Will

I can’t remember if this was discussed before but one thing I always think about is being able to upload images as one of the supporter perks. I’m not sure if that’s even possible but would definitely be really nice.

Artistically those all look quite nice. I doubt I’ll end up playing any of them but would be quite tempted if I had the time.

I still remember the day my Dad took me out and we bought a Game Boy. We got it from Tandy in our local town while my Mum and Sister were at church, my god they were angry with us when they got home. It was all worth it for Super Mario Land though! Now this brings back memories! I almost wish I had one of those now.

Yeah I really hope the Mario remasters turns out to be true. I’d gladly pay full price for every title in the main Mario line if they were done properly.

Good thing for a thread, would much rather post these things here than something like facebook. Quak definitely looks familiar but I don’t recall why. I had a friend that would give me bootleg amiga games and this may well have been one of them. My Earliest Gaming Memory For me it was going to my Grandparents house back when I was 5 or 6 and my Grandfather having a BBC Micro, very similar to this one: I used to spend hours playing loads of games on there, my favourite at the time was called Citadel: I never managed to complete it and would quite like to go back and try to. There were a few others we played a lot but I don’t really recall them. Once my Grandfather upgraded to a proper PC (way before most other people even knew what they were), we got to have the BBC and carried on playing it for quite a long time. It was all down to him and these games that really got me into gaming - good times!

I’m due to start my new role on Monday and have been working through some virtual onboarding stuff this week. They’ve set me up with a schedule for my first few days, introduction to the company, some fun things for me to do and a buddy to help welcome me into the role. Really impressed with how slick it is, can’t wait to actually get started now.

@Ashley - that’s a good summary on institutional racism that I think makes it easy to see how groups can make decisions that while not intentionally racist continue the cycle of discrimination. It’s really important to distinguish this from law and policy, which I think a lot of people miss when thinking about this. The intersectionality is also very interesting. It’s something that I never knew had a name though would have assumed to be the case. I guess one of the problems is how far do you break a persons individual situation down and at what point does it make any action meaningless as there will always be some additional division between whatever group it is that you’re looking at. I suppose we just have to look at the biggest problems and then work down the list?? I’m not sure. @Nicktendo - I don’t think you should drop out of this discussion. It’s really quite valuable to discuss all of this among people with differing view points. Is there any particular issue you have with intersectionality?

I suppose that’s a nice little treat but I can’t say I’m too fussed by that selection of titles.

Something I didn’t expect at all: New black livery for the Mercedes in support of BLM and a commitment to make the team more diverse in the future. Looks pretty cool!

I watched the Sonic The Hedgehog movie yesterday. It was great! I’m honestly quite shocked at how good it was. I’d say it’s easily the best video game movie and I actually want to watch a follow up to it - I hope it happens. I also loved the SEGA intro they used for it (the Paramount part is pretty cool too): I don’t get why they’re not using this for everything instead of that stupid eye thing.

