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CMV: Anything that is man-made is natural.	I can't remember the topic that spurred this discussion, but a friend and I were debating whether man-made things were natural. He took the position that they are unnatural. He cited this definition by Merriam-Webster: existing in nature and not made or caused by people : coming from nature (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural) as his basis for the distinction for natural vs. unnatural. However, I respectfully disagree with his position and furthermore that definition of natural. People arise from nature. Humankind's capacity to create, problem-solve, analyze, rationalize, and build also come from natural processes. How are the things we create unnatural? It is only through natural occurrences that we have this ability, why is it that we would give the credit of these things solely to man, as opposed to nature? We are not separate from nature, thus, how can any of our actions or creations be unnatural? If we were somehow separate from nature, I would understand the distinction between natural and man-made. However, I think unnatural and man-made are not synonyms by any means. It seems to me that man-made things MUST be natural due to our being part of nature. I would love to hear your arguments and to have my view changed if I am mistaken in my logic somewhere along the line. EDIT: Thanks for your responses lads. As many of you pointed out, our argument depends more on the context of the use of the word and I think that my friend and I were arguing about the semantics and definition more than our intended meaning behind use of the word "natural".	Look at the definition you provided, if we remove the exclusion of things which humans create: > existing in nature ~~and not made or caused by people~~ So essentially, by this definition, "natural things" are "things that exist," which is frankly rather meaningless. If one wanted to discuss the results of human activity we would then have to make up a new word which could be redefined by the same argument. The whole point of the word is to exclude human activity. If you remove that aspect, it simply ceases to have meaning.	You're using natural to mean definition 8 >the universe, with all its phenomena. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nature >The more common definition is definition 1. "the material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities. " So by definition we are not part of nature, as nature is more commonly used, and is in this sense used, to refer to things that exist independently of human activities. And before you mention the word independent. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/independent?s=t "not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself: " Just, say, breathing air that humans breathed isn't enough.
CMV:Essential Oils are bullshit	My wife has recently gotten deeply involved/obsessed with the healing properties of essential oils. I am cursed with a common problem in that I am an extremely skeptical person. I can't help but look at this product and see a pyramid scheme that takes advantage of the gullible. All the shit my wife watches on these oils is carefully worded to make sure they don't make actual healing claims, I'm told this is because they aren't FDA approved and could get in trouble. I've looked a little and haven't found anything debunking these oils but i still cannot help but feel they are total BS. I would love to get more information from unbiased sources on this. Please change my view without just anecdotal testimonies.	[This answer in /r/askscience does a pretty good job of describing essential oils.](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2pp57r/how_effective_are_essential_oils/cmytzdq) As the comment points out there are benefits to essential oils if they are used in the right way. However, the current fad mixes the raw essential oils with other stuff that may or may not be good for you. The raw essential oils are actually "a vital resource for drug discovery."	Found a nice little [article](http://pediatricinsider.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/essential-oils-when-shady-marketing-and-quackery-meet/) for you. One of the examples listed could clearly have a benefit in any place where estrogen therapy would have a benefit. So, with a careful enough utilization, these oils could have actual health benefits for certain conditions. Otherwise they are a dangerous placebo choice. For instance, marijuana is derived from the Cannabis family of plants. It could easily be provided in an "essential oil" form. Basically, "essential oils" are simply a re-branding of drugs (which started as a re-branding of herbs to distinguish the amount of study that went into creating them).
CMV: 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. EDIT: Awarded a delta to a comment which didn't refute this idea but led me to change my view that it would be best realized with paralyzing weapons rather then guns: http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rnr30/cmv_i_think_the_paris_shooting_makes_a_good_case/cni3o83 _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	I guess I look at it this way- there have absolutely been times when gun ownership, or carrying weapons on ones person in general was more prevalent than it is today. Those time periods/places did not enjoy lower rates of violent death. Consider the "wild west." Obviously it wasn't nearly as full of gun battles as the movies make it seem, but according [this study] (http://cjrc.osu.edu/homicide-rates-american-west-randolph-roth) the murder rate was "extraordinarily high by today's standard." Looking at the rest of the thread, I think I see what might be a flaw in our collective logic. The incidents that stand out most in our heads are events like Paris or Aurora or Columbine- premeditated shootings with the intent of inflicting a lot of casualties. If the staff at Charlie Hebdo or Columbine High had guns, they certainly might have been able to end these incidents earlier. They also might have inflicted more casualties with stray bullets. These types of hypothetical calculations aren't really helpful, in my opinion. But lets assume that more guns makes mass shootings less likely. Would this actually make a more heavily armed society a more polite one? I don't think it would, because though premeditated murders could well be less likely, accidental deaths, unplanned homicides, and suicides would like increase. This study found that owning a gun makes one more likely to die from suicide and homicide. Of course, that's correlation, so there might be some third factor at play that makes gun owners more likely to b targets of crime or clinically depressed, but it certainly suggests that owning a gun doesn't automatically make you safer. http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full Whether or not more guns would prevent events like today's isn't the issue (though I am inclined to say they wouldn't necessarily do that), it seems like a greater proliferation of weapons would be more dangerous for a number of other reasons.	>PS: I am not here to talk about USA and its gun problems. I wont go into gun problems but rather define USA's basic laws and their impact on stopping situations like the one in Paris today. As a person living in a country with the right to bear arms, in my experience, when an incident like this occurs there aren't many armed civilians nearby to assist. Many large cities ban concealed firearms regardless of our liberty to own weapons. Most work places ban guns from being on the premise. Recently there was the [2011 Tucson Shooting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tucson_shooting). I lived right down the road from where it occurred and was involved with police and media due to the relationship of the shooter and the high school he attended. It was a wild minute as the shooter unloaded 33 rounds into the crowd. When he stopped to reload he was assaulted by a bystander with a chair. That was in the state of Arizona which is as far conservative and gun toting as it can get. I know many people who pack as if its the wild west. However, these people never seem to be armed at the time of need. The right to bear arms is simply gun ownership. In the event of civil war between the people and the government, the people are able to fight back. Where you are able to carry your gun is situational. [University of Texas Shooting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman) was far more situational that would align with the OP's train of thought. A very long drawn out fire fight where police weren't equipped to deal with the gunmen. Citizens with hunting rifles fought back and kept the gunman pinned down as police entered the tower. This situation and a few others was the early starts of creating swat teams able to respond to armed gunman. France has gun laws allowing citizens to purchase hunting rifles with permits. In the event of something like that happening in the suburbs of France, citizens could respond. However, the situation is so unlikely to occur as shooters rarely take to a single place and shoot from in for such a long period of time. Most shootings happen in an instant and even armed citizens aren't aware of the situation as it is occurring. Police officers and hired guards are constantly in mental preparation of responding to such a situation and know they are expected to take deadly force when they see a lethal situation occurring. If I'm carry my gun all the time but I'm simply going to a super market to pick up groceries I will be reluctant to shoot till I've assessed what is occurring. Allowing concealed fire arms in a city like Paris to stop the threat of terrorists is a fruitless endeavor.
CMV: Explaining causation is not "blaming" the victim, and it's a worthwhile endeavor.	I've been thinking about this issue for a while. The sentence in the title is an over-simplification of the view, but I'll elaborate more here. Technically it's a two-part view: 1) Explaining causation is not "blaming" the victim. 2) Explaining causation is a worthwhile endeavor. I'd be happy to have either view changed - though if view 1 is changed, I'd probably change my mind on view 2. (It'll be easier to change my mind, in other words, about view 2 than view 1 – I’m not certain that it’s a worthwhile endeavor.) Let me start off by saying that I understand the issues with victim blaming. There's an unfortunate tendency that I’ve noticed – particularly on the Internet, but occasionally in person as well – to blame the victims of terrible situations. We’re seeing it with responses to the police murders of black citizens (people trying to find a reason why the person was shot), and we see it with victims of rape (people say: you shouldn’t have been so drunk, or you shouldn’t have been in that area of town). There are all sorts of possible explanations as to why victim blaming occurs; one of the most convincing to me is that these occurrences cause a sort of cognitive dissonance in our minds where bad things happen to people who don’t deserve it. We like to think of our world as “just” in some way, so we come up with reasons why these people “Deserved” what they got. People rarely go so far as to say a woman “deserved” to be raped, but there’s a certain amount of “otherization” and lack of empathy that goes on – a sense that “well, that wouldn’t have happened to me, because I would’ve been more careful”. Additionally, it blames the victim for something that you should be blaming the perpetrator for. And that’s all bad. On the other hand, it remains the case that the world is not a just place. Yes, we can work towards justice; we can work towards eliminating racism – overt or structural – and we can work towards a society in which women feel safer. And we absolutely should. In the meantime, however, it is important to understand lines of causation. I’m not going with a very complicated definition of causation here: basically a model in which two events or situations occur – A and B – and one event (B) would not have occurred the other (A) had not occurred. A caused B. (I’m aware there are logical or philosophical arguments against this model, but that’s not the view I’m trying to have changed; if you can make a compelling argument about the relevant views using those points, go ahead.) The case I often think of concerns myself and friends of mine. I live in a large city. It is safe, for the most part, but there are certain areas that you shouldn’t walk in at night, because you might get mugged. Both myself and a friend of mine have been mugged while walking through these areas. The causation is: if we hadn’t been walking through those areas, we wouldn’t have gotten mugged. So we don’t walk through those areas at night anymore. It’s still possible that we’ll get mugged elsewhere, but in my mind, we’ve decreased our chances, which is a good thing. We didn’t deserve to get mugged before, but changing our behavior prevented us from getting mugged again. Thus, explaining causation is not justification. It’s simply understanding the chain of events that led to another event. Finally, my second view is that it’s a worthwhile endeavor. As I said, we avoid those dangerous areas at night now, and I feel we’ve decreased our chances of getting mugged. We understood the causation behind a negative situation, and we changed our behavior accordingly. Ideally, all areas would be safe to walk in, but they’re not, so we don’t walk in the unsafe areas anymore. Yes, this has mildly restricted our behavior – but it’s worth it to us, so that we don’t get mugged. I understood these are hairy issues, and maybe there’s a fine line between causation and justification. CMV. EDIT: Fixed a sentence. EDIT 2: Thank you - these have been really interesting and illuminating discussions, and forced me to reconsider the nuances of my view. I plan to give out more Deltas, because the latter part of my view has been changed somewhat. I don't think it's always a "worthwhile endeavor" - especially in cases of sexual assault, there's an unfortunate tendency of victims to blame themselves, and "explaining causation" to them doesn't really serve any purpose other than to increase unnecessary and unjustified guilt on their part. Many of these situations demand care and compassion. As far as "part 1" of my view goes, I still stand by my original statement. Granted, people have pointed out inconsistencies in the term "causation" - but as I said, I'm not really trying to have a discussion about causation as a concept. I understand that it's very complex, and of course many factors go into a certain outcome. I am well aware of probabilistic models of events/outcomes; my point was never to say that "avoid certain areas means you won't get mugged", or something like that. It concerned a marginal decrease of risk - a change in probability. Furthermore, the point itself was actually that "explaining causation is not victim blaming", and this view has not been addressed sufficiently. I've changed my view to the point that I don't think "explaining causation" is always the appropriate response (particularly in traumatic cases like sexual assault). I do still think it's often important to explain causation before the fact, as some users have suggested as an alternative, simply to give people a good idea of what precautions they might want to take. Most specifically, no one has really addressed this notion of causation vs. justification. One person has said they're the same thing, but not really offered an explanation for that. At any rate, I've enjoyed reading the responses so far; I'm aware this is a sensitive issue, and I'm glad discussions have remained pretty civil. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	I would say that the difficulty here is in assigning "causal factors" accurately. Let's take your example: >The causation is: if we hadn’t been walking through those areas, we wouldn’t have gotten mugged. Actually, it would have also prevented your being mugged had you left 10 minutes later. It further likely would have prevented your mugging had one of you been armed. If the mugger's spouse had a fight with them before they left the house to mug you, and this delayed them so you passed before they did, it would have prevented your mugging. Your being mugged is a statistical outcome, not attributable to any one behavior on your part. In this case, the root cause is exactly and only the mugger choosing to mug you. There's no other causal factor that would have actually prevented the situation, only changed the probabilities, and you can't really trust probabilities to guide specific behavior in specific situations. Absolute "causation" isn't a helpful concept in cases like this. The causal factors of one individual trial of a statistical experiment aren't very important. The response to a statistical problem is not to change behavior on individual trials of the experiment, it's to address the root cause of the statistical problem. We can't, nor should we, do everything in our power to reduce all possibility of danger. Surely you can see the reductio ad absurdum here. We have to weigh the effectiveness of our strategies against the costs and benefits. If avoiding one part of town reduces your risk by (let's convert everything to dollars here for ease of calculation) $0.10, but it costs you $0.50 in inconvenience, exercise of your rights, enjoyment of life, and every other factor (most of which are very hard to calculate) then you "should" not avoid that part of town, even if it led to your being mugged. It's not necessarily "wrong" to point out these statistical factors in order to help people make return-on-investment calculations, if that's your real goal. It's not too helpful, because people don't really have enough information, nor training in statistical theory, to apply that information. But it's really very hard to come up with true valuations of these factors. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because it's "obvious to you" that a part of town is dangerous that it is worthwhile to tell someone they should avoid that part of town. If you want to tell people in general that traveling in that part of town has a 0.01% chance of resulting in their being mugged and robbed of their pocket change (let's say the average is $100, with another $900 in lost peace of mind), by all means let them know that the expected cost of that behavior is $0.10, so that they can decide if it's worth that cost to them. And that's about accurate for the most dangerous parts of any town, and for actual losses typically incurred. If you exaggerate the danger, you're not doing anyone any favors, and are actually doing them harm, statistically. When you talk to an actual victim about these things, realize that they already probably have a vastly inflated opinion about the risks of their behavior, because they have suffered an unlikely outcome in that regard. Almost in every case, if you're speaking to a victim, it would be more accurate to downplay the risks that they took, if your goal is to actually statistically help them. If someone is in a plane crash and is injured, your telling them that riding planes is dangerous is true as far as it goes... it's just a lot less dangerous than driving, which is what they're likely to do instead. Societally speaking, we have to be very careful what we warn people about, because everyone's mileage varies.	Here's the difference. Something happens to Mary. Mary gets mugged. You response is: "Well why was she walking through that street at night? That's stupid, she should have known she would get mugged." The correct response is: "Well, that's unfortunate. That's a really unsafe area. The news/the police/the community should do more to ensure peoples awareness and safety in that area." Do you see the difference? One is victim blaming. The other is having a mature discussion regarding the crime. It begins a helpful discussion on the realities of the situation and ways to improve the situation. It acknowledges your point - that there are dangers in the world that people can work to avoid - without dismissing the actual crime down to the victim's decisions. The first just says it's all Mary's fault. It's a massive difference. The first one should never be discussed outside of the victim, the police, and family. What if Mary was from out of town and didn't know the area was unsafe? What if Mary got lost? What if Mary got in a fight with her boyfriend and was kicked out of the car there? Are all of these not perfectly understandable reasons why Mary would be at that specific location at that time of night? How are you in any specific way able to judge the situation and draw those particular conclusions? Does the second response not completely cover both your requirements? Explaining the causation of the crime and helping people through doing so (worthwhile)? Does it not do both of those in a better way? It's assumed that the first response does accomplishes these goals, but in fact it doesn't. It's a psychological knee-jerk response. You hit the nail on the head here, you just miss the connection between the two. The world is not a just place, but people want it to be and subconsciously try to make it feel that way. By saying things like "she shouldn't have been there" we are exactly saying "This would never happen to me because I would never do that" and therefore make yourself feel better by justifying the issue and therefore the world. When we do that, we dismiss the actual problem. We don't talk about the safety of the street and how to improve it, we don't talk about mental illness improvements and education and lowering poverty so we make the world a better place. We talk about Mary. And how stupid she was. EDIT: Things got confusing here I think, so I want to clarify a couple things. #1. The point of all these examples was this: "Causation" can be discussed with or without victim blaming, and doing it with victim blaming does no one any good. These discussions typically do include victim blaming because it's human nature to victim blame, and discussing the topic without victim blaming is actually challenging. #2. How does this relate to OP's topic: Discussing causation is completely unrelated to victims at all. If you are discussing a specific victim, you're probably victim blaming, and this is what tends to happen the most. If you're discussing the situation that happened, you're discussing causation. #3. I am not suggesting people not take personal responsibility for their safety. It all falls down to the reasonableness of actions that we require from others. It's perfectly reasonable to require someone to lock their door. It's not reasonable to expect them to completely board up their house. #4. I wasn't trying to ignite a discussion on when we should or should not victim blame or where lines of personality responsibility are drawn and I don't feel like that thread is relevant to the topic. I was discussing only the conversation that occurs after there has been a crime.
