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For me one of the issues when talking to an older gentleman I used to play warhammer with is the whole everybody's equal thing is crap. Basically saying everybody has flaws and sometimes some races have certain flaws more frequently (like Asians driving). Basically saying it's a stereotype because it's often true. Saying obvious observable flaws which happen frequently enough are stereotypes and therefore throwing away something you see often without seeing a pattern isn't good.

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My issue with people that are often offended so easily is the ridiculous super sensitivity they seem to have and their view that they're defending somebody whose feelings they can possibly know. This makes even less sense when it's a group of people rather than one person. You can tell one person's feelings much more easily as they can state it but a crap ton of people would be hard to understand.

The issue I have with people being offended easily is how are you ever going to deal with worse things in your life if you get offended by the simplest crap. Imagine you get beaten horribly for no reason, suffer a horrible injustice, watch somebody you love die (like a parent) or fail at a job because you're not special and maybe it's your fault and nobody else's.

Hard work should be awarded and entitlement should not. If you care about something you should work hard to achieve it instead of showing up out of the blue and expecting everything to just fall over for you. This makes sense about people that want people to love them despite being horrible people or failing to use proper hygiene. This makes sense for people that expect to do well despite not trying hard in school, work or at the gym. You get out of something what you put into it. If you put in crap that's what you're going to get out of it.

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Btw does anybody else feel like this gets into 'First World Problems' (mostly a mockery of actual problems like starvation and being murdered for your beliefs).

Some days I feel like I woke up and the whole 'First World' countries turned into the future from 'Demolition Man'.




2nd clips point starts at 3:15.

 Psienesis wrote:
Evidence that further outrage at Matt Taylor's shirt is now required, because the evidence we have indicates that 1132 people (Original + retweets) cared enough to comment about it/share said comment on Twitter.

And now we're back to the start. It was a 1,000 people retweeting something. You'll get twenty times that kind of internet noise when a football team releases it's new jumper.

The Duck Dynasty thing?

Right. And so going by what you've brought to the table, you can now compare the NAACP and the Human Rights Campaign weighing in, and compare that to a tweet that was re-tweeted 1,000 times, you'll realise how one of those things was quite big and the other was quite small.

So that's it. We done here?


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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Basically saying everybody has flaws and sometimes some races have certain flaws more frequently (like Asians driving).

Yeah, and that's something I wish we could talk about more freely, because it's actually a pretty interesting subject. Because there certainly is something to the stereotype about bad Asian drivers, but when I was in China I was amazed at how good the driving was. The drivers there were active and attentive in a way that I dream drivers could be here in Australia. So what in the hell is going on with the Asian drivers over here?

One thing I've been wondering is if it isn't about Asians, but just about recent immigrants. Because as other ethnic groups are migrating here, I've noticed they tend to be pretty crappy drivers as well.

 sebster wrote:
That tweet, with it's whopping 1,000 retweets was the basis for which the whole narrative of 'people are angry over this guys shirt came from'. Which launched countless articles. Well, apparently 4,000 articles, so I guess it isn't that countless.

But it gets weird when you just assume that every one of those articles was also complaining about the shirt, and not complaining about the complaint.

I cheerfully haven't made an assumption that those 4,000 articles are complaining about the shirt. As I said, the link is dead. We have no way of knowing how many were a repeat of The Verge article, and how many decried it, unless the dead link comes to life. Not holding my breath for that one.

You say talk about unsourced exaggeration, and at the same time wildly exaggerate the number I gave. And do it to make some kind of argument about professing doubt that the Duck Dynasty thing was a big deal. Which is both ridiculous, and nothing to do with nothing.

Because you said "millions of people complained, and tens or hundreds of millions more agreed with the complaints" which I found silly without proof.

 Psienesis wrote:
Evidence that further outrage at Matt Taylor's shirt is now required, because the evidence we have indicates that 1132 people (Original + retweets) cared enough to comment about it/share said comment on Twitter.

If you need evidence of outrage at Matt Taylor's shirt, I've already provided two links above that pretty clearly reference outrage.

