Bloody Simple #5 by RoareyRaccoon < Submission | Inkbunny, the Furry Art Community

Sounds like honest-to-goodness fascism to me, if i may throw out a largely meaningless word.

MviluUatusun

5 years, 5 months ago

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@ WhyteYote

Oh, the word fascism isn't meaningless; it's misapplied. The so-called Anitfa people, in fact, show that they're fascists because they attempt to prevent true discourse by attacking, literally, those that disagree with them or do things they disagree with.

CaptainKenmason

5 years, 5 months ago

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oof, didn't know you had minds-n-gab o3o

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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@ CaptainKenmason

Only recently XP.

Calbeck

5 years, 5 months ago

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@ CaptainKenmason

Minds has kind of gone downhill, while Gab has been improving as Twitter goes nuts with things like banning people for opposing lynch mobs (ex: me) and doing actual journalism (ex: Nick Monroe). As a result, Gab is gaining a lot more moderates and even lefties (who mostly are there to troll the right, but then they get trolled right back and no one on either side gets banned, so it's all good).

Mole

5 years, 5 months ago

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I have a feeling this has something to do with me.. well i already said my piece 2 posts ago and I'm not going to tread on old ground

I am going to give you 7 things.. One technical correction, Two suggestion, two is a thought/criticism, and a comment on each of your points.

Technical correction.. A cartoon is just the picture , the words around it is text.  If you go by this standard I believe you're pushing, you could use an essay and attach a picture to call it a cartoon....  I think the word you're looking for is Comic, the merge of pictures and words.   A comic, which can use a series of pictures and words can be as complex or as simple as you want them to be.  You can continue to call these things cartoons, but know there's a better word for it

Suggestion 1 If you have any spare cash, or have access to a library, you might want to look into Scott McCloud's books.  Especially "Understanding Comics" and "Reinventing Comics"  This isn't to say you don't understand shit and you need a book, but these books, which are a comic themselves, have a more nuance understanding of comic that are very useful.  And these books also prove a comic can be as complex as you want them to be.  This isn't to put you to task, i'm just plugging a very interesting author that is related to your cartoons.

Thought/Criticism 1 It seems to me this is more of an excuse and a way to defend yourself with assertions instead of engaging with the concept... I think this is more pushing your belief while giving the impression they're bloody simple... when they're really not.

Suggestion 2 Regardless of our history... if people or saying your cartoon are too simplistic, dehumanizing, or uncharitable.. maybe ask them how they would do it better?  They could be full of shit, but that seem to be the more reasonable action.  If it was me, I would wonder what they meant and decide if I want to do better -- maybe their notion of dehumanizing doesn't match up with mine and there's some miscommunication.

Thought/Criticism 2 I think you're more focus on being understood than understanding other people. That causes more problems than solve.

So how does any of these relate to your cartoon..

1) not true, cartoons don't need to be simple
2) Maybe the situation is more complex than you give it credit for..Prejudice and Bigotry usually happen when people try to make things more simplistic
3) I don't think anyone is angry with your disapproving bad things, you sort of paint all the bad things into groups.
4) What those people is a form of bigotry.... but isn't that them also doing 3?  Disapproval can ruin careers and lives.. I still think it's more complex than black and white good/bad.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

You and all the other people over the past few years who've said identical things, yes.

Imagine how "simplistic" I'd be accused of being without text in my cartoons. It's the best way of making them as not simple as possible. Comics tend to have more than a single panel. I don't like drawing comics since I find them boring, but I'd need to do a proper comic to make a complex point. One panel just isn't enough.

Okay, it seems to you I'm making an excuse. Let it seem that way to you then. Trying to condense an issue to its core principle isn't avoiding engaging with it.
When I'm expressing myself, I'm naturally focusing more on what I think. This listening to other people thing? It's doing that which causes me to have an opinion on the matter in the first place. I just don't agree with you, rather than not being able to listen to others, I have simply drawn a different conclusion to you. Haha, drawn. You're the one who doesn't engage with what is being said in the toons, you go to something else, because my cartoons/comics are on-the-nose.

1) Yeah they do, the medium is limited. Especially if you want to be pedantic and say there is no text in them. When people say they are too simplistic they're saying they don't agree with them. That's it.

2) Then you go do exactly that dumb thing. Maybe it isn't more complex than I give it credit for. Maybe principles matter.

3) What does that even mean?

4) Disapproval isn't what ruins lives and careers, it is people and how they act upon others which does. This also isn't about disapproval as a concept, because it depends on what is being disapproved of and what the consequences are. If someone committed murder, for example, and lost their career and liberty over it, it isn't just people disapproving of murder which makes that happen. But when we're in a situation where the disapproval of people with regards to someone's expressed opinion, so the subject takes great personal losses, that isn't according to any principle. Why? Because what is offensive is subjective, meaning just about everything offends someone, but not everyone ends up being punished for being offensive. It is selectively applied. Injustice is written into it. It isn't more complex than people thinking their being offended at someone's words is grounds to ruin them, that is actually what is being done. And it is evil.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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To put it simply, I think the main point Mole is trying to make is that these issues are not at all as simple as you seem to suggest, and that it would behoove you to take some time and examine the issues from other sides.

I have a very simple question for you. How much time have you spent attempting to 'get into the head' of the other side? How well do you think you could debate their points if you needed to for some reason? Because like it or not that's important. If you can't understand all sides of an issue, even the ones you find distasteful and uncomfortable, then the views you form on said issue are inevitably stunted.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

I know what he's saying and he's wrong. Principles matter. The core principles my toons address are things nobody will dare outright say are wrong, because they know how bad they will look. Despite this they'll still try to take me to task while hovering around the central point. It is disingenuous. People who lack principles, like you and Mole, will justify the means with the ends and apply principles tactically and selectively. Because I'm principled I don't care which team breaks them. The left does. They can do anything and have people like you defend them.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I donno, I was pretty to the point about my views before. Also attempting to say I lack principals is honesty rather a large leap. I very much have principals. However I get the feeling they differ in many ways from yours. Principals and indeed world views are not absolutes. Everyone has a different perspective. Now are there perspectives rooted in harmful things? To be blunt I'd say that some of yours are prime examples of this.

But I don't think you are in any way malicious. Nor do I think that means I should stop trying to understand your views.

As for your disdain for utilitarianism, well that's more than fine. You are absolutely entitled to that idealism. However it's very important to recognize that a more utilitarian worldview is not a less principled one.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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I didn't say principles are absolutes. I said they are essential. They need to be discussed and laid out before we can talk constructively about any nuances in an issue. So I put forward principles I believe in, with the floor open for others to disagree with them and tell me why.

I'll give an example. Take racism. The underlying principle I believe in is that it is wrong to treat people according to their race, because people are individuals and not collectives. Each member of any racial demographic has their own personality, biology, experiences, knowledge, perspectives and beliefs. This principle is obviously not absolute, because so many people don't adhere to it or believe in it.

Diversity policies, affirmative action, claims of systemic racism (which imply that the majority of the society is racist because it's the society that operates the systems within it) etc are all things which rely upon the foundation that it is fine to view people in terms of their race and act accordingly. So I don't support these things. You won't get someone in favour of these things to outright say that treating people according to their race is the best thing to do, because that is blatantly racist, so instead they will find a way of burying the principle from view, such as redefining racism to be prejudice + power. The standards are not universally applied, therefore they aren't based on principles but based on convenience.

I say you lack principles because your thinking is about goals, not means, and you will ignore entire branches of science like evolutionary biology to maintain your beliefs. You argue from convenience.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I think I see where your misconception lies.

The thing is, society DOES filter things though the lens of race. It was set up that way, specifically set up that way, and while it's slowly being repaired it's not 'all fixed' as many presume.

I am not going to defend every system or claim that they are all great solutions. I think we can do far better. But the truth is that there are both systems which still draw in a large number of racist individuals (and that is not prejudicial, that is empirical) and systems which may not have many racist individuals but which have built in racist policies and ideologies tied up wihtin them that are still being picked out.

