Tag Archive: blogosphere

Dec 26 2012

Sympathy for the devil

Trigger warning for frank discussion of bullying and PTSD. When I was young, I was bullied. A lot. Maybe not more than other kids who’ve been bullied, but I was definitely the target of my grade for many years running in my tiny grade school and middle school. It started to let up a bit …

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Dec 24 2012

On the parallel universes we apparently cohabitate within the blogosphere

There’s a troll narrative parallel history of the secular movement, I’ve observed. Things that are handled professionally, between professionals, become “harassment and attacks”, and harassment and attacks become “disagreement”. Civil disagreement becomes slurs, slurs become hilarious parody. It all depends on which side of the rift you’re on, and who’s targeting whom. More blogospheric navel-gazing …

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Dec 11 2012

Atheism is not enough (pt. 3)

(Continued from part 2) The Excluded Middle There are certain behaviours and certain tropes that I find myself hard-pressed to defend or accept in people I call friends and allies, and I will call them out on these behaviours in hopes of either swaying them to my position, or of exposing the irrationalities behind our …

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Dec 10 2012

Atheism is not enough (pt. 2)

(Continued from part 1) Irreconcilable differences If atheism WAS enough to bind us, if it was a sufficient foundation for our communities, there would be no great rift. There would be no polarization, no in-fighting. There would be no great sorting. People wouldn’t be so willing to throw down the gauntlet over simple advice like …

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Dec 09 2012

Atheism is not enough (pt 1)

Tectonic rift at Thingvellir, Iceland. (CC, click for source)

(a three part blog series) Building a Community with Insufficient Data I keep chewing this thought over in my head, this one nagging meme that got planted there by way of innumerable trolls during innumerable battles in my tenure on the blogosphere. It’s been percolating in my brainpan at least since the inception of the …

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Oct 13 2012

Install the OpenDyslexia font and tell us how it works for you

Font demo of OpenDyslexic

I’m interested in doing a little science experiment. I’ve read that a commercial font designed by a dyslexic university student apparently didn’t help reading speed, but does help with certain classes of reading errors. Readers of any Freethought Blogs would certainly classify as folks who read a lot on the internet (yeah, yeah, get the …

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Oct 04 2012

The one way we lost in the battle for the SCA

We pointed out Justin Vacula’s feet of clay, and nearly a thousand signatures were collected on the petition demanding that SCA either address his misdeeds by forcing him out or stand by those misdeeds. Vacula has stepped down from his position after this controversy didn’t go away. Which naturally means “the terrorists” and “bullies” have …

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Oct 02 2012

The SCA’s decision making process

You might be interested in this comment at WWJTD by Michael Gobaud: JT, you may already know this, but all these phone conferences the SCA has been doing in their national expansion effort have been recorded and put online for anyone to listen to (you can even scan through the recordings to particular speakers, very …

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Sep 30 2012

Holding clay feet to witch-burning fires

One of the more ridiculous memes that’s gained a disproportionate amount of traction in the freethought community is that of “witch hunts”. It’s the idea that there’s some roving band of bloggers and commenters hunting for the least appearance of deviation from the One True Path and punishing with extreme prejudice without evidence or empathy. …

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Sep 16 2012

The scope of the problem, and the availability heuristic

Venn diagram of overlapping circles showing the community's problems with misogyny and denial that there's even a problemi

One of the big complaints we’ve seen recently regarding the anti-harassment-policy campaign, the question of feminism intersecting with our communities, and the question of whether the assholes in our movement represent the movement, is whether the feminists and anti-bigots are blowing things out of proportion. How often have you seen someone say “the whole community …

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