Completely agree with your analysis.

But what I tried to explain is the big problem of brutality among police officers. It is not about calculating or using statistics on "police and death rates". This formula only would show you that effectively police department is racist and abusive with minorities. It is a fact.

Furthermore, the problem is more complex because the police officers tend to have a weird sense of "authority" in each town and they think (incorrectly) that they are over the rest. The problem starts here, in the sense of power and authority.

We use the same reasoning as cops do every day in our lives — Agent Smith

To be honest Smith, I think not... some tend to reasoning more than others.

It seems that you (the cop) are being completely rational and the math above is proof of that. — Agent Smith

The big problem here is that the cops tend to not act rational at all. This is why they abuse and charge people discriminatory.

I have seen the video where the cops beat this defenceless young man. Police officers reported that they pulled Tyre Nichols out of the car because of a "reckless driving" but is obvious that is a filthy lie. Five policemen (full armed and equipped) against a normal citizen is one of the most filthiest acts I ever seen for a long time.

It is not important if the police officers are black. As many protesters have so wisely said: They put on a blue uniform and forgot they were Black! It is not about of white or black when their blood is blue.

Police officers have always been the dogs of prey for the state and government.

I wish I am capable to answer your enquiries. Nonetheless, I am not so involved in psychology as other experts. I don't want to give vague answers to your interesting questions. The only conclusion I hold so far is that real identity only exists in us. Our real selves are the ones who are in the room three: the one which we hide from others. But, I don't know more information about this topic.

To understand and give an answer to your OP, is necessary to look at psychology, because it seems that you are arguing that despite our real "selves" the others have a different notion of us. So, the line between illusion and real towards ourselves is blur.

Johari window is a technique to help the understanding when we interact with others and according to Charles Handy (author/philosopher specialising in organisational behaviour and management):

Johari House with four rooms. Room one is the part of ourselves that we and others see. Room two contains aspects that others see but we are unaware of. Room three is the private space we know but hide from others. Room four is the unconscious part of us that neither ourselves nor others see.

On the other hand, I don't know if we act perversely towards the way we see others. Probably we do. I tend to not care so much when I see others, but as Handy explains we will never know what others are thinking about us...

Excellent analysis, BC. :up:

Interesting points and fully agreed with your arguments, BC. Yet, one of the key points that makes me wonder about, is the notion of being "poor" because I guess it is different from being homeless.
The thing line between poverty and homelessness is blur. I think we should consider poor as someone who needs to sacrifice leisure to purchase basic needs or goods. For example: I am not rich enough to get a trip to Sydney but at least, with my minimal basic wage, I can afford food and medicines and I only pay 200 € for a rent in a basic house: It is true that my situation could be considered as "poverty" but at least I don't live in the streets.

On the other hand, to be honest, I consider homelessness as a failure of the state. One of the basic pillars of each society or community is to let the people to make a living in a house. It is true that flows many problems and situations around homelessness but it only sounds as a excuse. If someone is drug addict, the state can put him in a social care institution, for instance. What I try to defend is the fact that homelessness is not a problem only in homeless's shoulders.

I am agree with all your arguments. Yet, it is not upon us. The intervention of public politics is high towards this topic. We can let the private sector to contribute in the developing of urban planning but there are some people who is not comfortable at all with private enterprises.

I think urban planning and the accessibility to housing is one of the main objectives of each society. But as I said previously, it looks like that most of the agents involved in this plannings are exclusive with poverty or homelessness. It is a big drama and is one of the main failures of a modern state not being capable of letting the citizens to access a house.

Are you trying to explain that suicide or drug overdoses have as a common cause the failure of a economical system?
I don't want to get involved in a debate in the accessibility of guns but opiates are more necessary than you think, they are helpful to people struggling with a lot of pain, and I am not agree with the fact that I am depressed or have suicidal risk because I live in a savage capitalist country.

Mental health is more complex. Neoliberalism could be a factor, as you explained. But not the main cause. I doubt (a lot) if removing such system the people would feel better.

The homeless culture does not vanish after acquiring a residence offered to impoverished people — Bug Biro

:up:

Facing homelessness and trying to manage it is one of the main objectives of town planning. Depending on the political ideology of the public administration, urban planners will care more or less of poverty. Since most urban planning teams consist of highly educated individuals that work for city governments, recent debates focus on how to involve more community members in city planning processes.

