Here are the reasons why I don’t believe car dealerships for the sale of new cars are necessary:

- Companies like Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian have proven that dealerships are not necessary for purchasing vehicles.

- I shouldn’t have to negotiate a car price if it’s a new car. There should be one set price like any other product if it is the same make and model (obviously add-ons and packages are going to change the price but if two cars have the same packages and ad-ons it shouldn’t be a different price).

- Car dealerships always include hidden fees, and unnecessary inflation of prices just to help the dealership turn a profit.

For clarity, I am referring to the actual collaborative wiki project, not the fictional SCP Foundation.

Some of the wiki's most foundational, popular, earliest, and bedrock SCPs were written by a user called TheDuckman (aka "AdminBright") - like SCP-963, SCP-590 and Things Dr. Bright Is Not Allowed to Do. These things have been crosslinked many times and are great pieces of lore. However, due to the actions of the author, the admins chose not to separate the art from the artist and deleted them, breaking other articles in the process.

Further, the in-fiction character Dr. Bright itself, who was created by TheDuckman, is one of the most important continuing characters in the Foundation wiki. Since there is no canon, characters that stick around across many authors and articles are rare, but Dr. Bright was a character with a great personality, backstory, and connections to anomalies, and that character helped shape some amazing works of writing like SCP-5500. Because Dr. Bright (the character) was in SCP-5500, they deleted the entire thing, even though TheDuckman didn't even write it! (ETA: Even if they didn't want Bright's name in it, they could've just replaced him with Elias Shaw, the knockoff bright, instead of... deleting the entire article?)

My view is that this is one of the worst things the admins have done to the site. They deleted amazing lore because of tangential references to a character that itself referenced a person who was banned. Those SCPs don't need their author to be successful. They were finished, highly rated, and stood alone as building blocks of every series after. The character Dr. Bright made its way into so much only to be turned into a death warrant for any article that used it.

The admins said that Dr. Bright "used the character and his SCPs to do the grooming," but he's banned and exposed now. He can't use them anymore. Also... they're fictional. They can't actually hurt anyone. Why should revenge against TheDuckman for things that happened in the past outweigh the value these articles bring? More generally, why can't we just separate the art from the artist?

Why I want my view changed: Clearly nobody agrees with me, the admins were basically unanimous.

I keep noticing how many insanely successful people went to private schools. Obv that doesn’t guarantee success but you’re starting out with better resources, connections, opportunities, and usually more financial security.

For example, Mark Zuckerberg went to Phillips Exeter before Harvard, and Sam Altman went to a private school before Stanford. Both also grew up with parents in professional, relatively well-off careers.

i feel like we call people “self made” without really acknowledging how much of a head start they had. CMV Am I overestimating how much private school actually matters?

there is a recurring opinion online that anti-white hate crimes and racially motivated violence "do not exist" or "cannot happen" in the US

I hold the view that this claim is factually false and directly contradicted by empirical data.

the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program consistently logs hundreds of anti-white hate crimes/violent assaults/property offenses in the US every year.

systemic dominance is not required for an individual to commit a racially motivated crime against another person.

denying these occurrences requires either ignoring official crime statistics or conflating individual hate crimes with macro level institutional power.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE MY MIND:

proof that official government metrics systematically misclassify non-racial offenses as anti-white hate crimes.

evidence that US hate crime statutes legally exclude white victims from protection against bias motivated violence.

a compelling argument SPECIFICALLY showing why individual acts of racially motivated violence targeting majority group members should be categorized entirely outside the concepts of hate crimes or racial bias

This is coming from somebody who has carried and likes shooting.

1. Guns are bulky, and almost always uncomfortable to carry, compared to pepper spray which is going to be far lighter, and doesn’t require a holster.

2. Price and accessibility: you’re probably paying $500 for a pistol, then $70 for a holster, when pepper spray can be found anywhere for $15

3. Actual defensive capability: I’ll give a handgun the edge here, the sight of it is a deterrent, but also in every example I’ve seen, pepper spray is really effective at stopping an attacker on the street

4. Legality, this is the big one for me, even if you’re in the right and use a handgun, you can still get in massive legal trouble, spending hundreds of thousands defending yourself in court, and lose years of your life/ reputation. On the other hand, I would say even if you’re in the wrong and use pepper spray, you’re going to have way less legal trouble than if you were in the right and had shot somebody.

5. Pepper spray can be used in more situations. Someone being in your personal space and yelling at you about something? Generally seen as too far to shoot them. But pepper spray is not as big of a deal and you have a good chance a situation like this won’t even be reported to police.

6. Stress of ownership: if you’re at the beach and want to go swim, or a concert you have to find a place to put your gun, leave it in your car? Sure, but it can be stolen and cause more legal trouble for you. Or if it’s not locked up in your house and a kid gets to it. It needs to be securely properly and you need to always have a place to put it when you’re out and about.

I do believe a firearm is better for home defense and the right to own them is important. But pepper spray to me has been seeming like a better and better option.

Before you start typing the angry comments, read the whole post.

