Lots of folks here seemed to understand that he was basically saying that it's a smell test. But f you want to insist on focusing on the surface tautology to claim that it's actually content-free, knock yourself out.
I'm with Stillwater -- the fact that on the surface it's tautological is irrelevant. Clearly everyone here knows what he was trying to say. His thought may not be particularly profound or useful, but it's not meaningless.
At work we occasionally will say about some issue that "it is what it is". Somehow we all manage to understand that the speaker is not actually trying to convey "A = A" but is suggesting that however much we'd like the situation to be different, we have to deal with it the way it is now.
"I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality and not reality itself, just as a finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. A thinking person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon."
I haven't read Dawkins, but my understanding is that his writing goes beyond the issue of the empirical claims of various religions and also makes sweeping statements about religious people, the effect of religious belief on the world, etc. Perhaps that wasn't germane to this particular twitter exchange, though.
< 10: normal people bathe/shower and change their clothes every day -- you should emulate this even though your parents aren't teaching you to.
10-19: there are dozens of girls you could be perfectly happy to be dating -- stop fixating on the one unattainable girl and ignoring everyone else
20-29: dude, seriously -- Slavic linguistics?? You're just running away from adulthood, get a real job.
30-39: If you stay in this job much longer, you're never going to be able to leave without a serious pay cut, and it'll never be the right time to do that.
40-49: stop worrying about what you didn't do and about what other people have that you don't -- you've got a very nice life.
Christian UUs. (They totally dig the teachings of JC as Wise Sage, but don’t actually hold to the supernatural mythology that otherwise informs Christianity in general.)
I'm curious about this (mildly so, since I'm not looking for a new church home). I go to a theologically (and politically) liberal mainline Protestant church, and I know there are a number of members like me who treat God and Jesus more as metaphors than actual divine beings (and the pastors know this too and aren't bothered by it); however, it's still a bridge too far to bring up this idea directly in the context of the worship service.
Probably my ideal church home would be one that has all the trappings of my current church but that is explicitly welcoming of people who don't even have the desire to believe in an actually-existing God. I've occasionally thought about attending a UU service to see how close it is to the traditions I know (especially the music), but it hasn't happened yet.
@north I leaned towards ethnic food -- felafels, Indian food, etc. My family was a little less adventurous than I was back then, so family meals tended towards pasta, potatoes, rice and beans. I'm afraid I don't have a particular recommendation or recipe, though.
@burt-likko That's my reaction, but I should add that I'm not trying to criticize other people's choices -- not for me to say what other people should find meaningful.
It makes me want to grab fellow non-believers at the shoulders, shake them gently, and say “Can’t we at least think up our own traditions and songs and rituals?”
Reading the post and the responses called to mind the years that I was a vegetarian. For a while I was buying those meat substitute products to try to ward off my carnivorous cravings. But inevitably, the faux meat was nowhere near good enough to satisfy me -- it usually just made me want the real thing even more. I was much better off when I focused on having good, truly vegetarian meals that weren't trying to be something else.
With so many of these Tuesday Questions, I recognize the thought or feeling that's being described but just can't come up with an example of my own, at least not in the few days before the discussion has died down. But this time I did think of an answer, which is: minor home repairs. If you were to visit my house (which I don't recommend), and if you were to look around at the general state of things, you would see a thousand little problems that needed to be taken care of -- a loose door handle, a bit of peeling paint, a torn window screen, a sticky door, etc.
These things remain undone not because I don't recognize the need nor because I lack the requisite knowledge, but because for some reason I haven't figured out how to get myself to put in the time and effort to actually pick up the screwdriver or paintbrush or whatever and take care of the damn thing.
We have the occasional house guest who feels comfortable enough to gently bring these issues to my attention and to try to teach me things I already know ("if you have a Philip's head screwdriver, you can just tighten this screw right here"), because it has clearly never occurred to them that someone could know what needs to be done to fix these things but not actually do it.
My wife used to apply pressure to get me to participate, but she's pretty much given up on that by now. This year my only involvement was to go ahead and seal the envelopes destined for my friends and family, which she had left unsealed just on the off chance that I wanted to write something personal in them (as if!).
It's helped my cause that the number of cards we receive each year has declined precipitously -- it seems to be a dying custom. At least, I prefer that explanation to the possibility that 60% of our friends and family no longer care about us.
