Slashdot Mirror
What You Can't Say
dtolton writes "Paul Graham has an excellent article posted on the subject of things you can't say. His article explores what ideas are generally considered heresy, and whether or not those ideas might be true nonetheless. He also presents advice for handling heretical ideas. Considering that many of the ideas in technology in general and Open Source specifically are near heresy, it's well worth a read."
Mr Hitler was a fantastic orator? (who would doubtless have made a great comedian).
While I'm on the topic, its interesting that an entire moustache can be effectively banned around the world due to the actions of one man.
Unless you happen to be Robert Mugabe (anyone notice his chosen moustache style?).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Pointing out the evidence implicating Israel in 9/11.
Pointing out that the war on drugs is genocide.
Pointing out that feminism has ruined America.
I'm sure there are others, but I expect this is enough to score me -1, Heretic.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
For all the Canucks in the house, here's something that's true but you can't say:
Two-tier, user-fee health care is the way of the future.
There, I said it.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Ya know, I think SCO might have a point there . . .
----
"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
Things you can't say, hmm? Ironic that this should be slashdotted, since ./ is more-or-less the last bastion of the kind of free-speech, open-debate that exists. In ancient Greece, there would be many places where the population would gather to discuss the matters which were of consequence to them, but such places no longer exist. It is of course from such places, I believe, that we derive the term 'forum' which is widely used on the internet. ./ claims to be just about tech and geeky stuff, really it covers such a wide range of issues, when the debates digress, that it's the closest thing to a community that I think most of us have got now. There are very few things that you cannot say here, and while you'll get flamed by anonymous cowards and trolls, if your statements have any merit, that will be recognised. That's why I continue to visit, despite not really being as much of a techie as I once was. :-)
Back to my point, such places no longer exist, and while
I like my free speech, and here is one of the only places I can be the heretic that I am, and not suffer unduly for it.
Soluzar __PROUD HERETIC SINCE THE EARLY EIGHTIES__
ObDisclaimer: My heresy doesn't extend to thinking I'm a God, or wanting to sacrifice people to one, so please don't take that to mean I'm a dangerous looney.
Sign the FSF's Anti-DMCA petit
. . . that you don't agree with whatever zealotry is current in your time.
XML and OOP suck big, fat, hairy monkey balls.
There, how'd I do?
KFG
Warning:
This article has nothing to do with current technology sans a single 1 sentence reference to the DMCA.
Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed.
All relative notions of course. The office slut is ostracized by the prude secretary, but embraced by the CEO with a hard-on. "Candyass" expidites her corperate success while "violating moral fashions".
There is a possibility for change, though. With enough people or atleast someone powerful enough to influence, herecy changes. The idea of what is blasphemous is a morphing entity, and popular thought drives it and consent from those with power and money is a catylist.
Save Sam and Max!
My favorite example is why some African-Americans can & do use the term "nigger" to describe themselves without inpunity or shame, but if a white person does so, they can/will be fired and their lives ruined. Why is it a double standard, and it's a negative hateful word. Why do blacks in certain circles constantly use it?
(and there's no need to mod me down for *actually* saying things you cant say - if thats the case then /. is worthless.)
This guy takes a pretty obvious statement -- that certain ideas are unpopular at some times and popular at others -- and confuses this with fashion.
He uses Galileo as an example as an example of someone who expressed unfashionable ideas. But Galileo was starting a new fashion. He popularized and provided evidence for a new truth of which the world was unaware and generally unprepared to accept.
The difference between Galileo's writings and an unfashionable idea is that Galileo expressed a TRUE statement. Many unfashionable statements are unfashionable precisely because they are wrong.
There's a time and place for non-conformism, and this isn't it.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
This is going to turn into a debate about conservatism vs. liberalism real soon. There are many people that believe thinking outside the box is a bad idea. Sucks, but people are stupid.
Although it's worthwhile to examine and criticize the existing orthodoxies of your society/timeperiod/family, the question is whether one truly examines one's own deeply held beliefs (i.e., the ground from which you're throwing bombs at the "establishment"). I've spent a lot of time around people who have a staggering degree of certainty that they're in the minority and an astonishing level of belief in their own victimhood and the heretical nature of their opinions.
The fascinating thing about those folks is that most of them were highly-educated white men (as am I) who thought that the deck in the US was stacked against them. They took the academic intellectual critiques of the existing society to mean that they were personally under attack and could never get a fair break, so that their boorish behavior was actually "speaking truth to power."
I guess my point here is that just because one fancies oneself a heretic doesn't mean that one is. A lot of self-styled heretics are just rude people looking for someone to blame outside themselves.
Point and Counterpoint: The Tick - "Spoon!" Neo - "There is no spoon."
- Masturbatory habits ("Hey Chuck, what'd you do last night?" "Oh, I stayed home and surfed for porn - had two great orgasms!")
- Fetishes ("So Julie, what did you get for Christmas?" "Oh! A batman cape? I can't reach orgasm unless my lover is wearing one!")
- Adultery (although this might be legitimate)
Violence:- "Sure I hit my wife - when she deserves it!" (this is probably less of a taboo than it should be)
Religion:- In most of middle america, announcing that you're an atheist is pretty eyebrow-raising.
Language:- You can't say 'nigger', unless you're black.
- You can't usually use a racial slur at all unless you're either kidding or in a particular bigoted crowd.
You know, most taboos are only taboo in a particular circle you're in. For example, announcing that the War on Drugs is destroying this country would be applauded in one circle I travel in, and ignored or shrugged off in several others.It's a double standard and it's called reverse discrimination. It's idiotic, and the black people who continue to behave like this are only hurting their cause. If you don't practice what you preach, how can we take you seriously?
* I refuse to put a disclaimer on this message. I feel that the continued use of that word by black culture is absolutely sickening. I am white.
[I realise your post was intended as humour, but it sparked the flame :-]
:-(
This is after-all a site for "stuff that matters". What the author is trying to express is that blind obedience to society norms is a bad thing. Effectively, he's saying "distrust Authority", an old maxim, but one that needs reiteration from time to time.
I have to say that I identify closely with a lot of his ideas, nothing depresses me more than the continued conversion of people into "consumers" told what to "consume", when to do it, how much to do it, and presumably when to stop.
The only way out of the cycle is education - but not facts and figures, instead the freedom to think and postulate, debate and conclude. The sort of education that we (at least in the UK) tend to reserve for the 18+ year-olds who go to college.
We live in an ever-more complex society, with ever-more subtle distinction between right and wrong, between do and do-not. It is a crying shame that most are incapable of distinguishing those distinctions. The "system" has failed these people.
I wonder if we are indeed moving into the "Corporate state" governmental model (anyone who played 'elite' will know that these are the most stable of governments), which simply exist to exist. Life should be more
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Not because people agree with me, which I can find 9 of 10, and maybe even 10 of 10 who would disagree, even greatly, on something.
I'm not uncomfortable, because I am confident in my opinions. As a Network Engineer, I will gladly discuss why I do not like VPNs and QoS. As an economist, I will gladly discuss why the Federal Reserve is an abomination and must be abolished instantly. As a citizen, I will gladly discuss why welfare must be abolished instantly, both for the poor and for the rich.
As a mortal being, I will gladly say that I believe humanity is on track to repair its damages already done, and to improve its condition in the future, so long as this absurdity called "government" is restrained from causing yet more harm.
As a male, I'll gladly say that Japanese women are the most beautiful in general.
Confidence, not agreement.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Why is it a double standard, and it's a negative hateful word.
Same reason your wife can say "I am so fat", but you get in trouble if you say "honey, you are fat". I don't see why that is so hard to understand why the difference.
Calling something x-ist, as the author suggests, is often used to suppress ideas, even true ideas. But that doesn't mean that the concept of racism or sexism is just a form of censorship, as this article seems to imply. In fact, such labels are very useful for discussing implications as well as the truth value of a sentence.
That's pretty vague, so how about an example. If someone says, "Girls are bad at math", it can mean a lot of different things. One of the meanings might be, "Girls tend to do worse on math tests than boys of the same age," which if the age in question is high school, as opposed to elementary school or junior high, would be true. And yet, I can hear the cries, even though it's true, it gets labeled as sexist!
Well, there's a good reason for that. If what our hypothetical speaker really meant to say was, "Girls in high school perform worse on math tests that boys in high school," then why didn't he say that? The main difference in the two sentences, or in the general approach behind the sentences, is twofold: the implications of the sentence; and the assumptions behind it.
Those things need to be addressed, and it's not enough to say, "That's not true!" as the author of this article would have it. Because the sentence *is* true, but at least one implication -- that girls are naturally worse at math than boys, and there's nothing to be done about that -- is *exactly* the kind of idea that the author wants to avoid! It's pervasive, it's hard to get rid of, in most places in this country, people believe it implicitly. But it's also hard to talk about the general phenomenon without bringing up the concept of sexism.
So be careful of just rejecting x-ism and y-ic. They exist because they can be useful tools for uncovering the exact "fashions" which the author claims they hide.
Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.
There is a relationship between race and intelligence (think "Bell Curve").
Female circumcision, like male circumcision, is needed for the health and happiness of the girls upon which it is practiced.
People are easily swayed by slick advertising. That doesn't mean other people, that means you.
Children have a developed sexuality, and children under the age of 18 are capable of informed consent.
That's not to say that I personally do or do not believe in any of the ideas expressed above, just that if one were to express those beliefs in a public location they would be promptly shot.
Sadly, universities are becoming the places where free speech is the *least* tolerated. Orwellian indoctrination classes and speech codes are the norm. Punishment for controversial speech is becoming more severe. College newspapers exposing "dangerous" thoughts are being stolen or banned. Anyone who speaks up is labeled a "racist conservative Nazi facist".
