Troy

Yeah bootleg. If you like ill send you my legitimate blue ray 📀

I can only imagine. I watched the documentary about Khalif Browder and other Brothers and that is hard for me, so I can't imagine what watching it must be like after having acutally gone through it. Of course being locked up is one thing. But this true in the real world too. People trapped in poverty experience something similar, they stop dreaming, seeing a way out. Once you stop dreaming you die. I've see many Brothers and sisters come out and live life like there is no tomorrow, making the rest of us look like we are standing still. I guess when something valuable is taken from you, and returned you appreciate it more ... as long as you have continued to think and dream.

There are indeed profound differences between the two. One Candice is a celebrity, whose first book has been on the NY Times bestsellers list since it came out. Sowell is a PhD, who is virtually obscure by comparison. Does Candice even have a graduate degree or even a 4 year degree ... if so from where? Sure if a short term income boost is your only criteria. Longer term many of us will be deeply hurt in ways we can not yet envision.

Can you give an example of a religion with a "consistent organization?"

Now, that is a stupid statement; too stupid to even contest. @Pioneer1 I saw Apocalypo recently, I actually own the DVD, there are subtitles. What bootleg version did you watch LOL!

@daniellegfny, look I understand you are a strong trump supporter, but I'm not going to go back and forth with you about whether he what he says is factual or not. You chose to believe him and that your prerogative. I know it is hard to continue to support him and hold in you head the fact that a lot of what his provably false.

How so?

That is a completely different issue than the one you raised Danille a.k.a "Mr. Strawman." You were looking for successful people on Instagram. I'm on Instagram I just don't think it is a the best place to go looking for successful people. Phuleese! All of these are business accounts - these are not people Mr. Strawman. Besides why follow a business on Instagram when you can get everything, and more, from their websites. Just admit it is the pretty pictures and animated gifs pushed to you in your feed that are easily consumed. You just turn off your brain and absorb anything the algorithm dangles in front of you. It is a lot easier than reading a book or long form article.

Reparations is not charity. It is a debt that is owned. A tax break is charity. The President you so revere is the "charity master," I'm sure it is the reason you like him so much.

Hey Gibran, have you ever seen a TV show or Movie, or read a book that accurately describes what prison life is like?

Perhaps it could be my moral convictions don't allow me to understand your perspective @daniellegfny, but the fact is many of your statements concerning your interpretation of Covid-19's severity are demonstrably false. I thought when I showed you that the data you shared revealed that Covid-19 is now the 3rd leading cause of death in the US this year that it might cause to view the pandemic more seriously. The fact that more than a million people have died across the world and you still liken the virus to the common cold -- that defies logic. But again I understand now. Look, I get that shutting down businesses for months on end has and will wreck havoc on the personal lives of millions of people. But you don't fix that problem by putting your head in the sand regarding this illness and making believe it is no worse that the flu. The U.S. has not dealt with the pandemic well. We were ill prepared for it and react poorly. I read somewhere that the deaths could could be off by 100% or more, simply because we are correctly counting the deaths. 600,000+ deaths from Covid-19 could be the an more accurate figure. But again, I know these facts will have no impact on your perspective; science, data, incredible loss of human life, be damned.

No, that is a flawed assumption. I know quite a few successful people. Some of retired NYC Transit workers who, raised a family, and are living a comfortable retirement. None of these people are on Instagram. It was pointless to mention these people because you don't know them, so I mentioned people you would revere like Clarence Thomas. Again MOST adults are not posting on Instagram those who are are trying to selling something. The majority of Instream users are young people, which is one reason it does not interest me very much. Less than 25% people my age or older even have account -- let alone post the jewels of wisdom you seek. Instragam is a video and photo sharing app for young people, a knock off of Snapchat (another app for kids). If you view it as a source of learning how to be successful in life knock yourself out. But you'd be better served investing your time in reading, watching documentaries, or sitting at my knee with a pad in your hand 😉

And we pay billion more in taxes? So what is your point? But again you missed my point. Suppose the money given to Israel (or any other foreign nation) was given to Black people, in the form of direct payments for reparations. No "new" money would need to be extracted. While I don't believe for a split second that he US of A will ever financially compensate Black people for the horrors leveled against our people over the centuries, the reason is not a lack of financial resources.

Man, what a journey! Is your page up to date?

Seems unlikely, but what do I know; I can't bring myself to install the ap on my phone. Seems to me truly successful people would have better things to do than creating Instagram posts useful enough to benefit anyone.

Oh my! Those helpless ducks! Someone has to fight for them! My heart goes out to that brave women willing to stand up to the likes of @Pioneer1 and advocate for those poor creatures. Again, protecting defenseless animals is the right thing to do -- all other priorities like the poor, the clmate e damped.

Successful people and instagram, sounds like an oxymoron to me 😉 Seriously, is Bill Gates there? How about Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, or Bob Johnson. If MLK or Malcolm X were alive would they be on the 'Gram? If any of them are there what are the doing? What is Jeff Bezos sharing on Instragram, his secrets to global domination?