CMV: Explaining causation is not "blaming" the victim, and it's a worthwhile endeavor.	I've been thinking about this issue for a while. The sentence in the title is an over-simplification of the view, but I'll elaborate more here. Technically it's a two-part view: 1) Explaining causation is not "blaming" the victim. 2) Explaining causation is a worthwhile endeavor. I'd be happy to have either view changed - though if view 1 is changed, I'd probably change my mind on view 2. (It'll be easier to change my mind, in other words, about view 2 than view 1 – I’m not certain that it’s a worthwhile endeavor.) Let me start off by saying that I understand the issues with victim blaming. There's an unfortunate tendency that I’ve noticed – particularly on the Internet, but occasionally in person as well – to blame the victims of terrible situations. We’re seeing it with responses to the police murders of black citizens (people trying to find a reason why the person was shot), and we see it with victims of rape (people say: you shouldn’t have been so drunk, or you shouldn’t have been in that area of town). There are all sorts of possible explanations as to why victim blaming occurs; one of the most convincing to me is that these occurrences cause a sort of cognitive dissonance in our minds where bad things happen to people who don’t deserve it. We like to think of our world as “just” in some way, so we come up with reasons why these people “Deserved” what they got. People rarely go so far as to say a woman “deserved” to be raped, but there’s a certain amount of “otherization” and lack of empathy that goes on – a sense that “well, that wouldn’t have happened to me, because I would’ve been more careful”. Additionally, it blames the victim for something that you should be blaming the perpetrator for. And that’s all bad. On the other hand, it remains the case that the world is not a just place. Yes, we can work towards justice; we can work towards eliminating racism – overt or structural – and we can work towards a society in which women feel safer. And we absolutely should. In the meantime, however, it is important to understand lines of causation. I’m not going with a very complicated definition of causation here: basically a model in which two events or situations occur – A and B – and one event (B) would not have occurred the other (A) had not occurred. A caused B. (I’m aware there are logical or philosophical arguments against this model, but that’s not the view I’m trying to have changed; if you can make a compelling argument about the relevant views using those points, go ahead.) The case I often think of concerns myself and friends of mine. I live in a large city. It is safe, for the most part, but there are certain areas that you shouldn’t walk in at night, because you might get mugged. Both myself and a friend of mine have been mugged while walking through these areas. The causation is: if we hadn’t been walking through those areas, we wouldn’t have gotten mugged. So we don’t walk through those areas at night anymore. It’s still possible that we’ll get mugged elsewhere, but in my mind, we’ve decreased our chances, which is a good thing. We didn’t deserve to get mugged before, but changing our behavior prevented us from getting mugged again. Thus, explaining causation is not justification. It’s simply understanding the chain of events that led to another event. Finally, my second view is that it’s a worthwhile endeavor. As I said, we avoid those dangerous areas at night now, and I feel we’ve decreased our chances of getting mugged. We understood the causation behind a negative situation, and we changed our behavior accordingly. Ideally, all areas would be safe to walk in, but they’re not, so we don’t walk in the unsafe areas anymore. Yes, this has mildly restricted our behavior – but it’s worth it to us, so that we don’t get mugged. I understood these are hairy issues, and maybe there’s a fine line between causation and justification. CMV. EDIT: Fixed a sentence. EDIT 2: Thank you - these have been really interesting and illuminating discussions, and forced me to reconsider the nuances of my view. I plan to give out more Deltas, because the latter part of my view has been changed somewhat. I don't think it's always a "worthwhile endeavor" - especially in cases of sexual assault, there's an unfortunate tendency of victims to blame themselves, and "explaining causation" to them doesn't really serve any purpose other than to increase unnecessary and unjustified guilt on their part. Many of these situations demand care and compassion. As far as "part 1" of my view goes, I still stand by my original statement. Granted, people have pointed out inconsistencies in the term "causation" - but as I said, I'm not really trying to have a discussion about causation as a concept. I understand that it's very complex, and of course many factors go into a certain outcome. I am well aware of probabilistic models of events/outcomes; my point was never to say that "avoid certain areas means you won't get mugged", or something like that. It concerned a marginal decrease of risk - a change in probability. Furthermore, the point itself was actually that "explaining causation is not victim blaming", and this view has not been addressed sufficiently. I've changed my view to the point that I don't think "explaining causation" is always the appropriate response (particularly in traumatic cases like sexual assault). I do still think it's often important to explain causation before the fact, as some users have suggested as an alternative, simply to give people a good idea of what precautions they might want to take. Most specifically, no one has really addressed this notion of causation vs. justification. One person has said they're the same thing, but not really offered an explanation for that. At any rate, I've enjoyed reading the responses so far; I'm aware this is a sensitive issue, and I'm glad discussions have remained pretty civil. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	I think you're correct for the most part, but still believe I can change your view a bit due to adding an emotional component you may not be considering due to inexperience with some situations. I want to note I don't think this inexperience makes you a bad person or an idiot, it's just data you may not have to put into consideration. While speaking about causation can be beneficial in a vacuum, there is an overall context that may make it harmful, and when and how you discuss it can lead to it being potentially more damaging than helpful. When I entered my friend's room after they called me about being assaulted, I found them sobbing and repeating to themself "I'm so stupid." They had invited someone they didn't know very well into their room - something just about everyone I've known has done multiple times - and, in this case, it turned out for the worst. If someone had come in and said to my friend, "well, inviting someone into your room is a risky thing to do," then I wouldn't be frustrated with that person because they were wrong, I would be frustrated with them because they were being emotionally inconsiderate. Yes, there were logical decisions on my friend's part that put them at risk, but my friend is already dealing with emotionally damaging self-blaming and self-loathing, and this just throws fuel on the fire. When someone is unable to leave a room for 3 weeks because of waking up in the middle of the night sobbing and having flashbacks, you pointing out how they could have lessened their chance of this occurring is not on the top of the list of things that need to be addressed. Later, when that person is speaking with a trusted therapist who can unwind causality from self-blame, is a more appropriate context to discuss the the issue with that person. I'd equate it to walking up to someone whose dog was hit by a car and saying, "dog-chains will keep the dog away from the street and make it less likely to be hit by a car." You're not logically wrong, but you're not really helping. By pointing out the causality to the owner - who is likely already blaming themself - you're likely hurting them more than your information is worth. In addition, you're not fully informed; for all you know, the owner's last dog strangled itself on its chain, and he just put in a fence that the new dog dug under. This is why there are commenters in this thread who are saying people are being unempathetic; they're not seeing the emotional context of the event, and just focusing on the logical context - considering the causality in a vacuum instead of as part of a whole incident. Again, this is not because they're stupid, but because they likely have never had a full context on an issue like this before. This is not to say that conversations shouldn't be had about dangerous areas, or that people shouldn't be warned about dangerous activities; those things lead to better-informed citizens and better policing, as well as other endeavors such as improved lighting for areas that are high-crime. However, there needs to be a question of when and with whom that conversation should be had; in cases like sexual assualt, I think the causation argument should be had with the therapist. People who see it on the news and say it, especially without the full context, are potentially doing more damage to the person than they are helping, without realizing it.	Here's the difference. Something happens to Mary. Mary gets mugged. You response is: "Well why was she walking through that street at night? That's stupid, she should have known she would get mugged." The correct response is: "Well, that's unfortunate. That's a really unsafe area. The news/the police/the community should do more to ensure peoples awareness and safety in that area." Do you see the difference? One is victim blaming. The other is having a mature discussion regarding the crime. It begins a helpful discussion on the realities of the situation and ways to improve the situation. It acknowledges your point - that there are dangers in the world that people can work to avoid - without dismissing the actual crime down to the victim's decisions. The first just says it's all Mary's fault. It's a massive difference. The first one should never be discussed outside of the victim, the police, and family. What if Mary was from out of town and didn't know the area was unsafe? What if Mary got lost? What if Mary got in a fight with her boyfriend and was kicked out of the car there? Are all of these not perfectly understandable reasons why Mary would be at that specific location at that time of night? How are you in any specific way able to judge the situation and draw those particular conclusions? Does the second response not completely cover both your requirements? Explaining the causation of the crime and helping people through doing so (worthwhile)? Does it not do both of those in a better way? It's assumed that the first response does accomplishes these goals, but in fact it doesn't. It's a psychological knee-jerk response. You hit the nail on the head here, you just miss the connection between the two. The world is not a just place, but people want it to be and subconsciously try to make it feel that way. By saying things like "she shouldn't have been there" we are exactly saying "This would never happen to me because I would never do that" and therefore make yourself feel better by justifying the issue and therefore the world. When we do that, we dismiss the actual problem. We don't talk about the safety of the street and how to improve it, we don't talk about mental illness improvements and education and lowering poverty so we make the world a better place. We talk about Mary. And how stupid she was. EDIT: Things got confusing here I think, so I want to clarify a couple things. #1. The point of all these examples was this: "Causation" can be discussed with or without victim blaming, and doing it with victim blaming does no one any good. These discussions typically do include victim blaming because it's human nature to victim blame, and discussing the topic without victim blaming is actually challenging. #2. How does this relate to OP's topic: Discussing causation is completely unrelated to victims at all. If you are discussing a specific victim, you're probably victim blaming, and this is what tends to happen the most. If you're discussing the situation that happened, you're discussing causation. #3. I am not suggesting people not take personal responsibility for their safety. It all falls down to the reasonableness of actions that we require from others. It's perfectly reasonable to require someone to lock their door. It's not reasonable to expect them to completely board up their house. #4. I wasn't trying to ignite a discussion on when we should or should not victim blame or where lines of personality responsibility are drawn and I don't feel like that thread is relevant to the topic. I was discussing only the conversation that occurs after there has been a crime.
CMV: Philosophy has no tangible value as an academic field of study.	As an independent form of study, philosophy doesn't seem to have any practical applications. What value does philosophy have in the modern age, right now, aside from contemplating things. Is it truly worth it to invest a significant amount of time and money studying this field? There do not seem to be any tangible applications or appreciable benefits from studying philosophy aside from personal growth and the expansion of one's intellectual perspective, which I argue can be gained without studying philosophy in a rigorously academic manner. I often have read the argument that it is impossible to argue that philosophy is useless without using philosophy, or something along those lines. I acknowledge this. Yes, I am engaging in the use of philosophy right now, at this very moment. However, this does not provide an argument as to why it would be worthwhile to STUDY philosophy. What do you gain from studying philosophy that could not be gained from thoughtful introspection? Certainly, important tools have originated from philosophical study, such as the scientific method, and science could be described as a subset of philosophy itself but that isn't an argument against the lack of tangible benefits to be gained from studying philosophy. You don't need to study philosophy to become a capable scientist. You shouldn't need to study philosophy to cultivate a reasonable set of moral principles, or to be thoughtful about the circumstances and situations you encounter in your life. EDIT: I didn't expect so many answers! I'll try to read them all before I get too tired. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	>What do you gain from studying philosophy that could not be gained from thoughtful introspection? Two answers. #1 rigor and #2 it saves us from reinventing the wheel. When you ask the question of whether philosophy is useful, you give us an example of a practical application of philosophy. We're on the same page there. To expand on that, we face a lot of practical questions about what things have value. When we create school curricula we're making value judgments, when we allot budgets. These are, at least in one facet, philosophical questions, and important ones. But you suggest we can answer these questions without studying philosophy. Can we answer high level economic questions without studying economics and math? Can we figure out plumbing questions without training in plumbing? These value decisions (and value is just one kind of philosophical question we deal with constantly) can be based on valid or invalid arguments. If no one studies arguments of value, why do you believe that we can naturally recognize these with no study? Why do you think we should start from scratch in all value decisions rather than seeking to understand the work that has been done in the past? A lot of philosophy seems to be common sense just because it's been so thoroughly integrated into our culture. The place that we're currently at though is the result of a lot of work in ethics, epistemology and metaphysics. To assume we can arrive at the best answers just by thinking hard is ignoring the work that got us where we are, both in failing to understand how much labor was required to get us here, and failing to challenge some of our current baseline. Not everyone needs to study philosophy for their day to day lives, but everyone consumes it whether they know it or not. If no one studies it, then no one will be able to teach it. If no one is able to teach it, then everyone's philosophical positions will have no rigor, will make no use of the work that has already been done before. All our philosophical questions then may as well be answered by /r/showerthoughts or /r/trees. Without rigor and background, that's where introspection gets you.	> What do you gain from studying philosophy that could not be gained from thoughtful introspection? Ask yourself the same question about math. Sure, with knowledge of basic numbers, we could theoretically use those numbers to derive all the theorems of geometry and calculus, reinvent fields like engineering, and create whole new mathematical principles simply by thinking about them, because math is a completely human invention. However, this is obviously foolish because countless geniuses have already made those discoveries; it makes much more sense to learn about what's already been discovered, even if (and especially if) you hope to make new discoveries yourself. And to assume that a person who knows very little about math could come up with those theories is, while strictly theoretically true, practically ridiculous. The same goes for philosophy. Sure, you COULD use what you know about the world to independently come up with Wittgenstein's Tractatus, but I bet you won't, because to do so requires a monumental amount of existing philosophical knowledge that is impossible to figure out in a lifetime without some prior reference. So for the reason alone that it is virtually impossible to reach high levels of philosophy without first understanding the foundations, studying philosophy is a worthwhile endeavor because it gives the student access to knowledge that would have been highly arcane to them had they not studied the subject. But your main argument seems to be that studying philosophy is a waste of time because it has no practical use. For one thing, the assumption that the only reason to study something is to major in that field is highly incorrect. Many people including myself leave college and never once use their major in the real world. Some use college as an opportunity to train for professional skills, others see it as a way to grow themselves as people and learn more about the world in general before getting a job and no longer having the opportunity. Both of these are worthwhile notions, and the very fact that people choose to study philosophy as opposed to more "useful" majors is proof that its existence is highly desirable at least to the people who are interested in it. The biggest takeaway I get from your post is that you did not study philosophy, and you have somewhat of a misunderstanding of what it is. Many people who have never studied the subject believe to learn philosophy is to sit around shooting the shit about hypothetical questions and hackneyed moral quandaries. In actuality, my philosophical education (I minored in it but took as many classes in it as a major) involved tons of rigorous reading and papers, and included topics like AI theory, nature studies, and tort law. The books are extremely dense and, again, built on the backs of thousands of years of preceding philosophy, making it doubly important to study the subject in order to make that more advanced knowledge accessible. At the end of the day, even if you don't buy most of those arguments, the fact remains that philosophy is worthwhile because there are people who see the value in taking it to expand their own horizons as well as change the way they view the world. Simply providing new modes of thought and analysis can alter the way you see everything else in the world, and in that sense, philosophy can actually be more transformative and helpful than any other subject.
