Political Discussion

Yep. My Nextdoor is full of posts where this person is scared of someone who came to their door or this person has someone "suspicious" (usually non-white) who was on the Ring doorbell cam or alley cam. And I'd imagine a lot of those people are Fox News viewers who get a steady diet of white fear. I'm glad my daughters are no longer doing Girl Scouts because I'm convinced someday we're getting a story where some old fucker shoots a Girl Scout who had the audacity of ringing his doorbell. Oh and that's in DFW, yet another hit that Republicans in this state can take pride in given the gun nut culture they've cultivated and encouraged.
 
mdmost said:
Yep. My Nextdoor is full of posts where this person is scared of someone who came to their door or this person has someone "suspicious" (usually non-white) who was on the Ring doorbell cam or alley cam. And I'd imagine a lot of those people are Fox News viewers who get a steady diet of white fear. I'm glad my daughters are no longer doing Girl Scouts because I'm convinced someday we're getting a story where some old fucker shoots a Girl Scout who had the audacity of ringing his doorbell. Oh and that's in DFW, yet another hit that Republicans in this state can take pride in given the gun nut culture they've cultivated and encouraged.
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It's strange that all of these shocking stories about people being senselessly killed doesn't appear to be causing people to reevaluate how trigger happy they are. If anything they seem emboldened. I'm more convinced than ever that guns are really just a symptom of the disease, which is that lots of Americans just want to know what it's like to kill someone as long as there are no consequences.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
It's strange that all of these shocking stories about people being senselessly killed doesn't appear to be causing people to reevaluate how trigger happy they are. If anything they seem emboldened. I'm more convinced than ever that guns are really just a symptom of the disease, which is that lots of Americans just want to know what it's like to kill someone as long as there are no consequences.
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One of the first responses to Newtown was people rushing out to buy AR-15s since they felt Obama was about to ban them. It wasn't oh my God we really should take a look at how easy these weapons that can destroy our children are to get. It was how does this affect me. I remember cutting off a friend from high school whose response to this was exactly that. He didn't care that families and a community were forever affected by the violence. He only cared that his right to own a weapon he didn't need would be "infringed".

This is why I sadly feel nothing will ever change our gun nut culture. We're a violent nation by birthright. We have a I gotta get mine and I'll destroy you if you try to take it mentality. We don't care how many children have to die, why won't give an inch on our guns. They're not our kids.
 
mdmost said:
Yep. My Nextdoor is full of posts where this person is scared of someone who came to their door or this person has someone "suspicious" (usually non-white) who was on the Ring doorbell cam or alley cam. And I'd imagine a lot of those people are Fox News viewers who get a steady diet of white fear. I'm glad my daughters are no longer doing Girl Scouts because I'm convinced someday we're getting a story where some old fucker shoots a Girl Scout who had the audacity of ringing his doorbell. Oh and that's in DFW, yet another hit that Republicans in this state can take pride in given the gun nut culture they've cultivated and encouraged.
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Sadly the same here. People posting about a car sitting on the street with someone in it they don't recognize. Suddenly it's suspicious...

Also when the auditor's office comes around to take photos of the front of properties, the number of these types of posts goes up like crazy.

"saw somebody out taking photos of my house. looked suspicious"

Also there is no follow up of, like hey did you walk out and ask this person what they were doing before you posted some fear mongering post on the internet echo-chamber?
 
folsom_lives said:
Sadly the same here. People posting about a car sitting on the street with someone in it they don't recognize. Suddenly it's suspicious...

Also when the auditor's office comes around to take photos of the front of properties, the number of these types of posts goes up like crazy.

"saw somebody out taking photos of my house. looked suspicious"

Also there is no follow up of, like hey did you walk out and ask this person what they were doing before you posted some fear mongering post on the internet echo-chamber?
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Because the response would be another commenter screaming "NEVER APPROACH ANYONE YOU DON'T KNOW, EVER. THEY COULD BE ARMED AND DANGEROUS. BUY A GUN AND IF SOMEONE STARTS TO WALK TOWARD YOU, TAKE MATTERS INTO YOUR OWN HANDS."

Sadly, not even close to an exaggeration.
 
