Hi y'all,

My initial excitement about majoring in economics at my local community college has taken a nosedive after diving into the actual curriculum. I envisioned myself mastering the intricate workings of the economy, but doing some personal research and my own experience has painted a different picture – one that frankly leaves me frustrated.

The dominance of neoclassical economics in the curriculum (especially in the US) is stifling. Those familiar with "Principles of Microeconomics" and "Principles of Macroeconomics" courses everyone seems to take are essentially neoclassical thought served on a silver platter. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't presented as the entirety of economics! Adding insult to injury, the very definition of economics – individuals making decisions under scarcity – feels like a convenient way to justify potentially unethical choices.

This neoclassical foundation permeates every subsequent course, with "Intermediate Micro" and "Intermediate Macro" building on the same principles. By this point, you've sunk money into four courses that, frankly, might not offer a well-rounded understanding. On top of that, "Calculus 1" (or Business Calculus) becomes a mandatory prerequisite for intermediate microeconomics.

But wait, there's more! Econometrics, a course initially brimming with potential, turns out to be heavily influenced by a hidden positivist paradigm. Oh, and guess what? You'll need a statistics class before tackling that one. The tally so far? Seven required courses, all steeped in a dominant school of thought.

Even the "electives" in development, health, and labor economics seem to follow the mainstream approach. Honestly, for someone like me, coming from a less privileged background, this could end up being a colossal waste of money. While some schools offer a heterodox/pluralistic/political economy approach (which sounds much more appealing!), they often have the same structural issues: the four core micro/macro courses, the math prerequisites, econometrics... the list goes on. The thought of enduring the "bad" before reaching the good stuff just doesn't seem worth it after my experience with the principles of micro and macro.

Sorry for the rant but I needed to get that off my chest

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I'll give three examples of this:

The border situation: It has been going on for over three years but because the Republicans killed a raw deal that would allow it to go on en masse it's now supposedly their fault. Also, now that Republican governors are sending migrants to blue cities it's also their fault for creating a crisis because I guess the red states were supposed to just deal with a literal order of magnitude more migrants than what's causing an "unprecedented crisis" in cities like NYC.

"Bail Reform:" Leftist DAs have changed bail laws so that almost nobody spends any time in jail for crimes prior to trial. The most famous recent case is where four people got caught dismembering two bodies but were not charged with murder and were released almost immediately.

The Trump civil cases: No one other than left wing activists think that these cases are rational. I can go into all the reasons why but instead I'll posit a simple question instead:

Would any left wingers out there think that Trump was being treated fairly in these cases if he was black?

EDIT: Here's a couple more:

The raising of the dollar threshold for theft as an offense which the perpetrator can be arrested for in heavily liberal states such as NY and California this resulting in rampant theft (which I've witnessed in person) and subsequent store closures that are then characterized as being caused by "racism."

The normalization of state sponsored open air drug use/markets that have created a massive homeless crisis in the states that support them.

Hello everyone!! I’m currently working on my bachelor’s thesis, I’m a design student and my project aims to redefine the borders around the Arab state by emphasizing shared culture, but I’m a little on the fence on what shared culture is, what it means to be Arab and ultimately what makes someone Arab. I would love if anyone is down for an interview, thank u so much!!

I originally posted the article from the AP regarding the halting of giving puberty blockers to minors to see what kind of reaction there would be to it. Judging by the upvotes and views there is an overwhelmingly positive reaction to it. What was strange was how the mods of other psychiatry/psychology/medicine subs wouldn't allow it to be ported at all.

It was an article from a, by all accounts, respected news source. And it was censored automatically in many cases.

I also noticed that after it stayed up and went viral the attacks started coming relentlessly. Just about every form of psychological persuasion and/or intimidation and bullying tactic has been used. Even though I have repeatedly stated, over and over again, that my concerns regarding these medical interventions pertained to children only.

The attackers ignored this and made no distinction between children and adults. In fact, it seemed to enrage them even more in some cases when I repeatedly stated this.

