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mlooney

Story, Wed 16 Oct, 2019

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5 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

no matter how much would some people want for some concepts to stop being talked about (you know, the concepts like "freedom" or ethnicity).

As I understand, quite a few of those people don't as much want the concepts to stop being talked about as they want most or all of the actual things to disappear entirely.

That's definitely true in case of freedom, however I'm not sure who exactly the people who keep complaining about more and more words for specific ethnic group would want to disappear.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That's definitely true in case of freedom, however I'm not sure who exactly the people who keep complaining about more and more words for specific ethnic group would want to disappear.

The ethnic groups themselves.

Mine, for example.

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12 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That's definitely true in case of freedom, however I'm not sure who exactly the people who keep complaining about more and more words for specific ethnic group would want to disappear.

The ethnic groups themselves.

I think we are talking about different group of people. Specifically, the group you talk about not only didn't complained about the word, they even added a star.

I think that it would be clear if I said one of those words but I don't want to be banned. It starts with "n".

(Removing THAT one might make sense, but it didn't stopped there ...)

7 hours ago, ijuin said:

Until we discover alien intelligence, there is only one race that matters: Human.

Human is not race. Human - Homo Sapiens - is species.

The basic problem of dividing humans into races is that there really isn't any sharp border - and even in past, there were lot less of them that people though.  Well, maybe in case of some isolated populations on some islands, but I'm not sure if any remain ...

If you choose two groups and there is child with one parent in each, well, there is no scientific way how to call those groups races. The racists (themselves responsible for some of those children) usually claim that the child belongs to the inferior of those groups, of course.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I think we are talking about different group of people. Specifically, the group you talk about not only didn't complained about the word, they even added a star.

I think that it would be clear if I said one of those words but I don't want to be banned. It starts with "n".

Ah, I see. Yes.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Removing THAT one might make sense, but it didn't stopped there ...)

There is a huge argument about this online. Many of these words are indeed slurs of a very harmful nature. On some occasions they get reclaimed by the victims -- some, not all -- but each one of these is an individual occasion and should be judged by the group targeted and not the population in general. I personally view it like this: if a person of whom the word is supposedly descriptive states that they dislike it and consider it harmful, you respect their desires.

In a lot of these cases it is possible to directly analyse this impact and you do not even have to consult the targeted group in question to realise that it is a bad idea to use the word. The basic test goes like this: is the implied meaning dehumanising or even defamatory? Or, is the word used as a frequent substitute for implying inferior intellect, morals or ethics? 'Mentally ill, insane' used to be descriptors of medical conditions. They have been usurped by the general purpose to imply someone who is acting in a manner rude, selfish or even sociopathic. It is possible to be mentally ill without necessarily being any of these things. (Take me, for example. I suffer from clinical depression and anxiety disorder. I am also at times rude and even selfish. But my rudeness and selfishness are just me and have nothing to do with my medical condition.) However, politicians like to blame, say, spousal violence or gun violence on mental illness (I am looking at you, Bernie Sanders) and thus they help perpetuate the general and wrongheaded belief that if someone is mentally ill, they are also of a necessity violent and dangerous to people around them.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Human is not race. Human - Homo Sapiens - is species.

I am not any kind of biologist but I read that the basic requirement for sharing a species is being capable of procreating fertile offspring. Thus all current hominids on the planet are of the same species, homo sapiens sapiens. Horses and donkeys can generate offspring but these offspring are infertile and so they are considered two different species. Is this correct?

(This would seem to indicate that we shared a species with homo neanderthalensis who were as far as I know from a different branch. Now I am confused.)

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

(This would seem to indicate that we shared a species with homo neanderthalensis who were as far as I know from a different branch. Now I am confused.)

Well, for various reasons they've been reclassified and are now usually referred to as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Does that help?

(By the way, the guy who originally dubbed them Homo neanderthalensis later changed his mind and denied that they were Homo anything.)

There's also Homo sapiens denisova, a shorter subspecies that apparently interbred a bit with Homo sapiens neanderthalensis in Siberia and then died out in that area, and later interbred with Homo sapiens sapiens in southeast Asia before dying out there... and with some other group of genus Homo  (but definitely not H.s.neanderthalensis or H.s.sapiens, and probably not H.heidelbergensis or H.erectus, and those are all the plausible candidates we know of) somewhere along the way.

Note: the taxonomy of all these groups is still being debated.

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30 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

(By the way, the guy who originally dubbed them Homo neanderthalensis later changed his mind and denied that they were Homo anything.)

Typical. I bet he insisted they were hetero instead. Those straights just can't help themselves.

