The World is Stupid

[DrZoidberg]

The opposite of fascism is tolerance. You're not tolerant. As your statement clearly demonstrates.

The problem with evil is that evil people rarely think they're evil. They're convinced they're the good guys.

So you're just using those terms as vague insults, rather than political descriptors with actual meaning?

I don't know whether I agree that "tolerance" is an unquestionable virtue, but I also think that promoting racist public discourse as a cure for racism is an act of mental gymnastics so profound it would be fascinating if I did not encounter it so depressingly often.

It's not a vague insult. The old timey Nazis and communists were part of the same movement, totalitarians. It was an anti tolerant movement, where a lot of effort was spent on rooting out the enemy of the people. I group them both up in the fascist bag, even though on paper they're supposed to be mortal enemies. In practice wherever they took power the end result was quite similar. Their shared enemy was the liberals.

The rise of neo-fascism today and the rise of Woke is the same thing. It's the same political force. It's just the modern version of it. The increasing political polarization isn't because the neo-fascists are super bad and the left are super good. Both the left and right are becoming increasingly evil. I think it's more clear communication if we slap the same label on both of them. Since they're essentially the same thing. Labels rarely catch every dimension of a persons beliefs. But I think it's close enough. That's why I call you fascist.

It's as interesting, and funny as it is sad, that you think tolerance is the gateway towards racism. I disagree.

I'm a liberal. Tolerance is one of my highest ideals. Liberalism is the opposite of fascism. I think you and me couldn't be further apart politically.

 

[zorq]

Woke hell is where everybody's language is policed so nobody ever says anything potentially offensive, even by mistake. Clear and authentic communication becomes difficult. Everybody lies most of the time.

Let me get this straight. In your hypothetical woke hell you might be walking down the street with a friend and say, "Watch out for that black cat," and the person you are walking with will say, "How rude, that cat is 'melanisticly endowed.' I don't think we can be friends anymore." So the next time you are walking down the street, your other friend trips over a cat because this time the cat was white and you didn't know how to politely warn them.

 

[Derec]

Let me get this straight. In your hypothetical woke hell

Reality is not that far off your hypothetical. 13 years ago a black politician complained that the term "black hole" was racist.
Dallas County officials spar over 'black hole' comment

Back then, we laughed about the idiot. But now woke idiots like him are running the asylum.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Woke hell is where everybody's language is policed so nobody ever says anything potentially offensive, even by mistake. Clear and authentic communication becomes difficult. Everybody lies most of the time.

Let me get this straight. In your hypothetical woke hell you might be walking down the street with a friend and say, "Watch out for that black cat," and the person you are walking with will say, "How rude, that cat is 'melanisticly endowed.' I don't think we can be friends anymore." So the next time you are walking down the street, your other friend trips over a cat because this time the cat was white and you didn't know how to politely warn them.

Yes. It's an exaggerated example, but shows very well what I'm talking about. Your example is the extreme end the sliding scale of woke.

If somebody is a racist, but manages to avoid using racially charged words, they might think of themselves as not being racist. They might even think that they are the good people, fighting racism. Because they've tripped themselves up in a mire of virtue signaling. I've been to so many stiff middle class parties where everybody is virtue signaling and extoling the brave actions of this or that brown or gay person, and where everybody is white and CIS and works at a company where anybody not white is so adjusted to the Scandinavian culture that they are more stereotypically Scandinavian than the white people. These people are continually tripping over the cat, but don't even realize they are.

 

[bigfield]

Woke hell is where everybody's language is policed so nobody ever says anything potentially offensive, even by mistake. Clear and authentic communication becomes difficult. Everybody lies most of the time.

Let me get this straight. In your hypothetical woke hell you might be walking down the street with a friend and say, "Watch out for that black cat," and the person you are walking with will say, "How rude, that cat is 'melanisticly endowed.' I don't think we can be friends anymore." So the next time you are walking down the street, your other friend trips over a cat because this time the cat was white and you didn't know how to politely warn them.

Yes. It's an exaggerated example, but shows very well what I'm talking about. Your example is the extreme end the sliding scale of woke.