CMV: Philosophy has no tangible value as an academic field of study.	As an independent form of study, philosophy doesn't seem to have any practical applications. What value does philosophy have in the modern age, right now, aside from contemplating things. Is it truly worth it to invest a significant amount of time and money studying this field? There do not seem to be any tangible applications or appreciable benefits from studying philosophy aside from personal growth and the expansion of one's intellectual perspective, which I argue can be gained without studying philosophy in a rigorously academic manner. I often have read the argument that it is impossible to argue that philosophy is useless without using philosophy, or something along those lines. I acknowledge this. Yes, I am engaging in the use of philosophy right now, at this very moment. However, this does not provide an argument as to why it would be worthwhile to STUDY philosophy. What do you gain from studying philosophy that could not be gained from thoughtful introspection? Certainly, important tools have originated from philosophical study, such as the scientific method, and science could be described as a subset of philosophy itself but that isn't an argument against the lack of tangible benefits to be gained from studying philosophy. You don't need to study philosophy to become a capable scientist. You shouldn't need to study philosophy to cultivate a reasonable set of moral principles, or to be thoughtful about the circumstances and situations you encounter in your life. EDIT: I didn't expect so many answers! I'll try to read them all before I get too tired. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	Let me take a crack at this, as someone with a philosophy degree (Minor + Master's) and a job in which I find practical uses every single day for things I studied in Philosophy. One thing I found studying philosophy is that a lot of people (even philosophers) have a bit of a useless conception of what philosophy is or does. There's always talk of 'Big Questions' and 'Deep Problems' or whatnot, and I think that misses the point. Philosophy is a set of methods and concepts that you learn and practice and wield, and those methods and concepts are extremely useful in all sorts of circumstances. What you really learn (or rather, the most practically valuable thing you learn) is to become an expert in analytical thinking. That means things like: identifying hidden assumptions in people's reasoning, noticing informal and formal logical fallacies and generating counterexamples, identifying and isolating distinct concepts that people have mistakenly superimposed, assessing things like the knowability or provability of a claim, identifying and avoiding circular reasoning, formulating alternative possible explanations when data underdetermines the given theory and on and on. >What do you gain from studying philosophy that could not be gained from thoughtful introspection? The problem with thoughtful introspection is that you're vulnerable to your own bias. It's very difficult to poke holes in your own reasoning because you always think you're right. Studying philosophy is an opportunity to practice poking holes in arguments that can be very nuanced and very airtight (you don't get this so much in 1st/2nd year courses), and then have a trained philosopher read and poke holes in your reasoning too. You get to read arguments against other arguments and see how expert thinkers think. > You don't need to study philosophy to become a capable scientist. Obviously not, you need to study science (though you would be surprised how many leading scientists actively study philosophy). Science is a set of methods and concepts that helps you explore the relationships between things in the world. Philosophy, on the other hand, is a set of methods and concepts that helps you explore reasoning. You call on science when you need to answer questions about how the world works, and you call on philosophers when you need to know about how to reason correctly in unfamiliar conceptual territory. Most people don't need philosophy to tell them what to do on a day-to-day basis, because most people don't encounter important and unfamiliar moral choices on a day-to-day basis. But Hospitals hire philosophers (Bioethicists) to help them decide on policies and decisions that affect people's lives in novel and controversial ways (e.g. stem cells, abortion, the policies for people in vegetative states, etc.). Likewise, most people's lives are sufficiently common and boring that thoughtful introspection will do them just fine; but, for example, cutting edge businesses (e.g. tech or service start-ups) rely on previously untested reasoning, and it can be very useful to have a capable, trained set of eyes on your thought process before you pull the trigger. TL;DR Philosophy is like the science of reasoning, and it can be very useful when you have to reason in unfamiliar or novel ways, such as new business ideas, medical practices, and even science	> What do you gain from studying philosophy that could not be gained from thoughtful introspection? Ask yourself the same question about math. Sure, with knowledge of basic numbers, we could theoretically use those numbers to derive all the theorems of geometry and calculus, reinvent fields like engineering, and create whole new mathematical principles simply by thinking about them, because math is a completely human invention. However, this is obviously foolish because countless geniuses have already made those discoveries; it makes much more sense to learn about what's already been discovered, even if (and especially if) you hope to make new discoveries yourself. And to assume that a person who knows very little about math could come up with those theories is, while strictly theoretically true, practically ridiculous. The same goes for philosophy. Sure, you COULD use what you know about the world to independently come up with Wittgenstein's Tractatus, but I bet you won't, because to do so requires a monumental amount of existing philosophical knowledge that is impossible to figure out in a lifetime without some prior reference. So for the reason alone that it is virtually impossible to reach high levels of philosophy without first understanding the foundations, studying philosophy is a worthwhile endeavor because it gives the student access to knowledge that would have been highly arcane to them had they not studied the subject. But your main argument seems to be that studying philosophy is a waste of time because it has no practical use. For one thing, the assumption that the only reason to study something is to major in that field is highly incorrect. Many people including myself leave college and never once use their major in the real world. Some use college as an opportunity to train for professional skills, others see it as a way to grow themselves as people and learn more about the world in general before getting a job and no longer having the opportunity. Both of these are worthwhile notions, and the very fact that people choose to study philosophy as opposed to more "useful" majors is proof that its existence is highly desirable at least to the people who are interested in it. The biggest takeaway I get from your post is that you did not study philosophy, and you have somewhat of a misunderstanding of what it is. Many people who have never studied the subject believe to learn philosophy is to sit around shooting the shit about hypothetical questions and hackneyed moral quandaries. In actuality, my philosophical education (I minored in it but took as many classes in it as a major) involved tons of rigorous reading and papers, and included topics like AI theory, nature studies, and tort law. The books are extremely dense and, again, built on the backs of thousands of years of preceding philosophy, making it doubly important to study the subject in order to make that more advanced knowledge accessible. At the end of the day, even if you don't buy most of those arguments, the fact remains that philosophy is worthwhile because there are people who see the value in taking it to expand their own horizons as well as change the way they view the world. Simply providing new modes of thought and analysis can alter the way you see everything else in the world, and in that sense, philosophy can actually be more transformative and helpful than any other subject.
CMV: 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.	>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. Think of something you do every day that you consider perfectly reasonable; something that harms nobody in any direct sense. Let's imagine this thing is to defined as "walking down the street wearing headphones". Now imagine that I tell you that you doing this offends me deeply for reasons of personal belief that you don't share. I warn you that continuing to do this will mean that I will shoot you on sight. In a society that can't protect you from me, it might be wise for you to take off your headphones to preserve your life. That does not make my demand legitimate, does not make my shooting you an acceptable act and does not make my actions your fault. What you ought to hope is that society will protect you from someone like me and make it clear to me that my preferences will not be especially entertained because I threaten violence. I think people who satirize Muhammad in ways that Muslims consider blasphemous should stop doing that. I think it's counterproductive, antagonizing and in poor taste. But if someone disagrees with me on that point, they don't deserve to be shot.	>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. One of the fundamental aspects of a civilized society is that we absolutely do not condone or accept vigilante violence. As part of the social contract, the power to legitimately use violent force is held by the state alone, and the state has to act within the bounds of the law in using that force. The incidents you describe are vigilantism of the worst kind. Free speech will always include speech which offends, but causing offense isn't a violation of the social contract. Vigilante violence against people who offend you is. Consider that the alternative to free speech is government violently suppressing speech. In that case, not only do the bullies still get to use violence to suppress the speech which offends them, but now they don't face the consequences of using violence in violation of the social contract. That seems like a lose-lose to me.
CMV: Eugenics isn't all that bad... And we don't even have to kill anyone for it	Okay, I'm talking about making the human race smarter, forever. Intelligence is at least partially genetic and therefore passed down by parents, yes? [Yes.](http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40459/title/Inherited-Intelligence/) So, what if, instead of killing off the less-intelligent people (I'm against killing. Of most things.) we just limit offspring? For example, we could use the IQ scale (for want of a better intelligence measure) to determine the number of offspring a person should be able to genetically contribute to. Like, round the IQ to the nearest multiple of 50, then divide by 50, and that's the number of offspring you're allowed to create. So someone with near average intelligence (near 100 IQ, 75-124) would have their IQ rounded to 100 and then divided by 50 to make 2 offspring. The total offspring is presumably equal to the number of people who contributed to it. A man and a woman with average IQ can have two children (not each.) and sustain their population. Conversely, really above average IQs of 125-174 can contribute genetically towards 3 children... and so on. This would eventually make the human race smarter, and therefore more likely to survive and advance the human race. I know this would be a bitch to implement and it's near impossible to actually do, but I'm just looking at the concept. I know the IQ test has its faults and every policy can be abused... I know all that. Exceptions would be made when you accidentally have twins which causes you to go over your limit, or etc. (If a mother can make 2, and has twins, she can't make more, but if she already has one and has twins after one which makes 3, we're not gonna kill one) Perhaps if you have a major, heritable health issue your IQ has 25 subtracted from it before being rounded? Or maybe weighted differently, like extremely high chance of cancer (almost 100 percent or something) takes off more... Something like that. Much better than "Kill off those with IQ less than 80" I wouldn't mind a smarter human race... EDIT: I am trying to argue that this process, if not abused, if followed by the people, and if we found an increasingly accurate measure of intelligence, would be ultimately a good thing to advance the human race. EDIT 2: "It looks to me like you've made so many exceptions to your main view that you aren't looking to have your view changed. I'd like to talk about the title of your post, but if you have to make so many exceptions to your view, then it seems you already know it's incorrect." -nikeson I suppose that's true, now.... _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	Every time a proposal like this comes up I am reminded of why it's such a bad idea: not because we couldn't do it, but because we don't yet have the wisdom to do it right. You've just laid out a manifesto for making the human race more intelligent, but nowhere in it have you questioned whether or not it's a good idea. Why do we need to be more intelligent? Why would a more intelligent society automatically be a better one? If we improve our brains in this one regard might we end up diminishing them in other, unanticipated, ways? We don't yet know enough about the biology of it to even speculate. Simply put, we are not ready for eugenics.	As you put it, the entire goal of eugenics is to make the human race more likely to advance and survive, but the irony of eugenics is that one of the best ways we can guarantee our survival is to maximize the size of our gene pool. Eugenics makes the assumption that we know which genes are good and which genes are bad, and by maximizing the "good" genes and minimizing the "bad" genes, our society will be vastly better off. On the surface, this seems like a good idea - eliminating cystic fibrosis or Lou Gehrig's disease from the gene pool by preventing people with these genes from breeding would strengthen the human race, right? Except in the past few decades, advances in cystic fibrosis treatment have many people suffering from CF a near-normal life expectancy, and some people with Lou Gehrig's disease (I'm looking at you Stephen Hawking) have still managed to be some of the most influential minds of our generation. I'm reminded of a story I was told in college about a young girl who had been diagnosed with late-stage rabies (which is pretty much always fatal when its caught so late). Doctors were trying crazy treatments, like drastically lowering her body temperature to slow down the infection, in a last-ditch effort to save the girl. Miraculously, she ended up surviving. As doctors tried to figure out what they did to save the girl, they eventually discovered that she had a special mutation that essentially made her immune to rabies - while she was certainly sick, she was one of the very, very few people carrying the right gene that made rabies about as dangerous as the cold. She may have had the highest IQ on earth, she may have had down syndrome. But its feasible to think of a situation where her anti-rabies gene could make her genetic makeup crucial to "making the human race more likely to advance and survive." TL;DR Its very dangerous to start calling certain genes "good" and other genes "bad." Environment combines with genes to make a person who they are, and we're ultimately better off as a species if we have the largest gene pool possible.
CMV: Eugenics isn't all that bad... And we don't even have to kill anyone for it	Okay, I'm talking about making the human race smarter, forever. Intelligence is at least partially genetic and therefore passed down by parents, yes? [Yes.](http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40459/title/Inherited-Intelligence/) So, what if, instead of killing off the less-intelligent people (I'm against killing. Of most things.) we just limit offspring? For example, we could use the IQ scale (for want of a better intelligence measure) to determine the number of offspring a person should be able to genetically contribute to. Like, round the IQ to the nearest multiple of 50, then divide by 50, and that's the number of offspring you're allowed to create. So someone with near average intelligence (near 100 IQ, 75-124) would have their IQ rounded to 100 and then divided by 50 to make 2 offspring. The total offspring is presumably equal to the number of people who contributed to it. A man and a woman with average IQ can have two children (not each.) and sustain their population. Conversely, really above average IQs of 125-174 can contribute genetically towards 3 children... and so on. This would eventually make the human race smarter, and therefore more likely to survive and advance the human race. I know this would be a bitch to implement and it's near impossible to actually do, but I'm just looking at the concept. I know the IQ test has its faults and every policy can be abused... I know all that. Exceptions would be made when you accidentally have twins which causes you to go over your limit, or etc. (If a mother can make 2, and has twins, she can't make more, but if she already has one and has twins after one which makes 3, we're not gonna kill one) Perhaps if you have a major, heritable health issue your IQ has 25 subtracted from it before being rounded? Or maybe weighted differently, like extremely high chance of cancer (almost 100 percent or something) takes off more... Something like that. Much better than "Kill off those with IQ less than 80" I wouldn't mind a smarter human race... EDIT: I am trying to argue that this process, if not abused, if followed by the people, and if we found an increasingly accurate measure of intelligence, would be ultimately a good thing to advance the human race. EDIT 2: "It looks to me like you've made so many exceptions to your main view that you aren't looking to have your view changed. I'd like to talk about the title of your post, but if you have to make so many exceptions to your view, then it seems you already know it's incorrect." -nikeson I suppose that's true, now.... _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	Firstly, IQ is not considered to be a good or accurate measure of overall intellect. Intelligence is hard to define and describe even by neurologists and reducing that complexity down to one number is incredibly challenging if not impossible. It may also be important to note that your system isn't only difficult to implement like you point out, it's also in direct conflict with how things actually work. More intelligent people tend to have less children than do the more uneducated. There are multiple reasons for this, more intelligent people tend to be more busy with careers, etc. Lastly you must recognize that the IQ test is a standardized test. This means that even if we went really extreme and killed everyone with an IQ under 80.....that would change nothing. The average IQ will still be measured in the same way, the lowest scores will be assigned the lower numbers and the average will be the same.	Forget the morals or the layout of how to make it work or how to enforce the limit, smarter people tend to have less children. Period. You can limit the less intelligent, but you can't force the more intelligent to have them. That's the real flaw in the plan.
