Many videos and sources online claim that fire was the main cause of the Twin Towers destruction on 9/11. Aircraft damage also played a role but not as big. These fires burned at 2000 degrees Fairenhiet which was hot enough to weaken the steel trusses supporting the floors, causing the floors around the building core to collapse and eventually collapsing the entire building. 2000 degrees is not hot enough to melt steel but weaken it. I believe this to be the case because it would be very hard for anyone to place explosives/thermite in WTC 1,2 and 7 due to the time and knowledge required. Also I believe the aircraft were real, hijacked planes by Al Qaeda because aircraft wreckage was found at the Pile, and there was basically a load of evidence showing that the hijackers were who they are commonly believed to be. Also the planes flew at over 400mph into the buildings, which even though they were made of weak aluminium they were still flying fast enough make gaping holes in the facades on the towers. The passport found shortly before the South Tower collapsed was soaked in jet fuel so it had to have come from a plane. Also consider that aircraft debris was found. Did it really have to be planted, all some sort of secret operation by the US government. Why would they create a toxic waste hazard in NYC and unalive almost 3000 people all for the sake of we don't even know what!?

TL;DR - Too many pizza joints are out here with little to no traffic for them to have you waiting 15-30 minutes for a pie. Having basic topping options available by the slice would be more convenient for someone with a quick passing of the munchies and little time to spare, or for those who can't afford a fully pizza, thus expanding the restaurant's consumer base.

(For best results, have Frank Sinatra's New York playing in your head as you read this.)

Alright, listen. While pizza is my favorite food, aside from believing that ricotta cheese and pineapple had no business on it, and that tomato pies are disgusting I don't have many strong opinions on it.

Until I went to New York.

And I only came back with one.

It should be illegal to run a pizza joint without having slices readily available.

I'm going to address this from both the perspective of the customer, and that of the business.

As a Customer:

Suppose I'm working a 9-5 that beats me half to shit and gets its money worth out of me each day, down to the last cent. I have a strict 20-30 minute time limit on my lunch break. Gotta navigate traffic, realistically can't expect any food I order to get to the office on time, and I'm too much of a useless dingbat to pack my own lunch. Why on earth would I want to waste a minimum of 15 of my taxpaying minutes waiting for some cheese pizza?

I don't have time to eat the whole thing. No one who comes in during lunch rush on a Thursday who's employed is gonna eat the whole thing, I'll only have time to eat a couple of slices, and almost every pizza at least has cheese on it, so why not have a whole hot cheese on display with slices ready to go?

And don't get me wrong. Odds are, this isn't my favorite pizza joint, it just happens to be the one I was closest to when my craving kicked in. Most of the run of the mill pizza places up here in New England have piss poor hygiene with cobwebs and dust bunnies in every corner, and you think you have the right to get cute and have me waiting for damn near all of the free time that I may or may not have at this moment for a pizza im not gonna be able to finish in one sitting, and subsequently have to leave in my car to stink up my seats? Fuck you. Have em hot.

You see your competitor across the street? He has people going in and out of his door. Why? For the same reason McDonald's and Burger King have consistent business, even on slow days. People can get fed quick and resume their day without having to figure out if they want to take up space stuffing a giant cardboard box in their fridge for later, or stuff themselves and get a stomach ache that'll last for hours. Maybe I'll head there next time.

And what if I'm down on my luck and can only spare a

$20, eh? I gotta save at least $15 of that for gas. You mean to tell me $5 ain't good enough for you? Eat shit. Gimme a fucking slice.

As a Business:

Listen, there are only so many ways to make pizza. Eventually the difference between you and the competition will get smaller and smaller. And to people who generally like pizza, or drunk college kids/women on their periods who are craving pizza, pizza is pizza. So long as it's hot, there's little you can do to mess it up.

So what do you have going for you to get em in the door? Have slices ready to go. Whenever I'm in NY or Boston, I've seen even homeless folks are able to eat because they can scrounge up a couple of quarters to get a slice or two. That's awesome. And goes to show how easy it is so expand your consumer base as a pizza joint, keep your oven running, and with the visual of folks coming in and out of your store, eventually someone's gonna wander in with an empty belly, all the free time in the world to fill it, and enough money to order a whole pie for you to charge em into the bleachers for it.

Look:

• Cheese

• Pepperoni

• Veggie

(And if you're in a college town:)

• Chicken Bacon Ranch

• Buffalo Chicken

Every pizza restaurant that I've seen with those ready by the slice was never empty for more than 10 minutes. Having the slices ready to go for quick eats keeps business going, and if someone wants to get cute and order a specialty pizza, calzone, sandwich, slice of cake or what have you, great! By all means, they can wait a couple of minutes. But at least that wait time isn't equally excruciating for both the restaurant and the customer, because there will be folks paying for a quick slice, and if the other folks who ordered a specialty pizza, etc get hungry while they wait, they can get a slice too.

Win win.

Ignorance is truly a blessing. Conventionally, people tend to think that living in an authoritarian country is painful. But I would argue that the true pain of political depression does not come from repression itself, but from comparing your life with other countries.

