Hot Takes

Adamant Zoroark said:
All of the Bernie Bros saying they won't vote for Joe Biden never truly cared about progress. To be more specific, to them, nobody but Bernie Sanders would change this country enough. If you're willing to let this country burn for four more years under Trump just because the guy the Democrats nominated "wouldn't change enough," then you're not being progressive, and if you're going to let your salt blind you to how much damage Trump can do with four more years (read: judiciary so regressive that your grandchildren will be in college before it gets fixed), then you were never progressive.
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no, again there is a strong case that 'leftist'/progressive promises that become twisted by neoliberal politicians in the democratic party lead the masses to turn to populist authoritarians in their disillusionment. the ppl who never really cared about progressive causes are armchair activists that obsess w electoral politics on the internet, but never participate in activating their communities. the marginal progressives who don't vote for biden are not going to cause him to lose the election, and thus from a number of perspectives on who is likely to win in November, your take is nonsensical, and a reiteration of 'blame of the left' ways of thinking,. that sort of talk will only cause such misguided ppl to become further ensnared in the dogmas and divisions of election centred political discourses. In november, or whenever really, a few years down the road, you'll be whining about green party voters even though Biden will probably win the popular vote. Meanwhile green party voters will still be active in their communities and electoralists will still be prattling away and wondering why the dems lost yet another national election.
 
Myzozoa said:
no, again there is a strong case that 'leftist'/progressive promises that become twisted by neoliberal politicians in the democratic party lead the masses to turn to populist authoritarians in their disillusionment. the ppl who never really cared about progressive causes are armchair activists that obsess w electoral politics on the internet, but never participate in activating their communities. the marginal progressives who don't vote for biden are not going to cause him to lose the election, and thus from a number of perspectives on who is likely to win in November, your take is nonsensical, and a reiteration of 'blame of the left' ways of thinking,. that sort of talk will only cause such misguided ppl to become further ensnared in the dogmas and divisions of election centred political discourses. In november, or whenever really, a few years down the road, you'll be whining about green party voters even though Biden will probably win the popular vote. Meanwhile green party voters will still be active in their communities and electoralists will still be prattling away and wondering why the dems lost yet another national election.
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I voted third party in 2016, and let me tell you what my experiences then were: We cannot be encouraging third party voting when we don't have ranked-choice voting because it only enables the "whining about green party voters" described in your take. Unfortunately, we live in a system where there are only ever two viable choices to vote for, and until that changes, people should be willing to vote for slightly less progress than actual regression. And, again: not voting, or voting Green, or voting Libertarian, are all things that could wind up being factors in getting Trump elected, which would see massive regression. Or have you forgotten about Supreme Court lifetime appointments?

I literally voted for Bernie Sanders in my state's primary, but I'm not about to act like the progressive movement can survive four more years of Trump, because four more years of Trump judiciary appointments means any progressive legislation is dead on arrival in our courts.
 
here's a perhaps really hot take: if supreme court judges didn't serve life terms, we wouldn't have this problem where we are like, obligated to vote for a guy who will pack the court with moderates who get nothing done (at best!) as opposed to a guy who will definitely pack the courts with people who will actively undo progress. the supreme court needs to be majorly reformed.

here's the problem with biden: even if he manages to beat trump (which, i'll be honest, bernie bros or no, he is and was never going to beat trump) that will make a lot of the really milquetoast liberals happy enough that they will essentially abandon the progressive movement under the assumption that, well, a democrat's in charge now, so everything's fine and back to normal.

i mean, i'll still go vote, but mainly because there's congress seats up for grabs. people forget about that, i think.
 
rattlesnakeacrobat said:
here's a perhaps really hot take: if supreme court judges didn't serve life terms, we wouldn't have this problem where we are like, obligated to vote for a guy who will pack the court with moderates who get nothing done (at best!) as opposed to a guy who will definitely pack the courts with people who will actively undo progress. the supreme court needs to be majorly reformed.

here's the problem with biden: even if he manages to beat trump (which, i'll be honest, bernie bros or no, he is and was never going to beat trump) that will make a lot of the really milquetoast liberals happy enough that they will essentially abandon the progressive movement under the assumption that, well, a democrat's in charge now, so everything's fine and back to normal.

i mean, i'll still go vote, but mainly because there's congress seats up for grabs. people forget about that, i think.
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Alright, this little thing I bolded makes me have to bring up one more hot take: People who constantly rag on about how Biden would certainly lose to Trump are entirely basing it on the fact that they personally don't like Joe Biden and are completely ignoring any data that says otherwise, just to name an example: Looking at aggregates, Donald Trump's approval rating went net negative two weeks into his term and hasn't been net positive since. I think people sometimes forget just how unpopular Trump really is for a first-term incumbent. Also, Joe Biden was winning all of the primaries in states that could end up deciding Election 2020, and maybe this is another hot take, but: Perhaps who people who live in Wisconsin and Michigan think is best equipped to beat Trump should carry more weight than what those who live in California and Vermont think?
 
