Clearly, the jokers that have been babbling means that we have to step up a notch to Zombie Clowns.
TZT
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Clearly, the jokers that have been babbling means that we have to step up a notch to Zombie Clowns.
I am disgusted. This country has no hope.
*reads this without scrolling up*
I’m guessing you just saw that Scott Walker won his recall election?
overwhelmingly?
how the FUCK does that work?
there have been 3 recall elections for governors in US history, all have been suspect. I was there for the recall of Gray Davis in CA.
there were ten TIMES more reasons to recall Scott Walker, and yet he becomes the very first governor ever to win a recall election.
*shakes head sadly*
dano was gone! Forever! And we never got the chance to play with him here!
*kicks rock*
awwww mannn!
:(
Re: Food
I don’t have my own pix with me, but Gansu Province is famous for its sheep’s head soup. . I have not had the chance to eat some for a while, but the barbecued spinal cord I had in Xian recently was to die for.
…
Book recommendation (especially for ‘Merkins): The Battle for Spain, by Antony Beevor. Quote (my emphasis):
Another interesting aspect: The (fascist) nationalists used the colonial army’s Moroccan reguliers for terrorist acts against their own people. To get the reguliers fired up for the fray, they accused the Republic of wanting to abolish Allah.
Oh hey, Ichthyic, someone on the (stupid?) thread asked about Enzed, and I pointed them to you at TET.
(Transparency)
@ Caine
[New ratties.]
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Sam has got the same fur colouring as Ms Molly (our cat))
Oh hey, Ichthyic, someone on the (stupid?) thread asked about Enzed, and I pointed them to you at TET.
covered over there.
Theophontes:
Aaaaaaw. Sam looks a great deal like Esme, their colouring is very close. Havelock is our first black rat. I updated again, over in that other thread. ;p
Havelock has been doing magnificently, he’s an explorer and has a calm nature. Sam is a screamer and on the dramatic side. Esme & Havelock are quite taken with one another. Rubin has been helping Sam to cope.
Sam finally stopped hiding and made his way back upstairs, and discovered the dish of chocolate Ensure. He hath declared it good.
Esme and Rubin have been so good and very accepting of the new boys, which is such a relief. Of course, it’s early days, so I don’t want to speak too soon, but right now, it’s all looking good. :D
@ Caine
I see your rattehz and raise you two kittehz: molly & maxxie
Theophontes:
:overdoses on cute: Adorable!
re: Ms Molly
Of course pronounced with a Southern drawl :
Mmmmmhhhhmmm, mizzz’ maaawwwlllyyy….
wait
where?
@ Alethea
Ancient Greek solution for debt crisis.
Tricky question, Reverend, due to its multiple meanings. You could be asking where had the dano gone to, the answer of which would be, of course, under the happy bridge to Valhalla, where all the banned trolls live in eternal bliss, able to brag to each other about the time when they were hit by the almighty banhammer.
On the other hand, Your Chimpness could be inquiring on where on earth did we not get the chance to play with dano, as he seemed to be sharing his most profound musings with us on every single thread lately. While true, I still regret that he was never properly studied under controlled conditions here in the Zombie Lab.
The bullcrap above is a public service brought to you by your pal Phal. *squawk* Was that bullcrap useful for you? Don’t let me know!
*leaps from the perch and flies away*
…….
Warning, scifi has been sighted on the creobot video thread.
Rev. BDC, Dano is in the dungeon, with only ‘spammer’ listed as the reason. I think he was banhammered after posting in the Get out of Louisiana thread.
Wait a minute. People are here chatting about kittens and rats and other pets? I thought this thread was only for shouting matches and dismemberment of creationists.
dianne: That’s a goddamned lie.
But also, you’re right. Damn the cuddly! A canker upon the cute!
Dano went on a spamming spree, posting the same one liner about the Wisconsin election on numerous threads — including resurrecting old threads that had nothing to do with Wisconsin or politics. All of which were caught and deleted, along with himself.
It’s really windy here.
At least it’s not scented with carrion-troll spoor, right now.
@ dianne / Antiochus Epiphanes
It is a matter of perspective. Both rats and cats are really cold blooded killers:
Kitten devouring rabbit (do not click if you like rabbits.)
Rats attacking human (click if you don’t like humans)
Their cold-blooded killing instincts make them the perfect denizens of TZT. (The consequent zombie rabbits are a bonus.)
speaking of killing things with fire…
I just perfected my cajun-blackened kingfish with carmelized peas and onions over rice.
I love it when my own cooking turns out better than I expected.
sadly, I have no live witnesses to this event; buffybot is downtown with her LSG crew.
:(
I can post the recipe though:
-kingfish fillet (any firm-fleshed fish will do; 1/2″ – 3/4″ thick)
-half onion (red or white)
-half cup of peas (fresh or frozen)
-1 teaspoon cajun seasoning (double if it’s on the mild side, or add 1/4tsp red pepper flakes for extra heat, or you can make it from scratch if you know how)
-half cup dark soy sauce (the thick stuff, not “kikoman table sauce”)
-1 tblspn maple syrup. yeah, you heard me. in fact, make it 1.5
-half lemon (squeeze the juice into the mixing bowl with the rest, then just toss the peel in there too)
-1 tsp grated fresh ginger
-1 tsp ground garlic (or 2 regular sized cloves, mashed)
-1.5 cup water
-1/2 tsp basil (dried)
-1/2 tsp tarragon (dried)
-1/2 tsp marjoram or oregano
-1/4 cup white wine (red will do too)
-olive oil
-high temp cooking oil (anything works here)
Cut the onion into half-inch chunks, approximately, and mix in a bowl with everything but oil and the fish and the peas.
Take a casserole dish, or equivalent, and coat the bottom of it with a bit of olive oil. put your fish fillet in, and cover it with the mixture from the bowl. The liquid should immerse the fish at least halfway deep; find a smaller container if not.
Marinate the fish at least 30 mins, then turn and marinate another 30 mins.
good to cook up some rice while this is going on; I always like to give my rice a chance to sit a bit before dishing it up.
the next part requires some way to apply fast heat to a grill surface. you can use a grill-pan on a BBQ, or a cast-iron grill pan on a stove (a flat pan will cause the coating to stick, and it won’t turn out right).
remove your fish from the marinade and pat lightly dry with a paper towel or similar.
in a saucepan, combine the onions (from the marinade), peas, and about 1/2 cup of the marinade in a pan with 1/4 olive oil, and another 1/4 cup of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer until onions begin to clarify. remove from heat. The sauce should have thickened up a bit, and have just enough to pour on the rice and fish for flavor. not too much!
put your high-temp oil on the grill pan, and WAIT UNTIL IT IS SMOKING HOT. literally, the oil should be close to bursting into flame. The purpose here is to sear the outside of the fish very quickly, sealing in the juices and flavor.
take your fish fillet, and plop it on the smoking hot grill pan. it might try to stick in the early stages, so wiggle a spatula under it if so; once the outer surface is actually cooked, it won’t stick any more. go for about a minute on one side (just to get the crust going), then flip it over – on a different part of the grill pan that is still smoking hot – and give it another minute. now, turn down the heat so it is below smoking temp, and cook each side another minute (two if it’s a thick piece).
make a bed of cooked rice on a platter, and put your fish on top. pour the onion/pea mixture on top of the fish and rice.
them’s good eats!
What a lovely recipe. It would be inappropriate for this macabre thread absent its cannibalistic underpinnings
chigau: It’s snowing where I am today.
Theophontes, rats are predators. You don’t want to see what they’d do to a mouse…
A. R
snow *shudder*
Bright sunshine and +20° here.
