Unless you count the sift I’ve never been on any social media platforms at all, but I’ve also never owned a cell phone. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been the only person in a crowded room not glued to a tiny screen.
I’m a weirdo, and I like it that way.

I hope you’re wrong and the sift endures and thrives again by itself for its (as far as I know) unique curation of YouTube (and other site’s) videos, but that will take more than a handful of users posting. If it merges with a big chat site it’s going to become a different, more impersonal animal, maybe an animal no one likes.

Market Street/downtown has been a declining shithole for decades. Other parts of the city are thriving. It’s not one of the most expensive cities in America because of the weather.

Yes, petty theft is a problem, but incarceration didn’t solve it, it just cost the state hundreds of millions to house shoplifters. I don’t have the solution, but clearly effectively decriminalizing theft isn’t it.

Looked at the source’s videos, apparently according to him every city in America is failing rapidly and will be a wasteland by 2024….but then he said America’s economy was over, total collapse imminent 9 months ago….and the auto industry was collapsing, tech sector collapsing, Turkey collapsing, Chicago collapsing, New York collapsing, California collapsing, China collapsing, global shipping collapsing, stock market collapsing.
This guy is ridiculously pessimistic even by my standards….and tends to ignore most of the facts. Booooo.

one of the very first stories ever read about a white community destroying a black community boiled down to simple envy.

two communities, one black, one white, lived adjacent to each other. the blacks were obstinately outcast from the larger white town and in turn, formed their own community.

in short, an economic downturn bankrupted many of the whites; the blacks were rock solid and continued to thrive.

the combination of blacks buying up failed white farmland; whites having to patronize black establishments for goods, and sheer unearned pride led the whites to "Tulsa" the black community.

the black folk did not reincorporate and dispersed. while the whites and their town barely hung on for a while, before it again failed. it only lives on as a name on old maps.

odd thing, even on modern maps there appears to be an area of expansive farmland where those towns once were. in comparison to the peppering of towns all along the state's roadways, that area is abnormally sparse. almost as if the map had a scar.

I don't really see the point of these videos as the outcome of this exercise can really depend on where this sort of polling is done. I get what they are trying to convey, but it's too simplistic.

If you did this very same exercise in my neighbourhood, I'd wager good money most of the visible minority students would be stepping forward as well. There are a lot of *very* well-off visible minority families in this area. Do this exercise again in an affluent black-community - same outcome? I don't think so.

Also why are no other ethnicities represented? Where are the Muslim, Indian, and Asian teens? Again, in my area and across Toronto, many of these minority groups have children that are thriving. Do they have privilege too? My perspective as a Canadian might be a little different than someone from the US but this topic feels too complex and nuanced to be reduced to a simple metaphor.

I do not share your opinion. Provided Bob isn't in-fact a Russian troll, he's still an American.

Pop quiz, which is the best political party?
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Trick question, the best party in America is America.

“We’re so glad to see so many of you lovely people here tonight. And we would especially like to welcome all the representatives of Illinois’s law enforcement community that have chosen to join us here in the Palace Hotel Ballroom at this time. We certainly hope you all enjoy the show. And remember, people, that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive and survive, there’re still some things that makes us all the same. You. Me. Them. Everybody. Everybody.”






That said,

They'll get their own misery when they feel the policy they helped create begin to affect them. Trust me, it doesn't need help. My dad is scrambling trying to save for his retirement at 65 and scoffs at the idea of the stimulus checks he got, refuses to cash the "biden bucks"

Let me tell you. Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerburg? They don't give a shit about moral quandaries when offered free money, they take it, happily.
If you're pulling down millions every year and cook the books a bit, that's "smart." Walk in to a social security office with a baby on your arm a day early, that's "criminal," (almost like stealing).

Do that enough + a bunch of VERY-MUCH-NOT billionaires voting for it and u have the republican party.


-----------------

I also don't care for the malformed logic they practice. Another republican acquaintance of mine called me a "segregationist" because I said trans-athletes should be able to play on the team of their self identified sex.

Whether you agree with me on that or not, me saying that they SHOULD play on an integrated team does NOT make me a segregationist, unless you completely redefine the word.

------------------




Finally, I do agree there is some room for some anger. I don't like it when the GOP or their sycophants go on a "Let's take rights away from someone today, AS A TEAM!"

