Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

7mo ago

Serious

What's your hot take?

295 comments

Hot sauces should be required by law to list their Scoville range (SHU) on their packaging.
- Fuckin facts, yo, I’m tired of searching up the sauce to try to get a gauge of wherever the fuck the sauce actually is, as opposed to its marketing wank wanting to convince me I’m chowing down on neutron star, despite it really being around room temp unflavored jello.
- 100% agree. I want to know whether I'm increasing, decreasing, or maintaining my heat threshold.
- Ooh... capsaicin-powered hot take!

If your political opinion begins with "why don't we just..." then its a bad political opinion.
If we could just, we would have already just. If you think you're the only one with the capacity to see a simple answer - newsflash, you're not a political genius. Its you who doesn't understand the complexity of the problem.
- My partner lacked political engagement until his 30s for reasons so he occasionally has these hot takes. But he expresses them to me and I do feel bad because he's not coming at it from an arrogant perspective. It's ignorance, some naivete and also exasperation at a whole lot of shit things.
  I have to gently explain to him why XYZ isn't that simple or black and white, or why his idea doesn't work - and the answer to that, 9 times out of 10, is 'because money/rich people/greed/lobbyists/nimbyism'.
  I'm just slowly chipping away at his innocence and it feels bad.
  
  Its great that you're helping to inform him! I have found the people who know the most about politics and global issues tend to talk less and listen more.
- Adam Savage had a bit where he pointed out there is practically zero times when to you should start a sentence with "why don't you just". My first instinct is to patiently listen & respond but I'm slowly turning into "why don't you just stop, think & rephrase that"
- I've always interpreted "why don't we just X?" as a shorter way of expressing "I think I would like X. Is this a good idea? If not, why? If yes, what are the barriers to making it happen?"

If you let your cat outside in the Americas (or anywhere cats haven’t lived for thousands of years) unsupervised I’m going to assume one of the following is true: you don’t care if your cat dies, and/or you don’t care about wildlife. Even if you live in a place with zero predators, why the hell are you trusting a CAT with road safety?
Saying this as someone who grew up with parents that let our cats live (and die, a lot) that way. And as someone who has seen two friends lose cats to coyotes in the past year. And also interrupted an attack on someone’s pet by a coyote. It’s been a bad fucking year here for coyotes.
- In Australia I can't tell you how frustrating this is. People are so fucking selfish.
  
  I feel like this is slowly changing (based on no real evidence).
  At least some councils are CATching up.
- Plus, my (indoor) cat can't help but have a loud, boisterous conversation with any cat that wanders through my yard. Usually at 2am while I'm trying to sleep.
- My cats were born an outdoor cat and I'd rather they touched some grass and lived an actual life rather than be stuck inside all day even if they die earlier. I'm sure they would too.
  Wildlife argument is valid though. They kill some good (rats, mice), but I can't justify them killing birds and lizards.
- Thank you for pointing out that this is only an issue for places where wild cats have been non-native.

My hot take: You shouldn't downvote comments you disagree with in a thread asking for hot takes.
- I have always upvoted comments I disagree with if they are using good arguments. I save downvotes for hate and bad faith.
- Ok now you're just asking for it
- It's a shame that this needs to be a "hot take", I was hoping we'd be leaving that shit behind on Reddit.
- I think this should apply in general, not just in this thread. Down votes are reserved for comments that do not positively contribute to the conversation.

Suburban homeowners are the real "welfare queens."
- ice cold

Parents' jobs aren't to protect their kids. It's to make sure that their kids are sufficiently prepared for the world when the kids grow up.
There seems to be this rising trend of parents being overprotective of their children, even to the point of having parental controls enabled for children even as old as the late teens. My impression has always been that these children are too sheltered for their age.
I grew up in the "age of internet anarchism," where goatse was just considered a harmless prank to share with your friends and liveleaks was openly shared. Probably not the best way of growing up, to be fair, but I think we've swung so hard into the opposite direction that a lot of these children, I feel, are living in their own little bubbles.
To some degree, it honestly makes sense to me why the younger generation nowadays is so willing to post their lives on the internet. When that's the only thing you can do on the internet, that's what you'll do
- I have recently learned that the new helicopter parent type is the snowplow parent - these are the ones that not only shield their kids from the world, but also fully manage their lives for them. I work for the University of California and seeing how absolutely helpless these kids are is scary.
  
  I'm in the UC system as well. It's both concerning and amusing how much college students nowadays go to their parents for permission on minor things. I get it, to some degree. Respect for your parents and all that. But some degree of autonomy would be helpful at that age
- I thought you'd be talking about letting kids climb up high into trees, going into the city on their own, let them hang out at the skatepark without supervision, stuff like that.
  But no, it's about computers and kids not being able to see goatse. Lol. That's lemmy i guess.
  
