Interesting Links for 12-11-2011

[andrewducker]

• The King of Human Error - a fascinating piece on the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist who showed how irrational people are.
  (tags: psychology danielkahneman mistakes )
• Children should not be forced to eat everything on their plate. Dessert should never be used as a reward.
  (tags: food children )
• More on the new sandboxing for the Mac Application Store
  (tags: apple computers mac )
• EMI being split up and sold off. We're down to three major labels.
  (tags: music business )
• Screaming the carrier tone - a talent only useful during a tiny fraction of history.
  (tags: modem phone computers )
• Climate change scepticism is a largely Anglo-Saxon phenomenon.
  (tags: language culture climatechange global_warming )
• LiveJournal under DDOS again
  (tags: livejournal ddos internet )
• R.I.P. "Marvelman" Creator Mick Anglo
  (tags: marvelman obituary )
• Outrage as French magazine bombed by Warhammer enthusiasts
  (tags: funny warhammer religion satire islam )

Comments

[hano.livejournal.com]

We're down to three major labels
Good. The majors are scum and always have been. The sooner those parasites whither and die the better. They're anachronistic dinosaurs, a cancer on taste and culture and I look forward to dancing on their graves.
Steve Albini puts it far better than I ever could:

"Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed. Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says "Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim again, please. Backstroke". And he does of course."

(from Steve Albini's The Problem With Music. Do yourselves a favour and read it if you don't already know it.)

[torrain.livejournal.com]

I started thinking of that piece once I'd read your first paragraph; read it ages ago, but lost track of it. Thanks for the link. :)

[hano.livejournal.com]

glad you enjoyed :)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

[mair_in_grenderich]

I was brought up being made to at least eat a bit of everything at home (one sprout, four broad beans, etc), and to eat what I was given and say thankyou when out. I think this was a very good thing.

My mother instructed that at school we were to eat at least a decent portion of the main dish, not so worried if we didn't like the veg or the potato/chip/etc options.

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

That entire article on "skeptics" was premised on a poor foundation. He said "skeptics are people who deny it". That's not what skeptics are. Skeptics are people who are not blind believers. For example, when scientific results are found to be influenced that leads people to be skeptics: not NON-BELIEVERS. People who believe things without foundation are NOT superior to skeptics. I think it's a point of pride if intellectual rigor is found primarily in the anglo-saxon world.

ETA: Also, us anglo-saxons tend to be the winners in this climate change, so being told we have to pay god-awful large amounts of money to stop our gardens from producing longer is a harder sell.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That would be part of the problem, yes: "sceptic" *is* the wrong word to use when talking about climate change "sceptics". There's a good reason that "denier" is the more common and more accurate term.

PS: your "critical thinking is unique to white people!" argument does not lead to a good impression of your own intellectual rigour. Especially not given your previous long and storied history of similarly clueless and racist statements.

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

I do not think that critical thinking is unique to white people, and if you got that impression from anything I wrote then I question your motives for interpreting it that way.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

What do *you* think Anglo-Saxon means, then?

Because from where I sit, you're a longstanding supporter of openly racist politicians, a rabid xenophobe, who uses racist slurs and defends their use, and who just said that critical thinking was a form of "intellectual rigor is found primarily in the [any White person whose native language is English and whose cultural affiliations are those common to Britain and the US | of or relating to the White Protestant culture of Britain, Australia, and the US | A member of one of the Germanic peoples, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, who settled in Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. Any of the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons] world."

If you're going to claim that ONCE AGAIN you had no idea what you were saying, and that ONCE AGAIN you didn't know what any of the words you used meant, then I really want to know what you think you were saying, and why anyone should assume it wasn't just more of your ignorant casually racist ouevre.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Calm down dear...

In this context, 'Anglo-Saxon' is a term used in continental Europe to refer to the economic system typified by the United States and the United Kingdom - that is, a rather more liberal economic system than the more corporatist and statist models of say France.

It has nothing to do with descent from certain Germanic tribes of the second half of the first millennium AD.

You're obviously interpreting something that I can't see in gwendally's comments. Since I can't see it, and he/she can't see it, at least consider that it isn't there at all, and that you are seeing 'racism' in places where it isn't.

I don't know gwendally, and for all I know he/she might be a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard or a Nazi war criminal in hiding. But I see no evidence of racism in front of me, so calm down before you accuse someone of being a "racist".

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

In this context, 'Anglo-Saxon' is a term used in continental Europe to refer to the economic system typified by the United States and the United Kingdom

Interesting concept, but it would hold more water and be more likely to provide an explanation if Gwendally wasn't from Massachusetts and didn't regularly expose the fact that she's barely aware that non-US countries have differences.

And if she didn't regularly say the most astoundingly fuckwitted racist things - and then didn't, regularly, defend them by claiming she didn't know what any of the words meant.

for all I know he/she might be a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard or a Nazi war criminal in hiding.

Nope. Just a white American with a profound fear of the other, a crippling lack of curiousity, and a severe overestimation of her own education and intelligence.

But I see no evidence of racism in front of me

Someone with a long history of making racist statements said "only white people do critical thinking. Intellectual rigour is why white people are better."

