Okay, so.. To start *deeep breath* ..

#1 - Conflating frequency & social norms is the first flaw in your weak sauce argument/opinion/whatever.

Norms are essentially social boundaries.
They ensure a certain level of compliance & conformity in a group.

The frequency of a behavior doesn't determine a norm.
Social acceptance does.

If informal rules are accepted & practiced by enough of the group, it's a (the) norm.

So..

#2 - Because police brutality is practiced & accepted enough.. it's the (a) norm.

A fact proven by comments like this from @lucky760..

A comment that illustrates those exact informal, unwritten rules of compliance.

Completely accepting that "well, of course cops on a powertrip clearly can't control themselves. What did you expect?".

Or comments from jerkfaces like Lantern53 (who is a cop), usually:
"Most people who get shot by the police deserved it."

Because in his child-like brain, only "bad guys get in trouble"..

So if a cop is beating you half (usually all the way) to death.
You must have done some "bad guy stuff" to start.

Which brings us to..

#3 - Your disgustingly ignorant, disingenuous denialism.

"Let's *scoff* pretend that everyday, for every brutal beating you hear about..

There's another even more violent murder..

That's ONLY 365 excessive force murders a year!

That's NOT representative of all 1 million police officers."

...@_@.. just ..@_@... Because:

A) As an "angry black man" who is distinctly enraged by police brutality..

I certainly don't need or appreciate you - a racially illiterate white male - pullin' the fuckin' race card.

"What if I made these generalizations about black people? Hmm? *pouty face* Woodn't da make you a wittle upset?"

THAT SHIT HAPPENS CONSTANTLY. Especially on the internet.

In fact, @BoneRemake has accused me of sellin' out or whatever because..

Most of my recent activity on this site has been a very pointed, belligerent direct response to the stupid shitty cuntbag comments of Videosift's resident racist jingoists.. @bobknight33 & @lantern53.

The latter of which is a police officer of 30 years.

B) Of course not EVERY SINGLE police officer or police interaction is violently excessive.

The point is - it's fucked up that videos like this appear on a regular basis. With little to no punishment for the officers involved.

Sure there are lots of good people in the world..

{Main Point} That means absolutely nothing when you're specifically illustrating & discussing the shitty, bad people in the world. {Main Point}


So yeah, i definitely don't need you and your patronizing AS FUCK white privilege apologist rhetoric to tell me..

"You know, not ALL cops are bad."

Yeah.. i know. Would you also like to tell me about how:

"Every interaction I've had with Law Enforcement has been benign and/or pleasant."

"I've never been followed around a store for fear I might steal something."

..-_-

You seem to be offended that Ulysses spoke up that he didn't find her funny, and have taken it to the nth degree (really, analogies re: anal fisting?), but a big part of Amy's speech/performance was the idea that she has always been a bit unique and saw no reason to change herself to conform to others ideas of what she should do or be.

So why do people who do not find her funny suddenly owe you an explanation as to why? Why is it even a point of analysis? If the hypothesis is that if you're not a feminist, you're more likely to not find her funny, is it not also possible that feminists are more likely to find her funny because they subjectively want her to be funny? Aka confirmation bias.

Amy doesn't seem to mind that some people don't find her funny, so I don't see why it seems to irk you so much.

ps. Tina Fey is hilarious in ways Schumer has never managed imo, as is Amy Poehler. Similarly, I find Eddie Murphy funny but never really got much of a laugh out of Richard Prior or Bill Cosby. That doesn't say anything about my values or attitudes towards women and black men, it's just a subjective opinion based on what they say or do.

How so? (the "men threatened by her" comment)

She's joking about fashion magazines which are mostly run by women, filled with content aimed at women, designed to make women feel like shit unless they conform to the 'style' or 'trend' or 'ideal weight - 20%'.

She makes the joke that she can catch a dick whenever she wants, I don't think it's men that have the problem...

And no, I do not find her funny either, but more power to her for getting out there. She seems well and truly aware that she doesn't need my (or any other man's) approval to do what she does. I don't think she needs the Videosift white knight brigade running to her rescue either... (talk about patriarchal)

Thanks for your "very scientific" definition (just like GenjiKilpatrick's "evidence" for global warming, saying "OMG, Global Warming is real because it was 70 degrees in Georgia!")

No, unlike you, I don't confuse partisanship with data... Nor do I look for arbitrary reasons to discount a person's entire argument because the rules of epistemology suddenly no longer apply. On the contrary, I choose to instead examine what the data actually shows before arriving at my own changing thoughts on the matter.