It would be inappropriate for this macabre thread absent its cannibalistic underpinnings
well, I did catch the kingfish (19kg)and prepare it myself
should I add a colorful and bloody story to that effect?
The stuff falling on Colorado Springs last night wasn’t snow, but hail. And if there are any meteorologists around, I’m curious if there’s a term for this kind of cloud formation that dropped it:
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4
Thanks!
I believe those are examples of
Cirrocumulus mamma
on second though, naww, too low and heavy.
adjust to:
cumulonimbus mamma (mammatus)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud
That’s it! Many thanks. Have never seen them before this storm before.
after letting the back jungle… I mean yard go far to long due to a number of colliding circumstances (rain, broken lawnmower, dying dog, work travel… um…. beer festival) I finally mowed it today.
Halfway through mowing next to the fence that backs up to a city owned field with off shore radio antennae I realized
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
That’s poison ivy.
uh
I’m very allergic / reactive to poison ivy.
The next few days / weeks should be interesting.
fuckity fuck fuck
they are associated with high energy storms.
it’s no wonder there was hail!
in other areas of the US, you’d be eyeing those carefully to watch for tornado generation.
I’m very allergic / reactive to poison ivy.
oops.
OK, do you know how to remove the oils safely from your skin?
tip:
DO NOT TAKE A HOT SHOWER.
I would use something to try and denature the oil; it’s quite stable.
this might lead to some good tips:
http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/faq.htm
luckily i was wearing long pants. My main concern is the particulates in the air
either on my skin or inhaled.
And I already took a shower. not hot but not cold.
so we’re at wait and see mode
from what I’ve seen (I’m one of the lucky immune types), washing with a good grease-cutting dishwashing soap is your best bet.
don’t forget your clothes!!
they will be covered with oil too.
again, washing with a very strong detergent, and bleach if possible, is recommended.
if the clothes are dispensable, do so.
the oil can stay stable for over 6 months, so you need to make sure everything it has come in contact with gets a detergent wash.
good luck!
also, this seems to get a lot of recommendations:
http://www.zanfel.com/help/
Poison ivy is difficult but not impossible to eradicate. The chief difficulty lies in being poisoned when trying to remove it. Wear protective clothing, including gloves, whenever you are working near it. Pulling and grubbing are effective means of removal, though they necessitate close contact and will probably need to be repeated once or twice for complete control. If time is not an object, the vines can be smothered by completely covering them with black plastic for several months. Do not mow the plants as this will spew bits and pieces of poisonous material over the area. When removing poison ivy, take frequent breaks to change clothes and scrub thoroughly with a strong soap. Wash contaminated clothing separately. DO NOT BURN any plants. The resulting smoke can cause severe lung damage if inhaled.
Certain herbicides are effective and allow you to control the plant without getting too close to it. Most herbicides for poison ivy control contain triclopyr. This chemical is systemic. It is absorbed by leaves and transferred to stems and roots, and slowly causes the death of the entire plant. It must be applied to an actively growing plant for this process to take place; do not apply it during a drought when even poison ivy will not be growing. Triclopyr is nonselective and will kill any other plants it contacts.
Roundup, Rodeo and other herbicides containing glyphosate don’t work on poison ivy and poison oak. They kill the leaves but don’t touch the roots, which sprout new leaves within a week or two.
Woe for the prescriptivists! The Queen’s English Society has folded.
Woe for me! A supposed-to-be-25-minute train journey home took two and a half hours. (Stupid fires in stupid tunnels. Can’t the trains just drive through them at high speed, Hollywood-style?)
Woe is Firefox 13! Look, a new tab being blank was boring, but if you’re going to jazz it up with recent history, couldn’t you have at least added an option to make it open my frickin’ default home page by default? It still takes one click to get there, but now I have to decide where to click.
Don’t make me think, people.
*grump*
Truth.
At a fire in northern California, seven firefighters went to the hospital in three days because of lung irritation thanks to the oils from poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. This is why I bring cigars to forest fires: sometimes it is more soothing than the smoke from the fires.
Nonononononono!
If the tunnel is older and has wooden bents, the entire tunnel can collapse. If the tunnel has steel bents, the fire can weaken the steel and the tunnel can collapse. If the tunnel is lined with brick or concrete, the expansion from the heat of the fire can drop large chunks of liner onto the tracks. If the tunnel is unlined, thermal expansion can drop BFRs (Big Rocks) onto the tracks. The net result of all of these, coupled with a train racing through at high speed, would be a derailment or a catastrophic deceleration event. Both of which require shitloads of paperwork.
Wow. A fire story (short) and train shit in the same post.
I feel so proud.
Sorry, forgot. Obligatory weather report: windy. A demain.
yeah I’m dumb, but not that dumb. I didn’t / wouldn’t burn them.
However now I’m stuck with eradication of it.
Do you think drinking heavily and staring at it with a raised eyebrow will do the trick.
If need be I can turn it into a scowl and maybe even give a few disapproving “hummmms”.
Except:
I don’t think it was a big fire. In fact, another train (carrying me) drove (at normal speed) through the aftermath after a mere two hours.
Apparently, this can happen when badgers short out the third rail.
Exploding badgers. Who knew?
If you look in the upper right hand corner of the Firefox 13 home page (the one with all the pictures of the last porn sites you visited), you’ll see a botton with nine small boxes in it. Click on the button and the thumbnails all go away. You still have to navigate to your home page (I know, why isn’t the homepage the default?) but the annoying thumbnails aren’t there.
cm:
And I can guarantee that, during the two hour gap, there were multiple inspectors checking the integrity of the electrical system, the rails, and the structure of the tunnel itself. Even after a minor fire.
There are no minor fires in a railroad tunnel.
badgers?
we don’t need no stinkin badgers
Rev BDC, you not only owe me a new keyboard but also a glass of Bowmore Enigma 12 year old single malt.
Well then, I have work to do.
‘Tis Himself says:
http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/control.html says:
@Icthyic
I didn’t think propaganda from billionares could change people’s mind that much, but apparently, people are that stupid.
@ ogremeister
Thanks for the linkies. is truly awesome!
@ ichthyic
Thanks for new term. I first thought they looked like the pope’s chthonic dingleberries, but wouldn’t know how to translate that into Latin.
With regard to groping the pope’s nether regions: Eeeeuw!
Posting this here and mangling nyms so the troll doesn’t notice and can’t google it up later.
Alright, this is definitely Hyprn. That’s a tell. On top of his location, leftish politics, and misogyny, he had a peculiar habit of bringing up Chomsky when not relevant.
Paging PZ, but somebody might copy this elsewhere for his attention?
CA firefighters encounter poison oak, but never poison ivy nor poison sumac, which do not grow anywhere in CA. But they are all members of the same genus and they all produce the same damaging urushiol, And certainly firefighters in other states have been hospitalized from smoke inhalation of poison oak or poison sumac.
Certain parts of the midwest and south, it could be both poison ivy and poison sumac in the same field. Ouch ouch!
but then where did his higher education go, and his distaste for African Americans and other non-white immigrants?
unfortunately, I suspect there’s simply a cultural milieu in the UK from which the Hyperon archetype spring. for all i know, they are all on the same mailing list or something.
oops
@ Caine
Anyone doubting that rats are ideal subject matter on TZT should look up or google “Rat King”.
@ Rev
I used to believe that poison ivy type dermatitis was something restricted to the USA. I learned the hard way that this is not the case after scratching my wrist in rural China. After a few days the skin broke out in lumpy blisters that lasted for weeks.
It appears that the Chinese have their own source of Urushiol in the Chinese Lacquer Tree. In fact just touching lacquered objects can cause an outbreak similar to poison ivy.