If you want detailed specifics check out the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Brian Ellenberger
Just finished reading it. Very interesting. He covers what we know we should do, but we often don't.
Much of his story is quite true. Another thing I might point out, is that while Graham does note that the current administration throws around the words "divisive" and "inappropriate" I can think up one more: "patriotic", where suddenly anyone who criticizes the war in Iraq is unpatriotic*. I really see how this guy earned his Ph.D.
*I supported the war in Iraq 100%, and support it to this very day, but I still find it a little disturbing that my opponents qualify for the title of "unpatriotic"
If everyone wasn't so politically correct there wouldnt be a need for an article like this. It appears that everyone has become so sensitive to anything that comes out of peoples mouths, that we all have to watch what we say otherwise the PC demons will come and take our souls back to buzzword land. A joke is taken out of context and suddenly you find yourself in court for slander. What's the point in speaking when you have to watch what you say all the time. What's the point in activism when people get offended so easily.
Paul
would
let me
decide
how wide
the page
should be.
I hate
skinny
columns.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
...who published the book "Ten Things you Can't Say In America".
To summarize his points:
* Blacks are More Racist than Whites
* White Condescension is as Real as Black Racism
* The Media Bias: It's Real, It's Widespread, It's Destructive
* The Glass Ceiling: Full of Holes
* America's Greatest Problem: Illegitimacy
* The Big Lie: Our Health Care Crisis
* The Welfare State: Helping Us to Death
* Republican v. Democrat: Maybe a Dime's worth of Difference, One's for Big Government, One's for Bigger
* Vietnam II: The War on Drugs, and We're Losing that One Too
* Gun Control Advocates: Good Guys with Blood on Their Hands
How about this one:
We exist purely as vehicles for our genes; our consciousness, our imaginations, our creations: all these are simply manifestations of our genetically-implanted instincts for survival. We believe we exist because it makes us better replicators. There is no other reason for existence, no god, no destiny, no karma. Our lives are neither random nor controlled: choice is an illusion, but so is fate. We simply operate, like the very intelligent automatons we are. Our minds are exquisitely adapted to solving large and complex problems, the bulk of which come from our intraspecies competition with each other. Our societies are hives, built through the collaboration of thousands and millions of minds. As a species we are genetically so similar, due to near-extinction around 50,000 years ago, that we are practically clones. All our notions of "ethnicity" and "color" are as meaningful as separating people by hair patterns or toe size. Our species is incredibly successful mainly because we have managed to turn our technological prowess onto ourselves, creating a feedback loop that has not stopped since we invented fire and freed our jaws to shrink and make space for a larger brain. Finally, although we all feel unique, we are in fact designed as team players, male and female, young and old adopting clear and comfortable roles that are so inate they are universal in all human cultures. Men solve technical problems, women organize social networks. Young men learn and work, young women dance and like to look pretty. Old women gossip and old men accumulate power."
These truths, though self0evident, are heresy because they seem to imply (wrongly) that life has no meaning and personal endeavour has no value. Au contraire, life is filled with meaning, and personal endeavour all that makes it possible.
Just because you understand fluid mechanics does not mean you cannot enjoy surfing a great wave.
OK, flame me now...
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I have never understood why society, experts or the media seem to believe that nudity harms children. Children see themselves naked everyday, why should it harm them to see someone else naked? It is absolute heresy in this age to claim otherwise.
What is worse than holding unpopular opinions is the reaction many people have to them. We jump all over those that hold opinions in the margins of society, however right or wrong they might be, and never seek to learn the reasons they hold such opinions or if there is any truth in them.
Humanity has come a long way, but as a society we seem as unreceptive to new ideas as ever.
What is, of course, also true, is that there are many things that could be said - both which are considered acceptable or indeed 'gospel', and which are not - which are blatantly wrong.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", as Voltaire may have said - and equally, just because it has been said, doesn't mean anyone has to listen. That includes listening to the conspiracy-theorists who will no doubt be having a field-day here all evening...
-Chris
I'll tell you what I can't say: "Supercalifragilisticexpialiousdoouscousious". If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious. Even just the sound of it is something quite atrocious.
Just nuke it early enough that I don't have to sit in the traffic jam THAT would cause on my way to work...
HIV does not cause AIDS illnesses.
AIDS is currently defined as presence of HIV antibodies (not live virus necessarily) plus any ONE of about 30 other illnesses, from low t-cell counts to pneumonia to kaposi's sarcoma. So through a miracle of circular reasoning, yes, HIV causes AIDS - but only because that's the definition.
Scientists who dispute that HIV causes all AIDS illnesses (pointing out that HIV, if responsible, acts differently than any other virus known to man in about a dozen ways) and postulate other hypotheses - for instance, that drug usage, including the chemotherapy drugs like AZT used for AIDS treatment, causes the immunodeficiencies, are barred from conferences and their papers are blacklisted.
This is exactly why I like Slashdot. Only rarely do I find myself agreeing with the group opinion, but it tends to open my mind to options and ideas that I hadn't otherwise thought of. Likewise, although my first view of a story will always be 3+, I frequently turn it down to -1 (when I have some extra time) to see what "the trolls" have to say.
It's also interesting to note that when I Meta Moderate (every couple of days), I find lots of anti-BSD or anti-Linux posts moderated as Flamebait. Being the heretic that I am, I always categorize such moderations as incorrect. In doing so, I've pretty much figured out that many of my opinions about copyright (WRT music) and software development (OOP and XP) are considered ignorant and uninformed.
IMHO, it would benefit many of us to spend more time in the company of people we disagree with, and not so much time just finding people to reinforce our already-formed opinions. I've feared for some time that one of the worst things about the Internet is that it allows someone whose ideas are dangerous to find others of like mind, and decide "I'm normal, because there are others out there like me who believe in gouging other people's eyes out for complaining about Joe Lieberman." It's OK for someone like that to feel the societal pressure that says "YOU ARE A WEIRDO."
Tim
Chomsky's brilliant work "The Manufacturing of Consent" is a look at the influence of monopolistic media outlets on our culture. It's a two tape video and usually available from a well stocked public library. It's a nice fit for furthering the ideas presented in this story.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
To quote the original poster.:
"My favorite example is why some African-Americans can & do use the term "nigger" to describe themselves without inpunity or shame, but if a white person does so, they can/will be fired and their lives ruined."
If it puts his job on the line for using the phrase, yet it doesn't put other people's jobs on the line then it very much IS reverse descrimination. I admit it depends on the context it's used, but it's nevertheless a valid point.
Anyway, you dear sir are a fool for using that word.
Michael Crichton has a fine article about the sacred cows of science. It gets better after the attack on SETI. Read Aliens cause Global Warming.
Scott Draves
Mmmm....Anyone have more?
-Jerald_Hams
...is that an awful lot of those "heretical" ideas are nothing more than outdated *majority* opinions of the past, rather than new ideas worth considering, which it what real heretics like Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein gave the world.
For example, in any bar you'll find some middle aged white guy who will try to tell you "The problem with this country is the blacks/asians/jews/hispanics, but you can't say that anymore because of political correctness". There's nothing *original* about such ideas -- when such guys were young those were typical opinions.
Implication: he doesn't yet have kids.
"...and they're all trying not to use words like "fuck" and "shit" within baby's hearing, lest baby start using these words too. But these words are part of the language, and adults use them all the time. So parents are giving their kids an inaccurate idea of the language by not using them. Why do they do this? Because they don't think it's fitting that kids should use the whole language. We like children to seem innocent. [7]"
Nonsense. There's a saying I know from a film, don't know if it has any other derivation, "rules are for the obeyance of fools and the guidance of the wise". In this context, the children are (figuratively) the 'fools' - they haven't yet gained enough wisdom to know the implications of what they're saying. If they have, well then they're old enough to use the words. If they haven't...they're still the children being referred to.
I have two children, one just months but the other coming up to her second birthday and with her use of language exploding all over the place. She doesn't yet know enough to check herself, has little conception of context - if she starting using swear words now honestly, would I have done that kid a favour? At some point in her life she's going to start swearing, but at two? No. She'll do so when she learns about them, at first way too much and then later with a bit more understanding of context. And that's why the parents are self-censoring themselves - to help their children, not to molly-coddle them from reality.
Cheers,
Ian
Everybody gets a good laugh out "big fat hairy monkey balls", but I hope you guys are aware that this is a serious problem for monkeys in many parts of the world.
Hypertrophic Testicular Disorder (HTD) is a condition affecting 14% of male monkey populations worldwide. The condition results in large, painfully swollen testicles, which onlookers often call "big fat hairy monkey balls". This condition impacts the monkey's ability to mate, or even to sleep and sit. Laughing at them doesn't help.
I hope everybody on slashdot thinks twice before using this "funny" phrase, and please consider making a donation if you can. Your money will go toward analgesics to reduce swelling and paying the often-expensive fees of "monkey shavers".
My family is from Wisconsin. If we had wine with a meal, I would be given a glass. I can remember attending many picnics with family and relatives in local parks. There was always a keg or two of beer, along with the sausages, hamburgers and other food. Many of the kids would drink a half-cup or cup of beer, although most preferred soda.
What would happen if I tried that today, in another part of the United States? Let's see.
- Alcohol in a public park.
- Drinking in public.
- Giving alcohol to minors.
I'd probably end up in jail and see the kids put in foster care. I've also noticed the large number of "public service" ads on television that portray alcohol consumption, especially by children, as stupid and evil.Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Ifind myself in a world where its dangerous to express my innermost fealings out loud. If i feal something its important that i can say so. If society dont like what i think its up to the society to prove me wrong by education and by reasoning. All absence of reasoning behind what is wrong and right breeds hate and terrorism.
Yes thats right, terrorism. What do YOU do when you feel for something more than you feel for life itself? Do you just step aside and let others make your decisions for you or do you fight for your right to think and feel as you like? Most people step aside and hide their fealings but some people like during the slave wars in the USA or in the indian upprising take the fight and stands for their beliefs.