But I guess, for you, the data isn't as important as the source, so long as your pre-cooked distortions of reality aren't disrupted by something as pesky and difficult to conform to one's beliefs as the FACTS... (remember those?)

But, yes, you are absolutely right about fucking yourselves. Perhaps you should spend less time online and save some electricity. (Or maybe it's too much for you to actually Walk The Talk instead of just bloviating online.)

I went to a gas station recently. Lots of people were pumping gas... And none of them seemed to care very much about your ideas of oil company fellatio. They also didn't seem concerned at all about crackpot climate change "theories"... (Go figure.) You should get out there and yell at them for ruining the planet, ChaosEngine. I was also at an airport recently, too. There were lots of planes burning fuel. You're not making a single dent on oil consumption with your tirades... Perhaps you should try another strategy and see if anyone cares.

(Haha.. Of all the fictional "crises" you could choose to be an alarmist about, you've chosen one on which you have zero impact! But, hey, for all I know, you're just addicted to the adrenaline rush of faux outrage. Lucky for you, I'm here to feed it...

"genetic superiority"? Please tell me that's a bad joke.

It's simple common courtesy. Don't go to other people's countries and expect them to conform to your ideas.

You wouldn't go to Japan and wear shoes in someone's house. The mountain is sacred to the locals. Whether you or I think that's stupid is irrelevant. If you're a guest in someone's country, you should respect their customs.

Yahweh has NEVER given evidence of his existence. No more so than any other god anyhow. They all answer prayer equally and randomly well. They all claim to have made the universe/world, they all claim to be the true one... Near death experiences differ by culture expectations of that culture and don't all conform to the supposed Christian expectation... he has done nothing to make himself stand out from the rest of the gods that Christians dismiss. Heck, I've never seen a Frost Giant or evidence they ever existed, so clearly Odin has one up on Yahweh.

In the 4,000 years or so from Adam and Eve's time in the Garden to Jesus, Yahweh couldn't or wouldn't make himself known to the other races. He didn't reveal himself to those in Africa, Asia, the Americas or Europe, just to one tiny specific group of people in the Middle East. If couldn't then he's not the omnipotent, omnipresent god he claims, if he wouldn't that makes him a racist ass not worthy of following by picking one people to be his chosen people.

The only reason Europe became Christian was forced conversion when the Christian armies of Rome forced them to, which setup a tradition of most Europeans and later Americans being born into a faith. Were the exact same people born in Saudi Arabia they "would know that they know" that Islam is the true religion, or same in India but applying to Hinduism.

And saying that atheists have had supernatural experiences and can change to theism when talking about it, ignores the whole point of the video, especially the part when he talks about the linked Darren Brown video, which demonstrates that it is easy to make a spiritual experience happen that has no basis on any real god.

By way of example: I used to be a heavy evangelical Christian, I watched TBN and Fox News religiously (pun intended, see this old post of mine here on the sift from an old account that I couldn't recover http://videosift.com/usercomments/Charon... heck see my Revelations from the Word posts on my blog, http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/religion/revelations-from-the-word/ or more embarrassing my older political posts http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/politics/ which while progressive now, go to page 4 or so around June 2008 and back and you see a Libertarian and further back Republican with some crazy anti-vaccine paranoia , climate change denialism, science denaillism and other things I'm deeply ashamed of now)... I've had deep and meaningful spiritual experiences with god. After Republicans ruined Christianity for me (as the Republican party is clearly 100% against every teaching of Jesus... and yeah we can tick that off as being humans, but god does nothing to correct them, he may have spoke to my heart or whatever one wants to say to have more empathy, but over half the Christians in this nation still vote for a party 100% devoid of the teachings of the Jesus of the Bible while claiming to do it for Christian reasons) and I eventually lost faith (while Republicans are the reason I initially lost faith, they aren't the reason I stayed away, god is a dick is why I stayed away). After I lost faith in the Christian god, I gave paganism a try, and I've had just a meaningful spiritual experiences while worshiping at a Druid rite as I have at any Christian church. This is why people pick a religion, first by accident of birth (most people are Christian in the US because their parents were, and back to Europe where going back further they were forced to convert by invading Christian armies), second by choosing one that connects more personally with them... for many they see the hypocrisy of Christianity (and its general lack of empathy) but do connect with some form of paganism, and pagans generally have a patron god they serve above most others, and that god is the one they have a deep connection to, the same deep connection that Christians claim to have with Jesus/Yahweh... One doesn't drive a plane into a building killing 3,000 plus people without a deep and meaningful relationship with their god, and to dismiss t hat relationship as being deceived is naive and demonstrates a lack of empathy.

