Inspired by the blowback from this video

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Exercise-is-NOT-the-Key-to-Weight-Loss

Dude, there are a lot of ways I could explain it. I don't know which to choose because I'm worried the answer might fall on deaf ears.
I mean, what kind of a person asks someone questions they LITERALLY CANNOT ANSWER? An ass! Asses are generally bigots who do bigot things like travel to another country and expect people to understand their english eeessspeeeciaallllyyy if theeeyyyy sspeeeaaaak reeeaaallllyyyy sssslllooowwwllllyyyyyy.
It kills me when I see people exercise literal zero empathy.
This is funny though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlwchTCHV0

@vil Perhaps. It is also a standard exercise in acting classes.

Instead of the teacher calling things out, it is the participants who say something true about themselves. It is to teach students to be honest, and brave, and to see that they are not freaks. Much like this video. (Although how do you know this isn't real, this "ad"? People could have volunteered to do this. Although the single bisexual didn't ring true to me -- either folks were lying or it is indeed scripted.)

Anyway, in the acting exercise, instead of boxes on the floor, it is just people standing around. Someone calls out something true about themselves, and people who have done that join them, those who haven't move away and cluster together, so you end up with two groups. Constantly moving, constantly changing, the power shifting, the emotions shifting. It is great fun and can be scary as hell as you decide how honest you want to be. How honest you CAN be.

Two favorite memories of this exercise in classes I took:

1. A guy calls out -- "everyone who has ever peed in a sink". Every guy in the class joins him -- and one woman. We all about lost it.

2. Here in PT, small town, had a class with about 25 people in it. One brave man, Jim P, I'll never forget -- he had the bravery to call out -- "everyone who has ever had a restraining order placed against them." And everyone moved away from him and he stood there alone. Only time I have ever seen that happen, someone standing alone.

I do think you underestimate the resentment that the PC culture has created. Watching "Merry Christmas" turn into "Happy Holidays", safe spaces on college campuses, trigger warnings, cultural appropriation, etc. I almost never hear the left talk out against dumb ideas, it is very much a groupthink exercise at this point. Bill Maher says it well https://videosift.com/video/New-Rule-Stop-Apologizing

After I read "The Perfect Storm", I sort of wondered how the Coast Guard feels about rescuing people who have rather imperfectly exercised their judgement and gotten themselves into a pretty bad situation. Of course, in that book, a chopper goes down trying to rescue a not very clever sailboat owner who has set sail into the face of the storm (they oddly survive). And I guess the answer is: the rescue crews just don't think about it that way at all. They are there to rescue people; so they just try. It might sort of drive me crazy.

Funny, but flawed it's own way.

Let me preface this commentary by saying I am not in any organized religion. I go back and forth in believing in God and also not being able to find proof he exists, basically an agnostic theist. So this is not in any way an attempt to 'prove' anything other than that I disagree with the way the video is portraying the biblical tale. I also know there are far more egregious examples than this story of God as an uncaring, flawed being with an uncertain temperament.

First, this story is one of the 'go to' stories that most atheists or anti-religion people look to for a clear example of the 'wrongness' of the bible or God. The reason is, if you don't take anything else into context, this story is massively damning! What god would call for a mass genocide out of the blue, right? Certainly not one people consider to be good!

But, if we look at the context of the bible in the Old Testament, we see that this is not wholly out of line for the character shown of God. If we take the statements of the bible as literal, then God has already shown he will destroy any threat to those he considers his 'chosen people'; even those who are/were part of that group.

In this case, the Amalekites were descendants of Esau. Esau was the brother of Jacob (later named Israel) and was supposed to inherit the blessing of his father, as well as command over the 'chosen people' of God. Esau was of rough nature and was a hunter. Once he was starving and went to Jacob, who tended the fields (sort of the Cain and Abel bit all over again), begging him for a bowl of lentil soup. Jacob told him that he would give him the bowl if Esau would pass his birthright (blessing and command) over to Jacob, since obviously Jacob was more able to care for his people than a solitary hunter. Esau agreed, but never really meant it, he was just hungry and was willing to say whatever he needed to so as to get that soup.

