An explanation of a previous post and a potential series if its interesting.

I’m of the opinion that emotions of any sort are only right or wrong in the application and not as a set. I believe the rhetoric with respect to things like hatred and disgust are inconsistent with what they are and how they work. I’m sympathetic with some of the language given its utility in the service of civil rights advancement. But that doesn’t change the vulnerability associated with ideas that range from incorrect to neglecting other features of human behavior.

What do you do when you feel the hate or disgust? You don’t spread it like a condiment, it becomes attached to your memories when you have an experience. And it is part of how your memories store the experience. You don’t suppress it you learn to control it and decide what responses you attach to the disgust or hate.

It’s motivating instinct. It’s made to be practiced and controlled.

I found this on PZ’s political madness thread. Credit to SC. “One of Trump’s personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus“

And I posted this on facebook.

“HAHAHAHAHA!!!
Eat irony Donald. Not doing enough to protect you? Why it’s like a virus requires a larger social response to effectively deal with or something.
It’s too bad you’re systematically removing people or bullying people in your social interactions who actually know how we should deal with viruses.”

I see the following list as examples of something that comes naturally to us. I’m not judging the category. I don’t grudge people the right to make negative political lables for people. I’m more about the utility of the lable. It’s meaning, usefulness, accuracy, and whatever other features they have. It makes the bigotry stand out too. Tools that are actually harmful to society should

SJW. Cultural marxism. White knight. Virtue signaling. Cuck. Dictionary athiest. Uncle tom. Political correctness. Soy boy. Boomer. Femanazi.

I call them “political pejoratives”. They’re tools. They have a use and meaning. And my way of dealing with them is to take them seriously. A tool is only as valuable as it’s utility.

I’ve seen people claim they are characteristics. Negative feeling characteristics that just can’t help feeling negative. I can respect that in the abstract, I use ignorant and incompetent myself, as well as dictionary athiest, and I have an appreciation for boomer… So I ask them to show me the characteristics so that I can judge for myself.

I’m not going to post definitions or histories for all of these since the ones I see as obstacles can be engaged with despite them. Their worth can be demonstrated by those who believe they have value. And of course this is one person’s experience of these words and other perspectives are important.

I ask to see the “SJW” characteristics, which seem to be something like “illigitimate social justice activism”. Illigitimate by means of a logical problem, or being insincere, or means that undermine goals…and I’ve rarely gotten anyone to give me a definition let alone apply it to the situation. This is functionally an insult.

I similarly have a very hard time getting people to show me the “cultural marxism”, less than 10 times has anyone showed me what it was (articles by people on the right). And not once has anyone shown me the bad thing in specific terms, applied their concept to the situation and specifically show the bad things. This is also functionally an insult.

“White Knight” was coming to the defense of someone for the purposes of getting reward sex, seems to have evolved into “illigitimate defense”, and often doesn’t seem to have a sexist aspect today (aimed at more people, yay society?). But I’m not the group it was intended for so my perspective is limited. Experiences of language don’t go away so it’s better to say it seems me applied more evenly with respect to sex and gender, but definitely hits minority voices more often. I demand to see the illigitimate defense and rarely get anything.

“Virtue signaling” is an absolute mess of a “characterization”. Not only don’t people show me what’s wrong with the signal in question, it’s an appropriated technical term for general human behavior that’s only right or wrong in specific examples. It looks like another claim of insincerity with no effort to show a problem. And conveniently people using the “term” get to virtue signal while acting like everyone else is insincere. This is not only functionally an insult, I can see what they are doing with it when no one actually shows the insincerity. With quotes. I’m pretty sure these are largely bigots who don’t want to be critisized.

“Cuck” was an insult meant to suggest someone was getting treated as subordinate or submissive by a woman. It seems to me to have evolved into a general means to suggest someone, usually a percieved ally or allies, are acting subordinate or submissive on the level of letting someone have sex with your wife and watching. I’ve seen some say Republicans were “cucked” by the Democrats by when they compromised on legislation. This pajorative only seems effective among the people who use it. It’s right-wing in-group shaming by people independently of its existence as a kink. They try to use but most of their out-groups seem to find it confusing or amusing.

“Dictionary athiest” is one I use. To me it’s relevant every time someone brings up the dictionary definition of the word atheist in order to pressure others to stop discussing something in an atheist social space, or to stop talking as if something were connected to atheists as a group (and is often connected to the odd idea of there being no actual atheist community). In my experience it’s often directed at issues like taking harassment, abuse, and bigotry seriously. As far as I’m concerned what we disbelieve doesn’t determine what we believe or talk about, and if something is relevant to an atheist it’s fair game and dictionary atheists are trying to affect politics to their benefit. And most importantly if someone in an atheist community has a problem with bigotry in that community it’s fucking relevant.

“Uncle tom” I have respect for. I don’t use it, it’s not mine. I’m a potential “euromutt”. I think that’s what I put on the census but I’m leaving room for it to be problematic. It belongs to someone else. Here in the united states of america it references a black person who is seen as overly subservient towards white people. One experience of it is one of my family members posting an article that acted like it was outrageous that a black conservative, Ben Carson I believe, was called an uncle tom. Unfortunately I don’t have the article anymore. But I remember that nowhere in the article did the author say why it was wrong that someone used the term. They acted like it was just bad to use it at all and didn’t even defend that. I threatened to pick one of my family’s negative characterizations of fellow christians or republicans and start calling it unacceptable.