Adamant Zoroark said:
Alright, this little thing I bolded makes me have to bring up one more hot take: People who constantly rag on about how Biden would certainly lose to Trump are entirely basing it on the fact that they personally don't like Joe Biden and are completely ignoring any data that says otherwise, just to name an example: Looking at aggregates, Donald Trump's approval rating went net negative two weeks into his term and hasn't been net positive since. I think people sometimes forget just how unpopular Trump really is for a first-term incumbent. Also, Joe Biden was winning all of the primaries in states that could end up deciding Election 2020, and maybe this is another hot take, but: Perhaps who people who live in Wisconsin and Michigan think is best equipped to beat Trump should carry more weight than what those who live in California and Vermont think?
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I don't think Biden is anywhere near certain to lose to Trump.
I think its far too much of a toss up, because all elections are. Current data is next to meaningless. Who knows what the country will look like in a month, let alone in November.

I did think that Biden was the least likely candidate to win, of the major candidates in the democratic primary.
I like Biden. I think he can be funny and affable. I think he can empathize with a lot of the left.
I think he's ill equipped to fight this general. He's not prepared for what Republicans these days are going to throw at him. I don't think he has a game plan. I think he's too willing to assume that republican partisans (not talking about the voters, but rather those who are involved in the party and election) are good and reasonable people.

I think they're going to run circles around him, and it may just work.
 
Liberty is an instrument of domination when the range of choice open to the individual is not actually decisive. It maters what can be chosen and what is chosen. This domination is still pervasive within capitalism and democratic systems and has enormous ramifications on their ability to promote human liberty.

The Lion King is one of the worst films proportional to its popularity. Its themes are that divine birthright absolute monarchy rule and racial segregation are necessary for peace and sustainability. It posits that there is not only a definitive sociological natural order, but challenging that order is inherently evil. Its character development happens off-screen. Its plot lacks momentum and is an awkward hack-job of western literature tropes. Its art direction is stolen shot for shot, model by model, painting by painting from the Japanese classic Kimba the White Lion.

The nature of the universe is determinism and free will is merely human participation being romanticized. All observed phenomena, from a basketball's trajectory to your decision to read this sentence, could be predicted from an adequate understanding of prior conditions and the universe's mechanics. Interactions at the quantum state as we currently understand them do not present criticism because their inability to predict beyond probability is still an artifact of limitations in instrumentation. The lack of truly reversible reactions under thermodynamics only prevents the prediction of events that occurred in the past.

The concept of the human soul is a product of vanity and fear, and of sociological power structures. The development of life as we know it is a continuous system analogous to a computer program running in parallel for billions of years. The existence of the human soul and only the human soul could only make sense if life developed discontinuously, which is uncoincidentally how major western religions present it. Consciousness is simply an emergent property of arbitrary degree, and conscious entities can exist only as long as a physical form allows them to relate unto themselves as something that is an individual. Perhaps the most fundamental of all is that the soul cannot be measured, which by definition means that it cannot interact with the universe in any way, which is the same as saying that it does not exist.

The nature of faith is not believing without seeing, it is the opposite. Faith is conviction in belief because it is founded on truth, and is therefore able to withstand the battering of opposing ideologies, new information, and changing mood. It is a constant battle against complacency. Study philosophy, sciences, or engineering with any degree of depth and it becomes overwhelmingly clear that very little about our existence and understanding of the universe is certain. Faith is what affords humanity a greater degree of certainty, thereby allowing us to reach solutions to what would otherwise seem like unsolvable dilemmas.

The primary reason there is opposition to political correctness as a neutral concept is because if you say something racist or sexist you are more likely to be held accountable for saying something racist or sexist.
 
Total Clefairy said:
referring to joe "nothing will fundamentally change" biden as a progressive in any sort of capacity is the hottest take in this thread so far
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Are you being deliberately dense? My entire point said nothing about whether or not Biden is the progressive candidate (he's not); the sole point is that you weren't progressive if you stopped giving a shit about progress as soon as the best-case scenario ceased to be an option.

