That's why I hate the trolley problem (and by extension every other binary choice philosophical problem).

Life is almost never binary.

i am just going to add to the opinions and perspectives that @MilkmanDan ,@ChaosEngine ,@dannym3141 and especially @newtboy who i agree with so clearly that i swear we are related.

since many dynamics have already been covered, i.e:police culture,racism,incompetence etc etc.

i shall offer a historical perspective in the ways of the power dynamic.

while this is a power vs powerlessness dynamic dealing with agents of the state,it helps to understand just how we got to this point,and it is NOT the first time we have been here.

see:labor movement of the 30's and the labor strikes,and the response from not only the business community but our own government.

see: the civil rights movement and segregation,and how demagouges used political power to divide by way of racism,and then used police to intimidate,beat and imprison.

there are many MANY examples here in america where the police have been used to suppress and oppress a people or community for less than altruistic reasons,and most certainly not aligning with the ideology we were taught in school the function of police.nevermind the syrupy sweet,idealized picture shoved down our throats since an early age.

so we see on our facebooks,our twitters and/or whatever social media you prefer,that black lives matter...and the counter point,that NO..ALL lives matter.

now this would make sense in a world that never took history into account,or a growing cultural norm of violence and oppression that had been slowly seeping into poor communities (mainly black and latino).

oh wait..
that's right.
social media pundits NEVER fucking consider any of those factors,because just like bill o'reilly,those are pesky nuances and context conflict with their own narrow narrative.

but let us consider them and how they may possibly be a major driving factor in americas current climate.

let us take ferguson as an example,that is a good place to start.
and let us go back to 2008,where we can see the boiling begin to take place in this extremely impoverished community which was already struggling.

the population is a black majority,poor to working poor.home ownership is low,food stamp recipients are high and the future is pretty bleak.

in 2008 ferguson received approximately 18% of it's total fiscal revenue from misdemeanor infractions i.e:traffic,parking,moving violations.small time stuff.basic fines for small infractions.in 2008 that number jumped to 66%.

why?
what happened?
what changed?

well the comptroller of ferguson (and greater st louis),along with HUNDREDS of other smaller municipalities across the country,had bought the rotten fish that wall street was selling in the form of bullshit derivatives.

now wall street and the big banks got their tax payer bailout,but towns like ferguson did not.they lost millions,sometimes billions.this meant pensions were either reduced or outright denied,because there was NO money!

but a town still has to pay police.
fire fighters and school teachers,
clerks and judges,
keep the roads paved and the street lights working.

so what is a local government to do?
can't tax the working class who own homes.you already jacked their property tax to the roof.
can't tax the local business,you already squeeze them as well.
how about those non-property owning people in ferguson?
they need to pay up as well,and let's use the police force to relinquish them of the paltry money they don't have.

to the tune of 66% of all of fergusons revenue.
that is insanity.

so what if you live in ferguson?
chances are you are black,and either poor or working poor.

you make,if you are lucky,20 grand a year and by one man's testimony he paid over 2,000 in traffic tickets in one year.the majority of americans dont see those kind of numbers their entire lifetime.

and what if you began to realize that it was not just you.that almost every person you know or talked to had similar stories.

would you begin to feel a tad bit targeted?

what if the city of ferguson started to become very creative with not only their rules but how they enforced those rules?

what if every year the fines went up?
not remained the same,but actually UP? every year.

what if,as a community people began to actually fear the police? to experience anxiety just by the sight of a patrol car,even though they were not engaging in anything illegal? and who knows...maybe there is some new ordinance on the books that you are unaware of?

would you become paranoid and suspicious of law enforcement?

and then..what if....you started losing friends to cops.people you grew up with being shot in the street,and every time the mayor comes out and calls it a "justifiable killing".

would that make you feel any better?
any less paranoid or anxious?

there was ONE police shooting in ten years and then..as if by magic ..(which is how the media seems to always portray this..shocking news..at 11)..you lose 5 friends in a year.all to cops..all "justifiable".

would you begin to think there was a conspiracy?
targeting you and your neighbors?

i BET you would.
i know i would.

now lets look at the cops.

they are just a tool.
an instrument for the state to uphold the law and write citations for infractions.they dont MAKE the laws,nor the infractions,not even the fines.

they just do what they are told.

