DJ Grothe responds

He didn’t care much for my criticism of their advertising copy yesterday, so he sent me an email.

I’m not sure if you [it was cc’ed to several people] want to be kept up on things like this (we try not to get distracted by bloggers who have a habit of taking aim at JREF, RDFRS, CFI or Skeptics Society, etc.) [it’s a “habit” now? And oh, yes, let’s belittle those bloggers. Did he even notice who he was sending it to?], but just in case: PZ did a blog post against TAM today [No, I didn’t. You might have noticed I called it “premium event that brings in professional entertainers and big name celebrities”; that is not a criticism of TAM at all. I criticized their misleading ad.], contra our recent promo email.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/11/a-misleading-claim-by-a-skeptical-organization/

I’m not going to respond [What do you call this?], but it is worth noting that our numbers do hold — TAM is actually significantly cheaper than CSICon, NECSS, etc. [Cherry-picking cons now, I see] when factoring in our low hotel costs, included meal’s, etc. — and it is a much higher quality event by many measures [Do CSICon, NECSS, etc. know of DJ’s opinion of their quality?]. Not to mention that it is a full four days, not just two and a half days. And 3-4 times as many presenters on the program. [That’s the first legitimate point he’s made. It is a bigger event…but that does not make it a cheaper event. That’s reason to say TAM is worth the money, not that it is cheaper.] (The cost factor, the value of TAM, was a bullet point in the recent promotional email.)

PZ compares TAM to a free student-run conference in Springfield Missouri. False comparison, obviously. [Oh. TAM is a cheaper conference as long as you don’t include all those conferences which are cheaper. Got it. And is there something wrong with a conference being “student-run”? I’ve found student-run conferences to be among the best experiences.]

A regular TAM attendee and good egg, Jim Lippard, posted this comment on PZ’s blog, which PZ apparently deleted [Say what? I checked everywhere, and nope, Lippard left no comment here. He did leave this same comment on another blog at exactly the same time. How did Grothe copy and paste the comment without noting it wasn’t on Pharyngula at all? A mystery. Put a skeptical investigator to work on it right away.]:

Jim Lippard says:
June 12, 2013 at 2:20 AM
FYI, TAM does include three breakfasts and two lunches with the registration. Your Skepticon comparison is rather location-dependent–for me, I’d have to fly to Skepticon, while I could drive or fly to Vegas for less than the cost to get to Springfield. A round-trip ticket for TAM today would cost me $197, vs. $504 for Springfield with the same dates (according to Google’s ITA Software). The overall costs would be comparable if I wanted to stay at the conference hotel in both cases (the South Point Casino JREF rate was $45/night for Thu, $85/night for Fri, Sat)–TAM $475+$197+$215 = $887, Skepticon free+$504+$417 = $921, without comparing meals (are they included at Skepticon?). [I responded to this elsewhere (like, where he left the comment), but factoring in the momentary vagaries of airline pricing really is a colossal cheat. I’ve had domestic prices to the same destination wander up and down by $400 over the course of a month. But especially when he’s close enough to drive to TAM, while Skepticon is farther away for him…don’t you think that might contribute to the price difference?]

D.J.

As I said in the previous post:

Again, TAM has a niche, and there’s nothing wrong with filling that niche — but to claim to be the budget conference is thoroughly dishonest.

There was no criticism of TAM at all there — it has a role, it does it well, if you enjoy it and can afford it you should go — but I do think the advertising copy was dishonest and, for a consumer protection organization, they should take a little more responsibility to avoid stretching the truth. I have my doubts that Grothe even read my post, and is instead regurgitating something one of the haters sent to him without verifying its contents…which may be where this claim that Lippard posted it here came from. Also note that the article where Lippard actually commented did a breakdown of costs for him to attend a CSI conference, and it came down cheaper than TAM. Not very skeptical of him, is it?

What is it with these big-name skeptics that they are so thin-skinned about any criticism at all?