When the message is the OPPOSITE of "There are still some things that make us all the same," it's infuriating. Because if it can happen to them, it can happen to you.

Take what's happening with their complaints of "cancel culture"
Coca Cola, Disney, etc etc private companies and bakeries

The new and improved supreme court helped establish that private businesses can discriminate against you based on a genuine philosophical or religious belief. Bakery vs the gay couple "TAKE THAT, GAYS!!!"

They didn't realize that that meant ALL businesses could now do that. But again, if it happens to them, it can happen to you.

Bob here is like one of the fans throwing garbage on the field when Jackie Robinson gets up to bat. "WHY DON'T YOU JUST GET YOUR OWN NEGRO -ERR TRANS LEAGUE?"


He truly doesn't know he's being manipulated.



p.s. https://www.npr.org/2018/06/04/605003519/supreme-court-decides-in-favor-of-baker-over-same-sex-couple-in-cake-shop-case

Now, it's easy to point out "LOOK!!! no no no it's not!!! see! it says right here, they CANT just do it if you're not this specific baker." That's not stopping this guy from 6 days ago

https://w ww.whas11.co (link too long) m/article/news/investigations/focus/radcliff-kentucky-tax-preparer-refusing-business-to-lgbtq-couples/417-c2575ded-feed-45d8-b6f7-49016ec9eba3

made a tiny^ https://tinyurl.com/myd5ubrc

For context (because I know I was curious): this video is from November 2017, 3 months after the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville in which a neo-nazi dickhead ran over a peaceful protestor. Trump had stated that in the conflict between the peaceful anti-racism group and the white supremacist / neo-nazi group there had been "fine people on both sides". I get the impression some of the people at PBS weren't thrilled about that, and wanted to give the public a gentle reminder that it can, in fact, happen here.

Fascism is alive and has been thriving the last few years in the US. With any luck we'll soon defeat it, like we did 75 years ago.

Great news...the Japanese Giant Hornet has recently established itself in Washington state.

Giant hornets are bee predators. They can decimate a hive in hours. Japanese honey bees have a defense against them...they can vibrate their bodies generating enough heat to kill the hornets but not enough to kill themselves. Italian and other European bee species don't have that defense. If giant hornets spread, they could be a death nail in the already struggling American bee/honey industries.
Also worth noting, they kill up to 50 people a year in Japan, but far more in China. They could be worse than killer bees in multiple ways. For instance, they can sting through a bee suit, each one can sting multiple times, and they can thrive in cold that killer bees can't survive.

*quality masochism

Way too mush positive enthusiasm for a machine that is purely made to kill people. These human killing machines are brutal in their efficiency. I almost feel like the music should be a sound of dred with a somber tone explanation. Discussing them as entertainment seems wrong to me. Not only that, but this is the decommissioned ship, they didn't even get to the more modern ships which can kill way more people, more accurately, and at greater distances.

Of course, this is all to promote a video game, and they want you excited to buy and play their game, and pump them full of micro-payments. I also know their are people that thrive on guns and killing, but as a human being, to me, this seems very uncomfortable.

No, I'm not anti-video game, just anti-realism in video games and killing people. Give me Aliens and sci-fi, or demons and monsters any day

the "good cop v. bad cop" argument is always a red herring. the problem with police isn't what percent is good or what percent is bad. the management and oversight is broken from the top down and nothing is going to change without policy, management, and motivational changes first. the system is set up so good cops are incentivized to be bad cops and bad cops largely thrive. bigotry, violence, corruption, etc, is built into the whole methodology of policing in the US.

That was about 4 years ago as they were fine tuning the fly by wire system. And the sensationalist media which thrives on reader outrage took the story and spun it for clicks/views. People love to hear about military over spending just as this video from the 80s shows.

In recent dog fights, the pilots praise the F-35 greatly.

Your video, Trump Thrives on Cruelty, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 67 Badge!