Yes, we are past the point where black people in the US legally could not vote, but there are still racist good ol boys with guns trying to scare people away from polling places and there is still a good deal of demonstrable gerrymandering with lines drawn to marginalize 'minority' area voters.

These exist. and regardless of how 'wrong' it may feel to make policies to deal with that fact, it is a fact. It must be dealt with.

Also I don't deny evolutionary biology, I deny evolutionary psychology. Because it's a silly and heavily debunked 'field' largely set up so people can pretend very recent social norms and gender roles have always been a thing. As someone who loves to study history it's ridiculous to me that people have attempted to stick a faux scientific veneer on the modern interpenetration of the abrahamic norms as filtered through Rome trying to adapt it for their Hellenistic population. Yes, our biology is the result of evolution. But our 'instincts' do not push us towards the kinds of things right wing conservatives like to claim they do. More to the point, the second we gained sapience our species threw raw instinct by the wayside.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Evolutionary psychology is not politically partisan XP. Your ideological blindness is on display there. Society filters things through the lens of race when it has policies that explicitly dictate the treatment of individuals is to be tailored according to what race they are. I'm against all policies which do this, because they are racist. However, your claims of systemic racism are heavily skewed so that black americans are the most negatively targeted, which doesn't match up with the evidence. Black Americans of Nigerian descent, for example, do better on average than any white demographic in the USA, in terms of crime, economics etc. This wouldn't happen if society in the USA is as you describe it. So there must be other explanations for what is going on, and you won't grant them any credence because you're not interested in examining the issue but in confirming your technocratic socialist bollocks.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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No, my scientific literacy is on display. Because 'evolutionary psychology' is not rooted in any hard science.

Now then, let's address the 'black Americans of Nigerian descent' for a moment.

Because most slaves were not given complex papers as to their places of origin since, let's be honest the slave owners didn't care, anyone with a known Nigerian background would have come from Nigeria, obviously. A fairly wealthy, stable, and powerful west African nation.

So what you're saying is that people who likely immigrated here in the past half century or so, who likely came with means already since there is little reason to come as a refugee from such a nation, who may well have some degree of generational wealth as they were not only permitted to build it but never had any attacks on that would rob them of it, who probably have far superior educations to what we offer in the US... happen to be doing better than people who were born into and grew up in a broken and racially biased system.

I mean, I'm sorry but... duh.

Many of the problems in this nation are ultimately the result of poverty. The problem being that the overall systems we have in place were designed with an eye to keep most black people in poverty. Now here in the US we've had people working hard to rip those systems out or change them to be less racially biased. But it is still a slow process and the fact that many of these systems are still broken and indeed many people depending on the region or profession or other factors may wish to see them remain broken or break them further is one that must be considered.

You're looking at these repair efforts and calling them biased because they aren't part of a purely neutral ground state. Except that's not where we are starting from. You can't ignore that the systems are broken and then get upset about how things look 'uneven' because of the repair efforts. it's just absurd.

This is why I said you need to take a step back and better examine the systems in place and the reasons for them. Why things are not in fact 'bloody simple'

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Lol. Nigerian Americans come from a wealthy West African nation, which explains why they have decent means, but the past more than a century of living as non-slaves in America hasn't provided the same kind of effect? Convenient, that. Oh and only black people are held back by having ancestral poverty in their family history. Oh and that there are fabulously wealthy black people in society doesn't mean anything either. Hogwash. Like I've told you before, there are plenty of ethnic groups who have been deliberately abused in the law and society in the past and still flourished, like Jewish immigrants. In Malaysia, for example, there are explicit laws and rules to disadvantage Chinese people living in the country. Overt and undeniable racism written into the system. Chinese people are still on average far more successful than Malay people. How odd, it's almost as if systemic systems of piddlypoddlypoo aren't the dictators of people's futures.

Ignore that though, that's counter to your narrative.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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It has not caused them to falll into those 'patterns' because most of the crime, drug use and so on seen in the communities for black americans comes from poor communities. Because again, crimes, drug use, and such, have a systemic link to poverty.

There is likely some bias against black kids in middle and upper class areas as well, but truth be told you're not likely to find much different in the way of crime statistics between upper middle class black kids or upper middle class white kids. Because wealth does play a huge factor in all of this. For many reasons, really. In part because the US sees poverty as a moral failure rather than a systemic social failure. In part because police departments aren't geared to operate the same way in middle or upper class areas. In part because a kid who has serious means probably has parents with lawyers and no PD wants to tangle with a six figure big name law firm over a false, or even genuine, arrest if the charges aren't serious.

This is, again, why I say things aren't 'bloody simple'. There are racial components Demonstrable racial components and racist systems both past and present. But they aren't all obvious. You have to actually dig into how these systems work rather than looking at the surface.

Also, how does your Malaysian example help? Because you said there are systems in place to help rather than hinder the disadvantaged minority which is thus doing better overall. Laws designed to help people get a leg up and gain equal footing are not the same as laws designed to kneecap people and keep them down.

And as for the 'ethnic group' thing, the point is that ethnic groups only matter in that laws and such are made to knock them down and create inequity, that social systems are put in place to intentionally disadvantage them. No one group is inherently superior or inferior. It's a matter of dealing with broken systems made by people who happened to hold those silly and flawed world views.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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No, in Malaysia there are policies in place to DISADVANTAGE Chinese people, not help them. Yet they still do better than Malay people, who are the majority. It disproves the premise that even if you had definitive proof of systemic racism it isn't a determinant of success or behaviour. There are plenty of explicit policies in the USA designed to advantage black americans, like affirmative action, but these policies are offset by nebulous, non-explicit, systemic racism? Bunk. Clear, definitive nonsense.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Well that's something I'll have to read up on. I suppose I misread what you said. I have an old fiend who's parents are Malaysian immigrants I may have to ask as well since he's been there enough. But then, there are quite a few factors surrounding any group and how they are treated/how they are affected by an area. You can't treat this as apples to apples. Even the race relations or any sort of systemic racism in the UK vs the US would be two very different animals since the two cultures are vastly different and the laws and history involve very different things. Hence why, at least to my understanding, slavery really isn't that big a deal over there beyond a historic footnote. Since, you know, there aren't a ton of people still fixating on the 'good ol days' when they made their money off of owning people.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Haha, you know that like only rich people owned slaves, right? A tiny minority of people. The first slave owner in the USA was black too XP. I think you're vastly exaggerating how many people in America are pining for the good old days of owning people, as if the civil war was only about slavery and every confederate was a mascot for the cotton fields. Every nation around the world has slavery in its history, the word itself derives from the enslavement of slavic eastern europeans. There are more slaves right now than there were a century ago, in the middle east and India primarily. By the time any european found out Africa was a thing, slavery was a trade between the Africans and Arabs for over 1000 years; the entire economy of Africa was reliant on capturing and selling people, Africans enslaving and selling Africans.

Let's get to brass tacks, the concept of systemic racism does not explain what is happening with black people in America. At most, most, it's a minor contributing factor. It also means that if you want to point it out you have to directly identify a specific policy and how it is doing what you claim it is doing. Just "systemic racism" is meaningless and it ignores all the policies put in place to make racism illegal and to advantage black people. It's not an explanation for the problems in the black demographics. I mean, you even dismissed the Nigerian American demographic on the grounds that they come from a supposedly very successful African nation, which means the alleged systemic racism in the USA is such a weak force it is negated just by being from somewhere that isn't a shithole.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Yes. But I also know that the bulk of southern culture was built up around the idea of the plantation. The idea of an 'inherent superiority'. It was stated flat out in the letters of many confederate states that their view of the black man being inherently inferior was a direct reason for their sucession.

