🔥 Roman Lives Matter! Won't somebody think of poor Guido?


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @PJH said:

    Oxford University’s statue of Cecil Rhodes is to stay in place after furious donors threatened to withdraw gifts and bequests worth more than £100 ($144) million if it was taken down, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

    The governing body of Oriel College, which owns the statue, has ruled out its removal after being warned that £1.5m ($2.15m) worth of donations have already been cancelled, and that it faces dire financial consequences if it bows to the Rhodes Must Fall student campaign.

    Damn right. Use that white privilege for a good cause.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dcon said:

    Oh wait, that puts the count to 55...

    Hm. 5 sets of a row of 6 stars and a row of 5 would work. You'd just put one more row on the bottom. Might look a little scrunched if you weren't careful.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Polygeekery said:

    FFS, yoga is now off limits,

    No, it's back, but with an Indian teacher now, everyone involved being apparently unaware of modern yoga's roots not actually being Indian.



  • @FrostCat said:

    @dcon said:
    Oh wait, that puts the count to 55...

    Hm. 5 sets of a row of 6 stars and a row of 5 would work. You'd just put one more row on the bottom. Might look a little scrunched if you weren't careful.

    Oh, I thought we were going for 'maintain 50 so no mods needed'. Since 49 works nicely as a 7x7...


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    That was my initial thought, but then I decided to run the numbers on the flag.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Usually it's "jumping to conclusions". I still remember that "noose" that one university found which was actually a discarded extension cord some prankster threw into a tree.

    When I was a freshman, the university put me in the dorm closest to the Jewish student center, and not surprisingly, there were a lot of Jewish people in said dorm*. One night, someone wrote "The Jews killed Jesus" on one of the walls, and we were all then required to attend a meeting about sensitivity or something**.

    *My roommate called the building "Israel Hall."
    **This was like 15 years ago, so memory's hazy.



  • @Groaner said:

    The Jews killed Jesus

    That's true if you subscribe to the theory that blood loss is suicide.


    The Nazis killed Hitler


  • BINNED

    @Polygeekery said:

    I can't keep all of these fucking acronyms and initialisms straight. Can't we all just lump them under "self-righteous fucking assholes" and he done with it.

    FTFY



  • @xaade said:

    minority students

    @xaade said:

    white students

    The scary thing is, here in South Africa (where this whole Rhodes must fall campaign started), those are one and the same. It is a bit of a concern when there are rules to protect the majority.



  • @aliceif said:

    Would be nice if people here wouldn't lump gender-focusing SJWs together with race-focusing SJWs.

    The latter are much more toxic.

    That's just a stereotype you bigot 😱



  • But [url=http://www.theonion.com/article/governor-demands-know-which-star-american-flag-iow-52191]which star is Iowa[/url]?



  • Why is nothing an appropriation of white culture?

    Oh, that's because we don't have white culture, there's no such thing, whites don't identify as a race, they identify by their local culture, the things they like, the food they cook.

    There's Cajun culture, Creole culture, Chicago Culture, Brooklyn Culture, New York culture. French-Canadian culture. NFL culture. All completely different.

    I don't remember the last time I waltzed into a country club with my Cuban cigar and double whatever suit.



  • @xaade said:

    whites don't identify as a race, they identify by their local culture, the things they like, the food they cook.

    There's Cajun culture, Creole culture, Chicago Culture, Brooklyn Culture, New York culture. French-Canadian culture. NFL culture. All completely different.

    Yeah, that's how a culture usually looks like from the inside.



  • @ixvedeusi said:

    Yeah, that's how a culture usually looks like from the inside.

    ???

    Are you implying that sharing a liked thing becomes nefarious from the outside?


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @blakeyrat said:

    Or we could just sell Michigan to Canada. $12.99. Cash-in-hand.

    Just sell the UP. Nobody cares about them.



  • @xaade said:

    Are you implying that sharing a liked thing becomes nefarious from the outside?

    That was meant as an answer to your question: Why is nothing an appropriation of white culture?

    I'd say that there is just as much a "white" culture as there is a "black" or an "asian" culture or whatever people are claiming is being appropriated. It's just that the whole "debate" is held from the point of view of the "white culture", so it's the norm, the "neutral point". We don't see what we're used to, only what differs from the "zero state".



  • Then why do black people claim there is black culture.

    (Which I disagree with. Black people behave differently based on location, likes, dislikes, heritage, and all those other things that make culture).

