Ridingtosunsets ride into the sunset Meta thread of genius

[RomaVicta 29794]

 

hpslugga, great post. You have a fine grasp of postmodernism. I took a great course from Joli Jensen in the Communications department that engaged the notion. 

Is there a source for your knowledge on the subject? A book? I'd be interested in reading it. Even though that course was taken more than thirty years ago, it still resonates. 

Thanks.

 

[Beau Vine 54003]

30 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

THAT is an opinion. You will never actually be able to say "the fact that OPINION was incorrect" because you'll never be able to prove it incorrect. We've lost sight of this, largely due to the ridiculous proliferation of post-modernist dogma. If you can prove that something is incorrect, then by definition, it cannot be opinion.

This is bullshit.  Where did this come from?

[hpslugga 4044]

3 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

This is bullshit.  Where did this come from?

It's an inevitable corollary with the definition of the very concept. If opinion is a belief that can't be proven true nor false, then a statement cannot be an opinion if either of those things somehow happen. If I prove Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, that means "George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin" is a fact. If I cannot prove that navy blue is a better color than scarlet red, that means that statement is an opinion. And notice, there's a huge difference between not yet proving something and not ever being able to prove something. An opinion falls under the latter description. With the former, it's just an assertion and its truth/falsity will ultimately be revealed and it'll either be filed under "fact" or "myth"...or lie or falsehood or whatever word you like.

[hpslugga 4044]

30 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

 

hpslugga, great post. You have a fine grasp of postmodernism. I took a great course from Joli Jensen in the Communications department that engaged the notion. 

Is there a source for your knowledge on the subject? A book? I'd be interested in reading it. Even though that course was taken more than thirty years ago, it still resonates. 

Thanks.

 

If you're gonna make me choose one thing, I'd suggest reviewing the Sokal affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair. It's a perfect example of how it can be exploited to just straight up fool people. 

Chomsky has also had some good commentary on it as well. I'd just YouTube "Chomsky on postmodernism" because there are no publications of his exclusively devoted to the topic, at least none of which I'm aware. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by hpslugga

[Biff Tannen 45497]

1 hour ago, hpslugga said:

It's an inevitable corollary with the definition of the very concept. If opinion is a belief that can't be proven true nor false, then a statement cannot be an opinion if either of those things somehow happen. If I prove Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, that means "George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin" is a fact. If I cannot prove that navy blue is a better color than scarlet red, that means that statement is an opinion. And notice, there's a huge difference between not yet proving something and not ever being able to prove something. An opinion falls under the latter description. With the former, it's just an assertion and its truth/falsity will ultimately be revealed and it'll either be filed under "fact" or "myth"...or lie or falsehood or whatever word you like.

All I’m saying is this is my personal belief on the opinion. My opinion on the belief?… Oh, it doesn’t matter. I don’t like guns.

[hpslugga 4044]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

All I’m saying is this is my personal belief on the opinion. My opinion on the belief?… Oh, it doesn’t matter. I don’t like guns.

Is this related the the George Carlin take on rights to opinion?

”So the next time some asshole says to you, “I have a right to my opinion, “you say, “Oh yeah? Well I have a right to my opinion, and my opinion is you have no right to your opinion.” Then shoot the fuck and walk away.”

[Beau Vine 54003]

2 hours ago, hpslugga said:

If opinion is a belief that can't be proven true nor false

For the second time, WHERE THE FUCK DID THIS IDEA COME FROM???

 

[hpslugga 4044]

15 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

For the second time, WHERE THE FUCK DID THIS IDEA COME FROM???

 

There’s no one source for that. It was common knowledge in the pre-post-modernist period, which is why “opinion” is its own word. Otherwise we’d just be using words like “belief” or “perception” or things of that sort completely interchangeably.

It’s not hard to figure out. Here are two statements:

”I believe the Holocaust was a real event.”

”I believe blue is better than red.”

Do you really not see how those are radically different? Yeah they both begin with the speaker’s preface of “I believe,” which is obviously reflective of belief (duh), but that’s where the comparison stops. 

But if you want an actual source, just read dictionary.com’s first definition of the word “opinion.”

