The Avatar avatar’s had a negative effect two times that I can think of (counting this one) but more usually I get wincing acknowledgements of the pun or shout-outs from other Wizards fans.
If you would like me to change my avatar to something you’d find less threatening, I’m certainly willing to do so. Say the word.
I actually hadn’t noticed until you mentioned it that the gun points at the icons of people I’m talking to - with our two specific avatars that does make a bit of a tableau, doesn’t it?
Edit: I was afraid I’d misaligned people and posts again, so I took a quick look at your comment history - am I misinterpreting this?
It still looks to me like you are saying that people don’t change their minds in conversation with you. <helpless shrug> I don’t know how else to interpret that.
I have seen minds change, and other people have seen mine change… sometimes on this very board
It’s more common in person, though. In person, people know who I am; there’s nothing hidden. Online, people have no reason to believe I am representing myself accurately, and I have no real way to prove to them that I am. So one of the most important keys to mind-changing communication - a demonstrable and absolute sincerity - is not really possible to communicate through this media.
EDIT AGAIN - Oh, I see now. My post was poorly written. When I wrote “nobody you talk to online ever changes their minds about anything” I wasn’t being clear that I meant during the conversation, I thought that was inferred, but it isn’t. My fault.
Minds do change, but a) it takes a lot longer than you think and would probably want b) it is a gradual process that speeds up toward the inflection point and c) you’ll never actually see it happen, like on a live television interview.
Also, sometimes everyone else’s opinion has to change around them first. So I again I respectfully point to the above ↑ quote.
Hmmm. It seems disrespectful to use another person as a conversational foil instead of actually speaking to them. Granted, some people don’t deserve respect, but I usually try to take the high road. Not always, but usually.
Same rule applies to everyone equally, so it’s fair. Plenty of times you’re the person watching the conversation instead of being replied to, yes? In fact I dare say that’s most of the time. So what do we optimize for? Write once, read many.
I think it’s incredibly disrespectful to assume that only one person will be reading a conversation, unless of course that conversation is in, like, a love letter
Absolutely disband the police. They don’t protect anyone, and they only serve to keep disgruntled rabble in line.
Police are shit at solving crimes. Without looking, isn’t it something like 60% of murders go unsolved? How about rape/sexual assault? We don’t even know how many occur in this country because cops routinely send victims off without so much as a police report? And AFAIC, arguments for police deterrence are without merit because they can’t be controlled for other factors. I can say with just as much veracity that more police = more crime.
Name me another job where you could fail as often and as spectacularly as police yet still keep your position?
So certainly we need a way to prevent crime. As @Medievalist noted, and I wholeheartedly agree, the answer is economic.
Actually, just about any government job with union protection. Teachers most notably, but not exclusively. I don’t accept your dismissal of deterrence, the example I gave of neighboring cities is very compelling. We’re not talking about neighbors like DC and Baltimore, I’m talking about contiguous urban cities where you would have no idea you left one for another except for people suddenly obeying traffic laws and stopping at crosswalks.
including this statement in your argument causes it to make no sense whatsoever. less than half of u.s. teachers are protected by unions and five states, including texas which has more teachers than any other state, make it illegal for teachers to unionize. it also undermines your “logic” further when you note that the states with the strongest union protections tend to have the best student outcomes while the five with no union protections have among the worst student outcomes. there are few jobs less forgiving of failures than teaching.
We are on drastically eneven ground here. I’ve been a member of multiple unions. No two experiences within those unions were the same, but that experience as a whole as a union member (and labor history buff) leads me to believe that your broad characterization of ‘unions’ betrays a serious misunderstanding of how labor unions function, systemically or otherwise.
Frankly speaking, no, it’s not compelling in the least. In your own words you included confounding variables- wealth being the first to come to mind. Further, the condition you cite- an absence of law enforcement, is a clear outlier. Does the median police department not enforce the law, i.e cite/arrest observed law-breaking (not to mention that if that were indeed the case then the argument for no police is even more valid)?
I can provide examples of extreme lawlessness under extreme conditions as well, East Cleveland in the late 90’s/early 00’s, the Bronx in the 70’s, etc…
Again tho, confounding variables, and whatnot. Society is a complex thing.
Both of you have pulled the teacher remark out of it’s context, PUBLIC UNIONS. Not any teacher, and not any unions. It well documented that incompetent (or worse) teachers in NYC and similar systems are simply impossible to fire, very similar to bad cops.
Close to a third of the teachers in the pool were there because they had faced legal or disciplinary charges. Others worked in schools that were closed for poor performance or lost their jobs because of declining enrollments. Twelve percent had received the lowest possible ratings of effectiveness in the 2015-16 school year; only 1 percent of all teachers in the system scored so low.
As for the deterrence, yes have it your way that no cops is better because you can’t prove otherwise because its too darn complicated even with side by side small cities. Yesiree, that’s quite a catch you have there, the best there is!
News to me, as I don’t recall engaging in the distinction. Any unions’ job #1 anywhere is to protect workers from management, so you telling me that a union has made it difficult for workers to get fired is like me telling a frog that water is wet.
Do you really know of a private sector union with people paid to sit in a room and do nothing because they can’t be fired? Private sector unions have an interest in not killing the golden goose, and management has a free hand in negotiations. Public sector unions know that they can always leverage elected officials with threats of embarrassing them during an election cycle, and the public officials can always kick the can down the road by making extravagant promises their successors will have to keep. Il, NJ and CT among other states have dug themselves a deep hole with promises to unions and fiscal mismanagement.
Not all teachers are unionized. My aunt (an excellent teacher for 20 + years) lost her job because of that, when her new administration canned her for what was essentially a personal vendetta. Because she has so much experience and a Masters, she can’t find a new position, because they don’t want to pay her what her experience/education is worth. They want to pay a new teacher, straight out of college a starvation wage while expecting them to provide most of the classroom materials out of their own pockets.
And yes, you said not exclusively. Union protections help good people doing good work against the supposed necessities of the “bottom line.”
oh, right. i see how that changes the meaning of what you were saying so very, very . . . not at all.
before you get defensive about folks calling you on your bs you should try scanning exactly what it is you said because nothing about my reply needs clarification with the fuller context. it’s all remarkably garbled but i think you might be referring to a situation in new york city schools in which teachers are trapped in limbo because there is no agreement between the union, the city, and the courts on how to provide due processs for the teachers involved. not quite what you want it to be but what it really is and that’s an unusual situation in a heavily unionized environment. as i said, less than half of teachers even have union protections.
Yes. I’m well aware. And that’s why my statement clearly applied to unionized teachers and not otherwise. There’s so much misinformation thrown around regarding teachers and schools I did not intend to add to it. If we’re telling anecdotes, while charter schools have been the bogeyman of the left, my kids went to a terrific nonprofit unionized k-8 charter. Schools like that aren’t ever discussed because the don’t fit the political narrative. I know teachers in the district system here and their stories fit every stereotype of urban school dysfunction, yet the district is fighting the mostly nonprofit charters tooth and nail.
Saying the police should be disbanded is like Libertarians saying the government should be eliminated. It’s a lazy “fix” to a difficult problem that ultimately creates more problems. If we are going to disband the police and create a new police force then perhaps that’s an acceptable solution, but if we are not going to have someone enforcing laws then why have laws at all?
disband the police. They don’t protect anyone, and they only serve to keep disgruntled rabble in line.