Hey, hostile visitors! Do you have an opinion about, for example, Mary Koss’ rape research? Do you want to discuss it even though the topic has not actually come up by itself in any of the threads and none of my recent posts really have much to do with the specifics of anyone’s rape research? Well, from now on you can discuss it here with anyone who wishes to follow you to this thread.
Added bonus: If you continue to try to discuss it in other threads you’ll be banned!
This also applies to future derailers riding hobbyhorses of their own having nothing to do with Koss.
Happy discussing!
Note: If you wish to discuss the topics at hand, you know, topics directly related to my posts and/or to what other people are discussing and that aren’t, you know, personal hobbyhorses of yours that involve long screeds and various things that you’ve probably already cut and pasted into the comments sections of various other websites until you were banned from them for endless derailing and general asswipery, feel free to remain in the original threads.
Goats…sigh. I like goats. I grew up around goats. But setting all the goats that now exist under the stewardship of humans free would be an environmental disaster, especially in areas where vegetation is sparse already.
Absolutely; I wasn’t at all trying to argue “they’re just animals” or that they’re less important, merely that they’re different and the ways we interact with them ought to be different.
And indeed, in many ways, the fact that they’re different gives us more responsibility towards them because we can understand and control things that they can’t. So, for instance, we have the responsibility to care for our animals’ medical needs because they can’t take care of themselves; we have the responsibility to protect ecologically vulnerable species from invasive predators because the predators don’t have the capacity to understand that there’s a problem; etc etc. (People from my background call this “stewardship of creation.”)
There’s a movement against it here too, but it’s a struggle – I don’t know what the progress is like, compared to the US. Too many differences in population, culture, etc to make a fair comparison, prolly.
Pecunium – when I’m talking about the planet I’m talking about the life on it. I don’t want humans to wipe ourselves out, though I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if we did. But it really burns me that we’ll take so many others with us, so many innocent bystanders, as it were. When we fuck up it’s not just our species’ future at stake.
Kittehs: I care about them, but I care about them in context. Some of it is that all species are going to die out. A lot (not all, and a whole lot of not all in the past 200 years) of that is just that our animal nature is to do what we did.
We aren’t the only ones. There are ants which wipe out all the ants near by. There are fungus which kill any tree that doesn’t grow where the fungus likes to live (if the tree lives where the fungus does like to live, the fungus protects it; life is weird).
The live on the planet won’t end when we do. In “the big picture” what we do doesn’t matter. The only reason it does matter is that we care; because “nature” doesn’t.
Example. When N. America hit S. America, there was a massive die off of local fauna. Giant birds, marsupials, etc. It’s what happens.
Our sapience makes us aware of what we do. Coming to grips with our animal nature is the pressing question of our existence. We can keep that sort of massive extinction from happening. If we get it wrong, we are toast. If we get it right, we have the possibility of lasting until the sun blows up.
Kittehs: Um, what, so do they want domestic cats and dogs and cattle and sheep and horses and goats and whatever other animals humans interact with to become extinct?
Yes. They have said so. In some ways (not so veiled) they seem to think mankind should kill itself off.
Shit, I think I posted that already. Tired, and this is a lot of thread.
Another reason I don’t quite buy the extreme non-interference arguments – we’ve already fucked some things up. You break it, you fix it, right? So for example in areas where our incursion has led to near extinction of some species, we’re responsible for trying to fix that problem. Which we can’t do without actively interfering with the species in question in a way that doesn’t really fit with the ideas that were being proposed earlier about “equality”. Basically, in some cases we have to interfere because we’re the only ones who can, and if we don’t valuable things will be lost.
Example – tigers! The fact that they’re almost extinct is our fault. At the same time, if we were to step back and stop trying to interfere now, they’d be totally extinct very soon. So either we act in a way that does in an absolute sense violate the idea that we have no dominion over other creatures, or they all die.
I personally am going to go with the “let’s try to make sure they don’t all die” option.
Kitteh, I tend to think that it’s not very meaningful to try to judge the morality of people vs animals because it’s questionable whether any animals have the abstract moral reasoning capacity to understand the concepts of right and wrong at an adult human level.
interesting thing, re tigers. I know a place they are thriving, and it’s because people suck.
The DMZ in Korea. It’s a 6 mile wide belt of land no one has lived in for… 60 years. It’s as close as we get to a “pristine wilderness.
Well at least something non-horrible is happening there? It’s about the only positive news to come out of North Korea in my lifetime.
katz – I know, it’s the “better than animals” line (which Marie has since said was badly worded) that had me on the “oh really?” track.
If we’re the ones sapient enough to say “hey this is wrong, or cruel, or fucked up” then we’ve the responisbility to get it right.
Pecunium – yes, and the planet itself will cease to exist eventually. But the sapience that gives us the freedom to make choices and see consequences makes our actions different from those of animals or plants; we’re not doing what we must, or following “animal natures” in the sense of instinct, if we’re going to claim our intelligence at the same time. I’m not keen on talking about context if it means an “everything’s going to die off anyway” attitude. I’m not saying it’s yours, but neither am I unaware of mass extinctions not caused by humans. That context doesn’t lessen our responsibility for what we’ve done and what we do.
