English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:13 AM

@Cerberus Oh they are right that I need to spend more time with actual humans instead of seeking cybernetic surrogates. I’ve also developed a physical-context aversion reflex, which pretty much has to be from the PTSD thing. The contact is a trigger.

Sweet though you may be. But you never laugh.

And I guess I need to hear people laughing.

What are the three proverbial things that were said to be music to the Moor’s ear?

Can you guess?

@JosephWeissman Wake up!

Joseph Weissman

But it's such a good dream!

tchrist

You said ontology. Ewww!

user116848

I like cybernetic friends too. Because then I don't have to dress up or anything. (But real human contact is a must I agree)

tchrist

What per the proverb are those three sweet sounds most treasured to the Moorish ear? Surely you can guess one or two of them.

(Sorry, the proverb I learned in Spanish; I do not mean to be racist in any way by saying moro. This is an historical thing.)

The three things that most delight the ear of the Moor are the sounds of gold tinkling, of water falling, and of a young woman laughing — and in that (ascending) order.

Or so runs the proverb.

You can see why to a poor desert people, these would true delights.

George Martin calqued his Kingdom of Dorne on al-Andaluz, albeit post Caliphate. There there are the royal “water gardens” where the young children of lord and commoner alike laugh and play, all mixing together.

Sheltered there from the desert, with its lush plants and falling water and carefree laughing of the little children, it is a solace to the agèd and a lesson to all.

I do not know whether Mr Martin was aware of the Andalusian proverb when he devised that, but if so, it would not surprise me, for it runs so close.

Notice too how in the proverb, water is more precious than gold and a maiden’s laughter more precious than water.

More romantic than practical of course, but the heart is in the right place.

More Alhambran memories bubbling up from the vaults of my memory palace.

user116848

12:45 AM

So you have read the Muslims history I guess. But why the Moor's ear? Why not some other race?

user116848

I mean are there examples of 'young women laughing, sound of water running etc.' for other races too? I bet there should be.

tchrist

@Arrowfar That is a somewhat complex question.

user116848

@tchrist But you are right when you said: 'More romantic than practical of course'

tchrist

The Moor’s ear because a desert people with few resources of their own would be the ones to treasure such things.

I know rather more Moorish history than “Muslim” history.

user116848

I see :-)

user116848

12:52 AM

Yes. But 'Moors' were Muslims.

tchrist

That is, I know of the great wave that swept across northern Africa, jumped through the Pillars of Hercules, and rushed northwards until legendarily turned back by Charlemagne at Roncevalles, and where they endured seven centuries until ultimately expelled by Fernando and Isabella in fourteen hundren and ninety-two.

It is interesting that you most associate a people with a religion.

It’s like if one were familiar with the Roman Republic and subsequent Empire and someone figured you must therefore be an expert in Roman mythology.

Yes, of course there is some tangential or peripheral knowledge, but that is not where the beauty lies.

user116848

I agree

tchrist

The beauty of their works and of their minds is what so appeals to me. Their particular um theosophistic associations are not what first comes to mind for me.

user116848

Oh, that. I said that because I heard of them in some religious context.

user116848

:-)

tchrist

12:58 AM

It is complicated.

user116848

Yes it is

tchrist

You may know, or may not, that Iberia contributed little to the storied (and tragic and brutal and senseless) “crusades” of medieval times. But that is because they had their own Reconquista to occupy themselves with.

user116848

No, I don't remember reading that.

user116848

I see.

tchrist

At its most beautiful, we have the intermingling of cultures in the court of Alphonse the Tenth, known as “the Wise” or “the Translator”. It was by his efforts that much that was lost to us of ancient culture, including especially Greek culture, was recovered. For though the Library of Alexandria burned, Baghdad had their own copies of the great works of the ancients, and had sent them to Córdoba when it was the Caliphate.

They did simultaneous translation in a unique way.

The works of course had been translated into Arabic.

So three scholars would gather, the one a Moorish one, the next a Hebrew one, and the last a “Roman” one. The Moor would read the Arabic, the Hebrew would translate that into the vernacular, and the Roman(-Catholic) scribe would write down the Latin.

Much that would have otherwise been lost to the West was thereby recovered.

The memory of Alexander was still strong in the Mesopotamian lands, so they made copies of the Greek masters in their own tongues.

user116848

1:07 AM

All these scholars working together sounds nice.

tchrist

At its ugliest, the Catholic Monarchs in 1492 finally deported the Moors and Jews who had so enriched Iberia over the centuries. And frankly, it was all downhill after that.

