You'd probably get away with calling your wife and her friends a bitch. I actually think you could pull it off if you used it in the right context, like saying "hey bitch" with a feminine voice when you see them and prance over and give them a hug. It's risky, sure, but I think you overstate their protection of that word and I fully believe in your comedic sense of timing.

Lemme know how it goes.

The idea of that makes no sense. What it is for an utterance to be insulting is for an individual to take it a particular way, to apply certain meanings and connotations to the utterance, to assume particular intentions, etc. So it depends on the individual considering it. — Terrapin Station

I'm not sure that's entirely the case though. I think the utterance itself has become a perfomative act to some, where it's inexcusable regardless of intent. I don't think in the examples cited in the OP that there's evidence of mal-intent. The accusers just cite to the utterance itself and don't provide any evidence that the speakers were racist.

This forum began prior to the old PF fully unraveling, out of a sense of concern for its direction after it changed ownership. Had there not been a group of dedicated organizers and members willing to come over here and getting things started right away (including frantically collecting names and emails to be sure no one was lost), it's likely we'd have all disbanded and gone our separate ways long ago, looking for conversation on Reddit or whatever else might be out there. I'm told Reddit is shit, but I can't recall where I heard that.

So, I see this Forum as not only a general success (as we're currently #1 on search engines and have over 4000 members), but also a testament to what people can do when they have a common cause and a sense of higher purpose.

So many deserve special thanks. I'd like to begin by thanking myself for all my hard work, but I'll stop there for fear I'll forget someone and hurt someone's feelings. I'm always thinking of others. I'm just that way.

I remember being taught at primary school ( UK - a couple of several decades ago ) that the proper word to use was 'negroe'. — Amity

My father used to call called black people "colored," which was actually an official designation for a time period. You checked off the box on government forms indicating whether you were white or colored. Use of the term colored now makes you sound painfully ignorant, but not necessary racist, but likely holding less than progressive views.

The article goes on to argue that "nigga" is actually becoming a pronoun rather than a noun and there's data to support that, but that's less relevant to the issue being discussed in this thread. — Baden

The reason a white person wouldn't use the omitted R version of the word is because it would sound like mockery, assuming you have a white person who wasn't raised speaking a black dialect. It'd be like me walking around your home town and telling everyone "top 'o the mornin' to ya'" in my best Irish accent. The truncation of the last consonant is characteristic of certain black dialects, and it would cause problems for me to speak that way in most contexts. The same holds true if you came down here (and please don't) and decided you wanted to speak like a southerner. They'd take it as an attempt to show them how stupid you thought they were.

No, because you can't invent social reality. It invents you. — Baden

No, it invents you. I'm a grown ass man and I do what I do when I wanna do it.

It sent in mid sentence. I think I leave it that way. Use your imagination.

Give your mum my apologies. — Baden

Nice. You just called my departed mother a retard. If I weren't so

Can the white community pass a convention normalizing the use of the N word and condemning of the Black community's use of the term?

The idea that, if I were teaching in America, I should further the goal of helping my students by potentially insulting a significant number of them on some bogus free speech anti-PC trip, is, frankly, retarded. — Baden

You shouldnt use the word "retarded" anymore. It's somewhat insulting to those parents of the intellectually challenged who would rather not have their already struggling children considered as subhuman.

"Fucked up" would have been a better choice in your sentence.

Silly. You don't get to be part of the black community by spending time in a tanning salon or suddenly discovering some black genes despite life-time entrenchment outside it. — Baden

So now you're offering the "you gotra live it" definition. Does Eminem get a pass? What about the Huxtables? Do they lose their pass?

In a couple of centuries the averahe American will be brownish and sort of Latino looking. The N-word won't be a thing. — frank

I'm thinking the predictions made in 1819 about what 2019 would look like are pretty much wrong.

I think I actually am going to come teach there. Just to piss you off. — Baden

Our immigration laws are really strict.

No ecause it's not the same speech behaviour. We've been through this. Activate your memory circuits. — Baden

You're not talking about behavior. You're talking about intent which you decipher entirely by skin tone. if I use the term, I mean X, unless I tell you I'm black, and then I mean Y, regardless of whether I tell you I actually mean Z. If I have one black grandparent can I use the term with impunity?

The idea that, if I were teaching in America, ... — Baden

We just filled the last slot, but thank you for your interest.

You weren't just doing that, you were repeating some tired old recycled stuff about black people using it etc. that we hear regularly from the morons on Fox news and don't expect to see puked up across the pages here by one of our more esteemed commentators (there you go, a backhanded compliment). — Baden

The black community's use of the term doesn't help their cause in limiting its use. It is also problematic to use race as an excuse for behavior. If Trump casually used the N word, would your rage subside if he could prove he had a black grandmother? That seems a problematic standard.

