The president spoke to the NAS today, and he made some great promises: increases in funding for science and science education, an investment in training new teachers in science and math, a political commitment to get better advising in science untainted by ideology. He specifically promised 3% of the GDP to go to research in science and technology.
Listen to it in an NAS podcast, or read the transcript. It’s a good speech, except for the very last line, which was incredibly stupid…but I’ll overlook it as a mindless platitude.
Not in my backyard!
I’d prefer to hire someone competent.
(Actually, I do need a landscape artisan, so if there’s anyone interested, and is in Southern France…)
Actually, I do need a landscape artisan, so if there’s anyone interested, and is in Southern France
Hah! I’ll move!
I really am leaving now. At least for the night… Yawn! Yawnity-Yawn! Good-night.
That might, in advanced circles, require application of the Pythagorean theorem or even trigonometry. So perhaps HelplessCoder can remain a landscaping trainee, or rather, if he’s lucky, someone will give him* a nepotistic pass to stay in the trainee program longer than the flunkouts from stupid school** are usually allowed.
*or her, though the particular brand of stupidity/ignorance on display has a male feel to it
**for those (or that) unable to parse the humor out of that, this means people who aren’t smart enough even to be stupid, the way HelplessCoder is, or at least presents themselves.
Fuck. I pop off for a couple of meetings and the thread seems to have gone completely off the rails.
This is great. Coder comes in to give a sermon on evolutionary biology, and yet he can’t even convince his readers that he’s really an EE.
LOL – I was going to ask Coder if he thought that a pipe had moving parts when water happened to be flowing through it.
blf @ #501:
I just thought of Peter Mayle’s “A Year In Provence”. Might be worth reading to see what insanity you might be in for from French contractors. Or just for a laugh.
And on that note I’m leaving. :P
DNA is not an instruction set.
Really? What is it then genius?
What is it that instructs a cell to become muscle fiber in
my eyelid fuckface?
FMinusCoder, show the evidence for your idea or shut up. Your questions are meaningless. You need positive proof, which has been totally lacking.
Have you ever considered taking a course in developmental biology?
I’ve been so kind to you fuckfaces, but I really must leave now. I’m learning nothing here.
Time to go.
As a SCIENTIST + ENGINEER?? I know simple HTML functions like ‘blockquote’ that would facilitate parsing what I write, but that would be being kind to you fuckface queers and you don’t deserve that.
Who ‘evolved’ Kindness? Did you do it in 9 months? Or your entire life? Look at me!
An engineer.
I have to go now.
Fuckfaces. LOL!
why is it they ALWAYS come back?
why?
I think it’s because they are suffering from so much cognitive dissonance they really are screaming for help, but then their automatic defense mechanisms kick in and all we end up seeing is projection and denial.
*sigh*
go get checked out at your nearest mental health care professional ASAP.
exhibiting your defense mechanisms here will only get you laughed at, little monkey.
Apparently the term fuckface carries more weight with you all than answering the tough one.
Admit it, you haven’t a clue.
I’m leaving. I hate you close-minded fuckfaces because you’re not kind. I hate wasting my time with assholes like you fuckfaces so much that there’s no possible way I’ll make more than 75 comments in the span of over ten hours.
I’m leaving. Just like I said I would, seventy-five FUCKING COMMENTS ago.
How did Truth evolve, fuckfaces?
Brown, are you of any value?
How did ‘value’ evolve, fuckfaces? From nothing? How does evolution explain that?
Think of your creator, and what value that carries.
But, I’m being too kind.
I’m leaving now. To do engineering. And science. Because I know what those are.
FMinus coder, either get to your point with the proper evidence or shut up. You are boring bore.
Apparently many have me confused with you, Brown.
“Stomach lining”? People used to talk about the human eye, then the immune system, now stomach lining as the evidence for design… what’s next, foot sweat?
Brown, are you of any value?
Told ya. Even after I pointed it out to him twice.
What is it that instructs a cell to become muscle fiber in my eyelid fuckface?
Nothing “instructs” a cell. That’s the entire point. You’re desparate to antropomorphisize, because you’re entirely clueless about the process.
Also, my face does not, in fact, fuck. I have other parts for that. As encoded in my DNA.
Nerd, are you like captain of the ship here, or something?
If anyone is boring, it’s you.
By the way, Rev:
Yes my nipples are very functional.
Ah, but are they exploding with delight?
stu, I noticed that you dodged the question.
Is there a reason for that?
Ichthyic:
I think, in a not-entirely-healthy way, they want to be us.
FMinusCoder, we like people who get to their point. You appear to have none. So either make a point or shut up. Why can’t you do that?
If anyone is boring, it’s you.
projection.
stu’s answer:
“It just does.” nothing instructs it, it just ends up there.
It is not kindness to call people unkind names.
However, it is a kindness to cause nipples to explode with delight. Causing delight in each other is a great kindness.
Amen.
Yours in me,
Jesus Christ
I must leave now. Farewell.
I wonder why, fuckface.
Could it be that neither you nor I have posted anything of substance in nearly one hundred comments, one of us by (mocking) design, the other because he’s too fucking dumb to know how fucking stupid he is?
You know why I could lampoon you so well and so quickly that we’re indistinguishable? It’s because your pissant little brain is so fucking predictable, I could parody you while in a coma after suffering a traumatic brain injury.
You should fucking get on your knees and blow science like you’ve been sucking all your life (as you undoubtedly have), because someone as stupid like you would be bear shit if not for the efforts of real scientists, you walking parody of a human mind and a case study in the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Now get the fuck out of here like you promised seventy-five comments ago, you lying little punishment addict.
Fminusdecoder. Get to your point. Unless you are just wanting to help pay for PZ’s new car. You do that with every view and post.
What is it that instructs a cell to become muscle fiber in my eyelid fuckface?
Nothing “instructs” a cell. That’s the entire point
What????
I think, in a not-entirely-healthy way, they want to be us.
What? Yeah girls I want to be just like you, ignorant
trapped little so-called chirpy scientists, tag teaming
a ‘heretic’ like me.
What is it that instructs a cell to become muscle fiber in my eyelid fuckface?
Nothing “instructs” a cell. That’s the entire point
What????
I think, in a not-entirely-healthy way, they want to be us.
What? Yeah girls I want to be just like you, ignorant
trapped little so-called chirpy scientists, tag teaming
a ‘heretic’ like me.
Still no point, still no evidence for you imaginary deity, still nothing. I don’t think you have a point. Just something you don’t like.
‘Heretic’. You flatter yourself.
An IQ below 80 isn’t heresy.
Assplus…
Tell us the developmental process of the eye in a fetus.
What happens?
Hey Brown, that was powerful, thanks for elaborating.
hey, since this thing labels itself a coder, I wonder if it’s taken a crack at “Methinks it like a weasel” yet?
If not, there’s something productive for you to do, and the people at the “Informatics Lab” run by one William Dembski could sure use your help.
see, they tried for weeks to come up with a workable algorithm, and failed miserably, while a bunch of biologists (who aren’t really even “coders”) ran rings around them.
Here’s where you, being an Apluscoder and all, could really have an impact!
you go, girl:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/03/weasles-on-para.html
have fun.
Yeah? Take a tip, pantywad: maybe you should elaborate your point, like Nerd asked.
Or fuck off.
Either way.
ZlistCoder said:
Translation: “Waah! Mummy, them big boys are picking on me. They’re calling me nasty names, and won’t let me play tag. ‘Snot fair! And now they’re making bird sounds at me! Help Mummy, one of them just threw a rational argument at me!”
Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp Chirp
Tag, you’re it…!
Still nothing. PZ, I think this pest should either be made to declare his point or be plonked for stupidity. All day without one declarative statement…
No. SMELLY foot sweat. It was designed to attract mosquitoes and repel potential mates. Brilliant design!
And eczema. Eczema is clear evidence of design.
And HIV. HIV is clear evidence of design.
Malaria, too. Yes. Designed.
And the urethra-passing-through-the-prostate thing. Excellent, excellent design.
I’m leaving now, you trapped, queer, self-denying, animal-sensed, amoral, deluded, pastry-faced scientist people!
Engineers rule! EE! EE! EE! EE!
NoR: All day without one declarative statement…
Well, there was this:
Fragmented, yes, but nominally declarative. Almost thirteen hours after his first post he still hasn’t offered any evidence to support the claim, of course. I’m not inclined to count his “Electric guitars sound cool, therefore God” argument, and I suspect I’m not alone in this.
Ok now I am really leaving. Really.
Watchman, I missed that one. I stand corrected.
Not entirely true. Thus puked the retard, way back when:
That’s his contribution. That’s it. The great fucking engineer/scientist/landscaper, who asks for proof yet provides nothing even close to evidence for his assertion.
What a fucking brainiac. What a real blessing to humanity this asshole is. How fucking kind, with his insults right off the bat. How cruel and ignorant we were to not immediately fall over in rapturous wonder at how God could have created such a marvelous blend of intelligence, humility, and human decency.
Then again, if we didn’t have homophobes, how would we know who was still in the closet?
Oops, sorry Watchman. You must have been submitting your post as I was composing mine.
I think I owe you a beer, as the game goes….
Hmmm. APlusCoder has just shown up today, and in that one day, has posted 62 comments. It’s a bit much.
Pace yourself, son. Take a little time to write something with some meat to it. I’m seeing signs of a dehydrated brain there, and I may have to throttle you before the keyboard diarrhea shrivels it up to nothin’.
I’ll acknowledge both of you as pointing out my mistake. Now, what is good at removing sock lint from the mouth?…
Ah, but God clearly designed sickle-cell anaemia so that people wouldn’t get malaria. What a wise, benevolent Creator!
ARGUMENT FROM GUITAR MASTERY
(1) Eric Clapton is God.
(2) Therefore, God exists.
Oh, but wait…I must be going. Bye.
Apluscoder
And yet you keep coming back, striking your faux-hardass poses, begging for some kind of affirmation that anybody at all takes you seriously.
I thought it was “Electric guitars sound cool, therefore Death“. Or maybe the other way around.
“If I stay here I’ll go nuts”
“Hooray Hooray Hooray”
Brownian:
You owe me nothing. I am honored to have been so harmoniously on the same page with you for that shining, golden moment. Beer? Bah! Who needs it? I get a buzz off your relentlessly inventive and witty (and sometimes richly informative) gags and rants here. Hat-tip to you, Brownian.
Second Argument From Guitar Mastery
1) That Yngwie Malmsteen sure can burn!
2) Therefore, human fingers were designed to play guitar.
Ok now I am really, REALLY going. Ta-ta, alabaster god-deniers and lab-coated faeriekind!
keyboard diarrhea–yet another image I didn’t need. Thanks, PZ.
APlusCoder, you’ve been here all afternoon. Seriously, can I get that definition of “natural.” Or perhaps could I get answers to the questions I posed regarding your definition of “unnatural?”
I didn’t say it hurt them exactly equally; that would, of course, be highly improbable. It disadvantages men in some respects and women in others.
And no, I won’t be supporting the Equality Bill – because the last thing British employers need, in this time of recession, is more government-imposed hoops through which to jump. Right now, we need to encourage job creation – and part of the way to do that is to free up employers and employees to agree whatever employment terms they wish (within reason), without state regulation and interference.
I don’t doubt that some employers are overtly sexist, and a great many more have subconscious gender prejudices. But this is just part of life. Fundamentally, an employment contract is like any other contractual relationship; it should be entirely in the discretion of both parties whether or not they wish to agree to it on the terms offered.
If a private employer refuses to hire women because he is a misogynist and doesn’t believe women should be let out of the kitchen, then that’s his business; it’s his money he’s spending, not the State’s. (Though if his company is a publicly-traded one, he should be held to account by his board for using the shareholders’ money inefficiently.) As much as I might disagree with him personally, I have no right to have a say in how he chooses to spend his business’s money (assuming I have no personal stake in his business) or in which employment contracts he chooses to enter.
The concerns are different where a job is funded by public money; in those circumstances, it should be ensured that the best person for the job is picked, regardless of race, gender or orientation (since hiring someone less efficient on the basis of their irrelevant characteristics will make the organisation less effective, and, therefore, waste taxpayers’ money). But in the private sector, I’m basically opposed to compulsory anti-discrimination laws.
We’re whatever threatens you.
What’s so strange about one side of a sheet of cells growing faster than the other?
1) You have been lied to. Read this.
2) How egregiously stupid to think that defending an orthodoxy would get a scientist funding or job security! Science is about showing that, and why, ideas are wrong. Each of my 3 published papers* takes a published idea and shows that, and why, it is wrong.
If you wrote a paper that merely confirms what is already published, you’d have great trouble trying to get it accepted by any journal!
* Only three because I’m only 26 years old. One more is submitted (and also disproves an idea), and two more are in preparation (one of which is most likely going to disprove yet another idea; the other is a review paper).
Yes, and all three of them simply don’t understand what they’re talking about. The word egnorance was coined for one of them.
A template.
A physical template. A transcript is made by enzymes and ribonucleotides being electrostatically attracted to it; then this transcript (mRNA) diffuses away by Brownian motion till it sticks (again electrostatically) to a ribosome, where tRNA molecules carrying amino acids are electrostatically attracted to it and the ribosome and react with both, again triggered by electrostatic attraction and repulsion and Brownian motion (which, in turn, is again the result of electrostatic repulsion). The result of that (lots of amino acids linked together) is called a protein.
I learned all of this in the last year of the local highschool equivalent.
Two take-home messages:
1) The chronically and acutely underfunded US public school system has failed to teach you anything (…including the fact that a computer is not a typewriter – which means that you don’t need to press Enter to end a line, because that’s done automatically; you only need it to end a paragraph –, and, hilariously, the spelling of transistor);
2) There are only
fourfive forces in the universe: electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, and gravity and the “cosmological constant” responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe.One more thing: It would help immensely if you wrote <blockquote> immediately before and </blockquote> immediately after everything you quote. That’s how to move quotes to the right and put a vertical bar next to them.
Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t this rather speculative? A researcher finds that 23% of the pay gap is “unexplained” (and the article doesn’t tell us what she considered to be an adequate “explanation”), and she (and the article’s author) jump immediately to the conclusion that said 23% is a result of discrimination.
In any case, even assuming – without agreeing – that 23% of the pay gap is due to discrimination, that still means that 77% of the gap is explained adequately by other factors. So advocates of tougher anti-discrimination measures really need to stop trumpeting the total amount of the pay gap as if it were a conclusive argument for such measures.
A researcher finds that 23% of the pay gap is “unexplained” (and the article doesn’t tell us what she considered to be an adequate “explanation”), and she (and the article’s author) jump immediately to the conclusion that said 23% is a result of discrimination.
Walton, what you missed was the proportion that WAS explained by her, and is usually used as rationale by those who want to explain away the disparities in pay.
A Holmes would say:
“…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”
a 23% pay gap is still HUGE, Walton.
