So I now work with an ex-cop. He used to work in a major US city, and he shot and killed a black guy while on duty a couple of years ago. I've been meaning to ask him more about it. Seems topical.

At least I think it was a black guy he killed. Need to double check that.

Did you ask him about the details? A lot of these 'unarmed black men' typically resist arrest or go for the officer's gun.

My understanding is that it was a justified shooting, because the guy moved toward him wielding an axe.

But this was second hand.

He was in the SWAT team, so this was during a SWAT call.

I am curious though. I don't know how forthcoming he'll be with details. I haven't known him for that long.

I kind of just want to ask him a whole bunch of difficult questions about all the BLM stuff, and perhaps I will.

I mean, intial BLM stuff seemed harmless at first.. Oh how it quickly went out of control.

zealots are abound in all polarizing groups occupying the fringes of american society at the moment if you ask me

definitely more noteworthy on "the left" in terms of violence carried out though

social media puts the internal signaling dynamics of these movements on fast-forward. It seems like it used to take years for movements and institutions to go off the rails, but now months are all that's neeeded.

bless the internet

i'm inclined to agree catallaxis

Where *do* you think all this craziness started?

human behavior hasn't changed in some radical fashion .. but thanks to the internet we're able to organize around our partisanships in a fashion never before available to our species at large

And when.

It started with Australopithecus ... or thereabouts.

I like to think of "Social" media as "anti-social" media

i'd say when high speed internet became accessible to most civilians of western civilization @Thanatos - say 2006-2007 or so

Pretty much all the incentives there directly oppose any usual notion of healthy discourse

the moment a mass of humans have access to it you see the results of said number swell

Because I first noticed it a little bit before GG happened.

if you want to be technical it goes all the way back to netscape 2.0 days

like i said, human behavior hasn't changed - we just have way better tools to use now

No, it's been brewing for a long time

GG was the first time it spilled over anywhere remotely mainstream

But the seeds had been planted for a while

So GG is when it finally broke through you'd say?

I'd say that was more like...a peak?

I dunno, remember when they said GG was dead and actually **woke it back up?**

i been pissing off tim's bot

Then they would peak again?

What did the bot ever do to you Tri?

Was that still in 2014?

Nah, they did it a couple times.

im just typing too fast, bot doesnt like it

I only tangentially engaged with GG--it always seemed to me like an internet shitfight that idiot normies carried back into the real world

'cause they apparently think Twitter is real life

Is this ~~a pigeon~~ real life?

those goddamn boomers