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Oh no, she said only a specific type of white people. Totally different. ;)

More seriously, philmophlegm's saying that they don't see any evidence of racism in front of them. If they opened up the article long enough to read the Guardian byline--thereby providing a context for the term which caused them to assume it referred to the UK/USA--and then the only thing they saw was gwendally's two comments, I could see how they both failed to perceive racism in her comments and didn't see enough to bother to call her on the creative rewording WRT "climate scepticism"/"scepticism".

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Just a minute, honey... I can call you honey, right? Or dear? Maybe pet? >.>

I absolutely agree that gwendally can't see it. However, given that she uses ethnic slurs and would rather go on for a full day about how that's totally fine (in a long and rambling series of answers in which she reiterates factual errors after multiple sourcings of accurate information), I would move to consider her own assessment of whether or not she is unconsciously expressing cultural attitudes towards race to be... weighted. Yes.

Also, cherry-picking meaning so that "anglo-saxon" means what the author may have it mean, but the explicit use of "climate sceptisism" totally gets stripped down to "sceptiscism" and criticised on that level? I'd consider that a bit thin in terms of intellectual honesty.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

. . . for values of “liberal” several hundred years out of date. Though, since you're replying to someone who seeme to think that he actually is geneticly Anglo-Saxon, that's pretty avant garde.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

ETA: Reply to gwendally's comment above.

I didn't get that impression: I thought your comment was sensible and added to the debate.

Sceptics, as you say, are not people who deny climate change. They might be people who point out that not all scientists agree. They might be people (like the author of the book in my userpic) who argue that the scientific evidence suggests that warming is happening (or at least has happened) and suggests that a significant cause of this is man-made CO2 emissions but who doesn't think that this means that world governments should spend lots of money to slightly delay the temperature increases when they could be spending money more wisely.

Calling someone a 'denier' on the other hand is much like bringing Hitler into an internet debate...

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Mhm, right, leaving aside the bit about anglo-saxons...

Did you think it was the misrepresenting of climate skepticism in the article that added to the discussion--because "climate scepticism" is a compound term, which is repeated eight times before the author turns to discussing specific subgroups of it, presumably operating under the assumption that (1) by that point readers will understand what he is referring to and (2) that it's not sceptiscism in general?

Or were you figuring gwendally just hit the word "sceptical" and stopped reading, because that word meant she opened up a canned response, and that was what added to the discussion?

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

I'm not sufficiently liberal enough for WeaselKing so he hates me and will warp anything I say into justification for his hatred.

It's okay. I know his type. I hadn't noticed Torrain before and now I've noted him, too, as a person who argues from emotional hatred. I just like to know who they are so I can avoid them.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

*notes verifiably factual incorrect assumption you made about me and grins quietly*

Not bothering to correct, but it does tend to reinforce the behaviour pattern I've noticed in you about adhering to cultural preconceptions. ;)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

No, please try again: You're an idiot, who's repeatedly said demonstrably idiotic things, and who regulary spouts ignorance and thinks it profound.

It's okay. I know his type.

Yeah, those dirty people with their "facts" and their "reality". I mean, they *point out* when you're *full of shit* and provide you with *links* that complete debunk your idiotic preconceptions - that's just not very white of them, is it.

Hey, have you figured out how the NHS determines which treatments are covered, or whether the USA is "at war with Osama bin Laden" yet? Inquiring minds want to know.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

PS: When you said that intellectual rigour of the sort described by "scepticism" was unique to "anglo-saxons", what did you mean, again? Because what you SAID was that thinking was something that only white people did.

Are you claiming that you didn't understand any of the words you used, AGAIN?
Or are you claiming that your racist statements aren't REALLY racist because you're better than that, AGAIN?

I mean, really, don't leave us in suspense.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Hey! What does 'scepticism is "a point of pride if intellectual rigor is found primarily in the anglo-saxon world"' mean, again?

Come on, don't leave us in suspense, thinking that the racist dumbshit said something racist AGAIN and then said we "just didn't understand", and then stopped commenting AGAIN.

I mean, that leaves us deciding that the ignorant racist fuckwit has once again said something fuckwitted and racist and ignorant and then, ONCE AGAIN, run screaming from addressing her racist ignorant fuckwittery. And you can't want *that* to be the impression you leave in your last ever comment here, can you?

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Thought process while reading that: "No, when scientific results are found to be influenced, skeptics are the ones who were more likely to check in the first oh my fucking goodness you did not just say that."

I think it's a point of pride if intellectual rigor is found primarily in the anglo-saxon world.

Totally! Because nothing says "something to be proud of" like claiming you happen to be the same ethnocultural background as smart people--that absolutely means you get to be proud of what someone else did.

And of course climate skepticism as described in the article would be something to be proud of--oh, no, wait, then you turn around and go on about how it's related to selfish denial, because of course "us anglo-saxons" look at all the possible effects of climate change and then start whining and sticking our fingers in our ears because of course we like the bit about temperature changes for our productive gardens--we all have those, you know, that's a huge factor in our daily life--but we can be harangued into paying attention.

Yeah. Great whacking swathes of intellectual rigour there, I'm seeing.