Have Larssen or uziq even been to America?
Fuck Israel
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +644|3984
Has old man newbie ever been East of the Mississippi?
I don't know enough about how the fairness doctrine works in practice but I suspect it's being misrepresented by both sides. I would say that both sides take part in cancel culture though the right wing complaints about it are annoying for their hypocrisy.unnamednewbie13 wrote:
article link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opin … mpism.htmlSuperJail Warden wrote:
NYT has a good article about talk radio since Newbie is showing his age and seems hung up on that.
book from article: The Radio Right: How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement Hardcover – June 16, 2020
ShOwInG mY AgE
Also, the guy writes on a libertarian website. One of his bits:
American was founded upon the immodest proposition that the best response to bad speech is more speech. It is a fundamentally democratic proposition, one that is as appropriate for the digital age as it was for the 1780s.
https://www.libertarianism.org/building … e-internet
I'm not convinced that content regulation for balanced viewpoints is fundamentally a bad idea, but I don't know how exactly we could return to it. The cat's been out of the bag for a long time, and internet content is a prickly matter. Would a hypothetical fairness doctrine 2.0 have some sort of viewership threshhold where someone like a youtuber or an alt-right reddit troll is required to write or hire a writer for contrasting content, or would that be passed up to youtube and reddit?
Lol I'm like 8 years older than you. Funny angle. Did you play pokemon? I probably missed having that phase by a hair.
I might check out the book still. Also east of the Mississippi is scary. It has creepy states like Florida, SC, Penn and NJ. Stateside,
generator
Don't recommend Montana unless you'd like to go do some hiking there or whatever. The most boring drive I've ever been on. Yaaaaaawn.
I might check out the book still. Also east of the Mississippi is scary. It has creepy states like Florida, SC, Penn and NJ. Stateside,
generator
Don't recommend Montana unless you'd like to go do some hiking there or whatever. The most boring drive I've ever been on. Yaaaaaawn.
i’ve been to 5 states so not very much. never been out west.Dilbert_X wrote:
Have Larssen or uziq even been to America?
but - here’s the rub dilbert - i’ve also read extensively in american history and culture! how many thousand hours have you spent reading emerson? christopher lasch? henry james? faulkner? rorty? cavell? have you seen the movies of cassavetes? have you read widely in the harlem renaissance? have you dug deep into the history and back catalogue of jazz? etc etc.
i know that’s all ‘pointless’ to you because society is a big equation to be solved, or something.
although not sure i claimed anywhere to be an expert or guru on america. my tone here has always been one of bemused observer. i’m not claiming anywhere that reading some books makes me a seasoned expert on a country that isn’t my own. but why can’t i discuss it?
why are you bristling because me and larssen are having an exchange about white privilege? ‘you’ve not been to all the contiguous states so you can’t talk about racism’. is this your argument now? do you even try anymore?
Last edited by uziq (2020-10-10 00:32:15)
I don't imagine the loons who planned to abduct the governor had read or watched any of that either.
Culture moves faster than people can write history books.
Culture moves faster than people can write history books.
Fuck Israel
+1, put it far better than i could.SuperJail Warden wrote:
It's a huge deal in the narrative of racism in our countries for two reasons.Larssen wrote:
As to your example I sympathise with the barristers that are misidentified as their clients by lowly court officers and receptionists, but isn't this really a minor inconvenience to them?
First those barristers are examples of minorities who did everything right when it comes to education and behavior. They obviously absorbed white cultural traits and behavior enough to do well in those spaces. So the fact that they don't receive recognition and cultural respect for their hard work is significant especially when people complain minorities being lazy/stupid/criminals etc. If the people who "played the game" correctly still aren't getting the respect they deserve then why should anyone else bother or want to work the system and play the game at all?
Secondly, well educated and hard-working minorities are the ones white college kids are most going to come into contact with. A well educated minority work colleague might be the only person of a certain race a lot of white and especially upper income ones even know. Seeing those people get mistreated is going to distort the perception of racial issues of whites to the same degree as a mugging might. So while it might be true that the ghetto is a hell hole best fixed by rockets filled with coronavirus, "one of the good ones" getting harassed at work isn't going to help towards convincing on the fence white people that "racism is over".
