Forestluv

Yes, it is a paradox. I think part of the tension is that many people don’t want to give up their culture. And many people can’t imagine what the experience of another different from themself. For example, It’s not that easy for me to see why American’s would so strongly hold onto old cultural aspects like protecting the prominence of Christmas, maintaining the Thanksgiving story of Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing meals together and the identity of the Wild West gun culture. . . Yet then I look at how the Chinese are slowly killing Tibetan and Uyghur culture. I feel saddened about the loss of those cultures and could see how those people would fight to maintain their culture. . . Then I can use that to better understand why so many conservative Americans want to preserve what they consider their American culture.

I agree and think the keywords are willingness and capacity. As well, there needs to be a threshold amount of consensus on what counts as “better” for society. That is hotly debated. And then we could add in lobbyists, corporations and billionaires that block certain measures. For example, 90%+ of Americans want universal background checks when purchasing guns. However, a small group called the NRA has been able to block this from becoming law.

I haven’t done that before, yet I want to explore using nnDMT, so I’ll have to start learning.

Perhaps I can tell you a few things. The people of Detroit have gone through a lot of turmoil over the last several decades. I find them to be “weathered” and some of the nicest, down-to-earth people I’ve met in the region. I moved here from the west coast of the U.S. Out there I felt so comfortable just being with people. I could go to a community concert and easily strike up conversations with random people - and I’m super introverted. Detroit is the only place in the region I can do that. There is a sense of communal caring I sense there and I think part of the reason is the hardships that have shaped them. A few things that I think reflect some of the awesomeness in Detroit. As buildings decayed around them, many local communities came together and created community gardens. How awesome is that? Surrounded by decay, they came together and starting growing nutritious food together as a shared community. Due to economic collapse, rental prices are so low that poor artists can afford to have their own studio downtown. This creates an organic artsy vibe that is unique. Detroit has some of the greatest music history, musicians and music appreciation I’ve seen. The Detroit electronic festival was all grassroots. Community members coming together to create a free music festival for the community. The talent was sooo good that it has expanded to an internationally-acclaimed music festival. I went a few years and was blown away. . . You had mentioned crime statistics, so this may seem surprising. This was the most diverse and safest music festival I’ve ever been to. And there were no police officers. There were just designated community people checking tickets and encouraging everyone to be chill. There were sooo many different types of people. All sorts of races, sexual orientations, ages, poor and rich, muscle builders, hippies, dudes covered with tattoos and on and on. And everyone was totally cool with everyone else just being themselves. It was filled with love and one of the greatest experiences I’ve had.

Have you ever tried vaping with an electronic vape (usually used for dry herb)?

@Epikur I think this is a complex, nuances issues that involves wealth inequality, biases in the judicial system, access to education and upward social mobility, access to health care etc. As well, I think the police force is necessary and is a difficult job. Cops need to be tough and there are situations in which cops need to use force. A CHAZ-type community isn’t feasible in the long run. Perhaps someday there will be Turquoise level societies in which police aren’t necessary. Yet we aren’t there yet. Over the last few weeks, I’ve tried to challenge my views about policing and open my mind to new ways of looking at policing. I think you make some good points. Like in your alcoholic example. I may be a cop that enters an alcoholic-related situation and want to take control over the situation. This can escalate the situation. I may use some force and get control, yet it’s not the best way to handle the situation. Like you say, perhaps I take away the alcohol and bring the person into the station. I put him in a cell to sober up and he goes in DT withdrawal and dies. An addiction specialist says “My god, why did you handle the situation like that?”. My intentions were good, yet I’m not trained as an addiction specialist. I handled the situation in the only way I know how. Yet I shouldn’t have been put in that situation by myself. Although a CHAZ-type community without policing will not work long term, I think they are making some good points. Some of the community members are saying that the police budget increases every year and all the community stuff gets cut, like health care and education. They want more community type centers and reallocation of funds to community wellness. Also you mention violent societies. In America, there is an obsession with guns. There are more guns in America than people. And a lot of Americans want high powered assault weapons. Flooding society with a massive number of high powered weapons is going to be correlated with more violence.

