Commenter Archive

Hey, I resemble that remark!

And you'd be talking about what an idiot Palin was for not knowing that "genocide" referred to wiping out an entire race.

Just like if she'd ever said "decimate" you'd suddenly be a classical-definition prescriptivist.

So I guess you forgot that part a whole six posts ago where I said "If the recognized authories physically bar your leaving (and forcibly return you should you escape) then you’re a slave, or a prisoner."

Unless you're claiming that slaves who ran away would not be returned to their masters if caught.

"Oh, but in the North--" yeah, didn't I already address this objection? Yes, as a matter of fact I did.

*****

"I can't leave because everywhere else sucks!" So this argument is acceptable when we're discussing slavery, but not acceptable when we're talking about executive compensation or workplace conditions or other employment-related issues? If "everywhere sucks" absolves you of responsibility for your choices, then it's a perfect defense. Texas didn't have any choice but to take Federal money because the other option was untenable.

"The actual slaves of the Old South had much better options than Auschwitz. They could have run away."

And if they got caught they'd be sent back, which is what I already fucking said.

"Not if they made it to certain states in the North!" Well, yes, and you'll recall that we had a huge war over that issue.

"Say you’ve got two choices:

A: You’re a plantation slave in the Old South.
B: You’re imprisoned at Auschwitz."

Congratulations, you've invented reductio ad absurdum.

The problem is that, in American discourse, "slavery" is inherently linked to "racism", and in the mind of a zealot there's no such thing as a continuum of racism. Either you're a racist or you aren't.

Yes, it does. If you choose to stay then you are not a slave. It doesn't matter how bad the options are. Saying "I'm a slave and all my other choices suck!" is a way of childishly blaming all your sadness on other people.

Insisting that circumstances force you into slavery--and that the chance to choose differently is only an illusion--is a foolishly anti-intellectual method of denying responsibility for your actions. "It's not MY fault," you say, "I'M just a SLAVE here, all I can do is what I'm TOLD to do." This is where Zero Tolerance policies and TSA foolishness come from; it's people who honestly believe that they're slaves to written policy, that their actions are dictated entirely by circumstance, and that they haven't got any choice.

Exactly what I was going to say. If you can walk away, then you aren't a slave.

And no, "they'll ruin your credit" or "you'll get sued" isn't preventing you walking away. If the recognized authories physically bar your leaving (and forcibly return you should you escape) then you're a slave, or a prisoner.

Less like "loyal unto death" and more like "passing the buck".

It sounds like an interesting discussion could be had over whether Martin always wanted her that way, but lacked the writing ability (in skill or experience) to make it work.

Didn't Penn and Teller do something similar in the 2008 election? Conducting a "survey" where they attributed Obama's positions to McCain, and vice versa, and found that people agreed with McCain's statements if they thought Obama was the source?

Darrh. Calypso, not Circe.

It's interesting how Western society has decided that Odysseyus is the big hero of the Trojan War.

I guess it's for two reasons:

1) Western society is built on the notion that wisdom beats strength, and Odysseus was the one who came up with the Trojan Horse idea, so of course we see him as an intellectual hero rather than a sniveling wretch too craven to fight up-front like a man.

2) The author made Odysseus the main character of the sequel, although there's a lot of fanfic about the rest of the people involved (indeed, Virgil wrote a whole series of spinoff fanfics about a minor character!)

In fact, in that second one I find a common misconception (one that, in fact, I held myself.) People think of Odysseus's quest to return to Penelope as being some kind of romantic thing; he's got to get home to his wife! That's probably part of our attraction to the character.

But...the Classic Greeks didn't think like that. She wasn't his object of romantic affection; really, she was property, more like a slave than anything else. If there's romance involved it's Odysseus and Circe.

"I had occasion to fly over AMARC and saw the fruits of our Cold War labor..."

Yes, you flew in an airliner that's an evolution of technology first developed in the middle of the century, using navigation systems based on satellites first proposed and worked on in the middle of the century, and stuffed with microprocessors whose predecessors were invented to support the air-defense network built in the middle of the century. And you were able to make this flight because of satellite-based weather predictions--which satellites were, again, first built and orbited in the middle of the century.

