Hate Speech on Facebook Is Pushing Ethiopia Dangerously Close To a Genocide (vice.com) 170
Ethnic violence set off by the assassination of a popular singer has been supercharged by hate speech and incitements shared widely on the platform. From a report: Throughout his life, Ethiopian singer Hachalu Hundessa sang about love, unity, and raising the marginalized voices of his Oromo ethnic group. He had always tried to keep his work and politics separate, saying, "Art should not be subject to political pressure." But it became increasingly difficult for him to keep these two worlds apart, thanks to a politically-motivated disinformation campaign orchestrated on Facebook through a network of newly created pages and designed to demonize Hundessa. The incendiary campaign claimed Hundessa abandoned his Oromo roots in siding with Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy. Abiy, Ethiopia's first Oromo leader, has been heavily criticized by hard-line Oromo nationalists who believe he has abandoned his heritage by appeasing other ethnic groups. The impact was devastating.
Hundessa was assassinated on June 29 while driving through the capital Addis Ababa. The man police charged with Hundessa's killing told prosecutors that he was working as an assassin for the Oromo Liberation Front, an armed nationalist group linked to numerous violent attacks -- and who told the shooter that Oromia would benefit from the death of one of its most famous singers. Hundessa's death at age 34 set off a wave of violence in the capital and his home region of Oromia. Hundreds of people were killed, with minorities like Christian Amharas, Christian Oromos, and Gurage people suffering the biggest losses. This bloodshed was supercharged by the almost-instant and widespread sharing of hate speech and incitement to violence on Facebook, which whipped up people's anger. Mobs destroyed and burned property. They lynched, beheaded, and dismembered their victims. The calls for violence against a variety of ethnic and religious groups happened despite the government shutting down the internet within hours of Hundessa's murder. Soon, the same people who'd been calling for genocide and attacks against specific religous or ethnic groups were openly posting photographs of burned-out cars, buildings, schools and houses, the Network Against Hate Speech, a volunteer group tracking hate speech in Ethiopia, told VICE News.
These attacks reflect the volatile nature of ethnic politics in Ethiopia. Abiy's rise to power in 2018 led to a brief period of hope that Ethiopia could be unified under the first Oromo to lead the country. But that quickly evaporated, and the country has since been wracked by violence, coinciding with a rapid increase in access to the internet, where Facebook dominates. And rather than helping to unify the country, Facebook has simply amplified existing tensions on a massive scale.
Hundessa was assassinated on June 29 while driving through the capital Addis Ababa. The man police charged with Hundessa's killing told prosecutors that he was working as an assassin for the Oromo Liberation Front, an armed nationalist group linked to numerous violent attacks -- and who told the shooter that Oromia would benefit from the death of one of its most famous singers. Hundessa's death at age 34 set off a wave of violence in the capital and his home region of Oromia. Hundreds of people were killed, with minorities like Christian Amharas, Christian Oromos, and Gurage people suffering the biggest losses. This bloodshed was supercharged by the almost-instant and widespread sharing of hate speech and incitement to violence on Facebook, which whipped up people's anger. Mobs destroyed and burned property. They lynched, beheaded, and dismembered their victims. The calls for violence against a variety of ethnic and religious groups happened despite the government shutting down the internet within hours of Hundessa's murder. Soon, the same people who'd been calling for genocide and attacks against specific religous or ethnic groups were openly posting photographs of burned-out cars, buildings, schools and houses, the Network Against Hate Speech, a volunteer group tracking hate speech in Ethiopia, told VICE News.
These attacks reflect the volatile nature of ethnic politics in Ethiopia. Abiy's rise to power in 2018 led to a brief period of hope that Ethiopia could be unified under the first Oromo to lead the country. But that quickly evaporated, and the country has since been wracked by violence, coinciding with a rapid increase in access to the internet, where Facebook dominates. And rather than helping to unify the country, Facebook has simply amplified existing tensions on a massive scale.
Nobody cares about genocides (Score:5, Informative)
If people cared about genocide, there will be public outrage about the ongoing genocide in Southern Cameroon.
https://www.genocidewatch.com/... [genocidewatch.com]
But I bet most of you have not even heard about this.
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Sorry to inform you, but "never again" happens all the time.
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Yes, he vetoed 3 bills that had Republican support to give them more weapons.
You should probably have phrased this differently. As it stands it sounds like Trump actually stopped 3 bills that would have given Saudis more weapons. He actually vetoed 3 bills that would block sales of weapons to the Saudis. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/25... [npr.org]
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You're right. I wasn't clear and I've also been modded flamebait by others. It really wasn't my intent to bait flames, but I feel very strongly about not selling weapons to countries that we wish would just stop waging war.
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It's a sad truth that the only time our feckless news media ignore their "If it bleeds, it leads" rule is when the story concerns almost any country in Africa.
