h a l f b a k e r yThe phrase 'crumpled heap' comes to mind.
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We are clearly living in a special (can I still use that
word?)
time, a time when certain words and expressions fall out
of
favor, and some become so problematic as to be
essentially
banished.
The Oxford Dictionary already notifies us of important
NEW
words...And now we are learning,
almost daily, about
words we cannot use anymore, or words only some of us
can use since to do otherwise would constitute cultural
appropriation.
This betting market would let us bet on what is the next
disallowed word and benefit financially from this obvious
bending of the arc of the moral universe towards
justice...
Chief Banana No More
https://www.theglob...eo-title-to-respect
[theircompetitor, Jul 27 2020]
Primary Bedrooms
https://www.cbsnews...throom-terminology/
[theircompetitor, Jul 27 2020]
First they came ...
https://en.wikipedi...First_they_came_...
... and there was no one left to speak for me. [8th of 7, Jul 28 2020]
Clangers
https://www.wishful...010/03/08/clangers/
[hippo, Jul 29 2020]
Virginis Native Americans on the Redskins
https://richmond.co...0-9b2b37ed863f.html
Seems a 50-50 split. [RayfordSteele, Aug 01 2020]
[link]
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A bit of corporate window-dressing does not invalidate a word, especially in parts of the world that never engaged in
indigenous genocide during their early corporatised development. |
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So whilst it is sometimes newsworthy to find a gimmick to raise a particular issue into the current news-cycle, I don't see
the global use of a word with a direct etymological line to vulgar latin via French being dropped with any great
enthusiasm. |
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Lots of people do worry about these temporary media manipulations, as though they had any actual meaning or effect. It
will all blow over, just like it did the last time, and the time before that. Hopefully we'll have made some sensible and real
progress on the issues that provide the substance behind the froth, just like we did the last time, just like we always do.
Because most people are generally sensible, with a healthy mix of optimism and caution tempered with a genuine desire
to "do the right thing". |
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It's just a sad fact that all this game of media hyping and forced polarisation is necessary to get disingenuous right-wing
people into power, thereby opening the door and encouraging other people (perhaps even forcing them) to play the same
kinds of games, cheapening any serious discourse in the process. |
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You can't say "right wing", that implies the others are "wrong". |
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You're right, by which I mean correct. You can't even say
"which" these enlightened post-Malleus-Maleficarum days
where political correctness means angry mobs aren't even
allowed to persecute and burn suspected "hexenfolk" at the
stake any more. It's political correctness gone mad - where
will it end? |
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The problem is there would be feedback from the betting market to the social media influencers stirring up the mob. Your wise wagers would be scraped for new ideas to implement. |
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What [zen tom] said way better than I could have. |
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Wow pendulum swing like a pendulum do, now don't it?
The oscillations seem to be increasing in frequency. |
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I can't believe the word 'master' is now being bastardized. I have mastered my trade, if an apprentice seeks to become journeyman he does so under a master. My 'master' bathroom is master of the others because it has amenities the other ones lack, not because only my white ass is allowed to sit there. |
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In a way I blame homosexuality.
No wait... hear me out.
