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George Orwell - “Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten." I am learning that most of the disagreements people have come down to definitions and word associations. Words have different meanings to different people. You will find this regularly occurring in debates on this forum. Molyneux has described peoples outlooks as being built up of words like a fairy-tale, so when we try to reason with an irrational outlook words have no impact, or our arguments may even drive them further into irrationality because the words we use are associated with evil and we confirm their biases. We've been debating 'arguing with irrationality'. Another way of putting 'irrationality' may be the sub-conscious mind. When we tip-toe around 'triggering' people, we're not talking about their rational thoughts, we're talking about emotion. We may find that in an irrational person they lack consciousness, or maybe they have a strong subconsciousness? If we're arguing with irrational people I suppose we have to make emotional arguments? What George Orwell was describing by the word 'Newspeak' is also known to us philosophers as 'deconstructionism'. Deconstructionists try to break down the meanings of words to give a new meanings and associations. This can be done though 'priming'. Priming is a psychological tool to make people associate something with something else. Pavlov's dog associates a bell with food. We associate coleacola with cord like cold and refreshing. I am noticing this happening more and more. Words like 'morality' used to mean someone's whole set of values and virtues that they live by. Now it means someones sense of right and wrong in conduct with other people. A much diminished definition. Evil used to mean not virtuous, now it means some kind of supernatural spirit. Fascist used to mean someone who supported Mussolini. Now Nazis are fascists. People associate Hitler with far-right even though his policies were socialist. Churchill fought off national socialism, and he was right wing and conservative. By today's standards Churchill is far right and therefore if he were around today he might be associated with 'fascism'. People associate immigration policy Nazism and genocide, even though before WWII every country other than the Wiemar republic had strong borders. No one can determine what the alt-right is, the mainstream media have an agenda control the word 'alt-right' to mean a neo-nazis movement, but the alt-right think they're a libertarian movement. Etc... My question is how do keep track of these changing definitions, and how do we talk to people with those porn-modern definitions and word associations? How to we combat newspeak/ deconstructionism?

I hate to break it to you, but the man doesn't give a fascist fart what that piece of paper says.

OP, what sense is there in bouncing back and forth between one corrupt ideology and another? Why are you interested in hanging out with a bunch of child abusers who worship an imaginary being who will torture you for eternity for not loving Him? Why can't people who accept reason and evidence be your tribe?

Not really an argument, but this sounds a lot like what a person who wants to commit or justify unspeakable evil against another person or justify unspeakable evil which was committed against them would want to believe in. Either that, or a person who wants to escape self-ownership, self-responsablity and/or pretend that his/her evil actions doesn't have consequences, aren't harmful or won't corrupt them. God is concept which justifies abusers and pacifies the tormented abused. Essentially, one of more sicker forms of evil. I'd rather worship Satan, if the whole concept wasn't a mythology to begin with. Disgusting.

global warming as it exists today has become a RELIGION, as such you cannot rationally discuss it and it requires no "proof"; nor can you disprove it with observations. starting in the 70's when some finance savvy scientists discovered that they can get a lot of funding by creating the perception of doom this has been moving nicely along gaining "converts". This is nothing new and is in fact right in-line with the great "doom prophesiers" that have exploited the masses (or the wealthy) throughout human history! sadly only logical thinking can stop it, and the government has pretty much trashed the education system. It would only take the mass media about 1 day to go visit ALL the environmental doom prophesies that said by now we would all be dead to see that such predictions are, well, useless...andddddd it will never happen.

Insist on establishing definitions in an honest debate.

Omg. This isn't complicated. You TELL THE TRUTH. No matter how uncomfortable or unpopular. The answer to all this is courage, not some philosophical word play or psychological mind game.

Visiting the board today, my login credentials were rejected. I reset my password via the emailed link and was logged in. When I logged out and attempted to log back in, it, again, rejected my credentials. I again reset my password and was logged in. After a time out, I was again unable to log in and reset my password. I strongly suspect if I log out now, I'll have to reset my password again.

chat users now feel like we bought out tickets from united airlines...and they decided they need the seats for something else :-(

It does say "display name or email address" but only if it's not already populated. There was an option during the upgrade to either use people's usernames or Display Names, and I figured that it didn't make sense for people's usernames to suddenly appear where their display names were... but then logging in would be weird, so I changed that to email address.

I agree with neeeel. Something like a star chart will mostly condition a person to seek external validation. This is the foundation of a person ripe for subjugation. Please aim for the opposite of this. Pardon me that I didn't catch what Troubador was responding to during my first read. You say time to stop an activity... According to who? How do you know? Who tells you when its time to stop activities you're engaged in? If your goal is to condition your child to be self-sufficient, then I think it would be better to not subject them to this construct that they're not going to face once they're an adult. He's not there by choice, but you did choose to have him. If there's a disagreement about how he impacts your life, then it's something you could try to negotiate with him regarding. Otherwise, I would argue that it is you who needs to yield to him. Without specifics, it's hard to describe what that might look like. But for me, it would begin with halting thoughts like "time to stop." That's a conclusion and if you try to inflict it, not only are you inflicting, but you're also asserting that you are infallible. Neither one is going to be helpful to him, nor to you down the road.

perhaps its not relevant, but my reaction to star charts and such "positive" incentives is usually "ugh" or "yuk". You arent teaching them anything except to please you. I suppose if you are also explaining reasoning or whatever as you go, then it wouldnt be so bad. And its obviously better than spanking. But still leaves a nasty feeling for me.

There seems to be a very big obstacle that prevents you from understanding what I write and from responding with the same courtesy that I do to your passive aggressive tone. If you are to accuse me of making a bad argument, you had better make a good case, otherwise it is just an insult.

It is good to speak up in the presence of wrongdoing. Don't be a pussy.

Why are you interjecting in somebody elses life choices? So what she wants to wait to have kids? Why is it imperative you tell her otherwise?