If they are hindered from expressing their beliefs at some point they will resort to violence with a few exceptions. The israeli occupation and ethnic clensing of palestine is one excellent example of what happens when you step on someones rights too much. Anyone can become a terrorist at a point and its nothing that is contained to certain religions or folks.
Just look at your own history and the freedom fighters against england. Im sure they would be labeled terrorists by todays definition by the current administeration, dont you?
HTTP/1.1 400
For example, "black people are better dancers than white people". Yes, there will always be some pedant showing an example of a given white person who is a better dancer than a given white person, but that does not affect the usefulness of the generalisation.
Another example: next major internation sporting event, compare the relative representation of the various races in the finals of the 100m sprint. Now do it again in the swimming.
So here's a question you can't ask: why is it valid to segregate the 100m sprint into "male" and "female", but not into "african" and "chinese"? In one scenario, we are acknowleding that men tend to be physically stronger than women (even though you can find counterexamples), and in the other we are not.
People are different. Genders are different. Races are different. Short people can't reach the top shelf. Fat people can't fit in airline seats. Some genders can't reverse park. Generalities sometimes have a degree of truth. Let's get over it.
Slashdot does have biases. But when one of those hot-button topics comes up, I'll see a bunch of +5's on the minority side, as well.
It's a continuum. On the one hand, try going into a PC environment and talking about race&intelligence and see how fast people will literally shun you. Or a conservative group, and talk about gay marriage.
On the other hand, next time a "Linux rulez/sucks" thread pops up, try posting some thoughtful pro-Windows comments, and see if people respond to the actual points you make, or just knee-jerk. I really think Slashdot is pretty good on the rational debate.
I wonder on what that statement was based if not on a fully unfounded but fashionable conviction that somehow the hard sciences are better than the human and social sciences, and the hard (sic) scentist therefore are smarter (and deserve more money and better academic treatment, academic tourism etc.).
The interesting thing about this belief is that it is shared by both the hard scientists and the human/social scientists. But to my experience, confronting a member of one camp with a textbook from the other camp will produce very similar results, just a different reaction: the hard scientist will dismiss the assumptions and terminology as "absurd", "fuzzy", "bad" or "meaningless", while the human/social scientist will be impressed by the wanderful undechiphrable meaning.
You should always try to peek and think out of the box. For that, I find it very necessary for all thinking humans to escape the narrow prejudice of their specialisation: all human/social scientists should trained themselves well in maths at the very least, and all hard scientists should train themseves in philosophy an/or linguistics at the very least.
Obviously, geeks should do both!
-Kvorg
Metropolis was one of Hitler's favourite films.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
When women say "I'm so fat" they are looking for a response something to the effect of, "No, that'd ridiculous."
Just watching the moderators from a distance...
You can find people on Slashdot who will support or attack any political idea, any opinion about computers, and just about anything else.
But when the subject is spam, the presumption of innocence, even humanity, goes out the window.
Spammers lie. Spammers are stupid (well, how do they make all that money, then?) Spammers don't deserve human rights. Hell, Carnivore (DCS-1000) would be embraced with open arms on Slashdot if it were targetted at spammers.
Maybe we should hate spammers that much. They really do a lot of damage. Maybe our visceral "spammer witch hunt" attitude is justified.
Now you know how McCarthy felt about communists, and how Bush feels about terrorists. And unlike spammers, communists and terrorists have killed 10^7 and 10^4 people, respectively.
Stop being divisive. :)
Social scientists, philosophers, historians, and psychologists--the kind of "soft scientists" Graham would probably not give the time of day to--actually think about these issues long and hard and write essays that are far more probing and deep than Graham's fluff.
What's worse than a soft scientist? A soft amateur, which is what Graham seems to amount to in this piece.
1. That for the most part, the Germans who participated in the Nazi atrocities were fairly normal people who felt they had little choice about what they did, that they could not really influence what happened, that they were not sure what was going on, and that maybe the victims deserved their fate to some extent.
Kind of like the relationship people in the west have to world hunger.
2. That world hunger is a soluble problem that we choose not to solve because other things are more important to us.
But you can quote:
I'm a big fan on crotch shots
: )
You can't take the sky from me...
I wonder if I could win an election using that platform...
No, but there's a book called "Gor" you might enjoy.
Freedom: "I won't!"
One of the things that causes this phenomenon is that most people can't tell the difference between truth and fact. Facts are information that is independently provable, whereas Truths are just what we accept as reality. Most people are absolutely insistent that their Truths are really Facts, and get really upset when you disagree with them.
Oddly enough, the less realistic a truth is, the more likely a person is to get upset at someone who is contradicting it. Look at anybody in history who has been burned, fired, hanged, or crucified for stating a truth, and you'll see what I mean.
While you're at it, you might notice that attempting to repeal laws which support certain popular truths is tantamount to breaking those laws in most people's eyes. Gives you something to chew on, eh?
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Not only that, advocating any of these above ideas will not lead to any reasoned discourse but will result in a ratcheting of emotions and people starting to rant, sputter, leaflet, shout down speakers. I left out UFOs, ESP, and cold fusion because there was a time when science was actually open-minded about each of those topics, but UFOs, ESP, and cold fusion have gotten shot down on the evidence so many times that they are now in the realm of faith for their believers.
The five topics I have mentioned haven't been played out yet (we haven't run out of economic oil yet, the putative anthropormorphic global warming is still small, we don't yet have Mars samples in Earth laboratories). Also, there has to be some sense of doubt in the pleaders for the scientific consensus positions on each of the five topics, otherwise they wouldn't be using the language of taboo around these topics (the notion that taboos form around topics of which we are certain, but not so solidly certain).
Of course, if I am moderated Troll or Flamebait, or if replies to this post call me names, I will have evidence supporting my hypothesis. Each of the five statements is by itself a hypothesis and will be eventually proved or disproved (whether we make it 100 years without exhausting oil or not), and there are arguments to be marshalled on both sides of each of the statements.
What is unclear is how much Israel knew about the attacks from their intelligence sources. Then again it is widely known and reported, at least in europe, that the US itself knew an awfull lot about the planning of the attack. They had received warnings from US citizens, from their own analyst and from foreign countries that something involving hijacked aircraft was going to take place. FBI/CIA even investigated reports of muslims taking flying lessons and not being intrested in learning to land.
However it is not in the current US goverments intrest to tell the public that they knew everything they needed to know and simply refused to act. This would A stop the introduction of new laws and B raise questions why they didn't act and exactly what connection does Bush have with Bin Laden (hint look at companies wich Bush junior has an intrest in and see wich family also has an intrest in the same company).
Blaming Israel for CIA/FBI failures is however a lot easier for a certain kind of people who always need a scapegoat. 2) the war on drugs is one way of dealing with drugs. I live in holland where we have a different approach. Maybe it is better for the drug users. For the average non-drug using person it makes little difference. You get crack addicts breaking into cars. So do we. We spend a lot on wellfare to keep the drug users alive. You spend a lot on prisons. Our cops don't have enough right and manpower to do effective policing, yours are to busy with a kid who has a joint. If you really care move to a different country. 3) Watch some Japanese tv. Then compare those attitudes with your own. That was what the west was like before feminism. Rape of women and childeren punished less then stealing from the company. Women harrased at the office. Most people who anti feminist are people who are very selfish. They don't need it so neither does anyone else.
Just imagine you are a female or that the person is your daughter.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
My favorite example is why some African-Americans can & do use the term "nigger" to describe themselves without inpunity or shame, but if a white person does so, they can/will be fired and their lives ruined.
Nice troll. In most corporate environments, nobody, white or black, can go around saying "nigger" (or "spic" "kike" "cunt" "faggot" etc.) with impunity at the workplace. And off the workplace, how many people do you personally know whose lives have been ruined for saying "nigger" in their free time, or is that fear of yours merely hypothetical?
I'd suggest that if you really feel deprived by somehow not being allowed to say "nigger," if you really want to say it so badly, then go ahead. Shout it to the heavens. The skies won't fall around you.
Or maybe the next time you're chewing the fat with a close "African-American" buddy, e.g. that retired fellow who drives the golf cart at the local course, you should just be straight with him and say, "Hey, listen Quincy, you know...I really feel that I've suffered a deprivation in life at the hands of all of you politically correct blacks. I mean, it's totally unfair and discriminatory that you bruthas get to banter around so casually and say cool words like 'nigger' but I can't. It's almost like you all are free and I'm the slave! Do you dig me, my man? So, from now on, can I call you 'nigger'? Pretty please? It'll make me feel so tingly and transgressive, so deliciously antebellum. I'll even make it worth your while, throw in an extra buck tip. So, whaddya say, Quince ol' boy - (er, can I say boy?) - is it all right? Do we have a deal? Well then, fetch me my putter, nigger!"
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
as he thinks he is.
"In a field like physics, if we disagree with past generations it's because we're right and they're wrong."
What a load of BS. If we disagree with the past in physics it's because our theories better fit the currently available data than the theories of the past. Doesn't mean we're right, something physicists often seem to forget.
"It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics"
Huh? Is this from a case study or his own prejudices and unquestioned acceptance of a 'fashionable' nerd belief: You have to be smarter to be in sciences than in humanities. I bet he doesn't know a single professor of French literature, or a thing about it; especially the details of studies at a doctoral level.
For someone advocating clarity and open-mindedness he's rushing to a lot of conclusions. He seems to think that nerds and scientists are somehow more inclined to precise critical thought and openmindedness than others while at the same time demonstrating the contrary.
Yeah, I haven't been threatened with losing my job for that. Nope, no heresy, there.
