I rarely do this, but we’ve got a troll who deserves an outing. wordplague has been plaguing this thread — 62 comments in 10 hours! — claiming to be a graduate student somewhere. He’s being over-the-top misogynistic, making rape jokes, bragging about making rape threats, making death and mutilation threats, and man, he really, really hates his advisor, who is a woman, working in a lab that uses lasers and liquid nitrogen. If I knew who he was, I’d be calling his advisor right now to warn her she’s got a time-bomb in her lab.
But I don’t know who he is. So I’m just going to release his IP address. All of his comments come from a couple of gateways at bremerton.nmci.navy.mil. I don’t know what research facilities they have in Bremerton — I know of the Bremerton Naval Hospital — but he may just be lying to us all. If any authorities at the naval institutions in Bremerton or NMCI want my assistance tracking down the creep, I’ll gladly forward the stuff I’ve got to them. He needs help.
Oh, and it goes without saying…BANHAMMER!
Hey PZ,
People say mean things online that they would never say in real life.
Welcome to the internet.
Maybe you should ban him for disagreeing with you?
Maybe you should reflect on better ways to handle criticism?
Wow, the things you miss when you have no wireless for a couple of days.
Wow. I left that thread, not having anything of import to add. I missed a lot of hate-filled blather. I may be glad of it, sampling some of the stuff. goodnight.
Hey, Peter, maybe you shouldn’t be such a dense douchecake. Try reading the thread referenced in PZ’s post. Try reading the comments. All of them. There are over a thousand. Ought to keep you busy for a few, eh?
Oh…and since when is some assclown telling rape jokes qualify as criticism?
I think it’s hilarious that peterhearn thinks that the rules of polite public interaction don’t apply to the internet except for the ones he wants.
Guess what, you get to say mean things on the internet, and you also get thrown out of a place much more easily than you would a bar.
@peterhearn: Internet is a proper noun.
If he’s logged in to an NMCI machine, the administrators can track it to the user, and the Navy isn’t kind to folks indulging in hate speech….
@Peterhearn,
Awesome! I can get immunity from all crimes – threats, fraud, intimidation – if I just whine about being “censored” for disagreeing! Cool! I’m going to go threaten some people right now, then whine about “free speech” when some over sensitive target in my crosshairs complains!
@peterhearn
Yup, people who post nasty shit on the Internet are real people that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near.
@peterhearn
The internet is not some magical land of immunity. Uttering threats is against the law, whether you do it in person, by mail, or, yes, in blog comments. The fact that you can’t tell the difference between criticism and threats of violence is telling.
This guy was obviously trying to get a rise out of the crowd. He could barely spell or form a coherent sentence. I’m 100% positive that his story was bullshit and that he was using a proxy IP like a typical script kiddie. P.Z. Why are you giving this asshole more space on FTB. We need to stop engaging these idiots. Its been a free for all since TB started his “manly” war on Youtube.
Excellent work, peterhearn! Like a well-trained troll, you have now derailed the thread away from the nasty little misogynist who is a threat to his employer directly to you!
And to do it so witlessly, completely ignoring the content of the post…oh, you’re good. Well, good at being an ass, which is a kind of ‘good’, I guess.
By the way, theef…his IP address matched exactly one other person in the database. You. Which makes me suspect dishonest troll playing games even more.
Like I said, I’m not doing anything about it but banning wordplague. But if nmci.navy.mil were to ask me for records for this guy, I’d hand them over and let them take care of it.
peterhearn:
Why? That’d be stupid and petty, and that isn’t the policy here.
Also, there’s no need to do so. He’s already been banned for threatening violence. Or didn’t you bother to read the post to which you are responding?
Theef:
Oh fuck off, would you? Jesus Jumpin’ Christ, people like wordplague were showing up at Pharyngula Sciblogs, spewing vile, toxic shit all over the place *long* before TF came and went at FTB.
When you don’t know one fucking thing about a subject, try keeping your mouth shut. That way you don’t prove you’re an ignorant idiot.
theef:
Your concern has been noted.
Peterdingleberry, fucking read what the sleaze has been writing before you dismiss it as just being critical of PZ. Even if this person did not say this shit to your face in meat space, do you really want to be around this specimen?
Oh, just to be fucking clear, I would not want to be in the same room with you.
How interesting.
Intriguing. Makes me quite sad that I’m having to leave for work now.
I took the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the inhabitants of the Dungeon. WHOA. Is it just that there are more of them or is PZ just using more oversight (justifiably, of course, I’ve been glad to see them go)?
Aaaaawwwwwwe, snap!
*toddles off to catch up on the thread in question*
I’d expect wordplague’s story to be bullshit. It’d be beyond stupid of his to reveal details of his supervisor and research field while self-admittedly trolling.
So Theed, are you the troll or are you running a proxy for little script kiddies through you employers network? I bet your superiors reactions would be interesting either way.
Making the assumption wordplague was simply trolling*, I am completely baffled why he** would do that. What makes people spout evil shit, unless they kinda halfway secretly mean it? Kind of a ha-ha, only serious approach to poking the ant-hill?
I just don’t grok trolls in the least.
* The alternative makes my head asplode.
** This too is an assumption, also.
The Internet is in fact part of the physical universe, where one interacts with actual real human beings. In other words, it still counts as real life. Anyone who refuses to act accordingly is an asshat who’s deliberately feeding a cognitive bias in order to excuse their own unethical behavior.
PZ, thanks for doing this. Even if the guy was just venting and not planning anything (unlikely), what he did was still illegal and definitaly not the kind of person we want in our military. The guy works in a hospital. I wonder how he treats his female co-workers and patients. Someone who rants that much is probably going to do something, assuming they haven’t already.
You might have had a hand in preventing another episode of workplace violence and saving a life. Too many people ignore the warning signs assuming someone else will do something. You didn’t. So thanks for being a decent human being and not one of the crowd.
theef said:
PZ Myers said:
Okay, perhaps wordplague is beyond stupid.
@ me at # 24:
Theef, not theed you mobile-posting dolt!
@Nigel #25
Do you know the odds of female military personel to be sexuality assaulted is about 1 in 5? This guy works in the military and sounded ready to snap. Threats aren’t trolling, they’re threats that should be taken seriously.
Why do all MRA fuckwits make this claim. Nobody ever gets banned for disagreeing. We disagree with each other all the time.
What people get banned for is how they disagree.
If they present arguments like “this is what I believe, and this is the evidence to back it up (link to evidence)”, that chances of a banhammer is nil. If they say “Agree with me or eat shit, be raped, and die”, then “Houston, we have a problem”. And the latter is what happens with a lot of TF apoligizers. Bombast and opinion replaces real argument with evidence, as they can’t show anti-harassment policies aren’t wanted by most women and that they aren’t effective in reducing the incidents of harassment. So attitude must replace argument. It is the attitude we are tired of, as it is opinionated bullying rather than evidenced backed argument. And the clue on evidence is that it is a legitimate source outside of yourself (and friends).
A script kiddie using a proxy? Well, that could be possible, but it doesn’t make hate speech OK, and frankly it seems to me that if there’s one thing the Navy would be more concerned about than hate speech, it would be someone leaving one of their servers open for proxy abuse. I’d imagine that if someone was doing that, they’d be in for a real shit storm.
So, I went to read the 1000+ comments on the Excellent Plan post (really, I’m odd that way), but they’ve been replaced with some 50 comments talking about the troll.
Where did all the comments go?
Nevermind. Found them. (There’s pages now? I got used to them being in a single endless scroll.)
Happy reading to me.
Islandtrust, look at where the comments come to an end. You will find Older comments. Hit that link.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page, click at older comments or something to that effect.
Islandstrust:
The post is paginated– 500 comments per page. Above the comment box, you should see a link for “older comments”.
@gussnarp, 32
Yeah, I was about to say that…
I suppose it’s possible that a server has been compromised and is the hack of the day in some chatroom and both theef and the other loser have been riding it. If this is true then the smart guys and gals at the navy will probably let the proxy run long enough to get data to arrest the clowns. So take note theef, your thieving days are limited.
My experience with legit open proxies is that they are slow and unreliable to the extreme. Anyone who would use one to fill a super-duper humungous thread is OCD to the point of needing medical advice. Anyone who would use a compromised server from the navy as an illegal OP is too young or too stupid to survive prison.
True.
But people also say mean things online that they say and do in real life. Including threatening to kill people and then killing them.
1. We all know what happened to the death threater in Montreal. He was arrested and turned out to be mentally ill and have long standing substance abuse problems. He’s been treated by order of the court and so far seems to be much better.
2. Diatribe foretold church shooting horror – The Denver Post
ww.denverpost.com › Denver & the West
11 Dec 2007 – As many as 20 bullet holes in the entryway at New Life Church in Colorado Springs serve as a reminder of Sunday’s shooting. Matthew Murray …
Internet Forum Postings Reported To Be Those Of Colorado Church …
ww.nationalterroralert.com/…/internet-forum-postings-ma…
by Martin Jones – in 1,825 Google+ circles
11 Dec 2007 – … Reported To Be Those Of Colorado Church Shooter Matt Murray … investigated by Colorado Springs Police, Arvada Police and the FBI, …
Matthew Murray had an internet history that worried people enough to call the FBI. While the FBI was evaluating the threat level, he killed four people at his old church.
3. In the Dark Ages, I once lurked on a forum where people still used their real names. One guy was having problems and then disappeared. His name was found months later in a newspaper article.
He had a gun battle with the police after an inept daylight robbery went wrong. And was killed.
That was when I realized that what you see of people on the internet is pretty close to what you get in real life. Which means peterhearn is a very stupid and ugly troll in real life.
Alverant:
I guess that’s what I was getting at — even if he were trolling, he’s gotta mean it on some level. Just like Tosh defending rape jokes by claiming an actual rape at his show would be funny, there’s something deeply disturbing in the twisted performance art that is trolling. And I don’t mean the content. I mean in the intent.
