Things that annoy the HELL out of you.

[jasignhagj]

I have a hard time taking anyone who uses the term "SJWs" seriously. Now it's basically just a pejorative term used to generalize anyone who shows sympathy for minorities. Subreddits like r/tumblrinaction are poisonous circlejerks that point to a few dumb posts by impressionable teenagers, shout "SJW! SJW!" then expand the term to anyone who speaks out for things like feminism or racial equality. 

 

If you think the 'SJW' mentality is only exuded by dumb teenagers on tumblr, you've never had an encounter with anyone in student politics. These people are real, and they aspire to hold positions of power. There's a huge difference between showing sympathy for minorities and being an 'SJW' (for lack of a better term). You can care about social issues without believing white people are inherently evil, being straight or male is oppressive, or blaming the worlds problems on the 'patriarchy'. 

[highlanders]

As a maverick who hardly uses social media I've never met or spoken to any of these femnazis, crazy vegans and other radicals that apparently exist. All I hear about is people complaining about them, and these moaners have been far more annoying than the radicals they complain about. You do realize there are entire websites out there where people like pedophiles, neo-Nazis and racists meet up and talk about the twisted things they'd like to do? Yet you're worried about a couple of young idiots on tumblr? Get some damn perspective.

[muggiwhplar]

I'm probably misinterpreting your post highlanders, but it seems like you're trying to dismiss the "complainers'" arguments simply on the grounds that you've never met the group of people that they're complaining about, and that there are other more dangerous groups out there. But that doesn't really make any sense or make their complaints any less valid. I've never met a pedophile or neo-Nazi so by your logic, anyone who's whining about pedophiles and neo-Nazis should worry about something else and "get some damn perspective." >_>

[Estonian dude]

The fact that recently on 9gag my country has been shown as some wannabe Nordic country. How come we are wannabes, if we are culturally and linguistically closer to Finns than anyone else, including Swedes, Norwegians and Danes? How come we are wannabes, when before Soviet occupation we were richer than Finns and most of Europe? How come we are wannabes, if we are more to the North than Denmark and capital of Sweden? How come we are wannabes, if UN and CIA already count us as a Nordic country?

[Hedgehog]

Estonia is a baltic country, just like Lithuania and Latvia. All 3 are basically the exact same country, they just split them up because their languages are slightly different.

[Alg]

The fact that recently on 9gag my country has been shown as some wannabe Nordic country. How come we are wannabes, if we are culturally and linguistically closer to Finns than anyone else, including Swedes, Norwegians and Danes? How come we are wannabes, when before Soviet occupation we were richer than Finns and most of Europe? How come we are wannabes, if we are more to the North than Denmark and capital of Sweden? How come we are wannabes, if UN and CIA already count us as a Nordic country?

What, the Polandball things?

[Veiva]

"Death of the Author." In no field of science do we consider our own biased, personal interpretation of a work to be the truth.

 

I find most schools of criticism to be absolute crap and riddled with pseudo-science and 'interdisciplinary research' (in other words, formal bullshit). When I read 'As You Like It' by none other than Shakespeare I do not believe it's right to take this feminist or Marxist or formal 'lense' (yet another sign of this crap) and apply it to his work because it's about as relevant as a 10 year olds thoughts on why the moon isn't made of cheese. When reading Shakespeare's work, I do draw my own conclusions from it, but again, there is no basis on which we can support my conclusions--that is, my conclusions are different from your's which is different from his over there which is probably different from Shakespeare's intent, but whatever.

 

And to say the author has no role other than writing a work is pure idiocy, as well. Tolkien built an entire world and to dismiss his intent is to dismiss the entire work. Authors don't create text to analyze, they create much more; characters we relate to, places we would love to visit, etc, etc.

 

As well, you can't just analyze the text as some forms of criticism will have you think. There's so much more to a work than just text. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis essay on 'reader-response criticism,' if criticism was simply the analysis of text, we (non-French speaking people) could analyze French poetry in a similar manner to how we analyze texts in our native tongue.

 

Reader-response criticism is perhaps the only sensible one, and that's that.

[Estonian dude]

Estonia is a baltic country, just like Lithuania and Latvia. All 3 are basically the exact same country, they just split them up because their languages are slightly different.

Slightly different language? How different must languages be to be "slightly" different? Estonian and Chinese are more closely related than Estonian and Latvian/Lithuanian. Hell, English and Russian are more closely related than Estonian and Latvian/Lithuanian.

Basically the same country? What the bloody heck are you talking about? It's the same as calling UK and Germany basically the same country. Yeah, we are all part of the European Union and well, Latvia borders us, but that is pretty much where the similarities end. Culture, language, economy, ethnic composition, genetic composition, everything practically is different.

 

In any measureable way we are more like Finland. We share the language, pre-crusader culture, we are closest economical partners, and as I said, pre WWII we were even richer then they were. Last 10 years or so talks have been up about building a tunnel or bridge over the Gulf of Finland.

[Hedgehog]

Sounds more like you're arguing that Finland should be a baltic country instead of a nordic one

[Low Levelled]

Could easily see saq disagreeing coming

[Alg]

Seriously though, is it the Polandball thing? I don't think you're supposed to take those seriously.