If somebody is a racist, but manages to avoid using racially charged words, they might think of themselves as not being racist. They might even think that they are the good people, fighting racism. Because they've tripped themselves up in a mire of virtue signaling. I've been to so many stiff middle class parties where everybody is virtue signaling and extoling the brave actions of this or that brown or gay person, and where everybody is white and CIS and works at a company where anybody not white is so adjusted to the Scandinavian culture that they are more stereotypically Scandinavian than the white people. These people are continually tripping over the cat, but don't even realize they are.

What's "tripping over the cat" in this analogy?

It seems like you're trying to say that politically correct white people would do more about systemic racism if they weren't preoccupied with politically correct speech?

 

[DrZoidberg]

What's "tripping over the cat" in this analogy?

It seems like you're trying to say that politically correct white people would do more about systemic racism if they weren't preoccupied with politically correct speech?

It's more insidious than that. I'm arguing that they have no interest in ending systemic racism. It's just something they say. Their actions and their words don't match. They may have fooled themselves they're not racists.

My impression is that the woke crowd want black people to stay victims so that they get to show compassion. But they have no interest in actually empowering non-whites. That's why they put so much effort in identifying symbols of victimhood. If you're a victim you have no power and you have no reason to try.

I see it as a continuation of the old timey white supremacy. While the woke language is inverted, it is in practice the same thing, because nowhere in the woke way of thinking is a plan for victims of oppression to stop being victims. The main difference is that the white supremacists now get to think of themselves as anti-racists. Current society is like an abused wife who manage to leave their husband only to find a new abusive husband, because we're not aware of the underlying mechanics behind white supremacy. It's a social dynamic that we recognize. It's familiar and therefore feels unthreatening. So we cling to it. We say we want change while clinging to the old.

That's why South Park's PC Principle is such a genius character. All he wants to do is get lit with his bros and score hot white chicks. He hopes that aggressively enforcing woke slogans will impress the hot white chicks. He has zero interest in what non-white non-CIS people think about anything. The parties he goes to is only ever just a bunch of frat boys. His culture is built around claiming to try to include minorities while implicitly excluding them. That's what woke is.

Woke doesn't fight racism. It perpetuates racism.

 

[laughing dog]

It's not the Swedish way. It's the only way that works everywhere.

Terrorism is by definition the last resort of an outgunned enemy. Its about creating terror greater than them just showing up with guns.

Nazi Germany was a real military threat. Terrorists never are, by definition.

Because terrorism is violence from a belligerent side that can't win, by ignoring them we are defeating them.

Give a successful example of defeating terrorists who perform actual violent acts by ignoring them.

History is full of them.

The atheist anarchists of the early 20'th century. No government took them particularly seriously. They had other more serious problems to worry about. Eventually the militant anarchists went away.

Another good one is IRA's terror attacks in London. In the 50'ies to 70'ies the Brits in northern Ireland became more and more extreme in clamping down on IRA. Only swelling the ranks of IRA. In the 80'ies they reversed policy and became lenient and chill. They started treating IRA bomb attacks like bad weather. A couple of years ago IRA disarmed.

Your interpretation of history is mistaken. The Brits did not ignore the IRA, they were patient and engaged with them in talks.
It also heloed that the Irish got suck of the IRA and the Provis.

 

[DrZoidberg]

History is full of them.

The atheist anarchists of the early 20'th century. No government took them particularly seriously. They had other more serious problems to worry about. Eventually the militant anarchists went away.

Another good one is IRA's terror attacks in London. In the 50'ies to 70'ies the Brits in northern Ireland became more and more extreme in clamping down on IRA. Only swelling the ranks of IRA. In the 80'ies they reversed policy and became lenient and chill. They started treating IRA bomb attacks like bad weather. A couple of years ago IRA disarmed.

Your interpretation of history is mistaken. The Brits did not ignore the IRA, they were patient and engaged with them in talks.
It also heloed that the Irish got suck of the IRA and the Provis.

You're just repeating what I said in other words.

 

[Gun Nut]

It is difficult to explain why a person would use their medial fingers to count to one and two, and then switch to their dorsal fingers when they reach three.

Dorsal fingers? Where did you get that from? Dr. Zoidberg's textbook on human anatomy?

Uh, cuz that's what they're called?

View attachment 33292

HAHAHAHA.. that is because the picture is of the BACK of the hand..... HAHAHAHAHA

 

[Politesse]

The opposite of fascism is tolerance. You're not tolerant. As your statement clearly demonstrates.

