>If they refuse or tell you how evil buying glasses online is, get a new optometrist.

It's truly hilarious how defensive they get over online glasses purchases. I've been using Zenni for over 5 years now, and there's no way in hell I'd go back to using a local optometrist for my glasses.

And Venezuela is a paradise on earth!

Have you ever read anything about Cuban democracy besides the propaganda put out by the US government? If you're actually interested in educating yourself, there's an interesting sociology paper called Representative Government in Socialist Cuba.

I'm not particularly interested in Cuban propaganda, no.

China was doing really really badly until Mao died and Deng took power and began implementing market reforms, bringing capitalism in.

Where is the success of capitalism? It's in the rapidly falling global extreme poverty rate, soon to be below 10% for the first time in human history. It's in the cell phone networks blanketing Africa and Asia, giving people access to easy communication and banking. It's in the rapidly rising standards of living throughout Asia and Africa and parts of Latin America not under the communist thumb. Capitalism is the greatest force for improving people's lives that has ever been, and likely to be the greatest that ever will be.

You should've seen socialism in 1952. That force was far greater than any capitalism today. And it will return.

There's the old parable

>"In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, "Down with Reagan!", and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, "Down with Reagan!", and you will not be punished.

Actually, you still could be punished, being an independent political activist.

So his exiling of over a million cubans is acceptable, then?

Yes.

That seems, at best, orthogonal to the issue of foreign investment and business.

>The glass of wine or beer is, firstly, more palatable than marijuana,

Your personal opinion.

>secondly, you can do it indoors without everything smelling like weed,

Vaporizers diminish the smell to a point where it's almost unnoticeable, and edibles don't smell at all.

>thirdly, the mild depressant effect of one alcoholic beverage is way more pleasant than getting high

Again, your personal opinion.

>Not to mention the cost.

"The average price per gram, they found, was $6.81; the average joint was $3.50."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/science/how-much-weed-is-i...

I think for most people an entire joint by themselves is going to take care of them for the entire night (or longer if it's snuffed out and re-lit). How many beers or mixed drinks are you getting for $3.50?

Your comment is 100% opinion - I think it's very obvious that different people have different opinions. That is why I said "some people" not "all people".

Vaporisors and edibles are odorless, and the price would surely come down if it was grown in commercial quantities.

I've always thought it's more that absolute power attracts the corrupt disproportionately.

Coincidentally, I'm re-reading Lord of the Rings at the moment. Not sure if a work of fiction is the best source of moral lessons, but the whole point of the book is that the Ring of Power would corrupt even the most incorruptible. And somehow, this doesn't surprise me.

Well, sure, but that is a work of fiction.

Why is a moral lesson in a story any less of a moral lesson?

Why is a moral lesson in a story a moral lesson? I can invent any moral lesson and put it in a story. That a supposed moral lesson is featured in a work of fiction does not lend credence to it.

So you acknowledge morals can be told through stories. And they are. Like, you know, in the Bible or fables. You just don't believe they have "credence". Which I never asked about. Good debate.

You seem to be extremely confused. Of course moral lessons can be taught through stories. That a moral lesson is taught through story does not make the moral taught true in any sense. Which makes bringing up the One Ring and Tolkien extremely strange.

I am not confused at all. Perhaps you're projecting your own confusion onto me. You simply have an unbelievably naive viewpoint with no coherent argument.

My point is that exploring and conveying "morals" is actually one of the primary functions of literature. I can't tell if you agree or disagree with this. But if you believe that something being "fiction" means it's not worth paying attention to or that it cannot offer valid moral instruction, well, you are a tremendous fool.

Whether you agree or disagree with the moral or ethical argument being made is a completely separate point.

> That a moral lesson is taught through story does not make the moral taught true in any sense.

I never said that a moral lesson appearing in a story makes it "true". That's a stupid thing to even suggest. You are, however, suggesting that any moral lesson in any narrative that isn't "true" (would you mind sharing your definition of true so we can determine how we can come to that conclusion?) cannot contain a valid moral. Which is absurd.

Or the corrupt get it far more easily.

To me this is the most plausible direction.

D. All of the above.

Corruption is a vague term, borrowed by old sayings.

Personality characteristics, like "The Dark Triad/Tetrad," do a better job of explaining tendencies for misbehavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

In town, with the level of traffic seen? Yeah, it's keeping to the posted speed limits. Realistically, I'd be doing 5 to 10 over except in explicit residential zones, when there are cops (limit to 5 over), and when traffic doesn't allow it.