requirements, and write an essay without really formulating their own opinion. Furthermore, everyone knows that one of the most fundamental aspects of good writing is good editing. Everyone's first draft in almost any form of writing is going to be poor. Ask the folks over at /r/writing if you're not sure. I know that the graders know that, and that they grade accordingly, but you can't really measure one's writing skill from a first draft. This is because the purpose of the first draft is really to put ideas on paper, and you get rid of the crappy ideas and crappy phrasing by editing. It really puts a damper on one's essay to have 25 minutes to write, even if one devises their argument in the instant they receive the question, and be forced to not only be rushed at the very writing of it, but to not have time to edit. Assistant :

'This is incorrect. I majored in Englsih Literature in college. All I did was read and write. Nearly every one of my in-major classes, and many of my other classes, had a timed midterm and final that involved writing long essays. Either you knew the material and were able to produce a coherent essay within the time frame or you failed the course.' 'Sure, which is why they ask for an essay during admissions. Clearly the SAT is *not* focused on writing courses but on courses which have timed exams with a written component. For example, all of my exams in Animal Physiology were essay based and had a 1.5 hour time limit. The SAT is likely a good indicator of how well I would do on such an exam.'

Human: Change my mind: You birth determines the vast majority of success/quality in your life. I believe an upwards of about 90% of your success/quality in life is determined when you are born. You can be born into a rich family in America and have a much better life than someone born to a poor family in the slums of India. Your birth also determines how attractive you are, which is largely determines your success in many areas of life, or at least has a large amount of influence. Your intelligence, creativity, among other talents, while they can be cultivated to an extent through hard work, are largely set when you're born. In short, I believe the hand you were initially dealt with forms a huge basis for your future success, moreso than life decisions. Assistant :

'> If good genes/environment occur, then it\'s highly likely good life choices will occur. Statistically, probably. It\'s theoretically possible, though, for an individual to make optimal or non-optimal decisions or whatever decisions, since there is no obstacle for will. OP\'s saying that, whatever those decisions are, one\'s life\'s characteristics aren\'t changed by them very much. That said, this is kind of a worthless general discussion, and I wouldn\'t degrade it further by making up statistics or using quantifying statements like "mostly". ' "I think OP is claiming that, given your genetic abilities AND the opportunities your environment gives you, 90% of the actions you can take independently to change your circumstances aren't going to make a difference to your quality of life. Having read your post, I think you agree with OP's view."

Human: Change my mind: Police officers should have stricter guidelines on when they can use their firearms or in some cases be disarmed completely of the ability to use lethal force. The stated mission of police is to "serve and protect" the people, and obviously from what we've seen recently in the news this mission is being strayed from. I am against the idea that police should be especially respected and revered as it contributes to their own idea that their lives matter more than those of the citizenry. What this has led to is a police culture of being able to take a human life at the first sign that an officer's life is in danger, even remotely. If a person is actually committed to being a benevolent protector of the public, he or she should be willing to take a greater personal risk in being that protector. It is my view that many officers should be disarmed of the ability to use lethal force - guns should only be carried under circumstances in which there is an actual chance of having to draw them in a fight for one's life i.e. police are going after a known dangerous individual. This would undoubtedly lead to an increase in officers not being able to brandish a lethal weapon in situations where they previously would have. Some police officers would die where they wouldn't have before. But many fewer unnecessary civilian deaths would occur. In my opinion, cops being lethally armed and authorized to take lethal action whenever they feel threatened is not worth the cost we have been witnessing where many avoidable civilian deaths occur. I think it is somewhat tragic that carrying a gun is what in many ways defines what an American police officer is - someone with the ability to kill at any time should they feel it is necessary. In an ideal world where our culture did not dictate that police carry guns I think it would be great if every morning individual officers made a reasonable choice as to whether or not they would need a gun that day for whatever reason. Unfortunately this culture could not exist in America today. Obviously in place of guns I would have increased use of tazers, not just the short-range handheld kind but also the adapted shotgun models that reach a range similar to that of a gun. Rubber bullets would also be acceptable. My main point is that cops should be taking a greater personal risk in serving the public as our current system of valuing police life above the citizenry is what has led to such endemic unnecessary police violence. Assistant :

'My title does seem focused on guidelines but my argument takes a much harder stance if you choose to read it. The guidelines part came from seeing countless news videos of situations in which lethal force was used and seeing cops just standing around waving their guns. Drawing your weapon should be an actual last resort, not the go-to in any tense situation.' 'If you are not focused on guidelines then you posted poorly and should repost with an accurate title. ' '> Drawing your weapon should be an actual last resort, not the go-to in any tense situation. You do realize this is a straw-man argument, right? There have been lots of police officers discussing gun issues on reddit in light of the current events. Every single one of them has said that they were trained that using their gun was the absolute last case scenario. Only if the officer felt that they or another member of the general public were in grave danger was it permissible to use their gun. '

Human: Change my mind: The field of economics is inherently biased against poor people This is a much clearer way to say what I was trying to say: Market frictions affect poor people more. In fact, at some point, they become the more dominant than the market dynamics themselves. Every market has infinite frictions. There is no way to model infinite frictions. Therefore the market model does not adequately describe the behavior of poor people. Therefore to describe how income distribution affects the economy, you have to abandon the market. Even though there are ways to model *some* frictions, the most basic macro models treat the economy as a set of efficient markets. Something like game theory might not have the same inherent bias, because it wouldn't have the same starting point as models using markets, so it wouldn't necessarily be a classist bias. Of course there's the argument "but markets aren't the only part of the field." I'm not trying to get into a semantic argument about the definition of "field." And lets be real, the concept of a market is pretty much what makes economics what it is. ********* You can read all this so the comments make sense, but everything below has been pretty much hashed out. Every mathematical model requires basic assumptions, and the conclusions drawn from it will be inescapably colored by those assumptions. In order to say that 1 apple plus another apple is 2 apples, you have to ignore time (eventually it's 0 apples) and space and all kinds of other things. Also, there are implicit definitions ("plus" means putting them next to each other or in the same container) In economics, there seem to be base assumptions that make the math easier, but aren't strictly true. You end up with conclusions that are false. Of course for glaring inconsistencies, the models eventually get adjusted, but there's always a lag and a cost involved in refining the models, which makes it less likely to occur. In the meantime, people latch onto those conclusions and use them for their own agenda. In physics, there's the ideal gas law, etc. These tend to hold pretty accurate and be pretty precise except at the very extremes. In economics, the "idealized laws" often bear very little resemblance to reality (perfect labor market? psht). And the precise way in which they err almost always ignores the effects on poor people, just like treating the earth as flat will tend to cause you to err on the side of overestimating distances. Rich people tend to behave much more like the idealized laws, and so when the models get close enough to base policy off of, they tend to err in their favor. For instance, due to basic macro-economic models, there is a base assumption that free trade is always better due to models which show that in the long term, there is less overall wealth generated. However, this ignores the utility in preserving certain industries nationally, as well as incubation of industries to create a comparative advantage where one didn't exist before. Of course you can patch together something that explains this, but the math is harder, and you would never actually predict it based off of the initial model. By presuming that people make the best economic decisions when information is evenly distributed, there is an implicit corollary that people not making the best economic decisions have less information. So then you have the logical conclusion giving money to charity indicates a lack of information. While not accepted and clearly wrong, it is a valid conclusion to draw from the above assumptions. So, it has to be specifically explained away, both logically, and with extra terms in the math. Even worse than the conclusion about charity is the corollary that if people are poor, and haven't made optimal economic decisions (i.e. become rich), then it's because they haven't had enough information (i.e. they haven't educated themselves or are stupid). I know that this is not what economics says, but what I'm saying is that it is very, very easy to say in the mathematical language of economics. Nobody would ever say that explicitly, but the conclusions drawn from the models tend toward that because the basic mathematical templates have that bias. Another fact is, economists tend to have higher-than-average incomes, so there is a selection bias in that as well. Not that they're consciously making up things to justify their relative wealth, but they lack information about real people's decision-making processes, and thus will tend to err one way versus the other. Even if an economist disagrees with some of this, they will have to take classes where they are taught what has been filtered through this system. They will be more competitive for grants and fellowships if they work within the established frameworks. Alternative models would just start with different assumptions, and then you could go through the same process of continuously modifying the model until it can explain something like supply and demand. Assistant :

