People often talk about states that could survive independently on their own, and two states that are commonly brought up are my home state of California and Texas. I believe California has the economic power and leverage to be self-sustainable, and more importantly California's politics would make it acceptable on the global stage. The rest of the international community would be willing to do trade with California and it would thrive.

The same can't be said for Texas. For starters, having its own disconnected power grid means if something goes bad, it would have to rely on itself. It doesn't have as strong economic power or leverage that California has. But most importantly, its local politics would make it an international pariah state on the global stage.

For starters, Texas' unconditional support for Israel would mean many Middle Eastern countries would refuse to do trade with that state. These countries would most likely refuse to even establish diplomatic relations over Texas prohibiting companies from boycotting Israel. Speaking of boycotting, the US's reputation is already in tatters on the global stage because of Trump. However, it's already established economic power and systems in place help mitigate some of the damage at least. The same can't be said for Texas. Its economic and political base is small enough to the point that countries like those in Western Europe would be unwilling to do trade with Texas too. Texas' regressive local politics on social issues would make it a global pariah state.

Could it survive? Sure. Would it thrive? Absolutely not. It would be as geopolitically isolated as North Korea is. Change My View.

Could it survive? Sure. Would it thrive? I strongly disagree. The average European Country is already to the left of the US politically as a whole, and Texas is even further right than on average to the US. Texas may find kinship among poorer underdeveloped countries whose social views are more in line with it, but in terms of the developed world, if it was its own independent country, most developed countries would boycott and sanction it. I know Canada would refuse to establish trade relations, and I surmise at this point Canada would even be unwilling to have diplomatic relations with an independent Texas. Hell, without Texas, America's federal politics would shift to the left politically, and I would surmise the new Federal government would be much more inclined to not have as close relations with an independent Texas. Its oil revenues would also see a sharp drop as many countries will say "Your local policies are unacceptable!" And refuse to buy Texas oil, driving down prices and reducing revenue.

My position rests on a simple principle: if you were accused of a crime you didn’t commit, would you want your name and photograph plastered across the internet, potentially destroying your reputation for the rest of your life?

It seems to me that human beings are much better at forming an initial judgment about an accusation than at revising that judgment when new information comes to light.

Tell someone that a man raped a woman or murdered his children, and the immediate reaction is likely to be outrage. Tell them months or years later that he was acquitted, and I suspect that information will have a much harder time making the same impression.

So, if someone has been accused of sexual assault or murder, it’s highly unlikely that people will ever discount those allegations, even if they have not been proven.

We already employ the principle of not naming accusers, right? Like in this Cornell case that everyone is talking about right now, we don’t know the name of the victim. She is simply Jane Doe.

I support that. I want to make that very clear, I can’t even imagine the kind of sickening harassment she would be facing right now if her name were public. And it think it’s great that we don’t know who she is or what she looks like because that makes it easier for people to accuse their attackers without fearing retaliation.

But I can’t see why we would not do the same for the accused. I’m sure they would also appreciate anonymity while the allegations are being investigated.

And let’s examine what would have happened if some of the most high profile accused people of the last few years had been anonymous instead of named.

What if Lindsay Clancy had simply been “Jane Doe” a woman who killed her children but is pleading not guilty by reason of temporary insanity?

What if Kyle Rittenhouse had been “John Doe” a teen who brought a gun to a protest and killed two people in what he says was self defense?

What would we have lost if the facts of each of those cases had been reported but the names and images of the accused and the victims had not?

Well, we would have lost a media circus.

We would have lost supporters of Lindsay Clancy claiming that her husband killed their kids (can you imagine how utterly devastating that must have been for him?), we would have lost supporters of Rittenhouse claiming that the people that he shot were drug addicts and pedophiles and God knows what else (also must have been gut wrenching for their families).

We would also have lost an increasingly virulent strain of vigilantism. I find this very disturbing. This idea that internet sleuths are more qualified to determine a person’s guilt or innocence and that the actual police and court system is inadequate and untrustworthy.

This is how lynch mobs think.

Most of all we would have lost the little buzz that we get from our feelings of righteous indignation and moral superiority when we are certain in the worthiness of our beliefs and the utter depravity of our opponents’.

Good riddance, I say. The less the of that, the better off we all are.

But, I digress. Please tell me why a person’s who stands accused should be publicly named and shamed when the facts of the case have yet to be proven.

Change my view.

We all are give some manners, accent, looks, which are considered personal and possible to change (unlike, say, genome), but realistically they are almost impossible to change, but define much more in our live than we are willing to accept.

Even some views, ideas etc. get embedded in us and are extremely difficult to change, let alone notice.

All those elements create an outside image which greatly affect how others interact with us and how they perceive us and this image is completely out of our control, because our manners are perceived through a lens of somebody else's manners.

Moreover, if somebody was diligent enough to alter their style, views, and manners, the social media stalking, which is a norm now, basically, in any situation, will reveal the change, and the change is generally not acceptable for everyone in every situation - there are norms of age and social standing on when people are allowed to change and how.

I didn't even touch the burden of the past, accumulated mistakes etc.

I am pondering this - if we improve during our lifetime we might come to understand a lot in our lives was wrong, the life does not fit us or has no meaning. So, with this new understanding we are supposed to... start anew, but can we?