5 minutes ago, ijuin said:

The phrase "The Human Race" is quite common in its usage . . .

Well, according to Sir Terry Pratchett, Nobby Nobbs was disqualified from the human race for shoving.

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3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Removing THAT one might make sense, but it didn't stopped there ...)

There is a huge argument about this online. Many of these words are indeed slurs of a very harmful nature. On some occasions they get reclaimed by the victims -- some, not all -- but each one of these is an individual occasion and should be judged by the group targeted and not the population in general. I personally view it like this: if a person of whom the word is supposedly descriptive states that they dislike it and consider it harmful, you respect their desires.

In a lot of these cases it is possible to directly analyse this impact and you do not even have to consult the targeted group in question to realise that it is a bad idea to use the word. The basic test goes like this: is the implied meaning dehumanising or even defamatory? Or, is the word used as a frequent substitute for implying inferior intellect, morals or ethics? 'Mentally ill, insane' used to be descriptors of medical conditions. They have been usurped by the general purpose to imply someone who is acting in a manner rude, selfish or even sociopathic. It is possible to be mentally ill without necessarily being any of these things.

But removing the word doesn't remove the problem. Those words became slurs/dehumanizing/harmful because being in targeted group was seen as inferior. Starting to call the group differently without solving THAT just means the new word became slur as well.

(And, while "insane" is understood incorrectly by lot of people, there are words which are DEFINED as meaning someone with inferior intellect. Or ethics. In medical condition sense, I mean.)

3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

(Take me, for example. I suffer from clinical depression and anxiety disorder. I am also at times rude and even selfish. But my rudeness and selfishness are just me and have nothing to do with my medical condition.) However, politicians like to blame, say, spousal violence or gun violence on mental illness (I am looking at you, Bernie Sanders) and thus they help perpetuate the general and wrongheaded belief that if someone is mentally ill, they are also of a necessity violent and dangerous to people around them.

Well, politicians would like to blame anything. They don't want to admit that humans are, by nature, violent and society needs to work hard just to make the cases where this violence erupts uncommon. They used to blame AD&D and videogames (maybe they still do).

You don't remove violence by removing guns. You may reduce number of victims, yes, especially in case of SOME guns (politicians use the term "assault", I think, but I don't believe they got it right). Also, I find hard to defend that it's in some ways harder to get car than gun - in US, I mean, based on what I heard.

3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Human is not race. Human - Homo Sapiens - is species.

I am not any kind of biologist but I read that the basic requirement for sharing a species is being capable of procreating fertile offspring. Thus all current hominids on the planet are of the same species, homo sapiens sapiens. Horses and donkeys can generate offspring but these offspring are infertile and so they are considered two different species. Is this correct?

(This would seem to indicate that we shared a species with homo neanderthalensis who were as far as I know from a different branch. Now I am confused.)

I am not any kind of biologists but I read that this idea doesn't exactly hold as absolute. There is evolution, there are fertile hybrids - some crows, for example - there are ring species, which prove that "can have offspring with" is not transitive relation, and, well, it doesn't work for single-celled organisms at all obviously. It's possible that the idea gets abandoned faster than biologists admitting that we share species with neanderthals.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Note: the taxonomy of all these groups is still being debated.

... debated, or "we are not ready to accept the conclusion we arrived to"? (Rhetorical question ; probably both.)

1 hour ago, ijuin said:
6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Human is not race. Human - Homo Sapiens - is species.

The phrase "The Human Race" is quite common in its usage . . .

There are lot of phrases which are common in usage but wrong. In this case, however, I suspect that the motivation for inventing this phrase was purely political and had no scientific base. At least the motivation was noble ... well, as noble as political motivation can be.

 

 

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

They used to blame AD&D and videogames (maybe they still do).

If even the slightest mention that a shooter played video games at some point in their life, Jack Thompson is all over it.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

But removing the word doesn't remove the problem. Those words became slurs/dehumanizing/harmful because being in targeted group was seen as inferior. Starting to call the group differently without solving THAT just means the new word became slur as well.

Agreed. Still, the point is that you do not call, for example, a group of antheised conopoidals for 'slagoes', nor use 'slago' as an insult. You refer to them as people and when you insult someone you call them something that does not refer to a subgroup, like 'careless motherf***er'. (I apologise for the made up words, I just wanted to use examples I would be fairly sure would not insult anyone in the real world.)

6 minutes ago, Scotty said:

If even the slightest mention that a shooter played video games at some point in their life, Jack Thompson is all over it.

