Just my opinion here, but I think there are better ways to solve the issues with soaring profits while paying people nearly nothing for said profits.

Negate tax loop holes. If you're making a billion more each year, you shouldn't be showing a 0 dollar tax burden year after year. Incentivize expanding (lower taxes, etc), heavily tax companies who sit on their money or offshore nearly everything but still call themselves a US company. You should not get both the benefit of low cost offshoring, while the US has to maintain a military presence, infrastructure, and other safety/security institutions that allow you to operate your business and live in safety as you do.

Regulations on speculation that have made a lot of markets spiral out of control. I'm no economist, but when you see prices rise and fall based on rumors and possibilities...look at fuel prices especially. People shouldn't be making money on commodities when they have no hand in adding value to said commodity. If they aren't processing/shipping/extracting/packaging/ANYTHING but sitting on something waiting for a price spike, you need to take that avenue of profit out of the equation. There are places out there with enough buying power they can literally buy all supply, hold it for a few days to jack up the price and sell it off. Creating false shortages should get you a kick to the nuts.

Basically put profit back into production and manufacturing instead of offshoring and screwing with markets to get profit.

Leads to stagnation and often times inferior products as people race to the bottom to drive costs down to increase profits.

For stagnation, look at the broadband market. They have done jack and shit to improve it for a long time now for the majority of the the US, there is absolutely no reason for them to because monopolies and ability to drive costs down while continuing to jack up the rates and influence laws in their favor.

Inferior products, a good example of this would be the Craftsman line of products. Or hell something as simple as kitchen utensils...they look the same until you've had em for a bit and your forks and spoons are bending and not holding up in the dishwasher like they should getting kinda "off" looking.....probably made in China or some other Asian nation with inferior stainless steel. Then you got your US made ones, they might be more expensive but they still make them the same way they did your grandparents silverware...which your grandparents left to your parents and they still look better than the inferior china ones.



This is why I don't believe offshoring lowers consumer prices, because you might spend less on a single thing..but it likely won't last as long and you end up either buying a "good quality one" or repeatedly buying shitty ones. I do however believe offshoring lowers COMPANY costs, and increases their profits. Rarely does stuff actually end up cheaper once they offshore it, and if it does it usually comes with a swift decline in quality.


Lots of ...."off" ways of thinking about things that have become ingrained into the media and people's minds. And I think it's intentional. Minimum wage debate puts the focus on the "greedy" worker, and gives them another reason to move more jobs offshore "to maintain low prices for consumers" yet the company profits continue to go up. IE they pay less to make it, you pay the same or more to buy it. And people are too busy blaming joe schmoe for his minimum wages to notice they just keep doing this shit.

This is the kind of bullshit I expect from mainstream media. At least in the Lewinsky scandal there was some actual evidence made available to the public. Here they are just speculating on the personal life of a politican based on an alleged tape that no one has seen. And besides, the personal life of a politican is irrelevant. If it's affecting how he actually performed his job than focus on that. They're reporting unverified accusations against a person which aren't really any of the public's business in the first place. They only report it because it grabs more eyeballs than dissecting policy.

@ChaosEngine and @artician (I will combine these two posts into one because I don't want it to be so long as I posted before.)

Chaos. Cops around these parts make about 46K to start, then max at 65K. That is without promotions. Lts. or above easily make 110K. If you make rank of command staff it is free health benefits for life. The benefits a cop has, while not free, are decent. And this isn't even the biggest area or highest paying city around here. From what I can tell this cop was making 55K, he was almost halfway to a decent retirement and had good benefits. (Really great pay if you ask me.)

Next to answer you art. Examples can be speculation. There is no inherent problem with this. Here is a real situation. A cop shoots an unarmed man on the ground. Murder? Well, possibly. Problem is his tazer was on the hip side that the gun was. In the heat of the moment he could have reasonably grabbed it and got ready to use it. That was his claim. Bam. Sad, yes. Murder? Proving that would be difficult. Manslaughter? Depends. Some States say no in a moment of adrenaline (For everyone btw.) But the outrage was enormous.

Eh... so, understanding that you and I share the same position, I have to clarify something:
Police, literally, get away with murder, with multiple witnesses to the contrary as well as video evidence.
Also, you're assuming a great deal.
"Let me give you an example of this in a different light"
Your 'example' is entirely speculation on your part.