Frankly I think it's stupid enough that people of the time were willing to fight so that the wealthy few could keep their slaves. Dumber still that their descendants keep the tradition up out of a sense of foolish pride. But they do, and any attempt to dissuade them tends to fall on deaf ears. Not helped by the massive amount of pro-confederate propaganda still fed in the class rooms and at the knees of grandparents in the southern US.

And yes, I'm sorry to tell you but systemic racism does explain the majority of what happens to black people here in the US. I've lived around those communities, even though I'm Irish enough to burst into flames when my feet hit the dunes near lake Michigan. I've volunteered in places where I saw the impact of it, I have families that work in those systems. These are about laws and systems deeply entrenched which put black Americans at a severe disadvantage. And many other minorities as well, though in different ways. It also ties heavily in to poverty or wealth. Wealthy black people often far less likely to be persecuted in such a way though it still does happen. Because the US is all about unregulated capitalism and money talks.

Again I have to go to work, but the idea that there is some other factor contributing to this is naive at best Especially since the only thing I've heard you mention is single parenthood and, well, sorry to say but it's just as big a thing among poor white people.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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You have nothing to substantiate this systemic racism as a cause beyond your anecdotes of things you have interpreted to be caused by the system. When you have an explanation that doesn't account for people's agency, decisions and actions, it is fundamentally broken. Simple as that.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Actualy I can provide quite a few studies and papers regarding this topic when I get off work. Probably going to be a lot of reading with all the ground covered but I think you will find it rather enlightening.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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You're assuming I haven't read about the subject. I used to believe what you believe for years. Again, when you don't account for people as having agency, the decisions they make, the actions they take, you aren't going to explain anything. There's also the fact that US society has changed a great deal since the days of segregation and the civil rights movement, yet this has not translated into huge improvements for black americans on the whole. The state of that demographic doesn't correlate with nationwide efforts to combat racism in the system, which is direct evidence that you can't explain what is happening with the concept of systemic racism. It's open and shut.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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If you think it's open and shut you either have not read or choose to ignore the data in question. If the former I'd like to give you a shot at re evaluating based on the data at hand. If the latter, well you can lead a raccoon to data...

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

Nah mate, it's just open and shut. That's why you don't have an argument against the points I make which clearly show a contradiction in your reasoning. Ideologue.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I wasn't aware I didn't have any answers. I thought I gave my views rather clearly, and that the ideologies themselves have some merit even if I find your application and treatment of details to be flawed.

Mole

5 years, 5 months ago

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My correction is wrong, a panel does not make a cartoon. Even Scott McCloud says so. I want to mention that because I prefer to be fair.

RoareyRaccoon wrote:

I think TerraMGP understood more than you do.  Which is why he felt the need to try to get you to understand.  And instead of engaging with his understanding of my words.... you dismissed it and only focused on what you thought i was getting at..   Then said me and him lack principles..... and that we have some shady goal where the ends justify the means..  I can only assume because in your own head space this is about principles where for us we're just telling you not to jump to conclusions -- because your principles requires a few assumptions.

And I know those assumptions is what lead to people who are anti bigot to destroy other people lives.  I think you're falling into the trap to just be on the other side.

I will say this.. I have paid attention to what you said to me, on how I don't place my cards on the table and you are forced to assume them.  You could treat me like a human being and ask me to show my hands.  I don't think that thought ever came to you, because initially you don't care what I actually think, you're happy with your own assumptions.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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You don't address what my cartoons say, other than this one, don't complain to me about not being addressed. I responded to what you said, not that other idiots interpretation of what you said. It isn't a valid argument to claim to me that my cartoons are too simplistic or my points are too simple because the issues are more complex. Why? Because the issues my toons raise are simple principles, they are not even an ATTEMPT to address the complexity of large issues. They are an attempt to hash out basic principles from which the complexity follows. People have the opportunity to question the principles my toons state, but you don't do that, you try to undermine me while stepping around the argument. Like with my cartoon about judging the efficacy of political systems by their empirical results, you chose to focus on the fact that it mentions Stalin. Like that's invalid, because it's a communist dictator and not a far right one.

You've claimed I dehumanise people when I don't, I criticise things people do and say what I think is morally repugnant. That doesn't change anyone's status as a human. I treat you as a human, with human motivations, which means you are subject to emotions just like everybody else. When you respond to an argument being made with something that sidesteps the argument, but still represents a criticism of the person making the argument, it tells me you don't like me. You have a problem with me and a problem with my cartoons. But the messages in my cartoons are things you haven't argued against. Meanwhile, you don't bother to mention how wrong this culture of censorship and ruining people for their opinions is. Instead, you tell me I am essentially being unfair to people who are doing horrible things to people just over what they've said, opinions they hold. That is a clear and naked bias in favour of those engaging in utterly disgusting conduct. I am not charitable towards people when they do wicked things that I would never do, because I have principles. You also claim the issue is far more complex and NEVER DEMONSTRATE THAT IT IS.

If you don't want me to assume anything about you, try not being sly.

Mole

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

Hmm.. let's work backwards

If I don't want you to make assumptions about me, how about being less shy?  The problem with this means you don't care about being objective.  Making assumption is to accept a truth or a thing without proof.  Even though you say you have principles, I don't think one of them is being honest.  This is how you form prejudices.  I already said multiple times your judgement is clouded by bias, I think you proven that point.  You don't care about the truth, you're happy confirming your own biases.  And if that's the case, you don't have the capability to be honest.

Still working backwards... I claim you dehumanize people when you don't.  If you bothered to read what I wrote I believe "If you take away all the context and lean into motives and generalization, then you're not longer thinking them as human"  To put it in your example... it's not about calling action good or bad, but understanding the circumstance on why they made those action.  You seemed more focus on me saying you dehumanized people then understood the context I said it.. which was sadly ironic.  There's nothing wrong with criticizing actions, but you also jumps to conclusion on why they made their action.. you will have a jaded understanding on their motives.

Though it seems your limited understanding is that you don't treat people like dogs and by the fact of them being human... you're not dehumanizing people.  There is another way of thinking about it... with the word _humane_.. when you dehumanize someone, it just means you rob them of any positive human quality.  It came down to me asking you to give people the benefit of the doubt and it's worth understanding them before making conclusions

I understand you don't like this culture.. I'm not going to say it's good or bad, but every issue is different.  I have confidence that there are a few victims who have their lives destroyed who don't deserve it and there are some who do what they got.  But I care to be objective and I'm not going to make assumptions and judge the culture as a whole because I believe it's complex.

In my experience victims of this culture are created when  people are 'shy' about their values.. I honestly believe the principle you're trying to construct.. ironically help justify the culture you dislike because that culture also dehumanize its victims.  You understand that culture can be bad, but the reason why it's bad is due to prejudices and not being humane to those who they gang up on.

Still working backwards You don't address what my cartoons say, I'm pretty sure I did.  I talk about how you came to those conclusions and how you might have used a few fallacies.

With your political system cartoon I said was based on bias and laziness because you wanted to talk about socialism.... I gave my summary on what it seem to me you were saying and I explained it's more complex than socialism vs capitalism... because Stalin and his system was in a dictatorship.. a dictatorship born from the failures of capitalism in Russia.   I believe only looking at the result of a system is avoiding critical thinking.  Intentions and the process should also matter.  Or better yet.. context matters.

With your Media/Activist, I made a few suggestion and gave a few thoughts.  I believe you would have done better to use the link between bigotry with the attitude to bigots... because it's a form of bigotry.  I believe you got triggered and was ready to engage in an argument.. when that really wasn't the point.   Though I will say I do believe your cartoon was a little..... Let's just say if you change the word to "the jews" it sounds off.  I didn't want to have a long debate on how you might be a bigot.. so I just went with a simple thought of giving people the benefit of the doubt.... because if we all did that, that super active culture wouldn't exist.

I don't think you're an honest actor... but I don't think you mean to be this way.

