Gwazi Magnum

Your Political Ideology

My main issues with today's system is honestly just the lack of support/aid we give people that got some bad luck. Remember the saying "Only as strong as the weakest link?", that's largely how I look at and evaluate a government's system and effectiveness. Make sure no one is being forced to kick the curb, and those higher up don't get crazy enough that they take everything over and I'm basically good.

There would be other issues I have other that, but they'd be more minor ones that don't relate as much to the big picture.

Suicide, Tragic or Selfish?

Hellis said -snip-

Just noting here, cause I've noticed this in almost every thread you posted in.
It would be easier to follow/respond to your posts if you used the quote button in the bottom right corner when replying to people's posts. It makes it easier to tell who exactly you're replying to.

Bullying Discussion

Interesting thing I considered while responding to the posts below.

Most of us seem to be of agreement, without some kind of negative conflict in people's lives that people aren't going to have thick enough skin for the real world. We may come in expecting everything to be puppies and rainbows, and then be painfully disappointed. However, we all also know all the negative effects that come from situations such as bullying? The effectiveness of this new anti-bullying campaign aside, if we were in a world where issues like bullies are completely non-existent, is there anything else we could do to teach children to be realistic enough and have thick enough skin for the real world?

Also, another point I'd like to nip in the bud, the "Bullies are bullies for a reason such as bad things in their life".

This is a correct statement I find, if you only make it apply to some bullies and not all bullies. Some people do not have such issues or insecurities in life. They are just generally sick people who enjoy hurting others. I think one reason the schools have had so much issues with bullying is because it insists that every Bully is a victim themselves, and the sooner we recognize that is not the case with everyone the sooner we can get going in life. I mean we see far more demented people in life than bullies and we don't always go "Oh they were a victim", often times we recognize said person was just a nasty individual. If we do that for even more extreme behaviour that has even better reason to suggest a bad life/experience behind it, why is it so odd for some people to grasp the concept that some bullies may just be bad eggs?

Hellis said -snip-

Tip: Coming into a thread and then making generalized accusations of everyone (especially in a demeaning way) will not help with anyone listening to or agreeing with your points. All you do is back people up against a wall and make them defensive.

You do have a point though in that Bullies if left to their own devices are more spoiled and act more entitled than a child would if conflict never really faced them. As for your Depression? Nothing from the depression itself would of helped, but like I said in my earlier post being bullied can help someone gain thicker skin and be more realistic of the world cause you can see the world for more how it really is and less of a "everything is good" bubble that a lot of people try to be in.

This is not defending bullying in the slightest mind you, I simply answering your question as to how experiences with bullied would of helped you as a person.

As for saying people here are going backwards? I think you're reading too much into the 'Man' part of the "Man up" statement.
We're not being sexist and telling boys to be super Masculine, we're saying it's important for people as a whole (men and women) to understand conflict, and to not enter the real world with paper thin skin.

HeySeuss said -snip-

The schools we came from tend to be similar in their incompetency with handling the bullies. And as long as that is the case, students are right to learn to defend themselves and take matters into their own hands. If the school isn't going to bother helping those who are bullied, they have no right telling students what to do or not do when they get bullied. But that doesn't mean just cause it's currently an issue that we dismiss it as an issue and let it be, that is a big hole/injustice in the school system and it needs to be fixed.

I'd start honestly by taking away the administrations right (save the principal) to hand out punishments to students, but the Principal is required to speak directly with both the involved parties, and witnesses beforehand. Should also accept insight from teachers who know the students better than they do, and should also get out of the office more to simply have a better understanding on the student's so they're more aware of who the good kids are, and who are the kids who go around causing this trouble.

As for your small group of friends mentality? I can relate. I stuck with one group of friends in High School (with a few extra who were from elementary school and wandered off to other groups) and it was all I needed. Some people are just too outgoing to stick with one group, but they are not everyone. Some people function just fine (or even better) with just one group of friends, there's nothing wrong with that. It's where outsiders are treated I have mixed views in with you. I think being polite with people (especially if they did nothing to you) is important, but there's nothing wrong with adopting a "I don't care for those outside my group stance", especially if the community you're in like my High School is generally filled with shallow, selfish and ignorant people. I'd honestly really say, even if such a stance is taken that you should at least not to treat someone badly who personally is not guilty of such things simply because you don't know them. After all, all of your friends were also at some point people you didn't know.