It was just a thought I had after reading theef’s half-assed troll defense: It doesn’t matter if it’s 100% a troll. Saying that shit is in-and-of-itself evil. And I just can’t see how someone could provide those threats without actually supporting those threats in some way.
But maybe that’s just because I’m incredibly naive about these things.
Death threats over the internet are a federal crime, a felony.
There are lots of people doing long prison sentences right now for death threats.
The ones that look serious I just turn over to the FBI which has a competent cybercrimes unit. They occasionally investigate and have been known to make arrests.
It’s a stupid way to ruin your life but we all make choices. I’d rather they ruin their lives than end mine.
PZ, if the threats look serious, turn them over to the local police and the FBI cybercrimes division. We pay their salaries and that is what they are for. The murder you prevent could even be your own.
Long time passing,
Where did all the comments go,
Long time ago.
Where did all the comments go,
New pages moved them everyone.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
</Peter, Paul & Mary>
Having spent more time in the Bremerton Shipyard than I might have liked, I can attest it’s a rather large facility, capable of overhauling a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. I don’t know what department would be using lasers and liquid nitrogen outside of the hospital but a yard that can overhaul anything that floats is bound to have all kinds of shit going on. This “wordplague” winner makes that asshole ericatkinson seem kinda easy-going now.
It’s been like that for a year. 500 comments per page. Except in the mobile layout (last I checked).
What kind of loser would use a .mil server as a proxy anyway? Not a pro, I’d like to think.
Now, to say that to a guy who has been on the internet ever since there actually was an internet, is quite funny.
This article says that they do testing in “Chemistry, Hematology, Urinalysis, Coagulation, Microbiology, Immunohematology (Blood Banking), Serology, Histology, and Cytology.”
In chemistry research, we do use lasers and liquid nitrogen.
I’m a woman who supervises Ph.D. students’ research, and I thought, even if the chances are enormous that this is a hoax, would I want to take the chance that it isn’t?
And that was it. I contacted the Navy.
So sue me,
Yep, what spartonian @8 said. Navy (and I’m sure DoD in general) has very clear policies prohibiting use of information systems for personally abusive behavior. And one of the essential features of NMCI* is tight monitoring and control over IT access.
*Note that the Wikipedia entry for NMCI looks like it was written by one of its adoring fans (employee for one of its contractors, maybe?), but ignore the fawning treatment, and you’ll get the basic idea of what it is.
In my experience, Navy really doesn’t need or want this sort of “publicity”, and along with every other Federal agency, Navy is very worried about the possibility of big budget cuts, so toxic stuff like this is likely to be dealt with swiftly that sends a message to others who might otherwise consider engaging in such hostile stupidity.
PZ,
You need to send the info you have on this matter to:
ServiceDeskNavy@navy.mil
Using NavyMarineCorp Internet to post hate speech is in direct violation of the NMCI usage rules.
The change to 500 was recent, in the last month or two. People were having problems with pages with more comments failing to load. The pagination limit used to 1000 I think.
I meant, so sue me, wordplague. You hit too close to home.
Uh, syntax cleanup needed in Aisle 47. Please just do that in your own heads. Thankya.
‘Tis Himself:
Hahaha I love that song. I had to add some verses.
Where have all the young trolls gone?
Long time flaming
Where have all the young trolls gone?
Taken proxies every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young grads gone?
Long time ranting
Where have all the young grads gone?
Gone for lab work every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the lab hands gone?
Long time posting
Where have all the lab hands gone?
Gone to troll blogs, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
FYI. Bremerton Navy base is where a lot of Trident missile submarines are based. These are nuclear bomb carriers. There might not be enough nukes to end the world but there is definitely enough to put a big dent in it.
I’m getting all warm and fuzzy just thinking about a psychotic maniac near all those nuclear megatons.
I sit corrected. Thank you.
What krisrhodes said. Peter, if the internet doesn’t mean anything, then being banned doesn’t matter, and how anyone deals with criticism on the internet doesn’t matter. So why are you complaining?
carlie:
’cause Peter’s the Complainer-In-Chief. It is is job — nay, his duty — to complain at any potential banning of an MRA or MRA-like individual. As we all know, threatening rape and murder are just larks, but banning someone is serious fucking business.
Raven, that yard had all kindsa serious dangerous stuff back in the ’70’s when I was but a humble boiler tech laboring to help overhaul a carrier. There’s enough stuff there to fuck up your life that aint nuclear that the idea of a whackaloon in the same goddamn zipcode as that shit should give anyone with two adjacent brain cells terminal heebiejeebies, to say nothing of the nuclear stuff. Garnetstar, I’d say you did exactly the right thing, and if this guy’s actually in the Navy a UCMJ hassle’s definately in the future. Communicating a threat isn’t looked upon kindly in the military.
I’d say trolls were better back then. Even the toxic ones were less obviously trying to get banned. Hell, it took Survivor to get PZ to drop the hammer on some of the trolls.
Even script kiddies know better than to use .mil proxies. Who wants to use a proxy through a computer that operates with a limited user account? wordplague really wants us to believe he’s using a proxy. Just noting that if he was really using one, he wouldn’t care if you thought his IP is correct.
I’m curious how someone would use a .mil as a proxy. The armed forces have a firewall, the networks are pretty secure, etc… as far as I understand it.
Thanks, sundiver. What’s a UCMJ? It sounds delicious!
Perhaps, since wordplague thinks he’s getting raped now, it will give him some perspective.
It would be funny if he is a navy employee who’s idea of proxying is to ssh into his own navy account from his computer at home and browse the web through that, as if that would do shit to hide his identity to the navy.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice. Also called the Uniformed Code of Marsupial Justice since it always kangaroo courts under Article 15. It’s the legal code for the US military.
it
alwaysallows kangaroo courtsPZ, I suggest you email the abuse contact for the address ( http://whois.domaintools.com/138.163.106.72 )
They either have an employee acting very unprofessionally on their computers and potentially dangerous, *or*, they have a hacked server acting as a proxy for nefarious use. Either way, they will want to know about it. Just posting this here is kind of below the bar (if something does happen, would you feel okay about having this information and having not contacted the administration?)
You’re such a bully!
theef has been very quiet since #12…
“Uniformed Code of Marsupial Justice” for the win.
Dammit, we need an “incipient nosecoffee” tag. I just had this suit drycleaned.
It doesn’t matter how tight you security is if you got the right insider.
Said insider would be pretty darn stupid if they risk their neck running a proxy for little script kiddies though, so the most parsimonious explanation is that there was no proxy.
No prison rape jokes, please okay thanks.
These do not serve the cause of demolishing patriarchy.
ixchel, I believe that garnetstar was referencing the unfortunate tendency of “oppressed” menz to whine about how they’re getting “raped” by whatever person or organization isn’t giving them exactly what they want, like, right now, dammit!
But I may be wrong on that score….
There’s absolutely no evidence that this troll is experiencing psychosis, so maybe let’s refrain from stigmatizing people who do experience psychosis by attributing random assholishness to psychosis.*
*Yes, I know that I’m talking to raven, and raven hates people who experience mental illness, but still, this stigmatization is worth opposing.
I agree, but I think the next step of the “joke” implied was “if he thinks he’s getting raped now, just wait ’til prison…”
Hence the reference to the UCMJ.
wouldn’t that imply the person knew what UCMJ was?
anyway, I’d come down on the side of caution and simply point out that whatever garnetstar meant, it looks really fucking close to a prison rape joke, so clarification (if it wasn’t one) or retraction (if it was) would be appreciated.
…because I read it as. “if he thinks his life is shit now, just wait until he gets to experience some actual trouble, the spoiled brat”
i misplaced a dot
While I never condone threats or abuse both sides are acting improper. PZ should know better and thus I’m going to talk about at length the toxic environment and how ashamed I am of him. Now excuse me I must go and shove my entire anus up my nose
Right, fair enough. I’d also be satisfied with not doing it again.
ixchel @69, I apologize, my post was ambiguous, and I see now that it could have been interpreted as you did. Sorry about that.
I did mean what Gaebolga thought, wordplague said that his advisor was raping him by criticizing his performance. Since he’s such a fragile flower as to equate words with rape, I thought in a kangaroo court he’d learn what it really is to be pushed around.
I didn’t know, actually, that the UCMJs could end in prison sentences (that’s what happens when you spend your life staring at the contents of beakers instead of attending to actuality), so sorry about that inadvertent reference.
I will try not to be ambiguous in the future.
Interesting; I read it as saying “now that he thinks he’s being raped, perhaps it will give him some perspective on what its like to be raped” (with the understanding, of course, that he really, really doesn’t get it at all…which is why it’s funny. If it’s funny. Or intended to be funny in that way. I could qualify that statement some more, if you’d like.)
To bring this back full circle, anyone who can write a post so full of vitriol that it takes me 4 takes to get through it, they deserves two things. A slow clap for stretching the abuse of people and the english language to new and hopefully never seen again levels of 4chanism. And a turbo-banhammer with backdating. And this is coming from me, the guy who generally only posts when I am voicing a disagreement (and not always in the best way).
I read it the same way Gaebolga did. It sounded like garnetstar was saying, “now that he thinks he knows what it feels like to have something horrible happen to him, maybe he’ll think twice about wishing it on others.”
I guess we’re just a couple of optimists, Celeste….
Garnetstar, I hope the Navy jumps right on this and finds out who is behind the threats and sense of entitlement.
To further illustrate: one of my grad students once mentioned the Navy SEALs, and I thought…..
No, I’m not going to embarass myself by telling you what I thought, but I did.
