Misc. comments 19

[redbird]

Again to ozarque, about "cyberlinguistics" and what she's calling the "Um principle":
I wonder whether it's possible to preserve a certain amount of neutrality--of focus on content and ideas rather than emotion--without preserving deniability.

What I'd like, at least sometimes, is to be able to say "Here's a cool idea" without being attacked, in a way that neither I nor the other people I'm talking/writing to can use "I was only suggesting" and "You shouldn't take it personally" as attacks.

I suspect that this is impossible, at least in anything close to contemporary English(es): that if it's possible for me to say "Let's consider the idea that the free market isn't the best way to organize everything" it's also possible for someone to say something like "Let's consider the idea that $ethnic_group really are aggressive and stupid."

Given that likely constraint, I think I'd rather preserve transparency than deniability.

---

In response to cakmpls, who said some sensible things about parental pressure to be thin coming from both thin and fat parents, and over several decades:

My paternal grandmother--who was born in Czarist Russia, and was the thirteenth child but the fourth to survive to adulthood--worried that we might be too thin. She'd been in the US for decades, but deep down she knew that skinny children were the ones who died in bad winters.

Late in her life, when her doctor had convinced her that she shouldn't eat things like chocolate cake anymore, there was always cake in her home when we visited. She took pleasure in watching us enjoy it, when she no longer could. I suspect that was part the chocolate, and part knowing that her grandchildren had enough to eat.

---

Another comment to the thought-provoking cakmpls, who proposed a discussion of 'intentions, actions, and such':

I like the distinction between state of mind and intention. The two can affect each other, of course: it's a lot easier to, say, paint a bench while resenting the task, than to take care of a sick relative you resent without them noticing and being upset, even if the soup is hot and nourishing.

Intentions matter, but it's tricky because some people use them as excuses. If someone genuinely means well and is willing to be told how to do better, they can do a better thing next time. But I've dealt--we probably all have--with people who expect to be given a pass on the harm they've done because they didn't mean to hurt you. They don't want to change, because they don't think the inconvenience or harm they've caused you matters. Or it doesn't matter as much as their desire to do whatever they wanted to do in this case.

---

In a discussion in ladysisyphus's journal, cimadness said he had never understood the importance of role models because he isn't trying to emulate specific other mathematicians. So I explained:

It's not just someone to emulate.

It's the ability to visualize yourself as a mathematician, or a truck driver, or a doctor, or a stay-at-home-father, or a painter.

It's having an answer when your father or aunt or next-door neighbor says "You can't be a nurse, everyone knows boys can't be nurses"--or, better, living in a place where nobody would say "everyone knows boys/girls can't be $profession" because everyone knows that both girls and boys can grow up to do that, because they see it around them.

---

This is in response to a friends-locked post by jennet, who mentioned wanting to spend more time outdoors, other than on her way from point A to point B:

One of the ways I spend time outdoors is to stop, or digress, between points A and B. For example, on the way from the bank to the subway Friday, instead of going in the nearest subway entrance, I walked aboveground a few blocks, and stopped on the large crosstown street to look at the sky to the east (twilight), and then went into Central Park a little ways to examine the structures that Christo and Jean-Claude are having set up for the artwork that they're unfurling next weekend.

That sort of outdoor time feels different, to me, from just going directly from point A to point B, even though I have a destination in mind.

Similarly, I'll often stop and look at the sky on my way to/from the subway at the other end, in my own local park. It's going well with my desire to reacquaint myself with all the colors the sky is on my planet.

---

On this one, I don't think I should provide the context:

If they'd make a huge fuss over being dropped, you don't need them on your friendslist. Seriously. I suspect that's close to a global statement: certainly I'd apply it to anyone you aren't actually close to in any other context. (I would wonder if a close friend dropped me from their friendslist, because it would suggest that either I'd done something to offend them, or I'd misjudged the nature or strength of the friendship.)