Your Political Ideology

*Shrugs*

I know at least one person who is basically Pro-Corporation in any sense you can think of, so I think it's possible.
Plus, those people near the top of those Corporations I can see wanting to see them grow even at the expense of society.

However, for the average quiz taker? I can see the point you two are making.

Your Political Ideology

Protagonist said
A question I thought was loaded was "if globalisation is inevitable, it should benefit humanity rather than corporations".

It may be loaded, but if it is I'm not seeing it. :/

I just looked at it as a "Who would you rather see benefit? The people or corporations?" sort of question.

Bullying Discussion

Kestrel said
I disapprove of bullying, but as the saying goes; give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. I think anti-bullying campaigns that try to fight the bullies and cuddle the victims are doing nothing but teaching poor life lessons where these movements should be focused on teaching kids how to deal with bullying. It's sort of like trying to teach vipers not to bite rather than a person who goes into an area with vipers how to avoid them.Of course then we have the whole victim-blaming bullshit discussion going on, with people who are more concerned about political correctness than solving a problem. Thankfully that hasn't shown it's ugly face in this topic yet.Anyhow. Generally one should make their selves unattractive to bullies as a target. Either by tuning them out as in HeySeuss' example, or in case of physical bullying stand up for yourself and fight back. You might not win, but a couple black eyes are a surprisingly good incentive to switch targets for a bully.

Good point with the "Teach to deal with bullies instead of fixing the bullies" part. That approach for some dumb reason didn't occur to me. It probably would be the best way to handle the bullying issue honestly.

However, we need to be careful if we teach kids "Make the bullies want to pick on someone else", cause it's still someone getting bullied. If everyone started doing it, we'd want to be careful to make sure it encouraged the bullies to just give up, rather than decide they may want to up their game to deal with it.

Your Political Ideology

Jorick said
Very much a whole other debate, and one not worth bringing up in this thread even if we were both wide awake. I think I can provide some insight on some of these."From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a fairly well known Marxist saying, though also used in broader socialist and communist contexts. It means that those who can provide assistance to the needy (such as the rich and the able bodied) should do so, and extra resources taken from or created by these people should be given to those who need it (such as the poor and the disabled) rather than remaining in the hands of those who already have enough.The land as a commodity thing seems to be talking about another communist concept, that land should not be privately owned but rather owned collectively by everyone and for the benefit of everyone. It's definitely one of the murkier questions though, as you could get into some philosophical and economic issues if you wanted to dig deep enough, like is there really any philosophical justification for private ownership of any property or questions of how a zero-sum commodity like land ought to be managed and can it even be done in an equitable way. I would guess that it's just asking about the communist perspective of things though, given the nature of the quiz.You already seem to understand the free market restrictions question.I'm not sure of that prime purpose of education question myself, so I'm no help there.You also seem to get the charity question. I chose to view it on a broader scale, as whether voluntary donation or government mandated assistance was better for those in need of such aid, so I also went with the strong disagreement on that one because charity is so very unreliable.

-Marxism Quote

I see, that's where I stand a bit uneasy on.
I don't think outright taking someone's possessions away and giving to the poor is the right course of actions (Though honestly, those people should be helping out the less fortunate more. Even if not for any moral reason but rather to help make more people productive members of society, essentially creative a better society overall). But I am in support of higher taxes for the rich who can afford it, rather than the poor who usually need every dollar they have just to get by.

But there already was a separate question on taxing the rich, so I assume for this question specifically I'd say "disagree" if I were to do the quiz a third time.

-Land Commodity

It being purely from a communist sense doesn't surprise me.
This just seems like a poor question though cause of how complicated this issue can get.

Suicide, Tragic or Selfish?

