Even if that's true, how is it a choice between one and the other? I don't see any relation between the two.
Because I'm tired of people like you constantly complaining about "kids today" as if you just hit on some profound understanding of humanity. Your attitude was tired when John Milton made fun of it centuries ago.
Unfortunately, it's not profound. As you say, there have always been people like you championing the "nothing matters and so what if it did" philosophy, and people like me who believe that high standards are better than low standards. That still doesn't explain why you think that we must choose between literacy and racism.
Where did
Sidious champion a "nothing matters" philosophy or low standards? He teaches test preparation for students, IIRC, so that would be the antithesis of what he "champions." What he was criticizing was your shortsighted, cliché, and ageist stereotyping of
"kids today." His meaning was quite plain, as was mine later. You simply choose not to engage that point and instead misrepresent our arguments to self-righteously put yourself up on a pedestal as a lone defender of high standards, as usual.
Your
"As you say, there have always been people like you championing the 'nothing matters' philosophy..." comment is interesting, since
Sid's example of someone centuries ago who disagreed with you was John Milton (although Milton was talking about the criticizing younger generations meme, and not your strawman). Are you saying Milton was a champion of low standards now too? If so, you've reached new heights of arrogance, which I didn't think was even possible for you any more.
Sid's point about the racism was not that we have to make a choice between racism or low standards, but that he works with kids and that he's tired of people like you not learning from the past and constantly making the same negative assumptions about the "younger generation" being lazy, or stupid, or having poor literacy and standards, or that they will bring about the decline of society. He's saying that
IF we take your premise about declining standards as true --which he clearly doesn't-- he'd still give the current generation better marks on racism and homophobia, so they still come out as an improvement overall.
People have been stereotyping and fearmongering that the younger generation is lowering standards and bringing our society to ruin as long as civilization has existed and yet somehow we're still plugging along and things have actually gotten progressively better. You'd think at some point the realization would hit that the generation that preceded you said the same thing about your generation, and so on and so forth as far back as recorded history goes, and that you'd understand how foolish that stereotype is. But for some shortsighted people the realization never comes, I guess.
HoHoHocutus wrote:
We voluntarily moderate this board. If we got paid, then yeah, I could understand asking us to remain neutral in debates and just to patrol the board.
Well, if you believe volunteering gives you the right to do shoddy work, then I guess that explains why you defend low standards in general. But it doesn't explain why you defend low standards in professional publications and outlets.
So, which one of your allegedly high standards includes making strawman arguments or having exceptionally poor reading comprehension, since those are the only two explanations available for your complete misrepresentation of what I said in the quoted passage?
What I said was that it was unfair for posters to expect us to remain neutral participants in debate as unpaid moderators who are only doing this voluntarily in addition to being regular posters. From where do you draw that I'm saying that being volunteers means doing shoddy work?
If you are saying that not remaining neutral is shoddy work itself, I would be happy to use the search function to point out numerous debates on this board where you took a decidedly non-neutral stance while serving as a moderator, including how discussing women's issues in Miscellaneous is still a touchy subject in large part because of the absolute trainwreck your arrogant and sexist remarks caused during multiple past discussions on the subject, which repulsed a lot of female and male posters and moderators here.
Now that we have that out of the way, as
Stoo points out above, I also at no point defended or encouraged "low standards in professional publications or outlets" or even on TrekBBS, nor have I ever done that. What I did discourage was the ridiculous hyperbole some posters here engage in in response to simple typos, grammar errors, and sometimes even the natural evolution of language through slang and diffusion across the globe. Some people go so far as thinking seeing some mistakes made in casual online discussions means the downfall of literacy or society, the potential rise of fascism again, the death of hospital patients, taking money from elderly pensions, and the crashing of the economy. I pointed out the erroneous nature of that suggestion earlier in the thread if you'd like to refresh your memory on what I was
ACTUALLY discussing instead of your ridiculous strawman.
But I enjoy participating in discussion here, and I get passionate about certain subjects just like anyone else.
Well, don't get the wrong impression. I, for one, appreciate your obnoxious and bullying defense of bad spelling, poor grammar, and lack of standards.
Or if you just want to continue making cheap shots that have nothing to do with my point in response to comments I made to a completely different person...
I, for one,
do not appreciate your ageism, sexism, extreme narrow-mindedness, frequent reliance on stereotyping entire groups all while portraying yourself as someone who is enlightened and open-minded, your self-righteousness, boundless arrogance, your "obnoxious" and continuous need to insult the intelligence of people who simply disagree with you on TV shows and movies, your "bullying" of women and telling them that you know more about women than they do because of your years in "women's health," your treatment of personal anecdotes as evidence of far-reaching claims; your deliberate misrepresentation, flat-out delusion, or poor comprehension-based misreading/misunderstanding of others' comments and positions, and just your general lousy demeanor.
Did my thoughts come through loud and clear, or are you going to misread that as a compliment about your stunning genius?
