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[Ghills]

If you don't know the basics, that is fine. Learning is good. Ignorance is not a sin. But for Khorne's sake, stop pontificating if you have no clue

You know, America is dead last in humans right among industrialised nations. Your emprisonment rate is the highest in the world, you have full fleged race riot every six month, and have literally the most unequal healthcare in the developed world. Policemen seems to be executing innocent citizens in total impunity, you lost all right to privacy, your employer can make policies on who you can and cannot date within the company, men have no maternity leave,...

Maybe it's time to admit that you have the basis wrong, and that you are not going anywhere until you change them.

Um.  I'll take your 'points' in order. 

1) Please learn to use spellcheck. And yes, we do imprison a really significant fraction of our population, and it is disgraceful.  On the other hand, we also have major problems that (for example) Japan and the EU don't, like major, multi-year drug wars right on our borders.  We also haven't recently forcibly created religious ghettos (here's looking at you, France). Or elected neo-Nazis likely to cause all kinds of official havoc (so we're ahead of Greece).

2) Race riots are actually pretty unusual over here.  That's why it's such big news when they happen.

3) No. US healthcare isn't perfect. But in many ways it is much better than nationalized healthcare systems (much quicker, for one thing). Nationalized healthcare isn't perfect, and I don't think it's even the best solution (which is probably some kind of hybrid public/private solution, in an ideal world).

4) We're going through major political pushback right now over police actions. This is not at all the same thing as 'police executing citizens with impunity'. 

5) Actually, US privacy protections are in some ways better than the EU's (Germany and the UK are much, much worse about constant surveillance and privacy invasions, for example).

6) Employers make policies restricting people from sexual harassment and unprofessional conduct in all developed countries. Are you supporting the idea of bosses being able to bully their subordinates into sex? 

7) It's called paternity leave.  Do use Google next time before posting screeds.

TL;DR  Learn to factcheck please.

[GreatJustice]

You know it isn't worth arguing when the opponent literally considers everything to be misogyny and somehow not beneficial to women. Men are the only ones who get drafted to fight and die pointlessly halfway across the world? Well really, that's a good thing for men because they're considered to be worthy of dying pointlessly and women suffer too since they have to stay at home or get jobs.  Men are the overwhelming victims of almost every type of violence? Well that's just a side effect of things us noble feminists oppose and so on and so forth.

See, GreatJustice, what your post boils down is "you're stupid and wrong". Forgive me for trying to seriously argue with you, clearly my complex social theory (yeah sure) is too damned simple or something.

I'm done. There is no point talking with you. Like a god damned wall of denial. Have it, then: there is no sexism,  no racism, no homophobia, it's all equal and people being too damned sensitive. Equality has been achieved, yay!

If there's anything that looks like racism or whatever, then, well, we'll just have to construct such scientific hypotheses as "people are stupid", "people are sensitive" -- damn history, hundreds of years of slavery are nothing! Legal rape in marriage? Pffft. A minor oversight surely. The claim that women are dismissed? A lie! Ferguson? Just a bunch of stupid and oversensitive people.

Screw you. You replace analysis with nothing. I am not going to engage you, since NOTHING will convince you. Keep your cozy delusion.

Mindmaker, this is what I mean. When your starting line is "there is no social injustice", that's plain denial and/or ignorance. When you've spent years being harassed for being feminine, gay or whatever, and some asshole decides that's nothing... well. Well.

Your complex social theory is pretty dumb because it's basically a cheap knockoff of old Marxist concepts (eg. Alienation of labour, oppression, etc). It operates under fundamentally different assumptions than the ones I operate under.

For one thing, I don't assume absolute equality to be a good thing. People are different, have different skills, personalities, and thus have different positions in society. The most important part of equality is equality under the law. Is there equality under the law? More or less. So why is it necessarily a bad thing that some people don't have absolute equality outside the law? Yeah, bigotry etc is bad, but that is generally on the way out regardless, and that's more about personal opinions than some strange social construct.

