Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain’t dead. Remember, don’t downvote for disagreements.
I’m mostly an anarchist. But.
I think that there needs to be some degree of authoritarian, arbitrary power. Mostly because I’ve been in anarchist groups in the past, and when everyone has input into a decision, shit gets bogged down really fast. Not everyone understands a given issue and will be able to make an informed choice, and letting opinionated-and-ignorant people make choices that affect the whole group is… Not good.
The problem is, I don’t know how to balance these competing interests, or exactly where authoritarian power should stop. It’s easy to say, well, I should get to make choices about myself, but what about when those individual choices end up impacting other people? For instance, I eat meat, and yet I’m also aware that the cattle industry is a significant source of CO2; my choice, in that case, contributes to climate change, which affects everyone. …And once you start going down that path, it’s really easy to arrive at totalitarianism as the solution.
I also don’t know how to handle the issue of trade and commerce, and at what point it crosses the line into capitalism.
Y’all don’t need to keep adding things to lgbtq or lgbt+. The q or + takes care of everything
I believe that the stance against nuclear power (specifically, nuclear fission, as opposed to radioisotope power used by spacecraft) by greens undermines the fight to stop global warming, and that many of the purported issues with nuclear power have been solved or were never really issues in the first place.
For instance: the nuclear waste produced by old-gen reactors can be used by newer generations.
I am very very very left wing, BUT I can get really annoyed with a lot of those “on my side” advocating for the most idealist of all idealism, as if it’s a contest. Feels like a competition of “who’s the bestest and mostest leftist of all”. You scare people away and - not justifying it - but I get why some people get upset with “the left” because of this…
I believe that the vast majority of people are inherently good, and that tribalism and political divisiveness are some of the biggest issues we have to face.
Political differences arise mostly from different values, fears, education (or lack thereof), etc, but most people if you get to know them believe what they do because they believe it is genuinely good. But increasingly politics is focused on vilifying others, instead of trying to understand each other.
Freedom of speech for absolutely everyone, especially people I disagree with and that disagree with me
Abortion is not a moral hazard at all. Most people who might exist don’t. The whole “everyone agrees abortion is awful…” shit is obnoxious. I legitimately do not care. I am far more concerned about the lives of actual children. Once we seriously tackle that issue, we can move upstream, and this should be viewed as both incentive and a purity test for those who pretend to care about the “unborn.”
If they are so pro life I’d expect them to support universal healthcare but they very rarely do.
I’ve thought this for a long time. Until every living person has virtually every one of their needs met at virtually all times, abortion isn’t even on the table as something to worry about. We have a responsibility for what we have already, not some potential human that has plenty of other ways they would never make it to adulthood.
Agreed.
Couldn’t care less about fetuses. I do care about the people carrying fetuses and their quality of life, however.
If i was aborted I wouldn’t care, because I would be aborted.
I am unsure about when it stops being moral to terminate a foetus/baby. I think it’s somewhere between 6 and 14 months, but that’s just my gut feeling. Some people are astonished that I would even consider that it could be after birth, but it’s not like any sudden development occurs at the moment of birth.
I agree with my mom. 25 years is good.
For context she said that when I wasn’t 25 yet.
I agree with the following: If your mother tries to kill you, and dies themselves instead as a result of the conflict, they have no right to complain.
but it’s not like any sudden development occurs at the moment of birth.
You mean other than breathing its own air and no longer being physically connected to its mother’s womb? I’d call that pretty significant. I would argue that the moment it breaths its first breath on its own rather than as a part of its mother’s uterus, it becomes a murder victim, not an abortion.
It is always moral if the woman doesn’t want the baby. Sometimes you don’t even find out you’re pregnant until it’s 7 weeks or so
While I think this is mostly true, I think there are some potentially problematic “edge cases”, for example do you think it would be moral for someone to abort all girls until they eventually have a boy?
Is it moral to kill a 2-year old because the parents no longer want it?
I’m sure that abortion is fine for the first few months. After that, I am unsure either way, but I don’t feel strongly enough to wish to see abortion rights curtailed at all. So this is largely academic.
A 2 year old is a baby, an unborn fetus is a fetus, an extension of the parent. It doesn’t have thoughts, feelings, communication, and I would always value the parents life over its own.
If you give away a 2 year old you don’t really have to do much, but if you want to give away a 7 week old fetus, you still have to carry it to term, deal with discrimation and discomfort, deal with any medical issues that may arise, go through the extremely painful procedure of giving birth.
Just as you cannot be forced to donate your organs after death to help save countless lives, you cannot be forced to go through so much pain and trouble just to give birth to a life that doesn’t exist yet.
Let’s put aside 7-week old fetuses, as we both agree it’s fine to abort those.