Learn how to read, please.
 
No one is entitled to your vote and the ideology surrounding such thinking is painted with the same partisan thinking that progressives decry

Voting against the other guy makes sense if the issues that are at your core are highly polarized against the two candidates. Take Joe Schmidt, an average American voter who's biggest issue is Abortion rights (he is Pro-Choice), Environmental Rights (Pro-Environment), and Gun Rights (Pro-2A). In the case of Donald Trump vs Biden, he has to weigh each issue as what is more important to him. Though he is pro second amendment, the issues of environmentalism and abortion rights supersede his stance on gun control, and he would be willing to sacrifice some of his other stances to satisfy his clear choice vote.

Now, what happens if none of those are your core issues? What happens if your core issues are, say, the war in the Middle East? What if you take the stance that America, through its imperialist global crusade, has not only ineffectually dealt with insurgent uprisings but has in fact armed them, given them an ideology to fight against, and made issues worse? I do not think this is a very far-fetch'd stance, it is after all the primary motivation behind supporting Palestine, for example. What is the foreign policy difference there between Donald Trump and Joe Biden?

What if your stance that is core to your interests is eliminating money-backed politics? Say Joe Schmidt sees lobbyist interest groups and reliance on funding as just a way for the rich and powerful to exert undue influence on legislature? What if the reason Joe Schmidt most dislikes Donald Trump because he brazenly currys favor with politicians through bribes, or has other countries do the same thing (like Saudi Arabia)? What is the foreign policy difference there between Donald Trump and Joe Biden?

If your biggest issue is not the big ticket ballot option of abortion, or gun rights, or some other partisan issue then they are not entitled to have your vote. A person votes most within their interests. Any form of altruism, 'empathy for a cause,' is in itself a means for one to stroke their ego and maintain moral superiority, for voting on the "right side." I don't see how one can decry the two-party system, calling it unfortunate, but then say that is necessary and one should participate in it. All that does is send signals to those parties that exactly what they were doing (re: nothing) is exactly what is needed to turn out votes, and all they have to do is continually cry that "other guy" will ruin the entire American foundation. This has been the past two decades or so of American politics at least. For someone to earn my vote they have to speak on issues that I care about.

I've seen some truly horrendous partisan backing. People claiming that Trump is the antichrist, people claiming that, well Biden might be a rapist but at least raped less women than Trump, all sorts of mannerisms to justify partisan thinking. Those people, the ones who claim vote blue no matter who, who claim voter entitlement, who claim that all Democrats are liberal baby killing devils, whatever, there is no difference to them. They are not attempting to understand ideology behind political philosophies, they have become so entrenched in "other guy bad my guy good" that they are being led along with bread and circus so no effectual change happens.

I'm not gonna vote for someone just because they pay lip service by jumping on reparations to secure the black vote, or decide that all of a sudden they are pro LGBT (despite decades of activism against), or say that x person is ruining America. I'll vote for someone if their positions speak to me, because it is only when attention is given to a behavior that the behavior repeats
 
Minority said:
The nature of the universe is determinism and free will is merely human participation being romanticized. All observed phenomena, from a basketball's trajectory to your decision to read this sentence, could be predicted from an adequate understanding of prior conditions and the universe's mechanics. Interactions at the quantum state as we currently understand them do not present criticism because their inability to predict beyond probability is still an artifact of limitations in instrumentation. The lack of truly reversible reactions under thermodynamics only prevents the prediction of events that occurred in the past.
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I don't think you really understand thermodynamics or quantum mechanics
 
images

Copyright laws should not exist what so ever. I think everyone from every corner of the political compass can agree on the Copyright is currently handled is absurd. It’s inherently anti-free market, it does the opposite of redistributing the means of production, the current system was lobbied Disney, ect. However, most people wouldn’t go as far as removing them entirely, but fuck that.
The original intention was to encourage creative and research from an assortment of people, since someone could just take your credit for it. But then it just became the opposite of it’s own intention.
The proportion of multimedia franchises to new short series or one-offs is growing.
Most research is rarely handled independently.
Most intellectual property is owned by big organizations and even governments, most of which will eventually be owned by a select few people.
The law doesn’t help the original creator(s). Remember Tetris? Well the original creator got 0 compensation for on the original ports since it was owned by the Soviet Union and several publishing companies such as Nintendo (and oh boy, most of you probably know how Nintendo handles their brands).
And ironically, most copyright claims, especially on YouTube, are from monopolies striking down original works that sample a fraction of an IP they own.
I would not be surprised if by 2080 (if not sooner), everyone will have mind reading chip implants, and you’ll be fined 200 Quattuordecillion credits (10k USD today, Thanks Wilson, Wheels, and Nixon) for even thinking about the image of 3 conjoined black circles (and you also will be arrested wondering why you’re not trusted with your own thoughts).
It would just be best just to remove these laws entirely (I can compromise for 7 years at most until something becomes open domain).
We could archive so many things that would be lost, people can freely make their own interpretations of series that are dead (rip F-Zero) or zombified so that fans can experience the product being good or simply existing at all, and it’s easier for smaller creators to deal with piracy than with copyright claims.
 