Regardless of all of this, when I posted I was unaware the guy was looking at jail time; there's no mention of it in the initial video. Because there are dozens of examples of validated law enforcement overreach with no repercussions, I don't believe my shock at him actually being fired was out of the ordinary. Most officers caught in a similar situation are put on "paid leave" while the department has their legal staff figure out how to clear the issue up with little backlash to the institution.

Ultimately I share your appreciation that things are improving. I definitely see this, and video evidence can't be an understated element to the change. But I don't see how you can write such a lengthy retort when A) we both see the same thing in the end, and B) all historical evidence supports my initial reaction.
Yes things are improving, but cops get away with rape to this day! Just consider my surprise at his reprimandation as synonymous with your appreciation that things are changing and be done with it.

Context? all i see is daft speculations

"I think he might well have started subtly fucking with a small group of bikers that was actually much larger and more aggressive than he anticipated."
Again, I called what you said "speculation" that he "might have done "X
I certainly can understand and see two sides of most arguments, but I can also see when one side is utter BS based on known facts. There is only one side here, no matter what names the family might have called the bikers, there's no excuse for their behavior in the least, and no "reason" for them to attack.
I ignore the core argument of your post because it makes no sense. you seem to conflagrate understanding their behavior and excusing it. I understand why these babies had a tantrum, I don't agree that's it's acceptable, not even in kindergarten.
You seem to misunderstand my position, it's not that I can't understand the gang of fags, it's that I disagree with their self centered, infantile, 'it's all about me' mindset that lets them get pissed off when someone doesn't allow them to take over public places for their dangerous activity.
People who are not in gangs do NOT have the capacity to act like this. Gangs are fundamentally different creatures from individuals.
I agree, if you asked one of the bikers about you and I, they would undoubtedly side with you, because you SEEM to be excusing and explaining their behavior (even though you continue to say you aren't) by saying it's completely understandable and anyone could be pushed to that level of action, and I'm calling that BS excusing, that's what it sounds like to me and others.
In this case you shared a level of one sided speculation in an attempt to 'explain' why the bikers went ape shit crazy on a family. Attempting to explain how it's justified to them is asinine, you need to explain to them how it's not at all justified. No sane perspective excuses them.
Your words lend themselves to twisting when you continue to argue that they 'might' have a legitimate reason (if only in their own tiny minds) then get upset when someone corrects you that you and they are 100% wrong, and they did not have a legitimate reason. Monkeys 'MIGHT" fly out of my butt to do my bidding, should I get angry with you when you say they won't?
When my high school debate adversary makes ridiculous propositions completely based in supposition and having no base in fact whatsoever, I use it against them. If they want to call their lack of ability to get a point across and have it agreed with 'straw man', they may, it won't win the debate for them.
I disagree with your position that they might have had a 'reason' to go nuts and attack...legitimate or not. If you're adult enough to own and ride a bike, you should be adult enough to ignore someone making a face at you or mouthing something nasty...if that even happened....and no one besides the attackers (and their supporters) are even making that claim (probably because it is not a legitimate reason or excuse). Grow up fags.
it is about good/bad, right/wrong...not just "why/how" for 99% of people.
It is also about fags and the bike curious this time.
You are 100% wrong about justification, it's not a personal thing, it's a simple law thing. What's justified and what's not has been argued by professionals and determined to the millimeter. You seem to be arguing that you can understand how it's justified (to the bikers) to surround and attack a family with a 2 year old...and your stated justification is 'he mouthed off to them'...and that's not a justification for 99.99% of people, and certainly not a legal justification. I understand it may be a reason why idiots without any self control lost their shit, I can only hope they think differently every time they visit their now paralyzed cohort and grow the F up.
I think ethics and morals are things society has agreed upon (for the most part) and are not things you can get away with making up for yourself, unless you live like a hermit with no human contact at all, or don't mind spending your life in solitary (again, like a hermit).

How am I supposed to continue to interact intelligently when you keep twisting my words to imply things I have repeatedly stated I was not saying?

I deliberately chose my words to make it clear that I was not saying the driver MUST have done anything but only that he MIGHT. Simple reading comprehension; trying to twist my words for emotive effect is not going to work on me. (apart from getting a rise which it totally did)

You only seem willing to entertain a single perspective assessment of the situation and appear completely closed off to any other interpretation/speculation I have attempted to present.