If you're both interested in arguing about the SIZE of the outrage, be careful to take proper safety precautions when moving goalposts.

 sebster wrote:


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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Basically saying everybody has flaws and sometimes some races have certain flaws more frequently (like Asians driving).

Yeah, and that's something I wish we could talk about more freely, because it's actually a pretty interesting subject. Because there certainly is something to the stereotype about bad Asian drivers, but when I was in China I was amazed at how good the driving was. The drivers there were active and attentive in a way that I dream drivers could be here in Australia. So what in the hell is going on with the Asian drivers over here?

One thing I've been wondering is if it isn't about Asians, but just about recent immigrants. Because as other ethnic groups are migrating here, I've noticed they tend to be pretty crappy drivers as well.

Absolutely. There's totally something at hand there and finding out what it is might help. I wish people went about it in a scientific way using which theories fit best based on results and data.

Personally I think it's the shape of the eyelids but maybe I'm wrong here. Keep in mind this is just a guess based on physical features.

Also not to throw out wrong info but maybe the Asians have small erm parts and black people have big ones is based around actual size of the person. After all a tall person has long legs, arms, etc. I'm not saying this is absolutely true since it's not based on bones and such like arms and legs are but you never know. Fat people often seem to have small parts but this is a different common trait I've heard. That could be another reason somebody wants to lose weight.

Hopefully mods are ok with this. It's just a theory and I don't have much to back it up with.

There's no point throwing out a theory that you can't back up with some actual studies, because it just looks like trolling.

If you want to talk about penis size correlation to ethic origin, there are a number of anatomical studies you could refer to.

As for your theory that Asians (I presume you mean orientals) make bad drivers owing to their slitty eyes, it just sounds like the old WW2 propaganda thing about the Japs being short-sighted and bad shots.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
I cheerfully haven't made an assumption that those 4,000 articles are complaining about the shirt. As I said, the link is dead. We have no way of knowing how many were a repeat of The Verge article, and how many decried it, unless the dead link comes to life. Not holding my breath for that one.

So you cheerfully haven’t done anything. I stated that there was little original outrage, and that the subsequent response to that was overwhelmingly in opposition to it. You cheerfully then said the response was 4,000, with no comment, cheerful or otherwise, on how much of that response was in support or opposed to criticism of the shirt.

Good job. Cheerfully.

Because you said "millions of people complained, and tens or hundreds of millions more agreed with the complaints" which I found silly without proof.

Seriously? You’re actually doubting that there could have been tens, or even a hundred million people who were offended in that whole duck dynasty thing.

I’m not sure if you’re debating in poor faith, or have no clue about the history of either event, but the result is the same.


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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Personally I think it's the shape of the eyelids but maybe I'm wrong here. Keep in mind this is just a guess based on physical features.

Okay, I guess there are some pretty good reasons we don't talk about this stuff. Shut it down.

 sebster wrote:
So you cheerfully haven’t done anything. I stated that there was little original outrage, and that the subsequent response to that was overwhelmingly in opposition to it. You cheerfully then said the response was 4,000, with no comment, cheerful or otherwise, on how much of that response was in support or opposed to criticism of the shirt.

Good job. Cheerfully.

I'm cheerfully pointing to their existence making them 'an issue' compared to your 'non issue only 1,000 tweets' abritrary outrage barrier. That you made up. You haven't actually done any metrics on the number of times he was mentioned on Twitter during that time period, or anything for that matter (because that'd be hard, maybe?) only pointing out 1 tweet and it's number of re-tweets. There's pretty weak sauce on that steak.

Seriously? You’re actually doubting that there could have been tens, or even a hundred million people who were offended in that whole duck dynasty thing.

I’m not sure if you’re debating in poor faith, or have no clue about the history of either event, but the result is the same.

You have literally no proof of your numbers, only hyperbole. I'm dismissing your claims due to lack of evidence. I'm only giving you the faith you're giving me

My thoughts on the subject.

We seem to be stuck in a wee bit of a loop, gradually increasing in snarkiness. Let's stop it now.

