RoR: Forum

Thanks, Deanna.

The way I remember the wording was not so much that women found any hate in the use of emoticons, per se, only that they didn't like it when men used emoticons in communication with them. In other words, it was a "turn-off" for them. Maybe they found it unmanly. I don't know.

Ed

Post 21

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 7:00pm

Ed,
I use the term "hateful" loosely. Perhaps there's an emoticon for that? Hahaha will have to suffice. Among my admittedly small circle of girlfriends, only 1 had ever given any thought at all to the subject. She said if it's a boy she likes, she thinks it is cute. If it's a boy she doesn't like, she thinks it is stupid. She's a teenager. Upon being asked to think about it, the others didn't have any strong feelings one way or the other, although the public relations/communications specialist said it could be construed as a lazy way to avoid formulating a thought. And that's my indepth emoticons-as-a-means-of-communication-between-women-and-men study results. :-D ;-) :-P

Now that I have participated in this hijack, I feel obligated to comment on the actual thread topic. I didn't watch the video, but there's been a lot of talk going around the New Orleans area since the NCAA's announcement of Penn State's punishment for the whole Jerry Sandusky thing. If ever there was a reason to ban college football, I'd say that would be it. However, even this, as horrible as it is, doesn't have much to do with football itself. This is the South, folks love their football. I understand the football as religion culture, but just like with all religions, it's the worshipers who ruin it. Don't ban football, ban the pedophiles and the people who protect them who use football as their power pedestal.

Post 22

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 8:10pm

I remember Warren Farrel say that when a woman calls a man a "jerk" it usually means he came on to her in a way she did not want. (Which has nothing to do with emoticons, football or banning football.)

[Edited to reflect two typos Ed discovered]

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 7/25, 9:01pm)

Post 23

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 8:29pm

Thanks again, Deanna.

That formal research that you performed may be helpful to me.

Regarding the thread, I won't ask you to watch a 90-minute video, but I want to tell you about something in it. In the video, Malcolm Gladwell** postulates that there is nothing special about football as a game, per se -- that if you were to rewind time and run it forward again, instead of college football, it could have been college Monopoly (the board game). It's far-fetched and shows how out-of-touch Malcolm Gladwell is, but what if it were true? Regarding the corruption at Penn State, however, it would not have changed a thing. There would be just as much chance for sexual misconduct/crimes to occur. There would be just as much money to serve as an incentive for a cover-up.

Ed

**Malcolm Gladwell argued to ban college football due to cumulative head trauma (e.g., concussions), something the opposition also made clear that they wanted to reduce. Gladwell, characteristic for an arrogant liberal elite, says that any risk is too much risk -- and that college football should be banned until proven safe. Of course, using that kind of twisted logic, you could make a good case against driving in cars -- which destroys many more lives than football ever has or ever will -- but you cannot depend on such arrogant elites to be consistent in their thinking. It's called The Precautionary Principle (PP) and it involves avoiding all risks. What PP enthusiasts don't recognize is that a life without risk isn't worth living. It's also an impossibility, but even granting that it could be possible, it would not be desirable (to a rational person). In the case of football, Gladwell cannot see any value in it -- overandabove the value you'd get from playing competitive monopoly in the middle of a huge stadium in front of 20,000 fans.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/25, 8:36pm)

Post 24

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 8:40pm

Steve,

Did you leave out a word? Did you mean to say:

... when a woman calls a man a "jerk" i[t] usually means he came on to her in a way she did not want.(?)

Ed

Post 25

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 9:03pm

Thanks, Ed. You understood what I intended to say and I've edited the post accordingly.

Post 26

Saturday, July 28, 2012 - 11:39am

You understood what I intended to say ...

Now Steve, if you would only permit me the laxity to hijack my own thread -- and methinks you will indeed grant me this capacity -- then, regarding past debates about artificial intelligence (AI), then doesn't this fact prove that I'm not a life-less Turing Machine? Isn't a machine that understands intentions almost by-definition alive? Don't you have to first have intentions in order to be able to get into the epistemological position to understand intentions.

Can AI hardware (or AI software) ever have intentions?

Ed

Post 27

Saturday, July 28, 2012 - 9:13pm

But, Ed, isn't that just what a cleverly programmed AI machine would say? [joking]

Post 28

Sunday, July 29, 2012 - 8:23am