Jen: As for the outdoor/indoor flamewar, I keep having it with myself.
It's hard. On the farm, all cats were barn cats. But sometimes we'd go into the barn and one cat would stop showing up. If you do let them out, you should make sure they are vaccinated against feline leukemia. Stray cats might have it, and it'll wipe out an entire barn full of cats like nothing.
All our cats are indoor cats. We have one that is a fricken houdini and has gotten out twice. Both times, he came back after a week, screaming his head off, skinny as a rail.
The neighbor has an outdoor cat. let it out for years. Just didn't come home one night.
"The pterodactyls have machine guns!"
And they're synchronized to fire between the propeller blades, which is the freaky part.
Oh, you mentioned Craig's list. I haven't looked for a while, but they used to have a warning about giving pets away for free. People will pick them up, sometimes bring their kid along to look more legit, and then sell the animal to some testing facility or whatever. So, something to be aware of.
A long while ago, had a couple of rabbits that needed homes, and we found a 4H club (?) that had one-a-month meetings for rabbit owning 4H members. No, we weren't 4h members, but we called the organizer, asked if we could bring them up and find someoen to adopt, they said sure. we drove an hour and a half, spent a couple hours, and after the meeting, found two families, one for each rabbit. And the kids weren't so young that we had to worry about them dropping the rabbits or whatever.
Having the animal right there in the flesh can sometimes get people to adopt more than some text ad with a still photo on craigs list.
Ed: explain copyright law to a noob writing a non-commercial, non-fiction work (new version of old role-playing game) that wants to quote other rule books that are 10 to 25 years out-of-print
How long it's been out of print doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not copyright has expired and the work has entered the public domain. The only point where it is "out of print" will matter is if it's so out of print that not even the publisher has the rights to it anymore to bother filing a lawsuit if they feel like you've infringed their copyright.
If the work is still in copyright (and I'd guess it is, given terms last over six hundred years*) then the only way you can quote from it is if you can use it in a way that qualifies as "Fair Use".
Unfortunately, I've yet to find a good website that gives a good rundown on fair use. Part of the problem is that you can't really define fair use in a purely objective way. You can't say "cut and paste 100 words or fewer is OK, 101 words or more is not OK".
If you can, you'll be better off taking the idea within the rule book that you like, boiling it down into some general principle or general rule, and then re-animating it using your own words, your own expression.
They can't copyright the ideas, they can only copyright the expression. Just don't hone too close to all the ideas, or they still might decide they can sue.
If you can't do that, and you really need to quote the book, then you'll just have to start reading up on Fair Use.
(*) give or take
Heh. Top 10 most scientifically inacurate movies, ever.
They really didn't like "day after tomorrow": "This movie is to climate science as Frankenstein is to heart transplant surgery."
Paul@888: The song in the trailer is The Beginning is the End is the Beginning by Smashing Pumpkins
Oh cool, and it's on Rhapsody! New playlist for today.
Yeah... goosebumpy just from seeing it on a 20 inch monitor. I can't imagine the impact that would have had on a big screen without warning.
I wasn't sure how they were going to package it. Watchmen isn't an action/adventure story, it's more like a slow death march of inevitability. That song seems about perfect.
I still doubt the story can be done justice in under 3 hours
After seeing the preview, my wife leans over and whispers, "Are they supposed to be the good guys or bad guys?" And I said something like, "yeah, that's an interesting question". So, if they can do that in a one minute preview, and my wife knows nothing about the comic book, then I think they have a possibility of making something that makes sense and is true to the original story in under three hours.
greg: Is it racist simply to state that some people are inclined to upset, or are biased listeners, simply because they're on the anti-racist side of the argument?
John: Let me ask a different question: Is it useful?
Is it true? If it's true, then it's useful, just by virtue of being true.
Would it be useful if Marty knew he was sensitive to being called chicken? I think so. Would it be useful to me? If true, definitely.
