This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Who’s Sabine? And does prophylactic Aspirine really prevent alcohol headaches? Have there been any studies?
joey: Your “arguments” consist of dismissing other arguments as “hand waving” and proposing that “x is always possible, isn’t it”?
I don’t know how to respond to that other than “whatever” and “give an example”.
It’s possible that you are the brightest chimp in the Yerkes facility, and that you have internet privileges. But I have no reason to believe it.
I haven’t responded because 1) I have no idea how such laws are implemented or whether they causes undue unhappiness*, and 2) such laws don’t seem to discriminate against a segment of society any more than any other law.
Try this. Laws against tax fraud unfairly discriminate against those who wish to lie about their taxes. Given that we were talking about whether bigotry can be rational, this seems irrelevant to the conversation. In the context of this conversation, I’m unsure whether you wanted to make a point, or just wanted to participate.
Regarding how utilitarianism serves justice, read Mill. That’s what I’m talking about. Mill’s utilitarianism is hardly fringey.
*but I can envision sci-fi type scenarios where limiting reproductive rights uniformly serves a utilitarian goal…I mean, it’s possible right?
The one child policy (in China) is particularly evil.
There have been numerous cases of forced abortions etc, one of which was noticed recently when relatives took pictures and released them of the internet…
Apparently it was done by kidnapping the women, giving her a drug to kill the fetus then another to initiate labour.
This is not at all uncommon and tends to affect poorer women in rural areas who can’t pay the fine/bribe to the officials.
I like Kittens and Bunnies, and Octopi. Not especially fond of dogs as they are needy little bitches at times but they make up for it a little with that spot that makes their leg shake.
@Mike
OOO OOOO ME TOO ^.^ !
It’s been abandoned.
If what adamcolley says is true, such a law would be malevolently unjust to women.
@ Mike and michaeld:
And gerbils, please?
Mike
Thunderf00t deserves a second chance. His series on Youtube proves he is committed to a cause I can agree with. So he’s a bad blogger. Give the guy at least some credit and an honorable way out.
He was given credit. That’s why he was invited to join FtB. He was given the opportunity for an honourable way out — and rather than take it, he doubled down again and again on his mistakes.
@Thomas Bloom
…Seriously? I mean that’s what you think the only issue that he’s a bad blogger? I mean… what the fffuuuuuuuu… look buddy, the guy is a rampant misogynist, is completely close minded about changing his position, lacks any empathy and compassion whatsoever, and he’s hacked into a private server and taken messages that were not remotely his property despite signing a confidentiality agreement when he joined FTB.
Honestly, the only that stops me from saying “Julian Assange looks respectable compared to Thunderf00t” are the charges that Assange faces in Sweden. As is, TF is still an unbelievable scumbag, and he’s no more welcome here than Sam Harris, Alain de Botton, Penn & Teller, or that Fox News “atheist” whatever her name is.
Watching the whole Thunderf00t thing play out has been enlightening. When I first watched his “Why people laugh at creationists” I was highly impressed. But as decided to come out swinging at some prominent feminist bloggers as his debut on FtB I understand why they (namely PZ) gave him the ax. FtB is turning out to be a Juggernaut in the identity-politics that is starting to coalesce around the atheist and freethinking community. Thunderf00t is free to keep on making great you tube videos but the leaders here at FTB decided they did not want him as one of the front men in this movement. I get it, and I do not see that as a violation of his freedom of speech or press or whatever. We are allowed to choose our associates especially on the internet. We can choose to ignore whoever we want. The bigger your tribe the harder the effects of public shunning. Now, I’d like to explain why I see the demise of T-foot on FtB as acceptable. What are we fighting for? well some big ones for me are anti-vaxers, any kind of faith healers, homeopathic quackery, religiously induced bigotry and a slew of other social justice issues. I have witnessed self-proclaimed hardcore feminists also argue against vaccination and talk about how western medicine is patriarchal and they need to fight that tooth and nail. (please do not get me wrong, I am not saying all feminists do this) So, rather than have a guy on the internet loudly defending his rights to be a bit sleezy at conferences I’d much rather have strong feminists who also speak out against anti-vaxers and other charlatans front and center. On the most prominent free-thinking forum in the English speaking world. The lesson I take from Thunderf00t is “Choose your battles wisely”
thomasbloom:
Let me guess. You saw ‘Thunderdome’ and just assumed it was about Tfoot.
Not the brightest lot, Tfoot’s fans.
jonmilne,
I get it, but because the law is her pet subject, and because she seems to want to argue the side issues rather than the central one, she’s gonna flee to any escape route you give her. Since it’s been made clear that your legal expertise is much less than hers, she’s going to see diverting onto that as a way to regain the upper hand. It’s up to you what you write of course, but I think you’re just better off not leaving her any opening for that at all.
I want to clarify something that came up in the last Thunderdome: The spat between me, Jason Thibeault, and Stephanie Zvan over Obama’s declarations on gay marriage. I believe this is what got me banned at JT’s, too.
Yes, I was very angry at Thibeault (less so at Zvan, though mighty irritated). It was an example of obnoxious straight privilege though being hurtful was the last thing on any of their minds. They are good people, not malicious.
Since then I think there’s more understanding all around, and I don’t have any desire to see J or S as enemies. At all. I respect and like both of them for their work and their personalities (though we may disagree again on *something*).
JT on the other hand.. . His behavior was the most outrageous. His explosion of I’m An Official LGBT Ally straight boy privilege was galling. I think it reveals an unsavory streak in his character that he ought to address. I also don’t see JT as an enemy (it would be foolish not to admire his great work) but I have considerably less respect for his motivations and capacity for introspection on this topic.
Well, clearly the one child law was badly implemented. Forced abortion is fairly bad.
Here are some options that might work better (although all of them have moral costs. You don’t want me to avert the (not imminent YET) Malthusian catastrophe without hurting ANYBODY, right?)
When things get important, you really cannot get away from compulsory SOMETHING.
-Compulsory sterilization after first childbirth. Might still suffer from infantcide, bribing officials. Compulsory sterilization bad but possibly not AS bad
-Second children to be taken by the state and given for adoption. Removes benefit of further reproduction, but people might do it anyway, or might just not use birth control? Infantcide might still be a problem.
-Contraceptive in the drinking water. Not sure if can be done safely with current technology. Black market antidote would be a problem. Still compulsory medication, although considerably less interference. Sale of antidote might be biased by corrupted officials.
Phil Mason GOT a second chance. And a THIRD. And a FOURTH. And at least a FIFTH on the private channels.
He blew them all.
Then you can continue to follow him on Youtube if you so desire.
He is a DISHONEST blogger. One who violated one of the most important principles of internet etiquette, and who BROKE THE LAW (though it is a law rarely enforced*).
Credit needs to be earned. Phil Mason has not earned it.
Only those who act with honor deserve honorable ways out. Phil Mason did not.
And if he actually wants an “honorable” way out, he can make his own. It starts with a sincere apology and continues with making real and measurable amends to those he harmed to breaking their internet pseudonymity.
Or he can take a cue from the samurai and take up a metaphorical tanto.
Ethically, Phil Mason ranks well below creationist and misogynist trolls and liars like txpiper or joey. Though they have distorted and lied continuously, unlike Mason, neither or those two have, at least to my knowledge, actually deliberately and knowingly DONE anything on line that directly harms another person.
*because in general decent human beings SELF-POLICE
Unmoderated? How fun.
I find statements like “You’re not welcome here” to be quite amusing, not to mention juvenile and idiotic. Where, pray tell, is “here”? Even if one is kicked off an internet blog, the person is still clearly sitting in front of a computer somewhere in reality, perhaps posting on another internet blog.
So if we are to be truly rational, wouldn’t it be more accurate, not to mention honest, to instead say “Remove your written opinions from my current optical field-of-view, because I can’t be bothered to simply scroll past them.”
I routinely scroll past posters whose material I don’t like. The thumbwheel on my mouse is a very powerful, liberating tool, that is beyond easy to use.
Telling someone to “leave” an electronic webpage is just lazy, vindictive, and juvenile. An irrational response like this violates the “Don’t feed the trolls” philosophy, besides being profoundly humorous on a website devoted to rationality! Plus, what’s wrong with a few more page-view$?
If you don’t like what someone is saying, then just ignore it. Can you hear me scrolling past you? No, you can’t. And that’s the beauty of it.
Now if experience is any guide, I have a feeling I won’t have to ask for responses to this…
Poor nohellbellows.
I don’t scroll past you, Josh. Your posts are among my favorites, in fact.
I mean that.
“The word for the day is PINK. Pink is a soft, non-threatening color associated with girls…”
No that’s not sexist at all….*rolls eyes*
Someone should learn more about the history of the color pink.
Damn, nohellbelowus, that was a harsh insult. You okay, Josh?
Well thanks, nohellbelowus, but it’s puzzling you’d like my posts since I’m wont to say “get out” and “you’re not welcome here” when bigots come through. Places online are real gathering places just like a table at a pub. It’s reasonable to tell people who disrupt that you don’t want them at the table; it’s no less reasonable because this place is virtual.
Of course people will disagree on who should and shouldn’t be welcome and the final arbiter is obviously the proprietor.
johnq: PZ was being jokey. He knows that.
johnq:
Someone should figure out how to detect sarcasm. *looks in johnq’s direction*
I don’t dislike what you have to say, however, you are seriously boring and clueless. The whole “don’t feed the trolls” meme is crap and doesn’t work, Cupcake.
To prevent boredom: Comment by nohellbelowus blocked. [unkill][show comment]
nohellbelowus,
I’m pretty sure Pharyngula doesn’t follow this philosophy.
Another important point, you find “you’re not welcome here” sentiments juvenile, idiotic, inaccurate, irrational, dishonest, lazy and vindictive?
Then
Which should be easy for you given you
and that
Why are people so stupid?
If your advice is to scroll past posts or sentiments you don’t like, why the fuck are you whining about posts you don’t like?
Jesus christ people annoy the shit out of me.
*Checks to see if FtB is a blog, and it is.*
Category error, MRA’s seem to lack cognitive abilities to understand that. Not an argument, merely a fuckwitted and a Douglas Adams adjective list unlikely wish. Not even worth debating, it is so wrong it isn’t even wrong.
Not to get all meta and personal or nuthin’, but I’ve been wondering, is nohellbelowus in good standing here? He and I got into a tiff over at Richard Carrier’s recently, ’cause he kept saying all these things about male/female interactions that sounded just *slightly* off to me. But if he’s got a good rep over here I’m willing to re-evaluate.
Fantastic. You’ve just discovered that internet sites aren’t actual physical places! Therefore, via pedantry, proving that it don’t make no sense to tell someone that their posts are inappropriate for that site.
Please alert absolutely everyone. Every site on the internet is the internet. Every site on the internet is every other site on the internet. Facebook is 4chan. 4chan is Amazon. Amazon is Facebook. Every site is a technical support forum. And a personal Twitter. Internet is internet is internet. The greatest argument against comment policies I ever done seen.
Aren’t you precious?
Somebody joking about rape? Magically detect how awful it is and just don’t read it!
Somebody making death threats? Scroll on down and trust that they will never say such an awful thing again!
It’s a much higher crime to tell awful people to go elsewhere than to be an awful person in the first place!
Yes, because everyone shares that philosophy. If there’s nothing the Hivemind is groupthinking in agreement about more, it is that trolls should not be responded to and we should make sure the trolls are free to shit upon a thread without rebuke. Its Freethought Dogma #1, I’m sure.
Yes. Because if there is anything that is foreign to racists and misogynists and homophobes, and makes them stop being so immediately, it is people refusing to chime up against them.
Where’s your psychology degree, nohellbelowus? You’re obviously an expert on human psychology, so if you don’t have a degree, I’ll have the nearest diploma mill mail you one ASAP. Such an authority in the field can’t suffer through the injustice of lacking the credentials to back up their profound, completely novel insights.
@Ogvorbis:
I’ll turn up the volume on my scroll-wheel just for you: fuckyoudumbass-fuckyoudumbass-fuckyoudumbass.
Josh:
But what does it really accomplish? Nothing. You feel some relief at having temporarily ridded yourself of some perceived nuisance, yet twenty clicks later you’re reading this same opinion somewhere else online.
The comprehensive solution is to either engage for the purpose of trying to convince someone they’re wrong, or to simply ignore them. Anything else is merely sweeping the dirt under the rug, for the illusion of peace and harmony, or it’s merely juvenile vindictiveness.
The Pharyngula way is to feed the trolls until they explode and go away, or fall to the banhammer.
Yawn, concern/tone trolls are so boring. And never, ever, offer any evidence their concern really works. And we question everything, especially evidenceless assertions.
Flattered, but no thanks.
No. It does accomplish things. Sooner or later the worst of the worst leave Pharyngula or PZ bans them. It makes this place better. That’s not an illusion. That’s the fulfillment of a goal. I don’t care if someone else is saying the same dumb thing somewhere else on the Internet. Think about this slowly: that’s the same thing as not caring that someone is making horrible jokes at another table, at another restaurant. They’re not doing it at my table, and that pleases me.
This is not difficult to understand.
My intolerance of bigotry is not juvenile vindictiveness. That’s unbelievably offensive of you to say.
And don’t think people don’t get that you’re trolling, nohell. It’s tiresomely obvious.
“Why delete racist comments from your Facebook Wall if you can just go over to Free Republic and still find racist comments?”
“Why get offended if someone shits on your carpet, when there is a long history of shits in your bathroom? The house is full of shitting, regardless”
“Why bother banning people who yell sexist epitaphs on a tech forum when there’s porn sites and 4chan out there?”
Are you absolutely sure you understand how the internet works?
@Nerd:
But they don’t “explode and go away“… that’s just irrational nonsense.
Either try to convince them, using whatever technique you like, or ignore them. That’s what a rational person would do.
What’s really boring is continually hearing juveniles screaming at each other to “leave” electronic playgrounds!
Heh, I’m gonna take all this to mean that the answer to my question is “no”. :P
Hey nohellbelowus—shut the fuck up and fuck off. That may be more to your liking.
Your posts are irrational nonsense. I don’t see a citation in sight. Evidence, or shut the fuck up.
Anne:
You’re having difficulty figuring that out?
‘nohellbelowus’ does not have good standing here, has a history of trolling, concern and otherwise.
