Since just about all of these are tame and float around the edge of the hive mind, what the hell, I'll go. I am significantly more socially conservative that most of the people of Hubski. And since that term has been bastardized by the religious loons, let me explain. "Social Conservative" in my definition is the preservation of the family unit as an anchor for a strong neighborhood, city, state and nation. One of the main roles of the government should be the strengthening and preservation of the family unit through taxation policies, welfare, health spending and social safety nets. Kids need two parents. Having a child as a single parent is foolish and selfish. The children of single parent families, both single moms and single dads, fare far, FAR worse in adulthood than children of two parents. It is turning out that even homosexual couples together in stable relationships raise kids that are just as good as straight couple. Data is still incoming but it is starting to look like two parents don't care about the dangly bits only that both parents are involved and in the kid's life. No Fault Divorce was a mistake, and alimony should go away; it's not the 1950's where women leave the workforce for a few decades to raise kids and have no job prospects any more. We as a society are far too sexually promiscuous for our own good as well and STD's that should have been on the ropes are making comebacks. The government should move away from "marriage" and more toward a "civil union" model so that the religious and traditional people can get a marriage and have that mean what they want. Everyone going into a union should be forced to have a counseling session with a lawyer and draw up a pre-nup, have it explained that "marriage" is not a wedding and is in fact a major fiscal and legal binding agreement. The marriage chapels in Vegas will go out of business, or will have to change to make this happen, and nothing of value will be lost. Having watched gay friends go through the legal hoops needed to protect them selves in a way a straight couple can by walking into a courthouse really drove the point home to me that this agreement adds over a thousand legal and economic protections that are taken for granted by most of us. There are only two reasons for a couple with kids to get divorced. One, physical violence. If you are getting beat up, get out. Period. Second, adultery. If they are willing to lie and cheat on you once, they will do so again, and that is not right to force someone to live with another person who disrespects them in that manner. Everything else, if there are kids in the marriage? Either wait until the kids are adults or do what everyone else has done for centuries and work it out and deal with your problems like adults. Adding onto this, welfare should reward families for staying together. Right now, welfare may not be designed to break up families but that is the end result of our social spending. Instead extra money should be given to to bolster in-tact families. Mom and dad still together with the kids? Use Section 8 housing to put them in an abandoned house instead of in the projects and use the extra money to encourage the family to improve the house. Keep the mom and dad together, help them get through the tough time so the kids are less likely to go to jail, do drugs, and be a drain on the taxpayer in a decade. I'm not sure if there is a way to structure the social safety net to discourage out-of-wedlock births, but that is something that needs to be looked at with a serious lens. If you are a single parent, you should get less welfare and benefits. Working the welfare system in such a way that it demands intact families will lower the prison pipeline, make the schools more stable, lower teenage crime and reduce underage drinking and teen pregnancy. Also I'd like to see an end to school busing programs and a return to neighborhood schools. Find a way to make school funding work better so that the schools in poor areas suck less. One thing I see here is that they bus the kids a hour across town and then the parent, some of whom work two jobs and don't have a car, can't go to the school, talk to the teachers and otherwise can't get involved. This leads to a devaluing of an education in the home. If the school in the in the neighborhood, however, families can see it as a real thing to anchor the area and not an abstract babysitter "over there somewhere." Removing busing in some parts of the country are going to have to be followed up on changes to school funding, but its an idea. Other than that? I don't care who you are banging. Gay people should be allowed to have the legal and financial benefits of marriage/civil unions. Want to sleep around a lot with lots of people? Go for it, just don't have kids unless you are in a stable coupling. Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
I very much disagree with the idea that two people who don't want to be married should stay together just for the kids. Kids aren't stupid, they can tell if you're miserable and you sure aren't going to fake happy for a max of 18 years. Even if the parents don't dislike each other they are the child's model for a healthy relationship. If you want your child to have a healthy relationship in the future then maybe it's a bad idea to show them a loveless one for most of their formative years.
It's hard to quantify, but what if children whose parents are in a loveless (non-abusive, non adulterous) marriage have better life-outcomes than kids whose parents divorced because they 'just weren't feeling it anymore?' Law has to be written in ways that are supported by evidence, if we are to move forward.
