English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

22:00

> Perhaps the most famous argument for limiting First Amendment rights was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s 1919 opinion that even the most stringent free speech protection would not cover a man who deliberately and falsely shouted “fire” in a crowded theater. For Holmes and the unanimous Supreme Court, speech whose aim is to cause violence or damage could be restricted.

Færd

That's how any authoritarian would frame speech he doesn't like. Trust me.

Direct incitement to violence is obviously not protected speech.

Threats should be illegal.

But general incitement of violence that doesn't call for immediate violence? Not at all.

Robusto

> “War it is,” read a post on TheDonald.win, a rabid pro-Trump forum that exploded in fury at post-election realities. “We kill now,” said another user identified only as “AngloMercia.”

That is not an authoritarian framing the speech. It is the speech itself.

@Færd Yeah, I disagree.

Færd

@Robusto Those specific ones may fall under the 'exceptions' category.

Robusto

Parler is full of posts like "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!" With death's heads and blood dripping.

Færd

@Robusto Let's see what he thinks about limiting anti-Semitic vitriol:

> It seems to me something of a scandal that it is even necessary to debate these issues two centuries after Voltaire defended the right of free expression for views he detested. It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers.

@Robusto I'm not really familiar with the case of Parler. So no comment.

Robusto

22:08

@Færd That's not the same thing as incitement. Odious, perhaps, but not the same.

Færd

How about "Jew's don't deserve to live"?

Robusto

I maintain that a free society doesn't have to permit an authoritarian movement to destroy it.

@Færd How about "Death to Israel!"?

There is a fine line between those two.

Færd

Israel is a state, not a person. It's still bad tho.

In both cases no authority is justified to take the right to say those odious things.

@Robusto Then you should be careful not to fan the fire of authoritarianism on your side.

Robusto

Jews are people. Israel is a state full of people. I'm sorry, but I don't see the value of speech that calls for murder.

Færd

What does your example bring to the discussion? Seems to me like a red herring.

Robusto

22:14

It's not a red herring. It's very much the point.

Færd

We already had similar examples that made the exact same point, much more clearly.

'Cause they were directly about people.

Robusto

@Færd I've been fighting authoritarianism all my life. And we are fighting it now. And I personally will lose no sleep over a would-be dictator losing his tweeting privileges.

Twitter isn't saying he can't say what he likes. He just can't incite riots. Not on their platform.

Look, if all you see in this is a danger from the left, then you are barking up the wrong tree.

If anyone has indulged Trump's hateful rhetoric, it's Twitter.

Færd

It's not just about one Twitter account. What seems to be transpiring is the "War on Terror" rhetoric turned inward.

Robusto

Well, maybe from where you sit. Not from my viewpoint, which is a little closer to the action.

Færd

@Robusto Listen to this former CIA official: twitter.com/RepSlotkin/status/1347559510357979138

Robusto

22:29

Your point?

> The post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don't reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.

I don't see where that bears any relation to what I construe as your point.

Færd

I would be alarmed if War On Terror rhetoric was invoked by security officials to talk about a domestic threat.

Robusto

@tchrist This was fun. It's weird, but I understand the French and the Italian more easily than the Portuguese.

tchrist

@Robusto Well, it's Brazilian. :)

Robusto

@tchrist Ah.

tchrist

And yes, it's all weird what comes through and what doesn't.

I don't know that I would have understood the French without having studied it for years.

Robusto

22:35

@tchrist That's the weird thing. I never studied French but for a few phrase books, but while I can't produce French, I can usually understand much of it.

May 23 '15 at 14:01, by Robusto

@Jez I can read Le Figaro right now, but I couldn't talk about it in French.

tchrist

Brazilian Portuguese vs. European Portuguese | Speaking Brazilian

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RegDwigнt

@Robusto the funniest thing about that tweet is his profile picture.

He is fucken white, that guy. What is this "we" he's talking about?

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Not necessarily. But I don't want to argue the point.

RegDwigнt

Other than that, well yes, that was my exact first comment as the events were still unfolding. No points for originality. It's rather obvious.

@Robusto yeah could me a Latino or wevs, but still. Not black.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Sometimes you can't tell from skin tone. No, really.

RegDwigнt

22:47

Rachel Dolezal will be happy to hear that.

Robusto

At the conservatory there was a violinist I thought was Jewish because he had frizzy hair and freckles. Then I learned he was actually black.

RegDwigнt

(Also, Kamala Harris.)

tchrist

European Portuguese vs Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation EXPLAINED!

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RegDwigнt

Well Jewish is not a race. Nothing stops the Ayatollah from becoming Jewish.

tchrist

Here now you can have a Portuguese guy sounding sexy. :)

Robusto

22:49

@RegDwigнt Well, I think the Jews might disagree with you.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto the Jews will disagree with me, but the Jews also will disagree with one another as soon as there are more than one of them.

