We Borrow the Economy from our Children...

...not really.  But for those who insist we borrow this or borrow that from our children, who complain about being "wage slaves", let me ask you:

What have you added to the world?  You, who sit there with your iPhone and iPad and computer and countless other devices that represent millions of hours of labor of the brightest minds of our species over the last two centuries, devices which took thousands of hours of skilled labor to create - have you created something commensurate?  Have you repaid society?

Here's fundamentally the question: Are you adding more to the economy than you're taking out of it?  If the answer is yes - if you've performed the labor equivalent of the goods and services you consume each day - then maybe you're worth paying more.  But let's face it, very few people are any more productive today than they would have been a hundred years ago, and they're getting paid hundreds of times more for the very same labor, living lifestyles that kings in ages past would have traded for, enjoying the fruits of labor they never put in, from the antibiotics that keep them alive (extortion!  They cost so much!) to the iPhone they call people a thousand miles away to chat about the weather on (exorbitant fees!  How dare they ask for a contract to pay back the cost of the phone they sold for a fourth of its production cost!).  Very few people are doing anything to actually add anything substantive back into the world for the next generation to enjoy, and we're all cruising along on those few individual's efforts.  Some of them are industrialists, some are artists, some are authors, some are scientists, and all of them, regardless of what they achieve, receive next to nothing in compensation compared to what they add to the world, and yet we demand ever more of them, especially those of us who never contribute anything to the world except complaints.

So you're a wage slave, are you?

You know what a wage slave really is?

Somebody who isn't adding anything back to the world - who merely exists, doing trivial labor, and probably taking more resources out of the world than they will ever put back in.  Somebody without talent or skill, who does labor more suited to a robot, but who we employ anyways because, for now, it would consume more resources to build a robot to do the work.  A wage slave is -disposable-.  Not disposable by necessity, but by choice.  A choice to be nothing more than an automaton, a disposable machine that does disposable labor in exchange for disposable goods.

You could choose to be indisposable - you could use the internet you're so fond of complaining on to learn a craft or a skill.  You could learn welding - we don't have enough welders.  You could learn to do plumbing - we don't have enough of those, either.  There are literally -millions- of jobs in this country that employers cannot fill, because of all the "wage slaves" who refuse to learn something -useful- to the rest of the world.  You want to make more money?  You want to contribute to the world?  There are employers out there who will train you in a craft, and pay you for the privilege of teaching you, because people willing to -work- for a living are so few and far between.

If you're a wage slave, it's by choice.

Climate Change Advocates: How to Talk to People

Get informed about the matter.  Being seriously informed means reading all available information, including those sources of information which suggest it isn't as big an issue as suggested, or not an issue at all.  -Read the critics-, not just the critics of the critics, or you'll find yourself confronting arguments you're utterly unfamiliar with, and may in fact make people -less- convinced.

If you can't get seriously informed, -don't talk about it-.  You only do the cause harm by spreading poorly-understood or outright false information.  Be prepared to speak to skeptics, which requires knowing what skeptics -actually- believe, as opposed to what ideologues strawman them as believing - even if you're not wanting to convince skeptics, you need to be able to deal with them in the context of talking to other people.

Divorce the information and issues from politics, as several have mentioned.  Be cautious of bringing up potential solutions, because many are mired in political bullshit.  Some of the more politically neutral solutions include nuclear power (and to a lesser extent hydroelectric and tidal harnesses), switching from coal to natural gas (beware making the perfect the enemy of the good), and a revenue-neutral carbon tax.  Non politically neutral solutions include wind and solar power, "local" goods, and carbon credits.

Be aware when discussing the issues that all potential solutions do in fact have costs.  If you think a particular solution is all good and has no or negligible costs, you're uninformed about that solution.

Also be aware that many people who believe global warming is a problem -also- believe that the cost of doing something about it may be higher than the cost of letting it happen - again, be informed, and be prepared to address their concerns, if only because they may be in the company of those you are trying to convince.

Beware of the broken window fallacy - replacing a power plant is an economic loss, it is wasted resources.  Focus on -optimizing- the use of existing resources.  It may be better to let a coal power plant run and replace it with something better when its lifespan is exhausted than to replace it immediately; yet again, be informed.

Also beware of first-world or middle-class bias.  For much if not most of the world, the cheaper power that is coal electricity may be seen as more valuable than a slightly cooler earth.  You may be able to afford more expensive electricity - the fact that -you- can afford it doesn't mean that everybody can.  Treat other people's concerns with care.

And finally, this was written by somebody who believes that the evidence for global warming is dubious at best, and has seen quite a lot of the data manipulation that takes place.  If you can't be at least as respectful as I am towards those who disagree with you, don't talk about it at all, or again, you'll do your cause more harm than good.  Most of us skeptics became skeptical because of the blatantly unscientific behavior of ideologues.  Don't repeat their mistakes.

Feminism...

...at its heart, all comes from one unquestioned axiom:

"I speak for women."

77% of women do not consider themselves feminists.  82% believe in gender equality.  No word, apparently, on what percent of feminists believe in gender equality.  Personal experience suggests "Very few", although they're all too willing to pay it lip service.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/feminism-poll_n_3094917.html

More, most feminists think most women are feminists, although very few women in the broader population believe this.  They haven't gotten the message.  Feminists: You don't speak for women.  Feminism doesn't speak for women.  It's a cancerous blight, a once useful and functioning organ that is now actively killing the organism it once served in however capricious a capacity.  Feminism, feminists - you are outliers, dinosaurs, a neoconservative movement that seeks to do nothing but erode human rights in pursuit of pseudoscientific religious dogma and a belief that society must conform to your own ideals of good and evil, whether or not other people actually have any desire for this irrelevant to your fervor.

Or, more succinctly: Fuck you, you speak for yourselves and shit all else.  Get it through your too-dense heads that nobody wants to live in the society you want to create.  By all means, feel free to create it, but stop trying to force us into your dystopian experiment.

Buahahahaha...

http://www.tbe.org/uploadedFiles/site/Rabbis_Corner/Rabbi_Study_Materials/Gun%20ViolenceMessaging%20Guide%20PDF-1.pdf

(Linked by Joel at Joel's Gulch)

Just skim through and read their "Strongest arguments."  They're the -weakest- arguments.  This is why the gun control crowd has been steadily losing ground on this issue; they're afraid to even admit the existence of the strongest arguments we have, if they could even recognize them when they saw them.  They're either intellectual cowards or hopelessly out of touch, or some combination of the two.

Can't fight what you don't understand.  We understand them.  They don't understand us at all.