Whatever harm I have brought upon you, somehow, for having my beliefs, I apologize.
I guess.
I view religion as just another recreational activity that has high potential for abuse and harm. I absolutely support it being available to those who want it, but also hope that the constant improvement of education reduces the number of people who use and abuse it.
This might not sound any better to you, but I wanted to clarify.
Whatever harm I have brought upon you, somehow, for having my beliefs, I apologize.
I guess.
I view religion as just another recreational activity that has high potential for abuse and harm. I absolutely support it being available to those who want it, but also hope that the constant improvement of education reduces the number of people who use and abuse it.
This might not sound any better to you, but I wanted to clarify.
It just has more spotlight in the way of being invasive or interfering with other people's lives. Next to drinking and driving, which ends lives.
But don't worry I get'cha. I just don't like when people want the entirety of religion to go away when not everyone fits whatever persona they have in mind for it. And I don't want to twist this into a religion thread.
The Gulf thread posting the "never talking to police video" made me think of this one: that we think tasers are funny.
Yeah, I've always wondered if people would laugh it were bullwhips instead.
You wouldn't?
Given the fact that I currently own a large personal library and bought brand new copies of items in said library to give as a gift rather than take them from my library (even one which I could obtain for free for my kindle), I'm going to go with our attitudes toward physical object, especially objects that only serve to contain info and their condition outside of their ability to serve said purpose. We'll be furious at how our children upload images onto their walls instead of framing them.
Reading Ann Veronica is very educational. Those liberal movements that changed society, like the suffrage organizations and the Fabians, were full of very silly people following very silly fashions.
Oh, seeing that post on tasers reminds me of another one; the use of lethal weapons for self-defense. Or hell, maybe the need for self-defense.
But yeah, I can see less- or even non-lethal self-defense solutions with equal efficiency to guns being created, or even some form of personal defense rendering most civilian weapons ineffective.
Either one would swing civilian ownership lethal self-defense tools from morally debateable to something completely heinous to a new generation/forwardthinking types, I imagine.
Ah. I'm not sure how common it is in the United States. Pretty common, I'd guess, though I can only speculate (thankfully, having evidence would be....awkward...) compared to other parts of the world.
It's still prevelant in the U.S. and will be for a long time. It's still legal in places where it's very rare too. Decreasing rapidly as a practice in Canada. Still a long way off from being widely considered unacceptable.
Actually, given that medical procedures are constantly getting safer (even if you don't think it's safe already), there are quite a few medical benefits, and the only harm that anyone can come up with are anecdotes about "sensitivity," it's much more likely that opposition to circumcision will come to be seen the same way we view vaccine opposition.
Hell, recent years evidence this trend, with promotion of circumcision by the WHO, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (several are opening government-sponsored clinics) and an expected recommendation by the CDC. Meanwhile, Limbaugh is saying that Obama's going to make the practice mandatory, which is a general indicator that it's a good idea.
Satanism is worship of the self, and the belief that you are your own god
O.o
Wouldn't this qualify everyone who isn't religious as a "Satanist"? I mean, if I have a 'god' it is definitely myself; I'm my own ultimate moral authority.
It does take a very special type of person to think "you know what? I want to worship the source of everything that is wrong with the world." It's almost the religious equivalent of a confederate flag.
Satanism is worship of the self, and the belief that you are your own god
O.o
Wouldn't this qualify everyone who isn't religious as a "Satanist"? I mean, if I have a 'god' it is definitely myself; I'm my own ultimate moral authority.
It does take a very special type of person to think "you know what? I want to worship the source of everything that is wrong with the world." It's almost the religious equivalent of a confederate flag.
Selfishness and selflessness both derive meaning from a sense of self; if you don't have a sense of self, acting for the greater good is amoral. It means nothing. Only sapient beings are capable of acting based on morality. The self is the source of all good in the world, too.
Unless you are talking about Satan, not the self, then, uh, oops.
I think the corollary of this discussion is: How will our times be looked on as a the Golden Era by whatever combination of hipsters and conservatives exist in 50 years? Will Transformers 2 be a camp classic? Will neo-Limbaugh rant about the glory days before everyone became so dependent on AI while decrying polyrobot marriages?
Whatever harm I have brought upon you, somehow, for having my beliefs, I apologize.
I guess.
