I hear you, but I think the point here is that fooling ourselves into thinking we're in a debate is counter-productive. People in power often use this tactic, encouraging debate and dialogue, but only to waste breath. They're not listening; to be persuaded, one has to be open to persuasion.

Think Mittens read this study before coming down with "the sickness" that led to his ruddy complexion at the debate? Considering the brown-face debacle, it seems plausible...

Be vewy carfee. Last time I countered evolutionary psychologists, I was treated to an onslaught of really angry men telling me what an idiot I am for suggesting that women are anything other than the hopelessly dependent weak sex (a particular narrative of) evolution says they are.

My response was to the person who wrote this, "An overweight person receiving comments from multiple strangers is not bullying. Come on."

I don't mean to imply that society is bullying her, but that often people's experience of being bullied is a bunch of isolated instances that constitute a continuous experience for that person. But the bully will often say, "what? I just said one thing!" or something like that as a way to absolve themselves of…

I can foresee a number of scenarios in which text + color-able images could foster interest, and none of them involve tossing it to a kid and saying, "here ya go!"

If every interaction you had with a stranger carried with it the very real potential that they would loudly point out and chide the thing about yourself that you are most acutely aware of and insecure about, it seems likely that you might not be so quick to absolve the cruel words of strangers.

I agree with you that it is true that sometimes people over-react, and sometimes people take things personally that are not personal, and that sometimes people claim victimization when they have not been victimized. I've found myself in this situation before, and it's taxing to have to explain to someone why their…

I don't know if it facilitates learning so much as interest, which is tangential though also fundamental to learning.

I didn't read your other post, but I'm sorry that you were personally attacked.

Touche! nice.

It would maybe work, but canned whipped cream isn't so much whipped as it's instantly aerated. As a result, as that air seeps out, the "whipped cream" resorts back to its cream state. In a freezer, the air temperature would drop quickly, causing it to become thinner, and likely collapse the cream before it could…

I understand that it's important not to collapse criticism into bullying. That being said, Spencer draws some distinctions that strike me as problematic. They are a) bullying is physical and b)bullying is daily.

Yes, I understand the thinking behind it. I'm more wondering more about how far it extends. For example, many people would say that being a woman is (historically, politically, and socio-economically) a challenge. The transgendered community would say that the man/woman binary is a false lingual construct. This…

Thought experiment:

Hmm. Ok, I can get on board with this idea. But I'm curious, why stop at woman? If we're not defined by our particulars, but instead we build out from our shared universal, wouldn't it be "A person who is a woman who has special needs?"

When I was a child, I presumed Mr. Roger's warmth and sensitivity were indicative of his sexual orientation (without knowing, of course, exactly what it meant to be gay). This led me to tell my mom that I didn't understand why people had a problem with gay people because my favorite person in the world was gay. She…

I use street view when traveling to help me book accommodations. Whether I'm using airbnb or staying in a hotel, it's nice to see what the neighborhood is like, what's around and how active it is. This is especially true when traveling to a foreign city and wanting to be in a hip, lively place that isn't too…

Fucking douchebag. I invented this technique years ago. Now I'll just be some lame internet cliche. (In addition to the lame, "that was my idea" cliche.)

Know what else had been around for 200 years prior to the writing of the Constitution? Anti-Catholicism. Bias was cultivated in all 13 colonies, who uniformly prohibited Catholics from holding office, and sometimes prohibited Catholic settlers, heavily taxed Catholics, or put them to death. Even some Founding…