of course larssen the children of those QCs will have every advantage in life and will be raised as part of the cultural elite. and, yes, there are upper-middle class immigrants in metropolitan hubs, in your london’s and amsterdam’s and brussels and what have you, which are evidently far more advantaged than any number of natives. but they are an extreme minority. and the fact that, no matter how ‘integrated’ they become, in their day-to-day lives they still have to put up with shopkeepers eyeball-fucking them and suspecting them of thieving, police pulling over their cars because they’re driving a nice vehicle and are from ‘out of town’ (recall dilbert saw nothing wrong with this), will still be asked regularly ‘yes, but where are you from?’. all these little micro-aggressions and race-based forms of exclusion are not exactly in line with the democratic promise.
the vast majority of u.k. lawyers never make it to QC level. it is a staggering achievement and the pinnacle of one of the toughest, most exclusive careers in the land. i recently read a piece the other day on the history of the first black head of a bank, too, and how he was basically hounded out of the industry by the old networks of power. if this is the experience of the very top elites, how do you think those attitudes and treatments filter down to black office drones or retail workers? it’s an everyday grinding experience.
of course every western country at this point is dealing with chronic inequality and the natives have plenty of problems of their own. racist discourse and concepts of ‘white privilege’ don’t minimise that suffering; minorities raising their voices about racist treatment doesn’t take anything away from your white underclass. you sound a bit like dilbert when you echo this right-wing reactionary stuff. in fact, as KJ and macbeth have pointed out here repeatedly, the history of the civil rights movement has huge overlaps with unions, workers rights, feminism, etc. and connects to a broad base of solidarist movements. nobody is saying that we should give up the work of trying to change the economic system or public-private spheres in favour of spending all our time opening doors for black people.
any group who protests about their treatment in democracy and who campaigns for equality enriches that society for the rest. their gains are enshrined in law and legislation to which every citizen can appeal. dilbert’s hobbes-leviathan view of society, of small clans and groups jostling for their own self-interest, is not how modern democracies are meant to work. that’s ‘the hunger games’. many of the rights that workers and women enjoy today have not directly come from the organisation of workers and women specifically.
it’s also worth bearing in mind as an addendum that every good idea or salient concept can be taken up and misused/abused. being able to differentiate between a coherent argument/cause and some huckster is a skill you’ll need with regards to just about any political issue. i don’t doubt that ‘white privilege’ is shouted out by a lot of idiotic college students with little grasp of what they’re talking about. that happens, but you’ve to put things in a balanced perspective.
you honestly make no sense.Dilbert_X wrote:
I don't imagine the loons who planned to abduct the governor had read or watched any of that either.
Culture moves faster than people can write history books.
like i don’t even know how to respond to that.
genghis khan likely never read a book in his life. so historians shouldn’t bother studying him because he wasn’t au fait with world history? karl marx, edmund burke, alexis de tocqueville, wrote hugely influential works about ‘society’ when the societies of their day and people under their study were likely illiterate and would have had no idea what they were talking about. so their analyses were flawed? just ... what?
you do realise that nationalism, patriot groups, the militia movement, etc. are older than last week’s news story, right? how might they connect to a wider history? a bigger ideology? the patriot/militia movement is self-consciously historical, dilbert: even they have a sense that they’re ‘upholding a tradition’ and ‘essential aspect of american life’. derp derp.
you don’t think reading and understanding the sociology of such ‘militant’ groups would help? how about economics? or even having a grasp of psychology, could that give any insight into their motivations and worldview? going even deeper, you don’t think anthropology could say something about how human beings create meanings out of their social milieux? about how we ‘situate’ our sense of selves in a widely chaotic and senseless world? how in times of stress and instability we are driven harder into such polarized groups? etc.
most of these groups are very ‘online’. how might a grasp of media and technologies help understand their activities and formation? it’s not like we haven’t just spent the last 20 years dealing with any number of extremist movements where people are ‘radicalised’ in chat rooms, forums, IRC networks, etc. would none of that be relevant?
do you even understand how fucking historical or analytical knowledge works at all? you think it’s better to exist in a perpetual present or something, with no recourse to experience or previous examples? oh, but you expect the world to have a perfect response to a pandemic? please, tell me more how historical knowledge is pointless. good job taiwan and south korea didn’t take your fatuous approach in light of SARS-COVID. ‘bUt pAnDeMicS spReAd fAsTer tHan U cAn wRiTe bOokS’.
and do you really think humanities or historical disciplines even PRESUME that they are ‘one step ahead’ of current developments? aren’t YOU rather the one who thinks that, because he has a science degree and knows engineering, he can fit the entire world to a pre-existing formula and has an answer to everything? your entire habit of mind is one of incuriosity and being closed to new information that might ‘ruin’ your pet hypotheses.
you are so clueless it’s honestly just baffling. i suppose you think you’re making a point. the only point you’re making is the sort jay used to make frequently: that he’s sure as fuck never sat in a history class in his damn life. you are shockingly ignorant. so dumb and ignorant that you can’t even recognise your shortcomings. don’t you like to cite dunning–kruger? um, HELLO?!
