“we used to think that this was what we didn’t know, but thanks to exhaustive and expensive research, it is now this that we don’t know.”

Which are sometimes as or more important than answers, but it does tend to reveal that it’s “turtles all the way down”

Just one more collider bro, one more I swear. And we’ll know everything.

Good to know, thank you! Yet more reasons to avoid it

I think the point is that to you, it’s just semantics. But, to use your example, given that some people have started intentionally using “female” in place of “woman” as an (arguably) subtle way to exclude trans women, it suddenly becomes more than semantics to both trans and anti-trans populations. That’s what Smotherlove is saying about “dog whistle” language only being transparent to the perpetrator and the victim.

So from your/my perspective (admittedly assuming you’re neither trans nor anti-trans), it’s largely a case of “a few rotten apples ruining it for the rest of the bunch.” What should just be a semantic difference has been coopted and intentionally weaponized by some, so all of us have to be conscious of whether or not we’re making that worse.

It’s also not a new phenomenon. Many epithets start as PC terms and then become offensive based on how a specific group starts to use them, notably, almost every one-time PC terms for Black Americans and people of color. Unfortunately, it’s basically the reason that, for at least 100 years, (responsible) individuals/media have had to change terms for many marginalized peoples every 10-20 years, with many other examples, like “Oriental” and the terms that predate it, and plenty of others.

Like almost any concept, the argument over free will really becomes semantic (and pedantic) when pushed to academic extremes. At a certain point it shifts to “is there a difference between free will and the apparent ability to choose what we do in any given moment?”

This scientist claims that the inability to tease any choice from the infinite variables that affect that decision means that the decision isn’t ours. It is an equally valid conclusion that you don’t need to know every single thing that influences you in order to have agency among those influences.

Moore’s take on the Cartesian question of “how do we know we exist?” is similar. It points out that the debate actually has nothing to do with existence, but what it means to “know” something, and that “knowing,” like anything, can of course be made impossible with philosophical and academic contortions (e.g., arguments like “but what if this is a simulation and there is a “great deception” that only convinces you that you exist?”). It is not that some form of knowing cannot exist, it is that people are capable of imagining fantasies in which knowing cannot exist, and Moore denies that we should let the ability to conceptualize something beyond the intended context of our language (i.e., perceived reality) pervert our ability to see and accept something concrete.

Is Moore right? Who knows, but he gets at the point that the answers to questions of free will, existence, ontology, etc. have more to do with how the questions are framed academically and philosophically than with how the same concepts actually operate in real life. It will always be possibly to frame a question (or to define the words within a question) in a way that denies the possibility of knowing or agency. But the ability to do so doesn’t mean that other methods of asking or knowing are impossible.

Good riddance

Accurate on all counts.

What if you have all of them (minus pods)?

Nah just gonna laugh at this specific reaction a little bit.

I’m 99.99% with you on the sentiment, right up to particularly egregious (and not culturally or ethnically significant) haircuts. On that one, I may continue to do like only half of this woman’s hair, and throw a little shade.

0K

And seem to be real sensitive about it.

Lol alright. Gimme your worst.

I get where you’re coming from, but an intentional, statement haircut that you could easily change feels like it’s ok to make a statement about, while I never would about someone’s weight, height, etc.

If I posted a picture of myself and the hair was what people roasted me for, I’d be happy lol.

Yahoo was a massive failed effort, but it hardly even compares to that haircut.

There’s a big difference between “reflecting on him” and actually being the one to write the policy. I don’t see why the former is an issue.

Imagine what the best one could do

Ah yes. Characterizing an entire population by the acts of the most extreme. Always accurate.

“Canadians aren’t saints. They’re a conquesting and genocidal people who wiped out an entire population of natives and continue to marginalize those who are left.” And going by your argument, this means we shouldn’t feel too bad if any of them get assassinated?