I view religion as just another recreational activity that has high potential for abuse and harm. I absolutely support it being available to those who want it, but also hope that the constant improvement of education reduces the number of people who use and abuse it.
This might not sound any better to you, but I wanted to clarify.
It just has more spotlight in the way of being invasive or interfering with other people's lives. Next to drinking and driving, which ends lives.
But don't worry I get'cha. I just don't like when people want the entirety of religion to go away when not everyone fits whatever persona they have in mind for it. And I don't want to twist this into a religion thread.
Just as a side-note, religion has and still inspires people to end other people's lives.
I think the corollary of this discussion is: How will our times be looked on as a the Golden Era by whatever combination of hipsters and conservatives exist in 50 years? Will Transformers 2 be a camp classic? Will neo-Limbaugh rant about the glory days before everyone became so dependent on AI while decrying polyrobot marriages?
Whatever harm I have brought upon you, somehow, for having my beliefs, I apologize.
I guess.
I view religion as just another recreational activity that has high potential for abuse and harm. I absolutely support it being available to those who want it, but also hope that the constant improvement of education reduces the number of people who use and abuse it.
This might not sound any better to you, but I wanted to clarify.
It just has more spotlight in the way of being invasive or interfering with other people's lives. Next to drinking and driving, which ends lives.
But don't worry I get'cha. I just don't like when people want the entirety of religion to go away when not everyone fits whatever persona they have in mind for it. And I don't want to twist this into a religion thread.
Just as a side-note, religion has and still inspires people to end other people's lives.
I think the corollary of this discussion is: How will our times be looked on as a the Golden Era by whatever combination of hipsters and conservatives exist in 50 years? Will Transformers 2 be a camp classic? Will neo-Limbaugh rant about the glory days before everyone became so dependent on AI while decrying polyrobot marriages?
The internet as Eden before the walled gardens.
But walled gardens were the first internets basically.
Couscous on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Whatever harm I have brought upon you, somehow, for having my beliefs, I apologize.
I guess.
I view religion as just another recreational activity that has high potential for abuse and harm. I absolutely support it being available to those who want it, but also hope that the constant improvement of education reduces the number of people who use and abuse it.
This might not sound any better to you, but I wanted to clarify.
It just has more spotlight in the way of being invasive or interfering with other people's lives. Next to drinking and driving, which ends lives.
But don't worry I get'cha. I just don't like when people want the entirety of religion to go away when not everyone fits whatever persona they have in mind for it. And I don't want to twist this into a religion thread.
Just as a side-note, religion has and still inspires people to end other people's lives.
Oh I know, but the point was more of what sort of hobby or lifestyle gets spotlight for bad shit it produces.
I think the corollary of this discussion is: How will our times be looked on as a the Golden Era by whatever combination of hipsters and conservatives exist in 50 years? Will Transformers 2 be a camp classic? Will neo-Limbaugh rant about the glory days before everyone became so dependent on AI while decrying polyrobot marriages?
The internet as Eden before the walled gardens.
But walled gardens were the first internets basically.
And Ozzie and Harriet's time of tranquil small government was full of HUAC hearings, lynching, and riots.
Our generation's evilness, and this is going along with what the OP had in mind I think, is drinking culture.
Let me clarify; the glorifying of going out clubbing and getting drunk off our asses, etc. I think in 50 years time, people are going to look back on that shit and think "What in the fuck is the matter with you?"
The trick is, I think we're going to progress enough to where drinking becomes more widely accept, but as a result less people are going out to get shitfaced. I've seen lots of people get disinterested in alcohol with time and they only jump in because OMG IM 21 LETS DO THIS SHIT.
This is a pretty good point. This whole culture of getting wasted is really fucking stupid. I mean, people got drunk on previous generations as well, but it wasn't nearly as obnoxious. And people didn't brag about how drunk they were last night either.
It was extremely taboo back in the day too, but as things expanded for the youth the drinking came out of the closet (as it were). So now you've got shit where going to college for some people is defined by the parties they go to. You've got shows like Jersey Shore and The Real World playing up the drunken rampage / shitfaced antics and people find it entertaining and put themselves in those positions. You've got a genre of music talking about getting "crunk" or whatever (to be fair, I think a lot of 80's rock had that going on). And it's not helping that police let celebrities off the hook for drunken and disorderly conduct, which enables people...
