fruityyamenrunner

[fruityyamenrunner]

Candy cane snail, Liguus virgineus, Orthalicidae

This arboreal species is found in Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Photo 1 by pedrogenarorodriguez and 2 by margomora

[fruityyamenrunner]

well there are fewer and fewer British people in London every year, so the future is bright for you

Berlin is maybe the only city I've been in thats in the same natural category as nyc. I feel like by the numbers london deserves to be on the list but it is a truth univerdalky acknowledged that London kind of sucks (possible explanation: the British are a fundamentally provincial people and only developed a true metropolis by aping America)

[fruityyamenrunner]

it seems to be ascribing rather too much power to statements of scientific fact for them to have to be true in *any* context. scientific statements of fact are, after all, just a kind of statement of fact, and statements of fact, generally, are very easily capable of being put into a context where they don't work. law and marketing depends on this fact about facts.

there are some trivial examples of facts that aren't always true. the statement "the sun is a main-sequence star" looks very much like a scientific fact, but come back in seven billion years and it will not be one (neither the sun nor the statement), so already we have to restrict really "scientific facts" to properly indexed ones (how to do this is an exercise for the reader), or else we have to rely on terminological conventions such as there being certain contexts, to be defined, where we understand statements to be about affairs that are factual at the time of speaking (and hopefully you have put a date and/or time on the statement if you intend it to be read or listened to later)

The IUCN criterion used to exclude Pluto and the other dwarf planets–that they don't clear their orbits–is very useful if you're studying how stellar systems form and evolve. From that perspective, the eight major planets really are in a different class from any other bodies in the solar system, and probably deserve their own name. But if you're doing "planetary" science–i.e. studying the bodies themselves–then it's completely irrelevant. As far as anyone knows, the size you have to be to clear your orbit doesn't form any kind of natural boundary where the dynamics of geology or atmospheric chemistry abruptly change. For that matter, one of the other IUCN criteria, that you have to be orbiting the sun directly, is also not that relevant.

This is the crux of why terminological conventions shouldn't be treated the same as other kinds of scientific knowledge. Even if you can make the claim that the convention is in some sense objective, it will still be contextual. Statements about utility always are. Statements of scientific fact, on the other hand, should at least be true (if not relevant) in any context, regardless of by what means or within what discipline they were discovered.

[fruityyamenrunner]

Pluto is a planet, and so are Makemake, Eris, and potentially others we don't yet know about.

what about myfatpinus

[fruityyamenrunner]

could be more forceful

why is it called "forcemasc" instead of "gentle bear affirmation". like where's the force

[fruityyamenrunner]

do you have any examples

why is it called "forcemasc" instead of "gentle bear affirmation". like where's the force

[fruityyamenrunner]

How the fuck do i put my romulus mcdonalds pin on a chain im going to fucking kill myself

[fruityyamenrunner]

wdym. doesn't forcemascing usually involve hitting people or making them stick their dicks in fire ant nests and other rough business?

why is it called "forcemasc" instead of "gentle bear affirmation". like where's the force

[fruityyamenrunner]

If you want to continue this conversation and insist on a meaning beyond consensus for the word "horse" I'd like you to answer my questions about that example. What truth claim is there in the combination of letter with which people have chosen to refer to the animal in question? Is it wrong to call a seahorse a seahorse because it might lead people to an incorrect worldview if they assume the word is claiming a similarity to regular horses?

If you do not want to continue this conversation that may well be for the best, as we seem to have arrived at a fundamental difference between us regarding the value of rigour in separating types of claims or information we are working with.

And yes, I do value peace of mind for myself, because being dragged into lengthy arguments about semantics is frequently an unwise use of my time and energy, and not maintaining my online peace of mind makes it harder for me to focus on things offline I find more valuable (and I do acknowledge this means I am currently being unwise by engaging with you; doing it off anon would be even more unwise as it would make it harder for me to firmly disengage when I choose to, which will likely be soon). If others find it less personally wasteful to carry such conversations at length off anon I have no objection to this; I don't want to hoist "online peace of mind" as a value onto anyone else, it is simply something I've found personally useful to protect.

this is perverse. you want to direct the conversation to another topic you're on stronger ground with, fine, you want to press me on specific claims, good, but at the same time you want to keep the mask on so you don't get too attached.

are we fucking, anon? are you hitting me from the back so you don't catch feelings? are you being *naughty*? if i engage, it's despite your telling me i am leading you into depravity so you are innocent - if I don't engage it's because you told me it would lead you into that same depravity, so you are innocent. you're not only hoisting your e-ataraxia onto me, you're doing it like a pervert.

i want to see your face, seahorse.

