Preface: I'm done with this community and am just replying to you one last time cause you at least seem half reasonable at worst, and fully reasonable at best.
Enjoy your long read I guess. Note, you should try to mentally project someone just explaining their views onto these words. They are not written with any intent of vehemence towards you. Since people on the internet tend to project false intent onto words due to lack of a person to see/hear/etc... I am saying this in advance for you.
Without further adieu.
----
Right, well I used to agree with this notion, once upon a time ago.
But then people started to just decide that words mean new things because they want to be correct without having to try at all.
And I won't allow that. No one should. That's why I care, because these "scare quotes" as you all call them, are a relatively new thing that only just arose in my viewing of it. Before this, the last time I heard of this at all, it was some pissed off university students foaming at the mouth about stuff that didn't make any sense. Not going to be direct about what, because that's not the point of the convo right now. The point is that they were being silly, and changing definitions just to suit them. Something I have seen younger folk trying to do more and more over time; and I blame the education system for never properly teaching them how the language works in the first place.
And I'm not alone. My English may not be perfect of course, but my English teacher for the final years of my time in high school was the type who gave ZERO fucks about your opinion about how the language operated; cause she was a professor in university prior to returning to teaching high school English. Why did she do this?
Because she was finding that the students getting into University weren't being taught properly at all. And when she met some that came from her old town, and they were some of the worst... She retired and went back to teaching English in high school.
So again, I'm not alone in this. That's why I can take the die on this hill king of stance I am taking. Because yes, some of you like yourself mkaic are actually kind of right.
But because people who are wrong about so much else will use that to defend their erroneous ways, I cannot allow it on any good moral level when it comes to ensuring that information can always be understood by each other when communication is key.
It's like the okay sign. It was never an right wing symbol when I was growing up, but now because some university students say it is, now it is?
Fuck that. I used to use the okay sign to indicate I was fine with something without having to open my mouth. Or a thumbs up in other cases worked fine as well.
Personally, I'm waiting for them to try to claim that thumbs up are a sign of male sexism next. Why? Cause a thumb in erect position resembles a penis in erect position. With a big ball sack.
If you think I am kidding. I'm not. I fully expect one of those fuckwits to try this some day. And they will use the exact same kinds of arguments to declare that the sign has changed in definitions, and thus they are valid and the rest who are not what they claim; are not. Just like you are claiming in how English works, because according to your logic as I see it right now, mass opinion = correct; and that's just wrong.
Yes, you are right that over time this is how it works. But it's not something that people just decide one day and then suddenly it is so.
Also, because words are ultimately symbols in letter form, even hand signs get the same treatment in a way, hence my use of it as an example. In case you were wondering how we got to hand signs and stuff in all of this.
Long story short, I'm part of the other side of the fence that says "No, you may not misuse my language just to suit yourself." There is room for creativity in making new words instead. Or even new punctuation if need be. Our keyboards could use some key swaps for instance on that side of things. There are about 12 keys that are almost never used by most people anymore. 6-8 of them could easily be repurposed without inconveniencing almost anyone. *there might be 1 rando out there kind of thing who needs it.
So I get it that you might see me as that rando right now; but I am not 'random' as it were. I'm just not going with the flow of the masses, because that's how buffalo used to be run off cliffs back in the day.
This place is just south of me by a few hours drive or so. I link to it, because I figure it's a good starting point for people to maybe start to understand why running with the herd isn't always a good idea. Yes, even in terms of how language operates. How so?
Imagine this.
What if a group of people out there has decided they want to pull an elaborate ruse on the English speaking nations of the world, particularly the 'west'. How would you do this?
Well, by replacing the definitions of important words that we already had what should have been very concrete meanings.
By doing this on a slow but steady basis, you can change how a nation of people operates and thinks, because you are now controlling their language directly.
Now this may not be actually happening today as described, because there may not be that shadowy group... but actually, there kind of is.