I mean, one of these days the brakes are gonna be hit on that shit and it'll stop being cool.
In the future, we will sit around drinking wine while writing poetry about having sex with young boys. Ironically, we will neither be Muslim Spaniards nor Catholic Priests.
Actually, we might end up being mocked for our lack of knowledge of the various empires of Persia, which were the rivals of both of our traditional "great powers," Greece and Rome. Hell, the Persian Empire was the largest Empire of antiquity, but we mainly know it for its half-hearted invasions of a cluster of Mediterranean islands. Similarly, our lack of knowledge of the Islamic Golden Age is embarrassing. They invented the fucking scientific method and fucking peer review.
Satanism is worship of the self, and the belief that you are your own god
O.o
Wouldn't this qualify everyone who isn't religious as a "Satanist"? I mean, if I have a 'god' it is definitely myself; I'm my own ultimate moral authority.
It does take a very special type of person to think "you know what? I want to worship the source of everything that is wrong with the world." It's almost the religious equivalent of a confederate flag.
Selfishness and selflessness both derive meaning from a sense of self; if you don't have a sense of self, acting for the greater good is amoral. It means nothing. Only sapient beings are capable of acting based on morality. The self is the source of all good in the world, too.
Unless you are talking about Satan, not the self, then, uh, oops.
Yeah, I was talking about the guys who slaughter goats in candygrams.
Ah. I'm not sure how common it is in the United States. Pretty common, I'd guess, though I can only speculate (thankfully, having evidence would be....awkward...) compared to other parts of the world.
It's still prevelant in the U.S. and will be for a long time. It's still legal in places where it's very rare too. Decreasing rapidly as a practice in Canada. Still a long way off from being widely considered unacceptable.
Actually, given that medical procedures are constantly getting safer (even if you don't think it's safe already), there are quite a few medical benefits, and the only harm that anyone can come up with are anecdotes about "sensitivity," it's much more likely that opposition to circumcision will come to be seen the same way we view vaccine opposition.
Hell, recent years evidence this trend, with promotion of circumcision by the WHO, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (several are opening government-sponsored clinics) and an expected recommendation by the CDC. Meanwhile, Limbaugh is saying that Obama's going to make the practice mandatory, which is a general indicator that it's a good idea.
The problem with circumcision is that it's generally done to babies. Circumcision may not have many drawbacks, but it has few benefits, either, and by the time the kid is old enough to benefit from those potential benefits he's also old enough to make the decision for himself.
Vaccines are different because they protect both the kid and everyone he comes into contact with from diseases that threaten immediately.
Lieberkuhn on
While you eat, let's have a conversation about the nature of consent.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Our generation's evilness, and this is going along with what the OP had in mind I think, is drinking culture.
Let me clarify; the glorifying of going out clubbing and getting drunk off our asses, etc. I think in 50 years time, people are going to look back on that shit and think "What in the fuck is the matter with you?"
The trick is, I think we're going to progress enough to where drinking becomes more widely accept, but as a result less people are going out to get shitfaced. I've seen lots of people get disinterested in alcohol with time and they only jump in because OMG IM 21 LETS DO THIS SHIT.
This is a pretty good point. This whole culture of getting wasted is really fucking stupid. I mean, people got drunk on previous generations as well, but it wasn't nearly as obnoxious. And people didn't brag about how drunk they were last night either.
It was extremely taboo back in the day too, but as things expanded for the youth the drinking came out of the closet (as it were). So now you've got shit where going to college for some people is defined by the parties they go to. You've got shows like Jersey Shore and The Real World playing up the drunken rampage / shitfaced antics and people find it entertaining and put themselves in those positions. You've got a genre of music talking about getting "crunk" or whatever (to be fair, I think a lot of 80's rock had that going on). And it's not helping that police let celebrities off the hook for drunken and disorderly conduct, which enables people...
I mean, one of these days the brakes are gonna be hit on that shit and it'll stop being cool.
In the future, we will sit around drinking wine while writing poetry about having sex with young boys. Ironically, we will neither be Muslim Spaniards nor Catholic Priests.
Actually, we might end up being mocked for our lack of knowledge of the various empires of Persia, which were the rivals of both of our traditional "great powers," Greece and Rome. Hell, the Persian Empire was the largest Empire of antiquity, but we mainly know it for its half-hearted invasions of a cluster of Mediterranean islands. Similarly, our lack of knowledge of the Islamic Golden Age is embarrassing. They invented the fucking scientific method and fucking peer review.
