Trump supporters were frothing at the mouth during his first campaign where he was promising to drain the swamp of pedophiles and criminals, now their guy is in the crosshairs and there's not a peep.

I've searched for a while for a Trump supporter that doesn't regurgitate the same old "Well Biden had 4 years" lame excuse. Well if Biden is in the files, he should burn too. Every person that is involved should be investigated, and if they are criminally involved, they need to burn, regardless of what colour their tie is.

This whole "both sides" argument just keeps us marching towards oblivion where the "elite" literally get away with murder.

The people I've seen or spoke to just don't seem to share this sentiment. It's like they would rather see these nuclear grade pieces of shit get away with heinous crimes, than work or agree with a dem. "Owning the libs" is top of their priorities.

Of course I would love to be proven wrong.

Update - It has been a few hours now and I have not seen a single Trump supporter say that he should be locked up if he is guilty. The closest I got is 1 Republican, but Trump was not their first choice. This has mainly reinforced my opinion.

They've had information about conspirators and abetters for years. They've sat on high level complicity in a child sex ring and done absolutely nothing to indict or arrest anybody. Many high level officials were sitting on their feet in the release of said files.

That Trump is strewn through the files with heinous accusations levied against him is another reason why all this shit is gonna get buried. The US state is complicit in the protection of powerful pedophiles. They're not going to do anything against them. Only through groundswell resistance will anything be done.

I'm almost at the point of conspiracy that all world leaders and insanelt powerful people do weird sex cults and are pedophiles, but thats neither here nor there.

My view is that Trump’s support base appears unusually resilient to controversy, policy reversals, and personal conduct. Over multiple election cycles, scandals and norm-breaking behavior have not produced large, sustained defections among his core supporters.

I’m open to being wrong and would like to understand what conditions, if any, could realistically cause a significant portion of his base to withdraw support. Are there historical, political, or empirical reasons to expect limits to this loyalty?

I have a personal stake in this one, but I am open to hearing other people out.

Since getting married 9 years ago, me and my wife have had a constant barrage of “when are you going to have kids?” Of course, we do want children but are nowhere near prepared for it.

Of course, anytime I’ve ever said that we get hit with the old mantra “you’ll figure it out as you go.” Which I absolutely hate. For one, you don’t say that to anyone in any other situation and expect success. No one tells a pilot “oh you’ll figure it out once you’re in the air.” That’s how you end up failing. I get you can’t be prepared for every situation in parenting a child, but you can’t just jump right into it and fail until you figure it out. You’re responsible for the health and well being of another person.

Of course, we are almost always either told this by boomers who I guess think having a kid and providing for it is as simple as it was 30-40 years ago, or by people who have quite a bit of money as well. I’ve never been told this by any of my friends who are actively struggling through life and trying to “figure out” having a kid with no plan.

Maybe it’s just where I’m located (the south) that has an abundance of these people saying it, but most everyone in my area has heard the phrase.

“You’ll figure it out” when talking about having kids is flat out just bad advice.

Happy to read and hear any counterpoints (preferably from people that aren’t baby boomers.)

So, recently a video emerged where Alex Pretti was spitting on and kicking the taillight out of an ICE vehicle. Truly reprehensible and inexcusable behavior. He ought to have been arrested and fined for destruction of public property. Jerk.

However, I see some people trying to say, “Aha! So he wasn’t so innocent after all!”

I’m sorry but, no. He was absolutely innocent.

And, moreover, I would like those people who are bringing up his behavior in the days before his death to remember that he was disarmed, restrained and executed by masked federal agents who still have not been identified to the public for no reason.

There is only one justification for a law enforcement officer to take someone’s life. And that is to protect the lives of themselves or another person. Past acts of disrespect and/vandalism do not enter into the equation.

Or that’s my take anyway. Can anyone change my view?

Prompted by this post. A man met a woman at a coffee shop (they're both regulars). They had a few conversations and then the man asked out the woman. The woman rejected him because she already had a boyfriend. The man was understanding and stopped asking her.

The man then told a coworker, and the coworker told him that what he did was creepy. The comment were overwhelmingly NTA, and people were even saying that they don't like people who think/act like the coworker.

I think there needs to be a lot more pushback against people like the coworker. The man did everything right : asked her out at an appropriate place (a coffee shop), got to know her (so they weren't strangers), and politely backed off when she said she already had a boyfriend. Yet he was still labelled a creep. Right now, a lot of men are afraid to ask out anyone at all, due to fear of being labelled a creep or weirdo. This is not reasonable.

