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Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: Gyrre on 15 Feb 2019, 02:51

Title: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 15 Feb 2019, 02:51
I couldn't think of very many options for an apartment hunting shenanigans poll, so here's a weird thought from not getting enough sleep due to being sick all week.


Yes, 'Yiddish' is on that list.
The food and the music works. So why not? I also think Mel Brooks is the best choice for voicing Bahamut.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 15 Feb 2019, 02:53
Could one of the mods fix my title typo?
Should be 18-22


Thank you much!   (^-^)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: jwhouk on 15 Feb 2019, 04:09
Bronx accent. Has to be a Bronx accent.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 15 Feb 2019, 04:19
Bronx accent. Has to be a Bronx accent.

I hadn't considered that one, but good pick.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Zebediah on 15 Feb 2019, 05:24
In my current Pathfinder game I am actually playing a Cajun halfling. So my pick was foreordained.  :lol:
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: hedgie on 15 Feb 2019, 06:29
Mmm… Cajun halfling.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: SordidEuphemism on 15 Feb 2019, 07:07
Justin Wilson was a Hobbit on stilts. I gah-ron-tee. Prove me wrong. =)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: TheEvilDog on 15 Feb 2019, 07:54
I voted for the Devonshire accent, but damn if the idea of a Halfling talking in a Yiddish accent hasn't got me laughing.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 15 Feb 2019, 16:41
I voted for the Devonshire accent, but damn if the idea of a Halfling talking in a Yiddish accent hasn't got me laughing.
Just imagine Mel Brooks going full ham as the voice of Bahamut.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Storel on 16 Feb 2019, 23:33
Mmm… Cajun halfling.

Sounds tasty?  :lol:

Halfling: the other other white meat.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 17 Feb 2019, 19:09
New comic.

Brun seems to make frequent use (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3560) of her bra of holding (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BagOfHolding).
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: hedgie on 17 Feb 2019, 19:19
I'd say that if you're going to link to the Site That Must Not Be Named, "Victoria's Secret Compartment" is more what you're looking for.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 17 Feb 2019, 19:51
Ok. If Brun just was going to keep the clock, fine. But if she sold it, Dora should get a cut. At least 10% as a finder's fee.

Also, that it sold for that much, that quickly, means that Brun left money on the table.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: mikmaxs on 17 Feb 2019, 20:55
Ok. If Brun just was going to keep the clock, fine. But if she sold it, Dora should get a cut. At least 10% as a finder's fee.

Also, that it sold for that much, that quickly, means that Brun left money on the table.
I disagree. I can't be bothered to dig up the original comic, but to my memory, Brun said that it was valuable and could be sold, and Dora dismissed the idea.
If Brun had been trying to trick Dora to get a valuable thing worth selling, it'd be one thing, but Brun just got the clock because she thought it was a cool clock. A few (weeks? Months?) later, she needed money and owned one valuable thing, so she sold it.

Now someone dig up the original comic to reveal that I am remembering everything totally wrong...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 17 Feb 2019, 21:16
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3430
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: alc40 on 17 Feb 2019, 21:22
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3430 (also the preceding comic)

Dora kept her promise to let Brun have the clock, but it sounds like she regretted making that promise a bit.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 17 Feb 2019, 21:22
The flux compensator, Elliott. It's always the flux-compensator ...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 17 Feb 2019, 21:29
That still requires violating some traffic laws. None of the east coast states have speed limits that go up to 88 mph.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 17 Feb 2019, 21:48
Mmm… Cajun halfling.

Sounds tasty?  :lol:

Halfling: the other other white meat.
CORNWOOD!!!!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 17 Feb 2019, 22:30
Ok. If Brun just was going to keep the clock, fine. But if she sold it, Dora should get a cut. At least 10% as a finder's fee.

Also, that it sold for that much, that quickly, means that Brun left money on the table.
I disagree. I can't be bothered to dig up the original comic, but to my memory, Brun said that it was valuable and could be sold, and Dora dismissed the idea.
If Brun had been trying to trick Dora to get a valuable thing worth selling, it'd be one thing, but Brun just got the clock because she thought it was a cool clock. A few (weeks? Months?) later, she needed money and owned one valuable thing, so she sold it.

Now someone dig up the original comic to reveal that I am remembering everything totally wrong...
I'm not saying Dora had any right to expect a cut. Nor that Brun is morally obligated to give her one. I  just think it's a polite thing to do.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 17 Feb 2019, 22:33
Ok. If Brun just was going to keep the clock, fine. But if she sold it, Dora should get a cut. At least 10% as a finder's fee.

Also, that it sold for that much, that quickly, means that Brun left money on the table.
It would be a nice thing to do, and many would consider it an ethical thing to do, but Dora gave the clock to Brun without any conditions.  Legally it's hers to do with as she sees fit. 

"But Dora said..." HUSH!  (Goat hoof over the speaker's mouf.)  If the issue were to find its way into small claims court or in front of Judge Judy, the ruling would be "If it isn't in writing, it didn't happen."
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: DSL on 17 Feb 2019, 22:49
So, irrespective of whether Brun got took or Dora should get a cut, three grand gets you what in the way of Northampton living space?
This site (https://www.rent.com/massachusetts/northampton-apartments?WT.mc_id=23000&gclid=CjwKCAiAqaTjBRAdEiwAOdx9xniVwcnH2IHfXdGZK-Mc9EjnSmvGGIhHNBTtj_T8twnqp5_Wvi6AghoCPBIQAvD_BwE) seems to suggest about a month's rent, with a little left over for bagels, if you want to live in Northamption, a little less for nearby Amherst (with Dora as your neighbor) and about half that down the road in Springfield.
Not as bad as I feared; I figure Brun would have been able to swing a month in a linen closet with toilet, but not shower, privileges down the hall. New York, now ...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 17 Feb 2019, 23:21
This is the first time that Jeph has suggested that Brun is sometimes still kind of  teenage in her behaviour. This is something that I could see Sam doing and Faye in the role of Renee telling her to keep her cash out of sight! Of course, I think this really establishes how excited the whole 'new apartment' project excites her. She just had to go out and do something now and boy is she proud of her achievement!

However, more than anything else, I find myself wondering just what sorts of reserves Brun is sitting on with the rest of her surviving clock collection. I'm thinking that, if anyone had advised her to insure it, the fire at the bar would have left her an independently wealthy woman!

Brun seems to make frequent use (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3560) of her bra of holding (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BagOfHolding).

Money belt and croissant holster! I'm genuinely wondering what else Brun might be hiding in there. Could it be a Hammerspace (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Hammerspace) storage spot? Could the harpoon be in there too?!?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 18 Feb 2019, 00:49
So, irrespective of whether Brun got took or Dora should get a cut, three grand gets you what in the way of Northampton living space?
This site (https://www.rent.com/massachusetts/northampton-apartments?WT.mc_id=23000&gclid=CjwKCAiAqaTjBRAdEiwAOdx9xniVwcnH2IHfXdGZK-Mc9EjnSmvGGIhHNBTtj_T8twnqp5_Wvi6AghoCPBIQAvD_BwE) seems to suggest about a month's rent, with a little left over for bagels,

Well, rent should be from their regular income, if the rental is to be sustainable.  But you need money up front for a security deposit and any fees, and I assumed that was what Brun was thinking of.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: brasca on 18 Feb 2019, 01:32
Aside from the clock sale I wonder how much income Brun has for this to be sustainable.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 18 Feb 2019, 02:05
Aside from the clock sale I wonder how much income Brun has for this to be sustainable.

Well, both Brun and  Renee have jobs that seem relatively secure. I can't see them affording anything too elaborate but you never know!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: JoeCovenant on 18 Feb 2019, 02:22

Renee needs to stop being a "thought police".

And Peregrin did NOT have any english regional accent.
He had a 'posh' west coast of Scotland accent.

#ScottishHobbitPride
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: JimC on 18 Feb 2019, 04:19
Ok. If Brun just was going to keep the clock, fine. But if she sold it, Dora should get a cut. At least 10% as a finder's fee.

50% would be nearer the mark...  There may be no legal obligation, but ethically its a terrible position.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: shanejayell on 18 Feb 2019, 07:05
Happy Family Day in Canada, President's Day in USA. :D
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: moz1959 on 18 Feb 2019, 07:28
Brun selling the clock isn't the real question.

The question is "Clock forum"?

Certainly someone of Brun's expertise would know it's the "Horology forum"!

Given Brun's attention to small details, anyone else saying "Clock forum" would find themselves looking at the business end of a harpoon.

Am i wrong?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 18 Feb 2019, 07:30
She's putting it in simple terms for the non-horologists. Like when she explained clocks to Elliot.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 18 Feb 2019, 07:33
Aside from the clock sale I wonder how much income Brun has for this to be sustainable.

Well, both Brun and  Renee have jobs that seem relatively secure. I can't see them affording anything too elaborate but you never know!
We can wonder, but I doubt we'll see much about that from Jeph. Money for basic living expenses never seems to be an important or ongoing issue in QC's universe. The closest we've come recently is Faye and Bubbles being concerned about the viability of their shop, but if that's still a concern, they're not talking about it on-screen. Nobody who wants a job seems to be unemployed for long, and the jobs, which could be expected to be fairly low-paid (barista, university library intern, etc.), seem to support a reasonably comfortable if not luxurious lifestyle.  In that way it's like a lot of TV sitcoms.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: DSL on 18 Feb 2019, 08:03
So, irrespective of whether Brun got took or Dora should get a cut, three grand gets you what in the way of Northampton living space?
This site (https://www.rent.com/massachusetts/northampton-apartments?WT.mc_id=23000&gclid=CjwKCAiAqaTjBRAdEiwAOdx9xniVwcnH2IHfXdGZK-Mc9EjnSmvGGIhHNBTtj_T8twnqp5_Wvi6AghoCPBIQAvD_BwE) seems to suggest about a month's rent, with a little left over for bagels,

Well, rent should be from their regular income, if the rental is to be sustainable.  But you need money up front for a security deposit and any fees, and I assumed that was what Brun was thinking of.
Well, I was just going on basic affordability and amounts without actually reading the lease (of which I've signed a few in my day, along with the appropriate checks/cheques) and didn't wish to bog down the post in details.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 18 Feb 2019, 10:01
So, irrespective of whether Brun got took or Dora should get a cut, three grand gets you what in the way of Northampton living space?
This site (https://www.rent.com/massachusetts/northampton-apartments?WT.mc_id=23000&gclid=CjwKCAiAqaTjBRAdEiwAOdx9xniVwcnH2IHfXdGZK-Mc9EjnSmvGGIhHNBTtj_T8twnqp5_Wvi6AghoCPBIQAvD_BwE) seems to suggest about a month's rent, with a little left over for bagels,

Well, rent should be from their regular income, if the rental is to be sustainable.  But you need money up front for a security deposit and any fees, and I assumed that was what Brun was thinking of.
Plus furniture for the new apartment (Brun doesn't have a bed, for instance).
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 18 Feb 2019, 10:41
I don't know about the US, but rentals here in the UK are often furnished.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 18 Feb 2019, 11:02
I don't know about the US, but rentals here in the UK are often furnished.
Varies drastically from market to market.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 18 Feb 2019, 11:51
In my experience, rentals in the U.S. are almost always unfurnished. They come with appliances (refrigerators, etc) but not furniture. It may vary by region, but all the regions I've been in have been like that.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Penquin47 on 18 Feb 2019, 12:38
I wonder if there's an empty apartment in the Main Cast Building...?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: rtmq0227 on 18 Feb 2019, 13:52
I wonder if there's an empty apartment in the Main Cast Building...?