Who you telling? @Pioneer1 I know the American government spent a large portion of its existence engaging in genocide, the enslavement of Black people, and countless other horrors domestically and abroad. Suspicion is warranted -- needed when these devils are concerned, but why argue with climatologists about the causes of climate change or whether or not the planet is flat? Shoot you don't even have to go into outer space to know that the planet is not flat a clever person can not only determine the the earth must be round but they could come up with a clever way of calculating a goo approximation on the earth circumference, Since people argue these facts .. though I'd be hard pressed to come up with a moral excuse to defend the position of flat-earthers.

"Brainwashed" seems a bit to strong as it indicates intent -- deliberately taking action. I don't Danielle's believe is a result of someone trying to brainwash him nor do I believe he is trying to brainwash us. His beliefs are cultural. How about culturally indoctrinated, propagandized, or conditioned? When people join a church and start to believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old and now have to believe that Dinosaurs and man romanced the earth that the same time to make their time scales work is that brain washing? Maybe it is...

...Imagine! I had not even thought of it that way. What justification does American have to giving the nation Israel that much assistance while allowing the Black community to be left out in the cold, like some red-headed step child?

@Stefan you should be able to delete your account yourself. I can ban your account so that you can not use it again.

I will not remove my earlier comments, but I will apologize for saying that you were lying. I know that you are not dumb or ignorant about Covid-19. At the time the only other reasonable conclusion was that you were intentionally trying to be deceptive. I failed to appreciate that you truly believe what you wrote, that is not lying. I'll have to find a word to describe it the spreading false information believed to be true. Maybe there is no word for this in our language... This is what made me change my mind about your Covid-19 statements.

I listen to podcasts far more often than watch TV or read books. The Hidden Brain podcast is one I listen to regularly. This program (embedded below) made me think our discussion forum and why people believe what they believe despite strong evidence to the counter. More importantly, the program provides a compelling (at least to me) theory on why expert knowledge and facts that conflict with one's opinion doesn't lead to a change in one's opinion. I've seen it countless time here and it is fascinating, for it is not intuitive to someone like me. For example if someone, like @daniellegfny, presents me with data that reveals Covid-19 is the 3rd leading cause of death in this country and in the next sentence write that there really is nothing to worry about and the government is over reacting. The only thing I can conclude is the person is stupid, ignorant, or lying. But there is a more nuanced answer. The person truly believes they are right, because of some moral conviction. In other words, there is something morally at stake here that overrides reality. In the case of many Covid deniers the thing being protected is personal liberty. We can not allow the government to make us wear masks, force us to get vaccinated, prevent us from buying guns to protect families. This obvious, right? Anyone who does not agree is clearly less moral than we are. Indeed, we are protecting their rights just as much as we are protecting our own. One some level I already understood this phenomenon. For example, I rarely waste my time debated religious people about their moral convictions. It is a complete waste of time, because their beliefs are not based on anything other than faith. @Gibran mentioned recently, in effect, that we need to leave the worshipping of that blond haired blue eyed Jesus behind. There are those of us who reject the notion that Jesus had to be Black -- some of us are even Black! History does not matter; it is a moral conviction, so everything is simply wrong. People will engage in "mental gymnastics" in order to hold up moral beliefs that fly in the face of reality. This is the incubator of conspiracy theories. People with strong moral convictions are primed to believe in them and social media has enabled conspiracy theories to be targeted, with laser-like precision, to those most susceptible to them them (one of many reason I don't consume information from social media). This has hurt our nation for today facts truly do not matter! President Trump can say anything and great numbers of people will believe him. These people are not all stupid, or evil, or racist. Obviously some are, but they are a relatively small percentage We have to have to teach our population to think critically.

Thanks! Do you mean your account to this discussion forum? If so, there is nothing you really need to do, other than just stop using your account, unless I'm missing something. Curious though, if you mean closing your account here. Is it something that @Pioneer1 or I wrote, or just something else? I find the forums are really what you make of them. One interesting example is @daniellegfny when he discusses books he brings up interesting information and shares his path and I engage him in that regard. When he down plays the serious of Covid-19 engage with him completely differently. It is nothing personal, but it is interesting to observe our engagement is completely different. If I allowed what I thought about his opinion on Covid-9 impact my engagement with him on books that would be a waste. Others just read the site and never contribute. Some just post information about their books and rarely do anything beyond that. The ones who get the most of of the site (I include myself in this) are the ones who are open to reading perspectives different than their own -- indeed they welcome the perspectives. Plus you can not take yourself too seriously, because you will get your felling hurt 😉 Guest FAS called me a "little girl" the other day and I bust out laughing! If you actually get angry from something you've read here or feel personally attacked; this is definitely not the place for you for, because there are no filter bubbles here. If you what you opinion validated and the ability to exclude disagreement, that is what Facebook was designed for and one of the reasons it is so popular. I often observe people perceiving an expressed disagreement with their world view as an "attack," and that is not the right attitude to have here or anywhere else for that matter, for humans will always disagree... @Stefan, I'm actually saying this not just for you, but for anyone else who happens to be reading this.