Last edited by uziq (2020-10-10 01:24:18)
TLDR
How is it you and everyone else are so out of touch with reality they're blindsided by actual world events?
Studying the past seems to have failed to help many people react to events as they happen let alone predict the future and plan for it.
How is it you and everyone else are so out of touch with reality they're blindsided by actual world events?
Studying the past seems to have failed to help many people react to events as they happen let alone predict the future and plan for it.
Fuck Israel
I personally agree and see the point, but we'll have to remember that as wealth and/or power inequality increases across the aformentioned identity 'types', this correlates to persecution of minority groups. It's more or less a historical pattern. In hard times 'native' (rather dominant, if we're talking US) populations become even less accepting of competition from other identity groups. To me it's quite a clear marker of where priorities should be. In Europe it's an often heard argument against even helping refugees: 'F em, we should take care of our own'. To me it's easy to distance myself from that rhetoric, but I feel it's important to keep reminding myself that I'm also not an impoverished white person down on his or her luck.uziq wrote:
+1, put it far better than i could.SuperJail Warden wrote:
It's a huge deal in the narrative of racism in our countries for two reasons.Larssen wrote:
As to your example I sympathise with the barristers that are misidentified as their clients by lowly court officers and receptionists, but isn't this really a minor inconvenience to them?
First those barristers are examples of minorities who did everything right when it comes to education and behavior. They obviously absorbed white cultural traits and behavior enough to do well in those spaces. So the fact that they don't receive recognition and cultural respect for their hard work is significant especially when people complain minorities being lazy/stupid/criminals etc. If the people who "played the game" correctly still aren't getting the respect they deserve then why should anyone else bother or want to work the system and play the game at all?
Secondly, well educated and hard-working minorities are the ones white college kids are most going to come into contact with. A well educated minority work colleague might be the only person of a certain race a lot of white and especially upper income ones even know. Seeing those people get mistreated is going to distort the perception of racial issues of whites to the same degree as a mugging might. So while it might be true that the ghetto is a hell hole best fixed by rockets filled with coronavirus, "one of the good ones" getting harassed at work isn't going to help towards convincing on the fence white people that "racism is over".
of course larssen the children of those QCs will have every advantage in life and will be raised as part of the cultural elite. and, yes, there are upper-middle class immigrants in metropolitan hubs, in your london’s and amsterdam’s and brussels and what have you, which are evidently far more advantaged than any number of natives. but they are an extreme minority. and the fact that, no matter how ‘integrated’ they become, in their day-to-day lives they still have to put up with shopkeepers eyeball-fucking them and suspecting them of thieving, police pulling over their cars because they’re driving a nice vehicle and are from ‘out of town’ (recall dilbert saw nothing wrong with this), will still be asked regularly ‘yes, but where are you from?’. all these little micro-aggressions and race-based forms of exclusion are not exactly in line with the democratic promise.
the vast majority of u.k. lawyers never make it to QC level. it is a staggering achievement and the pinnacle of one of the toughest, most exclusive careers in the land. i recently read a piece the other day on the history of the first black head of a bank, too, and how he was basically hounded out of the industry by the old networks of power. if this is the experience of the very top elites, how do you think those attitudes and treatments filter down to black office drones or retail workers? it’s an everyday grinding experience.
of course every western country at this point is dealing with chronic inequality and the natives have plenty of problems of their own. racist discourse and concepts of ‘white privilege’ don’t minimise that suffering; minorities raising their voices about racist treatment doesn’t take anything away from your white underclass. you sound a bit like dilbert when you echo this right-wing reactionary stuff. in fact, as KJ and macbeth have pointed out here repeatedly, the history of the civil rights movement has huge overlaps with unions, workers rights, feminism, etc. and connects to a broad base of solidarist movements. nobody is saying that we should give up the work of trying to change the economic system or public-private spheres in favour of spending all our time opening doors for black people.
any group who protests about their treatment in democracy and who campaigns for equality enriches that society for the rest. their gains are enshrined in law and legislation to which every citizen can appeal. dilbert’s hobbes-leviathan view of society, of small clans and groups jostling for their own self-interest, is not how modern democracies are meant to work. that’s ‘the hunger games’. many of the rights that workers and women enjoy today have not directly come from the organisation of workers and women specifically.
it’s also worth bearing in mind as an addendum that every good idea or salient concept can be taken up and misused/abused. being able to differentiate between a coherent argument/cause and some huckster is a skill you’ll need with regards to just about any political issue. i don’t doubt that ‘white privilege’ is shouted out by a lot of idiotic college students with little grasp of what they’re talking about. that happens, but you’ve to put things in a balanced perspective.