It’s not just being in poverty. There is also the unfairness part. If there is a 20% chance I will be maltreated and not get a fair shake in the judicial system, the calculus changes. In NYC, there were thousands of “stop and frisks” - the vast majority of them against inner city black and brown young men. And the vast majority were non criminals without a weapon. (I think it was 94%). And many of them were brought into the station for hours and kept in a small crowded room. Most were likely released without charge, yet a proportion had to to deal with disproportionate attention to minor infractions. This degrades the social contract of trust. If I was in a poor neighborhood in NYC and was approached for a frisk, I would 100% surrender to it. It’s a no brainer. I’m not carrying a weapon. I know the officer will not use excessive force or bring me into the station. I know the police department won’t comb though my history looking for any infractions they can exploit. I 100% submit because I trust the police to be fair and do the right thing. . . Yet if I am a young noncriminal, unarmed young black male in NYC, the calculus changes. It’s no longer a 100% no-brainer surrender decision. If the cop is far enough away and didn’t see my face, I may run away. If I’m close to a place I can hide and know he won’t find me, I may go for it. And I’m not running because I did anything wrong. I’m running because there is a decent chance I’m going to get maltreated and have to deal with a bunch of crap I don’t deserve. And that abuse of power is not limited to the incident. It creates a toxic relationship between police and community. More cops will be perceived as predators than the number of actual predatory cops. Uncertainty of whether you can trust police officers in your community is a toxic dynamic. When I was in Honduras and Colombia, there were places I didn’t know if I could trust the police officers. That changes the calculus. I avoided the police and always tried to be respectful so I didn’t stick out or piss them off. Yet there were a couple times, the option of running was on the table. And not because I didn’t anything wrong. There was a small chance of getting harassed, having to deal with a bunch of crap I didn’t deserve and paying a fine for some stupid infraction they made up. Police officers must have a certain amount of toughness to deal with criminals. I wouldn’t want a bunch of hippie cops that get run over by criminals. And I’m not trying to suggest that the majority of cops are predators or the majority of police departments are corrupt or the majority of the judicial system is unfair. Yet there is enough to cross a threshold of breaking social trust for a lot of people.

Part of the problem with that is there is an unfair justice system. What if I’m in a situation in which I have a prior drunk driving arrest and received a disproportionately severe prison sentence. Cops and the justice system are against me. If I get caught drunk in my car, the consequences are disproportionately stacked against me. If I surrender, I’m not going to get a fair shake and I’m going back to the damn prison. That factors into my response of wether I surrender or not. This is why fairness and trust is so important. Every unfair police encounter and unfair judicial decision breaks the social contract of trust. Have you ever lived in a society in which you didn’t perceive the police force as being on your side? Rather than protecting you, you perceived them as threatening and to be avoided? I experienced this when I lived in Colombia. It’s a very different dynamic.

Lol. That’s what I’m talking about. Yet I must admit I do it myself. I’m sure have I distorted views of many foreign cities based on a few videos I saw.

And what would you do if you were a non-criminal and an armed predator wanted to abuse and kidnap you? I would grab the predator’s tazer, run like hell and use the taser against him. I get your point about how good cops have to deal with shitty dangerous people/situations everyday and become jaded. I couldn’t do it. Yet I think you may be underestimating the corruption in police departments and how it is reasonable for noncriminal young black inner city males to see police officers as predators they need to defend themselves against. The situation reminds me somewhat of Medellin, Colombia. The police there have to deal with a lot of criminals and dangerous situations and are jaded. The locals in the city only partially trusted the police since they were so corrupt. They warned me to be cautious of the police, yet it’s better to trust the police over the mafia and criminals. Below is an example of how hard it is to be a good cop in a corrupt system:

The original comment I responded to was: “Parts of America are turning into Detroit or worse.” This is a derogatory generalized comment about the city of Detroit. It is a myopic view. It is also accurate to say that America would be better if America turn more like Detroit. You claim to know a lot about Detroit from all the videos and articles you have read. So please tell me, in what ways would American be better if they turned more like Detroit? You wouldn’t understand this because you don’t know what Detroit is actually like. As I said, if you would like to learn about what Detroit is actually like, I invite you to visit. I’d be happy to show you around.