Oh, dear. DJ sent me email informing me that the above note was sent to me by mistake…so apparently it’s all my fault now.

Hi PZ — did you miss these emails? I am really surprised you posted the email that I explicitly said I sent to you by mistake, instead seeming to suggest I sent it to you intentionally, and that you actually neglected to mention the correction I immediately sent to you below regarding Lippard. It is a pretty impressive mischaracterization. Does it feel underhanded to you in the least? Do you think you are one of the good guys? It is pretty disappointing, and I wonder if you are able to see why.

D.J.

No, I didn’t see any other emails until I went searching through the mess in my inbox. And now I see that he didn’t intend for me to receive his sneering dismissal of bloggers and people who criticize skeptics, which explains the rather unhelpful attitude in the first message. It doesn’t explain the continuation of that attitude in the message above, though. Still, it’s good to know how he talks about us behind our backs, I guess.

What mischaracterization? I must be one of the bad guys for pointing out the obvious fact that TAM actually IS a rather expensive conference. Everyone knows it; at TAM London I heard a lot of complaints about the ticket price, compared to other events there; every year I see people experiencing a bit of a shock when they learn how much registration costs. And that’s OK — the JREF organizers could be telling everyone how good it is and pointing out all the talent on display (although, really, this same talent often appears at other cons as well). But claiming that it is the least expensive conference is rather ridiculous, don’t you think?

Apparently, the only greater misrepresentation is to dare to point out that it is so.

DJ Grothe baffles me

His response to Greta throws out several accusations: there exist something called “controversialist” blogs, and their writers have anonymously informed him they’ve been directed to go on the attack by the founders for an “uptick in hits”.

I don’t know of these blogs. Can anyone point me to some?

I can say that there have been no such directions given at Freethoughtblogs, Scienceblogs, the Panda’s Thumb, or any blog I’m associated with.

There other weird things about that comment, but I trust Greta will handle it well; I’m just surprised by this novel conspiracy theory.

I escaped in time!

I got out of Facebook, but the stench still follows me. Yesterday, a reader told me about a new Facebook group that was recruiting. It’s called “Skeptic Revival”, and its aim is to resurrect the old skeptical movement, you know, the kind of antique skepticism that existed before the Deep Rifts shredded everything, the kind of skeptical organization that Don Draper would have loved to join. The first problem is that Barbara Drescher is leading this effort, and I couldn’t imagine a worse person to rally a modern skeptical movement…until I saw the rogue’s gallery she’s assembled in her big tent.

There’s DJ Grothe, former president of the JREF who ignored sexual harassment complaints and lied about them.

There’s Ben Radford, creepy litigious sex pest who believes that girls have an evolved preference for pink.

Russel Blackford, generic philosopher and waffler in the middle ground who dislikes all those SJWs.

Abbie Smith, deranged hate-blogger (I thought Drescher despised those?) who started the Slymepit.

Just seeing these few names has me throwing up in my mouth a little bit — I wouldn’t want to be seen in public with any of these people, let alone join the same club. These are the people the rifts formed to separate us from their regressive brand of conservative skepticism, but there they are, standing on the far side of the chasm.

If you want to join them, feel free: here’s a link to Skeptic Revival. I will think less of you for joining, but I won’t know, I won’t be following their shenanigans, I’m not on Facebook, so you can secretly join the narrow-minded skeptic harasser’s club. No one who matters will know. Except yourself, of course.

Knock me over with a feather!

Incredible. DJ Grothe — you remember Grothe, right? If not, ask Carrie Poppy, or Stephanie Zvan, or Jason Thibeault, or search for his name on the timeline of harassment and sexual assault allegations, or any of a great many people who faced his mismanagement of skeptic conferences while he was president of the JREF. He opposed anti-harassment policies, buried harassment reports, and was just generally an enabler of all kinds of shenanigans.

Anyway, he just posted this:

I don’t know, DJ. Do you have a mirror handy? A CT scanner? An MRI? An endoscope?

