Your video, Chef with Down syndrome lands epic pancake flip, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Vertical-Video-Syndrome-A-PSA

Vertical Video Syndrome - A PSA! has been added as a related post - related requested by notarobot.

Williams Syndrome. Every stranger is your friend. Great as a kid, not so good as an adult.

You may be right, no harm done. Other than me rolling my eyes because yet another person is suffering from “syndrome-itis”, and now they have a $10 word that magically elevates, explains and excuses their traits. It just strikes me as shallow and pretentious as someone who gets a Kanji tattoo without knowing shit about the culture.

Then again it may just me the Gemini in me. haha

@Jinx @eric3579

According to the internet, which is never wrong, the animal/insect toxin that kills the most humans per year is the venom of the saw-scaled viper.

The microbial toxin that kills the most people per year, and that would appear to dwarf the death rate of any animal or insect, is Staphylococcus aureus toxin. The effects of it's multiple exotoxins create multiple conditions ranging from pimples all the way up to sepsis and toxic shock syndrome.

As an example, deaths related to Staphylococcus aureus are estimated to clock in at 50K per year in the USA alone.

@Diogenes

Thank you for your detailed answer. I do agree with you that context matters and that words are neither inherently good or bad by themselves. However, I think you’re looking at the situation from a more microscopic point of view as a simple joke between two people. I prefer to take a more macroscopic view of the situation. Allow me to explain.

Going back to my hypothetical example, it’s true that I didn't mean any harm when I used the term "retard" towards my brother. I think all people like to think of themselves as "good" people. For example, I would never in my life point at person with Down Syndrome and scream "Retard!" at the top of my lungs or attempt to belittle someone with an actual mental disability. The problem, however, is that by using the word in the way I did in the example I am tacitly--and quite publicly (remember this is happening in a parking lot)--endorsing the equating of people with mental disabilities to stupidity. I may be making a joke towards my brother but it isn’t just my brother that winds up being the butt of the joke.

Now maybe from your perspective, it’s just one person saying a joke. Look at the context, you might say. It’s a distasteful joke but no big deal, right? And I could agree with that if it was just some off-color joke limited to a single individual. Unfortunately, and I think we can both agree on this, the use of “retard” to mean “stupid” is a relatively common occurrence in American vernacular. You couple that with the stigma against mental illness and mental disability and I think it becomes fairly plain to see that on the macroscopic level (i.e. society) we have a problem: a group that is socially disadvantaged and historically discriminated against is even further marginalized by the language people use in their everyday lives. Now, if you don’t agree this is a problem, I’m afraid the conversation has to end here since the logical conclusion of such a stance is that people should be free to say whatever they want and be immune to criticism, damn the consequences.

But if you do agree it is a problem, how are we going to solve it? My take on the situation is that doing absolutely nothing when witnessing a situation like the one I've described is unlikely to improve society in any way. The status quo will be maintained if people are not confronted about their language use.

That being said, people often say things without fully comprehending the implications of what they are saying. They often talk the way they were raised and never once questioned whether what they were saying was actually harmful or not. I don’t think people should be pilloried for that, but in the event that they are unaware of how they are contributing to the discrimination and oppression of others they certainly need to be educated.

This necessarily entails confrontation, although that confrontation might be very low key. Continuing the example above, I think a good way for the woman in the example to “enlighten” me about my misguided use of the word “retard” would be something along the lines of this:

“Excuse me. I really wish you wouldn’t equate having a mental handicap with stupidity. My nephew has Down Syndrome and even though, yes, he can’t do everything that a person without an intellectual handicap can do he is most certainly not stupid.”

Now, all of that said, I see nothing wrong with publicly shaming those who clearly understand the implications of what they are saying and out of either stubbornness, a need for attention, or actual spite willfully continue to use language that is degrading or oppressive. A white person frequently using the N-word in public to describe black people, for instance, is a situation where I’d be completely fine with them getting verbally eviscerated. We don't always have to be polite, even when being politically correct.

As a final note, I want to make it clear that I believe in free speech in the sense that everyone should be free to say whatever they wish. However, as a caveat to that I also believe that free speech comes with the responsibility that people must own everything they say. If someone wishes to use offensive, degrading, or oppressive language that is their choice. Free speech in no way gives them a free pass from criticism of that choice, however.