IMO (and I think I've probably been around /. longer than you), well thought-out pro-Microsoft comments get modded up without such stunts. In fact, Slashdot moderators are often far too kind to ill-informed, poorly-written pro-Microsoft rants in the interests of bending over backwards to appear fair and reasonable.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Easiest way to find taboos is to see what people laugh at.
Comedians talk about the (wrongness of) war in iraq these days.
They used to make a lot of gay jokes, but now it's become more acceptable to be gay and gay jokes have become taboo.
Racist jokes before that, when racism was more of an issue.
I've noticed people laugh most at what is most taboo. These are usually issues in society that need addressing.
Universities haven't become less tolerant of free speech in my experience. More accurately, it's not considered acceptable to voice poorly-supported fringe opinions (you'll be quickly rebutted with the facts), or espouse hate against a group of people. So, racist speech is not acceptable (and shouldn't be), and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm sure you're going to point out numerous cases where somebody said something that was construed as hateful and was attacked for it, but please make a distinction between a vocal minority of shit-disturbers (who can be of any background/race/religion), the sensible majority (also diverse), and the administration (weasels).
Freedom: "I won't!"
Many universities are private institutions: they have wide latitude in designing their curricula, and they certainly can ban speech they don't like in many venues.
Furthermore, you have a choice in universities. If Berkeley restricts your speech too much, just attend some other school. There are plenty of schools that cater to whatever bizarre philosophies you espouse: Christian, racially pure, extremely right wing, libertarian, you name it. Of course, those schools are also the ones that aren't very highly regarded, and that's no coincidence.
If you want to attend Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc., you have to put up with their culture. It's your choice.
Three is obviously false. Since there has been television, we have had higher taxes and bigger government. Our country is falling apart because of television.
My father is a blogger.
> As for other things you can't say, here are some that I'm going to say...
> *IS NOT NORMAL*
> *your weird way*
> *crackpot parents*
> *offensive to me*
ah but there's a world of a difference between a crackpot yelling at the world and thoughtful discussion of serious topics. All it takes is a few cranks arguing this way and everyone that follows looses their credibility!
Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot.
Well, I guess this is my last slashdot post.
Someone said this. Almost everyone appeared outraged. Anyone who wasn't outraged kept their mouths shut.
Ditto for anyone who suggests that a woman wearing a outfit and walks alone at night is asking for trouble.
There's a difference between 'had it coming', 'asking for trouble' and actually 'deserving it'. But any time someone suggests the former two, everyone seems to think the latter is implied.
Even if you try and explain the difference between 'asking for trouble' and 'deserving it', the person will most likely put their hands over their ears and chant "it's a womans right to go anywhere she pleases at any time of the day wearing whatever she wants without fear of attack" over and over again, without listening.
For some people, it's almost like anything coming even close to threatening someone's idea of a taboo causes a brick wall to close over their mind, and out comes the pre-programmed response.
If you doubt it, just try to start up a conversation on how Darwinism might apply to different races of human.
Well, sadly, the topic has forever been tainted by the spectre of genocide/eugenics/colonialism, but more important, some discussions of this topic will be based on VERY shaky data. For example, as far as I know, there are NO un-culturally-biased data comparing intelligence, simply because all intelligence tests are culturally biased. "Races" of humans are so similar in most ways that they are really only different-LOOKING.
There are some genetic disease frequency differences, and I don't think any black person is going to call you a racist for saying that the sickle-cell anemia trait evolved in Africans to help protect them from malaria (an African disease).
Nobody's going to dispute that on the average, Tutsis are taller than Hutus, possibly through centuries of sexual selection where one group thought short was sexy and the other that tall was. There's some Darwinism for you.
It's once you start making culturally-biased arguments about race and inherent ability that people get offended. What do I mean by "culturally-biased"? Well, a crude example is an IQ test which asks you to pick the odd one out from a group of objects: a cup, a bottle, a plate and a hollow gourd with the neck cut off...
Freedom: "I won't!"
First, none of the things that 'Bob Robertson' said are heresies anymore - they're all neo-conservative dogma.
'Mark' wasn't trying to censor him, he was just saying, pretty much flat-out, that 'Bob' was wrong. Which is pretty much what Paul Graham is saying - if you're just calling something incorrect, that's fine. It's when you start inventing labels for it (like, for instance, neo-conservative... ;) ) and using just the labels, and not addressing why or what is wrong, that you have left the path of wisdom.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
There, how'd I do?
Very well, I'd say.
I'm getting pretty sick and tired of Java weenines at my workplace writing 6000 Java classes to do something that would take about 10 lines of Perl.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
While Paul Graham's insights are nice, a better article would have offered up a better solution to this issue other than "Act phony in public, and hang out with people who think like you"(I'm paraphrasing...slightly).
Wisdom so accepted that none may question it:
Children below X years of age are not sexual beings, and have no sexual desires or impulses.
If you take X as 18 most would agree the statement is false. If you take X as 5 most would agree it is true. If you ARGUE for X as a low number you are a heretic.
In fact, anything involving children and sex is ripe grounds for heresy.
Most of the heresy posts I've seen so far are obvious -- there have been very few points made that are not made repeatedly by others outside Slashdot, from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Coulter to Robert Sheer. I have seen few truely heretical ideas listed in this discussion -- only unpopular ones. I'm much more curious about the unspoken assumptions we all agree on.
(And other than my poor attempt above, I'm coming up empty.)
If it puts his job on the line for using the phrase, yet it doesn't put other people's jobs on the line then it very much IS reverse descrimination.
Well, no, that would be just plain old "discrimination." "Reverse discrimination" presumes that the people who are normally discriminated against are the ones doing the discriminating, i.e., that his black superior would be the one threatening to fire him. In the overwhelming majority of tech environments, this is not the case.
In any event, is there any substantiation whatsoever that this really happens, that blacks are traipsing around AT WORK using "nigger" to describe themselves while whites are cowering in fear of being fired for doing the same? Or are we just all going, "Umm-hmm, it happened to Eminem -- it must happen all the time!"
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
The infamous "Post" that got endlessly modbombed despite all the positive moderation it received. A lot of people to this day can't even moderate or anything, despite positive karma, simply because they posted in that thread.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Isn't the whole point here to discuss what is un-discussable? Did the moderator actually read the article? Or even the post topic?
Perhaps it is stated in offensive terms, but it puts forth a reasonable proposition, and one that can't be known to be untrue by secular means of truth seeking. In fact there is considerable evidence in a secular sense the it is true.
I had expected better from the Slashdot crowd in general, and especially the moderators.
Hopefully this will be meta-moderated unfair.
This article is about fear, and how to deal with this fear and discuss important ideas in light of pillorying that come from their discussion. I rarely use the word "nigger," I have no need to use it, but now I feel I must use it to dis-empower it. Nigger, nigger, nigger.
I've noted that western media have labeled Osama Bin Laden a monster not only for orchestrating 9-11 but for having more than one wife, one of whom was something like 13 at the time of marriage. Multiple wives and age of consent are social constructs and say nothing about their actual true moral content. But because we believe killing thousands of people is immoral, we can strengthen our belief the other two practices are evil as well.
The Nazis believed in eugenics. Therefor any discussion of forced sterilization of mentally retarded people is evil and Nazi like.
I do not believe in the tenants of NAMBLA, but sadly its existence squashes any discussion of what the real age of consent should be. Fear of PC backlash requires that I say I don't know what the age of consent should be, that I am not for lower it, just that it should be possible to discuss the issue. Ideally it would be based on some testable mental maturity of a minor wishing to enter adulthood. For the majority of Americans this might end up being 30, but for some percentage it would almost certainly be below 18.
I live in a college town. When The Bell Curve came out (dealing with race IQ differences), I found none of the college book stores actually carried this title.
There is a more open debate on drugs, but what about prostitution? Why are either illegal? They may have negative impacts on society, but this not how the debate is couched, it is always couched in moral terms. Why is paying people to have sex while you video tape them legal, but not for you to pay directly for sex?
Well that's enough anti-PC ideas for one post, hopefully someone will add a lot more to this thread.
Letter To Iran
In contrast to your point about the horrible "European ancestors", it was primarily the white Christian British who ended slavery over most of the world. Until that time, slavery was common just about everywhere.
Now about the only place slavery is still wide-spread is in a few locations that it's been going on for as far back as recorded history goes, being practiced by black muslims.
Hate to burst your bubble, but slavery was practiced by blacks on blacks, whites on blacks, whites on whites, blacks on whites, etc... by just about everyone for just about all of history until those "white Christians" finally put an end to it because of their moral beliefs informing their political decisions.
As for your rant on Native Americans, our people did plenty worse to each other for thousands of years before any Europeans showed up. It wasn't exactly a unique experience in history.
If you want a serious study of the issues, try reading a book like "Conquest and Cultures" by Thomas Sowell.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Nothing we do actually matters.
You should read up on existentialism.For example, take the statement, "All men are created equal." This creed underpins the foundations of American democracy. Is it true? Well, no, of course not. Some people are born smarter than others, with better athletic genes, or with other advantages or disadvantages too numerous to mention. But for our country to function as an egalitarian society, we must at least pretend to believe, and behave as if, the statement were true. Otherwise our society falls apart. That's why books like Charles Murray's The Bell Curve are so widely loathed. Even if the assertions in a such a book were scientifically accurate, to accept them as fact does more harm than good if it erodes the underpinnings of a society that tries to be fair and just.
In a sense, therefore, truth is not some unbiased, ideal thing that exists outside of our experience, but it is something that we define by our objectives and behavior. "Truth", in this sense, is a social construct. So can we truly be an egalitarian society? Well, we certainly can't if we don't accept that all persons are created equal. But we do believe steadfastly that equality is a worthwhile objective. And to achieve this objective, we have to brand as heresy any suggestion that some of us are born "more equal" than others.
