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

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

#241

Post by pstuart » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

swayvil wrote: post #233

everdrive wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you have a local cult. What's it called?

School of the Prophets (or something like that). A flavor of Sufis.

A dear friend was, if not a follower, at least quite friendly to sufism.

I found her points about it intriguing and worthy of contemplation. If I was going to join a cult then that might be the one to join ;-).

Of course there's a significant difference between a belief system and a group that practices that belief under a charismatic and dogmatic leader....

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

#242

Post by hfuyf65 » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

hubco wrote: post #191

Kye wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refused to make jokes at the expense of one marginalized and vulnerable group he's part of, makes jokes at the expense of another he isn't. That's hypocrisy. The motivation to walk away was self-interested, not principled.

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

#243

Post by pauldenton » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

pohuing wrote: post #69

eesmith wrote: post #51

I don't think Carlin's observation holds much support. Take the classic "shell shock" bit. Carlin defines it at "a condition in combat that occurs when a soldier is completely stressed out and is on the verge of a nervous collapse." However, that is not the WWI definition. Quoting https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2... : "The term “shell shock” evolved in an attempt to describe cases that aro…

I'm sorry did they see a completely terrified person and decides torture and mutilation would get them back on track?!?

Sounds like you could use a refresher on the history of Electroshock Therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy It's more "torture" than "mutilation", but I'm not going to bring up the history of circumcision

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

#244

Post by swayvil » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:21 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #212

swayvil wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I get what you mean.

But we also have this thing called Science. Where a firsthand encounter with nonlinguistic reality is considered key. And Science has proven its power over and over.

And you'd think that would impress people. Even if you lay the forms and products of our modern scientific culture aside. Just that philosophy. The supremacy of observation. You'd think it would lead to a momentary pause in the babble.

But no.

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

#245

Post by pauldenton » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:22 PM UTC

bazoom42 wrote: post #26

oceanplexian wrote: post #7

The idea comes straight out of modern Academia. It’s also called linguistic relativity, and critical theory, literary theory, and postmodernism all have roots in it. The idea is that if you believe hard enough, for example a duck can actually be a goose depending on what “lens” you see it though Obviously, this is ridiculous. But this has invaded our culture like a cancer and is responsible for the proliferation of P…

Euphemisms are not particular to academia. Euphemisms for sex and death are as old as language.

Sure but it's especially bad in academia recently. "You cannot be racist against white people. If it's against white people it's not racist" kind of language. Or you know. Whites not need apply. This program is for every race except Caucasian

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

#246

Post by dopidopHN » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

lefstathiou wrote: post #163

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.

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…

Again; butchers are fine. The animal is dead already.

What you are missing is the industrial process we put together in the last 70 years to produce more meat; cheaper and faster.

Those are weird, and inhuman.

Those technics make most people uncomfortable. If not, the amount of antibiotics we have to pump into the animal to keep them healthy will hirk another slice of the public.

A data point here is the % of depression in slaughter house worker. Those are the one that are exposed for real.

Not a wet meat market worker, not a fancy butcher.

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

#247

Post by pstuart » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:24 PM UTC

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

Race politics is pervasive though.

Those changes (as wells as master->main) did trigger an initial "get off my lawn" reaction for me, but it's not entirely unreasonable and is no big deal to actually act on.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #241

swayvil wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School of the Prophets (or something like that). A flavor of Sufis.

A dear friend was, if not a follower, at least quite friendly to sufism. I found her points about it intriguing and worthy of contemplation. If I was going to join a cult then that might be the one to join ;-). Of course there's a significant difference between a belief system and a group that practices that belief under a charismatic and dogmatic leader....

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by sneak » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

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

It’s that Americans are more concerned with cultural brawling. Race politics, like all identity politics, are simply a proxy for it.

The pastime is finding people who don’t agree with your orthodoxy and ganging up on them. It can be race, ability, political affiliation, whatever.

America is a country that demands conformance.

pg touches on this in his famous What You Can’t Say essay.

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

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

#250

Post by gosub100 » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 7:25 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…

Thank you. And what about accuracy? All the simpletons who love the word "shell shock" are simply wrong much of the time if the soldier's (psychological) injury wasn't caused by a shell. Some may call that pedantry, but to me it's not. It correctly classifies (what we believe to be) the same illness: someone who witnessed people being shot in a war, to witness of city violence, to domestic abuse. Psychologists are finding out that their symptoms all line up, hence the disease needs a more precise name. Baffles me to see so much support for "shell shock" here, the mother-ship of pedantry.