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Snowstalker Mk. II
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« Reply #75 on: March 16, 2015, 10:20:18 PM »

Whether or not this is the intention is besides the point, whenever you use the term "political correctness", a phenomenon that doesn't have a basis in reality,

As insufferable (and usually bigoted) as the right-wing critics of "political correctness" usually are, this is demonstrably false.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #76 on: March 16, 2015, 10:54:00 PM »

DeadFlagBlues is, as usual, the only person talking a lick of sense on these matters.

Also greentext is awful and needs to be killed with fire. 
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shua
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« Reply #77 on: March 16, 2015, 10:58:21 PM »

kill this thread now. it's dead.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #78 on: March 16, 2015, 11:36:23 PM »

kill this thread now. it's dead.

It's been dead ever since it got named after Mr. Spade. Tongue
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they don't love you like i love you
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« Reply #79 on: March 16, 2015, 11:39:21 PM »

There's nothing braver than standing against political correctness, am I right?

The notion of "political correctness" is a shibboleth for those who don't care about minority rights. Whenever "political correctness" is used in a pejorative manner, it sends the message that the concerns ethnic or racial minorities aren't worthwhile. Whether or not this is the intention is besides the point, whenever you use the term "political correctness", a phenomenon that doesn't have a basis in reality, as a catch-all term that may be used to lampoon the use of words that are more respectful, you send the message that you don't care.

Corporate directives that instruct employees to undertake "diversity training" may be counter-productive and the constant sectarian bickering between segments of the left over the semantics of race may be tiring but at least society is making an attempt to promote multiculturalism. Say what you will about the negative consequences of the idea of a "post-racial" America but racial intermarriage continues to increase and many racial barriers are eroding. In the broad scheme of things, we're moving in the right direction.

Nice to see a deserving post directly posted into the GPG for once considering how "directly posting into the Deluge" occurs far more often.
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Marokai Backbeat
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« Reply #80 on: March 17, 2015, 02:03:11 AM »

Whether or not this is the intention is besides the point, whenever you use the term "political correctness", a phenomenon that doesn't have a basis in reality,

As insufferable (and usually bigoted) as the right-wing critics of "political correctness" usually are, this is demonstrably false.

Your opinion has layers of nuance and complexity to it and is therefore uncomfortable and wrong.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #81 on: March 17, 2015, 05:34:13 AM »

There's nothing braver than standing against political correctness, am I right?

The notion of "political correctness" is a shibboleth for those who don't care about minority rights. Whenever "political correctness" is used in a pejorative manner, it sends the message that the concerns ethnic or racial minorities aren't worthwhile. Whether or not this is the intention is besides the point, whenever you use the term "political correctness", a phenomenon that doesn't have a basis in reality, as a catch-all term that may be used to lampoon the use of words that are more respectful, you send the message that you don't care.

Corporate directives that instruct employees to undertake "diversity training" may be counter-productive and the constant sectarian bickering between segments of the left over the semantics of race may be tiring but at least society is making an attempt to promote multiculturalism. Say what you will about the negative consequences of the idea of a "post-racial" America but racial intermarriage continues to increase and many racial barriers are eroding. In the broad scheme of things, we're moving in the right direction.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #82 on: March 17, 2015, 08:54:06 AM »

The problem with Politically Correct English as it tends to be used on the Atlas (and elsewhere on the internet) is that it has more to do with affirming the speaker's status and self-image than with demonstrating any real commitment to social or economic equality. Freddie deBoer's thoughts on the subject are thoughtful and clarifying (video - also see his post on critique drift), the fact that Snowstalker has mentioned him notwithstanding.

Whether you want to call this "political correctness" (and accept all of the baggage that comes with this term), left-wing language policing, or something else, it harms the causes that anyone on the left ought to care about by alienating and excluding people who cannot immediately and flawlessly adopt to elaborate and unfamiliar codes of language etiquette.1 And, at its worst, this sanitized dialect functions as euphemism, making us feel better about some terrible aspect of reality just because we've come up with a nice word for it.

These are exactly the points that TNF makes in the post that set off this debate: (1) language policing/political correctness can stifle debate or deflects it toward separate concerns about language use (these may be substantive concerns, but they are frequently irrelevant to the original subject of discussion), (2) that a person's actual circumstances bear more heavily on him or her than whether other people use the correct, anodyne vocabulary to describe those circumstances, and (3) that the manner in which R2D2 addressed Turkisblau was at all likely to change Turkisblau's behavior - or even intended to in the first place.

1 Which is not to suggest that this problem is uniquely endemic to the left. Anyone who has watched Fox News for twenty minutes is familiar with the bizarre world of right-wing political correctness, in which you are likely to take criticism for your language if it is not purposely offensive enough.

Exactly this.

