Above Political Correctness

[Nique]

I am being condescending

And how!

Simultaneously I'm not perfectly sure, but you might have a particular kind of ignorance in you Snake. A lack of perspective. Someone with perspective can look at the whole picture and see flaws in their thinking when someone else lays down solid facts on the opposite end. If you were that kind of ignorant then I can see why you'd need someone to publicly embarrass you every single time you need to change your perspective.

Hey everbody Overcast is just telling it like it is.

Originally Posted by shiney

A lot of subjectivity regarding this entire discussion, come to think of it!

Basically. As far as I can tell no one is really wrong (except, perhaps in their approach) but just... All I'm seeing are different shades of grey.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by CelesJessa

Personally, I agree (and I think everyone else would too) that anyone should be comfortable and welcome here, and I can think of times where mods have stepped in when people made posts that boiled down to "women, amirite?" and said "Hey guys this isn't appropriate" that made me feel better/more welcome (which maybe should have happened in the other thread, if there had been time before flying off the handle happened). But I'm not sure if "We will have crazy flame wars if you get insulted" would make me feel much more welcome.

It's been made abundantly clear that it wouldn't have happened at any point in that thread, because the mods, or at least two of them that I see, have no problem at all with and emphatically are in favor of a person's right to engage in that kind of behavior.

There was certainly nothing whatsoever stopping them from doing that after the "flying off the handle"; they chose to deal with the handle-flying, and not the insulting behavior that caused it, because as they've repeatedly said, they see nothing wrong with the latter.

Originally Posted by CJ

Or there's always the choice of a not-so-hostile confrontation. Personally, it's always been my experience, at least in arguments/debates that the minute you insult your opposition or belittle their side of the argument is the minute you've lost the debate, because the nature is to shut down and not listen when someone is being rude and just be like "well so-and-so is just being an asshole so I don't have to listen."

If that is, as you say, people's nature, then why are the people Solid Snake is talking about - who, as Solid Snake presumably agrees, Solid Snake was being rude to - somehow expected to be exempt from this human tendency? How is it Solid Snake who hasn't "lost" in that situation from the outset.

You're arguing that being insulted is the point at which people shut down and refuse to listen, but - as TDK's posts in Noncon's earlier thread pretty well demonstrate - plenty of people are happy to "shut down" from the get-go, regardless of how politely any objection to their views is stated. I mean TDK freely states that his response to being asked to use a particular term was "fuck you".

The problem with these complaints about having to be PC is that they rest upon a fairly massive double-standard, whereby they are very, very upset about having to 'tiptoe' around other people's objections, while at the same time having no problem demanding that the people who hold those objections meet some superhuman standard of politeness and civilitude for any statement thereof.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Archbio

Shiney, what I'm getting from your explanation there is that you don't seem to realize that a lot of people who set out to be offensive actually usually work a bit to make their intent somewhat ambiguous or create a vague sense of plausible deniability.

As someone who actually has (albeit several years ago and shit this is difficult to confess and own up to) deliberately attempted to be vague in an effort to simultaneously express dissatisfaction / contempt for a minority group I've opposed and "get away with it" and deny an intent to offend the "abnormal," like I can actually point to posts I've made with that deliberate intent in the back of my mind, I can say this is a very real phenomenon and something Moderators should watch out for.

...The sad thing is I remember at least one incident like at least four or five years ago where I used that deliberate tactic to ensure that someone else, in the action of "overreacting" to me, was the one who got the Modhammer slammed down on him. Like it wasn't so much that I was deliberately intending that result or that I knew it would happen, but I did make a conscious effort to phrase my comments in a way that I suspected would get the guy to explode in a passionate defense of the minority group I had demonized, and the fact that it led the person to be reprimanded was the icing on the cake.

I am not saying that every time I have been offensive in the past I have had this objective and it's difficult for me to own up to this in the context of the fact that many of you may assume I've habitually had more nefarious "motives" than I've claimed in the past, and in fact in the majority of past cases I've actually pretty much been ignorant of my biases and genuinely surprised when people have insulted me in response, but I must say that there were moments when Conservative Snake attempted the kinds of parlor tricks Archbio highlights here and I'm positive that Conservative Snake isn't the only one who has done so and benefited by the policies of NPF Moderators who've generally responded more harshly to those who take offense and respond to political incorrectness than those who propagate the ignorance in the first place.

...Shit this could lead to some bad assumptions re: my credibility.

[Thadius]

Let me say it as simply as possible: Humans are fucking complex.

You have hundreds, if not thousands, of biological processes that are taking place simultaneously without your direct control just to keep you alive. You have processes that you do have control over that are just as complex and essential to your well-being. And a failure large enough at any one point in your body spells doom.

Is it not inconceivable that human thought process could be just as fucking complex and convoluted?

