Week 3 Pimpin' Study be on Keepin' It Fair

Originally posted by TheSkipper
Excellent post Prad...I rec'd it myself!


Originally posted by pradtf
Neither of these are correct. Cribs' attitude is not in question here - his post is.

But, have you not said yourself that we cannot determine what is negative media by virtue of who is offended. If that is the case, there is no longer a question, but just a post by ...[text shortened]... Assuming, of course, that the TOS is only as powerful as the people enforcing it.

TheSkipper

Thank you for your well-written posts and well-argued postion in this matter.
I believe you have successfully backed prad into a logical corner from which
he must admit that he has no justification to stop my style of posting, aside
from his and a few others' personal disapproval. Which was the entire
motivation for this particular lesson in the first place.

Dr. Cribs

Originally posted by TheSkipper
Excellent post Prad...I rec'd it myself!

thanks skip, but perhaps you might consider coming into that corner you and cribs have backed me into 😉

then you would see that what i have said is

1) while a person's finding something offensive isn't grounds to have it removed, it doesn't mean that we rush to protect ourselves from the crime of censorship by heading in the other direction as soon as someone speaks out. I have said that the 'offensive' bit is not the criteria, but a trigger. The fact someone is offended should result in us looking into the matter, but that does not mean we should simply conclude that it should not be pursued because "we cannot determine what is negative media by virtue of who is offended".

So let me illustrate with an example in which most people should not find any humour at all (unlike the ho/pimp situation which is thought of as funny, which it is probably why it is being defended to the death)

Here is a disgustingly blatant attempt at a racist joke:

"Why should jews be starved? So you can fit more of them into the gas chamber."

Now when the leader of the Jewish clan expresses not just offense, but horror at this kind of garbage, we should pay attention right? We surely should not stop with

"Oh well that's just his opinion" or
"we cannot determine what is negative media by virtue of who is offended" or
"We can't have one person deciding what is and is not negative media."

You might say that more people might complain. So, skip, how many people does it take before something becomes wrong?


2) just because the mods haven't removed it, doesn't mean it becomes acceptable. You conclude that "Since they have not removed the post that has generated so much debate...we once again find ourselves in a situation where you do not like the post." But that is not the only conclusion that is possible - in fact, i have given you 4 concrete possibilities that have nothing to do with whether i like the post or not. Of those 4, you decide that d) was the correct one - you may be right. However, once again, just because a post isn't removed doesn't mean that

a) it is acceptable or
b) it doesn't violate the TOS and perhaps, most importantly
c) it doesn't violate the dignity of people (i am, of course, working on the logical assumption that hoes really are people and not merely commodities to be exploited and abused)


3) the attitude of the poster does not necessarily determine the acceptability of the post. Well, you have said that i am logical and seem to be a good person - i think you may also agree reading some of my posts that i am not an exploitative or abusive individual. You might even say, that despite my attempts to infringe on the freedom of other people's right to their jollies, that i have a pretty good attitude. But I just made that 'joke' up all by myself a few minutes ago by putting together a couple of logical incongruencies. I made it up and posted it despite my 'pretty good attitude'. Does that make the joke any better or any more acceptable? I think you'll be the first to agree that it does not and thereby reassert that it confirms what you said earlier that you "cannot find it [negative media] by figuring out who has an attitude which is likely to create it" - i have removed even that tool from you and left you helpless to determine what negative media is!

But i haven't really, because you still have your own attitude. Some where beneath the logical strategems, your attitude is saying not just that it feels offended, but that making a joke out of the suffering and torture of others is not funny at all, rather it is a blight against our conscience.



Let's get back to the helpless bit:

you have now removed from me all the tools with which I know of to determine negative media. I cannot find it by figuring out who is offended. I cannot find it by figuring out who has an attitude which is likely to create it. [pradded: i cannot find it because since the mods have still left it there, it must be ok]

(i hope we have addressed each of these points by the combination of the last couple of posts, so we understand that their meanings really aren't exactly the way you have written them)

So "How, in your view, do we determine a post to be negative media?"
We can use the following process assuming it isn't an incredibly obvious violation of the TOS (because it is supposed to be funny, or because a humourous, intelligent person has written it, or there seems to be continued debate on the issue etc etc):

1) if it bugs us - let's figure out why
2) if it bugs someone else - let's figure out why

(those are the triggers not the criteria)

when we work on the figuring out part we can ask:

1) does it attack an individual or a group in an "unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically" or sexist way?
2) does it "Harm minors in any way"?
3) does it "Stalk" or otherwise harass another?

Now, you have already demonstrated in the other thread how unhelpless you really are:

"I'm also horrofied that the subject needs to be addressed in the first place."
"There is not much any of us can do about sexist bastards except wait for them to die off."
"your continued posting, playing, and desire to talk about this will help to make the rest of us both aware of the problem"

and all this without even actually seeing a single derogatory sentence to Breaca!

Yet you seem to have some difficulty in this thread:

with not being "horrofied" at the way women are depicted
with having the "sexist bastards die off" (metaphorically of course)
with becoming "aware of the problem" or even recognizing that there is a problem

Why is that?

Perhaps it has something to do with ncrosby's comment:

"Now if Cribs were to, in seriousness, call ME or any woman on this site a ho, then I might take some offense."

So we rise up in arms when one of our own is called a ho, but otherwise it's fine. Is not 'ho' itself a derogatory term? Is not the idea of pimping to exploit women? Can it really not be visible unless it positions itself on our very doorstep?

You write: "I would hate to be seen as a big jerk, who hates women and loves harassing language."

You won't be, but being seen as a 'big jerk' is hardly the issue here. By wrapping yourself into apparent helplessness through logical redtape, you deny what you know to be true. By not speaking out, you encourage the very thing you don't believe in and may be worse:

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Martin Niemoller

You also wrote: "I mention this because you seem to be taking the high road on the issue ... So, back to my attempt to convince you that your high road ends at a cliff"

While I appreciate your arguments that so much of this boils down to nothing more than a 'subjective opinion', surely you too can see that there is nothing merely 'subjective' about the oppression of women. While figuring out whether this or that person is offended, we can also recognize that a post in which hoes are subjugated by pimps is offensive of its own accord, because it denies that part of humanity the rights they are inherently born with - and no amount of attitudinal whitewashing can cover the stains.

Your concern is that we not wrongly violate this wonderous freedom of screech for others. When we become so afraid of doing the wrong thing, we never get around to doing the right thing. And there are right things to do!

We can fight against the demeaning of women whether for real or for jest. We can stop seeing them as chattel even though we have a lot of history to overcome. We can acknowledge them (and I mean all of them not just our girlfriends, wives or daughters) as companions who stand beside and not behind us, and with whom we share this great journey.

The 'high road' doesn't end at a cliff - it leads to the stars.

In friendship,
prad

Originally posted by shavixmir
What I'm trying to get at is this:

Say someone is insulted by the Venus de Milo. Naked breasts etc. Are you going to cover them up?
Comedy?
Jokes?
Art?

Who's going to judge what is insulting and what is not? The insulted person?

It's not workable without giving up that which we love. Freedom of expression!

ok so we are talking off rhp now.

the loss of arms isn't an act of violence - so it's ok, because most of us have at least 2 breasts and even use them for different things.

you don't have to give up freedom of expression - you only have to guide it through reasonably sensible waters as mentioned in my post to skip.

a insulted person may be a good judge - but the person producing this work of art, may be even a better one 😉

in friendship,
prad