Which kinda segways into the dominant theme in modern right wing politics, the notion that a very culturally diverse society is unstable and susceptible to intense (violent) social conflict. Often this point is coated in layers of racism and (ethno)nationalism, but I feel that core message shouldn't be immediately discarded. The converge of economic inequality and ethnic/cultural division doesn't make for a fantastic recipe. Of course this is more focused on the European context. I don't think it would be right to apply those arguments to a US situation, where a substantial black american population existed for all of its history which is also culturally distinctly american as well.
Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-10 06:17:04)
you have a very asinine view of history. things like war and disease are constants of human history, not necessarily things that can be solved absolutely for all time by historians (or epidemiologists, for that matter).Dilbert_X wrote:
TLDR
How is it you and everyone else are so out of touch with reality they're blindsided by actual world events?
Studying the past seems to have failed to help many people react to events as they happen let alone predict the future and plan for it.
plus, academics (like epidemiologists) do not have direct access to the levers of power. we don't live in a benign and enlightened world ruled over by expert technocrats. it's not clear that such a world would ever be possible, or even desirable. that's your own pet fantasy.
i swear to god that d&st at this point is mostly just everyone trying to explain to you that the 'real world' is more complex and various than the view from your parents' patio.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +644|3984
The vast majority of Americans have no idea of what any of that shit is. You would be better off watching the NFL and NASCAR to understand American culture than reading Emerson.uziq wrote:
but - here’s the rub dilbert - i’ve also read extensively in american history and culture! how many thousand hours have you spent reading emerson? christopher lasch? henry james? faulkner? rorty? cavell? have you seen the movies of cassavetes? have you read widely in the harlem renaissance? have you dug deep into the history and back catalogue of jazz? etc etc.
again that's really not the point. nobody is saying that is 'american culture'. it is obviously not popular culture. they are different types of knowledge.SuperJail Warden wrote:
The vast majority of Americans have no idea of what any of that shit is. You would be better off watching the NFL and NASCAR to understand American culture than reading Emerson.uziq wrote:
but - here’s the rub dilbert - i’ve also read extensively in american history and culture! how many thousand hours have you spent reading emerson? christopher lasch? henry james? faulkner? rorty? cavell? have you seen the movies of cassavetes? have you read widely in the harlem renaissance? have you dug deep into the history and back catalogue of jazz? etc etc.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +644|3984
What is your favorite NFL team?
i don't watch sports in the UK let alone american sports that nobody outside of the USA cares about.
not all americans watch NFL, either.
what's your favourite bruce springsteen album? since you're appealing to the 'everyman' i'm sure you have a top 5.
not all americans watch NFL, either.
what's your favourite bruce springsteen album? since you're appealing to the 'everyman' i'm sure you have a top 5.
For the better imo. Academics excel in analysis but the solution oriented mindset just isn't there. If they even make specific policy recommendations these are in many cases just not good at all.uziq wrote:
plus, academics (like epidemiologists) do not have direct access to the levers of power. we don't live in a benign and enlightened world ruled over by expert technocrats. it's not clear that such a world would ever be possible, or even desirable. that's your own pet fantasy.
Besides, good policy makers are often academically gifted anyway. It wouldn't change a whole lot.
Academics do even worse at planning or implementation.
Fuck Israel
I like the Steelers for putting so many Washingtonians off football when they screwed the Seahawks in that one superbowl full of stupid calls.SuperJail Warden wrote:
What is your favorite NFL team?
When I was growing up, I'd just rattle off the name of whatever team came to mind when asked that question.
Uzique could get into football, I think. At least he'd be watching other people literally giving each other brain damage rather than suffering it himself reading one of dilbert's anti-history posts.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +644|3984
Sorry but the correct answer to "What is your favorite NFL team?" is "I don't have one because I am not gay." Why would I want to see jacked up men rub against each other? Gross.
What is your favorite MLB team?
What is your favorite MLB team?
What do you have against homoerotic sports and healthy locker room butt slapping?
