Journal snowgirl's Journal: So, you've decided to Friend me... 63
So, I just noticed that I had a relationship change. I expected it to be that pudge asshat foing me... which I wouldn't blame him, I foed him myself. But instead, to my surprise, it was Bill Dog, friending me. Now, I don't mean to be ungrateful, or upset in any way... but as I remember, Bill Dog is a strong conservative, while I'm a rabid liberal... and not just this watered down liberalist crap that passes for liberal here in the USA, but a full on democratic socialist.
So, I put an invitation to Bill Dog: if you wouldn't mind, would you be willing to explain why you made the choice to friend me?
Actually, let's do this as an open question. Anyone who is willing to explain why they friend/foed me, I invite your honest and open comments. I promise, I'll keep my mouth shut, and take my medicine as it is. After all, your justification is your honest opinion.
we meet again! (Score:2)
I suspect.... (Score:2)
While I don't think this applies to Bill Dog, I rather suspect that most people who friend you here are lonely basement dwellers that see "girl" in your user name.
That being said... I will not be friending you because (1) I am not a lonely basement dweller stalking nerdy girls on slashdot, and (2) I'm a libertarian and I just don't think that you and I would mesh very well as slashdot buddies.
HAND.
Re: (Score:1)
While I don't think this applies to Bill Dog, I rather suspect that most people who friend you here are lonely basement dwellers that see "girl" in your user name.
That being said... I will not be friending you because (1) I am not a lonely basement dweller stalking nerdy girls on slashdot, and (2) I'm a libertarian and I just don't think that you and I would mesh very well as slashdot buddies.
HAND.
I love people like you. You take the opportunity to generalize peeps into a category, then are sure to say how you aren't part of that category.
lol
Re: (Score:2)
Ahh but generalizations are what got me here in the first place... the exact one being roughly "blacks are more poor than whites."
Not all generalizations are false. I suppose I'll repeat my offending behavior and mention I'm not black, either.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahh but generalizations are what got me here in the first place... the exact one being roughly "blacks are more poor than whites."
Not all generalizations are false. I suppose I'll repeat my offending behavior and mention I'm not black, either.
It's not that blacks are more poor than whites, it's that blacks are statistically more likely to be poor than whites.
Re: (Score:1)
Ahh but generalizations are what got me here in the first place... the exact one being roughly "blacks are more poor than whites."
Not all generalizations are false. I suppose I'll repeat my offending behavior and mention I'm not black, either.
I don't care why you are here, all I see is you trying to insult people to make yourself seem better.
Your not, in fact, your worse.
Re: (Score:2)
That being said... I will not be friending you because (1) I am not a lonely basement dweller stalking nerdy girls on slashdot, and (2) I'm a libertarian and I just don't think that you and I would mesh very well as slashdot buddies.
1) There's apparently always a first?
2) I actually find that I'm able to discuss economic issues with people in a rational basis. It tends to be a lot less emotionally involved than social issues.
Re: (Score:2)
He has got a point.
I actually find I'm -more- reluctant to friend female-sounding users than male ones. Just because there's always the risk that someone will suppose you've got the wrong intentions. (I'm not saying it's wrong to intend to learn to know women or anything, but you get the idea)
Re: (Score:2)
From my observation, the #1 reason that groups of men at (my) work who hang out outside of work do not include women is because they are afraid that an invite might be suspected of having an ulterior motive or that they might tell the wrong joke, or give the wrong look, etc.
Re: (Score:1)
From my observation, the #1 reason that groups of men at (my) work who hang out outside of work do not include women is because they are afraid that an invite might be suspected of having an ulterior motive or that they might tell the wrong joke, or give the wrong look, etc.
Um, no, thats the excuse they use.
If they were real men, they wouldn't have to worry about any of that. But apparently they don't hang out with women, probably because they feel they have to modify their behavior, and no chick wants to hang out with a bunch of men who act like little kids.
