George Orwell's '1984' Tops Amazon's Bestseller List (theguardian.com) 659
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Sales of George Orwell's dystopian drama 1984 have soared after Kellyanne Conway, adviser to the reality-TV-star-turned-president, Donald Trump, used the phrase "alternative facts" in an interview. As of Tuesday, the book was the sixth best-selling book on Amazon. Comparisons were made with the term "newspeak" used in the 1949 novel, which was used to signal a fictional language that aims at eliminating personal thought and also "doublethink." In the book Orwell writes that it "means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." The connection was initially made on CNN's Reliable Sources. "Alternative facts is a George Orwell phrase," said Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty. Conway's use of the term was in reference to White House press secretary Sean Spicer's comments about last week's inauguration attracting "the largest audience ever". Her interview was widely criticized and she was sub-tweeted by Merriam-Webster dictionary with a definition of the word fact. In 1984, a superstate wields extreme control over the people and persecutes any form of independent thought. UPDATE 1/24/17 6:56PM PST: Orwell's dystopian novel is now the #1 Best Seller in Books on Amazon.
Who's buying? (Score:5, Funny)
First we should make sure it's not the Trump administration buying these. They might be mistaken for operating manuals.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Their campaign used concepts from books like Trust Me, I'm Lying to great success; why change now? The agenda appears to be a libertarian one - elites have been put in charge of departments they have a direct interest in destroying. The future is probably closer to this kind of crazy. [theguardian.com] We live in hope they do all fuck off and leave non-sociopathic humans alone.
Re:Who's buying? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why Donald's staff are lying [bloomberg.com]:
By requiring subordinates to speak untruths, a leader can undercut their independent standing, including their standing with the public, with the media and with other members of the administration. That makes those individuals grow more dependent on the leader and less likely to mount independent rebellions against the structure of command. Promoting such chains of lies is a classic tactic when a leader distrusts his subordinates and expects to continue to distrust them in the future.
Another reason for promoting lying is what economists sometimes call loyalty filters. If you want to ascertain if someone is truly loyal to you, ask them to do something outrageous or stupid. If they balk, then you know right away they aren’t fully with you. That too is a sign of incipient mistrust within the ruling clique, and it is part of the same worldview that leads Trump to rely so heavily on family members.
Nah... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's much simpler than that.
They are lying cause their boss, who has handpicked them, is a liar and a sociopath.
A liar and a sociopath who has handpicked people who don't mind being told lies nor do they mind telling lies to reach their goal.
They are lying cause they are liars and sociopaths. Also... idiots who don't mind being lied to.
Re:And here we go again... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: And here we go again... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not one iota, not a smidgen of lying in Obama's administration....
Obama: The attack on Benghazi was because of a YouTube video...
Press: Ok, sure, we believe it.
Trump: Lots of people saw my inauguration.
Press: LIAR!!!!
Re: And here we go again... (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if you imagine Benghazi claims by the Obama Administration were a lie, then at least it was a lie that would be very difficult to disprove. Indeed, even Congress has never really been able to solidly hold the Administration to account.
And Trump's claim on the Inauguration wasn't that lots of people saw it, his claim was that the Mall was filled with people and that pictures showing it pretty sparsely attended were faked, which was easily debunked.
So what we arrive at is that Trump is actually a terrible liar. Being a liar is practically a requirement of being a politician, being a terrible liar is the hallmark of a bad politician.
Re: And here we go again... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's it? That's all you got? Benghazi.
Trump is mentally ill. He is fcking insane. Lost touch with reality. Major parts of every speech he has given has shown to packed full of lies.
And the best you got is Benghazi?
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You can *definitely* make the argument that free-market reaction to market dynamic changes resulting from the ACA resulted in some people losing access to doctors they once had due to rule changes within private insurance entities, but you're saying that Obama saying that is a lie, or a deliberate untruth.
The only untruth I see here, is your attempt to redefine lying to mean being wrong or naive. It would make sense,
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Get over it bro. Trump won. Enjoy! (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW... Who said anything about administration?
For one... There is no such thing as "Trump administration" yet. And clearly, [washingtonpost.com] there won't be one for quite some time.
Which is what happens when you hire a lazy, lying, incompetent bum prone to litigation to work for you.
And no one said it was "the administration" that's being a "liar and a sociopath" - it's Trump and the people he is picking who are liars, sociopaths and idiots.
Here, again, for those with reading issues.
They are lying cause their boss, who has handpicked them, is a liar and a sociopath.