The sentence; "You! Boy! Go fetch me a flaming faggot to warm my chilled ass so that our evening might be gay." meant something quite different than it does today. |
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I have absolutely nothing against homosexuality per se... but quit stealing perfectly good words already. |
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Oh yeah... and I want my rainbow back. |
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Pretty sure someone could have a good time going
through
the dictionary, picking out words whose "moral lineage"
could be brought into question and sending out furious
press releases about the evil of words like "adorable"
(implies
that some aren't worth of being adored) or "happy" (puts
value judgement on those who don't wish to engage in the
dialectic of the outmoded "good feelings"/ "bad feelings"
paradigm.) Throw in lots of two bit fancy-lad words in to
make it sound extra
scary. |
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See how many people you can get to bite then tell them
you were just kidding. Then everybody will have a good
laugh and we'll all have a group hug. |
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[+] for the interesting topic for discussion factor. |
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So, the Kansas City... Executive Managers of Indigenous
Peoples? |
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MANagers? Didn't you mean "personagers"? |
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I suggested the Redskins mascot be a white guy who was
really pissed off so his face was red. Put cartoon steam
coming out of his ears, angry grimace etc. |
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They're name is currently the "Washington Football Team",
and no, I'm not kidding. |
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The worst of it is, the right love this moral outrage redefinition of words story - it breeds fear, and that's what the
right and the corrupt are relying on to elect their most incompetent puppets. So whenever they come across
anyone clumsily making some arse-backwards case for changing the language, they leap on it and before you know
it, it's manufactured moral outrage and everyone from the centre leftwards is cancelling Christmas. |
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No such outrage exists, and in the few cases where there really is a true case to be heard, people are free to think
about it and make their own choices. And that's it - no biggie. But every time, the polarisation comes out, trying to
turn it into class war. It's 10% good intentions clumsily or youthfully expressed, and 90% right-wing hype. |
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The only thing anyone ever asks for is to be kind. That's what political correctness ever boils down to. Just be kind.
Lose your fear, it's largely unfounded, and most of it these days is finely crafted and meticulously engineered. |
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Heheh, re: "I decided to take the word 'chief' out of my job title, to show respect..." |
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Personally, "chief" is my goto synonym for "pal", "buddy", "mate", etc. |
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So - of course - every time I stop for gas on a rez, I end up calling everybody "chief". One guy told me "hey, in our culture, everybody's a chief"... not quite sure what he meant. |
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Well crap. So it did.
She's come full circle boys. |
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Nobody try to master anything anymore. It'll just bring scorn. |
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You know, every word that anyone ever uses, has some kind of meaning. |
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If the word has meaning, then by definition there are other things that it does not mean. |
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That is in itself discriminatory, selective, partial, and judgemental. |
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For example, the word "think", implies that there is a state of non-thinking, which is obviously a personal slight on stupid people. The word "saucepan" implies a kind of heightist superiority over skillets. The word "egg" clearly is gendered and therefore highly problematic. |
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My suggestion is that all words are banned. People will only be allowed to communicate using whistles, like the Clangers. |
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So, Newsqueak instead of Newspeak ? George Orwell would be so proud ... |
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//My suggestion is that all words are banned.// |
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I personally find the word "word" very offensive. For
me to have to explain why is also offensive since
asking someone to use logic is in itself a micro-
agression. |
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You're all right - doesn't stop any of this being a
straw man though since in real life, Christmas has
not been cancelled, and nobody is banning anyone
from saying anything. It's mostly hype and noise,
and we're all collectively falling for it. |
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Yes, there are some continuing introspective,
deliberate moves from some folks who have decided
to shift some of the words at the boundaries of
their own language-usage, as in the bedroom and CEO
examples - but it's still no big deal. We all
decide which words to use, and which ones not to
use - just like we always have. Language is a
living thing, non? If it weren't we'd all still be
speaking Latin, Proto-Indo-European or French. |
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//still no big deal// has probably been used at the top of
the slippery slope by lots of people. |
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"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist ...." |
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// we're all collectively falling for it // |
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... but not, strangely, our highly attractive FREE offer on Assimilation ? |
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And yet you keep wanting to assimilate us. Maybe you
should reconsider? |
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This seems for all the current political environment like a
critique of the current occupant of the White House. |
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The theory goes something like: Most of us accumulate
the effects of good or bad decisions over our lifetimes.
