Comments

  • Pronouns and Gender
    They aren't fringe beliefs in this regard, though. Being "queer" is not synonymous with being "homosexual". "Homosexuals" are just often called "queers" in a pejorative sense. Queer Theory can be summarized as being a radical reconceptualization of sexuality and gender. It is related to Gay and Lesbian Studies, but is not synonymous with them.thewonder

    And that's why discussion with you is pointless. I think you're in denial. I feel as though if I were to say that the sky is blue, you would deny it and say that it is red, because you've attended Sky Colouration Studies or some shit, and the modern trend in such groups is the indoctrination that the colour of the sky is a matter of personal identification. Perhaps in your world you can even make up funny-sounding colours which don't really exist, like cerphleem. Yes, the sky is cerphleem.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    thewonder is a good person here and keeps the discussions going, plus he is being forthright.PoeticUniverse

    I never said that thewonder isn't a good person, or anything of the sort. I just literally find some of what he is saying laughable.

    There can be degrees of 'problems' with the masculinization of the brain. All embryos begin as female.PoeticUniverse

    I know all about problems with masculinity first hand, having grown up male, and never quite fitting in with the typical male stereotype.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Frankly, I don't care what you say or think. You don't seem to realise that you aren't dictator of language, as though you can simply declare the universal meaning of language, and it will be so. That's simply not how it works. The word "queer" has been treated as synonymous with "gay" and "homosexual" for quite some time, whether you personally accept that or not. You need to distinguish your own personal fringe beliefs from what's generally the case irrespective of them.
  • Is god a coward? Why does god fear to show himself?
    And then they came for the Gnostic Christian Bishops! But then they realised that there was only one, and they decided just to leave him be, in his mother's basement, frantically typing up yet more of the same old hyperbolic antichristian rhetoric on his PC.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Not everyone in the LBGTQ+ community accepts Queer Theory as being valid.thewonder

    It isn't. I treat that word as basically synonymous with "gay" and "homosexual" and the rest of it is just elaborate nonsense. It's as much nonsense as the following:

    I do indentify as being queer as I do accept that gender is performative and that sexuality is fluid, but, as I, for all intensive purposes, am functionally straight, I just let people refer to me as being male.thewonder

    Identify as being queer, but functionally straight? Lol.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Look, I'm not going to continue this discussion with someone with such an extreme set of beliefs. You're like a parody, and I can't really take you seriously. So let's just agree to disagree and leave it there. Have fun with your nonsense.

    If it was all trolling, then kudos. You got me.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Are we speaking of the queer community, the LGBT community, the LGBTQ community, or, the LGBT+ community, or the LBGTQ+ community?thewonder

    You can't be serious.

    From my experience, the queer community does care about gender pronouns.thewonder

    Well then your experience must be very limited. And regardless, you're simply not qualified to speak for the community as a whole, as though you are it's mouthpiece. It comes across as very arrogant.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    There are not 57 genders. Gender is performative and sexuality is fluid. You perform an infinite array of gender roles whilst generally carrying on however. Someone may have counted that there are 57 different ways that people identify, but they have bound to have missed someone. There are an infinite number of genders as each one is particular to each situation.thewonder

    I find that last sentence hilarious. Absolutely bonkers.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Submit to the newspeak and let the queer community destroy the English language, S!thewonder

    You know, the "queer" community doesn't have a hive mind. There are plenty of people, including myself and a number of my close friends, who are not heterosexual, yet do not make the silly demands of some of the more outspoken members who associate themselves with the LGBT+ group, and are in fact in agreement with me, and with with the majority who have yet to lose grasp of their good sense.
  • Boris Johnson (All General Boris Conversations Here)
    Yes, Corbyn is a true socialist and a long way left of the current administration, or perhaps what might be desirable. However I think the state of the nation is so unbalanced, so skewed against any social equality, so rampant exploitation of people who are vulnerable through a lack of resources. The welfare state is so under resourced, squeezed and on its knees, that the only way to restore any balance and equality, to bring us back from the brink of some sort of social/cultural breakdown would be to move radically towards the left and bring some relief for those who are struggling and being exploited.

    I expect you are aware of how inflated property prices discriminate against the under resourced. In the UK the housing crisis is fuelling a rapid increase in the gap between the rich and the poor. Leaving anyone who is not a property owner exploited by those who do and the redistribution of the poor into sink towns and estates and the well off gentrifying idillic villages and desirable areas. These forces are exploited through contemporary forms of capitalism and corporate interests. This alongside the way in which the wealthy and corporations syphon of wealth and profits offshore, is bleeding the society dry.