A liar and a sociopath who has handpicked people who don't mind being told lies nor do they mind telling lies to reach their goal.
They are lying cause they are liars and sociopaths. Also... idiots who don't mind being lied to.
Also, tu quoque [wikipedia.org] is a fallacy - not an argument.
Particularly when you reply to a "He's a lying sociopath and so are the people he's picking" carpet bombing with a fizzling firecracker like "Well... like the previous administration NEVER lied".
Not only are you neck deep in the fallacy septic tank, you're diving deeper by emphasizing your own attempt at false equivalence. [wikipedia.org]
Which is pathetic, I know, but what CAN you do?
You can't just pick ANY random statement by ANY previous president and say "See? That's a lie." - at least 50% of those won't be lies.
Unlike with Trump, with whom telling truth happens to be more of a statistical error than accident. [politifact.com]
Just get over it already. Trump won. Enjoy!
Re:And here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Obama administration never lied about anything?
Obviously, if anyone can find one false statement from Obama, it excuses an infinite number of deliberate lies from Trump. Right?
Re:And here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really recall them asserting that lies could be recoined as "alternate facts". That politicians and their minions lie is a given, that they would so obstinately declare outright falsehoods and then try to recast the obvious falsehoods as some variant on "facts" is a new one to me, at least in the West. This is indeed more a trick of authoritarians.
And for what exactly? Because the Mall wasn't nearly as filled for Trump's inauguration as for Obama's 2008 inauguration? Why would that matter? Even further, to claim Hillary Clinton's popular vote win was made up of fraudulent votes? Why would that matter? What counts is the Electoral College, not popular votes? It strikes me as completely idiotic, a squandering of what little political capital Trump has actually entered the White House with on moronic side issues that have no bearing on governance whatsoever.
I had begun to believe the claim that Trump's bluster was some sort of clever ploy, a strategic type of hyperbole. Now I'm beginning the man really is a fucking moron. The first rule of lying is don't lie when you can get easily caught, and don't lie when there's no advantage conferred. What the hell was the point of inauguration attendance claim? What is the point of the three million vote fraud claim? These lies are not only stupid and easily debunked, they do nothing to aid Trump's administration.
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The problem is that Trump is mentally ill. It's not that he lies. He lies are so transparent that it's obvious that he is either senile or demented.
Re: Nah... (Score:4, Interesting)
I just think he's an idiot who had damn good polling data and people who knew how to use it. I don't think he's the evilest man in the world, I just think he's emotionally and intellectually incapable of doing the job. Honestly, I think his presidency is going to be Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game; pay no attention to the people in the middle of the frame, pay attention to what's going on in the background. It's people like Pence and Tillerson who are the real administration.
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Honestly, no I don't, I suspect it's lower than that. I suspect 40% is "his base" + "ideologues who would always vote republican no matter how bad the candidate- as long as he's not a democrat".
I think his base is very different to the traditional left vs right.
If you think of the traditional politics grid with the x axis being a left-right economic political opinion and the y axis being an authoritarian top to a libertarian bottom, his base is all those that have a strong authoritarian bend, regardless of
Re: Nah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who's buying? (Score:4, Interesting)
When confronted with the facts, Obama didn't say, "Hey, you have your facts and we have our own alternative facts." Instead he conceded that Benghazi "wasn't just a mob action."
It's important to acknowledge that there is such a thing as the truth. We all share the same reality.
It has been suggested that Donald Trump is not a liar [newrepublic.com]. "He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all."
Oh! So now it's bad to... (Score:3)
...RTFM?
Boy, has this place changed.
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First we should make sure it's not the Trump administration buying these. They might be mistaken for operating manuals.
That's what the Kremlin did pre Gorbachev
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Why is anyone buying when it is out of copyright in parts of Oceania?
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au... [adelaide.edu.au]
Re:Who's buying? (Score:5, Funny)
Nineteen Eighty-Four has always been out of copyright in Oceania.
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They'd probably consider it leftist, socialist propaganda.
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The left have spent the last 10 years changing the meaning of words like "male" and "female" so they no longer relate to biology, trying to enforce speech codes, making use of certain words and phrases criminal and now people are buying 1984?
This is truly the most retarded thing that's happened in 2017 so far. It's only January.
Re:Who's buying? (Score:5, Funny)
Here on Slashdot, "male" and "female" refer to types of plugs, not biology.
