Troy

Yes we Black forums, web sites, newspapers, magazines, etc, but how do you get Black people to support and use them?

I do too but not in the face of people more informed on a subject. If I trusted my own observations I wouldn't know anything about climate change, I would still believe in multiple races of people, or have any idea how vast the universe is. Well these would not be very good journalists. If you are a descending reader you can pick this up, which is why some publications are better than others. I find foreign media like the Guardian, Al jazeera, BBC's to be superior to American Media. I'm not missing your point because you've failed make one. How exactly did the social media save energy? What task did social perform? Soooo, You are equating the reach of some unknown dude on Twitter (is that the platform right?) with that of Don Lemon on CNN?! Come on try to be serious. Again, @Pioneer1 what are personally boycotting as a result of something you've read online?

Again this is a consequence of the web, reporters say the Brother deserves a medal and you call it "spin." When journalists can't be trusted at all, and people debate reality the republic is in jeopardy. This is why so many people don't believe the election results, climate change, or the effecacy of the vaccine. Things will get worse before they get better.

Have y'all watched the last episode of 60 minutes? I watched it a couple of hours ago and it was a scathing, indictment of the president. Trump's cconversation with the Georgia election officials a was inexcusable. That recording alone was damnable, but wasn't even the worst of it. There is no reasonable explanation to justify his behavior.

This is the first time I watched the video. I can tell what his is doing. If I were to speculate it looks like he was communicating with fellow officers which is probably why he had back up at the end of the video. What happened next? I think he was justified in drawing his weapon and firing on people who deliberately failed to comply with his instructions. He could only hope blasting a couple of people would have gotten the others to disperse, but shooting a couple of others may have had the opposite effect. But I'm not in law enforcement what he did was probably what he was trained to do. I'm not about to about to second guess him. Again good reporting would have explained all of this. I rather wait for that reporting. Has any been released?

The reason for such disparate and mutually exclusive view of the same event is a consequence of the corporatization of the world wide web and social media in particular. Despite off of this technology no one really has the truth. The web has made it possible to assemble content that maps perfectly with any perspective. People don't seems to question sources. Even here I've seen sources cited to support an argument, but when you read the document or the original source document the point it was supposed to support is actually refuted. The ability to see what one wants to see is so strong that reason, logic, facts, even the obvious is rendered meaningless. Did Trump incite the rebellion? The notion that this is debatedable is astonishing given all the information we have access to. Collective we are too dumb to assimilate all of the information we have access to...

Yes that is why we need people to dig deeper, for what you and I "see" is largely driven by or biases and attitudes -- none of which has anything to do with what actually happened. Do you see why we need trained journalists? Again I don't even watch the videos they are posted as entertainment, seeing someone get shot is not entertaining to me. I don't want to speculate about what happened when it comes to something as serious as this. Come on man, that goes without saying. Why would you even say something like that unless you are trying to say, like Trump, that all journalists lie? You know successful boycotts existed long before social media was invented right? That said, on the surface, it seems unlikely that social media was only or even the primary reason the boycott was successful. I suspect he was physically there discouraging people from using the gas station and shared what he was doing on social Am I missing anything? OK, how? Presumably you see calls for boycotts all the time on social media. I called for Amazon to be boycotted. Do you pre-emptively everything someone posts on social media? D you boycott Amazon, R. Kelly, the NFL?

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I'm inclined to agree. That is an interesting perspective. I guess that is why 45 was so able to easily convince his followers that journalists are all liars and propagators of fake news. Consider the video that you watched of the brother running from the mob who stormed the Congress, you felt the brother was running away in fear and worthy of ridicule. While the truth is that he is a hero, who led an angry mob away from the senators. The elimination of the last daily black owned newspaper I guess it's been over 30 years now was a tremendous loss. The remaining weekly newspapers are mere shell of what they used to be, lacking writers, investigators, photographers salespeople etc. Someone posting cell phone video on social media is a pathetic replacement for professional reporting. @Pioneer1 would you just summarize what the brother did, to use social media in the meaningful way, as described in the video I listen to the first few minutes of it and it was really kind of hard, I can't tolerate a whole hour of that kind of content. Also explain how what he did could not have been done without social media.

The local radio station here said the brother was not running away but distracting the mob redirecting them away from the officials. They were saying that the brother deserves a medal.

Yes, Pioneer has a tendency to fixate on minor details and fails to see the bigger picture. Part of the reason I believe is that Pioneer struggles at conceptually thinking is that he focuses on the individual cases, personal experience, and the like. But most people do this, it is human nature, we are moved by personal stories. I keep trying to get him to think about the society as a whole and he keeps brining it back to individual cases. I thought acknowledging the I have personally benefited from the WWW (including social media) might make the distinction clear, but that failed. Maybe your pointing out the notion of conceptual thinking might help Pioneer look at this whole thing in another way. I have not given up on Pioneer 😉 Speaking of Cynique she is doing well, despite her profound loathing of 45...

