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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".
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
- 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!
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
Equally stupid are those that think that because they "think outside the box" that they are automatically correct.
Paul Graham is emphasizing the need to be open-minded, but he is ignoring the need to be "active-minded". If your "outside the box" idea have failed the test, they need to be rejected.
Here's a couple thoughts:
1) It's possible that there are some inherent differences between the races. The question is to what extent they're meaningful, and so worth study. I can think of some health issues which are much more likly to come up in specific races/ethnicities: sickle cell anemia in blacks, Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews. Those seem worth study, and they are studied. Other differences, probably not so meaningful.
2) Jews (and ethnic Chinese for that matter) become influential in diaspora because they have cultures which value hard work and study, so over the course of a couple generations, they eat the lunch of any "natives" who don't value that (like every antisemitic racist bubba still digging ditches in my hometown). Duh. It never ceases to amaze me that people think there's more to it than that.
3) You got me. I think the difference is that Stalin mostly killed his own people as part of a political consolidation of power, rather than identifying a particular ethnic group and trying to systematically exterminate ALL of them as part of a plan to wage an active war across the rest of the world. That's more a difference of politics than anything else.
4) You're clearly staying just this side of really nasty slurs. I can't wait for you to bring up the blood libel.
For the record, I'm not Jewish.
-------
Point and Counterpoint: The Tick - "Spoon!" Neo - "There is no spoon."
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
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.
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
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.
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.
> 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.
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?
Arabs and (most) Jews ARE "Caucasians", you moron, as well as Persians, Indians, and Afghans. Perhaps you meant white Europeans? If so, that kind of disproves your point if you are white, since you are so stupid.
Are they really? I'm not sure how you can substantiate the claim that Arabs, Indians, et al. originated from the Caucasus Mountain region. There is evidence that many European Jews are descended from the Khazar tribes of the Caucasus, but the original Israelites/Hebrews were a Semitic people, as are the Arabs.
I'm not sure how you're using the term "Caucasian," but it properly refers only to the inhabitants of the Caucasus region. Its usage to designate a broader racial classification stems from the (thoroughly discredited) racial theories of eighteenth-century German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, though this usage has persisted in the vernacular, particularly in America. Perhaps you who are so smart would like to share with us poor unlearned souls exactly what the necessary and sufficient conditions of being Caucasian are, according to your definition?
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
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
It's not just poorly-supported fringe opinions or racist comments that are frowned upon in modern universities. It's ANYTHING that doesn't toe the line with the established orthodoxy. Supported non-racist opinions that are not orthodox WILL be denounced as unsupported or racist.
Two good examples. First, casually mention anything that counters the current tenets of environmentalism. Dispute the data supported global warming. Or suggest that it isn't caused by human activity. Or that electric cars cause as much pollution as gasoline cars. But first make sure you're wearing asbestos underwear! The creed of environmentalism CANNOT be questioned. It's heretical to do so. It's not because anything else is a "poorly-supported fringe opinion", because there are plenty of scientists and climatologists that offer support to contrarian views. It's merely a difference in interpreting the data, or using different models. Much of environmentalism still rests on untested and inviolate premises. Question these and your career as a university researcher is finished.
Second example. Mention that you hold a conservative view on an issue. Any issue. It doesn't matter if you are liberal on every other issue. Just this one will get your branded as a racist or reactionary. I'm not talking about extremist conservatism. Mainstream conservatism is equally despised. Suggest that capital gains taxes should be lowered, as an example, and see how fast you're ostracized.Go to Berkeley and argue against rent control if you really want to see how intolerant the capital of tolerance really is. Sidenote: I'm not claiming that modern universities are "liberal" though. They're something else entirely.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
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.
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.
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?" ?
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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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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...
You talk about "asbestos underwear". But people flaming you because they disapprove of what you say are exercising their free speech rights!
Also, labeling you as a racist or a reactionary is free speech as well. Your problem is you can't stand being disapproved of. You have no First Amendment right to be liked, and you have no right to demand that people associate with you.
People like you typically moved from a more conservative location (in high school) to a less conservative location (in college) and are shocked that your new neighbors don't think your jokes are funny.
As for your second to last sentence: dude, I went to Berkeley. Rent control in the city of Berkeley has always been a hotly debated topic with plenty of people vigorously arguing both sides. If you oppose rent control you'll find that about 40% of town strongly agrees with you and another 40% hates your guts (the rest is the swing vote). On campus, the pro-rent-control faction is larger because there are far more renters. Both sides use very strong language against each other. But that's what free speech is all about!
You can express conservative opinions all you want, and people can flame you for it all they want. You are not a delicate flower; you can take it.
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.
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.
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.