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Re:Nobody cares about genocides (Score:5, Insightful)
Black Lives Matter cannot stop all of the killing in the world. They cannot stop all inner city violence. They cannot stop the genocides happening in Africa. Demanding accountability from your government is an achievable goal. How do you demand accountability from poor, under-educated people who grow up in and consequently later perpetuate a culture of violence?
I despise the gangs that run Mexico. They mercilessly kill all journalists and politicians that attempt to interfere with their business. How do I protest them exactly? And because I am not protesting them, does that mean that I don't "care?"
Black Lives Matter is narrrowly focused on an achievable goal, a goal that we should all support. And that is a good thing.
Re:Nobody cares about genocides (Score:5, Insightful)
I despise the gangs that run Mexico. They mercilessly kill all journalists and politicians that attempt to interfere with their business. How do I protest them exactly?
Insist on locally grown drugs
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I despise the gangs that run Mexico. They mercilessly kill all journalists and politicians that attempt to interfere with their business. How do I protest them exactly?
Insist on locally grown drugs
At least pot legalization is helping out with that.
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An American citizen should not be afraid of law enforcement. They shouldn't feel that their life is at risk during a simple traffic stop. That is the specific goal that black lives matter is focusing on, and that is reasonable.
Nearly everyone agrees police should not be killing people for no good reason. Relative to other "western" countries its hard to argue there is not a huge fixable problem in need of fixing.
So one would think if they were BLM it would be in their own interests to work to build broad consensus for action to achieve your aim... It's maddening instead they decide squander it by making it all about harms to a specific tribe and for good measure throw in ridiculous incendiary slogans like "defund the police" wh
can't fix our culture without cracking a few eggs (Score:5, Insightful)
The polling I've seen at present half the country [...]
The civil rights movement was deeply unpopular at the time. Most white Americans were happy with the status quo, and found the protests distressing. White people didn't like that police were using violent tactics against civilians, but if only those black folks wouldn't cause so much trouble was the general feeling at the time.
If the Democratic Party were the same back then as they are today, the polling-based politics of modern Dems would have squashed the civil rights movement flat. Asking comfortably numb idiots what they think about current events is a pointless exercise. You have to make everyone uncomfortable before we can come together under a common purpose.
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BLM is still more popular than not overall: https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe... [fivethirtyeight.com]
The problem is that it's so heavily polarized that it's toxic for politicians, so they try not to get involved if they can.
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The civil rights movement was deeply unpopular at the time. Most white Americans were happy with the status quo, and found the protests distressing.
While irrelevant to the issue at hand polling at the time showed 3/4 supported voting rights for blacks and twice as many supported protesters (Selma et el) as were opposed.
White people didn't like that police were using violent tactics against civilians, but if only those black folks wouldn't cause so much trouble was the general feeling at the time.
Making the assertion because something at some time in the past was unpopular it can somehow later be used to help justify or excuse any course of action makes no sense. Everything must be evaluated based upon objective merit not unfalsifiable concepts.
Asking comfortably numb idiots what they think about current events is a pointless exercise.
Are these the same "numb idiots" who go to the polls and vote? Or is that a differen
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Gallup polls done at the time showed 58% support for the 1964 Civil Rights Law.
From your own link, 68% of people wanted enforcement of the 1964 Civil Rights Law to be half-assed. That's half-assed support.
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Sadly you overlook that there is a difference between a movement and active protests, and what voters polled on the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 or 1964 expressed. Even relatively peaceful figures at the head of the movement were widely disliked by the general public [smithsonianmag.com].
Disrupting the status quo is seen by the majority as anything from an imposition to an attack on long held values.
Re:Nobody cares about genocides (Score:5, Interesting)
An American citizen should not be afraid of law enforcement. They shouldn't feel that their life is at risk during a simple traffic stop. That is the specific goal that black lives matter is focusing on, and that is reasonable.
Nearly everyone agrees police should not be killing people for no good reason. Relative to other "western" countries its hard to argue there is not a huge fixable problem in need of fixing.
So one would think if they were BLM it would be in their own interests to work to build broad consensus for action to achieve your aim... It's maddening instead they decide squander it by making it all about harms to a specific tribe and for good measure throw in ridiculous incendiary slogans like "defund the police" while your leadership defends looting.... what the fucking hell does anyone expect to be the outcome of that? Is anyone surprised? Even a little?
Humanity is inherently tribal and wouldn't you know it the media has done an expert job weaponizing their control over narratives to make it seem as if blacks are being singled out for extermination by police. Objective statistical evidence adjusted for where crime is does not support this narrative in any significant way. The issues with police unjustifiably killing people overwhelmingly cuts across all ethnicities.