and they are told to go into these poor and working poor neighborhoods and write tickets,a LOT of tickets.

do you really think they are unaware of the growing hostility towards them? the looks of disgust,fear and apprehension?

but...this is their job,and they do what they are told.

they see.
they know.
they are aware of the growing hatred towards them,and this makes them anxious..and defensive..and in some horrible,tragic cases...trigger happy.

a natural and normal response to heightened stimuli in the face of great uncertainty.

so they react impulsively and out of fear in a way that ten years ago would have been unheard of.

they think themselves good cops.
they do a good job.
they do what they are told.
and the people hate them for it.
so they respond instinctively and with poor judgement.

we..as citizens,respond with disgust and indignation when a cop abuses his/her authority.we see this as a major moral breach in the citizen/cop relationship,because we feel as agents of the law they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us...and rightly so,but when you put a human being in a tense and dangerous situation,not of their making,they will fail at some point to react correctly and with sound judgement.

they SHOULD be held accountable,but so should the city council members and the mayor and all the local representatives who created this toxic climate in the first place.

the lesson to be learned here is that nothing is a binary situation when people are concerned.

so when black lives matter protestors address people to make them aware of the situation,this is what they are talking about.the police killing are only a last stage manifestation of a situation that began in 2008 on wall street.

and we need to be aware,because right now it is the predominantly black communities,but soon coming to a neighborhood near YOU.

the poor and working poor have become expendable.no longer relevant to the system.which is why police shootings are being handled the way they are.our value is ever increasingly being judged on how well we can feed the system.

until this disparity is addressed there will continue to be police shootings.people will die and there will be no indictments.

because police do what they are told.

it is up to us to make policy makers accountable for their actions,and in doing so address a toxic climate that both the poor,working poor and cops alike have to swim in.

stop forcing cops to write tickets to fund a city that lost it's savings due to fuckhead bankers.

this blood..all of it..is on those bankers hands.

*ban
©Binary-Trading
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWu27w64Fy16UYB99TTmxdw

Oh come on. Fairly informative and correct for the most part except for the title and main argument. Still, it is about Doom and binary partitions, so thats all OK.

Anything on a flat monitor is "just faking" 3D.

Yes, Doom levels could still be designed in plan view, but the in-game display of the floors, walls and ceilings is a very rudimentary, but definitely 3D, experience. Displayed objects have an obvious X, Y and Z coordinate. The Z coordinate was not used for aim (people had not got used to using a mouse for aim at that point) but it was used for display and movement.

Also forgot to complain about flat sprite monsters.

No Doom was not "computed like any other 2D game", or rather it partly was, but then on top of that it was displayed in 3D, which was a big deal back then. Yes, fake 3D, on a monitor, but definitely 3D.

Quake ran in plain VGA so the argument about 3D accelerators falls rather flat :-)

So they look like they are flickering because they are flickering?

Am I right in thinking LEDs are kinda binary when it comes to changing current? - like you add a little current and suddenly they go from 0% to 90% luminosity, you add a lot more current and they go from 90% to 91%. If so I figure it makes more sense to just turn them on and off really quickly rather than dropping the current very marginally to reduce brightness.

Except that is not what happened.

The complaint was that Carr (and by extension the One Show) had breached broadcasting standards. Ofcom felt that he did and gave a lengthy explanation of why they felt that way.

You are entitled to disagree, but let's be clear here: he is not being incarcerated or tortured.

He made a tasteless (and not particularly funny) joke. People called him on it.

Let's compare that to Louis CKs bit on pedophiles. His joke was definitely uncomfortable, but it had an interesting point: before you condemn someone as a monster, maybe try to understand why they do such awful things.

Whereas Carr just said "hah! dwarfs are short, geddit?!". It's exactly as Tompkins described... it's lazy and unfunny.