I need to get out more.
well, there we go. problem resolved without drama, swearing, or whining about intent. How un-pharynguline of y’all ;-)
But that’s not what I intended, Jadehawk….
gaelborga dear, I’d like to point out as a warning that I haven’t had coffee this morning yet…
..which explains my complete mangling of your ‘nym, too…
Intent! Still not magic.™
I’m sorry, Ms. Jadehawk. I’ll try harder next fucking time.
Not to babble on, but this one actually *is* funny:
The only contact my family’s ever had with the military was during World War I. My grandfather, an Italian immigrant, signed up because the Army offered to grant citizenship to immigrants who joined.
They forgot that, in order for my grandfather to function as a soldier, he’d have to be able to speak English. Oops.
So he spent 1917 – 1918 in English class, never even learned what “ranks” are. Then the war ended, my grandfather became a citizen, and he could speak English as well!
And that is why your Garnetstar is with you today.
[Emphasis original]
I don’t know; they seem equally useful….
@garnetstar
Given the way immigrants from Italy were still being treated at the time, I think his willingness to fight gives him the right to citizenship, whether he actually did fight or not.
Great story, though.
@ #8 spartonian says:
And if the crap is being relayed through a machine on the NMCI network, the Navy will take an equally dim view of outsiders utilizing their networks to spew hate. Can we say “Federal crime”?
There may be a secondary issue in that some legitimate user of a machine on the NMCI network inadvertently allowed it to become infected with malware, which has then been exploited by what’s-his-face.
Stay tune. I hope what’s-his-face has his affairs in good order, because he can soon expect a visit from Federal marshals.
garnetstar,
My military experience lets me believe that story with no trouble at all.
One day when I was in a submarine ever so many years ago I had just got off watch and was eating lunch with a friend of mine who was an A-Ganger.* We were just finishing when the A-Ganger’s chief told him there was a problem with the diesel. Since I had nothing else to do I went with my friend and we both worked on the engine’s lube oil pump. The Engineer came by just as we were finishing the job. He asked me why I was working on the diesel and I told him it was something different from what I usually did (which was valve maintenance). The next time we pulled into our home port I was sent to an eight-week diesel maintenance course. So because I helped a friend I was taught basic diesel repair.
*In nuclear submarines there are two types of Machinist’s Mates (mechanics). Nukes who work on mechanical systems with any connection to the reactor (I was a nuke). Auxiliarymen who worked on non-nuclear machinery (air systems, hydraulics, potable and sea water systems, etc.).
nigelTheBold, Venomous Demonic Hater @25 –
This stumps me, too. How on earth does one get jollies that way?
And where does it come from? From them, somewhere inside them?
Okay, that was enough thinking about that. Off to the brain bidet!
Thank you, Krasnaya Koshka, for that very disturbing image.
Brain bidet?
Is that like a normal bidet? Or do you have to hold your head up-side down? Every possibility worries me.
Janine, it’s rather easy if you have a flexible-hosed shower head with the “really, that’s supposed to be a massage? But it’s massively painful!” setting that I do. Because, well, it takes fairly ferocious water pressure to bidet a brain.
But I’m done, and happy again.
Sheesh. And to think I stopped following that thread literally eight comments before wordplague’s first post because I thought it was fizzling out.
Maybe I should start using the subscription feature.
It’s for… after you… you know…
You figure it out.
Trolling is a power play made by those with no self esteem. The troll(s) in question know that they would just embarrass themselves if they tried to have a real debate with intelligent and charming Freethought commentators. Trolling is akin to indecent exposure–“Hey! I made someone prettier than myself look at my junk! That’s like 1/16 as good as actually having sex!”
There’s also Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Subase Bangor in Silverdale a couple miles north which I think got combined into something like Naval Base Kitsap. Depending on how their internet is the networks could be linked back to the same whatever, I do not know how things like that work but the military does a lot of joint base operations when it comes to garbage like that. Subs come into both bases and I want to say that part of the nuke training is there and there are also Marines.
SO! There is totally an MP unit on each base and they may be the people to contact.
http://www.cnic.navy.mil/kitsap/index.htm
garnetstar:
Is this the kind of Navy Seal you thought about?
I’m ashamed to know there are people as horrible as wordplague in my home state.
Looks like a Marine animal to me.
We have an alternative to (the highly dangerous) brain bidet over at TZT.
Hmmm my ex father-in-law was a nuclear machinist at PSNS for many years after he retired from the sub service, which is why my ex is from Silverdale.
(Absolutely kidding, none of my ex’s family would be involved in that kind of hate trolling. The worst thing I got from them was having to eat potato sausage when we visited the Minnesota clan.)
Laugh if you want.
Many years ago, when I was wee puppy, I read somewhere about US NAVY using orcas and sea-lions for retrieval of sunken training torpedoes. It just happened that week or so later I heard the name “Navy SEAL” for the first time in my life. It was pretty obvious conclusion…
So to sum up, a bored graduate student with nothing to do but babysit a lab in the overnight hours is upset that he was reprimanded for allowing the liquid nitrogen to run out. It seems that if he used this downtime to inventory supplies, he’d solve the discipline problem as well as the boredom issue all at the same time.
As a taxpayer, I am offended that my hard-earned money is paying for this student to be playing on the internet when he should be working, regardless of the harmful nature of his posts.
@46 Garnetstar:
Nitrogen and lasers can be used for all sorts of applications, including micro/cell biology, material science (surfaces or particle size/shape analysis), disassembly of machine parts or nuclear casings, etc… any or all of the above. I’ve never worked with them but I know researchers who have. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bremerton had many labs equipped this way, considering the size of the shipyard and research facilities.
Bremerton, and facilities that work in nuclear or biological applications, do really take security seriously. If this troll is working with dangerous equipment, it means he passed a background check and is subject to continuing security evaluations. I suspect that they’ll be very interested in finding out who he is before they have a particularly unhinged moment IRL.
QFT.
PZ: I have a friend who occasionally does work in some of the Navy labs in Bremerton. I might be able to have them investigate a bit if you want.
Dolphins not orcas. There’s a pretty good skeptoid podcast on that that also addresses rumors that they have dolphin assassins with knives strapped to their flippers.
Totally OT, but:
Aren’t orcas dolphins?
@Gnumann
Yes but not all dolphins are orcas
To my knowledge the stories were about not-orcas.
Cause you know the point of having a aquatic scout for investigation and recovery and mine disposal would sort of rule out the biggest species of dolphin.
Same reason we don’t have sumo wrestlers act as jockeys
Gnumann:
While Orcas belong to the oceanic dolphin family, they are whales.
See this is why biologists like their latin names!
Now, that I would like to see, but I’m a cruel man that don’t like horses very much (except for dinner).
@ 115
Well, yes, but according to wikipedia, both orcas and dolphins are part of the oceanic dolphins – the Delphinidae family of cetaceans.
Is it wrong I posted this because I’ll probably never be able to use Delphinidae in every day conversation? Or orcas, for that matter.
Also dolphin can also refer to a type of fish so…yeah.
Hi, i’m from the Navy. If you could forward all information about this suspect to me I would appreciate it. Lord knows we don’t have anything better to do than police blogs.
Well, it was two decades ago or so. Though I’d swear I clearly remember photo of orca with forwarder claws-like contraption on the nose.
Upon some googling and reading wikipedia article about U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program as it is apparently called, it seems that they did use orcas at some point, so I might not be confabulating after all.
Well, Fluffy, all you have to do to work “orca” into a conversation is to start talking about the odious film career of one Dino DeLaurentis.
I think I just threw up in my brain.
@Fluffy
The point was that orca is very specific, while the actual claim of trained cetacean wet workers…ha HA see what I did there…was not for that specific species, to the best of my recollection.
huh…well fuck me.
I guess I just gave the Navy more credit to have the foresight to recognize that for the goal of navigating wrecks, stealth sabatogue of ships and disarming mines you wouldn’t want an animal as big as a sports boat.
Also best derail ever
orcas are dolphins?
*goes on wikipedia*
oh, I see. dolphins are one kind of “toothed whale”, and killer whales are one kind of dolphin. now it makes sense again.
Perhaps they thought the ability to chow down enemy divers in two gulps might be useful, though I would hate to be the one training them for that.
Well, maybe not for those purposes, Ing, but orcas can take out seals like they were kittens.
Hell, maybe even Navy ones….
Where’s ORCA Team 6?
@Gnumann
Awesome but impractical
Same result if you can just attach a blade to a dolphin or sea lion’s flipper.
Plus it’s over kill. in the water against any of the Delphinidae or Sea Lion a human is just a big fleshy bobbing balloon of organs warped in cellophane.
Yeah, but if you get a Sea Loin on land they’re just a…one-ton wall of angry death.
Basically as I see it you already have boats, sumbarines etc for muscle and tanks…training sea mammels is to get speed, agility and stealth that human’s can’t match.
plus I recall one goal to be to train them to slap an adhesive explosive pay load onto a target, so yeah smaller is better to avoid detection.
For infiltrators you go with dolphins and sea lions, if you want to make a killing machine to give 00 status to you pick an orca because they already come with their own suit
Then again the military is the same org that spent a metric butt load of money putting a radio inside a cat only to then let the cat get hit by a taxi cab
At least with sea lion pups, the orcas like to play with their food, kinda the same way as cats. So yes, smaller dolphins with
bladeslasers on their heads would be more effective.I think tumblers are especially vicious (just in case the overlord is listening, but I should expect he knows all these things).
Yeah, okay…hadn’t heard that one.
Dish!
:-D
[insert shaken seal joke here]
Maybe they were hoping that enemy seeing orca will think along the lines of “Wow, it reminds me that one visit to the Marineland” and not “Drop the depth charges!”. Like many great military strategies, it might actually work.
Once.
Gaebolga:
Time for the Brain Bidet™?
(It’s like a nasal enema, only more penetrative!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty
Someone has too much time on their hands, time better spent on monitoring their networks I might add.
Wow.
Poor cat. And cats.
