Miscellany

[JoeP]

[Ensign Steve]

Don't go chasin' waterfalls

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Canadians thankful for harvest or St. Lawrence voyage or something - The Beaverton

OTTAWA – Canadians nationwide are gathering with friends and family to give thanks for the harvest or a historical St. Lawrence voyage or whatever.

“My family always has a big turkey dinner on the Sunday or Monday of Thanksgiving weekend, or one time the Tuesday before,” said Ottawa local Rachael Thomson. “My homemade cranberry sauce; delicious stuffing; pumpkin pie with whipped cream: it’s all in celebration of what I think is the end of the year’s harvest but could be something else”.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[Crumb]

"Draw me, like one of your mega men."

[slimshady2357]

Spitfire jumps a distance of over 31 feet to create a new world record for the farthest leap by a dog pic.twitter.com/00alb3lNYB

— viral viral (@xxlfunny1) 10 October 2018

[Qingdai]

That's a good dog. 15/10

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[Ymir's blood]

[JoeP]

Intefamill!

I expect they followed that gull into the store.

[Ymir's blood]

Field trip

[slimshady2357]

I love slurping the amber dragon

Reefer Madness Reaches Canada - YouTube

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[JoeP]

Waiter!

[BrotherMan]

Are you a fan of delicious flavor?

Did you hear what happened to Pluto?

That's messed up, right?

[lisarea]

OK, I would not have guessed this.

Large Majorities Dislike Political Correctness - The Atlantic

I'm not a super-fan of how they were getting people's hot takes on specific keywords without defining them, but it is kind of interesting.

PLUS, I do think it's worth everyone remembering that the trolly divisiveness sowing is far far worse on the right, but it's not nonexistent on the left. I've seen some stuff in progressive circles that approaches MAGA level dumbassery.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I've seen some stuff in progressive circles that approaches MAGA level dumbassery.

Happy to provide!

[Crumb]

Originally Posted by lisarea

OK, I would not have guessed this.

Large Majorities Dislike Political Correctness - The Atlantic

Of course they don't like it. An issue is only about "political correctness" if it is something you already disagree with.

[lisarea]

Yeah, the term 'political correctness' has had negative connotations practically since its conception. One of my first memories of it was one of those cheap little jokebooks they'd sell at the counter in chain bookstores.

But the article is pretty enlightening in that such a large majority of people find it a problem. I would never have guessed those numbers.

(And when I'm talking about the craziness in "progressive" circles, I don't mean here. There are some seriously authoritarian dumbasses out there in weird insular little forums, and trust that if anyone here said the things I'm thinking of, I'd be active-aggressive about it.)

[Ari]

This quote both made me laugh and distills down peoples hate for change, I mean political correctness.

It seems like everyday you wake up something has changed … Do you say Jew? Or Jewish? Is it a black guy? African-American? … You are on your toes because you never know what to say. So political correctness in that sense is scary.

Yeah it's so scary when the world changes and isn't the same, what with these kids with their car phones, slap bracelets and portable boomboxes, I can't even call people chinks and do asian eyes anymore without someone getting into a huff! Why can't the world stop at whatever year I personally graduated highschool in and then never change again!! It's so unfair! Why should I have to do the work when the world should conform to me!!

Why I heard from a random source that one time somewhere in California one whole student was banned for wearing an american flag shirt, man the whole country has gone political correctness mad I tell ya!

Of course most people reject political correctness when 'political correctness' almost always means "being overly sensitive in a way that confuses me and I don't approve of" might as well do a poll on how many people like things that they dislike.

Amusingly it's also apparently totally not PC to take the ever loving piss out of whiney dudes who bitch about PC things, they get all PC about being called lazy bigoty grandpa who needs the world set on easy mode to pass the first level, should I puree your food for you too bigoty grandpa? apparently it's not PC to mock them, only they get to do the mocking. Which of course is also what it comes down too, they want to be able to mock people, feel good, and not get called on it. There's also some interesting underlying psychology of people who need to feel right all the time and don't know how or can't bring themselves to apologize. The fear of looking stupid or not being with it informs their daily life so so much. The obvious answer is to use whatever previous term you thought was acceptable and if called out on it, go "oops, my bad, I didn't realize" and then fucking change your term. Sadly so so many people view saying they were wrong as literal death and just double down on how right they always are and how everyone else is wrong as if giving in means being eaten by the PC bear.

Also double LoLz for "I did a poll on twitter and am now using it in my article."

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Ari

This quote both made me laugh and distills down peoples hate for change, I mean political correctness.

