Skylark's recent activity
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Comment on Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians in ~society
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Ex-Barack Obama aide says Holocaust education is ‘confusing’ young people into sympathizing with ‘weak, skinny’ Palestinians
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Comment on Against 'Metroidbrania': a landscape of knowledge games in ~games
Skylark (edited )Link ParentEverything in language is just vibes-based. You're allowed to say, "Trying to deliberately start a new term is silly," and others are allowed to say, "But here's why I think it's a good idea," and...Everything in language is just vibes-based.
You're allowed to say, "Trying to deliberately start a new term is silly," and others are allowed to say, "But here's why I think it's a good idea," and you can go back and forth at it for as long as you'd like. Maybe people will change their minds... and maybe they won't. That's part of how language evolves.
Sometimes a term catches on because it just happens to be what society's influencers are saying; sometimes it's as a result of a more deliberate social movement or an article (I'm sure we've ALL self-prescribed at some point when we've learned a word we use is considered offensive); and sometimes a term catches on because some random blogger saying, "here's a new way you might consider classifying games".
Language is a free-for-all.
You can advocate for or against whatever you want. Being an overly stringent pedant is definitely no fun (for the pedant or for anyone else)… but if you really think you have a good reason people should change how they speak, speak up!
Sometimes, you'll make a point so good that people actually do change how they talk. And other times, people will say, "Nah, I'm going to continue to use the word 'literally' however I want and there's LITERALLY nothing you can do to stop meeeeee."
Edit: that being said, I think it does make sense to be cautious when it comes to prescriptivism given that it has long been used to discriminate on the basis of race, class, etc. (eg “Speak the Queen’s English or else!”). Prescriptivism rooted in bigotry is awful and we should be careful not to perpetuate it today (intentionally or unintentionally).
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Comment on Is vaping less harmful than smoking, and does it help people quit? in ~health
Skylark Link ParentThank you for posting this! In recent months I have had multiple people (including some well-educated acquaintances) insist to me that vaping is "WAY worse for you than cigarettes". I've been...Thank you for posting this! In recent months I have had multiple people (including some well-educated acquaintances) insist to me that vaping is "WAY worse for you than cigarettes". I've been skeptical given that every meta-analysis in reputable journals seems to say the opposite: vaping is not good for you, but it's better than cigarettes.
This review seems to say much the same.
The fact that the anti-vaping acquaintances I've encountered come from a diverse set of backgrounds (different ages, genders, ethnicities, etc.) has made it feel like there is some sort of ongoing coordinated campaign against vaping. The article mentions tabloids as part of the push against vaping, but I suspect podcasts and influencers are playing a role as well.
I have my suspicions about who may be behind it all...
Learning the etymology of "popcorn lung" was an interesting little aside as well.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Skylark Link ParentRight. But there’s a big difference between “said/did something mildly problematic a few years ago, learned from it, and has made attempts to atone” vs “unapologetically committed sexual assault...There are skeletons in everyone’s closet
Right. But there’s a big difference between “said/did something mildly problematic a few years ago, learned from it, and has made attempts to atone” vs “unapologetically committed sexual assault for years.”
Everyone has made mistakes. But I think you’ll find there are plenty of artists out there who don’t have a laundry list of credible allegations of sexual assault stapled to them.
Gaiman is unapologetically evil.
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Comment on Gianmarco Soresi: Thief of Joy in ~tv
Skylark LinkI watched the special the night it premiered and am watching it again today. Soresi is brilliant. He's got such a fun stage persona and he's so polished. He'll catch you off-guard with a clever...I watched the special the night it premiered and am watching it again today.
Soresi is brilliant. He's got such a fun stage persona and he's so polished. He'll catch you off-guard with a clever one-liner or a joke that comes out of nowhere. There's no crowd work in this special (that I can remember?), but he uploads clips to YT of him talking to audience members that are also extremely charming and quick-witted.
He's immediately vaulted to the top of my list of progressive comedians, along with James Acaster and Marc Maron. Very funny guy.
(Scroll to the bottom of this post for the clip in its original context)
I remember learning about the Holocaust in school.
How could you forget?
The scale, the brutality, the senselessness. The pictures stay with you. And as I learned more about Jewish history in university and self-study, it was sickening to learn that this was no outlier, but just one of countless acts of violence perpetrated against the Jewish people over the past several thousand years.
Any vulnerable human being who faces injustice will have my support. Thus, like many others, I have supported the Jewish people when they have faced anti-Semitism--and I will continue to support them when they are victimized for their identity.
But it has been shocking to discover that, for Zionist Jews (and here I will distinguish Zionist Jews from non-Zionist Jews), protecting the oppressed from their oppressors is not the lesson to take from the Holocaust.
Recently, Sarah Hurwitz (former Obama speechwriter), has claimed:
…Is that not one of the lessons of the Holocaust? That a modern, supposedly principled people can perpetrate acts of horror? And that it is incumbent upon good bystanders to speak up and step in when they see innocent humans being systematically killed by a powerful state apparatus?
Finding a long-term, peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict (aka "Peace in the Middle East") is going to be a long and difficult road, there is no question. But how are we even supposed to start walking towards peace when some of the participants deny the most basic lessons of their own history?
Because by no means am I a scholar of Holocaust history--but it doesn't take a scholar to see that when you are trying to downplay "a wall of dead children" (Hurwitz's own words), you have taken a wrong turn. Hurwitz goes on to talk about how Jews worldwide are a "family" who need to support one another unequivocally, even if they don't see eye to eye on social issues.
Declaring that you need to unconditionally support your kinsmen even when they're committing acts of atrocity sounds like exactly the wrong lesson to have taken from the Holocaust.
I have nothing but admiration for the brave anti-Zionist Jewish people around the world who raise their voices against the genocide in Palestine. And I will support them as best I can against the anti-Semites and Zionists who target them.
You can find the original Hurwitz clip around 11:10 of this video if you wish to see it in its larger context.