318 (1). Every one who advocates or promotes genocide is guilty...319(1). Every one who ... incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace319(2) Every one who, by communicating statements, ..., wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guiltyThat isn’t the typical scenario. We have already discussed on MetaTalk how any articulation of the case that transsexuals are not gay gets shouted down immediately. The contention “transsexuals are not gay” can be rendered as “transsexual ≠ homosexual” but it cannot be rendered as “transsexuals aren’t the same as gay people.” The contention that transsexuals have zero in common with homosexuals (as opposed to 1% or 95%) is almost impossible to articulate on MetaFilter without getting your ass kicked.transsexual ≠ homosexual, and feminists ≠ women in generalcortex and I are both aware that transsexuals aren't the same as gay people and that feminists are not the same as women in general. What we're saying here is that trashing any of those groups is not okay period
"Agreed. We would do much better to quarantine people with incurable fatal infectious diseases. With any other, almost always much more visible, disease, we do exactly that. You get mumps, typhoid, ebola, inside the continental US? Welcome to your obligatory staycation until better or dead.Clearly describes a 'death camp.'
So why the hell do we let people with a mostly-invisible plague roam free?
And before anyone points out that modern treatments can keep it at bay for most of a normal lifetime - Would you consider it a crime if someone strapped an explosive collar around your neck, one that you could prevent from exploding simply by calling a phone number every morning?
Still a death sentence. You just get 50 years of appeals like any other Death Row inmate."
"OC, that is not true.
Look, most of us agree that quarantining people for life is a sucky thing to do to someone, but I think we are capable of arguing WHY that is a sucky idea in such a fashion as to put the contrary poster (in this case Pla) in his or her place."
The exceptions are ironic, satirical, or jocular remarks. I know that not everyone recognizes all of those instances, but I'm seldom inclined to go through tedious explanations.If you're looking for the least charitable interpretation of what I'm saying there (c.f.) I guess you could interpret that as my saying "MeFites are too dumb to recognize irony or satire". In general, I don't believe that's the case (although, again, there are exceptions). My humor is sometimes obscure, and it's not reasonable for me to expect everyone to always get my references. Those who don't can shake their heads and move on. Those who do might get a chuckle. I said this mainly to forestall some clever person bringing up such remarks as examples of my alleged insincerity.
Those of you who view this site as a lonely-hearts club or a kind of dating site may find this difficult to fathom, but I really don't particularly care what any of you think of me (with very few exceptions, and those provisional). If you can wrap your mind around this, it may help you understand some of my remarks (or lack thereof, in some cases) better.This is a phenomenon that I find kind of disgusting about the site. That's just my feeling, though, and probably not one that's widely shared. I'm not sure how it translates into calling people "dumb", though. If you're looking for a mate, I guess it might be a smart thing to do, and it seems to be sanctioned and engaged in by the mods, so whatever. But. If that's your orientation to the site, I can see how it would be puzzling to see someone who's not playing that game, and how you might consider that to be obnoxious behavior, instead of, well, just not playing that game. I thought it would be helpful to explain that. But, again, as usual, it just became fodder for PG to find the most negative interpretation. Anyone starting to see a pattern here?
Being reasoned with on MetaTalk would be a real noveltyI could have been a little clearer by saying that it would be a real novelty for me. Do you seriously intend to dispute this? If so, you're full of shit and one need look no farther than the MetaTalk archives to figure that out. This thread, with the exception of shakesepherian's remark, is a perfect instance, so far. (His remark, you might notice, is not particularly complimentary, but is at least couched in a reasonable way.)
Some of you don't seem to believe that such a thing is possible, i.e., you believe that everyone must have the same values and that they must be the correct values, i.e., your values.I don't see anything controversial about this observation. The calls to ban pla in this thread are a perfect example.
If you're looking for a mate, I guess it might be a smart thing to do, and it seems to be sanctioned and engaged in by the mods, so whatever.Jessamyn, I'm afraid I may have misspoken. I can't seem to find a good definition of "lonely hearts club" online. If the meaning is "yet another place for people to hook up", that's not what I meant. In that case, I should have said "social club". (I was thinking of it more as a "club for lonely people" or something like that.)