The problem with evil is that evil people rarely think they're evil. They're convinced they're the good guys.

So you're just using those terms as vague insults, rather than political descriptors with actual meaning?

I don't know whether I agree that "tolerance" is an unquestionable virtue, but I also think that promoting racist public discourse as a cure for racism is an act of mental gymnastics so profound it would be fascinating if I did not encounter it so depressingly often.

It's not a vague insult. The old timey Nazis and communists were part of the same movement, totalitarians. It was an anti tolerant movement, where a lot of effort was spent on rooting out the enemy of the people. I group them both up in the fascist bag, even though on paper they're supposed to be mortal enemies. In practice wherever they took power the end result was quite similar. Their shared enemy was the liberals.

The rise of neo-fascism today and the rise of Woke is the same thing. It's the same political force. It's just the modern version of it. The increasing political polarization isn't because the neo-fascists are super bad and the left are super good. Both the left and right are becoming increasingly evil. I think it's more clear communication if we slap the same label on both of them. Since they're essentially the same thing. Labels rarely catch every dimension of a persons beliefs. But I think it's close enough. That's why I call you fascist.

It's as interesting, and funny as it is sad, that you think tolerance is the gateway towards racism. I disagree.

I'm a liberal. Tolerance is one of my highest ideals. Liberalism is the opposite of fascism. I think you and me couldn't be further apart politically.

In both fascist and totalitarian systems, the government itself plays a central role in creating a falsely glorified ideal of the State to invigorate the public, while employing extreme violence against any threats to their paradigm of power. I endorse no such thing, and never have. I think simple decency and good conduct are sufficient to shame racists back under their rocks most of the time; they aren't brave people. Only one political faction has recently tried to illegitimately seize the houses of government lately, and I do not support them in any way.

Tolerance is not the "gateway towards racism", but tolerating racism - that is, not saying anything or creating any social consequences for those who do and say racist things - is fomenting racism. I see very little value in "tolerance", which is an inherently unstable state. As an ideal the good should always be celebrated when possible, the bad condemned.It is not always possible. But opportunities to promote good things and decry evil should always be taken if they arise. Tolerance is an occasional practical necessity but it makes for a dubious end goal. "I tolerate you" is a weird sentence to say out loud to someone's face for a reason: it is not the same thing as respect, or even decency. I want to be able to say to my neighbor "I love you, I respect you, I support you", not "I tolerate you".

It's weird to me that the Blue Dog types have gone from using the term "liberal" to mean exactly the same pejorative and vaguely defined thing they now call "woke", to decrying the latter while insisting that they themselves are now liberals. In ten more years, will we be seeing posts like "I'm as Woke as anyone, but those 25ers just take things a step too far! Just because you have rights doesn't mean you should cram them down my throat!" blah blah blah

 

[Treedbear]

... Labels rarely catch every dimension of a persons beliefs. But I think it's close enough. That's why I call you fascist.

It's as interesting, and funny as it is sad, that you think tolerance is the gateway towards racism. I disagree.

Then you're just being a Contrarian.

I'm a liberal.

Then you're a Marxist.

Tolerance is one of my highest ideals.

Then you're a Pacifist.

Liberalism is the opposite of fascism.

Then you're an Ideological Absolutist.

I think you and me couldn't be further apart politically.

Then you're an Isolationist.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I'm just being a Satarist. )

 

[Emily Lake]

This is dumb. People need just a tad more generosity of spirit.

I have relatives and friends with hearing impaired children, who routinely use ASL style counting. I have had many coworkers and employees who were Chinese. I've had many colleagues who were British. I know many people who consider "pointing" to be unacceptably rude. As a result of all of this, nearly every counting gesture I know offends someone sometimes.

For whatever reason, I never do three with my index, middle, and ring finger raised - it's just not comfortable. It's almost always my middle, ring, and pinky... although sometimes it's thumb, ring, and index. And my palm is always facing me.

 

[Bomb#20]

Yes, obviously. It was from the perspective of what a civilian can do to beat terrorism.

train cats to sniff out explosives?

Good luck with that...

 

[none]

Yes, obviously. It was from the perspective of what a civilian can do to beat terrorism.

train cats to sniff out explosives?

