CS Debate Thread

[The Great ME!]

Wonderful ^-^ Do you mind if I actually incorporate some of what you said into the block argument for my Con side?

Go ahead, I don't mind.

Couldn't it be said that, by dividing into gender based classrooms, the ultimate quality of education would improve, because by eliminating the opposite gender from the equation, things would be less focused on "boy things" and "girl things"?

Schools don't teach "Girl things" and "Boy things" in classrooms. Hell, one school I went to had a clothing fashion design class and a good portion of the student body was male. And very few were gay/bi.

Without girls in the picture, art is no longer a "girl thing".

Art classes I took had a pretty decent amount of male students who were great artists and weren't the least bit self-conscious about it. And the whole "Art is a girl's thing" isn't usually stigmatized by girls. It's usually stigmatized by other males, whereas I've found girls to be quite encouraging about it. Also take into account a lot of schools require students of all genders to take at least one art class before they graduate, so you end up having guys who have no interest in art intermingled with guys who feel passionately about doing it. Which would still have the same "Art is a girl's thing!" response.

For instance toy choice doesn't have much to do with how brains learn.
I personally would like to say that I really don't care if I play with boy toys or don't wear makeup. I love to play with ninja swords and Nerf Guns.

Not necessarily.
Have you seen the difference between a lot of "Girls toys" and "Boys toys"? 

The transforming toys I got as a kid(most of which I still have) were pretty darn complex and amazing. A lot of them took a bit of brain power and being technically savvy with either putting them together or transforming them from one shape completely into another. They weren't completely straight-forward, you actually had to use a bit of critical thinking to figure them out. And there's things like remote control dinosaurs and trucks and planes, some of which are REALLY complex(the more expensive ones). And then things like Legos and Megablocks which are predominantly aimed mostly at boys, which some small exceptions. Typically the same with scientific kits and the like as well, like chemistry sets or models. ZOIDs models are one such complicated thing I got that comes to mind, which were difficult to put together and you had to built from the ground up into a working mini robot. Usually all under the "boys section" of toys.
Then...
...theeen you have most of the "girls toys". It's like...dolls. Barbies. Stuff that's all one unit, and if it's not, it's extremely simplistic with no sort of challenge or brain-power to use. No complicated parts or anything. It's like, dolls you put clothes on, and maybe stick a bottle in it's mouth. Or a mechanical dog that you press a button and just watch it do stuff on it's own, without you doing more than hitting one button just to hear a fake dog bark. I mean, just completely forget actually making "girl toys" as complex and intricate as so many "boy toys", just give 'em some useless crap that does nothing and they can just pretend it does just as much and that's good enough!

Noticing a pattern? All of the "cool", complex toys that take any form of intelligence and brain power to figure out how to actually use effectively are mainly labeled as "Boys toys". If you really think about it, it's not just stereotyping, it's completely sexist.

Of course, there's nothing stopping a boy from buying a Barbie doll or a girl from buying a Transformers toy, but the point is all of the ludicrous reinforcement we don't even consciously realize often times is being fed to us through indirect, subliminal messaging that just seems so "normal" to us these days most don't even question it, and has a lot to do with why different genders develop differently in our society. And yes, more complex toys that require greater use of the brain does lead to greater smarts over time.





On another note, this brings to mind how the US used to segregate classrooms based on Race a long time ago. There's a reason we gave that up. And now we're trying to segregate on gender?
Whatever the form of segregation and stereotyping, the bottomline message down at the core is basically "You people over here, and you people over there, are all simply too different to inter-mingle because you were born with different traits. Therefore, the answer is division and seperation instead of learning how to better co-exist."

Kind of sick, really, if you ask me.

This whole thing just reeks of another excuse for sexism, as far as I can tell.

[reilly]

I can see your point and can even agree with it.
But the classrooms in this case are divided to enhance learning, not to segregate everyone until they can't work with the other gender.
In my school we had mornings, lunch, recess, afternoons, and minutes between class where the genders could mix openly. We weren't all stiff and avoiding each other.

I always used to ask for the boy toy in my McDonalds meal. xD

[aequilibrium]

Okay, I'll just drop in a topic about pets. So, my question is simply what would you do if you had a dog and couldn't afford it? I'm talking more precisely about abandoning pets. Some people say that they would think about giving it to some friend, some say they would abandon them... I just wanna see your point of view. I just wanna know your opinion about abandoning pets, which is more common with dogs.

