U.S. Politics: Having a Good Time

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

This from the guy who just bitched about someone not getting a joke...

I realize comedy is subjective, but that joke sucked. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, let's step back a bit.

That 'mentally challenged' guy on the bus wasn't mentally challenged, at all. He wore the armband because he wanted to see if he could go out in Seattle and walk around using his free speech and expression in peace. That was his goal. 

I know this because they interviewed him on NPR. Which was another one of his goals.

Now, you could use this as an argument against punching him, because it made him newsworthy and got him more press. That's an issue, and a reasonable one. But calling him mentally challenged is complete and utter bullshit and shows your innate bias that blinds you to this major threat. 

 

He looked special to me, sorry. Didn't hear his NPR interview, will have to check that out.  

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

The point is you quoted what was clearly a joke by DR II in a condescending way, literal seconds after you made a much much stupider joke which you seemed to be using to bolster an actual argument.

Yeah, DRII absolutely buries Norm Macdonald in the comedy department. Such dizzying wit.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

To be clear, when I said stupid I was referring specifically to your use of the joke. You're taking the bit out of it's original context (that to Americans the German language sounds aggressive and when viewed with hindsight Hitler sounds like a raving loon), and using it to try to bolster your own point, which seems to be that hate speech, if left alone, will be recognized for the ridiculous vitriol that it is and will ultimately prove harmless in and of itself.

This is stupid because the example you're using is literally the most infamous case of hate speech being taken to its worst possible conclusion.

It's a joke. Like any joke, it was used for comedic effect. You're reading WAY too much into my motivations here. If nothing else, I hoped it would provide a laugh, and perhaps ease some tensions.

SCRANKLY-CRANKLY!

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just now, Let's Get Kraken said:

Good job.

Rent a sense of humor? Don't know what to tell you here. You think DR II's joke was funnier than a comic legends' , so I'm going to have some issues trusting your comic sensibilities.

[Stubby]

[MOD]

Let's stop with the "Who is the better human - Nazis or the people that punch them?" and the meta debate about who makes the funnier jokes, please.

Seriously the Nazi issue has been done to death here in recent months and it is beyond stale.

[/MOD]

[Darth Richard II]

Whoops sorry, missed that mod post there.

 

[karaddin]

Changing the subject, and going along with the mass misinformation being discussed in the shooting thread, there has long been speculation about whether Trumps tweeting is emotional and impulsive or calculated and cynical. Turns out the answer appears to be both.

This piece contains some detailed analysis of the tweeting habits from Trumps twitter account and concludes that tweets there is a clear and identifiable split between tweets from him and tweets that are not. Trump tweets come from an Android, they tend to be entirely text - rarely including an image or a link, he's sparing with hashtag use, frequently does the old style retweet (copy/paste with quotes). They also tend to be much more negative. The other tweets come from an iPhone, they tend to do the heavy lifting on organisation so include links to events etc, have pictures, lots of hashtags, proper use of the platform, proper spelling and punctuation. Not all of them are organisational etc however and there are clear examples of attempting to appear like a true Trump tweet, eg

Until now it hasn't been clear who was actually writing these tweets, however they stuffed up today and tweeted from the Trump account and their own account at the same time

The thread makes some good points, primarily based in the fact that he isn't tweeting on behalf of Trump - he's doing it as Trump. With how heavily Trump uses twitter to conduct diplomacy, announce policy etc, this means he's functionally acting as POTUS. And Trump may not even have a clue what he's saying, he only uses twitter from his phone, he doesn't use the internet and otherwise is far from technologically competent.

 

 

[Darth Richard II]

Trump is like kind of like the living example of Poe's Law. I'm still not convinced he's not Andy Kaufman.

[Darzin]

I would like to point out that large portions of the right in America including large parts of this administration believe that Islam is a violent genocidal  ideology that demands all of it's followers kill or convert all non Muslims. If you give the government the power to ban genocidal ideologies there is a decent chance the US right will try to ban Islam. Just a thought.

Also I am very uncomfortable giving the Trump administration tools to ban speech, when we are talking about these things I think it's important to remember who the government actually is. 

[karaddin]

Well yes, at the point you have Nazi's running the government they are going to abuse the laws that are on the books. Given they will break the system and do whatever they want anyway, that's not really a compelling argument to not the things that are meant to stop them getting power in the first place. That's precisely why you need to stop them getting there and fight them tooth and nail once they are.

They have demonstrated thousands of times over the last few years that they do not give a shit about hypocrisy. Acting like it will hand them a win is still buying into thinking they care.

