Ask Lemmy

7-11 was a Part Time JOB!

Humanity can't be fixed, will always be selfish, greedy, discriminating against other people who differ enough, since a bunch of these things are pretty much hard coded. You might not be, some people you know might not be - but statistically, the majority of humanity will happily watch others get oppressed (or worse) for various reasons. There will always be people who manipulate others for power/wealth, disregarding law, morals or the environment, and there will always be a fuckton of gullible/dumb/mean people who happily buy the propaganda for reasons above.

Therefore, no matter what kind of society you try to form, with enough time we will get back to where we are now, and humanity will never be able to break out of this downward spiral, due to its inherent fault.

...which leads to my main controversial opinion, based on the above: the only cure to the mass extinction and the worsening climate happening today is the eradication of the human species. Yes, it would be such a shame saying goodbye to all the great things we have achieved, dad jokes, poetry, the Backstreet Boys; all this means nothing if everything dies on a scorching/freezing planet. At least if we take out humanity, other forms of life could survive, and life as we know it isn't really found on every other planet.

Obviously there will be nothing wiping the human race off of the face of the Earth, and if it somehow ever disappears, it will be by its own doing - but chances are that will also take all other forms of life with it.

Looking at all the awful things humans have been doing to each other, all the pollution, all the ignorance, all the destruction, I wouldn't hesitate a bit if there was a red button in front of me that could magically make them disappear (including me, of course). In the blink of an eye. I would slam down on it as fast as I can.

It's pronounced "gif"

There is no moral way to raise a cat.

Either they live inside and live an entire life in a few thousand square feet at best for 16-20 years, or you let them outside to hunt and they kill tons of wildlife and are exposed to becoming roadkill/coyote food etc.

My personal dodge is to adopt old cats that have already been indoctrinated into inside life and who could never be let out anyway.

Communal anarchy is as valid a political orientation as any other

I'm sure I have a bunch, but for the fediverse I think the most controversial is that I think neopronouns are a bad idea. DISCLAIMER I support queer folks, and I also use neopronouns when requested (because there's zero reason to be a dick about it), but I think everybody would be better off without them.

The entire purpose of pronouns is to offer a quick, generic (i. e. non-individual) way of referring to people or objects without using their names. Using neopronouns which have to be communicated and learned first is the opposite of that. So in my view they're not really pronouns, just additional names one has to learn for a person.

I think the most sensible way of accommodating all genders is using whatever pronouns are present in the language (usually male and female, or a generic pronoun), plus a non-binary pronoun if needed, like singular they in English.

If we allow people with significant dark tetrad personality traits (narcissism, machiavellianism, psychopathy, everyday sadism) or social dominance oriented people to have any meaningful amount of power over others, including the ability to run for office or vote, they will eventually turn societies into… well, what we see now.

Unsurprisingly conservatism overlaps with those traits.

So, ironically, to be able to run a functioning democracy, you'd have to exclude a fairly sizeable chunk of the population from participating in it

Edit: and this includes directorial or managerial positions in any kind of organisation, because corporate psychopaths are common scarily common and very harmful

Children should be treated as human beings and deserve autonomy.

"I don't like how it looks", "it scares me" or "it's annoying" aren't a good enough reasons to kill an animal. No, not even that one.

Suicide should be a human right. You should have to prove that you're of sound mind and that you've considered and tried all other options. But once you've proven you're not manic, psychotic, intoxicated, being coerced, etc and no other option will reasonably bring you peace you should be able to do it and get help making sure you don't get stuck halfway or receive comfort care only until it's over. Also every psych unit I've worked requires suspension of a DNR which terrifies me for involuntary admits.

Nudity alone - without the intent to shock or arouse - shouldn't be taboo, criminal, or censored.

COVID-19 was a lab leak.

Now let me be clear I think Fauci is a god damned saint and national hero for putting up with the shit he did. We don't deserve someone like him.

The Maginot Line wasn't a waste. It did exactly what it was designed to do: Make the Germans go around to the west. The failure was political, in that the 2nd part of this defense was that France and Belgium would coordinate to set up a proper line in Belgium, but this never happened when Germany invaded.

And Chamberlain had no choice but to accept Hitlers claims on Sudetenland (part of then Czechoslovakia). Any other treaty would've required an enforcement mechanism, and Britain was in no shape or form ready for even a limited war at that time.

That religion is for gullible people.

I don't think Epstein was a spy for any government. What kind of idiotic spy leaves thousands of emails as written proofs of crimes? I get it that he'd use gmail to seem inconspicuous, but you can easily delete your own emails. You rarely hear of spies, because they're very good at covering their tracks.

I think he was just a degenerate rich guy hanging out with other degenerate rich guys.