Have you ever changed your mind about one of those big issues?

[Awson]

Abortion, Socialism vs Capitalism, Death Penalty, Minority Issues, etc?

If so, which ones? This is not a place to debate these things. Only to say if you've changed your stance (and maybe why you did, personally).

[Halo]

I changed my mind about the existence of God, if that counts. And about the deterministic view of the universe and the consequential implications for free will.

If you mean political issues only, not really. I live in the UK; pretty much our whole society is in unison about those particular sorts of issues. The largest disparity in our parties is in economic policy, and the social impact of that really amounts to "should we have a moderate amount of welfare, or a larger amount of welfare?" The differences in opinion are really so minor compared to the huge schisms in American politics.

EDIT: Also, how does "Socialism vs. Capitalism" even make sense as a "vs."? I don't understand this. It's an American thing I think. Extreme Socialism and extreme Capitalism are arguably opposing, purely because the absolute extremes of both require absolute power in differing places, but you can very easily be a socialist capitalist state. Many countries are. The absolute extremes are absolutely irrelevant, as they usually are in any issue.

[aza]

I now think a god exists but we're most likely a divine afterthought and probably not worth an omnipotent being's consideration.
I now think that "being human" is defined by your ability to give or not to give consent to anything. Which consequently has changed my stance on euthanasia.

Just today I've put a piece of my soul into writing and I guess my next thought would be about capitalism & socialism.

so
change i guess

[Vilageidiotx]

I've drifted away from a conservative upbringing and into the far left. Albeit I think political drift has become rather common in America nowadays, this election being an example with both parties dealing with noticeable internal strife through the primary season.

[Awson]

God lies in etcetera.

[The Nexerus]

I went through about a year long phase of identifying with the left, when I was just entering High School, right as I started becoming aware of politics. I ended up shifting to the right and I haven't changed my perspectives much since.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Speaking on a matter of "sliding scale", I was in an environment of hard, set standards and expectations - nothing beyond what one can handle and nothing extreme, but life experience has relaxed my assessment on matters such as faith and sexuality, but matters of death penalty, abortion, race and the sort were always non-issues for myself and others around me. They simply made sense and there never needed to be question on them in my opinion - nothing there to debate.

In regard to economics, I have always been about those in the industry so I have a sort of unfair perspective and opinion on that. In particular because I lived in an environment that had excess and decadence, I saw it collapse and destroyed when fortune turned sickly by mismanagement and betrayal and in a time that mattered a lot in life. I was fortunate enough to have known both great wealth and near poverty, but even to this day I find myself dealing with the aftereffects of that.

If anything I have become more sympathetic and living by the philosophy of "freedom of choice, within reason".

[Antarctic Termite]

Standard-issue religious chap turned agnostic, checking in.

[KnightShade]

Recently I've gone from slightly religious to slightly agnostic. My views on freedom of speech have gotten a little less extreme. As a rough microcosm on that last one my view of cultural appropriation immediately changed when I thought for more than five seconds about it.

Further back I used to be fairly conservative simply to try to impress my Nan. Since realizing she's a bitch and that's impossible I've bounced around my natural home, the left of the spectrum. I'll probably stay on the left but never settle on an ideology to fully identify with because I'm too cynical and changeable. I think they're either too idealistic or lack conviction.

[Vilageidiotx]

Religion is one I am sort of funny with (since everyone is bringing it up) in that i've always been just sort of ambivalent to it. I would have technically been religious as a kid, but all I remember is feeling superstitious about prayer until I found out you don't just get what you prayed for, after which I lost interest and religion kind of began and ended at "Bow your head at thanksgiving and think about video games until Uncle stops talking." So there isn't really a moment for me where I phased out of religious, I just sort have always been disinterested.

Though the history of religion is interesting shit. That part is worth the reading.

[Dinh AaronMk]

Gone from Presbytarian to there is no god but Tengri.

[ACPM]

EDIT: Also, how does "Socialism vs. Capitalism" even make sense as a "vs."? I don't understand this. It's an American thing I think. Extreme Socialism and extreme Capitalism are arguably opposing, purely because the absolute extremes of both require absolute power in differing places, but you can very easily be a socialist capitalist state. Many countries are. The absolute extremes are absolutely irrelevant, as they usually are in any issue.

@Halo

I think what you're referring to would be classed as social democracies. Socialism is a system in which the means of production, exchange and distribution are controlled by the workers. Capitalism is a system in which the said means are controlled by an individual. They are qualitatively different, in the same way a square and a triangle are qualitatively different (you cannot have a triangle with some square properties). Social democracy is simply a form of capitalism which prefers to use Keynesian economics rather than perhaps more libertarian economics.