I hope all works out well.
and on an unrelated note… I wonder if “pain” from illness can feel the same as hunger in some instances? because I have a very hard time believing one could be hurting this much everywhere between waist and neck and still feel hungry no matter how much one eats…
*sigh*
i hate being ill
Oh well :) I knew there was a very good chance it would happen anyway.
I thought this incarnation just said he didn’t have a comp sci degree.
Hyperon might have finished his physics degree?
I think it’s still there, a bit veiled (his praise for East Asian immigrants is the same).
It took three attempts before he would answer my “and how about black people in Britain” question, and then he didn’t really answer it, so I clarified and asked a fourth time; he still wouldn’t answer.
What he would say is that twenty-first century Britons and Americans of all skin colors have terrible “work ethic”, but he would not respond to questions about whether some skin colors are more terrible than others.
Uck. I wish I knew. Sounds awful.
it is. and it’s refusing to go away by itself, so I bit the bullet and made an appointment at the Poor People Clinic to figure out wtf this is.
being ill not only feels horrible, it’s also kinda expensive :-(
Do you have your appendix? This was a symptom for my then BF for about a week prior to developing acute appendicitis.
O.o
I do have my appendix. appendicitis would be distinctly not good. though, most of the pain seems to be in the chest & stomach area, not below, so probably not appendix?
Hell yes it is!
I hope it turns out to be something treatable with generic medications.
Jadehawk:
I’m glad you did, because it sounds like it could be serious.
“Hell yes it is [expensive]!”
Not “[appendix]!”
Yikes.
@ Jadehawk
In my experience, the signals can be a bit confusing. I used to go fishing of the coast and would sometimes experience sea sickness. The stomach pain and nausea would seem to go on forever until I realised I had not eaten anything since the night before. Actually eating something helped.
Chest pain and stomach pain does not sound like appendicitis. I remember there being some digestive pain and disturbance, but no chest pain.
I hope you are feeling better soon. Being sick is no damn fun.
fuck yes. and hopefully diagnosable without the use of expensive equipment. last such visit cost me $1000 (though that was at a regular clinic, not the PPC), just to be told it’s harmless and will eventually go away by itself
*whine**moan**whine*
Jadehawk, have you tried drinking milk? If that makes you feel better, it might be an ulcer. I know that sometimes, eating makes you feel better if you have an ulcer, so you feel hungry all the time.
‘Tis Himself #41
Will you please stop this copypasta+tinymod madness of yours? Just let us know when you are copying and pasting, OK, then everything is good.
Ooops, should have refreshed. Appendicitis may imply NOT eating (My comments are not medical advice. Good that you are seeking proper medical attention.)
Do you like boring? I like boring.
1) about:config
2) browser.newtab.url
3) change value of above from “about:newtab” to “about:blank”.
Tada!
Boring again.
Or!
You can change it to be the same URL of your home page. Which sounds like it is what you actually want.
Jadehawk, have you tried drinking milk?that seems to primarily provide very temporary relief from the chest pain; still ridiculously hungry though…
I JUST had my appendix removed due to appendicitis! Like two weeks ago! I just had the stitches removed last Friday. Luckily for me (and you won’t believe how very grateful I was about this!), I live in a country where an operation like that can be done on public healthcare, so I wasn’t bankrupted by this as I would have been in other places *cough* US *cough*.
So, symptoms:
Severe, continuous abdominal pain, located at first in the generalized umbilical area but migrating rightwards and lower as time passes. In my case, that took about 18 hours, give or take.
Interesting about this pain was that at first I thought I was in for a bout of diarrhea or some such, only the diarrhea never started – it wasn’t *that* intense. Another interesting thing about the pain was that it was more intense on the rebound – in other words, it does hurt continuously, but if you were to apply pressure on the site, the pain will peak after you stop applying the pressure instead of peaking *while* the pressure is applied, as one would assume.
Apparently there’s also a way to get an indication of whether it’s more likely to be appendicitis by way of blood tests – I can’t remember what it was exactly that they did, though. I might ask my mom if y’all need me to, she’s the one who actually did the blood tests (she’s a tech). But I can confirm – no chest pain.
@Gen Uppity Ingrate
I hope I never get appendicitis. I live in that country you just mentioned. :(
Jadehawk:
Damn, that does sound like an ulcer. I hope you don’t have one, but if it turns out you do, I hope it’s a tiny one which will heal on its own. When’s your appointment?
tomorrow morning
I am not a doctor! Nor do I play one on TV.
However, I just Googled [symptoms hunger pain]. Some are just comment threads, but the 3rd hit was about peptic ulcers, which does have both pain and hunger as possible symptoms.
One paragraph that seemed appropriate:
Ulcer pain may be particularly confusing or disconcerting when it radiates to the back or to the chest behind the breast bone. In such cases it can be confused with other conditions, such as a heart attack.
This is not an actual diagnosis! This is a nerd using the Internet! Your health is important! Seek out professionals for actual diagnoses!
But it wouldn’t hurt to mention to the professionals that you read about peptic ulcers.
Good luck, Jadehawk. Add my wishes to those who are hoping that
a.) it’s something totally minor that can be treated cheaply with generic and easily accessed medications
and
b.) One day very soon the concept of a country *without* a proper public health safety net will be anathema and the US (and other places that need to) will join the rest of us EBIL COMMUNIST EMENIES OF GOD in the world of free universal healthcare.
@jadehawk
Get better!
It’s fully dark, here, and still 22° inside my house.
Maybe I‘ll sleep outside.
@ chigau (違う)
Watch out for night time ghouls...
Appendicitis almost killed me when I was 9 years old. My parents thought I just had the flu, and being poor, they were just treating the symptoms as well as they could…it was the passing in and out of consciousness that clued them in that something more serious was going on. Most of what I remember is my parents in a complete panic stretching me out on the back seat of the car and then driving like gangbusters for the hospital.
Oh, yeah, I also remember a day of awful agony building up to that.
Apparently I had an emergency appendectomy to remove an acutely infected appendix. None of this namby-pamby modern stuff where they make a tiny little incision and go snip-snip — nah, they slit open my abdomen from groin to about 6 inches up and to the right. I still get doctors examining me who wonder where I got the giant war wound.
Jadehawk from here
Well needless to say I’m going to disagree. Shock horror!
1) Lars’ honesty:
When someone starts in with a pretty juvenile (IMO) tu quoque about linguistic usage right after being very politely corrected/informed about the unintended consequences of their demonstrably prejudicial linguistic usage, I am not going out on a limb to bet they are being a {ahem} “less than fulsomely honest interlocutor”. It’s a standard tactic for maintaining their status of “not getting it”. Lars had made a couple of other classic errors as I and others pointed out.
If I’ve made a false positive, a mistaken identification of a dishonest interlocutor, then that’s my bad. I don’t think I have, but I am always happy to be wrong and will cheerfully apologise and admit to that if it is demonstrated to be the case.
2) Kink discrimination:
Not denied, not quibbled with, this unambiguously exists and is not remotely like anything I, or Minnie, said.
3) Dictionaries:
Lars asked for citations of non-sexual usage of “sadomasochism”. I found them. Sadomasochism is the property of possessing both sadistic and masochistic qualities, it is not itself explicitly a sexual term like “bitching” which is specifically derived from a negative stereotype of/attribution to women, even though (as I acknowledged) it is largely used that way. For example, as even Lars noted, it has use in psychology distinct from sexual pleasure. The desire to be tortured and to torture can be, and occasionally are, separate from sexual pleasure.
Imagine a Venn diagram of “bitching” and descriptions of women/supposed feminine attributes. The word “bitching” is completely within the circle of descriptions of women etc. It’s a reference to the supposed (nagging etc) qualities of women.