Jacob was dead serious though, so he took the birthright and became Israel, the leader of God's chosen. Esau was livid and swore to murder Jacob, who fled. Esau never got the birthright back, but he did sire the people who became the Amalekites, who in turn swore vengeance on Israel-ites.

This becomes important as time goes on, because basically every single time the groups encountered one another, the Israelites tried to be peaceful but the Amalekites always attacked.

By the time Saul was king, God chose to have him go and destroy the Amalekites, deeming them beyond saving. As he had told Moses during the first Amalekite attacks, he had Samuel tell Saul to blot their memory from history, wiping them out completely. Saul chose not to do this, sparing their king and some animals. Because of this, God replaced Saul with David.

So, now we come to the main part of the discussion. Like I said, this story is used quite often to show the capricious nature of God. However, like I said, it uses the story out of context. Now that we have the 'historical' description of the origin and ongoing nature of the conflict, we can put it into context.

If you are going to dissect the nature of 'God' as shown in the Old Testament, you have to look at the information given to show that nature. The bible says he is all-knowing, but it also says that he gave mankind free will. If you look on God as more of a creature running a simulation, he hopes that humanity will come to follow his rules of their own accord, even though he knows many will not. He chooses Israel and his descendants to be his 'messengers' to the other people that have chosen not to follow his rules, basically they are his missionaries that he hopes will lead his simulation to the proper conclusion.

Any group or race that tries to eradicate his messengers is a threat to his simulation, so he eventually will deal with them harshly. Sodom and Gomorrah, The Great Flood, and other examples of God deciding that he needs to protect his 'messengers' and clear off the playing board. In the case of the Amalekites, by this time period mentioned in the story, we are talking about generations of them trying to destroy the Israelites. So, God tells Samuel to tell Saul that they must be wiped from the playing board. Saul exercises his free will, therefore David enters the picture.

If you look at free will and God's choice of his messengers, as well as his protection of them, you get this story situation. By telling Saul to wipe them out, God is saying that he has tried to look the other way, but the Amalekites will never stop as long as they exist. Therefore they must be dealt with in a manner that will prevent them from rising as a people in the future and attempting harm to his messengers again.

It still doesn't paint God in a perfect light, but makes him more of a tinkerer. He keeps creating flawed inventions that choose to follow their own path and not his. The sad thing is, if you assume that he is all knowing, he knows this is going to be the end result. He creates angels and they turn on him. He creates humans and they turn on him. Then he creates Jesus, a combination of god and human, who doesn't turn on him. It is almost like he decides to create a Hero unit that can show the other simulations an easier path to winning.

Realistically and analytically, I know it doesn't make perfect sense. That is why I have my struggles with wanting to believe and then not being able to logically. If you choose to look at God as being a flawed creature (again, assuming that you believe he exists), the whole thing sort of makes more sense. In any case, we all have our own opinions and beliefs. I hope that my wordy post has explained how I try to work through mine.

Looks like good fun exercise, but possibly a bad idea teaching dogs to chase a car (albeit a miniature one)? Then again, maybe I'm putting too much thought into it.

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Sounds like an exercising in rearranging the furniture on the Titanic to me.

In a world where discrimination and separatism is qualitatively and quantitatively on the rise, people in charge must be ecstatic that they can appease people without having to do anything meaningful that might piss off the extremists on the right, or "shareholders". And people are so used to being told that change is only possible through incremental adjustments that they'll eat it up like candy and think this is progress.

"People people people, if you're going to call someone a filthy tranny and throw fast food at xem on public transport, at least use the proper pronoun when you verbally abuse xem."

When there's a hole in the boat and you're taking on water, the least of your concerns should be about what language you use to describe the in-rushing water or shape of the hole, nor arguing over the colour of the material you use to repair it.

I'm sure some people will see this as a victory. Until next time they apply for a job and not get hired due to transphobia. And the manager of the company, with a gleam in their eye, begins the rejection letter with 'Dear bun/bunself', then sniggers to themselves and says "fucking trannies."