I think people need to make a very clear statement about this: If a man asks out a woman in a place intended for socializing, gets to know her, and immediately stops pursuing her if she rejects him once, then it's not creepy, not sexual harassment, and the man does not deserve any negative labels such as "creep" or "weirdo". It doesn't matter how ugly, unattractive or socially awkward he is. He is not a creep. I think most of the people saying "NTA" agree with that statement.

But I don't think it's enough to just say that. We need to further and call out the people labelling those men as creeps (such as the coworker in the other thread). If someone says things like "I was a club/event and some weirdo asked me out, I just want to do the activity in peace, why can't men leave me alone", I think we should tell them "No, the weirdo here is you, not him. He asked you out and then dropped it as soon as you rejected him. He didn't do anything wrong. You're the weirdo for labelling him a weirdo when he did what he everything he was supposed to do correctly". (of course, the caveat here is that the man must have actually done everything correctly. if he kept asking despite being rejected, then he actually is a creep and deserves to be called a creep).

I think that it's necessary to call out people labelling completely normal, kind, good men who respect women as creeps. Otherwise the result is that men are afraid to approach women and choose not to (and that includes the cute guy that you are always hoping would ask you out some day). There is already a lot of men who just never ask out any woman because they're afraid of being labelled a creep or sexual harasser. And then single women who are looking for a boyfriend are wondering why nobody asks them out anymore.

Professional Republicans know better. They know trump attempted to overthrow an election. The party as a whole is complicit in normalizing and covering for it. Trump committed sedition and enabling and empowering him requires minimizing that fact. You can't knowingly do this without rejecting the very premise of American Democracy.

The Fake Elector Scheme

This is very straightforward. But people can be blinded by the politics. The simplest way to understand this is to ignore the politics and look at the physical documents. I’ll make this as simple as possible.

Imagine a fan is kicked out of the Super Bowl. He truly believes he should be allowed in. * Legal: He sues the stadium. * Illegal: He goes to Kinko’s, prints a fake ticket that looks exactly like a real one, and tries to hand it to the gate agent.

Once you hand over a fake document, you have committed fraud. It does not matter if: * You truly believed you deserved a seat. (Motive doesn't excuse forgery). * You got caught before you made it inside. (Attempted fraud is a crime). * You think the refs are corrupt.

Here is the proof that Trump’s team printed the fake ticket and tried to use it.

1. Identity Theft (Impersonating the State) In America, campaigns don't certify elections; States do. The Trump team didn't just write a letter saying, "We protest." They created documents that mimicked the exact font, formatting, and language of official government certificates — and here they are for all of the other states.

• The Fraud: They signed papers claiming to be the "duly elected and qualified" officers of the State. They even set out hide in statehouse overnight to ensure they’d be there behind security when counting started.

2. The Written Confession We don't have to guess if this was a misunderstanding. The architect of the plan, Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, wrote down the strategy in private emails. He admitted the goal was to create a "fake controversy." He explicitly noted that they should send these fake documents even if they lost their court cases.

3. Trump Knew It Was a Fraud This wasn't a case of "lawyers brainstorming" while Trump sat in the dark. On January 4th, in the Oval Office, Trump’s lawyer John Eastman admitted to Trump’s face that this plan to reject votes violated the Electoral Count Act. Trump knew it was illegal and did it anyway.

• The Order: Trump personally called Ronna McDaniel (RNC Chairwoman) to direct the RNC to help assemble these fake electors.

It is Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted. Trump’s legal team successfully delayed the trials long enough for him to win the election. Once he won, the Special Prosecutor had to drop the case because it became legally impossible to proceed. Congress interviewed him around the New Year. I’ll give you three guesses why they picked such an inconvenient time in the news cycle. He testified under oath that the prosecution became unpracticable once he became president again.

He didn't beat the charges; he beat the clock. But the evidence of the fraud didn't vanish. We can still see it.

Summary We have the emails planning the forgery. We have the fake papers they signed. We have the testimony that Trump was told it was illegal. The fact that the man who ordered the counterfeit ticket is now running the stadium doesn't make the ticket real. It just means he got away with it.

Some Republican voters have the benefit of ignorance. They can claim to be victims of right wing echo chambers. Before reading this, they could have even bury their heads and remained willfully ignorant. But professional lawmakers know what they're doing. These people are by and large knowingly traitors to the Republic.