I think it's reasonable to question BLM's tactics. Defund the police IMO is an incredibly stupid slogan. The goal should be about creating first responders for certain situations where a police presence is not necessary. Police have guns that can kill people. Introducing guns into a situation inherently makes a situation more dangerous for both the police and the people around them. Like a simple traffic stop for example. The question is how do we go about creating those first responders? What would they look like? It is a reasonable thing to suggest and to think about.
I despise the gangs that run Mexico. They mercilessly kill all journalists and politicians that attempt to interfere with their business. How do I protest them exactly?
Advocate global legalization of drugs and prostitution.
Yes, these are good ideas. And an effort like that would be best served by a non-profit organization (much like BLM) focused on that goal, focused on educating citizens why that goal is important. Another reason why I support BLM's existence (even if I disagree with their tactics and their rhetoric at times).
And because I am not protesting them, does that mean that I don't "care?"
Caring is utterly worthless when disconnected from action.
Black Lives Matter is narrowly focused on an achievable goal, a goal that we should all support. And that is a good thing.
The polling I've seen at present half the country does not support BLM even though nearly everyone agrees police should not be killing people for no reason. BLM is not a good thing... It's a grossly mismanaged thing actively harming their own cause.
As a teacher once told me a long, long time ago: every organization is corrupt and mismanaged to some degree. Every single one. But we need them. As Steve Jobs once said, individuals don't make great things, companies do. And he wasn't talking about non-profits, but the logic is the same. All big goals need some organizing behind them, and if you care about an organization's goal, get involved and be part of the change you want to see. BLM helped start this conversation. They deserve credit for that. I hope they succeed. Me myself, I am in China right now and can't be part of anything that is going on in the states, but when I get back I want to be involved.
Re:Nobody cares about genocides (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nobody cares about genocides (Score:4, Interesting)
I've not been personally hassled by a cop, but I know people who have, so I do understand to some degree where it's coming from. The overall issue is extremely complicated. Protesters want a simple chant and movement leaders want a soundbite, and distilling the concept of "reduce funding for police to limit extreme uses of force, train them in softer encounters with people, and redirect funding to social and mental health workers for a large portion of interventions (plus almost a dozen other things)" doesn't happen easily. Because of this, those who think that a police state is preferable (even if they don't use that term) can seize on the most extreme version and propagate that vision, preventing the bigger message from getting out because the first reaction of people is to defend their existing position, whatever it is.
"Defund the police" is ultimately a marketing slogan because it's trying to convey an idea and gather attention. The problem is that it's a bad one. People unfamiliar with it read it to mean "take away all funding for the police" as in abolish the police. Yes, there are those who want this, but it's not what the overwhelming majority of people want, and it's never going to become the majority position.
It's a really unfortunate thing to say, but BLM and other coherent groups hiring some marketing consultants wouldn't be a bad idea. Test marketing slogans is hard, but at least you would have people used to picking apart ideas before they go out for public consumption. "Black Lives Matter" might have been more widely accepted if it was "Black Lives Matter, Too." It says basically the same thing, but wouldn't feel exclusionary at first glance to some people. Maybe a marketing consultant would have picked up on it and recommended the change. It wouldn't stop some people from being racist jerks, but it might have stopped some people from taking a stance based on an emotional backlash.
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I think it's reasonable to question BLM's tactics. Defund the police IMO is an incredibly stupid slogan. The goal should be about creating first responders for certain situations where a police presence is not necessary.
You're forgetting that police use up a ridiculously huge and disproportionate budget in a bunch of places. Whether it's due to unrestricted overtime or what have you, the fact that they 're unionised whilst carrying a gun at all times or what have you. The budget for those first responders has to come from somewhere and lowering police funds is exactly what's needed for that in those places
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Yes, I agree. The reason I think the slogan is because it does not emphasize the net effect that we both agree on. "Defund the police" is inherently negative, and it does nothing to explain the main goal, which like you said might instead be to train first responders that will be trained to de-escalate situations peacefully and non-violently, not escalate them by their very presence. Some people hear "defund the police" and they instinctively think people just want to tear down the system. A slogan or messa
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I think you should instead be asking why there are countries in the world, where armed police handles these situations as well and yet it doesn't make them more dangerous.
From what I've seen so far, my guess would be lack of quality
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From what I've seen so far, my guess would be lack of quality training for new officers, extensive impunity and low respect to the police seen in many individuals.
The big question is what came first, the low respect to the police or the police not living up to the respect they deserve?
I would agree though that part of the problem in the US is the militarization of their police forces. The increase in armaments that the police have at their disposal has shifted most of their training to the use of that force instead of training in how to effectively de-escalate a situation so that excessive force isn't needed.
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"Lack of quality training" doesn't begin to explain the difference. In at least some (I've heard "many" but haven't confirmed) European countries, police earn degrees. In Norway, becoming a cop is a three year program (original in Norwegian). AFAICT, you don't get assigned to a police unit until your second year, and you spend the entire year learning how police work, filling out reports, assisting in investigations, and still taking classes. Firearms training isn't incorporated until the third year, which [politihogskolen.no]
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Defund the police IMO is an incredibly stupid slogan. The goal should be about creating first responders for certain situations where a police presence is not necessary.