The fact you have repeatedly ignored the core argument I have been making (that there is no such thing as one perspective and morality is a relativistic concept) suggests that either A you don't understand what I'm trying to say (in which case I'm happy to explain further) or B. don't want to understand (in which case I can't do shit for you sorry)

Let me put it another way. Do you think we understand Hitler and the Nazi's better by A. calling them racist fags and blindly denouncing their actions as "evil". or B. attempting to understand the mindset and motivations for what they did with a minimum of emotional compromise?

When you take the care to examine life's little unpleasantries like Nazi's or bike gangs or whatever from a less emotive position, you realise that they were/are not just some abhorrent alien force in society. Any one of us has the same capacity to behave like this, they aren't fundamentally different creatures and the belief that they are is exactly what allows people to justify doing this kind of thing in the 1st place. (If you asked one of the bike gangers to describe you and I you'd likely find they used the same kind of derogatory and dehumanising terms and categories, we're just slipping into the reciprocal tribal mindset)

Do I think bike gangs (and for that matter large groups of people in general) generally represent humanity at its worst? Yes totally, they are to my sensibilities 1st class arseholes. That's why I've agreed with you repeatedly on this (from post 1 onwards in fact!) I just like to come at things from more than one perspective because ultimately perspective is all that really exists to us, in this case I shared some measure of perspective with the bikers as I can see how thing thing could have escalated from that POV and how they might well have justified their actions to themselves.

Ethics/morals are little more than deep aesthetic preferences, they have no observable basis of authority in the natural world, only our own minds. While it's an illusion were arguably better off with, it does rather get in the way of objectivity.

All I really take exception to is having my words and meaning distorted and my core argument ignored. It's called a straw-man (reciting a deliberately distorted and weak version of your opponents argument to then tear it down) that shit wouldn't even fly in a high-school debating club and it certainly wont work with me here. Its fine that you disagree but at least get what your disagreeing with right please.

It's not about "good and "bad" "right" and "wrong" but rather "why" and "how". In short it's more complicated than "bike curious fags" and reducing matters only to that does nothing to help the situation other than to illustrate ones deep aesthetic distaste (which in itself is totally valid and I've not contradicted at any stage). I have somewhat more split "deeply held aesthetic preferences" here which is what I originality began talking about, perhaps that's why I'm finding it easier to at least relate to the bikers side of things even if I don't agree or condone.

"....and also disagree that anything excuses...."

^ This phrase beautifully demonstrates the folly of rigid non-perspective based morality. By embracing any arbitrary absolute truth or principle such as this one renders objectivity and transcendence impossible. Justification is a personal thing, what I'm interested in is provocation and explanation, we can argue what's justified until the cows come home because its not an objective concept it's a subjective preference.

This, when all semantics are stripped away is the core of why we are disagreeing I think. You think Ethics/morals are actual things that matter in their own right, I think they are no more than strong preferences who's usefulness is directly proportional to ones ability to understand and sympathise with those of others. Everything else has really been a play around that (by both of us) in less direct terms I fear....

Perhaps I do speculate a bit as to why the biker caused the 'accident', but it seems to me that you continue to speculate that the driver MUST have done SOMETHING to cause the bikers to completely loose their shit and attack the family with helmets and knives. I fail to see how you get that impression without starting from the standpoint that the bikers MUST be 'reasonable' people that would not have attacked without 'proper' provocation. I think their behavior proves clearly they are not reasonable. More than likely, there were some 1%ers in that group that live for that kind of trouble, including the one that started it.
At least according to the police, his tires were slashed and his car hit with multiple helmets, provoking him to drive over the bikes/biker. He was later nearly ripped out of the car (door locks people) and finally at a third location actually pulled out and beaten/stabbed.
Perhaps I misunderstood, but you SEEMED to be excusing the bikers behavior, at least to a point, by saying (in essence) 'The driver provoked them'. I disagreed that he did, (I certainly didn't see it in the video) and also disagree that anything excuses a gang blocking the freeway and teaching a lesson to those that disrespected their road ownership by slashing tires, beating the car with helmets, terrorizing a family with a small child.
My hunch is that this guy didn't follow the gangs directions to stop and kept driving where they wanted to do tricks in the freeway, and they decided to teach him a lesson for messing with their illegal street trick performance...which this group is apparently well known for. They did the same thing last year to at least one other car without the chase or bike climbing, from the videos I've seen today. Surrounded it in traffic and beat on it.
As an aside...the guy was in a great position to talk shit, in a 3 ton 4WD on the freeway...it's when he turned onto side streets with traffic and didn't lock the door that he was in the real bad position! ;-}
I say things like "fag gangs with knives" because that's what they were. Fags and the bike curious. I understand the mindset of gang members, I simply think that most are narcissistic self centered assholes that need their friends around to be tough (for the most part... some are real tough narcissistic assholes). If you're wearing a full patch or ride in groups with others wearing patches, you're in a gang, not a club...at least to me.
And before you get the wrong impression that I don't get the dangers bikers live with, I rode my bicycle 40 miles per day in the bay area for years, and NO ONE sees a bicycle, at least they hear motorcycles. I don't support the people who block the street with bicycles either.