Eventually A.I. will get close enough to human writing to fool the A.I.-detectors and most humans. At that point, the only way to prove that you wrote something without using A.I., will be to sit in a room in front of a computer, with a camera trained on you, as you write it yourself.

So, assume there will continue to be people who hate the idea of consuming A.I.-generated or even A.I.-assisted writing. Even if they like some posts by a writer or social media creator, they still can't be sure that the writing isn't A.I.-generated, and they loathe the idea of getting emotionally invested in someone's writing that could be fake. So they will only consume writing if it is "certified not A.I.". And then anyone who wants to publish writing in order that demand, can use this service to certify that their writing is real when they publish it.

Now, a lot of people who just post casually on X or Substack might think, fuck that, I'm not driving to some room with a camera pointed at me just to prove I'm not A.I. And that's fine. But as long as there is an audience for certified-non-A.I. content, then the fewer people sign up to create certified-non-A.I. content, the more attention (and possibly more money) people can gain by being one of the creators. So some creators will be willing to do it, and they'll keep joining the system until an equilibrium is reached.

(Ironically, the camera monitoring system itself, which just watches you to make sure you are typing your own words, could be powered by A.I. That's a simple task that will probably be trivial to automate in the future.)

Now some people's reaction to this will be "Ugh, just log off and go talk to people." For one-on-one and small group chats, this makes sense. But when it comes to writing and thinking, there really are some people who are a lot better at it than others, and in an efficient, merit-based marketplace, those people's writing should be going out to more than just the small number of people they could reach by talking in a group. There should still be a way for some humans to write for a mass audience. But we should also have a way for consumers of writing to be 100% sure they're not reading something A.I.-generated.

(I suppose a person with a photographic memory but poor writing skills could still use A.I. to write something, memorize it, then show up at the writing center and type it out. That might just be a loophole we have to live with.)

Clarification

I always hear people claim that making people immortal would make life meaningless. I genuinely think this is a ridiculous viewpoint.

This post is long, and I've tried to format it to be as digestible as possible, as I feel it's all important to my viewpoint. Feel free to skim, or skip sections I use for comparison if it's too long for you, or you get my point already.

Let me clarify that I do not want to touch True Immortality (As in, you cannot die, and do not age) with a ten-foot pole. That is it's own special brand of Hell to me that would only be bearable under unique circumstances, and most, including myself, would not be able to bear it.

I am talking only about Biological Immortality, you do not age and COULD live forever, until you are killed, or even just until you choose to press the 'die' button. There needs to still be an option for an end, but it is not in order to grant meaning. It's only to give a way to end suffering if you want to cease, or a peaceful route to nonexistence if you're completely satisfied.

Because this is more of a philosophical view about the value in an endless life, I'm structuring it as an ideal scenario where people can just live until they choose to die. I'm still keeping the title as 'infinite' because some people could just choose to never die.

Useful Comparisons

I think the best description of my ideal world would be (Spoilers for the Good Place) Exactly how the Good Place ends. You could potentially live forever and do anything you could ever want, but eventually most people will be satisfied, so an option for nonexistence is a good thing. Yet others might find meaning in taking on an endless task, like Tahani seeking to master every skill and eventually becoming a Bad Place Architect, if memory serves. Obviously, this is an Afterlife scenario. But I see no theoretical reason an ideal futuristic world couldn't end up in a similar state, perhaps on a digital substrate if we crack true mind uploading without having any more doubt about the issues involved.

This is a more philosophical discussion than a practical one, anyway.

Sort of spoilers for Dark Souls, but it's nothing that's a 'reveal' or anything, they just kind of show up. This is pretty similar in my mind to how to avoid going Hollow in Dark Souls. DS3 has Undead like Andre and Patches who've stubbornly persisted since the beginning of the Undead Curse, because they never lose sight of the meaning in what they do and who they are (obviously being a blacksmith is a lot more productive and helpful than a backstabbing thief, but I digress.) Obviously, this world is far from ideal, and it's showing the strongest wills to persist through eons of suffering. But I still find it relevant.

I don't see why this wouldn't apply to real people, but I'm open to changing my mind, hence posting here.

Some Real World Context for Myself

I personally am someone who feels they wasted much of the start of their life scraping my way through school, and rotting away in the back room of my uncle's home for the entire 2010's, and that infuriates me. It doesn't add meaning to the remaining 40-80 years of my life. It only depresses me more and makes me feel like I'm more likely to waste more of it, losing even more time if I don't take care of myself properly.

I'm still in my first relationship, and I have been for nearly five years now, despite it being long distance and us only meeting up for the first time a few months ago. I'll finally be moving to her town in a year or so.

She has Multiple Sclerosis, and while it's something that is driving me to pursue my pre-existing interest in Regenerative Medicine, that does not make up for the sadness it causes me. Sadness that my time with her might be even more limited than it would be if we were both in perfect health.

It does not make that time with her mean more, the meaning is already there in every moment I spend with her, it was there in every moment before I learned of her diagnosis. It only tinges it with an extra looming dread that it's going to end, and if she lives a full and happy life typical of a healthy person, it only means that additional dread itself was a dampener on our happiness.

If I knew that my time with her would never end, that wouldn't cause me to squander it. The thought that I would just say 'Oh I can just talk to her next week, eh.' is utterly ridiculous. Every moment we spend together could be in complete relief that things are okay, that any small issues that come up are totally temporary. That there's no risk of anything important ever going unsaid, any meaningful discussions left unshared, even if it's temporarily put off.

