I used to be a conservative Christian. I was vehemently opposed to things like gay marriage and abortion.
Then I actually moved to a larger city and met gay people and, well, that became the crux of my deconstruction. Turns out people are people, no matter where or how they’re born, or what they choose to be or identify as.
My views on abortion have changed, to the point where I very much do not believe in fetal personhood, though I still think late-term abortions should be shied away from if they can be avoided. Regardless, it makes no sense to remove a woman’s right to choose how her body is used. It’s hers. If she doesn’t want to put her body through childbirth, or doesn’t want to take on the immense burden of raising a child, she shouldn’t have to. But, at the same time, dudes should be aware of what they can inflict upon a woman just because ‘it doesn’t feel as good’ with a condom on. Wrap it before you tap it, boys.
The flu vaccine (pre Covid). Always been pro vax in general, just never saw the need since I never had symptomatic flu. My immune system is good enough, right?
Well, it was like a switch flipped in my brain. One day, I suddenly realized getting the shot isn’t about me. If I don’t vaccinate, I get the flu, and I don’t have symptoms.
That makes me a carrier. I’m a disease vector. Somewhere throughout my day, I’m going to pass it on to some immunocompromised person, and I will be the reason someone’s grandma doesn’t make it for the holidays.
“Just the flu” still kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.
This is mine too. Pre covid, my thought process was “I’m young and healthy and have had the flu twice in the last 15 years, I’d rather save the shots for someone who needs them, not me! I’ll just keep working my retail job and going to school even if I’m a little achey and sniffly, I can tough it out!”
Now I get them both every year. I still kinda feel like I’m taking a shot away from someone who needs it more, but I’m just trying to do my part!
After the October 7 attack I was very pro isreal. Of course it’s totally unacceptable for a neighbor to enter one’s territory and kill hundreds of innocent civilians. You can’t commit such an act of terrorism without consequences. However I have seen that the Israeli invasion has been all but moral and the use of the word genocide feels more and more justified. It has gone way over board and I have staunchly become anti isreal. The war was supposed to be a war on Hamas but the innocent civilians in Gaza have had to bear with unbelievable suffering which I no longer believe justifies the war.
What made you not realize the decades of Israeli aggression that caused October 7?
as someone who went through the same, it was mostly lack of attention. i had a vague idea that israel and palestine hated each other, and it was easy to understand from a perspective of israel taking palestinian land, but when you don’t think about it too much it’s easy to both sides it or feel like the supposedly western, supposedly democratic one has a point. i think a lot of people in the west had that vague, unrefined view when oct 7 happened, and it’s easy to stand with someone who just suffered a terror attack.
but it just kept being a focus in media, and the more you look into it, the clearer israel’s crimes against humanity become. and the crazy part is that the vague perspective of israel taking the land for themselves is absolutely correct, but when you see it for the real atrocity it is, rather than an abstract curiosity, it’s impossible to side with the occupiers if you’re not a bigot.
I can only add that, as much as I despise what occurred to Israel that day, it achieved their objectives in a way nothing else probably could have. It’s difficult to morally reconcile, but the evil they committed against Israel exposed a greater evil Israel was committing against them.
The death penalty - used to be very against it, but after seeing some of the footage from ICE in the US I do believe in some cases, an international court should be allowed to sentence people to death. Only in very well-documented cases of e.g. war crimes, systemic cold-blooded murder, … And never by one individual country’s legal system
Trans athletes in student sports - now I believe there should be no student sports. It’s a waste of educational resources to have a team run by the school system. I went to the football stadium in Allen, TX and I realized how messed up schools have become
Sports are actually good overall, but the overly strong focus and wasted money spent on them is absolutely ridiculous.
