Other Unpopular Opinions

[Lindah]

Yes. Sexism is sexism, and legal sexism is distinct from social sexism.

Sexism is just that - sexism. I don't see the need to make words such as 'legal sexism' or 'social sexism'. Sexism in the legal court, sexism in the society of the state of Florida, would be better examples. It gets me as much as 'reverse racism' or 'environmental racism'. This is, of course, in my personal view, and some others. Ignore this.

This is what I said. Why are you nudged?

My bad I think.

Level of danger, number of people willing to take the job, and the skill requirement. That's why doctors and lawyers earn more than soldiers. Easier to be one than the other (though I don't mean to say being a soldier is easy.)

After me speaking of 'more danger=more $', I had the impression according to the above quote that you were stating the obvious to me, that even though soldiers have higher level of danger, doctors and lawyers still earn more, thus refuting the logic behind it. Sry.

No, because society can cause these things. Parental pressure and exposure to their occupations are examples of society influencing people, because it is the collective of individuals influencing them.

Having the environment around us influence us, having nurture going against nature, only shows that we are individual, human beings. With that said.

These are issues of individuals, issues of society, but certainly not sexist issues. Or 'social sexism'. I don't see prejudice, discrimination; sexist traits straight from the dictionary definiton. I can only see stereotype reinforcement, one thing, coming from parental pressure. Perhaps the parents are more traditionally leaned? Then that's in the field of individuals, not society. And I doubt that society today is truly discriminative towards women. Come to my place to understand that.

The very fact that there exists some fields where women excel and earn more than men in the workforce already proves that the 'wage gap' is not a mere, blatant case of sexism. Not the legal type, most prominently!

You decide whether you conform, but our desire to conform is pretty strong. You'll find some links to related studies below.

I guess I'm just a stronger, resistant exception. Yatta.

Indeed there are differences, but I haven't heard of biological or neurological differences that would cause a wage gap in almost every occupation.

Womens' strength vs hard labour is one example of biological difference. Not quite responsible for a wide scale gap, but a fair bit of it nonetheless.

I made a mistake on the two choices though. False dichotomy there - My bad. Thanks for the correction.

It's k!

It's fine, but I'm still not sure what pinksourcing is. I thought it was the 'they'll exclusively hire women' argument given a name.

Not sure, buzzword I picked up, let's never speak of this again.

All of these specifics are a total-gap counter, which I've responded to.

And I recall me at one point in one of my posts mentioning that I do actually acknowledge the existence of a clear gap. The thing is that I don't seek to disprove the $ gap. Evidently, a gap does exist. But it is very unlikely to be pure, sexist reasons.

The mere fact that less women than men are in the workforce to begin with, less of these women willing to choose the hard labour yet hard paying jobs.

Harvard professor Claudia Goldin, who found the best explanation for the pay gap is that a decade into their careers, many women will take less prestigious jobs that allow for more flexible work hours.

“When women then have children, or again are caring for their own parents or other sick family members who need care, then they need to work differently,” writes scholar Anne-Marie Slaughter in her book titled Unfinished Business. “They need to work flexibility, and often go part-time.”

So rather than become partner at a big criminal law firm, a job that doesn’t easily allow for 4pm daycare pickups, many women self-demote themselves to smaller firms or part-time work. Because of their home life responsibilities, many mothers and caretakers don’t have the luxury of taking the high-paying jobs which would help close the pay gap.

And the above.

It's not difficult to comprehend the existence of a gap between men and women in terms of $. The above would be the more concrete reasonings, rather than mere discrimination. It's got more to do than me having a pair of melons (which in size I am ashamed of) to purposefully take away a portion of my rightful salary

If women were paid less than men for the same work, same experience and same length of being consistently employed then a for-profit business would only hire women so they could save money. But this is not reality, because women aren't paid less. It depends on the type of job, work experience; how many years... and all of all the other etc frequently asked in interviews by the 'dreaded employers'.

So frankly, men earning more than woman doesn't 100% mean that they get paid more than women for the same type of job. It does not at all equate to 'the wage gap'.

A man who earns more than a woman, following this given scenario, could equate to a highschool dropout who works 12 hours, 6 days a week as a technician somewhere in rural Arizona hoping to fix his life up VS a woman college student who works part time 4 hours in McDonalds somewhere in Michigan hoping to earn cash to pay off her textbook fees (somehow!).

It's just different circumstances, just life.

Why the incentive to 'close the pay gap' when a good, concrete bulk of it is from a lack of women in the workforce to begin with, a lack of women (willing/capable) in the hard labour+hard pay jobs, individual career paths and life choices, etc? With these concrete contributors, it only makes sense that the pay gap won't be completely closed, completely equalled out until all women in the workforce match men in every aspect. In a communist utopian world, such is possible. But in our world, such is difficult.

We must comprehend that not everyone is ambitious, that not everyone shares the same experience/qualifications/etc, and that each and every human being is an individual, bound to be completely different, diverse, all of that etc. Perhaps those careers with more women within such as school teachers still get paid less due to ranking/raises/qualifications/experiencings/work hour...

Lots of things to take in account for. Lots more diverse things than merely the genitals of working adults.

 

[Shazam]

But you can't say that not having religion wouldn't put at the very least a minor dent in conflict.

I don't think that there would be even the slightest dent because it would just change whatever excuse people use to start conflicts.

