Just a quick #ResistTrump post today. There’s a lot going on. Here are two important developments that we need to respond to.
First: Jeff Sessions has started off his new job as Attorney General with an attempt to undermine legal protections of trans students.
What he did is a bit complicated to explain; see here and here for details. But Sessions’ intention is clear, and the effects of his move will be felt immediately. Here’s the Human Rights Campaign statement on the issue:
Tonight, HRC responded to the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw a request to halt an order against the Obama administration’s protections for transgender students. This action will effectively continue to halt the protections nationwide.
“After being on the job for less than 48 hours, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has signaled his intent to undermine the equal dignity of transgender students,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Transgender students are entitled to the full protection of the United States Constitution and our federal nondiscrimination laws. It is heartbreaking and wrong that the agency tasked with enforcing civil rights laws would instead work to subvert them for political interests. President Trump must immediately reverse course and direct the DOJ to uphold guidance protecting transgender students. “
If you want to help, consider supporting HRC or The Trevor Project, which offers crisis intervention/suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth and twentysomethings.
And if you know of other good organizations to support, please email me or post them in the comments below.
Second: The Trump regime has launched a wave of deportations — and has triggered protests across the country against these deportations.
See here and here for more details and a rundown of some of the protests that have happened so far.
And here are some protests taking place tomorrow, courtesy of the RESISTABLE newsletter:
Sunday, February 12
11AM ET — Jewish Community Action for Refugees, Manhattan, NY
10AM PT — Worker and Immigrant Solidarity March, Burlington, WA
3:30 CT — Chicago Moons Trump Tower, Chicago, IL
4PM MT — NO WALLS PROTEST: Holding hands in unity, International Border U.S. El Paso, Tx / Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico
If you know of other protests or good groups to check out, please email me or post them in the comments below.
@Dan
K
@ Danger
I am a Black man. I more of a mascunist than a racist. I do not judge anyone based on their ethnicity or race.
@Scildfreja Unnýðnes
I think that’s one of the biggest myths we need to put to bed, that somehow “feelings” are diametrically opposed to reason. Our emotions give us our sense of urgency, our motivation to action, our capacity to empathize with others. As much as certain elements of our society seem to want to excise their empathy chips, it is necessary for the preservation of society that we see our fellow human beings as deserving of the same treatment we ourselves expect.
And it’s not like the edgelord Trump worshippers are somehow not giving in to outrage with every angry, invective-laden tweet they send out. It’s very “feels”-related behaviour.
The issue is when our sense of outrage or desire for comfort overwhelms demonstrable fact, or at least blinds others to the bigger picture. From my vantage point, there’s very little comforting in the political landscape and broader cultural issues we discuss (kitties and doggies excepted). We don’t discuss rape culture to make ourselves feel better, it’s to point out a pattern of behaviour and brainstorm solutions. It’s not like the “1-in-5” stat was bandied about for a sense of smug superiority or to persecute men, it’s meant to spur a demand for preventative action and maybe even a little self-reflection on the part of us guys.
And just speaking for myself, I’ll sooner get outraged over criminal activity left unresolved by either the court system or society at large than I will the derriere of a video game character.
So you’re the “feminist are unfeeling cows” troll instead of the “feminist are over-emotional harpies” troll.
That’s cool. You assholes have no consistency but that’s cool.
I don’t think he’s even using the word “feels” correctly. I’ve never seen it used to describe serious emotional distress. It seems to be typically used to describe an impactful moment in pop culture. “Jon and Sansa’s reunion gave me all the feels” something along those lines.
The thing about logic is that it is not meant to overrule emotion. Logic exists to help us reason better, because we tend to reason poorly unless we learn how to do it correctly. This has nothing to do with emotion – you can be stone cold emotionless and still reason poorly if you don’t know how to do it. Logic doesn’t address the realm of emotion at all and doesn’t posit itself as being superior.
Emotion is the root of all morality. There is no logical reason to be moral, despite many centuries of attempts to create a morality that is purely driven by reason. It’s emotion that makes us aid one another and do right by one another. It’s emotion that says murder is wrong and stealing is wrong. All moral systems eventually break down, and you have to break their rules in order to remain moral; it’s emotion that helps us navigate this failure.
Something to keep in mind the next time someone denigrates emotion. Even leaving aside the fact that emotion is a basic part of the human condition, they’re saying that they don’t care about morality.
@eli
I’m trying to polish a process for locating fear in the text of an aggressive commentator. The difficulty is in parsing out where all of my fear is placing bias, my life is pretty shitty at the moment. Smaller things like the mental model of bigotry and it’s various kinds that I been using when arguing is easier. I do that one routine. I’ve got some longer replies on that topic I’m going to try to do before bed.
I think I have it pinned down to first presenting two places where a spectrum of distance exists between the commentator and the material. I based this off of a couple of dozen passes over Yor’s first three exchanges.
The first place is addressing of material. Precisely who is the comment targeted at? One can reply to an individual or a whole community in what they post. I think of this as a Directness/Indirectness spectrum. One can speak at or about communities and individuals.
