CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Non-Audio Stuff => Random Thoughts => Topic started by: AustinValentine on May 07, 2015, 04:18:48 AM
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Posting this over here so as to not derail the Yggy thread. This entire situation stuck in my craw a bit, so I'm going to say my peace about it:
In 1993, I was at University of Michigan with friends as part of a Triangle Foundation demonstration - the group of us were trying to push the regents to pass an ordinance barring sexual discrimination on campus. A counter-protest formed and ran the group of us back to our cars. The angry mob overturned our Honda Civic, kicked in the windows, and dragged us out of the vehicles. I got out of it with a few minor laceration and abrasions; the mob beat one of my close friends until he was almost unrecognizable. I can still remember the reason they targeted him over me: I was in a flannel, he was wearing a fishnet shirt. Don't ever say that grunge never did anything for anyone.
This was five years before Matthew Sheppard was strung up on a fence in Wyoming.
While less frequent, violence against LGBT/Q individuals is still a problem. In 2003, another close friend and I were pulled over coming out of Palmer Park in the early hours of the morning. We drove through the neighborhood to get back to home quicker; the police assumed that my friend was picking up a gay prostitute. (In this story, I was the gay prostitute.) The only thing that kept them from beating me with maglites was that they realized that my friend in the drivers seat was a girl with boy-cut hair. Just four years ago, one of my students (a theater major who performed in Sesame Street Live) had his face beat to a pulp at a BP in Detroit because his assailant simply thought he was gay. This is to say nothing about the violence that LBGTQ individuals do to themselves. I spent a year volunteering for a gender-queer emergency helpline at Affirmations in Ferndale, MI. The internal struggles are often more frequent and taxing than external ones.
There is a reflexive relationship between representation and response, portrayal and reaction, that makes comments - even jokes - still matter. This might sound like I'm on the side of the "PC Police", and in some ways I am. I think that quite a large amount of our stereotypes (negative and otherwise), attitudes about gender, feelings about other religions and belief systems, [Insert Identity Politics Here], etc. etc. are reproduced through day-to-day vernacular transmission modes. Jokes are one of these modes, an especially powerful one as they combine taste preference ("sense of humor") with value judgement ("do you find it funny or not?"). If someone calls another person on a joke, the genre provides numerous minimizing tropes to defer, deflect, and obfuscate.
But here's the place where I think that most people here and I would both agree: complaining in some vague, secondary, unconnected forum isn't going to help anything. If someone has a problem with something that Mike said, the solution is to confront Mike - either privately or publicly - and talk to him directly. Do you think that the UofM Board of Regents would have done anything if our group had simply wrote editorials in the local LBGTQ newspaper complaining about what bothered us? We did write editorials in Between The Lines and they didn't do damn thing. Our demonstration did. If a person believes something is in bad taste, then they should say so. If someone thinks something isn't funny, they should stand up and speak up. Don't take a screen cap and run elsewhere to complain about it.
The above isn't coming from some sort of hyper-masculine "man up"-type ethos. The goal of confronting another person in these types of situation isn't to tell them that they are wrong or to engage in some sort of public shaming tactic. And posting a screen cap, at this point multiple screen caps, in another public venue is certainly that. The goal should be to engage in discourse, trusting that the other person is capable of hearing what you have to say. In the best case scenario, the other person sees the validity of the complaint and moves forward more aware of how something they wrote made another person feel. I guess it comes down to deciding what a person wants to produce with their critique.
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AV - as a U of M grad i am kind of ashamed when I read your story about your experience there. How truly awful. I was at the Law School from '89 to '92 and I found that environment very supportive of LGBT rights. But that world is kind of insulated in a sense from the rest of the campus even though our quadrangle was in the middle of it all, and I could see how the larger university at that time may have been less tolerant.
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AV - as a U of M grad i am kind of ashamed when I read your story about your experience there. How truly awful. I was at the Law School from '89 to '92 and I found that environment very supportive of LGBT rights. But that world is kind of insulated in a sense from the rest of the campus even though our quadrangle was in the middle of it all, and I could see how the larger university at that time may have been less tolerant.
In it's defense, the campus was far more supportive than almost anywhere else during that time period. It's why we were able to get the regents to pass the non-discrimination by-law at all in the first place. But the local establishments (bars, restaurants, practically everywhere but bookstores) began refusing to serve because they didn't want to risk the stigma of becoming a "gay bar" etc.
It was just screwed up times all around. Ann Arbor is like gay El Dorado these days, so there is that.
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Austin, as another UoM grad (1982/87), I am kinda shocked as well on reading your experience. If anything I thought AA was pretty liberal. I know for a fact that places like Ulrichs and University Cellar were very liberal and left-leaning establishments but I suppose one cannot extrapolate.
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Austin, as another UoM grad (1982/87), I am kinda shocked as well on reading your experience. If anything I thought AA was pretty liberal. I know for a fact that places like Ulrichs and University Cellar were very liberal and left-leaning establishments but I suppose one cannot extrapolate.
Ha! University Cellar was exactly what I was thinking of when I said "everywhere but the bookstores." Well, that and Common Language - where all the Second-Wavers hung out. Note: I wasn't a student at UofM, I just hung out there quite a bit. (UDMercy grad here, though I did teach a creative writing class at UofM-AA in mid-2000s.)
Ann Arbor (along with Royal Oak and Ferndale) were, and still are, the most LBGTQ-friendly cities in Michigan.
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Thanks for sharing, AV. It's important.
Can we have a compromise where hating on, assaulting or denying the basic human rights of a person for their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. are completely wrong...
But where we can still make fun of Lachlan a little for being a self-righteous prig?
Not that his motives are bad and not denying what prejudices he's had to deal with, but just in the recognition that if he's not a college freshman then he's one in spirit in terms of being a bit annoying.
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Ann Arbor / Detroit was by far the gayest place I've ever lived in. Had more LGBT friends (yes, plural) there than I ever did in California. Funny how that happens. All of my LGBT friends were ... very normal. A lot of them were in tech so they used PCs. Seemed like the straight people used macs.
When I left Ann Arbor in 2002, there was one gay bar. Most of other the gay bars in the area were in god forsaken places in the Detroit Metro area.
I didn't know Mike Moffat encouraged violence against LGBT people. Quite frankly, I think Paramount is more wrong than Mike Moffat by not making most of the science officers on the Enterprise of Asian decent, or making Khan a fucking Englishman. I find the actions of Hollywood far more soul-crushing to Asian men than the words (taken out of context and the overall point he was trying to make) of Mike are to transgendered people.
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While your personal experience is enlightening and I agree the copy/paste was a simple exercise in narcissism by a sad individual who craves constant attention, this whole thing is ridiculous and the pendulum has simply swung too far in society. People are bitching about stuff they simply don't understand logically due to their own emotional insecurity. What do I mean by that?
Mike made a comment joking about a certain group perhaps preferring Macs over PCs. Wow!! BFD. What if I don't joke and say girls prefer to wear pink and boys prefer pick-up trucks? This is far more damning and stereotypical logically speaking. Will this lead to an increase in hate crimes and physical violence? What do you do with actual FACTS when they demonstrate a stereotype to be largely true? What if the LGBT community does actually prefer Apple products? You can't express that fact anymore?? Pft...
If you want to be treated like a normal member of society equally, stop acting like you are something special above everyone else. Learn to be wise in your actions, aware of your surroundings and defend yourself. There are more crimes perpetrated by heterosexuals against other heterosexuals daily. The fantasy world certain groups of people want to create where no one will ever want to hurt someone else because of their gender, sexual preference, income level, race, ethnicity, intellect, physical appearance, or ideology simply does not and will NEVER exist. If you think an extraneous law here or rule there with random police scattered about will ultimately save someone, you are mistaken. Dialogue, discourse, education and personal responsibility are the keys. A successful democratic society is built from the ground up, not the top down.
In a world where people are being buried alive, decapitated or incited to burn cities to the ground, I cannot fucking believe anyone gives a rat's ass what Mike jokingly thinks a Macbook user looks like. Btw, he uses a Macbook too so GROW THE FUCK UP PEOPLE!
The world today could use a lot less insecure sensitivity projecting into everyone else's personal space and a revival of a much better sense of humour.
I'll leave this here below, I have nothing more to say on the matter including my experiences with prejudice from all sides as truth and facts should stand on their own merits...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7QF32mxftE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngu0RKsv3qE
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If you want to be treated like a normal member of society equally, stop acting like you are something special above everyone else.
This. I don't give a god damn fcuk about if anyone being a LGBTQ, but I'm royally pissed off by those people whose identity revolves around being a LGBTQ. As if being LGBTQ gives them a privilige to be babied. The annoyence doesn't come from their being LGBTQ; it comes from their sense of being a priviliged group.
I feel this is likely attributed to a culture that if one is in possession of something (be it object or identity) one is automatically granted some special status, passively or actively - just like some of the headphone enthusiasts will judge someone using Beats as tasteless, or the advertising of living in X neighbourhood is like belonging to the nobility, or wearing a Rolex equals to having a successful career, or believing in a certain religion makes one a good person - all of which are just bullshit to me. No, being LGBTQ is not exclusive from being an asshole, and if you are an asshole, don't expect other people will always tolerate you.