BTW Anne, I was clenching my teeth along with you at Fincke’s obnoxious priggery. He isn’t worth a tinker’s damn. He can’t make the most elementary ethical distinctions when it comes to practical justice and moral responsibility.
Emphasis Mine:
You’re a fucking moron. Were you aware of that? It is important information that I think you should have been able to determine using your keen psychoanalytic abilities.
Hint: How do you think you “feed a troll” until they “explode and go away”? Did it ever occur to you that this involved, and could only possibly involve, arguing with them ? I.e. “trying to convince them, using whatever technique you like”?
I hope that the Diploma Mill won’t give you any credit for a critical thinking class.
nohellbelowus:
You go out of your way to antagonize and insult other commenters on a thread and virtually guarantee that your input will neither be wanted nor appreciated. So why are you here? Why hang out at a place in which you disagree with everyone and other commenters percieve you as a troll? Why bother? Are you a martyr? Are you a slymepitter seeking your very own offical “I-Got-Banned-By-PZ” badge? Seriously, please tell us — what do you get out of being here?
Ogvorbis, he’s here to smoke out our vagenda.
Josh:
I’m not buying the electronic-internet-dining-table analogy, and that’s what your entire argument hinges on. Let’s modify it to a “business lunch” meeting with people we hate.
Now the analogy completely falls apart.
Nope. You don’t get to decide all the things. Fuck off.
What is xe smoking?
Oh. Sorry. Never mind.
IMO no one is looking for reasons to bring him up and beat him with sticks. If he wants a truce, all he needs to do is cut the misogynist and islamophobic douchebaggery and go back to making videos that support the movement. Tf00t has some new enemies as a result of his bad behavior at FTB, but most people don’t hold grudges forever. If he gets some help and stops supporting the dark side of the movement, I’m sure his image would improve in the eyes of a lot of people.
I note that nohellbelowus is demonstrating itself to be one of those do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do busybodies, seeing as it is still posting and most decidedly not ignoring the posts it apparently doesn’t like.
That is MUCH more to my liking. Unfortunately it is devoid of any real content, and the answer is NO.
;)
Beware of the dark side. Misogyny, islamophobia, torture apologetics; the dark side of the Movement are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Sam Harris.
/Yoda
@Amphiox:
Are you a mind reader? How the fuck do you know what posts I don’t like?
Moron.
Your content is zero. Not one citation to show you are right, therefore, you are full of bullshit. Put up, shut up, or you are a dishonest liar and bullshitter. Welcome to skepticism 101.
I love when concern trolls keep squeaking about “not feeding the trolls” while they are being trolled back.
I think xe likes the comments that xe can deliberately misunderstand, misread, or misrepresent. Those that are clear and concise are too hard to manipulate.
;)
This post is dedicated to my 3.9-year-old, who was boogieing away to a cover version of it at a festival today:
Ramones – The KKK Took My Baby Away
My comment at his place is still in moderation, but in response to this:
I wrote:
Passive-aggressiveness wins the day!
Hahahahahahahaha. Ah, what a dull little crayon.
So, nohellbelowus is persisting on claiming or insinuating, without any evidence or argument, that the internet is just one big homogeneous mass, with every part clearly linked to every other part? That’s pretty unique stupidity, I’ll give ’em that one.
I’ve never received a paycheck. Anyone else?
Oh, you mean you LIKED those posts you were criticizing and brutally slamming, and every single word you wrote about them was actually a lie?
So you’re an admitted liar then?
Or is it just a case of your right brain knowing not what your left brain is doing?
Good to know!
I understand you get time off in lieu for any hours spent in Teh Queue™.
Josh
Is it just me, or is Fincke being perpetually insulting towards pretty much everyone, behind his pseudo-civil hyper-academic facade?
A sufficiently advanced civility is indistinguishable from condescension.
We at Pharyngula love feeding trolls! But if they don’t “explode and go away” after we’ve exhausted our reserves of snarky insults, we don’t feed them — we throw them out so we don’t have to waste our time feeding them.
LMFAO. So much for rationality.
Prolly unfair of me to not include Fincke’s response to andreschuiteman.
So close, Dan. So close.
Watch that thread for special appearances by blu-“everyone is so mean to me”-harmony.
Improbable Joe,
It’s not just you.
anteprepro:
+8
We really need that squid button.
Nohellbelowus’s transformation from Plausible Deniability Tone Troll into Blatant Unabashed Troll has been incredibly swift.
Nohellbelowus
I find it “profoundly humorous” that you feel compelled to lecture us about the “power” of your mouse wheel instead of actually using it yourself. How is this different from telling someone you don’t like to fuck off?
While we are giving each other advise about how to use the internet, here is a tip from me. The address bar is even more powerful than the mouse wheel in that it allows you to select the web page you are viewing! Correct use of this feature can help you make all the annoying posters telling you to fuck off vanish simultaneously.
Way to out yourself as a troll.
I wonder how many decades of being called an obnoxious douchecanoe (for absolutely good reason!)it took for Fincke to decide to write his 250,000 word “Manifesto Against
Being Mean to DanName-Calling”?So it is Civil to unfavorably psychoanalyze The Uncivil? Any guesses for whether it is Civil to unfavorably psychoanalyze The Civil? I have a hunch…
Joe: it’s not just you. Fincke never did de-moderate my comment back on his Comment Policy thread, in which I explained unconscious bias and linked the resources for it; not even after I pointed out that my post hadn’t appeared.
We’ll see. This comment by me is now in moderation:
Indeed. Well played, anteprepro.
I’m of a mind that it is better to simply call “The Civil”, clearly in this case meaning Dan Fincke, an asshole. Takes less words, shows a level of honesty and ethical integrity that Finke clearly lacks. That is to say, he’s calling us all assholes without having the guts to name names or be direct, and hiding his negative opinion of people like us with mountains of text that say very little of any merit.
I love seeing Moral Relativists Judging Thunderfoot for his sin!
He has blasphemed and been excommunicated! …snicker…
Joe, Finke is a great fan of Nietzsche.
What do you expect?
Caine,
Well, since his transgressions were sorta subtle in our earlier argument and Richard Carrier sorta defended him for a while (and continued to defend part of his argument even after ceasing to defend him), I was still somewhat open to the possibility that I was being insufficiently charitable to his arguments. So it’s nice to hear somebody else confirm that, no, I probably really wasn’t.
———
Josh,
Despite my frustration, I am trying very hard to play nice with him right now, in hopes that he might actually listen to me (not that I really think I’m any better at this than any of the other people who have already tried to talk to him, but, hell, I might as well take my own shot at it). But I certainly understand why a lot of people are past the point of having any patience with him. I just wish *he* would do a better job of demonstrating that he is trying to understand that.
anteprepro:
Oh that would be terribly uncivilized! Can’t have that sort of thing in the fluffy peaks of high philosophy, why it would destroy the artistry of the abstract!
Agreed Improbable Joe. Psychoanalyzing people kind of just makes me feel yuckier than a straight-forward insult. Unless the psychoanalysis is clearly tongue-in-cheek is a clearly a less-straight-forward insult. That’s fair game.
Jumping to the conclusion that everyone here is a moral relativist? Clearly you must have abandonment issues. Did your God not show up for your middle school graduation?
I wish you luck, Anne. I predict it will end in frustration because the degree of wrong with Fincke isn’t that he misunderstands, it’s that his ingrained disposition will not allow your point of view to be right.
But no, I’m not trying to tell you how to fight battles.
joachim:
What is it with you morons? Are you that proud of being so stupid you can’t figure out this is not a thread about Tfoot?
I’m really disappointed in Fincke. I didn’t expect this from him.
Josh,
I fear that you may well be right. The problem here is that my own ingrained disposition is that I hate watching people fight, so it’s hard for me to not at least make a stab at this.
You argued well, Aleph. The problem is not you.
Got your email btw. We’ll connect again!
He’s convinced he already knows everything and is infallible, as near as I can tell. I was polite to him after he was dismissive and rude to Natalie Reed, and he was very accepting of what I was saying until I pointed out that I said the same thing as Natalie except not nearly as well as she did, and his brain refused to process from her what he accepted from me because he’s decided that tone trumps content.
Nice strawman, asswipe! Homogeneous is your word.
My point was that telling someone to “leave” an electronic thread, as opposed to simply ignoring said person, constitutes juvenile, vindictive, and profoundly silly behavior, particularly when the mechanics of ignoring someone in a blog thread is beyond easy — just employ the scroll wheel.
That’s no fun though, right?
LOL
*eyeroll*
But they don’t actually eat our comments so we’re not “feeding the trolls”… that’s just irrational nonsense. The person is still clearly sitting in front of a computer somewhere not eating our comments in reality.
Given whatever loosey-goosey definitions of those words you feel like using.
How rational.
LOL
Hilarious.
And you’re just going to ignore that you actually made the point I was responding to? That you implied homogeneity in your “argument”? That you consistently claimed that it doesn’t matter if we quash bigotry and idiocy here, because it will be present elsewhere on the internet?
No. Surely scrolling down was the only argument you made. And surely I never argued against that argument. Ever.
Fuck right off, you fucking moron. No Diploma Mill degree for you.
Ironically, T-footie supporters are crashing the Thunderdome in the middle of a conversation about a FtB blogger who is being a giant jackhole and has NOT been kicked off for disagreeing with his fellow bloggers. Odd how that happens.
Ooh, looks like Dan just emptied out the moderation queue over at “No Hate”. Let’s see what new excitement is in store…
LOL
WIN.
How punitive of you all.
LMFAO
Nohellbelowus
And the problem isn’t that your point was difficult to understand. The problem is that none of us give a shit what you think.
Look down your nose at us if you want, but I doubt you are going to convince anyone to abandon the style of posting that they prefer.
ROFLCOPTER!!ONE!
To whom are you referring, Hurin?
I can’t be convinced by what I don’t read! Scrollwheel FTW!
That’s what happens when your ECHOCHAMBER is having DEEP RIFTS. We’ve got to groupthink the heretics all the way to back to our hivemind schisms.
@Anne C. Hanna:
Since this thread is unmoderated…
Shut your yawning piehole, you crude, inarticulate cockroach.
(Well then. Time for lunch. Straightening out The Hivemind always makes me hungry.)
;)
Aww, that’s so sweet. And all I got you was this virtual bouquet of stenchflowers…
If we could distil the impotence in this comment alone, we’d have a truly effective male contraceptive.
Why is it that folks who use the word “hivemind” non-ironically all sound the same?
I laughed audibly.
Skeptic training, nigel. You’d understand if you were a rational, non-hysterical kind of skeptic.
Makes sense. All that shit has to come from somewhere.
tkreacher:
Ah! That makes tons of sense.
Where can I receive this training? I am eager to learn!
Christ. Looks like I have to abandon Twitter until everyone and their third cousin thrice removed stops tweeting “RIP Neil Armstrong.”
First, you must rid yourself of any capacity for self-reflection. Start by removing all mirrors from your home.
nigel,
I had a guide around here somewhere… *absent-mindedly searches coat pockets*
I wonder if we’ll ever know why fuckwitted godbots can’t see that there are more possibilities than:
1) There is a single right answer to every ethical question, written down in God’s big rule book.
2) Ethical question are just matters of taste, like whether you prefer vanilla or chocolate ice-cream.
Oh, what a wank fest at Camels With Hammers. Most common phrases used by Dan:
“I never meant to”
“I didn’t mean to suggest”
“I am not telling anyone”
Nope. You’re not doing any of those things. Everyone else is unreasonable for making inferences based on what you said. PRO-TIP: Moar words does not clarity make. I have never seen someone say so little with so very much verbiage.
BONUS—note the commenters tripping over themselves to declare how “inspiring,” and insightful and wise and rational Dan is.
Really, Fincke?
Yii. Man, I always kind of assumed he was eternal.
Bless your heart.
If a fap slaps in the bedroom but there’s no one to hear it, was there really a fap?
Brownian,
Well, *this* sure gives me hope for how well he’s going to deal with my (ridiculously lengthy) comment when he gets around to releasing it.
I love seeing people who think that civil rights, human rights, are a matter of moral relativism. This would imply that, under some circumstances, it is okay to treat women like second-class citizens, it is okay to dissenfranchise minority voters, it is okay to bash gays, and it is perfectly okay to deny medical care and food to the poor. How is making a firm stand against misogyny moral relativism?
Yes really. He doesn’t care if you’re a hateful shithead, because he’s one himself. He just cares that you be long-winded, passive-aggressive, and dishonest about it… and bonus points for using a thesaurus while you’re at it.
These dirty socks under the bed say ‘yes’.
Man, philosophy is easy. Just like psychology, apparently.
I don’t read Fincke enough to know exactly to which the first part of this comment applies, but from what I’ve seen you’re exactly right about the second.
Fincke’s one of those people I resent for making me feel compelled to say things that sound like anti-intellectualism or anti-academia. I’m not an uneducated troglogdyte, but he’s the very living picture of the stereotypical ivory tower huff-n-puffin pipe-smokin’ beard-strokin’ completely disconnected up-his-own ass white professor.
You are all so hateful. Shame on you.
You could just politely agree with Fincke and then he wouldn’t be forced to turn all his passive-aggressive politeness on you. You bullies. (Was that a personal attack? So sorry.)
What’s the 1337 acronym for “Are you fucking shitting me”?
Brownian,
To be fair, I should say “He doesn’t care if you’re a hateful shithead, because he’s perfectly capable of being one himself.” He likes to pretend to be above it all, but hiding behind civil language isn’t the same as being a nice person.
I am having trouble coming up with a charitable interpretation of this phrase, given the fact that I got unceremoniously slammed into moderation for my supposedly uncharitable interpretation of Caias’s comment. Because the principle of charity is important, see?
Ahem. The proper form in which to make such an attack is to couch it as a valid psychological question.
Arctic sea ice extent is today at its lowest ever recorded, with probably still a week or so of melting to go.
Just thought you could all do with cheering up.
Anne, it all comes down to this part of his comment:
He’s decided himself an arbiter on what is or isn’t offensive. And everyone else better agree with him or he will decide not to extend any of that charity to us. Meaning :we’re bad, bad people.
I’m not disagreeing with you here, Joe; I can neither agree nor disagree not having seen to which you refer.
Again, this I do see for myself.
