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Brian63
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People should not even have to be told to not exploit the suffering and death of other innocent people for your own enjoyment. They should have that already figured out, but apparently do need to be told that.
Brian
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
Well then, from one jackass to another... don't participate in this particular thread because it is clearly not going to be the kind of thread you are demanding that it be. The fucking cartoon of bloodied people being run over by a truck should have been your first clue of that... a cartoon that apparently passed your hypocritical standards because you sure as fuck didn't call that one out.
Bye bye!
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
This is an example of why there is NO FUCKING POINT in trying to have a serious conversation about any of it:
The orange turd is just a symptom. But until these people change, a "serious conversation" on a frelling message board accomplished nothing. Might as well give them their own "logic" back at them.
- - - Updated - - -
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/trump-vegas-nyc/index.html
And that characterization perfectly fits certain members of this board, too, Brian. "It's that simple" and that's the point of Underseer's "jokes".
The orange turd is just a symptom. But until these people change, a "serious conversation" on a frelling message board accomplished nothing. Might as well give them their own "logic" back at them.
- - - Updated - - -
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/trump-vegas-nyc/index.html
And that characterization perfectly fits certain members of this board, too, Brian. "It's that simple" and that's the point of Underseer's "jokes".
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
Brian, I know you're a good guy and I think you are worth actually trying to have a conversation with. The vast majority of the Republican Party and a couple of posters in this thread are not. Such persons have no interest in hearing policies--I've posted such proposals before to get *crickets*. It's not that it's difficult to convince people, it's that some people don't want to engage in an honest conversation much like Trump or Limbaugh. Some people choose to get nasty and I do it myself, even in this thread with some sarcasm:
Well, the first sentence was meant to be sarcasm because this is exactly what Republicans would be saying if a Democrat were in charge, but it has some merit anyway. The next sentence wasn't meant to be sarcasm. The current administration is currently very wasteful and unproductive. If Donald Trump spent all that Twitter time being constructive instead of destructive, we'd have something positive, I mean, if he were interested in solving problems and not being partisan/greedy for power or whatever it is on top of the Tweets.
I will add that Donald Trump right now is the head of not just the country but the Republican Party. Tremendous resources are being spent making up stuff about Hillary Clinton, correctly and appropriately investigating his campaign and administration, and otherwise wasting taxpayer money that could be used instead to find more terrorists on American soil or work on solutions across the aisle rather than fabricating Pizzagate/Fusion stories.
Now, I did not find "enjoyment" in either sentence. I still don't. I did not use the post to be funny either. As much as you may find value in the 8 lives that were lost, I find value in the continual lives lost needlessly. That means the Muslim civilian lives lost in actions by Western states and Islamist terrorism against Muslims and Islamist terrorism against the West.
Finally, my post was NOWHERE NEAR (and that's not screaming, it's intense meaning) the jerkiness of Derec's image that he has trotted out more than once to refer to people like me who have tried to say the answer is more peace than war as bloody victims....to refer to other people in this forum who have commented on the insanity of some terrorist also as bloody victims. I have not leapt up and called you a hypocrite or a conservative for not commenting on that post because I do not know your mind. Like I wrote you're a "good guy," so I have assumed you have some reason. Perhaps you did not read the whole thread or perhaps you have Derec on ignore, for example. I wonder how you would be feeling right now if one of those victims in Derec's image was supposed to be you with your commentary. How much more would you be pissed off right now?
Brian63
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Well, we do have some agreements and some disagreements, Don. Either way, I do appreciate your kindness and willingness to resolve the issue here.
I do want to clarify my position. 2 key points need to be understood---
1. I do not follow politics and I do not debate the issues online much now, though I used to more several years ago, mostly arguing against conservatives online. All my life while I have followed political issues, I have described myself as “more anti-Republican than pro-Democrat.” I am less certain of liberal positions being good ones, but am more certain that many conservative stances are awful ones. I am *especially* anti-religion. So the idea that I am somehow not criticizing enough the conservative stances on religion is one that misunderstands me completely to the core, it is an accusation that is the complete flip-flop of what I actually am.