'>Right, but there are some that are privileged in the field. The market is a concept that is applied in almost every subfield. "The market" is not a singular concept that operates based on one theory. Views on how real-life markets operate are extremely diverse. >Right.. this is how every field works. But the refinement makes asymptotic progress. If you start by modeling the earth as flat, you can still effectively navigate short distances. For slightly longer distances, you can just add correction terms to explain discrepancies. But to get to the precision of GPS, you would either need armies of mathematicians constantly adding models for different kinds of trajectories that add different variables (how does the distance change as the altitude is changing?), or you could change the geometry you\'re using. > The market is a specific "geometry" of how people decide what to buy. The game is another. Game theory is a good example of an alternative framework. And there could easily be more. The thing about entropy was just another possibility, and there are an infinite number of ways to look at it depending on how you define your terms and assumptions to begin with. Some are more obvious than other, and they don\'t overlap 100% with each other, but they offer alternative ways to look at the same thing. I\'m sorry but your initial assumptions on how economists view markets are just wrong. I\'ve explicitly detailed how and why for you in my previous post. As such, the premise that economists are starting off by modeling with knowledge akin to "the earth as flat" as their starting premise is simply faulty. >The fact is, it takes more work to do it. It take more time, it takes better paid economists, so it happens with less frequency than the application of a simpler framework. Again, it works the other way around. Economic research that is not utilizing as inclusive and extensive modeling as possible to account for as many variables are often too simply and thus dismissed in economic theory. The leading schools of thought and economic theory are backed with extensive and far-reaching math. That\'s like saying because the math is harder to do, physics is dominated by theories using simple mathematics and elementary modeling. That\'s just untrue. While simpler modeling is easier to do in both fields, they\'re taken less seriously. >I agree, it has an effect. Sometimes it\'s the primary effect. But, when you have to correct the math for every little cost that comes up, you\'re never going to be able to take it all into account. The consequence of economic modeling is that some variables will inevitably be left out. They cannot all be considered. That is impossible to do. That is why economists try to capture as much of them as possible. You won\'t get a 100% accurate replication of the real world. That is, again, impossible. But you will get the best amount of information about it given the constraints.'

Human: Change my mind: The events in Paris suck...but the comic creator wasn't some great martyr or anything. Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you! Almost none of his comics were actually relevant or topical in any way. They were basically just shock-jock level of "oh hey look how insulting I can be, come at me bro." If he hadn't just been killed by a terrorist, this was basically 4chan level of trolling. Not even that really. "I don't have a wife or children or credit" etc, sure that applies to him, but not the other people killed. And, frankly, his comics were awful, pure 100% trolling, but now they're "genius" because he's dead. Assistant :

'> random/semi-irrational posts Could you elaborate on this? or at least show some examples. Every comic ive seen by the media (which im sure they have a bias on) as made sense, and been rational. which ones do you refer to?' 'Hm I guess I made the OP incorrectly. The main point was meant to be he created a bunch of random/semi-irrational posts and, simultaneously, said he had nothing to fear because of the above/often-reposted comments...'

Human: Change my mind: I believe a world government is a good thing I live in Lebanon. We are a small country. And when you live in a small country bigger countries effectively control your policies. In the case of lebanon it is done directly through buying politicians. This is true for Saudi arabia the united states Iran etc... Yet we lebanese can't have any effect on the policies of these countries. Going beyond lebanon, I think that globally big powerful countries act as a world government. they control much of what happens in the world. they just don't agree with each other. On the other hand people are mostly the same throughout the world. they have some minor cultural differences, but these are disappearing more and more. Here in Lebanon a lot of people have started speaking english as a first language. In dubai it is even more common. People watch american movies in china. Even terrorists are wearing blue jeans. We the peoples of the world have become a global culture. Today the country barriers are mostly beneficial to stop labor from going from the poor countries to the rich. But I am not sure that this has the economic benefit that the rich countries think that it has. The movement of people can bring with it jobs and expand economies. I think that most people now accept democracy. i think that religion is a barrier, but not so much and in a world goverment no single religion will be able to rule. While everyone will agree on a language most likely english. Therefore I am a globalist. I think that in the future, I don't know when people will look back on us and consider nationalism as a form of racism. Also there won't be a war in israel and palestine if the world is one. Assistant :