 

[Hall Kervean]

I thought I'd expand on this, the world would be a better place without Religion and Political Parties, it wouldn't be perfect but it'd take away on excuse we use to hurt and kill each other.

Unless God is real, in which case, like in Noah's day, he'd flood the earth and start over.
If we entertain the false narrative that God wasn't real, there is no practical solution to remove all political parties, much less all religion. You would have to brainwash billions of people or slaughter every last one of them, and even then, we're superstitious, and religions will continue to pop up. Heck, 30 people committed mass suicide once to commit their spirits to aliens. That isn't even logical!
Getting rid of political parties, as it stands, would be forcing people against their will to reject their morals and values and come to one opinion on everything. The latest attempt at this is a lovely little vacation resort known as "North Korea."
Therefore, getting rid of religion (in a hypothetical and false scenario where God doesn't exist) would be at best impractical and at worst impossible, and getting rid of political parties would lead to a worldwide police state.
Now, if we entertain the notion that we should have started without political parties or religion, (See Genesis 6:1-10:1) we would have to either make complete mental changes to make everyone conform to one opinion and convince them that religion is impossible (a highly unlikely circumstance, given that this "starting out" scenario would have no other explanation for anything we see naturally, much less the miracles we experience) or kill off all dissidents as they arise (See police state).

Adding an unpopular opinion;
Episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4 in SAO are good. Or, at least, they were on first time viewing, when they seemed to be establishing backstory through "show, don't tell." (For example, 4 shows us that, despite being a champion, he still cares about everyone's problems, and despite episode 3's tragedy, he is willing to bond with others. It also establishes that he is leagues above many of the other players, and therefore, most of his challengers are going to be impressive. It also establishes that, even when players kill other players, Kirito is unwilling to take their lives. Finally, it establishes that Kirito is often cocky to a fault. NONE OF THESE ARE EXPLORED FURTHER. But the way they were set up, they could have been.). 5&6 were filler. Episode 7 felt passable. 8 broke my sense of realism and at that point the show needed something great to put it back on track. Instead, we got ALfheim.

 

[The Forge]

Unless God is real, in which case, like in Noah's day, he'd flood the earth and start over.
If we entertain the false narrative that God wasn't real, there is no practical solution to remove all political parties, much less all religion. You would have to brainwash billions of people or slaughter every last one of them, and even then, we're superstitious, and religions will continue to pop up. Heck, 30 people committed mass suicide once to commit their spirits to aliens. That isn't even logical!
Getting rid of political parties, as it stands, would be forcing people against their will to reject their morals and values and come to one opinion on everything. The latest attempt at this is a lovely little vacation resort known as "North Korea."
Therefore, getting rid of religion (in a hypothetical and false scenario where God doesn't exist) would be at best impractical and at worst impossible, and getting rid of political parties would lead to a worldwide police state.
Now, if we entertain the notion that we should have started without political parties or religion, (See Genesis 6:1-10:1) we would have to either make complete mental changes to make everyone conform to one opinion and convince them that religion is impossible (a highly unlikely circumstance, given that this "starting out" scenario would have no other explanation for anything we see naturally, much less the miracles we experience) or kill off all dissidents as they arise (See police state).

Adding an unpopular opinion;
Episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4 in SAO are good. Or, at least, they were on first time viewing, when they seemed to be establishing backstory through "show, don't tell." (For example, 4 shows us that, despite being a champion, he still cares about everyone's problems, and despite episode 3's tragedy, he is willing to bond with others. It also establishes that he is leagues above many of the other players, and therefore, most of his challengers are going to be impressive. It also establishes that, even when players kill other players, Kirito is unwilling to take their lives. Finally, it establishes that Kirito is often cocky to a fault. NONE OF THESE ARE EXPLORED FURTHER. But the way they were set up, they could have been.). 5&6 were filler. Episode 7 felt passable. 8 broke my sense of realism and at that point the show needed something great to put it back on track. Instead, we got ALfheim.

Didn't say I wanted to or was planning on getting rid of political parties or religion, just that the world would be better without them. Don't know why you wrote such a lengthy retort to something I didn't say. It's like somone saying I wish murders didn't happen, the world would be better without murders. And someone coming at them saying getting ride of murders is unrealistic...no shit that's not what he meant. Ya know???

 

[Hall Kervean]

Didn't say I wanted to or was planning on getting rid of political parties or religion, just that the world would be better without them. Don't know why you wrote such a lengthy retort to something I didn't say. It's like somone saying I wish murders didn't happen, the world would be better without murders. And someone coming at them saying getting ride of murders is unrealistic...no shit that's not what he meant. Ya know???

And then I said...

Now, if we entertain the notion that we should have started without political parties or religion, (See Genesis 6:1-10:1) we would have to either make complete mental changes to make everyone conform to one opinion and convince them that religion is impossible (a highly unlikely circumstance, given that this "starting out" scenario would have no other explanation for anything we see naturally, much less the miracles we experience) or kill off all dissidents as they arise (See police state).

