Exactly what it says, prompted by something Ozone posted elsewhere. He said it could be problematic but I hope we're mature enough to keep it civil, if not the thread can easily be locked or deleted.

I'll go first.

Religion, I'm an atheist and I often enjoy trolling religious types. It's a bad habit. Well I say atheist, but some have a problem with how I define it. I don't believe in any religion. I don't believe there's any kind of god resembling the many deities there's been throughout history. However I am very aware we don't have all the answers, and likely won't in my life time. If there is some kind of creator or higher power I do not believe it will have any relation to the various holy books, hence Atheist rather than agnostic.

Political, left leaning for the most part. A bit to centre in somethings. I appreciate the push and pull from left to right, too far in either is dangerous. I've become a bit apathetic in recent years because everything has become so absurd.

LGBTQI+
FFS live and let live people. You don't have to relate or understand, just accept people for who they are.

Racism is stupid. I'd be an idiot if I didn't acknowledge that I grew up in more racist times, but we don't need to be what we grew up around.

Something that applies to most of these things that I really dislike is how intolerant things have become, especially on the internet. Reasoned discussion seems to be getting harder than ever.

SO yeah, I'm generally a live and let live and think balance is key to everything in life.

Religion: I'm fascinated by theology and the incredible richness of various religions, it's a subject we could study endlessly to look for grains of truth and things that overlap. Ultimately I'm agnostic, I'm too skeptical about any religion I've encountered so far to be a devoted believer and my humanism is too strong to be able to accept all the things they write about a higher power, which is a shame, because I envy religious folks for their strong sense of community and the relationships they maintain. My core belief here is that to better ourselves as human beings and as parts of society we don't all need the same things. Sometimes for someone it's religion and sometimes it's not. As long as it helps you to be kind and more satisfied, more balanced and it doesn't involve harming others I think you're okay with whatever you believe in.

Political: I like to be critical about the extremes of both left and right, so I suppose that places me somewhere around the center. I'm more interested in what causes division and how could people get to acknowledge each others' problems to overcome said division. Anyone who promotes violence against their opponents or gets off on humiliating, bullying, harassing others makes me anxious. It just happens to be that where I live the majority of the people support a government that's very much right-wing and because the laws reflect this, I'm more critical about them.

LGBTQI+: aside from cancel culture and people trashing allies and individuals who are looking for excuses to make you feel like crap, they really just want to be able to be themselves without guilt or shame, without feeling threatened all the time. They were told the same story as we while growing up: that true love is out there, that if you work hard enough you can fit in and be a happy, respectful part of society. No one should have to hide like some criminal or live a lie in hopes of achieving such.

Racism IS stupid. But sometimes it's just present as a feeling of unease, an internalized preconception, but not a full-blown ideology adapted. Human beings tend to have preconceptions and I think acknowledging these as one's own problems and not making them anyone else's is important. I think of it as a disorder people have that can be treated, healed or it can become toxic, affecting others. You need to be both critical and understanding when it comes to your own preconceptions, because others often are only critical or only understanding, which will certainly make things worse on the long run.

I am not mentally equipped to handle social expectations and the casual cruelty of others, I'm terrified of people and I always play the devil's advocate to explore perspectives the majority would ignore. I think the reason I try so hard to understand where everyone's coming from is because it's the only way I know how to cope with the anxiety of co-existing with them. Unmasking my fears and paranoia, Scooby-doo style.

Religion: While I am a Christian, I am not the Bible-thumpin' sort who will bash you over the head if you don't accept Jesus, while spouting off about how you'll burn in Hell for all eternity if you don't agree with my views. Honestly, what a lot of people don't realize is there is a difference between religious people and spiritual people, and I definitely consider myself the latter; my spirituality boils down to my own personal connection with the Lord, and living my own life based on my own sense of morality without feeling the need to try to force any of that on anybody else. It's for those very reasons that I can see and understand why more and more people are being turned off by organized religion, and I would say that a lot of organized religion is actually doing more harm than good to spirituality in terms of the hate and bigotry they spew in the name of the Lord . . . it also sickens me that there's people out there calling themselves followers of Christ, yet doing exactly the opposite of what He has taught us during His time of walking the earth. Which brings us to. . . .

Politics: I am definitely what people would call a “Bleedin' Heart Liberal”. I have grown up and still live in a very red state, so I have witnessed all my life (and continue to do so) how the political right (who control our state) do absolutely nothing to actually help improve the lives of the people they serve, and only continue to serve their own special interests . . . case in point: at the height of the COVID pandemic, our state governor refused to implement mask mandates or social distancing, wanted people to go back to work and reopen businesses almost immediately, and as a result, our entire state became the world's COVID epicenter by Christmas 2020. Our state also has one of the highest homeless populations in the country, thanks to ours having the highest-rising cost of living - again, due in part to the rightwing politicians who control our state. Having said that though, I will say there are some issues that I disagree with the left on. Take abortion, for example: the left is constantly pushing the abortion agenda. Now I will agree that if a woman is considering abortion, it should only be her decision - not the man who impregnated her, not the doctor she may be seeing, not the politicians, just her and only her. At the same time, I feel that if the left is going to call themselves pro-choice, then they need to acknowledge there are choices and not just push abortion as though it's the only choice: if the birth looks like it may pose a threat to the either the mother or the child, that's one thing, but if the baby could potentially be born healthy, give it a right to life; if the mother doesn't want it, consider adoption or foster care - there's plenty of people out there who may want and could give that child a loving home.

