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George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

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

#211

Post by mock-possum »

JasserInicide wrote: post #208
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…

A great recent example is everyone changing whitelist/blacklist to allowlist/blocklist because Americans are so fucking obsessed with race politics that they see it absolutely everywhere

That, or they refuse to see it at all.

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

#212

Post by JohnFen »

swayvil wrote: post #173
dijit wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Controlling the language. It's a big thing.

And that's underselling how big it is. Language is the API to our brains.

That's at least half the point Orwell's 1984 makes.

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

#213

Post by mcpackieh »

djbusby wrote: post #172
ethanbond wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I was in elementary school it seemed like we took a field trip to a dairy farm two or three times a year every year. Not some traditional dairy farm for tourists, but a big factory-style dairy farm owned by a big company that had farms and distribution covering the entire state. They showed us the calves in veal crates.

I don't think it turned many people off milk and cheese. Actually the grossest field trip we ever went on was to a potato chip factory, the stink of rotten potatoes was overwhelming. They never took us to a pig or chicken farm though, I've been to a few at other times and those would have beat the chip factory easily. A lot of people who grow up around cows say they appreciate the small (I do, to an extent) but I've never heard anybody say that about pigs or chickens.

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

#214

Post by jyounker »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #196
paulluuk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that conservatives most often quote "Nineteen-eighty-four" as a comment on "politically correct" language. But when asked about "family values", "obamacare", "right to work" and other conservative double-speak, they often don't feel like those apply. My point is not that conservatives use more double-speak/newspeak then progressives, rather my point is that this is used and applied across the political spectru…

How is 'collateral damage' newspeak? It's a useful concept even if you want to avoid it at all costs, but beyond that euphemisms have existed forever and are not the same as newspeak (which wanted to make something literally unthinkable, not merely euphemistic).

Because it's a euphemism for "killing innocent people".

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

#215

Post by ethanbond »

ironSkillet wrote: post #186
michaelgburton wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

150+ animals per person per year? Citation needed.

There's just no way it's true. A single cow can feed someone who eats beef often for an entire year.

How long can a single shrimp or chicken feed someone?

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

#216

Post by SenAnder »

lc9er wrote: post #203
bigDinosaur wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is 'collateral damage' newspeak? It's a useful concept even if you want to avoid it at all costs, but beyond that euphemisms have existed forever and are not the same as newspeak (which wanted to make something literally unthinkable, not merely euphemistic).

It's soft language for 'civilian casualties', even though it can include other things like property destruction.

Which term would you use to distinguish between deliberate and accidental civilian casualties?

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

#217

Post by ethanbond »

michaelgburton wrote: post #177
ethanbond wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetari...

Here's a pretty good analysis based on USDA data. Prediction: "Seafood don't count! for handwavehandwave reasons!"

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

#218

Post by jacquesm »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #188
cyber_kinetist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the opposite can also be true: some philosophers can also be good comedians (in spite of the general stereotype that all philosophers are excruciatingly boring and dry, which can partially be attributed to the proliferation of analytic philosophy.) For example Slavoj Zizek has a whole book dedicated to cataloguing his (often "politically incorrect") jokes. Link here: https://meydanehonar.com/Panel/Uploads/6…

Fun fact: In German the words for knowledge ('Wissen') and wit/joke ('Witz') share the same root.

It's fun, and they share the two first letters but it's not a fact:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wissen#German

From Middle High German and Old High German wizzan, from Proto-West Germanic witan, from Proto-Germanic witaną, from Proto-Indo-European wóyde (“to see, to know”).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Witz#Etymology

From Middle High German witz, from Old High German wizzi, from Proto-West Germanic witi, from Proto-Germanic witją from Proto-Indo-European weyd- (“see, know”).

Cognate to English wit, archaic Dutch wit, akin to Old Saxon giwit.

So they share the same concepts ('to see, to know') but not the same roots! Very closely related though.

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

#219

Post by ethanbond »

mcpackieh wrote: post #205
ironSkillet wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just no way it's true. A single cow can feed someone who eats beef often for an entire year.

Count chickens it's a plausible number. If you count things like small fish and shrimp then it's probably a severe underestimate. I guess he isn't counting those, self-described vegans often don't for some reason. I probably eat a thousand anchovies a year alone.

FWIW I'm actually not a vegan, or even a vegetarian. I eat and thoroughly enjoy meat.

But anyway yes, most of the specific individuals animals killed are chickens and water creatures of various types.

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

#220

Post by JohnFen »

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.

Factory farms are pure nightmare fuel.

But showing people factory farms, I think, is less likely to make people become vegans than it is to make people agitate for more humane forms of slaughter.

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