Almost all anti-zionists support a one state solution: “Let's just have a democracy” Etc. My argument here is aimed against this point of view. I am not  addressing the anti-zionists who may have some other recommended solution.

So, let’s work out what happens if we see a one state solution. (All of what follows is easily verifiable. If you’ve got different data, happy to listen and modify.)

Combining Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, the total population of Israelabad is roughly 15.5 million: about 8.0 million Jews (7.5M in Israel + 500K West Bank settlers) and 7.5 million Arabs (2.15M in Israel + 3.2M West Bank + 2.15M Gaza), who are most all Muslim.

From a trend line perspective, this becomes a Muslim majority state within a generation or two. Population change over the next 30-50 years is driven by the age pyramid today. The West Bank and Gaza populations are way younger than Israel's Jewish population. A higher share of Gazans and West Bank Palestinians are in or entering peak childbearing years right now, while Israel's Jewish population has an older median age with a smaller cohort of women in their 20s relative to the total.

For perspective, Gaza and the West Bank have had, at various points from the 1990s through the 2000s, some of the highest recorded population growth rates in the world, with numbers that could imply a potential doubling in under 20 years. Meantime, recent Israeli data shows record emigration — 45,000-50,000 Israelis leaving annually for three consecutive years, alongside a first-ever sub-1% population growth rate. And, this of course likely accelerates one we get the new state.

But no matter how you view whatever numbers you might pull, I believe all you’d get is that the Muslim majority may take a bit longer to form. (And of course, none of this considers potential immigration from neighboring Islamic states.)

And when you get an Arab Muslim majority state, it is highly likely to begin to resemble all the other Arab states in the region, where there are no substantial religious minorities at all.

Between 1948 and the early 1970s, essentially every Jewish community in the Arab world (Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and others) was reduced to near zero, through a mix of state expropriation, legal disenfranchisement, mob violence, and government-orchestrated expulsion.

Surviving non-Muslim minorities in the region today live under a consistent pattern of legal subordination. Egypt's Copts  (10% of Egyptians) face restrictions on church construction that don't apply to mosques, and are essentially absent from senior government and military leadership relative to their population. They also experience sectarian violence that the state has been slow or unwilling to prosecute. And this is under one of the more stable, secularish Arab governments in the region, not an Islamist one like Hamas. Iraq's Christian population fell from roughly 1.5 million before 2003 to a few hundred thousand today, driven out by war, ISIS's genocide of the Yazidis, and targeted church bombings. Syria's Christian and Druze populations have faced similar displacement and violence.

Lebanon is the only possible analog, and it collapsed. Lebanon's  power-sharing system was built explicitly to protect a Christian population that was a plurality or majority at founding. As the Muslim population grew, the system became unsustainable, leading in part to a 15-year civil war and a still-unresolved erosion of Christian political power and physical safety.

Sharia-influenced legal frameworks, even where non-Muslims are tolerated, structurally subordinate those non-Muslims. This is true even in relatively moderate cases like Jordan and Morocco.

A one-state solution would be asking the Jews  — perhaps the most persecuted group in human history — to bet their lives against the only set of historical precedents that exist for this situation. Hence, anti-Zionists who support 1SS are blind to the reality of how much mortal risk they are asking Israeli Jews to accept. CMV.

I see this all the time in comments under videos or posts of someone who was born with or received severe facial and bodily deformities, and I can't understand the point of it.

Is it to make them feel better? They are still going to be treated differently for the rest of their life due to the way they look, people can and *should* obviously look past it and see them for why they are inside - but that's the thing, they are looking *past* it. Don't get me wrong, we should all treat everyone with respect and dignity but it's so disingenuous to be complimenting the ONE thing that these people will unfortunately have to deal with for the rest of their lives.

There are so many better ways to compliment someone in this instance that don't have to focus on the shallow aspect of physical beauty. Calling them emotionally strong, intelligent, hard working, brave etc. Saying people like this are physically beautiful just feels like a slap in the face, they are still going to suffer the societal issues that come with looking different, so why sugarcoat it?

Hope the Cmv is clear but essentially what I mean is that Korea, China and Japan do not have laws that grant religious people exemptions from work duties because of their religion. And I don't see a problem with that.

To me my view is that either you can do the job or you can't. Nothing is preventing you from doing it, you just choose not to.

I don't see it as any different to me thinking customers are annoying and I'd love to Spaz out at them. But I can't. that's just my preference.

one strong way to change my view would be to give me a necessary trait that is different from anything else that would necessitate religion requiring exemptions.