Prior to 2020, it was pretty well known within certain circles that Putin and co over in Russia were attempting to do exactly this kind of thing through multiple avenues of agitprop and misinformation.
But how do you prove this, when everything is suddenly conspiracy if you talk about it?
So far, the war with Ukraine is helping in one thing in all of this.
Show you all how Russia operates in doing the whole cry bully tactic. By calling out others for doing that which they are doing themselves, etc. Because of this, people are now looking deeper into what Putin is actually doing, instead of just what he is saying.
And it's glorious, because when you all start to get on that same level, you are all going to start seeing why
I
Am
Right.
But it's going to take a while, and it did for Putin as well. Him and his cronies and their cronies and so on and so forth all had a good 2 decades for sure where they were doing this, very slowly eroding away our ability to communicate effectively by creating false words/symbols/meanings and false issues to help re-define them.
At then of the day, any time you see humanity acting in unison on something, or in big groups at least; you should always look further in to why and if you should even be part of it. Many buffalo could have survived if they just looked back and saw that the humans chasing them could be trampled instead. Instead, they ran off cliffs to run in their own head. This is what is being done to our language over time, and thus us with it. People start to not make sense to each other, and so they fight each other instead of the real problem. Of course, if they then turn in unison again against that real problem, you should look at the bigger picture again. Why?
Because humanity being in mass agreement on anything means they are often being misled somehow. If they are being told the whole truth of the matter, then there will always be more questions.
So while I am not saying unity is bad... I am saying that when things are being changed, like our language; just to achieve it... you should ask yourself why this unity is so important, before you end up running off a cliff.
Now, with that said, I'll go about the rest of my day and life walking in the other direction that seems safer.
And that has always been against the grain of society.
Edit: So I just found this article and it dawned on me that it's quite possibly the best example as to why language cannot just be changed willy nilly. I've only read partially into it so far, but wanted to get this edit done fast before you have had a chance to see this comment.
If you are devising tests for AI, there need to be strict rules. Otherwise that AI will utilize the loopholes instead. This can make for interesting discoveries, sure; like with TAS speed runs of mario for instance... But ultimately if you are trying to create AI that can operate within our world in a way that we can operate with it; we need strict rules.
Words/symbols changing meaning just because some group of people agree with each other is not copacetic to that.
> Rural communities are often more religious, more conservative, lower income, lower educated, and have a lot less access to opportunity.
Hi there. I guess you are having a day of bad luck or something, cause you managed to get me to reply to you. heh.
I'm basically the walking oxymoron of your example. I was raised rurally, and am more educated than many city slicks. I'm not religious, or poor. Not rich, but not destitute. And as far as my political leanings go, I figure I'm above all of you, because the center was killed by extremists, so there is nothing left but to act better than the rest of you.
And guess what. I'm not alone. There are millions of us out there. You just have to find us among each rural location, heh.
So what I have to say to you here is this. What I am about to say obviously doesn't apply equally to everyone, but seeing as how you are generalizing, so will I.
City folk tend to be the most insufferable blow hards of egotistical proportions, that is often followed with a inability to understand their own shortcomings, because they are too focused on trying to be 'better than the bumpkins' that fucking feed them.
This single sentence from you shows much more of what kind of person you are, than anything else you wrote in front of me right now. It shows that you don't actually have any common decency for your fellow man or woman, because you are too focused on these things.
1. Not being religious. Clearly important to you because you started with it.
2. Being Left Wing, or at least center liberal. Again, importance is easy to see, since you include it right after religion.
3. Being rich, or at least not poor. Now, not knocking you on this, but your idea that people are lower income just because they live rurally is just... wrong. Think long and hard about it. Rural folk, tend to own property. That doesn't just fall in your lap unless you got it from family. This does happen often out in the rural areas because of farms and such; but that shouldn't be a knock against them, since the same happens for rich folk in cities too. Just not with farms, usually.
