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Everyone should have to retake the driving test (both written and practical) every five years. And if you don’t pass on the first try or are in a crash where you are found at fault, it should be bumped up to every year for the following five years.
People drive dangerously because they’ve forgotten rules, or rules have changed, or they’ve had a physical or cognitive decline. And yet we’re like “yep, you took a test once decades ago, good to go.”
Dangerous driving kills so many people.
So i drive a lot for work every day, and people not knowing traffic rules at all is a big problem. But people not even caring is so much worse. Everyone is the most important person on the road. The amount of time people cutting me off, backing up onto the road or merging on a highway without even looking or caring is crazy. These people probably pass a test, but you can’t force them to care, other people look out for them so it doesn’t matter to them.
Also turn signals. Where i live, there are a lot of roundabouts, and it keeps the traffic going. But for them to work properly, you have to use turn signals, so you can go as soon as you see a blinking light. But most people don’t care because it doesn’t matter to them if the other person has to wait, because they are out.
I agree about people not caring about anyone else, and I think it’s gotten worse since covid.
I agree, and it could work like that here. (your driver’s license is only valid for a certain time) But as far as I know, you only need to retake the tests when applying for renewal if your license expired multiple years ago. Otherwise, you only have to fill out some forms.
At least old people & those who’ve had their license taken away need to redo their tests, which is better than nothing, but not enough in my opinion.
Yeah at the very least, they could easily make it a requirement to pass a written test at every renewal. Hell, they could do it as an online test you can do it home before you come in, I don’t even care if people “cheat.” Make it open book. Then at least people would have to flip through the book every few years which is better than nothing.
If you eat factory meat, you’re doing something morally wrong that can’t be justified.
And the vast majority of people who get defensive about that, deep down know what they are doing is morally dubious at best, but they can’t/won’t admit it, so they lash out at vegans/vegetarians instead.
There’s something to be said about the ease of access and personal energy needed to deal with changing a diet that has been inherited by birth where the alternative is possibly much more expensive. I don’t blame individuals who eat cheap meat out of necessity just as I don’t blame people for not recycling since the responsibility of the exploitation and destruction of our planet lies entirely with the people who run the machine, not those who are forced under threat of violence to exist inside it.
Fair, however a balanced vegetarian diet is as cheap or cheaper than a cheap meat centric diet, and certainly healthier.
A can of beans is about a dollar, less depending on where you shop. Potatoes are a few dollars a bag, and for most people, a bag of large russets would last them several days if not a week. Same for leafy greens, frozen fruit and veggies, bags of rice, etc.
I agree that there can be other factors, but impoverished communities around the world for centuries have lived on staple foods like those.
I think some personal responsibility is necessary still. Sure the megacorps are the ones doing the most harm and push people to be more consumerist, but that doesn’t absolve people of all their personal autonomy, otherwise you justify all kinds of “just following orders” arguments.
We ought to still resist the corpos and try to live our lives in ways that are better for the world as a whole. Sure, me recycling cans and trying to buy local isn’t going to save the planet, but that doesn’t mean I should just throw litter around in the street and buy everything from Amazon and Walmart.
otherwise you justify all kinds of “just following orders” arguments.
I’m not sure I’d equate having your hand forced with following orders blindly. It’s nearly impossible to change individuals’ behaviors unless it’s due to systemic forces (minus the few who just want to be correct as long as it is visible). But if you’re more focused on individuals and their “responsibility” even though they had no input on the creation of this system, I’d only assume that you’re fine with this system and would rather shout at the brick wall of “individual responsibility”, then get frustrated when people end up hating vegetarians and vegans. I’m like 90% vegetarian nowadays because I can’t really afford meat anyways as well as it giving me headaches and foul moods, but I don’t think you’re being realistic in what you’re asking. Would the world be better with no factory farming? Absolutely yes. But we’re in this situation not because of people’s choices. We’re in this situation because the choice has been made for a lot of us. Some people are a single paycheck away from homelessness, so they likely don’t have the resources to learn how to cook, then ruin a bunch of food in the learning process, only to overspend, and be threatened with getting kicked out all for your own comfort. Go fight the people making this the reality we’re living in.
this just isn’t true.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting
That’s willful self-delusion.