CMV: Eugenics isn't all that bad... And we don't even have to kill anyone for it	Okay, I'm talking about making the human race smarter, forever. Intelligence is at least partially genetic and therefore passed down by parents, yes? [Yes.](http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40459/title/Inherited-Intelligence/) So, what if, instead of killing off the less-intelligent people (I'm against killing. Of most things.) we just limit offspring? For example, we could use the IQ scale (for want of a better intelligence measure) to determine the number of offspring a person should be able to genetically contribute to. Like, round the IQ to the nearest multiple of 50, then divide by 50, and that's the number of offspring you're allowed to create. So someone with near average intelligence (near 100 IQ, 75-124) would have their IQ rounded to 100 and then divided by 50 to make 2 offspring. The total offspring is presumably equal to the number of people who contributed to it. A man and a woman with average IQ can have two children (not each.) and sustain their population. Conversely, really above average IQs of 125-174 can contribute genetically towards 3 children... and so on. This would eventually make the human race smarter, and therefore more likely to survive and advance the human race. I know this would be a bitch to implement and it's near impossible to actually do, but I'm just looking at the concept. I know the IQ test has its faults and every policy can be abused... I know all that. Exceptions would be made when you accidentally have twins which causes you to go over your limit, or etc. (If a mother can make 2, and has twins, she can't make more, but if she already has one and has twins after one which makes 3, we're not gonna kill one) Perhaps if you have a major, heritable health issue your IQ has 25 subtracted from it before being rounded? Or maybe weighted differently, like extremely high chance of cancer (almost 100 percent or something) takes off more... Something like that. Much better than "Kill off those with IQ less than 80" I wouldn't mind a smarter human race... EDIT: I am trying to argue that this process, if not abused, if followed by the people, and if we found an increasingly accurate measure of intelligence, would be ultimately a good thing to advance the human race. EDIT 2: "It looks to me like you've made so many exceptions to your main view that you aren't looking to have your view changed. I'd like to talk about the title of your post, but if you have to make so many exceptions to your view, then it seems you already know it's incorrect." -nikeson I suppose that's true, now.... _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	It looks to me like you've made so many exceptions to your main view that you aren't looking to have your view changed. I'd like to talk about the title of your post, but if you have to make so many exceptions to your view, then it seems you already know it's incorrect.	In addition to all of the other ways in which your view has already changed... I would like to point out that whatever we're doing already is having the effect that you would like, and without the negative downsides that any actual eugenics program implemented by actual humans would have. Read up on the [Flynn Effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect). Basically, we've increased our IQ by more than a standard deviation in less than 100 years. This is lightning fast by the standards of evolution. There's really no need to increase our IQs faster than they already are increasing. The results of your proposal wouldn't be seen while you are alive in any case.
CMV: Irony aside, most people that post in CMV are uneducated, and changing their view on one point won't solve this overall problem	There are some instances, yes where controversial topics are discussed here and people are actually interested in hearing the opposite side. I consider myself one of those people, and was initially driven to this subreddit in the hope that I would meet other people like myself that were posting here to educate themselves. The type of man that reads a book that argues against a position he already holds, in the hopes that he can understand the entire issue in a great light. But far and away, this is not the case. Some of the posts on here include logical fallacies even in the titles: yesterday's [atheism post](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rfea1/) used a strawman fallacy in the title to misrepresent their own position to make it easier to defend in a religion vs. athiesm debate. The OP, if you read that post, was by and large not interested in changing his opinion, and this is true of the vast majority of posts that come through here. And the problem is this: it is a tremendous waste of time for every knowledgable person that posts answers in here. A lot of times, the posts are not controversial: they are simply the product of stupidity. There are a thousand places, a million internet hits, which one can browse to discover facts on the athiesm/religion debate and even the specific subtopic that was discussed yesterday. An educated person, or rather, a person seeking to educate himself, would have simply utilized this vast body of resources rather than take time to create a new resource. Additionally, the people that tend to post in this subreddit post on this subreddit have a certain mindset already, even before submitting. Go ahead, think of something you believe that is controversial and click "Submit CMV." Your mind will already be working to inhibit opposing opinions and you will be clinging harder than ever to the bulwarks of your argument. The fact of the matter is this: it takes considerable effort to open one's mind, even on things that are not of great consequence. And most people are simply unable to accomplish this. Thanks for your replies. I intend to reply to each response to my original post, albeit maybe not today, and I hope to award many deltas for your efforts. Quick edit: I realized I didn't address the second part of my title claim. Albert Einstein said that 2 things are limitless: the universe and human stupidity. For every stupid person that posts on this sub to address one point of their lack of knowledge, there are foreseeably dozens more points of misunderstanding that remain. What is the overall aim of this subreddit? To educate one at a time, indeed. But on issues that can be solved via Google search or the opening of a book, how can one fill the infinite pit of human stupidity? Only controversial issues, where both opinions are agreed to be at least understandable and held widely by educated people, should be allowed. This is a real debate: anything else is just convincing a stupid person of something that they fail to understand. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	Say you're right, and most of the people who post here are incapable of actually changing their view on the subject they're bringing up (I don't believe this is the case most of the time, but just for the sake of argument). It would still be false to say that nobody ever changes their view, though. People have deltas awarded to them, and those signify that somewhere out there, somebodies mind was changed. Maybe it was insignificant, maybe it was only changed for a brief moment before some argument changed it back. Regardless, people do change their views here sometimes, and that's a result of them taking the time to examine their views in light of others'. I view that as intrinsically good, the search for knowledge and the refinement of your own belief system, these things make you a better, more educated and well-rounded person. You said it was a waste of time because most people's views aren't changed, or aren't changed enough, but I wouldn't say that makes it a waste of time. The mere act of getting someone to evaluate their own views and challenge them is a good thing to get in the habit of. You have to start somewhere, so to speak. Even if it's about the most insignificant of things, or even if they didn't change their mind at all, it's still a positive step for that person to try. Second, it sometimes goes the other way. Just because OP doesn't change his mind doesn't mean someone reading the comments hasn't. I've read several posts where I went in disagreeing with OP, but after reading the arguments in favor of their arguments, I've come out with a different point of view. I had no part in the discussion, no comments were made, no deltas awarded, but someone's view was changed. Maybe it feels like slogging through shit sometimes, but if you can get someone to think critically about their own beliefs even for a second, isn't that a good thing?	You are correct in that changing one person's view on one point will not make them educated. However, I do not think that general education is the goal of the sub. You said that your goal is to meet like minded people who would read a book that argues against positions they already hold. I think that is why most of us are here. I do not think knowledgeable people are wasting their time by contributing their knowledge to a form that can be quickly scanned to understand the most upvoted (and hopefully best) arguments for and against a point. We are here because we don't have the time to read entire books for and against topics, but would at least like to familiarize ourselves with the top points.
CMV: 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. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	There is a way to measure risk, called a micromort. 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. To accumulate a micromort on a motorcycle, you have to travel 6 miles. On a bicycle, you would have to travel 20 miles, and just walking, you would have to travel 17 miles. In a car, I average about 32 mph, so for me, it would take 7 hours of driving to get a micromort. On a motorcycle, it would take about 10 minutes. It would take me 3-4 hours on a bicycle, and about 6 hours walking. So, for me, riding a motorcycle, bicycle, or walking would be more dangerous than driving (or being a passenger) in a car.	You have a strange definition of "risky"; while it's true a mistake can cost you your life, they often don't (cars have been getting safer since the 1920s) and the fact is that because so many people spend so much time driving, we are better at it than a lot of other things and so are much more likely to not make those mistakes (though, sadly, they do happen). I define "risky" as a high likelihood that something out of your control can kill you in the given activity, and the things that can kill you and aren't in your control to some degree in a car are very infrequent. Playing Russian Roulette is risky because there is a 1 in 6 chance that a bullet is going through your head. Driving there is a 1 in 1 million chance that you're going to be killed in an accident, maybe a 1 in 10,000 chance that you'll be in an accident at all.
CMV: 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. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	Mortality for drivers in the US is roughly 50 per millions. Death while working in construction in 2006 was 108 per millions. Driving is not the most dangerous thing these workers do in their everyday life. (edit. The more i'm looking into it the more I find that stats regarding this subject varies a lot.)	By the death rate, eating unhealthy is the most dangerous thing that you can do. Cellular reproduction is up there are well. Then there's realizing your worthless and life is futile, then taking your own life. Looking at the CDC, suicide isn't on there. But breathing shit other than oxygen and nitrogen is up there. So is, the fatty food thing again.
CMV: Assuming there is no afterlife, then life is ultimately meaningless and pointless because we die.	*Note: Please assume that there is no afterlife when responding to my post. I am not religious. Thank you. ALSO: By "meaningless," I mean "meaningless" to the person who is doing the dying. To the person who is alive and who will then die, life is meaningless. CMV. Assuming there is no afterlife, life is ultimately meaningless and pointless because we die. Death is the great eraser. Living life is as irrational as reading a book that, after finished, is immediately erased from your memory. It is comparable to that, too. It makes no difference if I, a 23 year old, die now or live until I am 100 and die. Either way, after my brief spark of existence I become nothingness. Not only do I remember nothing; I AM nothing. To me, it is as if my life had never happened. I'll put it another way. Imagine the time before you were born. Have you remembered it yet? Of course not. You didn't exist. This is the state that we return to after death--a state of nothingness similar to the state we were in before birth. When I die, I return to this state after a brief period of consciousness, and I return to it permanently. I might as well have never lived. To anticipate a few responses: (1) Helping others doesn't matter. They will die too. And then their descendants will die, on and on and on, until eventually the universe is destroyed or our galaxy collapses in an inevitable heat-death. Even if 1,000,000 people were helped by me, assuming they all die, then my life is still pointless and meaningless. For I will be dead and won't know what I did, and once they die, they won't know either. (2) Attaining fame doesn't matter and doesn't truly make me "immortal." I'll be dead, and again, death is nothingness. Thus, I won't be around to enjoy my fame. (3) Enjoying the moment is possible, but doesn't make life have a point. For once I die, all memories and all point is gone. Please change my view from this depressing sentiment.	I have contemplated this since I was a young teen and often made me wonder why so many people are concerned with leaving a "legacy". If existence (from your perspective) lies solely on your consciousness then after you die it doesn't matter what you left because it no longer exists since you cannot experience it. In a metaphysical sense you could argue that we essentially never exist. This of course is assuming that death is an elimination of existence which is beyond what anybody truly knows. It is a bit depressing but can also be quite liberating as you can free yourself from society's many irrational norms and expectations. As for things having meaning, from this standpoint you can create your own meaning. May as well enjoy life while you temporarily exist. Your bleak view reminds me of the Queen line from Bohemian Rhapsody, "I don't wanna die. I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all." Never being born is essentially the same as being dead, you just never have the conscious mind to experience the fear of contemplating it. I guess it comes down to what you think is worse. Never experiencing life or living in fear of death.	As far as I'm concerned, the universe didn't exist before I was born. And when I die, from my perspective it ends. So everything I do has meaning to me. Life is a journey not a destination. It's each step of that long journey which matters How will I accept death when I know nothing more lays ahead? The same way I've come to accept anything else about my existence I cannot change. I don't need to invent a fictional land to travel to once I die. It's a nice story but it's still fiction. What's wrong with there being an ending? You cannot live forever, and I don't think you'd want to.
CMV: EMTs, SAR, firefighters, police, etc. should receive “military discounts”.	For those of you who don’t know, it’s common (at least in the US) for businesses, transit agencies, etc. to give small discounts to military veterans to thank them for their service. It seems that medical responders (even hospital staff, actually) and other emergency services do more good for society than soldiers and that such discounts should be given to them. As for the “They’re not risking their lives for our country.” argument, police officers do that too, and for citizens rather than the country and its interests. Some might argue that soldiers do the US a disservice rather than help, but that’s [usually] the fault of their leaders and therefore not relevant to the debate. I’m really hoping there’s a good reason behind the status quo, but we’ll see. [It looks like there’s even less reason behind it than I initially thought, actually.] [edits in brackets] [[My view’s been changed.](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rexe3/cmv_emts_sar_firefighters_police_etc_should/cnfj9cu?context=10000) In summary, I think that EMS people are just as deserving of these discounts (and that many more people contribute enough to be placed in the same category), but I now believe - for the same reason - that these discounts shouldn’t be offered at all.] _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	>give small discounts to military veterans to thank them for their service. I challenge the idea that these are to "thank them for their service". In actuality, military discounts serve as an advertisement to draw a certain demographic to your business. They're like coupons in a way, bringing in new customers and making them loyal by giving them 5-10% off, but still making you substantially more profit than if they'd not come in at all. Part of the effect of this advertising is the exclusivity. People wouldn't clip the $1 coupons and come in if just anyone got $1 off. If business owners similarly extended military discounts too far, it could cut into their ability to be effective. On a personal level, though, I agree that "military discount" becoming "public service discount" wouldn't be a bad idea. It should be noted, however, that this would extend to even people like politicians, teachers, and government administrators	Thank you for including SAR in that. Everybody always forgets us :(. As for discounts, a lot of the companies around here DO offer discounts to emergency services, they just don't advertise them. However, I'd like to call out a few companies that DO, just in case any other emergency workers are looking: Menchie's Frozen Yogurt (100% discount while on-shift and in-uniform). Rooster's Men's Grooming ($5 - $10 off a full package haircut) Army/Navy Surplus (10% off) McDonald's (Free drinks while on-shift in the drive-thru) There's others, but I can't think of them right now.
CMV: I believe you have three choices once you discover the suffering animals endure in the meat industry...	The options are as follows: 1. You don't agree with what is going on and stop supporting it. 2. You don't care about animals, so you're content with paying for them to be abused for your pleasure. 3. You don't agree with what is going on, but try to put it to the back of your mind and continue to support it. Reasoning: I used to follow 'option number 3', but recently started 'option number 1' in an attempt to line my actions up with my values. I suspect this way of looking at it is still somewhat simplistic however, so feel free to prove me wrong. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	I think restricting this concept to the meat industry limits us to a "vegetarian/vegan lifestyle vs. carnivore lifestyle" debate, when it's actually a lot deeper than that. I know, for instance, that components in my smartphone and laptop are made of minerals that were mined by slave labor in Africa. I know that the chocolates I love to eat contain, in all likelihood, cacao that was farmed by people living in truly deplorable conditions. I know that the medication I take was almost certainly tested on research animals who lived short, sad lives. I know that there's a good chance that the shirt I'm wearing was produced by underpaid, overworked labors who might have even been children. I know that the salad I'm planning to eat for lunch contains ingredients that were probably farmed in environmentally destructive ways that contribute to climate change. I know that my leftover Christmas cookies, made by my vegetarian mother, still contain eggs that probably came from a battery farm. I know that by purchasing my knockoff Keurig coffee from Wal-Mart, I'm supporting a corporation that exploits everything it touches. And that't the ethical weight of just the things that are in arm's reach of me! Aren't we all choosing Option 3 for most of the ethical conflicts in our lives? I think people quickly reach a point of ethical fatigue where they simply can't care anymore. A completely ethical lifestyle is probably not possible without completely rejecting the modern world. That doesn't mean I can't try to reduce my impact on the world... but I have to accept that I will never be able to fully live within my own values.	Option 2 is very restricting. Option 4: you don't care for animals' suffering but you enjoy their taste, so you continue to support the meat industry. This doesn't necessarily mean that I am paying money so that some animal on the other side of the world gets abused for my pleasure that I don't even witness.