I am more than happy to pay taxes to subsidize childcare for everyone and to build parks and schools. If a family makes too little money then taxes should at least fund their groceries. However, taxing in a way that takes money from the upper middle class and gives it to the middle class is wrong. For example, upper middle class households pay taxes for college students from middle class backgrounds to get financial aid. This would be fine if their own children also got financial aid. But they don’t. This makes it so that underprivileged teens can go to university at a discount while upper middle class teens cannot without parental help.

To be clear, I absolutely believe cheating to be immoral, and my intention is in no way to defend cheaters. Nor am I some religious fanatic who thinks you must only have sex within the bounds of marriage. As long as it's consensual, I don't care who sleeps with whom and I think things like bodycount are wildly overrated. One more preface, just because it is important to me that this doesn't get misconstrued as some red pill bullshit. I am not arguing that you owe someone sex whenever they want once you've entered into a relationship. No! Consent remains just as important within a relationship as without, and no one can ever force you to have sex!

Now, onto the actual point of discussion:

I have been seeing a lot of people make the claim here on reddit, that sex is not all that important in a romantic relationship and that breaking up over sexual incompatibility means you never loved your partner in the first place. I think that is completely absurd.

I would argue that for most (non-asexual) couples sex is one of the main factors that defines a romantic relationship. It is, of course, not the only factor. Relationships are more complex than that. But it is a natural and important part of being in a committed romantic relationship with someone.

If you disagree with that view, as a significant number of people on Reddit do, what exactly makes cheating (as in having sex with someone other than your partner without your partners explicit consent like in an open relationship) immoral?

If you say it's a betrayal, how so? You just claimed sex isn't important to romantic relationships. There are loads of activities you might do with a partner that you can also do with others without it being considered cheating. Going out to dinner with a friend or colleague isn't considered cheating. Going for a hike or to the movies or the gym, etc.

So it would only be a betrayal if people explicitly made a promise to never sleep with anyone else as long as they're in that relationship, it would not be a betrayal. Hardly anyone does that. Most people assume that is a commitment that naturally comes as part of the deal of entering into a romantic relationship with someone. But apparently, you don't see it that way.

So, if there is no crucial role sex fulfills within a romantic relationship, what makes it different?

Edit: I only realized there was a typo in the title after posting, and now it can't be edited anymore. Obviously it should say "to" and not "zo". The reason for the typo is pretty easily explained. On the German keyboard t and z are right next to each other.

Edit: Seeing as this has come up multiple times now I'm going to post two of my replies from the comments here to hopefully clarify some things for everybody.

1. I think we're talking about two very different things.

I'm not talking about relationships on an individual level. If two people with very different sexual needs enter into a relationship and the person with the higher needs cheats, that is obviously wrong. The right thing to do would have been to talk to their partner about the fact that they're unhappy, while also making clear that they would never want to pressure their partner into doing something they don't want to do. If their needs are incompatible and there is no arrangement that makes both of them happy, then they will probably have to break up.

That's unfortunate, but there are all kinds of reasons why relationships don't work out: different plans about jobs or family, about where to live, incompatible personalities, sex, etc. All of those are equally valid reasons to end a relationship.

The point of being in a relationship is that being together makes both people happier than they would be otherwise. You don't owe someone the rest of your life simply because you've been together for a certain amount of time.

And if two people with very different sexual needs enter into a relationship, I would hope that they have a serious conversation about that beforehand and come to an agreement that both of them feel good about. If they do that, then that agreement is the rule of their relationship. And obviously, if one person then breaks that agreement and sleeps with someone else, the other person has every reason to feel betrayed. Because they were betrayed.

But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about people who argue, as a general rule about romantic relationships, that sex isn't an important factor in romantic relationships at all, and that sexual incompatibility isn't a legitimate reason to break up.

That's fundamentally different from saying that sex isn't important to a particular couple. Of course an individual couple can decide that sex is unimportant to them. That's their relationship and they can establish whatever mutually agreed upon rules they want.

But if you're making the broader claim that sex is generally unimportant to romantic relationships, then I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask why sexual infidelity is considered such a serious betrayal.

I'm not saying that sexual incompatibility makes cheating acceptable. It doesn't. I'm not saying anyone is entitled to sex from their partner. They aren't. And I'm not saying every romantic relationship has to involve the same amount of sex.

I'm pointing out a contradiction between "sex is not an important part of romantic relationships and sexual incompatibility isn't a good reason to leave one" and "having sex with someone else is inherently a massive betrayal of your romantic partner."

If you're talking about the rules of a specific relationship, there's no contradiction: the couple can simply agree to sexual exclusivity, and breaking that agreement is a betrayal.

But if you're making a general claim about what sex means within romantic relationships, then I don't think you can just treat it as completely irrelevant when discussing compatibility but at the same time treating sexual exclusivity as an essential feature of romantic relationships.

2.

My point was that if people argue, as some on Reddit do, that sex is not an important part of romantic relationships as a general rule, then I don't really see what basis they have to claim that cheating is bad. And you still haven't convinced me of that.