Graveyards are a disgusting waste of space. Their existence communicates to society that many dead people are more entitled to space on this Earth than some living people will ever have.
From everything I read in this thread… you won.
Graveyards don’t exist for the dead, they are a place where living people can mourn the loss of the dead person and remember older days.
I realize they’re not really for the dead, but the living decide that their dead bodies are entitled to more space than some living. Plots cost thousands of dollars. We ostracize the unhoused. Our priorities are broken, and graveyards are yet another thing for those “with” that those “without” will not have.
Graveyards don’t exist for the dead.
They exist for both relatives to mourn, and the wider populace who value the perspective on their own problems that graveyards provide. They’re also normally a peaceful place in an often unpeaceful world, much as urban green spaces.
When I was in unspecified foreign country I went to a graveyard with my family. It was very different in that the bodies were buried basically right next to each other and you basically just walk over the bodies of the interred to get to where you want to go.
It was a bit distinct from how we do it in America where, much like our suburban houses, you have to have a pointless giant green lawn surrounding where the body is buried.
I’m going to push back because as society exists now there are a lot of cities I have been to where the graveyard is the most easily accessible green space. I don’t know how weird it may be but sitting with the dead in the quite separated from the surroundings was one of my favorite things to experience. I’m not a religious/spiritual person and it was very helpful in connecting to the people who died before I met them.
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes — our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around. – G.K. Chesterton
The Beatles are highly overrated. I respect the impact they had, and I acknowledge that the music I like (metal) would not exist without them, but I’ll go out of my way to avoid listening to them.
Votes should be inversely weighted by age. The vote of someone who’s going to clock out before the next election even rolls around shouldn’t be worth the same as the vote of someone who’s going to have to live with the consequences for half a century or more.
Or have the voting age be 18 years old to the average national life expectancy, although i really haven’t thought this through too much. I assume if such a situation were to exist, it would be much easier to cut Social Security and Medicare without losing the elderly vote, so that probably would backfire.
Voting age should be raised to at least 24, so that the frontal lobe is fully developed.
Not really my belief, but you’re opinion marginalized me, so I’m counter-proposing.
Then cap the voting age at 50 when cognitive decline of the frontal lobe really kicks in, if we are talking about fully developed brain function.
Neural plasticity has even declined once you are past your 20s. One of the reasons people find it much much harder to learn a new language past then, for example.
reasoning, memory, and speed of reasoning reaches a decline threshold when you are around 40.
My unpopular opinion is I guess that humans were never evolved to live as long as we do (and certainly not meant to labor as long) so everything in our brain gets very wonky. Empathy is also one of the things stunted with age. There is a reason the “grump old man” trope exists.
EDIT: Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. Pretty much everything regarding age is arbitrary because you are “developing” until your mid 20s and then you start declining, brain-wise. It is all arbitrary. And then the above poster doesn’t even check that I am a different person than the original comment and sends me a hate message somehow thinking that I am wishing death on him (why would anyone wish for a stranger to die?) for simply pointing out that our brains get weirder with age especially because we are forced to work for much longer and often have less empathy.
Perhaps there’s an IQ cutoff you’d favor as well? Perhaps a psychological exam? Surely the mentality handicapped shouldn’t vote, right?
You speak to me of empathy?
Read and think critically. It is all arbitrary. If we cut off people at 18 or 24, why shouldn’t we cut them off at 50? There is scientific evidence both ways.
Not to mention that IQ is pretty much a farce and completely biased by certain types of education and only measures a small subset of human brain function, The cutoff would also be completely arbitrary.
Not everything is a personal indictment on you or your beliefs.
Ooooh dark. I like.
Vote 1! @Sordid
But what about the reverse argument?
The elders know much more than the young generation, shouldn’t they have a larger say?
Regular expressions are not that difficult and coders that refuse to learn them because they “look like line noise” are terrible at their jobs.
I can write a basic regex independently, but as soon as capture groups or positive/negative lookahead or lookbehind start popping up I’m back to the docs every time.
Absolutely, the syntax is difficult to remember, but knowing about concepts like lookaheads etc. is already far beyond what “regex is line noise” coders will ever achieve.
Level 2 of these people: learn regex and try to parse something non-regular like XML or C++ templates with it.
