I absolutely understand and agree that the "all lives matter" retort sounds dismissive, and I am sure that in many ways and cases, that it is. I was only pointing out the dynamic I witnessed unfolding, and my personal frustration with it.

I do want the government's job to see to it that EVERYONE is protected as needed, and has their personal freedoms defended as much as possible, and have the lives of their descendants seen to as well (re Global Climate Change).

I also agree that I see a lot of other biases mixing in with each other. Sometimes it's hard to be sure how much a given person is being abused and ignored because they aren't a white male, and how much they are being abused and ignored because they are poor, or lower class Southern, or female, or foreign, or just "funny looking."

I am often reminded these days, of the to do over Natalie Holloway, back in 1986. What happened to her (which we can still only deduce) was certainly horrible, but it also appeared that the reason HER disappearance made national and even international news, was because she was the pretty blonde daughter of well to do white Americans. I was glad that her apparent murder would be solved, but I was on the side of all the other parents and friends of murdered people who WEREN'T rich and cute, who wanted the same justice.

This is all very important real life, of real people, but too often it is dealt with habitually, especially in corporate mass media, and in politics, as though it is some grand game, where those with the most clever sound bites, or the most prestigious supporting quotes from ancient deified leaders of the past, get to "win," and the actual problems never get addressed.

I think we are suffering what might be called a tragedy of nomenclature.


The original reason for the "Black Lives Matter" phrase, was to emphasize that all the most influential social entities (the mass media, government institutions) were behaving consistently and habitually, as though it was entirely to be expected, that non-white people would be killed or violently abused by government officials on a daily basis.

The perception was (and is) that the same is not assumed about "whites."

Thus the phrase selected would much more accurately have been

"Black Lives Matter Just As Much As Everyone Else's."

Perhaps that didn't seem "kicky" enough, or perhaps Mass Media don't perk up their "ears" for "sound bites" that are more than five words long.

The tragedy of choosing the shorter and "kickier" "Black Lives Matter," is that it immediately triggered the reaction that makes up at least half of the opposition to this cause. That is, that many people who entirely agree that everyone's life should matter, felt stung by being rebuked, and about seeming to be told that ONLY "Black Lives Matter."

Essentially, it's an accident of grammar.

And that accident, allowed the remaining minority of people who wanted to continue to have the government support racial superiority and inferiority, to gain allies amongst many who actually entirely OPPOSE inequality under the law.

And then, just as happened back in the sixties, the back and forth hostilities and raised voices, led to escalations of misunderstandings, and to some people beginning to speak out even MORE sloppily, and make even MORE irritating, and not-entirely-accurate accusations, alienating even MORE people who would otherwise be allies to the original cause.

And so we have an ultimate irony, that the phrase "All Lives Matter" is now is seen to mean that non-whites should continue to be treated as less important than whites, as though it doesn't mean what its words actually say.

"Why do gossip girls clamor for equal pay?"


?????

Well, I don't know any group called "gossip girls," but if there is one, I would certainly support them being paid just as much as "gossip boys."

Always hard to know. I get into chit chat with strangers in stores and such, mainly because it's something I taught myself to do to combat my natural intense shyness. And I talk to almost anyone, so the fact I say something to a given woman, especially something mundane, doesn't really mean anything more than that I'm trying to make the world a cheerier place in general.

But it certainly doesn't hurt to continue the chat a bit, and allow for possibilities.

Never in my life, did I ever "pick up" a woman in that way, or seriously try to. But I know that more males do that, than don't.
I guess all I'm really saying is, don't get too caught up in imagining that you just missed an important chance for romance.

Well, it does depend on exactly how you define those things.

All I know for sure, is that I would never again even try to tolerate a cheater. Whether they "loved me" or not.

What I've been committed to for my whole life, is trying to figure out what reality is.

That's a much more subtle and complicated thing than it may seem to be, and certainly isn't some kind of egotistical commentary on my part.

It includes trying to answer all those early questions I had, as soon as I sensed that I had to do things myself, that I could decide things and that I had to respond to people and events. Such as, which one of the other people who so obviously expect me to do stuff, and behave a certain way, should I actually cater to?
If any?

And so on.

Perfect answer, SparklingCrystal.
I wish we had upvote links on this forum, for situations like this.

I'm also in the "sort of" group, though for another reason.

It seems to me, that people get instant attraction, and even fall instantly under the sway of the "in love" brain chemicals that are what we "feel" when we "feel in love."


But it's a matter of chance or luck, whether the real people involved can actually make a go of things in life.

On the chance occasions that things do work out, the people may proudly say forever after that it was True Love At First Sight. But actually, it wasn't. It was just another instant lust sensation, that happened to be for someone that also turned out to be a good match.

I also no longer believe in the most common explanation that I've heard others give, that the instant lust boils away, and turns into real deep love later. There's no "turning into" going on, there's just "brain chemicals wash through, and real life is very pleasant as well."

That's why people who do really do well together, and do really love each other, still experience the instant lust sensation for other people, but don't do anything about it. Because the "love at first sight" experience IS just fantasy-triggered chemicals. Even when we feel it for someone who we ALSO truly love.