I was advising the fact that political parties are pretty much the only way to organize opinions on issues. of course there are moderates and independents, that's why they're on the chart. But without them, everyone would be on their own to make their opinion matter. The only four options at that point are as follows: Have a king who shuts everyone up and makes his own decisions. Alternatively, let everyone have their own opinion but never enforce them, and as a result, people try to enforce their own opinion (if no one's taking action to make gay marriage legal, I suppose we'll have to do it ourselves). Onto another; Nothing gets done, since no one agrees and there is not enough weight on any one opinion to make it worth enforcing. Or, we could try to take action on the majority opinion. But of course, since opinions are all radically different on an individual level, an opinion-holder would have to show that he's in the majority. To do that, they would either have to change everyone's mind to form one opinion (result being police state), get rid of those who don't agree with them (kind of genocide) or create a group with likeminded individuals in order to show that their opinion is held by many people, and therefore it matters. As a result, those on the opposite end of the spectrum form their own group (or else they'll be silenced) and attempt to make show that their opinion is just as important and matters just as much as those on the other end of the spectrum. Oh look political parties.

As for religion, it's impossible. But if we hypothetically made no religion, then we face the potential of a collapse.
You see, morality is on an individual basis. Religion helps to guide people as to what their morals and ethics should be. Without that, to paraphrase Judges 21:25, since there is no guiding moral compass, each man does what is right in their own eyes.
As an example, let's look at Death Note. Some people thought Kira was completely in the right, some people thought he was completely in the wrong, and some fell in the middle. If given a death note, some people would follow Kira's path, some people would reject it entirely, and there would be a wide range of responses to it in the middle. And potentially, instead, there would be a graph to show immoral and personal use, like the way the Yotsuba Group used it when they had possession of it.
Each man, if given the option to do so, will do what is right in his own eyes.
The government, of course, can make rules, but those rules will be based on what is right in that government's (or the majority of people's) eyes. If there's more than one government in this hypothetical world, they could war each other because of their moral systems. Maybe one government treats capital punishment as a saving grace, and uses it against most crimes, and another deals with it fearfully, preferring to put their criminals in for life. The one that views it as disgusting might see that the other government uses it and thinks they're abusing human rights and "intervenes on the behalf of their citizenry." The other government may see that the other government is putting their prisoners in for life instead of killing them and decides that they're creating a problem that they can't deal with in the future, and as a result, "intervenes on the behalf of the future security of our sister [city/nation/government].
Maybe a third government believes that life in prison is too harsh, and sees both of the other cities as human rights abusers. And they, in turn, see the third government as tolerating crime and becoming a haven for the underworld.
Without the guiding morality of religion, morality is up to the governments. And when each government has a vastly different moral code, then we could see more government on government war.

There, happy?

 

[Lindah]

I wanted to or was planning on getting rid of political parties or religion, just that the world would be better without them.

In the end, religion and political ideologies are tools that humans are able to use, and in very many ways, humans themselves are imperfect. Getting rid of them would only drive humanity's focus on another subject eventually, another thing for them to bicker about. If theoretically racism was gone, they'd move on to sexism. From little things such as which dress looks better to which ideology works best, humans will always have conflicting things against one another. Removing wouldn't be a solution.

Irrelevant sort of, but changing humans somehow to become hiveminded beings, 'one ideology one heart one soul' rather than being the plain individuals that they are, might end all strife. But I doubt the concept and advise against trying that!

Without the guiding morality of religion, morality is up to the governments. And when each government has a vastly different moral code, then we could see more government on government war.

The only issue in the above is that each and every religion out in the world has its very own defining moral code, what its followers should deem as right and what is wrong, not to mention teachings, rite of passages, etc. In the end, religion is and can be just like the exampled governments, thus it could be argued that religion with its differing moral codes can still be used as a dividing tool. Religion on religion war would not be different from government on government war. And in the end, morality, good and bad, is fairly subjective!

It could be objective if a God descends and deems it so, but unless that or the world suddenly shifts into one ideology in a utopian world, nothing can solve the presented issue. Religion is as much of a guiding morality as the governments of today.

 

[Hall Kervean]

The only issue in the above is that each and every religion out in the world has its very own defining moral code, what its followers should deem as right and what is wrong, not to mention teachings, rite of passages, etc. In the end, religion is and can be just like the exampled governments, thus it could be argued that religion with its differing moral codes can still be used as a dividing tool. Religion on religion war would not be different from government on government war. And in the end, morality, good and bad, is fairly subjective!

A key difference is this: How many major religions are there?
I say 5, unless you want to count atheism as one and lump literally every other religion in as another. But I won't
Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The last three, while having different gods (kind of... Islam definitely, Christians and Jews believe in God the Father, but Jews don't believe in Jesus or the Holy Spirit), have actually relatively similar moral codes (i.e. homosexuality is bad, sex outside of marriage is bad, belief in any other god is bad, etc. There are, of course, different punishments in each religion)
Buddhism and Hinduism, while vastly different, are also relatively pacifistic and guiding.
But in general, if a government was founded for each religion (not counting denominations. Sorry Protestants and Catholics; Shia and Sunni; etc.), there would be 5 major guiding moral codes. 3 would be relatively similar to each other, and another 2 would have many major connections.
Yes, religion on religion wars would be a possibility, but think of it this way:
2B Christians are probably going to defend the 70M of Judaism, given that the Bible says that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed, Hindus and Buddhists are probably going to side with each other (950M and 376M) since they're relatively similar and it would be better to face the other three together rather than separately, and Islam, since it is different enough from Christianity, not to mention Judaism, would probably have to stand on its own, with 1.6B.
Mutually Assured Destruction, or, alternatively, we could be looking at the setting of 1984 (not politically; militarily) if war broke out. Hence, that fear of warfare would probably keep most of the others at bay.
Religion on religion war would not be different from government on government war.

