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2017-08-16, 11:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-08-16, 11:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Since AI can switch bodies so long as theyre compatible, it seems likely that any AI can at least apply for a "run this chassis" type job, like Jeremy the former robot arm. Whether or not their personalities are appropriate for the position, they are at least probably able to do that. Unfortunately, those jobs also appear to really suck unless youre super into being an arm with an eye at the end of it, or a toaster or whatever else.
Maybe there are businesses that rent out AI chassis to employees to ensure they are able to perform their duties? And let them take them out and live their lives in them when off shift? That's the only way I can really see that working.
"something" being "she hacked herself into one and stole it", yes.Last edited by Keltest; 2017-08-16 at 11:35 AM.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2017-08-16, 12:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Sure, but that is the opposite of the case here.
As far as we can tell, Winslow has not earnt a dime in his entire life. He got gifted a very expensive vehicle, and immediately went to show it off.
If this hypothetical 50 hr/week person was driving a $2000 3rd hand clunker because that is all he can afford, and a friend comes by his job to show of his $100000 brand new Tesla that a rich friend got for him, then I think it is not impossible to understand the reaction.
Privilege in this particular case is easy access to significant amounts of money. Winslow has "earnt" this access by providing companionship to Hannelore. Now, I am not discounting how much this companionship probably meant to Hannelore, and I am not saying she shouldn't have rewarded it with an expensive new body, but May's position on this is quite understandable. Not everyone is friends with the daughter of multimillionaires - heck, May probably wouldn't have gone to jail if she had been, which shows off right there how much of a privilege that would have been at the time.
In the words of The Revenant, the batman expy from PS238, "I sometimes think access to cash is the greatest superpower of all".
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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2017-08-16, 12:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Actually, she stole $750 million, apparently to try buy a strike drone on the black market. Her mistake was using a Swiss bank account. The Swiss have gotten VERY good at tracking illegitimate gains, and they tend to cooperate with law enforcement. Everyone knows you use the Cayman Islands.
But she apparently never actually made it into said drone.Last edited by tomandtish; 2017-08-16 at 12:09 PM.
"That's a horrible idea! What time?"
T-Shirt given to me by a good friend.. "in fairness, I was unsupervised at the time".
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2017-08-16, 12:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
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- NYC
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Point 1: May is an ex-con who can't get a job at what shes good at and has been forced to live as a civilian AI, but given a subpar body in which to live. The fact that Winslow knows somebody who can just buy him a new body when he decides he wants one and May doesn't is a privilege, by your own words!
Point 2: There's this concept known as intersectionality. Privilege doesn't exist on a single axis. Let's say that there are two people who both "work 50+ hours a week to support their family at a decent standard of living, who [have] put in a lifetime of hard work just to keep up and maybe get ahead a little." However, say one of them is a straight man and the other a gay man. The gay man probably had to jump through several legal hoops in order to have the family with his partner, because of the inherent scrutiny that gay couples have with adopting while the straight man just had to knock up his wife a couple times (this is not to belittle what a pregnant woman has to go through, by the way). That is a privilege that the straight man has over the gay man regardless of economic status.
Or, same situation, but one person is a man in the other is a woman. In most jobs, a man having a family is seen as a plus. It shows that he's responsible because of the implication that he is able to manage his household. However, a female employee having a family is often seen as a liability because companies often assume that she will put the family before the job. That again is a privilege that the man has over the woman despite the same economic situation that they're in.
Those were just some simple examples but it goes way, way deeper than that. especially when you mix things like race, and gender expression, and sexual orientation, and economic status, and age, and just about every other category of demographic you can imagine.
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2017-08-16, 12:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2010
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
We havent ever gotten a price tag for various anthro bodies, so we really dont know how much they cost. The fact that Marigold was able to toss down the cash for one, despite it apparently being pricey, means its not exactly buying a new mercedes. Especially since momo is either paying her back, or already has, while working for a college library at what I doubt is a very high wage. May cant afford to buy herself a new one because she has to support herself on her crappy minimum wage job while all momo really needs is a charging plug now and then. For all we know, they go from a few hundred to a few thousand, depending on how advanced you want it. Not something the average person can casually buy, you know, needing to plan ahead a bit to go grab one, but also not something only the daughter of multibillionaires can do.
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
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2017-08-16, 01:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
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- NYC
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Marigold still had to significantly cut down on her own budget to get Momo's new body, too. I'd hazard that a basi robot body would be at minimum the price of a more-than-decent gaming computer.
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2017-08-16, 01:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
So what?
None of that means that one person in any of those examples has an a special, unearned, unjust advantage over the other.
If the gay couple has a harder time adopting than an otherwise equivalent straight couple, that's not a privilege for the straight couple, that's an unjust situation imposed on the gay couple that needs to be addressed. The injustice lies in what's imposed on the gay couple, not in what is not imposed on the straight couple.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-08-16, 01:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
You just said that the gay couple has a clear disadvantage compared to the straight couple in this scenario, but it doesn't mean that the straight couple has an advantage over the gay couple. That's a contradiction.