    We really do need this state of affairs rectifying , rather than being fuelled by a trade deal with the US.
    Punshhh

    Yes, in short, the Overton window is in dire need of a leftward shift. Perhaps now more than ever.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Let’s try it.

    “The writer must carefully proofread what e writes.”

    “After God created the Earth in six days, E rested on the seventh.”
    “Everyone likes pizza, doesn’t e? (They sure do.)”
    PoeticUniverse

    Hahahaha! Yeah, and then we can all sound like we're cockneys.

    "Oi gov, I ain't dun nufin. E did it, I swears".
  • Pronouns and Gender
    “heesh”, and “thon”PoeticUniverse

    Thanks, I got a good laugh out of that. :lol:
  • Is god a coward? Why does god fear to show himself?
    It's all hypothetical anyway, so why even care? It's not like there's any reason to genuinely believe that there's a God to begin with.
  • We are responsible ONLY for what we do NOT control
    Eh, not a thread for you I guess.StreetlightX

    No, not if the question can't be simplified and made clear, which it almost always can. It's a choice.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    They get the preference because they have the stake in the argument. Your stubborn insistence upon maintaining the rules of English grammar does not place you in a position where you are falsely identified.thewonder

    Except they don't get the preference, at least where I'm from, because thankfully I'm not from an authoritarian society with people who think like you in charge. This isn't 1984.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    I always forget not to say, "you guys". There have been a number of occasions when I've said something like "see you guys" to a group of either all women or people who don't identify in a binary sense. It's a strange colloquial habit that I should probably drop.thewonder

    Oh my goodness. This is a problem of people caring too much. I often include female friends when I say "guys", as that has clearly at some point taken on a gender neutral meaning, and those taking offence are taking it too literally and being too easily offended.
  • We are responsible ONLY for what we do NOT control
    If you were boring and unspecific maybe.StreetlightX

    Then what's the question, more specifically, though without rambling in philoso-jargon?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    If it comes down to Biden or Trump, I will be really disappointed.Wallows

    Me too.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    If no one practices getting the pronouns correct then they will never become easy to use colloquially.thewonder

    Shame. :eyes:
  • We are responsible ONLY for what we do NOT control
    The question is over what responsibility entails.StreetlightX

    Then maybe a better title would be, "What Does Responsibility Entail?". And the answer would be something like, "Responsibility entails a duty to act within your power to do what's right or face the consequences".
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Do you hang out with any feminists? Do you use “he” instead of “one” or “he or she”?Noah Te Stroete

    I use whatever feels right. I wouldn't use "one", as that would be silly. But I wouldn't deliberately refer to a transgender female as a he, for example. I just ain't saying all of the dumb shit, like "xe" or "ey" or whatever.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Perhaps the problem is in the sheer rarity of such people? If they had a large army, and if everyone had one as a neighbor, then things might be different. I don’t know.Noah Te Stroete

    Why would it be a problem that such people are rare, or that things are the way that they are? Things are the way that they are because it's convenient, makes sense, and because we value freedom of speech. I don't think that it would solve any problem, generally speaking, if a vast number of people suddenly popped up and demanded the rest of us adopt their weird ways of speaking. It would of course suit those with that agenda, but I don't recognise it as a real problem to begin with. It might well be a problem for them, but it's not my problem. But it's a problem if some arrogant and self-obsessed individual starts demanding I call them this or that in some peculiar language. To that, I would probably tell them to do one.
  • Concepts and Correctness
    Oy vey.Terrapin Station

    You're a strange one. I say that there are plenty of exceptions to the fallacy - which there are. There are way more exceptions to fallacy than instances of it - that's just common sense. You then reply by saying no, there aren't. I then point out that even that reply is itself an exception. You then bizarrely ask me what the appeal to the masses is there, even though I'm saying precisely the opposite to that.

