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The comments on that article are absolute gold. There's the usual pats on the back, but there's also this:quote:
And the kind and reasonable responses from an admin: admin posted:
admin posted:Wait, so an actual Scottish person isn't allowed to tell an American person that they find their discussion of "Scottish oppression" really problematic? A member of the group you're trying to defend says that you're full of it and that they don't need defending, so you decide to blow them off so you and your buddies can keep jerking each other off about their moral superiority. That whole page is an utter goldmine of how out of touch these people are with reality. The more I read it, the more unintentionally funny it is.
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Aug 8, 2012 10:11
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| # ? May 27, 2024 00:38 |
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closeted republican posted:The comments on that article are absolute gold. There's the usual pats on the back, but there's also this: Don't forget that the entire post was inspired by the movie "Brave" which has a mostly Scottish main cast: Kelly Macdonald Billy Connolly Robbie Coltrane Kevin McKidd Craig Ferguson You'd think they would be perfectly capable of deciding whether they were being insulted or oppressed by the film in which they're starring, but no, they need some non-Scottish person unnecessarily white knighting for them. Moreover, it's a white knight who's bashing a film she admittedly hasn't even seen. How the gently caress does she know whether these Scottish stereotypes (many of which I'd never heard of before, like that they're "penny pinching") are even present in the movie itself? Also, if you read the Time article she cites, there's barely any mention of "Brave" at all, other than the one quote she uses, the rest of the article is about other Pixar films. The most damning criticism the author provides is that the setting is a fake Scotland that never really existed, just as the France of Ratatouille never existed, and "Look at Brave with its heroine rising above the cliché of the demure, passive princess even as those in her immediate vicinity seem to have come from Celtic Cliché Central Casting." If it's so fake, why does it matter so much that Pixar didn't depict the characters as 100% historically accurate? I've only seen the trailers and all the cliches are medieval cliches (e.g. the unattractive, oafish suitors trying to win the princess' hand in a match of skill), not Scottish-based. poo poo, they could easily recast the film with Irish voice actors and not change much else and you'd still have these people bitching about Irish cliches and stereotypes. Or swap in English accents, remove the kilts and bagpipes, and you'd have a perfectly serviceable film about medieval England and all the associated bitching from white knights.
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Aug 8, 2012 11:07
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To be fair, if Mike Myers stopped doing a Scottish accent the world would probably be a better place.
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Aug 8, 2012 11:49
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Bruce Leroy posted:I'm trying to figure out which she finds more offensive, the depiction of Scotty as a character or that James Doohan was Canadian, not Scottish. I know at least one Scots Canadian and he would be very offended at the mutual exclusivity you hinted at if he actually gave a sod. To be honest, I end up having the same problem, in the feminism context. As in, I will take things more seriously than many feminist women I know, to the point where they tell me to chill. I think I'm getting better, and it helps to constantly get feedback from feminist women rather than just presume for them what they should get offended at (AKA "the real sexism").
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Aug 8, 2012 12:07
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X-post from the rover thread, but here's probably a  response to the image I posted earlier that's going around:
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Aug 8, 2012 14:15
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I'm Canadian and where's my social justice brigade?
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Aug 8, 2012 14:29
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Plus, a lot of that buget goes to creating or at least keeping jobs at NASA, so I guess according to the OP those aren't American jobs?
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Aug 8, 2012 14:45
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Bruce Leroy posted:You'd think they would be perfectly capable of deciding whether they were being insulted or oppressed by the film in which they're starring, but no, they need some non-Scottish person unnecessarily white knighting for them. Moreover, it's a white knight who's bashing a film she admittedly hasn't even seen. How the gently caress does she know whether these Scottish stereotypes (many of which I'd never heard of before, like that they're "penny pinching") are even present in the movie itself? Oh, we're cheap as hell, it's true. If you see a Scotsman in London (myself included) they'll be baffled by how expensive everything is. I mean, the worst thing you could say about Brave's setting is that it's closer to the romanticised Rob Roy type view of the historical highlands, popularised by writers in the Victorian era, than it is to the way things actually were. But you could say similar stuff about Mulan or Pocahontas; it's a Disney movie, they're hardly going to show the Highland Clearances or whatever. As a Scot it's really baffling to see all these (presumably) Americans making bones about all the "silly voices" in the movie, when most of the cast are using their normal speaking voices.
