So You Use the Infinity Gauntlet to Eliminate All Racism on Earth....

[HeySeuss]

First off, no you didn't do this by killing anyone. Imagine you used the combined powers of the Mind Stone and Reality Stone to eliminate all racism, sexism, homophobia, all of the isms that are bad. But you don't remove the memories of the impacts of racism and you can't tell anyone what you've done.

My question is this. How long would it take for those that have experienced it their entire lives to believe that racism has been eliminated?

What say you? Support your answer. Personally, I think the ripple effects would take at least 2 generations to move past and accept that it is dead and over with.

 

[collige]

Stopping individual bigotry won't do shit unless the people also simultaneously realize how bigoted our current sets of laws and customs are.

 

[Deleted member 8861]

My question is this. How long would it take for those that have experienced it their entire lives to believe that racism has been eliminated?

Click to shrink...

At least generations.

 

[Qikz]

How can you remove racism with the reality and mind stone without also removing the memories? Racism is often caused by experiences in childhood (aka memories) usually from parents teaching their kids to be racist.

 

[SugarNoodles]

Um... if people stopped ever experiencing racism they'd believe it real fucking quick. Is this a "living in the past" dogwhistle thread?

 

[Dongs Macabre]

This thread sounds super dogwhistly the way it's presented.

 

[konka]

First off, no you didn't do this by killing anyone. Imagine you used the combined powers of the Mind Stone and Reality Stone to eliminate all racism, sexism, homophobia, all of the isms that are bad. But you don't remove the memories of the impacts of racism and you can't tell anyone what you've done.

My question is this. How long would it take for those that have experienced it their entire lives to believe that racism has been eliminated?

What say you? Support your answer. Personally, I think the ripple effects would take at least 2 generations to move past and accept that it is dead and over with.

Click to shrink...

We'd find something new to replace racism and rinse and repeat.

 

[Z-Beat]

Didn't Fairly OddParents do this?

 

[HeySeuss]

Um... if people stopped ever experiencing racism they'd believe it real fucking quick. Is this a "living in the past" dogwhistle thread?

Click to shrink...

If you've experienced racism your entire life, and you had no knowledge that racism was eliminated, you really think you would believe it really quickly? I don't know how that's possible

 

[jon bones]

I don't think i'd even attempt that - it's literally too complicated a problem to snap away. I'd snap the environment back to full strength and leave my daughter a more sustainable world. I just got sad about Tony & Morgan again.

 

[BossAttack]

Racism has been eliminated.

*The effects have not been eliminated*

Sorry, you've been denied admission to Harvard. You had equal opportunity and racism doesn't exist.

 

[Fulminator]

How can you remove racism with the reality and mind stone without also removing the memories? Racism is often caused by experiences in childhood (aka memories) usually from parents teaching their kids to be racist.

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Bruh it's the infinity gauntlet

Racism has been eliminated.

*The effects have not been eliminated*

Sorry, you've been denied admission to Harvard. You had equal opportunity and racism doesn't exist.

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They mean everything up until the use of the gauntlet

In other words, you aren't erasing racism from history, you are just eliminating racist etc beliefs from every human on the planet at present

 

[Einchy]

Racist Avengers are gonna end up chopping my head off and then beating my ass in 2014.

 

[Conciliator]

Yeah that just raises more questions than answers. It would literally be changing personalities, biases, systems, patterns, social structures, all of politics, businesses, schools, pretty much have to start from scratch on the criminal justice system....borders? History? I mean if we're gonna snap our way to a post-nation inter-faith kumbayah world I'm down but that's gonna be some big changes.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

How can you remove racism with the reality and mind stone without also removing the memories? Racism is often caused by experiences in childhood (aka memories) usually from parents teaching their kids to be racist.

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I think the idea is you ADD empathy and understanding and tolerance so that nobody is racist any more

 

[Ninja_Hawk]

You have to get rid of the many factors that perpetuate racism. It isn't just the idea itself, but through things like income/ class disparities attitudes can find themselves manifesting into ignorance. A start would be making people more empathetic. But i'm not THAT familiar with the all of the possibilities of those stones, so I could be off base here too lol.

