Grrl Power #317 – Public relations, schmublic relations
Sydney’s next assignment is apparently having the PR lady review all the news that’s been published about her since she got up a few hours ago. Obviously Sydney had a lot more to say to the press than we saw in the few pages we got of her at the comic shop. Arianna can’t get too mad at her – if they wanted to keep her away from the press entirely they should have sequestered her in the base overnight. There were so many other things going on after the fight last night that that detail slipped through the cracks. Yeah, I just used a sentence with “that that” in it.
Sydney is awfully fidgety on this page. She keeps changing position in her chair. Maybe she has to pee.
Mentioning my Patreon in the comment here for the first time in a while brought in a few more pledges, so thanks to everyone who’s jumped on board. (And of course thanks to everyone who’s been on board). I try not to be obnoxious about self promotion and hat-in-handing cause I know people are here to just read a comic and not be harassed like I’m some obnoxious street vendor. “Superheroes, get your superheroes right here. Naw, we ain’t gots no Superman or Spidermens, we got those, whatcha call it, lady superheroes. No sharp edges like the Bat Guy. Much easier on the eyes. Hey don’t walk away, at least take a flyer!” On the other hand, I’m pretty bad at self promotion so there’s probably balance somewhere in between. Speaking of self promotion, check out the vote incentive if you haven’t. Or even if you have. You can comment on it here.
As many words as there are in English, if you write enough you keep coming across situations where you find there isn’t a word that means what you need it to mean. That or you just don’t know it, which is usually the case for me. This time I was looking for a word that means “the thing that makes you mad” I wound up using the word “trigger” as in “people’s pet trigger.” The problem is trigger has its own meaning and while it works here, it skews Sydney’s meaning a bit. It obviously a little subjective, but it would be ideal if there was a word that meant exactly “the thing that makes you mad” and had no association with any kind of past trauma. I googled a bunch of stuff, hit the online thesaurus and asked on twitter, but trigger was the closest thing to what I was thinking of. Hot button issue, hulk out topic (different from Hot Topic), I just wanted a single word that meant the thing I wanted it to. I’d make up my own word and try to slip it in to general usage via social media (which wouldn’t help me with this page) but for some reason I am enormously bad at making up words. The stuff I come up with sounds like Melmacian Holidays. Sclab-flurmin… gorf. I’m also enormously bad at any kind of letter jumble game like the one on Countdown. I’m assuming those things are related. Anyway, after this big honking paragraph on the subject, I expect someone will immediately post “the word you’re looking for is ______ you big dummy.”
Non Seguitur*: This is a pretty cool looking tool. A virtual tabletop space with video chat, multi layered maps, music, the works. I just found it so it might be janky but I thought I’d share. Too bad I don’t have time for tabletop RPGs these days.
* A portmantau of “segue” and “non sequitur”
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i guess the real problem isnt she is just a celebrity, but a superhero aswell, and a superhero wearing the shirt of deadpool…. well lets just say, if people dont like it they have a pretty legit reason.
Well let’s be honest. If you wear ANYTHING AT ALL as a celebrity people will find some way to criticize it. Just better to ignore it.
And even if you don’t!
Celebrities should never go nude in public. Infact running around nude as a celebrity is a bad example to our children. Celebrities should try keep within the parameters of good gra-
…Oh hi Rihanna, Was I saying something about celebritity nudity?
Nope.
Nothing.
Not one damn thing. (¬_¬)
How dare you offend the sensibilities of naturists by suggesting that it is offensive to go around naked! ;-)
Taboos against that are just a fad of our current society. Future society will look with shame at this era of barbarism, where individuals can be imprisoned repeatedly for choosing to live a life without clothes.
Right on!
Public nudity should be a privilege not a right, because lets face it there are some people we just should have to see naked.
Heh.
Funny, in the context of a joke but, outside of that, an emphatic no. If there is somebody with a facial disfigurement, it us us, society, who need to accept it and become comfortable with it. We should not put that burden upon the individual. Nor make them feel that they need to either avoid public exposure or to cover up their features.
Likewise for those who’s physiques may not come up to the unrealistic expectations of the rest of society.
Remember it is tribal leaders, with small dicks, who made up the silly taboos in the first place. They just need to come to terms with the fact, and not make their inadequacies shape the behaviour of the rest of society! If they are not comfortable enough with their own bodies, to overcome such a small problem, then they do not deserve to lead!
They may have codified the convention, but I suspect the weather had a hand in creating it…
It is more prevalent amongst northern populations true. But you still find it even in hot countries. So a hand yes. But if it were only the climate then we would all feel comfortable in stripping off when we entered a warm room, even in a public area. Which we do not.
So it is pertinent to help explain why clothes exist, it does not do likewise for why we insist that they be worn, even when they are not needed for any purpose other than social taboos.
I would like to suggest that hygiene is an adequate reason to ask that people cover their genitals, armpits, and feet when expecting to walk or sit in any place which they do not personally own.
It’s acceptable to expect someone to cover their mouth when coughing or sneezing, is it not? For purposes of hygiene. If you agree, then you must agree that the same standards of covering can be applied without prejudice to other parts of the body which are easily soiled.
The same function could be performed by carrying a towel, and sitting on that.
Or electing not to sit, when in areas that such would be deemed impolite or unhygienic.
For information, many of the locals here prefer not to sit down. Even if there is a bench, at the bus stop, they will squat, and seem quite comfortable to remain so, for hours at a time.
Back before people even thought about the possibility of wearing animal skins, public nudity was not only a Right, it was the social expectation. I’d bet that the first hominid to ever try it was given some pretty strange looks.
I’m just guessing but possibly the first use of animal skins were as protection against injury and/or camouflage. Hunting was pretty dangerous with primitive weapons and you had to get pretty close. A layer of hide makes decent armor and they would probably emulate the animals by putting hides over their bare skin.
It’s also pretty easy to become uncomfortably cold even in a tropical climate, and clothing is a decent first line of defense for any time you can’t be within your own shelter/home.
Or better still- go nude.
The clothing industry feels hurt by your declaration. Thousands of young Asian children would be put out of work.
“…people will find some way to criticize it…”
Yeah, go figure…The entertainment industry has an entire professional field of people who get paid to give voice to the things that offend them; they’re called Critics. Far too many actually take heed to what “offends” them & takes that selfsame opinion for themselves.
What offends me the most are the hypocrites. Case in point – Public speakers who happen to be on the far political left advocate how “tolerant” they are & how much they promote “diversity in society,” yet are the first, loudest & most frequent to speak out when something “offends” them. They also advocate tearing down the Right to Freedom of Speech when anybody disagrees with them.
Now that’s being deliberately offensive.
Amen brother! :)
And I am reminded of Andrew Shepard’s pivotal press conference speech in “The American President”:
America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.’
And by the same broad brush token if the far right hypocrites don’t agree with you, they want to bring out their guns and kill you. When’s the last time you saw any far righter accept a Muslim or gay person? I have never heard of a left wing radical dragging someone behind their truck or any other racial killings. Do it my way or don’t do it at all.
And don’t get me started on the suppression of education that doesn’t fit into their brain-dead ideology.
Historical example: Klu Klux Klan. They were founded & populated by Democrats (political left-wing); this is historical fact. Hitler was a socialist (again, political left wing. The same goes for notable tyrants like Stalin & other such left-wing thinkers all the way down through history.
Except the Democrats of that time were NOT left wing.
You speak of hypocrisy, and yet you somehow managed to neglect to mention that public speakers who happen to be on the far political right advocate how religion is a wonderful thing (*ahem* at least as long as it is theirs) and how much they advocate “Christian values”, and yet are the first, loudest, & most frequent to speak out against any government program which promotes the most Christian of values: Charity to the poor.
“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. ”
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
“Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.”
I could go on and on and on by citing the many more lines of scripture which espouse the value of charity, but I believe my point is made.
There are a great many more lines of scripture about charitable giving than about stoning gay men, and on that weight you’d think that those on the far right would spend their energies promoting public giving, which is the most capable of “not let[ting] your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.” But they don’t, because their much vaunted “religion” is just a sham, a crime, and a sin. It is the very essence of hypocrisy.
It was also mentioned that she owns a comic book shop, so she’s out-merchandising Arianna by advertising stuff that’s available at her shop. She’ll be even more loved by geeks and nerds everywhere…
I thought Arianna was going to use the shop for merchandise
Almost right.
If people want to be offended, they will find a remotely logical reasonining to justify it.
There are people that actually try to offend you of course. And I don’t understand why those get all defensive once they had success.
But as Arianna says, people can apply insane troll logic to justify being offended.
I am am offended that you think I can be so easily offended.
And I am offended that this comment page has no edit feature. :(
How dare you offend DaveB he is an artist, not a web-monkey! *
* No offence intended to any web-monkey reading this. Here, have a banana!
I think Grodd said it best in last week’s episode of The Flash:
“I! HATE! BANANAS!”
He’s said that at least once in the Comics,the cartoon, etc etc. There was a while I thought it was his battle cry.
Grodd and Kyle Broflowsky have at least one thing in common then
your being offended offends me.
The entirety of this thread can be summed up quite adequately here:
https://www.thecomicstrips.com/store/add.php?iid=79070
That just about sums it up.
Great minds think alike.
I find the fact that you’re offended by someone being offended quite offensive! =P
Thats so offensive of you
I am offended that you need to think that he thinks that you can be so easily offended.
I’m offended that so many people are so easily offended.
That’s offensive.
You call that offensive? This is an offensive!
*hands Yorp one internet*
Offensensitivity.
https://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1982/11/14/
This is too good :)
I love Sydney giving Arianna the stick for some reason.
Maybe because it’s comparable to saying “fuck you, I don’t need to be vauge and painfully un-offensive because some idiot disagrees with me”
has she given ariana the stick?
i wasn’t entirely sure at first, but based on the first answer i have to say:
no she haven’t. deadpool did, and that’s a random search image.
I agree with Sydney mostly. Stay way from the hot stuff (religion politics etc) but she is an adult who can make her own decisions. Her love of comics means she might love the badasses. That’s her business; she shouldn’t have to erase all that she likes just cause someone somewhere is going to complain about something. She’s an adult foremost and it’s her damn life.
Oh, the joys of PR, the real world Fun police.
though the internet has done one useful thing in congregating all the people that PR are afraid of offending in one place (spoilers, tumblr) so we can ignore that one place and carry on being sensible human beings
Now if we could only figure out a way to send a lethal virus through the internet we could wipe out all the impediments to progress in one fell swoop. Hay a man can dream can’t he?
Something to massively overload the machine and set it on fire? Would cause collateral damage though.
On the other hand – even if it didn’t remove the trolls, the increased insurance premiums, etc, woulx make such behaviour economically unviable :)
This prep course (perp course in her case?) should be interesting.
Please don’t have them tame Sydney too much. Maybe just a rule about what her being ‘on duty’ when the orbs are out so she can still be a crazy nerd when she has them in the tube.
Looking forward to her being interviewed on the Daily Show now. Especially after the Jewish comment.
Heh, I’m more worried what Sydney is going to do to their PR specialist. I’m imagining Arianna walking in to check on progress only to find the PR lady staring blankly ahead, drooling slightly and Sydney going “I think I broke it :/”
Nah. This is a bit of a double-blind (is that the right word?).
