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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Arwon |
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Arwon Bazu                 Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Well you've just hit apon the rationale for incitement laws right there man. Yelling fire in a crowded theatre, pedalling incendiary rhetoric with the intent to stir up hate, anger and violence, pandering to the beliefs of a tiny violent and antisocial minority by denying the systemic massacre of about 8 million people... it's essentially the same principle. The recognition that sometimes words can be more than just words, and can be used in dangerous or criminal ways. That free speech is not an absolute any more than any other right or principle is. (edited by Arwon on 02-23-06 07:41 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| The thing with holocaust denial is it's so far beyond the pale, so undniably obvious that it happened, that denying it almost automatically identifies you as having certain other allegiences and beliefs. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Bias gets a bad rap. I blame the myth of an objective media, the idea that this is possible hurts journalism. No, bias is basically perspective, and the fact that we all have different perspectives is part of what makes us humans and what makes the world interesting. Bias is an inevitable part of the beautiful tragic condition of being able to percieve a distinction between you and everything else.
Bias... no, that's a dumb word.... let's say different perspectives is also what makes history go. The clash of ideas, the mingling of viewpoints, thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Gradually, person-by-person, generation-by-generation, the collective viewpoints of entire groups of petty, limited, "biased" little human minds gets dragged kicking, screaming and fighting in new interesting directions. It's an amazing process. Society evolves and changes through a million little interactions of a million little bits of what you so disdainfully call "bias". The fact that humans all have limited, self-interested, flawed perspectives on the universe is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to who we are. Without this there's no point having individuals, no point learning, exploring, growing. Without "bias" we are NOTHING. We have no art, no love, no passion, we cease to be what we are. "Bias" isn't a "problem" any more than bipedalism or mortality is. It's just part of the essential condition. You can take away my bias out of my cold dead hands, you fascist killjoys. (edited by Arwon on 02-24-06 07:36 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| No, that's partisan hackery.
Every news source is biased. "Objectiveness" by itself is not a virtue. It means a lazy media that sits back, does nothing, just reports what he said and she said with no critical analysis or context. Without that, you end up with content-free news where "objectivity" is prized above actual journalism. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Well no, because none of those things are inseparably tied up with antisemetic, violent fascist movements to the point where they're basically the only ones who hold that view. Holocaust denial, for all intents and purposes, essentially *is* advocating the associated ideas, and it is advocating the idea that the Jews are a conspiratorial minority undermining European civilisation. Your other attempts at analogy are fatally flawed for this reason.
But anyway, let's take a step back here. This began with me pointing out the inconsistancy of people going "the west values free speech as an absolute" in defending publishing cartoons designed to incite and inflame and offend muslims... then the west also going "no, here, free speech isn't absolute because it's the Holocaust". Clearly this simply lends credence to the claims that if it pisses off Muslims that's okay, but what if it were antisemetic cartoons the Danish paper was publishing? I doubt too many people would've rallied to their defence... Islam is just an easy target right now. I'm actually undecided on the Holocaust Denial issue, it's probably a lot more sensitive in countries where it happened. Regardless, the issue here is the absolutism of free speech. You claimed free speech is absolute in all cases. Clearly it isn't. Speech can cause harm, we've demonstrated cases in which speech can cause harm, ranging from holocaust deniers adding fuel to the neonazi fire, to trolling cartoons deliberately inciting people with a very different attitude to their prophet and to the printed images, to yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. The right to free speech must be balanced against other often contradictory rights, just like each other. Free speech does not mean freedom to deliberately and intentionally incite hate and incite violence, or to cause unjustified public panic, because that violates other folks' rights. For example, in the case of Holocaust denial, it violates the right to feel safe from fucking Nazis. Now, different countries balance these two conflicting rights differently, but the point remains, free speech is not an absolute any more than any other right is. |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Crashman We did? |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| No, we'd still see major death in the first world. The fatality rate among humans so far is about 35%. Even if it dropped in the transition to being human-human transferrable, it'd still be staggeringly lethal.
The Spanish Flu was only a 5% fatality rate and that killed millions. .And they didn't have jet travel then. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| What am I sacrificing for Lent?
Virgins. Into a volcano. God will be pleased. |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Sorry Snow, can't marry you... not with the kids. I ain't takin' no damaged goods.
