Basman

No child wants to have sex with adults.

Yup. I'm doing nothing.

The line between legal and illegal is relative and arbitrary but it is very easy to abuse someone who's very young and inexperienced, which is part of why it is frowned upon. Minors are dependent on adults and lack the emotional and material resources to regulate their connections themselves. They will put up with predators not fully understanding what is going on. They won't even fully understand when they get raped. And they won't just suffer from being raped but also feel abandoned and betrayed by the adults they look up to, scaring them for life. This is why people are protective of their children. Targeting young teens deliberately is categorically predatory behavior.

My mother told me once that she in retrospect wouldn't have children given a second chance. Not because of a lack of love but because she would rather have focused that attention on her niche interests (she's autistic). She's an example of someone who is not a family person at heart. On the other hand I've met people who are very passionate about raising children, regardless if they have them. I think it is worth trialing having kids by looking after young cousins for a week or something. See how it makes you feel. Even if just to confirm that you don't want kids.

Having a minority of leaders is highly effective and practical as everyone else can focus on their task as a cog in the machine. It can be problematic when leaders entrench their position for the sake of power and act out in corrupt ways of course. It is why we have democracy in advanced societies as checks and balances hold powers in check (in theory at least). Being a leader requires you take on much more responsibility. Most people aren't cut out for that level of responsibility. For many it is a struggle to be responsible just for one self, so leaders provide a lot of value to society just by assuming that role. It might not even be the case that leadership is that much harder all in all but it requires you to be accountable to the bigger picture of your organization. Failure is ultimately your responsibility as a leader. Even tribes have leaders. We are naturally drawn to strong leaders. People dislike Biden in part because we are disgusted by the appearance of a weak and feeble leader.

No one is immune to violence. That is the issue. Danish beat cops used to be unarmed during patrol. Then in 1965 four officers where shot dead by a burglar and they started carrying since. I can't confirm if this happened but back in 2011 I heard that the Norwegian police call center hung up on people who where reporting the mass shooting by Breivik because they couldn't believe it was real. It is a kind of arrogance to think you are above war and violence. It is dangerous. It is not just about adversary states but just the general principle of meeting force with force. And we see now that Europe is woefully under prepared for a war with Russia without Americas help, putting European security and lives at risk because they are "above war".

We have already known that torture is ineffective at gathering intelligence for hundreds of years, long before scientific studies corroborated this fact. Because when the pain and suffering reach a high enough level, you'll confess to anything to make the pain go away. Yet torture remains a staple for many governments and groups. The US has numerous black sites across the world where "alleged" terrorists are held and routinely tortured. Israel has come under fire for their torture camps and alleged sexual abuse of inmates. I was naive to think that torture was purely in the pursuit intelligence. This is not the case. Torture is primarily about domination and terrorizing one's enemies I believe. Torture is a form of terrorism. It's a way to break the will to fight of an enemy group. The existence of Guantanamo Bay sends a quiet message to America's enemies for instance. Russians castrating Ukrainian POWs with boxcutters is clearly meant to demoralize other Ukrainians. With that understanding, does torture have a place in modern society? Torture is a barbaric act and arguably undermines the legitimacy of a government, especially western societies who value liberty and human rights. It hurts the credibility of the US especially. We would have at least 5 less tankies on this forum if Guantanamo Bay didn't exist. And we are doing a disservice to government personal and soldiers as they didn't exactly sign up to cruelly torture people, I'm sure. And the fact is that governments aren't proud of state sanctioned torture. Otherwise it wouldn't be so secretive. So do we actually need this kind of terrorism since governments sanction torture anyway? I'm open-minded to hearing counter-arguments.

Just today I rode past a poster that said in the vein of "more books, less bombs" in reaction against increased military spending (communist party). There is a significant portion of the population that are complacent when it comes to security. US hegemony was a luxury in retrospect, which isn't even being acknowledged. They seemingly act like they are above war.

