India Arie shares videos of Joe Rogan using N-word

[Jacob]

Yeah... I mean, we're all here because it's a habit or because we've got nothing better to do. So the instinct is to reply if it's a topic that's of interest.

On the other hand, we've also all been here long enough that we have some ideas about the patterns and how they're likely to play out. So sometimes, maybe, you post something and then realize "right, this isn't going to go anywhere I'd like to go, I'm out."

And DGuller - I like you and respect you as a poster. I particularly appreciate your sense of humour, and am happy to talk with you on a number of topics. When it comes to anything relating to "wokeness" I'm pretty confident that were we to sit down together in person and talk, we could find things to agree on and things to disagree on in a mutually respectful and stimulating fashion. I think some of your points have merit - even the ones where I find I'm typically typecast as disagreeing with you on this forum - but have found it impossible to have what I consider a useful or interesting discussion on the topic. So I try to avoid it here - not just with you, come to think of it - though I'm happy to discuss any number of other topics with you.

I promise you, cross my heart, that it's not because I secretly think you're completely correct and that I actually know I'm full of shit. And while I can't speak for Zoupa (including the potential for him to find agreement with you where I might), I'm pretty confident that his lack of desire to get into it with you on the topic is also not driven by a secret knowledge that you're actually right and he is wrong.

[DGuller]

Okay, I appreciate the frankness.  What can I or people sharing my personality flaws do differently to enable useful conversations to take place?

[Berkut]

Zoupa asked an extremely specific question. He asked the question, and invited response.

He got very specific answers, and they were given in a reasonable manner.

He then got nasty and stormed away.

No, I think we all are quite aware that the idea that he might be wrong never once even remotely crossed Zoupa's mind.

But I don't think there is any doubt that he thought he had laid out a crushing point, and then realized that he actually completely missed his rhetorical mark caused him to retreat flouncing away and lobbing out an implication that it is everyone else who is unwilling to engage honestly on the way out the door.

He could have

1. Responded with the same good faith others were responding in, acknowledged that his questions perhaps was not what he intended it to be, and started to engage in the rather more nuanced (and IMO a hell of a lot more interesting) discussion about what context actually matters, or
2. He could have decided that he had made a tactical error in the argument, said "Well, ok - that's not really the point though, what about....?" and again, engaged in a point not directly related to the point THAT HE BROUGHT UP AND INVITED RESPONSE TO, or
3. He could have simple bailed on the conversation without the passive aggressive accusation that it is the "others" who are being unreasonable.

All of those would have been reasonable, rational, and adult ways to respond to that interaction. Storming out with a passing personal attack and then following it up with drive by attacks on posters who are involved in a discussions motives is bullshit.

And you defending it as some kind of high minded "oh, perhaps he is just above it all" is kind of bullshit as well. Sure, maybe he IS above it all - but his behavior around this topic certainly does not suggest it.

[Admiral Yi]

I copied your model.  But sure.  "Even if the vaccines were unsafe, they wouldn't let people know because of the panic."  "Even if Jeffrey Epstein was murdered, they've already covered up the evidence."

Your fine examples made me think long and hard, which is a good thing.

I disagree that those examples are suggesting the if clause is true.  What they are doing, IMO, is saying the absence of condition A (letting people know, proof of Epstein's murder) is insufficient evidence of falsity of condition B (vaccines unsafe, Epstein murdered).  We can not know the truth or untruth of the if clause solely on the basis of the assertion.

Is that the same as suggesting it's true?  I don't think so, but I can sort of see why others would think differently.

[DGuller]

I copied your model.  But sure.  "Even if the vaccines were unsafe, they wouldn't let people know because of the panic."  "Even if Jeffrey Epstein was murdered, they've already covered up the evidence."

Your fine examples made me think long and hard, which is a good thing.

I disagree that those examples are suggesting the if clause is true.  What they are doing, IMO, is saying the absence of condition A (letting people know, proof of Epstein's murder) is insufficient evidence of falsity of condition B (vaccines unsafe, Epstein murdered).  We can not know the truth or untruth of the if clause solely on the basis of the assertion.