Robusto

Apparently some claim there is a DNA test that will prove whether someone has Jewish ancestry. I'm not saying that's true, just what I heard.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist he may be looking sexy, but he is still sounding Portuguese.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt His English accent cannot be pecked.

Robusto

> In a fascinating study published in 2006, it was shown that 40% of all Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four Jewish women who lived more than 1,000 years ago. The study concluded that if someone bears specific mitochondrial DNA markers, there is a 90-99% chance that he or she is descended from one of these Jewish women.1

chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4240316/jewish/…

> Nevertheless, although still a matter of debate, there are some who hold that in a case where there is some evidence of Jewishness but no iron-clad proof, having this marker in conjunction with other supporting evidence can be used to conclude that the person is indeed Jewish.

Mitch

22:55

@RegDwigнt "Jewish is not a race" - That's not how it works

There's religion, sure, and the Ayatollah could become Jewish in the religious sense (but I think it would be very difficult for many reasons.

But it's also an ethnicity. You can join the Armenian Orthodox CHurch, but you can't magically choose to have Armenian ancestry.

RegDwigнt

As @Rob correctly pointed out, all of us have 3% Armenian ancestry in them.

Meanwhile, the Ayatollah could not become black in any sense, religious or not.

Robusto

Who forgot to put a laugh track on this conversation?

tchrist

Watching all these people so close to each other is unnerving.

RegDwigнt

Michael Jackson threw more money at the problem than all of us combined will ever have, and look how that turned out.

@Robusto I didn't, I have the plugin running at all times.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt And Jewish too

RegDwigнt

23:03

@Mitch NOU

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Possibly, especially those with eastern European ancestry there's a likely higher percentage

RegDwigнt

@tchrist that redhead is the least Brazilian looking Brazilian theoretically conceivable.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt Not positive the roots of her hair are red.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt There was some Russian movie from the nineties where some rabidly antisemitic skinhead finally meets his long lost father and it turns out he's actually jewish and so the skinhead kind of turns his life around to be jewish.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch yes, American History X.

Mitch

23:07

Of course, it's a Russian movie so at the very end, the dad comes clean and reveals that he's not really the father.

That was funny.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist I'm trying to mute out the hair, but the remaining features still look positively ginger.

Tim Minchin | "Prejudice" | w/ Lyrics

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Mitch

haha. ginger

tchrist

@RegDwigнt This guy has IPA contrasting EP here and here.

@Mitch With wasabi am I right!

Mitch

ginger + wasabi = red face

RegDwigнt

@Mitch well yes, Tim does recommend using "bozo", "fire truck", "carrot top", "blood nut", "match stick" or "tampon" as better alternatives.

Mitch

23:14

ginger isn't really used for hair/complexion in the US (well may be different in the past couple years), and also being a redhead or auburn or strawberry blond or similar has no connotation of ugliness.

RegDwigнt

Well it universally doesn't for ladies.

Only for blokes.

Mitch

Oh. did not know that.

Freeze Die Come to Life

Freeze Die Come to Life (Russian: Замри, умри, воскресни; translit. Zamri, umri, voskresni!, also known as Don't Move, Die and Rise Again!) is a 1989 Soviet drama film directed by Vitali Kanevsky. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Caméra d'Or. == Cast == Dinara Drukarova - Galia Pavel Nazarov - Valerka Yelena Popova - Valerka's mother Valeri Ivchenko Vyacheslav Bambushek - Vitka Vadim Yermolayev - School principal == References == == External links == Freeze Die Come to Life on IMDb...

RegDwigнt

Ugh, Cannes.

Mitch

is not the movie I was thinking of, but it came out roughly the same time. ~1990

RegDwigнt

But anyway, yeah, y'all's perception of colour is completely off, we've known as much forever. You don't even call your yellow traffic lights yellow. And you call dark-skinned people Africans and Americans, even when they are in point of fact neither.

Mitch

23:19

Luna Park (1992 film)

Luna Park (Russian: Луна-парк; 1992) is a Franco-Russian produced film. The second feature film of Russian director Pavel Lungin, it depicts the story of a young antisemitic skinhead leader, Andrei Leonov (Andrei Gutin) who is forced to come to terms with the discovery that his father, Naoum Kheifitz (Oleg Borisov) is of Jewish ancestry. The film, of the chernukha (Russian: чернуха, roughly "black stuff") genre, follows Andrei as he explores his heritage and the relationship he begins with his father. Luna Park was shown at the Toronto Festival of Festivals on 13 September 1992 (1992-09-13), and...

that's it

RegDwigнt

That's a better one.

Færd

@tchrist Looks like we share a taste!

RegDwigнt

But I don't remember it at all. It made quite a fuss when it came out, but I was a teen at the time and couldn't care less.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt What color are they if not yellow?