Our reputations skew accordingly. |
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Others of us "close the book" on bad decisions, and go
back to work until something else bad happens. Those
who act so rely on recent events to put their good old and
distant acts in perspective -- temporarily, until near evil
is forgotten. |
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[theircompetitor] the "slippery slope" argument has been used 1000s of times to justify far worse and more
objectively harmful actions. |
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Such slopes scare people and by the sounds of it, you've bought into the emotional sting promised/threatened at
the bottom of this particular psuedo-slope. A better way to motivate people than through fear and identity
politics there is not, especially when your very identity is being moulded from conjured up fears and made up
prospects. |
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Remember the fear they spread about Obama? The death panels? The black uprising? That he was a foreigner? A
Muslim - gasp!! All of those were from the same playbook - the scare-em-till-they-vote for-our-guy tactic. And
guess what, it was all bullshit then - there were no death panels, the white race never was obliterated, the birth
certificates were demanded and dutifully provided. |
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We're seeing a rise of all the new more topical bullshit now. |
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It's much, much easier to control a story that's been largely concocted by your own media folks - even better if
some isolated fool from the other side can be made to look like they're representative of a larger movement. |
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So a single CEO decides to alter his title - woah there! Slippery Slope Alert! A single realtor decides to soften
their own language around bedroom nomenclature! Danger Will Robinson!! Peril Approacheth! Socialist Takeover! |
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No, I wont be carried away in this particular bullgasm - great for getting people to talk about the same identity-
forming bullshit around the water cooler, great to make people feel like they belong, like they have a shared
identity, a common plight. But at its root, it's empty hype - from the exact same album as other great venerable
hits as "Christmas is cancelled", "Socialists will take your stuff!", or "Watch out! Some foreigners are coming". All
of which play on the fears of people who like Christmas, have some stuff, and don't feel immensely comfortable
around foreign people - in combination, a stunningly popular demographic! |
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Any slippery slope has long since been slud. It is a slope of invented fear, an incline of artificial outrage and
we're at the bottom of it already. |
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8th, in this instance, I don't think the "and then they came" applies, since nobody has actually come, or is even
planning to pass on their way to the shops. Two examples of people introspectively trying out a modest change of
their own language, and the wolf is at the door? |
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Nah, we let the wolves in already - they're inside, flicking through our Facebook profiles, and whispering
fearsomely plausible things in our ears about our friends and neighbours. |
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Almost by definition, the very mention of erased history will be erased from history. |
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Future cyb-archaeologists might have to parse through and argue over time-stamps to determine authenticity of memes in the art galleries of historical artifacts... |
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//My suggestion is that all words are banned.
People
will only be allowed to communicate using whistles,
like the Clangers. -- pocmloc, Jul 28 2020//
However, for every episode of The Clangers
there
was a complete and carefully written script which
was
then delivered with Swanee whistles. Sometimes you
can understand what they're saying and there are a
few controversial (because this was the 1970's, and
children's TV) bits of swearing in the scripts (see
link).
On the more general point about
language, language is a constantly-changing thing
and over a short period words change their meanings
and acquire or lose cultural and emotional
'baggage'. This fluidity sits uneasily with rigid
rules that one must not use this or that word but
must instead use this other word. |
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// rigid rules that one must not use this or that word but must instead use this other word // |
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Hence the endless, futile rearguard action fought by the academie francais against neologisms and- horror of horrors - English loan words. |
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Bizarrely, Engish- with its sponge-like tendency to unashamedly acquire bits of other languages - has been markedly successful for exactly that reason; dynamic, flexible, versatile. |
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// Almost by definition, the very mention of erased history will be erased from history // |
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Are the Ministry of Truth hiring again ? "Mr. Goldstein will see you now... " |
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[hippo] let's not confuse the evolution of language with
language policing and McCarthyism (excuse me, cancel
culture) ... It's one thing when everyone under 30
decides to say that cool really means hot... It's a very
different thing when someone can be doxed for
something they put on a website a decade ago... |
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[zen_tom] -- there's no doubt a measure of agitation
exists here --
but the disturbing trend is the desperate virtue signaling
that
this kind of article represents, the cries of loving big
brother rising up from the privileged rushing to avoid the
pitchforks.. |
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//[hippo] let's not confuse the evolution of language with
language policing and McCarthyism (excuse me, cancel
culture)// - yes, exactly: the fluidity and ambiguity of