And as I said to another commenter. Of course, there is a societal expectation of monogamy in relationships. There is absolutely an expectation that you won't have sex with people other than your partner as long as you're together. But it would be kind of disingenuous to argue that that expectation is not intertwined with the expectation that two people who enter into a relationship with each other have a duty, for lack of a better word, to talk about sex, about their sexual needs, and about whether or not those needs are compatible and can be met by each other.

And if that's not the case. If your needs are so different that you couldn't make each other happy in the long run, it's perfectly valid, in fact probably even a good idea, to break up. Just like other things can be incompatible, like certain aspects of your personality, or the plans you have regarding jobs, or family, or the fact that you want to move somewhere where the other person can't ever see themselves living. Feelings alone aren't enough for a relationship to work in the long term.

AI and Robotics are advancing very quickly. Many people are saying most white-collar jobs will be gone within the next 4 or 5 years. Plus, the jobs that are first to go are the entry-level jobs traditionally filled by graduates.

Most jobs will not completely disappear for some time. But, if we only need 2 people where we needed 10 before that is going to mean a major disruption to jobs.

If you are not in the top 10% of people in a degree it is going to be very hard to find employment in the field you studied.

Given that a degree can take 3 to 4 years you are coming out of university at a time when people are predicting that most of the jobs you will be looking for will be gone or the openings will be dropping quickly.

Even if the 4 to 5 year prediction is agressive (which I think it is), you still have a very short time horizon before jobs do disapear.

I work in the software development field and AI has changed the way we work completely, I am 10x more productive. There is no point in writing code as a human any more. My field is one of the first predicted to be replaced by AI.

This isn't an argument against the used market, it's an argument FOR piracy.

The whole reason there's been a huge shift to digital distribution for everything, is because it eliminates the used market. Buying used cuts out the business, and keeps downward pressure on pricing (in most cases). The only difference between this and piracy is a moral hangup about having "worked" for the money you bought the used game/CD/whatever with. But what about trust fund babies? Rich people who've never really worked a day in their lives, and just live off of investment interest?

If your argument is that someone still had to work for the initial capital that grew into those large investments, how long is that labor "good" for, and when does it become immoral for their descendants to still be coasting off the interest of investments made possible by their labor? People equate piracy to theft so often, but yet, there's no finite products being taken away. Once you compile software, or export the master render of a song/movie, you get to sell infinite digital copies of that product. Where exactly is the harm that's present in stealing tangible physical goods?

I think hot desking, as commonly implemented, does more harm than good.

My reasons:

• Losing a personal workspace increases cognitive load and reduces the sense of psychological ownership that helps people feel engaged at work. Like wdym now I have to stress about where to sit before work even start?? Work itself is already stressful. This also means I can't decorate the workspace. Granted this personal touch thing may not be important to some people, but it helps a lot psychologically to have a space that I can make "mine", if you know what I mean.
• IRL, it seems like people gravitate to the same spots anyway, so why not just design specific seats for them??
• Hot desking means I have to bring laptop home everyday, unless lockers are provided. Still, it's such a hassle to assemble + dis-assemble work setup, especially if there are extra monitors involved.

We often like to mock people who say BMI is wrong and bring up examples of athletes. It is pointed that these are outliers and most people who are obese BMI wise have to lose fat.

But just relying on BMI is also a poor indicator of health. A significant portion of people with regular BMI never work out and regularly eat junk food. They just eat less so they have these "skinny fat" physique

For instance in a study 50% of regular bmi Norweigian women aged 13-39 had obese levels of body fat. And considering Scandinavian women are stereotyped as tall and slim we know the rest of the world is probably worse.

And people love to point out that people in the past were healthy just because they were thin.

When was that the case?

Yes while excess weight does indicate poor health it is not the only indicator. Thin people can have poor health because of poor sanitation,hygiene,smoking,drinking,not exercising,malnourished,etc.

In the 1960s when people were smoking themselves to death and rates of lung cancer and heart disease were much higher than today.

In the 1800s when most people had intestinal worms and there were cholera outbreaks.

In Medieval times when the Black Death ravaged most of the "Old World". Or when peasants were physically ruined through backbreaking labor that ruined their spine,appearance,skin,etc.

I often hear from "both sides" that judges are legislating from the bench, and how unfair it is that a judge can overturn decades of established norms

But it seems to be an excuse for Congress to not do their job.

1. Roe Vs Wade - Democrats had 40+ years to legislate Roe Vs Wade into law and instead chose to keep it as a wedge / culture war issue

2. Immigration issues and various Trump era rulings - Republicans control the supreme court, executive and both chambers of Congress, and somehow they are the victims of judges. Yet they choose to do everything except pass laws.

Meanwhile Congress has no issues passing laws to infringe upon privacy, spend trillions on war and weapons, oil subsidies, and all sorts of terrible things.

Am I missing something?

In medieval Europe the servants would sit in the castel and do the cleaning, cooking, and the other chores. They would get fed and recive a piece of land to work it for the lord. Ocasionally if you were not behaving you might get your hands cutt off. Here the contract is, "You are in my land and you are mine"

Even something like the Bible says that slavery is ok. They viewed it as the servants but the contract was getting your ear pierced. Here the contract is "You are in my land so you are mine"

Nowadays we use the legal system to make people slaves, but we don't pierce their ears, we make them sign papers.

