To be or not to be?

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TyranX
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To be or not to be?

#1 Post by TyranX »

This is a slightly off topic spinoff to the Do I look fat in this dress thread. You can check it out here http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 9&start=15 (end advertisement)

This is an interesting piece of argument adapted from a comics skit. Can't remember the name of the comic at the moment though. Lets have a civilized debate here. ;3 First off, before I start, I'm not implying that these situations always exist or are a constant, just that when they happen, it happens.

It's socially acceptable for people who may be considered "fat" (NO, dont start with me. Go here and argue about that word) to talk smack about skinny people. But if skinny people talk about people who may be considered "fat" it becomes an issue?

It's socially acceptable for people who are midgets to talk smack about tall people. But if tall people talk about people who may are short it becomes an issue?

Theres a third example, but thats a WHOLE other debate dealing with race so I'll save that one for another time. XD

While personally I don't fit into either any of these categories, (let me try to form my words carefully) why is it that the lesser mainstream desirable seems to have socially full freedom of speech in an argument while the opposite would be shunned for saying something 'inappropriate', the opposite equivalent of an argument?
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Re: To be or not to be?

#2 Post by Ren »

Theres a third example, but thats a WHOLE other debate dealing with race so I'll save that one for another time. XD
You're maybe forgetting another example.

How about how women can complain about men all the time, just assume they have no feelings, and sometimes even direct rather distasteful remarks at them with no consequences; but if the opposite happens, it's OMGWONDERFULIAMEGADETH! ?
I also noticed that in all these groups, if one of "them" behaves in an objectionable way, the others who are in the same group will turn their heads and pretend nothing happened.

It seems to me that humans are much less civil than they think they are, and less intelligent, too.
We all like to believe, just because in our present we aren't racists and we don't objectify women, that we wouldn't have done so had we lived in the past, either.
The truth is that most people would have turned their heads in the past, like everyone else, and they just delude themselves into thinking that they're progressivists just because they "stand up" for causes which are much safer to support than they would have been.

I personally try (who knows if I manage to do it) to look at situations as objectively as I can, with less bias possible, without protecting my clique no matter what. This means that I can't fit in a group so easily, which can be hard, but it seems to me it's much better than being a sheep who thinks itself a lion.


I find this topic of discussion rather interesting, props for bringing it up. It will be an interesting thread to follow.

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Re: To be or not to be?

#3 Post by papillon »

why is it that the lesser mainstream desirable seems to have socially full freedom of speech in an argument while the opposite would be shunned for saying something 'inappropriate', the opposite equivalent of an argument?
It isn't - and it isn't the case that it always works that way either, and saying that it does will get you banned from a large number of communities for not paying attention. :)

People tend to remember their own experiences more strongly than what they hear of the experiences of others. (Also, confirmation bias plays in.) There's a LOT of people who go "But no one would DARE make that joke if the genders were reversed or it was about a black person or it was about a Muslim or it was about a Jew or..." When this is just plain not true! Plenty of people DO make the same jokes or worse about other categories as well! But if you happen to BE a (whatever), you're more likely to remember people picking on YOU than you are to remember or take seriously people picking on everyone else.


You say "How come it's okay for fat people to pick on skinny but not the other way around?" I say "Um, plenty of skinny people pick on fat people all the time and don't face huge consequences for it, and the fat acceptance communities DON'T allow people to say anti-skinny things, you'll get warned/kicked for that."

You say "How come it's sexist to say negative things about women but not negative things about men?" I say "My feminist communities DO call out sexist memes against men and it's very much NOT okay to bash the whole sex."

And as you may have noticed in my original post, I complained that the mars/venus behavior nonsense is unfair to BOTH men and women (And people who are neither, for that matter!)

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Re: To be or not to be?

#4 Post by kinougames »

TyranX wrote:This is a slightly off topic spinoff to the Do I look fat in this dress thread. You can check it out here http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 9&start=15 (end advertisement)

This is an interesting piece of argument adapted from a comics skit. Can't remember the name of the comic at the moment though. Lets have a civilized debate here. ;3 First off, before I start, I'm not implying that these situations always exist or are a constant, just that when they happen, it happens.

It's socially acceptable for people who may be considered "fat" (NO, dont start with me. Go here and argue about that word) to talk smack about skinny people. But if skinny people talk about people who may be considered "fat" it becomes an issue?

It's socially acceptable for people who are midgets to talk smack about tall people. But if tall people talk about people who may are short it becomes an issue?