What’s going to happen is Sydney’s gonna win over the public with her honest and personable ways, manage to leverage her store into a cross-country franchise chain managed by/for ARCHON and ultimately oust Arianna from her perch as PR rep.
When Anvil calls Sydney the “Big Guns” it isn’t because of her superpowers, but because she basically holds the public relations of an entire government in the palm of her hand.
Also, DaveB, the word you’re looking for is “Peeve”. As in, “Pet Peeve”. Or being “Peeved” off.
That is pretty close. IDK, though, trigger sounds fine in context, given she’s a young, Internet savy person, she’s bound to have come across that use of the term.
https://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/880/932/474.gif
“Maybe just a rule about what her being ‘on duty’ when the orbs are out so she can still be a crazy nerd when she has them in the tube.” – no, she’s on duty when she’s on duty. ARC-SWAT doesn’t own the orbs – and to say otherwise is just asking for her to nitpick everyone else’s use of their powers on their own time.
Wow, Ariana is down with her Americanisationisms.
*reaches through the fourth wall, of the final panel, to square up the unidentified poster, on the notice board*
It looks like it could be a notice about 1 of your relatives.
The upper one is the Sparkfun’s organization chart.
The other is a lost dog flyer that has been around internet for a while (2007 at least) but I didn’t found the stroy behind it.
I will bet that someone is doing an homage to someone ;)
BTW, that’s a rather empty board. It must have been recently cleaned.
What do you guys think was there before?
The storyboard for the animated intro sequence that Dave is working on with the Starbomb people?
A flyer about the last summer’s Korean synchronized dance contest for all-girls groups, with a Harem’s hand note: “I licked it clean!! :)”?
Thinking about it that chart looks a lot like how a diagram of Dabblers’ theories about Sydney’s orbs could be.
Nicely spotted.
Sadly the dog flyer does not show on my system. And the ‘source’ link they provide leads to a broken address.
You are right, it fails in Chrome.
Try this one: https://boingboing.net/filesroot/200710241336.jpg
He he. Very good.
I’ve always been fond of the term vexation (what vexes thee?) and I think it’d fit rather well, but that may be me. Irritant would also work, but it’s not as cool. :-)
i think the correct term for the kind of people Ari is worried about is less Vexation and more Petulance.
Perhaps pet peeve would work? Pet Peeve: That which a person finds excessively annoying, inciting them to rage, but is viewed as a minor or negligible annoyance by others.
Or maybe offensive topic? How about controversy? Rage launcher?
Yep. Peeve is the word Dave was after – though ‘beef’, ‘bellyache’, ‘gripe’, ‘grudge’ (and of course ‘bitch’) all work perfectly well too.
Peeve sounds better in context, to me at least. But you’ve got to admit that “Trigger*” is a fairly appropriate word for someone being offended by a pony tail because they feel it makes fun of horses.
:-D :-D :-D
* Although Roy Rogers might just mean a fast food chain to kids these days**. And get off my lawn!
** And that chain has died down to a handful of franchise owners, so kids these days may not recognize that, either. I happen to live quite close to the location Roy Rogers began, and so my area had a fairly strong presence. And stay off my lawn!
Trigger more specifically means a sensation or stimulus that induces a flashback to a traumatic event. I think that’s why Dave was unsatisfied with it. Peeve should be a more neutral term.
Things that make you mad: Aggravater.
Things that make you REALLY mad are incendiary.
inciteful :)
Insightful. :)
Opposite meaning.
Is this actually how PR people thing? Someone somewhere might get offended by Deadpool, so you can’t reference him?
You can. A taxpayer paid role-model, on the other paw…
So just market her towards a specific demografic: Comic book people
COMIX!
It’s possible I watch too many shows like The West Wing where people can get totally bent out of shape about one thing a person did 20 years ago. Rather, they’er getting bent out of shape because they know other people will get bent out of shape about it. Sometimes in the West Wing someone stands up and says “you people are being ridiculous” but as often as not it’s a thing they have to deal with. The problem is when some news organization or political opposition latches on to the item of concern and turn it into a 24 hour news story that completely ignores any nuance.
What I keep thinking of, when I see the above comic, is the poor astronomer who chose the wrong t-shirt to wear when promoting the satellite approaching the peanut-shaped comet recently. I would guess that he has a wardrobe of colourful shirts (rather like I used to wear ‘personality’ ties, such as “Wyle E Cyote” or “Taz, the Tazmanian Devil, with his tongue lolloping out”).
Likewise, for those who know him, he may be an egalitarian, who everybody finds to be a nice guy. And, as such, can get away with poking fun at feminazis by wearing an apparently sexist t-shirt. As folks know he is just doing it for a laugh, rather than as a sexist act.
But, when he moves out of his close community and into the world of interviews and press-conferences, with that on, he came in for a s**tload of abuse for wearing it. Threatening to overshadow the scientific event that he and his colleagues had been spending their entire careers working to achieve! And bringing him to a tearful apology.
Sydney should be grateful that she has a press officer watching her back!
Err her front. Well, you get the points. If you look closely enough.
People are designed to care more about other people/people related items than anything else but their own individual needs and wants. The actual science in that story was read and enjoyed by those who have made that one of their wants but the social commentary aspect of it couldn’t be ignored by anyone with the time left over in their day to bitch (whichever “side” they were on). And apparently there were a crap ton of people with bitchin’ time left over in their day…
I wonder if they make T-shirts about that story and its “sides” now?
Someone posted a copy of him having to apologize about the shirt next to a picture of a group of feminists demanding the right to wear what they want, including going topless. Perhaps the feminists need to get together and set their rules out so they, themselves, are not being sexist.
Yeah, I agree that media people are insane. They speak only in terms of relativity but completely leave out any kind of “common point of reference” that gives what they say any kind of meaningful context.
It’s true that every thing in this universe is relative to any other thing in this universe, even if the only relationship is that they both exist in the same universe. However, not even Albert Einstein could define or specify the relationship between two things without comparing them to a known constant as a point of reference; his theories of General & Special Relativity had to use “speed of light traveling in a vaccum” as the “constant” in order to compare the relationship between mass & energy!
But there are way too many people (who seem to gravitate towards politics or mass media occupations) who hate to be pinned down with facts & reality, so they speak entirely in terms of relativity & “damn the consistency, full speed ahead.”
Fear leads to anger. Angers leads to hate. Hate leads to increased cable news ratings.
Tell that to MSNBC & how their hate-filled “opinions” have affected their ratings…
Not a whole lot of hate coming out of MSNBC there is a lot of hate coming out of Fox news. Also a lot of fake news coming out of Fox news. But when an MSNBC host goes off the rails and actually does something hateful they step down for a time as pence when was the last time Fox did that?
Take your politics and put them somewhere else pls.
The rest of us are just trying read a fun comic here!
Er, at risk of actually agreeing with Mr. DStroyer, because he appears to be blind to the actual facts on the matter due to his neglect to cite FOX as the more obviously hate-spewing cable channel, MSNBC has plenty of hatred of their own. It’s just that they express it with a context of incredulity or humor, while FOX is loud, shrill, and more obviously hateful.
I mean, try actually watching FOX for one hour and then tell me the number of times you’ve seen one of their anchors or commentators or whatever they call the ladies in the short skirts with their legs constantly on display screw their face up in a hateful expression. In some segments it might be only once, but catch the right subject and it’ll be dozens of times.
You won’t see that on MSNBC, because they hide it under a veneer of urbanity.
Woah, hdon’t get ahead of youself. Hate leads to suffering – suffering leads to cable news.
Get it right O.B.
Fear leads to anger, Anger leads to hate, Hate leads to stress, Stress leads to doobies, Doobies lead to Twinkies.
“Peeves,” maybe?
“Peeves” is probably the best word if we left the sentence as he originally wrote it. I would just re-write the bubble so the latter half read something along the lines of, “I can’t control what annoys other people.”
Barring profanity-laced tirades, I’ll bet Sydney is far more used to annoying people than offending them.
“This time I was looking for a word that means “the thing that makes you mad” I wound up using the word “trigger” as in “people’s pet trigger.” ”
Actually, I think “trigger” is perfect since the concern about “trigger warnings” is all the rage now. The invention of “triggering” is the new weapon to control speech you don’t like.
Yeah, ‘Trigger’ started as a legitimate term used by people who deal with trauma and trauma victims but it very quickly got co-opted by the asshole brigade (even faster than ‘aspergers’ or ‘privilege’).
Yeah, I’m pretty sure “pet peeve” means exactly what DaveB means.
+1 on “peeve”, although I have a friend of whom I have had to set up a list of his rants, so that when he goes into one, I can say, “Rant Trigger number 4”, so he knows that I acknowledge his standing on the point, but it allows us to get on with the conversation. So I would like to submit “Rantgers” to the English language as a new word.
I’m with you on that one.
A “pet peeve” is generally something that annoys you or angers you for no real reason (or at least that’s how I understand it’s meaning).
An example would be that it really bothers me when someone uses “barley” instead of “barely”.
Barley is a fricking plant!
Or “should/would/could ‘of’ ”
IT’S NOT FKING ‘OF’; IT’S EITHER ‘VE, OR ‘HAVE’.
The correct usage is “woulda, coulda, shoulda”.
WHO DAT!
(if you don’t get the reference, you don’t watch enough NFL. :P )
Yes, “pet peeve” sounds and flows right but I think Dave was looking for something stronger.
Being peeved is being annoyed. Being mad or angry is much stronger.
People’s misuse of “your” and you’re” or “there” and “their” make me annoyed.
The stupidity of some politicians make me (very) angry!
Nice rantger.
Yes, barley IS a nice plant; if there was no barley, we may never have invented beer…
Yea, there is Bali enough correct use of wordages, as it is, without tolerating such laxatives!
Being too lax certainly keeps one on their toes…Until they reach the bathroom.
Or when people pronounce “nuclear” as “nucula”. (That’s one of my pet peeves.)
Any Latin scholar will tell you that “nucula” is Latin for “nut”.
This means that squirrels are nucula engineers, and nucula fission is what you do sitting by the fireplace on Christmas Eve with a nutcracker.
Yea, as every schoolboy knows atoms are fruits, not nuts!
Nice rantger.
I agree, with a footnote though.
“Pet Peeve” certainly fits, and I’d say it’s probably the most commonly-used phrase for this concept, but I don’t think it’s one Sydney would use in this context.
I suspect she’d use the term “Berserk Button”, because she works in retail-services (for horror stories, see notalwaysright.com), and she’s a genre-savvy person, which (almost by definition) makes her a Troper.
I would find it impossible to believe if Sydney claimed she had never wasted hours of her life on TVTropes…especially considering her ADD.
“…which (almost by definition) makes her a Troper.”
I like to think of such people as being “Trope Encyclopedias,” but that’s just my own preference. Even in my own day, I’ve been referred to as “a vast font of completely useless information,” which means pretty much the same thing…
Me too, generally by my family.
Omg! Arianna has a shapechanging information device! It can transform from a tablet into a smartphone*.
* Disclaimer I am guessing that these are the correct terms for the devices it has chosen to form. Which may bear no resemblance to what they are called in the real world.
