ExeterDad wrote:
You both called me out on bringing up trolling. Well... it just makes sense. You both are clearly highly intellegent. You code and imagination are excellent. You do have social skills. I've seen them in action all over the board and IRC. You are likable. Yet somehow you have myself and others beating our heads against keyboards trying to get you to see the obvious, and have presented it in so many different ways (except for illustrations). Yet STILL you appear not to understand. You have to be trolling.
It's a joke. The jokes on us. I can respect that. :)
I could raise all these same points about you, but I don't think you're trolling. There are reasons other people won't see an argument your way other than malice. I think it is pretty insulting to say that someone's viewpoint could only possibly be from someone who doesn't actually think what they are saying. There are many smart people who don't agree with each other even after lots of debate and argument, which you can see from the great variety of political viewpoints, even in educated countries. If you disagreed with the tenets of a political party's philosophy, would you think that they are all either stupid or trolling?
TumeniNodes wrote:There are appropriate times to express/act upon/fight for one's freedoms..., and then there are times to silently sit idle and smile knowing one has such freedoms. And, even more satisfying to know that one has the common sense to know when it is and when it is not appropriate in the context of appropriate and acceptable social behavoir.
The key word here is "appropriate". The only reason when or where it is appropriate to use or exploit freedom of speech was never written into certain documents, is the fact that at the time they were written, those who did so, assumed those who read it, would naturally be able to use common sense to determine where some words/speech is appropriate, and where they/it are not. (appropriate meaning in a social/public setting)
Nobody said that freedoms and rights don't have times when they don't need to be exercised. It's your burden to show that swearing around children is one of those times.
Would you be bold enough to represent yourself in a court of law, using such speech/words, expressing your freedom? Would you be bold enough to attend a book reading for young children, at a library, and once the reader were finished exclaim aloud "That was F-ing great!"? Would you be bold enough to make such statement after a sermon in a church?
Of course not (at least I would hope not), simply because you would hopefully have the common sense to acknowledge that this would be... inappropriate.
I wouldn't be, for a couple reasons. I don't want to cause trouble in my life, since some people find swearing rude, and I don't think it fits my self-image. But whether I personally would want to swear is a different question from whether I think it is bad for people to swear.
Children..., are the ultimate representation of innocence..., and there is nothing more fascinating, or beautiful as that innocence. There is, for the most part..., a natural instinct embedded into the human brain, which tells most adults when it is, and when it is not appropriate to begin exposing that innocence to the atrocities/failings of the human nature. Some, sadly do not have the facilities of such instincts. These individuals are often deemed socially impaired.
http://www.childspeech.net/u_iv_k.html
Instinct or intuition is never an argument, because there are plenty of instinctual behaviors that are harmful. One example is the instinct to gorge oneself until fat, which comes from the scarcity of food during the majority of human evolution. I'm not an anthropologist, but I think it's plausible that valuing innocence has similar roots, such as needing to protect children from the dangers in the wild.
An inability to break down the ideas or concept of "appropriate", "polite", "socially acceptable" speech, when in social/public situations or environments, can be confusing and problematic for some. They posses a different level of understanding regarding it, than do most.
I'm assuming you are treating these three words as basically the same, since you haven't elaborated. You said earlier that political correctness was one restriction to socially acceptable speech that you didn't agree with. From the rest of the argument you've made I will assume that you think that you are supposed to sit down and take it, despite disagreement, because needing to heed what's "appropriate" without question looks like the main argument you are making against swearing around children. You still haven't given any support to why people must always be appropriate, though, when part of being appropriate is something they disagree with.
The reason I injected my thoughts into this thread is..., that the original post clearly explained the reason and reasoning behind a request, which was communicated in a polite manner..., only to be literally attacked in both reasoning and personally..., by those who were offended at the very notion. And thus felt a need to begin citing "freedom of speech" and rights, etc., and using them to express their views/opinions, and interpretations of laws.
I never cited rights or freedoms in my favor, I was only pointing out problems with other people's reasoning. Though of course people will want to use them when arguing your moral opinion, because they are themselves moral values. Why do you think it is bad that people use freedoms or rights to justify their positions?
I do not see the point in such futileness to be honest. It has been clear from the very start of this thread that no one had any intentions of forcing nor mandating all to comply..., but still... some were deeply offended at the very thought of decency..., and I assume felt personally attacked.
The reason behind the request is very reasonable, and was made of those willing to participate. Those who have no desire to participate needed only to not comply with the request, and not respond..., but this is where reason fails with some..., they feel compelled to inject and push their narrative on the topic.
Your story of the degenerate world is also a narrative. Since you have said that you are not here to argue, pushing that narrative looks like the sole reason for your earlier post.
And then when others injected their views/opinions, also seemed to offend these same people.
Look..., we all (as adults) understand the basic idea of and behind our rights to free speech. This has not been a question to that. The only thing which has come into question as a result, as this nonsense continues is..., the idea of "appropriateness"
This is all I have to say on the matter..., the request was clear as day. The reasoning behind it clearly stated..., it did not need to turn into a fight about rights, etc.. Common courtesy goes a very long way..., and when certain documents were drafted in history..., common courtesy was just a given..., obviously taken for granted by those of the time. I am certain there are many things which have changed since then which would disturb many of those individuals if they could see it today.
So bottom line... one either wishes to comply with the original request, for the obvious, and understandable reasoning behind it... or they do not. It was offered, not mandated as an "alternative".
Under the request..., young minds will either be able to enjoy and appreciate, and learn from your great work... or they will not (this depends upon... language.. and each individual's ability to understand the reasoning, or not)
To be clear, I am not against changing the licenses used in Minetest for the pragmatic reason of having it more accepted, because I don't think the cause of removing bad word taboos is important enough. I do think that there is nothing inherently wrong with bad words or using them around children.
I didn't make my point clear earlier because I didn't really have one, I was just focused on pointing out the fallacies in Tumeni's post. I can't be here to debate against Tumeni's opinion either, because otherwise I would be banging my head like ExeterDad. I'll add a point right now, and it is this: the Tumeni style of argument adds nothing of value to the threads he posts it in. This isn't a personal attack, I am just using Tumeni's name because I haven't seen anyone else use this style of post. The main problem comes from that he does not want to or expect to defend his position against arguments from other people. I don't think this is a bad thing in itself; some people might not have the time or energy. But in the case of the posts I don't like, the arguments put forth start out weak and never get any better, probably because there wasn't any thought put into making them defensible. Tumeni never addresses any arguments directly, just making sweeping generalizations about that reduce his opponents to straw men. The result is that people who disagree complain about the arguments, and people who agree (usually) just indicate their support or feel validated. Neither side gets any benefit because the arguments aren't developed into something strong enough to make a difference. The other problem that I see is that the style of posting classifies the opposition as moral degenerates who just want to justify their immoral behavior, shifting the argument from what is actually being discussed to the motivations and character of the people arguing. I don't think it had a big effect here, which is why I didn't say this was the bigger problem.
I don't think Tumeni is trolling, but his way of posting causes one of the symptoms of trolling, which is a static argument.
Every time a mod API is left undocumented, a koala dies.