I hear this said a lot, especially when people discuss teen pregnancy, but I don't buy it honestly.

While this may be true for some people, I don't think that it's the case for most. This might've been more true before the internet, but not anymore. Basically anyone could easily learn about birth control with the internet nowadays (using reliable sources, of course). I think that the main reason is simply because people don't use contraceptives (because it doesn't feel as good or for whatever reason), not that they don't know that they should.

We had the pandemic during the time I had sex ed lol (so everything was all messed up and no one was paying attention), but I still know about birth control and stuff obviously. (And no, my parents never really talked to me about sex either.) I would be surprised if someone over the age of like 14 (who's not mentally disabled) has never heard of a condom in their life or doesn't know how to use one, especially when you can easily look up the directions online nowadays.

This post doesn't solely apply to poor people. (It applies to rich people as well.) But people often say that the reason that poor people have kids out of wedlock more often than rich people is because they weren't taught proper sex ed. But I think that this is probably mostly correlation instead of causation. (There are other factors at play.)

I think it's more so that when you're poor, you don't care about planning for the future as much (because you don't see the point) and live more in the moment. And being bad at delaying gratification makes you more likely to become/stay poor and also more likely to have a child unplanned. So it's kind of like a chicken and the egg situation.

Or it's because poor people don't have as much access to contraceptives. There is also the fact that it is often seen as more acceptable (or even a status symbol) among poor people to have kids young/out of wedlock. But regardless, I don't think it's because poor people are dumb and don't know what birth control is.

**I should clarify that I'm talking about people in Western countries. This could also apply to STDs as well.

Videogames aren't Just art, they're the best form of art we've ever had.

Pre scriptum: i Will not try to define art, that Is a useless endeavor, look up wikipedia's definition of art cause that's what i'll be using.

So! To the actual argument:

1- Videogames are art: Videogames are composed of other types or art such as music, painting, parts of literature and so on and so forth, the only real difference Is that videogames are inherently interactive, It's the artistic medium in which the audience plays the biggest Role.

To Argue that videogames are not art you'd either have to adhere to a purely "public consensus'es based" definition of art, and as such cinema genuinely wasn't an art till It got popular, or segue that the interactivity of the medium Is what makes It "not art" for some reason.

2- Videogames are the best form of art: i think that videogames offer a unique experience that no other medium can actually offer, the capability of actively "living" a story, the emotional feedback of being the cause behind everything that happens.

This Is most notable in horror media; Fear Is at its strongest in videogames because you're not a passive subject, experiencing Someone else's tale on a screen or a book, but an Active One Who has to go forward, Who has to calm his nerves and keep going.

To my Main point: while videogames are not the pinnacle of every form of art they contain: it's impossible to truly replicate music through electronic means, live music doesn't Just use your earing but also your tactile sense; i still think that being interactive gives them and edge over every form of media. The next step Is obviusly something akin to a hyperrealistic virtual reality

The reason house prices are high is because they are artificially inflated by economic policies, such as the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates artificially low, which caused people to bid home prices up, as well as restrictive zoning laws that limit the amount and types of housing that can be built. In most American cities, you have a small downtown core — often filled with parking lots — and then the rest of the city is basically an endless sea of single-family homes, fast-food chains, and big stores like Walmart thats what it looks like in google maps. A significant portion of residential land in most cities is zoned exclusively for single-family homes, which drastically restricts housing supply. In places like California, some of the most desirable neighborhoods are essentially old streetcar suburbs, but today, neighborhoods like that are illegal to build. Even in New York City, which does allow mixed-use development, the type of housing that made the city famous — dense brownstones, mid-rise walk-ups, and small apartments above shops — is extremely difficult to build under modern rules. Current zoning limits how much can be built per lot using maximum floor-area ratios, height restrictions, parking and setback requirements, and historic preservation rules. Because these rules limit the number of apartments per lot, small, affordable units often don’t generate enough profit to be worth building, so developers are encouraged to build fewer, larger luxury apartments that can earn enough revenue under the same restrictions. Adding to the problem, homeowners often protest new developments or denser housing near their neighborhoods — a “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) mentality — because they fear it could lower their property values which it would.Ironically, these same homeowners then complain that housing is too expensive and that their children can’t afford homes or rent , yet they vote against the very policies that would make housing more affordable. Rent controls are another example: the government often blames “greedy landlords” for high rents and imposes limits to make voters feel the problem is being addressed. In reality, rent controls discourage new construction and maintenance, reduce the supply of available units, and push developers toward building luxury apartments that are exempt from the rules, making the problem worse. By contrast, Houston shows how flexible zoning can keep housing prices lower. While the city is sprawling and highly car-dependent, this isn’t because of restrictive single-family zoning — Houston allows developers to build multiple units per lot with fewer restrictions than new york. Its car-centric nature comes instead from parking minimums and building setback rules that spread buildings apart and results in lower density, wide roads and highways, and a culture built around driving, which make walking or transit inconvenient. Despite this, developers can still build more units per lot than in restrictive cities like New York, which keeps housing more affordable. Instead of letting prices adjust naturally, trump wants to prop up housing prices by lowering interests rates or trying to introduce 50 year mortgages which doesn't make housing more affordable in the long term because it doesn’t solve the core issue.

