I know you’re all tired of him, but NoelPlum99 is a sincere troll, so I’ll actually answer him, despite the fact that his sincerity is really just a side effect of self-absorption. So he asks in a video, where all the dissenters are (why in a video, I don’t understand; isn’t this a case where his written paragraphs are simpler, shorter, and easier to get through then 2+ minutes of yelling at a camera?)
PZ I ask you – given the footfall of Pharyngula; the contentious nature of the subjects in question; the substantial number of people who disagree with your position; the way in which you are regarded as a lead figure in many of these things; given all of this, is it really credible for you claim you don’t mind reasonable dissent when you appear, for all the world, to not have a single regular dissenter who has not been banned?
You may think I am a troll but please don’t mix up trolls with idiots. If you had a good couple of dozen REGULAR dissenting posters on these issues your arguments would look more convincing. In my couple of months before being banned I never encountered a single one. Not one. Nada. Zilch.
So where are these dissenters PZ? Is this just some incredible statistical freak of nature that you are the only person on earth with a substantial number of detractors but somehow none of them EVER bother to argue regukarlyon your blog, except the ones who are trolls????
Oh, yes. Why don’t I tolerate dissent, from a dissenter who posted here for over 4 months, making 168 comments. I have to say, this is a remarkably stupid question.
Why aren’t 50% of my commenters creationists, just like the American population? Why aren’t 90% of them Christians? Why aren’t a third of them Republicans? We can apply this to every site on the internet: why aren’t the comment threads at AVoiceForMen full of people aghast at the misogyny on display? Why aren’t 10% of the comments at RaptureReady people belittling the inanity of Bible prophecy? Perhaps NoelPlum99 ought to think it through a little bit, and wonder why he assumes that the internet ought to be a great gray panmictic uniformity.
But all right, I’ll just assume that he’s not very bright and explain the obvious. There are a number of reasons why you aren’t ever going to see mobs of angry dissenters here.
This is a self-selected community. Look at the header on the blog: liberals, atheists, science-minded people will congregate here. It’s a successful center for that kind of person, and that means that people with different views — well, those that have a speck of self-awareness — will know that they are going to be a tiny minority in a swarm of opinionated, outspoken, ferocious liberals. Venturing here will be daunting. The mirror of community is that there will also be self-selected avoidance.
I have commenting rules, linked to on the main page. It’s not just the community, but me: this is my party, and I am the bouncer. I keep on eye on things and disruptive intrusions will get shown the door. I hope it’s clear that this is not a completely open noise machine with no expectations or standards of behavior. Reasonable dissent is allowed, but the key word there is reasonable.
So why aren’t there a bunch of reasonable people here disagreeing with the major premises of the blog (there is, of course, a great deal of disagreeing going on in the comments — NoelPlum99 has to have his blinders on to fail to see that — but it’s just not over fundamentals, like the value of science)? Because they can’t disagree reasonably.
Part of the reason is that the culture here means people who have a minority view often charge in here with a chip on their shoulder, promoting confrontation for confrontation’s sake. They’re not here to have a conversation, or discuss issues philosophically; they’re here to assault the fortress, to do their best to piss everyone off. They want to disrupt rather than argue. And like any good bouncer at a party who sees the angry drunk blundering about interrupting conversations, I give them the boot.
Another reason is that when they aren’t aggressively abusive, these dissenters are often completely tone-deaf and unable to see beyond their own myopic little obsessions. Case in point: NoelPlum99. He wasn’t openly abusive; he didn’t charge in like another recently banned spammer who had the username “PZ MEYERS IS A FUCKING DOUCHEBAG”; he was just consistently narcissistic.
In this case, I posted my regrets that Natalie Reed was leaving FtB, and also pointed out something that NoelPlum99 ought to find ironic: that the trolls and abusers are driving someone out of their own space. Oh, no…the real problem, in NoelPlum99’s head, is that blogs have some expected range of behavior that might preclude the participation of assholes, but that those same resentful assholes might be actively trying to shut down entire blogs and blog networks? No, not an issue. No worries. Create an environment of such unremitting hostility that people can’t bear the pressure of posting on their own sites is OK, but how dare a blog ban NoelPlum99?
So NoelPlum99 got banned for a couple of things. One was the complete inappriateness of jumping into a thread regretting Natalie’s departure with the deep sentiment that he didn’t like her. Another was the complete lack of awareness of context: it’s all about him, everywhere. And finally, there was the absurdity of a guy complaining now about how we don’t allow dissent arguing at length in that thread (completely off topic) about how skeptics ought to be able to disallow certain topics, such as gender politics.
And there was another obvious reason why some dissenters get banned: they are obtuse and don’t listen. There are regular commenters here who are similarly obstinate, but at least this is their space and they have voluntarily joined up with a group sharing similar views. If you’re a dissenter, holding a minority view, there’s an expectation that you’re actually here because you’re looking to learn about a different point of view (although, as I said above, usually you’re here about confrontation for confrontation’s sake). You’re getting dogpiled; there are 20 people telling you you’re wrong. Then what happens, typically? You pick the worst possible argument (it’s true, sometimes people I agree with in general do make bad arguments), ignore all the reasonable arguments, and never ever listen. NoelPlum99 was notorious for that. He hung around for 4 months and never changed his tune, never addressed any sensible arguments, and never acknowledged any points that might represent serious concerns by commenters here.
Imagine a party where some boor keeps walking up to conversational groups, announcing his position on some sociopolitical point that may not have anything to do with what the conversation was about, and when the others actually try to engage him, he goes glassy-eyed, ignores them, and eventually wanders off to assert his great truths to a different group. That was NoelPlum99. That was not reasonable dissent.
One last remark: sometimes there is no such thing as reasonable dissent on certain issues. Sometimes trolls are idiots. NoelPlum99 lasted as long as he did because he didn’t come right out and shout some intolerable stupidity; I will, for instance, ban racists on sight, because their arguments are not in any way scientifically or ethically defensible, and in fact are simply odious and evil. NoelPlum99 was smugly privileged and dense, but there was some faint hope that he might actually wake up and recognize his own blinkered view, a hope that faded fairly rapidly.
But otherwise, there are views that I find insufferably stupid, that only idiots would hold, and I’m happy to make this environment as hostile as possible to them. There are no rational grounds, no context for reasonable dissent, for being anti-feminist, for instance, or denying that our culture is deeply patriarchal and sexist. I can see reasonable argument about how we ought to deal with this fact of life, but denial (or worse, the kind of inane argument so many make that “why, calling someone a ‘cunt’ is not a reflection of de facto sexism!”) is going to be fired upon with all ferocity and anyone holding such a view is going to find interacting here intolerable and infuriating, leading to them lashing out and trying to turn the whole blog into a brawl over some really idiotic issues.
And then they get banhammered.
Because really, how do you express “reasonable dissent” from the view that women are people, and that our society institutionalizes discrimination of all sorts?
There seems to be a theme here. It is like some want to only apply reason and evidence to the thoughts of others, but not to their own. I get that is easy to be blind to your own privilege. I’ve been stumbling over my own even as I become keenly aware of it.
But this idea that dissent takes the form of “fuck you, that’s why!” makes no sense. I’ve yet to see any coherent reason why I should even entertain the “dissent” I’ve seen on some of the issues here.
Looking back, I recall being so frustrated with Jim. He never came across as a typical troll, but in his own way, he was every bit as insufferable. At one point, he posted something in one thread that I found fairly reasonable, so I tried to respond without my usual disdain. That didn’t last long.
PZ, given that he has served as inspiration for this post, have you given thought to allowing him to post only in this thread? I cannot say I am keen to read any of his responses again, but I feel kinda squicky talking about him in a thread that he cannot post on. Of course the flipside of that is a thread all about him is perfect for the guy, given prior comments.
typo alert
inappriateness
This is similar to the frequent geek insistence that they really do prefer unvarnished communication, without needless fluff like social niceties: be brusque and to the point. And yet, every friggin’ time in practice, what those who say this mean is they want to send “unvarnished” communication; when they receive it, they’re profoundly offended.
Am I the only one that read that and thought, ‘that’s okay, you’ve proven to be both’?
Jim never seemed to grasp the difference between dissenting unevidenced opinions, and evidence backed opinions. The former was his total argument. It is the argument for the MRA types. Essentially, “listen to me, me, me; my opinion of me is so great, you should recognize me greatness and agree with what me say.” Argument from ego. It seem to be prevalent among the video crowd and the Slymepitters. This isn’t dissent in the intellectual sense, and falls under Christopher Hitchens “that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”.
Intellectual dissent starts with “this is what I believe, and this (link) is the evidence to support this conclusion”. Here Jim failed. He couldn’t come up with the real evidence to support his claims (for example, that the Slymepitters had something cogent, that is supported by evidence, to say and should be listened to), and his constant ego trips “look at and listen to me, me, me” was abrasive. Real evidenced dissent was and is discussed. But there is a certain tiredness on the part of the horde when well refuted nonsense is repeated in tag-team fashion.
I’m glad that the idiots who never listen to or address the arguments posited here get banned. An impenetrable mind is not going to get anything from being here, and just annoy the rest, so the ban is good.
And I really wish people would stop using the word “cunt” in the pejorative. It’s a very old word that in its earliest uses was not vulgar. And it needs to be stripped of vulgarity and reclaimed (thank you Eve Ensler). Cunts – vulva – are things of great beauty, and the source of new life and much pleasure. I haven’t checked on this, but I have little doubt that the process of “making sex dirty” and the naming of associated body parts a taboo in common speech was probably done by religious people (thus making Hitchen’s point that religion spoils everything).
So, all you enlightened Pharyngulites please stop using “cunt” as an insult (if you haven’t already), and when you hear someone else doing so, please discourage their behaviour.
What I read from that is him claiming, “No, I’m not a troll, I’m an idiot, and don’t you get them mixed up!”
congenital cynic, nobody around here uses that word as an insult, and when someone new wanders in and does it usually sets off a hundred or so comments of that person being mercilessly hounded for it and them trying to claim it doesn’t mean that any more or in London or something and getting verbally bashed some more. I’m surprised you haven’t run into one of those encounters yet; we have them every couple of months or so.
Dear Mr. Myers,
As much as I admire your work in science, and your efforts to debunk creationism, I find your post about NoelPlum to be a bit…well…offensive. I watched the video in question, and Noel very clearly stated that he would expect a large majority of people on this site to be in general agreement, just as they would on his channel or Thunderf00t’s. Therefore, your primary argument about him not recognizing that this is a self-selected group is a straw man, as is the implication that Noel expects your blog to reflect societal views nearly exactly.
I am also afraid that your statement; “NoelPlum99 was smugly privileged and dense, but there was some faint hope that he might actually wake up and recognize his own blinkered view, a hope that faded fairly rapidly.” Seems to clearly indicate that people who do not come to share the thinking of the majority are not only wrong, but should not be welcomed. You stated that; “NoelPlum99 lasted as long as he did because he didn’t come right out and shout some intolerable stupidity”. This clearly implies that no one who does not eventually subscribe to your message will be banned. This is your right, and I defend that right. However, to propose that this is not censorship based upon ideology seems to me a bit disingenuous.
I do not think that you see things this way, so I would not accuse you of intentional dishonesty, but I feel that you might want to truly consider whether this is a place for free thought (including rational, polite dissent) or simply a forum to promote a particular viewpoint. Both are valid, and often laudable pursuits, but I have the impression that you truly do value free thought over censorship, and perhaps some level of self examination is in order here.
Regards,
Patrick Doyle
I’m a regular and I’ve regularly dissented for all sorts of reasons against arguments PZ has made — not Clarke yet, as far as I recall, but give it time. After several years of commenting, I haven’t been banned. Perhaps I’m not dissentery enough to qualify for noelplum99 or not about the “right” issues. Maybe there’s some threshold I’d have to cross to really be a Dissenter™, but we’d have to ask whether that means I’d also cross what would be a reasonable bannination threshold at the same time.
I guess we could also ask why any of this is supposed to be relevant to any issue that’s been raised here, but first things first.
I’m sure that sounds more reasonable on video.
Socrates is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Is there some reason why we should follow a crowd to be convinced by that, either one which agrees or disagrees?
“Dear Muslima….”
(Ducks for cover…..)
The “footfall” of Pharyngula? Invasion of the Snouts?
If it is idiotologically based, it isn’t what is said, but how it is said. Jim fell victim to the “Listen to me, me, me; Me MEssage is MEaningful and MEritricious”. The idiotology of ME. He had no real evidenced position.
ffs.
freethought
censorship
come in again.
PZ’s blog, PZ’s rules. Why precisely is this so freaking difficult for people to grasp? If I showed up on some Catholic blog ranting over and over and over and over and over and over and … about late term abortion being not only ethical but something to be encouraged, or transubstantiation total baloney or the pope having silly taste in headgear, I would expect to be banned. Not so much because my Freeze Peach was being violated as because I was being an annoying douchebag by deliberately violating the rules of the community where I was commenting and thus wasting bandwidth for a blog owner who wanted to talk about their shared values and opinions. Blog comment sections are not necessarily intended to be public fora in the same way that, say, the comment threads at the New York Times are.
Oh, and PZ does not ban people just for disagreeing with him. He disagrees with me as to whether I should have been able to homeschool my kids for the last 10 years, but then I’ve managed to present actual coherent arguments on the topic, comment about plenty of other topics, and generally succeed in not being a whinging thread derailer. Funny how that works.
I am baffled by the sheer amount of attention that the anti-Pharyngula-machine seems to give this place. It’s almost like the mere existence of a place where likeminded people can talk about feminism or social justice is unbearable. Move on already, dudes. Even though I disagree with you, I’m not busily trying to get your server space removed over at the pit, or prevent you from writing screeds on your blogs, or confiscate your fedoras. Sometimes I even agree with you. But really, let it go already. Go your own way. Shoo.
You’re implying that PZ considers anything which isn’t his “message” to be “intolerable stupidity.” Perhaps that’s the case, but don’t you think you could hunt for something a bit more subtle to be indignant about?
“Censorship” has a meaning relating it to powerful institutions like governments and corporations repressing someone’s right to express themselves publicly, so even if the (incorrect) interpretation you gave was exactly what PZ was saying, it wouldn’t be censorship. None of that is in fact happening, and I don’t see how it could happen on a blog with fucking blog comments, no matter what the fucking situation is.
You bring up the commenting rules when talking about noelplum99:
Discussion and polite disagreement are allowed, but you will respect all the commenters, damn you. No personal attacks allowed at all.
Yet when he made his comments, usually disagreeing with the blogger, he received loads of personal attacks from commenters and yet you said nothing about it and could care less. So perhaps you should amend your rules to state that “commenters who agree with the blog” should be respected and not subject to personal attacks but everyone else is fair game.
PatrickD gave a standard Slymepit opinion piece. They have several such scripts, lacking the imagination to actually write and evidence something for themselves. Essentially, we’re mean as we don’t listen to them and take them seriously, except as comic relief and how to bully folks. WAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Ever notice this was long after we had engaged the MEndacious, MEriticious, and MEgaloud Jim without him engaging seriously back. Then PZ likes us to be rude.
It’s a treacly echo chamber, PZ, infested with the worst of self righteous PC cops.
What burns is that I probably agree with the *huge* majority of views and even a very large majority of what differs from conventional public discourse. But even discussion of issues remote from the PC radar will be snarfed into the wrath of the nomenklatura if one of the posters has taken a dislike to something the new/rare poster has said in the past.
It’s why you get posters like me who might drop by and say something brief every few weeks and otherwise avoid becoming enmeshed, even in one narrow topic.
— TWZ
No, his unevidenced opinions were attacked, his ideas were attacked, and his lack of a cogent argument was attacked. All of which he took personally. After multiple rounds of this, after multiple rounds of noelplum99 failing to respect other commenters by actually responding to what they had written, failing to respect other commenter by repeating the same unevidenced hypothetical situations, and failing to actually back up any assertion with supporting evidence, he was called a fuckwit and worse. This is called responding.
I don’t suppose you have any contextual citations that would back your opinion up?
Sigh
Lol, captainmjs actually quote-mined from the rules, it made me chuckle.
The part they quoted from is for the Lounge thread rules.
Captainmjs: READ IT AGAIN. There are specific rules for specific areas here. The Lounge is for relatively conflict-free conversations. Thunderdome is for unmoderated battling. You quoted the set of rules for the Lounge, neatly removing that context. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
NoelPlum99 would probably still be making noise here if he’d decided to say he didn’t like Natalie Reed in the Thunderdome, rather than making that irrelevant announcement in a thread about her departure.
Perhaps you should try paying attention to the actual rules here, rather than making up your own and telling me to amend mine.
Rev. BigDumbChimp:
Thanks! — TWZ
captainmjs: if you read juuuuuust a bit more carefully, you’ll find that your commenting-rules pullquote refers quite explicitly to one particular thread, not the whole blog.
Citation, not your MEopnion, needed.
Citation, not your MEopnion, needed.
Nothing is stopping you from stating what you think. But, if you aren’t willing to defend MEopinion properly, yes, why bother. The fault isn’t with us, but you.
like he said
Hilarious
I see where you are coming from, but regarding learning and listening (in general), it mostly presents itself more like this:
I’m not long enough around to know how the discussions with this Noel panned out, but so far, the social justice issues are by far used as killer arguments and for power fantasies. And then commenters tend to feed trolls and actually expect it from others, otherwise they think one is sided with the troll. True story.
It took longer than I expected for some fool to invoke the tired, right-wing, “PC thought police” cliche.
Damn. Now I have to ban patrickdoyle, captainmjs, owlglass, and colonelzen, just because my iron-shod boot must grind against the necks of the oppressed.
Now, groan
META:
Why is the idea that women are actual human beings and that parts of their anatomy should not be used as insults considered ‘politically correct’? Why is using gendered (or ageist, ablist, bigoted, racist, etc) insults to silence people considered okay by some people?
We feed the trolls until they explode. Why would you think otherwise if you actually read the blog regularly? Ignoring trolls validate their MEopinions.
Rev, I just replace “PC cops/overly pc” with “decent human beings” every time I see someone complain about it. But I do admit I’ll sigh as well, damn that echo chamber!
Well if you can get some watery tart to throw a sword at you it’s probably OK.
— TWZ
@patrickdoyle – 10 February 2013 at 8:58 am (UTC -6)
Dear Mr. Doyle,
.
I feel that your use of the word ‘censorship’ in this instance is unwarranted. Mr. Myers is not a government agency nor is he even really a media outlet in the traditional sense. He is simply a person with a popular blog. He has chosen certain rules about what sorts of comments he will allow on the blog, just as just about every blogger does once they reach a certain level of popularity.
.
If a commenter finds that their submissions are moderated or banned, then they can easily start commenting at another blog that will accept them. Or, they could start their own blog. Or, like NoelPlum99, they can make a video on youtube. If this is censorship, then it is a particularly weak kind because it does not prevent NoelPlum99, or any other commenter, from getting out their message by many other easily available means.
.
I am glad you agree that Mr. Myers has a right to ban commenters. I hope you can consider that it is his personal labor to keep the blog functioning. (Or perhaps he has assistants to help with the blog, in which case it is his labor and his money.) In any case this labor keeps this excellent blog usable despite the fact that many individuals would like to derail the conversation and render the blog unusable. The fact that he has a limited amount of labor available means that he actually needs to moderate based on certain rules.
