Common Courtesy

[Walker]

In terms of courtesy, there’s one big elephant of a fact that tells the tale.

At large outdoor political rallies in the USA:

- Conservatives leave that environment cleaner than when they arrived.

- The Democrats leave that environment looking like a hurricane blew through a garbage dump, by the ton.

[Greta]

In terms of courtesy, there’s one big elephant of a fact that tells the tale.

At large outdoor political rallies in the USA:

- Conservatives leave that environment cleaner than when they arrived.

- The Democrats leave that environment looking like a hurricane blew through a garbage dump, by the ton.

Actually, conservatives are destroying the environment with their refusal to abandon coal - and that coal should have become a conservative touchstone issue is interesting. Basically the conservative tendency towards obedience to those in power and and conformity means they uncritically accept the dominant right wing media's accounts of events - and the media's need to maximise their fossil fuel investors and investments.

Those picking up a few papers on a singular occasion, but who enable environmental vandalism on a grand scale, are simply focused on visible efforts for PR purposes. Their true lack of care or respect for the environment and the next generation is revealed in their political allegiances and rewarding of those most antithetical to conservation.

It's the progressives who tend more not to simply believe the power-brokers, who dare to question authority, and that has been the case as far back as the pre-Socratic philosophers such as Anaximander.

[TimeSeeker]

But PCness is a weakness: it indicates a lack of ability to think for oneself, and a susceptibility to irrational influence.

Our cultural conversation is bifurcated into the "good" and the "bad," the "us" and the "them," the "left" and the "right." This oversimplification can hardly reflect a strength of intellect. Countries afflicted thereby alienate half their own citizens, treating them as "pinkos" (on the onside) and "deplorables" (on the other) with whom reasoning is no longer possible.

How would it not be better, on both an individual and a collective level, if they were courteous and rational with each other?

Unless you have made an error in reasoning.

My identity does not hinge on words or definitions. I am comfortable not having a label for myself beyond "human". I also recognise that it took me a long time to realize the importance language played. The only tool we have to define ourselves in IS language!

And so imagine what would happen if I were to apply deconstruction to a word/quality/behavior you fundamentally identify with - you will probably get "triggered" and start defending the word's "true/actual meaning". Even though you know damn well that words have no objective meaning.

And so - consider that me CHOOSING to be PC is me CHOOSING not to rob you of your language. Because language is all you have.

Does that make it a weakness or a strength?

[TimeSeeker]

Actually, conservatives are destroying the environment with their refusal to abandon coal.

I think this is trivialising the issue. Is it refusal to abandon coal or inability of alternative sources to meet present demand at coal prices? Nobody is willing to take the risk and foot the bill to develop/scale alternative energy - which spells opportunity!

Lets make alternative energy cheaper AND more readily available than coal then see if conservatives still care for anything but voting with their wallets.

If they don't want to invest in a viable alternative - I am happy to get rich alone.

[Walker]

I think this is trivialising the issue. Is it refusal to abandon coal or inability of alternative sources to meet present demand at coal prices?

It's the latter.

First develop the alternatives up to the specifications of need, such as the pet projects of wind and solar, if that's even possible, which doesn't look likely.

Don't depress an industry to prop up your interests in a competitive industry, or to buy the one you depressed for pennies on the dollar.

Don't burn down the house and say oops, I don't have any building materials to get out of the cold ... but at least we did something.

[Walker]

What about all that land that Obama stole from the states, preventing its use for energy?

Cover it all up with solar panels.

That’s what it will take.

However, if solar panels on rooftops can power a house when the sun shines, why not go back to the Edison (and Jetsons) model?

Each home with its own power plant.
(Regulators in every basement)

There’s autonomy for you.

What is the environmental impact of transforming the fruits and surface of the earf into all those solar panels?

There's probably enough lead for all the batteries, but it would have to be mined.

What about lithium batteries for those solar panels?
We can have China plow Tibet under looking for lithium.
That way the West can keep its hands clean.

[henry quirk]

"It's the progressives (commie scum) who tend more not to simply believe the power-brokers (unless the power brokers are progressives), who dare to question authority (unless the authority is progressive)"

[Immanuel Can]

Unless you have made an error in reasoning.

Let's see what it would be.

My identity does not hinge on words or definitions. I am comfortable not having a label for myself beyond "human". I also recognise that it took me a long time to realize the importance language played. The only tool we have to define ourselves in IS language!

Well, my background is very heavy on linguistics, among other things. So it didn't take me much time at all to realize how important it was. It's very impressive, yes -- but for that reason, also easy to overestimate. "Language all we have" is not a carte-blanche claim that stands up well to some of the basic facts.

And so imagine what would happen if I were to apply deconstruction to a word/quality/behavior you fundamentally identify with - you will probably get "triggered" and start defending the word's "true/actual meaning". Even though you know damn well that words have no objective meaning.

Actually, I really know no such thing; in fact, I can very easily show it's not true.

My proof goes like this: I believe that, with some justification, you are expecting me to read your words carefully, and interpret them courteously and well. Is that not true?

But how can I interpret well and with courtesy when your words "have no objective meaning"? How can I ever be "discourteous," when such words can have no definite meaning?

Clearly you expect that they do -- or else you would not have any reason to bother to utter them in the first place. I don't, in all courtesy, take you for a man who's just "gassing." But if you're trying to say something, and believing you're going to communicate it to me or anyone else, you have to have some meaning behind your words, don't you?

So the realization that language is flexible can tip over -- in cases of those first struck with it -- into a belief that language is INFINITELY flexible...which it clearly is not, or it would cease to have any language-function at all.

