Thanks, interesting. Well, I'm pretty new here too. Maybe you offended some /. people, ya think?! Why name names like that. You sounded very bitter. Anyway, you

Thanks, interesting. Well, I'm pretty new here too. Maybe you offended some /. people, ya think?! Why name names like that. You sounded very bitter. Anyway, you can edit a comment to ask the downvoters why they did so. I find it annoying sometimes not to know why. But I'd say that's why. No-one wants to read that kind of angry rant on here. Ohh, you mean, can be explained by your stoic principles. Gotcha. I'm always amused when I hear people in the US talk about "radical left-wing", and calling anything left of far-right, "communist". I guess I don't think they know what left or left-wing means. That stuff you decribe sounds more like "stupid" or "ignorant" than any particular left/right thing. Hmm well, using those bad-faith labels ("virtue-signaling", "victimhood narratives") might be satisfying, but no-one thinks they're doing that, (like people never think they're being unfair, unjust etc) so I imagine it would make further dialogue impossible. You don't win just by having a label for something. But yeah, I've seen appalling videos of the kind of thing you're talking about. I was once called 'sexist' (by a girlfriend! ha) for saying men and women are different - that men have penises, women have vaginas. It was confusion acquired from confused post-modern university arts lecturers, I think. But yeah, it has gotten pretty stupid. Well, there have always been stupid thought fads like that. HL Mencken is good on keeping perspective, not letting that bug you too much. Even scientists usually come to an experiment/survey with some hypothesis about how things will turn out, which is why they're doing it. Sure, we try to be more accurate, have better information, not let our baggage cloud our perception, but I think this 'unbiased' person is a myth and unattainable, and not very useful to aim for. To be 'expert' in anything, in the sense that is possible in our lives, is to be biased. (I see why I have a problem with the very word 'biased' - it takes for granted that 'unbiased' is a real thing.) “It is only about things that do not interest one, that one can give a really unbiased opinion; and this is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.” - Oscar Wilde Actually that quote's worth giving in context. From The Critic as Artist: Ernest: Well, I should say that a critic should above all things be fair. Gilbert: Ah! not fair. A critic cannot be fair in the ordinary sense of the word. It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless. The man who sees both sides of a question, is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all. Art is a passion, and, in matters of art, Thought is inevitably coloured by emotion, and so is fluid rather than fixed, and, depending upon fine moods and exquisite moments, cannot be narrowed into the rigidity of a scientific formula or a theological dogma. It is to the soul that Art speaks, and the soul may be made the prisoner of the mind as well as of the body. One should, of course, have no prejudices; but, as a great Frenchman remarked a hundred years ago, it is one's business in such matters to have preferences, and when one has preferences one ceases to be fair. It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of Art.