I'm saying that since the statements against them have largely been absolute, only one example that most neutral people can accept makes them necessary renders said statements null. I don't think they're pointless or I wouldn't bother arguing.
The thing that people seem to disagree on is on how far you should go with these disclaimers. One says that it should stop after abuse (like extreme violence, sexual assault and drugs), the other says that we should also include most phobias and disorders into the disclaimers.
To me, as there are many phobias and disorders out there and most of them make just a small part of a target audience, it does not have to be taken into account. Only if the target audience could be hurt by the product, then that problem of the target audience in question should also be included to the disclaimer.
With the example of the weight numbers, if the product was actually aimed towards people that suffer from eating disorders, then you might want to put a disclaimer beforehand. However, if you are some kind of sexy hunk vlogger, the main audience are young teenage girls (12-15) and you are doing a Q&A where someone asks you about your weight, then a disclaimer doesn't seem to be necessary. (As only 0,2% of teenagers have eating disorders, if my source is correct)
Whether we can or cannot expect from people on the internet to put disclaimers at the start of their products or not; The answer is probably no. The internet is the place where anyone can do whatever they want. Thus whether a disclaimer or warning will be put in front of their product is entirely up to the creator/producer. Whether their audience will be hurt by the absence of a warning or not will certainly be noted if that part of the audience is significant enough.
To me, as there are many phobias and disorders out there and most of them make just a small part of a target audience, it does not have to be taken into account. Only if the target audience could be hurt by the product, then that problem of the target audience in question should also be included to the disclaimer.
With the example of the weight numbers, if the product was actually aimed towards people that suffer from eating disorders, then you might want to put a disclaimer beforehand. However, if you are some kind of sexy hunk vlogger, the main audience are young teenage girls (12-15) and you are doing a Q&A where someone asks you about your weight, then a disclaimer doesn't seem to be necessary. (As only 0,2% of teenagers have eating disorders, if my source is correct)
Whether we can or cannot expect from people on the internet to put disclaimers at the start of their products or not; The answer is probably no. The internet is the place where anyone can do whatever they want. Thus whether a disclaimer or warning will be put in front of their product is entirely up to the creator/producer. Whether their audience will be hurt by the absence of a warning or not will certainly be noted if that part of the audience is significant enough.
Change is gooooood
Picture by: My valentine; jamespongebob <3
Want to advertise your guide, but don't know where? Click here for an opportunity of a lifetime!
The_Nameless_Bard wrote:
Searz, you should be aware that not everyone has a moral compass, but that's kind of not related.
Really? Why wouldn't they? Are you gonna claim that not everybody has feelings next?
I understand that there may be exceptions to both of those statements, but those entirely rely on very specific definitions and are bound to be vanishingly rare.
Quoted:
The fact that I can come up with any examples that people besides yourselves agree are reasonable puts a pretty big hole in your argument that disclaimers/trigger warnings are entirely pointless.
I've made no such claim. Don't put words in my mouth.
Quoted:
the various free speech/expression arguments are complete and utter ********
I've never even commented on that..
I posted a video on that topic, but I did not claim that it was directly related to the topic we were discussing, nor did I use that in the discussion itself.
You're clearly reading things that aren't there..
"Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends." - Albert Bandura
"Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our futures." - Edward Snowden
"Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our futures." - Edward Snowden
Meh, I'm rubbish at arguing so I'm just gonna let you two battle it out since reading over all the points that I've made I've realized they don't make sense.
Have fun. xD
Have fun. xD
I am currently known as Sejwoonapiggle on EUW.
Add me for any queries or questions you have for me!
Check out my stream! I could use the support.
Click here to view my stream!
Add me for any queries or questions you have for me!
Check out my stream! I could use the support.
Click here to view my stream!
Only my first statement was specifically directed towards you, Searz, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. The rest of my comment was directed at other people (hence starting it with "in general" and using the plural "yourselves" rather than "yourself"), because other people have made absolute statements multiple times in this argument and also claimed that freedom of speech was somehow involved. I was just addressing generally, because I wanted to point out that people making absolute statements need to back them up with reasonable examples. Absolute statements put the burden of proof on the person who makes them, since any exceptions render them incorrect, but I doubt I need to explain that to you.
