U.S. Politics

. People think that whatever they see on their social media feeds is reflective of society as a whole. It is not. It is representative of a narrow corner of the internet that the algorithm thinks will keep you on its platform the longest.
Not politics, but I really needed that. And I love the way you phrased it. I'm going to use that, thank you.
 
I think this is an "our monkey brains can't handle algorithmic social media" thing.

I can't count the number of times my mom or in-laws asked me if I "saw that thing on Facebook." Your Facebook feed is algorithmically generated just for you. There is no shared experience on Facebook. I think it's a problem with the internet writ large. People think that whatever they see on their social media feeds is reflective of society as a whole. It is not. It is representative of a narrow corner of the internet that the algorithm thinks will keep you on its platform the longest.
I was behind a woman in line the other day who still had those damn Minion memes coming across her feed. That's how I know we don't all have the same feed- I'd never be friends with anyone who shared Minion memes.

But then we have instances like my boyfriend and I; we have very similar interests, granted, but often very different parts of said interests, and many non-similar interests. Despite not following a lot of the same people and pages, almost every single post we end up sharing with each other on Twitter- I'd say about 90%- is one that the other person liked maybe 20 or so minutes prior. So there's gotta be something there.

I don't know- "The Algorithm", much like "The Cloud" is a concept that still kinda confounds me. My brain was made to store useless pop culture knowledge, not math and science.
 
Proximity and your passive engagement affects it. My algorithm syncs up to my classmates, and I can tell when Insta pulls from which classmates I logged more time with that day. Like it will start presenting specific animes.

Pretty sure it pulls GPS/wireless network data to correlate who is around you. I haven't been tech savvy since Limewire, though.

It also listens. We've all had those conversations where you have a phone call or text something and immediately every ad you get has to do with that. That I was sharing a recent interaction I had with a woman I asked out to a friend, and I was deluged within an hour of First Date coaching. Phone call. 15 min chat.
 
Does anyone else still think white supremacy isn't the root of the problem or has the Voting Rights Act #woke y'all up? lol. It's easy to talk shit about idiotic poor white southern republicans but I'm surrounded by rich white liberals, constantly, and they are not much better. If anything, I find them more sinister because they're not as up-front about their worldview. White supremacy is the problem and it's finally irreparably fucked the country on its behalf.
10,000%
Racism isn't a rich or poor problem, and it's not a north or south problem. It's a white people problem that we ALL (all us white folks) need to reckon with and understand. We all have it. Our country was founded on it and it was ingrained in all of us in the most horribly subtle ways. I don't actually believe any white person in North America, at the very least, is entirely free of it. The best we can do is understand how it impacts the way we were raised so we can recognize when it's rearing up and work to stop it, as well as protect future generations from being influenced by the racism that influenced us.

I am reminded of the guy who raped a woman at a college party after she'd passed out and some guys attacked him to stop it, and she said when seeing him in court it was the first time she had ever seen his face, but his dad made a statement to the court saying his son's life shouldn't be destroyed for "one moment of action" or something very close to that.
I missed this the first time around. His name was Brock Turner. He was a swimmer with a 'bright future' ahead of him. And yes, his father referred to him raping a woman behind a dumpster as 'getting some action.' The judge that literally let him off without any consequences was Aaron Persky.
The victim's name was Chanel Miller. She wrote a book and you can always support her by giving it a look.

Brock now goes by his middle name because the entire country knows he's a scumbag piece of shit rapist that should absolutely be beaten on sight until his life is so miserable that he hangs himself in front of his piece of shit father. Brock's middle name is Allen. Brock Turner. Allen Turner. Brock Allen Turner. It's all the same rapist.
 
10,000%
Racism isn't a rich or poor problem, and it's not a north or south problem. It's a white people problem that we ALL (all us white folks) need to reckon with and understand. We all have it. Our country was founded on it and it was ingrained in all of us in the most horribly subtle ways. I don't actually believe any white person in North America, at the very least, is entirely free of it. The best we can do is understand how it impacts the way we were raised so we can recognize when it's rearing up and work to stop it, as well as protect future generations from being influenced by the racism that influenced us.
The Urban Planning one is one people often miss, since it rarely gets brought up. Cities like Chicago purposefully had overpasses and bridges run just low enough that city buses of that time couldn't fit under.

Now the bus can't take the poor and black people to the good stores for work and consuming.

I forget the book, but every major city did this and once you see it, you can't unsee the Matrix code
 
The Urban Planning one is one people often miss, since it rarely gets brought up. Cities like Chicago purposefully had overpasses and bridges run just low enough that city buses of that time couldn't fit under.

Now the bus can't take the poor and black people to the good stores for work and consuming.

I forget the book, but every major city did this and once you see it, you can't unsee the Matrix code

Yup! Urban planning, redlining, the one drop rule, the GI bill (Black veterans were purposely excluded), the Slave Patrol -> Police Force trajectory, the Tulsa massacre (and others like it), etc. That's why I can't help but roll my eyes when people accuse (especially) Black Americans of "making everything about race." Everything in America is about race and always has been. I'm incredibly fortunate to have a 6-figure career but I've experienced crazy amounts of anti-Black racism in corporate, and with the anti-DEI hysteria it is getting worse.