So, I did some research and found this. I already recognized most of the tactics as I have psychological training. What I find remarkable is that objective fact, or sincere explanation that the "science" regarding these procedures is less that iron clad, meant absolutely nothing to the activists.

Now I understand why. They think in absolutes and have no regard for objective fact. As I said before, they're motivated by a cult like fervor and any attempt to dismantle the claims they make, or deny them what they desire is met with open and ethics free hostility.

From here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3487089-Trans-activist-shares-their-activism-tactics
Emma G who declared war on Graham Linehan, and seemingly compared him to US neo-Nazis
See here:
mobile.twitter.com/Glinner/status/1087617063277993984
"Here's a thing I want u/Glinner to know:

Graham, I am well-known for devastating the neo-Nazi movement in the US. I've helped swing US Military policy. People have gone to jail. They're afraid of me. They've kept me busy, but not for much longer.
And you're in my sights next."

mobile.twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/1087297309388562432

Has now written a thread on their activism tactics.
Which sound... familiar. I can understand why Graham may want the thread reported for encouraging harassment, but maybe it should stay up to show everyone their tactics. Let's look and learn.

Thread:

mobile.twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/1087785050857504769

archive.fo/eqCSq

(I think I've archived the whole thread there ?)

Since we're apparently being called Nazis, fascist, alt-right etc... Lol.
Or "other movements" .
Also, we have excellent reasoning.
Anyway, these are the tweets, pretty revealing:
"There’s a playbook for undermining movements that works particularly well when those movements aren’t rooted in reason but in exclusion and mutuality. This playbook works for fascist groups, but also works for reflexive patriotism, hateful religiosity, and other movements."

2. "The important thing to remember is you cannot debate in good faith with someone who will not debate in good faith. You cannot win on those terms."

"Any debate is for the benefit of the unaffiliated external observer, so you have to frame the matter in the appropriate context, and that context should be tailored to the virtue centers of the audience. Exclusion and bigotry vs inclusion and civil rights."

4. "Even still, you’re really not in a high-efficiency activity here. You’re far better off doing direct outreach."

5. "Beyond that, there are a number of tools at your disposal. First, you recognize that their sense of identity is unity-focused, so your goal should be to sow distrust among the in-group to factionalize and divide."

6. "Identifying and pressuring existing stress fractures is key. Frame the internal divisions and try to make them appear even larger."

7. "Undermining trust also can take direct forms. I’ll leave it to your imagination here."

8. "Next, remove the pillars of support of the movement. This means engaging with the things they rely on most heavily. This is hard, because this feels like an uphill battle."

9. "If they rely on the media, you find inroads with the media. If they rely on the state, you (carefully and wisely) use the state. Turn their best tools against them. Undermining the trust in their foundations further exacerbates the internal divisions."

10. "Then, shape their message as much ado about nothing. Seal off newcomers joining them because they look like zealots waging a very serious war against an absurd opponent."

11. "While you do this, deny all forms of comfort. Undermine the sense of security in the spaces they feel most comfortable. Again, it’s left to your imagination here."

12. "Each of these things will come with a pushback that will lead to a backlash. Don’t let that surprise you. Predict it and preempt it."

13. "This allows you to start shaping the narrative of your choosing. Do not react. No story about your movement should come as a surprise. Preact. You should always have a response plan."

14. "Finally, leave them in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Make sure they never have any confidence in what you know or what you’re about to do next. Always hold a promise of a bigger backlash against them. This takes time but they’ll learn after a few blows to be more cautious."

15. "If they think you’ve got nothing, always have something. If you have something, make them think you’ve got nothing."

16. "This is precisely the playbook that was implemented after UTR to good success. The effects weren’t immediate but they only took about 7 months to effectively neutralize several key alt right movements and leaders."

17. 18. 19. I have no idea what they're talking about ( also got no idea what UTR is/was above, I included that because "7mnths to "neutralize") so not going to copy those here.

18. "Fascistic movements think that unification around their identity is what makes them strong, but it’s not. It makes them weak. While cringing a bit by even brining this up, this is precisely how Russia exploited American identitarianism to manipulate our democracy."

