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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37126 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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So you’re not going to even tell us what Elon said, just boo outgroup it?

It's a video of Harris saying "I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit."

Various responses are saying that she's talking to blind people, as if that somehow makes it not weird.

It isn't weird for videotaped presentations among a certain crowd. Such as some people who work for some major tech companies that employ me.

I'm blind. I cringed. It sounds like the opening narration in a really bad first person novella.

But, you know, there aren't that many blind voters. They might be outnumbered by the activist types who like that conspicuous inclusivity signaling that alienates the people it's supposedly including (I'm sure there are dozens of trans people with pronouns in their bios, but it's mostly cis signalers; trans people I've come across just go for a name that communicates the gender they're presenting as and leave it at that, unless pressured).

In other words, she's aiming for the progressive whitewomenin HR vote. As said elsewhere in this thread, if they're the heart of the democratic voters, then she needs to appeal to them. Trans and blind voters combined might feel up a mid-sized city, if I remember the statistics correctly.

Exactly this. Most people want to be treated like they're normal, not like they're special. Yeah sometimes a particular thing becomes an obstacle and you have to work around that as best you can, but disabled people don't usually want everyone constantly acknowledging that they're disabled, immigrants don't like being perpetually reminded they're immigrants, etc, etc. It's actually the opposite of inclusive to constantly orient your language and behaviour around the thing that is different about someone.

What all these language and behaviour rules actually are is a modern form of elite etiquette. Whereas once upon a time you might have needed to demonstrate that you knew the right fork to use or how to curtsey the right way, now you need to show that you know the proper modes of address in different situations. It's not for the the actual blind/trans/whatever people, it's for the cultural class you're showing you are properly a member of.

Are the people even blind? The visible ones mostly seem to be taking pen & paper notes, one of them has glasses, and at least two seem to be gazing longlingly at Kamala?

Apparently it's a meeting of disability activists, some of whom are blind. Others may have other disabilities, or no disability at all.

Various responses are saying that she's talking to blind people, as if that somehow makes it not weird.

That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say if you're talking to blind people, or at least the sitting at a table wearing a blue suit stuff is reasonable. If I were blind I'd appreciate it as that would give me a better mental model of the space I'm inhabiting.

The difference between this situation and a phone call is that phone calls are symmetric and nobody has info about what the other is wearing etc. while in this case the sighted people will have a more accurate representation of the situation than the blind ones. Her words were just a way to try and equalise the situation a bit more.

A better comparison would be to a Google Meets session where Alice has audio+video of Bob while Bob can only hear her. There's definitely an inherent element of weirdness in this situation caused by the imbalance (as I'm sure everyone who has been involved in such a situation knows) and the way Kamala was talking attempts to at least cut down on how severe it is.

The rest of the quote is just standard left wing greeting rituals.

There's definitely an inherent element of weirdness in this situation caused by the imbalance (as I'm sure everyone who has been involved in such a situation knows)

How does having the person with no video state their sex and apparel make it any less weird?

Fair enough.

I think this is a typical case of boomer right wingers not recognizing how far behind the curve they are. They don't get to decide what is socially acceptable in the bio-leninist coalition. Those things are already long decided on before they are performed publicly.

As the owner of Twitter Elon now does get to decide that, or at least influence it, which is why his propaganda edit has 77 million views.

There are a lot of right wing boomers in the world. Be that by birth or spirituality. I don't remember the last time any of them at any time in the past 80 years could make any relevant change to the course of history. It seems like it doesn't matter how many 'SJW Owned Compilation's there are, or how many boomers watch them and cackle.

Those derided Boomers represent the change the didn't happen.

We didn't go full Australia on Covid lockdowns. We are still allowed to own guns. The state only takes 35% of our income instead of 50%. Etc...

A country with those "right wing Boomers" gone looks a lot like Canada or Australia, but with the addition of urban decay and a large criminal underclass. It's not a great look.

We didn't go full Australia on Covid lockdowns.

Nor did most of Australia. Australia had tough restrictions at the border, but inside Australia lockdowns were localised, imposed only as necessary, and abandoned once the most vulnerable groups had been vaccinated.

The only part of Australia that was locked down for longer than California was Melbourne.

We didn't go full Australia on Covid lockdowns.

