It would be more accurate to say that some people use it as a simple turn of phrase without considering what it means. Language is made mostly of metaphor and analogy. Explaining something by comparison to something that is already understood is a technique that seems to fit our model of thought.
Over time the original meaning may fade or be forgotten, and the residual symbol in the language becomes the thing itself. Etymology is full of examples.
But that much history has not yet passed since the introduction of the term "curbstomping" and so using it is still a choice that conveys some meta-meaning about content and style.
As mentioned further up in the thread it is unnecessarily violent for conveying the meaning in the comment.
No, no it isn't. It's a very particular violent act designed to maximize ongoing physical pain and social disadvantage in the victim. Sort of like throwing sulfuric acid at someone's face.
Don't stop with merely hearing them; think about them.
> [Hobbes] even, through sheer force of imagination, was able to outline the main psychological traits of the new type of man who would fit into such a society and its tyrannical body politic. He foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d'etat.
Policing language sounds a bit Orwellian (insert doublespeak quote). People like to use various metaphors. It doesn't mean they literally want to curb stomp a competitor.
> Policing language sounds a bit Orwellian (insert doublespeak quote).
And that only applies to criticizing phrases like "killing it", without even demanding it to not be used -- but not to bringing out Nineteen-Eightyfour? And doublespeak? No, doublethink means holding two contradictory things to be true at the same time, doublespeak is the verbalization of that. You're thinking of wrongthink, and either way you are doing what you criticize. Instead of saying "this is horrible" you say "this is dystopian", it changes nothing.
More importantly, your reply contains nothing specifically applying to my comment. Maybe you missed the point, which is that people delude themselves to compensate their lack of agency, being restricted to partake in a rat race that will leave them empty-handed in the end -- all of which Hannah Arendt explains in the context, but I didn't want to post a wall of text. That they don't actually mean what they say, because what they mean (and do) would be to pitiful to say without such flourish, and that they aren't actually violent and powerful, but "poor meek little fellows", is precisely the point.
They said that about radio. They said that about TV. They said that about computers. They said that about dumbphones. They said that about smartphones. They're now saying that about apps.
They said it about huffing paint thinner too, to be fair.
I think most of these statements are actually far more true than we give them credit for. Not necessarily because of what they do but because what they displace.
I was in senior year of high school when World of Warcraft dropped. Half my class went from high performing bright eyed students to zombies barely passing classes because they stayed up until 3 AM doing raids every day.
It's largely the same sort of problem as with weed and alcohol. It's not that you'll go stark raving mad or your arms fall off, but you sort of just stop doing other things. There is no time for it, and you have no will to make time for it. You become so sedated you're essentially fine doing nothing in particular all your life.
This was a problem with most of the things you listed. Each got progressively better at it.
Why were "they" wrong? Is it because the issues of each successive development in mass media made those of the previous iteration look quaint? It's easy to look back on (for example) TV as a harmless diversion, but it was a radical development in the dissemination of visual information.
Also this is a funny argument. If these things are truly making people dumber but the change is happening on a generational level, then a dumber generation would not realize that it is dumber than the previous one.
It's also further muddied by other changes - like changes in education in the past 50 years - which makes the phenomenon harder to isolate and to judge.
Following the Grenfell disaster in London, flats up and down the country have been valued at £0 and are thus unmortgagable due to their use of cladding material that no longer is deemed safe.
A few of the consumer broker apps have a 'practice mode' with a few tens of thousand of virtual practice cash to use with the price reacting to real market data - you could do this in real time!
> have a 'practice mode' with a few tens of thousand of virtual practice cash
I'd like to see what someone ends up with investing a more meager amount, like 1k. That's likely what a lot of young adults have in savings they could potentially invest.
It probably is true but as with all cost/currency comparisons you can't really look at the raw pre-tax figures in isolation to know if someone has more buying power doing the same job in one country or another.
Everything from the price of broadband, pint of milk, loaf of bread, healthcare, car costs, etc etc contributes to someones buying power vs their salary