PZ, I think your TypeKey account has been hijacked by Janine. :-)
I hope someone has submitted it to the Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence page yet! It’s not there yet.
Parsimony, Walton. What is the simplest explanation for the remaining 23 %? What is the explanation that requires the smallest number of additional assumptions (like Fminuscoder’s life force)?
David Marjanović, I love this. May I use it (with attribution, of course) on future trolls?
No wonder I’m so tired.
But there are at least a few women in my past who would agree with the bit about me and attraction then repulsion.
Thanks for the kind words Watchman, but I travel ’round the universe helping nascent enlightened civilisations one planet at a time, just like everybody else.
Nonetheless, I look forward to the opportunity to by you a beer, should it ever arise.
David Marjanović, I love this. May I use it (with attribution, of course) on future trolls?
No wonder I’m so tired.
But there are at least a few women in my past who would agree with the bit about me and attraction then repulsion.
Thanks for the kind words Watchman, but I travel ’round the universe helping nascent enlightened civilisations one planet at a time, just like everybody else.
Nonetheless, I look forward to the opportunity to by you a beer, should it ever arise.
Oh yeah. I said I’d get to comment 264. Here goes:
That’s an argument from ignorance (which is, I must point out because I can’t expect you to figure that out on your own, a logical fallacy). Wasn’t a planet with probably suitable surface temperatures just discovered last week?
Why not? Something has to be in the right tail of the bell curve.
Assuming that inquisitiveness is heritable…
Those who didn’t want to know if there was a leopard behind the next bush have already been eaten. Those who didn’t want to know how to find the next waterhole have already died from thirst. Those who didn’t want to know where and how to dig up tubers have already died from hunger.
It’s called natural selection.
In hot, wet places, what little clothes there usually are have mostly ornamental function, indicating social status and stuff. Elsewhere, the climate doesn’t leave much choice.
That you have such an emptiness doesn’t mean anyone else has it.
I, for one, lack it… :-|
That’s a defect :-)
Those who watched their children die in cold blood have already died out. Those who watched their fellow tribe members die in cold blood were treated as assholes and therefore didn’t get to successfully reproduce much either.
Again, natural selection.
Not directly, and for a pretty small value of “squirrel-like”, but, yeah. 60 million years ago, our ancestors (shared with all other living primates) looked pretty much like a tupaia, a so-called tree shrew.
Of course.
Huh?
I don’t get what your point is. Please explain.
That’s probably different for everyone, and so are the meanings of “productivity” and “accomplishment”. Me, I like doing things that I find interesting… like working on my PhD thesis on the origins of lissamphibians and turtles.
Again different for everyone, I think.
What do you mean?
Because they turned out to be rather difficult to answer.
Do they? Examples, please.
No. You just need to invest the time to learn to understand it all.
You specifically. I recommend you spend a few hours in Wikipedia and the pages it links to, if you really can’t get a biochemistry/molecular biology textbook.
I don’t think you mean anything meaningful here. This only reminds me of what a certain Zarquon said here a year ago:
“Nature doesn’t dictate anything. And don’t anthropomorphise her, she hates that.”
Brownian, thank you for bringing be back to moral reality with your comment:
I was just going to steal it and start using it in day-to-day conversation, whenever appropriate. Because I love it and I want it to spread*, because it expresses something I already felt but had not the specific words for. But now (thanks Brownian: I almost thought that WankingVBTechnician (or whatever his name was) was a Poe by you for our delectation; but that would be rude so I didn’t really think it so. In fact, if David Marjanović doesn’t ask me not to, I will do that: steal it and start using it – casually, sometimes, and without attribution if it seems like it might distort the flow of the conversation (which it would, as I can never footnote conversationally without perseverating, which makes my interlocutors sometimes impatient).
As for trolls and in print: with attribution.
*Yes, I know what a meme is, and I know what I’m trying to do: give a little selective advantage to an allele – keep it alive more places and for longer so that memetic drift might carry it to a relative population level that selection really does give it a chance**
**AWussCroaker: give us evidence you’re not clueless and articulately critique what I just said, if you want anybody to think you’re serious.
I learned it here. I just forgot from whom.
I might just add that on (rare) occasions a bon mot originated by me has come back from the mouth of someone else without attribution, which has pleased me to no end.
Oh, and yes, I know there’s a parenthesis fail up there. Pisses me off. Sorry.
Graffito which I know second- or third-hand: “We are those of whom you have always warned us!!!”
I’ll go to bed. It’s really late enough. :-)
Do they? Examples, please.
FIRE BAAAAD!!
I know that this thread has moved on from this, but I’d like to revisit Coder’s awesome abuse of the natural/unnatural word pair:
if “natural” means natural like in natural peanut butter, then its antonym (unnatural) would mean artificial, i.e. “includes specifically altered chemical structures that differ in key ways from its naturally occurring origins/counterparts, thus being a man-made thing”. So, for dolphin homosexuality to be unnatural, it would have to be man-made.
Mutant Homo Dolphin Clones FTW!
is that a translation, or is it really that grammatically correct?
I know this as “we’re the people our parents warned us against”.
“warned us about“, even.
*sigh*
David, take a look at the 24th proof.
Walton, I understand that this bill wouldn’t come into effect until 2013, and you don’t have to use Darling’s optimistic projections to realize the recession will probably be over by then.
Regardless this part of your argument isn’t very principled. Or at least it is, but it’s effectively the principle that, even if you supported the philosophy of this bill, you would still be opposed to it coming into force during a recession, because it hampers the private sector. This is a bit like arguing that in a recession, the private sector shouldn’t have to jump through hoops set by things like the European Convention on human rights, because it bans things like slavery, which clearly hampers the private sectors recovery.
So was slavery, before governments stepped in and outlawed it. What’s your point?
Firstly, most ordinary people don’t “negotiate” their contract in the same way that high flyers in the city do. In fact, most people are poor negotiators when compared to a big corporation (especially when they don’t know what other employees are being paid, so have no baseline). You’re a libertarian. You happen to think that big government is dangerous. To some extent I agree with you. But surely you must see that a big corporation can be dangerous too (not as much, but still a certain amount). The only real difference, is that governments have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Now, in an employee negotiation, who do you think is going to be the better negotiator? The employer working for the big corporation which has a team of lawyers and accountants, or the lone ordinary individual, who, in this example, is also faced with being deceived by a discriminatory employer. If the employer is discriminatory, they aren’t exactly going to play fair, now are they? It’s the same thing with doctors. We don’t let doctors prescribe any medicine they like, we have standards and so forth that outlaw certain drugs, to protect the patient from a corrupt doctor. This is because the patient is in a poorer negotiating position than the doctor with all his medical degrees, just like someone who applies for a job.