Bull Shannon said:
The best part is if you point out the only (or most prominent) descriptor of these "suspicious characters" is always their race or signifiers which place them outside the "in class" of the community, everyone will close ranks and say you're the one who made it about race or class.
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It's to the point in our neighborhood that I feel terribly for anyone who is African American or Hispanic who actually lives in the neighborhood. How they must be viewed with suspicion just for walking their dog or taking a piece of mail back to someone's box that got misdelivered. And you can guess the age of the people who typically post this stuff. Just move to the country or far flung exurb where scary minorities don't exist. What's funny is my friend in the suburb says his feed is the exact same. Black Lives Matter was the ultimate boogeyman after George Floyd. People were freaking out about a "Antifa brickpile" that was suspiciously left at the front of their neighborhood. Yeah, that was a construction crew that was building a brick wall around the entrance to the subdivision.
 
Bull Shannon said:
The best part is if you point out the only (or most prominent) descriptor of these "suspicious characters" is always their race or signifiers which place them outside the "in class" of the community, everyone will close ranks and say you're the one who made it about race or class.
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I live in a very red county / township. Whenever I see a car pulled over by a cop, I always look to see what the driver looks like. 98 out 100 times, it's a person of color. It makes me sad and sick.
 
mdmost said:
One of the first responses to Newtown was people rushing out to buy AR-15s since they felt Obama was about to ban them. It wasn't oh my God we really should take a look at how easy these weapons that can destroy our children are to get. It was how does this affect me. I remember cutting off a friend from high school whose response to this was exactly that. He didn't care that families and a community were forever affected by the violence. He only cared that his right to own a weapon he didn't need would be "infringed".

This is why I sadly feel nothing will ever change our gun nut culture. We're a violent nation by birthright. We have a I gotta get mine and I'll destroy you if you try to take it mentality. We don't care how many children have to die, why won't give an inch on our guns. They're not our kids.
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This was my step father. He was never into guns really, but rushed out to by assault rifles before MA banned them after Newtown. After MA banned them gun owners were supposed to surrender them to the proper authorities. My step father never did, he keeps them in a gun safe. I'm pretty sure it's a felony to have those types of weapons in MA but what can you do. He's not in the wrong according to him, MA is and has gone to far.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
This was my step father. He was never into guns really, but rushed out to by assault rifles before MA banned them after Newtown. After MA banned them gun owners were supposed to surrender them to the proper authorities. My step father never did, he keeps them in a gun safe. I'm pretty sure it's a felony to have those types of weapons in MA but what can you do. He's not in the wrong according to him, MA is and has gone to far.
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I mean, King George could just come in the front door and start pushing him around.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
This was my step father. He was never into guns really, but rushed out to by assault rifles before MA banned them after Newtown. After MA banned them gun owners were supposed to surrender them to the proper authorities. My step father never did, he keeps them in a gun safe. I'm pretty sure it's a felony to have those types of weapons in MA but what can you do. He's not in the wrong according to him, MA is and has gone to far.
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My dad is a gun nut. Just this last weekend he told me he had about $50k worth of guns, but he can’t shoot them any more because he has poor control of his hands. He asked me if I wanted any of them, and said “no thank you”.

I heard a stat coming in to work today that 70% of households do not have a gun, and something like 6% of Americans own the vast majority of them. My dad is one of the 6%.

I can see nothing good from me having a gun in my house. If an intruder comes in, the scenario is I’d have to get the gun out of my safe between when I know he’s in my house to the time we encounter each other. Even if I’m successful at that, I still would need the courage to use it. Much more likely that he would get it from me and use it against me.
 
Joe Mac said:
www.bbc.com

AI chatbots 'may soon be more intelligent than us' - BBC News

Artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton quits Google, saying he now regrets his work.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
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AI chatbots are programmed by people. They can't be smarter than the fallacies in their coding. The problem is that people believe they are smarter and also infallible so when they start spitting whacky exports, we will have to believe it because "the chatbots are sooooo much smarter."

Sonicpharmacist said:
My dad is a gun nut. Just this last weekend he told me he had about $50k worth of guns, but he can’t shoot them any more because he has poor control of his hands. He asked me if I wanted any of them, and said “no thank you”.

I heard a stat coming in to work today that 70% of households do not have a gun, and something like 6% of Americans own the vast majority of them. My dad is one of the 6%.

I can see nothing good from me having a gun in my house. If an intruder comes in, the scenario is I’d have to get the gun out of my safe between when I know he’s in my house to the time we encounter each other. Even if I’m successful at that, I still would need the courage to use it. Much more likely that he would get it from me and use it against me.
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My ex has an R.O. against him and is currently in possession of 66 guns. He has repeatedly threatened to shoot himself and other people in the head. He has mental issues and addiction issues, both of which he chooses not to treat and instead blames other people for his problems. But sure, let him keep his gunz.
 
