The death of movements

The death of atheism

According to local mythology,* the atheist movement of ~2007-2015 was torn apart by the feminist wars. Back in the day, everyone was standing shoulder to shoulder, promoting the secular agenda.  Then we took a bite of the elevator, and our eyes were opened.  Some of these people we were standing next to were terrible actually.  Why were we on the same side?  Were we ever on the same side?

*This mythology may or may not be accurate, but for this post I’m rolling with it.

In the atheist feminist wars, there is one moment that sticks with me more than anything else.  It’s in 2012, when DJ Grothe complained that there weren’t enough women at TAM (a conference run by Grothe’s organization), because women were warning each other about harassment.

Last year we had 40% women attendees, something I’m really happy about. But this year only about 18% of TAM registrants so far are women, a significant and alarming decrease, and judging from dozens of emails we have received from women on our lists, this may be due to the messaging that some women receive from various quarters that going to TAM or other similar conferences means they will be accosted or harassed.

Grothe was blaming women for warning each other about going to TAM.  But if women are being harassed, that seems like pretty good justification for the warnings!  And if the organizers believe no harassment is occurring, that’s the very opposite of reassuring.

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Review: Revenge of the Phantom Press

Revenge of the Phantom Press is a novel by FTBlogger William Brinkmann. It is the sequel to The Rift, which I previously reviewed, although it may be read as a standalone.

To recap The Rift, it follows Tom Larsen, a young man in the skeptical community who goes full men’s rights activist after propositioning a woman in an elevator. It’s a fictionalized story about Elevatorgate and the feminist wars in the skeptical/atheist community. I recommend it if you have any sort of feeling about that topic.

In the Bolingbrook universe, not only is there a skeptical community, but also the paranormal is real. There are psychics, aliens, ghosts, the Illuminati, machine spirits, and more. Many of the leaders in the skeptical movement are participating in the coverup. By the end of the previous book, Tom Larsen has discovered the truth of the paranormal. It goes against his skeptical/humanist values to cover it up, so instead he leaves the skeptical movement to join the unbelievable-yet-true tabloid, The Bolingbrook Babbler. Most people, including his parents, think he went nuts.

At the start of the book, we learn that Tom isn’t very good at his job. He radiates mediocre white dude energy. He struggles to form contacts in the Department of Paranormal Activity, and can’t seem to capture a photo of the local lake monster.

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The cultural practice of community agreements

How many readers are familiar with the practice of community agreements? This was a widely extant practice in my experience with queer student groups and queer conferences in the US in the 2010s. At the beginning of almost every discussion, the moderator would establish some ground rules, usually using catch phrases as titles, written on a black board.

For example, “One mic one diva” cautions against interruption, while “step up step back” cautions against dominating the conversation. “Oops, ouch, educate” outlines appropriate steps when someone makes a mistake. “Don’t yuck my yum” cautions against derogating what others love. “Use ‘I’ statements” asks people to avoid generalizing their personal experiences. And there’s often a “confidentiality” agreement, which doesn’t have a catch phrase but is still obviously important. The particular choice of agreements may vary, and sometimes the same agreements go under different names.

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Targeted Advertising: Good or evil?

I have had some professional experience in marketing. It’s a job, you know? Targeted advertising is a very common data science application. Specifically, I’ve built models that use credit data to decide who to send snail-mail. Was this a positive contribution to society? Eh, probably not.

In the title I ask, “good or evil?”, but obviously most people think the answer is “evil”. I’m not here to convince you that targeted advertising is good actually. But I have a bunch of questions, ultimately trying to figure out: why do we put up with targeted ads?

For the sake of scope, I’m thinking mainly about targeted ads as they appear on social media platforms. And I’m just thinking of ads that try to sell you a commercial product, as opposed to political ads or public service announcements. These ads may be accused of the following problems:

  1. Using personal data that we’d rather keep private.
  2. Psychic pollution–wasting our time and attention, or making us unsatisfied with what we have.
  3. Misleading people into purchasing low quality or overpriced goods.

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On liking furries incidentally

cn: Discussion of erotic media but no graphic descriptions. I’d appreciate if commenters follow suit.

I’d define a furry as someone who is interested in or involved in the furry fandom. It isn’t *just* about interest in anthropomorphic animals, it’s about connection to a particular fandom tradition dating back to the 1970s. The furry fandom taps into a cross-cultural tendency to depict animal characters in a variety of forms, but that tendency is not in and of itself the same as being a furry.

There are plenty of popular works with animal characters that do not arise from the furry tradition, such as Redwall or Bojack Horseman. These works might be well-loved within the furry fandom, and if you *really* love them that might indicate that you would appreciate the furry fandom.  But fans of Bojack Horseman are not necessarily or even typically furries.

I’m not here to summarize the history and practices of the furry fandom. I want to talk about my personal experiences and impressions, as an occasional appreciator on the outside. And, I guess, this is a way of processing my own relationship to furries.

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Tagging AI art

In an earlier essay, I discussed three arguments about AI art, and why I disagree with them. First, it is argued that AI art violated the consent of artists used in training sets; second, that it hurts the livelihoods of artists; and third, that it is bad art.

Part of what inspired me to defend AI art was that the social network Pillowfort polled its users on what ought to be done about AI art. I was surprised to hear that more than half thought that AI art should be banned from the platform, and the vast majority thought it should at least be mandatory to label it as AI-generated. I’ve said repeatedly that I am not personally interested in AI art, but it feels so wrong to single out one particular category of content just because a lot of people don’t like it. I myself produce content that plenty of people don’t like (analytical essays), and there are plenty of popular varieties of content that I dislike but no one would ever think to ban. So I defend AI art not on its own merits, but because I am opposed to efforts to homogenize social media content.

However, let’s consider a couple of things about AI art that might make it particularly annoying or corrosive to a social media platform. Even someone who creates or follows AI art might be concerned about these, and advocate measures to control them. We’re talking about deception and spamming.

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Why doesn’t EA divest from crypto?

After Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was arrested for massive fraud in November, there has been a reckoning in the EA movement to which SBF belonged. I’ve linked to several critics discussing how SBF’s actions could have been attributed to EA philosophy and practices, and even offered my own humble commentary.

Of course, it’s very easy to get distracted by philosophical arguments, and miss what’s staring in our face. The much more obvious takeaway from the whole affair is: EA was overinvested in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is evil, why were they invested in it at all?

Yes, fraud can come from any sector, and no, not every person involved in crypto is fraudulent to the same degree as SBF. No, SBF is not “proof” of the depravity of crypto. What SBF proves, is that EA has been supportive of, and dependent on crypto. EA insiders must have already known, and maybe some readers already knew, but I didn’t know! I didn’t know EA had so much crypto in it! Why is that? And why don’t they stop?

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