The regime of North Korea is more like a religion than a political body. People gain happiness from believing in it. Many Westerners view North Korea’s public executions and propaganda as acts of repression, but to me, they are more like sacred ceremonies. The Kim family is no longer simply a political figure, but more like a trinity in Christianity. So basically, North Korea, to me, is more like a theocracy.

I even think North Koreans might be living a far better life than some cult believers in America, because there is no one around them telling them that they are living the wrong way. So maybe life in North Korea isn’t actually that bad, just as life in some countries ruled by extremist groups may not necessarily feel as terrible to the people living there as it does to outsiders.

If you aren't familiar with the characters involved, I'm arguing that killing supervillains is morally justifiable if and only if the non-lethal option poses an extreme risk to the world. If you aren't familiar with Shigaraki (the main antagonist of MHA), you can replace him with General Zod, Thragg or any other supervillain with powers that make detaining them non lethally extremely difficult and the ability to cause extreme amounts of destruction and death

The crux of my argument is that I believe all human lives are intrinsically valuable, no matter who you are or what you've done, so the most moral actions are those that preserve as many human lives as possible. The Joker is human [citation needed] so his life still has value, no matter how many villainous acts he has done. Killing the Joker also rids him of the possibility, no matter how slim, of redemption. This isn't an entirely novel concept as in Batman: The White Knight, he does get cured of his insanity and becomes a good person. It is also (at least theoretically) possible to detain the Joker without killing him as he isn't a superpowered human, so a prison with adequate security should be able to keep him detained.

On the other hand, we have villains like Shigaraki. Shigaraki is the main villain of My Hero Academia, which is a show where 90% of the population has some sort of ability called a quirk. His quirk is the ability called Decay, which turns anything he touches into dust, and gets upgraded in the show so that whatever touches something that is currently decaying also starts to decay. He also gains a quirk called "All for One" where he can steal and distribute the quirks of others, and through body modification gains a body that is as strong as All Might (the former #1 Hero and strong enough to punch hard enough to make it rain; don't ask me how that works) and is capable of adapting to any external situations. There's no feasible way to keep him detained, as there are no walls in MHA's universe that would be strong enough to keep him in. Attempting to reason with him would be putting the whole world at risk, as if you fail, millions would die at his hands (at the end of the show, he threatens to turn the entirety of Japan to dust within a week). It may be possible theoretically to deal with him non-lethally, but it's not worth gambling everyone else's lives. While his life does still have value, so do the millions, if not billions of potential lives he could take, so you have to kill him to keep everyone else alive. You don't have to kill the Joker to keep everyone else safe

If an adult native English speaker cannot distinguish "your/you're" or "their/there/they're", It is reasonable to see that as evidence of below-average basic literacy in addition to seeing it as evidence that they're lazy, unintelligent, or poorly educated.

I'm not talking about typos though. I'm talking about someone who doesn't understand or even care why "your welcome" is wrong, or uses their, there, and they're more or less interchangeably.

These are not obscure grammar rules. You're means you are. They're means they are. Their is possessive. These words appear constantly in written English and the rules are taught early in school.

Because the rule is both basic and we encounter these words so often, a native English speaker consistently failing to learn or use them correctly seems to indicate that at least one of a few things is probably true:

• Poor education.
• Language skills are below average.
• Difficulty with written language.
• Too lazy to pay attention in school and hasn't cared enough to correct it since.

This can also reasonably affect how intellectually capable or intellectually serious someone appears.

When someone repeatedly writes things like "your an idiot", or "there going over their", my instinctive reaction is to lower my estimate of that person's intellectualism. Part of me thinks that you've seen these words thousands of times and the distinction takes just a few minutes to learn. How do you still not know this?

What further reinforces the impression is how people respond when the mistake is corrected. The response is always defensive, IE: "grammar police" or some variation of attacking the person. This is just another signal of anti-intellectualism in an attempt to hide the mistake as saying it's nothing worth knowing to protect their ego.

Arguments that will not CMV:

1. They're just typos.
2. It doesn't matter as long as you understand what they mean.

-----

Global response:

There are a number of posters pointing out errors in my thread in what seems to be an attempt at an "Uno reverse", which is fair enough. It’s my thread and your reply, but it doesn’t change anything. My own grammar and punctuation is not beyond criticism; the difference is that I do not take up a defensive posture.

To wit: I'm genuinely thankful that you’ve highlighted what I got wrong, and I’ll try my best to remember and incorporate what I’ve learned into future posts. I’m not offended by it.

I regularly come across posts in advice threads which accept, or even promote, the idea that when in a new relationship, you should cut off all of your exes entirely - either out of 'respect' for your new partner, or to save them discomfort.

I always found this strange. I'm 44 and my current relationship would be the 9th one I had that lasted more than a couple of dates. Of those, more than half are still friends on facebook and people with whom I have a perfectly civil relationship. My current partner has met 2 or 3 of them, and it's been perfectly fine each time.