  It’s tule 10. Don’t mess with kids when they’re gazing at Goatse
- On the other hand I owe my career in IT to learning how to bypass the parental controls my parents set up and cover my tracks. That got me started in computers really early.
- Parents jobs arent to protect their kids
  I get you don’t mean this so broadly but you lose all nuance with this statement.
  Protect them from every minor mistake or risk that could ever possibly happen, and smothering them? Sure.
  Someone about to stab your kid? Protect them from predators? Protect them from various risks and hazards in life which every parent should be teaching them?
  dont get into strangers cars
  dont let strangers into the house
  look both ways when crossing the road
  
  It wasn’t the comment that lacked nuance; just your reading.
  All the stuff you added went without saying.
  
  Hard to prepare a kid for adulthood when they're dead I suppose

Places of religious worship and formal teaching (e.g. churches, and Sunday schools) should be treated like bars and porn. You need to be an adult to access bars and porn because children do not fully understand what is happening or the consequences of being there. Churches (etc) are the same and there should be a legal age limit.
It should also be socially unacceptable to talk about religious opinions in front of kids, just like most people don't swear or talk dirty, etc.
I agree with schools teaching kids "about" religions, just like sex and drugs. Teaching facts is good, preaching (aka indoctrination) is not.

No one authentically hates the word moist. There's no evidence then anyone disliked the word before Friends made an episode about it. Everyone since that has either been parroting that episode or someone who, in turn, parroted the episode.
Either these people saw it and decided it was an interesting facet to add to their personality, or it was the first time they've ever consciously thought about how a word feels and sounds and that shattered their ignorance and spoiled a perfectly good word.
- There was a Friends episode about it?
  
  I don't remember a friends episode about this either. I do remember it being on how I met your mother though so possibly the person you're replying to was thinking of that.
- Slurp is an infinitely worse word than moist.
  
  Personally I dislike squelch, mulch, ask, just a ton of words, but I dislike them because they way they fell in my mouth. Either they're hard to pronounce or they don't feel nice in my mouth.

Children should not be exposed to advertising at a young age (below 11/12 years old)
- Just say 11 months damn
  
  that wouldnt account for leap days tho :/

Lemmy is left leaning but downvotes anything that suggests poll numbers are slipping for Biden, or if people are unsatisfied with his performance. It’s news! Are y’all just downvoting it because you don’t like it?
- Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ca tend to be right-leaning even if they have some Leftist comms. The fediverse still appeals to leftists, but liberals have their own enclaves.
- Don't you know, the downvote button is the dislike button, on pretty much every platform. Also, upvote is agree button. They have nothing to do with whether a comment is relevant to the topic or not.
- "Pulling for Biden" is most certainly not 'leaning left', lmfao. Precisely two and a half instances actually lean left; the rest are typically as bad as if not worse than Reddit libbery on geopolitical takes.

@TehBamski Most entertainment is produced in abusive environments, promotes positively evil people to become famous, and twists the legal system through in such a way that it enables surveillance and erodes ownership rights. But barely anyone is willing to boycott it.

Here's one I get a lot of flack for that I don't bring up much
I think people trying to cook up gun control laws are targeting the wrong guns, in going after semi auto or military rifles, when they should be going after cheap handguns that have been available forever. The majority of gun deaths are suicides, and that's almost always done with a hand gun, but even if you control for that the majority of homicides with guns are done with hand guns.
Hand guns are usually relatively cheap. They are very easy to conceal. Its very common for people to walk into a bar with a holstered hand gun and make a series of bad decisions. Its too common for people to get in road rage incidents that escalate into something tragic because of a handgun in the glove box. People leave them around their house and treat them as toys that kids end up finding.
AND I would argue that handguns are not in the spirit of the 2nd amendment. They are not fighting weapons. They are for fun, personal protection, or making people feel tough without having to do any real work. They have little range and lesser power. There are are no troops in the world that deploy with handguns as a primary weapon. US military officers get them but that's more about tradition.
Yes, I'm aware that shooting incidents done with rifles would be more deadly, but the fact there would be much fewer of them at all would be a net benefit in a society that banned or severely restricted hand guns.
- Problem is that most of your anti-gun folk aren't crazy, or don't want to appear as such, and so they placate the defenders of gun rights with phrases resembling "I believe we should be able to have handguns because self defense buuuuuut nobody should have semi auto rifles." Of course, the second they do ban long guns (curbing a total of 500/60,000 gun deaths a year mind you), they'll switch to "oh well clearly that didn't work so now we're taking the handguns too." It's literally by design, simply a tactic to fool those who won't bother looking into that whole "only 500 killed with long guns/yr" stat, nor the fact that 5.56 only delivers about as much energy as a hot .357mag rnd, but the Barrett .50BMG which is bolt action and therefore totally fine delivers about 10,000 more ft-lbs of energy, etc.
  Besides that, the 2a protects things "in common use" according to Heller and "must have a historical precedent for bans," according to Bruen therefore handguns do fall quite under the scope of the 2a and a ban would be ruled unconstitutional immediately.
  Besides that, self defense is important, and unless you suggest people start open carrying ARs, the best way to do it is to CCW a compact 9mm handgun.
  Furthermore "guns shouldn't be for the poor" would help to curb crime, but at what cost? That is pure T bona-fide classism and I don't support it, personally.
- This guy never saw John Wick.