i think we can probably come to the conclusion that genocides aren't great regardless of the religion or lack thereof of the perptrators, no?
 
I don't think children (lets say, people under the age of 15) should be allowed to use the internet at all without parental supervision, except for stuff like Wikipedia or educational sites. I haven't really thought about the logistics of this, but I really do think the world would be better off without it. Maybe there should be a flat law against it, similar to underage drinking where there's no way to totally enforce it but it would be a significant societal stigma for a parent to allow their kids to spend time on the internet alone.

We all know the internet is a dangerous place and children don't really have the critical thinking skills to navigate it. It is very easy to get sucked into a situation where they can be groomed by predators, or enter an echo chamber of extremism, exposed to online bullying, or get addicted to something. I know there are stuff like Children's Protection Acts but they are very flimsy and there are so many ways to get around them. Nothing good came from me using the internet when I was a child, and I'm at least relieved that my parents limited my time spent on the computer. I am very convinced that there is significant damage being done to the current generation of kids especially since they start being exposed at such an early age.
 
not sure if this is a hot take or just something that annoys me greatly, but white people, notably white men, who openly describe themselves as "allies" are lame as fuck and are usually the first people to try and explain minority experiences to that specific group.

similarly, straight people putting she/her etc in their Twitter bios to appear as some woke leftist when they probably don't give two shits what pronouns they're called.
 
faint said:
not sure if this is a hot take or just something that annoys me greatly, but white people, notably white men, who openly describe themselves as "allies" are lame as fuck and are usually the first people to try and explain minority experiences to that specific group.

similarly, straight people putting she/her etc in their Twitter bios to appear as some woke leftist when they probably don't give two shits what pronouns they're called.
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As a white male who considers himself an ally, I totally see where you're coming from with the first point. Many white males, and even more generally, any non-POC like to put in their two cents about pretty much any issue even if they aren't directly affected by it. (This is going to come off as a "wow look at me I'm such a good ally" but I promise it's a decent take). Over the past several years, I have done my best to realize the situations where I was doing something like this, and stop myself before going too far. The exception being if I am talking to a fellow non-POC who does not have as much exposure to said issues as myself. The thing that has made me most think about it this way is using myself (and my social media platforms) as a vessel to communicate the experience of marginalized groups, rather than use my own personal experiences to explain an issue.

As for your second take (and realize I'm coming at this issue with the POV of a teacher) pronouns are extremely important in validation of people's gender identity. When cis people put their pronouns in their bios, it helps normalize the presence of them in everyday situations. So while it might not be important that you personally know everyone in the world's pronouns, it can help the trans people in their lives feel validated about making their pronouns known and visible. Now, if people are doing it sarcastically like "he/him/attack helicopter" that's obviously an issue. But this seems like an issue that someone with more experience in the trans community can talk about more in-depth.


As for my own take: I'm tired of seeing people continue to support domestic abusers and pedophiles in pop culture, most specifically the music industry. I was thinking about this the other day as an old video popped in my YouTube recommended talking about Chris Brown. It reminded me of some students I taught while I was still taking classes and how they seemingly idolized Chris Brown and his music. I don't particularly love the current "cancel culture" but there are so many artists that seem to do terrible things and get away with it while retaining a large portion of their fanbase. Chris Brown is one I consider the most heinous because he literally almost killed Rihanna but others like XXXTentation, R. Kelly, Ozzy Osbourne, and countless others in the music industry. And not to mention the pedophiles like 6ix9ine, Elvis (who met his wife when he was 24 and she was 14), hell, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin literally kidnapped and raped a 14-year old. Even Drake's apparent grooming of underaged girls is too much for my liking. I personally don't listen to any of these artists out of choice, and it's really disheartening to see them still get so much support after all of their issues.
Particularly, the older ones are often idolized and their issues are brushed away with a "it was a different time back then" comment, but personally I still think it's inexcusable. The "separate the art from the artist" argument doesn't fly for me because you're still supporting them by buying and playing their music.
 