[Reelya]

That healthcare thing is false.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/
The UK, which is the main fair "national health" comparison for the USA came in higher for "timeliness of care". USA wasn't the best or worst for speed of care - they were dead in the middle, but pretty much near last in every other aspect. The UK ranked #1 in 8 out of 10 categories, including #1 in "safety of care", which USA came in at #7. But I guess USA provides fluffier pillows with the 1000's of dollars extra you pay.

I don't care how goddamn fluffy the goddamn pillows are if the patient dies, thank you America.

Then you have the other cited "proof" of the superior American system: Medical Tourism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism#United_States
75000 people go to the USA for medical care per year, but 750000 Americans go to other countries for medical care per year. Basically, a few filthy rich foreigners go to America, because you can get better top-level care if you can afford to pay upfront, whereas more Americans go overseas because of the exorbitant cost of US healthcare.

[Rolan7]

Expected competence and expected incompetence are not the same. They are not -- and the expectation of competence does not manifest in the same cruelty that its inverse does.

Now, I am done with this olympics of suffering. Think freely that you are the worst off, I do not think it is very consequential.

I did not say lower class male. When I speak of male privilege,  I do mean male privilege. Take two "equal", say, middle class persons, one male and one female. Which one is in need of affirmative action? Neither, male, or female?

Not nearly enough information to tell, obviously.  In order to help fix the shameful income gap between men and women, and possibly help fight unhealthy gender stereotypes through college experience, I support female-exclusive scholarships.  Even though that's a financial drain which only women directly benefit from.  Long-term, we all benefit.  In the short term, some acknowledgement of the sacrifice would be nice.

Instead all white men get called "privileged" even though, legally, the exact opposite is the case.

That is not to say that every male has it better over every female. This is not so simple, and I never said it was so simple. Let me repeat that since it does not seem to sink in.

Male privilege does not mean that every man has it better than every female. Privilege is not necessarily good for you. Both men and women suffer for these norms.

Okay, I thought you meant privilege in any sort of dictionary-backed sense.  It sounds like you're talking about gender stereotypes in general, which I agree negatively affect both genders.

Edit:

Also, maybe you shouldn't just stare at dictionaries.

Anti-oppressionists use "privilege" to describe a set of advantages (or lack of disadvantages) enjoyed by a majority group, who are usually unaware of the privilege they possess. It is a term of art that may not align particularly well with the general-use word "privilege" or the programming term "privilege"

So even the special redefinition from Geek Feminism Wiki still calls privileges advantages.  (This definition of privilege seems like a fine one, actually.  It's just a funny name for a wiki, and not what I'd call a neutral source or general knowledge)

I'll take being "insulted" over being forced to fight and very likely die in some pointless war any day, and I suspect you would too.

It's not just being insulted. It's also being raped and or murdered, regardless of whether your country is at war. 

So, being perceived as weak and defenseless gets women murdered?  I honestly don't know whether that's true or not.  It certainly depends on the situation...  I'd expect a serial killer to go after weak victims, while other violent criminals might be more likely to pass them over out of lack of perceived threat or challenge.

A quick google popped up results for 2010, let's take a look...
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded/expandhomicidemain

Of the 12,996 murder victims in 2010 for which supplemental data were received, most (77.4 percent) were male. (Based on Expanded Homicide Data Table 1.)

Interesting... Assuming roughly equal populations of each gender, men are over three times more likely to get murdered.

It's also having your words dismissed constantly, regardless of what they are.  It's having your very nature regarded as superficial and inferior.  It's having your identity used derisively to belittle others.  It's having people that know nothing about you decide what is best for your health in the rare instances that they bother to give your well being any attention at all.

I am really sorry about all this and hope we can change it.  I want people to be considered equally, without having to hide their identities.

The draft sexism is nothing compared to that.  Child support sexism is intended, in part, to compensate for it.

If you don't like the draft or child support laws, fight them, but don't shit on other groups of people that are standing up for their own rights.  Don't shit on groups of people that have less power than your own for not fighting for your rights while you do nothing but whine at them.

Yes, don't do that.  Don't shit on people who are accepting their own legal oppression in the name of equality.  Maybe don't call it "nothing".  Perhaps recognize that gender stereotypes do hurt everybody, and we're on the same team here.