Yeah it's so scary when the world changes and isn't the same, what with these kids with their car phones, slap bracelets and portable boomboxes, I can't even call people chinks and do asian eyes anymore without someone getting into a huff! Why can't the world stop at whatever year I personally graduated highschool in and then never change again!! It's so unfair! Why should I have to do the work when the world should conform to me!!

OK, so I did not intend to be coming in and defending the majority from that article, but that is super over the top harsh on that guy.

That guy didn't say those things. PLUS, which one do you think it is? Black guy or African-American? Because the answer is, "It depends on the context and who you ask."

He's saying that he wants to say the right things, but doesn't know what they are and is having trouble keeping up. Maybe he doesn't spend as much time on the internet as most people here do, or maybe he's just got different filter bubbles. And he lives in Oklahoma, so he's going to encounter different things in real life than you do, too.

Some of the other stuff from the article, sure, but that particular guy sounds way more reasonable than you're giving him credit for. Hell, he's sounding more reasonable than you sound right now.

There are enough actual hardcore racists out there. I don't see the value in trying to inflate their numbers by counting guys like that in with them.

[Ari]

Well I kinda didn't quote details about him for a reason, I have no problem with whoever the guy is, but he hit the nail on the head for why people are anti-PC, it's because change is scary and they don't want to. Often it seems that whatever is considered bad and whatever is considered acceptable in the person's formative years is what they deem as the line for PC things.

That the guy is an American Indian makes it a bit funny to me considering I grew up in a place where suggesting that "Red Skins" with generic Indian #5 logo as a mascot, while white kids dress up in red face and war paint is maybe regressive is considered PC gone wild. Which certainly has no connection whatsoever to the local high school, that many residents went to, mascot being The Red Skins. When forced to change by the state the vast-majority-white school had a minor tantrum and now has no mascot because being asked to change from racially offensive terms to literally anything else is just way too much to ask these poor put upon people who just want to wear their neon feathers and woop like savages in support of their football team. (I kinda wonder if this American Indian (if he really is an American Indian at all, or if he's Indian like I'm Indian*) would consider people tisking someone going up to him and saying "How! You Red Skin, me White man, *rain dance*" as too PC or not).

A portion of anti-PC bullshit comes from a 'if it ain't the actual holocaust, don't fix it' type of thinking (yes, that's purposefully hyperbolic). Like none of the white people at the school, and the majority of the local native american population that went to that school years ago said they have a problem with "Red Skins" so why change it. There seems to be a pushback to personal growth for personal growths sake, and are only willing to change if literally forced to. That maybe even if no one is offended, calling our white asses the Red Skins is something that should stay in the past as we learn more, not for the sake of offending people but for general personal and societal growth's sake.

Indeed many people want to say the right things, but they also want to never be wrong and not do the work. You don't get all three for free. Either you don't say anything, or you are occasionally wrong, or you do the work. Anti-PC proponents often don't want to shut up, they don't want to be wrong, and they don't want to do the work, but they still want their cookie and pat on the head.

If you fuck up, sincerely apologize and then take measures not to do it again, anyone still bitching about the fuck up was never going to be happy anyway until you fell on your sword and bled for them. On the real 'PC-Police' side of things there are more than a few people who are angry, and need someone to be angry at. I've seen this quite a bit on the activist side of things where some activists for a cause seem to care less about that cause and more about shouting and finding a target for their anger. But talking about the serious issue we as a society have over misplaced anger is getting a bit off topic.

(IMO there's also an interesting bit of projection going on when people see messing up once as a death sentence. I wonder just how many happily crucify and vilify someone for a single wrong doing and thus assume others would do the same.)


ETA:
*For the foreigners, in the US it's not uncommon for white people with a tiny amount of American Indian blood in them to call themselves Indian (See Elizabeth Warren for recent example). I'm 1/16th Cherokee which means I'm white, but to many white people that also means I should be able to claim I'm Indian as well.

ETA2: Also if you think, boy he seems annoyed at this, the answer is yes, I have a pet peeve of among other things for every lazy two bit edgy comedian doing sets on how PC the world is "today" as if their views are new and scandalous instead of the majority view based on 40 year old recycled material.

[lisarea]

OK, but can you see how responses like yours to that guy's quote are misdirected anger? He didn't say what you said he did. He said he didn't know if those were the right terms or not (neither do I), and he said political correctness in that sense is scary. I kind of got the feeling someone had gone off on him sort of the way you just did and he still isn't sure why. That would be scary.

That's actually exactly the type of thing I was talking about, except people say it directly to other people. They do that whole, "Oh, AND you probably think..." thing and build some absurd strawman around what is effectively a misunderstanding, sometimes on their own part.