.
yours,
.
atheist
Ogvorbis
Because, nine times out of ten, the people who complain about “omgz soo PC” are never personally affected by the splash damage from the use of such slurs.
colonelzen @ 26
“Thanks.”
So dismissing your petulant complaint about “PC cops” proves your point that Pharyngula is a den on leftist oppression and censorship?
You clearly don’t know how evidence works, don’t you?
In all fairness, I don’t know how proofreading works:
EDIT: …is a den of…
CR @11: Some people can’t distinguish between dissentery and logorrhea.
When it’s about FTB, when somebody says something like “pc cops” my mind immediately translates it to “I wanna say cunt, and rape jokes are awesome.” But that’s just me.
I know. I should have tossed in a rhetorical tag on that.
—–
Those shouting CENSORSHIP! are clueless.
This blog is, essentially, a store. An amusement park. A private museum. A private school.
I cannot walk onto the property of Disney World, set up a table, and hand out literature demanding that states refuse to recognize gay marriage. Disney police would politely ask me to leave as Disney is a private venture and has rules about political speech. I can, however, contact Canaveral National Seashore and, after a little bit of paperwork, exercise my first amendment rights on government land. Were the NPS to deny me a chance to lobby for whatever cause I support, that would be (possibly) censorship.
See the difference? Blog is not government. Private concerns make rules about political speech all the fucking time. They can do that because they are not government.
NoelPlum99 needs to get his own blog and pay his own way.
He reminds me of the neighbor who walks his dog in other peoples’ yards. He wants to own a dog, but he wants everyone else to put up with the shit.
Rumtopf @ 37
Well, that the thing with libertarians: you are free to be a ” decent human being” but if you try to impose that expectation upon the rest of the human race, then are a jack-booted, Stalinist, Femi-Stasi out to repress the individual liberties of priviliged assholes to be misogynist and racist jerks.
FRRREEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!
@colonelzen – 10 February 2013 at 9:31 am (UTC -6)
Try to picture an echo chamber that has treacle on tap and which also houses a bunch of “self righteous PC cops”. You have to admit it’s a challenge.
Oooh boy! *gets popcorn*
Wasn’t Colonelzen one of those defending the use of the c-word?
You know, some people are too quick on the trigger (something I’ve tut-tutted about before). Sometimes it’s true that the majority here are really, really good at dogpiling on someone. But this is bullshit:
I notice you picked an innocuous topic (kind of a weird choice, too, because a lot of people here are vegetarian). Try picking something more realistic, that would get you trashed.
“It’s a guy thing [that men are more ambitious, more vocal, more aggressive…you pick any stereotype].”
Then will follow a deluge of outraged comments that that is sexist, that it begs the question, that it assumes culturally reinforced behaviors are just the way things are. And the poor moron who said it will rightly feel like they’re getting verbally battered, because they are. There are a lot of people here who will see right through the bias in that kind of comment.
So yes, they will be attacked mercilessly.
Because they were fucking wrong.
Captainmjs: READ IT AGAIN. There are specific rules for specific areas here. The Lounge is for relatively conflict-free conversations. Thunderdome is for unmoderated battling. You quoted the set of rules for the Lounge, neatly removing that context. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Well I do apologize for that. I suppose I just assumed that the “personal attacks” room carried over to your blog. So does this mean that commenters are free to engage in personal attacks on others in your blog’s comments? Because if so then I admit that I was wrong.
Random thought in isolation from all else.
Both the troll issue and the echo chamber effect seem to be very real structural byproducts of certain forms on this new (socially over terms of cultural evolution) internet thing. As a society and culture we’re still shaking down trying to find out what works and what doesn’t.
I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t think anyone does in total. PZ’s policies with Lounge and Thunderdome are part and parcel of our attempt to adapt to this new technology. To the extent they work, they will be accepted and innovated with variation by other sites (just as I’ve seen things like thunderdome elsewhere before).
— TWZ
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one to see him quite clearly call himself an idiot.
Well, I’m not a doctor (of linguistics), but I think they involve different kinds of bile.
Contrast Mr Doyle’s faux reasonableness here to his comment on youtube:
You know, people, one of the most damning behaviors is being two-faced and insincere.
Well, c’mon, PZ. You’re not supposed to read what Mr. Doyle writes anywhere else. That would show, er, mutter something mutter.
Yes. Have you even read this blog? They can, for instance, point out that you’re an incompetent meretricious ass, no problem (especially since it’s true!), and you can complain back. Of course, if all you’re going to do is come over here to lash out, I’ll have no qualms about sending you away.
Drive-by troll, surely.
@ colonelzen – 10 February 2013 at 10:01 am (UTC -6)
“What to do about it” seems fairly obvious to me. If you have a blog that’s being trolled, moderate it. If you want to comment on a blog but find that your comments aren’t wanted, go comment somewhere else or get your own blog. It’s not that complicated.
I watched noelplum99 as he posted. He got dog-piled on, his words taken out of context and insulted relentlessly. It was incredibly unfair.
#60: Exactly. I have an effective and popular way of doing something about it, which involves booting the asses of trolls who derail conversations. This has led to many trolls who feel it is their god-given right to derail to complain.
I watched noelplum99 as he posted, too, probably with more diligence than you did. He got dog-piled on and insulted, for sure…and he deserved it all.
@Akira MacKenzie
Ha, yeah. I’m reminded of that Reap Paden blog post when he said he “wouldn’t allow you[as in FTBloggers LIKE PZ, Ophelia, Stephanie, etc] to force your thinking on me”. Yes, force. That’s exactly how he and others like him see it.
How did he deserve it all? He advanced a contrary position on a few topics, and never resorted to the kind of horrific quote-mining, “paraphrasing” and outright lying that your regulars were engaging in.
Denying a problem doesn’t make it go away. I don’t have stats but I strongly suspect that the strenghtening of creationism with the simultaneous rise of public atheism is not a coincidence.
We wind up with cohorts of people bound *much* more tightly to their views because of repeititive and interactive ongoing interaction with others of like mind. At the same time we have thousands of such separate cohorts.
Because of the internet enabling communication we have people *vastly* more sure and certain of their beliefs (whether right or wrong) and willing to act upon them because they get massive amounts of validation for them through the internet. Validation seeking behavior is completely natural.
So really, really are a vastly more fractured, fractious and willfully hostile society than we were twenty or even ten years ago.
(None of which denies or repudiates any of the *huge* real gains to individuals and society from the internet).
— TWZ
That’s true. You can’t credibly claim it was unfair, so naturally it was incredibly unfair. I’m not sure what we shouldn’t believe was unfair about it or why; but I’ll let you do the work in explaining that, since you took the initiative in bringing it up.
Yes. Have you even read this blog? They can, for instance, point out that you’re an incompetent meretricious ass, no problem (especially since it’s true!), and you can complain back. Of course, if all you’re going to do is come over here to lash out, I’ll have no qualms about sending you away.”
Well thanks for that PZ. I suspected that you were a condescending jerk and now you’ve just confirmed it. You know I’ve been a fan of your blog for the longest time. I generally agree with you about social justice but your behavior towards anyone who disagrees with you is appalling. You don’t even fucking know me and you just assume that I’m any of these things. I sincerely hope you don’t treat your students this way but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Please stop calling yourself a humanist and a freethinker because you fall into either of those categories you hateful prick. Seeing as I once looked up to you this is especially disappointing but I won’t waste my time with you anymore.
Jeeez, am I disappointed in this thread.
I hate to bring this up again and again – it’s seems like every 6 months I’m saying this: My very first post was jumped on. I was being literal, as is my Aspberger-y wont, and pointed out that what PZ actually said was wrong, unfair, and with near metaphysical certainty not what PZ meant. PZ himself joined the party of people saying that the plain meaning was available from context. It was even asserted that I possessed intracranial dung.
And, though I’m not exactly a “regular” poster since entering law school, I am to many around here a known entity that has, at least a time or two, dropped a comment that was well received.
I started out life here indistinguishable from a tone troll/concern troll. Although I still believe in linguistic precision (and **love** reading the comments from David and other knowledgeable linguists), I actually learned something about the context here and why a good-hearted comment using the argument of a tone troll might not be well received.
I learned something.
Thereby I proved myself not a troll. I still disagree quite often. More often with Ed (who, in my estimation, gives USA protections for free speech too much credit and other countries’ protections too little) than with PZ, but I don’t think that anyone thinks I’m a troll. And as far as I know, I’ve never dined under a thread-suspended banhammer.
PZ’s post has it right: reasonable people generally go where they know they have an affinity and will be able to enjoy the company. People who deliberately venture where they know an affinity group has gathered that (more often than not) opposes the venturers’ values (at least the relevant ones under discussion)? They are frequently unreasonable.
Thus, like on every other blog on the planet, most of the people attracted to it are attracted because they generally agree, and those attracted because they disagree frequently act like jerks and rightfully get banned.
I’m getting sick of the captainmjs and noelplums of the world. Your arguments are just silly in the face of the actual evidence.
I do feel compelled to say that I think ultimately Jimplum is one of the good guys. Ultimately. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to let him back just in Thunderdome or something at some point. But it’s not really for me to decide, obviously.
There are just certain aspects of people that are inappropriately boorish sometimes. I think it was Rebecca Watson who said a skeptic meeting was a room full of very smug self righteous people quite often and I don’t doubt it. Well I’d add that there’s a certain, I dunno, bravado to being a long term vlogger with a following as well. I’m beginning to see that if you put these things together, then you get…well, people who butt in to what is a bit of a sorrowful occasion for yet another departed blogger from harassment and try to ‘evaluate’ the situation with all their helpful ideas about who’s a hypocrite and who isn’t or whatever.
Obtuse is a very good word for it. But despite all that I have hopes for the guy. What can I say. He strikes me as mostly alright.
@Rumtopf – 10 February 2013 at 10:17 am (UTC -6)
It is so utterly tiresome. Reap Paden, the slymepitters et. al. want to shut down FtB. But they can’t shut down FtB, so what do they do? Whine that the very existence of FtB constitutes oppression, in fact, they believe that their inability to oppress others constitutes oppression to them. Their worldview is utterly incompatible with a free society, and their self-pity is oceanic.
You have the point to make here, remember? You have to explain what was unfair. Show your work.
Right, captainmjs, you’ve been a big fan, which is why you posted this 19 hours ago on youtube:
You showed up with your biases, pretended to be all fair and civil, and then get upset when we see right through you.
myuido: it would actually be useful if you gave examples of the “horrific quote-mining, ‘paraphrasing’ and outright lying that your regulars were engaging in”, because noelplum99 seems to be quite happily confirming everyone’s impressions.
I already told you what I thought was unfair. Quote-mining, is unfair. Paraphrasing to put words into peoples mouths, is unfair. Lying, is unfair. Do you disagree with any of that?
I’m sorry colonelzen, I think you meant:
FIFY
Quote-mining is unfair, as is lying. Paraphrasing is reasonable and not unfair — I actual tell my writing students that quoting is frowned upon in scientific writing and paraphrasing and summarizing is preferable.
You were asked to cite specific examples of people being unfair to noelplum99. Are you going to?
FFS is it really that hard to understand a simple request for examples?
I’m going to PZ. It means going back through old threads, finding exactly what I mean and linking them. It takes a bit of time, and I have laundry to do. I should post it within a couple of hours.
Just one example would suffice to at least demonstrate that you’re not, you know, straight up lying.
Also, these people complaining about the “PC cops” seem to think that we all have the urge to use racial and gendered slurs, only that our “PC radar” Hitleristically prohibits this natural impulse. So, first ask yourself “why do I have this impulse?”
But hey, if it’s natural it shouldn’t be inhibited, amirite?
Straight out of Slymepit complaints posting #3.
Maybe not “straight up”, but only one example would still be “pretty much” lying:
Hey, I disagreed with a regular! OMG BYE FTB!!!
Slymepit speech #4.
Oh I dunno Sally. Here’s a piece of the “hoarde” to whet your appetite.
See you in a bit.
myuido
Here are some links to help you with finding that example of egregious behavior towards noelplum.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/11/27/douche-defends-douching/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/02/matt-dillahunty-being-all-reasonable-and-stuff/comment-page-1/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/10/heeeeeres-rebecca/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/09/everyday-sexism-2/
Bonus question: What do all these links have in common, aside from FTB?
Quotemined, of course.
Myuido, link for that quoted comment please? I like to see important things like context.
myuido, does that belong to any of these categories?
I’m hoping there’s some magic armor in the “hoarde” – my pathfinder psionicist is really hurting for AC.
@colonelzen – 10 February 2013 at 10:20 am (UTC -6)
First of all, even if your statements about society were true, the way we personally would respond to it, on the internet, would still be exactly as I described. Whining about it would still be pointless. You still would have no “right” to comment on PZ’s blog.
Second, I’m not convinced that our society has actually changed in these ways over the past couple of decades. Please present evidence that our society is somehow more “fractured”.
Yeah, I know I’ll be asked for evidence of this, but no evidence will appease the peanut gallery on this issue, and so I won’t bother. From someone who has lurked a bit here and elsewhere at FTB and posted a few times when you didn’t have to login, the following is very obvious: there is a blatant double standard here.
If you pretty much agree with the dominant view here, then you can get away with a lot. If you are contrarian, then you are held to a much higher standard.
Long time commenters here that are in the “flock” will use poor reasoning or attack the person making contrary arguments (and not just the argument itself) and get very little pushback from others here. If the contrarian pushes back at all, then they are held to a higher standard.
For me, being rational involves questioning my own thoughts and motivation and realizing that I can be prey to cognitive blind spots that are so common as to be documented, studied, and named. I think that type of self-reflection should be more common here among readers and others. When one of your online friends at FTB is commenting in a way that you would find objectionable if someone from outside the group did it, I suggest that you call them on it.
Many here are much to self-convinced in general and on finer points.
Please, folks. There’s laundry to do and stuff.
And of course it’s perfectly reasonable to start out claiming lots of things, knowing you’ve got no evidence to back it up on hand. It gets the juices flowing. We all already know what myuido’s talking about, right? *nudge-nudge*
FWIW, I’ve been told to go fuck myself a few times here, so there’s that. I’m pretty sure most commenters have had disagreements. Just not organized disagreement, meaning we haven’t built a platform exclusively dedicated to oppose the blog.
skeptifem is also a known dissenter, just coming from the opposite end of the spectrum.
myuido:
Every thread he posted in was a prime example of how he deserved what he got. Off the top of my head is this thread, where he demonstrated his priggish obtuseness, kept making anti-women arguments, refused to change one fucking word of his “arguments” in spite of repeated, cited evidence he was wrong, etc.
It was telling that Jim only showed up to pontificate* in threads dealing with women, sexism or feminism.
*Pontificate would be your clue here – Jim never once demonstrated the slightest interest in having a discussion, and certainly not one in which he might be wrong; he showed up here only to pontificate and expected his words to be taken as high and mighty wisdom. It takes an idiot to think people on the ‘net are going to treat them as some sort of bloody deity because the less than stellar minds inhabiting yootube do so.
On the other hand, the bloggers are quite homogeneous. Every blogger here believes essentially what Greta Christina believes.
Would you twits please get it through your thick skulls that I am not remotely worried or concerned about “censorship”. Likewise have no truck with racisism or sexism (and yes am aware that I probably do unawaredly do at times do such things). Oh, and libertarianism in theory, practice, and “I’m not a libertarian, but-“ness is downright daft.
My original in thread post was only to convey to PZ (and anyone who might be capable of reflection) that the echo chamber is real and odious hereabouts.
— TWZ
You wanna see dissent, even “nasty” one, without anyone getting banned, go to the evo psych threads. It seems to me people complaining, somehow, for some reason, always are the ones posting “dissent” in the feminazi threads.
Since you can’t even bother to present some evidence, why should your… whatever that was… be taken seriously?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I can’t stop laughing. This is obviously either someone who:
a.) Is straight up lying
b.) Never read the comment threads here.
Of course, said call outs usually don’t evolve into DEEP RIFTS, and normally goes something like:
Regular A: [something objectionable]
Regular B: Wut? Please don’t do that, kthxbai
Regular C: Wow, yeah, that’s not ok.
Regular A: Dayum, that was some shit thing to say. My bad, everyone.
Regulars B, C, and A: SO anyway, about that topic…
An assertion of opinion you have yet to back up.
Assertion made without evidence. We get a lot of those by complainers, which is why we want to see evidence. The contrarians show a huge lack of self-reflection.
colonelzen:
Uh huh. Here’s a thought – have a wander through yootube and tell them the echo chamber is real and odious. Then have a wander over to the slymepit, AVFM and so on and tell them the same. Then click over to 4chan to have a chat about their echo chamber. There’s a reason people tend to primarily whinge here about an echo chamber – you can do that here with little consequence.
Communities of like-minded people all behave the same way. Why in the fuckety fuck is this so difficult for people to comprehend? There are plenty of arguments here between members of the commentariat, there’s plenty of dissent – generally speaking, the people here do know how to act like adults, so these things get settled. If you aren’t one to read almost every thread and keep up with at least Tdome, you won’t see that. Duh.
OMFG!!!!! Does Comedy Central know about this place? Somebody send them a link, quick!
“I watched noelplum99 as he posted, too, probably with more diligence than you did. He got dog-piled on and insulted, for sure…and he deserved it all.”
From the person who called a polite young man on the street an ignorant fool.
watch?v=-ASBBIVFb8c
You all know that if a contrarian came in here and insulted a regular then all hell would break loose.
There are ways to be mildly insulting or speak to someone’s behavior or thoughts with a charming derision….but it isn’t found here.
Note: It is much better form to say something like “your ARGUMENT is ignorant and foolish”.
See how you can insult an argument without judging the totality of a person? Amazing, eh?
If there really are no contrarians among the Horde, then ChasCPeterson, John Morales, strange gods before me, and Salty Current must all be my hallusinations…/worried now
@stevecarlos, #93
Let’s use a totally made up example to picture what’s actually going on here.
Really, “holding both to the same standard” means what, here? Calling out PR for the lack/lake offering to Tpyos? Pointing out that Godwin wasn’t asserting that the probability of references to the end of the human race approach 1 in certain situations but instead actual references to NAZIs/Hitler? Including an insult in the comment?
And we, as the horde, are supposed to feel as motivated to tackle that as we are to challenge the idea that women can’t run the most important countries in the world because we all have deep, genocidal urges? The idea that Clinton should be assassinated for being a woman who might get elected president some day? The idea that RW is advocating genocide by attrition when she says that when a woman repeatedly says, “Hey, everyone: No,” it might be a thing to avoid to follow that woman into an elevator at 4am and say, “But what about me, you surely didn’t mean, ‘No,’ to me?” because ignoring some of women’s nos might give women some uncertainty about which nos you will actually respect.
Seriously, you can’t understand why one of these gets more pushback than the other?
@jose – 10 February 2013 at 11:03 am (UTC -6)
Reistance is futile. You will be assimilated into the Greta Christina Borg.
Then what is the use of bigoted dogwhistles like “PC cops”?* I’m sincerely asking what you could possibly mean by that. If there’s some problem with self-righteousness itself, which means thinking you are right, we could hear about that too; or else you should say what we’re wrong about despite being so confident about being right.
*Why is it so often the case that it’s the dogs who (ostensibly) can’t hear the dogwhistles, but everyone else can?
