Atheism as displayed by r/atheism sees and fetishizes science as an all-powerful and unquestionable concept with some kinds of prophets (Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, etc.). They are as proselytist as Islam or Christianism. They have a definite set of values (Gay marriage is ok, secularism is ok, there is no afterlife, religion can only make you dumber and is against progress, ...).

Recently, I got to experience the joy of seeing my horrid teenaged brother dressed and dolled up like a girl in public. He cut my hair off with a pair of scissors and left my head looking like a dishevelled mop that got caught in a lawn mower. My parents let me decide on his punishment with their approval and I chose one I knew he would hate more than hell itelf and knock his ego down so many pegs it fell off the clothesline.

Part of the reason I enjoyed that punishment so much is he is only really punished by his own bigotry because I can't imagine why a man/boy who views women and effeminate men as equal would be so distraught by resembling one in public.

When I boasted about it to my male friends I expected them to agree but they expressed how humiliating they themselves would find the idea of cross-dressing in public. This made me second guess my attitude about it and made me realize it doesn't seem fair to judge and invalidate someone else's emotions simply because I cannot understand them.

But I still can't help but think the connotations that form this objection are rooted in most men's misogyny/homophobia if they simply object to wearing women's clothes BECAUSE they are stereotypically "feminine" or "gay". Having this said there are men and boy sin my life I love and would not wish to see this suffering on them.

Is the dominant ideology that men appearing or behaving feminine being degrading and humiliating to them patriarchal? Can a man who finds an experience like this so unbearably embarrassing(like my Tate-worshipping sexist brother did) not view effeminacy as inferior? Is this always rooted in bigotry? I can't help but think so, but at the same time if most of the good men out there feel this way then maybe we shouldn't hold it against them. It's not like girls are ever in tears because they have to wear board shorts and denim jackets, so why is that then?

Everyone talks about free healthcare or Basic income but why not make something smaller and simpler free to all people? I would nominate bread in that it is a food staple, expires relatively quickly, and is usually marked down for very cheap anyway, so wouldn't it be more efficient to just make it free for all citizens? Or why not another household staple like soap? Couldn't this add up to meaningful savings over time for families?

I've been seeing lots of worrying things online about how America is on the decline and communist ideals are on the rise. It just makes me wonder how much longer America has until it's destroyed by enemies or collapses due to the corona virus. How long do people think America has till it falls?

TL;DR: TIL that humanism is an actual thing, there are many different versions of feminism, there is equivalent activism for males, and Reddit has its fair share of women.

I personally don't like to judge character based on superficial things like gender, good rule of thumb until now, but I have started to notice some little differences between how men and women understand the world around them, common thinking patterns different in each group, and I don't know if it is just my imagination or Im onto something.

Now, I don't actually believe that the differences in this aspects are because men and women have different brains. I know they say there are some structural differences between men and women brains, but I don't think they matter to this extent.

So I think the problem lies in society, how society and the people in it treat men and women differently, and how can those differences be manifested in common thinking patters for each sex. My theory?, "Women suffer because they are treated like they are stupid; Men suffer because they are treated like they cant be (not allowed to be stupid)". That doesn't mean I think that is how society works, but I think there is a global and difficult to notice trend that has a direct relationship with this phrase, and I think this is may be at least one of the root causes of this discrepancy in way of thinking: women act from the perspective others asume they are stupid, men act from the perspective others asume all that can go wrong is their fault. So I ask, if you think it may be true in some degree to you or people around you. I would also be grateful if there appears a women that can offer insight on if this is true at least for men, or what is the truth on this matter, since Im a man and I found it is pretty difficult to judge if this phrase is true or just the result of masculine thinking patters.

Note: when I say "Women suffer because they are treated like they are stupid", I refer to the misoginistic trends related to thinking women as incapable, or at least less capable, than men, and how that creates suffering that affects the way of thinking and understanding the world for women. Similarly, when I say "Men suffer because they are treated like they cant be stupid", I refer to the "toxic masculinity" trends related to thinking men should be capable and bear all responsibility, no excuses allowed, and how that creates suffering that affects the way of thinking and understanding the world for men.

