"Only science idiots believe black is not a color."
"Except black is not a color, it is the absence of color."
"Once again, you show how ignorant you scientists are: we SEE it as a color, so it is one."
"No, it is still the absence of color. There are no black photons. It doesn't have a wavelength. Any scientist or science text can show you this."
"In 1949, Penderton showed in a renowned study that perception is reality. We see black, we perceive it as being a color; so it is a color. There's even a simple test found in art schools worldwide: they have 'black' crayons in boxes of coloring crayons. But clearly you've never seen a crayon box, or are you going to argue 'black' is the absence of a crayon?"
"Don't be stupid! Honestly, I don't even know where to start taking that nonsense apart."
"Don't call me stupid! Once again you scientists resort to calling people names to dismiss their arguments. You can't even refute me, which just showcases your willful blindness to the truth of the issue."
"Wait a minute, you've been calling me names since this started! You called everyone idiots. And you've been making patently absurd statements that contradict known facts, quoting fringe psychologists no one takes seriously except for colorists. Knock it off with the insults."
"I am not calling you names because you keep proving how pointless it is to argue with you and how ill-informed you are. All artists know that 'black' is a color, but none of the scientists you run to for 'facts' want to admit to it and the broken 'color' model you have been brainwashed into buying."
"Oh brother. What about wavelengths and photons? These and how they work are well-known ideas, long-supported and agreed to by peer review."
"Anyone who knows basic color theory can tell you that's garbage. Crayons have mass, so they exist, there's no 'absence' of them. And black crayons color black, which they couldn't do if there were no black photons, they would leave behind no marks at all if it were an absence! It is a color, but you just want to foolishly keep ignoring the truth. I've been an artist for fifteen years. I know what I'm talking about!"
"Look anywhere! Scientifically supported color theory shows black is not a color, but the absence of it. And that is not how it works. Check out Hodges or Micks on the subject, not discredited wackos or fringe colorist arguments."
"Those colorists you dismiss built the world of color and art! Without them you would be living in a gray, ugly world."
"The original artists were not colorists. They were all sorts of people, heck, colorists didn't even exist back then. Again, actually read Hodges and Micks on the subject. And Hodges, as a colorist, even argues that he only sees black as a color semantically."
"I have read about them, but clearly you haven't. They might not have called them colorists, but that is who they would align with today. And I can't believe you're calling me ignorant about the subject when you don't know Hodges recanted his claims. I wouldn't expect the garbage the scientific establishment to report on that, though. You need to read better books."
"Oh, bloody hell..!"
I had this exact argument. But about economics.
It was with a Libertarian.
(Big surprise.)
Now, I haven't been in personal conflict with right-wing nuts for some time. Been keeping away from them and their hangouts; enough left-wing nuts out there right now. Unfortunately, I did not realize this person was part of that distinct group until too late.
( ...how it works... )Anyways...
There's an old chestnut used by the right-wing to decry welfare and other free, public services as the most evil thing ever, which can be summed up in a quote by Tolstoy some of them like to use: "The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase."
"Giving is bad, make people work for what they need, or else it will be worse for them!" is the attitude (or sometimes, "Why should I care if YOU starve? Sounds like your problem and your fault."). I'm fairly certain it arises from the screwed-up Puritan ethic our country was founded on and that flourishes on the right. In the inherently paternalistic, authoritarian worldview of that ethic, which believes that suffering is divine and wholesome, that it builds character, that it is necessary and right, and that leisure makes you a tool of the devil. Ye olde "Spare the rod, spoil the child" mindset...and you're the child.
So on work-ethic and paternalist reactions to welfare: what I find interesting is how much concern conservatives seem to have for my soul when it is my body that is starving.
But as a number of us commies (or "socialists" or "liberals" or whatever Red Scare term has been invented to describe and dismiss us this decade) have noticed over the years, to our amusement: everything people create and make available on the internet makes a pretty good case that even if you give people lots of things for free, or don't pay them for what they are doing, they will still make themselves busy creating very cool things and doing things, even good works, for themselves and others.
And that's aside from the studies that show people are
more charitable with their time and money when they aren't struggling to survive or living in fear of falling into poverty from of one bad medical emergency or losing their job or their hours or anything else. When you create a baseline cushion you don't let people fall below, the majority tend to
become better people.
But scares the ever-loving crap out of certain people. The idea of suffering and struggling as something good and just, as divinely mandated, is ingrained into the brain of these conservatives. They don't just avoid it, they deny that reality as being a terrifying assault on the foundations of their concept of the world.
( ...authoritarianism and on the left... )