Christmas cards, and related acts of thoughtfulness towards friends and family in general, are my wife's domain. I don't know but I suspect that my siblings each had a mild cardiac event on their first birthday after my marriage, when they actually received in the mail a genuine birthday card with my name on the return address (though in my wife's handwriting).
I can't even assign it to lack of organization on my part -- perhaps I might have some fleeting micro-thought about needing to send these cards, but mostly it stays below the level of consciousness.
"Christians get angry at Jews for not celebrating Christ related things "
Which Christians? All of them? Most of them? A loud minority? The missing quantifier is a big part of the problem here, given that you're clearly accusing this other group of being insensitive and silly.
It was a long time ago now, but I recall reading a book about the history of TV advertising that mentioned a study done not too long after TV sets had become a household staple. The researchers asked the respondents how much their purchasing decisions were affected by TV commercials, and the vast majority said they were hardly affected at all; but the company data the researchers had acquired that gave the before/after sales when a TV ad campaign was begun for a product generally showed a very large increase in sales.
I might be mixing up the studies, but I think this one might also have found that they got a more credible answer when they asked people how much they thought their friends were affected by the advertising.
Y'know, on balance I think this is a bad law (at least on the understanding that it affects coverage that's sold outside the exchanges and thus not subsidized), but I think that some folks are really over-reacting. Assuming this stays in place, I think you'll find that health plans in Michigan will make it extremely easy to get that extra coverage, so much so that the only real effect of it will be that just the folks who want abortion coverage will be paying for abortion coverage. Is that really so bad?
Note that I'm personally pro-choice and wouldn't push for anything like this, but I do understand why people who find it to be a horrible moral wrong would want to do everything they could to avoid having their own money support it.
I don't mind Twitter and texting conventions in their natural habitat, but I can't stand it when someone sends me a normal email using the same silly abbreviations (though my irritation lessens if there's a "sent from my [mobile]" apology at the end). Those things especially drive me up a wall in business emails, and the steam comes pouring out of my ears when I see that one of my colleagues has used them in an email to a client.
On a different note, my daughter hates it when I use the typical abbreviations in my texts to her, although she's fine with her friends doing the same. Apparently I do it with a geezer accent.
the extent to which it will detract from every other level of success.
I understand this point, but I don't think I agree with it. Take March Madness -- there are teams whose season is made just by getting into the tournament, and others who are thrilled to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. And they get the opportunity to see just how far they can go.
Personally I'd prefer the old bowl system to what we have now, because the determination of who exactly is #1 and #2 is so contentious -- better to leave it totally up for discussion than to select just two teams rather arbitrarily out of the top X to play it out.
probably how we’re going to get to an eight or nine team playoff
That's the best outcome IMO -- take all the AQ conference champs plus a couple at-large teams. Then you basically guarantee that the theoretical "best team in the country" at least had a chance to play for the championship, regardless of which conference it was in.
I think comparing the strengths of different conferences is only slightly more sensible than arguing about who would win in a fight between Batman and Spiderman -- there's not nearly enough information to determine a reliable answer. Our judgments are mostly formed by bias, reputation/historical performance (not too helpful in college football given the personnel turnover), and vast overgeneralizing from a tiny number of early-season inter-conference games. The most frustrating part of the 2011 SEC Bowl was that the Powers That Be pissed away the opportunity to add a useful datapoint for the cross-conference comparison.
What does being a majority have to do with empathy?
Without meaning to speak for Tod, I'd answer that in a democracy, any given majority has more political power than the corresponding minority (broadly speaking). If the members of a given majority don't have empathy for the members of the minority, then they're more apt to push for laws and policies that disadvantage the minority, even without intending to cause any harm. The minority may not have any more empathy than the majority, but they're less likely to be in a political position where that lack of empathy leads to harm.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Someone Paid to Talk About Sports Just Said This About Sports”
Lots of folks here seemed to understand that he was basically saying that it's a smell test. But f you want to insist on focusing on the surface tautology to claim that it's actually content-free, knock yourself out.
"
I'm with Stillwater -- the fact that on the surface it's tautological is irrelevant. Clearly everyone here knows what he was trying to say. His thought may not be particularly profound or useful, but it's not meaningless.