'Yes 100%. theres a reason why your info is there in the first place. if it was illegal feds could call fraud on those holding financial information of party workers that should be released to the public. ' 'The counterside to this is that "bad" things can also move abroad. Your constitution doesn\'t allow spying on your citizens? Spy on another\'s, let them spy on yours, and exchange the data. Basically, this enables randomness. The same line of thought could be used to argue that we shouldn\'t have laws at all.' 'American passport holders can access most countries with just their passport on arrival (same as Germany, UK, Sweden, and Finland). Source(http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_United_States_citizens)' "Am American. Have needed to apply for a visa to visit several different countries. Are you sure you aren't just talking about Canada and Mexico?" "No I need a work Visa but that is just because USA is backwards. Also I said I could go almost anywhere, and I am pretty sure many Americans can't go to North Korea for example." 'Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, and, Singapore too.' "I don't know that any Americans are directly involved in Wikileaks." "Ehhhhhhhhhh. I can intern abroad as an America, but I'd have a hard time getting a PAID internship abroad. Not exactly sure why this is, but it makes me feel like working abroad isn't that easy as an American." 'You can visit lebanon without a visa, but I need to wait a few weeks to get a visa to the USA. ' "then your government well find ways hide things that they don't want you to see. From my example it's not fraud, but thats what the government would claim it as to get it removed. You must give up security to live free. " 'I\'m Canadian. While we share a continent, the term "American" only refers to the US.' "So how would you ensure that your world government doesn't turn out more like the US and less like Canada?" 'Dude, you\'re just attacking this fellow for no reason. Stop it. He wasn\'t taking a strong stance on the issue. He was pointing it out, because he knew someone would bring it up, but said it didn\'t really matter that much. He just considers it a minor issue. And the main *reason* that it\'s a minor issue is that "everybody\'s doing it whether it\'s legal or not." >Following that logic, perhaps the Jewish genocide should\'ve been legal because "everyone\'s doing it legal or not". *Bullshit*. The Holocaust *was* legal. If it wasn\'t, it wouldn\'t have happened. A better equivalency is jaywalking. If it becomes legalized, who the hell cares? >Regardless, I don\'t see how you came to your original conclusion that redundant efforts to protect information would essentially legalize piracy. He wants 100% freedom of information. The government wouldn\'t be able to remove any information from the internet, including pirated content, or be able to prosecute anyone for releasing pirated information. This also protects us from potential government censorship. Personally I think it\'s a bit extreme to have 100% freedom of information, and honestly idealistic, and I realize that piracy is a bit more of a complicated issue. However, he was *explicitly* trying to not take a strong stance on it. He merely mentioned it because it was very relevant, and he considered it, at the least, the lesser of two evils.' 'What? That doesn\'t make sense on several levels 1) If the reason your info is there is because it was stolen then it should still be illegal shouldn\'t it? Are you saying people can post illegal content because "There is a reason it is there" 2) You realize your new law also extends to child porn right? Because well there is a reason it is there and it is hosted on your property. 3) How is it fraud? They aren\'t misrepresenting your information in any way.' "That is simply the courts failing to fully uphold the law. Further, the only way to really combat that sort of corruption is for whistleblowers to leak the classified data about it to organizations outside the government's reach. Most governments have extradition treaties, on the condition that both governments consider the act in question to be bad. If they don't agree, it's probably best that they err on the side of caution and presume it's not." 'Can you go and work in the US? I am sure an american can work in any country.' 'But should it be legal to do that?' "∆ I never thought of the possibility universal government could be corrupted as our governments now. I understands, now, that even if there were a universal government, its values would still be vulnerable to corruption, and could potentially have a ulterior agenda that doesn't have the People as a priority. " "what's that have to do with the price of tea in china?" "That's if you use the current systems. For a 1 world government you'll have elected governments from all countries in debate and discussion. Simply banning corporate influence can also help corruption too and make sure parties are focused on issues in their state rather then focusing on profit." 'Sincerely, mind staying on topic of your own post? Did you post to change your view or to go offtopic?' "This is actually a really good question. It might be to discourage brain drain by keeping skilled workers in the U.S., but we allow people to renounce citizenship, which would allow those skilled workers to leave, anyway. I have no good answer for you, but I'd never thought of that." 'Yes, you are correct, I just knew for sure about Western Europe and thus only added the region I was sure of. By the way, are Canadians not considered to be Americans in the US? Basically every peaceful first world country has some treaty priviliges regarding visa. ' 'You\'re relying very heavily on this "system" meant to keep people in line. Remind me, who creates and runs the system? Is it people? People capable of being corrupted? What makes you think that access to _more_ power will somehow induce those interested in acquiring it to go about things more ethically? Groups are very easy to influence. Im also not talking about fake elections that united states have. just those system in general.' "You said they can post any information they want to without penalty. So how can they commit fraud by posting your information if they aren't claiming it as there own? They are just posting your personal information without consequence. Also just because the person probably won't get caught doesn't mean we should make it legal to steal and post private information." 'It is actually doubly complicated because the US is the only country that collects tax from citizens working in another country. Thus you would pay double the tax, once for the country you work in and once for the US. Why do they do that by the way? What is the justification for taking your money if you are not even using any of their infrastructure or police force?' 'Because constitutions are always held to... have you been to the US recently? Absolutely nothing would keep a world government accountable. Nothing.' "But just look at how parts of the US constitution are ignored. I wouldn't trust a global elite to follow the rules for any long period of time" "People aren't that free to move today. Only americans have almost unrestricted access to any country. most people around the world have to get a visa to visit a country and sometimes it is hard to get one." 'Only if you invade it first and build military bases. You have bases in 150 countries so yes, yes, you can work in almost every country.' "If that happened today you still would be fucked. Even if you get that info removed it's on the internet forever anyways so you well have to change all that information and try to get it leaked next time. I wanna make this clear, This happens already today. If you shit got posted on wikileaks today, you well never get that put down." "Thats the USA. They're no longer a democracy and your vote doesn't mean anything. If your vote meant anything the government wouldnt violate the constitution. Look at steven harper in canada. That prick is starting to sell land to the chinese, allowing the NSA, and well never legalize pot. His government will not win next election i guarantee it. In the USA all you got is really 2 choices. Republican or democrat and the rich own both. Now what? Vote doesn't mean anything. " 'Americans and Western Europeans*' "It's said by myself and my coworkers, who are all in our early to late 20's. But how does the fact that it's something your grandmother would say make it any less valid as a figure of speech?" "Okay, so why not a global federal government, with today's nations existing as strong states within it?" '> Only americans have almost unrestricted access to any country Not true. As a Swede I can also go almost anywhere.' 'Obviously, for daily life the ability to cross borders is essential. But when it comes to a lot of things involving communication or technology it just matters that the laws allow it somewhere. You can contact remote servers from anywhere far easier than you could set up and run one in an area with legal restrictions. ' "Over the long term, I would say that is probably where things are going. But I don't think it will happen in some kind of revolutionary takeover. Instead, what will happen is that increasingly important and powerful treaties such as the Trans Pacific Partnership will be negotiated by governments to provide global regulation of trade. Over time, people will start to demand democratic accountability for the already existing international governmental structure." 'That is because of treaties. ' 'Sorry ryemigie, your comment has been removed: > Comment Rule 5\\. "No low effort comments. Comments that are only jokes or \'written upvotes\', for example. Humor and affirmations of agreement can be contained within more substantial comments." See the wiki page for more information.(http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_5) ' "Governments tend to follow the rules they want to when it's convenient for them. Magical words on special paper won't change that" 'Pretty sure most Americans have to get visas to visit other countries. ' "Yeah, one day, but not this day. Humanity has a lot of growing up to do, we have it in us, but societies work based on ideals. We can't even stop hating on the brown guy next door let alone come together as a united and boundary-less global human race bent on the thriving of mankind. Fingers crossed 22nd century. " 'The point was that this is because these countries agreed to do this and any country can agree with another to have these arrangements. ' 'They cannot. They need to apply for a work visa like everyone else.' 'thats because the USA is an oligarchy and not a democracy. The USA works for benefiting the rich over the whole population. ' 'Ok so I steal your SIN number, your banking information, address and all other personal information and post it online. Do you want it removed? Because under your law it can stay up no matter what.' "Governments always slowly increase their power. You could devise the best constitution ever written. You could set up a perfect government. But, it wouldn't last. Little by little, bits of the constitution will come to be ignored. Slowly, this government will claim more power for itself. That's what always happens. " "i hate people like you who like to twist words. thats not what i said. I say there has to a be a information legislation to protect freedom of speech and to hold information that can be used against party officials. this well prohibit searches and seizures of servers. a side effect of said legislation would be the legalization of piracy which really doesn't matter because people pirate the shit out of everything legal or not. Another side effect can be child porn which can easily made as an exception that requires lots of judicial attention when upholding the law on that regard. " 'That is a nice definition of "working in a foreign country". Just be military personell stationed there!' "I was pointing out it wasn't archaic, but you're right, nothing was said about the validity of the statement." '0) use common sense instead of acting like you know nothing 1) If you make that info illegal to post, it will be illegal to hold financial information of party officials. If you get your credit card and shit posted online today anyways, the perpetrator probably won\'t get caught and your fucked and have to change your shit regardless. 2) To be completely fair if you have child porn on your computer, you should be allowed to have it, even as dirty and shitty as that sounds. As least you\'re just fapping and not raping a child. The people who should be detained are those who produce said child porn. 3) Fraud is not misrepresenting. Its a form of identity theft relating to your financials. More accurately from wiki: "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain"' "I would say the abolishing IP isn't equivalent to socialism because it is an artificial property right if you will. Property rights are a social construct that emerged to ameliorate conflict over scarce goods: that's a nice chair/table/car--maybe we will end up fighting for its ownership. Ideas are not scarce. Neither are mp3 files. They should not be artificially made so. If you want to be a full time musician etc. it is up to you to find ways to make that pay--merch, gigs etc. Same goes for film industry" 'That does not discount the fact' 'if there is such a world government there MUST be a protection of information in the constitution. Essentially making it a constitutional right to host whatever information you want on your property. Along with the constitutional right to express this information to peers without penalty(modified first amendment of USA). And EVERY interaction between party officials must be recorded and stored on multiple hosts. That would probably legalize piracy...but really when it comes to human rights who the fuck cares except for the rich media companies. if there is no such system in place a world government WELL become corrupt.' "All of those passports are exceptional. I've an Indian one and it's worthless. " 'Think of it this way, who is getting screwed in the world atm? I would say some parts of china, some parts of india, some parts of africa, some parts middle east. Turns out this areas are home to over 50% of the population. If the government continues to be dicks heads these people well vote them out. Im not talking about fake elections that united states have. ' 'Just like "Australian" doesn\'t apply to New Zealanders. '