LGBTQ+: I am very, very much a proud ally; a majority of my friends fall into this community, with almost every single female I know being either bi or pan, and a few male friends I know being openly gay - one of whom has actually been battling the Church of England and their attempts to silence his voice. Sadly, I wasn't always like this. Growing up, I was definitely very much a homophobe. I could blame a lot of it on my upbringing: again, not only growing up in a religious red state, but also the conservative Bush era, where the “homosexters” were widely regarded as an evil cult that was bent on brainwashing our tender, innocent children into turning them gay, and basically eradicating the world of straight people. There was no way that kids shows like THE LOUD HOUSE or THE OWL HOUSE with their positive depictions of LGBTQ+ representation would have been allowed to make it to the airwaves when I was growing up: the religious right would have had those shows yanked off the air immediately . . . I can still remember people burning HARRY POTTER books after J.K. Rowling outed Dumbledore . . . I can even remember the PBS station I worked for took a serious hit in our pledges because local religious groups called for a boycott of PBS Kids shows like SESAME STREET, ARTHUR, CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG, and others because they were under the impression that these shows were pushing gay agendas (all because POSTCARDS FROM BUSTER had an episode that was going to feature a girl with two mothers, and that episode ended up never making it to air). Sadly, because of my own ignorance, I believed all this: I didn't know any gay people (that I was aware of), and I wanted nothing to do with them. Now that I've grown up, am wiser and more mature, I see that all this homophobia is a load of hooey: gay people expressing themselves is not them “shoving their lifestyle down our throats,” but rather, them making a statement that they wish to be contributing members of society and not be treated any differently from others - because they're not.

Racism: Y'know . . . sigh . . . when I was growing up, and my parents told me the stories about how they grew up during the Civil Rights Movement, when racial tensions were flaring in this country because blacks wanted and deserved the same rights that white people always had, that all felt like ancient history to me . . . growing up, I figured that such turmoil and unrest were things of the past, and weren't anything my generation would have to worry about as we pave the way for the future. . . . Boy, was I dead wrong.

Religious:
“I'm a passively spiritual agnostic. Due to personal, mystical experiences and the unwavering feeling that something is aiding and/or accompanying me on my life's journey I believe that there are things beyond the world that we all see and hear. I don't subscribe to any religion or established spiritual philosophy due to being too much of a skeptic and untrusting towards most if not all dogmas. Though I can see the importance religious community plays in some peoples lifes, I don't personally need it, I do have parents who are of a similar mindset and on their own spiritual journey. Outside real life I actually tend to listen a lot to atheistic people, because it helps me keep my thinking grounded.

Political:
”On a political scale I would be placed as pretty left leaning. I believe in egalitarianism in the terms of equality in opportunity to pursue any self-fulfilling and contributive endeavor as well as equality in decensy in living standards and treatment, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation and beliefs. People who makes crusades out of superficialities like skin color and/or the shape or usage of the genitals, or any philosophical beliefs are - in my opinion - lost in their own bubble of inner turmoil and preconceptions foisted on them by past relations and/or society and/or tragedies of the past and needs to experience a larger world beyond all superficialities. Also freedom of expression across the board, we need to have an open market of ideas.

Social:
I am a sensitive, solitary guy who's very easily exhausted by human interactions - though I've actually met and befriended a lot of people, of all kinds on pretty much every stop of the political/religous scale, throughout my life - and I'm helplessly obsessed with my creative projects and thus tend to shy away from people in general. I have like two friends I still hang out with because they are non-dramatic and calm and doesn't drain me like most other people do - no fault of their own though, its just me.

As a storyteller I always like experimenting with things that people find tabu or absurd or “bad taste”. Like the belief that anything that is erotic or fetish-like can't be in a serious drama without having the whole thing being seen as pretentious porn, or worldbuilding elements like segregation must always be approached as pure evil to be combatted and cannot for this particular setting be more nuanced, having some kind of social necessity in mind, like “this is a society of rampant mutation and we must establish some kind of system to prevent chaos from arising out of this hard to control situation”.

And I see it as a good challenge to take those things and try to give them a spin that makes it into something you can digest. Making it a story with characters and setting that, despite being morally dubious and grotesque, you can overall understand and take seriously, while also laugh at the absurdity of it all along the way. I am the guy who is always convinced that you can have both when it comes to most, if not all, things. Why not have both^^

Religion, I'm agnostic I guess, I'm open to the concept of things beyond this world and I'd rather believe in an after life than not. I don't believe in a particular religion as such but I find them fascinating to study, especially for literary inspiration.

Politics, I'm a leftist, best way to put it, I believe government should serve and uplift the people and we should aim for the best outcomes for the most number of people. Nobody should be homeless, no one should struggle to eat, and no one should have to suffer because they can't afford healthcare.

LGBTQIA+, Well, I'm a transwoman and I'm gay as fuck so you can imagine its a pretty important topic for me. I live in a deep red state and its a genuine struggle, I'd like to move elsewhere but I don't really have the means right now. Honestly being a queer person is part of the reason I'm pretty passionate about politics because unfortunately for me right now, it's pretty life or death.

Racism is unfortunately a problem at a systemic level, it's not just an interpersonal issue and effects all of our lives on some level. It's important to understand that our problems are intersectional and how we need to look at these issues holistically for the greater good of all and for the sake of a better future.

So far so good, which is promising.

In the more active days of DD we had problematic people who'd lampoon these sincere posts with cynical jibes. XD

I'm politically left.
Pro trans, pro LGB etc.
Non-religious.
Climate change is real.
I'm Gen X.
Anti-alt medicine and all quackery.
Pro-GMO
pro-nuclear power (as long as there is no pathway to nuclear weapons).
Pro-renewable energy
Pro the Oxford comma.
Anti-War.
Pro-Pacifism (though that is a very, very hard thing to commit to).
Anti-Gambling
Pro-Women's rights
Pro-religious freedom

I'm also pro-history, culture, and tradition… so if my other stances conflict with these then they have to bend.

I'm also a live and let live person so if other people have opposite stances that's ok as long as they're not dicks about it :)
I'll listen to what they say and be friends with them. It's only through that approach that we can learn.
It's only by following that approach that I came to the stances I have. I wasn't born with any of those convictions. XD

Ozoneocean wrote:
pro-nuclear power (as long as there is no pathway to nuclear weapons).

Hell yeah to this point in particular. I keep trying to explain to my baby boomer mother about nuclear power but it’s one of the few things I can’t move her on. I like understand why she has the position she does I just wish I could help her see reason on it.