Me tossing leftovers in the trash does not in any way interfere with hungry people getting food.
- true. but next time, just buy/make less food.
  
  Why?
- Especially if that's food that's going to negatively impact your own health, like junk food.

You are bad at parenting if you give your child a smart phone or social media.
- until what age ?
  
  Its difficult to point number because context, but 13 y/o at leat
  
  16 at least I'd say. I didn't get my first smartphone til I was that old and it still nearly fried my brain having unfettered access to a screen.
  
  I guess till they become and adult because they are in charge of their decisions at that point.

If your free software communications can only be done thru US-based, proprietary options, then you are not free software. To think open source is ideal for your project, but not the tools surrounding it misses the point of trying uplift support & usage of these free sorts of projects (& this isn’t even starting with the privacy & lock-in concerns). Instead of coding around flaws in Microsoft GitHub or building Discord/Slack/Telegram bots, actually build & upstream integrations into the free options as you would like to see folks do unto your own project. Not saying you can’t have these services as an alternative, but as the only option (or the primary option to IIABH) should be shamed & definitely not considered the norm.
Also Matrix is pretty shit, where all the clients/servers run too heavy, & eventual-consistency means self-hosting storage often ballots into ‘too expensive’ which has led to de facto centralization the project cannot fix by design. Meaning Matrix is a better, but still bad chat option.
- What would you use besides Matrix?
  
  IRCv3 for accessibility if I need it to be centralized & TLS is the only useful encryption (such as a public chat room); otherwise XMPP + OMEMO for decentralized (but also is great for public chat rooms). No need to reinvent battle-tested, mature standards.
  
  XMPP
- What fundemental aspect of Matrix is both causing too heavy performance degradation while also being unfixable or impossible to reimplement?
  
  You could switch some of the problems with perf in switching away from the Python implementation server as well as Element clients but these support the most up-to-date features & the majority of users are now relying on these features that often don’t degrade graacefully.
  The bigger issue is eventual consistency. Eventual consistency will not scale for small self-hosting. Every message & every attachment for every user in every chatroom they have joined must be duplicated to your server. This is why joining rooms sometmies takes 10 minutes. Even if you make this async from the client side instead of the current long wait, your server & storage are still taking the hit. A lot of small collectives had to drop their servers for performance & cost (read about yet another one today on the Techlore thread at c/privacy where now only Discord is used for realtime coms). This model is required to copycat the ability to search the entire history like the big, proprietary chat apps such as Slack/Telegram/Discord, but they are centralized so it is easier to manage—but its overuse for all announcement & trying to replace forums turns it into a black hole for information. Your small community probably does not need persistent chat like this—persistent info is lighter & easier to crawl as feeds & forums. With medium-sized servers shutting down, only the biggest & smallest hosts are still kicking with most metadata is largely centralized around Matrix.org who also hosts some of the other larger instances.
  If you agree that chat can be chatter as well as ephemeral there is lightweight centralized chat in IRCv3 with TLS has most of the features you need with a longer legacy & massive choice for clients & XMPP for lightweight decentralized chat with a long legacy, client options too, & can be self-hosted in a bedroom on a toaster in comparison which increases the chances of self-hosters & decentralization. These were built in a time when we didn’t have such wasteful taste in tech since they needed to be efficient & only sip power/data in comparison both for clients & servers & storage. The bigger question IMO is what are fundamentally wrong with these two mature options that we need a new option built on unextensible JSON & Israeli Intelligence money?

America is a lost cause
- Humanity is a lost cause. Still worth fighting for.
  
