Disqus - Latest Comments for CarlM

Re: Free Will and the Absurdist Chasm

CarlM — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 07:37:05 -0000

I think you're missing my point. As I said, the definition of meaning is not universal. Let me shift for a moment to "happiness". What makes me happy is probably not what makes you happy, but that doesn't make my happiness or your happiness any less real (or true). I flatly reject the notion of a universal happiness yardstick in the same way as I reject the notion of a universal yardstick of meaningfulness. What I find meaningful in my life - what motivates me, what guides me, what makes me happy, what gives my life meaning TO ME is different than what motivates you, what guides you, what makes you happy, and what gives your life meaning TO YOU. So what? That doesn't mean that either of us is wrong or that my meaning or yours is any less "real" or "true".

Again, I agree that there is no inherent meaning (this is essentially what I mean when I say that I reject the idea of a universal yardstick), but meaning doesn't have to be universal or inherent to be real to an individual, and in fact, being real to an individual is (I would argue) the only sort of reality that makes sense for concepts like "meaning" or "happiness".

Re: How I Reduced My Spam Phone Calls by 90%

CarlM — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 17:56:58 -0000

I’m certain that when I first got bombarded with these that they were spoofed. The message includes a request for a callback to be removed from their list. (Obviously that could just be a way to identify live people, so I’d never reply.) I got a callback to my number asking that I remove them from my list. (Left as a message.)

Re: How I Reduced My Spam Phone Calls by 90%

CarlM — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 20:05:35 -0000

I don’t get that many spam calls, but the VAST majority of those I get have spoofed numbers that match mine in the first 6 digits (area code and exchange) - apparently in an attempt to have me think that it might be someone local that I know. Do the apps you’ve listed have the ability to know when a spoofed number is being used?

Re: Free Will and the Absurdist Chasm

CarlM — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 15:04:51 -0000

I'm OK with the terminology "inherent meaning" and it seems fairly clear to me that this does not exist. I take issue with the shift to the term "true meaning" to refer to the same thing. Is this standard terminology? If so, I reject it. It strikes me as assuming the conclusion. I would argue that we each find our own meaning in life. The definition of meaning is not universal - there are variations in what people find meaningful in their lives, and there are varying degrees to which people are successful at finding meaning, but I reject terminology that implies that this meaning is not real.

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 16:33:05 -0000

I suspect that you believe what you’re saying here. You are wrong. Trump did not accept the birth certificate as being real when Obama released it.

http://www.latimes.com/poli...

I don’t think it was a legitimate question, but that is a matter of opinion. The fact is, Trump repeatedly denied the valid evidence. He even got (presumably) reasonable people to believe that the evidence was phony — or even (though the blurry lens of multiple years passing) to believe that Trump got Obama to release his birth certificate and that was the end of it. That’s not what happened.

I’d forgotten how impossible it is to discuss even basic facts on the internet. I don’t have time to waste on this.

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 16:21:55 -0000

One last time. It has not been my experience that the outrage over the birtherism nonsense was about whether or not it was racist. It wasn’t about the fact that someone would repeatedly imply that there was something real to birtherism. When you repeat nonsense often enough, people will believe it - or at least believe that it isn’t nonsense. People will believe that despite a Hawaiian birth certificate and a birth announcement in a Hawaii newspaper, somehow there wasn’t sufficient evidence presented to debunk the obvious nonsense of birtherism. I know it’s hard to believe that anyone would assert that birtherism wasn’t nonsense .. that the evidence against it wasn’t incontrovertible... that the assertions of birtherism were not demonstrably false, but it’s true.

Again ... to be clear. There is no way to prove racist intent. Absolutely true. And, I am making no claims to racist intent. I am claiming that it is NOT ok to spread BS so frequently that people begin to believe it.

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 15:57:41 -0000

It’s not a semantic game. The Clinton campaign did not engage in birtherism. Trump himself did. That’s a pretty big difference.

