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?

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.

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.

I answered you because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, assuming that you had genuinely misunderstood the OP, and that you weren’t trolling. I’m telling you that what you misunderstood was so clear to everyone else that a lot of people here seem to think you’re trolling rather than genuinely misunderstanding.

With your latest response I’m not too sure anymore.

Ok, I’ll put it clearly: You’re wrongly interpreting the person you’re arguing with as saying something you disagree with. They never meant what you’re claiming they meant, and they’ve said as much.

When you keep trying to nail them to the wall, it comes off as being disingenuous, and just looking for a fight, even though you don’t really disagree with the OP on anything related to what they’ve posted in this thread.

You’re being downvoted because everyone else can see this, and think you’re trolling because you don’t seem to see it, even though it’s obvious to everyone else. In fact, it’s so obvious that people probably think it’s more likely that you’re trolling than that you genuinely don’t understand that you have no disagreement with the OP here.

In case you’re not trolling, I would like to point something out to you:

The up-/downvote ratio here probably reflects the fact that onlookers don’t believe you are arguing in good faith. It should act as a wake-up call to you, an indicator that you should re-consider what the other person is saying and ask yourself “Am I misunderstanding their point? Could this be interpreted differently?”.

You may find that you are disagreeing with them over something they never said or intended to say.

If I was religious, I probably wouldn’t be too far from thinking that a biblical plague hitting the country every time The Führer was elected was some kind of sign…

It’s terrifying that this seems like a reasonable explanation

I just can’t see how an incompetent (and thereby less productive) populace benefits the oligarchs, other than the whole thing about wanting people to be easier to manipulate.

I mean, if the country has fewer competent people, businesses relying on competence will eventually start hurting. That obviously includes these people’s companies, which are the source of their all-important wealth.

I just honestly cannot comprehend what the end game is at this point… like, how does this even benefit anyone at all?

I seem to remember seeing a comic about the moment in an RPG shooter game where you walk into an area and notice lots of cover - you know shit’s about to hit the fan.

Looks like Alabama was inspired…

Which is a comparison that makes complete sense. When you say that someone is leading the way, you are clearly referring to them being at the forefront at the time when they were leading the way. Any system that was a trail blazer 100+ years ago should be outdated by now, unless progress stopped or went backwards in the meantime.