Josh,
Me too about the ivory-tower bashing. Philosophers set me on edge, because of philosophers like Fincke plus the usual cast of anti-feminist idiots on Twitter. And I guess I should know intellectually that they aren’t all bad, but if they let THOSE clowns into the club, I can’t help but be suspicious. Fucking Loftus…
Reply deleted by author.
Reply deleted by author.
I don’t give a pile of rats asses about Fincke, ergo I don’t care what others think of him.
I did care about Neil Armstrong. Goodbye Neil. you were a hell of a pilot and a good man.
(Actually, looking at previous years’ curves, more like 3 weeks of melting still to go.)
My impression of Fincke is that he’s trying to increase hits on his blog by causing the reader’s nose to hit the keyboard halfway through the post, thus accidentally clicking on a link to another post.
Oh god. I just realized that this bullshit with Fincke is the accommodationism debates all over again. He’s set himself up as the one true expert on the right way to convince people, and then proceeded to demonstrate that he can’t even convince the people who are supposed to be on his side.
re @105;
So, ohhellamisolow just demonstrated that it is the kind of person who REQUIRES external rule structures imposed on it to behave decently, in the absence of which it sinks immediately to the vilest, lowest and most putrid denominator, and it appears to think that this demonstration is something it should be smug about.
Bhwahahahahahahahaha…..
Anne, something like half of all conversations are the accommodationism thing all over again. The whole “atheism+” business is covering a lot of that same ground of “don’t alienate outsiders, feel free to alienate your natural allies to draw in outsiders because where else do your allies have to go?”… also, every conversation involving the American Democratic Party.
I don’t know, Brownian. It seems a bit short, it misses a paragraph or three describing how you don’t want to cast any aspersions on anyone’s motives, but you feel even the most charitable reading of these comments shows a lot of hate. You wouldn’t want to judge anyone, but your high moral principles won’t let you expect anything less from people who should know better than become haters and abusers.
… *barf*
Am I doing any better? :)
The first sentence of Fincke’s post:
I feel pressured to make ethical distinctions between parties, to take a stand on who is the aggressor and which behaviors are justified and unjustified. I feel pressured to distinguish between bullies and bullied.
But I really do not want to.
Ah, the moral relativism canard.
As the central tenet of moral relativism is that morality is a human construct, we moral relativists are exercising our solemn responsibility as decent HUMAN BEINGS to pass moral judgment on the immoral dishonest slimewad that is Phil Mason.
It looks like now everything is going straight to moderation at Fincke’s blog. Or maybe it’s just me. I didn’t use any bad language. Not one “fuck” was given, literally and figuratively.
But Josh… taking stands about behavior and attitudes would be unethical! Taking stands about language is the only true expression of ethical values worth engaging in. It is cool with Fincke if you give out someone’s home address in places where people threaten to rape and murder women, as long as you don’t use any dirty words or explicitly rude language while doing so.
I wonder if Fincke would be willing to denounce rape threats if they were phrased in ways he finds aesthetically pleasing? I’m half-convinced he would be no more than mildly ambivalent towards rape threat sonnets, or racist operas.
So, I’m still in moderation.
I’ve responded:
And then followed up with:
Hmmm. Has anyone thought of doing a Why People Laugh at Misogynists series of videos?
Josh –
Yes, well, why on earth would Fincke make difficult, nuanced ethical decisions and judgements when it is so much easier and grander to simply declare that all insults and invective in all contexts are abusive and hateful and cannot be tolerated.
Fincke: meh.
In academia, the fences are equipped with very comfortable seating? You don’t have to “straddle” or even “sit” as much as “lounge in luxury”?
I think the man is actually just kind of dumb:
Rage rage rage. Fincke is still trying to justify his oh-so-charitable interpretation of Caias’s comment and his oh-so-uncharitable interpretation of my complaints, instead of just accepting the point that this is not all about how things sound to Daniel Fincke, it’s about Daniel Fincke needing to learn how things (including *his* things) sound to the people who have been the targets of a year-long harassment campaign by “some people”.
He’s welcome, as far as I’m concerned, to campaign for civility as much as he wants, but he just doesn’t seem to understand that his *first* obligation is to convince the victims of harassment that he actually does understand their concerns well enough to target their aggressors instead of them. And right now he’s doing a really poor job of that.
There’s charitable interpretation, and then there’s “I don’t know what the fuck words mean”.
Dan can pretend his problem with reading comprehension is some sort of philosophical game of charity, but those of us who aren’t total fucking clods with respect to language aren’t fooled.
Brownian,
Dumb, and mean-spirited behind his bloodless rhetoric. The dumb is intentional, because it allows him to pretend that he isn’t being mean.
Seriously. Dan doesn’t seem to fucking grasp that how people use language to communicate is not how philosophers use language to write abstract logical treatises.
Maybe since he’s so fond of playing the “I’m a philosopher! Who reads Nietzsche!” card I should play the almost-a-linguist card and tell him to go read some Lakoff, Langacker, and Johnson before trying to lecture marginalized groups on communications tactics.
Well. I’m willing to put it down to him having his own distorted perspective just like everyone else does, rather than being completely incapable of reading comprehension. Yet all anyone is bloody asking him to do is to try to appreciate that there might be some legitimacy to perspectives that aren’t his, rather than assuming that he’s the Vulcan in the room and therefore disagreement is irrational.
I used to know a lot of guys like this on an old chat system that I frequented, but the rest of us beat that out of most of them over time. However, they were just science and engineering undergrads and grad students like the rest of us, not philosophy professors, so they didn’t have quite such a tall pedestal to look down on everyone else from. It made it easier to force them to look us in the eye.
Aleph, I actually think this sounds like a really good idea.
Reminds me of the first thing that tipped me off that Fincke is not worth a damn… he brought up his comment policy, we all told him that it wasn’t workable in the context of social justice and that his priorities were not our priorities, and he decided to launch a 30,000+ word series of essays about how awesome his comment policy is. We care about people, he cares about keeping his fucking ivory tower polished.
He’s sure been polishing something.
Beatrice, you can tell us exactly what he’s polishing as long as you use a bunch of $10 words and stretch it out as long as humanly possible, plus 10%. If you can spend four paragraphs describing the evolution of said polishing target, and then mention the historical, political, philosophical, socioeconomic, artistic, and culinary pros and cons of the thing, so much the better.
im, I am truly at a loss to respond to your suggestions at #16. I hope they’re tongue in cheek, but I don’t know you well enough to read your tone right.
Josh:
Did anyone else visualize someone tossing a smoke bomb into a giant vag?
Anteprepro, you are on a roll today.
Are anything like ?
I purposefully left a comment at Fincke’s that will never see the light of day. I’ve reproduced it here.
Josh:
Yeah, I read those and all I hear is
Brownian, I don’t know that he’s dumb. Well, okay, he’s dumb in that sublime academic way that values massifs of words with very little meaning to be mined from them. But I think he knows exactly what he’s doing and what he’s permitting his commenters to do. Or what Joe said: The dumb is intentional.
Improbable Joe,
You haven’t used the words moral or morally even once in your comment, so I feel you are not treating the subject seriously enough.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, I just want to thank you for giving me a LOL with “herd of tl;dr”. :)
Beatrice –
I think the magic words are “consequentialist meta-ethics.”
Beatrice,
In that case, I think you should commence ejection of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body, consciously directed along a linear collection of plies, yarns or strands which are twisted or braided together in order to combine them into a larger and stronger form, preferably in a vertical direction with enough velocity to overcome the force of gravity. I mean that in the nicest, most civil way possible. :)
except for the part where my livelihood doesn’t depend on playing nice with the internet troll brigade, of course.
also, amazingly effective, in the long run, since most trolls either run off(for example worplague, who admitted to only posting trolling out of boredom, and left crying about how mean we were) or get sufficiently blatantly trolly that PZ bans them. And in the meantime, making sure their faulty arguments and bigrotry aren’t left to stand unanswered has shown itself to be an effective method to educate people; at least if all the de-lurkers who say they’ve been educated by it are to be believed.
Now I really want to see Mythbusters do an investigation of whether it is indeed actually possible to piss up a rope, and if so, how far.
I appreciate that.
I wonder what would Fincke say, though.
My guess? He would say “There’s no dirty words, and it doesn’t directly criticize me or the perfection of my every utterance… COMMENT APPROVED!!”
Weird. He just let through a comment of mine which was specifically directed to him, but he didn’t actually reply to it. I dunno if he’s still composing a reply or what, but dammit I really need to walk away from the computer because sitting here hitting refresh waiting for him to say the next annoying thing that I’m gonna have to shoot down is really not healthy.
I don’t understand why he keeps insisting that he’s not telling people what to do. Having a commenting policy is, by definition, telling people what to do. He should at least own it.
You’re right. What ever happened to M00ney, anyway?
carlie,
Hopefully, whatever happened to Mooney will happen to all of today’s critics of decent and humane behavior… they’ll all disappear into irrelevance.
Who? :)
For those who enjoyed Irish president Michael D Higgins chewing out wingnut Michael Graham, here is the full debate:
http://media.newstalk.ie/extra/1602/popup
This talk is a great example of the fact that confrontation can be a damn good tactic at challenging bullshit. I am sick of pretentious accomadationists like Mooney and Fincke. The “always be civil” mantra is what leads to the obsession with balance in the news media and allows cranks to spout bullshit unchallenged lest we hurt their delicate fee fees. We need MORE confrontation in tackling issues such as bigotry, economic inequality and political propaganda. Asking nicely gets shite all done.
@mikmik #8
No Gerbils gotta draw the line somewhere >:/
;p
Grown in your own manure, presumably? I bet you have enough to cater the entire Rose Parade.
BTW… have you given out any sympathy fucks to deserving males recently? Talk about a stenchflower…
Whew, gotta love a troll. So, just ooc, what does NHBU have to do to get himself banned even from Thunderdome?
Oh, and no, NHBU, I will not be your trophy girlfriend. I’ve told you before, I don’t do rishathra.
i do like it when trolls make it so easy to identify them as the worthless bigots they are
Well, to be scrupulously fair to NHBU, Jadehawk, we have a bit of a history together.
I need to rant/vent about meatspace crap. Trigger warning for eating disorders.
FUCKING GODLIKE CONSULTANTS! Flatmate’s girlfriend is a recovering anorexic, has been regaining weight for some time but not as fast as her GP would like. She thought going into hospital might speed up the weight gain (it had slowed to about 0.1kg per month in the last few months), so her GP arranged it. Only place that would take her was the emergency unit where they routinely feed by tube only, so she asked not to have the tube.
Consultant, on admission? ‘You will have the tube and if you refuse we will section you. If you try to discharge yourself, we will section you.’ Panic attack after 2 hours with the tube in, after which they eventually agreed to remove it and put her on supplements (with the faffing, took 12 hours for her to get any food that day). But the consultant also doesn’t believe her and her dietician that she’s been eating 1200 calories per day, so he puts her on 750cal per day for the entire bank-holiday weekend. No-one will increase her food prescription until tuesday at the earliest.
After mere days she is losing weight. Her parents and boyfriend are having to smuggle food ONTO A FEEDING WARD!
Helped flatmate draft a very nasty-but-polite letter, but with the bank holiday no-one is likely to do anything before Tuesday. I normally love the NHS but the bureacratic nightmare this has turned into is very disappointing… Flatmate has calmed down a little at least, he was in a fairly murderous mood when he got home this evening…
Anne, I wish I could take credit for “herd of teal deer” but it’s a common intarbutts expression. :)
I should have said, “Get someone to cull your herd of tl;dr.”
I have to say, I don’t think that rishathra is the appropriate term to apply w/r/t Nobrainswithinme. It refers to “sexual practice outside one’s own species but within the intelligent hominoids.”
I vote for getting him his own female android. Well, actually, I vote for guiding him to the nearest electric socket and telling him it’s his own female android, equipped with two handy orifices, which will best pleasure him if he’s standing in a bucket of water during the act.
Arkady, what the fuck?!? He doesn’t believe her or her dietitian that she’s eating enough… so he restricts her caloric intake to less than 2/3 of the bare minimum.
He shouldn’t be working in healthcare. Please complain about this to the appropriate people.
May I suggest the power of prayer? Giving PZ a virtual BBBJ, perhaps?
And please, Anne, enough with the “girlfriend” stuff. I’ve already told you that I pay prostitutes for their fine services, because sex is purely recreational for me, and there is no way I’d be able to slake my thirst for variety in a monogamous relationship, by definition.
@Ms. Daisy Cutter
It’s the emergency unit so I presume they get patients who can’t handle many calories at first, but this wasn’t an emergency admission!
Flatmate has batted the angry letter off to the hospital complaints dept (but I’m not optimistic that anyone will pay attention over the long weekend) and so far 3 MPs (one for the hospital, one for where we live and one for where she and her parents live), I’ve emailed a doctor friend who used to work at that hospital in case she knows anyone who’ll be able to do anything immediately. Don’t know who else we can call, I’m hoping her parents might be able to get hold of her GP and with his support either get her treated properly or discharged back into his care to avoid the section (UK name for when someone is forcibly admitted to hospital, ‘Sectioned under the Mental Health Act’)
nohellbelowus, you are a very mediocre troll.
(Still, a chew-toy is a chew-toy)
I have been amused by reading the gossip about Prof. Fincke, too.
(Reminds me of the slimepit, somewhat)
Arkady, that is fucking awful. That’s the kind of control-freak mental healthcare bullshit that I used to have nightmares about. I have no useful advice, but lots of sympathy.
———
Daisy, even if “herd of tl;dr” isn’t your phrase, I thank you for exposing me to it.
As for NHBU, well, I almost feel like he and I are good buddies now. I mean, we’ve been through a lot together. So I wouldn’t want to insult him or nuthin’. ;)
Anne,
Such cruelty!
(The poor thing comes here for some well-deserved abuse, and you deny it?)
Well. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve been trying not to say anything that I would be embarrassed to have him (or, for that matter, someone from whom I was seeking employment) read. Yet I *am* kind of annoyed with how he’s been handling this issue and it’s nice to have a sympathetic place to vent. Is that what the slimepit is? Seems to me there might be a bit more to it than that.
Thanks, John, because that reminds me, Anne… another very good reason to pay prostitutes is because they are careful with their teeth during crucial moments.
Once again, the lesson is: practice makes perfect!
+1 for the Ringworld attribution.
John,
I admit, his comment about what he needs to “slake [his sexual] thirst” does seem like he’s just begging for it. But we really ought to establish a explicit consent, a safe word, and a black list if we’re doing BDSM play.
