Hot, Bad & Unpopular Takes

[DC Al Fine]

Westboro Baptist Church is a false flag operation.

[DC Al Fine]

Westboro Baptist Church is a false flag operation.

Please elaborate?

Fred Phelps did a lot of civil rights activism back in the 1960's. Because of that and his church's behaviour, there is a conspiracy theory that he is a liberal in deep cover trying to make the orthodox Christian position look bad.

[DC Al Fine]

Westboro Baptist Church is a false flag operation.

Please elaborate?

Fred Phelps did a lot of civil rights activism back in the 1960's. Because of that and his church's behaviour, there is a conspiracy theory that he is a liberal in deep cover trying to make the orthodox Christian position look bad.

I think that severely underestimates the idiosyncratic combinations of belief that are possible within American religious groups.

Oh I totally agree. I just thought it was a good example of a hot take from my community.

[DC Al Fine]

People who play their music loudly on public transportation should be executed without trial.

[DC Al Fine]

Most American non-poor progressives have seriously underestimated the drawbacks of a Canadian style healthcare system and would complain quite a bit about the taxes they pay and quality of care received if they actually had to participate in our system.

I say this as a single payer supporter.

[DC Al Fine]

Most American non-poor progressives have seriously underestimated the drawbacks of a Canadian style healthcare system and would complain quite a bit about the taxes they pay and quality of care received if they actually had to participate in our system.

I say this as a single payer supporter.

The sell for Americans should be "bigger paycheck, much less aggravation." The problem won't be the cost. The problem will be when they find out they still have to navigate claims and haggle over co-pays, reasonable charges from providers, and what is and isn't covered, just like in private healthcare.

"I thought we got free care! Why do I have to pay to see the doc about my sniffle? Why are they charging me $1000 for my emergency room visit for a bruised knee?"

I'm also a supporter of single payer, but Americans already don't understand healthcare, and that's not going help.

I was thinking stuff like spped of delivery. The average wait time for a knee replacement is two years in my province. Anyone with money goes to America to get it done. I waited 6 months to see a specialist. Very long waits in the ER. Etc etc.

[DC Al Fine]

Universal free post-secondary is a terrible idea which takes from the poor and gives to the upper middle class and rich. It's a terribly regressive scheme and yet lefties defend it tenaciously.

[DC Al Fine]

Universal free post-secondary is a terrible idea which takes from the poor and gives to the upper middle class and rich. It's a terribly regressive scheme and yet lefties defend it tenaciously.

This is a good take,
Not a bad one.

It's unpopular though. That's why it's on the thread.

[DC Al Fine]

Most American non-poor progressives have seriously underestimated the drawbacks of a Canadian style healthcare system and would complain quite a bit about the taxes they pay and quality of care received if they actually had to participate in our system.

I say this as a single payer supporter.

The sell for Americans should be "bigger paycheck, much less aggravation." The problem won't be the cost. The problem will be when they find out they still have to navigate claims and haggle over co-pays, reasonable charges from providers, and what is and isn't covered, just like in private healthcare.

"I thought we got free care! Why do I have to pay to see the doc about my sniffle? Why are they charging me $1000 for my emergency room visit for a bruised knee?"

I'm also a supporter of single payer, but Americans already don't understand healthcare, and that's not going help.

I was thinking stuff like spped of delivery. The average wait time for a knee replacement is two years in my province. Anyone with money goes to America to get it done. I waited 6 months to see a specialist. Very long waits in the ER. Etc etc.

Do wait times vary by province or is this the case nationwide?  The most common retort I've seen to the wait times argument is that they are only as long as they are because Canada's healthcare system is underfunded.

It varies by province, but not significantly. The system is underfunded, but that isn't really the whole story. Our population is aging so it takes much more money to provide the same quality of care than in 2000. Combine that with the fact that provincial governments have done a really poor job of running the system and you have a recipe for long wait times. For example: Nova Scotia politicians have maintained hospitals where the population doesn't justify it as a vote winning exercise. So every small town has a hospital with an expensive administration, building to maintain etc. I also have to point out that Canada has relatively high taxes and a lot of other welfare state programs competing for $$$ so it's not as simple as throwing money at it.

[DC Al Fine]

I can't stand generational warfare.

Hear hear. It so friggin tedious.

[DC Al Fine]

The election of Trump has caused most of the red avatars' debating skills to lapse.

[DC Al Fine]

The election of Trump has caused most of the red avatars' debating skills to lapse.

Yeah because he makes a lot of our arguments easier to debate.

lol

[DC Al Fine]

The GOP's demographic situation will be fixed in a generation.  US election results aren't going to look like post-apartheid South Africa in fifty years.

[DC Al Fine]

"Illegal war in Iraq" is a silly line parroted by people who have never heard that Stalin quip about the League of Nations.

[DC Al Fine]

This is only unpopular with a certain segment but...

The mods are waaaayyy too easy on problem posts and posters. Too many racist posts, and personal attacks are left untouched even when reported. Repeat offenders might get infracted but it takes forever for them to even get a temp ban.

[DC Al Fine]

This is only unpopular with a certain segment but...