Human: Change my mind: Freedom of speech is being taken too far In the last few weeks we've had two huge events happen in the world, both of which were caused by matters relating to "freedom of speech." The first being the hacking of Sony over The Interview, and today the shooting at the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris. I certainly value our free speech but to me there is a clear line between exercising your first amendment right ("President Obama sucks!" etc) and doing things that are known to be offensive to other cultures (Satirical cartoons of prophets, assassinating leaders, etc). Perhaps this is a bad analogy - but if you say something antagonizing to a bully and you get your ass kicked, you should have anticipated that outcome. Assistant :

'>What would the reaction from Americans be if someone walked through the streets of a predominantly black neighborhood saying "I hate black people" and was murdered? "What would the likely reaction be?" is not the right question to ask. You should ask "what is the proper reaction?" A person doing that is probably an asshole, but that does not mean that silencing him is a proper reaction. And I think many people would care, because nothing you say should be enough to justify my shooting you. The two examples you\'ve mentioned are both examples of satire that have been forcibly silenced. Satire is the portion of speech that always stretches the boundaries of what we condone because its purpose is often to be offensive as a means of highlighting truths about people or society that are difficult to address seriously. In any case, I think you may have missed the point. None of the examples you given actually hurt anybody. They have only provoked reactions. North Korea hacked Sony because they are so paranoid and insecure that they can\'t stand their leader being mocked. Some Muslims are so irrationally offended and self-important that they believe they have both the imperative and the right to kill people for drawing pictures. Neither of these examples illustrate problems with the speakers, they show the unhinged reactions of listeners.' 'Saying "I hate black people" is a clearly racist statement showing intolerance and prejudice. It is wrong because black people have no choice in the colour of their skin, and so insulting them for it makes you an asshole because you know that what you are mocking them for is something that they can never change and that doesn\'t effect who they are. Drawing Muhammad is not an inherently bad thing, because you are showing disrespect for a *belief* which can be changed at any point. ' "> North Korea hacked Sony because they are so paranoid and insecure that they can't stand their leader being mocked. Some Muslims are so irrationally offended and self-important that they believe they have both the imperative and the right to kill people for drawing pictures. Neither of these examples illustrate problems with the speakers, they show the unhinged reactions of listeners. Damn. I think you just changed my view. That's what I needed, thank you. ∆" "> North Korea hacked Sony because they are so paranoid and insecure that they can't stand their leader being mocked. Some Muslims are so irrationally offended and self-important that they believe they have both the imperative and the right to kill people for drawing pictures. Neither of these examples illustrate problems with the speakers, they show the unhinged reactions of listeners. Damn. I think you just changed my view. That's what I needed, thank you." '>What would the reaction from Americans be if someone walked through the streets of a predominantly black neighborhood saying "I hate black people" and was murdered? I guarantee no one would care. Really? Because that seems to me to be a perfect example of what would cause a 24/7 news coverage of the investigation and trial, complete with talking heads debating the morality of the situation. I think that could be a very interesting and controversial event. Especially if it happened in a low-crime black neighbourhood and there was video of the event.' '>What would the reaction from Americans be if someone walked through the streets of a predominantly black neighborhood saying "I hate black people" and was murdered? The state would care. Murders are investigated and prosecuted aggressively in the United States. You might not make the news (though really yes you would because that\'s insane). But institutionally, the US cares about not permitting that kind of extreme violence.' 'Award a delta! :)' 'I definitely do condone any sort of reactionary violence and hope I didn\'t imply that through my post. What would the reaction from Americans be if someone walked through the streets of a predominantly black neighborhood saying "I hate black people" and was murdered? I guarantee no one would care. But suddenly everyone was up in arms when they thought they were never going to see the movie The Interview because for a few moments Sony reevaluated the situation and decided not to release it. Nobody seemed to be saying "Jeez guys, maybe this is a really bad idea and we shouldn\'t do it." Most people seemed to be saying "Fuck North Korea!! We\'ll watch our fucking movie cause we\'ere FREE in America!!"'

Human: Change my mind: I think the Paris shooting makes a good case for culture of responsible gun ownership any carrying. Thinking about today's news: [BBC](http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-30710777), [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting) I think France is in a tough spot in how to react to this. There would be even stronger calls for an anti-islam and anti-immigration policies. These event reminds people that they cannot depend on protection by government. I think it would be a shame to allow the many, who are afraid more then anything, to be swayed by xenophobic nationalists (which might have been the goal of the attack anyway). I think this, regardless of whether the weapons used by the attackers were owned legally, makes a good case for promoting a culture of a reasonable gun ownership and carrying. Say if 1 out of 5 people carried a gun with them, was well trained in its use and tested in his responsibility to prevent its misuse, and society upheld the value of these people as protectors, it would benefit the society more the the current state of legislature and culture of gun ownership in most of European countries. I also think this would be much better then increase in police numbers and rights as policemen are a very homogeneous group trained to stick together and the danger of even deepening the "not one of us" (pack) mentality and escalation of "police state". Change my view. PS: I am not here to talk about USA and its gun problems. Assistant :