Ozoneocean wrote:
In the more active days of DD we had problematic people who'd lampoon these sincere posts with cynical jibes. XD

I've had to figuratively bite my tongue any number of times.

One example: I'm an equalitarian misanthrope. I hate everyone equally.
And then a few choruses of “Whatever it is, I'm against it” as sung by Groucho Marx in Horse Feathers.

Someone would have to be demented to enter this thread and claim to be a right wing evangelical conspiratorial thinker,

But then people like that usually are delusional so it remains a distinct possibility.

Someone would have to be demented to enter this thread and claim to be a right wing evangelical conspiratorial thinker,

It would be quite funny to see, but having seen how that goes elsewhere… I dunno I'm not sure I see it happening here though. but it could get spicy.

I'm a mess. I identify as non-denominational Christian, but attend Catholic church with my husband's family. I am not taking any steps to be recognized as a member of the Catholic Church. I am a “to each his own” person with religion. As long as you are not sacrificing virgins to volcanoes ,etc. It is my personal philosophy that we will all get it sorted on judgement day/Ragnarok/Apocalypse. As long as the religious heads the church I attend doesn't attack any groups we get on ok.

Politically, I'm left of center. There are probably more things on the right that I agree with than I would like to admit, but since the leadership of the right has been really shitty, I'm not voting that way any time soon. Live in red state so I only really talk politics with my husband. Being a former health insurance sales representative, I'm a strong proponent of “Medicare for all.” Being a woman/mother I believe that no man should legislate what goes on with a woman's body. Morally I would prefer abortion as a last resort with more funding going into support services/adoption/CHIP rather than legislating it completely out. But ultimately the decision rests with the woman and her medical team. I believe that restrictions can become a slippery slope and people just want to pass their agenda without looking at the long term effects on society.

LGBTQ+ - My philosophy is I won't tell you what goes on in my bedroom as long as you don't tell me what goes in in yours. After a lot of soul searching, my husband and I have come to the realization last year that I'm on the asexual spectrum, But since what happens in our bedroom is nobody's business, I'm not out. 11 years ago I tried haltingly to explain to my mom what I was trying to figure out about myself without knowing the terminology and having to work around prudishness about sex. She gifted me with a Christian based book called “Made For Pleasure” which went straight into the trash when I got home.

believe that people should be able to dress and how they wish without being bullied for it. It is hard to advocate for my husband and my oldest son's longer hair styles to our boomer parents. And though on the surface, this doesn't sound like to fit, I've finally shrugged off my mom's standards of beauty after 35 years and wear my hair short and naturally curly.(She made me get it chemically straightened for a couple of decades.)

Genejoke wrote:

Someone would have to be demented to enter this thread and claim to be a right wing evangelical conspiratorial thinker,

It would be quite funny to see, but having seen how that goes elsewhere… I dunno I'm not sure I see it happening here though. but it could get spicy.

Oh we famously had a few of them 😅
One in particular I won't name because they started reposting their comic and I don't want to out them publicly or expose them to ridicule.

—+—+—+—

Speaking of baby boomer parents - mine used to have an issue with my long hair back in the 80s and early 90s but then I got too old for that to be their concern anymore 🤣
Their generation had the same issue but much worse with their own parents and society when they were growing up so I see why they repeated the pattern.
But yeah, they had it way worse 😅

when I was about 12 I wanted to grow my hair our, my parents suggested a compromise. I ended up with a mullet.

My parents are/were both really progressive people and were part of the hippie movement so they never had an issue with my hair even before I came out as trans, I got pretty lucky :)

My mom has always been a progressive, forward-thinking, open-minded, pro-Feminist, bleedin' heart liberal. Dad, on the other hand, was a closed-minded, racist, homophobic, old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Even up until his last few years of like, Dad would attempt to remind Mom of where her place and position was in the household in making the meals, to, “love, honor, and obey” him, and all that . . . Mom would have none of it.

I think it's safe to say growing up, my life at home with my parents was a lot like the Costanzas, or maybe even the Barones.

This thread makes me miss the early internet, when we could have full on flame wars in the forums. I realize that a comic site like DD doesn't want to engage in that kind of fuckery now but I think it was enlightening sometimes. It actually helped me to think on different ways and think about stuff I never thought about before. It's kinda sad that online communities have become circle jerks of one side or the other. Shit just gets worse and worse that way. But there doesn't seem to be a solution to that problem. I miss the days when I could spout crazy ideas online and have someone wiser than me say“well actually dude, it's not like that, have you considered this, bla, bla…” I would likely prickle but also ponder.

Most of us were like really dumb kids who didn’t really understand half the shit we were saying though, it was easier to just get mad and scream at the other dude til the mods had to get involved. Idk I can throw down, especially if it’s on a subject I know a lot about or am especially passionate about (especially when I know I’m right.) but it all feels like wasted energy these days so I go dump it on a friend to try and amuse them with “something stupid someone said” and move on. I’m too old to be screaming at internet folks, plus I’ve got stuff to draw!

I'd like to think that the relative absence of flame wars is something that sets us apart as a community.

So here we go. Time for me to show I'm brave. 😏

General:
One of my major driving forces is a deep-sitting, smoldering anger, kept firmly under a lid most of the time, and directed at those who can't just leave other people be. I can't stand anyone who is trying to force their beliefs or opinions etc. on others, I get really angry when I see some of them actively or passively trying to dumb down everyone else to achieve this goal, and it fills me with a big sadness when I see people just fall for it, going with the flow like sheep.
I can't stand people who are spineless: go to the shop, get 5 dollars worth of self-esteem and stand your ground. Self-esteem in a healthy dose is important, and it's something people can learn to have. Respect yourself if you want others (and me) to respect you. At the same time don't confuse self-respect with taking yourself or anyone else too seriously.
Lastly, you don't have to agree with me on anything to be my friend. Those who think that is required for friendship are not my friends.
Additionally: wearing sandals with white socks should be banned by the Geneva convention.
Except for the last sentence this is basically the core behind all my values and beliefs.

