Wizard Master posted:

I understand that most goons in 2021 would definitely lean to the left side of the political spectrum (and I commend the work the mods have done in weeding out some of the most reactionary/bigoted elements of the forums in recent years), but I thought it would be interesting to discuss some of the more conservative opinions we hold. Hopefully this might lead to some interesting (and hopefully respectful) discussion.

Some of mine include:

-I believe government spending needs to be somewhat limited
-The effect of violent media (especially video games) on children and adolescents can't be understated, and it's concerning how prevalent it is
-Tattoos are often a terrible decision that will lead to nothing but regret later in life

Katamari Democracy posted:

Do you own a gun?

Fruits of the sea posted:

Free speech kinda sucks.

Wall Balls posted:

i strongly believe i should have more money

Nooner posted:

Tom "Touchdown Tom" Brady is a good guy

Computer viking posted:

Some minority of the people who identify as trans today could also have landed as a nonconforming version of their at-birth gender, and it's not a given that one is better than the other (for that minority). I expect to see some swings in transition rates over the coming decades.

Mind you, I see this sort of like swing voters - a small volatile group between the larger "definitely trans" and "definitely cis but queer" groups.

Computer viking posted:

Of course - anything else would be incredibly disrespectful.

To clarify - if gender roles in society became way more relaxed than they are today, and more lifestyles and expressions could comfortably fit into both genders, then my guess is that the number of trans people would be slightly lower.

Which seems like nitpicking, and it probably is. The reason I feel it goes I here is mostly that I can see the slippery slope from there and down to "most trans people are just confused", and I worry that I'd inadvertently be helping that stupid argument. Thus I've never mentioned it before, and I probably won't mention it again.

Outpost22 posted:

Pride parades should tone down the overt sexuality in public, think of the kids watching that kind of stuff

Partycat posted:

All money should be backed by it’s equivalent weight in gold. It’s just common sense.

super sweet best pal posted:

Two years of dehumanizing military service as a mandatory requirement for college.

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

Dr. Gojo Shioji posted:

I mean, McCain didn't win and the deficit stayed/grew, so the party correlation may not be there, rather that both sides just decided they like having infinite money so good luck ever seeing a surplus again.

Bad Purchase posted:

if we can make real inflation happen at a higher rate than we pay interest on our debt, then the dumb idiots who bear the risk of default by holding our bonds are also effectively paying us for the privilege

Bad Purchase posted:

ackshually what you're talking about would be the same whether the federal budget ran a surplus or debt

Who What Now posted:

Nobody is going to pay for it because America actually does have unlimited money because, and I can't stress this enough, our money is worth however much we say it is and nobody can stop or challenge us

Bad Purchase posted:

my post was responding to the debt vs surplus hand-wringers. being able to sell your debt with near-zero interest rates while inflation erodes the value faster than you pay interest means the debt holders are paying you for the risk they carry. i'm not saying that if you build a border wall and fund it with bond sales that the debt holders have paid for the whole border wall project -- however the government finances it, the funding is obviously still coming from tax payers. i'm just saying that in some circumstances the government choosing to go into debt makes more sense than funding the border wall outright with a balanced budget. unless you can make mexico pay for it.

Edit: the thing that will gently caress over the US government is deflation, not inflation.

Who What Now posted:

Yes, thats the reason fast food has been funnelling money into automation for decades and decades: deflation

Lascivious Sloth posted:

deflate my balls lol

Who What Now posted:

Dave Thomas' ghost screaming into the dreams of Wendy's CEO "DEFLATION IS COMING YOU FOOL! WE NEED ROBO BURGERS OR WE'LL NEVER SURVIIIIIIIIIIIVVVEEEEE!"

Guildenstern Mother posted:

Doesn't China still keep a huge portion of their reserves in dollars?

edit: Yes they do, the largest of any country, currently a bit more than 3 billion at last count.

phasmid posted:

$3 billion? That seems pretty small for a large power like China.