Is that the same as suggesting it's true?  I don't think so, but I can sort of see why others would think differently.

IMO, I think the issue here is not one of pure logic, but rather relevance.  In human conversation, we generally don't mention irrelevant things.  The rules of logic say that making an if-else statement makes no claims about the truthfulness of the if clause.  The unspoken rules of human communication do lead one to the conclusion that the if clause could at last possibly be true, as otherwise the statement would be completely irrelevant and communicating nothing at all.

[Zoupa]

And he's not saying you have. What I think he means is that we all pick and choose what and who to engage with. Some posts from some posters are not worth your time and effort.

Yes, we all pick and choose who we engage with, but the problem is when you choose people based on what they're saying rather than how they're saying it. 

I'm going to name names here instead of speaking obliquely:  it's very hard to find the legitimate "how" in people's response to you on the first page that made you "give up".  It sure looked a lot like the very thought that some people might think differently from you made you give up. 

It's not like it came as a surprise to you that you were going to debate me, I was the one you quoted when you asked the question.  If you quit because you knew that you wouldn't enjoy debating with me based on past experience, then why ask me a question in the first place?

If she is trying to to appeal to other people's judgment, though, then she should consider other people's ideas of what is and isn't reasonable.  I hope that enough of other people still consider context important.

In which context is using the full word instead of the abbreviation appropriate, in the time period 2010-2022?

So this was the original interaction. We were talking about Joe Rogan using the non-abbreviated n-word multiple times. I specified the time period of 2010-2022, since that is when his podcast came on the air.

I guess I should have written "In which context FOR JOE ROGAN THE PODCASTER is using the full word instead of the abbreviation appropriate, in the time period 2010-2022?", because some super insightful posts followed like "but what about Pulp Fiction, see context matters!!!!".

It was at this point that I realized I had better things to do, and wished good luck to garbon if he chose to continue to engage in this typical Lansguish goalposts/semantic BS. You'll notice he also ducked out of the thread.

All that to say to it wasn't your post or responses personally that made me go "meh". It's that I'd rather finish my campaign in Age of Wonders Planetfall while dicking around at work than engage in a roundabout discussion on Languish.

[DGuller]

I guess I should have written "In which context FOR JOE ROGAN THE PODCASTER is using the full word instead of the abbreviation appropriate, in the time period 2010-2022?", because some super insightful posts followed like "but what about Pulp Fiction, see context matters!!!!".

FWIW, I really did think that you were asking a general question.  I don't know if the context was clear enough, but regardless at that moment it was not clear to me, as evidently I didn't answer the question you were intending to ask.  All my posts in that thread were general in natural, I don't even know who Joe Rogan is, so when you quoted me, I assumed you were making a general point.

[Admiral Yi]

IMO, I think the issue here is not one of pure logic, but rather relevance.  In human conversation, we generally don't mention irrelevant things.  The rules of logic say that making an if-else statement makes no claims about the truthfulness of the if clause.  The unspoken rules of human communication do lead one to the conclusion that the if clause could at last possibly be true, as otherwise the statement would be completely irrelevant and communicating nothing at all.

I disagree.  The professor was saying under no conditions would we find rape acceptable.  He's demonstrating the absoluteness of the prohibition.

[Berkut]

I thought the entire discussion was about context.

And yes, context does in fact matter, and if Zoupa thinks people answering the question he asked rather then the question he wishes he had asked is "moving the goalposts/semantic BS" I would suggest that demanding that people answer the question he is asking a couple days later after the responses is a much better example of "moving the goalposts/semantic BS". In fact, I think that is in fact the EXACT definition of moving the goalposts.

Context does in fact matter. It matters for Joe Rogan, and it matters for exactly the reasons many people pointed out how context does in fact matter before Zoupa tantrumed out to play some Age of Wonders in a rage.

What I find fascinating is that through all of this, Zoupa has not even bothered to find out what the actual context is that is apparently so damning to poor Joe.

