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  • "if you gave Jerry Falwell Jimmy Swaggart an enema you could bury him in a matchbox." - Christopher Hitchens (would have said RIP)

  • Absolutely. My post was just about how kids begin with a DEI mindset and that gets removed from them. What you're talking about is reinforcing the normal, especially for those kids in bad environments. The issue then becomes the schools not having the backing to fight the eventual angry parents and their lawyers because their child is being shown that their parents are wrong. Schools used to be able to push back, but they bend over at anything now for fear of lawsuits and/or funding cut and jobs lost.

    Education is one of the most critical careers we have, and yet it's underpaid and attacked constantly for doing their job.

  • It's worse than that. Kids aren't born into this world racist, sexist, and hating, they get taught that either from exposure to it or directly. Of course they see other kids are different to them, but they're fine with that until adults teach them otherwise.

  • Ask someone who is supporting all this anti-DEI stuff what DEI stands for. They either won't have a clue, or if they do, you've found yourself a bigot who is find with oppressing others.

  • "Sitting on top" is a brilliant way to display that.

  • Indeed. We might have gone that way. Lots of larger cities had rail for their public transit, but the car industry got that removed for obvious reasons.

  • 1 in 6000 chance for an American nickel, which has a thicker side than most. Just for others sake. I felt it was far less than just <1% and had to find out.

  • Having grown up along with the computer industry, sometimes I have that surreal sense of awe when I remember where we came from and what I used to consider cutting edge. Just upgraded my computer with a few SSDs, one an M.2, and before I put it in I was looking at it and trying to come to grasp with the scale of things (size and speed) vs. my first C-64 computer and Datasette. I know the numbers...they don't convey the difference in the head.

  • Clearly not, since we're still at this point. I was hypothesizing an improvement.

  • Individual creatures do have their own traits that make them differ from the rest. They aren't robots following the exact same instruction for every stimulus. That being said, personality implies a sense of agency or self-awareness, and I don't think they have that. Humans have a built in desire to anthropomorphize anything that begins to resemble something human-like, it's in our brain.

  • Sure. After removing yourself from the conditions. My guess is that either this meme's suggestion is exactly what's happening, or rather she is barely aware of things and the paramedic is asking if she can find a number on her phone for them to call a loved one. Had to do that at work once with someone who had a seizure and couldn't stay conscious long enough to call themselves.

    As bad as the smartphone is for other reasons, it's wonderful for being there as a contact tool when you need it.

  • An excuse I've heard is that it is society's way of passing the final judgement to God. Hence the "may God have mercy on your soul" line. Not only does that assume the existence of said judgement and entity to do it, by said deity's clock that judgement doesn't have to be so rushed, it can wait until a natural death. The reason reason is to satisfy the desire of revenge, but even that doesn't work, as killing the killer doesn't bring back anyone.

    Death penalty in a modern society is insane. Addressing the problems that lead to such behaviors is the long term fix, not killing who does it.

  • That money goes straight back to Treasury.

    There it is. "Why are they doing this?" Right there.

  • Random drunk walk is sometimes successful in the results. The bonus is that it also prevents some malevolent actions from succeeding.

  • Been with several companies that have the first part in their policy. It makes sense to avoid, or at best minimize an external influencing factor in company activities. Basically they don't want to mess with lawsuits. That's what company policy is for, protect the company.

    The rest is owner greed. He doesn't want the gifts to stop, he wants them all without doing anything to get them. Either enforce a 'no gifts, period' policy or let people do what they will.

  • There were a few moments in the Marvel Universe. Spider-Man even had his first movie based off the common man and results of super hero actions to create new baddies. But the one that stands out to me is in Iron Man 3, where Tony is going to fire on one of the bad guys in the compound and the guy throws down his gun and says, "Honestly, I hate working here. They are so weird."

  • Your points illustrate why other means besides cameras should be also used, as well as why the human brain's ability to filter or even ignore things is a bonus to our driving ability. Or a detriment. People who power through bad weather or sun glare or any other obstacles that obscure them seeing well and manage to get through aren't greater than the computer driver, they're just lucky. Same can be said for all the people driving while on the phone, they aren't skilled in multitasking while moving hundreds of feet per second, they just happen to have it clear 99% of the time so think they're that good.

    The main point was that computers need all the information they can get to compete with humans, but they also have the ability to get data we cannot, and it's stupid to not give them that ability because of some desire to simulate the full (read that as limited) human experience. Humans deal with less info all the time, but that doesn't make them better.

  • Benevolent dictators almost always happen only in fiction, and they don't last. I guess you can get some that do a few good things while being bad overall.