2. It should be completely irrelevant what my position on religion or politics is. We should look at our own behaviors and say “Yeah, I was right there” or “No, I was wrong there” by the claims themselves. We should not need to see if other people who object to our behavior are consistent or inconsistent in their objections, to see if those objections are valid or not.
So if someone points out a bad behavior, we should not need to first do a background check on that accuser. Their objections are valid or invalid, period. Maybe that person is a Republican, Democrat, libertarian, anarchist, communist, Green Party member, or people who do not even follow politics at all and never vote. Their personal interests is simply irrelevant. It is the substance of their claims which matters.
When we as a culture experience some kind of horrific tragedy like we just did, people should realize on their own that it is okay and even important to openly criticize beliefs, policies, laws, social habits, etc. What is not okay is to contribute virtually nothing substantial to those discussions, but instead to use it as an opportunity to laugh and make irrelevant jokes, to treat it as just another way to stick another pin into your political opponents. These events, the hurricanes, the earthquakes, the mass murders, the terrorist events, the computer hacker attacks, gigantic fires, etc. are all serious matters that really hurt other people. We are diminishing the importance of these events when we treat them as just pieces of a game. Making fun of your political opponents for something bad that they did not do, but you want them to do so it makes your joke funny, is not an attitude we should be socially encouraging, or even allowing. Whether those jokes happen on the internet, through person-to-person, wherever. If Trump exploits various tragedies for his own personal gain, then absolutely we should be critical of him, even take action against him. Those earlier posts though are not doing anything substantive. They are just getting a laugh out of a horrific tragedy. That should not be acceptable to anyone.
To be clear also, if it was just 1 person making a sarcastic response on this thread, I would be a little bothered by it. What really made me annoyed though was just the sheer magnitude of this. So much of the posts were not about keeping us informed and up-to-date on the most recent developments (ZiprHead’s appeared to do that for the most part though), they were not informing us of anything, they were not making significant ideas or criticisms of any policies. So much of them were just mostly sour jokes, and jokes that exploited the suffering of other completely innocent people. It was not just a waste of time to read, it was sickening to read.
I believe I do not have anyone on ignore, including Derec. I just skip over most of his posts when I do come across them (which is rarely). I just do not think I should personally have to in some way statistically equalize and normalize how many posts I am critical of across various political ideologies, in order to substantiate my claims that we should not be assholes ourselves. We should not treat the horrific world tragedies we have had in recent times (and I personally have been affected by 1 in particular) as just another piece we can move in the political games we want to play. This was a serious and life-threatening and life-ending event, not a game or something we can make a joke about.
If this was just an occasional post that was somewhat in bad taste, I would not be so disgusted by it. We all make bad-taste and inappropriate comments at times, it is part of being human. We should at least try to improve our tastes though, try to grow up. Take some issues and events very seriously rather than just play the same usual games with them, especially when they involve literal life and death and suffering. At first it was the sheer volume of the posts making fun of the whole situation that bothered me. Later, it was the people subsequently trying to defend their own game-playing behavior by insulting me in return that bothered me a lot. Rather than acknowledging a mistake and even apologizing for it, they just turned up the insult-generator instead. I will sleep on this more, and maybe in the morning I will have a different impression of my own behavior. I suspect I will have the same general reaction as I do now, but if I do think I was wrong in any of my behavior, I will try to acknowledge that and apologize for it. If I remain entirely in agreement, then I will just leave it alone. I do hope others here will be willing to do the same for themselves. We can go back to being friends instead of enemies. Let’s just also please stop treating the suffering of others as a game to play and a joke to make. These are serious events that we should care about, not laugh about.