Guess what? women aren't much different them men. you can talk to them, joke with them, hang out with them all okay. But if you don't know how to talk to them, i guess you'll still be hanging in the basement with your
Re: (Score:2)
You're kind of an asshole, huh?
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose I was not necessarily meaning the most recent experience... exclusion of women at informal social meets happens a lot less now than during the late '90s and early 2000s when they'd round us all up and tell us how we can get fired and sued for saying something that deviates remotely from the most politically correct of phrasing.
moof (Score:1)
I use my "friends" list as a method for receiving notification of new journals by people that I think I might want to read. So despite Slashdot's labeling, what I use it for is independent of the fondness I feel for any given one of you anonymous voices out there in cyberspace!
As regards to your particular utterings from the depths of the intertubes, it was a combination of:
The existence of what looks like what may have been interesting past journal entries.
In a recent prior exchange [slashdot.org] your comments includ
Re: (Score:2)
It's amazing what you learn when you're willing to ask.
(as I'm sure I appear about as crazy as y'all do to me)
I wouldn't call you EVIL, but yeah, I think you're crazy.
It's a good point that it's "astound[ing] how different people can be"... I find it so odd that we can be so totally opposed in ideas, and be in total amazement how the other person can proclaim things that we hold are fundamentally "evil" as you would call it.
Re: (Score:1)
FYI, for me it's not "evil", it's literally evil: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1613428&cid=31829822 [slashdot.org].
And there's no reason I can think of that you wouldn't think of me as evil, to whatever extent my system of morality is an opposing one.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't mean the quote to indicate "so-called evil" but rather to set off a direct quote from you.
Don't let a fallacy of ignorance sway you from thinking that I must think your views evil. Misguided? Ignorant? Arrogant? Pushing your worldview on me? All those perhaps, but not evil.
Evil I reserve for pretty much strictly to psychopaths and those with "malignant narcissistic personality disorder".
You? You simply have different fundamental values.
Re: (Score:1)
Evil I reserve for pretty much strictly to psychopaths and those with "malignant narcissistic personality disorder".
But those are physiological diseases. With real physical causes. Well ok, don't know about the second one. You don't hate people dying from cancer, do you? Look at how any disease manifests itself, and look at the cause. You may be a bit more forgiving. Yes, we do need to protect ourselves from psychopaths, but we don't have to hate them. They are not evil. When a mentally healthy individual c
Re: (Score:2)
While I understand that they are physiological diseases that does not alter their fundamental nature. Psychopaths and Malignant Narcissists cannot be rehabilitated. In fact, there's evidence to show that Psychopaths because WORSE offenders when they receive corrective therapy.
I call them evil not because I hate them, but because they lack conscience (or close enough in case of narcissism). Evil to me is an insolvable problem, and psychopathy and narcissism is the closest thing one can get to this without
Re: (Score:1)
Yes their disease is incurable, that's why we need to reopen the sanitariums. We need a place to contain them for our safety, and we must assure they are treated as humanely as anybody. And we certainly must never elect one to high office ever again :-)
We( or maybe just me) use the word "evil" to describe something we fear or hate. I can't say whether it really exists. Outside type A personalities anyway...
Re: (Score:2)
We( or maybe just me) use the word "evil" to describe something we fear or hate. I can't say whether it really exists. Outside type A personalities anyway...
This is why I attempted to acknowledge that I was using Bill Dog's definition of "evil" as I was able to understand it, rather than my own definition.
We all have different definitions, and I didn't want him to mistake my presumption of his position as my own.
Re: (Score:2)
I've finally come to conclude that Leftists are fundamentally and universally wrong.
Perhaps that is because you, like they, believe that there is a "Way That Things Are Supposed To Be" (insert little trademark and copyright symbols here).
This is an extremely widespread, nearly universal belief. Although it is held by almost everyone who is religious, it is not limited to them. The Marxist-Leninist were sure that history was supposed to progress in some pre-determined way that was built into the very fabric of the universe and they didn't even believe in a creator of that universe.