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IMO, sexual orientation does not make a person remarkable. Love, kindness, loyalty, valor, hard-work, self-sacrifice and so on are perhaps more remarkable.
Growing up there was (and still is) this famous Mexican openly gay singer by the name of Alberto Aguilera (better known as Juan Gabriel). He got made fun of many times at many levels. Given JG sexual orientation, my father had little respect for this singer. However, my father eventually learned a bit about his story. It seems that among his siblings he was the only one that took good care of his mother, who was a maid for a then powerful Juarez family (which I happen to know relatively well). JG bought the mansion in which she used to work and gave it to her mother and did many other good and respectable deeds. Along with other couples, my parents went to some of his concerts and they loved it.
My father would say now that JG is more man than some men (it's a figure of speech "Juan Gabriel es mas hombre que muchos hombres").
As far as Mike, more than once have I found myself saying something inappropriate w/o meaning to offend. I don't know Mike well, but I feel his intentions were not to hurt anybody.
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As far as Mike, more than once have I found myself saying something inappropriate w/o meaning to offend. I don't know Mike well, but I feel his intentions were not to hurt anybody.
Mike's intention was for people to be cognizant of why they were buying certain computer platforms for audio - equating them to tools - the right tool for the right job. He simply used preposterous scenarios to illustrate his point.
I doubt a post-op transgendered person is all of sudden going to buy a mac as much as I doubt Anaxilus played WOW in his underwear wearing a cape and a wizard hat.
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That's my read of it as well.
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Not liking a thing is part of life. I am rather stoic to stay focused. Sometimes though things hit you...
When people make jokes on your behalf it sure is not enjoyable. I was picked on for being the nice guy in class. As a half Hindu I was picked on for my mixed appearance (nor white, nor black); yes the "multicultural" Netherlands can be racist. Sometimes people and groups simply pick on something or someone to feel important or get the attention. Taboo subject score more points...
I have learnt a simple thing through all this. Do not be afraid to speak up and ask why. If you have to kick their asses in self-defence, administer the pain. When you learn to outwit and outsmart people who have something against you, keep that advantage. When confronted with another who provokes or offends for no "seemingly" good reason simply stare that person down and say "I disagree" and you are done.
At the Maagdenhuis in Amsterdam the police evicted the building. Afterwards the police used unnecessary force and covertly targeted people. Two days later a large demonstration went through Amsterdam to protest the university's executive board past behaviour and its decision to allow the police to evict the Maagdenhuis. In response to the unnecessary force used and the arrests of the students the students, faculties and teachers united. The university's executive board now has had to answer to the government in The Hague for what happened. The chair woman of the board resigned under external and internal pressure just before facing scrutiny. The entire executive board is severely warned. The students showed no fear, asked why, disagreed and marched. When the bureaucrats allowed violence against their own students they went too far for many people.
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I'm never one of many words. But i'll agree that equal rights precludes special treatment however things are never that black and white, having been bullied my whole life for being different, i think communication is key. Just because you can't imagine someone's suffering doesn't make it less real. I think humor is one of the best ways to get a point across and connect people of a different mindset much like music does.
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I'm never one of many words. But i'll agree that equal rights precludes special treatment however things are never that black and white, having been bullied my whole life for being different, i think communication is key. Just because you can't imagine someone's suffering doesn't make it less real. I think humor is one of the best ways to get a point across and connect people of a different mindset much like music does.
Agreed. For the people who are simply vicious there are often only two options. Either avoid them or prepare for confrontation.
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Agreed. For the people who are simply vicious there are often only two options. Either avoid them or prepare for confrontation.
Yep, a good thing those kinds of people are rare though. I find that most people can be reasoned with one way or another.
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As far as Mike, more than once have I found myself saying something inappropriate w/o meaning to offend. I don't know Mike well, but I feel his intentions were not to hurt anybody.
FWIW, this is almost certainly the case.
Unless someone can prove that Mike Moffat has a documented record of trans-phobic activity. Beyond his engineering work, the only consistent trend I can see in Mike's behavior is that he really, really likes novelty t-shirts.
What pissed me off more than anything wasn't the insensitive joke. Seriously, unless you've lived a pretty sheltered life - one that must also exclude most television as well - you've encountered tons of those. What pissed me off is the fact that in some sectors of the web the ability to address a comment by way of actual interpersonal interaction and direct contact is a completely lost social skill. It's a microcosm of our larger social dysfunction.
Doing what Lachlan did both created a false controversy and at the same time took away Mike's space to say, simply and easily, that his intent was general misanthropy as opposed to targeted smearing. Mike isn't some sort of powerful public figure that needs to be treated like a Twitter celeb. He's a person who posts on enthusiast sites and is easily accessible.
This. I don't give a god damn fcuk about if anyone being a LGBTQ, but I'm royally pissed off by those people whose identity revolves around being a LGBTQ. As if being LGBTQ gives them a privilige to be babied. The annoyence doesn't come from their being LGBTQ; it comes from their sense of being a priviliged group.
The new set of political rhetoric that has developed around "privileged groups" and "special rights" in the past decade is IMHO one of the worst developments in transatlantic English language politics. Without going into it too much because I think it's a distraction, I will say this: the best pair of parents that I know in my broader circle of friends are a lesbian couple that I went to undergrad with. In Michigan, their out-of-state marriage isn't recognized as valid or legally binding. When both of them are able to visit their sick kid in the hospital as family instead of having to put one of them on them visitors list, or when they can both be covered under the same employer-provided spousal benefits, I'll start to bite on the idea that LBGTQ individuals need to stop taking an activist stance towards their personal identity.
The Supreme Court might make that happen pretty soon.
Ann Arbor / Detroit was by far the gayest place I've ever lived in. Had more LGBT friends (yes, plural) there than I ever did in California. Funny how that happens. All of my LGBT friends were ... very normal. A lot of them were in tech so they used PCs. Seemed like the straight people used macs.
When I left Ann Arbor in 2002, there was one gay bar. Most of other the gay bars in the area were in god forsaken places in the Detroit Metro area.
This. And the cop wasn’t wrong about Palmer Park being a place where there was a lot of gay prostitution. Menjos on McNichols/6 Mile Road was right down the street from where the cop pulled us over. The old joke was that if you were queer in Michigan you worked in Royal Oak, hung out with friends in Ann Arbor, and then went home to bombed-out part of Detroit because you couldn't afford to live in either of those places.
By-the-by, this thread is an example of why I like the community that surrounds these forums. We don’t always agree about things, but we still talk about them. :)p3
[All the awesome stuff included in this post]
+1, great post.
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Basically, way to be, Austin.
I agree the "special rights" meme is so fallacious. The reason people take issue with others use of language is that, consciously or not, people use coded or implicit language to skew views on an issue. Language is literally how we communicate. Of course it matters. Now, as Austin said, intent and context are still an important part of how you react.
There's a lot of other stuff I don't want to get into. Frankly, these issues can be exhausting and I don't expect to really get through to someone (or understand them) through a message board. But a witch hunt when you can confront the person yourself, in a semi-public forum, and get a response...It just doesn't make sense.
And Marv, plenty of people were bothered by the white-washing of Avatar: The Last Airbender and wrote articles, boycotted etc. Don't know about Khan.
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I am of the unpopular opinion that the whole LGBTTQ* push in some cases is causing a problem that didn't exist. I think some people who are merely confused about themselves (in a wtf am I doing with my life way) will wind up thinking that their malaise is due to their gender identity when it's not, and it takes them down the wrong path. I hate that LGBT advocates use "heteronormative environment" like a dirty word. I think some of the more progressive communities that are pushing for LGBT in schools is doing it way too young. It's like trying to teach someone calculus before they can do algebra. Awareness and acceptance is one thing, but the kids are counting apples for crissakes; let them grasp a basic giggling understanding of peepees and woowoos before shoving the half dozen other options down their throats and confusing them.
*here in Canuckland they didn't even bother to try to get them all and used the * to fill in the blanks... http://www.gov.mb.ca/stoptheviolence/lgbttq.html
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Great post Austin! I'm glad you shared your experience and view, and I'm glad we can do that here.
For those that may not be familiar I wanted to highlight the particular comment that seems to have set off some significant discussion:
"You have just completed your male to female sex change, and you want a socially acceptable computer within your new LGBT community."
I went back to read this again because I thought, perhaps, I hadn't been offended as much as I should have when I first read it. I mean, wow, the community reaction has escalated dramatically and now we're discussing absolutely horrifying physical assault!
As I read it again I still feel like it was a weak shot at humor using a poor stereotype. I'm far from horrified. Making light of stereotypes or making jokes about the LGBT/Q community (was I the only one who had to look up LGBTQ?) does nothing but continue to promote the lack of social acceptance of the LGBTQ community, and that's no small thing. But all it really says is that Macs are used by the LGBT, or that you are LGBT if you use a mac? Or something like that... Outside of perpetuating a stereotype is the comment really all that offensive, or are some just getting their hackles up anytime someone says anything about the LGBT/Q community?
If Mike had said that fat kids like PC s to play video games would anyone have even mentioned it? Maybe only us fat kids, but most likely we'd just let it go and not be overly sensitive.
If it offends feel free to say so, but making a poor joke is a long way from beating a man... let's be sure our outrage is proportional to the offense.
