If you're going to use the compassion angle, a 20 year old orangutan most likely has self awareness and memories. Can the same be said about what you're referencing?

There are in fact actual studies into the moral senses of animals. While they might not closely resemble human notions of morality, there is behavior in animals that roughly resembles it. For example, in a study in which two dogs were offered treats in exchange for pet tricks like handshakes or rolling over, they gave one dog a very juicy morsel of meat for a reward, and when the second dog was offered something dry and flavorless for doing the same trick, the dog turned its nose up at the reward. The lesson there is that dogs at least have a sense of fairness. I'm sure there's something to all those stories about pets alerting their owners to grave danger and things of the sort, and pet owners have some tales to tell as well.

While I'm not sure that's sufficient for going into this territory of "non-human persons", there is strong evidence animals are capable of emotions, compassion, and even morality.

This is a symptom of a number of problems including how much employment has become tied to Facebook, but in particular this seems to be the next level of enabling individuals to avoid responsibility for their own actions.

Hear hear. I noticed this a very long time ago. There are no winning moves and they like it that way. If there are no females they'll complain about the absence of females. If there are females and they're attractive, they're being objectified. If there are females and they're not playable or combatants, an awful video rant is made complaining that they're objects and property or something. Are there even official, coherent demands by the people who spend all their time griping about issues like this? Do they have an achievable goal post that isn't discriminatory and makes sense?

Even many years back GTA3 was given a hard time for it being possible to kill hookers after you got your health restored by them, and it was the same situation even then. If the player wanted to kill all the black guys on the street or all the women or all the males or whatever, that is their prerogative and a natural condition of having a diverse world and equal playing field-- it is every bit as possible that an NPC can kill you or you can kill them.

You're absolutely right. All African Americans that have no colored friends or associates whatsoever that they could possibly discuss these matters with, much less any ability to speculate why these things happen. It would never ever happen.

Officers generally shoot for the body first, and if the target isn't falling down quickly enough for their tastes they start going for the head. A bigger problem here is how quickly officers go for the lethal option. An even bigger problem than that is the environment in that town made the events that transpired a mess just waiting to happen.

It's all a matter of salience. Simple minded white skinned people see one black skinned person behaving poorly and assume they all behave poorly. Simple minded black skinned people get called out, criticized, or harmed in any way by white skinned people and assume racism. Throw in bad experiences getting robbed, assaulted, pulled over by the police, being treated in a condescending way, and these people grow polarized. When a fracturing issue like Trayvon or Michael Brown comes up, these people are going to see what they want to see, and the drama ensues.

It's also what we're seeing with the whole SJW vs MRA mess, really. People were hurt, people know someone who was hurt, people heard a story about someone who was really hurt, and now they're out to hurt back. So many people in these groups have either been swindled out of their belongings and child custody or they're been abused in one form or another or they've been unfairly judged.

And then the media will fan the flames because that draws the attention they seek.

You're quite correct, the use of flashlights impact weapons had become more and more frowned upon, likely due to an combination of abusive officers and pain compliance techniques making people (the ones watching I mean, but certainly the ones on the receiving end too) feel bad. Unfortunately in moving away from that option, an officer that has to choose between throwing his back out wrestling with someone and reaching for that gun is going to be doing a lot more killing. Plus the thing that just makes this all the worse are the current generation of police that want to play soldier with their counter-terrorism toys.

To be fair, the term existed before 4chan did.

Well foul, I do believe I blundered on comprehension there.

Hmm, isn't freedom an American value? Would you be happier if the quality and safety of your life was improved at the expense of being much more strictly controlled by another entity?

One can dearly hope, considering how far and widely this twisted narrative is infecting others like some digital zombie virus.

It kinda exists, but its effect is the opposite of what many believe it to be. Venting in any particular way might be temporarily refreshing, but the next time that stress builds up, the subject is going to want to vent that way again, and in turn action becomes habit. Sometimes, as with any sort of stimulation, a person is going to want bigger fixes each time it comes around.

A failed comparison that utterly fails to grasp the original message.

On the internet being black or asian or anything is unknown and irrelevant unless you voluntarily draw attention to it. Outside of formal social media sites, we truly do exist without skin color or nationality or religious bias while online. Now, if you hop on voice chat and you sound fresh off the boat or like you were raised in the ghetto, or heck, even if you have a bit of Southern drawl to your voice, you might get a polarized reaction to such a salient detail about yourself. But there are plenty of people who can write and speak online without giving away anything about their background, and they are judged by the merits of their words and actions.

If you make it a point to make a huge deal out of the fact that you're a particular ethnicity or gender, there are going to be people out there that either dislike you for what you are, or see a great opportunity for getting under your skin about any insecurities you might have. And the two are not as often the same as you might expect.

The essence and intent of the internet troll cannot be stopped, it will only be abstracted into more subtle and passive aggressive manifestations. Akin to people who develop extremely bizarre fetishes (i.e. the very act of renting an adult movie rather than anything to do with watching the content it contains) restriction will only cause it to take a more vague and flowery form in the direction of innuendo hinting at the intended message. The internet is extremely good at "rooting around damage" as so many here have often said.

As for all this talk about violent threats and actual harassment, aren't there already plenty of laws on the books for that sort of thing?