What we need to take a hard look at from time to time is whether the objectives that such "truths" support continue to be worthwhile. And that takes courage.
i think i'm due for a statement on it (a lot of people around me have been talking about it...)... firstly, women have changed in the past hundred or so years. some say it's due to hormones in beef, but whatever the cause, 12-18 year old women are PHYSICALLY roughly equal to 18-24 year old women of the past. full breasted, full form, women. they have all their secondary sexual characteristics and are in some if not most cases indestinguishible from other women. however, the law still treats them like little girls. once again, technology and the human species have outpaced law. especially in the united states where you have to be like 21 or something before you can be in porno(what the fuck? most women i know lose their virginity i'd estimate at or before 17. and some of the more slutty way before that. 21 for legality sake is just plain retarded. theres a lot of temptation between 16 and 21, especially in a sex-crazed culture like the one we have(woo) ) in the meanwhile, rape, and things glorifying the rape of children, and things glorifying sex with children, and predetorial sex, and above all predatorial rape sex with children, all on film and for profit just turns my stomach. can someone please tell me one reason why something like this is not a Bad Thing? and by children i mean not-even-trying-to-make-the-girls-seem-like-women. ..i mean exploiting whatever biological trigger there is in some men to be sexually attracted to children, FOR PROFIT.
if anything can be inspired by this, is that if you have no morality but that of the dollar, predatorial rape sex with children on video for profit is inevidible, and since this is in some way wrong(axiom?), pure capitalism(the morality of the dollar), is also to that extent wrong, and incomplete.
i think if you REALLY wanted to probe into what people find offensive, you wouldn't look at something that MIGHT be okay, when it boils down to it (secondary sexual characteristics are more important than law...it is in their name that the law was likely written).
another tangeant on this, is it also depends how old the male is.
when i was 16 i had some porn with 15-17 year old women in it. when i was 18 i found those files and saw them as "way too young", and deleted them. now that i'm 21 files i saw when i was 18 seem too young. this is important to notice(after all, wasn't there someone in your grade that you would have given anything to fuck? like grade 5? 6?)
the last interesting thing to note, is that i once had limewire or something installed, and it kept track of how many and which files were downloaded off my hard drive while connected to the gnutella network. day in, day out, i had something like 100x more downloads of a file called "childporn.mp3" than anything else. this scares the fuck out of me. what was the file? it was a rant by sean kennedy, saying about how he would kill and otherwise incite mass suffering on people who (make/host) child porn. or something.
anyways, i think i've rambled enough.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
#1 & #3 are not heresy. They are just not true. Saying the Earth is flat, 2+2=5, and the sky is a tea-cup are also not heresy. They're just close your eyes, cover your ears, deny all facts style contrarianism.
#2 wasn't true when Feminism meant "give us an equal chance, let's see what we can do." Now Feminism, after being hijacked several times by fringe groups, has more to do with lesbianism, anti-maleness, and moronic post-modern philosophies.
But they had power almost only when they had good ideas and lost power when they didn't.
And I'll second your #4.
Perhaps the worst "heresy" one can post on Slashdot is the notion that the GPL is not holy writ, or that it is the result of one man's adolescent trauma and lifelong vendetta (even though this is, in fact, true).
My favorite example is why some African-Americans can & do use the term "nigger" to describe themselves without inpunity or shame, but if a white person does so, they can/will be fired and their lives ruined. Why is it a double standard, and it's a negative hateful word. Why do blacks in certain circles constantly use it?
... well he still called us white as in "white devil", "white oppressor". Not "Euro-American Devil" or "Euro-American Oppressor" ;-)
;-)
I'm kinda torn on this one. I would get upset if someone called me "baldy" but amongst like kinds it effectively serves to mock others who use the term in a negative way. I don't think this is unique to black Americans. Women will often call each other "bitch" in a friendly way.
Even us "geeks" or "nerds" have embraced the term and nuetralized it. Though I think that the goal here is to make it widely acceptable. If someone called a Slashdotter a "geeky nerd" they would probably say "thank you". If black Americans wanted to kill off the use of "nigger", they would do the same.
What I DO find hypocritical is the whole "African American" line of thought. At some point Jesse Jackson determined that referring to someone by the color of their skin was a negative stereotype. So he wanted the previously acceptable term "black" changed to "African American". However, he still called white people
In other words, it's OK to negatively stereotype dark skinned people but FINE to stereotype white people.
I've recently started seeing "black" being used again in the media. Maybe it's Fox News, I dunno
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
So "she hit me in the head with a hammer" is mitigating factors and not cause for legitimate defense? Damn!
You can't take the sky from me...
Back in the '80s, there was a company known as "Sir Unicorn Enterprises". They created a game called "Dreamquest" (which later morphed into the LRPS Live Role-Playing System). It was based on a D&D type scenario, where you had different character classes with different abilities etc. However it was done live-action and on a commercial scale... For my first game there were about 75 'players' (paying customers) and a dozen, or two, actors (game creatures).
One of the base rules of the game was "If you're out of your tent, you're in character".
Other than the limitations and powers of your character class, there was very little limitation to your character. You got to make up their personality, their costume, their history -- Even the history of how they got to Samiltan (the country in which the game was played). As an extreme, there was one guy on my first quest who was dressed in a (civilian) paratrooper's outfit. His story was that he was on a jump, went through this weird glowing portal thing, and next thing he knew he was fighting dragons.... Character class: Fighter (of course -- completely non-magical).
The venue of my first quest was a country club.. We had one small section of the country club building (basically a large room) and the edges of the property leading down into the river valley. On the Friday night, we were given very explicit instructions to not go beyond the end of the one room, because there was a wedding going on, and we were NOT to go beyond there. Disturbing the 'mundanes' (non-players) could get us booted out.
In game parlance, The world ends there.
Of course the country club didn't warn the wedding party about our presence (why should they? They knew that we wouldn't go past the "end of the world").
And of course, a couple of wedding party members wandered into the game space.
I'm thinking that the first thing that they learned was not to go past "the end of the world".
But they wanted to go home, so they started talking to people, and hearing stories -- stories from past dreamquests and the present one... stories of magic, demons dragons and an impending doom if "the unnamed one" could not be stopped.
At first, they were highly skeptical (of course), but they didn't really care, they just wanted to get home -- unfortunately, nobody could tell them about how to get home -- of course, nobody could, since it made sense that anybody who got home probably {w,c}ouldn't come (willingly) back from a mundane (non-magical) world. Nonetheless, it was possible (but not guaranteed) that a powerful enough wizard might be able to get them home. One thing that they had going for them, though, was that recent events in this corner of Samiltan had resulted in the gathering of some of the most powerful wizards known (and probably the cause of their own troubles). Thus, if anyplace had hope of getting them home, it was likely to be here. About the only thing that they learned for sure, however, was that they should not go past the end of the world... People were adamant about that -- beyond there lay death.
From what I can tell, they were in the game area for at least an hour... maybe two. Word was going around the players that a couple of characters (possibly actors) were playing guests from the wedding, and trying to get people to break character.
but we knew better, right?
Nobody would break character for them. The guy in the parachute outfit probably clinched it for them... If they could expect a straight answer out of anybody, it would be h
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
it sponsors terrorism in the rest of the world to support its corporates objectives. Guerilla opponents of American policy are terrorists. Guerilla supporters of American policy are freedom fighters.
2) America loves freedom & democracy.
Only in America and only to the extent required by the shackles of it's constitution. elsewhere its OK so long as it doesnt get in the way of American policy. Which means its sort of OK in the rest of the West and a bad idea in the 3rd World since people have shown themselves to be more concerned with themselves and their own rights and wealth rather than the needs of America. Dictators can be bought cheaply to hold the peasants in line.
3) America loves free speeach
Yea as long as you dont try and distribute code that threatens profits or question corporate motives (unbrand america). As long as you dont express support Al Queda. As long as you arent a black fighting slavery, or of Japanese descent in WW2 or an arab post 9/11. As long as you dont criticise America. Did you ever read the Phillip K. Dicks novel "what if America was really the Bad Guy?" ?
------------
Fuck you American mods - mark me as a troll: a large proportion of the World believes this. But I'm a troll because these views are heresy. Mark me '-1' so noone else sees my heretical thoughts.
Funny, I thought everyone who wasn't a member of the Axis powers won WWII, and it was the combination of fighting multiple-front wars which effectively defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Can't have a multiple-front war without multiple fronts. Last time I checked, the Russians weren't in Italy, France, or the Pacific, and the Americans/British/Canadians/ANZAC/Free French weren't in Poland or Siberia.
I'm American, so feel free to flame me on that basis (also, my pompous twat-hood).
--------
Point and Counterpoint: The Tick - "Spoon!" Neo - "There is no spoon."
You appear to be advocating not trusting moral beliefs that are effective in doing good.
What alternative do you propose, people not wanting to "save the world" as you put it? Ignoring helping or not helping others altogether? You aren't seriously suggesting that the British being the driving force in ending world-wide slavery is a bad thing, are you?
I prefer to think that if a group or individual does something good, like ending slavery world-wide, they should be complimented on that, not denigrated.
Since we're on the topic of unspeakable things, perhaps we're dealing now with the current U.S. school taboo of never praising anything done by white males?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Because ideological zealots will resent you for selectively believing (or disbelieving) their particular ideological abstraction, and because of this other independents (like you) will probably be jaded and cynical to the point that they do not bother caring what you think in the first place. Accept that you will probably never have any political weight (is this the "silent majority") because of this, and because it is hard to get independent-minded people to stick together. The requirement that you are constantly skeptical of your own ideas will alienate you from your very self. Finally, you will have to face the possibility that either there is no truth, or that there is truth but that the fundamental nature of human societies is architected in such a manner as to preclude any hope that it will ever comprise the majority of commonly held belief.
