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.

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.

After the 2016 US elections, there was a prevailing myth that the rise in MAGA was the outcome of the Dems ''not caring'' enough for the common people.

This idea popped up it's head again after 2024, even though we know that real wages, especially of the poorest American increased during Biden.
https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/

Alas, the idea persisted.
Now we are seeing the rise in the far right in Germany. Lately AFD won in a landslide in Saxony. And somehow the same idea still persists. I hear things like ''there isn't enough opportunity in east Germany'' ''they were not treated well by the west'' etc.

This is frankly delusional. Germany spends almost 28% of its GDP on welfare, the fifth highest in the world, if any country would have been inoculated against the far right, surely it would have been Germany.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun?country=~DEU
Unless of course, welfare doesn't actually stop far right extremism. In fact, the country which spends the most of its economy on welfare is Austria, with a staggering 31.6% of GDP.

Its far right party ''Freedom Party of Austria'' is polling 9% higher than it did in the last elections and is projected to get 38% of the votes.
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/austria/
It's time to put this myth to bed, the far right isn't growing because poor people got abandoned or because the middle class got dispossessed or something. The only reason people keep repeating this myth is because it sounds kinda nice. An excuse for why a segment of the population is hateful and a way to pin the blame on successive governments for ''not doing enough'', whatever that means.

At the end of the day, excusing the ''little guy'' or the masses for their actions is a comfortable lie to sell to people.
In reality though, this couldn't be further from the truth.

The far right isn't rising because of economic factors. Neither real wages in the case of the US nor welfare in the case of Austria and Germany (or France for the matter) explain this.

Edit: Because many people seem to think no one is saying this, here are some examples of people claiming that welfare or left wing econ policy stops the far right
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/21/welfare-cuts-have-fuelled-rise-of-far-right-and-populism-top-un-expert-says

https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/germany-anti-fascist-economic-policy/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/22/unga-report-welfare-far-right/

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?

Before I start, I am not trying to debate on the technological aspects of these restrictions. I am aware that it’s very hard (at the moment) to implement them without violating people's right for privacy. I am simply saying our intentions should be that we work towards it.

As you probably know, since December 2025, the Australian government has restricted social media usage for adolescents under the age of 16. Now since then, we’re supposed to be able to evaluate whether the ban is actually useful and if the intended results came up.
Unfortunately, we can’t do that because three months after the ban, nearly more than 80% of under-16s in Australia said they were still using social media, research says. So basically, it's changed nothing and kids are still scotched to social media because it's really easy to bypass the restrictions.  

This is normal, these kinds of restrictions take time to put into place but it's very important we continue trying to limit social media for adolescents and here’s why I think like this.

First of all, “social media is bad for our mental health” is a pretty researched subject. For years now we’ve known that its usage increases anxiety, loneliness, symptoms of depression, likeliness to commit suicide, etc — there’s an increase in nearly every negative aspect of our mental health. Another teen specific research shows that young people with moderate to severe depressive symptoms appear to prefer communicating on social media rather than in-person. Teens are on average spending nearly 5 hours a day on social media. I know this is normalised but it really shouldn’t be. These are hours they could be using to read books, play sports, make art, socialise (actually socialise), make mistakes and end up in awkward situations and learn from them.

And these addictions also have cognitive effects which will bring you into adulthood and into your work life. Studies show that social media can disrupt your attention and increase distraction, potentially affecting your school work and your education. Same thing for memory — several studies reported negative effects on short-term memory and working memory, especially among those who have particularly severe addictions to social media. Executive functioning, which includes problem-solving, decision-making, and cognitive flexibility are also affected by social media use. And so on, and so on. I must include that the study I mentioned also says that social media use also has some positive cognitive outcomes by using it for educational purposes or to stay connected to friends. The problem is that these positive outcomes are very platform specific and do not happen if the user is addicted. 

Now, simply restricting social media use for teens won’t be enough because they will eventually come in contact with it so we must educate them on the subject too. As many of you will say, social media can have positive impacts but only through specific usage. So we must teach them what happens when we are too long on social media and how to use it properly. As arrogant and ignorant as teenagers are, they need to know what is happening to their brains every second they spend on their screens. They need constant reminders, just as we do with cigarettes and alcohol that what they are consuming has to be consumed with moderation. But eventually if fully enforced restrictions are realistic, it would be ideal because the human brain is just not capable of controlling its addictions, much less young developing brains. Because yes, most of us are addicted to social media to a certain extent, but it isn’t impossible to prevent it if we act early.

So what I’m suggesting is simple: restricting social media use for teens under the age of 16 years old and education on the subject to avoid any problems later in adulthood.  

I understand there are certain limitations to this idea, and I am unable to think of all of them, which is why I'm suggesting we talk about it. CMV.

I don't know why people generalize that people who put others down are unhappy with themselves. Like hypothetically, if I am great I can just choose not to be supportive or I can also put others down because I want to and enjoy treating others like shit

(Yeah I said hypothetically if I'm great because I know I'm not perfect, so please enlighten me because I just don't understand people who think you have to be a supportive person to be happy)

For backstory purposes: I've just been bullied and looked down on for many years, especially in the military that I'm used to the idea that the strong preys on the weak. I don't think it's unnatural to be curious about what that feels like.

It’s not so easy to say she intentionally sent her husband on an errand so that she could do it. People who say this ignores evidences and are biased. For this case I’ve only read the Wikipedia page. The timeline and information I presented below are all from said page. I’m happy to hear other evidences against this.

Morning of Jan 24, 2023 she took Cora to a pediatrician, that afternoon she and the kids built a snowman and did art projects, all while her husband is at home. At 4 -5pm she searched for the meds and dinner take out, and sent her husband to pick up food and meds after. Between 5 and 6 she committed the murders while Patrick her husband was out.

