BREAKING: MAN CHANGES GLASS OF WATER INTO AN OAK TREE!

[Jenne]

It's close enough.  Words have meaning.  The English language IS clunky...But if used properly, it leaves very little room for misunderstanding, at least in written form.

No, it actually isn't.  You see, when I say there's a school, it's an actual legislative BODY that says what you CAN and CANNOT say.  What words REALLY actually mean.

Now, we have to ask ourselves, do we REALLY want that?  Sure, you get a looser meaning, what some might call "watered-down" version, of the language and the words and their combinations used.

But what are we attacking when we assign "right" and "wrong" to usage?  THIS cannot MEAN *THAT*!  What does that actually say?

It's securing a finite detail to a large potential.  When we restrict meaning to the point that we disallow creativity, we are trying to squeeze the mind into a crevice.  And we all know what happens to humans when they're trapped.

I already addressed the idea of making clear speech mandatory...It's wrong.  We should rely on mockery, not legislation.

That can work, too.   

[Cramulus]

sorry, been busy at work, missed a bunch of the conversation.... a few pages back...

Or they could just use a dictionary.  People who are too stupid to learn the definitions of the words they repeat deserve everything they get, good and hard.  Fact is, it's the demagogues that misuse these words in the same manner - basically speaking - as the OP that have caused half of these problems.  Deciding that words don't actually mean anything furthers their cause.

so no effort should be made to point out to people the ways that they are being manipulated? seems to play right into the evil Illuminati scheme, no?


I hope a skepticism of words is in people's minds as they wrestle with whether Julian Assange is a journalist or terrorist.

I don't know about that, Cram. Words have specific meanings, and the words "terrorist" and "journalist" are no different. People shouldn't be wrestling with the meaning of the words, but the implications of Assange's actions, and whether they qualify as one or the other.

No skepticism is required.  By any legal or literal definition, he's a journalist.  It's when you muddy up the language and the logic that he can be a "terrorist".

the meanings are clear to you, for now

but we do not live in a dictionary

someone with a microphone and an agenda can turn a journalist into a terrorist in a few semantic steps

(just add "espionage")


The MEANING behind any communication has a few components
1. the definition of the words in play
2. its connotations
3. what its juxtaposed with

"liberal" is a good example. It means something to me, something else to self-identified liberals, it means something entirely different to the tea party. The dictionary definition is practically irrelevant in its modern usage.

If you're reading a tea-party website, the dictionary definition of the word "liberal" or "socialism" or "progressive" will not  help you understand what they are communicating to their audience.

We have to guard ourselves against manipulation through communication -- connotation and juxtaposition are powerful tools! Why do you think Giuliani used the word 9/11 so many times during his presidential campaign? (this backfired when enough people realized what he was doing) Why do you think Bush used the phrase "Axis of Evil"? This is exactly what RAW was warning us against in his description of Fnords - tricky little words like "security" and "american values" and "traditional" that speak to your guts and not your brain.

And even if you can read the news with a critical mind, you're still getting exposed to tons of bias, and this does affect how you think about the issue. Nassim N. Taleb talks about this in Black Swan, how journalists cannot accurately predict which parts of a situation are important and should be included in the story. You end up inheriting some of their biases no matter what.


so I say

be apprehensive about things you hear.
be aware that many definitions are subjective, and not rigid. In short,
be aware that the map is not always the territory.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

someone with a microphone and an agenda can turn a journalist into a terrorist in a few semantic steps

(just add "espionage")

Which is why it's so important for each of us to know the actual definitions of words...So some fat, pill-addled demagogue can't fool us as easily.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And even if you can read the news with a critical mind, you're still getting exposed to tons of bias, and this does affect how you think about the issue. Nassim N. Taleb talks about this in Black Swan, how journalists cannot accurately predict which parts of a situation are important and should be included in the story. You end up inheriting some of their biases no matter what.

This is why I go to Cain for my news. 

Watching the press declare Giffords dead and a bazillion casualties from a dangerous "alleged Mexican"¹ on a rampage had me giggling in fits, especially when they changed the story to fit the facts without so much as a retraction.

I automatically assume they're lying to me, and I try to pick the bits out of the story where the truth leaked through.


¹  Yes, they said "alleged Mexican".   

[Cramulus]

that's also why I use this board for my primary news source 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

About the OP.

It's art, designed to elicit a response from the viewer. It elicited humor from me, and since art is viewed from a personal level I am not wrong.

It made me want to punch a philosophy major, which is also not wrong.

That's NEVER wrong.

[Cain]

Words have specific meanings, and the words "terrorist" and "journalist" are no different.

I would not suggest repeating the bolded assertion in the presence of terrorism scholars.

It is in fact a law of political science that every book on terrorism must:

- devote one chapter on the near impossibility of political scientists, law enforcement, intelligence and governments to define terrorism satisfactorily.

- devote at least one chapter involving an abridged history of terrorism which includes the Zealots and Assassins, before suddenly blooming into the 19th century anarchist first wave of modern terrorism, yet not refer to the Mongol take on total war, political violence in the Roman Republic or the sack of Rome by the Landskneckts.  Or indeed any other potential form of terrorism throughout history, as we know only Jews, Muslims and Pinkos are terrorists.