No, and the comparison is ridiculous. It also sort of fits with my earlier point about the Thunderfoot supporters earlier. I don’t think anyone here has gone beyond thinking that Fincke is sort of being a huge jerk on this issue. No threats, no over-the-top attacks… I think I went pretty far, and even I dragged it back to “Fincke is as capable of being an ass as anyone else”. Comparing this to the slimepit is silly at best.
John Morales #188
Mediocrity would be a step up for hir.
True.
Apparently the blowjob tips are meant to shock Anna’s fluffy lady brainz into being all offended and spluttery or something.
Or only prostitutes give blowjobs?
I’m not quite sure what the insult is supposed to be in the latest dreck that NHBU has vomited onto the thread.
nohellbelowus: your need for multiple partners, your solution to assuaging it (and your justification for paying for it) are duly noted, but why do you imagine it’s either brag-worthy or irritating?
You have a long way to go to perfect your trolling, then.
Major yawn, Tis. Grab a cup of coffee, maybe.
I admit, I do agree with NHBU that it’s a good idea to *pay* those who perform professional sexual services for you, especially if you let them get their teeth near your sensitive bits.
Improbable Joe:
I wrote that it reminds me of it; the basis being my catching up here and seeing comment upon comment (upon comment!) on the lack of merit of his blog, of his personality, about his logorrhea, of his (lack of) acumen and his poor morals and so forth.
—
Ah well, some people can cope with all that, others can’t but just leave it be, and yet others can’t but feel the need to whine about it).
Was I bragging? I suppose talking about my thick, eight-inch cock will be considered poor form, then?
BTW Anne… I’m not personally into BDSM… but if you get two large-breasted Puerto Rican gals on retainer, a Viagra tab, and some medical quality White Rhino indica, I’ll close the laptop and be right over.
You don’t have to stay and watch. I probably wouldn’t notice either way.
*ptew*
This hoggling chew toy is misogyny flavored. I so prefer the spicy nacho flavor.
C’mon Anne… why so prude? It’s an unmoderated thread. Say what you mean.
Personally, ball-sucking isn’t that exciting to me, but I’ve occasionally allowed it because some women seem to enjoy it.
I’m pretty “conservative” when it comes to sex, actually. I just like variety. It’s as simple as that.
yes
NHBU, the sound effect you should be imagining right now is the sound of me sincerely hoping that you live waaaaay too far away from me, and indeed, from the entire rest of the human species, to have any hope of ever making good on that offer.
Also, in re the dimensions of your genitals, it turns out that the humble stenchflower has you beat by about an order of magnitude.
nohellbelowus:
<snicker>
(Whence your desire for Viagra?)
I *did* say what I meant. Different people have different kinds of sensitive bits that they might want to have somebody chew on. For example, trolls like you seem to want to have people chew on their egos. So I didn’t want to leave you, or anybody else, out. Inclusiveness is the watchword here in Atheism+.
nohellbelowus:
Your fantasy life is a bit pathetic; you’ve already admitted to having to pay them for sex.
I for one think it’s great that you’re open minded enough to such another man’s balls despite your misgivings for the benefit of a partner. Most men are rather hung up that threesomes have to MFF, so well done!
Good question, little Johnny.
The answer is, Viagra is a great insurance policy. These ladies are expensive, and they’re paid by the hour! Not to mention the fact that these providers don’t really want to work that hard, anyway. It’s recreational sex, not a Harlequin romance novel.
Why waste time raising the mast when you can sail three sheets to the wind ten minutes after walking into the hotel room?
@nohellbellowus
Incidentally have you ever noticed how women’s breasts feel like bags of sand?
nohellbelowus:
I suppose it’s sensible to take medication for your impotence.
Sorry Ing, I’m straight hetero. Or maybe I misunderstood you. Or maybe you’re just a twit. Not sure at this point.
Nice visiting with y’all!
I’d say this conversation has taken a weird turn, but I’m pretty sure it started out that way. It’s nice to know that you’ve got your sex life sorted out to your satisfaction, NHBU. If only we could all be as happy and lucky in love as you!
Yes which is why I’m praising you being secure enough to engage in homoerotic behavior like you said for the benefit of a partner
nohellbelowus:
<snicker>
Awww… poor little impotent troll is already sated.
(Doesn’t take much)
The point is that NHBU sucks balls.
Ing
Don’t say “sucks balls” like that’s a bad thing…
@Improbable Joe
I think it’s clear that I am issuing nothing but praise
(digs out eyes with a stray pair of vernier calipers and runs out sobbing)
nohellbelowus
You are boring.
the fuck is this guy talkin about?
@Chas
Getting an erection is a hercelian trial for him so he uses Viagra. He assures us he has lots and lots of sex and doesn’t suffer from erectile dysfunction but is apparently too lazy to wait for unmediated arousal.
Huh a comment got eated
his penis
*brings in industrial strength air freshener and sets ventilation to high*
The hammer is his penis
Would anyone mind rehashing the TAM upskirt camera guy issue.
How long it is before nohellbelowus starts the “Joke’s on you, I was just pretending to be an idiot!” routine? I have a bingo card that needs filling.
Generally, those who are so satisfied are secure enough in their satisfaction not to feel the need to randomly blab out details thereof to such extent, in a public forum.
Peculiar, indeed.
Can’t speak for everyone but I personally would mind yes. Google is your friend
eliott1:
You just did, so there is no subjunctive to it.
Given that you care to rehash it, can you establish your current knowledge of the event and what it is you desire from such rehashing?
Not to explain it to me, for me to explain to you why everyone got it wrong
Yes I would mind greatly. Thank you for asking. Anyone wanna talk movies?
Chas, apparently, without Viagra this specimen requires ten minutes to get a stiffy even with due fluffing from the hooker.
@JM @Chas
Not because he needs it but because he claims to be too lazy to rely on natural erections from arousal. Which I find even funnier
I’m all for it. What movies are on your mind?
Improbable Joe over at the Lounge essays a taunt:
Of course, you can spare me that imaginary infliction by merely ceasing to comment — since you haven’t, the ineluctable implication is that you love commenting here more than you love sparing me, and thus perforce you must deny one of your loves for the sake of the other.
(This is me behaving like a completely terrible human being!)
[correction to previous]
Well John since you asked, ing go take a nap for a few minutes…
I know all of it.
For purposes of full disclosure, I never met the guy or communicated with him.
This relates to the Buzzo issue,
I know conclusively he didn’t do anything wrong.
Does it matter in our atheist, skeptic world that bloggers wrote tons of speculative shit that was wrong?
Then you DON’T know ALL of it.
Not knowing him doesn’t prevent me from knowing what happened if there are written reports and taoes to view right?
Amphiox,
He’s so happy he just had to share the joy with everyone else. :D
———
Eliott,
Wait, are you for serious? Upon reading your previous comments, I assumed that you were just parodying trolls, not aspiring to become one.
Conclusion Eliot is upskirt guy. Next topic
“tapes”
Bitches lie, second verse same as the first
When a skeptic says no problem I now am immediately skeptical of such a claim.
O boy, here we go again.
eliott1:
You do know the difference between knowledge and speculation, right?
(But yes, claiming speculation as conclusive knowledge is wrong)
Well if becoming a troll is knowing the difference between a group of folks spreading shit that was untrue and hurting someone and fixing it and being shit on here, yep.
And no, I’m not the guy…ing, take a walk.
@Eliott
I have definitive knowledge that you are
Eliot,
Hey, if you think you’ve got something useful to add, don’t let me stand in your way. All I know right now is that you started off sounding like a parody of a troll and then it began to become clear that you meant what you said seriously. But go ahead, prove my first impression wrong.
Eliot do you go to any of the anti FFB or anti skepchick places and correct them on egate misinformation?
eliott1:
That should be ‘shat on’, not ‘shit on’ — it’s an irregular verb.
John, thanks for the lesson, I know the difference.
He conclusively did nothing.
Except carry the camera low.
Security at the hotel checked his sd card once the complaint occurred. He would have had no idea security was coming. No upskirt pictures but pictures of speakers.
They watched him on video.nothing.
They watched him in real time. Nothing.
Just curious if anyone gives a shit that this guy got crushed and didn’t do shit.
Ing, no. I’m not anti anybody . Just want to do the right thing and set the record straight.
And Anne, I’m serious as hell.
eliott1:
In keeping with your predilection for scatological vernacular, I for one don’t give a shit that people objected, no.
Now, as to this claim that he was ‘crushed’: what do you mean by it?
(Is he still in hospital?)
So you correct misinformation for one person who was left anonymous but not anyone getting hate mail and threats for a year. Nice to know how concerned you are about the “right thing”
You are so fucking that guy.
He was shattered to debris
Thank you hammer eliot for saving he
Ing, What has one thing got to do with the other?
And he wasn’t anonymous because he got outed on Facebook.
And yes, because I can correct it for this person.
No one should get hate mail or threats and if I could help I would.
Liar
Also if you really could demonstrate anything beyond “NUHUGH!” you’d have done your data dumped and moved on rather than being so caught up that everyone blow you for being a great champion of justice
Ing,
Do I remember correctly that you established here earlier that hammers are penises?
Wow, this must be the A+ shit.
Eliott,
Hm. That’s unfortunate for you.
No, this is “I hate you frelling yutz’s” dren.
…ing, and you want to give me a blow job, great…have you had your shots? No matter, I’ll use 2 condoms.
Discuss?
Icing, and you hate me, wow, what an Internet tough guy hero
Lol Did I call it or what?
Fuck off you stupid pig, Elliott.
Natalie’s privilege (not living in many pockets of the US) is showing. Not her finest statement. Obnoxious, actually.
And I’m a huge fan of hers. But she’s letting justified personal disenchantment affect her judgment.
Also I wasn’t aware I offered to suck anyone’s dick. My schedule is filled
Fuck off you stupid pig. Temper, temper.another tough guy.
Oh pleez gurl. No one hear would suck your lousy dick if they were suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls.
That facade lasted what? 4 minutes? F-.
My bad. It’s late where I am and as you’ve noted my comprehensive and language skills are limited. Maybe if you free up
But, Ing, what if he has a thick, eight-inch cock? Starts to sound more tempting now, doesn’t it?
not in my experience, but I’m glad she never experienced it.
Anne, I hope it’s ok if I thank you for marginally trying to assist me.
No
What is “this”? Are you sure you’re “not anti anybody”?
Goddammit, Natalie. I get that she’s pissed off at the atheist movement, for understandable reasons, but I’m surprised that she of all people wouldn’t know better than to dismiss other people’s experiences of discrimination.
Josh, never heard that one but I liked it.I will give you credit when I use it.
Natalie’s clarification
Then getting mad at people defending her by saying she’s from Canada because she grew up in the South and experienced it.
What the fresh frell?
Eliott,
You dimbulb, I’m not trying to assist you, I’m mocking you by quoting your immediate predecessor troll in this thread.
Ing, is their a size requirement, or is it just a girth thing?
Credit John Waters.
Yep, we’ve all heard the myths about “atheists get disowned from their families” and “atheists can’t run for public office.” Quaint stories, but if anything like that ever happened, it’s been totally overblown. For one thing, there weren’t any wizards involved, contrary to what many have claimed.
Eliott, cut the shit. Stop being a douche.
@Josh
Shame on you! how would you feel it someone told you to stop being gay? Or official? Or Josh?
What the fuck is going on in this Thread?
As for Natalie… I thought it was weird that she would go there in a conversation with people who are generally supportive of her, and then not notice what she was doing when she was called on it. I understand she’s under a lot of pressure, and I’m much less willing to add to it than the rest of you, but it still comes off as being a little less-than-ideal.
Also, most atheists are not forced to go to petting zoos despite their unicorn allergies. That is arguably the parents’ decision anyway.
@Chigau Penises…lots of them
chigau,
I don’t have any better answers for you tonight than I did last night.
or the myths about atheists who got charged with assault for being beaten up and bloodying someone’s fist with their nose.
anyway, I think she meant to say that it’s being assigned an exaggerated importance in the grand scheme of things… which may be true, but is not the same as being mythical or mythologized.
Anne C. Hanna
I have a feeling that it may be a daily question.
@Jadehawk
I’m personally offended by the fact that it FEELS similar to or uses the same template as rape denial and other denial bullshit.
X is technically true but it’s mostly false and they’re just getting off on playing the victim.
Sigh. Do not want to fight with real allies. Hate it when it happens.
Haz a depress.
If that’s what she meant, I’ll start making shit it up about how it isn’t that important instead. I like the “myth” thing more, though. Lots of potential for sarcasm.
chigau,
I’ve been getting that feeling myself.
@Josh
See this is what my doubts are for A+. If people get upset and reluctant to actually call people they like out for getting something wrong, even something mild like “your language use is questionable” it’s going to not fix what the core issue the A+ers had with GnuA. It’s just switching in new gurus
In re Natalie’s twittermess, is it just me or is Twitter a really fucking shitty interface for trying to follow a conversation?
It’s right there on the sidebar:
Of course, due to my perversity as becomes a terrible human being, I still make an effort to hold back my obnoxiousness.
(Always nice to be able to escalate at need!)
@Anne C Hanna
Oddly I find the mobile easier in Twitter’s case.
She’s saying it’s true technically but vastly exaggerated and mythologized so people can play at being oppressed rebel.
Twitter is really shitty for anything but one-liners, yes.
Can’t do it on Twitter…
… but I was kicked off a sports team in school for being an atheist. I was punched in the face because I am an atheist. I lost friends and was shut out of the majority of high school social activities because I am an atheist. I was in a long-term relationship that broke up because I am an atheist.
Anne, heh.
As usual, it’s not the medium, it’s the users that are the problem.
(Most people are incompetents)
@JM
To be fair…
Driving a car with square wheels is more difficult than round ones.
Twitter nests oddly and has it’s 144 limit. It’s not bad but it isn’t conductive for everything. Much like how a sled isn’t a good vehicle for the mojave
Improbable Joe, I too was an atheist at school, but since I’m prudent I just went with the flow; I was even an altar-boy until I was 15!
(Also, I’m married to a church-going Catholic)
Ing, true enough.
Why?
Most people aren’t twitter users.
If the medium can’t support an in-depth conversation, it doesn’t matter how competent you may be at either using the medium as it’s intended or at conversing. It’s just going to take a very long time there, or it’s not going to happen at all.
