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"If you don't love the Eagles, then you ain't from Philly" could be meant as "If you don't love the Eagles, I will argue that you weren't born and raised in Phi

"If you don't love the Eagles, then you ain't from Philly" could be meant as "If you don't love the Eagles, I will argue that you weren't born and raised in Philadelphia and shouldn't be allowed to claim you were". However, it's also possible to read it as "Virtually everyone I know who cares about sports and who lives in Philadelphia enthusiastically cheers the Eagles", and without the context of politics and the culture war, the first reading seems really weird. So, consider that Biden might have just said a hyperbolic thing in the moment without intending to imply that 5-10% of a voting demographic should be canceled.

anm89 6y ago
Yes you could ignore what he actually said and try to construct a narrative that doesn't sound bad. But, isn't that a lot more complicated than just listening to what he actually said? To be more direct, myself and many other people aren't going to play that game. The only people that would are people who have a narrative in mind in advance and are going to find a way to justify it post hoc.
- randallsquared 6y ago
  It is more complicated, but that's how communication works; most people do not mean anything close to the literal wording they use -- "Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded". If you refuse to "play that game", then you get to be offended a lot more often, but you will also have to draw a distinction between how you understand communication from in-group and out-group, which seems to me to be even more complicated. :)
  - unanswered 6y ago
    > you will also have to draw a distinction between how you understand communication from in-group and out-group Holy projection, Batman! What you are saying is that in order to fully understand what Biden means when he says "you ain't black if you don't vote for me", we have to search for a meaning for this that puts Biden in the best possible light while still maintaining a modicum of plausibility. Meanwhile, to take an example of understanding communication from the out-group, when Trump says "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard" what he really meant was "let's go burn the Capitol down and murder everyone we can find, and also overthrow the government lol!1!1!!1!!!!". And we know that's what he meant because we have to search for the worst possible meaning of his words, and throw that modicum of plausibility right out the window. Then blame Trump for breaking the window. But to you this is the less "complicated" way of understanding communication from the in-group and the out-group? All anm89 is proposing is to just listen to what both men said. The same. For both of them. But this is what you're calling too complicated?
    - randallsquared 6y ago
      > What you are saying is that in order to fully understand what Biden means when he says "you ain't black if you don't vote for me", we have to search for a meaning for this that puts Biden in the best possible light while still maintaining a modicum of plausibility. Your post is kind of a case of exactly what I mean, for sure, given that I don't at all agree with what you claim I am saying! But I would note that you reworded the "quote" from Biden to make it more clearly what you believe he meant, when the actual quote is right there a few comments up.
    - dang 6y ago
      Please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - unanswered 6y ago
        Frankly I think you replied to the wrong comment here, probably because you disagree with my views and not the other commenters' views. I did not turn the conversation primarily to interpreting Biden's remarks. That was tangential to my original on-topic (but downvoted and flagged because wrongthink) comment. I am no doubt guilty of responding with undue incredulity to some hard-to-understand claims in the ensuing off-topic thread. But if you feel that the thread has descended into flamewar, you should look at who turned the conversation to flamewar topics, and it was not me. How about in the future I endeavor not to continue flamewar topics, and you endeavor not to blame the whole thread on the first non-leftist commenter in the thread, eh? Seems fair.
        dang 6y ago
        You started the flamewar upthread. It always feels like the mods are against you. I don't even know what your views are—that's not the filter through which I read comments like this. There's too much quantity to work through and it's not energy-efficient to do that. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22always%20feels%22%20mods%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

anm89 6y ago

Yes you could ignore what he actually said and try to construct a narrative that doesn't sound bad. But, isn't that a lot more complicated than just listening to what he actually said? To be more direct, myself and many other people aren't going to play that game. The only people that would are people who have a narrative in mind in advance and are going to find a way to justify it post hoc.

randallsquared 6y ago
It is more complicated, but that's how communication works; most people do not mean anything close to the literal wording they use -- "Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded". If you refuse to "play that game", then you get to be offended a lot more often, but you will also have to draw a distinction between how you understand communication from in-group and out-group, which seems to me to be even more complicated. :)
- unanswered 6y ago
  > you will also have to draw a distinction between how you understand communication from in-group and out-group Holy projection, Batman! What you are saying is that in order to fully understand what Biden means when he says "you ain't black if you don't vote for me", we have to search for a meaning for this that puts Biden in the best possible light while still maintaining a modicum of plausibility. Meanwhile, to take an example of understanding communication from the out-group, when Trump says "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard" what he really meant was "let's go burn the Capitol down and murder everyone we can find, and also overthrow the government lol!1!1!!1!!!!". And we know that's what he meant because we have to search for the worst possible meaning of his words, and throw that modicum of plausibility right out the window. Then blame Trump for breaking the window. But to you this is the less "complicated" way of understanding communication from the in-group and the out-group? All anm89 is proposing is to just listen to what both men said. The same. For both of them. But this is what you're calling too complicated?
  - randallsquared 6y ago
    > What you are saying is that in order to fully understand what Biden means when he says "you ain't black if you don't vote for me", we have to search for a meaning for this that puts Biden in the best possible light while still maintaining a modicum of plausibility. Your post is kind of a case of exactly what I mean, for sure, given that I don't at all agree with what you claim I am saying! But I would note that you reworded the "quote" from Biden to make it more clearly what you believe he meant, when the actual quote is right there a few comments up.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - unanswered 6y ago
      Frankly I think you replied to the wrong comment here, probably because you disagree with my views and not the other commenters' views. I did not turn the conversation primarily to interpreting Biden's remarks. That was tangential to my original on-topic (but downvoted and flagged because wrongthink) comment. I am no doubt guilty of responding with undue incredulity to some hard-to-understand claims in the ensuing off-topic thread. But if you feel that the thread has descended into flamewar, you should look at who turned the conversation to flamewar topics, and it was not me. How about in the future I endeavor not to continue flamewar topics, and you endeavor not to blame the whole thread on the first non-leftist commenter in the thread, eh? Seems fair.
      - dang 6y ago
        You started the flamewar upthread. It always feels like the mods are against you. I don't even know what your views are—that's not the filter through which I read comments like this. There's too much quantity to work through and it's not energy-efficient to do that. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22always%20feels%22%20mods%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...