General > General Technical Chat
Dilbert loses newspapers, publishers, distributor, and possibly its website
Kim Christensen:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 11, 2023, 03:56:37 am ---
--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 11, 2023, 02:12:24 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 11, 2023, 02:00:46 am ---
--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 11, 2023, 01:13:57 am ---If someone advocated murder, theft, rape, etc is this something that our society should allow?
--- End quote ---
Advocate ≠ question. We already have laws to punish those who "advocate" (say, exhort) others to break the law.
--- End quote ---
Questioning whether a law that bans X should exist, is the same as advocating for X.
--- End quote ---
No, of course it is not!
For example, I can, and have, questioned whether Finland should have a death penalty for serial murderers, to find the reason why we don't (via comparison to countries that do have the death penalty). (I am also quite interested in the history as to why certain countries have it in law, and why it is or is not still applied in practice. It tells me what other people in other cultural contexts have perceived as fair and just.)
If it were to come to a vote, I will vote against capitol punishment in Finland, because of my personal view of the world.
--- End quote ---
Precisely my point. You questioned the law because you didn't agree with it.
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 11, 2023, 03:56:37 am ---Indeed, questioning a subject as if you were a proponent for it, is an extremely important investigative and educational tool.
Ever heard of the Socratic method?
I practice it all the time, and not just in human-to-human communications. When I do IT security, I 'don' the persona of the worst black hat I can imagine (and that version of NA is a true asshole) to find out the weak points, and how to defend the position I truly 'advocate' for.
--- End quote ---
But that's not what I'm talking about. You're not advocating for the blackhat, you're trying to understand the blackhat so you can defend against him. You're not saying that hacking should be legal and the internet should be a free for all.
Ever heard of the term "dog whistle"? It's these seemingly innocent phrases that have a double meaning.
Classic example is the old Mafia movie scene where the thug goes into a local shop and says, "Nice shop, it'd be a shame if something happened to it." while he waits for the shopkeeper to clue in and pay up.
This is basically what Adams is accused of doing. Using a "dog whistle" to signal to the rightwing crowd where he stands. Now, whether that was his actual intent I don't really know. (I personally wasn't familiar with the "It's Ok to be white" double meaning) But once the controversy came to light, he didn't deny it.
Trump did the same kind of stuff when asked what he thought about white supremacists. Instead of doing the logical thing and saying they were bad and he didn't agree with that ideology, he basically said they weren't all bad and must have their reasons.
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on March 11, 2023, 02:06:22 am ---
--- Quote from: HuronKing on March 11, 2023, 01:51:12 am ---I'm sure someone will argue that newspapers have been trained to preemptively pull authors who say stupid crap. But what about the agency of the newspapers here?
--- End quote ---
I honestly thought we discussed this already.
The majority just wants to live their lives in peace, and not risk anything because of something that does not impact their personal lives.
The true effect of cancellation or shunning is not that the target loses their livelihood, it is the fear it induces in the majority. It is that fear that makes the majority keep quiet, not rock the boat.
--- End quote ---
Ohh, I'm so terrified! ;D
Kim Christensen:
--- Quote from: james_s on March 11, 2023, 04:08:38 am ---
--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 11, 2023, 03:43:54 am ---It is though. You are then saying that it is OK for people to possess cocaine and people shouldn't be punished for doing so. The fact that you cannot see that, is on you. Not me.
--- End quote ---
No it is not at all.
I think I see what is going on here. I think you fundamentally misunderstand what it means "to question" something. It does not mean you simply state that it is wrong, instead it means let's ask ourselves if this is right and then sit down and look over the data and evaluate it. Maybe in the end we decide it is in fact sensible, maybe it's sensible under certain circumstances, maybe we aren't really sure, or maybe after looking at the data it turns out that it's wrong.
I've noticed there are some people in this world that see everything in binary, black & white, right and wrong and struggle with nuance, and thus it could make sense that questioning something would be interpreted the same as saying that it's wrong since it can't be anything in between. Perhaps you are one of those? I don't know.
--- End quote ---
No. What I'm saying is that by falsely undermining a subject they are effectively delegitimizing it under the guise of skepticism. Do you think that experts haven't already "sat down and looked over the data and evaluated it?" This is the typical "Oh we're just talking here; No harm no foul" that constantly comes from the "right". So I just don't buy the, "I'm just asking questions" excuse any more.
Climate change, vaccines, abortion, economics, etc are some areas where this is done constantly and always with an agenda.
james_s:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on March 11, 2023, 04:21:43 am ---
--- Quote from: james_s on March 11, 2023, 04:16:34 am ---I don't think it's right to reward selfish behavior, four people in this hypothetical situation are gonna get the shaft, how do you decide who?
--- End quote ---
"selfish behaviour" is not an absolute thing. What one person can view as selfish another can view as being the opposite, and even have legit reason to back up that view of it not being selfish.
You are falling into the trap of thinking that things are binary, that's almost always never the case in anything.
--- End quote ---
It's absolutely not binary, many factors must be taken into consideration, but the bottom line is in such a situation not everyone is going to get the care they need, hard decisions have to be made, vaccination status is only one of many factors, and arguably not the most important one, which in my opinion would be the likelihood of a person making a full recovery and/or the amount of healthy lifespan they likely have ahead of them after recovery. Second (again in my opinion) would be the extent of treatment they're likely to require. If someone could be estimated to be out of the hospital in a week it may make sense to prioritize them over someone likely to require 3 weeks of treatment, if it's even possible to estimate.
james_s:
--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 11, 2023, 04:24:32 am ---Precisely my point. You questioned the law because you didn't agree with it.
--- End quote ---
But what if he ultimately did agree with it? Again I don't think you understand what it means to question it. If something can't be question that means it is absolute, it is cast in stone, it is not up for discussion. That frankly is bullshit, nothing in the world is absolute, there are degrees to everything, there are circumstances, there are new ideas, new technologies, and new knowledge that comes into play.
Consider at one point in time it was believed that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun orbited around it. This was a fact beyond question and to question it was heresy which was severely punished. Galileo questioned that theory and and essentially got "cancelled" for doing so. Now of course we know that he was correct.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version