CR, why? Because adaptable people can adapt; one can hammer a nail with a beer bottle, for example.
144 characters per tweet is sufficient for a pretty complicated sentence; you need more sentences, you use more tweets.
Nah, Tweets are a low-latency medium.
(You know, people used to converse via handwritten letters, back in the day!)
Yeah, and you know, they were limited to 100 characters each. It’s hard to imagine how they did that.
CR, care to compare the duplex bandwidth of Twitter vs. hand-written letters?
Right now the conversation thread on Fincke’s blog looks like this:
Sensible Person(SA): Are you telling us to be polite to those who hurl misogynistic/racist/homophobic slurs at us?
Dan : I wasn’t implying that. I feel terrible that you’d think that.
SA : So you’re not implying that we should apologize to rape-apologists?
Dan : I wasn’t implying that I was implying that, nor was I implying anything to the contrary.
SA : So what exactly were you implying?
Dan : That’s not a conversation I’m interested in having.
SA : You’re not making any sense.
Dan : I don’t have to! I’m a philosopher! I read Nietzsche!
SA : *sigh*
I’m sure eliot is complaining now about how closed minded we were. We in this case means me.
tvstvs, ‘sensible’ → ‘imaginary but clueless’ in your above conceit.
(But your jaundiced opinion is duly noted)
John, bandwidth doesn’t measure how well people can follow a conversation on a given medium.
@JM
It appears the local children of the village are on the lawn again sir, shall I turn on the sprinklers?
CR,
Thus my “Most people are incompetents”. :)
—
FWIW, back when I played in a textual MUD, I’d be in an n-way conversation with n people and neither myself nor those people had any difficulty, though we were limited to 80 chars per line.
(And we’d converse simultaneously in the Clan, OOC, IC and World channels to boot)
Ing, what, are the Dobermans unwell again?
(Release the hounds!)
It’s even sillier the second time. Everyone is incompetent at some things, not most people. But what are these people supposed to be incompetent at? Conversing? Using twitter? Using twitter for something it wasn’t designed for?
And why would that make more sense than “it’s not the best medium for having a conversation”? (Or “twitter is incompetent,” if you like.)
Has anyone seen the weird shit that Justin griffith has posted here?
The guy needs help.
CR:
It was designed to make money, and make money it does, since twits use it.
(duh)
If you want context, you might care to read that to which I responded: “is it just me or is Twitter a really fucking shitty interface for trying to follow a conversation?”
(It’s no shittier than the old TALK app back in the day, but unlike back then, there are many other ways one can teleconverse in real-time these days)
rorschach, gah!
(Just read that post, and I’m going nowhere near there)
@Rorschach
Help as in “Fucker needs help, the nutter” or help as in “SOS?”
Okay, then they are competent, and you are competent at being a pompous clown. I really mean that: your schtick gets fucking tiring. If you just want to feel superior to other people, do it somewhere else.
CR:
You don’t distinguish between the developers, the owners and the users?
(Beer bottles are shitty for hammering nails, but competent people can do it, and beer bottle manufacturers make money)
It’s not that I want to, it’s that with such as you, it’s hard to deny the reality. ;)
Thanks Ing. That’s not a bad attempt at insulting me. Why?
Justin Griffith.
Blink.
Blink.
If anyone who cares about him is online, please take him aside and get him offline.
@Rorschach
I’m not trying to insult you, I’m asking what’s on the other side of the link. I don’t know if you were using the colloquial “He needs help” meaning he’s off the reservation or the literal, “he needs aid”
I’m asking because I don’t want to click the link if it’s a digital treatment for hypotension.
It is, Ing. It’s nuts. Srsly.
@Josh
Fun trivia when nuts started to mean “crazy or manic” it was specifically towards something that the person derived pleasure from. The slang wasn’t that someone was nuts it was that they were nuts about (blank).
…This has no relevance whatso ever
LMAO! You crack me up, little Johnny.
I’m quite certain that the only thing more revealing than that juvenile line, will be the attempt — if any — to explain it.
What is so fucking unreasonable about ten minutes after walking in the door? I mean, you walk in, place the donation next to the TV, give her a nice, warm, reassuring hug and a big smile, take off the shoes, roll up & spark up a fatty, answer her questions about what you’ve been up to at work, admire her lingerie and makeup… and ten minutes later things start to heat up.
How long does it take you to get a stiffy, little Johnny, given that it requires at least a fifteen minute search & rescue effort to even find it?
See this is the part where most heterosexual males tend to see the first bits of arousal if all is going well. It’s like you’re vaguely familiar with human sex but are completely alien to the topic personally and trying poorly to pass yourself off as knowledgeable.
@Rorshach
whisper whisper
What? Oh right. Um…and sorry
rorschach #326,
Fuuuck.
Well, left a comment there utilizing a little tribalism for effect.
That whole post is just, ugh, on so many levels.
He’s off the rails though at this point.
nohellbelowus,
Dude.
A number of people here know what 4chan is. That you think troll “humor” “works” here in any way is stupid.
You aren’t actually upsetting anyone. You are a plaything here. When you get responses to your “troll” comments, they aren’t actually “U MAD”. They aren’t actually taking you seriously.
You are the joke. A significant majority of people who might respond to you here are both aware of what you are trying to do and much more intelligent than you are.
That you don’t realize this and continue the way you do literally makes me feel embarrassed for you.
Literally embarrassed for you.
Cum cum now. Spill it, Dr. Ruth! I’m all ears.
Yo tkreacher:
Perhaps you have me confused with someone who gives a flying fuck what you think. Dweeb. Spare me the tone trolling. This is an unmoderated thread.
Now run along, because that’s the only love you’re getting from me tonight.
Oh, look who’s back: Felch Grogan’s other dirty sock, nohell, frantically trying to summon up enough spite to get his hoggling done. Go ahead, rub yourself raw, hoggle away for dear life.
nohellbelowus,
Jesus you’re embarrassing. I actually cringe at your text.
Sorry Ing, I misunderstood your line. I definetely meant help as in aid.
I think he needs it in both sense of the phrase.
Ah, the impotent one is back.
Hello, Nohell who is below us!
I am pretty sure there’s a point at which this doesn’t mean what NHBU thinks it means. I encourage him to seek and hopefully eventually discover that point.
———
In re Twitter: my problem with Twitter is that if two or three or ten people are talking to each other, it’s difficult (at least in the basic web interface) for an onlooker to actually gather all the scraps of conversation from all the different places and sort them into a coherent whole without having bits go missing and without the threads bifurcating and replicating crazily. I’ve been in other online chat systems where everybody was just talking over the top of each other in short little snippets, and that can be confusing, but at least in most of the others if you scroll back up in any one chat room or in the logs, every single contribution to any particular conversation is present, appears only once, and is neatly arranged in chronological order. Twitter doesn’t seem (in my limited experience) to be well-designed for that. But maybe I’m just not reading it right.
And try to convince him to remove that and all traces of it.
I can’t believe there are comments responding to it like it’s just a normal post.
re: Justin Griffith
I hope other bloggers have noticed the post and contacted him. Maybe a moderator should send a mail to PZ, just in case. I’m not sure how he and Justin get along, but maybe he would know who to contact.
moderatormonitor… and people sometimes wonder why I don’t blog. :|
Yes, that thought occurred to me as well. Also, why I would not want any public role in this or any other movement under my real name.
Depends where in the world one lives, I should think, and how religious and conservative one’s local community is. I’m confident in saying that there’s not much anti-atheist bigotry in Britain, at least in educated circles; I’ve experienced no discrimination whatsoever for being an atheist, and atheism really isn’t an uncommon or stigmatized point of view here. On the other hand, if you’re Alexander Aan, or Jessica Ahlquist, anti-atheist bigotry is very real.
dysomniak:
Just because you choose to label women as ‘whores’ doesn’t make it any less true that actually practicing abstinence really does work.
———–
Anne C. Hanna
What is so miseducating about the teaching that not having sex is the most effective way to NOT get an STD or an unwanted pregnancy, and that if you have sex even while using contraception/protection there is still a non-zero chance you could get an STD or an unwanted pregnancy? This is the abstinence education of which I am aware. Do you dispute the accuracy of this “miseducation”?
————-
Amphiox:
Really? I’d like for you to elaborate on this thesis that feminism, secular humanism, progressivism, liberalism, and socialism lead to the support of a disbelief in gods. Is it not possible for someone to support all those isms and also believe that humans have souls created by god?
————–
Antiochus:
And please tell me what you mean by this.
Can’t one not argue that China’s one-child policy discriminates against citizens who desire to have multiple children?
Are you somehow equating the desire to have more than one child to cheating on your taxes?
————
adamcolley:
Thank you for being courageous enough to actually give your opinion regarding this. I, too, feel that the policy is evil…simply because it violates basic human rights.
————
rorschach:
Really? Where did you get that information?
————
Antiochus:
Yes, it would be unjust…to the women who’ve had or desire multiple pregnancies. But in the context of utilitarianism, the fundamental question is whether such a law would increase overall happiness. Hypothetically, if it could somehow be proven that such a law does increase overall happiness (for example, without the law it could be shown that mass starvation due to overpopulation would result), would such a law still be “unjust” under utilitarianism?
If you haven’t already guessed by now, my motive is to probe the entire premise of the fundamentality of individual human rights. Under utilitarianism, by definition, what is fundamental is not the individual but the collective. So, do you believe that certain individual human rights are fundamental?
Sigh. Parts of this thread are like reading the Penthouse Forum letters from back in the early 80s. Someone thinks hir fantasies are good enough for publication. Sad, really.
You’re a dishonest little shit, joey, as you have proved repeatedly on this blog. You know very well that the characterization of women who have sex before marriage as “whores” was sarcastic: it is abstinence-only sex miseducation that teaches that sex outside marriage is immoral. Abstinence-only miseducation fails to give adolescents the knowledge they need to have sex safely – and most of them will indeed have sex before they marry, whether they are given proper sex education, or abstinence-only miseducation. By analogy with your point that the surest way not to get pregnant or contract an STD is not to have sex, the surest way not to be involved in a road traffic accident is never to leave the house. Somehow, I doubt that you’re an advocate of abstinence-only road safety education.
Totally blogcrupt (is that even a word?) what with flu and travels. Logging on via blackberry just doesn’t hack it I’m afraid.
What I do have to offer is a little ditty: Small talks – Of monsters and men. Not as much the lyrics, but the video itself, which is perfectly in keeping with TZT/Thunderdome. Trolls and tentacles eberywhere… yay!
@ KG
It may be more accurate to say abstinence is not a neutral (“stay at home”) option:
@Joey
Get out a bit. Go to the library and dig out that article for us. ‘K,thanks, bye.
Walton:
Such bigotry is real whether you (or Ms. Reed) personally experience it or not.
So, nohellbelowus really DOES think every website is 4chan.
Also: joey is still around? Wow.
Abstinence-only education only works as sex education the same way that “don’t have a fire” works as a fire drill. It’s really effective! Except when you actually have a fire!
Apparently the fact that people given abstinence-only education still have sex, and are less likely to have safe sex using precautions learned in actual sex education is not enough for joey. Because joey doesn’t give a fuck about facts or people’s well-being.
You do realize that regular sex education also mentions these details, right? In addition to actually mentioning how to have safe sex instead of saying “Condoms aren’t perfect, ergo there’s no such thing as safe sex! FEAR ALL INTERCOURSE, CHILDREN! FEAR IT!”.
I guess it isn’t true that liberalism correlates with disbelief in god. I guess those 2000 year old religions were so enlightened that they are perfectly consistent with feminism, even if took the people who actually followed those religions the course of those 2000 years to begrudgingly agree that women were equals and weren’t just servants or property. I guess secular humanism is popular with the fundies after all.
(Here’s a pro-tip: “Leads to” doesn’t mean “necessitates”.)
joey: ??
In context what I’ve written couldn’t be clearer. If you don’t want to read to the end of this comment, let me summarize. I believe that you are trying to have a different conversation than the one that you interjected yourself into. Fair enough, but you could just say as much.
The Chimp reference: the point was that if we are allowed to make up hypotheticals to support arguments, the discussion goes pear-shaped. Your line of argument so far has been along the lines of “can you imagine a situation…”.
In fairness you have provided a pseudo-example of laws (China birth policies) that are discriminatory, without providing any clear grounds for how they are discriminatory…although also in fairness, others have provided it. But these laws seem to be discriminatory to me for reasons that you haven’t presented. But whatever.
I indicated that I don’t know jack about one-child laws in China ( the first point which was chopped from your blockquote of me)…more importantly, I don’t know how they were relevant to the discussion that was taking place when you joined.
But here is the crux of things. I have been very naïve in assuming that you were trying to participate in the conversation that was happening. But it is evident that your not.
Yeah. But that isn’t what we were discussing. It’s fine to change the subject, but it wasn’t at all apparent to me that you were doing that.
The collective comprises individuals. The collective cannot be well unless it’s parts are well.
I have no idea what you mean by fundamental. If you mean that they seem necessary to promote well-being of “the collective”, sure. But which rights are fundamental in this sense kind of depends on context.
But whatevs. I don’t have a coherent theory of rights apart from what seems to serve well in a given context. Someone else will have to take the bait I guess.
somebody should alert the media.
Doonesbury is asking the tough questions this election season.
How would Romney deal with an alien invasion?
ISTR Eliott1 hoggling on Pharyngula before. Eliott, I never met or communicated with “Dr. Buzz0,” either, but I read his old posts on JREF, so I know at least as much as you do about the subject. You’re full of shit.
Re Natalie: I can understand a trans woman being dismissive of anti-atheist bigotry as important or pervasive, especially in the context of the last year, but she’s wrong. In addition to what has already been mentioned in this thread, Aquaria spoke of having atheist relatives or friends whose child was taken from them, placed into foster care, and murdered there.
Anne (#305), it’s not just you.
Joey, if you put so little value on sexual pleasure, bonding with someone through sexual intimacy, and the health benefits they bring, that’s fine, but none of the rest of us are obliged to abstain if we don’t want to form babby just because separating procreation from sex upsets you.
You’ve just proved AE’s point.
Ah?
One of my chinese friends once told me, after getting a bit drunk, that there was a loophole in that policy – provided that you had around 50 000$ available.
Her parents had paid it to get a second child with the hope of getting a son.