Good luck with that...

maybe he can become a manager at a forced labor camp near the public train station targeted for demolition by al quaeda (or whoever the fuck terrorist he likes) teaching dogs to sniff out explosives but I doubt that is going to happen because he's seems more preoccupied and busy assessing the threat of terrorist activities while balancing the need to downplay the responsibility his actions have because of the people who notified him of the threat have assumed and dealt with while he dreams of early 20th century anarchism while "baking cakes"...

 

[Emily Lake]

I see very little value in "tolerance", which is an inherently unstable state.

I see this sentiment cropping up a lot lately, almost always from the overly-progressive left.

I have also observed that those decrying tolerance as a weakness tend to be those who've never been on the receiving end of intolerance.

 

[J842P]

Odd that there are certain people here who are so absolutely certain the contestant acted innocently. Personally, I think it is roughly a fifty-fifty chance that the contestant intended to convey a subtle racist message.

One more thing that bothers me about the contestant's apology message is that he doesn't indicate ignorance OR knowledge of the existence of the racist symbolic gesture or offer any sort of regret for choosing that particular gesture for '3' over any other common gesture for '3'.

I mean there is no "whoops" aspect to his apology. There is no, "I would have done it differently if given another chance." His omission of any sort of accidental intention gives the impression that the shape his hand made is the only way he could imagine trying to symbolically represent the number '3'. That is just a little fishy.

I think this is a completely deranged point of view. You seriously think it's 50/50 covert white supremacist symbol?

We are doomed.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The World IS DEFINITELY stupid.

...but not for the reasons in the op.

 

[Bomb#20]

THIS statement is ludicrous. The next time you are out in public I dare you to indicate the number 'one' with your middle finger and then get just as upset when the other people take offence at your hand gesture.

Not really analogous.

In the context of a given subculture, words have meaning. Body language has meanings. Get over it.

Fixed it for you.

Unlike the middle finger, the "okay" gesture means dozens of different things in dozens of different cultures. It's even the standard gesture for "three" in southern China. For a couple of hundred years it has generally meant "okay" in overall Western culture, and it has a more precise "I'm okay, are you okay?" meaning is the scuba subculture. So now up pops a new subculture, and, merely because an enemy subculture tried to pwn it, the new subculture has assigned a new meaning to the traditional "okay" symbol. No big whoop, except the new subculture is imperialist -- it has an entitled attitude that all other cultures and subcultures must submit to its dominance. If "okay" suddenly means something evil in the new subculture then it must become taboo in the wider culture.

If the rest of us let the imperialists win this one, there's only one way this can end: with some inexperienced diver drowning because he or his buddy isn't up-to-date with whatever replacement gesture the scuba subculture is no doubt going to get bullied into switching to.

 

[untermensche]

The “OK” hand gesture originated as one of these hoaxes in February 2017 when an anonymous 4channer announced “Operation O-KKK,” telling other members that “we must flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy.” The user even provided a helpful graphic showing how the letters WP (for “white power”)

https://www.adl.org/blog/how-the-ok-symbol-became-a-popular-trolling-gesture

 

[Loren Pechtel]

History is full of them.

The atheist anarchists of the early 20'th century. No government took them particularly seriously. They had other more serious problems to worry about. Eventually the militant anarchists went away.

Another good one is IRA's terror attacks in London. In the 50'ies to 70'ies the Brits in northern Ireland became more and more extreme in clamping down on IRA. Only swelling the ranks of IRA. In the 80'ies they reversed policy and became lenient and chill. They started treating IRA bomb attacks like bad weather. A couple of years ago IRA disarmed.

The IRA went away because their funding got cut off.

You can't fight terrorism with conventional arms. That's an old adage that's as true now as it was then. Terrorism exists because of a core issue. Solve that issue and the terrorism will go away.

Generally the core issue does not have the popular support to be resolved in the fashion the terrorists seek.

Islamic terrorism is the result of the Middle-East being run by a string of fascist dictators abusing Islam to take focus off their own abuses of power, and to place it on some nebulous outer scary force. Yes, it sucks for us that we're victims of their domestic problems.

Yup--but note the basic issue: Terrorism on a substantial scale only exists when there is some outside funding for it. Terrorism is only defeated by removing this funding. It's usually a nation funding it, but there have been cases it's other things (ie, FARC being funded by drugs.)

Note how all the Marxist terrorist organizations withered when Moscow quit funding it.