George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#171

Post by Jensson » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:02 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #165

Jensson wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it relevant whether one can put a finger on the difference? You brought this up, not me. > 1) the scale of suffering is obviously far far greater than family-scale slaughter Not if every family has to slaughter their own meat, the scale is the same just distributed so you don't see it. > 2) the way in which we do factory farming reflects poorly on us as a species This isn't inherent to factory farming though…

No, I pointed out the difference , which is obviously real. The reason for the difference is irrelevant. Uhhh no, the scale certainly wouldn’t be the same. An average American eats more than a hundred animals per year. You can’t seriously think people would be consuming at that rate, or could even afford to consume at that rate, without factory farming. > some families [abuse their animals]… people wouldn’t feel any…

> An average American eats more than a hundred animals per year

Most of that are chickens. Have you seen a family farm where people eat their chickens? They just take one and behead it, killing it takes no effort and is just a part of preparing the food no different than peeling the vegetables. Killing a chicken a day per family is very little work.

> We literally put people in jail for abusing their animals, so yes, they actually do feel differently about it.

Those laws also applies to factory farms, unless you do worse than them you are fine.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#172

Post by djbusby » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #159

lefstathiou wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal “proof”: In the heart of Manhattan’s ultra trendy Chelsea neighborhood is the Chelsea market which is now this super trendy food hall. In the basement is a delicious butcher named Dicksons where literally hundreds of New Yorkers and tourists eat and drink craft beers while they literally saw entire pigs and baby calfs in half and dangle their carcasses in clear eye sight of where you sit and eat. I take my…

Go show your kid a real factory farm instead of a high-end butcher in a trendy food hall and report back! Easy experiment to run and your kids’ reaction could settle this debate.

Ugh, or large scale dairy-farm. Milk production is gross! But, manually getting milk from one happy cow is... much less gross...almost fun even.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#173

Post by swayvil » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #113

donatj wrote: post #100

I saw a conversation on Twitter a while ago back when it still was Twitter. The OP with many followers was laying out words and classes of words with negative connotations that shouldn't be used. Someone replied in good faith to OP and asked how we should express negative thoughts. OPs answer was basically that we shouldn't. I find that kind of thought very off putting and minorly disturbing. An important part of the…

Such language policing is double-plus-ungood. (For those that haven’t read the classic Nineteen-eighty-four book by Eric Arthur Blair (pen name: George Orwell) one of the core themes of the story is how the ruling party controlled language, calling it “newspeak”, in order to remove the ability to express certain thoughts or opinions, most notably those that could be used to incite revolution or allow you to express d…

We have a local mind-control cult where I live.

When asked they'll retort "why yes, we are a mind control cult. We teach you how to control your mind."

...but that isn't what I meant.

Controlling the language. It's a big thing.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#174

Post by ethanbond » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #171

ethanbond wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I pointed out the difference , which is obviously real. The reason for the difference is irrelevant. Uhhh no, the scale certainly wouldn’t be the same. An average American eats more than a hundred animals per year. You can’t seriously think people would be consuming at that rate, or could even afford to consume at that rate, without factory farming. > some families [abuse their animals]… people wouldn’t feel any…

> An average American eats more than a hundred animals per year Most of that are chickens. Have you seen a family farm where people eat their chickens? They just take one and behead it, killing it takes no effort and is just a part of preparing the food no different than peeling the vegetables. Killing a chicken a day per family is very little work. > We literally put people in jail for abusing their animals, so yes,…

Yes it is actually hard to kill a chicken per day, which is why societies that have to grow and kill their own food don’t eat a chicken per day.

Only the hyper-industrialized meat producers get even close to that.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#175

Post by eesmith » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

DangitBobby wrote: post #140

lamontcg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Car crash -> automobile accident --- a softening, though he's getting some mileage out of switching "car" to "automobile" (I can hear his voice very clearly in my head dancing over the syllables in "auto-mo-beeel") and the real language is "car accident". They're very rarely if ever "accidents"

Webster's: 1a: an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance Their meeting was an accident. 1b: lack of intention or necessity : chance They met by accident rather than by design. 2a: an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance Car accidents match one or all of these definitions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision#Criticism_of...