Anyway, let’s assume we accept your proposal. I’m to try a crude economic example to show why it doesn’t work. Now, let the number of employable women be X. Then the number of jobs they can apply to will be slightly less than X (there’s usually some unemployment in society). Now hypothetical employer A will pay a certain wage (assume it’s equal to what the men are paid), and other employers will also pay the same wage (of course, there are other jobs too, but the wage paid to work done ratio should be about the same for all jobs). Now, assume that A decides he is sexist, and wants to charge less than a fair wage. He can do this and still have a woman filling that position, because there’s not a general surplus in job vacancies. Sure, the current woman taking a pay cut might leave, but then it wouldn’t take long to fill that vacancy. Anyway, so you now have one employer paying women not a fair wage, and all the rest doing otherwise. Now, tell me, what is to stop employer B from paying an unfair wage now that A has lowered his wages? Absolutely nothing. Same with all the other employers. Soon, there aren’t many women on fair wages at all. And except for the benevolence of their employer, there’s no way for (say) female employee K to renegotiate her contract to a fairer salary, since she has a choice between taking the (unfair) wage offer, or going on the dole (as I’ve already said, there’s not a general surplus of vacancies, so she can’t just go get another job for the most part – if there was a shortage of workers, then the employees would have a better hand at the negotiating table). Most people would take the job. So, although this is a rather crude example, and probably has a number of holes and oversimplifications in it, I’m sure that those holes could be filled by a competent economist, while still keeping the basic outline of the argument in tact. And I think that basic outline shows that the idea of employees being able to negotiate much is total crap
Oh, and another point to Walton about this part:
Even if it came into effect during the recession, this wouldn’t have that big an impact on the private sector in terms of getting back to growth as you think.
If there was some piece of legislation saying, “Ban private companies from selling X”, then that would have a clear impact on the companies that do sell X, because those that did buy X from those companies, aren’t necessarily going to buy alternative product Y with the money that would’ve gone on X.
However, this legislation basically says, “Make wages and employment fairer across the sexes and ages etc”. So while it harms the companies by getting them to pay a fair wage to women, it benefits the women directly. And surely women and other employees will then act as “better” consumers, as they’ll be able to spend more money?
Granted, employees are more likely to act as savers than companies, so there will be some negative effect from not all the employees extra money being spent, but such a negative effect will be relatively minor.
Hmm, why no blockquote?
That second paragraph of my last comment is Walton, the rest is me. Hope that’s clear.
oh, and two things about the gender discrimination conversation:
1)The fact that women are going part-time to have families is PART of the social discrimination. women still need to choose whether they want a good family or a good career, while men generally can have both. This either/or dilemma is what explains the “lost generation” of the non-existent children of women now in their 40’s (I’ve so far confirmed this concentration of childlessness for that age group in the Pacific Northwest, Germany, and more anecdotally in Sydney); the women had to make a choice, and they weren’t willing to become their mothers.
2)The discrimination of companies against women of childbearing age is true and real, but getting rid of mandatory paid maternity leave is not a solution, since it would just get us back to point 1. The better solution is what is being slowly introduced in some other European countries: parental leave. There’s 2 good systems, one in which both parents are entitled to the same amount of time off for a new child, and another in which there’s a set parental leave time frame that can be split between the parents as they wish. (there’s a third system of paternal and maternal leaves of differing length, but that one doesn’t solve the problem at all) They’re both good systems for different reasons, but most importantly, boing a choice both men and women will have to make. This will eventually spread out the risk of hiring someone who will take parental leave across both genders, and both also remove the default problem in point one, i.e. that women must make a choice, but man need not or even cannot make such a choice.
Seems to me that Walton ideologically values the principle of personal freedom over fairness laws, regardless of their societal utility or ethical justification.
And they wonder why we think they are morally bankrupt…
That’s it.
I’m leaving.
Good-bye!!!
C-C C Combo breaker?
“This troll is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.”
I see I missed a lively session today. He never did come up with answers to the “unnatural” or “defect” questions. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
“And have you ever considered the informational clutter we get sometimes let ourselves get subjected can pollute our clarity of thought,”
And fluids. Don’t forget the precious bodily fluids.
Please, Walton. I can read:
That’s the ridiculous statement I was making fun of. You seem to think that somehow all these different complicated factors can by dumb luck happen to hurt men “just as adversely” — I speak English and that does mean it hurts men equally — as it hurts women. In different ways, but equally bad. That’s a contemptible bunch of magical thinking. It’s like being absolutely certain that after 10000 coin flips, 5000 will be heads and 5000 tails.
For “some reason” you are intent upon insisting that male privilege does not exist, institutionalized patriarchy does not exist, and all things considered, women are not generally worse off than men or the targets of more damaging discrimination. Needless to say I’m infuriated with your willful blindness, but I’m going to try to let the anger pass instead of just verbally abusing you. Let’s try to make something constructive of this, and see whether or not you can learn.
Here’s a metaphor that is useful to me for understanding a variety of systems. Please try it out. I think you’ve been around Pharyngula long enough to have encountered this idea: given that genetic mutations occur, and given that many of these mutations make an organism more or less reproductively fit in its environment, what could stop evolution from occurring? http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=8&t=27&m=1 The person who denies evolution must provide a mechanism by which evolution is halted, otherwise, it cannot but occur. Analogously, given that there are always benefits and incentives for one group to dominate others, and given that men and women are physically and socially delineated enough for such domination to occur, what could stop one gender from dominating the other? You are making an extraordinary claim and you need to provide an extraordinary explanation.
because the last thing British women need, in this time of recession, is a legal means of knowing whether they are the victims of unfair pay discrimination.
Ah yes, misogyny is just part of life, so we shouldn’t worry about fighting it. Just like racism, war, gay-bashing, etc.
What this is, Walton, is male privilege. Precisely what you said does not exist. What this is is a serious problem in the world, which I am asking you to think critically about, and you are running away from.
I’m not talking about solutions right now. Before it even makes sense to talk about solutions, we have to learn to identify and recognize the problem. For the purposes of this conversation, I do not care that the Equality Bill would be part of a solution. For the moment, I am willing to pretend for the sake of argument that the invisible hand of the market is the best solution. For all I care, burning incense and dancing under the moonlight is the way to end institutionalized pay discrimination.
All I care about is that you are denying the existence of male privilege.
Because as long as you handwave away workplace discrimination as “just part of life” and therefore something you don’t have to think about any further, you’re assenting to it. You’re saying it’s okay that women are paid less than men for the same work. You’re saying it’s that women are poorer than men and so effectively have less freedom of movement and self-determination. You, Walton, are saying it’s fine that children raised by single mothers will be more disadvantaged than children of single fathers. You’re saying that it’s acceptable for women to be more economically dependent upon men than vice versa, and so you’re saying it’s okay that some women feel compelled to stay in abusive relationships because they can’t afford to leave.
Critical thinking and intellectual honesty, Walton, you appear to lack them.
You were the one who brought up women choosing to work part-time (as though they are always turning down an offer to work full-time, another fantasy of yours which I’ll ignore tonight for brevity’s sake). Sara Connolly’s paper controls for that and shows that it’s not enough to explain the pay disparity.
I quote from http://client.norc.org/jole/SOLEweb/7203.pdf
“Differences in characteristics account for just over 77% of the overall average gender pay gap … there is a significant pay penalty (12%) for women who have been in part-time work or taken career breaks.”
The paper also controls for ethnicity, age, domestic responsibilities including children, subject field, productivity, workplace responsibilities like holding an administrative post, length of contract, grade as lecturer or professor and so on, place of employment, esteem indicators like professional fellowships or giving keynote addresses, every demographic and professional characteristic you could imagine. And all those add up together to account for 77% of the gender pay gap (keep in mind that some of the controls, like ethnic discrimination, are problematic as well, but a rigorous paper like this must remain limited in scope so that’s a problem for another day).
When all those are accounted for, what’s left? Use your critical thinking. David Marjanović is right, the most parsimonious explanation is discrimination, or as this paper euphamistically calls it, difference of treatment. But hell, it’s not only the simplest, most parsimonious explanation; after all those controls, I’ll bet you can’t even brainstorm another plausible explanation, even if less parsimonious. Rather than “jump[ing] immediately” to a conclusion — a very serious charge against Connolly’s professional integrity that you immediately and indecently threw out with no basis — there’s just nothing else left except gender discrimination.