Your original argument was that "[t]he aerospace industry of the late 50s featured fiasco after fiasco." You've backed off to "oh, well, all military spending is inherently foolish" and "technology can't solve everything" and similar platitudes.

You're all done, hoss. All done.

"I see I’m about to get the Tang Argument, wherein every modern invention can be ascribed to NASA."

I should point out here that you're the only one who's brought up NASA so far.

I like how you just totally sailed by the successes I cited. So you honestly believe that weather satellites aren't a useful thing that we successfully developed?

And before you say "NASA built those"...no, they didn't. The weather satellite program was run by the Air Force and the NRO, and was exactly the kind of consistent and remarkable success that you believe never happened.

"The idiocy of Mutual Assured Destruction..."

...is an entirely-logical outcome of game theory. I guess you aren't up on your logic studies. I mean, I'm sure you've read the Wikipedia article about the Prisoner's Dilemma and therefore consider yourself an expert, but since you don't understand where MAD came from then you clearly have a long way to go.

Here, let's ask this: Why, in the context of global nuclear war, would a ballistic-missile defense system be destabilizing?

Dude...Corona? DMSP? Microprocessors? You're saying that these don't represent success stories, that they weren't successful efforts, that they didn't produce technology that's useful and being used today? (Or are you suggesting that the Russians had all these things first?)

You say you have the facts. Let's see some facts. Not "oh we had to play catchup" this, or "generalized fuckfuckery" that. Show me the facts.

If you want to point to Russian successes? Fine! That's not the same thing as suggesting that there were no American successes, that everything the Americans did was "generalized fuckfuckery".

Look, you've obviously got nothing here beyond the party-line Sovophile bullshit that the aerospace industry has had to deal with since Eisenhower's time. (And still has to deal with; viz. all the pantswetting over the PAK-FA, the S-400, the J-20, etcetera.)

To bring in a comment from up-thread:

Part of what we consider "freedom" in the past was, really, just ignorance. In the 1950s it might have been seen as unwarranted government interference to, say, put emissions limits on dioxins; but, in the 1950s, nobody really understood how bad dioxins were.

Perhaps we're nostalgaic for the ancient age of freedom, but maybe that's the nostalgia of a child who's been potty-trained.

Or hell, Windex and Clorox. Mix those two together and you've got fun on a bun. (Which always makes me laugh when these jackasses say that there's no way a bottle of clear liquid could be dangerous.)

You have no fucking idea what you are talking about. None. That was an embarrassing post even for you.

That's certainly true.

It would be ironic, wouldn't it, if it turned out that fifty years of fighting institutionalized racism and bigotry has resulted in a government that's more intrusive and more overbearing than Orwell's worst nightmares.

The aerospace industry is certainly nostalgaic for the back half of the 20th century. That's when we had all the money!

If you shoot a gun at your face and miss, it doesn't mean that shooting guns at your face is safe. There's a difference between "un-necessary caution" and "didn't know any better".

Most of the research supporting seatbelts and airbags wasn't done until mid-century--but it does exist, and they do act to protect vehicle occupants from injury during an accident.

It's not so weird if you hate the thought of happy white people.

It is awfully cliche, though. I mean, the suburbs? Really? Beat that horse some more, the flesh hasn't completely fallen off yet. Oh, and tailfins on cars. Again.

Tell me about it. Unfortunately, he seems to be very much driven by his muse, and she's apparently done giving him ideas about Aiah and Constantine.

...aaaaand there you have it, two recs in a row for Abraham :D

I got a kick out of Daniel Abraham's "The Long Price Quartet".

I also liked David Drake's "Servant Of The Dragon", which is the best of a nine-book series which represents an interesting attempt to repeat the same story nine times. ...well, okay, that's not really the idea, but the basic structure of each book is almost completely the same, and "Dragon" is the best-written of the lot and well worth a read.

Walter Jon Williams's "Metropolitan", for all its technological trappings, is basically a fantasy novel. It's actually an early example of what we now call "urban fantasy".