Imagine the Venn diagram of “sadomasochism” and descriptions of sexual acts/pleasure. The intersection is large but not 100%, some of the circle of “sadomasochism” exists outside that sexual circle. People can be sadists and simultaneously masochists without deriving sexual pleasure. Torturers are one good example (not all of them obviously). Neither does the next circle, of psychological pathologies, overlap completely with the “sadomasochism” circle. One can be sadistic (or masochistic or both) to a degree that is not pathological and still remains not sexual. Again, as I mentioned in my “armchair psychology” (thanks for that Lars!) the “pain”/”suffering” doesn’t have to be extreme or physical or violent, the desire to suffer some form of martydom (ethical, social, personal, whatever) is masochistic, the desire to inflict similar “pain”/”suffering” on others is sadism, the desire to do both is that portmanteau word: sadomasochism. It’s not the same degree or type of thing as sexual sadomasochism, people in dungeons with prisoners and pliers or anything like it.
The sense I took Minnie to be using the word was pretty clear given the context, people deriving pleasure from denying abortion to women, even if they themselves are women or close to women who are harmed in some way by said denial.
Bitching just can’t be used in any way that doesn’t reference femininity, or rather a caricature of it. So the analogy between what I am trying to explain to Lars and what JT to wriggle off the hook is flawed.
If I’m wrong, not only will I admit it and correct myself (wait for JT to do that….don’t hold your breath), but the two words are of markedly different type.
Louis
@ PZ
A Turkish friend of mine, at varsity in Holland, had a similarly painful experience with her appendix. She was rushed to hospital and taken to a doctor, expecting to be admitted for an appendectomy. Instead, the doctor decided that she was pregnant.
Friend: “How could I be pregnant?”
Friend: “I’m not pregnant, I’m in pain!”
Friend: “But I’m a virgin!”
{Pointing to her brother}
By now she couldn’t walk, so her brother commandeered a wheelchair and in panic managed to find a doctor – who conducted an emergency appendectomy.
(I can imagine the doctor muttering as they left: )
back from the clinic. that was largely uninformative so far (though I’m sure y’all will be thrilled to know that I have not been having heart attacks), and given the number of tests, rather expensive. now I’ll have to wait about 2 weeks until the results come in, and something tells me it won’t get less painful in that time
*whinge*
theopontes, one of my sociology professors had a similar experience, except with a heart attack. the guys at the ER insisted that she must be pregnant, and she was insisting that that wasn’t possible. they did the pregnancy test anyway, but when the bill came in she refused to pay for it and won. because how exactly is a woman with a hysterectomy supposed to have gotten pregnant, and why exactly didn’t the doc bother to check her medical history?
Hey, it’s Inspector fucking Clouseau come to visit the open thread! Let’s see your magnifying glass, Inspector!
Aw hells, Jadehawk, I’m sorry you have such a long wait. You didn’t get anything for pain relief?
Actually, I believe I’m mistaken. You’re more like the Grand Inquisitor, and your magnifying glass is for burning small animals. “Confess! Confess!” No, I won’t confess, you fucking escaped mental patient.
That IS a war-wound!
no. maybe they’re still too worried that it’s heart problems, or maybe they figured the ginormous bottle of pain meds I got when I had my IUD switched out would be sufficient (I’ve been too worried to take them, because they list heart-related side-effects)
Yeah I remember a time when….
oh wait
different kind of story
No necessarily! The early symptoms of appendicitis are vague and non-localized in the abdomen. Once acute appendicitis sets in, the pain localizes to wherever on the abdominal wall the inflamed tip of the appendix is nearest/touching from the inside. The “classical” RLQ pain is only in the people with the most common anatomy. Some people have longer, stringier appendices, and the tip could end up floating almost anywhere.
I would keep a close eye on these symptoms. If you are examined early, it is not uncommon for appendicitis to be missed, just because the symptoms are so vague in the early phase. If you start noticing the pain moving and starting to localize somewhere, shrinking in area but increasing in intensity, and if that area becomes tender to a light touch of tap with the finger, seek medical attention again immediately.
Even if it is not appendicitis, it could be diverticulitis, which has a similar symptomatic presentation, except its more commonly localized to the left side.
Illzit, please be quiet.
The grown-ups are talking about something important right now.
Sorry to read about the pain Jadehawk. USB painkillers don’t cut it, although LouisCorp does a fine line in {ahem} borderline recreational pharmaceuticals. Expect a black helicopter shortly. It’s okay, we know where you are.
Louis
I’m back. Probably not smart of me, but anyway.
I can understand that my timing was stupid, but I disagree with the accusation of tu quoque.
I’m fully aware that most of us use derogatory terms that we shouldn’t. I have no desire to keep “not getting it”. The reason why I’m “not getting it” is because it will take me some time to think through and digest. I have been a lurker here for some years now, I know that the quality of what Pharyngula’s commenters have to bring to the table is generally high. But I wasn’t prepared for this amount of lack of good faith.
You made some points that I didn’t fully understand, but will read again, and as I said, discuss with a friend of mine. Discussing this with someone I respect in my native language will give me much more than reading explanations on a blog I respect, in English.
Also I’m not sure if your answers really applied all that well to what I said. I started out by saying that if we define everything as ableism, the word loses its meaning. Personality disorders, AFAIU, can be viewed as “normal personality traits” that have gotten out of hand.
Calling someone bordeline is ableism, but calling someone a drama
queen/kingperson isn’t. Is that because the former is a diagnosis and the latter isn’t? If so, my problem with this is that what ought to be a diagnosis and what ought not to, isn’t grounded in anything objective. What’s called ADHD today might a century ago have been called “being a workhorse” or something like that.I’ve already admitted that I’m not that well versed in this, and I realize now that I probably should have kept my mouth shut in that thread.
How is using kinks as insults not kink discrimination? Sorry but I still can’t wrap my head around that logic.
When it was coined in 1890, it was about sexuality. If that meaning has changed since then, it’s because people have been using it as an insult.
I noted that it has its use in psychology, but I never said that use made a distinction from sexual pleasure.
So you think the typical torturer is a sadist? Why do you think he is a sadist, as opposed to, for instance, a psychopath?
(Is me comparing torturers to psychopaths an instance of ableism btw? After all, psychopathy is a diagnosis. And just so you know it, I ask because I don’t know the answer. I suspect it may be yes, but I truly don’t know.)
(And if it is, is calling people psychopaths a worse form of ableism than calling them sadomasochists? I may be going off topic here, so do feel free to ignore whatever you want, but I do wonder, which is the worst insult, and also which is the most ethically defensible of those two insults.)
Sorry, but this is just wrong. In the context of sexuality, sadism is sadomasochism. Masochism is also sadomasochism. The desire to switch between the roles is simply called “switching”. Which is also sadomasochism, btw, but it does not define the term as you seem to say.
How do you know that those people derives pleasure from it? How do you know they’re not doing it out of fear? Stupidity? Social control (which doesn’t equal pleasure either)? Tradition? Religious notions? Pure misogyny? Etc.
Why pleasure?
The way I did read it, you linked the behavior of the abortion-denyers to a form of sexuality, using the form of sexuality as a derogatory term. Given the context, that seemed pretty clear to me. That was probably not what you meant to do, and I was probably being oversensitive but people seem to like to use the phrase “intent isn’t magic”, I think it applies here.
I can understand why you didn’t take me seriously, though. I mean nobody would seriously defend sadomasochists (those creeps) right? Therefore I had to be trolling. Well, that’s the vibe I was getting, and what made me angry. Maybe it’s just all in my head, but … nah, not all of it. Some of it is out there.