I think that’s Apples newest product, the iTransformer. I heard that its more than meets the eye!
Look forward to the latest Apple product, the “iWatchYou”
then i am going to be the one without a sense of humor, and say that those are 2 different (but not too much) items. the Ipad (or whatever its called) is on probably on the table on that second to last panel.
Don’t we have that already? :-/
Apple is too late…The NSA already uses it.
The key to getting those laws into place is to name them correctly. When it came up for the vote in Congress, who was going to vote against something called the “Patriot Act”. It may have gone differently if it had been named the “Spy on Anyone Anywhere at Any Time for Any Reason” act.
When all you read is the “headlines,” you miss out on all of the context…
Wake up, Congress! You consistently “represent” us by “signing us into agreements” without “full knowledge, disclosure & understanding,” which makes any such “contract” unenforceable BY LAW; it’s even specific in the Uniform Commercial Code!
You do understand that there is a large difference in the legalities surrounding treaties between nations vs. personal contracts which you signed such as, oh I don’t know, your contract with your cell company, right? “Signing us into agreements,” what a crock of crap. You may as well try fighting a speeding ticket by citing that you were not a signatory to the law which put the speed limit into effect…
And when you press “I agree” even though you don’t really have a “full knowledge, disclosure & understanding” of the terms, either because you didn’t read them or didn’t understand them, your signature stands as representing that you did indeed have that “full knowledge, disclosure & understanding.”
Yeah, there are cases where a good (read: expensive, or in some way otherwise invested in your case for some reason) lawyer might get you off the hook, but it’s far more likely that you’re screwed, and will indeed be paying that early termination fee.
Sydney has a point, if you start accepting the idea that everything can offend someone somewhere it never ends.
Political correctness does indeed bleach the colour out of life and make the world a duller place. But, if applied correctly, it can also make it a less hateful place.
For those who are overly politically-correct though, panel 4 does offer a couple of retorts. One of which is a teensy bit more extreme than the other.
Yeah but it mostly annoys the hell out of everyone because not being politically correct gives you a lot of shit. “You called an African American black. You must be racist!” <this is basically what being politically "incorrect" will get you.
What if I don’t know whe he (or she) is originated from? He/she could be an African African or Haitian African and being rather black is all I could tell about him/her.
Really, these color issues are somewhat annoying.
Hnnng: “whe” -> “where”
To be honest, the lack of an edit feature adds a bit to the fun of these pages, but still :-/
Technically the term is an insult to any American who is not classed as being such. Given that, by implication, one would be denying their humanity.
The logic behind this statement being that all humanity originated in Africa. So to call one group “African American” and everyone else “non-African American” is to claim that the latter are non-human Americans.
I remember in college, one bla– excuse me, African American, being offended because I called him black. “I’m African American!” he replied.
“Well, in that case, I’m Irish-American.”
“No, you’re just a white cracker!”
“Ah-ah-ah. If you insist on being allowed to call yourself something special… in this case, African American… then I insist on being allowed to call myself something special. So that’s Mr. Irish-American white cracker to you!”
There are a couple thoughts on “political correctness” that resonate with me.
Samuel Clemens’ comment on censorship: “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it”
which leads to a quote that was first referenced by Chet Beates: “A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
It’s gone beyond the idea that you should generally be polite and try not to hurt people’s feelings, to the idea that it’s assaultingly offensive to think wrong…
That quote is impressive and worth remembering.
I find the most egregious cases to be those where the listener is the one who is thinking wrong. And still managed to blow things so out of proportion with their incorrect understanding that the speaker feels compelled to apologize.
The case where a speaker at the retirement of a city official (I believe a Mayor although my memory might not serve me) referred to him as “an 800 lb gorilla”, which some listeners decided was outright racism, since the Mayor was a large man, and gorillas are large, and the Mayor was a black man, and gorillas are black.
But they were simply ignorant of the meaning of the phrase, which is simply to say that the Mayor was a powerful man who was able to get things done. Since of course the answer to the question of “Where does an 800 lb gorilla sit?” is “Anywhere he wants.”
But after a couple days of press coverage the speaker felt compelled to issue an apology. My apology would have been “I’m sorry you’re stupid.”
Personally I consider political correctness mostly as something made up by people who don’t want to be criticized for being idiots. Based on how I see it used it seems to translate to “I should be able to say what I want but others shouldn’t say what they want about what I am saying.”
There’s a passage in the Communist Manifesto that describe a strategy to induce mass mind control over the mass public. It involves controlling how people are allowed to use the language to communicate, involving use of allegory, inventing new terms that makes definitions ambiguous & generally confusing. Once the public is speaking in a certain way, it gets people to thinking a certain way…ergo, mass mind control.
The Communist Manifesto is describing Political correctness to a ‘T’.
See, I completely disagree with this. I actually think that Political Correctness actually encourages and advances hatefulness. Think of it this way- your body needs to get sick in order to build up an immunity to that particular bacteria/virus- this is even how vaccines work. And even aside from specifics, the process of repeatedly becoming a little sick and beating it back increases your ability to fight worse bugs. The same thing with building muscle- you have to tear the muscle fibers a little, so that they can come back stronger.
I think it’s the same thing with ‘offensive’ stuff. Exposure allows immunity to develop. ‘blue humour’ jokes are one facet of this- blonde jokes as well. Does anyone really think that blondes are inherently dumber than people with other colored hair? No, because they heard that from a joke, so clearly it’s not true. Same with the thing about Gingers having no soul.
Offensive humour is one of the biggest ways that we as humans showcase acceptance into groups. When that humour isn’t allowed to be used, that acceptance isn’t cemented, and so people don’t feel like they belong- the cement isn’t there to hold the conglomerate together.
I want to have people make Cracker and Nerd and fat jokes about me, and I want to be able to make skin-tone and hair-color and physicality jokes right back at them, because then we’re not ‘this’ group and ‘that’ group, but all just ‘people who are making fun at each other’.
I am not a fan of offensive jokes myself. I have no objection to the use of foul language, in a joke mind. Well-timed, and judged, the shock value can make a punch line much funnier. Billy Connolly is my favourite comedian. And I don’t mind jokes that cover offensive subjects, subject to how they are handled.
South Park, for example, usually can get it right. They will pick a topic that might have shock value, but will approach it in a way where they are not victimising minorities. But the reason why sex, religion and race are amongst the taboo subjects is because it is hard to judge where to draw the line and how to structure the joke in such a way that it does not cause harm.
Which is where I think you are making a very poor judgement call. You start on the basis of ‘I am strong enough to take jokes about my race, religion and social standing, therefore everybody must be able to do the same’.
Yet you are not thinking about the vulnerable individuals in society. There are thousands of suicides each year, and many of those are aggravated by bullying behaviour. A lot of which will be social in nature rather than physical. The things which you shrug off as character building can be the things which cause them to tip over from having a stable happy life, into isolation, depression and suicide.
Likewise humour is a vital tool in assisting genocide. If you check out the ten stages of genocide, you can see that humour can help in many stages.
1. CLASSIFICATION: This is the stage you are blithely promoting. Make sure that everybody in your society is used to thinking of the society as being split up into different groups, be it by ethnicity, race or social group. This allows them to differentiate between ‘them and us’.
Be sure to draw particular attention to the group you are intending to exterminate, of course. You seem to think that ‘nerd’ is a nice safe thing, so let us pick that one. Check out history and you will find that there have been purges against intellectuals in a number of societies. Usually accompanied by book burning and the like.
2. SYMBOLIZATION: Ok, now that we have decided which group to kill off, the symbolisation is easy. You provided the first part yourself, give them a handle. ‘Nerds’ and ‘Geeks’ will do, in part. But ‘intellectualists’ and ‘elitists’ can also help lay the foundations for the latter stages.
Big Bang Theory can provide source material. Either as caricature targets for the jokes, or in inspiring spin-off material, but which portrays the characters as draining the resources of the country, enjoying privilege, wealth, technology and other gadgets, but providing nothing useful, in return. All it takes is a change in emphasis on the scripts and humour to turn them from harmless, incompetent nerds and geeks, into something much darker.
3. DISCRIMINATION: Make light of the increased student fees, taxes, licences and other discriminatory policies you apply against the intellectualists. ‘Oh no, now I can only afford two home cinema entertainment units, either my penthouse, my beachhouse or my yacht will have nothing! How will I survive?’
4. DEHUMANIZATION: Oh yea, this is the biggie. Humour can really go to town on this one. A stand-up comedian, in a culture that has already laid the ground-work in the earlier stages, can get away with some horrendous visualisations. And gradually desensitise their audience to the prospects.
One classic joke of this nature is easy to recycle for any group you are intending to victimise.
“How do you save a nerd from drowning? Take your foot off his head!”
6. POLARIZATION, 7. PREPARATION etc From this point onwards you are simply supporting the official line. Target your humour at the human rights protesters, the ‘politically correct’ the champions of the nerds and anybody who is opposing the upcoming extermination. Laugh at their arguments that genocide is approaching. Ridicule any faux pas that anyone in their camp makes. And if they do not, then make it up. After all it is only a joke!
Once the extermination begins, your work is pretty much done. Just pick up your machete and gun and join in. But work on your material, to help in the cover up and denial stages afterwards, of course.
Will you encouraging cracker and nerd jokes lead to extermination? Unlikely, but it may lay the groundwork. If not for the nerds, then in making it acceptable for some other minority to be targeted. Be that in isolated piecemeal attacks or something more widespread.
Humour is best when there are no victims involved.
Well that escalated quickly.
No point beating around the bush. Our society has a sickening glut of over political correctness. Which makes people fed up about ‘the nanny state’ and bureaucrats ignoring common sense and applying idiotic rules, as a result.
All of which serves to mask the issues where political correctness has been put in place for good reasons. To protect lives, and to allow people a chance at living a life without persecution and fear.
If you look through the comic, and comments, you will see that DaveB recognises the distinctions, when it comes to humour.
A strong comedy writer can be a powerful social force. Look at the tradition of the court jester. The one person who can poke fun at the monarch, and their policies, with impunity. But, in doing so, might cause a re-think of the more ludicrous ones.
Likewise the countries which permit political satire are stronger for it, for the same reasons. But, as with any tool, humour can be used for evil as well as good. And failing to recognise what path you are on, can lead to dire consequences.
I simply put up a sign post, to help folks see where they are heading. And the sooner that is done, the less likely they are to talk themselves into thinking they have chosen a good route.
Yorp’s right. It’s funny that Yorp should mention nerds… A perfect example of #1 and #2 happened in Cambodia. Do a search for Pol Pot, the former leader of the Khmer Rouge. I’m just going to summarize here; you can find more information yourself. Starting in 1973, he ordered a series of general purges of former government officials, and “anyone with an education”, in an effort to build a new “agrarian socialist utopia”.
Oh, and “anyone with an education” includes anyone who wore glasses, since glasses are so (sarcasm) obviously (/sarcasm) a mark of the intelligentsia. He didn’t even waste bullets on you… his troops had you dig your own mass grave, then buried you alive, basically for being a nerd. The exact number is uncertain, but approximately 25% of Cambodia’s population (~2.2 million out of 8 million inhabitants) died as a direct result of his policies. That isn’t counting the others who died indirectly of starvation and disease.