[Ghills]

That healthcare thing is false.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/
The UK, which is the main fair "national health" comparison for the USA came in higher for "timeliness of care", but way, way, lower on health care costs and tax dollar spent on health.

Then you have the other cited "proof" of the superior American system: Medical Tourism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism#United_States
75000 people go to the USA for medical care per year, but 750000 Americans go to other countries for medical care per year.

If you're refuting something, please state what you're refuting.  I can't find anyone claiming the US system is the best ever, but maybe I missed that post.

The US healthcare system is much better at some things, and much worse at other things.  As a system overall, that doesn't make it better or worse. Simply different.

If I lived under a nationalized healthcare system, I would have lost 2 family members in the past few years because they wouldn't have been treated in time.  Since we have health insurance - just basic health insurance, nothing too fancy - we were able to get life-threatening problems cleared up ASAP.   It cost, but the costs were manageable because health plans have an out-of-pocket maximum beyond which we paid nothing. 

Not sure why you brought up medical tourism - but since you did, yes, you can get complicated procedures done much better here.  Other places with lower cost of living do basic procedures more cheaply.  So?  Are we going to bring overall economic indicators and cost of living into the discussion now?

TL;DR Different systems are different.  It's a case of pick your poison. We don't live in an ideal world, and somewhere there has to be compromises.  I greatly prefer a system where I can choose instead of having to be shoehorned into a one-size-kinda-fits-most system.

[Phmcw]

It's kind of a left-left discussion. Americain left wing is pretty weak and didn't achieve much.

But this :

If I lived under a nationalized healthcare system, I would have lost 2 family members in the past few years because they wouldn't have been treated in time. 

Is probably false : if a problem need immediate action, then it's immediately treated. For instance I had an hernia paralize my right leg, I had surgery within 3 hours of seeing a doctor.

[Ghills]

It's kind of a left-left discussion. Americain left wing is pretty weak and didn't achieve much.

But this :

If I lived under a nationalized healthcare system, I would have lost 2 family members in the past few years because they wouldn't have been treated in time. 

Is probably false : if a problem need immediate action, then it's immediately treated. For instance I had an hernia paralize my right leg, I had surgery within 3 hours of seeing a doctor.

It wasn't a case of emergency surgery needed (I have done my research, you know).  Under a nationalized system, we would have been triaged as 'not going to die right now' and scheduled when the doctors could get to it.  Because our healthcare system allows us to control appointment times, we shopped around, got better doctors and found a schedule opening.  It turned out the problem was way worse than the doctors had realized, and it was a very good thing we had pushed. Not being able to control doctors and scheduling would have left us in a much, much worse position.

There's no ideal system. I'd rather have this one than nationalized healthcare.  Other people prefer differently.  That's OK.  But stop demonizing systems and start thinking logically about how they can be improved.  National healthcare isn't good at a lot of things, and isn't necessarily the best solution, just like private healthcare isn't good at a lot of things and isn't necessarily the best solution.

The US does have public healthcare - Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, etc - and what I know of those fills me with dismay at the thought of that being our only option.  The healthcare market place seems like a step in the right direction and I'm glad it was implemented, I think as we see greater acceptance of it things will improve.  Also, we're finally making progress on medical transparency, which is a huge help in controlling costs. Once people can treat medical treatment like other important products we'll get much better results overall I think.

[Graknorke]

It wasn't a case of emergency surgery needed (I have done my research, you know).  Under a nationalized system, we would have been triaged as 'not going to die right now' and scheduled when the doctors could get to it.  Because our healthcare system allows us to control appointment times, we shopped around, got better doctors and found a schedule opening.  It turned out the problem was way worse than the doctors had realized, and it was a very good thing we had pushed. Not being able to control doctors and scheduling would have left us in a much, much worse position.

That's about as valid a criticism as saying that with privatised healthcare doctors will leave you to die if you can't pay the exorbitant prices. Nationalised healthcare doesn't have to completely ignore the concerns of citizens, and privatised healthcare doesn't have to be entirely staffed with dicks.