Lots of people struggled so long against his oblivious incompetence, and he has the nerve to ask that question.

I’d almost forgotten what a terrible atheist I am

Suddenly I’m seeing this image popping up all over. But it’s over ten years old! And worst of all, it’s not real — it’s made by an atheist, which explains why the list of characteristics sounds so awesome. It’s also not a particularly useful perspective on how non-atheists think.

Hate atheists? So do we! Your typical atheist smokes marijuanana associates with jews masturbates regularly partakes in deviant sexual proclivities worships at the alter of the internet. To find out more come to atheist awareness week!!! april 2008

While I was trying to track this down, though, I ran across this old post on Scienceblogs by Matt Nisbet, which reminded me of how much I was hated by some of my colleagues on that site. No, really, you might have seen evidence of the friction in some of the published posts, but there were a couple of people who really pulled out the knives in the back channel. This is relatively mild stuff.

Consider this recent article at the National Catholic Register. Titled “The Face of the New Atheism,” it profiles PZ Myers and his rants against the Eucharist and the Catholic community. Notice the key words emphasized. The dominant image of atheism portrayed in the article is one of “hate,” “contempt,” “dogmatism,” “a junior high level understanding of religion,” “irate,” “incredulous,” “bigoted”…the list goes on.

Is this how we really want Catholics to view us? Do we really want a group of moderately religious Americans–who polls show otherwise prize science and reason, and who stand for many of the same values that we hold dear–to think of us through the prism of PZ Myers?

Right. The National Catholic Register. This is a guy holding up as a source an extremely conservative newspaper that idolizes Bill Donohue, echoing the arguments of Donohue and Mark Mathis, producer of the movie Expelled, which worships Catholicism, and considers atheists as tools of the anti-christ. I guess he thought it was as valid a source of information about atheists as anything else. It’s a bad memory. Sometimes things got rather toxic at the old site.

But what redeems it all is that Nisbet then goes on to cite as a counter-example, his paragon of what a good atheist should be. It’s DJ Grothe, the guy who later was found to have covered up sexual harassment at the Amazing Meetings, who abruptly left the JREF under a cloud, who was strangely characterized as a psychopath by people who had to spend much time with him, and who had a fondness for crude rape jokes.

I actually first met DJ Grothe about a year before at Dragon*Con in 2010. I had admired his work on Point of Inquiry and when he became president of the JREF I thought it would be a great thing. When I got a chance to meet him that year I was excited. We encountered one another at a Skepchick party (one that had to be moved to the lobby because of noise complaints as soon as it started). He was drunk, but it was a social occasion and I’d had a couple cocktails as well. No big deal. I was fairly surprised though, when DJ turned to me and said that the reason everyone loved the Skepchicks was because they “want pussy”. That seemed to be a rather dismissive and insultingly sexist way to dismiss the work of your professional colleagues (not to mention the people whose booze you were at that moment drinking.

I’m embarrassed to say that at the time I was still a bit fame-struck and too shocked to really process it. I didn’t do what I should have done, and told him how rude, insulting, and unprofessional it was to say something like that, even while drunk. Even in a casual social setting. But then it got more bizarre and incredible. I’m a tall guy, chubby (fat, honestly) and bearded. If I were gay I would definitely be a bear. This was discussed and DJ then made an hilarious horrendous “joke” about how I should pay him a visit down in Los Angeles so that he could drug me and let some of his friends have some fun with me. You know, in other words so that I could be gang raped.

Nisbet’s post hasn’t aged well, and I’m now proud to have been such a bad atheist, if that’s what atheism is supposed to be more like.


By the way, Rebecca Watson talked about Grothe back in 2014. If you want a glimpse into what a shitshow the skeptic/atheist movements have been, just read the comments.

How is this guy popular?

Did you know the way to deal with a man? Debate is only a prelude to punching his lights out.

I know how to stand up to a man who’s unfairly trespassing against me, and the reason I know that is because the parameters for my resistance are quite well-defined … We talk, we argue, we push and then it becomes physical. Right?