First of all: thank you for posting what may be the only unpopular opinion on this thread. Someone said something interesting! I think it hasty to draw policy conclusions based on descriptive statistics, there are so many nuances to quantitative sociology that would require further investigation to tease out. In fact, there is probably a limit to how well we can understand family structure and its effects on childhood performance from a quantitative standpoint because it's based on observational instead of experimental conditions. For example, to what degree are we conflating marriage with some hidden or common causes? Perhaps the kind of people who make good parents are also likely to get and stay married (i.e., the selection effect), as is evidenced by underperforming children in stable step-families. Perhaps the quality of parents matters more than the marriage itself. Also, there is certainly an interaction effect between poverty and single parenthood that researchers are still disentangling. I would be inclined to think the quality of a marriage overrides it's presence, but the data I've seen just doesn't make it clear either way. Even after admitting there is a lot we don't know about family structure and childhood outcomes, trying to determine the best course of action for an individual family from aggregate data commits the ecological fallacy. We cannot restrict divorce options based on statistical averages -- not only is that bad for the individuals involved but it's not necessarily better for society. Removing no fault divorce seems like a recipe for disaster to me because it requires proving fault. This will return to us to pre-1970 condition of women being trapped in abusive marriages unable to prove their way out of them. Historically, women were successful in proving drunkenness, failure to provide, and to some degree later on, cruelty. Adultery and abuse, especially emotional abuse, were extremely hard to prove. To your point about women's earning and job prospects, in fact to this date parental resources drop significantly after a divorce and job prospects for mothers are significantly worse for fathers after a divorce (on average, see my point above about ecological fallacies). One of the major contributing factors to childhood performance gaps in single parent households is the rapid descent into poverty brought on by single motherhood post divorce. If your logic is based on fulfilling a contract for the sake of the children, then a reasonable extension of that logic is that we should have child support (in either direction) in cases were divorce (wether fault or not fault) occurs. As for the school bussing program, it might be unavoidable for a period of time because it turns out that school desegregation is still a major issue at the heart of many public school problems in the United States. Integration is one of the best ways to improve academic performance, but we never really finished integrating schools (even in states that skipped the whole separate but equal thing) because lots of white/middle class parents (understandably but possibly incorrectly) take a NIMBY approach to integration. This American Life has a great two-part series up on school integration that is worth a listen.
I think that there is an excellent point here that "Incentives matter". Welfare is currently designed such that married couples or even co-habitating couples are punished and given less resources to succeed. Its unclear if that was an intentional attack on the black family unit or just an unfortunate consequence but the destruction of the poor black family is one of the main consequences of that policy. This could be easily fixed by removing the marriage penalty from all government programs and actually proving a small incentive for two people to stay toughener and raise a child. Just like incentives matter in welfare the do so in schools as well. There is no Incentive for good teachers to teach at poor schools, and no incentive for good students to go to said poor schools so anyone that can just gets out and goes somewhere better. Because of this, schools naturally segregate. If no effort is taken to integrate them over time schools will segregate into rich schools and poor schools which also tends to mean white/asian schools vs black/Hispanic schools due to how wealth is distributed demographicaly in the US. Its a self reinforcing loop where if a school is on an upward or downward trend it will continue on that trend until it either levels off at the top or sinks to the bottom.
Your point makes sense in regard to welfare, although to be honest I don't really know anything about it so take my agreement for what it's worth. I agree school segregation is a self reinforcing loop, because school segregation is both a cause and an effect of income inequality (via geographic segregation). But we could short that circuit if there were the political will to put resources into creating incentives for local governments (it's very expensive), teachers and parents. In the FY2017 Obama budget proposal, there was originally a $120 million grant program for integration, which was eventually reduced by 90% to $12 million. Now Devos might cut that in the name of "school choice" -- a dog whistle for de facto segregation. On the other hand, if we choose to follow political decisions (in this case, politically motivated legal decisions) like Miliken v Bradley and allow de facto segregation in schools, then we will never be able to have the equality of opportunity that would narrow the income and achievement gaps across races and prevent auto-segregation. Another thing to consider is why we can't appreciate the inherit incentives of school integration: It appears to do a whole lot of good for a lot of kids. Integration leads to higher achievement in several subjects, especially for black students. Based on the research I've seen, there is little to no effect on white students' performance. I don't know of any other pro-equality public policies that minimizes loses as much as integration does. As for the big picture, the potential knock-on effects of reducing systemic inequality should provide a lot of long-term incentive for white communities to embrace integration. It's not a panacea, but there are a lot of reasons to be (cautiously) optimistic about school integration. I think one, maybe not the only but at least one, reason we don't think about the inherit incentives of integration is that racism makes supporting integration politically toxic. Both white and black communities were widely opposed to integration in the 70s, and white families fought particularly hard to keep black students out of white schools. After that, white flight kicked in to avoid having to send white kids to predominately black schools.
