All the more reason that a woman should be so stupid as to get a degree in engineering.

Great job purposefully missing the point that everyone is young at some point, meaning that you theoretically had a chance already.

Maybe that is because job discrimination against young people is much less common? Still, I agree that nobody should be immediately excluded because of age, either old or young - prejudice is prejudice.

Yes, it's not as if children haven't been exploited for centuries and seniority wasn't one of the most common forms of hierarchy, with father metaphors in the Abrahamic religions and Confucianism explicitly deferring to ranked elders. For fuck's sake, at this point, a good share of millennials are basically branded debt slaves for life. Meanwhile, the AARP is one of the largest organizations in the country, and you can't even run for President until your are 35.

The majority of people spend their whole life as a single gender, but are never the same age twice. Also, there is no protection for young people against age discrimination, only old.

If half of the fluorine is natural, wouldn't we get roughly the same health benefits if people drank about twice as much water?

If that is true, please post evidence to the contrary. AFAIK, there is no viable evidence of the most common additives contributing in any meaningful way to dental health, but I could be wrong. If all you have is pointing out poor proofreading on my part, then please jump into a vat of hexafluorosilicic acid.

Others seem to be posting that there is no solid evidence that the form of fluoride in our water has shown any evidence of improving dental health. So, the cost of the latter would be zero.

I believe the only thing that has been scientifically tied to developing autism is prenatal hormone levels. If you want to know why autistics are disadvantaged in society, consider a world in which your sensory needs are ignored, the self-stimulation that is key to your mental health is discouraged, and decent chunks of the population would rather their children have contract horrible diseases than have a brain work like yours. Granted, in reality, this concern does nothing, but it's a horrible message to be sending to more than 1% of the population.

The reason that Americans say Brits have bad teeth is because of whiteness and straightness, neither of which has much to do with number of cavities. There, the mystery is solved. Also, there's the distinct possibility that Brits today care more about their dental health because it was so shitty, either in aesthetics or health, for so long.

Actually, it has nothing to do with cannabis use, just cannabis LAW. The availability of cannabis is probably about the same. The difference would be that the poor and minorities would be in jail instead of a university., and thus the selection of students is altered to reduce those demographics Whether that is because of being 'subhuman', just not having as good of a support system available, being culturally an outsider, or something else, is a different question. Let's take this one step at a time to maybe be passable in your trolling.

Your point would be relevant if there were any substantial number of people who don't get 'high' in some way or another. Yes, weed and alcohol alters your mind. So does caffeine, sugar, Ritalin, antidepressants, spicy food, chocolate, exercise, sex, music, meditation, and sleep. Which drugs and techniques in what quantities work best for you in what quantities is a matter of your own neurochemistry. For example, shrooms and LSD have shown a lot of potential in things like cluster headaches, PTSD, and ironically enough, addiction. If such an enormous burden was removed from your life, wouldn't you feel like you were thinking on a different level? Nobody's perfect, and you might even gain a great deal of insight from being in different states of mind. Not because these states are wholly better than straight edge teetotaling, but because they allow you a different mode of thought, diversifying your perspective somewhat.

Evolution is the change of a population of organisms over time. That doesn't always mean new traits, and new traits are in fact the exception to the norm. The majority of evolution by natural selection is the shifting of the makeup of traits.

It's not as if there is any shortage of purposes that could be more well defined than these projects, and would likely yield more useful results. Even a literal interpretation of a practical flying car would probably lead to more productive research. Maglev has enough conceptual overlap to be able to see research that benefits both, and flying cars should obviously be self-driving. Self driving vehicles and maglev trains could increase the standard of living and lower the costs of travel and distribution.

Or, we could just throw similar amounts of money at general purpose research, some of which might also be useful in military applications. Call it the "War on not Having Flying Cars"

What if I don't give a shit about being a world power? It doesn't do anything for me.

The NSA likely has far more of a need for a reality check. The omniprescence of human stupidity alone means that nobody should have the kind of power that they have, especially without serious objective external oversight and a robust system of protections for whistleblowers, including employment within government agencies or with clients. Whistleblowers shouldn't have to leave the country. They should get a bonus and a promotion.

Damn that Snowden and his betrayal of the trust of an agency whose modus operandi is betraying trust.