Having said that, Political Correctness is sometimes necessary, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, else it can go too far. I remember when a friend of mine, who attended Trinity University in San Antonio, told me about the semester when they decided that new students couldn’t be called “freshmen” because it contains the word “MEN”. (He then said, “What’s next… changing HIStory to HERstory?”) So, for that one semester, you had to call them “fish”. Fortunately, it only lasted one semester, then saner heads prevailed.
Thanks for the support.
Totally agree regarding the last paragraph. Just like police can track down criminals by the principle of ‘following the money’, it is not hard to apply common sense to differentiate between worthwhile political correctness and twaddle.
Just ask simple questions like where is the victim? Is someone suffering because of this? Is it genuine suffering, or just whining? Will implementing a change make things worse, in other regards? Is the cost proposed worth the reduction in risk it is likely to achieve?
Trouble is that the usual questions are more like: Will this make a good-sounding headline, and improve my chances of re-election? If I do this can I stop that individual from whining on about it? Do I need to check every one of these papers that my idiot minion is asking me to sign? Why has that rash in my groin gotten worse?
I wish I was a superhero on a team like that… I’d be a PR nightmare as well. :)
Sidney’s Deadpool shirt doesn’t mean she agrees with the fictional character. Vigilantism is illegal, so wearing a Batman shirt wouldn’t be any better.
While her outfit shouldn’t raise any issues, the media loves to use whatever it can get its grubby hands on. There is no way to win, no way to dress to avoid critique… so Sidney should simply wear whatever she likes.
Arianna is the typical PR person, always looking for the optimal option… but this isn’t a product the customers need to like, it’s an organisation that doesn’t need to be loved by the masses to do its job. Meaning they do not need to be overly positive, political correct and harmless (which is not going to happen anyway, no matter what Sidney does or does not), they only have to avoid being negative rolemodels. Glorifying violence for example.
Problem is it’s Arianna’s job to make them overly loved by the masses
Heh, that line of thinking is why PR people can earn a big salary! Should you become an overnight celebrity, I would give you a week, tops, before you did, said or wore something which caused outrage to some faction or other.
For maybe another week you will staunchly defend your right to offend. But, will eventually find that, in a population of seven billion people, even a tiny minority can massively outnumber you and can make your life a living hell.
Once you get to the point where you cannot walk down the street, without someone screaming abuse at you, or returning to find your car scratched up or loosing job offers and suffering other financial losses, you might decide that changing your behaviour to always be bland, dull and unlikely to cause offence may have some merit.
Whilst your comment is true (if concerned about fashion police), it is not true if extended to ‘things which can cause offence’. There are ways of dressing, talking and behaving which eliminate the risk of causing offence. Keeping to those may be easier said than done mind, for the more colourful folks in life.
Personally though, I am glad that not everyone gets bullied into following the boring route. The world is richer without it. And I feel that those who cause offence inadvertently deserve some slack. And those who take offence at humour should take the corn-cob out of their butts.
Yeah. People are assholes. They’ll find anything to be offended about. People will hate you for any reason.
“I would give you a week, tops”
i would wear a shirt saying “kill the feminists” the first morning.
problem?
How about,
“F@ck Political Correctness!”
you are right
“F@ck” is much better than “kill the”
so “F@ck feminists”
Only if you buy me a drink first!
such a common line, and yet causing so much trouble with the context…
you may consider yourself to be a feminist, but if you actually CALL yourself a feminist, there is no way you would go that easy. those who CALL themselves a feminists are mostly zealots.
but then there is a question of whether they are for real or pretending.
there is posibility that you want to use the “i was drunk at the time” to negate the “consent” and call me a rapist…
it also depends on what you consider “feminism”
It also depends on if you’re the hypocritical feminazi that hates men or the egalitarians that call themselves feminists.
i did make a distinction between “call themselves” and “consider themselves”.
i think that says enough.
As for myself, I make the distinction between “feminism” & “feminazi” according to the person’s displayed behavior:
Feminism is advocating for male/female equality; Feminazis advocate for female superiority over males.
Shouldn’t “Feminism” by its nature as a word (the etymology) suggest “Female Superiority” after all?
Wouldn’t a better term for the more even-minded be “Egalitarians”?
I, my sisters, my mom (before she died) and my father are all feminists. We believe in equal rights and equal pay. We also believe a woman’s body is her own to control. My mom was one of the first (if not the very first) woman to work in her field. She got a LOT of pushback from supposedly grown men would didn’t like a “girl” in their workplace. Most anti-feminists remind me of little boys who think girls have “cooties”. And don’t get me started on the moronic MRA guys crying about losing their special status.
MRA much? Sorry there are REAL issues with the way women are treated not only in the US but around the world. You’d have to be living under a rock or intentionally ignorant not to see them. Are some feminists out on the crazy end of the scale? Yes but I would venture to say they are reacting to things that have happened to them in real life. There are far more “damaged” people out there then you would guess. you live in your little world where you don’t even see the special treatment you get. You remind me of a spoiled child that grows up expecting everyone to treat him special like mommy did. Try to grow up and see someone else’s point of view. Or are you totally bereft of empathy? If someone feels there are being treated poorly there must be a reason and they can’t all be because of “crazy”.
you requested a resopnse so here i am.
your first post, seemed rather personal so i had not much to say about it.
but the second one seems somewhat judgmental.
i know that our planet is not the best place to be, but seriously.
when i say something, i say why i think that way.
you however, only say your conclusion.
you say there are real problems? like what?
“not only in the US but around the world”
and again you say “everywhere”.
but WHAT EXACTLY is everywhere?
empathy? i do not know what “bereft” means, but i don’t have much of it.
lastly, you seem to be defending feminazi without even realizing it.
i have never said women are not allowed to be treated the same as men. I just said that certain issues don’t actually exist, not that there are no issues at all. but then you react as if i called ALL of the feminist zleaots. not only i specified the loud ones, but also i said MOSTLY, not all.
obviously there are people with problems. tere ALWAYS are, and there always are those who want to abuse everything and everyone for personal gain. that is not a news to me, but you shouldn’t go around saying that EVERYWHERE (“not only in the US but around the world”) is hell.
If you start off your arguments with phrases such as
and
You have already lost the moral high ground. So whining, when people respond brusquely to your rudeness, fools nobody. You have already made things personal and deserve what judgement comes your way.
Everywhere means just about every country in the world. Even the best countries have not achieved economic parity between the genders. And, as you can see there, almost all have failings in justice, health, education and politics.
Education (in some countries women get none, in others they receive a poorer education).
Economic (most boardrooms around the world are male-dominated)
violence (Ranging from domestic attacks and rape through slavery, enforced prostitution and a culture of impunity*)
These are just a few examples, as you requested such. There are very many more categories, and specific types of discrimination and abuse, than just those.
Odd, because nobody has. A lot of women, in the more enlightened countries, do live good lives. But just because they are does not mean that life there is rosy for all.
Look around your neighbourhood. It is probably a nice one, given that you are under the impression that life is great for women. But keep an eye open for a woman wearing dark glasses on a cloudy day. Those might be to cover the black eye, from where her guy punched her.
Yet, most you will not see, because the bruises and scars are usually inflicted on parts that are covered up. Just like the discrimination in the workplace is usually covered up. It requires investigation to discover these things.
Of course, people who deny that such exists will not look out for the warning signs. They are just being selfish. Which is a fairly normal state amongst humanity.
However, those who insult and attack people who do stand up against such behaviour, have passed beyond being selfish. They are indirectly supporting the perpetrators of discrimination, rape, sexual slavery, and violence.
* Propagated, for example, by people who choose to imply that false rape allegations negate the existence of genuine rape cases. Despite the fact that, in any given country, there are very few proven cases of the former, yet very many of the latter.
Wait… what? I can CONSIDER myself a feminist, and that’s fine, but if I speak the word out loud, and CALL myself a feminist, I transform into some kind of “zealot”?
Wow. Let’s try it!
“Feminist! Feminist! Feminist! Feminist! Feminist! Feminist! Feminist!”
….
Nope. Still fairly even tempered. Still want equal pay rate, too.
well, the way i see it is that no sane person would want to be associated with “those” feminists, also known as “feminazi”.
if someone ask you, it is fine to answer, but whats the point of going around and yelling “I AM A FEMINIST!!!”
Because it is a cause worth championing. Whilst discrimination persists, we should be proud to oppose it.
And it beats shouting “I am a troll”.
what discrimination?
wage gap is a lie, tropes vs women is BS, patriarchy is long gone if it was ever there, there are false rape accusations, what discrimination are you talking about?!
It sounds like you are living on a different planet to the rest of us. Any tips on how to visit your world?
“…on a different planet…”
if you said “world” i maybe would accept it but saying “planet” you prove that you think it is the case EVERYWHERE.
i was thinking of trying to be nice, maybe thinking of some excuse for you… but no.
on YT go look for one of the listed:
thunder foot
TL;DR
amazing atheist
they prove that there is a place ON THE SAME PLANET that is (mostly) free from gender discrimination.
one f****n word, and ALL the respect i might have had goes to drain.
Having a look on YouTube, at the rant headlines that came up with those key words, I see that they very much match the tone of your arguments. Which is a relief actually.
It means that it increases the odds of you just being a fanatic about an issue, as opposed to trolling for the sake of it. Which can make it worth while talking about the issue. Depending on whether you are a close-minded fanatic, or someone who may actually listen to valid counter-arguments.
To be honest, none of the videos that cropped up, under the key words you listed, tempted me to click them. They all have the appearance of being rants aimed at the lowest common denominator. Ie designed to appeal to idiots.
No offence intended, but you do appear to have been sucked in by watching such stuff. Hopefully you are intelligent enough to be able to find a way of breaking the brain-washing you have subjected yourself to, if I point you at a few good techniques.
First off, ignore the hype and check out the statistics. Try looking up things like ‘the percentage of women in the board room’. You will find that the business world is still very patriarchal.
Then try to find out the number of proven false-rape claims in your country per annum. And compare that to the number of recorded rapes there. You will find precious few of the former. Whatever country you live in. And a massive number of the latter.
To save me the boredom of watching mindless drivel on YouTube, I am quite happy to assume that there is indeed such a place.
Why, just because one place is free, do you think that it is right to denigrate those who seek to bring that freedom to other places too? There are massive injustices being wreaked on women, in one way or another, and to some degree or other, in just about every country in the world.
Do you feel that your boredom, at hearing people talk about such, is a greater right to uphold, than protecting the lives, and quality of life, of endangered women? Both in your country and elsewhere around the globe.
fanatic? me?
was it me who said ” Whilst discrimination persists, we should be –>proud<– to oppose it"?
was it me who said that (indirectly) said there there is no place in this planet where that problem doesn't exist anymore?
and then you are calling me names without PRIOR prove that i am wrong.
but "i" am the fanatic here…
even if you wrote something actually intelligent, this line moved you to the "consider as troll" list.
i am not reading past that, no point arguing with trolls.
ROFL.
AAARRRGGGHHH!!! please refer to the comment I made to my own comment above as a reply to R the MRA guy. Really want an edit function of some sort even if it’s just a delete button.