language, as well as its tendency to fragment (i.e. there are
thousands of different variants of English, split by class,
gender, economic group, geography, etc.) do not work well with
blanket demands that some words are acceptable and others are
unacceptable. 'Piling on' and shaming someone for a perceived
infraction of this orthodoxy (especially, as you say, for
something said a long time ago) turns the internet into a
weirdly conformist place in which people are scared to put
forward views which diverge from those of the crowd. |
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Pretty soon you won't even be able to call someone a Fascist, even if they are one, and you are too. |
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Disgusting, we call it. Just the sort of thing Hitler would do ... |
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(cough!) - Godwin's Law... |
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Can you say that ? We don't think you can say that any more. It's prejudice ... have you got something against megalomaniac demagoguic antisemitic Austrians ? Discrimination ! Discrimination ! Just because someone's the vicious, destructive embodiment of evil doesn't mean you can be nasty to them. You have to be polite, and understanding, and Respect Diversity ... even as they're herding you into a gas chamber. |
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This half bakery gives me faith in humanity for people seeing
through the cracks in the left's facade. |
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There's your mistake, right there... yup. |
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Also, late fomenting joke but, the Halo franchise is
screwed. |
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//This half bakery gives me faith in humanity for people seeing
through the cracks in the left's facade. — chronological, Jul 29
2020// - I don't think changes in the way language is used is a
left/right thing. It seems to me that it's more a generational
thing, as it always has been; Young people always have and
always will change language and change the usage and rules of
language. They ascribe different meanings to words, and may
be more or less prescriptive and dogmatic than their parents.
It's the role of us old folk to grumble and rail against this
change to the established order. |
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^ ... in the media, I've seen the left deliberately mangle the language much much more than the right. |
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Yes, much more sensible and practical to use RIGHT and VERY, VERY WRONG. |
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Some people are more equal than others. |
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Repeat after us, [chron]: "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better". |
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And it's pigs. Some pigs are more equal than people. |
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// The only thing anyone ever asks for is to be kind. That's what political correctness ever boils down to. // |
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Yeah no. They push for compelled speech, "awareness" of nonexistant issues, they call certain political views hate speech, they call for censorship, they inappropriately connect organizations with the people the orgs claim to support, they try to mix up every oppressed and "oppressed" class into one big useless dominance hierarchy of victimhood... They do it for power and often enough at the expense of the people they claim to support! And all the time they claim they're just asking people to be kind. |
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I am kind. What I'm not is bigoted. And handing out special privilege for people of certain classes is bigotry. |
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// The only thing anyone ever asks for is to
be kind. That's what political correctness ever
boils down to. // |
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Respectfully disagree. While some good people
may view it that way, the main power base behind
this movement doesn't. This is primarily about one
group of
people seeking to control another. This is just the
newest label on a very old human activity. It's not
about creating goodwill between groups, it's about
dividing them and turning them against each other
so they can be controlled.
It has many similarities to the French Revolution.
Point to somebody and say "J'accuse!" and watch
the state destroy them. They're handing out
cudgels for people to use against each other under
the guise of giving helpful hints on how to be nice.
Like the French Revolution, it's turning on itself
very quickly. Ask Robespierre about that little twist
of the game. |
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Look again at football that's in the crosshairs
of the
PC. Football is a social event where people of all
races get together on Sunday and celebrate
individual greatness. No matter your background,
if you're good enough, you can get very rich as a
football player. This is the American dream,
prospering because of what you do, not because of
the social
strata you were been born into. At the beginning
of
these games, this diverse group of people take
part in a ceremony to stand together and listen to
a song. The message of this ceremony is "We are
all one at this moment. We've put aside our
differences and today for a few hours, we're just
going to enjoy our time together." This is why it
has to be destroyed. |
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The "Washington Football Team" had its name
changed and the mascot removed despite the fact
that many native Americans felt it was in honor of
their warrior heritage, but this isn't about pleasing
them, it's about the self appointed moral elites
controlling every aspect of this country that they
despise. Especially hated is football, the pastime
of the reviled working and middle classes. |
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I came from the ghetto. I saw which people
prospered and which people didn't. My family did
well and we got out. We were the so called
"nuclear family" with a dad and mom that the
ruling elites have now targeted. Broken families
living
on welfare didn't prosper and the kids suffered.