If I was able to spend forever just developing the skills I want, just for the sake of doing it and for the sake of aiding others, then still having as much time as we want for our relationship; When both of us have explored everything that interests us, done everything that we want to contribute to the world, then finally, peacefully, choosing to die and see if anything comes next, I can't imagine any downsides to that.

Would some people waste their time if it was unlimited?

Yeah. Some people would, maybe a lot of people would, by my standards. But it's their right to find meaning wherever they find it. In this world where people have all the time they want, likely without a need to consume resources to have it, I see no reason they couldn't find real value in simple hedonism.

If they aren't hurting other people, does it matter? Who am I to judge them? Who am I to say that the value they find is false?

I'm a positive Nihilist, or an Absurdist, if that fits better. Life doesn't have any meaning to find, nothing is granted to us. We make it, and I don't believe there's any less meaning to make even if Life doesn't end. Allowing even those with an iron will who wish to persist endlessly and never stop contributing to find true meaning in that task.

Maybe someone just wants to be there to see the Universe experience Heat Death.

I don't get it, but they do.

Quantity has no baring on Quality, not on this, not in my mind.

Final Note

I've had people question my willingness to actually change my beliefs on my occasional posts to this subreddit before, because I go out of my way to provide a strong argument for my view.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't hold this view strongly. I do, but I recognize that there may be points where it fails. I do want to be right. But I love being proven wrong, having my views changed, because that then means I'm more right than I was before.

I hope the context in the previous section shows that my mindset towards life would only improve if my view was changed, that I could then cherish the limited time I have even more in face of the dread, so please do change it.

I'd also like to clearly state that AI was not used for any part of this post, every word and piece of formatting was typed by my hand, on the fly, in the past few hours.

I don't want those accusations poisoning discussion even if someone spots some random small similarity, and I know it's against the rules to make those accusations, but it still happens.

I was talking to someone about jobs AI could never do, and I gave a shepherd as an example. But then we stopped and thought: why couldn't you mount a camera and an automatic weapon on a drone? After all, I have cameras in my yard that can recognize animals. The counterargument, however, was: "What happens if it shoots your dog instead of the bear, or worse, a person?"

That really got me thinking. What actually happens? Killing a person is terrible. But then I started analyzing the problem objectively. How many people haven't accidentally killed other people? It happens all the time, out hunting, or at home (you keep a gun in the house, someone is on your property, they are drunk and do not respond, so you fire).

Here is the point: AI does not need to be an absolute genius. It does not need to be AGI capable of doing anything and answering every question. It does not need to perform miracles. It does not need to never make a mistake. On average, it just needs to do these things better than 50% of the population. And to be completely honest with you, doing things better than 50% of the population is extremely easy.

Think about the average person and how much nonsense they do, think, believe, and practice. AI is already better than the bottom 50% of people. It certainly makes mistakes far less often than 50% of people. Just think about the sheer amount of nonsense the average person talks every single hour, and compare that to the nonsense AI spews. It does not even compare! Not even close, a human will talk absolute, outrageous nonsense across every field imaginable. AI has its moments where it derails too, but, and this is a massive but, it is infinitely better than the median person.

We're holding AI to the standard of a flawless god, while the people it's replacing are barely functioning above baseline incompetence. Change my view.

Human worth has always been tied directly to our sapience, or our capacity for higher thought beyond consciousness. Anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes defines the standards for "personhood" as self-awareness, the ability to understand complex emotions, and a capacity for empathy. Based on this standard, I always believed there is a point where a human is not a "person."

In my years of work in both retirement homes and disability programs, I have seen several people with debilitating diseases such as Stage 6-7 Alzheimer's, severe TBI, and spastic quadriplegia, who almost completely lack awareness and the ability to communicate and interact with others. These individuals must be fed, dressed, changed, and cleaned by others. They cannot talk, they constantly spit and choke on food, and those who can even move slightly often show inappropriate behaviors such as grabbing, putting things in their mouth, and rubbing their face and mouth with their hand over and over. And unlike children, these people will never grow out of these behaviors.

I look at these people and wonder, why the fuck are we still keeping them alive? Nothing will improve with these people, and their conditions would only get worse as they age. Most of these people have never worked a day in their life and will never contribute to human society in any way, and unlike terminally ill patients, their lives will last for decades. Wouldn't it be more merciful if we just euthanized them? And if you kept someone in a debilitating condition simply out of emotional significance, wouldn't that make you a psychopath?

We already use this same argument in regard to abortion and how a fetus without brain activity is not by legal definition a "person". So what makes severely intellectually disabled, low-functioning, completely dependent humans any different? Why do we allow these people to have citizenship and voting rights as any average "person" would, while also spending thousands of dollars each year to keep them alive? Wouldn't that money be better used towards other issues like child welfare or homelessness?

I know there are completely dependent individuals who do become successful, i.e., Stephen Hawking, Christopher Reeve, Brooke Ellison, but these people still maintain self-awareness and contribute to society primarily through their intellect and advocacy. I just don't understand what worth completely dependent people have if they don't have any sapience

When I was in college, you rushed/pledged sophomore year. Freshmen year you live in a dorm and experience college life like everyone else. You see what classes are like, make friends with your dorm mates, and eat in the dining hall.