The second is Implicitness/Explicitness of claims about people and things. Bigots like to give characterizations that feel about communities and their behavior including posting/commenting on blog. Things that are cited and quoted are explicit. I don’t care if a bigoted feels strongly, I care if they can show me what they feel strongly about.
The current stage is settling on a symbol system for isolating parts of text and highlighting patterns. I’m down to three kinds of brackets that isolate objective, feeling, and action content related to how the commentator is interacting with the objects they are interacting with in text.
I’m doing this while looking for a therapist and health insurance, learning to care for long-term institutionalized children, and finding constructive ways of dealing with my own relationship crises. I think I’m better off than most people but it still takes some effort to separate that from communicating about communication in an aggressive context. I often know why I feel what I do. Managing it is complicated.
@PoM
By the same token, sans emotions there’s no reason not to be, either.
That said, I disagree that there’s no logical reason to be moral, for given values of morality; cooperation works better than everyone for themselves and devil take the hindmost. Thus, logic says to act in a way that makes people want to cooperate with you. This isn’t actually the source of human morality*, but it is a valid logical reason to act in a fashion that would widely be considered moral.
*Except perhaps indirectly, in that proto-hominids who behaved in a cooperative fashion were more likely to have descendants, and that shows in our brain structures.
@Dalillama
All moral systems break down. Kant gave it a game try to create one that was based purely in reason, but it’s pretty easy to break the categorical imperative system. He came closer than anyone else, though; others break even more easily yet.
There are plenty of reasons to act in an amoral fashion sans emotion, unless once views self-interest as an emotion for some reason. Acting in a social manner doesn’t necessarily lead to morality. Many animals do it. Just off the top of my head, baboons are social, but operate entirely on a hierarchical structure that has no morality in it. Low-ranked baboons are routinely brutalized, and a given animal’s rank is based on its mother’s rank and literally no other factor. No morality in that, yet they are a highly successful and highly social species.
Especially given our huge numbers, there is really no logical reason not to elevate oneself by screwing over others in a serial fashion, and we all know people who became very successful by doing that. There will always be another sucker down the road, given the billions of people on this planet. That is the Dark Side way – the easy, fast way – to win success, if one doesn’t feel anything particular about the victims.
@PoM
The categorical imperative is pretty crap excuse for a moral system, IMO, and not much better as an ethical one. Game theory is a much better starting point.
What else would you call it?
But that only works if most people don’t act that way; otherwise you end up in a race to the bottom that everyone loses. Conversely, lifespans and health outcomes are better across the board in more economically equal societies, as are various indicators for happiness. Moreso for people farther down the economic scale, but everyone benefits.
How are you measuring success? They never had a terribly large population, and that’s nearly gone. They only ever occupied a relatively small part of a single continent. Compare wolves, who are on 5 continents, and thriving on most of them, or humans, who mow number in the billions, and occupy every continent. How did we do this? By cooperation.
@everyone
I felt a little silly when I woke up that I wrote that and I’m really happy that people are ok.
@Brony
I really love the way that you break things down and I learn so much from you and the way you put your thinking out there.
@me (trigger warning for abuse)
On a different thread, Scildfreja told me I could vent any time, but I dunno. I feel so broken right now. I asked my mom if maybe she could not make the bed because of a squeaky floor board. She makes it sometime between 5 and 5:30 and she may as well be jumping up and down on that board. I asked her a year ago and she said ok.
We have construction going on behind where we live and so I sleep with earplugs every night and I turn on a box fan. That really helped me get a good night sleep, even if the earplugs really itch and irritate me. But recently I’ve been waking up every morning between 5 and 5:30. I usually just roll back over and go back to sleep. But the other morning. I don’t know if the earplugs fell out or if I ripped them out in my sleep. I was awake and I was thirsty so I went upstairs to pour myself a big glass of iced tea and my mom’s bed was made (she uses a bedspread, like they use in hotels).
I googled squeaky floor boards and found out there was a way to fix them (she and my dad told me when I used to just come to visit from out of town that there was no way to fix it). I bought a kit and found the struts and drove all of my 50 screws into the area while she was out of the house and it didn’t work.
I begged her. Can I make your bed when I wake up? I promise I’ll do it before I made my coffee.
She told me she never made the bed. She told me I was crazy and needed to be locked up. She told me that I hate her and I want her to die when she has surgery next month BECAUSE SHE COULD DIE (raeg face) AND THEN I WOULD BE HAPPY.
After she had me trapped in my room on New Years Day raging at me, I thought I would save up until I could afford my own place. Now I realize I can’t wait that long. I’m so scared and I don’t earn enough and I’m so scared of people, but I need to find a roommate-type situation to get out of here as fast as I can.
How do you do that? Does anyone know? Craig’s list? that sounds so ominous. I’m so scared. I always associate group housing with young folk and I’m an old.
And I ran out of time.
TL;DR on part till I can, feelings.