Now I'm imagining all the plot arcs leading the characters to completely fill the building's units, only for Hannelore to return to buy that building and build a wing off of it to satisfy that mansion fantasy she referenced way back when.  Winslow can even play the part of her message-carrying-butler.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 18 Feb 2019, 14:19
FWIW, I've long imagined a 'musical chairs' of apartment swapping due to the cast's changing circumstances:
But will the characters still interact? Why yes! After all, it's easy for Marten and Claire to have all their friends around to their new large house!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Storel on 18 Feb 2019, 14:59
In my experience, rentals in the U.S. are almost always unfurnished. They come with appliances (refrigerators, etc) but not furniture. It may vary by region, but all the regions I've been in have been like that.

In New Jersey, landlords are not required to supply refrigerators. So people buy a fridge for their first apartment, then move it with them whenever they move to another place. (Moving a refrigerator -- ugh! Especially if it has to go down stairs or up stairs.)

As you might expect, they have a booming market for cheap refurbished fridges there...

(Spent a year and a half in New Jersey for reasons, before happily moving back to California.)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: shanejayell on 18 Feb 2019, 18:40
You also sometimes need extra money for damage deposits too.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: TheEvilDog on 18 Feb 2019, 19:29
A guy travelling that quickly must be a time traveller. Either that or he's got too much time on his hands. That said, I do find the time he made to be quite alarming, but on the other hand, I'm also glad no one clock blocked him.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 18 Feb 2019, 19:57
Mmm... 1000 cheap croissants, or 300 good croissants?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Mr Intrepid on 18 Feb 2019, 20:00
In my experience, rentals in the U.S. are almost always unfurnished. They come with appliances (refrigerators, etc) but not furniture. It may vary by region, but all the regions I've been in have been like that.

In New Jersey, landlords are not required to supply refrigerators. So people buy a fridge for their first apartment, then move it with them whenever they move to another place. (Moving a refrigerator -- ugh! Especially if it has to go down stairs or up stairs.)

As you might expect, they have a booming market for cheap refurbished fridges there...

(Spent a year and a half in New Jersey for reasons, before happily moving back to California.)
  Do either of them know Bubbles?  I don't think moving a frig would be a problem.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 18 Feb 2019, 21:03
A guy travelling that quickly must be a time traveller. Either that or he's got too much time on his hands. That said, I do find the time he made to be quite alarming, but on the other hand, I'm also glad no one clock blocked him.
Maybe he had one of these?
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Terrafugia_--_2012_NYIAS_cropped.jpg/300px-Terrafugia_--_2012_NYIAS_cropped.jpg)
It's a "roadable aircraft" (i.e. flying car).

EDIT to avoid double posting

So, irrespective of whether Brun got took or Dora should get a cut, three grand gets you what in the way of Northampton living space?
This site (https://www.rent.com/massachusetts/northampton-apartments?WT.mc_id=23000&gclid=CjwKCAiAqaTjBRAdEiwAOdx9xniVwcnH2IHfXdGZK-Mc9EjnSmvGGIhHNBTtj_T8twnqp5_Wvi6AghoCPBIQAvD_BwE) seems to suggest about a month's rent, with a little left over for bagels, if you want to live in Northamption, a little less for nearby Amherst (with Dora as your neighbor) and about half that down the road in Springfield.
Not as bad as I feared; I figure Brun would have been able to swing a month in a linen closet with toilet, but not shower, privileges down the hall. New York, now ...
And that's why a lot of folks from either coast who come to the Midwest (http://"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States") for college stay in the Midwest after they graduate. 2/3 of Emporia, KS moved from CA.

Don't worry, there's something of an exchange going on. Look up how many actors, musicians, and inventors are from the MidWest.
If going the Wikipedia route, then search "list of people from [midwest state]" and scroll to 'Film, stage and television'.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 18 Feb 2019, 21:10
So, irrespective of whether Brun got took or Dora should get a cut, three grand gets you what in the way of Northampton living space?
This site (https://www.rent.com/massachusetts/northampton-apartments?WT.mc_id=23000&gclid=CjwKCAiAqaTjBRAdEiwAOdx9xniVwcnH2IHfXdGZK-Mc9EjnSmvGGIhHNBTtj_T8twnqp5_Wvi6AghoCPBIQAvD_BwE) seems to suggest about a month's rent, with a little left over for bagels, if you want to live in Northamption, a little less for nearby Amherst (with Dora as your neighbor) and about half that down the road in Springfield.
Not as bad as I feared; I figure Brun would have been able to swing a month in a linen closet with toilet, but not shower, privileges down the hall. New York, now ...
And that's why a lot of folks from either coast who come to the MidWest for college stay in the MidWest after they graduate.

ADDENDUM:
Don't worry, there's something of an exchange going on. Look up how many actors, musicians, and inventors are from the MidWest.
If going to grad school in Oklahoma counts as going to college in the Midwest, I guess I'm among them, now freezing my posterior off in Illinois. Not really because of housing costs (where I am now is better than much of the coasts in that regard, but much worse than the rest of the Midwest overall). Mostly just because I happened to find a job here.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 18 Feb 2019, 21:16
Mmm... 1000 cheap croissants, or 300 good croissants?

1 great croissant please.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 18 Feb 2019, 21:27
It'll ruin all other croissants for you (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1537).
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 18 Feb 2019, 22:34
I'd rather have that experience once and then never eat a croissant again than spend the rest of my life eating meh croissants that I despise.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 18 Feb 2019, 23:18
Elliott, it's a long story and you literally needed to have been there; I don't think it's possible to explain otherwise, even with context, without it sounding weird. Yeah, I presume that he would have thrown Peter out of the window for hitting on Brun in such a crude way.

Y'know, I find myself wondering if this is the first time that Brun has seriously had a lot of money to spare. Understandably, a part of her desperately wants to use this opportunity to have all those experiences that she's long dreamed of but has never been able to afford!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: brasca on 19 Feb 2019, 00:05
Mmm... 1000 cheap croissants, or 300 good croissants?

It could be a hundred best croissants ever, but it ultimately doesn’t matter since those things don’t keep well.  I got a bunch leftover and had to quickly eat everything because I spotted mold after just a few days. 
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: traroth on 19 Feb 2019, 04:04
Mmm... 1000 cheap croissants, or 300 good croissants?

It could be a hundred best croissants ever, but it ultimately doesn’t matter since those things don’t keep well.  I got a bunch leftover and had to quickly eat everything because I spotted mold after just a few days.

Better buy them when you want to eat them. But maybe that's easier to do in France...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 19 Feb 2019, 05:59
The flux compensator, Elliott. It's always the flux-compensator ...
That still requires violating some traffic laws. None of the east coast states have speed limits that go up to 88 mph.

Luckily, a DeLaurian capable of trans-lightcone travel is automatically compatible with the 11th commandment ("Though shalt not get caught" )
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: brasca on 19 Feb 2019, 07:10
Mmm... 1000 cheap croissants, or 300 good croissants?

It could be a hundred best croissants ever, but it ultimately doesn’t matter since those things don’t keep well.  I got a bunch leftover and had to quickly eat everything because I spotted mold after just a few days.

Better buy them when you want to eat them. But maybe that's easier to do in France...

If the Secret Bakery offers gift cards in thousand dollar denominations then that could work if not I stand by what I said.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 19 Feb 2019, 07:27
A croissant subscription.   A fresh out of the oven croissant a day for two or three years.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: zisraelsen on 19 Feb 2019, 08:15
I would subscribe to that service.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: TheEvilDog on 19 Feb 2019, 08:19
I dunno, that kind of service sounds flaky to me.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: SpanielBear on 19 Feb 2019, 08:38
It's a lot of effort to go to for an awful lot of pain...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 19 Feb 2019, 08:41
You could have croissants, or you could have bagels with lox. Pick your poisson.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 19 Feb 2019, 09:10
I've always preferred LOX and kerosene.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: jwhouk on 19 Feb 2019, 09:20
The flux compensator, Elliott. It's always the flux-compensator ...
That still requires violating some traffic laws. None of the east coast states have speed limits that go up to 88 mph.
Luckily, a DeLaurian capable of trans-lightcone travel is automatically compatible with the 11th commandment ("Though shalt not get caught" )

So many issues have I with this post chain...

Brun didn't say it was a guy in a white lab coat getting out of a DeLorean with a Flux Capacitor collecting the clock. Of course, why would Doc need a clock, since he already had a bunch of them in his workshop?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 19 Feb 2019, 09:47
The flux compensator, Elliott. It's always the flux-compensator ...
That still requires violating some traffic laws. None of the east coast states have speed limits that go up to 88 mph.
Luckily, a DeLaurian capable of trans-lightcone travel is automatically compatible with the 11th commandment ("Though shalt not get caught" )

So many issues have I with this post chain...

Brun didn't say it was a guy in a white lab coat getting out of a DeLorean with a Flux Capacitor collecting the clock. Of course, why would Doc need a clock, since he already had a bunch of them in his workshop?

* Neither did Brun say that that the guy who collected the clock wasn't clad in a labcoat, didn't get out of a DeLorean, flux-capacitated or not. Yes, many people would probably find "a guy in a white lab coat getting out of a DeLorean with a Flux Capacitor" worth mentioning. Brun is not 'many people'. 

* There's a difference between 'need' and 'want'. Both can provide ample motivation.
* DeLorian/DeLorean  - sry
* trans-lightcone: obvs bullshit, sry.
* flux-capacitor:

Quote
In the German-dubbed version, the device was once again mistranslated and called the "fluxkompensator" ("flux compensator"). The correct German translation for the word capacitor, however, would be "Kondensator".

https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Flux_capacitor
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 19 Feb 2019, 10:17
Doc would want another clock for the same reason Brun wants another clock: because it's there.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: JimC on 19 Feb 2019, 11:16
I'd rather have that experience once and then never eat a croissant again than spend the rest of my life eating meh croissants that I despise.
I try to strictly limit the number of things I acquire an educated palate for. It makes life simpler (and cheaper). Its not a problem only wanting to drink single malt scotch from lowland distilleries, but if I acquired a similarly discriminating palate for things that are less of an occasional luxury item then life would be more complicated. The other thing to get your head round, IMNSHO, is to distance certain ersatz foods from their inspiration. Instant mash, viewed as mashed potato, is an abomination, but instant mash viewed as a starch source that may be acceptably flavoured with cayenne, garlic and the like is acceptable in a quick meal just so long as you don't think of it as potato...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Zebediah on 19 Feb 2019, 12:07
Doc would want another clock for the same reason Brun wants another clock: because it's there.
“It’s a clock!