Do you care if a pet is abandoned or not?
Do you think it's correct to abandon pets?
Do you think it's worth abandoning pets?

[puffins]

Okay, I'll just drop in a topic about pets. So, my question is simply what would you do if you had a dog and couldn't afford it? I'm talking more precisely about abandoning pets. Some people say that they would think about giving it to some friend, some say they would abandon them... I just wanna see your point of view. I just wanna know your opinion about abandoning pets, which is more common with dogs.

Do you care if a pet is abandoned or not?
Do you think it's correct to abandon pets?
Do you think it's worth abandoning pets?

First Question.
I do care if a pet is abandoned. I want to help it out and I hope its spayed or neutered so its not reproducing.

Second Question.
I do not think it's correct too abandoned pets. Pets are not wild animals, they are domesticated.
They deserve to be with loving people, not alone and messing up ecosystems.

Third Question.
It is never worth abandoning pets. You could always give a pet to a family or friend, or a shelter, or even better, a rescue. It's worse if the pets are not spayed or neutered. They reproduce and more animals are out there, too many for people who have homes open to animals.

[aequilibrium]

I know, I agree with all of what you said.

For me, abandoning an animal, no matter the kind of animal, is almost a crime. I mean, people who abandon a pet don't have a heart. I feel really really bad whenever I see a homeless dog with those sad puppy eyes or someone shooing a homeless dog. It really hurts to see that. I wonder what people think when they abandon their pets. I mean yes, they could be getting really poor and can't afford the pet, yes, they can bite and break their stuff, yes, they can bark all night and don't let us sleep, yes, they can drive us insane, make a lot of noise, destroy everything and whatsoever but I don't think it's a reasonable excuse to abandon a pet.
I wonder if these people ever thought about it. Like, would you like to be abandoned by your parents? Even if you don't like them or whatever, would you like t be left alone somewhere you don't know, with nobody out there to help you? Would you like to be ignored and kicked out? Would you like to wander for the rest of your life with nothing to eat, nothing to drink nothing to play with, nowhere to sleep, no one to love until you have no more strength to keep walking, looking for something even knowing that you won't get it but just because you really have no other choice? Because that's what I think they should know before doing that. They should know that animals do have feelings.

[The Great ME!]

Do you care if a pet is abandoned or not?
Do you think it's correct to abandon pets?
Do you think it's worth abandoning pets?

Yes, I do care about if pets are abandoned, personally. Sort of like what was mentioned already, how would you feel if you were abandoned? Animals don't feel any less than we do about things like that(actually, in my experience, animals feel a Hell of a lot more than people do).

However, as far as abandoning animals to the street goes, take this into consideration as well:

Pets are(typically) domestic animals. Even if you raise a "wild" or exotic animal, unless it's something like a snake or a spider, they can't survive very well on their own because of conditioning. An animal who doesn't have to base it's survival on whether or not it can hunt properly doesn't know how to survive on it's own.
We've literally bred most domestic animals to be dependent upon us. Most dogs have had their killer instincts bred out of them, even "hunting" dogs. I'm not saying that domestic animals can't kill, but they don't know how to do so efficiently. If you've ever watched videos or in real life how hunting dogs actually hunt, especially in groups, it's inefficient, such as with boar hunting. A wild animal such as a wolf or lion will go for a vulnerable spot that kills quickly and with little risk to them, such as the neck or covering the mouth and nose and suffocating their prey. A domestic dog will typically harrass, maul, and shred another animal to death over a LONG period of time, which is both inefficient and more risky for the dog.
Domestic cats are smaller and more vulnerable to many predators, and have to prey on smaller animals like mice and songbirds, though we haven't quite bred out their instincts to the same level as we have with dogs.
The only exception might be with an animal that's gone completely feral, but even then, that's a bit of a grey area.

Abandoned animals that go feral or are hungry enough to become dangerous are also a huge threat, so a loose dog that's been abandoned long enough to be starving might attack someone else's dogs, cats, other pets or wildlife, other strays, or even small children it sees as an easy meal.

Also, if you abandon an animal in-tact(not spayed or nuetered), they're almost guaranteed to reproduce and cause more of a stray problem.

