Pioneer1

ProfD Otherwise, traffic circles (roundabouts) break up the typical grid layout of street design consisting of vertical, horizontal and a few diagonal lines. True, but the question would be "why"? If the grid design was working and helped people find their way around town easier (like numbered streets for example) why break that up and introduce a newer more confusing design? I believe it was done to increase confusion. In other words traffic circles (roundabouts) were not planned to cause confusion on the streets. It was intended to make streets look better from a planning and layout perspective. Truly, the asthetics of it depends on the roundabout. SOME Roundabouts make the environment look better because of what is actually IN the roundabout like the Arc of Triumph in Paris. Or this one in London But most of the roundabouts in the United States have no monuments in them and aren't especially designed. They are just circles in the middle of the damn street with maybe a mound of grass on them. Confusing as hell not only for the motorists, but for the pedestrians who are trying to cross them not sure if a car is stopping for them or just slowing down. Speed catches a bad rap as it relates to car accidents and fatalities. Speed is a FACTOR in traffic deaths. It's not the ONLY factor, but it's a major one. Obviously the faster a car is going whether one is in it or being hit by it, the higher the risk of serious injury or death. Also keep in mind that in Germany a) There are fewer cars on the highways than in the U.S. period b) The cars in Germany tend to be in better shape, so when that is factored in...U.S. cars and drivers who would get on the Autobahn would definitely raise the fatality rate. But, here in the US, speed is a convenient excuse to criminalize drivers and increase revenues. Speeding tickets and traffic cameras have been big business for decades Another example of my point about Environmental Error Factors! They purposely increase the speed limit knowing you'll still go over it, then turn around and give you a ticket for doing so in order to increase revenue. Troy Man this sounds like conspiracy theory stuff to me. You don't believe conspiracies exist? Everything is not a diabolical plan to kill Black people. Not everything, but way too many things are. We should pay attention to EVERTHING we didn't have a hand in making in this society. Most laws in this society are planned by White folks to ENTRAP people. Malcolm X put it eloquently (paraphrasing): "Now here's a White man who'll SELL you the dice then turn around and lock you up for gambling! He SELLS you the liquor, then turns around and locks you up for public drunkenness! And he's mad at us, because we clean you up and pull you out of the traps he laid for you!"

Whaaa......lol. Man, was that a little Uptown BX seeping out of you? 🤣 Were you wearing Timberland boots, a hoodie, and camouflage pants when you posted that comment???

Easy answer...... Things "evolve" to reach a better state of existence. A religion that comes from God would be PERFECT already, so you don't "evolve" from perfection.

I DEFINITELY plan to go see this movie! After reading the background behind the film, if it's as good as I expect it to be I'm willing to support it to the extent of watching it several times AT the theater WITH several friends to do my small part in increasing the revenue and views. 😏 Those of you who are observant will notice my position on THIS movie versus my position on "The Woman King" and wonder aloud why such a stark contrast.

You didn't say the way "a" world works, but the way "the" world works. You obviously were being specific about a particular type of world, so which world did you have in mind? Western world? Islamic world? Scientific world? Disney world? Now tell me, lol..... How can we intelligent discuss how "the world" works when we don't have a clear understanding of which world we're focusing on?

Happiness is HIGHLY subjective and whether or not acquisition equates to happiness depends on EACH person. Just because YOU don't derive happiness from within, doesn't mean the next person doesn't get their main source of happiness from external sources. For some, it absolutely does. And it may not necessarily be the material (or people) acquired that leads to happiness, but the SUCCESS of the actual acquisition itself. Makes one feel like a real winner being able to set goals and achieve them.

Bro ProfD! I know most people aren't familiar with our brother Mr. Fuller, and that's understandable. But they ARE familiar with life, and if they've lived in this society it's hard for me to believe most people haven't noticed INTENTIONAL stressors and accident makers. As stressed out as AfroAmericans often are when you encounter them, seems to me we'd be sitting down trying to figure out how to eliminate as much confusion in our lives as possible. Now take those traffic round-a-bouts for example.... Most people over a certain age haven't learned anything about them in driving school and they can be quite confusing, especially the the first few times trying to drive through them. What was the purpose of installing them at intersections all across America? They haven't reduced the number of accidents but have actually INCREASED them and caused more confusion in traffic. It's pretty obvious Black people didn't come up with the concept of installing these hazards on the highways, it White folks in the government and urban planning departments who got together and pretty much FORCED the rest of the population to endure them whether we liked or wanted them or not.

Conventional wisdom tells me it's much easier for a smart man to play dumb....than for a dumb man to play smart.

There are MANY worlds. Pick one, first of all.