The most ornate and beautiful, the most sophisticated and subtle, of all Moorish works in Iberia are from where they longest lasted: Granada.

user116848

Yes. Like they say that 'nations rise and fall'.

tchrist

There people were not really “Arabs”, not ever. The were Moors from north Africa.

Berbers and such.

Neither were they sub-Saharan Africans.

user116848

Ah, I see. But wikipedia says otherwise

tchrist

The dark — even black — Moors of Shakespeare were never meant to be “black” in the sense that we use the word today. They were more darkly complected than the Scots or the Vikings, but then again, who isn’t?

user116848

1:12 AM

Moors

The Moors were the medieval Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta. The Moors invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and called the territory Al-Andalus, an area which at different times comprised Gibraltar, most of Spain and Portugal, and parts of Southern France. There was also a Moorish presence in what is now Southern Italy, primarily in Sicily. They occupied Mazara on Sicily in 827 and in 1224 were expelled to the settlement of Lucera, which was destroyed in 1300. The religious difference of the Moorish Muslims led to a centuries-long conflict with the Christian...

tchrist

There was a mix.

Obviously there was Arabic blood intermixed.

But it is as though the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula displaced the original inhabitants of North Africa.

And I can’t begin to justify the way the Portuguese would call anyone a Moor if he had dark skin. That practice continues to this day. I’ve a friend from Lisbon who olive-colored skin as the saying going, with hair nearly black, who was always nicknamed the Moro.

user116848

hah :-)

tchrist

I have met extremely dark-colored people from Sri Lankha. They do not have “negroid” features at all. They have thin lips and high cheekbones and all the typical “caucasoid” attributes, save they were as dark as any Ethiopian.

Neither were they “mongoloid” looking. It is not for nothing that the language group is called Indo-European. Of course, the subcontinent has many, many, many peoples there.

*not as though the Arabs displaced the Berbers et al.

I meant to write.

Essentially, if you came to Iberia by way of Morocco, you were a Moor.

But there were also “Moors” in Sicily and other places.

> In the modern Iberian Peninsula, "Moor" is sometimes colloquially applied to any person from North Africa, but some people consider this usage of the term pejorative,[2] whether in the Spanish version "moro", or in the Portuguese version "mouro".

user116848

You are right. Here in Subcontinent there are mainly 'yellow' or 'olive colored people', some are very 'fair looking' too.

tchrist

But you have seen the very very dark-skinned ones, have you not?

I forget what people they specifically are.

Ebony of skin-tone.

user116848

1:22 AM

Yes. Africans are.

tchrist

No, not Africans.

I will look it up.

The Tamils have negroid features. Those are not whom I mean.

user116848

There are many dark skinned people around the globe. Some in Southern American islands too I guess. Like in Caribbean etc.

user116848

But mainly in African region

tchrist

Well, I don’t know. I have met programmers from somewhere on the subcontinent who were darker than any African-American, yet had only thin nose and lips like an Aryan people.

user116848

Yes, here we have a variety of skin color.

tchrist

1:33 AM

I had a friend in college named Mitali who married another fellow we worked with (Alvy, and as blond a Swede as they come). My mom congratulated her on hearing that they had two beautiful children. My friend said how it had been hard because her parents had not approved of the “mixed” marriage. Mom said nothing, just nodded understandingly. When we were alone, she asked: “I don’t understand the problem with her parents. Did Mitali marry a black man?” to which I replied “No, a white one.”

It was very, very, very funny.

To my mom, it wasn’t a “mixed marriage” since she married a white guy. Then again, Mitali had very Aryan features. But she was not by any means light-skinned.

However, to her traditionalist parents, it very much was so.

Brazil has a very wide variety of skin tones as well.

This is especially apparent on the beaches of Copacabana. :)

Since there there is so much more skin to see.

user116848

Yea I have heard the same kind of stories as well, about very different color people marrying and their parents not giving them blessing :-)

user116848

It is very funny and sad at the same time

tchrist

I think the real problem is that he was not Hindu.

user116848

Oh, that.

tchrist

And I do not consider that a “problem” — but they did.

user116848

1:41 AM

Sure

tchrist

But it was really funny that Mom considered the “opposite” of a pretty young girl from India must be a black man not a white man.

user116848

ha :)

tchrist

In the Americas, especially in places whose first European settlers were of Spanish or Portuguese descent, the mixing with indigenous originally-Asian stock has produced a look that is far removed from the Viking or the Scot.

I am not very good about racial sensitivity. At least, not very good about the bad aspects of it.

user116848

'Kristin Kreuk' also look like a Chinese plus American.