Yeah, that, too. I don't understand why I haven't caved in to my violent urges long ago, dragged my desktop comp to a school, booted it up and then started to slaughter everybody in sight with my level 120 blood elf paladin.

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21 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
On 10/21/2019 at 8:53 AM, hkmaly said:

But removing the word doesn't remove the problem. Those words became slurs/dehumanizing/harmful because being in targeted group was seen as inferior. Starting to call the group differently without solving THAT just means the new word became slur as well.

Agreed. Still, the point is that you do not call, for example, a group of antheised conopoidals for 'slagoes', nor use 'slago' as an insult. You refer to them as people and when you insult someone you call them something that does not refer to a subgroup, like 'careless motherf***er'. (I apologise for the made up words, I just wanted to use examples I would be fairly sure would not insult anyone in the real world.)

... I suspect that those make up words make those examples too hard to understand for me ...

There is definitely point that lot of subgroup names are overused on places where they are not necessary. However, in context of police searching for suspect for example, mentioning the subgroup makes sense (along with assumed height, age and what else they know about them). Despite the fact that the correlation between ethnic groups and poverty may make some group looks more criminal as result ...

And yes, using name of subgroup as insult is where the problems starts. It then continues with using it as insult to someone who is NOT part of the group. That definitely doesn't make any sense and should be avoided. (Although there shouldn't be any harm in cases where it's obvious exaggeration, like "brain-dead": it's not like truly brain-dead people can take offense ... also, it's more poetic to be verbose: "This idea is brain-dead: what were you using your brain for when you made it?" instead of "you are brain-dead".)

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54 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Despite the fact that the correlation between ethnic groups and poverty may make some group looks more criminal as result ...

And the little problem of profiling. As in, applying Vetinari-style policing to the real world.

"Someone did a crime. I believe that Black people commit crimes, so if I find some random Black person and punish him, justice in general has been served." :doom:

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

And the little problem of profiling. As in, applying Vetinari-style policing to the real world.

"Someone did a crime. I believe that Black people commit crimes, so if I find some random Black person and punish him, justice in general has been served." :doom:

It's certainly a fair bit of both, and quite cyclic too, you got group A that's always saying how group B is bad, so no one want's to give people from group B a chance, and so those group B people have to struggle to survive and in some cases are forced to commit crimes in which group A is like "See?! I told you!"

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On 10/21/2019 at 8:53 AM, hkmaly said:

They used to blame AD&D and videogames (maybe they still do).

On 10/21/2019 at 0:24 PM, The Old Hack said:
On 10/21/2019 at 0:16 PM, Scotty said:

If even the slightest mention that a shooter played video games at some point in their life, Jack Thompson is all over it.

Yeah, that, too. I don't understand why I haven't caved in to my violent urges long ago, dragged my desktop comp to a school, booted it up and then started to slaughter everybody in sight with my level 120 blood elf paladin.

Yeah ... there is at least little theoretical possibility that in future the game technology gets advanced enough someone might actually confuse machine gun from videogame with real one (so far, the real one weights MUCH more than the video game controller, for start, and the resolution of games is much smaller than real life), but what exactly are they fearing with fantasy games? That you start slaughtering dozens of people with unbelievable sword skills? Or is it about magic?

15 minutes ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

And the little problem of profiling. As in, applying Vetinari-style policing to the real world.

"Someone did a crime. I believe that Black people commit crimes, so if I find some random Black person and punish him, justice in general has been served." :doom:

It's certainly a fair bit of both, and quite cyclic too, you got group A that's always saying how group B is bad, so no one want's to give people from group B a chance, and so those group B people have to struggle to survive and in some cases are forced to commit crimes in which group A is like "See?! I told you!"

Whereas if you DON'T mention the ethnicity, less criminals are caught, and people will find out anyway and start thinking the situation is even worse than it is and police is covering it.

Again: sure, there is problem. But stopping using some word won't solve it.

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Just now, hkmaly said:

Yeah ... there is at least little theoretical possibility that in future the game technology gets advanced enough someone might actually confuse machine gun from videogame with real one (so far, the real one weights MUCH more than the video game controller, for start, and the resolution of games is much smaller than real life), but what exactly are they fearing with fantasy games? That you start slaughtering dozens of people with unbelievable sword skills? Or is it about magic?

To be fair, they may have a point with the paladin. It is kind of overpowered. Imagine a teacher pulling a gun on me to shoot me and I just use Holy Shield to become invulnerable for twelve seconds, stun the poor sod with Hammer of Justice and then hack him to bits with Crusader Strikes.

