Etymology

[The Judge]

What word could I use for a branch of science that deals with spin/propoganda/twisted logic?

The use of false logic has become such an art by the MGC councillors that is has spawned a branch of science dedicated to it, known as **

If they are human with our history, and they don't mind people knowing about spin then Machiavellistics?

Otherwise, spurious means false, but seemingly plausible, and specious is much the same, only with a stronger feel to it as if there's deliberate falsity not just inadvertance.

My Latin is non-existent, but I know tort and tortuous both come from a word meaning twisted. From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

tort mid-13c., "injury, wrong," from O.Fr. tort (11c.), from M.L. tortum "injustice," noun use of neut. of tortus "wrung, twisted," pp. of L. torquere "turn, turn awry, twist, wring, distort"

and ratiocinatio = reasoning, esp a form of argument

 

[Anne Lyle]

Alternatively, maybe they prefer Orwellian double-speak and they talk about it in positive terms?

E.g. orthophemology from Greek ortho "correct" and pheme "speaking" (same root as "euphemism") ?

 

[Moonbat]

Bump!

What is the nomenclature for naming peoples in relation to the place they come from?
Not sure if I'm using the word Nomenclature correctly there, but what I mean is if I have a made up city/country/world name, is there a formula for working out how I would name people from that city or country or world, does it follow any rules depending on last letters of syllables?
Manchester = Mancunians
Liverpool = Liverpudlians
Maidenhead = Maidonians
England = English
Israel = Israli
Bali = Balinese

Obviously we don't have much for words, except
Earth = Earthlings
Mars = Martians
Venus = Venutians

I have a city called Diank, but I don't think Diankers works in the right way (sounds a little too close to another word - although that might be what people from outside of Diank call them )

Anyway, does anyone know of a formula, or have their own method or can point me in the direction of a website that explains it? Thanks

 

[Vertigo]

I think there are many forms and I suspect they mostly evolved for ease of pronunciation. So for example Mancunians is easy but Manchesterers, Manchesterians etc. sound just horrible. Equally Londoners is easier than Londonians or Londonese. So I reckon you can go with whatever feels most comfortable: Diankians, Diankese, or even change it more radically like Mancunians does: Dianers.

It might also have something to do with where the stress is placed in the original place name, maybe...

 

[Juliana]

How about Diankonians?

 

[Ursa major]

Or Diafolk.



(Dianers suggest people who exhibit a need to exhibit their vicarious grief.)

 

[Phyrebrat]

For some reason Diankini sprung to mind, as in 'the Diankini have gone too far this time; I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die whilst you discuss this invasion in a commmmit-teeeee.'

Sorry got a bit carried away there

pHamidala

 

[Biskit]

Perhaps you could borrow an approach from horticulture and adopt naming schemes akin to those for hybrids and cultivars

http://www.ishs.org/sci/icraname.htm

So how about,
Homo sapiens 'B52'
Homo sapiens 'Big Mouth'
Homo sapiens 'Fused Tooth'
Homo sapiens 'Green Dragon'
Homo sapiens 'Microdent'
Homo sapiens 'Petite Dragon'
Homo sapiens 'Red Piranha'

as a random selection. (Honestly, I nicked these from a set of cultivars of a species of carnivorous plant, but you see the idea.)

 

[meursault]

2. ok, this one is a little trickier to describe. I have created a system of government that is so corrupt that the councillors will use false logic to ensure that any situation should be dealt with in the way that they want it to be dealt with. The government tell the Intelagents (my new word for AI computers) what they want to happen and the Intelagents make it seem like the people voted for it, it is then the job of councillors to use spin double talk or just plain flase logic to make the descision seem like the right thing to do. I hope that makes sense (I'm still struggling with it) so what form of government would it be, it wouldn't technically be democracy because the people don't vote and leaders are chosen.

Well, the formal name for rule by the corrupt is kleptocracy, but this isn't quite it.

Consider "fake democracy," or maybe "virtual politics" (there is a book of the same name BTW).

 

[Moonbat]

If Pantheism is believing that everything is god
Polytheism is many gods
Monotheism is one God
Atheism is no gods

what would be the word for the next logical step, minus 1 God be, and then going further to negative polythesism
Subtheism maybe?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

You can't have less than no belief, in there being no Deities, no God(s). There is no next logical step from no gods. That's a little like a vacuum or absolute zero.

There are slightly different forms of Atheism. The commonest kind today is based on a form of Rationalism that denies anything outside the physical, (the Universe) can exist and can have any effect on the universe. Love, Mercy, Justice, Morality etc though are slightly problematic, hence Humanism and the idea that somehow virtues have evolutionary value. You can have Atheism without Humanism.

Extreme Nietzschian viewpoints deny Rationalism and Humanism

In Daybreak Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality".[89][90] He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism. Nietzsche is also known for being very critical of the Western belief in egalitarianism and rationality.