I think we can recognise some of these tactics trans activists have employed. If we had outlined what they were doing like this, we'd probably be called paranoid conspiracy theorists. Thanks Emma, for laying it all out in the open.

EDIT: Formatting.

Hey everyone, me and my buddy were brain storming ideas for the science fair when I realized that I don't have a way to express when I find things funny. Traditionally, amongst my main friend group, lol, lmao and the associated emojis are reserved for irony when something was infact not funny. When we found something the other person said funny we would just actually laugh out loud, thus not requiring a text response. However when talking to a newer friend, he would frequently get annoyed when we texted as things he found funny weren't met with a LMAO or lol. And so I asked him, if there was any expression of lol he reserved for when he was being ironic (his were hahaha and a slew of emojis). All this to say I realized how easily fragmented language can become online as their is no central schooling system to reenforce grammar/the meaning of online originating language like emojis or abbreviations (I thought anw was anyways and my buddy thought it was aint no way) and people are taught how to communicate solely through social reinforcement of their tiny friend group. This has now become the topic of our science fair project, can you think of anyway we could feasibly study this or approach it in a way accessible to high school students?

This is the entire doctrine that explains how the revival of an ancient paradigm by which planets influenced the affairs of men changes how law is applied, which alters and changes the basic tenets outlined in the US constitution

https://www.academia.edu/111274747/The_Deus_Armaaruss_An_Explanation_of_the_Mars_360_Legal_and_Economic_System

Here is an outline of the six new demographics that are assigned to a political class at birth. This is a six party system

https://www.academia.edu/110969608/How_the_Mars_360_system_changes_the_times_the_laws_and_morality

Here is how the law would be applied to each new demographics

The assigned Capitalist Conservative party members

https://www.academia.edu/110546155/The_Mars_360_system_would_protect_the_verbally_abusive_and_corrupt_Mars_1_demographic_by_designating_them_as_such_at_the_time_of_birth_Here_are_examples

The assigned Anti-Government Conservative

https://www.academia.edu/110468929/Under_the_Mars_360_system_the_Mars_2_archetype_would_be_classified_at_birth_as_a_potential_far_right_conspiracy_theorist_but_could_be_granted_some_exemption_from_early_education

The assigned Libertarian

https://www.academia.edu/110387945/How_the_Mars_360_system_re_evaluates_the_age_of_consent_for_the_Mars_3_archetype_This_archetype_would_have_more_freedom_regarding_travel_and_consumption

The assigned Nationalist conservative

https://www.academia.edu/110373046/An_example_of_how_the_burden_of_guilt_regarding_the_atrocities_of_Hitler_would_also_be_carried_by_his_archetype_defined_under_the_Mars_360_system

The assigned Communist - Anti-work liberal

https://www.academia.edu/110448299/Under_the_Mars_360_system_communism_as_a_nanny_state_can_be_applied_but_only_to_the_Mars_5_demographic_Everyone_else_has_to_work

The assigned liberal pacifist

https://www.academia.edu/110294801/An_example_of_how_the_Mars_360_system_creates_new_demographics

This is a six party system that would replace the US Constitution. Each person is born into their respective political class based on where Mars was positioned at the time of birth

Since I keep getting called this I figured I'd just ask everybody.

EDIT: Really? After being called transphobic probably over a hundred times nobody has any advice for me on how to not be transphobic?

Anyone?

I realize this will not be a popular opinion on any side of the political spectrum. Please read in its entirety before commenting.

Statement: gender as a concept should be abolished.

Argument:

Let's state a hypothetical: Men and women are more or less equal in this day and age within the realm of Western civilization.

Now, of course, this is a very general statement. Both sides of the political spectrum could argue this is incorrect for a variety of reasons. Feminists may say that undertones of sexism are still prevalent in society, the extremely religious person may say that men and women have roles that make them inherently unequal, and scientifically minded individuals may argue that there is a biological component that upsets this potential equality. Let's address these one at a time before continuing with the statement.