Brian
I do want to clarify my position. 2 key points need to be understood---
1. I do not follow politics and I do not debate the issues online much now, though I used to more several years ago, mostly arguing against conservatives online. All my life while I have followed political issues, I have described myself as “more anti-Republican than pro-Democrat.” I am less certain of liberal positions being good ones, but am more certain that many conservative stances are awful ones. I am *especially* anti-religion. So the idea that I am somehow not criticizing enough the conservative stances on religion is one that misunderstands me completely to the core, it is an accusation that is the complete flip-flop of what I actually am.
2. It should be completely irrelevant what my position on religion or politics is. We should look at our own behaviors and say “Yeah, I was right there” or “No, I was wrong there” by the claims themselves. We should not need to see if other people who object to our behavior are consistent or inconsistent in their objections, to see if those objections are valid or not.
So if someone points out a bad behavior, we should not need to first do a background check on that accuser. Their objections are valid or invalid, period. Maybe that person is a Republican, Democrat, libertarian, anarchist, communist, Green Party member, or people who do not even follow politics at all and never vote. Their personal interests is simply irrelevant. It is the substance of their claims which matters.
When we as a culture experience some kind of horrific tragedy like we just did, people should realize on their own that it is okay and even important to openly criticize beliefs, policies, laws, social habits, etc. What is not okay is to contribute virtually nothing substantial to those discussions, but instead to use it as an opportunity to laugh and make irrelevant jokes, to treat it as just another way to stick another pin into your political opponents. These events, the hurricanes, the earthquakes, the mass murders, the terrorist events, the computer hacker attacks, gigantic fires, etc. are all serious matters that really hurt other people. We are diminishing the importance of these events when we treat them as just pieces of a game. Making fun of your political opponents for something bad that they did not do, but you want them to do so it makes your joke funny, is not an attitude we should be socially encouraging, or even allowing. Whether those jokes happen on the internet, through person-to-person, wherever. If Trump exploits various tragedies for his own personal gain, then absolutely we should be critical of him, even take action against him. Those earlier posts though are not doing anything substantive. They are just getting a laugh out of a horrific tragedy. That should not be acceptable to anyone.
To be clear also, if it was just 1 person making a sarcastic response on this thread, I would be a little bothered by it. What really made me annoyed though was just the sheer magnitude of this. So much of the posts were not about keeping us informed and up-to-date on the most recent developments (ZiprHead’s appeared to do that for the most part though), they were not informing us of anything, they were not making significant ideas or criticisms of any policies. So much of them were just mostly sour jokes, and jokes that exploited the suffering of other completely innocent people. It was not just a waste of time to read, it was sickening to read.
I believe I do not have anyone on ignore, including Derec. I just skip over most of his posts when I do come across them (which is rarely). I just do not think I should personally have to in some way statistically equalize and normalize how many posts I am critical of across various political ideologies, in order to substantiate my claims that we should not be assholes ourselves. We should not treat the horrific world tragedies we have had in recent times (and I personally have been affected by 1 in particular) as just another piece we can move in the political games we want to play. This was a serious and life-threatening and life-ending event, not a game or something we can make a joke about.
If this was just an occasional post that was somewhat in bad taste, I would not be so disgusted by it. We all make bad-taste and inappropriate comments at times, it is part of being human. We should at least try to improve our tastes though, try to grow up. Take some issues and events very seriously rather than just play the same usual games with them, especially when they involve literal life and death and suffering. At first it was the sheer volume of the posts making fun of the whole situation that bothered me. Later, it was the people subsequently trying to defend their own game-playing behavior by insulting me in return that bothered me a lot. Rather than acknowledging a mistake and even apologizing for it, they just turned up the insult-generator instead. I will sleep on this more, and maybe in the morning I will have a different impression of my own behavior. I suspect I will have the same general reaction as I do now, but if I do think I was wrong in any of my behavior, I will try to acknowledge that and apologize for it. If I remain entirely in agreement, then I will just leave it alone. I do hope others here will be willing to do the same for themselves. We can go back to being friends instead of enemies. Let’s just also please stop treating the suffering of others as a game to play and a joke to make. These are serious events that we should care about, not laugh about.