I kinda suspect acute appendicitis doesn’t take several weeks to get to the REALLY bad stage…
probably not in that dent between my left shoulder and ribcage, just under the clavicle (that seems to be where the pain has settled for now, in addition to occasional stomach pains, rare random stabbing pains in spots all over my upper torso, and the breathing difficulties)
Who is illithid addressing?
SG
It depends on a torturer. For one a psychopath or sociopath who tortures might very well be a sadist, it’s not exclusive. Likewise a perfectly normal person could be a torturer as the Milgrim experiment demonstrated. However, an this is just gut feeling/common sense so likely to be wrong; one would assume someone would not pursue a profession or specialization AS a torturer unless they were either sociopath or sadistic. I would think that doing so would either cause massive stress or a desensitization that would make the person effectively more sadistic or callous.
As to ableism that’s a tricky question especially as the degree to which sociopathcy or psychopathy is either physiological or conditioned behavior is in debate right now.
Personally, I would assume that someone would not pursue a profession or specialization as a torturer unless they were a sociopath, period.
But that’s just biased old me. I still remember when, in my late teens, I realized that sadism and sociopathy were two completely different things that had nothing to do with each other.
That’s when I first realized that not killing myself up to then was not necessarily a moral failure on my part.
Which was quite a relief, to say the least.
I also realized a bunch of other stuff at that time, for instance that sadism wasn’t synonymous with being a callous, egotistical alpha male with no regard for others … oh… well, I may be repeating myself. Anyway, finally being able to look past all the misconceptions, prejudices, and dare I say it again, STIGMA, connected to sadomasochism, allowed me to identify myself as one.
In conjunction with the new-found fact that masochists/submissives actually existed in reality, and not only in my most bizarre dreams, gave me hope that I didn’t have to be forever alone, which previously had seemed the only alternative to kicking the bucket… a relieving period of my life for sure.
But I’m droning on, aren’t I. This is not about the bond between my identity and sadomasochism, but whether or not it’s OK to use the word as an insult.
Lars,
The other day here there was a brief discussion of limp wristed as a homophobic insult, which it is. It’s an interesting case, though, because there’s no obvious reason why it must’ve turned out that way. There’s no a priori logic that could show limp wristed to be an insult about gay men in all possible worlds.
It’s so obviously due to history being contingent.
In fact, if the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, then there almost certainly exist some Earths on which limp wristed and its cognates were not used refer to gay or “effeminate” men and thus are not homophobic insults.
That’s the objective view. And from that objective view, there is no logical basis for insisting that there ought to be any a priori means of determining what’s a homophobic insult, nor what’s an ableist insult, without observing the patterns of usage on any particular Earth.
What if they were sadistic?
Is sadist even a firm psychological thing out side of the sexual fetishism? I sort of figured people just had ranges of capacity for taking pleasure from the pain of another.
Some children or adults might torture a trapped animal for the lulz without being sociopathic or labeled a ‘sadist’, but they are definitely engaged in sadistic behavior.
{Klaxon sounding, computer voice from Star Trek is coming over the thread-wide intercom}
-A troll has entered the thread, comments 91 and 93. Troll torturing supplies are available in supply locker 47.-
Also, the non-gendered term you are searching for here is drama llama.
@Pitbull/SGBM
You’re better on psyche research, am I missing something?
Ogvorbis, apologies! I was over-terse; I meant:
not what came across, which was probably:
(And yes, I knew from the announcements that a MOM was in attendance, doing a 3 mile round-trip walk in the dark carrying an extinguisher …)
And Owlmirror, thanks! Sanity restored.
Are you sure? Women’s elbows are angled differently than men’s, making their hand movements slightly different, maybe that could be described as “more limp-wristed”? (Whether it should, is a different question.)
I once read something about men being effeminate may be caused by prenatal hormone levels. A little more than “normal” of some hormone (testorone?) in a certain week of the pregnancy. The same article said that homosexuality (at least among males) may have similar causes, but this effect happened at a later stage of pregnancy. And that there will be a certain statistical correlation between men being effeminate and being homosexual because of this.
It seems conceivable that being effeminate may cause a man to move more like women, despite his physiology being fully masculine. After all, we’re more than muscles and bone.
These factoids may or may not be sound, I don’t remember where I read this, but at least I was able to google up a Pubmed article that to me seems to indicate that these is at least research going on in topics relating to this. (But I have no idea about the quantity or quality of this research, nor of the article that I read somewhere.)
Anyway, all this may have come up in the discussion you had, and dismissed for good reasons, for all I know.
Random bit of advice to Jadehawk: Go to an ER to get your symptoms checked out. They’ll send you a bill. Use it to wipe your butt. They can’t actually repossess your health or refuse to give you treatment in the future. Collection threats for health care costs aren’t entirely a bluff in that they can and sometimes do ruin your credit, but beyond that there’s simply nothing that anyone can do to you. There are laws against turning people in need of medical care away.
Also has your gallbladder been checked out?
nice
Since I was the one who started that, I might as well jump in and make a fool of myself.
Think about portrayals of gay men in films and on television until quite recently. The stereotypical lisp and the limp wrist were, and for some people, still are, the embodiment of male homosexuality. Your point that women’s and men’s elbows have differences (first I’ve heard that) could provide insight into how this particular stereotype got started. A man, flipping his wrist, appears effeminate and is, by US standards, obviously gay.
Does that make sense?
Nice proof. How does it feel to be the founder of a new branch of mathematics — etiquette theory?
*looks suspicious* why gallbladder…?
also, how would the ER help? can they get bloodwork done any faster than the clinic…? I already got the ECG and the lung capacity test, and I’m having an x-ray on monday…
I thought it was as simple as Men are muscular and sturdy where women are graceful and flexible. A loose wrist is thus showing a man who is not manly and thus not a real man.
Lars,
You are so far off base it’s beyond reason. **I** would (and do) defend sexual sadomasochists. Go to it, as I already said.
If you cannot read what I’ve written for even basic comprehension, take a ticket with LILAPWL and Antiochus Epiphanes and fuck yourself with a rubber hose (to use the words of the Immortal Frank Zappa).
“Nuh uh” isn’t an argument, and even though the most common use of “sadomasochism” is in a sexual context (as already admitted, what…twice now?) it is by no means exclusively so, sufficiently not that it is possible to make in context uses of the word without sexual connotations.
Yawn, another tedious fuckwit who simply cannot take being wrong so has to plead some sort of offence to make themselves righteous. You’re as pointless a fuckwit as LILAPWL when the bit’s between his teeth.
Louis
Spare the rod, spoil the child, jail the Dollar
Yes, but if the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, then it’s all up for grabs, you know? Q.E.D.
An ER can admit you to the hospital, if you need it. If you don’t, you might be better off at a clinic if they’re actually doing the workup. If they’re not, an ER is a way to route around doctors who are acting as road blocks. Yes, I know that’s horribly inefficient. Sorry.
Gall bladder because of right upper quadrant pain associated with eating. Or did I misread your symptoms?
Is there something in th water of the thread that turns trolls into ubbermornicunintelligabaltrolls?
Not that I am aware of (still not being an expert). The only ICD-10 section where I could find any mention of sadism and masochism, deals with “Disorders of sexual preference” (F65).
F65.5 is the subsection dedicated to sadomasochism.
I don’t like that definition of “sadistic”, but I have to accept that it’s out there, and that I may be in the minority having anything against it.
OTOH I find absolutely no rational reason to accept using the word “sadomasochistic” about the same scenario. That would be a perversion of the medical term, and the only colloquial use of the word that I know of (apart from using it as a sexual slur) is in the BDSM subculture, where it refers to consensual sexual/emotional interactions between sadist(s) and masochist(s).