WHOOSH!!! You totally missed my point. And I’ll ask you the same question. How many times have you actually visited Detroit? How many Detroiters have you actually met? How many Detroit communities have you immersed yourself within? I find it quite ironic that you call your view a “fuller picture”. If you would like to gain a “fuller picture” of Detroit, please come visit. I’m happy to show you around and I think you would be quite surprised of what you discover. When I first moved to Michigan, I had the same view as you. I avoided Detroit for years. Then I actually went there and was surprised by what I found. Detroit is now one of my favorite cities in the U.S.

I would have been perceived as being more suspicious. Suspicion of threat has many variables: age, night or day, poor or rich neighborhood, clothes the person is wearing etc. I agree that income disparity is a major issue. Yet I think you are leaving out that being black is itself an input. Everything else being equal, a young black man will be perceived as being more suspicious than a young white male by an average white person. Even if the crime stats are the same for poor blacks and poor whites in a neighborhood, a black male has an extra input for being black. In my town, the crime rate for black and white is about the same. Yet white homeowners call the police when they see young black or brown males around their house. This is common near the campus I work. In particular, white middle age / elderly women call the police when they see black and brown students around their home. And brown people actually have much lower crime rates in my town. The only brown people in my town are the students! In the Wendy’s situation there are different perspectives: 1) The police officer is the good guy who was doing his job serving and protecting the community. He encountered a person that evaded arrest and threatened his safety, so the police officer responded with lethal force. 2) A person got drunk and fell asleep in their car. They were awoken by a threatening predator. In fear of being beaten and kidnapped by the predator, the person tried to escape and protect themself by slowing the predator down with a taser. Then the predator shot and killed them, just as was originally feared. This is why fairness and trust between police and the community is so important. If people see the police as predators, it changes the dynamics. When I traveled through Central and South America, there were military police patrolling with machine guns and body armor in some towns. At first it made me uncomfortable, yet I developed trust over time after talking with locals and being around the police. However, if white tourists were were disproportionately targeted and abused, my relationship would have changed. If they targeted white tourists in a biased judicial system to extort money and get some payback against whites, my relationship would have changed. In this context if an officer approached me, running away is now on the table because I no longer see him as someone serving and protecting me. I see him as a predator that is threatening to me.

I was not nicely dressed in a business suit. I was dressed as a regular guy. I was wearing an old sweatshirt and worn-out jeans. The officer didn’t relax because I was dressed nicely or drove a nice car. Nothing like that. My impression is that may age and skin color were the two major factors he relaxed. By this logic, the police officer would have treated me more aggressive if I was black because black people commit more crime and are more dangerous. You say it is a fact of online policing that 95% of spam comes form India. Yet I would challenge a claim that it is a “fact” that racial profiling is justified due to black people committing significantly more crime and being more dangerous. And this doesn’t address the perspective of an inner-city young black male. If someone encounters an armed predator, it is reasonable to try to escape or fight back. Consider what young black and brown males in NYC had to go through with stop and frisk. 90%+ of young black and brown males that got stopped and aggressively frisked were innocent. Many of them were arrested and held for a while. That is literally facing a predator from the black / brown perspective.

