Tolya Ugajin

They probably "mistake" those two words because they are in fact synonyms, ie. they mean the same thing. How one decides who is stuck into which racial or ethnic group is largely determined by who is creating the government form for it. You are mistaking "race" for "species". There is indeed only one species of human, homo sapiens.

Would you care to provide some sort of reliable link for that claim of 7,000? The data I can find puts that number in the 200 range annually, (the number of whites killed being consistently around double that) so about 1/6 of what you claim, and your number is in excess of the total number killed by police during that period The vast majority of those appear to be of armed suspects, as the number of deaths of unarmed African Americans annually is between 10 and 20 (with Whites again about double that). There are certainly issues with data on this subject, as police departments are not required to gather and report such data in any consistent manner, which is frankly ridiculous. However, it seems unlikely that would explain such a disparity with your number. There are also studies out there that call into question the narrative that this is a racial issue with cops (one shows Black suspects are more likely to be killed by Black or Hispanic cops than by White cops, for instance, others that link the greater per capita rate of Blacks killed by cops to the higher percentage of violent offenders that are Black, etc.) Now, I realize several people will, the moment they read the first paragraph, immediately start typing their histrionic replies of righteous outrage, so let me just list my humble suggestion for curbing police murdering citizens: Make unjustifiable killing by a cop a federal crime Require that FBI field offices investigate all killings by police (combined with 1, this would make covering up in a police shooting, such as convent turning off of body cams, a federal crime) Dismantle police unions (which are a huge part of the reason bad cops keep getting put back on the street) Murder 1 by cop = death penalty (federal). Murder 2 = life in prison, no parole You can't legislate racism away, and you can't get 50 states and countless municipalities to all get on the same playbook, so make it a federal issue, and enough of this "cops policing themselves" BS. Knowing the FBI is coming for you with a needle and a dirt nap will either get cops to behave or, even more likely, get the corrupt ones out of policing (one way or another). Trump claims he's against police murders, the Dems claim they are, the GOP claims they are, all they have to do is flip off the police unions and come together for legislation and screw the endorsements and campaign donations. But, they won't, because this isn't about race or justice to them, it's about politics.

For action type fiction, I'm a big Vince Flynn and Brad Thor fan, 15+ books by each for their main characters, perfect for binge reading. If you'd like something a bit more unusual, check out Trevanian (Rodney William Whitaker's pen name). Shibumi and The Main are especially good. I read an inordinate amount of history as well. Adrian Goldsworthy is a modern Gibbon when it comes to the Roman era, and Michael Grant covers the Greek era very well (he does some Roman as well, but not nearly as well as Goldsworthy). If you like a bit more social commentary with your history, Mary Beard is good. If you'd like something a bit more expansive in scope that gives some very interesting insight into how history has shaped the relationships between East and West, Silk Roads is a great read. In the mood for binge reading fantasy? Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will keep you busy for a few weeks (although be prepared to be incredibly let down by the ending, since this is another case where an author died before finishing and the ending written by someone else was terrible). Stephen R Donaldson is another good one, with extremely interesting characters (the first Thomas Covenant trilogy and the Mordant's Need books are my favorites).

If you want a snack, I suggest my back deck. You can join the 2 (that I've seen so far) brand new kittens, bringing to a total of 7 feral cats who are regulars (along with a couple other occasional visitors) begging for food. :::grabs a plastic grocery bag and stomps off to pick up a week's worth of cat food cans cluttering the deck while wondering when Chewie will get here with the next 48 pounds of dry cat food for these pests:::

Personally, I've cut down my own presence here because of the behavior you cite. I'm tired of getting into back and forths with people who insist on misrepresenting what I say and cannot be bothered to consider any viewpoint beyond their own without claiming the other person is evil in some way, while others go out of their way to find outrage in the stupidest things. A couple weeks ago I stumbled across my old Wii and have been playing it a lot rather than spending time in here, coinciding with the period you're saying things have been awkward, so I guess I'm happy the awkwardness isn't me. Still, I don't think it's a moderator issue. It's a people issue. Too many people so angry with the world that, probably to protect their psyches, retreat into a siege mindset rather than an explorative one. But, I'll gladly eat your cookies.

It's been a while, but I've had similar issues. When I've reached out to LL for clarification on just exactly what is the problem, I've received no answers. Apparently Clueless Linden (my favorite Linden) assumes the only "fantasy" in SL is fantasies of oversized phalluses used in highly improbable coital acts, and we sure wouldn't want the kiddies to potentially be exposed to such things. That's what the internet is for, after all. Better that we make it hard for someone to host a fantasy character dance event than risk unsupervised children getting their exposure to naughtiness from anything but pronhub.