Same people who did not pay attention and hated the “useless” formal languages lecture in university and who have no clue about proper data structures and algorithms for their problem, just hack together some half-working solution and ship it. Fix bugs with extra if statements instead of solving the real issue. Not writing unit tests.
Soo many people in software development who really should not be there.
Not a coder. But knowing basic regex, makes my life so much easier. Even in things like excel.
Hell, you can even use regex to search your stash in Path of Exile 2.
I’ve always thought that regular expressions are just specifications for state machines. They aren’t that difficult.
Easy enough to write. But reading and maintaining? That’s the hard part.
Desktop computers are way better and more fun than using phone for browsing, wikipedia, news, and Lemmy
I rarely use my phone for anything other than texting. I like using my desktop computer to browse and post.
not necessarily more fun, but definitely much, much, much more usable and convenient
Fair point! Fun is def not the correct word I should have used. “Practical” is the better choice.
I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately, especially after watching a video by an internet funny man I enjoy (Eddie Burback) about him locking his phone away for a month (not a feasible strategy for most people.)
I also enjoy pretty much anything online much more on the desktop. When things started pivoting to app-only it felt very weird at the time - the phone access was always the clunkier secondary backup nice-to-have.
That said, 80% of my browsing happens on my phone. It’s less fun and it’s more mindless, but that’s the truth. I think I’ll hit a point where I find my phone just too magnetic but as a dopamine crutch it’s cripplingly convenient.
I purposely avoid using my phone to browse. Unless it’s something like restaurant review or urgent news as I’m out. I try to stay present, enjoy my space, and tell myself that I can just wait to look it up when I get home.
When I 'm out and look around I see everyone just staring down at their screen. It’s annoying to see. So I decided not to be like that. Now I actually hear birds, feel breezes, take in sights and smells. And I take my time. For me pesonally, 100 percent improvement of life. I’m rarely ever in a bad mood now.
People even mention how I always seem in a good mood. It’s because I’m not doomscrolling on my phone all day (like most of Lemmy does)! lol
And when I get home and use desktop, I do fun things like create music, write novels, etc. Life is awesome without the 24-hour doom and gloom.
Becoming a parent is not a right, it is a privilege (I guess). You need a license to get married, drive, hunt or fish, your dog needs one. There should be some sort of class and background check you must pass before being allowed to procreate. Just the basics like: this is the level of care and support this small helpless mammal needs to be healthy and grow to maturity. This is how much, minimum, that quality upbringing will cost and do you meet that bare minimum level of competence and income to raise a healthy baby.
This is an extremely popular opinion among those who’ve not unpacked that what you’re describing is eugenics
It is not, at all, eugenics. Nothing in my unpopular opinion has anything to do with genetic traits
whatever metrics you use to decide who gets to procreate, you will certainly bias the gene pool. That’s eugenics
Who decides who can pro-create? What is the criteria?
I don’t see a scenario where this works out well.
I laid out some bare minimums: knowledge about how to take care of and raise a healthy human child and the financial means to do so.
In the United States, political violence has ensured overrepresentation of minority populations below the poverty line. Requireing the financial means to have a child thereby limits minority procreation.
To address this, a universal basic income as well as a stipend for parents would be necessary. In the US, this is far away from ever happening, eere actively moving in the opposite direction. Mandatory birth control in this country is eugenics.
One of the biggest problems would be enforcement of that license. With driving, cops are everywhere and regularly pull people over to check their license. With hunting, there are game wardens that patrol hunting areas and check the licenses of hunters.
With procreation, people can have unprotected sex anywhere and typically in private. You’d either need to give some group of people permanent access to enter any private space at any time (to randomly check for unlicensed sex), or force everyone without a license to take birth control or be sterilized. Unfortunately, none of those options are ethical.
I feel like the problem with this argument is that it’s consequentialist. You can never be 100% certain which parents will raise their children well. There’s no metric that will conclusively tell you.
But you can start them off on the right foot by making sure they have the knowledge and the means to do the job correctly
I mean I guess not every aspect of eugenics was bad per se, but I’m not so sure about this level of social control.
It is a basic biological function so you could say pooping is a privilege too.
I am not worried about helping people poop better
I mean we do do this for adoption but we don’t so it for procreating.
Suicide is perfectly acceptable and should be a right, we should all have the choice of when we want to go. Some pain, physical or emotional is too much, or loss can be too great.
