Rebecca Watson has an incredible superpower. When she does public speaking, she has an approach that’s casual, friendly, chatty, hilariously funny, and just generally pleasant and enjoyable to listen to… and then, without you even realizing it, she slams these hard and powerful ideas into your head. (It’s a power she shares with Jen McCreight. Together, they will conquer your brain. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!)
Her talk at Skepticon 4 — on the appalling war being waged by the Christian Right on, you know, half the population — is no exception. Watch it. You’ll have a ball, and then your brain will explode with the anger and the brilliance. Enjoy!
A very good talk. Thanks both to Rebecca and Greta.
First time I’ve seen Greta give a presentation and her presentation on atheist anger was quite good.
I’m looking forward to Rebecca’s!
Thank you for putting these videos up, Greta. I’ve been gobsmacked by the quality of these Skepticon talks, and this one is no exception (and neither was yours). Wow!
If the Reason Rally and/or the American Atheists National Convention are half as good, I am going to be very happy come March. That’ll be my first convention, and I’m really starting to appreciate what I’ve been missing.
I thought Rebecca’s superpower was the ability to blow up the internet with innocuous comments.
Thanks for posting this vid. I appreciate the work that Rebecca put into her presentation, and the attention she is trying to bring to what should be a priority issue in the skeptic community, but I can’t help feeling that a large piece of the puzzle has been overlooked. It’s so large that I’m pretty sure already that I’m not going to phrase it right in this comment, but I’m gonna give it a go anyway.
She mentions (@ 18:40 ish) the recent push to defund planned parenthood, basically describing how even though the general public supported PP, Congress basically ignored the civilian consensus and pushed the defunding based on their objection to federal funds being used to pay for abortion. The problem is that that objection wasn’t exactly what their stated objection was. Their stated objection was focused on the allegations that PP enabled or even facilitated Sex Trafficking and various other sorts of sexual exploitation, which of course was all brought to a head when the Lila Rose doctored video ‘exposes’ started making the rounds.
The point I’m trying to make is that the hearings about defunding PP weren’t focused on federal funds used for abortions, the hearings were about federal funds going to an organization that enabled sexual exploitation of minors. I think that angle needs more attention because when it comes to issues like “sexual exploitation of minors” many feminists support the work of people like Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America and Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey (just to name two) who just happen to be the very same people who are waging this war on women in the first place.
Whew! That was a mouthful, sorry for being so long-winded : D
A woman who looks like Watson has good reason to be angry! LOL!
Trina, go play outside. The grownups are talking.
Oh sweet, I was looking for a moderate EL enemy to send my players against and a brain dead troll seems as good as any.
I just started watching but first I wanted to draw attention to the Google ad that comes up when I watch it. It tells me how to avoid the “Top Ten Ugly Mistakes” that women make which ruin a relationship. The website advertised is Catchhimandkeephim.com
Thing is I’ve seen this ad before when watching one of Rebecca’s talks and it leads me to conclude that this is targeted marketing that comes up on anything that relates specifically to women. Thanks for that Google.
That’s not surprising, when you think about how Google ads work. The phrases ”Rebecca Watson” is doubtless linked to quite often in connection with phrases like ”women’s issues” and that ad is primed to trip on the same phrase. To a text-munching algorithm all ”women’s issues” are the same, whether they’re discussions by feminists or ditsy checkout line magazine type article. It’s the same reason discussing how badly ”religion” treats ”women” tends to pull up ads for Christian dating services. It’s not a provocative choice by some human, it’s just a blind stab for relevance by a computer that can’t parse context.
(Which of course is exactly what you just said, only you weren’t long-winded enough to suit my peculiar tastes…)
No you don’t sleep with me. And yes I have a cock. And I will state a fact. You’re not unattractive. I really don’t care if you like that or not because I’m not trying to make you feel better. I don’t sleep with you so I don’t care how you feel. You’re not FUGLY.
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