So perhaps this is a -1 level from the Richard Dawkings level of Rational Atheistic Humanism

Also believing that a god exists and worshipping it isn't the same. For example, if the Demons etc in Judaism, Christianity and Islam are real, they would certainly not be Atheists in the sense of Rationalism and denying any god can exist, but they wouldn't worship the God.

 

[Moonbat]

Thanks for you input Ray,

You can't have less than no belief, in there being no Deities, no God(s). There is no next logical step from no gods. That's a little like a vacuum or absolute zero.

Ah, but can you have belief in a single non-god? Not so much as a devil or a demon that is everything that god isn't, but a non-god, unlike Atheism being a lack of or non-belief in God (or gods) an actual belief in something but that thing is a negative God a sort of Un-god, In-god, De-god. I've been trying to find the word that would prefix theism to go from poly through mono past a and into sub or something linguistically more suitable.

 

[HareBrain]

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by a negative god. Do you mean a being of equivalent power to a god, but which is opposite, evil instead of good, etc? If not, then what qualities would it possess?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

negative God a sort of Un-god, In-god, De-god.

As I said, that's like asking for less than a vacuum, or colder than absolute zero.

Even in fantasy and magic, some things are just meaningless to ask for.

A "god" that does evil instead of good is frequent in Polytheism. There could conceivably be a monotheistic religion with only an evil supreme being. But that's purely perverse rather than "below" Atheism in the scale.

As I said, Atheism (no belief in existence of god(s), or usually supernatural at all) is two main camps, Atheists come in many flavours. Some illogically believe in life after death, the Rational Humanists do not. The main one supports the idea of "good", morality, justice, mercy, love etc as being things to be sought that don't need a god to validate them*. The other camp (quite logically actually) claims that there is no absolute good, absolute morality. That even justice, mercy, love, hate, good, evil etc are all artificial religious constructs, that if there is any morality, then it's what ever society decides today. Ultimately, the philosophy will believe only the strongest should survive and breed and makes Individualism more important than any responsibility to Society. Any means can justify the ends, and who can even dictate what the "ends" could be?

(* The problem then is how is it decided what is "good"? Where do these standards of Humanism come from? If you ground down the entire Universe and sieve it you can't find mercy, love, justice, kindness, honesty. Thus Nietzsche quite logically says these are all bogus. But Nietzsche would have rejected Nazism as totally bogus too, as simply being the other side of the coin so to speak of Judeo-Christian values. See also this article).

So there is no level of "god belief system" below Atheism. But at Atheism level, I think, you can have three camps:

1. "Liberal" Humanists. They do not endorse Nietzsche
   
2. Individualism and Anarchy based on Nietzsche's actual philosophy. Note that Anarchy and pure communism are political systems that probably only work for Angels. People are too greedy and selfish.
   
3. Totalitarian Atheism (of extreme Fascism or Stalinist "Communism"**!). It's interesting that Lenin, Stalin and Hitler/Nazis all suppressed Esperanto and leaders killed! The leading Esperanto group in the 1920s was a Socialist International group! The Facists particularly (still) use distorted versions of Nietzsche's philosophy to justify their philosophy.

(** Stalin wasn't a real communist. Probably the Bolshevik Soviets killed, exiled or suppressed "real communists")

 

[Moonbat]

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by a negative god

I guess it depends on how you define a god, some say that God is a perfect being, so an un-god wouldn't just be an imperfect being, but a perfectly imperfect being, imperfection on every level. I think it wouldn't be equal power to god, maybe the opposite of that, so instead of omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient it would be powerless, nowhere and know nothing.

I appreciate your input Ray but I think you are missing my point, I'm not looking for a description of Atheism or why it isn't possible to have a less-than-no-god god, I just want the word for it, let me figure out the illogical impossible absurdities

 

[HareBrain]

The only word I think that might help you is anti-, but what you're describing sounds like a vacuum.

 

[tinkerdan]

I have not yet visited the negative god universe::

I guess it depends on how you define a god, some say that God is a perfect being, so an un-god wouldn't just be an imperfect being, but a perfectly imperfect being, imperfection on every level. I think it wouldn't be equal power to god, maybe the opposite of that, so instead of omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient it would be powerless, nowhere and know nothing.

I appreciate your input Ray but I think you are missing my point, I'm not looking for a description of Atheism or why it isn't possible to have a less-than-no-god god, I just want the word for it, let me figure out the illogical impossible absurdities

But there is that one universe where they have theological evidence that the one god was alone and depressed and in a suicidal fit exploded to form the universe so it ceased existence to ironically fill the universe with life that it likely would have found interesting. The proponents of religion worship a dead god and call themselves Necrothiests.

Although there is one sect that secretly believe that the god only faked the suicide that are referred to as the Possumthiests.