[Derpestein]

<Snipped quote by Halo>

I think what you're referring to would be classed as social democracies. Socialism is a system in which the means of production, exchange and distribution are controlled by the workers. Capitalism is a system in which the said means are controlled by an individual. They are qualitatively different, in the same way a square and a triangle are qualitatively different (you cannot have a triangle with some square properties). Social democracy is simply a form of capitalism which prefers to use Keynesian economics rather than perhaps more libertarian economics.

@ACPM

10/10, accounts first post is discussing the differences in socialism and capitalism, in spam.

What a way to start.

[Vilageidiotx]

<Snipped quote by Halo>

I think what you're referring to would be classed as social democracies. Socialism is a system in which the means of production, exchange and distribution are controlled by the workers. Capitalism is a system in which the said means are controlled by an individual. They are qualitatively different, in the same way a square and a triangle are qualitatively different (you cannot have a triangle with some square properties). Social democracy is simply a form of capitalism which prefers to use Keynesian economics rather than perhaps more libertarian economics.

@ACPM

In theory, though I suppose you could argue that in practice social democracy is socialism since it's as close as we've ever came at this point in our development. For the same reason there has never really been a free market economy (interventionism has always lay at the heart of the system, even in the robber baron days when that interventionism amounted to protective tariffs. Real free market economics is ridiculously unstable and unworkable, anytime we get close to putting it in practice damaging bubbles always arise), we've never really had a worker-controlled economy on a large scale (the "Commmunists" of the twentieth century, the Soviets, China, etc, were 'State Capitalist' in the sense that they have the state act as the ruling aristocracy in place of the bourgeois). So I guess really Sweden is as close as a nation has came to socialism, we might as call them socialist, for the same reason we might as well call Reaganomics "Free market economics" even though in practice it relied heavily on state subsidies for more major technical industries just as much as American economics have since 1941.

It depends on whether you think terms should describe theoretical constructs or practical constructs. There is something Platonic about it i guess; is there such thing as a perfect system and all of that.

[mdk]

I was a christian, but a bunch of people on the internet debated me hardcore and now I'm smarter because I realize how stupid god is.

[Dinh AaronMk]

<Snipped quote by ACPM>

10/10, accounts first post is discussing the differences in socialism and capitalism, in spam.

What a way to start.

@Derpestein

Who wants to bet he signed up merely to plug into the argument because he somehow happened to find the debate?

[Vilageidiotx]

<Snipped quote by Derpestein>

Who wants to bet he signed up merely to plug into the argument because he somehow happened to find the debate?

@Dinh AaronMk

Sounds like the type of people we need to recruit to PoW.

[Dinh AaronMk]

@Vilageidiotx

"Join PoW, somehow I didn't manage to make our communist Chinese totally morally bankrupt!"

[VarionusNW]

Used to be religious, became an athiest. Used to be on the authoritarian left in terms of political views, on the verge of becoming an SJW, and then logic, reason, and a stoner punched me in the face. For some reason, I became friends with this complete stoner, and we would have conversations about drugs and debate about if they should be legalized. I parroted the "drugz r bad" shit, and he refuted me with actual arguments. I haven't heard from that guy in a few years, but thanks to him I formed my lasseiz faire policy on idiocy, aka "Let idiots be idiots (without legal repercussions)". From there I realized how shit the idea of restricting peoples freedoms was. My political stance had started going from authoritarian to libertarian.

There was also this guy who's still a good friend of mine who introduced me to the concept of social justice, ideologies, and special snowflakes. Let's just say that after that point, I went full skeptic. I stay away from social movements now, but try to stay as informed on issues as possible. A lot of my past opinions were based on a lack of information. Fuck ignorance.

Oh yea, I might as well say where my political stance ended up. I'm not really on the left or the right, sort of in the middle I guess. I'm heavily libertarian. I highly value personal freedoms, especially the freedom of speech.

[SleepingSilence]

I haven't never really 180'd on anything, I pretty much believe what I've always believed in. I think life has made me change my overall outlook of life in general from an optimist to a pessimist. But that's more philosophy change, than politically though one could argue looking at reality vs what sounds good, did greatly change my political perspective and my overall outlook on people and life. But honestly, I'm pretty the same person. (maybe slightly more bitter toward life and at the same time being far less depressed than I used to be.) :/

The internet and the people that surrounded me probably made me an even stronger liberal (or more accurately libertarian/anti-authoritarian) on most social issues. And at the same time realizing the many grey areas of those social issues, of how extremists can be slightly ridiculous and I can acknowledge 'the slippery slope fallacy' is almost a valid argument. Knowing people are never satisfied and will always want more. People's seemingly endless hypocrisy probably made me care more about politics than the average person my age or just in general frankly given how uninformed the general population seems to be. Though very recently, I've grown rather tired of politics. Seeing too many assholes, that can't separate general politics from personal matters.

@mdk They say being an asshole and trying to force your opinions will NEVER change one's true beliefs. But hell, maybe edgy teenagers and religious zealots are on to something after all. *sarcasm*

@Derpestein Not great no, but at least it's better than others ones I see on here. :P