And here in lays the problem. If YOU can make it as you choose and fix it up how you like, how much influence does the Divine have over it? If a religion is just as malleable as a political party or social organization where humans can formulate it, rewire it, and reform it to their own liking....obviously it's not Divinely ordained or protected or they wouldn't be ABLE to do so. So the question is, why even believe in a concept so easily reshaped and restructured.

How????

I hope I'm not just wasting time and space with this thread. I hope atleast a few people can relate to this. The profound social scientist and philosopher Neely Fuller Jr. coined a term for a tactic of White Racism that is often used in the workplace and society in general called "Environmental Error Factors". It's a broad and kind of vague term but what he talks about actually exists and I've been noticing it for a long time although I didn't have a particular name for it. It goes a little something like..... White racists in positions of authority....whether on the job, in the government, etc...will get together and come up with laws or rules or polices that often contradict eachother or design the environmnent where it's dangerous and things are out of place. That's right! They PURPOSELY plan and design situations that are dangerous and/or confusing. The main goal in doing this is to create CONFUSION in the minds of the victims of White Racism to the point you get frustrated which leads to mistakes, misplaced aggression, and a general retardation of progress and development. For examples......... They'll get together in the Federal Government and say Marijuana is ILLEGAL but those at the state level will get together and pass laws saying the Marijuana is LEGAL. So now you have people going around thinking it's LEGAL to smoke and possess it, but end up getting locked up by the Feds. They both are working together to trick and trap people but pretend to oppose eachother. Or they'll increase the speed limit on a highway by another 10 MPH....calculating that it will lead to another couple thousand deaths per year. Which means more money for hospitals, insurance agencies, etc... The authorities KNOW increasing the speed limit will lead to more deaths, it's all calculated. Or they'll create a new department at your job that oversees and overlaps YOUR department so now you have two bosses or two policies telling you what to do and they often contradict each other, so if you obey one and don't follow the other....it's grounds for termination. That way even if you try to follow the "rules"...there are so many you can't keep up with them and end up breaking one. Another tactic in the workplace they've been using lately is not having ANY clear set of rules, especially written so that you can be accused of breaking the rules but when you ask to see those rules...they won't show you because THEY make the rules up as they go along. In the old days, we used to DEMAND a clear set of written policies so those type of games couldn't be played....but this newer generation doesn't demand it as much. They purposely do this. It's real, and they know EXACTLY what they're doing. They do it to create confusion, frustration, and make you feel powerless. Very few things in this government and society generated among people happens by accident, people are behind it causing it. As I've said before, I've seen this type of tactic for decades but didn't have a name for it. Environmental Error Factors Not sure why he came up with THAT particular name, but the existence of it is a fact.

Oh, is THAT the official position of the right-wing now a days? That Ukraine is the enemy....instead of Russia....and that THEY attacked Poland? Sorry, I haven't been keeping up with too many right-wing discussions lately.....lol

And did Mike Pence state that those were his positions? That slavery didn't happen? That the Holocaust didn't happen? That the slaughter of Native Americans didn't happen? I'm certainly not an apologist for Pence whom I believe is more right-wing and dangerous than Trump, just curious as to when or where he stated these extremely controversial positions publicly.

Marty1960 I'm guessing @Stefan hasn't seen your post yet, lol.

Oh no, I heard about this yesterday. That was my girl. The weird thing was I started listening to Flashdance again a few months ago. I know she PLAYED in the movie Fame but I didn't know she did the song "Fame" too though. A lot of people didn't know she was Puerto Rican.