@bobknight33
you know bob,i owe you an apology.
i shouldnt have told you "fuck you" when my problem was with the video,and i wrongly conflated you with this video.

that being said,i still stand by my feelings of "fuck this video".

i struggle with people who have this binary view of politics.
just because i criticized the lies and deception of the republican party does not automatically translate me to promoting or defending democratic practices,because BOTH parties manipulate the body politic while at the very same fuck them over.

the two party duopoly are just different faces of the same coin.both have been purchased to serve the interests of:wall street,big business,bankers and the military.

i have never subscribed to either party.i judge on individual merit and a case by case basis.so when you call me a liberal i dont know what the fuck you are talking about.

do i hold some liberal views? yes.
do i hold some conservative? yep.

but so dont you bob,we ALL do.
of course that is not the dynamic that is shoved down our throat every goddamn day.that somehow our politics can be reduced down to this over-simplified,and overly basic dichotomy.

but nobody has such a simpleton,and almost childish politics.as humans we are pretty complex is our understandings,feelings and desires.it is those complexities that influences our politics and how we feel things should be as a society.

i am a libertarian socialist (anrcho-syndacalist).
which is why you may see me post videos that address the corruption in politics,in our economy,in our foreign policy.the hypocrisy of politicians espousing that "feel your pain" language,while they funnel public funds to their criminal friends on wall street...and point to the food stamp recipient,or immigrant and state..with zero sense of irony..THERE,that is your problem.

my politics is the reason why i may post video criticizing and ridiculing ultra-right wing politicians attempting to legislate "proper" and "moral" behavior,because they pretend they have some relationship with god,and god spoke to them.

but also why i will post videos criticizing and ridiculing the extreme left.who seek to legislate "harmful" or "offensive" speech,because they seek to control language.as if THEY are the true moral arbiters of human interaction.

so i do not necessarily disagree with you when you point to the democrats hypocrisy in regards to poor folk.that they use the language of empathy and compassion,and then enact legislation that is entirely bereft of compassion and empathy,but BOTH parties do this!

bill clinton was incredibly detrimental to the poor and working poor and made the job of digging out of poverty damn near impossible.

you may identify with republican ideology,and that is not a bad thing.republican base ideology may be a tad more pro-business,but it also recognizes that the governments job is to protect the people from fraud and over-reach from those businesses.original republican ideology was for limited government,and fiscal responsibility.which USED to translate to anti-war and dismissing the military when it was no longer needed.

i could go on.

i could also point out that democrats USED to be more hawkish and far more involved in addressing the concerns of the working man.

but look at the political landscape of today.
both of these parties are nothing even close to representing their original ideals.they are solely and totally beholden to big monied interests.

our republic has become a plutocracy,run by the plutocrats and oligarchs.

so when you delineate the argument by republican/democrat i simply do not see this play out in reality.

we might as well be arguing who is the better fottball team,because thats what american politics has become.bread and circuses and cheerleading for our "team".

it is the height of absurdity.american politics has become absurd.

as for you not seeing this for being racist.
i dont know what i can say to remove your blinders.
this video is textbook racist.
we have "black face"
we have over-generalizations.
we have ridicule and assumption based solely on skin color.

calling this video racist is a non-controversial assertion.

and you cant promote it out of discard.
the sift has spoken.you can disagree,but that wont change the fact that this video is in the discard bin.

anyways,sorry for telling you to fuck off.
i just found this video offensive,but i dont find YOU offensive.confusing at times,but not offensive.

haha..whats up drunky!
you nailed exactly why i post some of the more controversial videos in my que.

i have found that those of identify strongly with one politcial and/or cultural philosophy tend to stick in the same groups,the same spaces and receive their information from the same sources.

this applies to both the right AND the left.
we can use bobknight as an example when he regurgitates almost verbatim the current republican talking points.

but bob is an easy target.

the only thing i have truly been invested in of late is the greg elliot case.who was recently found not guilty and people have been saying its a victory for free speech.

but is it?
the man lost his job and is 100k in the hole for legal fees.

so while people can say this is a victory for free speech.i am less optimistic.some people could look at greg elliots case and decide to shut up if confronted.not make any waves and submit to the threat of legal prosecution.

of course there was a sifter who felt that because the video was from a right wing show,the content was worthless.which is a binary way of thinking that is very limiting,because it judges the speaker before the content and the discussion is ended before it has begun.

so my posting the rape game video was to bring awareness,not make a social commentary,and is also why i provided links to both a left and right take on the situation.

i would rather post a documentary or lecture on the subject,but most people nowadays want their information spoon fed to them in tiny,easy to consume,media bites no more than 5 minutes.

which is damn near impossible.
human interactions,cultures,religions and societies are complex and nuanced.it takes time to unpack all that information and digest the context.

ah well..what can you do...

anyways,
thanks for your comment and stay awesome brother!