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As I read it again I still feel like it was a weak shot at humor using a poor stereotype. I'm far from horrified. Making light of stereotypes or making jokes about the LGBT/Q community (was I the only one who had to look up LGBTQ?) does nothing but continue to promote the lack of social acceptance of the LGBTQ community, and that's no small thing. .....
If it offends feel free to say so, but making a poor joke is a long way from beating a man... let's be sure our outrage is proportional to the offense.
Definitely. I didn't set up the personal anecdotes as a way of structuring an equivalence, but more as a way of opening up why someone might be sensitive to those kinds of jokes in the first place.
The joke itself was a groaner. Groaning, throwing a spitwad, and saying why you didn't laugh is the appropriate response in this situation. All the other shit is just drama.
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Great post Austin! I'm glad you shared your experience and view, and I'm glad we can do that here.
For those that may not be familiar I wanted to highlight the particular comment that seems to have set off some significant discussion:
"You have just completed your male to female sex change, and you want a socially acceptable computer within your new LGBT community."
I went back to read this again because I thought, perhaps, I hadn't been offended as much as I should have when I first read it. I mean, wow, the community reaction has escalated dramatically and now we're discussing absolutely horrifying physical assault!
As I read it again I still feel like it was a weak shot at humor using a poor stereotype. I'm far from horrified. Making light of stereotypes or making jokes about the LGBT/Q community (was I the only one who had to look up LGBTQ?) does nothing but continue to promote the lack of social acceptance of the LGBTQ community, and that's no small thing. But all it really says is that Macs are used by the LGBT, or that you are LGBT if you use a mac? Or something like that... Outside of perpetuating a stereotype is the comment really all that offensive, or are some just getting their hackles up anytime someone says anything about the LGBT/Q community?
If Mike had said that fat kids like PC s to play video games would anyone have even mentioned it? Maybe only us fat kids, but most likely we'd just let it go and not be overly sensitive.
If it offends feel free to say so, but making a poor joke is a long way from beating a man... let's be sure our outrage is proportional to the offense.
Exactly. Says the guy with a big fat cock as his avatar and was described in another thread using a picture of a wasp. Oh my!
Honestly, if I watch the Birdcage with Nathan Lane, am I supposed to be horrified now? I used to like that movie. Wtf am I supposed to do if it comes on again? Laugh or turn off the TV and write my Congressman/woman/person/thing...
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I got a chuckle out of it.
There's a reason stereotypes exist. A few years ago, I helped an older friend buy a Macbook because he wanted to fit in and impress a West Side El-Lay Hipster Progressive Crowd which counted LGBT people among their own. So when Mike made that joke, I had to laugh.
I actually recommended to my friend that he buy a POS Dell, Lenovo, or HP. But my friend was so insistent on being cool and accepted by this new younger crowd he was hanging out with, so I took him to the Apple store. He ended up regretting his decision: "This Apple is a POS, I can't do anything with it."
I don't know if you guys looked around, but Changstar ain't exactly a Politically Correct place. This slightly politically incorrect tone is purely intentional. Political Correctness is good at not hurting anyone's feelings, but it's bad as it tends to stifle honest discussion, which in turn causes resentment.
P.S. I don't believe for a second that Lachlan is deeply concerned about negative LGBT stereotypes. My bullshit detector tells me that Lachlan is more concerned with bringing attention to himself. As you said Austin, he could have approached Moffat himself.
P.S.S. The "delta-sigma, when music doesn't matter" shirt that Mike wore to CanJam, taken in the context of CanJam, is one hell of a lot more offensive.
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was I the only one who had to look up LGBTQ?
No. I thought it (as I guessed it) was already covered in the LG, which is already tautological because doesn't G cover L... but hey, I did not come to quible about abbreviations (although I'll scream if anybody calls it an acronym). I'm a million or so miles away from such discussions, which is probably very bad for me. Making jokes about audio and women's bodies on one forum and tearing into a guy for talking about about avoiding "lady drivers" on another. Hypocrite of the year award. From self.
The joke itself was a groaner
Yes it was, but wasn't it as much about the trying to fit in by making the right show. I can safely bet that when, decades ago, I started talking about things being far out, cool, etc, that I sounded (and perhaps was) a complete fake.
However I could not agree more about the power of words. Long ago, a feminist friend lectured me on not calling women girls: girls are children, women are self-determining, grown up adults. It's even true in ladish terms: girls have pony tails; women have sex.
Changstar ain't exactly a Politically Correct place.
I loathe the words "politically correct." It is the ultimate devaluing sneer. My small poke at gender discrimination on a motoring forum, recently, was "denounced" as being "philosophical."
Philosophical... politically correct... In other words, not real life, not something that that matters, file it under vaguely intellectually, or something that the Human Resources department has to pretend to give a damn about. It does matter that women are not girls (and, equally, that girls are not women) because it matters how we think, and words and thoughts are absolutely tied together, and mutually reinforcing and yes, jokes are in there too.
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I don't even know if "lady" (a word I use often) is acceptable today. Lady might be construed as diminutive. Or I am supposed to use "womyn". Heck, I even got crap here about a month ago for using the word "ghey", which I specifically used in the first place to avoid denigrating gay people.
I hear my fourth grade daughter saying stuff like "Dad, that's totally gay." I am supposed to correct her? Seriously, I'm a fucking wreck because I feel like I'm walking on eggshells all the time, especially, especially when it comes to the "LGBT community" (I put that in quotes because no single person can claim to be the spokesperson for them.) Now you have to ask: does the way I feel really help my perception of "LGBT community"? Do you think these feelings might cause resentment on my part toward the "LGBT community"? Is it really a good thing that I now feel LGBT people require extra special handling and care? (Not talking about equal rights here, but actually special rights.)
When I was a preschooler in Taiwan, we called white people "Ang Moh Taow" (Hokkien / Taiwanese), literally "red haired head". It's not a pejorative if no insult is intended. The cool thing is that it also could be used as pejorative depending upon context. It's all how it's used. Of course there are now more white people in Asia, and as white people like to deconstruct things, they've decided that Ang Moh Taow is indeed a pejorative. Whatever. As I like to say: get over it.
Sometimes I wish English words didn't have such precise meanings because people tend to miss the forest for the trees. The meaning of Chinese words tend to rely heavily on context.
Seriously, this forum is not a place for the white people PC word police. If you have a problem, stop reading, and bugger off.
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IMO, sexual orientation does not make a person remarkable. Love, kindness, loyalty, valor, hard-work, self-sacrifice and so on are perhaps more remarkable.
Growing up there was (and still is) this famous Mexican openly gay singer by the name of Alberto Aguilera (better known as Juan Gabriel). He got made fun of many times at many levels. Given JG sexual orientation, my father had little respect for this singer. However, my father eventually learned a bit about his story. It seems that among his siblings he was the only one that took good care of his mother, who was a maid for a then powerful Juarez family (which I happen to know relatively well). JG bought the mansion in which she used to work and gave it to her mother and did many other good and respectable deeds. Along with other couples, my parents went to some of his concerts and they loved it.
My father would say now that JG is more man than some men (it's a figure of speech "Juan Gabriel es mas hombre que muchos hombres").
First, Ultra's post. No more, no less.
Second, being from a different country I'm not going to enter a debate about politics that's not mine. However, I know for sure that the day we cannot laugh about everyone and everything anymore will be a sad day.
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When I was a preschooler in Taiwan, we called white people "Ang Moh Taow" (Hokkien / Taiwanese), literally "red haired head". It's not a pejorative if no insult is intended. The cool thing is that it also could be used as pejorative depending upon context. It's all how it's used. Of course there are now more white people in Asia, and as white people like to deconstruct things, they've decided that Ang Moh Taow is indeed a pejorative. Whatever. As I like to say: get over it.
Sometimes I wish English words didn't have such precise meanings because people tend to miss the forest for the trees. The meaning of Chinese words tend to rely heavily on context.
Growing up, white people were "gwai lo" (ghost people), I was "fai dzai" (fat boy), grandma was "lo paw" (old woman), etc... None of it was meant in a derogatory way. Terms of endearment even.
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I hear my fourth grade daughter saying stuff like "Dad, that's totally gay." I am supposed to correct her? Seriously, I'm a fucking wreck because I feel like I'm walking on eggshells all the time, especially, especially when it comes to the "LGBT community" (I put that in quotes because no single person can claim to be the spokesperson for them.) Now you have to ask: does the way I feel really help my perception of "LGBT community"? Do you think these feelings might cause resentment on my part toward the "LGBT community"? Is it really a good thing that I now feel LGBT people require extra special handling and care? (Not talking about equal rights here, but actually special rights.)
If you replace "special rights" with "consideration" in the last couple of sentences, it also still works. But I'd agree that people are too quick to assume bad faith or negative intent in someone else's words. I think that's what you're getting at, and that's where the anxiety you mention really stems from.
People these days require special handling and care. It just happens that language is now subject to public scrutiny and re-evaluation. This isn't unique to queer identity politics; all identity politics have the same kinds of considerations and renegotiations. Make a comment about women's representation in gaming or comics and you'll have six kinds of men's rights groups (MRGs) riding up your ass - or even sending you death threats.