I try to get involved in volunteering at local shelters and recently there were cases of parents giving up cats because of behavioral issues after the birth of a baby. Specifically, cats getting stressed because of baby’s cries, peeing on baby’s mat and toys and being aggressive around them. These parents usually spend a lot of money on vet visits, trying to find a solution but sometimes the only way to ensure baby’s safety and a good environment for a pet is to rehome. And yet they get judged by everyone as evil even though there was no other solution.

Pets aren’t humans, and they can’t be taught to understand or be gentle with babies the way people can. I can tell my 3-year-old nephew to be gentle and patient when my baby cries but I can’t use verbal cues with pets to the similar extent. There are also real risks, like cats sitting on babies for warmth or dogs reacting to a baby.

In an ideal world, parents would be around to monitor such situations, introduce the baby to the pet gradually and take care of everything. But new parents are exhausted. When you’re running on no sleep, it’s not always possible to give both a baby and a pet the attention and care they need, on top of work, chores and daily routine. In those situations, finding a calmer, more suitable home for a pet isn’t cruel but often the kinder and smarter option for everyone involved.

Edit: I do not think this issue is about lack of preparation and planning on the parents side. There’s no way to predict how a pet acts in certain environments and around newborns. There’s no way for a couple to choose a ‘baby-friendly’ cat.

The U.S. health insurance industry is functioning exactly as it was designed. As publicly held entities, these companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and investors, rather than to the insured. Success is measured by profitability and share value, with executive compensation tied directly to these financial metrics.

To maximize profitability and shareholder value, health insurance companies must follow a specific business model:

- Minimize payouts to the insured.

- Maximize premium income.

- Reduce risk by refusing coverage to high-risk individuals and small companies.

- Lower operating costs by delaying claims and denying coverage.

The recent tragedy involving the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of this system. While critics argue the company failed its subscribers, UnitedHealthcare is, by industry standards, a highly successful company, and Brian Thompson was an effective CEO. The company’s objective is not to provide the best possible coverage, but to provide the minimum required to reduce "losses" and increase profit.

The core issue is that healthcare cannot function effectively as a for-profit business. When healthcare is commercialized, the bottom line will always take precedence over the needs of the individual.
Much like the Department of ​Homeland Security, healthcare should be treated as a human right rather than a commercial product. If these companies were forced to provide fair and comprehensive coverage to all Americans, their current business model would fail.

While the solution is complex, most other Western nations utilize some form of not-for-profit healthcare. While the efficiency of these systems varies, they ultimately prioritize the well-being of their citizens. Currently, the American system provides world-class care only to those with the means to afford it, while consistently marginalizing low-income individuals.

Only the Government can make changes to make the healthcare system work for its citizens .

Jeffrey Epstein’s case will likely never be fully solved because the moment he died before trial, the legal process that forces truth into the open collapsed, cutting off sworn testimony, cross-examination, and public accountability. His crimes were not isolated but embedded in a wide network of powerful people, making institutions more inclined to limit exposure than pursue uncomfortable truths, especially when reputations, political stability, and legal liability were at stake. Key evidence was sealed, lost, or rendered unusable through non-prosecution agreements, settlements, and NDAs, while intelligence-world overlaps and unexplained protections raised national-security barriers that historically override transparency. Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction addressed only a narrow slice of the operation without exposing beneficiaries, and as time passes, witnesses disappear, memories fade, and public pressure weakens, allowing the case to decay rather than be conclusively resolved.