I told the intent story here before probably, but it's so good I'm telling it again now: Someone was asking some question about how they establish intent in the law, and someone who didn't even bother to actually try to read and understand the question went on a multi-paragraph rant about how the asker probably thinks "INTENT IS MAGIC" and is looking for excuses and a bunch of other genuinely nasty shit.

Fortunately, cooler heads did prevail, probably because the asker was an established poster and I think one of the moderators there was a lawyer, and the rant was deleted, but that kind of thing happens in less obvious ways all the time, where someone goes off on some obviously long-simmering rant in response to little more than some trigger word. I have seen a lot of people shouted down and dogpiled for that sort of thing.

And seriously, if you can't even listen to what a person is saying and give them the benefit of the doubt every now and again that they're sincere and aren't just dogwhistling, then really, what's the point? I swear sometimes people really are just looking to score points, especially when they spend too much time in little insular circles feeding each other ragebait.

Honestly, I have quit even looking at a lot of those forums because they all seem to devolve into echo chambers just perpetuating that kind of simplistic divisiveness that is not nearly enough unlike redhatting.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by lisarea

OK, but can you see how responses like yours to that guy's quote are misdirected anger? He didn't say what you said he did. He said he didn't know if those were the right terms or not (neither do I), and he said political correctness in that sense is scary. I kind of got the feeling someone had gone off on him sort of the way you just did and he still isn't sure why. That would be scary.

Indeed it might be scary. Except I wasn't speaking to him and wouldn't give that reply to him, I was using the quote as a general example of how the many anti-PC people I've ran into view things. It wasn't ever meant as a reply to him but to emphasize a point, I was never addressing him specifically.

If that guy was actually here, my reply to him would be much more of the, 'you can't get all three for free,' and if he's seriously worried about not fucking up and offending people then clearly he's on the right track and fuck anyone who wants to continue to punish him.

The unfortunate part is that many people who rail on and on about the PC police and actively define themselves as 'anti-PC' don't want to change, and don't care about others, they want to stay the same and make others accept being treated poorly. If he's not like that, then awesome! Good for him! Clearly I wasn't addressing him then.

Originally Posted by lisarea

"Oh, AND you probably think..." thing and build some absurd strawman around what is effectively a misunderstanding, sometimes on their own part.

Indeed that is annoying, but as in my real life example the idea that white people think being side eyed for naming themselves the Red Skins and having a pow wow, then having a breakdown when told not too is not a strawman at all but a personal experience and view by my High School circa 2016 (when they were forced to change it and decided well if we can't call ourselves by an outdated racist name, then we just won't have a mascot at all *pouty face* Do you enjoy making our students suffer PC police?)
(I lost a lot of respect for people who were once my teachers and are now administration when they had tantrums over not being able to call themselves Red Skins.)

[erimir]

I'd also say that a poll on whether political correctness is bad is fairly similar to a poll on whether racism is bad.

The large majority of people will say both things are bad.

If questioned about their own beliefs and behaviors, however, they will define those as not racist and not PC. But I can guarantee that plenty of the people who say racism is bad are plenty racist. And many of the ones who say being PC is bad will say you shouldn't say the n-word, or you shouldn't use "retard" as an insult, or the like.

The more relevant question is what they consider to be racism or political correctness.

For example, a lot of people will see that headline and assume that running on accepting transgender people will backfire, because it's too PC. But the same report found that 60% of Americans think we should accept trans people, and only a minority thought we had gone too far in accepting them.

Given the large majorities who are anti-PC, there are some who are both anti-PC and pro-accepting trans people. But I guarantee many of the anti-PC folks think accepting trans people is being PC.

And the people who are most vocal in complaining about political correctness are especially likely to view LGBT rights, period, (as an example) as political correctness. Democratic politicians don't complain about political correctness (afaik), but Republican ones do. When they do so, they generally use it to mean respect for women and minority rights.

And for a more extreme and stupid example, Trump calls police not immediately escalating to beatings, tasers or gunshots an example of "political correctness". It's "political correctness" not to bash an arrested person's head on the police car roof while you're pushing them into the car.

With such a variety of conflicting interpretations of the term, the fact that most people dislike it doesn't really tell you much of... well, anything about actual issues. Any analysis that doesn't start by acknowledging the inherent vagueness and conflicting definitions of PC used by different people is already starting with a most likely fatal flaw.

(And of course, I could say that I oppose political correctness, where political correctness is deference to the troops, the flag, the anthem, Confederate symbols, Christian chauvinism, etc. Under any reasonable non-partisan definition of political correctness, the complaints about Kaepernick and such are the height of political correctness.)