Blink.
What do you think defund the police is about. It's precisely what you.describe. The money that pays for those first responders comes from the police budgets because they don't need it any more if they are not the first response.
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I think what you said is precisely *why* "Defund the police" is an incredibly stupid slogan.
I've never seen a phrase so easily misinterpreted, so unrelated to the end goal, and so quickly turned against the people who started using it. The phrase is braindead to the point where I wonder if whoever came up with it was actually a plant from the police commissioner.
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I think what you said is precisely *why* "Defund the police" is an incredibly stupid slogan.
I've never seen a phrase so easily misinterpreted, so unrelated to the end goal, and so quickly turned against the people who started using it.
I have.
I have to admit that all of the recent left-of-radical-right slogans from the last five years really, really suck. Whomever comes up with them is just.. really bad at it.
What they say: "Black Lives Matter"
The problem: If someone asks "don't all lives matter?" and the response starts with "No..." (such as in the 2016 Democratic Primary debates) then you have a MAJOR problem with your messaging.
What they meant: "Black Lives Matter Too." One word clears up all these other distortions, immediately givin
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I think it's reasonable to question BLM's tactics. Defund the police IMO is an incredibly stupid slogan. The goal should be about creating first responders for certain situations where a police presence is not necessary. Police have guns that can kill people. Introducing guns into a situation inherently makes a situation more dangerous for both the police and the people around them. Like a simple traffic stop for example. The question is how do we go about creating those first responders? What would they look like? It is a reasonable thing to suggest and to think about.
Defunding the police solves two problems. First it frees up money to spend on first responders and even more importantly on preventative measures. Secondly it means that when the police do get involved they don't arrive in an armoured personnel carrier with toys they really shouldn't be playing with. The fact that they feel like they are militarized contributes to their acting like they are in a warzone.
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It "solves" something that's not actually a problem by creating problems.
Preventative measures are already being put in place. There's free education, there's support for families at a greater level than ever before, outreach programs for people seriously in need, overwhelming political engagement that focuses in the extreme on issues of minorities, all of which soak capital and revenue.
Those preventative measures have so far haven't fixed this particular problem. The second point is that the police have
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Nearly everyone agrees police should not be killing people for no good reason. Relative to other "western" countries its hard to argue there is not a huge fixable problem in need of fixing.
I can tell you the German rules when exactly a German police officer is allowed to kill someone: He or she is allowed to kill someone when they reasonably believe that someone else will be killed illegally, right at that moment, if the police officer doesn't act. For example, if there is an armed bank robber, there is usually no reason to believe that someone _will_ be killed right at that moment, so no permission to shoot the bank robber. Until the police officer believes he will kill someone _now_.
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And because I am not protesting them, does that mean that I don't "care?"
Caring is utterly worthless when disconnected from action.
So are you actively working to fix the street gang problems in Mexico? Are you actively working to fix the problems of genocide around the world? Are you actively working to stop the wild fires in California? Are you actively working to stop the spread of all diseases? Are you actively working to [fill in all the other troubles of the world here]?
If not I guess you just don't care about any of these problems since "caring is utterly worthless when disconnected from action".
There are way too many problems in the world for everyone to actively try and fix every problem. Caring that there is a problem is a good first step though and if enough people care maybe some of those people will actually be in a position to actively help as well.
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Could you provide a valid citation that BLM is instigating racial/ethnic divides in Ethiopia?
It would also be helpful if you could provide a citation that shows that BLM is an avowed Marxist organization.
If you can't find these answers on the BLM's website (https://blacklivesmatter.com/) I would say that your assumptions are wrong and you are listening to talking points from sources that have an ulterior motive.
If you want to protest & stop Mexican gangs (Score:5, Interesting)
Nearly all of the instability South of the US boarder can be traced back to US policies.
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BLM is a Marxist group (try reading the statements made by it's national leaders and dig in to the websites and see what they're actually trying to accomplish) that is taking advantage of an over-hyped issue to gain support and sympathy. Statistics do not back up police brutality as a large spread issue. The total yearly numbers of such issues are small and isolated. The numbers of unarmed whites killed by the police is greater than that of blacks (yes, statistically, blacks make up a larger portion than their national racial representation). The media inflates a couple cases a year and the propaganda machine goes forth before the facts are even fully known. It's always called "racist" without any of the facts leading up to the incident are known. Yes, we need to hold the police accountable and expect better. But, no, it's not an epidemic nor wide spread. If you want to improve policing, protest any unjustified death by the police, not just the black ones. Make it an issue that applies to everyone.