Neither did Canada.

We are still allowed to own guns.

So are Canadians.

The state only takes 35% of our income instead of 50%

Again, look at Canada.

All involved are neck deep in mass immigration. I'm not seeing the boomer utility here.

I reject pretending that the US and Canada are equivalent. Especially when it comes to portion of the population that are first generation immigrants. And their meager crumb of gun ownership privileges.

Counting illegal immigrants I'm not sure the US is that much better off. Maybe 'time', before their European population is dwarfed?

Canadians can own all the relevant firearms needed to resist the gubment. The only relevant strike is 10 round magazines, as far as I can tell.

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Yeah I have a feeling that when all those right wing boomers die off the world is gonna miss them a lot more than they think.

It does make it not weird, everyone else at the table was saying similar things. I mean it’s still kind of performative but it’s not as if she just said that out of imbecility

That everyone else was doing it doesn't make it not weird either. Blind people don't need to know what colour suit you're wearing. When I listen to the radio or to a podcast I can't see the speakers either, and not once have I thought "gee I really wish this person would tell me their pronouns and what they're wearing".

Introduce yourself by name, fair enough. Everything else is unnecessary and if you're participating in some nutty subculture that likes to pretend that this nonsense is somehow supportive of disabled people, that itself is a reflection on you.

You know, it just occurred to me... blind people have their own activist organizations. They have conventions and speakers and seminars and conference calls and stuff. I had to attend a number of those for scholarships and the best training available. In none of the numerous speeches, presentations, seminars, etc that I heard did anyone describe what they were wearing, or what they looked like, in any way. I remember one banquet speaker who brought up diversity and said that, when he looked at the crowd, he saw a rainbow. Which was obvious because of things like accents and ... OK how do I point out that people from different ethnicities smell different without getting accused of saying PoC stink? Because I feel like someone is going to take it that way.

To quote a blind Aspy with a cringie youtube channel where he used to complain about random encounters, "Blind people don't do that."

OK how do I point out that people from different ethnicities smell different without getting accused of saying PoC stink? Because I feel like someone is going to take it that way.

Just the way you did right there.

Funnily enough, the single blind colleague I have ever worked with, asked for people to tell him their sex and a color of something they were wearing as well as their name. He said this helped him build a mental model of who was where in a meeting room and keep track of who was saying what.

This was over 20 years ago mind you, but perhaps it does help some blind people enough to have become a request/norm.

Before video conferencing was a thing dialing in via phone into a remote meeting was always a pain because keeping track of who said what was a trial. Unlike in a podcast, you're expected to interact back after all.

This may not be as unhelpful as you think in other words.

... why a color specifically? You'd think that type of clothing, hair style, distinguishing feature, or a half-dozen other things would be more relatable than color.

Was he one of the many (most?) legally blind people who still have some (ultra-blurry) color vision?

Or is it a sense of humor thing? "Hey, you know how there's this major qualia that I'll never get to experience? Could you bring it up in a way that will sound natural at first but will make you feel a little more confused and uncomfortable the longer you think about it?" That would actually be awesome.

I thought it had to do with that most blind people are not fully blind like you mention so they can sort of fuzzily perceive that there is a woman wearing blue

... why a color specifically? You'd think that type of clothing, hair style, distinguishing feature, or a half-dozen other things would be more relatable than color.

OK so then you can go back to the 2020/2021 Microsoft meetings where people built more detailed models of themselves and got made fun of for that.

Do I find it intolerably cringe and another way for narcissists to discuss themselves with the excuse of accessibility? Yes. But if I were in a meeting with someone blind I think this is all a reasonable accommodation, is the point.

Oh, it seems entirely reasonable to me, just a very specifically weird way to be reasonable, out of a lot of alternatives. As a choice pushed by narcissists it would make sense to me. But as a request specifically made by a blind person it's an interesting mystery.

Unlike in a podcast, you're expected to interact back after all.

So like during a phone call, where you're not supposed to ask what people are wearing either (unless we're talking about a very particular type of a on me call)?

There's more then one reason for asking these sorts of favors of others, and I don't see why we should go with a mundane one by default.

So like during a phone call, where you're not supposed to ask what people are wearing either (unless we're talking about a very particular type of a on me call)?