…or a Saitama action figure, at least.
I would love to wear a T-shirt that says “Religion=Organized Insanity” but I’d probably be lynched in less than 10 minutes.
If I saw you or anyone else wearing said shirt I would ask you a single question.
Can you prove it?
The organized part is easy to prove. The insanity part depends on how you define insanity. Think about the average pastor’s normal day. Reading from and studying a 2000 year old book (the book isn’t that old, maybe some part of it are but you get my point) that is full of factual and scientific inaccuracies and is even internally inconsistent, devoting their life to a being for which there is no evidence, praying, which is really just believing in one way telepathy, I could go on and on. If he was the only guy in the world who believed that stuff, you could make a compelling claim for insanity, but hundreds of millions believe the same thing, so now it’s ok, in fact it’s considered laudable. So what is insanity?
Well, that’s one point of view…
I know you’re the author, but we (Yorp, another commenter and I) have had similar discussions on religion. Please don’t imply things that aren’t true (internally inconsistent, no evidence, etc.). And as far as prayer goes, we (Christians) believe that God is everywhere (though not physically visible). So prayer is not telepathy so much as talking to the person in front of you.
Mmm, I think you are missing the gist of DaveB‘s point. He was not having a go at religion, but was just analysing the prior comment. Which involves looking at societies’ preconceptions and some of the unusual practices which have become bound up as a part of the process.
Plus note that it does have a satirical tone to it, so should not be taken too seriously.
Further, being a questioning of established principles, the interpretation of his comment, and thereby the conclusions which can be drawn, are subject to the preconceptions of the reader.
And this is highlighted by ending with a question. Which may well be taken to refute the earlier comment’s basis. Personally I find it to be an interesting comment. One which is less provocative, and more thought-provoking, than I think you give it credit for.
It’s not really limited to any single ideology either- you could just as easily look at Atheism the same way (especially atheists without children):
Here you have a guy(or girl) who spends their day doing things they may or may not want, even though there’s no reason to continue living. There’s no reward at the end of it, and all they have to look forwards to is days of increasing pain and decrepitude and slowly slipping mental facilities. They don’t believe in a Divine Creator despite all the glorious wonderful things that exist in the universe and the utter improbability that humanity could exist, even though tons of other people in the world have a perfectly good answer that keeps them from going nuts with stress.
Or the idea of commerce- we don’t even use solid paper anymore. There is almost NOTHING stopping people from just saying they have money, fabricating false proof, and managing to get themselves into a situation where they can live as though they _do_ have money.
Everything humans do is crazy in some way or another.
Well, not to start a big thing here, but:
The bible is self contradictory in many places: https://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html Granted some of these could be due to poor translations so it’s hard to argue over semantics when none of the original text was ever in English, but when I say internally inconsistent this is the sort of stuff I’m talking about.
When I say evidence, I mean scientific, repeatable, testable evidence. I’d give examples of things I’ve heard constitute evidence for god but they’re so easily dismissed as to be insulting and that’s not my intent. There obviously is no proper scientific evidence for god because if there was, well there wouldn’t be any atheists I guess, or debate over the nature of god or which religion was right – depending on how comprehensive the proof is. I suppose there could be “scientific evidence for god deniers” since we all know how ideology can trump rationality.
Some prayers are spoken, but many are silent, which means at the very least god is telepathic. That’s easy to justify cause he’s god and he made the universe or at least the Earth or whatever you believe so he can have any power you like. I’m just saying it’s an attribute required of a being who can hear silent prayer.
Anyway, not to get too deep in the weeds here. My point was, if someone goes around trying to pierce babies’ genitals to honor the god of moon cheese, we’d call them insane and throw them in jail. Someone calls themselves a Mohel and they circumsize jewish boys and there’s 14 million other Jews in the world, no one bats an eye. Insanity is what we say it is so in response to Dr. Revenge, proving insanity can be a tricky proposition.
Some thoughts from a person who hasn’t taken the time to learn more about their own faith. (yes I know its sad) Bound by lines if you want to skip.
_____________________________
Yeah, I admit I’m not that good of a Christian as far as being able to answer those questions.
My mother is part of a group that spends all day looking at studies of translations of some of the original languages of the text and the context of the societies and times for which they were originally written, etc… And if they were here this conversation would probably get very complex very quickly.
But all you have are the MUCH less learned like me.
To me, my particular faith seems to be about how a rogue entity with advanced understanding used, and is still using, empowered creatures to twist reality and eventually damage, with the intent to break, their connection with the source. (death and if he can manage it spiritual death) Everything we are doing now is meant to repair that connection and eventually reality. So yeah. I don’t know how you would scientifically study the effects of beings that can change reality as a whole. (which may well alter history to match the events/beings/objects/whatever brought into being or eliminated with that alteration.) So they are attempting to believe DESPITE reality in order to alter that reality. If you actually managed to work with God to change anything reality would have changed so that thing could happen. It really doesn’t seem to me like scientific evidence is possible or should be expected. Since right now science is totally bound to our sense of reality and changes with it. (therefore being unable to track those changes)
“Reality” here doesn’t actually mean the overall reality or truth of existence but just the perception of it we have created for ourselves (with a little help from a “friend”… ) and because we believe it and put ourselves into it that “reality” can affect us.
______________________________
I think I get what you are talking about though as far as the definition of insanity goes. The use of the word insanity is kind of outmoded so I think we will go with the definition of mental disorder instead shall we?
“A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a mental or behavioral pattern or anomaly that causes either suffering or an impaired ability to function in ordinary life (disability), and which is not a developmental or social norm.”
Right now I think larger faiths (like my Christianity) come under those “norms” they are talking about so I get to escape the whole crazy discussion for now (whew!). If some day that is no longer true: Well… that’ll be an interesting day. (I’ll try to come up with something better by then and possibly a disguise… )
And on another unrelated note I think this comes pretty close to what you wanted?
“prov·o·ca·tion
ˌprävəˈkāSH(ə)n/
noun
1.
action or speech that makes someone annoyed or angry, especially deliberately.
“you should remain calm and not respond to provocation”
synonyms: goading, prodding, egging on, incitement, pressure”
I think the real problem is it doesn’t quite sound like I would think Sydney would talk unless she was referring to something nerdy where that was used? But its pretty close to what you wanted. I actually like Sydney’s pet trigger. It sounds like the sort of thing someone would come up with do get their meaning across and that is more natural.
(it always surprises me that people actually read these things. You dedicated comment readers are the real heroes!)
That’s… basically Magic. I mean this in an entirely unoffensive way, btw.
I’ve always considered that it’s possible that Magic could potentially exist/have existed, simply through observation and belief.
Consider if you will someone who’s never seen, and then suddenly they gain the power of sight. But wait, something’s wrong! The colors are all inverted! Black is white, green is red, light is dark. But they’ve never seen before, they don’t know this. Their friends teach them about all the colors of things, and the emotions associated with those colors- red(green) is anger, blue(orange) is sadness… Don’t eat a banana if it isn’t yellow(purple) yet! They don’t know that the colors they see are ‘wrong’, and so think they’re seeing everything as it actually is. The perception of Reality is the same as Reality.
Well, what if that was actually the case? A tribe uses mind-altering drugs and goes into a trance- when they come out, each of them has learned something special. They dance to make the rain come- fully believing that it will- and it does.
Who’s to say they didn’t influence the rain with their dance?
@Anvildude
“That’s… basically Magic.”
Why do you think God is against magic use? Anything we learn that isn’t from Him comes from the other guy’s teachings. And that guy steals and corrupts things for his own designs. The best lies often have a lot of truth in them. But if you use the other guys version it has lots of little additions and rerouted code to make sure the energy doesn’t all go where he told you it was going. (some goes to “false deities”, masks Satan and his cronies can then don to usurp said power, some comes back to splash on you in unpleasant ways and whatever other crap he thinks he can make people empower)
No I don’t take any offense to that. Magic in the real world always comes from spiritual beliefs and religions. So they are similar in that way. Christians just don’t like that term used to describe Christianity because that word when used to describe something in the real world is basically talking about the workings of our Enemy. If said to the wrong person it would be a little bit like walking up to a Jew just after World War II and saying they were basically just like the Nazis.
I’m not sensitive at all though (or if I have a sensitive spot you folks haven’t found it yet… Don’t LOOK for it though!) , I am a fantasy fan, and I am aware that I am on a forum of similar fans. Maybe its not the most Christian thing in the world to do but I have become very comfortable with the word magic due to my pastimes. Just thought I would explain why other Christians might get their dander up in case you come across one you could understand their reaction better.
On to what you said. Yeah, its basically just that. You believe and act/perform works as if it was already so and it becomes so. But it is a hard thing for humans. Jesus only managed to get one of us to walk on water for a brief moment before he looked at all the evidence around him that he should be sinking and began to sink! And he’d been working with that person for a while at that point.
People who are still working on absorbing the teachings (pretty far behind in that myself!) might try and fail to believe and act as if it was already so. If they do falter on either end they would sink and consequently maybe look a bit “nuts” to those on the outside. Birds trying to fly for the first time often fall and look pretty silly too. (and occasionally get eaten by a cat for their troubles)
Of course that’s just my “brand” of Christianity but there are others who don’t think they can do much in this world at all and are basically just in it for the afterlife I guess. They seem as strange to me and mine as we must seem to the atheists. *shrugs*
No, they would not. They would not become complex at all.
I’ve seen multiple shows/documentaries/sermons which included the speaker claiming that the actual English text doesn’t mean what it the words mean in English because there is some scholarly study which shows a different meaning for that word or those words in an ancient printing of the book which we are discussing.
And it isn’t complex at all, it boils down to this: English is a wonderfully complex language. If you’re able to stand up on the podium or the pulpit and claim that the words mean something other than what they mean, your job is clear and simple: Publish a version which correctly states the actual “true meaning” of the English words used, according to you or to the study/studies which you are using as a source. Because if you do not you are essentially arguing that because you have studied Aramaic, or some other ancient or dead language, that you have the right to tell me what words in English reallymean.
And you do not. English words mean what they mean in English, and I will not accept your allegedly scholarly revision of the words written in the language which I speak fluently.
It’s another way of saying “I’m smarter than you so I can tell you that what you read doesn’t really mean what it says.” I won’t have it. And this is not complex in the slightest.
https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/
I’m done.
For the insanity definition, though, you are correct. Sanity, insanity, it’s all perceptions. A quote from Erfworld: “I’m from Cleveland, Ohio, USA, North America, Earth, Reality, Sanity.” Catch 22 is a book on sanity vs insanity. Lots of resources out there.
Come now. It’s totally not reasonable to assert that no contradictions in the Bible exist simply because it is possible to write extremely convoluted apologetics explaining them away. It completely misses the rich history surrounding these texts and the interesting and complex political fabric of ancient Judea and Israel and their neighbors that caused the contradictions in the first place.
For instance, there’s a Biblical contradiction to do with which faction or bloodline is in eternal covenant with the priesthood.
