Terry, I persist in thinking that "certain" means what it says, and that if something is probable but not certain, "probable" is what should be used; and that when people say something is certain and it doesn't happen, the next time people will be less likely to believe them, which strikes me as being of some importance if part of your job is giving people warnings.
JJ Fozz, you really won't even take a shy at defending what you said? I hope you haven't passed on any of those flaccid reasoning genes.
Pyre, "cheerfully" (like "blithely") has longstanding rhetorical use when describing people expressing offhand cold-blooded opinions about other people. If you want me to be more precise, I'll say that I don't find (as you do) that most people who say "evolution in action" seem bitter; if not precisely cheerful, they almost invariably seem flippant, unfeeling, and smug.
AND if they're single and they die, and their genes aren't passed to the next generation, then that does support Darwin's theory.
This has been explained before, but I'll try again: You understand neither the relationship of genetics to human behavior (which is muddied by many other factors, to say the least), nor the way natural selection plays out in the human world. The idea that there is a serious genetic component in play in most people's decision to ride out a hurricane, and that the deaths of the non-parents in that pool of people will remove a genetic trait from the gene pool to any significant degree, is simply insupportable in any scientific or mathematical way. Just on the level of science, what you are saying is nonsense.
On the level of assessing your fellow human beings, well, you seem to have entirely ignored these points the first time round, so I'll try boiling it down to one question: Do you really want to defend the idea that the worth of people can be defined by the one decision of theirs -- never mind the reasons they might have that you don't even begin to consider?
It's used infrequently enough in official weather jargon that I agree with its usage in this case regardless of the actual casualty count
What? If the casualty count was negligible, then it wasn't certain death. And I don't understand the logic of "agreeing" with it just because it's rarely used, either. I'd take it more seriously because it's rarely used, but the measure of certainty is whether it was true, not whether people should have believed it.
FWIW, I don't think there's a flamewar going on.
Paula, I'm not arguing that people doing stupid things to put themselves in need of rescue (and putting rescuers in danger) is defensible. I'm arguing against calling it "evolution in action" or cheerfully dismissing people who do such stupid things from the ranks of those who deserve to live -- or defining people and their worth by any one thing we know about them (if a couple of quotes in a newspaper article can even be said to be knowledge).
Do you really want to bet the lives of your family, or, worse, those of the rescuers, on the forecast being always for conditions worse than actually happen? I sure wouldn't want to.
The people putting out evac orders are trying to make sure that everyone is out of the area so they don't have to rescue people at the last minute, or find and remove bodies from the debris afterward.
Do you really want to trust the government officials putting out the evac orders? I sure wouldn't want to.
I don't think I'd care to lecture someone who's been through this about her evidently thoughtful considerations of her situation, and her irritation at labels of stupidity being casually flung around.
Thank you, Patrick. I despise the "evolution in action" crap, as you know, and it lessens my view of the decency of people who spout it. You're more polite and thoughtful than my gut reaction is.
I think people who say stuff like that need to consider the idea of part-time stupidity. We are, almost all of us, stupid about some things, often for reasons we aren't aware of or in control of. Has no one else done things so goddamned stupid that they realized later, or even immediately after, that they could have died right there and looked like a complete idiot? Or lived their life deliberately in a way that carries significant risk, making a knowing trade of safety for other considerations? I walk around New York at night by myself in sketchy neighborhoods, because there are limits to the degree to which I'm willing to circumscribe my life, and there's no doubt that it makes my life less safe.
I'd evacuate for a hurricane like this. I wouldn't express that kind of moronic bravado if I stayed (but that's not my personality; no doubt I would rationalize it in other eminently mockable ways). But I don't live there, and don't really have any sense of what it's like to have to evacuate, or to potentially lose everything while I'm gone, as a New Orleans friend reminded me a couple weeks ago when I was critical of those refusing to evacuate. I certainly don't conclude that anyone who stays must be an idiot in all ways, let alone a worthless person better dead for the sake of humanity, and I think it's simplistic -- without even considering the implications upon one's soul to dismiss people so cavalierly on the basis of a couple quotes in a newspaper story -- to so conclude.
In an awful lot of corporations today it is a firing offense for an exempt (salaried) employee to tell another employee anything about his/her compensation: salary, bonuses, stock options, etc. This rule is intended to make it impossible for an employee to negotiate compensation effectively.
This was (I assume it still is) a firing offense at the Container Store. As was discussing unions.
(and whoever's in charge-- can we please not have posts deleted a hundred entries downstream? Blank them or something, but there's a large section of this which is really hard to follow because the post numbers don't line up right)
People should quote the things they're responding to if a reference is needed, and use names instead of comment numbers. Responding only referencing comment numbers is always a bad idea. Even if the numbers don't get rearranged, it forces people to scroll back and forth, or makes it a dialogue between two people instead of a group conversation.
I also feel we oughtn't ask people who are maintaining a free conversation for our benefit to take more work to do it in a way other than the one they choose, when we can so easily not cause the problem ourselves by not relying on the comment numbers.
Pyre, thanks for the edit. You're right.
Ethan, I ought to have specified, as others have, that I meant Green voters in battleground states. (I still can't imagine voting for the Green Party as presently constituted, but if the vote doesn't matter to the outcome of the election, whatever.)
I hope people remain alert to the possibility of unexpected battleground states, and how vulnerable we are to the Republican vote-fraud system.
Jim, I hope you sent this to that louse.
Wow, the commenters on the blog Bruce linked to are like an international conspiracy theorist cocktail, with a dash of biblical apocalyptics and an it's-all-about-the-bank-of-Israel chaser.
(I don't think people are forgetting that.)
Russia (and the Soviet Union before it) never signed the Geneva Conventions
Though as the U.S. repeatedly demonstrates, signing it doesn't have to affect your behavior very much anyway.
Not to mention the idea that the well-trained American and Russian military forces "aren't bullies" and don't drop bombs on hospitals.
I'm another one who doesn't comprehend what the truth-beauty axis is supposed to convey, unless it's completely straightforward, in which case I could hardly disagree more.
I'm saying that when there is a topic in which many listeners are very inclined to take offense
Every person of color I know or that I read who tries to discuss these issues with white folks will start steaming -- and probably just give up -- as soon as they read those words. Before conversation even happens, you are putting the onus on those who take offense, and giving notice in advance that you're not going to take responsibility for the offense you give. I know you don't see it that way. But stop and think for a bit how you would feel on the other side.
Did you read any of the links at Malcolm Gin's page (the one I linked to)? This is one of the most basic issues that gets discussed, if you're interested in hearing what people of color think of it.
You really ought to consider that the people who are offended might not be any more inclined to take offense than anyone else, and that the ones who are bothering to try to talk about this at all with you are the ones who are the least inclined to take offense, who will swallow a lot to try to get a message across to you.
Malcolm Gin has some good links today on the subject of white folks who sincerely want to Get It:
Dear White People
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