Ask Lemmy

The purpose of an education is to learn how to think, not how to work.

A lot of universities are being treated as training centers for the world of work - and this is not ok.

That cats should remain indoors. Pet cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds in the US alone, not to mention all the other animals that they also kill. I love cats as much as the next guy but keep them indoors for the love of nature

Circumcision is multilation

The pay rate of the lowest paid worker of any company or institution should be somehow legally and directly tied to the pay rate of the highest paid executive.

If the executive wants to make more money and gets a raise, then so do the workers.

The stock market should be illegal in all countries. Its basically a legalized gambling ponzii scheme.

Retirement also shouldn't be tied to this type of system.

Death penalty is wrong. Also vengeance prison is wrong, VERY unpopular opinions. I can't tell you how many people will full on yell at you if you say this in public. I think rehab prison is what should happen for any prisoner that isn't in for murder one or rape, domestic abuse. Financial crimes? House arrest, monitored assets, no access to exploitable systems. Property crime? Make sure they have a legitimate job, parole, house arrest if serious, garnished wages. We could have the vast majority of prisoners on parole or house arrest and in treatment, or jobs programs and out prison population would be at a normal percentage compared to the rest of the world.

Being "proud" of your acheivements is fine.

Being "proud" of your country or your state or your football team that you're not a member of,or your ethnicity is douchebaggery.

Open borders. I strongly believe in open borders as a moral imperative. Human beings have been migrating for survival, resources, and exploration for over 20,000 years. The concept of nation-states imposing constraints on movement is a modern invention that doesn't align with the inherent human need for freedom of mobility. People in the southwestern states of the US with Mexican roots will tell you "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."

• The illusion that we are "rational" has done more damage than good, and if we were to just embrace that emotions are not just real, but a stronger influence on people's behaviour (and therefore reality) than any facts, we might start getting somewhere as a species.

The free movement of people is a human right!

Note that capital is free to go whatever it wants to.

Suicide shouldn't be illegal. If you've tried treatments and seen a therapist for years but just want out - you should be able to schedule a day to be put to sleep.

I think its immoral not to give people a dignified way out.

Violence against oil company shareholders is justified defense of yourself and others. Starting with a face slap for small-time diversified 401k oil investors.

All drugs should be legal, but bodily autonomy is to high a purity test for everyone on planet earth.

Admit it everyone, capitalists will not let us live in peace. At least let me get high to numb the pain of existence.

unpopular moral take: All religions are absurd cop outs and you should choose your own model for how to be a good person.

The death penalty should be used only for white collar crimes and violations of the public trust. These crimes have the greatest impact on society, and usually have the strongest evidence reducing the chances of a wrongful conviction.

If you cannot cook yourself a basic meal (I'm talking boil water, dump a box of pasta in, cook it, strain it, then add red sauce from a jar level of basic), you have failed as a human being. An adult using the whole excuse of "I just can't cook" is pathetic and inexcusable unless you have genuine mental incapacities that prevent you from learning a basic recipe and how to use a stovetop, especially now with access to the internet/videos teaching how to cook.

I don't know if it's a moral per se, but I think nobody should be able to decline being an organ donor. It is an absolute and unforgivable waste to let bodies rot/burn when they could save someone. There is no reason, no good reason, to not be an organ donor. There is no good reason to be able, even after you're dead, to just let people needlessly die.

And religious reasons are even more moronic. What God, if you truly believe he's good and righteous and loving, would want you to let someone else die if you could save them? Why is your meat sack more important than somebody's life? Don't most people believe the soul leaves the body? It's just meat.

I've had countless arguments about this, but nobody has ever been able to give me a compelling reason as to why letting someone die to protect a corpse is right or just.

Religions that seek to dismantle secular democracies should be persecuted, otherwise we're just ending up with a different take on "tolerating the intolerant", and end up like the USA, Hungary, Poland, Russia, et cetera.

Religious freedom should stop at wanting to dismantle secular democracy, just like we don't allow murderous cults, we should also not allow anti-democratic ones.

I have to agree IP is against nature but there's not really any other way to route data over a network.

People shouldn't be jumping through hoops to conceive their own child while there are already children in need of a home

Prostitution should be legalized everywhere. With regulation of course to ensure the protection of the workers and clients.

having kids is a right that should be earned. full assessment and parenthood training course required.

HRT should be available to trans kids. it seems I'm increasingly alone in this belief, depressingly, looking at the political situation around the world.

Everything is fair in fiction. No matter how sensitive or dark a topic is, fictional settings are the only place where anything should be allowed.

This does not mean that attacking/defaming people is ok, just that "I don't like this" or "this is insensitive" should never be brought up against the existence of a work of fiction.

I'm not sure if "most" people would disagree with that, but there are too many that believe that fiction should be ruled by (subjective) morale and laws, while I believe it should be the place where anything goes.

People don't choose to be pedophiles. We shouldn't hate them just for existing.

People choose to abuse children, and that should be strongly punished and I think the majority agrees with me on that.

But a non-offending pedophile is someone with a disability and should be treated as such.

Stealing is OK, the ok-ness of the stealing is inversely proportional to the wealth of the person you steal from.

If you steal 100 dollars from someone who only has 1000 dollars, that's reprehensible, but if you can nick a few million off a billionaire fucking go for it.

i think that institutions should be respected.