And it's also why some couples, hungering for those wonderful brain chemicals again, will indulge in role play games, or pretend to be strangers or try reenacting episodes of their own life together. Because those brain chemicals are a lot of fun.

But I'm very confident that they are NOT messages from the gods, telling you you've sighted your soul mate or twin flame or whatever the latest fad term is.

I've seen a bunch of films and tv shows with mind reading in it, and most of them miss the mark of what real mind reading would be like (for the sake of telling the main story they want to get to).

One of the better ones I saw, was a now ancient episode of Twilight Zone, where a guy tosses a coin at the beginning, it lands on its edge and stays there, and as long as it stays on edge, he finds he can hear what anyone close to him is thinking. At one point, he hears a fellow employee of the bank they work in, going through the steps he will follow to abscond with a huge pile of cash, and turns the guy in, only to learn soon after, that the guy was just fantasizing for fun.

Believe it or not as you wish, I've actually heard other peoples thought on occasion. Just brief snippets, nothing interesting.

And most people are just like me inside their heads, their actual thoughts aren't all that coherent, and tend to jump from thing to thing very quickly. At least the parts that can be heard, do. I suspect that science will eventually discover that the reason why some "thoughts" can be "heard," and some not, is because the thoughts that can be "heard," are the ones intended to be spoken, but which are not voiced. Most thinking is more "holographic," in that most thinking includes a lot of overlays, smearing of time, rapid editing, and multi-path multi-subject activity, which the individual person's mind is able to understand, but which most strangers would only find cacophonous.

Good exercise in this area: observe your own thoughts some time, as you are doing some task. You'll most likely find that in addition to the fact that you aren't paying steady attention to JUST the task, that you're "subconscious" will often drop in other stuff, rather like pop up ads online, just because you also have other things you will have to deal with later.

Imagine reading your mates mind, and in the middle of a genuinely passionate kiss, their subconscious mind pops in to remind them they need to change the kitty litter as soon as they get home.

That's real world mind reading.

No, she says she can't date men in the UN TIED states.

Not clear on how to tell which states are tied, and which aren't.

I've been in the midst of this and more for most of my life, one way and another. I've been fortunate not to have been in the midst of killings, but I have been chased by police with dogs, just for observing events, and I have been taken into custody (not arrested) for being young and in reach. I've had friends murdered by racists. I've seen police officers being abused and derided by the people they were there to help. I've seen them suffer intense frustration because some rich jerk decided to treat them as less than human.

What used to anger me, and now just makes me feel less hopeful all the time, is how so many people at all levels, really don't want to address the real problems at all.

Lots of people eager to label it, lots of people eager to decry it, lots of comments that I too have made, recognizing how difficult it all is to deal with.

But not enough actual effort to address any of the problems, especially not at the level most needed, the leadership of the country and states.

No one in any party has seriously proposed investing in the training and level of pay and support that the police need to be able to do a better job. This time too, I anticipate a nominal effort to discipline one or more officers, but the culture that led them to make the mistakes that cause this kind of tragedy will be left in place undisturbed.

We went through this in the sixties, too. Protests and anger at injustice, lectures from people who want the violence to go away, directed at the people who are rebelling, and a few gestures of righteousness. But the same attitude directed at police from the authorities above them as always. Praise when they do something heroic, righteous indignation when they blow things, but no follow up.

I've spent my life fixing things for my living. One thing that's obvious about machines, that people seem to be unwilling to accept about themselves, is that if you do NOTHING to repair what went wrong, it WILL go wrong again.

And another thing obvious with machines: maintenance is required. People know (at least most do) that if they change the oil in their car today, if they keep driving it, they'll have to change that oil out in the not too distant future again.

But they want repairs on humans, to be one-and-done-it. They want to pass one law to "fix" everything, and then they get mad when it turns out that the problem was more complex than that, and that more work is needed.

I do think it can be very important to come to understand that what we do know of reality is ALWAYS affected by the mechanisms of our perceptions, as well as by the knowledge (and what we THINK is the knowledge) that we bring with us as we perceive.

I remember spiraling into a deep depression one day as a child, when I read that there was a measurable, albeit very short amount of time between when our eyes or other sense organs take in real information, and when it reaches our brains so that we can process it. I immediately deduced that I could NEVER actually live in the real world, only in the real past world.

I eventually came out of it essentially by realizing that there was nothing I could do about it, and that everyone else was in the same boat, so to speak.

But it also fed into what I was learning as I studied more histories, about how perceptions and what we THINK we already know, can alter what we THINK we see and hear and feel.

Effectively, mechanically speaking therefore, this very much IS a dream, since by the time we perceive, what we perceive isn't reality itself, it is the mechanically and emotionally and culturally processed RESULT of reality. Just like in a dream.

But of course the difference, is that a dream bus will very rarely kill you if it runs over you.

All that eventually led to my "May as well" approach to life. As in, my modified version of Rene Descartes famous statement "I think therefore I am," which I changed to "I think, therefore I may as well proceed as though I am."

