WDSmart

Yes, you should do as much good as you can now because, IMO, there is nothing following your life here.

I don't think anyone needs to worry about damaging Pattaya's image. As far as I'm concerned, it's already at rock bottom. I wouldn't go there if someone paid me.

I don't understand why this happened. I haven't smoked marijuana for many, many years, but when I did, it calmed me down, had a soothing effect on me, not one where I would go out and hurt anyone.

I was not a big fan of Prince, but I do think any documentary on his life should be as accurate as possible. Anyway, I always take anything I see or read anywhere now with a "grain of salt." In other words, I watch or read them, enjoy them if I can, but never ever take them as absolute fact.

I do not support arresting, and especially deporting, any US citizen or legal resident because they were engaging in their right to free speech.

I agree with you that DEI is meant to "center' the pendulum, not push it to the other side.

No, I read the report and in my first comment, I said I thought that the inequalities reported were not acceptable to me. I think of DEI as a hiring tool, only. Not a promotion or salary-setting tool. So, if that's what the BBC did, I think disagree with that. And, DEI does not make anyone equal to anyone else. What it does, or is supposed to do, is to make the workforce more representative of the community as a whole.

I've never lived in a socialist society, even here in Thailand. For all my life I've lived in the USA, a society that had a mix of capitalism and socialism. I did what I had to to comply with that society. I've never wanted to be a monk. For most of my working years, I worked as a data processing designer, which I liked very much. Now, since I've retired, I enjoy the social services my country gives me (which I paid for). No hypocrisy there. In a socialistic economic system, the resources are controlled and distributed by the government, just as I said before.

Thanks for identifying the quote. DEI does not make anyone "more equal" than others. DEI recognizes that, in the past, hiring was done with a bias. What DEI tries to do is to address that problem by recommending a "reverse bias" until the workforce better represents the community.

Socialism is an economic system, not a governmental system. A socialist economy could exist, theoretically, under many different types of government, but it would be most appropriate under a democracy or republic. So it would be the government that "controls" the socialist economy. I don't whine about socialism. I advocate it. I'm not being hypocritical. I've been a far-left liberal and an advocate of socialism for over 50 years. I'm just being honest about where I'd like to see humans evolve socially in the future, but I really don't think we're going to be able to do that. We (humans) are just too full of hubris.

In socialism, all citizens are equal. No further decision on that is necessary. That's what socialism is all about. No, I did not know you were not talking about animals when you talked about animals. Silly me! It doesn't matter where a quote you use comes from, but it would be nice if you'd identify the author when using a quote. Anyway, humans think they're the only important animal on this planet, and use all other animals in any way they want to.

And yet again you would be wrong. Or did the thread not make that clear enough when it presented the facts to you. My understanding of anything is my understanding. Reading other's opinions in some thread or forum does not necessarily change my understanding.

This "perdicament" doesn't fit into my "socialism narrative." In true socialism, there would be no salaries. Everyone would contribute to society the best they can, and society would, in turn, provide for their needs the best it could. Yes, all citizens would be equal. As far as other animals, unfortunately, that probably would not be the case, but that's not a condition of socialism. That's more of a condition of recognizing all living beings' equality. Humans certainly don't do that and are not likely to, ever.

Yes, I support DEI. I prefer the candidate's minority status be taken into consideration when hiring, with the goal of creating a more DEI workforce. I wouldn't categorize the Democrat's candidate in the recent US presidential election as being "flushed down the gurgler." Harris only lost the general election by 2.5% of the vote, and the majorities in both the House and Senate are both very, very slim. I do acknowledge that the plurality of the voters and citizens of the US are probably against DEI, but they are also a plurality of Whites, so being in favor of DEI would not be in their favor. But that is what DEI is all about - correcting the results of biased hiring practices by reversing the bias, at least for a short amount of time, until the makeup of the workforce mirrors that of the population.

Which indicates that you know nothing whatsoever about what has been happening at the BBC for the last thirty years …. DEI before it was ever heard of. I'm all for DEI, but yes, I don't know that much about what's been happening at the BBC. I'm a US citizen and a CNN watcher. But, even if the BBC has been practicing DEI "for the last thirty years," salaries between different races, national origins, genders, etc., shouldn't be different. If what you say is true, then the percentage of minorities would be more than it was historically, but it would now be approximately the same as the general population. And the salaries paid should be the same for the same type of worker regardless of their race, national origin, gender, etc... The only reason to pay an individual more than their peers is if results are better than theirs. My understanding of DEI is that it is applied to hiring, not compensation.

I would have expected this to be the other way around, but if the sample size was large enough, there should be no significant difference in salary based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, etc...

In 2019, I wrote and published The Gliese Project, a 4-book series documenting the reverse engineering of a downed, salvaged UFO. The books are fiction, but they explore four advanced technologies, three of which are hypothetical.

Yes, you should always do what you think is right, regardless of the consequences.

I'm only suggesting that I'd like to hear the other side of the story before drawing any definite conclusions. I admit it doesn't sound like anything could justify what was done, but it would be interesting to hear why the other side says they did this.

In the USA, no one should face penalties for antisemitism or any expression of dislike or disapproval of any group of people. That's a right to free speech we have in the First Amendment. If someone is breaking a rule or law while expressing their opinions, like disrupting a class or blocking entrance to a building, they can face penalties for that. However, the reason they are breaking the rules or laws should not be considered. I am not a legal expert, and this is just my opinion as a citizen of the USA.

It would be interesting to hear the other side of this story...

"Us" includes me. I've been a US citizen (not "America") for 79 years. We have been generous from time to time, but now, under Trump, we think only of ourselves and will not help anyone else unless we're compensated financially or politically to do so.

I don't categorize religious beliefs any differently than any other belief system. I would not SUPPORT the far right (or anyone else) if they verbally abused Muslims (or Jews/Christians/Buddhists/Blacks/Whites/Asians/transsexuals, etc.) anywhere. I would not, however, believe that sort of free speech should be made illegal or carry any punishment.

If by "attacking" you mean physical violence, I agree with you. But, if by "attacking" you mean verbally, in writing, or demonstrating, I don't agree with you.

The above is true, but so have the people who are now called Muslims, Arabs, or Palestinians. Before the division of Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian parts, Jews only made up about 5% of the population. Muslims made up 85%. Census Group Population Percentage Muslim 403,795 85.5 Christian 43,659 9.2 Jewish 15,001 3.2 Jewish (Foreign-born) Est. 10,000 2.1 Total: 472,455 100.0 Source: Demographics of Historic Palestine prior to 1948 - CJPME - English