Chev I have even heard once that country music came about as a result of Black music. It did. What we call "Blue Grass" is probably authentically White music from the Hillbillies of places like Tennessee and Kentucky and those mountainous areas. But what we call "Country music" today is a mixture of that and the R&B of Black singers and guitar players who used to perform at a lot of old southern "frolics". White folks saw and heard it and started copying it and incorporating it into their subculture. Evidence of this is how most Country music consists of singing about the "blues" and how much the singer loves and misses his woman or enjoys being with her. That's not a "White man" thing...singing about women and sex. They typically sing about violence, getting drunk, or some disaster in society...but not much about women and sexual relations. The only time they do it is if they're trying to imitate BLACK MEN doing it. Well, please forgive me if I am wrong about this, but i don't really keep up with everything going on today. However, doesn't Orpah Winfrey have her own media company or something? Well, luckily you're NOT wrong....because if you were I WASN'T going to forgive you, lol. But yeah, Oprah does have her own channel and atleast one magazine that I know about. It's a start, but not nearly enough because her media publications aren't nearly as mainstream as they should be. Her magazine "O" get's more publicity than her channel, I see it often in supermarket stands. But she doesn't really dive deep into racial issues and expose the hidden agendas the way they need to be exposed. Her magazine seems to carter more to White women and a small group of Black women than the larger Black community as a whole. Tyler Perry has a movie studio in the ATL. It's also my understanding that Byron Allen owns The Weather Channel. Not sure how much information relevant to the Black community he can disseminate on THAT, lol. We need to own a major network the size of NBC or CNN. And it should be BROADCAST...not accessible only by cable, satellite or the internet. We need a Black owned and managed television and radio channel that you can access worldwide simply by plugging in the television and flipping the channel to get OUR truth. Stefan Alliances can't be formed between a DEPENDENT and INDEPENDENT people. One will end up taking advantage of the other. Latinos in the U.S. are more INDEPENDENT than our people so trying to form an alliance with them will lead to our causes and agendas being put on the back burner, even if on the stove at all. This is REALLY gonna ring your bell but..... If Black Conservatives and Sell Outs really wanted to do something and cozy up to White folks, they should spend their time trying to convince them to push the Latinos out of power, increase deportations, and give their "loyal negroes" here in the U.S. their number 2 spot again. "Say WHAT?????" Yes... Despite all of the wishful thinking, White folks are still in control of the U.S. right now and Latinos know it and are trying desperately to take it and don't mind being second fiddle as long as they're over Black folks. We should atleast not let THAT happen.

ProfD You're right, White folks WILL kill each other over principles! Other White cops know this, which is why they are often so cautious when confronting other White men over work related or family related incidents. A lot of White men feel they are the "king" of their castle....literally....and feel no one has the right to step into their home and tell them how to treat their wife and children, even if they are abusing their wife and molesting their children. Really, that's why so many of them hate "the government" so much; because they feel it should only exist to tell DARK people what to do and keep them in line...not THEM. When the government start enforcing laws and rules and restrictions on THEM, they call it "tyranny"....lol

Lol...my religious beliefs changed when I actually READ the Bible for myself. I began to realize most of the preachers and priests of ALL races were wrong and feeding the people misinformation. Religion tends to OVERRIDE what we commonly understand as "common sense". It encourages you to simply believe in something with little or no evidence and often uses fear as a tactic to push you along.

Glad to see you're back and about.....atleast online. But "Covid flu"??? Was it Covid alone or was it Covid AND the flu?

ProfD Like Minister Farrakhan said, if he lost a billion dollars overnight one would have to ask did he REALLY have it in the first place. I'm going to have to RE-asses the definition of some of these so-called "Black billionaires" because it's my understanding that atleast once you actually have the money in your account...it's YOURS unless the government confiscates it for some reason. I don't consider myself a millionaire unless I have atleat a million in my possession....in the bank, under the mattress, buried in a cave somewhere, etc. I don't consider "contracts" and "endorsements" and "brand worth" part of that million. So what exactly did they do to Kanye....snatch half of his money out of his bank or something????

Well Russia isn't stupid. They know the United States and NATO are supplying Ukraine with the weapons and logistics to do battle with their troops. The whole world knows it. Not sure about you but when I was in school, if I were fighting another boy and his friend kept pulling him out whispering in his ear and pointing at me and different parts of my body and even gave him a stick or rock to fight with......when I finish with the boy I'm fighting I'm going after his FRIEND TOO...lol. "WhassUP......"

I'll keep it real with you..... Most of these people, even if they were given the opportunity TO do so...wouldn't stack so much as a billion let alone trillion dollars for the simple fact that they would spend it on their addictions (drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.....) so quickly that they'd probably die from an overdose BEFORE reaching the billion dollar mark. And if they were given the billion DIRECTLY.....they'd OD or lose most of it to their addictions. This is not EVERYONE obviously, but far too many....and likely most people. Personally....... If someone gave ME a billion dollars I'd spend much of it trying to buy up either Detroit, Haiti....or parts of BOTH.

I didn't watch the debate, but Christian Democrats and Liberals shouldn't allow these right-wing Conservatives to project the image of having a monopoly on Christianity or morality in general. I'm not religious but I know the Bible better than most Christians and if you actually READ it for yourself instead of listening to these brainwashed preachers and priests about what it says, you'll find that the Jesus of the Bible was far more Liberal and Progressive than the Republican party is. Republicans are some of the most cold blooded, murderous, adulterous, sexually perverted, immoral people on the planet....but they do a good jobs HIDING it most of the time. There's actually evidence that the early Christians WERE Socialist.....in practice atleast. People have to know their history and be thoroughly educated in whatever cause they choose to join because a lot of deception and manipulation is going on in politics.

Coggins "Ever" is a looooong time, lol.