I often see the assumption that the police officer is the “good guy” trying to protect a community from the “bad guys”. That is certainly a perspective, yet there are also other perspectives that are valid as well. There was a time I was driving through a city with my radio too loud and without a rear-view mirror. I was not aware a police officer was following me with his lights on trying to pull me over. At one point, I cut through traffic haphazardly and parked in an empty Walgreen’s lot and spent a few seconds to send off a text. As well, I had forgotten to renew my license plate and was driving with expired an expired plate. From the police officer’s perspective, I was trying to evade him and this was a potentially serious situation. I stepped out of my car and the police officer was in defensive/offensive posture yelling something about my hands. I was disoriented and confused. He looked at me, then relaxed his shoulder’s, took his hand off his gun and said “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you see me following you with my lights on? What’s going on?”. I told him my radio was too loud and I was driving without a rear-view mirror (which he had no issue with). He then told me he pulled me over for driving with an expired plate. I said “Ooops. Sorry, I forgot. I’ll make sure to re-new it this week”. He said no problem and to be more aware as I drive. So my questions are: 1) If I was a black male in this same situation, what are the chances that a police officer would have treated me this way? 2) Imagine myself living in a poor community as a black male in which the police force and justice system is biased against black males. The calculus now changes. I now have to factor in uncertainty of getting abused, arrested, going through a biased judicial system and going to prison. With these factors, I can see how my reaction would be different. Rather than being like “Oops, gee whiz officer, I didn’t see you”, it is now a very different dynamic. To be honest, I don’t know what I would have done. If I was afraid of being beaten and sent to prison for this, my immediate reaction may have been to run like hell to save my ass. And if there was a taser on the ground, I may have picked it up to protect myself. As my white self, I did not perceive that officer as threatening. Yet I can see the perspective that the “police officer” is actually a predator against me. And in that situation, I would likely run away and try to protect myself against a dangerous predator. This is one of the reason fairness and trust between police and community is so important.

This framing would make for a great Onion article.

Healthy Green:

This view misses the difference between criticizing from above and criticizing from below. Orange/Green/Yellow criticizing Red/Blue from above is different than Red/Blue criticizing Green from below. Yet one would need to reach a meta view to see that difference. The view itself isn’t wrong, however it is only one piece of the puzzle that cannot see the meta view of the entire puzzle and how the pieces are connected.

An example of Orange criticizing Red/Blue from above. Notice how Orange uses logic to claim moral high ground over Red/Blue. As well, Orange can understand spectrums of degrees and nuances - such as the difference between statues of George Washington and statues of confederate generals.

To me, Leo’s free content dwarfs the online course. It would be like someone getting their house built for free, yet would have to pay for a garage if they want one.

Haven’t you had an experience in which you were so in awe that you and time broke down and there was only essence of One Now? For example, seeing a night sky filled with stars in which you lost sense of time and “me”? Haven’t you had an experience in which you loved something so deeply that “me” and time dissolved? There was no “you” and “me”. There was simply the essence of the One love? Haven’t you ever had an experience in which you got “in the zone” playing a musical instrument or sport? Time and “me” dissolved and there is only Here and Now. There is no “me playing soccer” or “me playing the trumpet”. Haven’t you ever half-awoken from sleep and there is no time or “me”? There is simply the awareness of what is Here and Now. (And then the self re-enters and thinks “Crap, I overslept. I’m late for class. I better hurry. . . “. These are all “nondual” experiences and no nondual theory or teaching is necessary. Most people have had glimpses of “nondual” experiences without any teaching. Imo, the idea that nondual teachings are necessary for nondual experiences creates a block. I’ve found it much more helpful to show people that they have already had nondual experiences.

“What’s better? Feeling deeply vs always feeling peaceful and happy” If one believes that feeling deeply is better, then feeling deeply is better. If one believes that aways feeling peaceful and happy is better, then always feeling peaceful and happy is better.

Open your mind to what “spreading some love” looks like and you will be able to see it.

The idea of freedom is deeply ingrained in American psyche and culture. Consider the American National Anthem. It is about fighting for freedom. Every stanza ends with the phrase “Over the land of the free and the home of the brave!”. I often hear Americans talk about American freedom. Yet they often value freedom in the context of their values. For example, I someone is expressing freedom of speech, many Americans support it if it is aligned with their values. Then, their freedom of speech should be protected. Yet if it the message is counter to their values, then the other person(s) are unpatriotic troublemakers and should be silenced for the good of America. . . .Look at how many Americans are portraying the current protestors as troublemakers that are bad for America. . .

That is a beautiful intention. ? I would consider what it would be like for someone who has lost everything and imagine what message that person would want to leave others that may encounter the same. One message might be how to avoid the situation. For example, imagine a hiker that encounters quick sand. He may leave messages of warning to help people avoid getting stuck in quicksand. Or he could leave messages of how to get out of quicksand once you are in it. Or he could leave messages of hope about what lies beyond the quicksand. Part of this can come from imagination. I also find it helpful to learn about peoples stories that were in these situations.