RegDwigнt

@tchrist well you call them Amber or Susy or some such nonsense.

tchrist

23:21

@RegDwigнt Those are the Britsitch, not us.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist uh-huh.

The Senseless Ambiguity of North American Turn Signals

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This American, as well as his 1 million American subs, keep calling them amber. And I keep having to look up in a dictionary the fuck they're on about.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt It's nearly impossible to listen to that accent.

Hurts.

RegDwigнt

Well yes. It's American.

tchrist

That .... is not the problem.

RegDwigнt

Great channel though. Honestly recommended.

tchrist

23:26

He's got that treacherous accent; not sure just where he's from.

RegDwigнt

You're just from a pocket where people talk funneh.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt If I had said traitorous or rebel or confederate or nazi-lite would this have been clearer?

RegDwigнt

It don't really matter, you get used to anything on YouTube after the second video.

Even Agadmator. Ask @Rob.

Or that other space guy he watches.

Or that Stories of Old guy that I watch.

In Search of the Distinctively Human | The Philosophy of Blade Runner 2049

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tchrist

Red-orange stoplights are at 625 nm, yellow at 590 nm, green-blue at 525 nm.

RegDwigнt

Incredible video, incredible channel. But if his accent doesn't kick you in the balls, this is not your first time watching his content.

tchrist

23:29

There's mostly red with a bit of orange, and mostly green with a bit of blue.

Lack words.

RegDwigнt

Oh, but don't watch the whole video if you haven't seen Blade Runner 2049. Which you must.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt There's a severe mismatch of features.

I assume he's some Prussian who was fostered in Ulster or something.

RegDwigнt

Well yeah. His accent is as unplaceable as mine.

tchrist

You sound like your accent is from Königsberg?

RegDwigнt

Only to the Welsh.

To SoCals I sound Glaswegian.

And to Germans, French.

tchrist

23:33

Yeah but they can't talk and can't hear.

They're phonemically ensmallened.

The Germans think you sound like you have a bit of a French accent? That's hilarious!

They just can't say zh.

Well, or th either. You're privileged in your base set.

RegDwigнt

I used to be in a World of Tanks clan where we had people from every corner of the UK and quite a few corners of the US. Like, uh, Geordies and Scots and Welsh and Cockneys and Latino immigrants to San Fran. And Germans and Italians for good measure.

So I have quite an accurate assessment of what I sound like to whom.

tchrist

Not judging.

RegDwigнt

To Brits I sounded German. To Germans I sounded British.

Which is sort of the whole point, so I was quite happy with that.

@tchrist the Germans that think that simply register the occasional bits of Mosel-Franconian that I often either let slip through, or quite deliberately throw in.

To a Bavarian or a Saxonian, anything to the West of Frankfurt might as well be in France. (With the exception of Cologne, but we don't talk about that comically exaggerated nonsense.)

tchrist

Larry Wall always thought his family were German but I'm pretty sure he finally understood they were from that Belgian/Luxembourg group instead.

A different "German".

RegDwigнt

Well, it's the thing that I always kept having to explain to my clan mates. What sounds German to you has nothing to do with German, and everything with yourself.

It's much like millennials comparing every movie to Star Wars. Of course you're forced to do that if that's the only movie you know.

tchrist

23:44

@RegDwigнt Now now. Next you'll be dissing on Aix-la-Chapelle too.

RegDwigнt

Ain't dissing anyone. Talking from personal experience.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt I watched that movie a million times in cheap matinées when it first came out. I could recite the dialogue. I couldn't do that with anything else.

RegDwigнt

Point is, any comparison at all tells very little about the things being compared, and quite a lot about the person doing the comparing.

I picked movies as an example, but it's just as true of books or paintings or music.

tchrist

As does so much.

RegDwigнt

Which is why I avoid using comparisons in reviews. If something sounds like a mix of Gustav Mahler, Bulat Okudzhava, and Manaka Kataoka to me, that doesn't mean that that's what it actually sounds like. It only means that those are the comparisons I am personally limited to by the rather tiny bubble I live in.

tchrist

23:49

@RegDwigнt "Your are the lens of the world: the lens through which the world may become aware of itself. The world, on the the other hand, is the only lens in which you can see yourself."

RegDwigнt

Like Stories of Old could throw a hundred similar quotes at you.

Which is why I always watch everything he posts.

It's all been said so many times and by so many people and in so many ways. Yet we're always amazed to discover it for ourselves like it's something new.

You can't have your mom tell you the pan is too hot. You have to touch it.

tchrist

@RegDwigнt It is new — to us.

RegDwigнt

It's really quite interesting that with that kind of premise we get so much progress done.

Or indeed any progress at all.

You can teach the class that the Earth is round, but the next year you'll have an all-new class.

You can spend a decade on ELU explaining the difference between "there" and "their" to a million people, but a million and oneth will knock on the door just the day after, and ten million more are being born oblivious even as we speak.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…