Pushing a false narrative and being hypersensitive will not solve any goal other than dividing people. By pushing the systematic racism narrative, the BLM movement is stoking fear in black youth. It's making them feel like victims. This solves nothing. It's just helping a radical movement gain support through a nice sounding facade. The vast majority of people value the lives of blacks just as much as the lives of any other group. It's hard to argue that a life does not matter.
Issues facing a large portion of blacks in the US are not racial. They're economical. Improving the lives of the general black populace needs to happen by breaking the generational cycle of poverty. You need to break violent crime in inner city neighborhoods which makes mothers afraid to send their kids outside to play. That makes kids not feel safe in school. That takes kids from school and sucks them in to gangs. That leaves far too many black youth dead in the street. That sucks hope out kids. You need to stop spreading the ideology of victim hood that makes people feel like no matter what they try, they'll always fail because they're victims. The mindset needs to change from one of despair to one of resilience and hope. Of belief in one's self. That's hard to accomplish when "leaders" keep pushing victim hood. When people are constantly told they're victims, they begin to act like it.
You want to focus on a goal that will make a real difference? Work on changing the narrative that infects the minds of black youth. Stop giving support to the leaders and organizations that profit off the victim narrative. Give support to organizations that work with kids in the inner city to give them opportunity, mentoring, safe places to go after school, etc. Far more black lives will be saved/improved through such means than will ever by preventing less than 20 wrongful/questionable deaths to the police each year. Defunding the police will likely increase gang and drug related black deaths by far more than 20.
A minority being terrified of police and worried about dying at a simple traffic stop is not an over-hyped issue. Parents having to tell their kids in the United States that any encounter with police could lead to their death is not an over-hyped issue. It is an unacceptable state of affairs and needs to be challenged. But yes I agree with your final point: we need to focus on education. Schools should be safe. Streets should be clean. Kids should have access to nature. All of these things are important and
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The tiny subset of people who are actually "terrified of police" are either morons, or the victims of brainwashing. No sane person in America is terrified of police.
That, sirrah, is the voice of privilege. The first time I was ever pulled over, it was for no reason, and I had two guns pointed in my face with fingers on triggers. I was one muscle twitch away from death there, when they shouldn't have been pulling me over in the first place. All because I was driving a shitty old car on an otherwise deserted street. I didn't speed, I didn't run a light, I didn't even fail to use a turn signal. Then the cops made me sit on the curb for half an hour in shorts and no shoes
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You are calling me a liar. Well, go fuck yourself, boot licking fuckface. See, u can play the name calling game too!
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There have been plenty of non-blacks killed by police, yet the protests completely ignore them.
You're welcome to start your own protests for the those victims of police violence you feel have been ignored. Throw in protests against black-on-black violence, while you're at it. You can show us all how it's supposed to be done.
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There have been plenty of non-blacks killed by police, yet the protests completely ignore them.
The assertion is that more blacks are killed senselessly, and that blacks have a higher chance of being killed senselessly in a police interaction. Do you have some sort of counter-evidence against these claims?
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So could you honestly say that if it was a young black man walking down the street with an AR-15 style rifle instead of a young white male (i.e. Kyle Rittenhouse) that the police would just let him walk past them (with or without getting a thumbs up)? I highly doubt that you could honestly say that both situations would play out the same way.
Re:Nobody cares about genocides (Score:5, Insightful)
My mom loves cats. But she refuses to ever volunteer at a cat shelter because she would not be able to handle seeing so many cats in cages. People only have so much emotional capacity for suffering.
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> People only have so much emotional capacity for suffering.
Speak for yourself, buddy. I am in training as an Olympic class grumpy old git.
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It's precisely because we can't really do anything about it. We tried once, the result was dead american soldiers dragged down the streets of Mogadishu. Aide sent by NGO's is stolen. Africa has to sort itself out sadly and that harsh truth is only made worse because it is in large part the way it is because of Europe.
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If people cared about genocide, there will be public outrage about the ongoing genocide in Southern Cameroon.
https://www.genocidewatch.com/... [genocidewatch.com]
But I bet most of you have not even heard about this.
I think what you mean is, nobody cares about Africa. And nobody cares because this kind of crap is always going on and people can only care so much about things that they can't control.
Every time we have tried to get involved in someone else's war, it's accomplished very little, or worse, got a bunch of our own people killed without actually solving anything.
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There's an infinite amount of injustice and uncaring in the world.
And even if you do care, you probably can't even figure out what to do about it beyond just saying 'well isn't this bad'.
The most recent example was Syria. 'Everyone' agreed Assad was bad. So let's fund rebels... ooooops. Destablize everything and open the door to ISIS.
Or maybe you don't fund rebels, and you just think of putting a huge Western force to bring stability. Ooops, now you have Western troops occupying a region fighting insurgents
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And yes as a disclaimer, now that I am 'fixed', I have a some resentment and anger towards many of these justice warriors in my family. It's great you have all this outrage towards this and that cause and global issues... but what about the easy to fix cause right in your face?