4. You clearly think of yourself as smarter than the rural bumpkin... but I have news for you. There are plenty of people who live rurally who are not just smarter than you, but literally better than YOU in every, single, way. But you'll never accept this, because it would mean that you would have to accept that someone you don't respect is actually better than you. Fact is, if you actually were as smart as you clearly think you are going by your huge comment thus far...
You would have never said any of this sentence, at all. You would have known better than to do something so blatantly arrogant and ignorant.
5. Less access to opportunity.
This is the ONE thing, I might actually agree with you on. At the end of the day, cities do have that pretty much monopolized. But you should reassess how you put the fact into a sentence, because there are still many opportunities available to the right people in rural areas. You, just might not be the right person. And no, it's not because they want some poor dumb religious stooge. It's because you would be too full of yourself to be wanted in those places to begin with.
In regards to Bayes Theorem in the XKCD comic being used in the 'real world'...
I haven't ever really learned about the theorem except in passing through some articles and a brief mention in highschool once.
Even so, I still ended up basically using Bayes Theorem to successfully do something IRL. What was it?
Hunting ghosts in a game called phasmophobia. Some friends and myself were playing it on discord and were having a hard time figuring out which ghost it was we were supposed to be hunting. That is, until I started trying to figure out the negatives before figuring out the positives. The others were curious as to what I was doing, as it seemed to be working finally, and so I told them; "I'm fairly certain this game is using a rudimentary form of Bayes theorem, which is how we are finally getting these correct."
And correct we were, time and time again; despite never having gotten all the respective 'positive' clues.
Just destroy any company that doesn't comply with the will of the people. (yes, I know this is problematic, but companies like Nintendo for example need to be brought to heel.)
Enjoy your long read I guess. Note, you should try to mentally project someone just explaining their views onto these words. They are not written with any intent of vehemence towards you. Since people on the internet tend to project false intent onto words due to lack of a person to see/hear/etc... I am saying this in advance for you.
Without further adieu.
----
Right, well I used to agree with this notion, once upon a time ago.
But then people started to just decide that words mean new things because they want to be correct without having to try at all.
And I won't allow that. No one should. That's why I care, because these "scare quotes" as you all call them, are a relatively new thing that only just arose in my viewing of it. Before this, the last time I heard of this at all, it was some pissed off university students foaming at the mouth about stuff that didn't make any sense. Not going to be direct about what, because that's not the point of the convo right now. The point is that they were being silly, and changing definitions just to suit them. Something I have seen younger folk trying to do more and more over time; and I blame the education system for never properly teaching them how the language works in the first place.
And I'm not alone. My English may not be perfect of course, but my English teacher for the final years of my time in high school was the type who gave ZERO fucks about your opinion about how the language operated; cause she was a professor in university prior to returning to teaching high school English. Why did she do this?
Because she was finding that the students getting into University weren't being taught properly at all. And when she met some that came from her old town, and they were some of the worst... She retired and went back to teaching English in high school.
So again, I'm not alone in this. That's why I can take the die on this hill king of stance I am taking. Because yes, some of you like yourself mkaic are actually kind of right.
But because people who are wrong about so much else will use that to defend their erroneous ways, I cannot allow it on any good moral level when it comes to ensuring that information can always be understood by each other when communication is key.
It's like the okay sign. It was never an right wing symbol when I was growing up, but now because some university students say it is, now it is?
Fuck that. I used to use the okay sign to indicate I was fine with something without having to open my mouth. Or a thumbs up in other cases worked fine as well.
Personally, I'm waiting for them to try to claim that thumbs up are a sign of male sexism next. Why? Cause a thumb in erect position resembles a penis in erect position. With a big ball sack.
If you think I am kidding. I'm not. I fully expect one of those fuckwits to try this some day. And they will use the exact same kinds of arguments to declare that the sign has changed in definitions, and thus they are valid and the rest who are not what they claim; are not. Just like you are claiming in how English works, because according to your logic as I see it right now, mass opinion = correct; and that's just wrong.