You only conveyed that you think that, not that it’s true. So that comment was a failure.
Yeah, don’t know how many times I’ve seen that here
Step 1: Post something that goes against the “Pharyngula consensus on equal rights and social justice”
Step 2: Get replies from polite (I try to be polite in my first few replies) to pretty harsh.
Step 3: Ignore the polite replies and focus instead on how mean people are, thereby totally derailing the topic and shifting the goalpost.
Now, if that person were that interested in discussing their point they simply could ignore people who are rude and discuss matters with those who are more polite. No matter how often some regular yells at you over the internet, nobody forces you to listen to them, you can even put them on killfile.
But the fact that they don’t shows how they’re actually not interested in discussing matters.
I also found that being openly female gets me pretty ignored when polite and very much chastized when rude…
cogential cynic
So, you’re not from around here, are you?
patrickdoyle
Yes, that’s about it.
So, tell me, do you keep inviting people to your home who do nothing but complain about your furniture and go around annoying all your other guests by telling them what they should have worn for that night instead of what they actually wear?
If no, you might understand this…
Ogvorbis
I read an interesting piece about how the right managed to steal the term “politically correct” and turned it into something bad…
myuido
Well “contrary position” meant, among other things, that women are kind of icky and should be banned from certain positions. And he deserved it by making all the threads about himself, especially the one about Natalie Reed.
Crip Dyke
I remember being jumped upon by Kristinc for some horrible victim-blaming, rape-enableing bullshit that I wrote. And duh I was offended. I got better and learned a thing or two since.
I think I can also safely say that the Horde saved my life, because the great Giliell-Breakdown of 2012 wouldn’t have gone like it did without a bunch of people who taught me that mental health is not shameful and that thinking about oneself is actually OK, too.
Stevecarlos
And so I didn’t bother to read the rest of your post.
stevecarlos, if you wish to be clearly understood, at least make an effort at using minimal html, like blockquotes. They are handily displayed underneath the comment box. If that isn’t enough, when you wish to quote someone, use:
<blockquote>Place Quoted Text Here</blockquote>
It won’t make you right, but it will make you much easier to read.
@ Eurasian Magpie:
Yeah, that too. I tend to use my welcome-to-pharyngula experience to talk about conflict and disagreement existing, but those are much better examples. John Morales often has good things to say, but he’s even more stick-in-the-mud about language than I am, in a way that can be frustratingly repetitive for those who are here often. SG & SC both have had major flare ups.
Heck, even the existence of Thuderdome and the Lounge as separate entities rather than one Endless Thread comes down to disagreements between regulars – I was on every day right then, and saw pretty much the whole thing occur in more-or-less real time. Echo chamber that wasn’t.
Caine, yes I know quite well the echo chamber effect is as real on YouTube (subcommunities) and pretty much any other internet community.
But it’s real here as well.
To be sure if all regular commentors were 100% perfectly right on 100% of the issues they commented upon, it would look like an echo chamber as well (and yes I agree that the commentariat is (much) more right, most of the time here (IMO) than most other communities. But the “dogpiling” makes it impossible for any serious discussion of any disagreement to occur, especially from an outsider.
Practically everything in the comments is meta material. He said she said they said …. It seems impossible to have a serious interchange here that is not about who and what and whether their proclivites are socially acceptable or not.
— TWZ
[“My original in thread post was only to convey to PZ (and anyone who might be capable of reflection) that the echo chamber is real and odious hereabouts.”
An assertion of opinion you have yet to back up.]
I don’t know block quote-fu so the brackets contain a quote within a quote.
How do you provide evidence for the general tone and operating procedure of a place?
Let’s say a comedian stated “that was a bad crowd” (and the others back stage saw it too), how would the comedian show that empirically even given video of the whole thing? It is a general judgement.
It seems that general statements are made about those that are opposed by folks here. How can you do it without providing a million quotes on both sides and then somehow analyze them all to come to an induction? You know as well as I do how you do it.
If others are stating that they see a problem here and an echo chamber as a general impression and judgement from their exposure, then perhaps you should take that on board as a possibility instead of asking for direct evidence for a thing which is not easily justified even if true. You should think that perhaps others are seeing something that you are not.
Anyone who ever uses “PC” without a heavy dose of irony is not only ignorant, but also about as timely and fresh as a Newt.
Colonel Zen:
That’s where you’re wrong. We’ve had plenty of people here who have disagreed on any given topic and who have patiently responded to the initial response dump and some excellent discussions have taken place as a result. If someone actually has a point, a good and valid point (those bits are important), the commentariat is generally receptive and more than happy to discuss it.
Again, people who simply drive by or decided to read a particularly contentious thread then leave or whatnot, simply don’t have a full picture of what happens here and instead of making their judgment on a full picture, they make it on one tiny piece out of the middle. I’m sure you can figure out why it’s rarely worth our time to argue with someone who is doing so.
Odd that, as there have been a few times when I made an (unintentionally) offensive comment and was given a swift and thorough correction.
We consider that a feature, not a bug. YMMV
stevecarlos:
Jesus Christ onna stick. See post 111 – I fucking typed it out for you. Cut and paste, ffs.
Really?
Do a quick survey on porn and if it can be empowering to women, or if it is by nature objectifying and victimizing. I think that you will find substantial disparity of opinion on just that one topic, with Greta strongly on one side and many commenters strongly on another.
That’s just the first topic off the top of my head. There are – I don’t doubt – plenty of others.
Definitions:
Circle jerk, echo chamber: your community and fellowship of interests.
Community and fellowship of interests: my circle jerk, echo chamber.
I hope that helps.
The argument ignores some points of difference between blog comments and YouTube comments.
It’s so much easier to find, even in a long written post, exactly what was said where. For example, one YouTuber wrote that Ophelia Benson had made fun of his disability, saying that he had clearly brought it up in his video. Simple disagreement with such a statement leaves other readers with no quick evidence either way. With no recourse to Ctrl F, one would have to listen from the beginning again for a time stamp (of a 19-min vid in this case). If the point isn’t so clear cut, a transcription and an argument is hard to fit into a 500 character comment.
Also, the “dogpile” type of policing goes on in YouTube comments, but the outcome is neater: the dogpiled comment is noted in italics: This has been flagged as spam or This comment has received too many negative votes. Someone who wants to poke the channel owner with an email notification while not opening a comment to the public or who realizes that he’s put his foot in it can resort to or Comment removed Author Withheld. Even with the first two options, NoelPlum99 comments in the linked video itself that he will block someone for continued spamming. Others in the comment thread say “Don’t feed the trolls” so that responses/replies to those comments don’t bring up the (Show the comment) option. Even if they don’t get marked as spam or receive too many negative votes, they quickly disappear beyond the front page.
Comments here don’t get minimized as spam or with negative votes. Leaving them unanswered ties into the idea of “silence means assent.” You can scroll through 500 comments on the front page. With those factors, “Don’t feed the trolls” becomes “Feed ’em until they burst” with counter arguments.
I agree with Patrick Doyle’s comments. I believe NoelPlum99 is a sincere kind of chap. I certainly dismiss the idea that he is a troll. Many of the people I’ve encountered online have disagreed with me on this or that issue but I have never regarded them as trolls.
Sure, but if any commentariat at FTB (where “FTB” means Pharyngula, B&W, Almost Diamonds, Lousy Canuck, and anyone else who regularly posts about women-things) ever fails to call out a regular IMMEDIATELY for the least little too-far comment, that’s PROOF FOREVAR of echo-chamber, hivemind etc. Because 95% call-out accuracy is moral failure when FfTB does it, but 95% hateful shit from the trollers is just good ol’ Freeze Peach.
relevant:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2013/02/10/when-you-already-are-the-middle-ground/
—-
For what it’s worth, some regulars often take the insults too far too fast for MY taste. If it were my blog (which it freakin’ well is not) I’d suggest the three-comment rule be more strictly adhered to. However, said insults are extremely useful for smoking out who’s more interested in insults and tone complaints thereof than in arguments and learning. If I think someone’s got a point that’s getting rolled over, I’ll engage them and back them up. That’s also dissent, by the way. Lots of the regulars engage with decent arguments when some stranger brings one up, and defend strangers they think show some good faith: see parts of the gun-control threads, for instance.
*on refresh* Or what Giliell said better in #110. Oh well, guess I’m part of the Giliell-mind and not the Nerd-mind today. /snark
PZ, it depends on how hard they’re jerking!
I’m absolutely willing to entertain that notion, but I’m sure you’ll see why I won’t be able to start seeing the same thing these other people do that I don’t until someone can at least explain what it is they see that I do not, rather than just saying something which, like you said, is completely subjective and present it as an objective truth.
In response to many replies to my comment:
I have been asked, among other things, to provide something “less subtle” to disagree with, so I am afraid I must. I did not want to be overly contentious, but there are several lines in Dr. Myers’ post that clearly indicate that Free Thought Blogs has no intention of being free. Again, I have no issue with that. I don’t expect Ken Ham to set up a blog and allow atheist ideology which he considers to be both idiotic and evil. As I said, that is the right of the blog owner to decide.
However, my true respect for the work of Dr. Myers causes me to despair at ideas such as he expressed here; “And there was another obvious reason why some dissenters get banned: they are obtuse and don’t listen. There are regular commenters here who are similarly obstinate, but at least this is their space and they have voluntarily joined up with a group sharing similar views. If you’re a dissenter, holding a minority view, there’s an expectation that you’re actually here because you’re looking to learn about a different point of view”
I am certain Dr. Myers is aware that it is possible to listen respectfully and analyze a viewpoint different from your own and remain unconvinced of its’ validity.
Or here; “Another reason is that when they aren’t aggressively abusive, these dissenters are often completely tone-deaf and unable to see beyond their own myopic little obsessions.”
This is the same view that the “trolls” have of him. It does not smack of reasonable dissent, but an attitude that anyone who fails to agree must be stupid. I am sure anyone can see how such comments can be off-putting, and call Dr. Myers’ objectivity into question.
And last (though this list is incomplete);”But otherwise, there are views that I find insufferably stupid, that only idiots would hold, and I’m happy to make this environment as hostile as possible to them. ”
While it may be possible to justify this position, Dr. Myers examples were not specific, using terms such as anti-feminist, or worse, ‘denying that our culture is deeply patriarchal and sexist’.
In other words, if you don’t agree with me, you can be banned. While I don’t fully hold the position that he is wrong, it can be legitimately, politely, and rationally argued that our society is not ‘deeply patriarchal and sexist’, or at least not overly so. Most here would disagree, and that is fine, and very possibly correct, but when you ban discussion of topics simply based on your personal opinions, you are, by definition, NOT running a “free thought blog” and int the interests of honesty would be well advised to admit that, while perhaps not as rigid as Ken Ham, you to censor ideas from your blog based on your own moral perceptions.
Again this is your right, it is not inherently wrong, but if you truly value the free exchange of ideas, the banhammer must be reserved for those who are rude, crude, intentionally insulting, or offensive (personally, not ideologically). If ideological test are in place, you have no right to portray yourself as an open forum of ideas. Closed forums can also be productive and useful – why not simply acknowledge that?
Respectfully,
Patrick Doyle
@Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
Obviously, in that situation then the person disagreeing is being an a-hole. I was not speaking of situations such as that.
Well, they could point out where and when jokes fell flat, demonstrate the way the hecklers turned the audience against them, talk about how they didn’t manage to get a laugh early on thus setting the tone for the evening, maybe analyze some of the comments made by audience members during and after the performance…
Plus, y’know, a recording would show that people didn’t laugh. Strikes me as pretty solid empirical evidence that there was actually a problem.
So instead of making a flawed/incomplete attempt that may nevertheless reveal something, you’d rather not try at all and take refuge in vague assertions.
“it can be legitimately, politely, and rationally argued that our society is not ‘deeply patriarchal and sexist’, or at least not overly so. ”
It can? Please provide an example. With emphasis on the legit, polite and rational shit.
Yes, which is why there is no comment ranking here — I knew that’s the sort of thing that would happen. And yet, somehow, letting someone hang themselves on their own rope before booting them from Pharyngula is censorship, while the behavior that is entirely accepted and allows the mob to completely silence someone on youtube is Free Speech.
And yes, I’ve seen it: if I leave a comment anywhere on youtube there is a vigilante mob that will immediately downvote it, no matter what I say. So hearing youtube advocates claim that they are heroes of free speech is so hypocritical it sprains my irony gland.
That’s the way the system works; I live with it, and simply make my comments here. I’m not complaining about censorship, but pointing out that the situation is far messier than these yahoos make it out to be.
Hmm…it seems that I wanted to make a comment on something UPSTREAM from your post and hadn’t both refreshed my browser AND read the entire thread to the end prior to doing so. Do you think I should be telepathically alerted whenever you address me? I am in quite a conundrum now. I’ve typed this out, but you might’ve sent me some important instruction whilst I was typing. I’m thinking I should immediately open this page in another window, skim it quickly for instructions from you, and then return here and submit. Is that the strategy you would use if in my shoes?
Ah, but you see, they’re democratically and collectively shutting people up, instead of autocratically shutting people up.
Which is totally different, for… reasons.
I’d call you a Martian for being so oblivious, except that I think a Martian would look at our society and see the dichotomy in mores and behavior between two otherwise relatively indistinguishable bipedal primates as a real and interesting fact of human culture.
May I suggest you acquaint yourself with one obvious example?
And that’s a recent improvement in equality.
We could also mention that there are NO black senators. Are you going to argue that American society is not deeply racist, too?
Interestingly enough, PZ ran a little experiment not long ago. Requested such arguments, backed up with evidence. In over 1500 comments, we didn’t get a single rational argument backed by evidence. We did get a lot of “feminazis!” and “well, this whole privilege thing is nonsense, which is obvious, because I (white male) am saying so!” though.
I would really, really love to witness this, so please argue away. I’ve seen this stated often, and I’ve (often) seen this argued based purely on opinion and shallow personal observation without taking into account counter narratives and larger sociological realities (more commonly spotted in the wild as “But I’VE never seen this, so it’s not true), but I’ve never seen this actually argued based on anything we’d agree to be evidence or rational, legitimate, reasonable argumentation.
Who the fuck would hold up Youtube comments as a good example of anything, except a need to improve literacy.
stevecarlos:
How about you take the strategy of saying, “hey, thanks for the help with quoting” instead of being an asshole?
#134: Note also that the anti-feminists all complained elsewhere that I would ban them if they said anything. Yet here they are, openly complaining about my comment policy. They can charge in and defend their assertion that I’m way too mean to them, but apparently they aren’t able charge in and defend their sexism.
It’s…interesting.
Mattir @16:
This is damning.
With a flexible enough mind, nearly anything can be justified and all loose ends tucked in.
I’ve been asked for evidence of my generality. This quote basically confirms what I wrote.
I must have missed the part where he said he would start charging us.
*looks at the rest of your blather*
Nope, I’m still not seeing anything of substance which actually shows some inclination which is either bad for freethought or for free speech.
Those are different things, of course, but I’m trying to be charitable by giving you both options. It’s probably better for you if I don’t assume you mean freeze peach. You know how you said “This is your right, and I defend that right” or “Again this is your right, it is not inherently wrong”? Would you say governments or corporations (or religious institutions, e.g.) have a right to censor people?
Wait, back up right there. You should be able to ban people simply for being rude, crude, etc.? It’s only “freethought” or freeze peach if we’re all tone-trolling each other; but not if we won’t “respectfully” engage with “ideological” opponents (i.e., racist fuckwits spewing their garbage all over this place)? What the fuck?
@92
Yeah, Nerd’s response was rude, that flies here and any long time reader would know that. I’d be rude too after running out of patience with Noelplum in that thread. Look at his first response, apparently the fact that women are faced with obstacles that men do not have to face when it comes to the atheist/skeptical movement(including the pervasive offhand uses of stereotypes like “it’s more of a guy thing”) is not a problem. He later compares this situation with his anecdote of seeing far less male attendees at fashion conventions, again ignoring the reasons why men might not attend, such as the way society treats men who have culturally deemed “feminine” interests. Coleopteron responded and said this but Noelplum didn’t respond. I think his arguments in that thread can be summarised to “The situation is, so it should be”. All hail the mighty status quo!
I would’ve thanked you if you had given me 5 minutes to see your help prior to jumping on me. You know that what I wrote was entirely spot on. You assumed I had read something I did not read and you were the a-hole first. I won’t thank you after that treatment.
“This is damning.
With a flexible enough mind, nearly anything can be justified and all loose ends tucked in.
I’ve been asked for evidence of my generality. This quote basically confirms what I wrote.”
Come down off the cross, we can use the wood.
<blockquote cite=""? Hmm…it seems that I wanted to make a comment on something UPSTREAM from your post and hadn’t both refreshed my browser AND read the entire thread to the end prior to doing so. Do you think I should be telepathically alerted whenever you address me? I am in quite a conundrum now. I’ve typed this out, but you might’ve sent me some important instruction whilst I was typing. I’m thinking I should immediately open this page in another window, skim it quickly for instructions from you, and then return here and submit. Is that the strategy you would use if in my shoes?
So, ever occur to you to:
1. Read to the end.
2. Write comment.
3. Copy comment.
4. Refresh to see if there are new comments that might be relevant to what you are about to post.
5. Read new comments if there are any.
6. Repeat 4 and 5 until you are confident you have read everything recent.
7. THEN post comment.
It’s nice to see you trying to defend your wounded ego by indignantly and sarcastically showing even more ignorance. Warms my heart.
PZ:
To say the least. Also interesting, is in that thread alone, there was a definite echo chamber going – among the anti-feminists. We kept having to counter the same damn argument, over and over.
patrickdoyle@126:
emphasis added.
Pray tell us, Mr. Doyle (since you’re so fond of faux-politeness), what is the right amount of patriarchy and sexism?
Aha! Pounce! Disagree with the poopyhead! There are two black senators: Tim Scott from South Carolina and William “Mo” Cowan from Massachusetts.
But they’re both appointed by their governors for interim positions, and neither is expected to run for the office….hmmmmm. And there have been fewer than 10 black senators in history….hmmmm.
Nevermind….deep rifts!
Paraphrasing Saint Shermer:
If the worst thing happening to you is that the PC police won’t let you comment on their blog and so you have no choice but to use your own, well-established platform, go fuck yourself.
Heh. Ironic that I fuck up a blockquote in that particular post. Guess I should keep the sneering to a minimum, due to the negative outcomes possible when using rocks as projectiles while living in a domicile made completely out of brittle amorphous solids.
screechymonkey @ #147
If I had to guess, the right amount of patriarchy and sexism is whatever amount doesn’t inconvenience Mr. Doyle. If it can be dismissed as a non-issue by him, why, clearly it isn’t really a problem.
anteprepro:
At least you know how to use them.
Noelplum99, I believe, saw the beginning of Atheism + as an opportunity to ride the wave of criticism that followed as a means of elevating his own platform. This, to me, would explain the lack of good faith arguments from him, which require actually engaging with what people say instead of repeating the same or similar arguments over and over again (which, as other commenters in this thread pointed out, were confined to threads about feminism, feminist issues, and Atheism +).
Here’s a sampling of noelplum99 that PZ referenced in the OP:
This was comment number 11 on the thread that PZ started about Natalie Reed’s decision to leave.
