@ShadowWizard oh, but that is not something about USA. It's about the world, not just a single continent. Maybe, if you look at places where people still live in a more "traditional" way, untouched by the modern "culture" you may find that there ethics and empathy are regarded as something a little more important... But I fear that the big metropolises are headed for a "Homo homini lupus est" status quo.

That is... assuming that we didn't already reach that long ago.

@Derpy I'm afraid we did reach it already long ago.

@ShadowWizard Oh, well, just some days ago I was discussing with some friends. I still wonder if, for example, the Mortal Kombat series really had so much "luck" back in the Megadrive era just because violence sells.

Considering that games like "Splatterhouse" (a game that can be described as "Jason Voorhees VS Monsters") have been totally forgotten, I am asking myself if the real "selling feature" in Mortal Kombat were the fatalities or the fact that they could be used against human opponents in a way to "humiliate" them for losing.

so... yep, it seems a trend that started long ago.

@Derpy indeed, and with "social" platforms (which are anything but social) like Facebook, people started to turn their virtual violence towards other people, not just in games.

@ShadowWizard ^ the above also applies. Internet "anonymity" is just a foster for people to not worry to much about their social mask.

@Derpy not really, people attack each other freely on Facebook, where they're not anonymous. With their real name, real pictures and many times actual home address visible to everyone.

I mean someone post a status "I support [this and that]" and attacked by those who disagree with curses, death wishes, and worse.

@ShadowWizard first, you assume that the "haters" use their real life info. Often, from what I see, they prefer account with fake data.

Also, even if they "do" use the real info, there is also another issue at hand. Being rude seems to be far simpler when your "opponent" is someone you probably don't even know, just a "name" on a forum.

In a way, even when that person is a famous actress (like that young Japanese idol that was driven to suicide years ago because of constant cyberbullying) it still is just an "abstract" entity. Then, of course, there are people that wouldn't care even if the entity was a "real person" they shared their own school class with for years.

@Derpy no no, they use real details. They're not smart enough to have fake data.

And they always use broken language, bad grammar, etc.

Like some ancient cavemen with access to computer.

And the sad part is.... those are the majority of the people. All hail Democracy.

@Derpy that point is true. Guess they won't attack people they know in real life.

But that stage will come as well, soon.

@ShadowWizard Oh, but they already do. It is just that for now you still need some... excuse. Culture, religion, skin color... all will do.

oh, hi @b_jonas

heh, he moved to the Tavern

@Derpy Hello.

(btw, thinking about it, that could be an interesting MLP episode... Send the mane six on a map trip to a city where ponies are fighting based on the color of their fur... very risky to do, but could be a great "what the ... is humanity doing" episode if they could do it right and show how nonsensical the fight is. In a way, it would be a remake of that season 5 episode... just even better. )

You know, @ShadowWizard... Like I said before, sometime I wonder. It would be cool for once to be able to know what the percentages are. They said that Internet often inflates the noise news produce: so, when for example a small percentage of the newly release smartphone of a famous brand is found to have a problem, the result is that people "feel" the issue like most of the phones were flawed.

@Derpy can be even better if there will be other pony who takes advantage of the fight, makes them fight each other even more, and using this to become their leader.

Ruling by fear and force is the easiest way.

@ShadowWizard oh, well. We had an episode with a pony that was actively lying to his workers so that they wouldn't "change company".

Obviously they couldn't do much with a 20' episode, but you get the idea.

yeah

@Derpy They already did that in S5 E23, except without the city.

Ok, that's what you said.

@Derpy That's a bad example. Most phones are flawed these days, it's not just because the internet inflates the problems.

@b_jonas yep, buy they focused on a fight between clans to the point that when the two family were asked how the fight started they couldn't even remember. It is true that the parallelism to two cultures, religion or skin color is easily done... but it is also more subtle. I would like something more direct. Fur color or pony race seems more likely to drawn attention to a real world issue. But again, to do it right it would take a lot of effort and care.

In a way, S1 "Over a barrel" is closer to what I had in mind. But that has the problem that it seems to be just about native Americans. Moving the focus over the pony color would probably be more direct.

@Derpy parallelism? they did clearly have two different skin colors and two different cultures

@b_jonas again - how many people will see that episode as an episode about a family feud that is still going even if its motives have been forgotten and how many will see it as a reference to fighting between different religions or discrimination about skin color? It is not that the episode isn't talking about a problem, I just think that they could maybe try something much more direct.

anyway, little side notice.

you know, @ShadowWizard. If they claimed that the post was about politics, I could agree this is not the place. But IMHO what they attempted to do was a post about human right, not just politics. Men and presidents will vanish in a blink of time compared to the age our universe has... they can try as long as they wish, but their body won't become immortal anytime soon.

The only thing that can live is the ideas they made. And probably that is what it's worth discussing about.

So, someone had a post about "humans rights" on the board. I can see it was not its place. I fail to see all the pain and hurt it seems to have caused to some.

In a way, it is similar to how "fun" post are removed because off-topic. Yep, I get it was off-topic, but I don't really believe your eyes hurt because the post was there.

Joel post probably sounded more like a rant and that is true, but I also don't really see why "by-default", Stack shouldn't be able to advertise its involvement in human rights.

Well, it is politics in a way, just not 100%. It involve decisions of elected president.

So I do understand those who go against it due to being politics.

@Derpy I don't know. I'm also not sure an episode about skin colors is what I want to see from MLP. Hasn't that sort of topic been done a lot of times already, in both fiction and non-fiction treatments?

@ShadowWizard I suppose that is right, but I don't know. Morality seems to exist not because some government defined them. If I say that I oppose death sentence for example, to me that is just morality. The fact that my government approves it or not shouldn't come in the picture.

Basically, I now wonder. Was Stack going to promote a fund raiser for... I don't know? Cancer treatments research? World hunger? Would it still be something people would oppose? Would they oppose it if it was advertised in the blog? In an advertisement they see on the page side? And what about a "featured" post on meta?

.... and then... what is the difference if any?

visibility?

the fact that you don't read the blog so there is no risk that someone reminds you that world hunger exist just as you were going to have dinner?

@Derpy yes, if Joel will post on MSO "let's raise funds for hungry children" people will still oppose and close it as off topic.

They don't have problem with the blog.

@ShadowWizard so, aren't the hats off-topic too? Why not closing the "Winterbash is starting" announcements too?

@b_jonas in case you missed it in Tavern, @Oded suggested to browse the sites list over https which might solve the problem.

@Derpy Winterbash? No, it's part of Stack Exchange.

@ShadowWizard Why? is that about programming? Is that about question answering?

@Derpy it's not in MSO, it's in MSE. :)

Is that... on-topic?

@ShadowWizard so, Joel should have posted on MSE and people wouldn't have closed it?

If that is the case.. I say "let's migrate it"

@b_jonas yep, like I said that would be very hard to pull out, but I still feel that there is some potential. The ponies have different color "by-default", so fighting over it would probably look very stupid. Which is precisely the point.

If they also manage for a way to have the CMC involved while the adults can't seem to see the problem (yep, this could be a good episode to use the "mane six all went to a field trip with Chrysalis" excuse), bonus points

@b_jonas oh, interesting. Back in 2015, google had a weird easter egg in one video about a "space/moon exploring" related contest

check at 7:27... the small "moon" icon in the middle of the picture... does that remind you anything?

@Derpy Nice catch. Indeed, that's directly taken from MLP: vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/9/9f/…

@b_jonas found that while i was searching for the "Celestia on international space station component" picture I posted in the other room.