It’s still going on, Michael Nugent’s project to create a “dialogue” between harassers and the people they harass. He doesn’t call it that. In fact he doesn’t call it anything – he’s being so carefully neutral that he refers to it as just two “perceived sides.”
I find the whole thing rebarbative, because nearly all the participation so far is by people who have been harassing me and others for months–>almost two years now. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to talk to them on the forum they set up to harass me and others, I don’t want to talk to them here, I don’t want to talk to them on Twitter, I don’t want to talk to them under the auspices of Lee Moore and his friends, and I don’t want to talk to them on Nugent’s blog. Nugent is doing this over the heads of the people who have been and still are being harassed. It’s not two “sides”; it’s people harassing and people being harassed.
So far all the project has accomplished is to give the harassers a new and much better place to post their “grievances”…and their compliments to each other on the quality of their harassment. Like just now, on this new post of Nugent’s announcing a new phase and a new website – we get a compliment to “Skepsheik” –
Phil Giordana March 26, 2013 at 10:14 a.m.
Skepsheik:
(Love your Peezus and O series, so that’s out of the way).
Ah yes, “Skepsheik”‘s Peezus and O series, Yes who could fail to love that, when it’s so witty and sophisticated and sharp?
That’s it, the whole brilliant series.
“Dialogue” – seriously?
I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to talk to them on the forum they set up to harass me and others, I don’t want to talk to them here, I don’t want to talk to them on Twitter, I don’t want to talk to them under the auspices of Lee Moore and his friends, and I don’t want to talk to them on Nugent’s blog.
More to the point, you don’t NEED to talk to them, for any reason. Neither does anyone else. What’s the point of “dialogue” or “negotiation” with people who refuse to even act like grownups?
Fuck the harassers, and fuck the Neville Chamberlain wannabees too.
I don’t know. I can’t figure out what the point is supposed to be. That’s all the more true since whatever it’s supposed to be, in reality all it’s doing is helping the harassers harass more, in more places, with more readers.
Personally, I’d like to see the “Deep Rifts” get even deeper. Cause those guys are still poisoning the air over here, and I don’t want to smell them anymore.
There is no way to have a “discussion” with people who are like that.
The only thing to do is to refuse to give them a platform anywhere you have control over it, and to refuse to be right there with them on other people’s platforms. No.
Thank god for the atheist community: whichever side one comes down on, one must admit that it’s a haven for the stupid, the incompetent, and the talentless.
The one time I tried to have a “dialog” with the slymepitters I was called a liar, a white knight and a mangina. Never were my comments made the basis for discussion, rather they were the excuse for ridiculing me for not being a “real man” (whatever that is).
UnknownEric @3
I agree.
I fail to see the humor on the P & O stuff. It just reminds me of primary school bullying.
Sometimes actions have consequences.
If you consistently treat someone as if they are trash, the consequence is that they will refuse to associate with you.
Seems some people really need to learn that lesson.
The ‘two sides’ gambit. Implies that there is a symmetry between the sides. Both sides have a share of the blame, and both have to cede something, admit error, and the sides, being equal will then have both fairly repaired damage and received acknowledgment of damages. Like the U.S. military at war with the U.S. military, same level of weapons, intelligence and expertise.
This isn’t two sides, it’s more like the U.S. military bombing the shit of out the philosophers guild, or civil war re creationists with drone strikes and then claiming hurt fee fees because a grunt stubbed toenail on the body of a dead philosopher so both sides have been nasty. OK, the analogy sucks, it’s 3:40 am and brain no function.
Back in the day, I was compiling a list of where all the bloggers on FtB stood in relation to A+. I’d originally placed Benson with Cristina and McCreight as “active and identifying,” but Benson herself pointed out she didn’t take the A+ label and only had an account on atheismplus.com out of curiousity. Myers was always clear: he too would not take the label, and would not participate in the forum.
So this comic is a parody of something that never existed, and could have been shown not to exist by the least bit of research. I hope the creator of this comic doesn’t call themselves a skeptic, because this demonstrates a delusion of religious proportions.