Leah: yes, not 100% of all reactions ever are in proportion. However, you seem to imply throughout the thread that this is true in a much larger fraction of cases. Perhaps even that the offended person needs to examine their own sensitivity most of the time.
No hasty generalization was implied by me to be applicable to the whole world for all time. I was talking about this interaction, these particular circumstances.
Assigning meaning to a word based on how you've heard it used before is called Language.
Yes, yes. I wasn't arguing otherwise. Someone calls you "belgium" and it happens to mean something horrendous to the person speaking it, then you are reacting to what he said.
If everyone called you "chicken" when you were a kid, and then someone calls you that in jest as an adult, and you freak out on that person and gouge his eyes out, then your reaction towards the target is sourced by far more than what that person said.
But that doesn't mean that you're always doing that.
John@664: Why don't you pretend you are in a debate and are tasked with making an argument for my statement?
I already said @634, "it is true that some racists would try to label equalitists as "overly sensitive" or "militant" or whatever, in an attempt to divert the conversation away from the actual racism. But you can't label all attempts at self analysis as diversional"
I get that some people with money will argue that they got where they are by their own bootstraps, so the poor must be poor by choice, will argue that it's each person's individual responsibility to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, not depend on society, that there is no such thing as society, and are there no prisons? No union workhouses? And that has been easily extended by some to say that blacks are where they are by choice, that everyone has the same opportunities, and all anyone has to do is pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they so choose.
(Is that the sort of argument you were looking for me to create about personal responsibility?)
But the absurdity of complete and total personal responsibility is a strawman to the idea that there must be some personal responsibility for what people do or say. You can't attack teh demand for some personal responsibility as demanding total responsibility.
And I got involved specifically when people here, not some theoretical type persons, but people here I've intereacted with on a regular basis for several years, had a disagreement to the point of shouting one person down, or ostracizing him on some level, or folks telling him its an unfair world and complaining about it won't change that, or if people like this leave conversations then good, and so on.
We're no longer talking about theory of economic justice anymore, or some theory about personal responsibility. We're talking about particular people, in a particular conversation, with particular circumstances, and particular statements and particular responses.
And my question from the beginning has been "Do you say that every person's response here to albatross was in proportion to whatever albatross said? Do you say that every person's response here to me was in proportion to what I said?"
Is it racist simply to state the some people are inclined to upset, or are biased listeners, simply becaues they're on the anti-racist side of the argument? Is everyone's reaction level, no matter how severe, off limits to any criticism as long as they're fighting racism?
You strawmanned my position as my "incessant pounding on individual responsibility of the victims of social ills". Well, I'm not talking about generic victims of social ills. I'm talking about specific people, under specific circumstances, and I'm asking if their reaction is open to criticism without getting accused of racism or not.
I'm asking not for total responsibility of all social victims, but some responsibility of specific people here, and I"m asking if all of their responses were in proportion to what either albatross or I said. It doesn't require that all victims of social injustice and social inequality be made responsible for their positions in life. It requires that people take some responsibility, not for what status they were born into, but what words come out of their mouths.
Was everyone's reaction to albatross and to me all within proportion to what we said?
well, my version isn't racist, at least not anyways I can see. I'm not sure how you see what I've been saying as racist.
John@658, "individual responsibility" is a racist meme?
Terry@649: There are subjects for which the appropriate response is offense.
The subject matter does not override the specific circumstances.
Say you are having a debate with a torture troll. Say a number of anti-torture people come in and help your side of the debate. Say you lose it with the troll. You flip out. Now, say that one of the anti-torture people who has been lending you moral support questions whether your reaction was the best possible response for the situation.
Say he suggests that maybe you're inclined to become upset around the discussion of torture and that your reaction sometimes makes the conversation difficult for him to work with.
Is the appropriate response to be offended at that person?