In other words, the fact that the gay couple is underprivileged in comparison to the straight one means that the straight couple has privilege over the gay couple.
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2017-08-16, 01:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
So, it's unjust, which by your definition of "special, unearned, unjust advantage", does that mean that, according to you, the straight couple people earnt the easiness of adoption, or that it's not that special an advantage?
Also, wiki link to privilege
GWLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2017-08-16 at 01:40 PM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2017-08-16, 01:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
What both of you are saying is that if my neighbor's house is robbed, and mine isn't, that I have "your house hasn't been robbed privilege".
That something wrong has not been done to me, that has been done to my neighbor, does not grant me some sort of special unearned unjust advantage -- it means only that something wrong has been done to my neighbor. The unjust thing there would be that one person has been wrong -- not that the other person has not been wronged.
If someone's rights have been violated, that's the injustice, that's the problem that needs to be addressed. Not that someone else's rights haven't been violated.
"Privilege" is a madhouse mirror, fixating on the distorted reflection of what needs to be focused on.
Each person has rights, as a human being, and as an American citizen if applicable, and when those rights are violated, then that injustice needs to be addressed, regardless of that person's skin color or religious faith or gender or orientation or whatever.Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-08-16 at 01:54 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-08-16, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
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- NYC
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2017-08-16, 01:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2017-08-16, 02:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
That is exactly what the toxic, derisive, backwards, ugly concept of "privilege" is all about. No strawman about it.
The problem isn't one person's "privilege", the problem is the actual injustice done to the other person.
It's not a "privilege" if your skin color doesn't keep you from getting a mortgage because of bigotry -- it's an injustice and a violation of your rights if bigotry against your skin color results in you not getting a mortgage.Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-08-16 at 02:05 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-08-16, 02:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
A house getting robbed is a personal problem- one person or maybe a small group of people decides to do this thing to the house. When we discuss privilege, we are talking about systemic or institutional disadvantages that happens as part of society as a whole, where it is held up by laws or rules or even a social moré. So your example is, in fact, invalid.
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2017-08-16, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
The analogy stands just fine as-is.
"Your rights haven't been violated, so you have privilege." = "Your house hasn't been robbed, so you have privilege."
It's not a zero-sum game where every unjust disadvantage imposed on one person is somehow "balanced" by an unfair advantage granted to another. Every injustice done, every violation of rights, is a lowering from the standard that's supposed to be universally met.
The standard to be met is that everyone's rights are respected. Those whose rights and liberties are respected aren't gaining some sort of special advantage, some sort of "privilege" -- they're getting exactly what they're supposed to get, what everyone is supposed to get. The problem is when someone's rights and liberties are violated.
"Privilege" is one of the worst concepts possible, and makes the discussion about precisely all the wrong things. Sadly, it's become an article of faith for an entire generation of the American left. See also, identity politics.
Or as explained quite eloquently here...
When the phrase “white privilege” is spoken, most minorities hear, “a pattern of treating white people better than non-white people combined with the ability to remain blind to this pattern happening in their own lives.” However, I and, based on every conversation I’ve ever witnessed, most white people hear, “white people have it too easy. They have no problems. The world gets handed to them on a silver platter.” And the conversation stops right there. A lot of times the response by white people is to tell their own stories of being poor, overcoming enormous obstacles, being mistreated etc. Privilege belongs to the rich, the powerful, celebrities, politicians, royalty. Not white share croppers or immigrants or a white kids with an alcoholic father.
At which point, people of color say, “but you don’t have to deal with racism! You don’t have to deal with people following you through stores or refusing to hire you or housing discrimination. The cops don’t pull you over for ‘driving while white’! You don’t get stopped and frisked walking down the street in New York city! Don’t you see how privileged you are?”
And here is the problem; a privilege is something that you don’t have a right to. It’s something that is suspect. As Americans in particular, we don’t approve of the wealthy or powerful having privileges that others don’t. When the mayor gets pulled over while drunk, we expect him to be treated just like anyone else who drives drunk. We want him to be treated just like us. When we say that someone has privileges, we are saying that they get treated better than they should be. And very few white people think that they are treated better than they ought to be treated. It is one thing to say that minorities are not treated as well as they ought to be and something else entirely to say that white people are treated too well. And that, I believe, is why the phrase “white privilege” is such a conversation stopper.
EDIT: that said I'm done with this topic, we've completely derailed the thread and we're never going to agree.Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-08-16 at 02:58 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-08-16, 02:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
If one person has an advantage than the other- on a societal level- the one that's better off has privilege. Thats all that means. So yes, people who are being treated fairly do have privilege that people being treated unfairly do not. Because privilege is comparative.
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2017-08-16, 02:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
It is a privilege (hey, if you can argue from personal conviction, so can I).
When the law, or the institutions, or the private companies treat group A better than they treat groups B, C, D, E, etc, there is clear privilege for group A.
It is also, at the same time, unjust for all the other groups. The two are complimentary, not exclusive.