I am not in the U.S. now and have only ever been a tourist but when I was there last New York had just banned the N word from use and black artists had to fight for their exception for it to be[ used — thedeadidea

The word can't be illegaluzed. It's protected by the Constitution. The Klan even has the right to march down the streets of Manhattan.

The solution to the problem is common sense. If you need to use it in an academic context or otherwise, do it sensitively. E.g. Don't keep repeating it over and over unnecessarily like the Dem apparently did. — Baden

The solution is just to never say it. The subjectivity of deciding when it can said and not and the severity of the consequences make it just too dangerous to say.

I'm strongly against the use of "the N-word" in place of the actual word for ethical reasons. The word is "nigger", and context matters, and sensitivity to the word "nigger" - regardless of context - is counterproductive, as it empowers the word and enables its use as a weapon. I will only use "the N-word" if I feel I have to. — S

You can only adhere to such standards if you have nothing to lose. It ignores that there are consequences for its use.

That's very interesting, because I have the opposite experience, growing up in Houston. My father always used the n-word to refer to African Americans (my mother didn't). His family were small-town farmer folks, and many of them were even worse (they invariably prefixed the n-word with "god damned"). — Relativist

That's consistent with my observation that its use revealed one's class. I think the same holds true in the African American community.

I was going to point out that, if we have to go to a list in some obscure corner of the internet to find out about these inventions that have purportedly changed our lives so much for the better, then they haven't. — andrewk

And I'll point out that if it took you 3 months to respond to my post, it took tremendous thought to defeat it.

I scored a 0, which is typically a bad score, but here it's good, sort of like a negative cancer screening is a positive result.

The test is interesting regarding the questions it doesn't ask which seem like they'd trigger the same sort of negative consequences, like whether one was bullied excessively by non-adults, lived in a very unstable environment due to extreme poverty, experienced deaths of family members, and so on.

I often hear how resilient children are described, and how they adapt very well to changing circumstances. It offers comfort for the adults who have not provided the proper stability I think, but I'm not sure it's very true. I think most kids remember, consciously or subconsciously, every blow, both figurative and literal, ever laid upon them.

Conversely, if we look at the Christian nation of the U.S., as an example; we see perhaps the least peaceful and law abiding nation on earth. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Crime in the US is not significantly related to religiosity. To the extent your argument that public religious expression ought be suppressed rests on the empirically false claim that a significant amount of crime in the US arises from religious disagreement, your argument is invalid.

Suppression of beliefs and of personal expression of those beliefs, religious or otherwise, so long as not infringing upon others, is antithetical to modern democracy and has caused serious rifts in French society. The largely non-religious founders of the US thankfully had the foresight to enshrine the right to practice one's religion in the Constitution because they saw first hand the oppression that arose from rreligious suppression by government.

Banned Jake for posting porn. — Baden

Man on man, woman on woman, or old school?

Yes. I only know his first name, which is Gerald. — S

That's my nickname. My real name is Tater Manishevitz.

He said, while immediately discarding the latest constructive suggestion to enhance the quality of the forum, and making no effort to improve it in to something that he could accept. — Jake

No, it wasn't constructive criticism. It was an uncritically evaluated suggestion that was then critically evaluated and rebuked. Your response was not responsive to the criticism, but was just a general lament that no one wants to listen to your ideas. This thread is the precise sort that you're asking be relegated to the lower tier of this board.

What you suggested was a hierarchy of posts as determined by the moderators. I pointed out (1) the logistical impossibility of holding moderator sessions where we vote on the hundreds of new threads weekly, (2) the subjectivity inherent in evaluating thread quality, (3) and the ideological biases of the moderators that could lead to claims of post suppression. I also pointed out there existed a current solution, namely that moderators can remove low quality content and they can sink discussions off the main board to deprioritize them (as currently exists with all lounge discussions).

The disease of low quality posts that you believe invades this board is preferable to the cure your prescribe. That I've disagreed with you doesn't mean that I've stubbornly refused to listen. It means I really believe you've arrived at a particularly bad idea.

It's impossible so long as every mod on every forum on the Internet focuses their intelligence on rebuking all constructive suggestions and declaring every idea that is not their idea to be impossible. In that situation, the current real world, yes, agreed, impossible. — Jake

As I said, we're all open to feedback. I provided reasons why I didn't agree with your suggestion. You didn't respond, but instead posted the above passive aggressive comment, summarily concluding the world is filled with mindless naysayers who refuse to take seriously your suggestions.

I'm not proposing there is some perfect solution to this, only that working on that challenge would seem to be more interesting than merely taking out the trash. — Jake

Is that what you're suggesting I'm doing right now?

I'm not denying victimhood, only pointing out the curiosity of separating the person from his will and treating a single person like a dual entity. If I shoot you, I'm the perpetrator and you the victim. If you're an addict, I follow how that addiction could be the result of trauma caused by a perpetrator, but just positing the addiction itself as a perpetrator is confusing because it divides you into two beings: your pure will versus your addicted will.

