211–220 of 540 posts
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No, it takes the majority to constantly validate these intentional or maybe ignorant dickheads. A few complaints should not be able to make a university give in/up. They do so because there is a big group amplifying the outrage.
I agree with 'there is a big group amplifying the outrage', actually. I am not sure a majority is necessary. There's no magic happening at 50%.
Geoff Garrett would have done well in East Germany. The unproductive nomenklatura is oppressing the productive part of the population. Why do humans always allow this to happen? The easiest way to shut down those bureaucrats is to ask publicly what their actual intellectual output is. They often tend to get very silent. Also works for whip crackers in the software industry.
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Hey, how do you study Danish in England? Need it for my kid.
The exercises I am doing are using spaced repetition tools for vocabulary and listening, using textbooks for fine-tuning grammar and pronunciation, and as a writing exercise that's more fun than translating fourteen-thousand different variations on 'the red cat ate a quick mouse', I have just begun attempting to translate the classic children's novel Moonfleet into Danish. Some good resources: Spaced Repetition * Duo…
Check out this guy, he's making good progress:
Am I the only one who finds it very ironic that you can't use the "n-word" because it offends the African American community. Yet when you listen to rap music, it's all nigga this and nigga that. Makes me wonder if these offended students first complain, and then drive home singing along with Snoop Dogg.
> Am I the only one who finds it very ironic that you can't use the "n-word" because it offends the African American community. Yet when you listen to rap music, it's all nigga this and nigga that. No, racists that are upset that it's not socially acceptable to demonstrate their racism this way conplain about this a lot, you aren't the only one. Also, within the African American community there has very long been a v…
Just because racists use certain rights, doesn't mean that the rest needs to give up on those rights.
The laws of free speech, incitement etc. are pretty clear. Offending people is not against the law, discrimination is. And using certain words is definitely not against the law.
But now there seems to be a new law, where you get punished by using something that sounds like "a vile racial slur". It is just very stupid. Which word did they actually use? Sorry, nobody is allowed to answer that, except for "a vile racial slur".
There is definitely racism in US, maybe even more so than in EU. But these kind of actions bring zero to the cause of getting rid of it.
Maybe something needs to be done about discrimination and racism, and not so much about offending people.
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The exercises I am doing are using spaced repetition tools for vocabulary and listening, using textbooks for fine-tuning grammar and pronunciation, and as a writing exercise that's more fun than translating fourteen-thousand different variations on 'the red cat ate a quick mouse', I have just begun attempting to translate the classic children's novel Moonfleet into Danish. Some good resources: Spaced Repetition * Duo…
Awesome list, looks like you're making a real effort. Tough language to learn, mainly because the range of correctness seems quite narrow. English by constrast seems to have a huge range. Check out this guy, he's making good progress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOwS4d_p90o
Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities. Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read about events similar to this one.
One word: lawsuits. And the unpredictability of juries.
In combating against bigotry, it is important that we do not become bigots ourselves. Regarding painful words, it is my position that policies against uttering them (for people without any intent to hurt) must essentially be no more a courtesy to those sensitized against them, because of words with multiple meanings and foreign languages with different meanings, and also because what is taboo on one society may not b…
Could you rephrase this? I'm not sure what the main points were.
* On slurs and other words that hurt: we cannot punish people who say them if we do not have proof that they intend to hurt. Some people think that even saying them unintentionally ought to be punished, because someone gets hurt even though none was intended. But because words like these so frequently get said
- out of necessity
- out of ignorance
- because it is tremendously inconvenient (considering foreign language meanings, multiple meanings, etc.)
it's unrealistic to put this onus on everyone to avoid these words, especially when bigots can so easily make another word a taboo word. My position is that it is a courtesy (and not moral obligation) to actively try to avoid using taboo words and think of synonyms and circumlocutions to avoid hurting someone when none is intended.
When analyzing the cause of the hurt, I think we should analyze the pain that happens when hearing someone says a hurtful word unintentionally as not primarily caused by the person saying the hurtful word, but by the person or people that sensitized the hearer into feeling hurt upon hearing the painful words, but having a delayed effect.
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One note - there's no hard r in 那个 unless you're speaking a Beijing dialect. In that case there's hard r's (儿) after basically every word. Edit: TIL there's a Wikipedia article dedicated to the "r after every word" in Beijing dialect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua
那个 doesn't have a hard r in the Beijing dialect either. Source: lived in Beijing for 5 years & wife is from Beijing.
Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities. Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read about events similar to this one.
This specific case, I would bet dollars to donuts, happened because: (1) The administration is hypersensitive in light of the wave of race related protests and associated two-sided violence occurring in the country. (2) Someone aware of the likelihood of that deliberately trolled the administration, probably under a false flag, to produce an incident.
Possibly just for lulz, more likely than that in the hopes of benefiting a particular domestic political faction, but even money it was done on behalf of (though not necessarily at the direction of) a foreign power.