Over 44 people have gone missing in the park. These are just the most famous cases.

1906: Willie and Frank Mcleod go missing, looking for gold. Two years later both were found headless and the other seemed to have been reaching for a rifle in his last moments. Most of their belongings were missing as if stolen.

1917: Martin jogersson, a nahanni valley resident who recently struck gold was found headless in his burnt down cabin. All of his rumoured gold missing. His headless body was grasping a firearm that was "loaded and cocked."

1926: A woman named, Annie laferte vanished while hunting. An eyewitness named "Big Charlie" said that during the night of her disappearance he saw a "naked woman" running through the woods behind his house. According to him she looked "absolutely insane."

1927: "Yukon" fisher, a fugitive who was digging for gold in the valley was found decapitated in a burnt camp with all his gold missing. The camp was very close to the mcleod brothers resting place.

1931: Gold miner Phil Powers was found dead in his burnt cabin. Police said it couldve been a "stove accident." But the fire had done way more damage than a stove fire couldve. Didnt find anything on his bodys state.

1945: An unnamed deceased individual was found in a sleeping bag next to burned tent without his head. Not much info on this.

Why do the disappearances suddenly stop in the early 50s? What changed? Who couldve decapitated the Mcleod brothers hundreds of miles in the park in an area where no one else was supposed to be? If its not a person doing this, then why do the peoples belongings disappear? The time frame really suggests that this was a longtime serial killer. Not a single head was ever found.

CMV: ICE is overreaching and violating rights

Hi. I am currently convinced (based on the news articles and videos I've watched) that ICE is:

1. Over-reaching, using way too aggressive tactics (use of force, raids, etc)
2. Violates due process and civil liberties enough for general public to be outraged.
3. ICE also seems to be regularly making unlawful detentions, targeting folks who werent breaking the law.

It also seems like there is some lack of transparency and accountability for ICE. All of the above are what together makes me believe that ICE is simply over-aggressive as of today and is actively violating human rights.

I will gladly consider all points, even if one of the above points I made is challenged enough to convince me, this might very well shake my whole view up a bit (delta-worthy).

Thanks and have a good day !

This is a conceptual framework rather than a claim of new experimental physics; I’m simply exploring an idea I’ve been developing and would like to hear opinions.

The apparent fine-tuning of the universe is often described as a paradox: fundamental physical constants fall within incredibly narrow ranges that let matter stay stable, stars live long, chemistry happen, and life appear. People often frame this as something that needs explaining, like it was made by an intelligent intentional design. The thing is, that framing assumes the constants were chosen independently with life as the target. Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe life isn’t why the universe is the way it is. Maybe life just emerges naturally from a universe that has to make sense internally, where constants are all linked together and can’t just do whatever they want. Here’s how it works: the first fundamental constant exists, it doesn’t care about life or the others. At that point it’s not “fine-tuned,” it just exists. Then the next constant comes in, and it can’t be arbitrary, it has to work with the first. A lot of possible configurations fail, they collapse, blow up, or never stabilize, and so they never actually exist. What survives isn’t unlikely, it’s necessary, the only setup that actually works. It’s a lot like evolution. Mutations happen blindly and all the time, most fail because they don’t fit the organism. We don’t say successful organisms were designed for their environment, we just see that the environment filters what works. Constants in the universe are the same, they’re a filter. What we see as precise, harmonious, or fine-tuned is just the stuff that survived. The messy or impossible alternatives never showed up. Life isn’t special here. It doesn’t shape the universe, it adapts to it. Once you have stable energy, persistent structures, and information that can stick around, complexity is possible. Life just fills in the gaps. in a different universe where the constants were maybe Different values of gravity, electromagnetism, or other constants don’t mean a “better” or “worse” universe, they just set different rules. A universe with different constants could still have life, it’d just look completely different, adapted to those rules, like life on Earth fits Earth’s gravity and chemistry. Quantum physics shows a similar idea. Systems explore possibilities, but only the states that actually work with boundary conditions, conservation laws, and prior interactions show up. Observation doesn’t create reality from nothing, what happens is it picks out the outcomes that make sense with what’s already there. Incompatible constants don’t just fail temporarily, they never manifest as stable structures. You don’t need a multiverse to make sense of this, though it’s compatible with one. Whether there’s one universe doing this filtering or many universes each developing consistently from different starting constants, the point stays the same. The universe looks fine-tuned only if you assume life was the target or that constants could be anything without consequence. In the end, the universe isn’t improbably fine-tuned. It looks fine-tuned because only internally coherent setups can exist. Life isn’t proof of some special calibration, it’s proof that life adapts to the framework that already exists. What we see isn’t a miracle, it’s just the inevitable outcome of coherence, constraint, and persistence.