(https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/74da3b20e68d9b745adb78b45a5aeb2b.jpg)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Eternal_Newbie on 19 Feb 2019, 12:27
I wonder if the Secret Bakery does some sort of croissant subscription? Also, stale croissants make the best bread pudding!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 19 Feb 2019, 13:44
I'd rather have that experience once and then never eat a croissant again than spend the rest of my life eating meh croissants that I despise.
I try to strictly limit the number of things I acquire an educated palate for.

Oh, so do I!

The croissant just happens to be one of those things.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 19 Feb 2019, 14:00
Also, stale croissants make the best bread pudding!
True, that!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: rtmq0227 on 19 Feb 2019, 14:03
I'd rather have that experience once and then never eat a croissant again than spend the rest of my life eating meh croissants that I despise.
I try to strictly limit the number of things I acquire an educated palate for.  It makes life simpler (and cheaper).

As someone who has sought an educated palate in many things, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Computers
Audio setups
Food (cheese, meats, and chocolate especially)
Beer
Liquor (Rum and Gin especially)

Life would be simpler if my tastes were as well.  It honestly seems to feed into that depression that hits when times get hard, and you can either try to enjoy things you know to be subjectively worse, or go without.  Either way, it becomes all too easy to stop enjoying things that once brought you pleasure.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 19 Feb 2019, 14:12
Oh, I should mention another thing. Having an educated palette does not necessarily spoil my enjoyment of the lower quality stuff.

True, I hate crappy croissants.

But chocolate, on the other hand. While I really love fine chocolate, and would happily eat it exclusively, my ability to gorge on cheap chocolate borders on health-threatening.

The other thing to get your head round, IMNSHO, is to distance certain ersatz foods from their inspiration. Instant mash, viewed as mashed potato, is an abomination, but instant mash viewed as a starch source that may be acceptably flavoured with cayenne, garlic and the like is acceptable in a quick meal just so long as you don't think of it as potato...

Yeah, I can happily do this.

I judge stuff for what it is, not for what it is not.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: shanejayell on 19 Feb 2019, 20:23
New strip. :D

Poor Brun.  :laugh:
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 19 Feb 2019, 21:06
I'd rather have that experience once and then never eat a croissant again than spend the rest of my life eating meh croissants that I despise.
I try to strictly limit the number of things I acquire an educated palate for.  It makes life simpler (and cheaper).

As someone who has sought an educated palate in many things, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Computers
Audio setups
Food (cheese, meats, and chocolate especially)
Beer
Liquor (Rum and Gin especially)

Life would be simpler if my tastes were as well.  It honestly seems to feed into that depression that hits when times get hard, and you can either try to enjoy things you know to be subjectively worse, or go without.  Either way, it becomes all too easy to stop enjoying things that once brought you pleasure.
In that case, I have a question:
Is "rosehips and juniper ale" 1:1 with gin?
Here's why;
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: zisraelsen on 19 Feb 2019, 22:31
I like her! She's very supportive!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 19 Feb 2019, 23:20
Poor Brun though! She's always having it reinforced to her that most people use completely and mystifyingly deceptive figurative terms to describe completely routine things like defecation. Why would they do that, at least with a friend?

Still, it's cute how she trusts Clinton with what Renee probably has explained to her should be a closely-guarded secret, based on her reaction in panel 5. Brunette Cutie is probably thinking something like: "Mom warned me that these east coast hipster towns were weird!"
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: traroth on 20 Feb 2019, 01:08
Poor Clinton really has a gift to get wrong (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3524) what people are saying...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 20 Feb 2019, 03:39
He wasn't totally wrong...  :claireface:
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 20 Feb 2019, 04:46
Brun should apply for NOC-training with 'that farm' in Virginia....

Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: celticgeek on 20 Feb 2019, 19:43
Clock talking is serious business. 
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: shanejayell on 20 Feb 2019, 20:05
Well, THAT got disturbing fast.  :-o
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cesium133 on 20 Feb 2019, 20:12
The optimum clock collector only needs two clocks*, but they need to be accurate enough that NIST calls you to ask if they can use your clocks as a time standard.

*Two, so you can compare them to help you detect errors.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: DSL on 20 Feb 2019, 21:12
Gaze too long into the clock, and the clock will also gaze into thee.
-- Fred Neato
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Cornelius on 20 Feb 2019, 22:34
If we're talking weight and pendulum adjustment, don't pendulum clocks tend to synchronise?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 20 Feb 2019, 22:40
Only if they're on the same wall.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Cornelius on 20 Feb 2019, 22:46
So, what would happen if you have a master and slave clocks on your different walls. Granted, slave pendulum clocks are somewhat of a rarity.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: DaiJB on 20 Feb 2019, 23:08
"That way lies madness" - now I'm hearing the strip title in the voice of Daggett Beaver going not-so-slowly nuts - "TICK TOCK!!!"  :-D
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 20 Feb 2019, 23:26
Am I the only one who has noticed that you can see the outline of Brun's cash under her shirt on her upper left side?

FWIW, I've always felt that really serious collectors have serious obsessive streaks to their personalities. Fortunately, few get to the point where maintaining and expanding their collection outweighs all other considerations, including food, adequate health care, the law and the lives of 'rivals'! :-o
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Dandi Andi on 21 Feb 2019, 00:35
Am I the only one who has noticed that you can see the outline of Brun's cash under her shirt on her upper left side?

Yes you can! It is at least 30 bills and is folded in half, so that kind of wad would be hard to not see.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: traroth on 21 Feb 2019, 00:47
*Gulp*
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 21 Feb 2019, 05:23
"That way lies madness" - now I'm hearing the strip title in the voice of Daggett Beaver going not-so-slowly nuts - "TICK TOCK!!!"  :-D

"What Time Is It?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVYpCdY4Y_0) - Ken Nordine
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 21 Feb 2019, 06:17
Mad clocks... Remember Professor Brainstorm's invention of a clock that didn't need winding?  He forgot to make the mechanism for striking the hours reset to 1 every half day, so eventually it was trying to strike for over an hour each hour and ended up exploding.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: brasca on 21 Feb 2019, 08:08
She could always collect digital clocks, but I think a previous strip established that Brun wants to hear the ticking sound.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: DSL on 21 Feb 2019, 08:28
Any digital camera has the menu option of simulating a mechanical shutter sound, and lots of smartwatches have customizable faces that look like analog clocks. With retro being an occasional fad, I'd be surprised if someone hasn't made, or is thinking about making, a digital clock that could simulate a ticking sound.

I did only a cursory search, so feel free ...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 21 Feb 2019, 08:35
A few years back, someone actually made a clockwork clock with a digital display - All mechanical and no electrical movement whatsoever. I'm sure that with the noise of the various display elements open and closing, it makes a racket.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: cybersmurf on 21 Feb 2019, 08:38
*Two, so you can compare them to help you detect errors.

Three Actually, so you know which one is wrong if one differs.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 21 Feb 2019, 09:07
(I think that was the joke).
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: DSL on 21 Feb 2019, 09:58
A few years back, someone actually made a clockwork clock with a digital display - All mechanical and no electrical movement whatsoever. I'm sure that with the noise of the various display elements open and closing, it makes a racket.

Those were the digital clocks of the day. I had, and you can still have (though they are a retro novelty now) a mechanical analog watch with a digital date display (usually a window in the face where the 3 should be). Electric mechanical-digital alarm clocks came in two flavors: illuminated-from-behind tapes with different numbers on them, or a row of flipcards that changed as the minutes and hours did. The tape clocks kind of made a sighing sound as the numbers changed (kinda cool if it's late at night in a quiet house and the clock is inches from your eight-year-old ears) and the flipcards made a faint slapping noise as they changed.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 21 Feb 2019, 10:51
*Two, so you can compare them to help you detect errors.

Three Actually, so you know which one is wrong if one differs.
Experience shows that within a short time, no two of them will read the same.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 21 Feb 2019, 10:59
[...] and the flipcards made a faint slapping noise as they changed.

"split-flap display". These were commonly used in railroad stations and airports, sometimes on very large boards. People learned to look up at the display when they heard the flapping sound, which could last many seconds. In some cases when they were replaced with electronic displays, the flapping sound was reproduced, so as to continue to alert passengers of changes.  In other cases they've just kept them... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-flap_display#/media/File:Gare_du_Nord_Fallblattanzeiger_Departure-board.JPG)


Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Cornelius on 21 Feb 2019, 11:33
A lot of electric clocks that simulate a pendulum will have some slight ticking noise. More so if it is a plastic one. It's definitely not the same, though. Just like electric cuckoo clocks, with a recording. Most definitely not the same.

I still have one of those split flap alarm clocks around.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Zebediah on 21 Feb 2019, 11:36
I really should stop trying to correlate the geography of QC Northampton and RL Northampton. Jeph never made much of an effort to keep the two consistent, and he doesn’t even live here any more so he doesn’t have an easy reference point.

But still, I thought I knew which bank Brun was going to based on the backgrounds in yesterday’s comic. (Florence Bank on the corner of Pleasant and Main.) But today Brun and Clinton have walked right past that location. In fact, they’re about to head down Bridge Street, and I don’t know of a bank in that direction closer than Hadley.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Cornelius on 21 Feb 2019, 11:45
Cue the next strip, where they realise they walked a good ways past it, and can't make it back before closing time.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Thrillho on 21 Feb 2019, 12:22
God, I love Brun.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: traroth on 21 Feb 2019, 13:41
Collecting clocks seems dangerous. I will stay with Lovecraft related stuff, that seems more sane.

And vintage computers...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: TheEvilDog on 21 Feb 2019, 13:46
Collecting clocks seems dangerous.

Maybe, then again I always thought that people who collect clocks always seem like they have too much time on their hands.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 21 Feb 2019, 13:57
They might challenge you to a duel for saying that, and remember they can bring seconds.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Neko_Ali on 21 Feb 2019, 14:04
Collecting clocks seems dangerous.

Maybe, then again I always thought that people who collect clocks always seem like they have too much time on their hands.

And probably a little cuckoo to boot.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: TheEvilDog on 21 Feb 2019, 14:17
They might challenge you to a duel for saying that, and remember they can bring seconds.

That's okay, I've always been a clock puncher.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 21 Feb 2019, 14:21
Collecting clocks seems dangerous. I will stay with Lovecraft related stuff, that seems more sane.
"Horologist" conjures up an image of TV preacher white hair, pince nez glasses, with sherry on the breath and biscuit crumbs on the waist coat.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: shanejayell on 21 Feb 2019, 19:15
New strip up.

We also have confirmation that Brun is autistic.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Mr Intrepid on 21 Feb 2019, 19:56
New strip up.

We also have confirmation that Brun is autistic.
[/quoteAlways thought that actually.  Good friend has two brothers who are autistic.  Noted a lot of parallels from the get go.  That being said,  love her to pieces.
]
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: brasca on 21 Feb 2019, 20:26
New strip up.

We also have confirmation that Brun is autistic.