That's a rather speculative argument your making. We don't know exactly what was and wasn't said between the bikers and the driver. The bikers alleged this dude was giving quite a bit of back and forth and we don't know exactly what threat is made to provoke him driving over the bikes and escalating the whole thing. I never said that this was caused by lane splitting I was using it as an example from my own experience to make a point about some car drivers attitude and behaviour towards us.

The impression I get (and this is just a hunch like anyone else's including YOURS) is that this dude was talking shit and the bikers initially stopped him to make it clear he was in no position to be making threats (which lets face it would have been a foolish move for anyone). It's entirely possible that this whole thing could have been diffused at that point (and maybe not we don't get to see or hear the altercation).
Maybe this dude was just scared and calling the police, maybe he was directly antagonizing them as he did so as the bikers claim.

At no point have I done anything but condemn the bikers actions, I was merely trying to elucidate a different perspective and find a more informative angle than just "these bikers be dicks". They are people too (albeit ones of dubious moral character)


Are you familiar with the concept of holding two irreconcilable truths simultaneously to gain a deeper insight?

That's what I was doing here, I'm sorry I failed to make that more clear to you (language alone can be a clumsy way to communicate)

There's a veritable mountain of historic, behavioural and situational factors at work here, one of them is the basic resentment and animosity you subconsciously accumulate against a certain kind of car driver by simply being a biker. Other include mob dynamics, lifelong neuroses and inhibition control etc. etc.

When we say things like "fag gangs with knives" and make no attempt to understand their behaviour we get nowhere. In fact its worse than that, we go backwards as the simplistic black and white level untermensch/ubermensch relationship serves simply to fuel the same kind of situation in the future. That distinction exists but only works if derived dialectically rather than dualistically. (to paraphrase you need to be a bigger less emotionally compromised man/woman than these people or it will continue to happen. It's not a matter of who's right and wrong so much as "what failed and why?".)

I keep trying to not disagree with you because to a large extent I don't, I just don't believe in fixed perspectives. Your not wrong, but it does not invalidate the majority of what I'm trying to say/do. This is how higher synthesees or argument and understanding are derived. Someone had to chime in for the other side otherwise no-ones ideas have a chance to expand, on this occasion the duty fell to me and Chingy (not for the 1st time).

Dialectic logic > Aristotelian Logic

Every system has coercion.
The specifics may change, but they're all based around gaming the rules to get ahead, and preventing others from catching up.

Even if there are no government rules, you end up with private rules, set by the private owners of things you depend on, or things you have to work around or work with.

Deregulated systems are great, but they have one major flaw. Over time, you will end up with a monopoly. It's 100% certain. One business will always grow at least a tad quicker than others, and given enough time, will displace the others.
Especially when larger size creates beneficial economy of scale, and makes for prices that no one else can beat, which only accelerates the growth, leading to the inevitable.
This was the case for the U.S. in the "Rockefeller/Morgan/Vanderbilt-esque" days, and it is becoming the case to day in China.

(China is an amusing example. They have essentially wild-west capitalism and no effective labor laws. It's a bubbling brew of mega rich and mega poor. Much like pre-ww1-ish USA.)

Most economic crises we've had were the result of a few influential agents acting in their own best self interest, while their self interest did not coincide with national interest.

Local optima vs Global optima, mathematically speaking.

For example, oil speculation leads to higher oil prices, which means you can then sell your oil options for a good profit. It's quite good for the speculator.
It just isn't good for the rest of the nation, as higher energy costs drive down everyone else's profits/revenue.