CMV: America is a better place because of the 55 million abortions its had	There have been 55 million abortions in the US since 1973. Something in the ballpark of 45% of women who have abortions have more than one abortion. These people would have been raised by their incompetent parents to drain down society, increase crime rates, suck up resources, and generally screw things up. Various ways to lower a resource negative population would have to be explored, if not because of this 55 million, then because of the next 55 million. One possibility is that there would be wars waged to try to kill them all, perhaps even with other countries with similar problems. Waging war to purposefully lower population, even with a country facing similar issues, would cost not only resources, but it would also cause political, cultural, and global issues. America's innovation and education rankings would be lower. Every middle-class child in the country would receive a lower quality education if there were 55 million more around. (Note:I'm not trying to hear arguments on the ethics of abortion, its a banal argument that everyone and their mother has had at one point, what I am really fishing for is insight into what the country would look like with those 55 million around. Would we adapt to the population and make good use of each of them?) Was view changed? Its a complicated issue. Without the extra population from abortions, has there been proportionately more immigration to fill labor needs, or are the millions of illegals from Mexico as likely to be so numerous even if there was a higher none-abortion population? Doesn't immigration of a working class citizen on such a massive scale cause dissonance in a country more so than it does cultural exchange, meaning that it would have been preferable to have our abortions alive? Or are we talking about a population so huge that race and national identity are insignificant, that there is always going to be a huge amount of hostility between different demographics? -(choppy writing, but i'm on 3 hours of sleep and stretched for time, give me a break)- (Side thought: Perhaps the immigration of illegals is lowering the value of blue collar work and makes it harder for the borderline impoverished citizens to provide for their children. Its debatable how many women are having abortions due to financial reasons, but surely its a significant number, so how many of these women wouldn't be having financial troubles if there wasn't competition from cheap illegal labor to keep wages lower? This holds true even if illegal immigration is an overall plus to the countries value. Conclusion: Mexicans are the supreme race, native Americans will go extinct through abortion and then out-breeding. no that isn't a serious sentiment, i'm just saying, this discussion is abstract enough to go into some weird places and that it is necessary to have a stopping point ) Then there is the next question. Is a more highly populated and economically productive America today going to result in an America tomorrow that can handle over population problems, or would having a higher population from none-abortion just add on to the problems of a world going to shit? Similar: An aborted fetus is likely to have been a less productive person than a never-considered-for-abortion fetus, but in an industrial society, its likely that these abortions would still be more productive than not. Then there was the debate as to whether or not a larger population with less resources per person is more innovative than a smaller one. This is to be considered if one is convinced that having a higher population coming from none-abortions results in a strain for resources in the country. Modern technology like the internet must be considered. Yes, my view was changed, but not into the polar opposite. I am now confused and lost. EDIT: I'll be without internet for a few days. I may end up returning and responding more but it won't be anytime soon. This was my first post to CMV. I apologize for a few things that I did that could be considered rude around here. I also see a few times where I got redundant. Thank you all for your arguments. This is a very critical place, I hope to learn how to better use it and come here more often. I feel I could learn a lot here. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	The only way your argument holds is if an extremely high percentage of these potential kids would have been unproductive members of society (if they were criminals, sucked up resources, drained society, etc). Let's say an unproductive member of society is one who spends a large portion of their life in prison and/or unemployed. It might be true that 42% of the aborted babies would have been [below the federal poverty line](http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2010/05/04/index.html) ; but (a) most poor children don't become prisoners, (b) most poor children don't become unemployed for the majority of their life, and (c) most prisoners only spend a fraction of their lives in prison - most of their life is free. This implies that the vast majority of time spent by the aborted babies would have been spent not in an unproductive manner (i.e. not imprisoned or unemployed). Therefore, the aborted babies would have contributed more than they sucked up. Furthermore, your argument assumes that if those abortions never happened then we would have 55 million more people in the country. I think is flawed for a few reasons. Firstly, many mothers who had abortions decided to have children later in their life. But if they had not aborted their earlier pregnancies, then many of them would not have made that decision. Secondly, had those abortions never occurred, then America's immigration policies would not have been so lax as there would be less need for unskilled labor, leading to less unskilled immigrants in exchange for more unskilled natives (all of whom would be tax-paying citizens, unlike all immigrants). And lastly, if abortions were not permitted, then people would be less likely to have unprotected sex out of fear of forced pregnancies. Therefore, if abortions never happened, we would have more people, but not 55 million more.	Much of the critique of runescapethug's argument is predicated on economic and SES predictions of the 'imaginary 55 million.' As they are deeply interrelated I'll endeavor to weave examples of both in my rebuttal of the critics. The economic argument presented by critics (that even if unskilled the 55 million natives would outweigh their cost through tax contributions AND their presence in the labour force would discourage liberal immigration policy (assumed to be uniformly economically bad, which is very much in dispute)) is blatantly a-historic; for one cannot assume that absent 'abortion' the same rates of economic productivity, and economic advancement seen since 1973 would obtain. The economic productivity of working class families emerged in an era where family planning could be followed 'strictly' without being disrupted by the serendipity of pregnancy. The argument that the 'imaginary 55 million' would have the same economic achievement rates as their parents cannot be assumed AND the economic achievement of the parents as seen cannot be assumed as they achieved what they did in the context of 'complete family planning control.' In short we have two (potentially three generations) where the economic data is speculative at best. In this case it becomes a question of whether economic achievement (as observed in the real world) relied on liberalized access to 'abortion.' With that in mind there is (at least in most major academic works) consensus that in low SES environments economic achievement did (the absolute percentage is still in debate) rely on the abortion context (for i.e. women whom had abortions were roughly a third more likely to move from low SES to low-middle SES than those whom did not have an abortion). Finally it is only well-within the domain of 'middle class' that economists can be certain that one is actually contributing in taxes what one consumes in resources (the actual tax bracket is hotly debated), but assuming that most low SES parents raise predominately low SES kids (NOTE this is a relatively safe assumption as American economic mobility is distressingly low) we can be certain that the total economic cost of 55 million more Americans is a net resource negative NOT net resource positive.
CMV: America is a better place because of the 55 million abortions its had	There have been 55 million abortions in the US since 1973. Something in the ballpark of 45% of women who have abortions have more than one abortion. These people would have been raised by their incompetent parents to drain down society, increase crime rates, suck up resources, and generally screw things up. Various ways to lower a resource negative population would have to be explored, if not because of this 55 million, then because of the next 55 million. One possibility is that there would be wars waged to try to kill them all, perhaps even with other countries with similar problems. Waging war to purposefully lower population, even with a country facing similar issues, would cost not only resources, but it would also cause political, cultural, and global issues. America's innovation and education rankings would be lower. Every middle-class child in the country would receive a lower quality education if there were 55 million more around. (Note:I'm not trying to hear arguments on the ethics of abortion, its a banal argument that everyone and their mother has had at one point, what I am really fishing for is insight into what the country would look like with those 55 million around. Would we adapt to the population and make good use of each of them?) Was view changed? Its a complicated issue. Without the extra population from abortions, has there been proportionately more immigration to fill labor needs, or are the millions of illegals from Mexico as likely to be so numerous even if there was a higher none-abortion population? Doesn't immigration of a working class citizen on such a massive scale cause dissonance in a country more so than it does cultural exchange, meaning that it would have been preferable to have our abortions alive? Or are we talking about a population so huge that race and national identity are insignificant, that there is always going to be a huge amount of hostility between different demographics? -(choppy writing, but i'm on 3 hours of sleep and stretched for time, give me a break)- (Side thought: Perhaps the immigration of illegals is lowering the value of blue collar work and makes it harder for the borderline impoverished citizens to provide for their children. Its debatable how many women are having abortions due to financial reasons, but surely its a significant number, so how many of these women wouldn't be having financial troubles if there wasn't competition from cheap illegal labor to keep wages lower? This holds true even if illegal immigration is an overall plus to the countries value. Conclusion: Mexicans are the supreme race, native Americans will go extinct through abortion and then out-breeding. no that isn't a serious sentiment, i'm just saying, this discussion is abstract enough to go into some weird places and that it is necessary to have a stopping point ) Then there is the next question. Is a more highly populated and economically productive America today going to result in an America tomorrow that can handle over population problems, or would having a higher population from none-abortion just add on to the problems of a world going to shit? Similar: An aborted fetus is likely to have been a less productive person than a never-considered-for-abortion fetus, but in an industrial society, its likely that these abortions would still be more productive than not. Then there was the debate as to whether or not a larger population with less resources per person is more innovative than a smaller one. This is to be considered if one is convinced that having a higher population coming from none-abortions results in a strain for resources in the country. Modern technology like the internet must be considered. Yes, my view was changed, but not into the polar opposite. I am now confused and lost. EDIT: I'll be without internet for a few days. I may end up returning and responding more but it won't be anytime soon. This was my first post to CMV. I apologize for a few things that I did that could be considered rude around here. I also see a few times where I got redundant. Thank you all for your arguments. This is a very critical place, I hope to learn how to better use it and come here more often. I feel I could learn a lot here. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	If the abortions were born it would have virtually negated the need for immigration, both legal and illegal, in order to maintain age demographics and keep social security viable. Low paying jobs would be held by English-speaking Americans instead of unintelligible foreigners, which would make for a more uniform, cohesive society. Not to mention less communication issues when dealing with these workers day to day.	"Something in the ballpark of 45% of women who have abortions have more than one abortion. These people would have been raised by their incompetent parents to drain down society, increase crime rates, suck up resources, and generally screw things up." What are you talking about? Do you really think abortions are only had by incompetent people who couldn't be good parents? This appears to be a belief that has led you to conclude that America must be better off but you are really misinformed about the type of women who obtain abortions.
CMV: Humans are going to die out because of an economic collapse	Bill Gade presents the argument better than I do so I will just quote him. >There have been 4 jobs or activities which Man has engaged in throughout the centuries: Hunter/Gathering, Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services. What's next? What category can you imagine in which billions of people will be working in the future? > It turns out that there is a final category. It is known as Unemployment. As Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services become more efficient in the coming months, workers will have nowhere to go but to the unemployment line. At some point, Man's artificial economic system will necessarily collapse. When that happens, the corporations which produce and deliver food will no longer have an incentive to do so. The cities will suffer great hunger and it will be the end of Man. > The current jobless situation you read about in the news is not an ordinary part of the business cycle. It is the final stretch of the linear trend that began with the birth of our species. There is also a Youtube video to go with this opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlQrYCacrKo&spfreload=10 I do realize that this is a very unhealthy idea to have whether or not that the idea is true or not, I just have not been able to beat it myself. I do disagree with Gade a little bit. I don't think it would kill everybody, but the some few people that still know how to hunt and gather would probably survive as well people who were rich enough to have access to a lot of resources to start out with before the economy crashes. I probably believe this because I listen to Alex Jones too much.	I watched the video, and I understand it. Bill Gade's theory is not rigorous. I agree that the economy will probably collapse some time over the next few decades from a combination of ecological pressure and automation. But just use your common sense. Unemployment is at 90% and you're a senior politician/a ceo with influence on the government - do you A. let 90% of people die from starvation and exposure, or do you B. redistribute the money being made by the active 10% to take care of them via mechanisms like regulatory limits on automation or a guaranteed basic income? The economic collapse is plausible, but Gade's arguments are weak, not to mention contradictory, and his "if.. then" statements don't even follow a lot of the time - "If the global economic system collapses, then the agricultural sector will have no further incentive to grow crops" whut lol. So because there's no stock market or international trade, everyone will stop buying food? There are many faulty connections like this. The economic collapse won't lead to the death of humanity, or even the end of civilization. Please throw that video away, and if you still think that the collapse will end humanity after discarding Gade's arguments then come back and talk about it.	That may as well happen if the system remains as it is at the point where automation completely replaces all manual jobs. However with automation comes cost reduction, with cost reduction, comes greater disposable income for corporations. Do you really think the governments around the world are going to sit by and watch as the wealthy elite drain every last piece of worth from their average citizen without any opportunity to make money back? Of course not! We will demand higher taxes on that higher corporate disposable income and establish a [basic income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income) so our people aren't forced to starve in the streets while the wealthy do whatever with their piles of money. So now that I have laid out a viable alternative to your theory, let me tell you why the wealthy will be for it: if all wealth leaves the average citizens hands without any way for them to getting it back, what are the corporations going to do with all of the money? It will essentially become meaningless numbers stored in databases that will do nothing because there wouldn't be an economy anymore. The wealthy needs the average person to spend money, even if it means giving it back to them for them to spend again.
CMV: Humans are going to die out because of an economic collapse	Bill Gade presents the argument better than I do so I will just quote him. >There have been 4 jobs or activities which Man has engaged in throughout the centuries: Hunter/Gathering, Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services. What's next? What category can you imagine in which billions of people will be working in the future? > It turns out that there is a final category. It is known as Unemployment. As Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services become more efficient in the coming months, workers will have nowhere to go but to the unemployment line. At some point, Man's artificial economic system will necessarily collapse. When that happens, the corporations which produce and deliver food will no longer have an incentive to do so. The cities will suffer great hunger and it will be the end of Man. > The current jobless situation you read about in the news is not an ordinary part of the business cycle. It is the final stretch of the linear trend that began with the birth of our species. There is also a Youtube video to go with this opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlQrYCacrKo&spfreload=10 I do realize that this is a very unhealthy idea to have whether or not that the idea is true or not, I just have not been able to beat it myself. I do disagree with Gade a little bit. I don't think it would kill everybody, but the some few people that still know how to hunt and gather would probably survive as well people who were rich enough to have access to a lot of resources to start out with before the economy crashes. I probably believe this because I listen to Alex Jones too much.	Before I respond, I'd suggest trying /r/asksocialscience for an actual academic-level answer. Almost everything regarding large scale financial collapses are /r/badeconomics territory (and routinely do show up there). >There have been 4 jobs or activities which Man has engaged in throughout the centuries This is almost just a semantic argument. >workers will have nowhere to go but to the unemployment line. Agriculture, manufacturing, and services have been getting better literally for milennia. There's no reason in particular for it to be crossing the line soon, especially within months. >At some point, Man's artificial economic system will necessarily collapse Necessarily? This is just an assertion, not even a theoretical argument provided to back it up. >When that happens, the corporations which produce and deliver food will no longer have an incentive to do so No explanation given for this either. >The current jobless situation you read about in the news is not an ordinary part of the business cycle What is the current jobless situation? Unemployment's relatively low... When you say economic collapse, what precisely do you mean? Market failures? Currency issues? A recession or depression? Bottom line is that people have predicted economic collapses literally since economies began. There is no reason in particular to believe one is impending. All of this is /r/conspiratard mixed with /r/badeconomics.	Well, if everyone is starving except for a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals, that will necessarily force some kind of change. If large enough numbers of people are forced into unemployment or underemployment, eventually the social pressure will either force some kind of wealth redistribution and adjustment for a "post-scarcity" society or perhaps the wealthy will provide minimum resources to an enslaved population. More likely, if the capitalist system continues in the developed West, we'll eventually find new service and tech jobs to keep people busy and slush the money and capital around.
