Sociopath Community

Jada said: 

When I was traveling in India, I found out the funniest thing. There is apparently a village somewhere in India where 'Helicopter' is a common name. As in, not "Helicopter" in sanscript, or some Hindi translation of it, just, "Helicopter", like how you would pronounce it in English. In the same village, a dude was named Adolf Hitler. They don't speak English so they just choose some cool sounding foreign words and name their kids after them. So they got a bunch of Helicopters and Adolf Hitlers. Must've been a shock to find out who Adolf Hitler was. Now that's a real disadvantage, being named Helicopter.

It is interesting how certain names became taboo and some didn't.  "Adolf" and "Hitler" being so strongly associated with evil, even though they're just names, that having them would be so radioactive in the (in)appropriate culture(s).  I don't know if there are a lot of people named "Judas" any more -- hmm.  I guess the same could be said of "Jesus" on the other end of the scale.  People find the name so beloved as to produce many a "Jesus" in the world, particularly in (as it seems here) Hispanic culture, where one might figure it is a holy name to remain revered and kept from "the sinners" or whatever.

Which seems more significant or interesting?  That a name can be so cursed as to be virtually removed, probably.  I wonder what other such names in the past also had this happen we've been unaware of?

Yeah I know that UK movement where they rave against trans people on behalf of feminism. It's funny how they've turned the tables. From oppressed to oppressors.

This is the first time I'm hearing about Blair White. I wasn't expecting a far-right trans woman. Kind of like having a black person wanting to be part of the KKK.

Are you more left or right leaning, TC? I'm guessing you're spending quite a bit of time on right-leaning websites, like I do.

It would be disingenuous of me to weigh in with more than an opinion. 

Oh BT this is so passe. You're like me 5 years ago.

99% of the population is dumb as fuck and they're weighting in, so it's your responsibility to at least think which views are idiotic and consciously choose to support anything but those. Even if you're not smart enough to deal with politics and all this race boogaloo, surely you can at the very least help filter out the morons? It's your civic duty. Otherwise, Earth will be like that movie Planet of the apes in 10 years, after all the smart people go "oh no I'm just not qualified enough to weight in on this so I'll let the idiots of the world decide."

If your IQ is over 80, you're smarter than the average American, so weight in. If your IQ is below 80, then yeah better stfu and let the qualified people decide. But if your IQ were below 80, I bet you wouldn't be thinking about these things in the first place.

Alternatively, you can just parrot whatever I say. I'm quite smart.

I've seen the controversy of the findings of Charles Murray, for instance.  I agree on the point that research findings should be able to be discussed without being politically- or emotionally-charged.

Wow really? So you support bringing the race and IQ debate to the public discourse? You're basically one step away from becoming the next Hitler. Jesus!

  ...Perhaps I'm taking too serious in this place the kind of can of worms that might be opened.  Still, I also admit the discussion is interesting -- it has had me mull over where one draws the lines between race and culture, sex and gender, etc.

Yes you're taking it too seriously. And yes you're now officially an alt-right racebaiter for even entertaining this discussion. Why are you "platforming" me?

On a more serious note, yes, these things should be discussed. Freedom of speech should allow us to discuss any topic, including the possibility of holocaust being a lie, 9/11 being an inside job, Al Qaeda not being all that wrong, the possibility that Hitler got it right, and the known fact that covid vaccines cause autism so we shouldnt take em. If it's just discussion, then what's the harm?

But seriously though, not talking about race or gender or culture is disrespecting that culture. They don't need you to defend them. When was the last time someone defended the American culture when Europe said McDonalds was trash? McDonald helps homeless people and it's the Gift of American culture that the US has shared with the world. Yet, we have some shitty burger chain rip-offs even in Finland, stealing money from the few modern-indigenous Americans that live there. Some people even make their own hamburgers at their Finnish yards, pretending to be Americans. How is that not cultural appropriation?

I might be able to approach, philosophically, the "issue" of cultural appropriation more.  On the one hand, there's something "earned" about culture for certain races. 

Yes. Hamburgers. Case-in-point.

Can you really think of a single example of cultural appropriation that is actually an issue? I can't.

Except maybe school shootings in Norway; they learned how to do those from their idols in the US. I guess that could be considered cultural appropriation?

On the other hand, cultural awareness comes at a risk for people adopting its customs, since they might actually be favorable to other cultures, promoting more global culture.

Like McDonalds.

That sounds like a good case for "cultural appropriation = poisoning", making a case against your own for there being no harmful cultural appropriation.  So are you for or against globalization?  Do you find any merit to preservation of culture and its respect for their origins, or is anything open to the grift of pop culture, its commoditization?

Bringing up the UK, do you think race will become on a par with what they're doing with gender recognition certificates?  Will there need to be "racial recognition certificates"?  Will culture become proprietary or an "intellectual property" that only those certified and accredited will own stock in, with which to make copyright claims for damages?

Jada said: 

Yeah I know that UK movement where they rave against trans people on behalf of feminism. It's funny how they've turned the tables. From oppressed to oppressors.

