The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas was this for me.

Counterpoint: "Kwaak" is the sound a duck makes, so frogs gotta say something else.

Combative? Take a look in the mirror pal.

I guess I'm ultimately confused about what you're arguing for. My ADHD is by no means "extreme"; trouble focusing at work or school is one of the baseline things you're unlikely to get diagnosed without. I can't imagine any reasonable person advocating for medicating people who don't stand to benefit from it, which seems to be the motte to your bailey.

Hi. I failed out of college, in no small part due to undiagnosed ADHD. I wanna offer a little pushback.

I can't tell if you want to change society to be less punishing to neurodivergent people, or if your whole thesis is "People with ADHD have little to no trouble in society today".

If it's the former: not treating people who are struggling is not the way to change society. Accepting for the sake of argument that ADHD people "pay attention to different things"; paying attention to some things is critical to my ability to thrive. I would love to live in a world where I could just do what I thought was important and still have my needs taken care of, but unfortunately I'm stuck needing to pay attention to stupid bullshit I don't care about in order to make a living, and that's a tremendous struggle without medication.

If it's the latter: Jesus Christ, talk to someone with ADHD.

And finally: I take issue with your metaphor at the end. What do you think is present in an unmedicated person with ADHD that is somehow missing in a medicated person?

Fuck google, of course, but this article is over a year old. Had me panicking for a second when it mentioned the wave of tech worker layoffs.

"Vote with your wallet" also means people with bigger wallets get bigger votes.

I think the author's point is more subtle than that.

Yes, of course men do not have it harder than women in the 21st century. She's not saying that. She saying that the set of socially acceptable "man" behaviors is smaller than the set of socially acceptable "woman" behaviors. Men don't have it harder, but "man" is a smaller target than "woman". That boys get told to "man up", and that there isn't an equivalent for girls.

The title may make it sound like some provocative MRA bullshit, but reading it did not give me that impression.

I have no idea why people think late-term, abortion-as-contraceptive abortions are a thing.

Have they never known a pregnant person? Seen all the gross and painful shit pregnancy puts someone through? Do they really think people are subjecting their bodies to that for six months... just because???

100 girlfriends

Sure! And to be clear, my goal is definitely not to just challenge your faith. The most devout Christian I know IRL is also one of my closest friends.

The reason I feel compelled to jump on biblical slavery apologetics is the impact I worry it can have on people's views and actions in the present day. Slavery still exists, and I fear that arguments defending the slavery that existed under Mosaic law are eerily applicable to modern day trafficking in persons. That it wasn't as bad as the trans-Atlantic slave trade, that it was just indentured servitude, or implicitly that slavery is less reprehensible than murder or theft or lying.

All this being said, I do think the tone of my initial comment and first reply to you was unduly harsh. It comes across more as making fun of Christians than anything else, and that's not cool. I apologize for that, and I'll edit those two linking to this comment to reflect that.

Thanks for the comment. If I may quibble:

and at the time they had many slaves[...]

If memory serves, the Mosaic laws are said to be delivered to the Jews 90 days into their wandering in the desert after crossing the Red Sea. Which means that the people who received these rules about slavery were all recently freed former slaves. Unless they immediately started re-enslaving each other while wandering the desert with manna raining from heaven and water springing up from the rocks, I would think that none of them owned slaves.

[...]something that they wouldn't be willing to change. Instead of this, God commands how to treat these slaves.

That line of reasoning has never sat right with me.

God doesn't want people to kill. He knows people will do it anyway. He doesn't say "Make it quick and painless when you kill someone." He says "Thou shalt not kill."

God doesn't want people to steal. He knows people will do it anyway. He doesn't say "Only steal from people who are well off and can afford to lose some possessions." He says "Thou shalt not steal."

I cannot imagine the guy who tells people to cut some skin off the end of their penis has any problem with making big asks of people.

EDIT: Upon further reflection, I regret the way thus comment targets believers more than it does the problem in question. See: https://lemmy.world/comment/12608950

He said they had told him that although it was a hate crime, it was "unlikely" officers could pursue it further.

Next sentence:

The Met confirmed to the BBC that officers had visited Mr Bromley about the incident and that although no arrests had been made, the force took "reports of hate crime seriously".

Pick one.

Meanwhile, a few chapters later in the same book:

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

TBH I can't blame Christians for being confused about what love looks like if this is what they believe God says.

EDIT: Upon further reflection, I regret the way thus comment targets believers more than it does the problem in question. See: https://lemmy.world/comment/12608950

Publicly traded companies blow my mind a little bit.

It's not enough to make steady, consistent profits. Give out reliable quarterly dividends and make it so your investors make their money back plus a little extra over time. Free money is not enough for the ownership class.

Growth isn't enough either. Buying something for X and selling it for 1.1X so you make money even without a dividend isn't enough for the investor class.

You have to grow infinitely. You have to grow faster than everyone else. You have to beat the projections. Make your product smaller and shittier & sell it for the same price. Lay off 10% of your workforce after record profits to cut costs. Force ads and subscriptions and data mining into every possible space. Undercut your smaller competitors until they fold, then jack up your prices. Break the law, fuck over your workers, buy out politicians, move your production lines to countries with no labor laws.

Being publicly traded actively rewards evil and anti-human behavior.

What a cute husky! Surely he has done nothing wrong to any Norwegians anywhere.

I wonder what kind of person calls themselves a "world class expert" in astrology.

The purpose of my jellybean thought exercise was to show that "I don't know" and "I don't believe" are not mutually exclusive. Basically:

I do not believe [x] != I believe [not x]

I don't believe in String Theory. String Theory may be correct for all I know: I am not a physicist, and my understanding of String Theory is cursory at best.

Because I do not have enough evidence to warrant belief, I cannot say I believe in String Theory. But that same lack of understanding means I must also say I don't believe that String Theory is false.

Necroing this thread: If one of your pawns had a royal title, that might have been the culprit. Once they reach a certain rank, they'll start expecting fine / lavish meals.

Say you have a jar full of jellybeans. We know that the number of whole jellybeans in the jar must be either even or odd.

If someone asks you if you believe the number of jellybeans in the jar is even, you can and should say "no" if you haven't counted them or otherwise gathered any evidence to support that conclusion. To believe something is to say you feel it is more likely true than false, and you can't say that about the given proposition.

Importantly, this does not mean you do believe the number of jellybeans is odd. The fact that one of those two things must be true does not mean you have to pick one to believe and one to disbelieve. It is perfectly rational to reserve belief either way until you have evidence one way or the other. You do not believe it's even, nor do you believe it's odd.

So, if we define "atheist" as "someone who does not believe in any gods", I think you meet the definition of atheist. Just like the person in the above example does not believe the jellybeans are even & also does not believe they are odd, you don't need to believe "there are no gods anywhere" to not believe "there is at least one god".

Perfect example of how many if not most right-wing voters don't give a shit about policy. It's an aesthetic more than anything else. Flags and guns and football and church and big ol' southern nuclear families. Get them to associate literally anything with that vibe and you'll have 30% of voters in this country behind it.