The Random Thoughts Thread

[washti]

Criminals in one crime often were victims in another one. Not nessesarily of the same magnitude. That's not the excuse from firm and lawful treatment. Or exchanging two situation like they would possess same weight. If trying to understand where act is coming from creates leniant attitude towards criminal, that's totally shitty situation. And i can see why you'd flag this trials of understanding as ideological tool.They are often just callouss narratives expressing political leaning, not addressing current situation. So indeed we finish with victim olympics...

 

[redbaron]

statistically, problems of violence tend to correlate more strongly with socio-economic factors than anything else

ideoligically motivated domestic terror acts are typically committed by right-wingers and the religious

 

[CatGoddess]

@redbaron What about antifa, farc, shining path, and other such groups? Not being anti-left or something; I'd just modify right-wingers to "extremists", although that makes it a kinda obvious statement.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Rehabilitation isn't as fun as 'justice.' Plus it creates economic opportunities; what with all the cheap slave labor and for-profit prisons.

 

[redbaron]

yeah what about them?

when it comes to ideologically motivated domestic terror acts in the US, they account for roughly 2% of them

meanwhile white supremacists, neo-nazis etc. account for 74%

not to mention that the existence of groups like antifa is for the express purpose of keeping neo-nazis and the like in check. not that it condones when they do get violent, but it makes no sense to equate a group responsible for 2% of violence with a group responsible for 74%

nor does it make sense to me to put them on the same playing field, when one group exists to oppose the group committing the majority of domestic terror incidents, and the other is the group actually going out of their way to do these things

 

[CatGoddess]

when it comes to ideologically motivated domestic terror acts in the US, they account for roughly 2% of them

meanwhile white supremacists, neo-nazis etc. account for 74%

I have not heard this statistic. Where are you getting it from?

 

[lightfire]

when it comes to ideologically motivated domestic terror acts in the US, they account for roughly 2% of them

meanwhile white supremacists, neo-nazis etc. account for 74%

I have not heard this statistic. Where are you getting it from?

It's a pretty strong statistic if you look up right wing vs left wing extremism.

 

[CatGoddess]

Okay, I found the statistic. Yes, then, you're right. (but not alt-right)

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

The "actual victim"? That's dumb.

Stop playing victim Olympics smh.

you clearly didn't understand a single word of what I wrote

 

[lightfire]

life is too short for boring socks.

if you don't have a crazy sock collection, then you haven't lived.

 

[redbaron]

The "actual victim"? That's dumb.

Stop playing victim Olympics smh.

you clearly didn't understand a single word of what I wrote

what if he did and he just disagrees

 

[Happy]

life is too short for boring socks.

if you don't have a crazy sock collection, then you haven't lived.

I don’t even own plain socks

 

[Pizzabeak]

I keep losing all my white tube socks, and I can't wear my fancy ones because my socks get wet and damaged fast, so I've just been using my normal ones until it's pertinent to bust them out, and I'm not really looking to show off. There was a series of socks I had where they were like the best ones ever and never got holes, lasting for years. Then I got a replacement pack, and was happy because they were new. But, unfortunately they got holes way faster than the other ones, which I considered my normal pair.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

yeah what about them?

when it comes to ideologically motivated domestic terror acts in the US, they account for roughly 2% of them

meanwhile white supremacists, neo-nazis etc. account for 74%

not to mention that the existence of groups like antifa is for the express purpose of keeping neo-nazis and the like in check. not that it condones when they do get violent, but it makes no sense to equate a group responsible for 2% of violence with a group responsible for 74%

nor does it make sense to me to put them on the same playing field, when one group exists to oppose the group committing the majority of domestic terror incidents, and the other is the group actually going out of their way to do these things

swedish military did a recent report on "violent extremist propaganda": https://www.foi.se/rapportsammanfattning?reportNo=FOI-R--4592--SE

it's pretty vague in its conclusions and it was pretty superficial research, but if you look at the list of organizations they looked at, it is basically 100% leftist/socialist groups (+some fringe anarchist stuff), among them antifa. At any rate you can find exactly zilch there about right-wing extremism or neo-nazism, so it seems clear what side of the political spectrum is currently of interest to them.

funny side point: they do have a section on one of those cases with people "keeping neo-nazis and the like in check" though – e.g. antifa websites that encourage doxing of supposed "nazis"

 

[CatGoddess]

I believe the statistic (74% vs. 2%) is for the US. Whoops, I guess I've been a gross ethnocentric American yet again...

