This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Dec 15 2012
Dec 15 2012
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
683 comments
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Rodney Nelson
15 December 2012 at 11:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s something about a new, fresh, untouched by human hands, virgin thread that makes me want to say…
…oh look, shiny!
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 11:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sniny, Rodney, sniny!
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 11:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s too shiny in hear I paid for blood of trolls… rawr….. RAWR !!! O.O! flop….
Barkeron
15 December 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thesis: Agnostics are more rational than atheists.
Evidence: Empirical agnostics are of the opinion that the existence or non-existence of entities responsible for the creation of the universe cannot currently be proven, but think it’s possible to do so via the methods of science and rationality like empirical proof. Atheists, by contrast, insist on the ad hoc absolute that there aren’t any. Therefore agnostics are more sciencey.
(Note: I’m not a troll, I just want to wrap my head around this seeming contradiction in the atheist attitude.)
The Mellow Monkey: Caerie
15 December 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thesis: People who are neutral on the topic of fairies are more rational than unbelievers in fairies.
Evidence: Empirical people who are neutral on the topic of fairies are of the opinion that the existence or non-existence of fairies responsible for the dewdrops on roses and whiskers on kittens cannot currently be proven, but think it’s possible to do so via the methods of science and rationality like empirical proof. Unbelievers in fairies, by contrast, insist on the ad hoc absolute that there aren’t any. Therefore people who are neutral on the topic of fairies are more sciencey.
(Okay, really going to recover from this migraine now.)
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Barkeron,
You don’t know what agnosticism is.
Rutee Katreya
15 December 2012 at 11:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[quote]Therefore agnostics are more sciencey.[/quote]
Because accepting, even provisionally, explanations that lack evidence is more, not less, science-y?
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hint: There exists such a being as an agnostic atheist
Barkeron
15 December 2012 at 11:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice,
stones and glasshouses?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_agnosticism
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 11:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Barkeron/Beatrice
Or atheism. Atheism is a current belief on the subject of gods and says nothing about how convinced/certain one is or how provisional that belief is.
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 11:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Words and meaning?
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 11:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Essentially Barkeron,
Agnosticism is about what you claim to know and atheism is what you believe. Similar but distinct ideas.
How most atheists view it: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheist_vs._agnostic
Dick the Damned
15 December 2012 at 11:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Barkeron, i’m an antitheist, atheist, & agnostic. It’s possible to be an atheist without claiming that there definitely are no gods. I just don’t believe in any of the buggers, & think that those who do are sadly misinformed; dangerously so, sometimes.
Barkeron
15 December 2012 at 11:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Only because agnostics say there’s not enough data to completely eliminate the possibility that, say, a Star Trek-style “energy being” with the mental complexity of an amoeba pooped out the universe as the Big Bang or other creation scenarios doesn’t mean they’re convinced there’s an invisible sky daddy who want us to slavishly adhere to his rules as laid down in a 5000 year old book written by anonymous prophets.
Slippery slope, anyone?
Amphiox
15 December 2012 at 11:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Assertion without evidence. Specifics. Where were they tried and did not work? How was it ascertained that they did not work?
Assertion without evidence. Specifics. What more drastic measures should be used? How should they be implemented? WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE THAT THEY WOULD WORK ANY BETTER THAN THE LESS DRASTIC MEASURES?
Because there is ZERO evidence, ZERO, that dropping missiles on to sleeping children while targeting a suspected terrorist next door, or invading some islamic country somewhere does ANYTHING to stop future terrorist attacks. EVERY time Israel has tried it, it IMMEDIATELY lead to MORE rocket attacks on their territory. The Iraq War did NOT reduce the threat of islamic terrorist one iota.
YES YOU FUCKING ARE YOU FUCKING PATHETIC LIAR. It is your first assumption each and every single time you make this argument. You bring it up as justification your quasi-genocidal fantasies WITHOUT EVER EVEN MENTIONING TRYING LESS EXTREME MEASURES FIRST. You ASSUME that the more humane alternatives have already failed. That is the STARTING POINT of every single argument you have ever made on this subject. What else from this pattern can we conclude of you other than that these things are your first choice, your first assumption, the thing you immediately think about?
Get some FUCKING PERSPECTIVE on the actual magnitude of the problem and the seriousness of the threat. You know what is the actual reality? The reality is that the Islamic Jihadist are NOT an existential threat to western civilization. They will NOT march in and take over our governments. They will NOT institute sharia law on everyone. They would not have even THOUGHT about bothering us at all if we hadn’t decided to mess with their local governments in order to get cheaper oil. Go research your fucking history.
They are a few thousand armed with outdated rifles, crude home-made bombs, a collection of obsolescent short range rockets. We have STEALTH BOMBERS, BATTLE TANKS, NUCLEAR MISSILES, AIRCRAFT CARRIERS, SATELLITE GUIDED BOMBS.
We are talking about a threat that, even if we did nothing but passive border control measures, would at its worst result in a few thousand deaths a year. TEN TIMES more than that are killed by regular gun-related violence in the United States alone. TWENTY TIMES more people die world wide from malaria. And no one is even contemplated an extirpation of mosquitoes.
Only Israel faces a threat even remotely greater than that. And as for Israel, they have ALREADY TRIED pretty much everything you’ve ever suggested. How many wars has Israel fought with its neighbours? How many times did they in fact strike first, pre-emptively? How many times did they win those wars decisively? How many targeted assassinations have they done? How many smart missiles have they launched?
How much safer are they now than they were in 1950?
The gruesome, unconscionable things you advocate for were barely ethically acceptable as a response to a threat as big in magnitude as World War II. As a response to Islamic Jihadism, for the majority of the Western world, THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY. And for the only exception to that, Israel, THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN SHOWN TO NOT WORK.
And yet here you are, still advocating for them. To what FUCKING PURPOSE? What do they do except create more carnage, more bloodshed, more death, and more BITTER, GRIEVING, ANGRY survivors for the terrorists to recruit?
When I do that, I apologize and then I SHUT UP. I do not continue repeating the same stupid things over and over again after apologizing for them. I do not try to weasel out of them by saying essentially the same thing later cloaked in what I think is slightly more acceptable cosmetic language. If others continue to criticize my original comments, which they have every right to do, I do not reignite the mess with puffed up indignant self-defence.
I am done talking to you StevoR. I don’t killfile people, but I am finished responding to your disgusting ass. When I found out about your other pseudonyms I thought I’d give you another chance, because I recognized them from other blogs on other topics and thought that they had sensible things to say, but you blew it. The utterly unforgiveable way you treated Ing was just one of many final straws.
I am done with you. I reserve to right to talk ABOUT you in the future, but don’t ever be deluded into thinking that I am conversing WITH you ever again.
janiceintoronto
15 December 2012 at 11:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hey, don’t make fun of my ‘energy being”!
I’m being bullied.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Barkeron if I tell you I have a Golden Tabby Tiger (very rare only 30 known to exist) that I’m keeping as a pet in my basement. Do you know that I do or don’t? Do you believe me?
Now if I told you I trained it to dance the Charleston do you know? Do you believe?
Are you getting some idea for the interplay of atheism and agnosticism.
Barkeron
15 December 2012 at 11:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Exactly, otherwise I must declare an agnostic crusade.
Barkeron
15 December 2012 at 11:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@michaeld,
the skeptical, inquiring mindset dictates I should take a look into your basement. But how do you look into the time (space?) before the Big Bang? Or does Dawkins withhold information about his time travel trip?
Josh, Exasperated SpokesGay
15 December 2012 at 11:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh jeezis christ. Another “I’m in junior philosophy school and I can’t see aaaannny difference in probability between the existence of a god and its non-existence! I just can’t say at all!”
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 11:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nope can’t let you in my basement. Jones is busy training for his broadway debut (all very hush hush) and you can’t disturb him.
Dawkin’s in the god delusion doesn’t claim absolute certainty of god. On a 7 point scale where 7 is certainty no gods exist he put himself as a 6 point something.
frankensteinmonster
15 December 2012 at 11:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
.
is that even necessary ? perhaps all the necessary information about the Big Bang is contained within the universe itself.
.
.
are we talking about a priori probability or a posteriori ?
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 11:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“But I am going to talk about it a lot anyway. “
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 11:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
From the new york times,
On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is certitude that God exists and 7 is certitude that God does not exist, Dawkins rates himself a 6: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”
margareth
15 December 2012 at 11:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Barkeron: Agnostics are more rational than atheists? Seriously? That’s absurd for several reasons but let’s begin with the simplest: Since neither of us can prove or disprove the existence of “god”, then I’ll let Occam’s razor decide. Which is more likely; an omnipotent sky deity who created the universe and the human race in all it’s cruelty and pettiness for his/her, what? Entertainment? Or is it the suggestion that we ARE the universe, growing and learning to question it’s creation, it’s purpose and it’s future? I’ll take the latter and since the universe and it’s laws do not NEED a creator or a supreme being, I think that doubly indicates the no god idea. What is “more rational” anyway? Looking at things empirically and analyzing the evidence based on observation or inserting an extraneous and wholly unnecessary deity into the equation?
Bob Davidson
15 December 2012 at 11:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Barkeron
The proposition, “god exists” is nonsensical. The antithetical proposition, “god does not exist” is also nonsensical. The logical statement you’re looking for is, “I have no belief in god.”
To restate:
god exists = theism
god does not exist = strong atheism
I have no belief in god = weak atheism
This book will guide you to what you seek.
vaiyt
15 December 2012 at 12:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@15:
Molly! Molly! Molly!
Mind me quoting you when I see StevoR running their mouth again?
Rey Fox
15 December 2012 at 12:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ah, so it’s the tired old “gotcha” of “You can’t absolutely positively 100% be sure that there is no God!” Perhaps. But the notion of God, or any of the notions of gods are so fucking absurd that I don’t lose any sleep over putting forth the monocle-droppingly bold proposition that they don’t exist.
(And if a god or gods existed, the odds of them lining up with any of the human conceptions of it, especially the beloved 3O peeping tom Daddy, are exceedingly slim.)
Nepenthe
15 December 2012 at 12:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The proposition “Zeus does not exist” is not nonsensical though. We know Zeus doesn’t exist because if Zeus existed he would be the cause of lightning and Zeus is not the cause of lightning and I’m not sure if I’ve properly done the specific logic-y wording to make the implications work but you know whatimean.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 12:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But Zeus is only responsible for 1 in every 100,000,000 thunderbolts. ha! check mate atheists ! ;p (jokeing)
Rey Fox
15 December 2012 at 12:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In other words, I’m still on firmer ground saying that a god doesn’t exist than I would be saying that one does. It’s not the riskless proposition of “maybe, maybe not, we could never know”, but I don’t care for that wishy-washy stuff.
I think that certain theists and agnostics imagine that if the proof for a god of some sort were to ever come down (though they never say what that proof would look like), that us “strong” atheists would wail and rend our garments at our folly. Sure, being wrong would probably bum me out, particularly if there was enough reason to believe that this god was going to harm me for not living up to some silly standard of conduct, but I would probably adapt eventually. And I would figure that I couldn’t be blamed for not believing in that god before, given how flimsy the case for that god was.
Rey Fox
15 December 2012 at 12:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In short, I’ve been wrong before. I’ll certainly be wrong again.
margareth
15 December 2012 at 12:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Mathematics can support several different theories about the creation of the universe. It can predict things like multiple universes, string theory, brane theory, etc. What it cannot and does not predict or support is a god theory. I’m back to Occam’s razor. Inserting a wholly imaginary postulate into the mix is unnecessary and counter productive. Putting “god’ into the mix at all is to my mind, no different than the people who imagined we were on the back of an enormous turtle. It’s just something that was made up in order to comfort people who did not know the real answers. There’s nothing to base the concept of “god” on except some ancient superstitions of people who thought that the Earth was flat and the Sun revolved around it. We know better now than to just believe it or even to acknowledge the possibility just because scared, ancient people needed that comfort.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 12:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
… did we break him?
Nepenthe
15 December 2012 at 12:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well fuck. I’m going to have to find some fatted calves to sacrifice now. This has ruined my (and at least one calf’s) weekend.
margareth
15 December 2012 at 12:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Maybe he’s doing the math….
Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope
15 December 2012 at 12:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The God Delugin’.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 12:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Math is hard….
(block quote fail? crosses fingers)
Rodney Nelson
15 December 2012 at 1:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Barkeron,
I am an agnostic atheist. Since there’s no evidence for the existence of any gods (not just the popular ones but ANY gods) then I disbelieve in gods. As soon as some reliable, conclusive evidence is presented for the existence of a god or gods, then I’ll believe in them. But for now I’ll continue to disbelieve. That’s more rational then “I dunno if there’s gods or not so I’m not going to say one way or t’other.”
margareth
15 December 2012 at 1:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Especially when trying to prove a fiction using it.
Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope
15 December 2012 at 1:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Those agnostics need to propose some mechanism not contingent upon personal uncertainty or incredulity for such a being to exist within the universe for their “scepticism” (fuck you, that’s how it’s spelled) to be valid. We know that consciousness as a human experience is an emergent property of our animal neurochemistry and physiology – how does such a property exist in nature without having any equivalent circuitry to emerge from?
asttei
15 December 2012 at 1:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
soo… does anyone else hate the new webdesign..?
Naked Bunny with a Whip
15 December 2012 at 1:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
While you’re looking stuff up at Wikipedia, Barkeron, check out null hypothesis, and explain how it relates to space amoebas and energy beings, much less creatures existing beyond the reaches of space and time (whatever that means).
margareth
15 December 2012 at 1:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Spot on. Especially since the only reason to even include a god in the list of possibilities is because a bunch of superstitious cave dwellers without refrigeration believed in such a creature. If the people who were the root of western culture believed in the flying spaghetti monster, would we include that into our reasoning by default? If course we would. But just because a bunch of people worshiped deities a long time ago because they didn’t know any better is no reason to feel obliged to seriously consider the idea in every conversation.
shripathikamath
15 December 2012 at 1:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No one wants to discuss the latest Tea baggery in Tejas?
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
15 December 2012 at 1:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Barkeron:
Why is your brand of agnosticism reserved for the Abrahamic god? By your reasoning, every single god humans have created should all be on the ‘maybe they exist’ column. Same with dragons, fairies, elves, and Xenu.
None of those things-including god-has any evidence of their existence. But please continue your wholly unscientific approach to imaginary creatures.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
late, but:
there is no such thing as an empirical agnostic. There are no agnostics that think it is possible to prove the existence of a deity with science. “science and rationality like empirical proof” is gibberish.
run along.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
hate? No. I kinda like that they can customize backgrounds.
but…
many of the links that worked previously are now broken (using the banner to link to the homepage seems to not function in many pages on many of the FTB sites, for example), and navigation has become more difficult in some cases. All of the banners need to be reworked to be consistent in design with the new page design, sidebar is too large IMO… many other niggles.
I’ve seen worse.
overall grade for design and implementation (coming from the fact i used to do this for a living once upon a time):
6.5
sc_d4e1ad9f8b2234f2307517e0f26175a6
15 December 2012 at 1:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We allowed to be a bit, er, verbally aggressive? Allow me just to say this, with respect to the events of the last day: Fuck the NRA, and fuck gun fetishists who think that the compulsion to horde semiautomatic weapons is more important than a six year old kid’s future.
And let me also say, fuck people who participate in canned hunts, like Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia, who think that blasting buckshot into birds for fun is fun. And fuck assholes who need to reaffirm their manhood by shooting wolves and other apex predators. Generally, fuck anyone who gets off on shooting slugs of hot metal through sentient flesh. And fuck the Republican extremists in this country who think teachers are the enemy, and who think that freedom means jacking off over a gun collection.
Nepenthe
15 December 2012 at 1:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jesus fucking Christ, you must be new here.
Welcome to the fold. :-)
Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope
15 December 2012 at 1:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I took one look at the title and decided there was no point, although I would like someone on that side of the pond to answer some questions for me.
What is wrong with Texas? Was there some kind of super-moronising compound released into the water there or something? Why are Texans so ridiculous and awful and religious and odd?
Fred Salvador - The Public Sucks; Fuck Hope
15 December 2012 at 1:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I dunno those lots of other people I’d rather fuck O.O
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes. It’s name is: Karl Rove.
I’m not kidding.
Rove nearly singlehandedly took a relatively sane state that was mostly progressive in the 80s, and used political hackery, media manipulation, and psychology to whip it into a froth of regression in less than 10 years.