CMV: Humans are going to die out because of an economic collapse	Bill Gade presents the argument better than I do so I will just quote him. >There have been 4 jobs or activities which Man has engaged in throughout the centuries: Hunter/Gathering, Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services. What's next? What category can you imagine in which billions of people will be working in the future? > It turns out that there is a final category. It is known as Unemployment. As Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services become more efficient in the coming months, workers will have nowhere to go but to the unemployment line. At some point, Man's artificial economic system will necessarily collapse. When that happens, the corporations which produce and deliver food will no longer have an incentive to do so. The cities will suffer great hunger and it will be the end of Man. > The current jobless situation you read about in the news is not an ordinary part of the business cycle. It is the final stretch of the linear trend that began with the birth of our species. There is also a Youtube video to go with this opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlQrYCacrKo&spfreload=10 I do realize that this is a very unhealthy idea to have whether or not that the idea is true or not, I just have not been able to beat it myself. I do disagree with Gade a little bit. I don't think it would kill everybody, but the some few people that still know how to hunt and gather would probably survive as well people who were rich enough to have access to a lot of resources to start out with before the economy crashes. I probably believe this because I listen to Alex Jones too much.	How exactly are we dying here? I mean if we mass produce food production that just means there is more food than there was before. I mean, not looking at if your economics are good or not, but how does everyone die off? Starve to death? There is more food now than has been produced ever, at any time. There is no way that we would ever go back to hunting and gathering. We would go back to farming if we had to back to anything at all. People write stuff like the places you have gotten some of your ideas because people pay good money to hear something that confirms their fears. Things will happen. The world will adapt. This is been how the world has reacted to things for centuries.	That may as well happen if the system remains as it is at the point where automation completely replaces all manual jobs. However with automation comes cost reduction, with cost reduction, comes greater disposable income for corporations. Do you really think the governments around the world are going to sit by and watch as the wealthy elite drain every last piece of worth from their average citizen without any opportunity to make money back? Of course not! We will demand higher taxes on that higher corporate disposable income and establish a [basic income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income) so our people aren't forced to starve in the streets while the wealthy do whatever with their piles of money. So now that I have laid out a viable alternative to your theory, let me tell you why the wealthy will be for it: if all wealth leaves the average citizens hands without any way for them to getting it back, what are the corporations going to do with all of the money? It will essentially become meaningless numbers stored in databases that will do nothing because there wouldn't be an economy anymore. The wealthy needs the average person to spend money, even if it means giving it back to them for them to spend again.
CMV: Veganism and vegetarianism are not the best way to improve farm animal welfare	Title is mostly to get attention, and I'm working from a specific set of assumptions. My argument is as follows: 1) The chances of the entire world adopting a vegan/vegetarian diet are slim to none 1a) Therefore, there will always be a market for meat and other animal products 2) The food market, like all other markets, operates on general principles of supply and demand 3) Meat farmers can use techniques exhibiting a range of costs or benefits, both in terms of environmental impact and animal welfare. 4) A vegan or vegetarian diet denies demand, and thus potential revenue, to all meat-producing farms, regardless of how humane or environmentally sound their practice are. 4a) Since the majority of farms are large factory farms, I concede that this is probably good for animal welfare. However: 5) Purchasing meat from farms known to produce their meat in an ethical way not only denies demand to large factory farms but helps improve the market share of ethical meat-growing, which seems as though it would be even better for animal welfare. My general view is that people should probably as a rule eat less meat from better growers, and that will make for a bigger shift in growing practices than simply people dropping out of eating meat altogether. Moreover, this practice would be much easier to "evangelize" than a vegetarian or vegan diet. Face it, meat is tasty (and non-factory meat is often tastier than factory-farmed meat, at least in my own anecdotal experience) _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	Making a political statement is not the same as organizing a boycott. Vegans live the way they do because they feel a certain way about the way we exploit animals. However, I strongly, strongly doubt they believe that in doing so, they are making great strides in improving conditions for animals. I think you are misinterpreting their motives. I don't believe in donating to the Salvation Army, for example, because there have been incidents in the past where their organization has denied aid to homosexuals and publicly expressed homophobic views. However, I do NOT believe that my actions will bring about the demise of the Salvation Army, or really have any effect at all. That is not my motive. That would just be delusional. I think the vast majority of vegans and vegetarians are not delusional and feel similarly about the meat industry as I do about the Salvation Army.	A lot (dunno %) vegetarians/vegans see killing animals for food is fundamentally unethical. So they are not doing it for better state of animal welfare in farms. I personally don't have a problem with animals being killed humanely, so if I become vegetarian it would be about welfare. But that's me. But I agree with you that becoming vegetarian just for that is not very helpful for welfare. I just see people's reasoning.
CMV The EGG came first before the chicken.	According to the theory of evolution it makes more sense that the egg preceded the chicken. Before the chicken there was a similar but different creature. Let's call it X. Its completely arbitrary when the X officially evolved into a chicken, but at some point it does. An X, not a chicken lays the first chicken egg. The chicken egg comes before any creature considered a chicken exist. Am I wrong? PS I'm playing laser tag soon so I will respond in 20ish minutes.	In terms of evolution, the question is erroneous. The ancestral organism from which the chicken is derived never gave birth to a chicken egg. There is no sharp line representing a single generation that became chickens. The newly defined chicken species (a species is hard enough to define as it is) is not recognized as a new species of chickens until you already have an independently reproducing population. Though there were ancestral species that produced eggs, due to the gradual process that produces what we call new species and how we define them, there was never a single egg that gave rise to the first chicken.	The question of what came first the chicken or the egg is arbitrary. It depends on how you define chicken egg. Is a chicken egg an egg that will hatch into a chicken? Or is it an egg that was laid by a chicken? The answer to this question determines which came first.
CMV:Patriotism is the belief that being born on one side of a line makes you better.	American patriots have a general mentality against immigration. Saying these people shouldn’t be allowed to become part of the country, is the same as saying they are worse, because they were born on a different side of a line, and americans are better because of the side of the line they are born on. This is prominent in many ads and political champagnes, namely the slogan “Creating jobs for americans”. I understand why politics use this slogan, because they are trying to get americans to vote for them, but this slogan is also prominent in ads made by private corporations. As if creating jobs for americans is morally superior to creating jobs for people of other countries. The companies launching these ads may be trying to win in the american market, so they can sell more of their product, but the fact that this can increase sales shows that many americans hold the being born on one side of a line belief. I am not blaming the politicians or corporations running ads running these slogans, they are merely trying to win votes or make money from this mentality, but really it is the citizens that have the belief that they are better, because of the side of a line they are born on, that are at fault. Patriotism is really just this belief. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	in this post you are confusing patriotism with its meaner, uglier cousin, nationalism. According to George Orwell, Nationalism is the "worst enemy of peace". According to him, nationalism is the thought of superiority of one's nation in direct comparison to foreign nations, whereas patriotism is simply the love and admiration of one's own country, independent of other countries. Nationalism is the one that says "America is the best, most perfect country in the world, unlike those other horrible, dirty, evil foreign countries. Americans are the shining example of civil people in the world and everyone else is filthy and brutish and doesn't deserve entry here". Patriotism simply says "America is a good country. its not the best, and it might be better or worse than other countries, but i still love and respect it". > it is the citizens that have the belief that they are better they do not have a belief that they are better. they have the belief that they are American, and would prefer their country over other countries, regardless of who's better > As if creating jobs for Americans is morally superior to creating jobs for people of other countries not morally superior, but makes more sense. even if countries are peaceful and cooperative towards each other, they are still in competition and no matter what, they are still separate and independent. and in a competition, you don't provide for the opposite side. It is simply not our place or responsibility to carry other countries' burdens. And these slogans don't even denote any sense of superiority over a foreign country, just a preference for your own country. if an advertisement was "creating jobs for Americans and not for those dirty foreign leeches", THAT would be claiming superiority over foreigners. And ultimately, patriotism means different things to different people. i'm sure for a great many people, it is patriotic to welcome and accept immigrants as equals under our ideals of equality and freedom	I have to say that I know immigrants who are incredibly patriotic. They don't believe that they are better because they were born in the United States, mostly because they weren't born in the United States. Moreover, they don't really believe that people who are born here are better than those born elsewhere. The slogan "Creating Jobs for Americans" doesn't imply that creating jobs is here is morally superior. It's just that a US politician is responsible for things that occur within the United States but not responsible for things that occur elsewhere. It might be most efficient to create a bunch of jobs in Thailand, but that politician is supposed to be looking out for your interests not those of people in general or the Thai people. Businesses that run those things generally have other reasons for keeping jobs here than anyone else. People who are Patriotic identify very closely with the political structure, culture, language, or common identity of a nation are patriotic. Very few of these things require being born to specific parents or in a specific geographic location, if you notice. It's something that you can decide to be. Some people have an ethnic element to their national identity, but racism is racism no matter how you dress it up and patriotism in and of itself is nothing of the sort. > political champagnes [Heh](http://amadeusmusicinstruction.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f38cb2c4970b01676620283b970b-800wi), autocorrect is funny sometimes.
CMV: I believe that regularly browsing 4chan will make you into a worse person	Because of the anonymity on 4chan people are more prone to not think through, care about what they post and are quicker to throw out insults. They will care about how people respond to them, but since it's largely negative they will stoop down to the same level rather than go to any high ground since they are not linked to an identity. Surrounding the entire site there's a general pessimistic group mentality, and people are subconsciously encouraged to take part of it in order to feel like they are a part of the group. Some boards will have specific groups of people who they are encouraged to hate, women, SJWs, casual gamers, Jews, and any reasonable argument against a poster can be made redundant by saying or thinking they are a part of these agendas or groups. On boards you will find echo chambers where people are more prone to believe rumors than proof. Things about e-celebrities will start as rumors, ideas about them or things will get taken out of context and it will be posted continually until it's taken as fact. It will reach conspiracy theory levels of "proof" where people will simply believe it because they feel as if they are a part of a group-effort that's uncovering something. Surrounding yourself with this will in general make you into a more pessimistic, negative and possibly depressive person. I'm not saying that every person who browses 4chan is depressed or negative, but that the majority of them are affected negatively by browsing the site. Thinking that you are unaffected by this doesn't necessarily mean you are, but instead means that you are unaware of how much it affects you. EDIT: [Awarded Delta](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rawgb/cmv_i_believe_that_regularly_browsing_4chan_will/cneyhn7?context=3) _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	>On boards you will find echo chambers where people are more prone to believe rumors than proof. Things about e-celebrities will start as rumors, ideas about them or things will get taken out of context and it will be posted continually until it's taken as fact. It will reach conspiracy theory levels of "proof" where people will simply believe it because they feel as if they are a part of a group-effort that's uncovering something. To be fair that's not specific to 4chan and that phenomenon has been around forever(Tumblr's community is heavily guilty of this same thing). It's also a product of individual stupidity, if your believing something random people are telling you without it being backed by proof and your own individual research, well that's your own gullibility. As for 4chan making people into a worse person, I would strong disagree. I'd say more it just lets people be free, free to test the waters and do whatever without your idea's, jokes, concepts tied to any identity. Every thought stands of its own individual merits. I've been around 4chan since 2004 and the only way I would ever describe it would be chaotic neutral. One day groups from or within it might organize some raid for the lolz, [another day they're saving a kitten,](http://www.inquisitr.com/18170/4chan-b-goes-after-cat-abusers-wins/) [finding the girl who threw a puppy in a river,](http://www.techhive.com/article/204615/Video_of_Puppies_Thrown_into_River_Spark_Outcry_and_Sleuthing.html) [saving a girl from bullying and suicide,](http://www.dailydot.com/news/anonymous-kylie-suicide-trolls-bully/) [paying some poor dudes rent,](http://i.imgur.com/kdYBh.jpg) [organizing against the harmful practices of a cult,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology) [bringing more exposure to a rape victim,](http://www.dailydot.com/news/steubenville-rape-confession-video-anonymous/) [give some random vet the best birthday ever,](https://gigaom.com/2010/09/02/4chan-decides-to-do-something-nice-for-a-change/) [helping some guy buy food for his dogs,](http://i.imgur.com/tKwU3.jpg) [raising 5grand for a womens charity,](http://i.imgur.com/yGwmwN4.png) [raising 5grand for suicide prevention](https://www.crowdrise.com/nshgamers/fundraiser/loping) I've honestly seen more positive activism stem from the anonymity culture than I have from any other site. The problem is a lot of people only understand the surface of chan boards like 4chan and equate the anonymity as some cheap way for them to be hateful under the guise of free speech, but that couldn't really be further from the truth. To understand why the board encourages to hate is to understand who goes there and it's obviously the social outcasts. So why would a bunch of social outcasts who get made fun of encourage hate and let such raw emotion reign supreme? Quite honestly it dilutes it. Getting called a faggot on 4chan constantly helps you to brush it off when you hear it on the street, and the nice thing about the anonymity of the 4chan board is essentially you have a new identity with each post letting you brush it off even more. That last post you made someone made fun of you, well cool no one knows that the person who just made the post people are laughing at was the same post they were making fun of. You're no longer the faggot you're the comedian until you make a new post and you're the troll. 4chan style sites don't create pessimistic, negative, and depressed people it just attracts them and quite honestly it's nice to be able to show raw emotion and not have it permanently tied to your identity. You never have to worry about people being like "oh that dude, that dude always has problems -ignored-" I've used 4chan a bunch of times to let out my problems about being depressed, suicidal and raped. It's wonderful because I can let it all out and continue to be a member of that community without the community permanently tying what happened to me to my identity. If I fully discussed my rape irl i was always going to feel broken because everyone I talked to would then associate it with my identity and it would be something I would never escape. Even on reddit i was originally hesitant to be open about it because of the username system would tie it to my reddit identity. But on 4chan I could discuss it all i wanted and it was a massive emotional relief. In real life you don't know if your emotional troubles are going to annoy or be a burden to whoever is kind enough to listen, you don't know if they're just being kind and don't truly care, but on 4chan style board, if no one cares they're not going to respond and if they feel your problems are stupid they grant you the right to start over immediately and don't force anyone to carry their past with them. It's the mindset i got from 4chan that helps me and others move on from our problems, that we shouldn't drag them around to each new thing we do but instead move on and start over. It's this aspect that attracts the people you describe, the site however doesn't create these people it merely attracts them and for many like myself, helps them get out of that mindset in their real life. I've been browsing that site for 10 years, and arguably i'm more optimistic and positive because i've been exposed to that raw humanity. I wrote all of this in all honesty not thinking anything would change your view based on your last sentence. >Thinking that you are unaffected by this doesn't necessarily mean you are, but instead means that you are unaware of how much it affects you. As it seems you hold the belief that even if people like myself don't feel they are being effected by this site negatively, you are insisting they are and are just ignorant to their own emotions and experiences. edit: my terrible grammar	4chan has certainly desensitized me through the years, but has shown me another side of the human psyche. This side is normally censored and hidden away. 4chan reminds me of how the Internet was (to me) in the 90's. It was a place of complete and total anonymity and we were happy with it that way. If we wanted to put ourselves out there, we could but we weren't encouraged to do so as a societal norm. If we offended the wrong person, we'd get hacked but not our entire lives potentially ruined while people laughed about it! About pessimism and what not, the world isn't a friendly place. You're only going to take in what you choose to expose yourself to. If you only exposed yourself to /b/ or /pol/, you will be affected. At the same time, if you only viewed /r/spacedicks/ or /r/wtf/, you're probably going to be affected in some way as well. There's a happy medium to be made that exists. I use the chans as often as reddit. They both are have excellent parts plus really shitty parts. To un-ironically call 4chan an echo chamber while on reddit is the most absurd thing I've read for quite some time. Reddit has always been a big hugbox for pseudo-intellectualism, sophomoric "me too" inside joke threads that go on forever, and feel-good emotional bullshit. 4chan, there's no upvotes. There's a lot of noise on 4chan, but you can navigate past it and find some excellent content. See a thread you want to comment on, go in and drop a bomb. Leave if you want, if you don't, keep hitting F5. You can ignore someone, sure, but their comment will be right up top where yours is chronologically on any of the chans. If someone hurts your feelings, either pick it apart or ignore it. It is really like hard to just piss off? If I see a big news story break, I am going to hear about it on 4chan before reddit 99.9% of the time. Why? Reddit has a bunch of dickheads trying to start a thread from the same link (all racing for karma) and then the thread will have to gain enough momentum to appear on the front page so unless I'm in the /new/ wasteland, I am behind the curve. 4chan may have it posted multiple times within seconds/minutes as well, but the one with the most enticing headline and immediate comments will always appear on the front page (or at least in the catalog) and the successful thread is the one used to near capacity, then redirected to the next big thread all the while without karma whores pushing eachother for control...the would-be karma whores are simply wasting their time trying to use a thread that's not as popular about a same topic. So while I've already discussed the news of the day on 4chan, I can discuss the news of yesterday on reddit. I think that people that openly hunt down those they don't agree with online IRL are the reason people use 4chan and other anonymous forums. After a night of drinking even on reddit, I check my comments and prune them accordingly even though I only have a handful of friends that know who I really am. I don't want any of these fascist politically correct fuckbags bothering me IRL. In fact, to think that people like this even exist make me a bit nauseous. SJWs. women, Jews, blacks, etc are protected classes as it is politically incorrect to attack them, the winners of the war write the history, the educators revise the history etc etc. If someone is an asshole and "triggers" someone into doing something, it's sad, but the "triggered" still makes their own choice. We are not robots. People trying to, at the very least, change freedom of speech into something else are weak and pathetic human beings. When sites like 4chan are banned from the Internet one day it will be a very sad day. Those seeking real ID programs and the like are technocratic fascists and no, I don't give a shit about their feelings because they don't give a shit about mine! In fact, those hoping for an Internet with real IDs, I hope people come after them with pitchforks!
