4 ms·

Anti-social can also mean someone who just doesn't want to interact with other people. I'm deliberately invoking both meanings of the word, because I think tak

Anti-social can also mean someone who just doesn't want to interact with other people. I'm deliberately invoking both meanings of the word, because I think taking the desire to avoid interaction to the extreme harms society.

nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
Either I've been introduced to a new meaning of the term of you are mistaken about the meaning. I'm going to look it up. Perhaps I could persuade you to do the same. Also, by wording it as "extreme", it becomes a bit difficult to have a debate. Doing "too much" of anything is by definition more than what is harmless. In the case from the context above, one interpretation is just people's desire for privacy. I'd also say that by giving it a name with a negative connotation we are pressuring the people who have preferences that can be described as asocial to be more like the others and that I believe is unfair.
- throwanem 9y ago
  You have been introduced to a new meaning of the term. I don't think it's especially unfair to argue that engineering to prevent chance interactions should be discouraged, and invoking privacy in this context is a bugaboo - access to privacy really isn't the same thing as making sure that you never have to greet or talk to anyone in a way that isn't planned. I know a lot of people who don't really have that sort of unplanned interaction with anyone, and they tend to be the same people who think I must be uncommonly brave to use my city's public transit system, which they erroneously fancy to be peopled primarily by dangerous characters. By preserving their ignorance of their fellow people, they free their imaginations to assume the worst, and in a democratic society where such imaginings can quite easily translate into wrongheaded and harmful public policy, I don't think it is at all hard to argue that such ignorance, and such fancy, grows questionable - even dangerous - to the same extent to which it is indulged.
  - mmmpop 9y ago
    > You have been introduced to a new meaning of the term. Says who? It's one thing to invent a brand new word, but it's another to modify a word with already established meaning to a slightly different meaning just because some people started using it the wrong way and it stuck. See the word "poignant" for another great example of the active bastardization of English.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      I really don't want to get into a pointless debate over prescriptivism, and there is no other kind of debate over prescriptivism. But, here, have some authorities: Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/antisocial https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/antisocial Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antisocial https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antisocial Oxford Dictionaries, English - as close as you get to OED without paying, and my library card's at home: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/antisocial https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/antisocial How many more would you like me to cite? And what's your problem with "poignant"?
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      What do you call a word that everyone uses in the same wrong way? "Correct".

nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago

Either I've been introduced to a new meaning of the term of you are mistaken about the meaning. I'm going to look it up. Perhaps I could persuade you to do the same. Also, by wording it as "extreme", it becomes a bit difficult to have a debate. Doing "too much" of anything is by definition more than what is harmless. In the case from the context above, one interpretation is just people's desire for privacy. I'd also say that by giving it a name with a negative connotation we are pressuring the people who have preferences that can be described as asocial to be more like the others and that I believe is unfair.

throwanem 9y ago
You have been introduced to a new meaning of the term. I don't think it's especially unfair to argue that engineering to prevent chance interactions should be discouraged, and invoking privacy in this context is a bugaboo - access to privacy really isn't the same thing as making sure that you never have to greet or talk to anyone in a way that isn't planned. I know a lot of people who don't really have that sort of unplanned interaction with anyone, and they tend to be the same people who think I must be uncommonly brave to use my city's public transit system, which they erroneously fancy to be peopled primarily by dangerous characters. By preserving their ignorance of their fellow people, they free their imaginations to assume the worst, and in a democratic society where such imaginings can quite easily translate into wrongheaded and harmful public policy, I don't think it is at all hard to argue that such ignorance, and such fancy, grows questionable - even dangerous - to the same extent to which it is indulged.
- mmmpop 9y ago
  > You have been introduced to a new meaning of the term. Says who? It's one thing to invent a brand new word, but it's another to modify a word with already established meaning to a slightly different meaning just because some people started using it the wrong way and it stuck. See the word "poignant" for another great example of the active bastardization of English.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    I really don't want to get into a pointless debate over prescriptivism, and there is no other kind of debate over prescriptivism. But, here, have some authorities: Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/antisocial https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/antisocial Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antisocial https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antisocial Oxford Dictionaries, English - as close as you get to OED without paying, and my library card's at home: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/antisocial https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/antisocial How many more would you like me to cite? And what's your problem with "poignant"?
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    What do you call a word that everyone uses in the same wrong way? "Correct".