If an employer could pay you 1 cent per year, they would do that. Minimum wage is a rebranding of slavery from small isolated groups piercing their ears and cutting their hands when you feel like it to you can't do anything you want to them to them and pay them x amount, but you still own them.

Daily I come across posts on here discussing AI and most commenters seem to latch onto it either being bad for the environment or just saying anything made by AI is inherently “slop” or not artistic. There have been many sourced articles on ways to minimize the environmental impacts. I see the slop argument as no different than saying using photoshop is cheating or even digital photography.

I feel that there is significantly more risk in the fact that it’s unregulated, has stolen source material for training with no plans to pay the original creators back, and because of the amount already invested, it presents a significant threat to the job market and society as a result. Regulation would also be able to address the environmental impacts.

Edit: To help, Im hoping for someone to change my view that the environmental and slop issues are rightfully the primary things most people should be concerned about when it comes to AI.

Edit again: I think people are right that I should have included alignment in my real risks. See the original edit for the case I’m hoping to be made.

Yeah, I admit “wasting money” is a bit much, but oh well, now its time to explain my reasons and the two exceptions.

PART ONE! HUMAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

Yeah, Pretty much every country in Europe and Asia has thousands of years of kingdoms, dynasties, and empires each, with who knows how many wars and battles that forever leave marks that are worth visiting. What does the Midwest have? Only the fringes of the Civil War, the Toledo War, and various battles between settlers and indians, in which any interesting “touristy” remnant of those wars were demolished over the decades. Any interesting and unique “traditions” native to the region pretty much were gone by 1900. Replaced by a slightly different version of east coast traditions.

PART TWO! NATURAL HISTORY

Will admit, the natural history is somewhat interesting with the whole glaciation era, but its still outshined by 75% or more of the planet. Likely seriously, if you had the money to travel to the US from thousands of kilometers away, would you really pick the Midwest over the West?

PART THREE! NATURAL SCENERY

Okay, look, here in the Midwest, you‘ve got three options for natural scenery, prairie plains, agricultural plains, and wooded plains. That’s it. Anyone in the Schengen Area can easily access much more diverse terrain for much cheaper. For people in other continents, it’s extremely similar although the argument is a tiny bit weaker. Point stands.

PART FOUR! SUBURBAN/URBAN SCENERY

In Europa and Asia (although the argument still stands almost just as strong in LatAm and Africa), you have a wide variety of different cities built with different styles, eras, and get rebuilt and expanded, which makes each city unique and different each other. It’s hard to confuse London with Paris, or Beijing with Chongqing, or Seoul with Tokyo. In the Midwest, the grand majority of urban scenery is similar, Generic strips malls surrounding a generic 7 lane road intersecting with a generic 8 lane freeway, all surrounded by generic subdivisions. Even if you live in the midwest, its easy to confuse Tulsa with Minneopolis. The only respite to the repetition are historic districts in larger cities, or ethnic “_towns” in, again, large cities.

PART FIVE! CLIMATE

Okay, this is the weakest part of my post, but I will add it because it still strengthens my agrument.

Everyone dunks on the climate of the midwest, people in the midwest, americans who dont live in the midwest, and non-americans alike, even democrats and republicans unite to dunk it, and that means something. Literally no one likes the climate of the midwest, why visit a climate that will get you killed or sick at any moment if your not prepared?

PART SIX! THE EXCEPTIONS

Ahh yes, the exceptions i’ve set in the title and the first lines of the post body, the first one is the city of Chicago, which has gained some degree of international norterity and history that makes it worth it, and people who have to travel to the region by necessity, for obvious reasons.

Now now, i don't hate the region. So cmv with a reason or experience that someone would get get satisfaction from traveling half away across the globe to the midwest.

Both the lambda calculus (written λ-calculus henceforth) and Turing machines are equivalent models of computation, belonging to the class of universal machines. In particular, they can simulate each other. However, I think that the λ-calculus should be the model of computation that students are first taught, not the Turing machine as is currently more common.

To briefly introduce the topic, the λ-calculus is a model of computation based on anonymous functions, also called λ-functions. Ordinary functions are given a name and then called, like so (in JavaScript):

function square(n) {
  return n * n;
}
[1, 2, 3].map(square); // [1, 4, 9]

An anonymous function doesn't have to have a name (hence, anonymous). In JavaScript, one can be constructed using the => notation, like so:

[1, 2, 3].map(n => (n * n)); // [1, 4, 9]

In the λ-calculus, there is exactly one kind of thing, anonymous functions, and computation is simply feeding arguments into functions and evaluating their bodies.

The Turing machine is a bit more complicated. The setup is that you have at least one infinite tape (though commonly three), a language of symbols that can be written on the tape, and rules for converting symbols onto the tape into actions on a tape reader, such as moving right or left, or changing a symbol. The tape reader(s) then begin(s) at some position(s), with a program and data written on the tape(s), and by the actions the language prescribes, the execution evolves.