Yea, sociology is a gong show at its best. Experimenting on human children is not something we should do, at all, in my opinion. Going through someone's pass and generating a representative sample to draw conclusions? Sure. But that leads to the next point you made. Stable well adjusted people with the ability to correct and control their emotions will stay together in a marriage. These types of people will also do better at work. They will do better at raising their kids. So, is it the stable marriage that helps? Or is there a deeper core root cause? And I agree with this. And I think we should rework Welfare to help couples when they are down on their luck because working through the tough times is one way people bond. The counter to this is that the divorce rate skyrocketed in the 70's and 80's. Granted there were legal and societal brakes on divorce and annulments back then making the comparison to a kid in the 40's and 50's to a kid now. It's not the 1970's any more and the courts take abuse etc very seriously. Each of the things you list are reasons for an "at Fault" divorce. It used to be legal to rape your spouse, after all. I've seen statistics that as many as half the divorces are a result of the couple not wanting to be married any more and no abuse, adultery etc taking place. I'm not linking anything in this reply because pick a number you want here and some think tank made that number happen. Even the fabled "half of all marriages end in divorce" is tricky; less that a quarter of marriages fail after 10 years and the longer you are together the more likely you are to stay together after marriage. Again, I am not saying the idea is simple, only that what we have now sucks. The French pay on average about 3% more in income taxes that we do in the USA. With that they get a national health care system, paid maternity leave and government funded infant and toddler care. This is a problem that is fixable. We also need to stop shaming mothers for staying home with the kids while dad works. (And vice versa. If you want to see vitriol, go to a forum for stay at home dads) the thing about two parents is that back when things made sense, a parent went out and earned a living, the other parent took care of the house and kids and doctor visits and school needs etc. Now with all the appliances, and other modern machinery, the need to be a full time stay at home parent is not as labour intensive as it used to be, but, it may be much more mentally taxing. Just like the US economy has gone from physical work to mental work, so has parenting. Busing is needed because of the way we fund schools. The schools are bad and failing because of the way we fund schools. Teachers do not get the respect they do in part because they do not earn enough to get better people into the pipeline. There are old crappy buildings that cannot get repaired due to funding issues. Teachers pay for their own supplies because of funding issues. The way we fund schools can and does depress neighborhoods. Changing the way we fund schools is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN in this political climate. Someone in here said it well: Beverly Hills, CA is not going to pay more taxes or surrender its existing real estate tax income to fund better schools in Compton and Watts. How you treat your schools now is what your tax base is going to look like in 20 years. Good schools lead to good citizens and employees, bad schools magnify the bad issues. Another big part of the school problem is that they are being turned into day care and babysitters and that is not right, either. I freely admit that I have no fucking idea how to even start untangling this shit show. Redlining and housing discrimination was a thing when I grew up. Catholics were not allowed to live in certain areas, Mexicans were not allowed to live in certain areas etc and this policy created areas where the schools did not have enough of a tax base to work on providing the core base of knowledge and discipline needed for kids to go out in the workforce and make a better life than their parents. We've lost sight of the core reason for a public education system. Davos, the retard in charge of the US Department of Education, only sees schools as a cash out and a taxpayer funded slush fund to be skimmed off and sent to her buddies. So it is going to be a decade at best before we can talk about fixing the issues. In fact, there is probably a limit to how well we can understand family structure and its effects on childhood performance from a quantitative standpoint because it's based on observational instead of experimental conditions.