Long, in depth, very interesting article on this conundrum: #299. Does Yahweh make an eternal covenant with the Aaronid priesthood via Phinehas OR with the Levitical priesthood in general OR with only the Zadokite line OR with the Davidic line OR with Jesus Christ via Melchizedek? (Num 25:6-13 vs Deut 18:1-5, 33:8-10; 1 Sam 2:28; Jer 33:18-22; Mal 2:4 vs 1 Sam 2:35; Ezek 40:46, 43:19, 44:15-16 vs Ps 110:4 vs Heb 7:11-25)
Is it possible to explain this away? Perhaps you could find some sort of convoluted explanation that is plausible enough to a random passer-by to confirm his bias. (This particular example does not have an entry on the AiG website.) But it would not a satisfactory answer, because it completely sidesteps the history and politics of this era, in favor of an ad hoc explanation with little to no basis.
well,, me i stand to say that the true diference between what is insane and what isnt is the culture,,what is accepted by society.
exemple;
yiou are someone who cant pass under a ladder because of some compulsive behavior tied with suprstition: society say you are crazy!
you are someone who cant abide your kitchen beeing dirty in any way, it always must be spotless and you will often clean it almost without realising it when you have company: society say you are sane!
yet both are implusive compulsive behavior disorders
@Omni:
The reason I keep linking AiG is because I am neither a Bible scholar nor good at writing/arguing. I will say this, however:
People tend to find that what they are searching for matches their presuppositions. If you wholeheartedly believe God exists, you will often find that evidence will appear to match your belief. If you believe God does not exist, you will often find evidence that he does not exist. The same comes from arguments.
I believe that no matter what I or anyone else says on this comment page will change any of the commenters’ beliefs. Those who stay silent may have a greater chance of changing their minds. (I say this because it’s likely only those with strong opinions that give voice to them. I include myself in this.)
Here’s a link. Feel free to read it the other way, if you want.
https://answersingenesis.org/apologetics/skeptics-dont-want-answers/
@Lucario
People who search honestly, with an open mind but a critical eye, and who are willing to verify information presented to them irrespective of its position, will find the truth.
It’s only when one cares less about the truth than he does about confirming his presuppositions that he experiences the phenomenon you’re describing, which happens more than it ought. Admitting one’s self to be wrong is a very humbling and uncomfortable experience.
If you’re unwilling to engage with the example I gave you, then that is your choice, and although I think it is regrettable, I will respect your autonomy to make that decision. Just be aware that if you’re unwilling to put in the hard work to critically examine these questions, and would prefer to simply cite AiG, then you’re essentially allowing them to do your thinking for you.
The article you linked makes several claims which are unsupported, I will discuss only one (both for brevity, and because I do not wish to put in a tremendous amount of effort because I don’t believe you are putting in a similar amount). “it is often the humanist who refuses to acknowledge his anti-biblical bias.”
As a humanist, I do not have an anti-biblical bias. I believe that it, like all works of literature, can contain truths and falsehoods. The truths can be profound or trivial. The falsehoods can be mistakes or fabrications. And I’m perfectly willing to treat it as a history, to be critically examined like any other piece of work from that time period.
I do not believe that this is an “anti-biblical bias” because I also approach a scientific hypothesis in the same way, or a biography, or a work of fiction, and I don’t think any reasonable person would consider me to have an “anti-scientific,” “anti-historical,” or “anti-literature” bias.
Just because, ultimately, I think the Bible demonstrably contains falsehoods doesn’t mean I think it’s all false, or that it’s all useless, or that it’s all valueless. Works of fiction can contain important and profound lessons. Further, I do not begrudge or belittle people who believe the Bible. I didn’t get any more intelligent when I let my faith go. I couldn’t multiply numbers in my head faster, or reason more quickly and accurately. From my perspective, I merely gained knowledge.
@Omni
If I read you’re comment right, then I think it could’ve been shortened considerably by quoting Thomas Jefferson:
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.”
Where there is no injury, any Law that induces punishment is not a Just Law.
In my layman’s view, a good way to think of religion is as “fossilised culture”. People through the ages have had their concepts of reality, their common practices, and their superstitions. Those things change over time (for countless reasons), but if that all gets written down and generally viewed as “truth”, it gets frozen in place.
‘Cept between having to translate things into a modern language (or depending on the religion a modernized version of that language has changed some meanings… ) and then the endless interpretations people can make of those translations its not nearly as frozen in place as you would think. (might have been nice if it had been)
Even though language & the use of language changes over time with a society, the only correct way to interpret older writings is to also examine the culture & society as it existed at the time of the writing.
How many people can truthfully advocate against the US Constitution & interpret it in so many different ways, when there is so large of a body of the writings of the people who ratified it? The Journals of the Continental Congress & a plethora of letters written back & forth the Founders, as well as speeches given in the government halls of Canada, France & a whole slew of other nations…All serve as examples of how hard they worked to make the plain & clear language of the Declaration of Independence & the US Constitution easily understood.
They provided clarity & meaning of the intent so readily available that the Constitution is a “contract of employment” between We the People & the individual employees in government, legally binding compliance to the precise terms & conditions included.
@MidnightDStroyer
“examine the culture & society as it existed at the time of the writing.”
And the farther back you go in time the more fun that gets since the same translation and interpretation issues apply. But the more data you gather the better it gets I suppose. Mother’s church group is lead by true Bible scholars and some sermons they can spend a lot of time talking about what they have learned about the original language(s) and the times and culture it when it was written etc…
But not everybody is that in depth and not all of that data was as readily available to everybody every when and splinter groups get formed so my point is that just writing it down hasn’t done a very good job of “fossilizing culture” over the centuries. (perhaps if they had included a lot of appendices and those little notes Terry Pratchett is always doing it would have helped?)
Good Evening from Japan,
I gotta say, DaveB, that you’ve got a heck of a community here… To have such an oft divisive topic discussed so civilly is awesome to behold.
For the record, I’m on the ‘bible is accurate’ side, but there are plenty of people doing a good job of defending it.
All I can add, is that I know stories of hardcore anti Christian historians and the like who set out to disprove the bible and therefore Christianity (as I think it is clear that Christianity ceases to exist were the bible proven truly self contradictory), and who have become Christians as a result of realising just how remarkably accurate, both internally and historically, the bible is. In fact, even among secular scholars, you will find that the bible is respected as an abnormally historically accurate book compared to those of the same time.
However, this is not the place to discuss such matters, I presume.
I would be happy to continue this with anyone via a medium of your choosing, my Twitter account is currently recorded as my website for this comment.
Thanks again for the awesome comics, DaveB!
Neither DaveB, nor the rest of the community, place much restriction on what is discussed here. Barring things which are likely to cause gross offence. And, as you have seen, we do get away with covering some of the more controversial subjects in a civil way.
I think contemporary politics is usually the one that can get things overheated the most frequently. Ironically enough, given that the comic is set in the real world (albeit now lagging four years behind).
And some of the threads can get very deeply into vastly diverse subjects. Although we do try to keep things mostly relevant to the comic, or an issue raised from that. So you are probably right that a deep theological discussion, for it’s own sake (as opposed to support or refute a point, such as the ones started in this thread), would probably better served in a dedicated setting.
Mind you, you won’t find me arguing against religions (of any sort). I have a philosophy which allows me to accept them all as being fact.
Scientists though (specifically the ones who have a corn-cob up their butts, about science always having all the answers) I simply enjoy teasing. But not because I think they are wrong. They are just as entitled to place their faith in science, if they wish.
Of course many fail to properly follow the dogma of that faith. So they make themselves easy targets for a bit of teasing.
Of course, you then get those folks who have faith in both science and God. *sigh* No fun to tease at all! Uber tolerant decent folks are thick on the ground, in this community mind. Of various other flavours too.
DaveB does attract a nice crowd. And it is always especially welcome to hear from countries which are not dominated by English-speakers.
Well, that’s very much begging the question, of course.
But you don’t need such considerations – the obvious make-believe nature of some of the stories is more than enough.
The biggest of them being (IMHO) Noah’s Flood. Clearly a story written by people who had no idea about the difficulties involved in packing all the world’s animal kinds on to a very large ocean-going wooden boat. If you keep it as just a story, that’s fine; say it was all magic, then OK; but as soon as you try to argue that it really happened as written – without constant divine intervention – then science is entitled to have its say. And it would say “absolutely not!”.
https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/is-noahs-ark-myth/
OK, fine. Let’s apply just a little thought to the bits AiG leaves out:
A boat about twice as large as any practical wooden boat, built by a small family with bronze-age tools (no steel for fasteners) and no experience of doing so, out of planks that would have leaked through every seam.
Animals collected from all over the world, kept fed, watered and safe (from each other) for a year, then re-distributed back home (to the Arctic, Americas, Australia, Antarctica, sundry islands etc.). As well as all the types of plants (they drowned as well).
Enough water to cover all the land (about 8000m deep), raining down in 40 days (that’s 8m every hour, quite some downpour), which by simple physics heats the surface to boiling point within a day. And then the water goes away.
Despite the mother of all genetic bottlenecks, all the creatures of Earth breed and evolve at breakneck speed to the state we see today.
And all to punish our sin, which ultimately failed since it still exists.
@Electronbod:
It’s all on the site, you just didn’t search for it. I know because I get weekly emails from them (not that I read all their articles). Also, they’re building a likely replica of the ark in Kentucky right now.
It’s kind of a given that a large portion of that is miracles. Especially since the “drown the world” part is a given as a miracle. Not all of it was to quite the scale you state here, though.
If you read the description in Genesis, you get the idea that the world was much, much more evil at that time than all the bad stuff on the news today. The flood wasn’t to punish sin–that’s what death is. It was to cleanse the world, mostly, and give a mostly fresh start. If you read Revelation, you’ll see a description of how the world will be cleansed fully.
Guys, guys. You’re missing the obvious one.
||Aliens||
@Anvildude
If they are the extra-dimensional kind then angels and demons might be close.
@Lucario, you really should do some research, AIG has absolutely zero credibility, even within the mainstream Christian community. Using their ridiculous apologetics as an argument for anything you are trying to support seriously undermines your position.
Really, using Answers in Genesis is like if the Stormfront.org website existed long enough for someone to have now used it to discuss Critical Race Theory. It is not at all partial, full of flawed logic, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly that the owners are neither intellectually or morally reliable. Like that Ark recreation: didn’t it flood inside after the first rain, proving it didn’t work? And they were going to use live animals, but they would have, in short order, all died? And even if they didn’t, the amount of feces and urine would have created a devastating biohazard situation?
Again: testable, *repeatable* results. If God supposedly did it once: why not twice? If he was so eager for grandoise, obvious things like creating zombie swarms and Litch Lords, talking fire tornadoes, or kaiju angels; why has it stopped since the advent of the camera? Why does a splotch on toast, sewer water dripping on statues, and pulling a shoe off slightly now the gold standard of “SEE A REAL MIRACLE HOW DARE YOU QUESTION IT”?
But thousands of repeated experiments on, say, evolution, like that bacteria experiment that has been running for 40 years that shows cases in point, repeatedly, is ignored because “nuh-UH!”?