I'm not saying alcohol will go away or getting shitfaced will disappear, and everyone is going to become classy. But I think that 'culture' (again, saying "drinking culture" is weird for me but it's the best way I can classify it) is going to be frowned on. People will drink and have a good time still. But the IM SO WASTED stuff is going to take a back seat, if not be frowned on.
Our generation's evilness, and this is going along with what the OP had in mind I think, is drinking culture.
Let me clarify; the glorifying of going out clubbing and getting drunk off our asses, etc. I think in 50 years time, people are going to look back on that shit and think "What in the fuck is the matter with you?"
The trick is, I think we're going to progress enough to where drinking becomes more widely accept, but as a result less people are going out to get shitfaced. I've seen lots of people get disinterested in alcohol with time and they only jump in because OMG IM 21 LETS DO THIS SHIT.
This is a pretty good point. This whole culture of getting wasted is really fucking stupid. I mean, people got drunk on previous generations as well, but it wasn't nearly as obnoxious. And people didn't brag about how drunk they were last night either.
It was extremely taboo back in the day too, but as things expanded for the youth the drinking came out of the closet (as it were). So now you've got shit where going to college for some people is defined by the parties they go to. You've got shows like Jersey Shore and The Real World playing up the drunken rampage / shitfaced antics and people find it entertaining and put themselves in those positions. You've got a genre of music talking about getting "crunk" or whatever (to be fair, I think a lot of 80's rock had that going on). And it's not helping that police let celebrities off the hook for drunken and disorderly conduct, which enables people...
I mean, one of these days the brakes are gonna be hit on that shit and it'll stop being cool.
In the future, we will sit around drinking wine while writing poetry about having sex with young boys. Ironically, we will neither be Muslim Spaniards nor Catholic Priests.
Actually, we might end up being mocked for our lack of knowledge of the various empires of Persia, which were the rivals of both of our traditional "great powers," Greece and Rome. Hell, the Persian Empire was the largest Empire of antiquity, but we mainly know it for its half-hearted invasions of a cluster of Mediterranean islands. Similarly, our lack of knowledge of the Islamic Golden Age is embarrassing. They invented the fucking scientific method and fucking peer review.
Ethnocentrism is embarrassing, but I don't think it's going anywhere. Even with demographic considerations potentially broadening it out in America.
It seems like I heard once that the worlds oldest known written recipe is for beer.
Getting a good buzz on is pretty much hardwired into us.
There's a good amount of evidence that the first organized agriculture, settlement and commerce - i.e. civilization - came about because of the infrastructure needed to produce large amounts of beer and wine. Basically, human civilization rose out of the need to get more people drunk.
Of course, things were a little different back then because the alternative to a hangover was your heart dropping out your anus in a deluge of diarrhea.
Seriously, though, this is pretty much it. I mean, I throw out a half jug of milk because I can't decide if it smells bad or not, and there are people in my city who starve every night. It makes me a shitty person, I guess, because I just don't care. My brain can only account for the problems of so many people on any kind of personal level, and the hungry population of this city, let alone 3rd world countries just aren't a part of my monkeysphere. It's not my problem, and I doubt I'll feel any different at 70. And the youth of that generation will say "man, what a wasteful, self-centered prick", and I'll tell them to get off my lawn.
Perhaps a bit ironically, though, I'm in favor of letting the government take money from my paycheck to help these people.
Actually, I'm going to bet that this is one of the things our generation won't do. We're entering the workforce in the worst recession since the great depression with an assload of debt. We are never going to throw anything out. My grandfather, who is early greatest, would spend most of his time on the golf course canvassing the woods for golf balls back when he played golf, and both my basement and that of my aunt was full of his crap before he moved to a house with no basement, meaning we had to find yet more storage space. We are going to end up the exact same way. Of course, my family is a tad strange.
Ah. I'm not sure how common it is in the United States. Pretty common, I'd guess, though I can only speculate (thankfully, having evidence would be....awkward...) compared to other parts of the world.
It's still prevelant in the U.S. and will be for a long time. It's still legal in places where it's very rare too. Decreasing rapidly as a practice in Canada. Still a long way off from being widely considered unacceptable.