5 major guiding moral systems; with 3 being similar to one another, would be identical to if 217 different moral viewpoints clashed?

And in the end, morality, good and bad, is fairly subjective!

You misunderstand religion. It is a set of values that oftentimes cannot be undermined. Therefore, those of Christian faith will likely line up with the Bible; especially in this hypothetical scenario. Muslims will line up with the Koran, Jews with the Torah, and Idk the other two's religious texts. Yes, good and bad are fairly suggestive. But let me again direct you to my Judges 21:25 paraphrase. In those days there was no guiding moral compass, and each man did what was right in their own eyes. Let's apply it here.
In this day, each man had their guiding moral compass, and each man did what was right according to his purpose.
Certainly looks like a better solution to me.

It could be objective if a God descends and deems it so, but unless that or the world suddenly shifts into one ideology in a utopian world,

As it stands, since I am a Christian I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bible is the objective Word of God. He did happen to descend multiple times and deem it so on many occasions, as highlighted throughout His text.
Ehh. I wouldn't call Communism a utopia. More like Kekistan.

nothing can solve the presented issue.

He didn't present an issue. He presented his opinion. That opinion requires some heavy-handed hypotheticals that really are subjective to demonstrate how it could succeed or fail.

Religion is as much of a guiding morality as the governments of today.

Right. In our hypothetical scenario, our governments of today are not in play. They would probably be a wild card factor.

 

[Gravitational Force]

South Park is a bad show and has been in the wrong about almost every issues its done a show on. It's going for the middle ground fallacy just so they can claim to be above the fray while advancing the creators' own views.

 

[The Forge]

And then I said...

I was advising the fact that political parties are pretty much the only way to organize opinions on issues. of course there are moderates and independents, that's why they're on the chart. But without them, everyone would be on their own to make their opinion matter. The only four options at that point are as follows: Have a king who shuts everyone up and makes his own decisions. Alternatively, let everyone have their own opinion but never enforce them, and as a result, people try to enforce their own opinion (if no one's taking action to make gay marriage legal, I suppose we'll have to do it ourselves). Onto another; Nothing gets done, since no one agrees and there is not enough weight on any one opinion to make it worth enforcing. Or, we could try to take action on the majority opinion. But of course, since opinions are all radically different on an individual level, an opinion-holder would have to show that he's in the majority. To do that, they would either have to change everyone's mind to form one opinion (result being police state), get rid of those who don't agree with them (kind of genocide) or create a group with likeminded individuals in order to show that their opinion is held by many people, and therefore it matters. As a result, those on the opposite end of the spectrum form their own group (or else they'll be silenced) and attempt to make show that their opinion is just as important and matters just as much as those on the other end of the spectrum. Oh look political parties.

As for religion, it's impossible. But if we hypothetically made no religion, then we face the potential of a collapse.
You see, morality is on an individual basis. Religion helps to guide people as to what their morals and ethics should be. Without that, to paraphrase Judges 21:25, since there is no guiding moral compass, each man does what is right in their own eyes.
As an example, let's look at Death Note. Some people thought Kira was completely in the right, some people thought he was completely in the wrong, and some fell in the middle. If given a death note, some people would follow Kira's path, some people would reject it entirely, and there would be a wide range of responses to it in the middle. And potentially, instead, there would be a graph to show immoral and personal use, like the way the Yotsuba Group used it when they had possession of it.
Each man, if given the option to do so, will do what is right in his own eyes.
The government, of course, can make rules, but those rules will be based on what is right in that government's (or the majority of people's) eyes. If there's more than one government in this hypothetical world, they could war each other because of their moral systems. Maybe one government treats capital punishment as a saving grace, and uses it against most crimes, and another deals with it fearfully, preferring to put their criminals in for life. The one that views it as disgusting might see that the other government uses it and thinks they're abusing human rights and "intervenes on the behalf of their citizenry." The other government may see that the other government is putting their prisoners in for life instead of killing them and decides that they're creating a problem that they can't deal with in the future, and as a result, "intervenes on the behalf of the future security of our sister [city/nation/government].
Maybe a third government believes that life in prison is too harsh, and sees both of the other cities as human rights abusers. And they, in turn, see the third government as tolerating crime and becoming a haven for the underworld.
Without the guiding morality of religion, morality is up to the governments. And when each government has a vastly different moral code, then we could see more government on government war.

There, happy?

No not really, it's just a dumb as it was before. You just went off on a sort of rant trying to connect loss of religion to a loss of individual morals and ethics and the collapse of Government on Government wars. Haha what you wrote wasn't even that well structured and you provided no connection between lack of Religion and these "Hypothetical Worlds". And then you use a religious book as backup for this theory...oh and the TV series that I had never even heard about before and had to look up.

To suggest that morals and ethics are guided by religion wouldn't be wrong, but to say they are entirely influenced and controlled by religion is so wrong. Atheists believe in no religion but they are perfectly capable of having a moral compass. Your moral compass is effected by your environment, within your environment factors that can control and change it can include religion as well as many other things. I suggest you read Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development or The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer. Without Religion man doesn't fall into war or chaos, rather I believe life would go on as it normally would, but with one less reason for us to kill each other.