In a more cartoonish sense, you can for example: get land real cheap by purchasing all the land around it, land-locking the access, and not agreeing to a public easement.
Then the land owner of the center-plot is holding worthless land, it's useless to anyone else, and the only possible customer is you.
You get to set the price, because it's you or nobody.
*Also, this is a real example that happened in my neighborhood.

-scheherazade

@enoch, if I sound evangelical, it's because I have an allergic reaction to misinformation and a deep aversion to disinformation...

Here are my comments, interspersed:

> and how come all your examples are the european countries that got fucked
> in the ass by corrupt currency and derivative speculators?"

By corrupt currency, do you mean the Euro? These are a big percentage of the so-called "1st world countries."

> are you working for goldman sachs?
> whats the deal man?

Are these borderline ad hominem, or did I miss something...

> denmark? finland?

Is that it, do you want to limit the evidence to the scandinavian countries? Fine, list for me the countries you want me to address and compare to the US or more free market economies and we will proceed from there.

> but its apparent you dont know shit about socialism.
> socialism-communism=not the same.

Personal attacks aside, communism is a type of socialism in the Marxist sense. But to clarify, please define 'socialism' as you think it should be defined, if something other than public control over the means of production.

> and no free market carny barker never seems to want to talk about.

Are you getting upset about something, or are you not calling me a "free market carny barker"?

> 1.how do you fix the currency issue with its pyramid scheme?

What is the currency issue? The central bank's monopoly in currency? You get rid of legal tender laws and let people decide what currency they want to use and accept.

> 2.how do create a level playing field for the wage slave? or debt slave?

You have to be more specific as to what "level playing field means in practice" so that I can answer this.

> 3.or can you outright buy people?

Do you mean slaves? No, that goes against free-market non-aggression and self-ownership principles.

> 4.since nothing is communal and there is no regulation.is there anything that
> cannot be commodified?

Again, please be more specific about what you mean by "commodified." Do you mean are you free to buy and sell anything as long as you don't violate self and property rights? Not clear what you mean here but I'm sure with some clarification I can address it.

> look man.i get it.lots of good things can happen with a free market. but so can
> a lot of bad. eyes open my man.

Sure, but please tell me, what specifically bad can happen in a free market that cannot happen as bad or worse in a non-free market?

> reminds me of the scientist who came up with game theory.
> from the rand institute i think. the whole cold war was set up on this dudes
> principles of self-interest. did a bunch of testing on dudes and the data
> seemed conclusive...until he did the same experiment with secretaries. turns
> but they were unwilling to dick each other over and were more prone to co-
> operate with each other.

How is this relevant? People like to cooperate. That's the basis for the voluntary free market and why it works.

> well how about them apples.co-operation as a way on interacting. ya dont
> say? very interesting.

I agree. Voluntary interaction equals cooperation. That is the free market. Coercion is the non-free market. Is there disagreement here, because I don't see it.

> i know we both agree that what we have now is a clusterfuck.
> and i agree that the free market should have a place,that its even vital. but
> unrestricted free markets? naw..no thanks.

I still don't know the specifics of how exactly you want to "restrict it" and how specifically you want to restrict it. You must forgive me if I don't think you are as competent to restrict me and my life and my business and I myself am. The same with your life and business, I am not qualified to restrict it.
Who is then? Specifically, "who" do you want to restrict you, and your freedom to engage in free trade?

@Trancecoach
you are starting to sound damn near evangelical about this free market lovefest you are having.
and this:
"Socialism promotes equality: "it's only virtue is equal misery for all" (with the exception of the rulers, of course)"

thats a beaut.

and how come all your examples are the european countries that got fucked in the ass by corrupt currency and derivative speculators? are you working for goldman sachs?
whats the deal man?

how about throwing out some countries are doing pretty damn ok?
denmark?finland?

ill give ya props for knowing capitalism and all the positive bennies that can go with it but its apparent you dont know shit about socialism.
socialism-communism=not the same.

so while we are at it lets discuss some things that are from the dark side of capitalism and no free market carny barker never seems to want to talk about.

