It is not really a matter of what I think. It is a matter of what I am seeing. Where is the signs the BLM movement is working out so far? It is happening anyways, whether I think it is a good idea or not, so I hope it does work; but early returns don't seem too promising.

In a larger sense, I think the intense tribal divisiveness of our times is a big part of the problem, and will never be part of the solution. So taking the raging bonfire that is Trump's divisiveness and throwing a **** ton of lighter fluid that is BLM on it, I don't see as an effective way to treat this inferno.

At this point I am actually not sure whether any "reform" that specifically redresses the "black" community would be a good idea in practice, regardless of past or present injustices. Maybe in 1950. But in 2020 we are such a diverse country, with so much systemic inequality and injustice to go around, and there is so much general reform that should be happening, I just don't see such myopic focus on the black community as moving the needle much in addressing root problems.

On top of that, I feel police violence is a symptom of the disease (well-being inequality, lack of social cohesion) and is so downstream of the actual problems, that treating this symptom as if it is the diseases is likely to make things worse, which is what seems to be happening. I suspect that if we actually address poverty, inequality, hopelessness, divisiveness, etc. police reform will happen organically.

Police are a reflection of the communities they work in, not a causal agent. You don't see a whole lot of police violence in Norway or Switzerland, or even upper middle class US suburbia. You do see a lot in Mexico and Columbia. Police are the cart, not the donkey. Reforming the police in a vacuum without addressing any root issues, is just going to create a power vacuum. And whatever fills that vacuum is likely to be worse than the police.

This seems like a post that would not get you banned.

I have no idea if it will "work out" - my biggest worry may be somewhat similar. I really hope the causes and root inequality can be addressed too.

As for police, it reflects society however for whatever reason(s), it does seem like the US has a police culture problem. For instance, reading books to my 4 year old - what the police are "supposed" to do and stand for basically precludes any of the stuff that's actually happening. The system surrounding it should not have it both ways, protecting people and keeping the peace while being ready at all times to do so with extreme violence.

Imo, and from what studies I have seen (not gotten too deep into it) gun culture may be linked too strongly into all of this. Lots of guns means lots of guns for police and that they need to react in every situation as if someone has a gun and is about to use it. That's insanity.

Anyway, I'm not saying what you think matters or doesn't, I am just actually curious what your actual *beliefs* are and not just what you have fun *arguing*. Yes, even though it provides Monte with even more ammunition to chime in with a well timed "yugo gonna yugo" lol.

I have a feeling we're possibly very close in terms of viewpoint on this, although the result may be that I am much more pro-BLM, rebellions, and reforming the police. Something obviously has to happen - hopefully we have some leaders capable of harnessing it to fix downstream too.

LOL loco. As I have posted about before, I've been a Laker fan since mid '80s. Do you even H&F, bro? I think ABP's grunching is rubbing off on you.

You can go back through jdock's log(s) to find more Melkerson Laker talk.

Besides, reminiscing about AC Green is exactly what a bandwagon fan would do. Where were you when the Lakers were trotting out the likes of Cedric Ceballos and Sedale Threatt? It's the shitty years that true fans remember.

The reason why I brought up Horry is that it is perfect parallel example.
-Both WCF
-Both last second, nothing-but-net 3 threes
-Both against a team they didn't deserve to beat (they had no business beating Sacramento in that game let alone that series).

Well, telling other people what is right or wrong isn't really my bag.

At the more abstract level I think it isn't too uncontroversial to argue killing un born fetuses (I am not going to get into some LOL arbitrary semantic debate whether it is actually a human life or not) is "wrong" in the same sense that you could make a whole laundry list of things that are accepted social norms that are also "wrong." (eg. buying **** made with slave labor from China, destroying the environment, living on stolen Indian land, etc. etc. etc.)

Within certain bounds, I am of the opinion that morality is more or less arbitrary, and societies develop norms of "right" and "wrong" that work for that time and place, based mainly on expediency, although normally couched in moral language to delude people into feeling better about themselves and the choices being made.

I am not sure I am really answering the question very well. Probably not.

p.s. I think posts like this is one of those "traps" for me where I try to make a point how arbitrary and conditional morality is for the most part. And many readers completely miss the point and just interpret this as me advocating for positions they personally find immoral, so they respond with disgust and start making vague, often wild, unsubstantiated claims of what I believe and advocate for.

I agree with your PS as a likely issue.

Since you recognize that societies develop a system of morality, and you are communicating within a society with a certain system, why not base your statements/questions/discussion on that?

Here is an example: "It seems police brutality and potential cultural issues within the police system may be a symptom of 100s of years of systematic racism. Obviously that system has changed a lot in those 100s of years, however, is anyone else worried that BLM may end up being counterproductive or won't lead to enough progress on the root causes?"

Or

"It seems many black/brown people feel their lives don't matter. This is a problem and seems to be caused by systematic inequities for those people. However, are other groups of people being addressed too (e.g. Native Americans)? Do they feel their lives don't matter and if so/not, why so/not?

What you're doing is applying some kind of academic "outside of the system" assessment of actual societal morality issues. That doesn't work since the issues you're trying to discuss inherently have morality attached to them.

You either need to discuss the issues taking into account the societal morality norms/stances that you know exist. Or you need to have hypothetical "academic" discussions. These mainly need to be question-based to avoid getting banned or pissing people off. Although my guess is posters will find them too annoying or not be able to engage similarly (they will either not recognize it's an "academic" discussion or bring their existing moral values to bear too quickly for this to be productive).

Well, it depends on your definition of work. I already said I appreciate the comments I get from the small minority of posters who can address my posts at the level I am making them; even if they frequently disagree with my positions or even disagree that I am as "outside the system" as I perceive I am.

And I also enjoy the predictable moral outrage I get from the SJW crowd.

So it mainly works, until a mod goes rogue and bans me and then it doesn't work so much. Ultimately my biggest problem in the latest iteration of my 2+2 tenure was not doing enough research on the moderator. I didn't pay much attention to him at the time, because he didn't post much, but looking back in hindsight it is obvious the current moderator of the POG politics forum is an extreme SJW with very strong censorous leanings; so I was playing by fire posting there at all.

Also, the tact that you suggest is what they call "concern trolling" in SJW circles, and is not particularly well received. In this time and place I think you are always going to receive extreme pushback if you deviate at all from narrow accepted political speech (or at least I am). That is just a given. So the more pertinent issue is whether moderators are going to permit you to challenge SJW orthodoxy or not.

I do not think what I'm advocating is "concern trolling" if you don't derail it into that later on.

It's clear from your responses you get too much enjoyment out of trolling and the only real problem is getting banned puts a stop to your fun.

I'm providing some options that might not be a net bad for the forum. You seem to either not care that your postings in forums where you get banned contribute negatively to that forum or that is actually the point or, you care but your own enjoyment of all the drama trumps that.

You keep making this a moderator thing like you are some martyr who is great for the forums. My guess is you are slightly good to moderately good for H&F and slightly bad to extremely bad everywhere else on the website.

Anyway, keep on keepin' on with your approach I guess.

https://quillette.com/2020/09/23/ral...c-high-school/

Rallying to Protect Admissions Standards at AmericaÂ’s Best Public High School

--This article focuses on a point that DM pointed out a few times. That is for some mysterious reasons which SJW progressives ignore mostly, "white supremacist" systemic inequality seems to favor Asians in aggregate, much more than whites, especially in the educational setting. So most efforts to "dismantle inequality" in education are going to massively negatively affect Asians, often to no benefit to Blacks or Hispanics.

In this particular example, woke administrators are proposing a "merit lottery" into a prestigious STEM high school, with a cutoff of a 3.5 GPA and having taken algebra.

The school currently just accepts the best students based on objective standards and is 80% Asian. Ostensibly, the objective of this reform is to address "systemic inequality" to increase Hispanic and Black representation at the school. But many parents, who happen to be STEM professionals themselves and have some experience with statistics and making projections, state in reality what this system would do is just cut Asian representation by more than half in favor of white representation, and do very little for black and Hispanic participation.

The following statement is Kelhus editorializing:

Primary education in particular seems to be an area where progressive ideas are just disastrous when implemented. The more woke school systems get, the more math and reading scores fall, and no amount of throwing money does anything to fix this. Like policing, this clearly seems an area where you are trying to treat a symptom of the disease, instead of the disease itself, and making things worse.

At this point I think it is clear that home environment, especially early in life, is going to have a giant impact on academic achievement; and throwing money into education itself and not addressing what occurs outside school hours is not moving the needle much, and may even be counter productive.

In other news, apparently Greta Thumberg, Trump and Putin are the nominees for the Peace Prize so far. I actually don't remember the exact terms of the bet I made with Soulman, but I am fairly confident none of them would win me the bet.

Bump.

Had an hour to kill during my son's basketball practice, so decided to take the plunge and hit up the gym for the first time in 1.5 years. I decided to ease my way in with a chesticle workout.

Bench.
185x5x2
225x5

Pushups
~300

Elliptical

--Havent benched in over 2 years, so was pleasantly surprised it went as smoothly as it did, and I retained as much strength as I have, and maybe most importantly no shoulder pain at all.

Post workout weight: 168


---So yeah, I'm thinking I am back lifting again.




My son has 2 basketball practices/week, so will lift 2x/week while he does that, and will try to squeeze in another workout in for 3x/week.

225 x 5 at 168 without lifting for 1.5 years is ridiculously impressive. Maybe I'm just easily impressed. If I could do that, I'd just never lift at all.