# What are your most unpopular opinions? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 14, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645 "2013-04-14T00:24:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/361 "2013-04-22T22:40:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Personally, I’d set it at 0.75 children per person, and then… > > allow this. Couples who want two kids will need to get a half-credit from someone who doesn’t want any, or a couple that just wanted the one. > > I’d allow a refund on the credit if your kid doesn’t make it to breeding age themselves. I could get behind that. Give everyone a child procreation credit (or fractional credit) designed to get the world population down drastically overall but allow buying and selling of them for those who don’t want any kids or those who want more and can afford them. That is a win all around. Granted, the depopulation period won’t be too fun because so many government programs are set up like a pyramid scheme but that is a problem that needs to be addressed anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/362 "2013-04-22T22:56:04Z")
In this same line of thinking, abortion is both immoral and still a good thing overall. The pro-choice movement has never convinced me that their arguments are anything but an ad-hoc attempt to justify a desired outcome and the typical arguments are sophomoric at best. They argue, “It is just a clump of cells”? What do you think you are? “It is a woman’s body”? Maybe you get fooled every time by those Russian stacking dolls but I don’t. People can’t justify all other actions using the “my body” argument so I don’t see why that applies to abortion debates. That said, I am Pro-abortion these days. That is slightly different than being Pro-choice. I think it should be aggressively encouraged even if it is immoral. Morals aren’t everything. Freakonomics makes the argument that the crime rate fell drastically during the 1990’s until now mostly because the would-be criminals were aborted because the people breeding them were among the most likely to get abortions. I don’t know if that argument is completely true but it sounds plausible and I am all for voluntary genocide if the good outweighs the bad overall. At the very least, abortion limits the number of unwanted children and keeps population growth in check. Abortion should be legal, safe and incredibly common. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/363 "2013-04-22T22:58:02Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > This thread is depressing me and I need to stop coming back to read it. That may be an unpopular opinion in and of itself! I can get behind you, my friend. The posters here don’t know it, but I feel that some of them have directly insulted me through what they’ve said. (I won’t go into specifics.) I think I’ll go play in another thread now. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/364 "2013-04-22T23:03:07Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > That said, I am Pro-abortion these days. That is slightly different than being Pro-choice. I think it should be aggressively encouraged even if it is immoral. Morals aren’t everything. Freakonomics makes the argument that the crime rate fell drastically during the 1990’s until now mostly because the would-be criminals were aborted because the people breeding them were among the most likely to get abortions. I don’t know if that argument is completely true but it sounds plausible and I am all for voluntary genocide if the good outweighs the bad overall. At the very least, abortion limits the number of unwanted children and keeps population growth in check. Abortion should be legal, safe and incredibly common. The logical consequence of this argument would be something like what Bill Bennett said some years ago to much controversy, “If we aborted all black babies, the crime rate would go down dramatically”. Anyways abortion rates have been going down in the last few since the 1980s yet crime isn’t rising despite that and rising poverty. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/365 "2013-04-22T23:14:51Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Counterpoint…humans are on a different evolutionary level now, where succeeding generations can also be influenced and benefited by societal and material contributions. If a finch can’t breed and reproduce, then its finest superior song singing, nest building, and wing flapping will never influence the future. > > Even if I, as a human, never reproduce, I can arguably have a far greater impact on succeeding generations and on society with an invention, artistic work or discovery than I would with simply tossing (snerk) the genetic dice. > > Wolfgang Mozart ‘failed’ evolutionarily since his lineage died out with his childless children, but I’d argue his evolutionary influence on society and the future is far more significant than his mere DNA would have been. Excellent counterpoint! I would add that society exerts much more influence on an individual’s fitness than the primal urges of that individual. If men lived for maximum fecundity, they would not only all be sociopathic rapists, but they would all be walking around wearing [kilts sans underwear](http://bodyodd.