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[GreatJustice]

I love it when words are so overloaded with politically charged connotations and meanings that just using them implicitly affirms the correctness of a particular viewpoint, and then when the word is challenged people fall back onto the neutral definition of the word that the loaded word replaced.

I'm keenly interested in this, actually. I want to believe there is a trend (based on the fact it's occurring whilst I'm alive) that society has reached the point where we can interpret anything at least two ways. I feel it used to be that words kinda meant something specific and we didn't need to argue about it. For example, there was a time when everyone pretty much knew what racism referred to. We didn't debate what it meant, there was no "Equal Time" for people to discuss what racism means because there wasn't any debate. And now we debate what racism actually means. Reverse Racism, as it was known for a time, is now just "racism" where anyone can argue for discrimination against a certain group, even if on the surface its completely obvious why it doesn't apply.

I think it has to do in part with people who hold a mostly indefensible belief learning how to debate in the public space according to the rules that have evolved. For example, when disagreeing became "intolerance" in some people's minds. I'm referencing Trump supporters here who, maybe not incorrectly, criticized democrat and liberal-leaning people for resorting to disruption or violence at Trump rallies.

"Safe spaces" is now one of those things to me. As Powder Miner put it, is a safe space somewhere you can have an open discussion without negative consequences, or a place where certain opinions are not allowed? You can argue for both. Can just an opinion be harmful to someone when it's not attached to action? Is an opinion harmful period because it is intrinsically linked to action, because if % of the population holds an opinion, the likelihood of them acting on it in some way is unavoidable? (I.e., if you believe Affirmative Action is bad for everyone, and because others hold that opinion and can act politically on it, your opinion about AA effectively causes harm to a person of color in a group discussion setting? Take a more extreme example of an opinion: the majority of rapes are false reporting.)

It's to the point sometimes where real discussion becomes impossible. People can't even agree on the definition of the terms, modes, mores or attitudes they're attempting to debate on. They might as well be speaking a different language to each other. It's like the modern world's version of the Tower of Babel.

I once believed that, in a discussion or debate, you should settle on mutually agreed upon definitions from the get go and then present arguments using those definitions. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people would rather spend their time saying "YOU ARE USING THE WRONG DEFINITION OF THIS WORD" because, I suspect, they realize that if we removed the implicit connotations of the words they used and just used the definitions they wanted, their claims would look pretty weak.

[mainiac]

they tried to force him to apologize and yelled at him, trying to get him to quit, etc. The two were pretty much run out from the dorms.

See the thing that pisses me off is that countless people get shouted down but your heart only bleeds when it happens to the person who just happens to be cause celebre for the "grow a sack and get over it" crowd.  We have women getting mistreated, blacks getting mistreated, black women getting mistreated but it's all shrugs until they lose their tempers and then suddenly you clutch the pearls.

It reminds me of something that happened to me in grade school.  The gradeschool bully was sitting behind me in assembly and kept kicking my chair.  He just doing this for a good ten minutes, laughing and pointing out to his friends how angry I was.  Finally after telling him to stop countless times I turned around and punched him in the face.  And of course they punished me not him...  Take a wild shot in the dark about whether that encouraged or discouraged the bully?

[Powder Miner]

they tried to force him to apologize and yelled at him, trying to get him to quit, etc. The two were pretty much run out from the dorms.

See the thing that pisses me off is that countless people get shouted down but your heart only bleeds when it happens to the person who just happens to be cause celebre for the "grow a sack and get over it" crowd.  We have women getting mistreated, blacks getting mistreated, black women getting mistreated but it's all shrugs until they lose their tempers and then suddenly you clutch the pearls.

I've expressed displeasure with the fact that they HAVE been getting threatened and silenced every time you've brought it up. You're assuming that because I take issue with one thing I don't take issue with the other, which is completely incorrect. Don't use me to vent your frustrations with what other people do, actually read what I'm writing.

It reminds me of something that happened to me in grade school.  The gradeschool bully was sitting behind me in assembly and kept kicking my chair.  He just doing this for a good ten minutes, laughing and pointing out to his friends how angry I was.  Finally after telling him to stop countless times I turned around and punched him in the face.  And of course they punished me not him...  Take a wild shot in the dark about whether that encouraged or discouraged the bully?

It'd be much less justifiable if the bully had kept bullying you and you turned and punched a completely different person in the face, wouldn't it? I've had similar situations happen to me, like when a kid came at me and kept shoving me in math club and I got yelled at for yelling at him in return.

In fact, I'm actually pissed that you decided to lecture me on it like I've had no experience with it. I was a kid with issues, I had an IEP and had to do one of those "study skills" classes, I was in a counseling group, I was a screwed up kid, and that's without even throwing in the early signs of the Tourette's Syndrome I have. I know what it's like to be bullied, I know what that situation was like, and I'm pretty pissed that you implied that my having issues with certain people being shut up is like perpetuating that. It seems to me you're assuming that I haven't had those same issues, with your "take a wild shot in the dark" because I certainly have, and I really dom't appreciate being lectured about it.

[mainiac]

It'd be much less justifiable if the bully had kept bullying you and you turned and punched a completely different person in the face, wouldn't it?

Yes, it's a good thing I didn't do that, isn't it?

The professor's position would be a lot less defensible if he voluntarily shoved his nose into a tense situation and pissed people off, wouldn't it?

I've expressed displeasure with the fact that they HAVE been getting threatened and silenced every time you've brought it up.

Okay, let me just say now my heart totally bleeds for this professor.

[Powder Miner]

It'd be much less justifiable if the bully had kept bullying you and you turned and punched a completely different person in the face, wouldn't it?

Yes and the professor's position would be a lot less defensible if he voluntarily shoved his nose into a tense situation and pissed people off, wouldn't it?