Brian
Brian63
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Alright then…
I have been able to step away from this thread and even sleep for a while, and want to address this thread again now. There was so much commenting in this thread that I find rejectionable, particularly just using the deaths and suffering of real people to insert a snarky comment or joke in about Republicans or conservatives in general, and not focusing on what we can learn about the actual event and about the deaths and suffering of real people and what we can do to actually address this real problem in front of us with huge terror attacks and natural disasters. But I do think I went too far in calling people assholes or jackasses just for making those reactive comments. I strongly do, and will, oppose such mentalities, but many of the people who participated in it are fine people who I think got caught up in this unfortunate prevalent mentality. I escalated the tension in this thread by using the terms jackass or asshole to refer to such people, and I was wrong to do that. There are some posters in this thread who I do consider genuine jackasses and assholes, but it was reflected more in their behavior later on in the thread and elsewhere routinely around this forum. The people in the beginning of this thread who made more of cheapening and satirizing remarks that I found sickening are not themselves sickening, just people who are overall good people who went too far at that moment. We should not be celebrating at all when innocent people suffer, or use any kind of atrocious attacks to get in just the same old political swipes that we always do. I do a lot of reading of conservative political/religious websites just because I like to understand how that mindset works, and I see much of the same sort of behavior there. Some people will make sincere statements of compassion about the victims that really did suffer, other people will make fake-statements of compassion and then use the opportunity to engage in political smearing of liberals and secularists. It is dehumanizing to see that and cheapens the value of innocent people who really did suffer, and it is so disturbing to see the same sort of behavior occurring here. What is the next step, that we secretly hope that the numbers in the death tolls rise and the injured people get bigger, so we have more ammo to make more shots at people who did not actually cause these atrocities, but we still want to shoot at anyway? Are we going to hope for more disasters and attacks to occur, so there are more chances to throw more punches? We probably all reject those behaviors when they are described explicitly here. I just think we are privately internalizing those sorts of attitudes. It needs to stop. Whatever the next massive tragedy is that occurs, maybe a devastating weather event or a human-caused terror attack or whatever, I will look into the threads here and see what the predominant type of response is. I hope it is one that does not just cheapen the event and see it as a game piece to move against political opponents. If that is what it looks like though, I will just not participate, as I think little would be accomplished there. On other and later attacks though, I may feel inclined to oppose it again. We will see how it goes.
So I do apologize for referring to some people in this thread as assholes and jackasses. Many of them are people who I really appreciate and admire, but think they got swept up in a bad tide, and made an inappropriate response to this event, and I went too far in my namecalling. Even if we disagree, we can try to be online friends with each other still. Some other people here really are regular assholes and jackasses, and I will acknowledge that still, even if not publicly now, but still privately. That is my position here.
Brian
I have been able to step away from this thread and even sleep for a while, and want to address this thread again now. There was so much commenting in this thread that I find rejectionable, particularly just using the deaths and suffering of real people to insert a snarky comment or joke in about Republicans or conservatives in general, and not focusing on what we can learn about the actual event and about the deaths and suffering of real people and what we can do to actually address this real problem in front of us with huge terror attacks and natural disasters. But I do think I went too far in calling people assholes or jackasses just for making those reactive comments. I strongly do, and will, oppose such mentalities, but many of the people who participated in it are fine people who I think got caught up in this unfortunate prevalent mentality. I escalated the tension in this thread by using the terms jackass or asshole to refer to such people, and I was wrong to do that. There are some posters in this thread who I do consider genuine jackasses and assholes, but it was reflected more in their behavior later on in the thread and elsewhere routinely around this forum. The people in the beginning of this thread who made more of cheapening and satirizing remarks that I found sickening are not themselves sickening, just people who are overall good people who went too far at that moment. We should not be celebrating at all when innocent people suffer, or use any kind of atrocious attacks to get in just the same old political swipes that we always do. I do a lot of reading of conservative political/religious websites just because I like to understand how that mindset works, and I see much of the same sort of behavior there. Some people will make sincere statements of compassion about the victims that really did suffer, other people will make fake-statements of compassion and then use the opportunity to engage in political smearing of liberals and secularists. It is dehumanizing to see that and cheapens the value of innocent people who really did suffer, and it is so disturbing to see the same sort of behavior occurring here. What is the next step, that we secretly hope that the numbers in the death tolls rise and the injured people get bigger, so we have more ammo to make more shots at people who did not actually cause these atrocities, but we still want to shoot at anyway? Are we going to hope for more disasters and attacks to occur, so there are more chances to throw more punches? We probably all reject those behaviors when they are described explicitly here. I just think we are privately internalizing those sorts of attitudes. It needs to stop. Whatever the next massive tragedy is that occurs, maybe a devastating weather event or a human-caused terror attack or whatever, I will look into the threads here and see what the predominant type of response is. I hope it is one that does not just cheapen the event and see it as a game piece to move against political opponents. If that is what it looks like though, I will just not participate, as I think little would be accomplished there. On other and later attacks though, I may feel inclined to oppose it again. We will see how it goes.