Yes and say what you will about Peter the Prick, but through his involvement with this plot we now know Brun’s family is Lebanese and she’s autistic.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Milayna on 21 Feb 2019, 20:29
Nice that it's finally confirmed =)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 21 Feb 2019, 20:56
Jeph did this with the same skill and sensitivity as when Claire first confided in Marten. Brun is not "the autistic character", she is the blunt orphan who turns out to be a person with ASD. Well done.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Feb 2019, 21:07
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't clods only start using 'autistic' as an insult to replace 'retard' in the last 5 years or so? Or did it start being misused as such longer ago than that on the East Coast?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: mikmaxs on 21 Feb 2019, 21:14
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't clods only start using 'autistic' as an insult to replace 'retard' in the last 5 years or so? Or did it start being misused as such longer ago than that on the East Coast?
You might be right, but QC uses a sort of sliding timescale that doesn't really match up with our own. How long has actually passed in-universe since the comic started fifteen years ago? Three years, at most? I feel like even then much of that happened during timeskips, not even on-screen. And yet, early on we've got jokes about how pintsize can't handle more than 512mb of RAM, and yet he's still chugging along next to post-singularity hyperconciousnesses just fine without apparently getting an upgrade since the first few hundred comics.
The year in Questionable Content is "Now". Things that happened before happened "Then." Things in the future are "Soon."
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Dandi Andi on 21 Feb 2019, 21:17
You see it used as an insult on the internet much more than the r-word in the last five years or so, but it was becoming more widely known about in the early 90's. Rain Man came out in '88, so people definitely knew about it. It was made a special education category in '91, so it was gaining popularity as an alternative to "special" even while I was in elementary school. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of her classmates would have used it derisively.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: mikmaxs on 21 Feb 2019, 21:22
Another thing I'd note is that, given what Brun says, it's unclear what the context of the original statement was. She considers the word to be an insult because of how her father reacted. We can guess that whoever called her autistic wasn't just providing a medical diagnosis, but it may have been, and if not it may have been a derisive or mean comment about her behavior, rather than being used as a pure insult in the way that the R-slur gets used on everything from people being bad at video games to "having strong opinions".

Either way, Brun interpreted her father's reaction, not the original comment - And even though we know she apparently had good parents by her estimation, it's not exactly uncommon for "good" parents to still react in gross or negative ways to the idea that their child might have a disability or disorder.

(EDIT: This is, of course, conjecture bordering upon fanfiction until we get confirmation one way or the other. I'm not sure if it's relevant to the plot at any rate.)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: alanari on 21 Feb 2019, 21:41
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't clods only start using 'autistic' as an insult to replace 'retard' in the last 5 years or so? Or did it start being misused as such longer ago than that on the East Coast?

Actually, I've never heard it being used as an insult outside the Internet. Doesn't seem to be that common where I live. Not usa though.
I'm having a weird kind of fun watching those people wiggle their way out of it when they do that in front of me. It helps that I am kind of the opposite of retarded. Still, it hurts. If I'm the one struggling with empathy, why are they the ones who don't care about my feelings at all?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Penquin47 on 21 Feb 2019, 22:00
Because you're struggling with empathy.  They just don't care about being empathetic.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 21 Feb 2019, 22:18
Neuroqueer theory (http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neuroqueer-an-introduction/)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Hoodiecrow on 21 Feb 2019, 22:58
Hi everyone, newbie here (though I'm 53 years old, so I'm an OF at the same time). I actually don't know if I will become a regular, but I often have feels because of QC so who knows.

Brun's ASD reveal struck me like either lightning or a dagger in my heart, I don't know which yet.

Back when I got my diagnosis, autism was still fairly unknown and people had unfortunate preconceptions. My wife couldn't deal with it and eventually asked me for a divorce. My parents cried and tried to assure me that I couldn't possibly be so broken. The clinic that treated my depression just dropped me, telling me that Asperger's isn't an illness (true, but you still need some help learning how to deal with it painlessly), and the Social Insurance Agency told me that I was no longer eligible for any help to get back to work.

Stopped liking doctors? Well, yes, sort of. Felt I was the bogeyman? Absolutely. I hope it's better nowadays for people getting their diagnosis.

I realized today how uncomfortable I still am with this, because I've mostly blanked out the tells in Brun's behavior up to now. I haven't been liking her very much, perhaps that will change now. (And again, Jeph has told her story well.)

And of course the AI is better at empathy than many humans in the real world. :)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Scarlet Manuka on 21 Feb 2019, 23:19
Graphs are indeed cool.

That is all.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 21 Feb 2019, 23:23
This is a 'hug Brun' moment, in my view. For Clinton, the situation is more complex, of course, because he is actually there and it's always more awkward and difficult to judge appropriate expressions of comfort and support in that context. The sort of saddest part of it is the fact that Brun immediately switches back to business; it seems to me that she doesn't even expect to receive empathy or comfort.

Something else that's awkward, as Kevin the Tellerbot has found out, is dealing with two perfect strangers having a real cathartic moment in front of you. Poor guy; working customer-facing jobs is never as easy as they tell you!

With regard to insulting uses of the word 'autistic' on the Internet, I, also, have only started seeing in the last few years but it isn't used that frequently. It's usually used to signify someone who, in the poster's perspective, is demonstrating a highly dogmatic and disproportionately emotional rejection of another's opinion. However, it is also (as with almost every other slur) is a synonym for "I say you're wrong and I say you're dumb".

In Brun's case, I suspect that it was probably used either by a peer or one of their parents in a "Hey! Look at the weird kid!" sort of way when she was still in grade school; in this case, it was a synonym for "Not Like Us".
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: alanari on 21 Feb 2019, 23:36

Back when I got my diagnosis, autism was still fairly unknown and people had unfortunate preconceptions. My wife couldn't deal with it and eventually asked me for a divorce. My parents cried and tried to assure me that I couldn't possibly be so broken. The clinic that treated my depression just dropped me, telling me that Asperger's isn't an illness (true, but you still need some help learning how to deal with it painlessly), and the Social Insurance Agency told me that I was no longer eligible for any help to get back to work.

Stopped liking doctors? Well, yes, sort of. Felt I was the bogeyman? Absolutely. I hope it's better nowadays for people getting their diagnosis.


Can't speak for anyone but myself. I'm in my thirties, I got my diagnosis a few years back. For my parents, nothing changed, really. They still saw me as me, they didn't care about a label. I have friends who told me that I couldn't be autistic, not because it would mean me being broken but because they didn't consider me weird enough.

Therapy is a problem. Most therapists won't take me in. Not because it's not a reason for treatment but because they don't think they can deal with me. I've found a therapist who can work with me, but my insurance doesn't cover it. I've got to pay that myself, which is unusual in my country. I can afford it though.

I've met my share of people who look down on me or stop talking to me when they learn about my diagnosis. And I've met a lot of people who helped me find a place for me in this world, who were understanding or patient when I couldn't do something. So, yes. It's getting better. But there's still work to do.

Quote
The sort of saddest part of it is the fact that Brun immediately switches back to business; it seems to me that she doesn't even expect to receive empathy or comfort.
That's something I do, too. Not expect any comfort after having told a sad story. Telling a sad story doesn't mean I'm sad. Even if it happened to me, it's a story, not something I'm experiencing right now. And if I wanted comfort, I'd ask for it, not wait for it. I'm more like the narrator in a book in moments like this. I'm stating what happened as a fact. You don't console a narrator for the story he's telling.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Feb 2019, 23:39
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't clods only start using 'autistic' as an insult to replace 'retard' in the last 5 years or so? Or did it start being misused as such longer ago than that on the East Coast?

Actually, I've never heard it being used as an insult outside the Internet. Doesn't seem to be that common where I live. Not usa though.
I'm having a weird kind of fun watching those people wiggle their way out of it when they do that in front of me. It helps that I am kind of the opposite of retarded. Still, it hurts. If I'm the one struggling with empathy, why are they the ones who don't care about my feelings at all?
I've seen it used outside of the internet a few times now. Once was carved into a stall at a truck stop. Someone had carved; "Only autistic kids do this" with an indicator arrow pointing to a swastika someone had carved. I've also been asked and overheard someone asking someoneelse if they were autistic. Both times I asked the individual if they actually knew what the word meant.


Tangentially related, I have the opposite issue of over-empathy. It makes watching movies in public a bit trying as I'll get embarassed for the characters on screen.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: dawolf on 22 Feb 2019, 00:13
I'm mixed race, UK. I get asked sometimes. I don't care, it isn't something I've ever found rude. Similarly, I ask people where they are from. No-one has ever said it's rude.

Tolerance isn't just being accepting of other people, but also other countries ways of behaving or thinking. Just because America is in large part becoming extra woke doesn't mean that other groups/cultures/people who have a different appreciation of some of these things are doing it wrong.

Comparable example: in some societies, it's common to ask openly how much you earn. Others avoid the question and consider it rude.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Cornelius on 22 Feb 2019, 00:26
Experience shows that within a short time, no two of them will read the same.

Clearly, you haven't met my brother. But then most people don't resort to reseating the hands to read absolutely accurately.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Drunken Old Man on 22 Feb 2019, 00:27
Speaking as some one who has spent twenty years in the field, it irks me when people misuse perfectly valid medical terminology.  Mental retardation was fine as a term until asshats ruined it by using it as a pejorative, now they're destroying autism as well.  The result?  Professionals like Brun's doctor sound like insensitive jerks when they're just trying to deliver a diagnosis.

Don't even get me started on "aspies".   That phrase makes me want to shove someone's head in a propellor.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Eternal_Newbie on 22 Feb 2019, 02:34
Another misuse that drives me batty is all those asshat let's players on Youtube going "Oooh look how OCD I am! I bothered to do something properly instead of half-arsing it."

And autistic, aspergers  & the various staggeringly insulting veriations on it definitely have become an insult of choice, not just on the playground.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: chris73 on 22 Feb 2019, 02:58
I get my asking someones ethnicity as a lead in to a come on is considered bad form but why is asking someones ethnicity or where they're from in general considered bad?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 22 Feb 2019, 03:13
I get my asking someones ethnicity as a lead in to a come on is considered bad form but why is asking someones ethnicity or where they're from in general considered bad?

This has been discussed at length over the last two weeks (ever since Peter, IMO, came out as a xenophile[1]) but, basically, it boils down to sounding as if you are saying: "I intend to judge and categorise you on the basis of your ethnicity." It can be and, in most cases, probably is just innocent curiosity motivated by the deeply rooted instinctive response to people who look and/or behaviour differently from our close family and general community. However, it has also been a lead in to attempting to somehow justify the exclusion of the person who is being asked the question, so a lot of people react negatively to the question.

When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.


----------
[1] Xenophile - Someone attracted to those who strongly present as another ethnicity
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: War Sparrow on 22 Feb 2019, 05:19
Another misuse that drives me batty is all those asshat let's players on Youtube going "Oooh look how OCD I am! I bothered to do something properly instead of half-arsing it."

And autistic, aspergers  & the various staggeringly insulting veriations on it definitely have become an insult of choice, not just on the playground.

I've tended to notice in Real Life (TM) people who claim to be autistic ( and then complain about football playing, cheerleading "normies", even though Canadian universities are not idealized American high schools), for shitposting purposes. It's an irritating trend, and it leads to people not taking actual autistic people seriously.

