Personal view on the riots

[Cognisant]

In my other threads I've tried to encourage rational discussion of current events and in doing so withheld much of my own personal thoughts and feelings, which I will share here instead in this more casual section.

I've long predicted a coming nihilistic crisis in which society will be forced to reassess the sanctity of its values/traditions/culture, I believe that is as a necessary and positive step in our development as an intelligent species and I can see signs of it in this conflict. For example black protesters forming a defensive barrier around a white cop who had been separated from his peers so that the angry mob couldn't have their way with him, or when protesters dragged an instigator who was breaking pavers (in order to throw them at the police) over to the police to be arrested and when the police mistakenly detain one of the non-instigating protesters they listen to the crowd and let him go.

These moments of prevailing sanity in a sea of madness give me hope that as a species we are finally developing some maturity, a meta-awareness of the cycles of destruction and hate, and that one day we may be free of them.
An awakening to the fact that in a vast uncaring universe all we really have is each other.

Of course things will get worse before they get better.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I mean... that's a nice thought, but rather irrelevant imo. People are as wantonly kind as they are cruel. They always have been.

Maybe they'll will be justice for Floyd and they won't be quietly let off the hook like all the others before them after the unrest dies down. Regardless, they're won't be justice for the people (police included) who have suffered and died in the riots. Our police force is still filled with the woefully unfit and overly armed. We were always going to have a large 2nd wave of Covid, but that's even more true now. 6 people were likely murdered in revenge for the Ferguson riots and upsetting videos with thousands of faces abound. The next unjust murder won't take long in those conditions. Then there's the election..... Oh Gods.... The election is going to present a nightmare I can't even bring myself to contemplate, let alone analyze. That's just the next 6 months and there's no fucking offramp.

I really don't get what you feel so optimistic about when the prognosis is this bleak. Unless it's the potential dissolution of the US? Which y'know, fair, but it's really not gonna be fun for anybody.

 

[Cognisant]

The US is in many ways the victim of its own prosperity, there's corruption incompetence and inequality at levels that simply couldn't occur elsewhere, a smaller less affluent nation would have reached its breaking point already. The US will reach a breaking point and unfortunately I think it's still a long way off, things are going to worse, much worse, before real change occurs. But ultimately it will be for the better, if one takes the long view of history things have been getting better, wars are fewer, plagues are less frequent, people are living longer more prosperous lives.

Lasting positive change has and continues to occur in no small part driven by conversations like this one, conversations about justice, about suffering, about politics, about the changes that need to occur and the consequences if they don't.

I don't think the US will cease as a nation but there will be a loss of identity, a collapse of nationalism, alongside televangelism there is a growing atheism, alongside the radicalization of the political extremes there's a growing neutrality, as I said a crisis of nihilism.

White and black people who reject being identified by the color.
Cops who reject the civilian/serviceman divide.
Politicians that reject being either liberal or conservative.
Believers who reject the dogma of their religions.
And ultimately people who reject calling themselves Americans.

 

[Words]

That's a nice positive perspective. I'm not sure if growing atheism is a good thing or a bad thing. Christianity has its flaws but in many parts of the world, it has also institutionalized kindness and compassion. Islam has been more exclusionary and bigoted. In the developing world, especially Central Asia, Christianity would even be helpful. But in the context of America, it's probably a good thing. It's just strange when both of these worlds merge thru immigration so you have atheism without an a priori Christianity or without an a priori knowledge of world or American history and all the helpful genocides and deaths. The overarching concern is racism and a racially unjust system but maybe there's a problem of nuance and attention to the development of worldviews and the way they flow, mix, and struggle in the world. More importantly, I think it all comes down to economic hardship and how the US is so vehemently resistant to any attempts of a more compassionate economy. It's easy to keep the US more stable and prevent any more potential internal conflicts---just make people's lives easier. But no, they're just going to keep that pot boiling.