This be
Re: (Score:1)
This belief is a cause of much, if not most, of the trouble in the world,...
Maybe the cause is not really the belief, but rather the acting on it.
Of course, this would be ruled out by the Left-leaning atheist, as:
1) The Leftist part in them considers certain mere thoughts to be crimes, and
2) The atheist part in them desperately wants to convict religious belief.
Re: (Score:2)
This belief is a cause of much, if not most, of the trouble in the world,...
Maybe the cause is not really the belief, but rather the acting on it.
Of course, this would be ruled out by the Left-leaning atheist, as:
1) The Leftist part in them considers certain mere thoughts to be crimes, and
2) The atheist part in them desperately wants to convict religious belief.
1) My left-winger part doesn't consider that some thoughts are crimes, and I doubt that any but the most radical left-wingers would hold this idea... I do however feel that some opinions are morally wrong to hold. (Such as: "slavery is ok") I would hold that right-wingers generally feel the same way, and have the same exception for their most reactionary.
2) I, and most atheists, do not feel that religious belief itself should be outlawed. It does do some good things. The problem is that we mostly only h
Re: (Score:1)
I should've resisted adding the "Of course, ..." part, since it would just be disputed (of course! :). That's what I'm trying to stay away from -- making observations about reality when half the difficulty is that reality is disputed, and inviting responses that while relevant, don't logically bear, which is the other half of the difficulty in communication between very different people/with very different world-views.
I don't know which passages you're referring to, but that's prolly just as well as I'm sur
Re: (Score:2)
I understand your disagreement about dietary laws being "moral", however for those religions that do have dietary laws there is no question that they are a matter of morality. This is why Muslims are offended by individuals doing things such as offering them pork. To them, it's morally equivalent to offering a homophobic Baptist homosexual sex.
If God could change the morals at any time, then to me that indicates that they cannot really be seen as "absolute".
As for our understanding of God's intended moral
Re: (Score:1)
If God could change the morals at any time, then to me that indicates that they cannot really be seen as "absolute".
That statement of mine turned out to be misleading, given the context. Yes, if I thought God changed morality, I would also consider that then to be not "absolute". But I don't consider it to be that He ever has. Part of what I take on faith is that He remains constant. In His goodness. I only included the (regrettable in that context) statement because I believe that He made the rules in the
Re: (Score:2)
Atheists would typically consider me to be a moral absolutist.
Actually, the way you describe your morality makes you a moral relativist. If two cultural can have differing morality then there is moral relativism there.
"Moral absolutism" and "moral relativism" are terms coined not by the atheists, but by the religious.
When conversing with those who are of similar world-view to me, the absence of addressing a particular point generally means I agree.
I follow this pattern myself as well. Onwards...
Matthew 19:3-9 "3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? 4 Haven't you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator '
Re: (Score:1)
if you were to find out with all certainty right now that there were no gods at all ever, and never were. Would you go out and start killing people? Would you begin stealing from others?
Yes, and yes. If man decides what is moral and what isn't, then being a man, I would decide that anyone who annoys me must die, die, die! ;)
You'd respond with something along the lines of "but a desire for an orderly society would keep people from doing that".
But I don't give a fsck about society, it can kiss my a$$, life is
Re: (Score:2)
If I were Christian, I would fear for your soul.
Especially since you believe that man ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
We do have an inbuilt morality, and I feel that you are being disingenuous with your answers.
Abraham, when he was told to sacrifice his son, first replied, "wait, let me make sure I heard you right, God." I believe that to be the first response anyone would have.
Re: (Score:1)
The winky was only to acknowledge the over-the-topness of using the "die, die, die" meme. But as for the essential meaning of what I was saying there, and for everything else in a literal way, I was and am completely serious. So please don't think of me as ever being disingenuous, unless your intention is to hurt my feelings. Which is highly uncivil.
Re: (Score:2)
I simply cannot believe that the only thing keeping you from killing or stealing is your belief in your god.
It's a more fantastic claim than your god itself.