EDIT: Wait how did a healthcare discussion end up in this thread?

[Ghills]

It wasn't a case of emergency surgery needed (I have done my research, you know).  Under a nationalized system, we would have been triaged as 'not going to die right now' and scheduled when the doctors could get to it.  Because our healthcare system allows us to control appointment times, we shopped around, got better doctors and found a schedule opening.  It turned out the problem was way worse than the doctors had realized, and it was a very good thing we had pushed. Not being able to control doctors and scheduling would have left us in a much, much worse position.

That's about as valid a criticism as saying that with privatised healthcare doctors will leave you to die if you can't pay the exorbitant prices. Nationalised healthcare doesn't have to completely ignore the concerns of citizens, and privatised healthcare doesn't have to be entirely staffed with dicks.

EDIT: Wait how did a healthcare discussion end up in this thread?

Nothing I've ever heard, seen or read suggests that nationalized healthcare is responsive, timely or willing to be flexible with treatments. This is mostly drawn from the national systems in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. where I've been able to research or had friends who lived there.  Perhaps other countries in Europe are different.   

EDIT: No idea.

[Ogdibus]

You're probably familiar with the US drone strike policy. If not, it states that all "fighting age men" are to be considered combatants. This is done in order to make it look like these strikes are more effective, but it also means men can and will be killed with impunity regardless of their actual status as combatants or not. There will also be no repercussions for doing so.

Though this policy is sexist, there is no reason to present it in the context of this thread.  It does not support either side of an argument over whether sexist use of tropes in video games is prevalent, or impacting the games industry or society.  It's also not relevant to any point that I've made.  Additionally, the sexism of the police pales in comparison to the racial, ethnic, and religious implications.

I'd also like to know exactly where it was that I shit on anyone, let alone for not fighting for my rights.

Sorry, that wasn't supposed to be directed at you specifically.  It's also not a claim.  It's a request/command, and thus cannot be proven true or false.

The command is in reference to the endless derision of people that advocate social justice/civil rights.  Sure there are plenty of people that say stupid things in the name of that cause, but the cause itself is a worthy one.

So, being perceived as weak and defenseless gets women murdered?  I honestly don't know whether that's true or not.  It certainly depends on the situation...  I'd expect a serial killer to go after weak victims, while other violent criminals might be more likely to pass them over out of lack of perceived threat or challenge.

A quick google popped up results for 2010, let's take a look...
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded/expandhomicidemain

Of the 12,996 murder victims in 2010 for which supplemental data were received, most (77.4 percent) were male. (Based on Expanded Homicide Data Table 1.)

Interesting... Assuming roughly equal populations of each gender, men are over three times more likely to get murdered.

The reasons for being murdered are very different.  Men are more often murdered because of rivalries and racism.  Women, when murdered by men, are being "put in their place", or are considered prey.

This isn't quite fair, considering the way that I originally presented the argument, but if you look at the statistics for trans women being murdered, you'll get a clearer picture of why it felt important to me to mention.  I don't actually feel that the difference murder rates between cis women and men favors men, or is equal.

In all cases in the US, black people are the ones most affected.  That's a very important thing to keep in mind for anyone making a claim about which groups are oppressed, and to what degree.

Maybe don't call it "nothing".  Perhaps recognize that gender stereotypes do hurt everybody, and we're on the same team here.

I shouldn't have spoken hyperbolically, especially since I don't usually do it.  It just makes things confusing.

EDIT: Wait how did a healthcare discussion end up in this thread?

It started with one of those "your country doesn't know how to egalitarian, therefore your argument for equality is invalid" claims.  It's derailing as a strategy, and the op isn't ever around to regulate it.

[Mindmaker]

Well, out public healthcare systems still has optional private doctors.
For a "mere" 130€ my younger brother got a surgical appointment in 2 weeks, that otherwise would have taken 3-4 months if you went the public route.

I'm sure we're not the only country with such a regulation.

[Dutchling]

Nvm wrong thingie

[Rolan7]

Maybe don't call it "nothing".  Perhaps recognize that gender stereotypes do hurt everybody, and we're on the same team here.