Europe being dependent on the US militarily was well known long before the Ukraine war. It's no surprise. In fact, I always found it ideologically hypocritical that Europe as a collective espouses liberty and peace while underspending on their military, whit the US disproportionally representing NATO power, -on their dime. Europe has acted like a spoiled sugar baby to a certain degree while there was relative peace in the region. Now we are caught underprepared.

He also tried to get me to hire him as a dating coach once. I asked him for his resume and he instantly got defensive and abrasive so I quickly just ghosted the chain. Not worth risking my money into someone so unprofessional. No appreciation of how a potential client might see it as a scam or a poor service.

I can't speak for Islamic traditions specifically but all religions have practices that are genuinely healing and spiritual. Like confession in Christianity is kind of therapy. Be careful of religious dogma arresting your mind in group think and dogmatism however.

That is a big IF if they are an actual terrorist. It is almost never clear cut. In practice, it tends to turn into brown = terrorist where if you happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time you get abducted and tortured. There's evidence that there are other ways that are more effective for gathering intelligence that doesn't involve direct torture like the Scharff technique which involves being friendly to your captives and manipulating them to willfully divulge info without realizing. That is the problem. You can make someone confess to anything under enough duress which makes their info inherently less reliable and accurate. You can make Leo confess to being the son of Hitler with enough torture. But the point of torture is not intelligence first and foremost but domination so it is a moot point.

Suzie from work is just office hot. You can do better.

What would happen is Trump will launch the national guard as soon as he can and hammer you into submission and then crown himself national hero. It would embolden Trump to smear democrats even further and contribute to undercuting democratic processes. Political suicide is not going to solve the problem. People have to suffer the consequences of their immature voting practices through mass inflation and hollowing of social services and democracy for them to learn. I know it's frustrating because just how stupid it all is. It should be obvious how bad Trump is politically.

Fracturing the country isn't a proportional response to a bad president or political climate. It just makes things worse and could lead to civil war. A state that silos nukes seceding would lead to security crisis.

I watched this video recently that made it click for me as I always naively assumed that torture is purely for intelligence but that couldn't explain its prevalence considering how inefficient it is for actually gathering intelligence. Of course, it's about domination. That makes perfect sense.

That would be immensely self-destructive and pointless. Now you've assured that blue states don't have any say over politics.

Surely, the end result is America isolating itself and relinquishing its influence as a result. A lot of states will exert their own influence either as a matter of basic security or opportunity, leading to a more multipolar world.

There is no politics without an "I" .

It can take over a month of straight waterboarding to get any intel out of somebody. With that cost in mind, do you think its ethical if the intel isn't guaranteed to be even true?

@Daniel Balan It sounds like your under a lot of stress. Do you think that is perhaps a contributing factor?

Conservatives generally prioritize equality of means over outcome. Affirmative action is an attempt at equalizing outcomes so conservatives are naturally going to dislike it based on that factor alone. The main critique is of the hiring and promotion of people who may not be qualified for the job. You can find plenty of critique of accidents or poor performance blamed on DEI personal who supposedly didn't know what they where doing. The overweight Secret Service lady caught a lot of flak for being a "DEI hire" after the Trump shooting for instance. Most of it is just vibes however though I agree with the principle that hiring someone should prioritize competency first. I can see a rebrand happening in the future.

Certain topics being divisive doesn't mean the forum as a whole is low-conscious. It's quiet peaceful and tolerant compared to many other forums in fact. You don't get banned for having the "wrong opinion" here unless you go way overboard. The diversity of worldviews and people is a testament to that. Just ignore annoying users and avoid getting bogged down in empty arguments over semantics, etc. If you are constantly inundated with low quality brainrot than that is partially on you. You are going to have to make up your own mind of who is worth listening to. The quality of discussions to be had begin with you. Any appraisal system will instantly be abused as a agree/disagree button and the forum will turn into an echo-chamber. Less is more for the purpose of having a good faith discussion.