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So we use language to convey our ideas. Very cool tool.
But sometimes we misunderstand each other! Oh no!
Natural languages allow for lots of ambiguity, and the correct meaning is supposed to be inferred from the context. But sometimes it is not, and text-only language has the added hindrance of not having body language and intonation to help add context. So I see a lot of people misunderstanding each other, and getting angry when really there is no issue.
Take for example the thread in the General Forum labeled "Spain racist towards Chinese?" I'll ignore the misleading title for now.
Travis says "why is this a problem?"
Some interpret this question as saying "racism is OK." Cue flames.
Perhaps another interpretation is that Asians really do have slanted eyes, so Travis doesn't see why depicting them as having slanted eyes is a problem. (My preferred interpretation, as it agrees with my thoughts.)
Point is, lots of people spend lots of time arguing with a position that no one is holding. Spend the extra minute to make sure you understand what the guy's saying before you spend an hour arguing with him!
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Braavos36379 Posts
I disagree with your analysis of the situation. Travis asserts that we asians should not be offended by the slanty-eye gesture, which carries with it a great deal of history. While he's not saying racism is ok, he's certainly downplaying the history and context behind a gesture like that. It's trivializing something that has a great deal of meaning to a large group of people.
It has nothing to do with language or semantics and everything to do with the merits of what he's saying.
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Maybe I should have named the thread title "Wasted time on forums" or something similar. Then I could add stuff like "using fallacious arguments" and expand the topic. Heck, I'm going to do it anyways. (If someone could change the title to "BOTTLEABUSER HAS TOO MUCH TIME" or something else appropriate?)
The "racism" thread and others really irritate me because something like half of the posts are spent on ad hominem arguments and other fallacies, in addition to posts from misunderstandings.
If you're talking about, let's say, the morality of killing the passenger next to you on the bus, my intelligence is unimportant. My argument and reasoning are important. Don't tell me I'm stupid; it doesn't matter. I could be saying "If I wear a red shirt tomorrow, then you will win the lottery" and you might be thinking "what a retard," but don't say it - prove my argument wrong and maybe I'll actually shut up or agree.
If I'm good at basketball and I say that AMD > Intel, and say "everyone agrees because I'm good at basketball," that's a bad justification for the argument. Even if it happens to be true (ooooh! j/k, I'm unqualified to hold an opinion).
Cookies for people who recognize the fallacies and don't use them.
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i think white people would be offended if asians started smearing shit all over their bodies to smell bad. JUST LIKE WHITE PEOPLE DO. HARHAR jk.
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On August 13 2008 11:09 BottleAbuser wrote:
Maybe I should have named the thread title "Wasted time on forums" or something similar. Then I could add stuff like "using fallacious arguments" and expand the topic. Heck, I'm going to do it anyways. (If someone could change the title to "BOTTLEABUSER HAS TOO MUCH TIME" or something else appropriate?)
The "racism" thread and others really irritate me because something like half of the posts are spent on ad hominem arguments and other fallacies, in addition to posts from misunderstandings.
If you're talking about, let's say, the morality of killing the passenger next to you on the bus, my intelligence is unimportant. My argument and reasoning are important. Don't tell me I'm stupid; it doesn't matter. I could be saying "If I wear a red shirt tomorrow, then you will win the lottery" and you might be thinking "what a retard," but don't say it - prove my argument wrong and maybe I'll actually shut up or agree.
If I'm good at basketball and I say that AMD > Intel, and say "everyone agrees because I'm good at basketball," that's a bad justification for the argument. Even if it happens to be true (ooooh! j/k, I'm unqualified to hold an opinion).
Cookies for people who recognize the fallacies and don't use them.
what the hell is this post about?
that has nothing to do with what hb said
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2008 11:17 ramen247 wrote:
i think white people would be offended if asians started smearing shit all over their bodies to smell bad. JUST LIKE WHITE PEOPLE DO. HARHAR jk.
Didn't you see the dodgeball South Park episode? How can people seriously not find this funny.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/153634/?tag=Mongolian Missile Defense System
I think people are being extremely hypocritical in that thread.
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Arguments over the meaning of communication are political. Meaning is political. Most people ignore this. To me, the most dangerous sort of politics is that which is disguised as something other than political. So let there be arguments over meaning, and let the fact that this is political be recognized.
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Eh? I'm not going to participate in the derailing of my own thread. I'm talking about general reasons that people end up wasting a lot of their times on forums. We can argue about what Travis said in that thread in that thread.
Anyways, when I say "A and B lead to C" and you say "B and D lead to E" we're not contradicting each other, although because of the common element B we somehow end up arguing for hours to end up realizing that we were agreeing but using different words. Possible scenario. Happens actually. Which is why I say that we should take the time to make sure that what I think you're saying and what you think you're saying are the same.