I'd moreso say everyone is capable of peer modeling, which again is why it's up to the generation after them to surpass that. 

When someone is abused, they try to become their abuser. Rather than see that as the problem they tend to see the one doing it as the problem element while the behavior is otherwise normalized. 

This is the first time I'm hearing about Blair White. I wasn't expecting a far-right trans woman. Kind of like having a black person wanting to be part of the KKK.

Blair White is a fascinating figure to study for her reactions. Sometimes someone says something to her that you can see offend her from within her own party, yet she keeps her mouth shut over it. 

Are you more left or right leaning, TC? I'm guessing you're spending quite a bit of time on right-leaning websites, like I do.

Left-leaning independent, but for the most part I'm uninformed when it comes to a lot of elements of politics. 

Buttered Toast said: 

That sounds like a good case for "cultural appropriation = poisoning", making a case against your own for there being no harmful cultural appropriation.  So are you for or against globalization?  Do you find any merit to preservation of culture and its respect for their origins, or is anything open to the grift of pop culture, its commoditization?

Bringing up the UK, do you think race will become on a par with what they're doing with gender recognition certificates?  Will there need to be "racial recognition certificates"?  Will culture become proprietary or an "intellectual property" that only those certified and accredited will own stock in, with which to make copyright claims for damages?

That's an interesting thought.

Do I find merit in the preservation of culture and its respect for their origins? Yes, I do. Am I for globalization? I'm for it in the purely economical sense, but I hate what it has done to values and cultures. I think the two are not mutually exclusive.

At any rate, respect is earned, not demanded. I see learning about different cultures to be meaningful and quite fun. It offers perspective. It's like a part of history; you might not need it in the purely financial sense, so you might as well get rid of it. However, it has some intrinsic value in what it brings to people, like art, but mainly it has value in what it means to the people of that culture. I think it's fantastic, for example, that whenever I travel to the Midwest people are very curious about where I come from or the differences in my value system w.r.t. theirs. However, me demanding people to respect my culture or copyrighting it makes no sense whatsoever. It makes even less sense to see a bunch of Californians insist that my culture needs to be protected and copyrighted to the point that people are nervous even to ask me where I'm from lest they be accused of microaggression.

All this tiptoeing around what is permissible has made foreign cultures alien to the US and Canada, which is the exact opposite of what all this nonsense is supposed to achieve. If you want to preserve culture, then do what Italy is doing, or what the rest of Europe is doing, and embrace different cultures, learn about them, and preserve them. Make it a part of the curriculum. The fact that a bunch of school teachers somewhere in the US are pretending to be native americans for a class illustration should be celebrated, not shunned upon as ignorant and disrespectful.

Last time I was in a Dutch Sauna in the Netherlands with a friend of mine, we went to the traditional Finnish sauna, which was this weird alien place with some menthol BS and a "sauna master", whatever the fuck that is, my friend, from Finland, was chatting with me until the couple sitting in front of us turned and hushed him down, saying it's a Finnish sauna and he should show some respect. I couldn't stop laughing.

Basically, punishing "cultural appropriation" makes no sense and will not achieve what people think it will achieve. There are better alternatives.

Gender recognition certificates... that's the first time I'm hearing about those, too. Lmao. Racial recognition certificates. Yeah, I'm all for those. Can we make those based on the species we identify with? There was this British guy who decided he identified as a goat and went to live in the hills of Edinburgh, eating grass... Lol.

Turncoat said: 

Blair White is a fascinating figure to study for her reactions. Sometimes someone says something to her that you can see offend her from within her own party, yet she keeps her mouth shut over it. 

Why do you think that is?

Are you more left or right leaning, TC? I'm guessing you're spending quite a bit of time on right-leaning websites, like I do.

Left-leaning independent, but for the most part I'm uninformed when it comes to a lot of elements of politics. 

No lengthy story?

Jada said: 

Turncoat said: 

Blair White is a fascinating figure to study for her reactions. Sometimes someone says something to her that you can see offend her from within her own party, yet she keeps her mouth shut over it. 

Why do you think that is?

It'd go against the brand's my thought. 

Are you more left or right leaning, TC? I'm guessing you're spending quite a bit of time on right-leaning websites, like I do.

Left-leaning independent, but for the most part I'm uninformed when it comes to a lot of elements of politics. 

No lengthy story?

My politics aren't that complicated, moreso a matter of expected demographics. 

I guess it's like that Black Mirror episode. People crave honesty, but then when they get famous and they've exhausted their content people will just repeat whatever their little personality notebook says they should say, instead of being genuine and stfu'ing. That's how they've now ruined rick and morty, too.

It's a scary thing, peer pressure, that is. It's hard not to conform to a specific set of expectations society has set for you and your 'brand'.

She has a financial bottom line to worry about, and if there's any odds of her preaching acceptance towards them it's only liable to happen if they aren't demonizing her like the rest of them. 

It otherwise has that scent of "Not Like The Other (trans) Girls" trope.