Dude, really, the positive experiences of some east Asian groups does not negate the negative experiences of other visible minorities, nor does it disqualify their claims for justice. There is no zero-sum, or black/white (no pun intended) on this issue.

I'm glad that those asian groups don't experience discrimination or prejudice despite the fact that some come to the table without the required language skills or adequate income. Bully for them. Some of us have fluent and native english skills, and have all the supposed advantages of being in the middle class, yet somehow get passed over.

I also love that fact that you lump all Asian groups together to muddy the issue again. Hmong and Japanese groups have vastly different household income, health outcomes, education levels, discriminatory experiences, and so on. They are not the same in any way, yet you can use extremes in either group to create a distorted picture of the "Asian" experience.

And this video is just ridiculous. Who cares about the fucking NBA/NCAA? Let it all be white and chinese for all I care. That's not what really matters in our society for most people. Aside from the fact that making a jump shot is a direct measure of performance in basketball; no way to manipulate it, either you can or you can't. SAT, GPA, and other measures of so-called "merit" are deeply flawed.

>> ^chilaxe:
Most of what's been said in the comments above this isn't true because Asian Americans outperform Whites, even though Asian Americans are a minority, were very recently more poor than any groups in the US, and had greater language disadvantages than anyone in the US.
All the people in the above comments who support racist discrimination against Asian Americans don't believe in personal accountability and are in favor of a permanently hyper-racialized society. http://videosift.com/poll/Is-discrimination-against-Asian-Americans-in-college-admissions-good-or-bad
This comment could be disproved if you can show that Asian Americans didn't have greater linguistic and financial barriers to overcome than any groups in the US, or that they don't outperform White people.

Most of what's been said in the comments above this isn't true because Asian Americans outperform Whites, even though Asian Americans are a minority, were very recently more poor than any groups in the US, and had greater language disadvantages than anyone in the US.

All the people in the above comments who support racist discrimination against Asian Americans don't believe in personal accountability and are in favor of a permanently hyper-racialized society. http://videosift.com/poll/Is-discrimination-against-Asian-Americans-in-college-admissions-good-or-bad

This comment could be disproved if you can show that Asian Americans didn't have greater linguistic and financial barriers to overcome than any groups in the US, or that they don't outperform White people.

>> ^gwiz665:

Given a limited scope you can absolutely prove a negative. "There are no muslims in congress" is provable. "There is no God in the United States" is also provable.
The problem is that if you have an unlimited scope, then it becomes impossible.
"There are no fairies in my basement."
vs.
"There are no fairies."


As already pointed out, by *definition* you can't prove a negative.
As per your other threads shinyblurry, we can argue semantics all day so it's kind of pointless, but I'm going to anyway, because it's actually at the nub of the statement "you can't prove a negative".
I've also used an online dictionary you've sited in your other posts.

prove/pro͞ov/Verb
1. Demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument.
2. Demonstrate by evidence or argument (someone or something) to be.

Note the use of the affirmative "the existence" / "to be". There is no scope for a negative here.

Also it's worth pointing out the etymology of the word "proof". It comes from the Latin "probare" meaning "to test". So it you've got proof of god's existence, it's got to be testable. Similarly if I want to "prove" there is no god I need to formulate a test that will give a definitive result.

Now, moving away from semantics....

So yeah, he's using a linguistic trick to try and recontextualize the statement "you can't prove a negative". That statement is generally used as a shorthand in an argument not only as a reference to the above definition, but also as a more general indication of the vast impracticality of proving a blanket negative statement such as "there is no god". In that context it is never meant as an absolute.

By adding a very restricted location, as William Lane Craig has in the video above, a negative statement of course becomes provable. I don't think any atheist would disagree that the statement "there are no coins in my pocket" could be proven simply by looking in my pocket.

For example - If as an atheist I was to say "there is no such object as the holy grail in existence" in order to prove it I would then have to trawl through every every steet, house, closet, drawer, toilet cistern, dessert, mountaintop, quarry pit, top secret inaccessible military bunker in the world, then undertake extensive excavation all the way to the earths molten core.

At his stage a believer could say "Well I have just had a personal revelation from God who spoke directly to me and told me that the grail is being kept safe underneath the icy surface of Jupiter's 6th moon Europa"

So after I've convinced NASA to undertake "The Program for the Recovery of Christs Holy Grail from Under the Surface of Jupiter's 6th Moon Europa" I'm told by the believer that they've had another personal message received directly from god that he was angry at being tested, and so has moved the grail to a divine and indestructible vault at the heart of the distant sun Omicron Beta....