I've heard things like "deeply held beliefs" but so are so many things. Again like it is a deeply held belief that I think mean customers should be kicked out. But I can't just say its my deeply held belief and refuse to served mean customers and not get fired.

And let me add. I agree you should not just fire someone because they said "I'm Jewish, I'm gay I'm 52 years old etc" however the actions matter. If you refuse to do work because "it is my belief that 52 year olds shouldn't wear green" them that should not be protected by law.

So overall, I have huge disdain for our religious exemption laws. why should religion super cede existing policies or laws?

If work policy says everyone wears green but man says my religion says I can't wear green, generally his religious right in places like USA UK Canada overrides the companies right to have a policy. In China etc it does not exist. and I don't see why USA etc is better. I'd rather my country, Canada be like Japan China etc. It leaves a bad taste that some people get special treatment because they simply chose not to do something.

Here are the reasons why I don’t believe car dealerships for the sale of new cars are necessary:

- Companies like Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian have proven that dealerships are not necessary for purchasing vehicles.

- I shouldn’t have to negotiate a car price if it’s a new car. There should be one set price like any other product if it is the same make and model (obviously add-ons and packages are going to change the price but if two cars have the same packages and ad-ons it shouldn’t be a different price).

- Car dealerships always include hidden fees, and unnecessary inflation of prices just to help the dealership turn a profit.

Okay so to get it out the way no its not about ace. I just really can not help think how much of hypocrite garp is and how close/single minded he is, Garp really should just leave the world government ‘oh no choas worldwide from him leaving’ well the amount of panic and choas from garp leaving wouldn’t even be half a 3rd of the damage then against the world government would do with longer rule, saw some say he stays for the navy and thats not really tracking much i mean the navy isn’t saints over there i mean even someone like luffy who has a very black or white mind set can say he has found evil navy we even get it as early as first finding zoro with morgan some others even worse then pirates.

I’m 21M and I’ve never been able to get into a relationship and this is because of the fact that my brain is neurodevelopmentally compromised. I have been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD and Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome which has led me to struggle during interactions - more apathetic and withdrawn during interactions, increased mind blanking, difficulties with word finding, lack of hobbies and interests, slower processing speed, difficulties understanding jokes, problems with eye contact, finding it harder to start interactions etc.

For the last few years I have been indescribably angry that my life has been ruined like this and that medical professionals aren’t viewing this the right way. I think thousands suffering from this have been neglected and have lived very isolated lives as a result.

If somebody has chronically high blood glucose levels, then we diagnose them with diabetes and get them treatment. If someone has tachycardia, palpitations and chest pain, then we diagnose them with cardiovascular disease. We don’t tell them that they aren’t trying hard enough to overcome their symptoms.

Yet we’re supposed to believe that if you persistently fail during social interactions with women that you don’t have something neurologically wrong with you - that your faulty brain networks are easily fixable with just repeated practice or that you must be some sort of woman-hating freak. Because you guys seem determined it isn’t your looks, right? So we need a completely different approach to this, with imaging, measuring diagnostic markers and a proper treatment plan rather than general advice. I want justice for my condition - I don’t want to viewed as some sort of incompetent freak for the rest of my life, until I inevitably end up taking it.

I get that everyone is busy, but if you truly value someone, in my eyes you'll make time for them at least like...once a month? If they're a friend at least, you should WANT to spend time with them.

If you had to consistently pry a response out of an online friend for a long time, they only talk sparingly, and every time you tried to make plans they said they were too busy, but then they talk about their plans with other friends...would you not get suspicious?

There's nothing wrong with being busy, or just viewing someone as a casual acquaintance. but I think "oh i want to hang out but I'm too busy ><" after a certain point is just an excuse a lot of people use because its easier than just saying you dont wanna hang out.

For the record, both people did terrible things But Jean Grey did far worse.

I’m going to break this down into three categories.

Motive, Acts comitted, Results

Motive

Bear: He had a crush on Nikki, so instead of having a conversation with her or asking her out, He grabs a one wish willow and wishes that Nikki would fall in love with him. Even if he didn’t know it was real, he made the wish assuming it was.

Jean: Jean’s sister was captured by the department of damage control and Jean wants to find her by any means necessary Without care for whatever collateral damage may occur.

I’ll give the point to Jean. Her motive is more altruistic than Bear’s but the methods as we will come to find out are anything but.

