Jan 14th 2011, 19:35:03
on 1 - I think it's more the regulation of political discourse improving rather than the discourse itself. It is now illegal to say, for example, that "now3p sticks babies on spikes and turns their bones into furniture" in a speech or text, whereas in the past there wasn't nearly as well defined of a legal concept surrounding things like slander/libel, and other protections of personal information.
I guess you can call this an improvement, but unfortunately the core instincts that drive people to act the way they do are essentially unchanged, so any restriction/law put in place is acting as more of a band-aid than a cauterization of the wound.
on 2 - I think our difference in opinion comes down to where we think the bulk of the responsibility lies in how messages are perceived. While I think everyone needs to be responsible for the messages they send (not just politicians), I think the recipient of that message is just as much, if not more, responsible for their interpretation of that message.
I can say Sarah Palin is a hate monger who needs to be drug into the street and beaten til she looks like that freaky faced dude from "Mask"....but it's up to you whether you chose to accept/agree with/entertain that message and/or act on it - Although I'll obviously do my best to convince you I'm right, ultimately it's your ability to apply logic and ethics to an issue which determines whether it spreads or not.
If someone is actually dumb enough to believe that Obama is a secret Kenyan, I think it's their own fault. Even the politicians who spew that stuff don't believe it. If you're naive enough to think that you can walk into a hospital and be sentenced to die by a panel of bureaucrats, it's you that's dropped the ball, not the person who's using that argument to dissuade you to buy the message they're selling. If you actually believe that a $10 bluetooth cell phone amplifier is going to work well, you deserve to be separated from your money - but you can't really fault the company for being able to sell them.
In all of these situations, if people would just bother to take the whopping 5 minutes it would take to inform themselves on the issue, and stop absorbing information without question or context, %90 of these problems would disappear and the other %10 would be prosecutable.
Besides - I can muddle my way through trying to come off as intelligent....but trolling is WAAAY more fun! :-P
I guess you can call this an improvement, but unfortunately the core instincts that drive people to act the way they do are essentially unchanged, so any restriction/law put in place is acting as more of a band-aid than a cauterization of the wound.
on 2 - I think our difference in opinion comes down to where we think the bulk of the responsibility lies in how messages are perceived. While I think everyone needs to be responsible for the messages they send (not just politicians), I think the recipient of that message is just as much, if not more, responsible for their interpretation of that message.
I can say Sarah Palin is a hate monger who needs to be drug into the street and beaten til she looks like that freaky faced dude from "Mask"....but it's up to you whether you chose to accept/agree with/entertain that message and/or act on it - Although I'll obviously do my best to convince you I'm right, ultimately it's your ability to apply logic and ethics to an issue which determines whether it spreads or not.
If someone is actually dumb enough to believe that Obama is a secret Kenyan, I think it's their own fault. Even the politicians who spew that stuff don't believe it. If you're naive enough to think that you can walk into a hospital and be sentenced to die by a panel of bureaucrats, it's you that's dropped the ball, not the person who's using that argument to dissuade you to buy the message they're selling. If you actually believe that a $10 bluetooth cell phone amplifier is going to work well, you deserve to be separated from your money - but you can't really fault the company for being able to sell them.
In all of these situations, if people would just bother to take the whopping 5 minutes it would take to inform themselves on the issue, and stop absorbing information without question or context, %90 of these problems would disappear and the other %10 would be prosecutable.
Besides - I can muddle my way through trying to come off as intelligent....but trolling is WAAAY more fun! :-P