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Aug 8, 2012 14:48
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HipGnosis posted:Plus, a lot of that buget goes to creating or at least keeping jobs at NASA, so I guess according to the OP those aren't American jobs? Government jobs never count as "jobs."
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Aug 8, 2012 14:59
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^ The worst thing about those Anti-NASA/Science people is that when China or some other country does something big in science they then complain about the lack of funding. Jesus. Have cake or eat cake. Choose one and shut the gently caress up forever. It's the same thing with taxes and gov. services. closeted republican posted:Stuff about stupid social justice warriors. 
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Aug 8, 2012 15:11
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katlington posted:I don't know why you all are laughing at that poor person. The Simpsons making fun of a stereotype? No way!
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Aug 8, 2012 15:21
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Radish posted:Government jobs never count as "jobs." This worldview always makes my 40-hours a week at Citizenship and Immigration Services feel like a vacation, truly.
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Aug 8, 2012 16:03
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Dr Snofeld posted:Oh, we're cheap as hell, it's true. If you see a Scotsman in London (myself included) they'll be baffled by how expensive everything is. To be fair, it's hard to tell when you guys are doing silly voices or trying to be serious  But yea, that blog is full of crazy, the idea of someone being angry that a Disney film uses a slightly simplified version of history as a setting is absurd on its own, but going on about some kinda crazy Scott oppression because you're too dumb to know the entire cast is Scottish is just cartoonish. Also the literal use of "uh I have a Scottish friend so I kinda know what I'm talking about here" as a defense from actual people from there going 'nah, it's cool, really'.
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Aug 8, 2012 16:13
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Glitterbomber posted:To be fair, it's hard to tell when you guys are doing silly voices or trying to be serious It's not much easier for us. Ever hear a Dundonian accent?
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Aug 8, 2012 16:18
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Dr Snofeld posted:It's not much easier for us. Ever hear a Dundonian accent? Never been to Dundonia. What's it sound like?
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Aug 8, 2012 16:46
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darthbob88 posted:Never been to Dundonia. What's it sound like? Dundee, and it sounds a bit like a series of long, drawn-out modulated vowel sounds with the occasional "gently caress" recognisable. I've lived here all my life and sometimes it's heads or tails whether I can understand someone on the street, especially if they've been drinking.
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Aug 8, 2012 16:55
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Dr Snofeld posted:Dundee, and it sounds a bit like a series of long, drawn-out modulated vowel sounds with the occasional "gently caress" recognisable. I've lived here all my life and sometimes it's heads or tails whether I can understand someone on the street, especially if they've been drinking. I figured it'd be Dundee, but the joke was too easy to miss. Found a video showcasing the sound of Dundee. Some of them are recognizable as actual words, English or otherwise, but the first one especially you need subtitles to understand.
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Aug 8, 2012 17:11
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darthbob88 posted:I figured it'd be Dundee, but the joke was too easy to miss.  I'm from the North West and I'm never stumped by accents, but the older people in that video especially had me going *huh* for at least half the sentences. A decent amount of that though is due to Scottish words that I just wouldn't know, such as the "umbrella" sentence towards the end.
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Aug 8, 2012 17:40
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Dr Snofeld posted:As a Scot it's really baffling to see all these (presumably) Americans making bones about all the "silly voices" in the movie, when most of the cast are using their normal speaking voices.  Hell, I almost want to go see it again to listen to it (also because it's a good movie). Edit: I also don't see why this is a complaint, : quote:Dwarves in fantasy franchises are routinely made Scottish, and Scotland (along with other Celtic cultures) is frequently the backdrop for "magical historical fiction"—it is a place inhabited by dragons where wizards roam the Highlands. Or, a place where helpful Scottish sidekicks help train dragons, anyway.
