Social Justice Warriors Thread

[Martin Hash]

Debate fallacy: Art is subjective yet you are trying to attach an objective measure.

[SuburbanFarmer]

How else do you evaluate merit, except by value?

All things being equal, that which makes the most has the most value, thus has the most merit.

What's the monetary value of a life well lived? Or natural beauty? Or a DaVinci sketch? Or a great craftsman that only makes 1 sword per year?

Much of what we value has little or no monetary value. Actual merit is mostly subjective. We just try to attach value to it, because that's what current system demands.

Here's my argument, 50 Shades of Grey started out as a fan fiction based off of Twilight. That's hardly something that would have received more marketing than others in its field, yet it shoots up to #1. In any meritocracy, we would certainly say that in comparison to other pieces of work, this piece of work has the most merit. This piece generated the most value.

We should take this piece, when we teach others about quality literature, and we should teach it in literature classes on how to make great art. There's a definite craft to literature, to art, and this piece works. It should be taught.

It's a "what makes good art? What made the most money?"

Not in a meritocracy.

This is why "pop music" produces the highest sales, yet is the most vapid, senseless noise in the music industry. Monetary value & sales have little or nothing to do with artistic value - ie "Merit"

[jediuser598]

One can't really have a discussion with DBtrek.

He barks incessantly and at great volume, while pissing everywhere.

I think he does it mostly by rote these days,

Pavlovian response of "alpha males."

Everyone else is like:



"Again with this shit?"

[jediuser598]

What's the monetary value of a life well lived? Or natural beauty? Or a DaVinci sketch? Or a great craftsman that only makes 1 sword per year?

Much of what we value has little or no monetary value. Actual merit is mostly subjective. We just try to attach value to it, because that's what current system demands.

Here's my argument, 50 Shades of Grey started out as a fan fiction based off of Twilight. That's hardly something that would have received more marketing than others in its field, yet it shoots up to #1. In any meritocracy, we would certainly say that in comparison to other pieces of work, this piece of work has the most merit. This piece generated the most value.

We should take this piece, when we teach others about quality literature, and we should teach it in literature classes on how to make great art. There's a definite craft to literature, to art, and this piece works. It should be taught.

It's a "what makes good art? What made the most money?"

Not in a meritocracy.

This is why "pop music" produces the highest sales, yet is the most vapid, senseless noise in the music industry. Monetary value & sales have little or nothing to do with artistic value - ie "Merit"

Does Meritocracy not define value though?

[DBTrek]

One can't really have a discussion with DBtrek.

What an odd declaration. Smart people manage to pull it off daily around here.
Don’t project your shortcomings onto others.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Here's my argument, 50 Shades of Grey started out as a fan fiction based off of Twilight. That's hardly something that would have received more marketing than others in its field, yet it shoots up to #1. In any meritocracy, we would certainly say that in comparison to other pieces of work, this piece of work has the most merit. This piece generated the most value.

We should take this piece, when we teach others about quality literature, and we should teach it in literature classes on how to make great art. There's a definite craft to literature, to art, and this piece works. It should be taught.

It's a "what makes good art? What made the most money?"

Not in a meritocracy.

This is why "pop music" produces the highest sales, yet is the most vapid, senseless noise in the music industry. Monetary value & sales have little or nothing to do with artistic value - ie "Merit"

Does Meritocracy not define value though?

Merit is subjective. There is a loose connection to monetary value, but they are not the same. We simply try to assign monetary values to reflect the merit of things.

The distortions begin where those systems are incompatible.

[SuburbanFarmer]

One can't really have a discussion with DBtrek.

What an odd declaration. Smart people manage to pull it off daily around here.
Don’t project your shortcomings onto others.

No, he's right. You've been dick-stomping around for a month or two now, rather than actually engaging in debate. I assume it has something to do with new success in your personal life, or a cool new job.

[jediuser598]

Not in a meritocracy.

This is why "pop music" produces the highest sales, yet is the most vapid, senseless noise in the music industry. Monetary value & sales have little or nothing to do with artistic value - ie "Merit"

Does Meritocracy not define value though?