@SDGundamX

it is all good mate.
you vote however you wish,for whatever reasons you deem pertinent.

i do not identify so strongly with a video that it somehow represents me,or everything i stand for,and i have no issue if someone disagrees.though i always do respect when someone states WHY they downvoted.

which you did,and mad respect my man.

as i stated earlier i was fairly ignorant to a lot of this new flavor of social justice warrior.gamergate included.in fact,i still do find gamergate really that important in the larger context,though i am sure there are gamers who would disagree with me.

i found this video interesting in that it was addressing how the more radical and extreme elements were attempting to hijack public spaces by controlling language,and therefore dominate the conversation.

since i was not familiar with this particular youtubers stance on gamergate,nor followed his videos,i harbored zero bias on his conclusions.

in my opinion,this mans stance or political leanings in regards to gamergate is not enough of a valid reason to dismiss what he is laying down in this video.

what you are suggesting (and if i am reading your position wrong,please let me know),is that because this youtuber held a certain position on a related subject,devalues and dismisses his position on radical social justice warriors.

a good analogy is me pointing to the sky and stating "the sky is blue" and having my statement dismissed because you may disagree with my politics,religion or philosophy.

but that would not make my statement any less true.

i agree with you that it does not matter of someone is a narcissist or a special snowflake.it is the argument that matters.the IDEAS that should be examined for their veracity and clarity.

and yes,this youtuber makes certain assumptions that are not only irrelevant but extremely biased.

which brings me back to my main point.
freedom of speech and how these radicals attempt to impose their own selective bias by controlling the language we use to express ourselves and those very ideas that you and i find to important.

so while the radical right attempts to legislate morality and impose THEIR own narrow and subjective understandings on all of us.

the radical left is attempting to silence dissent and dialogue by controlling language by using this weird orwellian doublethink.

"zero tolerance for the intolerant" almost every college campus has something similar to this all over campus.

now THAT phrase is a brilliant example of orwellian doublethink.
definition of doublethink:The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them.

so my main point is in regards to freedom of speech and how the radical end of these social justice warriors are threatening that most basic and vital right.

did i get my point across?
well,the jury is still out,but i hope that at least i got a few people thinking and giving this situation a bit more scrutiny.

i am also attempting to address this phenom of binary thinking.
that because i post a video that criticizes the more radical elements of social justice warriors.this automatically translates to me being "anti-social justice warriors".

my recent posts on this matter have confused and troubled some sifters.because they had a certain mental image of who i was and because they may identify as a social justice warrior,my posts were offensive to them,and confusing.

now thankfully @Jinx spoke up and inquired about my reasons,because it appeared to him that i was behaving out of character.

but i am not.
i am,and always have been,about freedom,equality,fairness and justice.i apply that metric as evenly as i humanly can ( i make mistakes,of course).

bad ideas MUST be challenged and how this new batch of social justice warriors are behaving in order to further their agenda is a bad fucking idea.

does this mean trash ALL people who are socially conscious and wish to create a better world by fighting injustice,racism and bigotry?

of COURSE not!
but i do blame those well-intentioned people for not standing up this new form of bully groupthink.just because someone identifies as a social justice warrior does not mean that they get a free pass just for being part of a group.

so just like i blame the "good" cops who stand by and allow the "bad" cops to break the law,abuse their authority and behave like fascists with impunity.they are just as responsible as those cops who cross the line.

so while the intentions may be good,the execution is a horrible lovecraftian nightmare,with far reaching implications that affect us all and can be easily abused.

freedom of speech is good.
disagreement is healthy.
we cannot be so allergic to conflict that we shut down the conversation,and all reside in our own little echo chambers where everybody is agreeing and nobody is questioning.

as a society there is grave danger in that practice.

and that is really what i am talking about.
thanks for commenting my man.
as you may have figured out.this is a fairly important subject to me.
stay awesome!