Would you get steamed (#527) at that person? Would you get so upset that you wouldn't even bother (#528) trying to talk (#529) to that person? Would you tell him that conversations against torture suck and complaining that they suck won't make them stop sucking (#530)? Would you say that if this person thinks you overreacted and that keeps this person out of future anti-torture debates, then good (#532)? Would you tell them love it or leave it? would you accuse them of demanding you coddle (#536) them?
Is that sort of response appropriate for someone who stands with you in your fight against torture, but disagrees with you on the severity of your reaction?
The poor schlub who walked into the mine-field...
Terry, you of all people know the problems with landmines. They cannot adjust their response level to deal with the threat at hand. And they do not discriminate their target. They react with deadly force against anything that sets off their trigger, even if that trigger is touched years after the mine was planted.
Neither albatross nor I are racists, nor have either of us forwarded a racist meme. Yet the response both of us have received from some people is clearly (well, to me at least) out of proportion to anything albatross or I said here.
Terry@649: There are subjects for which the appropriate response is offense.
The subject matter does not override the specific circumstances.
Say you are having a debate with a torture troll. Say a number of anti-torture people come in and help your side of the debate. Say you lose it with the troll. You flip out. Now, say that one of the anti-torture people who has been lending you moral support questions whether your reaction was the best possible response for the situation.
Say he suggests that maybe you're inclined to become upset around the discussion of torture and that your reaction sometimes makes the conversation difficult for him to work with.
Is the appropriate response to be offended at that person?
Would you get steamed at that person? Would you get so upset that you wouldn't even bother trying to talk to that person? Would you tell him that conversations against torture suck and complaining that they suck won't make them stop sucking? Would you say that if this person thinks you overreacted and that keeps this person out of future anti-torture debates, then good? Would you tell them love it or leave it? would you accuse them of demanding you coddle them?
Is that sort of response appropriate for someone who stands with you in your fight against torture, but disagrees with you on the severity of your reaction?
The poor schlub who walked into the mine-field...
Terry, you of all people know the problems with landmines. They cannot adjust their response level to deal with the threat at hand. And they do not discriminate their target. They react with deadly force against anything that sets off their trigger, even if that trigger is touched years after the mine was planted.
Neither albatross nor I are racists, nor have either of us forwarded a racist meme. Yet the response both of us have received from some people is clearly (well, to me at least) out of proportion to anything albatross or I said here.
Leah@641: It is possible that working on reactions may be necessary in some cases, but that wasn't what you were talking about.
That was exactly what I was talking about. The entire point of my post at 585 was to offer a couple of questions that basically establish whether the target of someone's anger is the source of the anger, or whether it is a reaction that includes other people, other events, other issues. Is the response in proportion to the target's actions or no?
i.e. me@585: Saying "your anger is out of proportion" doesn't mean some anger towards me isn't justified
And I just have to point out the weird, sliding vocabulary going on. albatross used the phrase "inclined to be upset". I shortened that to biased listener. abi used the term "presensitized". You're suggesting that the "reaction" may need some "working on". Several others have come up with their own phrase, as if to say, 'I disagree with what you say, but I'll agree to this'. But we're all talking about the same situation:
A situation where the level of anger a person directs at some target person is sourced by more than just the target, is out of proportion to the actions of the target.
Is there something specific about #585 that you disagree with? Because it seems that we're talking about exactly the same thing, just that everyone insists on using different phrases.
I think most people are aware of their sensitivity
Well, this I have to completely disagree with. read my post #534. Actual studies of implicit bias seem to indicate the complete opposite, that people are almost completely unaware of how much they are biased (or sensitive or need to work on their reaction or whatever you want to call it). The study involving asian women especially, since it shows implicit bias hurting the people who have the bias. It becomes self inflicted damage, and yet they were completely unaware that they were doing it to themselves.
Saw "Dark Knight" last night. Loong movie. Probably shouldn't have gotten the supersized MtDew before going in.
Anyway, wow. Probably goes into the "full evening price" category. Good movie, pretty good plot, good characters, pretty much good everything.