[jasignhagj]

I think your problem stems from caring about what 9gag thinks about anything

[highlanders]

I'm probably misinterpreting your post highlanders, but it seems like you're trying to dismiss the "complainers'" arguments simply on the grounds that you've never met the group of people that they're complaining about, and that there are other more dangerous groups out there. But that doesn't really make any sense or make their complaints any less valid. I've never met a pedophile or neo-Nazi so by your logic, anyone who's whining about pedophiles and neo-Nazis should worry about something else and "get some damn perspective." >_>

 

I dislike circlejerks, it's a sad thing that breeds more ignorance. It's almost comical. People put so much energy into discrediting grotesque versions of these ideologies that if anything they are giving it more exposure.

 

Feminism isn't about a war of the sexes, it never was. It's about accepting a more pluralist world view. Perhaps unexpectedly that's also the path that will give men more freedom as well. Patriarchy does exist, but it's not a social construct that systematically favours men, it's something far more subtle that permeates our society itself, so familiar to us that it's invisible. Society has shackles for both sexes.

 

Things get interesting when you add gender and sex into the equation. As a by-product of patriarchal society, only the female body is objectified. Women hold much of the cards in the dating game. The male body isn't sexualized at all, it's ignored. This is so ingrained that when scientists hooked up straight women to monitor their body's reactions to naked pictures, they found the women got more turned on by looking at naked women than naked men. Haha. Feel free to google the study, the results are quite interesting. Women didn't get turned on by naked men at all. Are women naturally bisexual or is it a by-product of society obsession with female bodies? Who knows, my bet is that women feel more comfortable to express their bisexuality. Society favours inflexible heterosexuality for males. If society changed to abandon patriarchy, we might see some interesting changes. If the male body was sexualized the same way the female one was, it's quite possible we would see women do the chasing. Men would be the ones getting wolf whistled in the street! Heh, wouldn't that be interesting? Of course all of this is speculation. Which aspects of this are biological, cultural, correlations? It's all rather complex. Feel free to ignore my ramblings, I'm a pervert and far more interested in the sexual aspects than the rest.

 

The other aspects of course. Empowering women means that male victims, of rape or domestic abuse for example, would be taken seriously. Not taking these victims seriously is the same as implying that women are too weak to cause any damage, this is damaging for both sexes involved. Child custody and so on. Fairly straightforward conclusions too boring to get into.

 

But it's far more fun to point out how wrong all the crazy people are than talk about the real thing. Thank you circlejerk, thank you for pointing out, again and again, how wrong all the stark raving lunatics are, I would have never noticed on my own. Thank you. Make sure to remind me constantly.

[Estonian dude]

The way that my self-confidence only tends to cause me trouble be being most of the time too (like seriously trouble-makingly) high and when needed, absurdly low...

[muggiwhplar]

 

 

I'm probably misinterpreting your post highlanders, but it seems like you're trying to dismiss the "complainers'" arguments simply on the grounds that you've never met the group of people that they're complaining about, and that there are other more dangerous groups out there. But that doesn't really make any sense or make their complaints any less valid. I've never met a pedophile or neo-Nazi so by your logic, anyone who's whining about pedophiles and neo-Nazis should worry about something else and "get some damn perspective." >_>

I dislike circlejerks, it's a sad thing that breeds more ignorance. It's almost comical. People put so much energy into discrediting grotesque versions of these ideologies that if anything they are giving it more exposure.

 

Feminism isn't about a war of the sexes, it never was. It's about accepting a more pluralist world view. Perhaps unexpectedly that's also the path that will give men more freedom as well. Patriarchy does exist, but it's not a social construct that systematically favours men, it's something far more subtle that permeates our society itself, so familiar to us that it's invisible. Society has shackles for both sexes.

 

Things get interesting when you add gender and sex into the equation. As a by-product of patriarchal society, only the female body is objectified. Women hold much of the cards in the dating game. The male body isn't sexualized at all, it's ignored. This is so ingrained that when scientists hooked up straight women to monitor their body's reactions to naked pictures, they found the women got more turned on by looking at naked women than naked men. Haha. Feel free to google the study, the results are quite interesting. Women didn't get turned on by naked men at all. Are women naturally bisexual or is it a by-product of society obsession with female bodies? Who knows, my bet is that women feel more comfortable to express their bisexuality. Society favours inflexible heterosexuality for males. If society changed to abandon patriarchy, we might see some interesting changes. If the male body was sexualized the same way the female one was, it's quite possible we would see women do the chasing. Men would be the ones getting wolf whistled in the street! Heh, wouldn't that be interesting? Of course all of this is speculation. Which aspects of this are biological, cultural, correlations? It's all rather complex. Feel free to ignore my ramblings, I'm a pervert and far more interested in the sexual aspects than the rest.

 

The other aspects of course. Empowering women means that male victims, of rape or domestic abuse for example, would be taken seriously. Not taking these victims seriously is the same as implying that women are too weak to cause any damage, this is damaging for both sexes involved. Child custody and so on. Fairly straightforward conclusions too boring to get into.