In other countries it's different; for instance, in Colombia, the FARC is behind most of the ideologically rooted violence.

 

[Black Rose]

it is basically 100% leftist/socialist groups

violent extremist groups in Sweeden?

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

it is basically 100% leftist/socialist groups

violent extremist groups in Sweeden?

yes

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I believe the statistic (74% vs. 2%) is for the US. Whoops, I guess I've been a gross ethnocentric American yet again...

In other countries it's different; for instance, in Colombia, the FARC is behind most of the ideologically rooted violence.

are those stats about "terrorism" in particlar? I mean, if antifa memebers run around attacking people, is that "terrorism"? Seems like a gratuitous concept in this context. For example, the word "terrorism" was never used in that swedish report, but rather "violent extremist groups".

But no one is posting sources on anything, so I guess we'll never know.

 

[CatGoddess]

The statistic is on murders. I suppose that doesn't account for violent but nonlethal assault and battery, but lethal violence/murders are obviously a lot more extreme. The stats are from 2016 but there's no reason to suspect the numbers have changed that much in 3 years.

Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2016

www.adl.org

But, again, this isn't going to be the case in other countries - to take a slightly dumb example, is 25% percent of lethal violence in Japan from Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists? Doubtful.

BTW I think minuend's claim about your "bad feels" towards women has to do with your staunch anti-feminism and frequent posts about misandry more than anything. For the record, as a woman, my spidey senses do not detect bad feels towards me.

 

[redbaron]

yeah what about them?

when it comes to ideologically motivated domestic terror acts in the US, they account for roughly 2% of them

meanwhile white supremacists, neo-nazis etc. account for 74%

not to mention that the existence of groups like antifa is for the express purpose of keeping neo-nazis and the like in check. not that it condones when they do get violent, but it makes no sense to equate a group responsible for 2% of violence with a group responsible for 74%

nor does it make sense to me to put them on the same playing field, when one group exists to oppose the group committing the majority of domestic terror incidents, and the other is the group actually going out of their way to do these things

swedish military did a recent report on "violent extremist propaganda": https://www.foi.se/rapportsammanfattning?reportNo=FOI-R--4592--SE

it's pretty vague in its conclusions and it was pretty superficial research, but if you look at the list of organizations they looked at, it is basically 100% leftist/socialist groups (+some fringe anarchist stuff), among them antifa. At any rate you can find exactly zilch there about right-wing extremism or neo-nazism, so it seems clear what side of the political spectrum is currently of interest to them.

funny side point: they do have a section on one of those cases with people "keeping neo-nazis and the like in check" though – e.g. antifa websites that encourage doxing of supposed "nazis"

uh...

did you actually read about the intended goals of this report and what they were tracking?

because it wasn't domestic terror incidents

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

uh...

did you actually read about the intended goals of this report and what they were tracking?

because it wasn't domestic terror incidents

I did, yes. The official purpose, as requested by the swedish government, was to "map out and analyze violent extremist propaganda"

(or in swedish: "göra kartläggningar och analyser av våldsbejakande extremistisk propaganda")

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

BTW I think minuend's claim about your "bad feels" towards women has to do with your staunch anti-feminism and frequent posts about misandry more than anything. For the record, as a woman, my spidey senses do not detect bad feels towards me.

that's my theory too

 

[redbaron]

considering you work with statistics it seems difficult to assume you're making innocent mistakes as opposed to being ignorant because you have a bias

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

well, I don't really know what mistake you're referring to, so cannot really comment on that

and btw the source you're using is a bit dubious for 3 reasons: 1) it's a private institution (with it's own self-interests and biases), 2) their research is nowhere near academic standards – which is quite important when you're dealing with statistics as opposed to qualitative reports like the one I cited, 3) I cannot find those 2%, 74% numbers anywhere in the report. In fact it seems they removed the paragraph containing those numbers from the report itself but kept it on the webpage for some reason – i.e we have no clue what those numbers are based on.