However, if I make the statement - "there is no such object as the holy grail in existence in my desk drawer" - I just have to open the drawer to look and the statement can be proven.

And the above examples are with definite physical objects. Think how impossible it is to prove the statement "there is no god" when the idea of how god is defined is so widely and radically disputed depending on what religion you subscribe to, and when almost every individual within each of these religions will have their own definition of what god is.

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle

I think it is likely that the Australian/Kiwi accents are closer to "British English" because of its (slightly) later divergence and the fact that there is significantly less influence from the United States and quite a bit more influence linguistically from England. Canadian English stems primarily from the language spoken by United Empire Loyalists who migrated to Canada after the American Revolution. Australian English, on the other hand, was based largely on the English spoken by British convicts, military personnel and settlers (a large proportion of which spoke with Cockney or Irish accents).

With a proportionally larger influx of people from British cities, particularly London and Southern England and, with Received Pronunciation being largely a formalized form of the London accent, it is understandable that Australian English has a closer connection to "British English".
>> ^FishBulb:

Skeeve, How do you explain the Australian and New Zealander accents?
It's interesting, as to dialect Australians say rubbish, bin, spanner, etc.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'TED, babies, brains' to 'TED, Patricia Kuhl, babies, language, linguistics, brains' - edited by jonny

As a student of linguistic I think it's Southern American English.

>> ^gorillaman:

Here we are with our downvotes and promote powers, an elite of an elite, privileged members of the internet class, which is itself already practically superhuman, talking about our democratic website? LOL.

I'm noticing that you aren't really responding to my argument, but instead are trying to declare Videosift...what? An oligarchy? An Aristocracy? Totally devoid of any wisdom of crowds?

I've never really seen downvotes make a difference when it comes to getting on the Top 15. Hell, I can't even remember the last time I saw a video get more than 3 downvotes.

All promote and quality do is increase exposure. They can make a difference between a video "sifting" instead of going to pqueue, and it can pad the number of votes it gets after it hits the Top 15, but I doubt you could get, say, a video of silent blackness into the top 15 purely with quality and promote.

>> ^gorillaman:
The misconception I see in your posts is this arbitrary distinction between the oppressors and the oppressed. The average man on the street is as guilty today as the plutocrat with his snout in the trough, because if their positions were reversed they'd each behave in the same way.

It's not a misconception, it's that I disagree with your assertion. I doubt reversal would make no difference. In any case, my aim isn't to "reverse" their positions, but to equalize them.

>> ^gorillaman:
Accountability to 'the people' is hardly a check on corruption if the people themselves are corrupt.

The theory is, if people vote for politician A, and A does things that fuck them over, they can vote for another politician next time. To use the favorite conservative example, you can't raise taxes with impunity, because if people don't think it's justified, they'll vote you out. Get rid of the vote, and those eeevil government bureaucrats can raise taxes, and spend all of it on palaces for themselves instead of healthcare. The only "accountability" valve then comes in terms of an armed rebellion.

You're vaguely alluding to a tyranny of the majority issue, but in practice every tyranny I can think of has been a "tyranny of the elite".

>> ^gorillaman:
There's a linguistic issue here as well. Over time 'democracy' has become perversely synonymous with 'freedom'. There's an essential difference between taking power away and taking freedom away. Power here means the power to enforce ones will over others, freedom is the freedom from the power of others. Removing power from the majority will actually increase their freedom.

Again, it's not a linguistic issue, it's that you disagree with other people's feelings about democracy. Maybe that's justified, maybe it's not, but it's not that people don't understand what the words mean.

As for freedom vs. power, it's a slippery thing. I'd say they're synonymous in this context in a lot of ways.

Do I have the ability to own a house because I'm "free" to do so, or because I have the power that comes from having the talents to build a decent career for myself? Or am I "free" to have land like this because the government is ensuring that my property rights will be respected? Or am I somehow a slave to the majority because I pay taxes to a democratic government?

>> ^gorillaman:
Look at the progress of this thread. I don't see much ideological territory left to the democrats, squeezed as you are from both sides. While dft lectures blanarchist on the need for a government to protect free men from one another, you want to turn around and give those same men a stake in that same government with all its might and authority. Even on the site of your last stand - the desperate, impossible compromise of constitution, you admit to massive deception and malfeasance and even in the strongest and best designed democratic state an apparently irredeemable collapse. With all this you still believe democracy is moral? It amounts to a kind of political stockholm syndrome.


For all the proclamations of victory, I notice that the vast majority of that paragraph refers to things people other than me have said. I haven't used the word "constitution" until just now, for example.