Please acknowledge rather than ignoring this. After your parochial comment about what you “have yet to see,” I need some assurance that this is sinking in.
You demanded that every other explanation be exhausted before widespread institutional sexism could even be on the table — as though the rest of us were as ignorant on this topic as you, and had never researched this before — and I’ve complied. If you cannot present a more parsimonious explanation but you will not accept Connolly’s and my explanation, then you are quite simply denying that pay discrimination against women could exist. I expect you to find some intellectual honesty here now and admit the facts.
Further, you entirely ignored the work of Babcock and Bowles, which also quite clearly and objectively demonstrated the existence of male privilege, which you deny. Yet, having read the summary, you nevertheless fail to either challenge the study or admit its conclusions. You continue on, presumably still denying male privilege, ignoring the evidence presented to you. This is outright intellectual dishonesty.
Babcock and Bowles’s studies are even worse for your assumptions, because they very clearly show that this isn’t about “some employers” or even “a great many more,” but the overwhelming majority of men, and impacts the overwhelming majority of women. These studies get to the very essence of male privilege, in which we have a functionally misogynistic culture which most people simply take for granted and nearly all men knowingly or unknowingly benefit from.
And, indeed, the fact that Barack Obama was elected shows that racism is over! http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/Obama.html
First, keep in mind that 23% number only applies to jobs in academia. The paper finds it’s 29% for the UK workforce at large.
Second, we’re still talking about several thousands of pounds lost per woman per year to gender discrimination. This is huge, and it means less invested and less saved, less compound interest, so the problem balloons year after year. Speak decently for once, and don’t you dare minimize the impact on even one single woman’s life.
Third, the total amount of the pay gap is a problem itself. No matter what the reasons, there should not be any pay gap at all, because the result, of women being poorer than men, is dangerous and unacceptable in any case. See Jadehawk’s comment and take it to heart. We can not settle for a society with this kind of inequality, where women are forced to make undesirable economic choices that men get to avoid.
Just for once quit kicking reflexively and yelping that guvmint is bad so we can’t ever do anything to fix anything so we might as well not even think about it! Just relax, be honest, and admit that these are problems and the result of male privilege. We can think about solutions later.
Finally, for once look up “male privilege” and study what I’m talking about. Because the fact that you could give this as a reply just proves that you truly, obviously, pathetically, have not even begun to try to understand what I’m talking about. The google is not so hard. Please try it. FSM forbid you might learn something instead of sounding half-read and overconfident.
He never came up with answers to anything, except “Fuck you, asshole” and “I’m an engineer”.
Ban time? (and I say this as someone who virtually NEVER supports banning anyone, since I know what it’s like to be accused of trolling)
Oh. and given your silence, apparently this was checkmate: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/obamas_speech_to_the_national.php#comment-1595876
Strange gods,
OK, I’ll concede that the article on the Babcock and Bowles study (which I didn’t have time to look at last night, but have now read) is interesting, and raises a point of which I hadn’t been aware.
As far as I can tell, the study’s main finding is that there is a subconscious hostility, on the part of employers, towards women who negotiate and pursue their self-interest too aggressively, and that this is manifested in less willingness to employ such women – meaning that women have an incentive not to negotiate for more pay, and are therefore paid less. This doesn’t surprise me all that much, and it’s certainly a problem. But I don’t see anything that can reasonably be done about it. It isn’t the individual employers’ fault; they’re acting according to subconscious natural instincts.
But in any case, I remind you, they’re spending their own money, not that of the State – so, assuming they work in the private sector, none of us are morally entitled to have any say over who they hire or don’t hire. No one has a “right” to be hired, even if they are well-qualified. If it makes you happy, I pledge that if I am ever in a position of hiring candidates, I will do my level best to consider male and female candidates equally, and will not penalise female candidates who ask for a higher wage. But that’s all I can personally do about it.
Yes. There are problems. That I will gladly concede. There is sexism in society, and I don’t doubt that there are some women who are economically disadvantaged because of express sexism, and many more who are economically disadvantaged because of the life choices they are culturally expected to make (e.g. staying at home and raising kids rather than pursuing a career). So I’m not denying outright that inequality exists, and that not all of that inequality can be explained by legitimate factors.
And btw: the fact that I haven’t replied point-by-point to everything is a result of the fact that (a) even as a lazy student, I don’t have unlimited time to spend on this site, and (b) this thread has become very confusing, as much of it is clogged up with idiocy from APlusCoder (for some reason, I keep reading that name as Assploder; quite appropriate perhaps). So it’s not that I’m deliberately ignoring any of your points or that I am entirely unable to answer them.
Walton, the fact you think there’s a _difference_ between “express sexism” and “life choices they are culturally expected to make” is part of the problem here; those are in fact _the same thing_.
Great post @ #583, sgbm, and thank you for the link to the UK article.
Walton, whenever you find yourself saying “But this is just part of life,” you should step back and think about temporal and spatial variation in “life,” which can help you to get at the roots of problems and understand the range of efforts – successful and unsuccessful – for change. This is one reason I’ve repeatedly suggested that you study more history and anthropology.
Also, since you’ve expressed several times that you have difficulty assessing how you’re coming across, I’ll offer another piece of advice (reminiscent of advice I’ve given you in the past): If you don’t have a lot of knowledge about a subject, you should approach it with questions, not arguments. Your arguments are always going to be worthless, anyway, if they’re based solely on theory. You will still learn, but you’ll be easier to get along with. I’m not suggesting that you accept everything anyone tells you (and you can still ask critical and challenging questions) or read only one set of perspectives on an issue, but if you want to argue against a position, you can only do so validly from another position based in knowledge. Otherwise, you should try to stick to questions when discussing matters in which you lack substantive knowledge. Apologies for condescension.
NO. just. NO.
also, look up “naturalistic fallacy”
oh well, in this case I guess racist bosses and “no coloreds” signs are ok with you too. and since laws apparently only apply to governments, I wouldn’t need to give people any days off at all, I could force them to work 80 hours a week without overtime compensation, could force them to come in even if they’ve just had a major operation….
you really don’t understand what worker-protection rights are, or how a world without them would look, do you.
and by operation i mean surgery. stoopid “false friends”
“A major operation” works fine there (if you’re using “major surgery” you don’t use an article – not that you don’t know this already :)).
I think it’s finally been confirmed: libertarians support feudalism.
Well, nothing says “property rights” like actually being property!
@585–looks as though he fell his king.
*shrug*
How are memories stored in the brain? And retained for decades?
And triggered by sensory experience, or retrieved on demand?
Did you all figure this out already? I forget.
Did you?
I CAN HAZ IRONY?
KTHXBAI
Fminuscoder is back with inane questions. FMC, either put forward a position and back it with evidence, or just go and read the literature. Asking ignorant questions like you do won’t make us not believe in evolution. Work published in the peer reviewed primary scientific journals would.
It’s a surprisingly bad late-night translation from German. Your version is much better.
Yes. It’s taught in Introduction to Neurobiology for Molecular Biologists, an undergraduate course. Repeated use of a synapse phosphorylates some ion channels (I have to go soon, so I’ll be lazy and just shower you with the jargon; get a textbook, or Wikipedia, and read up), which makes them open at a lower threshold, which means that the current starts flowing much more easily; even more repeated use triggers the growth of additional synapses between the same two nerve cells.
It’s just slightly more complicated than electrical engineering. The basics are all very similar.
Sure it is. Ah, the current then flows much more easily, I see, LOL.
I’m really glad you all are happy with that explanation.