 

[Biestmann]

Not even a fully-powered infinity gauntlet could hope to stop racism.

 

[Deleted member 42]

I would just use it to eliminate all the gamers

 

[Z-Beat]

I would just use it to eliminate all the gamers

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They'll rise up against you

 

[Khanimus]

"I got this person to stop saying slurs" doesn't mean shit if you don't dismantle the inherently bigoted systems that allow that shit to perpetuate, and have affected countless people up until this point.

 

[samoyed]

75 years.

 

[HeySeuss]

"I got this person to stop saying slurs" doesn't mean shit if you don't dismantle the inherently bigoted systems that allow that shit to perpetuate, and have affected countless people up until this point.

Click to shrink...

The idea is that those things will by default be changed along with people's views. It's an all-encompassing snap.

 

[Addi]

If capitalism is still up and running, a lot will stay the same. Even if racism is gone, it's not like the greedy rich white 1% would donate their money to the rest. You'd have to change the entire economic structure to bring equality.

 

[SugarNoodles]

If you've experienced racism your entire life, and you had no knowledge that racism was eliminated, you really think you would believe it really quickly? I don't know how that's possible

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But like the main reason you know racism exists in the first place is because you're experiencing it on a regular basis.

Are you under the impression that people only know they're experiencing oppression is because they're told so?

 

[Deleted member 31333]

Not even a fully-powered infinity gauntlet could hope to stop racism.

Click to shrink...

It could if it turned everyone on earth the same colour.

 

[adj_noun]

I hate you for your skin color

*snap*

Dirty poor

*snap*

Climate refugee scum

*snap*

Default skin loser

 

[HeySeuss]

But like the main reason you know racism exists in the first place is because you're experiencing it on a regular basis.

Are you under the impression that people only know they're experiencing oppression is because they're told so?

Click to shrink...

No of course not. I wanted to see how long the trust might take to come afterwards

 

[samoyed]

Since this is a for-fun hypothetical.

If we assume that racism is built into capitalism and you snap away the concept of "racism", you've actually just snapped away capitalism or at least the current existing form of it.

Thanos was an idiot who wouldn't have passed ugrad poli-sci. He could've really fixed things and he went for the dumbest Malthusian option possible.

 

[Yasuke]

Um... if people stopped ever experiencing racism they'd believe it real fucking quick. Is this a "living in the past" dogwhistle thread?

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Lol no.

If I stopped experiencing it in my life, I'd remain entirely suspicious of its existence, and I'd absolutely misinterpret innocent happenings as people being racist.

This is an intriguing question. Assuming we actually did the work to remove racists structures and foster some type of reparations for injured parties immediately after this event, we'd still be looking at a generations-spanning process of healing on our end. We haven't been afforded the chance to heal because racism is still a thing, but if it ever ended it wouldn't be an instant recovery on our part.

 

[Moppeh]

This is the most Era thread ever.

 

[Alucrid]

i'd be too busy in the console wars

 

[SugarNoodles]

Lol no.

If I stopped experiencing it in my life, I'd remain entirely suspicious of its existence, and I'd absolutely misinterpret innocent happenings as people being racist.

This is an intriguing question. Assuming we actually did the work to remove racists structures and foster some type of reparations for injured parties immediately after this event, we'd still be looking at a generations-spanning process of healing on our end. We haven't been afforded the chance to heal because racism is still a thing, but if it ever ended it wouldn't be an instant recovery on our part.

Click to shrink...

Not an instant recovery, no, but that wasn't the premise.

I can't speak to racism, but if it had been a year since myself or any of my friends or any of their friends had experienced any sort of homophobia, transphobia, or biphobia it would be pretty easy to believe it were gone. The difference would be palpable the very first time I looked at the news.

 

[Yasuke]

Not an instant recovery, no, but that wasn't the premise.

I can't speak to racism, but if it had been a year since myself or any of my friends or any of their friends had experienced any sort of homophobia, transphobia, or biphobia it would be pretty easy to believe it were gone. The difference would be palpable the very first time I looked at the news.

Click to shrink...

The premise is that racism is effectively removed from the world by way of changing people's thoughts and behaviors and morals, but everyone's memories remain and no one is told it's happened.