So I do apologize for referring to some people in this thread as assholes and jackasses. Many of them are people who I really appreciate and admire, but think they got swept up in a bad tide, and made an inappropriate response to this event, and I went too far in my namecalling. Even if we disagree, we can try to be online friends with each other still. Some other people here really are regular assholes and jackasses, and I will acknowledge that still, even if not publicly now, but still privately. That is my position here.
Brian
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Witness reports say the cop shot numerous times, only hitting the perp once. Sounds like it's lucky he got hit at all.
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
Well Brian, thanks for your non-apology.
I, too, have had a good night's sleep and a chance to review the entire thread. What I found is that except for this one post:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...-NYC-bike-path&p=470073&viewfull=1#post470073
noone here used "the deaths and suffering of real people to insert a snarky comment or joke in about" anyone... least of all about "Republicans or conservatives in general"
There were a few comments of varying degrees of wit that contained an observation about human propensity to jump to conclusions ahead of facts. A few of my favorites:
This one included a link to a factual article supporting the observation underlying the quip.
Before you jumped in with your claim that the "responses on this thread are so far overwhelmingly sick" and
there was exactly 1 reference to Trump, and 3 references to "white conservative terrorists" - one of which noted that this murderer is technically a "white conservative terrorist" being that he is from Uzbekistan. Calling him a "central Asian conservative terrorist" might have been more accurate, but the very valid point remains: all of the hysteria and name-calling and scare-photos and disgusting cartoons of brown people is misplaced and non-productive. What the comment was NOT was berating or parodying "Trump and conservatives."
Don's comment, and all of the others that you appear to be finger-wagging, are in fact "serious" observations about the fucked up way the U.S. - particularly and especially the current administration - addressed the very serious ways thousands of citizens and tourists are murdered in our country. You can't have a "serious" conversation about policy with people who refuse to even acknowledge the reality of the disparate responses to these increasingly frequent atrocities.
Yes, eight people died in New York City. FIFTY-EIGHT died in Las Vegas. More than NINE HUNDRED have died in Puerto Rico because of Hurricane Maria.
You want people to "actually address this real problem in front of us"? That is exactly what blastula, Tom Sawyer, JayJay, Elixir, Underseer, Don, Horatio and anyone else you think are "regular assholes and jackasses" or just good people "swept up in a bad tide" were doing.
The disparate responses based on the skin colors of the people involved IS the underlying problem that needs to be addressed and that is what they were addressing. If we want people to stop dying needlessly, then we have to address the real problem(s).
If you can't see that... and even worse, you felt the compulsion to continue your diatribe (disguised as a non-apology) about people you deem "regular assholes and jackasses", then perhaps the only jackass here is the one looking at you out of your mirror.
If, on the other hand, you are the decent person Don seems to think you are, try understanding the genuine heartbreak, frustration and anger on behalf of ALL of the recent victims that is behind the sarcasm; and try issuing a real apology to everyone you deemed "assholes and jackasses".