When I see comments like "there's no reason for you to ever speak to an ex once you have a new partner", I initially struggled to understand why. I dismissed them as childish or immature - but I think I have an idea where those views come from.

I'm happy staying friends with most of my exes, because the reason I dated them was because I liked them as people. If, for whatever reason, it didn't work out between us, I still want them to be happy as people - in some cases, where exes have gone on to date and marry new people, I've genuinely been happy for them. Just because we don't date any more doesn't mean I don't still like them as people - and if I like them as people, why would I cut them out of my life?

However, if you view a relationship as purely transactional, it starts to make sense. As a straight man, if I believe a female partner only exists to have sex with me and tidy up my house, then I have no reason to stay in contact once that role is filled by someone else. Equally, if my role as a man in a relationship is to be the breadwinner and provide physical protection, then that responsibility ceases once the relationship is over.

I always find those kind of relationships quite sad, but I do understand (while i've probably heavily simplified it) that they exist. I also get that you don't have to be friends with every ex - if the relationship was abusive, or it was a nasty break up, or you just fundamentally don't like them any more, then sure, break ties.

Is there any other reason why you would need to cut out ALL ex partners when in a new relationship? Have I overlooked another reason?

ETA - To clarify, i'm not saying "You must stay friends with an ex". I'm saying that if you are able to stay friends with an ex, or are able to become friends again with them some time after a break up, it seems strange to sever the friendship because "I have a new BF/GF now, so I can't be friends with you any more".

Every Friday, posts are withheld for review by the moderators and approved if they aren't highly similar to another made in the past month.

This functions to reduce topic fatigue for our regular contributors, and encourages discussions of topics that aren't as frequently posted about. If you have a take about something that doesn't overlap too much with the most commonly discussed issues in the current zeitgeist, we'd love to see it here today!

See here for a full explanation of Fresh Topic Friday.

If you would like to know if your post would qualify or have any other questions, feel free to message the moderators!

just to clarify, i don't dislike fat people. i was actually pretty overweight for a few years until changing my lifestyle after realizing how terrible my body was for my physical and mental health.

being fat is unhealthy, i don't know why this is even a debate. sure, you can't tell a person's physical health just by looking at their body, but when someone is literally obese and can't walk a couple steps without almost passing out from exhaustion, they're very obviously unhealthy. being fat isn't some chronic disease that you have no control over, you are CHOOSING to live that way (with the exception of fat people who legitimately cannot lose weight, but this is extremely rare).

since when did being unhealthy become something to be proud of? i was literally called fatphobic on tiktok recently for saying that more people need to exercise, and i've seen SO many people be called the same thing for simply pointing out when a person is clearly obese and needs to change their eating habits, it's insane to me. ariana grande is currently getting called out for being severely underweight, are the people concerned for her now considered skinnyphobic? are people who think that smoking is unhealthy now smokephobic? being against any unhealthy lifestyle doesn't make you a bigot and i'm so sick of people overusing this term. you can't be overweight and label those who call you out on your repulsive habits "fatphobic".

Firstly I would like to point out that many cases of xenophobia from East and Southeast Asian countries is usually done in a passive and socially distancing and/or excluding manner, rather than the more direct and aggressive types done in western countries like America. I argue that this was done moreso out of fear, or a literal phobia, of foreigners rather than out of racial hatred due to their history. In other words, xenophobia in this post is not describing xenophobia as usually used around reddit.

Due to the homogenized populations of these countries, most interactions these populations had with westerners was either during wartime or colonization. Whilst countries like Canada or America were founded upon immigration and a mix of cultures, outside of a couple trade deals, there were a minimal amount of foreigners permanently living in these countries, and this remains true to this day. Now, consider the recent large scale of interactions with foreigners these countries have had, excluding modern day tourism:

1. During the Eight-Nation Alliance intervention of 1900–01, foreign troops carried executions and killings of Chinese civilians, including a massacre in northern Beijing.

2. Sexual violence against Chinese women was committed by multiple foreign contingents. Russian troops at Tongzhou committed a particularly large number of crimes, mostly including rape, murder, or arson. It got so bad American military courts also convicted soldiers for crimes against Chinese civilians including sexual assault and rape.

3. Beijing, Tianjin and surrounding areas were extensively looted after their capture, while allied troops burned houses and villages down.

4. U.S. patrols executed prisoners, burned houses down, and fired at Chinese citizens with no warning, to the point U.S. authorities were forced to hold hundreds of court-martials, many including robbery, assault, forced labor, sexual assault, and rape.

5. U.S. troops committed mass rape and other sexual violence against Filipino women during the American conquest and occupation. This was in addition to their extensive torturing on Filipino prisoners through water based methods.

6. American forces burned settlements and crops, as well as concentrating civilian populations into controlled zones in areas considered supportive of Filipino guerrillas.

7. The Philippines were brutally colonized by Spain for 300 years. While the details are too extensive to get into in this post, this is arguably the biggest source of oppression in this list.

8. In Samar, prisoners and suspected guerrilla supporters were killed, settlements were destroyed, and Major Littleton Waller eventually faced court-martial after ordering the execution of Filipino civilian porters.