RegDwigнt

I got a 729. @Cerberus

user116848

1:45 AM

user116848

I can't figure out whether she is a Chinese or American :)

tchrist

Are those mutually exclusive?

user116848

There are many others.

user116848

@tchrist No. Not that

user116848

I mean not very common features

user116848

1:47 AM

But good looking though

tchrist

Insofar as one can pretend that human eye-color is one of blue, green, or brown, are green eyes considered attractive in your culture?

user116848

Yes, very. In yours?

tchrist

Yes, especially so.

But I wonder if that is because of its rarity.

user116848

But here there aren't any green eye colored people. Blue eye colored is considered very attractive too. I think it's the same in all the world.

tchrist

You have none? Do you have no blue-eyed people either?

user116848

1:54 AM

Different eye colors are usually attractive esp. 'Blue, Green, Brown, Grey etc'

user116848

@tchrist No I am black eyed :) Here there aren't any blue eye colored people. :)

user116848

Oh, I wrote 'Black eyed' :-) (What should I have said?) (It looks like saying about getting a punch 'Black eye' :-) )

tchrist

Black-eyed? Hm, that means brown-eyed, I think.

What color is that eye?

user116848

Green?

tchrist

There isn’t a “right” answer. I was just seeking opinion.

user116848

1:59 AM

It looks green. Is it you?

tchrist

Yes to the second.

Or rather, it is a picture of my eye, not a picture of me taking a picture of another person’s eye.

Which is also there. :)

user116848

So it's a selfie. I thought so too. I had my pic here some time ago in the past. You may have noticed it then.

tchrist

Well, somebody else took the picture. The other person in that picture is not me.

I think that means it cannot be called a “selfie”.

user116848

I see hah :-)

tchrist

Somebody else took a picture of me. That is a crop of it.

My driver’s licence says “hazel”, which is a way of saying “whatever-color”. :)

I think it actually means your eye is of more than one color.

Cerberus

2:03 AM

@JosephWeissman Sorry, I was Away...

tchrist

But I can’t tell people I have blue+yellow eyes.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt !!!

tchrist

I prefer telling them azure+amber, but that just gets me funny looks.

Anyway, people will think that blue+yellow = green.

As, I see, did you. So I guess that wouldn’t be too off.

user116848

That makes sense----> blue+yellow = green.

Cerberus

@tchrist So how does that work? Touching people repels you?

tchrist

2:05 AM

@Cerberus No. I jerk away from others’ touch.

Cerberus

Okay.

Even your mother's?

tchrist

No, not family’s.

People I am not related to.

Cerberus

Good friends'?

tchrist

I don’t have much human touch in my life, honest.

I think it is that I freak when people touch me without well, negotiating that.

Let’s just say this is a not-uncommon reaction to certain events.

Cerberus

I believe it.

How about your boy?

Do you shake hands?

Or is he not living there any more?

tchrist

2:09 AM

No, the renter doesn’t touch me. I mean, he does like when I go away on a trip, but I cringe. It is not his fault.

Cerberus

He does like?

Who is that?

tchrist

@Cerberus Ah, that is the question.

@Cerberus He sometimes gives me a hug goodbye. It was tough at first.

Of what race would you say our pictured young man is?

Could he be from the Subcontinent, do you think?

Cerberus

Fairly Caucasian.

Yes, he could be.

Although that is not generally considered a "race".

tchrist

I thought so, too.

Cerberus

@tchrist So it's getting better?

tchrist

2:12 AM

He’s from Georgia.

Early life of Joseph Stalin

Early life of Joseph Stalin (Russian: Дореволюционная биография Сталина), Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century, was born on 18 December 1878 to a Georgian cobbler in Gori, Georgia. After leaving school, he embraced Marxism and became an avid follower of Vladimir Lenin. After being marked by Russian secret police for his activities, he became a full-time revolutionary and outlaw. He became one of the Bolsheviks' chief operatives in the Caucasus, organizing paramilitaries, spreading propaganda, raising money through bank robberies, and kidnappings and extortion. He was...

Cerberus

Ah, I thought that face looked familiar.

tchrist

I think it is especially interesting how such a pretty face could have the most awful of murderers lurking behind it.

Cerberus

@tchrist It is often thus.

This ^ is more like it.

tchrist

Not so pretty anymore. Perhaps this was after he had converted to the Marxist faith.

Cerberus

Probably.

It is too bad Marxism was so extreme.

But moderate offshoots soon developed in the West anyway.

tchrist

2:15 AM

Not really.

Cerberus

Uh yes they did.

tchrist

That’s your opinion.

Cerberus

Hardly.

Bolshevism was extreme.

What is called communism is fairly extreme in most European countries, though not in e.g. Italy.