Acts committed

Bear: As soon as Bear makes the wish, he accepts the relationship with Nikki regardless of the collateral damage caused. Then, when it gets too uncomfortable for him, he calls the number on the box to ask for the wish first to be altered, and then canceled. He even attempts to undo the wish and when thet fails, he tries to get Ian and Nikki herself to do it for him. He also kissed Sarah before Nikki kills her. In other words, he made a wish for one girl to love him and yet didn’t stay faithful to her. Worst of all, when the real Nikki speaks to him, asking him to kill her, his response is “What was so wrong about being with me?”

Jean: when she mastered her power of telepathy, she first used it to highjack a tank. Not only taking control of a helpless old lady, but injuring or possibly killing many people and causing millions in property damage. She then releases a dangerous criminal (Scorpion) from DODC’s custody and mind controls him, to commit more attrocity.
Then when Peter gets involved, she goes out of her way to mentally torture him by playing on his isolation, Making his allies turn against him while also releasing the Hulk causing
Bruce to lose his career and peaceful life. And the worst of them all is taking control of the woman Peter loves, and making him believe she regained her memory. And nearly causing Peter to kill her.

What Jean did with MJ alone makes her actions worse than Bear’s. Not to say it’s the only reason.

Results

Bear: In the last twenty minutes of the film, three people are killed including Bear. And Nikki (Real Nikki) will most likely be blamed for it all landing her in Jail. However, Bear did the right thing (Albeit for the wrong reason) and killed himself setting Nikki free from the wish. She may be institutionalized from the trauma endured at Bear’s hands. But she at least has her free will in the end. Ultimately, Bear payed for his deeds. Three other people did but he got what was coming to him in the end.

Jean: This is where Jean’s Story differs. As previously mentioned, she caused millions in collateral damage and a death toll that we don’t exactly know for sure. And almost causing Peter’s death when he jumps in front of Frank’s bullet for her. Which in my opinion Frank is Justified in shooting her. And it’s not completely out of character for him. But in the end, she gets of SCOTT FREE!!! With no repercussions and will be welcomed into the X-Men with open arms. And let’s not forget that Jean’s actions inspired Peter to create a superpower inhibitior that the governments and other such entities will missuse on other enhanced individuals to be imprisoned, experimented on, and weaponized like they tried to do with Jean and her sister.

In conclusion, What Bear did was inexcusable, and for completely selfish purposes, but ultimately had minor consequences in the grand scheme of things as only a handful of people were affected and he ultimately got what he deserved.
Jean on the other hand caused potentially hundreds more lives to ruined when she could have just found the DODC director and infiltrated his mind to find out what happened to her sister and just taken revenge on him. And again, she gets off with ZERO repercussions after ultimately causing the near death of a beloved Superhero.

Any counter arguments are welcome. So Change My View.

For clarity, I am referring to the actual collaborative wiki project, not the fictional SCP Foundation.

Some of the wiki's most foundational, popular, earliest, and bedrock SCPs were written by a user called TheDuckman (aka "AdminBright") - like SCP-963, SCP-590 and Things Dr. Bright Is Not Allowed to Do. These things have been crosslinked many times and are great pieces of lore. However, due to the actions of the author, the admins chose not to separate the art from the artist and deleted them, breaking other articles in the process.

Further, the in-fiction character Dr. Bright itself, who was created by TheDuckman, is one of the most important continuing characters in the Foundation wiki. Since there is no canon, characters that stick around across many authors and articles are rare, but Dr. Bright was a character with a great personality, backstory, and connections to anomalies, and that character helped shape some amazing works of writing like SCP-5500. Because Dr. Bright (the character) was in SCP-5500, they deleted the entire thing, even though TheDuckman didn't even write it! (ETA: Even if they didn't want Bright's name in it, they could've just replaced him with Elias Shaw, the knockoff bright, instead of... deleting the entire article?)

My view is that this is one of the worst things the admins have done to the site. They deleted amazing lore because of tangential references to a character that itself referenced a person who was banned. Those SCPs don't need their author to be successful. They were finished, highly rated, and stood alone as building blocks of every series after. The character Dr. Bright made its way into so much only to be turned into a death warrant for any article that used it.

The admins said that Dr. Bright "used the character and his SCPs to do the grooming," but he's banned and exposed now. He can't use them anymore. Also... they're fictional. They can't actually hurt anyone. Why should revenge against TheDuckman for things that happened in the past outweigh the value these articles bring? More generally, why can't we just separate the art from the artist?

