[News] 2014 News (NO POLITICS)

[Monk Ed]

Dang -- I was a fan of its demotion because then our solar system would have 8 orbiters the same as an electron shell around an atom.

I was convinced at the time that the scientific reasoning behind its demotion was sound, but now that article has me spinning in my head again. But as far as I understand, one way or another, we're not going to have 9 planets, it's either 8 or if Pluto is included we have to include dozens of others.

[UrsusArctos]

Good, good, Pluto is back again!

Dang -- I was a fan of its demotion because then our solar system would have 8 orbiters the same as an electron shell around an atom.

I was convinced at the time that the scientific reasoning behind its demotion was sound, but now that article has me spinning in my head again. But as far as I understand, one way or another, we're not going to have 9 planets, it's either 8 or if Pluto is included we have to include dozens of others.

No, no, no, it's not 8 electrons in a shell around an atom, it's just for the elements that have the 2s-2p and 3s-3p orbitals. It goes 2, 8, 8, 18, 18, 32...

And there never was any real scientific reasoning behind its demotion. Frankly I'm surprised nobody's bringing up Isaac Asimov's proposed "Mesoplanet" classification, which would cover every new object between Ceres and Mercury. The whole "clearing the neighborhood of the orbit" bit could easily turn into nonsense - there is the probability of there being one, possibly two, planets the size of Earth or possibly larger orbiting the sun at extreme distances, but without having cleared their neighborhood. Calling those "dwarf planets", as they would have to be by this definition, is ludicrous.

[Monk Ed]

No, no, no, it's not 8 electrons in a shell around an atom, it's just for the elements that have the 2s-2p and 3s-3p orbitals. It goes 2, 8, 8, 18, 18, 32...

Not seeing the problem here.

And there never was any real scientific reasoning behind its demotion. (...) The whole "clearing the neighborhood of the orbit" bit could easily turn into nonsense - there is the probability of there being one, possibly two, planets the size of Earth or possibly larger orbiting the sun at extreme distances, but without having cleared their neighborhood. Calling those "dwarf planets", as they would have to be by this definition, is ludicrous.

The more I know!

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

I always thought that there was some big scientific committee deciding Pluto's fate. I guess not. I guess we could play favorites, declaring it a planet but ignoring the other objects its size... or just come up with some other name for them. I don't know, I'm not an astronomer.

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I'm not totally sure where to stick this article, so I'm putting it in the news thread until somebody tells me otherwise.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-ways-checking-your-privilege-never-fixed-anything/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

[Catamari]

Leave it to the French to disguise a Christmas tree as a buttplug.

[Bagheera]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-ways-checking-your-privilege-never-fixed-anything/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

He's got a point, but the advice he offers is pretty weaksauce. People do try sharing their experiences, and the CYP movement arose because that didn't work. Look at Elevatorgate, for example -- the woman in the middle of that mess explained, in about as mild a manner as possible, why hitting on her in an elevator (after she'd specifically noted that she wasn't interested in such things and was going back to her room to sleep) was kinda uncool. And everyone absolutely flipped their shit, with Richard Dawkins of all people ultimately making an ass of himself as he took it upon himself to tell her how she ought to feel about the situation. It was ridiculous, and it happened because people didn't listen. She explained herself and was told she didn't have the right to feel that way and that her opinion basically didn't matter.

Yeah, the phrase is tossed around far too often. It's basically useless, and it does pretty much kill conversations. But honestly, the reason it's employed at all is because things have gotten past the "talking like reasonable adults" stage and all that's left is frustration at being patronized or ignored. People need to stop complaining about word choice and tone and such and just start listening. If we saw more of that the rest would sort itself out rather handily.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

*scratches head* I'll have to disagree with you about tone. Tone and word choice is absolutely important, particularly when you're talking to somebody that doesn't feel like they have to listen to you. Would the world be a better place if we didn't have to worry about tone? Yes, absolutely. However, it's a reality that the presentation of a point is about as important as the point itself.

[Squigsquasher]

Anyone who seriously, unironically tells me to check my privilage is getting a foot to the face.

[Bagheera]

*scratches head* I'll have to disagree with you about tone. Tone and word choice is absolutely important, particularly when you're talking to somebody that doesn't feel like they have to listen to you. Would the world be a better place if we didn't have to worry about tone? Yes, absolutely. However, it's a reality that the presentation of a point is about as important as the point itself.