And “If you wholeheartedly believe God exists, you will often find that evidence will appear to match your belief.”– no you don’t. You find *arguments.* From incredulity, from lack of understanding; “*I* can’t understand it, therefore I can dismiss those who try to explain what doesn’t match my views as false.” There is no christian evidence that doesn’t rely on shaky arguments and ignoring literally everything else in it’s focus of the supposed evidence. Like creationists think the Grand Canyon is proof of the global flood.
So: why is there only ONE?
Shouldn’t the lands of Earth be covered in Grand Canyons– thus, reducing the significance of our Grand one, making ALL of those Grand Canyons that should be everywhere just…. Canyons?
So for starters (if you ever see this 7-year-old thread): do you *actually* know what Darwinian evolution *is*?
Like, from a textbook, not your pastor or Ken Ham. And can you differentiate *that* from what a creationist says it is? Here, I’ll provide a leg-up: it’s not “A monkey turned into a human.” Nor is it Pokemon Evolution (that *should* be “metamorphosis,” but I guess Satoshi liked the sound better).
My favorite is Jonah and the Whale. It’s clearly a children’s story. Or a story told out of ignorance such as when the Norse described thunder as Thor riding around in the sky on his flying chariot pulled by two goats he could eat for dinner every night and would be resurrected every morning. And it didn’t even take Thor three days, so apparently his kind of resurrection is superior. But I digress… Here you have a man who hears a magical voice in his head. Believing himself to be insane, he runs away. Okay, so that’s not what the Bible says, but it’s a fairly credible explanation as to why someone would try to run away from a deity who is supposed to be everywhere at all times, right?
There’s a huge storm while he’s on a ship and the sailors gamble to determine who is to blame. Because Christianity doesn’t involve any kind of superstition such as tossing lots to determine God’s will, right? Oh, wait, that’s actually quite wrong according to this story. They may as well have used a ouija board to spell out “Jonah, that passenger we just met and don’t care much for anyway”. Well naturally they aren’t going to pick one of their own, after all they sail with these guys all the time and exchange Christmas presents, and apparently also do a lot of lot tossing which sounds like a “lot” of fun (pun intended) as long as you’re not the loser and get tossed overboard, and Jonah wasn’t even invited into their game, and the way to determine the loser was probably “Anyone who didn’t toss their lots with the rest of us.” (I take a deep breath after that enormous run-on sentence) So Jonah is selected, and tossed overboard.
He is swallowed by a whale or a fish, and he manages to live inside this aquatic being which must have had its entire species made extinct and all evidence of its existence wiped away since no such whale or fish exists today, (and thanks God for repaying my species with extinction after using one of us as your method for forcing your follower to toe your line, that’s some fine gratitude right there) and then spit out.
Then, not exactly enjoying the scent of fish any longer and not wanting to go through all of that ever again, Jonah decides to be a good boy and obey his Father. Which seems to be the entirely of the moral of this story, and one which any father (lower case) might invent to try to instill the lessons of filial obedience in their kids who might not be disobeying at the time and therefore don’t deserve the whip instead of a nice bedtime fairy tale.
Yeah, Bill Nye really destroyed Ken Ham in their debate over the credibility of the Biblical flood myth.
Here is a nice little quote from Warhammer 40k that sums up the whole sanity debate.
Only those who are insane have the strength to prosper.
Only those who prosper may judge what is truly insane.
@DaveB: “The organized part is easy to prove.”
That depends on the religion in question.
If you are below the Bible Belt in the south I would give you FIVE minutes.
I don’t know, I’ve been here 40 years
Aha! Someone who admits to being “over the hill.”
Personally, I could accurately say, “Been there, done that. Going downhill & picking up speed the whole way.” Heck, for that matter, it’s even possible to get a T-shirt for it too!
I have almost 40 years of my 50+ beneath the Manson-Nixon line. Which is why I said 10 minutes. People have actually asked me why I “turned against God” when I said I don’t believe. They see atheists as “against God” as if they are the enemy. That’s kind of scarey.
The… the what line?
Surely you mean the Mason-Dixon line, right?
Yes but Robin Williams called it that once during a stand-up bit and it stuck in my head. In some ways it’s kinda appropriate.
Let me just say that for a while my whole family used to say “I forgot Armed Robbery was Illegal” when we screwed up.
10 old comedy points if you get the reference without Google.
The best of them just think you are angry with God for some reason. I come from a large family and had an Uncle who was only 11 years older than me, and we were quite close, sharing a lot of interests and hobbies.
When he was dying of leukemia he asked to speak with me and said something to the effect of “I don’t want whatever happens to me to impact your relationship with God.” I had reveled to him that I was an atheist long before, but he apparently thought that it was because I had some kind of “beef” with God and was using atheism to “strike back” against God.
And I had to tell him that he simply misunderstood, that I had no relationship with God because I no longer believed in God (and probably never did, although I had tried hard for a few years, “converting” to Catholicism because my fiancee wanted to be married in the church, attending weekly masses, praying, the works), and that whatever happened to him was not going to cause me to be “angry” with God, because you can’t be angry with something you don’t believe exists.
He then went into the hospital for what was supposed to be a 6 month series of intensive chemotherapy, and died within 12 hours of receiving his first treatment. Do I think God was punishing me by taking my beloved Uncle away as punishment for my disbelief, as he supposedly has done according to a great many Bible tales? Not in the slightest. If I did believe in a deity that kind of petty retribution would make me refuse to worship despite any evidence of existence. But fortunately no deity has ever bothered to raise their hand and claim responsibility for his death, much less bothered to confirm their existence.
Depends on the hill.
My grandmother lived 101 years, graduated from university in her latter 70’s, so she could have a second career in her 80’s, then decided to retire again in her 90’s though she still helped the odd old client out here and there… she had dark hair till then to. (she didn’t eat super healthy or anything either)
She’d probably have thought 40-50 in the “younger half” of life.
Wish I had those genes. *sigh*
Not sure I agree. This could be a misperception on my part, but it seems the people that are attacked the most are the ones for which the “offense” was quite obviously inadvertent. People that walk around boldly, with absolute intent to offend, effectively daring people to confront them, are usually not confronted…
“PETA throws red paint on fur coats but not on leather jackets because it’s safer to confront rich dowagers than biker gangs”
THIS.
But… now she has NINJAS to dress her…
…she should wear whatever they like.
…for the greater good.
Well, ninjas ARE the ones who are MAKING Sydney’s outfit right now…Of course, she’ll be wearing what THEY like.
;)
I’m surprised Arianna didn’t have a complete security and media team deployed around Sydney’s apartment in the morning. None of what Sydney did should have been a surprise, considering her interview at the start.
Then again, there are large numbers of people on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere on the internet who are just looking for things to be outraged about. I’m sure if all Sydney had said to the press on her doorstep was “good morning” there would be a Twitterstorm about what constituted “good” and “morning” for her.
if i was a twitter user i would surely contribute to the “good” storm.
“What do you mean?” [Gandalf] said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Or the less polite retort.
~Sgt Major Plumley, When we were Soldiers
Love that line
That depends. If I were speaking to a lawyer, I’d say:
“Good morning. But I’m telling you, not asking you.”
(Because if I asked him if he was having a good morning, he’d probably charge me for legal advice.)
“Peeve” is the word you’re looking for. “Pet peeve” means pretty much exactly “something that angers or annoys me, personally, for reasons that may or may not be reasonable”.
Also, I think it would work better grammatically to make it plural in this case. Instead of “pet trigger is”, say “pet peeves are”.
Ahh, Plural Peeves. The poor fellow. Turns out he was patient zero for a new variety of pluracy, but, having survived it, was looking forward to the compensation of having a disease named after him. Only to find that the World Health Organisation has just issued guidelines banning naming of diseases after individual people!
Don’t you just hate it when that happens?
_Plural_ Peeves? Hogwarts has it bad enough with only one of him!
Not really. Dave is looking for something much stronger.
Wikipedia:
“A pet peeve is a minor annoyance”
Synonyms (Miriam Webster)
aggravate, annoy, bother, bug, burn (up), chafe, eat, exasperate, frost,
gall, get, grate, gripe, hack (off), irk, itch, nark [British], nettle, irritate,
persecute, pique, put out, rasp, rile, ruffle, spite, vex
(Note: no “mad” or “anger”)
Dictionary.com:
to render peevish; annoy
Cambridge Dictionary:
to annoy
I thought of incendiary but that is an adjective, not a verb and the noun definition doesn’t fit.
Ignite or inflame would be better concepts which led to infuriate.
I think infuriate is the right concept but it is a verb and the noun form, infuriation, doesn’t ring true.
Maybe infuriator, now that rings true!
If I were in Sydney’s place right now, I’d say that “I have no control over what kind of starch people have in their shorts.”
“Pet peeve” may be the term you’re looking for, DaveB.
Geeze, ninja’d by a bunch of people.
You should have expected that. It is in fashion, after all!
+1
The thing is Sydney isn’t wrong but her untempered honesty and non-politically correct tastes are a PR minefield. If people weren’t so eagar to look for things to offend them and to pass off responsibility the “questionable” things Sydney says or wears wouldn’t be nearly so questionable. However people are like that. That said the only person obsessed with the celebrity aspect is Arianna. The rest of them, like Max, would rather be somewhere between celebrity and pariah.
Unfortunately for Sydney, she is a celebrity, as well as being in a military organization. That means whatever “bad” things you say are not only broadcast immediately around the world, they also reflect on the organization. One of the things I learned a long time ago was that it’s one thing to say stupid things to your family and friends, it’s another thing entirely to do it on the internet.
Tell me about it. When I was in the Navy, the standard response you’re told to give is “I can neither confirm or deny anything about (what you’re referring to).” I expect Sydney to get that drilled into her head at some point very soon.
ayup… “we can neither confirm, nor deny, the existence of nuclear weapons aboard US Naval Vessels” that was such a fun one to have to memorize for quarterdeck watch, that i STILL remember it after 20+ years.
odd. when i was a Specialist in the Army my standard response was “nobody said anything to me”.
granted that response was regardless of who i was speaking with(even within my chain of command).
Hey, those woman’s breasts look like a man’s butt, which insults my heterosexuality, get her!
Does your man-butt come included with nipples? Or do I have to buy an upgrade package?
They are just really BIG zits.
This should make sitting somewhat difficult.
That’s probably why he’s so pissed at everything
You can tell if they’re zits if you pop them & milky-white liquid issued forth…
Oh wait. Woman-boobs have milk-glands in there somewhere too, don’t they?
:P
You’re ruining boobs for me. For the love of all that is holy please stop.
Perhaps a custom model?
There’s some room for speculation on Arianna’s search habbits if that’s her first page of results. I bet she searches for PR disasters all the time, so Google brings those up first.
Good point. I searched Deadpool myself after seeing that, and only found generic poses
This was my first result:
https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/6/63431/1355295-1152823_dp_hp01.png
Of course I realised that Arianna actually searched for “Offensive Deadpool” images.
I’m calling foul on Arianna’s part. She should have known that the press would leap on Sydney first thing in the morning. Sydney hasn’t even gone through orientation, she literally does not know how to do deal with this stuff yet. If Arianna was so worried about this, she should have sent someone to run interference and escort Sydney to Archon.
I don’t know if this whole scenario is indended to make me hate Arianna, but it’s working. PR is YOUR job, lady.