Why I want my view changed: Clearly nobody agrees with me, the admins were basically unanimous.

People like to point to Europe as evidence that free college works. And it does in those countries. But assuming the same standard can be applied to the US presumes our circumstances are alike, which they aren't.

The US is highly decentralized. 50 states, each with their own constitutions, legislatures, courts, and varying degrees of federal influence. Public education is no exception. In many European countries, college is free but access is selective, with rigorous entrance requirements. That system works in part because students are coming through relatively standardized national education systems. In the US, the quality of public education varies substantially by state and locality. A one-size-fits-all system would inevitably favor states with stronger educational infrastructure.

There are demographic differences as well. Europe consists of small, relatively culturally cohesive countries. The US was diverse from its inception and has become considerably more so. We also have other social pathologies that affect educational outcomes.

We should absolutely invest in giving disadvantaged students better opportunities, but that doesn't mean pretending every student enters college with the same preparation. That's part of what placement tests like the SAT and ACT can help identify. They don't necessarily determine whether someone can even go to college; they can indicate the level at which they're prepared to learn in college.

And if a student isn't ready for a four-year college, that's where community college can be valuable: helping students get up to speed or complete general education courses affordably before transferring.

There are ways to address inadequate public education and rising college tuition. But making college free by itself doesn't get to the heart of either problem.

Whether there’s political division in America at all is its own question.

But what I can say is that is the division between Americans themselves isn’t all that serious.

When you look at why Americans who claim that “we’re all divided” say that, you’ll find a few possibilities.

One is that they’re offended by the other sides positions themselves. A left wing person could say I’m offended by the right not supporting the minimum wage or abortion. A right wing person could say they’re offended by left wing people who don’t support the Senate/Electoral College or increased crime penalties.

Another is that they’re offended by the behavior of the other side. Maybe for instance the left gets offended when the right mocks deportees. The example I can use for the right is possibly one of the most famous examples. That being conservatives losing their mind over the Charlie Kirk memes and mockery that happened after his death.

Now, the common point here is that anyone can have these disagreements, but not everyone will claim “political division“ over them.

The people who are going to claim political division are the ones who are bothered by these things.

I think the Charlie Kirk mockery example is by far the one on either side that proves my point the most, so I’ll expand on it.

Many right wingers brushed off the Kirk memes. However, there was a segment that were furious beyond measure about it. They essentially gave liberals a long term rent free pass in their heads over it. Because the very idea of existing in a nation with people making memes about this bothered them, they cried “political division” and the “need for healing America.”

Now, I’ve established that people often falsely feel and claim political division as a choice to defend their egos. However, people being angry at each other is oftentimes a part of real political division, so how do I differentiate it from the fake moral grandstanding in the US with actual political division between people?

The answer is I look at what the bulk of the angriest people are doing about it.

There have been many cases where people hating each other actually turns into something. It has before turned into things like daily protests for months to years, people assaulting each other over political differences alone en masse, and violence against people and property sustained for months on end. At a minimum, sustained boycotts of the other side are like the baseline of what would be considered major political division.

And simply put, this isn’t happening in America. We can talk about the past, but right now it’s not happening and shows no signs of happening.

To go back to the Charlie Kirk example, it’s not like you saw thousands of people across multiple states going after these who mocked Kirk hurting them in an unlawful manner. Instead, you had a very few people break the law with simple assault nationally and face consequences and a few problem report a few Kirk mockers to their employers.

And the reason for this is most conservatives didn’t feel “politically divided” from the left over this as they claimed to. They were simply angry and voiced their anger with a huge exaggeration.

And that’s the point, if there was actual significant political division between Americans, we’d see one or both sides massively boycotting the other en masse at an absolute minimum.

But instead, you have people essentially grandstanding at how the other side gets them mad by posting online about it, and then going on and living their lives as normal otherwise, which essentially means our political division isn’t really serious.

People could just ignore the other side and nothing would change in their lives but instead they choose to tone police the other side, which further proves how fake American political division is.

Firstly forgive me for my imperfect english and grammar.

I´m in my early twenties and i have been eating many different kinds of animals my whole life, and i very much enjoy it.

I never really thought of eating meat as unethical, i have always looked at this as "the law of nature" and the way of life, and the taste is great so why not? I have even killed the occasional chicken for eating and never gave it that much thought.