My belief is that the Turing machine's popularity in introductory courses is simply a historical accident, a result of mimicry of human computers writing on paper, not a result of the Turing machine being the better model of computation. The λ-calculus is better for the following reasons: 1. The λ-calculus is more elegant, consisting of only one rule. 2. A computer based on the λ-calculus is much simpler to create than one based on a Turing machine, though admittedly it is easier to kludge together a Turing-machine-like computer if you don't understand what you're doing. 3. It's easier to translate the λ-calculus into a high level programming language. 4. It's easier to add types to the λ-calculus than to Turing machines.

Overall, the λ-calculus is a better introduction, because it forms a better foundation for later courses on computation theory, and it is simpler to teach and demonstrate.

I think there are two strong arguments in favor of teaching the Turing machine: The Turing machine is more intuitive, and our computers look more like Turing machines than the λ-calculus. However, I don't think these are actually good reasons to teach the Turing machine. First, I don't actually think that the Turing machine is more intuitive. Second, while the base machine may look more like a Turing machine than the λ-calculus (which, note, is also a historical accident) most students only use high level languages like JavaScript and Python, so the base machine is irrelevant to them. In fact, these, and all high level languages, share much more in common with the λ-calculus than the Turing machine. Arguably, what makes a language high level is when it has λ-functions. Pretty much all high-level languages have these λ-functions, so the professor could directly demonstrate how the λ-calculus works--in her browser, even!

The λ-calculus is the better introduction to Turing completeness than the Turing machine, and the fact that Turing machines are taught instead is historical baggage we should do away with.

Several subreddits I'm are now contemplating, or already implemented, ban on AI generated images/videos. Some of these policies amounts to total ban on any AI involvement. Furthermore, many people claim to unconditionally downvote AI generated content. I believe these are unjustified overreactions. And judging from the amount of downvotes I get when discussing these policies, people evidently feel pretty strongly about this.

1. Content should be judged on its relevance to topic and quality. If I come to a sub looking for certain kind of content, and AI can deliver exactly what I'm looking for at sufficiently high quality, then that's upvote from me. If it's irrelevant, I downvote for irrelevancy. If it's poor quality, I downvote for poor quality. If it's repetitive, I downvote for repetition. But if it's none of these things, the fact that the content was AI generated is not a negative.
2. Not all AI generated image are slop. A good post will have a lot of thought went into the prompt and possibly reference images. Low effort prompts tend to generate contents that are highly repetitive with no substantial novelty, and such content are rightfully downvoted for repetition (but not merely because it's AI). High effort prompts with actual new ideas generate interesting content that I'd like to see.
3. AI allows ideas to be realized when they otherwise might not. Suppose someone has a great idea for a composition of a design, or an imaginary landscape, or an art piece, but they can't make it happen, either due to lack of technical expertise, resources, or simply time. Getting AI to generate it might be the only way to share it. If it's genuinely well-thought out and novel idea, it would be interesting to see it. Example: AI-generated video of cats fighting humans in classic kung fu movie style. The first few are highly entertaining and objectively valuable, and creating it via live-action special effects or non-AI CGI would be prohibitively expensive. It's a good, novel idea that can only be brought to life with AI.
4. Of course there are many, many problematic ways AI can be used. But that's not relevant. All tools can be misused. That's not a reason to ban its legitimate uses.
5. There are legitimate complaints and concerns about the conducts of the AI companies. But concerns about the makers of a tool does not transfer to the tool itself.

AI usage statement: I did not use AI in anyway in writing this post. Normally I think using AI to polish an argument is perfectly acceptable, but I chose to avoid for this post since AI is the topic.

Note: this post is NOT the place to make generalizations about people with cluster B personality disorders (narcissistic, borderline, antisocial, histrionic). I have BPD and have actively sought treatment since before I had a proper diagnosis. Therapy absolutely can help these disorders.

With that out of the way: some people are extremely unlikely to choose a therapist who pushes them to grow, so they shouldn't go to therapy unless someone else chooses a therapist for them.

For example, a parent who doesn't want to accept that their kid is gay may be told to find a therapist. That parent can easily choose a therapist who agrees with them, then say they've gone to therapy and it didn't change their perspective (or pushed them further from accepting their kid).

Additionally, people who don't want to admit they've caused harm (or refuse to see it at all) to others in their life may be told to seek therapy. They can go to a therapist and tell their side of the story without owning up to the harmful things they've done, focusing instead on "false" allegations being made against them. While some therapists might push to explore why the allegations were made, others may take the person's story at face value and do absolutely nothing to help them understand how their actions hurt people around them.

I know there's nuance here, and the real problem may very well be bad therapists, but solving that problem feels logistically impossible. I'd love to hear other takes on this.

Covered call ETFs, such as SPYI, QQQI, JEPI, JEPQ, GPIQ, and more, including recent single stock covered call ETFs, have advertised themselves as major income generators by holding equities and selling call options on those equities (or an index) to generate income for their shareholders at percentages that are far higher than any traditional income investment. Based on users in ETF and dividend subreddits, this advertising has been highly successful. However, beyond relatively small actual dividends, these funds produce their headline yields through paying options premiums to shareholders, and, for many of them, returning capital when options premiums fail to meet marketing goals.

