Troy

I think delusions reflects more of pathology, a mental defect. Hope is something that is natural for a normal human being. I guess there is a thin line l, and some overlap, depending on what you’re hoping for...

Yeah I saw that I was rather surprised. I did not comment on it because the reality is over the years we’ve always had more woman posters than men. A lot of the comments exhibit a great deal of ignorance particularly when it dealt with the specifics of this website, me, or the motivation for the meme I created. The Most shocking thing however was the anti-Vaccers — People are actually more afraid of the vaccine than they are of the effects of contracting Covid! They sound like freaking lunatics! Some people believe the vaccine is a way to kill black people. Now why would anybody come up with a vaccine to kill us when the virus is self was doing a terrific job of it already — makes no damn sense

If accuracy were your goal, you would demonstrate it more often in your own communication. 😉 Seriously, when I asked you if you thought the world were flat did you really believe I was talking about the financial world? Are you 100% convinced that the planet Earth is spherical?

No I don't the type of changes you are describing talk place over time scales too large for you to directly observe. Now I might argue that we are less well informed, and educated more poorly, which might make us seem less intelligent. Well I'm glad you swing through from time-to-time despite the lack of stimulation Pioneer provides. It is possible this forum will be revitalized, but that can not happen if there is zero participation -- thanks for helping to keep the lights on.

I largely boycott Amazon, so I have not experienced this Gloria. However, I was able to put three copies of your book in a cart and get very close to the check out. I do not know when the restriction would pop up. Keep in mind, Amazon treats customers differently. We are charged different prices for the same products based upon a variety of factors. Perhaps some customer/product combinations are restricted

My guess is changes to the algorithm on social are a much bigger factor than our collective intellect. Keep in mind I’ve been posting on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter since they were invented. Facebook announced several years ago that they were no longer allowing business accounts to reach their audience directly without buying an ad. This is demonstrably true. Very little I post with my AALBC account gets engagement. Even buying an ad does not get as much engagement as I did when the platform first launched. I could use my personal account to post book related stuff and things like that me and my created, But as I mentioned I don’t use social media for personal purposes... If I want engagement with my business related content it looks like discussion forms may be the way to go. I actually explained the meme to people on LSA. Read the comments they Ranged from reasonable to ridiculous.

Yesterday I created this meme in reaction to a WP article @Delano shared covering the rates at which people are killed by police. I shared it on the platforms below and here is the engagement; Facebook (zero engagement no comments, likes, or shares), Instagram (I through I posted it yesterday), Pinterest (I have not checked), Twitter (zero engagement no comments, likes, or shares), and Lipstick Alley (20 comments in less than an hour) Now the comparison is not equal because the meme has, as of the time I'm writing this, has been on Lipstick alley for less than 60 minutes and on the social media platforms it has been up for over 24 hours. I created a short link https://bit.ly/96times which allows me to see how many people actually clicked the link I shared with the meme. In the last day only 8 people, in all of social media, clicked the link to come to the discussion forum. In an hour 21 people from Lipstick Alley visited this website. Of the 29 total visitors to the site no one posted a comment.

Your definition of science is irrelevant. So is mine. If you want the definition of science simply look it up. It is the definition I use, not my own and certainly not yours. If you wanna nitpick; if you believe the Earth is "round" then you may still believe it is flat. The planet Earth is spherical, an oblate spheroid. In fact, you could roughly calculate the circumference of the Earth with simple observation you can make on your own -- Science!

I hear you pioneer, but I'm not being clear because you seem to be missing my point. Facebook/Instagram developers deliberately design the site to hack in into your brain to addict you to the platforms. What we are subjected to is unprecedented! Of course people will use the sites they are addicted far more than any other websites. So it is not merely people leaving because of a disagreement and having social as an option. Lipstick alley can get pretty rough on posters, but LA is so much bigger than this platform and has far more people on it if a few folks get disgruntled and leave it is not a big deal.

Man you are talking out of both sides of your neck, with a forked tongue. You can’t make up your own definition of science and use it to reject science. You have previously rejected science because white people are in it. When I said the “world” I was talking about the planet earth, Not some concept. So do you believe that the planet earth is flat?