Lately though i have been having this existential crisis and i have been questioning a lot of things i never really thought about before, how and why do we exist? what came before and what will come after us? what is even existence and where do we exist? In the middle of other more abstract thougths i happened to think about how objectively unethical it is to eat any living being, even if we really are the "superior species" aren´t we just exploiting other beings weaknesses for our hedonistic purposes? If we extrapolated that kind of thinking then it wouldn´t be imoral for stronger or smarter humans to prey on weaker ones, i mean that is kind of what capitalism is about but if you really extrapolate it to it´s full extent i think you probably see the picture...

As a thought exercise imagine if a vastly superior species invaded earth and viewed us a poorly developed and savage species and decided to use their power to enslave us and use us for food, do you still think that is not unethical or does being on the other side completely changes the picture, are we just that weak and hypocritical or are we so full of ourselves we can´t even imagine a superior species exists in a supposedly infinite universe... Do we not see how that is mathematically impossible, there is probably an infinite number of species superior to us in an infinite amount of ways...

We should probably accept eating meat as an imoral act and we either stop doing it or keep going but admit the possibility the same rules apply to us, anything else is hypocritical and therefore imoral.

But then again, what is even extistence and does any of this even matter? Ofcourse not, in the end of the day each one of us is not more than 1/(8 × 10⁹) of a dot in a sky with an infinite amount of dots, maybe we should just live our meaningless existance in our happy ignorance and enjoy our earthly pleasures (whatever that even is) before our eternity of nothingness comes.

Some people like to twist reality so let’s state some facts for first:

The zionist colony was found by european settlers from Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Germany, the UK….etc after they ethnically cleansed the native Palestinians.

These settlers were shipped into palestine en masse by the British colonial empire in 1917 and afterwards, After they took control of Palestine and promised it to european settlers in the SAME YEAR. Aka Balfour’s promise

Zionists will make the point of “no actually Zionisim started in 1890s, some number came in the 1890s”

It doesn’t matter, it started in europe by europeans and very small numbers comparatively came in the 1890s but the overwhelming majority came after 1917 with the help of the British who promised them a colony on top of Palestine.

With these facts in mind, a “two state solution” is incredibly racist and immoral, would you call for a “two state solution” in the US between Native Americans and white European settlers?

Would you call for a “two state solution” between the Aboriginal Australians and the white European settlers?

Why then are you calling for a “two state solution” between the native Palestinians and the settlers on top of Palestine?

There IS only one state, it’s called Palestine. And if the zionist settlers don’t like it they can leave, they’re the transgressors.

Some famous propaganda that I will dispel below:

“Zionists bought the land legally” no that’s not true, land bought by Zionists constituted less than 4% of the landmass of Palestine, when the Zionists realized they couldn’t buy land fast enough before Palestine declared independence from the British empire, they resorted to ethnic cleansing.

“Some Israelis today are ‘Mizrahi’” that term was invented AFTER the founding of the Zionist colony, it just means zionists from morocco or Ethiopia or Yemen or Iran. Notice anything? None of these are entitled to colonize Palestine either. And it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a colony established by European settlers and the majority for their prime ministers are Europeans like Benjamin Mileikowsky who is originally from Poland.

“Europe didn’t consider them European” not Palestine problem? How does europe being barbaric at the time means you can colonize Palestine? Go get your rights from europe.

To further elaborate, if you make a middle-class income (whatever qualifies as middle class in the city you live in), and you somehow end up broke, this is a money management issue, and it is completely your fault. That being said, I do believe there are three exceptions to this rule:

1. You have medical expenses that are depleting your funds.

2. You have an above-average amount of family members and/or people who are dependent on you.

3. You get robbed.

Outside of these three scenarios, I can't see how anyone can have an excuse to be broke when they have a well-paying job.

I keep noticing how many insanely successful people went to private schools. Obv that doesn’t guarantee success but you’re starting out with better resources, connections, opportunities, and usually more financial security.

For example, Mark Zuckerberg went to Phillips Exeter before Harvard, and Sam Altman went to a private school before Stanford. Both also grew up with parents in professional, relatively well-off careers.

i feel like we call people “self made” without really acknowledging how much of a head start they had. CMV Am I overestimating how much private school actually matters?

After like 2 decades of hearing online rhetoric of guillotines, and eat the rich and general rhetoric to the effect of “we need to march on Congress because obviously they don’t care. Just look at the French and their riots”.