Which is why, of course, he was given high placement in W’s administration.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
many sources for that, btw, example:
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Rove_Karl
Rey Fox
15 December 2012 at 2:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Now that we’ve got Times New Roman, and the Gumbys, and the rotating banners, and got rid of the pale blue background, I think this site looks nicer than it did before. And comment numbers being searchable again, thank heaven.
mobius
15 December 2012 at 2:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is Pharyngula expanding? Is it taking over the Digital Cuttlefish? Informed blog readers want to know.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 2:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And now that there’s a watery background my eyes don’t want to jump out of my skull in aesthetic protest. I hope everyone else follows suit in adding a back ground like million gods and pharyngula have.
Nepenthe
15 December 2012 at 2:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I love the new webdesign. Except the logo and how one side of the bit where the logo is displayed is curved and the other is not.
I also like that Pharyngula has absorbed The Digital Cuttlefish.
chigau (Chiggers)
15 December 2012 at 2:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Once again, clicking on your ‘nym above the comment box goes to the Dashboard.
chigau (チッガーズ)
15 December 2012 at 2:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
yay!
Dick the Damned
15 December 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nepenthe, #50,
Is there any evidence in the bible for this activity? (Not that anything in the bible is evidence for anything significant anyway.
Nepenthe
15 December 2012 at 2:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Dick the Damned
Sadly, the fucking popes cut out all the naughty bits. Woof, you should have seen the woodcuts!
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 2:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
both pharyngula and DC have rotating banners. I’m guessing the code for that points to the same source for the images, and the new designer didn’t notice.
should be an easy fix.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 2:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
He would have had to have a schlong like a Tapir to accomplish that, no?
margareth
15 December 2012 at 2:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
M’eh. I only ever lurked before and though the new design wasn’t what lured me out of my lurker status, I kinda like it. Though as a newb, my opinion in this regard is fairly valueless.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 3:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
hmm, trying new icon for my pic…
testing…
Ogvorbis: Exhausted and broken
15 December 2012 at 3:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
He was as celibate as a modern Catholic priest.
margareth
15 December 2012 at 3:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Now that might be compelling evidence of a miracle since in order to be like a Catholic Priest, Jesus the man would have to fuck Christ the prepubescent boy. That would require a tapir schlong going through a time portal.
otrame
15 December 2012 at 3:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There are actually quite a few sane people in Texas. 41% voted for Obama. Demographics going the way they are, Texas will be a purple state very soon and blue soon after.
It wont be that easy for most of the rest of the south, though.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 3:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Demographics going the way they are, Texas will be a purple state very soon and blue soon after.
well, it was blue in the 80s, as I noted.
margareth
15 December 2012 at 3:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Speaking as one of them, I have to point out that Rove isn’t the only reason this state turned red. It was reliably, deeply blue until the huge influx of rust belt refugees in the early 1980s. Now I’m not blaming them that the state has gone Republican since that event but that it changed the dynamic can’t be denied.
rwgate
15 December 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ivorybill @49- Welcome to Pharyngula. I’ve enjoyed your posts on Daily Kos and others. Hope to see you here a lot more.
Amphiox
15 December 2012 at 3:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Potential entities as yet beyond the reach of empirical inquiry that could potentially be responsible for the creation of a universe:
1. A quantum fluctuation
2. A super massive black hole in an older universe
3. Two older universes, colliding
4. Time traveling astrophysicists from the distant future
5. A pregnant space penguin (laying cosmic eggs)
6. Wizards on a disc shaped world carried by four elephants standing on a turtle, experimenting with creation a region of space absent any narrativium
7. A freak accident in a Warp Drive manufacturing plant, in another universe
8. An UltraMegaLarge Hadron Collider
9. Lisa Simpson
10. Xeelee
Innumerable other possibilities.
Let us be agnostic about all of them, for the sake of argument.
How many of these could even remotely be considered something akin to a god? (What is a god anyways?)
So, taking all that above, what then is your agnostic a priori probability that a god exists and precisely how much greater is that number than zero?
The Mellow Monkey: Caerie
15 December 2012 at 4:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But we aren’t all Lutherans.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 4:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rwgate:
It’s not Ivorybill @49, it’s a sc_mess — or so the nym proclaims.
David Marjanović
15 December 2012 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*sigh* I guess I have to be happy the dromaeosaurid in the OP picture has feathers at all, even though there don’t seem to be any on the head. The head shape is too simple, too geometric. The tail is probably too supple. The sickle claw might be a bit too small (!). The wing feathers are in the wrong place – they’re on the upper arm and the forearm, but if you look at a bird, including a chicken wing on your table, you’ll find they’re on the forearm and the hand, specifically the index finger (the middle one of the 3).
Hey, Thunderdome.
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 4:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The future in our universe? How could that be right? All the other sciencey ones are also a little sketchy, but this one really sticks out to me.
Lisa Simpson and Xeelee are fictional, so those definitely aren’t possibilities. Call me a dogmatist, but I’m just not so impressed with cartoon characters that I think they can do stuff, much less make stuff, much less make a universe.
Also, you didn’t really cover one possibility: this universe* always existed (in some form), meaning it never was “created” in any sense of the word. That by itself takes the wind out of the argument that there must be a “creation of the universe” to even talk about, which would be why we’re coming up with all these possibilities (including a god).
*Not other, “older” universes.
It could be extremely small and non-zero, or it could be exactly zero. Infinities make this one pretty hard. I don’t know.
That’s why we should withhold judgment? … And what? Call it 50/50?
chigau (違う)
15 December 2012 at 4:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hey David.
It needs it’s fingers naked for all the rending and tearing.
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 4:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A note about the school shooting business. I am so tired of the “ban teh gunz!!” arguments. I am so tired of the “We needs teh Jeebus in schoolz!” arguments. I am so tired of the “dude was cray cray” arguments. I’d really like to plant the blame toward toxic levels of privilege and entitlement in our kyriarchy. This is an epidemic of suburban white dudes, and I think that’s rather telling. It is an epidemic of control–they are exerting the ultimate form of control over another person’s life. We’ve all seen this gradient of abuse, ranging from microagressions, sexism, racism, then to assult, pedophilia, rape, and murder. The video someone posted a few days ago showing one of Tim Wise’s lectures on racism from 2002 got me thinking about this.
I blame all those that support and abet entitlement and control of one person over another.
I blame the kyriarchy, whose toxic emissions produce this.
It’s not a bug; it’a feature.
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 5:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
When I hear “let’s ban teh gunz”, I hear, “well, dudes are dudes, and we can’t help them from killing people, so let’s take away their toys.” When I hear “We need Jeebus in schools”, I hear “We just need to control them harder; then the natural order with white dudes on top will be restored.” Hyperbole, I know.
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 5:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Uh… why? What’s wrong with banning guns?
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 5:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
David,
Hey, where’s your gravatar?
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 5:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
onychopora,
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/14/newtown-murders/comment-page-1/
Enjoy the reading. It might prove educational.
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 5:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, okay… so you’re tired of your own hyperbole?
Wouldn’t taking away their toys prevent some of them from killing people, or from doing it so easily? I mean, there’s no assumption in this at all which corresponds to “dudes are dudes;” but even if there were, wouldn’t it still be a way of preventing murder?
strange gods before me ॐ
15 December 2012 at 5:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dear Horde,
I want to propose that it’s good to not tell trolls that “you belong in / would fit in at / are just like people from the slimepit”.
I see no clear benefit to us in saying this, as opposed to “you are a misogynist / racist / terrible person”. The latter gets the point across fine.
Telling them all about the slimepit may encourage them to go there and band together. We’ve always had our independent, unaffiliated misogynists trickling in at Pharyngula, but I think they’ve become more annoying, and possibly more dangerous, since they’ve had a place to congregate and egg each other on.
They organize harassment campaigns out of there, and it is not in our interest to grow their numbers.
We should talk about the slimepit when it’s relevant, but I’m suggesting it’s not yet relevant when a “lone wolf” misogynist stumbles in here unaffiliated with the pit.
(I’m saying this now because I was spurred by a comment from theophontes, but I’ve been wondering about it for a while.)
What do others here think?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
15 December 2012 at 5:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ah, a David Marjanović sighting. Most welcome.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 5:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
onychophora:
I blame gun culture, the which causes many, many more deaths and injuries* than just the mass-shootings that headline the news.
–
* A significant proportion of which are “accidental” — funny how tools made for killing often accidentally kill or severely wound.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 5:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Consciousness razor 78
Suddenly you have me thinking back to Number of the beast….
Caine, Fleur du mal
15 December 2012 at 5:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SG:
I don’t say this. I don’t reference the slymepit unless it’s necessary (such as pointing out certain discussions, frinst., Stefanelli.)
I do say these things.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 5:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ॐ:
I think if you want to propose it, go ahead and propose it.
(Shan’t affect me in either case)
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 5:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
michaeld @89, you allude to Heinlein’s pantheistic solipsism?
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 5:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, I already try not to do that. Besides potentially provoking them to band together, it invites them to search for any dissimilarity in their shitheaded views, no matter how superficial. Then discussion becomes about whether that difference is in anyway relevant, rather than how fucking shitheaded they are in fact being (even if it’s not as shitheaded as the slimefucks, or not in the same way or for the same reasons, etc.).
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 5:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I would love to ban most of the guns currently available. I have nothing against hunting, or target shooting, or other uses. But there is no argument that will convince me that anyone needs, or should even want, the kind of killing machines we have now. Semi-automatic handguns that can hold 17 rounds? I’ve read that the killer yesterday had one of these, plus more. What possible excuse could there be for owning one of these, other than the fantasy of one day killing a large number of people at close range?
The problem is that we do have them, and the nutjobs who somehow seem to be winning on so many fronts are never going to give them up. The SCOTUS will need to have major changes, and the other branches will need to actually think gun control is a good idea before we can ever hope they do something sensible about this.
I’m another one who has little hope that this will see real progress in my lifetime, and I’m probably too old to ever get out of here, but I can dream, and maybe help my son find a way to get somewhere sane. In the meantime, I’ll keep beating my head against the wall of exceptionalism and entitlement fantasies of asswipes.
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
15 December 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As someone who has said “go back to the slymepit”, there is merit in SGBM’s suggestion. In fact, I I agree. Will do my best to avoid comments like that.
strange gods before me ॐ
15 December 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Anybody who has/had the Secret Comic Sans script, version 6.0.1, has it automatically updated to 6.0.2 yet? If not (since it might take up to a week before an automatic check), can you force an update by going into your Greasemonkey scripts, right-clicking on Secret Comic Sans, and choosing “find updates”? The new version is functionally identical, but I am curious about whether the update mechanism will work with Wikia-hosted scripts at all.
For instance, some people were asking for FTB Recent to be the default tab in their sidebar. There is now a Greasemonkey script to do that.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
15 December 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well that tells us you’re prone to mishearing, but nothing else. Try comparing the rates of gun death in the USA with that in other rich countries with less permissive attitudes to gun ownership (see here). Interesting to note that the second worst rich country is Switzerland, often used by gun-nuts as a “refutation” of the idea that more gun ownership means more gun deaths.
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 5:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
sgbm,
Makes sense. I don’t think I ever mentioned the slimepit in relation to someone I don’t know for sure is from there, so it will be no extra work to refrain from doing it in the future as well.
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 5:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Banning guns does not address the underlying problem. It is at best an stopgap solution which may prevent death in the interim; my argument is not there.
Rather, one issue is with what seems to be the underlying idea that “boys will be boys and they’re just going to act like that!” (sorry my shorthand ‘dudes are dudes’ did not work here. Fail.)
I agree there are underlying cultural issues that must be addressed.
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
15 December 2012 at 5:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Paul:
Your mention of exceptionalism has me wondering…what do proponents of American exceptionalism mean when they use that phrase?
strange gods before me ॐ
15 December 2012 at 5:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes,
Did you decide whether you need this password or not? No hurry, just wondering.
Beatrice
15 December 2012 at 5:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There is also the underlying issue of a whole nation being raised to believe owning something primary use of which is to kill is some kind of a right.
But hey, that’s not the real problem.
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 5:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yup, the issue that “we” are raised to believe it’s our God given right (bygolly!) to control others, the nation, the ecosystem, and the world, using force if necessary.
And if someone takes that away, To Arms! We’ll make them pay if it’s the last thing we do!
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
15 December 2012 at 5:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@99:
A measure that prevents people from dying, stopgap or otherwise, is much better than continuing the path the USA is on.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
15 December 2012 at 5:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This is drivel. There are over 30,000 gun deaths per year in the USA. The “stopgap solution” you denigrate would save a large proportion of those lives, as well as far greater numbers of injuries. Moreover, in working for a gun ban, you would automatically be fighting the toxic masculinities you point to.
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 5:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John Morales
Yup. Heinlein’s a guilty pleasure of mine.
vaiyt
15 December 2012 at 5:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You’re the only one making the automatic association of guns with dudes, and then projecting it on other people.
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 5:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tony:
Even as an American, to me, the very idea seems bizarre and without any foundation at all. People who make claims about it seem to think we are somehow blessed; special in some way that truly makes us better than other peoples. Beyond criticism because, hey, we’re the Greatest Country in the World!! I think it goes back to some of the original colonists who were looking for ‘religious freedom’. Which meant freedom to oppress everyone who didn’t agree with your sect. It might have been Cotton Mather, of the Massachusetts colony, who started it, with the whole ‘shining beacon on a hill’ sentiment. America was going to be the place everyone looked to as a model for how to be, because god’s blessing.
I’m not a historian, but there’s always been a real arrogance about American destiny among Americans, and we’ve used it to justify a lot of terrible actions. Hey, everybody who isn’t us, we can piss on you because, hey, we’re better than you. Come on, deep down you know it. And don’t you dare even criticize our ‘freedoms’, because, duh, America! And, ho ho ho! None of you can have any good ideas about, well, just about anything, compared to us.
chigau (違う)
15 December 2012 at 5:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ॐ #86
I don’t know that I have ever recommended anyone to the slmpt but I won’t in the future.
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 5:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry, I did not make myself clear. Gun bans are a stopgap solution which may prevent death. I’m not arguing about their utility.
Rather, while reading various places around teh intarwebs, I saw very little “other” analysis through a social justice lens besides kneejerk reactions. I lament this. So I came here because y’all understand social justice issues, reason, etc., and that all these contribute and add to patterns we see. This problem is multifaceted, and there is not just one cause (but from reading facebooke, that’s all I hear).
michaeld
15 December 2012 at 5:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As to banning guns vs fixing underlying causes, can’t we do both. Maybe not banning outright but frankly guns should be at least as well controlled as cars (licences, registration, insurance, liability, training etc etc).
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 5:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
vaiyt: Are the perpetrators of these massacres not all male? This seems to be an epidemic amongst white males. I wonder what is wrong, sociologically, that the majority of them would fit this phenotype? Is this a symptom of a backlash? Or is it coincidence? I only have guesses.
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 5:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not sure I did it the way you asked. I went to the Greasemonkey icon on a toolbar, clicked “Manage user scripts…” and it had found the update (maybe right then), so then I could update it to 6.0.2 (from 6.0.0).
Let’s see if it works. I will now prove pantheism:
But of course we should all remain agnostic about this.
Okay, so we agree that banning guns isn’t intended to solve that problem, so what’s the problem? Is the idea that boys will be boys the only problem in the world?
caveatimperator
15 December 2012 at 5:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
consciousness razor
Especially since space and time are intertwined according to GR, can we really say that there was a time “before” the universe? Unless the universe is nested in another layer of universes, in which time is also a meaningful concept. This “explanation” reminds me of the justifications for panspermia; doesn’t truly provide a satisfying or conclusive answer and it’s hardly an “end” even if it’s true, but it feels more sensible than presupposing a godlike being for one simple reason. We are explaining a phenomenon that we know exists (life, universe) by positing an entity that more or less resembles it (life from elsewhere, another layer of universe,) instead of a timeless, transcendental entity that we can’t compare to anything we’ve ever observed before.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
onychophora, the vast majority are male, but not all.
Jennifer San Marco
caveatimperator
15 December 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also, how in the nine hells do you do line breaks around here?
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 6:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
onychophora:
I think there’s got to be something to what you say. We hear all about these terrible mass shootings, but there are plenty of shootings of ‘just’ a wife/girlfriend/children that happen all over the country every day, and they also seem to be primarily the work of white men, though definitely not always.
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 6:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
consciousness razor:
Do I have to choose just one? There are so many to choose from! How about a hierarchical social order predicated on abuse and domination?
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 6:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
caveatimperator, in the usual way: with the enter key.
If you want to get a bigger gap between paragraphs than the rendering shows by default, you can space them with non-breaking spaces <nbsp;>.