So when I talk about the impact of social media on people I usually don’t speak about specific individuals I speak about us collectively. That said, I don’t believe that most people truly know how much time they spend on social media. They probably greatly under estimate the time when asked. People who are being manipulated are generally unaware of it, and will virtually always say they are immune. Of course there may be some people who are entirely unaffected but they are in the small minority. I know I’m no different than most people and am affected by social media too. This is the primary reason I largely avoid the platforms. There is no way to use them and not be affected, and I mean adversely. Sure Cynique continues to post on Facebook and she, like Del, say they are unaffected by the platform. Again, I don’t believe you can regularly use Facebook/Instagram and not be manipulated by it. It is like the person who has four drinks at the bar after work and feels they can drive home unimpaired. Sure they may get home safely, but if they believe did so unimpaired, and did not pose a greater risk to themselves and innocent people around them, they are in denial, perhaps delusional 😉

I hit a paywall with the last Washington post article you posted the link to; What d does it say? yes I say the graph it is the source of the stat I used to create the meme.

@Delano what you wrote is unclear to me; are you saying your said the same thing as me or Cynique? I disagreed strongly with Cynique at the time and still do; the evidence is only piling up. Now "delusional" seems like a strong characterization of something you may have written here, but if you agreed with Cynique and depending upon how you agreed, I may have characterized your position in such a way -- I simply do not remember.

That makes sense @Delano and is what I expected. Now if the Washington post really dove deeper and looked at the race of the shooter, the race of the one shot, and what the person shot was doing you'd probably discover a far more alarming story. But we'll never hear that story because the Washington won't do the research. Another good question is which violent white perpetrators, caught in the act, are NOT shot. Image if the folks storming the Capital were in the New Black Panther Party or the Nation of Islam... A white mass murder is far more likely to kill himself than for the police to kill him. Based upon the WSJ's data a Black person is 96 times more likely to be killed by a cop (36 per million) than to be killed by a blood clot after taking J.&.J. COVID-19 vaccine (0.375 per million).

So you reject all scientific findings for this reason?! Do you believe the world is flat too?

That statement defies credulity as you consistently reject the findings of the scientific community, on race, medicine, genetics, climate change, geology, etc... The statement @Energy made, "European colonisation saved us from many of the terrible practices we the natives were practising, which included Slavery, Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice." is a classic racist troll talking point. It is rather odd he would write that. Are trolls becoming that much more sophisticated? Actually once Energy wrote the crap about European colonists "saving," Africans, the gloves need to come off. No one who says something like that deserves any mercy -- for real!

I'm sure there are fewer discussion forums today and those that remain are not as vibrant as they once were. I agree with what you wrote in point #1, but the reality is that most people who post on social media do so in relative obscurity. The promise of potentially going viral is a strong pull -- even a couple of hundred likes on a post will encourage many people to continue posting to get the attention. Social media even goes so far as to time when people see their likes to encourage further engagement. For this reason social media platforms are a completely different things than a discussion forums. I don't think people are dumber. I do think Facebook has have jacked into the minds of people addicting them to their devices in ways we do not completely understand. We do know that suicide, drug addiction, obesity, depression are all on the rise -- despite all the technological advances. Watching TicTok videos provides an escape, that a discussion forum can not provide -- because to enjoy a good discussion forum -- even lurking -- requires effort. More people watch TV and scroll through Instagram than read books. Reading books and participating in a discussion forum requires work; you can't participate vicariously. People discount the impact of the "feed,." the "information" that is pushed to you on social. Cynique and I debated this idea -- she discounted it, because she felt it did not effect her, but she was a senior citizen when social media emerged. The adults in their late 30's never really knew a world without social media, and I can see the impact in them -- increased rates of suicide, drug addiction, obesity, depression... etc. The pandemic has exacerbated this situation. One would have though, that with more people at home, discussion forum participation would have risen, during this pandemic. But the media only pays attention to the handful of the biggest social media platforms. I know why white media ignores Black platforms, but why does Black media ignore Black discussion forums. Why do so called "woke" Black people give all of their energy to white owned platforms -- who have demonstrated zero desire to truly serve Black people? The draw of social media is powerful. Not only does it not serve us, it is destructive to our society. As always the Black community suffered more than the society as whole.

White police officers who work in white communities are friends of white people. This young white girl told me a story about how she and her friends broke into the country club was hanging out in the pool drinking and getting high when the police came by and drove them all home with a warning. I did not say this to young white girl, because she was just innocently relating a story from her youth, but God knows if they would’ve come upon young Black boys doing exactly the same thing those niggers would’ve been put under the jail and been tuned up real good on the way to the station. White Cops patrolling black neighborhoods are on high alert and in fear. They have itchy trigger fingers — and those are the good cops. We all knew growing up but there were a lot of crooked cops in our neighborhood. You know the ones that would rob drug dealers, plant drugs on innocent kids, or give out tickets to hard working people, who can’t afford to pay them for some bullshit, which results in a warrant and they end up in jail. White people, in white neighborhoods, with white cops simply can’t understand why inner-city Black youth are like “fuck the police.”