I'm not sure what the war handwavium score is, but it must be pretty low. The movie portrays a couple of moral dillemmas around violence that are brutally realistic and pretty damning of America's recent infatuation with war and violence. It's definitely a positive handwavium score cause, well, it's a comic book vigilante story, but I was impressed.
Also, had a preview for "The Watchmen". Smashing Pumpkins was the soundtrack, I think. I'm pretty sure it was Billy Corgan's doing the vocals. Friggen song mixed with the visuals put goosebumps all over my body. Looks pretty fricken good.
Anyway, does anyone know what that song was?
Clifton@601: Greg: Have you thought about adding some other tools to your mental arsenal, which might bear more powerfully on changing society or changing situations, rather than getting people to change themselves?
I didn't get involved in the thread until albatross@524 talked about conversations in which "listeners are very inclined to take offense". at which point, some people got very upset at him.
It wasn't a mutually exclusive choice of "change society" or "change individuals". It was an individual here on this thread trying to point out that in the efforts to change society that some people show up as inclined to take offense, at which point, a number of people right here on this thread took offense. And in trying to point out what was going on, some of those same people took offense at me.
The conversation went from changing society to individual reactions. And it was at the point that the individual reactions were reacting against one another that I piped in. Also, in any fight, even a fight to change society, I think the better your individual fighters are, the better your chances of winning, of changing society, are.
abi@592: The feeling I was getting is that you think that the consequent anger and frustration they feel is their problem to deal with or hide, lest it trouble the people who sparked it.
If I said on this thread that people should hide their anger, please let me know so I can apologize for such a gross mistake.
Marty McFly was presensitized to being called "chicken". It got him into needless trouble on occaission. And yes, I think it would be in Marty's best interest to deal with his presensitization. And I think that the people who actually sparked Marty's anger around being called chicken, for example, Biff, are not interested in helping Marty overcome this sensitization at all. So in that sense, it is really Marty's problem. His great-great-grandfather can try to give him advice, but it's really up to Marty to change himself.
Having taken a little break from the thread, I think instead of the word "chicken", it seems that the fight against racial inequality has become sensitized to being called "sensitive" (or angry or militant or insert synonym here). Which might make dealing with it a bit more difficult. ("You seem somewhat sensitive to being-", "what did you just call me?" "Uh, I was just saying, oh never mind")
Albatross mentioned that some people are inclined to become upset, and some people ended up getting upset at him. Not because albatross said something untrue, but because albatross unknowingly invoked the trigger phrase, and then Scraps quoting Malcolm Gin about "me being called militant".
It was a matter of pointing it out because the very same sensitivity that albatross was trying to point at seems to have gotten triggered in some people and they went and attacked albatross. So, pointing it out is more a matter that Great-great-granddad just told Marty to not be afraid of being called chicken, and Marty suddenly went stiff and said "Are you calling me chicken?"
And it is true that some racists would try to label equalitists as "overly sensitive" or "militant" or whatever, in an attempt to divert the conversation away from the actual racism. But you can't label all attempts at self analysis as diversional, or you would have to label Marty's Great-Great-grandfather as no different than Biff who called Marty a chicken.
And me pointing that sensitivity out doesn't mean I'm saying people should hide it "lest it trouble the people who sparked" the anger in the first place.
First of all, no one hides stuff like that. They may think they are, but they're exhausing a trail of emotional steam wherever they go, leaving a trail of people wondering "what was that about?" Hiding just doesn't work.
Second of all, and more importantly, the point of dealing with it is that it makes you free of the past, more able to see things for what they are, and more able to address the problem that's really there (rather than addressing the problem from your past). Once Marty realized he was sensitive to being called chicken and that fighting Biff was stupid, he then had the idea to put the cast iron door from the pot bellied stove under his shirt. Marty was able to deal with the problem at hand, rather than simply come out angry, guns blazing, and get himself killed.