> In 1997, George L. Reagle, the Associate Administrator for Motor Carriers of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wrote a letter stating that "A crash is not an accident", emphasizing that the Department's Research and Special Programs Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had all declared that "accident" should be avoided in their published writings and media communications.[15] In 2016, the Associated Press updated its style guide to recommend that journalists use "crash, collision, or other terms" rather than "accident" unless culpability is proven. The AP also recommends avoiding "accident" when negligence is proven or claimed because the term "can be read as exonerating the person responsible."[16] In 2021, the American Automobile Association (AAA) passed a resolution to replace "car accident" with "car crash" in their vocabulary.[17] In 2022, the traffic management company INRIX announced that "accident" would be removed from their lexicon.[18]

> The Maryland Department of Transportation's Highway Safety Office emphasizes that "crashes are no accident", saying that "Using the word accident suggests that an incident was unavoidable, but many roadway crashes can be attributed to human error."[19] The Michigan Department of Transportation states that "accident" should be dropped in favor of "crash", saying that "Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by inattentive drivers and driver behavior. They are NOT accidents."[16] In line with their Vision Zero commitments, the Portland Bureau of Transportation recommends using "crash" rather than "accident".[20]

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#176

Post by tsimionescu » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

Aerbil313 wrote: post #136

raincole wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does human welfare matter if at the end we all eventually die?

It doesn't. Who said so? Your gut feelings? Human intuition? Nothing temporary ever matters. Human life can only matter if there's something permanent about it. If there isn't, nothing ever matters. None. Nil. Yes, I'm talking about religion. That pesky thing which folks on HN tend to look down in disgust. The idea of accountability with permanent, eternal consequences. Acts carrying on to another life which won't ev…

> (Not talking about the dumb Christian idea "You are already forgiven no matter what because someone is killed 2 millenia ago!" here.)

Even though I'm an atheist, this is quite an ignorant take on Christian beliefs. In Christianity, Jesus' death only cleansed people of Original Sin. That is, people who died before Jesus were already doomed, regardless of how they lived their life, because they were all tainted by their forefather Adam's sin.

Jesus is supposed to have forgiven humanity for this sin, and allowed each person to be judged for their own actions in life, not be condemned a priori because of the actions of their ancestor.

Separately from this singular event, God forgives anyone who commits even the most heinous acts as long as they later come to truly regret those acts and spend the rest of their lives atoning for them. This is obviously a necessary component to any moral system as, without such a belief, the rational thing to do after committing a sin that condemns you to hell would be to continue sinning even more, since nothing worse can happen to you.

Of course, none of these religious inventions are necessary for leading and believing in a moral life. Most people are moral simply because that is the right thing to do, not because they fear some big bad punishing them if they are not.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#177

Post by michaelgburton » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #169

lefstathiou wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course seeing something you haven’t seen is shocking. To make someone give up meat is a stretch. My kids have been up close and personal to butchers in wet markets chopping up fish, pigs and chickens in Taiwan. This is the daily way of life for billions of people. I believe people over estimate the reaction this would garner from most of the world’s population, which indicates to me that a similar reaction would h…

So the shock of a factory farm is just the shock of “seeing something new,” akin to going to Disneyland for the first time? OP said “more people would be vegan” which I think is strictly true. Everyone? No. Would a lot of people reduce their meat consumption from the currently obscene 150+ animals per year (average American)? Probably.

150+ animals per person per year? Citation needed.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#178

Post by cassepipe » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

hfuyf65 wrote: post #10

jacquesm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better stand-up comedians are hard to distinguish from philosophers. Carlin is right up there. It's a pity he's gone, we kind of need him right now.

He would have had a field day if he was alive. It is a loss for all of us that he is gone. Still, we now have Chapelle, who is building similiar legacy and potentially Bill Burr one day. Absolute agreement on the philosopher/jester vibes.

Bill Burr is talented, he definitely has wit, but has gone in such a crusade against feminism that he is almost not funny anymore, just a angry man.

I personally love Louie C.K, he is really at showing our social boundaries, pushing us to the limits, the weirdness of them, without trying to push a narrative on how other people are just stupid.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#179

Post by johnnyworker » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

manxman wrote: post #154

johnnyworker wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on documentaries like "Earthlings". Watch it and tell me everything is fine.

Have you considered the possibility that "Earthlings" is one data point among a very complex web of superficially opposing ideas/arguments that are actually all part of a coordinated agenda to try to fundamentally change your behaviour and psychology by messing with your emotions? Go look up B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning (His book Walden 2 is a semi-fictional work that provides a pretty good approximation to…

> a coordinated agenda

... of making me have empathy with sentient beings suffering? Joke's on them, I already had that.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#180

Post by Aloha » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #155

> I'll bet if they had still been calling it 'shell shock,' some of those Vietnam veterans might have received the attention they needed. History lesson: no, WWI veterans didn't get the attention they needed. This is wistful conservatism wrapped in a shroud of comedy. Don't mistake it for truth or wisdom. The treatment of Vietnam veterans was not a departure from the standard practice of wars predating it. The depth…

My belief that part of the depth of Trauma compared to WWII and Korea was the rotation system as used, vs demob as a unit.

To expand on this, in Vietnam, individual soldiers were rotated in and out based on time in country, in WWII, units rotated as a unit, with replacements added during the rotation.

The fact that it took weeks or months to repatriate people back to CONUS after WWII, gave time for people to process their experiences with their brother in arms.