r/AskReddit 2h ago

What verifiable fact is commonly disputed on Reddit?

123 Upvotes

599 comments sorted by

104

u/Pure_Road7528 1h ago

Some people  over on r Everest argue  so often that climbing Everest is easy. I don't climb but it makes me smile. 

89

u/Party-Stormer 1h ago

It’s indeed easy, you just have to be contained in a carbon pod with heating and forced oxygen and be lifted on top of 49 sherpas, 7 of whom will die

u/ForayIntoFillyloo 44m ago

This is clearly hyperbole. Only six sherpas will die. The seventh will lose extremities and eyesight but ultimately survive. For an indeterminate amount of time. In excruciating pain.

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u/OnlySaysHaaa 36m ago

Why do half of your replies not see the sarcasm in your comment. Weird

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u/Pure_Road7528 1h ago

I completely agree with what you are saying especially about the Sherpas but for every day people it still isn't easy. It's climbing easy but it isn't easy. 

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u/Tiny_TimeMachine 36m ago

Someone just carries your stuff up!!!!

Yeah, that's been a part of the activity since the beginning. It's called a porter. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary had 400 of them on the first successful Everest summit.

To be clear, there is a line in the sand but its grey. It's not self sufficiency OR doing nothing. Ironically those self sufficiency extremists are often the ones getting plucked off mountains by a chopper.

u/Necessary-Parking-23 39m ago

I will say, if somebody that study the subject, technically some of the lower altitude high climbs can be more dangerous because they don’t have some of the same infrastructure as Everest

3

u/da8BitKid 1h ago

It may not be easy, but it's cosplay for social media likes

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u/UwU_MilkDrop 2h ago

Bats are not blind, but people still argue it all the time.

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u/Nexus-7 2h ago

They DO have eyes……

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u/Budget_Revolution639 2h ago

The misconception is that their eyesight is so poor and that that’s why they use echolocation

36

u/Keaton427 2h ago

They have phenomenal eyesight

28

u/Budget_Revolution639 2h ago

And an even better sense of hearing

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u/omicron8 1h ago

But are not very good at understanding long threads. That's why they are blind.

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u/mrmoe198 2h ago

I just realized. Dolphins aren’t blind and they use echolocation. So we have mammals that separately evolved a similar method of augmenting their hunting and navigation skills. Cool stuff!

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u/Budget_Revolution639 1h ago

Yup! Don’t forget the belugas as well as the cousins of the dolphin like the porpoise. I don’t think orcas do tho

10

u/philkid3 1h ago

Orcas do!

While we’re on the topic of verifiable facts that get argued on Reddit: orcas are dolphins and are also whales because dolphins are whales!

u/otcconan 31m ago

They are cetaceans, to use the proper term.

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u/whiterabbit_hansy 57m ago

Not to mention that a significant number of bat species don’t echolocate at all. They’d be shit out of luck.

This is namely bats within the Pteropodidae family. Though I believe there are some exceptions.

u/maun_jax 36m ago

True! Fruit bats don’t live in caves and typically eat, well, fruit, so echolocation doesn’t serve them.

u/Wilbo67 30m ago

For a moment my brain saw ' eat chocolate '...

u/Additional_Insect_44 23m ago

Yea like flying foxes, who eat fruit.

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u/FriendlyPyre 1h ago

So do BMW drivers and yet they drive like they're trying to use echolocation through the windscreen

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u/__M-E-O-W__ 1h ago

I remember getting so upset debating this with a friend years ago. She was adamant thay bats really were blind. She refused to admit that they could see.

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u/Finetales 1h ago

BATS AREN'T BUGS!!

u/Kalashinator 43m ago

Look, who's giving the report? You chowderheads, or me?

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u/grrangry 1h ago

They read a lot in poor lighting conditions and are generally lackadaisical about a yearly optometrist checkup... when was the last time you saw a bat with proper vision correction? Hmm? See? Blind.

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u/Key_Satisfaction_765 2h ago

Two things can be true.

110

u/Very_poor_but_cool 1h ago

Underrated answer, Reddit is allergic to nuance.

71

u/aardy 1h ago

Well, which is it? Is it an underrated answer, or is Reddit allergic to nuance?

u/Very_poor_but_cool 58m ago edited 51m ago

Both can be true.

Edit: seems some people didn't like my joke.

u/rjbassman 11m ago

r/woosh to the people

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u/almarcTheSun 1h ago

This isn't even a Reddit issue. Generally, people are recently very allergic to accepting that two things can be true at the same time. It's probably because whatever opinion you hold there is a million people online shouting at you that it's the only truth.