Religion:
I firmly believe in God, and I identify as a moderate Lutheran Protestant Christian. It used to be quite different in my teens and most of my twenties when I was in total rejection mode. Then I almost died at 29 and had some time to reflect and observe and really think about things, and I hope not to sound too cliché that I really started to see for the first time. I know I do anyway, so laugh all you like. Doesn't matter. All I'm going to say here is that religion works for me once I started giving it a chance to. I'm not saying that means it has to work for you. To my mind, atheists are deliberately missing out on something, like I used to, but if you think you're happy, so am I.
The problem with religion is that most people get it wrong, both the religious types and the anti-religious types. I consider myself very lucky I more or less got the hang of it.
If you want to know how the world works and why everything is the way it is, resort to empirical science. This is not what religion is about, it wasn't even in its earlier days, really, when people mingled them due to too little scientific understanding. Religion is about discovering your spirituality. It's something you have to do on your own, because it's a feeling that can't be put into words properly. It's totally free, too, anyone who tells you anything else is a fraud.
As I said, science tells you how and why everything is as it is. In contrast, spirituality helps you make up your mind why you should bother and it helps you figure out how to live with it, which is preferably in a way that lets everyone around you do the same.
I don't really ask if God exists or not or what exactly he is like. If I have to accept him as part of my spiritual language for it to work, I will. It works just fine, at least for me. Don't fiddle with a running system, no matter what you think of some parts of its vocabulary. I've drawn a lot of strength from religion in a really bad fix, and if that doesn't satisfy you there's also empirical evidence that getting yourself some religion strongly correlates with psychological resilience. It has style, too. I like religion.
If you don't: sorry to hear that. I you think I'm wrong, we can stay friends and agree to disagree. Can you make fun of religion?
Hell, yes! In fact, I've done so myself before, and my own religion at that. If you think your belief is incompatible with humour, your belief is too shallow.

A good religion will give you stuff to think about, written by people who have discovered spirituality, acting as a guide. That's what these weird contradicting stories in the Bible really are. The backdrop is a product of the time they were written down. Accept it like you would the setting of a fantasy anthology, and everything's fine, really.
Which religion to choose? I chose the one I grew up with, because I understand it best and it works for me best. However, religions are a kind of language - languages to explore spirituality, so I'd like to think they're mainly a matter of habit and none is superior to the other. Oh, I know every religion says it is, but honestly: we're webcomicers. Could we really blame anyone for shameless self-promotion? Throw the first stone!

I have to say there are one or two religions I don't like at all and I'm really wary of. It's more about their practioners really, of whom a way too large number conducts atrocious acts of violence, taking their religion's self-promotion several steps too far. I refuse to call that religion! These people didn't get religion at all, and if the decent people that share their denomination won't stop them, I have to conclude that this particular religion does not seem to work very well. Sorry.

Political:
Oh dear… politics is a necessary evil, mostly. I vote at every single election, just because even if some rather weird people get the job later, I can at least say it wasn't my fault. The main thing these days is always stopping stinkers like Putin and an alarmingly great number of others, who often enough were able to get their power, because many people in their respective countries were indifferent. They've got their proxies in every Western country, so I always vote because not voting would be much, much worse.

While I'm at it: if we as the West, don't support Ukraine with all we've got, we're putting another nail into our coffin. Panicking about a possible escalation is nonsense, because if we don't, Putin and his likes will see it as a weakness and therefore an invitation to escalate. It's bad enough that nobody here had been doing anything since the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and that they had the nerve to pretend to be surprised in early 2022! Anyone with eyes and ears knew all along for more than a decade that a clash like this would have to happen eventually - the Baltic and Eastern European states didn't join NATO because they liked the logo, you know. Something might have been done about all this in a somewhat more peaceful manner so much earlier. You might think, history lessons about appeasement should have taught anyone anything, namely: don't cower before tyrants but show them some red lines right away.
The ongoing conflict between Israel/Palestine is different. These decades of senseless violence I consider to be one of the ultimate cautionary tales against human stupidity. I'll side with Israel if I'm forced to side with anyone. I think they both should stop killing each other before I could warm to any of them, and as long as they don't they're all a*holes, really. However, the Israelis are our a*holes, and that tips the scales for me. (I won't comment on who started which escalation at which point, because that kind of discussion just smacks of kindergarten.)

At heart, I guess I should call myself a libertarian, even if this doesn't really exist as a political movement in my country. Why don't we just let people get on with their lives, give them a chance to do so, give them second and third chances as well? I agree that some people need to be kept in check. Ethical behaviour is not everyone's cup of tea, and the last thing I'd want is big companies taking over. However, what those parties do that are considered “left wing” is often going too far for my taste. Socialism just doesn't work, nor is it social, unless you consider making everyone equally unhappy except for a chosen few party bigwigs to be so. Toned-down versions of it aren't going to work either. What we need is more ethically-minded people, and you cannot produce them artificially by passing this law or that and raising taxes. These things only hurt those of us who are trying to get by and build up a livelihood. Why should anyone bother to do anything with their lives if their living situation just stays the same no matter what? Make donations, give something back, yes definitely, but wouldn't it help a great deal if you're able to give an actually substantial amount without having to hurt yourself in doing so? It's ethics that has always been missing, and no amount of policies and laws will ever do any good about that.

I'm staunchly pro-EU despite hating bureaucracy. We Europeans are in one boat, and if we don't act accordingly we'll go down the drain like so many old societies before us. Also, I very much prefer it to constant wars and rivalries, to border controls, and to being divided where no division makes sense. I wish it would work more towards becoming a real federal entity - all those little rebellions of this and that region for more autonomy should have long become meaningless over night, because they'd have long got all kinds of autonomy without the disadvantages of isolation. The idea behind the EU is one of the rare kind in politics that I could actually call a mature approach without being sarcastic. However, we clogged it with too much bureaucracy, creating the impression of something that has become too big for its own good, and in turn giving way too much handholds for populists who are just instruments to weaken it from within. It makes me sad how easily people can fall for complete bull, just because the few decent politicians fail to make them understand what they do and why.