See, it’s funny because even though every one is filled with strawmen, only one makes it literal.
Heh. I once asked my one Slymie twitter follower, Rocko, why he bothered to make such a second rate parody music video. He said it was great fun and got lots of positive feed back. I suppose that the maker of this Doonesburyesce comic has also gotten a metric shit ton of positive feedback also.
Such low standards.
Not over the head of Stephanie Zvan at least as she’ll make the opening statement by “your side”:
That’s pretty much my position. I think it’s possible to come to an accommodation with some of them, but most of them are people who would be undesirable even as allies.
There’s this great scene in “Freaks and Geeks” where Lindsay comes across this jock harassing a girl by carrying her around while she begs to be put down. Lindsay stomps on his foot to make him stop, and punches him. The teacher comes out and puts them both in detention.
I’m reminded of this scene right now.
I’m watching news talk about the Republicans who are supporting marriage equality before the Supreme Court. They just said that within the Republican party, both sides should be able to respect the other’s opinion and not let the anti-equality side demagogue about the other’s pro-equality position. That’s the same thing we are being asked to do by Michael Nugent, but how can we respect the other side when things like we see documented in the post are going on? Or the impersonation accounts on Twitter? Etc., etc. One side is being asked to respect unbridled hate directed at them. I think at the very least, things like that (which are a form of harassment) have to be stopped and apologized for before we can begin to move toward a more peaceful coexistence.
How can we respect people who demonstrate so much hate toward us or people we care about? It just doesn’t follow no matter how you look at it.
UnknownEric @3
Deeper and wider, then fill it with water and alligators to make a nice defensible moat. It has to be wide enough that we can’t hear their childish “jokes” and bullying. I’d be happy to let the barbarians freeze their peaches off as long as they keep away from us.
What everyone else said… plus, what do the Slymepit cretins want? I can think of a few things:
1)They want to say whatever they want about other people, without criticism.
2) They want to restrict what topics other people address on their blogs and in their organizations.
3) They want to set moderation policies for everyone’s blogs.
4) They want to get rid of anti-harassment policies at all atheist/skeptic conventions/gatherings.
5) They demand that no one block them on Twitter or Facebook.
Did I miss any? And how are any of those things reasonable?
Remember that video about workplace bullying? The most relevant lesson we can apply here is that MEDIATION DOESN’T WORK!
Oops. That was unclear. I did not mean to imply that we should ignore their bullying of us as long as they keep that bullying to “their” space. As long as they continue to create an atmosphere of harassment that both attacks specific outspoken women (and their male supporters) and also makes it harder for all women and girls to feel welcome and able to speak up, they must be called on their bullying.
Improbable Joe #18:
They demand that religious-apologetic-type arguments be taken seriously because libertarianism is a political position and it’s somehow unfair to call political positions wrong, even if they are.
Um…teach the controversy?
I do kind of hope this gets a lot of attention, since the only way the ‘pitters are going to stop their harassment (or, at least, confine it to the ‘pit) is if enough decent people say ‘no more’ to allowing them to post lies and bigoted slurs.
Until then we’ve pretty much got to keep doing what we’re doing, i.e. shutting them out. I don’t think we’ll ever be truly rid of them (as I’ve noted before, the KKK, Stormfront and the WBC still exist), but if the general consensus is that they’re a bunch of fringe extremists then the harm they can do will be minimal.
I wonder if that’s why they kick up so much of a fuss at being blocked and what not.
(Which is why I really wonder what will happen when the skeptical community finally gathers up the courage to tell libertarians to get out…)
I had a good buddy in law school who got obsessed with World of Warcraft when it came out. He played it constantly, but what cracked me up is that it so totally dominated his thought process, that he’d start talking about the game at bars or parties as though everyone knew the game as well as he did.
So, he’d say, “Well, my such and such Glandorifial has a magic sword with +5 fire power. I went into this cave and killed so and so.” It was completely baffling. Everyone just stared at him with wtf faces. It always cracked me up.
I have that same feeling when these goofballs start expressing their grudges. It’s all inside jokes and references to this shared mythology. I’ve obviously picked up on a lot of it tangentially: over at Nugent’s blog you can’t go two posts without someone making a cryptic statement about an ancient, inscrutable angst.