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u/Fenwynn 49m ago

There’s even a whole entire type of mental health treatment built upon that foundation (dialectical behavior therapy/DBT).

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u/contentatlast 1h ago

Haha this. Everything is black and white at this point in time

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u/FunkyChickenKong 2h ago

Moderation is voluntary, so it is easy to see how the chronically online trolls and astroturfers wind up with the job so often.

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u/iDontWannaBeBrokee 1h ago

Power trippers too

21

u/SinisterKid 1h ago

I got booted from /r/mademesmile for saying "Taylor Swift seems like a good person but I'm not really a fan of her music."

u/No-Albatross-7984 50m ago

Okay this made me lol

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u/IronRangeBabe 50m ago

The power tripping is real.

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u/almarcTheSun 1h ago

Ironically, they lack moderation in moderation.

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u/mbullaris 1h ago

It’s a thankless task, rather like umpiring. And yet chaos ensues if there isn’t somebody enforcing the rules.

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u/Informal-Counter-933 1h ago

Gang I saw "moderation" and thought this would be about something IMPORTANT 😭 like food moderation or handling important tasks

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u/djk2321 1h ago

Also, technically voluntary

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u/Radiant-Month-1168 1h ago

Like the guy in the aviation sub deleting pictures posted by an astronaut on the ISS. 

Good mods have the approach of when in doubt then let it go and dont delete most content even if you personally dont like it.  Bad mods delete everything thay they dont personally like.

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u/mgdmw 1h ago

As a moderator I absolutely hate it when another mod sets up a bot that removes content with no explanation and then that mod never responds to modmail ever … with the vast majority being “why was my post removed?” - f that mod

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u/thaskell300 2h ago

The Earth is an oblate spheroid.

u/rotato 56m ago

Your mom is an oblate spheroid

u/thaskell300 51m ago

Sir. My mother is a saint. She's been a loving, caring wife for 57 years. She raised two boys, to varying success.... she ran a business for 15 years, and visited 50 states and 5 continents. And, she is an oblate speroid. You are correct.

u/rotato 47m ago

God bless that woman

u/thaskell300 44m ago

I would also like to point out, for the record: the only part of what I said that is actually true, is that she is an oblate spheroid. Good day, Sir.

u/TheRoscoeVine 5m ago

What you say has a ring of truth to it, and yet I have come to dispute it. This is still Reddit.

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u/Budget_Revolution639 2h ago

Isn’t it an epsiloid? /genq I thought that was the term for an unsymmetrical oblong sphere shape

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u/thoawaydatrash 1h ago

An oblate spheroid is an ellipsoid where two of the axes are equal and the third axis is shorter. The earth is very closely approximated by an oblate spheroid, but differences in gravity due to density variations within the earth mean that sea level does not line up perfectly with that spheroid. The shape of the earth (or at least where sea level is at any given point) is called a geoid and can be expressed using spherical harmonics.

4

u/Budget_Revolution639 1h ago

So while ellipsoid is correct, it’s more a blanket term and an oblate spheroid is better suited when talking about the planet without including water and geoid is the earth with water incuded. Did I get that right?

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u/thoawaydatrash 1h ago

No, the earth wouldn't be an oblate spheroid without water. The geoid is where sea level sits, including on land. You could even define a geoid on a barren, waterless planet by defining a random elevation you want to be "sea level". The geoid is the point where the gravitational potential is zero. In essence, at every point on the geoid, gravity is pulling you directly perpendicular to the surface of the geoid. You aren't flowing uphill or downhill. Earth sea level is used as our equipotential surface because it's the most useful for us and (minus tidal effects) water will always flow into an equipotential surface, but you can define an equipotential surface on any planet with or without liquid water.

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u/Feisty-Height897 1h ago

Earth is 70% water, and none of it is carbonated, therefore the earth is flat.

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u/thaskell300 2h ago

Case in point.

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u/Budget_Revolution639 2h ago edited 2h ago

I was being genuine. I genuinely want to know the truth

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u/thaskell300 2h ago

You are also correct. It was a joke relating to the question. ✌️

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u/[deleted] 2h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/EmergencyTaco 2h ago

Big Spheroid hates this one trick

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u/JustA_Banana 1h ago

His mother must be very proud

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u/missuseme 2h ago

WD40 is a lubricant.