Now, I will allow the possibility that god does exist, but not in the form Christians propose, but perhaps closer to what the US Founding Fathers believed, but perhaps expanded a bit with more modern knowledge. A Deist like view. That this god somehow this god, created the energy and set into motion the laws of this physical universe that spun out from the big bang, but he's had nothing to do with anything since then. Perhaps all religions actually worship the same god but with their own culture's expectations and interpretations. However this would mean that all religions and lack there of are equally valid, which most faiths (aside from most modern paganism) doesn't allow for as their claim rests on being the true one.

I've rambled on far too long already so I'll leave it at that.

Coming at this from the perspective of academic philosophy I think the truth of the matter is ultimately very simple (however the details can be almost infinitely complex and diverse in how we apply them).

Simply put it appears impossible to demonstrate any kind of ultimate ethical authority or perfect ethical principles objectively.

One can certainly assert them, but they would always be subject to the problem of underdetermination (no facts, only interpretations) and as such subjective.

Even strictly humanist systems of ethics like concequentialism and deontology are at their core based on some arbitrary assumption or rule e.g. minimising harm, maximising pleasure, setting a universal principle, putting the concequences before the intention etc. etc.

As such I think the only honest and objective absolute moral principle is "Nothing is true and everything is permitted" (the law of the strong). All else can only truly be supported by preference and necessity. We do not "Know" moral truth, we only appear to interpret and create it.

This being the case it is the opinion of myself and a great many post modern philosophers that ethics is essentially a specialised branch of aesthetics. An important one still, but none the less it is still a study of preference and beauty rather than one of epistemological truth.

By this logic one could certainly argue that the organic "Humanist" approach to ethics and morality as outlined in this video seems infinitely preferable to any sort of static absolute moral authority.

If morality is at its core just a measure of the degree of thought and extrapolation one applies to maximising preferable outcomes then the "humanist" seems like they would have an inherent advantage in their potential capacity to discover and refine ever more preferable principles and outcomes. A static system by its very nature seems less able to maximise it's own moral preferences when presented by ever changing circumstances.


However I'm about to kind of undermine that very point by suggesting that ultimately what we are calling "humanism" here is universal. i.e. that even the most static and dictatorial ethical system (e.g. Wahhabism or Christian fundamentalism) is still ultimately an expression of aesthetic preference and choice.

It is aesthetically preferable to a fundamentalist to assert the absolute moral authority and command of God and while arguably less developed and adaptable (and thus less preferable by most Humanist standards), it is still at it's core the exercise of a preference and as such covered by humanism in general.

i.e. if you want to be a "humanist" then you should probably be wary of placing ultimate blame for atrocities on specific doctrines, as the core of your own position is that morality is a human condition not a divine one. i.e. religion did not make people condone slavery or start wars, human behaviour did.

We can certainly argue for the empirical superiority of "humanism" vs natural authority by looking at history and the different behaviours of various groups & societies. But really what we are arguing there is simply that a more considered and tolerant approach appears to make most people seem happier and results in less unpleasant things happing.

i.e. a preference supported by consensus & unfortunately that doesn't give us any more moral authority than a fanatic or predator beyond our ability to enforce it and persuade others to conform.

"Nothing is true and everything is permitted", "right" and "wrong" can only be derived from subjective principles ergo "right" and "wrong" should probably instead be replaced with "desirable" and "undesirable" as this seems closer to what one is actually expressing with a moral preference.

I completely agree with the sentiment in the video, more freedom of thought seems to mean more capacity to extrapolate and empathise. The wider your understanding and experience of people and the world the more one appears to recognise and appreciate the shared condition of being human.

But I must never forget that this apparent superiority is ultimately based on an interpretation and preference of my own and not some absolute principle. The only absolute principle I can observe in nature seems to be that chaos & conflict tend towards increasing order and complexity, but by this standard it is only really the conflict itself which is moral or "good/right" and not the various beliefs of the combatants specifically.

Please, if you will read my original comment, it's about tracking the dancers in real time and conforming the effects to their actual movement, also in real time. Somehow that was lost in the replies. I get that the image is being rendered in real time but that's not what I was commenting on. (even though it's pre-rendered video background, the effects and 'camera' and lighting are changed on the fly, but not by the dancers positions/movements)
Your term 'real time interactions' describe what I mean better than I did.

