Cirion Spellbinder wrote:I apologize. My position was one of ignorance, as I now realize the only news outlet I pay attention to is the BBC, a liberal media outlet. Which major news outlets are conservative, liberal, or something else?
Oh, I don't watch the BBC at all.
I was referring to American news stations. The BBC is a UK news source, right?
Anyway, I consider them all conservative in the sense that they are very pro-corporatism.
Because of our campaign finance system, billionaires and corporations 'donate' tons of money to politicians, and those politicians use that money to fund their campaigns. They use it for advertisements such as TV adds, which air on channels like CNN. Since the channels benefit financially from all that corporate money, they have a vested interested in being pro that type of corruption.
And they show it when they consistently attack Bernie Sanders for being a 'socialist', call him a fringe candidate, and declare Hillary Clinton (the candidate that also benefits from that corporate money, unlike Sanders who refuses to take that money because he doesn't want to be bound to corporate influence) the winner of debates in which the public overwhelmingly considers Sanders the winner.
The CEO of CBS even acknowledged it:
CEO of CBS wrote:Super-PACs may be bad for America, but they're very good for CBS.
They also care more about being neutral than objective, evidenced by that they let republicans lie all of the time (and Hillary Clinton about money in politics) in their debates and don't call them out on it (and not just about economic issues), while simultaneously misrepresenting Bernie Sanders.
And like I said, they won't call Donald Trump a racist (even though he clearly is).
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Then how do we know when they are accepted? When a majority of people accept something and a trend of increased acceptance has been established, acceptance will most likely grow exponentially. It seems like the bar could be infinitely raised since perfection is practically impossible.
Something being likely to happen doesn't mean that it's as good as having already happened.
I'm not sure what the exact number is that determines whether or not a group is accepted, but it's unreasonable to say that as soon as 51% of the country agrees with something that it is accepted in society.
Maybe a good metric to determine this is, for one thing, when one of the two major political parties isn't advocating for the removal of rights from a group.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:This definition seems too broad to be useful. By this definition (and in the context of American society) homosexuals and blacks are discriminated against, but so is every demographic in existence. Nazis and other White-Power halfwits are probably face more discrimination than blacks and homosexuals.
I disagree. Systematic discrimination is referring to discrimination by an organization, in this case the government, and Neo-Nazis etc. are not discriminated against for their ideas by the government. If they break the law because of their hateful ideologies, then that's different, but it's not discrimination to bring them to justice for that.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:I understand that White Power groups are going to discriminate, but this is by no means representative of the American population. Minorities like this will always exist. A small minority of people who think that black people are primal savages or whatever is clearly not representative of the American population.
That's not a white power group. It's systematic racism over a long period of the time by the police.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Same issue as above. These shootings represent a small minority of idiots.
They don't, seeing as black people are targeted disproportionately by the police, and the police leaders justify it and rarely get punished.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Does this justify it as a reasonable response?
Well, no. But do you consider them all just 'easily offended'?
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:
What if the word is not being used to denigrate them?
It's a reasonable assumption that it is when that's how it's been used historically, and when it's so often still used that way.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Out of curiosity, is black people using the n-word also not politically correct?
Black people who use it probably aren't being racist towards themselves.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Correct. This however, does not justify being offended.
Well, if it's not a stretch, then yeah, it does mean that.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Bullying has a very subjective definition. Besides simply stating that its better to be polite to others, teaching humans how to rationally respond to aggressive behaviors seems to be a far more useful tactic than shaming trivial offenses.
What?
I don't know what you mean by a 'subjective definition'. Bullying is intentionally harming another person. I've never heard anyone disagree with that.
If you mean that what specific actions are bullying or not can sometimes be difficult to pin-point, that's not really relevant. See this excerpt from The Moral Landscape:
Sam Harris wrote:I am not suggesting that we are guaranteed to resolve every moral controversy through science. Differences of opinion will remain—but opinions will be increasingly constrained by facts. And it is important to realize that our inability to answer a question says nothing about whether the question itself has an answer. Exactly how many people were bitten by mosquitoes in the last sixty seconds? How many of these people will contract malaria? How many will die as a result? Given the technical challenges involved, no team of scientists could possibly respond to such questions. And yet we know that they admit of simple numerical answers. Does our inability to gather the relevant data oblige us to respect all opinions equally? Of course not. In the same way, the fact that we may not be able to resolve specific moral dilemmas does not suggest that all competing responses to them are equally valid. In my experience, mistaking no answers in practice for no answers in principle is a great source of moral confusion.
We might not know if a specific action constitutes as bullying, but that does not invalidate that bullying is harmful, and that the harm it does is often verbal and over time.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:How do you know this?
Take the Internet, for example. The Internet is largely atheistic and anti-bullshit, because it has free speech and discussions.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Ideas, no matter the merit, should be able to be exchanged amongst individuals as it is practically impossible to enforce without causing more harm than what is being solved, but (larger) groups should be subject to censorship, where they can be practically enforced and spread much faster.
For an idea to be banned it must exhibit both of the following two traits:
- The idea is able to be objectively identified
- The idea has been identified to cause significant amounts of moral harm through rigorous study
How would you enforce this? I just don't see how it could work in practice without being a slippery slope.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Many different isolated groups of scientists and philosophers.
Hahaha, imagine the republicans.
They already criticize Obama as a 'philosopher-king' and deny the reality of climate change.
And I don't think that philosophy should be given that kind of power currently, given that Ayn Rand is still considered a philosopher. It seems that, if enough people believe something, it can be considered a philosophy. That's not a good metric for destroying free speech.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:As stated previously on the speech of (larger) groups would be censored. You could go out with your two friends and talk about how vaccines cause autism, but you couldn't hold a rally with hundreds of people to encourage people to stop vaccinating.
So you couldn't even engage in peaceful protest?
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:I don't understand what you're asking. Sorry.
I was asking what specific topics you were saying liberals go too far on.
