Actually, the shops should be more responsible. They should have known not to open up in such a violence prone area. I don't know why they aren't taking responsibility for their own destruction. They can't just go around blaming everyone else for their own bad decisions.

Why, apart from the fact that it conveniently fits your neoliberal mythology, have you then given primacy to just one of those factors? — Isaac

Because it's what grounds western civilization - it grounds our legal system and the entire notion of the individual in society. I don't know Isaac, for all I know responsibility rests entirely with random neurons firing in our brain. In that case, there's really no such thing as good or bad people. Nobody is to blame here - not poor black rioters nor rich white supremacists who spend every minute of their existence plotting how to screw over minorities.

How are we suppose to judge someone if we don't believe in self-responsibility? If people are just the sum of their influences and environment, why even allow them to vote? What's the point?

Indeed, last time I got punched I took full responsibility for leaving my face in the way of his fist, I just don't know why these snowflakes don't just man up and pre-emptively barricade themselves!

Because it's what grounds western civilization - it grounds our legal system and the entire notion of the individual in society. — BitconnectCarlos

Really? So your argument for why you think it should be that way is "that's the way it is". Conservative philosophy in a nutshell.

How are we suppose to judge someone if we don't believe in self-responsibility? — BitconnectCarlos

Oh, ...I don't, know...with an iota of compassion maybe?

It's good that it's not about you. It's not even about individuals, either. It's about groups. If an angry black man mugged you and left you lying in the street it's nice that you can at least acknowledge that this is all just a "distraction" and that it doesn't really matter. Individuals don't matter, group dynamics do.

Really? So your argument for why you think it should be that way is "that's the way it is". Conservative philosophy in a nutshell. — Isaac

No, my point is that it rationally grounds western civilization. You need to work on your reading comprehension, no offense.

You can disregard self-responsibility, I don't care, but you end up, rationally speaking, in a very different place. We are on a philosophy forum after all.

Oh, ...I don't, know...with an iota of compassion maybe? — Isaac

Are you compassionate towards Jeffrey Dahmer? Bundy? There are people who had compassion towards them - young women, mostly. They understood these men.

So far, it is too early to make any predictions. Some people noted that one of the tangible results of the ongoing protests is the intensification of political correctness. All in all, it could function as an efficient vehicle of symbolic violence. As a result, the establishment may successfully manipulate the public opinion and suppress any serious discussion and critical discourse necessary for resolving systemic problems. — Number2018

Sure, nobody can predict the future. But any systemic solution to the systemic problems would have to involve some kind economic rearrangement and redistribution... intensification of political correctness is just more cosmetics that don't go to the heart of the problem. And I just don't see them voluntarily going against their (economic) interest.

Why do you keep resorting to fantasies?

And Western civilisation is built off the back of slavery, genocide, and material expropriation. Not sure why anyone should give a shit about it.

No, my point is that it rationally grounds western civilization. You need to work on your reading comprehension, no offense. — BitconnectCarlos

You said it grounds western civilization, you neither mentioned, nor presented any argument that it did so rationally.

It's not my fantasy. I don't have anything against you personally. I don't even know what you look like so I don't know how I would fantasize about that.

I'm asking you consider a hypothetical because hypotheticals can be helpful. It's not a crazy hypothetical either. It illustrates my point.

Are you compassionate towards Jeffrey Dahmer? Bundy? There are people who had compassion towards them - young women, mostly. They understood these men. — BitconnectCarlos

Are you suggesting that we have absolutely no means at our disposal to assess the degree to which someone's actions are constrained by their circumstances? That, when faced with the starving child stealing a loaf of bread and the bored celebrity shoplifting a pair of sunglasses, we have nothing to tell the difference in responsibility between the two?

No, it's entirely irrelevant. A further distraction to match your other distractions to cover over your hypocritical, unprincipled, partiality.

Like, when a discussion of systematic racism veers into a discussion of ... Jeffrey Dahmer? Like, why the hell are you even here? All this is trash.

Why the fuck are we talking about Ted Bundy? @BitconnectCarlos The topic is "Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?" I hope that at some point you get around to answering that. Thank you.