'' "I really liked your explanation, and OP's non-answer was pretty hilarious. It sounded like a politician dodging a question. I always have a similar sort of critique to anyone arguing for guns as a personal safety/protection tool. Guns escalate situations, and make people more unpredictable. It sounds so silly to me when people suggest they would be increase their safety by winning some sort of James Bond gun-fight over an imaginary foe. " "Except police training isn't like riding a bike. You don't just lean it once and then you're good for life. Being prepared for an active shooter scenario is gonna need constant practice, both mental and physical. Most police officers wouldn't even be prepared for these kind of situations, which is why we have SWAT teams that specialize in those kind of scenarios(I'd also like to point out that if we wanted to train millions of people to SWAT levels of proficiency it would be comically expensive and I have no idea who would pay for it). Add in the fact that the situation would likely be even more stressful than the average SWAT raid since the civilians have no knowledge of any of the other participants and were completely unprepared in the moment, and do you still feel that training which would necessarily be brief and infrequent enough to allow for these people to have other jobs would be extensive enough to mitigate dangers I brought up? Because I just don't see that happening." "That is far, *far* easier said than done. If you aren't looking at the shooter when the shooter opens fire, then the average civilian has very little chance of correctly responding to this situation instinctively. A lot(I would guess a majority) of people are going to perceive anyone shooting in their direction at all as a threat. Say the shooter enters at one end of the room and someone at the other end returns fire. How are all of the people in between to know that the second guy is trying to hit the criminal and not them? I know you said that you think these people should be trained, but how much training do you think is reasonable to expect before we give them a gun, especially if we want to get such a huge number of people armed? To be able to respond in a situation like that requires constant training and practice, and it's not realistic to expect so many people to do that when they aren't police or military. It's just not realistic to expect a full fifth of our population to be able to react like SWAT team members at the drop of a hat." "Yeah, police officers that I've talked to have told me that if shit like this goes down civilians should run. If they can't run, they should hide. Only when options one and two are out of the question does engaging become your best bet, and even then it's only because option four is get shot. They also said that if option one or two ever present themselves again, take them and get out of dodge, and let the police do their job when they get there." 'It certainly is, but the OP was proposing that mass shootings could be mitigated by having a large number of citizens who are prepared to return fire, which is(in my estimation) simply not the case.' "Well I don't think this it is required to be SWAT-level trained, it isn't hard to teach people if not sure just stay on the safe side and don't pull out the gun and shoot. It should be standard to pull out gun only when you are going to shoot, so if someone aims at you you know his intentions and everyone would know this so they won't be stupid and aiming at random people." "Well that is my point that the negatives you are envisioning wouldn't happen often enough to outweigh the benefits, as the people allowed to have the guns would understand this and wouldn't be just a common Joe who decided to get a gun on his way home from work." "Well there already are a bunch of people who legally carry guns, aren't cops and there haven't been any significant number of reports of them abusing their power, while there have been lot of reports of cops abusing their power and criminals carrying guns." "The problem here is that you're only looking at an isolated incident where the scenario is already playing out. That's kind of like talking about the concept of mutually assured destruction with respect to nuclear weapons by only talking about the impact of a missile hitting a city. The point of a MAD scenario is that the threat of retaliation is so strong that you are deterred from acting in the first place. For the extreme case, if literally everyone was carrying a gun, and everyone else knew this, it isn't unreasonable to propose that people would feel less confident trying to pull off an armed robbery or a shooting in the first place, and so the situation would be avoided entirely. One town passed a law requiring everyone to own a gun, and their crime rate is now half what it was prior, so it's not a completely random postulate.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia#Crime_statistics)" "It would be different because the people with the guns wouldn't live among the policemen day by day on their paycheck, in short they wouldn't be policemen and share (most of) their problems and incentives." 'Yeah I of course considered a scenario similar to the one you outline, however I think that the gun owners would be prepared to deal with these situations and their risks. The simplest thing is only to return fire if someone is firing on you or those you know have no intention to kill somebody.' "See, you say this. But if a shooter opened fire on a crowd, and it was you and your family there, would you still feel the same way? That you're glad nobody else has a gun?" "What you are asking for amounts to a trained police force, yet you went out of your way to say you don't want to arm the police force exclusively for fear of a police state. How would this be any different? These people with guns would still be the ones calling the shots (literally). Whether or not they correctly identify the right shooter (which is incredibly hard even with training, much less without), they will still be shooting to kill people. This will only increase the deaths in each mass shooting since more people will be doing the shooting. " "I already said in different comments that this wouldn't be able to detract suicide attacks. However it should be able to to limit their effectivity." 'Guns only escalate a situation *if they\'re brought into it*. There seems to be a common misconception that those of us that carry actually WANT to use deadly force. People seem to think that we\'ll pull at the drop of a hat. While there are undoubtedly a few a-holes among us that do, the *VAST* majority simply do not think that way. In point of fact, *most* people who carry understand the weight of the tool at their disposal. We understand that if we believe the situation warrants use of a gun then we\'ve decided this is a life-or-death situation. Thankfully, most average citizens, gun carriers or not, never encounter such situations. Speaking for myself, I only have once in my life and it was more than 25 years now... and, I managed to survive it without a gun. But when you do, the alternatives are facing it with a tool that we all know is effective at it\'s job, or going at it without that tool. Even though I survived my one such case without a gun I wouldn\'t want to make the gamble a second time. No, the truth is that most people who carry understand that carrying a gun makes you the pussy in the room. It makes you the person that backs down from any and all confrontations long before they escalate to the point of needing a gun. They understand that they are the ones that take the insults and just walk away. We keep our anger in check at all times. We\'re also the ones that are paying attention to our surroundings at all times, not burying our faces in our phones and whatnot, because we understand that situational awareness is the key to staying alive whether you have a gun or not. We notice the little details. We move to the other side of the street if we think we see trouble coming (whether it "looks bad" or not). We\'re the ones that, more importantly, won\'t even *BE* on that street in the first place. Like I said, I\'m sure you can find examples of people who carry who do so with the wrong mindset. But if you spend any time around people who do carry you\'ll quickly realize those people are few and far between. We\'re perfectly normal people, just like you, who just so happen to not want to be in a situation where we can\'t defend our lives. Simple as that.' 'You need to consider that in shootings maybe even the death counts per shooting would be same or maybe even a bit higher, but if it decreased the number of shootings so that the total death count from shootings would decrease it would be a success - the role as a detractor is important. It would be easier to train civilians because their role is fundamentally different from the police. They would be only in role of defenders, not chasing down criminals or anything police and SWAT do. They perhaps would rarely be able to stop the first deaths of a mass shooting, but should be more effecting in stopping subsequent deaths.' 'How does expecting them to defend themselves and those around them against attackers give them power?' "You are assuming that spree shooters are going to rationally decide not to commit their crimes because they fear that they might be killed. This is flawed logic. Spree shooters are essentially always either killed or captured immediately following their crime in the culture that already exists. Spree shooters know this before they do anything, and will often leave manifestos behind in anticipation of this. Spree shooters either are irrational actors who believe themselves to be invincible or the exception, or they intend to die and want to take as many people as they can with them. There have been many shootings in gun free areas, but there is no indication that the shooters would have just decided that they didn't want to commit mass murder because the chances of their survival or escape(which are minimal already) are lowered." "I was focusing on that scenario because it's the one proposed in the OP, not because I think it's the strongest individual argument for gun control. Kennesaw is an interesting piece of anecdotal evidence, but such a specific example that I've never given it much credence as a predictor of how increasing gun ownership would change society. It might work in some small towns, but most places aren't going to have the same results. They actually seem to be proving that since their crime rate is now increasing as their population goes up, though there could be other factors as well." 'I think it should be something of a level of the police training. Completing it should have benefits maybe even outside of the social stature.' "Do you have any evidence to back up that assertion? Because I've seen videos of people who just went through gun safety and combat training accidentally shoot themselves and each other with their paintball pistols when an ambush was simulated immediately after being told their course was over(can't remember where the videos were, I'll add them if I can find them later). You seem to be handwaving how easy it would be to train people to go against their survival instincts and maintain a detached situation awareness in the face of death. It takes months of training for both police and military before they are ready for active duty, and then they have constant ongoing training and evaluation to stay sharp. Why would it be easier to train more civilians in less time?" "I say that they would share more incentive to abuse their power. They aren't policemen, they have no job description forbidding them from abusing their power wielded with the guns. Just because you wouldn't does not guarantee these people would make the same choice as you" 'But the difference is that right now the people carrying the guns are not expected to uphold the peace. They have no power to abuse at the moment, but give it to them and they will abuse it, that is human nature' "Wikipedia lists 82 mass killings in America (pop: 316 mil), and 11 in France (pop: 66 mil). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(Americas) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(Europe) That's 1 mass killer per 4 million americans, or per 6 million french. Why haven't more guns in USA equaled fewer mass shootings?" "Depends on what goes down. If there's some Jason Bourne type in the crowd who just pulls and puts the guy down right away I'd be thrilled. But I think that it's more likely that someone who isn't prepared to deal with the stress and chaos of the situation will probably do more harm than good. And the more people in the crowd all acting on their own, with no knowledge of which other shooters they should be shooting and and which ones they should be helping, the worse the situation is going to become. I think that scenario is more likely, especially if we start encouraging a social norm that as many people as possible should be prepared to open fire at a moments notice. So I'll play the odds and say that we should avoid a culture with that expectation. There may be a few shootings that go on longer than they would have in OPs proposed world, but overall there will be far fewer deaths if we don't go that way." "In any emergency situation, the only thing more gunfire, no matter how well intentioned, will do, is add to the confusion and increase the victims. I know if I were a terrorist looking to shoot as many innocent people as I could, I would love for someone to return fire at me - having 20% of the crowd begin firing at each other in the confusion would be a wet dream. They'd probably end up killing more people than any single terrorist, no matter how well-armed, could hope to do. I'm pretty certain that if you went to any professional gun convention or NRA meeting, and began shooting at people, everyone with a brain would simply take cover and wait for the cops to come. Because they know guns and they know the *worst* thing to do in that situation would be to use them."