Let me make myself clear I have no problem with certain Political Organizations, and let me also make myself clear when I say just reading what you wrote made my day fantastic, I was laughing so hard. The result of no having Political Parties does not result in the collapse of order and society or a "Police State". There are plenty of successful States throughout history who didn't have Political Parties. Rather than encourage the fact that we are all different and can live side by side Political Parties insist that their way is the only way. They strive to gain control of as much of the Government as possible at the expense of others who don't agree with them. Yes you are correct to say people are different...no duh. But I'm not arguing against democracy I'm arguing against organized politicians. People are more than welcome to rally behind a candidate and vote for him/her, however when candidates start banding together and creating monopolies on the government with their ideologies that's what I have a problem with. Seeing recent events you can't deny that Political Parties cause factionalism and divide the nation more so than unify. Parties (or factions) threaten the rational, collaborative process. Our political community has broken into small groups committed to their own narrow interests, the search for the common good is compromised. Politics have disintegrated into battles between conflicting visions, and elections generate division rather than consensus. I have no problem with democracy, it allows different people to unite, however Political Parties just muck up the process and divide the nation.

 

[Foolish Ghoul]

No not really, it's just a dumb as it was before. You just went off on a sort of rant trying to connect loss of religion to a loss of individual morals and ethics and the collapse of Government on Government wars. Haha what you wrote wasn't even that well structured and you provided no connection between lack of Religion and these "Hypothetical Worlds". And then you use a religious book as backup for this theory...oh and the TV series that I had never even heard about before and had to look up.

To suggest that morals and ethics are guided by religion wouldn't be wrong, but to say they are entirely influenced and controlled by religion is so wrong. Atheists believe in no religion but they are perfectly capable of having a moral compass. Your moral compass is effected by your environment, within your environment factors that can control and change it can include religion as well as many other things. I suggest you read Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development or The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer. Without Religion mad doesn't fall into war or chaos, rather I believe life would go on as it normally would, but with one less reason for us to kill each other.

Let me make myself clear I have no problem with certain Political Organizations, and let me also make myself clear when I say just reading what you wrote made my day, fantastic haha. The result of no having Political Parties does not result in the collapse of order and society or a "Police State". There are plenty of successful States throughout history who didn't have Political Parties. Rather than encourage the fact that we are all different and can live side by side Political Parties insist that their way is the only way. They strive to gain control of as much of the Government as possible at the expense of others who don't agree with them. But I'm not here to argue that, I'm her to look good and rebuttal your argument. Yes you are correct to say people are different...no duh. But I'm not arguing against democracy I'm arguing against organized politicians. People are more than welcome to rally behind a candidate and vote for him/her, however when candidates start banding together and creating monopolies on the government with their ideologies that's what I have a problem with. Seeing recent events you can't deny that Political Parties cause factionalism and divide the nation more so than unify. Parties (or factions) threatened the rational, collaborative process. Our political community has broken into small groups committed to their own narrow interests, the search for the common good is compromised. Politics have disintegrated into battles between conflicting visions, and elections generate division rather than consensus. I have no problem with democracy, it allows different people to unite, however Political Parties just muck up the political process and divide the nation.

Those are both incredibly delightful reads. Thank you for sourcing them.

 

[Hall Kervean]

No not really, it's just a dumb as it was before. You just went off on a sort of rant trying to connect loss of religion to a loss of individual morals and ethics and the collapse of Government on Government wars. Haha what you wrote wasn't even that well structured and you provided no connection between lack of Religion and these "Hypothetical Worlds". And then you use a religious book as backup for this theory...oh and the TV series that I had never even heard about before and had to look up.

Wrong. I connected a loss of religion to a loss of cohesive morality. Individual morals and ethics are still in play.
To quote myself, "Without that, to paraphrase Judges 21:25, since there is no guiding moral compass, each man does what is right in their own eyes."
Actually, what I wrote was two paragraphs pointing out the flaws in a world without political parties and a world without religion, respectively. I'm sorry if it wasn't clear; I was trying to point out the only ways that I can see a world without political parties in the first place panning out.
My point was this:
In a world without religion, widespread identical moral ideas are unlikely, if not impossible. Therefore, most moral and ethical decisions are carried out on an individual level. I then cited Death Note as an example; if people can get behind mass murder because it matches up with their individual moral and ethical compass, then the sky is the limit as to what can occur.
However, since a government is still likely to spring up, we need to account for that. Since individual morality and ethics can't run a government, the government needs their own decisive set of morals and ethics to which all citizens of said government must abide. These are known as "laws."
I then pointed out that governments with different moral and ethical compasses are more likely than not to got to war with each other, which leads to an increase in war, and, in turn, voids the entire scenario. Why? The answer is a few things. Greed and power are one, obviously. But another is seeing things in a different moral and ethical light.
Take the death penalty, a real point of debate in today's world. What if, hypothetically, it was deemed a human rights abuse, and was forbidden? Then what happens if it's revealed another nation continues to use it regularly? Military intervention.
The same thing applies to the governments in our scenario. Except, since there is no religion, or truly widespread identical moral ideas being advocated for, each government's ideals and morals could vary wildly.
As a result, as we often see in some cases of religion, war can break out over a violation of deep, rooted morals and ethics. And since there are more governments than influential religions, this could lead to more wars than if we had kept religion around, therefore negating the scenario's sole goal.