Since I rarely leave my own sim any more, and because I get quite enough of RL in RL without bringing it into SL, no.

My current pet peeve is white people who take advantage of riots in order to loot something as ridiculous as legos. Add this guy to the list of people to be sent up on a SpaceX rocket and ejected out an airlock.

Not completely apropos for the current situation, but I always liked this song.

Curious - what did you find inflammatory about Swansong's post? I get the timing part with the current situation in Minneapolis and the Georgia murder, but there is nothing about the post to indicate he/she is racist or even from what country or race he/she is. It seems like multiple steps of assumption to read ill-intent into it, but I'm not always the brightest bulb on the tree. I didn't even realize this was an old thread, but when I read the most recent page it seemed interesting and actually read it all the way through.

Pffft if I had any sense I'd decommission Tolya altogether. Other than a bit of non-transferrable art I occasionally rez, his sole remaining utility is the Forum, and it's highly debatable as to whether that is a of positive or negative net value.

I'm sorry, Dakota, but this is the General Discussion Forum. You're not allowed to be completely rational here, especially on a controversial topic. Kindly stop or I'll be forced to report you 😛

At one point, the most commonly trades slaves in the Mediterranean basin were, ironically, Slavs, either traded down the Russian rivers to the Black Sea, or via Muslim invasions of Southeastern Europe. Later on, 1/3 of the population of Russia were serfs; the differentiation between slave and serf is mainly semantic.

The First Amendment does not constrain how businesses choose to operate, it constrains how the government operates. As such, it does not apply here. LL can do, or not do, whatever they please with this.

How about Volkswagen, a company literally started to fulfill Hitler's promise of affordable cars for all? Shouldn't driving a "Hitlermobile" (as I've actually heard them called, although not in Germany) be considered offensive? Of course, like so many such promises (not just by Hitler) it was never fulfilled, but that is why the company was started. By the way, my question was rhetorical - of course it shouldn't be.

I don't recall ever hearing a man refer to another man as their "BFF" in RL or SL or any old L. Probably because we see every other male as someone we potentially may need to kill some day, so the second "F" really doesn't apply.

I tried doing this in my head to check your work and was just about to tell you that you were wrong...but then I remembered the pesky "1/2" in the equation. I can't decide if I want to blame the 30 years since I got my physics degree, or all the alcohol consumed since then But, then I consoled myself that you forgot to factor in air resistance: Assuming a spherical 70 kg Bieber projectile, it will actually take 5.355 seconds for the Bieber ball to bounce, landing at 40.32 m/s. He's still dead, and isn't that all that really matters?

I personally find the SL "parent/child" thing cheesy and mildly demeaning of RL families, although I can understand how those who had a lousy RL upbringing could embrace it. It's just not for me. RL parenting - all you can do is try and teach them, balance setting expectations and boundaries and holding them accountable when they transgress, encourage them, and make sure they know you love them, and then pray to whatever deity you espouse that they don't get seriously f'd up when they move out and head to college. Because no matter how awesome your spawn is at 18, by 22 their classmates and professors can have undone all your hard work and turned a great kid into something else into a caricature.

Life is too short to deal with them in any other manner.

lol it's the best we can do, but unless the underlying data is terribly wrong, it's probably not too far off. I've not seen a single report that puts overall lethality above the 2-3% range, with the bulk of that being fairly old people. It might change with the addition of undernourished people and those without good access to health care in the 3rd world, of course.

Lethality climbs steeply above age 50, but is comparatively flat and low for those younger. Per the data I sent earlier, the fatality rate is about 15% for those age 80 and above, and that age group. But, yes, good data, particularly data that can be sliced and diced to suit, is not exactly easy to find. And then there's the fact that the "experts" keep changing their minds on pretty much everything they say, so yesterday's data might be inaccurate by tomorrow's standards.

Yes, they'd close during an outbreak, but they wouldn't stay closed indefinitely to prevent a possible outbreak, which is what schools are currently doing.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/ I took their table about 1/2 way down and applied a weighted average for workforce demographics (the average retirement age in the US is 62, to I took 1/5 of the 60-69 age group). Somewhat crude, but google doesn't cooperate when asked for just working age adults. I have seen no data from any source that would indicate a higher percentage.