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Actually it was a psychologist named John Money in 1950 who decided that "man" and "woman" refer to social categories rather than biological ones, and that "male" and "female" do refer to the biological categories, and that is the standard of language used in discussing gender to this day.
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First we should make sure it's not the Trump administration buying these. They might be mistaken for operating manuals.
I'm glad there's at least one other person in this country who is thinking this.
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The emotional maturity of Big Brother isn't far off that displayed in Lord of the Flies.
Or by the Computer in the P&P game Paranoia.
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We've heard Trump's inauguration speech with echoes of the villain Bane from the Dark Knight Rises
Oh boy, we've got someone pulling out their fake news. There was a single sentence that had a basic resemblance to Bane's speech. That single sentence: "We're giving power back to the people." That's it.
followed by the censorship of government agencies communicating actual science, and suffered through the administration's validation of "alternative facts."
Except the part where you read the "update" and find out that didn't happen. You enjoying the purveyors(buzzfeed and WAPO) of fake news telling you stuff yet? No? Just like the "russia is hacking the electrical grid" story that had to be retracted. Or maybe you're just in it for the confirmation bias.
I think it is safe to say that the Trump's administration's use of 1984 as an operating manual is not a mistake, though the emotional maturity appears to be more in line with Lord of the Flies.
Y
Re:Who's buying? (Score:5, Insightful)
We've heard Trump's inauguration speech with echoes of the villain Bane from the Dark Knight Rises
Oh boy, we've got someone pulling out their fake news. There was a single sentence that had a basic resemblance to Bane's speech. That single sentence: "We're giving power back to the people." That's it.
Then it's not fake news, now is it?
If may be insignificant and not newsworthy, but it is not fake.
Re:Who's buying? (Score:4, Insightful)
If may be insignificant and not newsworthy, but it is not fake.
The fact is true. The context is fake. This is how media propaganda works. They choose what they want the person experiencing it to believe when they're finished, and then play up certain facts while completely omitting others. People think in narratives, not facts, so you provide the narrative ("Trump is a dark villain") and then provide facts that confirm that narrative ("This one common line of rhetoric about giving power to people was also once used by a dark villain.") True fact. Phoney narrative.
Immediately after Trump's victory the media was trying to paint a picture of Trump supporters committing violence against poor minorities and such because the sky is falling now that evil Trump has won. Tons of "hate crimes" loudly reported...about all of which turned out to be hoaxes. However the coverage of the "hate crime" was front and center at the top of their website in 48-point font. The story a week later when police investigated and found out it was made up or a false flag was either not reported, or a tiny link at the bottom of the page.
Or, case in point, there was a video on social media that CNN picked up about an anti-Trump protestor being tackled off a flight of stairs (I think at OSU). You can see in the video the guy speaking, and then you hear someone with what sounds like a speech impediment yell "You are so stupid!!!" and lays the guy out with a flying tackle. CNN headline: "Anti-Trump protestor attacked." They show the video, they talk about how dark and scary things are now, about a rash of "Trump-related violence" around the country. At no point do they let you know the attacker was actually an autistic (literally) Hillary supporter who got socially confused and thought the speaker was pro-Trump, and was attacking him for that reason. It was an isolated incident of mistaken identity by a person with developmental disabilities. But anyone seeing the headline or even reading the story is left with the impression that violent Trump supporters are attacking peaceful dissenters. The video was fact! The context was completely fake.
Re:Who's buying? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the very definition of Fake News.
I finally get why you fine people are labeling every single inconvenient fact you encounter "fake".
In newspeak, fake means...
Can you do me a favor, just for my own personal enjoyment, call it double-plus un-good news?
From the Fake News peddlers:
A line from President Donald Trump's inauguration speech on Friday eerily echoed the Batman villain Bane.
Not exactly the same, but it's close to what Bane, played by Tom Hardy, says of Gotham when he holds the city hostage and removes its police and powerful officials.
Certainly, Trump did not intend to quote Bane, but "give it back to you, the people" is a line that will have some staying power after Inauguration Day.
The only thing fake here is your definition of the word fake. Carry on subverting reality by removing all literal meaning from our fucking language, you fuck.
Re:Who's buying? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am getting a little worried. I have never seen so much propaganda and mind fucking before. WTF is going on? Why are people attacking reality so much? What is being hidden? What is to be gained by a populace who can no longer tell up from down?
The more I see of this shit, the more that I am happy that Trump was elected. It means the people who were in power no longer have a stranglehold on that power.
