The question is why is freedom so important, what's the goal? It seems to me that the U.S. was founded by oppressed people, so the solution to their oppression was to increase freedom in particular areas. Now, freedom has been deified and has become the goal in itself, whereas the purpose of most rules governing a society is more pragmatic - to improve that society in some way.

Score 2 Flamebait, congratulations :)

I interpret "Where are you from?" as "What is your cultural and ethnic background, because I believe all ways of living are valid and I'm interested in your story."

To be ageist, reading her answers made me think that, however precocious you may be, there are some things that can only be learnt with life experience. Most of the answers, while highly articulate, read like they're straight out of a book called How To Be Perfectly Politically Correct. There's very little nuance or original insight.

Perhaps not in academic political science, but if you have 0.01% communists, and everyone else grouped around fascism and libertarianism, you can bet that practical political discourse will apply "left" and "right" to the 99.99%.

That's actually a success from an economic standpoint as it indicates efficiency*. You wouldn't say the farming industry was more economically successful if implemented a new procedure that required twice as many people to produce the same output.

* Ignoring your point about the relative power produced of wind vs coal as that's incidental to your reasoning.

Perhaps you are exaggerating to make a point but that's a very polarised view. Society (us) places quite stringent roles on both men and women in how they relate within their sex and with the other sex. While I'd agree that the roles have changed more for women, they have clearly changed for men too (think being present at birth or being the primary carer). Similarly, a quick survey of your local CBD, nightlife area or Facebook shows that women have hardly escaped the pressure to present themselves as suitable for breeding, and you have overstated how far we are from the 50s ideal.

Good point on European history. Americans are less trusting in general. They distrust their democratic government and even each other (see guns). Possibly this is justified (NSA/murder rates) and possibly it is self-fulfilling. Personally I think a society where the citizens can trust each other is healthier.

That aside, there are cultural differences, where Americans value independence and idealism more than Europeans, and a lack of trust is simply an outworking of that (it doesn't mean maximising trust is the goal). The USA also has a much larger and geographically/ethnically diverse population which makes valuing independence over conformity more of a necessity.

To a degree, but the dilution also works against this, depending on how trained your palette is. When baked in a cake I find very little difference between Lindt, Valrhona, some Italian couverture I bought whose name escapes me, and even Cadbury. It's like chefs saying there is no such thing as cooking wine - true mostly if your life's work is focusing on subtle flavour differences.

For ganache and handmake chocolates, however, it makes a lot more sense. I intend to try Callebaut next, $50/kg for Valrhona is breaking me :)

If this were true then mothers would have no problems with men staring at them while nursing. Breasts are sexual in Western cultures in the vast majority of situations in which they are exposed, and the mind doesn't immediately ignore that context.

Breastfeeding in public is one of those strange issues that causes a lot of argument but doesn't seem to actually bother many people. It's natural to feel slightly uncomfortable around it, so you politely don't stare, and mothers try to be as discreet as possible.

I don't support them but that's not a fair summary of the laws. They have made it illegal for protesters to threaten violence or create blockades. One example would be abortion protesters creating a barrier around a clinic, but this law is mostly aimed at unions who can physically stop 'scabs' entering a workplace with implied, and sometimes actual, violence.

Firstly, it's an impressively mature outlook to think of yourself as fortunate for being intelligent rather than being angry at the majority for being 'idiots'.

Secondly, success within a species as social as humans depends on a lot more than individual intelligence (tests are typically very individual). A lot of success comes from relational ability and if you are below average in this then it can hamper the use of your intellectual abilities. Compounding this, low relational ability doesn't seem correlated with a low need for relationships. Another factor is that the majority will create structures than benefit average people and, if you are exceptionally intelligent or dumb, will not be able to make full use of them.

I agree, but it's more subtle than that. Children are in hyper-learning mode, and they are constantly on the lookout for what to do and what not to do. You might say they have an innate desire to figure out their 'role', to use a sociological term. Combine this with the fact that all animals quickly distinguish between male and female and you can see how children amplify any inherent gender differences.

Children also tend to have incomplete information, so they may see one physicist depicted who happens to be male. Part of this unbalanced information comes from the home, where parents usually fall into distinct roles.

However LTS releases periodically update the kernel, I assume for the same driver (as well as security) reasons, or is this different? The main drawback I see with LTS is that many application packages remain old, so you miss out on new features to LibreOffice etc.

I disagree. When it works democracy does so because it gives people with different voices a say in the system, alleviating the need to solve differences with violence. You may contend that the Iraqi people are not currently suited to democracy, but for the US to autocratically rule Iraq it would be forced to do so with an even more brutal hand than Saddam Hussein, since you've not only ruled out democracy but must rule as complete outsiders devoid of ethnic glue. Doing so would be for the US to lose a piece of its soul.

I'm tipping Michael Bay to direct.

Exactly. Applying the "No True Scotsman" fallacy is fallacious itself, as being Scottish has a strict definition of being a registered citizen in the internationally-recognised country of Scotland. Most people applying this to ISIL want self-identification as the test of Islamicism, but that makes any discussion on the role of Islam in their behaviour meaningless.