I assume you're talking about me because all the other mods are married dudes and have been since they were working here.
MeFi is just a place where you can meet people, same as the supermarket, same as church, same as the pizza shop.No, it's not the same. It's a place where you can "meet" people, but it's a virtual place. The distinction is important, but since people here seem more interested in speculating on my psychological issues than in reasoning with me about it, I don't think I'll elaborate on why it is important.
I'm not sure why you have this sneery approach to that.Characterizing my approach as "sneery" is, in my view, another instance of finding the most negative interpretation. But I did say that I don't like it, and I don't. Apparently that's some sort of thoughtcrime here. Whatever.
You don't want to turn online friends into real life friends, that's totally cool.Well, no, apparently it's "sneery", "bitter", "antisocial", and, perhaps most disturbing, means that I'm not even a biological entity. (I'll have to talk to my primary-care physician about that one.)
Other people want to? That should be cool also.Permissible? Certainly. It's not my site, after all. Cool? To have that as your primary objective on a site like MetaFilter? Not so much, at least not from my perspective. But, as I've said before, whatever.
The great thing about people's participation here being 100% voluntary is that we can tell people who hate it that they are welcome to leave.Yes, you've told me before that I'm welcome to leave. Thanks.
And if they want to stay, they can help us make it better.Sorry, I can't help you with that, because "better" means something different to you than it does to me.
I'd love to hear more about this supposed party line, though I suspect I probably won't.You know that you won't, because we've been through this before, but you're playing to the crowd. So, OK, for those who haven't seen it before, I'll recap.
Are you reasoning with me, Burhanistan? Forgive me, it's difficult to tell.The claim was made that "Crabby has no interest in being reasoned with." A few people seemed to give credence to the canard. I averred that, to the contrary, I would be interested in being reasoned with on MetaTalk because of the novelty value. But if what I've got so far in this thread (with a small number of notable exceptions) is "being reasoned with", I guess I'm not interested in it after all. If you want to lecture somebody on derision and snark, why don't you start with the ones who started it in this thread?
Crabby Appleton, I know that at this point it's mostly a bunch of people arguing with you and calling you names, but I honestly don't know how anyone here expects to persuade anyone else to their point of view by employing a juvenile rhetoric and drippingly sarcastic tone. I believe that the only way to successfully engage an opponent is, following Gandhi, [...]
Eitt bros getur dimmu í dagsljós breytt,posted by Kattullus at 9:21 PM on April 23, 2010 [4 favorites]
sem dropi breytir veig heillar skálar.
Þel getur snúist við atorð eitt.
Aðgát skal höfð í nærveru sálar.
Svo oft leyndist strengur í brjósti, sem brast
við biturt andsvar, gefið án saka.
Hve iðrar margt líf eitt augnakast,
sem aldrei verður tekið til baka.
(my rough translation)
One smile can change darkness into daylight,
like a drop alters the nectar in an entire cup.
Emotion can be turned by a single harsh word.
Be cautious in the presence of a soul.
So often a hidden string lay in a breast, which broke
at a bitter retort, given without cause.
How deeply many lives regret a single glance,
which never can be taken back.
What would work better is if you considered that many people seem to think youre a trollish asshole and if you don't want them to think that you need to worry about substance and not style. If you don't feel like addressing any of that, it's your business but the benefit of the doubt we're giving you can be easily rescinded.Unless of course jessamyn is also one of the nine. ;)
posted by jessamyn at 12:08 PM on April 23
"I'd say a more accurate interpretation would be that Pla is treating humans as though they were a row of turnips in his garden that might benefit from an early summer thinning. That's not humane at all of course but if you think of people as turnips then an early summer thinning makes sense for the greater good of turnipkind.Hateful and inhumane may manifest the same but they are separate and each needs to be approached as such.
Because morally reprehensible is a relative term.From Brandon Blatcher:
People are often more complex than their morally reprehensible ideas.
I didn't see Optimus' comment.
But I suppose it's worth noting that several people in that thread have responded to pla without making it personal, including lupus_yonderboy, stringbean, girlgenius, two or three cars parked under the stars, Brother Dysk and others.
posted by zarq at 11:27 AM on April 21, 2010 [1 favorite]