So I was googling this to see what others thought about the video, and the first link I read contained this:

qz.com wrote:Žižek’s words might be blunt, but his point is valid.

Political correctness stems from the understanding that racism and inequality exist, and that in lieu of fixing those problems, prettier language will do the trick—as if by using inoffensive words and avoiding crass jokes we are to paint over the filth of reality. Politically correct expressions, to Žižek, become patronizing because they actually highlight inequalities. As the philosopher notes, “one needs to be very precise not to fight racism in a way which ultimately reproduces, if not racism itself, at least the conditions of racism.”

The subtext of every carefully chosen, politically correct, expression is that there are still people in a position so privileged that they need to refer to “others” in a way that is not offensive—that doesn’t, for instance, make reference to their origin, or skin color. The implication is that there is nothing possibly offensive in the speaker’s skin tone or their origin. Jokes and blunt words can’t scratch their confidence—no, it’s only the rest of the population who needs the protection of politically correct language.

Aside from this having been something I have thought in the past, there does seem to be some truth to this idea. I'm reminded of the episode of South Park where they design a new town flag. Add on something I read a few years ago on the Internet, which was something like 'men and women will never be equal, as women only want to be equal. It is the lack of drive to become superior that means they will always be inferior'. As I'm sure most of you can recognise, that's a load of rubbish, but to me it highlights an important point. The more we say people are different and deserving of different behaviour, the more we perpetuate the idea that they are different. It can feel at times that Black people are almost privileged in what they can say. It can feel like White people are completely unable to say anything even a little racist to a Black person, and yet the same Black person could say something a bit racist about a White person and have no repercussions.

I feel we need more people like Zizek saying things like this, so that we can move on. I watched a documentary on Channel 4 a few months ago, 'Things we won't say about Race that are true', which showed the down side of PC quite well. In it they were saying essentially 'this race has this stereotype, but is there any truth to it'. Most of the time there was some truth behind the stereotypes. But the scary one they highlighted in this Documentary, was about Middle Eastern men and grooming and child prostitution. Despite there being a disproportionate amount of these men involved in this practise, when the Police made a video to warn girls about this, they were forced to change the original video, which contained older Middle Eastern men as the offender, to one where the offender was a white male, approximately the same age as the girls, as the original was deemed too offensive, and as such not PC enough.

Probably one of the better lines from the simpsons on the subject: http://download.lardlad.com/sounds/season13/furious3.mp3

"And in a gutless act of political correctness, Pizza day will now be known as Italian American Sauce Bread day."

 sebster wrote:



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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Basically saying everybody has flaws and sometimes some races have certain flaws more frequently (like Asians driving).

Yeah, and that's something I wish we could talk about more freely, because it's actually a pretty interesting subject. Because there certainly is something to the stereotype about bad Asian drivers, but when I was in China I was amazed at how good the driving was. The drivers there were active and attentive in a way that I dream drivers could be here in Australia. So what in the hell is going on with the Asian drivers over here?

One thing I've been wondering is if it isn't about Asians, but just about recent immigrants. Because as other ethnic groups are migrating here, I've noticed they tend to be pretty crappy drivers as well.

Perhaps its a cultural thing? It could be simply that they are not used to the roads / landscape / laws whatever, than biology.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 sebster wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Basically saying everybody has flaws and sometimes some races have certain flaws more frequently (like Asians driving).

Yeah, and that's something I wish we could talk about more freely, because it's actually a pretty interesting subject. Because there certainly is something to the stereotype about bad Asian drivers, but when I was in China I was amazed at how good the driving was. The drivers there were active and attentive in a way that I dream drivers could be here in Australia. So what in the hell is going on with the Asian drivers over here?

One thing I've been wondering is if it isn't about Asians, but just about recent immigrants. Because as other ethnic groups are migrating here, I've noticed they tend to be pretty crappy drivers as well.

Perhaps its a cultural thing? It could be simply that they are not used to the roads / landscape / laws whatever, than biology.

This is a valid point. Take for instance the british drive on the other side of the road and Asians often have right side driver seat in their cars (if I remember correctly). In fact that might be a possibility.