Which was part of my point.

The girl is innocent of all the context, and unless her parents are pretty awful, I doubt she's been soaking up not stop advertising that all girls = objects for 5 years.

All that matters to her is what it looks like, free from the judgement of body form, "sluttyness", societal pro/con opinions.

Yup, she'll probably get formed in to shape by society eventually but it's nice to see a kid who doesn't feel the need to conform yet.

It is hinted at but not explicitly stated, but isn't possible that early birds are also more optimistic, proactive, etc. because their genetically predisposed sleep pattern lines up with the artificial timeframes set up by society? Are they basically getting a pat on the back by society for conforming to its needs?

For example, are early birds more depressed/less proactive in Spain where the average workday starts sometime between 10 and 11 am and ends close to 8 pm? Wouldn't they then suffer from the same "social jetlag"?

I've heard people say he's a fucking idiot-moron with a big mouth, but at least he's speaking out intelligently while most 'intelligent' people are feeling safe in their holding patterns of conformative self-preservation.
I feel like the next step here is for someone in his line of lifestyle to actively fund like-minded politicians (though maybe he already does given that's the traditional avenue for money that wants change), developers and community personalities.
Maybe it's just because I see ways through my field of expertise to enact change, but lack the backing. The only thing that holds me back from doing so is the capitalist requirement that I pay for my right to exist, or I am under threat of violence or imprisonment. If a dude like Brand gave me $1k a month to live off of, I'd happily trim back my lifestyle to help him in the areas I'm skilled at, for shared, common goals.
Bah! Self-indulgent ranting.

Yep, I thought that might be the video. If I remember, he identifies as an agnostic, and then goes on to describe his views, which conform to what I would call weak atheism ("don't believe there is a god, would be nice if there was").

Either way, it has nothing to do with the completely valid points he makes in this video.

I haven't read everything above. I'm going to assume it's more of the same old argument that is always delivered when it comes to comic characters.

BUT here's something to think about:
When I was in art school. We drew and painted nude models. male female, old and young. none were particularly "attractive", just normal.

But the the Feminists banned together in our school and started chastising men, saying they had no right to ever paint/draw a nude female. regardless of how mundane the pose was - saying, "No man can EVER draw a nude female because men are incapable of not sexualizing them.
So many of the men buckled because these women were very threatening. I didn't paint nudes but but had over 50 messages left in my studio because I included clothed images of my female friends in my paintings.
As a result, one of the guys in a studio next to mine, started painting nude images of "Himself" because he was going out of his way to avoid them. Guess What. He came under fire for painting nude images of himself in semi-erotic poses (not pornographic) because he wasn't Gay. How dare he paint a male figure that way. ONLY the gay men should be able to paint men that way. How dare a Hetro male paint a nude figure of a male because hetro males only want to sexualize everything.

There was no escape, If you were a Hetro male, you were only allowed to paint landscapes or Men in Parkas it seemed. The point is, it doesn't matter what you paint/draw or even photograph, someone is going to find a reason to stand up against you because of their sexual hangups and preferences. They will read into your vision with all the hate they have built up for issues that have been used against them in their lives.

It sucks and that's the society we're living in. Artists have a choice. Either cave and conform or be suborn, stand up for themselves and carry on.. I, myself choose to be stuborn.

Edit: And I will not appoligize for being stuborn when it comes to my art. (no matter how badly I want people to like me.)

@AeroMechanical, actually I'm with you. I seriously doubt the Foundation stories would work on film or even in a long form mini series.

The problem with a lot of sci-fi literature is that it doesn't conform to the standard 3 act movie structure. There's often an ambiguous ending which doesn't neatly resolve (like real life!). Asimov, Clarke, Banks, Reynolds, Morgan (to name a few of my favourites) fit this pattern.

There are two things happening, IMO:
1. The journey really is more important than the destination. It's about the story, not the outcome.
2. In some cases, story above character (Asimov and Clarke in particular). The idea is more important than the puny humans caught up in it.

Both of these are hard for studio execs (and to be fair, mainstream audiences) to grasp.

@scottishmartialarts The trouble I have with your interpretation is that it dismisses the perspective of the gay guy that does just want to be seen as normal. Many gay people feel pressure to conform to an overtly sexual culture born out of a necessity for expression in the face of persecution. The fact is that they'd rather call out overt sexuality as tacky just like any other classy individual. It's your right. You just look dumb... like the tart in the tube top, or the bro waving his dick around. Get it together.