[Cross-posted with Street]

Ok, it's nice to know that you'd consider that if you or a family member were assaulted by an angry minority who was angry about racial injustice that it would just be a distraction. Thank you.

Why the fuck are we talking about Ted Bundy? @BitconnectCarlos The topic is "Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?" I hope that at some point you get around to answering that. Thank you.

Isaac claimed that the grounds for judging someone, in, say, a court of law should just be compassion so I was responding to that. There were plenty of Bundy fangirls out there who had plenty of compassion for him.

Ok, it's nice to know that you'd consider that if you or a family member were assaulted by an angry minority who was angry about racial injustice that it would just be a distraction. Thank you. — BitconnectCarlos

Again, this is not about me or your fantasies. Stop, or simply shut up.

You did make your point about being against violence several times. Now, can I ask you: Why is systemic racism happening and what can be done about it?

Again, it's not a fantasy it's a hypothetical. I can't fantasize about you because I have no idea who you are. I'm just taking your ideas to a logical conclusion.

There's an asymmetry here which you've acknowledged. Violence conducted by cops or whites towards blacks matters, but violence conducted by minorities towards business-owners or whatnot - is just a distraction. I'm just demonstrating that premise with a hypothetical.

All I want to hear is "it matters."

Violence conducted by cops or whites towards blacks matters, but violence conducted by minorities towards business-owners or whatnot - is just a distraction — BitconnectCarlos

...in a discussion about massively fatal systemic racism.

Fixed it for you.

Violence conducted by cops or whites towards blacks matters, but violence conducted by minorities towards business-owners or whatnot - is just a distraction. — BitconnectCarlos

No - your posts, in this thread have been a distraction. They are single-minded and seething in hypocrisy.

Are you suggesting that we have absolutely no means at our disposal to assess the degree to which someone's actions are constrained by their circumstances? That, when faced with the starving child stealing a loaf of bread and the bored celebrity shoplifting a pair of sunglasses, we have nothing to tell the difference in responsibility between the two? — Isaac

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm happy to acknowledge mitigating circumstances. Not everyone who commits a crime is a monster, and the case of the starving child is completely different from the celebrity.

In order for someone to retain their humanity we need to regard them as an independent, moral agent capable of making their own decisions and being held responsible for them. Otherwise you're just denying something that's core to them.

EDIT: In the case of low IQ individuals we often do strip them of their agency and this is controversial, but it does make sense to me. It's still sad though.

Why the fuck are we talking about Ted Bundy? @BitconnectCarlos The topic is "Systemic racism in the US: Why is it happening and what can be done?" I hope that at some point you get around to answering that. Thank you.

If we're going back to this topic and I've stated this before but I do support police reforms - better training, body cams, independent agencies going over police reports - those are all fine. I've also opposed the war on drugs for years now. End the war on drugs now.

I'm happy to acknowledge mitigating circumstances. — BitconnectCarlos

Right, so in the case of victims of years of systemic racism, what does that acknowledgement consist of? It's not sufficient (having established mitigating circumstances are to be considered) to simply use that binomial decision to justify whatever level of mitigation you feel like. You must separately justify the degree to which you absolve, or even just sympathise with, people due to those mitigating circumstances. Having acknowledged mitigating circumstances you still have every choice available to you from "had a gun held to their head", to "had every opportunity in the world to do the right thing but still acted like a git".

You must separately justify the degree to which you absolve, or even just sympathise with, people due to those mitigating circumstances.

Exactly - it needs to be judged on an individual, case-by-case basis. I do feel bad for someone who never had a father due being arrested for pot or something stupid.

Keep in mind this extends far beyond systemic racism - white people or asians have problems too. Maybe they're ugly or short or have a weird voice or their mother never paid enough attention to them etc. These are all unique, individual things to that person.

nobody can predict the future. But any systemic solution to the systemic problems would have to involve some kind economic rearrangement and redistribution... intensification of political correctness is just more cosmetics that don't go to the heart of the problem. And I just don't see them voluntarily going against their (economic) interest. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree with you. There are different attempts to frame the current protest. One of them is that we indeed deal with a revolutionary situation that could lead to the fundamental systemic changes. In contrast to this narrative, the establishment has tried to be ahead of the events so far. It provides the protests with the media and the public opinion’ support. Yet, a few revolutions, followed by the drastic systemic changes, started from the elitist upheaval. The ongoing event can acquire its own dynamics and get out of any possible control.

it needs to be judged on an individual, case-by-case basis. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't see why, especially when that's not possible. There are some mitigating circumstances that can be said of virtually all the protestors. The biggest being that they are more likely to to be killed by their own police force than average. That they are more likely to experience poverty than average, that they have fewer opportunities than average, that they're more likely to be in poor quality housing than average, that they're more likely to be given long sentences than average...