And so - consider that me CHOOSING to be PC is me CHOOSING not to rob you of your language.

You can indeed "choose" to be PC. But PC'ers are actually the WORST at robbing people of language. If you read Orwell's 1984, you know how this works -- propaganda, not courteous or charitable language, is the stock-in-trade of the Left, and also of the extreme wing of the Right.

To be Politically Correct is different from being factually correct. It means to let "politics," not truth, drive ones utterances. On the flip side, to be Politically Incorrect may mean no more than to be gratuitously offensive -- but it may also mean to let truthfulness, not political currency, determine the content of your utterances. My suggestion is that we should choose to let the truth -- however well we know it -- rule and guide our utterances, as I believe (from your own practice above) you would too.

Because language is all you have.

It isn't. But it's a really, really important thing.

[Immanuel Can]

"It's the progressives (commie scum) who tend more not to simply believe the power-brokers (unless the power brokers are progressives), who dare to question authority (unless the authority is progressive)"

Ha. Yes, quite, Henry. Not a courteous observation, perhaps, but as usual, pointedly ironic.

Whatever one thinks of them, I do see that the alleged "right" is these days possessed of a number of advantages over the PC Left in this regard. The PC has become the new "establishment," the conventional viewpoint that cannot be doubted or questioned. And this has left the field of comedy and irony wide open to their opponents.

The PC establishment is not funny. They are not self-critical or thoughtful. They are angry, strident, petulant and irrational, but also pompous and self-admiring -- and these adjectives always describe the perfect targets for the ironist, the mocker, the comedian and the trickster. Those adjectives used to be used to describe the "right" leaning people -- too serious, too self-important, too Victorian, too meddling, and so on. But for a long time now, the Left has had a lot of power in the Western world, and having achieved a level of power, has become exactly what their own comedians used to mock: pompous, serious, interfering, self-righteous, paranoid, controlling, demanding, thoughtless and childish -- in short, perfect targets for irony.

So all the funny people have "gone right." Those that remain somewhat Left are leaning harder and harder to right. (Norm MacDonald is a recent example.) And those that stayed in the mainline Left have just stopped being funny. It's not by accident, I think, that the Left has begun to argue that comedy can now be "unfunny" and "serious," and amount to a lengthy whine by an entitled performer, about some "important" issue. (See, for example, https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2708 ... greenfield)

But unfunny comedy is like unwet water: its just a contradiction. I would think that nobody in his or her right mind ever wants to listen to that.

The result is that today, all the fun is to be had by twisting the noses of the PC. And this, I think, contributes to the incivility of our discourse: the Left is being its usual self-important, outraged, aggressive self, and the "right" is being ironic and mocking all the time -- because there's an awful lot there to mock, and not a lot to take very seriously.

But there's not much in all that that's civil, or offers a chance for "courtesy." So our public-square conversation is pretty rough.

[henry quirk]

"Not a courteous observation"

I save my civility for the deserving.

Most here, aren't.

[Greta]

This nonsense about baseload power is more of the fossil fuel lobby's great myths delivered by Murdoch and other major fossil fuel friends and investors.

Is China is working furiously towards replacing coal with renewable energy because it's cheaper and easier to dig ever deeper holes in ever more remote areas than to simply harness the energy raining down on us daily?

The west is self destructing over a false ideological split confected and promoted by deliberately divisive bad actors like Murdoch, the Kochs and Trump. There is no logical reason why coal should be supported by conservatives and renewable energy by progressives.

In truth, those labelled "progressive" are the true conservatives, hoping to conserve more of our natural heritage and assets while those who disregard environmentalism are radical reactionaries. There is nothing conservative about converting lands of trees and hills to sterile areas of towers of bitumen, concrete, glass and steel as quickly as developer profiteering can allow, without checks or consideration of future generations.

"It's the progressives (commie scum) who tend more not to simply believe the power-brokers (unless the power brokers are progressives), who dare to question authority (unless the authority is progressive)"

No depth or logic, just emotional tribal allegiances.

[henry quirk]

ungawa

[henry quirk]

Those who label themselves "progressive" are marxists hoping to instill more of Karl's philosophy into vulnerable heads, and paint those who reject communism as the radical reactionaries.

Now, I'm goin' drink coffee, eat Ramen, and smoke cigarettes.

Fuck you all & g'night

[-1-]

Those who label themselves "progressive" are marxists hoping to instill more of Karl's philosophy into vulnerable heads, and paint those who reject communism as the radical reactionaries.

Now, I'm goin' drink coffee, eat Ramen, and smoke cigarettes.

Fuck you all & g'night

Well, I am going to drink water, eat food or, alernatively, Big Macs, and smoke oxygen mixed largely with Nitrogen.

Problem, Henry, is that Marxists are right in theory, and have failed in practice, Capitalism is failing in theory and a roaring success in practice. Marxism is based on centralized market tendencies; which suck. Capitalism is based on the Darwinist model of survival of the fittest, and therefore it is where it's at, baby.

[-1-]

it's cheaper and easier to simply harness the energy raining down on us daily

Politics may support this, and left leaning Marxist-Leninist liberal pinko pussies may support this but has anyone ever done a study on amount of harvested renewable power (wind, solar, tidal, biological (oxen and horse-pulled carriers) sources)?

If such studies haven't been conducted, than this is pure unapplied philosophy.

CAREFUL. The amount harvested sucks energy away from other renewable resources. Harvesting solar energy deprives the chlorophyl in plant life to regenerate the atmosphere. Harvesting wind energy deprives the seas from much need wave-generation. Harvesting tidal energy means fish life will suffer. Bio energy will increase spread of infectious diseases. Note that not everything is a bowl of cherries.