[fruityyamenrunner]

I have no fondness for the 2005 picture of the solar system (nor have I gotten the impression that anyone else I've seen you argue with does). I have a great fondness for rigorous separation between truth claims and definitions though. It is possible to argue against someone who is attacking something because you find their argument flawed without having any fondness for the thing they are attacking. I have no idea where you think I am appealing to an implicit consensus beyond merely acknowledging that it exists and is a factor in how people decide to use language, unless you think I'm the same person as other anons who told you to read the room? Which I guess I can't blame you for since I am on anon; I would engage you directly if not for a fear that if I engaged off-anon the discourse would spill back over onto my blog and ruin my online peace of mind, but I have never personally used the phrases "read the room" or "yikes" or anything to that effect. If anything, I am the one claiming non-consensus-based definitions as "not wrong", while you listed "not consensus" as one of the ways in which you tell whether something is wrong or not after I claimed those were different things, which is why I find your non consensus personal use of the term "witchcraft" ironic.

You rightly call it a fondness (early modern, derogatory) because it's foolish to do so for reasons I've already said.

you go beyond "acknowledging consensus exists" by things like primarily interpreting the problem with the horse example as a matter of consensus, and now thinking that because consensus-matching is *a* method i use to tell whether something is wrong or it implies I have some obligation to *always* follow a consensus in order to not be wrong, these are all tells, and they are the tells of an epicurean sensibility that values peace-through-vibe-consensus, and not "ruining online peace of mind" to avoid depression spirals. i am glad you're not as crude as the other anon, but i think i am not wrong to sense a similar worldview.

you really do resemble 2005 pluto btw.

[fruityyamenrunner]

how do you delve into an abyss? the abyss is already dug out. that's what's abyssal about it!

The New York Times gets caught using ChatGPT.

[fruityyamenrunner]

you're not going to be able to fuck him. the delta v considerations alone make it impractical.

i am profoundly surprised how many of you are approvingly reposting that pluto post. what is going on in ur minds? it's such a strange worldview.... all my questions in that thread to YOU

#it is an honour to have an actual planet enter the discourse though sir

[fruityyamenrunner]

“why would i listen to someone "simply telling" me what words to use?”

….Because it's a necessary step for communication? Because in order to have language we at some point have to agree on a set of sounds to correspond to a given concept?

“in fact, i don't think I've ever seen a "definition" because every time I've seen someone telling me what words to use, it always comes with attached claims, like you easily identify with the dictionary example. if i ever happened to see a "definition" it might well be impossible for it to be wrong, but I don't expect to see one any time soon.”

You seem like someone who has probably done pure mathematics at some point in your life so I highly doubt you've never seen a definition in the purest sense.

The truth claim I identified in the dictionary example does not lie in the definition of horses, it lies in the context of placing that definition in a dictionary, which is an object with a use other than “contain any definition someone could hypothetically invent”. What truth claim do you think is made by using the combination of letters h-o-r-s-e to refer to the particular rideable animal it currently refers to as opposed to any other combination of letters? Is it wrong to also call a seahorse a seahorse because someone might think this implies a seahorse has more in common with that animal than it does?

"what's wrong about the horse definition isn't exactly "it's not the consensus". it's that i got the part of speech wrong and the description is of plasmodia. do you *really* think the most likely reason for the error is that i was trying, in some subtle, "implicit" way to assert consensus that horses are very small and cause malaria”

Yes, I can guess that you probably wouldn't actually have meant to assert that, in the same way that if you made a strange enough typo you might write a sentence I could guess you didn't mean to type. Nonetheless that is what you would be asserting by putting it in a dictionary, the same way your hypothetical typo'd sentence would still have a meaning you didn't intend. The definition is not consensus because someone could, hypothetically, have a personal vocabulary where they call horses plasmodia and plasmodia horses, and not be misled about any actual facts about the world as long as they understand that other people do it the opposite way around and remember to mentally translate every time they encounter the world - it would be an incredibly inconvenient and unusual personal idiosyncrasy but not technically wrong.

It is also ironic that you end your response by using what is clearly a completely personal and idiosyncratic definition of witchcraft and expecting others to understand you.

what irony? throughout this penny-excursion to Bedlam to see the Lunaticks (or rather, Plutoniacks) I have been consistently saying how a worldpicture and the meaning within it can be well disclosed by a purposeful, thoughtful, poetical use of terminology. That is exactly what I am doing! I am posting through a very specific persona, and this whole tumblr blog is a disclosure of a worldview.

You, on the other hand, are an anonymous grey ball. It is just as fitting that you - like the other grey balls I get from time to time who speak to me with a very familiar voice of Millennial Conscience by employing some stereotyped bit of social control (I am "not having a normal one", or am "yikes"worthy, or like your sibling in sphericity suggested of me earlier this week, that i "woke up today and decided to be...") and are appealing precisely above all to an "implicit consensus". You disclose a worldview of "reading the room". Social engineering simplified and operationalised so even shift managers can employ it... Vulgar...

Speaking of dull globes, that reminds me. Before those pictures were beamed back, this is what the best picture of Pluto was:

Do you recognise it? It's an anonymous grey sphere with black markings on it. Is it a cousin of yours? Is this why you have a fondness for the 2005 solar system picture?

[fruityyamenrunner]

"How do *you* determine whether something is right or wrong? Because whether something is useless, or misleading, or not consensus are several of the ways I determine whether something is wrong or not."

