I remember seeing a video of a rubber arm experiment that goes through a series of exercises to convince someone’s mind that a rubber arm placed against their shoulder is theirs, while the real one is blocked out of sight. Once these phantom sensations are in place, the organizer then hits the rubber hand with a hammer, causing great shock in the subject but no real harm. The immediate panic is exaggerated by the fact their mind can’t actually move “their” hand out of the way when they see the swing coming.

Another study had organizers shine a harmless light on participants’ arm for a few minutes and see how they react, allegedly for some sampling purpose. The twist was that they would have the real subjects stay in a waiting room beforehand and watch actors leave while appearing to be in considerable pain from the session where the light was targeting. They then experienced a significant burning sensation from the “laser” despite the organizers insisting it was harmless. Some would go as far as to raise their voice and demand the experiment stop.

The idea is that people can be convinced that something is painful just from others’ reactions to it. This may have been what the organizers were actually testing for, and the electrical shock wasn’t real or was barely large enough to felt. But OP was just immune to being influenced. I would expect the ability to follow cues from others has strong correlation to success at socializing, so considering they use 4chan OP might actually just be built different.

Most if not all of these have one side that is clearly in the wrong. Real life is more complicated. Conflicts are usually gray vs. grey, with both sides having identifiable faults and justifications. But even then, if you spent all your time seeing the world from the perspective of certain designated protagonists you’ll likely sympathize with them anyway.

I took it to be a coyote. They go after sheep sometimes. Also, they are associated with being trickster figures in mythology.

Is that saying meant to cover baseless assertions about someone’s actions? Hillary Clinton was involved in enough shady shit to not need to make stuff up. If someone says that she donated to her opposition’s campaign they should have evidence to back that up. Otherwise they just give ammunition to people convincing others to ignore real, substantive criticisms against Trump.

That article mostly describes her campaign focussing on criticizing stronger and more likely candidates early on when the Republican nomination was still up for grabs. That just makes tactical sense. Otherwise you might as well also accuse her of being involved in a conspiracy to get Vermin Supreme in power too.

You can say the fact that Hillary is a woman contributed to her loss. You can even argue that it was enough to make the difference in Trump winning. But the main reason she lost is because she was still otherwise a weak candidate overall.

This is a good example showing OP was being too broad. I like the sentiment but think they should limit it to topics for which there is a sizable amount of genuine dissent (meaning we don’t have to invent an argument for an hypothetical unreasonable contrarian) and that aren’t easily demonstrably falsifiable (meaning we are covering opinions and theories, not matters of objective fact).

OP likely was meaning to apply this to controversial social policies or philosophical questions exploring what values people prioritize. Too often loud voices demonize “the other side” and dismiss them out of hand with strawmen.

Corporate personhood is mostly for convenience. Otherwise a company would need an individual to buy and sell corporate property, and they would have to rearrange stuff like that whenever that person dies, retires, or does something else that restricts property use. And it means an individual wouldn’t be able to be a tyrant for everyone else working at the company just because everything is in their name.

Importantly, it makes it much easier for customers to sue, since they only need to show the company wronged them in some way rather than an individual being personally responsible. Usually they would have no way of knowing who makes which decisions and has which responsibilities, and by suing the company as a whole. they don’t have to. The same applies for governments, police departments, school boards, etc.