[Phox]

Words have specific meanings, and the words "terrorist" and "journalist" are no different.

I would not suggest repeating the bolded assertion in the presence of terrorism scholars.

It is in fact a law of political science that every book on terrorism must:

- devote one chapter on the near impossibility of political scientists, law enforcement, intelligence and governments to define terrorism satisfactorily.

- devote at least one chapter involving an abridged history of terrorism which includes the Zealots and Assassins, before suddenly blooming into the 19th century anarchist first wave of modern terrorism, yet not refer to the Mongol take on total war, political violence in the Roman Republic or the sack of Rome by the Landskneckts.  Or indeed any other potential form of terrorism throughout history, as we know only Jews, Muslims and Pinkos are terrorists.

You've given me new reason to hate "political scientists", Cain. Not that I needed more reason, mind you. Though, you raise a valid point about the difference in linguistic meaning and field-specific meaning.

[Cain]

Some people would consider me a political scientist, but I'm really just a historian pretending.

[Phox]

Some people would consider me a political scientist, but I'm really just a historian pretending.

I don't consider you a political scientist, so you weren't included in that group. I'm sure I have plenty of other reasons to hate you, though. 

[Triple Zero]

and in that case he's more like a pompous prick, knowing fully well that nobody can ever disprove what he claims,

Which is different from Pagans (especially "conservopagans" )...HOW?

Most Pagans believe a lot of things that are also easily disprovable.

But there's probably some tricksy Pagans that pick their words carefully and only claim unprovable supernatural pagan things.

I think that's still different from this guy--in the case that it's not satire, but he actually believes what he says in the interview--because it's extremely limited, he chose his words very carefully, and him having this belief doesn't actually have any effect in the real world, apart from him making this one art piece. Compare that to the tricksy Pagan, they go about lighting candles and charging athames and dream about going to the woods to change into a rabbi, or whatever it is they do. And they do it over and over again, and believe that what they're doing is useful somehow. Now if this artist is going to make a habit of "changing" things in the manner described in the interview, yeah, then I'd completely agree he's not very different from a Pagan. But--and yeah I may be wrong--I think that even if he believes the whole philosophical mindgame that comes along with it, he knows perfectly well it's not useful for anything, except for making this art object this one time, and publishing about it.

But, and I think I understand now what you are getting at, maybe if he actually believes the mindgame, he might have also bought into some "magick" type stuff, where the intent of enacting this "change" is somehow blablabla reality blah the universe cosmos etc. And yeah, in that case he's not that dissimilar from a lot Pagans.

It's a lot of if's, but definitely a possibility.

[Adios]

And even if you can read the news with a critical mind, you're still getting exposed to tons of bias, and this does affect how you think about the issue. Nassim N. Taleb talks about this in Black Swan, how journalists cannot accurately predict which parts of a situation are important and should be included in the story. You end up inheriting some of their biases no matter what.

This is why I go to Cain for my news. 

Watching the press declare Giffords dead and a bazillion casualties from a dangerous "alleged Mexican"¹ on a rampage had me giggling in fits, especially when they changed the story to fit the facts without so much as a retraction.

I automatically assume they're lying to me, and I try to pick the bits out of the story where the truth leaked through.


¹  Yes, they said "alleged Mexican".   

WTF is an alleged Mexican?

Christ on a fucking stick,
this shit makes me sick.

[Triple Zero]

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

Thanks to this thread, I am now envisioning the son of God sodomizing his clone.

I would call that porn rule I can't remember on this but I'm pretty sure the Vatican would send someone out to kill us both......  

Rule 34

first page of hits for an image search for "jesus fucking christ" with SafeSearch turned off: (all of them NSFW, obviously)

http://i.imgur.com/2MN9v.jpg
http://bigmentaldisease.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/jesus-fucking-christ.jpg
http://www.eagerbeavershirts.com/img/p/19-87-thickbox.jpg
http://archiv.roumen.cz/archive/jesus_fucking_christ.jpg
http://images.quickblogcast.com/93780-86535/jesus_fucking_christ.jpg

hilarious

[Aucoq]

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

Thanks to this thread, I am now envisioning the son of God sodomizing his clone.

I would call that porn rule I can't remember on this but I'm pretty sure the Vatican would send someone out to kill us both......  

Rule 34

first page of hits for an image search for "jesus fucking christ" with SafeSearch turned off: (all of them NSFW, obviously)

http://i.imgur.com/2MN9v.jpg
http://bigmentaldisease.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/jesus-fucking-christ.jpg
http://www.eagerbeavershirts.com/img/p/19-87-thickbox.jpg
http://archiv.roumen.cz/archive/jesus_fucking_christ.jpg
http://images.quickblogcast.com/93780-86535/jesus_fucking_christ.jpg

hilarious

Oh boy. 

[Jasper]

Terrible minds think alike too. 

About the OP.

It's art, designed to elicit a response from the viewer. It elicited humor from me, and since art is viewed from a personal level I am not wrong.

It made me want to punch a philosophy major, which is also not wrong.

That's NEVER wrong.

Punching phil majors is NEVER wrong.