    There certainly is a lot of culture which blacks are probably majority members, though.



  • @antiquarian said:

    @Polygeekery said:
    I can't keep all of these fucking acronyms and initialisms straight. Can't we all just lump them under "self-righteous fucking assholes" and he done with it.

    FTFY

    And we can shorten it to SRFAs.



  • @xaade said:

    There certainly is a lot of culture which blacks are probably majority members, though.

    Same goes for "whites", and I'd say there clearly is a "western" culture, with which "white" is usually equated. The difference is that this "white" culture doesn't feel threatened, it's so ubiquitous that we don't even notice it's there, and we take it for granted.


  • BINNED

    @xaade said:

    Black people behave differently based on location, likes, dislikes, heritage, and all those other things that make culture

    True, and those of us who declined to participate in what is normally called "black culture" have historically been called rude names by the others. Oreo and Uncle Tom are the ones I remember; there may be others these days (:belt_onion:).


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Cultural disappropriation?


  • BINNED

    @boomzilla said:

    Cultural disappropriation?

    Possibly. It hasn't been an issue for me in a while. I think everyone has pretty much stopped caring what I do, which is fine by me.



  • @antiquarian said:

    historically been called rude names by the others

    Fuck those guys.

    @antiquarian said:

    Oreo

    Last I checked we all bleed red.

    @antiquarian said:

    Uncle Tom

    It's almost as if being successful is what's offending them.

    It's the behavior you see when someone scores a 100% on a test, and everyone bitches at them for ruining the curve.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @xaade said:

    It's almost as if being successful is what's offending them.

    From the outside it certainly seems that way. How else do you interpret "studying in school is 'being white'"? What's "being black" then[1], stupid? I mean, I don't know how else to interpret that.

    [1] INB4 someone tries to accuse me of holding this view.



  • As someone who lives in Michigan, I'm quite certain the UP would be more than happy to go.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @xaade said:

    Then why do black people claim there is black culture.

    Because they're all uneducated simpletons who don't understand the meaning of words. But that's okay, because they can't help but be inferior. We allow them to continue to use the word 'culture' though, because at least it keeps them concentrated together in their gang-cities and away from us proper folk.

    🔥🚎🔥



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    But that's okay, because they can't help but be inferior.

    Liberal mindset can be found within trolling.

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    We allow them to continue to use the word 'culture' though

    Hip hop is a culture.
    Creole is a culture.
    Black Southern Gospel is a culture.

    I don't see how two people share a culture because of race, when neither one behaves or participates in the same activities, interests, rituals, holidays, as the other. And if there is any overlap, that overlap can also exist in another person of another race.

    Therefore, race isn't a culture, no more than blonde hair or broad shoulders is a culture.



  • I've just figured out what bothers me so much about the term "cultural appropriation."

    Historically, culture was 100% about appropriation. You like an idea? Take it and make it your own. You like my music or the style of my art? Take it and make it your own. You like the way my home is built? Take the design and improve on it and make it yours. You like the taste of my food? Here's the recipe. That's just how people work. Good ideas naturally propagate. Everything we have -- everything -- was in some way appropriated from someone else. The secret is that we're not standing on the shoulders of giants. We're at the end of a very, very long chain of improvement with everybody copying what they like from everybody else and adding a little bit more at the end.

    It used to be that communication and sharing of ideas was one of the biggest and most powerful forces for change. You look at history, and you'll find dozens of instances where completely new ideologies and sciences were born from a single letter sent to the right person at the right time.

    Now there are culture police. They like to say, "No, you can't do that because you're not from that culture. You can like those clothes or that music. You don't get to eat that food." Trying to keep people in their little boxes. Keep people inside the lines drawn on the map. Stop people from growing. Stop people from changing. Stop people from learning. Keep people categorized in neat little rows. Saying that it makes others less to copy what they do. That it takes something away from them. That it's disrespectful to do what they do, or that you're not good enough to have that idea.

    No it isn't! Don't you get it? They have an idea that's so good that it's catching on to people who don't even know all the history and back story. That idea is so good that people gotta have it. That idea born of that foreign culture is invading ours and taking root. It's a meme of the original sense of the term. It's viral and invasive in such a way that's going to change our culture. Cries of "cultural appropriation" is just telling people they can't learn new ideas! Healthy culture demands new ideas! That's how culture advances. You're not helping anybody by standing in it's path. You're just throwing up walls that people will ignore, and damning yourself to obscurity while the rest of the world changes around you.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @BaconBits said:

    I've just figured out what bothers me so much about the term "cultural appropriation."

