# "Intellectual Dark Web" Stupidity Omnibus **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 4, 2019, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193 "2019-01-04T13:53:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/221 "2019-06-19T18:57:53Z")
Yes, just like I give millionaires money when I go to the Avengers movie or listen to the Beatles. So what? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Everyone says they don’t like “political correctness” – the disagreement is about what this actually is. There are tons of people on the right who think “Trump has said bigoted and misogynistic things” is a bullshit “politically correct” statement… and this is swept into the real (but pretty damn small) reasonable concerns about political correctness (i.e. that some extremely small number of progressives might have criticized a white lady who started a taco truck, or something). This is rank whataboutism. The right sucks, I don’t really care what they think. Totally beside the point. But 80 percent does not reflect “the right”—or if it does, we’re well and truly fucked. Here’s more from the Mounk piece. Keep in mind, again, that “progressive activists” are only 8 percent of the population, although they certainly make more than 8 percent of the noise: > [@](#): > > Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87 percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness. As one 40-year-old American Indian in Oklahoma said in his focus group, according to the report: > > > [@](#): > > > > It seems like everyday you wake up something has changed … Do you say Jew? Or Jewish? Is it a black guy? African-American? … You are on your toes because you never know what to say. So political correctness in that sense is scary. > > […] > Progressive activists are the only group that strongly backs political correctness: Only 30 percent see it as a problem. > > So what does this group look like? Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists are the most racially homogeneous group in the country. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/222 "2019-06-19T19:07:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This is rank whataboutism. The right sucks, I don’t really care what they think. Totally beside the point. But 80 percent does not reflect “the right”—or if it does, we’re well and truly fucked. > > Here’s more from the Mounk piece. Keep in mind, again, that “progressive activists” are only 8 percent of the population, although they certainly make more than 8 percent of the noise: > > :dubious: Yes, no one likes PC-ness, and lots of people think it’s a problem. But this tells us very little when the understanding of PC-ness varies so incredibly widely. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/223 "2019-06-19T19:19:21Z")
No one? Looks like 70 percent of progressive activists (which is your cohort) disagree. But that is only 5.6% of the overall population. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/224 "2019-06-19T19:31:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Yes, just like I give millionaires money when I go to the Avengers movie or listen to the Beatles. So what? You’re not paying tradesmen for their skilled time, crafting, and labour; but a multi-millionaire to serve you comforting political opinions over a microphone. You send him money for this. Like real money. Mailing multi-millionaire “influencers” monthly checks because they say comforting things to you is televangelist level scamming. Sam Harris’ fulltime job is collecting money from supporters like you. That’s how he buys his house and vacations. That’s how he travels. He sells out auditoriums at plus $200 a pop. All thanks to his followers. I’m just amazed that on top of his family wealth, his book selling wealth, his speaking fees, gullible people **will still eagerly mail famous multi-millionaires, no-strings attached, money**. Just like that. I don’t understand what amount of kool-aid is required. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/225 "2019-06-19T19:34:51Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > You’re right, that was a bad typo. It should be > > “The three requirements FOR being in the IDW are:” Unfortunately, it seems there’s only one requirement for being an IDW critic, and that’s not knowing the first goddamn thing about them. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/226 "2019-06-19T19:36:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > No one? Looks like 70 percent of progressive activists (which is your cohort) disagree. But that is only 5.6% of the overall population. Cite that those 70% like PC-ness? I thought the poll asked if they thought it was a significant problem. I don’t like PC-ness, but it’s not a significant problem. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/227 "2019-06-19T19:36:55Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > Unfortunately, it seems there’s only one requirement for being an IDW critic, and that’s not knowing the first goddamn thing about them. So give us the official party line, dude. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/228 "2019-06-19T20:11:38Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So give us the official party line, dude. Step one would be finding out who’s in it and what they look like. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/229 "2019-06-19T20:16:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Cite that those 70% like PC-ness? I thought the poll asked if they thought it was a significant problem. I don’t like PC-ness, but it’s not a significant problem. I’m honestly not trying to be snarky, but you’ve always struck me as being _extremely_ PC. I’m not even saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, just calling it like I see it. With that in mind, I’ve got to ask; if _you_ don’t like PC, what do you think PC is? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/230 "2019-06-19T20:25:22Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > I’m honestly not trying to be snarky, but you’ve always struck me as being _extremely_ PC. I’m not even saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, just calling it like I see it. With that in mind, I’ve got to ask; if _you_ don’t like PC, what do you think PC is? Insisting the wealthy be called “job creators”; insisting that discussions of inequality are “class warfare”; insisting that discussions of racism are “playing the race card”; insisting that discrimination against LGBTQ people is “religious freedom”; etc. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/231 "2019-06-19T20:29:31Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Insisting the wealthy be called “job creators”; insisting that discussions of inequality are “class warfare”; insisting that discussions of racism are “playing the race card”; insisting that discrimination against LGBTQ people is “religious freedom”; etc. I don’t like any of those things either, but you know that that’s not what most people think of when they talk about political correctness, right? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/232 "2019-06-19T20:31:55Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > I don’t like any of those things either, but you know that that’s not what most people think of when they talk about political correctness, right? I acknowledge that there is widespread disagreement in the concept. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/233 "2019-06-19T21:44:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Yes, no one likes PC-ness, and lots of people think it’s a problem. But this tells us very little when the understanding of PC-ness varies so incredibly widely. Friendly reminder that “I don’t like PC-ness” is a bit like “I don’t like SJWs” or “I don’t like cucks” - the term exists as a snarl word meant to inherently degrade the subject matter. It has no fixed definition; if it had a definition at all, any definition it once had has been worn away from overuse. It’s not actually a thing with any real definition - it just means “something I don’t like, having vaguely to do with social justice”. It polling well is fucking weird and it polling poorly is to be expected because the connotation of the phrase is literally negative. It’s like if “bad things” were polling well. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/234 "2019-06-19T22:03:16Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Friendly reminder that “I don’t like PC-ness” is a bit like “I don’t like SJWs” or “I don’t like cucks” - the term exists as a snarl word meant to inherently degrade the subject matter. It has no fixed definition; if it had a definition at all, any definition it once had has been worn away from overuse. It’s not actually a thing with any real definition - it just means “something I don’t like, having vaguely to do with social justice”. It polling well is fucking weird and it polling poorly is to be expected because the connotation of the phrase is literally negative. It’s like if “bad things” were polling well. That seems pretty reductive. While PC may not have a scientific, cast-iron definition, I’d wager if you asked 100 people who didn’t like PC to define PC their answers would have a lot in common. Also, I’d be pretty surprised if more than a couple of people defined PC the way **iiandyiiii** seems to. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/235 "2019-06-19T22:47:03Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > That seems pretty reductive. While PC may not have a scientific, cast-iron definition, I’d wager if you asked 100 people who didn’t like PC to define PC their answers would have a lot in common. Also, I’d be pretty surprised if more than a couple of people defined PC the way **iiandyiiii** seems to. Oh sure. Most people who use it unironically are exactly the same kind of troglodytic reactionaries. Like I said, it’ll all boil down to “something I hate, probably having to do with social justice”. Is someone getting punished for racism of anything less than the “white hood” variety (say, he merely shouted “NIGGER” to his friends and got rejected from his first choice of school)? You’ll find some shitlord in the comments talking about “PC gone mad”. College kids don’t want to be visited by Milo Yiannopolous? If you haven’t seen someone dismiss their complaints as “political correctness”, you clearly don’t spend much time on twitter. Final Fantasy devs want to cut down on Tifa’s cleavage for as-of-yet unstated reasons? Yeah, that’s definitely political correctness gone mad. Some games journalist dislikes the artistic direction in a game because they feel uncomfortable with how much fanservice there is? POLITICAL CORRECTNESS! Universities fire a biology professor because he’s using his university position to bolster young earth creationism? You can bet your ass someone’s gonna be complaining about political correctness. Are some of these examples unfair and obviously dishonest? No! Because _ **that is the way the term is used** _! It’s a stupid buzzword. If you want an intellectual take on this, the Guardian has an excellent article on how it is and always has been a [totally bullshit complaint](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom-enemy-donald-trump). But I’m not going to give you that. Instead, I’ll just go through the twitter search results for “Political Correctness” and see what they’re saying: [ul] [li]NYT cutting political cartoons is political correctness[/li][li]Enforcing laws on the books against inciting hatred is political