Poor Kevin; watching people have heartfelt talks in a bank line sounds stressful as all get-out.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Drunken Old Man on 22 Feb 2019, 05:52
Another misuse that drives me batty is all those asshat let's players on Youtube going "Oooh look how OCD I am! I bothered to do something properly instead of half-arsing it."

And autistic, aspergers  & the various staggeringly insulting veriations on it definitely have become an insult of choice, not just on the playground.

Oh God, the "I'm so OCD" thing.  Actual real OCD can be devastating, to the point of physical injury in extreme cases.  It's not...or shouldn't be...code for "holy shit, I took something seriously today."
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: mattcoz on 22 Feb 2019, 07:51
When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.
So, basically, never do anything.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: BenRG on 22 Feb 2019, 08:08
When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.

So, basically, never do anything.

No, only never do anything that you know will cause a lot of offence. If you can't get that distinction well... I guess there's no point continuing the conversation.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: oddtail on 22 Feb 2019, 08:29
When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.
So, basically, never do anything.

How did you jump from "this upsets a lot of people" to "never do anything"? I'd like to understand your reasoning here.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: brasca on 22 Feb 2019, 09:02
When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.
So, basically, never do anything.

Depends on the person.  When it comes to siblings it just can’t be helped sometimes. :evil:
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 22 Feb 2019, 09:08
Another misuse that drives me batty is all those asshat let's players on Youtube going "Oooh look how OCD I am! I bothered to do something properly instead of half-arsing it."

And autistic, aspergers  & the various staggeringly insulting veriations on it definitely have become an insult of choice, not just on the playground.

Oh God, the "I'm so OCD" thing.  Actual real OCD can be devastating, to the point of physical injury in extreme cases.  It's not...or shouldn't be...code for "holy shit, I took something seriously today."

Tossers. Not worth talking to, not worth thinking about.

(Yes, I know. Do I ever know...)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Thrillho on 22 Feb 2019, 09:13
When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.
So, basically, never do anything.

Responses like this are precisely what I had a long rant about in the last WCDT. I'm sure it isn't what you're doing, but it reads like deliberately choosing to not listen, understand or care.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: danilegg on 22 Feb 2019, 09:21
Am I the only one wondering why Kevin's speech bubble isn't squared like other AIs?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 22 Feb 2019, 09:36
Also: Shii-it, Brun!  :cry:

Gotta go & find a few things to kick, sry...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Milayna on 22 Feb 2019, 09:55
I think the first time I saw "autistic" as an insult was...oh, remember when wankers were crying about the new Star Wars, especially that woman whose name I can't remember (but who, not coincidentally, wasn't white. Yay racism!) I was reading a liberal blog post about it, which quoted one of the manbabies, which used "autistic" in a string of insults. It was a real "wtf" moment for me.

As for myself, I'm not aware of any instances when people disfavored me explicitly because of my diagnosis, though I'm pretty sure my bosses basically see me as "the hardworking retard" and I'm unpromotable. It's more, there are expectations of "normal", ranging from facial expressions and body language, to how to respond to nuances in spoken language that I just don't even notice. I'm pretty offputting irl, and people kind of...just don't want to deal with that, absent any specific prejudice. Can't blame them, really.

I'm so sorry all that happened to you, Hoodiecrow. I'd like to think that people aren't that explicitly terrible now. But screw those guys.

When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.
So, basically, never do anything.
Yes, exactly. It's everyone else's fault. Go sit in your basement feeling sorry for yourself.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Zebediah on 22 Feb 2019, 11:18
When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.
So, basically, never do anything.
Hm. Just a thought, but if you’re claiming that everything you do upsets a lot of people, perhaps you might consider doing different things.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 22 Feb 2019, 11:57
Therapy is a problem. Most therapists won't take me in. Not because it's not a reason for treatment but because they don't think they can deal with me. I've found a therapist who can work with me, but my insurance doesn't cover it. I've got to pay that myself, which is unusual in my country. I can afford it though.

"Wie Sie ja wissen, haben wir Versorgungsnotstand in Deutschland ... "  :x

I hear ya - I had a good counselor until recently (until I couldn't afford her anymore) , but she doesn't have a Kassenzulassung, and I wouldn't switch to private insurance even II did have the income. Last four therapists I contacted rejected me out of hand when they heard 'ADHD' -"I got my license in the 80s, we weren't taught about that stuff... "

There is this thing called professional development, guys ...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 22 Feb 2019, 13:09
Hi everyone, newbie here (though I'm 53 years old, so I'm an OF at the same time). I actually don't know if I will become a regular, but I often have feels because of QC so who knows.
<snip>

Welcome, new person!

I had not realized how bad things were for people with ASD.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Sullivan on 22 Feb 2019, 13:25
Brun: "What really made me angry was when I realized how upset it made Renee."

Brun is "good people". <3
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: artag on 22 Feb 2019, 13:51
I'm mixed race, UK. I get asked sometimes. I don't care, it isn't something I've ever found rude. Similarly, I ask people where they are from. No-one has ever said it's rude.

It's not rude, in the UK. At least, not that I've ever noticed. It's actually one of the first things people ask, along with 'what do you do ?' (what is your employment ?).  Perhaps that's only amongst WASPs but I don't think so. If you're apparently anglo-saxon, the first thing is to attempt to recognise your accent for UK regions. If it's obvious but non-local it's likely to get a comment / request for confirmation. If it's ambiguous you get asked for clarification.

If accent or skin colour is clearly not UK you'll get asked where you come from, with an aspect of 'ooh, you're more interesting than average', not 'how strongly can I look down on you'. The only possibility of embarrassment is when you identify someone as exotic (a compliment) and discover they're actually third-generation english.

So I was truly amazed to discover here last week that it's offensive in USA-land. And a bit sorry for y'all.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Bloodyloon on 22 Feb 2019, 14:50
Well, I knew I felt an affinity with Brun, so I'm not surprised. Well written, and sympathetic Spectrum character. Thank you Jeph. I was diagnosed ASD before I had heard it used disparagingly, but I can definitely relate to her feelings on the use of the term. However, I've never felt like that part of myself was wrong or bad (Other parts, yes, because, y'know, human... ). I think characters like Brun (and Abed) are important in educating people who haven't encountered spectrum personalities before, as functional, if odd, people with emotional landscapes and empathy towards those around them. Too often I find ASD be represented as sociopathic or neurotic, which is damaging to the image of those on the spectrum, both externally and internally.

I was lucky, was diagnosed early, had Speech-Language therapy for 8 years, and had a loving and understanding home life. I have worked hard to learn social grace, and while I'm not perfect, I am a lot better than I used to be. A few messages to those on the spectrum who feel limited by it:

1. While social skills are not easily learned, they are learnable, and are well worth investing the time it takes to improve them.
2. Know what calms you down, learn the warning signs for meltdowns and do what you need to get into a calm environment before it gets to that point.A lot of overwhelm occurs because of sense overload, so finding ways to limit sense-data in socially appropriate ways is important.  For me that is intentional breath Meditation with closed eyes.
3. Love yourself, and take care of yourself in the ways you know are necessary, as you are ultimately the one responsible for your emotional state and your well being.
4. Request clear and direct communication! If you expect normal people to behave "rationally" you are going to be disappointed consistently.

I hope that will reach someone who needed to hear it. Back to lurking <3.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 22 Feb 2019, 14:54
So I was truly amazed to discover here last week that it's offensive in USA-land. And a bit sorry for y'all.
USA-land is big, and what's okay one place may be offensive as all hell in another. 

A friend of Mrs. Goat's moved down south.  Neighbors came around being Southern friendly (that's okay) and asked, "Have you got a church yet?"  That's definitely NOT okay on the west coast and especially unokay up here in the Pacific Northwest.  (She said she was tempted to reply, "No, we're still looking for a coven," but thought better of it.)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Thrillho on 22 Feb 2019, 15:12
I'm mixed race, UK. I get asked sometimes. I don't care, it isn't something I've ever found rude. Similarly, I ask people where they are from. No-one has ever said it's rude.

It's not rude, in the UK. At least, not that I've ever noticed. It's actually one of the first things people ask, along with 'what do you do ?' (what is your employment ?).  Perhaps that's only amongst WASPs but I don't think so. If you're apparently anglo-saxon, the first thing is to attempt to recognise your accent for UK regions. If it's obvious but non-local it's likely to get a comment / request for confirmation. If it's ambiguous you get asked for clarification.

If accent or skin colour is clearly not UK you'll get asked where you come from, with an aspect of 'ooh, you're more interesting than average', not 'how strongly can I look down on you'. The only possibility of embarrassment is when you identify someone as exotic (a compliment) and discover they're actually third-generation english.

So I was truly amazed to discover here last week that it's offensive in USA-land. And a bit sorry for y'all.

I am also in the UK and have discussed at length what these things mean over here.

Question. Are you white?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 22 Feb 2019, 16:06
Maybe while we're at it, we could have a discussion of the meaning of the question, "Are you white?"
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: oddtail on 22 Feb 2019, 16:10

If accent or skin colour is clearly not UK you'll get asked where you come from (...)

I'm somewhat troubled you seem to be saying there's a skin colour that is "not UK" and thereby that there is, or are, skin colours that are UK. Which colours are that? Are you implying that UK, a former global colonial power, is or should be associated with particular skin tones? That's a... bold statement.

I'm trying really hard not to jump to the conclusion that you just mean "not UK" as in "not white", but I struggle to think how to interpret your words, given that former British colonies cover pretty much every shade of skin I can think of and modern UK is primarily white overall, but has significant, multiple ethnic minorities.

So, again, could you specify a skin tone that you consider typically and clearly "not UK"?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 22 Feb 2019, 19:55
Maybe while we're at it, we could have a discussion of the meaning of the question, "Are you white?"

Far as I understand the categories used west of the chunnel, I'm 'white, other'.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: chris73 on 22 Feb 2019, 21:50

This has been discussed at length over the last two weeks (ever since Peter, IMO, came out as a xenophile[1]) but, basically, it boils down to sounding as if you are saying: "I intend to judge and categorise you on the basis of your ethnicity." It can be and, in most cases, probably is just innocent curiosity motivated by the deeply rooted instinctive response to people who look and/or behaviour differently from our close family and general community. However, it has also been a lead in to attempting to somehow justify the exclusion of the person who is being asked the question, so a lot of people react negatively to the question.

When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.

Yeah I dunno, it just sounds like another excuse for people to be offended. I've just started work as a corrections officer and one of my colleagues is Indian but has an African accent so I asked where he was from and it turns out he was from South Africa so we talked about the differences between SA and NZ but then to work in corrections you cant be too precious about minor, unimportant things I guess
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Dandi Andi on 22 Feb 2019, 22:19
Yeah I dunno, it just sounds like another excuse for people to be offended. I've just started work as a corrections officer and one of my colleagues is Indian but has an African accent so I asked where he was from and it turns out he was from South Africa so we talked about the differences between SA and NZ but then to work in corrections you cant be too precious about minor, unimportant things I guess

In my experience, it is not being offended that is important, but why. People of color in majority white communities (particularly poc who aren't black) are often presumed to be foreign (at least from where I sit in the US midwest). If you're vaguely brown, you will almost certainly be asked where you're from, even if you have a distinctly midwest accent. "DeBuke" is generally not accepted as an answer. "But where are you really from?" "Where is your family from?" "I mean ethnically?" It's exhausting. More importantly, it is a constant reminder that people in your community think of you as an outsider even if you were born and raised there. It's the background radiation of racism. It isn't any single instance that's a problem, it's the constant exposure.

