Favourite Americanisms.

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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Greta wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Greta wrote:I think you might need a new term because "PC" is never, ever applied to the right, even though they are the main perps, as you noted. And yes, this is all about power and control - 100%.

It's impossible to have a sensible public dialogue on any contentious topic in today's overheated political climate. It's no longer possible to get people to "listen to reason" or give a damn about hard evidence, if that was ever possible. It's as though the entire public conversation is taking place in a society-sized courtroom, with each side playing the role of a manipulative lawyers whose goal is to win, not to uncover the truth.
I know it's always applied to the 'right', which is exactly the problem. It's actually neither 'right' not 'left'. It has aspects of both, but it still hates the truth just like every other self-serving agenda-driven twit. It's not me that needs a new term.
I was pointing out the inherent double standards in the way the term "political correctness" is applied, but never mind.

Whatever, unlike most here, I don't think that everything is awful and that the Earth is doomed due to the misbehaviour of an aberrant species. I think everything is probably ticking along just fine with the Earth, and that most of us will be superseded as were the dinosaurs.

The Earth does that occasionally. A threshold is reached, everything breaks down, and then there are new emergences, albeit with modern DNA (and ever more interesting historical excavations). Sometimes extinctions are triggered by space, sometimes by geology, sometimes by biology, or some combination.

I once thought a major extinction event would be preventable but population and conflicts of interest ensure that it will be utter carnage. I can imagine tribes emerging from the ruins and rubble, looking up wistfully at untouchable ivory towers in the robot-protected compounds that house and protect the privileged, and then they'll fight and kill each other about who's sleeping with whom :?
The earth isn't 'doomed'--at least not for a very long time. I've never said that. Humans possibly are though, in the not terribly distant future. I somehow don't think the rest of the animal kingdom will be crying about it.
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Greta
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Greta »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
I once thought a major extinction event would be preventable but population and conflicts of interest ensure that it will be utter carnage. I can imagine tribes emerging from the ruins and rubble, looking up wistfully at untouchable ivory towers in the robot-protected compounds that house and protect the privileged, and then they'll fight and kill each other about who's sleeping with whom :?
The earth isn't 'doomed'--at least not for a very long time. I've never said that. Humans possibly are though, in the not terribly distant future. I somehow don't think the rest of the animal kingdom will be crying about it.
They won't because they will be largely dead, aside from vermin, snakes and crocs. If, as I expect, humans do not have a shared fate and that some societies will be wiped out while other societies will "concentrate" (ie. mainly the poor dies but the privileged stay relatively safe) then our Armageddon date is pushed back until other natural disasters or the Sun's heating up in a matter of only millions of years (not long, by planetary standards).

Whatever, your talk about PC has gotten me thinking about the coercive nature of the public conversation. In Australia we have a classic example of PC going on at the moment after a Muslim activist and media figure here used ANZAC Day (commemoration of dead soldiers) to ask people to use the day to also consider the suffering of Muslim refugees from danger and poverty stuck in detention centres run by Australia.

It was inappropriate, given the "sacredness" of the day to those who value the military saving of lives than medicinal saving of lives. However, the outrage and hate in the comments is clearly infused with the war of words that always accompanies physical wars. And make no mistake, the west and Islam are at war, whether the powers that be in the west want to admit it or not.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/yassmin- ... vs7yp.html

Then again, I've been guilty of it too, as has everyone here. I remember going very hard at a theist on another forum who insisted that palliative care was perfectly adequate and that assisted suicide for the dying - allowing the dying to have some small control over the way they die - was immoral and should stay illegal. I kept trying to point out that the suffering of those who don't benefit much from palliative care were just collateral damage for the sake of her ideology, but she thought it more important to keep life going. So we fought and the world moved on. It never fails to amaze me how valuable life seems to Christians before it's become actually human or at the point where one's humanity is largely gone, yet those same ideologues remain silent about deaths and suffering inflicted via poverty, dispossession and war.

In the end all the tussling is probably all rather pointless as there are major institutional forces at work that render the publicly stated views of individuals about as potent as the barking of dogs.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Greta wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
I once thought a major extinction event would be preventable but population and conflicts of interest ensure that it will be utter carnage. I can imagine tribes emerging from the ruins and rubble, looking up wistfully at untouchable ivory towers in the robot-protected compounds that house and protect the privileged, and then they'll fight and kill each other about who's sleeping with whom :?
The earth isn't 'doomed'--at least not for a very long time. I've never said that. Humans possibly are though, in the not terribly distant future. I somehow don't think the rest of the animal kingdom will be crying about it.
They won't because they will be largely dead, aside from vermin, snakes and crocs. If, as I expect, humans do not have a shared fate and that some societies will be wiped out while other societies will "concentrate" (ie. mainly the poor dies but the privileged stay relatively safe) then our Armageddon date is pushed back until other natural disasters or the Sun's heating up in a matter of only millions of years (not long, by planetary standards).