Actually, given that medical procedures are constantly getting safer (even if you don't think it's safe already), there are quite a few medical benefits, and the only harm that anyone can come up with are anecdotes about "sensitivity," it's much more likely that opposition to circumcision will come to be seen the same way we view vaccine opposition.
Hell, recent years evidence this trend, with promotion of circumcision by the WHO, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (several are opening government-sponsored clinics) and an expected recommendation by the CDC. Meanwhile, Limbaugh is saying that Obama's going to make the practice mandatory, which is a general indicator that it's a good idea.
The problem with circumcision is that it's generally done to babies. Circumcision may not have many drawbacks, but it has few benefits, either, and by the time the kid is old enough to benefit from those potential benefits he's also old enough to make the decision for himself.
Vaccines are different because they protect both the kid and everyone he comes into contact with from diseases that threaten immediately.
It would also be more traumatic and difficult, though, so it's kind of like sending your kids to kindergarten. There's also the other medical procedures a sane parent should "force on" a child, and the fact that it helps herd immunity the same way as vaccines on top of preventing the spread after contraction (the link on the countries noted a reduction in male->female transmittance). You might as well complain about parents forcing their children to have the same first language.
Genital mutilation is wrong. If I decided to get my penis cut up on my own, that's one thing. No way I'm going to force that decision on my child. Just like I won't get their ears pierced when they are babies, and I wouldn't put a tattoo of Spider-Man on my 2 year old, and I wouldn't put "cool tribal scarring!" on them either.
All for a minuscule potential decrease in the chance of contracting HIV when you could just have protected sex. *gasp*
Actually, given that medical procedures are constantly getting safer (even if you don't think it's safe already), there are quite a few medical benefits, and the only harm that anyone can come up with are anecdotes about "sensitivity," it's much more likely that opposition to circumcision will come to be seen the same way we view vaccine opposition.
Hell, recent years evidence this trend, with promotion of circumcision by the WHO, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (several are opening government-sponsored clinics) and an expected recommendation by the CDC. Meanwhile, Limbaugh is saying that Obama's going to make the practice mandatory, which is a general indicator that it's a good idea.
The problem with circumcision is that it's generally done to babies. Circumcision may not have many drawbacks, but it has few benefits, either, and by the time the kid is old enough to benefit from those potential benefits he's also old enough to make the decision for himself.
Vaccines are different because they protect both the kid and everyone he comes into contact with from diseases that threaten immediately.
It would also be more traumatic and difficult, though, so it's kind of like sending your kids to kindergarten. There's also the other medical procedures a sane parent should "force on" a child, and the fact that it helps herd immunity the same way as vaccines on top of preventing the spread after contraction (the link on the countries noted a reduction in male->female transmittance). You might as well complain about parents forcing their children to have the same first language.
I have a very strong suspicion that a lot of transmittance of certain STDs from males to females is more to do with poor hygiene than anything else. Circumcised dudes are less likely to transmit simply because they don't have an extra flap of skin to forget to wash.
And I don't buy "it's more traumatic" as an excuse. Teenage boys love punishing rites of manhood; it wouldn't take much to convince them that it's SUPER MANLY to get circumcised.
Also, what the fuck is with the language comment? I'm pretty sure there's a huge benefit in being able to speak your parents' and country's first language throughout your childhood. Getting your penis snipped long before you even know what sex is? Not so much. Don't compare the two.
Lieberkuhn on
While you eat, let's have a conversation about the nature of consent.
Ah. I'm not sure how common it is in the United States. Pretty common, I'd guess, though I can only speculate (thankfully, having evidence would be....awkward...) compared to other parts of the world.
It's still prevelant in the U.S. and will be for a long time. It's still legal in places where it's very rare too. Decreasing rapidly as a practice in Canada. Still a long way off from being widely considered unacceptable.
Actually, given that medical procedures are constantly getting safer (even if you don't think it's safe already), there are quite a few medical benefits, and the only harm that anyone can come up with are anecdotes about "sensitivity," it's much more likely that opposition to circumcision will come to be seen the same way we view vaccine opposition.
Hell, recent years evidence this trend, with promotion of circumcision by the WHO, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (several are opening government-sponsored clinics) and an expected recommendation by the CDC. Meanwhile, Limbaugh is saying that Obama's going to make the practice mandatory, which is a general indicator that it's a good idea.