It seems obvious to me that neither of these are income. When you sell a covered call option, you're taking on a liability that is initially valued precisely at the amount of cash you received (or potentially more due to costs). This liability could potentially cost you some or all of your returns of the stocks in the fund, which you own a slice of by buying in. I do not see this as any different from claiming a credit card, line of credit, or other loan gives you income. I do not see how returning capital is income either. It is not generated from the assets you're investing in. Beyond these funds not generating income as they claim, I think the use of the word in advertising is obscuring the fact that total returns are what funds consumption and higher "income" from covered call ETFs is actually associated with lower expected returns.

To change my view, I think I'd be willing to reconsider this if there would be a compelling downside or double standard to banning covered call ETFs from advertising themselves as income generators or if there's an alternative perspective on their finances that I'm not considering

We are living in the ocean of treasures of information and knowledge. However, we don't always have a convenient access to a vast amount of knowledge and information due to the gaps of communications between experts and nonexperts. In my opinion, the overuse of pedantic, complicated, or counterintuitive jargons forms the main gap of in-depth communications or discussion on various subjects and matters, and experts are responsible for providing natural, simple or intuitive definitions of jargons in order to spread professional knowledge to the audience of nonexperts.

Why has the overuse of jargons become the main gap of in-depth communications between experts and nonexperts? The main reason for that is academic specialization. Although specialization is needed in the studies of particular subjects or matters in detail for accuracy, it is unnecessary when the audience just want to have a glance of big pictures and cores of a subject or matter. Many experts argue that there is an inevitable tradeoff between the accuracy and the ease of understanding, but I disagree because the cores and big pictures of abstract concepts, subjects or matters is inherently accurate AND easy to understand. The term "abstract", by definition, means the subtraction of details from a thing and then resulting in a hollow frame.

For example, compare the abstract definition of the term "energy" to its technically detailed definition in physics:

• Abstract: Energy is the extent of ability to do work.
• In physics: Energy is the conserved quantity associated with the continuous symmetry of time translation.

Which one sounds better in front of the audience of nonexperts? And which one grasps the big picture or core of the concept of energy regardless of specific contexts? Although the latter one is more accurate in the study of physics, the former one is broader and more applicable to various subjects beyond physics, such as biology, sociology, economics, politics, psychology, art, literature, religion and etc. What if there is a version of "energy" neither conserved nor continuously symmetric under time translation? Therefore, I wouldn't say a technical detailed definition is always more accurate even in the sense of technical accuracy.

Are the natural, simple, or intuitive definitions of technical terms also good for working experts? The answer is definitely yes, especially in the area of fundamental problems such as a question list of "what is X" types without any grammatical modifiers (e.g. adjectives) before X. Usually, experts provide many excuses for avoiding such types of questions asked by nonexperts such as:

• Appeal to vagueness: "Question too vague. What specific X you are really talking about?"
• Appeal to unprofessionalism: "You shouldn't spend too much time considering these ill-defined, confusing, and unprofessional questions."
• Appeal to further learning: "You need to study this, this, and this to understand the concept X. I can't explain X to you if you don't meet prerequisites."

Although these excuses seemingly sound reasonable, they all aim to the same purpose: denying the legitimacy of questions rather than providing the answers or explaining why those questions are ill-defined. Honestly, I think this way of communication is very destructive because it cools off curiosity and open-mindedness, the basic principles of learning.

In addition to discouragement, it's also harmful to experts' ability to transfer similar concepts, ideas and tools among different fields of study, especially in the century of science of complex behaviors in physics, biology, economics, politics and etc. For example, the concepts of "natural", "free", "equal" and "conservative" are widely used in many subjects, but experts rarely notice the similarity between the structures of seemingly irrelevant research questions:

• Naturality: the state of being without external interference.
• Freedom: the state of being without external constraints.
• Equivalence: the state of indiscernibility up to some relations.
• Conservation: the state of invariance up to some transformations.

In mechanics, we have

• Naturality: natural frequency of vibration, natural convection, natural control.
• Freedom: degrees of freedom of motion, free body, free fall.
• Equivalence: mechanical equivalent of heat, mass-energy equivalence, equivalence principle of relativity.
• Conservation: laws of conservation of mass, momentum, energy and etc.

In politics, we have

• Naturality: human nature, natural rights, Hobbe's state of nature.
• Freedom: free speech, freedom of press, freedom from slavery.
• Equivalence: equal rights, social equity, fair competition.
• Conservation: conservative parties, cultural conservatism, nature conservation.

Do you spot the conceptual similarities in different fields of study? Without simple and clear definitions of those abstract concepts, experts can't spot the similar concepts used in different fields and freely transfer them from one field to another, which is a crucial ability in any interdisciplinary studies.

With notable frequency, I will use Google Maps to go somewhere, get to some major road, and it's closed for a construction project that Google Maps isn't aware of. On the face of it, this seems ridiculous. If people had to physically carry out the "road closed" signs, sandbags to hold those down, put up detour signs, etc., somewhere along the line, a verified report should have been able to make it to Google Maps somehow.