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Inky! Not sure what you're saying 
Are you saying that the significance of communication is not necessarily to transfer ideas?
What exactly do you mean by "political?" Certainly how you interpret and how you convey information is based on a policy that we call language. Or does this have something to do with government that I'm not aware of?
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United States22883 Posts
My guess is he means through socialization, which is closely tied to politicization.
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I'm as lost as before. I would expect that all communication is done through a combination of (and only of)
1. words
2. context
If the context includes social concepts, sure. Political concepts? Okay.
But are you calling this whole idea of classifying communication as a combination of words and context a political thing? I dunno. Explanation pls :X
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On August 13 2008 10:50 BottleAbuser wrote:
Spend the extra minute to make sure you understand what the guy's saying before you spend an hour arguing with him!
I bet you stoled that from Sun Tsu (don't lie)?
+ Show Spoiler +brobably you made that up on your own, but every great saying has to be creddited to San Sun
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I am not sure I even know what I mean anymore 
That which is political is concerned with power, specifically the exercise and interaction of power. (I'm not at all referring to governmental or electoral politics, which are only a very small subset of what I'm talking about when I talk about politics).
My contention is that everything is political. But specifically, meaning is political. When we make a statement, we are arguing for an idea. "This thread is dumb" is a political statement, in that it implies we should view this thread in a certain way, and perhaps take some appropriate action (let the thread die.)
Arguments over meaning are intensely political. When I say something, I have a specific meaning in mind. I am trying to convince you that what I say has the same meaning that I intend it to have. This is political - an exercise of power.
Some people truly believe that what they say will have an undisputed meaning. The meaning is absolute. This is a kind of totalitarian politics at work. I would rather recognize that meaning is slippery and not absolute, and so recognize the political struggle at work in all communication, and celebrate it. I welcome brutal critique of language, because often it will reveal hidden politics. Consider the way people use "Man" to refer to humanity, for example. Or "he" to refer to gender unspecified.
So I welcome arguments over meaning. But I also think your complaint is valid; some people do purposely craft strawman arguments or use weasel words, and this is a dishonest form of argument/communication.
I'm just masturbating right now.
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United States22883 Posts
Please tell me that last part is just a semantic misunderstanding.
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Haha
And do I hear some kind of implied message that masturbation is bad?
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I think that if we clearly define terms, the "slipperyness" or ambiguity can be avoided outright.
Surely if we go all the way back on "how do we define these terms that you used to define those other terms?" we'll have to rely on similar experiences and whatnot. But it is possible to agree on the meanings of certain terms. Similar to how everyone agrees with certain mathematical postulates and everything else, the whole mathematical framework from addition to fourier transforms are provable and undisputed. No politics pertain.
We could express ideas in boolean logic for unambiguous and clear-cut statements. But that's time-consuming and unnecessary, as natural language is "good enough" for many of our purposes, and misunderstandings are usually inconsequential. But if you don't consider a couple of hours arguing against a nonexistent position inconsequential, it might be desirable to invest the time in clarifying.
In short: convention allows communication of ideas, which are not necessarily political in nature.
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United States22883 Posts
The implied message is that telling someone that you're masturbating while talking to them, thus devoting some portion of brain activity towards them while having an erect penis, is bad, unless they want you to.
I don't want you to, but maybe BottleAbuser is into it.
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I took that to mean "I am now mentally stimulating myself instead of being engaged in discourse with you," or "I don't think we're talking about the same thing any more." But you can take it to be in a sexual context, I guess. Not the intended meaning! I think. See how we waste time due to ambiguous terms?!
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It's trivializing something that has a great deal of meaning to a large group of people.
For the final goal of having greater tolerance and more mutual respect between spain and china, or between any two groups in general. There's a lot of history behind the gesture?
Great. So add this to history as one of the times it was used in a non hostile way instead of trying to assault those who are destigmatizing china to the west.
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Definitely another way to interpret the ad, L. And paints the people who ran it in a much better light.
I take this example, in addition to the previous ones, as evidence for the statement "your first interpretation is not the only possible one."
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All communication that I can fathom is symbolic. We don't speak the things we refer to - we refer to the things we are thinking of when we speak. So we say "cow" = (cow). We agree that this word means a specific thing. We agree 2 means two. But notice that politics aren't only in play where there is disagreement. We can have a consensus in politics.
The political nature of words really comes into play with so called "bad" words.
Also, people are always welcome to challenge the meaning of a word. Notice how outraged some people are with internet speak or text msg speak. Notice how outraged some people are with Ebonics. Some people speak of the English language being corrupted. Others say they are coopting the language to make up for past injustices, or whatever.
And yes, I meant this is all intellectual masturbation.
But even in my own statement about masturbation, there is the implication that masturbation is useless, as opposed to real sex, which is the prefered thing. But I would argue masturbation is not useless; it is life affirming and satisfying, and so I dislike when people (including myself) imply masturbation is something to be frowned upon, however lightly.
