Some unfortunate happenings at the Rippetoe forum

[vibragreen]

Is this being debated seriously? I mean I understand everyone here looks up to the man (a bit too much I believe) but I think you're all taking it way too seriously. He's created an amazing work out routine and philosophy. That's a fact. He doesn't have to be an amazing or brilliant person as well. Hell, I'm sure most of the musicians you listen to are complete dicks. But just because Keith Richards and Paul McCartney are in all likelihood tools in reality am I going to stop listening to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles? No. Because they're fucking awesome musicians.

[rossi]

It's already a reality in cities like Brussels. Belgian people are in a minority there, majority of arabs & EU people. The consequence is that it has an obvious influence: there are mosques in many cities here, you can find typical arab food & stores, there are all those EU festivities all the time, etc. The question is why you'd believe that would be bad thing.

Because multiculturism does not work, moreover the indigenious population is becoming a minority.
It's not about the food.

People are in general afraid of the unknown and of change (or they had 1 bad experience years ago and take that the rest of their life with them). You'll never grow if you always stay within your comfort zone. Opening yourself up to other cultures is great way for self-dev. That's why we travel. With the mix of cultures, you can get this locally.

I don't think you're being honest. This is the well known leftist riposte: people are dumn, anxious and ignorant... Sure, but there are also people who aren't all that. I like to open myself to other cultures, but not where I live.

Stop watching tv & reading newspapers, and get out of your house and go make friends with those people you are afraid of. People are all the same and want the same thing. I've got friends from all ethnicies: black, russian, dutch, french, spanish, asian, ... and we get along fine.

I can't really comment on your friends, but I would think that most live in Brussels? So many share your own western values. They are perhaps of different ethnicity, but their culture is much more that of Belgium than that of their forefathers.

Are you saying it's some evil gene? You can't draw conclusions based on some events. The stuff you mentioned are the result of something that started 40y ago and of rascism everywhere in Europe (extremist parties are in governments in several countries, news keep feeding on it).

That is not true or honest. Protecting ones own culture or people has not been invented by Nazi
Germany 40 years ago. It's been like this for tenthousands of years.

Governments neglected the assimilation part when they first brought them here years ago. Now stuff are all messed up. Feeding people with fear is not going to help. They aren't going back anywhere, those people got kids born & raised here. The only solution is get along and get used to it.
If they will not go back, the solution is to get used to it? No, the solution is to change their values and opinions. None of the "oh well, it's too late now".

[wrenchhands]

This book changed my mind on multiculturalism and society

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Are-We-Challe ... 0684870541

[Mehdi]

Rossi, I'm not a leftist. I don't follow politics, I don't have cable, I don't read newspapers. I don't even know who's in the government. And I vote blanco. They cancel can that whole circus as far as I'm concerned. So if someone is dumb & ignorant, it would definitely be me.

[itsbruce]

I think people are reaching a bit when they start judging the coach's approach to (and understanding of) strength training, in which he is definitely an expert, by his attitude to the many things where he is no better informed than the rest of us. Strong-minded, experienced, intelligent achievers (again, that's him) are often impatient with stupidity and sloppy thinking in their own field; they can appear abrupt and dismissive when they are simply right about something they're all too familiar with and where they don't have the patience to explain the basics again, for the thousandth time. This doesn't make them blinkered in their own field; from what I've read and seen of Mark Rippetoe, he applies a sharp intelligence and understanding to his craft.

The flipside is that it does often make them blinkered and short-sighted about other issues; they've become accustomed to being right more often than other people in their own field and extend that attitude to everything else. Again, I think that sometimes applies to the coach. That said, I suspect he's more willing to reconsider an issue than he would let on.

It's too easy to dismiss somebody because you see them being less than perfect in an area you think you know something about. Doesn't mean they aren't good in their own strengths.

[rossi]

M, I admire your sincerity and intellectual honesty. IMO they should abolish most our current government institutions.
I want to add that in the last two years, I have heard several voices in the Flemish (far) left beginning to have doubts about the merits of the multicul ideology. ie just recently Vandertaelen( http://www.corelia.be/artikel/detail.as ... d=5D2FRJ8M )
This is a man that lives in a dominantly foreign neighbourhood, and has tried to reach out many times.

[Mehdi]

@Rossi
Thanks, great comeback. To be honest: I think dedecker makes a lot of good points, and he's extreme right. But I don't vote for him neither, because I still think politics is a soap meant to keep people busy.