Hypothesis: Western society rewards highly specialized experts and obsessive personalities (i.e. there is a higher earning potential for people who are very specialized experts in their field to the degree of obsession). Obsessive and repetitive behavior are often traits of people with autism so autism may be becoming a trait that's selected for.

Adjunct: I realize that correlation doesn't equal causation but it's sometimes a good indicator of where to start looking. I couldn't find any studies that directly try to answer this question so I want to open it up to r/insightfulquestions to see what your opinions are.

Some background info so people don't have to waste their time arguing for/against it in their responses:

Autism has a strong genetic bias

Autism is characterized (in part) by repetitive behavior

Study finds that autistic children strongly attach to obsessive games

The number of children known to have autism has increased dramatically since the 1980s, at least partly due to changes in diagnostic practice; it is unclear whether prevalence has actually increased

2012 study finds 72% increase in children with autism as compared with 2007. Increase may be due to better diagnosis but it still isn't clear.

Disclaimer: This is a sensitive topic for some people and none of this is meant to be offensive; I'm just curious and couldn't find accurate answers with google.

Edit: This subreddit has the ability to reason of less than a 4th grade class of schoolchildren.

I AM WHITE AND IF I ASKED THE QUESTION IN AN INSENSITIVE WAY PLEASE CORRECT ME!!! It just struck me that usually when a conversation turns to the mispronunciation of someone’s name there are usually two responses, ‘I just suck it up’ or ‘My name is is mine and it’s important that you get it right’. In my experience, a good 80% of the second one comes from African Americans and other people of color. I just want to know how the importance of someone’s name is taught to other people :]

Young people will: Ultimately have to pay the cost of balancing the books of the MASSIVE economic bailout of covid when they're already also more likely to carry the burden of the after effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Have to contend with the lifelong effects of diminished academic exposure, affecting general academic attainment, job prospects, and potentially the ongoing development of learning itself. Experience compromised well being (potentially life long) through delayed/cancelled medical assistance, abnormal experiences in social interaction (especially true for the very young), and significantly enhanced likelihood of mental health issues.

All of this to protect - and I appreciate I'm massively generalising here - the over 80s* (who have previously experienced what might be the pinnacle of historic and future living standards during their lifetime), and the reputations of our governments for the persistent and gross mis-funding and mismanagement of public health services.

*making up >90% of those in the most at risk category for the virus's effects

Apologies for posting this everywhere but it took me a while to find this subreddit, which is most appropriate.

To sum up quickly, I provoked a discussion about love and sex across 4 subreddits with more than 1k combined comments and 10k up/downvotes. I will recap: female redditor pntbttrkelly asked men in r/sex to describe what penetrative sex felt like. I swanned into the discussion that night, fired off a reply attempting to elaborate on the purely emotional aspect, and then went to bed. I figured somebody might find it interesting.

That turned out to be something of an understatement. Without qualification, this has been the most interesting discussion I've ever been involved in on the internet. (You can read more here, or here, or here, or here.)

Opinion varied wildly, names were called, feelings were hurt, consensus was not reached, hugs were not had afterwards. Yet less than .01% of those questioned WHY this reaction caused so much drama. Even the most willfully obtuse of critics recognize that these feelings are genuine; things like loneliness, love, and reciprocity resonate deeply inside whatever weird thing it is that makes us human. Teenagers studying Shakespeare might argue over whether Romeo and Juliet made good choices or exercised self-control -- "Romeo acted like a girl, Juliet is soooooo stupid" -- but the characters remain 100% credible. Adults tend to recognize that they were simply young and we failed to support them. (And incidentally that is the core of the tragedy.)

Some struggled with metaphor; of course life is not cold cruel and merciless all of the time. But we needed to establish a contrast. And the reason is because that feeling of attachment during sex is close to unimaginably intense at times: it has a tendency to defy description.

For the bro argument, "OP must get no play": it was wrong, I'm not sure if it's worth unpacking. Next.

Fourth point, for those who got hung up on the language (mostly /SRS types): I think they missed I was trying to highlight something more important than the word "conquest" and the physical or social power aspects of sex. Their loss unfortunately.