Walter Benn Michaels at U-Chicago's theory is that post-1960s identity politics creates conflict because, unlike ideology, identities can't be argued in rational terms. Someone is or isn't an identity, either assigned externally or adopted by the subject themselves. When identities come into conflict, Michaels thinks that the only option is violence. This is, to some degree, a restatement of Sam Huntington (& Francis Fukuyama's) "Clash of Civilizations" thesis. If a person looks around, it would be pretty easy to get this idea - especially with the sectarian religious violence around the globe and the dysfunctional left/right political bifurcation that we have in this country. Plenty of world leaders think the same thing. Back in 2010, Chancellor Merkel made the claim that "Multikulti" had failed because of the inability of German society to deal with the problem of radical difference.
The alternative to violence that Michaels et. al. miss is laughter. It's fun to laugh at difference. It's enjoyable to know that human culture and biology exhibits the kinds of wild diversity that we encounter on a day-to-day basis. I think when communities get up in arms about language, what they're really trying to express is they feel that their particular kind(s) of difference have been the butt of too many punchlines for too long. That's not an unreasonable position. It can become an unreasonable position when it's amplified by ego, by media, or by way of accumulation/mob logic. But at the end of the day, the absurdity of human existance - of farting and shitting, bodily fluids, awkward sexual encounters, flapping bodies, adolescent failures, messy births and deaths, all those stupid mistakes and grand successes - is a unifying thing that transcends any level of difference and belief. People are fucking weird. The human animal is capable of all kinds of spontaneous profundity and stupidity, entertainment and banality.
In any case, my soapbox is closed. I have some audio toys to go dick around with. The joy that comes from doing that is definitely something that we all share in common.
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I never would have imagined hearing Mike Moffat and Samuel P. Huntington being mentioned in the same context in my wildest dreams. Strange indeed...
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I'm much more philosophical about this. Decades ago, there was a TV western drama called Kung Fu. The great David Carradine started as Kwai Chang Caine, a half-chinese half-white dude who was trained as a Shaolin monk from childhood. In one memorable episode dealing with racism, after he had vanquished the antagonist, Caine said some wise words to the effect of there will always be people who are for you, people who are against you, and people who haven't made up their minds or don't know yet.
Moffat makes a stereotype about LGBT people and Macintosh computers. Self appointed LGBT rights spokeman Lachlan makes a big stink. Everyone who already agreed with Lachlan nods their heads in agreement: "Wow, that Moffat guy is a sack of shit!". People who hated gays harden their positions: "You see, these fags want to impose their gayness on our kids. Deuteronomy, Leviticus, blah, blah, blah." And everyone else in the middle now thinks "Wow, these LGBT people are kind of self righteous pricks." Result: LBGT people lose.
It's like what Austin said. If Lachlan had approached Moffat, worked things out with him, and come to some kind of understanding, it would have been a big win for everyone. Promoting understanding takes a lot of magnanimity.
So I'll take my "Get over it" statement back. Instead I'll offer this: "Be the bigger man" - or - "the larger woman". Ah fuck. I can't get this right. Someone help me.
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"Be the cooler cat".
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At the risk of setting up a strawman, the two most widely used arguments against "offensive" jokes are 1) they are intolerant and 2) they trivialize the experience of the referenced minority. Let's start with the second criticism first. The very point of a joke is to "trivialize" something, half the time that's what makes it funny. Jokes belittle, stereotype and apply unfair poetic justice. We find them funny because they are a relief, they take a tense or troubling situation (e.g. gender identity discrimination) and allow us to view it through the lens of hyperbole. Of course not everyone shares the same sense of humor and telling an offensive joke to a person who has been made emotionally vulnerable through past experience or otherwise is and should be considered insulting. These should not be concerns in public forums, especially places like changstar where we make fun of everything and everyone. If someone takes a statement from here that is not directed to them and becomes offended, that's on them. Being offended is part of life, it does not bestow you with the power to censor others or otherwise punish them - at best you can politely ask for an apology or try to instill some measure of contrition. Again it should be pointed out that taking a general statement made on a public forum personally and then making a general statement on another public forum which demands contrition and apology from the person who made the original statement (especially if that person doesn't even frequent this other forum) is nothing more than cowardly bullshit which deserves neither respect nor response.
And as for tolerance, I'm all for it. Tolerance means you tolerate people regardless of their beliefs - I can share a bus ride with a neonazi without arguing with them or picking a fight. Even though they are rather more than just intolerant of my existence I can still tolerate theirs. Tolerance does not imply respect and it isn't always easy to be tolerant of people whose views or sense of humor are so far removed from your own.
... a restatement of Sam Huntington (& Francis Fukuyama's) "Clash of Civilizations" thesis.
Having been forced to read his work I must now follow up any mention of his name with 'fuck Fukuyama'. Even if saying that after having typed the last couple of paragraphs makes me a hypocrite :)
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Having been forced to read his work I must now follow up any mention of his name with 'fuck Fukuyama'.
C'mon. Get his name right: it's pronounced "Fuck yo Mama!"
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Oh you were screwed at Kwai Chang Caine... :)p13
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Irony upon irony. Using the backdrop of Hollywood's subtle racism to illustrate better methods on how to actually make the world a better place. Also a parallel hidden point. I could choose to or pretend to be outraged at such a racist show, but by doing so, I would have missed good lessons on how to handle bigots and how not to be victim.
Kung Fu was awesome. It certainly perpetuated stupid Chinese stereotypes, but overall it was a net positive. At least the writers explained that Caine was a half-breed. For a monk, he certainly got fucked by a lot by lonely widows. And he kicked the asses of rednecks of the bigoted type, without using guns!
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Irony upon irony. Using the backdrop of Hollywood's subtle racism to illustrate better methods on how to actually make the world a better place. Also a parallel hidden point. I could choose to or pretend to be outraged at such a racist show, but by doing so, I would have missed a good lesson on how to handle bigots.
Kung Fu was awesome. It certainly perpetuated stupid Chinese stereotypes, but overall it was a net positive. At least the writers explained that Caine was a half-breed. For a monk, he certainly got fucked by a lot by lonely widows. And he kicked the asses of rednecks of the bigoted type, without using guns!
Also who would they cast instead? To this day the only Asians in Hollywood I know are the new Sulu from Star trek and he's just barely known, and the gay guy from entourage.
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My biggest problem with "Kung Fu" the TV show was that Carradine was too slow and lacked flexibility. My favorite parts were the flashbacks to the monastery and his master when he was younger.
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Oh you were screwed at Kwai Chang Caine...
LOL
Gawd I loved Kung Fu as a kid. One of my chores was to take out the trash, and I always picked up the kitchen trash container with my forearms ala the "branding" scene in the opening credits. Only as an adult did I learn that Bruce Lee got snubbed for the role, which seemed sad. And David Carradine started to seem a bit of a self absorbed, sanctimonious tool. But dang, I still love that show. I've been planning to get those dragons tattooed on my forearms for about forever.
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LOL
Gawd I loved Kung Fu as a kid. One of my chores was to take out the trash, and I always picked up the kitchen trash container with my forearms ala the "branding" scene in the opening credits. Only as an adult did I learn that Bruce Lee got snubbed for the role, which seemed sad. And David Carradine started to seem a bit of a self absorbed, sanctimonious tool. But dang, I still love that show. I've been planning to get those dragons tattooed on my forearms for about forever.
Oh that would have been cool if Bruce Lee got the role. Now all we have for a legacy is a guy who jerked himself off to death.
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I've been planning to get those dragons tattooed on my forearms for about forever.
Umm...it's a dragon and a tiger and they aren't tattoos!! See @ 2min.
https://youtu.be/mfU8pfUawEE?t=2m2s
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Speed and flexibility are mere technicalities when you have the power of chi. Lucas ripped off that idea and called it the Force.
Master Po was awesome. Master Po would probably beat Lachlan... with chopsticks.
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Umm...it's a dragon and a tiger and they aren't tattoos!!
Reread the part in my message where I talk about the branding scene in the opening credits. But good point, dragon and tiger. I plan to get them as tattoos, and no, I don't feel like manning up for a branding.
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Just realized Shifu was modeled after Master Po.
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I think shaolin monks have a celibacy requirement :'(.
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I think shaolin monks have a celibacy requirement :'(.
Kwai Chiang was forced to go to the USA because he killed the Emperor's nephew while defending Master Po. Or something that like. All bets are off now. He ain't no monk anymore. Besides, Kung Fu was made in the 70s. People fucked a lot more back then. No AIDS yet.
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Running away from persecution. Landing in the West (California). Proly Hollywood. Yes. I see the win/win situation. But then there is a risk of going from this:
(https://emerdelac.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/25032012060854pm.png)
To this:
(https://robsmovievault.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/carradine.jpg?w=450&h=337)
... which is OK I guess. But scary for some.
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^ Poll added! popcorn
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^ Poll added! popcorn
I have a feeling he'd get more use out of the cord.
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^ Poll added! popcorn
There needs to be an "Other" option!
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Hello! Someone just linked me to this thread. I've wanted to make an account on CS for a while (some of these usernames are quite nostalgic), though this is probably not the best first impression to make.
Firstly, I just want to say that the OP is right. I should have actually gone and messaged Moffat and picked his brain instead of spouting off on Facebook. I thought about sending an email, but I impulse got the better of me. I will send him a message because I'd still like to hear his thoughts.
