Forgiveness

I am writing this blog yesterday. Which is the day after Truth and Reconciliation day here in Canada. I'm working from home since my wife is staying at a hotel in Saskatoon for a couple nights for work and I wanted some time at home. The peace and quiet has given me lots of time to think about the connections and similarities between things that are nothing alike and have no connections whatsoever.

For example, I've picked up the space sim No Man's Sky again. They are still putting out updates and the game is one of the best space sims out there (Enjoyability wise, not realism wise). This is a big change. When it was released it was one of the worst games. Period. It's a very different game now. The company that made it has constantly listened to the fan base and improved the game, added content and just been all around good guys. All without charging an extra cent. It's getting to the point where they've added so much that most regular players are going "It's OK if you charge us a little bit."

At this point, we've all forgiven them for the shit that came out at launch. Just like a lot of people have forgiven Mark Walhberg for being a douche in his younger years. He admits he was a huge racist back then and  just a shit person. He's grown and even though he was never punished for that stuff, he's a better person now. I'm not gonna say he's perfect or anything, I don't know him that well, but he's better. I've heard people argue that he should still be punished, and I'm not going to argue against that, but there are plenty of people who are still doing the things he did that we should worry about more. Of course, where do you draw the line there? If a person kills another and then never does it again, they should still be punished.

I do think that a person that murders someone and then is genuinely remorseful should have a different punishment than someone who isn't though. If they aren't going to re-offend, make them do community service and prison instead of just prison. Or something along that lines. A lot of details that would need to be dealt with in there and I am MASSIVELY oversimplifying.

So, the fact that government is at least somewhat admitting and trying to make it up to the First Nations is helpful. Now, I know that last sentence is stretching the truth a lot, but that's a whole other discussion. There are others who admit it even less and are not trying to make it up to anyone. The Catholic Church being a huge one. I don't know if you've read about the "schools" they set up in Ireland. If you were single and pregnant, you were breaking the law and there was a 75% chance your baby would die in their care. It actually makes the Residential Schools here in Canada sound a little better.

If you go into any random church, you'll likely get a decent priest who does his job and helps people, but the fact that the higher ups in the church protect the ones that are bad means they should all be shut down. Make the church a community thing, not a Vatican thing. I don't care how much anyone likes any of the popes, they have protected child molesters and that makes 'em bad in my book.

I can forgive game developers, I can forgive Marky Mark and I can even begin to forgive the government (kinda) that at least tries to make things better. But the First Nations of Canada and anyone else that has been hurt by any group of people needs to be heard. No country is free of it. No religion is free of it. No corporation is free of it. Anywhere that there is a human, there is likely someone being marginalized. I do believe we are becoming more aware and empathetic as a species, just compare ourselves to a thousand years ago, but we have a long way to go.

 Yeah, this one's all over the place. Fuck it.