Something is wrong if it is in contradiction with known facts about the world. It is useless if it is not in contradiction with those facts but doesn't help you handle/understand them better. It is misleading if it is easy to read implications that are wrong into its use. It is not consensus if it has none of the above problems in your personal use but causes confusion or inconvenience when talking to others.

A definition cannot be in contradiction with anything because it makes no claims about anything, it simply tells you what words to use. The example definition you gave of "horse" is not consensus; by calling it "wrong" your teacher would likely mean that by putting it in a dictionary you are implicitly claiming it as consensus, since a dictionary exists to contain consensus definitions, and the claim is wrong. The definition of "planet" that includes pluto but includes no other dwarf planets is misleading, since people could easily take it to imply there are no more known objects like Pluto in our solar system, but that claim is not actually part of the definition, merely something people might incorrectly read into it.

why would i listen to someone "simply telling" me what words to use? this is not an inherently compelling act. I have no time for someone who "simply tells me" things like that. who are they: god? my mother? in fact, i don't think I've ever seen a "definition" because every time I've seen someone telling me what words to use, it always comes with attached claims, like you easily identify with the dictionary example. if i ever happened to see a "definition" it might well be impossible for it to be wrong, but I don't expect to see one any time soon.

what's wrong about the horse definition isn't exactly "it's not the consensus". it's that i got the part of speech wrong and the description is of plasmodia. do you *really* think the most likely reason for the error is that i was trying, in some subtle, "implicit" way to assert consensus that horses are very small and cause malaria and not, for example, that an index got mixed up somewhere in my computer or card deck, or the typographer wasn't paying attention and put the wrong bit of type in, or something? not everything is some kind of witchcraft.

[fruityyamenrunner]

Wish to provide general agreement with all your Pluto posts, btw. Really don't know why people aren't understanding your points, because you're right.

Accurate scholarship can

Unearth the whole offence

From Lowell until now

That has driven a culture mad

[fruityyamenrunner]

i think illustrations should actually illustrate.

I've noticed something I find somewhat concerning and it's that for a lot of people, 'pluto is a planet' has fallen into the stock list of examples for what one might call 'science denialism', along with things like antivaxx, denying the existence of feathered (non-avian) dinosaurs, and flat earthers

there's a sentiment that goes like 'well, sure, you learned in school that the solar system has nine planets, but Science Marches On and we now know it has eight' and while certainly people should not take what they learned in school to be immutable law they should also like. have a concept of the rather significant difference between 'we've learned something new about the world' and 'we've decided to slice up the world in categories along different lines'

slicing up the world into categories is one of the basic operations of human thought and if you do not understand it well enough that you think 'people used to think the earth flat -> now we know better' and 'astronomers used to call pluto a planet -> now they don't' are analogous processes then you fucked up somewhere.

and if you don't think they are analogous, if you understand the difference i am pointing out and think it does not matter to the quest of listing stock examples of people disagreeing with things scientists say, well. you fucked up in a different place, probably.

[fruityyamenrunner]

you can trace the chain back beyond "pluto must die", although i certainly agree that agreement on this was the immediate political cause of the judgenent. like the man says in the title of his book, pluto had it coming. pluto is like another god, caesar, in this regard.

for instance, the orbit clearing thing was a way to express a fact about the new outer solar system: the bodies in it are important, but don't act like the bodies in the inner and inner outer solar system in that way.

i interpret the exoplanet thing as the sort of conservatism and dedication to having doctrine be empirically based that led to the pluto problem in the first place. exoplanetology is a strange science. it wouldn't be worth talking about orbit-clearing because the state of the art doesn't have enough to say about exoplanet orbits for it to be relevant like they're concerned about delimiting planets from brown dwarves.

personally i think i see the term "exoplanet" too often, and mostly think of them as "planets". it should be obvious from context that a planet orbiting a star called "C0X P3N15-69" is an exoplanet because that's an entirely different star from the Sun. you don't have to call it an "exoplanet" every time.

I've noticed something I find somewhat concerning and it's that for a lot of people, 'pluto is a planet' has fallen into the stock list of examples for what one might call 'science denialism', along with things like antivaxx, denying the existence of feathered (non-avian) dinosaurs, and flat earthers

there's a sentiment that goes like 'well, sure, you learned in school that the solar system has nine planets, but Science Marches On and we now know it has eight' and while certainly people should not take what they learned in school to be immutable law they should also like. have a concept of the rather significant difference between 'we've learned something new about the world' and 'we've decided to slice up the world in categories along different lines'

slicing up the world into categories is one of the basic operations of human thought and if you do not understand it well enough that you think 'people used to think the earth flat -> now we know better' and 'astronomers used to call pluto a planet -> now they don't' are analogous processes then you fucked up somewhere.

and if you don't think they are analogous, if you understand the difference i am pointing out and think it does not matter to the quest of listing stock examples of people disagreeing with things scientists say, well. you fucked up in a different place, probably.