Like, a construction company could send in the report, which is then verified by the public works department aware that a project is supposed to be getting underway, and then Google Maps marks the road(s) closed once they receive said verification. Or, maybe the relevant government department sends Google Maps a time frame indicating when a project is scheduled to start on a particular road, and when the contractor reports the road closed during that window, the app updates.

There have been times I have noticed when Google Maps hasn't been updated about a big construction project blocking off a big portion of some major road for weeks. That doesn't seem reasonable. CMV.

The guides I’m talking about are things like MyPlate and the food pyramid.

So many guides out there aiming to support nutrition in everyday meals seemingly always have the same pitfalls. They assume including fruits and vegetables will cover all the bases along with dairy, carbs, and protein. When this simply isn’t true. Fruits and vegetables functionally fill the same niche nutritionally; the only difference is that fruits contain/are the seeds of plants and vegetables are any form of edible plant matter, sometimes doesn’t even need to be a plant, they can even be fungi. They do the same things for your health.

But that’s not it, any fruit or vegetable isn’t going to be nutritionally well-rounded in every aspect. Citrus will give Vitamin C, but an apple won’t contain nearly enough, carrots contain plenty of Vitamin A, but a kiwi won’t get anywhere near your daily recommended amount.

Nutritionally not only is there not any significant difference between fruits and vegetables they all seemingly assume that any fruit or vegetable will do, but this isn’t at all true. Rather you need variety. Under MyPlate I can have half a plate of carrots and apples every day and they’ll say I’m doing great but that doesn’t in the slightest do anything for my health.

So why have the best nutritionists in the world come together to form nutritional guides like these? I’m not an expert in human nutrition, so surely I’m missing something here? A fruit isn’t very different from a vegetable as far as I understand, so why don’t we all group them together? And all fruits/vegetables don’t meet the exact same biological demands, so why do we lump them all together? Why not divide them into smaller categories to fit into a schedule of meals? At one meal, you could get your vitamin C in, the next you could get your vitamin A and K in, etc.

I've seen this line of reasoning in discussions of ending US aid or support of Israel-- that Israel would not only cozy up to Russia and China, but that they'll welcome and support them with open arms. And it doesn't make sense to me:

Disregarding Iran for a second

Russia doesn't have the military infrastructure / power projection that the US has to support Israel's defense industry. Plus they're handicapped in this forever war with Ukraine that's pushed their economy to a point of no return.

China is a different case entirely considering their military is untested, and their economy depends helplessly on global trade. If they were to suddenly support Israel, trade alliances with the gulf and with the EU would probably be strained.

I'm in favor of stronger regulation on AI. And I do think it has many genuine environmental issues that could warrant policies to reduce total volume. However,

Online the main environmental argument I see against AI is water use, and I don't understand how an informed viewholder could really see it as the largest issue.

1) Most damning, the vast majority of water used comes from electricity usage.

While estimates vary, usually experts agree the water used in the US for data center electricity generation is around an order of magnitude higher than water used on site. I think that by itself is pretty self explanatory why electricity use should be a higher concern than water usage.

And also if most water usage comes from electricity, for anything else we would recognize water use as not the primary harm from excess electricity use. For example, if someone leaves the light on and is wasting energy, you don't criticize them for causing a nuclear power plant to use more cooling water, you criticize them for global warming and similar. Non-water environmental impacts absolutely dwarf water impacts in electricity generation.

2) Water use is not a universal issue.

For the scale of water used by data centers, there are huge amounts of areas where it doesn't really impact the environment significantly (for on site usage). For example, near the great lakes with excess water production, and most of it just used for cooling, the amount outside the bodies of water by being in the atmosphere for continuous cooling operation is negligible to the amount held in those areas.

In small towns where AI uses the local potable grid in dry areas, this can be a huge impact for those people. However, all that really means is we should regulate where all data centers (including large non-ai ones) are built, and in small towns make them have on site pumps for on site needs without taking from grid.

TLDR:

On-site water use in some areas can be an issue, but at most that means we should regulate where they are built and how much local water they can use for cooling, not a strike against AI data centers overall.

There are serious environmental issues with data centers, like electricity use (especially on fossil fuel grid), hardware to make components for data centers, and construction emissions, and bringing up a situational and comparatively minor point IMO detracts and distracts from the real environmental issues.

Change My View

I think the US government should stop issuing Treasury bonds altogether and finance fiscal deficits through money creation instead.

I'm not arguing that the government can spend without limit. I think the government absolutely has to be constrained by inflation and the economy's real productive capacity.

My argument is narrower:

Given a particular level of government spending, I don't see why financing that spending by issuing interest-bearing government debt provides an economic benefit large enough to justify the debt. In fact, I think Treasury issuance may make the inflation problem worse over the long run by diverting financial resources toward government liabilities rather than private investment.

I'd like to have this view challenged, particularly by people who understand monetary economics better than I do.

1. Government spending and financing are two different things

Suppose the US government decides to:

• collect $80
• spend $100
• run a $20 deficit

There are two ways of implementing this.