    Historically, culture was 100% about appropriation.

    You just figured it out? Goddamn you're slow. What are you, Polish or something? 🚎


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @BaconBits said:

    I've just figured out what bothers me so much about the term "cultural appropriation."

    People are running out of legitimate problems, apparently. It's one of the last places where we can really innovate!


  • BINNED

    @BaconBits said:

    Everything we have -- everything -- was in some way appropriated from someone else. The secret is that we're not standing on the shoulders of giants. We're at the end of a very, very long chain of improvement with everybody copying what they like from everybody else and adding a little bit more at the end.

    Actually, that's what they mean by "standing on the shoulders of giants". Beethoven, for example, was great, but would he have been nearly as great without Haydn?



  • Oh Puleeeeeease

    Culture is another word for mob rule anyway

    @PJH said:

    Murderous colonists and slaveholders

    Sure, if a white man does it, he's an evil imperialist.

    What if it was Moors or Ottomans? Glorious history and rich culture then?

    .



  • @ben_lubar said:

    The Jews killed Jesus

    That's true if you subscribe to the theory that blood loss is suicide.

    The Nazis killed Hitler

    Incidentally,
    Amin al-Husseini: Islamic scholar who met Mussolini and Hitler



  • @antiquarian said:

    Beethoven, for example, was great, but would he have been nearly as great without Haydn?

    I think probably yes, although his greatness might have expressed itself differently. He might not have innovated so much in the symphonic form, focusing perhaps in, say, piano sonatas, instead. (It did anyway, of course; he's best known for his nine symphonies, but he left over 100 works in other forms.) Or perhaps he would have been the one who more-or-less invented the symphony as we know it, rather than Haydn. One can't really say how he would have been great without his predecessors, but some people will be conspicuously great regardless of the height of the base upon which they are building.

    However, I think this kind of misses the point. I think @BaconBits is trying to say that sometimes we stand not on the shoulders of a Haydn (who was himself a giant of significant stature), but on a lot of midgets, none of whom individually contribute anything of particular significance, but who collectively provide a contribution rivaling or exceeding that of the Colossus of Rhodes. And most of us will never be more than another midget in the tower of midgets, but we strive to contribute our own marginal improvement to the collective good.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    And most of us will never be more than another midget in the tower of midgets

    Hey now, don't sell yourself short.



  • Once again, you live up to your name.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Ascendant said:

    Ottomans

    They were wiped out by the Chesterfields.

    Also: avatar = 👍


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ixvedeusi said:

    I'd say there clearly is a "western" culture, with which "white" is usually equated.

    Well, you'd be wrong.

    There are many different overlapping western cultures. Telecommunications draws them closer, but they're not the same. This is, of course, perfectly fine. The flip side is that if you say “black culture” you're also either being plain wrong or ridiculously parochial; the culture of the ghettos of urban LA is not the culture of the shanty towns of Haiti nor are either of those anything like the cities of Nigeria, and while you might be able to find aspects that are similar, that's because you're filtering for what you want to see. Culture is complicated.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dkf said:

    the culture of the ghettos of urban LA is not the culture of the shanty towns of HaitiEast Coast hip hop

    TTFY


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    I could have gone with the blasted wasteland of Detroit, but as that involves the state of Michigan, that would probably trigger @Lorne_Kates once again.


  • BINNED

    @HardwareGeek said:

    100 works in other forms

    Most of those use the same sonata form as his symphonies and piano sonatas.

    @HardwareGeek said:

    sometimes we stand not on the shoulders of a Haydn (who was himself a giant of significant stature), but on a lot of midgets, none of whom individually contribute anything of particular significance, but who collectively provide a contribution rivaling or exceeding that of the Colossus of Rhodes

    I still don't agree. To contribute to something that's already pretty good, you have to be pretty good yourself. So I think it would be more accurate to say standing on the shoulders of professional basketball players.

    @dkf said:

    that would probably trigger @Lorne_Kates once again.

    He's already busy being triggered on the minimum wage 🔥 thread.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @antiquarian said:

    @dkf said:
    that would probably trigger @Lorne_Kates once again.

    He's already busy being triggered on the minimum wage 🔥 thread.

    Um, actually, I can multitask.

    I'm only on a one-track mind when I'm murdering trans hookers. But that's because you have to pay attention to not leave evidence behind.



  • @antiquarian said:

    To contribute to something that's already pretty good, you have to be pretty good yourself.

