Isn’t that how fascism always works though? It’s a populist movement.

Sooooo… what will they do with the $200 million dollars?

I don’t need it to be my friend. I just need it to contain human violence by having a monopoly on it. You might see that as a negative, but I see it as a positive and history is obviously on my side as well, because we would have not achieved the things we have without states. You might think I lack imagination, that there are other possible systems but the truth is that all I have to do is look at the beings that are 99.99% like us to understand how we would exist without a state. We already lived like them and decided that giving the monopoly over violence to the few was better and led to more stability.

I agree with the sentiment though, humans will never be truly equal while some hold the authority to exert violence and others don’t. Once we invent God we can hand over the monopoly to it, and then we can be equal.

Yes I agree.

But the notion that no police at all is a good idea is absolutely ridiculous. I can empathize if you live in a place where the police force is fully corrupt but this is systemic, it’s the same thing that causes poor communities to have more crime. Now I could start saying that poor people are criminals and I would be flayed alive (rightfully so), but it is the exact same thing as saying that all cops are criminals or abusers. Some of them are, many of them maybe, and in some places most of them but that in itself is not a problem inherent of the concept of having someone to protect the peace and make sure that rules are followed.

It betrays a real lack of critical thought imo.

Damn generalizing a large group of people always works out great right?

I really hope you never need an officer for anything, but if you do I hope you’ll remember this conversation and maybe walk away with the right lesson.

I read lots of books. Maybe you should read more books, they help with empathy and critical thinking skills.

Not what I said at all. I said that because you both participate in society and have no option other than to participate in it you should be empathetic towards them. That’s all.

Just because you haven’t needed them yet doesn’t mean that you might need them sometime in the future. Best keep that in mind.

I don’t see any point in spreading vitriol about people anyways. They’re just like anyone else, a cog in the machine, trying to make a living. And just because some are bad, doesn’t mean that all of them are bad, and maybe we could stop more of the bad ones from popping up if we tried to understand what makes them bad. I’m willing to bet that the answer is the same as it is for any other worker that does a bad job: they’re being exploited with terrible working conditions, low pay (for the risk), high stress and peer pressure from others that strayed from their values because of the above. But I guarantee you that most cops don’t enter the force with bad intentions.

Yes surely having no police is a good idea. Leopards will definitely not eat your face.

Be nice to people, that’s all.

But I don’t see what’s productive about demonizing the police when we both know that the first thing you’ll do when someone breaks into your house or whoops your butt is call the police. Or do you think you can bring justice to perpetrators in your own terms with your own hands?

Until someone assaults you and you’re running like a bitch towards your nearest police station. We need to push for police reform, demeaning and treating them like enemies pre emptively will not help any of your causes, it only entrenches them further as tools of the state instead of protectors of the people (would you protect someone that hates you for no reason other than you are a part of the system, like everyone else?)

Interesting read, thanks for taking the time to make the research.

I don’t want to get behind this type of thinking. I get it, I really do. I would also like to shake sense into people. But as you’ve seen that doesn’t work.

I believe that all people should question authority and they should inform themselves using the proper sources without taking what anyone says at face value. Authorities will more often than not simplify and remove all nuance when communicating information to the masses and this is the root of the increased mistrust in vaccines with Covid came from. Authorities stated as facts things that they did not know were facts and overstated the effectiveness of the vaccines and then tried to silence the fact that in a small number of people the vaccine did cause cardiovascular issues. The government should have been upfront about that and explained why the trade off was worth it, but they didn’t because they erred on the side of thinking that people are complete morons. They may be, but we need to give them the benefit of the doubt.

IMO, and this is maybe off topic but official authorities should have open and long panels in podcast format discussing why they take the decisions they take and explaining the people the benefits and risks, inviting dissenters and proponents so that people can make the most informed decision. Not for every decision of course, but at least for those health related decisions that affect everyone we should.

I know many or even most will not do the right thing and inform themselves properly. But I also cannot stop believing that people are capable of finding good information and making the best decisions with the evidence available if we make that information easily accessible with all possible considerations. Because if I believe that people cannot make good decisions, then I necessarily also have to believe that we should limit the participation in our democratic society to only those who demonstrate this aptitude and I really really don’t want to believe that.

Yep, I especially appreciate the lack of apologies. An easy cop out would be to say he’s sorry but what would he be sorry for when he didn’t say anything wrong? This is a great response, and the only possible one. And still people will call it damage control.

Did you read what I wrote? I said I hope, which means yes I am basing myself off of vague feelings because I can’t read the man’s mind nor Trump’s. But I can’t just dismiss RFK because he has a few bad takes, since I tend to agree with most of what he says outside of the vaccine stuff. Or do you disagree that Americans are over reliant on medications, that drugs shouldn’t be advertised, and that our food supply is horrible and toxic for the most part? Because these are not opinions, these are facts. For evidence look to countries that actually care about the well being of their citizens and you’ll find that their regulations are on the side of RFK.

My expectation is that he won’t be allowed to do anything and will be fired 6 months into the job because he really wants to shake things up and that threatens the profit of a lot of corporations.

My hope is that he will at least be able to remove drug advertising from TV, that nutrition labels will adopt a standardized serving size and that he limits the use high fructose corn syrup, additives and dyes in our food supply. If he fucks with vaccines well it’s only 4 years, we can fix it then. But I am almost certain he won’t ban vaccines and Trump wouldn’t allow it anyways, so the worse he can do is dissuade about their use. People can make decisions by themselves at that point, or so I have to think.

I mean I would still think it’s a non trivial amount of revenue for companies. Haven’t really looked that deeply into it.

Im conflicted on RFK. He’s right on his takes about nutrition and over reliance of Americans on prescription drugs, and he may be right about flouride (which we have always known had risks). He also wants to ban drug advertising which is 100% necessary. Yet his takes on vaccines are so so bad that it counters all the good he could do if he was really able to clean the food toxic food environment of the US and curb the power of big pharma.

I’m gonna hope for the best here. Vaccines are big business, so Trump might not let him make too many changes there. But so is food so who knows?

You’re still talking about DEI as a concept, which I’m in favor of. But you understand that in corporate settings things need to be quantifiable and diversity as a concept is nebulous, so in order to make it quantifiable corporations turn it into checklists and quotas. I know DEI as a concept doesn’t say that you HAVE to hire minorities and women over more qualified candidates. But I do know that corporations in order to quantify how diverse they are, and to be able to say they are diverse under whatever criteria someone at the top is using to judge said diversity will put policies in place like: we aim for 40% of our workforce to be minorities and women. And now the hiring managers have a very specific number of how many people in their team should be minorities.

I do not have any extreme beliefs about DEI, I just know that many orgs implemented DEI in this way and when you do, the incentive becomes to meet the quota rather than hiring the best person for the job.

Also you can’t just imply that I’m a bigot simply because I’m criticizing a fundamentally flawed implementation of an idea. That’s just being intelectually dishonest. I can be against DEI programs (because they are badly implemented most of the time, at least in my experience: anecdotal I know) and still be in favor of diversity.

That doesn’t answer what I asked at all, you only answered once more what DEI is in theory. I’m also not an edgelord though you are welcome to think that. I understand exactly how diversity is good and how it helps, being non white myself.

But I’ll repeat my question. How did organizations implement DEI hiring policies? How did they put what they supposedly learned in those classes in practice?

Could you explain how DEI works in practice. Not in theory or what it is supposed to do, but rather how companies implemented it and carried it out.