The debate will oscillate between being more inclusive or exclusive with those persons. I did a research on Google about the basic notion of urban planners and it says that one of their objectives are: "a sense of inclusion and opportunity for people of all kinds, culture and needs; economic growth or business development"

On the other hand, it will not be easy for the neighbours, as you noticed previously. Most of the families do not want to live close to a "poor" block and with this mentality we only get "hoods" where the buildings belong to "ex homeless people" but with a similar state of mind. Some would ask: who wants to have neighbours like them?

I think that most of the urban planners and public administrations tend to be exclusive with homelessness and main the objectives is to kick them out from the new plans of built environment.

Thanks for reading history of my country Praxis :up:

I know some about that boat, I think it was called SS Winnipeg. Those Spaniards were fled thanks to Pablo Naeruda who decided to organize their travel to Chile. He first worked as Chilean consul in Spain, before being named consul in Paris. The ship was an old French cargo ship which ordinarily could not take more than 250 persons, but it was adapted so it could carry the 2,200 refugees.

As @unenlightened pointed out, the meaning of colours are based on written language. John Locke deepened in this matter on An Essay of Human Understanding. You mentioned some colours that you are interested in: red, blue, white, black, green, yellow and orange.

Well, according to Locke's thoughts those colours are imaginary because they come from the spectrum of colour wheel. We learn that there are three "primary colors," red, yellow, and blue (or magenta, yellow, and cyan), and that when we mix these colors, we get intermediate colors, like green, orange, and purple. Mixing them all gets something like black. If we match up the color wheel with the electromagic spectrum of light, we have a considerable puzzle, for in the latter there is only one way to get from blue to red, and it passes through all the other colors, but not through purple. Violet may look a bit like purple, but it has nothing to do with red. What is going on? The discipline we need to understand this is not physics or art, but physiology. The eye has certain receptors on the retina that detect color, the "cones." These come with three different sensitivities. Hence the three "primary" colors. True purple, for which there seems to be no place in the physical spectrum, is something we see when the cones sensitive to blue and red are both stimulated, giving us something like an imaginary color.
This situation is only intelligible given Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities. The purple is not in the object. It is caused in the eye.
Locke's most interesting distinctions is between primary and secondary qualities

But in my old age I regret the young do not want to know what I think and they are making very bad decisions, such as smoking pot and refusing to go to school. As they know very little of life, — Athena

Yet, that's the main problem of my generation. Most of them do not seem to be motivated in learning something and they waste a lot of valuable time in wacky acts. The line of understanding what is worthy or not has become more and more blur. Paradoxically, our generation which has more opportunities for learning than the previous, are at the same time the most vague or ignorant.

you are starting to get obsessed with Cartesian dualism :rofl:

Aristotle's ontology was better than that! He recognised that animals possess attributes which mere matter does not, even if he also acknowledged that they lack reason. — Wayfarer

:up:

I did a research in my city too. Madrid is the capital city of Spain and it holds many architectural structure related to bourgeois and millionaires, but there are also neighbourhoods which are in decadence.


Very working class neighbourhood... the buildings are part of Franco's era in the 1950s and 1960s.







One interesting fact is that all of those neighbourhoods are in the south of Madrid, while the north is for rich people. Between the 1960s and 1990s there were a huge construction works for middle class families. I live in of these working class districts... I don't consider as "bad" but it feels abandoned by public administration.

This building is similar of the one I live in:

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right — H.L. Mencken, journalist & critic

:up: :sparkle:

In my own view, the root of my interest is trying to understand why despite the fact we have limited lives, we are forced to do something because otherwise we would feel "empty". Even in your thread, you have started as a "maturing pursuit".

... I guess we are so ambiguous.

Sure, past times were worse than nowadays, in every topic we debate about, and I already agreed with you in the fact that I should not throw away all the contributions of Descartes to philosophy. Nonetheless, I still see a very disappointing fact in Descartes's personal life the way he treated the animals. At least that's my personal opinion.

In any event, if this is the path you wish to take, provide me the name of any of your heroes who lived 200 or more years ago, and I'll do the research to show you why you need to despise him. — Hanover

I have important examples of philosophers who lived 200 or more years ago and it is not necessary to despise them due to his obscenity or cruelty or whatever ethical issues in any event.