Nothin' personal. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| All apologies, but this amused me too much to ignore. The top five topics on this board at the moment have a certain anguished poeticness about them when read in order:
It's over. It's official. I've been had. When It's Over. It's very rarely that I feel like this. Sorry. Carry on. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Oh yeah, natch. Not making fun of anyone, certainly I'm the last person to mock other people's issues and relationship angst given the alcohol and confusion fueled mess that is my own love-life. Just amused by the confluence of thread titles is all. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Yeah, you'll get over them pretty soon.
I've decided to start telling people their album is called "Led Zeppelin IV" |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Skydude, you're in the UK currently. What do you think of the Beeb?
Anyway, I've watched American news. Fox's outrageous Murdochian sensationalism aside, I'm surprised anyone can read any sort of real political views into the shallow, mile-wide inch-deep coverage of the sort CNN and co put forth. To me, they're like most modern TV news... biased towards shitty, sensationalised, contextless, historyless reporting of events, with no analysis or background. Skydude: Word to the wise. Using "socialism" as an epithet doesn't work outside of America and it makes you sound silly and unbalanced and vaguely McCarthyist to attribute anything vaguely leftish to "socialism". There's a vast spectrum of views that exist BETWEEN American "liberals" and actual socialists (hell, the fact that "liberal" means "left wing" in America is illustrative of how distorted the spectrum is there). CENTRE-LEFT IS NOT SOCIALIST. PERIOD. For example, the country you're in at the moment is ruled by a member of the Socialist International... |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I won't date a serious Christian. This isn't so much political as it is based in terrible past experiences with psychotic Christian families when I lived in San Diego. Aside from the psychotic factor of that specific case... they tend to beat themselves up over nothing, and the serious ones have that glazed look in their eye like they're not entirely *there*, not entirely on earth, that their god is always partially holding their attention. Fuck that for a relationship. Three's a crowd.
Politics and Religion are not sacrosanct topics and I for one like to know these things. I love a good debate, and I agree that it's not ideal to agree on everything BUT let's not go overboard... there's beliefs and then there's beliefs which affect lifestyle and behaviour. When someone is religious or political in ways that begin to affect their lives it gets very difficult to work around. As far as religion goes, I've seen what excessive religiousness can do to someone, all that guilt and self-loathing and stuff (maybe I just need to stop being attracted to semi-lapsed Catholics). And as for politics, I couldn't date an anti-abortion activist or a PETA activist or probably even a Young Liberal (if indeed there are actually any girls in the Young Libs) and I'd struggle to deal with someone who, say, was seriously into campus politics. But as far as idle views and ideas go, that's fine, debate and argument is great... it's when the views and ideas start to turn into actions and lifestyles, that are seriously seriously incompatible with mine, that it becomes absurd. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I'm a little late here, but that relationship is poison man, and the sooner you get it out of your system, the better. If you get over her quickly, all the better, because it means you didn't feel that strongly for her and that's a GOOD THING. You don't WANT to be in love with girls who fuck you around so badly.
Bear with me here, as I'm projecting a past situation of mine onto this because your post kinda rang some bells for me. Forgive me if I'm completely off base in my reading of the situation and your state of mind, but here goes. If your self esteem is as low as you say, it's far likelier you liked her not for who she was and how she made you feel, but because she was with you and made you not be alone. If your self-esteem is as low as you say, it sounds like you figured you couldn't get any better and you'd better try to hold onto what there was even though it sucked. It's far likelier that you were in love with the idea of being in love, and tried unsuccessfully to make the situation fit your desires. I've been there myself man, it is not good. The consolation is that if your situation is anything like mine was, in two years I doubt you'll believe you loved the girl, and will regard the whole situation as an embarassing fuckup. You'll be a better person for it. Suck out the poison and move on man. Don't jump right into something else, natch, but reassess what you did feel, and see if I'm not partially right here. If I am, realising this is the reason you got so into such a shitty relationship, and admitting it to yourself, will help make you a stronger human being. (edited by Arwon on 03-07-06 09:53 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Because semantics is fun.
And now we get to argue that the mainstream news services in the US are not "left of centre" because they, well, aren't. As I already said, with the exception of the overtly slanted Fox News most of the US news, like most other TV news elsewhere, isn't really slanted in any direction except towards sensationalist, contextless reportage. I don't understand how, with the pace CNN moves at (a "global minute", what the FUCK?), with its "he said this, she said that" style, anyone can read a bias into it. Oh and finally, people need to get the false ideal of "objective media" out of their freaking heads. It's a myth, it's impossible, and the ideal damages journalism by making people mistake blandness and lack of analysis for "objectivity". (edited by Arwon on 03-07-06 10:13 PM) (edited by Arwon on 03-07-06 10:15 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I mean it ain't systematised, intentional, or anything like that. They just say shit according to what's newsworthy. Or to put it another way, their primary bias is sensationalism and ratings and sponsorship. They're not there to peddle a political viewpoint, it's not in their interests, and with the exception of Murdoch they really don't.