Mole

5 years, 5 months ago

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I did say a lot of shit and I'm pretty sure you will have a response that will reply to every little thing you find worthy of talking about while still missing the point I was making... I believe someone else explain it much better when it come to you and your own biases.

"	TerraMGP wrote:
	To put it simply, I think the main point Mole is trying to make is that these issues are not at all as simple as you seem to suggest, and that it would behoove you to take some time and examine the issues from other sides.

If you can do that, then you can go beyond your own prejudices and be objective. You won't need to try to argue assert you're being honest and actually be honest.

I don't know who you really are, so I don't have the ability to actually know what kind of person you are.. so I can't say if I like you or not. What I do know is I can see you make careless assumptions that can lead any reasonable person to think you're a crazy person who can't see past the end of their own nose.

Mole

5 years, 5 months ago

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If you decide to respond, because I won't blame you if you decide to just ignore me regardless of your reasons.. Hopefully somewhere in it you will say you do try to be objective and ignore biases. If it doesn't contain that notion, then I think you're only trying to score argument points to say you have more points so you must be right... which isn't being critical, but a poor internet-man's lazy way for self gratification.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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I am always honest about what I think and how I feel. I also know that you are defending people who are inhumane, vicious, malicious. People who want and make an effort to enact suffering on those who don't agree with their politics. You are more concerned about my treatment of them than you are their treatment of others. Well I don't name individual people and use my platform to ruin their lives. They do. You can tell much about people from what they don't say, inferences, not baseless assumptions. You're defending some of the most awful actors in public discourse, defending what they do, and are far more concerned with how my cartoons treat them. I'm not going to make excuses or allowances for immoral behaviour, because my principles apply to all people equally. I won't defend evil behaviour in a person because they share my political views, you do. That's your own revolting flaw to fix and I've been completely up-front and honest with you about my feelings on the matter.

Like you give a fuck about truth.

Mole

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

And your reply doesn't address the notion of you trying to be objective and seeing your own biases..And the rest of your comment is filled with assumptions that could easily be proven wrong if you bother to listen... or if you bother to want to know the truth.

Okay, you can't see past the end of your own nose. I'll accept that about you.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

Objective? About people being evil cunts, I am very objective. I don't pretend people doing horrible things aren't doing them. I'm less clouded by subjectivity than you are, easily. Now fuck off, charlatan. You will keep telling me I lack knowledge and objectivity, while you don't condemn the wickedness to which I refer. You don't touch the subject, because you know if you actually openly defended it you'd expose yourself. I'm right about how bad this behaviour is, dead right. And you know it.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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You and Mole can honestly drop the pretence that you are honest actors who have this deeper understanding of issues than I do. The reason I stick to core principles is because that is where the argument needs to begin. You can't build a palace on top of broken foundations without it collapsing, no matter how beautiful and ornate the palace is. Similarly, if you have lofty goals for society, outcomes you wish to see, but you break principles in order to get there, you will never get there. So if we can't agree on basic shit like "it's wrong to smear people as things they aren't to cut them out of the discussion" then we can't have effective discourse of any kind in the fucking first place.

Ignore all that though because it isn't being adequately sympathetic to the other side. Rubbish.They are the people making discussion impossible, because they do away with principles for a tactical advantage.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I wasn't aware that I was putting up any pretense.

That said, 'foundational' arguments and world views do have that problem. However they aren't the only views out there.

I am a technocrat. I live by systems. By cause and effect. By utilitarian outcome. And because I am a technocratic socialist that outcome is one that provides a balance of personal freedoms and social structures for as many people as possible, though the use of well designed systems. "Make sure everyone is ok" is my ethos, and that is the core principal on which I base all others.

Other people have different core values, and that's fine. though where that takes them should be carefully evaluated, and those ideologies rooted in things like irrational hate and xenophobia should be called out when applicable.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Make sure everyone is okay is not your ethos. That is why you are a dogmatic adherent to ideas that don't produce those effects. If it were your guiding principle you wouldn't be a socialist.

As for awareness of pretences, you should at least be aware now. You have responded in this thread initially to tell me that I have not considered the "other side", that my thinking is too narrow. The obvious implication is that you have considered what I haven't and are more aware of the reality than I am. The point ignores the purpose of the cartoons, which is not to get deeply entrenched in all the rhetoric on either side of a contentious issue but to try and get to the core principles which guide the issue in question. You and Mole don't address the core, you address other things, deliberately not engaging with what the cartoons actually say, only to tell me I'm failing to engage with the issue.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Of course I would. That's part of what socialism is about, at least in a vacuum. Unless you are confusing socialism with Communism or outright Stalinism.

As for the core of the issue addressed in the comic? To be frank all I can see is that you are defending the idea of these comics being simplistic, and having simplistic ideologies, It ultimately boils down to 'I think X is bad so I will state it'.

Which you know what? That's your right. and I'd gladly defend it even if I disagree with it.

You are trying to hold a view that removes the complexity from complex issues for the sake of a concise and clear world view. A naive proposition at best. But it is in fact your right and nobody should be able to take that from you. However if you are going to state a view on these issues then you should be prepared for people to go into that minutia. Because we are not obligated to ignore it simply because you wish to. Nor have you made any real case for ignoring such things being any more functional.

I think that's the main problem I have with this 'bloody simple' concept. It's not. Not in the slightest. So trying to simplify these things is only going to end up removing vital details and data for the sake of making things seem more clear.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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I'm not removing complexity from complex issues, I'm trying to call attention to how people can ignore or forget the underlying principles in an issue because they're so focused on the complexity of it. It is a categorical, basic fact that it doesn't matter how complex an issue is if the principles are being ignored for the sake of convenience. It makes issues all the more complicated, all the more messy and ultimately it isn't constructive at all. You can put as much minutia as you like into a discussion but if you're not following any set principles then the whole thing becomes about tactics and word games. It leads to a situation where the ends justify the means, because the means aren't guided by principles but by expediency.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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And what principals, pray tell, do you think are being ignored? Because I don't see any of my own principals being violated or ignored in any of this.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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In this particular discussion? None that I can see, but then we are speaking about the issue broadly and not just about this conversation, aren't we. When you respond to one of my cartoons that are about a principle, but you don't address the principle itself, but rather go on and on about some other shit, that is ignoring the principles. I mean, you could address them but you try to undermine me, discredit me, in other ways. So we end up in a fucking tens of thousands of words argument that has nothing to do with the cartoon itself. Haha.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I have to be frank, I don't recall any underlying 'principals' in your other cartoons at all. I just saw commentary on your specific view and stated my views. Principals are not an objective absolute. You have to lay yours out clearly and definitively if people are going to address them.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Need to look at them again then, don't you.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I think I need more than that. I get that they are talking points but I can't really figure out what your core ethos is with these aside from some insistence that free speech should be universal, which I actually largely agree with so long as it's not calling for violence. Though I agree with it because I think stupidity needs to be dragged into the light and beaten with logic and reason. I hold that ignorance, in particular willful ignorance, is the greatest evil. And free speech is not free reign to say what you wish without being opposed.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Yeah, they aren't all about one core ethos, they're individual principles I believe in. Calling them "talking points" just sidesteps them. Never argued against opposing speech either, free speech has never meant the absence of opposition. The opposition simply must be speech, and not violence, intimidation, censorship, prosecution, libel etc.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Sadly history has shown that at times the violence becomes inevetable, even if avoiding it should be the top priority. As I said my own core ethos includes 'making sure everyone is ok'. That includes people I don't like. Hell it has to. I don't like most people, myself very much included.

Even then, though, the comics really do read, and seem, like just talking points. No person is simple enough that their core philosophies and ideologies can be summed up so easily. Not really. There are always things underlying and underpinning. So to me, that's all they read as.

Hell, your second talking point is exactly why I am a technocratic socialist. I am more interested on the systemic than the ideological, at least for the most part. The idea that social systems should be built for function and built under the notion that as many people as possible should be provided a functional and at least somewhat comfortable baseline assured by the social contract. With others being able to build from that if they so choose.

