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[Max™]

Kill 1 man, they make you a criminal, kill thousands, they make you a king, kill 1 out of every 20 people alive, they make you a khan.

Also, unpopular/controversial idea? A column of gas of any composition suspended above a surface in a gravity well will be warmer at the bottom, which isn't actually unpopular or controversial, but if you contend that the surface itself would also be warmer than it would be in the absence of said gas column? Now you've got a problem.

[MaximumZero]

Unpopular/controversial idea/opinion: Aurora has an even worse UI than Dwarf Fortress, and is more incomprehensible.

[Max™]

I know but it didn't sound as good and he was basically one because he set up a puppet khanate.

[misko27]

Here's an unpopular criticism and invective: why do people on the internet, when comparing genocides, treat human lives as if their sole value varies inversely to the degree that it is expendable?

[MaximumZero]

Here's an unpopular criticism and invective: why do people on the internet, when comparing genocides, treat human lives as if their sole value varies inversely to the degree that it is expendable?

Monkeysphere. People don't value each other unless they actually know the other people in question. 7 billion anything is hard to wrap even the most intelligent mind around, and people are no exception.

[misko27]

Here's an unpopular criticism and invective: why do people on the internet, when comparing genocides, treat human lives as if their sole value varies inversely to the degree that it is expendable?

Monkeysphere. People don't value each other unless they actually know the other people in question. 7 billion anything is hard to wrap even the most intelligent mind around, and people are no exception.

Sure. But arguing Timur's deathcount is comparable to Genghis Khan's, purely because they killed a similar proportion of the world population, seems... I mean, when people quote Stalin's "A million is a statistic", it's not to recommend it as a way of viewing the world. Because that's exactly what this is. I mean yeah you need to get a grip on the numbers somehow, but ultimately the actual number of lives is more important than their relative value. And when we talk in terms of the "killing XYZ number of millions is 5% of the people who are alive", its easy to forget that "5%", "one-in-twenty" are all semantic games we play, and not what's actually important. 5% is just supposed to be a mental tool to mentally grab onto what matters, but when you start comparing Timur and Genghis Khan, and you hear "well they both killed 5% of people on earth" it's easy to start thinking "well I guess they did the same amount of damage" and "those two things were basically equivalent". Well no, the Mongols killed about 40 million more people than Timur. That's not comparable at all. Not in the slightest. That's every single person living in Poland, dead, and you're still 2 million short.

My point is it's one thing to use things like "oh this killed every x of y", but as soon as you start comparing proportions, you lose sight of the fact that the proportions do not have any meaning in-and-of-themselves. The proportions are like metaphors: means to an end, where that end is understanding something that is difficult to comprehend. Comparing the proportions is like confusing metaphors for reality; like if you describe a tense diplomatic situation as being like chess, but then start going into the minutiae of Chess rules and forgetting the reality. In short: It's missing the point.

[Max™]

Missing the point is also what happened there, interpreting me cramming them in there as me actually stating it as a fact that they're equivalent, when I actually just had the criminal/king thing pop in my head since they both had similar enough features about their lives that it almost works out. Yes I know Timur wasn't actually a khan, and yes I know the actual estimated numbers of people killed by the various khanate empires, but "kill 1: criminal, thousands: king, a bit under twenty million: amir, way over twenty million: khan" doesn't quite flow as well.

[Reelya]

How about those age of consent laws? Huh? 8 year olds are totally up for it, don't believe what the government and media would have you believe.

[Egan_BW]

Humans spent a lot of time as dumb animals while basically the same genetically as modern humans. Therefore maybe we should check out some of the other claver animals on the planet and try to bring them into civilization as-is, no genetic modification or anything required.

[Folly]

How about those age of consent laws? Huh? 8 year olds are totally up for it, don't believe what the government and media would have you believe.