  Humanity is a rebel without a cause. Fighting is just what we do~

Most drugs should be over-the-counter. The especially dangerous or addictive ones maybe just require counselling with a pharmacist first. But I'm more concerned about people not able to access the medication they need than I am about idiots removing themselves from the gene pool by OD.
People in my dumbass country would rather 10 people with a genuine medical need suffer as long as 1 addict can't get a fix, and it's so many layers of bullshit.
- If you think otc drugs are expensive now, waitl the scheduled narcotics find their way into the open market
  
  there's not really a way to know for sure but I imagine the price would actually come down somewhat due to removal of red tape and paperwork associated with drug control
  possibly also from increased competition if that made it easier for a drug manufacturer to begin producing previously controlled drugs
  for example amphetamine salt production is capped by the US DEA. if that cap were removed the supply would increase and the price might very well decrease
  sadly this is largely useless speculation

[Country] isn't real, it was made up by [its founders] to [dodge taxes / dominate neighboring city-states / measure dicks with [Other Country]]
- heh, just replace [Country] with [The Country I dont like] and you've got yourself a deal
  
  Oh, definitely not. This format is explicitly for pissing off nationalists.
  Simply dismiss the validity of the governing body they worship by reference to the historical contingency of its creation, then sit back and watch as they work themselves into a froth trying to justify their imagined superiority without reference to their mythic founders.

Beeing honest about mistakes you make is way better than trying to deflect or lie about them. This is true in professional and in social settings.
Own up to your mistakes, try to correct them and be open about you fucking up. Most people will respect that more than you trying to be Mr or Ms Perfect.
- How is this a hot take
- While I personally agree with most of what you said, I disagree with your assertion as to the reaction you'll get from peers.
  We've made admitting mistakes worse than the mistake itself these days, and it's slowly unraveling accountability.
- Why do I just see your name as Gloomy without the @servername?
  
  Y'all're on the same instance is why.
  
  The Fedverse works in mysterious ways 🤷
  
  Because you're on the same instance, I suppose

Tears of the Kingdom is a terrible game, it's a mod of BOTW but with more ways to skip the exploration so you don't get to memorize the map like in Elden Ring or Fallout.
- I'm not sure I exactly agree. I feel like it would be a better game than botw if I hadn't already played botw. Still suffered from most of the same problems.
  Also the combat is so bad it encouraged you to avoid it whenever possible.
- It's definitely a glorified DLC that was stretched into a whole game. The new things are mostly good but 80% is just exactly the same.
- I wouldn't say terrible but mid possibly. It just took something that already worked well and added a little extra to it.
  If "thing2: the sequel" attaches a something kinda neato to the revolutionary, gaming landscape changing "thing1:the thingining" that doesn't mean thing2 is really better than something that significantly moved the bar.
  This is why Fallout 3 is better than Fallout New Vegas and I will fight you all over it.
  
  Fallout New Vegas has better writing than 3
  
  In what world does "I gotta find my deadbeat dad" beat out New Vegas? Link me up with your plug; I want whatever you're smokin on

I don't know if this is a hot take, but I think people need to stop basing their lives off of celebrities/influencers. We equate wealth with some hidden knowledge, when they're just people. Sometimes really fucking stupid people who happen to have a profitable talent. Next time some tries to sell you something or teach you something, ask yourself if this person is even an authority/knowledgeable on what they're talking about. I've gotten in the habit of mentally going "and you are?" when I get new information. Sometimes you find our that person is a leader in their field. Sometimes it's just some terminally online teenager.
Hotter Take: I think black people put too much stock in celebrities and what they'll do for the black community. You don't get freakishly wealthy being a sweetheart. Jay Z is not going to save us. And our blind loyalty has us supporting subpar performances and people because we "have to support" and it keeps fucking us over. No, I'm not supporting this business just because it's black owned if the service/quality sucks (especially since black owned goods tend to be more expensive).
- I think black people put too much stock in celebrities and what they’ll do for the black community.
  Nah deadass. Black capitalists have done nothing but mislead ever since Sean Carter put a sixth zero next to his net worth; and that goes the same for Sean Combs(who is in SO much legal hot water I expect him to boil by the end of the month), for Beyoncé, for Rihanna, for Michael Render, all of 'em. Black capitalism is just minstrelry and misleadership; and Black Excellence™ is just Talented Tenth-assed classism with a fresh coat of paint.

Drinking, driving, smoking, voting, consent, ability to enter contracts including marriage, joining the military:
Raise it all to 25 and be done with it. At 25 you're an adult, before that your body and brain are still developing.
- If you want someone learn something like driving well, you teach it to them when they're developing, not after.
  And for the love of all that is holy, please do not give even more political power to old people
  
  Oh no! But you see young people joining the military because of indoctrination or poverty surely are to blame for US interventionism (read terrorism)!!!
- If I can't vote until I'm 25 then I don't want to be paying tax until I'm 25.
  No taxation without representation.
  