Do you want to replace your warm pillow of ideology with the cold hard brick of reason? Do you want the red pill, or do you want another thick chunk of prime steak with fine aged wine?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Why on earth would you be any safer? It's not like he actually had anything to do with 9/11...the only people who are *potentially* safer now are Iraqis, and given recent events I don't even think they're a lot better off.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
People like belonging to groups, and when they join one they like to tell themselves that their beliefs are closely aligned with their chosen group. And when someone comes along and challenges that group's beliefs, that makes them uncomfortable, and they'd rather suppress the challenging speech than question the group's, and by extension their own, chosen ideals.
In American society, other than threats and slander, you can say anything you want. All of the trollish ideas posters before me have come up as examples of "heresy" are regularly expounded in at least some contexts -- the idea that feminism is runining America is a recurring theme on lots of right-wing talk radio shows, the idea that 9/11 was not caused by Al Quaeda is not uncommon among liberals, etc. You're not going to get thrown in jail or executed for being a vocal follower of Noam Chomsky, either. But expressing those ideas will get you thrown out of the Young Democrats or the Young Republicans respectively.
And that's the real "heresy" any more. People pick a group, or a label, to identify themselves with, and peer pressure makes them fearful enough of opposing ideas that they'll act to suppress them rather than entertain an opposing view and possibly give themselves another choice.
A pretty good illustration of this is available any time on the Internet, just by going to, for example, a site which identifies itself as a "geek news" site and looking at the posts that get moderated down. While some of the down-moderated posts are trolls or obviously inappropriate, a lot of them are simply dissenting opinions that the moderator in question doesn't agree with, but doesn't want to form an argument against for fear of entertaining the dissenting opinion.
We always hear how bad it is to "preach to the choir," but in fact most people are members of a choir and want nothing more than to be preached to.
I agree with a lot of what he said but I don't think scientists are any better than the lay person at picking apart taboos. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn details the self-righteousness that scientists often display. The only real way to change things is to let all the people who came up with the original idea die.
Time makes more converts than reason
I don't, but that's not because I or my peers are conformist. Having offered conformism as a likely inference and dismissed coincidence as unlikely, Graham leaves out a third possibility: that my peer group is by habit and nature nonconformist and will happily accept and discuss any stated opinion.
The fourth possibility is that Graham means people of my age and cultural background (i.e. Greco-Roman/Anglo-Saxon derived Caucasian), rather than those folk I actually regard as a peer group. I profoundly resent the immediate derivation Graham makes - that "everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe". There are no grounds for reaching this conclusion from the position of lack of fear of wide-reaching discussion and candidness.
This article is a fine piece of fluff, with the low-flying non sequiturs carefully balanced by the empty speculation. Here's another example:
And yet, I wonder. The Dutch seem to live their lives up to their necks in rules and regulations. There's so much you can't do there; is there really nothing you can't say?
Perhaps Mr Graham should actually do some research before he wonders out loud. I lived in the Netherlands for two years, and the answer is yes. There is nothing you can't say. Next question. There's plenty you can't do because astoundingly even the Dutch would prefer not to sponsor murder, child molestation, or deviation from proper procedure.
Woolly thinking and a few historical quotations do not a strong argument make.
- J
For a closer-to-home (probably) and less extreme example, think about some geeky calling a fellow geek a "geek" in camaraderie vs. someone "cool" saying "geek" intending to be offensive.
Still a double-standard, but probably okay.
Let's start with a test. Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?
Hell yes!
I moved to the San Fransisco bay area slightly over five years ago. To this day I am extremely cautious about expressing most of my political and religious opinions. I learned that the hard way the first week I was here. It's not that this area is liberal or anything like that, it's because most people here are so damned intolerant of anything that even remotely associated with conservatives, Republicans (even liberal Republicans) or Christians (even liberal Democrat Christians).
I had a friend who no longer talks with me because she found out I'm a libertarian. In my forty years of life, this was a first to me, that someone would base their friendships on political affiliations. It boggles my mind.
I go to parties and someone says "we should round up everyone who voted for Bush and have them all shot." Several others nod their heads in agreement. Others may disagree with the penalty, but agree with the general sentiment. No one disagrees with the underlying premise that voting for Bush was akin to committing a crime. At a group of friends, two got into a spat over something as inconsequential as what temperature to set the thermostat. One left in a huff, and the other said "What a control freak! I bet she's a Republican!"
Do I dare let on that I'm not a member of the Democrat or Green parties? Will I be consigned to social ostracism if people find out I don't consider Bush to be Evil Incarnate?
A friend came over and expressed surprise at seeing my Bible out on the table. Why should he be surprised? It's the best selling book in all of history. It sold more copies last year than did The Lord of the Rings. Why should it be surprising that I own a Bible?
Yesterday while sitting around with some friends and drinking coffee, one of them sees a newspaper article about Mel Gibson and his new movie about Christ. "Oooh, I hate him," a friend said. "He's so... so... so damned conservative!" That was the worst epithet he could think of. "Conservative." Then he launched into a tirade about how Christians are homophobes.
Do I dare let on that I'm a Christian? If I were a poor hispanic who couldn't speak English, I could get away with being a Catholic. But I'm a middle class caucasian. Will people automatically assume all sorts of wrong things about me if they know I'm part of that 80% of people in the US who believe in God?
When you see a machine of wildly spinning metal gears, you know better than to stick your hand in. You know you'll like a finger or two. Likewise, when one sees a major metropolitan region where people go about spouting hatred for anyone of differing beliefs, you know better than to offer your opinion. It's just not safe.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Every time I say something along these lines, someone will immediately counter with: No, it's the war on drugs that's bullshit. The war on drugs has had an incredible human cost in this country, and it's done nothing to combat the evils of addiction.
OK, fine. But then they'll follow it up with: Besides, I should have the right to experiment in the privacy of my own home!
To which I say: Experiment? And what, pray tell, is the nature of these experiments? What is the hypothesis to be proven here? That drugs get you high? Cuz I can point you to substantial prior work in that area, if you like.
What's more, who in the hell ever said that the war on drugs had anything to do with preventing you from dropping ecstasy in the privacy of your own home? Or in public, for that matter? As far as I'm concerned, it should be obvious to anybody that the war on drugs is all about money. It's about corrupt politicians, corrupt law enforcement, and blatant criminals both locally and overseas, all arranged in a little circle trading the money around. And in the middle are the people who use drugs, and they're the ones who are paying the bills -- with both their money, and the toll drugs take on their own lives.
The war on drugs isn't going to make drugs go away. But if you want the war on drugs to go away, there's one easy way to do it: Stop using drugs. Until people are willing to do that, you're just pouring more and more money toward preserving the status quo. And what do you get out of it, really?
Heresy, I know. Cuz after all, drugs are cool. They make you "counter culture." You're doing something they don't want you to do. Drugs make you more fun, more appealing. Proper use of them is a sign of maturity. It lends you worldliness, experience. There are lots of situations where you can't even imagine not doing drugs -- hell anybody who isn't is missing out, plain and simple.
Just like they said about cigarettes in the 1930s-40s. Go figure.
P.S. Before people bother to flame me, let me just point out that I'm not a tent preacher or anything. I'm not posting this to preach to people, or to convert them to any way of thinking. I'm posting it because this is a topic about speech taboos, and this is a line of thinking that I do believe in but I learned long ago to never bring up in public, cuz it's just not worth it. I reckon that's what makes it a taboo topic, right?
Breakfast served all day!
Russia definitely bore the brunt of the war. But the role of the US should not be underestimated.
Perhaps a different perspective would help:
I grew up in Russia, and went through school at the peak of the "stagnation" period. In high school, we had a history teacher who was a kid during the war. Now, history in Russia was one of the most politicised and heavilly guarded for ideological purify subjects, high school and college history even more so. So this teacher did not get to be where he was by being a dissident.
When we came to covering the War (in Russia, there is only one "the War"), he went over the events, as he should, then glossed over the chapters describing US non-role and non-contribution. Naturally, we noticed, and asked (and not all of the student believed what the textbook said). The teacher said that he will tell us a story. He told us about starving children living in dread and fear, whose brightest days were when a truck delivered food shipment from the US. In the shipment were huge chunks of chocolate, shaped like canon shells. Was it not for that, and more food from US, some of those children would not live to grow up. He then said, "I know that I'm supposed to tell you that US did not matter at all in the War. But I can't bring myself to say this. I remember that chocolate."
Private welfare nothing more than a way for greedy affluent people to keep more of their own money in their pocket at the expense of the poor who deserve the product of someone else's labor by virtue of their "need".
I don't think this is true. Most physicists would have to spend five to ten years attaining fluency in French, not to mention acquiring the background in literary theory, before tackling a PhD in French literature. For most of them, that would would be just as big an ask as it would be for a professor of French to do the high school foundations and the undergraduate degree in physics that would be a necessary prerequisite for a PhD. After that, I think actually completing either program would be largely a matter of determination.
(My sister has a PhD in French literature; I have a BSc with a physics major.)
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
There is a dictionary definition of someone whos labor and property are entitled to others, as your post says "the poor" are entitled to the property of "the rich".
SLAVE
Are you ready to actually stand up for your beliefs and enslave people openly, rather than by advocating someone else (government) to it for you?
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
One of our top guns is Lieutenant Colonel Martha McSally.
Galileo was "fringe" and the church believed his opinions were "poorly-supported" compared to their hundreds of years of theology.
What people fail to realize is that popular speech needs no protection! Everyone is happy to protect those whom they agree with. The tough part is protecting those you disagree with--especially those whom you vehemently disagree with and consider a danger.