Thanks for sharing your perspective on this. I will say, as someone who has tried to help with some local causes and made attempts to help people improve their lives... that is difficult as well. The homeless guy down the street most likely is homeless because of mental health issues and self-destructive habits... same with the kid caught up in a gang. That's not to say that we should do nothing, but to say that helping people is hard, nobody ever changes unless they want to change and believe it is possibl
Re: Nobody cares about genocides (Score:2)
Hey i agree. You can't help everyone
Even the local homeless guy is really hard yo help.
Im just saying chances are i guarantee you there's something you can do that's more productive. I had one friend with schizophrenia. There was no helping him. He was just too paranoid. He ran off and lord knows what happened to him.
Im saying most people have someone they can help or influence positively. Yeah, don't go try and save the local mental health homeless if you have no experience. But there's so much people can
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But there's so much people can do that they don't. They don't even try. Just from my life experiences, i try. Ive just talked to people at like work... Just as humans and many have said no ones ever talked to them properly.
That's my only thing to say. Theres so many willing and receptive people out there, sometimes all they need is a hand or a sit down.
100% with you there. Apathy is the real problem... a lot of people are willing and able to ignore problems right in front of them. Part of human nature, I suppose. I likewise try to be better than that, although I don't always succeed.
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Indeed.
Hear it from this Jewish great man of peace [youtube.com].
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Dumbest comment of the day right here, and this story comments section is full of them.
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Then you clearly don't understand how social media works or the Filter Bubble [youtube.com] it creates - e.g. tailored interests, and more posts which the algorithm thinks you'd like - if you were a conspiracy theorist, that's pretty much all that the algorithm will keep pushing your way, more lunatics, deeper conspiracies all the time.
There is no longer a two-way debate like in the pub or even slashdot, it quickly becomes single-sided which reinforces ones bias and evens feeds and grows it, and allows massacres such as
"Facebook deletes a country, news at 7" (Score:3, Interesting)
Future history books are going to be really odd reads.
Don't solely blame the tool (Score:3, Insightful)
An organic genocide was sparked in Rwanda back in 1994 [google.com], well before Facebook or social media.
People have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. Perhaps - perhaps - a social media platform makes it easier for command and control or to disseminate ideology, but again, social media is about 15 years old.
Humans have been acting out their war ape nature across the globe for millennia.
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Humans have been acting out their war ape nature across the globe for millennia.
Some much more than others.
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That's a fair point.
Social media didn't cause genocide, war or even civil unrest. They just made it easier.
It's like that old BASF ad that says "We don't make the things....we make them better." (or something like that).
The Spirit of Innovation [youtube.com]
We don't start the genocides...we just make them more organized and effective - Social Media
There were a whole bunch of commercials like that and I always wondered who the target audience for them was. IT people buying magnetic tape? Material Science engineers loo
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Not even just making it easier, but also spreading news about it faster.
Violence like this is nothing new, it's been happening for hundreds if not thousands of years. The difference is, 50+ years ago we'd never have even learned about it at all until some archeologist discovered a mass grave years later.
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Chemical companies produce products which improve quality of life... for some. BASF makes high quality paint used by automakers in production. The better your paint is, the less problems you have with corrosion.
Social media companies also produce or facilitate output which benefits people. I use several Facebook groups to get information that helps me. There's a shuttle bus group, a skoolie group, a sprinter van group, and several others that I use regularly.
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Wtf is that "war ape nature" thing? Is that some technical or medical term I haven't heard about? Or is it some "meme" (ie racist dog-whistle)?
How did "people" do this "for a long time"? You won't find a single large-scale or small-scale atrocity which was spontaneous, or where somebody wasn't going to (very transparently) profit from it.
How about you go fucking read about the Rwanda genocide you point to (and how it was meticulously prepared, with valuable technical input from the military and "intellectua
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Wtf is that "war ape nature" thing?
It's suggesting that war is caused by our 'dumb' emotional parts, the parts of our brains that are shared with apes.
Inasmuch as apes fight each other emotionally, maybe they have no choice, but humans have the intellectual capability to overcome our disagreements peacefully. But when we use Facebook, we revert to the intellectual capacity of a chimpanzees.
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I'm just going to leave this here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Europeans slaughtered about a 100 million of each other during WWI and WWII. A few seconds of thought - okay perhaps maybe an hour or so for you - could have shown that nearly all human groups have engaged in brutal conflicts [nationalgeographic.com]. For most people on this site, they would have understood what "war ape" refers to. Hopefully I was able to explain simply enough to clear it u
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Tribes in africa have been killing each other for hundreds if not thousands of years. The only difference modern media makes is that now the whole world can hear about it, and consequently whine about it.
If one african tribe had gone and massacred all members of another tribe 100 years ago, would anyone outside of the surviving tribe even been aware?
