I’m pretty sure giving the finger is entirely cultural. If you met a human from a group with no contact with the rest of the world, I don’t think the middle finger would mean anything to them, unless they infer something from your attitude and context.

Very well said. There is also an effect at play here where the more dire an accusation is, the more our natural tendency is to believe it. Take a more extreme example: pedophile. If your neighbor is accused of being a pedophile, however flimsy the evidence, people are going to start acting as if it is true.

It’s logical behavior, in a way, because dangers with more serious consequences need to be taken more seriously. Its safer to just assume a dangerous threat is really a threat even if you’re not sure about the data. This is terrible for those with suspicion cast on them, but it is a thing.

Please be aware, any accusation that could be used to vilify an opponent, and make one potentially look like the Good Guy for calling them out WILL be used. Some people are shit, and others will easily rationalize themselves into believing whatever is convenient, with the flimsiest evidence.

Issues that are especially fraught, the sort of accusations that really get people riled up are especially tempting for such people.

Moose is a good example of an animal that might kill you for looking at him funny in rutting season. Especially if you have a dog.

I’m pretty sure American sign language looks different than that.

Antifi?

Maybe this person is an asshole and has the reasonable expectation that people will say rude things about them if they can’t understand what they are saying.

That’s an excellent idea! It’s a pretty badly failed experiment.

Is that manatee in your pants or are you REALLY happy to see me?

Or “men’s white briefs”.

They fit relatively tightly compared to boxers, even when the right size.

I would also say it its important to understand and accept that what a person feels is valid even if something it is based on is ‘wrong’. If I hurt you, you hurt, and that is important to address even if I didn’t mean to hurt you, even if I think that isn’t a thing that should be hurtful, even if you misunderstand my motives.

When I act a certain way, you may think it means a certain thing, because that it what it has meant coming from other people, or what it would mean coming from you, or what you believe it is supposed to mean. I on the other hand may not even realize that another could take it to mean something other then what it means for me. It can be hard understanding what another person’s actions or reactions mean, and doubly so because we do not always understand ourselves.

The was no ‘just’, just as there was no equating.

Bring any nuance to a charged topic and the ones who think in black and white terms will come to misinterpret what you said in the least charitable way.

Maybe not, but the boundaries can be fuzzy, and statistics tend to get built on technical language that may not treat the fuzziness the way you or I would agree with. So I get the urge to use vague language like ‘affects’ or the difficulty in finding language that is general enough without sounding mealy mouthed.

In reality, it’s not purely about race. Most racism isn’t between groups that are culturally identical, it is between groups with significant cultural differences. Race is just the most obvious attribute used to identify the other group.

I get you, but how would you phase it? I expect, BTW, that it might be intended to cover both the extreme of children forced to work in a sweatshop 12/7 and children who have to help their parents with some subsistence tasks.

It’s always a numbers game. The more times you roll the dice the sooner you’ll see success. The lower the chances the more times you need to roll em.

A general thing you can say about opportunity is to put yourself places where opportunities happen, even rare ones. But sorry I don’t have any advice about where those places are.

Also, non successful attempts can still be learning experience.

Believe it or not the Goldberg variations works for me.

Did you really think that what you were able to infer from basic knowledge about the motion of the planets was not realized by scientists?