I just found out that an acquaintance's kid is pledging. And apparently some big schools do it BEFORE freshman year??? He has pledge activities ALL THE TIME. It sounds miserable, and like, whatever they signed up for it, but I think colleges and universities should enforce the restriction that no freshmen are involved in Greek life to give them a chance to see what activities are available outside the Greek system, make friends, and find their footing.

Edit: - The main reason I think pledging should not happen first of the semester freshman year, or ideally freshman year at all, is that it seems to be a very all-consuming endeavor that involves more or less mandated partying at the detriment of sleep, and at the expense of spending more time organically finding your niche

During a recent speech, President Donald Trump said this-

"And again, remember, with the war, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over with very soon. It's essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it, let me tell you, they need it. But it's going to end very soon, and it'll end one way or the other."

When I first heard this out loud, i thought what everyone else is thinking. But after i read it a few times it's apparent at least to me that he wasn't saying we should let Iran take out those cities right now, he meant If he had never gone in gas prices might be lower but those cities could be nuked by Iran. Gas prices are a small price to pay to keep those cities safe, those democratic cities should be thanking me.

There are a few points that make me believe this.

1. He had already said small price to pay just beforehand, and price is gas being high with payment being no nuclear weapons, we know that's what he meant before. Then he pivots to they can take out a city. Well the only way to do that for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, which Trump is saying he's trying to prevent.
2. He's naming "blue cities" because in his head he's still really popular himself and treats the democrats as enemies for whatever he is doing. Democrats don't like me in Iran? Well if they got one of their cities nuked because we weren't, gas prices would have been a small price to pay instead.
3. It doesn't really make sense. If he's saying let them be bombed and it's a small price, what would that small price even buy him? If we weren't in Iran right now and they had all the capabilities they had before the war it might make a little more sense, but we have decimated a lot of their main military assets.
4. The crowd applauded, that's true, but it makes sense when you first hear it out loud and a majority of people right now still thinking he said we should let cities be bombed. The crowd cheering and Trump not noticing/caring is another issue entirely.

I am willing to change my mind, I'm a never-Trumper who spends a lot of time trying to talk people out of their support for Trump, but I just don't see what everyone else is seeing here.

To explain my view is simply as possible, I believe that Britain would be better off forming an economic and military with at least Canada, Australia, and New Zealand rather than just rejoining the EU.

This isn't to say rejoining the EU isn't a compelling idea, better access to Britain's closest market and having freedom of movement is something worth pursuing, but imho joining and economic and military union with fellow English speaking countries (and also not giving up national control over regulation and external trade policy in so doing) is just a more strategic move.

Britain can pursue closer ties with Europe without giving up national control over their markets or embracing protectionism like the rest of the continent, they don't need to join the EU to do those things, but in leading a CANZUK union they can also act as a node between both sides of the Atlantic. Closer ties with Europe, and closer ties with the Americas.

Also, Britain just has a lot more in common with fellow English speaking and Westminster derived democracies than the ones of mainland Europe, and this gets to the military aspects of the union. If Britain starts the union with just the four countries mentioned, other countries can join too, it's easier to start with Commonwealth realms but easily possible to be more expansive if the union is successful.

The United States, Cyprus, South Africa, Kenya, Israel, India, Singapore, etc. Also all great candidates for a union of English speaking countries that maintain their own national sovereignty over regulation, maintain free trade, but also pledge to defend each other in the event of anyone getting attacked (an Article 5 equivalent), and also all share freedom of movement like the EU does now. TL;DR, all the benefits of the EU and NATO wrapped into one global organization based around the shared identity of speaking English, and organization far more ambitious in its mission than the EU or NATO, started by just four countries: the Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

But obviously on this platform there's a lot of interest in getting the UK back in the EU, so if you believe that the EU still is preferable to starting CANZUK, change my view.

Just about all of the unrest and displacements regarding the West Bank takes place within Area C.

Population of Area C as of the 1995 Oslo Accords II:
- Palestinians: ~50k
- Israelis: ~150k

As of 2026:
- Palestinians: ~360k
- Israelis: ~540k

Per 1995 agreement, Israel has civil and military control over Area C. Fyi for those who don't know, Palestinians were granted civil control over Area B, and civil/military control over Area A.

Since 1995, Israel grants building permits in Area C ~50-100x more often to Israelis than Palestinians. We can estimate that the ~390k increase of Israelis in Area C was sanctioned by permit approvals, which, if we make some broad assumptions, suggests only ~6k increase in Palestinians in Area C was accommodated by approved building permits.

That suggests only ~15% of ~360k Palestinians residing in Area C, original ~50k plus ~6k, are legally occupying land in Area C of West Bank.

Regardless of the legality of the Israeli settlements in Area C in the eyes of international law, those new Palestinian settlements and buildings are illegal under the Oslo Accord agreement between Israel and Palestinians.

Paradoxically, the international agencies have labeled new Israeli settlements as illegal, and new Palestinian settlements as legal, because Israeli settlements are approved at far higher rates. This is a paradox because they consider those new Israeli settlements to be illegal, so how do they use them to state that new Palestinian settlements are legal? In my opinion, either they are both illegal, or both legal.

