Preemptive disclosure

I just had to send a complaint to one of my fellow bloggers here at FtB. And since he likes to post his email publicly, I just thought I’d do it myself and get it out of the way.

Justin:

I looked over the shenanigans on your latest post, “the pits”. I am disgusted and appalled.

You claim to be so knowledgable about this anonymous/4chan “culture”*, but for someone so savvy you are being so thoroughly manipulated that it offends me to see the raging stupidity and naivete.

Do you even realize you have been manipulated into providing a forum on FtB for these jerks to engage in a long, tedious, abysmally contemptible discussion of the appropriateness of kicking your colleague Ophelia “in the cunt”? They don’t care what position anyone takes — they are having a gigglingly good time just dwelling on it. And you’re happily going along with it. You are encouraging it.

Most normal human beings resolved that question in kindergarten. No, you do not get to kick girls or boys in the crotch. No, it’s not debatable. No, we do not need your new friends to chatter for a few hundred comments about whether it’s reasonable or a real threat or just for lulz or whatever pathetic non-excuse they’re giving — it’s wrong. And your response to this prolonged exercise in gaming Justin’s blog?

“Cute. I actually did laugh.”

I’m not impressed. It’s not just that you are indulging these people, it’s that you’re being so stupid — literally, I MEAN STUPID — that you don’t even see how you’re being played.

Jebus. I wash my hands of you.

Maybe you should try cleaning up the mess you’ve created. I’m sure not going to do it for you, and I’m sure not going to regard your efforts charitably otherwise.

*We had these same people back in the olden times, before there were computers and networks, only we didn’t dignify them with the title of “culture”. We just called them assholes.

Thunderf00t, check your email

I’ve sent you a couple of official messages. Acknowledge them, please.

As for your latest uninformed complaint about the Skepchick harassment policy at Convergence, I’ll just make a few criticisms.

  • Yes, the policy says you can’t harass people for their religion. Please note: “harass” and “offend” are not synonyms of one another. I offend Catholics all the time, but one thing I do not do is go stand outside the church on Sunday morning and heckle everyone going in.

    Note also that this is a skepticism and science track at a science-fiction convention. There will be Christians, Buddhists, pantheists, and pagans in attendance. It would not be appropriate in this context to deny theists any participation.

  • Your argument that people would use the clause asking that everyone respects requests to stop doing things as opening the door to requiring everyone to respect requests from Islamic fanatics to wear burkas is so ridiculous that it made me giggle. This is Convergence, a science-fiction and fantasy convention. Have you ever been to one?

  • Further misreading: that the policy acknowledges that the Skepchick/FtB group can only monitor what goes on in our party rooms does not mean that there is no larger domain that can have anti-harassment policies enforced. The con administration has been quite clear in how they expect people to behave, and has told us exactly what they will not tolerate…and we’ve been working with the con security. They are taking harassment very seriously, and had taken steps even before we signed on to improve the environment.

    You don’t seem to understand that these conventions rely on enthusiastic participation by as wide a slice of the population as they can attract, and consider making it safe for women a high priority.

    Also, fear this right down to the trembling hairs on your endangered scrotum: all of the security staff at Convergence that I have met with in the last few months have been women.

  • We cannot throw people out of the conference because we are not the hosting organization. Convergence is. And they have and will continue to throw people out who can’t respect reasonable boundaries.

Also, as a scientist, I would expect you to understand empirical results. These SF/Fantasy cons have been going on for years and have been immensely successful — I often tell atheists/skeptics to go to these things just to see how a large convention (5000+ people) is well-managed and still fun. You can stare at pieces of paper and invent hypothetical reasons why they are objectionable, but the reality is that when they happen, they work.

WTF, NatGeo?

Oh, it’s another crappy television show put on by a purported science-positive network that I completely missed. National Geographic ran a show called “Chasing UFOs” on Friday, and since about the only television I ever watch any more is commercial-free movies on Netflix, I wasn’t tuned in. Fortunately, Robert Sheaffer did, and found it “lurid and sensational”.

A fellow named Kacey Simmons claimed to have seen UFOs in a particular forested area, so the UFO Chasers decide to go there to check it out. At night, of course. So they attach themselves to absurd-looking night vision equipment with long booms protruding from shoulder braces, looking very much like people with broken necks wandering about. We repeatedly hear one or another excitedly exclaim, “What the (bleep) was that?” They take a video of a light in the sky “changing sizes,” not realizing that is the operation of their camera’s auto focus function, trying to bring the light into focus. We hear coyotes howl in the distance, and they have an almost-encounter with a wild boar. Such are the hazards facing those who dare to pursue extraterrestrials. They photograph an aircraft with three lights, and wonder if it is from earth.

Great. The ghosthunter tactic. I guess people tune in to these things, so it must be effective television for some segment of the population, but every time I’ve seen these horrible green screen/night vision videos with everyone running around with a camera on a boom pointed at their face, I think it’s television for people who want to laugh at how stupid and gullible other people are.

Now why would National Geographic want to sully their good name with this tripe? Here’s a clue: they did a survey. 77% of Americans believe that there is evidence that aliens have visited the Earth, and 36% are sure that they have; 79% of Americans believe the X-Files was a documentary, and that the government has been covering up the Truth about the aliens.

Another nugget of information: Rupert Murdoch owns a 2/3 stake of the National Geographic Channel. Much is explained.

By the way, I know it’s in vogue in these parts to mock the old-school skeptics who track down Bigfoot and UFOs and other such weird phenomena, but I think the contempt is misplaced. As the survey shows and this series exploits, the gullibility of the population for these topics needs to be addressed. If serious organizations with good reputations like National Geographic are going to be pandering to idiocy, we need skeptics like Bob Sheaffer to counterbalance them.

Why I am an atheist – James

I am an atheist because there is no proof for any gods and the rationalist and sceptic in me insists that the burden of proof relies solely on those making the claim for a religion. This may seem to be a fairly straightforward position to those who read this site but it still amazes those religious people who ask the question. The path to this realisation was an interesting one.

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