Why, on God's green Earth, did the main manager of the restaurant let them continue eating at the restaurant when those morons were verbally assaulting the employee? You kick them out and if they don't leave, you have cops come and remove them. Seriously, I'm not normally a person who enjoys when the internet goes after someone but I'm 100% for it with both the owner and these pieces of shit.
 
Sonicpharmacist said:
My dad is a gun nut. Just this last weekend he told me he had about $50k worth of guns, but he can’t shoot them any more because he has poor control of his hands. He asked me if I wanted any of them, and said “no thank you”.

I heard a stat coming in to work today that 70% of households do not have a gun, and something like 6% of Americans own the vast majority of them. My dad is one of the 6%.

I can see nothing good from me having a gun in my house. If an intruder comes in, the scenario is I’d have to get the gun out of my safe between when I know he’s in my house to the time we encounter each other. Even if I’m successful at that, I still would need the courage to use it. Much more likely that he would get it from me and use it against me.
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Research demonstrates pretty clearly that not only does a gun in the house NOT make you any safer from being killed by an intruder, it dramatically increases the chances that someone in your household will die by gunshot.
 
nolalady said:
AI chatbots are programmed by people. They can't be smarter than the fallacies in their coding. The problem is that people believe they are smarter and also infallible so when they start spitting whacky exports, we will have to believe it because "the chatbots are sooooo much smarter."
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I just read this stories of the post office scandal in the uk from 20 years ago, but even before ai the mentality of computers can´t be wrong it must be people did tremendous damage
www.theguardian.com

The innocent have paid a high price for the Post Office scandal. The guilty have not | Marina Hyde

It was the word of hundreds of Post Office workers against a faulty computer system. Guess who was believed? says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com

Hundreds of lives ruined. Not a single person held to account. And still: silence on the Post Office scandal | Marina Hyde

Horrific detail piles on horrific detail as the inquiry rumbles on, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

I think the ending of the second article, that opens a broader picture is especially important:
Alas, the Post Office scandal has never truly seemed to stir the souls of those who regard a day spent online dragging this or that user as activism well spent. This feels symptomatic of a wider issue with what we classify as a campaigning victory these days. The key stages of the Post Office scandal have had far less coverage and garnered far fewer social media clicks than various comments by, say, Jeremy Clarkson or Gary Lineker. I appreciate it is far, far more difficult to “cancel” the iniquitous systems that led to the Post Office horror than it is to “cancel” someone in public life who you think has said something unacceptable – but it does very much need doing. The fault of systems is far, far more important than the fault of individuals, however much easier to yank down a single person it might be.

Getting caught up in endless cycles of “calling out” might work to punish individuals for their individual infractions, but it doesn’t change the bigger, more significant problems, and anyone who thinks it does is kidding themselves. Or allowing themselves to be kidded by people who have a vested interest in them not changing things. I know some politicians and some pundits bang on disparagingly about the “woke mind virus” or whatever, but I often think they must be secretly thrilled with the virtue games of recent times. It really couldn’t suit them more. How much better to have people sidelined into endless 24- or 48-hour online meltdowns, in which they are either pitted against one another litigating the narcissism of small differences – the dream! – or obsessing about one person’s transgressions and leaving iniquitous and dysfunctional systems free to sail on regardless.

Some of this is thought to be generational, and I have nothing but sympathy for the generations that come after mine, who have been shut out of so much of what they are entitled to and which most of those who criticise them simply took for granted. My theory is that if you give people absolutely no economic power, they will use what little power they have to lash out in one way or another, and it’s pretty hard to blame them for that. The disputed thing that some people call “cancel culture” is an example of it, and if capitalism’s elders and supposed betters really cared so much about stopping it, perhaps they’d think about giving younger people a stake in capitalism, instead of expecting them to abide by a set of rules of a game in which they are not even allowed to be player characters.

It might be nice to think it is, but I don’t believe that getting angry on Twitter particularly helps anyone other than Elon Musk, or that sitting in judgment on every passing infraction is anything other than a hiding to nothing. It is not effecting change – it is the illusion of effecting change. It is exactly the sort of looking-the-wrong-way that allowed the Post Office scandal to happen – and if we keep doing it, the people who really run things will keep on getting away with it.
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