  Also, for many areas, a vehicle is a necessity of adult life.
  If you're not letting kids drive at 16, then for that *almost-*decade until they're 25 you'd better provide free transportation as well.
  Since that's not about to happen, leave it as it is.
- I tend to agree, but I would set the age lower. A person can graduate high school at 18, get a 4-year degree, and still be 3 years away from "adulthood" by your definition. There are plenty of professionals in the first 3 years of their career who are contributing members of society. Shouldn't they be able to drive to work, sign a rental contract, etc? I've been in my career for over 20 years, and I have always worked with young people who may be lacking experience but are still productive employees. I think you'd be cutting out a significant portion of the workforce by excluding those in early adulthood.
  
  I think you'd be cutting out a significant portion of the workforce by excluding those in early adulthood.
  I'm guessing their position is very much "oh they still need to work and pay taxes...and they shouldn't expect any more support than they currently have in order to do so...but they need to figure out how to manage it all without driving, and they should be disenfranchised as well".
- Thinking people in their late teenage years and young adults aren't mature enough to do some of those things is just a big tell of how bad we educate them rather than their brain not being "developed".
  Consent is the most obvious example, teenagers are gonna have a sexual life no matter what you want them to do. Removing consent just remove yourself from the responsibility of educating them and entice them to stay hidden.
  Driving is also just necessary to anyone working, again being safe just need to be taught, plenty of adults are just as immature and stupid.
  The same can be said for drinking or smoking, prevention is so much more effective than restrictions.
  However, for voting or joining the army that's when i agree. Because the system is built to prey on them, making sure they stay uneducated and vulnerable. So only then does having restrictions make sens to keep them safe.
  
  I don't follow your argument about sex ed and consent.
  Sex ed should start as soon as kids can talk, to keep it from being stigmatized and to prevent predation. There is no need to wait until a child reaches sexual maturity for that; in fact, at that point it is too late.
  As to driving, most people shouldn't be driving, period. We are, in general, not good at it. Leave it to the professionals.
- Now THIS is a hot take
  
  That was the assignment!
- Interesting, but don't you think it would cause issues as well?
  We all develop differently and many are mature before 25 while I've ceetainly met people who are not even in their thirties. Do you have any research to support 25 being a more fitting age than 18?
  Also: if you cannot enter contracts you cannot work. Do you really think everybody should not be able to hold a job until they reach 25?
  
  I worked long before I could legally enter contracts. Only one of my jobs has had an employment contract.
  I agree with your point that many reach maturity before 25 or even 18, however I don't think enabling those fortunate few is worth stripping the protections of minority from the rest.
- Uhhh.
  Driving shouldn't be at 25, nor marriage.
  
  Any higher on marriage would be antinatalist, but I'm willing to go higher on driving for sure.

There's no ethical way to kill someone that's done nothing to you and doesn't want to die, and that's not just for humans.
- I guess we could say “humane”, or “as quick and painless as possible”?
  
  Bullshit. You wouldn't call it ethical to kill a 5 year old you see in the street just because it is done quick and painless.
  Murder doesn't become ethical just because it's not also torture.

More and more people are against giving kids internet access. Allow me to go against the grain:
If your child is neurodivergent, or LGBTQ+, or any other form of misfit, then denying them internet access is tantamount to condemning them to social isolation. It wasn't until I got unrestricted internet access, circa 17 years of age, that I realised that actually, no, I wasn't a fucking alien, there were hundreds of thousands of people just like me, but I didn't know because I was stuck in this shitty small town with shitty small town people. So I spent seventeen years thinking there was something fundamentally wrong with me when in reality there was something wrong with the environment around me.
I would have had a much happier early life if I'd gotten internet earlier. Wouldn't have spent 90% of my teens being suicidal.

The vast majority of people whining about the current political landscape have done absolutely nothing IRL to remedy this (tangibly supporting good candidates, running for office themselves, etc.)
- supporting good candidates
  Oh yes! Good candidates!.... Who are those, again?
  