That’s how she got a sister.
A kids here complain about the pressure their parents put on them.
But that may have changed, she’s in her early thirties.
Fincke’s fucked.
I cannot have any respect for a man like that.
Since ALL good regular sex education programs do in fact teach this, AS WELL AS other important things, while abstinence ONLY sex education ONLY teaches this but NOT those other important things, this particular argument is nothing but dishonest misdirection from the primary issue at hand.
And completely typical for the gooey.
Untrue. Another not unsurprising attempt to distort the truth by the gooey.
All of these are simply sub-branches of the same thing – the idea that all human beings should be treated equally and have equal worth. The concept that there is a cosmic hierarchy topped by a creator god is antithetical to this premise.
Only through cognitive dissonance.
In the sex education I had in high school, abstinence was always the FIRST birth control alternative mentioned, followed by all the others. And we were also taught the failure rates of each alternative when properly used. Abstinence of course (when properly used) had a failure rate of zero.
The ONLY point of abstinence ONLY sex education is the denial of knowledge to young people. Because knowledge is power and young people without power are easier for wannabe tyrant slavemasters like gooey to control.
The gooey’s entire line of argument here is just dishonest misdirection, a tactic exactly analogous to its previous odious attempt at dishonest misdirect regarding late-term abortions of perfectly healthy fetuses one week from term (which, incidentally, was the behavior that got it exiled here).
Will you pleeeeze stop crying for your Mama? Jesus H. Christ you are dense. This thread is named Thunderdome!
Please, Anne. A little more Tina Turner, and a lot less mewling coward would be greatly appreciated. Or, you could always just employ your scroll button with the same dexterity and ease you demonstrate with a favorite vibrator, for instance.
Thanks cupcake!
And a lot less of Felch Grogan’s dirty sock would be even more appreciated.
Nohellbelowus needs to go back into the underwear drawer and stay there forever.
Brownian,
Glad someone else was pissed off by that dismissive non answer.
Well, you handled that well, insipidmoniker, including the moron who accused you of playing word games.
Fincke’s playing hyperskeptic with regard to insults that don’t contain one of his list of naughty words, and he’s going to end up with a blog full of dullards who clap and cheer and call him brilliant whenever he references Nietzsche. Oops, did I say ‘going to’?
Fucking know-nothing asshead.
So abortions, sex and philosophy for everyone?
Louis
Well, as of #373, it hasn’t.
What whoahellhowlowitgoes doesn’t seem to realize is that “unmoderated” simply means that external authority will not restrict (to a degree – the mere existence of the Dungeon ought to be hint enough that there is a line which cannot be crossed, even in the Thunderdome, even if that line is very loose, it is not nonexistent) how it can choose for itself to behave, but that self-inhibition still applies, as it does in ALL forums of human social interaction.
It fails to recognize that, though external authority will not limit how it chooses to behave, what it, itself, chooses to do with that leeway simply reveals to everyone else precisely the kind of human being (term used loosely) that it actually is – the kind that lacks the ethical fibre or self-will to moderate its own activity on its own. The kind that would steal, cheat, or even murder if it knew for sure that no one would try to stop it or punish it after the fact.
ie, either a monster, or a toddler.
It is also amusing to observe sowellhowlowitgoes’ pitiful cargo-cult attempt to use the cupcake meme, trying to rote copy the form (and failing pathetically even at that) without recognizing the substance.
Yep, I noticed. Cargo-cult describes it exactly.
An even better example is comment 344, in which it accuses tkreacher of tone-trolling.
You got the order wrong, unless you’re Mary ;)
For anyone who commented at Justin Griffith’s (now pulled) blog post about his stalker, questioning why I thought the post ill-advised:
I would not leave this comment at Justin’s, even if the post were still up, because I don’t want to contribute to that conversation. . for his sake.
1. Justin has told us many times he struggles with depression and mental illness (so have I; when I say I can empathize I really mean it). He has a history of going to a very low place and then, well, melting down publicly in ways that don’t help in the long run and probably make him feel worse later.
In that recent post he said he was seriously depressed again. Given this history, and though I know everyone there meant well, it is irresponsible to encourage someone in that mental state to just let it all hang out. Extremely irresponsible. Please consider this next time and ask yourself if you should refrain from encouraging it. That sort of encouragement would have been awful had it been applied to me in my low moments.
2. No, saying that Justin shouldn’t have done this so publicly is not analogous to telling rape survivors to be quiet. There is courageous refusal to be shamed, and then there is making yourself mentally, legally, and perhaps physically vulnerable by spewing your most intimate private details and anxieties to the entire world on a well-trafficked blog.
Justin did the latter. Given that he referenced a possible restraining order I’m shocked it didn’t occur to some of you to think he was potentially jeopardizing a legal situation. When you’re in the acute phase of such a legal scenario you DO NOT TALK ABOUT ALL THE DETAILS IN PUBLIC. This is so obvious I’m frankly a little angry that no one fucking got that.
3. Justin went into extraordinary, intimate detail about his family life, his personal problems, his spouse, problematic drunken encounters, etc. Most people understand that disclosing these things in the heat of the moment is a decision one often regrets later. This isn’t silencing, or shaming—Jesus Christ.
All of you who encouraged this and praised meant well; I know that. But you were very, very wrong. I think you were caught up wanting to see another example of an abused person not taking it silently (you know I’m on board with that) and it caused your good judgment to fail.
I hope to god that if I fall into a dark place again mentally that no one encourages me online the way you did with Justin. I hope to god someone has the good sense to pull me aside.
Shorter me: Compassion and kindness are hard. Doing them right requires much more than reflexive, uncritical “support.” Learn when to recognize your enthusiasm for a cause causes overzealous “support” for someone who needs another kind of help.
Aww, I think NHBU likes me! I’ve always wanted a cute little pet troll of my very own.
But anyway, NHBU, please, in all seriousness, go nuts here in this “unmoderated” thread. Show the world what kind of person you really are. I don’t think anyone here has any interest in preventing you from revealing the full depths of your worthlessness as a human being. Just don’t be surprised if that doesn’t work out for you quite as well as you think it’s going to.
I thought he had already done that. Multiple times.
Josh, thanks for the explanation. All I could really tell when looking at the post is that it made me massively uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, and I’m really relieved that it’s down now. I can see it being sensible and productive to post a terser summary of the issue to warn other people and/or explain strange goings on, but the amount of stuff that was in there seemed like the kind of thing he’d eventually find himself regretting. :/ I hope he gets this sorted out safely.
Ogvorbis,
*shrug* I have a taste for blood. When I was arguing with him over at Richard Carrier’s, Richard took him a *lot* more seriously than he has now clearly demonstrated he deserves, which was incredibly annoying to deal with at the time. So I would take a certain satisfaction in him choosing to make the pile of evidence against himself even more overwhelmingly huge.
I only skimmed Justin’s post when it was up, due to its length and formatting and my own fatigue, but the “BAD IDEA” vibe coming off it was pretty strong. I hope he is getting some help from his doctors, and possibly a lawyer and the police. Poor guy.
Caine,
When did I say otherwise?
I was saying (and I thought I made entirely clear) that anti-atheist bigotry exists in some communities much moreso than others, and that the fact that I don’t personally experience it doesn’t mean that other people don’t. And I offered examples of people who have been harmed by anti-atheist bigotry. I think you’re arguing with something I didn’t say. :-/
I’m not sure I follow you, Anne. Can you please clarify?
How can we be at the Hell hath no fury stage already? I haven’t even put the stenchflowers in a vase!
NHBU
Has anyone ever told you that you are creepy as fuck?
Preventative healthcare, sex, and SCIENCE, for me.
Damn… nearly 400 posts on Thunderdome! My work is done here.
Joey
Ever heard of a lie of omission? Its true that the most effective way to avoid the potentially serious consequences of sex is abstinence, but abstinence is not the only effective way to avoid them. A program that makes the latter claim is misinformation by definition.
Beyond that, being informed about contraception and family planning options is not the same as being forced to use them. Nobody’s personal commitments are threatened by getting a sex ed curriculum that teaches actual safe sex instead of a simplistic half-true version of it.
*brings in industrial grade Fabreeze and turns ventilation to ultra high*
I would get on that right quick then, were I you. If you think they smell bad when they’re fresh, you *really* don’t want to find out what happens if you let them rot.
So, nohellbelowus, your point is that you you’re irritated at reading posts you dislike about how irritating it can be to read posts you dislike, and you really wish that people would just shut up about being told to just shut up, and that you really shouldn’t have to scroll past posts about people not wanting to have to scroll past posts.
…gotcha.
There’s no question in your mind, I sincerely hope, as to why people here aren’t taking you seriously, right?
Not driving is the best way to survive a traffic accident. So it’s irresponsible to teach people safe driving or about seat belts
Also Joey why did you lie before? And how do you expect anyone to treat you as an honest person after that?
So is it self-centered and whiny and attention-seeking of me to notice that Dan has completely stopped replying to my comments on his “No Hate” post, including ones addressed specifically to him? Probably. But it does make me wonder why.
Are my arguments just so crap they were beneath his notice? Does he genuinely not have any response to my point that no matter how hard he may protest that he’s a good guy and appreciates the concerns of marginalized people, he’s not succeeding at convincing a lot of *them* of that and he might want to think about why? I don’t wanna be egotistical or nuthin’, but it seems to me like that might be an important point and I’m kind of curious why he’s not directly addressing it. Have I missed something where that point *has* been addressed and dealt with handily? Am I just getting hung up on an irrelevant pet issue?
@Anne
I’m really at the point where I don’t think Dan really cares. He’s a philosopher, it’s a game for him not anything real. He sees it as equal to calling for politeness when disusing whether batman could beat Ironman?
Anne, it’s not you. Or, rather, it’s that people who don’t engage on his prissy level don’t rate for him, Anne. He’s a jerk.
not against philosophers I meant that he’s basically wanking
Ing,
Hm. Much as Batman was my childhood hero, the one my brother and I both wanted to be (along with Indiana Jones), I’ve really gotta go with Iron Man on this one. They’re both basically just ordinary guys with a lot of fancy toys, and Iron Man has *way* better toys.
———
As for Dan, well, I hope he’s at least *reading* what I said and thinking about it, even if he doesn’t have a response right now. But surely somebody must have said this to him before, or he must have had some related experience before. In my (admittedly narrow) experience, learning how to convince people that you’re right is a pretty important part of one’s training as a researcher and educator, and it’s something you can only do successfully if you remain alert to when you’re *failing* to convince people and use that as a signal to re-evaluate your argument strategy.
The concern trolling continues. I’d really like to know where that handwringing fuckwit Karmakin gets his authority to decide what the main “gender issue” should be, and why it should be sexism instead of misogyny.
Also, dumbest fucking argument ever.
When you wrote the part she quoted:
I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, but you said it’s real if you’re (like) them. If you’re not like them, what does that imply? That it’s just as real for everyone else too?
If you want to give an example like that, it’d make more sense if you said something like “it’s very obvious” or “undeniable” for them. Then the alternative is that it’s unobvious or deniable, rather than unreal. Because it isn’t unreal to anyone.
Yeah, I saw that. Can’t be bothered to try to shake some sense into Ace of Sevens. Gourd only knows what his real problem is, but it’s dumb to borrow trouble about the future of A+ the way he is – and he’s doing it all around FtB. Dumb.
Dumbest troll ever.
Poor, poor troll.
Doesn’t appear to have noticed that Thunderdome hits 400 posts routinely, and has done so for multiple iterations.
Yes, it’s not true on a population level.
We know that populations subjected to abstinence-only education do not stop having sex. Populations subjected to abstinence-only education tend not to use contraception or protection when they do have sex. So populations subjected to abstinence-only education have higher rates of unwanted pregnancies, teen pregnancies, and STIs.
So abstinence-only education results in a greater problem, not a smaller one.
If you actually care about reducing the rates of unwanted pregnancies, teen pregnancies, and STIs, you don’t advocate for abstinence-only education. It’s basic public health. Freshman stuff.
Whatever reasoning you think you have for why this should not be the case, the evidence says you’re wrong.
But, Batman’s a crazy-prepared lunatic. So somewhere in his utility belt, right beside the capsule of Kryptonite, he’ll have a pocket EMP generator.
But Tony is ALSO a crazy-prepared lunatic! Who has reach due to flight.
Is Iron Man’s suit not EMP-hardened? Surely they must have *some* magic technology for that.
Note again the dishonesty in the gooey’s blitherings. The above, as the gooey well knows, is NOT abstinence ONLY sex education. The above is taught in ALL sex education, and is a regular part of ALL sex education. Abstinence ONLY education is distinguished by leaving out everything after that pertaining to contraception and protection, including how to properly use any of it, if not outright spreading misinformation about the reliability and safety of those methods of contraception and protection.
Note also how, after blathering on and on about abstinence ONLY education, it now deliberately leaves out the “only”, since it knows it has been completely and thoroughly destroyed on that point.
But of course, once you drop the “only” off of abstinence ONLY education, you just get chapter 1 of regular sex education.
So I am presuming that gooey has conceded the entire point, now?
The gooey’s shameless hypocrisy is thus clearly exposed. For someone SO apparently against abortion, one would think it would be not be in favor of a strategy PROVEN to result in higher rates of teen pregnancies, and thus a higher rate of abortions.
But from this we can plainly see that the gooey doesn’t actually care about abortion and fetuses per se, it only pretends to. It’s primary concern is all about controlling when women have sex and punishing those women who dare to have sex when it, gooey the tyrant slavemaster, does not approve.
One would presume that gooey, like wannabe tyrant slavemasters everywhere, is at least passing familiar with military metaphors, and ought to have at least heard of the concept of defense-in-depth. Abstinence is the first line of defense, but any general who refused to erect second and third lines of defense in the anticipation of the possibility that the first line might be breached, when the terrain, manpower and equipment are all available for the erection of such defenses, would be court-martialed.
But, once again, of course, we have to realize that the gooey doesn’t care about unwanted pregnancy or STD protection. That’s just its dishonest front. What it cares about is controlling when women have sex, and punishing women who dare to have sex when it, the tyrant slavemaster, does not approve.
Also, I feel like I’ve seen Iron Man shooting missiles of some kind. So won’t he just blow Batman up from miles away before Batman even knows what hit him?