 

[Cognisant]

Christianity has its flaws but in many parts of the world, it has also institutionalized kindness and compassion.

Religion is a business that sells bullshit that makes people feel better about themselves, uses crowdsourced marketing and engages in charity work for recruitment (they're called missionaries) and as a public relations exercise.

McDonalds runs a charity called the Ronald McDonald House which provides accommodation for people with sick children in hospitals, so you could say they've "institutionalized kindness and compassion" but I think it goes without explanation that McDonalds as a corporation is interested neither kindness nor compassion. They run this charity because they know they're one of the world's largest purveyors of junk food and the first on the firing line whenever public discussion turns to the topic of obesity, it's a public relations exercise.

If you want to discuss theology and morality go check out my "Moral Values" thread.

 

[byhisello99]

The overarching concern is racism and a racially unjust system but maybe there's a problem of nuance and attention to the development of worldviews and the way they flow, mix, and struggle in the world. More importantly, I think it all comes down to economic hardship and how the US is so vehemently resistant to any attempts of a more compassionate economy. It's easy to keep the US more stable and prevent any more potential internal conflicts---just make people's lives easier. But no, they're just going to keep that pot boiling.

You have one overarching concern and one what it all comes down to. From my viewpoint at age 72, racism and a "racially unjust system" are mostly solved. There is no government sanctioned anti-black racism, and overt racism is simply no longer acceptable. Jim Crow is dead, and there is no government-sanctioned segregation. What we have is self-selected segregation, an entirely different issue. Numbers don't support the narrative of a racially unjust system of justice. When considering number of adults in the person's household when growing up, the disparate outcomes between blacks and whites nearly disappear. The driver is single parents, not race, for arrests, incarceration, health outcomes, length of life, education, financial success and other measures.

No economy is "compassionate." In small homogeneous populations, few take advantage of others' work because of social pressure. In a group of a thousand, there is no secret about who is contributing and who is not. The same is not true of large heterogeneous populations. Citizenry can be compassionate. Compelled compassion is suspect at best, so in areas where government is considered the default solution, there is little private charity. Citizens transfer their compassion to the state. In areas where government compels little to no compassion, private charity is common.

How does one measure racial justice or the compassion of a citizenry? Half of America would have us measure it in equal outcomes for all groups. When there are unequal outcomes, the difference is ascribed to racism alone, and any attempt to seek other sources of inequality is condemned as racist. This prevents addressing any problem other than assumed racism, and sixty years of effort have done little to bring greater equality of outcomes. That, sir, is itself racist.

The US has police forces that are disproportionately white, and blacks are very under-represented. Because the narrative is that any unequal outcome must derive from racism, all attempts are focused on finding and eliminating the racist barriers. If they aren't the real barriers, nothing improves. Consider this: If every black applicant to every law enforcement organization in the country had been handed a badge and gun on receipt of application without any testing or standards, blacks would still be under-represented in law enforcement. The barrier is too few black applicants. Now, that may arise from racism or non-racist factors, but the direct cause of too few black police officers is too few black applicants.

Who is the "they" in "they're just going to keep that pot boiling?" That will say a great deal more than anything else about the assumptions that you bring to the discussion. I don't find any "they" anywhere. I do find about half of America benefiting from ethnic, racial, religious and other divides. That half has to oppose looking outside the common narrative for answers, because the answers might heal some divides, and that half loses its advantage from the status quo.

 

[Words]

Religion is a business that sells bullshit that makes people feel better about themselves, uses crowdsourced marketing and engages in charity work for recruitment (they're called missionaries) and as a public relations exercise.

McDonalds runs a charity called the Ronald McDonald House which provides accommodation for people with sick children in hospitals, so you could say they've "institutionalized kindness and compassion" but I think it goes without explanation that McDonalds as a corporation is interested neither kindness nor compassion. They run this charity because they know they're one of the world's largest purveyors of junk food and the first on the firing line whenever public discussion turns to the topic of obesity, it's a public relations exercise.