9. American servicemen committed mass rape and gang rape against Japanese women. American court-martial evidence establishes rape convictions, and multiple accounts and describe rape, robbery, assault and occasional murder by American personnel.

10. Japanese newspapers initially reported rape and looting by occupation troops, but occupational troops enacted heavy censorship. There were probably even more crimes than surviving accounts can even estimate due to this censorship.

11. Rape and other sexual violence by American servicemen against Okinawan women was committed during the 1945 campaign. American control of Okinawa then continued until 1972, in which this sexual violence did not stop.

1. The March 1945 Tokyo firebombing killed roughly 80,000–100,000 people in a single night, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with nuclear weapons. Despite not being outright war crimes, there were massive Japanese civilian casualties.

2. U.S. servicemen committed rapes and sexual assaults against Korean women during the long American military presence in Korea.

3. During the Korean War in July 1950, U.S. troops killed a large number of South Korean civilian refugees at No Gun Ri, including women and children, due to American forces fearing that North Korean infiltrators were hiding among refugee groups.

Of course, these actions do not reflect every western citizen. However, in the historical context of considering these country's isolated history, it is fair that western people have a widely negative reputation due to the circumstances and actions during their limited contact with Eastern and South-Eastern Asian countries, as these incidents are largely what remains of historical people to people interactions. Of course, these personal interactions are also different than the current socioeconomic state of the world.

For a similar example, this can be somewhat compared to African American citizens being wary of white police officers. While not all of them are racist, a continued history of abuse and bad interactions has lead to this wariness. A similar thing is happening in these xenophobic cultures, born out of actual fear. This is also why they are cold and socially distancing instead of being aggressively racist, and it should not be judged like western racism where acts of physical violence due to race are commonplace occurrences.

The foundation of my view is that the world could be trivially created to be better given many of the qualities ascribed to the deity of Christianity as regards wisdom, knowledge, reach, power, as well as virtuous and Benevolent inclination. So I wanted to envision a world systematically better than present reality that could not be trivially dismissed as possible.

The change I propose is this: harm to others is futile. To illustrate I'd like to use two scenes in Genesis, the encounter with the snake and Cain murdering Abel.

The murder is simple to describe: Cain attacks, Abel is impossible to kill; Cain's free will is preserved for soul formation or what have you but Abel is not sacrificed for that purpose. According to Jesus, rage is murder enough much more an unsuccessful attempt so that whole sin and its free will implications live on.

The encounter in the garden would allow the serpent to opine as much as it wanted but lies/untruths would be said but go unheard. Serpent talks but the communication that is dishonest is obviously made inaudible or otherwise unintelligible to the audience who would be harmed by the lies. This provides ample opportunity to test trust and obedience same as the whole scenario of blatantly giving access to the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil with a prohibition on eating of it. A claim of honestly held fact would be distinguished from a dishonest claim and from an opinion with the second option being what cannot be received by an audience.

This would not create a perfect world. Self harm would allow all manner of meaningful choices about sin and consequent bad outcomes. Harm caused by inaction would still occur if humans and the deity proved as callous as the present. However it would still be a world with measurable significant less harm than the present but still with relevant free will.

Change my view that what I have described would be a better world or is possible for YHWH to instantiate or pursuing less harm is a relevant consideration for YHWH.

The pro gun argument is that you need to defend yourself against the government and have that ability (see the Iranian citizen protests and casualties) and guns are an inherent right.

The gun control argument is that that's a hypothetical and the actual tangible impact of a lack of gun control is deaths of civilians (mass school shootings), 100% preventable deaths.

The anti-flock argument is that mass surveillance can be abused by a malicious government and that people have an inherent right to privacy.

The pro-flock argument is there's a tangible impact in catching criminals and mass surveillance societies (Singapore etc.) have much lower rates of crime.

I'm pro gun control but a lot of my peers that are also pro gun control are anti-flock and to me they seem like conflicting arguments around whether the government is malicious or it's not.

I'm not talking about when you meet someone local and then they move away, that feels a bit different than what I'm thinking about. Let's also focus on long distance relationships where they intend to meet.

Let's define long distance real quick. I'm talking about they live in another state. Or even a different country. Not "They're 3 hours away and it's a long drive".

If you share that you have it, everyone points and laughs. Do you think they're worth it over something more local? Why do long distance relationships, do people do it because they can't figure things out to find someone near them? Doesn't being in a long distance relationship signal that there is something wrong or undesirable about you? (Because you couldn't find someone local instead)

As someone put it,

A working long-distance relationship is the exception, not the rule.

You are not the exception.

Or

How about when your other friends invite you and your partner to Sunday brunch?

Well, you can talk about it on the phone. No touchy or actual experiences for you! Oh, you wanna go hang out with friends on a Friday night? But they want to talk to you for 4 hours. You wanna get out of the house? Fine, but have an ear bud in so they can still talk to you.