Human: Change my mind: Diet soda is perfectly healthy for you. I drink a lot of diet soda. Like... six to twelve cans per day. I rarely drink any regular soda with calories. In fact, I grew up with diet soda and I tend to prefer the diet soda taste to regular soda. Because of my amount of intake, I've spent a lot of time researching all of the facets of the issue, and I've found that the studies which condemn diet soda and/or aspartame are few and far between. This is in direct contrast to all of the literature condemning diet soda and aspartame which is *not* scholarly. In essence, the studies tend to say it's fine and the blogs tend to say it's not. I put infinitely more faith in scientific rigor. Aspartame is one of the most-studied compounds on the planet, and dozens (hundreds?) of nations have given it the okay. There is likely a correlation between obesity and diet soda drinkers, however I think it's pretty obvious that causality is mixed up, here. I think that 1) people who are obese are more likely to drink diet soda as a "diet", and 2) people tend to order a diet soda along with a bunch of fast food or otherwise unhealthy food. It's about the lifestyle which some live, not the diet soda itself. I'm not interested in lifestyle, just the diet soda itself. Some say that it ruins your teeth, but in the studies I've read they were testing people who already had poor oral hygiene. I think that pretty much gives it away right there. Additionally, I may only be a sample size of one, but I've had a lot of diet soda every day for years now, and I haven't had a cavity since before puberty. Again, it's anecdotal, but it's something. Please give me an argument, not just a link to a study. I've read studies linked with regards to this topic before, and there is almost always some flaw, such as a diet soda drinker who already had poor oral hygiene, the drinker already being obese, or the behavior only being shown in rats. **I'd like something that says that otherwise healthy people become unhealthy solely because of diet soda and/or aspartame, not the lifestyle which surrounds it.** Thanks! Assistant :

"Thanks for a fresh argument! I hadn't considered bone density. I'm going to go so a little research. Do you have a study or anything you could link me to?" 'http://m.ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/936.full http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=349673 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1359/jbmr.2003.18.9.1563/full http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0188440900000904 Probably most relevant to you if you are male: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-005-1935-z'

Human: Change my mind: Whole Brain Emulation is clearly the way the Singularity is coming. [Wikipedia on the (idea of) the Singularity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity) [Wikipedia on (the idea of) whole brain emulation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_brain_emulation) Strong general artificial intelligence would be the most potentially valuable invention since paper or the wheel or a process for making fire. It will happen because (1) we know that strong general intelligence exists and (2) the inventor stands to make untold quantities of money, maybe even all the money. Alternative approaches to the Singularity that appeal to me include (i) de novo artificial intelligence. This would be if someone created a strong AI by coding it. This is, I think, what most people think of the idea of smart AI and that is why they are skeptical when they look at people make a big deal about Watson playing Jeopardy. I don't think humans are smart enough to make an intelligence comparable to ourselves in any reasonable amount of time by a coding method. (ii) emergent AI. The idea that google or the internet or maybe the infrastructure will wake up one day. This sounds like homeopathic-level nonsense to me. (iii) human biological enhancement. If someone sneezes in the vicinity of a fortune 12 CEO he might get sick and that's that. We can't cure a simple flu. We are nowhere near an understanding of biology and biological engineering that ought to impress us. (iv) brain computer interfaces. This would be a strong contender but in my estimation the discovery and disclosure of an attempt at radical intelligence enhancement by any group might prompt a war. Certainly any government with jurisdiction would be highly interested in such an undertaking. (v) a new understanding of physics comparable to free infinite clean energy. Any day now, I am sure. Assistant :

