Serak The Preparer

I am biased but T-Mac over Bradley will always be my favorite, especially for being in the playoffs.

Man, it is just so odd that those right-wing twitter accounts that you follow are really tracking the Bubba Watson story but aren't alerting you to the cops-faking-illness story. I guess it will forever be a mystery about why you are only getting select news stories.

These ideas are good on paper, and are certainly in use in many places, but the goal (not to impact low income residents too much) is not always met. For instance, let's say a household can use X gallons for low cost. If there are two people there, they each get X/2 low-cost gallons. Now let's say that due to job loss, kids / siblings / friends move in. The amount of low-cost gallons doesn't change, but more people are using those gallons. This means they will move to higher tiers much sooner, paying more per gallon. These people, who live together to save cost, are more negatively impacted by tiered pricing than middle-class or better households.

As @bschoolprof pointed out, exponential and logarithmic growth are inversely related. That means if you have logarithmic growth, but show the data with the y-axis using exponential growth, they "cancel" each out out and you have a straight line. Similarly, with exponential growth, if you plot using a logarithmic scale, it looks linear (or flatter). It is easy to get growth vs scale mixed in the message.

Umm, I'm -pretty darn sure the first image is from protests in 2015. Note the signs specific to Freddy Gray, and the sign mentioning spines that break (Freddy Gray had a spinal injury). Also there is not a single mask present, which should be the biggest clue that maybe that image is not from present day. So unless you are trying to prove that protesters were morons for not recognizing the risk of COVID-19 in 2015, not sure the relevance? What right-wing news site or twitter feed did you see that on? For the bottom image, is that supposed to disprove Brisket's point? I haven't counted faces but I think I see two uncovered mouths? Maybe I missed one but it sure looks relatively close to 95% to me.

Ha, I forgot how it started, just remember the fence. Akita something, right? And then it led to a hilariously awkward party at his house involving suspicious-looking sausage?

Thanks for posting this, hasn't been discussed. You should cross post this in the football forum, I bet it will lead to some healthy and productive conversations.

Fair enough. So "disrupt" = "destroy" and you ignore words that are strange or frightening to you. Still don't if it's a bit or you are this dense but I appreciate your answers.

Are you clinging to the notion that BLM wants to "destroy" the nuclear family?

OK, fess up. Is this a bit or are you really this dense? I will again quote the passage (that you typed or pasted): "We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable." I bolded a word for you, one that you keep skipping for some weird totally-not-prejudiced reason. To be super super duper clear, they are not stating they want to disrupt the nuclear family. They are trying to disrupt the requirement for a nuclear family. As certain posters love to post, the amount of kids raised in non-nuclear (e.g. two parent) households is lower in black families relative to rest of population. As such, they want to increase awareness / acceptance / opportunity for other parts of society to help. Is this now clear to you or are you clinging to the notion that BLM wants to "destroy" the nuclear family?

First, start reading a full sentence. This is a critical step. Once you do that, you can see that they want to disrupt the nuclear family requirement, not the actual family. They are saying the want to augment structure where the traditional nuclear family is not there, by offering further support as a village.

If you read the statement you posted in the second quote and come up with the interpretation you have in the first post, I think we all have a much better idea of relative suckage between your reading comprehension and BLM goals.

[Serious] question: do you think anyone reading this thinks otherwise? Is anyone thinking "holy shit, this is WW 3!". We all know it's a skirmish, India and China have had this skirmishes for literally decades. Yes any incident is interesting to read about, and I talk to colleagues in India about their perceptions, but even for a discussion board your comments are essentially fluffy air with no weight. Hell, a post that just says "wow" is less insufferable than a post making obvious declarative statements with a voice of insight that offers no insight at all. COVID-19 is making me cranky.

So it won't be bad. But there is a danger it's bad. This is some top-notch analysis.

Guys, don't worry, I'm sure if anyone were to go back to the Minneapolis is burning thread, I'm sure that you would find 16 negs from @Johnny Sack, @StruggleBus, @John Lawrence, and@Enchubben for all of the false reports about bricks being left out by Antifa, reports by Andy Ngo that are blatantly false, etc. These guys are paragons of virtue and would NEVER preferential neg false posts by Pancho over other, say, differently complexioned posters.

That's great if yourself and AoC are trying to be conservatives without being Trump conservatives. I am not being sarcastic - that really is great. The problem is that this literally does not exist at the national level. There are essentially no conservatives that hold any national office that is not obedient to Trump (sort of exceptions with maybe Amash and Romney, but they have not provided significant resistance to any Trump initiative that I am aware of). And while you and AoC may not think the Trump admin is inherently racist (or maybe you do, not trying to pin you to anything), most of the people on this board do. So there are the two inherent associations: Trump = Racist and Conservative = Trump. I suspect that bridging either of those gaps is going to be impossible.

I think we are certainly going to end up agreeing to disagree, but I will simply say that for myself, I am trying really hard lately to not assume that was is a really normal and easy response for me is also a really normal and easy response for others.

Twicehorn already responded to part of your post, but I think you are being very myopic with your view of liberal intolerance. Who are the tolerant conservative voices? Who is there to react to? In the views of many, the conservative Congress and Senate essentially punished any tolerance from a policy-viewpoint, from reaction to Medical reform, Merrick Garland, etc. If there is no voice of reason in power, how can there be reason in response? That trickles down to social discussion. Hell maybe liberals started it, I don't know, but it's not just a lack of tolerance from liberals online. In terms of JK Rowling specifically you are again coming at this from your point of view, which is totally understandable and expected, but then assuming that it is the RIGHT point of view. She most certainly didn't come at her blog post from a place of love. I don't know that it came from a place of hate, but it certainly didn't come from love. It is her honest viewpoint to be sure, but it is coming down to a community that already feel marginalized and hurt. I don't fully agree with this response, but I would urge you to check out this Instagram post. I know, Instagram, but it is an annotated response that rationally discusses why her post was so hurtful and led to much of the reaction. I came upon this through news aggregation, otherwise would never have seen this, but found it really interesting. It starts not from Rowling not acceding to group think, but rather supporting someone who explicitly denies that Trans women are women. You may agree with that, or may not agree but think it is not a big deal, but I think you could at least agree that it is a big deal to that community, and therefore stirs up a whole mess of response and emotion.