What I'm trying to say was summed nicely in a tweet i saw the other day:
ALTRIGHT/NEO NAZI: your all going to the gas chambers!!!
NEOLIBERAL: you're*

If this is the extent of what activism is able to achieve, i should say that the establishment/elite have won by pacifying and declawing the protesters. It's no longer about breaking the shackles of oppression. We can't go around breaking shackles everywhere - think of the effect on the economy? And what about people getting hit by shrapnel? No, instead the LGBTQ community will be given multi coloured chains, the black community will be given slightly longer chains, and we'll pad the shackles with silk so that everyone is much more comfortable. Don't complain about the concept of being chained, instead complain that your chain is not as nice as the next guy's chain.

It's as though the great struggle of protest and civil disobedience has been taken over by the liberal intelligentsia, and the worst kind of discrimination faced by a 20 year old middle-class university student with rainbow coloured dreadlocks and a nose piercing is the letter they receive about their student loan that begins "dear sir/madam". So they go out and march about it and think they've made progress when they get their own pronoun. In their life, in their experiences, they are treated equally in other respects, so they think they ARE fighting inequality.

But for the working class male or female transsexual who gets filthy looks and a seat isolated by themselves on public transport, to travel to their entry level job where they've been skipped over for promotion for not looking the part, or getting the right level of respect from the trans-phobic staff, getting snide whispered comments from customers about the size of their hands, getting abuse yelled at them as they travel to have a night out at the ONLY trans-friendly bar within a 20 mile radius....... I get the feeling that receiving a letter with the correct pronoun isn't exactly going to change their fucking lives.

To remove a weed, you go for the roots. Some wanker calling you him/her when you prefer bun/bunself is not the root of this problem. The problem is that they are trans-phobic, not the language - which is just the tool they use to discriminate against you. To change the language and think that you've won is a bit like redefining room temperature and claiming you've warmed everybody by a few degrees.

If you march for equal rights, fair pay, fair treatment then people are going to see that and join your protest because they also want those things. Those things will solve the problems faced by the trans community, feminists, masculinists, minorities alike! And through common goals and by supporting each other en masse for simple, unified goals like EQUALITY, progress will be made, change will happen. It is a concept called solidarity and seems to be going out of fashion, but our grandparents knew.

The objective for the establishment is to drive a wedge between groups of people so that their demands are more manageable, and they can be turned on each other. Feminists, masculinists, LGBT, everyone... can't you see how better off you'd be marching together for common values that lie at the core of what every human wants?

Wall of text, sorry... and I know it looks like i'm being insensitive. So congratulations, genuinely, for getting someone to use your preferred pronoun if that makes you feel better. But whilst people have been fighting tooth and nail to get their own pronoun (in civilised settings only), we've suffered huge leaps backwards in freedom and tolerance behind their backs whilst they were bent over intently concentrating on the finer detail of what their ideal equality looks like.

This is beautiful and brilliantly produced. *promote

Someone give this man a job, AND give him the time he needs to do his work and exercise his knowledge and attention to detail.

EDIT: Also- Brad Pitt (as much as I love the guy), should never be allowed to do non-native english roles again.

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Live fire exercises technically mean you already are.

Playing meek does not protect you from any abuse you've mentioned, including being shot to death. It doesn't keep one from being arrested, beaten, humiliated, having false charges levied, etc. It only perpetuates the idea that the police are 'just doing their job's' when they abuse citizens. Fight back. This guy played meek until an asshat illegally grabbed his phone, then attacked him, and remained meek afterwards. He could have destroyed that cop if he fought back....but would have probably been shot if he had exercised his right to self defense.

If you are black and armed and you get stopped, shoot first. Being armed is now considered a legitimate reason for police to kill you. You don't have to be threatening, pointing that gun, or doing anything wrong at all, just having it is 'reason' enough for them to shoot you dead today. Prison is better than dead, imo.

Cops have squandered the good will and trust granted them by the public. They no longer get the benefit of a doubt.

It's 25 times more likely a cop will murder you than the odds you might murder them, they are all armed and dangerous, and turnabout is fair play. In my opinion, citizens have more right to shoot cops in self defence than vice versa.