The death penalty has been given for rape, but mainly in developing countries. There was a man killed a few years ago for it in Dubai.

Anyway, I think your response covers the reasoning pretty well. Just to build on it, I think it's also a crime where there really can be no excuse. You might kill someone in self defense, or for material gain. You might steal because you owe someone money, or you might be starving.

On the other hand, rape is someone behaving like an animal, like no functioning member of society should behave. It's an act of someone completely devoid of humanity, which I think is another factor in why we find it so abhorrent.

So I wasn't going to get involved, but seeing as you so elegantly dismissed 800 years of Irish oppression as "lol, white people", I will.

Put the tone argument away. What he's posted is not unrealistic, and you don't get to dismiss it as that because of its tone.

You're just demanding AdonisGksu put away his argument without addressing it, which has a very valid point. There is a very real atmosphere with a lot of groups of "division and hatred". Remember that video that surfaced a few days ago of that guy being kicked out of a public space for being white at a Black Lives Matter protest? What does anybody gain by division and hatred? It baffles me when I hear about "People of Colour only" spaces. Why would you ever want to promote segregation? What does anybody gain? Surely you're just increasing the rift between the two sides? Surely the goal of anti-racism is a world where nobody sees a "black person" or "white person" but just a "person"? It would be infinitely more productive to focus on the actual injustice that minorities face in the western world, rather than focusing on hating and barricading yourselves from people with a different skin colour than yourself.

There is an argument I see thrown around a lot which concludes that a) White people are inherently racist and b) It is impossible for a non-white person to be racist. People who make these conclusions always point back to a system of power form which white people have benefited over hundreds of years.

Irish people are, for the most part, white. We were under pretty tyrannical British rule for roughly 800 years. We did not benefit from any sort of "system of power" for that whole time, and yet, Irish people are still happily pushed under the blanket term of "racist white people." The model doesn't work outside of the United States, and is therefore US-centric.

Hey Hubski-ers (Hubskis... Hubskinis...)!

I'm a 19 year old guy in Ireland and currently a 3rd year Mechanical Engineering major! I love music, math, books, physics, and writing!

I saw this site referenced a few times on Reddit and decided to check it out. So far there's a lot to like about this site! The people here seem relatively calm, and it seems like you guys put a lot of thought into your content.

If you guys have anything you want to ask me, just go ahead!

I'm Asian/Irish. It's become a go-to username for me.

It's pretty incredible how much people can influence animals/plants through selective breeding.

I remember seeing a video about how dog breeds have changed over time. I can't find it right now, but as an example, here's what a French Bulldog looked like ~100 years ago

compared to what they look like now

There is a HUGE difference to purposefully seeking out "disturbing ideas" for your own education and shoving those ideas down the throat of someone who actually lived through one of them.

Surely by going to university though, you are essentially signing up to discussing "'disturbing ideas' for your own education"? You said "it's a personal choice to read books...", but it's also a personal choice to go to a university.

I suppose one aspect you can argue is that all students had to take this particular course. If someone was studying English Literature for example, and was complaining about triggering subjects, I would say that person is simply in the wrong field of study and should study something else. In this case, it seems all students have to take the course regardless of the major. However, as an adult you need to take responsibility for your own education. Research the college and the courses you might have to do, and if you think that some of it will be an issue, then go to another university. It seems strange to me to go to a university without researching what you will be studying, and then complaining about it.

What if this was a different situation? Someone who had PTSD and struggled with memories of war. Would you find it okay to watch a professor vividly describe a horrific scene to this person, and then still find it okay to marvel at the beauty and splendor of your professor's words?

If the professor was describing the scene to the individual, alone then that would definitely be messed up. However, if it was a lecture theatre of 200-300 students, then yes, absolutely. I will definitely marvel at the writers words (if I did in fact find them "marvelous" of course).

EDIT: I was supposed to mention that I'm coming from a non-American university background. I don't know how the university culture is there, but I'm just writing under the assumption that these things are happening at my university.

Is this a stickers which I see before me? Come, let me stick thee!

Thanks so much insomniasexx!! Made my day!

I don't know how people muster the energy to be opposed to something that sounds as inoffensive as a "Little Free Library".

I quite like "petrichor". It's that earthy smell produced when rain falls on dry ground.

There's another word that's just on the tip of my tongue, but I remember thinking it was such a nice word to say. Like a little party in my mouth. I'll come back if I remember it.