I have started to get some hope for the USA during the last few days. It's not my place to meddle in foreign politics, although I've got familial ties and thus take an interest in it all, but the prospect of Trump and Vance running the place is worrying, even when ignoring that I'm European and putting myself into the place of an ordinary Joe somewhere in the states, but I can also hear Putin and Xi chuckling together as part of the background noise.
Ms. Harris' running mate is finally a politician who talks sense, a former geography teacher, too, and that means this guy knows what he talks about. I'm an active geography teacher myself, and let me tell you: if he was any good in that job (I hear he was), this guy knows geopolitics off pat, and he knows how migration works and why and what things need to be tweaked to influence it effectively; same for climate change and related topics. Be glad you've got someone like that in politics at all. We haven't. I wish we had.

LGBTQI+:
Now, this is finally one I can keep short. Yes, of course! I've got no business to tell anyone how to live their lives (except in the classroom sometimes, but that's different). Nobody else has either. Why can't some people just let everyone else be? Why don't they get a hobby or something?
To be honest, I'm slightly annoyed by the way this topic is made such a big deal. It shouldn't. Everyone should be able to pursue happiness as they see fit, and that's the end of it.
If LGBTQI+ rights need to be rallied for, because there's no other way to get to this state of affairs, they have of course my full support. I'm just vexed it's necessary.

Racism:
I don't like the word - pity no one has ever come up with a better one. You see, if we use a term like racism, we implicitly acknowledge there is such a thing as human races. There isn't. I (a Northern European Viking type) am genetically closer to any First Nation tribe member in Australia than most other animals, like chimpanzees, say, are to each other within one group. Just for example. We could talk of races if there were significant differences in build, organs and intelligence (different sets of instincts), so if Neanderthals were still around, there might be an opportunity for that. As it is, there aren't.
Racism stems from an instinct hardwired into us all roughly in that distant past, when it was from an evolutionary point of view more prudent to distrust members of a markedly different tribe. It's an ancient shorthand, and of course we add our own shorthands from personal experience too, whether we want or not. So I can understand why people get racist. However, being able to overrule our instincts by using the outer parts of the brain is what makes us human. Tolerating racism means tolerating degeneration of the entire human race. I won't!

Cancel culture:
People have got way too thin-skinned. If we still lived in a culture that has people talk to each other instead of watching TikTok, we wouldn't have cancel culture. I'm avoiding the word “woke” because a fellow duckhead I like and respect a lot once told me that that'd be misusing it, effectively repeating an ultraconservative propaganda term. I hope calling what I mean to criticise “cancel culture” is Ok.
I'll try and keep this short: people are trying to tell others what they may not say, which gives me vibes of an Orwellian thought police. Now, all of what I wrote above should have made unmistakeably clear what I think of discrimination and oppression in any of its many forms. My point is just that trying to extinguish a fire with gasoline is stupid.
We must not lose our ability to laugh about ourselves! Discrimination is one thing, a little teasing is another. The latter is part of accepting and appreciating others the way they are, instead of pretending that everyone was the same. It'd be boring anyway if we were. This is inclusive, folks! The important thing is the spirit in which it is meant, not the way it is said.
On the other hand, calling out every little phrase that seems off-key to someone all the time, condemning them as a leftover from a more primitive time, is not. People who do that may have the right thing in mind, but their very protectiveness actually helps widen the gap between “us” and “them”.
A society of people actually speaking with one another instead of everyone hiding in their own little box understands this difference.

Cancel culture has really gotten out of hand in recent years to the point that anybody or anything will be “canceled” at the drop of a hat. Everybody takes everything so personally these days that even if something isn't meant to be offensive to them, they will find it offensive just the same, and as many comedians have been saying, if you have to worry about offending anybody, then comedy is doomed; nobody can take a joke anymore, nobody knows how to laugh at themselves, nobody understands that none of us are perfect, which is why observational humor is a thing.

Real life must have trully swallowed me up for me to just notice this here. Ok I can't resist a challenge, so here goes:

Religion: I'm an observing Greek Orthodox Christian (yes there's a slight difference from just Orthodox) but depending on who you ask, I'm either non-practicing or extremely practicing. I do believe, read, follow the Gospels to the best of my capacity and understanding but I don't align well at all with the priesthood and the official church protocols that have really nothing to do with the religion and everything to do with remnants of the Byzantine era of worship and church politics. We have quite a few nutcases that wear the habit and spout very anti-Christian, anti-Jesus-doctrine nonsense. Counting in the fact that the Church is often where prominent/'party connected' families park their underachieving kids for a guaranteed life-long salary, I'm not about to let a bunch of weirdos or outright underhanded manipulators tell me how my relationship with God is supposed to be or what I should be doing/not doing to my fellow man. Which brings us back to ‘non practicing’ in that I don't go to Church often and when I do I remember why I didn't really go most of the times XD I do like going to the Church when it's empty of people.

Regarding other peoples' Religion, non-religion, atheism, etc: You do you. God approaches people from the avenue that is available to them, it's not my place to say what that is. Just don't violate human rights. (Goes for my religion as well) I don't believe the right to religious freedom trumps ANY other human right, so I'm very much pro-regulating religious practices and daily applications from a completely non-religious, legal, Human Rights approach when it comes to inalienable rights. I am also very pro-knowing every other religion's dogma and practices because that helps give understanding that is crucial in applying said Human Rights framework.