If you’d paid attention to what I’ve written, then you’d have seen that I explicitly stated that I was making no claim to racist motivation. There is no way to prove racist motivation here. In my experience, the outrage about birtherism wasn’t about racism so much as being about the fact that a serious candidate for the presidency would repeatedly imply that birtherism was not nonsense when incontrovertible facts showed that it was.

Look, there are diffeeent opinions on issues, but it is entirely inappropriate for the leader of a country to treat facts with such disdain. You may think that birtherism was an isolated example from long ago and is irrelevant to today. It was not an isolated example. The list of our President’s false assertions and implications is long and continuing (and, as I said earlier, embarrassing).

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 15:30:09 -0000

It didn’t come out of Clinton’s campaign. That false assertion has been debunked. You begin to see the problem when people can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction.

For the record, the blog post we are referring to used the birther nonsense as an example. I was referring directly to this post. Don’t pretend that my bringing it up is somehow inappropriate.

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 15:25:47 -0000

Good example.

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 15:07:09 -0000

You can’t possibly believe that Trump’s birther nonsense was accepted as ok right up to the election.

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 14:54:28 -0000

Here is an example:

The blog post says: “Movie 2: Questioning a rival’s eligibility for office, for any reason, is normal politics. We observe Trump using every available form of persuasion against any critic who gets in his way. ”

The implication is that people viewing this through a particular lens see President Trump’s assertions that demonstrably false things are actually true to be politics as usual. The post also implies that the other segment of the population uses certain examples of that (like the birther silliness) as evidence of racism.

My point is that asserting that demonstrably false things are true should not be accepted as ok. I’d also point out that there is a bit of a false dichotomy being presented in the blog post. There are lots of people who would not assert that the birtherism silliness (lies?) prove or even indicate racism, but the fact that Trump stuck with that absurd narrative for so long is not OK. I understand that he did it because it was working. People actually believed the implications that Trump was making. I don’t call him a racist because he did this, I call him a liar (because he surely knew better ... the other option is that he is incapable of discerning truth, and I’d prefer a liar to someone incapable of understanding the validity of basic facts). Is being a liar simply politics as usual? I don’t believe that we’ve seen anyone in politics (in either party) who was so comfortable making false statements and asserting that they are true ... time and time again ... even when presented with incontrovertible evidence. It boggles the mind and is incredibly embarrassing.

Re: Why Democrats Hear a Secret Racist Dog Whistle and Republicans Don’t

CarlM — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 14:19:50 -0000

There are certainly cases of people overdramatizing Donald Trump’s statements, but I find this blog post to underdramatize his constant misstatements of fact. Call them lies or call them “strategic”, but it is NOT ok to constantly assert things that are demonstrably false.

Re: GOP Congressman Blames Sea-Level Rise on Erosion

CarlM — Fri, 18 May 2018 16:20:21 -0000

"I think I will have some soup."

Re: GOP Congressman Blames Sea-Level Rise on Erosion

CarlM — Fri, 18 May 2018 16:18:32 -0000

If he gets re-elected, I will lose what remains of my faith in humanity.

Re: Matt Drudge Not a Fan of Trump's 'Fake News' Threat

CarlM — Wed, 09 May 2018 17:05:20 -0000

He knows that negative doesn't mean "fake", right?

Re: Trump Withdraws From 'Horrible' Iran Deal

CarlM — Tue, 08 May 2018 15:10:18 -0000

The man is a menace.

Re: NRA Says Guns Will Be Banned During Convention Speech

CarlM — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 08:59:26 -0000

So you acknowledge that banning guns (by civilians) at the event equates to additional protection. Now we're getting somewhere.

Re: NRA Says Guns Will Be Banned During Convention Speech

CarlM — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 08:54:35 -0000

Really? You need this spelled out? Nobody is suggesting not having armed police officers or armed secret service agents. The issue is having armed civilians.

I wouldn't do this, except that it seems that you might need this sort of snarky reply for the point to register. If it's OK for civilians to arm themselves and attend (or teach at) a school, why are they ... wait for it ... banning ... yes .. it's true .. guns .. at an NRA event? Is it that the Vice President deserves more protection than schoolchildren?

