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The rise and fall of rationality in language

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Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#51

Post by naasking »

perl4ever wrote: post #37
naasking wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2016 plenty of people were calling Trump an illegitimate President, and before that Republicans were questioning Obama's legitimacy due to his birth certificate, and before that Gore and Bush had the Supreme Court settle their contested election, and before that was Clinton's impeachment any less partisan? You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by…

>You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by both sides. Your list supporting "both sides", when in chronological order, starts with three instances in a row of Republicans attacking the legitimacy of Democrats, the third one of which (birtherism) was driven by Trump! If you're going to spin this as both sides, you can spin it better than that. For inst…

I'm not claiming that both sides are equally terrible, only that both sides are terrible.

It's like having two colleagues, one of whom is an openly hostile, selfish asshole, and the other who is nice to your face but talks shit about you when you're not around and sometimes stabs you in the back when it's convenient for them. If you asked people who they'd rather associate with if they had to choose one, I think you'd get a pretty even split roughly along partisan lines.

I also think it's pretty clear that the two-faced one would easily get a majority if they weren't so duplicitous and didn't stab you in the back so much. Instead of insisting they do this, people are instead expending all of their energy complaining that the other guy has recently become an even bigger asshole.

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#52

Post by 0134340 »

hattmall wrote: post #48
0134340 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You act as if this is some new phenomenon It's not new. What's new is having your tribe so convinced that an election was stolen and them so unquestioning that they storm and loot the capitol while being armed.

Or you know having your tribe so convinced that they impeach the sitting president twice. People were calling for impeachment since day one. And in 2020 there isn't zero reason to think the election was stolen. There is overwhelming evidence that the amount of likely fraudulent ballots cast exceeds the margin of victory in several states.

>Or you know having your tribe so convinced that they impeach the sitting president twice. People were calling for impeachment since day one.

The false equivalences continue. The first you mention was standard course of action when laws are possibly broken and the second is just free speech by individuals.

>And in 2020 there isn't zero reason to think the election was stolen. There is overwhelming evidence that the amount of likely fraudulent ballots cast exceeds the margin of victory in several states.

The few cases I've heard were committed by conservative-leaning voters. Or are you implying it wasn't a few individuals but a conspiracy? This dead horse again. Trump's people already tried with all the money they had to find a national conspiratorial bias and were shot down for lack of evidence many times even by members of their own 'tribe'. I guess you think everyone loves Trump so it must be a conspiracy. You're probably so entrenched in your own informational hugbox, where nobody can say anything against the tribe or else feelings get hurt, that you think it's impossible for the majority of people to not like Trump. I'm sure you think the opposite but I think it's caused a lot of people on the right to be so out of touch with what the majority of Americans really think but they can't see otherwise because they're trapped in a hugbox. And to be fair, the left has this issue also in some circles.

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#53

Post by scrubs »

michaelmrose wrote: post #23
scrubs wrote: post #4

Great HN post. Thank you for OP for supplying the link. Through my various social engagements, I've spent time in many political discussions. Trump, politics, race, and anti-vaccination are recurring themes. Some observations: * Those on the left tend to insert race into situations in which it does not naturally arise as I see it. Here focus is nominally on inclusion/significance of minorities. It periodically comes…

Quoted post unavailable.

There's a lot here to bolster my thesis:

- throws out a bunch of talking points (e.g. fluff)

- throws out several "I heard/I read/...."

- tortured rhetoric (2+2=4)

- throws a out a bunch excessive in absolute and relative terms like fascism, murder

Let me suggest a better model. A far better model. Look at MLK. He could have turned 21 and concluded,

- I'm boned. We're boned. We know what the constitution says and we're not getting its promises. This subject has been talked into the ground for years. So screw it. I'm going to open a barber shop, or teach, thump the bible, or something else.

- I'm boned. We're boned. We know what the constitution says and we're not getting its promises. This subject has been talked into the ground for years. So screw it. So I'm going to violence since I was probably going to end up in jail anyway, at least this way I'm going it my way.

Now thank goodness he did neither. Despite the claims of no middle ground he found a message that,

- redounds to the good of individuals, of those close to us, and those across the US

- gave a positive message not the hopeless nonsense pushed around by the GOP today

- had to have excellent communication, organization skills

- had to have a backbone and will power to keep it in the middle. once you're in the middle you get incoming left and right

>The grand old party will be 90-95% sycophants for a literal would be dictator. Where is the middle ground? The centrists are moderate Democrats.

The future is today with this message, with this heart soul and mind. Waiting around for tomorrow for some face on TV? That's day dreaming.

C'mon America ... let's get in the game!