But aside from that: bwa ha ha ha ha hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
There was also a WWII program that sought to use trained pidgeons as little diesel punk targeting computers for missiles. BK Skinner was involved (no surprise).
I choose to imagine that that’s what’s controlling the flying turrets in Bioshock
Ing @ #139 — “American intelligence”…Isn’t that an oxymoron? The cat spy experiment isn’t a testament to intelligence.
Oh, I remember this one. It was pretty ingenious and actually quite promising. They trained pigeons to hit ship silhouette with their beaks and used touchscreen-like device to feed the signal into missile controls. But then somebody invented transistor and homing missile pigeons become obsolete.
More bizarre military uses for animals
1. Using chickens to keep nuclear land mines from freezing(Link) (UK)
2. Using bats with incendiary devices strapped to them to destroy Japanese towns (that one has a twist ending) (Link) (US)
3. Using dogs as anti-tank devices (Link) (Soviet Union)
4. As sabotage weapons to destroy enemy factories (Link) (UK)
This is just wrong. All dolphins are whales. Its the equivalent of saying that human beings are monkeys because because both are apes.
To give you some idea:
Whale -> Toothed Whales -> Dolphins -> Orcas
Whale -> Baleen Whale -> Rorquals -> Blue Whale
@Robro
It is an amazing testimony to the compartmentalization of competency.
Actually making the cat was a triumph of engineering, surgery and batshit sadism/callousness.
Losing it the way they did and also actually thinking up that idea is a triumph of fucking idiocy.
So yes, they ironically had to be fucking brilliant to reach that level of epic stupidity!
Thant would be Bell Labs.
Wha – no, that’s not how it works. See comments 127 and 146.
?
I am hoping someone can answer my challenge. It may not relate to what the original post contained, but it cuts to the bone of this blog.
I have been recovering from a severe depression, in which I began to feel I had no hope at all. After I left the hospital, someone I trust told me part of my problem was that I did not believe we have life outside this body.
Without hope in another and better world, it did seem that everything was bleak, especially the prospect of another depression. So I began studying about an afterlife, especially the phenomenon called the near-death experience (NDE). I read Moody, Van Lommel, Long, Atwater, and others on this subject. I researched NDE extensively on the Web.
From the abundance of evidence, I have concluded that I will live again, in this or another world. I am not just a bunch of chemicals reacting, but a spiritual being temporarily traveling in this world. This realization is beginning to transform me into a much more peaceful, spiritual person.
But am I now deluded in believing that consciousness goes on beyond death, and that therefore there is hope? This is my challenge: I defy you to show that there is any hope or purpose or value to life, if it all ends at death.
johnfreethinker I believe is not new but is an old troll, IIRC if not I appologize.
Also I think you’re lying. If not I apologize.
Also go to TZT for this.
If you did you would have found that it has a simple physiological explanation and can be induced in people who have no chance of actually dying.
@David Marjanović
Navy Seals.
Get it?
@A. R.
Thanks for the links. Nuclear mines, really?
From wiki: “It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes.”
No no no. You attach a limpet mine to a dolphin. Didn’t you ever see Day of the Dolphin?
@Dean
Yes if you want to take down an enemy ship or the like…but when you want a counter defense against their frogmen
What nonsense. Just because something ends is no argument against enjoying it while it lasts. That’s like asking “Why get high if you’re going to end up sober again later?” or “Why open the beer if there’s only 12 ounces in it?” or “Why watch Firefly when there’s only 14 episodes?” All of them very silly questions.
Not only are you very, very silly and pompous, but you’re also in the wrong thread. If you want to talk about something off-topic and also nonsensical, go here.
If we all promise to be as miserable as you think we should be will you leave us alone?
Presume there is no “spiritual being”.
Let’s say you’re an astronaut. You’re going to be one of the first people to populate a settlement on another planet. You’re leaving in a week. You will never see any of the people that are not part of your mission again.
Is there any purpose or value in the week before your trip, or do you ignore everyone else since they’re all “dead to you” within a week anyway?
Won’t really touch on anything else since this feels like a troll, but I’m curious as to your answer.
@150
If you researched it then you surely must have noticed that people “go” wherever they expect they would go before the NDE. That makes a strong case for it being a delusion instead of reality. People who take powerful hallucinogenic drugs report similar things.
No one can prove a negative. I can’t prove there isn’t an invisible unicorn that directs the flow of after death spirits, but I can say that it seems pretty damn unlikely to exist because there is no real evidence of such a thing existing.
Which, again, he should place in this thread.
He’s posting on every fucking thread he can find. Fuck em. He’s a drive by. I also do not appreciate one second his dishonest coopting of people’s actual struggles with depression or suicidal thoughts. I don’t think he’s honest for one second and I think he’s a fucking monster for pulling the “believe in god or i’ll kill myself” card.
Thats actually a bad analogy. Let me try again:
While human beings belong to the great apes family they are apes.
Ah, I didn’t realize single threads that seem to have wrapped up weren’t fair game anymore (as long as things don’t get too silly). Also didn’t realize he was posting in multiple threads.
So now there’s a Zombie thread on top of TET? What decides which posts belong in which?
I don’t get the upset with releasing someone’s IP address.
A board I used to use (I think it was an NBC space tech board, years ago) used to put EVERYONE’S IP address in plain sight alongside their name in every comment.
If I had a blog with people trolling and harassing, exposing their IP address would be a standard practice for me.
Regarding “Acoustic Kitty” – if I recall, the reason that the poor cat was immediately hit by a taxi cab upon deployment was because they had spent so much time training it to ignore distractions (and you know, not be a cat) that it didn’t even notice the cab as it made a beeline across the street toward the target.
Wow, that’s going to go a long way towards defusing suspicion.
TZT is for trolls, vitriolic arguments between regulars that make the social environment in TET unpleasant, and lengthy, involved arguments that derail/take over threads about other things (right now, a discussion about free will, for instance). PZ sometimes quarantines trolls to there as a mid-step between ignoring them and banning them. In general: Off-topic posting belongs in TET, unless it’s trolling, in which case TZT.
@mythbri
Possibly, however I can’t shake the feeling that “we trained the cat too well” is a bit of a ego salvaging story for the actual problem of “we put a radio in a fucking cat”
To be fair if you saw a cat acting strange would you presume it was somehow a spy or that it was just a cat?
@Ing
I might assume it was something like the fly from 5th Element. I would also wonder, this project was in the 60’s how big was this cat and how short of range was the radio?
@Icaarus
Yes but after you thought that would you then shake your head and remind yourself that that was a movie and you’re talking about real world security and a real cat!
Refuge in Audacity.
Also it was a roach not a fly
Phylogeny!
Whale (Cetecea)
│
├──Toothed Whale (Odontocetae)
│ │
│ ├─Sperm Whale (Physeteroidea)
│ │
│ └─Dolphin, Oceanic (Delphinidae)
│ │
│ ├─Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops)
│ │
│ └─Orca (Orcinus)
│
└──Baleen Whale (Mysticetae)
│
├─Right Whale/Bowhead Whale (Balaenidae)
│
└─Rorquals (Balaenopteridae)
│
├─Humpback Whale (Megapterinae)
│
└─Blue Whale (Balaenoptera)
I think that was the CIA, but your point still stands.
This is the same bunch who, at the time, were supervised by a man who, half seriously, insisted that the way to destroy the Soviet Union was to drop condoms over the entire nation. The condoms were to be about two feet long and would be labelled: “Capitalist Condom: Extra Small.” I really wonder how seriously some of these people took their assignments. Or how seriously the managers took the assignments.
Which when you think about it is a moronic decision for a bugged bug. People are going to try to kill a roach even when it’s just a roach!
Make it a lady bug where people will just ignore it.
Lets just back up one second, I completely missed the most amazing part of this. THEY TRAINED A CAT!!!!! Seriously??? How do you do that???
@Ing
Based on the fact that they put a fucking radio in a cat, I have my suspicions about the methods of “training” they used as well. One is certainly cruel, the other is very likely cruel also.
And honestly, if I saw a cat acting strangely it would not surprise me at all to discover that it was part of a vast feline conspiracy. The only thing that would make me doubt it is that it would be too conformist for them. ;)
@Icaarus
In all seriousness I have seen an entire trope of trained cats
Humans are monkeys, for a broad enough (phylogenetic) definition of “monkey”.
But then, humans (and monkeys) are fish, for a broad enough (phylogenetic) definition of “fish”.
Embrace your inner fish!
oh, look, it’s a sockpuppet. I suppose that’s an “afterlife” of a sort.
anyway.
implied James Bond/orca joke
@owlmirror
It owns, but I can see how people get honestly confused on that subject.
I have never trained a cat, but it occurred to me that if you gave a cat food in association with the recorded sound of the target speaking in Russian (presumably from conventional bugs/microphones), you might get a Pavlovian tendency to associate the target speaking in Russian with food.
I had a cat that was trained to play fetch!
I managed to get him not hit by a taxi too!
The sidetracks today have been kinda awesome. Nuclear subs, trained cats, various cetaceans, monkeys and other mammals. All while discussing marsupial codes of law. Just wondering if any official Navy response has been received to the original quackery that started this?.
Ing:
I am trying to find a book that I have that is a critical history of the CIA. If I recall (I last read the book a decade ago), it was an attempt at radio control of the cat — left, right, stop, go. The movements of the domestic cat were jerky as the interface between the radio transmitter and the parts of the brain that controlled movement were very approximate (not to mention (given the state of state of the art technology at the time) really large). They managed, with the final ‘prototype’ (yes, there were multiple tries at this), to get a cat that would go where the radio controller wanted it to go. The idea was to use the cat, with explosives, as an assassination device.
The test was to walk the cat across a street and under a table at which sat three CIA officers. The cat was killed by a taxi while crossing the street.