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Aug 8, 2012 18:00
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FlamingMoose posted:This is my go-to data point at times like these: Do you have a source for the Army's ammo costs?
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Aug 8, 2012 18:38
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mlnhd posted:Do you have a source for the Army's ammo costs? http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionGPO.action?collectionCode=BUDGET From what I can tell, this is the actual cost of the things that come out of guns, and doesn't include procurement costs, like factories. Also, I discovered that the Army went about a billion dollars over budget on ammo most years. Here, I made another one. It's a bit awkward, but I can't be arsed to play with Numbers' chart tool anymore. 
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Aug 8, 2012 20:35
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What's even better is her complaining about the lack of "Scottish people of color". Right, because medieval Scotland was a multiethnic potpourri. My god, she actually makes me angry. If we're being oppressed, we're drat well capable of dealing with it ourselves, ye mingin daftie feckin quine.
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Aug 8, 2012 20:36
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There may have been a few North African missionaries in Scotland during the middle ages, but likely not as early as when Brave takes place.
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Aug 9, 2012 00:38
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Was talking to someone today and I mentioned that I don't believe gun ownership should be a right, just like driving is not a right. There's great responsibility that comes with owning a weapon and, therefore, I felt it should be a privilege, again, like driving. She countered that the right to bear arms is extremely important because without it, we become in grave danger of the government becoming an evil dictatorship and thus we need guns to hold an armed uprising. I pointed out to her that violent coups are not really an acceptable form of regime change in a democracy (the US!) and she countered, "If it's okay for ancient Rome, it's good enough for today!" Because the US is so similar to ancient Rome...
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Aug 9, 2012 05:10
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totalnewbie posted:Was talking to someone today and I mentioned that I don't believe gun ownership should be a right, just like driving is not a right. There's great responsibility that comes with owning a weapon and, therefore, I felt it should be a privilege, again, like driving. Well, voting Republican is honestly trying to push any sort of progression back that direction so
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Aug 9, 2012 05:21
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Loving Life Partner posted:X-post from the rover thread, but here's probably a The first reply is the broken window fallacy. Building a house and then burning it down stimulates the economy just as much as building a house and then giving it to a homeless person, this doesn't mean that they are equally good options. (It is better to burn the house down than to take away a man's pride with government handouts, of course.)
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Aug 9, 2012 05:53
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Option three: Pay the homeless to torch the houses of the bourgeoisie and use the land to build the homeless homes at a sensible density instead of wasting tons of acres on personal golf courses and the like.
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Aug 9, 2012 06:22
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Nenonen posted:The first reply is the broken window fallacy. Building a house and then burning it down stimulates the economy just as much as building a house and then giving it to a homeless person, this doesn't mean that they are equally good options. It's a not broken window fallacy, it's a refutation of the claim that the money was "wasted." It's not saying that any expenditures are good, wasteful or not, because that money is still generating economic activity, which is elucidated by the following two comments by that same person. If they were committing a broken window fallacy, they wouldn't be subsequently expressing disapproval for military expenditures and the tax-exempt statuses received by religious institutions. They would argue that those things are also good because military expenditures put money in the hands of defense manufacturers, with which they pay their employees and which their employees use on their own personal consumption, and because religious institutions use the saved tax money to buy goods and services (e.g. building renovations, communion wafers, prayer rugs, sacramental wine, malas and rosaries, etc.) as well as fund charitable endeavors. What's actually happening is that the original image is fallaciously arguing that the money spent by NASA on the Mars rover isn't circulating and providing some benefit to humans on Earth. This is plainly false for two main reasons, (1) there are numerous scientific benefits garnered from these kinds of missions, like new propulsion systems, new alloys and materials, new safety systems (used to keep the rover safe on landing), etc., and (2) the money spent obviously goes to various individuals and businesses that then circulate it around, generating new economic activity. There are further arguments to be made about opportunity costs, setting economic and government priorities, the most efficient uses of limited resources, etc., but none of those are actually being argued by the original image, which is actually a blanket claim that it's just a wasteful boondoggle with no benefits. A Fancy 400 lbs posted:Option three: Pay the homeless to torch the houses of the bourgeoisie and use the land to build the homeless homes at a sensible density instead of wasting tons of acres on personal golf courses and the like. I remember watching a History Channel program about ten years ago, and they mentioned that tennis used to be the sport of the wealthy in the early 20th century up until shortly after WWII simply because of the expense and effort required to build a tennis court. So, mansions built in that era all tended to have tennis courts mostly because they were signs of wealth and status and less about passion for tennis.