Now, I've asked that question before. A young, white-as-fresh-snow dietitian ordered a "pop" rather than a "soda". Pop is more common in the midwest, but my city is a bizarre linguistic anomaly in a lot of ways. Turns out, she was from Nebraska. Being white, she likely doesn't encounter that question a lot. When she does, it isn't to mark her as an outsider, as an "other". It wasn't a problem. But supposing she wasn't white? Suppose her grandparents immigrated here from Bangladesh? Then she probably would get that a lot more often and for much less benign reasons. Then it's a problem.

Maybe while we're at it, we could have a discussion of the meaning of the question, "Are you white?"

Now that is an interesting question. White has often meant whatever it needed to mean to protect the power structure. When I think of various western European peoples for whom I know at least one ethnic slur, it occurs to me that there was likely a point in history that they were not considered "white". I think that we can assume that someone asking "are you white?" probably means "Do you generally receive the benefits of being assumed to be white by your peers in a majority white former imperial power?"
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 23 Feb 2019, 02:04
It's not rude, in the UK. At least, not that I've ever noticed.

Whether in the UK or the US or anywhere else, it is important to remember that society is hugely varied, both in its make-up, and in the amount of variety of that make-up in particular parts of it.  Most of us only ever experience real engagement with a limited subset of the possibilities, and so it is incumbent on us to realise that we are not in a position to deny the experience of others, even within our own countries.

Of course, we naturally view the world through the lens of our own personal experience.  But one of the wonders of communication in the modern world is that we have the opportunity to see that there are things we were previously unaware of, and to learn to deal with other people with flexibility, a modicum of understanding, and as much humility as we can muster.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: artag on 23 Feb 2019, 02:15

So, again, could you specify a skin tone that you consider typically and clearly "not UK"?

Personally, I'm pasty white. And yes, I know that means I don't have the same experience of racism as all the people who aren't. And that assumptions I might make about skin tone that reflects near & far east, southern europe, whatever, are likely to result in errors in terms of real nationality.

What I'm saying is that the default position for pasty white englishmen is that anyone who doesn't appear to be from their local area - city, region or country - is that they're interesting and have a story to tell. Of course, there are segments of the population that have a different attitude. But it wouldn't occur to me to teach my children not to ask - I've never found anyone to show any offense, and I live and work in thoroughly multiracial areas.

There are also areas which have significant ethnic splits - some northern cities in particular. The people I know from those areas act much the same, but I can't speak for the specific experience of being a racial minority in an area where there's a substantial racist group. Perhaps in those circumstances there is more of a threat in the question. I would consider it a local peculiarity, not the common experience.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Thrillho on 23 Feb 2019, 03:06
You realise that you are telling us what the experience of racial minorities is, when there are people on here who are racial minorities saying their experience is not that?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: jesslc on 23 Feb 2019, 05:07
I wrote extensively about my experiences with being asked the question "Where are you from?" and why I am so f****** over it, when this first came up in the comic 2 weeks ago (https://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,34325.msg1421345.html#msg1421345). If you truly want to understand, that would be a good place to start.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: War Sparrow on 23 Feb 2019, 05:11

Yeah I dunno, it just sounds like another excuse for people to be offended. I've just started work as a corrections officer and one of my colleagues is Indian but has an African accent so I asked where he was from and it turns out he was from South Africa so we talked about the differences between SA and NZ but then to work in corrections you cant be too precious about minor, unimportant things I guess

To me, it's not about being "precious". I was just taught it's not polite to basically demand someone justify their right to be somewhere just because they have a different accent, or skin colour, or whatnot. If someone brings it up themselves, then absolutely I'll ask.  If not? Then it's none of my business.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 23 Feb 2019, 08:45
When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.

Yeah I dunno, it j6ust sounds like another excuse for people to be offended. I've just started work as a corrections officer and one of my colleagues is Indian but has an African accent so I asked where he was from and it turns out he was from South Africa so we talked about the differences between SA and NZ but then to work in corrections you cant be too precious about minor, unimportant things I guess

Do you realize that you have just claimed that asking someone else's heritage isn't offensive based on your one experience of you asking  an immigrant with a non-white heritage and them not telling you off?

Like ... even if we forget for a second that the plural of anecdote isn't data - or that the debate was about the offense implicit in treating non-white compatriots like immigrants - maybe their opinion of the alleged incident would be more pertinent than yours?

It's not all just about what's going around in our own precious noggin, see?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: PeterO on 23 Feb 2019, 09:05
Speaking as some one who has spent twenty years in the field, it irks me when people misuse perfectly valid medical terminology.  Mental retardation was fine as a term until asshats ruined it by using it as a pejorative, now they're destroying autism as well.  The result?  Professionals like Brun's doctor sound like insensitive jerks when they're just trying to deliver a diagnosis.

Don't even get me started on "aspies".   That phrase makes me want to shove someone's head in a propellor.

I think all terms for "people who are different" gradually become perjorative or at least less socially acceptable over time. And, yes, it is the asshats who start the problem, followed closely by well intentioned people who then stop using the term because the asshats use it perjoratively. At that point a formerly acceptable term is no longer acceptable. Extra annoying when it is valid science or engineering terminology.

My teacher friend showed me a letter she got a few years ago from school administration that roughly said "please stop using the terms retarded or mentally retarded, some people find them offensive. You should use developmentally delayed instead" The punch line is she then showed me a similar letter she got twentyfive years ago that said "please stop using the terms slow or feebleminded, people find them offensive. Use retarded or mentally retarded instead" 



Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 23 Feb 2019, 09:46
This is a great example of where the Golden Rule doesn't guide you correctly.

If someone asks pale white me "Where are you from?" in an economically vibrant area where most people are not natives, it's OK.

That doesn't mean I can ask someone else without risking genuine offense. It's not going to come across as being about geography for many non-white people.

Asking when there's an actual reason or the person has brought it up should be all right. The tailor who did my Harry Hart costume eventually starting chatting with my wife about skin care and said something about how "we Asian women" took that seriously. My wife asked the open-ended question what her "heritage" was, and the tailor was pleased with the question.

If I'd walked in the first day with my photo references and said "Where are you from? No, ethnically?"  I would have provided solid grounds for significant offense.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: los_alamos_bomb on 23 Feb 2019, 10:28
American here.  Lived all over the country, many regions, small towns and big cities.  Clarifying so our friends from Europe and Australia don't get the wrong idea.

It's not offensive to ask someone their ethnic heritage here.  It's a fairly common topic of civilized discussion.  I ask my white friends about theirs ("Irish and German" is a legitimate answer) and they ask about mine.  I ask my brown friends and they ask about mine.  I ask my friends of all colors and shapes and sizes (well, it's tough to have that conversation with African-Americans, simply because there's usually no way for them to know.  America's great tragedy and national shame and all that).  I can't remember a time when there's been any kind of hurt feelings or animosity as a result.  These are perfectly lovely conversations.  Sometimes they last 30 seconds, sometimes hours.

This is something that bugs me about Jeph's particular brand of wokeness: the assumption that if you can find a way to be insulted by something, you should.  To be honest, Brun's matter-of-fact reaction to Peter's question about her ethnicity seemed totally legit.  If she doesn't want to have an emotional stake in answering that question, then she doesn't have to.  Sure, Peter's take on the issue of ethnicity (ie. "Tell me your heritage so I can get a boner over it") is reductive and depersonalizing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that curiosity about someone's genetic background is bad overall.

Look, using someone's racial heritage as a way to otherize them sucks.  Don't do it.  And if someone approaches it in that way ("Where are you from?  No, but I mean where are you from?  Tell me where you come from, strange one!") then you have every right to shut them down.  But don't get so wrapped up in your fears of persecution that persecution becomes self-fulfilling.  I play acoustic guitar and I like ultimate frisbee and part of my family is from Istanbul.  These are all parts of me, and if someone wants to get to know me better, why would I get upset at them for it?  I don't get mad when someone asks if I play a musical instrument or what sports I like, so why would I get mad when they ask about my family's history?

It's ok to be interested in people.  It's ok to be curious about people.  It's ok to be attracted to people.  It's ok to ask about people.  There is no set of things that are inherently wrong to be interested in or curious about or attracted to.  Be polite, be kind, be understanding, and move forward.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: chris73 on 23 Feb 2019, 10:49

It's not all just about what's going around in our own precious noggin, see?
[/quote]

If the worst thing that happens to you in a day is someone expresses interest in your background  then it's a pretty good day so to this is just another situation where someone gets to play the victim, again.

Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: lurkylurk on 23 Feb 2019, 11:23
I'm just going to leave this here because it seems like clicking a link is a hard thing to do. Honestly, I think we're getting into "learn to take a compliment" territory.

Your curiosity does not trump my right to only share things I feel comfortable sharing. And this rant aside, my skin colour has much less relevancy to who I am as a person than anything else you could ask about - like my work, or how was my day/weekend, what I do for fun, things I enjoy, etc even with the topic of the weather - you'd likely learn how I don't notice the heat much but I feel the cold really badly (even in our very really quite mild winters).


(Hi. I've been here before, but can't remember my account details.)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 23 Feb 2019, 11:37
If the worst thing that happens to you in a day is someone expresses interest in your background  then it's a pretty good day so to this is just another situation where someone gets to play the victim, again.

Sometimes someone is a victim, though - so we mustn't completely discount that possibility.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Dandi Andi on 23 Feb 2019, 12:06
If the worst thing that happens to you in a day is someone expresses interest in your background  then it's a pretty good day so to this is just another situation where someone gets to play the victim, again.

Sure. Taken in isolation, if the very worst thing that happens is that someone asks about your heritage then it isn't so bad. But what so many of us are trying to explain is that it so very often isn't the worst thing that happens. It doesn't happen in isolation. For many people of color, that seemingly innocuous question is often followed by "But where are you from?" That follow up question implies the rejection of that person as one of "us". As a white American from the midwest, I have never, not even once, been asked that follow up question. Therefore, I literally cannot understand how that feels. I can only take people at their word that it sucks.

And as I have said before, it isn't the singular instance that hurts. It is the repeated exposure. It is radiation. It is a single bee sting among a swarm. It is a gentle poke in the ribs. After enough poking, it no longer matters that a poke is gentle and meant no ill will because the constant poking has left your ribs bruised and raw. Maybe you were benign in your intent, but it still hurts.

