This question will require some explaining, so bear with me (I phrased it how I did because I wanted to emphasize one of the connections). I ask this here because economics seem to be a huge topic here, especially when it comes to certain schools of thought (not that I'm judging, you have your reasons). So here is me trying to explain my question. First, I must admit I find the concept of a minimum wage to be, for a lack of a better word, incomplete (weird? not well-oiled? I couldn't find the word). While being based by the hour albeit not factoring in the amount of work done, I understand basic existence amounts to a certain etimated value, and you don't want overhaggling, so a glass floor is made. But a glass floor can break under pressure. But I digress. Anyways, I was talking to someone about the concept, and we started using analogies using letters in place of concepts: "W cannot pay X a certain amount of Y so in order to pay to live she goes to Z." It was one of those no-context moments, so our minds were drawn to a third friend who related to it platonically, this person wasn't mentally compatible with most social groups, so then criminals (the Z) would come and say "come join us, we have the friends you're looking for". He added, "police consider 'bad crowds' a huge problem, but nobody pays the involuntary loners any minimum due, no glass floor provided by the public sector, no nothing, and the wrong people get the upper hand here because they're there to farm you while you just want someone to value you enough in a way that translates well to you, and our bedroom community becomes a gossip-cursed cesspool because there is no adhesive". Should point out this isn't a new thought process, in fact it's relevant to me occupationally. Promoters of universal basic necessities of Lemmy, why is there a lacking here? Is it not weird we (officially) have it out for one aspect but not the other?

I've had a certain debate a few times where you might say we argue over the "semantics" of the meat industry. I am what you would call a vegetarian. While vegetarians won't eat things that caused harm to produce, a vegan won't eat anything having to do with an animal. A lot of those who would fall under the latter category hate us because they say anything that remotely resembles someone enjoying an animal product is supporting the meat industry which then kills animals, which means merely eating an animal product makes someone a murderer. Meanwhile, there's this concept many call piracy. It's the idea that, as the meme proverbially puts it, "you can download a car". The idea here, which I say in the way I do because there's still an ongoing debate about it, is that it affects nobody. But then there's the whole industry thing I mentioned. People on the other side of the debate often say "well what about the industry". I'm not sure where on the scale in this topic you might put me, but I feel like there's a glaring contradiction here. When it comes to animals, people think of the industry, but otherwise that's not a factor. My question is... why?

This might sound like a question inspired by current events, but I've actually been thinking of this for a while and can give pointers to a few times I had asked this or talked about it. The people who the masses look up to seem to have a strange way of dishing out their opinions/approval/disapproval of the groups of the world. Some groups can get away with being considered good no matter how negative their actions are while other groups are stuck with a high disapproval rating no matter how much good they might do, and a discussion on whether "culture" or a "cult" is involved almost always comes up. An example of this is the relationship between Islam and Scientology, in fact this is the most infamous one I can link to having spoken about. People on a certain side of the thinktank spectrum (the same side Lemmy seems to lean towards at times) are quick to criticize Scientology even though they consider "classic Islamic philosophy", for a lack of a better way to put it without generalizing, as not inspiring a call for critique to see how one may change it. And I've always wondered, why? One at times leads people to trying [to exterminate innocent groups](https://masto.ai/@Fizzymus/111209226230438251), the other one is just "Space Gnosticism" that has a few toxic aspects but hasn't actually eliminated anyone. Of course, I'm not defending either one, but certainly I'd rather live in a stressful environment than one that actively targets me. This question has been asked a few times, [sometimes](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/6uxalf/why_do_liberals_have_no_qualms_about_criticizing/) without me but [sometimes](https://www.tumblr.com/deviantartdramahub/730118017112031232/so-in-case-people-didnt-know-what-was-going-on?source=share) when I'm around to be involved, and they always say (and it's [in my dumb voice](https://lemm.ee/post/10862834) that I quote them) "well Scientology is a cult, of course we can criticize them" and then a bit about how whatever other thing is being talked about is a part of culture. This doesn't sit well with my way of thinking. I was taught to judge people by the content of their character, in other words their virtues, so in my mind, a good X is better than a bad Y, in this case a good cult should be better than a good culture, right? Right? In fact, as what many might call a mild misanthrope, I'd flip it around and point out how, over the course of human history, alongside seemingly objectively questionable quirks people just brush off (like Japan for a while has been genociding dolphins for their meat value just above extinction "because it's culture" or how there are people in China who still think dinosaur bones are a form of medicine waiting to be ground up), no group/culture has kept their innocence intact, every country having had genocides or unnecessary wars or something of the like, things they ALLOW to happen by design. Then they turn around and tell so-called "cults", even the ones that have their priorities on straight compared to cultures, that they are pariahs and shouldn't count on thriving, even though their status is one that doesn't necessitate gaining any kind of guilt. I was a pariah growing up, almost everyone else revolved around a select few people that seemed in-tune to the culture, and they would say anyone who revolved around people outside the group (me for example) was "following a cult", and this hurt at the time, but now seeing all the wars going on right now, I might consider this a compliment. My question, even though it by definition might make affirming answerers question whether they are pariahs or a part of the cultural arena, is why does nobody agree? Why are cultures "always precious" while cults are "always suspicious"?

