I agree on a general basis that it’s bad that these kind of decisions are offloaded to an AI. A human should be the one to consider whether the blind 70 year old is dangerous, because they definitely can be.

Operating a vehicle or weapon requires neither eyesight nor a clear mind if you don’t intend to do it safely.

Let’s get some to Europe as well! You’re welcome here :D

I agree with the sentiment that different roles have different specific requirements- a tank driver doesn’t need to be as strong or fast as an infantryman. However, there are some base requirements that apply to all front-line troops. No matter your role, if you are expected to see combat, you need to be at a certain level with regards to weapons handling, but also physical strength and endurance. Even a tank driver, medic or radio operator may need to fire a gun, carry wounded, or help push a jeep upright.

Still, I agree that there are different requirements for different specialities, and definitely think it is a good idea to have different requirements for these in the selection process. However, I can’t see a compelling argument saying that the base requirements for male and female tank drivers, medics, infantry, etc. should be different. I think the tank crew is an especially good example here, because research on Norwegian soldiers has indicated that women are (on average) better suited to this role, because they are often better at handling high cognitive load while exhausted. Putting the same requirements for everyone, with requirements tuned to the specialisation, could very well lead to more women in certain roles.

Of course, for your second point, I think that falls under the category of “everything is bad if poorly implemented”. I definitely agree that it’s a bad idea to place very hard baseline physical requirements for all roles. That means the military will lose out on highly capable medics, tank crews, radio operators, etc. both male and female. But as you say, more of the capable people lost will be women, simply because of biology. However, I think that’s more a question about how requirements for the military should be implemented, and not really a question of “should we place the same requirements on men and women in the same role?” to which I think, on general grounds, the answer should be yes.

To be clear - I have no doubts that the people pushing this in the current administration intend to leverage it to push highly capable women out of roles they are more than capable of filling, and that’s an unambiguously bad thing.

Ok, so this guy is a known misogynist, and is likely to twist this into something that gives women an objective disadvantage. With that said, I want to ask what makes people opposed to the idea of actually gender-neutral physical requirements for military positions.

Personally, I served in the Norwegian army alongside a bunch of very capable women. I think women in the army bring a big positive contribution. There’s even research suggesting that women are better suited than men for certain combat roles. With that established, is it not fair to require that a woman in the infantry is capable of carrying the same kit, or wounded partner, as her male counterparts? I’ve done my fair share of ammo runs, and the women in my platoon carried just as heavy shells as the men. If they hadn’t been capable of that, I would say they simply weren’t qualified for the job.

I don’t know what current requirements are in the US military. What I’m questioning is why so many people here seem opposed to the idea that anyone in a physically demanding role meets the same base criteria?

This is just another step down “I honestly just can’t comprehend the stupidity of what is going on in the American government”-alley…

Like… what do they even expect to come of this? Why are they even interested in doing it? Is it just to stir up shit?

I think they were agreeing with you

I’ll never forget the video of a guy in his car literally praying to trump…

It’s a relevant question either way: Regardless whether you think all education should be free (which I agree, it should), this is about how they plan on resolving this specific case of making education more accessible right now.

Whether education should be free altogether is a whole different question. In that case, it would make sense to also discuss whether it should be free for everyone, or whether there should be some income limit.

In Norway we’ve landed on a solution where the education itself is free, but in order to qualify for a government stipend and government-backed loan (with very good interest rates) in order to support yourself studying you need to have a fortune below a certain (high) threshold. Personally, I think that’s a nice trade off between accessibility and preventing rich people from making money off of a welfare program.

I still think it’s a fair question to ask, because as far as I understand, there’s nothing forcing Harvard to use the same method as the federal government. Have you seen anything on how they plan to do that?

There has to be some objective method of categorising whether someone lives off their parents income or not: it’s a relevant question to ask.

Someone can live in the same house as their parents while paying full rent and being responsible for their own food, effectively being economically independent. They can also live on the other side of the country while being 100% sponsored by their parents. It’s not trivial to categorise whether someone qualifies for something like this.