1.how do you fix the currency issue with its pyramid scheme?
2.how do create a level playing field for the wage slave? or debt slave?
3.or can you outright buy people?
4.since nothing is communal and there is no regulation.is there anything that cannot be commodified?

look man.i get it.lots of good things can happen with a free market.
but so can a lot of bad.
eyes open my man.

reminds me of the scientist who came up with game theory.
from the rand institute i think.
the whole cold war was set up on this dudes principles of self-interest.
did a bunch of testing on dudes and the data seemed conclusive...
until he did the same experiment with secretaries.
turns out they were unwilling to dick each other over and were more prone to co-operate with each other.

well how about them apples.co-operation as a way on interacting.
ya dont say?
very interesting.

the scientist later recanted and dismissed his own study(years later though).

i know we both agree that what we have now is a clusterfuck.
and i agree that the free market should have a place,that its even vital.
but unrestricted free markets?
naw..no thanks.

"Intelligence agencies" asked them to remove the specific details, and they did so (see the article I linked above)

Now I have no specific knowledge of what the NSA can or can't do either, but can speculate (holds finger up in air):

- SSLv3 and old TLS versions are compromised. Newer versions are better, but most web sites still support the compromised ones. With a man in the middle attack you can force the negotiation to use the compromised standards, and in some cases you can even persuade it to use the "plaintext" option (!?!?). In addition, some of the ciphers supported have flaws, like MD4/MD5/SHA1. Everyone is supposed to be moving off the weaker ciphers and using larger keys to mitigate known attacks, but not everybody has done so, or even knows or cares that they should.
- NSA have access to servers in the U.S., confirmed by multiple sources.
- NSA have access to data being transmitted, basically anywhere.
- Although the crypto systems themselves are probably better than you assume, there are trust issues - in many cases the vendors or certificate authorities have provided private keys. If you were able to replace these compromised keys with your own, that problem could be mitigated.

Your assumption is pretty much spot on, there are a wide variety of backdoors, known bugs, flawed implementations etc., but the ability to decrypt a particular well implemented SSL connection is not guaranteed for anyone (as far as I know).

Unconsciousness is the best indicator of head injury severity (for non-external bleeding wounds). He didn't go unconscious which means he didn't get hurt that badly. I'm guessing he didn't even receive a contusion.

At the 0:05 second mark he hits the ground and it looks to me like his head does not hit the ground until he relaxes it back and then he rolls sideways. But, given the bad angle, low resolution, and distance from the child, none of us can tell one way or another exactly how hard his head hit the ground. We're all just speculating that part.

I've treated lots of people with serious head wounds - mushed skull, subdural bleeding, etc. Not bleeding (either internal or external) is exactly what you do want.

With that in mind here's a list of people that make me variously: scared, uncomfortable, upset and sometimes outright angry. I find it deeply unpleasant and sometimes disturbing to have to deal with them and I think life would be a lot better if we just locked them away.

Police
Politicians
Pro-lifers
Anyone who watches X-factor
Anyone who doesn't think the British royal family are murderous tyrants.
People who play music on their phone speakers on the bus/walking down the street.
People that use the term "free country" without irony.
The unregulated hyper rich over class.
Rugby players on a night out drinking.
People that advocate the death penalty.
Hyper nationalists.
Xenophobes, Racists and Homophobes.
The priesthood of amen/the brotherhood of shadow.
Young people in tracksuits/hoodies.
Anyone that uses the word "party" as a verb.
Practising Christians, Muslims and Jews (doubly so if they are raising their children religiously).
Hyper-Atheists.
Chimpanzees! (seriously, fuck the chimps they scare the shit out of me)
People that use the phrase "I just don't give a fuck" and actually mean it.
The Chinese scientists developing the "death robots" (you might laugh now....)

Whilst some are clearly more serious than others, all of the above represent things/traits which deeply concern me. Many of the people on that list I'd label as outright insane and/or seriously dangerous to my health and well being.

Some, were I to be confronted by them unexpectedly, would outright terrify me, much more so than that lady. There's a good chance that by simply responding with concern and a lack of antagonism she could have been talked down, but certainly pulling an incredulous expression and calling her a crazy lady is not likely to diffuse the situation one iota.

As I said before maybe she is a genuine danger to herself and others, such people do exist and there are systems in place to try and deal with it.

The issue here is that your not even remotely in a position to make that diagnosis, nor are any of us here. We don't know how serious her condition is or how likely she is to respond to various forms of treatment. Speculating based only on video's made during episodes (i.e. at her worst) with no context of her medical history just fuels the kind of knee jerk "lock them away" mindset that contributes heavily to these poor bastards getting the way they are in the 1st place.