I have no idea why any bit of that comic was funny. What was the satire? Haha, they’re feminists. It’s not humor, it’s preaching to the choir. It’s comedy that receives applause, not laughter.
Oh come, come Ophelia, Michael Nugent’s attempt wasn’t all one sided. I was batting for the #FemiStasi by the way. Justicar has final found out what it feels like to be offended, and feels a complete fool for it. He has now gone AWOL. I don’t think people will be able to participate, unless they use their real names.
Another aspect of their behavior that I find baffling is their inability to distinguish between social registers. There are plenty of conversations I had on baseball fields in college that I wouldn’t share at professional conferences or even in a blog setting where people are advocating for social issues or just having intellectual conversations.
They act like “their space,” the pit, is just them chatting with one another. In their minds, they’re just sitting at a booth at a bar minding their own business while a horde of nasty women are evesdropping on their conversations, screaming at them when they say something totally harmless.
In actuality, they sit at this booth listening in to conversations around the bar, periodically shouting out “cunt” at certain patrons. People hear them, ask them to stop, and when they don’t, point out that they’re being assholes. Then, “See, see, you called us assholes so everything is the same…”
Honestly, if they just stayed on the pit and said vile things to one another, it wouldn’t be “good,” but we’d probably never even know it was going on. It’s because the pit is a gathering place for folks who monitor, demean, then brag about offensive behavior that anyone gives a rip.
They brag about offensive behavior that falls within boundaries. Euclidwood is banned. Jerry Conlon with his acid tweet at Ophelia is in the wind. That Hawk-something nym with the (in their opinion) badly mistimed and shitty (just failed satire, in their opinion) photoshop is out. Justin Vacula has huffily linked to things written in his blog comments that receives no reply–in the ‘pit or toddling ’round to answer in his comment section. A YouTuber named comslave references the ‘pit, links his non-referenced, embarrassing vids, but doesn’t get a YouTube comment by a recognizable ‘pitter name. All of those and others like them get disappeared in justifying the “Free Speech nature” of the ‘pit.
Martin Wiesner – eh? Why do you think people won’t be able to participate unless they use their real names? Did I miss something? Has anyone said that? People have certainly been able to participate without using their real names so far, thus preserving their ability to smear real, named people with no consequences to themselves.
That’s one reason I wouldn’t touch Nugent’s project with a bargepole. He’s been letting them do that – he’s been encouraging them – for weeks. It’s like holding someone down while a pack of thugs kick her.
Martin Wiesner is a dedicated sock puppet. He’s gone through a couple of identities on Pharyngula, getting banned each time — the last one claimed to have keyboard tourette’s to justify writing “cunt” repeatedly, the one before that was drawing ASCII penises. I don’t recommend engaging him at all.
He’s the other side in this “dialog”.
Ah. Well that answers that question!
@doubtthat: It seems to go hand-in-hand with the inability to understand that Twitter is not private communication.
I concur about the DEEP RIFTS.
Thing is, the bigger the DEEP RIFTS, the further the Baboons will be from the rest of the community. That can only be a good thing.
Oh, and whassup Ophelia? Angry that you can’t censor, memory hole and moderate outside of your puny web space? My heart bleeds.
BTW, there is nothing as cruel in those cartoons (gentle satire, and accurate too!) than the dogpiling and abuse EllenBeth Wachs got at Pharyngula the other day.
Stick that fact in your pipe and smoke it.
Brave heroes? Really? You? What’s brave about you? What risk are you taking when nobody knows who the fuck you are? Yes, very brave, commenting on someone else’s blog under a sekrit name. Impressive!!
Oh my God, laugh of the day:
“BTW, there is nothing as cruel in those cartoons (gentle satire, and accurate too!”
Accurate, according to the “brave hero.” That’s an oxymoron. Thanks for the gentle chuckle as I sip my tea,.
Holy crap, they actually refer to themselves as ‘brave heroes’? You have to dig long and hard to find that kind of narcissism.