Is a visual image of my dad encoded in there? His voice too?
Cool current.
Fminusdecoder, think about how electronic memory works. Then you should be even more impressed.
You seem to be asking inane questions in a futile attempt to find a hole to put your imaginary deity into. It won’t happen. Science ignores your deity in its workings, and that isn’t going to change, since science is so successful compared the mental masturbation called religion and theology about advancing knowledge. If you want to learn about science, there is this thing called a library. It is a building that contains books, some of which are non-fiction, and may cover the area you have questions over. They may even lend you a book. Make use of one.
Oh and Nerd, why don’t stop fucking stalking me and offer up some kind of knowledge, instead of shrugging off very valid questions that your pea brain can’t answer.
Fuck Off Nerd you dumb ass troll.
Deity? Religion? Are you fucking dense? Were you molested or something?
Remain ignorant if you wish. I’m in search of the intelligence
behind humanity, if you wish to believe there is none, fine.
I happen to think there is and maybe i’m just as guilty as you in trying to PROVOKE though as you are in trying to STIFLE it.
I know electronic memeory works, do you? There is software or hardwired decoding that deciphers it dumbass. This is created
through intelligence.
Gee,Im glad Im only following this thread loosely while watching “Watchmen”,way too much insanity…..
Well,keep looking behind yourself,you might find some.
And for your information,
Many scientists have contributed much of the work to the insights they’ve gleaned through the one they refer to as the creator.
Go to the library, read up.
It probably meant “credited” when it wrote “contributed”.
Still finding it amusing that the troll has trolled itself; for the regulars, we have an amusing pinata to bat around, so instead of creating annoyance, it’s actually amusing us at its own expense.
Wanna see something cool?
Not too bad, but not as cool as the montage at the beginning of the film.
Can’t wait for it to come out on DVD
Ahem.LOL
What crackpot definition of stalking are you using? You’re the one the keeps claiming he’s leaving, the reappearing again. If anyone’s stalking anyone here, it’s you who’s stalking Nerd.
Fminusdecoder
There is anthropology and evolutionary psychology. Do some reading.
If you mean the mental masturbation that is imaginary deities, religion, and theology, this blog isn’t the place to search for that. Try a church or two in your area.
Good-bye!
Again!
And again; good-bye!
There is nothing in science that has been gleaned from the bible, or your imaginary deity. Science does not need your imaginary deity for anything. Individual scientist may believe in god outside of the field, but don’t use god inside of science. If you wish to lie, do it elsewhere. Your lies here will be called out and refuted. I suggest you either grow a thicker hide or just go away.
Well, you know what they say – it’s always in the last place you look.
Yet not a one has shown even a smidgen of evidence of anything but natural explanations for their work.
Fminusdecoder bleats
I’m not stalking you. You are stalking Pharyngula for purposes of your own, which you aren’t being honest about. Your questions are inane in that they can be answered by a twenty minute visit to your college library. But that would be too honest for you to do. Instead you come here, and instead of positing an idea and presenting evidence for it, you just ask questions. Like you aren’t the first troll to do so. I knew what you were doing from your third post and I will make sure you know that we are on to you. So either fess up to what you hope to accomplish, or just go away.
Nerd of Redhead,OM said:
I never thought I’d feel as sorry for members of the clergy as I am picturing the results should he choose to take that advice.
I second SC, OML: sgbm‘s post was brilliant. Well done, sgbm, and thank you.
Walton:
Holy flaming rum punch, Walton. I can’t believe you said that with a straight face.
Think about all the other possible behaviors to which that statement might apply:
Discrimination based on race.
Discrimination based on ethnicity.
Discrimination based on age.
Discrimination based on religion affiliation.
Discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Statutory rape.
Child abuse.
Domestic abuse.
Theft.
Murder.
And worst of all:
Stealing the rich man’s bread to save ones own children from starvation.
You’re bright, Walton, and well-read for your age, and I think you’re a well-meaning soul down deep (which is one of several reasons why your apparent self-loathing troubles me so) but really now – you have got to think about the things you say in terms of what they really mean out here in the world, and of how the ideas your statements represent affect real people.
Surely you’ve noticed by now a pattern of similar responses to your comments here. You’re smart enough to pick up this pattern. What does it mean to you?
Jadehawk:
EXACTLY. Walton, we’ve seen the world you describe. We’ve seen what the world looks like when each employer, excercising his gawd-given rights as the person who owns the business and pays the wage, to do as he sees fit. It’s not a pretty picture.
This comes up over and over in discussions like these. I was called “silly” by another libertarian in another thread for even mentioning Dickens, Hugo, and Sinclair in the context of a similar discussion.
Law are responses to behaviors that are detrimental to society and/or its individual members. Labor laws exist. What does this tell you? Labor unions came into being because employer abuse of the workforce made them necessary. And you want to go back to that world? WHY? Because it appeals to your sense of fairness? Oh, the irony. Absolute fairness is unattainable. The goal is to minimize the amount of harm that can be done to people by those in a position to do harm. As you point out – not completely incorretly – sometimes this harm is done unintentionally, but ignorance of ones own motives is no excuse.
As an EE myself, I have to weigh in on a few things:
1) Calling a vacuum tube a “valve” is archaic.
2) Calling a transistor a “valve” is eccentric.
3) Insisting a transistor is literally a valve, with moving parts is laugh-out-loud, batshit fucking insane.
4) I have to wonder at someone who supposedly would know that his father’s image and voice can be encoded by stored charge, radio waves of varying frequency, the orientation of magnetic domains, the arrangement of microscopic pits on a reflective surface, electrical impulses on a wire etc., yet suddenly becomes skeptical when the phosphorylation of ion channels is mentioned.
Argh. This statement is sloppy and imprecise:
The goal is to minimize the amount of harm that can be done to people by those in a position to do harm.
“Harm” is imprecise, just as “fairness” and “reasonable” are imprecise, as is the determination of what constitutes a reasonable baseline above-the-poverty-line standard of living for a person or a family in a given society. However, I assume my general meaning is clear enough for the purpose of this conversation.
Ain’t it about time to starve this troll? It’s been on here 2 friggin’ days and hasn’t done anything but distract discussion, insult people and make utterly inane comments.
Diagnosis: Incurable, willful stupidity
Prognosis: Incurable, because the learning curve has a negative slope
Prescription: Bury it
Well, you’re right, Coder. It’s all bullshit. Memories are stored offline, in the astral-soul database, and beamed into our meat antenna (aka “brains”) from the seventh dimension of Heaven.
Coder:
You know, Coder – you ignorant piece of shit, you steaming pile of animated dog-vomit, you moronic, arrogant burr under the saddle of the mind – as the husband of a survivor of childhood sexual abuse survivor, I have half a mind to track down your sorry ass and kick it into a nearly-human shape.
Ignorant dickhead. Grow the fuck up. Grow a brain. Grow a conscience.
Stupid prick.
If you want to avoid looking like the slimy, spineless dickhead that you are, read up on evolutionary theory and developmental biology before trying to impress us with your engineering insights. There’s one key point your single-celled brain hasn’t yet grasped: Evolved biological systems are not perfectly analogous to man-made systems. They are not identical. Evolved solutions vary considerably from designed solutions.
Might I also recommend these quick overviews:
http://www.apa.org/releases/sexabuse/homepage.html
http://www.apa.org/releases/sexabuse/effects.html
Read them very carefully.
