The Importance of Donald Trump • Hacker News Board

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#121

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #53

Frondo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political correctness, as far as I've been able to tell, boils down in most cases to: be respectful in how you treat people, because the ubiquitous disrespect shown to women/minorities/gays/whoever is no longer considered appropriate or praiseworthy. I don't think I've ever heard someone complain about political correctness run amok, and had it turn out that they weren't just complaining--in careful language, mind--a…

Euphemism treadmill, ridiculous proliferation of personal pronouns, victim veto, persistent assault on works like The Mikado or Dante's Inferno. Anchor babies are a thing, Chinese pay 80K for exactly what the term implies, feds shut down places being used for birth tourism, but being true's not a defense when the goal's not offending. Careful language, what could be wrong with that? Well what's the opportunity cost,…

If people were more respectful, PC would never have been invented. It is the fault of bigots, the disrespectful, and the discourteous who have created a world that for tens of thousands of years was dominated by such attitudes, and is now only starting to become more egalitarian in policy and culture. Has PC gone overboard at times? Of course. But it's only been half a century since the '60s, give people time to tone it down. And stop being so damned disrespectful.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#122

Post by dpc_pw » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

dennisnedry wrote: post #58

Frondo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, the political correctness police don't actually send anyone to forced labor camps, because, of course, no such thing exists. As for being harassed or chased, again, it seems like, if there's any merit to that accusation of harassment or "chasing," the beleaguered not-politically-correct victims of that could, you know, call the cops or file a restraining order or whatever. Those are actual real-worl…

Here's an example of the "political correct police" - Twitter shaming. Somebody says something satirical and they are assigned a "label". This was the case with Justine Sacco. Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock refuse to perform at universities, citing that the students there "can't take a joke due to political correctness". There isn't a regulating force in the USA for being PC; however, there are social ramifications th…

What about the Mozilla CEO, that had to resign over his his private political views? Isn't that a great example of PC-police in action?

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#123

Post by hga » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 6:03 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #120

hga wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as I note in a sub-comment, that decision could have been ignored. I mean, if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that the person behind the Hacker News login name "dragonwriter" could be killed without legal consequence by anyone, would it be constitutional? Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you want no checks on the Federal courts besides impeachment? Perhaps read Livy's history on the period of the Decemv…

> And as I note in a sub-comment, that decision could have been ignored. Sure, any decision can be ignored. But then why even bother with jurisdiction stripping at all? > I mean, if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that the person behind the Hacker News login name "dragonwriter" could be killed without legal consequence by anyone, would it be constitutional? How is that relevant? > Are you absolutely, positively, 100…

Sure, any decision can be ignored. But then why even bother with jurisdiction stripping at all?

Because it's an explicitly enumerated provision in the Constitution?

How is [a Supreme Court decision proscribing me] relevant?

To try to make the stakes clear if your end all and be all of constitutionality is what the current set of Supremes decide?

Its like you have a canned rant that you are posting without any relation to the post it is in response to.

We're obviously talking past each other, so I'll stop.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#124

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 6:06 PM UTC

graycat wrote: post #94

zimpenfish wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, first-cut, intuitively, IMHO, for either (A) or (B), any way to have "a ban on abortions" is decades away. Presumably, then, you'd expect any serious competent candidate to know this and not make statements suggesting that such a thing could happen? (I'm in the UK, we have our own flavour of crazy.)

IMHO the usual explanation of why some US politicians talk about making abortion illegal is simple and obvious: Such politicians want publicity, votes, and then power in elected office. Then, one level deeper, the reason a politician suspects that talking about making abortion illegal would lead to votes is (A) many voters regard abortion as murder of a human life, (B) an appeal to the strong moral objections to murd…

It doesn't have to be real, merely a convincing enough simulation. This is nothing new, truthiness was coined back in the late Bush administration.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#125

Post by MadcapJake » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 6:46 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #112

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Euphemism treadmill, ridiculous proliferation of personal pronouns, victim veto, persistent assault on works like The Mikado or Dante's Inferno. Anchor babies are a thing, Chinese pay 80K for exactly what the term implies, feds shut down places being used for birth tourism, but being true's not a defense when the goal's not offending. Careful language, what could be wrong with that? Well what's the opportunity cost,…

I saw a performance of the Mikado a few years ago. It's definitely still being performed. It's also not one of Gilbert & Sullivan's finest, so if it falls out of the rotation, shrug . As for the euphemism treadmill, or the ridiculous proliferation of personal pronouns, hey, if you don't care about or respect the people who are asking you to use those labels, don't use them . That's what it comes down to--respect. Do…

Respect is kind of like personal hygiene. If you want to be the smelly kid, go for it. People might not want to hang out with you though.

What's so funny about the great PC-hate is that people sit there and complain that others are spending too much time being PC. Now just imagine those same fools complaining about others spending too much time on their personal hygiene, pretty ridiculous eh?

What's even more funny is that some people think that politicians could be non-PC and do just fine...do smelly kids get picked first or last?