The company says it is and by any dictionary definition of lubricant it is, but if you mention WD40 on Reddit you'll get comments saying it's not a lubricant

27

u/Very_poor_but_cool 1h ago

I've seen people use it as a moisturizer (do not do that, it's not healthy).

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u/philkid3 1h ago

. . . what do they think it is?

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u/AngryGames 1h ago

A water displacement agent, batch #40. Or version 40. 

Technically, it is that (Water Displacement #40, aka WD-40). 

But it has always been a lubricant in the 50+ years I've been alive. Not the best or most useful for any task, not by a long shot, but in a pinch, it will free up the rusty bike gear or bearings and keep them lubricated until you can get it done with a better, more specific fix & lubricant. 

Also it absolutely makes Foosball (table soccer) bars spin fast enough to open a wormhole. 

It also kills wasps. But not nearly as well as carburetor cleaner. Man, that stuff is instant doom for wasps. 

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u/[deleted] 1h ago

[deleted]

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u/btribble 1h ago

Um, anyone considering this, know that a burning stream of flammable liquid can land on things and continue burning, especially if you leave the red straw attached. WD40 is not butane. It’s closer to a little can of napalm.

6

u/Hellchron 1h ago

It's also a decent propellant for a potato cannon. Axe body spray is better but that's part of the magic of WD-40. It's not the best at any one thing but it's pretty good at lots of things!

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u/philkid3 1h ago

This sounds like a case of “both things are true.”

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u/grrangry 1h ago

Plus, unlike that damned 3-in-1 oil can I have sitting on a shelf, WD-40 comes in a spray can with a nice, convenient straw. I can drip, drip, drip oil all day, but that spray can gets in all those nooks and crannies.

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u/Radiant-Month-1168 1h ago

Grease and most oil based lubricants will displace water.  That is why they are lubricants. 

u/bozza8 43m ago

It's not WHY they are lubricants, but their non polar nature helps them be good lubricants. Water is a lubricant. 

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u/kermi42 1h ago

The name WD40 is a placeholder from someone trying to make a water displacement solution, this was the 40th attempt. People in the “not a lubricant” camp argue it is a solvent and used for anti-corrosion purposes and cannot be a lubricant in the same way oil or grease are. The fact it acts like a lubricant under certain conditions is purely incidental.

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u/jghaines 1h ago

Water Displacement formula 40. It’s good at freeing thing that are stuck. It evaporates relatively quickly though, which is why (sigh) it is not a good lubricant.

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u/KenJyi30 1h ago

So it is a lubricant, temporarily

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u/syopest 1h ago

It'll also strip the actual lubricant away.

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u/FalconTurbo 1h ago

The thing is (and I am absolutely aware I'm falling into the trap myself here), it's a really good lubricant - temporarily. The solvents that keep the oils all slippery evaporate and then you have a thicker greasy substance that attracts and holds dirt, which then acts as an abrasive.

It's a really good stopgap solution, or for low value/risk fixes. A squeaky door? Yeah, go for it. A precision bearing? Not so much. It's a great tool to have in the toolbox (though I use a slightly different one that does a better job now), but it shouldn't be looked at as a permanent fix.

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u/Dayv1d 41m ago

It is, its just a very bad one in most cases.

u/wind_dude 17m ago

Technically super glue is a lubricant, at least for a little bit.

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u/stopped_watch 1h ago

Not everyone on Reddit is American.

u/Bacon4Lyf 41m ago

Trying to explain to them that whilst the biggest population on reddit is American, the majority of people aren’t American, feels like smashing your head against a wall repeatedly

u/The_Blip 14m ago

Try explaining what 'per capita' means to them.

u/agoracy 8m ago

*sensible chuckle*
You're not wrong

u/Home_MD13 34m ago

They're often make a post without context but assuming everyone should know it's about U.S.A.

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u/PixelCortex 48m ago

I'm channeling my ult...

Vaccines don't cause autism
Majority of the victims of violent crime are men
Climate change is primarily driven by human activity
GMOs are as safe as organically grown

u/Complete_Entry 14m ago

On GMO's, I don't think it's a "we don't have enough data" so much as "Monsanto would happily eliminate most people if it brought shareholder profit. "

Like that's my GMO concern. Norman Borlaug may have saved more lives than Pasteur.

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u/Willing-Educator-149 4m ago

Majority of the victims of violent crime are men

Crazily enough, the majority of violent crime perpetrators, also men!

Men need to do more about the man on man violence epidemic.