I think that’s an American-centric view. It’s uniquely American to build a stadium for high school sports.
no school sports - this is the most radical take I’ve ever seen on lemmy.
and i like it. I and I like sports. FWIW the town my brother in has no school sports… the sports are run by an independent volunteer org. Nobody gets paid. but i’m not sure it’s a good ‘model’ because their sports program is mediocre and their teams are average at best.
he’s actually trying to move his family to another town with better sports because he expects his kids to go to college on sports scholarship like him and his wife both did. and there is no way that will happen if his kids are bad sports teams.
i do think sports have educational value, teaching teamwork and discipline and health. i learned more from cross country and marching band versus everything else combined. but i definitely agree about the ridiculous funding disparity, though, no extracurricular should be getting more funding than core classes
my hot take is that sports and bathrooms shouldn’t be gendered. i understand the “seperate but equal” clause doesn’t include gender, but it should, given the better funding and accomodation boys sports get over all but the best girls teams. siloing off genders has catastrophic cultural consequences- “locker room talk” shouldn’t and wouldn’t exist otherwise, plus the whole trans rights thing that shouldn’t and wouldn’t be an issue
Personal story: Ages ago I was in marching band in TX, so we had to visit multiple other schools to play against them.
Some of those stadiums, even 20ish years ago, were ridiculous. So much money that could have gone to much better programs, or even a publicly available stadium that aren’t locked to a specific school district. I left band before graduating.
i used to think the us was an incredible place to live, and that most people saying otherwise were just amplifying its faults from a sheltered perspective. one single trip to nyc of all places changed that. it’s impressive how broken the us is, the decay isn’t just an abstract concept, it’s literally everywhere in a physical sense. even places that were supposed to be nice were rough around the edges in so many ways.
(edit: just to clarify, i’m a european)
It’s the fact that so much in this country is about money. We can’t have basic infrastructure or maintenance because the money it would take to build and maintain it means the guy at the top earns less, and we can’t have that. I fucking hate it here and wish that I had any hope of living elsewhere, where people are treated like people instead of numbers and a paycheck.
Yeah it’s really noticable as an australian too. The bottom is allowed to fall out in ways that feel scandalous. So many things are just shabby. So many systems are just bafflingly, solvably dysfunctional.
Noisemakers in electric cars. I thought it was a conspiracy of the incumbent manufacturers to make EVs as shitty as ICE cars. But I’ve had plenty of situations where people were unaware that I was driving up to them and that’s not a good thing. Just to be clear, I don’t expect pedestrians to jump out of the way when I come along with my car but situational awareness is an important factor for avoiding accidents.
People and animals walk out in front of my noise-making EV all the time. It really needs a bicycle bell or pedestrian horn or something. Maybe it’s the frequency of the sound. People just don’t seem to realize it’s a car right there the way they do with ICE.
I watched a YouTube video from a blind creator. She mentioned how scary EVs were in parking lots. She just had much less time to react to them compared to ICE cars. I don’t mind the spooky hum my car makes so much since then
Without personal experience I still say no. The world is loud enough.
That noise is awful. We’re in the fucking future, I want my car to sound like the Jetsons’
I hear them all the time, they seem to make the same amount of noise as a ICE, unless it’s a big engine truck/sports car.
This is mainly relevant in parking spaces. My car is basically completely silent when I’m going below 20 kph or so.
same tbh. the correct answer is no cars. i still think evs are better to have around than ice cars, but an oversized murder machine shouldn’t be the primary mode of transport, and it will always need to announce its presence.
road noise along major roads is mostly tire noise anyway, and evs still have tires
Marriage.
I was firmly opposed. I had a few girlfriends and each time I thought “I don’t need my relationship to be recognised by the state. What a waste of resources.”
Then I met my wife and it was like having pocket aces. I was all in before the flop.
22 years later and I’d give her both of my lungs if she needed them.
I also took a 180 on marriage but not when I met my wife.
When my (now) wife and I started dating, we both were anti marriage. Several years later, we considered marriage for certain benefits that the legal status would have had for us, and because our relationship was solid and we were already committed to it on the long term, we decided to go ahead with it.
I actually started to like the thought of it as soon as we started planning the wedding. We didn’t want to spend much on it (after all, we didn’t really believe in marriage), so we DIYd the whole thing, it was a nice bonding experience with each other and with friends who helped.