Theres a third example, but thats a WHOLE other debate dealing with race so I'll save that one for another time. XD

While personally I don't fit into either any of these categories, (let me try to form my words carefully) why is it that the lesser mainstream desirable seems to have socially full freedom of speech in an argument while the opposite would be shunned for saying something 'inappropriate', the opposite equivalent of an argument?
Great question! Let me explain why it is not necessarily "acceptable", but why pretty much only jerks get mad at small jabs that happen from oppressed person to non-oppressed person. (Egregious serious actions I usually see people called out on.)

Imagine a rich guy, driving around town in his limo, a nice expensive liqueur in a crystal goblet in his hand. Based on financial class, we shall call him "non-oppressed person" in this situation.

Upon his little drive-through, he comes upon a guy digging through the trash for food or cans to feed his family, looking pretty broke-down and torn-up. Hopeful, the poor guy begs for change. The rich guy turns up his nose and pinches it, looking at the poor guy with disgust and says "UGH. You REEK. Get the hell away, you sub-human troglodyte!"

Now imagine a rich guy just walking around a park, minding his own business, and that poor guy makes a comment about how he smells like "way too expensive cologne" and how bad his "rich person" fashion sense.

On a snap, which one makes you angrier? Likely, you thought the first situation, right? That poor guy will have to suffer, possibly not eating or feeding his family for lord knows how long. The rich guy is going to go home to his pool and servants and surround sound system and while he might have hurt feelings, he can at least pay a great therapist for treatment.

Who is going to end up better, in the end? The rich person, of course. In the course of being affected, who would have been affected most by the same event? The poor person, of course, assuming that both people had equal trauma emotionally from it.

Just because male/female, or black/white, or skinny/fat privilege is not necessarily as SUPERDUPEROBVIOUS as the privilege between super rich people and super poor people, it all works the same way.

That's why.
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"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit a

#5 Post by Topagae »

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."
Last edited by Topagae on Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: To be or not to be?

#6 Post by Aleema »

I can't remember where I saw this, but I was watching a "what would you do?" TV show where a mother kicked her kids out of her car and forced them to walk home. The first scenario, the family looked middle class or lower, and in the second they were clearly wealthy. First scenario, everyone swarmed and helped the kids, and even scolded the mother like she was batsh*t crazy. The second time, passers-by ignored the kids completely. Not a damned person helped. It's enraging to see such behavior, kids are kids no matter how rich they may be, and you should be allowed to tell the mother about her parenting without fear of some sort of social backlash (if indeed, one is allowed to in the first scenario).

There's always going to be an "us" and a "them," unfortunately. It just depends on what scale you take it on. From your family, to your class, to your race/country, to your gender. You're going to place yourself in a cog in the machine of earth. The human race is still infantile, and indeed very stupid. It's only been a handful of years (compared to the span of earth) when African-Americans were slaves in the US, and even less time since they were even remotely treated as equal. Then it was immigrants. Now the issue in America is homosexuality. What will it be tomorrow? Who's less human today?

Perhaps a way to combat the "I have feelings, too" syndrome is to say that your feelings are being hurt, rather than secretly hating someone. Tell the person that what they're saying or doing is no less acceptable then the other way around, and be specific. If they're unreasonable and ignore you, disregard them. You're not going to change their mind whatever you do. Or else, you might be surprised and find that they didn't know they were being offensive in the first place, since the above examples were mostly in the sake of comedy (fat jokes to skinny people, tall jokes from short people).

Topagae

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit a

#7 Post by Topagae »

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."
Last edited by Topagae on Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: To be or not to be?

#8 Post by papillon »

It's only been a handful of years (compared to the span of earth) when African-Americans were slaves in the US, and even less time since they were even remotely treated as equal. Then it was immigrants. Now the issue in America is homosexuality. What will it be tomorrow? Who's less human today?
And of course the old issues don't go away either - plenty of horrible things still happen to black people in america, it's just not enshrined in LAWS that they have no rights anymore. (Still a good step!) Homosexuality is a big issue at the moment. Immigration is still a big issue. Being Arab/Muslim is a pretty big issue in the US right now. There are politicians *trying* to get laws passed to restrict their religion or to microchip immigrants like stray dogs and so on...

People in general have tendencies to suck, go around the world and you find it applied to all kinds of targets. Anti-redhead prejudice, while AFAIK fairly mild and mostly just a matter of bullying, is a much bigger issue in the UK than the US. Or if you read up about "travellers" in the UK... you get situations where people burn effigies of them or pull their kids out of schools because there are traveller kids there!

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Re: To be or not to be?