CMV: 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 _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	How is this any different than being unable to feel sympathetic for people who choose any dangerous profession? We need firemen, we need police, we need soldiers and builders and fishermen. These people are paid for what they do, and they accept that they're entering into a risky environment to do their job. They take these risks because they're necessary.	You're completely correct in the belief that medical people going to Africa to treat ebola are putting themselves at risk of catching ebola, but all-in-all the chance of catching ebola in a controlled environment is very low, so low in fact that the news continues to report on each case that occurs. While others have compared to firemen, the analogy doesn't do the ebola workers justice, as 93 firemen died on duty in 2013 while only a handful of ebola volunteers have died. Of course there are many more firemen than there are ebola volunteers. However, your statement "what else would they expect" is making the mistake of assuming 'dying from ebola' is a natural consequence of 'volunteering to treat ebola'. That simply isn't the case. What most people should expect is to return home safety to their families. Obviously the risk of catching ebola is higher, but it is such a low percentage chance that it could almost be ignored. Volunteers do place a burden on their family. But the burden is far lower than service members who have a much higher mortality rate, or dentists who have a suicide rate far higher than the infection rate. Whether you believe this burden is unfair to the point where bad consequences are a form of comeuppance is up to you, but that would require you to believe that all risky behavior requires the implicit permission of all your social connections- which isn't a standard I would want to limit myself to.
CMV: Colonel Quaritch from "Avatar" was right.	Recently, I stumbled upon [this](http://i.imgur.com/MEgVf.jpg) after a discussion of Avatar with a friend. [ (Not from the movie, but from here) ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=sa7rmohv1hmgymf4xdu8cait&page=27#660) It summed up my feelings about the movie quite well. Throughout human history, conquerors with superior technology have succeeded over less capable and less innovative cultures. It's ruthless, yes, but the reality is conquered cultures were less capable than the victors. Therefor it is in the best interest of cultures to strive for innovation, invention, progress, technology, and science. Not only does this secure survivability, but also increases standard of living. Colonel Quaritch, as well as the other miners, were there to extract resources which benefited this endeavor. They were striving to better their abilities through use of the metal under the tree the Na'vi inhabited. Arguably, Colonel Quaritch COULD have massacred the residents of Hometree. It was well within his ability and means. Instead, a chance to evacuate is given, and Quaritches forces target Hometree itself, not the Na'vi The fleet do not gun down the fleeing residents, nor do they pursue. Their goal was the resources under the tree, and not the extermination of the people. Next, Quaritch ceases hostilities against the Na'vi until Jake assembles a massive force around the headquarters. Quaritch COULD have met them in battle, but instead what does he do? Tries to avoid direct bloodshed by taking out a cultural symbol, thus potentially avoiding loss of life among both Na'vi and Human. The culture of the Na'vi could have ended up like the Native Americans. Conquered, but preserved through merciful reservations granted by the victors. Instead they opted for resistance, and I'm interested to see what the sequel holds for them. In the mean time, I feel Colonel Quaritch's actions were rational, reasonable, justifiable, and the correct course of action. My friend disagreed, and I'm more than open for discussion to better understand the opposing view. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	The sole reason why I disliked Quaritchs side was because he is dumb as a brick. A true meathead, leading a multi-billion expedition? How could that fail?... The whole point of this undertaking was not to subjugate the Na'vi. They were supposed to generate profits. Losing your whole operation is pretty bad for your profits. Large operations like this are risk averse for a reason. Fighting is a risk you don't have to take. While these minerals were deemed worthy of exploitions, I can not imagine any company in our world who would not spend money to find other stuff to sell from that world. In this case, the Hometree or whatever it was had the capabilities to "store" "souls". Now ask yourself: If you had the choice between cool rocks which make your fancy chair fly or true immortality: What do you think is worth more money? For me this whole story was about arrogance, ignorance and greed. They had the chance to earn so much more money, to mutually benefit from this encounter. Instead they played their simple-minded scheme and lost. If you want to be the strong and awesome conquerer, you shouldn't be so dumb about it, you actually lose. That's pretty damn embarassing.	I think that, especially in the context the film establishes trying to emotionally invest you in the plight of the Na'vi, the actions of the corporation and the soldiers are- as you mentioned- much like those of the invading forces who drove the Native Americans into reservations. At that point it becomes a much larger discussion of the morality of those actions, and what rights the conquering forces had to do what they did. In the broad sense of European explorers conquering the Americas, it wasn't just smaller North American tribes that were destroyed... between the Spanish and the French and the Portuguese and all the nations which came rushing to the New World, there was the destruction of countless tribal cultures, including major ones like the Aztecs. Just because these cultures where technologically superior, does that given them the de facto right to take over, enslave, and destroy a "lesser" culture for not having progressed far enough in terms of warfare to fight back? In the context of a science fiction universe, I would contrast the actions of the society in Avatar to that in Star Trek. Starfleet has a fairly strict policy about non-interference in lesser cultures. Their Prime Directive is to leave these alien worlds to develop on their own as they would until they become space fairing as well and can more evenly have diplomatic relations. In Avatar, perhaps its a more cynical and arguably more realistic situation where the corporations come in with their might and try to reap the bounty from the world regardless of the native's desires... but does that justify them? If an alien race were to descend onto Earth, our home planet, and start mining out cities headless of our protests, would it make it any more right?
CMV: Food is close to inedible when the expiration date printed on the container is near, within a couple of days.	Right now, I have a carton of egg nog with an date on it that says "01/05/15". If the date today is 01/03/15, I feel that given the date on the container that the egg nog within is near a point where you should no longer ingest it. It is my opinion that since the contents of the container are near expiration, that the "decomposition" process has begun and should be thrown out. "Sell by" dates only offer me more uncertainty as to when I should stop ingesting the contents. TL/DR: Expiration dates are times when the contents of a container are spoiled. So, I think you should throw them out prior to this date. Additionally, "sell by" dates are worse because you have no idea when the contents will expire. Edit: My V has been C'd. The dates don't mean even close to what I thought they did, and I could just use some common sense instead of some ink printing on a container. Thanks to all who responded. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	In almost all cases, the dates aren't related to food safety. The US Department of Agriculture has [a guide to the different dating terminology](http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/19013cb7-8a4d-474c-8bd7-bda76b9defb3/Food_Product_Dating.pdf?MOD=AJPERES) that includes this: > “Use-by” dates usually refer to best quality and are not safety dates. Even if the date expires during home storage, a product should be safe, wholesome and of good quality if handled properly. [WebMD has a guide](http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/do-food-expiration-dates-matter?page=2) for how long after the printed date it's generally safe to eat certain food. The US Food and Drug Administration [specifically allows](http://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/transparency/basics/ucm210073.htm) food to be stored and sold past any date printed on the package because: > A product that is dangerous to consumers would be subject to potential action by FDA to remove it from commerce regardless of any date printed on a label. So, yeah... you have a misconception. But don't feel bad. It's a common one. The NRDC and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic published [a report on the matter:](http://www.nrdc.org/food/files/dating-game-IB.pdf) > The current system of expiration dates misleads consumers to believe they must discard food in order to protect their own safety. In fact, the dates are only suggestions by the manufacturer for when the food is at its peak quality, not when it is unsafe to eat. And Time magazine published [an article that expands on the report.](http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/18/is-your-food-expired-dont-be-so-quick-to-toss-it/) > Most consumers mistakenly believe that expiration dates on food indicate how safe the food is to consume, when these dates actually aren’t related to the risk of food poisoning or foodborne illness.	Sell by dates are determined by optimum freshness rather than safety. If stored properly, food is fully edible past that time. For instance, eggs are generally fully edible weeks after the sell by date, but may be less optimal for baking. 'Decomposition' begins as soon as the meat or vegetables are no longer living. Decomposition just means breaking down and for many products, for instance sauerkraut, decomposition is necessary. Most foods are still perfectly safe for weeks if not months after the sell by date if refrigerated or frozen. http://www.eatbydate.com/
CMV: Playing Smash Bros. with items turned off is lame.	It's standard in the competitive Smash Bros. community to only play the game with items off. This is idiotic for a multitude of reasons. 1. It makes the game less fun. Would you want to play Mario Kart without items? Fuck no. That removes all of the excitement and variation in the game. Same applies to Smash. Sure enough, there was a post in r/nintendo or r/wiiu last week asking if there could be a competitive Mario Kart scene and most of the responses were "not unless they remove items". But then what's the point? Where's the fun? Just play another goddamn racing game if you want to play Mario Kart without items and just play another goddamn fighting game if you want to play Smash Bros. without items. EDIT: This part of my view has been changed. 2. It's restricting the intended purpose of the game. Why would you remove features from the game that are meant to be used? You're taking the game and making it into something it's not. It's like deliberately ordering a supreme pizza and picking off all the ingredients. Fucking pointless and borderline disrespectful to the developers (I'll admit this last part is a bit dubious, but, well...they did work to put it in the game as a main function of the game and it makes up a good portion of their creative output. It's kinda lame to just ignore that aspect of it). EDIT: This part of my view has also been changed. 3. Not only do items not hinder the competitive aspect of the game; they add to it, making their restriction the hindrance. This is the big one. This is why competitive Smash players leave items off in the first place: Because "the random aspect makes the game less competitive". Um...how? I mean, I guess the justification is that the randomness of item types and placement reduces the focus on the players' abilities, but to that I say two things: 3A. No, it doesn't remove focus on players' abilities. Do you not even consider that, y'know, the person who gets the item still has to use it correctly? And you can still dodge it? And, assuming the item doesn't spawn right next to a player, you still have to make the dash to the item before someone else *OR* decide not to go for it at all. This is where the game becomes more competitive with the use of items. You have to actually take them into account. I imagine a common argument against items is something like "oh well you suck if you can only win with items on." Have you considered that maybe you suck because you can't win without them turned off? I guess what I'm saying here is that while items add a slight element of chance, they more than make up for it with a multiple separate aspects of player skill. 3B. Even if there is a random aspect to the game...so what? It's not as though it's a coin toss or a lottery where it's based entirely on luck. It's just the kinds of items and where they're placed. The addition of luck is part of the fun and part of the challenge. Luck and competition are not mutually exclusive. Even with items turned off. It's not even possible for them to be. There's always going to be the possibility of an otherwise champion player making a stupid, fatal fuckup, or a glitch in the game causing an otherwise unwarranted victory. I understand wanting to reduce that element of chance, but removing items does so to the point that the fun in the competition is lost. At the very least, there should be separate, mainstream Smash tournaments that keep items on. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	>It makes the game less fun. Fun is 100% subjective. You may like it more with items, and that's fine. >Just play another goddamn racing game if you want to play Mario Kart without items and just play another goddamn fighting game if you want to play Smash Bros. without items. What if they like the other mechanics? Items aren't 100% of the game, and aren't 100% of what distinguishes it from other games. >It's restricting the intended purpose of the game. What's the intended purpose of the game? Well, it's a versatile game that applies to a very, very wide audience. Some people prefer some things and some people prefer other things. If I play a game, I want to maximize the amount of fun I have while doing it. Some people think items add to the fun, like you, and others think that they remove the fun. >3. Not only do items not hinder the competitive aspect of the game; they add to it, making their restriction the hindrance. Would you say that olympic racewalking is inherently more competitive than olympic running? Restrictions don't make it any more or less competitive. >Do you not even consider that, y'know, the person who gets the item still has to use it correctly? Going into specific examples, let's say an item spawns next to Player A that let's them, if used correctly, knock out Player B. Player A will need to skillfully use this item to knock out Player B, correct? Now, let's say that the game has been even until then, and both people have 1 life left. Whoever is better will win. However, Player A gets an item that will let them, with the right timing, knock out Player B. Player A also has the option to pretend the item doesn't exist and play normally. Therefore, Player A arbitrarily gets 1 extra option compared to Player B, and a higher chance of success. Now of course, this is a hypothetical situation, but you can probably see how this can apply to a regular game. >No, it doesn't remove focus on players' abilities. It can add interest. However, in a normal game, 100% of focus is on players' actions. Everything that happens is an action by either Player A or Player B. Adding items adds stuff that is done by neither Player A nor Player B, but instead done by the game. >Even if there is a random aspect to the game...so what? If you add a random element to a game, you'd better have a good reason. An arbitrary randomness is usually not good. What if every attack had a 1 in 100 chance of hitting twice as hard, for example? It would be balanced, it just would be there fore no reason. >There's always going to be the possibility of an otherwise champion player making a stupid, fatal fuckup, That isn't random chance. That's a mistake the player makes. >or a glitch in the game causing an otherwise unwarranted victory. These are avoided at all costs. Sometimes games are even replayed if the glitch is severe enough. >At the very least, there should be separate, mainstream Smash tournaments that keep items on. I think that that could be good. However, what determines mainstream? Whatever people want to play is mainstream, and there's not too much that can change what people want to play besides changing the game.	I 'll assume you are talking mostly about the competitive community >It makes the game less fun. If you must rely on items to have fun in smash, that is a sign of not being good. Mario Kart has no competitive scene. Why? because it is casual all you need is the blue turtle or the rocket and you win, even if you suck at it. > It's restricting the intended purpose of the game. The main thing that separates competitive from normal or pubs is the fact they make make the game more balanced and develop a meta. Smash would suck if the meta was basically trying to grab an item first. >Not only do items not hinder the competitive aspect of the game; they add to it, making their restriction the hindrance. I'll focus on 3A and 3B >No, it doesn't remove focus on players' abilities. But it doesn't. Items are very simple to use, especially for a pro who's been playing for years for hours a day. Like I said above, the meta would change. It wouldn't change to who can use the item the best. It would be who can first get it and when because they suddenly become OP. If items where nerfed excessively, I would see were you where coming from, but what would be the purpose of having them. >Even if there is a random aspect to the game...so what? If there is a random aspect, it isn't competitive. Name one random eSport and I will argue this.