What idiocy, once again this "doctor" gets it all backwards.
Claiming Jobs' cancer couldn't be cured, contrary to the opinion of all medical professionals involved, based on third hand gossip reporting, just ridiculous. When biopsied and scanned, it was said to be curable (not 100% of the time, but normally), but not later after he tried to cure it with veganism rather than get real medical attention, like an idiot, by which time it had spread and was no longer treatable. That was just stupid. Being intelligent does not preclude one from being stupid...trust me.
His wife and doctors absolutely had the right answers if he wanted to try to survive.
He deluded himself with magical vegan thinking, believing he could get enough high quality proteins from vegetables, and clearly even with all the money in the world to buy the best plant proteins, he could not, and so he also suffered from wasting syndrome. He also believed plant based herbal remedies would cure him, they don't.
Jobs said clearly he regretted his actions, and also said charlatans like this would make stuff up about it, and he was right.

This video is giving me Carpal tunnel syndrome just watching it.

Personally I think he's just finding his way in life just like the rest of us. All actors have a certain amount or Narcissism or what I call the "look at me" syndrome. That's what makes them comfortable being actors. I like what he's doing.

Maybe he has Asperger syndrome. His strange obsession with the details of his successes reminds me of highly successful autistic people that I've known or worked with. Difficult to even talk to or be friends with at times due to the successes creating hypomania that ranges to extreme megalomania. One of my old friends and coworkers who continues to do great things, calmed down once he was diagnosed and faced the reality of his behavior. Oh "The Donald" you need to see a legit therapist, buddy. All that self denial and lack of personal insight EVEN in hindsight, denying reality.

Man, do I hate TLAs
(AKA: Three Letter Acronyms)

FPS
A). Frames Per Second
B). First Person Shooter
C). Food Process Solution
D). Fires Per Second
E). Federal Protective Service
F). Forest Products Society
G). Financial Processing Solutions
H). Fire Protection Systems
I). Food Pharma Systems
J). Foundation Plant Services
K). Federation of Petroleum Suppliers
L). Foundation Public School
M). Fancy Play Syndrome
N). Feet Per Second
O). Fair Play System
P). French Parts Service
Q). Fedorki Performance Systems
R). Fluid Property Sensor
S). Farmington Public Schools
T). Foot-Pound-Second
U). FairPlay Streaming
V). Family Pairwise Search
W). Forum on Physics and Society
X). Forensic Psychological Services
Y). Future Problem Solving
Z). ALL OF THE ABOVE

*Hint: the answer is Z.
(And yes, every one of these are real things that use this TLA.)

Do NOT f with a Jack Russel. Clearly, don't f with lions either, but Jack Russels ain't just your average small dog. Those things are calculating killers. Not the typical man's bestie and not simply small dog syndrome.

*quality Small dog syndrome!

Duh. Soylent green is made from elderly people, not teenagers, and as such it's made from pretty tainted meat. I'll take some Soylent pink, made from pure milk fed baby.

Not murder if they're terminally ill and ask you to do it, in many states.

Far more ethical to work for proper animal treatment than to insist on something that will never happen in a way that makes those you wish to convince your adversaries. He'll get WAY farther towards ending some animal suffering that your methods ever will. Your methods have had many people reply to you that they will eat MORE meat just to spite you, or so you've said in the past....so your methods are obviously failing badly, so are unethical as they cause MORE animal suffering.

Most available vegan food is processed today, so is in the same category you put bacon and deli turkey. Unprocessed meats are also far healthier than processed meats, and are more nutrient dense than plants.

Depending on the curing process, it can be bad or good (and again, not PROVEN to cause cancer...you just backed off that claim on the other thread...so why make it again?)

He wants less harm done to animals....so he's winning. he wants people to eat MORE healthily, he's winning. He wants to move away from a zealous, all or nothing movement that's failing in it's goals and making enemies in the effort, he's winning.

There isn't enough available land to switch to purely vegetarianism either, you're point is ridiculous, no one is advocating feeding all people on pure meat....he's not even advocating for vegetarians to eat meat, and said so clearly. If you had a point to make, then you've failed.

You say that like vegans aren't mostly pasty sickly looking people that look about 2 years late for death by wasting syndrome.