    Pretty good, maybe, but certainly not a giant. Consider a couple of examples:

    Everybody knows Edison invented the incandescent electric light — the first practical one, at least. Nobody would deny he is a giant. Who thought of replacing the carbon filament with one made of tungsten, which lasts much longer? Who thought of filling the bulb with inert gas instead of vacuum? Who thought of adding a little halogen to the bulb to make the tungsten filaments last longer? All of these men stood on the shoulders of the giant, Edison, and all of them made enormous contributions to the incandescent lamp as we know it today; they undoubtedly were pretty good, but certainly not giants, maybe not even basketball players, and they are virtually unknown today. (Wikipedia doesn't even give the name of the inventor for the halogen bulb, nor does the source they link to. One must search for the patent by number, and even then the inventor's name is slightly mangled by unedited OCR.)

    Or another musical example, whoever "invented" the power chord that is ubiquitous in rock music. It's not even a real chord; it's just an interval of a perfect fifth, one of the most fundamental intervals in all of musical harmony. It's been known at least since the time of Pythagoras, probably long before that. It didn't take a genius to "invent" it. Somebody just thought it sounded interesting as a change from the usual major chord when played loudly on an electric guitar, called it a "power chord," and changed rock music in a small but significant way, becoming one of the many people who have gradually changed rock from the '50s into the big tree of genres and sub-genres of the 21st century..


  • BINNED

    I'm pretty sure we're either talking past each other or violently agreeing at this point, so I'm going to one of the other 🔥 threads.



  • @antiquarian said:

    we're either talking past each other or violently agreeing at this point

    Why not both?

    I'm just saying you don't have to be even a "basketball player" to make a contribution. Going back to cultural appropriation, where this started, you don't have to be "pretty good" to tell your friend, "Hey, I found this great $obscure_ethnicity restaurant. I really like their food. You should try it." Your friend likes it and tells his friends. Before you know it, $obscure_ethnicity culture has been appropriated. Not because you or your friends did anything "pretty good;" something as simple as a casual conversation with your friend contributes in a small way to the culture.


  • BINNED

    @HardwareGeek said:

    I'm just saying you don't have to be even a "basketball player" to make a contribution.

    And I'm saying the contributions are not insignificant.



  • @antiquarian said:

    I'm saying the contributions are not insignificant.

    That's not what you seemed to be saying earlier.

    @antiquarian said:

    To contribute to something that's already pretty good, you have to be pretty good yourself.

    I'm saying you don't have to be "pretty good" to contribute; even slightly good people can make small but cumulatively significant contributions. Maybe we really are in agreement and talking past each other, but I'm not seeing the agreement, yet.


  • BINNED

    @HardwareGeek said:

    Going back to cultural appropriation, where this started, you don't have to be "pretty good" to tell your friend, "Hey, I found this great $obscure_ethnicity restaurant. I really like their food. You should try it." Your friend likes it and tells his friends. Before you know it, $obscure_ethnicity culture has been appropriated. Not because you or your friends did anything "pretty good;" something as simple as a casual conversation with your friend contributes in a small way to the culture.

    This also highlights the idiocy of SJWs trying to stop appropriation: it's basically a natural process and can improve things in some cases.



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    However, I think this kind of misses the point. I think @BaconBits is trying to say that sometimes we stand not on the shoulders of a Haydn (who was himself a giant of significant stature), but on a lot of midgets, none of whom individually contribute anything of particular significance, but who collectively provide a contribution rivaling or exceeding that of the Colossus of Rhodes.

    Well, that's the point. Hayden himself was only a giant because he stood on the shoulders of giants, too. And those giants were just ordinary folks standing on the shoulders of other giants, slightly smaller giants, and so on, until you realize that it's turtles all the way down. It's exactly the same thing as what you said, when it comes down to it.



  • @anotherusername said:

    Hayden himself was only a giant because he stood on the shoulders of giants, too.

    I disagree. Some people — Haydn, Beethoven, Newton, Einstein, Shakespeare, Edison — were giants of such stature that they would have advanced the state of the art even without their predecessors. They would not have risen to as great a height as they did, of course, without the base on which they built, but they would have built as much, or more, above whatever base they started from.

    @anotherusername said:

    it's turtles all the way down
    Ok, but some of the turtles are big and some are small. The really big turtles would be really big, regardless of how many big or small turtles they're standing on, and even the tiny turtles contribute to the total height of the stack.


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