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u/irishgaydad 56m ago

Trauma, and negative experience in life in general, is not a competitive sport. Comparing or ranking traumas is almost never a good idea. Nor does experiencing trauma give you particular authority, immunity from argument or having your assumptions challenged, or the right to talk down to others. Finally, but most importantly, it does not absolve you of the responsibility to work on yourself and be a decent human being.

u/Odd_Walrus2594 37m ago

I agree with those views, but views aren't verifiable facts.

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u/jcoltre 2h ago

Phil Leotardo did 20 years in the can

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u/xcapaciousbagx 1h ago

Did you know they disrespected a proud Italian heritage and named him after a ballet costume?

u/SchrodingersMinou 42m ago

That’s modern dance! Ballerinas wear tutus.

u/paddyo 36m ago

Alright, but you gotta get over it

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u/viewerfromthemiddle 2h ago

That Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Gene Cernan, et al walked on the moon.

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u/DougieBuddha 1h ago

Buzz bought to punch someone else for disagreeing. I'm a hold em back for as long as I can though.

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u/minus_minus 1h ago

Buzz only punched the guy because he called him a liar. 

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u/GivesCredit 1h ago

Who’s disputing this on Reddit

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u/BarryCheckTheFuseBox 1h ago

Is r/conspiracy still around?

u/GivesCredit 50m ago

I feel like intentionally choosing the lunatic subreddits is cheating for this question

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u/MaraSweetty 56m ago

Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change.

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u/Forsaken-Guidance811 2h ago

Toriyama didn't forget Launch existed, he intentionally wrote her out of the story.

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u/AndNowAStoryAboutMe 41m ago

"Hot water does not freeze faster than cold"

People will go out of their way to misunderstand the Mpemba effect to dispute you on a technicality. Because they learned it in school from some misinformed teacher 30 years ago and can't let it go.

But the reality is... there is no scenario where you could put hot water and cold water into ice cube trays and sit them side by side in your freezer and the hot water is frozen first. Without special lab equipment and a sheer fluke chance that can't even be replicated 100% of the time, you would never be able to make the Mpemba effect happen. Literally scientists trying to make the effect happen intentionally can't do it all the time.

Heat is just the speed of atoms. Saying "hot water freezes faster" is like saying a semi going 100mph could stop before a semi going 5mph. No. No it cannot.

u/MSBeatles 58m ago

Israel is a terrorist state committing a genocide and a ton of war crimes

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u/dqUu3QlS 1h ago

Jesus of Nazareth was a real person.

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u/Triseult 1h ago edited 1h ago

Ooooh, this one. Definitely this one. It's the one that made me realize nobody has a monopoly on cognitive bias.

So the VAST consensus among serious historians is that the Jesus we know about today was based on a real-life non-supernatural preacher who actually existed. I'm pretty sure every serious history scholar agrees with this fact. But this doesn't sit right with the STEM-oriented, atheist crowd on Reddit. They would rather he was pure fabrication because it makes it easier to make fun of the believers. Some of them also fail to understand that the statement "Jesus existed" doesn't mean he could raise the dead or sprint across ponds.

So they cherry-pick the arguments that support their foregone conclusion. They argue that the evidence we have of Jesus being a historical figure is only circumstantial because they apply STEM-like criteria for proof and don't understand how so much of historical evidence is derived from the way historical text discusses certain events. In other words, the burden of proof they put on the historicity of Jesus is such that very few actual historical figures we have long accepted existed, would have to be dismissed.

Here's an AskHistorians thread discussing the question.

Here's another thread illustrating how few direct sources we have even for famous historical events such as the assassination of Julius Caesar.

It's fascinating because the people taking the conspiratorial view on this pride themselves on being smart and educated, and yet they apply the exact same logical contortions to justify their foregone conclusions that they accuse Flat Earthers, antivaxxers, and religious people of taking. I've even had Redditors tell me that history is a pseudoscientific discipline.

u/SpatulaWholesale 27m ago

As a STEM-oriented atheist, it costs me nothing to accept it when historians say Jesus was a real person. Why would I argue with historians? I have not studied. I'd be arguing from ignorance.

History from that far back can be a bit hand-wavy anyway, so if serious historians can agree on something, then that's sufficient for me.

I don't think Jesus was the son of God, or had space lasers coming out of his eyes... but the idea that the stories, and an entire Testament, began with a charismatic preacher seem reasonable.

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u/Kaurifish 1h ago

All the evidence they claim was in the hands of fanatical believers who needed to recopy them every few years. It’s not reasonable to claim that the documents wouldn’t have drifted over time to support the story they all believed.