Also, the word "mirror" sounds ridiculous to me. Am I alone with that one?

To be fair, your original comment seemed passive-aggressive as fuck; even though it's probably unintentional.

Anyways, thanks for this comment. It was enlightening to see this topic from the point of view of a veteran Hubskier, and is one of the first comments in this thread to make me go "huh... I see where he's coming from". You could well be right, maybe us new users are entitled little pricks, but as we learn about the site, its dynamics, and its users, hopefully that will change. Just bear in mind that we are still getting used to the site, don't know how the site evolved, and also forget that bumping old posts is encouraged here.

From my experience, moving into Hubski from Reddit is a little like moving into a new country. The 'culture shock' is pretty big, and having locals shouting "damned immigrants!" at you isn't exactly helpful.

I'm not sure where I was passive. I think it's fair to say that it's aggressive-aggressive.

Fair enough! I'm ashamed to admit I'm guilty of a few of those crimes. I suppose it's like when I try to assemble furniture from Ikea. I ignore the instructions and assume I'm doing it right, until I realize it's crooked and there are 15 screws left over.

"Lurk moar" is my big take away from this whole thread anyway. Cheers!

To be honest, I rarely see things posted that insult women, but often see criticism of 3rd wave feminism. It depends where you happen to be browsing. You may be correct though, and it if you are then it's definitely a problem, but every online community will have a "hivemind" problem. Take Tumblr as another example, where calling for the death of white/straight/any group of people is a fairly common occurrence. It's the same problem that Reddit has, but I don't see a solution. Am I saying a solution isn't needed? No.

This behaviour you're seeing isn't a result of people "hating women". I am a man studying in a technological, male-dominated field and I can assure you that myself and my friends don't go around discussing how much we hate women. The issue isn't that black and white, it's a combination of factors.

First of all, anonymity means almost zero accountability. As a result people are simply more crude. We saw that happen here on Hubski with the community throwaway experiment.

Also, whenever people feel like they are fighting against someone, they will bring up anything to de-legitimize and insult them. The sexual discrimination lawsuit is a good example. It's not really related to the current issue, but it's something people can bring up. As far as I can tell it's the same type of phenomenon that occurs with political caricatures.

That caricature from 1805 as an example shows a very small, impish Napoleon. Does height have anything to do with Napoleon's military prowess? No. Is it mean? Yes. But when people find themselves in a situation where they feel they can place blame on individuals, they will insult those individuals in any way possible. This, combined with zero accountability can be a dangerous combination which we see happen on Reddit.

How the author manages to warp this debacle and turn it into a race/gender issue is impressive.

I don't use twitter so I don't know about the hashtag, but her insight into the mind of an average Redditor almost read like satire. She's claiming that Redditors are angry because they hate women, and they're trying to limit diverse discussion because they're anti-censorship.

Whenever I smell incense, it reminds me of my friend's house from when I was a kid back in Abu Dhabi.

My next door neighbour was Palestinian, and I would spent far more time in his house than I would in my own. It got to the point where I was pretty much an extended family member; and his mother (a typical mother hen figure) used to cluck about me as much as her own two sons... And scold me in the exact same way she'd scold her sons as well.

My sister (Jen) used to hang out with us quite a bit, actually, and I remember their mom saying "Oh my God, Jen, I'm so glad you're friends with Rashed and Kareem! You don't know how bad it is to only have sons! They fight, they're smelly, they're loud, Ya Allah!"

But anyway, they always had an incense stick burning in their house. So whenever someone burns incense I'm reminded of that time.

It's definitely an awkward situation.

The problem is, people tend to work on the assumption that biology has nothing to do with a person's interests, and therefore future career. I remember seeing a documentary which brought up the issue of a certain paradox in Norway, a country that has strived for gender equality for some time now. However, there are now even less female engineers and male nurses than in previous years, with those numbers falling. However, in third world countries where gender equality is definitely a huge issue, there is comparatively a higher percentage of women in technology related fields.

The conclusion was that in third world countries, the desire to make money and pull themselves up the socio-economic ladder was a huge motivation, where in western society men and women are "more free" to choose any career path that interests them. Unfortunately, those interests are heavily influenced by biology.

I'm currently on mobile, so I can't post too many links. Here's a link to a little write-up about the documentary. Hopefully you can navigate your way to the full thing.