I do think the US's implementation of democracy is headed for a collapse. Not because people left to their own devices slit their own throats (which you seem to think is inevitable), but instead because a wealthy elite has effectively subverted the mechanics of democracy.

So you say to me, as the elite stands over our wounded democracy, choking the last life out of it, that this is proof that the corruption and stupidity of the people has finally led to democracy's demise, and demand that we empower the elite to rule over us.

That's Stockholm syndrome.

Hell, you have yet to even try to explain what it is you're really suggesting, beyond that you want Superman and the Justice League to come and save us from ourselves. Not only that, you want them to totally ignore what we might say about their edicts, lest our filthy corruptness infect them.

@NetRunner

Here we are with our downvotes and promote powers, an elite of an elite, privileged members of the internet class, which is itself already practically superhuman, talking about our democratic website? LOL.

The misconception I see in your posts is this arbitrary distinction between the oppressors and the oppressed. The average man on the street is as guilty today as the plutocrat with his snout in the trough, because if their positions were reversed they'd each behave in the same way. Where everybody's only responsibility is to their own interest, which it is in a democratic 'believe whatever you want, vote however you want' anarcho-relativist system; the difference is one of chance only.

Accountability to 'the people' is hardly a check on corruption if the people themselves are corrupt. Our goal shouldn't be to defend unsuccessful criminals from their more effective rivals. The great value of government is that it tears power out of the hands of the people, so they can't do as much damage with it.

There's a linguistic issue here as well. Over time 'democracy' has become perversely synonymous with 'freedom'. There's an essential difference between taking power away and taking freedom away. Power here means the power to enforce ones will over others, freedom is the freedom from the power of others. Removing power from the majority will actually increase their freedom.

Look at the progress of this thread. I don't see much ideological territory left to the democrats, squeezed as you are from both sides. While dft lectures blanarchist on the need for a government to protect free men from one another, you want to turn around and give those same men a stake in that same government with all its might and authority. Even on the site of your last stand - the desperate, impossible compromise of constitution, you admit to massive deception and malfeasance and even in the strongest and best designed democratic state an apparently irredeemable collapse. With all this you still believe democracy is moral? It amounts to a kind of political stockholm syndrome.

>> ^Reefie:

What is it with Republicans talking sense lately? Maybe Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul can encourage the rest of their party to actually collaborate with the Democrats and then we can see some real progress!


The linguistically opposite of progress is congress, yuk yuk yuk

1. somehow they attributed this to "anti-americanism", like they hear from their right wing radios that democrats/liberals/lefties/socialists are always screaming about how terrible everything american is and burning flags, somehow in their brains un-nationalism=nationalism=fascism.

4. clinton and obama also increased military spending. we fought tons of proxy wars under the clinton administration and obama has just shifted the focus from iraq to afghanistan. and i can't argue that. they're right. even though they completely skimmed over 8 years of hyper-patriotism.

7. TSA porno-scanners. obama reauthorized the patriot act. also, can't argue with them, except theyre still ignoring the last 8 years.

8. so they're mormons, and historically, the government has interfered with the church. they see the whole prop 8 fiasco as modern day proof of that. and government is trying to legislate for the church, not the other way around.

9. no, corporate power is not protected. this socialist administration is infriging on them and the epa wants to bankrupt all the businesses.

10. unions are the enemy. nurses unions are the reason all of the hospitals in california are in trouble. labor unions are evil. theyre the mafia. blah blah blah. labor unions are fascist organizations funding the obama administration to take out the middle class. this list has a liberal bias.

11. obama killed all the student loans. there is no more access to student loans anywhere, eventhough i am currently living off of student loans. also, academia is where terrorist sympathizers hide out. which explains why her 2 most liberal children are working on graduate degrees in liberal things like physics and disability studies. and her conservative children didn't go to college. my brother and i are really the close minded fascists. if you point out my moms graduate degrees she says she got it during the clinton administration then she went and got a job with it outside of education. unlike my brother and i who don't actually have real jobs. even though my brother works for the military and the military pays for his education. nothing makes any sense.