But that stems back to dozens of things about my own world view. Ranging from my pragmatism and engineering background, to my autism giving me a preference for patterns and systems, to my upbringing where I was raised with the idea that there are no unworthy jobs simply people who may do a bad job. that any job has dignity so long as you put in your best effort.It's not really something I think could ever be reasonably compressed into a soundbite or, I guess, textbite.

For now though, speaking of work, I have to head to it. and unfortunately my phone hates IB and slows to a crawl. But I'd be happy to continue this discussion when I get home tonight.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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You can't begin to "make sure everyone is ok" without intricate social planning. Social planning is beyond the ability of people to manage, it always ends in failure. It also necessitates tyranny, since to ensure that people are ok means they can't be permitted to fuck up their own lives on account of making terrible or stupid decisions. Who is to be tasked with deciding how people should live so that everyone can be ok? Oops. Nah, sacrificing liberty for a vague top-down goal of meddling with peoples lives so the outcomes are what you think they ought to be is genocidal. That is why I say it isn't to do with making sure everyone is ok, because the people like you who believe in collectivist ideologies ignore all the eggs that get broken to make their omelettes and ignore that the omelettes are always shit.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Well that was a massive generalization. You are aware that all societies are based on social planning, yes? And naturally all have problems due to the human component. But that is why you continue to adjust them. Belting out DnD chaotic neutral "freedom" does not really work in the real world. You need to strike a balance between individual liberty and social structure. The truth is that you can't get what you are talking about without some flavor of anarchy and that requires everyone to be on the same page to work. And they just are not. Plus your talk of capitalism makes me wonder if you are an anarcap, which is a dead ideology from the getgo. Since capitalism requires a society to sustain it.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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No, it isn't a massive generalisation. Collectivist ideologies are social planning writ large. Capitalist economies, for example, aren't planned from the top, which is why stock markets are such a gamble, nobody knows what is going to be most in demand, what new goods and services are going to succeed etc. It is a vastly intricate web of people making individual financial decisions and nobody can control it to the degree that collectivist systems desire. Of course there is some degree of planning in all societies and capitalism requires regulations, protections and rules, but you're skipping over the point as usual. I'm not talking about all planning being a problem, I'm talking about ideologies that want to plan everything, such as "making sure everyone is ok". Socialism, for example, is guided by the core value that the means of production should be owned by the public. This doesn't mean individual people owning things, because that's what we already have. It means collective ownership. This requires administration, which directly leads to the control of production being in the hands of administrators. This leads directly to an administration that owns everything on behalf of the public. That administration then has to plan who gets what, how much is made, what is made, where it is made, how it is distributed, where it is sent, who does the making, who trains people to make it etc etc. Disaster. That is the social planning I was referring to and fuck you for ignoring it.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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First, capitalism is merely fetishizing the capitol-based economic structure. It has no real structure for governance on its own. He'll even a hack like me putting out shitty sci-fi cyberpunk nonsense realized that and had to put in the idea of corps creating the vineer of statehood to get people in line ideologically. Admittedly it's a trope stamped in everything from neuromancer to shadowrun in some degree. But it is that way for a reason. Capitalism is taking a tool designed to do one thing and insisting it can be the center social cog. It can't. Capitol is a fine tool. It really ism but it doesn't workon it's own. It demands other structures to be built upon or else it's nothing but people arbitrarily agreeing on barter 2.X with no real managing body to dictate anything about the rules of conduct

At this point it feels more like you are taking any system or systemic bits you like and sticking it under the "capitolism" umbrella. Which is a practice that thankfully died with the cold war. Social engineering is not the big scary "take your rights away" monster you seem to think it is and the problem, just like a market based on Capitol, is all a matter of degrees and implamentation.

I'm sorry but this is a gross misunderstanding of sociology and frankly anthropology you have going. You are looking at a crow bar and extoling it's architectural values. Yes, it's a fine tool for the job it does but it alone does not a house build.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Nothing there addresses my argument. I don't care to go over all the details of what capitalism is and isn't, I used it as an example of not planning something. I have never believed that capitalism is anything more than a basic view of economics, it will always require being embedded in a framework of actual substance. Anyway, I'm done with you, this is a worthless endeavour.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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That's your choice. I sincerely hope that you grow out of these views some day. But ultimately only you have agency there

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Only chance of that is catastrophic brain damage. I guess you believe I have agency because I'm not black XP.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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No. But I suspect you fixate on single parenthood due to your own personal issues, thus denying yourself a gread deal of agency and excusing it by claiming single parenthood is inherently harmful so that the agency you have surrendered is seen as "normal" and something you have "overcome. But then I just find it ironic you are ready to ignore factors negating agency when they are ones you have strong feelings twards.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

Nah, single parenthood is only one of the factors involved, one that makes a huge difference. Unlike systemic balderdash, which, as said before, is so weak that just coming from Nigeria can negate it. For me to believe that black Americans, aside from Nigerian migrants, are far more affected by a supposedly racist system that doesn't have the same effects for any other racial demographic, I'd have to believe that black Americans are inferior. I don't.

Teaching Black people their entire nation is holding them back is to tell them that they're fucked until society unfucks them. And there's no plan for how to do this, no method that has done anything. The attitude itself yields no positive results, the perspective is less than useless. Decades of concerted efforts to change laws, make racism illegal, give black Americans advantages, but nope systemic racism is still so bad it explains why blacks are in a bad place. So yeah, keep supporting the perpetuation of the helplessness of an entire race of people. It'll make the world a better place. There is literally nothing anyone can do that would take your horseshit excuse off the table, so you're as pointless as a seventh anus.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Actually, there is very much a set of plans and organizations in place specifically designed to un-fuck these systems. And they have been working full steam since the civil rights movement started. And made massive strides of progress.

It's not telling them "The system is holding you back so give up" It's telling them "The system is holding you back so help fix it."

If people then choose to take the path of least resistance that's on them. But that path is more likely to be one oriented in illicit behavior in a situation of poverty, and systemic racism has resulted in heavy systemic poverty among other things.

Single parennthood is frankly a non-issue by comparison.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Now that I am home, allow me to elaborate.

You're clearly going though some shit. Fine. I can respect that. But it seems that you are attempting to shift all the blame from very complex and difficult issues to one issue that you have, at least in part, overcome.

If I were to speculate, I'd guess that this is not deliberate and indeed is rationalization designed to cope with the fact that our society forces us to nonsensically measure ourselves against each other. Thus if systemic racism is a major factor and you, being white, are not likley to see systemic racism, it's a handicap you can't account for and thus anyone at your level who had to deal with that did 'more'.

Which is, naturally, bullshit Since what matters about each individual struggle is dealing with and overcoming the struggle itself. Not any sort of 'competition'. But because you mentioned you have issues with single parenthood and have thus attempted to rationalize it as the main reason behind black communities in the US having heavy poverty and crime rates, it seems to me more that you're trying to ignore the fact that these people come from a place with fewer advantages than you likely do.

But the thing is, your struggles are not less valid because of that. Whatever shit you've gone though, and I can only guess at that, that's not made less because other people have gone though more or different things.

I'm autistic. I'm guessing you are not. I have had struggles you likely have not. That doesn't make what you have been though less valid and honestly it'd be healthier overall if you'd come to terms with that. Instead of trying to write off things that you yourself may not have gone though and looking for some objective yard stick.

Because really there isn't one. It's a trap. It's a mind fuck. The only thing you can ever do is improve yourself, the only thing you can ever do is be a better you. And hopefully part of that can in turn help make the world less shitty and hellish.

That's all any of us can ever hope for.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Fuck off, you ignore every inconvenient argument and now you're talking about my personal problems and autism? You don't move the goalposts, you remove them entirely.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I'm not moving any goalposts. Or removing them. I am simply attempting to deduce the reason for your willful ignorance of things like systemic racism and irrational hangups on things like single parenthood. It would be easy, or 'bloody simple', I suppose to simply presume that you yourself were a racist. But I'm not going to assume that. I presume the reason for these blind spots have to do with personal catharsis, but not with any intentional malice built into it.