We sadomasochists haven’t entirely “lost” the word yet (and actually borrowed it from the medical definition to begin with), so we’re in no position to “take it back”, but I would very much like to continue not losing it.
But that depends on people refraining from using the word as a sexual slur. Let’s see how that goes. :|
oh, I have no pain while eating. I was originally wondering if one can feel hungry instead of being in pain, because I’ve never experienced being this ill and in pain and at the same time being ravenous and not being able to stop feeling hungry
I think you’re going to have to accept it since it’s the common usage of it outside of talking about kink.
Jadehawk:
Oh, your gallbladder can fuck everything else up no end. I hope it isn’t your gallbotherer though, as expensive tests™ would be needed prior to…surgery! Having mine out last year helped a great deal, however, I did not cope with the surgery or recovery well at all and, of course, I have good insurance. Without it, I’d be paying off that fucking surgery until the day I died.
They can do numerous tests at one time, but this includes the expensive tests™.
And just when I need that killfile script the most, it dies on me. Fucking typical.
Jadehawk, the ER can get the bloodwork done immediately, and at least some of the results will be available within a half hour to a couple hours, because the hospital should have its own lab. They can do a chest X-ray and literally have the result within minutes (if you were complaining of pain on breathing I can’t believe that the clinic would do a lung capacity test and not do an X-ray right away).
Irritation of the diaphragm can cause pain referred up into the chest. Both gallbladder or a high riding appendix tip can do this.
Diagnosis over an Internet connection of course should not be trusted, but that is why you need to have a trained professional actually see you.
Lars,
If you’re referring to me, please do killfile me. Not dealing with an irredeemable fuckwit like you will be a pleasure. You’ve not paid the slightest attention to any argument I’ve made and can’t deal with the simple fact that you’re wrong. Why do I want to talk to people like you? Oh right….I don’t.
Louis
Ing,
There’s a lot more being said here than I can attend to. One thing I noticed:
That’s true of pretty much everything in the DSM, though.
There isn’t any serious debate over whether or not there are some genetic factors which increase the likelihood that a person will be diagnosed as a psycho/sociopath.
+++++
Lars,
What I’m sure of is that you just gave arguments for why limp wristed might be likely to become a homophobic insult on more Earths than you think I implied. All you’re saying is that on this matter, history might be somewhat less contingent than you think I implied.
Nevertheless, even as you imagine it, history is still contingent. There still is no a priori logic that could show limp wristed to be an insult about gay men on every Earth.
On this Earth, we do not yet have standardized homophobic insults which refer to finger lengths. Maybe we will one day, maybe we won’t. At this point in time, there is no a priori way to know whether this will become common parlance. Likewise, even if you were right about everything you said in #114, it would not follow that limp wristed would necessarily become, in common parlance, an insult for gay men on every Earth where the same biology holds.
Jadehawk: It might not be gallbladder. That’s just a typical rule out for abdominal/chest pain in a woman and the radiation to the right shoulder is classic. Usually happens about 1-2 hours after eating, rather than immediately after. Could be entirely off, of course.
When the uninsured go to the ER, both the law and medical professional ethics require that they must be treated. Hospitals can try to chase down payment after the fact but they usually can recover little more than 10%. So they have to eat the cost, which of course they pass along to the people who ARE insured. And since the uninsured don’t get preventive care and usually wait too long before going to the ER, they present with needlessly severe conditions that cost more to treat.
This is one of the reasons why single payer universal access systems spend on average half of what the US spends, per capita, and have better outcomes across the board.
So to all those out there who don’t want to pay for other people’s healthcare, just note that you already are, and you are paying for it in the most inefficient and costly manner imaginable.
I haven’t been around much lately, but having just finished catching up with both the thread illithid was trolling before and TZT*, I was wondering the same thing.
*Well, sort of. I mostly skimmed and I don’t think anyone can blame me for pretty much skipping shiloh’s comments altogether.
If anyone’s feeling helpful,
Louis needs some help understanding why some women object to being called “darling” by a man who’s not mutually consensually understood to be on diminutive terms with them.
If he can learn that much, then he may be able to learn why, by extension, a gay man may object to the same.
Illzit, unless you have access to a portal that allows the free flow of people and ideas between multiple universes(still hypothetical), other worlds have no relevance to social conventions on THIS world.
And in case you haven’t noticed, we are dealing with a potential medical emergency here, which you in your blithering way have decided is appropriate to try to derail. I suppose since Jadehawk is a female human being who is not you, you don’t care, do you?
So unless you have that portal and want to introduce it here, shut up.
Better yet, go THROUGH your portal, close it behind you, and don’t come back.
So to all those out there who don’t want to pay for other people’s healthcare, just note that you already are, and you are paying for it in the most inefficient and costly manner imaginable.
IIRC, the US spends more _public_ money on health care than any other country. Probably because it insists on this sort of behavior.
True enough. I just wanted to draw some lines between the dots on this here Earth. Probably just me going off-topic anyway, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Read the thread, shitbag. I wasn’t the one who suggested this, but was making fun of the idea. I’m not the only one posting off-topic, either.
TZT is an open thread, there is no set topic. It is the Troll Pen, so it’s a perfect place for illithid.
Evidently without understanding it, if you think Amphiox summarized correctly.
There is no claim that “other worlds have relevance to social conventions on THIS world”.
It is simply an exercise that helps us imagine the range of possibilities, of how customs might have turned out differently. It situates us in a vast tree of contingent histories.
In this way, it can be helpful — as it has before, and perhaps was once again just now — in explaining why, in our world, it is not always possible to use logic to predict what will or will not become a homophobic or ableist insult.
Of course, there is no transfer of information between worlds once they diverge. And the thought experiment does not claim otherwise.
No, not really. You’re confusing two radically different notions of probability. One notion, you’re taking as a possible state any given point in a phase space which is specified by some theory (the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in your case). For the second notion, you’re taking a much more conventional theory of possibility, i.e. the one that allows Al Gore to have been President of the United States, but not PZ Myers. (This refers to slightly varying initial conditions in some deterministic or approximately deterministic system.) Invoking the Everett theory doesn’t provide us with insight into who could have won the election — or, in this situation, whether homosexuals could have been firm-wristed.
If Everett is correct, then there’s some world where everyone’s going around on pogo sticks. Do you think it likely that the average man in the street would entertain for a second the idea that the pogo stick could have superseded the car as the number one mode of transport? Different notions of possibility, my boy, different notions of possibility.
Lars,
S’okay. I’ll try to bring it back around now to how your
So the history of psychiatry is contingent too. So what, exactly? For the matter of not-using-psychiatric-terms-as-insults, this is not a problem. Just keep up with the times.
Your example of what if douchebaggery becomes a clinical diagnosis is, as you realize, extremely far-fetched. To give just one reason why it’s very unlikely — psych professionals are already very much concerned with the stigmatization of existing diagnoses. Thus they are not likely to pick a term which is already used as an insult and use it as a diagnostic label.
It’s an amusing hypothetical. But there’s no point in seriously worrying about it. If douchebaggery ends up in the DSM-VI, then okay, I’ll say let’s rethink this approach. For now, it looks like an example of “hard cases make bad
lawmores”, except this is a non-existent case rather than a hard one.Hyperon,
Yes, but — assuming the mediocrity principle — the set of such worlds is probably smaller than the set of worlds where people use automobiles.
Likewise the set of worlds in which PZ Myers became president is probably smaller than the set of worlds where Al Gore did.
Posted by Louis in the socail justice thread:
There’s something indescribably hilarious about watching one of the most antagonistic jackals in the pack being devoured by the other jackals.