And maybe some people are perfectly OK with being asked about their heritage. That's great. I mean that. If they have one fewer thing that hurts them in their daily life then that can only be a good thing for them. But regardless of how they feel about it, it still hurts a lot of other people. So to avoid hurting those people, it is generally best to let people set the pace for when and whether they want to discuss their ethnicity.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 23 Feb 2019, 12:12
I don't understand the resistance to good manners.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: chris73 on 23 Feb 2019, 12:17

[/quote]

Sometimes someone is a victim, though - so we mustn't completely discount that possibility.
[/quote]

For sure but much like the amount of people that claim to be gluten intolerant versus the amount who actually are there are a helluva lot of people claiming victim status versus those who actually are victims
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: sitnspin on 23 Feb 2019, 12:23
Who the hell are you to tell someone whether or not they are being victimised? You do realise how condescending and dismissive you sound, right?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 23 Feb 2019, 12:25
For sure but much like the amount of people that claim to be gluten intolerant versus the amount who actually are there are a helluva lot of people claiming victim status versus those who actually are victims

That sounds all too like "it's not really common, so it doesn't really matter". 

First, not being common doesn't mean that it doesn't matter, and:
Second, maybe in some places it's more common than you realise.

Good manners doesn't hurt you; but bad manners can hurt someone else, so take care and be sensitive.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Dandi Andi on 23 Feb 2019, 13:25

For sure but much like the amount of people that claim to be gluten intolerant versus the amount who actually are there are a helluva lot of people claiming victim status versus those who actually are victims

Oh good. Now we're talking about food and that is in my wheel house.

In my safe serve courses, there was a lot of emphasis on food allergies, food intolerance,  and immune compromised people. Making sure that my food preparation practices are safe for those people is a vital part of running my coffee shop.

Maybe I might argue that I've never gotten sick eating my home cooking and I don't use sanitizer or vinyl gloves. Maybe I might argue that people with food sensitivities aren't actually all that common and i shouldn't have to compromise efficiency to accommodate them. Maybe I might decide that this customer doesn't really have a dairy allergy, they're just being demanding. And if they do, then they shouldn't be ordering at a coffee shop where 90 percent of what I make has dairy in it.

I could make those arguments. And I might sometimes be right. Not washing my hands that one time really didn't make someone sick. They really didn't have a dairy allergy. But the consequences of being wrong are severe. It is so much better to take them at their word that they can't have milk and clean my equipment a second time just to be sure that they'll be fine.

And maybe, just maybe, it's worth it to respect people who tell me how being constantly reminded about how they're seen as outsiders impacts them. And all I have to give up is not insisting on my right to ask brown people where they're really from.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 23 Feb 2019, 15:09
[maybe] they really didn't have a dairy allergy. But the consequences of being wrong are severe.

Just to emphasise this:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/24/father-of-girl-who-died-of-allergy-on-plane-blames-pret-a-manger (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/24/father-of-girl-who-died-of-allergy-on-plane-blames-pret-a-manger)

Asking where someone is from may not typically be deadly; but at the least one should assume that it can have the effect on people that some of them say it can!
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 23 Feb 2019, 16:21

EDIT: I had the wrong attribution on the quote. I am very sorry.
<snip>
However, it has also been a lead in to attempting to somehow justify the exclusion of the person who is being asked the question, so a lot of people react negatively to the question.
<snip>

That's the core of it, and from listening to people I've learned that it happens so often that a conscientious adult will exercise strict caution about interrogating people on their ethnicity.

Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Case on 23 Feb 2019, 17:31
<snip>
However, it has also been a lead in to attempting to somehow justify the exclusion of the person who is being asked the question, so a lot of people react negatively to the question.
<snip>

That's the core of it, and from listening to people I've learned that it happens so often that a conscientious adult will exercise strict caution about interrogating people on their ethnicity.

Don't disagree - but I believe the credit for that fine phrase goes to BenRG.  (https://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,34338.msg1422148.html#msg1422148)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Redball on 23 Feb 2019, 17:53
In the 1960s, i spent 21 months in Bombay in a U.S. Peace Corps family planning program. I felt perfectly at home there, although I doubt that I was an effective volunteer – a conclusion which had nothing to do with the 25 million population increase from the start of training to my departure.
At some point, back in the States, I'd ask someone (always male, I think) who appeared to come from the subcontinent where their "native place" was. I always got an answer. Sometimes it was Bangladesh or Pakistan. If India, I'd say something about my own experience.
The conversation never turned sour, but never lasted more than a few minutes, maybe seconds.
Reading the comments above, I cringe at the memory. I think I can stop now. At 81, that shouldn't be difficult.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 23 Feb 2019, 19:42
I think the first time I saw "autistic" as an insult was...oh, remember when wankers were crying about the new Star Wars, especially that woman whose name I can't remember (but who, not coincidentally, wasn't white. Yay racism!) I was reading a liberal blog post about it, which quoted one of the manbabies, which used "autistic" in a string of insults. It was a real "wtf" moment for me.

As for myself, I'm not aware of any instances when people disfavored me explicitly because of my diagnosis, though I'm pretty sure my bosses basically see me as "the hardworking retard" and I'm unpromotable. It's more, there are expectations of "normal", ranging from facial expressions and body language, to how to respond to nuances in spoken language that I just don't even notice. I'm pretty offputting irl, and people kind of...just don't want to deal with that, absent any specific prejudice. Can't blame them, really.

I'm so sorry all that happened to you, Hoodiecrow. I'd like to think that people aren't that explicitly terrible now. But screw those guys.

When something upsets a lot of people, even if you cannot understand why, it's best simply not to do it.
So, basically, never do anything.
Yes, exactly. It's everyone else's fault. Go sit in your basement feeling sorry for yourself.
I don't know about 'across the pond', but here in the states "not a team player"/"you don't seem like a team player" seem to be how companies get around anti-discrimination laws when it comes to those of us who are neurodivergent.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Dandi Andi on 23 Feb 2019, 19:57
At will employment makes it all but impossible to make discrimination charges stick. "You're not s good fit for the corporate culture here" is a valid reason to fire someone, so just try proving that it was really because you're neurodivergent/queer/trans/black etc. (Where those protections even exist)
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 23 Feb 2019, 21:19
I don't think that "you're not a good fit for the corporate culture here" would cut it as grounds for dismissal in Australia, and depending on circumstances, would probably be considered to be unfair dismissal.

Edit: Okay, I think this is relevant.

http://www.antidiscrimination.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/legal-cases/cultural-fit-age-discrimination.aspx
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 23 Feb 2019, 21:48
Now that is an interesting question. White has often meant whatever it needed to mean to protect the power structure. When I think of various western European peoples for whom I know at least one ethnic slur, it occurs to me that there was likely a point in history that they were not considered "white". I think that we can assume that someone asking "are you white?" probably means "Do you generally receive the benefits of being assumed to be white by your peers in a majority white former imperial power?"

That's a well-considered response on what "white" might mean. I do think, though, that what the question means to different people is going to be heavily dependant on its context, and that there won't be one interpretation. To be upfront about it, my instinctive interpretation of the question in this thread's context, rightly or not, was, "Do you have the right to express a point of view here?" Feel free to send me your brickbats.

As an aside, I would probably answer "yes" to the paraphrased question you've put above, but I actually have been asked whether I'm white a number of times (I'm not really "pasty white"), and coincidentally twice in the last week. I interpreted that as curiosity both times - of course, for someone that does not get asked that question frequently and doesn't need to worry about any consequences of the answer, it is easy for me to interpret the question that way. I can certainly see how it would not be so easy for others. I also understand the potential frustration of being asked the same questions over and over (for different reasons).

In the interests of transparency, I would have to admit that I did not get taught at age 9 that it was rude to ask about people's ethnicity, and I would guess that I have done so in the past, or at least when I was younger. More recently, I would say that it's not a question I would ask of someone I'd just met, though I wouldn't have been able to articulate why, probably. These recent comics have forced me to properly consider the issue.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Drunken Old Man on 23 Feb 2019, 23:11
Warning: the below are idle drunken ramblings barely related to subjects at hand.  seek re!Eva ce in them at your own risk.

Brun's doctor should not have told her she was autistic.  He should have said that Brun had autism.  Maybe she would still like doctors then.  In my field were taught...and I myself have taught others...not to reduce e people that way.  If you are a person ith autism you can be a person with other things too...like a knowledge of c!ocks or skill ith a harpoon.  If I call you an autistic person that implies that that is all you are.

I've never asked anyone hat their heritage is based on appearance.  Not claiming moral high ground...it just doesn't occur to me.  I had to ask one coworker where her beautiful accent originated thiugh.  Haiti, as it turned out.

I guess I just assume if you're in America with me, you must be American too.

People who make a fuss about gluten in their food who don't actually have celiac disease irk me.

I agree that some people seem to look for things to get offended about.  But I have offended people before...not meaning to...and I've apologized for it.  If it seems that I'm offending you a lot without meaning to though, I'm going to start avoidingng you.

While grumbling about "retarded" changing from a diagnosis to an insult, I am reminded that the swastika went from a symbol of peace to one of unfettered evil.  Language and symbol!is exist to serve us, not the other way round, and I guess "retarded" is lingustic roadkill on the side if the freeway of progress.

Wonder what he next buzzword will be when "developmentally disabled"gets the bullet.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 23 Feb 2019, 23:34
*snip*
Too often I find ASD be represented as sociopathic or neurotic, which is damaging to the image of those on the spectrum, both externally and internally.
*snip*
This is why I'd like it if Dan Akroyd and a few other ASD comedians and writers to get together and do a slice of life dramedy about life with ASD.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Gyrre on 24 Feb 2019, 00:07
Maybe while we're at it, we could have a discussion of the meaning of the question, "Are you white?"
There's a lot of history behind that. It goes back to the end of the American Civil War, but a big bulk of it occurs around the turn of the 20th century when eugenics started picking up traction.
It would seem that Cecil 'Colossus' Rhodes  (http://"https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/04/09/101945773.pdf")and his Rhodes Round Table (http://"https://archive.org/details/lastwilltestamen00rhodiala/page/106") may have had something of a heavy hand in that. At least if Mr. Rhodes' widely published last will and testament (http://"https://archive.org/details/lastwilltestamen00rhodiala/page/n7") are anything to go by.

While trying to find any image of a pamphlet that was allegedly passed out by the US government during the Reconstruction Era (I remember it from a high school American History textbook), I came across the works of W.E.B. Du Bois (http://"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois") as well as Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract (http://"http://sfbay-anarchists.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Mills_CharlesW-The-Racial-Contract.pdf").

EDIT: fixing grammar mistakes
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Cornelius on 24 Feb 2019, 00:08
I haven't much contribued to this discussion, but here's one anecdote of mine.

A couple of years ago, we had a couple of new hires joining us: all four of them happened to be black. So, on their first evening, one of them came to me with a question about access to our documentation, and after I helped her, I asked: "By the way, where are you from?" Her answer: Rwanda. My reply: "That's interesting, but I meant where do you live?" I had just checked my connection home, and had found an accident blocked the closest station.

Just to say, even if you can bring anecdotes to show that people don't mind being asked, or that sometimes it is an innocent question, the simple fact that many people will just default to that answer straight away, does show you something about their experience.

Also, the US approach to ethnicity is sometimes very baffling this side of the ocean. I had an American tourist - while abroad myself - rattle off about a dozen of nationalities, when they found out I wasn't local. Some ancestor of theirs was Belgian, apparently. And trying to quantify just how much of each. Strange.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: alanari on 24 Feb 2019, 02:02
Brun's doctor should not have told her she was autistic.  He should have said that Brun had autism.  Maybe she would still like doctors then.  In my field were taught...and I myself have taught others...not to reduce e people that way.  If you are a person ith autism you can be a person with other things too...like a knowledge of c!ocks or skill ith a harpoon.  If I call you an autistic person that implies that that is all you are.