Her email had been a reply to another email aiming to dictate policy that she disagreed with, not something she had originated and poked into a tense atmosphere unrelatedly in order to rile people up.

I'm sorry for exploding at you like I just did last post, by the way, a bit of a nerve was hit but I misinterpeted you in the first place.

And no, you didn't punch some random guy in the face, but I was just continuing an analogy -- what happened to her and her husband was wrong whether or not your heart bleeds for her, as she wasn't bullying or silencing people in the slightest.

[mainiac]

So in other words, it was a voluntary action.  Someone voluntarily took an action and that action had consequences.

[Powder Miner]

Yes. Just because it was a voluntary action doesn't mean the consequences were right or justified. This view that one can't voluntarily express disagreement with something just because it's a charged atmosphere is the very thing I take issue with.

[redwallzyl]

lets derail this argument with a nice discussion on unabashed racism. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37204837
Maine one upped Texas somehow.

[Frumple]

... didn't that come up a few pages back, actually? Know it's been linked to somewhere on the forum in the last day or three. I mean, I guess it's fine to point at yet another fine example of the republican party some more, but...

[Powder Miner]

>claims 90% of drug offenders in maine are black or hispanic
>2.4% of people in maine are black or hispanic
suuuuuuure lepage
suuuuuuure you're not a racist
suuuuuuure your overwhelmingly white state's drug problems are purely racial

i have strong issues with this country's drug laws anyway

[mainiac]

Yes. Just because it was a voluntary action doesn't mean the consequences were right or justified. This view that one can't voluntarily express disagreement with something just because it's a charged atmosphere is the very thing I take issue with.

All I have left to say is that nobody has at any point in this conversation expressed that view.

lets derail this argument with a nice discussion on unabashed racism. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37204837
Maine one upped Texas somehow.

"the enemy right now... are people of colour or people of Hispanic origin"

Silly Le Page, you can't say that unless you are a "billionaire" businessman.

[Max™]

Hey, LePage seems like he's got shit figured out, rate he's going now, he could end up being the republican candidate in 2020, might need to shit out some reality tv (which is distinguished from actual feces strictly in the rate at which it is actively consumed) and failed businesses first, but he's got the rest down pat.

The Federation was lots of things, utopia it ain't.

Within the context of equitable treatment it is.

Back to vaguely political derails as opposed to the... whatever the hell all this has been derail, Star Trek is described as a utopia, at least originally intended as one, and in some cases resembles definitions of one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then you look at it and ask why they talk about not using money, and then use money.
They talk about being peaceful explorers in a ship that can go toe to toe with enemy battle fleets, and could probably annihilate planetary populations of surprisingly close tech levels.
Personal weaponry seems to default to "disintegrate" and has to be "set to stun", or this should be interpreted as an order "hey, don't vaporize everyone", but I'm not sure which is more unsettling.
They mention seeking new civilizations but all the ones they are supposed to interact with already know them basically, as warp capable civs would.
While the ones they and others wouldn't or even couldn't know are often specifically forbidden with a vague handwave of "well we know better than to meddle", but if I was in a race without ftl space travel, magic item boxes, deathrays, and instant deployment capability I'd be pretty damn worried if one showed up to hang around quietly and observe my planet.
Are they not meddling because it would be tempting to just take over these savages?
Some people are capable of deciding to associate with them, but others just aren't quite there yet, though they're still totally equal and valued... but it is better to let them suffer and strive against scarcity based economics, trivially contrived racial conflicts, or generic catastrophe because maybe they'll become really equal like us?
Why are they forbidden from trying to actually offer the same sorts of choices and freedoms to new civilizations, but it happens all the time in the show?
Obviously because they wanted to add conflict and drama, but it still seems rather sketchy or even lazy.
They've got magical technologies in a post-scarcity setting but everybody is a baseline human, lots of diseases are eliminated, but everybody still dies of old age.
If the most powerful and important members of this society are dying because they just decided to let their body wear out, is this the same for the other members?
We don't know.
They present the greatest existential threat to their society as transhuman eusocialists, but we never see transhuman socialists, or even transhuman capitalists or neocapitalists or whatever flavor you want to pick.
Is transhumanism bad?
Star Trek sure seems to suggest that it is incompatible with their utopia, to the point that they won't do anything beyond using magical medical technology to extend unmodified lifespans out to a couple more centuries than we get now.
Is this equality?
If everyone is super, nobody will be, but what if everyone could be super but is kept mundane?
The other iconic villain (ignoring the space-blacks and space-asians and space-jews) is a genetically engineered superhuman, and if you look you can see that him and his buddies did do some messed up shit, but then the implication is left that all genetic engineering to produce superhumans or even just slightly improved humans is bad.
If the society is so free and advanced, why are people trying to blow it up, tear it down, take it apart, or twist it to their own ends?
Are people just that fucked up that we can't have nice things?
I mean, yes, we are, but if you ignore that it is done for drama again, the implications remain rather fucked up.

[Powder Miner]

Yes. Just because it was a voluntary action doesn't mean the consequences were right or justified. This view that one can't voluntarily express disagreement with something just because it's a charged atmosphere is the very thing I take issue with.

All I have left to say is that nobody has at any point in this conversation expressed that view.

You didn't express exactly that but you said her position was indefensible because she voluntarily poked her nose into a tense situation and pissed people off, which amounts to the same thing.

[mainiac]

which amounts to the same thing.

No it really does not.  [ur=https://xkcd.com/1357/]Free speech does not mean protection from consequences, especially not judgement.[/url]  We do in fact have a word for a forum where you can speak without judgement.  It's called a "safe space".

And now you have gone and made a liar out of me.

[PTTG??]

His comments actually get worse in context. He's breathtakingly regressive.