For all you know a bit of in the community C.B.T. and mentoring might be all she needs/needed. Not everyone displaying psychotic symptoms benefits from or warrants full on institutional incarceration, it often makes things much worse.
She clearly needs/needed further investigation and perhaps having the benefit of her medical history and first hand interaction it might be reasonable to conclude that some form of isolation is needed. But I'd rather leave that down to those who are professionally qualified to make that judgement than bystanders who merely witnessed a few isolated psychotic episodes and know sweet F.A. about her as a person.

It's you that's failing to see the bigger picture here. You want to put her in a neat little box marked "crazy" so you don't have to face the implication that in some fundamental sense you are the same thing. The crazy person sits next to you on the bus and you think "I don't deserve to have to put up with this inconvenience. How dare they make me feel uncomfortable".......

....Do you have the remotest idea of the kind of deep lasting damage that does to a person when virtually everyone they ever meet thinks and behaves that way? How it feels for someone to just condemn you to be locked away without even attempting to understand what your all about?

It's only about 50 years ago that it was standard practice to basically label everything as just various forms of "madness" and lock them all away in the same building. While we've come along way there's still very much a ways to go and the public perception of acute psychotic illnesses is by far the most backwards.

If you'd said maybe she might need institutional treatment, or that you had concerns that the behaviour she displays could escalate to a violent incident (both legitimate concerns) then I wouldn't have reacted with such hostility.
But you didn't do that, you outright declared she that must be forcibly segregated and treated and moreover that she is definitely a danger to herself and others. No grey area, isolation is the only alternative!

I don't want this to descend into a personal attack, you might after all be a really nice person and this is a deeply rooted prejudice common to most people I come across. Much like many peoples homophobia isn't especially malicious it's just an unchallenged social convention (one fortunately that is changing).
But malicious or not the damage done is the same, for crazies, ethnic minorities and homosexuals alike. And I don't think its unfair to say that the "crazies" are the more vulnerable group by quite some margin.

You don't begrudge offering a little time and understanding for say a disabled person holding you up in a door way, why is taking a little step back when confronted with a "crazy" person so different? That postie clearly recognised she wasn't occupying the same reality as himself very quickly, but his response is to pull a face that says "what the fuck is your problem?" and just dismisses her as crazy. She might have calmed down and gone away peacefully in the space of a few mins if he'd tried to diffuse it, but he didn't, he escalated immediately. (because he's mentally ill too, just in a different way)
That's basically like someone getting in your way, you realizing its because they are in a wheel chair and then treating them like an arsehole because they had the indecency to be out in public and get in the way of the able bodied people! Those bloody cripples, they should be taken away for their own protection! (the fact the rest of us don't have to worry about dealing with them any more is just a bonus naturally )

Now obviously this is a somewhat flawed analogy as people with mobility impairments don't have heightened rates/likelihood of violent outbursts (though I'm sure there are plenty twats who just happen to be in wheelchairs). But the fundamental point I'm trying to make about how people treat the extravertly mentally ill stands. If your being directly threatened with no provocation is one thing, but this guy isn't he's just antagonising someone in a clear state of paranoia and delusion/misunderstanding (which he recognises within seconds). He doesn't even attempt to address that he just closes off and becomes passively hostile.
As I said before its understandable, but only in the same way as being frightened of homosexuality, alien cultures, physical disfigurement etc.. It's just cultural isolation, get to know a few people from any of those groups and it quickly starts to sublime into respect and understanding.

She didn't walk up to him screaming she walked up and firmly presented an accusation that the postman knew could not possibly have been true. She became aggressive/shouty only after he became dismissive, before that she was only restless and paranoid. And even then she didn't make any aggressive physical moves we can see. Postie doesn't look at all in fear for his safety to me, he turns his back on her several times and barely maintains eye contact, not the behaviour of someone that feels physically threatened!

How might she have reacted if postie had looked genuinely scared? Maybe she'd have backed off? Changed her attitude? And yeh maybe she'd have got even more threatening or attacked him with a stick too.

We don't know what she'd have done because we don't know her or anything about her other than a few paranoid videos on the internet. Leave the judgements to the people that have done the research, interviews etc. and know know what the fuck they are talking about with regards to this lady's condition and best treatment.

Speculation is one thing, outright declarations of fact is quite another. People are not guilty before you can prove their innocence...