Preemptive quote-mine:
Assploder (heh-heh, me too Walton) talks about science like Dr. Nick Riviera talks about medicine:
“The knee bone’s connected to the…something. The something’s connected to the…red thing. The red thing’s connected to my…wrist watch. Uh oh.”
But he’s really a scientist. Really. “Neuroscience? What’s that?”
For a computing science engineer, apparently this fuck has never heard of Wikipedia or Google. D’uh.
For those here who are really interested in the answers to the questions he poses, I recommend the excellent pop-science mag Scientific American Mind, which usually features an article by the prolific and brilliant VS Ramachandran.
Of course, if you wanna answer all questions with “goddidit”, then feel free to pretend that no-one’s actively researching this stuff and coming up with testable hypotheses. If you’re lucky, the gap in which your god dwells will shrink to a size just big enough for your teeny-tiny penis, and you can go fuck it.
DaveL, as a doctor (what the hell? Assploder lies; I lie) I have to tell you “Sir, calm down, you’re going to give yourself skin failure!”
Erm, surely the fact that a law exists doesn’t imply that it’s necessary? Otherwise one would be forced to the conclusion that, for instance, laws against homosexuality (which remain in force in many jurisdictions), or against apostasising from Islam, are “responses to behaviors that are detrimental to society and/or its individual members”.
You’re right. The particular statement you cited was poorly-worded and stupid, and I retract it.
However, I stand by my general point.
Greetings, APC.
Given that the investigation of Life Force is of interest to you, what would you say are the three or four most interesting experimantal investigations currently being run in that field?
We don’t need a detailed run down – just a quick link or few should do.
Thanks in advance!
The symptoms you describe lead me to believe that you are suffering from bonus eruptus, a rare disorder in which the skeleton tries to jump out of the skin. The only way to stop it is through transdental electromicide. I’ll need a golf cart motor and a thousand volt capacimator, stat.
Rev. BigDumbChimp, you must also be a scientist + Engineer + doctor.
Tell me sir, given that godless science has utterly failed to locate my spare car keys, do you still maintain that there’s no Creator?
Brownian:
If all else fails, look in the refrigerator for the keys. Seriously.
Walton:
Good point, Walton. The fact that a law exists implies that it was, at one time, deemed necessary by people who had the power to enact it. How’s that?
Some laws are archaic, and in bringing up laws against homosexuality you’ve cited a very good example. (I think we’re about to slide into moral relativism here.) As I said, absolutely fair solutions are difficult or impossible to find. Laws against homosexuality, against same-sex marriage, are going the way of anti-miscegenation laws, in that some societies has begun to recognize, or decide, that such laws are not only unnecessary, but unjust. Are you ready to argue – oh, let me pick a really cheap example here – that child labor laws are unnecessary and unjustly restrict the rights of potential employers? How about something a little less loaded, like minimum-wage legislation?
I said ‘keys’, not ‘Keystone Light™’ delicious and refreshingly non-bitter lager. “Always smooth, even when you’re not.” Now try crisp Keystone Ice™ ice-brewed ale!
In other news, I now have a corporate sponsor.
Walton:
The fact that laws exist implies some predicate condition that gave rise to them.
Indeed, those laws are responses to behaviors that somebody thought were “detrimental to society and/or its individual members.” That those judgments about what’s detrimental to society are, to our eyes, hateful and immoral doesn’t change the fact that the effect (laws) had causes (behaviors somebody didn’t like). I’m pretty sure Watchman wasn’t trying to suggest that the mere existence of a law guarantees that it’s a good law, or validates the moral correctness of the predicate assumptions it embodies. The point is that the existence of a law (or in this case, a large and historically rich body of law) is evidence that something is going on.
If I may be so bold as to paraphrase, I think Watchman was saying that the existence of a great mass of labor-protection law utterly belies your constant suggestions that corporations will always behave well if we just leave them (and the market) alone. This doesn’t mean that all labor law is good law, or that all complaints about corporations are valid; it only means there’s some there there.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Although I suspect that “ice-brewing” is of the devil.
RBDC:
You need to hear “Poor Skeleton Steps Out” by XTC.
Yes! I left my keys in the fridge once. I was in a rush one morning, and wanted to grab some OJ before heading off to work, and… poof, keys vanished. Ten minutes later I found them on one of the shelves on the inside door of the fridge. I’d love to chalk it up to premature senility, but I was all of 26 at the time. Things have not changed for the better since then, I’m afraid!
Bill: Right. :-)
Hmmm… I see that Watchman was able to speak for himself faster than I was able to paraphrase him. Of all the nerve! ;^)
Oh well… no harm in reinforcing a good point.
Bill, your “paraphrase” improved on my hasty and clumsy attempt at expressing myself.
OT: Though you and I haven’t interacted much on this blog, I should say I’ve been lurking for months (ok, a couple of years) and I’ve always enjoyed reading your comments. Incidentally, we also have plenty of common background. I grew up in CT, graduated HS in the mid 1970s; we have similar leanings on politics and public education, and I have observed many of the same things in local gov up here in the Boston area that you’ve experienced down in your neck of the woods.
I think we like a lot of the same music, too, but I’d have to review that. ;-)
Walton, you often wonder out loud why so many people lack any respect for you.
That was a very succinct answer to your question.
Your “general point” does not stand except upon the anti-empirical presumption that these problems are genetically determined and can never be solved.
You stand by it anyway.
Jadehawk,
Previously I would not have suspected that this was a worthwhile question to ask of Walton. Now it appears to be consistent with other beliefs of his. I’m afraid his condition is worsening instead of improving. I am genuinely disappointed.
It’s likely that Assploder can’t. He already has conservative religion, and this tends to stunt the development of individual decency, empathy and conscience.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/04/blame-it-on-parents.html
Where “too aggressively” means “at all.” And that’s part of patriarchy. Women simply are not permitted to act for their own independence the way that men are. (But no, says Walton, patriarchy does not exist, evidence be damned.)
Try putting it into words. Explain the hostility. No handwaving.
And I remind you that I’m not interested in talking about solutions when you won’t even acknowledge the nature of the problem, patriarchy and the accompanying male privilege. “Just for once quit kicking reflexively and yelping that guvmint is bad so we can’t ever do anything to fix anything so we might as well not even think about it!” How is it I can be so damned explicit about this and yet you cannot resist the urge to kick?
That you’re telling this to me is proof you still haven’t tried to research male privilege and you have only a vague guess at what I’m talking about. (Remember I keep bringing this up because your unwillingness to study indicates an apathy on your part toward the status of women, a symptom of your contempt for them. You’re welcome at any time to educate yourself and defang my criticism, but you still won’t even bother.)
Oh man. Thanks for the laugh. Every time I start to wonder if you’re growing into complexities beyond an adolescent ideology, you say something flagrantly stupid like this, something that contradicts all the scientific findings on a well-understood empirical subject, and you forcibly remind me that conservatism is a cause of brain damage.
There’s nothing instinctual about pay discrimination. Sexism is socially constructed. Children have to be taught to believe that girls are less deserving of respect than boys. Through self-examination and education on the nature of privilege, these things can be unlearned. We know it, we’ve measured it. The world can be changed for the better.
Or, you know, show me the scientific evidence that supports your ridiculous, extraordinary assertion. I could use another laugh.
Then let’s go back to my earlier question. “The affects are not ‘just as adverse.’ Where’s the equivalent institutional sexism against men? Where’s the equivalent of all those lost wages and passed-over promotions?”
Or will you finally admit the existence of male privilege?
Well, yes.
The argument from personal incredulity, you see, is a logical fallacy.
You are assuming that there is an intelligence behind humanity in the first place.