“Political correctness” has a history that I don’t know well enough to try to discuss. Today it seems to be a way of disparaging criticism of language use and people who use it don’t really like to get specific about what it is they don’t want critisized. It’s useful to ask what it is they want to be able to say without consequences like criticism. There is usually an implication of the person having opinions related to race, sex, gender or something else. All I can say is some language deserves critisizing and you can’t show me the language or criticism I’m not going assume there’s a problem.

“Soy boy” is part misogyny and part racism used to police social behavior. Conflation of some estrogens with plant estrogens is ignorant political opportunism. And racism is because I believe of “foreignness” and connections to asian stereotypes should be considered as opportunities for people already demonstrating misogyny. Hbomberguy’s amusing treatments of the topic are recommend. That part of society is piles of grifting on grifting. The intersection of bigotry and grifting is a thing worth thinking about.

“Boomer” and lately “boomer remover”. I like it. I think younger generations need a pajorative for elders acting badly on issues relevant to the younger generations. I leave it alone or defend it’s use.

Femanazi. Rush Limbaugh’s label for people critisizing others based on sex and gender issues. I treat it like an insult, and as I write this I if I should tell people using “feminazi” that it’s good that they display their intent to attack instead of constructively engage over an issue? It seems like like a useful characteristic to highlight in a political confrontation.

That’s good for now. Listing them all would be endless because we’re always making new ones. Feel free to add your own examples below.

This is a tool. Those post-it notes with molecules from metabolic pathways on them.

Green are interesting endpoints.

The ribonucleic acids (as monophosohates) AMP:upper right,GMP:center right second from the edge, UMP:upper left, center right in the cluster, CMP:upper left, center left in the cluster, TMP:upper left, top of the cluster.
And some cofactors/B-vitamins:NAD/NADP/Niacin/B3, Pyridoxal Phosphate/B6:lower left, Coenzyme-A/B5:lower center edge, Thiamine/B1: center, Folate/B9:right, third from the edge Riboflavin/B2:right, green square at the edge.

Orange are some of the amino acids that are made into proteins: Aspartate:center edge top and right lower orange square, Glycine:left close to center, Histidine:right top, Tyrosine:left edge center, Phenylalanine:left edge bottom, Tryptophan:left on the lower corner square, Valine:first lower center orange square Cysteine:lower center left right member of the pair, Serine:lower center left member of the pair.

Aspartate has two because it’s an intermediate but the amino acid in protein part is more important to me. There may be other inconstancy. This is evolving

Pink are common intermediates, or junctions in pathways depending on how you want to look at it. Pink are also molecules added to reactions. Some pink start pathways and are used so often I saw them as a “pool to draw from” and not a pathway that makes the molecule (I should connect Glycolysis and the Pentose Phosphate cycle). Ribose is used to make so many things in the form of PRPP: center left third from edge. AGUCT, Tryptophan, Histidine, NAD, Folate, Riboflavin Thiamine. There’s a bunch more. Glycine is positioned as something added when making A and G

Blue are intermediates in pathways connected to something green and pink. This needs organized better. Some are missing reaction steps because I’m not working on it yet or interested in it yet. Lower center connects Coenzyme-A/B5 to Valine. AG biosynthesis stretches across the center left to right from PRPP with two pink intermediates, AIR (pink) connects to Thiamine, SAICAR (pink) connects to Histidine, IMP (pink) is an intermediate between A:AMP above and G:GMP below. I have Tryptophan lower center left in a U shape going up from Pink Erythrose-4 Phosphate (E4P) and Phospho-Enol-Pyruvate (PEP). Formate and Bicarbonate are single carbon molecules of interest.

At the moment I’m looking at the protein domain structure of purine (AG) biosynthesis and seeing what is shared with who so I can find new connections. And I’m trying to go back to an abiogenesis post which is proving challenging.

Trigger Warning: I’ll be posting about what I see as examples of rape culture in action so this one is under the fold.

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My co-blogger Abe Drayton at Oceanoxia needs help. They have been job hunting and the pandemic has affected hiring in their country.

They have resources for people in the same situation, and have been covering how the fossil fuel industry and government has been taking advantage of the pandemic.

If anyone can help and they like what read they are accepting patrons.

Aparently this administration thinks being able to arrest and lock up anyone they want for any reason is important. At least that seems like a reasonable summary of what I read from Peter Wade in Rolling Stone magazine (via Lynna at PZ’s Political Madness thread).

This was what I had to say on facebook.

You will bring all proposed constitutional suspensions to the public or you will get a revolution during a pandemic.
This administration has given no one a reason to trust it. As far as I’m concerned they would treat me as bad as they would a migrant.
The Republicans allow such social cruelty that I am rationally prejudiced against them. As a group they simply don’t give a shit about prisoners, abuse by authorities, and and other assorted social cruelties.
The Democrats let Obama become complicit in torture, abuse government whistle blowers, and allowed government espionage against american citizens through telecom companies.
If you do this without a through public hearing the remaining social confidence in government will break.