To suggest that morals and ethics are guided by religion wouldn't be wrong, but to say they are entirely influenced and controlled by religion is so wrong. Atheists believe in no religion but they are perfectly capable of having a moral compass. Your moral compass is effected by your environment, within your environment factors that can control and change it can include religion as well as many other things. I suggest you read Lawrence Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development or The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer. Without Religion man doesn't fall into war or chaos, rather I believe life would go on as it normally would, but with one less reason for us to kill each other.

On the contrary. I've already stated previously what I meant by it, and I shall elaborate further:
In this hypothetical scenario, each of the governments have a wide variety of ideals and ethics and laws, with many leading to conflict with others. But nowadays that's not a problem, nor has it been for a while. Why?
Because of this: Aside from he ethics of the individual and the ethics of the government, there has always been an underlying set of guiding principles. The difference between our scenario and the real world is that the guiding principles are applied to many governments in the form of its citizens. Let me illustrate.
Germany France and Liechtenstein (all hail) all want to create a law on torture. Germany says yes with restrictions, France says no to torture in general, and Liechtenstein says yes, no restrictions. That makes them at odds with each other. But in each nation, let's say 30% of their population all share the same moral values, or a religion, and that religion states in it that torture is a disgusting and abhorrent act. There is, therefore, a widespread common value that is shared across all the nations. That means that there is a higher likelihood that France is going to get its way, and violence, or at least increased tensions, is avoided.

And yes, your moral compass can change. In a TV show, that's sometimes applied in the form of "Character Development." A good example would be Zuko, whose moral compass flips many times throughout the course of Avatar the Last Airbender.
However, those dedicated to a religion are less likely to change how they feel on an issue that their religion clearly highlights in one light. Sometimes that can be taken to a fault, like Islamic State did.

Thankfully, we will never have to test whether or not that hypothesis correct.

Let me make myself clear I have no problem with certain Political Organizations, and let me also make myself clear when I say just reading what you wrote made my day fantastic, I was laughing so hard. The result of no having Political Parties does not result in the collapse of order and society or a "Police State". There are plenty of successful States throughout history who didn't have Political Parties. Rather than encourage the fact that we are all different and can live side by side Political Parties insist that their way is the only way. They strive to gain control of as much of the Government as possible at the expense of others who don't agree with them. Yes you are correct to say people are different...no duh. But I'm not arguing against democracy I'm arguing against organized politicians. People are more than welcome to rally behind a candidate and vote for him/her, however when candidates start banding together and creating monopolies on the government with their ideologies that's what I have a problem with.

While that was not my intent to amuse you, thank you! Even unintentional humor is still humor.

The purpose was this: People have opinions. People want to share those opinions. And if we started out with nothing but those opinions, here's what I thought would happen.
There were four possible positions if political parties were smashed and shattered that I highlighted and which have been repeated throughout the ages:
An autocrat who can make their own decisions without listening to the people. [Resulting in no opinion-sharing]. [Variations on this fall under this; i.e. chieftains and shoguns]
A strange system where no one has enough support to enact their own opinions, so they do it themselves.
A system where the only way to get enough support to undergo your opinion is to silence the other side, and you do so [Police state]
And finally, as an extension off of that; in an effort not to be silenced by a united group of people of similar opinions, those on the other end of the line would attempt to unite so as not to be silenced. That would lead to where we stand in the present.
I will admit I had forgotten about true democracies, but they are a very flawed concept. These just invite fraud, blackmail, silencing, etc. since there is no system of checks and balances.

You did, however, point out that there were plenty of successful states who didn't have political parties and [presumably; this was the way I read it] who didn't fall under those four. If they fall under true democracies, then feel free to add them here as well.
I would actually like to hear about these successful states and, as a result, I would like you to list three of them, detail what their system of government was, and how it was successful. We can try to apply them to the argument.

The next point is what I think is a misunderstanding of political parties. They do not champion their way as the only right way because they want power (for the most part); it's because they genuinely believe their way is the only right way.

I don't remember where I heard it, but I remember hearing it somewhere else. This is not my idea. I'm recollecting it.
The reason that we are so divided as a nation is this:
The left believes that they have been making progress. The right is threatening that progress just for the sake of blocking it and taking power again, and so, to them, it is their moral obligation to defend those they have freed.
The right believes that their core values are under attack. The left is threatening the core morals and values of America, of many of its people, and as a result, to protect the America they know and love from being twisted into one they cannot recognize, they will fight tooth and nail to preserve their values.

Seeing recent events you can't deny that Political Parties cause factionalism and divide the nation more so than unify. Parties (or factions) threaten the rational, collaborative process. Our political community has broken into small groups committed to their own narrow interests, the search for the common good is compromised. Politics have disintegrated into battles between conflicting visions, and elections generate division rather than consensus. I have no problem with democracy, it allows different people to unite, however Political Parties just muck up the process and divide the nation.

I don't remember where I heard it, but I remember hearing it somewhere else. This is not my idea. I'm recollecting it.
The reason that we are so divided as a nation is this:
The left believes that they have been making progress. The right is threatening that progress just for the sake of blocking it and taking power again, and so, to them, it is their moral obligation to defend those they have freed.
The right believes that their core values are under attack. The left is threatening the core morals and values of America, of many of its people, and as a result, to protect the America they know and love from being twisted into one they cannot recognize, they will fight tooth and nail to preserve their values.
That's why things are getting out of hand. It's not about factionalism; it's about values. When one believes that, by collaborating, their values will be at best weakened and at worst completely destroyed, collaboration is off the table.
The nation is splitting, yes, in no small part due to the media. And yes, collaboration on some issues that aren't about values may be beneficial; like, say, the economy. But when the left believes that the right wants to oppress them and the right believes that the left wants to uproot them and destroy what they hold dear, it make it far more difficult.