Like I have just done.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 6:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[erratum]
< >
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 6:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[FFS!]
cicely (Possibly Too-Easily Amused)
15 December 2012 at 6:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Me, too.
:( :( :( :( :(
StevoR, coddling you along is looking to be an expensive luxury. Are you worth it? Tell us why we should bother.
*stomping right back out*
-
strange gods before me ॐ
15 December 2012 at 6:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh good. Thank you, consciousness razor. That answers my underlying question of whether updating from Wikia will work at all.
Pteryxx
15 December 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
a point: as far as I know, *white* men are more likely to own guns, because of the social entanglement of black men with the criminal justice system: they’re more likely to have a criminal record (not necessarily a violent one) which makes them ineligible for licenses, and less likely to have or use guns casually because just possessing a gun, or possessing one when a crime goes down nearby, leaves them liable for increased sentencing (and suspicion and blame, etc).
Personally I have a suspicion that young black men who exhibit even slight tendencies towards becoming gun-obsessed aggressors get quickly snatched up into the criminal justice system, warranted or not, while the same behaviors tend to be tolerated in young white men.
caveatimperator
15 December 2012 at 6:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Let’s try that here. That’s the html tag I was looking for. My html-fu is not so strong.
New line is three lines down. Excellent. Thanks John!
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
15 December 2012 at 6:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
cicely:
I don’t think he is worth it. Like a few others, I have no intention of responding to anything else from him. Losing Ing was the last straw.
Caine, Fleur du mal
15 December 2012 at 6:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Obviously didn’t come across the liberal lesbian gun lover in the other thread.
As for the “it’s only dudes!1!!” nonsense, Amy Bishop comes to mind. There was another woman in Sacramento, I think, went on a shooting spree in a shopping mall. San Marcos, of course. There are more. Interestingly enough, female mass murderers don’t attract much attention.
It’s almost as if people are all stuck in this gender stereotype groove…
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 6:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@124
Even the tendency toward becoming just simply “aggressors” seems more tolerated–the strong, dominant and powerful.
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Pteryxx @124:
Makes sense to me. Violence is certainly not the realm of just white men, but gun violence seems to be more often their method of choice. Opportunity would lead to that. Firing a gun is not much more difficult than pushing a button, so why not go for that, if you can, when you’re enraged and it’s there?
(Just typing that made my stomach turn.)
The Mellow Monkey: Caerie
15 December 2012 at 6:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As terrible as mass/spree/serial murders are–and yes, white males do dominate in these cases and most especially in the cases that get heavy media coverage–this is not how most murders are committed. Anyone can be a murderer. The young white male pushed to the edge who goes to a public place and takes out a bunch of people is not the archetype for the 30,000 gun deaths we see every year in the US.
The “angry entitled white male” problem is a real issue, but it has more to do with toxic ideas about masculinity, privilege and fear than the fingers on specific triggers.
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 6:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I heard an interview on NPR last night with a reporter from Mother Jones. After the Aroura shootings, he did an in-depth article on mass shootings, and found that, by his definition, only one woman in the last thirty years had been a mass killer (Jennifer San Marco). His definition limited the events by requiring at least four deaths, other than the killer. Even with that limitation, there have been 61 in the US in the last thirty years.
This is where I got my understanding that it was mostly men doing these things. It left out Amy Bishop, for one, since she ‘only’ killed three people. 43 of the killers were white males.
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 6:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry, borked the link again.
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 6:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t understand the math or the physics, but I don’t think it’s been ruled out. Inflation could go in the past forever, like you said, so we could talk about time in terms of what is happening in a multiverse. There isn’t any need for an end-point of some kind.
Another ideas it that there could be an origin in our past, from which time symmetrically “goes forward” in both directions. That basically amounts to another part of our universe which goes on infinitely in the past, relative to the direction of time for stuff in this part of the universe. You could say there’s a finite amount of time since the origin at t=0, but there’d still be infinite time beyond that, because it’s in this other half which is just “moving” the other way.
If time somehow ends in that other half’s “future,” then the “past” for us is finite no matter how you construe it, but in that case it’s hard to tell how we could be talking about what caused stuff to exist, or what is supposed to explain everything, anyway. It would just be a question of how you measure time. That is, unless we toss time traveling designers or retro-causation into the mix too, which is about the time I would say that theory is really getting fucked up.
If all of that is ruled out with some real physics, then it may not make any sense to talk about time before the big bang.
I don’t see how it would be any more unsatisfying or inconclusive than the alternatives. What would it be leaving out?
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 7:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“Another ideas it that” -> Another idea is that
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 7:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CR,
They’re not intertwined, they’re a manifold.
But that’s irrelevant; leaving aside that without a time dimension, the concept of ‘existence’ is moot, the concept of existence before time is incoherent no less that the concept of time ‘beginning’ to exist.
jose
15 December 2012 at 7:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I humbly submit this neato study (pdf) for the horde’s consideration.
caveatimperator
15 December 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What I meant is that neither a multiverse nor panspermia provide true answers; they just push the question back farther. We still have to come up for naturalistic explanations for whatever the “original” universe or life was, whatever that may be. Both explanations are, of course, far more parsimonious than gods.
consciousness razor
15 December 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sure. I was trying to say I don’t really understand any of it: neither how to do the math, nor how physical stuff happens which is what the math is … modeling (or whatever the term is).
cm's changeable moniker
15 December 2012 at 8:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am but a small thinker from an island which harboured an American who seemed to pick up what we instinctively feel.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2012/12/gun-control
rwgate
15 December 2012 at 8:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John @ 76- Ivorybill is a regular commenter and diarist on Daily Kos. He lists Pharyngula on his blogroll list, and his post here is the same as his post on Daily Kos today around 10:15am. When I read his comment here, under a different nym, I knew I’d read it earlier today.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 8:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rwgate, yes, I figured something like that. Nonetheless, what I wrote is true.
(Conclusion: he either doesn’t know how to or does not care to bother to change his display name when commenting here; neither alternative is admirable to me, nor does your little encomium predispose me to think otherwise)
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 8:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
no, actually banning guns would solve the problem. long term.
as you note, this indeed IS a cultural issue. It’s like america has become addicted to guns and violence.
take away the guns, and the next generation will grow up without thinking guns were an automatic privilege and solution to problems.
the generation after that will be wondering why in the fuck guns were ever so ubiquitous to begin with.
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 8:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ichthyic:
But ‘cold dead hands’ is pretty real to too many folks here; including Congress and maybe the SCOTUS. I would love your generational solution.
cm's changeable moniker
15 December 2012 at 8:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I could always tell my 10-year-old, if you could tell me? (Yes, that a skip-generation thing.)
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 8:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
yeah, never said it was a politically viable solution, just thinking that theoretically, it would in fact work.
cm's changeable moniker
15 December 2012 at 8:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
the generation after that will be wondering why in the fuck slaves were ever so ubiquitous
And I’m out.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 8:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…and we call that “white privilege”
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 9:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I agree, and I can dream of someday. It’s still a huge problem, but look how far we’ve come with, for example, drinking and driving. When I was in school, thirty years ago, many — most? — people I knew did it without a thought. (I never did, but probably only because I didn’t drive until I was nearly 30). I know it’s an analogy full of holes, but things can change, and I don’t wan to stop hoping.
Amphiox
15 December 2012 at 9:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Firstly one needs to stop equating “reasonable gun controls” to “banning guns”.
Secondly, the underlying problem is a culture of guns and violence. Notice that first part of the description?
Ban guns, and you solve half the problem right there. No guns, no gun culture. So it does address the underlying problem. Half of it.
Now you’re left with is a culture of violence. But then we ask, given a culture of violence but no guns, what would be the effect? Violence would seek to express itself, but how? Given a choice between a culture of violence by fists and knives, and a culture of violence by guns, what is better?
Consider the analogy to drug addiction to a very dangerous drug, say heroin. The underlying problem is an addictive personality. Remove the heroin, what happens? Perhaps the individual will seek another addiction. So the net effect of removing the heroin will be positive if the addiction that replaces it is a safer one, and negative if the addiction that replaces it is more dangerous. And that is why one common treatment for heroin addiction is methadone. Methadone is a nasty drug, but it is safer than heroin. Net win.
Let’s go back to guns. Remove the guns, what’s left for the underlying culture of violence to resort to? What’s worse than guns? If you can give me a good argument that banning guns would lead to an increase in bazooka and tank violence, then I would say you have a valid point about “banning guns not addressing the underlying problem”.
(Incidentally, I am not actually in favor of a ban on guns. I believe in reasonable gun control, not gun banning. I do not think blanket curtailments of individual liberty should not be preferred over reasonable controls that still allow access unless it can be demonstrated that reasonable controls would not work to solve the problem, which to date on this issue it hasn’t been, and I don’t think a blanket ban on guns is actually enforceable from a practical point of view.)
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 9:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox:
Hm.
Let me try a straight substitution: ‘No gods, no god culture’.
(Nope, it doesn’t work :) )
Paul K
15 December 2012 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John Morales:
But I think we’d be much better off if guns were imaginary, too.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Paul K, as you note, it is an empirical fact that we can have X without having X culture, and we can have X culture without having X*.
(Conclusion: the problematic factor is the existence of the culture, and not the X, when the X culture is problematic)
–
* I blame the pram culture — damn you, Rebecca Watson!)
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 9:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ayup.
Caine, Fleur du mal
15 December 2012 at 10:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
Damn!
Pteryxx
15 December 2012 at 10:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…So, does overblown entitled toxic masculinity have anything to do with mass shootings? Dunno, but a handful of MRAs seem intent on trying to demonstrate a connection:
http://manboobz.com/2012/12/14/trigger-warning-a-voice-for-men-commenter-claims-that-the-newtown-shooting-is-evidence-of-the-oppression-of-men/
*rolleyes*
Caine, Fleur du mal
15 December 2012 at 10:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox:
People often opine that back in [whatever] day, disputes and such were generally settled by what is now considered an old fashioned fist fight. Of course, that still takes place, but all too often, people are now bringing guns to the fight and you get a lot of dead people.
This has been discussed a lot around here lately, because of the huge influx of people to work the oil fields. Most of them have been amazed that the majority of people here aren’t packing guns.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 10:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[belated via Caine's comment]
Amphiox:
Code duello comes to mind.
Esteleth has eaten ALL the gingerbread! Suck it!
15 December 2012 at 10:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine,
Growing up as I did in the country (70 people per square mile in the county, natch), guns were a constant fact of life.
And, thinking back, I observe that the culture said that there were three times when it was appropriate to be carrying a loaded gun:
1. You were a cop on duty, and
2. You were actively engaged in a hunt.
3. You were a farmer out on the sections of your property where predatorily wild animals (coyotes, in these parts) were seen.
At any other time, if you were a “proper” person, your gun was unloaded and secured in its case.
Esteleth has eaten ALL the gingerbread! Suck it!
15 December 2012 at 10:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And the people who weren’t “proper” were derided. And dismissed as being “not from here,” a meth-head, meth-cooker, meth-dealer, a generally bad person, or all of the above.
Ichthyic
15 December 2012 at 10:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do recall really liking West-Side Story.
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 11:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rev. BCD elsewhere:
.
Claiming that is one thing, demonstrating it is another. :)
(Post hoc rationalisations are not predictions, though tiresome I surely am to those who cannot cope with my simple truth-speaking)
onychophora
15 December 2012 at 11:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@158
I also grew up in rural America. It always fascinates me how divergent my background and conception of firearm usage is from people that grew up in large cities; I still struggle with it. Guns were just there, and they were just tools. Like a tractor or a chainsaw or something.
Owlmirror
15 December 2012 at 11:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
hm
testing:
What does this look like?
John Morales
15 December 2012 at 11:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Owlmirror, it looks like PZ hasn’t yet tweaked the code to do what it did in the past; that is, it looks to me much like it looks to you.
(Nonetheless, I have used
qtags in the expectation that he will at some point)Caine, Fleur du mal
15 December 2012 at 11:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth, I’m in Norf Dakota. This state is bristling with guns. Almost every household has at least one, including us. Rifles here, two of them, living rural as we do. Ours don’t make an appearance unless it’s pheasant season and even that hasn’t brought them out for several years.
The difference is still remarkable to those from elsewhere. There are a number of people here to work the fields from inner city life, where most people have a gun on their person and not a lot of reluctance to use it.
strange gods before me ॐ
16 December 2012 at 12:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ivorybill, you can change your display nym here. You may have to first change the “Nickname”, then click the “Update Profile” button, then change “Display name publicly as” and click “Update Profile” again.
And here is a killfile script, to save you the trouble of John Morales. :)
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 12:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ॐ:
Such as I have no need for a killfile script; for we need not limit our perceptions to appease our insecurities.
Amphiox
16 December 2012 at 12:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To make the analogy work, you have to alter it slightly to:
“No belief in gods, no god culture”.
Because what is it, exactly, that produces “god culture”, extends it, elaborates it, perpetuates it? It’s not the existence of gods, but rather the belief in gods.
If gods existed but no one believed in them, there would be no god culture (only small talking turtles, maybe).
If gods did not exist but people believed they did, there is god culture.
But gun culture is a little different, because it is centered around the object and, crucially, the effect of the object working. Whether it is “criminals” you’re self-defensing against, or animals you’re hunting, whatever, the heart of gun culture is about aiming the object at a target, pulling the trigger, and in so doing effecting physically destructive change upon that target.
One could perhaps envision a “gun culture” centered about solely belief in guns without the actual object, wherein enthusiasts point their fingers at each other and yell “BANG!”, but somehow I think that will turn out to be something very different than what we currently consider to be “gun culture” today.
consciousness razor
16 December 2012 at 12:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Doesn’t everyone like “simple truth-speaking”?
theophontes (坏蛋)
16 December 2012 at 12:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ SGBM
I just assumed, perhaps too impulsively, that because slow17 is of such like stripe to jstcr xe would know of it already. I take your point though: We should admit impediment to marriage of false minds.
[Re: TeeeOhhhAre.]
I have not had the chance to get into this properly. I have run it a few times, without success (mainland at least, no problem in HK). I am also having other problems with the PC (I suspect something dreadfully wrong with the graphics card). I’m wabbing a bit in getting it all fixed properly.
@ cicely
[Ing]
Ing stay, StevoR go!
consciousness razor
16 December 2012 at 12:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Of course, it couldn’t be about disliking something (for some unstated reason, which I’m sure is reasonable). It’s about appeasing insecurities.
chigau (違う)
16 December 2012 at 12:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John Morales
I regret to inform you that I have had hushfile for a few months now.
and I sometimes engage it.
You have never been in it.
[except for that one time I put everyone except me in it.]
[I have yet to hush myself.]
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 12:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
You misread. It wasn’t intended for you:
And here is a killfile script, to save you the trouble of John Morales. :)
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 12:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox:
There was no analogy, there was a substitution.
Nonetheless, let me apply the inverse of the very same substitution to your amended claim: “no belief in guns, no gun culture”. ;)
(Wow — it works! — though it still remains a straightforward substitution of terms and not an analogy ;) )
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 12:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine, I didn’t misread; I was noting the type of people for whom a killfile is desirable, and contrasting them to those for whom it is not.
(The needy vs. the less-needy)
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 12:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PS Evidently, ॐ is of the opinion that Ivorybill is likely to be one of the needy people.
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 12:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If only killfile could be ported to audio and to input, people could become wise monkeys!
(O happy monkey!)
Crissa
16 December 2012 at 1:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chris fucking lying about my posts and fucking letting Caine throw transphobic slurs is beyond the pale.
I know when to stand up and leave the fucking computer. But apparently they don’t.
Nepenthe
16 December 2012 at 1:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well I’m impressed with John, are you impressed? I’m impressed.
*eyeroll*
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 1:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nepenthe, nah, it takes more than that to impress me. :)
–
Crissa, you might have noticed that Chris’s tolerance level is order of magnitudes lower than PZ’s in most categories.
(If not, I hereby draw your attention to it)
Crissa
16 December 2012 at 1:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chris let a poster completely misrepresent what I said, to the point of letting her blare obscenities at me. Another poster used a specific transphobic slur that I have explained in detail why it is a slur to said poster – which is quite likely why they used it. They continued to yell at me for several more posts after I had left.
Each of those are supposedly violations of the new rules. That’s just not fucking cool.
chigau (違う)
16 December 2012 at 1:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa #178
Using xe is not transphobic.
It is an attempt to stop using gendered pronouns.
—
So far, Chris Clarke makes bunny-substitutes.
PZ will prevent you from commenting on Pharyngula.
be careful
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 1:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa:
Oh FFS. You are such a fuckwit. Gender neutral pronouns are not a slur, full stop. They are often used here when there’s uncertainty. You flatter yourself in regard to what I know about you. Generally, I ignore you and don’t bother reading your posts because there’s only so much idiocy I willfully inflict on myself.