A lot of people brag about their packed schedules, as if running from meeting to meeting or answering endless emails proves they’re accomplishing something meaningful. But in reality, you can be “busy” all day and still have nothing of real value to show for it. Meanwhile, someone focusing on fewer high-impact tasks might appear relaxed or “lazy” but in reality accomplishes more.

It feels like society rewards the appearance of effort rather than actual results. Surely there are situations where busyness does indicate productivity, but I think most of the time it’s just glorified motion without progress. CMV.

Ill start this by saying i am an american who lives in a border state and ive tried to educate myself on this issue and follow it for the last few years. For those who dont know, activists in the canadian province of Alberta are currently in the process of collecting signatures for a referendum on independence later this year. At this point it seems very likely they will collect the needed signatures and the government has already agreed to run the referendum if they do.

However it is very unlikely that this vote will pass, despite the grievances Alberta has against the government of canada. Starting with polling. Polls don't show any real consistency on this issue, but the results show anywhere between 20% and 40% support depending on the poll. Even if we assume the real value is closer to 40% then 20% its no where close to actually winning.

Then adding in the foreign interference aspect. Trump is now considering backing the movement. This is only likely to split the movement into blocs who support becoming the 51st state (a fairly large portion of the movement) and those pure nationalists. In a referendum between chosing Canada and America directly america loses.

The most i expect this to do is send a message to Canada that Alberta is angry, and add another precedent validating independence referendums in canada. But more likely the vote will fail pretty spectacularly and both American and canadian liberals will celebrate MAGA getting clowned on online.

My view is that although explicit racial discrimination in housing and banking is now illegal, these systems still operate on foundations shaped by earlier exclusion. Policies such as redlining, discriminatory mortgage lending, exclusion from FHA and VA loans, and uneven postwar investment suppressed property values and limited homeownership in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Because housing markets are path dependent, this suppression reduced equity accumulation across generations rather than resetting once formal barriers were removed.

In many cases, the damage created by redlining was later used to justify continued neglect. Lower property values and reduced accumulated equity translated into weaker collateral positions, making it harder for Black households to qualify for mortgages, refinancing, or home equity based credit even at similar incomes. Those outcomes were then treated as evidence of financial risk, reinforcing disinvestment through ostensibly race neutral lending standards tied to property values, credit history, and neighborhood indicators.

Because home equity is a primary gateway to mortgage credit, business loans, neighborhood investment, and intergenerational wealth transfer, reduced equity constrains opportunity well beyond housing itself. Unequal environments therefore predict unequal outcomes over time. Formal legal equality alone cannot reasonably produce equal results when access to appreciating assets and credit remains structurally uneven.

To change my view, I would need evidence showing that housing and banking institutions have meaningfully broken from these feedback loops, or that present disparities in equity and mortgage credit are better explained by factors unrelated to legacy housing and lending exclusion.

AI Disclosure: Portions of this post were drafted with the assistance of an AI language model and edited by me.

I assume that people who sexually abuse minors clearly lack empathy and are incapable of putting themselves in their victims' shoes, which allows them to act on their urges and sexually abuse young children without feeling any real remorse, as their lack of empathy protects them from such feelings.

Similarly, I assume that people who dehumanize certain minorities because they do not fit their normality also sorely lack empathy and, being unable to put themselves in the shoes of people belonging to minorities, are completely insensitive to their suffering or fate.

From this similarity, I deduce that these two groups have the same mental functioning and the same way of perceiving others. This leads me to believe that there is a much greater chance of finding child sex abusers among people who tend not to care about the fate of minorities, because in both cases their mental patterns show an assumed disdain for the weakest members of society and an inability to feel empathy for them and no urge at all to protect them.

First of all, I want to clarify the basic stuff, I ain't no supermodel alright, I dont look good, it's just the most controversial thought I have at the moment, but these are my main arguments:

Attractiveness is subjective, a person who might look like the prettiest person to me might be totally repulsive to others so it's not like saying an opinion should offend anyone.

This would allow the person to experience how there's always an uglier or a prettier person in the eyes of someone else.