I shouldn't have spoken hyperbolically, especially since I don't usually do it.  It just makes things confusing.

Yeah me neither... I think I should step away from this for a few days, I got really heated.  I do like how civil the discussion remained though, actually.

[GreatJustice]

It wasn't a case of emergency surgery needed (I have done my research, you know).  Under a nationalized system, we would have been triaged as 'not going to die right now' and scheduled when the doctors could get to it.  Because our healthcare system allows us to control appointment times, we shopped around, got better doctors and found a schedule opening.  It turned out the problem was way worse than the doctors had realized, and it was a very good thing we had pushed. Not being able to control doctors and scheduling would have left us in a much, much worse position.

That's about as valid a criticism as saying that with privatised healthcare doctors will leave you to die if you can't pay the exorbitant prices. Nationalised healthcare doesn't have to completely ignore the concerns of citizens, and privatised healthcare doesn't have to be entirely staffed with dicks.

EDIT: Wait how did a healthcare discussion end up in this thread?

To my understanding, people being left to die because they can't die is pretty much a myth even with the current US system.

Anyhow, living in Canada, I can say that it is true that if you urgently need care you'll pretty much get it immediately, and there aren't "death panels" in the sense some Americans say. However, this sorta disguises some problems with our current system. For one thing, if you have a very painful/debilitating issue and it's not life threatening, there isn't a guarantee that you'll get treatment in any reasonable amount of time. So someone spends 6-8 hours in the waiting room in pain, maybe sees the doctor, and then either the problem has a simple solution that could have been done earlier or something is scheduled in the future.

The other problem, which is the one Ghillis is talking about, is that you can see a doctor for a problem, it turns out to be potentially fatal in the long term so another appointment/surgery is scheduled for the future whereupon it turns out that things worsened for one reason or another and the planned surgery won't work anymore. This problem can stem from many issues: some specialized equipment is fairly rare (at least compared to the US), and thus is either not used much or else has very long wait times to use. Doctors don't want to push non-emergency issues forward too fast, since enough doctors doing that results in problems (eg. on more than one occasion there have been ambulances driving all over Toronto, unable to find emergency rooms with space). Finally, you might simply have shitty luck and get complications the doctor didn't foresee in between checkups. Regardless, it's a bit more complicated than "get your healthcare early if you need it, otherwise wait a bit".

On the topic of the US in rankings, there are two things worth noting: first, the UK, unlike countries like Canada, has both private and public systems. From what I've been told, the NHS's quality varies wildly from one area to the next ranging anywhere from "pretty good" to "abysmal", so if you want anything reliably good you basically have to pay twice. Also, both countries feature systems that vary in quality from one hospital to the next, with the US notably having some of the best hospitals in the developed world as well as some pretty terrible ones. I'm a bit skeptical that the survey is entirely representative, though, simply because I know for a fact that, at least near where I live (Windsor, across from Detroit), waiting times in the US compared to Canada are basically non-existent.

Anyhow, I'd say that, for most people, healthcare quality isn't too different for people from Canada, the US, or Europe, and I'd agree that it's mostly just "different". I mean, the biggest problem in the US is the cost, but to my understanding most Americans receive insurance from their employers at basically no cost (even before the ACA), and the care they receive is quite good generally speaking. It has a lot of problems, mind, but this isn't really the place to get into a long winded discussion of the problems of the American healthcare system.

[Bauglir]

I mean, the biggest problem in the US is the cost, but to my understanding most Americans receive insurance from their employers at basically no cost (even before the ACA), and the care they receive is quite good generally speaking.

I can confirm that this part, at least, is not true for a large slice of the population. If I had a family, I would be paying more in health insurance premiums for my plan than I am actually paid. This is post-ACA, but it's also a part time job, so the bar is lower. Even were it full time, it'd be taking out over a quarter of my monthly income. If I were working a minimum wage job, I wouldn't even have a plan.

You can get good insurance on the cheap if you're single, well-educated, have no existing conditions, and are lucky, basically.

Bit of a derail, I know, but here we are.