Also, your example is absolutely terrible for your position. First, no one has a "right" to a mortgage, so your whole thing falls apart. Second, when there is discrimination, it is usually that the applications for a mortgage from people of group A skipped steps, were given more leeway or otherwise were facilitated in the process, where the other groups were not given those same advantages and instead follow the letter of the procedure. Discrimination in access to mortgages is a textbook case of privilege, in fact - of letting a group pass a barrier where the others are stopped, when they should all have been stopped.
Similarly, when a police stops a member of group A and find them a bit drunk, statistics say that they "use their digression" and send them home with a warning far more often than when they encounter the same situation for members of the other groups. No law or right was violated - the police do indeed have the prerogative to use their digression. The privilege therefore is the availability of clemency for members of the group, in quantities larger than they are available for the other groups.
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2017-08-16 at 02:49 PM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2017-08-16, 03:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
I have "don't have to worry about my house getting broken into" privilege, for the most part. Doesn't mean it's wrong that I don't have to worry about my house getting broken into. But I'd come off as a bit of a clueless prat if I lamented the lack of trust people show by locking their doors and barring their windows, just because that isn't part of my experience.
I agree that the nomenclature is funky, but you're misrepresenting it in order to make that point, which is unreasonable.
Returning to the comic--by no means should May have reacted as she did, but Winston was also a bit self-centered in not thinking about May's situation. Privilege is, again, a clunky way to talk about this, but the sentiment is not fundamentally wrong.Last edited by Lethologica; 2017-08-16 at 04:24 PM.
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2017-08-16, 03:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
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2017-08-16, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2016
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-08-16, 04:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2015
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- On the tip of my tongue
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
That Winston's mistake is understandable makes it ordinary and believable behavior by someone who is not a jerk. It is still a mistake, though.
I don't know that the action itself was the mistake--there may have been a proper way to visit May if Winston approached it with more awareness. To me, the lack of awareness is the base mistake. But that is at most a minor point.
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2017-08-16, 04:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
What I often find annoying about privilege arguments is that they frequently focus on the unimportant part, whether someone has some privilege (which is just a matter of definition though matters of definition can be important if some term carries strong associations), instead of what having that privilege implies. (In this case imo it doesn't imply much, well not anymore than the general state of having money while others don't that it is about a robot body and hers deteriorates makes it more emotionally fraught but it comes down to having money in general. Well rather access to money by knowing someone rich, …why did she choose to live in that building anyway, she definitely has more than marten so since they live in the same building her apartment is probably below what she could afford, well I disgress.)
Anyway I wouldn't analyze it too much before at least they start talking about it.Last edited by Ibrinar; 2017-08-16 at 04:46 PM.
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2017-08-16, 04:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
the problem is you're focusing on
white people hear, “white people have it too easy. They have no problems. The world gets handed to them on a silver platter.”
minorities hear, “a pattern of treating white people better than non-white people combined with the ability to remain blind to this pattern happening in their own lives.”
On the subject of May, she's perfectly within her right to be upset cause Winslow was being pretty insensitive. Body is an important subject for everyone, and when you're stuck in a body that doesn't work right and that you could change, but lack the resources to do so, that really sucks. It's makes life hard, and to be confronted by someone who changed their body in all the ways you want to, just because they felt like it, I can understand being upset over it. She was super rude about it, but that doesn't invalidate her point.
But how Winslow reacted after is the correct way to act when people call you out on things like this. Humbly, and looking for how to make it better, whether specifically with that person, or in general. Doubling down and getting mad at the person calling you out accomplishes nothing.Thanks Uncle Festy for the wonderful Ashling Avatar
I make music
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2017-08-16, 04:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
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2017-08-16, 04:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-08-16, 05:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Would you prefer some other word then? Because I really don't see "resentment towards those who have advantages relative to yourself who take them for granted" as going away any time soon. It's not "privilege" in the sense of society's baseline, it's from the baseline experience of those that you rightly point out have been treated unjustly. Because that is how people work, we tend to set our experiences as the default. Like, people get excited for a raise even if they could be making more money elsewhere or they're still below median income. And I probably would use this analogy more often if it didn't risk bringing pay gaps into these conversations.
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2017-08-16, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
The use of the word "privilege" has long predated it's use on tumblr etc; it's a term that's used in biology and sociology. And the term does not at all imply any personal moral failings on the part of the person who has privilege, or at least it didn't until a bunch of people on the tumblr echo chamber got their hands on it.
All it means is "due to circumstances - mostly out of your control - you have an advantage over other people and may not be aware of these advantages". The implication of "and that makes you a terrible person" is something that has been tacked on, rather than something fundamental to the term.i am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
i am going to make it though this year
if it kills me
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2017-08-16, 05:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn
Because the people who have issue with the word are the ones who are described by the word. Its the same as when people get upset by the word cis. White people being upset at the concept of white privilege aren't worth my sympathy. Maybe instead of yelling that you dont like the word, do something about all these inequalities you claim not like.
No one thinks that except for the strawmen you have built up in your head and painted blueLast edited by The Extinguisher; 2017-08-16 at 05:37 PM.
Thanks Uncle Festy for the wonderful Ashling Avatar
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2017-08-16, 05:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Questionable Content 11: It's Like Seeing a Unicorn