You talk about the idea of accepting systemic racism as fact being something that robs black people of agency. Really, it's not. The systemic racism itself robs or hinders their agency. Like any problem seeing the diagnosis is key in fixing it. Before you can fix X, you must accept that X exists, and understand it as well as you are able.

But the fact that X exists, in this case X being said systemic racism, can often make others feel uncomfy and try to reject it. Because it means every person doing 'as well' who falls into a catagory covered by X has somehow done more' and 'come farther'. A sad, sick byproduct of our cultural obsession with dick measuring.

As I have said before, my core goal, my core ethos, is reducing suffering. And agonizing over BS like that causes a ton of needless human suffering in the world. So if it helps make my point and further helps remove some of the incentivve to ignore social problems like systemic racism it seems only logical to remove this idea that we as a society need to measure ourselves off of others.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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I do not ignore systemic racism, I require it to be identified, proven, clearly. I will not grant its degree of impact, which you claim is the most significant explanation for the state of black americans, simply because you claim it is. I say you move goalposts because you bring up so much shit that is miles away from where the discussion starts. What you said previously about evolutionary psychology I am actually willing to grant, since it is so contentious a thing, so fine, lets ignore it. Take evolutionary off the front and look at psychology, child development in particular. If you want to dismiss the impact of most of a population lacking fathers, the burden is upon you to back up that assertion, and not slip out of it by saying you simply cannot prove a negative. Don't make ludicrous assertions about the importance of fatherhood if you have absolutely nothing to back yourself up.

It is a basic fact that there is close correlation in every society measured with single parent families and a whole host of social ills. As a socialist I am sure you will agree to poverty being of huge importance when assessing opportunities and the likelihood of negative outcomes like criminality, teen pregnancy, poor progress in education, likelihood of ending up in jail. Well there are few greater influences on the income of a household than supporting children with only one adult providing that income. Children are an immense investment financially, so the more children one has, the greater the financial cost. One parent doing this alone is at an incredible disadvantage. Now look at the black community in the USA, where three quarters of households with children have only one parent. Can you truly not see how this contributes to poverty and thus to all the other trappings of living under such circumstances?

Institutional racism is not something I am giving credence to because it only applies to black Americans, despite there being very many successful blacks in America, as well as Nigerians. You can't just dismiss Nigerians, by the way, because they come from a country that isn't fucked. A racist system that is so powerful it literally keeps blacks in the USA down on the floor is not going to let Nigerians off the hook. It would fuck them too. Whose racism is it? Whites? The other racial groups do far better than the black Americans you are focusing on, which makes no sense in a racist system. All these points crush your argument utterly, you cannot get around them.

As for robbing agency, let me explain. The proposition that social systems and institutions are the most significant factor responsible for the outcomes of black lives brings with it assumptions that must also be true. One of those is that the choices black people make in what they do with their lives cannot be significant. When you claim that people's behaviour has little to do with how their lives turn out, you are by necessity saying they lack agency over their own lives. They are not actors in the world but acted upon. Both are true, we are actors and acted upon by the world. The world around us, our biology, extent of free will, institutions, experience, social environment etc. If you want to pick one factor as being so important it explains how a population fares better than anything else, you have to demonstrate that. I made the argument several times that if it is true that systemic racism has such an impact, one would at the very least expect to see a correlation between rising social ills and rising degrees of systemic racism. Since they have a causal relationship, it must be so. This proposition has consequences, one of which is that, if true, it must also be true that systemic anti-black racism in the USA is worse now than it was during Jim Crow. Nobody, nobody, can make that argument, it simply is not true.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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I also gave you examples of how people oppressed in explicit laws and policies, like Chinese in Malaysia, don't have the effect they were even designed to have. So that is yet another fact that contradicts your narrative, which you have no explanation for.

You are simply wrong.

Oh and one more thing, don't accuse me of not being educated on this subject. I've read very lengthy volumes on it. Lectures by the dozens. I know exactly what I'm talking about.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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You gave one example which I have yet to give full due diligence. As such it's impossible to comment on, but I will when things settle and I can do proper research.

Also I never once said that it only affects black people, let alone black people in the US. I simply focused on using examples from the US because that is where I am from. It's just the most notable and easiest for most people to deal with sans research.

But since you seem to want it explained, let's do this.

Let us start with the First Nation peoples right off the bat, shall we? Now the amount of documented evidence as to past transgressions is overwealming. Military actions, genocide, over 500 treaties. But let's just concentrate on recent events.

The reservations these tribes have been left with is sovereign land in most cases. It's theirs. Based on treaties and legally binding. Yet not only are these treaties broken with utter impunity, but after recent protests against pipelines which ran the risk of contaminating the local water supply for some of these reservations should they leak (and guess what, there have been leaks) states are now passing laws to stop these protests by making them a major crime, as seen here

Even ignoring the past history of this behavior, and ignoring the fact that in the past these treaties have been little more than toilet paper, you now have a situation where the people of these nations and their supporters can be arrested for trying to prevent pipeline routes which could render their sovereign land unlivable. Something which did not occur until the DAPL, and something which, while ignored in the past, has NEVER become a felony. A very clear violation of free speech broguht up after the most recent case of First Nation peoples trying to defend what little they have left. Now if you want I'll be happy to name some books on the subject, but just at a surface glance are you going to tell me this isn't a deliberate disregard for the well-being of others based on the idea that their nations and treaties are nothing more than some pandering show?

Oh, or let's take the treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia, lest you think that it's all about the black peoples here in the US. Children frequently stolen and put up for adoption to get 'proper' educations free of the culture of these peoples. What lands they were left with stolen for nuclear testing. A complete refusal of the Australian Govenrment to do anything about the total lack of infrastructure these people have been left with after everything was stolen from them. And this isn't some far off past tragedy. This was happening in force only a few decades ago and may well still be going on at some level today. Again, I'm more familiar with the US so Australians who know please do chime in.

Then we have the people fleeing here to the US from Central and South America. The nightmares going on in the news are pretty obvious, sure. I'd hope I don't have to give details about that though if I must I'll nab some articles. It does once again involve stolen children though, so yay.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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But the thing is that these people have been exploited in one form or another since at least the fifties and likely before. People would come up here because of the exchange rate to work, and yes before the US created a massive refugee crisis in the 80s you could claim that it was more justified to punish that kind of behavior. But if you look at the statistics, those who do the illegal hiring almost never get properly punished. From farmers to upper middle class hipsters looking for cheap home renovation. They don't get more than a slap on the wrist most times. But the peopel who come over here get arrested, held without trial or bail for long periods then sent back or prosecuted in a shocking violation of the US judicial system.

And that's before we get into just the more banal examples, or other major ones.

But let me ask you something. Do you honestly think everyone has a 'fair shot' with the systems in place?

School funding in the US is based on the income of an area. Black Americans in the 60s were denied the loans needed to move out of cities and into suburbs, and as such they and their descendants were trapped in dying/dead cities as time went on. This is not speculation. It's known fact. They were denied because realtors used the racism of clients to make money by offering a kind of unofficial return to segregation. Something that still has impact today since many communities tend to be largely black or white based on who lived there 40-50 years ago.