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Aug 9, 2012 12:06
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FlamingMoose posted:Here, I made another one. It's a bit awkward, but I can't be arsed to play with Numbers' chart tool anymore. If you insist on using numerals in the chart itself, include a $ before each one. Someone should never have to spend a significant amount of time trying to figure out what your numbers mean, it should be abundantly clear. Or, just leave out the by-year breakdown. The chart is on the same scale for both the Mars Lab and for ammo, so the whole thing just gets more complicated and confusing when you add in separate years in the ammo bar. The point of the chart - that the Army spends 668.4% more on ammunition over the period from 2004 to 2011 than NASA did on the entire Mars Lab program during the same period would be better served by that number - $16710 million (or better, $16.71 billion) - alone in the left side bar, and $2,500 million (or $2.5 billion) in the right side. An effective chart is a simple cart, just like an effective political forward is a simple one. Cut out extraneous information, include only what makes your point effectively and quickly. Like this...  EDIT: Even things like the choice of colors for the bars is important when you get right down to it, particularly when you're using something dry like a chart to make an emotional or otherwise "impassioned" argument. Here, I used red for Mars, black for ammo / death. Subtle, maybe, but it makes an impact. Walter fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Aug 9, 2012 |
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Aug 9, 2012 14:16
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totalnewbie posted:Was talking to someone today and I mentioned that I don't believe gun ownership should be a right, just like driving is not a right. There's great responsibility that comes with owning a weapon and, therefore, I felt it should be a privilege, again, like driving. Never mind the fact that the U.S. military would run absolutely roughshod over its gaggles of obese, SKS-equipped citizenry. Cause, you know, tanks and fighter jets and attack helicopters and poo poo. The argument she's trying to make was maybe applicable to the 1700s, when armed meant one thing: musket.
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Aug 9, 2012 14:40
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tek79 posted:Never mind the fact that the U.S. military would run absolutely roughshod over its gaggles of obese, SKS-equipped citizenry. Cause, you know, tanks and fighter jets and attack helicopters and poo poo. The argument she's trying to make was maybe applicable to the 1700s, when armed meant one thing: musket. On the other hand, maybe the right to bear arms should extend to all military weaponry? I know I'd feel safer with a tank in my garage.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:15
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tek79 posted:Never mind the fact that the U.S. military would run absolutely roughshod over its gaggles of obese, SKS-equipped citizenry. Cause, you know, tanks and fighter jets and attack helicopters and poo poo. The argument she's trying to make was maybe applicable to the 1700s, when armed meant one thing: musket. I made an argument like this about a week before the Aurora shooting. When the Constitution was written, the most powerful weapon available was cumbersome and time-consuming to reload. I wasn't arguing against gun ownership, but that one shouldn't argue that the founders' intended for me to be able to legally own a weapon that could kill a whole room of people in the time it would take to reload a musket. I got countered with "We should be able to own and shoot whatever the police and military can use on us." I countered, "Then what's the limit? Should I be able to legally own nuclear weapons because the government might nuke my neighborhood?" I didn't get much response after that. Sulphuric Sundae fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Aug 9, 2012 |
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Aug 9, 2012 15:18
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Raldan posted:On the other hand, maybe the right to bear arms should extend to all military weaponry? I know I'd feel safer with a tank in my garage. Good luck using that tank without a trained crew and a bunch of professional mechanics to keep it running.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:25
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Cerebral Bore posted:Good luck using that tank without a trained crew and a bunch of professional mechanics to keep it running. Well, since those are part of the weapon system, clearly you should have the right to own them too.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:29