That shows (or purports to, anyway) that the procedure is cost-effective for HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. That's a long way from showing that routine circumcision is a good idea in the developed world.
I suspect that future generations will look upon movies like Terminator and The Matrix with the same horror as we experience when we consider Song of the South.
Kupi on
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
We can't really be considered bigoted against something that doesn't yet exist. It is like saying we are bigoted because of all our movies about evil contacts with aliens.
I for one will be very happy to see 2060's movies in which intelligence and science and technology are presented as good things, and not evil harbingers of the apocalypse.
Lieberkuhn on
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
I for one will be very happy to see 2060's movies in which intelligence and science and technology are presented as good things, and not evil harbingers of the apocalypse.
That's assuming that there will still be movies after the Great Scientific Apocalypse of 2059.
I for one will be very happy to see 2060's movies in which intelligence and science and technology are presented as good things, and not evil harbingers of the apocalypse.
I for one will be very happy to see 2060's movies in which intelligence and science and technology are presented as good things, and not evil harbingers of the apocalypse.
Like Star Trek?
I was going to respond to this with a snarky comment about how there are like five anti-science movies for every pro-science one, but amidst my research I stumbled across the fact that Contact was written by Carl Sagan.
I feel too ill for sarcasm now.
Lieberkuhn on
While you eat, let's have a conversation about the nature of consent.
I for one will be very happy to see 2060's movies in which intelligence and science and technology are presented as good things, and not evil harbingers of the apocalypse.
...maybe in 2160. there's no way this country is breaking free of its culture of superstition and general ignorance in just 50 years.
I for one will be very happy to see 2060's movies in which intelligence and science and technology are presented as good things, and not evil harbingers of the apocalypse.
Like Star Trek?
I was going to respond to this with a snarky comment about how there are like five anti-science movies for every pro-science one, but amidst my research I stumbled across the fact that Contact was written by Carl Sagan.
I feel too ill for sarcasm now.
I can't think of many anti-science movies, personally.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Posts
Whatever harm I have brought upon you, somehow, for having my beliefs, I apologize.
I guess.
I view religion as just another recreational activity that has high potential for abuse and harm. I absolutely support it being available to those who want it, but also hope that the constant improvement of education reduces the number of people who use and abuse it.
This might not sound any better to you, but I wanted to clarify.
Ah who am I kidding. That shit will never end.
And now i'm hungry for some pulled pork.... With extra salt.
Fake Edit: Hating on hating. Meta.
It just has more spotlight in the way of being invasive or interfering with other people's lives. Next to drinking and driving, which ends lives.
But don't worry I get'cha. I just don't like when people want the entirety of religion to go away when not everyone fits whatever persona they have in mind for it. And I don't want to twist this into a religion thread.
You wouldn't?
Given the fact that I currently own a large personal library and bought brand new copies of items in said library to give as a gift rather than take them from my library (even one which I could obtain for free for my kindle), I'm going to go with our attitudes toward physical object, especially objects that only serve to contain info and their condition outside of their ability to serve said purpose. We'll be furious at how our children upload images onto their walls instead of framing them.
Reading Ann Veronica is very educational. Those liberal movements that changed society, like the suffrage organizations and the Fabians, were full of very silly people following very silly fashions.
But yeah, I can see less- or even non-lethal self-defense solutions with equal efficiency to guns being created, or even some form of personal defense rendering most civilian weapons ineffective.
Either one would swing civilian ownership lethal self-defense tools from morally debateable to something completely heinous to a new generation/forwardthinking types, I imagine.
Actually, given that medical procedures are constantly getting safer (even if you don't think it's safe already), there are quite a few medical benefits, and the only harm that anyone can come up with are anecdotes about "sensitivity," it's much more likely that opposition to circumcision will come to be seen the same way we view vaccine opposition.
Hell, recent years evidence this trend, with promotion of circumcision by the WHO, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (several are opening government-sponsored clinics) and an expected recommendation by the CDC. Meanwhile, Limbaugh is saying that Obama's going to make the practice mandatory, which is a general indicator that it's a good idea.
It does take a very special type of person to think "you know what? I want to worship the source of everything that is wrong with the world." It's almost the religious equivalent of a confederate flag.