This, to my mind, is typical of what noelplum99’s comments were, no matter whose blog or the topic at hand.
Note that noelplum99 considers it acceptable to use gendered slurs to describe someone who writes something he doesn’t like, and decides to post acknowledgment of that acceptance on Pharyngula, a blog at which he had commented enough to know that such language is not acceptable – not because of the words themselves, but because of the attitudes such words convey. And words that have such associations cannot be separated from those attitudes, no matter what the defenders of Freeze Peach say.
So, to sum up:
Noelplum99 admitted, right here on Pharyngula, that because someone wrote something he disagreed with, he felt that it would have been acceptable for him to use gendered slurs to refer to her, and to dismiss Reed’s blogging about “gender politics” because it wasn’t closely related enough to atheism or skepticism to suit his tastes.
How is this different from many of the other commenters that get banned here?
Link to noelplum99’s comment, for ease of reference:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/20/so-do-they-stamp-a-symbol-on-the-side-of-the-cockpit-for-each-one/comment-page-1/#comment-540934
You see, here we have a basic problem of agreement, because I simply do not agree with this. There are things that are unjustifiable, no matter how open your mind is. Racism comes to mind. Homophobia. Transphobia. There are more. Sexism is one of them, whether it’s perpetrated by Islamic theocracies or skeptical atheists.
No amount of “flexible enough mind” can justify these.
@michaelolsen
One issue that Dr.Myers stresses is not jumping into a thread with an off-topic discussion, so I will avoid the “banhammer” by not taking the bait by going off-topic to defend a position that this society is not patriarchal and sexist. Also, Dr. Myers has made it clear that, if I did argue for this position, I would be summarily banned. Also, since, as I said, this is not necessarily my position, I am not in a great position to make the argument. I would refer you possibly to “girlwriteswhat” on YT. I find many of her arguments quite interesting.
However, your reply is indicative of the attitude that I was discussing – the a priori assumption that there can be no good argument. This is not the attitude of an open mind. This is the attitude I would expect from a theist site, or a radical political site. You are, of course, free to hold the opinion that such an argument cannot be made, but if the moderators ban such discussion out of hand, you will never know if your opinion is correct. At least not by reading this blog.
anteprepro said..
You actually think this is reasonable? Let’s say someone is the first person to comment on a post. They comment once and leave the thread. They come back the next day and lo and behold comment #2 is directed at them and they’d like to respond, yeah! Unfortunately though, it was a popular blog post and there are now a few hundred comments. What is this person to do? Read the entire thread just in case someone brought something up 5 minutes ago that would impact your response to the 2nd commenter?
Come on. Be reasonable. This is an example of the in group bias here.
Cain could’ve just as easily entertained that I hadn’t read his comment yet based upon ordering and time stamping and cut me, I don’t know, 5 minutes of slack before getting up in arms (he gave his “help” 3 minutes prior to my post that insulted his help).
You don’t see the narcissism of assuming you’ve been read and someone must be ignoring you and your help, especially given that the help was given once and a few minutes prior?
Is this how serious you take your blog reading? If let’s say there are 2,000 comments in a thread, do you read them all before you possibly write anything?
I’ll be sure to have 2 windows open at all times and constantly jump back and refresh them all the time ;)
Every time I see this, I’m amazed at the idiocy of it. FFS, commenters on this blog break out in disagreement all the time. Most of us have disagreed strongly with PZ on occasion.
And it’s not even as if all these trolls don’t know that. They always oscillate between accusing us of being a hivemind and gleefully announcing “the revolution devours its children” moments every time Pharyngulites have a serious argument among themselves.
translation: “I have the right to cause splash damage, goddamnit!”
that’s because not feeding the trolls doesn’t work. pushing back against them OTOH does. (and on that note, why am I cursed with so many of my co-Germans posting here being complete dumbasses?!)
ditto. In fact, I’m pretty sure my Pharyngula debut consisted of defending and agreeing with a notorious libertarian dumbass who used to post here.
And that’s completely aside from the “bitch is not a bad word” crap I once argued.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
QFT.
I don’t know how one would “politely” argue that daily experiences and years of sociological research count for nothing in the face of one dude’s opinion, but I suppose one could argue it “rationally”(assuming “rationally” is used in the original sense of “without empirical imput”). However, one would be ridiculously, impressively wrong, to the point of reality denial.
@ PZ – #133:
Please remember:
Yeah, it’s racist in the US. Sure it’s deeply patriarchal. You’re just forgetting that it’s not OVERLY so. Racism hasn’t been causing any problems for Patrick Doyle since WW2, and not many since WW1. So, y’know, it’s racist, but it’s a totally tolerable level of racism.
Likewise, Doyle agrees that there is sexism in the US, he just thinks that it isn’t OVERLY sexist. Because the right amount of sexism is such a boon to society, y’know? I mean, hey, Doyle’s willing to live with the current level of sexism, why aren’t you?
Holy christ, you are a fucking moron. Go away.
Yes, I am close-mindedly against stupidity.
gen said…
1. I wrote flexible mind, not open mind.
2. I wrote nearly anything, not anything.
3. I did not state that the rationalization had to be truly convincing. From the context, it should be relatively obvious that I was NOT convinced by the rationalization I pointed to and that it only need convincing to the person making the rationalization or those that would like to believe it as well.
Stevec: No it does not. Please feel free to try again.
Flexible? Yeah, I can see you know something about mental gymnastics.
LOL such specifics and ‘evidence’. I can’t believe the entire world “basically” doesn’t just fall at your feet for want of those mad debate skillz ya got there.
What you’re doing is terribly transparent. You want to whine about something, but can’t prove it, so you’re hoping vague shaming and silencing tactics will work instead. You are clearly in over your heard here, if you seriously thing some whiny tone tolling is going to win hearts and minds.
patrickdoyle:
We’re familiar, thanks. MRA rhetoric isn’t any more welcome from a woman than it is from a man, you know. It’s obvious you know very little about sexism, the history of misogyny, the ever changing social construct of masculinity, or patriarchal systems and the roots thereof.
Would that be the Bitches Deserve To Be Beaten one, or the Bitches Always Lie About Rape one?
And, thanks for outing yourself as a follower of bigots. Saves us a lot of time, since now we know you’re aren’t arguing in good faith.
@Ze Madmax
No amount of patriarchy or sexism is correct. However, my statement was meant to imply that many (if not most) on this site seem to have a greatly exaggerated idea of the extent to which our society suffers from this malady. My apologies if I was not clear.
As for my politeness, it is not feigned, and you would do well to emulate it, even if you must feign such politeness. I will remain polite, even to you, though I feel that you no longer deserve it. Please refrain from from prefacing your comments or questions with ad hominem attacks in the future. I feel, and I hope that the moderators will agree, that insults and slurs are the act of troll, whether or not that person is in general agreement with them.
Good day.
You seem not to necessarily have any position, which is very convenient. I am happy for you.
But please, don’t let me interrupt. It’s kind of fascinating to watch someone flail around impotently, making no coherent points whatsoever.
So we couldn’t reasonably ask whether any amount of sexism is too much, at least not on this blog? What are we doing right now, the laundry?
And yet you just refered us to a well known misogynist for her “interesting” arguments.
So, either, this quoted statement of yours is a blatant lie, or you haven’t paid much attention to what the deranged bigot says. I’d suggest looking into a little more, if the second option. Not someone you want to be associated with, if you actually aren’t just like her.
So do I, if by “interesting” you mean “repulsive”. The one that springs to mind immediately:
http://www.reddit.com/r/FeMRA/comments/y0nod/jto_brought_up_the_point_so_here_it_is_ferdinand/c5rjmh3
where she stated that she doesn’t find much ethically objectionable in an article by Ferdinant Bardamu called “the necessity of domestic violence” which includes gems like this:
I am also amused that Doyle plays the game PZ predicted to a T in his 138. That thread PZ and Caine refer to that specifically asked for the arguments Doyle insists he or at least *someone* can make is indeed still open, but OHNOEZ the banhammer!
Heh.
Yes.
Easy answers to easy questions.
Doyle, diddums, THIS IS NOT YOUR BLOG. Shove your condescending, assholey tone trolling.
That’s not a priori. That’s based on evidence and experience. If anyone DOES show up with an argument against a feminist position that isn’t the same old shit that’s been debunked in hundreds of individual instances over the last couple of years, they have just as much chance as anyone else to make that point BEFORE any piling-on or banning can occur. Until then, the same old shit arguments deserve no more time or respect than “why are there still monkeys”.
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Feminist_link_roundup
Patrick Doyle @ #155
GirlWritesWhat? Seriously? You find the brain trust behind “Domestic violence isn’t ethically questionable” to have interesting arguments?
Also, re: “open mind” argumentation.
The idea that a priori assumption that there are no good arguments in favor/against a particular position and that one should keep an open mind about them is idiotic. It assumes the proper way of doing things is to approach every single argument in a blank slate, ignoring previous experience and acquired knowledge on the subject. And that approach leads you nowhere, because you end up stuck fighting the same battles over and over.
ah yes. she of the “women should be abused by their men, it’s for their own good” argument, and the “women like being abused” argument.
but hey, this is totes not a patriarchal society. O.o
Illuminata,
From PZ’s quote, you don’t see the clear implication of a double standard between dissenters and regs here?
He does everything put come right out and say “people that are here a lot and generally agree with me/us are treated a bit better than a random person who disagrees”. He has the right to be like this, as do you and the rest of the regs here, but don’t claim it is anything that what it is.
I thought it was so obvious that all I had to do is quote it.
Do I really need to pick the quote apart and diagram the sentences for it to mean to you what it clearly means? My debating skills that you deride? How about reading with a mind for getting the underlying message from a text?
I gravely apologize for expecting someone to care what other people might have written in a thread. Since you are too lazy to care about dialogue, because you are someone who can’t fathom the possibility that a discussion might have arisen about something relevant to comments early in a comment thread, I say don’t bother refreshing. Don’t bother reading a thread. Just read the comment you want to respond and ignore everything else. It obvious that even that much is too much to require of you.
Stuff your affected, priggish sanctimony up your Hershey highway.
your assumption that this conclusion is in fact an a priori assumption is your mistake, and one making you look like every AGW-denier and creationist out there.
Patrick Doyle @ #165
Where I come from, honest rudeness is far preferable to feigned politeness. So as far as I am concerned, you may take your feigned politeness and shove it.
Like the one that women cause their own abuse?
Or the one that women only seek to enter “men’s spaces” once they’re old and ugly?
yes.
I find nothing polite about suggesting that I should listen to someone who’s trying to tell me that I like and deserve to be abused. Your definition of “politeness” seems to really amount to genteel toxicity. I’ll pass.
Oh yes, of course. The fact that the misogyny underlying patriarchy has been calling the shots for thousands of years, well, that’s ever so exaggerated. You aren’t terribly bright.
Here’s a little challenge for you. Shouldn’t be a problem, what with that open mind you’re sporting – read Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice by Jack Holland. You might actually learn something.
Poor Aron Ra. He must be inundated by those who understand evolution telling him he’ll never know if his opinion is correct after that video about creationism never being argued intelligently or honestly.
@consciousness razor
My, for asite that seems to hold civil discussion in such high esteem, I seem to be getting a lot of subtle (and not so subtle) ad hominem attacks.
As for the “proper degree”of sexism, I just addressed that with @ze madmax – sorry if I wasn’t fast enough to suit you. The answer is none, and I acknowledged that my phrasing might have been somewhat unclear. The phrase was meant to suggest that perceived levels of sexism by many at this site may be greatly exaggerated.
However, if you wish to debate the topic at hand – whether the rules, and procedures used in banning people from this site make it not truly a free thought forum, I will be happy to do that. However, as Dr. Myers has said on several occasions, people should not be dragging the arguments off topic with subjects that are not germane to that topic.
Please follow the rules of this site and limit your discussion to the topic at hand.
I’ve heard that can cause dissentery or logorrhea, although as I said I’m not a doctor. Please be careful about giving such advice.
of course you did. Because you have no actual argument, so you don’t need actual evidence. We are all very well aware of that.
Ah, of course! Your invented, manufactured meaning of PZ’s quote is clearly the only correct one. Once again, I SHOCKED that the world hasn’t elected you King of Knowing All Things.
No, you need to PROVIDE EVIDENCE OF YOUR ACCUSATIONS. You started off saying you knew you would be asked for it, and failed to give any. You’ve now had plenty of time to provide some, and still fail to do so.
How about giving us something to respond to instead of endless whining? There’s no “underlying message” apart from “WAAAAAHHHH this blog isn’t exactly how I want it to be”.
If this vague tone trolling is really the best you can do, you can really just not bother. Absolutely no one cares about unevidenced whining.
Ok, I am getting the signal here that it is improper to comment unless you’ve read every comment and that you should be aware of comments made even WHILE you are writing a comment.
Seriously? The only people that do this must be professional blog readers.
Do any of the non-regulars here understand how rare it is to find a space – any space, whether it be Internettish or Real Life – in which gendered slurs are not tolerated, not used to silence and not substituted for actual, substantive arguments?
It is EASY to read a blog post about feminism written by someone who identifies as female, and to think or post “LOL, shut up you stupid cunt”, and think that you have somehow justified your disagreement or argued your case.
So congratulations for taking the easy road, defenders of Freeze Peach and gendered slurs. I hope you’ll forgive the people who feel like the effort it takes to NOT say those things is worth it.
There are NO mods here. This is a blog, not a discussion board. How in the hell are we supposed to take pompous douchebags such as yourself seriously when you don’t have the slightest idea of where you are?
Well, yes, we do expect that people know what the fuck they’re talking about before talking about it. Shocking, I know.
You know what gets me about the banned commenters?
The arrogance. They are often provided with evidence, referred to more, and they genuinely seem to believe that they have no need to engage the evidence or the ideas (especially when they figure out the speaker is female), or they complain of some sort of academic or blogger conspiracy to provide faulty evidence. If they bother to go read a source, they dismiss it because…. reasons, that’s why. Or, more often, because the evidence is in social science, which apparently isn’t real or something.
Were they academics, they should be ashamed of themselves for flaunting the scientific method (isn’t knowing about that a requirement for an undergraduate education?) and for performing the unpardonable sin of trying to tell a specialist about a subject they don’t have any training in.
Were they laypersons, they could at least be intellectually honest enough to try not to just listen to what they like. That’s just basic curiosity at work.
And yet many of the dissenters appear to be curiously uncurious and arrogant enough to believe that their ideas are the only that bear paying attention to. After ignoring anything else and being snide and nasty with the commenters trying to talk to them, they are *shocked* to find that no one else wants to listen to their ideas either.
It’s fucking amazing how arrogant they are.
I disagree with the idea that noelplum99 is a sincere troll. One of his favorite tactics to use when when involved in a thread about feminism was to use his wife as a counter example. (On the radical notion that not all women enjoy shopping and not all women have fun shopping for shoes, noelplum99 pushed out the idea that his wife would disagree.) When called on using said tactic, noelplum99 would get indignant, complaining about how wrong we are for assuming we know his wife better than he does. And so a thread that might have started about a big issue turns into a thread all about neolplum99.
Just because he did not swear did not mean that he was not using sexist tropes and advocating for that same kind of policies found in the pit. Nor was he above name calling.
Noelplum99 got the attention he was seeking. He still is. And he is a troll of the lowest order.
stevecarlos,
Hm… yeah. What anteprepro said is pretty much what I do before posting. I refresh the page and skim the new comments to see if what I’m about to post is still relevant or if it needs to be expanded/improved for the sake of the not being repetitive and actually contributing to the ongoing argument.
Is this really that shocking?
Lovely. Assuming Caine’s gender and getting it wrong.
If I don’t have time to participate in a given thread, I don’t. Why comment on a thread when I have no idea what’s going on?
Really, is this such a revolutionary idea?
Of course not. And, they don’t even vaguely care. This is aaaaallllll about them. This blog isn’t how THEY want it, therefore, it’s completely wrong and must be changed because . . .. uh . .. penis and reasons.
Illuminata,
All I can say is that what he wrote merely justifies the behavior that he is accused of: treating regulars and dissenters differently. He states that this occurs. If you can’t get it from that quote, then my diagramming won’t help you. It would actually be condescending to explain that quote to you. If I do, then you’ll likely ask for a diagram of the sentences I use to diagram his quote. I think this regress would only stop once I could represent my argument using pictures that represent basic sensory information (heat, pain, sweet, yellow, etc).
insults, not ad hominem attacks. also, rejections of your definition of what’s “polite”, since it allows for elegantly phrased oppression, but not for crudely phrased defense against such.
[citation needed], but of course won’t be provided. so much easier to simply insinuate it than to actually try do deal with the piles of research and lived experience that has accumulated here over time.
that topic has already been taken care of by the simple fact that “freethought” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. here’s once again the definition:
“Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of logic, reason and empiricism and not authority, tradition, or other dogmas.”
Nothing in there about letting everyone with any opinion, no matter how unsubstantiated and tedious, post comments on blogs.
Yep. That’s why you’ll often find the regulars posting things like “whoops, I should have refreshed before commenting!” and such. We do indeed expect people to read the damn thread first and to refresh, often. OMG, lookit, we have expectations among our own!
*eyeroll*
stevecarlos: Actually, many of us are professionals and persons with extraordinarily busy lives, here for a little leisure. Yet we manage to read the comments before commenting.
Participating in conversations, how the fuck does that work?
This thread is now Officially About Steve Carlos and His Treatment at the Hands of a Merciless Deportment Corp. Govern yourselves accordingly.
@ Jadehawk
Had I ever said that, you would be correct. If you are referring to my poorly worded statement on sexism, I have addressed that twice already. No level of sexism is appropriate, and my comment was meant to suggest that sexism may not be as large an issue as many here believe it to be. In other words, when I said “not overly so” that was a bad wording of the sentiment, not to the degree that it is often portrayed.
However, I note that only one person has bothered to respond rationally to my initial point, which was what this thread is supposed to be about. I thought there were rules here about staying on topic, being reasonable and rational.
A more appropriate response from you (it seems to me) would have been to ask me to clarify my statement, as ze madmax did, without the use of his ad hominem attack. Simply assuming a meaning and attempting to vilify your opponent is not rational dissent – it is borderline trolling.
Which site do you think you’re on?
Go directly to fuckyourcivility.com. Do not pass freethoughtblogs.com, do not collect 200 freeze peaches.
You seem to be, are you are? I don’t see any.
It was meant to suggest they may be? So not only did it not suggest that to several people, despite what you claim were your intentions, but now you’re also not talking about reality just a possibility? Are we clear about that?
Tip: ad hominem is not a synonym for “insult.” You are being insulted, patrickdoyle.
.
As Steve shows us in #174 and Doyle, in basically every comment he makes, this is absolutely bang on.
Gee, I’m a man again. Nope, there’s no default sexism around. Not at all.
Shorter Steve: Yep, ya got me. I’ve got nothing. So, here’s more cowering and equivocating instead of evidence. Y’all will fall for that, right?
I’d like to introduce you to a fine lady with whom you may wish to share company, Caine. Have you met Nerd of Redhead?
Nightjar,
Well, if you use a name like “Caine” as the first part in your username, then it is not weird to assume you are a male. How many female Caines do you know? It’s as if someone’s username was Michael Simpson, and I dared to use a male pronoun that insults the person!
Insufferable.