I don’t care if I could or can get better, I should be able to down some hemlock and leave.
I’m with you.
Many years ago I read a sci-fi story about a society where crimes are punished by extending your life (which is dreary in some way - I don’t remember). The protagonist keeps committing suicide but being brought back to life by advanced medical technology and punished with more time to live.
In the end, he manages to completely destroy his body, so the state takes a cell from an old blood test, clones the person from it, and adds the punishment to the clone.
That story stayed with me since then. It really shed light on the point of view that not wanting to live can be natural and forcing people to live in pain can be very cruel.
Talk about a relevant username!
Most people on Lemmy aren’t as kind or open-minded as they like to appear. There’s plenty of hate here on this side of the aisle, but it gets excused because they believe they’re “on the correct side.”
tl;dr: You’re just as hateful and close-minded as the people you claim to be fighting. Same behavior, different colored hat.
I prefer rap music by white artists because it’s less likely to feature the N word.
That isn’t just an unpopular opinion, but a very interesting one. Bravo.
Disabled people should have to ask for a seat on public transit if one isn’t available; other people shouldn’t immediately get up when a clearly disabled person boards, nor should anyone expect them to without being asked. Similarly, you have no right to criticize someone (who doesn’t appear to be disabled) if they’re sitting in a seat designated for disabled people and they don’t get up when a visibly disabled person gets on.
First of all, the disabled person might not even want the seat. If they do, it’s reasonable to expect them (as an adult) to advocate for their own needs (i.e. ask). It’s actually more offensive to assume that every elderly or otherwise visibly-disabled person is incapable of that.
Second of all, not all disabilities are easily visible. I’m a mid-twenties guy and I was born with an auto-immune disorder that sometimes makes it very difficult or painful to stand/walk. It’s happened multiple times that strangers on the bus have chewed me out for not giving up my seat, even though (statistically) there were probably other people sitting in disability-designated seats that needed that seat less than me and the visibly disable person who just boarded. I can’t fucking believe I have arthritis in my twenties, either. I’m just trying to cope with the shitty circumstances I was given and the last thing I need is to constantly have to justify myself to ignorantly self-righteous strangers.
No one really seems to talk about overpopulation as a real problem and it kind of freaks me out. Climate change, micro plastics, war, economy is all bad, but the amount of people that keep multiplying with no bother in the world is crazy. Factory farms are already out of control and it’s just gonna grow exponentially.
I think people are freaking out about very low reproduction rate and aging population in rich countries more than anything, since that’s the demographic trend right now. Also factory farming is not like an inevitability of high population density, that’s just profit and lobbying. (I put the usual land use per kcal graph at the end, it’s not perfect because of the reality of arable land…etc, but still a very good reference)
Also to be fair, one country did try to handle overpopulation (and more broadly the risks of a sudden boom in population) and have been dragged through the mud for it for like 40 years.
any policy you can implement to address “overpopulation” is eugenics. so there is nothing (ethical) to do about it.
maybe start with not incentivizing the production of children with all the tax cuts and loans and whatnot. and revise the pension system so that it finally does not rely on working like cancer
id argue those incentive programs are, themselves, eugenics policies, but I also think ending them is complicated, as doing so in one jurisdiction and not in others is, you see, eugenics.
All guns should be surrendered and destroyed en masse. They are fun, but society would be happier, healthier, and with far less suicides and DA without them.
I’ve seen too many close calls to consider them safe for society at large.
It boggles my mind people can bear a device that can end lifes in an instant and feel like they are fun. I guess this is making my unpopular opinion.
I mean people have fun with many things which are dangerous. Fireworks are dangerous, rock climbing is dangerous, driving is dangerous.
I’m strongly anti-gun, but I’m willing to admit they are fun.
Go back to swords.
Abortion should be mandatory.
People keep arguing over whether abortion should be legal or not, but my opinion is that it should be forced on everyone whether they want it or not. Late term abortions up to 100 years after birth should also be considered for inclusion in this rule.
One of my favourite activities is finding controversial opinions, then taking an opinion so extreme that it makes everyone else look like a centrist.
Kill everyone now, legalise first degree murder, advocate cannibalism, eat shit!
But where would we scrape up the funding?
That’s a good argument for including very late term abortion. Inheritance tax.