That isn't wrong, but the problem is that tone arguments are used to derail discussion of the actual problems. This just happened here -- you picked out the part about tone and left the rest alone (for whatever reason), and now the topic is tone instead of CYP and how it's (over)used and why. I'm not saying you did that with the intent to derail, because I know you didn't. I'm just noting that this is how these things go.

(as a side note it's very strange to me to be having the conversation from this side, since a quick perusal of my posts on rpg.net will show me making the same arguments you are here a few years ago. But once I learned to tune out the lunatic fringe and started listening to what the moderates had to say my perspective on the matter shifted greatly. It probably helped that I started posting here more frequently, which means my time on that site is mostly spent lurking these days. That makes listening instead of arguing much easier.)

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Well, I agreed with the rest of it-- I didn't see a need to reiterate your points. Although, I don't think I was tone trolling; that would have been a comment on the way you presented your stance. I just zeroed in on a part of it that I wanted to delve into.

[CJD]

Anyone who seriously, unironically tells me to check my privilage is getting a foot to the face.

Check your privilege....

To know how awesome it is being straight and white.

[pwhodges]

"Check your Privilege" is a phrase I have never encountered being used in a good way. However, being aware of one's privileged existence is actually a fundamental part of not being a douche in the modern world.

[Monk Ed]

I was just talking about this with someone the other day -- as a result of an O'Reilly appearance on The Daily Show where Stewart talked about white privilege with him. I wondered how much of the resistance to the very notion of white privilege comes down to the name -- because whenever Stewart explained things to O'Reilly without using the term "privilege" (substituting advantage/disadvantage, "systemic bias", and similarly neutral language), O'Reilly agreed readily. You could almost hear in Jon Stewart's thoughts that he wanted to scream out "Don't you understand, that's exactly what white privilege is!". "Privilege" has a very negative connotation: It indicates something you don't deserve, that in fact you probably deserve to have taken away because nobody would even be talking about it unless you done a bad thing and should be punished, mister. It is a word used exclusively to belittle (even at its most benign; one only calls oneself "privileged" to express humility), to put someone in their place, to remind them that what they have could be taken away just so easily. We all know this from the time when we were children, whenever we were reminded that something we liked or had was a privilege, i.e., something that we had only by the grace of our parents or other authority figures. The very word churns the bile in the stomach and brings back long-dormant memories of the times we felt the most powerless in our lives.

I have no surprise at the reactions it causes -- regardless of the rightness or wrongness of it all.

You know what I thought really effectively communicated the concept of "privilege"? A TDS video of the show's resident black female correspondent Jessica Williams just trying to walk down the damn street and getting catcalled and the like seemingly every step of the way, accompanied by her voice-over that served as her internal narrative in those moments. It communicated via example the reality of living as a woman in New York (or wherever), and it did legions more for my understanding (which I already knew, but didn't completely feel) than all the feminist essays I'd read for years beforehand.

Personally, I think the term "privilege" is incorrect in the first place, because of where it sets the zero point. It speaks as if white people or male people deserve to be treated the same as non-white and non-male people are currently, when what it's really trying to communicate is that non-white and non-male people deserve to be treated the same as white and male people are currently. The way people drop the term "right" so readily to establish that something should be had solely by the virtue of one's existence it's amazing it hasn't been done in this context -- although I suppose "Check your rights" sounds more like something you say to someone to test their Constitutional knowledge than to remind them of systemic biases.

[Bagheera]

The clip in question.

Paul, Monk: 100% agreement.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Raise 'em all up instead of trying to bring 'em all down, pretty much.

[Bagheera]

On the topic of privilege:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/16/jon-stewart-bill-oreilly-white-privilege-daily-show_n_5995726.html

I think part of the problem is that it's such a loaded word. When it's all laid out like that it's easy to understand, but when people call it "privilege" white folks tend to shut down. Communication, ain't it grand!

[Ornette]

An interesting listen: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episode-576-when-women-stopped-coding

[Bagheera]

Wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. Not in the least.

But physical sciences at 40%? That's encouraging. I had no idea they'd succeeded so well there.

[Squigsquasher]

Or, you know, maybe women just lost interest in it.

Not everything is about discrimination funnily enough.

[pwhodges]

Nah, that's too clear a difference; something's going on. I don't know what, though.