Selfishness and selflessness both derive meaning from a sense of self; if you don't have a sense of self, acting for the greater good is amoral. It means nothing. Only sapient beings are capable of acting based on morality. The self is the source of all good in the world, too.
Unless you are talking about Satan, not the self, then, uh, oops.
Just as a side-note, religion has and still inspires people to end other people's lives.
The internet as Eden before the walled gardens.
It also inspired Fred Rogers to be Fred Rogers.
But walled gardens were the first internets basically.
Oh I know, but the point was more of what sort of hobby or lifestyle gets spotlight for bad shit it produces.
And Ozzie and Harriet's time of tranquil small government was full of HUAC hearings, lynching, and riots.
In the future, we will sit around drinking wine while writing poetry about having sex with young boys. Ironically, we will neither be Muslim Spaniards nor Catholic Priests.
Actually, we might end up being mocked for our lack of knowledge of the various empires of Persia, which were the rivals of both of our traditional "great powers," Greece and Rome. Hell, the Persian Empire was the largest Empire of antiquity, but we mainly know it for its half-hearted invasions of a cluster of Mediterranean islands. Similarly, our lack of knowledge of the Islamic Golden Age is embarrassing. They invented the fucking scientific method and fucking peer review.
Yeah, I was talking about the guys who slaughter goats in candygrams.
The problem with circumcision is that it's generally done to babies. Circumcision may not have many drawbacks, but it has few benefits, either, and by the time the kid is old enough to benefit from those potential benefits he's also old enough to make the decision for himself.
Vaccines are different because they protect both the kid and everyone he comes into contact with from diseases that threaten immediately.
I'm not saying alcohol will go away or getting shitfaced will disappear, and everyone is going to become classy. But I think that 'culture' (again, saying "drinking culture" is weird for me but it's the best way I can classify it) is going to be frowned on. People will drink and have a good time still. But the IM SO WASTED stuff is going to take a back seat, if not be frowned on.
Ethnocentrism is embarrassing, but I don't think it's going anywhere. Even with demographic considerations potentially broadening it out in America.
Of course, things were a little different back then because the alternative to a hangover was your heart dropping out your anus in a deluge of diarrhea.
Actually, I'm going to bet that this is one of the things our generation won't do. We're entering the workforce in the worst recession since the great depression with an assload of debt. We are never going to throw anything out. My grandfather, who is early greatest, would spend most of his time on the golf course canvassing the woods for golf balls back when he played golf, and both my basement and that of my aunt was full of his crap before he moved to a house with no basement, meaning we had to find yet more storage space. We are going to end up the exact same way. Of course, my family is a tad strange.
It would also be more traumatic and difficult, though, so it's kind of like sending your kids to kindergarten. There's also the other medical procedures a sane parent should "force on" a child, and the fact that it helps herd immunity the same way as vaccines on top of preventing the spread after contraction (the link on the countries noted a reduction in male->female transmittance). You might as well complain about parents forcing their children to have the same first language.
"Wait, was that Family Guy cartoon actually racist/sexist or just satirically racist/sexist?"
All for a minuscule potential decrease in the chance of contracting HIV when you could just have protected sex. *gasp*
!!
I have a very strong suspicion that a lot of transmittance of certain STDs from males to females is more to do with poor hygiene than anything else. Circumcised dudes are less likely to transmit simply because they don't have an extra flap of skin to forget to wash.
And I don't buy "it's more traumatic" as an excuse. Teenage boys love punishing rites of manhood; it wouldn't take much to convince them that it's SUPER MANLY to get circumcised.
Also, what the fuck is with the language comment? I'm pretty sure there's a huge benefit in being able to speak your parents' and country's first language throughout your childhood. Getting your penis snipped long before you even know what sex is? Not so much. Don't compare the two.
That shows (or purports to, anyway) that the procedure is cost-effective for HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. That's a long way from showing that routine circumcision is a good idea in the developed world.
That's assuming that there will still be movies after the Great Scientific Apocalypse of 2059.
Like Star Trek?
I was going to respond to this with a snarky comment about how there are like five anti-science movies for every pro-science one, but amidst my research I stumbled across the fact that Contact was written by Carl Sagan.
I feel too ill for sarcasm now.
...maybe in 2160. there's no way this country is breaking free of its culture of superstition and general ignorance in just 50 years.
I can't think of many anti-science movies, personally.