(For the record, I think Rogan is basically an asshole as a podcaster. I don't know if he is a racist, but I don't think I learned much about that from the clip provided of him saying the word some number of times)

[DGuller]

IMO, I think the issue here is not one of pure logic, but rather relevance.  In human conversation, we generally don't mention irrelevant things.  The rules of logic say that making an if-else statement makes no claims about the truthfulness of the if clause.  The unspoken rules of human communication do lead one to the conclusion that the if clause could at last possibly be true, as otherwise the statement would be completely irrelevant and communicating nothing at all.

I disagree.  The professor was saying under no conditions would we find rape acceptable.  He's demonstrating the absoluteness of the prohibition.

I think the problematic part was the "even if she enjoyed it".  That implies, not by logic but by assumption of relevance, that there are women who don't enjoy being raped and women who do enjoy being raped.  Good for him that he stressed that both cases are equally unacceptable, but I think the problematic part was implying that there are women who enjoy being raped.

[Admiral Yi]

the problematic part was implying that there are women who enjoy being raped.

This is what we're debating.

[Jacob]

Okay, I appreciate the frankness.  What can I or people sharing my personality flaws do differently to enable useful conversations to take place?

And I appreciate the frank question. Honestly, I don't think it's particularly your personality flaws, but a combination of the medium, the volatility of the topic, the stress of our times and so on.

The things I'd suggest are all the things we perceive or accuse each other of not doing when get into a tiff, not something that's inherent in you, I don't think. Like, I'm pretty sure that whatever I might put down, someone on this forum who thinks I'm full of shit will think (or say) "yes Jacob, so why don't you start doing that instead of being disingenuous?"

I mean, it all comes down to arguing in good faith. Things like acknowledging that disagreement may be based on different experiences, analysis frameworks, or priorities that are nonetheless legitimate; reading in good faith; forgiving slips rather than escalating; looking for points of agreement; avoiding conflating someone's position in a discussion with the stereotypes allegedly held by people "on that side"; not putting words in people's mouths; not overinterpreting small statements in an excessively negative light and so on.

... I think they're things we all feel we're doing a pretty decent job of ourselves (and forgive when we slip, because we're only human), while at the same time we get incredibly frustrated when the person who's pissing us off is so obviously not doing that.

But at this point we have 20 years of these patterns, so I don't know how easy it'll be to break them. I mean, I know that my style and sense of humour has put me in a spot where at least some folks assume I'm being disingenuous when I'm being earnest. And even if we do put it aside, all it'll take is for some other jackass to come in with something to rile one of us up and we'll easily get derailed. There's a lot of history here and it carries weight.

Getting pissed off and hammering something out denouncing someone for being an idiot can be pretty satisfying (or the alternative - disdainfully dismantling them with a wall of cold impeccable logic), and it's typically easier than engaging in detail with emotional openness on topic we feel strongly about. In fact, you could probably argue that languish was built on the foundation of us all enjoying the first two, and now that some of us are getting a bit tired of it it's either figure out a way to communicate in a different way or just engage less.

All that said - if there's one thing I'd ask for it's to dial down the speculation on other people's motivations for posting what they post. It never goes anywhere constructive.

If you want, though, next time some "woke" topic comes up I'm willing to give it a go (subject to time and subject matter interest) to have a discussion with you and see if we can make it worthwhile.

[DGuller]

the problematic part was implying that there are women who enjoy being raped.

This is what we're debating.

Okay, then can you clarify what it was that you were disagreeing with in your prior post?  That's what I thought I was debating all along.  I was making a point that implication didn't stem from pure laws of logic, but rather the assumption that we don't add irrelevant bits to what we say.  The "even if" statement where the clause can't be true would be irrelevant.

[DGuller]

If you want, though, next time some "woke" topic comes up I'm willing to give it a go (subject to time and subject matter interest) to have a discussion with you and see if we can make it worthwhile.

Yes, let's give this a go. 

[Valmy]

Alternately, they may simple not care that much having the detailed discussion on languish because they have other venues for debate they consider more interesting, fruitful, or otherwise worthwhile.

Generally I find most venues of debate are incredibly echo room-y and/or toxic these days. I kind of think it is me, I have just been at it for so long I no longer have the desire to do it I think.