Official "Discuss the latest page" thread

[LeonT]

Did I forget any?

Hood point and Fontana station are still in one piece?

[Aegeus]

Ooh, Mr. Creed is looking sharp!

[skythorn]

He is looking gritty even ...

[Aegis J Hyena]

The appearance of Creed means bad news for the heroes for sure...

EDIT A week later: And here we go! I, for one, am anxious to see what shape Mr. Creed's meddling will appear as...

[skythorn]

I read the BLM blog and I agree with the BLM blog. Thanks for being a humanist

[CygnusX1]

Came to say that I agree with the BLM blog too.

There is one sentence that I think needs adjustment. I need to stress however, this is not a counterargument. It just needs expanding.

racism is actually the default position of dominantly white societies

Racism is a default position of any big enough society with some dominant trait.
If you find yourself in a region where you do not hold that trait, you may end up at the same short-end stick.

We could discuss why it is that, but that's another story.

My personal experience was - being agnostic in a Christian-dominant community. It was easy for me however as I could just leave that community and find friends elsewhere. Black people can't really leave the white-dominant society they were born in.

[CorvusCorax]

I still think the problem that the protests in the States want addressed goes deeper.

Or rather, there's 2 problems.

Problem 1: Racism. Minorities ( black, hispanic, immigrants of any kind, ... ) are constantly being discriminated. Sometimes open and systematically, sometimes because of everyones subconscious bias to the known and familiar, sometimes by social forcing factors of society. ( Because you are from a stigmatized minority, you are poor and have shit jobs, so you can't afford proper education, so your kids become criminals and are poor, too, which further stigmatizes the minority --> vicious circle ) This is a world wide problem. There is not a single society that is not affected by this, although some communities are affected more than others, and of course the minorities subject to discrimination differ. The victims in country A can easily be the ones at fault in country B and vice versa. (Look at different regions within India for example) - And even though the black community has been on the receiving end disproportionally often, black people are unfortunately not immune from discriminating others.

Problem 2: Police brutality. Police should serve and protect. Not be brutal and randomly kill people. This should go without saying, but for some reason - and this is a problem specific to the United States of America - the false ideal of the renegade colt slinging sheriff that solves all problems in "judge dread" manner - upholding law and order with an iron fist - is still way too prominent. Not many other countries have as many people killed by police per capita than the united states, and those that are are either dictatorships or in a state of civil war. In turn the violence against police is pretty high, but that, too is a vicious circle. Why should any petty criminal not try and gun down the police men after him, if he already knows he doesn't get to expect mercy from either the police, nor the flawed judicial system - should he survive his arrest.

What happens if you combine both: A trigger happy, brutal police force, with wide spread racism against a minority which is both known for and forced into a higher crime rate than the average, you get innocent people killed by abusive cops for no other crime but having the wring skin color.

I agree with the "Black Lives Matter" outcry. The racism must stop. But there is merit to the "All Lives Matter" statement, too. Police MUST NOT be killers. It doesn't matter what color the subjects skin is. You can't have cops being ad-hoc lawmaker, constable, judge and executioner in one person - and even get away with it unless there's mass protests.

The police problem is not solved by simply campaigning for less racism among the police force, because racism is only a small part of the issue here.

Likewise, racism cannot be fixed by reforming the police - it's a much deeper rooted problem in society.

And both must be addressed.

I don't think becoming a mind-linked collective under the watchful mind of an all-knowing all-seeing "benevolent AI" would be the answer though

[David]

I don't think becoming a mind-linked collective under the watchful mind of an all-knowing all-seeing "benevolent AI" would be the answer though

Your loss.

[CorvusCorax]

I don't think becoming a mind-linked collective under the watchful mind of an all-knowing all-seeing "benevolent AI" would be the answer though

Your loss.

For one thing, such a benevolent AI would probably realize that global resource depletion and climate change are a much more pressing issue and - realizing that world governments cannot be pursued to do something about it with traditional means - do something drastic about it -- like bring world economy to a grinding halt by releasing a really scary pandemic virus to gain time - or something like that.

[David]

Post deleted (and user banned) because my forum is not a platform for hatred and bigotry.

Everyone else, as you were