I am pretty sure a 3-month-old fetus does not have thoughts or feelings to any significant extent. I am less sure about an 8 month old fetus; a lot of people who are 8 months pregnant do think their fetus has started to develop a personality. Regardless, I don’t see any particular leap in thoughts and feelings from just prior to birth compared with just after birth; at least, I don’t see why such a leap should occur at the moment of birth.
I don’t think being forced to donate organs is a good metaphor – at least, I don’t intrinsically value post-mortem bodily autonomy. A better metaphor I think would be being forced to do something in order for another person to live. Consider a Saharan desert guide on a 1-month tour for some clients. Once the tour begins, it would be morally reprehensible for the guide to abandon the clients to the elements; they must bring the clients out of the desert safely, whether they want to or not. It should be a bright-line case, because the lives of the clients rely on the guide, and the guide got them into this situation.
I don’t see 7-week old fetuses as being people; their lives are below my consideration. I do see an 8.5-month baby as being close in moral value to a 2-week old baby – I don’t know what that moral value is, but either killing both is fine, or killing neither is.
I can’t believe this word doesn’t seem to have made it into any part of this thread, but I think you’re looking for viability: the point where a fetus can live outside of the womb. This isn’t a hard line, of course, and technology can and has changed where that line can be drawn. Before that point, the fetus is entirely dependent on one specific person’s body, and after that point, there are other options for caring for it. That is typically where pro-choice folks will draw the line for abortion as well; before that point, an abortion ban is forced pregnancy and unacceptable, after that point there can be some negotiation and debate (though that late into a pregnancy, if an abortion is being discussed it’s almost certainly a health crisis, not a change of heart, so imposing restrictions just means more complications for an already difficult and dangerous situation).
The 2 year old can exist separately from their parent. A fetus can’t, in most abortion cases.
It’s not about the development of the fetus, it’s about the woman’s autonomy. So long as it’s still inside her, her right to choose takes priority over its right to live, full stop.
Why do you assert this? Based on what moral framework? Is it morally okay to abandon a baby to the elements after birth, in favour of the autonomy of those who would raise it?
I’m not going to engage with you on the topic of a women’s right to choose, or the meaning of bodily autonomy. On the off chance you’re not a troll, good luck with your research on this very well documented political debate.
Based on the moral frame work that no person has a right to another person’s body parts. We don’t take organs from people who haven’t explicitly said they’re organ donors even after death, because that axiom is held so high. If I accidently hit you with my car, I have no legal obligation to donate a kidney to you to save your life.
I agree that axiom does lead to absolute certainty that fetuses can be aborted at any month. I don’t agree with the axiom though. If I sign up to, say, share a kidney with somebody to keep them alive for 8 hours in some kind of bizarre medical procedure, I don’t believe it’s acceptable for me to shrug and change my mind halfway through. See also the metaphor about the Saharan desert guide in the adjacent thread.
Bodily autonomy is different than “freedom to go about your life as you see fit”. Carrying a baby and giving birth come with risks and responsibilities and it changes your body. All of this risk is for the baby at the expense of the mother.
Analogy: let’s say someone needs a kidney transplant or they will die. Turns out, you’re the only match. Donating a kidney is not risk free and your body will be changed for the rest of your life. Should you donate? Yeah, probably. Should you be legally forced to? Absolutely not.
To me, this analogy completely solves the issue. I can say that life begins at conception and still say that bodily autonomy is a right. It doesn’t matter if the fetus/baby is a person yet, as long as the mother’s body is being used to sustain them, then it’s the mother’s choice.
Let’s put aside legality, as that’s separate from morality. I am not claiming that abortion should be illegal.
My claim is that intrinsically the morality of killing the fetus just before birth ought to be similar to the morality of killing the fetus just after birth. It’s true that there is another term in the moral equation (whatever you think that is) based on bodily autonomy of the parent, which has a dramatic change at the moment of birth. I also believe that this bodily autonomy term ought to be less than the value of a grown adult life (maybe not of a fetus though). In other words, it’s worse for someone to die than it is for someone else to temporarily lose some bodily autonomy.
Please note that I’m not sure that the intrinsic value of an 8-month-old fetus is equal to that of a full-grown adult. If a newborn baby’s life is intrinsically worthless outside of future potential – say, because they don’t have sentience – then there is clearly zero problem with an abortion at any stage. But most other people think a newborn baby’s life is equal to that of an adult, and I think you can more or less substitute “newborn baby” for “8-month old fetus.”