I taught myself how to play piano a few years ago. My biggest challenge was motivating myself to learn from sheet music. I just found learning from the sheets too time consuming, and just ended up learning by ear. Eventually that turned into making my own arrangements and after that it turned into improvisation.

Now that I've been doing this for so long, when I try to learn more complicated pieces from sheets I'm finding it way more difficult than I used to.

Having said that, learning piano has definitely been one of the best investments of my time. I'm not an excellent pianist, but people are always fairly impressed with what I play. However, to a classically trained pianist I play with a lot of bad habits. I don't find it a big deal though. It doesn't limit my playing at my level; like yourself my goal was to learn for myself, not with the intention of making a living.

Congrats! Wish you guys all the best! :)

I spent the weekend visiting my brother and his family in his holiday home out in the countryside. It was great to see my two little nephews again. The younger one is now 3 and the last time I saw him he was still being pushed around in a pram. Now the child is tearing around the place and has zero concept of self-preservation; cuts and scrapes everywhere. I had to physically restrain him at one point from riding his bicycle down a set of stairs. I don't know how my brother and sister in law manage to keep up with the child.

In other news, the Arduino I ordered came early yesterday. Right now I'm just blinking LEDs on and off and controlling them with buttons and switches. Once I master LEDs I'll be ready for NASA, I reckon.

I love the piano. Usually I just improvise with certain scales, but even when I'm playing a piece written by someone else, my style will always sound different to anyone else's. No two people play any one piece the exact same way. Even the way I play my own piece changes from day to day. That endless fluidity and individuality is one of the things I love best about music.

Like dingus I also love to solve problems. I love that "ah-hah" moment when you formulate a method, then begin to go through the process, running through each step like a machine until the answer reveals itself. Then you look back at your work and think "Wow, I actually managed to do it!"

Unfortunately though, there'll always be problems where no matter how hard you try you just can't quite seem to get it. Those are just incredibly frustrating.

This is a great video.

There's that quote

Every person dies twice, once when you stop breathing, and when somebody mentions your name for the last time

Both deaths are inevitable. It's also inevitable that at some point in the future, the very last human will take his last breath. There's something very, very frightening about that inevitability... but something quite peaceful as well.

This song has been on my iPod for ages, but I forgot it existed. It came up on shuffle and I can't believe I had forgotten about it. When the lyrics(?) kick in at around 50 seconds, I get the chills.

The Final Speech - Thomas Jack ft. Adrian Symes

I'm not emotionally invested enough in the subject to get into a heated argument about it, and my intention was not to get people angry. I found this video, found it interesting, remembered a few discussions I had on here, and wanted to use it to spark another discussion.

I also never made any claim to be well-versed in the topic, and I am not dismissing anything. All I said was I find it difficult to appreciate; my girlfriend has the opposite view to me so obviously there is some merit to it. I was hoping to see what other people find striking about modern art.

Thanks for your points, but I won't engage you in them.

Yes there is a fair bit of racism on this site, and yes of course it's shitty when people try and pass it off as the right thing to do.

However, this was not the best way to go about making your point. First of all it wasn't a particularly good example. There's only one user in your screencaps who I'd say is blatantly displaying racism, as far as I can tell, and although I might disagree with some of the other people, at least they're discussing the matter and making points which I might be able to then challenge.

All you can do when confronted with these people is to make your point clearly and concisely. Once you've made your points it's time to leave. When people are shouting insults at me on the street, I don't stick around and let them use me as entertainment. I might challenge them briefly, but then I leave. It's the same attitude I try to have here on Hubski.

You will never change any of their minds. You probably will never change anybody's mind when it comes to something serious, such as racism, sexism, etc. All you can do is give them enough to think about and hopefully they will change their own minds.

Pointing your finger and calling names out of the blue just reflects badly on you.

Like Elisza, I'm an engineering student whose second choice was English.

The analytical skills that you get from studying writing is really useful across any discipline. It forces you to really look at something critically, analyse all the different layers and eventually come to your own conclusion.

Interpreting something for yourself is also a really useful skill. You learn to look at something from different viewpoints which helps you understand and even empathize with someone you don't necessarily agree with. Also, when you make an interpretation, you now have to defend your view based on existing evidence. Another valuable skill that is definitely used outside of high school.