For example: https://www.wsj.com/business/invite...N5SfVwi0gfHUxUXq2zLQnNBH__LJyIpIgJthmjAD9lg==
 
just one more criminal being let out

 
Does anyone else still think white supremacy isn't the root of the problem or has the Voting Rights Act #woke y'all up? lol. It's easy to talk shit about idiotic poor white southern republicans but I'm surrounded by rich white liberals, constantly, and they are not much better. If anything, I find them more sinister because they're not as up-front about their worldview. White supremacy is the problem and it's finally irreparably fucked the country on its behalf.

A series of 15th-century papal bulls, starting with Dum Diversas in 1452, form the basis of the "Doctrine of Discovery". These edicts gave Christian rulers authority to conquer and enslave non-Christian peoples, justifying European colonialism and the seizure of Indigenous lands.

That was the beginning of white supremacy. The doctrine lead to the systematic dispossession and enslavement of indigenous peoples. It established a racial hierarchy that placed European Christians at the top and designated non-Christian Indigenous peoples as inferior, providing the theological and legal basis for conquest and colonization. These beliefs were at the heart of Theological anti-Judasm, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and American Slavery.

The doctrine defined Indigenous people as "savages," "barbarians," and "uncivilized," creating a theological framework that considered Indigenous peoples less than human. This narrative of European Christian superiority and racial hierarchy became a foundational building block for white supremacy and Manifest Destiny. European explorers and colonizers took their white supremacist beliefs with them everywhere they went. Africa, the Americas, India, Asia, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, the South Seas Islands. It spread like cancer.

In the 1823 Supreme Court case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall invoked the Doctrine of Discovery to rule that Native Americans had lost their right to "complete sovereignty" upon being "discovered". The decision established that only the discovering European nation—and its successor, the United States—had ultimate dominion over the land, while Indigenous nations only retained a "right of occupancy". This case forms the basis of U.S. federal Indian law and has been cited as recently as 2005.

My girlfriend Lory is a Native American. She's a Kumeyaay tribe member. She's been treated badly by white people in the past and still is to this day. She's told me about how she was tormented mercilessly as a child. "Pocahontas" was her nickname all throughout her school years.

The problem is that many white people of European descent see other races as less than human. Blacks, asians, latinos, natives ... they're fit to clean houses and work in the fields. And that's it.

I've heard them say it. Jesus is a white guy. Jesus is an American. Jesus handed Thomas Jefferson the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution. Jesus only cares about America. That's how white christian nationalists justify how they think. Jesus is on their side and only them.

Well, listen. I have no idea if this Jesus dude ever actually existed or not. I'm not particulalry religous as you can probably tell. But if he ever was real, then he wasn't a white guy. He couldn't have been an American because no one besides Lory's ancestors had ever been to America in those days. He wasn't even a Christian. He was Jewish. That's how completely out of touch with reality these people are. Of course if Jesus were real he'd care about EVERYONE. Not just white people, not just Americans and not just Christians.

And before ANYONE JUMPS DOWN MY THROAT ....

I'm not saying Christianity is evil. I'm not saying it's inherently bad. I'm not saying all white people are rotten. Last time I looked in a mirror, I saw a white dude looking back at me. My mother was a white woman and a Christian. She never turned her back on a human being in need regardless of their race or religion. If you needed help, she was there for you. And there have been plenty of examples of churches, particularly black churches, using their faith and beliefs to advocate for justice.

What I'm saying is White Supermacy is a big problem and many of these racists use their faith to justify their idiotic beliefs, All we can do is stand against them and let them know that their beliefs are of course wrong and not everyone thinks like they do.
 
He was right, that's US History in a nutshell. We didn't go from Reconstruction to Jim Crow or from Obama to Trump by accident. It's part of the fabric of the country's identity. With all of the talk about the rise of neo nazism there is barely ever any acknowledgement that the Third Reich was directly inspired by the Jim Crow southern US. It all comes full circle. White Americans have a...particular pathology that has never been properly addressed and we're living through the result of that.

Listen. You got more courage, more moxie and more fortitude than any 10 people I know. Keep fighting the good fight and always know there are good people in your corner.
 
Can I say it?

Of course you can. Just know that my Mother would love you. She'd make you dinner and treat you like one of the family because that's just how she was.

Me personally, I have a big problem with ALL organized religion. All of it. Except maybe Buddhism, but they're more of a philosophy than they are a religion.

But overall, I think religion itself can be a very bad thing. It can be used to justify anything. And that's not good.
 
But overall, I think religion itself can be a very bad thing. It can be used to justify anything. And that's not good.
Yup.
Your mother can be a good person and still be part of an evil religion. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive.

Except maybe Buddhism
I could get on board with suggesting Buddhism is the least problematic of major faiths (I would definitely call it a religion, not a philosophy). But it's still hugely problematic with built-in sexism and patriarchy and can still, absolutely, fuck all the way off.
 
Yup.
Your mother can be a good person and still be part of an evil religion. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive.


I could get on board with suggesting Buddhism is the least problematic of major faiths (I would definitely call it a religion, not a philosophy). But it's still hugely problematic with built-in sexism and patriarchy and can still, absolutely, fuck all the way off.

Fair enough.
 
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