I recently learned (at age 64) that "creepy" means "makes me scared". For yourself, or for others. I think the trans thing reasonably qualifies as "creepy". If only because it marks people with serious mental problems (I pity them, not hate them). Maybe I'm a bigot too.
But then there's a very large class of people who strongly believe the worst possible moral failing is to be a bigot - worse than being a thief or a killer. Those people I find creepy. Too.
There’s also the derivative creepiness of constantly proving you’re NOT a bigot by overcompensating. These are people who’ve moved the lawn jockey inside the house and hung a sign on him “My Very Best Friend.”
Perhaps it *is* bigotry, but... so what? It's not like everyone who supports them uncritically isn't *also* bigoted in their own ways, and generally far worse.
"Ugh, cis het white males. We should just exterminate them."
Anyone else remember when name-calling was something public school children did in the playground as opposed to being the hallmark of the "progressive" political movement?
Whether it's bigot, racist, or (insert favourite insult), the point seems to be shutting down any kind of meaningful conversation. Apparently their beliefs are so fragile, any question causes emotional collapse to justify what I call "cry-bullying".
What exactly is supposed to be wrong with bigotry? If prejudice is informed by facts, is it then acceptable and if so, what do you call it? If everyone in your tribe is bigoted toward a given idea, who shall be offended by your position, and why would you care?
"Discrimination" is the ability to tell one thing from another. So yes, exactly. Biases evolve from experience, they don't just spring from the brow of Zeus.
Trans: I’m not “bigoted.” I fear any one of them will kill me (along with other strangers) at a random moment solely because of buyer’s remorse. Perhaps these people have been killing others all along but we didn’t know they were trans, and were thought of simply as undifferentiated “mass shooters.”
Race-swapping in historical films: I object. Would it have made sense for Spielberg in “Lincoln” to have cast the slaves as white and the slaveowners and Northerners as black?
The only race-swapping that has ever made sense to me was the Star Trek: TOS episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" in which 2 characters (both black on 1 side and white on the other, but on reverse sides) are battling each other and showing pure racial animus. It had great relevance in 1969. 57 yrs later, not so much. (One might make an analogous comment about the absence of non-moron, normal testosterone, white husbands in TV commercials.)
My objection is the pollution of historical classics with modern themes (particularly ones that are well settled). What’s next? Agamemnon driving a Tesla? Want to make a modern sociological point? Write your own material. Don’t bastardize others’ beloved work gratuitously and ham-handedly.
"Would it have made sense for Spielberg in “Lincoln” to have cast the slaves as white and the slaveowners and Northerners as black?"
It's been pointed out that this is exactly what was done in Planet of the Apes.
If you peel back the adventure, Star Trek's civilization was Roddenberry's idea of the Socialist Paradise.
But agreed on the major point: This swapping in people who never were is cultural vandalism. It is instructive that they prefer this to telling their own new stories.
Fully agreed. But the implication was that historical man in POTA had blown up the world, which was entirely plausible at the time. It wasn’t a ham-handed plot device. Although I’ve never seen a POTA film, my impression is the apes had a functional society, unlike say, South Africa or Zimbabwe currently.
Re: Star Trek, they never reconciled the “elimination of poverty” with the private citizen space-traveling “traders” like Harry Mudd. Even at 13, I recognized bullshit and suspended disbelief in order to enjoy the plot. That’s why the recent iterations have been duds – if you disregard the bullshit, there’s no plot left.
All science fiction relies to some degree on violating this cartoon:
Yeah. I don't think that was the intent in POTA, but visually the film gave leftards something to crow about. The book was an allegory; the movie was very straightforward. Ape society wasn't great (and it had *horrors* castes), but it did function.
Roddenberry was an avowed communist (some point out he also admired Ayn Rand, but her philosophy only works when "if only everyone would..." is backed by men-with-guns) and having been to one of his travelling talks, I would add very authoritarian. So naturally ST was full of social contradictions, because it worked about as well as that system would in Real Life.
"That’s why the recent iterations have been duds – if you disregard the bullshit, there’s no plot left."
Absolutely.