I am going to dismiss the feminist argument for a moment here. As I said, this is a hypothetical (and you will see why, bear with me), so we are going to say that sexism as a societal issue has been resolved. By stating this, I am not saying it has, I am not saying it will be, but to make my argument, we must envision a world where this is true.

I am also going to dismiss the religious argument, but with a bit more substance. First, it must be acknowledged that religion is an integral part of the individual life, and has contributed greatly to the evolution of culture, society, and knowledge. However, we must also acknowledge that religion, its types, the severity of individual belief, and the application to modern society is a spectrum that covers wide ranges of people, values, and problems. Furthermore, there are so many types of religion that it is impossible to create a ruleset that will satisfy all of them. Buddhist beliefs about the afterlife cannot cooperate with the Catholic beliefs about the afterlife. Religion is the individual's right, but the time in which state and church should be inseparable is long past and I argue can no longer be applied to a multicultural nation. It would be, for example, problematic to impose Islamic beliefs on a Christian individual. So, for the Muslim argument that women must cover their body modestly, we can respect this individually, but we cannot force it upon a general population. A certain degree of secularism is required here. The argument that men and women are made unequal as a result of religion is nil.

Perhaps the argument with the most sustenance is the scientific one. It is undeniable that men and women are different. Our biological chemistry is different, our instincts are different, the sickness we risk developing are different. Does this make us unequal? I'm not sure it does anymore. In historic times, it was critical to the survival of our species to procreate, and so a woman's most important contribution at the time would be to bear children. Similarly, instincts within men to protect their family, to be strong as to win battles against competitors - all that developed in a time when Darwinism was weeding out the weaker elements of our population at a frightening speed. But one could argue that in a modern a world, these instincts - this demand for men to be strong, able hunters, and for women to reproduce and care for children to ensure the survival of a species and everything else that has developed within association to these general ideas - are rendered just that, instincts. They are no longer crucial to our survival on a day to day basis. On an individual basis (and perhaps even world basis in this age), life will not be over if a man does not go to a gym every day, if he is not aggressive, if he is not competing against other men on a constant basis. Life will not be over if women don't all present themselves as attractive as possible for mates, if they don't all have a maternal instinct, if they don't have the life skills to care for a large family. Yes, many individuals have these skills and they are useful and important depending on what kind of life you as an individual want, I am not denying that. But I would argue that it is no longer necessary for every single person to be bound to them.

So, let us argue that men and women, for all modern day purposes, are equal.

Theoretically, it could be argued that gendered roles now become obsolete in this situation. Housewives, macho men, pink vs blue - there is no reason we should be forced to fit ourselves into these expectations or stereotypes, because the instincts that these stereotypes developed from are rendered significantly less crucial than they used to be. What if we dropped the associations of gender roles with sex? This is something along the lines of what left leaning parties have been saying, which is that gender and sex are different, but the subtle difference here is that it may make more sense to drop the meanings of gender entirely. By this I mean ending the association of females with cooking, the color pink, and makeup, to name a few. Similarly, ending the association of males with power tools, football, and a stiff upper lip, to name a few.

There is an issue that conservatives have pointed out on a regular basis: the inability to define what 'being a woman' or 'being a man' means. Matt Walsh's documentary 'What is a Woman' highlights this, and regardless of your feelings on the commentator, there is no denying that there is no true consensus on what being a woman or a man means. One might argue that trans women like Dylan Mulvaney are perpetuating the stereotypes about women through their comments about girlhood being centered around shopping, eating cake in bed, and wearing heels 24/7. One could equally argue, however, that people who say that 'trans people are not defined by their appearance, their voice, their mannerisms' cause for equal confusion, because what are they defined by then? What defines a man or a woman? It is a bit of a mystery, this contradiction within the left where, in a political affiliation filled with equality and breaking down stereotypes (particularly for women), trans peoples desires and abilities to transition from a 'man' to a 'woman' or vice versa is often defined by their appearance (for trans women, shaving their legs, growing their hair out, wearing makeup, et cetera), because many see this as directly feeding into the stereotypes of what men and women are.