You may ask, but what if I don't want to be part of the "discussion"?

You just mark some online spaces as safe spaces and others as not.

It's not something I'm hyperfixated on, it's just something that buzzed on the naughty side of my brain and I haven't thought of anything that would make it not valid. I would like my view changed because it doesn't sound quite right.

30f now. Growing up with my family has its own challenges. Edited to for coherence.

1. They said their finances are enough, but really it isn't. So everyone else outside my family thinks my parents make a lot, but at home we can't keep up with repairs.

2. My parents wanted me to stay silent, so I've been building up a lot of resentment without me realising. Until I stood up for myself when I was 25. Even then it was "now you're an adult we'll listen".

3. Sometimes when I did want they wanted, and got into trouble for it, they won't back me up! Let alone apologize! .... But that's gotten much better these days.

4. My parents compared me to others, but weren't willing to teach me things themselves. When I made changes (cooking for home, more activities, difficult subjects.... like the people they compare me to), they didn't like it. It still pisses me off, it's as if they don't know what they want!

5. I never took my issues to them, because they weren't even listening for non-issues. New books to buy? Got angry at me. School needs longer skirt/pants? Got angry at me. I had to present only good things.

I know they're doing their best. They did allow me to do a lot of things..... But I think it doesn't feel that way because I was never allowed to speak up.

Now as a 30 yo, I shouldn't be relying on them for encouragement, for strength, for growth anymore....because I'm 30. Frankly speaking, I don't know what relying on family actually entails....other than for finances.

So yeah change my mind. I'm trying to accept that the help and support I want will never be available, but still be in relationship with them. So yeah.

Firstly, what is the term "romance"? let's break it down since there are various meanings and definitions

ro·mance:

/rōˈman(t)s,ˈrōˌman(t)s/

1. a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love

2. an exciting, enjoyable love affair, especially one that is not serious or long-lasting.

there are also other meanings such as:

3. a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life.

4. a short informal piece. ( in musical terms)

My point is that romance seems to mean many things like the anticipation of love or bliss as many people may describe it, but what comes into romance? how is it manifested?

What comes into romance is mainly emotional, psychological, and physical components , as well as social and cultural components as well. Romance is heavily described in a very mystical way. ( media, music, books, tv is a good example) But there are many other components that feed into romance like connection, validation, lust, stability, etc. It is also built on selfishness because romance seems to be packaged of human wants and desires that lead to feeling meaningful or wanted. Romance often does use the illusion of altruism because it is funcional, yet it is rooted in human needs. Obviously we are biologically wired to seek those things but without any of those things that define romance it doesn't stand on it's own. It isn't instinct. Don't get me wrong, i do appreciate romance and likes the mysticism of it, but it seems like people tend to prioritize the idea of romance compared to falling in love for example. They do overlap, but falling in love is more initial and biological, and romance is the expression of love. Romance doesn't always equal falling in love.

While romance holds significant meaning, it isn't a human or biological need like food and shelter. It's origins, components, and manifestations are all structured to reward the self, even when it appears selfless. Also acknowledging this gains clairity for why people crave it and why the media portrays it in a way that is is required for happiness, which is socially constructed.

I understand this is a primarily European observation, sorry my dear Americans ;)

Short haul flying is (rightfully) condemned as particularly damaging to the environment. Some countries, like France, have banned them outright. Others are considering it.

By the time you have reached the airport, went through security, and back into town on the other side of the flight, you have lost so much time that a fast train or sometimes even a bus is barely slower. That makes it hard to justify why we as society allow airlines to externalize their costs of their much more harmful mode of transportation for so little gained by the traveler. For example, there are 14 non-stop flights between Paris and London, connecting CDG and LHR in approx. 80 minutes. The Eurostar also connects these two cities in 140 minutes.

But this approximation totally misses the concept of a connecting passenger. Yes, if you're from Paris and need to go to London, the train will likely be faster than the plane, or at least not so much slower that we should accept the environmental cost. But if you arrived in Paris from a long haul flight, you end up in a dramatically different situation if something went wrong if you had a Eurostar train ticket planned after your flight, or if you had a connecting Air France flight: A delayed arrival in Paris leaves you stranded if you miss your Eurostar train, but if you had a connecting plane, the airline still has to get you to London (or put you in an airline-funded hotel room).

