If in fact the video depicts what we’re intended to think—that a Marine killed a puppy—it’s just too much.
I thought we were supposed to be the good guys. After the lies from our own government, torturing suspects, handing over suspects to other countries for torturing, ALL the horribly botched and misguided bullshit of this war, what’s left? Hey, wait, we forgot to kill some innocent, dumb animals! Man’s inhumanity to man…and anything else with a pulse? This is about the worst PR after we’ve already had waaaay too much really bad PR.
Unless the Corps has the ability to project their propaganda back through time or the ability to accurately predict the future (and I think we can rule that one out), most of those stories were written before this video was widely distributed. In fact, U.S. service people have been rescuing Iraqi dogs for years, hand-rearing puppies and occasionally bringing them home. That just makes it more sad that for a while anyway the dominant image of dogs and marines is going to be a puppy being thrown off a cliff.
So perhaps instead of an absolutist
you could have said “recognize the difference between sympathy and empathy as psychologists use the terms, as in this example, not as commonly used or defined in standard reference works on the English language,” in which case you might have been right. (You’ve linked to a subscription site as your cite, so I can’t actually read your example.)
Really? I’m not seeing it.
Looks to me like sympathy according to this particular source is sharing a feeling, empathy is understanding it. But as I wrote before, in real-world usage the terms are nearly interchangeable, as supported by the dictionary definitions on that page and others.
You were…to the plight of the Marine that failed to show good form on his toss.
He would never qualify for the Puppy-Killing Olympics being held in Asia next year…
I already acknowledged that there has traditionally been a muddying of the water between the two words, and that in regular usage they are commonly used interchangeably. The standard English dictionaries reflect this, although their interchangeability is decreasing. In currently accepted psychological definitions (this is, after all, a psychological effect, so that seems to me to be most relevant) there is a clear distinction between the two.
So yes, although an average person would not be expected to immediately pick up on the subtleties of the usages of the two words, when we are discussing our feelings as exactly as possible like we are doing in this thread, it seems to me important to clarify the distinction. If I came across as being condescending and suggesting that any moron should know the difference, that completely wasn’t my intent. After re-reading what I wrote, though, I can see where you could interpret that.
Oh yes, the point; I guess you were trying to argue that two pictures carry the same evidential weight. No, they don´t.
If a friend comes over and says, hey, I saw a horse at the park today, and shows a picture of it I would consider that a piece of evidence good enough to settle the matter. If said friend says the same, but instead of a horse he claims to have seen a real griphon at the park, and has a picture of it I wouldn´t consider it sufficient proof that griphons really exist.
For short, the often quoted maxim of extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
The link you gave made an extraordinary claim without providing the necessary proof to settle its veracity.
If the Marines press charges and this guy has half a brain, he’ll claim its a fake. I tend to think it’s a fake. On the other hand, a puppy being held by the skin on the back of his neck might not feel threatened (that’s how his mom would have moved him around), which could be why he seems like a toy.
My favorite part (am I allowed to have a favorite part?) was listening to this ex-marine on YouTube try to rationalize the behavior, supposing that he did do it. He manages to make it 4 minutes without saying a single intelligent thing.
You give two examples and imply that both have the same value or quality, from an evidence point of view, to you. If your conclusions on two separate pieces of evidence are the same (“there are reasons to be skeptical”), doesn´t it follow that both pieces of evidence then have the same weight? That both are inconclusive to reach a judgement?
And then you say:
You say that one cannot simply accept the evidence, physician heal thy self.
My first post on this thread made an analysis and informed comment based on my own experience on the evidence as a support for my opinon, while you simply WAGed that it was fake.
Frankly I´d trust Inspector Crusseau´s ability to judge evidence over yours.
As I said I work in a VFXs production company, I specialize in Character Animation, therefore I´ve studied animal motion extensively.
Based on that experience I can say with a high degree of certainty that even with the poor and short footage the puppy body reacts to motion as it should. The inertia of the limbs, the way the spine curves and the legs bend when swinged, all that shows an underlying skelletal and muscular system, it´s not a stuffed dog or a plush toy.
No, I don´t need to be lectured about analyzing evidence, thank you very much.
I was just so confused after reading the beginning of this thread. I kept looking at that horrible video over and over again trying to see what everyone else was seeing. Ugh.
No, I didn’t imply that. I realize that it’s a lot easier to argue against the point that you wish I had made, rather than the point that I actually made.
But if you continue to do it, I will continue to point out that you are arguing against a strawman.
It was a little more than a wild-ass guess (there was a basis for my guess), but I said again and again that it was a guess. What the fuck is wrong with admitting uncertainty?