They've become a victim to their addiction, which would be corrupting them and causing them distress. — S

The person as described by you is bifurcated, with the perpetrator as their addiction and the victim as the addicted. I'm not denying the possible truth of this description, just that it's curious. You have a drunken homunculus of sorts puppeteering an otherwise pure and true homunculus.

This revisits our prior discussion, where you assert diminished responsibility for acts committed while intoxicated. It seems to absolve people of the acts of their corrupted will instead of holding people responsible for the acts of their will.

It would great if the forum could be organized not only by topic but also by content quality, which would of course be defined and determined by the mods. — Jake

It's just logistically impossible to subject each thread to vote by the moderators to determine priority, not to mention such voting would be subjective and fraught with political and topic bias by the moderators.

The current system of moderator editing of weak posts and sinking low quality threads off the front page into Siberia or moving them to the lounge seems to work.

Posters will always have to sort the wheat from the chaff themselves to some degree, but such is inherent in a public forum. Sometimes less moderation involvement is a good thing.

When I was in school, the attitude that many people had was that academic learning was worthless and that the only thing that mattered in life was common sense and social skills — Ilya B Shambat

Unless someone here actually adopts this unsupportable view, you're arguing a straw man.

You may want that attitude if you are raising salesmen and lawyers. — Ilya B Shambat

Except that lawyers and salesmen also need to be educated.

The strong willed person wakes up at 5 am on Saturday and trains in the driving rain for the upcoming marathon. The weak willed one sleeps in and eats doughnuts and watches the rain through the curtains.

There are thousands of examples you can create where your will is challenged. The heroin addict's will is tested minute by minute. Regardless, he has a free will.

Guys, this thread is here to allow discussion about recent bannings.

No, my position is that you haven't justified your assertion that if something causes harm then it is immoral. Perhaps some things are acceptable even if they cause harm. — Michael

Utilitarianism seems to require a reduction in overall harm, but the punishment cannot obviously exceed the harm of the drug itself.

Famous people's careers have survived worse, I'm afraid. Remember when Sean Penn beat up then-girlfriend Madonna with a baseball bat? — NKBJ

She denies that occurred. https://www.thedailybeast.com/madonna-comes-forward-about-sean-penns-alleged-abuse-sean-has-never-struck-me

I deny full responsibility because I'm not fully responsible. — S

Alright, so let's say you got drunk and belligerent and punched a guy named Bob in the face. There are 100 percentage points of responsibility you can dole out. How many of those 100 points do you get? If not 100, who gets the rest?

Perhaps your punishment should be lessened due to the extent of your intent, but I can't see reducing your responsibility.

If your behavior was motivated by a high fever, it'd likely reduce or eliminate your responsibility, but I can't see voluntary intoxication as a viable defense.

Alright, let's keep this in order:

You said:

Thing is, what this demonstrates is that there is no essential difference between mental illness and social stigma. — unenlightened

I said:

I can't buy into the argument, though, that Charles Manson was essentially fine and that I can't reliably tell him apart from the average man next door. — Hanover

You then said:

Then don't make the argument. It's certainly not one that I make. — unenlightened

And no one would be so silly as to try and suggest that. So remove the stuffing from your straw man and put it on the compost heap. — unenlightened

Mine wasn't a straw man, it was a reductio ad absurdum. That is to say, if one holds that there is no essential difference between mental illness and social stigma, one implicitly holds that Charles Manson (or, another example, Jeffrey Dahmer who raped and ate his victims) is not mentally ill but just someone we have chosen to stigmatize. That there might be hard cases where it's hard to distinguish if the person is mentally ill or whether we just find the person's behavior violative of certain societal norms doesn't mean there aren't obvious cases of mental illness.

I don't excuse my belligerence, I accept proportional responsibility, then I make light of it and move on, because otherwise it would eat me up inside and I would be at great risk of doing something even more self-destructive. — S

So you deny full responsibility to assuage your guilt so that you can feel better about yourself so that you can be a better person. Nice mental gymnastics. Does this method of self-affirmation work only for drug induced violent states or does it also work for intentional acts of violence? Can I shoot someone in the face and then deny full responsibility in order to unburden my conscience so that I can go out and be more productive?

You offered us once a personal account where you got wasted and belligerent to the point the police were involved. Obviously your belligerence was immoral, but wouldn't you say your decision to get wasted by itself was as well, even had you not become belligerent, just due to the fact that you recklessly exposed the public to a wild eyed S with no rational self control? Or do you maintain even your belligerence was excusable, as it was not really S doing those things, but a Mr. Hyde occupying your body?

Really? Then on your authority (you we're even the nick I borrowed from the old PF), I won't post anymore. — Wallows

Now that the issue is resolved, I'll close this thread.