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +644|3984
Baseball players like touching each other's butts on the field. Gross.
i’ve spent a big chunk of time over the last 5/6 years in the company of heavily brain damaged people. including a few cases of deteriorating middle- or old-aged boxers. i’ve got little interest in watching people run into each other or get punched in the face.unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I like the Steelers for putting so many Washingtonians off football when they screwed the Seahawks in that one superbowl full of stupid calls.SuperJail Warden wrote:
What is your favorite NFL team?
When I was growing up, I'd just rattle off the name of whatever team came to mind when asked that question.
Uzique could get into football, I think. At least he'd be watching other people literally giving each other brain damage rather than suffering it himself reading one of dilbert's anti-history posts.
we can talk about tennis if you like, something civil.
macb’s argument doesn’t make a lot of sense. i highly doubt most americans would have heard of or read thomas paine, but quite clearly a huge number of political issues in american life still pivot on his basic writings around liberty, democracy, common sense, etc. that stuff was hugely influential to the founding fathers and it’s been wrapped up in ‘america’ ever since. it isn’t necessary that every citizen be a grad student in politics or philosophy or whatever. do you think every revolutionary in the street who rose up, every russian naval cadet, had read the entirety of marx’s grundrisse?
I've been around people with brain trauma, memory issues, and Alzheimer's. It's not comfortable to be around and of course worse for the person afflicted. Watching a head injury in video brings back memories of childhood sparring at TKD. The nauseating feeling and stars from a bad knock (that or a bike wreck to be fair) are bad enough with a bunch of kids in pads, I don't want to know what it feels like for someone who had a 20 year career violently colliding with 230-300 whatever pound men. Tennis injuries can get pretty bad too.
On the last part, I mean obviously they haven't.
On the last part, I mean obviously they haven't.
also it's worth distinguishing between cultures. the 20th century was quite evidently the century of american power, and if not military, it was soft power and cultural projection. aspects of that culture can of course be 'captured' in other cultures, analyzed by non-americans, etc. it's not all state fairs, mum's apple pie and baseball cards. that, in fact, is the least exported of america's 'culture' and its 'values'.
places like france were hugely affected by american culture post-ww2, as well as west germany. south korea and the far-east generally caught the american culture bug. it was quite consciously a part of the cold war's 'battle for hearts and minds'. again, outside of very specific examples like japan's baseball league, homegrown american sports really are the least of it. taiwan and hong-kong had cinematic renaissances but they didn't build nascar tracks.
you can learn a lot from reading a faulkner or a eudora welty novel about the south. you get inside the 'grain' and texture of the era: the way people spoke, their mannerisms, as well as their political ideologies and all that textbook crap. it's not a perfect form of knowledge, of course, it's barely even historical knowledge per se; but you are spending time in that headspace, re-summoning a part of that world.
nobody is claiming to be an expert based on this stuff. it's mostly just interesting. i have definitely never made out that i'm an academic specializing in america. i didn't major in american literature even within the narrow confines of my own discipline ffs.
places like france were hugely affected by american culture post-ww2, as well as west germany. south korea and the far-east generally caught the american culture bug. it was quite consciously a part of the cold war's 'battle for hearts and minds'. again, outside of very specific examples like japan's baseball league, homegrown american sports really are the least of it. taiwan and hong-kong had cinematic renaissances but they didn't build nascar tracks.
you can learn a lot from reading a faulkner or a eudora welty novel about the south. you get inside the 'grain' and texture of the era: the way people spoke, their mannerisms, as well as their political ideologies and all that textbook crap. it's not a perfect form of knowledge, of course, it's barely even historical knowledge per se; but you are spending time in that headspace, re-summoning a part of that world.
nobody is claiming to be an expert based on this stuff. it's mostly just interesting. i have definitely never made out that i'm an academic specializing in america. i didn't major in american literature even within the narrow confines of my own discipline ffs.
Last edited by uziq (2020-10-11 03:16:48)
I've played contact sports. After breaking some bones so bad I needed surgery, that was the moment I realised seriously putting my health at risk for sport isn't something worth doing.
Unless you intend to go pro or need to learn self defence for work related purposes or smth, there's really no point. Stick to sports that don't get people killed/disabled.
Unless you intend to go pro or need to learn self defence for work related purposes or smth, there's really no point. Stick to sports that don't get people killed/disabled.
Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-11 03:35:31)
Very glad I picked a sport which involves no contact and remaining as motionless as possible.
Fuck Israel