Right, but have you ever been the only one dialing into a conference room? Everyone else can see, and all you have is sound? Back in the day I used to have to do that all the time and it was legitimately a pain to make out who was talking, where everyone is in relation to each other and the like. I think it would actually be an improvement to try and construct a visualization in that circumstance. Especially if you don't know who is talking. Indeed what we ended up having to do is preface every statement with "This is Dave, department head of consular services, I think we need to consider the cost implications of adding to ambassadorial security" But that was clunky and time consuming. Now for most people particularly nowadays with video calling that is no longer something that crops up much. But if you are blind it is every meeting, every time. Building up a mechanism to help navigate that seems like exactly the thing that you would do in that circumstance.

I would suggest that the mundane reason for blind people needing/wanting better descriptions of who is talking and how to create visualizations to keep track is exactly the one that should be considered the default. When Bob in network engineering asks me to limit the use of resources on the mainframe on Fridays, I should also consider the mundane reason the most likely one, though it is possible he is training Skynet, the mundane is almost always correct, in my experience.

Right, but have you ever been the only one dialing into a conference room? Everyone else can see, and all you have is sound.

Sure, and the primary reason that's a problem isn't that other people have visuals, and I do not, it's because other people are present in a 3 dimensional space, and I'm not. The sound that I do get is flattened and muffled, just as the sound that they get from me. We know this, because no one decided that demanding participants state their sex and attire helps to communicate in that situation.

When Bob in network engineering asks me to limit the use of resources on the mainframe on Fridays, I should also consider the mundane reason the most likely one, though it is possible he is training Skynet, the mundane is almost always correct, in my experience.

The big difference is that even though you might choose to trust Bob, his claims are verifiable. People asking that you comply with an arbitrary request, who's utility is not only unproven in the instant, but is fundamentally unprovable, tends is not typically explainable by mundane reasons.

Many peoples tequests ate not verifiable in a way that matters though. I may in yheory be able to find out if my new customer asking to be. called Mrs Jones is or is not married, but I am not actually going to bother.

Taking people at their word has served me well for the last 50 odd years, and my experience is the vast vast majority of people are not hiding some complicated reason behind a mundane one. People largely are mundane. If blind Paul asks to know what colour everyone is wearing its very probably because it helps him navigate his world in some way, and very unlikely to be because he is trying to play some kind of power game.

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It's unusual but doesn't seem weird to me. Blind (the community notes say blind and poor vision) are not always blind from birth. They might have internal representation of colour and specifying blue suit can be useful for them to have her image in their minds.

At first her mentioning her pronouns seemed weird but then again – for blind people it could be helpful in certain cases.

No one cares how blue her clothes are. Formerly sighted blind people included.

Yeah, I've always been legally blind, but was not always totally blind, so I have some amount of visual memory.

Of course, I've read this whole thread and still am picturing Harris in a generic almost-black dark grey suit, in spite of the subject matter. My visual imagination can be stubborn.

I don't think the pronouns were for blind people. I think introducing themselves with pronouns is just what people do in place of saying "I am a serious progressive who supports trans people." I'm still annoyed by this trend; 20 years ago, I was supporting trans people by complaining whenever an online service would require disclosing gender in an irrelevant context. Now it's in vogue to do the opposite, and that's somehow more inclusive. But I digress.

Of course, I've read this whole thread and still am picturing Harris in a generic almost-black dark grey suit, in spite of the subject matter. My visual imagination can be stubborn.

It's not a bad thing to assume. She's in blue in that particular video but usually wears more muted colours.

Have you ever talked to a person on the telephone?

Do you open by telling them what you're wearing so they can imagine you in their minds?

Yes, sometimes I do.

Only when they're paying $5.99 a minute.

Ha-ha. Of course you can do that.

But with friends and family, sometimes I tell them how I am doing, what new clothes I have bought and what colour they are. It's a normal talk.

While some of Kamala's recorded speech indeed seems frivolous and unfit for the occasion, I am judging her charitably.

The same critique was directed towards Trump when it was claimed that he suggested drinking bleach etc. He didn't. He was just musing about potential treatments. That wasn't meant to be taken too seriously. But people take seriously everything that the president says, sometimes uncharitably.

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