And one risks the trap of accidentally feeding into the persecution complex of the genuinely horrible by taking an intolerant of intolerance position, which will take sway the uninformed towards those thoughts.
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Oakvale
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« Reply #83 on: March 17, 2015, 09:02:00 AM »

Nix is basically correct here, but more concisely I think Steve Albini was right (as per usual) on Political Correctness -

Quote
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The problem here is that said "awkward, stilted, revolution-speak language" is now once again an actual thing in the form of Tumblrista suburban crusaders and their fetishisation of the mystical power of language to a point that would make any self-respecting occultist blush.
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TNF
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« Reply #84 on: March 17, 2015, 09:24:51 AM »

The problem with Politically Correct English as it tends to be used on the Atlas (and elsewhere on the internet) is that it has more to do with affirming the speaker's status and self-image than with demonstrating any real commitment to social or economic equality. Freddie deBoer's thoughts on the subject are thoughtful and clarifying (video - also see his post on critique drift), the fact that Snowstalker has mentioned him notwithstanding.

Whether you want to call this "political correctness" (and accept all of the baggage that comes with this term), left-wing language policing, or something else, it harms the causes that anyone on the left ought to care about by alienating and excluding people who cannot immediately and flawlessly adopt to elaborate and unfamiliar codes of language etiquette.1 And, at its worst, this sanitized dialect functions as euphemism, making us feel better about some terrible aspect of reality just because we've come up with a nice word for it.

These are exactly the points that TNF makes in the post that set off this debate: (1) language policing/political correctness can stifle debate or deflect it toward separate concerns about language use (these may be substantive concerns, but they are frequently irrelevant to the original subject of discussion), (2) a person's actual circumstances bear more heavily on him or her than whether other people use the correct, anodyne vocabulary to describe those circumstances, and (3) the manner in which R2D2 addressed Turkisblau was not at all likely to change Turkisblau's behavior - or even intended to in the first place.

1 Which is not to suggest that this problem is uniquely endemic to the left. Anyone who has watched Fox News for twenty minutes is familiar with the bizarre world of right-wing political correctness, in which you are likely to take criticism for your language if it is not purposely offensive enough.
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SWE
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« Reply #85 on: March 17, 2015, 03:17:41 PM »

My top 5 Party Choices:
1. Likud (I voted this way in the poll and my sig should make it obvs)
2. The Jewish Home
3. Kulanu
4. Yisrael Beiteinu
5. Shas


In other words, kill all Palestinians, amirite

You support Communism, you shouldn't talk about killing. Your movement has more blood on it's hands then any other ideology.

Yeah, but the difference is that the people killed by say, the Bolsheviks, weren't people who were systematically denied the right to have electricity in their homes, meaningful work, or adequate food. The Bolsheviks and co. actually killed people who did things that were pretty abhorrent and that would never have been held accountable for them otherwise. Were they always right? Definitely not. But they never set out to systematically eradicate an entire group of people because Russia was "god's gift" to them or whatever bullsh**t you Zionist-fascists go on about.

Killing is not in and of itself immoral. Everything is contextual. Wiping out the white armies that would overturn Russian democracy and enslave the people =/= wiping out Palestinians because they had the gall to live somewhere that a group of chauvinist imperialist-lackeys decided was their land.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #86 on: March 17, 2015, 05:33:21 PM »

Never.

Seriously, I don't give a flip about that. I don't understand why there are some people who are using marijuana as an attack against posters. This is an another example of the annoying liberals of this forum who promote "tolerance" but can't tolerate those who don't have the same way of life than them.

-Windjammer

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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #87 on: March 18, 2015, 10:22:38 AM »

Mixed to negative. Charter schools and teacher evaluations are not necessarily so bad, but the zeal for performance measurement and managerialism has only made public schools worse. And it is certainly not the case that the education reform movement has succeeded in reducing the scope and expense of the administrative system that oversees public education or, for that matter, increased that system's accountability.

The two most glaring problems in American public education today are teacher recruitment and inequality in per student spending, and on the whole the reform movement doesn't seem to be effecting much improvement on either front. It's telling that so many of the most "ambitious" young teachers tend to be interested in moving to administrative positions at the earliest opportunity. That says a lot about both who is attracted to what this kind of work has become1 and what we - or, at least, the education system - value most highly.

I dislike homeschooling and private schools, and I don't plan on having children. But if I did, I'd be extremely reluctant to place them in public schools and probably wouldn't do it unless I lacked the means to arrange anything else. The main value of public schools lies mostly in providing childcare for working parents and removing children from the supervision of abusive or neglectful caregivers.