And I should preface that with the disclaimer that the dictionary is very vulnerable to defining words in a contemporary sense. In other words, some definitions are merely a reflection of the time they were established (ex: socialism).

Nonetheless, they define opinion as “a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.” That's more or less exactly what you’re quoting. 

[Beau Vine 54003]

3 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

But if you want an actual source, just read dictionary.com’s first definition of the word “opinion.”

And I should preface that with the disclaimer that the dictionary is very vulnerable to defining words in a contemporary sense. In other words, some definitions are merely a reflection of the time they were established (ex: socialism).

Nonetheless, they define opinion as “a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.”

It says the *BELIEF*, not the facts on the matter, reside on grounds insufficient.  That's a huuuge leap from that to "an opinion can't be proven wrong."

 

Also:

[Biff Tannen 45497]

43 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Is this related the the George Carlin take on rights to opinion?

”So the next time some asshole says to you, “I have a right to my opinion, “you say, “Oh yeah? Well I have a right to my opinion, and my opinion is you have no right to your opinion.” Then shoot the fuck and walk away.”

It's a reference to Jim Jeffries gun control bit.

[elfenix 34171]

3 hours ago, hpslugga said:

Actually, hardly any of what you described as "opinion" actually qualifies as opinion.

Opinion is a unique type of belief. It is unique in that it can never, under any circumstance, be proven true or false.

"Navy blue is better than scarlet red."

THAT is an opinion. You will never actually be able to say "the fact that OPINION was incorrect" because you'll never be able to prove it incorrect. We've lost sight of this, largely due to the ridiculous proliferation of post-modernist dogma. If you can prove that something is incorrect, then by definition, it cannot be opinion. 

So let's take the murder thing. That, in reality, is an assertion, but it takes more than raw emotion and confirmation bias to establish it as a fact. It is dishonest to assert baseless speculation as though it were a matter of fact. You have to consider all the elements that deem any killing as a "murder," juxtapose it with what happened, and see if it matches. Derek Chauvin, for example, did murder George Floyd. That's not an opinion. The state more than satisfied its burden of proof beyond all reasonable doubt, which if you ask me more than qualifies for an establishment of actual fact. The same applies to the police shooting here. Was it justified? Again, take 1) all the circumstances present and juxtapose it with 2) how the law defines a justified shooting by an officer of the law. If the two fit, he's not a murderer. If the two don't fit, he's a murderer. Shouldn't be that hard.

What OnBoard did with the Georgia thing was neither fact nor opinion. He lied. Just straight up lied. Recall how this came about. He posted this:

"Is this the Ga. law saying you can give a bottled water to someone in line, but it can't have political candidates name or political party on the label ?"

There's no such Georgia law. It doesn't exist, but he asserted its existence as if it did. He asserted baseless speculation (i.e. something that's either not evidently true or evidently not true) as though it were a matter of fact when he knew full well it was not a matter of fact. Even if he actually believed it was true, as he stated in his immediate walkback later, he at least knew he couldn't prove it, as evident by his citing of a radio program as the source of such feeble nonsense. If he can't show it, he don't know it. But even with that confession, it's still dishonesty; not opinion. Radio programs don't work like a Norman Finkelstein book. Their statements aren't riddled with footnotes of citation, so it's not like they were literally citing anything when they said that. If anyone on that radio program actually did say that, they lied.

One of the other effects of post-modernist dogma is that we go out of our way to, relatively speaking at least, let rubes off the hook while still indicting the real liars. That's stupid because it blurs the line between the liars and the rubes, and the truth is that line is paper thin at best. If you're dumb enough to believe improbable claims from questionable sources on insufficient evidence, that just makes you a fool. But you're only a fool if you keep that shit to yourself. When you start spreading around those improbable claims to others and pretending as if you know they're facts, you're telling lies. Even if you walk them back later, you still told lies (just like a murderer is still a murderer even if he deeply regrets doing it and shows deep, genuine remorse and contrition to everyone for having done it), and you have an obligation to fess up to it and suffer the consequences. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to call "personal responsibility." 

[hpslugga 4044]

7 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

It says the *BELIEF*, not the facts on the matter, reside on grounds insufficient.  That's a huuuge leap from that to "an opinion can't be proven wrong.”

“grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.”