Australians, Indians, Thai and Japanese all drive on the left hand side of the road, the same as in the UK.

Oh jeez, my internet was out for a week so I didn't get to see this thread. Glad the post provoked responses.

Bottom line: PC absolutely concertizes hatreds by making people feel that the privacy of their own mind is under attack. It creates a scenario where you are not free to have your own thoughts without "policing" them. You could accurately call that the internalization of tyranny, if you liked to use silly bombastic phrases (which I do not). It damn sure doesn't create honest and genuine dialouge between individuals or groups. Thats really important.

As a counterpoint to PC, Zizek is big on the concept of "shared obscenity" breaking down walls between oppositional groups via shared humor. There is definitely something to that idea.


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 Crablezworth wrote:
And how am I supposed to know who the idiots are if no one can ever open their mouth?

#truth

I spent 30 minutes explaining this concept to one of my instructors, who is pretty much a walking caricature of "privileged white leftist academic", yesterday....I always assumed it was just common sense.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Perhaps its a cultural thing? It could be simply that they are not used to the roads / landscape / laws whatever, than biology.

I think it's more likely that it's an issue of circumstance. When you come from dense cities where public transport is the norm, and then settle in to suburbia, there's probably going to be a skills shortage. Most of us learn to drive from our parents, not just when they actually take us out in the car with our learner's, but also from 15 odd years of observing them drive. That means by the time we start driving, we have not just an understanding of the technical rules of the road, but an unwritten understanding of how you ought to drive, when you should and shouldn't yield etc.

One thing I've noticed is that, in my personal experience, Asian drivers are increasingly not the worst drivers on the road. More recent immigrants, Africans mostly, are taking that honour. And I've been told that years ago we use to mock the Italian and Greek immigrants. So there's probably just a natural pattern to this.


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 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Oh jeez, my internet was out for a week so I didn't get to see this thread. Glad the post provoked responses.

Bottom line: PC absolutely concertizes hatreds by making people feel that the privacy of their own mind is under attack. It creates a scenario where you are not free to have your own thoughts without "policing" them. You could accurately call that the internalization of tyranny, if you liked to use silly bombastic phrases (which I do not). It damn sure doesn't create honest and genuine dialouge between individuals or groups. Thats really important.

So you're glad your post provoked responses, but not enough to read them or consider what they said, and instead you'll just repeat what you originally claimed.

What a fething waste of time.

Don't spam the forum, even when it's funny. Thanks

@Peter Wiggin wrote: "It creates a scenario where you are not free to have your own thoughts without "policing" them".

I for one am all about policing my own thoughts (though sometimes I'm not as good about it as I should be.) I call it "ethics," or "politeness" not "internalization of tyranny." Or maybe sometimes I call it having a brain mouth barrier. I wish I was better at it and I wish some people made an effort, especially in online discussions.

 sebster wrote:



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 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Oh jeez, my internet was out for a week so I didn't get to see this thread. Glad the post provoked responses.

Bottom line: PC absolutely concertizes hatreds by making people feel that the privacy of their own mind is under attack. It creates a scenario where you are not free to have your own thoughts without "policing" them. You could accurately call that the internalization of tyranny, if you liked to use silly bombastic phrases (which I do not). It damn sure doesn't create honest and genuine dialouge between individuals or groups. Thats really important.

So you're glad your post provoked responses, but not enough to read them or consider what they said, and instead you'll just repeat what you originally claimed.

What a fething waste of time.

You are extremely rude.


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 Gordon Shumway wrote:
@Peter Wiggin wrote: "It creates a scenario where you are not free to have your own thoughts without "policing" them".

I for one am all about policing my own thoughts (though sometimes I'm not as good about it as I should be.) I call it "ethics," or "politeness" not "internalization of tyranny." Or maybe sometimes I call it having a brain mouth barrier. I wish I was better at it and I wish some people made an effort, especially in online discussions.

I think that the defining point in politeness and ethics lies in how you treat others. People are free to hold whatever ridiculous thoughts they want, as long as they treat others decently and within the law....or at least that is how its supposed to work.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

 sebster wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
Oh jeez, my internet was out for a week so I didn't get to see this thread. Glad the post provoked responses.