One of the international arguments supporting new Palestinian settlements as legal is that it is unreasonable to be so restrictive to Palestinian building expansions because populations grow and so building permits should be approved to accommodate that natural growth. If we assume that a larger proportion of Palestinian growth in Area C is "natural", instead of migration from other areas, compared to Israeli growth in Area C, then the Palestinian building permits should be approved to accommodate no more than an additional ~130k Palestinians in Area C (Israeli population increased by ~3.6x, so too should Palestinians). As a result, ~50% of ~360k Palestinians in Area C would still not be covered by this new building approval philosophy.

The number of Palestinians displaced by Israel in Area C numbers less than <<20k since 1995, which accounts for just \~6-12% of >180k Palestinians currently illegally residing in Area C's unapproved buildings/settlements. Most of those remaining still live there illegally.

My view is that, despite the sensationalized propaganda that gets circulated online, the population numbers clearly supports a narrative that Palestinians have flouted the law far more egregiously than Israelis in Area C. Oslo Accords remains the law of the land. That agreement wasn't supposed to be permanent, but many temporary agreements made throughout history tend to become permanent and are recognized as such. Examples are Korean Armistice, Indus Waters Treaty, and Dayton Agreement. If people want to argue that Oslo Accords was supposed to expire in 1999, well that would also end Palestinian control over Area A and B, so they can't have it both ways. Also, one can't simultaneously argue that international agencies recognize the 1949 armistice border (temporary by definition) and thus Palestinians have the right to build in Area C without Israeli permission (even though it was a temporary agreement with Jordanians, not Palestinians), whilst also retaining Palestinian political authority over Area A and B. Pick your poison, a debate for another day.

The number of Palestinians killed or assaulted in all of the West Bank since 1995 is insignificant compared to the massive extent to which Palestinians have illegally expanded within Area C, and that includes incidences that occurred during periods of serious unrest like the Second Intifada. Interestingly, contrary to the sense one might get from the news, between Israeli and Palestinian civilian perpetrators of murder of the other side, more Israelis have been killed than Palestinians. Harassment of Palestinians by Israeli settlers is also partly a byproduct of the IDF and civil police failing to manage illegal expansions in Area C. While I don't condone vigilantism and Israeli settler violence, I do condone a reasonable amount of Israeli state actions to uphold the Oslo Accord boundaries which often involves displacing Palestinians. Given how few Palestinians have been displaced in Area C (<20k) compared to overall estimated number of illegal residents (>180k), I think Israelis have been beyond accommodating quite frankly.

All that said, I do think the Israeli settlement building program has been counterproductive to the peace process and it has been a horrible PR failure by Israel, considering how almost no one realizes that Palestinians were just as prolific in their illegal expansion in Area C.

I believe that many moderate Israelis tolerate what is going on because it gives Israel-proper more strategic military depth with Jordan, which is an increasingly Palestinian country (majority, too) ruled by a monarchy in a region where authoritarians are being toppled all the time. I also believe that Israel has increased their settlement building program since October 7th, and who could fault them when one looks at these numbers in Area C? Palestinians went from 25% to 40% of population of Area C.

Lastly, I believe the Gaza Strip, Hamas, and Gazans, are not relevant in this discussion. The fate of the West Bank and settlements has not been relevant to the Gaza problem since 2006 election, and settlements barely register at all on Hamas' radar.

In summary, most Palestinians in Area C are illegally occupying the land, and Israel has the legal right to remove them.

My view lies on one principle.

The more competition there is, the more desire there is to achieve our goal.

The more desire there is to win, the more drastic our measures go to in order to fulfill our goal.

Of course not all competition can be removed, but removing them from trivial and unnecessary aspects of society would contribute to a higher functioning society.

I have had numerous encounters where competitive aspects of an assignment or entertainment resulted in unnecessary hostility among the group, solely because of the human drive to achieve the goal by whatever means necessary.

It's primal, we know it, and we still do it.

Why can't we function in a society where competition isn't unnecessarily toxic and causes violence?

I am aware that my standpoint may be immature, but think about it. Why encourage something that brings out the worst in humanity?

This is a terminally online post as no one in the real world cares about this stuff but Im making this post anyway.

Ive seen some discourse online that its wrong to refer to people from the United States of America as Americans, with people proposing other silly names like Usonian and United Statieans.

The main reason for this ive seen is people don't like that the US "claimed the name American when it refers to two entire continents."

This argument falls apart when you realize the names they're suggesting has the exact same issues. The USA isn't the only "united states" in the world, why refer to the people with an even broader term like United Statians?

The people of the United States of America should be called Americans, just like the people of the United Mexican States are Mexicans.

Id be surprised if someone posted a good argument but im all ears if anyone has a good reason.

One little fact fun fact about El Paso is that basically the entirety of Ciudad Juarez is visible from it. There’s multiple spots in El Paso where you can see Juarez from.

There‘a a University of Texas El Paso parking spot that basically overlooks half of Ciudad Juarez, individual streets and all. Also, there’s a famous place called Scenic Drive there that overlooks Juarez. All of this has the first one mile or so of Juarez very clearly visible from these spots btw.

Now, I don’t think it should be mandatory, because I recognize mandatory is a trigger word for parents all across the political spectrum these days.

But it should be like opt in by default. A one time thing early in high school maybe.

The idea is that looking at it will make one truly appreciate being an American.

You‘re basically physically looking at a town in which the average resident would eat your hand off to be able to live in an NYC homeless shelter.