"> and that this plays an important role in the genes that are transferred onto the next generation I've never heard of this, but I'll have to look into it. That said - it doesn't make things easier, if anything, it makes things harder to simulate, no?" "But once you simulate a human brain, it doesn't need to find out how it works on its own, you can simply feed it the information, at which point it can modify itself. Although the ideas for modifications would probably come very slowly (slower than academia?) " "positive results, in mice, in one area of intelligence, without properly looking at all the myriad side effects. It is very easy to be over-enthousiastic about this stuff, pumping chemicals into your brain isn't exactly easy, safe, or well understood you know. Nootropics already exist, and there are reasons they're not standard issue for everyone." 'What? "I think, therefore I am." "Thoughts go in, words come out. You can\'t explain that. You can\'t explain that." - Bill O\'Riley' "Human brain simulations have the same cognitive and intellectual limitations as humans. If a human can't come up with modifications to itself just by being given the right information, neither will an simulated brain. Also, such information isn't available right now. Like I said, we know far too little about the brain in general. " "To clarify: You think that the physical act of surgery (where to cut, etc.) is by far the hardest part of enhancing intelligence? I agree that modifying code makes for a better scalpel(-equivalent), but I don't think that that's what's holding us back." "We know a lot more than we used to, but we're still nowhere close to understanding how cognition arises, how neuron networks precisely work to control our mind and physiology, how they're wired together, and a whole host of other issues. I'm not saying we don't know anything about the brain. I'm saying we don't know enough to amplify its cognitive and intellectual abilities even in simulation. " 'This is a fairly large leap of faith given that there are entire components of our brain that we have no idea what they\'re used for in human beings. Moreover, even those regions of the brain we understand well in terms of what functions they are involved with, we have no idea HOW they work. There is no model that goes from "here\'s a bio-electrical signal passing between neurons" to "And here\'s a thought that appears in the mind." We have no idea how the brain works at any level. Pick up any neuropsychology journal and you\'ll see that we\'re still struggling with basic questions about nearly every micro and macro level question you can imagine with regard to the brain and cognition. Source: Psychology student ' 'You seem to miss the point. Even if you could scan every cell in the brain; and produce that cell in some random state on a matrix that replicated all the neural connections; that gives you far less than what is necessary to have a functioning brain. ' "> No human, or even group of humans, even begins to understand how the brain works. Any neuroscientist will tell you this. This statement is incredibly faulty. The truth is that we know *a lot* about the brain. Although we are very, very far from understanding it completely, we know a great deal about how it works and what areas are responsible for which things. Saying we haven't even begun to understand it is a complete lie. I don't know what profession you are in, but if you have at all studied neuroscience you should be aware of the immense information we have about the brain and its functions. Edit: in terms of improving the brain, we could potentially be able to do so using drugs within the nearest five years or so, as it has recently been tested in mice with positive results. " ">If a human can't come up with modifications to itself just by being given the right information, neither will an simulated brain. Of course it can. It's a simulation after all. Just change a few bits. Maybe not the brain itself, but certainly an external being could change the brain. Plus, human brains can change themselves, sort of. It's called evolution. And evolution in a simulated environment would be several order of magnitude faster." "The idea doesn't depend on already knowing anything about the brain at any level. We could know absolutely nothing about the brain and still be able to scan it. What we can scan we can render and in the case of a brain accurate rendering would produce cognition. We still wouldn't understand any better, but we (unethically) or the AI (ethically) would have a platform for proper experimenting. " "Scanning tech improves constantly. It used to be that we couldn't see sperm and then one day we could and then eventually we made it someone's job to count them. " "You would have to scan the brain at the cellular level. Which can not be done effectively with living brains currently. But regardless, a scan gives you the cells, but not the neurotransmitters or neural state. You could therefore only scan half of what is needed to have a functioning brain. But that ignores the point that scanning an entire brain at the cellular level is simply not something we are capable of doing right now. We're deep in the process of trying to figure that out. Moreover, and far more problematically, the brain is highly dynamic. We know that even in older people, dendritic spines grow and decay at a fairly high rate. We have no model to explain why or when that happens. The same is true of glial cells. So even if you could scan every neural and glial cell, you have no idea how those structures are changing; how those changes correspond to mental representation, effect or event; or even how or why any particular neuron is activated at any one time. Voxel-based mophometry studies show us that brain volume is dynamic as well, though we don't know what the volume changes are caused by (though they are correlated to learning events but not to knowledge, oddly enough). The notion that we could produce cognition based on our current quite limited understanding is nothing short of fantasy. Dumping a bunch of biochemicals in a black box and flipping a switch doesn't give you a working brain. " "Close enough, yes. A scalpel and a lot of time and willing subjects. For the first step we don't need to produce a radically better brain just a better one. " 'Human brains *learn*, but so far we haven\'t learned much about the brain, and I\'m not sure a simulated would learn about itself any better. As for *evolution*, that requires many generations... so we\'d effectively have to create hundreds of thousands or millions of random brains to see which one is doing better than the others. Not impossible, but 99.9% of random mutations in evolution are *terrible*, so it would be a long trial/error process (though with enough computation, it might not be unreasonable). But this still brings up the ethical issue of what is effectively human testing and potentially human torture and murder (messing with people\'s brains, and "deleting" them after we\'re done).' 'you just mentioned that we are nowhere near biological enhancements, then you claim that a virtual brain would be able to improve it, when it hardware gets adjusted all the time, thus a better precedent exists for increased hardware ans software rather then bettering an emulation of something we hardly understand' 'Vision is everything. There is a difference between testifying that there is nothing to see and testifying that you see nothing. ' "I'm not saying the mind is magic. It's a physical machine, but an enormously complex one. We know a lot about it, but there's also a lot we don't know about it. One day science may reveal the brain's mysteries, but in the near future, we won't know nearly enough to understand how to modify a brain to increase its cognitive ability." "A human brain could design a better version of itself if it had the hardware to safely implement the changes in experimentation. A virtual brain wouldn't need hardware or the risk of surgery. " "Increasing the size of certain portions of the brain is not necessarily going to improve cognitive capabilities. There's really no evidence for that. We'll need to know a lot more about neuroscience before that becomes clearer. " 'So you speculate. And even if you are right it is not the death knell to this happening but merely a technical hurdle. History is filled with seemingly insurmountable technical hurdles being overcome, and what you point out hardly seems "insurmountable."' 'Yet.' "Wouldn't the simulated brain be a person? What if the consequences are negative? Wouldn't that be unethical?" '> As for evolution, that requires many generations... Epigenetics have actually demonstrated that certain genotypes (and thus phenotypes) can be differentially activated depending on environmental exposure, and that this plays an important role in the genes that are transferred onto the next generation. Hence, two people with equal intelligence who use their brains differently will not be equally as likely to have intelligent offspring. Epigenetics basically goes against what we have traditionally learnt about evolution, but it has received quite substantial support in a very short time. ' 'A brain whose existence was virtual could experiment by multiplying the portions of brain matter responsible for cognition. It would be experientially dicey, but not quite so bad as monkeys trying to find Shakespeare. The results of a few educated guesses at what optimizations could be helpful would create a new vista of possibilities for the mind at work. ' "Oh, it is about the most exciting thing in the world of science at the moment. Here(http://www.nature.com/news/fearful-memories-haunt-mouse-descendants-1.14272) is an article about one study who found mice offspring to be able to inherit fear of cherry blossom and here(http://ki.se/en/news/long-term-endurance-training-impacts-muscle-epigenetics) is another about how long/term endurance training affects skeletal muscle metabolism in offspring (if you are interested). > That said - it doesn't make things easier, if anything, it makes things harder to simulate, no? In all honesty I don't really think this would have too much of an impact in the immediate environment. As such, we would (hypothetically) still be able to simulate a brain without taking this into account. However, if we want to simulate a brain that operates exactly like a real one, we have to consider the whole biology of the body as well. " 'Why do you think " a human cant come up with modifications to itself just by being given the right information"? If researchers currently don\'t understand 100% of brain function, you can\'t say that humans can modify their own brain because no one can be "given the right information" yet. Also, obviously human brain simulations have the same cognitive and intellectual limitations as humans. That\'s why I said >Although the ideas for modifications would probably come very slowly (slower than academia?) Since any ideas for a modification come from a single person instead of multipole research groups. And why do you care about what\'s available right now? This is a hypothetical situation. Obviously if we can digitally simulate a brain at some point in the future, we will understand hwo it works. ' 'Sorry to come into your fantasy bearing facts. Continue to assume that reality has no bearing on your statements. ' '> A human brain could design a better version of itself if it had the hardware to safely implement the changes. This is simply not true. No human, or even group of humans, even begins to understand how the brain works. Any neuroscientist will tell you this. ' "The brain would be a person and for that reason I believe it would be unethical. But being unethical has only sometimes delayed things historically. The consequences could be negative or great. Either way as the tech gets easier to handle it is inevitable. The trick of it will be to raise an ethical person within a controlled environment. But we don't know how to do that, or monarchies would be great. "

Human: Change my mind: Wedding ceremonies are a waste of time money, and energy My girlfriend is currently dealing with planning the wedding of an old friend of hers, and it is painful to watch. The amount of excess money going into this one day is absurd; DJs, flowers, photographers, clothes, matching shoes, centerpieces, food. It's creating rifts between the families and even the bride and groom with regard to what clothes everyone thinks they should wear (as per each families "traditions"). My gf is really pissed about how much she has to spend on bridesmaid dresses that she will only wear once, which shoes to go with them, all to satisfy the brides whims. It's basically destroying their friendship because this woman doesn't seem to give any thought to how forcing her friends to spend all this money is affecting their lives, only how it will all look at the ceremony. Basically it just seems like these weddings are only good to make people who previously cared about each other, resent each other. I can understand wanting your day to be special, but can't it just be special because all your friends and family are together, rather than striving for ridiculous excess? Why is this something so many insist on and why should I be ok with it? Assistant :

'Then it doesnt seem like you think wedding ceremonies are a waste of time, money, and energy, just that one end of the spectrum is. I think most would agree with that. Its pretty subjective on where to draw the line' "I agree completely. The excessiveness of it all is what's lost on me. I have no problem with the idea of getting friends and family together to celebrate, I just dont think its right to ask so much of those people, other than that they be present for the event."