And your constant refreshing of comments and reading exhaustively every comment is not regularly practiced by anyone except professional blog readers. No wonder there aren’t many fresh faces rolling in here, you’ll be shunned unless you have time to read a few hundred comments prior to your first comment!
Again, I have no idea if you actually hold these weird views or you are circling the wagons.
So, Patrick Doyle
Do you think that GWW is reasonable when she talks about how women cause and deserve domestic violence? Yes or No?
No diddums, though your smarmy little dig is noted.
If you want to present a rational, evidenced argument, you have to actually read and respond to what the other side is saying.
Failure to do so results in you not being taken seriously.
It’s your call though. I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of you right to hoist yourself by your own petard.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of that, but reflexive pronouns require an antecedent to be understandable. I’ve no flaming clue which part of my post “that” refers to.
Its your own damn fault for not being named Vagina McBoobies, Caine! how are our most recent tone trolls going to know who to tell to be nice if us silly coozes don’t have female sounding names?!
Josh:
Why yes, I have! We have veddy civilised tea together on a regular basis.
Do you still think that that is an impossible task to write, copy, refresh, skim new comments, then post? Instead of posting blind and hoping that your comment doesn’t suddenly seem ridiculous? It is trivial to do so, and your continued indignation regarding the very idea of doing so is simply comical.
(For fuck’s sake, I refreshed after writing up this comment and there were 12 new comments. Refreshed again writing this parenthetical and there were 7 more. That you can’t fathom that this might sometimes be relevant to one’s own comments just shows what a self-absorbed dumbfuck you are).
Hard, backbreaking labor for the likes of you, I’m sure.
You know, i was being completely snarky in #210, and but I see now Steve came right out and said it. Its Caine’s fault because she’s not named something unmistakably female. And its insufferable to correct him.
But he’s not a sexist, I’m sure.
I think you’re confusing the mores and purpose of one type of online venue with another. The Youtube model of madly spouting off the first thing that comes to your head without regard to the rest of the conversation is not a universal standard for online communication. This is a place where discussion is started by the OP, and the conversation (which is distinct from disconnected, atomized shouting) develops.
This is not weird, unusual, or unreasonable.
As one of those excessively forgiving, forever patient, assume-good-faith types who just wants others to understand, I become volatile when someone recommends I spend time listening to someone characterising all women who are victims of abuse by men as liars and nags who brought it upon themselves and should be greatful it was just the back of his hand. Afterall, there’s nothing particularly disagreeable about the philosophy women need to be hit by men to keep them in line and, if men aren’t permitted to hit misbehavin’ women, they’ll flip out and do something seriously bad like main or kill them. You made him do it! Just be glad he didn’t bottle it up for any longer. You could have got yourself killed!
Instead of, say:
“Caine, I thought you were male because of the name. Sorry, my mistake.”
Insufferable. *lawl*
Here’s a question for you: why should anyone pay any attention to you if you butt into the middle of a conversation without taking even a minute to see what the conversation is about first?
Here’s another: why would you want to risk looking like an idiot by saying something that’s already been said and dissected to death already?
Here’s another: why should anyone take the time to read what you wrote if you won’t take the time to read what they wrote?
Yes, sometimes comment threads here get long. Very long. Know what to do if it’s a long thread and you don’t have time to read it all? Don’t comment in it. It’s shocking to think of, I know, but obviously the conversation is doing quite well without your input, so you might as well leave it be. At the very minimum, do a “find in page” for key words related to what you want to talk about first. Anything less is just plain rude.
@consciousness razor
Clearly you have an intent to goad me into acting trollish – it will not happen. I never stated ANY opinion on that subject AT ALL. I simply said, as I believe is true from some blog posts and videos I have seen that an argument can be rationally made that sexism is not as great a problem as many perceive it to be. I never stated whether I agreed with such a position, nor will I as it is OFF TOPIC.
Has anyone here read what Dr. Myers just wrote?
I expressed no opinion on the topic of sexism whatsoever, so this straw manning can stop now. I could easily have said the same thing about supply side economics (which I abhor). My opinion withstanding, a rational case can be made, and on a truly free site would be allowed. THAT is my point, THAT is the topic. Not my views on sexism.
BTW, my apologies to the moderators for the use of caps, unfortunately underlines and italics are not available for emphasis. No metaphorical raising of the voice is intended.
How many people does ANYONE know who have “Caine” as a FIRST name?
Some people are just stupid, I guess.
I’m referring to stevecarlos, BTW.
Illuminata:
I thought poisoned chalice was a fair clue, but I see I expected a higher level of intelligence and knowledge, once again. Le sigh. Vagina McBoobies it is!
MouthyB, say thank you to Steve for proving such clear evidence of your Arrogant Trolls thesis.
here, steve tells us that not only does he not have to bother backing up his accusations, he also doesn’t have to read anything else one says in order for his unsupported opinion be taken seriously.
Arrogance seems like an understatement, though.
This is why I would likely RUN from any in person meeting with someone like you, Caine.
The internet has all these weird rules that don’t apply to real life.
It seems that you can have a username that it, if a first name, would be quite masculine and we are all supposed to come in with absolutely no background knowledge as far as usually gender associated with names. So, a person here could have a username like “big manly dude named Tom with a swinging nutsack” and if I used a gendered pronoun…..HUH! clutch the pearls!
It isn’t sexist when there is a good reason I would make an assumption. And besides, the use of a gendered pronoun in this case is such a petty gripe that it makes you look silly to bring it up.
Let’s say your friend calls and asks “can I bring over my friend Susan?” are you a moral monster when you say “sure, bring HER over”.
Hmm, perhaps I need to change my handle to “screechymonkey, Professional Blog Reader”
The fact that you think you have a legitimate right (“right” construed as an ethical right, not a legal right) to jump into a conversation and offer your opinion without reading the rest of the conversation is just weird. Is that what you really think? Would you approach a face to face conversational group at a party this way? I suspect you’d probably stay quiet long enough to get a sense of what’s being discussed and what positions have been staked out before you offered your opinion.
It’s even easier to do that online since the whole conversation is right there to read; you don’t have to make subtle inferences as you would in meatspace conversation.
brilliant. remind me not to post before coffee. reflexive pronoun was supposed to be relative pronoun. Still requires that to which the pronoun is related, though, otherwise the sentence remains uselessly ambiguous
@stevecarlos:
Look, people are giving you the info that participating in the discussion usefully requires being aware of what is being said in the discussion. I’m with them.
However, I disagree that this means you have to read all the comments. I can and do chime in without having read all comments. However, when I do, it is with the expectation that I **might just be wasting everyone’s time**. And if I get pushback – polite remonstrance or passionate rudeness – I accept it as the alternative cost I incur when choosing not to spend my time reading the thread.
If you find there’s something you hadn’t read that you should have, you can either mend your ways by reading everything OR you can just not lash out when people call you on not knowing something you should have known.
If you weren’t acting jerkish and defensive when being called out on not reading things, no one would have been after you to read everything.
It is the direct evidence that you are unwilling to pay the alternative cost that is causing other commenters here to insist you pay the original cost.
Otherwise your failures plague the whole thread and cost everyone else time and energy reading irrelevant tripe and/or (in this case) comments that are needlessly formatted in a bad and confusing way. That effectively pushes what should be your cost onto everyone else. Don’t be surprised that they don’t want to subsidize your already marginally useless/ful commenting.
Do the work yourself or being willing to suck it up and pay the alternative cost. We aren’t here for your convenience.
Steve and Pat must go to the same Learn to be Terrible at Debate class.
Pat, sweetie, you REFERED US TO THE ARGUMENTS OF A KNOWN MISOGYNIST. So, please, stop pretending that questions based on YOUR RECOMMENDATION aren’t on topic.
Spine up and answer the questions.
Gillilell
IIRC, the original meaning was simply “What one does or doesn’t say in a particular political environment, if you wnat to stay in politics’
Stevecarlos
If the comedian in question had a collection of videos of previous crowds who were a great deal more responsive, and was performing a substantially similar routine, that would be reason to infer that the reason for the performance not going over well that night had to do with the crowd, not the performer.
Crip Dyke
Not the thread topic, I know (Sorry, PZ), but L has been trying to get hold of you for a while about designs.
OT
Caine and Josh,
Thank you for these scars where ya’ll chomped me for making one stupid privileged comment.
(it was parental privilege)
I am a better person for it, though it was not appreciated at the time.
I present this as evidence that regulars are actually held to higher standards than unknowns.
/OT
Gasp! Oh noes! This site requires….literacy! Quelle horror!
@Patrick Doyle
Caine spells her ‘nym with an “e”, which is, in some cases, a means of indicating femininity. Also, the additional words “Poisoned Chalice” might connote a mockery of some sexist notions, depending upon how familiar you are with traditional symbolism or imagery.
Also, I’d like to second Giliell’s question:
Do you believe that “girlwriteswhat” was correct in not finding anything “ethically objectional” regarding a defense – an endorsement, even – of domestic violence, because it keeps women from acting like animals?
Steve, Patrick: Want to know why the phrasing is important (I mean, other than the fact that phrasing is important EVERY WHERE ELSE IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE)?
Because cultures are reproduced within languages, among other ways. In fact, because we are particularly inclined (in US culture) toward expression within language, it’s a major vector for the reproduction of culture. The English language contains an entire subset of insult and depreciation words and phrases just aimed at the reproduction of hierarchy in terms of gender, economics and race, and the function of that language is to ensure the superiority of the speaker (by default male, white and affluent, or some combination thereof.) This method of speaking heavily inhibits the free speech of anyone who doesn’t fit that criteria.
Maybe, just maybe, people are sensitive about it because they don’t get to talk openly when someone does that. Or, often, at all. The zealousness of the commenters reflects the maintenance of an actual free speech zone, as opposed to a speech for white dudes zone.
And, you might notice, many dudes who are white manage to have whole conversations here, despite the infringement on their ‘freeze peaches.’
… and it never occured to you (@146), that there are different waves of feminism, different branches and they do not agree on a whole lot of things. See here, and here, and here.
Oops, I see now that Caine herself indicated that “poisoned chalice” was a clue to her gender.
This thread is moving quickly.
http://www.babycenter.com/baby-names-caine-798.htm
Holy Rodent, you’re a dull crayon. Sweetpea, did you think ‘poisoned chalice’ was my surname? Are you brand new to the concept of nyms on the internet?
How many female Caines do I know? Definitely one, me. Uh…you do know there are women named Michael, don’t you? It’s pretty fucking stupid to assume gender based on a name or nym in this century.
You “dared” to use a male pronoun? No, you didn’t “dare” anything. You simply went with the default in our society, which is sexist in nature.
“Insufferable”?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
If only you had called yourself poisoned cunt, then theses poor, oppressed, censored boys would have known ahead of time to just ignore you.
Patrickdoyle, you can always take that discussion to the Thunderdome. You can give an example of how to “legitimately, politely, and rationally”[dishonest claims that are voiced with no foul language are still impolite, you know] argue that our culture isn’t deeply entrenched in patriarchy – an opinion regarding sexism that you made.
And, just checking, do you know the difference between freethought and the concept of freedom of thought?
I know, it’s almost as if in real life you have details other than someone’s name to determine someone’s gender. GOSH.
You really do have a piss poor way of apologizing.
Neither stevercarlos nor patrickdoyle have claimed that FTB has become a laughingstock yet.Seriously, you two, how am I supposed to fill in my bingo cards when you’re being such slackers?
again, “rationally” only in the original definition of doing so without empirical support.
but it isn’t a “free” site, unless we’re talking about money. it’s a freethinker site, which is something else.
there are no moderators.
oh really, I never noticed that.
it’s “quelle horreur” *stern look*
LOLOL so, Steve, you can provide evidence that its Caine’s fault that you
can’t be bothered to read comments so that you won’t come off like a compete dipshitmisgendered her.but you can’t provide evidence of your original accusations. Still.
LOLOLOL What happened to the quality control department at the Troll Factory?
No, it is pretty dumb for a woman name Michael to be upset when people, by default, assuming them male when a discussion is anonymous. It is almost like you are throwing out bait in order to strike someone. Fooling people into sexism, it seems.
I would’ve nicely apologized for using a gendered pronoun to describe you IF I hadn’t been dogpiled for what is obviously an honest mistake.
And a comma followed by something obviously not a last name does not invalidate that the precendent could be a first name.
Steve, hockey stick
Yes, to use “him” to describe me is such a sign of sexism.
You see, we all make assumptions in our mind. They aren’t all sexist when there is a good reason to make a quick assumption. Thinking someone named Michael is male and using “he” is not sexism. I’m sorry, it just isn’t. It is as normal as thinking that most people that wear lace underwear are female.
Illuminata: You’re right, I do owe Steve a thank you.
Dear Steve, thank you for following the script.
Personally, it would bother me to conform so carefully to a predicted script. But hey, I’m openly female and may therefore be dismissed.
@Anthony K 149
I just went over the thread where that discussion was first posted. I thought noelplum99 had contributed to it, but he didn’t. Anyway, it turns out that none of the social justice vanguard here actually spotted Shermers disgustingly sexist comment first time round. It took Ophelia to point it out. Actually, that thread mostly consisted of Josh Official Spokesgay whining that Cara Santa Maria was acting too feminine for his taste.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/18/the-point-on-atheism/
Anyway, just thought that was interesting. Back to work.
I haven’t either. They may not be. What I’m saying is that a case can rationally be made that they may not be, and I’m not making that case. (Because I’m not rational?)
No, no, no. The word you’re looking for is “sorry”. As in, “I’m sorry I wrongly assumed your gender, Caine, my bad”.
Again, what’s so shocking about expecting people to know what the conversation is about before joining in, and expecting them to at least have an idea of how the discussion is evolving?
And I did not say “reading exhaustively”. I said I skimmed them before posting. Then go back to read them more carefully.
And sometimes we’re wrong. Sometimes we’d do better to listen, learn, and read before we make those assumptions publicly. You’re right that we all do that. But we should all also be a little more careful.
Why won’t you respond to that? Why are you unwilling to consider the very reasonable position that you jumped the gun and that maybe you shouldn’t?
Tethys, I was *stomped* on by Truthmachine and SC when I first started commenting here years ago. It stung, a lot, but they were right. Yes, we do hold the commentariat here to a very high standard.
Illuminata:
Ah, that’s where I went wrong. But wait, it was stated in the slymepit that ‘poison cunt’ was the term for a transwoman, and I’m not trans…so confusing, all this gender stuff, eh?
;)
Characterising the opinions of GWW as rational alarms me. In fact, it leads me to question whether the person characterising her tripe as rational has even heard it and if they know what it is they’re deeming rational.
Because her defence of men physically assaulting women and characterisation of women who are victims of abuse by men as liars and nags isn’t rational. It’s repugnant. I feel more than a little insulted, being told to go listen to such “rational” sentiments. I feel like I’m being lied to.
I asked “How many people does ANYONE know who have “Caine” as a FIRST name?”
stevecarlos wanted to answer, but since the actual answer for them was apparently Zero, they had to link to a database that indicated that yes, a handful of people in out of the US population do name their male baby “Caine”.
I think that means they are conceding the point.
Or maybe they’re just very, very stupid.
YOU ARE SO MEAN I AM NEVER COMING HERE AGAIN LOOK EVERYONE I’M BEING OPPRESSED
(thanks for the correction now I know and can spell better next time)
AH, so she deserved it for not being nice enough to you. LOL, yeah we’re “fooling” you into making sexist statements. Us wily commenters who read things before posting.
*sigh*
– There are no moderators.
– Italics: < i > text here < /i > (without the spaces)
– Also available: bold, strikethrough, and other HTML as explained in the text below the comment box you’re typing your reply in. (Dunno the code for underline offhand but I’m sure there is some.)
(But if patrickdoyle doesn’t know how to use other emphases such as italics, they aren’t available period.
Oh, the irony.
Ding, Ding, Ding! Notice he disappeared once he’d been caught and he couldn’t shimmy his way out of being asked for clarification.
Awesome. Go ahead and ban me now, it would be poetic justice.
1. It has been argued that this quote from PZ
““And there was another obvious reason why some dissenters get banned: they are obtuse and don’t listen. There are regular commenters here who are similarly obstinate, but at least this is their space and they have voluntarily joined up with a group sharing similar views. If you’re a dissenter, holding a minority view, there’s an expectation that you’re actually here because you’re looking to learn about a different point of view””
Does not OBVIOUSLY indicate that a double standard exists.
2. I have been attacked by assuming a person with the username Caine is male.
3. I have been attacked for not reading the comments here in an obsessive fashion that requires constant refreshing of the screen and keeping track of a few hundred comments and I suppose remembering them all, take notes, or back skimming as well.
4. Folks here don’t see calling someone stupid and such is an attack. I have not done so in kind.
5. I am now deemed a troll.
6. I should now be banned. Please I’m begging for it.
If you read my comments, then you will see that what is accused of happening here is exactly what happened. You folks are doing the whole free thought thing wrong. It’s awesome that I went through the whole process in like 2 hours.
Regarding the bold statements: lolwut?
Also: you are going to continue to pretend that Caine is as 1. obviously male and 2. as obviously a first name and 3. as obviously an actual name as the name “Michael”?
Do you people have a false equivalence quota to meet?
“BAAAAAAAAAAAW, they were mean to me so DENY DENY DENY”
stevecarlos:
But why make that assumption? Ashleigh, Madison, and Leslie have all been traditionally used as male names. I know a teenage boy named Saoirse, and now that a well-known actress works under that name, suddenly people assume by his name that he’s female. Isn’t it more reasonable to be cautious, instead of trampling on someone’s identity with assumptions?
Duh, Pteryxx. If you don’t notice a Bad Thing going on because you’re not likely to experience it (or you’re just self-centered) then THAT THING DOESN’T EXIST WHY ARE YOU MAKING UP DRAMA.
@PZ Myers
In response to your comment:
”
Contrast Mr Doyle’s faux reasonableness here to his comment on youtube:
Well, Noel, PZ was quick to respond. The main Pharyngula page calls you a “sincere troll”. In his response to you, he straw mans your argument by ignoring the fact that you recognized that it is a self selecting community, and pretends that you are stating that his blog should reflect the views of society on a one to one basis. He then blathers on about the rules and how the evil dissenters have driven away Natalie Reed. As usual, PZ retreated into delusion with like any theist would.
You know, people, one of the most damning behaviors is being two-faced and insincere.”
Sir,
That comment also reflects my feelings on your post, but was far less erudite than those here for reasons of character limits. I am highly disappointed that, rather than address my argument directly you opt to try to discredit me. I believe in everything I said on YT and would have said it much more politely and in detail had it been possible.
You may attribute the disrespect I showed for your comment and the position you took to the disrespectful, dismissive, and insulting tone of your post. To use an old phrase, you appear to be quite capable of dishing it out, but not taking it.
I enjoy many of your lectures, I do respect you as a scientist, but I find your attitude to be insulting. You resort to name calling, and derision of your (now helpless, since you banned him) victim, rather than simply making a reasonable, factual argument. Therefore, when posting on your victim’s video, I felt no compunction to give you better treatment than you gave him.