What’s more, Sydney is only following a cultural precedent of humorous quips, as established by Harem/Dabbler not in a private moment but at an official in-uniform public press briefing https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/997 (although admittedly Harem was immediately and angrily reprimanded by General Faulk).
You mean like one ARCHON-vet Teleporter?
They might both be right, but Arianna’s overly PC attitude end of things, much like much of it in real life, is nuts.
Is “pet peeve” not the proper word here? instead of “pet trigger”?
The sad thing is, the advent of the internet allowed anyone who had even the most basic connection to be able to voice their opinion on almost any subject, regardless of whether they actually understood what they were talking about or not.
It opened the doors to the free flow of information, but at the same time, exposed the true level of ignorance that has dogged mankind since our inception
You have an interestingly name. Dirty-looking yet fruity. Quite apt for the page and comment. Even if I may be in ignorance, as to your intended meaning.
Back in the good old days, we shouted at people from street corners if we wanted to be heard, and we liked it!
I’ve got a soapbox right here for you to stand on. And a few cases of Brain Bleach™ for your audience.
I disagree that Sydney legally has “celebrity” status. She is doing a high-profile job, but not as entertainment for the masses, like sports and movie celebrities. Now, if she starts doing interviews like “Letterman” and such, and starts appearing at the celebrity hot spots on a regular basis, then she could be considered to be promoting herself, as well as ARCHON, and thus a celebrity. Beyond that the PC fascists like Arianna have really no authority to control Sydney on her down time, other than Sydney not doing anything obviously illegal, immoral, or disparaging of ARCHON or members of ARCHON, the military, and certain aspects of the U.S. gov’t at all levels.
Or as a politician.
A celebrity is just anyone who is given fame and public attention by the media, so the members of ARCHON could reasonably be considered celebrities as much as any politician or football player.
Actually, that is not true, according to American courts, especially in regards to being stalked by paparazzi. Unless Sydney is actively pursuing celebrity exposure on her personal time, she is considered a private citizen on her personal time; however, when she is on duty is a completely different kettle of fish, but then she does have some protection due to national security.
unfortunately the UCMJ would beg to differ. under Article 134 anything a member of the military does that can be considered disparaging to the force is illegal. even swearing can be considered grounds for courts martial if your CO is particularly butthurt.
Somebody better tell Sydney, fast. :)
Thing is, in the case of supers (in the context of the story), the state needs them more then they need the job. That would translate into lax scrutiny, since firing/court martial over inconsequential details would be harmful to national security. Pretty much means no repercussions for bad PR, because public opinion would be less important then their ability to do the actual job of law enforcement – which only they (and a very few others, potentially) can do.
In other words, Arianna can bark all she wants, but the bite afforded to her by the circumstances is probably less then a mosquito’s.
Supply and demand, really. Sydney has something unique and valuable, therefore she could reasonably get away with a lot more then an ordinary salary-man. Heck, I’d expect certain laws wouldn’t even apply to someone in her position, due to how valuable she is as a national asset. (Unlikely that will come up due to the lightharted nature of the story, but put in a RL context, I’d expect supers to have social immunity from many a rule.)
The internet release of her cussing rant’s from the previous day will make her famous to various parts of the population. Good or bad is up to interpitation.
Remember, this is just her second day.
The thing is that Arianna is trying to turn all the Archon heroes INTO super celebrities
Sports and movie celebrities don’t have any legal obligation to be proper role models either.
A fair compromise is that Sidney can wear a “Deadpool” shirt, but not a “WWDD” shirt. Phrase it in terms of “A cop is not allowed to wear a shirt promoting the KKK for good reason”. Let her be nerdy, but deliberate about it. (A clothes budget with specific allowances for fandom would also sell it)
really? trigger? like the word that “feminists” use?
i think “aggrevating” is a word that you were looking for, but the spell check is suggesting to change it to “aggravating”, “aggregating” or “aggrieving”. so i am not sure if this word exist in any dictionary.
also as for what ariana says, my answer would be “if she has to be a ‘role model’ lets keep her of how not to act. much easier than to flip it 180”
…Many people use that word. Some are feminists, with or without quotes.
yeah, the word “trigger” is not reserved to them, and neither is the word feminist.
but they use it so often that its left a really bad taste on it.
“Aggravating” is a proper word but the sentence needs a noun so “aggravation” would fit and perhaps read better.
“…cause they think I’m making fun of horses. I can’t control what people’s pet Trigger is.” I thought she was making fun here by referencing Roy Roger’s horse Trigger! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_(horse)
I did too! But let’s not beat a dead horse.
But we like Necromantic Sado-masochistic bestiality!
You are a terrible person. Shame on you.
Very funny.
I prefer to beat undead horses.
Yeah, I’d just woke up and accidently put Necromantic instead of Necrophiliac. Worked either way.
That’s only if you reanimated them 1st.
Nah you beat it to death then raise it. Just like Washington!
You’d have to dig him up before you could beat him…and that could lead to charges of “grave robbery.”
Actually, he was stuffed and is now in the Roy Rogers museum.
I kid you not.
Hence the old joke:
“More hay, Trigger?”
“No thanks, Roy, I’m stuffed.”
“Provocation” or “How should I know what will provoke someone” would technically be better, but I think trigger is better for Sidney, both due to being high strung (so snapping would be in her character) and because I agree that she would love slipping in a horse pun on Arianna.
Ooh, you may have started a trend with that “that that” sentence of yours DaveB.
See now I can reference that “that that that” sentence.
And you should get the point of the open ended vastness you have unleashed when I further refer to that “that that that that” sentence.
By extension of this to it’s logical conclusion, I hereby claim bagsy on the pfinite, mfinite and gfinite* legitimate repartitions of a word in a single sentence!
* Infinity is no longer classified as a number, but as an abstract concept. Infinite is something without bound. Whereas mfinite is the maximum possible number, of something tangible. For instance “all the atoms in the universe” is a description of a specific mfinite number.** Mfinite +1 is an abstract concept and not a number. So is only useful for abstract uses.
Of course any atom spontaneously popping into existence, which is not offset by one or more disappearing, will increase that mfinite number. The mfinite number need not be static.
Pfinite is similar, but bound by the maximum number, of something specific, that is practically possible. For instance the maximum practical length of an English sentence is bound by a variety of restraints, such as the lifespans of sentient beings, who would be able to both hear and understand it. Likewise their attention spans, need for sleep and such like.
The Guiness Book of Records can be viewed as a pfinitctuary. Rather like a dictionary stores definitions of words, a pfinitctuary records the accepted current pfinite value, for a variety of things, under particular, defined, circumstances.
** But not the greatest mfinite number. That is the gfinite number.
Seven “thats” may follow each other, and make sense.
For be it known that we may safely write
or say that “that that” that that man wrote was
right;
Nay, e’en that that that, that “that THAT” has
followed,
Through six repeats, the grammar’s rules has
hallowed;
And that that that that that “that THAT” began
Repeated seven times is right, deny’t who can.
— Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
So that “that that that that that that” sentence makes sense? Cool, glad that is ok then.
*pokes the ground, with paw, to make sure it remains hallowed*
You guys are pikers! ;-) (and using the wrong word as well.)
Now if you had used “had”, you could have gotten into some serious (11) “hadiness” like:
“James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.”
I usually experience a contented, relaxed mood after I’ve had had had had a woman in bed…
How is Arianna going to keep Sydney from leaving the building ?
Short of holding the class at Fusion that is.
Stepping tubey?
And she gets jedi yoinked.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/373
yeah sure because dabbler and harem aren’t way worse at that but she doesn’t “hold them against their wills”…
dabbler and harem are wors in private, but are capable of behaving in front of media.
well, somewhat. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1680
random tangent: your dropped letter could completely change the meaning of the sentence, while still remaining somewhat accurate >^.^<
+1
And a LOL. Which has resulted in my companion Buffy, staring at me with a ‘what has gotten into you?’ look on her face.
you mean the “wors”?
hmm… yeah i think i can see what you mean… i mean “worse” but… sure the other one will fits too, except i think it would be 2 dropped letters.
“dabbler and harem […] are capable of behaving in front of media.”
I beg to differ: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/997
Could just be a local colloquialism but I’ve always heard/used “pushing people’s buttons” for that concept. Pet peeves works too, though may be a bit too mild :)
Sydney is correct: she didn’t choose to be a Role Model, but that doesn’t mean she has to live up to someone else false idea of her
They (the poor delusional sods who picked her) chose her because of who (and what) she is, and that means the smart-arse comments as well
Ari seems to forget: the only good reporter is a dead one (except for Suzie), all the others will twist your words no matter what you say, and the reporters don’t do it, their producers will
This. Yes.
Ariana uses an iPad air! Ofcourse!
She must be a disciple of the late Mr. Steve Jobs!
No wonder her Spin-Fu is so strong.
Steve Jobs is still alive within the comic, seeing as it’s only 2010.
Not quite; the aspect ratio is quite off. IPads are not that square.
I think they will have to find a reasonable compromise between them. For example, no talking about religion or hot button political issues, but comic shirts like she has on are fine because thats connected to her civilian job. Give her a simple list of topics that when brought up by reporters she just replies, “No comment” to. After that, its all about training herself to stop yammering about them in public. And honestly, arianna isnt exactly enraged here, she is realistic and knows its going to take time and practice to get to the point where half the stuff sydney says isnt an easily misinterpreted thing like the prison topic.
Eh, is it just me in that I feel bad from reading this page? It’s like as if I’m in one of those ‘warning letter’ meetings with my boss. That feeling that they’re not happy with my performance. That impending doom where there isn’t a way to fix it because they have tried everything to get the point across, but it’s somehow just not working. Taking extra measures and meaningless training just so they have evidence to show the personnel dept. It’ll all downhill from there. Then it ends with a boom.
I know this comic and this page isn’t that situation. But why do I get a bad, bitter, depressing feeling? Is it just me?
I’ve been using roll20 to run a Kingmaker game for a couple of years now. It’s pretty good.
quite the accomplishment to set yourself between a double post.
I’m just THAT FAST.
Astonishing.
I don’t think I could accomplish the same feat. If I try to type any faster than about 35 wpm (words per minute), I can start measuring my speed in mpm (mistakes per minute).
I could.
There was an entire minute difference in the time-stamps. Which means having in between 1 second and 60 seconds in which to complete the post.
Clicking on the “submit comment” button can be done in less than a second. It matters not how long the post itself took to compile. Minutes or hours make no difference. All that is required is doing the click, in between the time of the two posts.
Yep, that’s what your S/Of said.
Eh, is it just me in that I feel bad from reading this page? It’s like as if I’m in one of those ‘warning letter’ meetings with my boss. That feeling that they’re not happy with my performance. That impending doom where “there isn’t a way to fix it because they have tried everything to get the point across”, but it’s somehow “just not working”. Taking “extra measures” and meaningless “training” just so they have “evidence” to show the personnel dept. It’ll all downhill from there. Then it ends with a boom.
I know this comic and this page isn’t that situation. But why do I get a bad, bitter, depressing feeling? Is it just me?
I was not before, but now I am getting a certain sense of deja vu.
Let there be many, many days where things go our way and bosses are impressed and not scheming to fire those under their employ.