It really started to make me feel different about my relationship after a couple years. It does feel different to think “I have a girlfriend” vs ”I’m married. I’m someone’s husband.”
There was a certain warmth to it. We both liked being married and calling each other husband and wife. This warmth or security worked quietly in the background for years to further strengthen our relationship. And I do think it helped too at low points and conflicts to remind us that we want to fix our problems, not walk away from them (the latter sometimes seems easier on the short term when one is exhausted or desperate, it’s not a bad thing to add some friction to that process).
So while marriage on the surface is just words, rituals, and legal status; in experience I found that it’s also commitment, belonging and warmth.
Next time I will tell about how we both agreed we never want kids until one day…
I had one friend who had a bf who refused to marry on principle… then he got sick… and he married her ASAP so he could get health benefits from her…
Never understood the ‘marriage is stupid/evil’ thought process. Fine if you don’t want to be mongamous or whatever, but just admit that.
Used to think left/progressive was good guys.
But late 2010s made me realize they are often terrible people with want to hurt other people just as much as the right does. there was a shift in the 2010s and too many people go way too far. I also live in town full of wealthy progressives and it’s rare they aren’t raging hypocrites about their beliefs. most classically where I live ‘black lives matter’ folks are totally against black people near them and report black folks to the police if they ‘loiter’ in the park nearby.
Liberals aren’t leftists and actual leftists want to dismantle capitalism as a whole. Liberalism still exploits the working class and the global south.
Edit: I’m literally heavily disabled and have been homeless twice.
blah blah blah cry me a river. you are one of people I’m talking about. every communist I have met IRL was the most greedy selfish capitalism loving in their actions even as the words that came out of their mouths were all about how evil capitalism was. they were happy to exploit anyone and everything as long as it meant they got a theirs and they got angry about property taxes on the home they inherent. I have never met a legit poor communist in my life, but dozens and dozens that of them like Hasan, rich kids who like cosplaying as working-class but would kill themselves before they ever worked a real job, so they ‘own their own business’ or similar.
my favorite was the anarchist going on about how nobody should own property who became a landlord and started whining about taxes and kept whining about his tenants not paying him enough rent. and how there should be no new housing because he needs his investment to go up in value, etc.
and if you confront them they immediately go into some rant about how they are ‘forced’ to do these things because of the ‘evils of capitalism’. yeah, you and me both buddy. but at least I vote for actual progressive policies, instead of beating my chest about how communism will save the world while I actively use my wealth and political power to actively punish those less wealthy than I am and ranting about how anyone who doesn’t make 500K a year or have millions in the bank doesn’t deserve to live in my city because they are ‘lazy’.
I think it’s hilarious that they were agreeing with you then you shit all over them and your own point.
Yeah, like I said in my other reply, I’m heavily disabled and have been homeless twice. I am by no means a person living this pristine life—and I genuinely have seen a glimpse of how exploitative this system is.
Dude, I just stopped being homeless a few months ago. I am heavily disabled, have been homeless twice, and have seen shit in my life. I don’t even like Hasan Piker and frankly think he’s kinda sketchy.
Not that I spent much time thinking about it in the past but the belief in free will was something I was disillusioned from by hearing Sam Harris talk about it and then reading his book on the subject.
Now I believe there is just consciousness and its content. There is no “you” that’s separate from this process that’s authoring your decisions. Nah, everything follows from past events and the belief that you could have done otherwise is just an illusion. How could you have done otherwise. We already know what you did in this timeline. If we rewind back the universe without changing anything you’d just make the same choice again and again and again.
I’d say it has made me a much more empathic person overall. Hating someone for example is no longer compatible with my world view. Not liking, sure, but treating people as if they chose to be this way and could choose to be different but won’t - that’s bullshit.
Charles Whitman is a good example. Shot a bunch of people from a clock tower, left a suicide note saying he doesn’t know why he does this and tells doctors to study his brain when he’s dead. Well, they did and found a pecan-sized tumor near his amygdala that could very well explain this behaviour. Would you still hold Charles morally responsible after learning this? I wouldn’t. I basically just live as if everyone has a brain tumor.
