Classic Conversation Thread

[cannastop]

1 minute ago, JB33 said:

What an incredibly immature response though. Fuck off? Like, the guy has a point. But he should just shut up and let people virtue signal more, am I right? Because fuck facts.

It's Smash Mouth lol. They respond to crazy ass celebrity stuff all the time.

[Porthos]

3 hours ago, The Panda said:

It’s frustrating that he included the “40 from homicide” stat.  That’s 74 due to gun violence in that same period.  

 

And likely a large portion of that Suicide number was also a Suicide that used a gun.

 

That’s fairly significant, and all of those others get constant attention and fundraisers for awareness and solutions.

Yes, that is the rebuttal to Walking Mr Strawman that is Neil deGrasse Tyson.  All of those things are worked to be minimized all the time.  Car safety, for instance, is leaps and bounds better than it was, and it's striving to be better.

 

Now if he wanted to make a point that overall death by crime is waaaaaay down from the 70s and 80s, even when mass gun sprees are taken into account, that'd be one thing.  If he was saying don't give into panic and try to look for solutions rationally, that'd be another.  

 

Hell, if he wanted to say that terrorism gets much of its power because we elevate it to A Special Crime that deserves societies full attention, that's yet another thing and one much more worthy of discussion.  The overreaction as a society to 9/11, for instance.

 

But he's doing none of that.  At best he's being glib in minimizing tragedy in a superficial way.  At worst...

 

Well, at worst, he's being Neil "I'm smarter than the rest of you put together even if it isn't my field of expertise" deGrasse Tyson.  And that's plenty bad enough.

[DAR]

1 hour ago, Barnack said:

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/27/17910318/flu-deaths-2018-epidemic-outbreak-shot

80,000 Americans died of the flu last winter.

 

During some flu season it can be over 1,000/1,500, 300 is an yearly average.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

I was being facetious 

 

 

 

[Porthos]

18 minutes ago, JB33 said:

What an incredibly immature response though. Fuck off? Like, the guy has a point. But he should just shut up and let people virtue signal more, am I right? Because fuck facts.

Two things.  If someone is acting like a condescending a-hole, don't be surprised if folks with impulse control issues respond in kind.  Even if the first person had a point or two to make.

 

Second...  Virtue Signaling, despite what you might think or have been told, is a GOOD thing.

 

Where do you think common values come from in the first place?  It's from people collectively standing up and saying "I like this way of acting" or "I don't like this way of acting".

 

Societal pressure is a real thing.  Call it peer pressure if you want, but that makes it no less real.  And so-called "virtue signaling" is part of society reinforcing (or establishing) certain values.  It's folks standing up and saying "Dude, don't act that way."

 

If people see other people act in a certain way, they are more likely TO act in that way as well, even if slightly.

 

Now right about now the rebuttal is "well they really don't care" or "they're just trying to get brownie points" or "they're just spouting meaningless platitudes".  To that I say, in my best Tommy Lee Jones voice: I don't care.

 

I really don't.  If folks are trying to make society better and re-enforce values I personally care about, I honestly do not give two shits if they're doing it for selfish means or just going through the motions.

 

How do you think society got to the point of "racism is bad, m'kay" in the first place?  People didn't all just wake up one morning and say, "Hey... That MLK fella we hated for years?  Maybe he had a point after all."

 

No, it was only after person after person after person stood up and said, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't act that way."

 

Virtue Signaling?  Need it now more than ever, IMO.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Porthos

[Porthos]

23 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Two things.  If someone is acting like a condescending a-hole, don't be surprised if folks with impulse control issues respond in kind.  Even if the first person had a point or two to make.

 

Second...  Virtue Signaling, despite what you might think or have been told, is a GOOD thing.

 

Where do you think common values come from in the first place?  It's from people collectively standing up and saying "I like this way of acting" or "I don't like this way of acting".

 

Societal pressure is a real thing.  Call it peer pressure if you want, but that makes it no less real.  And so-called "virtue signaling" is part of society reinforcing (or establishing) certain values.  It's folks standing up and saying "Dude, don't act that way."

 

If people see other people act in a certain way, they are more likely TO act in that way as well, even if slightly.

 

Now right about now the rebuttal is "well they really don't care" or "they're just trying to get brownie points" or "they're just spouting meaningless platitudes".  To that I say, in my best Tommy Lee Jones voice: I don't care.

 

I really don't.  If folks are trying to make society better and re-enforce values I personally care about, I honestly do not give two shits if they're doing it for selfish means or just going through the motions.

 

How do you think society got to the point of "racism is bad, m'kay" in the first place?  People didn't all just wake up one morning and say, "Hey... That MLK fella we hated for years?  Maybe he had a point after all."

 

No, it was only after person after person after person stood up and said, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't act that way."

 

Virtue Signaling?  Need it now more than ever, IMO.

TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ

 

So-called virtue signaling, at least in this instance, is the Not Cool Button of Real Life.

 

Just remember that the next time you are tempted to say that virtue signaling is a bad thing.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Porthos

[Rorschach]

 

 

[cannastop]

6 minutes ago, Porthos said:

So-called virtue signaling is the Not Cool Button of Real Life.

I would say that it's the "Thanks" button of Real Life.

[Ozymandias]

Grocery store employee missing for 10 years found behind store's cooler

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/us/supermarket-missing-person-death-trnd/index.html

 

He is thought to have fallen into the 18-inch gap between the back of the cooler and a wall, where he became trapped. Noise from the coolers' compressors may have concealed any attempts to call for help, according to Weddum.