Cartoon?? [goes looking... it only shows up on your Likes page] Yeah, largely. I write SF, with all nonhuman characters, and I try to keep everything as extrapolations from their observed reality rather than handwavium. I do allow FTL and good control over gravity, because otherwise travel is just too slow (tho I have that all tied together). But their society is fundamentally different from humans, because quirks of biology went a different path. So they seem very human in a lot of ways, until suddenly they're not.
I once heard a famous science fiction writer - can't remember who - state that "science fiction" allows one or a few "miracles," while "sci fi" basically has no rules.
So, Star Wars and Star Trek are Sci Fi because the just make up whatever they need to move forward while movies like "2001 A Space Odyssey" and "Interstellar" are Science Fiction.
Always lots of yammering about the labels. Mostly it's writers looking down their noses at people they consider lesser writers. Telling Harlan Ellison that he wrote SF was fightin' words.
To put it in Russell's Game of Conjugation, where one compares esteemed self, present company, and absent unfortunates: "I create speculative fiction, you scribble science fiction, that hack over there dabbles in scifi."
Defining genres and sub-genres needn't be about writers looking down their noses at each other. Sci Fi and Fantasy are two different genres and while I'm sure there are some authors who look down their noses at the other sides, both fill a need.
Not central to your comment, but I don’t know ANY society that works long-term without “men-with-guns.” Greed-driven violence is an internal failing of Man, and will emerge everywhere but Heaven.
That is true. So one must consider what the men-with-guns are enforcing. Enforcing "thou shalt not kill" is entirely different from enforcing "give us your firstborn".
True. That’s why I have 58 guns in my collection and something like 30K rds. I qualified as an “Expert Rifleman” in the U.S. Army. I’m ready for the zombie apocalypse, AKA a nationwide victory of the DSA with its “concentration of powers” plan.
Cont me in; proud bigot here. Seems to me the vast majority of the problems we've endured in the last century are the result of the anti-bigot brainwashing the the system has inflicted on us. The smart money is on embracing bigotry in all its forms. BTW, whites are the only ones prohibited from being bigoted.
Finding trans people creepy is not a genetic trait. It’s learned. Children are curious and do not fear other humans by their sexual characteristics. So trying to make your learned fear as « not my fault, it’s in my genes » is simply being unwilling to question it.
I never said "genetic trait," I said aversions "can be cultural or learned but they are often evolutionary in nature."
The Uncanny Valley: When the brain encounters an object or person that almost—but not quite—fits into a vital survival category (like "male" or "female"), it can experience a brief cognitive error. This category confusion registers in the brain as a sense of eeriness or threat.
There's been research on visual recognition of personality types. Turns out average people recognize "career criminal" with about 85% accuracy, just from the otherwise-anonymous face. Subsequent analysis found the keys were eye set and lack of symmetry.
It would be no surprise if other abnormal personality types are also tied to physical traits, and are therefore broadly recognizable at a glance. Take a look at mugshots of trantifa types... they're all unpleasantly "off" in the same way.
You’ll need to check that research bud. Result from humans was just a tad higher than chance.
The high accuracy percentage and specific geometric facial keys you mentioned originate from a deeply criticized 2016 study by Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. They trained a neural network on ID photos of criminals and non-criminals
The AI was not detecting an inherent "criminal personality". Instead, it was detecting the difference in how the photos were taken. Non-criminals used standard, professional ID photos where they smiled or looked relaxed. The criminal photos came from police databases where subjects were unsmiling, stressed, or photographed under different lighting. The AI simply learned to identify "people who were smiling vs people who were not.
I recently learned (at age 64) that "creepy" means "makes me scared". For yourself, or for others. I think the trans thing reasonably qualifies as "creepy". If only because it marks people with serious mental problems (I pity them, not hate them). Maybe I'm a bigot too.
But then there's a very large class of people who strongly believe the worst possible moral failing is to be a bigot - worse than being a thief or a killer. Those people I find creepy. Too.
So, "phobia" now means "hate" and "creepy" means "irrational fear?"
Language, sigh.
I'm using an "older" meaning of creepy. Off-putting or unsettling.
Maybe I should have made that clear in the other "debate." Probably wouldn't have mattered much.
There’s also the derivative creepiness of constantly proving you’re NOT a bigot by overcompensating. These are people who’ve moved the lawn jockey inside the house and hung a sign on him “My Very Best Friend.”
Right and "some of my best friends are..." is not evidence that you don't like that type of people.
