Only leftists consciously try to remake language. Conservatives do not,
This may reflect the conservative belief in naive realism, that words refer to things in the world, and are ultimately defined by pointing at stuff, primarily by mothers pointing at stuff, as in “mother tongue”. Leftists frequently believe that words create reality, hence they always start language projects.
If a rose by any other name will smell as sweet, no point in finding new words for shit. You want conservatives to say “gay”. Observe. They say “gay”, but somehow it sounds remarkably as if they saying (long, long, long list of words no one is allowed to say any more)
Before building a house, check that your foundation is sound.
The bias you have to be most careful of in this situation is availability. When claiming “liberals X, but conservatives don’t X,” I think people first run a mental search for “liberal X” and then a search for “conservative X.” But mental searches aren’t as reliable as you might wish—if in the post just above, your brain was primed with an example of “liberal X,” your mental search will be a lot better at thinking of liberal X, and so you might conclude that liberal X is much more common. Curse you, availability bias!
One way to train yourself to search thoroughly is my “magical exercise of power” (actually just an improv exercise, but assertive naming seems to have worked for the Rules of Power :P).
Actually, if you spend time in a highly partisan environment, availability bias is a huge problem. One of the things people do in an effort to convince each other is invent and promulgate pseudo-experience.
If you keep getting told stories of people from group A attacking group B, and you’re a B, the stories stick with you. You’re also less likely to spend time around A’s, so that you don’t have a personal history of knowing that they might be less dangerous than you’ve been told, and you’re not likely to hear stories about them being attacked by B’s or to take such stories seriously if you do hear them.
Only leftists consciously try to remake language. Conservatives do not,
“pro-life” instead of “anti-abortion” “Enhanced interrogation” instead of “Torture” ”Collateral damage” instead of “Civilian casualties” “Death tax” instead of “Inheritance tax” or “estate tax” ”Civilian contractors” instead of “Hired mercenaries” “Freedom fries” instead of “French fries” ”Freedom fighters” instead of “Those particular terrorists we happen to support” ″illegal” used as a noun.
Only leftists consciously try to remake language. Conservatives do not,
I’ve never heard this before. Can you point me to some evidence?
The rest of your comment seems intentionally offensive. Am I correct in this assessment?
If so, feel free to pm me with your intended message without the offensive content, if you are trying to make a point with the offensive content. I don’t know if anybody else is getting your intended message, but I know I am not, and I am curious, if you can reframe your content more constructively.
Probably not. Enhanced interrogation is torture, but not all torture is enhanced interrogation. “Enhanced interrogation” implies the point is to get information, if any is available. Torture includes more acts because it includes other purposes, like fun and deterrence.
Named is examples like China mentioned in the article. Unnamed was something like torture v. dustspecks where who is doing the torturing doesn’t figure into it.
I need to add: trying to induce a confession as China did, like trying to get information, is also “interrogation”, unlike torture for no reason, fun, deterrence, etc.
I almost admire your fortitude in repeatedly charging forward, Light Brigade-like, with material you know beforehand is going to be downvoted to oblivion for partisan mindkilling.
At this point you are coming across as either a troll or as hopelessly mind-killed. It is possible you do not fall into those categories, but that’s the impression one gets from comments like the above. Please read if you have not already done so why politics is the mindkiller.
Hm. This got downvoted pretty heavily, didn’t it. So how about some of the downvoters point out some examples of conservative projects to deliberately remodel language, in the sense for instance feminism explicitely tries to, or that whole business of political correctness.
Disclaimer: I’m not conservative, hell I’m not even American and we don’t have “conservatives” where I live. I’m asking this because the falseness of what sam said is very far from apparent to me.
How do you expect people to know who was provoked or unprovoked, once you deleted your comment? If you want people to know how a discussion went, you have the option of retracting but not deleting.
If I understand correctly, when a page gets refreshed with a reply to a comment, the delete button on that comment is gone; but as long as one is viewing a previous state of the page, when you use the delete button it works.
Which is what I did. I hadn’t seen your reply, you made it just as I was deleting—literally, I deleted and upon the page reloading I saw the inbox thingie with your reply. I was deleting because I had just noticed that I missed all those other replies to Sam.
I find amusing the notion of bigots launching a campaign to reclaim “queer” as an insult.
Only leftists consciously try to remake language. Conservatives do not,
This may reflect the conservative belief in naive realism, that words refer to things in the world, and are ultimately defined by pointing at stuff, primarily by mothers pointing at stuff, as in “mother tongue”. Leftists frequently believe that words create reality, hence they always start language projects.
If a rose by any other name will smell as sweet, no point in finding new words for shit. You want conservatives to say “gay”. Observe. They say “gay”, but somehow it sounds remarkably as if they saying (long, long, long list of words no one is allowed to say any more)
Before building a house, check that your foundation is sound.