Nurses act like some of the most entitled people on the planet - see their constant validation and attention seeking that's plastered all over social media and reddit. We get it, you have to work during a worldwide pandemic, you should have considered this before following healthcare as a career option - pandemics are inevitable and through our lifetimes we have already lived through 1 massive scale one back in 2009, never discount the potential of "oh fuck I'm gonna need to work overtime because some disease gets out" that's a very naive way to look at it.

I also think all the Tiktoks and whatever garbage is also a massive pisstake, people are dying left right and center, hospitals are being overwhelmed and all you see is an endless stream of nurses dancing on tiktok, it's pretty disrespectful and I'd even go as far as saying its flat out degrading. You can be like sure it's a coping mechanism, everyone is having a hard time. So I guess soldiers out on the front line can just throw their guns down and start flossing, this is the career YOU picked.

Putting these people on a pedestal fuels this attention seeking thing that's been going on, as someone who works long weeks, who needs to be working at 100% efficiency constantly and regularly has push above that, I don't take to social media. It's not fun having to work 60+ hours a week, it's not fun making sure everything is perfect and not letting standards go, I don't like fucking working 15 hours shifts in shitty uncomfortable boots, but I have sure as hell never took to social media to make sure the world knows how I feel

I am not going to point fingers too hard here (I have seen plenty outliers), but a lot of these nurses are young women, and in a generation fueled with attention from social media and stuff it's not hard to see why it's such a common theme, but still, just put the phones down, save the stupid videos for later

With all that said though, it's not right to fully dismiss all health care workers because a lot of them do do their job well but holy shit just stop the attention seeking
 
p2 said:
So I guess soldiers out on the front line can just throw their guns down and start flossing
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yes. lets do that. war being seen as something between one group of humans and another group of humans is far healthier than it being seen as something between stoic, unyielding heroes and evil villains

hot take: if the thought of soldiers flossing at the front line fills you (hypothetical reader) with feelings of revolt because it doesn't sufficiently respect the loss of life, the thought of you, someone not meaningfully suffering harm from such, supporting their deployment should have the same effect
 
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SergioRules said:
As a white male who considers himself an ally, I totally see where you're coming from with the first point. Many white males, and even more generally, any non-POC like to put in their two cents about pretty much any issue even if they aren't directly affected by it. (This is going to come off as a "wow look at me I'm such a good ally" but I promise it's a decent take). Over the past several years, I have done my best to realize the situations where I was doing something like this, and stop myself before going too far. The exception being if I am talking to a fellow non-POC who does not have as much exposure to said issues as myself. The thing that has made me most think about it this way is using myself (and my social media platforms) as a vessel to communicate the experience of marginalized groups, rather than use my own personal experiences to explain an issue.
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This is what I was talking about in my first post. By calling yourself an ally you're either saying your own perspective doesn't matter, abdicating personal responsibility, or you're signal boosting what you think minorities go through. But without actual experiences, how can you be sure you get the proportions right? Sure you might have anecdotes, but how do you measure your response? Focus on whats critical or facile?
 
billymills said:
This is what I was talking about in my first post. By calling yourself an ally you're either saying your own perspective doesn't matter, abdicating personal responsibility, or you're signal boosting what you think minorities go through. But without actual experiences, how can you be sure you get the proportions right? Sure you might have anecdotes, but how do you measure your response? Focus on whats critical or facile?
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In short, I think it depends on the issues. As I said, I have a lot of first-hand experience with educational inequality as a teacher for lower income schools, and even some experience with immigration issues as a Spanish teacher. So with those issues I'm more likely to talk about my own experiences and research. While with something like police violence, an issue I have basically no personal experience with, I do focus on the more general facets while supporting and sharing stories of those who do have first-hand experience with it. Using my privilege to help and validate marginalized groups to speak with their own stories rather than retell it as my own.

The original post I replied to said that the white male allies are the ones explaining to minority groups about the issues which is definitely not a good thing. But people are more likely to listen to a white male than they are to a POC, even if they're telling their own experiences. So we shouldn't dominate the discourse on these issues but rather help make safer spaces for POC to share their personal stories and support them.

I'm struggling to find the exact words to put to this that don't sound like white saviorism, because that's not what it is, but I hope my point is clear enough.

e: there's a difference between being privileged and simply calling yourself an ally versus actively using your privilege to fight for social justice and equality
 
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