Western socialism soon became and remained fairly moderate in most places.

tchrist

None of these words hold any real meaning any longer. It is like saying your are democratic, or that you are in favor of freedom. All meaning is drained out of words that once meant something, but now are used purely for propaganda, which is the Latin for “lie”.

Cerberus

Around WWII, socialist parties had become moderate enough to form governments with other parties.

tchrist

2:19 AM

It’s marketing.

Cerberus

They are centre-left now.

They want more distribution of wealth than liberals or conservatives, most of the time, even if the difference is not huge any more.

tchrist

“Want” “distribution of wealth” is not one but several peculiar concepts.

Or maybe it is the juxtaposition that seems odd.

Cerberus

How do you mean?

I'm sure you know what I mean.

tchrist

Because placed together, it sounds rather like rioters looting.

Cerberus

Heh.

It could be a nice euphemism.

tchrist

2:22 AM

Robin Hood only pretended to be a socialist.

He actually kept it all for himself, just like they all do.

Cerberus

Our politicians are not usually rich.

Some are. Many are not.

So the former socialist party is now called the labour party, and the former communists are now called the socialist party.

The latter are still far from the centre now.

But they have become fairly salonfähig in recent years.

tchrist

Most of our congresscum are millionaires. I don’t know whether you consider that rich, but I certainly do.

Of course.

Reference.

I am aware.

2:27 AM

> The median net worth for all House members was $896,000. Similarly, the median net worth for all senators increased to $2.7 million.

Cerberus

Yeah that's not good.

I think wealth is related to how much power a certain politician has.

tchrist

It’s a funny thing: a Senator serves thrice as long as a House member, and his median net worth is also about thrice as great. Coincidence?

Cerberus

Perhaps no politician should have so much power as a senator.

One of the reasons why I am not hugely in favour of concentrating more power in Brussels is that I think no individual politician should that much power.

It is better if power is distributed among more politicians.

tchrist

Now, now. If the politicians have no power, how would they ever govern? :)

Cerberus

In multitudes.

Too much power vested in a single individual attracts corruption. And it results in only rich people, who are already powerful, having a chance as a candidate for the office.

tchrist

2:30 AM

And what is this tale about how Monsieur le Président Français is “more” powerful than most other Western monarchs? How does that work?

Cerberus

Well, he can disband the government and stuff.

And parliament cannot send him home, I believe.

tchrist

You mean he can fire his cabinet?

Cerberus

I believe so.

tchrist

Well, that is only sensible.

I was afraid you meant he could fire the legislators, which would be a problem.

Cerberus

Whereas a prime minister normally cannot, he is only a primus inter pares. Possibly with the exception of Britain—I am not sure. I know they have reshuffles and that the PM organises them.

@tchrist No, that would be far too ademocratic, of course.

tchrist

2:32 AM

If you cannot fire someone who works for you, then that is a silly system.

Cerberus

They do not work with you. They work with you.

You and your fellow ministers work for parliament.

Parliament can fire you all.

tchrist

Everybody else in France has to get a six-year advance warning on being sacked. Why should a cabinet secretary expect less than that?

Cerberus

A cabinet secretary is something else entirely.

This is about ministers and secretaries of state.

tchrist

So you are saying that if the French president wants to fire his defence secretary, he (1) can, or (2) has to give him a six-year warning?

Cerberus

He can, I believe.

tchrist

2:35 AM

Certainly a president has to be able to fire his cabinet at will. They serve at his pleasure, as the saying goes. This multiyear-warning thing needed to sack people just makes it impossible to get anything done, or undone.

Now, the idea of firing them all, I just don’t know.

That seems extreme.

But he’s the boss.

Cerberus

Well, some presidents have that much power; others do not, or at least not in practice.

But I have no idea what this "multi-year warning" is that you mention.

tchrist

I would think that he would lose the confidence of the people if he went around with a battle-axe like that.

Cerberus

He doesn't need confidence during his term.

tchrist

Oh, the multi-year warning is what the English and Americans hate about Europe.

Cerberus

Because he can't be dismissed.

tchrist

2:37 AM

We think it is nutty.

Cerberus

Officially, our PM cannot fire ministers, only parliament can. However, she was chosen by the coalition in parliament to lead the nation, so in practice she has a lot of influence. If she tells a minister to go, he will.

tchrist

Presidents are elected, not dismissed.

Although they did dismiss that one Californian one.

That was silly.

