/townhall/ - Townhall

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Context: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/14/us/politics/trump-twitter-squad-congress.html

And: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/7/15/20695427/donald-trump-tweet-racist-aoc-tlaib-omar-pressley-nationalism

For me, I'm genuinely surprised at the reaction to this. It's just Trump being Trump. There's nothing unique here that's any different than his long history of comments r.e. nationality and race.

Do you all think that this will change anything or lead to any repercussions? Or is it simply a news blip that will fade soonish?

Alright, dudes. We gotta talk about this.

Last week we had a thread talking about male victims of rape and how they were made fun of in comedy. I think the consensus so far in that thread is, that that kind of portrayal is probably not healthy for men, especially male survivors of rape. But maybe someone will pop in here and prove that that is still a point of some contention.

Today, I've brought for your considerations from the same youtube channel some portrayals of sexual assault in harrison ford movies.

I know at least one of you have struggled with thoughts about how you were supposed to be around women in a romantic setting, without being accused of sexual assault. So more discussions about consent and when it's recognized, might be useful for someone.

I'd love to hear what you think of these portrayals as before, and maybe we can have a neat conversation about, what the prevalence of such egregious tropes in popular media, could mean for our society, and how it might give us some clues, as to what some popular myths about courtship might be in our society, that might not be wise to adhere to.

I found it interesting.

What are Townhall's thoughts on this kind of portrayal?

Part A.  Suppose that, 15 years in the future, scientists have discovered certain combinations of alleles affecting general intelligence.  Suppose that one common combination (let's call it "A") is found to be contribute, on average, to an IQ 10 points greater than other common combinations.  Suppose that the distribution is racially uneven, such that 85% of whites have combination A, while only 15% of blacks have combination A.  Further suppose that gene editing techniques have been developed so that parents can conceive a child with an A genotype regardless of their own genotypes.  Should the government fund this treatment for intending parents with a non-A genotype if the treatment costs an average of $10,000 per child (in 2019 dollars)?  What if it costs an average of $100,000 per child?

Part B.  Suppose that patent rights for the treatment are held by a white supremacist who refuses to voluntarily license them for use in the above-mentioned government program.  What should the government do?  
(A) seize the patent rights under eminent domain, paying fair market value (FMV) compensation as determined by a court,
(B) enact a law requiring that patents for such treatment be compulsorily licensed on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms,
(C) exempt human gene editing from patents altogether, or
(D) do something else (please specify).

Felt bored might delete later.

In general this is a thread about projects and stuff. Post about projects you're doing or have done in detail. Feel free to ask questions, critique or just blog about your own stuff. Usual rules apply.

This is more to I guess gauge how this kind of topic will go. I don't guarantee I'll complete my project in this thread.

California will start penalizing their legal citizens for not being able to afford healthcare, and they will use the money to fund free healthcare for illegal immigrants.

Thoughts?

https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/california-legislature-passes-health-insurance-individual-mandate-penalty/

I would like to discuss the recent film "Vice", and the aspects of the George W. Bush presidency and the time immediately before and following the 9/11 attacks covered by that film.

It's been nearly 20 years now since the George W. Bush administration began and a lot of the people who post on this site are too young to remember the events surrounding it with much clarity or context, if at all. A lot of things have come to light about the administration and actions taken by it in the intervening time, most notably the amount of of misleading information that was spread at the time.

I feel this film does a good job of covering the basics of that information in a factual, yet entertaining way.

This isn't so much of a debate topic or anything as a general sense of questions that have bugged me lately. There's three things sticking on my mind after spending too much time looking at 4chan /lgbt/.

A)What do you think is the best and succinct way to explain being 'non-binary' to people, like in a paragraph speech form?

B)What do you think is the best way to explain this as being distinct from being 'stereotypically transgender' in the sense of having to take hormones, eventually have surgery, and so on?

C)Do you agree with the idea of there being a kind of 'transgender umbrella' that extends over a wide group of people, or would you define that term more narrowly?

William Bruce Mumford was convicted of treason and hanged for tearing down the United States flag from a public building of the United States after said flag was placed there by Commodore Farragut of the United States navy.  Was his conviction and punishment just, in context?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bruce_Mumford

Debate footage starts at 2:00:44.

So the first Democratic Presidential Debate was last night, the other half of contenders are going on tonight.  To anyone who watched it, what were your opinions?  Who would you say made themselves look good in that debate, and who are supporting right now?

I think Beto o'Rourke and Gabbard went off on some weird tangents in there.  De Blasio seems to have some pretty extreme viewpoints, but they're viewpoints a lot of people could support, too.  I thought Klobuchar, Booker, and Castro all gave pretty even handed answers.

Tonight I'm really looking forward to high pollers like Sanders and the former VP.  But I'm especially looking forward to Yang, who's still my favorite for the nomination, even though he's currently sort of behind.  This might be his chance to really get into the public light.

As some further questioning, what did you think of Hillary Clinton's race the last go around, and what do you think the democratic party needs to succeed this time?

I would like to propose an topic of discussion after reading and reviewing several Reddit threads and websites around Tech support Stories.

It's a very well known fact that in today's society computers and technology are not only a common thing, but practically required to be used in many cases.
Office jobs require computers for typing, paperwork, communication and data storage.
Along with that stores and restaurants are also moving towards automated and technical approaches to service with self-checkouts, ordering kiosks, and even little digital table menu's that you can pay your bill on.

With all of this going on it would seem common sense that people should have some sort of computer knowledge or at least some ability to be able to use the most basic of functions on a computer, even if it's pecking typing. More often than not though it seems there's a complete lack of understanding on using a computer, and in many cases a complete unwillingness to even try to learn or educate oneself.

Altogether this boils down to an interesting situation where many people do need jobs to survive and will work in jobs that require the use of technical equipment, and more often than not these people also have no ability to use a computer though it is a constant in their jobs. Granted people can avoid needing to use computers at some extent outside of the work, however at work many require and depend on computers.

The big problem I seem to see is many go to supervisors, managers, tech support, and colleagues asking about doing simple tasks over and over without ever learning, and it ends up leading to a lot of stress and frustration on all parts. And with a lot of jobs if they require the use of tools or knowledge they have to get a license or a permit to be able to do the job legally. Even someone working in fast food needs a food handler's permit.

So, my thought comes to this, with computers being so widespread and part of the mainstream of life nowadays, wouldn't it be a good idea of it was requires for people that have to work on computers to need a license or permit saying they're at least know enough about computers to know how to work a mouse or even turn it on, or would this be considered too restrictive of an idea and prevent people from getting access to necessary work to be able to live

This video from How To ADHD recently explains the differences between ASD and ADHD, and it's very informative. I want to open this as a discussion of the differences highlighted and ones not covered, and invite everyone with ADHD or ASD to share their experiences if they feel comfortable. let's all learn to understand each other
normies are welcome too.
Posting on townhall because I don't want this to get too silly and this is a sensitive topic for some people

Some time ago some magazine posted a dry article on #metoo and our culture where people harass and abuse women.
Then the same magazine posted a fun little piece on the new Detective Pikachu movie stating it is a shame that it is all so childfriendly and that Pikachu could be funny as a beer drinking, belching and womanizing critter.

It does raise the question. While most agree hopefully that #metoo shows the disrespect women can get in our society and we should respect personal boundaries a lot more, do you think our culture in sexual comedy etcetera plays a large part into enabling this?
Do we come to a point where we need to review and censor things like that to improve our society?