Why don’t you start by testing that assumption?
Must be because he doesn’t know what an ion is and is 1) too afraid to ask and 2) too stupid to look it up (one word: Wikipedia).
We don’t starve trolls around here. We feed them till they assplode. And in the meantime we play “Dance, trollboy! Dance!” with them. That’s more fun. See comment 631 for an example.
And your general point is?
That we can never improve the situation of women, so we just shouldn’t talk about it.
I retracted that particular assertion, because it was bullshit. I was wrong. I misspoke. I’m sorry. Clear enough?
As to everything else, I don’t have a clue. Whatever. I’ll think about it tomorrow. (I’ve had a few drinks tonight and am not thinking straight.)
Walton:
Without doubt, a step in the right direction. I may well join you.
I think that we should all applaud Walton’s lack of sobriety.
I saw that you retracted it. It’s still funny though. You reflexively grasped for the most stereotypically right-wing response that you could think of: non-empirical assertions of genetics. I still get to laugh!
Enjoy your buzz. :)
seconded. now if someone could teach the boy how to get laid, we’d be halfway there on bringing him back to humanity. :-)
A while back we were planing Operation Get Walton
LaidA Hooker. Some money was raised, plans on getting the hooker (male or female was never decided) into his Oxford residence were drawn up, concerns were raised Walton would waste the time giving a pompous lecture on political theory. Sadly, nothing ever came of it.No, we can’t afford to get Walton a hooker. That shortcut would further retard his intellectual development.
We have to bring him face to face – make that thigh to thigh – with someone he can’t write off as inherently suited to a subservient role. He’s too inclined to do that anyway.
This is actually getting a little silly
In fact you have been and are being incredibly silly.
I’m a professional editor
Bully, that didn’t guarantee that you would comprehend something correct and rather easy to comprehend and then offer the most absurd sophistic arguments that you were right not to be able to comprehend it.
I won’t waste any more electrons on it after this comment
You should have considered that before you wasted your time on that tl;dr post.
rolfmao
That would be nice if “rolfmao” actually meant anything, but the expression is “rotflmao”, which means “rolling on the floor laughing my ass off”. It’s sad that there’s now a whole new form of illiteracy.
OR… I knew very well that the real expression was rotflmao or roflmao* , but thought that the riff on the (common-ish) misspelling worked even better for “point and laugh at the fool” contempt and you’re being not only a tiresome pedant but also a clueless blowhard. One thing or the other.
*I checked in “The Elements of LOLcat”; either is acceptable.
For n.s.:
ROTFLMAO : ROLFMAO :: the : __________
are you serious?
We’ve come to LOL speak dick measuring contests?
As I recall, the initial rationale for getting Walton a hooker was that she could pull out the rod up his butt more cheaply than a licensed proctologist.
I’m afraid this verges on piling on on Walton — except when he brings it up himself (which he has done on occasion in the past), we should leave the poor boy’s sexuality alone — but there’s an interesting point here, from a social-education point of view (which I’ll try to make generically, rather than laying this trip on Walton himself):
If the goal is to raise the subject’s consciousness about people he might be tempted to treat as subservient, I think a hooker is exactly the right choice, because we have to deal with issues not only of sex and gender, but also of class: Just as a man might be tempted to write someone off as subsurvient because of gender, a man of a privileged class might be tempted to write a tradesperson or laborer — aka the “hired help” — as subservient based on class. That is, when you hire someone, you have limited right to direct them in the narrow scope of what you’ve hired them to do, but no right to treat them as inherently subservient in any other sense.
So what we need here is a sex worker who, based on her (or his) personal quality and integrity1, can’t be written off “as inherently suited to a subservient role.”
Which is to say, what’s really needed is a really good, self-assured hooker who wouldn’t take any shit.
Gee, I almost wish I needed my consciousness raised in this particular way! ;^)
1 Anyone who’s thinking that “sex worker” and “personal quality and integrity” are self-contradictory needs to examine his (or her… but more likely his) own prejudices.
Bill, you’re thinking this through way too much.
That is, to be sure, my cross to bear… but also, I’m afraid, my chief entertainment. ;^)
Yeah. Like, for example, this gal?
but thought that the riff on the (common-ish) misspelling worked even better for “point and laugh at the fool” contempt and you’re being not only a tiresome pedant but also a clueless blowhard. One thing or the other.
Yeah, calling people on their stupid dishonest bullshit is tiresome pedantry. So much for this whole blog. If you were making fun of the misspelling you would have given some indication of that rather than just propagating it and then even defending it:
*I checked in “The Elements of LOLcat”; either is acceptable.
A whole new form of widespread illiteracy.
Look, fool, it’s supposed to be an acronym. It’s a sad sort of “acceptable” that makes a foolish mistake “acceptable” simply because enough people demonstrate their stupidity and intellectual laziness that it becomes “commonish”. On those grounds, the anonymous idiot who insisted that “it’s” can be possessive is right. If pushing back against that sort of idiocy makes me a “tiresome pedant”, I’m proud to be one.
P.S. If you google rolfmao, google sensibly comes back with “Did you mean: roflmao”. See, even google knows that rolfmao is a misspelling of roflmao, which is an abbreviation of of rotflmao. See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ROFLMAO or for that matter http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rolfmao
rolfmao: Rolling on the Laughing Floor My Ass Off.
Which is a pedantic dig at clueless twits.
NS: Your otherwise valid point is seriously undermined by your apparent failure to detect the difference between “rolfmao” and “roflmao” in Matt’s post.
ROLFMAO: Wrong [and the image you linked to was a hoot]
ROTFLMAO: The primary form.
ROFLMAO: An acceptable diminution.
That much is clear to both of us, I’m sure, but here’s the point: Matt’s claim of the acceptability of the last two had nothing to do with his alleged “defense” of the first – the “comminish misspelling” – which he’d used intentionally as a subtle dig at his target, but had not, as you’ve claimed, defended as acceptable.
Ack! That should be “commonish”, of course. LOL. Trust a post on spelling to contain a typo!
He did- why else would he have linked to that image?
Well, you if really were rolling on the laughing floor your ass off, you too much fun having might proper be to use syntax.
Never mind two a letter spelling transposition it in abbreviation.
This should be interesting.
Your otherwise valid point is seriously undermined by your apparent failure to detect the difference between “rolfmao” and “roflmao” in Matt’s post.
You’re right about my failure of detection, but I’m not clear on how a perceptual error on my part can undermine a valid point.
Unless you mean that it would have been valid if Matt had written what I thought he wrote, but it’s actually invalid because he didn’t. I can go with that.
He did- why else would he have linked to that image?
Even if rolfmao were the correct spelling, the image would still be funny.
Even if rolfmao were the correct spelling, the image would still be funny.
But someone who is using the misspelling ironically would be more likely to link to an ironic “explanation” of it. Is it possible that you missed the joke?
Btw, AplusCoder sounds like a more articulate Simon…
nothing’s sacred:
That’s pretty close, yeah. Thanks for clarifying my imprecise statement for me. The point you were making – which, as I read it, was that defending a misspelling as “acceptable” promotes illiteracy – was valid in and of itself, but not as a criticism of Matt’s original post and subsequent follow-up.
(What about teh? Is that “acceptable” now? It’s taken on a life and shades of meaning of its own that are distinct from those of its parent, the.
As Virtual Treasurer of the Walton Poker Removal Fund, I confirm your recollection.
Ah, virtual treasurer, old buddy, is it true that the state of the exchequer now stands at 27¢, 10 pence, and a “Kerry-Edwards” campaign button?