For example, to what degree are we conflating marriage with some hidden or common causes? Perhaps the kind of people who make good parents are also likely to get and stay married (i.e., the selection effect), as is evidenced by under performing children in stable step-families.
Removing no fault divorce seems like a recipe for disaster to me because it requires proving fault. This will return to us to pre-1970 condition of women being trapped in abusive marriages unable to prove their way out of them. Historically, women were successful in proving drunkenness, failure to provide, and to some degree later on, cruelty. Adultery and abuse, especially emotional abuse, were extremely hard to prove.
If your logic is based on fulfilling a contract for the sake of the children, then a reasonable extension of that logic is that we should have child support (in either direction) in cases were divorce (whether fault or not fault) occurs.
As for the school bussing program, it might be unavoidable for a period of time because it turns out that school desegregation is still a major issue at the heart of many public school problems in the United States. Integration is one of the best ways to improve academic performance, but we never really finished integrating schools (even in states that skipped the whole separate but equal thing) because lots of white/middle class parents (understandably but possibly incorrectly) take a NIMBY approach to integration. This American Life has a great two-part series up on school integration that is worth a listen.
As for the school bussing program, it might be unavoidable for a period of time because it turns out that school desegregation is still a major issue at the heart of many public school problems in the United States.
So, you're saying that using one's body as a canvas is stupid? that what other people do with their own property bothers you so much? What's your opinion on BDSM practices, both private and public?Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
You body, your choice. But all actions have consequences and visible tattoos are a limitation on future options. I grew up that being told that only degenerates and military people got tattoos and have to fight that preconceived bias with people. In a professional setting, tattoos will make you less desirable of a hire. And I side on the thought that young people should not engage in behavior that limits future options if possible. Here we have a saying "poor life choice theater" to describe some of the face and neck art people wear. If that is your thing? Go for it. Just be aware that not everyone is going to be all into your wrap around neck tribal pattern or your hand tattoos.So, you're saying that using one's body as a canvas is stupid?
I find it entertaining that you didn't reply to the BDSM question. I feel like it exposes your thoughts in the matter - those of inacceptance of such behavior. Feel free to elaborate any time. There's a breadth of space between "it isn't my thing" and "it's stupid". I don't think you changed tone because of a sudden appehension: I think you did it for diplomatic purposes, which, at this point, only serves to hide what you sincerely believe on the subject. You make choices that limit your future choices every day. Can't run a marathon if your food is Lay's day in and day out. Can't be an engineer with Linguistics for a major. Taking it out on tattoos just because they're obviously deviant isn't fair.If that is your thing? Go for it. Just be aware that not everyone is going to be all into your wrap around neck tribal pattern or your hand tattoos.
Don't give a shit, honestly. Your sex life is the second least interesting thing about you in my opinion. I really do not care who you are having sex with. As long as the people involved are adults and know what they are getting into and not being coerced? Not my concern. Only time I care is if you are molesting kids or committing rape. My stance on the death penalty is convoluted and tied in knots (most Catholics are opposed, and as a social liberal I've seen too many cases of improper application see https://www.innocenceproject.org/ for a list) but I have zero issues with executing serial rapists and child molesters. Didn't say it made sense. When I grew up the only people who got tattoos were military and people on drugs and in prison. "Normal" people simply did not have them. I was taught that the infamous "bad people and others" got those and the "good, moral people" did not. It is a bias I carry with me that I have to fight. I have seen people with tattoos that should be considered works of art, full sleeves etc. And I know that a few people at work have their whole backs done. But the point I was making was that if you have an exposed tattoo it limits choices. Then again I'm the old fart who does not get it and it is possible that by the time the kids today are in charge I'll be the weird guy with no body art. But, say, look at this guy. Not knowing anything about him, if you saw him walking around you would have assumptions. He may be a very nice person, or he may not. The reality is that how you present yourself is in a way a uniform, a mask. A guy in a suit walks by and you have a core set of assumptions about him. A woman walks by with her hair done nice, good makeup and a dress and you make a core set of assumptions about her. A guy walks buy with a long unkempt beard and a leather jacket with denim pants and there is an assumption made. A guy walks by in a dirty teeshirt and jeans and the same. "Dress for the job you want" is a saying for a reason. Like i have said elsewhere, go do your thing. Let your freak flag fly. Have fun. But nothing you do is without cost and everything has a consequence, one of which is that you cannot control the thoughts inside someone's brain. The reason we have laws protecting kids and people under 18 is because on aggregate those people do not have the long-term understanding of consequences. As long as you are willing to accept the repercussions, both good and bad, AND HAVE AN INFORMED OPINION OF SAME you should be allowed a great leeway in your personal life.I find it entertaining that you didn't reply to the BDSM question.