At work we occasionally will say about some issue that "it is what it is". Somehow we all manage to understand that the speaker is not actually trying to convey "A = A" but is suggesting that however much we'd like the situation to be different, we have to deal with it the way it is now.
On “Dreaming of the Guild”
... to disagree.
On “Richard Dawkins on the Emptiness of Theology”
Also see this from Buddha:
"I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality and not reality itself, just as a finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. A thinking person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon."
"
I haven't read Dawkins, but my understanding is that his writing goes beyond the issue of the empirical claims of various religions and also makes sweeping statements about religious people, the effect of religious belief on the world, etc. Perhaps that wasn't germane to this particular twitter exchange, though.
On “Throwing Resolutions To Your Past Selves”
< 10: normal people bathe/shower and change their clothes every day -- you should emulate this even though your parents aren't teaching you to.
10-19: there are dozens of girls you could be perfectly happy to be dating -- stop fixating on the one unattainable girl and ignoring everyone else
20-29: dude, seriously -- Slavic linguistics?? You're just running away from adulthood, get a real job.
30-39: If you stay in this job much longer, you're never going to be able to leave without a serious pay cut, and it'll never be the right time to do that.
40-49: stop worrying about what you didn't do and about what other people have that you don't -- you've got a very nice life.
On “The Most Wonderful Time of the Sports Year?”
This article covers some of the same ground.
On “Finding Fellowship (while avoiding the spots in the carpet where the furniture used to be)”
I'm curious about this (mildly so, since I'm not looking for a new church home). I go to a theologically (and politically) liberal mainline Protestant church, and I know there are a number of members like me who treat God and Jesus more as metaphors than actual divine beings (and the pastors know this too and aren't bothered by it); however, it's still a bridge too far to bring up this idea directly in the context of the worship service.
Probably my ideal church home would be one that has all the trappings of my current church but that is explicitly welcoming of people who don't even have the desire to believe in an actually-existing God. I've occasionally thought about attending a UU service to see how close it is to the traditions I know (especially the music), but it hasn't happened yet.
"
@north I leaned towards ethnic food -- felafels, Indian food, etc. My family was a little less adventurous than I was back then, so family meals tended towards pasta, potatoes, rice and beans. I'm afraid I don't have a particular recommendation or recipe, though.
@burt-likko That's my reaction, but I should add that I'm not trying to criticize other people's choices -- not for me to say what other people should find meaningful.
"
Reading the post and the responses called to mind the years that I was a vegetarian. For a while I was buying those meat substitute products to try to ward off my carnivorous cravings. But inevitably, the faux meat was nowhere near good enough to satisfy me -- it usually just made me want the real thing even more. I was much better off when I focused on having good, truly vegetarian meals that weren't trying to be something else.
On “Yuletide Tuesday questions, Hallmark edition”
With so many of these Tuesday Questions, I recognize the thought or feeling that's being described but just can't come up with an example of my own, at least not in the few days before the discussion has died down. But this time I did think of an answer, which is: minor home repairs. If you were to visit my house (which I don't recommend), and if you were to look around at the general state of things, you would see a thousand little problems that needed to be taken care of -- a loose door handle, a bit of peeling paint, a torn window screen, a sticky door, etc.
These things remain undone not because I don't recognize the need nor because I lack the requisite knowledge, but because for some reason I haven't figured out how to get myself to put in the time and effort to actually pick up the screwdriver or paintbrush or whatever and take care of the damn thing.
We have the occasional house guest who feels comfortable enough to gently bring these issues to my attention and to try to teach me things I already know ("if you have a Philip's head screwdriver, you can just tighten this screw right here"), because it has clearly never occurred to them that someone could know what needs to be done to fix these things but not actually do it.
"
My wife used to apply pressure to get me to participate, but she's pretty much given up on that by now. This year my only involvement was to go ahead and seal the envelopes destined for my friends and family, which she had left unsealed just on the off chance that I wanted to write something personal in them (as if!).
It's helped my cause that the number of cards we receive each year has declined precipitously -- it seems to be a dying custom. At least, I prefer that explanation to the possibility that 60% of our friends and family no longer care about us.