Whatever, your talk about PC has gotten me thinking about the coercive nature of the public conversation. In Australia we have a classic example of PC going on at the moment after a Muslim activist and media figure here used ANZAC Day (commemoration of dead soldiers) to ask people to use the day to also consider the suffering of Muslim refugees from danger and poverty stuck in detention centres run by Australia.

It was inappropriate, given the "sacredness" of the day to those who value the military saving of lives than medicinal saving of lives. However, the outrage and hate in the comments is clearly infused with the war of words that always accompanies physical wars. And make no mistake, the west and Islam are at war, whether the powers that be in the west want to admit it or not.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/yassmin- ... vs7yp.html

Then again, I've been guilty of it too, as has everyone here. I remember going very hard at a theist on another forum who insisted that palliative care was perfectly adequate and that assisted suicide for the dying - allowing the dying to have some small control over the way they die - was immoral and should stay illegal. I kept trying to point out that the suffering of those who don't benefit much from palliative care were just collateral damage for the sake of her ideology, but she thought it more important to keep life going. So we fought and the world moved on. It never fails to amaze me how valuable life seems to Christians before it's become actually human or at the point where one's humanity is largely gone, yet those same ideologues remain silent about deaths and suffering inflicted via poverty, dispossession and war.

In the end all the tussling is probably all rather pointless as there are major institutional forces at work that render the publicly stated views of individuals about as potent as the barking of dogs.
'Vermin' is subjective. And I'm the last person to have sympathy for anyone who gets 'outraged' over criticism of ANZAC pro-war day (and I'm NOT saying you were). Most people don't have particularly strong opinions on anything, and are easily swayed, so yes, it is important to keep discussion going (while free speech still exists--or sort of does)-- or the religious fucks and other morons end up winning.
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Greta
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Greta »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:'Vermin' is subjective. And I'm the last person to have sympathy for anyone who gets 'outraged' over criticism of ANZAC pro-war day (and I'm NOT saying you were). Most people don't have particularly strong opinions on anything, and are easily swayed, so yes, it is important to keep discussion going (while free speech still exists--or sort of does)-- or the religious fucks and other morons end up winning.
By "vermin" I mean cockroaches, rats and mice.

I personally think free speech - and most other kinds of freedoms - are doomed. There are no strong champions of these things in the public sphere. Due to rapidly growing populations there's growing conflicts of interest, especially with the demographic changes you noted.

Alas, "keeping the conversation going" means more endless nonsense debates about evolution, women, gays, abortion and euthanasia, as though the evidence is overwhelming that evolution is real, that females and gays are no less capable than straight men, that early term foetuses have either no nervous system, or such a primitive one, that they have almost no awareness, or that palliative care does not prevent some dying people from going through hellish experiences.

All of this knowledge is ignored by some types of religious ideologues, who then insists on keeping the "dialogue open" to go endlessly around the same false claims and using the exposure to capture more of any undecided incapable of clearly following the argument.
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Walker »

Get off the fence
is an Americanism heard by agnostics

Translations:
- Shite or get off the pot.
- He who hesitates is lost.

A broader view, said in J. Krishnamurtism:
- between the idea and the action lies the mischief (i.e., the choosing).

Essential video:
Get off the fence!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65-wLp1yyI

*

In America, a different response arises from witnesses who suddenly, and unexpectedly, find themselves transformed into participants rather than commentators:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsdHxUXf2CE


- The source of laughter in the first link, is perhaps irony?
- The source of silence in the second link, is definitely …
osgart
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by osgart »

perhaps they should have high schools for adults.

fast food is a killer.

freedom of speech is not appreciated

The founders of our country were eloquent and inspiring in their manner of speech. now we have Donald trump.

And yet America isn't going to die or become weak anytime soon. It's just going to reinvent itself and stay on top.
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Walker wrote:Get off the fence
is an Americanism heard by agnostics
It's hardly an Americanism. 'Sitting on the fence' is a very old expression, used to describe those who prefer to remain neutral. There's a big difference between a wise or clever saying or idiom, and pointless, obnoxious jargon. Just thought I would bring that to the table. We might even be in the same ballpark. :|
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Walker »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Walker wrote:Get off the fence
is an Americanism heard by agnostics
It's hardly an Americanism. 'Sitting on the fence' is a very old expression, used to describe those who prefer to remain neutral. There's a big difference between a wise or clever saying or idiom, and pointless, obnoxious jargon. Just thought I would bring that to the table. We might even be in the same ballpark. :|
Well, that wasn’t really a fence in the video, now was it. It was a chain. Perhaps the Queen’s guard was using a very old source for the word fence when he shouted at the kid to “get off the fence!” However, absolving Americans of the idiom origin could well increase the odds of an anti-American agnostic hearing the wisdom of the phrase’s meaning, rather than predetermining validity according to the source of the content. In a similar fashion, phrasing can get one’s goat* and also predetermine opinion regarding validity of content.