That there was an adult in the room on the gop side. I have my issues with a lot of the parties but I’ve become even violent over their bullshit for the last 10 years.
The ones left, the ones that made it out to support trump a week ago. Need to be dealt with.
Not quite a major belief, but most recent:
I didn’t really care about GTA6 and saw no content about it. But the TLDR Business news channel I follow got me interested with the perspective that this is going to be the biggest (and most resource invested) art/culture phenomenon in history.
Still not going to buy or play it, but I won’t skip the gaming podcasts that discuss GTA6 as I previously had been.
Something has to supplant Roblox at some point.
Critics of mass immigration have a point, and should not be discarded as ignorant bigots. Even if they often are.
What changed my mind: seeing neighborhoods inhabited almost exclusively by poor immigrants. And rich immigrants. Both in their own exclusive enclaves. The only ones that don’t form enclaves are middle class immigrants.
I know this isn’t supposed to be a change-my-mind but I don’t think that’s correct.
All humans are more likely to move near to others they identify with. The same thing happens with progressives or conservatives moving to different cities, so i don’t think it can be exlusive to just two social classes of recent immigrants.
There needs to be a rational immigration policy implemented for the left to counter the only platform the right wing parties have today.
There can be enclaves or castes without mass immigration. In fact, a bunch of suburban and rural communities feel like enclaves where no outsiders can feel welcome.
Critics of mass immigration or open borders have a point- in a world with global travel and trade, a country cannot work without controlling who can come in and who can work.
Critics of anti immigration politicians also have a point- blaming social problems on immigrants, fueling hate for people whose skin has a different tone, and inhumanely denying aid and shelter from refugees are not going to help anyone.
The world is changing and it’s difficult to cope. I don’t think that the enclaves of immigrants are the main reason of those challenges. It’s the loneliness epidemic due to social media use, the affordability crisis due to unchecked corporate greed with political corruption, and the collapse of perspectives for meaningful and lucrative careers due to AI and the corporate takeover of everything. Those changes are faster and more profound than a bunch of immigrants moving in next door, please look beyond them.
tbh as far as those lucrative jobs go, a lot of americans and western europeans also have some reckoning to do. especially in the us, a lot of those jobs come from selling a service to the whole world, which siphons a bunch of money from a whole lot of different countries into the us. so why should only americans be allowed to work those jobs? and if the rest of the world gets tired at that, why shouldn’t they just cut those companies off and make domestic competitors?
it’s crazy that we live in a world where you can do the same job as someone else in the same western coalition – and increasingly, in the same global trading order – and often do it for the same global companies, and yet, get paid wildly differently just based on where you’re from. as long as that is the case, in my opinion it’s already unfair to an immigrant that they had to immigrate to get access to the same opportunities someone else has by default. anti-immigration rhetoric is just deepening that injustice.
honestly this is mostly a result of disenfranchisement, not immigration itself. the middle class has a reason to fight through that, while lower classes are protected by their own against a hostile society. make society less hostile and the problem solves itself.
but if you wanna solve mass immigration, you should strive for global equality. even when given unrestricted immigration prospects, people tend to stay put when they don’t have a strong reason to move, and if you knock out economic and military reasons, most immigration tends to happen due to relationships and it’s fairly balanced.
insisting to prevent mass immigration in ways other than trying to solve the root reasons is just insistence on a privileged place in global hierarchy. i don’t think that’s morally sound in any situation.
people immigrant because their countries are corrupt, violent, and unstable, not poor.
inequality isn’t the issue so much as stability is the issue, because you cannot grow without stability.
Why did the enclaves change your mind?
For a functional society, it’s members must share the same physical and mental space. Even if individuals radically disagree with the status-quo, they are still a part of the same in-group. I call it a “rebel vs invader” dilemma. Rebels can succeed in changing a society, invaders will be resisted.