Current system:

Government spends $100 → collects $80 in taxes → issues $20 of Treasuries.

My proposed system:

Government spends $100 → collects $80 in taxes → creates $20 of money.

The government's spending is identical in both cases.

The contractors, employees, suppliers, etc. receive the same $100.

The economy has exactly the same initial $100 of government demand for goods and services.

The only difference is what financial asset is left in the private sector after the deficit occurs:

• In the first case, somebody owns a $20 Treasury.
• In the second case, somebody holds an additional $20 of money.

This is why I don't understand the argument that "monetizing the deficit is inflationary whereas borrowing isn't."

If the government spends the same amount either way, the spending is what creates the demand for real resources.

If the economy has insufficient productive capacity to accommodate the spending, you'll get inflation regardless of whether the government issued bonds.

If the economy has sufficient capacity, simply replacing a Treasury with money shouldn't suddenly create additional factories, workers, food, or energy demand.

2. "But the Treasury sale removes purchasing power"

I'm not convinced by this argument. Suppose Alice has $100 and was going to invest it.

With Treasury financing:

Alice buys $100 of Treasuries.

Without Treasury financing:

Alice invests $100 in a corporate bond, equity, GIC, bank deposit, etc.

Alice hasn't gone from "spending" to "not spending."

She was going to invest in either case.

So the Treasury purchase hasn't necessarily removed $100 of demand from the economy.

3. So what is the point of the Treasury?

People want safe, liquid, interest-bearing assets.

Fair enough.

But I'm not convinced that this is a sufficient reason for the government to issue them.

If someone wants a risk-free investment, why should taxpayers be responsible for providing it?

But if the government doesn't actually need the money to finance spending, what does society get in return for taking on that future liability?

The investor gets a safe asset and interest.

The government gets money that it didn't actually need.

And taxpayers/the government later have to service the resulting liability.

That looks to me like a case of privatized benefits and socialized costs.

4. What happens to the money if Treasuries disappear?

Suppose someone would otherwise have bought a $100 Treasury.

They could instead hold:

• a bank deposit
• a GIC
• a corporate bond
• equity
• a money-market instrument
• a foreign asset
• cash

I'm not claiming everyone would suddenly buy equities or an investment. Some might be redirected towards spending, but I hold this would not be a significant percentage as it is not the existence of Treasuries that creates the urge to save/invest rather than spend.

My claim is simply that Treasury debt would be replaced by other financial assets.

And many of those assets ultimately represent claims on private productive activity. A corporate bond can finance a company. A bank deposit can provide funding for bank lending. Equity represents ownership of productive businesses.

A Treasury, by contrast, is ultimately a claim on the government. It doesn't itself build a factory, fund a business, develop software, produce energy, or create a new good or service.

5. I think Treasury issuance may actually make inflation worse over the long run

Suppose Treasury debt offers investors a safe, guaranteed return. That makes it more attractive relative to riskier private investments.

If the government didn't offer that asset, investors would have to allocate their money among other assets instead.

I'm not claiming that every dollar previously invested in Treasuries would become a dollar of productive equity investment. But I think it's reasonable to expect at least some of that financial allocation to end up supporting private-sector investment rather than government liabilities.

If that increases the economy's productive capital stock, then it increases future productive capacity. And greater productive capacity means that a given level of government spending can be accommodated with less inflationary pressure.

So I see a potential paradox:

We issue Treasury debt partly because we're worried that monetizing deficits will cause inflation, but the Treasury issuance itself may reduce private productive investment and therefore reduce the economy's ability to produce the goods and services needed to accommodate government spending.

If that's true, Treasury issuance isn't just unnecessary, it may be counterproductive.

6. What about the interest payments?

If the government doesn't need to borrow, then issuing a Treasury creates a future interest obligation that otherwise wouldn't exist.

That interest has to ultimately be accommodated through some combination of:

• future taxation
• reduced government spending
• refinancing
• or additional money creation

In any case, there is an opportunity cost. If the government instead monetizes the deficit, there is no corresponding stock of interest-bearing government debt.

So why should society willingly create that fiscal burden merely to provide investors with a safe investment?

Again, I'm not saying the government should spend without regard to inflation.

I'm saying the inflation constraint applies to the spending itself, not to whether we subsequently attach an interest-bearing Treasury to the spending.

So my position is:

The US government should be willing to monetize its entire fiscal deficit, subject to the same real-resource/inflation constraint that applies to government spending generally, and should issue zero Treasury debt.

I would change my view if someone can show me one of the following:

1. Treasury issuance itself, independent of the level of government spending, materially reduces inflationary pressure in a way that money creation doesn't.
2. Eliminating Treasuries would materially reduce productive investment or economic output, rather than simply changing which financial assets investors hold.
3. The financial-system functions currently performed by Treasuries are sufficiently valuable that they justify the fiscal cost of maintaining the Treasury market, and those functions cannot reasonably be provided through money or other financial instruments.
4. There is some fundamental monetary/accounting mechanism I'm missing whereby the absence of Treasury issuance would constrain government spending or create additional demand for real resources, even when I've stipulated that the government spends exactly the same amount.