Oh dear god, GNL or whatever his name is isn’t really real, you see — he’s a fucking dude doing an impression of a hemorrhoid.
“I think it’s rather clear at this point what the real difference is. You all think that men are the one and only category that it’s impossible to ever disadvantage in any way.”
No one here said that, and he knows it, but see, what’s the point if of him being here if he doesn’t make our asses itch while he pretends to misunderstand us?
“That the label “male” is always a good thing. A man can be disadvantaged as a black or gay or disabled.”
We know this, because feminism has always made this distinction. Also, whenever someone says MRA, we take it for granted that one is talking about cis, white dudes. Especially since the MRA often dabbles in racism. You know that too, it’s just that you have to keep pretending to misunderstand us — because that’s the only gimmick you have. But see, we all know you’re doing it. You’re an online hemorrhoid, and nothing more.
And this accusation coated in sarcasm:
“It is functionally impossible to ever do anything bad to someone because they are male.
It’s got to be some other reason. It is not even possible for anything bad to happen to someone based on gender, if that gender is male. Note, this isn’t a strawman. This really is what the lot of you sound like to me.”
No, no, no, stop shaming us…pleeeease. You’re such a liar, no one here suggested men are disposable. But it’s easier to act indignant if you pretend we did.
And finally, he caps everything off with an image from “Planet of the Apes.”
“With the traditionalism and male disposablity cranked up to 11, I really do wonder if you would still be talking about “The Patriarchy” and “Male privilege” if every man was chained naked in a cage.”
Wow. That was so fucking stupid. Do you really wake up in the middle of the night fearful that the Female Overloads are gonna make you wear a loin cloth and live in a cage? Are you absolutely positive that you want us to believe that of you?
Do you?
Anyway, you’re a hemorrhoid. You are very fortunate that some of the distinguished commentors here engaged with you, but really, they should stop. You’re not very original, we get trolls like you all the time. I know you want to feel like you’re the one who finally confounded the Man Boobz crew, but you haven’t…you just made us itch. The fact that you’ve been spending so much time here proves that you want to be special in our eyes — The Guy Who Told Us Off. Pffft. We’re not here to stroke your ego, or help you wank. You have been boring, truly.
Having had hemmorhoids, this character is much worse.
“Wow. That was so fucking stupid. Do you really wake up in the middle of the night fearful that the Female Overloads are gonna make you wear a loin cloth and live in a cage? Are you absolutely positive that you want us to believe that of you?”
Gad, he’s a Charlton Heston fanboy!
I find loincloths unflattering. Can’t they wear boxer briefs instead?
(You know, the slaves, that all feminists want to have, because we live on that planet with the giant rapist Amazons from Futurama.)
Tell you what, your slaves can have the boxer shorts and mine’ll have the loincloths. (If they’re short leather ones, that is.)
No, not boxer shorts! Those are too baggy. They must have boxer briefs.
Believe it or not, one can buy loincloths online:
http://www.debbieleather.com/leatherloincloths.html
Sorry, I thought that was the same thing. The image did surprise me a bit. 😛
::does quick google::
Oh, that makes much more sense!
Shiraz, I looked at those loincloths and thought, geez, you could just buy a bit of leather or faux-leather and cut it really badly. Be a lot cheaper.
Absolutely, kitteh. I agree.
Okay, I’m off – later, y’all.
(Points up at earlier conversation about the ancestry of my cat.)
Check it out – I found a giant version of her! And yes, he’s a Maine Coon.
Coffee table ornament – he’s almost big enough to be a coffee table! What a gorgeous boy.
Regarding the environment issue: I have seriously considered becoming a vegan. That is because of my newly found conviction that as it stands, we use up way too much of our natural resources and waste too much energy with all the cattle farming and whatnot. But that will still be my choice, and I’m aware of how very privileged I am to even be able to consider that choice. The day we have the means to secure sustainable, affordable and nourishing veggie food to everyone on the planet is the day I’ll say that yes, going green will ultimately be a better choice for all. That’s all I can say on the subject on a personal level.
@LBT and kirbywarp: Dammit, stop making this thread hot!
@Cassandra, Fade and Marie: Thanks! I hesitated to take on the challenge at first, since Troll is considered by most linguists* to be one of the most difficult languages in the world. The varying degrees of emotion** conveyed with a simple change of tone, the staggeringly high number of false friends (words and phrases that look and sound exactly the same as words and phrases in the target language, but hold very different meanings), not to mention all the stylistic problems (since troll culture differs so much from our own) don’t make translating an easy task. I think the superficial similarities with other languages, combined with the species’ tendency to, well, troll people, stems from the time they lived under bridges and harassed talking goats.
*Citation needed.
**Fun fact: Trolls are actually very emotional creatures. All the nastiness, sarcasm and frequent use of caps lock that oozes from their writing in times of breakdown must be the jötunn-hormones acting up, making them all hysterical and stuff, amiright?