I will look for the book tonight and try to find that particular passage. It was from a time, pre-Vietnam, when the CIA assumed itself to be all powerful and capable of anything. Considering the experiments with LSD (which involved the suicide of some of the people involved), the various assassination attempts throughout the world (many would be absolutely hilarious if they weren’t actually trying to kill people) and the absolute and mind blowing gullibility shown by these intelligence professionals.
That is so simple. Your life is a net negative for the human species. It’s value isn’t zero, it is highly negative. You are a xian and a troll, a twofer.
Yet you are still alive.
This shows that belief in an afterlife (if it exists) does not provide value to people’s lives.
Ask the suicide bombers in the ME and those who flew jets into the world trade center. They clearly believed in an afterlive where they would be humping their brains out with 72 virgins. And all they did of note was kill thousands of random strangers, another clear negative value for their existence.
PS I realize john the notthinker is a liar and a xian, which is sort of a redundant, but my life was running out of purpose temporarily so I decided to play with a troll. A troll is at least real as opposed to any afterlife.
My mind is now imagining a combination of all topics.
Trained orcas suddenly breach up out of the waves and flop themselves onto the deck of an enemy ship! They open their mouths and out runs two dozen trained kamakazi cats
ing, you forgot about the marsupial court
I find it a bit easier to look at a macaque and think “hi coz!” than a salmon.
OTOH there’s monkfish…
David Marjanović missed the opportunity to point out:
— Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.
— Nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of phylogeny.
So I guess I it’s up to me.
Their orders came from a wombat
He rides around the office in a mobility scooter and smokes heavily from his cigar.
‘Tis Himself #62
Reality aside, I prefer Firesign Theatre’s Secret Code of Military Toughness.
Ing: Gerund of Death #120
When I was a kid my parents took their first vacation to the Caribbean. My dad was all happy that he had caught a “big dolphin”. I was in tears.
While pigeons fly zeppelins and provide air support.
And to add to the chaos, I misread that.
(Yes, my brain is a silly place sometimes.)
The pigeons also collectively form a biopunk internet that serves as the uploaded mind of Tesla
I said that my life was becoming more spiritual, more hopeful, because I believe in life after death. For this I get compared to Islamic jihadis? I would rather jump out a window myself, if it would prevent another 9-11.
So no one has an answer, only insults and that dreaded word “troll”. What I am trolling for is anyone who can answer my question, and you have not.
Again, if my life (or consciousness) ends at death, where is hope?
Yes. There is not the slightest reason to believe in any such thing.
Trivially easy: I believe “it all ends at death”, yet I have hopes, purposes and values. The same, of course, is true of millions of others.
@john
If you didn’t want to be called troll you wouldn’t have splattered copypasta against all the walls.
If life doesn’t end with death why not kill yourself?
I also don’t think your earnest about your depression one bit and as someone who has had depression and all that jazz and know people who have had problems with suicidal thoughts I find your little jape quite offensive.
So how about you answer my question; if we all promise to be miserable will you go away?
Oh, and as for being a stealth Christian: that’s easy. Christ be damned, and the Father and Holy Spirit screw each other. Good enough? I do not believe in God, but I don’t disbelieve. I do believe that I will live beyond this life, or else there is no value and no hope.
FFS why should we even have to prove this. Isn’t the fact that we’re not utter depressed twits evidence enough?
Frankly you sound like you’re personally offended that we’re all not suicidal or miserable.
I don’t know if there’s hope in life but I have ample art supplies, a job offer lined up, and a nigh infinite amount of cartoons on Netflix and Going Postal arriving in the mail which is a close enough approximation for me!
What’s that *listens to whispering*
Oh I’m also married to someone wonderful…that’s nice too
Ok, so why would you want to prejudice that by putting it up to scrutiny? Here’s your honest answer. There is no hope for you after death, you will cease to exist as a consciousness. There may be some glimmer of hope in that the things you do and create while you are alive could have an impact long after your death.
There’s no hope for Leonardo Da Vinci from his point of view, but there’s still a lasting value in his life.
Willing to test that claim? I doubt it.
It makes me happy to think about the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Therefore…
Well we can’t KNOW that there’s no afterlife…but there’s no reason to hold out hope for one.
Hell even if I wanted some form of non-death, there’s no chance for me to get the one I want. I want 12 regenerations to experience the universe through time and through 13 sets of different eyes.
What a fuckwitted question. Only presuppositionalists use that fuckwitted and leading, but inane question. You see, what makes it inane is your deity is imaginary, you don’t have a soul, and when you die your existence ends. Prove otherwise with evidence from the peer reviewed scientific literature like this, showing NDEs are scientifically explained as hypoxia, brain shutting down and starting up, and false memories. If you lie about that, what else will you lie about? I presume any and everything…
@Jafafa Hots
I wouldn’t go to Candy Mountain though if I were you… Why such hope can be harmful
Obviously, I cannot speak for you or for anyone else, but here is my take:
I will end — physically, mentally, my conscious and subconscious, everything — when I die. But, in a couple of ways, I will continue. My children, and their children, will be a part of this world. My goal is twofold — make the world a better place for my progeny and for everyone else in the world, and ensure that those who know me remember me in a positive way. Neither of those will make a bit of difference to me as I will be dead, but it helps me feel better now.
And you will (I predict) either ignore what I just wrote, or try to twist what I have written into either hopelessness or a belief in an afterlife because you are a bit of an asshole.
You can start with the fact that you posted your inane little “challenge” on a completely unrelated thread and apparently feel ENTITLED to decide the topic of discussion for a whole lot of people who have seen this shit repeatedly before and are bored to tears of it.
This is very disappointing. I had really expected more than sophomoronic slurs. Now as to the point that we can have hope and value etc., without living beyond death: the Islamic jihadis on 9-11 had no value for others’ lives. but plenty of hope for an adolescent afterlife, according to their scriptures.
Of course that invalidates Islam as a path to truth, but that is beside the point. If at death we become dust, so do our children and the entire species. So there is no real value, and no hope, unless I believe that I will continue.
Dear John the troll,
Believe whatever you want. Just don’t insist everyone else believe what you do.
Damn, I’m good. I predicted the asshole would ignore my comment and, lo and behold, it did!
I’m ok with that. Why is that such a problem for you to accept.
I AM OK WITH THAT
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
What is with this game: “either prove me wrong, upon which I threaten to kill myself or I mock you for not proving me wrong upon which I demand you be miserable”
Yes, entropy will win and eventually there will be nothing left. Not even photons of light. You believing otherwise won’t change that.
Then give us something other than fuckwittery and presupposition. Show your imginary deity exists with conclusive physical evidence, like an eternally burning bush or equivalent. Show your soul exists with similar conclusive physical evidence. Or, shut the fuck up as a person of honesty and integrity would do when they can’t put up the required evidence. Because if they can’t shut the fuck up, they are tacitly conceding they are liars and bullshitters. Your choice cricket. Choose wisely.
insults, honeycakes. no one used slurs against you.
john, you’re in the wrong thread. I told you this already. You are displaying a stunning lack of respect for the people here by derailing an unrelated thread to spew your bullshit.
Wait a tic…no it does not!
Why would it? When did Islam get invalidated in this conversation? Where? Because you don’t like what the Jihadists did? Well if they’re right that hardly matters, now doesn’t it! And even if they’re wrong there’s still the rest of Islam that is not murderous and provides hope and meaning for a good chunk of the world population? Can you prove them wrong?
How the fuck did we go from rape jokes to remote-controlled cats to life after death? What do they have in common?
I find value and hope in my present life. I don’t feel the need for my consciousness to continue after my death. So sorry, John the troll, you’ll not get satisfaction to your gotcha question from me.
You might have better luck talking to some goddists. They do afterlives.
I mean if we’re going by what the consequences is and rejected thsoe we don’t like I’d much rather not think about a future where you keep blathering on when I want to talk about nuclear powered cyborg cats riding laser dolphins in their war against the Kangaroo/pigeon alliance.
Copter-cat, obviously.
Oh, I was going to point out that I just saw John Freethinker on another thread (somewhere on FTB, too many tabs going atm to check) who was going full Islamophobe (“hello fellow Atheists, isn’t it terrible how those Muslims want to rape your women? Why can’t they be more like those Christians”).
Looks like it’s the same guy.
If we’re on life after death then that means we stopped talking ab otu remote cats and other biopunk ideas…a prospect I do not enjoy.
Therefore until someone can prove otherwise we are still talking about murderous sea otters and espionage poodles
Thought so.
Let me be snarky John Free Thought “I encourage anything that moves you more and more towards the spiritual realm”
I was thinking more along the lines of all of them being people who think their view of the world should be adopted by everyone regardless of whether they want to or not.
Coptercat works, though.
Btw John I gave a long thought out insult free response to you…but since you copy pasted your screed in so many places I have no idea where it is. Happy hunting!
Ah, here’s the link I was thinking about. 8ish months ago. Maybe it’s just a common name for this class of troll.
y’all do realize that johnny here is very likely a sockpuppet of…. whateverthefuck the name of that godbot with an NDE-obsession was, right?
You’re a fucking monster John. I normally don’t do this but between your dishonest pity whoring upon the backs of people who actually suffered from mental illness and your racism let me make this perfectly clear.
I really really REALLY wish you’d lose hope.
@jadehawk
I’m not surprised.
Though Shiloh/Scifi I hate to say it, seemed above this bullshit. And above Islamaphobia.
I don’t think it is Shiloh/SciFi, as its shtick is a bit different. Kenny was the old one who was monomania on the subject.
I posted my comment before seeing Paul’s link, which is another, possibly more parsimonious explanation. OTOH, scifi did try that schtick of “I’m not a Christian, but look, evidence for NDEs!” crap, which is why I immediately thought of sockpuppeting
Actually, Islam is a good path- if one likes robbing, raping and murdering. Why not? Mohammed had a 9-year-old wife. Anyone who (sigh) calls me an “Islamophobe” should check out Bare Naked Islam. Even the Islamic afterlife is hell for women.