If you want to discuss theology and morality go check out my "Moral Values" thread.

Would you rather there's a McDonalds like this that has unintentionally produced kindness or no McDonalds at all? or would you rather a slightly less effective possibly more bigoted Burger King that has been imported from a different country? Kindness can be institutionalized without religion and actually has been done so throughout the western world, but that's the problem---only in the western world. And yet it is these countries that are facing problems of racial and ethnic tensions that erroneously assume that everyone in the world is already in on the same page. So no McDonalds and no Burger King, but just atheism. But the humans outside of this page is either apathetic out of sheer ignorance of western history and human suffering or possibly even(antagonistic due to historical reasons) to the plight of the Jews for instance. The influx of immigration is not just an influx of people but an influx of ideas. The juxtaposition of radically different ideas (as well as economic differences) between the conservatives of the western world and the conservatives of the rest of the world, has resulted into this new form of racism or traits that exhibit racism.

 

[Cognisant]

So you're saying don't pick on Christianity because at least it's better than Islam, or Hinduism or some cannibalistic tribe?

I'm not going to debate with you about whether Christianity is the "lesser of two evils" because I don't fucking care, I'm sure a strong argument could be made that Christianity isn't as bad as Islam but not as bad doesn't mean it's not bad. Just because we don't have inquisitors, witch hunts and holy wars in the modern day doesn't mean we won't have them again. It's all a matter of circumstances and I believe if the circumstances were reversed, if it was Christianity in the economically downtrodden and exploited middle east and Islam in the wealthy western nations then they would each adapt their behavior accordingly. The Westboro Baptists and KKK, you don't see shit like that in Australia or the UK and not because our Christians are better Christians but because the people of our nations wouldn't tolerate it, and were we more tolerant I have no doubt the same weeds would sprout.

Kindness can be institutionalized without religion and actually has been done so throughout the western world, but that's the problem---only in the western world. And yet it is these countries that are facing problems of racial and ethnic tensions that erroneously assume that everyone in the world is already in on the same page.

Having traveled a bit I can tell you that everyone, everywhere, is racist.
But usually not to your face unless they have some other problem with you, the difference between the western and other nations is that people tend to immigrate to wealthier nations so there's a greater racial diversity in those nations. This in of itself isn't problematic rather tensions tend to occur between socioeconomic demographics and that socioeconomic divide can easily occur between established citizens and immigrants.

For example Australians are racist towards Chinese immigrants, specifically the wealthy Chinese who are blamed for the ever inflating cost of housing and the working poor Chinese who immigrated to Australia looking for opportunity and are simply disliked for being poor. But the middle class Chinese are just Australians, like you'll have a group of guys complaining about the Chinese and one of the guys in the group is Chinese and when he mentions it they all look surprised and then dismiss it, saying he's Chinese but not Chinese.

Imo the race riots in the US are less about race than they are about a socioeconomic divide that is superficially along racial lines.

 

[peoplesuck]

Report: Dalai Lama received $1M from Albany 'sex cult' accused of branding women

NXIVM members reportedly include actress Allison Mack and a 'Dallas' star's daughter.

www.newyorkupstate.com

the dahlia lama is a materialistic, sadistic psychopath. The irony of that should create a black hole, or some sort of cosmic collapse.

y'all remember the good old days, before we existed...

Its really quite impossible to know what is true anymore.
nothing happening right now makes sense, from the mainstream perspective.
As much as I would like to throw the old "people are fucking stupid" label on this, unfortunately i dont think its that simple.
Nobody needs to tell you what is happening, just look at it, and question it.
or dont, theworldisburninglmaofuckingkillme
Apparently there was a blm riot here, and someone was killed. I used to feel really uncomfortable going into stores with my gun, now I dont even want to leave my house without it. When i was young i always wanted to see how the world would end, you really have to be careful what you wish for.