When Needles challenged Marty to a drag race and called him "chicken", we got to see two different timelines. One with the sensitivity, Marty accepts and gets in an accident and breaks his hand and can never play guitar again. The other, Marty isn't sensitive, sees the drag race challenge for what it is, stupid, and refuses to engage.
So the point of introspection around sensitivies isn't to avoid troubling the racists. The point is to be able to see every issue clearly, without any sensitivities. Then you can engage the real bad guys in an effective way (cast iron door as a bullet blocker) or you can realize that engaging in the first place is just dumb (refuse to drag race). The point of introspection is it makes you a better fighter, a smarter fighter, and to know when not to fight at all.
abi: There is always the risk that they are pre-sensitised to things that we might say, and the proper response in those circumstances is to apologize.
Are you saying people here are presensitized and that I should apologize?
Because the only thing I've been trying to say here is that people are, to use your word, presensitized.
This isn't like I'm calling Marty McFly a "chicken" accidentally or on purpose to get his goat. This is like me trying to point out that he is presensitized to that word.
Scraps@581: You might just as well say, Greg, that if I say you can't punch me without my getting mad, then I am clearly inclined to be mad.
Scraps,
A couple generic (independent of whatever issue happens to be the topic at hand) questions:
(1) Are you angry right now?
(2) Who is the recipient of your anger? (who specifically are you directing your anger at?)
(3) What are the fundamental sources of the anger your feeling right now? (where did it come from?)
scenario A: Say that I punch you. And you get angry. I'd be the person you'd direct that anger at. And I'd be the source of that anger. I'm the source and I'm the target.
scenario B: Now, say I call you a "coward", and you get angry. You get furious, and you direct that fury at me. I'm the target. But it turns out the source is that "coward" was something your father would call you when you were a kid and he was trying to get you to overcome your phobia of water. I'm the target. But your father and I are the sources.
Which is to say, some of the anger you're directing at me comes from something your father did to you when you were a kid.
That doesn't mean it's OK for me to call you a coward. It's wrong. But the anger you direct at me isn't in proportion to what I did to you.
Saying "your anger is out of proportion" doesn't mean some anger towards me isn't justified for calling you "coward". Name calling is mean, therefore most people could expect to feel some anger.
But if the anger you direct at people when they call you "coward" always includes the years of anger of being called that name by your father in a very misguided attempt to get you to overcome your water phobia, then you are inclined to direct anger at targets that is not in proportion to what the target person actually did.
And the target of your anger, the guy who called you a coward just now, might rightly react with "wtf?" because it is out of proportion.
if the target is a bit slimier in motivations, he might use the out of proportion reaction to not only say your reaction is out of proportion, but your reaction is entirely unjustified. He might use your reaction to downplay the fact that he called you a coward and that he deserved some anger.
But pointing out the existence of the anger isn't doing that. Pointing out that the anger is out of proportion to what the target did, isn't downplaying what the target did. He still called you a coward and that wasn't right. Pointing out that the anger is sourced by multiple events doesn't downplay the wrongness of those events. Your father calling you a coward was wrong. Some guy calling you a coward now is wrong. It's responding to the guy now with a level of anger equal to the sum total of (what that guy said now) plus (all teh anger around your father) that is the distinction I'm trying to make here.
Can you acknowledge a difference between me punching you and you venting anger at me because I punched you, versus me calling you a coward and you venting anger at me because I called you a coward and because your father called you a coward your entire childhood?
It doesn't mean me calling you a coward was OK. And it doesn't mean that your father calling you a coward was OK. All the bad things that are the source of teh anger are still bad. It's just that the anger you direct at me for calling you a "coward" was sourced by a lot more than just what I did.
ethan@564: every time a young-earth troll pops up?
Not every objection is a troll.
Do you calmly, clearly, and patiently explain your objections when people misuse the language of violence and war?
