Comments on: Coturnix on Civility and Politeness https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/ Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:41:25 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: DuWayne https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511175 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:41:25 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511175 Fuck you Greg!!! Suck toes covered in toejam!!!

I am all about the incivility, but with effective incivility comes the necessity to be civil about it. When your aim is off, it always pays to apologize. People lose slightly less respect for you being such a fucking asshole, when you at least are reasonable enough to apologize when mistaken.

That, and the chicks think it is really fucking hot…

I will not however, apologize to Greg for my overarching comment above. While it may seem unwarranted, I am certain that he is thinking something that would really piss me off right about now…

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511174 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:28:06 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511174 Your mother was a hampster and your father smelt of Elderberries!

Hey, is that a new shirt? You’re daddy get a job?

try to do it in a truly generalizable way gets tiresomely meta and vague very quickly.

I might already be very tired of this discussion. But I do wish they were recording it.

]]> By: becca https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511173 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:13:30 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511173 Unmitigated constant unending asshatery has a great deal of entertainment utility, if you can be ridiculous enough to avoid stomping on real emotions.
Your mother was a hampster and your father smelt of Elderberries!

Defining uncivility and how it works and what it’s used for is attempting to create a formal code out of exceptions to the formal code for behavior. It can certainly be done, but to try to do it in a truly generalizable way gets tiresomely meta and vague very quickly.

]]> By: Stephanie Z https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511172 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:10:39 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511172 Well, I have rules about when I will use incivility and how, but I’m not sure I want to tell anyone else what they are. And they do sometimes conflict.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511171 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:01:27 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511171 Other than unmitigated constant unending asshatery, which is of no use to anyone, using un-civility always involves, eventually, defining how it works and when to use it and when not to use it . That is what people are bad at. I’m forever hearing “This is what you should not do” and then seeing the person doing it.

Anyone can pull the trigger on a shotgun.

]]> By: becca https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511170 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:54:50 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511170 “I have met very few people who are any good at this.”
Well fuck you with a goat! I’ve actually met a lot of people who are good at this (although I’ll grant George Carlin is at least three sigma above the mean here). Perhaps some of us inspire better incivility than others. *looks insufferably smug*

Also, some people seem to be *bad* at incivility, but that is because you don’t know their agenda. If one simply wants to make the more moderate voices (whose agenda one actually wishes to advance) sound reasonable, it’s arguably more effective to be less effective.

@Jason- I knew it. That study proves men are all goatfuckers.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511169 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:43:16 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511169 Unless you are a baby oystercatcher bird.

]]> By: Deen https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511168 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:41:54 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511168 @Greg: True, but not being good at stuff that has rarely stopped people from trying. It’s the only way to learn anyway.

]]> By: Jason Thibeault https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511167 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:31:04 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511167 Ridicule has utility as an educational corrective, apparently:

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/73/5/722.pdf
(behind a pay wall)

And honestly, some ideas deserve nothing but scorn. Let’s say the inventor of the Time Cube philosophy (no link, it’ll consign me to the spam bucket for sure!) came to debate astrophysics with Neil de Grasse Tyson. How could Tyson adequately answer any of the Time Cube whackjob’s arguments?

Likewise, when someone throws out Pascal’s Wager or “Hitler was an atheist” in earnest in the middle of a serious theism / philosophy debate, considering how many times the charges have been answered and by how many people, and how prima facie wrong these arguments are, sometimes you have to serve up the rebuttal with a heaping helping of incivility.

]]> By: Stephanie Z https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511166 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:28:39 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/04/coturnix-on-civility-and-polit/#comment-511166 That’s the second question, Greg. “Will incivility help us get what we want?”

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