Human: Change my mind: The 99% was people realising they do not matter. And they are still just as not important. Those 99% what do they achieve for the grand scheme of things? How many of them were required to do a job vs how many of them actually had that job? Why the F do we need the opinion of the majority in any political issues when they can barely figure out their own issues? When the majority of people in the west work in retail or supporting roles, essentially existing because the system requires it, what is the point? If people want actual change away from banality, then how can they justify their own existence in anything better than what we currently have? Assistant :

'&#8710; well thought out response. I think your point about the necessity of the 99% is pretty indisputable :)' 'Heartless? That\'s not at all what I was saying. Honestly, it\'s hard not to argue strawmen when you\'re not entirely sure what the other person is trying to communicate. But I was saying that I think you\'re underestimating the people you were talking about. Everybody realizes they don\'t matter, and everybody has been realizing that for quite a while now. Usually pretty early in their lives. Why would that universal feeling suddenly spawn a 15,000 person protest? There would have had to be more to it than that. Like government corruption and systemic inequality and unethical financial practices and the factors you can easily read about if you so much as look at the wikipedia page. At least, I think that\'s what you mean by "the 99% was people realising they do not matter." You mean the feeling of being powerless as an individual, right? Probably mixed with some un-earned entitlement? Not the knowledge of being less powerful due to the inequality that exists in the US Democratic/Capitalist government/economic system and the conclusion that such a system is unjust?' "Why would you think that those people *only then* became aware of or discontent with their place in life? It sounds like what you're describing is that moment people have somewhere between the age of 13 and 19 (or multiple times) about their own insignificance or powerlessness in the grand scheme of things. As if 15,000 protestors all went through teenage angst at the same time and decided to make a movement about it. Did you read anything at all about the movement?" '> It is based on a fallacy that money = well being. It hasn\'t for the majority of time, why make a big deal about it now? That\'s really not true(http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/yes-money-does-buy-happiness-6-lessons-from-the-newest-research-on-income-and-well-being/267016/). Money does equal well being up to a point. There is diminishing returns on happiness to money though, but just makes for a stronger argument against a rapidly increasing income for the 1% since it won\'t increase their well being nearly as much as it would for people with lower income. And again, it\'s about equity. The idea that someone should be valued for the work they contribute. In theory, with an equitable society, as the economy gets stronger, everyone should benefit, and yet we only see increases in those with the highest income. We *should* live in an equitable society. The whole point of a democratic society is to be as fair to as many people as is possible, and in this regard, the system has utterly failed a huge swath of people. I\'d say they have every right to be angry about that. > You were falling into territory that wasn\'t going anywhere with superlative language. I feel pointing out your view is coming more from arrogance than logic is going somewhere pretty important, actually. > Sure. Facebook, Go on there. Add people who post a lot of their own status\'s. Wait. K, so you\'re just basing it on what "feels" right to you then, got it. > \'The 1%\' and \'they\' are referring to different groups . Yes, "they" is referring to the 99% movement. How is that twisting your words? > if the 1% is over valued, then isn\'t they (the 99%) under valued? The two are certainly related, but the difference of phrasing is significant. As I said, most people are ok with a wealth gap, and focusing on the undervalue adds an implication that that isn\'t the case, that everyone should be equal (as you said), while focusing on the overvalue is pointing out that there\'s no good reason for that gap to exist, and that this isn\'t equitable. > Not really interested in your observer bias. Right, but *your* observer bias is totally ok and using your facebook friends as a basis for 15 thousand people is totally fine. > Never said they were better, but the wealthy do tend to have more say. Say in what exactly? Politics? Society? > I\'m not saying they don\'t matter. I\'m saying they thought it of themselves as a group, and were acting out from that belief as a group. And I\'m saying it wasn\'t about how much they did or didn\'t matter, it was about the unfairness of the stupidly large wealth gap. It was the fact that in our supposedly "all men were created equal" society, some men born into better circumstances would result in such a dramatic and unfair situation. The point was that according to the values of this country, what is happening should not be happening. It has nothing to do with the self-worth of the 15 thousand protesters.' 'That wasn\'t what he said and is completely unrelated to the truth. You can easily look up "Occupy Wall Street" on wikipedia, which would have saved you time. This is the link.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_movement). The protest began with some university students who were dealing with massive budget cuts in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, despite them having paid a good deal for the hope of a good future. I don\'t know how old you are and I don\'t know how you missed through 2008 (I was a kid during 2008 and the news never escaped me), but things were quite *tense* at the time. The average wealth of the mean statistical person dropped by over 30%, and a great deal of suddenly poor people were looking for people to blame. The average wealth of the former top 1% in overall wealth had only dropped 11%, meaning that the rich were for the most part minorly inconvenienced while there were many suicides in the general population relating to bankruptcy. In this sort of situation, people thought it would be a good idea to imitate the college protests and squat on various locations. The Spanish occupied various targets (the Great Recession affected the entire world), and some weeks/months later the Americans decided to fall suit and occupy wall street. A lot of people were unemployed so it wasn\'t as though they had anything better to do, which is why the whole trend accelerated the way it did.' 'Perhaps if you had more money you could properly articulate your point. Or maybe I just need more money to be smart enough to understand just how deep you must be.' '...no, it uses the income of various countries across the world compared to those countries reported happiness. I sincerely doubt they went around asking people "hey compared to these countries over here which have significantly better economies than yours, how happy are you?" Besides, if your theory that everyone but you and the elite super smart people of the world are super entitled and too stupid to improve their lot in life, wheres your evidence to back that? So far I\'m the only one presenting *anything* more than confirmation bias and personal anecdotes.' '> What my point was that the shame in existing for nothing other than being part of a machine was the catalyst for a lot of people. Not a desire for equality. But to gain a sense of meaning in their lives in a manner which is very circumspect. And my point was that it had nothing to do with shame, or even equality for that matter. The movement was about *equity*, not equality, two very different things. Most people are totally ok with a wealth gap. Most people are not, however, totally ok with this(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Inequality-by-Kenworthy.png). That\'s an absurd growth for the upper class, and there\'s no argument that their contribution to society is worth *that much more* than the entirety of the other 99% of the population. Until you can disprove that premise, you have no right or reason to chalk it all up to a hurt sense of self worth. > But this is the internet Oh, I\'m sorry, I guess that makes baseless arrogance totally ok. Carry on /s. > I was reflecting on the irony of how politicians are treated when the typical individual would look far worse under a spot light Would they now? Can you back that idea up with facts or does that statement just "feel" right to you? > I was especially challenging the perceived idea that they felt undervalued through democracy And I\'m saying they felt the 1% was *overvalued.* Not that they were undervalued. > The 99% as a literal group will have very primitive opinions that in general do not often change and when they do it\'s mostly because of not liking the opposition. That is a reactionary measure, not aware of its actions. Not trust-able to act in accordance with sensibility. Again, this is equal parts arrogance and sheltering. You\'re implying that because someone is wealthy, their opinions will naturally be more nuanced and intelligent. I have friends ranging from poor to rich, and I can assure you, I see no significant correlation to their economics and intelligence. Neither I nor my opinions are any better than any of them simply because my parents make more money than theirs. That\'s an utterly absurd concept.'