Re: NRA Says Guns Will Be Banned During Convention Speech

CarlM — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 08:24:44 -0000

Because guns do not make an event safer. It really is that simple. Now, if we can get people to understand that the same is true when "event" is replaced by "a school", we're all set.

Re: Teacher on Leave After 'Gross' Slavery Assignment

CarlM — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 10:55:23 -0000

Louise, I can only hope that you and Mary and others are simply deliberately poking and trolling here.

NOBODY is suggesting that an exercise in a history class in which students list pros and cons is a bad idea. In fact, I explicitly indicated that it is a GOOD idea for many pieces of history, but there is a context to those sorts of questions. One does not ask about the pros and cons of rape. One does not ask about the pros and cons of the Holocaust. One does not ask about the pros and cons of slavery. One does not ask Mrs. Lincoln how she enjoyed the play. (What were the pros and cons of that fateful trip to the theater? Was the play enjoyable at least?)

This DOES NOT MEAN that slavery should not be discussed. Of course it should. This DOES NOT MEAN that the motivations that kept the system of slavery going as long as it did should not be discussed. Of course they should. Once again, the context is important.

Re: Teacher on Leave After 'Gross' Slavery Assignment

CarlM — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 08:10:25 -0000

Where do you get the idea that anyone thinks that there is anything wrong about learning about slavery (or the Holocaust)? In fact, these are VERY important things to learn about. They are CRITICAL things to learn about.

Lists of pros and cons are used when trying to make a decision. In the context of a historical event it is typically done to consider alternative histories to decide which would have been better. For example one might consider the pros and cons to the US entering World War I. That sort of exercise is the context here. To apply that same exercise to slavery or to the Holocaust is to implicitly imply that there is any decision to make about whether slavery or no slavery is better or genocide or no genocide is better. (Pardon the seeming redundancy there, but I want to make it clear that I don't believe that the teacher understood that this implicit implication existed.)

Please note that nobody is suggesting that the motivation for slavery's long existence shouldn't be talked about or that Hitler's motivation for the Holocaust shouldn't be talked about. It is important to try to understand those motivations so we can learn from them. It is true that Hitler thought that there were pros to the Holocaust. That doesn't mean that there were pros to the Holocaust or that it is appropriate to have a class assignment in which the pros and cons of the Holocaust (or of slavery) are discussed. The question that should be asked is something like: "What in the minds of slaveholders allowed them to believe that it was appropriate to own other human beings?" The answer to that question will get at all sorts of issues (including their motivation).

If I ask you to list pros and cons to buying a new car, I am implicitly asking for pros and cons to both possible decisions from YOUR perspective - what are the positives and negatives to buying the car, and what are the positives and negatives to not buying the car. If a teacher asks for a list of pros and cons to the US entering World War I, they are asking their students to look at the two possibilities (US enters WWI and US stays out of WWI) and consider the positives and negatives. The students are being asked to both consider the history and the consequences AND to state their views about the relative merits of both possibilities (their views backed up by historical context and evidence, one hopes). If a teacher asks for a list of pros and cons to the Holocaust, the only appropriate response is "I can tell you what Hitler's motivation was, but there are no pros to the Holocaust." Similarly for slavery.

Re: Teacher on Leave After 'Gross' Slavery Assignment

CarlM — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 17:22:41 -0000

Dude, try to keep up. They are all out of bounds. Where did you get the idea that I think it's OK to have an assignment about the pros and cons of slavery?

Re: Teacher on Leave After 'Gross' Slavery Assignment

CarlM — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 16:43:06 -0000

Another example of what would be a reprehensible assignment.

Re: Teacher on Leave After 'Gross' Slavery Assignment

CarlM — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 16:41:49 -0000

WHAT?

I was pointing out that although Rape and Slavery are not the same thing (surely we can all agree on that regardless of any correlation between the two), BOTH an assignment asking for pros and cons of slavery AND an assignment asking for pros and cons of rape would be reprehensible. (Thus my use of "ALSO".)

I do see the ambiguity of what "also" was referring to.

Re: Teacher on Leave After 'Gross' Slavery Assignment

CarlM — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 15:47:17 -0000

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?