As I expressed in my original post, I'm not so dense that I don't understand that the joke was ironic; ie: that Moffat was parroting some silly stereotype of Mac users. I like satire. This is going to sound like a classic, "some of my best friends are X", but really some of my favourite comedy comes from the skewering that's performed by Louis CK and South Park. I know there is a distance between parodying an attitude and embodying it, and as I said, I don't really think there was any ill intent behind Moffat's joke.
Really simply put, my concern about Moffat's joke was this: I thought it was a cheap shot that traded on some cruel stereotype about the LGBT community, where a joke about hipsters would have made the point. Somehow LGBT folk got pulled into the punchline for no apparent reason. If it had been other groups of people that were swapped into the joke, I'm sure more people would have just thought it was a plain weird thing to say.
What do I mean by that? Well let's repeat the joke:
You have just completed your male to female sex change, and you want a socially acceptable computer within your new LGBT community.
Now as an exercise I wrote up a bunch of jokes that relied on the same kind of humour:
You’re a ditsy broad and thought the iPad was a tampon.
Everyone at the country club thinks your Dell is ‘too urban’.
You’re being bullied and you need Safari to post suicide notes to Livejournal.
You saved on Matzo crackers this year so you can afford to splurge a little.
I think it would have seemed weird if Mike was casually employing stereotypes about women, or Jews, or some other group, even if there was some ironic distance that allowed him to claim that he was just channeling the thoughts of some obnoxious Apple hater. I don't really see how it made sense in the context of a bunch of other generalised stereotypes about Mac and PC users to lead with a joke about someone going through a sex change operation, in the same way it would seem crazy if someone shoehorned in a joke about abortion when talking about reasons why people prefer Android or iOS.
I'm not saying that the LGBT community are precious flowers. I wouldn't for a second insist that you can't make jokes about sex changes or abortion or the Holocaust or any other topic, and I'm not declaring myself the sole arbiter of what makes for good satire. But you have to be aware that there is a gravity when talking about certain topics, and that gravity sort of demands that you should think carefully about who and what you are satirising before reaching for a punchline.
A sex change operation is not a frivolous thing. It's a multi year process that involves hormones and therapy, and its a decision that often comes after a great deal of anxiety and trauma. I'm not sure how it works outside of Australia, but here Doctors often require you to live as your self-identified gender for up to a year before they'll even prescribe you hormones. Some people can't imagine living like the opposite gender when they don't look anything like it, so instead they self-medicate and risk liver damage just so they don't have to go through a humiliating Doctor's gauntlet.
When I think sex change operation I don't think about choices in personal electronics, and maybe this is a cultural disconnect of mine but I wasn't aware that there was a trope about transgender folk using Macs to impress their friends.
I'm not a spokesperson for the LGBT community but I've had my own distress and confusion about my gender identity. Call it a bias of mine, but I think it's a grave topic that should be approached with some degree of thoughtfulness. Again I'm not saying you can't make jokes about certain topics, but honestly I don't expect to find casual jokes about sex change operations in discussions about a DAC's operating system compatibility on a public forum, as if it was part of Schiit's edgyasfuck™ marketing strategy to make jokes about excrement and occasionally trannies.
Mike can make whatever joke he wants, and by the same token I think it's fair for me to call him out on making a clumsy and insulting one.
But you're right. The fair thing to do would have been to call him out directly.
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What to do of you don't "like a thing?"
If the "thing" is someone telling a joke or expressing an opinion you should do nothing. If you disagree with the opinion then you can talk to them about that, bot only if they wish to discuss it.
But they have an absolute right to express their opinion, and tell jokes, no matter how politically incorrect or how much you want to repress it by labeling it "hate speech".
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What to do of you don't "like a thing?"
If the "thing" is someone telling a joke or expressing an opinion you should do nothing. If you disagree with the opinion then you can talk to them about that, bot only if they wish to discuss it.
But they have an absolute right to express their opinion, and tell jokes, no matter how politically incorrect or how much you want to repress it by labeling it "hate speech".
The problem of rights is that they extend in both direction: both parties in this situation were well within their rights to do what they did. (Mike: telling an insensitive joke; Lachlan: not confronting Mike and expressing Facebook outrage). People these days seem to believe that first amendment protections mean that they can say anything they want and not face any cause/effect-based consequences as a result of it. The first amendment protects us (in theory, far less so these days in practice) from reprisal and censorship at the hands of the state. Private citizens, businesses, companies, corporations, etc. have a broad latitude in their actions vis-a-vis convincing, persuading, coercing, or applying economic leverage when they encounter another person saying something that they don't like.
The problem here isn't a problem of rights. Rights only give us the margins of what is permissible and legal - not what is moral or appropriate. The issue at hand was an issue of oughts and ends.
It's like Purrin said "Be the bigger man." Or Kunlun, "Be the cooler cat". Or Homer, "Let them say, 'He is a better man than his father!'"
Mike can make whatever joke he wants, and by the same token I think it's fair for me to call him out on making a clumsy and insulting one.
But you're right. The fair thing to do would have been to call him out directly.
Repped. It's not easy to post after there has been three pages of critical comments and two more pages of awesome Kung-Fu comments. That takes guts.
P.S. Chromebook is mopping the floor with the competition in the above poll.
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Nice post @lachlan.
I think we need to ask the more important question: what would Chuck Norris do?
/ducks
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Kung Fu check p;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTidn2dBYbY
P.S. Riding a T-Rex is included in the end.
P.P.S. This song brings a smile to my face, I cannot help it.
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epped. It's not easy to post after there has been three pages of critical comments and two more pages of awesome Kung-Fu comments. That takes guts.
I thought there was some thoughtful discussion in here and of course my ears were burning. Honestly I know not everyone is my biggest fan, but one of the things I missed about talking on Head-Fi is that I could have interesting discussions with people who didn't share my point of view and learn something from it. And I understand that Changstar is kind of meant to be a bastion of free speech and such. So I'm hoping that we can be civil here. I can tell you it's a bit better to get carefully constructed insults instead of some of the Youtube comments I get.
On a broader note, I actually support the right to free speech, in so far as free speech is the right to say what you want without fear of government sanction. While it's a tricky topic, I'm not really a supporter of hate speech laws because they would limit our ability to make intelligent critiques, even if they would limit the dumb rants. I understand the arguments for laws against specific invocations of violence against particular groups - the screaming 'fire' in a public theatre argument - but I'm a little worried about the consequences of defining legally acceptable speech in progressively narrower ways.
At the same time, as you point out, free speech does not mean immunity from criticism. I think most democratic societies as a whole provide a pretty good mechanism for discussion, critique and sanction. Marketplace of ideas yadda yadda. I don't feel things are so dire that we need to have these mechanisms replaced by some legal instrument which may one day enable the oppression it seeks to prevent.
Fun fact: Australia's constitution has no explicitly defined right to freedom of speech!
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Nice post @lachlan.
I think we need to ask the more important question: what would Chuck Norris do?
/ducks
Lose to Bruce Lee. As usual.
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Props for coming over, Lachlan.
I think you'll find we have some interesting discussions about audio, too.
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People these days seem to believe that first amendment protections mean that they can say anything they want and not face any cause/effect-based consequences as a result of it. The first amendment protects us (in theory, far less so these days in practice) from reprisal and censorship at the hands of the state. Private citizens, businesses, companies, corporations, etc. have a broad latitude in their actions vis-a-vis convincing, persuading, coercing, or applying economic leverage when they encounter another person saying something that they don't like.
Thanks for responding. I agree that the first amendment only protects us against censorship at the hands of the state.
I believe that private citizens, businesses, etc., should be free to "convince, persuade or apply economic leverage" against people saying or doing things they disagree with. That also is, or should be, protected by first amendment rights.
My concern is that those rights have been eroded by the good intentions of people trying to eliminate various forms of discrimination from society - racial, sexual or whatever. The tendency today is to use the power of the state to outlaw speech that is considered politically incorrect and coerce people to participate in activities that they disagree with.
History shows that giving the state too much power can be dangerous, and the ultimate power is the power to outlaw certain types of speech and to coerce private economic activity.
It's certainly not an easy issue, there's a lot of gray, and there are instances in which society could have an interest that overrides the rights of the individual. I think that was the case with the civil rights act and racial discrimination. Just not sure how far that exception should be used to expand the power of the state. It's a temptation that can lead to dark places.
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BTW, I hate Windows but I've never tried a Mac or a Chromebook. Maybe I should.
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Lachlan, anyone can be criticized for anything. It's how the criticized handles it going forward. But good on you to join in the conversation.
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Android Chromebook?!?
Chromebooks run ChromeOS, a completely different OS than Android.
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Think of 17 and 18 in the Cell Saga.
The ChromeOS still kicks serious cloud ass despite confusion and Apple and MS are chasing them like the Z-warriors. Unleashed Gohan is yet to arrive thus the Chromebook still has serious advantages. Open source has more transformations so it all makes "sense."
I stick to W7 for Office though. I voted Windows in the poll because Vista and W8/8.1 had some Yamcha issues.
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@Lachlan: thank you for posting and taking the time to explain. See, isn't this much better!
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Thinking before doing....I like it...We'll call that progress, actually. p;)
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Android Chromebook?!?
Chromebooks run ChromeOS, a completely different OS than Android.