Finally, and more of a personal opinion than anything else; an appreciation for books is something everyone should have. Written word allows us to look back through time, gives us insight into someone else's mind, or often insight into our own. Reading and writing forces people to really think for themselves, and that is something of inestimable value.

One of my professors told us that the two best ways of assessing any civilization are by the materials they used and the records they kept. You might agree or disagree, but I think he's at least more right than wrong.

I abandoned a lot of online resources because I found it difficult to motivate myself to do scales and drills and whatnot, so I'm afraid I won't be too helpful.

I found in the beginning that using Synthesia videos on YouTube were fairly helpful! When I wanted to learn a piece, I would watch a Synthesia tutorial, write down the notes/chords and then use those as a foundation to build on. The result was I would learn to play a piece by sound using my rudimentary notes as a baseline. This helped me learn to improvise, I think.

It may be a bit unorthodox advice, and someone who was classically trained would shoot me in the face, but I'd say just focus on having fun rather than turning it into an exercise. Learn the scales (or at least be able to figure them out), learn to read notes, learn about chords, and then learn simple pieces that you want to learn.

The only place you'll really need online tutorials is if you're trying to learn music theory. I was lucky enough that they taught it at a pretty basic level in my high school, but there should be some decent videos on YouTube. Here's one that looks good from what I've seen so far!

What!? They give away stickers here!? Where do I sign up!?

When you put it like that, it's pretty incredible how they keep this website running. I do agree with aeromill though; the owners paying out of pocket to run this place almost makes me feel guilty.

This was a bit of a cop-out in my opinion. People were implying that because Grendel is not a black american that he doesn't understand the situation enough to come to a conclusion. He linked videos to black americans who do understand the situation and who share his viewpoint. At the very least, he has proven that people with his viewpoint aren't just uneducated white people.

You're one black American. I can easily dismiss you in the same way you dismissed him by saying "Oh good! one whole black person has this view! Clearly you speak for African-Americans everywhere.

Interesting view, and I half-agree with you. In an unfamiliar/professional setting it's definitely important to remain sensitive to these things, because, as you said, you don't know what people might take offense at.

I mean your friends might not have issues with all the race jokes but supposed someone from outside your group hears them? They might have a problem with it because some jokes hurt a lot more than you think to some people.

If someone from outside my friend group overhears us and finds it offensive... Then they find it offensive. They can have a problem with it all they like. However, I'd be hesitant to label it as 'casual racism'; doing so is subtly calling the speaker a racist. A person isn't a racist unless they believe that one race is inferior to the other. Unless the speaker genuinely believes that and their words reflect that belief, it shouldn't be labeled as 'racism'. Stripping away the intention and focusing on the words will always lead to misinterpretation.

For example, by focusing solely on the words, something as innocuous as "I love steak" can be interpreted as promoting animal cruelty. However, the speaker could really just be enjoying his dinner.

It's impossible to make sure that nobody is offended by what I say, so I shouldn't be branded a racist just because someone took offense. If anyone is offended at anything, they should think "Why am I offended?" and "What was that person's intention?" We shouldn't be so quick to jump the gun and call them racists.

This is a pretty difficult one for me... It's probably Howth, a small seaside village in Dublin, Ireland. I remember visiting it from time to time when I was a kid, so there's a lot of happy memories there. When I eventually moved to Dublin to go to university, I took a girl I was crushing on there for a little day trip. It was such a lovely, sunny day, and we hadn't seen each other for 2 years. We sat overlooking the cliffs just catching up; I don't remember laughing so much in my life.

The combination of blue skies, ocean air, and this amazing girl I hadn't seen in forever really made a real imprint on me.

We still go back there from time to time to just go for a walk, look through the Sunday Market, and generally just enjoy the atmosphere. There's something really charming about little seaside towns.

So I spent the second semester of college this year living with a guy who's a hardcore metalhead/biker. Now this lad is into some really heavy, demonic, evil sounding music, but as a result of my living with him for a few months I ended up looking into (much softer) rock music again. Which is refreshing. For the past few years it's been mostly house/dance music for me.

"PUP" is a punk band I found online. Some of my favourite tracks include DVP and Dark Days.

And I actually have no clue what genre this would be. They're called "Alarmist". Experimental Rock maybe? They're a couple of lads from Wicklow here in Ireland, and they're really great anyway. Whatever they are.

Alarmist - Petrichor