As a result those black people in those areas have less access to proper education. Less access to jobs. Often times far worse public works in place. They are at a general disadvantage and kept in poverty. And the thing about poverty in the US? It's very hard to escape.

our system in the US keeps anyone who is poor in poverty unless something very extraordinary happens. Because the stopgaps needed to survive when you are poor cost more. Because things like rent and utilities not only take up a larger portion of your income, but companies are more likely to stick you with fees to eat up the remainder because they know you don't have the options to fight it. And this part isn't just about black people. Anyone in poverty in the US faces these issues. Hence why gangs form, and form from every race, even white people. The only difference is that because white people are more often in small towns or rural areas the gang culture is different, labeled differently (often either informal or tied up in things like biker gang culture) and people are less likely to arrest them over it because more of our police force is put into these urban areas, because of the racist presumption that black people commit more crimes. A statistic falsely padded by the fact that black people are targeted, arrested, and convicted. As can be seen here and Here

Like it or not, there are biases in place. And in many cases it's written into the law or built into the systems people use to run and operate businesses... and the tragic part is that often times the people who help enact those policies aren't even aware that is the case. Because nobody writes in 'keep the blacks from making money' when they write these kinds of laws or policies. But the effect is clear all the same upon examination.

That's what I have been trying to communicate to you. There is heavy evidence for systemic racism, not just against black people and not just in the US. It's real. It's a thing. And there is no advantage to ignoring it for any reason.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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First off, can't blame history for everything. Every ethnic group on planet earth has histories filled with suffering, death, exploitation, slavery, stolen territory etc etc. Doesn't mean jack shit compared to what people have done since to better their own lives and build up wealth through their own actions. Everything you've written there rests on the proposition that past deprivation dictates future accomplishments, generations down the line. You cannot say something MORE racist than claiming some of these races can't build themselves up, don't have agency in their own lives and can't make their own choices. You have to believe that to think your spiel about a painful past makes any sense. Suffering is ubiquitous. Where do we find success? We find it alongside ways people live. If you don't have kids until you can support them, have a stable partnership, work hard, save, keep the money in the family and make sure you and/or your kids study their asses off, that is a recipe for success. Even kids born into wealth can only be so because someone in their family earned it. We don't have aristocrats anymore.

What you're doing is looking backwards and saying that's why people of certain racial or ethnic groups are fucked. There is no future in that, no hope, no choices. Do your choices not affect your life? Think of everyone you have ever known, do they not get to decide how they respond to circumstance or make decisions? Life isn't just this huge array of conveyor belts and whatever belt you get placed on at the start is the one you remain on for life.

You mentioned Aborigines there, well do you know how high the domestic violence rates, alcoholism and child abuse statistics are among that demographic? It's frightening. Australian society doesn't encourage that, doesn't force that, doesn't fucking produce that. But it will never be addressed because people with mindsets like yours consider it racist or irrelevant to focus on what these people are CHOOSING TO DO with their own lives. It's always someone elses fault, meaning white people. Meaning NOT the people DOING the shitty things. So we get to the point where like 8% of US society, black males under 40, commits and is the victim of over HALF of all homicide in the country and it has nothing to do with how they're behaving but rather systemic racism. Bollocks. Utter bollocks. Whites are well over twice as likely to be assaulted and killed by a black American than the other way around. Nobody cares.

You might think you're being kind and understanding by not holding people you think of as particularly disenfranchised accountable for their actions. You aren't. You're saying they aren't as good as you, aren't as capable as you, can't make decisions like you. And you have to ignore everyone from that demographic who lives a good life and does well, through their own efforts.

I am not going to listen to any more of your bigoted, ridiculous piss.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Except in every case of improvement it started with systemic repair.

Ireland has grown by leaps and bounds but the first step was getting out from under the british crown. Because even in the 80s things were shit and they were facing some level of discrimination and oppression. This does not justify the actions of the IRA, but they are one of many examples of people who are doing well now but had to overcome that damage and systemic oppression.

That's what it feels you fail to grasp. People don't just magically 'move on past' things. There has to be repair. Hell Africa is a great example. The colonial powers pulled out of Africa with little effort to help them transition after centuries of oppression and abuse. Including systemic racism (and before you try to say otherwise... South Africa.)

The nations which do better are the ones which establish functional systems in the wake of said oppression, but it doesn't stop until the oppressive factors are gone. regardless of race, ethnicity or anything else.

I am not saying that people 'can't move forwards BECAUSE of systemic racism'. I'm saying that to move forward, systemic racism and these systes in play need to be fixed. I'm not fixating on the past, I'm observing the past and the things done in the past because they have an impact on the present. I am troubleshooting. That's how you fix problems in systems. You look at what is broken, ask why it's broken, and trace the line of broken parts back to the start. Then begin repairs.

As for your example of the Jewish people? I can think of quite a few. Hell most First Nation peoples. Many tribes were wiped out and many more are barely numbering in the thousands or less. Or you could look at the Armenians, or really any other target of ethnic genocide or attempted genocide.

Which agian, does not downplay the horror of what the Jewish people have been though. But the truth is? Israel was a guilt fueled mistake. Or rather how they did it was a mistake. Not because the Jewish people are inherently bad as many people assert when such a thing is said. But part of the reason Israel is doing so well is because the nations of the world feeling rightly guilty for allowing the mass murder and antisematism to continue decided to set them up wtih their own nation, then stupidly drove other people out of the land they wanted to give the to-be Israli people and looked the other way as genocidal racist/jingoistic monsters like Bibi got power and used it to try and create an ethnostate.

But that doesn't mean 'the Jewish people' are all doing better. Israel is sitting in an odd position because the world looks the other way and the hardline theocratic leadership ignores the growing outcry from its population for peace over continued bloodshed. But there are still plenty of poor and middle class Jewish people out there. It's not the stereotype we think of as often but they do exist. The only big difference is that people have been more overt in combating systemic racism directed at them because of the horrors of the holocost while crimes against other ethnic groups were ignored because I guess the trail of tears isn't quite as visceral in the minds of modern people.

Even then there was some documented pushback against Jewish people even in the 80s and 90s in some regions. It is simply considered less 'acceptable'. That coupled with a larger degree of generational wealth and a few other factors has ensured that the systems in play don't end up having the same racial bias... anymore. At least not to the same extent. Which isn't to say Jewish people mired in poverty are any less fucked.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I'm sorry but that whataboutism doesn't really work. Because you're comparing two different groups and two very different sets of events and trying to make it apples to apples. But it's not. Not because the people are different but because of the known racist views of the past still categorizing them as two different groups, thus the prejudice and abuses in quesiton are different and require different solutions.

It's like talking about 'fixing a car'. All cars are inherently the same, but the systems that make the work are different and as such the solutions to fixing what may be the same problem will have different factors and possibly require very different actions. Even if the desired outcome of 'function' is the same. Because all humans are equal, but the idiots who designed the systems we now inhabit sadly didn't seem to get the memo.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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It does work, actually, because success follows patterns of behaviour, not historical oppression, that's what your ideology does not account for. You sow nothing but failure and defeatism, pretend that the most successful demographics in the west are defined by their richest and most cruel members (the vast majority of all members of every race and ethnicity have been in abject poverty for almost the entirety of human history up until the past few decades). Nobody improves their lives by buying your poison, they end up crippled by it. It poisoned me once and it poisons you. This is my last response to you, because this exchange is the longest I've ever had and it has also been the biggest waste of my time in over a decade of online conversations. Your religion is impenetrable to common sense, to the world that surrounds you. Human beings making human choices that affect their lives. There's nothing human in your worldview, people are mechanistic, and there is nothing more foul.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Success absolutely does NOT follow patterns of behavior. Unless you count the advantage our society gives to general sociopathy.

Lucky idiots and those benefiting though nepotism are at least as likely to 'succeed' in our society and rarely does it matter how hard you work, but rather who you know and what breaks you get.

The idea that 'good' behavior leads to good results is one of the biggest lies out there. Yes, it's possible for an ethical person to succeed. But the deck is stacked in favor of the unethical because they have no consequence for it, and in favor of the scions of those who have succeeded because people would rather help 'their own'. Even if their friends and family are woefully unqualified.

And that will never change. We can only work to make things a bit better. To knock off the jankier edges and make sure such a broken and exploitative system does not fuck over the general population too badly.