The mods are waaaayyy too easy on problem posts and posters. Too many racist posts, and personal attacks are left untouched even when reported. Repeat offenders might get infracted but it takes forever for them to even get a temp ban.

I'm not sure how you square this view with your view that social media companies are practicing defacto censorship with removing conservatives given that the concern you present to the moderators here is pretty much what the social media companies are targeting. 

If Atlas had the user base of Facebook or Twitter, it would be different. Size matters.

[DC Al Fine]

Some relatively unpopular opinions and hot takes about Atlas

1) Libertarian posters are on average less smug than the average poster.
2) Socons and hard leftists have a bathtub curve of quality. That is, they are over represented among the best and the worst posters.
3) The international posters are mostly way better than the American ones.
4) American politics are SUPER boring.
5) An underrated aspect of Atlas is that our forum is surprisingly hostile to eugenics for a place dominated by < 25 Western males.

[DC Al Fine]

3) The international posters are mostly way better than the American ones.

I was under the impression that this was the conventional opinion.

Yeah you're probably right.

4) American politics are SUPER boring..

This one surprises me most, as to me the past few years have been anything but.   Are you referring to policy, the biennial horserace, or a mixture of both?

There's a certain amount of repetitiveness to the latest presidency and your party system is boring. Anything less than a new major party per decade is tedious to a Canadian

[DC Al Fine]

People who use the term bourgeoise as an insult or however the  you spell it are probably pampered brats themselves

Wrong place. This isn't the simple truths thread

[DC Al Fine]

It wouldn't surprise me if every major CFB and CBB program has Louisville-level (well, apart from the prostitution stuff) violations, and I don't think that's a bad thing.  It doesn't matter whether it is the US Government, a state government, or the NCAA, no organization should put restrictions on capitalism, and a basketball or football player who is worth $20,000,000 to a school should be paid that much over the table.

I think that we've had someone that we can agree on!

Although my position is a little different and I think that it comes from a position of not being American and so finding the whole College Sports thing really quite weird.  I'm of the opinion that the system as it is now is incredibly unfair to the players and  - especially when it comes to American Football which is an incredibly dangerous sport with many people getting seriously injured at a young age: or causing long-term issues that will affect them later in life.  Perhaps a more formalised minor or feeder league system where players could be professional (hopefully better than the way that Minor League Baseball works where players earn starvation wages for a years, with most never making it to the Majors) and get paid for doing what they do would help to mitigate that a little bit.  But the idea where an organisation can market a sport using the famous players to help push it; market them in video games and the like and then not only not pay those players anything but also forbid them from marketing themselves in a way that at least ensures that they've got some money to support themselves in the future if something goes wrong - especially since the NFL doesn't have guaranteed contracts so they can get cut easily.

Although another part of your post is interesting since it seems to be arguing against the whole structure of American sports in general.  They are designed to be... socialist in a way - you have the Draft which limits rich, large teams from taking all of the best players: most of the sports have a Salary Cap or some kind of system to prevent rich teams from outweighing everyone else with the power of money alone; player Free Agency is often restricted earlier in their career which gives teams effective control over their young players (again to limit the power of larger, richer teams) and many other systems that are designed to try and ensure long-term parity, and theoretically make it so that unless you have a team that is as stupid as the Marlins or the Browns, they go through phases of being very good followed by getting worse.  I read that as you preferring the way that things work in more European Sports; where a rich Qatari businessman can buy a mediocre Manchester-based Football team, spent billions of dollars buying players from various teams and therefore build one of the best teams in the world entirely through buying players and not through developing any.  Although you have things like Financial Fair Play (designed to make sure that you can't just have a rich owner spending $300 million a year on players as some were; making it so that you can only spend a certain amount of money based on your revenues and if you exceed that you get transfer embargoes preventing you from buying anyone) designed to try and limit the excesses those are frankly toothless and you have the same five or six teams winning everything since they have rich owners that can get any player they want through force of money: its basically a free-for-fall; almost unregulated capitalism.  If that was the case; then it'd be perfect for this thread I think since most Americans would probably hate it!

I dunno, it seems to me the proper socialist take on a salary cap system is that it's an oligopoly's attempt to keep the wages of its workers down.

[DC Al Fine]

Another hot take: The GOP's demographic future is brighter than the Democrats'

[DC Al Fine]

Another hot take: The GOP's demographic future is brighter than the Democrats'

Explain.

The short version is that the current Democratic demographic strength is:

a) The product of a combination of Clintonism and GOP screw ups.

b) Not uniformly loyal to the party.

As the party tracks left I think they will undo a large part of their strength among white suburbanites, East Asians and the more prosperous Hispanics.

[DC Al Fine]

Lief is a terrible namesake for the tread of Simple Truths.

Agreed

[DC Al Fine]

It's far too late to achieve this and it would be imprudent policy at this point in time because it might legitimately start a revolution, but, in an ideal world, alcohol would be illegal.  Don't twist my words to say I support banning it because that is impossible, but society would be so much better if alcohol ceased to exist.  Including, I bet the rate of sexual assaults would drop 90%.

If you want to have a bad time, post on Twitter about this. The amount of offended drinkers coming out of the woodwork would be nuts and I say that as a frequent drinker myself.

[DC Al Fine]

The forum minimum posting age should be 22 or so