u/EmperorImBored

I've heard it's very rare for the international university to deny applicants but how rare is it for the university itself to deny an application for study abroad? I meet all the requirements for the program.

Like I can't lie I was skeptical of Platner from the beginning- not really for the reasons many put out at the time (lack of education, experience, etc.) but because his combination of gruff working class performance and leftist politics felt manufactured as hell. It was an identity that so many on the left believe is ideal, including Big A, who was extremely early to the Platner train, to the point where his actual character seemed irrelevant. His background from day 2 was always in question, his judgement was in question from the Nazi tattoo story, he comes from a wealthy family not a working class one- his entire political identity feels placed together to create some kind of candidate that doesn't ordinarily exist. The truth is, imo, that there are relatively few populist tough talking noneducated committed democrats and leftists in America- I've literally never met one- it's close to a fiction of what many progressives imagine a left leaning movement could be than a reflection of what it is- and that means there's probably some quirk of personality that would cause someone to be of this identity. Seems like for Platner it was a self-centeredness combined with a belief in the brokenness of the entire system (this is in contrast to maga which often believes pretty strongly in parts of the system, which is something usually not taken seriously enough). Big A is a standard moderate liberal from California, I've met 1,000 atriocs in my life- I live in Wisconsin: there is no movement of dark woke gruff working class leftists waiting to support democrats. Not in middle America. I think it's hubris the next political endorsement atrioc is working on in the Wisconsin district he's talked about. Wisconsin is a very different place than he's imagining- we've had fights about unions for a long time. The democratic candidate there is nothing special, just because he has the working class bona fides we imagine the democrats need doesn't mean that actually is a winning message in Wisconsin where that has been a picture democrats have painted of themselves for generations. It's so much more complicated than that and I think we can get caught up in the fantasy. Platner imo showed that as people constantly overlooked serious qualms of judgment (not every controversy against him, but many of them) because they believed in a romantic novel savage vision of rural decision making.

What if in exchange for shorter sentences, some convicts pay additional percentages on their income tax bracket for a few years (1-5)? This funding can go toward restitution or just general funds, though hopefully not prisons or police themselves as to encourage a cycle of overpolicing. Seems like an income-conscious and not incredibly overburdening way (compared to additional incarceration) to repay society for ills. What does everyone think?

Obviously since the coinage of the term and in the modern day the dynamic is quite different, but I would like to get a sense of the history here! It's a common trope to hear that these identities (where they existed) were revered more so than the typical man/woman identities would be- and I'll be honest that I'm skeptical this is true in every circumstance. Is that trope correct?

The idea that there is only a limited amount of resources available to a people when building a state is inaccurate, because inputs compound on each other, education leads to the ability to more science and build better infrastructure and hold a more helpful participatory democracy- and governments do not have to choose between welfare and skillful diplomacy. To imply that these are limited functions is to imply that certain countries cannot attain certain qualities of life because of limited government resources. For example, the conservative insistence that we must invest heavily in the military and that role is why we cannot have healthcare/welfare is not true, because we can obviously have both (even though I disagree that we should) and further investments do not put a drag on the whole system they actually support it. Infrastructure allows mobility of workers which helps businesses like subsidies would etc. It's a bizarre exercise that wasn't even a particularly good statement of values, and implies that states have to make sacrifices between these things when most often they do not.

Just trying to keep everyone stressed that's all.

I know that anti-slavery movements on the basis of human equality are strictly a modern development, and not necessarily a universal viewpoint, but do we know of any pre-modern societies where a significant contingent truly viewed all people with equal meaning in theory or practice, including foreigners or lower castes?

To be clear I'm not talking about customers screaming at employees or commenters getting bothering creators of free entertainment about making more, or especially people who demand romantic relationships out of people who don't want them- those are obviously people acting as entitled. I'm talking about other scenarios, like businesses selling incomplete products and people being mad about it or patrons of creators politely asking that creator to make more (that's literally what they're paying for), or people getting frustrated with friends over not showing up for important moments in their lives- these things are not people being entitled for something reasonable or that they have a direct stake in.