They will admit to the economy at times seeing as they are well paid folks with many plans that are now thriving with Trumps measures.
You can see it in their eyes lol.
The Whitehouse is NOT just any old place it deserves a measure of respect.
I am well aware of how a democracy works and how people opposed to Trump are committing criminal acts in it's name far worse than the crooks Trump so stupidly employed in order to at first keep him out of office and then to remove him once he got in.
I'm telling you folks this stupidity by the media is only turning more and more folks on the fence over to Trumps camp.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/feinstein-urged-obama-in-2014-to-use-broad-power-to-limit-immigration
I know... it's Fox News but sometimes they are the only ones who will look for this sort of thing.
It certainly isn't in CNN's interest to tell the truth when they claim anything Trump does is racist to address the issue of the caravans.
Some see him as a breath of fresh air (despite his shameful baiting of bigots) when he refuses to be a victim of the all powerful media.
Myself included but I wouldn't have voted for him.
I never watched one episode of his show and never will but I think he has demonstrated that people are becoming tired of all the daily outrage at things we haven't yet fixed even though it may be something vague and we haven't even had time to try to adapt.
Maybe I'm just getting old and not as easily manipulated...

This is the paradox of modern politics.

These people are fucking morons of the highest order. They're poorly educated idiots spouting complete nonsense that has zero basis in reality.

In a sane world, we'd ignore them as lunatic outliers. They're not new; they've been here forever, they just change the nonsense.

The problem is that we now live in a world where the most powerful man in the world actively encourages these people, if not explicitly, then at least implicitly with his own brand of deranged paranoia.

The fundamental issue is that internet is great at connecting people, and it doesn't discriminate between connecting Bronies, small-town homosexuals, fans of William Shatner's music, political dissidents in oppressed countries or people who indulge in insane conspiracy theories.

There's no putting that technological genie back in the bottle (and even if we could, the cost would be too great IMO).

So what to do about that?

If we ignore them, they thrive underground and if we give them "airtime" their ranks are bolstered.

I really don't have an answer for this.

Your talking about it historically though. Historical abuse and mistreatment of Aboriginal people in Canada has been acceptable to discuss for at least a generation or two now, up to formal apologies and enormous numbers of court cases and cash settlements around the myriad past injustices.

The trouble is, even while addressing all the historical problems, there still exist new ones right now.

Typical conditions on Aboriginal reserves in Canada are unacceptably awful. You can have a thriving municipality right neighbouring an aboriginal reserve that is a mess of dilapidated homes, boiled water and grossly increased rates of unemployment, substance abuse and suicide. Small wonder then that increased crime rates also come along with all that.

Even that you can talk about, though the increased crime rate will get you in trouble for flirting with being racist against aboriginals.

What you can't talk about is many of the causes of the disparity.

Aboriginal reserves operate under a different legal framework than the neighbouring municipality. They operate under a different framework of governance. They operate under a different system of taxation. Organisation of all related government services like education, healthcare, policing and civil works like roads, water and sanitation are ALL different if you're on a reserve.

Talking about all that you need to be very careful how you say it, because if your not careful my above observations are a statement that coloniser systems are superior to aboriginal ones.

Private property rights are IMO an even hotter topic. The dilapidated housing on a reserve 10 minutes away from the municipality with everything in order is a direct result of who is responsible for maintaining them. In the municipality if a roof is missing shingles, the owner replaces them. If a window is broken, the owner replaces it. On the reserve though, the community is the owner. Unsurprisingly, that abstraction means maintenance on the homes is worse. If the mayor was responsible for using tax dollars to maintain all the homes in the neighbouring municipality it'd be a mess too. This leads to the poor aboriginal family stuck in a destroyed and overcrowded home and a chief saying sorry, the Canadian colonisers didn't give us enough money to fix your place, go yell at them. This just stirs up the Winnipeg citizens I mentioned earlier to respond with wonderment at why you don't fix your own home up yourself instead of protesting hopelessly for the government to hand out the money to do it for you.

The differential treatment still in place now, today is a cancer and needs to be fixed but calling it out like that would get me in trouble.

I also don't get this "dogs were domesticated by humans, cats domesticated themselves" bullshit. Dogs were domesticated the exact same way as cats, the only difference is we discovered cats are only useful for rodent control, as hunters. Dogs could be hunters (terriers), hunter-helpers (pointers, retrievers), protectors and herd control (shepards, collies), beasts of burden (Rottweilers), etc. Of course we spent more time working with dogs. They had useful abilities already. Cats are much like rats, racoons and other animals that thrive in the presence of humanity. They're just at the top of their respective food chain, like we are.