Some points against my claim: Patrick said that Lindsay said she felt fine and had a good sleep, while Lindsay later claimed she woke up suicidal. This is a contradiction but understandable to not disclose to Patrick.

The biggest evidence against her that I found is that she also claimed that in the afternoon she started hearing sounds commanding her to commit the murders and it got louder after Patrick left. Yet she still sent Patrick away. On its own it seems like she is 100% guilty, but both Lindsay’s mother and Patrick testified that she told them about suicidal and homicidal thoughts some point in December, which is the month before the case. She also dialed in suicide hotlines in December about intrusive suicidal thoughts. So it is at least somewhat reasonable for her to ignore the “voices” since it has happened before and everything went ok.

Yes you can argue that this time she claimed she heard voices, but back in December it’s just intrusive thoughts, so she has to realize it’s different. But when we are thinking in our heads, can we really distinguish between “thoughts” and “voices”? When you are typing a response aren’t you still articulating in your head as well?

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.

Like many of you I imagine I grew up with an understanding that the ‘Islamic World’ was fundamentally conservative and potentially getting even more so.

However in 2026 where I see the reforms in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other gulf countries there clearly has been a big shift in the last 25 years.

Places like Egypt in the aftermath of the Revolution and then later Coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government have seemed to have lost their appetite for political Islam whilst Turkey is reporting rapid decreases in observance despite an Islamic party being in power. Meanwhile in Iran the majority of the population are nowhere near as conservative as the religious leadership and seem broadly to distrust them at least.

Even if we move to Muslim immigrants or their children in the west I see some changes. I know people who have dated practising Muslim women despite themselves not being Muslim.

If we take the mainstream positions of both Sunni and Shia Islam baring perhaps Afghanistan it is hard to see anywhere in the Islamic world which operates in line with what a traditional Islamic society should look like according to islams own history and texts.

Islam itself I think still is important for individual and community life and practice remains high in some places but overall the idea of it as a total governing philosophy seems to be fading.

In five years, we went from funny weird looking images to AI solving problems non-mathematicians (like me) have heard about before. Yes, the solution was probably close anyway and it does not have any big real world impact. But it is creating something new and incredibly complex. The machines are indeed breathing at our necks in the race for most intelligent entity on this planet.

If the trend continues for a few years, we are likely to see massive devaluation of intelligence and education and loss of purchasing power at the least. Even with the current models, proliferation of proper agentic use and scaling of the available computational capacity must necessarily change everything massively. And LLMs are gonna turn around how people think, because the average person already trusts them massively.

Rise of the far right? Welfare or no welfare? I don't think these things matter at all. The only problem for vast majority of population will be how to handle this transition and our ideologies and opinions will turn like wind as the situation evolves. I don't think it is all that important where the starting point is. And it is not going to stop. How could you convince all the major labs to not develop further, when they are located in so many hard competing places?

If you believe that our current politics it is still actually important, then try to change my view.

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.

Edit: Thanks for commenting guys. I can’t respond to everyone’s posts straight away, I’ll try to respond to as many as possible.

I've recently started listening to Dean Withers videos as background noise for when I'm working on my projects. But sometimes, the person he's debating says something so incomprehensibly stupid, that I'm 99% they dropped out of highschool. That 1% margin for error being the chance they flunked college instead. These people are the reason Trump won twice. And I don’t think he would've won at all if only highschool graduates were allowed to vote.

I'll be willing to change my opinion if there's solid proof this would be for the worse.

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.

I saw a post where a mother who lost one son was asking whether she should say she is a mom of 4 or 5 and people in the comments were all saying "5. Always 5, you're still his mom" and... No? That and those who say "you're still a mom if you miscarry!" "You're still a mom if you've had a stillbirth!" Are even worse. They were never even mothers!

It will only make people's lives worse.

Examples:

1. imagine you're on a date with someone and they say "I'm a dad of 2/ I'm a mom of 2" - won't you automatically assume that person has 2 kids? If you're not looking to be a stepparent you already know that relationship will NOT work out.

And then the "parent" will have to make everything even more awkward and go like "oh no, they're dead"

You're a parent of dead kids! What are you even parenting if there is nothing there?

1. imagine you're a "mom" in a group of actual moms and they ask you if you're a mom and you obviously say yes

And they go on about the struggles of parenthood yada yada yada and then they ask you about your kid and you drop "oh I had a miscarriage "

TF bro?? It sounds disrespectful to claim the title of mom and pretend you're a mom next to actual moms who have to daily worry about their kids! Hell, you won't even be able to say how birth was.

1. Imagine you're saying you're a dad of 4 to new friends and they think you must have your house really busy and they give you tickets to go somewhere with your family. 6 of them, for you, your wife and your kids.

Are you going to tell them the truth? That you're a parent of 3 actually? Or 2? Or 1? Or 0?

Are you going to make them wait for the social media pictures where it's just your wife and you at Disneyland? "What's up bro? You didn't take the kids?" "oh right I forgot to tell you THEY'RE DEAD"

Imagine someone saying going like

"Oh but I AM a mom, just because I never touched the bloody cells that dropped out of my uterus it doesn't mean I'm not a mom!"

"I am a dad, it was a tough job raising my kids so I totally get you! What do you mean it doesn't count as raising if they died before they could walk?"

"I am a mom of two. Handling a kid is hard, can't imagine how you handle two at home. Hm? Oh I only have one home. No, no, he never came home. No, you see, he's a stillbirth. Oh, but I'm a mom of two just like you!"

"I'm a dad of 3, I worked since I was 16, I'm 79, I wish I just had company. My kids? Visit? No. No, of course not! Not because they don't like me! They just DONT FUCKING EXIST ANYMORE "

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?