1And who can make it through the years of tedium and largely useless busywork that define teacher education in the United States.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #88 on: March 18, 2015, 04:55:01 PM »

I just wanted to chime in on the whole PC debate and say that I think almost everyone participating in it is wrong. Tongue

Political Correctness is often dumb, identity politics is a plague, but communism is worse and being a d*ck to people and ignoring discrimination is not all that edgy.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #89 on: March 18, 2015, 07:56:41 PM »
« Edited: March 18, 2015, 08:10:05 PM by L.D. Smith, Knight of Appalachia »

I just wanted to chime in on the whole PC debate and say that I think almost everyone participating in it is wrong. Tongue

Political Correctness is often dumb, identity politics is a plague, but communism is worse and being a d*ck to people and ignoring discrimination is not all that edgy.

This exactly. You've practically summed up a good Mechaman essay I was going to put here and done it with less cursing.

Like everything else, what is considered PC/non-PC should come from a consensus based on the masses and the group affected, and as the term loses or gains offensive power this consensus should be checked.

And it must be critiqued.

Unfortunately many here seem to conflate critique to complaint.

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SUSAN CRUSHBONE
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« Reply #90 on: March 18, 2015, 08:10:02 PM »

once again… it's really easy to say "identity politics" is a plague when your identity isn't constantly under attack.
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Joe Republic
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« Reply #91 on: March 18, 2015, 09:05:35 PM »

Can we all agree that this gallery is terrible, and deserves to be rededicated and its funding reallocated elsewhere?
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Small Business Owner of Any Repute
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« Reply #92 on: March 18, 2015, 09:07:46 PM »

Can we all agree that this gallery is terrible, and deserves to be rededicated and its funding reallocated elsewhere?

motion to attach an abortion-funding rider to this agreement
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Clarko95 📚💰📈
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« Reply #93 on: March 19, 2015, 10:54:34 PM »

Netanyahu has just sent the message that Israel does not want peace and does not want to negotiate.

He's just given the Palestinians an opening to throw up their hands once and for all and act unilaterally. The US response to Palestine's push for greater international recognition is that their statehood should come through negotiations with Israel. But Israel will not negotiate.

I'd expect more EU countries will go the way of Sweden and establish full diplomatic relations with the State of Palestine. You may see a push for economic sanctions on Israel, similar to the ones imposed on South Africa in the 1980s. Israel will continue down the path of right wing identity politics and insist that they are only defending themselves against "terrorists" - not unlike South Africa's fever paranoia about how the blacks were going to turn the place into a Soviet satellite.

Things will get worse for Israel's Arab population. As the Orthodox community and the settler community grow in political power, Netanyahu and whoever succeeds him will likely keep doubling down on current policies.

Israel's future as a fortified, isolated pariah state was already foreshadowed with Netanyahu's rhetoric. His nonsensical ramblings about "foreign influence" seeking to undermine him during the election sounded more like something a Third World despot would say before a ceremonial sham election than anything you'd hear from the leader of a country that likes to think it's a Western democracy.

Obama should instruct Samantha Power to abstain from any UN Security Council votes relating to Israel for the rest of his term. If the Israeli people want to reelect a man who comes to America, embarrasses our president and rhetorically spits in our face, they no longer deserve any protection from the heaping of scorn and retribution that the international community has been wanting to unleash on them.

Elections have consequences. Israel voted for it and now they deserve to get it good and hard.
Amen.
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Ebowed
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« Reply #94 on: March 20, 2015, 03:35:26 AM »

This thread got exactly what it deserved.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #95 on: March 20, 2015, 06:57:47 AM »

Netanyahu has just sent the message that Israel does not want peace and does not want to negotiate.

He's just given the Palestinians an opening to throw up their hands once and for all and act unilaterally. The US response to Palestine's push for greater international recognition is that their statehood should come through negotiations with Israel. But Israel will not negotiate.

I'd expect more EU countries will go the way of Sweden and establish full diplomatic relations with the State of Palestine. You may see a push for economic sanctions on Israel, similar to the ones imposed on South Africa in the 1980s. Israel will continue down the path of right wing identity politics and insist that they are only defending themselves against "terrorists" - not unlike South Africa's fever paranoia about how the blacks were going to turn the place into a Soviet satellite.

Things will get worse for Israel's Arab population. As the Orthodox community and the settler community grow in political power, Netanyahu and whoever succeeds him will likely keep doubling down on current policies.

Israel's future as a fortified, isolated pariah state was already foreshadowed with Netanyahu's rhetoric. His nonsensical ramblings about "foreign influence" seeking to undermine him during the election sounded more like something a Third World despot would say before a ceremonial sham election than anything you'd hear from the leader of a country that likes to think it's a Western democracy.

Obama should instruct Samantha Power to abstain from any UN Security Council votes relating to Israel for the rest of his term. If the Israeli people want to reelect a man who comes to America, embarrasses our president and rhetorically spits in our face, they no longer deserve any protection from the heaping of scorn and retribution that the international community has been wanting to unleash on them.