 

[Porthos]

15 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I would say that it's the "Thanks" button of Real Life.

I meant the people who do that when they say, in effect, "Dude.  Don't act that way", are dropping a metaphorical Not Cool on people.

 

But I'm running out the door right now and so maybe I rushed the point a little.

 

EDITED::: I just added an "at least in this instance" to hopefully help clarify what I was aiming for there.  Thanks for pointing out it might be a little off.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Porthos

[cannastop]

5 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

Grocery store employee missing for 10 years found behind store's cooler

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/us/supermarket-missing-person-death-trnd/index.html

 

 

 

Heard this happened in a bar too. Scary shit.

[Legion Again]

Kind of depressing to see so much hate for Neil bringing up a good reminder (though the 500 statistic is from a faulty study iirc, so using that was pretty bad).         

 

Dramatic but relatively low volume methods of death receive so much more attention than “boring” methods of death that actually kill far more people, cause far more grieving families, etc.

 

If we had some kind of magic “fix all problems” wand to wave around, of course we would want to prevent every single form of death mentioned in that tweet. I completely support much stricter gun control, and TBH would just delete the 2nd amendment entirely if I had that power and bring gun regulations up to the strictest among the developed world. The NRA sickens me.   

 

But practically speaking it’s just a fact that you’d save more lives by reducing US motor vehicle fatalities by 5% per year than completely eliminating mass shootings. I can’t help but wonder how many lives could have been saved just since I was born if people focused more on the common causes of death than the flashy ones.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Thanos Legion

[Barnack]

16 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I would say that it's the "Thanks" button of Real Life.

I think it is both:

 

virtue signalling

noun [ U ] uk (us virtue signaling) UK  /ˈvɜː.tʃuː ˌsɪɡ.nəl.ɪŋ/ US/ˈvɝː.tʃuː ˌsɪɡ.nəl.ɪŋ/

an attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media.

Virtue signalling is the popular modern habit of indicating that one as virtue merely by expressing disgust or favour for certain political ideas or cultural happenings.

 

 

[cannastop]

1 minute ago, Thanos Legion said:

If we we had some kind of magic “fix all problems” wand to wave around, of course we would want to prevent every single form of death mentioned in that tweet. I completely support much stricter gun control, and TBH would just delete the 2nd amendment entirely if I had that power and bring gun regulations up to the strictest among the developed world. The NRA sickens me.   

 

But practically speaking it’s just a fact that you’d save more lives by reducing US motor vehicle fatalities by 5% per year than completely eliminating mass shootings. I can’t help but wonder how many lives could have been saved just since I was born if people focused more on the common causes of death than the flashy ones.

Banning and confiscating firearms would do a lot more than prevent mass shootings. If you were serious about 2nd amendment repeal.

 

Suicides for instance, would go down dramatically.

[Legion Again]

4 minutes ago, cannastop said:

Banning and confiscating firearms would do a lot more than prevent mass shootings. If you were serious about 2nd amendment repeal.

 

Suicides for instance, would go down dramatically.

I know, but that’s not really related to my point.     

 

Does the US have way too many gun deaths? Absolutely yes.    

Is this a problem which could be ameliorated with basic steps that I support, which have gone tragically untaken for decades despite being pretty obvious? Also yes.      

 

Is that a good reason to drag somebody for pointing out, correctly and without any obvious malicious intent, that mass shootings are a tiny portion of both gun and overall death in the US? No.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Thanos Legion

[cannastop]

Just now, Thanos Legion said:

Is that a good reason to drag somebody for pointing out that mass shootings are a tiny portion of both gun and overall death in the US? No.

Well NDT has been known for this kind of thing for a long time. This was just the most insensitive.

[Barnack]

1 hour ago, Porthos said:

Second...  Virtue Signaling, despite what you might think or have been told, is a GOOD thing.

Depend what you mean by virtue signaling, a Nazi tattoo is a classic and one of the biggest virtue signaling there is (the more costly the signaling the stronger it tend to be), college very high price, some species of bird are racing themselves to instinction with their virtue signaling.

 

You become very dependent on the moral/ethical/education level. etc... of what the receiver give points too, it is an important and necessary force and overall a good one, but could it not create a conversation space that end up with 2 group of people trolling respective adversary side to signal their goodness to their already convinced clan ?

 

And leave the most rational best way that would not give as much points in the shadow ?

 

And if it became possible can gain all virtue status simply by saying stuff instead of doing something difficult, I am not sure that is a winning situation for society.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Barnack

[cannastop]

1 minute ago, Barnack said:

Depend what you mean by virtue signaling, a Nazi tattoo is a classic and one of the biggest virtue signaling there is

....

 

God dammit, Barnack

Edited August 5, 2019 by cannastop

[Legion Again]

2 minutes ago, cannastop said:

Well NDT has been known for this kind of thing for a long time. This was just the most insensitive.

What was insensitive about it? I just see a bunch of people online getting outraged about it but when I went to read the actually tweet it was like... what? There’s not actually anything offensive here, he was just trying to draw attention to other, often overlooked despite being more impactful, forms of death.

[cannastop]

Just now, Thanos Legion said:

What was insensitive about it? I just see a bunch of people online getting outraged about it but when I went to read the actually tweet it was like... what? There’s not actually anything offensive here, he was just trying to draw attention to other, often overlooked despite being more impactful, forms of death.

Yeah and that's pretty obtuse.

[Legion Again]

If NDT has a history of insensitive statements on this topic that I’m unaware of, that could color things in a different light. But comparing the reaction to today’s tweet in a vacuum, it’s kind of perplexing.