I'm actually a bit surprised by that swedish report myself. For example they do mention far-right organizations like Nordic Resistance Movement, but not as a part of the "violent extremist" category, but rather (very ironically) as a group being targeted by Antifa in various violent and illegal ways.

 

[Minuend]

How would you use it, and what's the advantage you see? (Assuming you're talking about affective empathy. If you mean cognitive empathy, then there are more obvious answers.)

Yes, I meant cognitive empathy. I don't feel I need to elaborate, because you're probably already aware of the same stuff I am, and probably even more.

BTW I think minuend's claim about your "bad feels" towards women has to do with your staunch anti-feminism and frequent posts about misandry more than anything. For the record, as a woman, my spidey senses do not detect bad feels towards me.

Have I written that? Must have been a drunk post, I guess. I don't see ideas or people in terms of antifeminist/ feminist, as that's not a topic I'm interested in or focused on. I take note if someone is writing something explicitly to be anti feminist, like someone would write something just to be anti religious or whatever. But mainly because it would be an attitude of wanting to be contrare for the sake of being contrare. Can't remember serac posting much about misandry (like you couldn't point out poor treatment of men without being like anti-woman lul), but then again, there's a lot of threads I don't read, and some threads I read once or twice and never bother with again.

I think this type of perspective of me/ my opinion just comes down to associating certain opinions/ imagined opinions with certain caricatures, where the individual is reduced to a stereotype who if has opinion x, needs to have opinion y, z and h. Which reduces understanding of the perspective of the person writing it, as person with opinion x might have opinion a and b instead.

I do think it's kinda amusing how serac didn't respond to your "bad feels toward me" comment, tho, maybe unintentional/ he doesn't care, but still kinda amusing.

----

I'm feeling surprisingly clear headed today, no brain fog. Feels amaze baze.

Well, dinner's ready, time to engulf in another cheesy x files episode (I've actually never watched the show before, imagine that)

 

[lightfire]

I've been watching family guy. I hate that I sort of enjoy this show.

 

[CatGoddess]

I'm actually a bit surprised by that swedish report myself. For example they do mention far-right organizations like Nordic Resistance Movement, but not as a part of the "violent extremist" category, but rather (very ironically) as a group being targeted by Antifa in various violent and illegal ways.

Well, I see that the government organization explicitly mentioning some organizations rather than others indicates they're more concerned about those groups, but that doesn't necessarily mean those groups actually cause more violence. I.e. pres. Trump likes to bring up only violent leftist groups, while neglecting to mention the alt-right; this indicates he's more concerned about the former, but mostly shows his bias rather than that the leftist groups cause more violence. For a more clear example, there was no violence against the large 1925 KKK march through Washington DC, but onlookers attacked the suffragette parade 6 or so years before that. The NWP certainly wasn't anywhere near as violent as the KKK.

I interpreted Happy's comment as meaning that he didn't own any socks...

I don’t even own plain socks

 

[Black Rose]

I think I might not exist. Push energy through any system and it will rearrange itself. The human form is simply a way for energy to maintain homeostasis by the rearrangement of its atoms. Successful organisms persist because they change with the energy they receive adaptively. The simple explanation is that when you observer the energy inside you change the configuration of atoms in the body. You realize that you can direct it but also the impermanence of it. Energy is not the self, atoms are not the self, both are observable by "self". By seeing the body as separate from self but maintaining a state of attentiveness. Resistance dissipates. Ego death is attained.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I think this type of perspective of me/ my opinion just comes down to associating certain opinions/ imagined opinions with certain caricatures, where the individual is reduced to a stereotype who if has opinion x, needs to have opinion y, z and h. Which reduces understanding of the perspective of the person writing it, as person with opinion x might have opinion a and b instead.

it's kinda mind blowing that you write this, considering I have repeated ad nauseam that this is exactly what you've been doing to other people

I do think it's kinda amusing how serac didn't respond to your "bad feels toward me" comment, tho, maybe unintentional/ he doesn't care, but still kinda amusing.

from which you infer that I have bad feels towards her? That's nuts. Once again, you seem to treat yourself as the authority on cold-reading people via the internet, while speaking against it when it is ostensibly applied to you.

but in case someone needs to hear it, I think Catgoddess is a lovely individual whom I have nothing against.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I'm actually a bit surprised by that swedish report myself. For example they do mention far-right organizations like Nordic Resistance Movement, but not as a part of the "violent extremist" category, but rather (very ironically) as a group being targeted by Antifa in various violent and illegal ways.