"Only a bigot would feel the need to say 'some of my best friends are...'"
It's exhausting.
"Only a bigot would feel the need to say 'some of my best friends are...'"
In fairness, their entire zeitgeist is built on a .5 sec half-life of personal reputation, so a psychological imperative to recite liberal bona fides.
Perhaps it *is* bigotry, but... so what? It's not like everyone who supports them uncritically isn't *also* bigoted in their own ways, and generally far worse.
"Ugh, cis het white males. We should just exterminate them."
"You're a bigot/hater/$_phobe!!!!1!!"
Correct response:
"Thank you for respecting my beliefs."
Bigotry used to have a narrow meaning.
“the complete and stubborn lack of tolerance for people who are different, have other beliefs, or live in another way”
Currently, it encompasses a whole range of views, most of which are not bigoted. Personal discomfort is not “bigotry” it is a preference.
I am tired of pretending otherwise.
The Left excels at redefining the meaning of words.
They have to, otherwise, their ideology collapses, and reveals them to be the authoritarians they actually are.
Anyone else remember when name-calling was something public school children did in the playground as opposed to being the hallmark of the "progressive" political movement?
Whether it's bigot, racist, or (insert favourite insult), the point seems to be shutting down any kind of meaningful conversation. Apparently their beliefs are so fragile, any question causes emotional collapse to justify what I call "cry-bullying".
What exactly is supposed to be wrong with bigotry? If prejudice is informed by facts, is it then acceptable and if so, what do you call it? If everyone in your tribe is bigoted toward a given idea, who shall be offended by your position, and why would you care?
"Discrimination" is the ability to tell one thing from another. So yes, exactly. Biases evolve from experience, they don't just spring from the brow of Zeus.
You say “creepy,” they call you “bigot,” I call them Wokey Doaky!
Thanks for the mention, and yes, I'll gladly take three months comp'd!
Done!
Trans: I’m not “bigoted.” I fear any one of them will kill me (along with other strangers) at a random moment solely because of buyer’s remorse. Perhaps these people have been killing others all along but we didn’t know they were trans, and were thought of simply as undifferentiated “mass shooters.”
Race-swapping in historical films: I object. Would it have made sense for Spielberg in “Lincoln” to have cast the slaves as white and the slaveowners and Northerners as black?
The only race-swapping that has ever made sense to me was the Star Trek: TOS episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" in which 2 characters (both black on 1 side and white on the other, but on reverse sides) are battling each other and showing pure racial animus. It had great relevance in 1969. 57 yrs later, not so much. (One might make an analogous comment about the absence of non-moron, normal testosterone, white husbands in TV commercials.)
My objection is the pollution of historical classics with modern themes (particularly ones that are well settled). What’s next? Agamemnon driving a Tesla? Want to make a modern sociological point? Write your own material. Don’t bastardize others’ beloved work gratuitously and ham-handedly.
"Would it have made sense for Spielberg in “Lincoln” to have cast the slaves as white and the slaveowners and Northerners as black?"
It's been pointed out that this is exactly what was done in Planet of the Apes.
If you peel back the adventure, Star Trek's civilization was Roddenberry's idea of the Socialist Paradise.
But agreed on the major point: This swapping in people who never were is cultural vandalism. It is instructive that they prefer this to telling their own new stories.
Fully agreed. But the implication was that historical man in POTA had blown up the world, which was entirely plausible at the time. It wasn’t a ham-handed plot device. Although I’ve never seen a POTA film, my impression is the apes had a functional society, unlike say, South Africa or Zimbabwe currently.
Re: Star Trek, they never reconciled the “elimination of poverty” with the private citizen space-traveling “traders” like Harry Mudd. Even at 13, I recognized bullshit and suspended disbelief in order to enjoy the plot. That’s why the recent iterations have been duds – if you disregard the bullshit, there’s no plot left.
All science fiction relies to some degree on violating this cartoon:
The cartoon didn't show up. Do you have a link to it?
I've always said the problem with Star Trek was it was great when I was 13 but I grew up and it didn't.
https://substack.com/@johngeis212067/note/c-310153250?r=q47pk&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Yeah. I don't think that was the intent in POTA, but visually the film gave leftards something to crow about. The book was an allegory; the movie was very straightforward. Ape society wasn't great (and it had *horrors* castes), but it did function.