Bleh. Google's marketing on Chromebooks is so shit, nobody knows what it is. I think it's sufficient for polling.
First, kudos on Lachlan for joining and talking openly.
Second, perhaps there's a cultural disconnect here as in the US, we have the Kardasians on TV and Bruce Jenner doing prime time interviews with Diane Sawyer about their potential sex change operation. Mike didn't have to reach into the deeper recesses of his paleolithic mind to dig something up about the LGBT community for a satirical joke. This stuff is very much mainstream consciousness now in the US probably even for kids in elementary school. Also, bringing up sex changes along with the LGBT community also kind of goes hand in hand. Seems valid and cogent to me.
Third, as long as anyone isn't deliberately trying to be an asshat, the mods here will defend your right to say what you wish no matter how much we disagree with you.
Cheers.
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Think of 17 and 18 in the Cell Saga.
The ChromeOS still kicks serious cloud ass despite confusion and Apple and MS are chasing them like the Z-warriors. Unleashed Gohan is yet to arrive thus the Chromebook still has serious advantages. Open source has more transformations so it all makes "sense."
I stick to W7 for Office though. I voted Windows in the poll because Vista and W8/8.1 had some Yamcha issues.
I appreciate the Dragon Ball reference. I'm hoping that after working on the most recent two movies, Toriyama is ready to start putting together something fun again for DB Super.
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Please forgive this slightly edited version of a PM answer. Perhaps I am cross-cultural because a significant portion of early adulthood was spent immersed in the culture of South America. Down there (and also in Ireland, I have been told) people will have nicknames based on their physical and obvious attributes. Fatso, skinny, big-ass, gravel voice, pip-squeak, Jolly Green Giant or ancient for me (I am 6' 6” tall and have had mostly grey hair since my teens). That works in that culture. The only kind of bullying that goes on down there is physical bullying enabled by physical size or fighting ability. Verbal bullying does not work at all there because no one empowers verbal bullys by allowing their feelings to be held hostage by them. Funny how bullys disappear when their power evaporates. Up here, everyone is so concerned about their feelings that they cause others (in my opinion) undue agonizing over how to not offend anyone.
One of my other avocations is to act and direct in regional theaters. I am now directing The Graduate and a male friend of a friend came up to me and asked if she could audition for the stripper. The long and the short of it is that she was cast because not only was she the most flamboyant and best for the role, but the fact that she is a guy makes it funnier. She made the show better, folks. Life is short, friends. Do not take yourself so seriously that you allow others to hurt you. Look in the mirror and laugh.
It is really not my intention to offend – I run with filters off. I hope that not just my shows, but my products are better for it. If any have been offended by me. I truly apologize.
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Your apology offends me. Take it back!
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Also, bringing up sex changes along with the LGBT community also kind of goes hand in hand. Seems valid and cogent to me.
I don't think anyone is arguing that bringing up the T in LGBT isn't cogent. I'm just suggesting that casually bringing up people going through radical surgery as a proxy for hipsters when constructing a joke about shallow Mac users is a bit of a weird stretch.
It is really not my intention to offend – I run with filters off. I hope that not just my shows, but my products are better for it. If any have been offended by me. I truly apologize.
I appreciate your apology Mike.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I don't think it's always so simple for people to choose whether or not they will be hurt by statements others make.
As I said, I don't think you intended any malice. Just in the future please consider that reassignment surgery isn't a frivolous lark.
Anyway that entire thread has made me interested in what a Yggy actually is so I'm off for some snooping.
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I don't think anyone is arguing that bringing up the T in LGBT isn't cogent. I'm just suggesting that casually bringing up people going through radical surgery as a proxy for hipsters when constructing a joke about shallow Mac users is a bit of a weird stretch.
Actually inferring Mike was talking about hipsters is a weird stretch on your part.
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As I said, I don't think you intended any malice. Just in the future please consider that reassignment surgery isn't a frivolous lark.
WTF are you even talking about? Are you for real??
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I don't think anyone is arguing that bringing up the T in LGBT isn't cogent. I'm just suggesting that casually bringing up people going through radical surgery as a proxy for hipsters when constructing a joke about shallow Mac users is a bit of a weird stretch.
I appreciate your apology Mike.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I don't think it's always so simple for people to choose whether or not they will be hurt by statements others make.
As I said, I don't think you intended any malice. Just in the future please consider that reassignment surgery isn't a frivolous lark.
Anyway that entire thread has made me interested in what a Yggy actually is so I'm off for some snooping.
I'm not sure if you noticed that your "Just in the future" comment is offending and patronizing. Perhaps much more so than Mike's transgender or whatever comment mostly due to context and intent.
Intent carries a lot of weight, and it seems like Mike made his position fairly clear. Nobody is asking you to apologize for smearing Mike, but I believe you made a mistake. If you feel remotely the same way, it's honorable to understand this and carry on.
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I'm not sure if you noticed that your "Just in the future" comment is offending and patronizing. Perhaps much more so than Mike's transgender or whatever comment mostly due to context and intent.
Intent carries a lot of weight, and it seems like Mike made his position fairly clear. Nobody is asking you to apologize for smearing Mike, but I believe you made a mistake. If you feel remotely the same way, it's honorable to understand this and carry on.
Thank you for pulling me up on that. I'm sorry that was phrasing was patronising. All I'm trying to say is that I don't think a sex change is a light topic and casual punchlines about it are likely to flip someone's switch, myself a case in point. As I've said from the very beginning I don't think Mike had any ill intent with his words. I'm just hoping people are a bit more thoughtful with how they might approach the topic. Anyway, I feel like the discussion in this thread already bears that out so my admonition was redundant.
Apologies to everyone in the thread when (not if) I come across as an annoyingly self righteous asshat. All I'd like is for people to think about how painful it might be to just fundamentally not feel right in your own skin, and carry that empathy with them if they're going to make jokes about it. I suspect it would make for more creative and interesting jokes anyway.
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Really simply put, my concern about Moffat's joke was this: I thought it was a cheap shot that traded on some cruel stereotype about the LGBT community, where a joke about hipsters would have made the point. Somehow LGBT folk got pulled into the punchline for no apparent reason. If it had been other groups of people that were swapped into the joke, I'm sure more people would have just thought it was a plain weird thing to say.
From everything I've read and heard from Mike, he certainly doesn't seem to target just one group for poking fun at. If anything audiophile stereotypes tend to be the subjects of most of his joking around. I'm assuming that, despite yourself being an audiophile, you were OK with those jokes, or casually ignored them. Unless this is the first thing you've read from Mike I imagine that you must have run across mockery of audiophiles and other random groups.
I'm not saying that the LGBT community are precious flowers. I wouldn't for a second insist that you can't make jokes about sex changes or abortion or the Holocaust or any other topic, and I'm not declaring myself the sole arbiter of what makes for good satire. But you have to be aware that there is a gravity when talking about certain topics, and that gravity sort of demands that you should think carefully about who and what you are satirising before reaching for a punchline.
A sex change operation is not a frivolous thing. It's a multi year process that involves hormones and therapy, and its a decision that often comes after a great deal of anxiety and trauma. I'm not sure how it works outside of Australia, but here Doctors often require you to live as your self-identified gender for up to a year before they'll even prescribe you hormones. Some people can't imagine living like the opposite gender when they don't look anything like it, so instead they self-medicate and risk liver damage just so they don't have to go through a humiliating Doctor's gauntlet.
Who the hell said that sexual reassignment was a frivolous thing? No one here is under the impression that it isn't a life changing ordeal. Even graver matters of life and death are routinely made fun of, but sexual reassignment surgery holds a special place? Grow up. I've had the privilege of having friends who have gone through any number of conditions, including gender dysphoria which led to such surgery, and none of them were begging white knights like you to protect them from some stranger's jokes they might accidentally run across on some forum. They have more important things to worry about.
Still, thank you for signing up for an account and taking the time to discuss your objections directly with Mike.
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In short...
(http://media1.giphy.com/media/CE883LVtVqHuM/200_s.gif)
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Apologies to everyone in the thread when (not if) I come across as an annoyingly selfrighteous asshat
I think you've been pretty cool, lachlan. Don't worry. As you can see, there are other self-righteous asshats here. They seem pretty content in that mode, so don't bend over backwards.
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Apologies to everyone in the thread when (not if) I come across as an annoyingly self righteous asshat. All I'd like is for people to think about how painful it might be to just fundamentally not feel right in your own skin, and carry that empathy with them if they're going to make jokes about it. I suspect it would make for more creative and interesting jokes anyway.
I don't think you come across as self-righteous. But you do come across as being obsessed with your feelings about this particular sexual disorder and as broadcasting those feelings and then demanding that everyone alter their thoughts and behavior to avoid "triggering" your feelings about it.
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Thank you for pulling me up on that.
Apologies to everyone in the thread when (not if) I come across as an annoyingly self righteous asshat. All I'd like is for people to think about how painful it might be to just fundamentally not feel right in your own skin, and carry that empathy with them if they're going to make jokes about it. I suspect it would make for more creative and interesting jokes anyway.