Read your article. Here's my opinion: it's fear-based. I'm not saying that stuff doesn't happen, I know it does. But to some people it happens and to other not. Because some people keep filling their mind with this stuff and so they keep attracting more of it. Your beliefs shape your reality. If this stuff happens to me, I'd say it's the exception to the rule. Others choose to believe it's the rule and some are the exception.

Here's an exercise: make a similar story of how the life of one of those kids in that neighborhood is.

Politics keep saying assimilation is the solution. But the truth is that even someone who has a good education, speaks the language, never had problems with cops, has respect for locals and all that other stuff they talk about. Even those people will meet with discrimination from locals/when looking for a job/be refused entrance when going to nightclubs/etc based on their looks or name solely. And of course: it's the same thing, if you keep thinking that's the way it is, you'll keep attracting it too.

The only solution is I believe tolerance. But you can't ask someone else to be tolerant if you aren't tolerant first.

[wrenchhands]

Dear Medhi,

Not to sound like a creeper, but I'm bros with you on facebook, and you have a lot of different ethnic lady friends who are all hot.

[Mehdi]

Dear Medhi,

Not to sound like a creeper, but I'm bros with you on facebook, and you have a lot of different ethnic lady friends who are all hot.

I'll send them to you

[wrenchhands]

I told you medhi, I'm visting you this summer.

[rossi]

Exactly. Multicul leads to multiracism.
Present day ideology is that the different cultures melt together and makes all those cultures flourish by that interaction. This also means that those people should not adapt to each other, but the opposite, they should NOT adapt. However, when they don't adapt, this clashes with the original culture. Ie, on the role of women, or homosexuals.
Until present, the progressive, liberal solution has been to force these differences to exist, by law. So, you already need totalitarion solutions. This does not lead to less cultural difference or good democracy.

The problem are in se not the muslims, but their numbers. If there were only 1000 muslims in Flanders, nobody would care about what girls put on their heads. There has been a real _volksverhuizing_ in Western-Europe. Whole tribes have shifted locations. These kind of numbers can not be absorbed as you point out.
The further away the values are from native ones, the more difficult it becomes for people who cling to these values to be accepted, when their numbers rise.

As you say, some of it is mental. But many cry 'racist' out of convenience, or almost without thinking. Furthermore, we have the crazy Centrum voor gelijkheid van kansen en voor racismebestrijding, for people who think they are being discriminated against, which should take care of that problem. I would like to note that I think that people should be free to discriminate however they want. I like blondes (women that is) more than brunettes, but I hope I won't get sued by one that couldn't handle the rejection.
And although I agree with your positive outlook, I think there will come a point where it's not any longer about opinion, but about facts.

I don't think you can say that there hasn't been enough tolerance for people to develop, even when accounting for the occasional racists. And there is only so much people can give. The article I posted shows that even the thick skinned are starting to doubt the effectiveness of that idea.

History has shown that multicul has always been transitional, until people have been absorped, wiped out, or thrown out. I'm glad I am not an native American, aboriginal Australian, or white Afrikaner for that matter.

[Mehdi]

@Wrenchhands
Awesome, if you're cool I'll introduce you.

@Rossi
I agree some cry rascim out of convenience. And I also agree that there is rascism against Belgians coming from non-belgians. But blaming others gets no-one ahead. Everyone has to take responsibility. There is intolerance coming from both sides, and there is discrimination. The devil is in the details. Many people never see these. You need a very close friend of a different ethnicy and hang out with him/her a lot to see what I mean.

This stuff is way to complicate to discuss via a forum btw.

[rossi]

I am of different ethnicity. My father is Danish, and my mother Turkish.

[Wellhairedbeast]

One thing i will add is the irony of British racism is that its a pretty impossible situation as if you are a native then theres a 99% chance that your a complete mongrel myself included. I may be primarily English but theres so many other "British" elements mixed in as well as scandinavian, french, german and of course some of many races of the roman empire mixed in that im not sure natives even exist.

Now i will say im English, the Irish blood in my veins doesnt make me Irish in the slightest, but i find it funny that many racists will not be pure bred anyway, make a racial insult then go off for a curry. The irony is hilarious.

[rossi]

You are saying that a person with black or chinese ancestry can not be considered fully British then? The knife cuts on both sides.