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hundreds if not thousands of years.
We have historical records going back thousands of years demonstrating actual armies and warfare, let alone tribes biting each other to death.
It's reasonable to assume that tribal warfare predates homo sapiens and has been ongoing throughout.
Industrialized propaganda is about 90 years old (Score:2)
And so is mass data gathering, and mass manipulation.
The Nazis depended heavily on propaganda and on data science, such as it was in their day. Goebbels was as important as many other Nazi officials.
Stalin, in his numerous genocides, depended totally on the control of media in the Soviet Union. The first thing totalitarians do is to take over the intellegentsia, kill a bunch of them, then take over all the media.
The genocide in Rwanda was organized through radio.
Right now the genocide in Xinjiang is being c
Fires have been happening for a long time (Score:4, Insightful)
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My bit of psychology here. Social media can provide an echo chamber for extreme ideas. This means someone can think their particular brand of nastiness is well supported, when it is not really. And I guess there is another point that people that do horrible things are already pretty messed up. Maybe Facebook is their "voices in the head".
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Facebook can take action to prevent this specific genocide from starting. Just saying "oh wellz genocide happens, if it's not us it will be someone else accidentally facilitating it" isn't a very convincing moral argument.
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Tribal wars and ethnic violence have been going on in Ethiopia for many, many years. Facebook may be being used to stir the pot now, but it is not at the root of the violence.
Do people need the WWW for genocides? (Score:2)
People should be held responsible (Score:2)
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people like Mark Zuckerburg? definitely agree.
Media is more dangerous than people realize (Score:2)
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Free Speech is a Life or Death Issue (Score:2)
"The problem is that people won't shut up. We should have an authority that makes bad people stop talking, and make sure that whatever people have to say is peaceful and constructive ..."
Unfortunately, what comes with that is: That the authorities will go down a slippery slope of greater and greater restriction of speech, ending in a highly authoritarian government. Free thought is essentially banned.
I think it's incredibly dangerous to identify the problem as free speech.
Free Speech is not the source of
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Free speech, just like democracy, only works when the people are sufficiently well educated and capable of their own research and rational thought.
Freedom of speech combined with a poorly educated population allows for the population to be easily manipulated by those with the loudest voices.
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Free speech, just like democracy, only works when the people are sufficiently well educated and capable of their own research and rational thought.
No, it always works. Free speech allows people to discuss ideas. That's the whole point. When people are well educated and rational it also allows them to get rid of bad ideas and promote good ones. But even when people are poorly educated and irrational, it still allows them to speak and discuss ideas instead of killing and oppressing each other.
The only alternative is control of speech by a powerful authority, in which case people cannot discuss ideas, and are either subject to the whims of a dictator or are forced to take up arms.
That works just fine until some twat shows up to a debate with a gun and starts shooting. I'm all for freedom of speech but when some bunch of morons is using freedom of speech to whip up hatred for some person or persons and successfully encourages his minions to commit murder, then I'm willing to make an exception. Nobody's freedom of speech is worth so much we should sit by and not intervene because of the sanctity of free speech when some lunatic is inciting murder.
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The deeper problem is that humans are essentially very smart Great Apes and the aspects that all Apes incorporate are always and will always be present within us. That means tribal behavior, hate, war within tribes and against others, fighting, adultery, will never go away. It cannot, as it is baked into our DNA.
Religion and tribalism or nationalism was one of the few tools to reduce infighting between groups, to push out the conflict from within the groups towards their borders and as these larger national
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There are some noble sentiments in what you say about the importance of truth and so on. I have used just such sentiments to encourage better education, which might inoculate people against bad ideas and political manipulation. Unfortunately, it has been pointed out to me that most people do not want to be educated. You can lead a horse to water ...
we are not made for this (Score:3)
We have evolved a remarkable ability for latching onto new information and processing it. But I think we are not made for the huge store information readily available to us made possible by the internet, and I feel its continuing use can only lead to disaster.
And on it goes (Score:4, Insightful)
John Connor : We're not gonna make it, are we? People, I mean.
The Terminator : It's in your nature to destroy yourselves.
John Connor : Yeah. Major drag, huh?
Different ethnicities are a strength? (Score:2)
Everywhere you look, different ethnicities living close together in one area under the same laws has always been an incendiary mixture. Some will tell you with a straight face that Europeans are responsible for creating those conditions in Africa by drawing borders along their colonial interests with no regards to the tribes living there AND then consider taking ALL of the tribes to a Western country, preferably everyone in the same city, where different ethnicities instantly become "diversity" which is the
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It's very complicated.
Every society has it's urban, educated, 'open-minded' folks. I use that in big quotes, merely because I can't think of a proper term to it. By in large these urban educated 'open minded' folks can in fact live peacefully with other ethnicity. The reason... they're more similar than they're different.
