People who get offended by geometric shapes have way too much time on their hands.
Are there shapes that are non-geometric?
Swastikas and context
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: Swastikas and context
#22It’s not political correctness, it’s fundamental respect. I think that's the battle cry of all those who enforce PC behavior. UH OH! OUT COMES THE INTERNET PUNDITS! ... Most of them are just contrarians. They would never dare to wear a swastika openly, but they love to argue about how the world has "misunderstood" this symbol. The way I read this is as a criticism of people who do not hold a particular belief, but ar…
What right are you talking about here? There is no right to use a privately owned service in a way that scares off paying customers, much like you don't have the right to spray paint a swastika on your neighbor's house.
The right to free speech means that the government can't punish you for your speech. It doesn't make it illegal for someone to do otherwise legal things (such as banning an xbox live account) in retaliation for your speech.
I don't understand why so many people view the first amendment as a guarantee that one's self expression will never have negative consequences.
Re: Swastikas and context
#23First Amendment doesn't carry any weight on private territory. Business owners can boot rowdy loiterers. pg can ban people from here. I can squash trolls on my servers, and XBL can enforce arbitrary rules at will. You can have your freedom of expression, but you cannot graffiti it onto the side of my car.
Re: Swastikas and context
#24So if the Nazis had instead used the Holy Cross as their symbol, everyone (in the west) would be OK with banning it from churches and all forms of public display?
I don’t think so. Context matters in this case, too. The swastika was a unique symbol in the west, the Nazis had it completely for themselves. If they had used a cross they would be just another of the many, many organizations in the west using a cross as their symbol. (Christians in general, KKK, Red Cross, …) They would never be able to claim complete ownership of the symbol. They wouldn’t be able to define or redefine the symbol, they would just add another entry in the dictionary under “Cross”.
Re: Swastikas and context
#25I found it hypocritical coming from an industry that very often relies on the entertainment values of random acts of violence. "Look, in this game you can shoot people on the face as long as you don't wear any swastikas or call people 'fags' becaus then that would be wrong."
Different people are offended by different things, there's nothing hypocritical about not being offend by game violence while being offended by a swastika.
Some people are offended by nudity, gambling, pigs, swearing etc. There's no rule saying that if your not offended by one thing you can't be offended by anything. It's simply an arbitrary personal choice.
Re: Swastikas and context
#26To be fair, Swastika is considered very auspicious by Hindus. Here in India, you'll see Swastikas everywhere. Till I grew up and read about Nazis, I never even knew that there was anything negative about the symbol. It's just a symmetric symbol and I don't see any reason for blocking that symbol. The author might not agree with the political views of the Nazis but that is frankly not a reason to ban a symbol. To use…
...and if you have evidence that more people will quit your service because you allow swastikas than will quit your service because you don't allow swastikas, what would your duty be?
I feel a lot of complainers about political correctness miss this. Companies strive for political correctness not because of the personal sentiments of executives or investors, but because it makes them money to be PC. Allowing swastikas on xbox live would be making the service less appealing to customers in order to advance a personal ideal (that this is the internet and you should be able to say whatever the hell you want).
Re: Swastikas and context
#27Lets look at this guys arguments closely, shall we.
>It’s not political correctness, it’s fundamental respect.
It is narrow mindedness. And when you say its respect for some, it is disrespect for others ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Hinduism ). So your context is too narrow. In your high seat of judging other people, your views are shallow.
>If you think the swastika symbol should be re-evaluated by societies all over the Earth, I think that’s great.
Good, you agree. But it seems you don't give a shit if it is.
>Your Xbox LIVE profile or in game logo, which doesn’t have the context to explain your goal, is probably not the right place to do that.
Care to explain why? No. And what is the purpose of the LIVE profile or in game logo? And what if the Swastika actually has entirely different meaning in other places? Oh, places like these: http://www.xbox.com/en-IN/live
>And by the way, that doesn't just go for the Swastika, it applies to many other symbols as well that my team does indeed take action on when we see it.
Bother to list some? No. And how do you judge what to act upon? Is there an objective criterion? Or is the subjective criterion explained or listed somewhere?
>Context.
Is unexplained, subjective, narrow minded, dogmatic, force-fed
>Yes we can have the discussion in other venues about the double meaning of various terms, something my team does everyday.
Ah you want to show that you are considerate and well reasoned person. But that belies your shallow views and blind beliefs.
>But for many topics, its kind of a no-brainer.
And this shows me your sheeple traits. No-brain-uh
>Context
Whatever
Re: Swastikas and context
#28It’s not political correctness, it’s fundamental respect. I think that's the battle cry of all those who enforce PC behavior. UH OH! OUT COMES THE INTERNET PUNDITS! ... Most of them are just contrarians. They would never dare to wear a swastika openly, but they love to argue about how the world has "misunderstood" this symbol. The way I read this is as a criticism of people who do not hold a particular belief, but ar…
What right are you talking about here? There is no right to use a privately owned service in a way that scares off paying customers, much like you don't have the right to spray paint a swastika on your neighbor's house. The right to free speech means that the government can't punish you for your speech. It doesn't make it illegal for someone to do otherwise legal things (such as banning an xbox live account) in retal…
There is no right to use a privately owned service in a way that scares off paying customers, much like you don't have the right to spray paint a swastika on your neighbor's house.
This is perfectly correct, and I never claimed otherwise.
As far as I can see, this part of the discussion was purely abstract, about whether the negative associations of the swastika so overwhelm other uses as to render the latter irrelevant.
Indeed, the whole discussion would be irrelevant given your context. That is, in a conversation about how a property owner chooses to allow their property to be used, the only relevant point, legally and morally, is "this is how I choose to allow my property to be used". There need be no further explanation.
Since the whole thing is dilatory in that context, the only meaningful interpretation is as an abstract discussion of why one might want to make such a distinction. In such a discussion, the idea of tolerating the thoughts of others -- not just those who might claim offense at seeing such speech, but also those who would like to profess their beliefs -- certainly has a place.
Re: Swastikas and context
#29To be fair, Swastika is considered very auspicious by Hindus. Here in India, you'll see Swastikas everywhere. Till I grew up and read about Nazis, I never even knew that there was anything negative about the symbol. It's just a symmetric symbol and I don't see any reason for blocking that symbol. The author might not agree with the political views of the Nazis but that is frankly not a reason to ban a symbol. To use…
The phrase "political views" doesn't even come close to explaining why people have negative attitudes towards the swastika.
The Nazis tortured and murdered millions of innocent, defenseless people.
The symbol was widely associated with this action, and that association has been reinforced through 60+ years of cultural recounting of the events in fiction and non-fiction venues (books, TV, movies, comics, documentaries, the History Channel, Castle Wolfenstein, etc).
I still haven't come close to explaining it, but the problem wasn't with their political views.
Re: Swastikas and context
#30I found it hypocritical coming from an industry that very often relies on the entertainment values of random acts of violence. "Look, in this game you can shoot people on the face as long as you don't wear any swastikas or call people 'fags' becaus then that would be wrong."
Different people are offended by different things, there's nothing hypocritical about not being offend by game violence while being offended by a swastika. Some people are offended by nudity, gambling, pigs, swearing etc. There's no rule saying that if your not offended by one thing you can't be offended by anything. It's simply an arbitrary personal choice.
Different people are offended by different things
Certainly true, but this makes the whole exercise futile. How can one try to prevent their platform from becoming a medium for offensive speech, when every viewer can potentially be offended by different, orthogonal, thresholds?