The fact that open Marxists are at the head of this operation has me extremely sceptical about their real intentions, and given the way the past month has gone, I find very little of what BLM has had to say actually have anything to do with improving race relations or the situation of Black people in either the UK or the US. Isn’t the point that capitalism has historically benefited white people who through exploitation of black people in the past now find themselves with a massive head start that can’t be caught up on? In the modern day we see that the wealth gap is growing faster than ever and it certainly benefits the few rather than the many. It also doesn’t seem that the BLM “Group” is one coherent organization, with many splinters of people claiming it - Especially in the UK I think it’s better to see the ideology rather than a particular group who may not represent the whole very well. It should have been solved many, many years ago. As it hasn’t been the next best time for this to be dealt with is right now. In terms of judging it I don’t think you need to have numbers or targets by which to judge this, it’s about people of all races and backgrounds feeling completely safe, integrated and having the same opportunities as everyone else. You can’t just have a checklist with things such as “have a race earn more than white people” on it, tick them off and declare the problem solved. Fair enough, but just taking the Wikipedia definition of “Institutional racism (also known as systemic racism) is a form of racism that is embedded as normal practice within society or an organisation.” I’m not sure I agree with you. Having laws to protect against something doesn’t mean that something doesn’t exist. So I think it would still be fair to say it doesn’t exist with this new definition either then. It’s hard to comment on your uncle’s situation, maybe his girlfriends Father was a massive racist or maybe there was some other reason for him disapproving. In my experience none of the white people I know have had any issues with racism or discrimination from family of partners. I think it’s completely dependent on what you’re doing in the country. As a westerner the “lowest” role you’re likely to be in is that of an English teacher. As a Chinese person you’re far more likely to be taking up a lower manual role and will probably be treated as such. Koreans, in my limited experience, tended to be ex-pats who don’t really need to worry about things like that. Doesn’t this make a huge assumption that the arrest rates are perfectly impartial? I think these are very interesting, to cover each one: I agree with this, but you also have to be sure that the way you test things actually does get you the best set of people for the job. If you’re setting up a diversity commission then a lack of diversity would be a bit of a problem. I’m not totally in agreement with the methods but would definitely support an overhaul of the education system. The one area I’d completely disagree on is faith schools. While I think kids should learn about faith I don’t think building schools around them is a good idea. They have a lot of them in Singapore and they tend to become voids of any other opinion attended only by the most committed of the particular faith, which I don’t think is a good result for anyone. Sounds good. Yep, the whole system needs an overhaul and simplification. Personally I think some form of universal basic income that encourages people to get into work would be best, but it’s not something I’ve spent a ton of time looking into. Also good. The closest I got to anything like this was a “General Studies” A-Level which was such a joke my school didn’t even teach you the subject, just entered you for the exam. I think a short-form course on how to be a productive and useful member of society would be a very positive thing for everyone. Agree here too. There is no need to have an unexplained qualifier of race in media depictions of people, especially when you ignore the white one. While I’m very much for open discussion on race, this should not fall under that. I totally agree with this, but would also say it might be one of the few areas you’d ignore section one - I think these visible police on the street do need to be representative of the communities they’re working in, but not to the point of lacking representation of particular races in wider society. Essentially you want every person to see their own colour, as well as every other colour within this group of people. Overall I think all of your ideas have good merit and would help improve things. It’s a shame politics can’t be this simple in practice. I will watch this fully when I have a chance, but this part and the start really came across as people with privilege cherry picking some stats to say everything is fine. Don’t take that as my full assessment of the video though. I agree here, I suppose the ending of diversity quotas is something to aim for as we’ll be in a better world when they’re not needed. I’ll admit my American history is pretty lacking but are you sure that’s true?

I’ll come back on everything else tomorrow, as it’s getting a little late here, but just quickly on this one point. Sorry, I didn’t at all mean to imply that you were a racist here, just that the connection between race and that general thinking put in that way could be seen as such. I didn’t mean to cause any offense by the comment, and certainly don’t think you are a racist - I’ll add more detail when I have time for a fuller response to everything else too.

F1 2020 Predictions Game!! So let’s give this a try with the announced eight races of the championship. To make your predictions go here: Predictions Game Guide: Select the Pole Sitter, Fastest Lap Driver and Top 5 Finishers for each race Select the Top Three in the Drivers and Constructors Championship Guess a few fun tie breakers Points: Correct Pole Sitter - 10 points Correct Fastest Lap Driver - 10 points Correct Top 5 driver selected - 5 points Correct Top 5 driver selected in correct position - points they score (as well as the 5 points originally earned) Select the winner in the winners position and you’ll get 25 + 5 = 30 points Drivers championship predictions 1st: 50 points, 2nd: 30 points, 3rd: 15 points Constructors championship predictions 1st: 50 points, 2nd: 30 points, 3rd: 15 points Tie breaker questions - 20 points for the correct answer, 10 points for the closest answer These will count to the total scores regardless of whether the others are a tie If there is any feedback let me know and I’ll clarify or tweak the rules.

That one was starting to grow on me but I much prefer this one. Yeah I think you’re right. Ultimately I expect Hamilton to win the title but it would be great if someone else gets ahead at the start and he has to chase it down.

Really like the look of the trailer and looking forward to playing this. Think I’ll try and avoid anything else on the game in the run up to launch so as not to spoil anything. I do hope they add some next-gen upgrades, would be great to have this take advantage of the power of the new consoles.

So today marks half way through the year for me so time to update how my targets are going: Run 1,000km over the course of the year - Currently at just over 250km 400km 733km Do a 5km run in under 20 minutes - Current best 21:35 21:25 (no improvement) Do a 10km run in under 40 minutes - Current best 48:34 46:40 (no improvement) I’ve not been able to keep up my pace training at all so have tried to make the runs I do of decent length so I at least smash the distance target. It’s a shame but I very much doubt I’ll be able to hit either my 5k or 10k targets. On the distance part I’m very happy, I’m way ahead of even what my ideal scenario would have looked like. Just need to keep up a few runs a week and I’ll easily beat that one by quite some margin.