  Case in point

Humans are doomed, destroy themselves one way or another.
- Life itself is probably doomed by sheer laws of entropy lol

Breakfast tacos at home are better than breakfast tacos out. This is true of many foods because you choose each ingredient (type, brand, ..) that you prefer and prepare it in your preferred way (more done, less oil, ...).
Climate change is making turbulence worse.
Straws are mostly unnecessary, so metal washable straws are dumb.
Plastic bag bans are dumb because they sell boxes of plastic bags.
- Any breakfast at home is almost always better than breakfast out, if you've got the time and ingredients. I can, with the right ingredients and tools and while half asleep, hungover, or still drunk, make a full breakfast for a family of four better than 90% of the breakfasts I've ever had out. Sure it took some practice, but breakfast isn't rocket science or usually particularly complex recipe wise.
  The only thing I haven't been able to do better at home breakfast wise so far is making my own fresh bagels or donuts. I don't like making poached eggs either, and hollandaise sauce is a pain in the ass, but I can count on one hand the number of times I've gotten an eggs Benedict out at a restaurant that didn't make me immediately regret my choice. Same with biscuits and gravy (why do restaurants think that gravy comes out of a box and should be bright white?) , bacon (just bacon flavored bacon please), eggs (sunny side up does not mean I want the whites to be clear and runny too), etc. All things I really like, but can't tolerate having someone else fuck up and charge me for it.
  
  It's those things where good is delicious and mediocre is terrible.
- Plastic bag bans are dumb because they sell boxes of plastic bags.
  Sorry, I don't understand this one. You're saying we shouldn't ban plastic bags in stores because you can still buy plastic bags elsewhere?
  
  You can walk into the store that has a bag ban and buy a box of bags. Then you use those bags to pick up dog poop or line your trash cans or whatever other things you used to do with the previously free store bags that are now banned or charged for. It's not about banning the bags to save the environment. It's about the store getting getting paid for the bag, either as a bag fee or in a box.
- As far as straws go, I agree that for most people in most situations they're unnecessary for most soft drinks. I do, however, think they're a pretty important part of the experience with some cocktails though, it has some effect on how fast you drink it, how it hits your tongue and you experience the flavors, if the drink is layered it effects how those different layers mix, what order you get them in and how the drink evolves as you drink it.
  That said, I think most reusable straws make for a bad substitute in a lot of cases because they're too thick compared to the coffee stirrer type straws I usually tend to get in bars when I order a cocktail that calls for a straw. Thinner straws would probably be kind of a pain to clean though.
  I'm not a huge fan of metal straws, they're just too hard and kind of unnerving if they crack against your teeth.
  I have some bamboo straws I like, and they fit my vibe since I make a lot of tiki drinks at home.
  
  I can agree with that. If i get a fancy tiki drink i expect a straw, but most other times I'm ok drinking from a cup, especially if I'm sitting down. A year or two ago Starbucks switched to the drinky lids. Why haven't other fast foods done that? I get a drink about twice per week and i do feel guilty about the trash. I usually save my cup and refill it for a couple of days.

If someone's too dangerous to own a gun they should be institutionalized until they're no longer a danger. Just taking guns away from them won't prevent them from being a problem.
- Define "too dangerous to own a gun"
  
  Anything that would currently mean a person loses their right to gun ownership. A felony, red flag, whatever. I'm not sure I agree with all of them but the logic of the situation dictates that if a person is so dangerous that they will kill people then that needs to be corrected. Just taking a gun away won't prevent them from doing harm if they want to.
  
  Like porn, I know it when I see it.

Pepper Mills are overrated.
- You take that back
  
  It's a hot take! Wouldn't be good if it weren't inflammatory.
- Pepper itself is overrated. At least the black one.
- Wait, what are pepper mills

The doomsday argument is correct, and becomes more obviously correct with each passing day.

Realists are just pessimists.
You should be an optimist even if you are faking it. To lift others up.
- Mate, I’m barely lifting myself up certain days, can I get a break from being responsible for others’ self-development, dunno, at least half the days?
  
  You’re not responsible for their self development. This is a morale thing.
  Trust me it’s easier to pick yourself up for the whole team than it is for just yourself.
  Maybe next time you ride the bus, imagine that you’re a background character in someone else’s struggle, and how you hold yourself will be absorbed by their subconscious. Maybe just by holding yourself the right way, you can make everyone on the bus just slightly more ready for the day.
  
  Who is stopping you from taking a break? My hot take is just a general recommendation, especially for people you love.
- Optimists are delusional
  
  Optimists are aspirational. The placebo effect is real, and pessimists use it counterproductively.
  
  I like useful delusions.
  If you are optimistic for others you ancourage them to do stuf. Doing some stuff that may not work is 100000% better than watching Netflix/TV. Especially in current nihilistic social climate.
  Pessimist and optimist are both right (not my quote)
  Example: Pessimist: I will not get this job -> So I will not even apply -> 0% chance of getting a job -> 100% correct Optimist: I will get this job -> I apply and prepare -> 20% chance of getting this job -> 20% correct But who cares if you are correct. What matters is taking a chance. This comes way more useful if you are optimistic every day. So you apply for a job whenever there is a chance. And if you apply for 10 jobs from initial 20% you get 89% chance to get a good job.
  Being naive is not the same as being optimistic.