I’m not supposed to be here at all, and I’ve only skimmed so I’ve missed a lot, but I really wanted to get this in before the subject is forgotten: Thanks for this, Lars. I had similar problems from the other side, and I’ve always suspected that it would be even worse for sadists. (When my #idnr with that information in it goes up, I’ll link to it here.)
Data point: I, too, dislike strongly the fact that sadism and masochism are both used for immoral, harmful, destructive behavior while still being used for sexual preferences, because there is enough silence and ignorance around the issue of kink in at least some circles that the conflation can be destructive to people’s lives.
Unfortunately, as I’ve said elsewhere, I do think it’s a lost battle, but I can’t help how much it makes me cringe and/or grind my teeth when, for instance, antifeminist women are referred to as “masochists” – because I used to be an antifeminist masochist, who feared feminists in part specifically because of a mistaken notion of the feminist view on submissives (derived from contact with sex-negatives), with a Better Than Those Other Girls Chill Girl™ mindset that interlocked with my submissiveness to create seriously fucked up outcomes. Because of that conflation and because of the stigma, I thought that masochism necessarily entailed victimhood and wanting-deep-down/deserving it.
Pitbull, many-worlds is wrong. Well, almost completely certainly, wrong.
(It’s not even a good hypothetical.)
Two nations separated by a common language.
English familiarities are deployed much more widely in casual communication than in the US. (I was called “love” by a supermarket checkout person the other day, “alright my lover” is a generic “hello person I know” in the southwest (UK that is, not AZ)).
Do not assume an assumption of intimacy. (We are brits after all, and we don’t do that (shudder).)
It’s best to assume (non-pond-crossing) humour.
For what it’s worth, as an employee of an American company, I get this all the time, just the other way round.
There’s something indescribably hilarious about watching one of the most antagonistic jackals in the pack being devoured by the other jackals.
it’s not indescribable.
the word you are looking for, but like so much else, entirely ignorant of, is schadenfreude.
of course, since you’re also ignorant of the social dyanics of this blog, it’s really a false feeling on your part.
glad to see you here.
*gets out bean bag shotgun and cattle prod*
hope you be staying here for the duration?
Oh, fuck. When sketching out a post, it’s generally best to hit Preview instead of Submit.
When you get it wrong, you get an insight into my thought processes. (And time to muse on the merits of transactionality WRT the HTTP POST protocol.)
Hope it wasn’t too disillusioning. ;)
^When I get it wrong …
*stepping away from the computer*
Louis needs some help understanding why some women object to being called “darling” by a man who’s not mutually consensually understood to be on diminutive terms with them.
or maybe you need some help in understanding different countries usage of colloquialisms?
should louis change his sense of sensibilities he grew up with because you grew up with different ones?
what makes you right and him wrong?
only your sense of righteous crusade to change everything to make the world more comfortable for you.
not denying you should, mind you, only natural i suppose, but don’t expect everyone else to agree.
I am aware. Hence my care to specify: if/then.
I think it’s usefully illustrative, so I ask:
Why not?
Nope. I would not knowingly say to a British woman, “you really got your fanny kicked in that argument”. If I said it without thinking, and was told to desist, I would not insist that there was no sexist effect of my words. Intent is not magic.
If he is interested in not contributing to homophobia in the USA, (and if there is no sexism involved in a man calling an unfamiliar woman “darling”, which I do not believe to be the case, but which we can pretend for the sake of discussion) then he should use code-switching as appropriate.
We had a well-meaning US-based commenter here recently who used the term “Paki” with total naivity; upon being informed of the term’s racist effect in Britain, said commenter took note and decided not to do it again. That is the rational course for someone who does not want to contribute to racism; if said commenter had not cared about racism, then a rational course would have been to say “okay, I don’t care.”
Guh:
(and if there is no sexism involved in a man calling an unfamiliar woman “darling” in Britain, which I do not believe to be the case, but which we can pretend for the sake of discussion)
Yes. I know one who says he would like to throw all the pidgeon-holing out of clinical psychology, and use only one diagnose: “Crazy”. And then proceed to treat the patiens as individuals, instead of treating them as diagnoses. That makes sense to me.
(I don’t think he was serious about using the word “crazy”, but if they did, maybe it could help make the word less stigmatizing? Anyway.)
What do you think of the words “psycho” and “psychopath” used colloquially? AFAIU, the colloquial “definition” is much broader than the clinical one, and is often used as an insult.
AFAIU (and I may be wrong), clinical psychopaths are also not very likely to feel hurt about it. Is that relevant?
It seems to me that laypeople often use psychiatric terms for the same reasons that laypeople use terms from physics or biology: One (not very good) reason is to add weight to their words. Another (better?) reason is because the fields of science are really good at defining things. We say tubercolosis instead of consumption, not to add weight to the word, but because it is more accurate.
The problem with ableism is that this can (and often will) hurt the people who are genuinely afflicted with the problem described by whatever term is colloquially used, and stigmatize them.
But is there a better word to use instead of for instance “psycho”, that conveys the same meaning without refering to a psycological condition?
Same with “paranoid”, it colloquially refers to an irrational distrust or fear of people, but also to a host of diagnoses. Is there a good replacement that isn’t an ableism, but still describes the irrational distrust etc.?
I’m still not back on topic. Sorry. Let me collect the threads.
* Aww, I have a fan!
* A compendium of the dumbest anti-choice arguments ever
(*re-reading*) Well, OK, maybe I wasn’t entirely off topic either.
The word “depressed” is seldom used as an insult, even if it is a diagnosis. Probably because depression doesn’t generally affect your behavior in a way that may cause you to behave badly towards others. Sociopathy and paranoia, OTOH, may. I would think this a reason why these words are used as insults, because they may arguably be somewhat (if not accurately) descriptive of the negative traits that one wants to highlight in the person one is insulting?
At the same time, a psychriatric diagnosis is stigmatizing in itself. Also when it’s only used clinically. Because it says that There Is Something Wrong With Your Head.
Douchebaggery may not be pathologized in the foreseeable future, but other problematic behavior patterns will (and they will no doubt receive diagnostic labels that are as non-stigmatizing as possible). If I understand you correctly (which I probably don’t but I have already “opened my mouth to remove all doubt” anyway), calling someone on such a negative behavior (in an unfriendly manner) will become ableism the moment the behavior is pathologized.
That seems strange to me. Euphemistic labeling of diagnosis may offset it, but euphemism is just sweeping the dust under the rug anyway, and as far as I understand natural languages, they always manage to shake that dust out from the rug again pretty quickly.
When it comes to mentalisms, I’m just not sure if the bigger problem lies in the colloquial use of diagnostic terms, or in the clinical use of those diagnostic terms in the first place. And I guess that’s what I’ve been using all those words to arrive at. Hm. Apparently I’m not very good at this.
Because in some of the many worlds there is a (are many) God(s)?
We have no evidence for the other-worlds (or to be more precise, we have no way of observing them to access that evidence) … therefore Bohr.
Thanks for reading, and answering. This is not something I talk about often.
I guess that’s reason enough to speak up, and take the shit flinging as it comes. For the children, so to speak. After all, they do grow up. Some of them grow up kinky. And some of those grow up suicidal.
Well I guess I’ll eventually go down either fighting windmills or in self-denial, then. Is there a third option?
Luckily for me, in my country, the same feminists who openly and aggressively equate all (including gay) sadomasochism with sexual abuse of women, are giving feminism a bad name, probably because they equate almost everything with abuse of women.
But their rabidity also kept me from accepting the importance of feminism for many years. As it happens, it was Pharyngula that made me see it.
No, it’s a very special kind of Schadenfreude. Not just the pleasure of seeing your foe cast down and humiliated, but the joy of seeing the look on his face as he tastes his own medicine! Not to mention the delicious irony of the Witch-hunter General suddenly be accused of sorcery. Priceless.
