Thursday's Most Active Threads

Several of the most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed. However, that was not the case with the most active thread of the day which easily led engagement for the day. That thread was titled, "Share something that should be general knowledge, but isn't" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. As the title says, the original poster asks for suggestions of things that most people should know but they often don't. Her own example is the fact that "antibiotics only work on bacteria, not on viruses." This type of thread is difficult to summarize because they tend to simply be suggestion after suggestion, often with no real unifying theme. Moroever, this thread managed to grow to 20 pages in just a day. So, I don't have time to read it all. But, among the first suggestions were some good ones such as how tax brackets work and what the First Amendment actually protects. I assumed that in order to reach 20 pages, this thread would have to include some facts that could not realistically be expected to be common knowledge. Skimming the thread, I did come across such examples. For instance, one poster laments that more people are not aware that "acetaminophen" is called "paracetamol" in Europe. I had to Google to discover that "acetaminophen" is what I would normally call "Tylenol". I clearly fall woefully short of that poster's expectations. There were some suggestions in which I sort of feel like the common person is not being given a fair shake. For instance, posters suggested that it is not common knowledge that Europe and Africa consist of more than one country. I would argue that almost everyone is aware of this, but the issue is one of generalizing and lazy speech rather than ignorance. Saying, "I visited Europe last summer" is simply easier than saying "Last summer I visited France, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania." Some of the suggestions were not only not common knowledge, they might not have even have been true. For instance, posters could not agree whether "rounding up" a bill or adding a donation to support charity when checking out at a retail business actually results in more profit for the business. One poster argued that it does and wishes that more people were aware of this while another poster provided a link saying that if these businesses are following the law, this is not true.

The next three threads were ones I've already discussed and will, therefore, skip. That takes me to a thread posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum titled, "Husband didn’t come home". The original poster, posting at 5:45 am, says that her husband didn't come home after a work dinner the previous night, his phone is off, and she has no idea what happened to him. She has checked with hospitals and police stations but there is no news of him. This is the sort of drama that catches the attention of many DCUM posters and, indeed, this thread immediately attracted considerable interest. Responses were a mixture of concern and warnings. In the first category were those suggesting she contact his office, the restaurant, or work colleagues who may have been at the dinner. In the second were posts suggesting he is having an affair, was passed out drunk someplace, or that he had been kidnapped. The original poster posted one follow-up and then disappeared completely. Many posters asked if the original poster was a troll. I can't say either way and could probably argue both that she is and that she isn't a troll. That was not the case, however, with a poster who identified himself as the original poster later in the thread. That poster, who was using an IP address from Belarus, has all the characteristics of a troll that has unfortunately become well-known to me lately. That troll generally uses foreign proxy servers making it impossible to block him and somewhat difficult, though not impossible, to identify him. I end up removing posts and threads by that poster every couple of days if not more often. To their credit, many posters in this thread did not take the troll's bait and refused to accept the troll's account of what happened until I confirmed the poster was really the original poster. Obviously, I confirmed the opposite. As things now stand, posters guess that either the story is completely made up, the original poster is too overwhelmed by unfortunate developments to post, or the original poster is too embarrassed by the outcome to post. We may never know the actual resolution.

Third for today is a thread titled, "GEN Z will save America...." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster, who is apparently considers himself a member of Generation Z, points to the important role that younger voters had in the last midterm elections by preventing expected large Republican gains. He lays out the agenda that Zoomers support and asks others to at least meet them halfway. As I have written many, many times, I don't like generational labels. This is true even in cases such as this in which I largely agree with the sentiment. I am willing to not only meet the original poster halfway on the issues he lists, I'll happily go whole hog in support of them. But, I just won't refer to him as a member of "GEN Z". The first response is by a poster who implicitly accepts the voting importance and political leanings of younger voters, but argues that it will be offset by Millennials who the poster believes are more numerous and are "turning red". To support this argument, the poster linked to a New York Times article by Nate Cohn. Cohn does indeed argue that Millennials are turning more conservative, but then supporting my complaints about generational labels, divides the generation into two age groups and distinguishes older Millennials from younger ones. What good is discussing "Millennials" if you are really only referring to the older members of the group? Other posters dispute specific agenda items that the original poster listed, with one accusing him of supporting socialism. I hate to break it to posters "of a certain age", but young people don't react to that label the way that vampires react to garlic. Rather, they react to it more more like an Italian chef might. They do not want it exclusively, but in the correct quantities it can really improve things. Other posters are miffed that the original poster showed no interest in their pet issues such as immigration and border security. But, plenty of those responding share my attitude of wishing more power to the original poster and his age cohort.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum and titled, "Baltimore man wanted for murdering a tech CEO". The thread is about the murder of Pava LaPere, a 26-year-old tech entrepreneur who led EcoMap, a company that uses artificial intelligence to map connections within ecosystems. The evolution of this thread reveals much of what is happening on DCUM these days with regard to crime. The original poster is someone who has become well-known to me and would be immediately recognizable as a specific DCUM poster if I said more about him. One of his habits is to rush to post about crime, especially those involving a Black perpetrator. While this poster places a high premium on posting quickly, he has little to no interest in being informative or accurate. True to form, the original post contained only a single sentence which, as it turned out, was inaccurate. The original poster linked to a Daily Mail article, and like that tabloid appeared to be primarily concerned with the alleged perpetrator being free from jail due to the actions of liberal politicians. In other words, the original poster's motive seems to have been mostly political and aimed at generating anger towards Democratic politicians. As it turned out, the alleged perpetrator was not recently released on parole as the original poster had claimed. In fact, the parole board had twice denied the perpetrator release. He had originally been sentenced to 30 years in prison but with 16 years of the sentence suspended, meaning the actual sentence was 14 years. Like other prisoners in Maryland and most other states, the perpetrator was able to reduce his sentence by good behavior. In this manner, he became eligible for mandatory release after 9 years and 3 months. When blaming liberal politicians proved less tenable than expected, many posters turned to blaming liberals in general. Many asked how the perpetrator had managed to enter the building in which the murder had been committed and suspected that he was allowed in by someone afraid of being shamed for discriminating against a Black man. This held true even after it was revealed that LaPere had let him in herself. The other facet of this discussion involved posters who were uninterested in the politics or blaming liberals, but instead interested in the details of what had occurred. These posters followed and posted about press conferences, any articles they could find, and even found an error in the Washington Post's coverage.