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tek79 posted:Never mind the fact that the U.S. military would run absolutely roughshod over its gaggles of obese, SKS-equipped citizenry. Cause, you know, tanks and fighter jets and attack helicopters and poo poo. The argument she's trying to make was maybe applicable to the 1700s, when armed meant one thing: musket. I dunno, I think it's possible a large, organized, armed to the teeth militia (like what crazy people advocate for) could make life a little hard on the military. It's just such a blatant fantasy that it would ever happen. Like the fantasy of shooting the gunman in a dark, smokey theatre, blowing the barrel of your sweet revolver while everyone cheers, the idea that one day you are going to engage the US military in a firefight is so far removed from reality it can be safely ignored. Orange Devil posted:Well, since those are part of the weapon system, clearly you should have the right to own them too. Tank owners: the ultimate job creators.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:42
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I know it doesn't get much traction here, particularly after the recent shootings in CO and WI, but as someone pretty loving leftist in politics, I've still maintained a pretty pro-gun opinion. Now granted, I'm from the Midwest and was raised in a military family and so guns were just kind of part of growing up, but even a cursory look at the history of labor and civil rights in this country indicates to me that an armed working class is in a better position to demand fair conditions. (Pro-gun does not mean I'm not all for background checks, waiting periods and requiring extensive licensing fees for automatic or miltary surplus weapons) I also find the argument that the US would nuke a domestic uprising silly. Salt the earth policies aren't generally worthwhile in civil wars.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:43
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Boxman posted:I dunno, I think it's possible a large, organized, armed to the teeth militia (like what crazy people advocate for) could make life a little hard on the military. It's just such a blatant fantasy that it would ever happen. Like the fantasy of shooting the gunman in a dark, smokey theatre, blowing the barrel of your sweet revolver while everyone cheers, the idea that one day you are going to engage the US military in a firefight is so far removed from reality it can be safely ignored. Guerilla strategy rests on the fact that foreign invaders will eventually tire of pouring blood and money into a quagmire and go away. This isn't applicable in a civil war because there's nowhere to go away to. Boxman posted:Tank owners: the ultimate job creators. Look man, I just don't want Big Gubmint to take away my tank crew and repair shop crew of chinese indentured servants.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:50
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Boxman posted:I dunno, I think it's possible a large, organized, armed to the teeth militia (like what crazy people advocate for) could make life a little hard on the military. It's just such a blatant fantasy that it would ever happen. Like the fantasy of shooting the gunman in a dark, smokey theatre, blowing the barrel of your sweet revolver while everyone cheers, the idea that one day you are going to engage the US military in a firefight is so far removed from reality it can be safely ignored. The thing to remember about Vietnam and Iraq is the insurgencies had outside funding and help. Especially Vietnam. The North didn't win till the US left and the NVA were able to defeat the ARVN in open combat.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:51
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Pendevil posted:I know it doesn't get much traction here, particularly after the recent shootings in CO and WI, but as someone pretty loving leftist in politics, I've still maintained a pretty pro-gun opinion. Now granted, I'm from the Midwest and was raised in a military family and so guns were just kind of part of growing up, but even a cursory look at the history of labor and civil rights in this country indicates to me that an armed working class is in a better position to demand fair conditions. They already tried using bombers to suppress union coal miner strikes in the 20s (thank God for the weather, less they would have succeeded). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain I have no reasonable faith that when faced with an armed rebellion the US wouldn't make full use of it's military to suppress it. On the other hand, if faced with an unarmed rebellion I have equal confidence that, despite being easier to break up smaller groups at the onset, the government would balk at the concept of gunning down people participating in widespread civil disobedience or other widespread unarmed rebellion.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:52
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We had a rebellion in the US and we def used the military to defeat it.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:54
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