I live in Toronto, Canada. A westernized urban black is the same as a westernized urban Indian is the same as a westernized urban white. I really like to see it's not actual diversity. They
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People mixing is natural,
People mixing is not natural in Africa. I lived there, various parts, for 30 years. Each of the 30 tribes or so in a given country all think that they are the superior race, and will kill any that looks like it might be a threat.
Go live there for a while.
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You haven't been in any larger European city for 30 years now, have you?
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Borders go through large European cities, no. Cities would be much safer, if they would. As it is now, large European cities all have extreme an diversity of ethnicities living together within it.
Of course, as everywhere, people are self-segregating as much as they can afford, but with modern mass transit, no one is more than 4 bucks / 15min away from anyone else, that includes people full of ethnic hatred and criminals regarding other ethnicities as deserving of nothing but wholesale plunder.
Take Paris, if
Q nazis and trumpers are pushing us exactly there (Score:2)
This is where the US is going with the Q idiots (they spout literal nazi propaganda) and the trumpists and the terrorist groups like the proud boys. And now cabinet members.
Civil war
Genocide
Fascism
get ready, all that on the next few stops.
Re:can't be the only reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the US is seeing much the same process. Polarized politics, press chasing ratings regardless of the consequences, opinion pieces passing as "news", social networks (Facebook included) stirring up conflict and misinformation..
This is a worldwide process. And in the US it has already caused violence.
So when will the US step up and sort out all it's issues?
(Africa at least has the excuse of being oppressed with colonialism well into the mid 20th Century)
Where ethnic/racial "us vs them" ends up (Score:2, Troll)
Yep, this is where ethnic and racial division ends up.
It's the natural progression of an "us vs them" mentality", fueled by power-hungry people who use identity politics to rouse support.
And now on US college campuses the next generation of Americans is pushing to set us back 100 years, to "separate but equal". Racially segregated student housing. I guess nobody taught them we tried that segregation thing already. It didn't work. In fact it waa so bad that the even the party that clung to segregation unt
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You're obviously not from the USA, given your misuse of the idiom "Fuckin' A". It's also clear who's the one sowing discord here by injecting Trump into the conversation.
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(Africa at least has the excuse of being oppressed with colonialism well into the mid 20th Century)
So does most of asia, canada, australia and many other countries.
If not for colonialism, most of africa would still be tribal, they would still be fighting and killing each other. Colonial governments tried to put an artificial stop to this and force the people to live in a modern world, rather than letting their societies develop on their own. It didn't work, they're still fighting and they still generally hate each other.
What people always forget, is that tolerance, cooperation and equality are western id
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You are generalizing.. few countries in Africa are at war.
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How many generations does it take for a once-colonialized nation or culture to become responsible for its own actions, rather than blaming them on colonialism? If they are indeed superior to their invaders, it should take less than one.
I don't know.. How many generations will it take to repair the damage done to the Native American tribes in US and Canada? To change the legal systems to stop discriminating against them?
In the case of Africa there are countries that gained independence in the 1960s!!
That's not a question of "generations".. it's about yesterday.
I'm not saying one culture is "superior" to the other (that again... is a concept inherited from colonialism.. to think of one race superior than the other)..
The situation in Africa
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It's not possible to repair damage done in generations that are passed away, and when the damage was done by people who have passed away. Time to let go of the past.
As far as discriminating against them, some say they have it better now than if they still had North America all to themselves. ("More than 2 million Native Americans receive free health care at federally supported Indian health facilities.") The portion provided by a company I was affiliated with is the same quality as what I get.
I guess I'm in favor of taking responsibility for one's self as soon as possible, and choosing one's own destiny, rather than utilizing blame. Maybe not everybody is like that. But if they are like that, then colonialism should be off the table.
But you assume "most African countries" haven't taken responsibility. When in fact most countries in Africa have developed greatly in the last few decades. Same with most other colonies. And that is in spite of the sometimes unfair conditions countries like France still impose on them.
To say that Native Americans are better off now (after their numbers will killed off) than what they would have been on their own is just racist. There's no other way to say that.
I'm all for taking responsibility too:
- The US
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I don't agree with your premise that you are better off than many people in developing countries.
It all depends on what you value in life. If you measure "better off as":
- better tech
- higher buying power
- access to education
- more ability to consume
- better healthcare
You could be right in some of these (healthcare is increasingly debatable.. I live in a "developing country" and when I go to the doctor I'm much better served than when I lived in the US and doctors have no time for you under HMOs).
But if you
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(Africa at least has the excuse of being oppressed with colonialism well into the mid 20th Century)
This is your excuse for every black country on earth being a shithole?
I see you haven't traveled the world much.
Africans with a lower crime rate than the US (Score:2)
Many, many countries in Africa have a lower crime rate than the United States. Africa is growing very well, but very quietly.