Personally, I never did care for ignorance, stupidity, or the easily offended, which is what this thread seems to be about. But thanks to this thread, I took a quick once-over of what few prejudices I have, and realized it's not the stupid or ignorant or easily offended I hate in particular. No.

It's the ones who refuse to admit that they are. Even when you point it out multiple times, using their own logic against them. If you can call it that.

Everyone is different. This I realize! Everyone has inborn hatred of something, or fear of something, or a weak spot in their mental armor. This I also know!

But the ones that refuse to admit that maybe, possibly, they could ever so slightly be wrong and open their fucking ears for once in their goddamn lives, and instead just throw up a huge "I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU BECAUSE YOU CHALLENGE MY WORLDVIEW WITH FACTS" wall?

Those people make me wish I had a goddamn flamethrower.

Nothing offends me. Well, more than the stated. You can try to insult me, call me derogatory names, point out holes in my thinking. I'll just sit there and calmly accept it, change my reasoning as needed, and inform you where you happen to be wrong so that you can fail to insult me more efficiently.

Sometimes I wish people thought a little more like me. But then I realize what a curse that would be, and take it back just as fast.

I might have gotten off-topic a bit, but you know what? Don't care. I'll reiterate my two points that I tried to make real fast before leaving.

1) Humans are complex things.

2) Fifth, you're a nice guy and all, but please show me you're an intelligent nice guy.

[Overcast]

Originally Posted by Nique

Hey everbody Overcast is just telling it like it is.

I swear I don't even know when I'm doing it anymore. >>

[decent into narcissism]And my shade is obviously the greyest. And yeah that's with an e, I like it better and that obviously makes me right.[/decend]

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

If that is, as you say, people's nature, then why are the people Solid Snake is talking about - who, as Solid Snake presumably agrees, Solid Snake was being rude to - somehow expected to be exempt from this human tendency? How is it Solid Snake who hasn't "lost" in that situation from the outset.

Shit I'm really setting myself up to be the punching bag here, aren't I. :P

Conservative Snake wasn't a complete asshole and my intent isn't to be self-deprecating to such an extent that everything I've ever typed from 2004 to 2008-ish or whenever is in question, I mean he had some smart posts, and he wasn't always a complete dickwad. I'm just trying to be brutally honest because I feel like being brutal honesty and using my past self as a sacrificial example is the only way to prove to the Mods the gist of my point, which is that I think they're a little too lenient sometimes on those who express politically incorrect opinions that effectively goad good-hearted, intelligent, tolerant folks here into responding in a passionate and necessary rage.

I am kind of regretting this already insofar as I'm really just making myself look like a dick, but, eh, most of you already thought I was a dick anyway.

[shiney]

Is this going to be a discussion about our perspectives on what type of speech is acceptable, fifth, or a referendum on decisions you didn't find palatable?

At no point am I going to suggest I'm happy to turn a blind eye toward someone being rude or thoughtless and then happily excusing it away by saying "Well I didn't MEAN for it to be that way" if it's clear they didn't, but I'm not the kind of guy who wants to take action as a mod on a complete grey area, particularly when there were no reported posts, particularly particularly when someone took it upon themself to escalate the situation (again) instead of following the clearly established rules.

I mean would it make things better if I gave TDK a public admonishment? Because that's as much as I'd have been able to do realistically. He's not the one who decided to make a huge scene instead of reporting posts.

Getting back to the point, since it seems like you're happy to classify me as supporting rudeness, I think the members here are smart enough to know better than that. I would like to think that I am allowed to discuss my position on things without being accused of anything. I personally wish people would use a little critical thinking and a little analysis before allowing their emotional (and often subconscious) reaction to lead them in a direction that derails everything. This isn't asking a lot. I also believe that people should at least think before they speak, as stated before by IQ, but that overt and constant self-imposed censorship for the sake of stroking an ego is unbecoming of us as a society. Being insulting is one thing, accidentally offending someone and being castigated for it is another.

[Nique]

Snake, I don't think anybody cares what stupid thing you typed up 5 years ago when your overarching impression has been fairly pleasent. All of us have been dumbasses.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by shiney

I mean would it make things better if I gave TDK a public admonishment? Because that's as much as I'd have been able to do realistically. He's not the one who decided to make a huge scene instead of reporting posts.

Just to clarify: you're against giving TDK a public admonishment for saying something brazenly offensive to a minority group regularly subjected to such hostile comments from beneficiaries of institutional privilege, but you don't mind publicly admonishing NonCon, a member of said minority group who was disparaged as "abnormal," from responding angrily, passionately, and in a completely human fashion to such insensitive comments?

I mean, is this policy supposed to make sense?

[Archbio]

Apparently it makes sense if you see the Report Post button as the most important factor in Moderation, Snake.

Quick, click it. And for the love of Dog, don't show any emotion.

Or your face will be stolen.