When you do come to my notice, I tend to mix you up with a crisskentavwhatever, who I seem to remember identifying as male at one point. That was one or two years ago. So, I err on the side of caution. *shrug*
And no one lied about your posts, Cupcake. Every pixel of your fuckwittedness is there for all to see.
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 1:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau:
True; it is merely insulting and rude when applied to a self-identified female, in that it’s denying their expressed gender identity.
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 1:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
Which was not my intent whatsoever, in spite of what Crissa believes. I don’t have a perfect memory.
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 1:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine,
Fair enough, I should qualify my previous thus: “when knowingly applied”, which I believe you did not do.
(But then, intent ain’t magic has been mentioned before)
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 1:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine, your #185 and my #186 crossed.
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 1:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
No, it sure as hell isn’t. I do remember being thoroughly yelled at, along with Sally Strange and several others, by crissakentavwhatever for making the assumption of female gender, given the crissa part of the nym.
Now I’ll remember this Crissa identifies as female.
chigau (違う)
16 December 2012 at 1:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John Morales #184
Using an ungendered pronoun ‘denies’ nothing.
Using ‘he’ on an identified ‘she’ denies the identity (or vice versa).
Nepenthe
16 December 2012 at 1:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Crissa
Someone used naughty words at you? Boo-fucking-hoo.
Asshole.
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 1:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There you go, Crissa — it was not meant as a transphobic slur, rather it was a gender-neutral pronoun properly used when referring to a person whose gender is unknown to the respondent.
(Don’t give up on this place; we may be contentious (as are you! :) ), but transphobia is foreign to the ethos here and there is no tolerance of it)
–
chigau, I once again admit you have a point — it doesn’t deny, but it fails to acknowledge one’s gender.
(Surely you see how this is a sensitive issue for transgendered people)
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 1:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nepenthe, different people have different triggers.
strange gods before me ॐ
16 December 2012 at 1:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes,
Okay. I think that my
beer.7zwill help you. (By now it might have lost its fizz, but if so, I can brew up another batch.) Try downloading it, request the password, and see if what you find inside isn’t helpful.Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 1:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
Yeah, but you see, Crissa doesn’t like that. It’s fine to cuss at anyone except her, it’s fine to criticise anyone except her, and so on. And she was damn offensive and insulting to Nepenthe.
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 2:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
So you’re assuming Crissa is transgendered? Or did I miss something again? (A lot of people protest gendered/homophobic/transphobic slurs on principal). C
chigau (違う)
16 December 2012 at 2:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m going to bed.
Nepenthe
16 December 2012 at 2:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@John
People who don’t like being cursed at (shock! horror!) when they’re acting like fuckbrained assholes can scamper off to the parts of the internet where fuckwittery is tolerated but naughty words are not. And maybe let the door hit them in the ass on the way out.
strange gods before me ॐ
16 December 2012 at 2:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes,
It’s text, by the way. So you don’t have to download it to your computer inside the mainland. You can write down the contents and secret them across.
strange gods before me ॐ
16 December 2012 at 2:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa is trans. No assumption, memory.
John Morales
16 December 2012 at 2:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[Third time is enough for now]
Caine, Nepenthe: you have a point, again. (grr)
I should have written “Don’t give up on this place because you imagine it’s transphobic“, up above.
I’m not about to re-read the thread in question, but my impression was that Chrissa got triggered and it went downhill from there.
(Not that I don’t trust both your instincts (and respect you) — but I have to go by my feeling; we’ll doubtless see whether I’m being too generous here)
–
Caine,
If that is to what she took offence, then that’s the implication; again, it’s an impression, not an assumption.
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 2:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SG:
Oh shit, I had no idea. I’m so sorry for the gender neutral pronoun being taken as a slur, fuck, I’m sorry.
strange gods before me ॐ
16 December 2012 at 2:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau,
Surreal.
Like Garfield Minus Garfield.
strange gods before me ॐ
16 December 2012 at 2:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
borked:
Garfield Minus Garfield.
theophontes (坏蛋)
16 December 2012 at 3:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ SGBM
Thanks.
I’ll be back in Shenzhen on the morrow and keep you updated.
vaiyt
16 December 2012 at 3:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
About gender pronouns: I’m used to “they”.
It does not follow from the shooters being all male, that the anti-gun argument relies on shifting responsibility from men. Especially since the anti-gun argument is not directed just at spree shooters. Numerically, they’re just a tiny part in the problem of gun-related deaths.
An argument in favor of gun control relies on the practical idea that reducing the availability of guns to the common schmuck reduces the opportunity for schmucks to shoot at other people when it’s not warranted. No gender assumptions required.
It’s worked in other countries – granted, other countries don’t have large segments of the population who view the possession of guns as a basic human right (for people like them, natch – if those other different people have guns, they’re criminals and should be preemptively shot).
strange gods before me ॐ
16 December 2012 at 3:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I like Dinosaur Comics.
In Thursday’s strip, read Utahraptor’s lines in the voice of consciousness razor.
JohnnieCanuck
16 December 2012 at 4:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If anyone cares to be counted in, the Atheist Census is back and racking up the numbers.
Okay, I used preview and that is weird. Think I’ll just leave it as is, in case it helps in debugging. For the moment I am going to assume that it isn’t my screwup.
JohnnieCanuck
16 December 2012 at 4:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, so it’s only preview that was screwed up. Still weird.
opposablethumbs
16 December 2012 at 4:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, snap @ JohnnieCanuck – I just posted in the Lounge about the census being back up and was coming over here to see if anyone had mentioned it yet and you had :-)
Maybe PZ will post the update?
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
16 December 2012 at 8:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa:
Is it possible you’re assuming that Caine is aware that you are trans? If someone doesn’t interact with you on a regular basis they might have forgotten. Heck, she may not have known to begin with.
cm's changeable moniker
16 December 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I just got back from church! :-)
Kid #1 soloed the first verse of Once In Royal David’s City. And nailed it.
*proud*
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 2:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To Crissa/Charlotte/Whoever: feel free to threaten me right here on Pharyngula – leave my blog out of it. That’s for my work, not your little threats. Thanks.
coelsblog
16 December 2012 at 3:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dear Horde,
I gather that there has recently been some kerfuffle over whether atheism is a “guy thing” or not. Just registering at the atheist census I see that the gender balance is currently 75:25. You may want to click the link to balance it up a bit.
atheist census
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
coelsblog:
I can’t, because I registered the first time around. Doing it a second time would be cheating, eh?
chigau (違う)
16 December 2012 at 3:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine #212
????
Nepenthe
16 December 2012 at 4:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m just going to leave this here because I’m incoherent with disgust and rage. A conservative friend of mine on facebook, in a discussion about gun policy, explicitly states that, while uncontrolled gun ownership will lead to both mass murders like the Sandy Hook massacre and the obscene murder and suicide rate in the United States, he values the right to own guns more than the utility of banning or controlling them. He states, correctly, that conservatism and liberalism are inherently at odds because of our respective conflicting values.*
I just can’t believe that anyone would say, out loud, that repeated incidents of dead schoolchildren are an acceptable trade off for the “right” to own machines designed solely for killing people without restriction. And this is not an ignorant yokel, he’s both a life-long urbanite and one of the most rawly intelligent people I’ve ever met.
*This is a paraphrase because the friend who started the discussion by posting the “wait until they’re buried” gambit and asked for people to justify their insensitive discussing gun control cowardly deleted the post after I pointed out that silence is as useful as praying.
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 4:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chigau:
Some fuckwit going by ‘Charlotte’ quoted the exchange between SG and myself (Crissa is trans and my not knowing and being sorry about the pronoun) and said:
I’d prefer they keep their slimy tactics here.
chigau (違う)
16 December 2012 at 4:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine #217
huh.
Weird.
Caine, Fleur du mal
16 December 2012 at 4:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chigau:
A nasty little attempt at intimidation.
*shrug*
Janine: Hallucinating Liar
16 December 2012 at 9:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Said before and I am afraid that I will repeat it for the rest of my life.
There are times that I really hate my species.
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 12:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ SGBM
I went and reloaded the original TeeeOh!(Are?) that ixchel sent. It now gets no further than:
It just sticks there. This is the same as the new one. Further, a little bird told me that Teh VeeePea-En’s here no longer function. (But strangely a string of ates in the deee-EN-ehs seems to work on sell fone. But not Mr PC.)
Something afoot (there always is) I wonder?
Ichthyic
17 December 2012 at 12:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
dear coelsblog…
no.
in fact, the argument was why there weren’t more female SPEAKERS.
did you intend yourself to be ignorant of what the “kerfuffle” was actually about, or just intend to be an ass?
rorschach
17 December 2012 at 12:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theo @204,
I’ll be in Hanoi and Da Nang mid-January, we should go for drinkies!!!
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 1:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ rorschach
A stopover in Hong Kong is called for!
rorschach
17 December 2012 at 1:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
hm, I think the flight is via Ho Chi Minh from here….:-( but HK is in the pipeline, maybe in April….
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 1:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ rorschach
We can guzzle all the beers I owe SG.
I desecrated the landscape nearby, in Vung Tau. The trip there is best taken on the old Soviet era hydrofoil – that looks like a spaceship out of Flash Gordon.
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 1:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There is a pic on teh interwebz:
Pic.
rorschach
17 December 2012 at 1:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What is it down there, oil industry or something?
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 1:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes,
Don’t do that. Use the new one. I assure you the old one is never going to be better. You might as well throw the old one away.
I’m sure. Did you download
beer.7zyet? I keep asking because it is intended to deal with precisely these kinds of problems.theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 2:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Vung Tau:
It is the main holiday town in the area. Playground for the wealthy, many weekend apartments etc. It is a rather quirky place, long beaches, good food,…, gambling, kitsch and history.
I see on google earth that they have not implemented my designs (makes sign of cross, *pheeuw*)
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 2:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ SGBM
Aaah, OK. I have downloaded that. … It is shouting at me for the password now…
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 2:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I tried: “beer”.
(That is probably too obvious.)
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 2:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rN9)Tp6h;i
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 2:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry about the delay, afk.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 2:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PS, Caine has only has this argument about gender neutral pronouns almost every time he’s deemed to reply to me.
When PZ reset the rules, I stopped complaining.
I thought we weren’t supposed to be using coded words anymore. And we’ve had the ‘I’ll remember Crissa is female’ apology before, too.
*grumble*
But I’ll take the oh fuck apology. It shouldn’t take me being outed, tho, should it? Maybe it’ll stick this time.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 2:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PPS, I’d love to be seeing Shenzhen. My favorite packages come from Shenzhen. I have a huge pile of photos from my friend’s business trip there this summer.
I don’t think my wallet could take me being there, tho.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 2:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, and I have no idea who wrote on Caine’s website, although that should kinda go unsaid. I didn’t even mention this argument to anyone. Why stress about it?
rorschach
17 December 2012 at 2:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Maybe there is your problem and source of misunderstanding.
John Morales
17 December 2012 at 3:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa:
On the contrary, it needed to be said.
Because you’ve been used as bludgeon to criticise Caine on her personal blog rather than here, where you two had words; this is both nasty and cowardly.
Janine: Hallucinating Liar
17 December 2012 at 3:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine is not “he”.
And you were complaining that she was using gender neutral pronouns.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 3:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s really a non sequitur. Their mistaking each other’s gender are two independent events.
Rodney Nelson
17 December 2012 at 3:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But there’s a difference. Caine used a genderless pronoun because she was unaware of Crissa’s gender. Crissa, who got all upset about the genderless pronoun, used a gendered pronoun because she was unaware of Caine’s gender.
If anyone has a grievance then it’s Caine because Crissa made an erroneous assumption whereas Caine didn’t.
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 3:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ SGBM
I tried the beer but seem to get the same problem of hanging. “10% handshake” in log. I’ll look at my machine in HK to see what I did differently, this PM. :’(
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 3:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine wouldn’t have apologized if Crissa didn’t have a grievance.
Crissa has several times expressed her desire to not be referred to with recently contrived gender-neutral pronouns (she is okay with singular they). Sometimes regular commenters here have responded by deliberately misgendering her to taunt her. She is probably still sensitive to that history, which she remembers since it was stressful and personal for her, which others have more easily forgotten.
Caine apologized, Crissa accepted this. If Caine wants to talk about Crissa calling her “he”, Caine will.
John Morales
17 December 2012 at 3:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ॐ:
Indeed, and if others wish to, they too will do so.
I do so now: alludes to multiple interactions; I find it hard to believe that Crissa had not yet fathomed Caine’s gender at the time of writing that, in particular when Crissa seems very sensitive to gender issues and Caine hardly hides her gender identity.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 4:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John Morales,
You, more than other commenters, seem to have a habit of producing
blockquotes that do not contain aptag; i.e. the text node inside is a direct child of the blockquote.If you know how you do that, would you please do it right now and add a
cite=creationistattribute to the blockquote? If you don’t know, would you just do your usual thing and addcite=creationist?Thanks in advance, for trying at least, even if it doesn’t work. (Might have been an older WordPress feature/bug.)
Beatrice
17 December 2012 at 4:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Uh, I guess I’m the only one whose first thought after seeing Crissa calling Caine he was that it was done intentionally, in order to provoke a reaction such as the one it has successfully provoked, possibly using it as evidence of a double standard.
John Morales
17 December 2012 at 4:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ॐ, I do?
Sure, and here it is:
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 4:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Perfect. Thank you.
John Morales
17 December 2012 at 4:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice, oddly-enough, I tend to be generous at first, because I think Hanlon’s razor is a good heuristic absent sufficient prior knowledge.
So, no, that was not my first thought .
Beatrice
17 December 2012 at 4:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John Morales,
We can just point to this when I tell people I’m actually an asshole quite often, and they answer that I always seem nice. A suspicious asshole.
kate_waters
17 December 2012 at 4:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I just want to point this out, because I think it’s important that it does not become forgotten:
Crissa LIED. Crissa was called out on that lying. Crissa doubled down and lied some more. Crissa was called out, yet again, for lying. Crissa threw a hissy fit for being called a lying liar who lies. Crissa made ableist remarks. Crissa then threw a hissy fit that they were being labeled as an ableist asshole for being an ableist asshole and then did some more ableist fuckwittery.
Crissa is a lying, ableist asshole.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 4:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PZ, this CSS for commenter-accessible Gumby should be specific enough to work. Instead of that kludgy code+p+blockquote trick, this is legit.
div.comment-entry blockquote[cite~="creationist"] {background: url("http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2011/08/tiny_gumby_trans.gif") no-repeat scroll 0 0 transparent; font-family: "Comic Sans MS",MarkerFelt,MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}div.comment-entry blockquote[cite~="creationist"] p {font-family: "Comic Sans MS",MarkerFelt,MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}
I’ll crosspost to the “hey it looks different” thread.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 4:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hm. That overrides the Secret Comic Sans script. I suppose some users have been using both, selectively. Maybe to keep them separate instead, replace
creationstwith something else, likegumby.div.comment-entry blockquote[cite~="gumby"] {background: url("http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2011/08/tiny_gumby_trans.gif") no-repeat scroll 0 0 transparent; font-family: "Comic Sans MS",MarkerFelt,MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}div.comment-entry blockquote[cite~="gumby"] p {font-family: "Comic Sans MS",MarkerFelt,MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 4:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 4:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PZ,
qshould have already been specific enough on its own, but, to future-proof:div.comment-entry q {font-family: "Comic Sans MS", MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}Or you could keep plain
qunaltered, so that people familiar with other blogs don’t accidentally ComicSans someone. Instead:div.comment-entry q[cite~="gumby"] {font-family: "Comic Sans MS", MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}John Morales
17 December 2012 at 4:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Code hacker’s in flight. Evening delight!
Caine, Fleur du mal
17 December 2012 at 4:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa:
That is a flat out lie, Crissa. I use gender neutral pronouns fairly often and I only use them when I am uncertain about someone’s preference. If I make a mistake, I own up to it and try not to repeat it. As I’m sure you’re aware, I comment quite a lot, so mistakes will happen once in a while. You really do flatter yourself in thinking that I pay so much attention to you. I don’t. Most of the time, you reside in my killfile. I don’t particularly like telling you that, as I tend to think killfiles are private business. Sometimes I may respond to something you wrote that another person has quoted, which may have led to fuck ups on my part. That’s sloppy and stupid on my part and I won’t do it anymore.
You not complaining. Right.