I have a better understanding where you are coming from, the internal turmoil you must deal with, and your sensitivity to this matter. However, you have to understand you are not the center of the universe. All other human beings have their own fucking problems. They have marital problems, they have problems dealing with dying parents who are losing their minds, pulling the plug on parents who are vegetables, taking care of retarded ahem "autistic" kids, paying the mortgage, being evicted, getting killed by Tesla driving douchebags, being skullfucked by bad managers in big companies, trying to avoid having their guts and brains splatted on a wall in Iraq, etc. (this small list of real problems based on real-life friends or friends of friends in my local community - they are not hypothetical.)
You are going to be one helluva mess if you let these small things get to you. Not worth it. Not worth the drama. Learn to deescalate. Based on what you have been saying, the Internet is the last place you should be. You should take up surfing or meditation.
Finally, skillful means goes a long way. Muppetface's ":/" response was far more poignant and much more effective than any of your methods.
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I have a better understanding where you are coming from, the internal turmoil you must deal with, and your sensitivity to this matter. However, you have to understand you are not the center of the universe. All other human beings have their own fucking problems. They have marital problems, they have problems dealing with dying parents who are losing their minds, pulling the plug on parents who are vegetables, taking care of retarded ahem "autistic" kids, paying the mortgage, being evicted, getting killed by Tesla driving douchebags, being skullfucked by bad managers in big companies, trying to avoid having their guts and brains splatted on a wall in Iraq, etc. (this small list of real problems based on real-life friends or friends of friends in my local community - they are not hypothetical.)
Now how should I understand that.
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Now how should I understand that.
As there being a sizable comorbidity between autism and mental retardation.
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As there being a sizable comorbidity between autism and mental retardation.
Welp, it's called autism spectrum for a reason.
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Welp, it's called autism spectrum for a reason.
Yup, which is why I'm guessing he mentioned retardation to specifically exclude high-functioning autism.
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Yup, which is why I'm guessing he mentioned retardation to specifically exclude high-functioning autism.
Ah, okay that made me figure it out. Reading this whole discussion as a nonnative english speaker is pretty hard.
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Ah, okay that made me figure it out. Reading this whole discussion as a nonnative english speaker is pretty hard.
No problem. In the past couple of decades there's been a move away from making reference to someone as being a "retard" as it has become a common insult in modern english, much like the medical terms "idiot", "cretin" and "imbecile" went out of favor early in the twentieth century. It brings up the interesting irony that even political correctness cycles through terms as though going through some planned obsolescence. Ultimately it seems that popular usage becomes the final arbiter.
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"autism" vs. "retardation": political correctness taken too far can cause harm by setting unrealistic expectations. I know most of you are not parents, so probably more difficult for you to grasp.
I've seen one too many parents hoping that their "autistic" child will "grow out if it" and become functioning or near-normal. It's an extremely sad moment when a parent, after 15 years of hope, special schools, special teachers, etc. finally realizes that his/her child is indeed retarded will never be like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman or "Hands" in Boston Legal.
I've experienced too many instances of "My child is autistic.", and I'm thinking "No, your child is severely retarded."
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I for one think we should all lighten up.
So on that note, did you all know that
"up/dn"
looks the same upside down.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGyKBFCd_u4
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"autism" vs. "retardation": political correctness taken too far can cause harm by setting unrealistic expectations. I know most of you are not parents, so probably more difficult for you to grasp.
I've seen one too many parents hoping that their "autistic" child will "grow out if it" and become functioning or near-normal. It's an extremely sad moment when a parent, after 15 years of hope, special schools, special teachers, etc. finally realizes that his/her child is indeed retarded will never be like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman or "Hands" in Boston Legal.
I've experienced too many instances of "My child is autistic.", and I'm thinking "No, your child is severely retarded."
There are two dangerous assumptions in our Western culture. Sorry for the "convenient" generalisation. The focus is on the U.S. and (Western) Europe in particular.
1. There is such a thing as "normal" behaviour.
2. Comparisons with others determine what is acceptable.
I come from a religious household but my parents never pushed me to be "normal" nor said "be more like ..." I consider myself lucky. Maybe it is a Dutch thing. Some kids have to deal with normalcy standards and "be like ..." demands. Some kids do well.
Labels and standards are symptoms of our time. In the end the kid is still a little human being. Good parents still understand their child comes first...
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I don't think you understand. We are not talking about shades of normal or acceptability when it comes to severely retarded kids.
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Agreed, I added a bit of context regarding the jargon and political correctness. You are a parent after all. I am simply a student who observes.
Retardation as in cognitive and behavioural limitations is a complex issue. Parents with such children have to go through a lot.
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"autism" vs. "retardation": political correctness taken too far can cause harm by setting unrealistic expectations. I know most of you are not parents, so probably more difficult for you to grasp.
Part of what you're describing just seems like the 'euphemism treadmill' where the terms of a formal medical diagnosis gradually become stigmatised and used as insults, so over time the medical community drops them and tries to find more specific terms that avoid that stigma. No Doctor wants to tell a parent that their child is retarded when it sounds like the same as a playground taunt, it just seems unprofessional. And then the cycle repeats.
So like, say, calling someone 'dumb', a 'moron', or an 'imbecile'. Now 'retarded' is coming out of vogue, and autism is actually being increasingly used on the internet just as a general insult to people with poor social skills. Terms like autard or hugbox or the like.
Of course mixed in with that is all sorts of ambiguity and misinformation about high functioning autism and low functioning autism (not even sure those are the current terms anymore.) There was a really great story on a Radiolab episode (http://www.radiolab.org/story/juicervose/) that featured two sides of the debate you are bringing up. One is the story of a person who seems to have had a lot of their severely autistic behaviours improved after a kind of 'therapy', and the other side is a parent of a severely autistic child who gets upset by what he sees as the tremendously unrealistic expectations that you mention.
I'll admit that despite having a friend on the autistic spectrum I didn't really connect with some of the issues in autism advocacy he was talking about until I heard stories like this.
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Going to keep out of this for the most part, but I do want to interject one thing: only around 40% of individuals with Autism spectrum disorders have any degree of cognitive impairment (See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21272389, recent commentaries on this study have adjusted the percentage of individuals with intellectual disabilities down to around 40%. Being conservative, you could say that there is a 50/50 split). Only a quarter (25%) of the overall population have any level of verbal-level cognitive impairment outside of not being able to understand language pragmatics. The traditional ideal of the "locked in" ASD individual is only partially accurate. The generalization presents a large barrier to improved educational, workplace, and home-life conditions for the other 60-75% of ASD individuals. If you search the web, you'll find this conflict playing out in the battle between charities that forward a disease pathology model of autism (i.e. Autism Speaks) and those that take a neurodiversity approach to autism (i.e. The Autism Self Advocacy Network).
There has been a massive rash of over-diagnosis of ASD's though, especially among the young male population. (At the same time, there is likely a large scale under-diagnosis of ASD's among young girls.) Most doctors who do the diagnosing have never read any of Hans Asperger's initial research on children that underpinned the clinical diagnostic criteria - so almost any social developmental disorder gets dropped into that category these days.
IMO this is not the worst thing that could happen though. Most of the time, the same types of social skills therapy and applied behavior analysis is the exact same type of treatment for non-ASD social developmental disorders as for ASD ones. Without the overly-broad umbrella diagnoses that we have at the moment, there wouldn't be as much access to treatment for children with non-ASD social developmental disorders.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled nitpicking, already in progress.
P.S. Chromebook is still winning.
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If you search the web, you'll find this conflict playing out in the battle between charities that forward a disease pathology model of autism (i.e. Autism Speaks) and those that take a neurodiversity approach to autism (i.e. The Autism Self Advocacy Network).
This is one of those issues I have discussions about with my friends. I understand people with high functioning autism make tremendous contributions to society, and there are plenty of historical figures that seem like they would have been diagnosed as on the spectrum today. So a pathology model seems a little inappropriate if instead we could just make more opportunities for autistic people to contribute. As Temple Grandin suggests, many make great programmers among other things. (http://www.autism.com/advocacy_grandin_job)
At the same time its hard for me to imagine how this will work for people with severe low functioning autism, who need constant care and supervision. To me it seems like approaching low functioning autism as a severe impairment that we should try and 'cure' doesn't seem unreasonable.
Of course I can understand why that's upsetting, given the history of other social behaviours that were once considered medical pathologies.
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This is exactly why I prefer "retard" and "autistic". An autistic individual (an odd or weird person, but an with IQ over 140) might be able to be a computer programmer. A retard will never be able to be a computer programmer.
Matt Damon the Retard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PajyQrpu26I
The Real Rain Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdBCSP3KKtw
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Just read this entire thread. This is why I enjoy this community. Open discussion. Some day I will write a paper on my experiences watching teens deal with all these issues. All I can add to the discussion is that the pain that people feel is real and deep. It causes depression and worse if not addressed. My impression is that everyone just wants to be treated as a respected human being. Not privileged. Surely much too simple. And speaking person to person is a much better form of communication than all the written words one could type.
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I'm sure if I grew up under the care of today's helicopter parents, I would have a very negative self-image from being labeled as suffering from autism, ADD, and Tourette's syndrome. Might have even suffered from brain chemical imbalances from the drugs I would be prescribed.
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Oh Marv,
The drugs. What a nightmare. People that need them don't get them and IMHO too many are put on them for normal child behavioral "issues". And yes you definitely would be diagnosed with some syndrome. :)p13. Most of the pirates here would be.