 

But it's far more fun to point out how wrong all the crazy people are than talk about the real thing. Thank you circlejerk, thank you for pointing out, again and again, how wrong all the stark raving lunatics are, I would have never noticed on my own. Thank you. Make sure to remind me constantly.

As I've said before, when it comes to stuff like this, I think you'd be a lot happier and less frustrated if you just worried about your own personal problems instead of society's, and then you structured your life such that society's problems do not affect your happiness. That's what I did at least and I'm happy as [bleep] now :D

[Estonian dude]

I couldn't find a single foot exercise I could do in the gym, because a ligament on my broken knee started cracking and my knee felt really unstable... Yet there is no way to get my muscles around that broken area stronger without those exercises!

[Riku3220]

So I was pretty excited once I heard that In the Heart of the Sea was getting a movie but when I watched the trailer all I could see was orange/blue contrast. Damn you Alg for even putting that idea into my head.

[Low Levelled]

I wasn't a fan of the book ^

[Crocefisso]

 

Estonia is a baltic country, just like Lithuania and Latvia. All 3 are basically the exact same country, they just split them up because their languages are slightly different.

Slightly different language? How different must languages be to be "slightly" different? Estonian and Chinese are more closely related than Estonian and Latvian/Lithuanian. Hell, English and Russian are more closely related than Estonian and Latvian/Lithuanian.

Basically the same country? What the bloody heck are you talking about? It's the same as calling UK and Germany basically the same country. Yeah, we are all part of the European Union and well, Latvia borders us, but that is pretty much where the similarities end. Culture, language, economy, ethnic composition, genetic composition, everything practically is different.

 

In any measureable way we are more like Finland. We share the language, pre-crusader culture, we are closest economical partners, and as I said, pre WWII we were even richer then they were. Last 10 years or so talks have been up about building a tunnel or bridge over the Gulf of Finland.

 

 

If it makes you feel any better, fair Estonian, I (a Brit of Italian descent) already knew this, and I think it's only in America that the idea of the Baltic states as a homogeneous entity exists. In fact I spent a long part of the summer listening to songs sung by Georg Ots (e.g. Saarenmaan valssi) after hearing one of his other songs (I think it was Mustanmeren valssi) in an Aki Kaurismäki film. And of course at the end of Don't Forget Your Scarf, Tatjana, the destination of the characters' escape is Tallinn. 

 

Am I also right in thinking that Hungarian is much more like Estonian and Finnish than anything else, at least linguistically? 

[L S D Outlaw]

People who use the word n00b too much.

 

Cant we all just get along??

[Estonian dude]

Saarenmaan valssi would be in Finnish, as would be Mustanmeren valssi. Saaremaa valss in Estonian is a lot nicer.

 

And yes, it is. Hungarians, Finns and Estonians are the only ones in the Finno-Ugric group that have their own country.

I found a really cool language heritage tree the other day.

 

 

 

 

 

[muggiwhplar]

>_>

[Alg]

If it makes you feel any better, fair Estonian, I (a Brit of Italian descent) already knew this, and I think it's only in America that the idea of the Baltic states as a homogeneous entity exists. In fact I spent a long part of the summer listening to songs sung by Georg Ots (e.g. Saarenmaan valssi) after hearing one of his other songs (I think it was Mustanmeren valssi) in an Aki Kaurismäki film. And of course at the end of Don't Forget Your Scarf, Tatjana, the destination of the characters' escape is Tallinn. 

 

Am I also right in thinking that Hungarian is much more like Estonian and Finnish than anything else, at least linguistically? 

After looking it up, though, it sounds like how Estonia is portrayed in Scandinavia and the World... Whose artist is Danish.

[Crocefisso]

Saarenmaan valssi would be in Finnish, as would be Mustanmeren valssi. Saaremaa valss in Estonian is a lot nicer.

 

And yes, it is. Hungarians, Finns and Estonians are the only ones in the Finno-Ugric group that have their own country.

I found a really cool language heritage tree the other day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, I didn't know Saarenmann valssi was Finnish. I guessed because Ots was Estonian he was singing in his own language, although the album is called Suosikkia or something like that, so I should have guessed.

 

Also, love the language tree, but couldn't help but wonder why Basque isn't there (I know you didn't make it but I'm wondering aloud). I know it's not formally Indo-European, but given that the hypothesis is that it existed in S France / N Spain before any of the Indo-European languages, it's surely "European" enough. Although I suppose nobody really knows the former extent of its usage, which would make putting it on the map futile. 

 

Edit: on the topic of Estonia being quite rich in former times, wasn't that because the wealthy nobility in the general Baltic area was German speaking and they ran away during or were impoverished by the whole Russian revolution debacle? 

[Estonian dude]

Well, they were kinda ran away and their property taken by the country during our War for Independence.

Our richness came from our high-quality food and oil shale industry. At times, there were talks about having regional lock for Tallinn sprats, which were copycatted all over Europe. Also Estonia made most of high-tech lubricants and stuff from oil shale to whole Middle-Europe.