Coded words? What are you talking about now? If I have done the ‘Crissa is female’ apology before, I damn well don’t remember it. I don’t really consider you terribly trustworthy in this regard, Crissa.
Yes, yes, this is about all you ever fucking do.
Oh FFS! You scream, cuss, yell and have a fucking temper tantrum over me using a gender neutral pronoun on the basis you take it as a transphobic slur (which it is not), so I try to find out what the fuckety fuck is going on and you’re going to accuse me of causing you to be outed? Could you possibly be more godsdamned annoying?
For what it’s worth, Crissa, I was appalled when I did find out about you and felt absolutely terrible about hurting your feelings. It was not intentional and despite you holding the grudge of the century against me, I would not deliberately do that to anyone.
I don’t like you, you’re a nasty piece of work. Notwithstanding, I am not in the least transphobic and have never once in my life done anything to knowingly hurt someone on that score and that includes you.
Why on earth should that go unsaid? You’ve had a hate-on for me for a long time, Crissa, because I dared to criticise what you have said. You certainly couldn’t manage to let one gender-neutral pronoun slide and you raised such a stink about it, I think it’s fairly clear you “mentioned” the ‘argument’ a great deal.
Did I say I was stressed? Here’s the thing, Crissa – I don’t care for being threatened. I realize you’re happily handwaving this away because it’s happening to me. Why don’t you picture the screaming tantrum you’d have if it happened to you? Might give a clue or three.
One more thing, Crissa. Did you notice how I didn’t have a fit over you using an incorrect pronoun when you referred to me?
coelsblog
17 December 2012 at 5:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dear Ichthyic
The original question to Shermer and Shermer’s response were indeed about female speakers. The subsequent commentary, such as Ophelia Benson’s article, certainly did broaden the topic to atheism overall being “a guy thing”.
Neither.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 5:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/18/if-only-hed-been-a-good-christian-he-might-have-gotten-away-with-murder/
Rodney Nelson
17 December 2012 at 5:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa’s “grievance” was based on Caine being unaware of Crissa’s gender and using a gender-neutral pronoun. To me, and this is strictly my opinion, Crissa didn’t have a grievance, she had a whine. Caine, being a polite person, apologized for her ignorance. Crissa has yet to apologize for her assumption of Caine’s gender.
But the real reason why SGBM is bringing the whole thing up is that SGBM likes to play thread cop. Caine is his target this time.
Caine, Fleur du mal
17 December 2012 at 5:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SG:
Yes, and? Gee, I explained about GNPs and I see that was Crisskentavr whatever the fuck, who had a massive fit at one point because people used she/her. I’ve explained GNPs in a lot of threads, SG, to a lot of different people. Crissa claimed I only did it with her, ever.
Christ, I am done with this. Crissa, you are fucking killfiled. SG, if you have a problem with me, just get it out already. I am not climbing on a cross over someone who has a serious grudge nor will I do it to appease you.
John Morales
17 December 2012 at 5:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rodney:
Bah. ॐ may or may not like playing “thread cop”, but what he’s done here is what you yourself have done: expressed his opinion on the issue in response to another’s opinion on said issue.
(Nor was Caine his target, you were his target, if by target you mean the person to whom he addressed his comment and who he was disputing)
Caine, Fleur du mal
17 December 2012 at 5:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes, silly me, receiving a threat. The fucking nerve, eh?
*eyeroll*
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 5:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I didn’t bring up shit. Read for comprehension and then either have the decency to apologize to me or go fuck yourself, Rodney.
What I said to you is that Caine apologized and Crissa (at the time appeared to) accept the apology. There is nothing wrong with me saying this. I believe you are trying to start a fight with me.
It’s a link.
Lawd. Can I *eyeroll* gently?
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 5:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rodney:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/15/thunderdome-12/comment-page-1/#comment-514757
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/15/thunderdome-12/comment-page-1/#comment-514784
Check carefully whether 199 comes after 178.
Beatrice
17 December 2012 at 5:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, after this, I think no one reading Thunderdome will ever forget that they need to refer to Crissa using female pronouns.
I try to be sensitive about people’s desired gender expression, so I use “they” when I’m not sure about someone. I find Crissa’s argument about using “invented” pronouns really stupid, but that’s just me. They are all invented, some are just newer than the others. If the new ones get used often enough, they’ll become standard. I usually use “they”, but the non-standard pronouns can sometimes make sentences sound less awkward.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 5:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rodney,
I think you have the luxury of feeling that way because you are cis. I think John groks the issue:
I think Caine grokked the issue too and apologized accordingly:
That’s not simply a “polite” apology. That distinctly appears to be the apology of someone who realizes they may have unintentionally hurt someone and they regret doing so.
If you can’t appreciate that, that’s not my problem. Don’t start a fight with me about your callousness, Rodney.
That’s true.
Beatrice
17 December 2012 at 5:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, and I do realize that for Crissa, the neutral pronoun can be especially hurtful and she should be addressed as she asked to be addressed.
My disagreement in 266 is about her general statement.
Caine, Fleur du mal
17 December 2012 at 6:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Beatrice:
I suppose not. As far as I’m concerned, Crissa can keep her pronoun persecution complex and SG can hold up her halo. I don’t need threats over it or any more grief. I’m out of here.
Happy holidaze to all.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 6:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So far as she argues that no one should call third parties by those pronouns, I find that argument sort of hopeless, since there are a considerable number of trans and genderqueer people who prefer them.
So far as she insists upon not being called by those pronouns herself, end of discussion. I quote SallyStrange from June: “general rule of thumb: follow people’s suggestions for how they want to be addressed, whether you think it’s bullshit or not.”
Eh, they’ll never get used enough, because singular they is already standard. That niche is already occupied.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 6:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine, you are dreaming.
Certainly I’ve done nothing wrong to you here — I’ve explicitly defended your intentions. I don’t know what you want, but you are wildly misrepresenting me and I don’t like it.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 6:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine apologized twice. What gives?
Anyhow:
Not exactly an assumption on my part. Sure, someone could choose a name with a gender aside from the one they prefer, but at that point they should probably tell me which pronouns they want. But they chose the gendered name, it’s up to them to disabuse me of the assumption. It’s part of what one chooses as their appearance.
Personally, I find third-gender pronouns horribly offensive. I’ve seen them used as such; and it’s harder to turn ‘they’ into an invective – it’s not a novel word, for instance. Calling someone cutesy diminutives can also be seen as a horrible affront. We’ve had this discussion several times, so while some people may have forgotten – they were informed at some point in the past.
I did not intend to dismiss Caine’s receiving a threat. What I meant was that I would not ‘stress’ and go off and tell others or pursue it beyond this board.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 6:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PS, Kate can call me a liar, but at no point did I lie. I didn’t even mistype. I read it dozens of times to be sure. If Kate wants to prove me a liar, that’s fine. I may have mistyped or wrote a bad argument. It happens. But I have yet to see a single point where Kate has posted my contradictions.
If I recall, the error is on Kate’s part. It is a logical fallacy to assume because any proportion of set A fits into B that set B fits to A in a specific proportion.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 6:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PPS: Caine’s gender isn’t in the icon (not that is common) nor on the attached blog (a little bit more common) and hasn’t been mentioned by Caine directly as far as I can tell anywhere on this page. Caine has used french words with female tenses to refer back to themself if I do a web search, but that’s about it. Hardly wearing it on your sleeve.
Then again, I don’t refer to myself directly, either, aside from using a female name and a icon of a female figure. However, as has been pointed out, I’ve repeatedly – more than once – expressed my position on the topic.
And that’s way more than needed to be said.
Matt Penfold
17 December 2012 at 6:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How do Americans and Canadians cope with recipes where the amount of other ingredients depends on the total weight of the eggs being used ?
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 7:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ SGBM
I am typing this from my laptop, connected to Teeh-0-are. I got the following error in the log:
Solution: Pour libations (strawberry and apple daiquiri) to the Doublepape.
(Real Solution: Added as many bridges as I could get my claws on.)
Slow, but it works…
kate_waters
17 December 2012 at 7:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa:
You lied. You know you did. You were asked to leave a thread because you lied, and here you are, lying about lying about lying.
You’re a nasty, disgusting liar.
You lie. You get caught lying and try to lie your way out of it even though the evidence of your lies is there for all to see.
If you like, I can go back and quote the specific lies to which I am referring in the “got you kicked out of a thread” example.
…or you can just cop to your shitty behaviour and quit being such an asshole. (I highly doubt, however, that you’ll stop being an asshole. That seems to be all you know how to do.)
kate_waters
17 December 2012 at 8:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Matt Penfold # 275
Use a scale? Most scales have both metric and imperial measurements. Otherwise you just do some quick math. 28 grams equals one ounce. 454 grams equals one pound. It’s not hard.
kate_waters
17 December 2012 at 8:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also @ Matt:
You’d be surprised at the number of Canadians who use imperial measurements in cooking and baking. I use cups, pints, quarts, pounds and ounces almost exclusively. It’s what I grew up using, and it’s how most of the recipes I use are written.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 8:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I was offended by everything I quoted in my #264, but in retrospect, I should have taken into consideration how Caine had had a stressful exchange here and then received a message on her blog that she found threatening. This could account for her feeling beseiged generally and thus misinterpreting something I said as an attack against her. I regret that I did not think of that when I replied. I figure this a misunderstanding and I wish I had responded with more kindness.
Nothing similarly accounts for Rodney’s response, so I believe he was attacking me maliciously. I am tired of being a convenient scapegoat, and I hope for a retraction.
opposablethumbs
17 December 2012 at 10:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hushfile and comic sans have both just disappeared for me today (I mean they’re gone again, after having been successfully restored since the change of appearance); could you tell me what I need to do to get them back? I’ve got hushfile 6.0.1 and comic sans 6.0.2. Many thanks for the help!
cicely (Possibly Too-Easily Amused)
17 December 2012 at 11:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cannot agree with this; ‘they’ is used at least quasi-invectively all the time…
“They don’t feel things the same way we do!”
“They should just shut up about “what they are owed” and get a job, dammit!”
…in other words, to “other” others.
-
cicely (Possibly Too-Easily Amused)
17 December 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
All words are meant to be used for communication.
I’m not sure there is any word you can use, that can’t be used (with malice a-duringthought) to communicate something nasty.
-
ChasCPeterson
17 December 2012 at 11:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
True. But that’s in its usual third-person plural.
The discussion was about using ‘they’ as gender-free third-person singular.
(About which: blah blah Chaucer blah Shakespeare. It grates. I don’t like it. But it’s better than ‘xe’. That’s my personal opinion. I sort of prefer ‘s/he’–and ‘her/his’ to ‘hir’–but I’m a stick in the mud. Are there more than two genders? Not in the English language. [Of course, I include myself in one of those two; I understand it's not so easy for some.])
carlie
17 December 2012 at 1:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That doesn’t even make sense. Either it was a conscious swipe at you because of knowing you’re trans, or your complaint requires being outed to understand, which necessarily means she didn’t know your status when making the statement. You can’t have it both ways.
Again, you’re trying to have it both ways. You can’t airily claim not to know Caine’s gender after all of the times she’s posted explicitly about it and claim that everyone should remember every comment you’ve ever made. You’re not a special snowflake we should all have burned onto our memories. This is especially true when you’re taking offense to a term that is, in its most common uses, not being used as a pejorative term.
md
17 December 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rare instances of violence make bad cases for policy. The raw emotions do make it irrresistable for some, though.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/15/4-archetypally-awful-reactions-to-sandy/singlepage
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 3:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
md is linking to a right-wing libertarian site, if you want to save yourselves the trouble of clicking on it.
+++++
opposablethumbs,
That’s weird. Is your monkey turned on? In Firefox’s Tools menu go to Greasemonkey and see if Enabled is checked.
Or in your Navigation Toolbar at the top of the screen (where the URL bar is) or the Add-on Bar at the bottom (where a link’s destination URL preview pops up when you mouseover the link), look for the monkey’s head. Click on it and see if the colors get brighter. It may have been grayed out, indicating that Greasemonkey was turned off.
Try refreshing the page once you’re certain it’s turned on. But if you’re using Chrome, sorry, I can’t begin to guess.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 3:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
carlie, there’s no reason to continue the argument. A previous incarnation of the argument has been posted; if I recall there’s several more, I’m not sure how much is retained since some of it was on second-page-comments. It’s unimportant, the argument is over. Caine apologized to me, and did not seek one from me. I’m not going to passive-aggressively use pronouns not requested… Something which has happened here.
And no, it shouldn’t take being outed to get an apology – merely pointing out that the word is seen as a slur. It doesn’t matter if someone is the whatever being slurred, does it? It still hurts if it hurts.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 3:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Though I suppose if I were to begin to guess, I’d say, ask somebody who knows Chrome whether there’s a way to toggle all user scripts on and off.
Ogvorbis: Exhausted and broken
17 December 2012 at 3:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
META
Some phrases that show up on Pharyngula look really, er, strange? out of context. Even in context, sometimes.
/META
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 3:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Now a different topic: Kate is very angry with me, but never, ever links back to this lie I supposedly said.
Even if every murder in the country were due to clinical depression (this is just using actual numbers, not that I’m suggesting that any proportion let alone a majority) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm they would be vastly outnumbered by those diagnosed with the most severe form of depression: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/depression.htm In fact, there were 383,000 hospitalizations (2009) for depression and only 17,000 murders (2008), assuming the two years are typical. And that’s just depression, and just hospitalizations!
Violence is atypical. And probably should be. It’s not a great step to think that those who’d make that choice are under some sort of mental illness or injury.
But I also said that it’s not a useful label.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 4:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The argument that one did terrible things and yet was not in any way mentally injured is also a stigmatization of mental illness – that accepting that the decision tree and actions were not sane is more scary than accepting that you’ve done them!
Ugh.
But anyhow, as far as I can tell, Kate is saying I said most people suffering from mental illness have the symptom of violence. Which, as far as I can tell, I never did say. I do not have the position, and I can not find where I might have accidentally said it.
joed
17 December 2012 at 4:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Psychologically speaking, why do these shooters go after the most defenseless of people.
Hopefully this is the right thread to bring this up.
What really gets me to thinking is the question as to why these sort of tragedies are directed at the most defenseless of people?!
Why don’t these shooters attack a police station or military base? Seems they don’t have an escape plan or end up killing self as planned any way?
Is there some psychological advantage(whatever that is) to going after children?
Anyone have any ideas they care to share?
Owlmirror
17 December 2012 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Am I being paranoid?
Is there a term for pasting in footage that subtly undermines the current voiceover in a video?
Context: 60 minutes did a segment on the Newtown massacre. One of the points that came up was that Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. Note that this was hearsay, from neighbors reporting what Lanza’s mother claimed. 60 minutes read from a statement from an Asperger’s support group.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-18560_162-57559459.html
And while the voiceover said:
the footage that they chose to show was of police and emergency workers walking through the streets outside the school.
Was it just an editing decision that was made in haste and whose impact was not well thought out? Or was it maybe something less pleasant?
vaiyt
17 December 2012 at 4:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Typical sheltered affluent first-world view. Do you think your neck of the woods is special? That you see less violence because your people are more mentally healthy? Are all those people dying in third-world countries just sick in the head, the poor retards? Think again, if you can use your brain at all. Fucking idiot.
If that were true, we would see patterns of violence that correlate to mental disease rather than societal aspects. Do you have any evidence that indicates so?
consciousness razor
17 December 2012 at 4:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not this shit again. You’re making a very giant leap.
There doesn’t need to be any functional problem or abnormality with a person’s brain when they do something unethical. You’re just plain confused if you think you can turn every ethical or epistemological problem into a purely psychological one. Simply making irrational or unethical decisions does not imply you have some kind of fucking health problem, for fuck’s sake. And you’re doing no one any favors by pretending to know what you’re talking about with this handwaving nonsense. So shut up.
cm's changeable moniker
17 December 2012 at 4:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Shorter joed:
Um, no. Please fuck off.
joed
17 December 2012 at 4:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The military kills women and children and all sorts of defenseless folks often. The shooters get rewards for the killing. These soldiers are at the peak of physical health.
These killings are ordinary and usual and happen daily. Healthy humans are capable of the most heartbreaking, immoral acts.
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
17 December 2012 at 4:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crissa:
Do you have any evidence for your claim that violence is atypical? Or are you just better enlightened than the rest of humanity? From what I’ve seen, humans have exercised violent tendencies since forever, and continue to do so every hour of every day across the planet. Violrnce among human beings is *extremely* typical. Do you live on Paradise Island or something?
joed
17 December 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@297
Gosh CM wouldn’t you like to have some ideas about why these shooters go after defenseless folks rather than attack military or police. I sure am interested in the why of this. Certainly skepticism is real important and actual knowledge is necessary. I have the skepticism but not the knowledge therefore I asked.