 

[Foolish Ghoul]

Wrong. I connected a loss of religion to a loss of cohesive morality. Individual morals and ethics are still in play.
To quote myself, "Without that, to paraphrase Judges 21:25, since there is no guiding moral compass, each man does what is right in their own eyes."
Actually, what I wrote was two paragraphs pointing out the flaws in a world without political parties and a world without religion, respectively. I'm sorry if it wasn't clear; I was trying to point out the only ways that I can see a world without political parties in the first place panning out.
My point was this:
In a world without religion, widespread identical moral ideas are unlikely, if not impossible. Therefore, most moral and ethical decisions are carried out on an individual level. I then cited Death Note as an example; if people can get behind mass murder because it matches up with their individual moral and ethical compass, then the sky is the limit as to what can occur.
However, since a government is still likely to spring up, we need to account for that. Since individual morality and ethics can't run a government, the government needs their own decisive set of morals and ethics to which all citizens of said government must abide. These are known as "laws."
I then pointed out that governments with different moral and ethical compasses are more likely than not to got to war with each other, which leads to an increase in war, and, in turn, voids the entire scenario. Why? The answer is a few things. Greed and power are one, obviously. But another is seeing things in a different moral and ethical light.
Take the death penalty, a real point of debate in today's world. What if, hypothetically, it was deemed a human rights abuse, and was forbidden? Then what happens if it's revealed another nation continues to use it regularly? Military intervention.
The same thing applies to the governments in our scenario. Except, since there is no religion, or truly widespread identical moral ideas being advocated for, each government's ideals and morals could vary wildly.
As a result, as we often see in some cases of religion, war can break out over a violation of deep, rooted morals and ethics. And since there are more governments than influential religions, this could lead to more wars than if we had kept religion around, therefore negating the scenario's sole goal.


On the contrary. I've already stated previously what I meant by it, and I shall elaborate further:
In this hypothetical scenario, each of the governments have a wide variety of ideals and ethics and laws, with many leading to conflict with others. But nowadays that's not a problem, nor has it been for a while. Why?
Because of this: Aside from he ethics of the individual and the ethics of the government, there has always been an underlying set of guiding principles. The difference between our scenario and the real world is that the guiding principles are applied to many governments in the form of its citizens. Let me illustrate.
Germany France and Liechtenstein (all hail) all want to create a law on torture. Germany says yes with restrictions, France says no to torture in general, and Liechtenstein says yes, no restrictions. That makes them at odds with each other. But in each nation, let's say 30% of their population all share the same moral values, or a religion, and that religion states in it that torture is a disgusting and abhorrent act. There is, therefore, a widespread common value that is shared across all the nations. That means that there is a higher likelihood that France is going to get its way, and violence, or at least increased tensions, is avoided.

And yes, your moral compass can change. In a TV show, that's sometimes applied in the form of "Character Development." A good example would be Zuko, whose moral compass flips many times throughout the course of Avatar the Last Airbender.
However, those dedicated to a religion are less likely to change how they feel on an issue that their religion clearly highlights in one light. Sometimes that can be taken to a fault, like Islamic State did.

Thankfully, we will never have to test whether or not that hypothesis correct.


While that was not my intent to amuse you, thank you! Even unintentional humor is still humor.

The purpose was this: People have opinions. People want to share those opinions. And if we started out with nothing but those opinions, here's what I thought would happen.
There were four possible positions if political parties were smashed and shattered that I highlighted and which have been repeated throughout the ages:
An autocrat who can make their own decisions without listening to the people. [Resulting in no opinion-sharing]. [Variations on this fall under this; i.e. chieftains and shoguns]
A strange system where no one has enough support to enact their own opinions, so they do it themselves.
A system where the only way to get enough support to undergo your opinion is to silence the other side, and you do so [Police state]
And finally, as an extension off of that; in an effort not to be silenced by a united group of people of similar opinions, those on the other end of the line would attempt to unite so as not to be silenced. That would lead to where we stand in the present.
I will admit I had forgotten about true democracies, but they are a very flawed concept. These just invite fraud, blackmail, silencing, etc. since there is no system of checks and balances.

You did, however, point out that there were plenty of successful states who didn't have political parties and [presumably; this was the way I read it] who didn't fall under those four. If they fall under true democracies, then feel free to add them here as well.
I would actually like to hear about these successful states and, as a result, I would like you to list three of them, detail what their system of government was, and how it was successful. We can try to apply them to the argument.

The next point is what I think is a misunderstanding of political parties. They do not champion their way as the only right way because they want power (for the most part); it's because they genuinely believe their way is the only right way.

I don't remember where I heard it, but I remember hearing it somewhere else. This is not my idea. I'm recollecting it.
The reason that we are so divided as a nation is this:
The left believes that they have been making progress. The right is threatening that progress just for the sake of blocking it and taking power again, and so, to them, it is their moral obligation to defend those they have freed.
The right believes that their core values are under attack. The left is threatening the core morals and values of America, of many of its people, and as a result, to protect the America they know and love from being twisted into one they cannot recognize, they will fight tooth and nail to preserve their values.

