Magmatic

We could also collapse the yes/no questions with better voting systems, something not first pass the post.

While local government is totally necessary, I don't think we can afford to not have big government. If wind currents made air pollution a non-issue in say, Ontario because wind currents blew it all down to Nebraska, how would we deal with that? Many of our most pressing societal problems live at the interstate or international level and need a corresponding governing body.

Reasons for fame, while interesting in themselves, only matter insofar as they determine the demographics of a celebrities following and how likely that demographic is to try the products they associate themselves with.

A small thought experiment now, say I run a restaurant and both Tom Hanks and Lebron James go on national television and declare it their favorite place to eat, what happens? I'd say starting the next day I'm going to be flooded with reservations despite the fact that the talents that make them famous have nothing to do with their ability to judge food.

Influencers are influencers because a large group of people act collectively to give them influence. The reasons why people give influencers such influence is varied but as a business owner all that really matters is how much that influence may be worth monetarily.

Giving everyone a job is not, and should never be, the goal of a society. In the early twentieth century American workers were killed fighting for the right to support themselves working 40 hours a week but for much the population that option has evaporated. I know people in the bay area working 70 hours a week at dead end jobs barely making ends meet; a fact I consider unacceptable given the wealth they are surrounded by.

And I think people, including the person you responded to, would be open to that discussion if you had in any way supported your arguments with facts. If you want to propose "real solutions" provide some supporting evidence for why suicide hotlines do not provide good value for cost and what alternatives do.

I think the best talk I had from a therapist in the early aughts went, "In general, the only things we know that help with depression are: exercise, some sunlight, a little social interaction, and self-care; bathing, brushing your teeth, etc. Medicine can help some but results are inconsistent, talk therapy is rarely helpful."

He spent two years just keeping me accountable on the little day to day things and while it didn't immediately cure my depression my quality of increased dramatically. The idea that something like keeping my room tidy would help with my depression sounded absolutely god damn insane at the time, "I want existence to end and you're telling me to make my bed?" ..but somehow those hundred small things mattered, life's pretty good these days.

God damn brains are dumb.

But we may also lose the next potential Einstein by NOT firing them, based on victim stories we know this is the kind of behavior that convinces people to leave institutions or even the entire field itself.

When looking at historical figures context is everything. I judge men who sexually harassed women in the 80s way less harshly than men who harass women today, why? Because in the 80s society still told you, 'this is ok, this is normal, feel free' for many forms of sexual harassment. That doesn't exempt them from culpability but given the degree of effort that would have been necessary at the time to understand what was wrong with their actions we should temper our condemnation of them.

The point this leads to is: If Feynman was alive today, sexually harassing women, that's significantly worse than similar behavior in his heyday; making your question hard to give a meaningful answer to.

So there's a very practical problem I have with this. Say you maintain a blog promoting the disenfranchisement of women, things like "We need to send women back to the homes, barefoot in the kitchen." While reprehensible, perfectly legal.

Your employer is faced with both an external and internal problem.

1) The more public your views, the more people see these views as condoned by the company as being acceptable, whether you agree with that the perception is likely. Even if protection is afforded under the law it's widely understood that you can "manage out" problem employees and people will judge the company for not doing that.

2) The employee is likely hampering their own effectiveness in the workplace substantially. In this example it's going to be very difficult to get women, a huge chunk of a likely workforce, to work effectively with the person in question. The company cannot realistically resolve the feelings of enmity that arise from this kind of speech and the best remedy to the situation is going to be empoyee termination.