The destruction of the library of Alexandria was a win.
- How so?
  
  Its legacy as this place potentially and magically fulfilling the hopes of having the answers to one's questions far exceeds reasonability, especially given the ordinariness of its circumstances/contents, and combine that with the fact that what they were known for is performing human experimentation on live prisoners, all without the ability to understand these experiments enough to start forming a unified concept of medicine around it, since this is Ancient Greece/Egypt we're talking about.

Using windows os should be marked as crimes against humanity.

The bear would eat women alive while they simp for an actual killer.
- Holy red flag, Batman
- Imagine using the word simp
  
  Imagine criticising someone for using a word despite it having been in the vernacular for years.
- The point of that meme as I took it is to illustrate the uncertainty women face when it comes to the intentions of (strange) men. The bear, an actual killer, at least is predictable. Not a criticism of your hot take btw, just sharing my thoughts on this meme.
  
  I always point to the fact that women can carry weapons in our society, yet mostly choose not to.
  This makes me suspicious that safety is the actual issue.

The Batman > The Dark Knight
- Booooo
- I'm upvoting because this is the first actual hot take I found after minutes of scrolling

Fediverse is not for everyone and I'd rather not have fediverse go mainstream, and if it does I'd rather have normies use normie instances like lemmy.world and mastodon.social because that way you can filter them out if you don't like them.

That Amerikans don't deserve any special consideration, and in fact, deserve a Century of Humiliation where the odious "please collaborate in our genocide so the ~~cryptofascist oligarchy~~ Democracy™ that ~~anglo-saxon, protestant-descended magnates and a small fraction of uplifted misleaders~~ we All™ enjoy will be saved!" brainworm is concerned.
Yes. My principles do matter to me more than you do at this point if you're going to look me in the face and tell me I have to support a genocider, all so you (or whatever minority you're about to only care about long enough to use as a cudgel) can remain comfortable.
- I suspect your definition of genocide differs from the legal one, because the US hasn't supported a genocide since we did native Americans dirty. The term had not yet been coined then.
  
  Do you disagree that the US isn’t supporting Israel, then, or do you disagree that what Israel is doing to Palestinians amounts to genocide?
  Some reading for you in case you’re somehow not familiar with the topic:
  https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_genocide_accusation
  https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/11/gaza-un-experts-call-international-community-prevent-genocide-against
  https://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/israel-palestine-conflict-history-causes-and-international-law
  https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976
  https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67922346
  Even if the international courts don’t rule that Israel is committing genocide, that will necessarily have been influenced by the United States’s close ties to Israel, so that they haven’t yet said whether it is or isn’t genocide is irrelevant. According to the evidence we have, it is.
  That said, see also the intro of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_the_United_States
  Others, like historian Gary Anderson, contend that genocide does not accurately characterize any aspect of American history, suggesting instead that ethnic cleansing is a more appropriate term.
  I’ve seen that same statement by people opposed to the use of the word “genocide” when talking about Israel’s genocide of Palestine, and it’s just as credible there as when “historian Gary Anderson” said it. At best, such a stance is pedantic; at worst, it supports Israel’s genocide by denying and enabling it.

Usa obsession with keeping the 2nd amendment is doing more harm than good. Your obsession with possession of fire arms in general generates problems that I don't see in other countries, starting for the school shootings...
But no "muh rights, I must gun down anyone invading my home, we do things the muricah way here yeewah, Bald eagle screech! 🦅
- Order of operations is important. Yes, if we got rid of all the guns then gun violence would stop being a problem. There's a whole discussion that could be had about sensible gun regulations that is beyond the scope of this comment. Reform on the matter is necessary.
  However, that 'order of operations' thing I mentioned: I'll give up my guns when the fascists give up theirs, and not a day earlier.
- Agreed, but it's the second amendment, not the fourth.
  
  The worst part is that I knew that but a movie I saw messed up my memory
- Yes but we also avoid problems that other countries with gun bans have, such as massacres of civilians by military and police.
  It’s sort of a balancing act you see.
  
  such as massacres of civilians by military and police
  massacres by police
  USA
  Who's gonna tell them?

Every human is an egoist. You too.
Everything you've ever done was for your own purpose. Everything we do, we do it cause it makes or will make US happy. Even if a person is kind to others, they are because it makes THEM happy. Even ascetics do what they do, because in their mind it will grand THEM happiness in the future.
So realize that you and everyone around you do what they do, because it makes THEM happy and live you life so it will make YOU happy
- Nah, being happy that others are happy isn’t egotism, it’s being a functional social creature. Making a charitable decision at your own expense is a good thing, and feeling good about the decision or being congratulated by someone else does not negate that.
  