Re: (Score:1)
Of course you can't. But you can give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm totally sincere, and just greatly wrong about how I would be in that hypothetical situation. Please tell me if you're willing to do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course you can't. But you can give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm totally sincere, and just greatly wrong about how I would be in that hypothetical situation. Please tell me if you're willing to do that.
What worth is "sincere" if you're that willfully wrong?
Re: (Score:1)
Nothing, to you, but it means everything to me. It's the difference between "you know better than that" and "you should know better than that". The former I can't abide, as it's an affront to the very core of who I am. I.e. it's deeply offensive. You can call me any name in the book except *intentionally* deceptive. I can live with unintentionally deceptive. You can also think of me as reckless with what beliefs I allow myself to adopt. But not that I'm misrepresenting my genuine beliefs and thoughts. Do yo
Re: (Score:2)
I have no idea what your motives are, and I have no idea what your intent was.
However, you must be willfully ignorant to believe that if you suddenly stopped believing in your god, that you would start killing and stealing.
Re: (Score:1)
I'll accept the transition from the accusation of basically "your intent is deception" to "I have no idea what your intent was". And I can live with being accused of being willfully ignorant (I guess that means having purposely taken steps to ensure that I remain having insufficient to no knowledge about something(s)). Thank you.
I may journal about your hypothetical situation, in more depth, and if I do I'll alert you in case you're interested. But if my few remarks on it were so hard to swallow, ...
Re: (Score:2)
I may journal about your hypothetical situation, in more depth, and if I do I'll alert you in case you're interested. But if my few remarks on it were so hard to swallow, ...
I would be interested in your thinking on this matter.
Re: (Score:1)
Consider that as much as you're tired of hearing people opine with religious conviction and certainty about things, that maybe they're tired of hearing that religion is the biggest cause of evil in the world. The moral absolutist and the moral relativist are just going to differ on this. What can be done?
Okay (Score:2)
Fair request. I friended you a long time ago. A -long- time ago, certainly several years, though I don't remember it exactly.
There was several reasons, and just one reason, depending on how you want to see it. The one reason was; I found your comments and sometimes journal-posts readworthy.
Partly for your political leanings. It's rare on Slashdot to hear voices that aren't "anything that reeks of socialism is evil reincarnated". I'm from Norway myself, which is actually overall a pleasant enough place, desp
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Norway is one of the countries where women have the best opportunities (THE best if you believe the UN, but I don't nessecarily recommend believing that)
Wow, that's good news! Hm, I already have some understanding of Swedish... could you recommend a good green card... err, attractive, and intelligent guy?
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.weforum.org/en/media/Latest%20Press%20Releases/PR_GGG08 [weforum.org]
The report covers differences in economy, education, health and governance, with around a dozen indicators from each of these areas. (average-income, average-education, board-participation, percentage females in parliament etc etc etc) note that it's a report on Gender Gap, not on feminism, thus inequality in either direction will lead to a poorer score. The thing is done so that a country where men and women scored identical on every indicat
Re: (Score:2)
could you recommend a good green card... err, attractive, and intelligent guy?
It's all Bill Dog's fault that I can't give you a "funny" mod for that.
As for why I friended you in the first place, it was, no doubt, something you said.
For me at least (Score:2)
I made you a friend ages ago for a feisty and factually accurate response to some repugnant and delusional hater (could have very well been Pudge, I don't remember). I don't particularly view the Slashdot relationship naming system as meaningful... it's just a way to sort the competent & interesting people from the clueless, the highly propagandized, or the unpleasantly extreme.
Clearly it isn't a lack of comments that slashdot suffers from.. it's separating the wheat from the chafe and the mod system i
I'd friend ya (Score:2)
Anyway, keep posting JEs. They're one of the few things here that keep this place tolerable.
Re: (Score:2)
ZOMG love the log song in your bio.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you old enough to drink yet? That song is ancient. Ren and Stimpy from what the "Ren and Stimpy Drinking Game" I played in college lets me remember.