    Although your nose is indeed beautiful. I'll give you that.
  • Concepts and Correctness
    What's the appeal to the masses there?Terrapin Station

    You seem very confused. Do you know the meaning of the word "exception"?
  • Pronouns and Gender
    It all sounds a bit funny, but through common usage it will cease to be so strange.thewonder

    Yes, if that happens, then it will cease to be an issue for me. But I don't expect that that'll happen any time soon, and if you believe otherwise, then I think that you're just thinking wishfully. Obviously, before that can happen, a vast number of people would have to go along with the silliness, and not enough people are going to do that.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    But, it's not normal, though.thewonder

    Saying such a thing makes me think that you're delusional or possibly a lawyer. What you demand is obviously not normal, generally speaking. It's a peculiar and recent phenomenon which most people not only reject, but find ridiculous. But I can't be bothered to read whatever small print follows the above where you presumably try to qualify that statement.
  • Concepts and Correctness
    No, there aren't.Terrapin Station

    I'm a fan of irony, so I'll just point out that your above statement is self-defeating, as it is itself an exception to the fallacy of appealing to the masses. But, like I said, you typically don't have a problem with the obvious exceptions, but with the more nuanced exceptions.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    I will also begin demanding that you refer to me by the pronoun "xe" if you don't just decide to agree with me.thewonder

    Wait, are you serious? Because it sounds almost trollish, but then I remind myself that some people out there genuinely would say such things. That's very much part of the Looney Left, and I would disassociate myself with that group.
  • Concepts and Correctness
    The problem is that there are no exceptions. The only time the consensus opinion is relevant and not fallacious is when we want to know what the consensus opinion happens to be, but that never makes the consensus opinion correct (by virtue of being the consensus opinion).Terrapin Station

    It does if that's the criterion for correctness. And of course there are exceptions. There are plenty of exceptions. You have persistent trouble in identifying the more nuanced exceptions, and to be honest, I don't actually think that you want to learn your error and stop making the same mistake over and again. You've always struck me as someone steadfastly committed to a position or line of argument, and sometimes that's a problem.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Well, if you want to be really lazy, you can just substitute "they" or "them" for nearly everything. That's what the queer community around here does.thewonder

    No thanks. I find that ridiculous. I'll just talk normally.
  • We are responsible ONLY for what we do NOT control
    Probably, but then, if you were to read past my click-baity OP title, you'd know I'd laugh along too.StreetlightX

    Har har. I'm really not a fan of that style of writing. Regrettably I have actually read past the title, but I didn't find much I consider to be of substance or value.
  • Concepts and Correctness
    He just said that what makes itcorrect is consensus usage. That's what the argumentum ad populum fallacy is. (And that's what it is in consensus usage, so if you believe that makes something correct, you'll not disagree.)Terrapin Station

    That's not what the fallacy is. That's more like a rough and overly simplistic explanation of the sort you'd give off the top of your head to someone new to philosophy. It works well enough in a large number of cases, but the obvious problem with that, however, are those cases which are in fact exceptions to the fallacy, but which you mistakenly lump in, I guess because it suits your argument.
  • Pronouns and Gender
    Au contraire, mon ami! Judith Butler is the author of Gender Trobule, and I would bet that ey would want for you to refer to em by eir chosen pronouns.thewonder

    I don't care either. I don't just adopt silly linguistic inventions on demand.
  • Concepts and Correctness
    Claiming that something is correct because it's common is an argumentum ad populum.Terrapin Station

    This is a regularly occurring misunderstanding on your part. He did not commit the fallacy of appealing to the masses.
  • Can we assign truth values to statements in ethics.
    Yes, we can assign truth-values to moral statements. Why not? The emotivist argument is simply a bad argument. No, I don't simply mean, "Boo!" or "Yay!", although yes, they are typically representative of the related sentiment.
  • Concepts and Correctness
    It’s not an argument. It’s a description.Noah Te Stroete

    And there's nothing wrong with it.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    I figured it was a “Hey, Joe” reference, but I wasn’t sure if he was joking about there being an incident.Noah Te Stroete

    An incident... which occurred whilst he was designing a bird costume for camouflage? :brow:

    I'm pretty sure he was just trying to be funny. (Emphasis on the "trying" part).
  • We are responsible ONLY for what we do NOT control
    It's more than counterintuitive: it's false and absurd, and obviously so. It's contrary to common sense. I am in no way responsible for something out of my control, for the obvious reason that there would be nothing within my power to do anything about it. If you were to hold me personally responsible for, say, it raining last Friday in Bulgaria, then I would probably laugh in your face, and that reaction would be entirely appropriate.

    Whatever next?
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    Are you being funny here? Because I don’t understand you.Noah Te Stroete

    I saw what he did there.
  • Wiser Words Have Never Been Spoken
    That’s why I said “whoever”. I don’t know where the quote came from.Noah Te Stroete

    You must be new around here.