Indeed. The bravery shown by these anonymous toads is mind-boggling.
They don’t all refer to themselves as “brave heroes”…
Phil Giordana (again)
http://www.michaelnugent.com/2013/03/26/structure-and-dedicated-website-for-the-atheist-skeptic-dialogue/#comment-207414
Now THAT is REALLY insulting. Jesus and Mo is fucking brilliant. That other thing is not.
Is this actually considered biting satire at the Slymepit, or is it just that, uncharacteristically, they don’t want to hurt the author’s feelings? It’s just so… weak. As I read through the comics I found myself feeling genuinely embarrassed for the author, in spite of hating everything they stand for.
That comment would make an excellent template for SlymePit comments.
1. It’s anonymous, and thus free of consequences. I’m willing to be it’s a first-post from a newly created account, too.
2. It contains insider slang. Not many people would know what “baboon” refers to, and yet this person assumes its common knowledge.
3. It mentions censorship. There’s nothing worse than censoring a comment on a blog, after all.
4. It brings up an old feud or bad behavior on the part of someone from FtB or Skepchick. Saying anything nice about those two blogs is verboten, you must always bring up something that paints them in the worst possible light.
5. It’s self-hypocritical. Hands up: how many posts have you seen on FtB complaining of censorship? Not to mention the poster completely ignored my earlier point, one that’s easy to confirm via a Google search.
About the only thing missing is the claim that FtB are dying.
… Hmm, here’s an idea: a SlymePit Bingo Card. I should have enough time to whip one up tonight. Anyone interested in a copy?
Why does it not surprise me in the slightest that Phil Giordana doesn’t realise there are people in the world who aren’t him?
Is this a new thought for you? That you’ll be as free to have nothing to do with us as we will with you?
Did you just figure that out, genius? That we’re not pining over you to pay attention to us?
Did it never occur to you that both parties in a divorce might look forward to never having to interact with each other again?
No, it probably didn’t, stalker freak.
Wow, so they really are trying to gaslight Ellenbeth, aren’t they? Wooooow.
I actually thought that Michael Nugent’s first thread on this attempted dialogue would show him pretty well where the difficulty lays–the comments were chock-full of Slymies acting like misogynistic and harassing jerks. I thought he would see that and go, “Welp, looks like this is impossible because these people are obv trolls.” Dumb me.
Consider yourselves lucky, you actually get to escape the giant space goat…or was it a supernova…
@ Tom Foss #11
That comment reminds me of Dug in “Up”:
“It is funny because the squirrel gets dead.”
hj @ 40 – sure, I’ll take a bingo card!
Yes, it was of course a first post. I get a lot of them, probably all from the same person. They’re always full of tells like that. They could be done by a bot, they’re so formulaic. Yawn.
[insert trumpet fanfare]
Here we are, Slyme Pit Bingo! Rather than just leave the square labels in point-form, though, I’m building up more detailed descriptions for each entry. That part has just barely started (there’s 45 entries at the moment, so it’ll take some time), but hopefully I can have it polished off in the next week or two.
And it only took nine minutes to pull off the entire thing. [shifty eyes]
More seriously, nobody’s said the magic word? *tsk,* such slackers:
Donated.
BTW, there is nothing as cruel in those cartoons (gentle satire, and accurate too!) than the dogpiling and abuse EllenBeth Wachs got at Pharyngula the other day.
IIRC, EllenBeth admitted she had said a few wrong things, and that she had misread some of the criticism going about, and apologized. That may be because the “dogpile” included some rather specific factual/logical rebuttals of her arguments.
And and, the instructions ask you to copy-paste the text over manually, because I was worried someone would break the bingo card site I linked to and start throwing in obscene entries. I had a closer look, though, and it’s all done by URL. So long as no-one breaks into WordPress or Benson’s account, I can safely link to a playing card!
Justicar has final found out what it feels like to be offended, and feels a complete fool for it.