Now could someone please tell me what value or hope I have, if life does not continue beyond death?
Shiloh/Scifi just read from a script and rewound the tape constantly. AFAIK he never pulled the “or I’ll shoot the bunny” gimmick.
Here’s one thing I have hope for. I hope that one day we advance as a species to not have people like Johnfreethought.
John, you can believe whatever the fuck you want, but that don’t make it true. Indeed, if you have to believe it, it probably isn’t true.
What you say adds up to saying that if there is no life after death, you don’t have any hope for life after death. Which merits a “well, duh” from the audience.
The only reason that anybody hopes for life after death is that a religion has told them there would be life after death. Whichever religious person told you that was lying to you. But somehow you end up over here bitching at us honest people for disappointing you. We didn’t lie to you, we didn’t make you tithe your allowance, we didn’t make you sit in stiff clothes on a hard pew all your sunny Sunday mornings. We aren’t the ones to be mad at or to be demanding explanations from.
For you to say that you turning to dust condemns the species is really a dumb-ass thought. The species will go on, just fine without you, and will probably do a bit better without you depressing up the place, competing for resources and wasting bandwidth–plus your decayed body gets recycled (hopefully into someone a bit smarter).
Your ‘nym is hilariously inappropriate, BTW.
So if Islam is right none of that stuff matters though? So how do you invalidate it.
Also please please PLEASE go meditate in a tumble dryer you fascist piece of shit.
Does anybody want to talk more about Whales? Whales are cool.
john, I have to conclude, from the fact that you’re still posting in the wrong thread, that you’re not actually reading the responses to you. For that reason,* I can’t be bothered to post any sort of response to your bullshit insincere questions.
I’m kinda afraid of whales. True story.
Here.
On the off chance Johnfreeballingit hasn’t compleatly shut off his mind, why don’t you read this thread http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/12/modern-bravery/ for people talking about what actual MEers are actually like.
Fucking savage barbarian selfish racist thug. I would much prefer to be around my arab friends than any ‘freethinker’ like you. I wouldn’t trade 50 decent Muslims for you. If a mad man put you and a nice muslim in a death trap and made me chose who to save I would have already unlocked the Muslim chap and be skipping merrily along before he finished his posh laughter.
So far, you haven’t demonstrated that you have any value whatsoever. I suppose there’s at least a slim hope you might change that someday.
“I really really REALLY wish you would give up hope.” and that to a man with bipolar II, one eye and no sleep. Amazing. But if anyone can answer my challenge, please email me at johnfreethinker@gmail. Otherwise I am out of here.
I don’t care. that does not excuse your fucking assholery.
I told you the “or I’ll kill myself” game was not going to work with me. If I thought you were not bullshiting even slightly I’d be ‘civil’ but I am damn sure you are cynically being exploitative. Because you’re shit. Shit does not deserve hope. Shit deserves a good flushing and some fabreez on the carpet it was on.
Not really a deep thinker, are you?
If this life is all there is, then it contains the maximal potential amount of hope and meaning (and everything else). If nothing comes next, then that is where hope and meaning (and everything else) are absent.
If there is eternal life, then whatever you do in this episode doesn’t matter at all in the big scheme of things. Except for derailing comment threads. There is a special place in hell for people who do that.
It is up to you to maximize the potential for hope and meaning in this life, as it is the only one you get. Instead, you troll the Internet wanking away your short time and testing the patience and forbearance of the rest of us.
Think of them as friendly fatsos who never got out the pool.
If you were really the freethinker you claim to be, you’d know that you have to make your own. That’s kind of the whole point: you don’t need to settle for an off the peg, one-size-doesn’t-really-fit-anyone packaged version, you get to have your own customized value and hope.
I’ve been told, but can’t find any evidence to support it, that certain whales’ vocalizations can be heard for thousands of kilometers in the open ocean. Imagine having a conversation when you have to wait hours to get a reply.
*slaps in the back of the head with a fish*
Do you really want to go there when everyone is already right ticked off?
Division by zero error.
If you actually have to ask a question as stupidly idiotic as this, well, there’s no hope for you.
But that’s your problem, not mine, as I have no trouble finding hope in my life.
As for yours, well frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Well, I had a pretty decent lunch at a kinda fun new job, rode home on a powerful Italian motorscooter, and I will be joining my adoring spouse for an even tastier dinner this evening. We will also watch some cool TV and I will drink a yummy drink.
Life is for living – that’s its point, or lack thereof.
I have to wonder, though, if johnfreethinker’s real name is actually John, if I know him. He sounds like an old ex-friend of mine. If his last initial is “H”, I bet I know who it is. He was a semi-mystical non-Christian and was – quite frankly – too arrogant to even believe in his own death.
Of course, realistically, the odds of it being the same person are vanishingly low… but it would be kinda cool anyway.
wtf
Don’t do that.
Are you really so incompetent and lazy that you have to plead for us to tell you what to think for you?
Hmm, never mind, that doesn’t fit the description. Unless, of course, it’s bullshit – ’cause that would be spot on.
Seriously when your gimick is “I need a reason or else my life is meaningless and I’ll lose hope” you have to realize that is dependent on people actually LIKING you. Being a deplorable asshole is just going to make people agree that there’s no hope and send you on your despicable way.
Now I’m thinking of Baldanders and the type of creature he was growing into from The Book of the New Sun. This is the opposite of comforting.
I think of whales as hippos who got washed out to sea. Hippos are killers, and a bunch of lost mutant hippos have got to be worse.
Yeah, it’s not scifi. Xe always claimed to be an agnostic while godbotting. Believe me, after nearly a year or so of dealing with hir, I would recognize that troll. Raj, perhaps though?
@Menyambal
Been a while since I was at a dissection of one but IIRC the idea was that Hippos are closer to Sirenia than Cetacea.
Took my family to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago last week. They have several beluga whales. I have serious misgivings about the appropriateness of keeping whales in captivity.
Unless they can be trained to eat trolls.
Your challenged is a fuckwitted game. Your deity is imaginary, existing only between your ears. The soul doesn’t exist either. When you die, you die. Prove otherwise. Gee, by posting your e-mail and getting it spammed by the bots, you are acknowledging your defeat due to lack of evidence. Typical coward, afraid to admit they are wrong due to lack of evidence…
@IMaginesABeach
Apparently at the Research Facility we visited on honeymoon the dolphins are free to leave whenever they want…they just don’t want to because it’s their home and they get free food and access to happy sexy time. YMMV
I prefer to think of whales as bald Brian Blesseds
Hey look, a troll. Not even close to on topic either. They just march in and demand attention and answers. Don’t you all just love that sense of entitlement?
John The Troll said:
Will they stick the landing?
John’free’thinker is exhibiting a meme which is fairly common in Xtian thought, or at least what passes for thought among Xtians. That meme is, If it ain’t infinite, it ain’t worth shit. Life ends? Well, in that case life ain’t infinite, therefore life ain’t worth shit. The afterlife, being infinite (eternal) by definition, is clearly worth shit, maybe even shit-and-a-half or (o blessed day!) two shits.
If John’free’thinker is actually serious here, he’s totally drunk the finite-ain’t-worth-shit Flavor-Aid, and therefore is either incapable of, or else unwilling to try, understanding any answer which is fundamentally 100% incompatible with the finite-ain’t-worth-shit meme, in which case there is no point in trying to converse with him/her/it/them. If, on t’other hand, John’free’thinker is Just Another Goddamn Godbot Troll, there is, again, no point in trying to converse with him/her/it/them. Whatever else people choose to do in response to John’free’thinker depends on which diagnosis they cleave unto, and what sort of response(s) they deem suitable for the diagnosis at hand…
There’s no denying it whales are ungodly killing machines.
You can continue here.
If you can’t find meaning in living 80 years, what meaning is there in extending that 80 years to infinity?
If life bores you that much, why ask for more?
I would be much happier if the whales were free to leave. However, while Lake Michigan is large enough to allow this, it is somewhat lacking in salt.
Apparently in last hurricane they did have a gate get torn. one dolphin used it to leave…and spend time in one of the female’s lagoons. Yay babies!
johnfreefapper would appear to be an example of the species Trollodon assholicus racistii.
Answered it, asshole, and you ignored it. Enjoy your coprophagic life choices.
Impossible. Hippos are artiodactyls; Sirenia are not.
Ing: Ummm, we don’t have hurricanes in Michigan.
@Owlmirror
Ty. I’m probably misremembering. It was a long time ago and I was just there to hold tools
Without a pod they probably wouldn’t fare too well. Were these dolphins raised in captivity?
@AR
Not talking about Michigan
It’s so bizarre to listen to someone who’s convinced that only eternal life can have meaning. From my understanding of it, that argument could hardly be more wrong. What value is there to any given day when they will never run out? How could anyone possibly fill up eternity with meaningful experiences and not run out? It has value because it’s finite.
Granted, I wouldn’t mind living until I had gotten quite bored. But even with my irrational worries about death and dying, I don’t think I’d want to be around forever.
Believe so since most were born there. Probably no reason/inclination/thought of leaving.
A.R. – Ing is talking about dolphins (I believe on the East Coast), while I am talking about whales in Chicago.
you do not RC.
Hippos and cetaceans are sister groups. Sirenids are closer to elephants.
all of the mammals
Confusion, as the aquarium last mentioned was the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, on the western shore of Lake Michigan.
@ChasCPeterson
Thank you. Now I remember that that’s the same question I asked back in HS and got the right answer…which I flipped around. Egg on face.
sirenians, I mean (sirenids are salamanders)
Oooh but awesome graphic ty.
At that point they’ve missed out. They actually don’t know what to do in the open sea. Sad in a way, but i’m sure they have a good life there.