@Jinx

hey thanks for keeping this conversation going and not just making assumptions and allowing us both to come to a better understanding.

though i am not really surprised,i am gladdened.

in my opinion,i think this situation may be a problem with indentifying with labels and maybe putting too much weight on them to convey complicated and complex human interactions.

i would call myself a social justice warrior,but i would never identify as those who behave is the extremists do.but to imply that the responsibility is on ME,or any other critic,to redefine these radical social justice warriors as somehow not being representative of the majority,is a false dynamic,because that is how they define themselves.

basically the "No true scotsman" fallacy.which is employed ad-nauseum by these extremists.that somehow if you do not adhere to their radical agenda you are somehow not qualified to label yourself:feminist,anarchist (this has been directed at me),socialist, etc etc.

this is just a silly and binary way of breaking down peoples complex human perceptions and understandings to fit a narrow,and restrictive narrative,in order to achieve an agenda.

so while we all viewed GW bush's "if you're not with us,you're against us",as an inane and utterly stupid statement.how come there is little push back when the EXACT same tactic is used to silence someone who may not be 100% on board with a certain agenda?

does me posting this video automatically translate to me being "anti-social justice warrior"?

of course not! that is just silly,but in todays climate that is exactly how some people view complex situations,and it HAS to stop!

you brought up police.
good.
lets use that as an example.
the fact the americas militarized and dysfunctional police force has accounted for more police shootings than soldiers have died in iraq.do we REALLY need to be told that it is not ALL cops.

of course not.again,that is silly but it DOES mean that maybe there is a problem within the institution that needs to be addressed.

here is a perfect case for social justice warriors to bring this corruption and rot to the surface,and here we have black lives matter.which is receiving mixed coverage in the media,but they have gotten people talking and even some incremental reforms in the woks AND,just recently..6 cops fired from a cleveland precinct for shooting civilians.this is where social justice warriors are not only necessary but vital!

but what if.....

those cops who were feeling threatened,or intimidated by the criticism and examination of their institution coming from black lives matters decided to use a tactic right out of these extremists playbook?

maybe some doxxing?
exposing personal information about the protesters?
how about a few false accusations of rape?
maybe personal harassing calls to friends and family members of the black lives matter movement?
how about some false charges of harassment and sexual discrimination?

that would effectively shut down the black lives matter movement within weeks,and how would we respond to that kind of underhanded tactics?

we would be outraged.
we would be furious at the absolute abuse of power.a power bestowed by the state.

and our outrage would be justified.

do you see where i am coming from here?

in the example i have given,which may or not be the best analogy.we can easily see the abuse of power as a form of bullying to get a group that is a dissenting ideology..to shut..the fuck..up.

freedom of speech is NOT just speech you or i agree with,or happen to support,but it also speech that we may dislike,disagree and even find offensive.

but by allowing those we dislike or disagree to say their piece,allows us and everybody else to examine,discern and ultimately discard as ridiculous.or,converesly,find some merit that was previously hidden from us,due to our lack of knowledge or understanding.

i realize i am reiterating my previous point,but i think it is so very important.

free speech allows the free flow of ideas and dialogue and allows good ideas to be absorbed into the body politic and the bad ones discarded into the trash bin.

but there MUST be the allowance of the free flow of thought!

so when i post a video such as this i am not ridiculing actual socially conscious people.i am exposing bad ideas,supported by narrow minded people who wish to impose THEIR sense of how a society should be and attempt to circumvent the very slow process of discussion,argument and debate by hijacking the conversation and shutting down all dissent and disagreement with the most fascist tactics possible.

up until a month ago i was fairly ignorant to things like gamergate and whatnot.i thought i had a pretty fair understanding of what a social justice warrior was,and even included myself as one.

but then,quite by accident,i fell upon a few stories that highly disturbed me.one ,in particular was the case of greg allen elliot who was being criminally prosecuted for harassment on twitter.

now the case was finally resolved,and elliot was found not guilty.
so hooray for justice right?
free speech won in the end right?
or did it...did elliot actually win?
i am not so sure.

you see.
he was a web designer.
and once he was charged 3 years ago,he was banned from any internet use.so effectively he was jobless.
on top of that his defense cost 100k.
sounds like a loss to me.

