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1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Shithole countries, poisoning our blood, they are rapists and murders, eatingour pets. Yes sure guilty by association. With his own mouth that is.

 

This is still linking opposition to immigration to racism. Simply because racists will oppose immigration from "brown" countries simply because they're "brown" doesn't negate arguments about immigration, especially from countries which are ranked low on human rights indexes. The US already arguably has liberal immigration policies compared to many European countries, such as guaranteed citizenship upon birth.

23 minutes ago, CharonY said:

So now please provide literature (note that in biology the defintion is more narrow for sex as it needs to accomodate all forms of sexual reproduction, not only humans or mammals) that sex and gender are always aligned.

I'm aware that they may not always be aligned, such as in intersex individuals.

However, we can't verify what a person claims their internal gender to be other than their subjective judgment, and, especially when dealing with children who aren't fully-developed in their identity or understandings of the world, their judgment may not be reliable. Especially if their definitions of man are woman aren't based on biological sex.

So how would you assume a person has an internal sense of being human as opposed to another animal, such as a horse? I'll presume that any internal sense a person has of being anything comes from the mind, which biologically is rooted in the brain. And I'm not sure how that could be empirically verified, since biology can only verify things rooted in the physical body, rather than purely psychological things such as one's thoughts or feelings. Though, if a person claims they think or feel they are a certain thing to begin with, it would have to be rooted in some definition of what that thing is, and most definitions of man or woman would therefore fall back on biology.

14 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Please provide the  current scientific definition of sex and gender before proceeding.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sex

either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

Yes, actual issues is where the current GOP most clearly displays its racist and sexist perspective, on everything from women's reproductive rights to mocking the rights of victims of sexual assault to which immigrants pose the greatest menace to America.  It's right out there in plain sight, from the Springfield Ohio comments of Vance, to Trump last August sharing a social media post with footage of dark-skinned people walking in line. The accompanying text said: “If you’re a woman you can either vote for Trump or wait until one of these monsters goes after you or your daughter.”  

If you haven't been following news, the GOP put away their dog whistles and broke out the megaphones.  As with the above, this stuff is public record, not some rhetorical spin from the opposition.  Repubs are outing themselves just fine, no oppo rhetoric needed.

Everyone's welcome to their opinion. I'm not convinced that rhetoric against immigration is necessarily racist. This sounds like a "guilt by association" and an attempt to link the GOP to racist regimes (e.x. Nazi Germany) who may have used similar rhetoric, or the fact that racist groups (e.x. Neo-Nazis) may support Trump due to being enamored with such rhetoric. Regardless, the GOP has minorities and women in positions of power, and I'm not necessarily convinced by the fearmongering that Trump's presidency will pave the way for fascism.

Off the top of my head, here are some arguments:

1. Scientific evidence shows that sex and gender are rooted in genetics. While there are some outdated, "blank slate" theories of mind, these don't seem compatible with modern biology. People may be assigned one sex or the other based on their genitals, however the development of male or female genitals and other physiological differences between male and female is genetic.

2. While it is possible that some individuals are born with a desire to change their sex, meaning it may be related to their biology, this isn't necessarily the case with everyone who wants to do so, and each individual case likely differs.

3. Allowing transgender therapy for minors allows the potential for parents or providers to coax them into it for selfish personal reasons even if they do not need it. (e.x. Such as if providers earn money for prescribing related drugs.)

4. There is evidence showing that symptoms of gender dysphoria can be related to psychological conditions such as autism-spectrum disorders and borderline personality disorder, and that confusion in one's identity is a "normal" part of adolescence, meaning these symptoms can be "grown out" of without the need for non-reversible procedures.

5. There are statistics showing that groups of people are identifying as transgender at rates that exceed the actual statistical occurrences. Some statistics have stated that the actual occurrences of transgender people are less than 1% of the population, while some statistical examples of people identifying as transgender may be higher.

6. Per the above, this implies that people are being influenced by external sources into identifying as transgender, such as media or social media which promotes transgender as an identity. And there is more than enough evidence showing that media can influence people's behavior, especially in an echo chamber-like environment.

7. Some advocates of transgender identity themselves have claimed that transgender is not related to biology or something one is born with, but is essentially just a form of individual expression. As an example, some of these arguments reference the gender schema theory. If so, then this would strongly imply that, while consenting adults can legally do as they please, allowing this type of expression for minors, especially if it involves the use or drugs or surgery is potentially harmful.

---

In summary, I would argue that, if transgender care is available for minors, it should only be allowed if evidence exists that it is due to unusual biological circumstances, meaning it would have to be diagnosed on a case-by-case basis rather than on a blind assumption that everyone who self-identifies as transgender is actually born the way they are.

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Oh, please. Stop with the trolling.

I stand by that. My perception is that there was far too much rhetoric directed against Trump himself, such as rhetoric related to his personal life, and not enough which focused on why his actions while in office were flawed.

As an example, I've seen intelligent criticism of the border wall and how it did not live up to what most people expected, but that was lost in much of the rhetoric, such as rhetoric merely trying to associate the border wall proposal with "racism".