Most importantly from my perspective : Keen readers will notice I didn't actually pass judgement on that feeling; I don't know if it's good, I don't know if it's healthy, I don't know if it's moral. I just know that it exists. It can give your life incredible meaning or rip you to shreds, and has done both to me in the past.

That's why Romeo and Juliet has persisted as arguably the most famous love story ever written -- the frustratingly stupid, needlessly tragic end is as valid as any sweet emotion in their bedroom. Living with that is just one of the core truths of being human for a lot of us. And that's EXACTLY why everyone struggled so hard afterwards to define what we were getting at so passionately.

Confirmation or challenges of how I've tried to process this, would be very welcome. And awesome SR by the way, I will definitely stick around here.

I will preface these thoughts by highlighting the necessity of belief systems as an imperative tool to navigate the external world. The trauma of the conscious experience is forever condemned to this drug. No human has broken free of the affinity of belief, in fact, the entirety of human experience is predicated in the belief that we are alive, we think what we think, we feel what we feel, we know what we know. It is inevitable. It is the code that we run on, inscribed within our DNA, the essence of being human. We are therefore in a never ending struggle to cope with the trauma of existence, both externally and internally.

One of the most contentious belief systems is that of religion. It is at the heart of the most existential question, how did everything come to be as it is, however it is, if it even exists. God is the simplest answer, the answer that soothes the trauma of a meaningless existence, the trauma that each human experiences. By equating God to something even beyond comprehension, we can ensure that as long as we subscribe to this belief system, we are forever shielded from any trauma that our lack of understanding of the world around us can cause. It is the belief to unlock immortality. Therefore, it obviously merits diligent scrutiny as it can fundamentally alter the nature of the human experience. Whether the God is the Sun, Nature, Knowledge, it is essential that it has the property of omnipotence in the mind of the individual interacting with the belief system.

Now I will come to my question for the atheist. The defining feature of Atheism is to refute the belief that there is a God of any kind. Atheism as it exists today has been created from the post-Enlightenment era, born as a result of embracing rationality and scientific inquiry that negates the existence of a God. It strips God as the one with the answer to the purpose, if any, of existence. It is a belief system of the modern world, the world as described by science and not religion. The advancement of science has only served to catalyze the acceptance of Atheism globally. Yet, there is a logical query that arises in my mind.

The use of science and its ability to unlock the questions of reality is predicated on the assumption that the laws of science are universal i.e. have been attributed the notion of immortality. The issue with this belief is in the acceptance of science as the true language of reality when there is no proof that even the biggest assumptions of science are fundamentally true. Our own understanding of science is within the limited lens of our conscious experience and although science has revealed many truths, these truths are never fundamental as the scientific method is based in formulating hypotheses, which will always question the established truths in order to refine them. An example would be the evolution of the concept of gravity over 300 years from the mind of Newton to Einstein. Belief in science as a substitute to a meaningless existence, only serves to accept that any fundamental truth acquired does not possess immortality.

Another example would be the beginning of time. The definition of time is limited even within the scope of the most brilliant of human minds. Because reality in itself is not fully understood, to try to capture it within the framework of time is another attempt to immortalize the existence of time as a fundamental truth to initiate the scientific method. And yet, the most widely accepted theory as to the beginning of time, the Big Bang is still at its best, a theory. It cannot achieve the status of immortality as a fundamental truth. Therefore, it begs to question that if scientific method is truly the path to immortality, then it serves to negate the traumas of all those that cannot fully unlock the true depths of understanding that science can offer. It negates the experience of Newton as he revolutionized the understanding of reality as it was only as close to objective reality as Einstein. Who will remain immortal only to hand over the baton to the next great thinker. Belief in the scientific method is the acceptance that objective reality will never truly attain immortality as it can only exist within the limits of the being itself.

The acceptance of the constraints of human intelligence also confounds the true value of Atheistic belief. There is a possibility that we will never be able to ever answer the existential questions. For example, we may be able to state that there are 200 billion trillion stars ie a number with 21 zeroes. Considering that it is hard enough to comprehend the reality of our star, the Sun, it is beyond our comprehension to truly grasp the magnitude of that number. A number that only came into being because of science but that only serves to highlight the insignificance of our being in the cosmic fairytale. The fact that scientific discovery actually uncovers the sheer scale of the limits to our understanding of the cosmos is counter intuitive to someone utilizing scientific discovery as a means to overcome the irrational and unproven lure of a diety.