We might actually get the hope and change that the last president promised and thoroughly and completely failed to do.
I think Trump will be a terrible president, but he is not part of the establishment who would be more than happy to send undesirables off to the gas chambers and ovens.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh boy, we've got someone pulling out their fake news. There was a single sentence that had a basic resemblance to Bane's speech. That single sentence: "We're giving power back to the people." That's it.
Are you idiot or are you being deliberately dense? His speech, mirrored the same sentiment as Bane's speech, which in turn mirrors the speeches of various dictators who rose to power through lying and populism. Go read Hitler's and Mussolini's speeches. Where do think they got the inspiration for Bane's speech to begin with?
Except the part where you read the "update" and find out that didn't happen. You enjoying the purveyors(buzzfeed and WAPO) of fake news telling you stuff yet? No? Just like the "russia is hacking the electrical grid" story that had to be retracted. Or maybe you're just in it for the confirmation bias.
Where's the White House pages on climate change?
And no, it isn't fake news. The memos asking for lists of scientists and supporters. The orders to remove climate information and silence
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If you're a fan, you heard nothing but positive statements. If you've got a chip on your shoulder, and already see Trump as the second coming of Hitler, you clearly didn't.
For those of us in the middle, it was neither. Extremists on both sides need to put their big boy pants on.
"Alternative Facts" = "Lived Experience" (Score:3, Insightful)
The right has now usurped what was once the sole domain of the left -- Relativism.
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The right has now usurped what was once the sole domain of the left -- Relativism.
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity within themselves, but rather only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration.
Since when was living in La la land the sole domain of the left?
Re:"Alternative Facts" = "Lived Experience" (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all the same thing. When people experience something that actually happened to them that the other person is unaware of or considers inconsequential because stats say it's rare etc. then it's a lived experience.
Trump's inauguration crowd was not bigger in his "lived experience". It was smaller, the extra millions he claims were there simply don't exist. He did not have that experience.
Re:"Alternative Facts" = "Lived Experience" (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair to Trump, Hillary Clinton got nailed in a similar way when she claimed she was under fire during a visit to the Balkans in the 1990s. Of course, her response when called on what was a false claim wasn't to insist that she had been under fire, in complete defiance of the facts, but rather to admit that she had been mistaken. That eyewitnesses will often get even rather large details of an experience wrong is not in any way controversial. I took an introductory psychology course last year that had a very good section on how memories, even recent ones, can be faulty; prone to bother intentional and accidental alteration. Stress can often interfere with memory formation, and the way the brain stores memory is in an encoded format, so memories are in fact reconstructed, and not just simply video files, so even during the reconstruction phase, memories can be altered.
Now where Clinton and Trump differ is that when Clinton was called on the clearly false claim that she had come under weapons fire while landing in Bosnia, she apologized and admitted her memory of the event was wrong. Trump, on the other hand, lacks even a false sense of humility, and simply asserts, in defiance of the facts, that his experience was true.
Wrong Book? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ironic really, since the USA is more like Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty Four [imgur.com]
Re:Wrong Book? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wrong Book? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also Animal Farm. I think the people are going to be very disappointed to discover that the elites have been replaced with the elites which, of course, will all be the fault of the elites.
Not even close. (Score:2)
For one... "Brave New World" supports birth control. [vox.com]
Re:Not even close. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not even close. (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalized drugs: Widespread use of anti-depressants and tranquilizers is a lot like soma.
Sorting people into classes based on intelligence: Socioeconomic pecking order based on which degree you got, which college you went to, your SAT scores, your GPA, etc.
Purely centralized economy: Federal reserve monetary policy, Wall Street, investment banking, transnational corporations, Davos, private equity, regulatory capture. I'll cede that this is a weak comparison, but all of those organizations tend to be incestuous in membership and switching between organizations is common.
Procreation: In-vitro fertilization, genetic screening, scheduled c-sections. We're not yet decanting our offspring, but among the moneyed classes the reproductive process is industrializing.
Perhaps as a whole the real world isn't a literal comparison to BNW, but I think the metaphorical comparisons are striking.
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I despair for humanity (Score:2, Interesting)
Particularly for the part where people actually start calling dictionaries "political", and the definition of objectivity and facts "liberal"... I think we'll soon see a decree from the Orange one renaming the Mississippi "De-Nial".. No wait, that would make sense. :/
The current discourse is insanity, but it amply proves what happens when you make entertainment of history, no effort is ever made to teach people to think and the common man is treated by nothing but contempt. The great irony is that everyone
I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really hope SJWs will realize their fight to purge the language of "bad words" is in fact persecution of thoughtcrime.