I don't remember where I heard it, but I remember hearing it somewhere else. This is not my idea. I'm recollecting it.
The reason that we are so divided as a nation is this:
The left believes that they have been making progress. The right is threatening that progress just for the sake of blocking it and taking power again, and so, to them, it is their moral obligation to defend those they have freed.
The right believes that their core values are under attack. The left is threatening the core morals and values of America, of many of its people, and as a result, to protect the America they know and love from being twisted into one they cannot recognize, they will fight tooth and nail to preserve their values.
That's why things are getting out of hand. It's not about factionalism; it's about values. When one believes that, by collaborating, their values will be at best weakened and at worst completely destroyed, collaboration is off the table.
The nation is splitting, yes, in no small part due to the media. And yes, collaboration on some issues that aren't about values may be beneficial; like, say, the economy. But when the left believes that the right wants to oppress them and the right believes that the left wants to uproot them and destroy what they hold dear, it make it far more difficult.

Oh. My. God (well, your god actually). What the fuck are you on about? Lets just agree that neither side is willing to budge on this and end the fuckin charade. Back to unpopular opinions.

Unpopular Opinion:
I believe humans are not inherently born "evil" or "good", as both those ideals are subjective and are a product of societal structure. The universe is cold and uncaring and does not possess laws with which to dictate forces of evil or good.

 

[Hall Kervean]

Oh. My. God (well, your god actually). What the fuck are you on about?

Presenting hypotheticals.
There is no time in history where religion hasn't existed, and political parties, in one form or another, are almost everywhere. Except North Korea because superiority ^^
So I mean, there's really not any evidence for or against.
Plus hypotheticals are fun ^^

 

[The Gunrunner]

North Korea does have a religion, it's... just not a religion anyone else wants to follow.

 

[Foolish Ghoul]

Also, pretty sure dinosaurs didn't have religion or politics. Don't know what you're thinking with this "all of history" thing.

 

[The Gunrunner]

Well there wouldn't be any government during that period either.

 

[Hall Kervean]

North Korea does have a religion, it's... just not a religion anyone else wants to follow.

"political parties, in one form or another, are almost everywhere. Except North Korea because superiority ^^"
That's what I meant.

Also, pretty sure dinosaurs didn't have religion or politics. Don't know what you're thinking with this "all of history" thing.

Three things.
One, coming from the perspective of a Christian who believes that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, all of history does have religion involved at one point or another.
Two, coming from the nonChristian perspective, dinosaurs also don't have history. Humans do, and during all of history, religion has existed in one form of another and, to an extent, political parties.
Three,
That's what they want you to think >.>

 

[Hall Kervean]

North Korea does have a religion, it's... just not a religion anyone else wants to follow.

Actually I'm about 99% sure that's their government too.
They're the only country actively ruled by a deceased ruler.

 

[The Gunrunner]

'Government's trying to enforce a religion' is what it looks like really. Their propaganda has been trying to build up their former leader to be viewed as a literal god, which remains consistent with the reason it's been against other religions.
And I think that's just how they say it is. "Ruling in spirit" or whatever, yeah?

 

[Hall Kervean]

'Government's trying to enforce a religion' is what it looks like really. Their propaganda has been trying to build up their former leader to be viewed as a literal god, which remains consistent with the reason it's been against other religions.
And I think that's just how they say it is. "Ruling in spirit" or whatever, yeah?

Not only that, but Communism as a whole is anti-religion. Ofc Kim il sung may he watch forever is not religion it is fact ^^
To quote wikipedia, "At the same time, the presidential post was written out of the constitution, and Kim Il-sung was designated "Eternal President of the Republic" in order to honor his memory forever. Most analysts believe the title to be a product of the cult of personality he cultivated during his life."
So pretty much, yeah,

 

[The Gunrunner]

Not only that, but Communism as a whole is anti-religion. Ofc Kim il sung may he watch forever is not religion it is fact ^^
To quote wikipedia, "At the same time, the presidential post was written out of the constitution, and Kim Il-sung was designated "Eternal President of the Republic" in order to honor his memory forever. Most analysts believe the title to be a product of the cult of personality he cultivated during his life."
So pretty much, yeah,

Depends on the type. I don't know much about Communism, but I know there are quite a few different schools of thought. Even christian communism, actually (Christian communism - Wikipedia) I think stalinist communism is, part of the whole reasoning behind the 'cult of personality.'

 

[Hall Kervean]

Depends on the type. I don't know much about Communism, but I know there are quite a few different schools of thought. Even christian communism, actually (Christian communism - Wikipedia) I think stalinist communism is, part of the whole reasoning behind the 'cult of personality.'

I actually almost burst out laughing when I started reading that.
They did, actually, try to establish a communal thing. No one in the church owned anything, and everyone in the church had access to everything.
Paul told them to stop; it wasn't working.
Oooh man. Humor. Comedy gold.

 

[The Golden General]

Let's drag this out of politics territory because it will kill the thread if we continue providing unpopular political opinions. Anyone wants to provide one?

 

[Shazam]

The Twilight books aren't as bad as everyone makes them out to be. They're certainly not good, but they're not even close to the worst books ever.

 

[Axel The Englishman]