I said that because there are mental disorders where some of the defining characteristics are a lack of morality or remorse for immoral actions.
I said that because there are mental disorders where some of the defining characteristics are a lack of morality or remorse for immoral actions.
Meiyjhe wrote:
The thing that people seem to disagree on is on how far you should go with these disclaimers. One says that it should stop after abuse (like extreme violence, sexual assault and drugs), the other says that we should also include most phobias and disorders into the disclaimers.
To me, as there are many phobias and disorders out there and most of them make just a small part of a target audience, it does not have to be taken into account.
Whether we can or cannot expect from people on the internet to put disclaimers at the start of their products or not; The answer is probably no. The internet is the place where anyone can do whatever they want. Thus whether a disclaimer or warning will be put in front of their product is entirely up to the creator/producer. Whether their audience will be hurt by the absence of a warning or not will certainly be noted if that part of the audience is significant enough.
To me, as there are many phobias and disorders out there and most of them make just a small part of a target audience, it does not have to be taken into account.
Whether we can or cannot expect from people on the internet to put disclaimers at the start of their products or not; The answer is probably no. The internet is the place where anyone can do whatever they want. Thus whether a disclaimer or warning will be put in front of their product is entirely up to the creator/producer. Whether their audience will be hurt by the absence of a warning or not will certainly be noted if that part of the audience is significant enough.
Well written. I agree completely.
The phobia or disorder needs to be pervasive among the consumers, otherwise it's just silly.
MrMad2000 wrote:
Meh, I'm rubbish at arguing so I'm just gonna let you two battle it out since reading over all the points that I've made I've realized they don't make sense.
Have fun. xD
Have fun. xD
Will do :)
The_Nameless_Bard wrote:
Only my first statement was specifically directed towards you, Searz, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
Oh. Yeah, it wasn't clear.
Quoted:
I said that because there are mental disorders where some of the defining characteristics are a lack of morality or remorse for immoral actions.
Yeah. I was generalizing, but you've got to admit that the numbers of people that don't have a moral compass are vanishingly small.
A more correct statement would be that EVERYBODY not suffering from some specific mental illness has a moral compass.
(that does make the sentence rather unwieldy however D: )
Hence it should be the default expectation: that any specific person has a moral compass.
"Games may not be art, but this one did wonderful things to my ****." - Roger Ebert
"I AM PRETTY SURE THIS MANGA IS VIOLATING SOME LAWS ABOUT CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
I CANNOT GET ENOUGH
****" - mencretnas, on Gigantomakhia
"I AM PRETTY SURE THIS MANGA IS VIOLATING SOME LAWS ABOUT CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
I CANNOT GET ENOUGH
****" - mencretnas, on Gigantomakhia
Considering I'm basically the one of the only dedicated moral philosophers (if not the only one who majored in philosophy, specifically morality) and also probably the only one out of any of us who has any real applied psychotherapy and counselling experience, I am rather surprised that I missed this for about 10 pages, lol.
I'll only give a general overview of what I think of this discussion, rather than replying to specific people.
Trigger warnings have a general use for the rather extreme things if we're just understanding them as disclaimers. I was watching a documentary on the fur trade to raise awareness about how animals are severely mistreated for it. There were no trigger warnings on it and out of nowhere, there's suddenly footage of an animal skinned ALIVE. I mean, it was alive and kicking and suddenly a man inserts his knife, makes a cut and pulls off the skin in one single motion. I was so severely shocked that I knee-jerk closed the tab and I was in genuine cold sweat. That video definitely needed a trigger warning if anything ever did, because the general populace would be disturbed by it. Obvious examples like these aren't really necessary to cover in any more detail.
