unixknight

Time to schedule a cage match...

Everyone - nix that. I assume no responsibility for what may or may not happen to someone subsequent to having dinner with me and my wife. I also refuse to answer any questions regarding the presence of a bunny suit in my trunk. That's it. I'm calling in the Easter Bunny to protect me. He handles all my light work.

I'll do you one better, because I don't really care if someone says that. In more than one job I've bubbled up to HR that it would be really great if "Jesus Christ" weren't commonly used as an expletive. Has it ever made a difference? Not that I can tell. That leaves me with two options. I can fret about it or I can do my best to ignore it. I choose the latter. You're right that reasonable people will behave reasonably... but that's another subjective term. Someone else might find it perfectly reasonable to say those things. Whose version of "reasonable" gets priority? This is why we need to make room for each other. That's fine but again, that's not the way we're being encouraged to think by pop culture, is it? You're talking about how reasonable adults handle it. I'm talking about a dangerous cultural trend that's going the other way.

We all have our hobbies... Don't judge.

It got me thinking about the Bunnyman...

The problem is this: What's offensive to some is not offensive to others. "Offensive" is a 100% subjective term. It cannot be applied objectively. So we, as a society, have two options: Take every single complaint about offense seriously, and continue to narrow our vocabulary in a vain effort to get to a place here nobody gets offended, ever. Progress as a society to the point where people aren't so sensitive that they have to be verbally coddled at every turn. (We actually achieved this at one point, but have been deteriorating for about the last 30 years until here we are... with people being jailed for speech.) In any case, I don't think the story you've shared here makes the point. In your story, nobody appears to have gotten angry at the term, nobody appears to have been hateful in using it... But that isn't what we see in the media, is it? People are not only failing to behave as adults out there, they're actively being encouraged and rewarded for behaving like children.

Those aren't examples of doctrinal change, but rather changes in policy and/or procedure. Those things have changed for thousands of years, but the doctrine remains the same.

This is another facet of the problem I was griping about in the thread about the constant notifications...

Natural disasters happen because we live in a fallen world. It's a facet of an environment that we must live in because we can't live in God's presence in our current state. So it's not that the cause and effect is: Disobedience results in natural disasters. Things are rather more complex than that.

Actually here's another thought... When you're listening to the news, or political commentary, etc, and you hear the term "hate speech," mentally replace that with "thoughtcrime" and see if that changes the message in any way. 5 will get you 10 it doesn't.

Always good to look at both sides. The reason I posted this, and am as passionate as I am on the subject, is because I honestly believe we're heading into a future not unlike Orwell's description. I do believe that much of this stuff is well intentioned, but what people don't understand is that they're forging the very same weapons that will be used against them in the future, and don't realize it. It's easy to sympathize with the desire to get rid of media that appears to be bigoted or mean spirited, especially when it's aimed at someone that seems vulnerable, or who has been historically downtrodden. That's the better angels of our nature wanting to do something to make the world a better place. There's two problems with that... People aren't always very good at discerning legitimate examples of mean spirited verbal attacks. We see it all the time. If I cite a statistic that says more people die in acts of terror by X group as opposed to Y group, you *know* someone is going to accuse me of being hateful and bigoted against group X. Then they call what I said "hate speech" even if the data I'm citing is factually accurate. So now, instead of discussing a real problem and coming up with real solutions, we're prevented form discussing it at all, and the problem just gets worse. What happens when the government, which now has this power to censor and silence, shifts ideology and starts using that power in a wider and wider net? Or what if it's used against the very same people who pushed for giving it that power to begin with? It's easy to give greater power to a government that seems to be on your side, ideologically. But that's never a permanent situation. Analogy: A few years ago I was debating with a friend over the question of whether it would be okay for the military to conduct strikes against American citizens. He was perfectly fine with it, saying that it was a necessary power. (This was during the Obama administration.) I asked him if he would still be comfortable with that when there was eventually a Republican in office. You should have seen his face. That thought had never even occurred to him.