  Don't think they're saying it negates the non-selfish part of the act.
- The philosopher of choice for mediocre self-entitled pricks with delusions of grandeur everywhere.
- I guess, but this just kind of redefines how most people think of egoism/selfishness/altruism etc. Where does it lead? If making people happy is selfish, and making people happy is 'good', does that mean any selfish act is 'good'? Does it really take away from 'good' acts if the performer derives happiness from them?

Other people shouldn't be able to hurt you, non-physically.
- Human beings are social animals. The only way that other people wouldn't be able to hurt me non-physically is if I were to cut myself off from my humanity.
  ...why would anyone want to do this?
  
  ¯(ツ)_/¯ I guess that's why it's a hot take
- What do you mean, like insults or if someone really insults you with a phobic term?
  Unless you annoy or anger the person first, then sure I'd get it if they were big an asshole. But if it's a retort, then maybe don't start insult wars you can't win.
- Also I shouldn’t have to poop
  
  Which is easily possible, just eat no fiber. Astronauts do it to create no waste.
  Don't know what it has to do with my comment though, yours should be a standalone reply to this topic?

Deep down we all love and facilitate the chaos in the world because we’re bored.
- Mmm nah I hate it.
  
  Username checks out. /s

Gun laws are ineffective. There is zero correlation between gun deaths and strictness of gun laws. Despite limits and bans of short barreled rifles, "assault weapons", machine guns, etc, gun deaths have continually increased.
Gun bans are only effective where there already isn't violence, at which point it's redundant.
I believe the culprits behind widespread American violence are high rates of youth delinquency and gang related criminal activity.
- The culprits are an extremely broken social safety net, crumbling education infrastructure and institutional racism.

If we're talking about Lemmy rather than wider society then;
Inb4; I'm broadly in support of trans people and trans rights/equality but I think there are three small snagging issues
That people who identify as a women but who went through puberty as a male shouldn't be competing in women's sports. I think it's a basic issue of fairness and that it ultimately disincentives people born female from entering a career in sports competitions.
That there is a serious debate to be had about trans people in women's changing rooms. I know it is a very nuanced and sensitive topic and I don't pretend that I have the answer, but I don't think it is as simple as "I identify as X so I'll use X changing room". I'd like to make it clear that I don't think this is a "sneaky perv" issue but rather a debate about spaces that should possibly be reserved for people born as female.
That no permanent changes should be made to the bodies of children. If you're not old enough to get a tattoo, piercing, drink, smoke etc. Then you're not old enough to make an extremely important decision that will effect you for the rest of your life.
- I think all sports aren't equal in this. The rules for MMA would surely be different than the rules for curling or chess. The people who control sports organizations usually have a life dedicated to their sport, and are in a much better place to make a call about it than congress or randos on the internet. This matter should be handled by them. The fact that anyone without skin in the game cares about this at all is a losing battle.
  
  If sex doesn't matter in curling or chess, then why are there different competitions for men and women in curling and why do women get their own titles in chess?
  I do understand the sentiment of what you're saying, but it's not the reality we live in.
- They told us for so long gender isn't sex, and then somehow it was, as far as this sports issue
  
  Because we can debate all-day about what is a man or a women or non-binary and gender roles etc. But I would say debating what is a male or female is much easier and simply comes down to genetics.
  Edit: imagine getting down voted for saying XX chromosomes are female and XY is male haha, I guess we're just ignoring the science of genetics now
- 100% agree with everything you said.

AI must die for us to survive.
or the one I got a temp ban at the other place for “promoting violence”: if there’s a threat to your wellbeing and you have to protect your dog, you chose the wrong dog and any harm that comes to you is your own fault.
You can have your anxiety dog, but I feel safer with my security guard dog. You’re dead because you’re dumb.
- Dogs are not just tools. You can choose a dog for reasons other than grandstanding your home security.
  
  You’re right. He also doubles as a teddy bear.

Epstein killed himself and you're a tedious memebrained dickhead if you think otherwise.
- I think your hot take is fine, but you do lack a certain way with words my friend.
  Maybe next time hit the "post" button after the first three words. It would be better for everyone.
  
  You don’t speak for me.
  I grew up in a culture where people spoke vulgarly and it was fucking fine. Just piss off with your thin skin and let the rest of us talk. Go nuzzle up to whatever sweetness you need from speech on your own, and let the rest of us be.

295 comments