Where I live, there's a law that says all vehicles have to yield for pedestrians at crosswalks. Of course this would be a thing, otherwise crosswalks would only be as good as any part of the road. Despite this, it's a largely unfollowed rule, to severe degrees. To the extent that me and some friends have a "running gag" (generous way to put it) where some of us bet on who can wait at a crosswalk point and cross the street the quickest without going ahead before cars decided to stop. Tonight I had to wait twenty minutes for a black jeep to stop, the longest I've had to wait for years (and side note, I noticed that drivers of certain vehicle types/colors are more likely to stop for you), so I lost that bet tonight if we were doing it. Some of us have also apparently led drivers to having bad vibes because some of us have used our phones to take extensive video of what's going on, causing angry drivers (never referring to the ones that do stop for us) to yell that we're invading privacy. And the response is always something along the line of "what are you going to do, would you really risk exposing yourself just to make a complaint that someone is making a video" before posting them to groups like [the main Tumblr road conflict group](http://www.tumblr.com/roaddramatica) (such stuff being hidden from there at the moment). So what's the longest you've ever had to wait to cross the street? And do you notice any etiquette trends like I describe in that one part?

This might sound like an odd question, but hear me out. One first must ask, what is "a political issue". Most political issues are yes-or-no questions. Things like do you support firearms, do you want the US to refrain from war, do you think the police should be policed, etc. Things become political issues over time, and typically they involve aspects of the government that are up for debate. You know what is an aspect of the government that is up for debate? Lie detectors. Or sort of. Lie detectors are a tool people in the government use to get the truth out of people. However, they're quite well-known to just not work that well, they don't correspond well enough to honesty to count as honesty-measuring tools. People all across the political spectrum will cringe at their existence. Ask a Democrat what they think of lie detectors and they'll most likely look down on them. Ask a Republican what they think of lie detectors and they'll most likely look down on them. Everyone who has done their homework looks down on them. But in a world that talks about police reform and technology implementation, these archaic devices are still there, still in places that reside over law, still used to measure the honest of prisoners, still treated like serious tools, and are still allowed to cause innocent, honest people to suffer in prisons for things they didn't do. So, then, if Democrats know better, and Republicans know better, and most of the layperson world knows better, what entity is out there saying "you all disagree with its existence, but we are pro-lie-detector when it comes to the issues and will keep it in power"? If bipartisan opposition for something isn't enough to make change, how does this not signal something more powerful than the two parties is in power? Why is this not treated as a political issue, be it a bipartisan one or one which, when declared a political issue, we can enjoy the shifts in opinion for them which would ironically be better for taking them out of power?

And what makes you say that one?