I phrased that badly. They don’t equate S&M with abuse of women, they say that S&M (including gay S&M) is abuse of women. As I said, rabid. They’ve probably done more damage to feminism in this country than anything else.
If you are interested in not contributing to American cultural imperialism in the rest of the world (and if [some assumption based on not having gone to the place]) then you should [do something].
Do you see how this works? ;)
Cultural relativism sucks, but it’s how we negotiate the world.
(Aside: it’s hard for me to see how a single comment from a known-sarcastic, known-self-deprecating Brit who uses a known-to-be-used-ironically word on a blog read by a relatively small number of US-anians “contributes to US homophobia”. FSM knows, we hear enough about the discrimination that the country itself provides. And we protest it. But it’s unrealistic to think that an ironic comedic contribution is somehow making it worse, given the population disparity. But I have Brit lenses, so, you know, englighten.)
Lars,
I don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought because it’s at the far end of what people might potentially be persuaded to change their behavior about. Lost cause, or nearly so. Therefore I’ll be skipping your questions about it.
I don’t know, but let’s think about it. I personally don’t figure it’s a problem to say “that’s a paranoid thought” to someone if they are apparently saying something paranoid. Probably everyone has thought something paranoid within the last month, so we know at least what a paranoid thought is. And then the two or more people involved can discuss whether it is actually a paranoid thought, or a justified one. At this level of discussion, I think, it is likely to be not a big deal; the discussion can take place without categorizing any participant as essentially or clinically paranoid.
That may be part of why some insults happen, but don’t overlook insults like “retard” which indicate a more general contempt for mental differences. As long as this generalized contempt is known to exist, don’t be too quick to assume there’s self-defense behind any particular mental insult.
I don’t know about all this. I don’t think it’s trivial to determine in the abstract like you’re trying to do here. From the example of paranoia, I think it can be non-stigmatizing to say, in an unfriendly way, “that’s a paranoid notion and you’re an asshole for thinking of others what way.” May or may not be true — but I don’t figure that it’s obviously ableism, since pretty much everybody has some paranoid thoughts.
Consider again how this discussion started. Someone claimed Beale heard voices telling him to have a judge attacked. But it turns out there’s no evidence Beale heard any voices. Ockham’s razor says Beale was just full of shit. If Beale is saying something violent, and we claim it’s because he’s hearing voices, but in fact he’s not hearing voices, then we’ve erroneously taught a stronger correlation between violence and hearing voices, and this error contributes to stigma. Therefore care should be taken to avoid these errors.
If it were true that Beale had heard voices telling him to plan violence against the judge, and Beale’s case was not presented as a cherry-picking expedition — that is, if it was accompanied by accurate statistics about how most people who hear voices do not act violently because of them, and ideally accompanied by individual stories as vivid as the one about Beale — then that wouldn’t be so objectionable.
Whatever you think is so complex about all these abstractions and hypotheticals you bring up, you ought still be able to see this point regarding what really happened.
? None of this pertains to the thought experiments I’m using it for. It’s okay that gods exist in some of those worlds and it’s okay that we can’t observe them.
No, I don’t see, because as I said I would accept correction on the use of terminology which is sexist to Britons but not Americans.
It’s making it worse because I would not have experienced that reminder of my second-class status yesterday, and would not today have to be defending my right to ask people not to unkindly remind me of my second-class status.
Or, you know, every discussion we’ve ever had about “cunt” here.
Or, you know, http://www.microaggressions.com/
Go read what Aratina Cage said in the other thread. I’m not interested in enlightening you. Not my job to educate everyone who doesn’t care to self-educate. Just don’t talk to me the way Louis did and I’ll do my best to forget that you’re being an asshole about this.
I note that illzit has, again, deliberately ignored the second part of the post it is responding to, in its usual dishonest fashion.
The part that went:
This of course is the same illzit who spent so much time on the prior thread wanking about Pharyngula being an echo chamber so unfairly beating on its poor wanking ass.
This is how Pharyngula normally operates.
Louis is not going to get his Molly revoked over this (nor Brownian, Ichthyic, etc), nor LILAPWL (if the rumors I hear about his former identity are true).
And Illzit? That “look on his face” you’re wanking to right now? Unless you happen to be a remote viewer, that’s just your imagination. If the vision remains persistent, you would be well advised to seek medical attention forthwith.
And that you would admit (and proudly) to deriving pleasure from observing this is a fact that tells us a great deal about your character as a human being, or lack thereof.
Not that this is any sort of new revelation about you.
illithid:
Eh, we’re still discussing. When we’re done, come back and see what we decided, OK?
^^
BetterMore practical you.I do.
Still, I’m not quite sure about to what extent I should generally view mentalism as the problem, as opposed to a symptom of an underlying problem.
And by that I do not mean to say that mentalism isn’t problematic. I’m just not sure how much fighting a symptom (provided that mentalism is one) will help in the long run.
OTOH, it’s probably better to fight a symptom that can be fought, than to try fighting an underlying cause that cannot.
I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be an asshole. I don’t think I’m being an asshole.
But if I am, in whose perception am I being an asshole?
Genuine question.
—
That wasn’t the point. Because attitudes to work (holidays, sickness, maternal/paternal leave, whatever) in US companies bleed over into non-US countries. Because I had to warn my US boss that what xe wanted to say (but I told xir* not to) would have breached UK employment law.
Because, you know, it’s not just about sexism and/or homophobia.
Hence “cultural”.
*grump*
* And I fricking hate x-pronouns.
—
I will now go on record to say that you have first class status. In this discussion, on this thread, in real life.
But if there are problems in your world (which as I alluded above is different to mine), just don’t blame me for them, thanks.
I have posted several things about micro-inequities. Not my job to explain to you that “everyone” does not include the person you’re talking to.
*raspberry*
Amphiox,
Fact: ॐ is strange gods before me.
Hey, ॐ, do you like today’s Pharyngula more than in times of yore?
Lars,
Well, perhaps I share your uncertainty about this, depending on what it is you regard to perhaps be the root cause.
Maybe the cause can be fought. But in any case we should fight the symptoms too because they reduce quality of life.
+++++
John, the most fun I ever had at Pharyngula was arguing with a certain libertarian for a solid year.
We still get to argue, but now we can argue by email, where every participant has a very good model of the other’s understanding, so information is exchanged more efficiently.
So the answer to your question is “no, but I’m okay with that.”
Louis,
I did not.
Use one of those other ones instead then, the ones that don’t have the extra baggage that this one man mentioned has in the context of his experience being a gay man in the US.
Jesus, fuck.
Who are you even talking to here?
Great. Now that you’ve trounced that straw man, can you deal with the context of this one man on this blog who asked you not to use one fucking word to refer to him, and the historical and present reasons for why that word and its implications bother him?
Back to my beer.
LILAPWL from here
LILAPWL,
Don’t flounce before this bit! ;-)
About that you’re right. And I fucked up. I absolutely did not mean that the onus is on the oppressed group, and yet it’s exactly what I said. Entirely my bad. I fucked up.
Also this from your linked article:
Is, believe it or not and you have no reason to believe me I realise, a significant motivator in me staying in this conversation. I might be wrong. I don’t think I am, I think I’ve made a very limited case which isn’t being addressed despite repetition and the occasional deviation into acknowledging the errors I’ve made that I’ve noticed so far.
I’ll try to bring more light and less heat from now on. I confess to irritation (did it show?) informing the tenor of more than one response. And I can only apologise for that limitation and annoyance on my part.
As for the rest: the game goes on! (And yes, I know it’s not a game)
Louis
Fresh start for more battles.