I wasn’t name-calling, Less Wrong’s connection to the autism-spectrum is well understood.
Speaking of name-calling, saying “Ew” is downright juvenile. Was this intentional irony? If you want to respond to me in the future, please try to express yourself with reasoned argument, not whining one-liners.
Okay, so then I guess that was a different kind of ableism from you. Instead of using the word “Autism” as a mere insult along the lines of “nerd”/”neckbeard”/whatever, as seen in the less civil places of the internet, you basically first made a neutral assertion (LW membership correlated with autism spectrum).
But then you sneaked in the implicit assertion that 1) autistic people should be discouraged from discussing sexual and romantic relationships because of their extraordinary ineptitude, etc at such things—and that 2) they’re silly and deluded if they even aspire to collectively learning about such—and, importantly, that 3) “normal” people know better than those weirdoes what’s best for them.
Now replace autistic people with some widely accepted subject of minorities’ rights/”social justice” movements (like blacks in postwar America), and you’ll see how the framework of marginalization is very similar even though its coordinates and scale are different. “Ain’t got nothing against them negroes, we take good care of ’em, they just need to mind their manners, don’t get all uppity and don’t listen to them Commie troublemakers.”
(Plus the negative/perjorative connotations of “den”, often used as an off-handed reminder of an outgroup’s inferiority and otherness. Nobody really says “Den of cool people”, or “den of original thought”, do they?)
P.S. We need a Tumblr-Social-Justice bot in here. Because the thing is, for all the limitations of “social justice” liberal-activist theory, many LWers don’t actually care to understand its epistemic/rationality core, and then get offended when a liberal activist points out how PROBLEMATIC some casual language can be without any malign intent.
When someone calls out tech/econ/”rationality” geeks on some problematic language/framing, applying some basic “social justice” ideas about privilege, othering, etc (maybe not always explaining the reasoning in sufficient detail) - well, immediately a cry about evil totalitarian progressive feminism police goes up… and to me it oddly resembles a dogmatic anti-market Marxist going off the rails when confronted with some equally basic Austrian School criticism like economic calculation, the knowledge problem, and such—for example, here. “NUH UH, talking about privilege and oppression is a silly fad for silly airheads on Tumblr” leaves one epistemically as crippled as “NUH UH, von Mises was a right-wing douchebag beloved of right-wing douchebags.” In place of “capitalist lie machine” LW might use epithets like “moral signaling spiral”, but the basic pattern of pre-emptively mocking Those Insufferable Cranks before they could mess up our tidy little epistemology is there.
They were three words that were perfect for summing up Zach Randolph. Three words that were perfect for describing the Memphis Grizzlies seven games into this NBA season...Former Grizzly Shane Battier had the task of trying to guard Randolph. “I’m a suburban cowboy, didn’t grow up on a farm,” Battier said. “But the closest analogy I can think of is trying to wrestle with a steer. Zach is a strong dude.” That was evident again at OKC as Randolph notched his seventh double-double in as many games (20 points and 11 rebounds before he and Perkins were ejected for their verbal sparring); the Grizzlies won their sixth straight to improve to 6-1 on the season...The morning after the Grizzlies had defeated the Thunder, they even worked their way into the conversation on ESPN’s “First Take” with Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless. Smith called the Grizz “rough and rugged.” He also said, “They don’t try to be pretty. They know who they are … .”...As the Grizzlies were putting away the Heat at FedExForum, the huge video board focused on fans in Heat jerseys leaving early. “I don’t think people are gonna stop being Heat fans,” Gay conceded. “But I think we gained a couple of more fans tonight. We’re kind of under the radar, but teams in the NBA definitely respect us. They don’t take us lightly and I think we kinda enjoy being under the radar. As long as people respect us, that’s all that matters.”
Obviously positive connotations, but if you somehow wanted to dispute that, on the second page I get two Google Books hits for dens of rattlesnakes which is a neutral objective description.
I wasn’t name-calling, Less Wrong’s connection to the autism-spectrum is well understood.
Speaking of name-calling, saying “Ew” is downright juvenile. Was this intentional irony? If you want to respond to me in the future, please try to express yourself with reasoned argument, not whining one-liners.
Okay, so then I guess that was a different kind of ableism from you. Instead of using the word “Autism” as a mere insult along the lines of “nerd”/”neckbeard”/whatever, as seen in the less civil places of the internet, you basically first made a neutral assertion (LW membership correlated with autism spectrum).
But then you sneaked in the implicit assertion that 1) autistic people should be discouraged from discussing sexual and romantic relationships because of their extraordinary ineptitude, etc at such things—and that 2) they’re silly and deluded if they even aspire to collectively learning about such—and, importantly, that 3) “normal” people know better than those weirdoes what’s best for them.
Now replace autistic people with some widely accepted subject of minorities’ rights/”social justice” movements (like blacks in postwar America), and you’ll see how the framework of marginalization is very similar even though its coordinates and scale are different. “Ain’t got nothing against them negroes, we take good care of ’em, they just need to mind their manners, don’t get all uppity and don’t listen to them Commie troublemakers.”
(Plus the negative/perjorative connotations of “den”, often used as an off-handed reminder of an outgroup’s inferiority and otherness. Nobody really says “Den of cool people”, or “den of original thought”, do they?)
P.S. We need a Tumblr-Social-Justice bot in here. Because the thing is, for all the limitations of “social justice” liberal-activist theory, many LWers don’t actually care to understand its epistemic/rationality core, and then get offended when a liberal activist points out how PROBLEMATIC some casual language can be without any malign intent.
When someone calls out tech/econ/”rationality” geeks on some problematic language/framing, applying some basic “social justice” ideas about privilege, othering, etc (maybe not always explaining the reasoning in sufficient detail) - well, immediately a cry about evil totalitarian progressive feminism police goes up… and to me it oddly resembles a dogmatic anti-market Marxist going off the rails when confronted with some equally basic Austrian School criticism like economic calculation, the knowledge problem, and such—for example, here. “NUH UH, talking about privilege and oppression is a silly fad for silly airheads on Tumblr” leaves one epistemically as crippled as “NUH UH, von Mises was a right-wing douchebag beloved of right-wing douchebags.” In place of “capitalist lie machine” LW might use epithets like “moral signaling spiral”, but the basic pattern of pre-emptively mocking Those Insufferable Cranks before they could mess up our tidy little epistemology is there.
P.P.S. Wow, I accidentally up a meta level.
Wow, you tumblr social justice warrior types are really good at having meltdowns. You even put the word “problematic” in all caps. 10⁄10
You might like to click the link.
I challenge you to find an example of someone saying “this den of X” where X does not have a negative connotation.
Challenge accepted. Elapsed time: 5 seconds.
I present to you the fourth hit in Google for “this den of “: http://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2012/nov/15/this-den-of-grizzlies-players-doesnt-bluff/ “This Den of Grizzlies Players Doesn’t Bluff”
Obviously positive connotations, but if you somehow wanted to dispute that, on the second page I get two Google Books hits for dens of rattlesnakes which is a neutral objective description.
Imagine a frequent commenter on a liberal forum referring to his online hangout as “this den of commies.”
It was intended to be ironic exaggeration and self-deprecation (I’ve been on LW since the beginning).
I believe your intention, just as I believe it was not possible to divine this intention from the original post.
I bet most people did get it, but it is understandable that some did not. Mea culpa.