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> The other half is ego/pride/sense of superiority Those things are very easily manipulated with fear. Those who feel safe and are confident in themselves, wit

> The other half is ego/pride/sense of superiority Those things are very easily manipulated with fear. Those who feel safe and are confident in themselves, without delusion, have neither use or need for ego trips and superiority complexes. > describing "conservatives" as "stupider, more biased, more fearful, or in some other way psychologically inferior to liberals" is clearly not meant to make said "conservatives" seem scary to said "liberals". I would argue that's exactly what it's meant to do. It's quite sensible to be wary of stupid scared racists, and liberal commentators are well paid to manipulate that fear in their audience. "Othering" a group is step one of creating fear. > These are not at all my "favourite scientific findings" - and I think people who think like me deserve the label of "progressive" far more than the people who are shopping those findings around. Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately, genuine 'progressives' have just about zero say in America's media landscape and political structure, by design and great effort. Therefore we have little say in what words mean once they reach mass consciousness. See: "terrorist" [peaceful student protesters, environmental activists], "torture" [not a big deal any more apparently], "woke" [as an insult], etc etc.

zahlman 2y ago
I guess I don't perceive emotions the same way you do. > See: "terrorist" [peaceful student protesters, environmental activists], "torture" [not a big deal any more apparently], I feel like these complaints are out of date. It reminds me of how I felt in the Bush era. Euphemisms for "torture" are plentiful (e.g. "enhanced interrogation") because the word still has power. Fewer people seem to be branded "terrorists" now than then. >"woke" [as an insult] The sense of the term "woke" that the broad public first saw, was an attempt to allude to broad, far-reaching problems without feeling any need to evidence them, and to hold people accountable for a) the sins of others, on the basis of their group identity; and b) unequal outcomes of a system which doesn't involve actual malice on anyone's part. Further, it was a slang term appropriated from another culture, by activists who would ordinarily say it's morally wrong to do that. The eventual ridicule of the term was entirely predictable and consequential, and I have no problem with it, to say the least.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  > I feel like these complaints are out of date They're not complaints - they're recent examples of how words have been twisted. Pointing out dislikable things that happened to illustrate a point is not the same as complaining about them. > Fewer people seem to be branded "terrorists" now than then. For the last year, peaceful protesters have been called terrorists / sympathizers in record numbers. An entire country, babies and all, has been smeared as 'terrorist', thereby giving a thin cover for Western leaders to ignore their obligations under international law. > Euphemisms for "torture" are plentiful (e.g. "enhanced interrogation") because the word still has power I'm not arguing these words don't have power. Just that we (the people) don't have deciding power over their meaning. When the 6 companies who own 90% of all media decide to change a word, they can do so very effectively. It wasn't a natural collective decision that turned actual torture into "enhanced interrogation", while environmental protesters became "terrorists". Those decisions came from the top down. And it worked. Many people got more upset about washable paint on a glass case than they did about our brazen support for internationally condemned atrocities. ... As for the word woke, again, there was a top-down, highly intentional (and obvious, tbh) mis/reinterpretation in order to disarm the word. Which in your case has clearly worked. "Woke" was one of the clearest examples of a word being twisted in record time.
  - zahlman 2y ago
    >... As for the word woke, again, there was a top-down, highly intentional (and obvious, tbh) mis/reinterpretation in order to disarm the word. Which in your case has clearly worked. "Woke" was one of the clearest examples of a word being twisted in record time. Where, precisely, would I have to have been to observe a different usage? And what precisely do you think that usage entailed?

zahlman 2y ago

I guess I don't perceive emotions the same way you do. > See: "terrorist" [peaceful student protesters, environmental activists], "torture" [not a big deal any more apparently], I feel like these complaints are out of date. It reminds me of how I felt in the Bush era. Euphemisms for "torture" are plentiful (e.g. "enhanced interrogation") because the word still has power. Fewer people seem to be branded "terrorists" now than then. >"woke" [as an insult] The sense of the term "woke" that the broad public first saw, was an attempt to allude to broad, far-reaching problems without feeling any need to evidence them, and to hold people accountable for a) the sins of others, on the basis of their group identity; and b) unequal outcomes of a system which doesn't involve actual malice on anyone's part. Further, it was a slang term appropriated from another culture, by activists who would ordinarily say it's morally wrong to do that. The eventual ridicule of the term was entirely predictable and consequential, and I have no problem with it, to say the least.

mandmandam 2y ago
> I feel like these complaints are out of date They're not complaints - they're recent examples of how words have been twisted. Pointing out dislikable things that happened to illustrate a point is not the same as complaining about them. > Fewer people seem to be branded "terrorists" now than then. For the last year, peaceful protesters have been called terrorists / sympathizers in record numbers. An entire country, babies and all, has been smeared as 'terrorist', thereby giving a thin cover for Western leaders to ignore their obligations under international law. > Euphemisms for "torture" are plentiful (e.g. "enhanced interrogation") because the word still has power I'm not arguing these words don't have power. Just that we (the people) don't have deciding power over their meaning. When the 6 companies who own 90% of all media decide to change a word, they can do so very effectively. It wasn't a natural collective decision that turned actual torture into "enhanced interrogation", while environmental protesters became "terrorists". Those decisions came from the top down. And it worked. Many people got more upset about washable paint on a glass case than they did about our brazen support for internationally condemned atrocities. ... As for the word woke, again, there was a top-down, highly intentional (and obvious, tbh) mis/reinterpretation in order to disarm the word. Which in your case has clearly worked. "Woke" was one of the clearest examples of a word being twisted in record time.
- zahlman 2y ago
  >... As for the word woke, again, there was a top-down, highly intentional (and obvious, tbh) mis/reinterpretation in order to disarm the word. Which in your case has clearly worked. "Woke" was one of the clearest examples of a word being twisted in record time. Where, precisely, would I have to have been to observe a different usage? And what precisely do you think that usage entailed?