And helicopter parents are the other. I'm waiting for one of them to buy a drone and fly it over their kid all day monitoring. I could write a book. Maybe I will. I don't dare until I retire.
Then their is the other end of things. I call the MIA parents.
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So someone explain to me how political correctness isn't the mother of all helicopter parents. Let's just take one of the worst parenting models and apply it to society at large. Friggin' brilliant idea. Hello USA 2015.
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I'm sure if I grew up under the care of today's helicopter parents, I would have a very negative self-image from being labeled as suffering from autism, ADD, and Tourette's syndrome. Might have even suffered from brain chemical imbalances from the drugs I would be prescribed.
If I would have had parents who actually care, I might have gotten my diagnosis a decade earlier which would have made a lot of things easier.
I think as a parent you need to find a line between over hysterical and not giving a shit.
My mother never liked the idea of not having a well developing child. When I told her how I felt she just laughed, always being above everyone else and when I tried to argue she cried making me feel like a ungrateful child.
Things only got kicking because of my teachers at school. Of course when confronted my mom told them I'm just a little shy, but never talking with anyone and staying hidden in the toilet until next class isn't quite normal.
But now I can actually get a job, because I'm declared as handicapped. I don't have to prove anything I can't, I'm happy and I can actually live a life.
Of course things that happened shape a person but I wouldn't want another kid to go through the same totally unnecessary trouble only because their parents think they don't need take responsibillity over the thing that came out of their womb.
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Honestly, for me "political correctness" is such a moving target, I am not sure what it really means anymore. If common courtesy, respect, and communicating using a mature and civil tone and honesty are included in PC, then I have to say my experience with helicopter parents has been anything but PC. In fact it has been rude, abusive, threatening, obnoxious and dishonest for the most part. Especially the last few years. I am thinking we may just have a different concept of the term "helicopter parents".
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If I would have had parents who actually care, I might have gotten my diagnosis a decade earlier which would have made a lot of things easier.
I think as a parent you need to find a line between over hysterical and not giving a shit.
My mother never liked the idea of not having a well developing child. When I told her how I felt she just laughed, always being above everyone else and when I tried to argue she cried making me feel like a ungrateful child.
Things only got kicking because of my teachers at school. Of course when confronted my mom told them I'm just a little shy, but never talking with anyone and staying hidden in the toilet until next class isn't quite normal.
But now I can actually get a job, because I'm declared as handicapped. I don't have to prove anything I can't, I'm happy and I can actually live a life.
Of course things that happened shape a person but I wouldn't want another kid to go through the same totally unnecessary trouble only because their parents think they don't need take responsibillity over the thing that came out of their womb.
Thank you for that. Unlike the current meme going around, most teachers are very professional competent and well educated people. They often have to step in as your teacher did. Risking the flack and insults that result. Just imagine having to tell a parent that they might be wrong?
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Honestly, for me "political correctness" is such a moving target, I am not sure what it really means anymore. If common courtesy, respect, and communicating using a mature and civil tone and honesty are included in PC, then I have to say my experience with helicopter parents has been anything but PC. In fact it has been rude, abusive, threatening, obnoxious and dishonest for the most part. Especially the last few years. I am thinking we may just have a different concept of the term "helicopter parents".
Nope, same concept. You are just invoking your experience on the receiving end of self-entitled parents as a teacher. That's something of a false equivocation.
PC is to Society as Helicopter Parents are to modern children. How teachers are treated is not in that direct analogy, but if you think about, your experience directly correlates 100%. They are displacing their responsibility as parents unto you and are pissed you suck at parenting their children. Just give my kid an 'A' is the ultimate in helicopter parenting. Cuz you will hurt their GPA, which hurts their college prospects, which hurts their income, which hurts their social standing, hurting their feelings, hurting their self-esteem, invariably leading to broken dysfunctional families, and then suicide for all. Duh. How dare you grade my child on merit you tea bagging Nazi fascist!
So yeah, it's the same shit. A Carrion flower by any other name smells just as bad.
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Thank you for that. Unlike the current meme going around, most teachers are very professional competent and well educated people. They often have to step in as your teacher did. Risking the flack and insults that result. Just imagine having to tell a parent that they might be wrong?
I read more books than I had friends. I isolated myself from my parents and peers to study and read. People did not understand that I preferred reading good book over the same old story and drama. Knowledge was my weapon for a long time until high school arrived. I always had a book with me.
Mind you all parents largely have their parents to thank for their behaviour. Parenting is difficult if anything...
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I read more books than I had friends. I isolated myself from my parents and peers to study and read. People did not understand that I preferred reading good book over the same old story and drama. Knowledge was my weapon for a long time until high school arrived. I always had a book with me.
Mind you all parents largely have their parents to thank for their behaviour. Parenting is difficult if anything...
My parents asked me what kind of girlfriend I want. (I've been single for some time)
My answer was if I met her for the first time and I get to know she has a good book in her bag she's reading through, then pretty much that's the type I want.
My parents replyed "then probably you'd have to be single for life, in this generation".
Funny to see how people are forgetting about good books and good music.
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Books and music are still appreciated. People tend to feel pushed to go faster in everything in the age of big data and (on-line) technology for the masses.
It is a matter of making time. When you decide to have more control you make time for things like reading a book and cooking for instance. Some people of the 18-25 year old group still appreciate the slower activities. Not everybody goes with the flow of current consumer existence.
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Ahh... the "euphemism treadmill" and the "moving target of political correctness" ...
Where I live, "differently-abled," (and yes, it gets shortened to "diffabled") is in vogue. I had a huge row with a friend over this, presenting the personal point of view that going deaf (age related, HF hearing loss: I can't read people's posts unless you hit the consonants hard and clear, and not at all if other people are posting at the same time) does not, in any way, cause any of my other senses to be enhanced, so differently-abled my arse/ass! My other point is that people should be accepted and respected as they are: the legless may need wheel-chair access, but they do not need labels that are applied to their whole life.
As it happens, my friend is the father of a severely autistic (I think) child, so I can see why he should think that I my disability is of so little concern it gives me no right whatsoever to even talk about disability. But it's damned real to me, and as to the world's attitude to deafness (or should I say hearing-challenged?) I feel like wearing a sign around my neck which says, "No. I do not do this just to annoy you."
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Ahh... the "euphemism treadmill" and the "moving target of political correctness" ...
Where I live, "differently-abled," (and yes, it gets shortened to "diffabled") is in vogue. I had a huge row with a friend over this, presenting the personal point of view that going deaf (age related, HF hearing loss: I can't read people's posts unless you hit the consonants hard and clear, and not at all if other people are posting at the same time) does not, in any way, cause any of my other senses to be enhanced, so differently-abled my arse/ass! My other point is that people should be accepted and respected as they are: the legless may need wheel-chair access, but they do not need labels that are applied to their whole life.
As it happens, my friend is the father of a severely autistic (I think) child, so I can see why he should think that I my disability is of so little concern it gives me no right whatsoever to even talk about disability. But it's damned real to me, and as to the world's attitude to deafness (or should I say hearing-challenged?) I feel like wearing a sign around my neck which says, "No. I do not do this just to annoy you."
No "handicapable"? If you're gonna refer to a person by their pathology then might as well be precise. Personally I still like "cripple" for its ubiquitous understanding and unambiguousness, but "para" would do in a cinch for my condition. The disability community can go a bit overboard like any other activist movement. For instance the support of personhood for essentially braindead patients in a persistent vegetative state because of the irrational fear that people will also terminate someone who has something like locked-in syndrome.
My point is that every type of advocacy will tend towards self-centeredness and increasingly elaborate demands on the public's vocabulary. (It's kind of funny how "neurotypical" has become a derisive term among some tightly-knit communities.) At some point it can be helpful to give gravitas a rest and poke fun at all of the holy cows.
Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone. —Carlos Castaneda
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp9MPLEAqA
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Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone. —Carlos Castaneda
Ah, yes indeed. Read all that stuff forty years ago. Since heard that it is most probably fiction. I guess there is still good stuff there whether it is "true" or not.
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Claritas, may you find a messiah who loses his sandal and tells you to fuck off. Pythonesque wit requires gratitude.
Self-importance, reminds me of Dale Carnegie's work. As long as people do not wallow in their "victim existence" they can keep their labels. I have dealt enough times with people who used their "labels" to justify being unpleasant and rude.
To be offended. People offend, it happens all the time. In the end the offended individual simply wants to hear "yes you were right" or "yes I/we should have listened." Some people simply want to hear a genuine "thank you." It is all a bit silly...
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Wow, late fruit surge!
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Wow, late fruit surge!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piWCBOsJr-w
You do not like fruit?
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Ah, yes indeed. Read all that stuff forty years ago. Since heard that it is most probably fiction. I guess there is still good stuff there whether it is "true" or not.
Castaneda? Yeah, talking about the nuggets of wisdom in his sea of bullshit.
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.
nuggets of wisdom in [the] sea of bullshit.
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Now we're really getting into the meaning of life! :wheel:
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Now we're really getting into the meaning of life! :wheel:
(http://sushiknights.org/files/Machine_goes_ping.jpg)
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I think Lachlan made some very well-thought out, well-written posts that clearly explain where he is coming from. I think he very much made a meaningful contribution to this discussion. He wasn't dismissive or insulting of anyone who may have been critical of him.
I hope he keeps posting. I also like his videos.