However, when posting on your site, it would be rude and trollish to use the same language here. I therefore limited myself to an honest rebuttal of your stated position, written as politely and respectfully as possible. Just as I might have told a friend that George Bush was a dolt, I would never have uttered such in the White House. This is your White House, and you deserve to be treated with respect here, and I have done so. This is not hypocrisy, nor are my statements of respect for you disingenuous. I greatly admire Bill Clinton, but think he was an undisciplined fool for getting involved with Lewinsky. The same applies to you. I have a great respect for you overall, but I can also see areas where, in my personal opinion, you are unfair, unkind, and either intentionally or not (I prefer to think not) dishonest with yourself and others.
I have not and will not use ad hominem attacks on you or others in this forum and will limit my statements to fact. Please do the same.
Maybe I’m just too much of a visual thinker, but the big female symbol next to Caine’s name would probably be a clue to me.
Have to laugh at the people arguing over Caine’s moniker and just how obviously gendered or not gendered it is.
That is not the point.
The point is this, you are assuming the person that you are speaking with is male. This is pointing out your own bias about what a person is.
moar stevecarlos:
BAAHAHAHAHA *gasp* AHAHA oh lawdy.
So, Patrick Doyle
Do you think that GWW is reasonable when she talks about how women cause and deserve domestic violence? Yes or No?
See how far a polite question gets me?
Marinerachel:
It’s not only misogynistic, it’s also misandrist, characterising men as unthinking beasts, capable of little more than grunting.
Steve Carlos—shut your fucking mouth. You’re transparently assholing off with the deliberate intention of proving this place to be THE HORRIBLE ECHO CHAMBER YOU ALWAYS DREAMED OF.
You are pointedly ignoring calmly stated comments that try to engage you. Don’t think people don’t notice.
And now you’re begging not to be thrown into the briar patch.
Go gargle with a bucketful of baby asps.
No, Steve the Insufferably Whiny, you’re been MOCKED.
because you:
1. Came in whining and not providing evidence.
2. After being asked for evidence, you failed to provide any.
3. After being corrected about a mistake, you dug in your heels.
4. Tried to provide evidence that your mistake wasn’t really a mistake. but still haven’t provided evidence for your original accusations.
5. And now, you’re begging to be banned because going out like a gigant ass crybaby is way easier than engaging anyone in good faith.
Since reading posts is too much to ask of you, asking you for evidence is being so mean to you, and being mocked for your childish behavior is too traumatizing for you, i say, go wrap yourself in bubblewrap and hide under the bed.
That way, the scary people who read things and respond to them can’t get you!
Interesting. What is your definition of “attacked”?
Then you don’t understand what “open minded” means. It doesn’t mean on has no idea of the evidence, and as a result has a Null Hypothesis on the issue. Open minded simply means examining the EVIDENCE presented by folks such as yourself. Who seem to think your opinion is evidence, when it isn’t. And never will be.
@stevencarlos
HTML offers you formatting options that will make your posts easier to read.
[blockquote] Quoted text here. [/blockquote]
Will become
If you replace [ and ] with .
Prithee, good Professor Sir, hark to my twee and dainty etiquettal stylings. It is my sincerest and earnest hope that you will accept these as testament to my character and standing as a gentleman; that you will not think me boorish for not lowering myself to employing newfangled typographical contraptions such as the infernal “block quotes.”
myuido – I am not going to defend Josh’s choice of words at the start at that thread (something he apologized about later), but your characterization of both the content of the thread and Josh’s complains is wrong.
Anyway, the only reason I can see for you to bring it up now, in this thread, must be to stir some kind of trouble. If you had wanted to use it to contribute to the conversation, you could have used it as an example of how this is not a echo-chamber (notice how many people called Josh out on his words, even though he is a well-known commenter here) or how someone can say something and then later apologize for it.
As it is, I think your comment is clearly in violation of the Reset rule.
Women disagreed with him. As his Holiness Saint Shermer has taught us, anytime a woman disagrees with what you say, it’s worse than the Holocaust, Inquisition and a really bad case of jock itch combined
this is weirding me out.
Josh – you forgot the part where the feigned civility is clear and obvious proof that nothing he says is bigotted or problematic in the least. Especially not referring us to the writing of a well-known misogynist than cowering away from clarifying exactly what about “bitches deserve to be beaten” is “interesting”.
Oh FFS. Everyone is sexist. The trick is to be aware of it and change our thoughts and attitudes. Not something you’re capable of, going by the evidence you’re providing.
You assumed I was male, in spite of that being an unwise thing to do in this century, when many women have traditionally masculine names and when many people on the net choose a nym for various reasons which does not reflect their gender.
You assumed I was male, in spite of the ‘poisoned chalice’ (if you didn’t know, you could always look it up, quietly. The ‘net is good that way) or, as Rey pointed out, got a big fucking clue from my avatar, which fairly screams female.
You defaulted to assuming the norm, which in our society, is sexist. Get the fuck over it already.
“Here’s a question for you: why should anyone pay any attention to you if you butt into the middle of a conversation without taking even a minute to see what the conversation is about first?”
This is where the difference in culture comes in. Here, there is a group of dedicated commenters who view this as if a conversation is happening in real time, like a chat room.
Well, it isn’t a chat room. It isn’t instant messenger. It isn’t a verbal conversation.
In any of those venues, though I could jump into the ongoing discussion after listening for a bit and begin commenting on what is being said right at that point. Here,that would be equivalent to reading the last comment and a few prior. However, then I would somehow be disrespecting the very first commenters. So, this is like a 3 hour conversation that I can’t be part of unless I’m willing to invest time to be aware of all of it.
This is the only place where I have ever been told that this is the proper behavior. I think you are the weird ones.
Bye now. Good luck on the several thousands comments you will need to read today in order to comment on 5 or 6 blog posts.
While that’s not the most accurate description of my behavior, you are obliged to note that I caught myself short and said I regretted what I said. This, of course, is Kobayashi Maru, for the ‘pitters took that as confirmation that I have no spine and I merely recanted because I was afraid of Alpha Pharyngulites kicking me out of the pack.
@Giliell, professional cynic
I have never seen anything from GGW that even remotely resembles what you claim. A citation of your source would be nice. If she has said such a thing, I would vehemently disagree, but I doubt that your interpretation is correct, though I would be open to checking. Of course, even had she said such a thing, it would in no way negate some of the very reasonable arguments she has made. It would simply show that, along with some reasonable positions, she has at least one terrible one. An argument stands on its’ merits, not its’ author’s.
However, I will repeat again that this is not the topic of this thread, and I would prefer to respect the rules.
This obsession with being sidetracked into sexism as a topic only goes to add fuel to the fire of dissenters who think that this blog has become a purely radical feminist site, and no longer about real issues. Of course, anyone reading an assortment of posts will know that that is not quite the case, but the perception is hard to derail when things like this go on.
May we PLEASE stay on topic?
Well, shit.
I can use HTML, but apparently I can’t effectively teach others how to do it. :P
stevecarlos and Patrick Doyle, use the greater than/less than symbols, in conjunction with the instructions in #273, to quote text in a format that will make it easier to distinguish the quoted text from yours.
Please and thank you.
Auuuuugh. Do you not understand how fucking sexist that is? At all? What century do you come from, anyway?
Patrickdoyle, what is about AVFM that you like?
I ask because that interesting girlwriteswhat (Karen Straughan) is a contributing editor there.
275 Kristjan Wager
Not at all. I just thought it was interesting, i’ve been set the task of going through old threads. I don’t mean it as a slight against Josh. I think he did apologise in the end. What I found slightly funny is that nobody noticed Shermers sexist slur went on to become “the hugest deal” here for a good couple of months.
He was trying to discredit you, by doing what exactly? Quoting you?
And what the fuck is your argument, which ought to be addressed? Could you make it “directly” in the first place, so that it could be addressed directly?
You would have, but doing that was impossible? Seriously?
For fuck’s sake, why are people so awful at thinking and communicating? I try to be reasonable about this, but the principle of charity does not magically transform bullshit into gold. Doyle, you’ve said a lot of bullshit. What do you intend to do about that?
Well, no, it’s the opposite. In a chat, you don’t have the expectation of knowing what happened prior to your arrival, because it’s already gone. What you do need to do in a chat is listen in for a minute or two to get the feel of the conversation. Here, everything is archived and written down for you, right there on the same page. So yes, you should read what’s right there in front of you before commenting.
What makes you think that your input would necessarily be useful if you have no idea what the conversation was up until that point? That is a stunning amount of arrogance, to think that whatever you have to say will be a positive contribution without even knowing what’s going on.
Patrick Doyle @ #263
One more time everyone!
AD-HOMINEM: “You’re an idiot, therefore your argument is wrong”
NOT AD-HOMINEM: “Your argument is wrong. In addition, the nature of your argument suggest you’re an idiot”
Huh, so you have no idea what she’s about, but you referred her to us as a source of “interesting” arguments. Congrats on that whopping failure.
Bonus points for the Bitches Lie addition.
Sexism isn’t a a real issue, silly chicks! patrick says so!
May we PLEASE stop pointing out that patrick referred us to a well known misogynist and then defended her, after admitting he knows fuck-all about her? His obvious failure it hurting his nonexistent credibility!
While I’m all for providing examples of GWW’s vile portrayal of women and vehement defense of abuse committed against them by men, I wonder why it is those who adore her aren’t putting forth examples of her “very reasonable arguments” but are demanding evidential support for the fact she condones violence against women by men.
I disagree with several implicit and explicit claims in this comment. How, pray tell, can I politely express that disagreement without being baited and entrapped into patrickdoyle-defined off-topic discussion of un-real radfem issues? /ontopic /sarcasm
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Shermer said something sexist. When called on it, instead of owning up to what he said, he doubled down, accusing those who think he should apologize of conducting a witch hunt.
Patrickdoyle, here is a post from Manboobz about girlwriteswhat defending domestic violence.
And she is a part of the anti-feminist AVfM.
One more time, for the broken crayon crowd:
To quote: <blockquote>PLACE TEXT HERE</blockquote>
For italics: <i>TEXT HERE</i>
For bold: <b>TEXT HERE</b>
so you’re completely ignorant of the work of the person you’re recommending to us. How is that polite? How is that even remotely to be squared with freethinking?
http://www.reddit.com/r/FeMRA/comments/y0nod/jto_brought_up_the_point_so_here_it_is_ferdinand/c5rjmh3
@jadehawk
“This is weirding me out”
Why is this? Do you think that the only way to show respect is to slavishly agree with everything someone says? To not call a straw man a straw man? I respectfully disagree with both Dr. Myers argument, his method of argument in this case, and the attitude he showed. I have NO respect for the argument itself (or very little) I still have much respect for the man. I often have times when this is true of my brothers, my mother, my father, or my best friend.
I have immense respect for President Obama, but have, on certain specific actions or statements, sent scathing letters to him. I have HUGE respect for both Matt Dillahunty and Thunderf00t, yet have vehemently disagreed with things they have said. and, on occasion, the way they said them.
Is this such a difficult concept to grasp?
Don’t be silly, Caine! patrick says sexism isn’t a real issue. Therefore, it isn’t. Because penis.
If you strip away Patrick Doyle’s passive aggressive and conscious, deliberate use of Etiquette Drag to make his nasty conduct look “polite,” it translates to:
Eat my asshole and tell me you like it because me.
Nice that way that works, neh? Someone shows up, makes a gendered insult, or blames the victim, or uses mental illness as an insult/excuse, then I, or someone else object, and, boom, proof positive that we are the PC police, out to strangle, emasculate, neuter, and crush all with whom we disagree.
So…sexism is an obsession and not a real issue, is it? How interestin’.
Most of the complaints we get about what an awful place this is to try to comment boil down to “Why are you telling me I have to think about what I say before I say it? Why do I have to have evidence to support my opinions? Why don’t you simply accept my proclamations as manna from the heavens?”
Blockquotes Patrick.
Because, in this venue, it is POSSIBLE for someone to catch up on the conversation when it is not in those other venues. Jumping right in is acceptable in those other situations because it isn’t possible to do otherwise. Here, you can read up and make sure that you aren’t retreading ground that has already been gone over. Here, you can read up and make sure that you haven’t missed a detail that came to light that makes your post seem embarrassing and ignorant. Here, you can read up and avoid replying to something that is a moot point. Before your current huff about not being able to just jump into present conversation, you were in a huff about not being able to reply to the very first comments without reading first. Well, the fact that you are even able to reply to those first comments, instead of being unaware of them at all, is one of the merits of this format.
Also, you seem to ignore that you interacting with a larger number of people, and most of whom are strangers, in this format. It is a different audience than the audience you would enter a chat room with or have an IM conversation with. That you can’t adjust to a different conversation format is your problem, not ours. It is equivalent to complaining about getting dirty looks shot at you in a lecture hall because you didn’t realize that conversation in a classroom is different from conversation in a bar or conversation with groups of family members.
Bang on. but he’s far to “polite” to be that honest. After all, “An argument stands on its’ merits, not its’ author’s.”
Stevecarlos @156:
First: drat. I had this whole quote/response about your “narcissistic to assume” when you then wrote he for Cain(e). Others beat me; I’m down to reminding them of “narcissistic.”
(Repeated response) Why, yes. (New material) What would happen if I didn’t read the comments on YouTube and said something almost exactly the same as 10 others? Flagged as spam? Too many negative votes?
@194:
And this doesn’t occur on YouTube comments? Grrrrr…..flagged as spam or too many negative votes?
What, by the way, is the policy on comments flagged as spam? Isn’t there a suspension policy that people get around with multiple sockpuppets?
Such as what? What are her very reasonable arguments, which wouldn’t be negated by the completey awful ones?
The rules do not change what you do or do not imply. For example, if you imply racists have good, “rational” arguments, you need to back that kind of shit up or we will eat you alive, “rules” be damned. That would also go for idiotic rules you just made up; but since you made them up, you won’t be able to back them up. You’d just have to face the criticism and retract it, or else continue to act like an idiot.
myuido @ #285
Except that Shermer’s “sexist slur” wasn’t the issue. The issue was that when people pointed out why his statements were problematic, he refused to acknowledge the possibility that made a mistake, and doubled-down on the inane sexism.
But your narrative supports your position better, so I guess there’s that.
but she hasn’t ever made any such.
that’s a very fascinating phrasing. are you aware that you just said sexism isn’t a real issue?
oh please. I’ve responded to you “on topic” several times, and you’ve chosen to ignore those posts in favor of responding to other things. so don’t pretend like you genuinely care about staying on topic.
293 Ogvorbis
Debatable and beside the point. If it was sexist, nobody here actually noticed at the time. That’s a fact.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/18/the-point-on-atheism/
Well, Ophelia actually mentioned it a few days after Shermer initially said it in August. The one who made the “hugest deal” out of it was Shermer, with his claims of witch-hunts and Nazis, months after Ophelia’s article. The response here has been to the way Shermer so irrationally doubled down with that bullshit.
Gee PD, that is what I have been asking from MRA idjits for two years now on their claims. The evidence from places like here provided:
.
.
.
.
.
.
*crickets chirring*
Hence my attitude to your attitude….
Damn, I claim to be oppressed by The Horde.
I put the kids to bed, then find that Patrick Doyle has answered me and then find that you have already posted my relevant links.
But why do you want to change the topic back now that we’ve shown your “reasonable writer” to be a shitty asshole allover, Patrick Doyle?
You brought her up in the first place…
But yeah, why don’t you show us what you think she has reasonably to say?
yep. But they have penises, Carlie. That means they don’t have to do any of those things. And that also means we have to smile, wear somethin’ pretty and not ask any questions. Not because they can’t answer those questions do to staggering ignorance or arrogance – Oh no! – but because asking questions means we’re worse than the Nazis, the Inquisitors and jock itch combined.
Illuminata:
I saw that! Yes, we’re all mentally unbalanced people with an obsession problem. Uh huh.
Yes, yes. It’s always the same, those with the attached penises count, while those of us with convenient detachable ones don’t. Tsk.
Caine @295, would you (or anyone) mind briefly restating how to make the angle brackets appear without them HTML’ing themselves?
(I bet there’ll be 3-4 simultaneous helpful responses, and the OT will be done, because
hivemind biasconstructive. Thanks in advance.)Shermer didn’t make a sexist slur. He made a sexist remark, which didn’t get noticed/mentioned.* But anyway, the remark wasn’t what made “the hugest deal” (who are you quoting BTW?) – rather it was his reaction to having it pointed out, when Ophelia Benson used it, rather politely, as an example of sexism.
Instead of either just ignoring it, or even better, acknowledging that it wasn’t the best remark, be accused Ophelia Benson of calling him sexist, when Ophelia was clearly addressing the remark, not him as a person.
In many ways, the claim that the ensuring fight was about his remark is much like the claims that the whole deep rifts thing is about Rebecca Watson’s remarks about the guy in the elevator, when in reality, it is really about the completely unreasonable reactions to both Ophelia’s article and to Rebecca’s off-hand comment in a YouTube video.
*I’m not even sure that the remark is in that video – as far as I remember, there are two different editions of it, one of which is longer, and I think that was the one that included the remark, while it was the shorter one PZ linked to.
patrickdoyle
No, ad hominem would be ‘A dipshit like you couln’t possibly have any good arguments.’ What people are saying to you is ‘You have no good arguments, dipshit.” Do you see the difference, dipshit?
And you would hae been wrong there too. The supply siders have had 40 years to back the idea up with evidence, and still failed. There’s no evidentiary defense of supply-side economics.
#282
Try the link the Gen posted at #168, shit for brains. (Also, it looks like Janine has a few more @ 294. See, Setevecarlos? I refreshed)
Janine
Huh, joey’s been doing the same thing in the thunderdome all week; I wonder if they get together to think up ‘arguments’
Pteryxx
The code for underline is <u> , </u> , but it doesn’t seem to work here.
world’s saddest strawman
darling, did you even read the part I quoted? Because this has fuck-all to do with the part I said was weirding me out.
this too is a strawman of epic proportions. But it is interesting that you don’t seem to be able to distinguish between respect and deference
You didn’t put forth any of GWW’s “reasonable arguments” anyways. You just told us to check out her work in it’s entirety, which you’re now pretending is something it isn’t and insisting, even if it is that bad, it doesn’t affect her reasonable, rational arguments. What work of hers is it that you’re referring to while demanding others provide evidential support for her misogyny?
We know her work isn’t rational or credible in it’s entirety. Which bits and bobs are you recommending we familiarise ourselves with which are of quality?
Does anyone (for USAians who’ve been to band camp) suspect that joey’s and noelplum’s wives live in Canada?
Patrick Doyle, are you really so obtuse as to think that people who care about sexism, issues that affect women, and feminism in general would agree that someone who condones domestic violence has any opinions worth taking seriously? Condoning domestic violence is such an extreme and distasteful position that I would question ANY other opinion of someone who thinks like that. I would find it very difficult to believe that whatever led that person to come to that opinion in the first place has absolutely no influence on their other opinions.
The idea that domestic violence is ever defensible, justified, or in any way acceptable is such a fundamentally wrong position that anything from the same source is, at best, highly questionable.
and this proves what? Last I checked, overlooking something is perfectly normally human.
Silly Giliell, reading the comments posted after the comment she was going to respond to before commenting. stevecarlos thinks you’re weird, you know.
Don’t even try this tactic. Topic drift happens here constantly. You were the one who brought up GWW, so you get to fucking hear about it and will continue to hear about it until you provide cites and valid evidence for your idiotic claims.