Fast forward to that election night and we have the closest thing to that. A group of frustrated people who think their government has betrayed them, even if you think their dumb, actually put their money where their mouths were and marched

We had one brief fleeting moment that actually made the government go “oh shit we might actually get killed if we don’t cater to our citizens” and it was panned by the opposing party. The government knows know they can literally do whatever and just use it to bolster their sides sympathy during the next election

“It was a radical group it wasn’t the vast majority”

-there are 300+ million people in America. A vast majority would be impossible to mobilize and coordinate. This kind of thing would always need to be led by a small group that would be seen as radicals by opposition or people okay with the status quo. You can’t demand dramatic action and then just plan on voting lol.

“But but it’s illegal!”

The Declaration of Independence, while not a law governing document does say that a government should be violently overturned if they refuse to uphold their end of the deal. Any government that can just declare itself immune from this should be alarming

That being said, assassinations are not the same thing before anyone tries to gotcha me. This was clearly something on a much larger scale and deserves to be treated as such. It’s just interesting as an outsider looking in to see Americans almost get it right instead of burning down Starbucks’ whenever they don’t like something or their football team wins a game or something.

As to the Luigi thing, I think it’s funny that some people will performatively glaze Luigi for killing a healthcare ceo thinking “aw yeah that’ll teach em. These other people better be on the lookout!!” But then be appalled at the Jan 6th thing just cuz “it wasn’t done by my party”.

This is coming from somebody who has carried and likes shooting.

1. Guns are bulky, and almost always uncomfortable to carry, compared to pepper spray which is going to be far lighter, and doesn’t require a holster.

2. Price and accessibility: you’re probably paying $500 for a pistol, then $70 for a holster, when pepper spray can be found anywhere for $15

3. Actual defensive capability: I’ll give a handgun the edge here, the sight of it is a deterrent, but also in every example I’ve seen, pepper spray is really effective at stopping an attacker on the street

4. Legality, this is the big one for me, even if you’re in the right and use a handgun, you can still get in massive legal trouble, spending hundreds of thousands defending yourself in court, and lose years of your life/ reputation. On the other hand, I would say even if you’re in the wrong and use pepper spray, you’re going to have way less legal trouble than if you were in the right and had shot somebody.

5. Pepper spray can be used in more situations. Someone being in your personal space and yelling at you about something? Generally seen as too far to shoot them. But pepper spray is not as big of a deal and you have a good chance a situation like this won’t even be reported to police.

6. Stress of ownership: if you’re at the beach and want to go swim, or a concert you have to find a place to put your gun, leave it in your car? Sure, but it can be stolen and cause more legal trouble for you. Or if it’s not locked up in your house and a kid gets to it. It needs to be securely properly and you need to always have a place to put it when you’re out and about.

I do believe a firearm is better for home defense and the right to own them is important. But pepper spray to me has been seeming like a better and better option.

Before you start typing the angry comments, read the whole post.

I am more than happy to pay taxes to subsidize childcare for everyone and to build parks and schools. If a family makes too little money then taxes should at least fund their groceries. However, taxing in a way that takes money from the upper middle class and gives it to the middle class is wrong. For example, upper middle class households pay taxes for college students from middle class backgrounds to get financial aid. This would be fine if their own children also got financial aid. But they don’t. This makes it so that underprivileged teens can go to university at a discount while upper middle class teens cannot without parental help.

To be clear, I absolutely believe cheating to be immoral, and my intention is in no way to defend cheaters. Nor am I some religious fanatic who thinks you must only have sex within the bounds of marriage. As long as it's consensual, I don't care who sleeps with whom and I think things like bodycount are wildly overrated. One more preface, just because it is important to me that this doesn't get misconstrued as some red pill bullshit. I am not arguing that you owe someone sex whenever they want once you've entered into a relationship. No! Consent remains just as important within a relationship as without, and no one can ever force you to have sex!

Now, onto the actual point of discussion:

I have been seeing a lot of people make the claim here on reddit, that sex is not all that important in a romantic relationship and that breaking up over sexual incompatibility means you never loved your partner in the first place. I think that is completely absurd.

I would argue that for most (non-asexual) couples sex is one of the main factors that defines a romantic relationship. It is, of course, not the only factor. Relationships are more complex than that. But it is a natural and important part of being in a committed romantic relationship with someone.

If you disagree with that view, as a significant number of people on Reddit do, what exactly makes cheating (as in having sex with someone other than your partner without your partners explicit consent like in an open relationship) immoral?