So I am masturbating, and I'm proud of it.
I'm thinking about you, Jibba. Sexy.
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Well, you can quibble about almost any meaning except for an insult. Insults go through the language barrier as if it never existed, which makes it, unfortunately, the only universal language we have. Inky's definitely correct to say that semantics is essentially a branch of politics, insofar as we define politics in a broad sense as the field of all interpersonal actions. Meaning is created more between people and less by people, but in the case of (potential) insults based on some group identity, any possible negotiation/conversation is already precluded and the meaning flows to the lowest possible level. A slur is past malice that kills the chance of present dialogue.
Which is just the long way of saying that since it's easier to offend than to be offended, the burden of avoiding offense rests more with the potential offender than with the potential offendee. You can call it political correctness, but really it's just not being a douche. People who whine about political correctness (and it can be very obnoxious at times, PC) should remember that it's still better than the blanket insensitivity it replaced.
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I reject the attachment of meanings to words or actions by the audience, that were not intended by the speaker.
As Inky said, words refer to meanings, but do not in themselves have intrinsic meanings. We use symbolic words to communicate. I don't see any inherent problem with this.
My argument is that communication is for the effective transfer of ideas. If communication is not for this purpose, we're no longer on the same page -.- (although I will concede that certain types of communication - often called performances - are for the purpose of entertainment).
Effective communication requires effort on the part of the audience as well as the speaker to avoid miscommunication. This includes reading the offending post a second time to make sure you didn't misinterpret it, and considering other possible interpretations, and requesting clarification if you're unsure.
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Ideally, dialogue could take place in a vacuum, without any reference to the past usage of words and their meanings. But meaning's formed over time and takes place in time. Words are historical, and gain their "spin" or connotation through the way in which they were "spun" in the past. This doesn't mean people should automatically get offended by certain words, but it certainly doesn't mean that people should speak as if every word were being spoken for the first time either. Certain slurs are so loaded and have sunk so low that a neutral usage is impossible. Granted, the Spanish know little about China and are known for being bigoted, but in today's world that excuse carries less and less weight.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2008 12:45 EvoChamber wrote:
Which is just the long way of saying that since it's easier to offend than to be offended, the burden of avoiding offense rests more with the potential offender than with the potential offendee. You can call it political correctness, but really it's just not being a douche. People who whine about political correctness (and it can be very obnoxious at times, PC) should remember that it's still better than the blanket insensitivity it replaced.
Whether it's better or not is completely relative imo. Being a passionate person, resistant to indifference, like that can be both good and bad, and whether it's more good is simply dependent on how it affects your life. The NYT article on trolling brings to light these issues. I wouldn't want to become entirely indifferent, but using the internet would constantly be painful if one takes a hardlined stance on what is and isn't offensive. If you reject the "offendee" stance, you can have a lot more fun with it and really that's why life should be about.
History should not be forgotten, but I don't think people should become defensive so quickly as they did in that thread when nothing about their actual character was criticized. If I call you a fucking idiot over the internet, your very first response should be to think "is this person actually qualified to classify me as a fucking idiot?" 99.999% of the time the answer will be no, and you should brush it off.
Inky, you better not break my heart. 
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Wow, we're talking about that image again? Keep it in that thread please. And note that languages typically depend on an agreement on the definitions of words. And insults in a certain language take advantage of the fact that you already agree on the meaning.
Body language is more "universal" in that everyone can converse in it, but not all the "words" have the same meaning. If you wave "hi" to someone in certain parts of the world, they take it as an insult - and in Korea, it's common to point at things with the middle finger instead of the index finger. Getting all pissy because you understand something to mean some way, and refuse to consider that that was not the intended meaning is a good way to end up wasting time (statistically, not for every case).
Oh oh, a perfect example (except that it's not real unfortunately) - in the novel Dune, on a desert planet, the newly arrived House Atreides are forming a very good relationship with the native Fremen. During these proceedings, the Fremen "chief" walks up to the Atreides leader and deliberately spits on the ground in front of him. Everyone is shocked until they realize that on Dune, "giving water" in this fashion is the highest honor one can give to another.
Jibba, I'm waiting with open arms if Inky leaves you hanging.
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United States22883 Posts
Body language is hardly universal. The way people converse with their arms in the Middle East would offend most people in the US.
It's simply a matter of accepting some degree of cultural relativity when interacting with people. I don't think it can be solved any other way.
EDIT: Unless we all accept the universal greeting. Bah Weep Granah Weep Ninni Bong
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somehow I knew what this OP would reference, lol
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Okay, so lumping it all under "body language" is erroneous. I was thinking that it's okay because everyone can see and interpret body language and perform body language, but then again everyone has vocal cords and ears too - it's the convention that's important.
The universal greeting is "빵상" Jibba you got it wrong.
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EPT
