Memento Moroni

[Alex Starkiller]

*sigh* Let me repeat that it's the fact you are going on about this after I clarified that's annoying. And the fact that you're still going on about me being unclear.

[Packbat]

Packbat: Well, unless you are going to claim modern first-world citizens are still ignorant of most things, nothing about what I said changes when applied to modern times. Which we happen to be in.

Modern first-world citizens are still ignorant of most things. It's impossible not to be - there's too many things.

[Packbat]

Let me expand on that, actually: to be not ignorant of most things would imply to me, at the minimum:

• Knowledge of economics sufficient to make reliable macroeconomic predictions;
• Knowledge of medicine sufficient to diagnose and treat common ailments;
• Knowledge of law, politics, police procedure, and social science in general sufficient to both predict the effects of proposed legislation and propose legislation that will cause a desired effect;
• Knowledge of psychology sufficient to reliably recognize productive and unproductive mental patterns in self and others;
• Knowledge of physics, engineering, and business management sufficient to design a company which can both design and build machines to construct useful items and distribute and sell such items to those who will want and can afford them;
• Knowledge of metalworking, woodworking, and other crafts sufficient to fabricate, repair, salvage parts from, or recycle materials of modern consumer and industrial items; ...

...need I go on? Quite frankly, some of these individual bullets are requirements so stringent tha only a few people worldwide meet them.

[Alex Starkiller]

Dang. I really need to be more clear. To clarify, I meant not ignorant of things of the nature in which we were talking about: i.e. racism being bad and things like it. We should know that, for the most part.

[Packbat]

Well, yes - I'm sorry, I was mixing up the racism question with your earlier remark:

Meh. I pretty much agree with that comic, but I'd like to add one thing: it's the effect of making "omnipotent" just "potent", that is "free will", but keeping it true that God is still omnipotent. He's, that I believe, merely limiting himself in order to give us free will. Unfortunately, we're all idiots and jerks, but hey we choose to be idiots and jerks. Yay.

It's not really a choice if you don't know better.

[Alex Starkiller]

*shrugs* Okay, then. We're all idiots and jerks, but we have no choice but to be so. The perfect excuse not to give a care, because hey, not our faults, so why should we?

[doctor100]

Shit. there is no way I can go about this without sounding racism myself.

But I do so love conversations about racism; and I am rarely getting anything new from the African Americans i speak to anymore.

Let me just say this: racism is often an informed decision.

[Packbat]

Shit. there is no way I can go about this without sounding racism myself.

But I do so love conversations about racism; and I am rarely getting anything new from the African Americans i speak to anymore.

Let me just say this: racism is often an informed decision.

That I find interesting. Why?

[doctor100]

i've been avoiding the forum, knowing I would need to answer this question.

Do you believe there is no truth in the stereotypes?

[JustinReilly]

The question wasn't directed at me, but I'll throw my 2 cents in.

Of course there's truth in stereotypes. They wouldn't exist if there wasn't some level of truth to them. But I don't see how you can use the general tendencies of a group to justify any sort of behavior towards individuals. There are variations between the "races" (a biologically meaningless concept), but they're completely swamped by the variations between individuals. Also, I suspect that most of the negative stereotypes I presume you're talking about are more a function of economic status than race. The ignorant meth-cooking, drug-running white trash thugs I grew up around weren't all that far removed culturally from inner-city blacks.