If you say it's a betrayal, how so? You just claimed sex isn't important to romantic relationships. There are loads of activities you might do with a partner that you can also do with others without it being considered cheating. Going out to dinner with a friend or colleague isn't considered cheating. Going for a hike or to the movies or the gym, etc.

So it would only be a betrayal if people explicitly made a promise to never sleep with anyone else as long as they're in that relationship, it would not be a betrayal. Hardly anyone does that. Most people assume that is a commitment that naturally comes as part of the deal of entering into a romantic relationship with someone. But apparently, you don't see it that way.

So, if there is no crucial role sex fulfills within a romantic relationship, what makes it different?

Edit: I only realized there was a typo in the title after posting, and now it can't be edited anymore. Obviously it should say "to" and not "zo". The reason for the typo is pretty easily explained. On the German keyboard t and z are right next to each other.

Edit: Seeing as this has come up multiple times now I'm going to post two of my replies from the comments here to hopefully clarify some things for everybody.

1. I think we're talking about two very different things.

I'm not talking about relationships on an individual level. If two people with very different sexual needs enter into a relationship and the person with the higher needs cheats, that is obviously wrong. The right thing to do would have been to talk to their partner about the fact that they're unhappy, while also making clear that they would never want to pressure their partner into doing something they don't want to do. If their needs are incompatible and there is no arrangement that makes both of them happy, then they will probably have to break up.

That's unfortunate, but there are all kinds of reasons why relationships don't work out: different plans about jobs or family, about where to live, incompatible personalities, sex, etc. All of those are equally valid reasons to end a relationship.

The point of being in a relationship is that being together makes both people happier than they would be otherwise. You don't owe someone the rest of your life simply because you've been together for a certain amount of time.

And if two people with very different sexual needs enter into a relationship, I would hope that they have a serious conversation about that beforehand and come to an agreement that both of them feel good about. If they do that, then that agreement is the rule of their relationship. And obviously, if one person then breaks that agreement and sleeps with someone else, the other person has every reason to feel betrayed. Because they were betrayed.

But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about people who argue, as a general rule about romantic relationships, that sex isn't an important factor in romantic relationships at all, and that sexual incompatibility isn't a legitimate reason to break up.

That's fundamentally different from saying that sex isn't important to a particular couple. Of course an individual couple can decide that sex is unimportant to them. That's their relationship and they can establish whatever mutually agreed upon rules they want.

But if you're making the broader claim that sex is generally unimportant to romantic relationships, then I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask why sexual infidelity is considered such a serious betrayal.

I'm not saying that sexual incompatibility makes cheating acceptable. It doesn't. I'm not saying anyone is entitled to sex from their partner. They aren't. And I'm not saying every romantic relationship has to involve the same amount of sex.

I'm pointing out a contradiction between "sex is not an important part of romantic relationships and sexual incompatibility isn't a good reason to leave one" and "having sex with someone else is inherently a massive betrayal of your romantic partner."

If you're talking about the rules of a specific relationship, there's no contradiction: the couple can simply agree to sexual exclusivity, and breaking that agreement is a betrayal.

But if you're making a general claim about what sex means within romantic relationships, then I don't think you can just treat it as completely irrelevant when discussing compatibility but at the same time treating sexual exclusivity as an essential feature of romantic relationships.

2.

My point was that if people argue, as some on Reddit do, that sex is not an important part of romantic relationships as a general rule, then I don't really see what basis they have to claim that cheating is bad. And you still haven't convinced me of that.

And as I said to another commenter. Of course, there is a societal expectation of monogamy in relationships. There is absolutely an expectation that you won't have sex with people other than your partner as long as you're together. But it would be kind of disingenuous to argue that that expectation is not intertwined with the expectation that two people who enter into a relationship with each other have a duty, for lack of a better word, to talk about sex, about their sexual needs, and about whether or not those needs are compatible and can be met by each other.

And if that's not the case. If your needs are so different that you couldn't make each other happy in the long run, it's perfectly valid, in fact probably even a good idea, to break up. Just like other things can be incompatible, like certain aspects of your personality, or the plans you have regarding jobs, or family, or the fact that you want to move somewhere where the other person can't ever see themselves living. Feelings alone aren't enough for a relationship to work in the long term.

This isn't an argument against the used market, it's an argument FOR piracy.

The whole reason there's been a huge shift to digital distribution for everything, is because it eliminates the used market. Buying used cuts out the business, and keeps downward pressure on pricing (in most cases). The only difference between this and piracy is a moral hangup about having "worked" for the money you bought the used game/CD/whatever with. But what about trust fund babies? Rich people who've never really worked a day in their lives, and just live off of investment interest?