CMV: Playing Smash Bros. with items turned off is lame.	It's standard in the competitive Smash Bros. community to only play the game with items off. This is idiotic for a multitude of reasons. 1. It makes the game less fun. Would you want to play Mario Kart without items? Fuck no. That removes all of the excitement and variation in the game. Same applies to Smash. Sure enough, there was a post in r/nintendo or r/wiiu last week asking if there could be a competitive Mario Kart scene and most of the responses were "not unless they remove items". But then what's the point? Where's the fun? Just play another goddamn racing game if you want to play Mario Kart without items and just play another goddamn fighting game if you want to play Smash Bros. without items. EDIT: This part of my view has been changed. 2. It's restricting the intended purpose of the game. Why would you remove features from the game that are meant to be used? You're taking the game and making it into something it's not. It's like deliberately ordering a supreme pizza and picking off all the ingredients. Fucking pointless and borderline disrespectful to the developers (I'll admit this last part is a bit dubious, but, well...they did work to put it in the game as a main function of the game and it makes up a good portion of their creative output. It's kinda lame to just ignore that aspect of it). EDIT: This part of my view has also been changed. 3. Not only do items not hinder the competitive aspect of the game; they add to it, making their restriction the hindrance. This is the big one. This is why competitive Smash players leave items off in the first place: Because "the random aspect makes the game less competitive". Um...how? I mean, I guess the justification is that the randomness of item types and placement reduces the focus on the players' abilities, but to that I say two things: 3A. No, it doesn't remove focus on players' abilities. Do you not even consider that, y'know, the person who gets the item still has to use it correctly? And you can still dodge it? And, assuming the item doesn't spawn right next to a player, you still have to make the dash to the item before someone else *OR* decide not to go for it at all. This is where the game becomes more competitive with the use of items. You have to actually take them into account. I imagine a common argument against items is something like "oh well you suck if you can only win with items on." Have you considered that maybe you suck because you can't win without them turned off? I guess what I'm saying here is that while items add a slight element of chance, they more than make up for it with a multiple separate aspects of player skill. 3B. Even if there is a random aspect to the game...so what? It's not as though it's a coin toss or a lottery where it's based entirely on luck. It's just the kinds of items and where they're placed. The addition of luck is part of the fun and part of the challenge. Luck and competition are not mutually exclusive. Even with items turned off. It's not even possible for them to be. There's always going to be the possibility of an otherwise champion player making a stupid, fatal fuckup, or a glitch in the game causing an otherwise unwarranted victory. I understand wanting to reduce that element of chance, but removing items does so to the point that the fun in the competition is lost. At the very least, there should be separate, mainstream Smash tournaments that keep items on. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	In a practical sense, items would lead to a lot of disappointment in the outcome of competitive matches. Imagine how it would feel to see a player with better skills lose just because their opponent got a pokeball with Kyogre in it. Or they got the hammer. Or the invincibility star. Or any of the other items that introduce an unfair advantage. I agree that items can make the game more fun, especially if the people playing all have different skill levels (I personally think that playing with no items against an opponent with a similar skill level is extremely fun). But, people don't always play games and sports at a competitive level because they are having fun. They do it because it’s a thing they're good at that they can get paid for. The fun is a nice bonus. I think a key thing to realize here is that fun probably isn't the reason the majority of people play competitive matches. Whenever you do something competitively, you want that thing to have as little luck involved as possible. That's why the only gambling games done professionally / competitively are the ones where the players have the ability to apply some strategy (there are professional poker and blackjack players, but not professional roulette players or slot machine players). Smash with items off is something you can practice at, discover what is predictable, develop a strategy, and prepare for a competition. Smash with items on is a crapshoot. No one in their right mind will enter a competition they are one lucky-for-your-opponent Palkia pokeball away from losing. The only way I could even entertain your argument is if in competitive play only some small subset of the items were allowed (just the dragoon and the blaster could be interesting). But the more items that are used increases, the more the unpredictability of what can happen in any given match also increases and in a game with 49 players, there is a tipping point. Even if there is skill involved in using certain items, many of them introduce too much of an imbalance for a competitive player to be comfortable with, especially if there is money involved. As far as people not using the game the way it is intended, I don't know what to tell you. This is kind of just how humanity progresses. The inventor of basketball did not have it's current NBA incarnation in mind. And Henry Ford did not have the Ford Focus in mind when he designed the Model T, but aren't we all glad people changed things along the way so that we have what we have now? An inventor can create something, but once they give it to the world, it belongs to the people. They can play Smash whichever way they want.	Before in start, I want to illustrate two different kinds of games that usually take place. 1) Large, loud, random, big group matches with lots of friends where you try to have fun by enjoying the game and the spectacle of it. Here the playing is the fun part. I call it "the first way" 2) Matches where you try to have fun by trying hard and getting engaged in the competition. I call it "the second way". This is more of a rough feeling than a good definition, so I hope you understand what I'm trying to get at. Problems occur when people wanting different things out of the game play at the same time, and item preference is usually a good indicator of which of the two games you want to play. The main point I think you're wrong about is 3A. And to be clear, I think my argument only applies in cases where someone wants to play the second kind of game. Hypothetically there was an item that spawned, that caused the game to end and whoever grabs it wins immediately. If you wanted to have fun the second way, wouldn't this item make you really sad every time it spawned? You were really being rewarded by how you've played, and then suddenly it was over because this spawned closer to one of you. Even if you won with it, wouldn't it be kind of hollow? While this hypothetical item is ridiculous, it illustrates that the problem isn't necessarily that you won or lost, its that it changed what the game was about. League of legends has a similar problem if you play at all. If one champion, build, or strategy is so powerful that each team is required to play it or be at a big disadvantage, it can make the game stale because other strategies might be more fun for some players. The item problem is similar. It's also compounded by players who have spent a fair amount of time trying to get competitive. I enjoy trying to figure out the interactions between my particular fighter and my opponent's. If the items had more counterplay then I think you might be right. But most of the time, the most important thing is "who's closer to the better spawning items". To give a more relevant example: at the upper levels of play in smash, frequently there's a problem that defensive play is considered very strong. It's usually to your advantage to stay away from your opponent and wait for him to overextend or make a move that causes him to become vulnerable. This isn't as fun to participate in, and makes it more boring to watch too. The big Nintendo sponsored tournament before the smash 4 release ended in one player basically avoiding all conflict when he got mildly ahead. It was a huge bummer. If you literally can't get to the item first because of where it spawned it's unfun: most items either inspire even MORE defensive play, or the item can break through any defense and it has no counterplay. If the items were differently balanced and provided more counterplay I might agree. If I were thinking of rebalancing it, I'd consider having a spot that spawned items in random intervals that is quite difficult to defend. Players would have to choose between being more likely to get the item and putting themselves at a disadvantage until it spawned. Does that make sense, or do I need to explain something better?
CMV: Playing Smash Bros. with items turned off is lame.	It's standard in the competitive Smash Bros. community to only play the game with items off. This is idiotic for a multitude of reasons. 1. It makes the game less fun. Would you want to play Mario Kart without items? Fuck no. That removes all of the excitement and variation in the game. Same applies to Smash. Sure enough, there was a post in r/nintendo or r/wiiu last week asking if there could be a competitive Mario Kart scene and most of the responses were "not unless they remove items". But then what's the point? Where's the fun? Just play another goddamn racing game if you want to play Mario Kart without items and just play another goddamn fighting game if you want to play Smash Bros. without items. EDIT: This part of my view has been changed. 2. It's restricting the intended purpose of the game. Why would you remove features from the game that are meant to be used? You're taking the game and making it into something it's not. It's like deliberately ordering a supreme pizza and picking off all the ingredients. Fucking pointless and borderline disrespectful to the developers (I'll admit this last part is a bit dubious, but, well...they did work to put it in the game as a main function of the game and it makes up a good portion of their creative output. It's kinda lame to just ignore that aspect of it). EDIT: This part of my view has also been changed. 3. Not only do items not hinder the competitive aspect of the game; they add to it, making their restriction the hindrance. This is the big one. This is why competitive Smash players leave items off in the first place: Because "the random aspect makes the game less competitive". Um...how? I mean, I guess the justification is that the randomness of item types and placement reduces the focus on the players' abilities, but to that I say two things: 3A. No, it doesn't remove focus on players' abilities. Do you not even consider that, y'know, the person who gets the item still has to use it correctly? And you can still dodge it? And, assuming the item doesn't spawn right next to a player, you still have to make the dash to the item before someone else *OR* decide not to go for it at all. This is where the game becomes more competitive with the use of items. You have to actually take them into account. I imagine a common argument against items is something like "oh well you suck if you can only win with items on." Have you considered that maybe you suck because you can't win without them turned off? I guess what I'm saying here is that while items add a slight element of chance, they more than make up for it with a multiple separate aspects of player skill. 3B. Even if there is a random aspect to the game...so what? It's not as though it's a coin toss or a lottery where it's based entirely on luck. It's just the kinds of items and where they're placed. The addition of luck is part of the fun and part of the challenge. Luck and competition are not mutually exclusive. Even with items turned off. It's not even possible for them to be. There's always going to be the possibility of an otherwise champion player making a stupid, fatal fuckup, or a glitch in the game causing an otherwise unwarranted victory. I understand wanting to reduce that element of chance, but removing items does so to the point that the fun in the competition is lost. At the very least, there should be separate, mainstream Smash tournaments that keep items on. _____ > Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to *[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules). If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* *[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)*! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our *[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)* first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to *[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview). Happy CMVing!*	> It makes the game less fun That is strickly personnal opinion > It's restricting the intended purpose of the game. If they give you the option of removing items it doesn't change the purpose of the game. > Not only do items not hinder the competitive aspect of the game; they add to it, making their restriction the hindrance. I'm sorry but adding elements players have NO CONTROL ON makes the game extremely unfair in the case of competitive play. > No, it doesn't remove focus on players' abilities. You are right that some items require skill to use but most of them give a big advantage to the player (trophys, pokeball, smash ball) > Even if there is a random aspect to the game...so what? The whole point of a competition is to match skill on an even playing field. This is why you see most matches played on FD with no items because it is pure skills involved. Say a player practiced for months for a tournament, is better than the opposing player and a smash ball or a pokeball happens to spawn near the losing player giving him a HUGE advantage as the other player has to deal with 2 ennemies/an unavoidable attack making him lose. Now do you think the guy who was lucky enough to have the item spawn near him is a better PLAYER than the other one ? You need to see smash as both a competitive and party game. I do both, smash with 3 other guys, random characters, maps and full items is super fun casual smash. But when I want to test my skills (which to me is also super fun) with friends it's 1v1 no items on maps with no interferance.	I'm only talking about how the competitive aspect gets ruined with items. I've played smash with friends for a few years now. Items are the bane of my life. I'm probably the second best player on the group. The amount of times I've lost to a shitty player because a smash ball spawned next to them is ridiculous. Yes, if I was such a good player, I could dodge. But giving an item that makes it a one-hit kill to one player, while making the other player play defense is bullshit. It makes the game about who got the smash ball, not who's better. In a professional, competitive fight, the skills will be similar. It won't be a noob and a pro, it will be two pros. Even if one is better, it won't be by a lot. It's not too hard to hit the better player once. I don't mind items in a game with good and bad players, but it makes the game about luck in games with only great players.
CMV: The term "steep learning curve" is used incorrectly what people really mean is "shallow learning curve"	I forget where I first learned this but it has stuck with ever since and as person who deals with graphs and plots all the time (biochemist) it drives me nuts when ever I hear it. The term "learning curve" has been used in science since the early 1900s (according to [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve)). The term was used to plot a persons learning over their experience (see example [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alanf777_Lcd_fig02.png)). The example here shows how a person rapidly gains proficiency (or learning) and eventually levels off. This could be a representations of how a person learns some thing easy, like tic-tac-toe. Note here that the curve is quite steep, ie the slope is very large (a large change in y over a small change in y). [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alanf777_Lcd_fig08.png) is a comparison between a steep (in red) and a shallow (in blue) curve. The shallow curve means that proficiency (or learning) is gained more slowly over time compared to the steep curve. Now words are often used differently in science and in common parlance, theory is a good example. In common parlance theory means a guess, whereas in science theory means a body of knowledge including all known facts, hypotheses, and natural laws relevant to a particular field of study or a proposed explanation of a set of related facts or a given phenomenon. In general, when the term "steep learning curve" is used in common parlance it used to describe something difficult to learn. Eg "The video game Dark Souls has a very steep learning curve". What this sentence is meant to convey is that the game is hard to learn and master, which is clearly described by a shallow learning curve, not a steep one. In conclusion saying "This game is hard, it has a steep learning curve" is equivalent to saying "I could care less" when what one meant was "I couldn't care less"	>In conclusion saying "This game is hard, it has a steep learning curve" is equivalent to saying "I could care less" when what one meant was "I couldn't care less" If the speaker is referring to a curve whose Y-axis represents the amount of learning that has to be done over a period of time measured by the X-axis, then "steep" is a perfectly sensible way to describe the shape of a curve associated with a task that is especially difficult for someone who is new to it. That may not be the curve you're imagining, but you haven't given us any reason to accept that your curve is the only one "correctly" described by the term "learning curve." Similarly, it isn't at all obvious that the phrase "I could care less" is an incorrect way of expressing apathy. Nobody seems to have any problem with the fact that "I've been better" generally means something like "I'm not doing very well right now." What is it about "I could care less" that causes people to pick on it the way they do?	I think people associate "steep" with "insurmountable," and so the word has a connotation of difficulty that "shallow" doesn't. Even if you're right and the phrase is used illogically, that doesn't make it incorrect. Humans and human language isn't logical. You know what "steep learning curve" means when people say it, therefore it means that.

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