Matter of opinion, and how you define "risk taker" I guess.

I take risks when I think I have to, but I am absolutely the furthest thing from someone who takes risks for the thrill of it.

I'm sure that I do things that some other people see as risks, but that I don't see that way at all. And of course, I think a lot of us are CALCULATED risk takers, and don't think of ourselves as "risk takers.

I guess I'm trying to distinguish between "risk taker" and "thrill seeker."

I do have a little of the spirit of a thrill seeker in me, in that I will often explore the other side of arguments that most people think are already certain one way or another. I tend to get a bit rebellious, the more smug and certain people around me seem to be about whatever is going on.

Hmm.

Be VERY VERY careful with your thinking about this.

One of the most dangerous and often destructive things I see people in relationships do to each other again and again, is when they contrast something they are experiencing with their mate, and compare it to some fantasy they have about life....and then conclude some oversimplified thing like "if he/she doesn't try harder to talk to me, it means they don't really love me after all."

Life and people are VASTLY more complicated than that.

ESPECIALLY when it comes to communication.

There are many reasons why a person can be poor at expressing their feelings, which have nothing at all to do with their not feeling deeply. Even when someone is afraid to communicate, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't trust the other person. It's much more common, that they don't trust their own ability to say what they really mean, clearly enough.

The only identifiable profiteering I've seen so far, was when some of the people who rushed to buy all the medical equipment, tried to sell it online at ten times their retail cost.

I know what's happening with most of the rising grocery prices and the like. That's not profiteering, that's suppliers trying to stay in business, with falling resources and fewer customers, but with basic costs of doing business remaining the same.

If you can make a decent living, and pay your rent, selling a thousand of something, and suddenly purchases fall to only five hundred of those things, if you don't raise your prices, you'll be tossed out of your apartment.

Anyway, that's a sidetrack.

Ever since I was a professional salesman (long ago, thankfully), I've come to think the saying needs to be a bit different. Perhaps to "you aren't likely to get what you DON'T pay for."

I'm in the repair/service business now, and I constantly run into customers who are angry that the $2000 thing they bought, doesn't perform at the same level as the $5000 version they passed up.

Oh yeah, there are tons of film gaffs like those. One sort of phenomenon I've run into, since I sometimes rewatch films I have liked, is how sometimes a favorite film drops way down my list of enjoyables, because I LEARNED SOMETHING that makes it unbelievable.

One that sort of fits that for me, was The Shining, as done with Jack Nicholson. I loved it, until I made the mistake of reading the book. After knowing what the story is supposed to be about, I can't stand Kubrick's version.

Most of the time, especially when I pay to see a film, I try to turn off my critical eye, to get my money's worth.
But sometimes the screw ups are just too annoying.

I loved the relatively silly film, The Rocketeer, because I grew up on films like it. But at a fairly important scene, where the Rocketeer's friend is racing by truck to try to help him, the director decided to save money by reusing a shot. The friend is driving the truck, and the Rocketeer comes towards him fast, and the driver reacts with a look of dismay. Problem is, this was a shot from later on the film, where they are both trying to escape reporters in the truck, and the Rocketeer stands in the bed of the truck, and uses the rocket to give them a boost. And the audience can clearly see that he is standing right behind the driver. In both shots.
Made me very annoyed with the director for being so terribly sloppy. Insulting to the audience, really.

It's not just a matter of choosing a relaxed situation. Humor is one of the trickiest things humans do.

Context and culture matters too, as well as reputation.

The exact same one-liner, such as "that's what she said" can result in big laughs for one person, and complete disdain for another, in exactly the same situation.

Main caution: be careful about what YOU are thinking as you say something. If "That's what SHE said" is clearly targeted at making the speaker sound smug and superior, it's likely to be poorly received.

It's more likely to go over well, if no one in the joke is being insulted.

Even past that, I've come to suspect we all function less like individuals, and more like we are the CEO of a corporation made up of all the parts of our bodies, the semi conscious portions of our brains, and even more.

Most people talk about getting into arguments with themselves, and don't at all mean that they suffer from some kind of split personality problem. As you say, we can see fight or flight as instinctive, but it could also be viewed as the part of our brain dedicated to directly running our bodies, deciding on one course of action, and the "CEO" part of us stepping in to overrule. As in literally, part of our actual selves, wants to run, or wants to fight, but another very real part of our consciousness does not.

Perhaps some people who have difficulties that get called personality disorders, have actual physiological difficulties with mind integration. I don't know, I just wonder.

Yeah, because they want to. No one does it when they don't want to.

Who actually gets sick at top levels of governments anywhere, is difficult to be sure of, since political concerns of various kinds tend to limit how much straight information we get about anyone.

The more secretive the government, and the more limited average peoples access to the leadership there is, the less likely we'll ever know who's sick and who isn't.

Frankly, I suspect that a combination of behind the scenes protection, and unreported work by supporters of a given leader who pretends not to care about COVID is what keeps them well. Not their bravado, and it certainly doesn't prove anyone's claims that COVID is an exaggerated scam. Or that anyone who doesn't get sick is "tougher" than those who do.