That is something I never understood, honestly. Being autistic, being an autist, having autism, being someone with autism. It all effectively means the same, I never saw a difference. And it seems to be random which of those phrases are "better"  than others. I've pretty much used them all and it never made a difference to me. Those are just words. What matters for me is what I'm describing. And for me, that doesn't change with the words I'm using.
It seems that, for some people, the words they use change the image in their heads. I'm not worth more or less than others because of who I am. Words won't change that.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 24 Feb 2019, 02:52
In my opinion, the problem wasn't the doctor.

The problem was all of the people who turned the word "autistic" into an insult in the first place. If not for those people, then Brun's dad would not have been so upset at the term, and Brun might have a different relationship with doctors.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Drunken Old Man on 24 Feb 2019, 03:46
Brun's doctor should not have told her she was autistic.  He should have said that Brun had autism.  Maybe she would still like doctors then.  In my field were taught...and I myself have taught others...not to reduce e people that way.  If you are a person ith autism you can be a person with other things too...like a knowledge of c!ocks or skill ith a harpoon.  If I call you an autistic person that implies that that is all you are.

That is something I never understood, honestly. Being autistic, being an autist, having autism, being someone with autism. It all effectively means the same, I never saw a difference. And it seems to be random which of those phrases are "better"  than others. I've pretty much used them all and it never made a difference to me. Those are just words. What matters for me is what I'm describing. And for me, that doesn't change with the words I'm using.
It seems that, for some people, the words they use change the image in their heads. I'm not worth more or less than others because of who I am. Words won't change that.

Ah, lemme preach on that...just as I used to to new employees.

I am severely nearsighted, to the point of near-helplessness without the glasses I've worn since I was six.

If you take me to a party and introduce me as "the nearsighted guy", you have reduced me to that one tiny part of who I am.  I am now Mr. Magoo, Velma Dinkely, a cartoon, a cariacture.  Your guests will expect me to run into things,to trip over my own feet.  They will go home disappointed if, at some point during the festivities, I do not drop my glasses and crawl around on the floor looking for them.

If you introduce me instead as "a person with nearsightedness", that implies that I am, first and foremost, a person.  You are no !onger defining me by my handicap.

To address your comment, Tova,  I am not saying the doctor was at fault.  But, in the mental health field, referring to someone as autistic is a faux pas.  The correct term is "person with autism" and I theorize that Brun might have reacted less strongly to that phrase than to one that she had been conditioned to consider an insult.

But what do I know? I'm just a drunken old man...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 24 Feb 2019, 04:08
Well. I'm just zis guy, you know.

And I promise that, if we ever meet, it wouldn't even occur to me to introduce you as either "the nearsighted guy" or "a person with nearsightedness." They are equally terrible ways to introduce someone, in my view.

But if someone were to ask why you wear glasses, on the other hand, I would probably say you're nearsighted. Well, at least, I would have without your implication that such wording upsets you.

I'm honestly surprised that you would interpret this statement as reducing you to a single stereotype, yet somehow using the clumsy wording "he has nearsightedness" does not. I don't understand, honestly. I would daresay that the majority of people would treat the two statements as synonymous. But, hey, I'd be happy to accommodate you if that's what you prefer.

Referring to someone as autistic is a faux pas only because of its previous use as a pejorative. Otherwise, it would be no more of a faux pas than referring to me as asthmatic (which you are free to do, by the way, because I am).
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Drunken Old Man on 24 Feb 2019, 04:22
Referring to someone as autistic is a faux pas only because of its previous use as a pejorative. Otherwise, it would be no more of a faux pas than referring to me as asthmatic (which you are free to do, by the way, because I am).

I feel that I'm not making my point here....

The practice of referring to, say, you as a "person with asthma" as opposed to an asthmatic is called "person-centered thinking" and it's a very real part of the professional culture of the mental health care field.  Calling you asthmatic would also be considered a faux pas in this culture.  It's less about not using perjorative terms than preventing the creation of those terms to begin with.

I'm not advocating that language for everyone... thought I easily could...but as a mental health professional,. Brun's doctor should have used it...and I can see where doing so might have benefitted Brun.

Now, if the distinction between an asthmatic and a person with asthma still seems negligible to you, then I have to question whether I was equally unsuccessful in making that point to the literally hundreds of people I trained over the last 20 years.  Were they really all just nodding and smiling to move things along?  Disquieting thought...yet I explained it to them the same I have here...
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: lurkylurk on 24 Feb 2019, 06:27
I guess if phrasing things differently helps someone to view the other person as a person first and foremost, or if it helps to convey that they do, then that's cool. When thinking of myself, however, I manage just fine to be autistic AND queer AND intelligent AND funny and whatever. I can be more than one thing. I can refer to myself or be referred to as one of those things in a specific context, and other things in other contexts.

Also, if people want to reduce me to one stereotype, they also manage to do that just fine regardless of how they phrase it. This reminded me of the other topic that's been discussed here - I've had people introduce me to others as "X from [original country that I have minimal ties to]" because that was obviously the main thing they saw in me (fun fact: I don't even look different "ethnically"), and so it became the main thing about me for those other people, too. I, as a person, was technically the subject of their sentence, but it didn't seem to make a difference.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 24 Feb 2019, 07:48
But what do I know? I'm just a drunken old man...
Shouldn't that be, "Person with dipsomania"?
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Mr_Rose on 24 Feb 2019, 08:18
But what do I know? I'm just a drunken old man...
Shouldn't that be, "Person with dipsomania"?
Nah, that was hours ago. By now it’s either insomnia or veisalgia. :psyduck:
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Is it cold in here? on 24 Feb 2019, 09:06
There's a billion-dollar industry picking words to shape people's thinking, so there's some reality to it.

I know I've seen "person with ..." recommended in circles concerned with inclusion.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 24 Feb 2019, 12:32
Now, if the distinction between an asthmatic and a person with asthma still seems negligible to you, then I have to question whether I was equally unsuccessful in making that point to the literally hundreds of people I trained over the last 20 years.  Were they really all just nodding and smiling to move things along?  Disquieting thought...yet I explained it to them the same I have here...

This isn't the first time I've heard of it, just to clarify. You're explaining the concept perfectly well, I assure you.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: OldGoat on 24 Feb 2019, 21:06
I know I've seen "person with ..." recommended in circles concerned with inclusion.
"Person with diabetes," "diabetic," "waffle syrup pisser," or "metformin popper" all mean the same thing, but I really prefer to be called "diabetic" 'cause it conveys all the necessary information with one word.  Unless I'm playing it for laughs - then #3 works best.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: mikmaxs on 24 Feb 2019, 23:06
To add my observations to the discussion:
"Person with autism" tends to be preferred predominantly by parents and caretakers of autistic people.
"Autistic person" tends to be preferred very predominantly by autistic people.

(And when I say "Preferred very predominantly by autistic people" I mean "In polls where we're asked to decide between the two options presented above, "Autistic person" votes tend to be in the range of 80-90%.)

The reasoning is that autism is not simply an addition to our personality, but is in fact, foundational to who we are. In the same way that I am male, straight, etc., I am autistic - These are core parts of who I am, not baggage that I carry around with me and which could be discarded in the right circumstances.

If an autistic person requests to use person-first language I'll of course respect that, but I default to identity-first because that's (in my experience) what the vast majority of autistic people prefer.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: mikmaxs on 24 Feb 2019, 23:20
To add on to the last thing I said, which gets away from observation and more into my opinion:
There's a concerning and harmful trend in the mental health field and amongst allistic parents of autistic children to try and eliminate, or at least cover up, autistic traits/identity. Autistic behavior is stigmatized and seen as both aberrant and in need of "fixing", even when that behavior is completely harmless. In worst-case scenarios, it's seen as subhuman and in need of complete elimination.
Autism isn't seen as a part of identity, it's seen as a boogeyman that's coming to steal away your children, to change who they "really" are, as though they had some kind of pre-autistic personality that their diagnosis stole away.
(If you need any convincing that this mentality exists, look up the "I am autism" commercial published by Autism Speaks from about a decade ago, in which autism itself is personified as a sinister predator who says such gems as, "If you were happily married, I will make sure your marriage fails" and "I will rob you of your children and your dreams".)

It's my opinion that the push for person-first language has a lot of strong connections to this mindset - Because professionals and parents often don't see autistic traits as even being human, they have to then distance the autism from the person in order to see any humanity at all. It's hard to use the words "autistic person" to describe a loved one when you think that "autistic" is a subversive corruption of who the person really is.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 25 Feb 2019, 01:31
Thanks for that insight.

Just to add more weight to this perspective, I'd like to quote the late Stella Young (https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/stella-youngs-letter-to-herself-at-80-years-old-20141113-11llol.html).

Quote from: Stella Young, writing a letter to her 80-year-old self.
I started changing my language. To jog your memory, back when you're still thirty there are all kinds of fights about whether we are allowed to say 'disabled people' at all. It's 'people with disabilities' that's all the rage. 'Cause we're, like, people first, you know? And if we don't say that we're people, folks might get confused. But I've never had to say that I'm a person who's a woman, or a person who is Australian, or a person who knits. Somehow, we're supposed to buy this notion that if we use the term disabled too much, it might strip us of our personhood. But that shame that has become attached to the notion of disability, it's not your shame. It took a while to learn that, so I hope that you've never forgotten.

I started calling myself a disabled woman, and a crip. A good thirteen years after seventeen-year-old me started saying crip, it still horrifies people. I do it because it's a word that makes me feel strong and powerful. It's a word other activists have used before me, and I use it to honour them.

You left us far too soon, Stella. :,(
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: pwhodges on 25 Feb 2019, 02:23
Quote from: Stella Young, writing a letter to her 80-year-old self.
...seventeen-year-old me started saying crip, it still horrifies people.

If you look to the bottom of this screen (unless you are not using the default), you will see that the forum theme we use as default (with my modifications) was designed and written by a person who called himself "Crip" online.  He was quadriplegic, and typed using a stick in his mouth.  His name below is a link to his obituary.
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Tova on 25 Feb 2019, 03:04
HOW HAVE I NOT NOTICED THIS
Title: Re: WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Post by: Hoodiecrow on 25 Feb 2019, 05:05
The practice of referring to, say, you as a "person with asthma" as opposed to an asthmatic is called "person-centered thinking" and it's a very real part of the professional culture of the mental health care field.  Calling you asthmatic would also be considered a faux pas in this culture.  It's less about not using perjorative terms than preventing the creation of those terms to begin with.

When I mention this, I say that I am autistic, because it's a major part of my personality and identity. To say that I have autism would feel like I was talking about an affliction. But it does make sense that health care professionals would phrase it otherwise. Having been treated for depression on many occasions, I know that they typically use phrasing that at first seems strange but is designed mold the relationship between carer and patient in the right way.

$.02

ETA: And of course it turned out others (lurkylurk, mikmaxs) had already said the same thing, only better. Take it as me voicing agreement.