#9 Post by kinougames »

Perhaps a way to combat the "I have feelings, too" syndrome is to say that your feelings are being hurt, rather than secretly hating someone. Tell the person that what they're saying or doing is no less acceptable then the other way around, and be specific. If they're unreasonable and ignore you, disregard them. You're not going to change their mind whatever you do. Or else, you might be surprised and find that they didn't know they were being offensive in the first place, since the above examples were mostly in the sake of comedy (fat jokes to skinny people, tall jokes from short people).
This is a good idea, btw, however, you should be wary that the marginalized, oppressed people go through issues that you don't have to go through. It's really a matter of dual understanding and if you're both open, I've found that most of the time a consensus is easy to reach.
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Re: To be or not to be?

#10 Post by fortaat »

Topagae wrote:if anyone is familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese , nobody lifted a finger to help her due to a very prevalent psychological mindset inborn into people.
That's not true, as detailed in the linked article under "attack". The public image of the attack is based on bad journalism.

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Re: To be or not to be?

#11 Post by TyranX »

While we all seem to agree that the moral level of the event can change depending on which situation its in, and that in all situations if someones feelings are hurt that they should say that it is. It seems like a lazy excuse when people are content with the explanation that "That's how human's always are." or "People are always going to be that way."

While it is true that your "natural instinct" may have a strong effect on how you consider your choices and the things that you do. Ultimately it's an individuals choice whether or not they act upon those influences. What we haven't really paid attention to is why there would be an issue in the first place. For either side to have a problem, they would need to actively think and come up with a reason to argue. Not only that, but they would then have to decide that their complaint hold so much meaning that they needed to verbally direct their discomfort at a person who the person may not even know, but fit their intended profile.

If two people of any race or gender of different extremes met on a highway. They would have no reason to dislike the other in any way, shape, or form. they would have to decide actively by their own choice to argue with the other.

While I do agree that some people may be more 'ignorant' to others simply due to lack of knowledge, or simply not knowing, it doesn't give someone an excuse not to seek the right answers.

I surmise that my point is essentially what 'Topa' stated, that the real question for us to ponder would be "How do we better ourselves?" Why do 'we ourselves' or 'they' even have a problem with someone, and is it really that worth harboring such a prejudice in the first place.
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Re: To be or not to be?

#12 Post by papillon »

For either side to have a problem, they would need to actively think and come up with a reason to argue.
On the contrary, it's often lack of thinking that starts this sort of thing and it snowballs from there!

You can always try to better yourself, by being more careful TO think before you act, to not jump to quick conclusions based on 'instincts', to not project your emotions onto others. Forcing all of humanity to grow up is harder though.

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Re: To be or not to be?

#13 Post by kinougames »

papillon wrote:
For either side to have a problem, they would need to actively think and come up with a reason to argue.
On the contrary, it's often lack of thinking that starts this sort of thing and it snowballs from there!

You can always try to better yourself, by being more careful TO think before you act, to not jump to quick conclusions based on 'instincts', to not project your emotions onto others. Forcing all of humanity to grow up is harder though.
What Papillon said. I unfortunately think that question you're asking, Tyran, is akin to "how come humans act like humans?" You can only help your own corner, and doing that much is enough and hard for a lot of people by itself.
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Re: To be or not to be?

#14 Post by playswithtribbles »

Just one thing to say here. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the entirety of humanity's actions.

And that is of course Wizard's 1st Rule:
People are stupid.
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Re: To be or not to be?

#15 Post by neowired »

Did you know statistically women are much more discriminative towards women and men are much more discriminative towards other men

Most abuse of women at work is by the women above, not by the men

That actually makes perfect sense from the evolutionary standpoint, even if it makes me unhappy.

There are some minorities which you aren't supposed to speak against because then you become called a bad person.
If you act against the mainstream you will usually be disregarded or attacked by the whole

Black people getting more rights above white people to counteract the social discrimination, it doesn't change the fact that the law isn't the same for everyone, and in turn the situation can reverse

In nature all systems have a surprisingly complex ability to self-stabilize

Furthermore, public opinion is in general well... stupid ; p not flexible at all. There are often rules and behaviors which, while they had some reason for existing when they started, with time lost any reason, but are still followed because public doesn't analyze and it changes very slowly, it resist change as a whole.

In fact, even given complex reasoning, analysis, test results, opinions of specialists, even if all such things say a change should happen, that something isn't logical, the major part of the society will still often blindly oppose the change and paint the change as something bad and negative.

I think the only time where the society can support change is if it's under a condition of a great stress.

This is all a complex problem, I think, and I barely scratched the surface here.

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