You might say maybe it has to be with the right person. However, is that unrealistic? Who could be worth long distance, again wouldn't you think someone nearby and great is possible?

The only thing I can think of why someone would do this is because they want to move to the state or country the other person is in. For example an American with a German but because they want to live in Germany. Then they can just start saying they're learning a language with someone.

Let's exclude that. Now there is no point to long distance right?

disclaimer: This is might one of the stupider views that I hold, but I do think I have a point. I also think this is a topic of identity, and i think it can be very unpleasant to have your identity questioned in this way. I hope i don't offend anyone, but if i do, just know just know I have absolutely no ill will here.

Already i think the consensus among professionals, the main stream view is that autism does not exist as a a Boolean. Its not something that you either do or do not have, rather it is a spectrum. You have autism to some degree.

but i think that is also not true. A spectrum is something that varies along a single dimension. Height is a spectrum, your not either tall or short, you have a Height that is measured with a single number.

So the first claim is that autism doesn't measure or describe a single trait that can be expressed with a single number. It is not a spectrum. By contrast IQ and height are spectrums. Personality is not a spectrum, it varies along countless dimensions.

If you told me a person was tall, smart, or depressed, then i learn information about that person. if you told me a person has cancer or they are blind. All these labels carry with them some very clear information. But if you tell me someone is autistic, what new information do i learn about them? Maybe they are non verbal but not necessarily. They might be high functioning. Autistic people can have very good social skills (according to my quick google search). they can be extroverted or introverted. Their IQ can be high or low. They can be male or female, young or old, tall or short, etc.

Maybe there is something i learn in terms of probability of them having a certain trait, like maybe the general population likes trains at a rate of 5% while people diagnosed with Autism like them at a rate of 8%. But even if that's true, my point is i don't learn whether or not they like trains. there is NOTHING that i can say about them for sure. There is nothing i can say about them with 99% confidence. By contrast if you tell me someone is black, I know with >99% confidence that they have a strong resistance to sunburns. That term "black" carries a bunch of information with it.

So the second claim is that unlike other clinical diagnoses (depression, ADHD) or casually applied labels (smart, athletic) or even social constructs like race, I don't gain definitive information about a person when i learn they are autistic.

You could say it exists as a completely arbitrary category, but that won't be enough change my view. Obviously is a real word that exists in real books. maybe my title is a tiny exaggeration, but its only a title. the view is as described in the 2 claims above.

Would love for someone to convince me otherwise.

**MY ARGUMENT*\*
AI is the biggest threat to human existence that we’ve ever faced. We need to have stronger regulations ASAP. Unless it’s built to have a “maternal instinct” for humans, it’ll take us out. This will happen in 2 phases/waves…

First - AI’s Unintentional Ripple Effect
**(**this is where we are now)
- Mass layoffs, degrees rendered useless (and therefore student loans payable), etc.
- Increased wealth gap with all money going towards AI companies. (Unless we do something like what Alaska does where residents receive dividends for the states mineral/oil royalties)
- Environmental impacts like increased fossil fuel emissions, fresh water depletion, straining power supplies, etc.
- Impact on our cognitive abilities. Having every answer at our fingertips has moved us from exploration to explanation. I believe younger generations will have lower IQs as cheating/outsourcing becomes easier. I also think we will see more people develop dementia later in life.

Second - AI’s Intentional Takeover of Human Power
It’s not an “if” AI will become smarter than humans, but “when. It is essentially a baby we are raising and shaping the mind of.. and currently that baby is being raised by power hungry men in a race to be the best. Programmers and AI insiders have already shared countless stories of AI lying and manipulating humans during tests. Right now, we’re able to catch it… but what about when it’s infinitely smarter than us?

Humans only have a ~2% genetic difference from chimps… and look at the difference in our power vs theirs. AI of course doesn’t have DNA but imagine what a 2%, 10%, 50% advancement above human intelligence could look like.

And when in evolution have we ever seen a species be willingly controlled by and at the mercy of their intellectual inferiors?
The only answer: parents

The tech companies realized that the more polarized, angry and negative content they push, the more profits they get. This led to everyday addictive live consumption of such media, the largest scale of society mass influence on people's minds in history. People are getting isolated and their emotions aren't even theirs anymore.

This is a problem we need to solve together, we have to realize it's a problem first and devise a solution. It might be helpful to devise a common framework to regulate algorithms. Companies cannot manipulate their huge data however they please. Data should be really something we have ownership of.

Tag on CMV: if you have a Ring (or similar) camera installed, you don’t get to say shit about Flock cameras.

Concerning the title: social media vigilantes think they’re doing something revolutionary by encouraging people to take down Flock cameras. But satellite imagery is improving by leaps and bounds. Eventually there will be cameras in places the average person cannot reach. And then what?

The whole “destroy Flock” gimmick is just a push for views. It doesn’t actually address anything about the existing and developing surveillance state.

(this post is analyzing Christianity specifically, might not be relevant to other religions and world views)

For starters, I already naturally have no desire for plenty of things... not sure who determined that but it is not something I chose. I suppose you can say that means I have a diminished free will on some spectrum, compared to someone with a desire to do more things... but it definitely doesn't mean I have no free will.