But the elites make no money from intact, strong
families that don't depend on the government for
survival. The welfare check is the new slave-
master's whip. |
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Communism, the Black Plague of the previous
century been replaced by global elitism. The rich
and powerful are saying "Enough is enough" to the
knuckle dragging middle class who don't know their
place and further telling the lower classes that
there is no hope but to accept their government
pittance
and take to the streets on command of their rulers
when told to do so. |
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This really is the revolution of the rich and
powerful. |
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Ew, stop saying things like that. You're making me like you. |
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By the way, I like to remind myself that this social
friction we're going through isn't new, it's a part of
our wiring. Nature has programmed us to slug it
out every few years. My approach is to try to be
humane and kind to people who are on the "other
side" because peace does come eventually. I do the
Venn diagram approach with people. Once you see
what you agree on and start building from there,
you're surprised at how similar your values are.
Then you see that
our primary differences are, a) how to approach
solving our
problems and, b) simple tribalism. |
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Anyway, that's my opinion, right or wrong for
whatever it's worth. Hey, maybe I'm wrong, maybe
we all need to go to war and destroy each other
for the good of the planet/society/
civilization/country/political party or whatever. |
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some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. |
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However, since we've threatened to dox them, they've all
shut the hell up and are watching the world end quietly
from the comfort of their living room... |
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//some say the world will end in fire, some say in
ice//
<spinal tap>
Derek: “We’re very lucky in the band in that we have
two visionaries, David and Nigel, they’re like poets,
like Shelley and Byron. They’re two distinct types of
visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, basically. I feel my
role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of
that, kind of like lukewarm water.”</spinal tap> |
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Like so many things in the west, this all goes back to German thinking. When linguistics became a 'science' and postmodernism started using scientific method as a way to rationalize relativism, will to power become the only method of assigning value, and everything at hand became a cudgel, including words most simple. |
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// I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water // |
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I recently poored half a cup of boiling water into half a cup of ice which was frozen solid. I'm happy to report that the boiling water turned quite cold far before the ice had really thawed at all. Am trying to apply this method to solving global warming somehow... |
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^ The proportioning might be problematic. |
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It takes more heat to melt 1 kg of ice than it does to
raise its temperature from 0 to 100 C. |
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//this all goes back to German thinking// |
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Come on, [4and20], credit where it's due; I mean, yes,
Nietzsche has a lot to answer for, but don't forget the
contributions of French toss-pot Michel Foucault and
English dick-head D H Lawrence. The present mess was
very much a joint effort. |
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On the other side of the ledger, Hegel does not inevitably
lead down a sinister path, and Popper's Logik der
Forschung was an important positive from the German
tradition. |
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About the ice and brimstone issue: note that I said I 'poored', which is pour with 2 zeros. Also, I have a habit of making lemonade, then using the same 'dirty' cup to pour water and freeze it. Some of those frozen cups of water have been left on a table at room temperature on very hot days without melting one iota for an amazing number hours. Who knows what other impurities -- and there are many -- pollute the local water. |
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No doubt my proportions were inexact, but any man or woman with enough concentration can do it while having sex in the kitchen. |
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// don't forget the contributions of French toss-pot Michel Foucault and English dick-head D H Lawrence. // |
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It's a fair point. I was going to bring in the Brits for a good moral cleaning. And most of the 'thinkers' postmodernists allegedly read are nationally French. But I have read that French philosophy has basically been German since at least Napolean. |
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Will to power is a convenient shorthand, but the destructive self-centeredness of the ice people goes back a lot further than Nietzsche. Luther and Kant have a lot to answer for. I'm not against replacing god(s) exactly, but the replacement certainly shouldn't be a Prussian or German. |
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