Taking it out on tattoos just because they're obviously deviant isn't fair.
I'm having trouble reconcilling the two. Here you have a well-put, well-elaborated opinion on the thing. Here - a hateful nonsensical deeply-personal comment on the very same matter. Help me out. Until you do... Oh, look: the avatar!As long as you are willing to accept the repercussions, both good and bad, AND HAVE AN INFORMED OPINION OF SAME you should be allowed a great leeway in your personal life.
Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
But, say, look at this guy.
The initial comment was a snarky, throw away line that I thought would be passed over. Said snark then sparked a conversation that required a deeper, better written and more thought out reply. At least I did not link you this guyHere - a hateful nonsensical deeply-personal comment on the very same matter.
I agree with so much of what you said... in an idealistic sense... but sometimes unfortunately, on the front end... this makes a TON of sense... on the back end.. when asshole leaves the lady with four kids hanging... she's now up a creek. I am chuckling out loud at this one... a running joke in my family: face tattoos all say "DO NOT HIRE ME" a thousand times... this. Excellent post.If you are a single parent, you should get less welfare and benefits.
Oh, and visible tattoos and body modification are stupid. WTF is up with the idiotic nose ring thing? And gauges? Stop that shit.
The government should move away from "marriage" and more toward a "civil union" model so that the religious and traditional people can get a marriage and have that mean what they want.
Gay people should be allowed to have the legal and financial benefits of marriage/civil unions.
By "less benefits" I am not exactly saying cuts, but if there is a married couple with kids we should do what we can to keep them together and that will cost more. In the end keeping families together on aggregate is better for the taxpayers and society in general.
I get it... it's just tough to incentivize one without de-incentivizing the other. and the more I think about the individual couples, single parents, and kids I've worked closely with... some of this breaks down just because people are people, and some people are real assholes.
To you and francopoli: Obviously a face tattoo would indicate a lack of judgment and forethought by the person getting a tattoo. But what about a forearm tattoo? An ankle tattoo? Where is the line for you, and why is it that a more obscure tattoo than a forehead tattoo is a potential limitation to professional progression? To me, the examples provided are on the more extreme end of the tattoo spectrum. Does this, to you, indicate a lack of thought about the consequences of our actions? To me, a tattoo is paint on a canvas (speaking as somebody with no tattoos), and I'm of the thought that this in general serves little indication of a person's ambition, talent, and place in society.
I don't really care about tattoos personally. Don't have any... and don't care if anyone has any. It's a running family joke, but there is truth in humor. Our choices have consequences. Permanent choices like tattoos and other forms of body scarification can and will be judged by society. While you or I might still hire a person covered with piercings and ink... I think the person drastically limits their options.
Answered a bit elsewhere in thread. In a professional setting if you can cover the artwork? Don't care. I've seen good sleeves and some really bad ones. I've seen neat "tramp stamps" and some that are everything about the stereotype and beyond. And again, I carry my bias with me, as everyone does. A butterfly on a shoulder is a much different beast than a neck tattoo, or a line of writing across the chest. I have to force myself to put my bias aside because it is not the 1960's anymore and "normal" people have tattoos now. But that is still a bias I have. In other news, it looks like my views on body ink are the one thing in this thread that goes against the Hubski Hive Mind.To me, a tattoo is paint on a canvas (speaking as somebody with no tattoos), and I'm of the thought that this in general serves little indication of a person's ambition, talent, and place in society.
It's not going against the Hubski Hive Hind, it's going immediately to face/neck tattoos and hand tattos. Which yes, they exist, but are also edge cases more than anything else. Do appreciate reading your comments on this thread, it's a nice change in perspective than the typical Hubski conversation.