3 hours ago, iNow said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror

Accusation in a mirror (AiM) (also called mirror politics,^[1] mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, or a mirror argument) is a technique often used in the context of hate speech incitement, where one falsely attributes one's own motives and/or intentions to one's adversaries.^[2][3][4] It has been cited, along with dehumanization, as one of the indirect or cloaked forms of incitement to genocide, which has contributed to the commission of genocide, for example in the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the Armenian genocide. By invoking collective self-defense, accusation in a mirror is used to justify genocide, similar to self-defense as a defense for individual homicide.^[4][5][6]

The Office of the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG) defines mirror politics as a "common strategy to create divisions by fabricating events whereby a person accuses others of what he or she does or wants to do", and includes it as a factor in their Analysis Framework on Genocide, when analyzing whether a given situation poses a risk of genocide

I'm assuming you're saying that Trump did the same thing. That's totally possible, but I haven't perceived the same level of incendiary rhetoric leveled against any particular Democratic candidate, especially that which involves fearmongering about fascism. I recall some extreme rhetoric against Hillary, but it was on the outlier side of things (e.x. Alex Jones). To me, it seems like half of America thinks Trump is a fascist, and that this line of rhetoric has been popular in more mainstream media outlets since 2016.

He could be a fascist. I'm not denying that fascist regimes do come into power, but I don't trust the rhetoric and I'll wait until more measurable actions happen before coming to such a conclusion.

2 hours ago, iNow said:

It’s amazing what happens when the world’s richest man owns X/Twitter and instructs their engineers to change the algorithm to prioritize all Trump related posts and content, then has that amplified by vast troll armies from authoritarian nation states and useful idiots across the US. 

If you say so. Regardless, my point stands. I'd argue the Democrats need a candidate who can galvanize followers on social media.

Basically, it's easily-consumable rhetoric to level allegations of racism, sexism, and so on toward your opponents, regardless of whether or not it happens to be the GOP. Which is why I, naturally, don't buy into such simplistic rhetoric and prefer to look at actual issues.

I'd go off on a limb and assume that this is a viable option. There are more than enough good reasons to prevent this from being done to minors on a national level. What adults do when they are old enough to consent to it is less of an issue.

2 hours ago, MigL said:

No.
The lies are the same as 2016 and 2020.
The difference is his opponent; he lost to a befuddled old man in 2020, but managed to beat two competent women in 2016 and 2024.
When is the American population going to lose their fear of a female President ?

Kamala didn't have the popularity on social media that Trump did. Hillary won the popular vote, so I'd use that to argue that America doesn't have a fear of a female president. People simply aren't considering the factors that lead to Trump winning 2 elections.

Honestly, all of the incendiary rhetoric against Trump himself rather than actual issues and policies likely didn't help the Democratic party in the long run.

21 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, but a pure democracy would be a better system...

We don't want a pure democracy. It would be a tyranny of stupidity. Basically, the film Idiocracy. Pure democracy is said to be the worst type of government alongside tyranny. The 2020 capital riot is an example of what "pure democracy" would look like in action. So is the French Reign of Terror.

There seems to be a tendency for people to argue in favor of the popular vote deciding the President coincidentally when it would lead to their preferred party winning the election, and I have a feeling that if the case was the opposite, people would suddenly be less in favor of it.

12 hours ago, Phi for All said:

GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee calls Harris a "DEI vice president", implying she is dumb and relies on her gender and ethnicity to get ahead, despite an absolutely brilliant career in law and politics. Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming described Harris as "intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel", despite the evidence to the contrary. Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin claims "Democrats feel they have to stick with her because of her ethnic background", once again signalling racist judgments. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy described Harris as "totally stupid and dumb", again ignoring her success in both law and politics and targeting her as the GOP version of a typical woman.

Seriously, I'm ashamed for you that you could even ask this question. It's like you have your head... in the sand.

That type of rhetoric is by no means exclusive to one party. Much of the same type of rhetoric was directed towards individuals such as Sarah Palin, for example.

I think it's readily obvious that some people shouldn't have children (e.x. severe cases of child abuse and neglect). Likewise, I think we can agree that society needs some amount of people willing to have children at any given time (e.x. if no one had children, humanity would cease to exist), but obviously that doesn't mean that society needs everyone who is currently having children to be doing so.

Regarding "how many children" society needs people having, this is a tricker question. Theoretically humanity could "survive" even if only a small amount of people were having children (just as how humans existed for most of history as hunter-gatherers, and larger populations presumably didn't come about until the advent of agriculture and civilization). How many would be a "good number" therefore would have to be relative to the resources needed to sustain them and provide them with quality of life, however this matter is rather subjective. Just as how some may argue that children are needed to sustain what currently exists, though in reality not everything that currently exists necessarily needs to be sustained, and some things might be better off not being sustained.

I'm curious what your opinion is on the best ways to prevent domestic violence. My understanding is that most resources dedicated to preventing domestic violence are either legal resources, or private sector resources (e.x. websites which host escape plans, battered women's shelters, and so on, though I'm aware that men can also be victims of domestic violence).