It’s funny how we interpreted OP’s comment completely oppositely. I interpreted it as

Classrooms should, as a starter, be uniform. However, we need to expose kids to all kinds of things and not overly shelter them from different opinions, therefore these signs should remain.

If I understand correctly, you interpret OP as arguing that the signs should be removed?

I’m saying that taking down the signs is being “overly sheltering” in the sense that it’s showing kids that you can just make anything you don’t like go away. This is an argument to keep the signs in order to help the kids learn to deal with exposure to the world, regardless of whether they like what they see. I honestly have a hard time seeing how OP’s comment can be interpreted differently?

I don’t see how people are so opposed to the idea that “we should help our children become strong and robust so that they’re not offended by everything”.

Life is a lot easier when you can handle people saying and doing things you don’t like without it breaking you. I’m not saying injustice should be tolerated: Quite the opposite. I’m saying that fighting injustice is easier if you are robust enough withstand it when it’s directed at you.

My impression is that that’s what you mean, in which case I wholly agree.

russia: Invades neighbouring country, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Ukraine: Defends itself.

Pretty much everyone: Tells russia to stop and to leave Ukraine.

Russia:

NATO started this lmao gottem

Do people like you really fall for this?

I had forgotten about that! However: That wasn’t sanctioned by the government though if I remember correctly, it was done by civilians that requested governmental military support which was refused.

I’m not quite sure if you’re disregarding the fact that Norway and Denmark haven’t had a war for hundreds of years because they don’t share a land border? In any case i can point out that there were plenty of Norwegian-Danish hostilities before the union time. With both Norway and Denmark being big on seafaring, the waters between Norway and Denmark have historically been seen much more as a highway (as you say about the Anglo-Portuguese waters) than anything else.

The distance is shorter though, so I would rather compare the Norwegian-Danish border to the Anglo-French border, and the lack of a land border there hasn’t really prevented any wars.

Why don’t you go ask the Nazi sympathisers we executed for treason after the war about that?

If a state permits its citizens to betray the country in favour of an adversary in the event of a war, it’s incapable of protecting itself. The most important task of any society is to keep its members safe. A crucial aspect of that is accepting the social contract that everyone on the society will help keep each other safe, even in the event that an outside adversary invades and threatens to kill you. If you break that social contract- guess what? The rest of society will typically (at least historically) brand you as a traitor and imprison or execute you. Why? Because you’ve shown that you’re willing to put their head on the block for your own benefit, so they see you as a threat (perhaps the worst thinkable threat) to the security their society provides, and decide to remove that threat to protect themselves.

No matter what oath you have or haven’t taken, societies obligation to keep you safe only extends as far as your willingness to protect the society. This is why treason, in most societies, is seen as one of the worst, if not the worst, crime you can commit. It’s literally stabbing strangers that are willing to die for you and your family in the back.

Quite a surprising one here: I think the Norwegian/russian border can actually match that. I believe Norway is the only country neighbouring russia that has never been invaded by them (sans WWII, where they invaded Nazi-occupied Norway and willingly left after the Axis was defeated).

I also think the Norwegian/Danish border has been conflict-free for some hundred years (to be fair, we were in a union for ≈450 years ending in 1814). We’ve had some skirmishes with the Swedes throughout the years, but I believe the last one was in 1814.

You had me until the “China/Russa/NK” part…

Do you really think a good solution to the US slowly going haywire over the past 20-30 years or so is snuggling up to dictatorships, of which two have boots on the ground in the first major European war of aggression since WWII, and the third is the only thing keeping the economy of the other two afloat? I think not. I think alienating said dictatorships is a good idea. I also think the US needs to be confronted and forced to make a decision on whether it wants to remain on good terms with the civilised world.

Exactly! It’s choosing not to do so which makes some companies special!

hundred thousand

There’s plenty of archeological evidence that the populations of Scandinavia are more or less those that followed the ice and were the first to populate the region after the ice age. That is: They are the native or “original” inhabitants of the land.