The main issue is, as some have pointed out, that once you depart from obvious cases and into more specific examples that are not necessarily as relevant to the general populace, trigger warnings generally become quite absurd. Their only use remains in when you are an involved member of the community (like MOBAFire) and you are familiar with other members to some extent. Let's say that I am aware that one member has problems concerning severe death anxieties or some form of disorder, and I have a video/image/text that will involve those themes that I wish to share in general. Out of consideration for them, I would say that it is somewhat appropriate to make a trigger warning. So, a specific trigger warning for a specific person is, I feel, sensible whereas missing a general trigger warning seems a bit more misguided - like a racist experiment video that was posted a while back needing a trigger warning would seem uncalled for, in my opinion, unless there is a specific person I know that was severely racially persecuted, in which case I might deem a specific warning to that person appropriate. It's just a courtesy, rather than an actual rule. There's no specific way for human interaction, after all.
Or rather, I would not hold it against anyone for not putting a trigger warning in general, given that they are not intentionally trying to trigger anyone. There are definitely people who want to deliberately provoke others (and definitely not in the best of ways, either), but sometimes it's not necessarily a bad thing for people to be shocked or similar (FouseyTube is a good example).
Then there was someone who was talking about how you can't compare a PTSD patient and a raped child in terms of emotional pain; that they were familiar with the pain, yet they can't know? I can't remember who it was, but I would like to ask them to refrain from making rather incorrect claims such as this if you're not that familiar with the discipline (and, to be honest, a little further thought shows that what you're saying doesn't make sense anyway).
Yes, phenomenologically speaking, we can't ever know if the pain they feel is the same as ours, the same way we can't know if the blue you see is the blue I see, etc etc. But when you are talking about real life application, that comparison is irrelevant. First of all, a raped child can also suffer from PTSD, so your example is pretty flawed. Then by saying you can be familiar with something but then unknown to it is an inherent contradiction in terms anyway, so what you are saying isn't even coherent.
That aside, psychotherapists and counsellors are taught specifically to empathise with their clients (not sympathy, DO NOT mix the two). This means not only to understand their pain, but to actually feel their pain. We are taught to provide a new therapy for each individual patient, because every patient is different (yet also the same, somewhat paradoxically). Therefore, accurate empathy is required for most effective treatments, even if sometimes we therapists get it wrong (God knows how I have sometimes interpreted a patient's emotion for them and been wrong, though this often offers greater insight into their emotional state). At the end of the day, whether my anxiety as a PTSD patient is 'phenomenologically speaking' the same as another's as a rape victim is irrelevant. In real life application, it's the exact same emotion and there are no 'degrees' or 'differing levels' to it.
Me being scared ****less by spiders (I have a mildly strong case of arachnophobia) and someone else having severe (even fatal) death anxiety attacks - neither of us cares how much the other is scared, because our own fear is the strongest emotional force to us, regardless of the content of the fear itself or our manifested reaction to it. It just so happens that their physical manifestation of their fear may be more life-threatening than mine, but it by no means diminishes the emotional forces that bind us individually when it manifests.
I'll only give a general overview of what I think of this discussion, rather than replying to specific people.
Trigger warnings have a general use for the rather extreme things if we're just understanding them as disclaimers. I was watching a documentary on the fur trade to raise awareness about how animals are severely mistreated for it. There were no trigger warnings on it and out of nowhere, there's suddenly footage of an animal skinned ALIVE. I mean, it was alive and kicking and suddenly a man inserts his knife, makes a cut and pulls off the skin in one single motion. I was so severely shocked that I knee-jerk closed the tab and I was in genuine cold sweat. That video definitely needed a trigger warning if anything ever did, because the general populace would be disturbed by it. Obvious examples like these aren't really necessary to cover in any more detail.
The main issue is, as some have pointed out, that once you depart from obvious cases and into more specific examples that are not necessarily as relevant to the general populace, trigger warnings generally become quite absurd. Their only use remains in when you are an involved member of the community (like MOBAFire) and you are familiar with other members to some extent. Let's say that I am aware that one member has problems concerning severe death anxieties or some form of disorder, and I have a video/image/text that will involve those themes that I wish to share in general. Out of consideration for them, I would say that it is somewhat appropriate to make a trigger warning. So, a specific trigger warning for a specific person is, I feel, sensible whereas missing a general trigger warning seems a bit more misguided - like a racist experiment video that was posted a while back needing a trigger warning would seem uncalled for, in my opinion, unless there is a specific person I know that was severely racially persecuted, in which case I might deem a specific warning to that person appropriate. It's just a courtesy, rather than an actual rule. There's no specific way for human interaction, after all.