Sounds like you have a problem with that?! Or are you venomous just for fun?
cm's changeable moniker
17 December 2012 at 4:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not venomous. I have lots of answers to your questions. I’m just not interested in feeding your narcissistic need to use every fucking tragedy in the world to make every internet discussion thread about your feelings about the US military.
As I said.
Please fuck off.
I’m asking nicely.
Ichthyic
17 December 2012 at 4:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
gotta go with CM here. Joed’s obsession with warfare would be poignant, if it wasn’t so tiresome and artificial.
consciousness razor
17 December 2012 at 4:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s easier to attack defenseless people, compared to the military or police, partly because they are defenseless are partly because there are more defenseless “targets” than there are well-defended ones, and partly because they’re likely to interact with defenseless people more often giving more chances for a violent response to occur. It may also be some who commit violence are in some way sympathetic to such authority figures, perhaps thinking they are allied together in violently defending the prevailing social structure as they see it. (You get this sort of mindset in the US with gun-toting “patriots” in “militias.”)
Lots of possibilities, but some of the answers are pretty fucking obvious. It’s easier.
consciousness razor
17 December 2012 at 5:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I probably shouldn’t have responded to joed. I don’t really want to encourage him to ask even more stupid questions.
Owlmirror
17 December 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hm.
Is Facebook a Factor in Psychotic Symptoms?
?!?!?!?!??!!!?!???
opposablethumbs
17 December 2012 at 5:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My monkey is indeed turned on now and everything is as it should be again. (it didn’t occur to me to check, as I certainly didn’t consciously turn it off – but also because I really am just that much of a technosaur). Thank you very much, strange gods before me ॐ . I really appreciate the fact that even technosaurs can get help with (embarrassingly) simple questions (without adding to the embarrassment :-D) (I have Firefox. I like Firefox, it doesn’t seem to present me with awkward surprise faits accomplis too often :-) )
cm's changeable moniker
17 December 2012 at 5:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John Rentoul wants that question!
Probably, that one, too.
—
@Ichthyic, I didn’t grok your #147. But, for what it’s worth, my #146 wasn’t a poke at you, it was just (Saturday was a really ranty day for various reasons) a ranty snark at the fact that no matter what shit you try and stamp out, there’ll always be some good old boys (and they seem to always be boys) who want things back the way they were at some historically-privileged time they imagine they could have lived in.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
17 December 2012 at 5:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A typically stupid generalization.
joed
17 December 2012 at 6:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@303 consciousness razor
Thanks for the ideas about the “why” defenseless people.
I have talked with gun-toting “patriots” and seems the ones I have talked with have problems with just about everybody.
What is “stupid” about wanting to get some reasonable/educated ideas about why people do this?
Thanks for the response you did come up with.
cm's changeable moniker
17 December 2012 at 6:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You know, I used to live in Belfast. Care to try that one over again? (Remember, I’m being nice.)
SC (Salty Current), OM
17 December 2012 at 6:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I check in after a long absence, clicking on a comment by Owlmirror, and the first thing that catches my eye is
Actual recent conversation with my mother (who for some reason believes I can help her with computer issues):
My Mother: I keep getting a thing that says “Adobe Flashdancer has…”
Me: laughter
My Mother: That’s what it’s called….
consciousness razor
17 December 2012 at 7:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You easily could’ve anticipated some of the reasons. There’s no one answer to the question you posed, because it isn’t clear what the question really is. It’s not clear whether we need to explain basic concepts to you, or if you realize some of that and are trying to ask something more specific about specific kinds of incidents or specific people. If you did some of that work yourself while setting up the question, there wouldn’t be as much reason to dumb down the answers. But when we’re dumbing everything down, I call that “stupid” and “unreasonable.”
And in this case, you’re apparently asking the question in such an asinine way, because you have an axe to grind with the military (and the police?), perhaps just the US military in particular. I’m a pacifist, so what I find repugnant about this line of thought is that you seem to think it would be good if people in the police/military were murdered, and I don’t think anyone should be murdered. So that pisses me off too.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
17 December 2012 at 7:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What is stupid is that you expect people other than yourself to do your research. What part of that do you need explained to you in words of one syllable or less??? DO IT YOURSELF, AND LEAVE US OUT OF YOUR PARANOIA.
Pteryxx
17 December 2012 at 7:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
seems like as good a place as any to leave this. It’s already been noted that the gun lobby’s basically prevented research that might lead to suggesting gun control, which is part of why the field’s befogged. Just saw a Salon article pointing out that the “more guns less crime” theory is based on flawed research:
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/the_answer_is_not_more_guns/
joed
17 December 2012 at 7:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@313
Nerd, these questions are part of my research.
Why are you so full of hate today. Not necessary you know.
joed
17 December 2012 at 8:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@312
You are way off, I don’t want anyone to be victim of violence.
My question is straightforward. Why do these shooters attack defenseless people rather than people that can defend self? There are perhaps many answers to this and skepticism is important when looking at this question.
If I haven’t finetuned the question it is probably because I am not sure how to, but I wont let that stop me from asking. If you don’t want to attempt an answer then fine–don’t, but venom and malediction is not warranted.
Thank you
Sophia, Michelin-starred General of the First Mediterranean Iron Chef Batallion
17 December 2012 at 8:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Really?
Why?
What’s easier? When you have a gun, facing someone else who has the ability to kill you, or someone who is unarmed, or armed with a vastly less lethal weapon?
People are cowards. RWA wingnuts even more so. When’s the last time an armed shootout broke out in a gun club or at a firing range? When people shoot at other people with guns, we call it war and name the survivors heroes.
joed
17 December 2012 at 8:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OK, I forgot this is the Thunderdome. venom, malediction are almost necessary.
Sorry.
Sophia, Michelin-starred General of the First Mediterranean Iron Chef Batallion
17 December 2012 at 8:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Venom? Where?
I thought it was simply a statement of the blindingly obvious.
Crissa
17 December 2012 at 9:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m sorry, all evidence seems to point out that with less stress, mental injury, and less dire need, there’s less violence. There’s also less mental illness – at least in illnesses impacted heavily from outside factors, like depression.
So I’ll continue; violence is atypical. The vast majority of humans never commit a violent crime. A goodly number are never pressed into a violent defense, either.
A few per 100,000 is atypical, not typical.
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
17 December 2012 at 9:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Again: where is your evidence?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
17 December 2012 at 9:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hence your paranoia about drone operations. Do you have anything to feel guilty about? Or are you just a quivering mass of jello?
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 9:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Typo in that Salon article. Ms. Rosh’s first name was Mary.
+++++
opposablethumbs, it’s a very common question. You can reduce the chance of accidentally toggling it by removing the monkey’s face from your toolbars (you’ll probably want to use the method of ‘Context-click (right-click) on a blank spot in the toolbar and select “Customize”‘).
+++++
Any port in a storm. :)
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
17 December 2012 at 9:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You know what, I find it galling that you-crissa-whined about Kate not linking to your lies, yet here you are making an extraordinarily stupid, unevidenced claim. So put up or shut up. At this point, I think I’d rather you-and Joed-shut up.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 9:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rectal revelation.
Note the evasion of this point (not for the first time).
consciousness razor
17 December 2012 at 9:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Could you do any more handwaving? If you had all the evidence, maybe you would share just one piece of it with us.
People are violent every fucking day, all over the fucking planet. So in what sense is that “atypical”?
The vast majority of people with mental illness never commit a violent crime. What are we supposed to conclude from that?
What do you think your fucking point is? A few what per 100,000 what?
Whatever it is, how the fuck it supposed to get you from violence to “mental illness”? Show your work.
strange gods before me ॐ
17 December 2012 at 9:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
http://pediatrics.about.com/od/childabuse/a/05_abuse_stats.htm
ChasCPeterson
17 December 2012 at 9:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
jesus. I find myself trying to imagine SC’s mother.
[exercise for the reader: try to imagine my mom.
\
bwaha.]
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
17 December 2012 at 9:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m loving ‘rectal revelation’!
****
Why do I get the feeling crissa is only focusing on _some_ types of violence? I think of all domestic violence and sexual abuse cases. I look at sports (football, boxing, Ultimate Fighter, etc). I think of homicide, mass murder and war. I think of drug deals gone wrong and turf war fights. Hell even drunken bar fights. Crissa must live in a bubble to think violence is atypical. What’s next: sex happens occasionally?
SC (Salty Current), OM
17 December 2012 at 10:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Mother of SC
Has MST written all over it.
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
17 December 2012 at 10:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
crissa:
From SGBM’s link above–
For the year 2006, 325K children were physicaly abused. Thats violence. That number exceeds your deeply stupid figure of 100K. And that is only one type of violence and only in the US at that.
Have you done _any_ research beyond anal gazing?
wytchy
17 December 2012 at 10:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You have to admit, that blinking brown eye can be mesmerizing.
vaiyt
17 December 2012 at 10:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Key words being outside factors. Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, that’s the common point that makes violence more common in some places than in others?
Wow, you just did an acrobatic fucking pirouette of logic there.
Plenty of behaviors are atypical without being associated with mental illness. You’re pulling up a correlation out of your ass.
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
17 December 2012 at 10:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You know I’m sensing a trend here. Mesmerizing brown eyes. Rectal revelations. Anal gazing. Jinkies. I think these are clues. To the Mystery Machine!
Amphiox
17 December 2012 at 10:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The vast majority of humans never walk on the moon.
So, Neil Armstrong is mentally ill?
theophontes (坏蛋)
17 December 2012 at 11:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ SGBM
The martini has landed.
SC (Salty Current), OM
17 December 2012 at 11:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Define “violent crime.”
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 5:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, dear-me-oh-my, Crissa (That poor little speshul snowfwake) is upset that I didn’t link to her lies immediately? Oh, my, I am SOOOOO sorry that my off-net life intruded on your pathetic whining, Crissa. Poor little idiot. Give me 10 minutes and I’ll go back into the almost 1000 comment thread and pull them out for you, since you’re too much of a fucking asshole to just cop to your bullshit and stop with the fucking stupidity.
…and while I’m on the subject of you being a fucking useless twit I’d like to ask you this:
If people were supposed to know you were trans, how the fuck could you be “outed”? You can’t have it both fucking ways, sunshine.
Fuck, but you’re a fucking stupid asshole. You want everyone to hold your hand and feel sorry for you and get yourself all in a tizzy when you’re not treated like some special person we should all respect, when you’ve shown no respect for anyone else.
You give what you get, you shit-for-brains.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 6:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Here, at comment #260, one example is pointed out by Chigau:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/14/before-you-reach-for-the-its-not-guns-its-the-cray-cray-argument/comment-page-1/#comment-514198
…and you need to apologize for your ableist crap, right fucking now. If you want apologies for being offended you had better fucking start apologizing for your offensive crap.
You were told to stop being ableist, and you keep doing it … over and over and over.
STOP IT. STOP IT AND APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOUR.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 6:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I would like to ask everyone in this thread who is engaging Crissa to please go back to her cpomments and replace “mental illness” or “mentally ill” in her comments with the words:
“Being a POC” and “POC”
– or –
“Homosexuality” and “Homosexual”.
Do that, and you’ll see why asking for “evidence” on the matter, or treating Crissa as if they are trying to engage in a “conversation” is not only ludicrous, but deeply, terribly offensive.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 7:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…and this is the last thing I’m going to say in regards to the Crissa idiocy:
If she didn’t want to be fucking “outed” all she had to say was “I am a woman, please refer to me as ‘her’ and ‘she’”
Instead, Crissa chose to be, yet again, a complete fucking asshole and have a pity party for herself, the same way she accused mods of “abusing their position” for “comic sans-ing” her over her bullshit. (Although she seemed to be too stupid to realize it was the author of the tread who is the only one who can make that happen.)
Crissa seems to think she’s got some “right” to continue to act in a manner which is offensive and that her “speech” ought to be without consequences, while fully expecting others to face consequences for their speech.
With that said, I’m killfiling her ass. I can’t take anymore of her shit, and she can join Morales and a few select others who, over the years I’ve been reading Pharyngula, have proved themselves to be the lowest of the low. If she continues to whine about a lack of “evidence” for her lying bullshittery please go read the threads on the Newtown shootings and do a quick search for her username. You’ll find all the proof you need.
rorschach
18 December 2012 at 8:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ 341,
Who the fuck are you that you would dare to pontificate like this here, call people “the lowest of the low”, as someone who as far as I can see has never participated in any comment threads until maybe very recently? If you killfiled John Morales, please do make sure you killfile me as well if you haven’t done so yet, because I don’t want to be read by you.
rorschach
18 December 2012 at 8:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Owlmirror @305,
This sounds very plausible. Ironically, Facebook is also a great screening tool and early-warning system for suicidality, I see on average one or two patients every week brought to the Emergency Department by police for urgent Psych evaluation based on suicide notes or thoughts posted on their Facebooks.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 8:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@rorschach
Well, then, I guess it’s completely impossible for people to lurk and not participate, isn’t it? …and no, I don’t think you get to ask me not to read you, if you’re going to post here publicly. My killfile is mine, and mine alone, to fill or empty at my pleasure. Don’t like it? Ask to have me banned or stop posting.
I killfiled Morales because I have no patience for his pedantic BS wherein he treats real, suffering humans as little more than facets of an intellectual exercise, and when asked to cease this silliness he not only refuses, but seems to think that living, breathing, suffering people don’t really have the right to ruin his “fun”.
If you like, I can go back to the post where that shit caught my attention, but it may take a bit because it was almost a year ago.
Oh, wait… that’s right… it’s **TOTALLY COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE** that I’ve been lurking for several years, isn’t it? Or that I could have formed an opinion about people based on thousands of comments made by them over that time? Yes. Impossible. Totally impossible. I must have dreamed it all, right?
Sheesh.
Caine, Fleur du mal
18 December 2012 at 9:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rorschach:
An excellent commenter and someone who wrote an article which featured in one of Chris’s recent posts.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 10:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, Caine. I am not Kate Donovan! That’s not me! Don’t confuse me with her, please, you’re doing Ms. Donovan a GREAT disservice! She’s an excellent writer, and I’d venture to say a lovely person. I don’t really think I’m either of those things.
keresthanatos
18 December 2012 at 10:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“and she can join Morales and a few select others who, over the years I’ve been reading Pharyngula, have proved themselves to be the lowest of the low.”
Wow, how do I gain entry into this hallowed group (the lowest of the low), short of being a polymath, with impeccable reasoning skills, published and cited many times, …… Inquiring minds want to know?????
Caine, Fleur du mal
18 December 2012 at 10:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kate:
Yikes, not enough tea! My apologies. Okay, I’ll just go with “you’re an excellent commenter”. That okay?
I think you write just fine, btw.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 10:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Keresthanatos:
Stop. Just stop. Seriously. He’s there because he’s acted like a pompous ass, because he’s treated rape victims as if they were mere statistics even when said victims have asked him to stop doing so, and because he can be an insufferable jerk.
If you want to do that kind of thing then, yeah, I’d killfile you. I really don’t think being smart or published is an excuse for acting like an asshat.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 10:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine:
Awww, thanks! Yep, I’ll take that. :)
Enjoy your tea. Myself I’m having a nice cup of “FireHaus” coffee brewed in my bodum. I’d share, but I have a feeling that it might be cold by the time it got to you.
rorschach
18 December 2012 at 10:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is your view and your right, but I dont have to like or respect it. Cheers.
emburii
18 December 2012 at 10:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I can see how John Morales could end up in someone’s killfile from, say, comment #167 on this thread. Insinuating intellectual laziness or insecurity on the part of others because they don’t have the same number of spoons to voluntarily put up with upsetting things, for instance, is a little off-putting. And his self-laudatory tone provides an extra-specially vile and ableist aperitif to that nastiness.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 10:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Rorscharch:
I’m not asking you to like it. You don’t have to like it. I don’t expect anyone to “like” or approve of what I do. I’ve never asked, even in real life, for anyone to blindly agree with my opinions. (Facts are a different matter, but that’s not what we’re discussing.)
…but asking me to killfile you so I don’t read what you say? WTF? You’re more or less telling me you don’t think I’m worthy or fit to read your words, as if you have some sort of monopoly on your speech in public spaces. That’s just weird. Also, it’s not really how that kind of thing works.
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 10:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Shoot, I misspelled your name, Rorschach. I’m sorry I did that!
rorschach
18 December 2012 at 11:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, it’s just that from your short track record here I deduce that you are an angry moron. So just killfile me already. And those hard nuanced balanced thoughty considered informed openminded posts people here tend to post every now and then are clearly not for you.