I’ve been thinking about that. I spend a lot of time thinking about why groups of people do what they do and this one has me somewhat puzzled.

While I’m not sure how it got started I have an idea about how it continued. Once the toilet paper started running low people wanted to make sure they would have some so they ran out to buy it too, which is a least not disease related irrationality. So the hoarding keeps going disease relation or no disease relation.

For the record I’m not participating in that. I’ll use the water in the bowl, my hand, and wash my hands before I join the flock in this.

Now as for how it got started, I don’t know. I’ve to find examples of the early people hoarding it to see what they thought they were gaining. Maybe the toilet paper was just in someone’s field of view when the hoarding instinct clicked on.

The situation with my position in whiteness becomes more complicated when I consider the census.

I still believe that whiteness is a political fiction designed for social dominance. An unhealthy social obsession that damages my country’s politics. “Other” seems like my only viable option. If anyone asks I give them my reasons.

But once again my actions do not exist in a vacuum. I have to plan for social responses. My general position still gets reactions and I’m still seeing people, white people* in all likelihood, choosing to obsess over blackness. One acted like the slave origin of blackness made me a hypocrite, which is pretending blackness and whiteness are equivalent and history lets me kill that. I will watch what white people do with whiteness and pay attention to how they act towards blackness.

What could a social reaction to white people associating with “other” on the census be?

*no more scare quotes because a political group naming themselves white people need none.

Posted to facebook.
“Anyone with a problem with Elizabeth Warren’s tone, or likability is suspect for misogyny until I see the details. ESPECIALLY if you’re a Trump voter. That chucklefuck doesn’t get to be the only one using aggression. I will call that cowardly shit out. Learn to engage with aggressive women. Try to change their tone from what’s legitimate and I’ll poke at that weakness until you crack.”

The behavior in the comments of a recent post by PZ reminded me of another political issue I’ve been meaning to write about. Race and “whiteness”.

I was raised to identify as white and today I hate that political construct. It is useless unless one wants to win a political conflict through numbers or fists. It has no other rational use that I can see. It doesn’t focus on any actual relevant social problems, it doesn’t help me figure out who a good person or a bad person is, it seems to have nothing but the social conflict.

The color doesn’t exist in the human population. There are no white people. There’s a range of pigmentation in there.
If the lack of literal examples in a political label isn’t good enough there’s the fact that plenty of light skinned people were said to not be white. The Irish (the same comparison with monkeys in political images at the link) are one example, and today you can see complications over if Jews are white.

Am I missing something? This looks like a huge waste of time and social effort because people need to box themselves into “whiteness” and make adversaries. Think about what it was before “whiteness”. Nation. City-state. City, down to the people on the other side of the “geographical feature”.

If the lack of actual whiteness and the behavior of people obsessed with who is and isn’t white isn’t enough there’s the fact that the term originated in a “need” to separate people (here’s a PDF) for ownership and denial of rights purposes.

The first examples of “white race/people” in the Oxford English Dictionary are no earlier than the 1600s, when Europeans were deeply involved in African slave-trading; the same seems to be true of the corresponding terms in the major European languages. At that point, the use of what was by then a powerfully stigmatizing form of polarized terminology must have seemed comfortingly appropriate.

The reference to “polarized terminology” referrs to the way society (western in my experience) uses “white” and “black” as replacements for “good” and “bad”. Unless you are a bigot “whiteness” looks like a broken social tool if you care about more than base group conflict.

When I point these things out to people I get a couple of responses. This is what I remember so far. Some people agree with the connections and brokenness of “whiteness”. One person demanded to know what I’m going to give them to replace “whiteness”, interestingly they didn’t tell me what they needed but I pointed out the tool is broken if I have a replacement or not.
Another was more explicit about their concerns, “What about blackness? Black people need to stop using blackness!”.

How very interesting.

Instead of being concerned about the label that applies to themselves and some form of group organization that solves problems facing our nations, this person was concerned about the label “they” (black people) are using on “themselves”. Group conflict related fear.
I wonder how conscious this was? It’s happened more than once and it’s a useful way to spot irrational racial group conflict related fear.

But as I wrap this up I need to point out another group conflict related fear, a rational one, the one black people have regarding white people. When Europeans assumed whiteness in order to dominate and enslave they chose blackness and forced it on black people. We took their culture away. What gets done with blackness is black people’s business. It looks like the same kind of attempt to socially control as complaints about baggy pants and rap music.

People who discover the brokenness or offensiveness of whiteness as a political organization tool can’t simply disavow it and ignore it. There are people out there speaking for you. When they say “white people” they mean you. They are implicitly trying to speak for you too. They have to make this assumption so they can’t deny your challenge.
You get to criticize them. If you want to fix society you will critisize them if you safely can. I won’t tell someone to do something risky but I do encourage it, especially with the climate change problems. This shit is fucking our societies up, it’s not based on solving problems. I’m comfortable spending the rest of my life watching for what white people say.