If you ban "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from schools "because it uses the 'n' word and that's offensive", you're doing precisely what 1984 warns about.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I really hope SJWs will realize their fight to purge the language of "bad words" is in fact persecution of thoughtcrime.
If you ban "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from schools "because it uses the 'n' word and that's offensive", you're doing precisely what 1984 warns about.
Did you just use "SJW" and "realize" in the same sentence?
As if someone so certain of his own moral superiority, who walks around touting his "tolerance" while calling anyone who dares disagree "racist", who carries a sign saying "Love Trumps Hate" while tossing molotov cocktails, isn't deep down as dumb as a post and incapable of chewing gum and walking at the same time, much less having any actual realization?
Such idiots do have one use: they're fun to laugh at.
And I apologize. Calling SJWs "dumb as a po
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No, most of the ones I know are busy on YouTube telling us that the sky is falling because Trump became Prez, so I guess they're not really in favor of him.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Otherwise they wouldn't have whined at the military for 'chink in the armour'.
And of course, as is common with this kind of silly claim, this is without any reference or context.
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Otherwise they wouldn't have whined at the military for 'chink in the armour'.
And of course, as is common with this kind of silly claim, this is without any reference or context.
References:
* https://twitter.com/Khun_Chanin/status/560904975136882688
* https://twitter.com/JarheadPAO/status/561012000109895681
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The only incident I'm aware of with "chink in the armour" when when ESPN used it in a headline on a story about an Asian American basketball player. At best it was just a bad choice of words.
Anyway, screaming "SJW!" at people who point these things out is just an attempt to silence them.
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Informative)
Then your awareness is severely lacking.
Look up:
donglegate (forking someone's repository is a sexist slur)
Ban on chanting 'USA' because it can be used as abbreviation of 'You suck ass'.
List of microaggressions [knowyourmeme.com] according to University of Wisconsin
What about Yale students supporting repealing the 1st amendment [dailymail.co.uk]?
Or some quotes by prominent feminist celebrities [tumblr.com]?
Also, look up feminist glaciology, sexist carbon fiber and sexist snow plowing for more absurds spewn by SJWs.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm aware of that stuff, more aware than you in fact. I bothered to figure out what the actual truth behind the Breitbart headlines is.
"Feminist glaciology" actually isn't. The hard science of glaciers is not being addressed in that paper, merely the social and political reaction to what is happening with them.
"Sexist carbon fibre" is nothing of the sort, merely pointing out that some prosthetics are designed to be aesthetically pleasing to males but not so much to females who may prefer something different.
The Yale thing was a standard prank for the camera performed by a guy who specializes in them. Like the ones where they show Americans confusing Iraq and Australia on a map and saying that the nation of Islam should be nuked.
I could go on, the "sexist snow plowing" is a great example of "blame everything on feminism", but you get the picture.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh no. This is the bullshit that social justice [washingtonpost.com] has created. People are screaming "SJW" because social justice warriors are the ones pushing the bullshit claiming that kimono's are cultural appropriation. Or wearing Halloween costumes are racist/sexist/misogyny or some other bullshit. They're the ones lining up to try and ban people from making speeches, and saying that people who don't follow the group think need to be banned. [newstatesman.com] You know, like Peter Tatchell [theguardian.com] or Germaine Greer. [thegayuk.com] You are authoritarians, you are engaging in authoritarian behavior. You think you're the good guys and you're not. You're everything you claim to fight.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
SJW have never had any actual power, yet white males still see them as threatening and trot out all kinds of false equivalence to back themselves up.
Gee. I guess that explains all those events that have been cancelled because of their violent threats and backlashes right? Or their attacks, doxing and so on against people who have a different ideological pov. Or university administrations that follow their lines of bullshit? How about when they throw a hissyfit and get advertisements pulled because it hurts their feelings. Or try to get people fired(sometimes successfully) for daring to have a different position. Nope, no power there at all. That's why none of that's happened right?
Good thing I'm not a "white male" then isn't it.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
SJW have never had any actual power
Tell that to all the conservatives on college campuses who are under siege right now from "powerless" SJW's. Tell that to all the conservatives getting banned from social media, getting doxxed, getting fired from their jobs for having the "wrong" ideas, getting physically attacked just for daring to speak at rallies, etc. For a "powerless" lot, SJW's sure seem to wield quite a bit of power these days in the media, on college campuses, in Hollywood--pretty much everywhere save direct politics (where mainstream Americans still thankfully vote them down).
