Aaron

“Every word that is uttered creates an angel.”

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@byrne_a @politybooks You can watch his three-part lecture on it on YouTube

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@OyVeyPope @pangram how much of this was AI?

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

Many years ago Israelis did a test launch of a missile. They found that one of their tracking sensors on the ground had malfunctioned so it didn’t give any data.

They contacted the Americans to ask for the data from the US spy ship that was monitoring the test. The US shared it.

[Chief Nerd @TheChiefNerd]

KIRIAKOU: “The Israelis have always spied on the United States.”

THEO: “Do we spy on them also?”

KIRIAKOU: “No, that's written in stone at the CIA.”

THEO: “Why can't we spy on them?”

KIRIAKOU: “It's a political decision that's been made in the White House.”

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@MeghanEMurphy I wish I could watch horror movies, because some of them are really good movies! But I can’t except for the old, non-graphic kind from before the 1970s. And even with some old movies there are horrific scenes that have stayed with me.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@TomasBogardus (I just realized I basically gave the riddle attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?”)

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

Not beating those Procrustes allegations

[Tomas Bogardus @TomasBogardus]

When Rachel Dolezal identified as black, everyone knew what she meant: "black" in the ordinary, mainstream sense.

When Therians identify as cats, they mean "cat" in the ordinary sense.

Likewise... when trans folks identify as women, they mean "woman" in the ordinary sense.👇No?

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

I don’t understand the first phrase (as you know, I’ve never studied philosophy). E and B agree that lions and humans are species, and they agree M is an ecological species but not a biological (fertile offspring) species.

Anyway, is there anything at all a speaker could say to convince you that he means what he says he means in such a case? Would it help if he used the magic word “stipulate”?

Take a silly example: “When I say ‘triangle’ I mean a polygon with four (sic) sides. A square is a triangle.”

Would you say, “No, when you say ‘triangle’ you really mean a polygon with three sides, despite your saying you don’t mean that”?

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@deadwronghist Sam Kinison was funny and Andrew Dice Clay was not

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@TomasBogardus Also another comment about concepts. I think most of the time when we categorize things we don’t use concepts. The phenomenologist Sara Heinämaa has written about this regarding gender.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@TomasBogardus I guess I should have said labeling concepts. I think scientists consciously use concepts when talking about species.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@statistocrat94 @TomasBogardus Since that sounded like an accusation against me, I’ll respond too. I agree I’m being accusatory. Am I being passive-aggressive? I thought I was being actively aggressive.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@TomasBogardus (Similarly if Talia Bettcher convinced you that the trans-inclusive concept of woman was right. You’d start saying that Bettcher is a woman, because you’re using “woman” to track a different concept now.)

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

Not sure I understand. If E convinced B that the ecological species concept is the only right species concept, then B would start using the word “species” to track that ecological species concept. He would now say “M is a species”, because he’s now using the word “species” differently. (Facts about M haven’t changed.)

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@xwanyex Not a big fan of politicians who call the public to “righteous anger”. There’s way too much “righteous anger” already.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

OK. Of course the word “Trump” means the same when used by Democrats and Republicans. It would be bizarre if they said otherwise.

Again, in the species example, E and B say explicitly that they mean different things by the same word, and their usage is consistent with that assertion. That’s a vital part you’re sawing off to fit it into your Procrustean bed.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@DerekPederson3 OK I don’t think I’ve even read any of her political commentary. I’m more interested in cultural. But I don’t follow her or anything.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

I still think you’re downplaying the different meanings. E and B are each saying, “I do NOT mean what this other guy means by the word. I mean something DIFFERENT.” And their usage is consistent with that explicit declaration.

You reply, their use of the same word points toward univocity.

We’ve been over this before, but it’s how concepts and conceptions work. SPECIES is a broad, imprecise, pre-scientific concept that’s been around for thousands of years.

A scientific *conception* of SPECIES includes, among lots of other things, a mapping from that concept to one or more scientific concepts: ECOLOGICAL SPECIES, BIOLOGICAL SPECIES, etc. (There are also folk species concepts, of course.) There’s lots of overlap among these species concepts and among the questions to which they’re applied.

That overlap is completely obvious, I think. If it weren’t for the overlap, the scientists and philosophers wouldn’t be arguing about the various concepts. But I pointed it out because I don’t think it’s accurate to describe that overlap as univocity.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

@Quillette Brimelow hated it when journalists wrote that VDARE was “a website named after the first white child born in North America, Virginia Dare.”

He corrected them that it was named after Virginia Dare as the first ENGLISH child born in America.

[Aaron @Rongwrong_]

Off-topic but when Playboy asked Herbert Marcuse for an interview, he accepted only on the condition that he would also be that month’s centerfold. Playboy did not accept his condition.

EDIT: Typo in first version. Playboy did NOT accept his condition.