My assumption is that the biggest barrier to preventing domestic violence is if it is an ongoing thing which the victim enables by returning to the abuser. Obviously this would fall outside of the realm of the law, since the law can only arrest the perpetrator once an incident occurs or issue a protective order which can't be enforced if the victim doesn't enforce it. If the victim continuously returns to the abuser and doesn't enforce their rights, then it's a situation which can perpetuate itself outside of the eyes of the law or wider society.

Therefore, I'm curious what changes are possible to make to existing resources for preventing domestic violence, assuming people believe they aren't sufficient, and to what extent domestic violence can realistically be prevented by legal and social resources (e.x. even assuming that everything being done right, there would likely still be instances of domestic violence which are impossible to prevent).

Basically, I believe that if all laws and social institutions disappeared, that people would potentially behave in much more barbaric ways than they do in everyday life. Not necessarily everyone, but many would, and there is ample evidence that "ordinary" people can act in uncivilized ways under specific circumstances.

This is why I don't totally buy into atheist arguments that, unlike theists, they don't do "good out of fear", because the reality is that many secular institutions, such as the laws of one's nation or state, play a role in how they behave, even if they take it for granted. If there was no perceived consequence for murder, people would be more likely to murder than they currently are, whether the social rules against murder come from the law or from the Bible.

This isn't even a line of thought that comes specifically from "religion" as often claimed, and can be sourced to thinkers such as Freud, who posited that the invention of civilization "sublimated" our more primal impulses.

On 10/13/2024 at 1:59 AM, LuckyR said:

Who are these "people"? The vast majority of humans claim to believe in gods that they have spend very little effort analyzing their rationale for existance, instead because they happened to be raised in a household and a local culture that "believed" in said god. It was a given, no thinking required.

Basically, I believe that if all religions disappeared, people would arrive at the conclusion that there is one God. The debate would be over "which one", or rather what the specific characteristics of God are.

Even "belief in science" is essentially appealing to a higher cosmic principle than oneself, and fills the void.

If we're using the Bible as a source, it specifically says this:

¹⁰ For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Timothy 6%3A10&version=KJV

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

What's arbitrary about the "animal" category? Nothing, nothing at all. We fit it perfectly.

Your supernatural beliefs blind you to the obvious classification and its merits. Humans are animals who have evolved an intelligence at the cost of other natural traits like big teeth or fins or wings. We gave up a lot to have this capacity, and many of us prefer to use methodologies that synchronize well with such intelligence rather than primitive, cave culture fear worship. We have unique brains, and we should be filling the gaps in our ignorance with high-quality knowledge rather than guesswork and superstition.

Regardless, people frequently use the categorizations of humans as "animals" and "apes" in a reductive way, to imply that humans are purely materialistic or hedonistic (based on the assumption that animals are purely materialistic, which may not even be the case).

This could be used to argue that animals have a sense of the sacred:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-chimpanzee-behavior-may-be-evidence-of-sacred-rituals/

Even more intriguing than this, maybe we found the first evidence of chimpanzees creating a kind of shrine that could indicate sacred trees. Indigenous West African people have stone collections at “sacred” trees and such man-made stone collections are commonly observed across the world and look eerily similar to what we have discovered here.

15 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Are you OK? Your reasoning seems to be suffering from poor information. 

You seem to suggest that progress should be abandoned. Are you Amish?

I'm not suggesting that, I'm just curious what's stopping technological progress from being used toward destructive ends, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Was being able to travel to the moon worth the invention of nuclear weapons? What checks are there on scientific and technological advancement leading to dangerous scenarios.

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

This is a category error since humans ARE animals… but we’ve already covered this and you’ve already chosen to ignore it. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

Human's aren't animals unless people decide to apply that arbitrary category to them. Having biological similarities to other living things doesn't automatically make the categorization valid.

I'd argue that humans are defined far more by what they create than merely by their biology.

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

Also known as the egocentric / self-serving biases

My arguments stand. We don't believe it's acceptable to murder people. If we believed that humans weren't special in some way that other animals aren't, we would likely have less problem with killing a person than killing a gorilla, since humans aren't an endangered species.

I'd argue, if anything, there is a hierarchy of complexity to nature, and humans happen to be on the top of it. This is why we find it more acceptable to kill a mammal than a human, and more acceptable to kill an insect than a mammal, and so on.

Given that there are multiple groups that call themselves "Satanists", and some of them don't believe in a literal Satan, or engage in practices associated with Satanism (e.x. human or animal sacrifice), can there be said to be one cohesive definition of Satanism.

I'd personally argue that "true" Satanists would be cults or sects that practice human sacrifice, black magic, and so forth (e.x. ONA), and that atheistic sects such as the LaVeyan Church of Satan are "pseudo-Satanists". I've also heard of individuals who promote immoral behaviors (e.x. the Marquis de Sade) described as Satanists, despite being nominally atheist. But since these are just my opinions, and Satanism doesn't seem like a particularly well-recognized form of "religion", it's hard to say.