It's gotten pretty bad when an old-school liberal like myself fears Donald Trump and the Republican Party less than what the Democratic Party has become. As a former Democrat, all I can say is that the new left had better wake up and realize that SJW's are a cancer that will ultimately kill the host. They've already chased away the working class, and turned several blue states red. Just keep going down that path and see how many more states turn red in 2020.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a former Democrat, all I can say is that the new left had better wake up and realize that SJW's are a cancer that will ultimately kill the host.
And there are certainly crazies on the right. The difference is the center-right ignores them or disavows them and does not give them a platform. No one would ever hear a single idea of David Duke or Richard Spencer if the left and corporate-left media didn't promote them. You will never hear Sean Hannity welcoming "friend of the show Richard Spencer" onto his TV or radio show. You will never see even Ann Coulter citing the "scholarly work of Dr. David Duke." No one wants anything to do with these people. But the liberal college professors let the SJWs run amok on campus and the Democrats parade illegal aliens and various nutjobs out on stage at their national convention.
This is severely off-putting to normal people, and the Democrats are doomed unless they start punching left. Their biggest enemy is not Donald Trump. It's the pink haired landwhales literally shitting on the streets as a "political statement," the antifa thugs beating the hell out of trash bins (must have found Adolf Binler, the most evil racist trash bin of all time) and the illegal immigrants waving Mexican flags while they throw eggs at Republican voters.
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Interesting)
Or the aforementioned "n-word" in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". It's literally an attempt at eradicating the very thought of the concept from the society, removing any reflection of it, replacing it with an empty, shallow mantra - erasing the memory, erasing the history.
And the effect are the inevitable: who doesn't learn the history, is bound to repeat it. Racism in entirely new forms abounds, but since critical thought and understanding of the reality and nature of racism has been largely eradicated, since the new forms don't contradict the empty mantra, they are no longer recognized - and we get such curiosa as "Blacks can't be racist."
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Informative)
Newsflash number two: They are a majority [dailymail.co.uk].
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had a SJW coworker call me out on racism for the following conversation while at a restaurant:
Me: Hey, that's the new guy from that other department.
*points to the door of the restaurant*
SJW: Who?
Me: The black German.
SJW: You can't say that!
Me: He's black and he's from Germany, what's the problem?
SJW: You should say "the German person of color."
Me: That's an unwieldingly long and ultimately less-specific description, and saying that a black person is black is just stating fact.
So in my experience most of these people just try to find trivial nonsense to be offended about when the origin of the comment is an observation or fact, and is in no way being used to judge a group of people. And yes, it is (or can be) about banning words and I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion with more than one SJW.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Informative)
Last I used "people of color" on Slashdot, some SJW called me out on this too. Apparently it's no longer an acceptable phrase anymore. The goalposts keep moving.
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You were being trolled.
This is the problem with "SJWs". They are not a group, the definition is unclear. Unlike, say, the alt-right where there is a clear ideology, prominent members, web sites that are identified as their base, meetings and rallies etc. there is no definable thing called "SJW".
Person of Colour is the preferred term. Anyone can troll you by claiming otherwise, but that doesn't mean they represent some group or ideology.
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Interesting)
You were being trolled.
Well, quite possibly not. I've known at least one black person who told me in no uncertain terms that he disliked the term "person of colour". On the one hand, it lumps everyone who isn't white together and secondly, not calling someone black when they are implies there's something wrong with "black" which is kinda offensive.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh sure, some people don't like the term. But no reasonable person would accuse you of being racist for using it. Like your black friend, they would likely tell you that they disliked it while acknowledging that you are at least trying.
"SJW" is just the new "politically correct". Seems kinda reasonable, surely these awful people must be bad... But actually most of them are just trolls (like the inevitable "I'm a black man" ACs who crop up on Slashdot regularly to complain about their brothers) who are tryin
Re: (Score:2)
Can you point to such an occasion? Last time I checked racists aren't really bothered by being called racists, rather, they're usually very proud that they're ($their_race) and not ($racist_slur).
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, actual racist, yes.
But apparently if I call an afro-american "black" that makes me a racist. And I'm not really happy about being called that.
Re: (Score:3)
According to some people's logic you're already racist because you're white but can't be racist if you're not.