Political: Oof. How to classify me is kinda weird. I suppose you can say I'm very left leaning? I am a direct-democracy advocate and as such, I'm against the very existence of political parties, since practice has shown that political parties end up simply serving as amplifiers to a single person's views that are then propagated as an infallible fact, while stomping down on dissenting voices. From my current POV, political parties have invariably led to oligarchies that are using the term ‘democracy’ as a fig leaf for basically free reign for however long their term is. If we were to still roll with political parties, the way they work/are regulated should be very different, to allow for policies and ideas to be at the forefront rather than a strongman or an idol of any sort. I would also want mandatory education in sticking to definitions, because a republic is not a democracy and I'm sick of everyone thinking that it is. But I promise I won't go into a rant about that right now. XD

In further political views, I believe a state (as in, the mechanism for running a country and regulating internal and foreign affairs) should be responsible for free and universal healthcare, education, infrastructure, and basic amenities like power supply, water supply, communications and heating/cooling. Access to all of these should NOT be tied to a citizen's ideology or social standing. It should be unconditionally guaranteed. The idea of having a state should be that a state can buy in bulk, cheaply, and provide for everyone high quality on the cheap. A state should also be able to generate income not solely from taxation but from robust, healthy, and expanding businesses. It should support private businesses but also put a cap on how rich any single business or individual can be. Nobody should be able to be richer than a frigging country, because that kind of money buys people and governments- and turning people into commodities is a problem. A state should keep out of its citizens' private affairs and only regulate to uphold Human Rights. A state should exist only if the state is serving the citizens, not ruling over them. Consequently, the state should be run by its own citizens, through avenues that make this feasible without ‘representation’ (aka signing a blank cheque to some campaigning guy or gal that promises to do it all for you). A dictatorship cannot, will not, and never will have motivation to create such a state by its sheer nature. No, none of this is communism, even though there are overlaps, believe me Stalin would send me to a gulag.

A state should work to implement policies focusing on prevention first, and reaction second. Prevention is cheaper than having to handle things after a disaster/crime occurs. That said, reaction to a crime/disaster should be efficient, swift, with a focus on victims' relief first. Same goes for healthcare. I'd rather cancer be prevented than cured, but I also want it to be cured. I hope I'm explaining this right…

LGBTQ+: Are they all consenting adults? Then leave them alone. I don't need to ‘get it’ or ‘understand it’ to be fine with it existing. On the subject of LGBTQ+ minors, for the love of God SUPPORT THEM. Children and teens need support, guidance, and solid professional mental/emotional support. They don't need to be castigated, threatened, or neglected for being who they are.

Which brings me to my next point: everyone should have their psychologist of choice like everyone should have their GP of choice. There should be mandatory at least biannual mental health checkups for everyone- no exceptions- exactly like with physical health. Mental health is atrociously neglected, and issues that would be easily resolved with a couple of sessions early are left to fester until they become full blown mental issues, disorders, and problems in the individual's daily life. Mental health maintenance should be destigmatized exactly like physical health maintenance is.

Racism: It's no accident it peaks when times are hard financially and socially. People are desperate for a scapegoat so they won't have to look at the actual problem and do something about it. Governments are happy to feed racism so that it acts as a diffuser and keeps them safe when they implement terrible financial policies. Racism is the transformation of existential fear, fear of the unknown, and attribution error into the monster of socially acceptable atrocities. Racism can be eradicated, but then the masses wouldn't be divided as much, and we can't have that can we?

In any case, racism is definitely stupid and the refuge of the otherwise socially and mentally inept in my opinion. There I said it.

Finally, my generall approach is that any position and stance one holds, one should be able to support with arguments rather than ad hominems. Positions and stances should be constantly evolving through continuous research, self reflection, and constructive discussions. Anything that's stagnant, rots.

Political: I identify as a non-revolutionary marxist, or liberal commie if you prefer, though in practice this just mean I vote for leftish parties and that's it. I'm in more for the economic part of it than for the culture wars stuff though.

Religion: I'm an atheist although I've been religious (Catholic) in my youth. I see religion as the way people used to think about ethics in the past, and therefore there might be many things of value in religious thinking, but there is also a lot of outdated and problematic stuff naturally. I see “spirituality” as the inward-looking side of ethics.

LGBT+ : I like to think that I am open and in general I think people should live as they please, as long as they don't hurt others. Recently I have the feeling that some people on the left became too rigid about this, and in some sense they are becoming a copy of the right in reverse (the problem start from the right though, this should be stressed). Basically we have to accept that other people can and will see things differently from us: for example, if we speak of transwomen, some people will see them as women, and other will perceive them as man, and I think we should accept that both these points of view are subjective and have the same value.

Racism: is IMHO a consequence of political and economical factors, there is some psychological base in it but only as a general mistrust for people who are different. It is IMHO wrong to see it as something purely moral, the economic base of it should be obvious (in particular in countries where racism is mostly anti immigrants).

Cancel culture: in part a consequence of internet and of the increased tribalism that comes with it, but also IMHO largely due to the fact that politically the culture wars became preeminent on the economic issues, and as a consequence cultural factors are now taken as cause of the problems instead than symptoms, and therefore everyone tries to “control” culture (though again this already existed before she n the religious right, and in part but to a lesser degree (in the west) in the extreme left).

“There should be mandatory at least biannual mental health checkups for everyone- no exceptions- exactly like with physical health.”

I agree mental health is neglected, or often even stigmatized and people should have access to professionals of their choice when it comes to these, but when the laws these professionals have to abide are made by ignorant people with no education in the field it just ends up another things weaponized against the masses. Because a test or diagnostic tool doesn't need to be effective for it to be applied and recognized by the ones power. And even the DSM-5 sees revisions that might be influenced by politics as well, not just medical science. What research gets funded and what findings become accepted have a political factor to them as well. So when the government starts using mental heatlh screenings not to help those in need but to have an excuse for firing them, blacklisting them or getting them locked up and those tests they apply in said screenings aren't even recognized to be efficient diagnostic tools by the professionals… it's just another way to stigmatize and terrorize the people who don't fit their ideas of “normal”. Where I live, the government even extended invasive background checks to to people who live in the same household as you if you wish to work in some fields. If even just your partner or family member refuses to give accounts of their hobbies or where they go to have recreational activities and such, you could lose your job and be barred from working on some fields ever again. Since said government is extremely anti LGBT+ I'm pretty sure that gays and trans people fail their “sexual deviancies” test and get barred by standard, regardless of how professionals define sexual deviancies these days. So this is why I think making such mandatory is not as safe as people would like it to be.

