>"My dad's from Mexico," one of them tells me. The others point out minorities and gay men in the group. "It's so funny having a white antifa guy call me racist."
This is why The Proud Boys are not really taken seriously by the far right. Though their actions this week have demonstrated some degree of maturity, they have a record of clownish behaviour and degeneracy at times (eg. McInnes dildo incident).
I would say "just ignore them" but their impotence is exactly why the media will continue to report on them - they're a safe, harmless boogeyman to represent the right, with a habit of providing opportunities for mockery.
(And I'm shadow banned again? Sorry, dang, but if you don't want me to make new accounts it needs to stop...)
If they're anything like the "journalists" we might see on Twitter, I have a hard time believing they're dignified people covering these events in a professional manner. I see a lot of hyperemotionality, hero-of-the-people complexes, and instigation of conflict and controversy among these types. I'm sure it is a significant boost to their cred to be arrested, especially under the current administration.
FBI crime stats are a great source. For example, of murders in 2019, "Black or African American" accounted for 51% of murderers of known race (despite just 13.4% of the general population being black).
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
Less formally, and I'm quite serious, if you have the stomach for it I encourage you to explore the types of websites that inadvertently document these trends through amateur video (WorldStarHipHop being the classic example, but there are more confronting ones).
I find I'm usually shadowbanned after every comment or two, that's the only reason I make new accounts. I would prefer not to have to do that too.
I could pick an identifiable 'username' for my next account and increment a counter for each subsequent one (eg. PickledLlama001, PickledLlama002, etc), if that works?
There's also the significant disparity in criminality across races, as many other Western countries are discovering the hard way now too with the recent acute increase in diversity.
Sociologists can argue until they're blue in the face about why that is (and I'm sure everyone reading this has their view) but it's a fact of which the Norwegians perhaps have the privilege of relative ignorance compared to the historically diverse USA.
You'd need a lot of badges to offset my opinion of this.
It's so patronising, I would feel awkward directing this rubbish to 5 year olds. I don't want to believe there are adults out there who wouldn't be embarrassed to find themselves the target of such infantilising, pointless tripe. Could you imagine your great grandfather being motivated by a colourful little auto-generated banner?
Also you're unlikely to see the owner, they certainly won't be inside with you, you can leave any time, you're likely to be with others, and they can't change your location.
Contrast that with an intoxicated young woman climbing alone into a stranger's car where he has a lot of control - including being able to lock the doors or take her to a remote/unfamiliar location. Even with all the checks and measures in place, assaults are not uncommon; I'm not familiar with any AirBnB type assaults (far more frequently, it's the guests victimising the owner via property damage).
There are an awful lot of "normal people" who want an ethnically homogeneous, harmonious home for their children, while those advocating abortion, transsexuality, homosexuality, childhood sex education, etc are the epitome of evil "hate groups".
Implying that this is a black-and-white issue or that the current status is objectively superior is disingenuous or ignorant.
Fifty years ago it would have been unthinkable that the fringe groups being violently censored and oppressed would now be in power. Where might we be fifty years from now...
Maybe it's just a series of clickbait junk targeting popular apps so that the many happy users of those apps give him plenty of interactions. I bet he's watching the metrics right now.
The fact that Telegram isn't enthusiastically censoring everyone who even looks like they might have the wrong opinion is what makes it such a unique treasure. Feature, not bug.
It's not 1% of them though. It's 0%. None of them are getting off the couch to kill anyone because their video game release is delayed.
It's an expression of frustration, and we all know that. Unfortunately in today's world, feeling threatened is socially valuable so they're simply playing on that. It says more to me about the disingenuity and/or weakness of the "victim" than anything else.
It's invaluable if you are involved in grey/black market trade. I was briefly involved in a legal-yet-taboo industry years ago, and being able to instantly receive private payments from people on the other side of the world without permission from anyone (indeed, while payment processors were limiting and closing my accounts) was phenomenal. It made sense then.
In fact I became a bit of a Bitcoin evangelist in my circles, especially as it aligned with my then-libertarian worldview. (However, the questionable leadership of the core Bitcoin fork has mostly eroded that enthusiasm over time.)
Now, as a regular taxpayer, Bitcoin makes no sense to me either. And I say that as a fortunate person with a significant stake, and a retirement fund increasingly grateful to all the dumb money being poured into it.
Its popularity and exchange rate is not a function of its utility, but rather an indication of a disillusioned and frustrated middle class looking anywhere for financial relief. Cryptocurrency is lottery tickets for people who consider themselves too clever to buy lottery tickets. (Especially all of the new, more volatile cryptocurrencies popping up each day.) Governments would be well-advised not to deprive their taxpayers of this distracting fantasy.
You'll know when you need it. Until then, if you want to take a gamble at timing your exit better than the next guy, thanks very much.
My respect to the author for this careful and courageous article. Writing about the problems affecting working class white men in today's climate might warrant censure in some circles.
To the matter at hand, one of my concerns is that the Sackler family will enjoy long, peaceful lives. I hope justice intervenes.
I agree. Let's not inject people with experimental vaccines rushed to market under significant political pressure. Let's not pressure strangers' decisions either way.
Far more money in this career path. I've made more some days writing junk code than I ever made in a year in a lab. It's easy to see why some scientists might be incentivised by external factors...
Being on the periphery of groups you'd likely describe as "conspiracy theorists", practically all of this is strawmanning.
This has become more of a political issue than a scientific issue. I saw a video of a doctor(?) streaming a video alone in his own home in Germany, when armed police stormed his home and arrested him for objecting to the narrative. That's not science. Anyway, can we really blame the common man for distrusting "science" when so much of it has become a shallow tool for political/social activism in recent years?
Nobody is refusing vaccines without reason. That you think it is without reason is either disingenuous or uninformed. And I'd add that the idea that people should accept an injection simply because they can't present a satisfactory reason for refusal is pernicious. The burden is not on them.
There are some who believe in wide scale fraud without evidence, I suppose, but that's a small minority. Most are simply unsatisfied by the evidence in favour, and sensibly don't take the prospect of a mysterious injection lightly. Regardless, I would argue there are far more people who believe in large scale competent benevolence with no evidence (or even evidence to the contrary).
This is why The Proud Boys are not really taken seriously by the far right. Though their actions this week have demonstrated some degree of maturity, they have a record of clownish behaviour and degeneracy at times (eg. McInnes dildo incident).
I would say "just ignore them" but their impotence is exactly why the media will continue to report on them - they're a safe, harmless boogeyman to represent the right, with a habit of providing opportunities for mockery.
(And I'm shadow banned again? Sorry, dang, but if you don't want me to make new accounts it needs to stop...)