Jorick said
Is suicide selfish? Well, it's selfish insofar as it is a decision a person makes without regard to how it will affect others, but what of it? Other people are not entitled to one's life in the first place. Claiming that others are selfish for denying you something you want but have no right or entitlement to is a kind of selfishness in and of itself. It's a crude metaphor, but decrying those who commit suicide as selfish because it makes other people feel bad is like saying someone putting password protection on their wi-fi is selfish because other people want to use it and being unable to is annoying for them. Sure, by the definition of the word both of those acts are selfish, but being selfish is not inherently bad. Just because something is selfish does not make it unacceptable or wrong. It is utterly reasonable to place higher value on yourself than on others. Selfishness is in essence an expression of thought that other people's desires are not as important as your own, and this too is reasonable.I find it entirely selfish that people whine about their own sadness when someone they were close to committed suicide. What of the person who went through with suicide? Whatever they were going through (likely depression, and likely other things too) was so bad that they felt their only way out was to end their life to escape it. Now that's some hardcore fucking sadness for you. Quit your bitching and try to empathize with that situation before declaring that now dead person to be horrible for their selfish act. People are so selfishly concerned with their own feelings that they lose sight of this sort of thing. Who are you to condemn another person's selfishness that caused you some pain when you're selfishly dismissing their greater pain in the same breath? It's fucking ridiculous, and it's one of the many things that show how stupidly and incorrectly people view and treat mental health issues.Getting all upset with a depressed person for committing suicide is like being pissed off at someone for dying because they got mugged and stabbed multiple times and died in the hospital a couple weeks later. A person who becomes depressed or has other mental health issues causing suicidal thoughts is no more at fault than someone who gets mugged, and the hard truth is that sometimes all the medical help in the world isn't enough to save someone from a stab wound. It's even worse for mental health issues, because someone who was stabbed will always rush to get medical attention, but due to our fucked up societal views on mental illness tons of people who are depressed or have other issues don't seek help. They're walking around with what is essentially a mental stab wound and not seeking help due to a very reasonable fear of what people will think of them and say about them and how people will treat them for it, and those same people then have the gall to be upset with them when it ends in death. It's absurd. If I had to measure the balance of selfishness in the equation, I'd say the lesser weight definitely lies on the side of those who commit suicide. Those who decry and blame them are so much more selfish that it's not even a contest as far as I can see, and it's extremely hypocritical to boot.Is suicide tragic? Eh, depends on how much value to you place on any individual human life. I, for instance, don't place any more inherent value in life in general than I place in non-living things, and I only rate human life as a smidgen more valuable than non-human life because I'm a human and I'm selfish enough to place myself and my kind above other creatures. There are over 7 billion of us alive right now, so I don't see the death of one person as some horrible loss. It's unfortunate I guess, sucks for those who knew the person, but I wouldn't go for some melodramatic term like tragic to describe it. But what the hell, if appeals to pathos are required to get people to understand that denouncing and condemning people who commit suicide is bullshit and we need to reform the way we treat mental health, then so be it. Viewing it as terribly sad and dreadful is better than belittling it at least.

Damn you for making so many posts within a weeks time that hold so much truth to them! :P

Bullying Discussion

mdk said
because it's generating discussion, . They do between 1.5-9% better, on average. The model used tries to reduce the impact of competitive, motivated people choosing to play sports, and make it more of a random-selection, 'if any single person just randomly got thrown into a sports program, would they do better' type of equation.

It becomes a different ball-game is it's college athletes.
Those Jocks have already proved to have enough Intelligence to get in a college (Unless if say, they excepted some "Shoot 10 baskets and we'll accept you" crap), while the examples most of us were pointing to were High School Jocks. Those who could have as little Intelligence as possible, cause unlike college there is no grade, performance or skill requirement to get into a High School (with some acceptations).

HeySeuss said (If they do you physical harm, of course, you gotta do something...but I suppose as an adult, that doesn't come up much anymore. I think minors should be able to fight a bully in scenarios of physical self-defense without punishment so long as they don't provoke, but that's me, thinking that people who fuck with the bull should get the horn.)

That's often the issue though. If a Physical fight does happen the school lacks witnesses for the incident usually.

Friends who were present don't count, cause they're friends and count as a bias source. And usually in High School, those who do watch who aren't friends don't care to report it and see justice done. They just want to see a fight and then bail before a teacher breaks it up. So often you get left with a "He says, she says" situation, so even if it's a case of one kids a big trouble maker, and the other is a good kid the school often feels forced to punish both the same because they can't actually prove whose fault it is.

So basically, the only way for victims to have a change to not be suspended for being beat up, is by simply taking it and not defending yourself. At least that's how my High School worked.

Jorick said -snip-

I get the reasoning here, and I can agree to an extent. Being in Early Childhood Education atm, I'm seeing people be trained to go as far to not even allow competitive games like Musical Chair's cause of "self-esteem". So yea, they are taking it to a bullshit extreme.