The new Williams looks great: Just hope it goes a bit better than the last few years. Given that we’re a week away from the start of the season are any of you guys up for a bit of a predictions game? Was thinking we could pick top 5 in each race + pole, fastest lap maybe some others then give points for each race? If a few people are interested I’ll put together a draft of how we could do it.

It doesn’t sound weird at all, I’m sure there are many people for which this is bringing up similar feelings. It’s super interesting (and very sad) to hear that you put so much of what you experience to the back of your mind to the point you will say you’re lucky, then when explaining it to friends it actually shocks them the things you’ve been through. I hope that this forum is a place you feel you can open up and share these things and gain something from those of us on the other side of things to make a positive difference. I’m quite embarrassed to say my initial reaction to Black Lives Matter was all lives matter, I’m pleased that I had people around me (including here), to point me in the right direction and start taking more meaningful action on things. I agree with you completely on the historical figures thing. It’s so hard to deal with the two sides of the people in question and what the right direction to move in is. One thing I’m sure is that you can’t just erase them from history. We do need to work out the right way to frame the good things with the lessons of the bad, and hopefully use them to be an even better lesson for future generations from all backgrounds. We definitely don’t want to end up in some weird 1984 style scenario where we all pretend nothing bad has ever happened and we’re all equal to the point of having no personality or history at all.

I just don’t get how you can use this one example and claim racism isn’t a problem in either country. Do you think the millions of people getting behind BLM and other initiatives have got it all wrong? I guess if you take the view that police treat black people better than they treat other races then you can make the argument that the law is on your side in issues concerning racism. From what I see it would appear that that is not the case though. In the UK black people are likely to receive longer sentences for the same crime as white people. Where are you taking these stats from? It seems to be a very different position to what is mostly being reported right now. We’ve had generations haven’t we? If you take a generation to be 30 years then that’s 2 (and change) since 1950 and 6 since slavery was abolished in the 1830s. Shouldn’t this be long enough? Is income by race the only measure we need to judge this by? I would disagree that racial barriers to success have been removed simply because you have some examples of some people being able to earn a little more than white people. You’ve taken one data point and declared racism solved. Personally I think that the fact I’m white has been hugely beneficial to me, if only for the reason I’ve never had to worry about this sort of thing. I think the last part of this is quite racist in itself, you’re basically saying some minorities have a cultural problem because of their views on the police - and you think we don’t have an issue with racism? The American Dream for the most part doesn’t exist. Yes it’s technically possible to change your circumstances in a generation, but it’s also possible that you’ll win the lottery - it doesn’t happen for most people. Just because the possibility of something exists doesn’t mean everyone is starting from a level playing field and their are no barriers to success. Just because there may be bigger problems doesn’t mean others don’t exist. From what I can tell those countries have laws against racism, so by your earlier arguments couldn’t you just take it as there are some racist people but it’s not really a problem as the law protects people from it? Of course it’s much worse in those places than the US/UK, but I don’t think you can say we’re doing OK because some other countries are worse. My experience in Japan as a white person was great, I was treated like a VIP by most Japanese people. As a non-Japanese I didn’t always get the same treatment or eligibility for things as I wasn’t entitled to them - that was never related to my race though.

Just finished watching it and found the second episode even better than the first, I’d thoroughly recommend that everyone gives it a watch. I think it confirms a lot of what you’ve been saying, @Rummy - start with self education and build an understanding so that all of us as individuals can play our part in breaking down the barriers we have in society and progressing. I hope that more schools take on this sort of approach of actually talking about these issues and highlighting that racism and privilege exist, even though we think of ourselves as existing in a society that has already dealt with all of these things. Even these kids in a very multiracial school showed biases so for anyone to say society has got racism sorted out is totally bonkers.

I’ve seen the first episode and thought it was great, going to watch the second episode today and come back on here with some comments. My main takeaways so far are they it highlights society in general in a very interesting way, in that nobody sees themselves as a racist and does try to be equal, all while enjoying the benefits that their (white) race brings to them. Really looking forward to the next episode.