Laozi: author of Tao Te Ching. Taoism is a peaceful philosophical doctrine. The Zhuangzi in turn urges one to imagine a world free of cages, corrals, hooks, lures, nets, pens, snares, and traps (chapters 1, 3, 10, 18, 20, and 23). These have both literal and symbolic meanings, and the corresponding liberation must occur on both cognitive and behavioral levels: Animals and Daoism

Confucius: his analects made the system of thought called Confucianism and still persists nowadays. One of the key points of Confucianism is "humaneness". "Ren" (仁) I want to share an interesting paragraph regarding to it: There have been a variety of definitions for the term ren. Ren has been translated as "benevolence", "perfect virtue", "goodness" or even "human-heartedness". When asked, Confucius defined it by the ordinary Chinese word for love, ai, saying that it meant to "love others"

We can be agree with the point that Confucianism and Daoism are far away of being cruel in any event, right?

I am not living in England because I am from Spain and I live in Madrid. As a first glance, it seems that UK is having some trouble related to inflation and strikes, but I guess it is not tragic. We also have those problems too so I think is a worldwide issue.

It is interesting your view of living in a country such as Honduras. As you already guessed, there is an important community of Hondurans living in Spain. They say that they emigrated here due to social and security issues. It is obvious that Spain is not a paradise but at least they value the peace and calm in the streets.

On the other hand, I am agree with you in the fact that many social issues of Honduras are also in Spain such as drug trafficking or unemployment. Nonetheless, I still see the violence as a big issue in Latin America. According to many scientific journals, sources and researchers, Honduras is the most violent country of the world...

I see your point and I am partially agree in the fact that is not equitable to judge ethics with the mind of nowadays and past times. Human rights, dignity, integrity, ethics, etc... have all evolved with the pass of the centuries and it wasn't easy to establish rigid pillars of human respect and understanding.

Nonetheless, to be honest, I think it is not a good excuse to say that "Descartes was not aware of his immorality" as we are today. If you hit a dog with a stick, you would hear a painful scream and probably tears in his eyes. Whenever someone (who at least his mind works correctly) sees this terrible action, would be feel sad and bad because it is not funny neither entertaining look at the suffering of an animal. It is a basic thought and the principles of ethics and morality come from Ancient Greece, where all the philosophers already debated on "the harm done to others and animals" and even Aristotle also wrote some paragraphs about...

So, no I will not excuse Descartes.

If Descartes was focused on argue that "they were not experiencers" he could have done the experiments with another examples, such as odours.
We can say he wasn't a sadist, but at least a psychopath when he didn't felt any emotion or empathy towards a dog crying.

Personally, I believe that animals are intelligent, can reason, feel pain, experience emotions and have propositional attitudes, though not everyone agrees. — RussellA

I would be even surprised by all of those who in XXI century do not believe that animals can reason and have pain...

From what is written, he thought he wasn't causing any harm. There are different levels of intent here from the person who knowingly versus who unknowingly causes suffering. — Hanover

Are you really sure? Because according to the following quotes I guess Descartes was a bit aware of causing suffering to animals or at least he had lack of empathy:

1.

When the animals reacted as though they were suffering pain, Descartes dismissed the reaction as no different from the sound of a machine that was functioning improperly — Wayfarer

2.

A crying dog, Descartes maintained, is no different from a whining gear that needs oil." — Wayfarer

As @L'éléphant has pointed out, I am no longer a "fan" or "follower" of Descartes philosophical theories. I will not discredit his works and contributions to modern philosophy, but in my own view there should be limits towards "scientific researchs", specially when they are dangerous to innocent animals.

January 25th

American History X — Pinprick

:up:
Always been one of the best 1990s films. Edward Norton did a magnificent acting.

Exactly. Apart of not being famous, most of the people make jokes on them. Antonio Leblanc is one of the actors who participated the most in those films. When I was a kid, I asked to my grandparents: who is Antonio Leblanc? And then they answered: "if the youngest don't know about Leblanc it means that the culture of Franco is no longer with us and that's a good symptom"

Bodas de sangre is a play of Lorca. Carlos Saura have put it on cinemas, so it is not original at all. Then, I don't consider it as a "Spanish film" when is all the ideas come from the works of Federico García Lorca.