*Americanism
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Harbal »

Walker wrote: Well, that wasn’t really a fence in the video, now was it. It was a chain. Perhaps the Queen’s guard was using a very old source for the word fence when he shouted at the kid to “get off the fence!” However, absolving Americans of the idiom origin could well increase the odds of an anti-American agnostic hearing the wisdom of the phrase’s meaning, rather than predetermining validity according to the source of the content. In a similar fashion, phrasing can get one’s goat* and also predetermine opinion regarding validity of content.
This month's Philosophy Now prize of Bertrand Russell's death bed long johns, donated by his children, Jane and Kurt, will go to the first person to successfully rearrange the words in the above paragraph to make a coherent body of text. All entries must be received by the last day of April 2020 in order to give contestants a fighting chance of completing the puzzle. Walkers decision will be final and no correspondence can be entered into. Good luck everybody.
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Walker wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Walker wrote:Get off the fence
is an Americanism heard by agnostics
It's hardly an Americanism. 'Sitting on the fence' is a very old expression, used to describe those who prefer to remain neutral. There's a big difference between a wise or clever saying or idiom, and pointless, obnoxious jargon. Just thought I would bring that to the table. We might even be in the same ballpark. :|
Well, that wasn’t really a fence in the video, now was it. It was a chain. Perhaps the Queen’s guard was using a very old source for the word fence when he shouted at the kid to “get off the fence!” However, absolving Americans of the idiom origin could well increase the odds of an anti-American agnostic hearing the wisdom of the phrase’s meaning, rather than predetermining validity according to the source of the content. In a similar fashion, phrasing can get one’s goat* and also predetermine opinion regarding validity of content.

*Americanism
I didn't look at the videos. Just now looked at the first one. I think he's having a bit of fun with the children. You don't mess with a Queen's guard. He's lucky they are English children and not American brats. And yes, that's not a fence, but what else could he say?
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Walker »

It was perfect.
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Walker »

Harbal wrote:
Walker wrote: Well, that wasn’t really a fence in the video, now was it. It was a chain. Perhaps the Queen’s guard was using a very old source for the word fence when he shouted at the kid to “get off the fence!” However, absolving Americans of the idiom origin could well increase the odds of an anti-American agnostic hearing the wisdom of the phrase’s meaning, rather than predetermining validity according to the source of the content. In a similar fashion, phrasing can get one’s goat* and also predetermine opinion regarding validity of content.
This month's Philosophy Now prize of Bertrand Russell's death bed long johns, donated by his children, Jane and Kurt, will go to the first person to successfully rearrange the words in the above paragraph to make a coherent body of text. All entries must be received by the last day of April 2020 in order to give contestants a fighting chance of completing the puzzle. Walkers decision will be final and no correspondence can be entered into. Good luck everybody.
:lol:
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by Harbal »

It's all in the spirit of fun, Walker. :)
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Walker wrote:get one’s goat* and also predetermine opinion regarding validity of content.

*Americanism
That may be so (but 'urban dictionary'??) but today it would be, 'You have gotten on my goat. Now get off of it'.
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Re: Favourite Americanisms.

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Harbal wrote:
Walker wrote: Well, that wasn’t really a fence in the video, now was it. It was a chain. Perhaps the Queen’s guard was using a very old source for the word fence when he shouted at the kid to “get off the fence!” However, absolving Americans of the idiom origin could well increase the odds of an anti-American agnostic hearing the wisdom of the phrase’s meaning, rather than predetermining validity according to the source of the content. In a similar fashion, phrasing can get one’s goat* and also predetermine opinion regarding validity of content.
This month's Philosophy Now prize of Bertrand Russell's death bed long johns, donated by his children, Jane and Kurt, will go to the first person to successfully rearrange the words in the above paragraph to make a coherent body of text. All entries must be received by the last day of April 2020 in order to give contestants a fighting chance of completing the puzzle. Walkers decision will be final and no correspondence can be entered into. Good luck everybody.
He's Kurt Russell's dad? I never would have thought, although there is an uncanny resemblance when you look closely.

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