However, never for a moment think that hard work or 'good behavior patterns' have anything to do with success in life. The only people telling you that are the guys like Jordon Peterson looking to sell something.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Also, I want to address your specific point on the idea of tehse systems robbing people of agency.

As much as we all hate to admit it, yes. Our choices matter very little. We have agency, we have choices. But often times those are only choices between a few very poor things. And it's not at all just black people or people in America or anything like that. As much as our society loves itself some inspiration porn the truth is that we can only react to what the rest of reality puts in front of us. Our choices do affect things, but that affect will only go so far.

I realize that's not a popular opinion or a comfortable one. We all like to think we are masters of our own destiny. But really we're just not.

Poor people in the US, regardless of skin color, often have to choose between a job that barely pays enough to survive, or doesn't pay enough to survive without making choices and compromises that have horrible long term conciqunces... or outright starvation. The wealthy business owners like to say 'you can choose not to work here' while underpaying people, but the choice doesn't really exist. It's work at a bad place for less than one needs, or starve outright. Which again isn't a racial' problem. Granted it affects black people a bit more disproportionately due to the things I have mentioned before but one inf five people in the US if not more live below the poverty line. huge swaths of the rural south are akin to a third world nation.

Our choices matter, but only so much. And often that's because the systems are designed be it intentionally or unintentionally to remove that agency from the poor or people with disabilities or the like.

And the only way around that is to repair the social systems. Make them better. Make them more functional. That's socialism. That's unions and standardized health care and equitable laws, and equitable law enforcement.

Ignoring that because you don't enjoy the implications of society not giving everyone agency would be like ignoring a finger that got cut off rather than going to the hospital. It's an understandable kneejerk reaction, but it's not helpful.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

The opposite is true. Tell that to Jews. There are under 15 million Jews in the world. There is no demographic I can think of that has been persecuted for longer, with like half of all of them being murdered in the 1940s. Yet they're amazing, they're successful in so many different markets, countries, careers, that it's unbelievable. They've won like a third of all the nobel prizes for science. What do Jewish people do to be successful? They keep wealth in the family, work really hard, value education, have kids when they can support them and they never, ever, give up.

Everywhere we find successful people you will find those values. Every time. Your ideology looks at the heroic achievement of human struggle and pisses in its face, reducing it to societal determinism. Fuck that.

C1de

5 years, 5 months ago

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Edited 5 years, 5 months ago by Owner

"I have had struggles you likely have not"
I'm autistic. I'm guessing you are not.
😂
at least now I know why nobody got to the point.
not to pick sides, just you.

Eyes

5 years, 5 months ago

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my god that thread
...
more or less "if you don't like it fuck off you colonizing bigoted piece if shit white boy" just throw leftist language back at them when you lose your cool

SerathDuo

5 years, 5 months ago

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I may or may not agree with your opinions but I will fight for your right to have them.

joelfeila

5 years, 5 months ago

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One thing you said seem to go like this "You can't  be a utilitarian and have principals".  But isn't that ethical system based on the principal of the greatest good for the greatest number.

Also what good are the principals with a goal.  If you have the principal that all people are equal and should have a say in what the government does.  Well that all fine and good but just talking about principals  doesn't do any thing to enact it.  That the problem I have with virtue based ethics you can break anything down to a core value/principal/virtue.  Example "life is sacred" that would be a principal, but with that you just then justify executing serial since they present a danger to living humans.  Or you say that capital punishment is wrong because criminal are alive and that life is sacred.

Also systemic racism does not mean that the majority of people are racist.  What i mean is that there are elements to that are.  Example every real estate agent that decides not to show certain house to a couple because "they won't fit in".  Or manager not hiring people with exotic names.  It is called systemic racism because it through out the system not it has consumed the whole system.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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@ joelfeila

I don't think principles are the be all and end all of matters, that would be absurd. What I'm trying to do with these toons isn't to insist that there are only principles, but to point out when principles are forgotten in favour of tactics. How many people would agree to the general principle that it is acceptable to commit assault against people just because you disagree with them politically? Or it is okay for whomever has the most power to lie about, ruin the reputations of and silence those they disagree with? But people will ignore these questions because it feels good for their "side" to gain ground. There is no system of ethics that can ever be sustainable without firm principles which aren't to be violated. When people violate the things we rely on for the stability of our very civilisation, simply because it is politically expedient, they risk the ruination of everything we have.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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I'd argue that kind of dogma in and of itself is dangerous.

Me? I abhor violence. It is not a functional tactic for changing hearts and minds. But if a group of people massed against myself and others with the threat of violence for existing, I'd at least defend myself.

Here's the thing, life is messy. Our options do not always permit us to view the world in black and white that way. I do think having a solid guiding ethos is more important because of that. But it can't devolve into dogma.

I've been playing the Valkyria Chronacles games lately. Fun games, would recommend. Sort of an anime JRPG retelling of WW2. And in one of the games (Spoilers) They deal with the notion of WMDs.

Now the actual bombs dropped on Japan were not the only possible option. Those bombs did kill many innocent men, women and children. It's something I try not to think about too much when it's not relevant simply because of how disturbing every fascet of that event was

But the truth is? It kinda needed to happen. And it likely saved more lives in the long run.

Does that make it morally right? Absolutely not. It was a disgusting nightmare unleashed on the world. But sometimes those are the only options you have. And part of dealing wiht adulthood is accepting that sadly, those are sometimes the only choices that can exist.

BUT, that it should be our goal to minimize the need for such choices.

Focusing on the outcome is not bad so long as you keep a clear picture of what the outcome is. It's easy to lose your humanity in the details of 'ends justify the means'. But just as much it's easy to lose yourself in the idea that your principals will lead to the outcome that is best for everyone. Or will somehow justify the suffering they inadvertently inflict. Both choices have the potential for disastrous outcomes and massive human suffering. Which is why I'd argue it's more vital to have in mind a desire to improve. To help. To make better. Principals need to be tested and challenged, constantly tempered, and yes in some grave cases some may have to set them to the side. But it should never come easy and never be ignored when a horrible act is taken for a 'good cause'.

That's the hard truth of life. We as a species like order. We like streamlined ideas and easy answers. The universe has none. It's hard and brutal and short and all you get out of it is oblivion. The only way to make it out the other side doing more good than harm is to keep your eye on the end goal of aid and help and easing suffering. Far more than sticking to any false absolutes.

joelfeila

5 years, 5 months ago

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But what happens when those actions they take are inline with those principals.  If someone has the principal of "White nationalism can not be allowed in society".  Then it follows punching neonazis would be a good thing.  People on the left have principals it just really all human action follows from principals.

There was a Ted talk I saw where they look at many different religions, cultures, countries ect.  They arrived at 3 core values that pretty everyone follows and two that is rather consistent along left/right ideology.  The 2 that fell along political lines was compassion for the left and loyalty for the right.  When ever someone acts for a reason that reason is a principal.  If they keep changing their principals that just mean they follows the principal of moral particularism.
here is the clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOQduoLgRw

Side note in a previous post  you said TerraMGP was moving the goal post by bringing up a lot of other side points. That would be a Gish gallop or what aboutism depending on how much time they spent bringing them up.

RoareyRaccoon

5 years, 5 months ago

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@ joelfeila

There are principles which make society a better place and one's that make it worse. Punching people for their beliefs contravenes the idea of freedom of speech. If there is a setup whereby certain ideas cannot be spoken, then that automatically means that power decides what can be said. If you can't criticise the powerful, you have a dictatorship. So anyone calling for censorship of any ideas, for violence towards any ideas, is a totalitarian cretin. I don't want to live in a dictatorship where someone else decides what I can think and talk about, so I hold to the principle of free speech. Very basic stuff.

TerraMGP

5 years, 5 months ago

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Which is the biggest flaw. It's basic. Life is not basic, and to be blunt that kind of dogma falls apart easily under pressure. Because it leaves you little room to adapt

joelfeila

5 years, 5 months ago

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