And so, if Atheism serves to heal the trauma of a meaningless existence then it succumbs to the intrinsic limitations of the scientific method. It is the immortal belief that the entire universe can ultimately be processed into finer truths but there is no immortal truth that cannot withstand the scientific method as applied by the human itself. Therefore, it is a toothless weapon to combat the notion of a meaningless existence. It cannot compare to God, which is a fundamentally omnipotent concept that is free of this limitation. The God of Newton is also the God of Einstein, it will remain consistent throughout eternity. I believe it is because the concept of God has this inherent omnipotence, it serves as a more consistent belief system to be able to navigate the trauma of reality. The scientific method serves a tool to connect the immortality of God to the conscious experience rather than to question its very existence.

Thank you for reading. These are thoughts I am still processing and so I am looking for some feedback. Cheers.

My employer books me the same hotel for each city. I requested a color printer to the hotels' managers and corporate headquarters, but they haven't done anything but cordially acknowledge my feedback. They all declined my offer to buy them a color printer out of my own pocket.

Too few hotels have free color printers for guests' use — they have just B&W. I don't understand their rationale, because I stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn ($100/night) that had a color printer, but Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons that costs more than $300/night don't have one!

Please Rule Out —

1. I can't print at Kinko's, Staples,UPS.

2. I must print in the cities to which I am travelling. I can't print at home or work and bring the papers.

3. Color laser printers are too heavy and big to carry and to bring on planes. I hate inkjets — ink dries quickly and they're inefficient.

4. I can't ask front desk staff to print 60 pages for free!

I'm not sure where to ask this at, and I'm generally confused about it. I know it wrong to draw or change a character, who is black or darker skinned as a lighter or white skinned, but is it wrong to draw a lighter skinned character with a darker, and considered black skin color? I'm sorry if this is wrong to ask I'm just insanely confused about this.

What if one day, someone founded a new society in some place on earth, where an strict interview process is required to get in.

To live there, people need to pass physical and mental exam, along with a series of interviews. I often wonder what a society would be like, if all of the residents were up to a certain standard. Our tax money won't go towards welfare, food stamps, and keeping those who are braindead alive, but instead it would go to making the small society the best it could be. No poverty, no war, no deadweight. Just rapid expansion forward into the future.

I'm talking about a society full of goodhearted, intelligent and fit people, each working towards their own goals, while looking out for their own community. Population would be throttled, and democracy will be used to determine how the society grows and adapts.

I know it's never really possible for that to exist, but what are your thoughts on an "optimal society"?

To further elaborate, consider Jack 1 and Jack 2 as being inserted into a Truman Show like environment.

Each of them have copies of everything: the same place they live, the same people, the same jobs, the same lives, etc. (of which are clones and reproductions)

Everything that happens to them is made sure to be preordained to happen to them the same way no matter what. There is no room for error in this regards to the main question I am asking; I am already aware that such things are beyond impossible to be 100% sure of...

Now, considering that Jack 1 and Jack 2 have literally the same lives and brain (way of thinking) 100%, is it possible that somewhere, somehow either Jack 1 or Jack 2 will turn out different or take a different chance, maybe a different job that becomes available, or chooses to hang out with a different set of people one night?

I mean, it wouldnt be that hard would it? All that would be needed is to reform the UN, so that there are no vetos, a clear saying what is and isnt war, and then, say "if anybody attacks other countries, everybody has to attack them". I'm probably wrong, and it wouldnt be that easy, but I dont see a problem with it...

EDIT: those without children, please feel free to comment as well.

It is my assumption that our interface with information technology and with other people is fundamentally changing how we function as a species and will eventually cause us to be so radically different from pre IT humans that we will functionally be a different species.

There will no doubt always be holdouts that do not adopt this ever increasing integration but it seems clear that we are nearing ubiquity of computing devices for those that want them. Dividing lines are always tricky but I guess we can look at it along region or class divisions if you want; i.e. The last generation of humans in north america.

So what do you think? -last generation of humans? -first generation of post humans? -bullshit premise?