When I met my wife she introduced me to Soviet movies, most of which I hadn’t heard of but which are massively popular in Russia and the other ex-Soviet countries. — Jamal

I never heard of those either. I guess this is due to the fact that Francisco Franco blocked all products and stuff from Soviet countries. I watched a post-Soviet film called "Burnt by the Sun" and it is a pretty good movie. The plot is based on Soviet times but the film is of 1994 so I guess we cannot consider it as "Soviet"!

On the other hand, it is interesting how your wife showed you "Soviet films". I mean, movies which represents how that era looked like. Here in Spain we had something similar in a cinema called "NO-DO". The films were about family topics about Franco's era and most of them were even so far from reality. If one day you watch one (I wish not) you would see they are so eccentric on the reality about middle-class families. Most of them are even available nowadays in a program called "cine de barrio" (it is special and is only available in Saturday) and only older people see them. I remember watching one with my grandmother and laughed at the actors and plot because everything was so forced.

oh yes, el hoyo is a good film! (It is basque too)

Well, I personally think that the quality is not good enough. You mentioned Almodovar's films but even their films are weird and wacky. The problem is not about the availability outside Spain, because if ours films were acceptable, many translators would pay for them. I guess that some cultures are more interesting than others. For example: I see that some users put a lot of films of Kurosawa and Ōzu in this thread and they are "so Japanese" and despite this fact, their movies are over the world and translated in different languages.
I must accept (and this is true) that Japanese culture is more interesting than Spanish one, it is a fact. I understand that for a foreigner could be boring our dramas about politics and territories.

Handia — Jamal

This film is so awesome. I wanted to recommended too and yes it is basque and it is also set in a rural area of Basque Country in the XIX century. Pretty good movie. It is still in Netflix.

It was available in Amazon Prime Video, but I think it was removed from the platform :confused:

I notice that nobody mentioned a film from Spain. I understand it because our film makers and industry are not good enough compared to America or Asia.
Nonetheless, I'd like to recommend to you my favourite film that are not so known by the people.

Vacas. It is a rural drama between two Basque families. To help you to understand, the plot of the film covers the years 1875 - 1936. There were social conflicts and civil wars but the film shows how the basque allied themselves despite the differences and controversies of families. There are scenes and dialogues related to metaphysics and the concept of time.
Note: cows (vacas) are a very important animal for basque families in rural areas.

Interesting paint, Baden. As you said, is a bit more sombre and that shades of green, purple, gray, etc... makes me feel a bit of anxiety for being lost there.
A representation of a lonely winter day in a hidden forest.

I liked it :up:

In the Mood for Love — Tom Storm

A masterpiece :up: :sparkle:

Mistakes can be re-written, overridden, and forgot about the moment you learned that you knew better....regret. Mistakes are made to remind. Mistakes are made to prepare. — Kizzy

:up:

Depends on the interpretation. How we "measure" the mistakes?

It is inherent in our nature to make mistakes. We are not perfect machines or programs. Instead of asking, why do we make mistakes? I would ask: how many mistakes should I make to learn X?

I love almost everything I’ve seen out of Japan, which admittedly isn’t a lot. Ozu and Kurosawa are at the very top. Miyazaki is up there too. — Mikie

:up:

They are in the top of Japanese films. I have seen all Ozu's films, and they are fantastic. We can learn of a complex culture such as Japanese one thanks to his works.
Another film I recommend of him is Good Morning (お早よう, Ohayō).

Perfect Blue and Paprika are anime films. Satoshi Kon is the director and he was a pure genius (sadly, he died of cancer in 2010...) his films are mixed with a sense of abstract, surrealism and a technique of different uses of colours. Whenever you watch anime, it is easy to recognise Satoshi Kon's works because his films are so original.

For example: You can see in the following video that his anime is based on surrealism but full of colours and weird characters.



In the other hand, Tokyo Monogatari is a 1953 film of Yosujiru Ozu. It is old but according to Japanese film historians, is one of the most important films of Japan. If you are not so interested in Japanese culture it could be boring because the plot is basically the ordinary life of a family in Tokyo and how the modernity is surpassing the traditional conventions of Japan after WWII. An iconic pic of the film is this one: