I had bad acne, ultra-thick lenses in ugly black eyeglass frames, dandruff, was jiggling with baby fat, unpainted fingernails, and no couth, poise, or fashion sense when I was in my teens. Unlike 20 year olds playing teenagers in movies, I did not turn heads, men and boys did not drool when I walked by. When I was in my early 20’s, I had considerably cleaned up, lost weight, got highlights in my expensive haircut, and contact lenses. At that age I did turn heads. But that was long ago, I suppose teenage girls just know how to look more enticing now…However, the boys I went to school with certainly didn’t age too well. Chubby, double chins, baggy polo shirts, and receding hairlines in their early 20’s.
I think the most worthless item i own is worth more than the life of anyone trying to steal it. I think if you are born rich there is virtually no chance you are not a piece of shit human being. I think you should not be able to leave one cent to your children when you die. We should be paying women to have abortions and men vasectomies. I think much like jobs involving children attract pedophiles being a cop attracts racists and power hungry assholes.
We should stop wasting energy and water making sure cemeteries/memorial parks stay green.
I would be happy with even half of that - if I could go to the doctor and request sterilization and actually get it, at the normal charge. But I am a woman without children, and the majority of doctors will refuse to sterilize me. This is mostly offensive, because usually their reasons for not doing so imply that I am too stupid to make decisions about myself or that good women have children. Reportedly, men on the other hand can get the ol’ snip snip without too much question asking while in their 20’s. Lucky.
I’m extremely anti circumcision.
Bacon tastes good, but not good enough to get excited over other things being made to taste like bacon.
Even movies that fail in some way I can usually enjoy.
I liked, for the most part, the ending of Lost.
The cause of homosexuality doesn’t matter. If it’s nature, nurture, something more complex, is irrelevant. I think that for some people, it’s very hard wired, and for others it is more like a choice. In fact justifying it as not a choice is worse because that implies it is a defect. Whatever the cause, it’s the same cause as heterosexuality, and that’s all that matters. If the adults involved consent, they should be able to choose the form of their sexual and romantic experiences.
I think science is great, and certainly better than literal interpretations of religious texts at describing and explaining the workings of the physical world. But scientists are people, and there are fads in science that are more popular than justified by the actual work done on those topics. And science needs to be balanced by policy. And science has biased viewpoints on certain subjects.
WRT that and certain topics of controversy, GMO is nowhere near ready for mainstream use, vaccines are cool and don’t cause autism but we should still work to avoid using mercury in them and other medicine such as fillings, fluoridation is not a major health concern but is a very bad policy, and abortion should be legal but that doesn’t mean it is ethical at all stages and therefore we should work to make it less needed and less used.
Churches are ridiculously hypocritical on the issue of abortion, as it is only recently that they changed their viewpoint to that of life beginning at conception.
Bipartisan systems are a ridiculous false dichotomy. There is no reason why abortion, gun control, and taxes should be related to each other. The system should be changed to make third parties viable.
I’m generally pro socialist ideas.
I generally for legalizing consensual crimes, drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc.
Teachers and schools should not be authority figures, especially at higher levels. Students should be considered clients or customers - the relationship should be more like that of to your tutor or librarian. Schools should focus not on temporary memorization of subject matter and the grading of that feat, but instead on skills, projects, internships, and portfolios.
Schools should have more life skills classes, and religion and ethics should be allowed as electives.
A lot of focus should be put on teaching kids to process information. Both in dealing with overload, and handling charged or mature topics, and in evaluating the trustworthiness of information.
Kids are much better off learning socialization from mature adults than hundreds of other immature hormonal adolescents.
Kids are able to handle a lot more than we give them credit for. The only things they really have trouble with are adults’ unreasonably charged and conflicted feelings about certain things.
Laws should be oriented more towards the licensing model than arbitrarily age based, for all currently age based laws.
Reform is always better than punishment.
All monetary punishments need to be replaced by community service, except those that are restorative (you break something, you pay to fix it).
Drug laws need to be reformed.
Nudity is not a big deal.
Cops should be more like community aides then wolves on the hunt.
Government should actually take the advice of long term panel studies they initiate.
There’s no such thing as evil, except for the belief in evil.
It is time for a real world government.
Turtles are awesome.
One I know is unpopular: vertically framed videos are just fine, and in fact, there are some contexts in which they are the superior choice to horizontal.
Jackdavinci, that was great. I agree with all of it* except the bit about the turtles. To me, they’re meh.
*I guess they’re not such controversial opinions after all!
It depends on the doctor. I will grant you that pre-surgical sperm retrieval is much easier than egg retrieval, should a person change their mind, but AFAIK a tubal ligation reversal is more likely to work than a vasectomy reversal, even though the former is more invasive.
This was in the late 1980s, but I knew a man who was about 30 years old, and he wanted a vasectomy but his biggest obstacle to having one was because he’d witnessed it being done, and wanted it performed under general anesthesia and couldn’t find a doctor who would do it even though he was willing to pay out of pocket for it. :rolleyes: He’d been briefly married to a woman who had children, and knew he didn’t want that kind of responsibility. He also said that their divorce was because of issues between them, and not because of the children.
I believe society has dropped the ball in recognising and intervening in the lives of children who are simply not motivated or severely lacking in self esteem or confidence. Only to the extent that we offer counseling to the families. I believe education should include at a very young age exposure to a wide variety of possibilites for creative expression. I think positive reinforcement is grossly underated.
I also believe that racism amoung conservatives is for the most part a myth. I believe that well meaning liberals also display a form of racism in underestimating ability in the minorities.
I believe if 75% or possibly less of the 1st world countries become athiest severe social problems over and above what we experience now manifest themselves. Eyes in the sky keep some people in line.I just finished watching the whole series of “Lost” on Netflix - I thought the ending was just fine. Is it known as a bad ending?
There was a lot of backlash from fans, particularly with regards to mytharc questions they thought went answered, and the resolution of the alternate timeline.
To go against the tide of another group of fans, The Last Airbender wasn’t a fantastic adaptation, but as a children’s movie on its own merits, it was entertaining and visually appealing.
Joni Mitchell sucks, and people who claim to like her and her music are lying.
That’s a good one - Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan are another two examples of that. They are singers who can’t sing - it isn’t pleasant to listen to them!
Whitney Houston pure-dee sucked. Oh, btw, she was hot in the early years, but, she went right to bland/ugly.
And, taking a cure from **KSO **above, I’d have to add that Judy Collins sucked. I loved “Both Sides Now”, but, it wasn’t because she was a great singer. Something weird about the sound/song/recording that made it popular.
“Ford Fairlane” wasn’t a crap movie.
Your president is just as bad as the one from the opposing party.
Silence is better than any music.
While it is perfectly natural to love one’s spouse and children, I don’t think that love guarantees being a good person for society at large. It might even be at odds with being a good person.
I mean, how many people, epecially in white collar jobs, will look the other way when their company screws society, because they don’t want to lose their job so they can get their children material toys?
We are far too lenient for excuses like: “I did it for my family”. I think Carmella Soprano is every bit as guilty as Tony Soprano.
that is exactly what I thought when I watched that show.
Since Judy Collins has been mentioned here, I’ve always loved “Both Sides Now” but think “Send In The Clowns” is one of the dumbest songs ever written, never mind one that reached instant classic status.
I don’t like people, they are not to be trusted.
Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” is one of my favorite Christmas songs.