That kinda cheapens the whole problem if you ask me. It's like the inflationary use of "nazi" a while ago. All it did was get people who would probably otherwise think if they're called "nazi" just thumb over their shoulder and mutter "put the label on the pile, I'll ignore later".
Inflationary use of anything removes its impact. Take a look at what happened to "terrorist".
Re: (Score:3)
According to some people's logic you're already racist because you're white but can't be racist if you're not.
The desire to recast racism -- prejudicial or discriminatory behavior against a group due to their ethnic membership -- as a power phenomenon practiced solely by whites is really grating to me.
I'm even willing to buy into the idea that many people (not distinguished by race) have racial preconceptions, based mostly on inexperience, which may be unfair, but the idea that whites are always racist in a material sense just isn't believable. That non-whites don't or aren't capable of racial discrimination is ju
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
According to some people's logic you're already racist because you're white but can't be racist if you're not.
I've noticed that this logic is mostly applied by white people looking to enhance their sense of victimhood.
I agree about the use of "nazi". It's become almost like "ninja" just means someone who is good at something or a bit sneaky. The sad fact is that we now have actual Nazis in the US government and whispering in the president's ear.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, actual racist, yes.
But apparently if I call an afro-american "black" that makes me a racist. And I'm not really happy about being called that.
Yes, but if using "black" is tantamount to using "n-word" where you live, then you just have to accept that you shouldn't use "black" unless you want to cause offence and be seen as racist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
People kvetching about "motherboard" or "master-slave" in database terminology are not being sexist or racist.
Re: (Score:2)
You'd see the outrage about male and female plugs and sockets! :D
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Interesting)
> Note that it's not the "bad words" people you call SJWs complain about, it's the actual racism behind them.
I'm afraid to say it's not just racism or bias. I've recently had a discussion with an HR person at a client's workplace because I discussed dealing with my colleague's PMS in terms of scheduling. My colleague, from my own team, has _horrible_ PMS. She suffers horrific cramping and does not normally work on those days, but we had a schedule to meet. I discussed how we'd accomodate her medical needs and she'd work offsite, for only limited hours, on those days, because she was a critical member of our team. I received a formal complaint, which _shocked_ me, and which I had to review with our company's lawyer and our HR personnel, and have my female colleague call the HR person and discuss. The HR person _did not want to speak to my colleague_, which also shocked me. My mention of the issue was, itself, considered sexual harassment.
The HR person was being what is sometimes called a "snowflake". They were actively disrupting their own company by over-reporting, and the engineers I worked with from their teams had quietly asked me and my team if there were openings at our company, or people hiring in the market. I could not, legally, due to basic agreements in our contracts. I can't discuss the details of advice I did provide: but the shift to workplace thought and speech policing is a familiar one as a company grows, and even accidental or completely factual speech can become politicized.
Trump's vantage point (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw a picture of the crowd from Trump's podium. From there the empty patches were not easily evident. From his angle it looked like there were people covering every patch of concrete if you didn't look carefully enough. And since it looks that way from where he way (literally) standing, the media must be lying - simple logic I guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Could you perhaps build a 20m section of wall, just long enough to fill his vision...
1984 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Inoculation only works _before infection_, does it not? To make the obvious parallel to the US election: it's too late now. They would've needed to have read it before the election, seen the parallel at that time and changed their vote because of it. Considering the entire world saw that Trump's direction was authoritarianism, and he still got elected, it seems doubtful that would have happened. The ones buying that book now are probably those that did not vote for him to begin with, while those who did are
Re: (Score:3)
Judging by this election and its aftermath, it seems more likely they will do little but keep on cheering until that is all they are left with the power to do.
We'll have to wait and see. It's very hard to imagine a western democracy reverting to authoritarian, but on the other hand the notion seems a lot less ridiculous now than it would have a year ago.
Re:1984 (Score:4, Funny)
I see you are one of those fools who believes knowledge is power..
Quite right citizen, ignorance is strength.
Paper Copy (Score:2)
Best buy a paper copy...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07... [nytimes.com]
Let's hope they learn something... (Score:2)
I'm assuming those buying copies of 1984 are under the age of 30, maybe 35, since I can't imagine anyone older than that hasn't already read this at least once, seen the movie, is familiar with the overall theme from the book being discussed at least here in America almost constantly as far back as I can remember (the early 80s). I also expect the majority of these new potential readers also tend to lean left. I hope what they come away with is an understanding of what an Orwellian society would actually lo
How quickly people forget (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazing that people are willing to buy this from Amazon, even the SlashDot crowd seem to have forgotten this incident:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Re:Doublethink? Try watching the interview before (Score:5, Informative)
Watch that interview very carefully. There is no way she was talking about "other" facts that weren't being reported. She meant to say exactly what she said. The administration has "alternative facts" that better fit their agenda.