I know he has some magnetic shielding at least in some armor because of Magneto
Or notice that PZ routinely waits for about 666 posts before a new thread of the same name. Funny how those who think they are smart (but really aren’t), don’t notice the obvious.
Anne C. Hanna #414
You’ve convinced me. I want to be Iron Man when I grow up.
@Anna @414
Those were maltov cocktails and that’s a power of being Tony Stark not Ironman :-p
I used to think it was strange, even dumb, to allow Google ads which promote religious agendae on ftb. Then I figured, it must be that Google doesn’t allow any editorial control, and ftb really needs that money badly.
Then I realized: Allowing religious people to promote religion is the best way to promote atheism. All is right in the universe, including ftb, go placidly etc.
Maybe. It’s possible Iron Man has something like that installed.
However, considering that Tony Stark once had his suit’s AI malfunction, gain sentience, develop an obsessive crush on him, kidnap him, and try to rape him, (and Bruce Wayne has never had any of his bat equipment do anything remotely similar) it suggests to me that Tony is a just a little bit less meticulous in the design of his toys than that his technology will have just a little bit more unanticipated vulnerabilities for a crazy-prepared opponent to exploit….
Amphiox, it sounds like what you’re saying is that Batman will have already hacked into Iron Man’s suit AI well before the battle even starts and will be able to prevent Tony from doing anything against him…
If they existed in the same universe Batman would have a virus ready to go that would shut down Tony’s suit in moments. We’re talking about a guy with contingency plans for everything, including taking out his fellow heroes (see Tower of Babel).
The banner adds is a subject that has been extensively explained in the past.
Those banner adds are mostly user specific, and generated based on the search histories stored in the browsers of individual users. So if you happen to be seeing a lot of religious ads, that has nothing to do with FtB, and much to do with what your own browsing patterns have been.
(For me, lately, 50% of all the banner adds have been for fluorescent and LED lightbulbs.)
Mine at work (adblock at home) have been Tyvek™ PPE (personal protective equipment), meaning lab coats and jump suits.
Is nohellbelowus flounced?
Is nohellbelowus worth an “alert” message to PZ?
(I ask because my foot hurts and I haven’t had a decent cup of tea or booze in three weeks and I fear my judgement may be impaired.)
KG:
Of course I know very well that it was sarcasm, as was my response. SISO: sarcasm in, sarcasm out.
What I am in favor of in the secular setting is obtaining ACCURATE information. What I view as “miseducation” is giving off the mindset that you’re essentially bulletproof as long as condoms/contraception are used. You’re not…not even close…
If sex education is merely instructions on how to properly slip on a condom and providing locations to your closest abortion clinic without stressing the evidence that “safe sex” is no where close to being completely fullproof in preventing STDs and unwanted pregnancies, then that is what I would consider miseducation.
I received sex education as a freshman in public high school. No where in this “education” did it stress the actual effectiveness of condoms, just that using condoms is “safe”. If I had been a sexually active teen and I saw the data above, I would have been completely freaked out. Miseducation is what I received in school, even if I was given the demonstration of putting a condom on a banana.
———-
Antiochus:
Fair enough. Though, I’m not going completely off topic. We both agree that none of the isms that have been listed necessarily derive from the lack of belief in gods. So I just wanted to go further and explore exactly where those isms actually derive from? What is the underlying axiom in common with those philosophies (liberalism, humanism, socialism, feminism, etc.), if it’s not atheism?
The collective can still be ‘well’ even if some of the parts are not ‘well’. It is even possible the collective can be ‘better’ if some of the parts do not become ‘well’.
Individual rights would not be fundamental if the well-being of the collective is fundamental. For example, the woman’s right to choose to have multiple children is not considered fundamental in China, whereas it is considered fundamental here in America (at least for now).
————
Amphiox:
Alright, so is this the fundamental axiom? Could this idea be derived from something even more fundamental, or is this the absolute ground floor? If it’s the latter, then you have to admit that the axiom is rather arbitrary. Why is this premise any more valid than the premise that you do whatever it takes for you to survive? Or rather, the premise to do whatever it takes for the human species to survive? Or rather, the premise to do whatever it takes for the well-being of the planet (what’s “good” for the earth isn’t necessarily “good” for the human species, and vice versa)?
And what exactly does “human being” mean? Can an infant that is neither rational nor self-aware be considered a human being that and has the same worth as an adult? If so, why can’t dogs or cows also have equal worth as humans? What is the reasoning in discriminating against other species?
The disbelief in gods doesn’t validate your axiom (that all human beings have equal worth) any more than it validates any other conceivable axiom. There is no rational reason for a disbeliever in gods to instead favor the axiom that human beings are an evil and vile species and should be immediately wiped off from the face of this earth for the betterment of the planet.
I’d say so.
I don’t remember the thread, but I’ve seen him on this blog before, so I doubt the flounce is permanent.
Also, the amount of creepiness he produced in this thread is above average IMO. If I never have to hear about his imaginary sex life again, that would be a good thing.
That is all.
I’m really sorry, but I have to:
+10.
;-)
It ISN’T. As has already been explained to it in detail. More deliberate mischaracterization by gooey. Pretty much the same dishonest tactic as when it kept perseverating over hypothetical “abortion” of an already-born infant still attached to the umbilical cord.
Utterly pathetic.
This may be true but it is also irrelevant to my point. As usual the gooey has deliberately reversed the logical progression my argument and tried to argue against that strawman of its own invention.
It seems that even on such a minor point the gooey cannot help but be dishonest.
Nonsense. Since when does comprehensive sex education teach that using condoms will always protect you from STDs and pregnancy? When I was in sex ed (in my freshman high school biology class), my teacher listed the failure rates of condoms as well as numerous other forms of contraception, while emphasizing that the only guaranteed form of protection against STDs and pregnancy was abstinance.
Joey
Yes, that would be bad; its a good argument for why sex education should give a detailed account of various contraceptive strategies, rather than simply telling people that condoms are magic.
When I was getting sex ed, we were not instructed that a condom is a foolproof implement, and we were told about other methods as well. Its also worth noting that if condoms are used correctly, the failure rate is more like 2%.
I’m sorry if you were cheated. But your criticisms don’t support the argument that birth control shouldn’t be covered at all.
To cite my wikipedia article again, typical use of a condom is leads to a pregnancy roughly 15% of the time and unprotected intercourse leads to pregnancy 85% of the time. Even a poor sex education program (such as the one you received) is therefore better than one that implies that only abstinence is effective, because as Brownian noted people given abstinence only education still have sex, and are less likely to use protection. This is why the use of abstinence only education is correlated with increased teen pregnancy rates.
An interesting aside is that people using condoms also have a much lower likelihood of transmitting or contracting the HIV virus.
Aside: for what it’s worth, I understood Walton’s list as illustrative, not exhaustive. Compiling the full list would be time-consuming.
(Cross-posting from the I Want Skin… thread) –
txpiper:
Ok, let’s start with the question I’ve asked you at least twice, and you have ignored: What is the method for determining that two animals are not related?
Should you want to go further, describe the (let’s say) three most promising sources for genetic alteration under your model – if there are only two, or just one, that’s fine, so long as you describe it, rather than talking about other models. In other words, tell us how your model for animal diversity works, giving your best pieces of evidence for it, without mentioning evolution once. See if you can.
Lastly, once you’ve done this, tell us how your theory can be falsified. Ideally, you’d include a general circumstance, and then a counter-factual specific example.
That’s what I mean by showing your work.
But you know, just as well as I do, that you can’t do this. You keep twisting and wriggling, desperate to appear competent and knowledgeable, when you simply do not have the facts behind what you are claiming.
(I am cross-posting this to the Thunderdome, as this thread is about to go bye-bye. I imagine you’ll be to timid to engage there, as it’s still pretty young. But as I said, I’m having fun, so I’ll keep up this charade as long as you want.)
In a social species as interdependent as humans are, all these premises are the same. The best way to ensure one’s own survival and the survival of one’s family, friends, and descendents, is to promote the survival of everyone equally.
But it is not surprising that gooey the tyrant slavemaster who consistently thinks of other people only in terms of how their behavior should be controlled to conform to its own preferred desires, can’t seem to wrap its mind around this point.
There is no value in the survival of the human species, or any other population, independent on the welfare of the individuals that make it up. The ONLY REASON to even care about the survival of the human species as a whole is BECAUSE of the INDIVIDUAL humans that make it up.
Since the human species is intimately dependent on the earth, what’s good for the human species in the long term IS what’s good for the earth. And this will remain true for a very long time even after the development of interstellar space travel.
Bulletproof vests aren’t bulletproof. Is that a problem? Maybe if we’re hung up on “proof” meaning absolute certainty.
If you ask me, it’s a conclusion based on evidence, not an axiom. We should treat others as equals because it’s better than the alternatives you suggest (and others which aren’t as ludicrous as yours), and there is plenty of evidence to back that up. It’s not an arbitrary axiom which means nothing and which was picked out of a hat (or pulled out of an imaginary god’s ass).
That is false. There are many conceivable axioms which depend on the existence of a god to be valid.
A disbeliever in god is a human being, so they couldn’t be consistent if they took this view. Besides that, there’s no reason to think humanity as a whole is evil and vile. And there is no such thing as “the betterment of the planet,” whether that involves wiping things off the face of it or not. Planets feel nothing. There’s nothing better for them, because nothing is for them at all.
Joey did you wind up having sex because your sex ed told you about condoms?
Unless, of course, we are postulating sentient planets, like Zonama Sekot.
If for no other reason, NOT treating other human beings as equals gives them additional motivation to retaliate in kind against you, and thus needlessly promotes conflict between you and the single most dangerous and threatening species on this planet for any species to be in conflict with, namely, other human beings.
And that’s not in anyone’s longterm self-interest.
At least Gooey’s sex ed, inferior as it might have been, actually taught how to apply a condom, which puts it one step in utility above any abstinence only sex education program.
I seriously question the motivation for anyone seeking to convince atheists that there’s no reason for them to be good
a) The question of God is separate from that
b) Do you really really want to encourage someone to become a sociopath and let them lose on the world just for the sake of confirming your own sense of smug moral superiority?
Everytime I hear someone like Joey I am tempted to just say “You’re right, I’m off to mug an old lady in a home invasion! Happy now?”
I mean FFS, “Hey everyone!? let’s convince the group of people we don’t believe have any moral compass yet still seem restrained by morality that they’re not restrained by morality so they can act without any moral compass!”
How does anyone like Joey even manage to keep themselves alive with that level of idiocy?
I mean isn’t that the equivalent of looking down the barrel of a gun, while shoving a match down it and fiddling with the trigger going “WHY ISN’T IT FIRING?”
Joey
Homo Sapiens. Its a kind of ape that walks upright and thinks itself pretty clever. Some of them even are.
Did you really just ask this?
I think it is somewhat arbitrary, and somewhat based on pragmatism. Is a newborn infant as human as its mother? Probably not. Is a cow more self aware than an infant? I have no idea. But if cows got protected status as people it would cause economic problems. Giving infants legal personhood does not cause a similar problem, and babies rapidly develop into humans, while cows do not. Fetuses cause a problem because they rely directly on their mothers for survival, and thus greater consideration should be given to the mother.
Bio-ethics boards tend to have guidelines for animal use in research based on the complexity of the species. Insects are unregulated and non-human primates are regulated very carefully and have to be treated with more respect. Rabbits are somewhere in between.
Calculating the level of consideration a given creature is due isn’t necessarily simple, but maybe you should consider that easy answers are often spurious.
You know there’s this crazy thing about human nature where people tend to be attached to babies for some reason
Also Joey, again why should anyone bother responding to you as if you were an honest agent after you lied so horribly?
Hmm, I agree about the amount of creepiness, but don’t agree about sending an alert to PZ. That is, I would wait a few days and see if its behavior intensifies or tapers off. I think its current targets are standing up just fine to its attacks and as long as it doesn’t get worse, I think we can collectively handle it.
But on the other hand, if one of the monitors wants to contact PZ, we might get an answer to the interesting question “how bad does someone have to behave to get banned on the unmoderated Thunderdome thread?”
Chigau, since you’ve got access, feel free to ask the question if you want …
We have some data on that question to date. Rajkumar got banned in TZT before it became thunderdome. He filled up about 1000 comments with aimless babbling stupidity before PZ finally applied the hammer.
Alerting PZ on NoHell will probably not lead to an immediate effect in any case.
I’m blaming Eli. Compare and contrast.
I got sent this yesterday by a different Christian, who decided to add his own gloating remarks to the news link he gave me.
Thoughts on this outrageous new development?
Hurin, Midnight DJ on the Backwards Music Station,
Homo sapiens. Small “s”, always italicized.
*tk giggles to himself as he pretends he knew this prior to seeing it corrected in the Drake thread here a couple days ago – while pretending he’s certain he’s correcting correctly*
(Cross-posted from I Want Skin… as before)
txpiper:
Since you will read things, but not well, I’m repeating this, so you can try again, this time with more correctness:
See the bolded bits?
Now watch:
See those bolded bits?
That’s where you couldn’t stop talking about evolution. Let’s revisit your central paragraph:
See that bolded bit?
That’s the only time you actually almost got close to describing, in positive terms, your model.
And when you did, what did you actually say? “DNA changes, I’m not talking about why.” That’s what I mean by showing your work. Talking about why. Talking about how. The mechanisms, the influences. Since, according to you, environmental influences acting on spontaneous structural changes in DNA are insufficient, where do the other changes come from? Be as specific as possible, please.
Also, follow-up question:
If A can reproduce with B, and B can reproduce with C, but A cannot reproduce with C, are A and C related? (And if you think I’m conjuring unrealistic hypotheticals, look up Ring Species.)
As a side note, you once again felt the need to pad your answer by talking about models other than your own. I’m not asking you what I think, I’m asking you what you think. If you consistently find that what you think is incapable of answering questions to your own satisfaction, in might be time to revisit it.
Sorry this got so long. Once again, cross-posting to the Tdome.
(Please let me know if cross-posting is irritating, I just have trouble finding stuff in the archives. If it’s bothering you guys, let me know, and I’ll quit.)
Anri, bah.
If it bothers others, then it’s good.
(This. Is. The. Thunderdome!)
joey,
Seriously, “I got shitty sex education so everyone else should get even shittier sex education (i.e., abstinence-only)”? What kind of argument is that?