Or rather, I would not hold it against anyone for not putting a trigger warning in general, given that they are not intentionally trying to trigger anyone. There are definitely people who want to deliberately provoke others (and definitely not in the best of ways, either), but sometimes it's not necessarily a bad thing for people to be shocked or similar (FouseyTube is a good example).
Then there was someone who was talking about how you can't compare a PTSD patient and a raped child in terms of emotional pain; that they were familiar with the pain, yet they can't know? I can't remember who it was, but I would like to ask them to refrain from making rather incorrect claims such as this if you're not that familiar with the discipline (and, to be honest, a little further thought shows that what you're saying doesn't make sense anyway).
Yes, phenomenologically speaking, we can't ever know if the pain they feel is the same as ours, the same way we can't know if the blue you see is the blue I see, etc etc. But when you are talking about real life application, that comparison is irrelevant. First of all, a raped child can also suffer from PTSD, so your example is pretty flawed. Then by saying you can be familiar with something but then unknown to it is an inherent contradiction in terms anyway, so what you are saying isn't even coherent.
That aside, psychotherapists and counsellors are taught specifically to empathise with their clients (not sympathy, DO NOT mix the two). This means not only to understand their pain, but to actually feel their pain. We are taught to provide a new therapy for each individual patient, because every patient is different (yet also the same, somewhat paradoxically). Therefore, accurate empathy is required for most effective treatments, even if sometimes we therapists get it wrong (God knows how I have sometimes interpreted a patient's emotion for them and been wrong, though this often offers greater insight into their emotional state). At the end of the day, whether my anxiety as a PTSD patient is 'phenomenologically speaking' the same as another's as a rape victim is irrelevant. In real life application, it's the exact same emotion and there are no 'degrees' or 'differing levels' to it.
Me being scared ****less by spiders (I have a mildly strong case of arachnophobia) and someone else having severe (even fatal) death anxiety attacks - neither of us cares how much the other is scared, because our own fear is the strongest emotional force to us, regardless of the content of the fear itself or our manifested reaction to it. It just so happens that their physical manifestation of their fear may be more life-threatening than mine, but it by no means diminishes the emotional forces that bind us individually when it manifests.
^Nice comment.
Wait, somebody here actually did that?
I have no memory of that. Sure it was here?
It's pretty idiotic in any case.
sirell wrote:
Then there was someone who was talking about how you can't compare a PTSD patient and a raped child in terms of emotional pain; that they were familiar with the pain, yet they can't know? I can't remember who it was, but I would like to ask them to refrain from making rather incorrect claims such as this if you're not that familiar with the discipline (and, to be honest, a little further thought shows that what you're saying doesn't make sense anyway).
Wait, somebody here actually did that?
I have no memory of that. Sure it was here?
It's pretty idiotic in any case.
"We've had a few gloomy years with bad console ports, and what do we get in the light at the end of the console-tunnel? A tablet OS ported to PC." - Atlas Tasume, on Windows 8
You need to log in before commenting.
I didn't call you stupid, I asked you if you were. So you do think that you're stupid :D
Nah, sorry. It was an indirect insult, I had second thoughts about it and decided to edit that out. I copied the text and deleted the first comment so that I could include a response to the comment you made while I was writing the first one.
I'm pretty sure the comment only was live for about 10seconds D:
...
Don't exaggerate.. You could have made a point without exaggeration, in fact, it would have been far more valid if you did.
You should try to follow the thread better.
Trigger warnings originate from the social "justice" philosophy. (it's used ironically, because there is no actual justice)
Disclaimers are a different matter. The two may be similar in function, but have very different implications.
You seem to have trouble understanding my point.
It's unreasonable to expect somebody to which you have no connection to know about your problems, online or offline.
They obviously need to know about your problems to be able to warn you about them (warn you about potential triggers).
Yeah, no, this scenario is quite irrelevant. Because asking for help is not the same as expecting somebody to know about your problem without ever communicating with them.