ChasCPeterson
18 December 2012 at 11:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
example of what?
most X is due to Y.
≠ most Y causes X.
3rd-Grade logic.
oo! oo! choose me!!!
lol
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 11:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Rorschach
Nice. Real nice. You might want to use smaller words, though, so a moron such as myself can grasp the deep significance of such lofty thoughts. After all, if you think that kind of thing is beyond me, you might want to dumb it down enough for me to feel the full sting of your obviously weighty and superior intellect.
It would be a crying shame if I missed even one barb from your sharp tongue, wouldn’t it?
The tone policing, though, has got to go. Being angry about someone being an ableist asshole is perfectly justified. If you can’t understand why this might be so, then you have some self-examination to do. People get heated here all the time over others acting like privileged twits and I am not the only one to have ever thought John Morales was acting like a complete jerk, nor have I been the only one to call Crissa out for her shit.
If you’d care to make an argument as to why I ought to respect or listen to John Morales’ opinion which does not involve some shitty argument from authority or popularity, I am more than willing to listen and discuss it with you. I won’t even use off-colour words, if that is your preference. However, if all you have is “He knows lots of stuff and has been published” then you’re making a very, very weak argument. There are many people who can make the claim that they have multiple fields of expertise and have also been published in journals multiple times. It doesn’t make them immune to being jerkwads, or insensitive assholes, or automatically make anyone who dislikes them or disagrees with them “morons”.
rorschach
18 December 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
???
I LOL’d though, when you suggested John was making arguments from authority or popularity. That’s at least one new irony meter right there. It’s 530 am here, so I will go to bed now and get back to this joke fest tomorrow…
kate_waters
18 December 2012 at 12:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, I’m suggesting that in this very thread arguments were being made from authority or popularity for why John Morales was somehow worthy of listening to.
Yes, you’re obviously tired. I get it. After all, if someone so brilliant can’t make sense of what an idiot such as myself is saying it indicates you’re not at your best. Hopefully after you’ve had some sleep you can parse my moronic ramblings well enough to be able to make sense of what I’ve very clearly said.
strange gods before me ॐ
18 December 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rorschach is big on everyone knowing “their place” — though, to be sure, he’s not the only one here like that. If you want to have a bit of fun with him, call Hitchens a fuckbrained warmongering misogynist.
To be sure, the argument Crissa did make, that most violence is mental illness, is blatant bullshit. (Asked about war, she tried to characterize the willingness to fight as delusion.)
strange gods before me ॐ
18 December 2012 at 1:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To be sure, my writing suffers from the midday slump. Coffee time!
chigau (違う)
18 December 2012 at 1:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ॐ
I not so sure…
strange gods before me ॐ
18 December 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If you lack certitude, try an ethanol solution.
carlie
18 December 2012 at 2:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am very happy for the existence of killfile for those who need it. I am grateful to those (sg) who have tweaked it to be usable for this site for people who need it.
But isn’t the point of having it so you can completely ignore people? If you talk about who you have in your killfile and who you don’t, that defeats the purpose of ignoring the existence of said people.
Ichthyic
18 December 2012 at 2:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
best killfile him then, right?
strange gods before me ॐ
18 December 2012 at 2:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nah, in my opinion it’s best to gently tease him. :)
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
18 December 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I dislike the idea of making people ‘know their place’. One of my first posts in TET back when got a ‘…and who are you?’ type response. It reeked of elitism as if I weren’t worthy of posting there.
consciousness razor
18 December 2012 at 3:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For some people, I use it to remind myself that I probably don’t want to waste my time with them, but that can change. If they say something useful or interesting, or if on the other hand they’re dominating the conversation with everyone else and need a good troll-smashing, then I don’t really care whether my handy little webgadget tells me I probably shouldn’t bother.
Of course, that’s not a reason I’d tell someone they’re in my killfile. The reason I’d tell someone they’re in my killfile is basically just to piss them off a little before I stop responding.
John Morales
18 December 2012 at 4:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tony,
Nothing to do with what you wrote, except it reminded me of a rather funny post from days of yore: ‘Life Reeked with Joy’, which I here share for any who might not have seen it before.
strange gods before me ॐ
18 December 2012 at 4:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rorschach,
You lol’d because you’re excessively sleepy so you parsed wrong.
Read: “If you’d care to make an argument (as to why I ought to respect or listen to John Morales’ opinion) which does not involve some shitty argument from authority or popularity”
Not: “If you’d care to make an argument as to why I ought to respect or listen to (John Morales’ opinion which does not involve some shitty argument from authority or popularity)”
The argument from popularity was made by you, and an argument from authority was implied by keresthanatos.
+++++
Is John “published and cited many times”? This is not implausible, but I am interested as it is news to me.
+++++
Anyway, I object to any out of the blue invocation of Morales-as-bad-example, by kate_waters or anyone else, when he is not currently being a shithead. It is gratuitous.
Besides being gratuitous, it is incomplete and inaccurate. John is also thoughtful and kind, and he makes an effort to understand others, sometimes more carefully and charitably than is standard around here.
cm's changeable moniker
18 December 2012 at 6:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t understand how JM’s “I’m willing to see criticism despite my insecurities” counts as ableism. Suggestions welcome.
===
I also don’t understand how to understand this:
===
I will admit; I used to (with guilty pleasure) read the conspiracist rantings at various veterans’ websites.
Now, I’m a bit more worried.
Ichthyic
18 December 2012 at 6:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I read it, and the links.
it’s a very tenuous connection, with no consistent underlying motive.
what in the fuck would the purpose be, for an underling in an organization at best minimally related to the “libor” scandal, to have connected themselves to a mass killing?
it makes no fucking sense.
sorry, but this is exactly WHY conspiracy theories become popular… at some level, the “kevin bacon” effect kicks in, and everything “seems” connected.
Ichthyic
18 December 2012 at 6:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…of course, I could have gotten paid 6 figures by the “LIBOR CONSPIRACY” to say that.
cm's changeable moniker
18 December 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
At the risk of compromising my SciBlogs identity, I’d like to point out that a commenter who totally isn’t me despite having a very similar ‘nym commented on Stoat’s blog here. “Stoat” may not be his real name, either.
ChasCPeterson
18 December 2012 at 7:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
agreed
StevoR, fallible human being
18 December 2012 at 9:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I realise I have really offended and upset some people here and I apologise for that.
Of course, many of the people here have said some hurtful and offensive things that have made me pretty upset too. I feel far from “coddled” and more piled up and generally misjudged by those here.
However, if Ing returns or if someone wants to gets in touch you can tell hir that I do apologise for calling hir friends “Jihadists” and that if xe returns I’ll say nothing further to her unless xe addresses me directly.
I’ve taken a few days offline and may take a few more. I’m rethinking some things especially my conduct here as I always do whether some folks believe that or not. I’ve also emailed of PZ Myers and Chris Clarke and requested to be put on automoderation “probation” for awhile in the interests of blog harmony but have had no response from them on this.
vaiyt
18 December 2012 at 11:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@StevoR:
We don’t give a fuck about harmony, in case you haven’t noticed. No amount of niceness will make you not a racist asshole, so you won’t be any more well liked here.
I don’t believe your apologies, because I’ve seen you lie through your teeth way too many times.
You’re offended? Good. Racist assholes like you should be offended. Maybe you could feel some shame for your stupid, dehumanizing opinions, but that might be asking too much.
Just go away.
strange gods before me ॐ
19 December 2012 at 12:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
1a) that’s not all you said about them which you should apologize for. For one, you also claimed — knowing nothing else about them except that they’re Muslim — that they “want to committ genocide against Israel!”
1b) and that’s not even the entirety of it. IIRC, you also — knowing nothing else about them except that they’re Muslim — accused them of being homophobes. This was the beginning of your attacks on Ing’s friends, again IIRC. You should apologize for this too.
2) what, no explanation of how you understand that you were wrong? It is hard to believe that you are serious and honest about any apology, without an accounting of how you got to here from there.
rorschach
19 December 2012 at 3:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ll play because I’m bored (so who is having fun with who now?).
Fuckbrained I would object to as a pretty obvious insult that is not saying anything other than you didnt like the guy. The other 2, meh, inflammatory and unkind, but that’s what Shermer complained about too the other day. So yeah, I give you those…
;)
keresthanatos
19 December 2012 at 6:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
just trollin’ on the published and cited, though I would not be suprised if he was.
puppygod
19 December 2012 at 9:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@293 joed
I wonder whether these assumptions are even true. It might be a side-effect of media bias in reporting. I can recall of the top of my head at least five attacks on police stations in the mainland US. It seems that those would-be mass-murderers who chosen targats that can defend themselves, well, end up defeated. They go to the police station, shoot an officer or two and go down when officers return fire. So they don’t rack up enough victims to get more than only a brief mention on a global-wide news networks.
StevoR, fallible human being
19 December 2012 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ strange gods before me ॐ – 15th of December 2012 at 2:23 am
From here :
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/05/thunderdome-11/comment-page-2/#comment-513906
No I really wouldn’t say that quote now however drunk or sober I am.
What’s wrong with the quote and what I’d say now to someone who said it?
Well, the quote’s wrong because it suggests that African-Americans are somehow less loyal and less American than, say, Irish Americans or Native-Americans and there’s no evidence for that. It also implies that African Americans and other “hyphenated” Americans can’t or don’t fully support American values and that their own values aren’t also American and haven’t also contributed to forming US culture as we know it which again there’s no good evidence of or reason to believe. It also is an over-generalisation implying that all African-Americans are the same and have only the one collective opinion rather than being individuals with a diverse range of views and that holds true for all the other groups as well. Am I right?
As for how my views have changed and evolved over time, well, it’s a long and personal story. For a while I was too left wing and eventually I woke up to that and for a while I reacted and overcompensated by becoming too rightwing before realising I’d gone too far the other political direction. For a long time I’ve thought about the dreadful and biased things I once said as an extreme leftwinger against Israel and the Jewish people more broadly and felt I had to make up for that in part by offering a good argumentative defense in their favour. There’s more to it than just that, natch, stuff I don’t even fully understand myself as well as stuff I do but that’s certainly part of it.
Also for a time I felt utterly betrayed by and was furious at Obama for some of the policies he did and failed to do such as his cancellation of the Constellation human lunar return plan.
Anyhow, I’m not the same person I was when I wrote that quote – or the older one too. When evidence and situations change and new insights occur I change my mind in response, what do you do?
Do I perhaps have my biases that should be examined? Sure. Doubt I’m alone in this and suspect its part of the human condition generally. Have you (& everyone else here) stopped to rethink your own biases and prejudices in some of these issues too?
Ogvorbis: useless
19 December 2012 at 9:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Will the leopard actually change his shorts?
StevoR, fallible human being
19 December 2012 at 9:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@15. Amphiox :
Hey Amphiox, are *you* really are telling *me* what my personal preferences are even when I’ve repeatedly told you what they >actually are? I meant what I said when I told everyone that my first preference is for a peaceful non-violent resolution here.
Sheesh, what next? Are *you* going to tell *me* that *my* favourite colour is really blue after I’ve told everyone its actually red as well or something?
Why do I get the feeling that if I said the Moon was made of mainly basalt-like igneous rock some people here would still claim I’m really arguing that its made of green cheese based on one silly long forgotten joke I made five years ago or something even tho’ I’ve since repeatedly made my actual serious view perfectly clear?
Maybe that I do know the history and what’s been tried and failed before here? Because, y’know, that would actually be the case. That ever occur to you?
StevoR, fallible human being
19 December 2012 at 9:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@.383 Ogvorbis:
Maybe. Maybe it was always a pantomine leopard and the crowd never did properly see or judge what was inside seeing instead only the spots before their own eyes painted on by others hands?
Ogvorbis: useless
19 December 2012 at 10:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
StevoR:
Re; #383 and #382:
Are you actually claiming that you did not make racist, bigoted, and warmongering statements over the last year or more? Or are you claiming that these repeated statements were one-off jokes and that we have all managed to not see all the places where you stated otherwise?
You claim that your views have changed. As I stated, I’ll have to wait and see.
Claiming joke-that-everyone-failed-to-grok or claiming others-put-words-on-my-screen-that-I-never-used is not blowing warm air up my shorts. If you (as I have done, here and in meatspace) have made statements with which you no longer agree, own up to them, apologize, and don’t get snitty when others, such as me, fail to instantly see that you are now a completely different person who no longer sees all Muslims as supporters of terrorism, no longer sees Islam as an existential threat to the west and thus a valid target for nuclear weapons, or advocates immediate and unrestricted preventive war with Iran. So excuse the fuck out of me that I see two weeks of ‘I didn’t mean it’ or ‘I have changed’ and compare it with a year or more of ‘bomb ‘em all’ and am not impressed. You may have changed. Don’t expect me, or anyone else, to accept it without further evidence. And that evidence will be in your comments to come.
vaiyt
19 December 2012 at 10:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You can “tell” us what we’re supposed to think about your opinions all you want, StevoR. What we actually got in your actual opinions about the actual subject is another matter entirely.
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
19 December 2012 at 10:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Someone wake me when our resident xenophobic racist leaves the place he really doesn’t like posting, but does so anyway, again.
The desperate pleading is getting pathetic. As is requesting to be put in moderation. One would think an adult who is trying to change would police their own fucking posts.
(Yes, I am being passive aggressive here)
md
19 December 2012 at 10:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Anyone have any opinions on the Hagel nomination, or the Washington Post/establishment GOP’s reaction to it? I couldn’t be more pleased with Obama over it (well, Ron Paul as Sec. of Treasury perhaps) and was wondering if there was any common cause to be found. You guys taking the WaPost’s line or supporting the Eisenhower Republican?
Ogvorbis: useless
19 December 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
md:
We have to wait for PZed to give us the party line. The we can tell you what ‘us guys’ think. /snark
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
19 December 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ogvorbis:
Too true. We love our groupthink here. Thinking for ourselves and coming to the same conclusion as PZ is out of the question.
md
19 December 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ogvorbis,
nice dodge/snark
Caine, Fleur du mal
19 December 2012 at 12:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
StevoR:
The bit I have emphasized is why I am no longer willing to give you a chance. You took the opportunity to reflect and truly apologize for how deeply you have offended and hurt people and turned it straight into a notpology with your “hey, people have said nasty things to me!!1!”
The loss of Ing is a very serious one to our community, StevoR. They were a long time, welcome part of our community, unlike yourself. Look at everything you wrote in this thread – you start off with “sorry”, rapidly run into notpology and from there, launch right into your usual “you fuckheads are all wrong” and sing your idiotic “I’m soooooo misunderstood” song.
You have not thought one bit nor have you changed at all. Not one iota. As I said several threads ago, your willingness to stay off certain topics doesn’t mean jack shit. You’re still a poisonous bigot under the silence, one whose toxicity will continue to poison this community.
Others might be willing to give you a chance, I am not. It would be stunningly nice and good form if you simply left of your own accord. Hint: do the right thing.
Amphiox
19 December 2012 at 12:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If StevoR wants to rehabilitate his reputation here, this is not a good first step.
The above statement, regardless of its truth, is irrelevant. Here is why:
The discussion was about drone strikes, double tapping, targeting assassinations, pre-emptive invasion and the like, used against Arab and Muslim civilians.
StevoR says that is JUSTIFIED self-defence. That’s his argument.
What is “justified” self-defence? What does it mean to say or imply that something is “justified”?
Something is only justified if it is a better option than available less harmful alternatives. If its superior effectiveness outweighs its greater cost. It DOES NOT MATTER if you say that you “prefer” alternative Y. If you say that alternative X is JUSTIFIED you are AUTOMATICALLY saying that in that given situation X is BETTER than Y. You are ASSUMING that Y does not work or will not work. If you do not make the assumption, you CANNOT say that X is “justified”.
If StevoR was really telling the truth about not making that assumption, he WOULD NOT HAVE EVER EVEN ATTEMPTED to make the “justifiable self defence” argument at all. The very fact that he made that argument is proof that he DID in fact make that assumption, and is now lying about not making that assumption when he made that argument.
If I say or imply “I was JUSTIFIED in killing him, but yeah, I preferred to resolve things peacefully” that second statement means JACK SQUAT SHIT. By saying the first statement, I turn the second into a irrelevant hypothetical. I am saying that circumstances made it so that my preference in the second part became unavailable and thus I was justified in acting as I did in the first part, even if it was against my preference (boo hoo, poor me, forced to do what I really didn’t want to do).