correctness[/li][li]Replacing Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 is political correctness[/li][li]No person at the BBC tory debate being a climate denialist is political correctness[/li][li]Calling the concentration camps on the border “concentration camps” is political correctness[/li][li]\*Not \*calling the concentration camps on the border “concentration camps” is political correctness[/li][li]Celebrating pride month on army bases is PC nonsense[/li][li]Not celebrating the pride of straight soldiers is PC[/li][li]Complaining about Trump using dehumanizing language to describe immigrants is PC[/li][li]Political correctness is apparently fascism[/li][li]Political correctness is killing comedy (someone tell John Mulaney, I guess he missed the memo)[/li][li]Complaining about an article touting “craniometry” is political correctness[/li][li]The chinese government is setting social credit systems based on political correctness[/li][/ul] Can you form a coherent definition out of that morass? I can’t, because there isn’t one. It’s a snarl word. It means fuck-all, and any useful meaning it might have had (for example: I think it’d be a great term to have to discuss the Chinese social credit system, but you fuckers ruined it!) is utterly buried under its actual usage, which is, again, “something I don’t like, probably relating to social justice”. Maybe tack “word choice” onto that definition, but really, it’s a thought-terminating cliche that doesn’t actually _mean_ anything. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/236 "2019-06-19T23:35:31Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > Unfortunately, it seems there’s only one requirement for being an IDW critic, and that’s not knowing the first goddamn thing about them. What is the first goddamn thing about them that we’re missing, in your view? Just the first goddamn thing will be fine, I don’t want a link to a goddamn YouTube video or some shit. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/237 "2019-06-20T00:29:53Z")
This strawman argument is equivalent to saying that false news articles from RT et al are suddenly no longer a problem because Trump has twisted the term “fake news” to attack reporting on CNN or in the NYT he doesn’t like. :rolleyes: Point being, just because right wingers muddy the waters, that doesn’t remove the original problem. It just means we have to filter out their stupid/racist/misogynistic definitions of the word. Sorry if that’s too much mental effort for some of you. And yes: Andy is uber-PC, even by Doper standards. The boy doth protest too much. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/238 "2019-06-20T00:30:37Z")
Apparently calling racists racist is PC. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/239 "2019-06-20T00:38:44Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Apparently calling racists racist is PC. And they are actually the ones that ‘doth’ protest too much. Ok, not protest, they whine. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193/240 "2019-06-20T00:55:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This strawman argument is equivalent to saying that false news articles from RT et al are suddenly no longer a problem because Trump has twisted the term “fake news” to attack reporting on CNN or in the NYT he doesn’t like. :rolleyes: Funny you mention that; here’s [Slate](https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/stop-calling-everything-fake-news.html) from 2016 complaining that “fake news” as a term is becoming useless due to overuse: Fake news is a real, specific problem. But in all the furor around who’s making it, who’s sharing it, its impact, and how to stop it, it’s easy to lose sight of something more fundamental: what it is. The broader the definition, the less useful the concept becomes—and it’s already verging on counterproductive. […] To state what should be obvious, these are not stories fabricated by hoaxsters or Macedonian teenagers looking to make a buck. They are opinions and analyses with which the tweeters happen to strongly disagree. But throwing the term fake news back at the mainstream media allows the right-wing fringe not only to insult their specific targets, such as CNN, but to devalue the term itself and along with it the idea that there is any clear distinction between truth and fiction. It’s no surprise that those on the right who have embraced the meme most enthusiastically include conspiracy-mongers such as Infowars, which built its reputation by suggesting that the U.S. government helped orchestrate the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 attacks. We’re now faced with a grim irony in which mainstream news outlets reporting on “Pizzagate” as a fake news story are themselves being labeled fake news outlets by the conspiracy theorists that propagated it. That was two and a half years ago. Look, if you want to talk about “Political correctness” as an actual thing, but insist that we ignore the way the term is actually used, you’re going to have to provide some kind of rigorous definition. You can be a prescriptivist or a descriptivist, but you can’t say “if you ask a hundred people what PC means you’ll get a basic idea” and then when I go to twitter to look for what it means and come back with a whole lot of _that_, say, “No no not like that”. If you insist on using the term in a way utterly foreign from how it is generally used in public, you’re going to need to define it. And then you’re going to have to explain why that definition is useful when it’s so utterly foreign from how the term is generally used, and why you can’t just pick another term that doesn’t have all that shitty baggage. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectual-dark-web-stupidity-omnibus/827193.md?page=13)