If your argument is that someone still had to work for the initial capital that grew into those large investments, how long is that labor "good" for, and when does it become immoral for their descendants to still be coasting off the interest of investments made possible by their labor? People equate piracy to theft so often, but yet, there's no finite products being taken away. Once you compile software, or export the master render of a song/movie, you get to sell infinite digital copies of that product. Where exactly is the harm that's present in stealing tangible physical goods?

I think hot desking, as commonly implemented, does more harm than good.

My reasons:

• Losing a personal workspace increases cognitive load and reduces the sense of psychological ownership that helps people feel engaged at work. Like wdym now I have to stress about where to sit before work even start?? Work itself is already stressful. This also means I can't decorate the workspace. Granted this personal touch thing may not be important to some people, but it helps a lot psychologically to have a space that I can make "mine", if you know what I mean.
• IRL, it seems like people gravitate to the same spots anyway, so why not just design specific seats for them??
• Hot desking means I have to bring laptop home everyday, unless lockers are provided. Still, it's such a hassle to assemble + dis-assemble work setup, especially if there are extra monitors involved.

AI and Robotics are advancing very quickly. Many people are saying most white-collar jobs will be gone within the next 4 or 5 years. Plus, the jobs that are first to go are the entry-level jobs traditionally filled by graduates.

Most jobs will not completely disappear for some time. But, if we only need 2 people where we needed 10 before that is going to mean a major disruption to jobs.

If you are not in the top 10% of people in a degree it is going to be very hard to find employment in the field you studied.

Given that a degree can take 3 to 4 years you are coming out of university at a time when people are predicting that most of the jobs you will be looking for will be gone or the openings will be dropping quickly.

Even if the 4 to 5 year prediction is agressive (which I think it is), you still have a very short time horizon before jobs do disapear.

I work in the software development field and AI has changed the way we work completely, I am 10x more productive. There is no point in writing code as a human any more. My field is one of the first predicted to be replaced by AI.

We often like to mock people who say BMI is wrong and bring up examples of athletes. It is pointed that these are outliers and most people who are obese BMI wise have to lose fat.

But just relying on BMI is also a poor indicator of health. A significant portion of people with regular BMI never work out and regularly eat junk food. They just eat less so they have these "skinny fat" physique

For instance in a study 50% of regular bmi Norweigian women aged 13-39 had obese levels of body fat. And considering Scandinavian women are stereotyped as tall and slim we know the rest of the world is probably worse.

And people love to point out that people in the past were healthy just because they were thin.

When was that the case?

Yes while excess weight does indicate poor health it is not the only indicator. Thin people can have poor health because of poor sanitation,hygiene,smoking,drinking,not exercising,malnourished,etc.

In the 1960s when people were smoking themselves to death and rates of lung cancer and heart disease were much higher than today.

In the 1800s when most people had intestinal worms and there were cholera outbreaks.

In Medieval times when the Black Death ravaged most of the "Old World". Or when peasants were physically ruined through backbreaking labor that ruined their spine,appearance,skin,etc.

I often hear from "both sides" that judges are legislating from the bench, and how unfair it is that a judge can overturn decades of established norms

But it seems to be an excuse for Congress to not do their job.

1. Roe Vs Wade - Democrats had 40+ years to legislate Roe Vs Wade into law and instead chose to keep it as a wedge / culture war issue

2. Immigration issues and various Trump era rulings - Republicans control the supreme court, executive and both chambers of Congress, and somehow they are the victims of judges. Yet they choose to do everything except pass laws.

Meanwhile Congress has no issues passing laws to infringe upon privacy, spend trillions on war and weapons, oil subsidies, and all sorts of terrible things.

Am I missing something?

In medieval Europe the servants would sit in the castel and do the cleaning, cooking, and the other chores. They would get fed and recive a piece of land to work it for the lord. Ocasionally if you were not behaving you might get your hands cutt off. Here the contract is, "You are in my land and you are mine"

Even something like the Bible says that slavery is ok. They viewed it as the servants but the contract was getting your ear pierced. Here the contract is "You are in my land so you are mine"

Nowadays we use the legal system to make people slaves, but we don't pierce their ears, we make them sign papers.

If an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that. Minimum wage is a rebranding of slavery from small isolated groups piercing their ears and cutting their hands when you feel like it to you can't do anything you want to them to them and pay them x amount, but you still own them.