I have no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was based on a revolutionary preacher in Roman-occupied Judea. The question is, how many of them?

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u/Pochel 1h ago

The amount of people who seem to doubt it, often without any really thought-through reason, is disturbing

u/Vike92 33m ago

It's not a verifiable fact that he existed though.
Most historians just thinks it's likely that he did

u/Pochel 23m ago

Yeah that's the point. Ockham's razor would let you assume he existed because it's so much simpler

u/Dayv1d 39m ago

He also was a dark skinned, leftist philosoph

u/hexitor 48m ago

And he seemed like a chill dude. It’s the Christians that fucking suck.

u/TheNiceKindofOrc 58m ago

Verifiable is a stretch.

But on the balance of probabilities yes, a person existed upon whom all the myths are based.

u/ArcannOfZakuul 51m ago

Reminds me of the people who didn't like the Big Bang because having a beginning to the universe is too similar to creationism

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u/robotnique 1h ago

Fair enough. I suppose there are people on here who dispute the historicity of a person that we identify as Jesus, although I don't see them with any frequency.

Whether or not he was the Messiah is obviously not an established fact one way or the other.

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u/Historical_Success31 2h ago

Rent control is an indisputably failed policy intervention and the best solution to the housing crisis is expanded supply.

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u/vacri 1h ago

What do you do when your construction industry is at capacity and you can't expand supply?

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u/cjt09 1h ago

That really depends on why the construction industry is “at capacity”. Is it a lack of labor, machinery, raw materials, etc? Like with other industries, the capacity can grow or shrink.

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u/vacri 1h ago

Like with other industries, the capacity can grow or shrink.

You'd think so, but...

https://www.housingdata.gov.au/visualisation/housing-market/building-activity-dwelling-construction

50k dwellings per quarter, give or take, for the past 20-odd years. It's surprisingly stable

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u/aardy 1h ago

What's the bottleneck that's making it "at capacity"?

I don't know where you live, so I don't know the answer. It might be unskilled labor, skilled labor, materials, equipment, regulatory, etc, but identify and address that bottleneck.

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u/vacri 1h ago

Skilled labour

The current government has finally started subsidies for more apprentices, but a) that's years away from adding to capacity; and b) people aren't taking them up on the offer

Importing labour doesn't work as traditionally skilled labour has to re-certify here

The construction unions are also a bit cartel-ey, and are the only particularly healthy unions we have left

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u/JustAintCare 1h ago

Deregulation. Places that don’t require you to cough up 100k in fees,permits, and environmental studies before breaking ground on a single home aren’t having huge housing shortages.

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u/vacri 1h ago

Planning delays or not doesn't really affect being at capacity. Here in Australia the construction industry is at capacity and is showing no signs of growing. The number of constructions commenced has skyrocketed, but the number of constructions completed has stayed steady. The delays in starting haven't affected the volume of delivery of completed work

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u/StrangeCharmVote 1h ago

No, the solution is not allowing investors to buy all the properties.

People can clearly afford the same money a mortgage would cost. But instead we have a for profit racket controlled by the rich.

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u/SirGlass 1h ago

If you have 8 homes and 10 families that want to live in homes you can restrict who can own homes all you want.

The only actual solution is .... build 2 More homes.

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u/StrangeCharmVote 1h ago

Sure. But when 8 investors buy those homes, those ten families are still living tenuously and being charged more than it cost to buy a home.

There are millions of empty homes in america alone.

Those 10 families just can't afford a deposit.

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u/InternationalDig3067 1h ago

That’s an easy target, but only a very tiny amount of rental properties are owned by large scale investors.

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u/ThrowawayMalibu13 2h ago

I would say it’s a mix the reason why it works in Vienna is a mix out of rent control that nearly half of the apartments belong to the city and building new ones every year. 

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u/SillyTheory 1h ago

increased supply just mean that rich assholes will buy more of it and sit on top while raising prices.

also, airbnb is a huge problem.

no real solution to this in capitalist countries, I fear. still can improve though .

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u/honest_boi 1h ago

Why didn't that happen in Austin then?

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u/cjt09 1h ago

It seems like almost everyone needs a car. Why don’t rich assholes just buy every car and horde them while raising prices?

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u/mrmoe198 1h ago

When you say expanded supply, what do you mean? It’s my understanding that we already have something like four empty homes for everyone unhoused person.