It's the number one problem in american politics right now, everything we are currently experiencing, is from people treating politics like a toy. Rather than an institution.

It's so incredibly hard to state how critically important it is for the functioning of society, that the structures running our society, are respected.

I think that once it’s viable it would be ok to release a virus which genetically modifies all humans to be more empathetic and to think more critically.

It would be a violation of bodily autonomy, which I generally do believe in, but I think it’s necessary for the productive and positive future of humanity on the single planet which we currently inhabit.

(Yes definitions of intelligence vary, and epigenetics and nurture play a role, but we’re talking statistics and a statistical improvement is still an improvement)

Eating and using animals when there is a plant-based alternative is wrong and should not be done.

I think people should pay for software, including open source software. Don’t get me wrong, I love open source. I’ve probably spent multiple thousands of hours writing and maintaining open source software. That’s only because I have free time and like to do it. I’ve made $0 doing it, even though several companies use my software. If it started affecting my life negatively, I’d have to stop.

We pay for things like video games, but it’s incredibly difficult to make money in open source, even though the time investment can be just as much for the developers. I guess my point is, if there’s an open source project you like or you think is valuable, toss the devs a donation.

The model I like is free for personal use/paid for commercial use, but doing that in open source is practically impossible as a small dev. Big tech companies should be required to support the open source devs they rely on, imho.

From my point of view of life, it feels like the belief of "Do unto others as you would like others to do to you" is no longer something most people seem to believe in.

A universal right to self. Get the trans / gay community, the raw milkers, the anti vaccers, the druggies and the prochoice crowd all on the same page.

The government should make no law demanding or preventing the alteration of any and all, organs protrusions or growths of organic matter attached to and constituting the body of a sentient person not under the court directed care of another.

To quote Margaret Thatcher, "a man who doesn't own a car by the age of 26 can count himself a failure."

I heavily disagree with that statement. Everyone has reasons not to drive. From disability, to cities being designed for walking and public transport, to being opposed to the pollution that is caused as a result of it, to not wanting to participate in traffic congestion, to not being able to fucking afford one, to being so bad at driving that you just give up after failing that license test multiple times, or to simple personal preference. Are all these people failures apparently? How does that make sense? Well, I guess the people who give up after failing the license test are, but everyone else??

Simply being family doesn't mean you get to remain in my life. Cut off anyone who is toxic or otherwise not good for your life and health. This includes parents.

After a decade it is still surprising to me how many people seem appalled by my no contact situation. I'm sorry, but I've wasted enough of my life on them and wishing for a fantasy dynamic that will never exist.

"But they're your blood..."

So what.

"But they're your family..."

No they're not. I made new family.

Some people have really judged me for this decision. I judge others as they complain about their toxic families they never do anything about.

Monogamy is very often an extremely toxic factor in many relationships.

The death penalty makes sense, but only for CEOs or politicians who knowingly make choices that result in the deaths of hundreds. The Boeing CEO should have been executed for knowing negligence that resulted in that string of crashes.

That's because there is much less of a chance of "getting the wrong person", since the buck has to stop there, the fish smells from the head, and it is the one situation where the value of deterrence trumps rehabilitation or other concerns.

Veganism. It's interesting to see how even seemingly very moral people throw logic out the door when the topic turns to not killing animals.

Freedom of religion is important and religions shouldnt receive special treatment

Broadly speaking, I'm a Pacifist and believe any kind of military confrontation or military aid is bad public policy. The idea of collateral damage - civilian casualties taken in pursuit of military objectives - is fully immoral and should be broadly rejected. Military resources should be tasked first and foremost as disaster relief and recovery with the primary mission being the preservation of human life, rather than offensive missions to defeat or deter an opposition military.

Military reprisals (starting with the MAD policy and going down to retributive strikes in border disputes) are monstrous and should be ended. Military prisons should be closed and POWs immediately repatriated. Embargos, particularly those aimed at economically vulnerable nations like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea, serve no useful purpose and should be lifted immediately. And the only offensive military action should be reserved for securing evacuation routes for refugees, with the bulk of resources dedicated to extending shelter and both immediate and long term relief to the refugees we accrue through these policies.

Genocide is bad.

It's promoted by hegemony throughout my culture. Both "parties" support genocide almost completely. If I even ask for a non-genocidal candidate, I'm attacked by libs. It's a disgusting society.

There is virtue in minding your own business. If it doesn't effect you directly you don't need an opinion on it and you certainly shouldn't share it or expect anyone who is effected to care what you think. You're a bad person if you support people who want to use force to control how other people live their lives. You're evil if you would use force to control how someone else lives their life.

Victims should be the ones to decide whether forgiveness is deserved. no one else.

I don't believe in capitalism. I don't think we should strive for endless economic growth. Sustainability and shared benefits and burdens are the way to go.

it's okay to tell billionaires to kill themselves

Well, I got it right here in the name.

I have two.

There is no such thing as toxic masculinity or toxic femininity. There is only toxic individualism.

Sometimes, you shouldn't be yourself. The person you are might be awful. Bullying and societal pressure correcting you to a norm can be a good thing.

Ideally children should be raised by more than two people.

I treat all people with religious beliefs as members of a dormant terrorist cell.

They could be your nice neighbor with whom you can interact normally on a day-to-day basis, but in the end they all have compromised against logic and, in the right conditions, that is a terrible liability.