Or just shut up with your self-aggrandizing derail.
Whichever.
ETA: Truthfully, I've always thought Brian was a decent guy, too. Unfortunately, his finger-wagging and insistence in carrying it on and on and on got to me. I find his behavior in this thread FAR more disrespectful to the victims of the N.Y. murders than anything said by almost anyone else here.
I stand by what I've said above, but I will be taking my own advice and shutting up about it now.
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Underseer
Contributor
As opposed to using the death and suffering of human beings to justify your own bigotry?
I should not have to explain to atheists what a hasty generalization fallacy is. I should not have to explain to Americans why collective punishment is wrong, yet here we are.
Christians are statistically more likely than atheists to be bigoted. In recent years, a large number of Christians have become atheist. Thus it should surprise no one that the atheist community is becoming more bigoted.
Many ex-Muslim atheists living in the West have to suffer the same prejudice as Muslims because of their appearance and last names. They have to suffer from the same bigotry because of the rhetoric people like you have spewed in this very thread and your refusal to offer a few simple caveats in your criticisms.
So you know what? I give up trying to explain to you why the logic of your arguments is wrong. I accept the logic of your arguments and have therefore concluded that all white people are terrorists, and that by disagreeing with me, you are attacking my free speech rights. If we're going to pretend that the logic of your arguments are valid, then let's at least be consistent about it.
Underseer
Contributor
All I am doing is applying conservative logic to my conclusions. Do you have a problem with the logic of these arguments?
J842P
Veteran Member
I think someone needs to reboot Underseer, or maybe send him back to the Alt-Right lab that created him, because the chat-bot functionality is failing.
bilby
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So you are going to use one example of a non-conservative employing a hasty generalisation fallacy as evidence that non-conservatives in general are prone to that cognitive error?
You don't see anything ironic in that, at all?
Any sufficiently large group will contain some members who are prone to erroneous thinking. This fact in no way excuses you for indulging in the same errors.
Yes, "conservative" arguments.
So you are going to use one example of a non-conservative employing a hasty generalisation fallacy as evidence that non-conservatives in general are prone to that cognitive error?
You don't see anything ironic in that, at all?
Any sufficiently large group will contain some members who are prone to erroneous thinking. This fact in no way excuses you for indulging in the same errors.
Well, right. If only you'd tell that to the other posters here.
bilby
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I presume that they can read - it's not as though my reply to you was in a private message.
Which pretty much shows that aiming more precisely than center of mass isn't going to work.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
I appreciate your stepping away and coming back. I think that's a good idea that I do sometimes myself, except when I don't. Perhaps I go too far sometimes when I don't step away. Maybe. I do think there is still some misunderstanding here and I'd like to try to clear it up. I think it has to do with how to interpret the sarcasm and frankly weird commentary you may see as an infrequent lurker. What has happened here in the forum is that almost everyone is acquainted and almost everyone has history--to include knowing already the positions of each other. The commentary when it's sarcastic often refers to a history of argument in a context. It's not meant to be funny but it's very serious, way more serious than it probably appeared to you because you're used to seeing real generalizations somewhere else. There are a few people here who have made such hasty generalizations as part of their typical argument. What you may see if I write it is some form of rebuttal, perhaps even to multiple lines of argument and I'm not the only one here who might do that on occasion. Now if some family member or friend of a victim of some tragedy comes to the board I think they will be far more offended by Derec's picture of bloody victims, but on the other hand without such context and maybe even with an historical context of the arguments, they can easily get upset with some of my posts, too. That does not only apply to victims' acquaintances but anyone who is new in the forum or an infrequent lurker coming into a thread in the middle. And that tells me I am not being as effective as I'd like and/or possibly risking the creation of misunderstandings between well-meaning people. I do apologize for my part in what I perceive as this kind of misunderstanding. I am also reassessing my posting style in certain instances and types of threads in order to create less risk of misunderstanding.