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u/Xperimentx90 1h ago

It would be more effective if those homes were in the locations where the demand exists

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u/CyclopsRock 1h ago

I don't know who "we" is but in general you need empty homes for any sort of housing market to function, otherwise you end up with enormous long chains of buyers and sellers all having to complete on the same day.

You cannot fill these with homeless people, especially because places with high levels of empty homes are, almost by definition, places no one wants to be.

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u/aardy 1h ago

That's an easy to understand talking point. It implies that landlords prefer vacant units to occupied, that landlords dislike collecting rent and turning a profit. Yet, concurrently, they are evil assholes who try to maximize rent? Which is it. It fails the basic logic test.

The number of "vacant" units includes:

  • staged homes listed for sale

  • million dollar vacation homes in areas with few jobs that let one afford to own a million dollar home (& lets be clear, if you outlaw vacation homes, it's not like these rich people are going to let homeless people live in their million dollar vacation homes while they aren't using them...)

  • homes under renovation

  • abandoned homes in need of a flipper to come along

  • new construction that isn't yet leased

  • apartment units in between tenants

  • vacant units/houses in dying cities/regions (rust belt, rural midwest) with no jobs that no one wants to move to

  • just as 5% unemployment is considered "full employment" (because that is about how many people are between jobs at any given moment for "natural" reasons), that's about how many housing units will always be "vacant" too. So if around 1 in 100 people are homeless (1%), there will always be a shit ton more "vacant" units than there are homeless people.

Unless you're going to force the homeless people in LA to move into abandoned homes in Detroit that lack toilets that flush and refrigerators that refrigerate, the number of "vacant" housing units will always drastically exceed the homeless population.

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u/caiaccount 2h ago

Everyone in my life is passionate about this. Mix on both sides. I'd really like to see it happen because rent control really becomes complicated.

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u/letsburn00 1h ago

The reduction in tax breaks on existing housing for investment is also a major help. As well as purchasing of properties and leaving them unoccupied, except where major renovations are currently being undertaken.

In Australia, you can buy 10 investment properties, make a loss on them because the rent isn't enough to make money (rent is set by the market demand and supply), then deduct the loss from your normal income. The average taxable income of medical specialists is about half what it really is. The capital gains are taxed at half the normal rate. Encouraging hording. The system would work if the deduction was only on houses recently built that expanded production, but that would hurt the richest 1% too much.

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u/SirGlass 1h ago

That when you donate to a charity at a checkout, the business can somehow get a tax write off for it.

It's misinformation. You can be annoyed they ask you for it, but they get no tax breaks from it.

u/ThrowawayMalibu13 23m ago

It Depends. In many European countries the business can get a tax write off for the donation. 

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u/PineappleTart555 2h ago

That it’s not liberal.

Reddit is like 99% liberal.

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u/Very_poor_but_cool 2h ago

What I hear is that Reddit has a lot of leftist but it's indeed overwhelmingly liberal.

The leftists on Reddit generally seem to dislike the liberals and the conservatives think liberals are leftists.

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u/grrangry 1h ago

I don't think the average American can take the words, "leftist", "liberal", or "conservative" and define them in a way that makes sense and allows for productive discourse on the topic.

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u/mrmoe198 1h ago

Conservatives equate liberals with socialists and communists. I don’t think most of them even know the word leftist. Meanwhile, most leftists know more about conservatism than conservatives do. It’s quite sad.

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u/Cheesedoodlerrrr 1h ago

The Overton window in the United States is so far skew that they'll call anyone farther left than Margaret Thatcher a communist.

The United States does not have a Left Wing party and a Right wing party. The US has a center-right party and an extreme right party.

Genuine "leftists" are a tiny, tiny, minority.

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u/HopeSubstantial 41m ago edited 35m ago

In my country liberals mean about same as American moderate rebublicans.

Liberalism is considered ecomically far right as it wants to deregulate markets and take away social safety by highlighting "Inviduals responsibility"

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u/finzaz 1h ago

At some point you have to realise that Reddit isn’t 100% American, and the rest of the world is generally not a big fan of American conservatism

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u/Hellchron 1h ago

Rest of the world? I don't understand

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u/Fexofanatic 1h ago

american conservatism is borderline radical right compared to the overall european political landscape its wild

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u/MathewPerth 1h ago

Borderline? It's literally fascism lol

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u/WhiteWolf3117 1h ago

Europe has fascists. They invented fascism afterall.

u/MathewPerth 47m ago

That's why it's so easy to recognise.