Elections have consequences. Israel voted for it and now they deserve to get it good and hard.
Amen.
I was going to add this post as well.
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Simfan34
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« Reply #96 on: March 22, 2015, 03:13:49 PM »
« Edited: March 22, 2015, 03:15:26 PM by Governor Simfan34 »

Lol...you're really in a bubble of eco delusion, lady.

My argument is quite rational.  Increasing quality of life can be achieved by technological innovation and/or economic growth.

Economic growth is achieved either by productivity increases or population growth.

The major driver for increasing quality of life can then be partially explained by a growing population given ample access to required resources.

Technology and innovation are making resource use far more efficient.

Labor force growth is negative in nearly all of Europe now.  That is a drag on economic growth, which puts a drag on quality of life.  Both productivity growth and population growth have slowed or reversed.  So economic growth isn't a thing anymore in Europe.  Only technology advances improve quality of life now.  If you can afford them with your dwindling resources as returns on economic activity dwindle.

The state of small rural towns in rural Germany today is a preview of what all but the most important cities will be in 20 years without major restructuring...and where theyll get the money to pay for that restructuring, no one knows which is why the rural towns have been allowed to decay rather than save some of them.

Empty shop windows...empty apartment buildings...decaying infrastructure...a patchwork of teardowns since people tend not to die in a geographically orderly fashion...

Communities will just revert backwards to less developed states.

You can deny it..but your future isn't very bright in Europe and its attitudes like yours that brought it on.

Perhaps this could go into the sulfur mine but it seems too thoughtful. Either way it eviscerates the ridiculous idea that "negative population growth is a good thing".
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politicus
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« Reply #97 on: March 22, 2015, 04:24:27 PM »
« Edited: March 22, 2015, 04:27:53 PM by Charlotte Hebdo »

Lol...you're really in a bubble of eco delusion, lady.

My argument is quite rational.  Increasing quality of life can be achieved by technological innovation and/or economic growth.

Economic growth is achieved either by productivity increases or population growth.

The major driver for increasing quality of life can then be partially explained by a growing population given ample access to required resources.

Technology and innovation are making resource use far more efficient.

Labor force growth is negative in nearly all of Europe now.  That is a drag on economic growth, which puts a drag on quality of life.  Both productivity growth and population growth have slowed or reversed.  So economic growth isn't a thing anymore in Europe.  Only technology advances improve quality of life now.  If you can afford them with your dwindling resources as returns on economic activity dwindle.

The state of small rural towns in rural Germany today is a preview of what all but the most important cities will be in 20 years without major restructuring...and where they'll get the money to pay for that restructuring, no one knows which is why the rural towns have been allowed to decay rather than save some of them.

Empty shop windows...empty apartment buildings...decaying infrastructure...a patchwork of teardowns since people tend not to die in a geographically orderly fashion...

Communities will just revert backwards to less developed states.

You can deny it..but your future isn't very bright in Europe and its attitudes like yours that brought it on.

Perhaps this could go into the sulfur mine but it seems too thoughtful. Either way it eviscerates the ridiculous idea that "negative population growth is a good thing".

"Good" is not really the appropriate term. It is a necessary thing. There is a limited maximum capacity for how large a population the earth can sustain. That is just common sense. The natural world is the basis for our economy, not the other way round. Economic arguments can not eradicate ecological necessity.

The burden of proof is on those who seriously imagine that the human population can grow forever. That is truly an irrational idea.
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Simfan34
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« Reply #98 on: March 22, 2015, 04:51:11 PM »
« Edited: March 22, 2015, 04:59:49 PM by Governor Simfan34 »

But that capacity is not simply a function of the size of the earth or whatnot, now is it? It's also- and more importantly- a function of technology levels. That capacity is not constant- we can't project the present onto the future as if it were. If I remember correctly, given the the capacities of the time, you would have needed around 1000 Earths to feed 7 billion people in 10,000 BC. And here we are just fine with one, "ecological necessity" be damned.

What reason do I have to believe that this trend will suddenly stop anytime soon, if ever?
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politicus
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« Reply #99 on: March 22, 2015, 05:07:30 PM »

But that capacity is not simply a function of the size of the earth or whatnot, now is it? It's also- and more importantly- a function of technology levels. That capacity is not constant.

No of course not, but that does not mean it will ever be unlimited and the lower level we stop population growth on, the easier it will be to secure a sustainable world. Natural resources like fresh water, minerals and agricultural soil are limited and technological fixes can not compensate for everything.

Demographers estimate word population stabilization around 2100. We have recently reached peak child (max population 0-15). So there will be fewer children from now on. Handling a society with more old people than children is a necessary transitional phase for humanity, that we need to make the best of.

Even if you do not care about room for other species (which I very much do) and accelerated climate change, there are limits to human population. Thinking otherwise is highly irrational.
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