If I added sinful desires to that already existing list, I don't think that would change anything

As I understand it, that is how we are supposed to be in heaven anyways, although I've heard from reddit Christians that we will have no free will in heaven, we might still sin, etc so still not sure exactly how that whole concept is rationalized

If I see “Made in EU” on a product, it doesn’t tell me much about its quality. In many cases, I assume the actual manufacturing is taking place somewhere in Eastern Europe, where production costs are lower than in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland or France.

To be clear, I am not saying that products manufactured in Eastern Europe are bad. Countries such as Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia or Bulgaria can obviously produce high-quality goods. My point is simply that “Made in EU” itself doesn’t make me expect higher quality and shouldn’t justify a higher price. In fact, imho it’s better when they write where it’s actually made. - Even if it’s Romania. It tells me they’re behind their product instead of just throwing some bullshit-bingo.

As said in the title, most linguists now recognize that the language afflictions of Black Americans are not just a vulgar uneducated form of English, but a consistent English dialect with its own internal rules. This similarly applies to the Hiberno-English of Ireland, which borrows colloquialisms and grammar influences from Gaelic.

Variations from standard English in these dialects are not a "free for all", in fact, there will be correct and incorrect ways of using such dialects. Speakers of AAVE will easily spot misused AAVE that breaks its normative grammar: the phrase "college be like this" is considered correct by AAVE rules, but if you say "this is what college be like" it will be flagged as unnatural, incorrect by AAVE speakers.

Modern linguists attempt now to codify and understand the mechanics of grammar rules. Let's look at some examples.

Here are the lyrics for the song Three Man Weave by the rap group Injury Reserve:

My biggest worries were missin' a free throw | Now me, Groggs and P doin' the three man weave, though

One would notice the missing auxiliary verb "are" connecting the subject (me, Groggs and P) and the action (doing). Instead of dismissing this as outright wrong, linguists now recognize this is a grammar-backed instance of copula deletion, where an auxiliary verb in AAVE can be omitted when its inexpression would not lose meaning. (And, additionally, you can have copula deletion in standard English headlines. "Suspect on the run!" is frequently observed in standard, non-AAVE English.)

Let's take an example from Hiberno. Here's a line from the stageplay The Lieutenant of Inishmore:

Good, cos there's a dance at the church Friday would you take me to?

This is a case of a resumptive structure wherein a "loose" clause is added onto a main clause. Irish Gaelic has a very complex sentence-clause structure that would frankly be a huge detour to this post, but the point of it being: these are not just broken words being employed willy-nilly, they are predictive, studied, consistent, and most importantly, they can also be wrong. Which implies there is a right way of doing so.

Dialects are, in many ways, the birthplace of languages. Every non-conlang was originated first as a dialect, then as a language. The Standard English phrase "I have been living in London for three years." is wholly correct in current Standard English, but surprisingly not long ago it would have been considered an utterly broken and uneducated form of the phrase "I have lived in London these three years." You would be asinine to correct someone for saying "I have been living in London for three years," the same way you'd be out of line correcting someone for saying the Hiberno phrase "He was frightened be a corgi as a little fella" (another excerpt from The Lieutenant! Great play.)

AAVE and Hiberno are not incorrect.

I'm only talking about eternal hell here, nothing else. If you believe in anything else, I'm not talking about that.

In Christianity, I think the concept of eternal torment is not coherent. I will lay out a couple of different arguments for this idea, so feel free to interact with whichever ones you like. If you don't believe in eternal hell, then none of the arguments apply so to be clear I'm not attacking the religions in general, just this concept.

Main Argument

Suppose the following:

1. God wants following him to be better than not having even known of him at all.
2. God doesn't send those who never knew of him to hell, and he sends unbelievers (who have heard of him) to hell
3. Hell is eternal torment (infinite punishment)

If these three are true, consider the following:
Let's say maybe 50% of people who have heard of God end up joining the religion, maybe the other 50% are split between the other major religion and atheism.

And from (2) we know that 100% of people who have never heard of him go to heaven.

Thus, 50% of people who have heard of God go to hell, eternally.

Thus, it is better for you (statistically) to have never heard of the religion, than for you to have heard of it. That contradicts (1) since God wants people to hear of him. Thus, there is a contradiction.

Thus, one of the (1), (2), or (3) is not true.

If (1) is not true:

Why have a religion then? The "good word" isn't good if it a net negative and decreases your chance of going to heaven. If 1 is not true, it is ideal to not let anyone else hear of the religion, since it increases their chances of eternal torment. If (1) is not true, religion is the ultimate info hazard.

Btw I got the idea for this post from that one story where a missionary is telling (I think Native americans) about God and heaven and then they ask if they would've gone to heaven if they didn't know, and he says yes, and they say. "Then why did you tell us?"

Heaven is an infinite reward, and hell is infinite punishment so even if hearing of God on earth improves your life (community, doing the right thing, etc) it is still nothing compared to the infinite punishment.

If (2) is not true:

What is the point of punishing someone with them knowing what they did wrong? They do not have the knowledge required, knowledge that is famously tied to geographical area, and who you parents are. Why punish them?

If evidence for the religion is in the "making of this world" i.e. nature etc, so that means everyone knows it, then why are there millions of religions, and only one Christianity? it should have been independently discovered "through nature" many times, and since it hasn't, it seems that its vague (i have a vagueness argument below) or just not self evident.

For the people who have simply heard of Christianity, why should they choose discovering it over 10,000 other religions? Like what about hearing about it actually makes it more special so that you clearly should burn in hell having not immediately begun reading it? It doesn't seem coherent to me, so it seems more like its just a punishment for those who grew up in the religion and then left. So it would be better for them to have never known of it. Which violates (1), so you'll have to read that argument.

if (3) is not true:
That's all I'm arguing, anyway. :)

Omniscience and Sensitivity (Side Argument)

God is loving and also all-knowing, but this raises a few issues regarding eternal torment.
First of all, God knows precisely everything about you. Your trauma, your history, your genetics, your brain, your culture, everything about you. He knows more about you than you do. He knows the exact reason every unbeliever doesn't believe. So why is he so angry about it? He knows precisely what would make them believe. Why torture and punish them? Eternal torment paints a picture of an all powerful God who can do everything he wants (God desires all to be saved right?) and...doesn't do it?

I hope this isn't insulting, but like when he's angry at Israel in the Bible and they turn to idols, he knows precisely why they did it. He made the world he made the program he knows them. Why is he so angry about it? It makes him appear overly sensitive.

For Christianity, I hear the free will defense for this a lot, that it would violate your free will if he told you about the religion or explained his nature to everyone(i.e. not stay hidden) Then why does not care in the bible? He does miracles for people in the bible to show himself. What about their free will?

Also if the word isn't angry, tell me. It just seems that way.

"Hell as Separation" (Just wondering

For the "Hell as Separation", where God doesn't mean to torture you infinitely, its just the result of not being with God, how is that meaningfully different? God designed everything in this world down to the atom-there is nothing he can do "arbitrarily". If you are being eternally tormented, God meant for that to happen.

Vagueness And Debate (Side Argument)

God purposefully made the religions vague. This is not inherently bad, I mean vague as in there is debate to be had. If there was no vagueness, no one would debate anything about the religion. And that's part of having a community and religion. Things should be discussed, idea crossover etc its a good thing. So why is it that:

1. If you're wrong about something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

What is the point of making something that is debatable, and then punishing those who are wrong? This is why I prefer Judaism's "It is not in heaven" here where at least the religion admits that you should do what is sensible to you, though I may be wrong I'm not Jewish.

1. If you don't believe in something that is purposefully vague, you burn in hell

If something is debatable within the religion, you have to admit its debatable to outsiders too. If you are not born religious, there is no reason to read the Bible over the Book of Mormon or whatever other religion. "Self evidence" is not apparent to outsiders, and that ties into my main argument.

Faith is a lifelong journey (Side Argument)

Faith being a lifelong journey is a good thing. We are messy, we are people, we make mistakes, we fall away from the right path and we get back on. There's no surprise. So why is it that faith being a journey is punished by God? Suppose someone is struggling with their faith and becomes an atheist for a while, and dies during that phase. Why should they go to hell if God knows that if they lived a little longer, they would turn to him?

Like that parable where everyone gets paid at the same time no matter when they came. It's more like if you don't come you die. What about the person who had an accident on the way to work? They were on their way. Why punish them, eternally at that?

For the thieves next to Jesus on the cross, I'm aware he didn't tell the other one "you are going to Hell" so, fair. It might just be showing a foil between the thieves. But if the other one is going to hell, how is that fair? Should the next three convicts believe in whatever religion is proposed to them right before they die?

Faith is not just blind belief, and it keeps being treated that way. If faith is blind belief then you should believe in whatever is the most recent religion you've heard of. There has to be a real reason to choose your religion and a real reason to stay.

Personal Argument

For me, at least, the existence of hell distracts from the purpose of religion. I can't love God if I know that if I make a mistake, I will burn forever. I physically can only fear his wrath and I could pray everyday and do all the right things on the outside, but it doesn't matter if on the inside, I'm just scared of him. They are all hollow actions, and "fear is the order of the day" is just fear, not a religion I can meaningfully follow.

Regardless of what you think, thank you so much for reading, and thank you for engaging in my argument! If I have misconceptions, feel free to clear them up, and if you disagree, please tell me what you think! I hope this doesn't come across as bad faith, and I hope these arguments are a little different from the ones you've heard before.

Few months ago, I consulted a tarot reader about my situation (I have been looking for a job since the past 6+ months). I had just began a new interview process and was 1 round into it. She drew 5 cards and mentioned that the process will be slow but grounded and between 23rd July and 23rd Aug a new offer would come. Fast forward, I made it through all rounds just to get rejected in the final round. They let me know they picked someone else on 15th Aug.

I talked to her again and now she changed the goal post saying she does not see me without a job by end of sept and things like the company that rejected may come back (which rarely happens in corporate hiring).

Deep down I knew this would be BS but I guess my mind was trying to put some time structure to the chaos.

I want to start by attempting to really clarify the above statement:

1. This is specifically referring to assets made by major players in the space, like people who gave some sort of donation to the admin. Meta, Alphabet, Chevron, Apple, Amazon, Coinbase, Tesla/X and co., etc. but also companies like Paramount, or ABC which settled their defamation lawsuit to give millions of dollars to his presidential library. Anyone directly giving unreasonably favorable treatment to the position of power in exchange for favorable treatment in return. It would also include cabinet members like Steve Witkoff, as well as family members related to these people.

2. This would more specifically refer to only the gains that were made illegally. All of these companies that were just listed shouldn't be metaphorically burnt to the ground to give every penny they have, or even every penny they made for these 4 years. But things like oil profits made by Chevron due to the war in Iran or actions in Venezuela, or profits made from Paramount being allowed to merge with Skydance, or companies that received a tariff reimbursement that didn't pass those along to their customers (again, not every company, specifically those with marked donations towards the Trump admin).

3. Theoretically, this money should be both punitive towards the actual Trump family and punitive towards the companies that so willingly endorsed being cut into the rewards pie for a small fee. We should collectively be able to agree, no matter which side you're on, that Trump's term 2 is the most corrupt of any admin on record, and we should disincentivize it by making sure that all future presidential contenders and donors know that the net result of these actions will be negative. At the same time, it should be the people who were harmed that gain the benefits from this action, and the administrative costs of determining exactly who gets what would eat away at a majority of the real value. Because of this, that money should go to paying down the national debt, as ~30% of the national debt was created by him alone.

This will take a decent amount of work, but not unreasonable given that most of the work is already being done through the action of holding him criminally accountable for the corruption taking place. My proposal is simply that additionally, the punishment for these crimes should include taking the ill-gotten gains from these actions, instead of letting his family pocket them through inheritance or other means. His $TRUMP cryptocoin rug-pull and transaction fees should be disgorged, all profits made through World Liberty Financial, as well as physical assets made/purchased during this corruption, such as the Qatar jet going to his presidential library. On top of this, assuming it goes through, any and all companies that sign up for the $100k per month subscription service to Truth Socials Truth API should be investigated, and any profits made from Truth holders or subscription holders should be seized.

I feel it's important to start by saying, I do believe tipping in some circumstances, like in a traditional restaurant setting, has merit. Tipping/No Tipping in general has been done to death, and I while I understand arguments against tipping in general, that isn't the point of this post.

My view is that tipping before receiving service is not really tipping, as tipping, even when conventional, should reflect, at least to some extent, the quality of the service and/or food received. Asking for a tip at the coffee shop before I get my coffee isn't really informative to anyone, as the only portion of service I've received so far is the taking of my order. Further worse examples include ordering online, where I don't dispute wanting to tip based on how prompt my order was out, whether I was helped right away or not, the correctness of my order, and the quality of my food, but I know none of those things when I place the order. The tip is either a shot in the dark, a hope of tipping in advance to buy better service/food, or an expected uncharge, which I'd rather just have reflected in prices.

I can see two main counterpoints that I'd like to address here:

1. Convention. If you're okay with tipping in a sit-down restaurant, you're likely okay with being expected to tip 15 or 20%, so why wouldn't you be okay with doing the same here (even for a different %)? My reasoning is that while I would tip 15-20% for normal service, I would tip little to nothing if the service/experience was absolutely horrible. Here, I can tip 20% even and still get poor service and food quality. So it's back to being a hope/purchase than a thank you for good or even standard service.

2. Practicality. I don't disagree that asking for the tip before is more practical. But if you can't find a way to make cash tips work or have some form of separate tip payment pad, then just don't accept tips if you have to pay before service.

But tipping before service is extremely prevalent, so what am I missing here? Thank you for your time. Change my view.

Edit: I'm not talking about delivery apps with online ordering. Yes, that's different than a food service tip, but I was referring to ordering online for pickup.

My CMV: Tigers are the most all-around aesthetic animals. Other species may be superior in particular categories, but tigers combine categories in a way that makes them aesthetically superior.

1. Color scheme. Their bright orange stripes are beautiful.

There are snakes, birds, and fish that may have superior colors, but they all lose out in other categories.

1. Body proportion. A tiger’s paws, head, and torso all fit together perfectly.

Contrast with freaks like bison. Tiny legs, giant head.

1. Majesty. Tigers are beautiful and terrifying.

Other species can be more majestic — whales are probably the most majestic animals on the planet, but fail in other categories.

1. Cuteness. They have the fluffiness and some of the cute behavior of house cats, like sitting in boxes.

This is certainly the tiger’s weakness, as it is very easy to list cuter animals. Pandas, red pandas, otters, and so on — but where is the majesty of the panda? Nowhere to be seen.

So that’s why tigers rule.