Well, I see that the government organization explicitly mentioning some organizations rather than others indicates they're more concerned about those groups, but that doesn't necessarily mean those groups actually cause more violence. I.e. pres. Trump likes to bring up only violent leftist groups, while neglecting to mention the alt-right; this indicates he's more concerned about the former, but mostly shows his bias rather than that the leftist groups cause more violence. For a more clear example, there was no violence against the large 1925 KKK march through Washington DC, but onlookers attacked the suffragette parade 6 or so years before that. The NWP certainly wasn't anywhere near as violent as the KKK.

yeah, obviously it's just one report, and as mentioned, a pretty superficial one, but keep in mind we're talking about Sweden here. One would think that if there would be any bias there, it would certainly not be in the favor of the political right.

 

[Black Rose]

serac did respond to catgoddess whom "she detects no bad feelings from him towards her" counter to others seeing him as against women in some way.

 

[CatGoddess]

@Minuend Your comment was in the "catcalling" thread.

I do think it's kinda amusing how serac didn't respond to your "bad feels toward me" comment, tho, maybe unintentional/ he doesn't care, but still kinda amusing.

I also don't understand what you're trying to say here. I said that I didn't think he had a bad perception of me; that doesn't exactly necessitate a response. If I'd said I thought he did dislike me because of my gender, then it would be expected that he respond, either with a "what no why do you think that" or a "haha yup I hate you git out scrub". But I really don't see how him not responding to my lack of problems with him is at all noteworthy or "amusing". What would he even be expected to say?

 

[lightfire]

I bought sweet potatoes today, they were like perfect spheres.

 

[CatGoddess]

I don't like sweet potatoes; it's like, you already decided to buy potatoes so why didn't you just get regular goddamn potatoes? They're 100x better than sweet potatoes imo...

 

[Minuend]

from which you infer that I have bad feels towards her? That's nuts. Once again, you seem to treat yourself as the authority on cold-reading people via the internet, while speaking against it when it is ostensibly applied to you.

but in case someone needs to hear it, I think Catgoddess is a lovely individual whom I have nothing against.

You're putting too much into it, you tend to take what I say in absolutes, even when I write in multiples. But no matter, we're just different and wont agree on some stuff and stuff, and that's fine. I'll just row my boat over in this water here with all the cool colorful fish and you can be over there with the swirly dolphins. Maybe we'll meet at the pond of fatty sharks once in a while.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@Minuend fair enough

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

meanwhile in sweden #3: the new crime stats for 2018 are in, folks. And guess what, it ain't looking good.

2018 vs 2017:
Sexual assault up by 8% (since 2015 we're at a 60% increase).
rape of girls in age 15-17 up by 22%
vandalism up by 5%
drug offenses up by 6%

source

as we can see, everything is going splendidly

first graph here shows the percentage of population victimized by sexual assault up until 2017:

Våldtäkt och sexualbrott - Brottsförebyggande rådet

bra.se

second graph there shows that in 2017, 1 in 9 women were subject to sexual assault – which is fuckin insane.

strange how a society can change so rapidly, considering this has nothing to do with immigration

 

[CatGoddess]

What if people are just becoming more open to talking about their experiences with sexual assault, rather than the actual incidences increasing? It seems to be becoming more "normalized" (as in, not taboo to discuss) nowadays. So it's possible that it's only the reports of assault that are going up.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

What if people are just becoming more open to talking about their experiences with sexual assault, rather than the actual incidences increasing? It seems to be becoming more "normalized" (as in, not taboo to discuss) nowadays. So it's possible that it's only the reports of assault that are going up.

well, this comes up every time I quote sexual-assault statistics in sweden, but you have to keep in mind 3 things:

1. if you look at the 5th graph (Relation till gärningspersonen), this shows the sexual assaults by relationship to the perpetrator. It shows that in the vast majority of cases the perpetrator is a complete stranger. The graph above that one shows that the vast majority of cases happen at public places. I.e. these are not #metoo-style sexual assaults where someone gropes someone's ass at work – these are violent assaults where people are attacked in the streets. It sounds unlikely to me that people suddenly got a lower threshold for reporting these kind of crimes just because of cultural trends.
2. It would be strange if people suddenly became more open about talking about a wide range of crimes, including drug offenses and vandalism.
3. these crime statistics started to skyrocket in 2015 – the year when there was a massive spike in immigration due to the migration crisis

Another point relating to point 2 is that lethal crime (i.e. where someone was confirmed dead) has also been significantly higher in the period 2015-2017 (source), which would definitely not be dependent on thresholds for reporting crimes, as these are simply body counts done by the police.

quote from the last report:

The last three years (2015–2017), the number of fatal cases has been at a higher level than in previous years, and thus the previous downward trend has been broken.

 

[CatGoddess]

Who's immigrating into Sweden? And why (or, I guess, why do you think) are they more likely to sexually assault women than native-born Swedes? I mean, I'm sure you know correlation =/= causation, so what's the rationale? There are a LOT of immigrants in the US and my school's fairly diverse; I haven't noticed immigrants participating in more criminal activity than anyone else. Obviously that's just anecdotal, but do you have a different experience that leads you to suspect otherwise?

According to these people, research on immigrant vs. native-born crime rates (in the US, again, could be different in Sweden) is "conflicting". Although, I'd think that an immigrant would have more incentive to not commit a crime, since they have the threat of getting booted out of the country hanging over their head.

Is Illegal Immigration Linked to More or Less Crime? - FactCheck.org

President Donald Trump said it’s “not true” that immigrants in the U.S. illegally are “safer than the people that live in the country,” providing several crime statistics he claimed represented the “toll of illegal immigration.” Sen. Bernie Sanders made the opposite claim, saying: “I understand...

www.factcheck.org

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@CatGoddess
yeah, to begin with, there's absolutely no point in comparing US to Sweden in this case, because the immigration policies are worlds apart, and the origins of the immigrants are different. US immigrants are predominately from Mexico, China and India. Sweden, on the other hand, has had a high influx of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. The culture of the immigrants' origin is all that matters in this context.

secondly, when you're talking about correlation =/= causation, you have to assess what sort of analysis can and cannot allow for inference of causal relationships. If, for example, rape correlates with immigration, and you reject the claim that rape is caused by immigration, you would have to argue that there is a 3rd variable that causes both rape and immigration (see "confounding variable"). Is it that native swedes become more likely to rape someone when they sense that the population has a higher density of immigrants? Sounds dubious. I cannot come up with any reasonable 3rd variable that could cause both an increase in sexual crime and immigration.

thirdly, despite there being considerable censorship in sweden when it comes to reporting the nationality and ethnicity of criminals, there is ample evidence that immigrants are involved in violent sexual crime at vastly higher rates than native Swedes. For example, from wikipedia:

In March 2018, newspaper Expressen investigated gang rape court cases from the two preceding years and found that there were 43 men having been convicted. [...] Of the convicted, 40 out of the 43 were either immigrants (born abroad) or born in Sweden to immigrant parents.[153] Another investigation by newspaper Aftonbladet found that of 112 men and boys convicted for gang rape since July 2012, 82 were born outside Europe. The median age of the victims was 15, while 7 out of 10 perpetrators were between 15 to 20.[154] According to professor Christian Diesen, a foreigner may have a lower threshold to commit sexual assault due to having grown up in a misogynist culture where all women outside the home are interpreted as available.

but even if you hadn't seen all this evidence, how would you explain such a sudden change in crime statistics across the board? A sudden moral decay in the Swedish population, which just happened to start in 2015? The natural explanation for such an abrupt change would rather be that the composition of the population has changed.