So, racist speech is not acceptable (and shouldn't be), and there's nothing wrong with that.Racist speech is the exact speech that *SHOULD* be protected and needs protected! Why? First of all, true racist speech can (and should) be rebutted instead of left festering hidden away somewhere. Second, all too often certain groups play the "race card" and claim racism to squash legitimate argument. Who is to judge whether speech is racist or not, especially when it involves a sensitive area such as affirmative action? You? The University? The Government?
for it, but please make a distinction between a vocal minority of shit-disturbers (who can be of any background/race/religion), the sensible majority (also diverse), and the administration (weasels).Galileo, Martin Luther, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Jesus Christ are all examples of vocal minorities of disturbers fighting against the majority. Minority speech is *precisely* what needs protected! Who else is going to benefit from free speech protections? The "sensible majority"? The administration?
Brian Ellenbergerexample
That's actually the only thing I could find on the subject using google, but recently there was a flap by a guy over how it was wrong for us to call a team "the Redskins", because how would we like it if there was a team called "the niggers". Needless to say, he got yelled at.
In response to your favorite example, I think a storyline from FlemCo addresses it, but you gotta sit through ~13 (I think) strips to get the idea.
[o]_O
Windows XP is a well built OS. It almost never crashes, it's very compatible with a wide range of hardware, and setup/configuration is a breeze.
Bill Gates is not a bad person. He is down to earth, a geek at heart- a humanitarian and philanthipist who believes that the money he earns should be used in service to humanity.
The MPAA is just trying to protect the copyrighted works of the companies it represents.
Maybe there really is some of proprietary Sco code in Linux. And you know, revealing it before Sco has its date in court would not be fair to the litigants.
no... wait that last one just went too far... I recant.
I have no pants and I must scream
There really isn't any such thing as international law. Many people equate UN resolutions with international law but resolutions are not enforcable (usually). Just ask Israel.
The status of treaties also varies from coutry to country. In the UK, treaties mean nothing until a bill is passed in Parliament. I presume the something similar is the case in the US as I remember that the SALT treaties had to be ratified.
There are various organisation that exercise what might be called international law functions (E.g. WTO), but no overall framework.
The US recently declined to support an international criminal court - possibly with good reason. It is much easier to take legal action against a country such as the US rather than North Korea, and yet millions face potential starvation in North Korea. Would an invasion or regime change in North Korea be "war crime" because it was "unprovoked", and the US could not come up with some legal pretext? That's not justice.
For example, this is apparently flamebait. Though nobody can explain why.
Hitler got some serious financial support by some large investors :
:
http://www.john-loftus.com/Thyssen.asp
"Throughout the Bush family's decades of public life, the American press has gone out of its way to overlook one historical fact - that through Union Banking Corporation (UBC), Prescott Bush, and his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, along with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, financed Adolf Hitler before and during World War II. It was first reported in 1994 by John Loftus and Mark Aarons in The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People.
"
Well of course it should be noted that by the time the Holocaust was getting mainstream news, USA of course sent in their Army to remove the Nazis. When looking at it in this way, and noting that also Saddam was enabled into power by USA, the analogy and the reason for the US Army to remove Saddam from power is striking.
Robert
I just realized something. If people outside of america wish to at all influence the political choices of people inside america, then all they have to do is endorse the opposite person to whom they prefer. The americans would assume that because foreigners are endorsing that person, then that person/party must not be looking out for the best interests of america. So all these socialist europeans should sing the praises of bush to undo him! But of course as proof that europeans regardless of belief aren't the vast intellectual superiors to ameircans, they won't realize this idea en mass.
There, I've made my controversial post for this topic!
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
The biggest problem here is that you are getting in the middle of bickering matches with educated children with no real world experience.
Having an argument with a college student is like pig wrestling. You get all dirty, and the pig likes it.
Buck up, people. And use some sense. Most college kids in an argument are just happy that someone is listening to them about an issue. Unfortunately, they just haven't learned why they are not allowed to run planet Earth yet.
Besides, it's ridiculous to get into an argument with a person that can quote Camus and Marx on you but has never held a steady job. The moment some college kid starts trying to school me on anything, I start laughing. Usually that little crap-eating smile or a chuckle in their face does much more to shut down their "rage against the machine" attitude than anything else.
They're just kids. Sometimes you college kids need to learn to STFU. I know when I was in college I thougt I knew everything. I guarantee you that you are just as wrong as I was back then, so shut your mouths and listen to your elders.
So what have we learned? Colleges, and college kids need to shut the hell up. Thank you for your time.
Pundits, right? They like to be the focal point of attention. So it might be useful to apply some of the same critical thinking to their regular spew. Namely, we have this gem:
...like me! :-)
"(Or it could be that, because it's clearer in the sciences whether theories are true or false, you have to be smart to get jobs as a scientist, rather than just a good politician.)"
I omitted the general trashing of "liberal arts" disciplines before that. This is all reminiscent of Paul's high school nerd philosophizing on his intellectual superiority in an earlier article.
Someone else here pointed out the example of Bjorn Lomborg in particular. But we can simply point to Graham himself and his popularity. His writing speaks to most Nerds, but this doesn't not make him accurate or really even insightful. He may know what bayesian classifiers are, but that doesn't really give him any particular insight into the perfect programming language (still waiting...) or philosophical thought or even the most effective way to use these classifiers.
Raymond wrote the cathedral and the bazaar, but this was not a science-based piece. It was entirely political -- all assertions, and all pretty much unproven except by personal anecdote based on a... not very complex.. program. It was well written enough to be used as a political propaganda piece, and potentially correct -- however it alone doesn't make Eric an authority on anything...
So why is graham and raymond mentioned here and on other geek and science oriented sites? Because they write from the perspective of a geek, and write things that geeks agree with. It's not magic, it's competence. It's not competence in science, analysis or critical thought, but competence in political writing and the ability to parlay 15 minutes into some longer lasting form of success and/or influence.
The scientists which get paid the big bucks are good at this, but are not necessarily very good at science in general. This does not mean both aren't possible or don't exist in one person (they do), but it puts the claim that political saavy and science does not mix into perspective. Especially when compared to more "liberal" disciplines.
Perhaps Paul's mastery of archaic french is very good, but somehow I doubt it.. and I think he drastically underestimates the importance of motivation and overestimates the importance of intellegence.
As a geek, I see where he's coming from, but I also see the same negative human/geek tendency to deconstruct the world into simple algorithms based on what, frankly, I beleive is a limited experience. In the end, like most inet essayists, he wants to be profound, but by not framing his observations he ends up being just another netnews poster...
I'm tempted to take the Socratic method and ask: "what's so bad about blind faith?"
From there, I'd ask what the difference is between "faith in some kind of higher power" and "blind faith".
The latter question is a strawman argument, of course: there (presumably) being no evidence for a higher power, one believes in such only by virtue of "blind faith".
The stronger answer, though, is that the great miracles of the modern world -- technology, sciences (including economics, the study of which can allow people to interact peacefully even if they have widely conflicting beliefs) -- all depend on the Scientific Method, as put together by William of Ockham, Fracis Bacon, and elucidated more precisely by Karl Popper.
Basically, if you train yourself to truly believe only that for which you have experimental evidence (and you're always willing to drop those beliefs in the face of new, contradictory evidence), then you have a shot at really understanding How the World Works, and I assert that humanity's best chance for survival is by really understanding How the World Works. Richard Feynman is quite eloquent in describing this in his various books and lectures.
Faith in any kind of supra-natural "stuff" -- pixies, god(s), you name it -- foils that wonderful, scientific-method, mental training. And it's not that a good scientist can't have any kind of blind faith; just that, like driving a car with the parking brake on, the latter impedes the former, which succeeds only to the degree that it overpowers the dampening effect.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Paul Graham's article was an interesting read, but he didn't mention the role that emotive and neutral terminology plays in the spread of ideas.
To define these terms: Emotive language is the choice of words that conjure up the desired emotions in the listener, whereas neutral language is devoid of such emotional associations.
Many of these terms are spread by people in positions of power, such as government leaders, major corporations and powerful lobby groups.
Let's examine two examples.
The DMCA was enacted to combat "piracy". The word "piracy" and its various derivatives are commonly used by MPAA and RIAA executives. However, the strict definition of piracy in the sense of copyright infringement is to copy someone else's work and sell it for your own personal profit. This isn't as widespread as the copyright holders like to have us believe. For example, someone copying a CD so they can have a copy in their car as well as in their home isn't strictly piracy because they are not selling the copy. Yet the RIAA would use "piracy" to describe this activity. The term "copyright infringement" is available for their use, but they often eschew this term for the less accurate but more emotive term "piracy". Why? To engender the emotional response they want in their listeners.
"Downsizing" was a corporate buzzword in the recession era of the early 1990's. What it means, however, is to make many staff redundant at once. This made many people unhappy because they were now out of work. The proponents of this corporate philosophy introduced the term "downsizing" because it was a term with no emotive associations. To get people to swallow nasty medicine, you have to make it taste bland. In the same way, to get the masses to accept something bad, you have to cloak the concept with a neutral name that is often derived from corporate doublespeak.
If you want to look for nasty ideas someone is going to foist on you, look for bland-sounding terms. On the other hand, if you want to "look under the rocks" as Paul Graham said in his article, look for emotive terminology and question the concepts behind the emotive terms.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
How about this as something unthinkable: white males aren't being oppressed.
I'm a white male. It rocks to be a white, straight, native-English-speaking male in America. I can wake up in the morning, just pull on whichever pant/shirt combination is handy in the closet, and go to work where no one ever talks trash about me having worn the same color for three days in a row, no one ever gets nervous around me for fear of saying some offensive remark about "my people", and no one ever is worried that I'm secretly stealing office supplies. I can walk around my neighborhood with minimal fear of personal violence, and if, God forbid, something did happen I can have complete confidence in rapid and reasonable response from our local police force. I never have to take a personal day for my religion's holidays; when my religion has a high feast or fast day, the markets close.