As Doug Erwin said:
We don’t get out of life alive. The same applies to the earth. One day, it will die too. We’ll be gone before then. *shrug* I love life and I’m going to enjoy every fucking moment of it, thank you. If you dislike it so much, there are options.
Well to distract from me looking like an idiot for spitting out a factoid from 10 years ago without checking let’s laugh at someone else being stupid
Can’t you just feel the compassion from mr “those sand barbarians want to rape you?”
Wow. Bit full of yourself, aren’t you? You think everything revolves around you?
Aquarium confusion: That would be the result of my brain overloading. I’m going to go bash my head against a wall now.
Oh, the huge manatee!
PLEASE RESPOND TO johntrollthinker ONLY in TZT.
TZT needs commentators.
@Menyambal
YES I KNOW I KNOW!!! me
@170 – Icaarus:
I was going to make that precise comparison because it was a deeply amusing and incompetent concept. I didn’t realise somebody had actually done it. It’s as if the CIA took ‘it’s like trying to herd cats’ as a challenge. I wonder if they experimented with other idioms by trying to create actual chocolate fireguards or using camouflage to change a leopard’s spots. They clearly took ‘a fool and hir money are soon parted’ to heart.
As an aside and if anyone is willing to answer (here or elsewhere), does anyone with depressive episodes find abstract hopes akin to those mentioned by John helpful? My experience has been that thoughts and acts are corrupted and warped so that anything, irrespective of whether it inspires me normally, can become self-destructive or can be dismissed as futile. As a result, abstract concepts aren’t a defence or helpful in returning to stability.
Flowing from that, I’m struggling to understand how somebody could pin their entire ability to exist on a single conceptualisation, as if it’s immutable and immune from such factors. Is this common or is was it an unrepresentative view offered by somebody despicably trying to use suicidal behaviour and depression as a hollow rhetorical device?
Sorry, Ing, I wasn’t giving you a hard time, I was just going for the lame pun.
Exactly.
The later
Valindrius:
That specimen is just trolling, and is not worth discussing; that said, delusions are delusional and if they give one hope it’s just pathetic.
(Bah)
No. I do far better focusing on the concrete: job accomplishments, family, books, that sort of thing. Abstractions tend to head either to childhood and cub scouts or to the 2001 terrorist attacks. Both of those show up anytime I try to go for abstract hopes, dreams, non concrete brain farts. Reality is a pretty good defense against the places where my brain wants to go.
Here’s hope for you:
After you die, you go to a place filled with clouds and Christians, you are issued a harp, and a Bronze-Age psychotic expects you to entertain him.
For fucking ever.
no
If such abstractions were actually useful Christians would never commit suicide. Yet they do.
That’s the thing about depression, it’s not just a blue state where someone shaking a shiney object in your view can distract you out of. If it were no one would be depressed because it feels awful. If you could get out of it by either finding an abstract hope or even just by doing something you love people would. It’s a problem because it is difficult and traps you.
I can’t think of any “abstract hopes” anything like what jft posted that would make sense to me even on good days. O.o But yeah, what Og said. Too much time spent just thinking, especially about my life, is the worst possible thing for me; I get stuck inside my head, and it’s not a nice place. Have to focus on the concrete, and have to spend time “doing”.
Plus it’s rather cruel to say that people are depressed because they havn’t found “hope” or something to believe in. It’s bullshit.
I don’t think anyone has ever committed suicide because of the eventual heat-death of the universe. There’s far more immediate concerns usually, maybe even limited to the death of the sun.
We have 100 years on this planet if we’re really really lucky. When I think about that its more of a motivator than anything.
Fairly standard modern US right wing tactic. If you have a problem (you are sick, you are poor, you are depressed, you suffer from an addiction) it is all your fault. The sick are ill because they eat too much, or smoke, or are not exercising, therefore I (the ‘I’ in this case being the anti-tax right winger) should not have to pay for your medical care. If you are poor, it is because you have made bad choices, or you haven’t accepted Jesus as your personal saviour, therefore I should not have to pay to help you. If you are depressed, it is because you have no hope, you don’t have faith in the afterlife, you are an atheist, therefore I need have no pity for you. If you are addicted to drugs, alcohol, food, whatever, it is because you have made bad choices, you are weak, you are a self-involved child, therefore I should not have to pay extra taxes to cover their treatment. If someone is dumped on, and it is their fault, then no one should have any reason to help the person being shit on. Matter of fact, until they save themselves, society has no legal, ethical or moral responsibility. Voila: Randian libertarianism in action at the social service level.
No.
QFT. My own depression has exactly fuck all to do with “hope.” In fact, my mood often isn’t at all related to anything going on in my life. Most of my days pass with generally positive events happening. If I weren’t depressed, I’d be having a wonderful day!
@ johnfreethinker #197
Hope for what? I have lots of hope but don’t believe I am going to have “life after death”.
And now I see dear john took off. Sometimes I hate being in this timezone!
#FTBullies made me run a proxy server for script kiddies.
Close to 20 years ago I was an Operations NCO for the Medevac (helicopter ambulance unit) at Ft. Lewis WA, and we often flew to Whitby and Bremerton. It’s been quite a while, but I seem to recall that you didn’t fly into that airspace without making prior coordination. (don’t think they would actually shoot you down, just lots of paperwork, which might be even worse). I know a tisch about networks and security because of my current job (but I’m no expert), but I can assure you, based on my experiences lately at Ft. Campbell KY and Arnold Air Force Base, TN (where they do very cutting edge research), their IT folks would LOVE to hammer this guy.
I’m of the opinion that over time a persons real personality will show in forums. It’s too hard to maintain any type of lie and keep all your facts straight. A person who is a jerk in a forum is going to be a jerk in R/L. Oh, he may be very nice to you when you meet, but I will bet that over a short period of time the mask will slip. He’ll be nice to you, and to people who can help him, but not to those who can’t help him (in this scenario). As a wise man once said, “A nice person is who bad to his waiter isn’t a nice person)
By the same token, I’ve found that people who reach out, who help, who maybe go out of their way to help somebody out with some info on a forum tend to be really nice people in R/L.
RBS
Thats a fairly standard political tactic invoked by both left and right when it happens to suit their cause.
Thank you for the responses, they’re greatly appreciated and I apologise if the question evoked any negative emotions and memories. I should have included a warning. I was too focused on the incredible contrast between personal, or shared, experiences and JFT’s perspective thus neglected to do that.
Also, I completely agree that emphasis on the material can be helpful and that implications of weakness due to a lack of ‘hope’ are wilfully or ignorantly detrimental. It’s why I was shocked by somebody claiming that it was a solution and wondered if my outlook was wrong.
Bullshit
@reasonable
Who I suspect is another trolling ijiot from their choice of nyme
Bullshit. Utter horseshit.
What?
And how many people actually succeed in filling up all of those years with useful and meaningful activities? Without wasting or misusing any of their moments?
Better to focus on living well today than on living forever tomorrow.
Bullshit. Give an instance of the left using it. It’s a fundamental difference in philosophy between liberal and conservative. It’s like saying that both Jews and Christians rely on Jesus
Erwin didn’t mention it, but let’s not forget the possibility of speciating into descendent species before going extinct.
reasonabel:
Yeah, you’re right. Liberals and progressives are always trying to privatize social security, do in any step towards universal health care, gut education, social services, welfare, low-income housing, funding for drug rehabilitation, and other such low cost ways to make life better.
That is sarcasm.
I don’t know where you live, but here in the US, it is the radical right wing conservatives who have introduced the whole idea that the poor ‘own their poverty’ and have then used it as an excuse to cut welfare and housing budgets. And it is done so that we can pay for part of the tax cuts for the rich. So, unless you can back up your ‘well, both do it!’ bullshit, get lost. Again.
I’m not aware of any significant example of the left doing this to any significant degree.
[meta]
UID = “reasonabel”, you stand out like a sore thumb.
(This is Pharyngula)
UID?
Oh, that hope. Then you have a stunted concept of reality and a very weird view of value. Which is anything but a surprise.
You are saying that if you don’t get to go on forever, then what’s the point of the universe? Sheesh. That would make you one special snowflake. Your deeds go on, if you have actually managed any. Just the way the deeds of others go on, say the deeds of those who conquered the formerly high rates of infant mortality*. And the deeds of da Vinci, and Einstein, and so many others.
Oh, but that doesn’t go on forever! Well, so what? The universe seems not to be going to do that, either. So according to you, it has no value either.
Not going on forever appears to be a condition of existing and if there is no existance, there’s no anything. Get over it and contribute something other than a story of what you say was your depression, and what you say is your great hope. Meh.
*And may I add a note of appreciation for those who developed painkillers?
All life is meaningless unless I personally am the center of and the reason for the existence of the entire universe.
What? Never used T-mobile? Wink!
Christian Philosophers: “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!”
[meta]
Ing, UID.
Idiots?
@JM
Sorry I’m clearly thick.
@Otrame
We just figured out blues clues!
No. I came to realize I was depressed when I started to think about abstract hope as a reason not to be depressed. It meant it was time to look for something here and now to consider, otherwise it was straight into the tightening spiral of punitive thoughts.
Fussing over a plant was and is better for getting out of depression, doing something useful right now, regardless of scale. 3 am is still a problem for me with the insomnia and all, so I listen to podcasts. I have hours of them all ready to go. Amazing all the great stuff you can learn.
This was implemented in the old eastern european soviet bloc. If you weren’t fit to work for any reason it was taken as laziness or an insufficient commitment.
…liberals and progressives are not communists. Equivocating between “The Lefts” is deeply dishonest and cowardly.
You have to go back to fucking Stalinism? Bullshit.
This is the left as experienced by millions of people. I don’t think you’re communists, or as bad as the rampant capitalism nowadays, but you’d be fools to ignore history.
Horseshit. Utter horseshit
Well then you shouldn’t have said “both sides are just as bad” fuckwit.