Bottom line: PC absolutely concertizes hatreds by making people feel that the privacy of their own mind is under attack. It creates a scenario where you are not free to have your own thoughts without "policing" them. You could accurately call that the internalization of tyranny, if you liked to use silly bombastic phrases (which I do not). It damn sure doesn't create honest and genuine dialouge between individuals or groups. Thats really important.

So you're glad your post provoked responses, but not enough to read them or consider what they said, and instead you'll just repeat what you originally claimed.

What a fething waste of time.

You are extremely rude.

Interestingly enough, not reading what others have said is rude too.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
@Peter Wiggin wrote: "It creates a scenario where you are not free to have your own thoughts without "policing" them".

I for one am all about policing my own thoughts (though sometimes I'm not as good about it as I should be.) I call it "ethics," or "politeness" not "internalization of tyranny." Or maybe sometimes I call it having a brain mouth barrier. I wish I was better at it and I wish some people made an effort, especially in online discussions.

This. The "Thought Police" card is so overplayed that it should be added to the Dakka bingo at this point.

Frankly society is partly an organisation for getting people to think the right things.

Obviously it is deeds rather than thoughts that count but evil deeds proceed from evil thoughts.

If the suppression of evil deeds leads to a suppression of evil thoughts, it seems a virtuous circle that we all ought to support.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Frankly society is partly an organisation for getting people to think the right things.

Obviously it is deeds rather than thoughts that count but evil deeds proceed from evil thoughts.

If the suppression of evil deeds leads to a suppression of evil thoughts, it seems a virtuous circle that we all ought to support.

Isn't evil just sort of a made up word to label people or things as evil? It seems like a way to easily label something or someone as a monster without realizing the things that happened in between or the reasoning of each of said choices.

When you say evil consider these things. How many things do people kill every day to eat? What would a farm look like if people got killed to feed the masses of some other sentient being? Would it be horrific to you? For us this is normal. It's also normal for people to neuter pets and kidnap them from their families. Have you ever seen your dog get taken from it's mother and watch as it's mom was totally dead inside and tried not to get attached to the puppy it had? I guess it depends on perspective though. People are weird.

Oh and I find these evil thoughts you think of as evil to be pathetic. They're not evil at all. Do I actually hurt anybody with them in a way that causes permanent damage? Is thinking everybody is special in a good way any less harmful? Or do you think it makes everybody think they're somehow special and destined for greatness even if it's never achieved. Personally I think it gives unreal expectations that make somebody think they deserve more and better just because they're supposedly special. In a sense that can make people think they're better than others and then you have people treating the 'lesser' people like crap like all those intellectual snobs that live in their parent's basement and don't have jobs yet feel the need to insult other people.

Feel free to substitute objectionable or another adjective you feel appropriate to describe things that are wrong and bad that people ought not to do.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Feel free to substitute objectionable or another adjective you feel appropriate to describe things that are wrong and bad that people ought not to do.

I'm making a point that it's a way to not look beyond something. If you label a person, thing, activity, etc. as evil you took away what else was going on and what brought them to that.

Also did you read any of my post? Why do people never consider any of the things I mentioned as evil? Is it because evil is only in play when it's people vs. people? Can only people be evil towards other creatures? It's been documented animals sometimes kill for fun. Is that evil? What if it doesn't know about your opinions on evil, care or even know enough to care?

I'm not labelling anyone as evil, I am using the word as shorthand for bad things.

Doing bad things arises from thinking bad things. If we can get people to stop thinking of bad things to do, we can hopefully reduce the amount of bad things that are done.

What is a bad thing? Things are just things. They obtain their status as good or bad, due to people saying that's good/bad. Also what is good in one place and time, is not good in another. The Wari practice/d cannibalism as a part of their funerary rites. To them this is obviously not bad, yet to others the idea of eating another person is abhorrent.

@statu: Sounds like to me Kilkrazy needs to be respectful of other people's and culture's opinions of good and evil .