LOL! Dude there are on 197 hours left in 45's term. Removal from office seems unlikely, besides what is the point? But time will tell and I never would have predicted this turn of events. It makes me think of the U.S. during the Civil War. It is crazy how quickly some folks will turn violent if they do not get their way. Fortunately we have matured as a nation and there will not be an all out Civil War. I suspect 45 will end up in jail at some point. While many want to just let him off to placate his supporters, history tells us that would be a mistake. Placating the traitors you rebelled against the union resulted in 100 years of lost progress for Black people.

Yes! It is exactly like that. In my opinion; Money has been a net good; and Energy has also been a net positive (save fossil fuels). OK I see the problem you are looking at this from only your narrow self interest. If I looked at the WWW is has been a great benefit to me. It has allowed me to do something I think is relevant and given me some freedom an autonomy, but collectively I wonder if, net-net, society has been disserved by the WWW. I'd agree with this. I fail to see the distinction. Again, I'm talking about collectively. If you took all the people who made money on twitter and factored all the damage it has done, was the trade off worth it to society collectively? BTW who are these average people who are making money on twitter? Tell me how they are making money? Is talking on Twitter really than just talking to friends or joining a club? What about the kids holed up in the room swiping through tick-tock rather than going out to play.. Again, that is not the question I'm pondering. The WWW jhas obviously been good for me, but society, I'm not so sure. Well I do, hence my concern about the overall benefit versus problem of the web. No. That is why we need good journalists and better reporting. Some amateur video pushed out onto the web without context is not helpful at all. We've seen many videos of situations that were very misleading, because they did not show everything that happened before. Of course there is the issue of "deep fakes," which can not be ignored. I want the information I see vetted. One of the worse consequences of the WWW has been the gutting of journalism. It has led the rose of deep fakes, misinformation, and alternative facts. "News" has became a revenue stream and society has definitely suffered as a result.

Ain't that the truth!

I was talking about freedom of speech. What is liberty of speech? Yes when a racist tells you they are racist, I respect that more than someone being deliberately dishonest. Sometimes it is hard tell the difference between dishonest person, a troll, and someone who is dumb.

Yes, I know but I'm questioning if the good out weights the bad Again I know, but why are the unsubstantiated musings of the average schmos a better? It is funny the things you see as advances I see as problems. Accurate and immediate rarely occur unless it is accompanied by smart, expensive, and moral. Yes there are times when amateur videos have been a great aid and other times misleading. Again, I make my living on the web. I understand the benefits -- better than most. Still I question whether this incredible tool has done more harm than good. Certainly you must agree the web has failed, woefully, to realize its potential. Look at our society man an tell how the web has helped any outcomes, cause I definitely tell you how it hurt. Have the videos you talked about resulted in fewer police killing or more prosecutions? Has the pandemic ranged any less, have we gotten better politicians, has wealth disparity lessened, have the population become better educated, have life expectancies increased, have opiod drug addiction been reduced?

Dude their are many excellent writers today, their talents are simply not being used to produce deep articles in magazines like Ebony or Black Enterprise. Again, I do not believe the dumbing down of Ebony is a plot by white racists. Ebony's dumbing down was the result of a combination of factors. White racists are simply not that smart to plan the dumbing down of Black media -- no one is. Ebony was run independently by Black people, the editorial decisions were their own. Look, I know very well what type of content would increase this site's traffic substantially. I just have little interest in that sort of thing. Here is one of this forums most popular posts. Can you guess why? Here is a post whose title I worded to deliberately attract more traffic. Can you guess which single word made a difference? See, media properties know this too and as they manically chase money they deliberately dumb down their content. Over time readers prefer this stuff and it becomes increasingly difficult for Black media properties to make money with the serious, long form content. Of course white folks still have serious publications and the best Black writers strike to work for those publications. Not a diabolical plot by racists just how capitalisms works. Of course Black people can easily deal with this, but individually we are too greed to make the sacrifice. I learned this early on as I watched writers reject a payment of $150 for an article on AALBC, but go to Huff Post a write and article for free! Why? Ebony was not immune to these market pressures.

My friend you are mistaken here. One of the last remaining truths about the WWW, as it exists here in America, is that WE DO have freedom is speech here. The vast majority of us simply allow some corporation run by young white boys to be the platform where we express ourselves Consider the fact that I can say, and have said anything, that I want here without worrying about being banded or losing a job. If anyone does not like what I say they can do so without fear of being banned for disagreeing with me. I have been corrected here several times -- in fact I welcome it. Most people sane people self-moderate very well. Here is an example of a guest post I approved earlier today: I could have easily not approved this stupid comment, but I let it go, perhaps "ultimate Blackpill" will come back and elaborate. An example, of a guest post I did not approve. Some author posted information about there book. They came back a few days later and posted, as a guest posters under a different name, saying that they read the book and enjoyed it. I rejected the 2nd post because it came from the same IP address as the first, and was an obvious attempt to mislead the reader. I had half a mind to delete the original post. Both posts are lies, but do you see why I approved one but not the other? The first thing Twitter needs to do is get rid of bot traffic. Actually this forum does allow one to block the posts of another user from being seen. I think this defeats the purpose of being in these forums and worsens the experience but it can be done.