I'm sure some of the protestors were allowed to watch more television than others, or whatever, but why do we need to even give a moment's thought to trivial intra-group differences when there are such glaring and abundant mitigating circumstances which affect virtually the whole group.

Why is it impossible to judge someone as an individual? Some % of the rioters are white, and some % of them are from decent economic backgrounds. There's literally video of Logan Paul, a multi-millionaire youtube personality, going through a mall in Phoenix with other rioters. It would be a pitfall to lump everyone together.

So what do you think of the current situation? Will be there the significant improvement of the systemic problems? What could make the current protest unique is the broad support of the mainstream media, the considerable part of the political elite, and big corporations. — Number2018

Support from majority of the people to do something about the issue has made the the media and politicians respond to these issues. Even from Trump we got a "police reform". But I'm not so sure how dramatic the changes will be in the long run. Some here think there's a huge transformation underway, yet I'm not yet sure about it. It's positive though.

There surely will be some improvements, but the real question will the police culture change dramatically change? The so-called Blue wall of silence or "blue code", which makes these things difficult to change and the police unions. For example, after the Rodney King beating (and the following L.A. riots) resulted in the Christopher Commission (headed by later secretary of state Warren Christopher) to produce a following findings:

There is a significant number of officers in the LAPD who repetitively use excessive force against the public and persistently ignore the written guidelines of the department regarding force.

The failure to control these officers is a management issue that is at the heart of the problem. The documents and data that we have analyzed have all been available to the department; indeed, most of this information came from that source. The LAPD's failure to analyze and act upon these revealing data evidences a significant breakdown in the management and leadership of the Department. The Police Commission, lacking investigators or other resources, failed in its duty to monitor the Department in this sensitive use of force area. The Department not only failed to deal with the problem group of officers but it often rewarded them with positive evaluations and promotions.

The commission highlighted the problem of "repeat offenders" on the force, finding that of approximately 1,800 officers against whom an allegation of excessive force or improper tactics was made from 1986 to 1990, more than 1,400 had only one or two allegations.

This was in 1991. In just one large US city.

As there isn't one uniform police department, but many, the reform process is a complex one. Also now when an economic depression is likely underway, the big problem is if the US can get violence and homicides generally to continue to decrease as has happened now.

And has LAPD improved from the 1990's? That's a good question and I don't know the answer. Then in the 90's it was majority white, but now white policemen are a minority in the force. One article put it this way few years ago:

Today, the LAPD is still battling demons, though these seem to come more in the form of "lone wolf" bad cops than systemic malfeasance. There is still some hemming and hawing over the issuing of department-wide mandatory body cams, which seem an inevitability for departments around the country at this point. The LAPD is, as far as one can tell, striving for accountability.

As union leader and police veteran Craig Lilly noted in a 2015 press conference, "We're still just one crisis away from people saying, 'See? There's the old LAPD again.'"

So the question is, how many police departments will be battling old demons in 2030?

Again, not a word from you about the changes that have already taken place, and more utter irrelevancies about other times and other places.

Why is it impossible to judge someone as an individual? ...There's literally video of Logan Paul, a multi-millionaire youtube personality, going through a mall in Phoenix with other rioters — BitconnectCarlos

OK, so that's Paul Logan judged...next. You've got another ten thousand or so to go.

I hope you realise how extreme the people you're debating in this thread are.

Baden and StreetlightX are batshit crazy leftists who say all kinds of stupid nonsense, Benkei is possibly even worse and Isaac seems no better. I mean you probably already noticed this by how they're giving you grief about saying random, unrelated people shouldn't have their lives ruined because people are angry about systemic racism.

These people don't think about things in terms of individuals and talking about things in these terms will get you nowhere here.