Of course not. Sometimes I lose it. And sometimes I say things that are unfair. And I apologize a lot on Making light.
what I find hard to reconcile is that when albatross@524 pointed to conversations in which "listeners are very inclined to take offense", Scraps@527 replied by informing him how many people would be steamed about that statement.
If a person can't talk about some being inclined to take offense without someone getting steamed, then that someone is inclined to take offense.
If a person can't talk about the existence of biased listeners without invoking the prior "ten thousand kick in the teeth", then that person is a biased listener.
If a person can't point out the anger that sometimes occurs in these conversations without invoking the anger in someone, then that angry someone is biased.
And if we can't talk about the anger in the space without someone announcing how angry they are, and the ten thousand kicks to the face they've had, and how it impacts every minute of every day of their live, and yes its unfair so what, then if they're too angry to let anyone talk about the anger in the space without being angry now, then when can we address the anger?
Unless you're saying the anger is righteous and always hits the right targets, then when someone gets angry and lashes out and inflicts some collateral damage, you can't shout "look, I'm angry!" when someone says "hey, I'm on your side".
Of course, this is when some might try to strawman this into me asking them to "coddle the poor offended person", and, seriously, if that's the only response, then I'm done. If no one can even acknowledge any bias, inclination to upset, or unfair anger, then I'm really sorry I brought this up.
Scraps: do you think it's reasonable to describe people who potentially disagree with you as being "inclined to take offense"?
No. I don't have a problem with disagreement. I think that some people have taken their history of being discriminated against, and their history of dealing with people who don't "get it", and accumulated some anger, frustration, whatever you want to call it, and then bring that to bear on the next person who doesn't "get it".
That doesn't mean there isn't racism.
Nor does it mean that racism isn't much more terrible than someone with a history of frustration and anger reacting to someone who doesn't "get it" based on that history, rather than based on what that one person said.
you seem to object to me pointing out that what Albatross said was a classic example of the type of approach to the conversation that angers people of color and makes them want to give up.
Do you think everyone here was simply pointing it out, or do you think anyone here brought in some anger or frustration or whatever you call it in their reaction to albatross (and now me) that had less to do with what albatross (or I) said and more to do with that person's history?
You seem to object to two people of color verifying that observation. Am I misreading you? Do you think there is no point to this observation?
"verifying the observation"? The only reason I entered the thread after 500 posts was because folks were starting to react in a manner slightly more angrily than simple "observation". If you think every reaction to albatross (and now me) has been purely a calm, cool, reporting of observations, then I am at a loss.
. I'm too frustrated and sad to continue with this, and I'm sorry that I've learned what I have about a couple people here.
You haven't learned anything about me. I'm neither defending racism nor defending the ways in which racist folks try to downplay racism. But there's "racism" and then there's "people I know", and I finally came into this thread when "people I know" were starting to beat up on other "people I know".
Not just pointing it out, not just observing, but bringing the anger and frustration of dealing with racism their entire lives and letting some of that loose on people here.
And while as I asked several people directly if they thought they were merely observing albatross (or my) statements or if they were reacting based off of a history of racism, the response was, no, we're observing. And yet abi brings up "their ten thousandth kick in the teeth" in trying to explain to me why I shouldn't shout "Unfair!" when people I know start beating each other up over it.
"Unfair. You bet."
If the people reacting to albatross (and now me) could look at themselves that honestly, and observe and report that they are bringing the prior ten thousand kicks to the teeth into their conversation with albatross (and me), then that would be the extent of my part of this conversation. If some of the people I know, know they are being unfair to someone else, and can acknowledge it to the person they're doing it to, then that would be the extent of my involvement.
Because a lot of this thread has been talking about being responsible for what you say, and acknowledging unfair statements is just as valid as acknowledging that something someone said has been used by other people to handwave racism away.
Avram: who brought up biased listeners?
uh, albatross@524: in which many listeners are very inclined to take offense
I shortened "inclined to take offense" to "biased".
That was also the line that Scraps@527 called out and said a lot of people would be steamed about.
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