[FRIAM] Posts from the Scotts

[glen∈ℂ]

Yeah, I had the same reaction. But I lost to my own argument. Since Renee's been a grievance officer for her union, she and I've had an argument about "violence in the workplace". She claims (and both the union and management agree) that harsh words and aggressive tone and body language constitute "violence in the workplace". My argument *against* that boils down to this. Anyone who's been punched knows the difference between physical violence and ... psychological "violence" (using quotes to give my opponents some, but not too much, benefit of the doubt). Call it "intimidation", "threat", "implied violence", whatever. Just don't draw a false equivalence between harsh words and being punched in the face. (Back during one of my co-op terms in the avionics lab at Vought Aircraft, a consultant actually punched the lab manager over how they defined a systems engineering concept ... I can't even remember which concept it was at this point. [sigh] A useful distinction is when Bao, the employee assigned to teach me how to program the flight simulator, refuted my claims about how Ctrl-C interrupts were handled by repeatedly hitting Ctrl-C *yelling* "See! See! Ctrl-C doesn't work!" It's difficult for me to draw an equivalence between the fists flying between the consultant and the manager versus Bao's rather silly emphatic gestures. 8^))

I also have to equivocate on "abuse", since I *pride* myself in my tendency to abuse software (indeed *any* conceptual structure) to a) break it and b) find uses for which it wasn't intended. From a "respect for persons" standpoint, it should be impossible to *abuse* a person if one never *uses* a person like a tool. Calling someone an "abuser" implicitly assumes that there are proper ways to use people and there are improper ways to use people, which seems a little silly when you say that out loud. People should not be used. I.e. if you're using, you're already an abuser. But, then again, I also pride myself on being a Good Tool. I make my use cases as clear as I can.

On 7/19/19 12:13 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> On 7/18/19 2:28 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:> 
>> 1) Against Lie Inflation
>>     https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/16/against-lie-inflation/
>
> "She told me that sometimes she needed her boyfriend to do some favor for her, and he wouldn’t, so she would cry – not as an attempt to manipulate him, just because she was sad. She counted this as abuse, because her definition of “abuse” is “something that makes your partner feel bad about setting boundaries”. And when she cried, that made her boyfriend feel guilty about his boundary that he wasn’t going to do the favor."
> 
> Needs context.  Suppose the boyfriend could get fired for providing the `favor' and she doesn't get a needed medical treatment unless he gets paid.   Self-indulgent crying would represent a lack of self-control that could destabilize the relationship.   It's abuse in the same sense that drug or alcohol abuse could destabilize a relationship.    The boyfriend could manage the issue, but at some point it stops being a relationship and more care of an adult dependent.