In your analogy, I do think that the moral action is to donate one of your two kidneys. It’s an even better analogy if it’s only a temporary donation of the kidney somehow, and a yet better analogy if you had caused them to be in this predicament. In the case of a several-months pregnant person living somewhere with easy abortion access, the analogy is improved further like so: you had previously agreed to lend them your kidney, but you change your mind during the critical part of the surgery when it’s too late for anyone else to sub in their kidney (we can relax the stipulation that you’re the only match in this case; this is because I believe life is fungible at inception).
I mostly agree with you on the morality of abortion. The only problem I have with your analysis is with the temporary nature of pregnancy. There are risks in pregnancy that can have permanent consequences. Even if the birth goes off without a hitch, the mother is often left with weight gain, stretch-marks, and a risk of post-partum depression. Incisions are often needed to widen the birth canal and sometimes a C-section is required which is major emergency abdominal surgery. These risks are entirely taken on by the mother.
If we look at morality as having things people should do, and things people must do, only the musts should be law because the shoulds can be more open to interpretation. I wouldn’t assign my morality onto others. I would classify going through with a pregnancy as a should.
The analogy still works because the temporary loan of the kidney might have permanent consequences afterward. And it’s only an analogy. I still think those possible side-effects (save for the truly serious ones) don’t outweigh the death of a grown adult. Again, I’m not claiming that a grown adult is the same as a fetus.
I make this rather strange argument because I actually am a tentative proponent of post-birth abortions – but most people think such a concept sounds so outrageous that they assume I must be trolling. It’s generally only something people are open to considering after they can be convinced that there isn’t much of a difference between killing a fetus and killing a newborn.
I dislike criminalization at all because if a doctor at any point has to consider if they can prove that an abortion was medically necessary in a court of law, I find that to be a violation of their ability to care for their patient.
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“everyone agrees abortion is awful…”
that doesn’t make them right btw. hitler was democratically elected too; the majority isn’t always right.
Do they present any actual arguments? That’s what would be interesting, because that is something that can be discussed.
That progressive people should prioritize economic equality ahead of social issues.
Stop out-woking one another, it’s okay to be right silently in order to bring in fence sitters.
If someone says, “my spirit animal told me late-stage capitalism is evil” welcome them to the club with open arms, focus on how you’re alike and trust them to work out their faux pas over time spent among like-minded peers.
Also cultural appropriation ≠ exploitation, we can stop clutching our collective pearls over these faux pas.
I’m far left, but I believe that any citizen should be allowed to own any gun.
As someone who was in a supportive relationship with a transgender person for 3 years and who personally struggles associating with my own gender (masculinity was never my thing lol), I never really got into the stating my gender pronouns.
I get why it’s done for the times it matters and can do so in a sensitive space, but I get the sense it’s usually done as public compliance (like a cis neolib as an email sig), which can lead to shallow support or worse, resentment. What we ultimately need is more genuine contact with people different from ourselves because that helps reduce “othering” a group.
Oh, but I do tend to default to “they” out of old internet habits. Always disliked the assumption all gamers are men.
You can be Jewish and even support the idea of a Jewish homeland while also being fervently appalled by the actions of the state of Israel (Netanyahu, West Bank settlements, unarmed Palestinians shot/killed, houses being bulldozed, mass displacements).
I don’t like racism against white people or sexism against men. Do I think they’re less urgent or worrying than bigotry directed at other groups? Sure. There’s less hate against men and whites compared to other groups, and bigotry against them doesn’t have the same social or political impact due to current systemic racism and sexism being directed at others. But bigotry is still bigotry, and I don’t like bigotry against anyone.
That intellectual property, both copyright or patents, doesn’t serve its theoretical purpose and just acts as a legal shield for the monopolies of big corporations, at least in our capitalistic system, and it limits the spread of information
In theory, a musician should be protected against abuse of their music. In practice, all musicians need to be on Spotify through one of the few main publishers to make any decent money, and their music will be used for unintended purposes (intended for their contract at least) like AI training
In theory, patents should allow a small company with an idea to sell its progressive product to many big corporations. In practice, one big corporation will either buy the small company or copy the product and have the money to legally support its case against all evidence, lobbying to change laws too. Not to mention that big corporations are the ones that can do enough research to have relevant patents, it’s much harder for universities and SMEs, not to mention big corporations can lobby to reduce public funding to R&D programs in universities and for SMEs.
And, last but not least important, access to content, think of politically relevant movies or book, depends on your income. If you are from a poorer country, chances are you cannot enjoy as much information and content as one born in a richer country.
Immigration is universally a roaring net positive in all of history ; economically, socially, everything. It’s more than disinformation when they spew talking points. It’s hate. And most people complicit are just fully ignorant. USA lost their empire due to lack of education. Every other first world nations have their success in lockstep with the level of education they give their kids. A heist of all wealth has been conducted and you are viewing the aftermath. Elon will find your coffers empty. The real treasure, turns out, was the people.