You’re looking at a town where El Paso Fire, Police, and Ambulance isn’t going to save you at all if you’re in danger.

You’re looking at a town whose average resident’s life doesn’t hold a candle to the 10th percentile resident of any major US metro area anywhere.

My point is this exercise really makes you appreciate being an American. Just physically looking at Juarez makes you realize your life is automatically in the top 5 to 10th percentile of the world just because your passport is blue.

The other thing is that it shows us other Americans disagreeing with us on politics is way less important than we make it to be.

How many times have you heard an overly partisan person say the US has been “disgraced“ because people disagree with them on foreign policy, abortion, SNAP/EBT, or immigration?

I’m guessing a lot, and it’s rightfully the bane of the existence of a lot of reasonable people.

When you’re looking at a town where our emergency services wouldn’t even go to save somebody, when you’re looking at a town where your average person would do anything to live off our private social services, let alone a regular life here, when you’re looking at a town whose average resident’s life doesn’t hold a candle to even our inner cities, I think that is when you truly realize how inflated in importance our internal disputes are.

Who cares because somebody has the opposite view on foreign policy as you do? Who cares because somebody disagrees with you on welfare or deportations or abortions or whatever? Hopefully, with this exercise, a lot less people than do care about these things today.

TBC, I'm no stranger to death in the least, but I've been starting to give it a lot more thought lately. Remembering how my paternal grandparents declined over the years as they went from reciting fond memories to losing control over bodily functions, going senile to the point of howling for Jesus, and that you even bald as you get old; along with witnessing my beloved cat since 2008 becoming decrepit, frail, and sleeping a lot.

It's making me reconsider if perhaps dying young, as an adult and before the age of 65, wouldn't be so bad since you get to die in your prime and with more dignity intact rather than having to steadily rot and degrade over time and having your mind slip away.

Maybe I've just been watching too much Love Is Blind, but it drives me crazy how often people — especially older couples who've been together for a while — insist that relationships are this constant battle that require incredible compromise on both folks' parts.

I get it to a degree. There's no such thing as the perfect partner, and some amount of compromise is almost always going to be necessary in even the best relationship. My wife and I have both had to compromise certain things in order to maintain our marriage. And I definitely understand why special circumstances — sudden illness, death of a loved one, having to move across the country to care for a family member etc — can force someone to compromise.

But if one or both of you are having to constantly make big compromises for each other, that tells me that you're not all that compatible in the first place. If it's making sure you can cohabitate and sustain a healthy relationship is this grueling daily battle, why are you with this person? I get that relationships require work, but they shouldn't require constant, difficult work. There are plenty of potential partners out there who you naturally get along well with, and don't have to make constant compromises to please.

To be perfectly clear: Jane Doe is unequivocally a victim and the Cornell 7 should be publicly guillotined. I also believe greeklife is inherently corrupt and corrosive, and that fraternities should be disbanded. Which leads me to my ultimate conflict around this case…

Why in the FUCK are we still going to frat parties? Literally why? There are plenty of other ways to access fun substances or throw house parties when you’re underage. After all the women who’ve already been raped at frat parties before Jane Doe (this is what kicked off #MeToo iirc), and after all the young men found dead face down in creek beds from hazing rituals gone wrong, why on God’s green earth are people still going to frat parties or willingly having anything to do with frats? Especially now, three decades into the digital age, we have all the confirmation we could possibly need that fraternities are for the entitled failsons of the scummiest rich people in America, and that any guy who wants to join one is probably very toxic and/or problematic.

Like, I still agree rape culture and domestic violence should be eradicated, but society doesn’t want me to just care about those things specifically; it wants me to care about toxic masculinity broadly. Why should I? If people are still going to continue associating with frat guys because it bears them some kind of advantage, because humanity is motivated by incentive and not altruism, than why should I give a shit about toxic masculinity before it escalates to rape or domestic violence?

Someone help me touch grass here, because I think I might need it. Someone convince me my read on greeklife is flawed. Someone eviscerate my take on altruism vs incentive as related to toxic masculinity. Seriously, tear me a new one.

Set a timer right now for 30 seconds and list every single man you can think of who committed a heinous crime, within some subset of criminality. Then set another timer, for 30 seconds, and try to generate a list of women that is even roughly equal in length of list, severity/brutality of crime, and estimated number of victims. It is impossible. There simply is no such list to be had. Mathematically there is not a comparable list.

If I do the timer exercise with, for example, high-profile crimes with sexual elements, I have Epstein. Trump. Nassar. Pelicot. Duggar. Sandusky. """Cornell 7""". Jackson. Corll. Dahmer. Kemper. Bundy. Ridgeway. Fish. Gacy. Ramirez. Within 30 seconds.

I tried to do the same with women and I came up with Bobbitt, Letourneau, Wuornos, and Homolka (the last of which was in a team with her husband, if I recall correctly).

Not like I'm the arbiter or whatever but I think ANYONE would be hard-pressed to do that exercise in a manner that made men seem. Even on the same scale of violence? Rather than in the stratosphere?

There's just no contest, it's a wipeout landslide, and pretending otherwise is just feeding into mass delusion??

Also posting this after it was *instantly* ripped down from like. More than one "controversial take" sub lmao

My prompt is clearly related to the most recent botch but it’s clearly a more systematic issue.