The idea behind the laws is that children lack a comprehensive understanding of the world sufficient to compose an informed and reasoned decision, thus making any consent that they might grant invalid. In short, children don't know what's best for them, so grown-ups make the decisions for them. Of course it's typically their legal guardians who make those decisions, not the government. An exception was made in the case of sexual liaisons due to a determined propensity for progressive mental damage that can be incurred from sexual contact during formative years.

At least, that is the explanation commonly given. In reality, it's clear that children mature at vastly differing rates. Some are prepared to deal with life at ages much younger than the legal limit, and some are not prepared until much later. It would make more sense to have some sort of test for determining maturity, rather than a simple age limit. And indeed the current age limit has caused a lot of harm due to guys at parties having a quick fling with some jailbait and ending up being imprisoned for years and then being labeled a sexual predator for the rest of their lives.

The existing laws are imperfect, but the social bias against pedophilia is so strong that the likelihood of anything being done about it in our lifetimes is basically nil. c'est la vie.

[MaximumZero]

Humans spent a lot of time as dumb animals while basically the same genetically as modern humans. Therefore maybe we should check out some of the other claver animals on the planet and try to bring them into civilization as-is, no genetic modification or anything required.

That would be what, various cephalopods and/or dolphins? I'm gonna hard pass on both of those.

[Egan_BW]

And Birds! And obviously our closest relatives in the primate family. And probably stuff I'm not thinking of now.

[Reelya]

Humans spent a lot of time as dumb animals while basically the same genetically as modern humans. Therefore maybe we should check out some of the other claver animals on the planet and try to bring them into civilization as-is, no genetic modification or anything required.

Well they're trying that. Lucy the chimp for example would greet people at the door then make a cup of tea. So chimps can actually grok basic food prepartion. But one of the problems is that chimps who've been taught to talk with sign language haven't tried to pass that on to other chimps, so we can reinforce learning but they don't seem to grok the cycle of teaher/student/teacher.

Dolphins however seem to have advanced language already. We're actively trying to crack that code. But the lack of hands on a dolphin is the problem getting them to bootstrap a dolphin civilization. Hands + speaking seems to be the key. Remember, the oldest known human tools are literally 2.6 million years old. We have in fact been playing this "tech" game much longer than previously thought. It's been integral to our entire evolution. In fact, they've now found even older stone tools dated 3.3 million years old, and that predates the entire Homo genus itself. They're no homo tools.

[ein]

When people defend the hijab as an expression of culture, it is the same as people defending the confederate flag as a cultural symbol and I disagree with both.

the two honestly aren't even close to comparable. keep in mind too that hijab is not interchangeable with burqa or niqab^†, which i think are what people generally think of those poor oppressed muslim women. similarly, there's a fundamental difference between a nation enforcing antiquated religious laws in order to oppress a populace, and someone consciously choosing to engage in their religion. there is zero practical difference between a hijab and a dastar, habit, kippah, or any other piece of religious clothing. arguing against one but not any other is plain and simple hypocrisy. more than anything else, it shows a complete and total lack of understanding of what islam is, complete with misogynistic undertones, when people single out hijabis. what this does, effectively, is push blame off of the corrupt governments that follow fundamentalist interpretations of religious laws

Spoiler: † (click to show/hide)

burqa:


niqab:


hijab:

Spoiler: for the sake of argument, have some non-muslim headscarves, all conveniently lifted from wikipedia (click to show/hide)

contributing my own opinion to the thread:

the olympics are fucking stupid and so heavily detached from the practical applications of the skills events are derived from that they feel more like a parody of human athletic capabilities than anything else. running is alright i guess, but then you've got shit like olympic fencing which is nothing like actual fencing, or the long jump, where competitors land on their fucking asses. like, what the fuck are you gonna do with that? who gives a shit how far you can jump if you're just gonna be lying on the floor afterwards

[Reelya]

It's more like comparing a NAZI flag to Lederhosen.

Also google "arab male headwear" and the traditional headwear covers almost as much as the hijab anyway:



And we forget that almost everyone in the West once wore hats, male or female. If you lacked a hat you were considered pretty poor. Victorian girls bonnets are similar to the amount of coverage of a hijab.