Merit is subjective. There is a loose connection to monetary value, but they are not the same. We simply try to assign monetary values to reflect the merit of things.

The distortions begin where those systems are incompatible.

Need to go to work but going to come back to this. Also, bit on subject, Charles Bukowski:

the difference between a bad poet and a good one is luck
BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

I suppose so.
I was living in an attic in Philadelphia
It became very hot in the summer and so I stayed in the
bars. I didn’t have any money and so with what was almost left
I put a small ad in the paper and said I was a writer
looking for work . . .
which was a god damned lie; I was a writer
looking for a little time and a little food and some
attic rent.
a couple days later when I finally came home
from somewhere
the landlady said, there was somebody looking for
you. and I said,
there must be some mistake. she said,
no, it was a writer and he said he wanted you to help him write
a history book.
oh, fine, I said, and I knew with that I had another week’s
rent—I mean, on the cuff—
so I sat around drinking wine on credit and watching the hot pigeons
suffer and fuck on my hot roof.
I turned the radio on real loud
drank the wine and wondered how I could make a history book
interesting but true.
but the bastard never came back,
and I had to finally sign on with a railroad track gang
going West
and they gave us cans of food but no
openers
and we broke the cans against the seats and sides of
railroad cars a hundred years old with dust
the food wasn’t cooked and the water tasted like
candlewick
and I leaped off into a clump of brush somewhere in
Texas
all green with nice-looking houses in the
distance
I found a park
slept all night
and then they found me and put me in a cell
and they asked me about murders and
robberies.
they wanted to get a lot of stuff off the books
to prove their efficiency
but I wasn’t that tired
and they drove me to the next big town
fifty-seven miles away
the big one kicked me in the ass
and they drove off.
but I lucked it:
two weeks later I was sitting in the office of the city hall
half-asleep in the sun like the big fly on my elbow
and now and then she took me down to a meeting of the council
and I listened very gravely as if I knew what was happening
as if I knew how the funds of a halfass town were being
dismantled.
later I went to bed and woke up with teethmarks all over
me, and I said, Christ, watch it, baby! you might give me
cancer! and I’m rewriting the history of the Crimean War!
and they all came to her house—
all the cowboys, all the cowboys:
fat, dull and covered with dust.
and we all shook hands.
I had on a pair of old bluejeans, and they said
oh, you’re a writer, eh?
and I said: well, some think so.
and some still think so . . .
others, of course, haven’t quite wised up yet.
two weeks later they
ran me out
of town.

[Montegriffo]

One can't really have a discussion with DBtrek.

What an odd declaration. Smart people manage to pull it off daily around here.
Don’t project your shortcomings onto others.

No, he's right. You've been dick-stomping around for a month or two now, rather than actually engaging in debate. I assume it has something to do with new success in your personal life, or a cool new job.

I've not noticed any change in DB's posts. He has always been acerbic but doesn't avoid the argument at hand.

[Speaker to Animals]

If they're going to criticize meritocracy, you do it from a results based perspective.

Who gets to define what merit is? Well it's traditionally those that are in power, but in a practical sense, those who are in power aren't always wrong. If those in power, (who define what merit is), have a system that lifts people up based purely on real world production, not skin color, gender, hair color, or beliefs, then that is a very good thing. In that system, differences don't matter, it's just results. That is actually one of the best "social justice" environments imagined.

A person who is interested in results based social justice really should leave that system alone.

Meritocracy literally means assigning responsibility and rewards based upon results.

The guy who brings back the most meat during the paleolithic hunt is rewarded with merit and privileges in the clan. The guy who innovates the best or discovers the greatest scientific theories merits reward.

It's not just money. It's not even necessarily in your life. I mean, fuck, Van Goph died a mentally disabled pauper, but he merits a status as one of the greatest artists to ever live.

Nobody who matters gives a shit about your skin color or whether you like to stick your dick in a vagina or a man's asshole. If you do something better than your peers, then you are rewarded. That's what meritocracy means.