You see, if that’s how an argument is supposed to reasonably progress, then it becomes problematic to argue with a woman, because you know that eventually, according to the rules, rational dissent must culminate in socking her in the jaw, and that’s not nice to do to a woman. Perfectly OK to do that to a man, of course.

In case you’re wondering who would make such a ludicrous argument, it’s from Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist, darling of the alt-right, and Canadian. I’ve never been in such a situation, except for that time in 7th grade when I was beat up for my lunch money, and even then, I didn’t get to do any punching because I was on my back with the wind knocked out of me.

I don’t know, man, that’s such an un-Canadian attitude Peterson has got, they might have to revoke his citizenship.


Speaking of horrible people, you might want to read this post about Joshie Berger, formerly a popular participant at the Amazing Meeting, loud skeptic, and apparently an acolyte of Peterson. It seems his way of dealing with his girlfriend was to smash her face. If that has already ruined your breakfast, here’s another problem person: DJ Grothe. Grothe didn’t punch anyone, fortunately, but in his role as the TAM organizer at the time, he reportedly silenced people who complained about Berger’s general behavior. Because, I guess, that was his job, to keep everything running smoothly for abusers.

Fuck it. I’m going to Minneapolis today, to hang out with good people and get off the internet for a while.

David Silverman understands how codes of conduct work

And DJ Grothe does not. The Reason Rally has a published Code of Conduct, and apparently a few bad apples are protesting that they won’t attend because they don’t want their freedom to harass limited. Dave does a very good job of explaining what they do and don’t do, and why they are reasonable. Don’t read the comments, though. So many people are getting their asses in a wringer because they hate being told that they don’t get to do whatever they want at a public event.

In vaguely related news, Ammon Bundy is planning to sue Multnomah County for violating his right to bear arms in prison.

Stupid people who don’t understand that living among other people compromises your right to have tantrums over your privileges are everywhere.

Holy crap, major shakeup at the JREF

DJ Grothe is out, and the Los Angeles office is closed.

In order to achieve cost-savings and greater efficiency, the Los Angeles office of the JREF has closed effective September 1, 2014. All operations have been moved to Falls Church, Virginia.

DJ Grothe is no longer with the JREF. James Randi has taken over as acting President.

This restructuring is part of an enhanced educational agenda aimed at inspiring an investigative spirit in a new generation of critical thinkers by engaging children and their parents, as well as educators and the general public, in how to think about the many extraordinary claims we hear every day.

More: they’re cutting the JREF forums loose.

The time for change has come. The long-running JREF online Forum at forums.randi.org is soon to head off on its own. 

JREF staff is in the midst of arranging a transition to a new owner. Various people are currently working to preserve the integrity of the forum content to the greatest extent possible with the privacy concerns of users in mind.

Well, that was abrupt. There is no hint about what the board is thinking, or what direction they’re planning to take, other than that vague “enhanced educational agenda”.

I’d make a joke about them only engaging in this drama for the traffic and attention, but this is a rather serious change in direction for them. I hope we’ll be seeing a new and better JREF. One positive hint is that Adam Savage joined the board this past summer, and that may be part of the change in focus.


Here’s one obvious reason:

JREF Revenue: 2011: $1.56M, 2012: $1.29M, 2013: $887.5K.

They’re down to 60% of their 2011 revenue. That’s a good reason to change directions.

I just saw the worst-passing skeptic leader ever

It was on Facebook. I knew it would be insulting, but I had to take a picture.

DJ Grothe judges a transsexual.

No hyperbole: I just saw the worst-passing transsexual I’ve ever seen in the lounge here. It was so disruptive that I am forced to believe it was an intentional way to protest against rigid gender binaries. Or so I’d like to think.

Just beware, transsexuals: you must meet DJ Grothe’s high standards before appearing in public. You will be judged.

Isn’t it sweet that 12 people like his comment?