now let us examine stephanie guthrie.a prominent toronto feminist and tedtalk speaker:
1.she made the accusation of harassment and brought the charges.
2.even though this all started with a man who created a game where anita sarkesians faced was punched,and was the supposed imetus for all this fuss,guthrie never laid charges against the creator of the game.though she did,along with her followers harassed and bullied this man until he closed down his account.so chock one up for feminism? i guess?
4.what guthrie found so reprehensible about elliot was that he had the audacity to question guthries rage and called for a calm interaction.(mainly because there are literally 100's of face-punching games).
5.guthrie and her followers found this call for calm offensive and doxxed elliot and proceeded to harass his employer,his family and ffirends.
6.elliot lost his job.his employer could not handle the harassment.so feminist win again? i guess?
7.when guthrie blocked elliot on twitter she continued to publicly accuse him of misogyny,bigot and even a pedophile.
8.she then brought accusations against elliot for criminal harassment,and that she "felt" harassed.
9.guthrie has paid ZERO for her accusations.she has suffered no accountability nor responsibility.

now the court case is over,and elliot has been vindicated and free speech is still in place for today.

but lets look at the bigger picture.
and let us imagine how easily this situation could be abused.
can we really look at guthrie vs elliot as ANY form of justice? or is it MORE liekly that guthrie was abusing a court system to punish a man she happened to disagree with?with ZERO consequences.

now maybe you agree with guthrie.
maybe you are one of those people that believe in your heart that words are weapons and people should be held accountable for those words.they should be stripped of wealth,work and home..they should be punished.

ok.
thats fine.
maybe you agree because it is a matter you support?
a racist pig loses a job for saying racists things.
or a bigot gets kicked out of his apartment for being a bigoted asshole.

but how about this..
hypothetically:
a devout chritian woman is protesting an abortion clinic with her children in tow.

and lets say a pro-choice atheist comes over to her and starts to berate her i front of her children.ridiculing her for her beliefs and saying jesus was a zombie.that she is a horrible person for believing in such a tyrannical deity,that this so-called all-loving entity punishes all no-believers in a lake of fire for all eternity.that as a mother,teaching her children to worship such a god is tantamount to child abuse.berating her so badly that her children begin to cry?

now what if that interaction was filmed?
then posted to youtube?
what if a "social justice warrior" of the religious flavor decided that berating person needed to pay for his words?
what if that person got doxxed?
and the end result was he loses his job (because corporations are notoriously controversy allergic),and maybe his landlord is notified and he is kicked out of his apartment?

would you be ok with all that?
because that is the EXACT same metric that radical social justice warriors use!

and what about false accusations?
you dont even have to be actually offended and /or harassed,you just have to accuse and the rest takes care of itself.

are you ok with that kind of creative abuse?

so when i bring things like this to the forefront and attempt to expose the underlying idiocy.what i just wrote is where i am coming from.

and yes.these radicals and their underhanded tactics need to be exposed and all the attention brought to them the better.

why? because what and how they are behaving is anti-democracy anti-freedom and anti-liberty.

and i am all for debating specific issues,and will gladly do so..with glee,but i will not and cannot respect what the radical elements are doing to an otherwise worthy cause.

and YOU should be calling them out as well.

i know this is long and i probably lost the plot somewhere,but this is very important,becuase it threatens all of us and if we simply ignore these nimrods they will just become even more entrenched,self-righteous and arrogant in their own little bubble worlds.

that bubble needs to be popped,and soon.

anyways.thanks for hanging (if you made it this far)
there will be danishes and punch in the lobby!

binary worldviews attached to identity politics or nationalism or religion is a dangerous policy to adhere to,because it leaves us all vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation.

it limits discussion and discourse and creates an atmosphere of self-righteous delusion and breaks complex dynamics down to an overly-simplified worldview:

"if you are not with us..you are against us".

*ban


Binary Options Successful Strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5IOcR2JwC4

Two's compliment binary on their fingers? Nah, but I guess you could get good at that too. I guess you could go trinary with a semi-flexed finger, but I dunno how to convert the flip the bits and add one part to that. Also, I need a piece of paper even in binary.

I'm not thinking in binary. There's gray area.

There's no debate about the fact that virtually everyone is somewhat racist. This isn't a debate about that.

I'm saying making any joke that is related to race isn't racist every single time, just as avoiding saying anything that could be construed as racist doesn't mean you're absolved of being a racist.

A joke that is actually racist is expressing an idea or feeling of one race's superiority over another directly or indirectly through humor.