If my contribution is ever overlooked on something, I know it's because I didn't speak up loudly enough, or early enough. I know it's never my race. I can walk into any store I want to, look at items, handle those that are out, and security doesn't automatically start tailing me. When I walk into Philadelphia's diamond district, the assumption is that I'm looking for a anniversary present, not that I'm casing the joint.
When I look at the people in power - pretty much anywhere - I see, by and large, men who look like me, albeit usually older. When I pick up any high school or elementary school textbook, and look to see what historical figures they're studying, I see other white males. Sure, I may also see people who weren't white males, but let's face it - George Washington isn't getting written out of American history classrooms any time soon. I know that the child of Mung immigrants going to a public school half-way across the country is going to learn about a winter in 1777 in Valley Forge where some distant ancestor of mine died. My daughter, were she to attend a public school here, would be far from certain of learning of the great service that child's grandparents gave to this country.
White males have it good. Our position is not in any danger. We can stop shouting "help, help, I'm being oppressed" at every imagined slight. (remember when the standard joke was that radical feminists were thin-skinned?)
Political correctness is either dead or, as the trolls say, dying.
Okay, now my heresy for the evening:
I actually believe that African-Americans using "nigger" to refer to each other is a good thing. Why? By using this word themselves in a different context they are (intentionally or not) helping to neutralize an extremely emotionally charged word, slowly but surely. This is similar to the gay community's deliberately using the word "queer" to refer to themselves. I don't know about you, but the first time I heard a gay person refer to himself as "queer" I was put off, but that word has obviously been successfully neutralized, look at "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."
Maybe not in our lifetime, but trust me, one day this word will have no evoke no stronger reaction than does the word "anglo" today.
sig != null
Graham writes about heresy - moral heresy. Saying the things that would be considered distasteful or would get you in to trouble. He brilliantly notes moralities similarity to fashion; "invisible to most people... Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good."
This is the test that I regularly apply to my own beliefs and which regularly causes my friends to sigh in frustration. There he goes... again. It's great having friends that still love you after you challenge every belief that you share with them. Sometimes I find out that our shared belief rested on a strong foundation of experience and/or tradition, but usually I find out that we've just been thinking what we've been told to think.
If you don't have friends like I do, Graham mentions other ways to seek out heresy besides "The Conformist Test":
Trouble: look for things people say and get in trouble for.
Heresy: look for the label 'heresy' in any one of it's forms ("indecent", "unamerican", "defeatist"). New ones are created to silence current heresy.
Time and Space: compare heresies between cultures separated by time or space. If one culture has a heresy another doesn't than it is likely the heresy is mistaken. For example, taboos against murder are nearly universal.
Prigs: find prigs, subtract lived experiences and examine their thoughts. Kids and teenagers are the best repositories for complete mint collections of taboos.
Mechanism: examine how taboos are created. "To launch a taboo, a group has to be poised halfway between weakness and power. A confident group doesn't need taboos to protect it... And yet a group has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo" The taboo breakers on the otherhand "will be driven by ambition: self-consciously cool people who want to distinguish themselves from the common herd."
Another rather heretic point Graham makes is that, "Kids' heads are repositories of all our taboos. It seems fitting to us that kids' ideas should be bright and clean. The picture we give them of the world is not merely simplified, to suit their developing minds, but sanitized as well, to suit our ideas of what kids ought to think."
I would however questions Graham's belief that, "there seems a clear correlation between intelligence and willingness to consider shocking ideas. This isn't just because smart people actively work to find holes in conventional thinking. I think conventions also have less hold over them to start with. You can see that in the way they dress." This seems like an assumption that needs to be broken heretically. There are many smart people that use their intelligence to reinforce convention or shape convention to suit their needs. I do think that some people are more 'disruptively intelligent" than others. They have an easier time than others ignoring or challenging convention. For example, people that are classically 'mentally challenged' generally challenge convention more than average. I would argue that their intelligence is just different from the average - they are more intelligent in certain
Complexity Happens
Hey, whoah, just thought of a doozie that may take your taboo even farther: incest.
My old anthropology prof made a few factually backed-up observations which are not part of popular culture:
1. most cases of incest are consensual brother-sister situations, worldwide
2. the "inbreeding is genetically bad" is actually quite false, and the pigheadedness of the argument probably stems from the taboo, not reasoned debate or observation. He noted that several isolated tribes that had been inbreeding for centuries had the purest genes because malformations did occur with multiplication of genetic flaws... and then those people died off, leaving very few carriers of genetic anomalies. Why do we never hear this argument and evidence?
Therefore 3. Since evolution is not necessarily 100% genetic (ideas can be passed on, too, especially if made rigid customs -- or taboos), the taboo may serve the purpose of idea movement as well as genetic. ie: the spread of new ideas promotes survival.
So, several science fiction authors have imagined futures where incest is not a taboo. Indeed, if not, then it would be some kind of insult to not have sex with family members. Of course, to even imagine it, you have to shed the taboo, and this is even harder than it sounds. You sleeping with your sister? (*thinks about it*) Well, maybe. Me sleep with my sister? No way!!
1) You tell me what "God" is
2) I tell you if "God" exists or not
If you can't do step 1), step 2) becomes irrelevant (unknowable). You have define a concept before you can discuss its existence, and you can't do that objectively with "God". There is no possible objective definition of "God", just lots and lots of subjective ones.
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all...
And a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2004, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in the Western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual orientation of the wishee.
This wish is limited to the customary and usual good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first. "Holiday" is not intended to, nor shall it be considered, limited to the usual Judeo-Christian celebrations or observances, or to such activities of any organized or ad hoc religious community, group, individual, or belief (or lack thereof).
Note: By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all. This greeting is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. This greeting implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for the wishee her/himself or others, or responsibility for the consequences which may arise from the implementation or non-implementation of same. This greeting is void where prohibited by law.
Hmph. I voted Libertarian, but had someone put a gun to my head and forced me to pick one of the majors I would have voted for Bush in that election. Why? (1) Reading _Earth In The Balance_ had long ago convinced me Al Gore was a pompous nitwit. (2) Bush claimed to be a fiscal conservative, (3) Bush claimed to be noninterventionist, whereas Gore was big on "nation-building". Subsequent events have pretty much demolished points (2) and (3), but that's only obvious in hindsight.
But getting back to the main topic under discussion, here's something you can't say in America:
It doesn't really matter who wins the presidential election.
Seriously. There's no way to know in advance which candidate will make a good president. They both lie about who they are and what they believe and what they intend to do, and they both will get diverted and distracted by the bureaucracy and the opposing party and world events to such a degree that basically all bets are off. (The weirdest thing about the last election was that Bush pretended to be strongly pro-life and Gore pretended to be strongly pro-choice to fit the expectations of their respective parties, and voters bought it and thought that it mattered.)
Even if you could know what the presidential candidate intends to do, the chances are pretty large that he won't be able to do it, and the chances are even larger that nothing the president does will directly affect your life or that of anybody you know.
National politics is basically an expensive form of entertainment, not a way of getting much useful done in the world. And your vote doesn't matter. Even if it mattered statistically - which it doesn't - even it determined the outcome between the top two candidates - which it doesn't - it still wouldn't make much difference, because those two candidates have been chosen to look and sound pretty much the same and have no preformed opinions of their own that they wouldn't sell in a heartbeat.
Incidentally, that's why the last election was so close. Because there was really nothing to recommend either candidate over the other, it was basically a coin flip. It's silly to call the people whose flips came up Heads "flaming idiots" just because yours came up Tails.
I play Nerd-Folk!
it's called reverse discrimination
As long as we have a topic dedicated to ranting, I'd like to say that if I could remove one phrase from the English language, it would be "reverse discrimination." Descrimination is discrimination. If you are a Japanese store owner who charges me more because I'm Korean, that's discrimination. If I am an African-American employer who won't hire you because you are white, that's discrimination.
"Reverse" discrimination would be not discriminating against someone.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
The truth is, of course, much more complicated, but I think it must fit nicely with their opinion of Americans in general.
I have a friend traveling in Indonesia right now. When she got off the plane with her husband and child, a neighbor of her relations there was nice enough to give them a ride to the home they're staying in. Guy had an Osama Bin Laden sticker in the window of his car.
My point being: things are a lot more complicated, you bet. For example, a quite moderate, friendly, helpful Muslim from a pretty typical rural area has this sticker in his car. He told her he put it up there after Bush's "Crusade" comment early on after 9/11, speaking of W.'s gift for finessing international relations. Her impression was that he regarded it about on the level of the "Support OUR Troops" stickers you see in the US. And this person is quite capable of seeing the difference between "Americans in general" and the policies of a particular administration, and remembers, in excruiciating detail, the claims made about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. More than I can say for my Southern Baptist relations, who've sort of let those details slip if they ever followed them at all.
It ain't just a stereotype on that end. Nor is it in Europe. Like you say: more complicated. If anything Americans have much more stereotypical ideas about French people 'in general' than the other way around, from my experience.
This sort of falls into the same category as effete upper-middle-class liberals sneering at NASCAR fans and Wal-Mart shoppers; apparently arrogant elitism is no longer considered rude.
You maybe haven't yet learned that that entire chapter of Ann Coulter's book was based on a lie? The New York times did run a story the day after Earnhardt's death, you can look. The Walmart reference came from another story a few days later, written by an "effete," Southern, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist. (Is it rude, or just unscrupulous, to make stuff up like that? You'd have to ask Ann.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Now this may simply be a matter of circumstance (black defendants had multiple charges, prior convictions, etc.), but to see it turn out similiarly on two separate occasions really made me realize how our racist and classist justice system operates. The black defedants cannot make bail, get worthless public defenders to represent them, and stand before a judge who would prefer it if they did not exist. Isn't justice supposed to at least pretend to be fair?
===========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.