If you think about it, PCness is such a non-issue that it really brings to light how completely botched the US political climate is. If you spend the time to post a diatribe on PCness, you are supporting non-thoughtful/non-constructive discourse on important issues. You probably think bathtime is stupid and you probably think careful, respectful communication is just too much effort. Well, sorry to burst your bubble: politics are EVERYWHERE. Everything we do is awash with political forces and the more effort/thoughtfulness/care you put in to dealing with them, the more you will gain (at least the respect of your peers). On the flipside, the more you choose to ignore PC, respect, etc., the more you will find yourself an outsider and a pariah.

So the next time you read/hear someone expressing the ills of PC or the joys of nonPC, just imagine they're school-age kids complaining of the degradation of bathtime or waxing poetic about the virtues of smelliness.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#126

Post by haberman » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 8:05 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #111

dennisnedry wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example of the "political correct police" - Twitter shaming. Somebody says something satirical and they are assigned a "label". This was the case with Justine Sacco. Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock refuse to perform at universities, citing that the students there "can't take a joke due to political correctness". There isn't a regulating force in the USA for being PC; however, there are social ramifications th…

If twitter shaming is the punishment that the PC police can dole out, I would deem them the least consequential force for justice in the history of the world. It's actually kind of difficult to believe that you're really saying that--the PC police can't lock you up, can't send you to the gulag, but they can shame you on twitter! That's no consequence. That's nothing. As for Seinfeld not getting much of a laugh out of…

You really believe that public shaming is "nothing?" Because it's not a gulag. Amazing.

There is a lot out there you could use to learn more about this. Some starting points:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid...

http://www.amazon.com/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/15944...

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#127

Post by Lawtonfogle » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

graycat wrote: post #95

hga wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for not including this in my original posting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping It is a well established practice, and note the contemporary uses in the '90s and '00s.

Interesting. That's much more detailed than covered in my eighth grade civics class! My brother did a lot in constitutional law, but I didn't, and I'm not a lawyer. So, maybe with some interpretations of jurisdiction stripping , Congress and the POTUS might pass a law saying that the SCOTUS has no jurisdiction over cases involving abortion and then pass a law making abortion illegal. Maybe. I am getting a suspicion t…

>And, if that two step dance could be used, then, sure, it's curious why a Republican Congress would not start to take those two steps.

Outlawing it would be horrible for them because it would not only make them lose a major issue (to the voters) to run on, it would also galvanize the opposition. The baby steps met by the courts slapping their hands is the best option for showing the voters 'see, I tried, but the nasty mean courts said no, but if you vote for me again I'll give it another try'.

Of course with so many voters who honestly believe in outlawing it, you will end up with some politicians who honestly want to outlaw it and not just use it to gain votes. But this group never gets large enough to change things in any significant ways.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#128

Post by Lawtonfogle » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #110

Rusky wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not explicitly, but conservative policies are often biased against women and/or minorities.

I hate to be this guy, but: citation needed. You just can't make such a sweeping claim without at least giving examples.

Even deeper is a discussion of what counts as being biased against a gender/race. Is supporting child support policies biased against men because men are more often to end up in jail for not paying? Is supporting abortion bans bias against women because women are more often to end up in jail for seeking an abortion anyways? Is supporting university affirmative action being anti-minority because they hurt Asians? Is opposing university affirmative action being anti-minority because they help African Americans?

Asking for citations has, from what I've seen in the past, ended with people giving citations of what they think constitute a bias that the other side doesn't consider a bias.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#129

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #11

eevilspock wrote: post #3

This post got flagged and killed. Daniel kindly unkilled it at my request. I'm not a Trump fan (and neither is the article) but I agree with its counter-intuitive observation. > In the short time since Trump declared his candidacy, he has performed a public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of…

It's a good call. I thought about posting it yesterday but was uncertain about the political content. I think it's interesting to hackers insofar as it identifies some meta-trends in politics that are characteristic of systems disruption. Other organs such as the Economist have also observed that Something is Amiss when the three leading candidates are all non-politicians and easily outpoll candidates with experience…

Well, the last two presidents have been regarded as illegitimate and intolerable by large segments of the population. I'm not saying that's good, but we've survived it so far.

However, I share your unease, your feeling that Something Is Amiss.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#130

Post by flipcoder » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 11:35 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #118

flipcoder wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble" No one is arguing against this in particular. Conservatives believe women are human. They're also not all white males. I really hope I do not have to cite sources on this.

You're taking this out of context. Let me put it back into context by quoting myself: >I mean, sure, I laugh at those who have this 'white rage' for complaining that we, as white men, are now expected to treat other people with a base level of respect (as that, at root, is the intent of political correctness.) At least where I live, this expectation is phrased more like "Please consider that women are humans too, you…

> It's possible that there are times and places where political correctness really is oppressive; Considering my life experience, though, I find that to be pretty unlikely, but who knows.

Brendan Eich knows.