Computer viking posted:

The US presidential system is basically 1700s people thinking that you still need a powerful king to make the system work, and trying to work around the worst problems by making the position elected and time limited. Those were absolutely improvements, but it means the US is still stuck with having a single man be way too powerful.

Somewhat ironically, the remaining western monarchies evolved into "maybe giving a single person that much power is bad", which I prefer. Of course, there are republics with entirely symbolic presidents as well, but having a king or queen makes it so obviously stupid to give your single symbolic leader any power that it keeps (most) people from getting silly ideas.

Fashionable Jorts posted:

Pansexual is just Bisexual but harder to explain.

Demisexual isn't real.

Dubplate Fire posted:

no one actually understands what the deficit is. its economically terrible to have a surplus

Bad Purchase posted:

Wikipedia says China owns about $1T of federal treasuries. Japan owns about that much as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Composition_of_U.S._Long-Term_Treasury_Debt_2000-2014.svg

Congrats to Belgium on 3rd place.

Earwicker posted:

i dont believe in wearing sunglasses indoors

Computer viking posted:

If the president is just a figurehead you use to greet foreigners and sporadically trigger deadlock-breaking laws, it doesn't matter that the electoral college is broken.

But no, that's because winner-takes-all voting plus the way low-population states are overrepresented (because every state gets as many EC votes as they have house members + senators) is a system that can easily produce results far away from the nationwide vote split. The obvious choice is to just drop the EC and go directly by nationwide vote counts, but I guess that can't happen without an amendment - and I can't see the republicans voting for that.

AKA Pseudonym posted:

Kids today honest to god don't play outside on their own often enough. It's good exercise and just loving around with other kids with no immediate adult supervision is an important part of socialization. I know people who's 12-year-old children have almost never been out of a view of an adult and it's just maddening.

Mr_Companie posted:

You need a haircut
What they did to the Weavers at Ruby Ridge was wrong
People finding identity in words, symbols, or the actions of others, instead with their work, loved ones, and responsibilites is dangerous and only further atomizing our society.

spouse posted:

Yeah, this is pretty much it. When I was a kid I lived in a small town about an hour and a half outside the city and could bike into town in 10 minutes and go to the library, the movies, multiple parks, stores, restaurants, etc.

Now I live 30 minutes outside city center in another city and beyond having a really close grocery store near me, there's not poo poo to do if you don't have a car.

AKA Pseudonym posted:

I grew up in the suburbs, and that definitely limited the range a kid on a bike

OB-GYN Kenobi posted:

Nice try. I don't believe that you, of all people wear underpants.

DeadFatDuckFat posted:

You shouldn't get mad when you catch me staring at your rear end if you're wearing yoga pants at Costco. You know what you're doing

AKA Pseudonym posted:

Eventually you hit a barrier like a freeway or a business park or a gated neighborhood. Or there's just more suburb and everybody just loses interest. Importantly there's no woods where you can find a portal to another dimension or anything like that.

sugar free jazz posted:

Irish are POC

Xenocides posted:

DARPA is awesome and I will not hear otherwise. It is a mad scientist collective researching batshit stuff.

Cyborg insect spies, mechanical elephants, using nuclear bomb detonations to power spacecraft, plant-eating robots, self-repairing buildings, powered exoskeletons, cars for the blind, laser-guided smart bullets, programmable shapeshifting matter, computers that run on biological principles, airships that can carry over a million tons of stuff around the world, brain implants that treat PTSD, and that is just the stuff I remember from reading their stuff a while back.

Basically DARPA has an exception to a lot of federal rules funding and expensing rules, doesn’t do projects that are just a next generation of existing tech, only run high risk/high reward projects, and is exempt from normal federal employee rules so they can hire people and ignore more federal employee management rules as needed. They get over 3 billion dollars a year and there are few restrictions as to what they can do with it.

DARPA is cool and good even if they end up killing us all.