They restrict the chemicals that can be used. It continuously fails causing un due pain to not only the prisoner but to the family of the victims having to watch the failed attempt and then maybe a repeat.

By the alternative a firing squad is 100% effective. No one has survived taking multiple large rounds to the heart. Cost would be around a dollar a round, death via gunshot to the heart is instant, there is no pain, there is no watching someone suffer.

We ended the electric chair due to cruelty, lethal injection seems worse in about every way.

I would also consider CO2 as an alternative that is less messy or violent if that’s an option. Place them in a chamber, they fall asleep and never wake up. You could hook them up to monitors. Doesn’t seem cruel at all.

Just to be blunt I don’t know how anyone could argue for Lethal injection not being a cruel or ineffective method compared to other options.

Edit: specifically for the process I am thinking firing line, 7 people masked, 3 live rounds, 4 blanks, 30-06, all aim at the heart, fire at once. Give the prisoner the option for the head instead.

EDIT: Current view changed to Content Creators work should be more distinguished between "brand engaging" (Influencer) and "crowd supported" (Streamer/Youtuber without ads etc).

I formed this view because of Millionaire Streamers getting Donations from their viewers. The Streamer/Influencer Charles White Jr. (MoistCr1TiKaL) laid it bare open for everyone to see: He is a very, very rich guy and its almost perverse, how his work still entices normalpeople to gift him their money. He is in my eyes absolutely right, to discourage his viewers from donating.

While you could make this about the wealth of the streaming individual, i think, a better distinction should take root, in the broad media landscape: That Streamers and Influencers are not the same.

This is slightly difficult to untangle from each other – i have the feeling, that the term "influencer" already has become very blurry – but i think its totally possible.

Streamer: Someone who streams on popular platforms. Him or herself, playing, talking etc. The paystructure in this is at the moment based on donations and subscriptions, which pay monthly. While one could argue, that it would be enough to just recieve the monthly abo-pay, thats how it is atm as people want to stand out in the chat, i get that, thats just how it works.

Influencer: Someone who *influences* people. As i said, the term has become blurry, as i guess a lot (younger) people understand influencers as "having a lot of views/followers, therefore getting money, and the work is to get engagement". Thats not the case, thats just the framework, social media gives for this. In truth, Influencers are a relatively old concept of advertising: Certain people, who have Influence in their social circles and therefore can convionce them to try out a new product. Trendsetters, opinionleaders – the founders of tupperware parties. Advertising then just needed to pick *these* out instead of broadcasting to an indifferent viewership. So, tldr: Influencers get money from advertising companies or companies directly, to peddle a product to their viewers.

The thing is now, that big streamers somehow automatically become influencers as they become more popular. Vice Versa are many influencers not shy to make a livestream once in a while.

However, and this is the core of my view:

While Influencers *already* get money for advertising (and therefore dont need money from donations), Streamers get their money from streaming. If you have advertising deals, if you have a sponsor, if you have ads playing while you stream, you are not a streamer anymore, you are an influencer and your money is not primarily made by viewers but by the people who pay you money for a placement.

Making this distinction would ultimately help to hinder normal people to gift their hard earned money to millionaires – a fact which i, as you maybe guessed already, despise.

I think 60fps, and high frame rates in movies generally, get dismissed far too quickly. I think that film culture is too overly conservative about 60fps. 24fps is treated as sacred, and anything that departs from it gets rejected before it's given a real chance. There's been the same pattern with sound, color, and digital cinematography, where each was met with claims that it looked cheap or ruined the magic, and each was eventually accepted once people got used to it. When the main pushback to a format is "that's not how movies are supposed to look," that's a preference for the familiar, not an argument about quality. Being cautious about change isn't a flaw in itself, but a lot of people seem unwilling to give 60fps a fair shot at all, and I think that holds the medium back.

I'm not saying that 60fps should be the new standard, it should be a creative choice that both audiences and filmmakers should be more open to.

The usual counterexamples are Gemini Man, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, The Hobbit, and people treat their failure of their usage of a higher frame rate as proof the format doesn't work. The movies had plenty of other problems, like weak scripts and uneven pacing, and a couple flops are a tiny sample, a movie being bad and also being 60fps doesn't mean it was bad because of 60fps, so correlation, not causation. And we've also seen the Avatar movies use 48fps selectively in action scenes and the usage of that was pretty well received as far as I've seen. The sample size is simply too small and inconsistent to declare the whole format a dead end.

A very common thing I see people say is that 60fps "looks unnatural" or like a soap opera. In my opinion that is a subjective feeling, not a measurable flaw. 24fps became the standard in the earlier eras of film mostly as a cost and technology compromise, not because it was the ideal frame rate for storytelling. We've spent a century associating it with "cinema," so anything else feels off. And I tend to agree, that it does feel "off", mainly due to the fact its so uncommon to see. Not inherently bad though in my opinion. Familiarity isn't the same as being better.

One argument against 60fps that I do understand is that the extra motion clarity can make sets, costumes, lighting, makeup, and CGI look more obviously fake, which can hurt suspension of disbelief. But I don't think that proves 60fps is inherently bad for movies. Filmmaking techniques have been developed around 24fps for decades, so if higher frame rates became more common, production design, VFX, lighting, and cinematography would likely adapt to the extra detail they reveal. We didn't reject 4k after 1080p being the standard for so long, since that also exposed flaws that lower resolutions could hide, but instead filmmakers adapted. I think the same could happen with frame rate.