Guest well, you have an extra LA to NY trip here 😉

The man (or men) who raise a boy does not have to be the biological father. Of course in this country most time it is not the biological father. I thought Obama was raised by a grandfather. Yes he was very successful, but based upon your criteria, so was Donald Trump... Any Black man who makes it through life, relatively happy, free of poverty, premature death, and without getting locked up has been pretty successful. I think smart people can have a good debate about this, but I'm leaning toward more harm than good. I doubt we would have had to deal with 4 years of 45 were it not for social media. Is the ability share memes with friends with the trade-off?

I'm checking out, Beautiful Nubia and the Roots Renaissance Band. This was recorded in a book store and record shop in Lagos Nigeria, The Jazzhole. It represents what a Black-owned bookstore can be in the United States. I had the opportunity to visit the store back in 2009., but have never seen the band.

@Pioneer1 to your points who know how lightly I moderate this forum right. I allow people to say anything they want. What happens to people who say dumb shit like "Black people are immune to covid-19?" Someone corrects them. They are not allowed to say utter nonsense without being challenged. These people always leave on their own and often remove all of their posts on the way out. Twitter's platform does not allow this. On Twitter someone can say Black people are immune to Covid-19 and they would be supported by countless algorithmically driven bot's that amplify and share the message to those most susceptible to believing it while other bots rejects people that would reply with the truth. An estimated two-thirds of tweeted links to popular websites are posted by automated accounts – not human beings. Do you think the way AALBC forums, for example, are moderated protects free speech? Just know that how we operate here is impossible on Twitter and that is the problem. I wish Twitter would just die already.

Perhaps, but they are still fringe -- not nearly representative of all Black people. Sure many of these are gun toters, but the reality is the majority of Americans do not own a gun. Almost 3/4 of American (obviously most of these white) have never even fired a gun. If you listen to the media you'd think all white people are amassing arms to launch another civil war. The media want you on the edge of your seat and scared because that is how they make money. I didn't see any because I did not watch the coverage. I'll read about it later or watch the coverage after journalists have thought about it for more than 5 minutes. As far as Trump supporter go. These are people like the ones who supported the inexperienced Obama -- they just want a government that serves them. The Obama administration bailed out wall street while millions lost their homes. Obama helped ushered in Trump, because Trump represented the change that Obama failed to deliver. I believe it is simple as that. Race is only a factor for some white people, because they have been manipulated into believing it is a factor and are too ignorant to know better. Ignorance is one the rise as people will lose two full years of schooling before the pandemic is over. How many white people willingly laid down their lives to defend a wealthy white man right to defend slavery, when they thought they were fighting for states' rifht or some other bullshit?

The society is much rougher on boys that girls -- especially in the classroom. The impact of single women raising boys can not be ignored either. I believe boys need to be raised by men. Moms are great, but they are not men. Further I doubt boys raised without fathers are as good at fathering as they would have been if they themselves were raised with a mothers and father. Girls raised without fathers are at a disadvantage too. Ask a woman about her relationship with her father, that will often explain a lot about them.... Sure some White (and Black) people believe this, but to assume all do is stereotyping. There is more than enough wealth of everyone -- regardless of ability -- to live a comfortable life in the country. Honestly if I were a multi-billionaire I could not amass so much wealth while so many around me were suffering. Maybe because I've seen so much poverty and I know we have wasted so much human capital because of structural inequities in our culture. No, ignorance is. I know my livelihood is dependent upon the world wide web, but I'm beginning to think society was better off without it, all things considered. We need to figure the WWW technology out because it is killing us

-raising the price of tuition forcing millions of parents and students to go into debt. -using biased admissions polices based upon wealth and nepotism -getting rid of affirmative action for Black white keep in firm y in place for white Specialized schools like Stuyvesant don't even let Black students in any longer the school has over 2,000 students but only lets a handful of Black students in each year. Sure they have an admissions test, but most of the public middle schools in the segregated Black neighborhoods don't prepare students for schools like Stuyvesant or Brooklyn Tech. I used to speak and Brooklyn Tech at Career Day. I would speak to several classrooms and not see a single Black male student. Rich folks are immune to the poor public schools in urban centers because they send their kids to private schools. Yes @Pioneer1 most of these people are white. Again if these white folks were truly racist, why don't they do something about all these poor white people? Why are some white folks so unhappy they they would attempt to overthrow the government. The poor and ignorant people are racist, rich white people are just massing wealth and an alarming rate.