I think you have a lot of redundancy there, and not all of it makes sense. I think (in your mind), escalating the dialogue, refusing to answer normal questions, and being a dick neighbor are all the same thing, right? She asked for information from a nominal neighbor, and he didn't provide it. Keep in mind one thing: he lived there, she didn't. She represented herself as being in the neighborhood and being a neighbor, but she wasn't. If she actually was a neighbor, and therefore if he actually recognized her as such, his reaction may have been completely different. In other words, you can't blame him for being a dick neighbor to someone who was not actually a neighbor! Also, is filming bad behavior? If I am a minority (and to be clear, I am not, I am lily-white) and two older white people come up to me asking questions, am I escalating by filming with my phone? I don't think so, do you think that is inherently bad? Finally, posting online and whining about victomhood. What in your mind is the appropriate response to strangers coming to me and accusing me of being a vandal? How much whining did he do? Was it a single post to illustrate the level of expectation that white people have for minorities to answer their questions? Did he suggest tracking her down and making her miserable? These last two questions are not rhetorical, as I don't know. If it was a single post, then holy crap I think you are overreacting. If it was multiple posts going on and on (like in this forum) then I would lean towards agreeing with you.

I agree with several statements above, paraphrased (I hope not too poorly) below: - Discussion of actual political policy has been very poor in last few years for several reasons, including lack of good-faith arguments and lack of any philosophical or consistent policy-based argument by current administration (e.g. what we think today has no bearing on what we thought yesterday or will think tomorrow). - Those that would be primary drivers of discussion above include @Ghost of LL, @longhornmatt, and potentially @Brisketexan (only mentioning potentially because I think he started becoming less conservative before this administration, for right or wrong). These voices have become stridently anti-current administration, so not much debate there. Other "true believes", including Swam4Texas, @EMAWesome, @markstanco, @TahoeHorn (and his acknowledged sock @MixtyMotions), are part of that latter group of drive-by comments, lack of follow through on discussion, etc. i can only think of one conservative poster who genuinely seems to want to have conversation (@Wulaw Horn). @Anastasis doesn't count here as he hates both sides. - That leaves primary discussion being either "How bad were things today" or discussion over issues that are fact-based, not belief-based. Here there is certainly a grey area as difference between fact and implication of fact is not always as clear as it may seem, but I refer to things like legal or political rationale with Mueller Report and Flynn Hearing. Not discussion over whether behavior is wrong or right, but about what the basis for certain court rulings, committee reports, etc. I personally have enjoyed following these conversations, although I have not contributed. What does that leave us? There have been cool discussion on philosophy, existence of God, etc., but I don't see how there can be any actual policy-based discussion in CR without actual policy to debate. The Columbus discussion (and I understand that this is only an example for you) should not be CR-bound, and is going to necessarily get smaller viewership (and therefore discussion) because of its presence in CR. That could easily be in DT, except for it would get sidetracked with Trump this and Trump that. Our national discourse is so broken that everything is viewed through policy, and so it comes back to lack of consistent policy to use to formulate arguments. That's a lot of words, and it probably looks like I'm saying it's all the other guys's fault. And it's true, both for us guys as well as the other guys. This is a symptom, not a casual factor. I think I need that ledge now. Any scotch left?

It's weird that you keep bringing up incels. Did he specifically target her with the incel community (assuming there is one, I am vaguely familiar with redpill etc.,but not an expert)? Or did he simply post the encounter? It sounds like you are saying he used incels to amplify his grievances. Is that correct? If so, that's really shitty of him. If, instead, he posted the video but this community then took it to further chase after the woman, that sucks but it's not on him.

All good friend, but I was not the spelling Nazi. Even for me, that splinter in my eye is too big, so that was someone else.

I apologise, I misremembered your words. I agree that you did not claim to know black or athlete student feelings. I will note that you said you were sure they didn't know the history, so my question is still what makes you think that? I don't know if this was a topic of conversation or not, but if there was conversation, I could easily see it being pretty internal given the general lack of public discourse at the time. In other words it seems like the starting point was something like "it wasn't brought up by me or my social circle therefore it didn't exist". I personally think that this is the default perception for any majority in any country, which includes me. I do the same at times, but am trying to be more conscious of it when I do. Again apologies for attributing the statement about knowing their feelings to you.

Oh for crying out loud, of course I do not know your mind, or others. I have not claimed to, and explicitly said that I don't. It's like this concept is foreign to you. You are the one who has, however, by saying this will not make them feel better. Why do you think that? In the post below this you say this is trivial. How can you say what is trivial to someone else, particularly when they have specifically said that this is not trivial but has caused and continues to cause hurt? That is the arrogance that just blows my mind. And I do agree with you that you do not necessarily have to agree on actions or next step but dismissal comes from a weird place to me.

I will answer you, as I answered the question you asked me in your previous reply. It's simple: I don't know that. I am not proclaiming that this will solve any issues at all. However, I do think that we should listen and even take people at their word when they say something bothers them. Not even saying we have to take action, but at least believe them. Now will you answer the question I have asked over and over? Why are you sure that the present situation DOESN"T bother them, especially when they have said it does? That was your claim, that you knew their minds and feelings.