And, if there are grounds sufficient to produce complete certainty, that would make it a fact, would it not? 

[Beau Vine 54003]

1 minute ago, hpslugga said:

“grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.”

And, if there are grounds sufficient to produce complete certainty, that would make it a fact, would it not? 

Again, that definition you're married to doesn't say that there are or are not grounds sufficient produce complete certainty.  It says that the *BELIEF* resides on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.  "There's no way that Trump lost Georgia because the polls showed him far ahead" is a belief that resides on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.  But it's easy to verify with complete certainty that he lost by simply counting the votes.  That's an opinion that is easily proven incorrect.

[Captainant 27464]

It's my opinion that I believe this is a pointless argument. That's a fact.

[hpslugga 4044]

12 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Again, that definition you're married to doesn't say that there are or are not grounds sufficient produce complete certainty.  It says that the *BELIEF* resides on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.  "There's no way that Trump lost Georgia because the polls showed him far ahead" is a belief that resides on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.  But it's easy to verify with complete certainty that he lost by simply counting the votes.  That's an opinion that is easily proven incorrect.

That would be asserting baseless speculation as if it was a matter of fact, and it would be done so on insufficient evidence. Again, that’s very different from “chocolate is better than vanilla.”

Edited April 26, 2021 by hpslugga

[Beau Vine 54003]

1 minute ago, hpslugga said:

That would be asserting baseless speculation as if it was a matter of fact.

No, it would be *BELIEF* that resides on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty

[UpperWestside 6136]

Can you two argue in the King’s English for the rest of this? That would add some fun to your back and forth.

[Gatorubet 30113]

Actually, hardly any of what you described as "opinion" actually qualifies as opinion.
Opinion is a unique type of belief. It is unique in that it can never, under any circumstance, be proven true or untrue. If you can prove that something is incorrect, then by definition, it cannot be opinion. 


The same applies to the police shooting here. Was it justified? Again, take 1) all the circumstances present and juxtapose it with 2) how the law defines a justified shooting by an officer of the law. If the two fit, he's not a murderer. If the two don't fit, he's a murderer. Shouldn't be that hard.

Have to disagree. Lawyer and all. I can look at a motion to dismiss my client’s case, see the facts favorable to me, read the cases favorable to me, and say that my case should be valid - see facts!!

Problem is, if the court disagrees, my facts and law and reasoning do not matter. They were all just my opinion, despite having a winning case. Judge Ruinmyday disagreed, and so it is now a fact that the case is over when the appeals court affirms. That opinion trumps my opinion and is now fact....at least insofar as my lawsuit is concerned.

Until the official investigation is complete, the murder outcome is opinion. That does not make the murder opinion any less questionable, but it does not elevate it to fact until the entity charged with investigating makes a pronouncement. Similarly, if they charged the officer with murder, it would not become ‘fact’ until a guilty verdict was upheld in appeal.

[Dahobbs 17447]

1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

No, it would be *BELIEF* that resides on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty

Yes, this. 

18 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Have to disagree. Lawyer and all. I can look at a motion to dismiss my client’s case, see the facts favorable to me, read the cases favorable to me, and say that my case should be valid - see facts!!

Problem is, if the court disagrees, my facts and law and reasoning do not matter. They were all just my opinion, despite having a winning case. Judge Ruinmyday disagreed, and so it is now a fact that the case is over when the appeals court affirms. That opinion trumps my opinion and is now fact....at least insofar as my lawsuit is concerned.

Until the official investigation is complete, the murder outcome is opinion. That does not make the murder opinion any less questionable, but it does not elevate it to fact until the entity charged with investigating makes a pronouncement. Similarly, if they charged the officer with murder, it would not become ‘fact’ until a guilty verdict was upheld in appeal.

And this. 

1 hour ago, UpperWestside said:

Can you two argue in the King’s English for the rest of this? That would add some fun to your back and forth.

I think we need some physics discussion as well, as special relativity and quantum mechanics may have a bit to say on whether even facts are capable of determination with complete certainty. 

[Bullneck 18987]

6 hours ago, Captainant said:

It's my opinion that I believe this is a pointless argument. That's a fact.

Lemme tell you something, pendejo.