12. they related this one to the ex con that works for my stepdad. he's finally off drugs and making an honest living and obama won't take his ankle bracelet off probably because he is a white non-violent offender. i'm not even sure what that has to do with the topic, but thats the anecdote they shared with me.

most of what they say doesnt make any sense to me. and vice versa. but i find if i break things down into really small individual issues then we agree like... climate change isnt man made... but it is bad for the planet to dump all of our trash in the ocean and bury toxic waste and cut the tops off all the mountains and burn things into the atmosphere. .... but there is not such thing as global warming.

or our border with mexico is a huge security risk and people in el paso are terrified of the drug wars raging in juarez and we need to deport all the undocumented workers and close our border for good until mexico sorts their shit out.
but women and children who flee from mexico are refugees and should be treated as such.

even when we talk about anarchism, they like anarchism. but if you were to say i was left wing and had radical leanings... they'd freak the fuck out.

so their values and morals are mostly intact, and theyre mostly just like mine... we just use different languages and theyre not worried about atrocities that happen in other places.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Wow, that's nuts. How did they spin 1, 4 and 7-12? >> ^peggedbea:
omg! i've actually gone through this exact list with her and her husband before and the most bizarre thing happened - they attached every single point to "liberals". the phenomenon here is that the language has been changed. the world "liberal" is no longer derived from the word "liberty". it simple means "ugly nazi fascist death monsters"
and the word "liberty" now means "liberty in christ".
i shoplifted a copy of "the overton window" over the summer and read it aloud to my friends, the entire thing is chocked full of doublespeak. the introduction itself is almost entirely doublespeak. and sometimes i read articles on fox's website, or the drudge report or whatever for fun. it's loaded with doublespeak. almost every article uses some device to change the meaning of language. it's brilliant.
one of my best friends brother is a linguist at UF. i'm pretty sure when those boys come back to texas for christmas we're going to have a serious discussion about this.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Have you tried explaining to her what fascism is?
Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

Wow, that's nuts. How did they spin 1, 4 and 7-12? >> ^peggedbea:

omg! i've actually gone through this exact list with her and her husband before and the most bizarre thing happened - they attached every single point to "liberals". the phenomenon here is that the language has been changed. the world "liberal" is no longer derived from the word "liberty". it simple means "ugly nazi fascist death monsters"
and the word "liberty" now means "liberty in christ".
i shoplifted a copy of "the overton window" over the summer and read it aloud to my friends, the entire thing is chocked full of doublespeak. the introduction itself is almost entirely doublespeak. and sometimes i read articles on fox's website, or the drudge report or whatever for fun. it's loaded with doublespeak. almost every article uses some device to change the meaning of language. it's brilliant.
one of my best friends brother is a linguist at UF. i'm pretty sure when those boys come back to texas for christmas we're going to have a serious discussion about this.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Have you tried explaining to her what fascism is?
Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

omg! i've actually gone through this exact list with her and her husband before and the most bizarre thing happened - they attached every single point to "liberals". the phenomenon here is that the language has been changed. the world "liberal" is no longer derived from the word "liberty". it simple means "ugly nazi fascist death monsters"

and the word "liberty" now means "liberty in christ".

i shoplifted a copy of "the overton window" over the summer and read it aloud to my friends, the entire thing is chocked full of doublespeak. the introduction itself is almost entirely doublespeak. and sometimes i read articles on fox's website, or the drudge report or whatever for fun. it's loaded with doublespeak. almost every article uses some device to change the meaning of language. it's brilliant.

one of my best friends brother is a linguist at UF. i'm pretty sure when those boys come back to texas for christmas we're going to have a serious discussion about this.


>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Have you tried explaining to her what fascism is?
Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

r10k, I studied the Bible with a respected religious man; one of the few Americans allowed to view and help decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls. We used an annotated version of the Bible that explained the puns, double meanings and other linguistic aspects that would be lost on someone who just picked up a King James at Barnes & Noble. My Prof. provided context, historical and cultural. He showed us more ancient Mesopotamian mythology that contained stories remarkably similar to those in the Bible. He, a religious man (Jewish), presented the book for what it was, with no apologies or attempts to shield us from the books' many contradictions and logical inconsistencies. Warts and all.

I seem to meet all your criteria for being able to have an opinion on the Bible. I've got context, depth and the instruction of a very wise religious scholar. No offense, but I probably understand this book better than you ever will, and yet....

My critical mind tells me this is mythology, like Zeus, or Beowulf, or Gilgamesh, or Frodo, Bilbo and Dumbledore. These are campfire stories from pre-scientific times that attempt to explain the -then many- mysteries of existence. Those days are gone, and we now know that we are not at the center of the universe, that space isn't made of water, that stars are not lights, that the world is not flat, that humans are part of an evolutionary chain and that the earth is billions of years old. Perhaps it's time to embrace the future, r10k, and leave the cave drawings behind you.

Just one person's opinion.... I could be wrong.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'conan, obrien, coco, finland, halonen, cunning linguist' to 'conan obrien, coco, finland, halonen, cunning linguist' - edited by xxovercastxx