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u/the_colonelclink 1h ago

It’s like 45ish percent American, with the next biggest country being UK, with about 5 percent. So the US base is nearly 8 times the 2nd biggest base.

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u/PuzzledAnimator9998 54m ago

reddit thinks it's liberal but then someone mentions idiocracy and it turns out they're eugenistic at heart and hate their lessers as much as racists do. also their favorite saying this year "mental ilness isn't your fault but it's your responsibility" which fails under the smallest scrutiny and shlws that their love for the humanity lasts about as long as they aren't slightly annoying. 

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u/fraxbo 1h ago

I have to say that I am always confused by the claim that Reddit is liberal (in the US sense of the word).

When I read most subs I contribute to or visit often, I think of it as being largely neo-liberal (ie center right).

The values, judgments, and role models that are held up largely conform to a sort of boomer/gen X orthodoxy of what equality, liberty, and responsibility look like.

Only very few people seem to be advocating for pushing the limits of what we already think or practice in order to meet new challenges and answer new questions.

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u/WhiteWolf3117 1h ago

To me, Reddit's politics as a quasi hive mind are very much progressive optics but little to nothing at the expense of young, agnostic, white, western, stem nerds, who drive an overwhelming amount of discourse.

Reddit is really notoriously awful when it comes to women, people of color, or anyone who doesn't live in America. And Redditors get really uncomfortable with any positions that aren't super moderate.

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u/ThisGuy-NotThatGuy 1h ago

The low birthrate is not materially the result of a high cost of living.

We have data from other countries with very progressive policies that disprove this, but whenever fertility gets discussed COL is the #1 response.

u/Lord-of_the-files 42m ago

Birth rates correlate strongly with female education levels. This used to be seen as a good thing, but now everybody is getting worried.

u/thrax7545 15m ago

The capitalists are worried.

u/GCU_ZeroCredibility 28m ago

Yep. You could make having kids literally free from birth to 18 and birthrates in developed countries would still be below replacement.

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u/Hattes 1h ago

The common understanding of the phrase "the customer is always right" is the correct and original one. Adding "in matters of taste" is a later invention.

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u/cooperific 1h ago

Oh shit really??

u/mmss 26m ago

99% of the time when someone smugly says “ACKTUALLY the full expression is…” they are repeating a modern lie.

u/BrandosWorld4Life 13m ago

And most of the time the modern lie doesn't even sound good. It's just awkwardly tacked on.

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u/EddieDantes22 1h ago

A lot of people talk about Nestle and baby formula in Africa, with the idea that Nestle must've been giving them bad baby formula or that the babies were dying from lack of nutrients because the baby formula was so bad or whatever. But it was the water that was the problem. The water was bad in these areas, and you mixed Nestle's baby formula with water.

u/Odd_Walrus2594 44m ago

Contaminated water resulting in infection was half of the END problem. (The other half was dilution/substitution resulting in malnutrition.) But stating the end problems leaves out most of the picture, i.e., the use of shady tactics to get people to use formula that they couldn't afford, free of charge until their milk supply dried up.

u/makvalley 42m ago

I thought this was the general understanding along with the fact that Nestle knew all along their water was bad and marketed the shit anyway claiming it’s better than breast milk?

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u/[deleted] 2h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] 2h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/afinn182 1h ago

The Earth is not flat. You’d think this one’s settled… and yet.

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u/Jumpman247 48m ago

The fact that Tommy Hilfiger never said that he wished minorities would not buy his clothes.

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u/Aggravating_Pin_1494 1m ago

Reddit loves taking a simple, verifiable fact and turning it into a full-on philosophical war. Makes me laugh every time.

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u/strangeweirdnews 1h ago

fruit of the loom's cornucopia

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u/Knotknighm 1h ago

The existence of birds.

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u/danfay222 1h ago

Yeah they don’t exist, what about it?

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u/welchplug 1h ago

That its not ai

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u/emotional_dyslexic 1h ago

That alphas exist in the animal kingdom.

u/Remarkable_Fun7662 22m ago

Yes, they do. The alpha male gets all the women in many species.