If they didn't behold themselves to this false notion of journalistic objectivity, they'd probably actually do more analysis and contextualising. Which they don't, and news reportage is poorer for it. It's the lack of critical analysis and reference to the past and the extent to which they just present people's statements without question, that allows politicians to get away with so much. There's a reason the Daily Show is actually a more trustworthy news source than most of the other media, and it's because they actually approach the day's news with a critical mind. Your assignment now is to go watch BBC news services with frequency and report back on any differences in style or slant compared to the American media. (edited by Arwon on 03-07-06 11:24 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Right, first thing's first. This girl that almost fucking killed your sister, you need to either sever contact with her if you haven't already, or have a serious bloody talking to these people about what is and isn't cool. Drinking's fine, drinking's great, but being idiots about it is not cool. It actually sounds like your friends have gone a pretty different path to you and distancing is going to be inevitable. It happens. What are you, going on 17? Towards the end of High School? It happens, people grow apart. Wait til high school ends and then you'll see, THAT changes everything... I still have contact with only two of my friends from high school. One I live with, the other goes to the same university as me. Everyone else... well I was never close enough or similar enough to keep in contact with them.
As for John, don't beat yourself up over stuff that happened in the past. You two were young and stupid, that excuses a LOT. No frame of reference, no idea how things are meant to be, no way to tell if things are good or bad. It's very very difficult... what are we at 15? We're nothing, our personalities have barely formed, we have very little life experience, we don't understand ourselves let alone other people... how can we be expected to handle intense, real-seeming attraction at that age? Hell, even at twenty we're mostly the same way. Just look at the vast wreckage of intense but broken relationships most people end up with. This shit ain't easy. Maybe that's just a personal belief of mine, but what I'm saying is don't beat yourself up too much if this John thing is confusing and difficult, and don't fucking blame yourself for his issues. No-one could expect you to be responsible enough and have the forsight needed, at the age of a freshman. What you need to do though is talk with him and make clear how you feel, what you want, and how you think he will be happy with you, and feel better about himself (if that is indeed the case), yatta yatta yatta. He's bound to be a mess right now, be patient and such. And for fucks sake don't blame yourself. I hope it works out with him, because it certainly sounds like it's worth pursuing, and I'd wager going back to how things were before will be extremely difficult if not impossible... but I also hope you have a sense of perspective about this and realise that this relationship stuff is difficult for anyone. I really think that when the feelings are intense and deep, that makes things harder, not easier. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Oh bollocks. It's not necessarily "left" merely to criticise el presidente. That's kinda what the press is for. Do you remember the time Clinton was in power? Exactly the same situation, except now that there's a really shit president on the throne instead of a shiftless mediocre one, there's going to be even more criticism.
It's a massive stretch to claim "the left" is mainstream in the US at all... genuine left-wingers, genuine social democrats and labor party people, the sort that are pretty mainstream in Western Europe or Australia or New Zealand, would likely scare the crap out of many Americans with some of their views. Besides, how can you claim "the left" is the mainstream view when the republicans control everything in government? It's this sort of fucking cognitivite dissonance and persecution complex that shits me no-end... I STILL see people blaming the Democrats and left-wingers for all the problems in the govenrment and in America in general, despite the fact that the Republicans can now do whatever they want and can't be blocked. It's an absurd conspiracy theory and while a rhetorical device that helped them get power, it shouldn't still be effective now that they've got it. Yet somehow it is. Madness. (edited by Arwon on 03-08-06 05:36 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Or you could slap her and call her a fucking cocktease....
Warning: Not actual advice. The correct answer is talk to her, be all "hey, whats up here, we used to go out, and now you're acting all flirty and stuff towards me. Are you interested, because I am, and while I'd love it if you were still interested too, if you're not you should stop messing with my damn emotions like that. ...you fucking cocktease" There's no other possible answer here except TALK TO HER. It might be easier after a couple of drinks... not so much that you're both out of it, just enough that despite that fact that you both have all your free will, you can talk more openly and be kind of emotionally cushioned. Actually, alternatively, do the "a little bit drunk" thing, and instead of talking, just KISS HER BACK and see what happens. (edited by Arwon on 03-17-06 04:07 AM) |
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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Arwon |