Feelings are the sense of emotion as an emotion unfolds. It’s a readout of sensation while you are doing. The feeling of emotion is related to what one is doing. You feel while you do reason and logic. It’s just not the same feeling as the sense of anger at a bigot, or fear for what one will do.
@eli
*hugs* offered.
That’s a good place to start. Your local paper probably has online classifieds too (and maybe paper ones, but there’s not much there anymore)
I’ve shared housing with people from 20-some to 50-some, and I know folks older as well. For a fictional example, look at the Golden Girls. Certainly a sucky roommate is possible, and there’s usually going to be at least some points of friction, but it’s not likely you’ll get someone as bad as it sounds like your mom is.
Thank you. I wish there was some way to tattoo this to my eyeballs.
And you know what I just realized. I would normally say “no hugs, no thanks.” But I only hate hugs because of my mother and creepy old dudes. Most hugs are super. Thank you. Mom always demands hugs after she rages at me because she loves me so much!
Hi eli–I just wrote to the local branch of this group yesterday, and got a nice (form, but personalised) letter back from them–will call them soon.
http://homeshare.org/
I’m 51, and have probably similar reservations about sharing living accommodations that you have.
@eli
*hugs* if you want them. You deserve so much better than that.
@guest
I sent an e-mail to the local contact for me on that site and it bounced back undeliverable, but thank you. I will try to call. There was a number as well.
@Oogly
Thank you.
@Brony + @eli:
Sounds like you’re both having a crappy time, I’m sorry and hope it works out soon.
@eli:
I didn’t have an easy childhood, and when I read this, I had a flood of empathy. I know what that sort of environment feels like and I hope you’re able to escape it.
All my support. Please feel free to vent whenever you need to. You’re amongst friends.
Whaaaa? Game theory is what makes business think that settling personal injury lawsuits is an acceptable cost of doing business. Game theory is the reason why male peacocks are loaded down with costly feathers, and why water beetles have evolved a reproductive strategy that is 100% rape. Game theory is terrible as an ethical system.
Those deficiencies aside, game theory is not workable as a moral system because it’s too complicated. On a practical level, people won’t use it if they don’t understand it and can implement it intuitively. “What would Jesus do” practically works, because it’s simple. The categorical imperative system is simple. Game theory doesn’t work because it is too complex for people to implement on a day-to-day basis.
Would you call it an emotion when a plant acts in its self-interest? An amoeba? Self-interest is the basic drive of life itself, and human beings are set apart by our ability to act altruistically instead of always in self-interest.
Why are you invoking the categorical imperative here if you think it’s crap?
If your point is that cooperation leads to ethics as a natural law, wolves are not a good example, unless you think its ethical when a wolf pack kills its neighbors and leaves its neighbors’ pups to starve in the den. If that’s not your point, then I don’t understand what your point here actually is, because that’s what I see you arguing.
@eli
I’m so sorry your mother is gaslighting the hell out of you, and I fully support a decision to leave asap. Living with a roommate isn’t usually terrible. Most people are nice and cooperative (although I caution you against becoming friends with a roommate). If you wind up with a bad one, you can always leave again and find another. Good luck you! You deserve so much better.
@Policy of Madness:
For the non-philosophers following along at home (like myself), are ethical systems and moral systems synonyms, or is there a distinction?
@Dan
Good to know? I mean, it’s not good for my demo to have you in it, but such people are unavoidable in any group, I suppose…
Porque no los dos? And being more misogynist than racist, doesn’t mean you’re not racist
Nah, you’re just happy to revel in the fuckery of someone who very much does if it helps you hate wank to the fantasy of crying feminists. But that’s not at all racist, cos reasons
eli: I have found room for rent places on craigslist. There might be other options as well, but I think I’ve found most of the places I’ve lived through craigslist.
A few things to do before you go looking, though.
Check what your rights are, in your country/state/city. It seems like you’ll be looking for cheaper places, and these often seem to skate around the law a little. I’m not saying don’t move in, if they’re doing things that aren’t legal, but it is good to know what is and isn’t legal and enforceable.
This goes double if you’re going to be renting places that usually go to students/international people/immigrants, unfortunately. In my experience, landlords will try to take advantage of people who might not realise what their rights are, or that they even have rights.
I’m not sure your age/strength/gender, but if you’re feeling wary about anything, maybe go with a friend to see the place.
It sounds like you just want to get out of your current living situation. I’ve lived in a few basement apartments over the years, and while they aren’t ideal, they definitely aren’t bad. Low ceilings mean that I could put my hands on the roof and just kind of lean, which was nice when I was feeling sad or tired haha.
I’d also recommend getting a room with window. I think you need to have a window you can get out of for fire regulations, but that doesn’t mean that all places you look at will have them. I just feel really sad when I don’t have a window in my room.
There is nothing stopping you from even just looking and contacting posters, and seeing what sort of thing is around.
You can make any place work, though. Good luck finding something good, with room mates who are alright.
@Dan
And I’m an Asian male, that doesn’t give me a free pass to be a misogynistic shithead just because I’m in a minority group. Wait, thinking that as a minority you’re granted rights to treat women is also a pretty racist thing too.