Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Homeless Man Killed by Fellow Passenger on NYC Subway" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The thread is about the killing of Jordan Neely, an unhoused individual who suffered severe distress while on a New York City subway train. According to witness reports, Neely was shouting that he had no food or water and that he was willing to go to jail to obtain them. A passenger on the train, identified in some press reports as former marine Daniel Penny, placed Neely in a chokehold and held him until Neely died. The New York City medical examiner has ruled the death a homicide. Penny was taken into custody by the police and then released without charges. The original poster of the thread is understandably appalled by this killing of a man who does not appear to have been presenting a danger to anyone. But, if there is one thing that I have learned from DCUM, it is that there is virtually no killing of a black man that some posters will not rush to justify. As such, posters were quick to defend Neely's killing. Indeed the very first response claimed, with no evidence, that "he was dangerous and needed to be subdued" and "Why wouldn't someone understand that?" To be clear, there are both posters like the original poster who do not think that the killing was justified and posters who are fully behind it, like the first poster to respond. From reading the posts, I see the merging of two separate trends in our society. On one hand, the theory of "stand your ground" has morphed from what I believe was its original intent of being the right to defend yourself from a clear and present danger to a justification to kill basically anyone who you perceive as a threat. So, essentially, "I felt threatened" has become a justification for murder even if a realistic threat did not exist. On the other hand, unhoused individuals have become increasingly visible, especially in cities, since the COVID pandemic. Many of these individuals suffer from mental health problems and, occasionally, some of them are violent. The result seems to be in the public's mind that unhoused people are ipso facto a threat. The convergence of these ideas is that many DCUM posters — and indeed many members of the public at large — seem to believe that it is perfectly okay to kill an unhoused individual who is simply being a nuisance.

Yesterday's second most active thread was posted in the "Religion" forum and titled, "What do you *REALLY* think of Atheists?". The original poster explains that she is an atheist who has relatives and friends who observe various religions. She often keeps her atheism to herself but is certain that some of those who are aware of her atheism have negative opinions of her. She asks for honest opinions from religious people about what they think about atheists. The religion forum has long been rendered nearly useless because of the constant fighting between religious posters and atheists. Members of both groups involve themselves in threads in which they really are not welcome and have no beneficial role to play. This thread itself is an example of a thread in which atheists really have nothing to offer and probably should just skip the thread. After all the orignal poster requested answers from religious people. At any rate, my expectation was that this thread would almost immediately degenerate into a fight between atheists and religious posters and, indeed, before the first page was over that is more or less what happened. Diverging from the topic of the thread, posters chose to debate "belief" vs "facts", with atheists arguing that they accepted facts while those who are religious have beliefs that are not grounded in fact. The religious posters countered that atheists also have beliefs, even if they don't consider them as such. Another poster decided to jump in to argue the difference between "atheists" — those who don't believe in God — and "anti-theists" — those who think that religion is harmful and should be actively opposed. The same poster asked the original poster why she kept her atheism a secret and then launched a number of personal attacks on her including claiming that the original poster is "invested in your atheism". It is probably missed by this poster that her post demonstrates perfectly why the original poster might prefer not to reveal her atheism to everyone. An apparently atheist poster attacked religious posters with such ferocity that the original poster actually responded to deny that most of the posters allegations were supported by the posts in the thread. The bottom line is that if you enjoy debates between atheists and those who are religious, you will enjoy this thread. For the rest of us, this is one that can be skipped.

The third most active thread yesterday was titled, "If you were to move to a new state for in-state options…" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she currently lives in Maryland and had been considering moving to Virginia in order to be in-state for universities. But, after seeing how difficult admissions have been, she is considering Georgia but would like other suggestions. This appears to be a fairly interesting thread with posters providing a lot of information about which I was previously unaware. For instance, in-state universities are apparently free in Georgia and Florida. As we have seen from the many threads about admissions to Virginia schools, the top universities may have high admissions rates for in-state applicants, but students from northern Virgina have a much more difficult time due to the high number of qualified applicants. Several posters pointed out that other states have the same phenomenon. While the statewide admission rate may look better than Virginia's or Maryland's, the popular areas to live face more competitive admissions. Quite a few posters identified states that might not immediately be on everyone's radar but which have a large number of quality in-state universities. Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois were examples. There is considerable debate about whether California would be a good choice, with posters having vastly different opinions. Anyway, as I said, the thread has some interesting information, though I am personally skeptical about the idea of moving simply for in-state tuition purposes. What if the kids then decided they wanted to go elsewhere? One poster proclaimed the best choice to be DC. While we don't have prestigious in-state options, students can benefit from DC TAG which provides $10,000 annually towards tuition at in-state universities elsewhere. While I appreciate that poster's enthusiasm, as I have personally been experiencing, 10k doesn't always make up the difference between in and out of state tuitions.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "Spouses of big law partners/lawyers", the original poster says that her husband has risen up the ladder of his law firm to become a partner. While she appreciates that his compensation has increased, his time commitment has always been significant, meaning that she is responsible for almost everything involving their children. She has grown increasingly resentful that everything falls on her and asks how others in similar situations cope with it. The general consensus from others is that they hired help such as nannies and housekeepers to take the load off of themselves. The original poster also works and several of those responding said that they had quit jobs when they were in her situation. The original poster suggests that they can't afford to spend much on hiring help, leading to quite a bit of discussion about her finances. Posters diverge into drafting budgets and delving into her expenditures. One poster drafts a response that, and I am not joking about this, would cost quite a bit of money if you were paying someone for it. It was really excellent financial advice, though it might have been provided somewhat more gently and with less snark. I can imagine the original poster's feathers feeling a little ruffled, but she got some really good advice.