Ironically making racial statements that I absolutely don't believe is NOT racist because I'm not expressing racial superiority. I'm pointing out the idiocy of racism and poking fun at racists.

About the random black person overhearing my joking, yeah, they'd be offended. Thank you for making my point. They'd be offended precisely because they heard those words out of context.

If you saw a grown man say this to a little girl sternly:

"...go cry me a river..."

You might be inclined to think he was acting like a jerk to her. But what if you had heard....

"It's a figure of speech. If you ever for example hear someone say 'go cry me a river', they don't actually mean one person's tears can be that much water."

It's the SAME THING. That man did nothing wrong, but you heard him say 'go cry me a river' to a little girl without context, it may look bad, when it's not.

Just because someone may get offended by hearing something out of context, it is not automatically something wrong with what that person said.

Even the dreaded N-word... Are you telling me that it was wrong and racist for Mark Twain to use it in The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin?

The one thing I would agree with you is that you also have to be mindful of context before saying the joke. Those racial jokes I make? I'm not going to say those in situations where there's a high likelihood that those statements could be overheard and misinterpreted. If I wanted to tell those to a black person, I'd make REALLY sure they knew I didn't actually believe the racial statement.

And you know what? Usually, it turns out fine. I've played that Louis CK thing for a black friend of mine, but I laid down the context first that it's Patrice O'Neal, etc. And they laughed hysterically at it.

Richard Pryor is considered by most comics as being a pioneer in using comedy to shed light and provide insights into racial tensions, etc., and actually is credited by many people far beyond just comedians to have helped further the cause of fighting against racism.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5048430

His use of the N-word wasn't racist. The use of the word was communicating that he was not Bill Cosby, not that there was anything wrong with Cosby's comedy, but it was to signal that he was talking more about reality, including the rough edges especially about racial topics, and there wasn't anything wrong with that either.

The kill somebody thing. You ever seen someone say something like, "My roommate AGAIN left all the lights on! I'm gonna kill him!"? My point there is you shouldn't call the cops because you think he's homicidal.

Language that COULD be construed as racist is not the same thing as language that IS racist.
Mocking someone's racism, but not using racist language in doing so, is not very racist IMO. If Obama said "yeah, that (N-word) Obama", it would be racist, even if it's said to mock racists, IMO.
If Duke said it, he would not be mocking or joking, but agreeing with the racist statement, that's quite racist.
Yeah, the CK thing was odd to me, and racist IMO, funny or not. Professional comedians get a 'pass' in certain situations like roasts or if they're just really funny, but it doesn't make their statements not racist, they are just accepted by most as comedy, which is NOT PC and may be intended to be offensive.
You said it, he said something horrifically racist. He must be some bit racist to even consider such a thing, somewhat more so to say it. Because he has 'black friends' that find it funny does not make it not racist, as I see it. Just because he doesn't mean it, doesn't mean it's not racist, nor does it mean HE's not racist.
Yes, intent and context mean a lot, but not all. If you are completely not racist, you wouldn't think to talk about blacks, Jewish, Mexicans, whites, etc. It's racist just to think of people as different races...there's really only one race, just different levels of melanin in people's skin. (EDIT: I forgot about aborigines which I've read are actually genetically different from non-aborigines, but are still not a different 'race', but are possibly a different subspecies.)
I learned it went Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, sometimes subspecies...no 'race' in there.
I think you misunderstand and are thinking binary, as in either you're racist (and a bastard) or not (and a good person?). I'm looking at it in shades, and very few are at either end of the spectrum, most live in the middle somewhere. Most people will act like you described, and infer intent and react properly based on that. I'm saying intent is not the only measure, it's only one variable in the 'what's your racist quotient' equation.
Yes, I would consider you SLIGHTLY racist, just as I consider myself slightly racist. On a 1 to 10, we're probably both well under a 3...but almost on one is a 1...or, fortunately, a 10.
No outrage here about it at all, I'm just trying to clarify that even seemingly innocuous, not intentionally hurtful racism is racism. (Please think, if a random black person overheard you joking as you described, would they not be upset and hurt by the racism? That's kind of my point, intent may be unknown, so can't be the only defining factor.)
Did someone say they would kill someone? That's not good. People don't normally say that jokingly, but fortunately they usually don't follow through on their threats either...that said, don't say it to Obama! ;-)