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Just now, hkmaly said:

Whereas if you DON'T mention the ethnicity, less criminals are caught, and people will find out anyway and start thinking the situation is even worse than it is and police is covering it.

Again: sure, there is problem. But stopping using some word won't solve it.

Problem is, most of the time if a crime is committed by an african-american, the news outlets just say "black male/female" whereas if it was a white person they say "caucasian male/female" so there's a tone difference that implies that the media is downplaying the actions of one group while putting emphasis on the actions of another even if it was the exact same crime.

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9 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
11 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Yeah ... there is at least little theoretical possibility that in future the game technology gets advanced enough someone might actually confuse machine gun from videogame with real one (so far, the real one weights MUCH more than the video game controller, for start, and the resolution of games is much smaller than real life), but what exactly are they fearing with fantasy games? That you start slaughtering dozens of people with unbelievable sword skills? Or is it about magic?

To be fair, they may have a point with the paladin. It is kind of overpowered. Imagine a teacher pulling a gun on me to shoot me and I just use Holy Shield to become invulnerable for twelve seconds, stun the poor sod with Hammer of Justice and then hack him to bits with Crusader Strikes.

Overpowered compared to what? Imagine if you did that to teacher and he would just respawn. Also, if the teacher would use rocket launcher, wouldn't the explosions push you back even if they won't hurt you?

8 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Problem is, most of the time if a crime is committed by an african-american, the news outlets just say "black male/female" whereas if it was a white person they say "caucasian male/female" so there's a tone difference that implies that the media is downplaying the actions of one group while putting emphasis on the actions of another even if it was the exact same crime.

That's good point. They should use consistent terminology. If they say "black" they should say "white" and if they say "caucasian" they should say ... waaait a moment ... actually the usage of caucasian in US media is totally bogus attempt to avoid the word "white".

(Nevertheless, I don't think media would get away with using the equivalent for "caucasoid" according to the image here ... hint, starts with "n". Generally, everything related seems outdated ... it would really be better to use skin color than THAT, and that says something.)

Maybe the correct terminology should be "african-americans" and "european-americans"? With "asian-americans" and "native-american" to complete the set?

 

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Overpowered compared to what? Imagine if you did that to teacher and he would just respawn. Also, if the teacher would use rocket launcher, wouldn't the explosions push you back even if they won't hurt you?

Nonononono. It doesn't work that way! He isn't a gamer, I am! I mean, would they let a dangerous computer gamer teach their students? I don't think so!

Also, at least in my old school it was prohibited to use or even possess rocket launchers on the grounds even if you were a teacher. You'd think it didn't respect the second amendment at all. (Though maybe that is just because it was located in Denmark.)

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13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Although there shouldn't be any harm in cases where it's obvious exaggeration, like "brain-dead": it's not like truly brain-dead people can take offense ... also, it's more poetic to be verbose: "This idea is brain-dead: what were you using your brain for when you made it?" instead of "you are brain-dead".)

A brain-dead person wouldn't (be in a position to) take offense, but their friends and family might take offense...

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9 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Overpowered compared to what? Imagine if you did that to teacher and he would just respawn. Also, if the teacher would use rocket launcher, wouldn't the explosions push you back even if they won't hurt you?

Nonononono. It doesn't work that way! He isn't a gamer, I am! I mean, would they let a dangerous computer gamer teach their students? I don't think so!

I was never as big gamer as few of my teachers on university. Granted, I'm likely better gamer than most of my teachers ... but those few were famous for that.

9 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Also, at least in my old school it was prohibited to use or even possess rocket launchers on the grounds even if you were a teacher. You'd think it didn't respect the second amendment at all. (Though maybe that is just because it was located in Denmark.)

Hmmm ... right ... however, does that regulation mention Phoenix rod?

36 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:
14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Although there shouldn't be any harm in cases where it's obvious exaggeration, like "brain-dead": it's not like truly brain-dead people can take offense ... also, it's more poetic to be verbose: "This idea is brain-dead: what were you using your brain for when you made it?" instead of "you are brain-dead".)

A brain-dead person wouldn't (be in a position to) take offense, but their friends and family might take offense...

.... and may actually argue that the brain-dead person would never do something as stupid, good point.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... right ... however, does that regulation mention Phoenix rod?

You're right. Crap. The teacher armed with that thing would just kite me until the Holy Shield expired, then use corners to spam flame orbs at me and I would be toast in short order. End of school attack. <scratches head>

Note to self: when I finally go on my long-awaited school rampage with my paladin, pick some school that isn't Gunnerkrigg Court or Hogwarts.

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