All that StevoR has ultimately said with all this is that those dirty brown jihadist terrorist muslims FORCED him to support drone strikes, targeted assassinations, collateral damage on civilian children, and pre-emptive first-strike wars, because THEY made it so that peaceful resolution was not possible, even though he, StevoR, pure and noble as always, would have “preferred” it that way. Thus shirking all personal responsibility for his original views and arguments, and giving ZERO evidence that they have in fact change in any way at all.
It’s pathetic.
Janine: Hallucinating Liar
19 December 2012 at 1:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If I do not get involved in the latest round of StevoR donning the hairshirt, it is because I do not give a fuck what he has to say.
Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
19 December 2012 at 3:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
StevoR, dishonest little shit,
No, it wouldn’t.
These are not the words of someone who has had a genuine change of heart about all the bigoted and even genocidal remarks they have made over a long period here. Even if one adopts your view, that people here have been terribly mean and unfair to you, it’s incomprehensible why you want to continue posting here. Just fuck off.
Amphiox
19 December 2012 at 4:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Pretty much a straight out flat admission from StevoR that he WAS in fact lying about not just assuming that more benign methods of self-defence had already been tried and failed.
ONE DOES NOT AND CAN NOT MAKE THE ARGUMENT OF “JUSTIFIED” SELF DEFENCE UNLESS ONE ALREADY KNOWS THAT MORE BENIGN ALTERNATIVES HAVE ALREADY FAILED, OR ONE ASSUMES THAT THEY HAVE FAILED.
Since StevoR has just admitted that he did NOT know, that means that he DID assume it.
Pitiful liar.
Nepenthe
19 December 2012 at 4:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine is right. Go away Stevo. You are boring and annoying. Ing is awesome. This was a shitty trade.
[Semi-OT]
I’ve never seen a leopard wearing shorts. Thus, I think it’s highly unlikely that it will change its shorts.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 5:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox, there are many kinds of justification, and you only speak of one kind.
(‘It pleases me’ is another)
consciousness razor
19 December 2012 at 5:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s irrelevant. When you’re talking about defending yourself by harming others, rather than not harming them, “it pleases me” isn’t justifying a damn thing. It doesn’t refer to anything about the actions or situations it’s supposed to justify, except that something causes “pleasure” to “me.” Even a totally naive straw-hedonist who was only concerned with his or her own “pleasure” would have to take into account what all the other options would be like and compare them to one another.
mountainbob
19 December 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Can You (any ‘you’) help me? I d/c’d my subscription to FTB when I changed my E-dress (due to Micro Soft discontinuing ‘hotmail’. Now, though I am registered, I cannot figure out how to re-subscribe. PLEASE! With maple syrup and chocolate on it! A figurative hug will go to the person who provides the solution! Bob
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 6:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CR: The common sense of a ‘justification is ‘the stating of one’s basis for some action or belief’ — claiming something is the minimally-sufficient action to achieve one’s goal is but one type.
Maybe your straw-hedonist has to, mine certainly does not. :)
(And she certainly doesn’t need to justify her pleasure-seeking by claiming it’s minimally-sufficient; for her, more is better)
consciousness razor
19 December 2012 at 6:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We’re not talking about “the common sense” of the word.
It’s a specific concept in ethics, and while there are a lot of different flavors, the sorts of things which factor into a justification (e.g., “pleasure”) are distinct from what’s necessary for something constitute any kind of justification at all (e.g., “this is why we should X rather than Y,” when that is the form the reasoning is supposed to take for a particular claim). Amphiox didn’t offer any alternative factors to “pleasure” (just anything “benign,” which is uninformative), so any differences in that regard would not themselves make it a justification rather than a non-justification.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 7:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CR:
It’s the very same concept in ethics, and what is justifiable in one particular ethical framework may not be in another.
consciousness razor
19 December 2012 at 7:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Something you call an “ethical framework” may not be one at all. I’m sure you could continue down this rabbit hole for a long time, but the ability to play with words isn’t having a point.
Rodney Nelson
19 December 2012 at 7:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
strange gods before me (silly squiggle) #264
I apologize for not responding sooner. Meatspace intervened for the past couple of days.
SGBM, you do fucking play thread cop. Just because you’re too convinced of your own rectitude to admit it isn’t my fault. If I was an asshole like you I’d tell you to fuck off and die but I’m not quite as much a shithead as you are, so you can fuck off and stay alive. If you really want an apology then I guess you’ve got a long wait. I haven’t done anything I feel needs apology. So suck it, shithead.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 7:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CR:
Exactly! ;)
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 7:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[[silly squiggle][silly squiggle][silly squiggle][silly squiggle][silly squiggle]] [[silly squiggle][silly squiggle][silly squiggle][silly squiggle][silly squiggle][silly squiggle]]: ?
Heh.
(As if ideograms are but silly squiggles, unlike alphabetic graphemes)
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 7:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rodney:
<burp>
Ah, nothing like a surfeit of irony.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 8:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SteveoR, any comment on this story?
Israel under fire over settlements decision
chigau (違う)
19 December 2012 at 8:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rodney Nelson #406
Since you appear to be capable of copy-pasting, try copy-pasting the silly squiggle into a translator.
Also try to understand that not all written languages use The Alphabet™.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
19 December 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
md I think it’s fine. I need to read up more on it the details. But if Kristol hates it, it can’t be all bad
Rev. BigDumbChimp
19 December 2012 at 8:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
iPad posting flail, ignore a few extra words there. Editing failure.
SC (Salty Current), OM
19 December 2012 at 9:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This is interesting and maybe promising. I think it signifies a recognition* that you sometimes say things you shouldn’t. That’s not rare. But it’s the wrong path to distance yourself from responsibility for it and leave it to others to control which of your statements become public (even if they have the time, which I doubt PZ and CC do). A better plan would be to try to critically edit your own posts, especially to scan them for rightwing talking points and strings of assertions that don’t respond to what people have said and don’t rest on evidence you’ve seen yourself. You could also check your writing for a lack of humility. If you find these problems, either don’t post or rewrite.
I think you’re trying to make too clean a break between conduct and content. People are reading, rightly, much of your content as the product of disrespectful conduct. Intellectual conduct. Epistemic conduct.
*partial
ChasCPeterson
19 December 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Blaming anybody but Ing for Ing’s putative departure is ridiculous.
theophontes (坏蛋)
19 December 2012 at 9:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Blaming Ing for Ing’s reaction to StevoR’s nastyness?
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 10:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes, not blaming, but assigning responsibility for action taken.
(What, would you have it that Ing was at the mercy of StevoR)
Caine, Fleur du mal
19 December 2012 at 10:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rattiness: Ratmas Prep, O.M.G. Ratmas Is Awesome!, O.M.G. Ratmas is Awesome! Part II, and Fishing in Style.
consciousness razor
19 December 2012 at 10:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Responsibility (as JM would have it) can be shared.
SC (Salty Current), OM
19 December 2012 at 10:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I replied to the rat pictures on the other thread but then noticed (wasn’t shocked) that there was an ongoing discussion about cooking and eating animals, so I left again.
The pictures are adorable.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 10:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CR, would you say that StevoR is not responsible for his remaining here, despite the ongoing animosity and outright repudiation he has (and) is facing from many?
Tony ∞The Queer Shoop∞
19 December 2012 at 10:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chas:
Clearly not everyone agrees with you. Yes, it was Ing’s decision, but SteveoR is an important component in that decision.
I’m still wondering why that racist shithead is still allowed to post here.
Caine, Fleur du mal
19 December 2012 at 10:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SC, thank you! More and more of them are exploring the tree. Much excitement over Ratmas. :D
theophontes (坏蛋)
19 December 2012 at 10:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ StevoR #382
Do you see yourself as some kind of “white knight” for the West? (Be this under the banner of left (anti-semitic StevoR) or the right (anti-islamic StevoR). You hero you!
And here you, poor misunderstood StevoR, are being judged not by those lights, but rather by how much humanity you display in your writings. No wonder you are so at odds with the ethos of Pharyngula.
With regard to your pro-west|anti-islamic diatribes, might I suggest that you do a little homework and see how the forms of “radical Islam” that you are so quick to fob off on all of the Muslim world actually came about.
Learn your (western) history. Observe that in Iran, the democratically elected prime minister Mossaddegh was deposed by the ‘Merkins (in cahoots with the British) for placing his own people’s interests above the interests of BP (yup, the dirty oil company – originally Anglo-Iranian Oil). Your precious “West” behaved like a bunch of thugs.
Observe in Afghanistan how the CIA worked flat out to promote and radicalise the cause of Islamic fundamentalism. The Afghanis now suffer for ‘Merkin shortsightedness and meddling.
Observe how ‘Merkins built up the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia by placing their (and the House of Saud’s) interests above the interests of the people of that country. What was then convenient (and driven by greed) has now come back to bite them.
The so called “Islamic extremist/Jihadist” is very much a product of the West that you hold so dear. The main losers in this devil’s pact have been the peoples of the Middle East, those very people you have sought to demonise.
consciousness razor
19 December 2012 at 10:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No. Why would I say he’s not?
Ichthyic
19 December 2012 at 10:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
well, no better time than the present!
I’m interested in StevoR’s take on what is going on with the Polio vaccination volunteers being killed in Pakistan.
questions:
-is this an inevitable result of the Islamic religion, that these aid workers should be murdered?
-is it a political statement?
-is it just terrorism?
-is there any reason why militant factions might be claiming that vaccination programs are a cover for something else?
-is there any reason for any pakistani to believe what these militant factions are saying?
-is the pakistani government in collusion with the people who killed these vaccination workers?
-are most pakistanis in collusion with the people who killed these workers?
-what do you think the best approach should be to resolving the situation?
use your best abilities and knowledge to tell me what you think is going on over there, and answer the questions as best you can, and honestly.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 10:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CR,
Well then, would you say Ing is not responsible for xir choosing to depart this place?
Amphiox
19 December 2012 at 11:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The kind I speak of is the kind that is relevant to the context in which I use it.
Substitute this definition of “justification” and StevoR hardly comes off any better. Indeed I had hardly think of any alternative definition by which StevoR does not come of WORSE than he does with the one I used.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 11:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox @428, I can’t dispute anything you’ve written there.
consciousness razor
19 December 2012 at 11:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, and I already implied that when I said it can be shared. To put it another way, it isn’t bijective.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 11:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CR, but leaving and not leaving are the complements of the same choice, which entails that if one is not responsible for the one, one cannot be responsible for the other.
(Whence your purported asymmetry where responsibility for leaving can be shared, but responsibility for not leaving cannot?)
consciousness razor
19 December 2012 at 11:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There isn’t one. I disagreed that “StevoR is not responsible,” meaning that I think he is responsible, which doesn’t imply there are no others who are also responsible. It could be that there’s only one responsible party for something in one kind of situation, while at the same time multiple people are responsible for other things in different kinds of situations; but it’s certainly not ridiculous in general to hold more than one person responsible for something.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 11:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fair enough, CR.
(And thanks for playing along with the Socratic technique; you are a rare specimen)
theophontes (坏蛋)
19 December 2012 at 11:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ John Morales
Are you not treating such circumstances too cut and dried?
If I set fire to my house and the fire brigade choose to arrive and put it out, can I say that they undertook such action purely off their own bat?
Surely I bear some responsibility for the whole sequence of events. Further, the fire brigades’ reaction was perfectly rational and justified, given my prior actions.
John Morales
19 December 2012 at 11:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes, <blink>
Can you map Ing and StevoR to this example of you and the fire brigade, so as to alleviate my bemusement?
theophontes (坏蛋)
20 December 2012 at 12:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ John Morales
{theophontes smirks gently and waits before answering …. in order to fill John with ……………………ANTICI……………………..}
I ——> StevoR
fire —–> inflammatory remarks wrt Muslims
house ——-> Pharyngula
fire brigade ——–> Ing
action ——–>Ing’s response to the inflammatory remarks
own bat ——–> independent of others actions/comments
.
.
.
{……………………………PATION!}
theophontes (坏蛋)
20 December 2012 at 12:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PS: Is that injective or surjective?
John Morales
20 December 2012 at 12:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes, neither; it is merely absurd.
theophontes (坏蛋)
20 December 2012 at 12:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ John Morales
I take it this response on your part was predicated by my comments?
John Morales
20 December 2012 at 12:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes, no; it was occasioned by your comments.
(Predication means something different)
theophontes (坏蛋)
20 December 2012 at 1:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ John Morales
Does predicated not also mean “based upon”? I am happy to substitute “occasioned“.
Then: Can we not say that Ing’s reaction was occasioned by StevoR’s comments?
@ (my) # 424
Anglo-Iranian Oil… Anglo-Persian Oil Co.(Commenting from the hip is not standing me in good stead.)
John Morales
20 December 2012 at 1:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes:
I suppose so, but it generally a specific type of a type of subsequence: it typically refers to a necessary antecedent.
Yes, we can. So what?
(My retort was occasioned by your comment, but you are not responsible for my choosing to reply)
theophontes (坏蛋)
20 December 2012 at 2:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ John Morales
Aah, this is the sense of Chas’s comment I suppose.
My concern is that this can be construed as indicating that the upset that StevoR occasioned can somehow be ignored. That he is somehow innocent of the turn of events.
The fire-brigade could ignore the fire, Ing could ignore the insults. We could say that there is no real compulsion to react in a particular manner. But in both cases the instigators have done something to the other party that was not of their choosing. We cannot then proscribe a right¹ to reaction by making it all about the victim. That can amount to saying “Suck it up ’cause no one compelled you to react in such a manner”.
…
¹ Is this too moralistic a term? In a strictly logical sense I could be accused of being naughty.
Useless
20 December 2012 at 2:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hello? Anybody in there?
John Morales
20 December 2012 at 2:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes,
If you want to imagine Ing was somehow forced off this site because StevoR made obnoxious comments about Muslims, that’s your prerogative.
If you want to make that case, I don’t see how you can avoid characterising Ing as a helpless and manipulable victim who just can’t cope with PZ not banning a commenter who trash-talks about a group of people among whom some are xir friends, rather than as someone who is just disgusted with that and therefore chose not to participate in the site in protest.
(Me, I think Ing left as a protest to PZ’s tolerance, not because xe was victimised)
Yes. Yes, indeed.
(Isn’t that the whole point of killfile, to ignore commenters that annoy you?)
Plenty of commenters annoy other commenters; hell, I’m pretty sure plenty of commenters annoy StevoR — and they’re targeting him specifically, not just a group of people among whom he has friends.
(Yet he hasn’t left — not yet, anyway. I can see people are working on it, so perhaps it will get to him in due course)
To what proscription do you refer?
(As far as Ing being a victim, I addressed that above)
The non-compelling part is the truth, but I don’t see where any exhortation to “Suck it up” comes into it.
(Accepting reality is not sucking it up)
Dhorvath, OM
20 December 2012 at 3:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rats came to my house. Does that make it ratmas or are there other rituals to observe?
theophontes (坏蛋)
20 December 2012 at 3:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ John Morales
We could note that pretty much everyone is offended by the idea of giving someone a platform to spew bile. That much is not unique to Ing (hell, there have been dozens of different reactions, not just leaving.) Are we going to omit the one common denominator in all of this?
“Blaming anybody but Ing for Ing’s putative departure is ridiculous.”
(Proscribe²: Denounce or condemn. Saying an action “is ridiculous” sounds, IMHO, like a denunciation. The upshot is we must not look at the broader context. Would Ing have left if StevoR had been banned long before spouting the remarks that occasioned the reaction in question? (I cannot know for certain, but I certainly doubt it.)
This much I understand. We should, however, cast our net more widely to determine what all the real causes and circumstances are behind the final reaction. Ignoring these does not give us a full understanding of the issue in question. Now that would be ignoring reality.
consciousness razor
20 December 2012 at 3:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Advocating for genocide shouldn’t be construed as merely “annoying,” and it isn’t something that should be ignored. So while someone may not be compelled to act on that in a particular way, they certainly are obligated to do something about it.
It’s this confused idea that StevoR isn’t morally responsible for Ing leaving (because Ing wasn’t “compelled” to make that choice) is where I’m getting the implication that Ing is the one who has to “suck it up.” It’s apparently fair game for StevoR to be as bigoted and genocidey as he wants without being held responsible for what happens to the environment here as a result, because the rest of us are expected to be unethical (simply ignoring how “annoying” he is) or else whatever happens is our fault.
consciousness razor
20 December 2012 at 3:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I shouldn’t have even tried that phrasing. It’s too convoluted.
John Morales
20 December 2012 at 4:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
<sigh>
I do like to argue, but not about such subjective opinions.
I leave it at this: I think it’s giving StevoR too much credit to claim he’s responsible for Ing’s departure, and that to do