...hummm where have I’ve seen that before? 😉 That sounds like racist troll crap to me. The younger generation and I suspect energy is younger than both you and I. The younger generation is far more sensitive and easily “triggered.” We used to call men like this “pussies,” but that would not be politically correct today. It is very annoying in the real world and part of the reason social media, in general, is so powerful because one can easily exclude people, thoughts, and ideas that conflict with your worldview — even if they are factual. You know I have no problem with someone who gets upset with the conflicting idea and runs away, but I say let’s give newbies, who demonstrate a willingness to engage, some space before you tear them apart — at least two posts 🙂

There are a variety of reasons but one has to do with the nature of the conversations. I was on Lipstick Alley a few moments ago reading a comment posted in a thread I'm following. One of the trending conversation is shown below. The post tickled me because it was so absurdly shallow. There was a time which I was guaranteed to get a laugh visiting these forums, but this was years ago now. I'm not saying forums must post silly shit, like the comment below, to garner participation, but fun has to be mixed in with the seriousness. But alas you need a critical mass of participants in order to generate the humor ---- I'm attracted to a man, but he drives a pickup truck. There's a guy at the gym that I have a bit of a crush on. He's tall, muscular, polite, quiet and always in the zone. I've seen him look at me slyly when he thinks I don't know, and he always manages to lift near me. Well I broke the ice today by asking him about an exercise he was doing. He explained it to me and told me I should try it out and let him know how I like it. He was very sweet and smiled a lot. We both went back to our workouts, and as he was leaving he smiled and waved goodbye to me. Then he went outside. And got in his pickup truck Why does this bother me so much? Aside from the fact that pickups are big and ugly as sin, I feel like only certain "types" of men drive those. It doesn't have balls hanging off the back, or stupidass bumper stickers, just a plain, big black pickup truck. But idk. And before y'all ask: yes he is white.

Again we know you Energy does not. So that will certainly effect his reaction. @Stefan and @Kareem are distant memories I don't even recall their styles of perspective and longer. I await the rest of your response especially your assessment of the results of your conversation with @Energy

Geno, I do not know the stats, but I would expect for more white people to be killed by police than Black people. White people substantially outnumber Black people numerically. The issue is the situations in which Black people are killed. White folks can commit mass murder and be apprehended alive; while Black people are killed by police while sleeping in their beds and otherwise commenting no crime or very petty ones. Get it?

Pioneer, the need for you to post this disclaimer tells me that that you felt it was necessary, but more importantly that the perception that @Energy was run off the forum by you is plausible. Now I could see you challenging @Delano or me in that fashion, but we have seen your antics for years, know what to expect, and are not gonna take it personally. However, a newbie is less likely to tolerate it -- not out the gate. So the comment, "I am out of here." was not surprising at all. Indeed, I'm surprised it did not happen earlier. I did not read the exchange deeply, but I thought Jesus the Christ was Black and that the people who wrote the original Bible were Black too. We know the versions of the bible read today were written by white folks most notably the KJV. Was Energy completely wrong about that? As far has the pronunciation of words why challenge a native speaker, who has studied the language? But we know you have no problem challenge people who demonstrably know more about a given subject -- especially scientists. Was anyone (including you Pioneer) happy with the exchange, and more importantly, the outcome of this exchange?

@Pioneer1 this is a perfectly valid and simple question which you have failed to directly answer. It is very similar to the one I posed to you about the existence of racism prior to race based slave trade. Also, you should check out the comments on the video you posted one commenter made a point of critiquing the speak on how they were pronouncing the names of people. Afrika Diaspora Teacher 3 months ago "Learn the proper pronunciations and that could make your research very authentic. Names have meanings so when you butcher them, they lose their meaning. Respectfully call people and places by their proper name and pronunciations. There's no one called Togbui Ewenya. The closest pronunciation is Vwhenya. The Evwheh people did not get their name from Togbui Vwhenya, the Evwheh got their name rather from the God of Thunder and Lightening called YEVWHEH." Now I don't know who is right, but the video does not prove anything. Indeed if you consider your source, some guy in a tee shirt in his foyer. Who is he what are his credentials? You give him less credit than someone who has written multiple books on the subject. I'm not saying everything in a book is tru For a new comer I have to admit @Energy is living up to his name -- he has demonstrated a energy and patience to go toe-to-toe with Pioneer. It would be interesting to read what @Chevdove would have to say on this subject.

Thanks @Maurice I noticed this too. Libro has made the book available to booksellers at no cost. I have not started listening yet, but will do so on my next road trip or airplane ride.