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/22/17861729-researcher-men-in-kilts-swing-free-have-happier-sperm). Society wouldn’t function very well if humans lived for nothing but sex and reproduction. And a non-functioning society doesn’t benefit individual humans at all, in terms of fitness or anything else. We are social creatures after all. So we serve the interests of society in addition to our own biological “needs”. Adoption is a means of increasing the likelihood that _someone’s_ genes will be passed onto the next generation, and someone’s genes is better than no genes at all when it comes to society. And at a smaller scale, adoption can promote kin selection by providing long-term benefits to the family. An adopted child is another mouth to feed, but they can grow up to be a source of income and/or serve as a caretaker, enabling the entire family to optimize its fecundity and survival. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/366 "2013-04-22T23:16:43Z")
> [@Troppus](#): > > And all we have is an admission that Regan made some decisions based on astrological hoodoo, which even you admit. Refresh my memory, when did Reagan admit this? We know Nancy was into that, and some people said she was influencing her husband, but did he say he made decisions based on astrology? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/367 "2013-04-22T23:35:19Z")
Even though I’m an environmental scientist and I believe that my work isn’t totally useless, nonetheless I feel that environmental protection is ultimately a Sisyphean effort. Especially in the face of global climate change. We can spend billions of dollars to upgrade water treatment facilities, but all the money in the world can’t stop a few massive superstorms from undoing decades of progress. I almost feel like we need to do a time-out on current restoration programs and devote all of our energies towards adapting to rising sea level and subsidence. And all those people living out in Tangier Sound and other vulnerable, low-lying areas need to let go of their sentimental attachments and move to higher ground already. Expensive seawalls and beach restoration efforts are just prolonging the inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/368 "2013-04-22T23:55:04Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Wolfgang Mozart ‘failed’ evolutionarily since his lineage died out with his childless children, but I’d argue his evolutionary influence on society and the future is far more significant than his mere DNA would have been. Thus the notion of “[memes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme)” (as Dawkins coined the word, not as currently understood on the Interwebtubes.) There are a variety of memes associated and carried forward with Mozart’s music (or any great composer or musician). ---
**Author:** ![Blkshp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blkshp/32/7135_2.png) [@Blkshp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blkshp)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/369 "2013-04-23T00:44:27Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Refresh my memory, when did Reagan admit this? We know Nancy was into that, and some people said she was influencing her husband, but did he say he made decisions based on astrology? He did it to shut the crazy bitch up. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/370 "2013-04-23T14:36:10Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > People can’t justify all other actions using the “my body” argument They can’t? I can’t think of any examples where it doesn’t apply - drugs legality, euthanasia, suicide, rape, transsexuals, body modifications - all my takes on these issues is from a “my body, my rules” argument, ultimately. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/371 "2013-04-23T14:48:33Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The logical consequence of this argument would be something like what Bill Bennett said some years ago to much controversy, “If we aborted all black babies, the crime rate would go down dramatically”. Anyways abortion rates have been going down in the last few since the 1980s yet crime isn’t rising despite that and rising poverty. I believed that black people who give their kids those goofy names, the ones that identify them as black, fatherless, and on welfare, should be sterilized, as should the baby, until I saw Quvenzhane Wallis in “Beasts of the Southern Wild”. Her parents have been married for more than 20 years, and her father is a truck driver and her mother, a schoolteacher. :smack: Had the Sandy Hook kids come from this demographic, or if they were Hispanic or Muslim, it might not even have made the local news, and would now be discussed only on racist blogs. I sure hope we never find out if my theory is true. There was an alternative high school in the city where I used to live, and one thing never changed among people who worked there: They believed that the school should have a urologist and gynecologist on contract, to sterilize all the incoming students, and both biological parents if they could be located. :eek: Girls who arrived pregnant and carried the baby to term should have it taken from her immediately after birth and adopted. No learning took place at this school; it was nothing but a legally mandated warehouse that didn’t have lesson plans or even take attendance. And it was in a small city in rural Illinois! Even long-term educators and social workers had no idea that kids like this existed in that town until they went there. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/372 "2013-04-23T17:23:52Z")
I do not think parents should have unique rights wrt how their children are raised. All one needs to become a parent is functioning gonads, it is a very important job that demands no qualifications, vetting or performance review, as with most others. The children are part of the community, everyone must deal with parents’ mistakes, everyone should participate in their upbringing. Especially non-believing folk: children need to be raised without religious indoctrination, allowed to choose their purple unicorn when they are old enough to understand what it is. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/373 "2013-04-23T17:32:28Z")
> [@For You](#): > > I do not think parents should have unique rights wrt how their children are raised. All one needs to become a parent is functioning gonads, it is a very important job that demands no qualifications, vetting or performance review, as with most others. The children are part of the community, everyone must deal with parents’ mistakes, everyone should participate in their upbringing. Especially non-believing folk: children need to be raised without religious indoctrination, allowed to choose their purple unicorn when they are old enough to understand what it is. So, what you’re saying is that it takes a village to raise a child? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/374 "2013-04-23T17:55:30Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > I’m also not convinced that homosexuality isn’t a choice. Male homosexuality isn’t a choice. Lesbianism can be. JMHO. I don’t think David Sedaris is funny. p.s. Those two statements are totally unrelated. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/375 "2013-04-23T18:03:02Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Being in the military does not automatically make you a hero. > mmm Being a GLBT teenager, a breast cancer survivor, or the mother of an autistic child doesn’t either. And being the mother of an autistic child does not make your poop stink-free, either. (do we have a “flameproof shield” smiley?) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/376 "2013-04-23T18:07:59Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > “Turn The Page” by Bob Seger is whiny, braggy drivel. So is “Like a Rock” and most of his other stuff. Ca. 1990, my then-boyfriend owned a used record store, and Bob Seger was one of the artists whose albums/CDs he couldn’t give away! That was quite surprising to me. The other artists on that list were Huey Lewis and the News, Asia, and Twisted Sister. I don’t get warm, fuzzy feelings when I see soldiers returning from deployment, because I know what awaits a huge percentage, if not the outright majority of them, in the years to come: drug addiction, domestic violence, poverty, homelessness, suicide, etc. I also believe that married soldiers should just get divorced when they deploy, because they’re going to do that anyway when they come back. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/377 "2013-04-23T18:23:55Z")
Alcoholism and drug addiction are NOT “diseases.” They are **addictions**. A disease is when your physical body betrays you and you become sick. You choose to pick up a bottle and drink from it. You can control your hands and the act of purchasing, opening, and drinking from that bottle. You choose to go to your dealer, purchase your drug of choice, and you control how you ingest said drug. You can’t buy cancer. You can’t buy ALS. You can’t buy Multiple Sclerosis. You can’t buy Alzheimers. You CAN buy drugs and alcohol and get addicted to them. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/378 "2013-04-23T18:41:51Z")
I have a hard time saying that polygamists should go to jail, provided they haven’t engaged in other acts like statutory rape, child abuse, coercion, welfare fraud, or insurance fraud. I don’t like polygamy, but if a guy and three women of legal age and reasonable mental health want to cohabit and say they’re married in the eyes of some god or other, who am I to say foul? ---
**Author:** ![perfectparanoia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@perfectparanoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perfectparanoia)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/379 "2013-04-23T18:43:54Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > I have a hard time saying that polygamists should go to jail, provided they haven’t engaged in other acts like statutory rape, child abuse, coercion, welfare fraud, or insurance fraud. > > I don’t like polygamy, but if a guy and three women of legal age and reasonable mental health want to cohabit and say they’re married in the eyes of some god or other, who am I to say foul? Plus, if it were legal, we could have appropriate income tax rules for them! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645/380 "2013-04-23T18:44:25Z")
Mass produced American pilsners are more refreshing and taste better than ridiculously hoppy craft beers, which taste like someone dumped a spice rack into a perfectly good beer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-most-unpopular-opinions/655645.md?page=20)