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#54

Post by perl4ever »

naasking wrote: post #51
perl4ever wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by both sides. Your list supporting "both sides", when in chronological order, starts with three instances in a row of Republicans attacking the legitimacy of Democrats, the third one of which (birtherism) was driven by Trump! If you're going to spin this as both sides, you can spin it better than that. For inst…

I'm not claiming that both sides are equally terrible, only that both sides are terrible. It's like having two colleagues, one of whom is an openly hostile, selfish asshole, and the other who is nice to your face but talks shit about you when you're not around and sometimes stabs you in the back when it's convenient for them. If you asked people who they'd rather associate with if they had to choose one, I think you'…

>sometimes stabs you in the back when it's convenient for them

Your summary didn't support this analogy. I think you need to work on it.

You mentioned that the Republicans repeatedly "stabbed" the Democrats, front, back, I dunno. Then after at least a quarter century of escalation, the Democrats (may have) retaliated.

I'm not arguing about how to describe history, you can have it your way. But the summary and the characterization just don't go together.

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#55

Post by michaelmrose »

naasking wrote: post #26
michaelmrose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

In 2016 plenty of people were calling Trump an illegitimate President, and before that Republicans were questioning Obama's legitimacy due to his birth certificate, and before that Gore and Bush had the Supreme Court settle their contested election, and before that was Clinton's impeachment any less partisan? You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by…

No post body was provided.

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#56

Post by naasking »

perl4ever wrote: post #54
naasking wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming that both sides are equally terrible, only that both sides are terrible. It's like having two colleagues, one of whom is an openly hostile, selfish asshole, and the other who is nice to your face but talks shit about you when you're not around and sometimes stabs you in the back when it's convenient for them. If you asked people who they'd rather associate with if they had to choose one, I think you'…

>sometimes stabs you in the back when it's convenient for them Your summary didn't support this analogy. I think you need to work on it. You mentioned that the Republicans repeatedly "stabbed" the Democrats, front, back, I dunno. Then after at least a quarter century of escalation, the Democrats (may have) retaliated. I'm not arguing about how to describe history, you can have it your way. But the summary and the cha…

Yeah, no, you're not getting it. The Democrats and Republicans have no obligation to be nice to each other; arguably they shouldn't be. The "stabbing in the back" refers to how they treat their constituents, and in that regard, my analogy perfectly describes the situation, and this is why they're both terrible parties.

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#57

Post by lillabullero »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #42
canjobear wrote: post #22

Google Books is not a reliable sample of language over time due to shifts in genre representation that are correlated with all kinds of things like university library policies, interactions of OCR with typesetting practices, etc. Also note this is a “contributed by” paper which means it didn’t go through the usual PNAS review process. (Presumably the authors didn’t think it would make it through.)

Even if the data source is biased, it would be interesting to know _how_ it’s biased. After all, it’s the data that is widely available to people on the internet.

In this particular case, it's biased because Google Books includes much more fiction and many fewer scholarly works after about the year 2000. Link to a response of a previous article by this same group: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/45/e2115010118.short

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#58

Post by naasking »

michaelmrose wrote: post #55
naasking wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2016 plenty of people were calling Trump an illegitimate President, and before that Republicans were questioning Obama's legitimacy due to his birth certificate, and before that Gore and Bush had the Supreme Court settle their contested election, and before that was Clinton's impeachment any less partisan? You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by…

Quoted post unavailable.

Claiming that only one side's leaders have trumpeted dangerous lies is totally false.

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#59

Post by perl4ever »

naasking wrote: post #56
perl4ever wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>sometimes stabs you in the back when it's convenient for them Your summary didn't support this analogy. I think you need to work on it. You mentioned that the Republicans repeatedly "stabbed" the Democrats, front, back, I dunno. Then after at least a quarter century of escalation, the Democrats (may have) retaliated. I'm not arguing about how to describe history, you can have it your way. But the summary and the cha…

Yeah, no, you're not getting it. The Democrats and Republicans have no obligation to be nice to each other; arguably they shouldn't be. The "stabbing in the back" refers to how they treat their constituents, and in that regard, my analogy perfectly describes the situation, and this is why they're both terrible parties.

>The "stabbing in the back" refers to how they treat their constituents, and in that regard, my analogy perfectly describes the situation, and this is why they're both terrible parties.

Ok, I see that you think they are basically equally bad in how they treat their own constituents, but since their constituents want different things, I don't know why it matters.

Imagine a simplistic political model where the country is divided into two exact halves that want to exterminate the other.

It wouldn't make sense to switch sides no matter how ineffective your side is. If the other side is equally or more likely to carry out their plans, more trustworthy, has spiffier uniforms, better speakers, or whatever, that isn't a reason to support them.

Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language

#60

Post by dang »

michaelmrose wrote: post #23
scrubs wrote: post #4

Great HN post. Thank you for OP for supplying the link. Through my various social engagements, I've spent time in many political discussions. Trump, politics, race, and anti-vaccination are recurring themes. Some observations: * Those on the left tend to insert race into situations in which it does not naturally arise as I see it. Here focus is nominally on inclusion/significance of minorities. It periodically comes…

Quoted post unavailable.

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