Here’s what I remember being talked about during the sex ed sessions I received: instructions on how to correctly put on both male and female condoms, information on other contraceptive (but not protective) methods, statistics on their effectiveness, the most common causes why they fail, nothing wrong with combining some of them, stressing that condoms offer almost no protection against stuff like genital herpes and are never 100% effective even if used correctly so the only way to be sure is to not have sex at all while having many partners increases your risks significantly. We also talked a lot about the importance of waiting until you find someone you trust and who respects you, and of not being pressured into doing it either by friends or by your partner. Some advice on relationships in general. Stressing that sex isn’t just PIV, some talk about other sexual acts and the ways you can get STDs through them. Information about breast cancer in males and females and a variety of other possibly sex-related cancers (cervical, penile, oropharyngeal…). Pap smears, how it’s done, when, and what for. Breast self examination, how to do it and how important it is to do it regularly. Where and how to get help and advice if you find yourself pregnant and disoriented. You know, important stuff like that.
Now tell me, joey. Between this and abstinence-only sex “education”, which one do you think is best? Actual useful information on sex-related stuff or just “be afraid, kids, be very afraid of doing this icky thing that may get you sick or pregnant and which you will likely end up doing anyway sooner or later”?
Nightjar:
That’s because I never made the argument that everyone should be subjected to abstinence-only education. Like I mentioned, I simply want accurate information given. You’re right, I got “shitty” sex ed in high school. Maybe things the quality of education has improved since then, but maybe not. I somehow doubt it’s common knowledge to most condom users that condoms do nothing to prevent HPV and are only marginally effective for diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, and chlamydia.
I would expect any type of sex education, abstinence-only or abstinence-plus, would present accurate information regarding the plethora of sexually transmitted diseases and the true effectiveness rates of condoms. If an abstinence-only program doesn’t provide this information, then I would agree that this would be miseducation. But I would label the type of education I received back in high school as miseducation as well. Oh, and another example of gross miseducation is not requiring warning labels on condoms.
Just a drive-by for now. I’ll respond to other posts if I have time tonight.
They do nothing? They’re only marginally effective? Maybe it shouldn’t be common knowledge because you’re making shit up and have no evidence.
Gee, Joey lying and bullshitting? Even making stuff up doesn’t change his problem of being a dim religous bulb. There the lies and bullshit start with his imaginary deity. He’s just continuing how he was taught.
Who do I believe Joey, you, the proven liar and bullshitter, or the CDC?
jonmilne, sounds like this newest interlocutor of yours is smug because even though the Catholic Church was responsible for decades of unprosecuted child rapes, they’re getting away with it in one particular jurisdiction? What a nasty piece of work.
I donwanna fight. I just wanna agree on this. I came to the wrong place, didn’t I?
Oh, and, in re NHBU, I’d be curious to get PZ’s take on what the new standards for banning are, but I’m not going to be terribly bothered if he doesn’t meet the threshold just yet. He’s mostly just disgusting and weird, it’s not like he’s actually managing to be significantly disruptive right now. So I was sort of thinking of this as a case for a notional watchlisting, rather than any kind of emergency alert.
portia,
I’ll call you fucking stupid for no good reason and then agree with you about Josh’s comment. You tell me to fuck off and I think our proper/improper reactions will cancel each other out. The order will be restored.
Nah, this is the perfect place. You know how the Lounge is nice because nothing is offtopic? TZT is nice because nothing is ooff topic, plus you get to curse at people whether you’re agreeing or disagreeing. It’s like the Pharyngula of old, except for some reason most people seem to consider it beneath them to come over here. Must have been a cultural evolution while I was gone.
Beatrice, at what point do we elaborate on our preferred way of interacting with providers of sexual services? I’m still figuring this thing out.
Yer fucking right, Paul!
–
…that felt good.
Joey
Marginally effective huh? Lets look at what the CDC has to say about that:
And
Lets look at transmission rates:
I guess you can call that “marginal efficacy” if you want. In my opinion the 85% improvement on HIV transmission is enough to justify promoting their use on its own though, and in only two cases mentioned above is the disease transmission rate unaffected by the use of a condom.
Looking at the CDC article I have to wonder if you even need to have sex in order to spread HPV (good thing we have a vaccine for that one).
Lying again, eh, joey. I thought your religion deprecated that.
Condoms provide protection against HPV, study finds. Not complete protection, admittedly, but it’s simply a lie that they do nothing to prevent it. As for syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, and chlamydia, well according to the CDC, you’re lying again: “marginally effective” is quite clearly a falsehood.
portia,
That’s a difficult one. According to nohellbelowus, somewhere between hello and third comment, but I’m not sure we should follow his example.
I spend less time here than I do elsewhere, largely because you get long stretches dominated by a single topic, which is often (like the latest installment of SGBM vs Louis, complaints about Dan Fincke’s comments policy, or even the great freewill debate, where the same points are repeated again and again), not of great interest to me.
tkreacher
Oops.
I actually knew the part about species being lower case, but it didn’t occur to me at the time I was making the post. I was totally oblivious to the italicization, so thanks for pointing that out.
Beatrice, touche. Perhaps we can postpone it til after we’ve cussed each other out properly.
KG, as opposed to over at the Lounge, where there was first a discussion of ducks and hymens, then of sex acts involving foreskins and glanses, interspersed with some other types of silliness. You’re right, at least there’s variation!
Then what argument exactly are you trying to make by saying teenagers subjected to abstinence-only “education” are not victims of bad/incomplete (mis)education as long as they do what they’re told?
Oh, and they’re not told to never ever have sex in their whole lives, so they are victims of not being given important information about something they are expected to do. Planning pregnancies and avoiding unwanted ones, STDs, contraceptive methods, all that stuff I mentioned… you need a basic understanding of it even if you only have sex after marrying/settling down.
Then why are you arguing with people who want all the accurate information available given (and not just the bit about sex->babies and STDs so avoid it like the plague) as if you were disagreeing with them?
WTF? “Marginally”? No, not “marginally”. Not even judging by the numbers you gave.
What if it does but also excludes a lot of the stuff I mentioned? What if it does but also includes a lot of brainwashing about how immoral sex is unless it is PIV in a heterosexual marriage with no birth control?
That’s still miseducation + brainwashing, isn’t it?
jflcroft,
“Counsellor”, “advisor”, “befriender”…
I accept your explanation of why Epstein uses the phrase “traditional religion”, but since Epstein does go out of his way both to contrast Humanism with New Atheism, and to say that it is “not necessarily an antireligious ideology”, it seems to me that he most definitely is “stressing the compatibility of religion with Humanism”.
KG:
Humanism is, accurately expressed, not antireligious in the sociological sense. That doesn’t mean that it is compatible with religion. I see a clear distinction between those ideas.
so the search-term trolls on my blog have discovered the hangout and are now telling me I’m fat.
*rolleyes*
At first I found joeytheliar’s presence around these parts to have no redeeming features whatsoever, but lately – with the way you all have been anatomising what he says and what he actually means – I’ve been seeing what a great teaching opportunity he provides. Just wanted to say – great to see joeytheliar revealed (and revealing himself) as the profoundly dishonest sophist he really is.
I somehow doubt it’s common knowledge to most condom users that condoms do nothing to prevent HPV and are only marginally effective for diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, and chlamydia.
You need to bump all those estimates up a notch or two to get anywhere close to the truth. Condoms are marginally to moderately protective against HPV and highly effective against the other mentioned STDs as well as HIV and hepatitis.
The HPV vaccine is highly effective against HPV.
Aww. I bet they think they’re real clever too. *sigh* Is it too much to ask for them to come up with *creative* insults?
The thing about condoms is they only work if they’re used correctly. Correct use includes making sure the condom isn’t out of date, not reusing condoms, using a latex or other artificial material condom, etc. Joey is also correct in stating that condoms aren’t perfect. Sometimes they do break. It’s best to have a backup plan ready if they do to protect against pregnancy and STDs.
Well, naturally it isn’t common knowledge, seeing as all those things listed after ARE FALSE.
Big surprise, gooey the tyrant lying slavemaster caught lying again.
Oh, I get it, in gooey’s vocabulary, condoms are marginally effective in the same way a newborn still attached to the umbilical cord is marginally still a fetus.
What a pitiful dishonest smuck.
Another pathetically transparent piece of dishonesty. The exact same kind of dishonest argumentation as the gooey’s original “what about that hypothetical perfectly healthy term fetus” schtick.
No, the gooey doesn’t get to hide behind the narrowest and literalest interpretations of its words precisely when its convenient for it to do so, even as it deliberately exploits the broader insinuations in all the rest of its posts.
If this were true, the gooey would not be participating in this discussion at all, as it would have been in agreement from the start that abstinence only sex education is a miseducation of children, and wouldn’t have posted anything contrary to that at all.
So, another transparent lie by the gooey.
Utterly pathetic.
I see Croft is not responding to me. Is it because I call him Croft and he doesn’t like that? Perhaps if he called me what I’ve asked him to call me, I’d be amenable to calling him something other than Croft.
Now I’ll deal with his mealy-mouthed attempt to explain away his buddy Epstein being a Chaplain.
As KG noted, he could come up with some other title. Is Harvard threatening to withdraw all support and recognition from HCH if Epstein started calling himself Adviser or Counselor or Grand Poohbah? Since Epstein renamed his chaplaincy it isn’t a stretch for him to rename his title. Unless, of course, it makes him seem less favorable toward religion.
Now I’m going to have to get a new bullshit detector. This comment burned out my old one, which was rated at 10 kiloComforts. Epstein renamed the Chaplaincy! You bragged about that. Are you trying to tell us with a straight face that Epstein can’t follow through and rename his title? Quite possibly if he asked Dr. Faust nicely she’d allow him to assume a new title.
I read this as “Humanism is not a religion but gosh, we really like a lot of religious trappings like rituals, hymns and organization.” Which is what I’ve tried to tell you for months.
<blockquote
He doesn’t like the theistic aspects of religion. But he really likes the ceremonial and “community” aspects. Plus he doesn’t mind using the term “religion” to describe his religion because that’s how other religious atheists uses it.
Religion without gods.
Remember the brouhaha regarding male circumcision and how it was such a great thing because it supposedly reduced the risk of HIV transmission by oh such an effectively large degree?
Well, even the MOST BIASED studies of that effect peg it at 60% protection.
So, 60%, when in support of a religiously sanctioned tradition, is a HUGE, IMPRESSIVE, AMAZING effect, while 85%, from a condom, is, according to the gooey, “marginal”.
*barf*
Oh, if anyone has been extending oolon any charity, check out this post at Greta’s. I’m done with said person after that.
Hurin, Midnight DJ on the Backwards Music Station #470
Heh. No problem.
I no idea myself up until a couple of days ago.
Pharyngula: spreadin’ the knowledge virus.
I didn’t imply otherwise, and I presented no dilemma.
Maybe that’s what you think, because you’re confused or dishonest. I don’t even want to take a guess at this point. Are you seriously arguing fucking website design involves “religious beliefs and practices”?
Sure, it’s a practice, and it’s a practice religious people sometimes do, thus it’s religious. People even have beliefs about websites. How about that. Have I summed up your sophistry well enough so far? Because I want to let it sink in and give everyone a chance to stop laughing.
Or if you’re not arguing that, what the fuck is your point? Many atheists have a problem with humanist organizations like yours borrowing religious stuff from religions. We don’t generally have a problem with borrowing non-religious stuff from them. I know that whether you want to or not, you’re going to confuse the issue as much as you possibly can, but approximately where on the spectrum of religious to non-religious would you say website design fits?
I literally said “you’re not borrowing some of the religious aspects” (in reference to websites, not in general). Now you want to tell me I’m saying the opposite?
Neither will I. So do you want to read my comments again, for comprehension this time?
Exactly. It’s like all those trolls in the social justice threads going all “oh, I totally share your values and everything but now I really must spend the rest of this thread arguing with you as if I didn’t and making the discussion you want to have impossible, ’cause that’s what allies do, right?”
Like that fools anyone (well, they may be fooling themselves, but that’s about it).
Um, I think I said this before, but, if you’re bringing it to the T’dome, could you please link to the original disagreement? Pretty please?
For example, I have no idea what the web-design-for-Jesus controversy is about. *confuzzled*
Jesus jumped up.
No. There are no rules here.
Mr. Croft took exception to PZ accusing the Harvahd Humanists of aping religion. To prove his point, Croft took my pointing out that Greg Epstein of the HH calling himself a chaplain as proof, somehow, that the word chaplain doesn’t have heavy religious meanings.
That the HH took website design ideas from religious websites is also proof that they aren’t trying to consider themselves a religion. Or something. I drifted off for a little while.
Then I woke up, and I was here.
RAWR!
Thanks. (Apparently there are still social niceties.)
Our good friend NHBU has apparently wandered over to Greta’s to explain to her in dulcet tones that her time is too valuable to waste on talking about the #menwhocallherthings.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/08/27/mencallmethings-whining-annoying-cunt/#comment-91432
Also, apparently reading the comments, noticing his name, and pointing out to those reading that thread that he’s not as well-intentioned as he’s pretending to be now makes me a stalker.
Woot.
And the LORD said unto them, When you taketh up the intertubes to glorify my name, use not the flashing text or the hideous green backgrounds, for these are an abomination in my sight.
Greta has a policy of banning persons who are known to have misbehaved at other blogs:
We know Greta is reading that thread but no way of guessing whether she will follow your links back here to see Nohell behaving atrociously.
I’m spending a few moments considering whether to draw her attention to Nohell’s behavior more explicitly than you already did.
Sorry. It starts with some of jflcroft’s comments here. I meant to address my comment above to him — it does look like it came out of nowhere — but I’ll try to remember to link to things too next time. My mistake.
Huh. I didn’t know that about Greta’s comment policy, hotshoe. However, as I myself was technically in violation of rule 1 (“Be respectful of other commenters in this blog. No personal insults; no namecalling; no flame wars.”), I’m not gonna go around calling for him to be banned. However, in addition to his earlier violations, he also said this to someone:
So he’s probably well on his way to wearing out his welcome without any further assistance from me.
NHBU on Greta’s is frightening. He is literally trying to strategically weaken the defenses for his kind. This sort of shows that it isn’t just some impulse or being a jackass thing, there are people on a fucking mission
It puts a whole new spin on the discussion I had with him over at Richard’s, I tell you what.
Heh, the stupid’s already showing up in the A+ forums: http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64