Cerberus

But this normally only happens when parliament wants the minister to go: in practice, parliament will rarely let it come to a vote of no-confidence, because then the coalition has to vote against its own cabinet.

tchrist

Letter from Paris: 4 simple rules for firing an employee in France

Cerberus

@tchrist And that is the difference. Presidents are elected by the people, so they cannot be dismissed. Prime ministers are appointed by parliament, so they can be dismissed.

@tchrist I don't know what this is about.

tchrist

2:39 AM

Technically, the pre-Gubernator bloke was “recalled”. Still think it was all a bad joke.

@Cerberus Don’t you have to warn Europeans before you fire them? That it is not at-will employment but some socialist ball-and-chain?

If people are allowed to quit at will, then they can be fired at will. It has to go both ways.

Cerberus

You can warn all you like, but it won't help.

You can't fire people unless you have a good reason.

tchrist

And if you cannot fire them at will, then they cannot be allowed to quit at will.

Cerberus

At least here. It depends on the country, of course.

tchrist

@Cerberus See, that’s the entire problem.

It’s a form of reverse-slavery. Very interesting.

Cerberus

Large companies are more powerful than individual workers. The laws are there to protect the weak. Of course there are advantages and disadvantages.

One problem is that companies are less inclined to hire someone, because they can't get rid of him easily.

So currently many companies hire people based on a zero-hour contract, or they fire them within six months or so (the rules don't apply until you have worked for the company for some time, only then does your employment count as "fixed").

tchrist

2:44 AM

They should hire more women.

Cerberus

My friend used to get fired every summer by the university of Amsterdam.

tchrist

That is all a bunch of red-tape, isn’t it, though?

Cerberus

So that they could get around offering her a fixed contract.

It's complicated.

tchrist

I mean, gosh.

Cerberus

These are loopholes.

tchrist

2:45 AM

Your choice: fire people or go bankrupt.

Plus if somebody is not working out, get rid of them.

Cerberus

The question is: do we close the loopholes or relax the rules?

@tchrist Of course you can get rid of people if they perform poorly.

tchrist

Anything that forces you to keep paying somebody is crazy.

What if you want to hire somebody who is better at it?

Cerberus

If you cannot afford them any more, you can also fire them.

tchrist

You fire the first person and hire the second one.

Cerberus

That is not possible.

tchrist

2:46 AM

Really?

Why not?

That is illiberal.

If a better person comes along, you swap them out.

Cerberus

You know how much it sucks to get fired, right? Now imagine you are a manual worker with hardly any education and a family to provide for.

Of course it is illiberal.

tchrist

It seems to go against this or that law of economics, none of which I know, but which I get the general idea that if things naturally move towards their most productive and cheapest, it all works better.

It is not a free market otherwise.

Cerberus

The total will work better, but many individual cogs will be worse off.

The freest market is one without a government at all.

The rule of the strong.

tchrist

Hm.

Cerberus

You have to find a middle ground somewhere.

Where that is, nobody knows.

People try different things.

Most at least enforce the right to property to some extent (though no government nearly for 100%).

tchrist

2:51 AM

Import duties.

Cerberus

Yes, or any kind of taxes.

tchrist

It’s like if every city had its own import duties. Which they used to.

Cerberus

What is like that?

tchrist

Having all these barriers to productivity and trade.

Cerberus

What is like those barriers?

Of course any limitation on our freedom has its advantages and disadvantages.

Which all have to be carefully weighed.

Meanwhile:

> The International Space Station (ISS) may have microorganisms living on the outside of the station, and evidence of sea plankton has been found on the exterior surface of the ISS. No one knows exactly how sea plankton could have gotten on the ISS, but contamination on interplanetary objects (eg. comets, asteroids, etc) could spread life farther than previously suspected.

techdirt.com/articles/20100624/1333449949/…

tchrist

2:54 AM

Panspermia.

Cerberus

> Spore-forming bacteria (eg. Bacillus pumilus SAFR-032) have been seen to survive in simulated space environments, and similar organisms could support lithopanspermia theories suggesting an extra-terrestrial origin of life as we know it.

I was just quoting that.

tchrist

Beat ya.

At-will employment

At-will employment is a term used in U.S. labor law for contractual relationships in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning. When an employee is acknowledged as being hired "at will", courts deny the employee any claim for loss resulting from the dismissal. The rule is justified by its proponents on the basis that an employee may be similarly entitled to leave his or her job without reason or warning. In contrast, the practice is seen as unjust by those who view the employment ...

> In other words, employers forced to find a "good faith" reason to fire an employee tend to automate operations to avoid hiring new employees, but also suffer an impact on total productivity because of the increased difficulty in discharging unproductive employees.

This is the gist of the Conventional Wisdom about why France has such a shitty job situation.

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