That's why this "speech = violence" trend has got to stop.

We had the Primary sing before the first speaker, then had a musical number after that.

Well, thoughtcrime is a concept form Orwell's 1984. From the Wikipedia page on thoughtcrime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime: "thoughtcrime is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question Ingsoc, the ruling party." How can you tell what people think or believe? "The citizens of Oceania are watched by the Thought Police through the telescreens. Every movement, reflex, facial expression, and reaction is measured by this system, monitored by the Ministry of Love." "Hate Speech" is defined differently in different jurisdictions, but broadly speaking it's defended as being a measure to prevent bullying, but in actual practice you can be prosecuted for any expression of an opinion, belief or information that violates the current ideology of the state, as it relates to certain demographics. People are being arrested every day in the U.K. for things they have said on Twitter... and not even necessarily in a bullying context. So one might argue that they're entirely different, based on intent and the specifics of what constitutes "hate crime," but I maintain that in actual practice, they're the same thing. Even in 1984 the Thought Police couldn't literally read minds, but they'd go after people for thoughtcrime based on what they said, their mannerisms, etc. (Or perhaps what they posted on Twitter...)

In another thread, I commented that "hate speech" is one step away from "thought crime." I've been thinking about it over the weekend, and I'd like to take that back. Instead, I should have said "hate speech" = "thoughtcrime." They're not a step apart from each other, they're the same thing. Disagree? Show me the difference.

When I'm not rooting for the Caps, I root for the Avalanche. Should they meet for the Stanley Cup... I dunno what will happen. I'm from the D.C. area, my wife is from Denver...

That's pretty funny. My wife and I have a similar joke. We're going to be sealed to each other and our kids next month and the running joke is "Now you're gonna be stuck with me forever! Bwahahahahahahaha!" Fry is funnier though. It's a viable concept but it does assume the individual members of the family will remain worthy. That's why I think relatively few families will make it fully intact. That's the reality of fee agency though. They can't be forced, and not all will use their agency to their own benefit.

I'm always happy to see the Penguins humiliated.

I agree completely with the sentiment here. It's been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. If someone has views that are dumb, immoral or whatever, then by all means let them say it out in the open where those ideas can be challenged in public. That said, I really don't like the term "hate speech." It's one of those phrases that gets applied to anything people don't like so that it can be censored in places that already have "hate speech" laws. Besides, "hate speech" is only one step away form "thought crime."

Expressing an opinion. Any opinion. Expressing support for an idea, religion, political party, etc. Expressing opposition to an idea, religion, political party, etc. Discussing facts. Any facts. Expressing agreement with someone. Anyone. Expressing disagreement with someone. Anyone. Proposing a solution to a problem. Any solution, any problem. That's a start. Maybe I'll think of more things to add later but this should give you a good baseline.

Seconded.

I think sometimes it's complicated, but that doesn't mean we can't come to simple, basic truths. Silencing political speech is wrong. Period. There's no ambiguity there. None. That's not complicated at all. There's no nuance there. We can talk about nuance in free speech as it pertains to adult material and such, but that isn't political.

Haha found it! Maybe I was remembering wrong about the paddles...

I don't know how ours ranked in terms of cost or how fancy it was. It was an Odyssey 200 (as opposed to the Odyssey 2, which was cartridge based) and it had 3 variants of Pong built-in. It had two paddles permanently connected by wires. There were dials to adjust difficulty and speed, as well as adjusting the screen position on the TV.

Agreed. And I'm of two minds when it comes to stuff like free speech vs. porn. On the one hand, as a Libertarian I have to concede that the rules do apply to all, equally. So if that's what consenting adults want to do, then neither I nor the Government ought to have the authority to prevent it. At the same time, morally, when I look at what each political side is fighting for what to do with their freedom, it becomes quite clear which side is the true moral side.