Sometimes I wish I could *quality or *promote a single comment.

In reply to this comment by alien_concept:
I think we need to settle down. You know, as much as people dont realise it, this kind of thing is good for the community. Everyone is getting to have their say and whether it's going a certain way or not, we can all at least see what stance we take on these kind of things.

Pinkers is taking the high ground, LittleRed is making some certain fair points, burdturglar has taken a step outside for some air, prozac has refused to back down and is practically inviting a suspension, Farhad keeps moaning about this thread going on and on yet still comes back to add more, Lucky has changed his mind with new evidence brought to light, volumptuous has seen it as an excuse to point and laugh at burdturglar, swampy is maintaining her, "you're all a bunch of whiners" line, dag admits we all need drama in our lives, rasch has resorted to singing Mary J at our asses, joedirty is taking his usual "you're all retarded" stance and vsbm is smokin the ganj and spreading the love. I could go on and on but I won't.

Last thing, to anyone who thinks that UP should be banned after this and that democracies like this poll clearly don't work. It may not go in your favour this time, but do you really think UP is going to get away with any inflammatory behaviour after all of this? I think not

Do me, do me!

>> ^alien_concept:
I think we need to settle down. You know, as much as people dont realise it, this kind of thing is good for the community. Everyone is getting to have their say and whether it's going a certain way or not, we can all at least see what stance we take on these kind of things.
Pinkers is taking the high ground, LittleRed is making some certain fair points, burdturglar has taken a step outside for some air, prozac has refused to back down and is practically inviting a suspension, Farhad keeps moaning about this thread going on and on yet still comes back to add more, Lucky has changed his mind with new evidence brought to light, volumptuous has seen it as an excuse to point and laugh at burdturglar, swampy is maintaining her, "you're all a bunch of whiners" line, dag admits we all need drama in our lives, rasch has resorted to singing Mary J at our asses, joedirty is taking his usual "you're all retarded" stance and vsbm is smokin the ganj and spreading the love. I could go on and on but I won't.
Last thing, to anyone who thinks that UP should be banned after this and that democracies like this poll clearly don't work. It may not go in your favour this time, but do you really think UP is going to get away with any inflammatory behaviour after all of this? I think not

I think we need to settle down. You know, as much as people dont realise it, this kind of thing is good for the community. Everyone is getting to have their say and whether it's going a certain way or not, we can all at least see what stance we take on these kind of things.

Pinkers is taking the high ground, LittleRed is making some certain fair points, burdturglar has taken a step outside for some air, prozac has refused to back down and is practically inviting a suspension, Farhad keeps moaning about this thread going on and on yet still comes back to add more, Lucky has changed his mind with new evidence brought to light, volumptuous has seen it as an excuse to point and laugh at burdturglar, swampy is maintaining her, "you're all a bunch of whiners" line, dag admits we all need drama in our lives, rasch has resorted to singing Mary J at our asses, joedirty is taking his usual "you're all retarded" stance and vsbm is smokin the ganj and spreading the love. I could go on and on but I won't.

Last thing, to anyone who thinks that UP should be banned after this and that democracies like this poll clearly don't work. It may not go in your favour this time, but do you really think UP is going to get away with any inflammatory behaviour after all of this? I think not

No problem, I love this vid

In reply to this comment by Sarzy:
Thanks, Crosswords!

In reply to this comment by Crosswords:
*promote for upcoming election day!

Thanks, Crosswords!

In reply to this comment by Crosswords:
*promote for upcoming election day!

imstellar28: "I mean literally, he is asserting that there is a genetic predisposition to a person's political affiliation--is that not extremely offensive to you?"

This seems to me to be a "moralistic fallacy," as described above.


As someone who is a fan of every book you list on your profile, let me say I think you're missing out right now on some of the intellectual joys of genetics.

Haidt flashes in this video Steven Pinker's iconic book the Blank Slate, which changed the course of the intellectual community's understanding of the human sciences.

If anyone hasn't watched the following video, it's eye-opening:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Identical-strangers-twins-separated-at-birth

I believe Johnald_Chaffinch is referring to this TED talk:

http://www.videosift.com/video/TED-Steven-Pinker-A-brief-history-of-violence

Thanks, DFT!

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
*promote

Thanks, KP. Good stuff.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
*promote

in the developed world the only real reason why we go to war is if we're told a bunch of negative things to believe by our leaders and propaganda. ('just wars' wouldn't count - if it's got to happen it's got to happen - but when does that ever happen?!).
large scale murdering isn't natural for humans, in this era you'd have to be brainwashed, oppressed, or religiously insane to take part in full scale aggression towards another country. humans are the only successful hominids because we're mostly intelligent and peaceful - not because we're warmongers. plus we're gradually moving away from violence over time : http://www.videosift.com/video/TED-Steven-Pinker-A-brief-history-of-violence
so it's actually all looking up. obviously a guy's gonna be pessimistic about human nature when he himself chooses to go kill Iraqis...

Steven Pinker was mentioned earlier in this thread. Some of his views on language are disputed in this very interesting piece:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_urbanities-language.html

I, for one, agree with Dr. Dalrymple.

Had the good fortune to sit in on one of his lectures. Amazing dude.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/

This reminds me of Pinker's language mavens:

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

"I hope to have convinced you of two things. Many prescriptive rules are just plain dumb and should be deleted from the usage handbooks. And most of standard English is just that, standard, in the sense of standard units of currency or household voltages. It is just common sense that people should be given every encouragement and opportunity to learn the dialect that has become the standard one in their society and to employ it in many formal settings. But there is no need to use terms like "bad grammar," "fractured syntax," and "incorrect usage" when referring to rural and Black dialects. Though I am no fan of "politically correct" euphemism (in which, according to the satire, "white woman" should be replaced by "melanin-impoverished person of gender"), using terms like "bad grammar" for "nonstandard" is both insulting and scientifically inaccurate."

I didn't see this video until just now, and I'm upvoting for the comments. To be honest, the argument she put forward, in the video and elsewhere, made me somewhat uncomfortable. I'm not exactly a stranger to autism and other ASD, but I've never heard anybody argue that language is relative in nature to the extent that it should be strange that a society would look upon a minority group as not fitting in due to its, well, inability to fit in.

As Farhad said, languages derive their power through their common usage and understanding. Considering that people are capable of functioning cohesively as a society in a large part due to their ability to communicate, I would say that the ability to communicate with others, or lack thereof, is a huge issue.

Interestingly, as Farhad also pointed out, the idea of a language restricting or guiding one's thoughts has been challenged by several noted linguists and cognitive scientists. I believe, although am not sure, that Stephen Pinker is one of these, in that he (or if not him, some other cog. sci.) explored through experiments with children and with monolingual subjects across several languages, whether thought patterns would be consistent regardless of language development or what language was known. According to the evidence presented, language as a function of thought is at least partially descriptive rather than normative.

This woman finds it strange that we should look at her as being "non-communicative", while we don't look at ourselves in the same way for not understanding her. Considering that language is useful merely because a de facto standard of syntax, grammar, and vocabulary can be learned, processed, and understood by many people, and that society, for all practical purposes, MUST use such a standard, then yes, it would not be logical to consider her communicative. Who, exactly, would she be communicating with, for example? Language implies a standard among a group of people. Her idea of language seems to be somehow extremely individualistic. For all practical purposes, it isn't.

I just don't see a reason to accept her conclusions. Anybody?