Roddenberry was an avowed communist (some point out he also admired Ayn Rand, but her philosophy only works when "if only everyone would..." is backed by men-with-guns) and having been to one of his travelling talks, I would add very authoritarian. So naturally ST was full of social contradictions, because it worked about as well as that system would in Real Life.
"That’s why the recent iterations have been duds – if you disregard the bullshit, there’s no plot left."
Absolutely.
Cartoon?? [goes looking... it only shows up on your Likes page] Yeah, largely. I write SF, with all nonhuman characters, and I try to keep everything as extrapolations from their observed reality rather than handwavium. I do allow FTL and good control over gravity, because otherwise travel is just too slow (tho I have that all tied together). But their society is fundamentally different from humans, because quirks of biology went a different path. So they seem very human in a lot of ways, until suddenly they're not.
I once heard a famous science fiction writer - can't remember who - state that "science fiction" allows one or a few "miracles," while "sci fi" basically has no rules.
So, Star Wars and Star Trek are Sci Fi because the just make up whatever they need to move forward while movies like "2001 A Space Odyssey" and "Interstellar" are Science Fiction.
Makes sense to me.
Always lots of yammering about the labels. Mostly it's writers looking down their noses at people they consider lesser writers. Telling Harlan Ellison that he wrote SF was fightin' words.
To put it in Russell's Game of Conjugation, where one compares esteemed self, present company, and absent unfortunates: "I create speculative fiction, you scribble science fiction, that hack over there dabbles in scifi."
Defining genres and sub-genres needn't be about writers looking down their noses at each other. Sci Fi and Fantasy are two different genres and while I'm sure there are some authors who look down their noses at the other sides, both fill a need.
Not central to your comment, but I don’t know ANY society that works long-term without “men-with-guns.” Greed-driven violence is an internal failing of Man, and will emerge everywhere but Heaven.
That is true. So one must consider what the men-with-guns are enforcing. Enforcing "thou shalt not kill" is entirely different from enforcing "give us your firstborn".
True. That’s why I have 58 guns in my collection and something like 30K rds. I qualified as an “Expert Rifleman” in the U.S. Army. I’m ready for the zombie apocalypse, AKA a nationwide victory of the DSA with its “concentration of powers” plan.
Cont me in; proud bigot here. Seems to me the vast majority of the problems we've endured in the last century are the result of the anti-bigot brainwashing the the system has inflicted on us. The smart money is on embracing bigotry in all its forms. BTW, whites are the only ones prohibited from being bigoted.
Finding trans people creepy is not a genetic trait. It’s learned. Children are curious and do not fear other humans by their sexual characteristics. So trying to make your learned fear as « not my fault, it’s in my genes » is simply being unwilling to question it.
I never said "genetic trait," I said aversions "can be cultural or learned but they are often evolutionary in nature."
The Uncanny Valley: When the brain encounters an object or person that almost—but not quite—fits into a vital survival category (like "male" or "female"), it can experience a brief cognitive error. This category confusion registers in the brain as a sense of eeriness or threat.
There's been research on visual recognition of personality types. Turns out average people recognize "career criminal" with about 85% accuracy, just from the otherwise-anonymous face. Subsequent analysis found the keys were eye set and lack of symmetry.
It would be no surprise if other abnormal personality types are also tied to physical traits, and are therefore broadly recognizable at a glance. Take a look at mugshots of trantifa types... they're all unpleasantly "off" in the same way.
You’ll need to check that research bud. Result from humans was just a tad higher than chance.
The high accuracy percentage and specific geometric facial keys you mentioned originate from a deeply criticized 2016 study by Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. They trained a neural network on ID photos of criminals and non-criminals
The AI was not detecting an inherent "criminal personality". Instead, it was detecting the difference in how the photos were taken. Non-criminals used standard, professional ID photos where they smiled or looked relaxed. The criminal photos came from police databases where subjects were unsmiling, stressed, or photographed under different lighting. The AI simply learned to identify "people who were smiling vs people who were not.
Not the paper I read. (And it wasn't Chinese, nor did it involve a neural network.)
Consider: criminals usually wear their criminal face. The mugshot isn't that different.
No source, no evidence, no credibility
From over 15 years ago. I'm sure if you care you can find and read the paper for yourself.