Oh ok. I wanted to talk science stuff and have fun.
Feel free to start any time.
@reasonabel
Horseshit. You were stirring shit and being a turd shepard.
Glances upthread.
Hey look, a liar. You know who also lied?
STALIN!
(etc.) blah blah.
You know who else liked fun? Nazis
Not that I think you’re anything like a nazi you fascist nazi
@Jafafa
Hivemind *fist bump*
[meta]
reasonabel:
So go to an open thread and do that, instead of wanking on about how liberalism entails communism (what, does conservatism entail fascism?).
This post is about the troll whose IP points to bremerton.nmci.navy.mil.
I hope you felt big calling somebody a liar.
Speaking of trolls he gave a response where he basically said that he’d fuck over everyone he could without immortality. Fully found on TZT. He’s a sociopath
I think we have someone else looking for their meritless badge
You people are psychos. I’m off to bed.
You know who else didn’t like being called a liar? Stalin
Not that you’re like Stalin
Oh come on, we’re having fun
You know who else went to bed? Mao!
reasonabel, if you are not a troll from the slympit looking to get banned as a sort of merit badge, you should know that discussions of the type you want are limited to the TZT thread. Your mention of communism proves you are either a) really, really ignorant; or, b) a lying right-wing troll.
If you stay here, you will be eviscerated and then PZ will tell you to take it to TZT the next time he looks in.
Oh, I see you are going for the flounce. Try to stick it. It will be the best for everyone.
Gets out scorecard.
Will he stick the flounce? Odds anyone?
Oh, and Ing, thanks for that bit of Brian and Freddy. One of my favorite songs ever.
If he’s in the Eastern Time Zone it’s 10 pm so he’s quite possibily gone to bed. Since he only threatened to go sleepy-bye, he could be back tomorrow. The flounce is only for going to bed.
Normal odds are about 5 not sticking to 1 sticking. But those are house odds, not your system odds. Just keep in mind what Vegas says to those with a system, “WELCOME”.
@ Nerd and ‘Tis
Points taken. Also some giggling.
And here I was thinking the string of emails from some of our outside sales group was the dumbest possible thing I could have read today…
Notwithstanding that communism has nothing at all to do with the liberal/progressive left, when the discussion, as specifically mentioned on the post that began is, is of the US political right and left, references to politics in Eastern Europe are completely irrelevant and blatantly dishonest to even bring up.
Mere mortals tremble at the sound of my typing.
I’m just here to find out if the people abusing a military network have been dealt with.
I apologize in advance for scrolling through the spiritual crap due to time constraints. It’s entirely possible that I missed something important.
Hippos are scary, but hippos + water + lotsa unsold pumpkins after Hallowe’en are fuckin’ awesome!
True story.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
A reason for hope, courtesy Ambrose Bierce
A pessimist applied to God for relief.
“Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness,” said God. “No,” replied the petitioner, “I wish you to create something that would justify them.”
“The world is all created,” said God, “but you have overlooked something—the mortality of the optimist.”
le wut. my grandfather retired in his 50’s because of a heart attack, on a full and very generous pension. no one called him lazy or insufficiently committed.
and my mother was on paid maternity leave for something like 6 years, and no one called her lazy or insufficiently committed, either.
I call bullshit.
oooh, wait. was this meant in the “the 5-year-plan failed? oh, must be the workers’ fault! It’s unpossible that our plan as faulty!” sense?
yeah, I can buy that some communist government engaged in deflection of blame.
but if that’s what it was, it was a False Equivalence (also, a Tu Quoque, but nevemind that for now) to bring it up as a response to the constant blaming that people get from the right, since none of the leftist/communist ideologies contain blaming workers as part of their framework, nevermind as a key component. OTOH, right-wing ideology (especially right-wing libertarianism) is pretty much based on the Just World Bias and the denial of so much as the existence of structural and systemic problems.
It’s time to start documenting the phenomenon.
I’m starting it. Email your observations of commenters with self-designated ‘nyms including “reasonable” “rational” “atheist” “skeptic” etc. to sally lichtenstein 303 at yahoo.
Seriously.
“Reasonabel” my left butt cheek.
@ Jadehawk
Totally. I was debating libertarianism with a teacher here, when he actually said that feeding children from poorer families was not a good idea as it bred a sense of entitlement in them.
I said that it seemed to me that in the wealthiest society on the planet, children should have a sense that they are entitled to an adequate diet. He tried to explain how that just rewarded the poor for being poor. And then I sort of lost it, and had to walk away. I have to work with this guy, so slapping him silly is not a good move.
Sally: I’d be glad to post information on a Pharynguwiki page.
@Azkyroth #364
Pumpkin Bash at Woodland Park Zoo.
Pursuant to this thread, I suggest including “Freethinker” and variants as well.
Posting it to the wiki is fine too, as that is the eventual destination of the document I plan to create. “Freethinker” and other variants shall be included as well.
Notable exceptions, also, such as “skeptifem.”
Where’s a “Reasoncain” when we need one? ;/
Ah, and here reading your original post I thought the idea was to document the frequency of complete moral bankruptcy from people with those nyms, which would include people like skeptifem if only so that the percentage of people who use the terms properly vs. those who call themselves Freethinker and post the drivel above could be quantified.
But that’s likely a worthless exercise anyway. As they say, 90% of everything is utter rubbish, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t assume that also applies to people with self-designations of “reasonable”, “skeptic”, etc.
…are you calling skeptifem “morally bankrupt” or am I badly misreading? O.o
I hope that obviously snarky and sarcastic addendumsto ‘nyms making fun of the “rational/ skeptic/ freethinker” trope won’t be added to that there Wiki entry.
There shall be a separate entry for those genuinely clever enough to be self-conscious about the ridiculousness of self-applying such labels, spamander. Such as yourself.
I call bs on this, too. Everybody had jobs. Once you got trained or educated or whatever, you had a job. As my aunt used to put it, it may have involved “moving your pen from one side of the desk to the other”, but it was a job. Communism in eastern Europe collapsed for economic, not ideological reasons in the late 80s. People were guaranteed jobs and fixed prices for staples like rent and milk and bread. The system was unsustainable, especially with the U.S. under Reagan bumping up the cost of the arms race. After the regime change the news was filled with people having to deal with evictions and homelessness for the first time when rents were no longer capped.
I don’t think she is, but I had to read it twice to arrive at that conclusion.
[OT + meta]
Skeptifem is pretty awesome on gender issues and feminism; otherwise, she’s pretty clueless.
Errr… Paul would probably identify as a “he” and not a “she”. Sorry for the misatribtution. The joys of being a lazy got posting on the phone…
Huh. I remember her being a complete fucking idiot about sex work and a few closely related topics, and sensible and insightful otherwise. I don’t recall anything else grabbing my attention.
A (supposedly) popular joke from the early days of post-soviet Russia: “What has Capitalism done in a year that communism failed to do in seventy? Make communism look good!”
Off at the Conference of Nod.
Will a “Reasonseth” do?
Late to the thread, but had to answer this, as I’m currently dealing with a depressive episode as part of Bipolar I. Which sucks. A lot.
Ahem. NO.
The only thing that makes depressive episodes better, aside from Better Living Through Pharmacology, is tangible, real-world events or accomplishments that give a sense of “Hey, I’m worth something here!” A major contributor to that feeling is that, having grown up a girl in a mormon household, my self-acceptance is very performance-based. IOW, if you weren’t getting Olympic gold medals and working 40 hours a day, then obviously you were a failure and Jesus hated you and guiltguiltguiltguiltguilt. (That conditioning carried over into my adulthood and is currently being excised from my psyche with the help of a good therapist.)
It’s all well and good to speak in abstract hopes about “Jesus loves you” and all that garbage but when the here and now – you know, WHERE YOU CURRENTLY LIVE – is so horrible you want to stop existing, that abstraction doesn’t do a helluva lot, even for True Believers. Consider that Utah has twice the national average in anti-depressant prescriptions. Not coincidence.
(Also, John is full of shit, but we all knew that.)
Liberals are not communists. Try again.
No, that is the strawman left created by modern conservatives. And I am a professional historian, so I laugh at your second sentence.
But you still haven’t stated why you think that the left, or the socialists, or the progressives are blaming the poor, the sick, or any other down-trodden group for their problems as a way to compensate for the massive tax giveaway to the wealthy.
No, you’re just doing your normal schtick with a nicely done derail.
Sloppy wording. She was the “those who use the term properly”. But I reversed the order, which I didn’t pay much attention to since I didn’t use the word “respectively” to indicate that consistent ordering was maintained.
Obviously not, and I didn’t say that they were. The question was about left and right. No distinctions were made between how far left and how far right. However, it was late so I chose the easiest example that sprung to mind. The reaction to that was staggering. Quite vicious.
Its not that the left are doing this. Its that this can be done and has been done by left identifying groups in the past. It is not an argument that has been patented and so you should be wary of it from any political group.
Not to feed the troll, but whenever the question about the purpose of life comes up, I always think of the great line by Carl Sagan: “[Humans] are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.”
We are part of an astounding wonder, and we have the great fortune to have the ability to actually understand that wonder on an intellectual level. What greater purpose could there be?
It’s true that my individual consciousness will end one day; but the Cosmos of which I am a part will continue, and I am grateful that I had an opportunity to experience it, even for a little while.
The “question” arose in a context: the assertion that blaming the poor for their poverty is a “Fairly standard modern US right wing tactic.” Your claim was a general one: that the left blames the poor when it suits them. But if you only had the example of the Soviet bloc (itself highly dubious) in mind, it was disingenuous not to make clear what you were thinking of, since the context was US politics. If you had had any other examples in mind, clearly you would have brought them up by now.
Shouldn’t that be “Uninformed Code”?
Did anyone hear back from the U.S. Navy?