@InkyMoondrop: First off, I'm so sorry that is the reality in your country. Unfortunately, it's not surprising.

Like I mentioned, any oligarchic government can and will use anything to its advantage. Every tool humanity has can be used to heal or kill, from a knife to a psych screening test to education. That doesn't mean we should shy away from implementing what should be implemented. Instead, we should be working to making it impossible for governments to exploit science to do their dirtywork. And that can be done with proper checks and balances.

As for Psychology as a field always revising the DSM-5, that is a GOOD thing, a feature if you like, not a flaw. Just like in medicine there are practices that are abolished in favor of newer, better ones, so do tests and therapies and approaches get abolished in favor of better ones.

It's political motivations that have to be harnessed, not science nor access of people to help/support they need. And to harness political motivations, you need participation in governance on a daily basis, rather than every 4 years and as much as political parties will allow (e.g. gerrymandering, access to polling, etc).

But I stand firm that even with the risks you mention, the benefits of mental healthcare available to everyone far outweigh the problems which, as I already mentioned, can easily be regulated out of daily practice.

Yeah, the revisions to DSM-5 are good things, but because it's revised from time to time, people should recognize it probably contains professionally the most commonly agreed upon definitions in our age, not necessarily the best ones, but the best ones we currently have and can operate by. And as far as universal access to mental healthcare is concerned, I'm fully behind it. People should be able to confide in their therapists who actually know what they're doing and it could prevent a lot of issues. I can only hope that something like what you describe could be seen as a viable solution in this country, but considering tha majority makes the current system possible and it only gets more draconian by the day, it'd take nothing less than a revolution (or several in x decades) to establish real change, I'm not holding my breath and if we'd have the money, we'd bail while we still can.

I'm going to be very brief…

• I am a devout Greek Orthodox Christian, but I do not believe the Lord makes mistakes nor do I believe being LGBT+ is sin.
  I am an egalitarian.
  I am a centralist.
  I believe you are only truly an adult once you are 18 and can only consent to big decisions then.
  I believe a kid is a kid and while a kid's feelings and thoughts matter, they have no business in adult or mature matters that require experience.
  I also end all be all believe in kindness, live and let live and communication.
  

That is all.

Murphy's law applied to human societies: anything that can be subverted and misused will be subverted and misused by someone.
I'm afraid this pretty much sums up most of human history, especially all attempts at trying to live together in relative peace and equality. It's why education is so important: everyone needs to be able to choose their ideals wisely and engage in civilised discussions where they can be challenged so you can refine them more and more, so you can make a stand for them because eventually you'll have to. Autocrats and would-be autocrats employ trolls and chatbots to disrupt intelligent discussion on the web, because intelligent discussion is the greatest danger to their power.

That's why one thing I'd really like to see being made mandatory everywhere is media competence as a school subject, starting as early as possible. Some countries, like mine, work on it by trying to figure out how to integrate it into other subjects like IT and geography and languages, and while that's much better than nothing, I'm not sure if it's enough.
One of its focal points should be early detection of con artists and trolls, not just on the web but everywhere in public life, and how to call them out. The problem with inflammatory bullshit is it's much easier and faster to produce and often also more listenable and easier to understand than dismantling it with sensible argumentation will ever be. That's where ad hominem strategies might actually have their place even in the repertoire of decent people, as the most effective way to fight bullshit is making those who spread it look ridiculous, while at the same time of course making sure we don't actually target someone innocent who then might be scared to engage in any kind of discussion ever again.

However, if education is underfunded and hollowed out to make it cheaper and to tweak the results, every effort at teaching even the basics of such a delicate skill is undermined.

And then there's still the open question of how to prevent misuse of this new subject, should it ever become reality…

Honestly, most people who go online to argue aren't looking for intellectual stimuli. They aren't looking to get challenged and learn new things. They pick fights to get a fix. They're junkies in a way, because confrontation allows them to get all their frustrations and take it out on strangers without a consequence. They are looking for a bunch of stuff that validates their already established opinions and they argue in hopes of further validation from spectators, while they get to “give someone what they deserve”. You can sometimes disrupt these rituals with calling their arguments out, or by giving them something they don't expect, but I think being stressed out became a daily routine for us and no one really taught us how to manage it. The news, every controversy for more clicks, the traffic jam to work… we've gotten so used to it, that we're kind of addicted and we're ready to take on more and more just to get a temporary relief by making someone else feel miserable. So while I think that healthy debate culture should be a part of education from a young age, I also think that basic self-care and stress management would help a lot. Problem is that everyone socializes online these days and it's just scroll, react, scroll, react, scroll, react, even if a teacher can give a credible example, very few are motivated enough to pay attention, everyone at that age is too busy trying to fit in or rebel.

InkyMoondrop wrote:
Honestly, most people who go online to argue aren't looking for intellectual stimuli. They aren't looking to get challenged and learn new things. They pick fights to get a fix. They're junkies in a way, because confrontation allows them to get all their frustrations and take it out on strangers without a consequence. They are looking for a bunch of stuff that validates their already established opinions and they argue in hopes of further validation from spectators, while they get to “give someone what they deserve”. You can sometimes disrupt these rituals with calling their arguments out, or by giving them something they don't expect, but I think being stressed out became a daily routine for us and no one really taught us how to manage it. The news, every controversy for more clicks, the traffic jam to work… we've gotten so used to it, that we're kind of addicted and we're ready to take on more and more just to get a temporary relief by making someone else feel miserable.

Problem is that everyone socializes online these days and it's just scroll, react, scroll, react, scroll, react, even if a teacher can give a credible example, very few are motivated enough to pay attention, everyone at that age is too busy trying to fit in or rebel.

