dingbat

yup, and since Sen. Manchin took credit for bringing them in and giving them tons of public money, doubtful he'll be up for that crusade

Vallee is a serious person worth paying attention to, a rarity in that field. Spielberg used him as the model for that French scientist in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Another good book of his is "Messengers of Deception", expands greatly on the non-extraterrestrial idea.

Holiday as a "public intellectual"? he's always struck me as a marketer, retweeter of self-help quotes, and curator of other people's ideas, at best. something about him tells me there's nothing there.

might be slightly off-topic, but what are your thoughts on those air purifiers that people can get for their office/home?

amusing that a comment designed to mock the irrationality and simple-mindedness of "Americans", itself provides a strong example of overgeneralizing entire populations, society and culture into simple, easy-to-understand tropes suitable for simpletons.

> If we actually understood that people literally died of not having enough money, or of lack of willpower to deal with a bureaucracy, or of homelessness, or of their mental state, there’s every chance that something might change.

if you actually understood the implications of following your logic, please take a moment to explain:

why do people not have enough money?

do some people waste away whatever time and money they have?

do some people fail to develop any marketable skills?

are some people just incapable of rendering valuable labor or service to anyone?

what percentage of those without money fit into that hopeless category?

what should be done about those people?

why does money exist in the first place?

how do we ensure that everybody will "have enough money"?

why do people lack willpower?

why do bureaucracies exist and what is the alternative?

why does homelessness exist?

do people in dire straits often reject help?

do people in dire straits often make things worse for themselves?

how do we force people to stop doing that?

why do people have differing mental states?

that's just for a start. then answer those questions in context of each individual life and death. but that won't be necessary if one thinks that all homeless are just "the homeless", or that all poor people are just "the poor".

but that would be oversimplification and "heavily missing information" in many cases, don't you think?

assumes there is a singular root cause. "he died lonely of a broken heart?" but why was he lonely? "he died because in his entire life he failed to develop relationships with people" or "he died of loneliness because he was a terrible human being" etc.

and "he died of being homeless"? why was he homeless? because society was so cruel and uncaring? sure, he had nothing to do with it himself.

the other comment is right, this path inevitably leads to judgment and speculation.

no thanks, when you go would you really want your last statement of who you were to be created by some random medical practitioner who decides on your behalf that the sum of your life was "he died a sad lonely man".

> he died because he was homeless and couldn't find his way to the help he needed.

taking your approach, you'd also have to allow at least some of those death certificates to list cause of death as: "he died because he was homeless, and he was homeless because he was a drunkard and an addict who was horrible to his family and most everyone he dealt with."

or is the intent to permit maudlin sentiments only?

i hope the undeniable pleasure that cop took in playing this lethal game of Simon Says was worth it.

ah thanks for that bit of info. still, even pre-Vegas, i think it is reasonable to label pointing a rifle outside a hotel room window as "careless", which is the point i was responding to.

the commentor seemed to conflate the questions of "was it not completely legal for him to possess that item?" and "was it careless (legal or not) to show it off in that manner?"

it was called in because he was pointing the rifle out of his hotel room window.

i guess it's up to you to decide for yourself whether or not that could be called "careless". or whether it would be reasonable for a passerby to call in a report of someone pointing a rifle outside of a hotel room window, a couple months after Las Vegas.

if i recall correctly Shaver was not wearing pjs, he was wearing shorts. but yes, he appeared to pull up his shorts which were being dragged down because he was being forced to crawl on his hands and knees.

i would bet that almost everyone being in such a position, or standing at their front door in front of their neighbors, who felt their bottom falling down, would instinctively reach down without thinking.

some points to note about that incident -

a) he had the pellet gun as part of his job as an exterminator, even if he was careless in demonstrating how he used it to shoot birds for pest control

b) think about how easily the officers could have gone to the wrong hotel room; you, me or anyone random could've been in the room next door to Shaver and been treated the same (and probably wouldve reacted the same), even if we'd just poked out head outside our room to see what the heck was going on

do you personally sleep while wearing form-fitting pants with a belt?

and being woken in the middle of the night, wearing boxers or pajamas with hands in the air, better pray that they don't happen to slip down causing you to instinctively "reach for your waistband" in order to hitch them up

on a related note, i recall Peter Drucker writing about how many people, executives in particular, often talk about volunteering or "giving back to the community" once they retire.

but Drucker noted that in his observation, executives who did not volunteer earlier in life were just fooling themselves, they rarely followed through with that "promise" once they retired, they failed to contribute much of anything after their career.