Hotter, Badder, and Unpopularer Takes

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It is not logically impossible for Wisconsin to vote to the left of Michigan or Pennsylvania. In fact, it's more likely for that to happen than for Trump to win Wisconsin while losing Michigan/Pennsylvania by 5%.

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If more people get a higher education, it will benefit those who do not, since it will result in more innovation and advances in society.

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I mean, this thread is called hot/bad/unpopular takes for a reason. I wouldn't come here expecting a respectful discussion of religion.

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Getting back to the topic at hand: No one has any idea who the most "electable" candidate really is, and there isn't really any way to know before the election.

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For all of the talk of Atlas being full of Democratic hacks, I'd say that the Republican hacks are far more hackish and delusional on average. Of course, this doesn't apply to all or even close to all blue avatars, since many aren't hackish and make perfectly reasonable predictions. However, you'd be hard-pressed to find any Democrats on this forum who think that states like Mississippi or South Carolina are competitive (maybe one or two fall into this category), while at least a handful of Trump supporters on this forum think states like New Mexico, Oregon, or even Connecticut are competitive.

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"Breaking up echo chambers" is a way to portray bad faith arguments and trolling in a positive light. People who actually do voice dissent in an interesting and insightful way do not get the same reaction as trolling and attacks.

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Most educators are actually really down-to-earth people, and it's largely a small but vocal minority (many of whom are administrators) who actually have an "elitist" attitude.

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Reggaeton is overrated, and liking it for the "rhythm" is silly because every song literally has the exact same beat.

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People don't automatically move politically to the right as they get older. If anything, I've moved to the left as I've gotten older, as I've come to be very skeptical of calls for "compromise" and "meeting in the middle", especially since they too often come from people whose twisted notion of "compromise" is the other side bending to their will. I've become more critical of the Democratic Party, and come to see things such a universal healthcare as a moral obligation.

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In honor of International Women's Day, I'd like to say this again:

Modern feminism is horrible, evil, and has no place in modern America. While there was always an evil side of feminism (there is an evil side of every idealolgy), the evil side of feminism has completely taken over.

I bet feminist mothers abuse their sons regularly.

(Also, would "every ideology has an evil variant" qualify for this thread?)

While I can understand feeling this way in a country like the U.S., I do think that there are parts of the world that desperately need feminism. Mexico, for example, where women are being brutally raped and murdered at a higher rate than ever, and the government and police don't seem to care at all.

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Almost everyone argues in bad faith sometimes, because people in general are very stubborn and would rather continue to argue something that they know is wrong than to admit that someone else is right.

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Far too many opinions and ideas expressed these days are merely responses to what would be considered unhealthy extremes (and most often, said opinions/ideas involve going to an opposite and equally unhealthy extreme.) One example that comes to mind for me is discipline in education. Policies like zero tolerance are very clearly a "response" to perceived lax discipline, and take the idea of bringing discipline back to a ridiculous, harmful extreme. On the other side of the coin are schools which argue that there shouldn't be any discipline, and that we should merely ask how students "feel", and that no answers should ever be considered "incorrect" (obviously a response to the idea that some schools are too draconian and don't ever allow students to express an opinion.)

There are many more examples in education, and I think this occurs a lot in politics and other fields as well. And this isn't an argument for moderate heroism, since that's actually another form of doing exactly what I'm talking about.

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Trump's presidency was actually great for Republicans, since he lowered the bar so much that any Republican with a modicum of sanity is now considered "reasonable" and given a pass for many things that Democrats would be tarred and feathered for, since the standards for the Republican Party have gotten insanely low. That's why Republicans were able to overperform Trump downballot, despite being galaxies away from being "moderate"; being "better" than Trump is an extremely easy bar for even the most extreme partisan hacks to jump over. I can almost guarantee that the next Republican nominee (assuming it's not Trump again) is going to get very positive coverage for simply appearing relatively rational compared to Trump.

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Based on another thread, bringing this back to say multiple choice tests are the worst kind of test (commonly used in modern education, that is.)

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I can't remember if I've posted this here before, but self-driving cars are a great idea that should be normalized.

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Movies (and TV) are stupid. Don't watch them.

Actually, sometimes I watch things because they're stupid. It's nice to not have to take something seriously.

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Individualism is overrated.

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I think our justice system is fundamentally flawed, because it is solely focused on punishing perpetrators and not providing any sort of compensation for victims. That’s not to say that punishments for criminals aren’t important, simply that it should only be part of the equation. Often, people who are victims of crime have to suffer the continued financial consequences of damage done to them, which hardly seems fair.