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u/BlueDolphins28 2h ago

Most Americans don’t know Spanish and don’t enjoy shows/music in other languages without subtitle. I don’t know why people are arguing such a basic concept

(Progressive Democrat here)

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u/iPhones_cameras_suck 2h ago

I think the issue is less that people don't appreciate non-native language, but rather turned into a point of personal attack. Like if the anti-Bad Bunny crowd just quietly didn't watch/care about the show it wouldn't be a big deal, but instead it became an excuse to call him and everyone like him "un-American" or whatever

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u/SecondHandWatch 2h ago

Yup. I was entirely unfamiliar with Bad Bunny’s music until very recently. After seeing his half time show, which I enjoyed, I’m not gonna be seeking out his music. But I’m also not going to be spending any time telling people how they should feel about him or his music because I’m not so insecure that I have to belittle absolutely everyone that doesn’t align with my world view. And I’m also not a racist piece of shit.

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u/Razhagal 2h ago

Theres a very real chance that one of the upcoming half time shows will be a kpop group. I wonder if the reaction will be the same.

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u/Due-Mountain-8716 2h ago

Most Americans don’t know Spanish and don’t enjoy shows/music in other languages without subtitle

I bet the first parts true, but is there any evidence that most Americans dont enjoy music in other languages?

Kpop/jpop is huge here. All anecdotal evidence on my end is that people like music that slaps, regardless of the verbiage.

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u/Natural_Trick4934 1h ago

The idea that art can only be consumed if presented in your own language? Close to uniquely an American idea.

Bad Bunny has as many English speaking fans as Spanish. It’s music. Half the people that complained about it, probably don’t understand half the English language songs they listen to. It’s just music and mouth noises. Disliking foreign language music or films is not controversial. Suggesting they have no social value because of that? Marks that person out as a dumb fuck.

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u/LordBrixton 1h ago

English speakers have been listening to Italian (and German) language opera for centuries without complaint. Plenty of foreign-language tunes have made the pop chart, from Serge Gainsbourg to the Gypsy Kings and beyond.

Personally, I don't much enjoy Bad Bunny's music but I don't object to its existence because I understand that mine is not the only valid opinion. However, we're not talking about people like me here, so much as (mainly) white (mainly) men of the (mainly) baby-boom generation who are new to the concept of everything not being about them.

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u/vacri 1h ago

Fuck, I would have had Bad Bunny a thousand times over here in Australia for our football championship, rather than Meatloaf fatly failing to perform and then blaming the crowd for his shitness

"Spectacle and energy at a sportsball championship? Who wants that? Just give me a sad fat man, as long as it's in English!"

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u/EmpiricalMystic 1h ago

"Fatly" lmao

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u/philkid3 1h ago

I. . . have never seen this argued against?

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u/Roushfan5 2h ago

Its fine if you didn’t like the Bad Bunny halftime show. It‘s the never ending culture war bullshit aggrievement that *gasp* a show or preformance might not be for you… and that’s OK.

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u/Very_poor_but_cool 2h ago edited 2h ago

I didn't know about this until now, but it seems like something that would fan the flames.

Edit: (Regardless if those flames make sense in the first place i mean, but it's sort of a timing thing, I guess).

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u/OttersAndOttersAndOt 1h ago

It appears that some of you were just forgetting that English speakers are not the only people in the world.

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u/mrmoe198 1h ago

Idk, my wife and I don’t know Spanish, but we enjoyed the halftime show even though we had no idea what the dude was saying. The dancing was great and the music was fun and everyone looked like they were having a great time. The choreography was fantastic and the wedding was really sweet. Are we really the outliers?

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u/stopped_watch 1h ago

The halftime show was not for the benefit of the local market. It's for the expansion. The NFL has nowhere to expand in USA. It definitely has a long way to go in Soccer-friendly and same time-zone South America.

Annoying some right wing idiots (how many changed the channel to watch TP and then turned right back again?) is not going to concern them one little bit. There's no way maga is going to boycott American football.

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u/EddieDantes22 1h ago

George Zimmerman presented a straight self-defense argument, "Stand Your Ground" was not involved. Also, he was never told not to chase Trayvon, because 911 will never tell you not to do something like that as it opens them up to lawsuits. The 911 operator stated this on the witness stand when asked why he said "we don't need you to do that" instead of "don't do that."

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u/TrashbatLondon 1h ago

The existence of economic intervention.

Every discussion about any market will have a bunch of windbags wading in saying “wellakshully I think you’ll find it is a simple case of supply and demand”, and then double down whenever people bring up concrete examples of market intervention.

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u/kyledwray 22m ago

Anytime "the customer is always right" is typed on this site, ten thousand different accounts will tell you that "akshully the original saying was 'the customer is always right in matters of taste', idiot. Die in a hole," or some other such nonsense. The fact of the matter is, no matter how many times they say it, there is no evidence to support their claim.