The bias you have to be most careful of in this situation is availability. When claiming “liberals X, but conservatives don’t X,” I think people first run a mental search for “liberal X” and then a search for “conservative X.” But mental searches aren’t as reliable as you might wish—if in the post just above, your brain was primed with an example of “liberal X,” your mental search will be a lot better at thinking of liberal X, and so you might conclude that liberal X is much more common. Curse you, availability bias!
One way to train yourself to search thoroughly is my “magical exercise of power” (actually just an improv exercise, but assertive naming seems to have worked for the Rules of Power :P).
I really don’t think availability bias is his biggest problem.
Actually, if you spend time in a highly partisan environment, availability bias is a huge problem. One of the things people do in an effort to convince each other is invent and promulgate pseudo-experience.
If you keep getting told stories of people from group A attacking group B, and you’re a B, the stories stick with you. You’re also less likely to spend time around A’s, so that you don’t have a personal history of knowing that they might be less dangerous than you’ve been told, and you’re not likely to hear stories about them being attacked by B’s or to take such stories seriously if you do hear them.
Freedom fries.
“pro-life” instead of “anti-abortion”
“Enhanced interrogation” instead of “Torture”
”Collateral damage” instead of “Civilian casualties”
“Death tax” instead of “Inheritance tax” or “estate tax”
”Civilian contractors” instead of “Hired mercenaries”
“Freedom fries” instead of “French fries”
”Freedom fighters” instead of “Those particular terrorists we happen to support”
″illegal” used as a noun.
Do these suffice?
I’ve never heard this before. Can you point me to some evidence?
The rest of your comment seems intentionally offensive. Am I correct in this assessment?
If so, feel free to pm me with your intended message without the offensive content, if you are trying to make a point with the offensive content. I don’t know if anybody else is getting your intended message, but I know I am not, and I am curious, if you can reframe your content more constructively.
Homicide Bomber.
There are certainly other examples, but that’s the first one to come to mind.
Islamofascism, “real America”, ‘Democrat’ as an adjective as in ‘Democrat Party’, Death Tax, Obamacare.
It’s politics; people come up with this stuff for a living.
If Lesswrong were an explicitly conservative site, we would recently have been re-reading the “Enhanced interrogation v. dust specks” sequence...
Probably not. Enhanced interrogation is torture, but not all torture is enhanced interrogation. “Enhanced interrogation” implies the point is to get information, if any is available. Torture includes more acts because it includes other purposes, like fun and deterrence.
Also, it is only enhanced interrogation when you or your allies are doing it. When others do it, named or unnamed then it is torture. See here.
What does this mean?
Named is examples like China mentioned in the article. Unnamed was something like torture v. dustspecks where who is doing the torturing doesn’t figure into it.
I need to add: trying to induce a confession as China did, like trying to get information, is also “interrogation”, unlike torture for no reason, fun, deterrence, etc.
Because no conservatives have ever started language projects?
I almost admire your fortitude in repeatedly charging forward, Light Brigade-like, with material you know beforehand is going to be downvoted to oblivion for partisan mindkilling.
At this point you are coming across as either a troll or as hopelessly mind-killed. It is possible you do not fall into those categories, but that’s the impression one gets from comments like the above. Please read if you have not already done so why politics is the mindkiller.
Hm. This got downvoted pretty heavily, didn’t it. So how about some of the downvoters point out some examples of conservative projects to deliberately remodel language, in the sense for instance feminism explicitely tries to, or that whole business of political correctness.
Disclaimer: I’m not conservative, hell I’m not even American and we don’t have “conservatives” where I live. I’m asking this because the falseness of what sam said is very far from apparent to me.
People already have. See comments below.
Yawn.
Missed it due to clicking on a link that produced a single-thread view.
Same to you, friend.
I’m not your friend, pal.
Downvoting both of you for signalling contempt at each other.
Let’s try and keep the forum as respectful as we can.
Certainly. Though I admit I am a little baffled as to why I got downvoted more heavily, when I wasn’t the one who came out with unprovoked rudeness.
How do you expect people to know who was provoked or unprovoked, once you deleted your comment? If you want people to know how a discussion went, you have the option of retracting but not deleting.
I’m still wondering how you were able to delete your post after I had already replied to it.
If I understand correctly, when a page gets refreshed with a reply to a comment, the delete button on that comment is gone; but as long as one is viewing a previous state of the page, when you use the delete button it works.
Which is what I did. I hadn’t seen your reply, you made it just as I was deleting—literally, I deleted and upon the page reloading I saw the inbox thingie with your reply. I was deleting because I had just noticed that I missed all those other replies to Sam.
Which would mean, with some greasemonkey, one could have a delete button on anything I guess.