Can't remember for sure... (Score:2)
Please do keep posting though, Captain Splendid is right, the JEs, quality JEs, are the best thing about this place!
Re: (Score:2)
I blieve johndiii pointed to one of your JEs. Eitehr that or i saw a comment of yours in one of his. I have a deep respect for him, so anyone he takes the time to point to is worthy of friending to me. At least that's my hazy memory of it :-)
Please do keep posting though, Captain Splendid is right, the JEs, quality JEs, are the best thing about this place!
Captain Splendid is right. There is a great amount of use that "friend" and "friend of friend" can afford in building a trust metric.
I think it was due to (Score:2)
Your response to one of my comments where I was being a right-winger.
I think it's the same conversation that pudge came in and blew us both out of the water.
Bill Dog only thinks he's a conservative- in reality he's a status-quo conservationist stuck in a time when most conservatives are activists.
Re: (Score:2)
Your response to one of my comments where I was being a right-winger.
I think it's the same conversation that pudge came in and blew us both out of the water.
Bill Dog only thinks he's a conservative- in reality he's a status-quo conservationist stuck in a time when most conservatives are activists.
I remember explicitly friending you first. :P
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, but you guys cuold've kept talking to each other and ignored pudge. Easy to do in a text forum. You had a good talk going. I was disappointed you didn't keep it up. Don't let that happen again :-)
Bill Dog seems much closer to a real conservative than any of the neo-con/lib trolls that meddle in your discussions. I've never seen him throw personal insults at anybody here. I may disagree strongly with some of his opinions, but I like him. Ditto Smitty. In fact, all of you.. There.. a sappier response wi
Re: (Score:2)
I have to agree... Bill Dog has been unexpectedly reasonably civil. I wish it were less unexpected than it usually seems to be. :(
Re: (Score:1)
Mass media has everybody in a frenzy. Time to kick back and just hang out for a while, and tune out the crap. Or better yet, enjoy it, take it all in, but keep it on the other side of the glass. Until the bullet hits your head, it's all beer...? er, good.. Christ! I'm typing what I'm hearing on the damn radio!
Regarding Pudge (Score:2)
Sometimes I add his foes to my friends list, as he often foes some of the most interesting people here.
Re: (Score:2)
Out of curiosity, where was the discussion where you expected him to foe you? Are you sure it went on long enough? It looks like on average he will tolerate around 6 replies from someone of a differing opinion before foe'ing them (especially in his journal).
Some other JE from someone else (sorry I forgot your name), it was about using the term "racist".
Sometimes I add his foes to my friends list, as he often foes some of the most interesting people here.
I could see that...
Re: (Score:2)
From what I remember, Pudge generally foes people because they persistently violate his rules of discussion in his journal entries. All that means is that such people cannot continue to participate in those discussions. I tend to avoid the political discussions, so I do not know if he foes people for their comments in discussions outside his JEs.
Whatever his political views, I've generally found him to be far and away the most responsive of the Slashdot editors. I don't understand why he has the reputati
Re: (Score:2)
I only got one or two before I got foed by Pudge.
It was the palindromic Slashdot ID... (Score:2)
Seriously, though, you write interesting stuff. Whether or not I agree, it is always thought-provoking. You've changed my views on a couple of occasions, and I value that.
The notions of friending women above made me think. My friends list is female-heavy, though I don't consciously friend women over men. The circle was disproportionately female (though women were not a majority), so that may account for it. I also find the dominance games in which young males tend to indulge tiresome, so that is likely
Why did I friend you? (Score:1)
My recollection is that I friended you because you made an interesting comment in a thread that I read.
Who knows? (Score:2)
Who can say? Not I. Like others, I decided I liked your thoughts and wished to subscribe to your newsletter. The fact that you might (everyone online is a male) be able to respond to "Tits or GTFO" in a way that is pleasing to me is just a bonus.
Hello, (Score:1)
Underneath it all, in my eyes, you're a bad stereotype. A chick who was taken advantage of by some smoo