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

Until now it hasn't been clear who was actually writing these tweets, however they stuffed up today and tweeted from the Trump account and their own account at the same time

 

It's funny (and terrifying) how the internet age drops completely surprising challenges that can turn out to be REALLY IMPORTANT out of nowhere. Like, I know it's common practice for celebrities to have their twitter part-run by someone else, until recently I've been operating on the principle that 'I know it's highly unlikely that Guillermo Rigondeaux runs his twitter himself but I'm pretending he does it's real to me dammit!'. And it's like, fun and games, and when someone does something silly like posting a tweet by a footballer who is on the field at the time it's a jolly jape.

But then suddenly this comes up and it's not a jolly jape, it's the future of nations.

[maarsen]

5 hours ago, karaddin said:

Changing the subject, and going along with the mass misinformation being discussed in the shooting thread, there has long been speculation about whether Trumps tweeting is emotional and impulsive or calculated and cynical. Turns out the answer appears to be both.

This piece contains some detailed analysis of the tweeting habits from Trumps twitter account and concludes that tweets there is a clear and identifiable split between tweets from him and tweets that are not. Trump tweets come from an Android, they tend to be entirely text - rarely including an image or a link, he's sparing with hashtag use, frequently does the old style retweet (copy/paste with quotes). They also tend to be much more negative. The other tweets come from an iPhone, they tend to do the heavy lifting on organisation so include links to events etc, have pictures, lots of hashtags, proper use of the platform, proper spelling and punctuation. Not all of them are organisational etc however and there are clear examples of attempting to appear like a true Trump tweet, eg

Until now it hasn't been clear who was actually writing these tweets, however they stuffed up today and tweeted from the Trump account and their own account at the same time

The thread makes some good points, primarily based in the fact that he isn't tweeting on behalf of Trump - he's doing it as Trump. With how heavily Trump uses twitter to conduct diplomacy, announce policy etc, this means he's functionally acting as POTUS. And Trump may not even have a clue what he's saying, he only uses twitter from his phone, he doesn't use the internet and otherwise is far from technologically competent.

 

 

I would remove the word 'techonogically' from your last sentence. Just for clarity.

[Dr. Pepper]

Re: the tweets the @karaddin posted.  This idea that an aid could be the person to start a war is terrifying.  He could just randomly give a presidential edict on twitter.  And since he writes as Trump rather than for Trump, people just assume it all comes from Trump.  At least other politicians make clear which comes directly from them.  

Although, someone in that tweet thread brought up a good point in that this sort of thing also helps drive misinformation because it's easier to say that such and such tweet didn't come from him, it was a rogue agent, blah blah blah.  

ETA: Stupid question, how does one know what type of device posted a tweet?

[karaddin]

I just looked it up myself, you can grab the last 7 days with a google sheets extension Twitter Archiver as per https://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/social-media/twitter-app-tweet-sent-quick-tip/

Having grabbed the last week of Trump tweets, not a single one in that week was from Android o_O I guess they've stolen his phone

[LongRider]

19 hours ago, Week said:

"Most people" - any analytic response is not what my question was getting at. Clearly, though, you're going to continue to dodge.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-crosleycorcoran/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255.html

Thanks for posting this, also, in the article the link to "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" doesn't work so here is one that does.

https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/lewisjulie/White Priviledge Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.pdf

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, TerraPrime said:

 

So when people say that white people cannot experience racism, what we're saying is that there are no institutional racism directed against white people, because institutional racism was created by white people to protect white advantages. Does every single white person benefit from every single artifacts of institutional racism? Most likely not. But it is not wrong, in the specific context of institutional racism, to say that white people do not experience racism. 

 

And pretty much everyone has agreed with this line of thinking. The dispute has been whether or not white people can experience every day racism, which has been discussed ad nauseam, and what are the ramifications of telling white people that they can’t experience racism and that they are racists for simply being white. It’s been my long standing argument that doing so will make them reject the concept of institutional racism and make them more likely to become racists. If your goal is to win the long game, you should probably avoid making such claims.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm really enjoying the "Don't blame the gun blame the shooter" memes on Facebook.  In particular the "if a bomb goes off we blame the bomber".  By that logic bombs should be legal to carry around because the problem is "bombers" not " bombs".

:(

[maarsen]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm really enjoying the "Don't blame the gun blame the shooter" memes on Facebook.  In particular the "if a bomb goes off we blame the bomber".  By that logic bombs should be legal to carry around because the problem is "bombers" not " bombs".

Logic has never been the strong suit of those against gun control.

[Mother Cocanuts]

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm really enjoying the "Don't blame the gun blame the shooter" memes on Facebook.  In particular the "if a bomb goes off we blame the bomber".  By that logic bombs should be legal to carry around because the problem is "bombers" not " bombs".

Is there harm in carrying a bomb?

2 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Logic has never been the strong suit of those against gun control.

No, logic has never been a strong suit for those who support gun control. While you can't entirely remove the blame from guns, to assume that every person with a gun is a likely violent offender is simply ridiculous and illogical, especially given the statistics.