So, circling back, my proposed line of thinking is that we abolish what men and women are. Not what sex is. Sex is important, because our sex defines what diseases we are likely to get (females with breast cancer, males with prostate, et cetera), what our bodies can physically do, what our brains are more likely to tend towards (the latter two of which are important, but arguably not as important in this day of equality). But I don't see the issue with a male who enjoys wearing makeup, dresses, and growing out his hair, because one can hardly argue over controlling someone else's lifestyle or form of self expression. And if that male did not feel the need to call himself a woman because we take away the associations and stereotypes that are presented alongside the word, then the debate of 'what is a woman' is gone. Non-binary people would no longer have to associate with being a man or a woman, because such things don't exist (they would, like everyone else, still have to contend with the biological aspects, however). Intersex people would exist without question, and the debate over a third gender in regards to them is rendered obsolete. Give people their right to self expression, without changing or defining the terms of what self expression means.

Now, I realize there are multiple issues with this argument. Realistically, it would never work because our society is too deeply entrenched in these definitions we have made for 'man' and 'woman'. Furthermore, many would argue that the hypothetical of both sexes/genders being equal in todays society is incorrect. Biologically, there are still some arguments that this line of thinking would not necessarily fix (sports, military, et cetera, though I have thoughts on this that I won't state here for length reasons). And lastly, the acceptance of self expression is not a widely taken one. It would be unlikely in a world anytime soon for people to be allowed to express themselves as freely as this idea would rely on. This is not a proposed solution to the transgender argument because it's not a realistic one. It's speculative, and my opinion.

I invite arguments and opinions to this. I may not respond to them all, particularly ones that work on the basis of religion for the reasons stated above. But I'm happy to debate in a civil manner.

First off, you can label me whatever you want but I don't care. At all. Its' the first tactic that is used to try and discredit anyone who questions the pseudo-scientific nature of the concept of "trans kids", which more resembles a cult now than anything else. All it means is that you're rigid conformists that care more about how you look to an uniformed public than the actual truth.

All of you know that this is a lost battle because not only is "The Science" about as flaky as it gets but the elephant in the room is that in regards to children (which is the only thing I actually care about, adults can do what they want because THEY'RE ADULTS) what is being done is deeply immoral and the rationalizations for it are even more immoral.

The main argument being made by the trans advocates is that "trans kids" need "gender affirming care" for a singular primary reason: To prevent self-harm. Ok, well doesn't that mean that literally everyone involved in that child's care have failed on every level? From the parents/guardians to the social scientists? Are you all really that bad at your jobs that you can't keep kids from killing themselves without permanently altering their physiology and sexual development with unknown future repercussions?

The second is that I cannot find any known standardized controls for abuse anyway. Do any of you actually know of any kind of process where the parents/guardians are screened for Munchhausen's, narcissistic personality disorder or psychopathy? It's literally "Trust me bro" from the "medical professionals" that are engaging in this. This is textbook appeal to authority logical fallacy at play.

You can make kids believe anything. THEY'RE KIDS. THEY DON'T KNOW SHIT.

Did you really think that this was all just gonna become the norm? As if people weren't going to push back against the normalization of potentially catastrophic procedures being done on children that leaves them in a state where they are permanently reliant on medical intervention for the duration of their lives when they otherwise wouldn't be?

Seriously?

This survey which you can look at here: https://mentalstateoftheworld.report/

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It claims that the richer countries have poorer mental health for 3 reasons

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1. Use of smartphones earlier during childhood (average age 11 at time of first smartphone vs age 15 for Africa/LATAM)
2. More ultra processed foods consumed in countries such as UK and US leading to decline in mental health
3. Weaker family ties

What are your thoughts on this study? It's correlational so does need some analysis and the main weakness would be that it's a sample of internet using populations which could bias the results (although they claim to have used weighting to counter this)

Average mental health score by country (higher is better)

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Hey guys,

Are you guys aware of any databases which exist that keep track of farmer protests or overall level of contentment in Europe? I know it's highly specific but the only other method I can think of to try and obtain the information I need is inefficiently reading through newspapers.