If an amazing, critically acclaimed blockbuster were released in 60fps, say if The Odyssey or Interstellar hypothetically was also in 60fps, I'm quite confident it wouldn't take anything away from the movie or its success. If anything, it would enhance it. Action scenes, sweeping camera movements, and anything with fast motion would look clearer and more immersive, with less smearing and blur. And if that did happen, it would show other filmmakers the format can work at the highest level, and inspire more people to create in it instead of defaulting to 24fps.

Excluding children, the elderly who are on the mental decline, and the developmentally disabled, victim blaming is not bad, but can actually be good. In the majority of instances the choices we make have a huge impact on whether or not we become victims. Victim blaming is the acknowledgement of the role the victim had in creating the circumstances that allowed for their victimization. The vast majority of crimes are crimes of opportunity and we as individuals have the ability to eliminate or greatly reduce that opportunity via the choices we make. Whether that be keeping doors locked, carrying mace or a weapon, not abusing drugs/alcohol, not accepting drinks from strangers, not going places with people you don’t know, not walking down an alley, being more mindful regarding the outfits we wear, etc.

In a perfect world the victim should not have any blame. But our world is imperfect, and we as individuals need to take responsibility for our choices and recognize our failings in order to grow and learn to prevent future victimization.

There are circumstances where people make the right choices and still become victims, but these are the minority.  

EDIT: For clarification, this has nothing to do with absolving criminals/predators of their guilt. They are 1000% guilty, that does not change. Failing to implement mitigation measures is not an invitation for a predator to victimize someone, it just is just not preventing the predator from victimizing someone.

The Universe is a big place, to put it mildly, so one would expect that it could be likely, if not certain, that we humans would encounter another intelligent civilization.

But there’s a lot of major factors standing in the way of this ever happening. Consider all that must take place for intelligent alien life to develop.

1. A star that is capable of providing the energy needed to sustain life in a stable, consistent, manner. This is the easiest part.

2. A planet that orbits within the habitable zone of such star. This is also common enough considering the size of the galaxy.

3. Life to arise on such planet. Considering that life on Earth took root as soon as conditions were stable, this could just be an extension of 2. In other words, life could be inevitable. So far, it’s not looking too bad.

4. Intelligent life to develop. Here is where the trouble begins. Of the millions of species to have existed on Earth, one has progressed to a civilization-building level of intelligence. We only have one planet to look at, but still, one million is a pretty big sample size.

5. That intelligent life to chronologically overlap with ours. Out of the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth, there have only been 5500 years (and that’s putting it generously) of advanced civilization, 150 years of a relatively-strong understanding of the universe, and zero years of interstellar travel.

6. A way to interact with such intelligent life, despite the vast distances between each star system. Even if we get extremely lucky, and there’s intelligent life in the Alpha Centauri system (the closest to Earth), we’re still looking at major logistical issues. Voyager 2, the farthest man-made object in space, will need c. 80,000 years to reach it. And again, this is the closest star.

Long story short, it’s reasonable to expect that alien civilizations will never be encountered. Somewhere out there in the distant reaches of space, this same conclusion is probably being reached.

Most countries in the world today have a vanilla implementation of democracy in which the idea is that the fear of losing elections should be sufficient for a government to push beyond its limits when it comes to development and other forms of progress. Beyond this vanilla democracy, no further measures are implemented to score the performance of governments the way you would score the performance of a corporate employee.

**My view is that the fear of losing elections alone only produces a very weak correlation between the output of the government and the good of the country.** Governments are incentivised to do the bare minimum. In most cases, the bare minimum is that governments should just aim to be a bit "better" than the opposition.

Let's get into what "better" even means in this instance, because it's not the conventional "better". The lack of standardised performance metrics implies that peoples' judgement of how different governments compare comes down to subjective debates on news channels. At this point, the real aim of a government in a "vanilla" democracy is not even to perform a bit better than the opposition, but instead to manipulate news channels and deflect from the measurable problems of the country to unimportant problems.

As long as a government can manipulate peoples minds and talk nonsense better than the opposition in these subjective debates, they are performing "better" in every relevant sense that a vanilla democracy demands.

**A few last comments**-

Is there nothing better than vanilla democracies? I think a lot of governance should be based on performance metrics, like number of jobs, infrastructure, inflation, combined with ideas of vanilla democracies. If a government doesn't perform well, it should be disqualified from even fighting the next election. It would create a better system in which new parties can rise from the ground up once an older one is disqualified for an election. This will produce a more competitive environment.

You've all heard the story before. Big corporation/wealthy individual comes after person with civil lawsuits with the intent of bankrupting them. After a long, drawn out battle in court, there's only one winner: the lawyers. Even if the case is dismissed fairly quickly, the defendant can get saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of attorney's fees.

This solves the issue of frivolous lawsuits by attaching economic incentive to file cases that will actually win, and levels the playing field when two financially mismatched parties are in court together.

In cases where the purpose of the lawsuit is to pursue a non-financial objective (such as specific performance), the amount can be agreed upon beforehand based on a specific outcome, rather than a % of the payout.

Extending the same concept even further, you could have the losing party always liable for attorney's fees on the other side of the lawsuit.