The perfect rant...

Fast Eddie

Fast Eddie

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I saw this posted on Linked In today. I thought it was just brilliant. Just think, even on this forum of relatively like minded souls, we can seldom have a debate without it reverting to mud slinging and name calling.

Why? What’s wrong with us all these days?

Freedom of speech and the ability to ‘agree to disagree’ whilst respecting that others may not always think you are right... we should try and practice this it more often...

Anyway, here’s the rant:

I’m sick of covid-19.
I’m sick of black vs. white.
I’m sick of Tory vs. Labour.
I’m sick of gay vs. straight.
I’m sick of Christians vs atheists.
I’m REALLY sick of the media.
I’m sick of no one being allowed to think what they want & feel what they do without offending someone.
I am sick of people blaming the whole for the sins of a few.
We’re one race—the human race.
You want to support Boris Johnson? You do so. It’s your choice.
You want to support Kier Starmer ? Fine... also your choice!
You want to believe in God? Okay, believe in God.
You want to believe in magical creatures that fly around & sprinkle fairy dust to make life better? Awesome... you do so.
BUT stop thrusting your beliefs on others & not being able to deal with the fact that they don’t have the same exact mind-set as you.
Having our own minds is what makes us all individual and beautiful. If you can’t handle the fact that you may have a friend that has opposing views as you, then you are not any better than the bigots and the racists.
I don’t have to agree with everything you believe to be a decent human being & your friend.

Rant over
 
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I support your underlying sentiment, really do, and agree with your argument in most of the scenarios you've listed. "Cancel culture" has gotten out of control. My entire career as an academic would be over if my personal beliefs on some hot button "woke" issues became widely known (like gender identity FFS :rolleyes:). So I get the frustration. The problem with your position, as I see it, is that at its extreme it assumes everything is grey, no one is ever wrong, or to be held accountable for the outcomes of their beliefs. Now I know that's not what you're explicitly suggesting, but argumentatively that's where it leads. The plain reality is that people are often wrong about things. And I'm not talking about scenarios where disagreeing may simply piss someone off but ultimately doesn't effect anyone else ( religion, political parties, hockey teams, or even anti-sump valves) I'm talking about scenarios where it really counts and other people's well being is at stake. In those cases the collective "we" have to make the call. When seat belts were first made mandatory there was enormous outcry, same thing when smoking was first prohibited in public buildings... looking back I don't think any of us would would argue the necessity or import of those decisions.

I do think that this forum is not the venue to be having any of these discussions though, we should just stick to talking about the things that we all have in common.
 
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acadian said:
I support your underlying sentiment, really do, and agree with your argument in most of the scenarios you've listed. "Cancel culture" has gotten out of control. My entire career as an academic would be over if my personal beliefs on some hot button "woke" issues became widely known (like gender identity FFS :rolleyes:). So I get the frustration. The problem with your position, as I see it, is that at its extreme it assumes everything is grey, no one is ever wrong, or to be held accountable for the outcomes of their beliefs. Now I know that's not what you're explicitly suggesting, but argumentatively that's where it leads. The plain reality is that people are often wrong about things. And I'm not talking about scenarios where disagreeing may simply piss someone off but ultimately doesn't effect anyone else ( religion, political parties, hockey teams, or even anti-sump valves) I'm talking about scenarios where it really counts and other people's well being is at stake. In those cases the collective "we" have to make the call. When seat belts were first made mandatory there was enormous outcry, same thing when smoking was first prohibited in public buildings... looking back I don't think any of us would would argue the necessity or import of those decisions.

I do think that this forum is not the venue to be having any of these discussions though, we should just stick to talking about the things that we all have in common.
Click to expand...

I agree totally with the concept that it’s difficult to draw the line with regards to freedom of speech, I really do. And I don’t have the answer either. But I do subscribe to the notion that generally, struggling WITH freedom of speech is more desirable than living WITHOUT it.

I’m not sure I fully understand your point about seat belt law, smoking law, etc though? Freedom of speech is not about anarchy, chaos and general law breaking, at least not in my book.

But freedom of speech is most definitely about having the right to debate such topics whilst they are in discussion / development surely?

Most governments around the world are FAR better / faster at implementing laws than they are at admitting a law is wrong or ineffective and repealing it! I would argue it is our joint right, indeed duty, to fully stress test any proposed new law that we wish rather than simply give cart blanch power to governments to do as they wish.

Which, of course, requires freedom of speech.
 
There is not very much which I actually believe without doubt. I am a scientist and I know that with every measurement there is error. Every so-called 'FACT" has a probability associated with it. Some people have a need to believe and even when probabilities are very high, they will argue the opposite case. In doing so they still have a valid point of view, albeit much less likely to be the truth. If you look at our world, you can claim that God created order in the universe. However creating our world consumes energy, so order is when everything is in it's ground state and uniformly spread throughout the universe. Our world is an example of disorder. So the minus sign in American books on thermodynamics is an error which has been caused by godbothering.

Covid 19 is SARS 2. We have had since 2002 to get ready for the pandemic. 'We should address issues as they arise and NOT on the basis of what might happen' ? - https://www.who.int/ith/diseases/sars/en/
 
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So who sends God his energy bill?? And does he pay by standing order, or does he have a smart meter? Or 'old style' where he has to keep nipping down the shop for 50p pieces??
 
acadian said:
I support your underlying sentiment, really do, and agree with your argument in most of the scenarios you've listed. "Cancel culture" has gotten out of control. My entire career as an academic would be over if my personal beliefs on some hot button "woke" issues became widely known (like gender identity FFS :rolleyes:). So I get the frustration. The problem with your position, as I see it, is that at its extreme it assumes everything is grey, no one is ever wrong, or to be held accountable for the outcomes of their beliefs. Now I know that's not what you're explicitly suggesting, but argumentatively that's where it leads. The plain reality is that people are often wrong about things. And I'm not talking about scenarios where disagreeing may simply piss someone off but ultimately doesn't effect anyone else ( religion, political parties, hockey teams, or even anti-sump valves) I'm talking about scenarios where it really counts and other people's well being is at stake. In those cases the collective "we" have to make the call. When seat belts were first made mandatory there was enormous outcry, same thing when smoking was first prohibited in public buildings... looking back I don't think any of us would would argue the necessity or import of those decisions.

I do think that this forum is not the venue to be having any of these discussions though, we should just stick to talking about the things that we all have in common.
Click to expand...

The only absolute is physics. Everything else is self defined.
 
acadian said:
The problem with your position, as I see it, is that at its extreme it assumes everything is grey, no one is ever wrong, or to be held accountable for the outcomes of their beliefs.
Click to expand...

But the issue is now the boundary between normal and extreme views is being narrowed and if it continues we will be in 1984 land, only one view is acceptable. Its straight out of the Goebbels play book and being used by more and more organisations.

Strange when you look back at the 60's, here the boundaries were being expanded and acceptable views became more extreme, to the point paedophiles were campaigning for acceptance and being listened to in some quarters.
 
It is far easier to tear down, remove, destroy, reorder, cleanse, exterminate than it is to make or build ANYTHING.
At some point the doers will refuse to support those who only take or destroy. You vote with your wallet and your
feet. Just notice how these places with the cancel mindset are going to experience a huge outflow of useful citizens.
Freedom allows you to move. Perhaps that will end as well.
 

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