Ok. There's that. A lot of this is of course caused by the algorithms, which I think played a large role in teaching that behaviour by essentially rewarding it. If I remember my psychology correctly, things once taught can't be untaught, but they can be replaced, and even a rebellious teenager or one anxious to fit in can be slowly eased into a habit of reflecting what they do every once in a while - just don't tell them or use words like self-reflection or anything that sounds like thinking.
I know this works at least to some extent, in fact I've done it again and again and had my share of secret smiles when overhearing one telling another how paying attention to details of what people actually say is, in their own words, a real mega cheat code for everything.
Just don't tell them this isn't entirely their own idea. Nobody wants to feel malleable, even if they are! This is not the conservative grumbling about the decadence of youth and the imminent downfall of civilization that has been around for many centuries longer than this downfall could have possibly taken, it's just a result of the developmental stage of the human brain, which gets rewired during puberty. Picking up things quickly and storing them, even when seeming to ignore them on the outside, made a lot of evolutionary sense in those thousands of years of pre-history when life spans were much shorter, you see.
Planting ideas into someone's head at any age up to 17 or 18 or beyond is really not that hard, and please remember that accepting this idea is not a requirement for it to be stored at the back of one's head anyway.
Since everyone with a bit of training and social skills can do it, it's no wonder all kinds of others with less benevolent intentions do it all the time. Anything that exists will be misused!
Fortunately, most of the time is spent playing games at that age, which at least don't try to promote radical populist parties most of the time.

This is why I'm very much against lowering the voting age to 16 or something. I'd rather see it at age 21 to be on a somewhat more safe side. That however does not mean youths shouldn't get involved in politics. Quite the contrary.

So while I think that healthy debate culture should be a part of education from a young age, I also think that basic self-care and stress management would help a lot.

Absolutely! I'd even say it's a must. Life will not get any less complicated and with all the crises around, we've long passed a point where even grown-ups may get easily overwhelmed.

Direct democracy sounds like a good idea, and good (and secure!) digital infrastructure might make it actually work on larger scales for the first time in human history. Look no further than Estonia, where they use it in balance with a representative democracy and managed to do away with a lot of bureaucratic paperwork that way.
I'd like to see more of what Estonia does in other places. However, I'm not at all sure about direct democracy for different reasons.
Politics are complicated and tiresome. Most topics require reading up on them in order to build an informed opinion. If people get flooded with difficult questions every day, many might cease to pay attention, let alone get the necessary information, and end up not doing anything, leaving the field to a select few nutjobs who do. Oh, some informed people who really care for the topics at hand will remain, too. I'm not saying direct democracy can't work at all on a large scale, but for my taste it relies way too much on a public consisting of homo economicus type model humans: people who always act rationally according to their own interest, and always have all the necessary information to do so. It's good for some basic economic models, but in practice we all already know most people aren't that way. Nearly all the stories we create are based on that fact, if you think about it.
It's a pity, really, because I'd like direct democracy in principle and would be glad not to have to get dozens of dodgy party lines into the bargain of whatever I vote for any more.
However, on balance I have to say I'd still rather put up with politics based on trusting someone I voted for not to be too deficient in the departments of knowledge, intellect and most of all responsibility and honesty.

I'm in favour of some compromises, like the “citizens' councils” project of the German parliament, maybe one of the two or three good ideas they've accidentally had. Everyone can apply to take part and people from as many different backgrounds as possible get chosen by lots and are invited to a non-public moderated meeting where they get tasked with writing a sheet of recommendations for the parliament they can all agree on. We've yet to see if this really does anything good, but the first few tests in participating communities got good feedback by the participants, so communities like Konstanz, where it has been tested first, will be very interesting to watch.

One idea I'd really like to see a trial run of in a region or country brave enough is elections by systemic consensus. Instead of voting for who you want to govern, you get as many votes as you need to mark everyone you don't want to govern at all. Those parties and politicians who get the least “Nay” votes enter the parliament until all the seats are taken. I think this would mirror public opinion much better, especially as it'll get more people to vote, too.

For direct democracy to work there is need for three things: a daily routine that makes it possible for everyone with civil rights to participate without compromising (i.e. without needing to juggle tiredness, free time, and work at the expense of civic duty), a system where citizens are informed objectively and responsibly without being fed lies, and a very solid educational system that will both socialize and educate people to be self-governed, critical thinkers, fact checkers, and able to hold public discourse properly. It would need to be science-centric, would need to teach where one can compromise and where one can't, delayed gratitifaction, and a ton more soft skills I won't list here because it'll take a lot of forum space XD

What we're witnessing in our system and in our times is a (probably) coordinated attempt to de-educate people or keep them uneducated, which makes them vulnerable to sophistries, conspiracy theories, and unable to use the scientific process to navigate a world of overwhelming information. Coupled with a culture of intimidation, fear, and aggression, a general tolerance of ‘relative truth’ (as in facts, rather than opinions, being relative and being allowed to dismiss facts to maintain an opinion) you get a portion of society that will a) follow strongmen and engage in cultish behavior and b) be easily fooled into one direction or the other.

That said, of course there are issues where you will need self-governance to rely on the word of experts, and with an understanding that science will constantly amend findings as more facts are discovered and theories are disproved or proven. That's okay. That's where representation comes in, but not to have someone make decisions for you, but someone to popularize what options there are in any given issue, the pros and cons, and how each option was reached. Then the sum of the governing body (i.e. every adult with civil rights) will make an informed decision about what option to pick.

And here's the most important thing that would vastly improve governance even in representative democracy and would be necessary in direct: revoking/amending decisions.

If people were able to revoke their mandate from a political party/government/ or in the case of direct democracy, from a given decision in favor of another, then there wouldn't be carte blanche for anyone. Voting to remove someone from office early should have been in-built every system that wants to call itself a democracy of any kind: if discontent is agreed upon say by a 30/35% of the voters, then snap elections should be called to remove the government from office rather than wait for them to recuse themselves or for their term to end.

That kind of option immediately would change the way politics are handled.

Personally, I don't think that ‘voting for the lesser evil’ (as in voting for someone who won't totally flub it or won't totally lie to his/her voters) is viable. It's the wrong place to compromise. It's the reason why we're stuck with the same families, the same parties, and the same terrible policies and the politician approach of being tolerated as the lesser evil rather than voted for as the right solution for peoples' daily lives.