Even if this guy’s word was credible, that still ain’t saying much. Justicar — oops, excuse me, THE Justicar, can’t let ourselves think he comes in six-packs, can we? — has been posting nonstop insulting stoopid crap for YEARS, and only recently got a sense of shame? He is, at best, a VERY slow learner, and whatever teachers he has have very little to brag about.
hjhornbeck: What happened to “coffee means coffee?” Is that passe now?
What’s this about Justicar? How do we know?
The Guest In Black has made his pronouncement!
What is your problem with the cartoons? PZ was being quoted and Ophelia Benson is the voice of reason?
Raging Bee, EllenBeth Wachs has not been on Twitter since that night. I pointed out to her why people were dog piling on her, that her defense of a point of a troll’s argument was taken as a defense of the troll himself. At least one of the person involved has apologized.
A few days later, the argument about Adria Richards with a seemingly ending stream of MRA trolls is still raging.
And quite a few Slymies are pointing at that clusterfuck as proof of how awful FtB treats people. In the process, completely ignoring the words of support that PZ Myers, Chris Clarke and many of the regulars at Pharyngula have tried to give EllenBeth.
And some of the worst of the Slymies were taunting her that night as I was talking to her.
I do hope that EllenBeth comes back soon. But I can understand why she is keeping away. If she is reading this, I hope she knows that she has people on her side.
@The taunting interloper:
Haha, Greg Laden, haha. Satire.
Dogwhistling to a crowd of goofballs who share the same misguided mythology is not “satire.” This is why “Mallard Fillmore” is unreadable.
It’s like listening to a right winger say, “Michelle Obama, am I right?” as though mere invocation of the name constitutes satire. It’s just some stupid notion that a group has fixated on, and they hope that showing numbers will obviate the need to make any point.
Everyone already agrees, so nothing need be established or explained, just note the reference.
Raging Bee @52: Yeah, kinda passe. You can count it towards “ElevatorGate,” though.
Cyranothe2nd, ladyporn afficianado
March 26, 2013 at 8:46 pm
Citations needed. Or STFU.
Oops. Nugent doesn’t bow to the orders of the Baboon Stazi. It is FfTB that censors opinion going against the Baboon agenda.
And there’s another one.
So much for free speech.
Des Moines @58:
Citation provided!
Nice, I get to cross off three items on my bingo card: Anonymous Comment, Punny Names, and Insider Slang! Thanks, anonymous troll!
Dang, maybe I made that game too easy….
Wait, I missed out on “FtB control Skepticism!” BINGO! I GOT A BINGO!! WOOOOO!!!
High five!
Oops. Nugent doesn’t bow to the orders of the Baboon Stazi. It is FfTB that censors opinion going against the Baboon agenda.
Poe’s Law! It burns!!
hjhornbeck,
Can you be a little more specific with your citation, ie, an actual quote to back up your assertion.
Take your time…
Hell, I would like a specific quote that proves that FtB is like the Stasi.
Take your time.
Fuck quotes. I wanna see the missing persons reports, because that’s what the Stasi did.
My grandparents fled the Soviet regime. They’d have laughed these neckbeards out of the room with their whining about censorship.
Anthony K, dontcha know that Pharyngula’s Dungeon is literal. The the #BraveHeros have been able to evade the dreaded banhammer and stay free.
It’s rough out there for a Slymie.
Everyone knows that PZ has a banhammer, fewer are aware of his censorsickle.
map ref. 41°n 93°w can tell their story to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
And it’s Stas, map ref. 41°n 93°w. Read a book, you useless fuck.
Ah, HTML ate my I. It’s censorship, I tell you.
Q: What do you call three professional skeptics and a scientist?
A: A scientist. Nobody cares enough about the three useless douches to bother with a name for them.
That last comment of mine was pure overgeneralising assholishness on my part. I apologise.
Oooo, plus an “Evidence? Not my Job.” Thanks, Des Moines!
More seriously, I suppose I should offer up an answer.
Hendricks is a named commenter in the Slyme Pit, Iamcuriousblue has been a strong supporter of them for years, and I count nearly a dozen posts which follow the Slyme Pit template.
This, of course, came entirely from reading the link, something you couldn’t be bothered to do. Hence: “Evidence? Not my Job”
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