Now to speak from the view as someone who spent 3 years at a school where everyone hated/picked on me. Verbal bullying can be as serious as physical bullying, if enough people do it at once it can seriously destroy you on the inside. But at the same time, that same experience is one of the main reasons I look at things from a Realist viewpoint and not a "I want it to be X so the world is X" viewpoint. It also made me unafraid for other communities in the future to hate me, cause I'm already used to it and they're simply not worth my time if they choose to cast me out like that.

So in the end, I can agree such experiences do toughen you up and make you better prepared for the real world. Bullying is never going to fully go away, and without some kind of negative conflict as a kid you're not going to grow up right. But at the same time, that's not a license for us to ignore it and let bullying go rampant (even if we prevent the Physical bullying). The bullying I was exposed to there only lasted for 3 years (Granted, I was still bullied later years. Just not to the same extreme), but if say I never left that school and had to graduate from there (It was elementary school and I started there at Grade 3) that would of been 6 years of it. That could of broke me, that could of simply crushed my spirits. That might of been enough to make me actually want to kill myself and stop being afraid of burning in hell for doing so (fear of hell is what stopped me last time, I was still religious back then).

We should at least be trying our best to prevent bullying without being completely paranoid and safety bubble over it. Some bad stuff will leak through anyways, that should be enough to teach kids what real life is like anyways.

Your Political Ideology

First off, good quiz overall. But I'd note two flaws.

1. No option to say "No Opinion" or "Unsure"
2. Some questions seem too loaded/carry too many assumptions with them.
2a. These questions also tend not be fully clear all the time on what they're asking.



^This was my first result which I found a bit odd, I excepted to be more Left than that.

So I re-took the Quiz to get another look at the questions, and I think these may be what threw it off.
Also, some where I simply disagreed or agreed I took one step up just cause I would re-look at them and find I wasn't stepping it down cause I saw any kind of leeway or exceptions, but rather I was going "I do agree strongly here, but I agree even stronger in these other questions". But that probably was throwing off the quiz a bit.

Questions I found odd

-"from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a fundamentally good idea.

I simply went "agree" here, but this was partly cause I wasn't 100% sure what it was trying to say.
I assumed though it meant "People work where they work best, and people get helped where help is needed". So I clicked "strongly agree" the second time.

-Land shouldn't be a commodity to be bought and sold.

This seemed to hold a bit too many assumptions behind your beliefs depending on what you said.
Honestly all I care about in terms of land is everyone has a roof over their head and no one is left on the streets.
And said houses/living conditions should fit a family comfortably and not be cramped. As long as the government makes sure that's covered, I don't really care if it's sold or not.
I voted "agree" the first time cause I assumed the quiz thought clicking disagree meant "everyone should be expected to buy their own house or suffer".

The second time I clicked "disagree" cause ultimately, I don't care for if land is bought or sold as long as that housing situation is covered.

-A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies.

I looked it up, closest explanation I got was "When two companies merge into one".
So I clicked "agree" the first time cause I know the abuse that can happen when a company has no competition.
Second time I clicked "Strongly Agree" just cause I double looked at how big that abuse can be.

-The prime function of schooling should be to equip the future generation to find jobs.

Technically, yes. So I clicked "agree" the first time. But I'm not sure if it's using the literal term of Job (temporary employment) when compared to career (employment for life) or if it was referencing both.
I think Education goes far beyond that as well, to make people more aware of the world, more intelligent etc. But without some way to pay the bills, or exercise their skills for society we wouldn't last very long.
So Jobs are kind of important, but those Jobs should be whatever we want to be, not specific things.

I'm not sure if the quiz is accounting for all this though. It could either mean find jobs as in "Find a way to get paid, get out" or "I dun ned nu educatin to wurk...".
Giving it the intelligent benefit of the doubt that it's the former, I changed my answer to "disagree" the second time.

-Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged.

This one's not so much odd, if I understand it right.
I took it literally as "what works better for society". The only thing throwing me off in thinking this is a moral rather than a technical question is the fact this was under the Religion section of the quiz.
I just did "Strongly Disagree" both times. Charity is great, and can be a powerful tool. But I find it's better for support to be from a constant, reliable and dependable support system, than it is to be from an organization whose funds are dependent on how generous the public feels like at the time.

Note: Every question in the Religion section I clicked "Strongly Disagree" for.

^And this was my second time.
Left is only very slightly more left... :/

I'm still a bit lost even after that one on where I was seen as right.
But whatever, I'm majority left according the quiz and that's close enough I guess.