 

[CatGoddess]

Alright, sure; I have no doubt that I know less about Sweden that you do considering it's your own country, whereas my exposure to it consists of meatballs, candy fish, IKEA, and ABBA's Dancing Queen.

but even if you hadn't seen all this evidence, how would you explain such a sudden change in crime statistics across the board? A sudden moral decay in the Swedish population, which just happened to start in 2015?

Well, it's always possible that something else significant happened in that year that led to an increase in rape rates but had nothing to do with the immigrant influx. (I don't know whether there was such an event or not) Also, there could be other confounding variables you haven't accounted for - say, (this specific one is kinda spurious, but it doesn't mean that the principle of thinking of other possible factors is unfounded) Swedes are so pissed off at the immigrants mooching off of them that they take out that frustration by raping women.

I'll be clear here and say that I'm only disagreeing with your second point, not your argument (okay, maybe that's a pointless thing to do... I don't really have a defense for my actions). The third point is convincing, though. Do you think that prof. Diesen's explanation for these higher rape incidents is accurate? (alternative explanation could be that it isn't related to their home culture - it could have to do with their turbulent lives as refugees or something) What do you believe should be done about this situation? Tighter immigration policy, I'm assuming.

(disclaimer: commenting on a country I know very little about) I think a fair and workable solution would be to clearly announce the policy change, then start deporting any immigrants who commit felonies.

 

[Happy]

Alright, sure; I have no doubt that I know less about Sweden that you do considering it's your own country, whereas my exposure to it consists of meatballs, candy fish, IKEA, and ABBA's Dancing Queen.

You forgot this:

 

[Cognisant]

But, again, this isn't going to be the case in other countries - to take a slightly dumb example, is 25% percent of lethal violence in Japan from Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists? Doubtful.

The Japanese are a very peaceful people, except when they're not, then they're amazingly violent. Unfortunately their immigration/visitation policies are kinda soft which is allowing people from uncivilized places to start making trouble in what is otherwise one of the most civilized countries. Fortunately the Japanese police are, special, I don't know what it is about Japanese culture that causes this but they take working in the public service very seriously.

Rehabilitation isn't as fun as 'justice.' Plus it creates economic opportunities; what with all the cheap slave labor and for-profit prisons.

So how would you deal with the immigrant-rapists plaguing Sweden?

I think electroshock therapy could work but you need to bait them into behaving badly so you can punish them for it, some sort of situation where attractive women are able to be rude/hostile to them or tempt them sexually and then if they act inappropriately they're punished, but if they don't then they're rewarded.

Just imprisoning rapists doesn't really achieve anything, their inability to get laid and being part of a misogynistic mono-culture is what made them rapists in the first place, jail is just more of the same until they're released and then they're worse than ever (conjecture).

 

[lightfire]

what if humans absorb the energy of dinosaurs

 

[soupymess]

Almost-lucid dream so f'ing close. Asked swimming buddies why they couldn't fly/hover and demonstrated. Were also throwing an open jar of mayonnaise or mustard around in the water and had vague awareness that certain throwing motions I could intend but wouldn't happen in the way I want. Felt like that should've been enough

 

[Pizzabeak]

At what point do changes occur, or things become “okay”?
Life must, from my observations and experience, and it could be different for each person, be about provoking more Fe out of people, indirectly, hence the word provoke.
Females exist to provoke more testosterone out of the male, making them act more manly, or to take things they want.
People don't talk to you, only about you or at you, because the guy has to talk to the girl first, hoping it means they're more valuable because the attraction worked (could be a potential "aphrodisiac" set up trap).

 

[lightfire]

I gots creme brulee coffee, gon make some now.

Can potato be used as a verb?

Long dark hair is the best.

 

[CatGoddess]

"Potaters gonna potate".

 

[Minuend]

Today I changed my previous opinion about the trolley problem after listening to a lecture where it was discussed. The same lecture also sparked an interest in philosophy which has been previously quenched by picking up books by previous philosophers and having to force ones way through obtuse speech, inaccurate observations or stupid comparisons.

Anyway, I went from pragmatic want to kill 5 people to not doing anything. How is that even possible? Though, I guess it should be said I solidly find such hypothetical useful for developing thought, but not so for principles.