I can assure you in no uncertain terms, those of us who were effected by it our whole lives would remain suspicious for quite a long time, if not the rest of our lives. And who could possibly blame us? The PTSD associated with being an oppressed party is very real.

 

[Deleted member 29280]

Humans don't need racism to be spiteful and fuck each other over and destroy each other in a million different ways. Poor use of the Infinity gauntlet, would barely make a dent in how terrible people can be really.

 

[BossAttack]

They mean everything up until the use of the gauntlet

In other words, you aren't erasing racism from history, you are just eliminating racist etc beliefs from every human on the planet at present

Click to shrink...

Yes, which is why my examples stays. You are removing racism, but not the effects of racism. If racism is eliminated then considering the effects that racism caused would no longer be a thing even though those effects still hurt individuals. Thus, college admissions are a good example. Racism has been eliminated so they can't consider the generational effects of racism and will instead judge admissions purely on "merit."

 

[SpinierBlakeD]

Even if you hypothetically eliminated racism, people would find some other way to discriminate against others. Whether it be income, social class or fucking hair color. People will always want to feel superior to others.

 

[SugarNoodles]

The premise is that racism is effectively removed from the world by way of changing people's thoughts and behaviors and morals, but everyone's memories remain and no one is told it's happened.

I can assure you in no uncertain terms, those of us who were effected by it our whole lives would remain suspicious for quite a long time, if not the rest of our lives. And who could possibly blame us? The PTSD associated with being an oppressed party is very real.

Click to shrink...

Okay. I can assure you that if I never faced homophobia again for the rest of my life I'd know something had changed by, like, Tuesday. Guess I should have just steered the premise toward oppression in general toward the beginning.

 

[WascallyWabbit]

It would take a few generations, then we'd be fighting over which side we butter our toast on or something equally ridiculous

 

[Neece]

It would be really weird watching Trump abruptly apologize to the squad and the Central Park 5, and use his powers to stop the shit at the border.

The effects would be immediate and jarring.

 

[Parthenios]

Does it eliminate classism too?

 

[Yasuke]

Yes, which is why my examples stays. You are removing racism, but not the effects of racism. If racism is eliminated then considering the effects that racism caused would no longer be a thing even though those effects still hurt individuals. Thus, college admissions are a good example. Racism has been eliminated so they can't consider the generational effects of racism and will instead judge admissions purely on "merit."

Click to shrink...

You're misunderstanding.

If people are truly no longer racist following this event, they wouldn't allow racist practices to stick around either. They'd continue to admit people into college while considering race until such a time as oppressed races had been satisfactorily set up to be on even ground. Which would take quite a long damn time.

Okay. I can assure you that if I never faced homophobia again for the rest of my life I'd know something had changed by, like, Tuesday. Guess I should have just steered the premise toward oppression in general toward the beginning.

Click to shrink...

While that might be true of you, I sincerely doubt it of others. That just isn't realistic, even if Trump himself got on TV and immediately started apologizing to people of color the world over.

A lifetime of being oppressed following generations of intolerance isn't going to allow people to believe things have changed for the better overnight. That just isn't how the human mind works. We're literally speaking of PTSD spanning entire groups of people.

 

[Yasuke]

Double post

 

[Chaotic-Strike]

That's something that's even beyond the infinity gauntlet's power.

 

[ghostmind]

"No More Republicans"

*snap*

That's a start at least.

 

[shaneo632]

The Infinity Gauntlet can't execute esoteric concepts like this

 

[teacup]

This thread is gross. People who experienced racism would be distrustful of those who have been racist, and since this magic hypothesis says they aren't racist now the people worst affected now look "bad" or "unreasonable" for being that way.

 

[L4DANathan]

It would be annihlated instantly, too. Even prejudice based on facts is prejudice, so the very idea of suspecting it would be eliminated. On that same principle, most of human society would collapse due to our sudden inability to make decisions.

 

[KillLaCam]

Im not one for genocide but the quickest solution for this would be for it to eliminate the racist people

 

[borat]

Use the infinity gauntlet to make everybody black instead OP

 

[thediamondage]

i'd use the gauntlet to eliminate ice cream with no way to ever make it again but make everyone remember even more what ice cream tasted like