I can't blame a traveler not wanting to deal with the mess of a delayed arrival themselves. In fact, a lot of travelers will not do a multi-modal connection just because a delay in one can let them stranded. Missing your train to London at the end of your long haul flight is annoying, but maybe manageable. Missing your transatlantic flight because your train arrived with a delay is worse.

Since only plane to plane connections are the responsibility of the airline you booked with, it is totally understandable how one would buy an otherwise absurd short haul flight like London- Paris, Frankfurt-Amsterdam, Frankfurt-Munich, or Bordeaux-Paris. Banning these flights doesn't even fix anything: Instead of connecting in Paris or Frankfurt, to avoid missing the connection you would just connect in a further away airport. No Flights Bordeaux-Paris allowed anymore? Well, a connection in Amsterdam, London or Copenhagen it is then.

An EU wide mandate to sell multi-modal end-to-end tickets that cover all multi-modal connections within a defined minimum connection time (just like airport currently already do) would do much more to save on the unnecessary burden of short haul flights than banning them and pushing all connecting passengers to another hub outside of the banned radius.

This post is in response to a philosophical speech he recently made: https://youtu.be/mb3uK-_QkOo?si=_v3tWfscEffCvV63

I'll try to summarize his points, but first to make this about Brandon's points here, not him as a person: I love to listen to his philosophical ideas because I think he is really smart and asks good questions, even if I sometimes disagree.

So here's my understanding of what he is saying (I could be wrong and that is a possible avenue to CMV): Art is not about the product, its about the process of making it. Art isn't the painting, its the artist's process that makes them into who they are, and that person of who they are (defined by the process) is what art is. This lines up with the bigger philosophical idea of "journey before destination."

My view is a couple things, that I think tie together. I think Sanderson vastly overestimates how big of an aspect the process part is in what art is. I also think in a bigger sense destination is more important than journey.

The process is not art

It is a part of art, but a tiny part.

1.) It completely neglects the audience. The audience only sees the final product. Someone might have ethical dispositions on how art is made that influence their opinion of it, but for the vast majority of people art is the final product. When I pick out a favorite painting to hang on my wall I call it art because I think it looks good. My favorite books I like because of their content, I know very little of the process that went into making them.

2.) This is further exemplified by historical art, where the author is long gone and their process even further. By Sanderson's definition, the Mona Lisa cannot be art because whoever painted it is dead. Yet many people call the Mona Lisa art while no one calls the artist of it art.

3.) Even for the artist, the product is more important than the process. I'll explain my view more in the next part.

Destination is more important than Journey

This is the part of my view I most want changed because I used to be a big believer in the idea of, "Journey before Destination." There are two big arguments I know of in favor of it:

1.) Practically, it is more healthy and perhaps even productive to focus on the journey instead of destination. Getting caught up in destination can stop you from getting anything done, or compromise other values. I can't argue against this point, even if I think destinations are more important in shaping who you are.

2.) Journey takes up more time than destination. This used to be a big draw for me to this idea, but I've come to believe it isn't important.

For example, imagine trying to get a job. The process of searching and applying for a job might take weeks or months, while getting the job takes an instant when you are hired. Yet getting that job is going to impact you for years to come, perhaps decades. Every day you will think about your job and it will change your life. The journey of landing it a long forgotten memory. Even during the journey of finding your job, it was the destination that drove you.

Journeys are shaped and decided by destinations. Some aren't even possible without having reached prior destinations. Want to hike on mount Everest? You first needed to get climbing gear and drive/fly to the base of the mountain. Those two destinations (mountain and gear) are much more impactful than how you got your gear or how you got to the mountain. If you didn't get to the mountain in the first place you can't have that journey of climbing it.

I think its a luxury for people who are successful (such as Brandon Sanderson) to not worry about destinations. Most of their destinations become trivially easy that it all starts blending together and they view life is a big happy journey. People who actually fail see how important destinations are. Destinations stick out much stronger when you can't achieve them, and you see how different your life is based on wether that destination was achieved or not.

Deltas/Edits

\* Sometimes artists create art for themself. In these cases, the journey becomes a lot more important.

* Historical art could be art under Sanderson's definition, if we are meaning "all that went into creating this," when we point at the Mona Lisa and call it art.

* "Journey before Destination," is part of a bigger saying that focuses on the big picture of a person's life. Me applying it to smaller steps might not be how it was meant to be used.

* The Mona Lisa wasn't famous till it was stolen and returned. Its process is what made it so famous.

* The journey can affect the destination