I mean seriously if people often have different opinions on this throughout different cultures do you think it right to force your own morals upon them. That'd just make them hate you.

 Smacks wrote:


However, I will say there is another side to that. There are people who seem to just be waiting to be offended. Even if you don't actually say anything offensive, they will just take something out of context and run with it. I remember one conversation here on dakka where I was saying something about how shorter words and abbreviations were more likely to become taboo, because they are more likely to be used as slurs by common people, and that this might explain society's preference for more ornate and contrived language when discussing things such as race (or disability). That was enough to get me called "an out and out racist" and ignored by one user here, who I won't name. But seriously feth that guy. Even though I would be a staunch opponent of racism, because of him I have now resigned myself to never discussing racial issues again. It has become such a minefield that avoiding the subject altogether is the only smart move. I think that's sad and possibly unhealthy, but that's just the way it is.

Omg you're a lucky one. In one post I mentioned as an 8 year old (I should highlight my age heavily with this) I sometimes undressed my sister's dolls to laugh at their nudity. A completely non-sexual thing as I was too young to have those feelings. It was just a boyish prank. I also mentioned on here due to the majority of situations I wondered if a guy had a son as well when he mentioned he found his warhammer figures and the characters from frozen fighting. It was just a question but I was considered both creepy and stereotyping by somebody that made a new account just to tell me I was. Listen my sister made me play dream phone and once dressed up in my pajamas and shoved the crotch area with socks to pretend it was me. Undressing her dolls for the lulz at their lack of fully formed privates at an age that was too young to even start having sexual thoughts does not need to be skewed by others. Siblings fight and act weird. As long as it's not too crazy you should stop freaking out.

Oh and at one point the person basically implied I was a pedo as well. Can you believe some mod on here that edited the comments failed to edit the ones made by somebody that made me look bad but did edit the ones where I defended myself? That's exactly what happened though.

Personally I wish people cared less about stupid things like that and more about things like how at 3-5 years old I had to run under my bed to escape my dad beating me over telling him to 'be quiet'. I still have memories of cowering in a corner after saying similar and having him beat me at about 3-5 years old.

Your insistence that I should respect any sort of belief equally contradicts your own stated principle, which demands that my beliefs should be equally respected.

At the same time, you demonstrate the principle I am arguing in favour of, that social pressure is used to try to modify people's thinking and behaviour.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I wondered if a guy had a son as well when he mentioned he found his warhammer figures and the characters from frozen fighting. It was just a question but I was considered both creepy and stereotyping by somebody that made a new account just to tell me I was.

I think that's a growing problem. A lot of people are scared to engage with children out of fear that showing any interest might be misinterpreted. I even saw an experiment where a child is left alone in a busy shopping centre, and no one actually dares to walk up and ask her if she is alone or needs help.

my sister made me play dream phone and once dressed up in my pajamas and shoved the crotch area with socks to pretend it was me. Undressing her dolls for the lulz at their lack of fully formed privates at an age that was too young to even start having sexual thoughts does not need to be skewed by others. Siblings fight and act weird. As long as it's not too crazy you should stop freaking out.

Personally I wish people cared less about stupid things like that and more about things like how at 3-5 years old I had to run under my bed to escape my dad beating me over telling him to 'be quiet'. I still have memories of cowering in a corner after saying similar and having him beat me at about 3-5 years old.

That's terrible, I'm sorry that stuff happened to you. I hope that through education and a lot of soul searching, you are able to break the cycle of abuse, and never inflict that kind of suffering on anyone else, no child should ever be forced to play dream phone,

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I'm not labelling anyone as evil, I am using the word as shorthand for bad things.

Doing bad things arises from thinking bad things. If we can get people to stop thinking of bad things to do, we can hopefully reduce the amount of bad things that are done.

I don't think its that simple, hence the old adage "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"
Sometimes it is possible to do something bad, whilst thinking it will have a positive outcome.
i.e - The introduction of cane toads to reduce cane beetle populations.
I don't think the guy in charge of that project was thinking "gee, I sure want to feth over Australia's ecosystem!"