Speaking of being tone deaf, Donald Trump is the perhaps the ultimate example. He trolls every form of media … all the time. And he takes himself way too seriously, being the champion of self-absorption.
Bill Maher takes this type down beautifully:
YouTube link to video of takedown, February 8.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/02/10/i-am-asked-a-question-about-commenting/comment-page-1/#comment-557872
*whispers* PROOF… FOREVAR! /pinkiepie
stopped clock etc.
Josh – surely, both their “wives” are on the Swedish Bikini Team.
@Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle
Really? Is this ridiculously inane statement the best you can do? I thought that this site was for (to quote Dr. Myers): “liberals, atheists, science-minded people”.
As a science minded person please support your bogus allegation about me. The only opinion I have ever stated is that no sexism should be tolerated. Other than that I simply asserted that the argument could be made the the problem may not be as bad as it is often portrayed.
Note that I say “the problem”, for it is a problem. However, that does not mean that it is impossible to exaggerate the extent of the problem. We are all in agreement that there is a real issue, but we are not in agreement that it is somehow demonic to listen to differing opinions on the severity or possibly the appropriate remedies for that problem.
Tell me exactly, who are the trolls here? I see very few dissenting trolls, but several others. I think I now have the answer to Noel’s question. There are few rational dissenters here, because it seems that very few here are willing to have a rational, on-topic discussion. Note: there has been one – kudos.
Those who are not banned likely find commenting here as productive as posting rational arguments against theism on a creationist site.
Please! Is there anyone out there who is actually willing to address the topic of discussion, or is the FTB community simply here to demonize all who dare to question?
Feminism is not the topic. Nor are my views on the subject. My views are likely closer to those held here than you would think, but I refuse to be side-tracked. Is there a moderator out there anywhere?
Just another day in paradise!
Are you actively trying to troll? First off, way to ignore the second point Ogvorbis made and clearly was focusing on, which explains why it really became a big deal: Because Shermer’s defensiveness and unwillingness to admit fault turned it into a big deal.
And bullshit that it’s “debatable”. Shermer already tried to debate it and failed. It isn’t so much “debatable” as “deniable”. And not very believable “denial” at that.
Pteryxx:
Sure. It’s: & lt ; and & gt ; with no spaces.
You write < and > (& is written &)
Could patrickdoyle actually be reading those threads that links girlwriteswhat to her defense of domestic violence and the fact that she is a member of AVfM.
Shit, it is fucking easy to look up that shit.
Great! Take back your support of girlwriteswhat!
Would you mind switching off Pompous Ass Mode?
@Patrick Doyle
There are no moderators here.
Freeze Peach, and all that. And just because you’re getting a negative reaction from the community of commenters here doesn’t mean that your dissenting opinion is being censored.
Which (Ta da!) is the topic of this post.
Funny, didn’t you also state the following:
I would think that we could all agree that the last sentence is an opinion. So, no, it is not the “only opinion” you’ve ever stated. What’s more, since GWW not only embraces sexism, but actively argues in favor of it, it clearly demonstrates that you do really think that no sexism should be tolerated – if you really did so, you wouldn’t promote her.
Patrickdoyle, you were asked to back up your claims. This is NOT off-topic, as your claim was in direct response to PZ’s OP:
So stop with the dodging.
Alternatively you are always free to take the discussion to the Thunderdome, as I suggested up-thread.
If I re-name myself Michael Mann will you notice the answer, again, is NO there are no moderators here?
again: if you’re going to use words like “this”, “that”, “it” etc., you better fucking quote what you’re referring to, because we’re not mindreaders.
the possibility of something is not sufficient grounds for the assertion that it is possible to meaningfully argue for the reality of that possibility.
*rolleyes*
Is it “demonic” not to want to listen to AGW “skeptics”, even the ones who merely argue that it’s not so bad?
considering that I’ve already pointed out to you that I have responded to you on topic, and that you’ve chosen to ignore those responses, I’m now going to have to conclude that you’re bullshitting.
darling, address my on-topic responses to you, and maybe I’ll start believing you give a fuck about being on topic.
how many times do people have to explain to you that there are no moderators?!
Since it worked nicely last time:
But why do you want to change the topic back now that we’ve shown your “reasonable writer” to be a shitty asshole allover, Patrick Doyle?
You brought her up in the first place…
But yeah, why don’t you show us what you think she has reasonably to say?
patrickdoyle:
No it isn’t. You said, and I quote:
You only came up with the “no sexism” business in your attempt to backpedal from your earlier statement. Now you’ve gone and said this, and I quote:
This, along with previous comments and your recommendation of GWW, in spite of her being a misogynist MRA, don’t speak well of your…views. Figure it the fuck out, make up your mind and get back to us. We’ll wait.
Oh, for the love of fuck!
Yes, their names are PZ Myers and Chris Clarke. That’s it, as been explained before. Oh goddamnit, it isn’t that hard to figure out as this isn’t a forum, but a blog. Appeals to moderation aren’t really going to work.
At least be an interesting chew toy.
Because it shows how your “nobody noticed it at first” complaint is a moot point? Fucking idjit.
Jesus Jumped Up Christ, you have been told, repeatedly, THERE ARE NO MODERATORS HERE.
@Caine, poisoned chalice
I need not provide citations. You apparently are willing to remain intentionally ignorant through self censorship, and that is the assertion I made. However, if you think that no one here exaggerates the problem of sexism in this country you are insane. Of course if you are like some radical African-Americans I have heard who claim that the USA is no better for blacks than it was in 1850, you will not see that.
Your desire to switch topics is because you cannot defend the original topic. Only one person here has tried. He/she made a reasonable comment that I found quite rational and with some merit, though I did not find it compelling enough to change my opinion.
You sound just like the theists who try to tell me to “prove there is no god” before they’ll move on, or find any other possible way to sidetrack the discussion. It will not work. The topic is the use of banning on FTB. I did not come here to be side tracked into anything else. If no one here will engage me on the topic at hand, I will call it a victory and go home. However, it is a Pyrrhic victory by default. A forfeit in essence. I had hoped for better.
It goes beyond that as I have pointed out.
She contributes to AVfM.
Because it would give you an option to not lie? Like you do now.
Even if it had not been a sexist remark (which it was), Shermer’s over-the-top accusations of witchhunts etc. would be problematic.
myuido, it is clear that you are only here to troll.
I’m just going to let that sit here.
This is fascinating. I wonder how long PatrickDoyle can keep sliding around the fact that they promoted someone whose views are incredibly sexist and damaging? This individual is slipperier than a grease-footed puppy on a newly waxed floor.
[citation needed]
…
Oh goddamnit.
It’s like he’s sitting in the parking lot at the 7-11 wondering why someone from valet parking hasn’t come round to take care of him yet.
Yeah, that’s pretty much your fatal error right there.
Do I even need to point out the irony here?
Really?
REALLY?
Yes, you do. Full stop. You make a claim, you back it up.
Right, calling us mentally ill again. You are quite the shit filled douchecake.
then don’t. respond to my comments on the topic of how banning unsubstantiated, long-refuted opinion is in no way a hindrance to freethinking, and in fact promotes it by allowing people to move forward instead of constantly having to re-hash entry-level issues.
you don’t need to point at the turd sitting on the floor, really.
;)
but it’s such an impressive one
Oh, sure. The topic is how we’re all going to be banned because we’re off-topic, and OMG this is censorship! You wait and see. I bet PZ’s really going to clamp down hard this time. doyle
@Patrick Doyle #349
Whatever makes you feel better, Mr. Doyle.
Regardless of the fact that some people who possess certain kinds of privilege, but aren’t aware of it, have very little patience for people who don’t possess those same privileges. Therefore, any mention of the differences in the way people are treated based on their privilege or lack of it, is seen as “exaggeration” or “hyperbole” or “complaining too much.”
You’re fulfilling a privileged trope, Mr. Doyle. Hence me not taking you seriously.
I’m guessing in your house, obtuseness is its own reward.
Glodson:
:Snortle:
Perhaps this will help: Hey! patrickdoyle! This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators. This is a blog, not a discussion board, there are no moderators.
Just trust me
translation: “I’m going to stick my fingers in my ears and yell ‘LALALALALALA I can’t hear you’ so I can pretend that no one responded to me and flounce while feeling superior without having to address those responses I want to pretend aren’t there”
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around your lack-of-a-position, though. You think this is both good and bad, or that it’s neither but absolutely must be discussed?
yeah, but can it compete with this?
Well then I guess you can’t find it funny/interesting any more, as Ophelia did notice the sexist remark days after Shermer said it. What did you think about Shermer’s (months later)reaction? Funny? Interesting?
which statement is that?
What allegation is that? You now write that no sexism should be tolerated, but in same paragraph diminish the issue. This insistence that bitches lie, plus your support for and defense of a well-known misogynist equals no one believes you.
Well of course. After all, bitches lie. GWW will certainly agree with you there.
My goodness you’re very testerical, emotional and irrational. Who said anything as ridiculous as ‘demonic’? Calm down, now.
The point, since you are trying so very hard to miss it, is that GWW – who you told us has “interesting” argument despite knowing fuck-all about her – defends abusers and rapists.
I’m usually loathe to do this, but skulls as thick as your require something more hamfisted: if she defended lynchings, would you still be pretending it’s perfectly okay to use her as a source about racism?
Apart from you and steve?
Ah, so you have no idea what the word troll means either. Goodness, why do you continually use things you don’t understand to try and make your points. You must realize by now how that’s facilitating your constant failures.
IOW, because people here are more informed than you, they must be trolls. You know, cuz they disagreed with you and could defeat your arguments.
So, in other words, Mr. Hypocrite, you come here with no argument, no proof and no clue what you’re talking about, but are certain everyone but you is wrong, and WE’RE creationist-like.
LOL congrats on yet another complete failure.
What is the sound of one ridiculous, dishonest chicken squawking?
once again, since you’re too ridiculous self-centered to notice it: THIS IS NOT YOUR BLOG. If PZ had any issue with the discussion, he’d do something about it. Additionally, for the third fucking time YOU BROUGHT GWW INTO THE DISCUSSION.
you can either a) admit that was a dumbass thing to do, since you didn’t actually know anything about her and have now been told or b) continue digging in your heels, pouting, whining, lying and being hypocritically insulting.
You choice, cupcake.
I have provided citations that girlwriteswhat is sexist, something that patrickdoyle claims to be against. And yet the fucker has fucking shit to say about it.
Caine….
Caine, it isn’t sexist. It is reality. Mos people that wear lace underwear are women. It is a brute fact that even 5 year olds are aware of. Bringing up reality is not sexist. Also, (ready for another sexist bomb to be dropped?), most people that have full beards are men. I know, I know hard to believe. And if I see a person with a full beard and bone structure like Grizzly Adams and wearing a suit and over 6′ in height, you know what, I hate to admit it, but I call them sir and use gendered pronounds to describe them. Yeah, I find that I can tell people’s gender, and I make no apologies. Weird I know. I can’t believe how sexist I am. Oh another thing, I assume that a large male is stronger than a smaller female and so I ask my male friends to help me move furniture and things like that. I know, I’m a bastard since I notice there are some ways in which women and men currently differ on average. I feel so bad. The only way I can feel better is to pick 100 people at random and tell them “women wear lace underwear more than men” and have them ALL say “yeah, so what? everyone knows that”.
Bye radfems. I’ll stick my flounce this time.
You do not live in reality.
Yet, without providing evidence, your whole assertion, per Christopher Hitchens, is *floosh* sent to the toxic waste center where it belongs. Your OPINION is and never will be evidence. This is a science blog. Evidence rules, not your opinions *floosh*.
tough call
Caine, that wasn’t me. It was Carlie @ 357.
I couldn’t think of anything other than a swear after reading “I need not provide citations.” At that point, all attempts at being witty shut down in an effort to preserve sanity.
Honestly, I’m still stunned I read “I need not provide citations.” That line was like running head first into a brick wall. I can’t even believe someone thought it was a good idea to type, let alone lead off with.
since apparently the “on topic” discussion is what does or doesn’t inhibit freethinking, let’s discuss whether an attitude of “I need not provide citations” promotes or hinders freethinking.
Don’t you fucking dare leave an assprint on the door as it is being slammed.
look! citations! again!
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Feminist_link_roundup
Citations relevant to commenting dynamics!
Bernice Sandler – The Chilly Climate (PDF link)
Patrick Past:
Why do the moderators ban dissenters! CENSORSHIP I SAY! It’s like 1984 groupthink echo chamber in here and how will you ever learn anything if you just silence people who say things.
Patrick Present:
Those silly people aren’t talking about the dangers of CENSORSHIP! They are bringing up feminism! MODERATORS, ACTIVATE! PLEASE SAVE ME!
Trolls have very fast character arcs.
No, thread drift has occurred and its over 200 posts. The topic is now your inability to provide links to back up your assertions. I’ll mimic whatever attitude you present to the horde. Which is, at the moment, is for us to essentially go fuck ourselves, as you don’t have to listen to anybody telling you that you are wrong.
If one goes with the original definition of what trolling is, this makes perfect sense.
gotta change the baits more often in waters full of clever fish.
Eh, I give it a 6.5/10. Not a lot of swoosh to the flounce.
Also, back to Shermer’s comment – wouldn’t the fact that it took awhile for anyone to really notice and comment on it be evidence that, in fact, we don’t go looking for things to be offended about? That we don’t hang on every word hoping for a “gotcha” moment? That, perhaps, we have actual things that we care about and only stop to try to point out sexism when it’s right there in our faces?
LOLOL yeah . . . the silly girls should just trust you. But only after you insult them, even though you’re totally above that sort of thing. Douchecanoe.
LOLOLOL oh yeah, white dudes are totally the only people who can accurate gauge the prevalence and effects of both racism and sexism. All those bitches and darkies are just lying whiners!
I see why you like GWW so much.
patrick, your desire to avoid topics is because you cannot defend your original accusations.
If having your ass handed to you by about 100 commenters is “victory”, have at it. It will make mocking your incredibly whiny ignorant ass that much easier.
Translation: I had hoped everyone would agree with me and not ask me to back up what I say. i’m too delicate for anything else!!
Rumtopf 371 (apologies if I ruin these block-quotes too)
*snicker*. Typical trash talk of those who can’t evidence and argue their inane opinions. BORING.
Glodson:
Damnit! Apologies to you and Carlie. I swear, my brain will be warmed up soon, the power is back on now. (And I’ll have no handy excuse!)
Unfortunately, it’s something we see a lot. There’s always a clamor and cry for us to back up our assertions, however, they don’t need to, because freeze peach. Or something.
I am still waiting for the “I am against sexism” patrickdoyle to take back his support of the interesting ideas of girlwriteswhat. Or point out those ideas of her that should be taken seriously.
brave sir stevie ran away. he bravely ran away away. After being completely unable to defend his accusations, he bravely turned his tail and fled. brave sir stevie ran away.
Might want to duck so this comma I’m chucking in your direction doesn’t hit you on the way out.
definitely worth noting.
Did myuido have a point to #386?
One thing I have noticed is that even those aware of sexism in the media can miss a glaringly obvious example as it is an ubiquitous part of our culture. So it isn’t just that we aren’t combing through statements looking for the examples, it is also that we can easily miss them as they are just ingrained in our culture to a degree that even those aware of the problem can easily miss it.
That’s supposed to be “Bye radfems and manginas!” If you’re going to follow the sexist douchecake script, then follow it correctly.
Well, we’ve certainly heard that before. Amazing how not one of you can ever manage it the first time around. Performance issues are so troublesome, aren’t they?
If your flounce lasts for more then four hours, please seek medical attention.
that’s not true! he said its a real problem that bitches lie about. what more do you bitches want?
Ha! Your puny facts and evidence are nothing in the face of his opinion!
Janine:
I’ll have you know that snorting tea is not fun.
@ 386 This is just a note about legibility. Try to make sure you are closing your blockquotes with the /blockquote tag. The regressing quotes are murder to read, and I can’t even tell what you are trying say.
@Caine
Well, I don’t usually get this deep into a discussion, but I was enjoying reading this being torn apart. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw that statement put so blatantly. Maybe it was because it was what he started with. I probably miss them when they are buried in a shitty word salad that I give up on reading. I have a hypothesis that some people intentional think of the stupidest arguments in the hopes that it will give those reading a crippling headache from the stupid unleashed.
What was noted was that, when asked about it, he doubled down.
Pulls away from desk. Pull open front of trousers. Looks. Waiiit a minute . . . .
Sexism isn’t a problem? The patriarchy isn’t a problem? Rape culture isn’t a problem? I, and a shitload of other survivors might disagree with you on that. Strongly.
Ah, sexism and ableism. Will we get the trifecta?
Ah. The ultimate argument. Five year olds are already immersed in sexism, therefore there is no sexism.
I have to admit, it is refreshing to see someone just state, flatout, that they are talking out of their ass and thus citations are impossible.
Hey, Patrick Doyle
What do you think are GWW’s reasonable positions?
No. Because reasons*.
*For very loose definitions of the word “reason”.
Patrick Doyle, why are you ignoring Giliell?
Just as an aside and I apologize to patrickdoyle for disturbing his fascinating discussion about what a great debater he is, I’d like to make one comment about Noelplum.
My objection to Noeljim from the very first time I noticed him (I believe that was on one of Greta’s threads) was his massive egocentricity. He tried, and usually succeeded, in bringing every discussion around to him. The thread on Natalie Reed which PZ linked to in the OP is a prime example. He would look at something, usually disapprovingly, and offer not only his opinion on the topic but some comment about how interest in that topic was incorrect and disturbing to him. Naturally only topics which Noeljim had the slightest concern for should be discussed. The idea that if he didn’t care for a topic then he should ignore the thread was beneath Noeljim’s contempt.
He was also fond of logical fallacies. He once asked for a definition of male privilege and I referred him to the appropriate Feminism 101 FAQ article. He rejected the link because it wasn’t to a properly referenced academic paper, even though what he’d asked for was a definition. He shifted the goal posts but claimed he hadn’t when I called him on it. He wasn’t an honest debater.
Thank you, Ogvorbis.
(Yes, that was sarcasm.)
Myuido’s point has been rapidly shrinking with every post. They might still have one, but it can no longer be seen with the naked eye.
Myuido
I did, as I follow Ophelia Benson’s blog. But if I hadn’t, so what?
You found it funny because? Because people can’t physically react to something they don’t know about? Hilarious. Or are you implying that everyone saw the remark and only pretended to care about it later, to make “the hugest deal” for shits and giggles, and that Shermer’s reaction had nothing to do with it?
So what did you think of Shermer’s reaction?
…but where’s the inevitable knee-jerk banning? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering KA-BANN!
Janine:
Sorry. I was wondering if Patrick Doyle would respond to a male. My bad. I’ll stop helping.
Ogvorbis:
It was somewhat novel, I grant you. The pompous, arrogant douchebag wrapping, not so much.
Indeed. What amuses me no end are these arrogant, privileged douchecakes barging in here to defend other arrogant, privileged douchecakes with their cries of Censorship!!!1! and Freeze Peach!1!!1, claiming that no dissent is possible, then proceed to dissent with some of the worst “arguments” ever, then have the nerve to claim they are being quashed because censorship and freeze peach. Has nothing to do with the utter stupidity of their arguments. Nope.
yes, but you also have knowledge, reading comprehension and the desire to talk WITH people, rather than AT them. Things today’s whiny tone trolls lack.