There are also a lot of dangers for stray pets. They can get hit by cars, and sometimes that doesn't mean they die right away from it. They could be hit and unconscious, and get hit several more times. They could get hit and run away too injured to care for themselves, and be attacked by other animals, or slowly starve to death.
They can get sick from infections and diseases and slowly die from those, including from wounds they get from other animals or injuries.
They could and usually do get attacked by both people and other animals, even when they're not a threat or a danger.
And, though most either don't think of or try not to, stray or wandering animals get picked up and essentially kidnapped for illegal or sometimes even legal animal testing experimentation(believe it or not, this happens VERY frequently!).
They can simply starve or freeze to death in winter as well, which happens a LOT, especially with cats.
They can get poisoned, either from eating bad food, actual poison, or eating/drinking food or water contaminated by chemicals like road oil.
You can have people that capture and abuse/torture animals for thrills too.
The list goes on.

As for pets abandoned to actual shelters, if you've actually worked IN shelters, most of them put down the majority of animals(especially dogs) without even putting them up for display or adoption for a day. Lot's of dogs, especially bigger ones, are put down for non-dangerous but "problematic" or "destructive" behaviors. It could be as simple as a dog that hasn't been properly potty-trained when it was a puppy or a dog that simply barks and jumps on people too much. Something like 70% of dogs(mostly large ones) in shelters and pounds are put down without even getting one day on the adoption floor, but they don't tell most owners abandoning dogs to shelters that because they don't want people throwing them onto the street instead where they become a problem.

And as for shelters in general, the state doesn't fund animal control for animal wellness or protection at all. They don't give two craps about animal treatment for strays, they only fund animal control services because they don't want our country to have a "stray pest problem" for themselves and PEOPLE, like in other countries such as China, Africa, India, etc.

And overall, it's been my experience that most people who abandon animals(not all, but most) do so because they were irresponsible to begin with.
They got a breed of dog that needs constant supervision and special attention to it's training, yet they work ten hours and leave the dog completely alone at home then are surprised when the dogs tears up things in their house, not even bothering to have neighbors or friends help supervise it when they're gone.
They got a big dog that needs to run and exercise a LOT off a leash yet they live some place where space to run for a dog is completely impossible to find.
They have trouble even paying basic bills and buying food yet they own ten dogs of mixed gender, none of which are spayed and nuetered.
They get a dog that's very vocal and rambunctious and leaps off furniture and tears around the house, yet they live in an apartment where noise is a problem.
And then there's people who simply don't train their dogs, doing behaviors of their own and being inconsistent in expectations of what the animal should do which encourages the animal to misbehave, and then complain that it's the animals fault when they're teaching it it's bad behavior and abandon it because they have no idea how to handle an animal and have no business owning one to begin with. Et cetera.

[*~.Imagination.~*]

Do you care if a pet is abandoned or not?
Do you think it's correct to abandon pets?
Do you think it's worth abandoning pets?

Yes. No. No.
I think that, even if you cannot take care of an animal, there are shelters and people you probably know that would be more than willing to take in an animal, so it seems pretty stupid to simply let it loose in the streets, where it could very well die. If there are better options, what's the point? Not even getting into morals or ethics, its obvious that abandonment of pets can lead to the animals death, and can be dangerous to civilians if animal becomes feral. There are good homes that one can find for an animal, and zero benefits to abandonment.

Also I want to thank everyone who gave their opinions on the previous topic ^-^ We ended up coming in first (Going Con 6 out of 8 rounds cx) so I just wanted all you on this thread to know that I appreciated your input.

[The Great ME!]

We ended up coming in first (Going Con 6 out of 8 rounds cx)

Congrats!

[hakuu]

"If you don't want to trade it you should lock your groups! >:("
Um, I'd love to keep mine open because I never know what I'm going to trade. Plus, I like to keep my pets out for show.

[*~.Imagination.~*]

"If you don't want to trade it you should lock your groups! >:("
Um, I'd love to keep mine open because I never know what I'm going to trade. Plus, I like to keep my pets out for show.

I agree- it comes down to personal prefference and no one should dictate how another person organizes their pets.
I, for instance, don't like to have locked groups for pets, because I have to remove them from their species group. I like to have all my butterfly wolves in my Butterfly Wolves group, and not remove some into a miscellaneous "Favorites" or "NFT" group- that's simply my personal prefference.
Now, I also agree with you in regards to the fact that I don't really know what I'm willing to trade until the offer arises. I may really love a pet, but chances are there is some sort of dream pet that I'd be willing to give it up for, so it doens't make sense for me to lock my groups.