"
Christmas cards, and related acts of thoughtfulness towards friends and family in general, are my wife's domain. I don't know but I suspect that my siblings each had a mild cardiac event on their first birthday after my marriage, when they actually received in the mail a genuine birthday card with my name on the return address (though in my wife's handwriting).
I can't even assign it to lack of organization on my part -- perhaps I might have some fleeting micro-thought about needing to send these cards, but mostly it stays below the level of consciousness.
On “Jews and the Paradox of a Secular Christmas”
"Christians get angry at Jews for not celebrating Christ related things "
Which Christians? All of them? Most of them? A loud minority? The missing quantifier is a big part of the problem here, given that you're clearly accusing this other group of being insensitive and silly.
On “Doctors as touts”
It was a long time ago now, but I recall reading a book about the history of TV advertising that mentioned a study done not too long after TV sets had become a household staple. The researchers asked the respondents how much their purchasing decisions were affected by TV commercials, and the vast majority said they were hardly affected at all; but the company data the researchers had acquired that gave the before/after sales when a TV ad campaign was begun for a product generally showed a very large increase in sales.
I might be mixing up the studies, but I think this one might also have found that they got a more credible answer when they asked people how much they thought their friends were affected by the advertising.
On “Michigan regains lead in “Worst Legislature in the Country” Award….”
Y'know, on balance I think this is a bad law (at least on the understanding that it affects coverage that's sold outside the exchanges and thus not subsidized), but I think that some folks are really over-reacting. Assuming this stays in place, I think you'll find that health plans in Michigan will make it extremely easy to get that extra coverage, so much so that the only real effect of it will be that just the folks who want abortion coverage will be paying for abortion coverage. Is that really so bad?
Note that I'm personally pro-choice and wouldn't push for anything like this, but I do understand why people who find it to be a horrible moral wrong would want to do everything they could to avoid having their own money support it.
"
Wait, so you're saying that it should've been up to each individual to decide whether to have slaves or not?
On “Eventually we reach bottom, right?”
Offensensitivity.
"
Here is another analysis of humor, by the famed humor scientist Dave Barry.
On “Stupid Tuesday questions, Strunk and White edition”
I don't mind Twitter and texting conventions in their natural habitat, but I can't stand it when someone sends me a normal email using the same silly abbreviations (though my irritation lessens if there's a "sent from my [mobile]" apology at the end). Those things especially drive me up a wall in business emails, and the steam comes pouring out of my ears when I see that one of my colleagues has used them in an email to a client.
On a different note, my daughter hates it when I use the typical abbreviations in my texts to her, although she's fine with her friends doing the same. Apparently I do it with a geezer accent.
On “Context, It Seems, Does Matter”
Is there a page for Baby's First Concussion in your Baby Memory Book, decorated with pictures of little football helmets?
On “College Football 2013, Coming To A Close”
I understand this point, but I don't think I agree with it. Take March Madness -- there are teams whose season is made just by getting into the tournament, and others who are thrilled to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. And they get the opportunity to see just how far they can go.
Personally I'd prefer the old bowl system to what we have now, because the determination of who exactly is #1 and #2 is so contentious -- better to leave it totally up for discussion than to select just two teams rather arbitrarily out of the top X to play it out.
"
That's the best outcome IMO -- take all the AQ conference champs plus a couple at-large teams. Then you basically guarantee that the theoretical "best team in the country" at least had a chance to play for the championship, regardless of which conference it was in.
"
I think comparing the strengths of different conferences is only slightly more sensible than arguing about who would win in a fight between Batman and Spiderman -- there's not nearly enough information to determine a reliable answer. Our judgments are mostly formed by bias, reputation/historical performance (not too helpful in college football given the personnel turnover), and vast overgeneralizing from a tiny number of early-season inter-conference games. The most frustrating part of the 2011 SEC Bowl was that the Powers That Be pissed away the opportunity to add a useful datapoint for the cross-conference comparison.
On “The real meaning of “privilege” in a nutshell…”
Without meaning to speak for Tod, I'd answer that in a democracy, any given majority has more political power than the corresponding minority (broadly speaking). If the members of a given majority don't have empathy for the members of the minority, then they're more apt to push for laws and policies that disadvantage the minority, even without intending to cause any harm. The minority may not have any more empathy than the majority, but they're less likely to be in a political position where that lack of empathy leads to harm.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.