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[Frumple]

>:c
Don't say that! He's actually a really nice person!
Just... Too eager to believe certain things that aren't necessarily true.

You can be a nice person and still be a terrible, terrible teacher. That and what MZ said -- being in ground zero of a bigoted rural hellhole, I've met a lot of people that are very nice, so long as they don't think you're particularly different from them. They're not actually nice people, or good people, or anything but more-or-less scum, really, they're just quite friendly to their in-group.

I'll take your word as to their character, but I'll also take your word as to their competence, and... just about every mention you've made of the fellow paints 'im as someone that should be nowhere near a science classroom, y'know?

[FearfulJesuit]

>:c
Don't say that! He's actually a really nice person!
Just... Too eager to believe certain things that aren't necessarily true.

You can be a nice person and still be a terrible, terrible teacher. That and what MZ said -- being in ground zero of a bigoted rural hellhole, I've met a lot of people that are very nice, so long as they don't think you're particularly different from them. They're not actually nice people, or good people, or anything but more-or-less scum, really, they're just quite friendly to their in-group.

I'll take your word as to their character, but I'll also take your word as to their competence, and... just about every mention you've made of the fellow paints 'im as someone that should be nowhere near a science classroom, y'know?

Nah, they're not really any less good or nice than most other people. It's just that college-educated liberals are conditioned to consider everyone their in-group- that's quite a separate virtue altogether. I've met some highly douchey enlightened leftists. I'd frankly rather be around small-minded but well-intentioned conservatives- they're all over my extended family.

EDIT: To expand on this- most people, I've found, have more or less the same virtues, but their virtues operate within their worldview, and their worldview isn't always their choice. Open-mindedness is a very specific and only somewhat important virtue, in the grand scheme of things, and being widely knowledgeable and traveled is barely a virtue at all. My aunt is one of the kindest and good-hearted people I have ever met. She is also a very radical conservative evangelical, because she grew up in rural Kansas to a family of Mennonites and never left. Many American coastal liberals have ideologies that were no less shaped by their experiences growing up. Are they really better people?

[Frumple]

Well, one of them is considerably less likely to disown and/or shoot you if you fuck a different colored person or turn out to be gay, so... maybe? Just maybe.

I mean, yeah, I know a lot of people that are kind and good hearted. So long as you aren't black. Or gay. Or muslim. Or non-christian. Or have the wrong length hair. But maybe get out of the area if you're any of those. There's just sort of this list of things that will cause them to spontaneously and irrevocably hate you and maybe take a swing or two, run you off with a shotgun, you know, those sort of things.

Maybe things are better where you come from FJ, I'unno.

[Arx]

... isn't cold actually like... not a thing, technically? There's only more or less heat, or something like that. I forget exactly how it goes. I mean, I realize C's science teacher is shit heaped upon incompetence heaped upon shit, but... science... not being hot or cold is being being, since there's only degrees of hot...

>:c
Don't say that! He's actually a really nice person!
Just... Too eager to believe certain things that aren't necessarily true.

And that holds true for many of the people involved in the discussion, in fact most people in my 10th grade classes (even the "I'm racist against gays because I don't see them as real people")- they're actually really nice people, they just follow blindly and not try to understand as much.
I want to explain things to them, but I'm too scared.

If you like, I can type up some of the stronger arguments in favour of evolution from a Christian standpoint and send them to you, as a fellow pro-evolution Christian.

E: so you can try bringing it up in passing, and see what your teacher says.

E2: dammit you cannot brine something up in passing.

[UXLZ]

Erm, if you're too scared to talk to them about it then they aren't nice people.

[mastahcheese]

Erm, if you're too scared to talk to them about it then they aren't nice people.

If someone had told me this earlier in my life, I would be in such a different place right now.

*Goes back to counting down how long he has alone time*

[Glowcat]

People can be scary and yet generally "nice". As Frumple said:

Well, one of them is considerably less likely to disown and/or shoot you if you fuck a different colored person or turn out to be gay, so... maybe? Just maybe.

I mean, yeah, I know a lot of people that are kind and good hearted. So long as you aren't black. Or gay. Or muslim. Or non-christian. Or have the wrong length hair. But maybe get out of the area if you're any of those. There's just sort of this list of things that will cause them to spontaneously and irrevocably hate you and maybe take a swing or two, run you off with a shotgun, you know, those sort of things.

The nature of their socialization makes both considering oneself a compassionate person and yet justifying their cruelty not merely possible but very likely. Our morality as human beings is plagued by such contradictions. Navigating around people whose cultural surroundings make them hostile to your position or even existence is necessary and not unique to contained individuals or groups.

[UXLZ]

Erm, if you're too scared to talk to them about it then they aren't nice people.

If someone had told me this earlier in my life, I would be in such a different place right now.

*Goes back to counting down how long he has alone time*

I am confuzzled. Are you saying that's incorrect, or correct?

[ChairmanPoo]

Did you know that Terry O'Quinn is actually Emperor Vespasian?

[Baffler]

Did you know that Terry O'Quinn is actually Emperor Vespasian?

My God, it's uncanny...

Who's Terry O'Quinn?

[UXLZ]

People can be scary and yet generally "nice". As Frumple said:

There's a reason that nice is in quotation marks, Glowcat, and it's not a good one.

[mastahcheese]

Erm, if you're too scared to talk to them about it then they aren't nice people.

If someone had told me this earlier in my life, I would be in such a different place right now.

*Goes back to counting down how long he has alone time*

I am confuzzled. Are you saying that's incorrect, or correct?

I'm saying that you are correct.
Also, I have to get off the computer, against my will, in less than 15 minutes.
Because you are correct.

[ChairmanPoo]

My God, it's uncanny...

Who's Terry O'Quinn?

John Locke from LOST

[Yoink]

Nice people tend to get on my nerves a lot.

[UXLZ]

Erm, if you're too scared to talk to them about it then they aren't nice people.

If someone had told me this earlier in my life, I would be in such a different place right now.

*Goes back to counting down how long he has alone time*

I am confuzzled. Are you saying that's incorrect, or correct?

I'm saying that you are correct.
Also, I have to get off the computer, against my will, in less than 15 minutes.
Because you are correct.

Mm... I think I've caught the gist of it.
Good luck, and look for silver linings. If they're even there...