Yes, you are right that over time this is how it works. But it's not something that people just decide one day and then suddenly it is so.
Also, because words are ultimately symbols in letter form, even hand signs get the same treatment in a way, hence my use of it as an example. In case you were wondering how we got to hand signs and stuff in all of this.
Long story short, I'm part of the other side of the fence that says "No, you may not misuse my language just to suit yourself." There is room for creativity in making new words instead. Or even new punctuation if need be. Our keyboards could use some key swaps for instance on that side of things. There are about 12 keys that are almost never used by most people anymore. 6-8 of them could easily be repurposed without inconveniencing almost anyone. *there might be 1 rando out there kind of thing who needs it.
So I get it that you might see me as that rando right now; but I am not 'random' as it were. I'm just not going with the flow of the masses, because that's how buffalo used to be run off cliffs back in the day.
https://headsmashedin.ca/
This place is just south of me by a few hours drive or so. I link to it, because I figure it's a good starting point for people to maybe start to understand why running with the herd isn't always a good idea. Yes, even in terms of how language operates. How so?
Imagine this.
What if a group of people out there has decided they want to pull an elaborate ruse on the English speaking nations of the world, particularly the 'west'. How would you do this?
Well, by replacing the definitions of important words that we already had what should have been very concrete meanings.
By doing this on a slow but steady basis, you can change how a nation of people operates and thinks, because you are now controlling their language directly.
Now this may not be actually happening today as described, because there may not be that shadowy group... but actually, there kind of is.
Prior to 2020, it was pretty well known within certain circles that Putin and co over in Russia were attempting to do exactly this kind of thing through multiple avenues of agitprop and misinformation.
But how do you prove this, when everything is suddenly conspiracy if you talk about it?
So far, the war with Ukraine is helping in one thing in all of this.
Show you all how Russia operates in doing the whole cry bully tactic. By calling out others for doing that which they are doing themselves, etc. Because of this, people are now looking deeper into what Putin is actually doing, instead of just what he is saying.
And it's glorious, because when you all start to get on that same level, you are all going to start seeing why
I
Am
Right.
But it's going to take a while, and it did for Putin as well. Him and his cronies and their cronies and so on and so forth all had a good 2 decades for sure where they were doing this, very slowly eroding away our ability to communicate effectively by creating false words/symbols/meanings and false issues to help re-define them.
At then of the day, any time you see humanity acting in unison on something, or in big groups at least; you should always look further in to why and if you should even be part of it. Many buffalo could have survived if they just looked back and saw that the humans chasing them could be trampled instead. Instead, they ran off cliffs to run in their own head. This is what is being done to our language over time, and thus us with it. People start to not make sense to each other, and so they fight each other instead of the real problem. Of course, if they then turn in unison again against that real problem, you should look at the bigger picture again. Why?
Because humanity being in mass agreement on anything means they are often being misled somehow. If they are being told the whole truth of the matter, then there will always be more questions.
So while I am not saying unity is bad... I am saying that when things are being changed, like our language; just to achieve it... you should ask yourself why this unity is so important, before you end up running off a cliff.
Now, with that said, I'll go about the rest of my day and life walking in the other direction that seems safer.
And that has always been against the grain of society.
Edit: So I just found this article and it dawned on me that it's quite possibly the best example as to why language cannot just be changed willy nilly. I've only read partially into it so far, but wanted to get this edit done fast before you have had a chance to see this comment.
https://www.science.org/content/article/computers-ace-iq-tes...
If you are devising tests for AI, there need to be strict rules. Otherwise that AI will utilize the loopholes instead. This can make for interesting discoveries, sure; like with TAS speed runs of mario for instance... But ultimately if you are trying to create AI that can operate within our world in a way that we can operate with it; we need strict rules.
Words/symbols changing meaning just because some group of people agree with each other is not copacetic to that.