Ogvorbis:
Don’t you dare!
About your nym…is it obviously gendered? People like Steve must know. Must!
Patrick hasn’t been back because he’s still scouring his keyboard for the underline key. HIS IBM SELECTRIC HAS IT AFTER ALL.
What I found funny was that nobody noticed it on Pharyngula when it was right there. Later on it became something so obvious that everybody else should have noticed it, and fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, if you don’t see it and *spits venom*.
Unless a ‘nym is obviously female, it must be male. Duh.
anteprepro nailed it in #381.
Did it look like this?
But see, he doesn’t have to answer anything at all, because we offended his precious feelings and insulted his
manhoodlack of support for any of his statements. SO THERE.Thus proving that we are not examining every single thing with a microscope to look for sexism.
When someone did notice, and wrote that, y’know, hey, that came across sexist, then Shermer doubled down invoking both NAZIs and witch-hunting. At which point the shit storm began. Why do you keep lying?
It has already been explained to you that the major reason for the contempt was Shermer pretending he didn’t do anything wrong . You are a blithering idiot, thick as a brick. When PZ said “they are obtuse and don’t listen”, your ears must have been burning.
By the way myuido, still looking for all that “horrific quote-mining, ‘paraphrasing’ and outright lying” or was your changing the subject to Shermer a pathetic, mumbled acknowledgement of error?
So Myuido, what exactly is your problem? Some people noticed a thing later they didn’t notice earlier and pointed it out?
That is the cartoon that I flashed on and ran with.
Luckily, commenters, unlike cartoon characters, are anatomically correct.
congrats on repeating your lies until you could come up with a way to convince yourself they’re true, myuido. And, def thanks for letting us all be here to watch you delude yourself.
++
Bingo. I first saw him at Benson’s blog, where he did the exact same thing. He labors under the delusion that his endless need to talk about himself is interesting to anyone but him.
There is something called Rule 34.
*grins maliciously*
myuido #416
Shermer made his comment on a podcast which most people didn’t see. It wasn’t until Shermer complained about Ophelia’s months-old post that the original comment came to our attention. In other words, it was your guy who started waving the flag.
Like I said to PZ, i’m working on it. It involves reading a bunch of threads. Sorting comments into categories. A lot of work and really i’m wondering why I bother.
Obviously what you’re trying to argue is that everybody read it and thought it was just fine, until someone else pointed out to them that they should be mad about it. Alternate explanations:
1. There was enough else to talk about in the post that nobody got around to it
2. People were busy and just skimmed the post/comments and didn’t notice it
3. People were busy and weren’t doing much in the way of blog contributions (we’ve already been scolded about how much time commenting here takes)
4. There were other very active posts at the time that pulled attention away from that one
Nope. Not gonna go there.
Caine:
Oh crap. What gender is “The”, as it’s clearly my first name? I’m probably trying to gotcha people into sexism!
Wrong.
FFS, how many damn times does the following need to be repeated for it to sink in?:
1) We are ALL sexist. We’re swimming in it. Sexism is the default. It’s the norm. It takes conscious awareness to see it and no, none of us catches every instant of it, because it’s the default, it’s the norm, it’s everywhere.
2) Shermer’s initial sexist comment was not the problem. His REACTION to being called out on it was, and remains, the problem. His hysterical cries of Naziism! Witch Hunt! Inquisition! are what should be the focus of a discussion – yet people such as yourself utterly ignore the hyperbole Shermer is writing and idiots everywhere are defending.
Jadehawk,
to be fair Justin from Rock Beyond Belief has had disagreements with some. So not “every blogger”, just most bloggers.
And you know what? If, when Shermer noticed, when Shermer realized that someone was pointing to something he said that was sexist, he could have said, “Damn. You’re right. My bad. A little bit of society showing through there. Here is what I meant to say . . . .” and there would have been no problem. But he, as has been pointed out again and again and again (and you keep lying about it again and again and agian), he decided that there was no way that anyone could possibly find that sexist and accused Ophelia of being on a witch-hunt and engaging in fascist tactics to destroy him. Which is when the shit storm started.
Why do you keep lying about this?
MM:
See, you’re proving Steve right! He unveiled the evil plan we nefarious wimmin hatched to fool all the innocent men into sexism! Oh noes.
And as an addendum to my #435, that is exactly the way I have tried (not always successfully) to handle it when my privilege is showing.
Its called credibility. You need only provide one example to have your claim be credible.
I was even kind enough to provide you with links to relevant threads, so the very least you can do is find one example to prove your assertion about noelplumjim.
Perhaps an analogy would help?
Shermer steps on someone’s toe. They say “ouch”, not all that loudly.
Does anyone notice? Not too much, they’re all busy walking around the room and doing their thing.
But then Shermer yells “OUCH? YOU SAID OUCH?! FUCK YOU, YOU NAZI!”
And then yeah, everybody notices. And everybody says he’s an ass for yelling like that.
I’m not lying about this?
*pant**sputter**sigh* Backing up trolling with evidence is hard work! *wheeze**whine*
Also, that you brought up Shermer to troll us with what you found “funny” while you bought more time for your research to back up your initial, on-topic trolling is duly noted.
Sorry PZ it will have to be tomorrow. I wasted far too much time here tonight, my own fault.
So then you really just as stupid as you seem then?
Really, don’t bother. No need to waste your time solely so that you can finally be successful in wasting more of ours.
When you make a comment, people correct you on it, and you continue to make the same comment then you’re either lying, you’re refusing to read what other people say, or you’re illiterate. Your choice about which category you fall into. And if you don’t chose, then the choice will be made for you.
jose:
I’ve seen Natalie argue with a co-blogger in comments, disagreements take place between bloggers across Twitter, and there are blog posts that are clearly at odds with one another. Avicenna’s recent post about PETA sparked a discussion in the comments where he defended eating cattle against environmental concerns, which certainly isn’t something all the other bloggers agree with. Taslima’s stance on pornography isn’t shared among all other bloggers. Stances regarding American style free speech vary pretty dramatically. Different attitudes regarding the mentally ill and ableism are present as well. I’m sure there’s more, but there are a number of bloggers I don’t follow closely.
A lot of similar values are shared, but they aren’t all shared and there’s considerably variety in their opinions on how to act on those values.
@carlie #271
I singled in on that, too. Thanks for taking it on while I was otherwise occupied.
when you see
Criticizing a behavior == personal attack
You know that someone doesn’t get freethought at all. When that person then criticizes you as insufficiently free thinking because of X behavior? Well, that’s the proof that they don’t get self-reflection at all.
I know I’m on the edge of my seat waiting with anticipation for the mountain of links you are surely going to provide that backs up your point, and I’m certainly sure I won’t be sorely disappointed at all when it doesn’t materialize or the links don’t prove your point.
So… Myuido needs more time to try and twist around words so that “It’s more of a guy thing” won’t be sexist, especially as neoplum agreed with it… because microbrewing?
Shut up Tis Himself.
Yes, because you conveniently ignored that mountain of links to threads in which Jim was immersed provided by Tethys. I provided one of those same links myself. Here you had other people do all the work for you (took about 5 minutes) and you won’t, er, pardon, can’t use it, because it doesn’t back up your claims. Gosh, that’s just magical.
Um humm. Maybe, perhaps, the dog ate your evidence?
myuido, stop trying to shift the goalposts. You made a fucking claim, now back it up. If you have time to post snipes, whines and goalpost shifts, you have time to find your so-called evidence.
Funny how myuido comes back long enough to yell at Rodney and ignores everyone else who said the same thing.
Troll pratfalls that even Chevy Chase would be too embarrassed to pull off.
@428 Myuido
Carlie, Caine, and Ogvorbis covered my response while I was distracted by an attention seeking bebbeh ratty.
Myuido, I still want to know what you think of Shermer’s response to Ophelia, or will you continue dishonestly acting like it had nothing to do with the vocal criticism here?
Looking at the whole picture, the criticism was totally justified and not nearly on the same level of self-righteousness as Nazi/Inquisitor/witch-hunt accusations.
already there. did you see his dig against “radical African-Americans”?
Rumtopf:
Eeeeeeeeeeee, you got your ratties! Congratulations! Mine are being distracting at the moment too. Well, always. :D
/OT
Turns out the documents were in his pocket but got shredded in the laundry. Then, the dog ate the washing machine. I don’t know why I would bother providing evidence of this.
“Understandable” and only “slightly over the top”. So it’s ok to respond to a comment that says “your response insinuates that women aren’t as intellectual as men” with “you are functionally equivalent to the people who tortured and killed others for being different”. Yeah. You do realize that words have meanings, right? That “nazi” and “witch hunt” refer to actual things, and they’re not just random insult words.
I guess it is a big surprise to find myuido was one of the deniers in the thick of the initial Shermer thread here. I wondered why the name sounded familiar.
Chalk up another Shermer acolyte who never actually bothered to read Ophelia’s article. Another proud skeptic deciding to be skeptical about Shermer’s skepticism while refusing to view the affair through anything other than Shermer-colored glasses. Here , for those who don’t exactly know why we can tell that these people have their heads up their asses:
Please, pay no attention to the concerns about portraying women as passive and incapable of leadership. Ophelia said something about Shermer calling women stupid! That justifies all the outrage in the world! Also pay no attention to the fact that the concern over passive stereotypes is the larger concern, that it is the crux of calling Shermer’s remark sexist, and that leaving it alone means they have yet to refute those accusations. Nope, it is all about the “stupid” stereotype. Nothing else was said, there was no other concern that contributed to belief that the remark was sexist. Nothing at all. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
Not all of us are so lucky to have a washing machine right there in the bedroom consciousness razor.
CENSORSHIP!!! (Just like the Nazis!)
Did he actually call her a nazi. Or compare her to a nazi? Seriously. I haven’t seen it. I have seen Ophelia Benson indirectly compare TAM to the Nazis.
I suggest you look at your own language here and what it says about your biases. Ophelia did not “tar” Shermer. He was not tarred and feathered, nor was he run out of town on a rail. See, this use of outrageous language isn’t just a problem with Shermer, it’s a problem with all his defenders, too.
What Ophelia did do was to point out how his unfortunately sexist, off the cuff remark comes home to those who hear it. As has been stated, repeatedly, all Shermer needed to do was take 5 seconds, review his remark and say something to the effect of “sheesh, you’re right. I was caught off guard and said the wrong thing, I’ll be more aware of that in the future.” That would have been the end of it, and people would have heaped praise on Shermer for getting it. This is about as “Duh.” as you get. Instead, Shermer doubled down, sat on his pile of privilege and started claiming he was a victim of naziism, witch hunts and an inquisition. Shorter: Shermer chose to play the asshole. That comes with consequences.
He has his FTBullies memes down cold!
You are such a fascist socialist communist!
Am I the only one who thinks myuido’s humor chip is on the fritz?
What an excellent fucking skeptic. Give this gentleperson a medal.
What’s that again?
Well, you heard it here(not first, unfortunately), folks. Accusing people of being Nazis and Inquisitors is a little over the top but understandable when those people dare to criticise a stereotypical sexist remark you made. False equivalences are wonderful.
Bonus learndings: Criticising a stereotypical sexist remark is the exact same as calling the person who said it an immoral, intentional, actively woman-hating sexist. 100% true./s
OT Caine
Yisss! They’re 10 weeks old today and we’ve named them Ben and Socrates. I’ll try and take some awful blurry webcam photos to post in the Lounge for you. :B
/OT
Right, because that’s exactly the sort of thing I implied somewhere, somehow. I think everyone should have a washing machine in their bedroom; and if they don’t, they’re a dishonest fucking idiot like you. It’s a shame, which is to say that it’s really shameful of you to be such a dishonest fucking idiot.
So you didn’t read his piece that is what people are actually talking about when they criticize him.
To date, I have stayed out of this witch hunt against our most prominent leaders, thinking that “this too shall pass.” Perhaps I should have said something earlier. As Martin Niemöller famously warned about the inactivity of German intellectuals during the rise of the Nazi party, “first they came for …” but “I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a….”
So, just like the rest of the “dissenters”, you have not read all the articles and you haven’t done your homework. Gonna huff and puff and make more excuse as to why you didn’t you homework now?
Christ, this is stultifying. Remedy your ignorance before you argue.
Rev. BDC:
myuido: I can continue to snipe, whinge, cry and repeat myself endlessly, but I can’t get the back up for my claims because, um, because…
Actually, thats an interesting position on it. I’ll think about that.
Meh, I know I’m a few hundred comments back, but this is the first comment that simultaneously made me groan and LOL…
stevecarlos:
Sooo, you think it is a good idea for people to believe in things without evidence.
Scientologist?
Christian?
Buddhist?
What’s your religious flavor?
You state that this place is an echo chamber, offer no evidence that it is, but expect people to just…take your word for it? No need for evidence, we’re just supposed to believe you? Why?
Why is it a good idea to believe in things for which there is no evidence?
If you truly believe this place is an echo chamber, and no one here is willing to entertain dissenting opinions, show examples. Links, so that we can see what you’re talking about.
I’m also curious–is this place completely an echo chamber? Most of the time? Sometimes? Rarely? Does anyone here respond well to dissenting opinions, or does everyone here object to them?
If you really wanted to convince anyone here in the “echo chamber” that your opinion had any validity without presenting a shred of evidence, you’re going to get (and have been) roundly dismissed and criticized. Justifiably so.
So, in the interest of being intellectually honest, I’m guessing I’m going to see a post by you sometime in the next few hundred posts with a few links to provide support for your assertions…right?
This isn’t the time to be doing your homework. This is the exam. Do that before you post on the subject.
Glodson, great minds and all that. :D
OFFS!!!!elebenty!
You do realize you just admitted to either being willfully blind, or maliciously stupid right?
I predict there will be at least one citation to the article that MS wrote calling us Nazis and claiming persecution by witch-hunts before I can post this comment and go find it.
Score!
:D
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/06/degodwinization/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/06/i-did-not-compare-tam-to-nazi-germany/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2013/02/i-did-not-compare-tam-to-nazi-germany-2/
Just in case Myuido didn’t read these either.
@ 477
My time as a lurker as paid off. There’s been a few times when I thought “hey, that’s not right.” So I would try to do my homework before doing what my first impulse was, which is to just post. In the course of research, I would find that I was off the mark in my first impression. Lesson learned, however indirectly.
This one is fun as I’ve read the articles beforehand. And yea… Shermer could have easily come out this with little to no criticism past his first remark. Hell, I would imagine that he could have turned that remark into something positive, talking about how our culture conditions young women to not speak out while encouraging young men to speak out resulting in the some of the differences we see. A good starting point. I worry that my little girl will grow up and be told that it is “bitchy” for her to be forceful with her opinions, or that science isn’t for girls. These biases take a toll.
Instead, he went full on Godwin…. not usually a good idea.
But they’re just asking questions, Caine!* They argue their ignorant asses off because it will help them not learn a fucking thing in the process. Too much fucking work. Besides, they’re not having the kind of “argument” where it’s possible to change your position after hearing a different viewpoint or seeing some evidence or an opposing argument. They’re having the kind of “argument” where you insult and whine indiscriminately about anything and everything you can get away with, no matter what the truth actually is, because there’s just got to be a reason to be pissed about something.
*Except when they’re not.
So I’m up to comment 127, with many more to go.
I sincerely hope that at least one of the people misusing the words freethought and censorship come to understand it before I reach the end of the thread. At this point, those with the dissenters I have seen this far, those terms are massively misunderstood.
Glodson:
Oh hells yes, he could have easily done that, and added that his off the cuff remark simply demonstrated how much we’re all soaking in sexism as the default, how we can all be more aware, yada, yada, yada. He would have been praised to the skies for it, too.
No, I read them.
Tony:
Don’t be holding your breath, darlin’, else we’ll lose you.
:D carlie, thanks for the quickdraw linkage.
There really must be something magical in the air. I think myuido agreed we have a valid point!
Myuido, since you then obviously disagree about the distance between Ophelia’s comment and its comparison to Nazi Germany, what do you think about Shermer’s comment and its comparison to Nazi Germany? Now that it’s sitting right there for you to read with a link and everything and all.
CR:
Yes. Perhaps new coinage is needed. Jaqument? Whingument?
I’m too much of a push-over: I will gladly do homework for someone if they ask nicely enough. Or, in the case of the internet, if the facts are embarrassing enough to a pompous ignoramus who pontificates proudly while knowing fuck-all:
Sherm Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Sherm Wars Episode II: A New Rope
And if I hear the words “out of context” or “quotemine” as the sole rebuttal, without further explanation or argument, I swear to God I will fucking strangle someone.
Caine @181,
Thank you for the book recommendation. I saw it in another thread a few days ago and I’ve since picked it up from my university library. I’m glad I did.
noted twice, just for distinction.
There better not be a Jar-Jar Binks, anteprepro.
Yeah, think on Caine’s 464 and the subsequent posts. So far you’ve come off as believing Ophelia forced him into making the “nazi” and “witch hunt” references. If he had simply said, “Wow, won’t use that wording to express myself again! Here’s a better take on the subject,” then he would have been…..tarred.
There’s too much evidence of your presence here to go with the choice unaware; I determine that you are a willfully ignorant assclam. Oh, you’re lying about Ophelia, too. And ignoring her later comment that, even though she was paraphrased inaccurately and harmfully, the original wasn’t a smart thing to say. But here you are–still trying to use it against her.
Is that why you can’t see that Shermer should admit he went hella more than slightly over the top? You’re right in there with the group who wants endlessly to regurgitate slop, no matter what has happened in between.
Surly Amy regrets her DMCA? Releases her photos to the commons? Explains herself more clearly about the fake jewelry comment? Restricts her blogging and tweeting for a time to let things calm down? Your side never mentions any of it, but makes neener neener videos months and months later. Justin Fucking Vacula makes such a poor mouth, neener neener video five months later; two weeks after THAT, he applies for a Surly Amy grant to go to WiSCFI.
Your pores ooze smegmarmalade an inch thick.
This is why I am bothered by some of this. To do nothing, to not address these issues, allows them to continue unabated. It is a self-fulling prophecy. Girls aren’t good at math because we tell them they aren’t good at math. Too many take that to heart. It is bullshit that makes itself reality.
If a bad feminist like me notices this, it has to be glaringly obvious. It is so easy to see. Forcing the issue is good. And we should do this across the board. Hell, I never thought much about gendered insults until I noticed the ban on them here. Seeing that made me think. Then I got it. It wasn’t my intent to be sexist, but I was being sexist.
Shermer might not have intended to be sexist, but what he said was mildly sexist. What he says carries weight, whether we like it or not. And admitting a mistake in what he said, admitting there is a difference in how we treat people differently across gender lines would have been great.
glad you think so, since it indeed was, and is, the consensus position on it for almost every FtB blog that dissected the issue, weeks ago.
you’re a bit slow on the uptake, but so long as you get there I suppose.
Watry:
Woohoo! Thank you for letting me know. It’s an excellent read.
anteprepro – awesome. I couldn’t find that first one for anything.
“A new rope” *snicker*
Honestly, Jar-Jar Binks would vastly improve everything in those banal little tales. Sadly, Shermer thinks that universal whiteness of the cast isn’t indicative of any problem, because skepticism, and no-one seems racist, so shut up.