Asians in the US also have the highest level of inequality, with most of the wealth seeming to come from foreign born immigrants rather than Americans, (Source). In the UK there seems to be some level of the same thing though less pronounced. In either case the success of one race does not remove the benefit of being white. There is still a level of inequality in both societies that needs to be addressed. An institution is just a collection of people. If enough members of an institution are racist then that institution will be racist too. I think there has been quite a lot of news about the American police recently that would attest to this. You don’t have to have a written agenda of racism for an institution to not be racist. Even just continuing to benefit from previous racist policies should be seen as not doing enough to address the balance. I don’t think anybody should be too proud of the progress that has been made on this. Personally I think if you take the 50’s as the example then the fact we’re as we are now, 70 years later, is pretty shit to be honest. It’s definitely a huge problem, but who’s most likely to be in the worse situation? The histories of each race in Britain are very different and lead to very different positions in society in the present. If we truly had equality then none of these differences would exist. I think you’re just ignoring the issue. Just because we’ve got laws to stop these things doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I also think you’ve misinterpreted your data as for the most part it’s quite clear there is a huge advantage in being white in western society. It’s not about some particular race doing well, it’s about always feeling safe and having whatever opportunity you want - something white people benefit from every day. Which countries would you recommend? I completely agree with the point, just interested who you’d put up as examples.

I definitely see your point here. I would say the issue you run into is having a massively wide definition of what racism is, with a huge overlap on prejudice and I’m not sure you can easily work on either of them like this. By putting power on the other side of the equation you get a clearer delineation between the two and don’t have racism being something any joker can pull up as something they’ve suffered from. This part I don’t think is as valid. On each point: “it doesn't address racism between minorities” - it does, it just defines it as prejudices rather than racism. “we don't need a hierarchy of "Which race has power, in which order?"” - Definitely not, you just need to know who has historical power and continues to benefit from it - it isn’t any of the minorities. “It also promotes the "trap" that minorities can act nasty towards the majority, despite that being a very bad idea for discourse in general” - How exactly does it do that? It’s not saying that all other abuse and prejudice is fine apart from this specific part of it we call racism. It’s all wrong, including this specific part we define as racism. Wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge these differences but for that to be totally OK and not something to judge the character of your person by? If we wipe out recognition of all the differences we have we may as well all go about wearing grey suits being totally boring. At the extreme end I think it would marginalize people even more to get to a point where we just ignore all differences and consider everyone the same. Sorry to hear about how you feel over the past month, @Animal. Do you think the current highlighting of these issues is at least working in a positive way? I think this is quite a common view, but imo wrong. Things were easier to ignore before because things were “fine” - now we’re talking about it and realizing everything isn’t “fine” and it’s quite difficult for a lot of people to come to terms with. All of the initiatives taking place are not about driving divisions. It’s about highlighting differences, educating people and allowing everyone to live together no matter their background or choice of life to lead. It’s very easy to say “I’m not a racist” or “I don’t see colour” or “I don’t judge you by your sexual orientation”, but actually working towards a society where these things don’t matter is not as easy as that. I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said on the topic. I hope more people are starting to think like you after the events of recent months.

Yeah the heat is a real killer. For me it’s not being able to cool down or relax at any point. Still, when the heat goes away you should see some real benefit!

That’s crazy, can’t believe there are people (both the manager and the other staff) with so little awareness of what they’re saying. In Singapore, this goes a step further and is actually part of your official documentation. It then plays into things such as houses you want to buy and other general life things that they decide what you are entitled to based on the race you have documented. I recently registered a child and put their race as “mixed” which was incorrect as that does not exist in their system, you have to pick from 5 or 6 very specific ones they have available with no flexibility. Really annoyed me! I think you’re right in very general terms - it does seem quite unworkable to have a particular word that is OK for one group of people to use and be completely unthinkable for another group. There has to be some consistency in how words can be used even just looking at it from a historical recording perspective. When it comes to this word and the connotations behind it that’s something very difficult to do. I actually quite liked that as a definition. The people in the US/UK who say white people suffer from racism too always sounded a bit ridiculous to me but I didn’t have a good way to say exactly why. Looking at it from this angle gives a good way to see it imo. Living in Asia there are always people defining me by my whiteness in a very casual way that if said to a black person elsewhere I would definitely consider to be racism. The difference is that they hold no power over me and nothing in my life could even come close to being impacted by it. It’s stupid, but it doesn’t make me think I have a reason to say I’ve been racially abused.