Look, I realize that there is this bitter rivalry in US society between liberals and conservatives. But try to put politics aside, and try to think as a sane human being.
Donald Trump is the guy who insisted Barack Obama is a Muslim and was not born in the US. He is the guy who once claimed he owned the Empire State Building, which is false and was false at the time. He is the guy who said he has been on the Time magazine "more than anybody" which is false. He is the guy who so often claimed that he never said something he just said a few days earlier. His Trump University has been trialed for fraud. One of his advisers is a guy who owns a right-wing conspiracy theory website that is specialized on the spreading of fake news.
Try to think about this rationally.
Donald Trump is either a serial liar or simply delusional. You can look all of his insanity up. If you believe him and his administration more than established, international media networks such as CNN, you have to face the fact that you have decided to stop being a rational thinking person.
Re:Doublethink? Try watching the interview before (Score:5, Insightful)
And let's not forget that rational, intelligent people can disagree on matters of import, the significance of facts, and so forth without ceasing to be rational.
Are you sure you're not talking about opinions? Isn't the definition of a "fact" that it is a non-debatable, unambiguous truth? Such as the fact that Obama is christian and was born in the United States? If you are trying to soften up facts and put them up to debate, you are already by your knees in that Orwellian universe the White House would like to have us.
Re:Doublethink? Try watching the interview before (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you working for Trump? You seem to have picked up all the standard tactics used by his supporters:
- Claim that we misunderstood the statement
- Ad hominem the interviewer
- Blame the Democrats
- Allege conspiracy
- Claim everyone else is just as bad as Trump anyway
- Conflate opinion and fact
Re: Doublethink? Try watching the interview before (Score:2)
Your comment does a lot to convince me... that sabbedde is right. Merely calling names and proclaiming the other person is wrong suggests that you have no defensible point -- that you've resorted to pounding the table, because neither facts nor law are on your side.
Re: (Score:3)
As the CNN megapixel graphic showed, the Trump crowd was larger than reported. This seems a silly thing to fight over, since Trump's supporters are less likely to attend an inauguration than a rally anyway.
Really, though, why does this matter at all? Hint: it doesn't. The fuss over this was generated to take some attention away from the rally on the next day. This administration will seek to control journalists by distracting them and diluting their ability to ask the tough questions [theguardian.com].
Re:More Fake News And Drama From The Left (Score:4, Insightful)
As the CNN megapixel graphic showed, the Trump crowd was larger than reported. This seems a silly thing to fight over, since Trump's supporters are less likely to attend an inauguration than a rally anyway.
You do know that according to the alt-right everything the mainstream media publishes is lies, lies and more lies, a stack of lies all the way down! So if CNN, a load bearing pillar of the main stream media, published a megapixel picture that seems to prove Trump's inauguration crowd was much larger than reported, by alt-right logic, that claim must be a baldfaced bloody lie. That picture must be a Photoshop manipulation and positive proof that Trump's inauguration crowd must indeed have been tiny. But all sarcasm aside crowd size is indeed a silly thing to fight over, especially after listening to Sean Spicer step onto a podium and tell a room full of reporters:
"Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimise the enormous support that had gathered on the national Mall. Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted. No one had numbers, because the national park service, which controls the national mall, does not put any out. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period!
How is it possible to claim Trump's inauguration crowd was the largest in history if nobody had any numbers? The real irony here is that we would not be talking about this if Trump hadn't made such a big deal about it and if the entire right wing spin machine hadn't jumped on board to help him. Somebody should acquaint the White House press secretary and his team with the Streisand effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
The audience is not just the people on the ground, but also the people watching at home. And Trump’s inauguration broke live video streaming records [techcrunch.com].
Re:Uh-oh (Score:5, Funny)
Conclussion [kuh n-kluhsh-uh n] noun
Shock caused upon reaching the end of a particularly jarring chain of thought.
Re: (Score:3)
Certainly! But of course only in the latest edition, the others have been retracted for correction.
Re: (Score:3)
Thankyou Trump and lol SJWs, turns out demonizing the average person isn't a winning strategy.
But look at the bright side. You still have your victimhood and sense of persecution.