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
So how long before the next troll?
The latest news reports (e.g. the presidential election results, republican compromises on the budget, etc.) suggest that some semblance of reason is creeping back into American politics.
Hopefully this will spread to Canada, where we have perhaps the most frighteningly right wing government we have ever had.
Our current Prime Minister is a right wing ideologue from Alberta (aka Canada’s Texas), who is a devoted acolyte of the Bush/Cheney school of government.
Currently our government is trying to use back-door measures to re-open the abortion debate, recently tried (unsuccessfully) to shut down a (drug) harm-reduction program in Vancouver, and one of our cabinet ministers, when asked about evolution, replied that he did not want to get into a religious discussion.
I never thought I would consider moving to the United States just to get away from all the right-wing crazy.
If you’re looking to get away from right wing craziness, you don’t want to be headed here (U.S.) – set your sights on NZ or Oz. Or anywhere that isn’t the states.
Tony:
What, Ragarth isn’t enough for ya?
Caine @3:
Seconded!
@4:
Meh. I see him more as a self absorbed twit more than a troll. YMMV.
@ Tony
Snakker ee Norsk?
Henrik Ibsen (1884):
Translation:
Hey PZ, could we get artist credits or source links for the thumbnails?
That one came from here.
So, have they compromised? I haven’t really been following that, but what I heard most recently, the Republican idea of compromise was “we get everything we want and you get to suck it up.”
theophontes, you made me think of Itchycoo Park .
No, Republicans aren’t compromising, they’re not even close. They’re opening proposal was worse (more cuts to SS and Medicare, MAGIC savings through the closing of undisclosed loopholes) than the automatic shitstorm that hits if we go over the cliff.
They are dumb fucking assholes that are simultaneously arguing that the deficit is the biggest problem in the world, but we can’t raise taxes because of growth. We need to contract, but we can’t contract!!
Fucking stupid shit assholes. And the Dems are only slightly better. Why anyone thinks doing the same thing England just did will lead to different results is an idiot.
We are in a liquidity trap. Aggregate demand has crashed. There’s a massive surplus on the supply side (record corporate profits as a % of GDP) WE NEED TO BE SPENDING MORE NOT LESS.
their
Maybe the dome isn’t the place for me. There’s too much freedom. I haven’t been that incoherent in a while.
@ doubtthat
{enter dancing tardigrades dressed in bondage gear}
*CRACK*
In your cage doubtthat!!!
*CRACK*
Increase output!!!!
Theophontes:
I can send in the rats…
dougthebox #2
The problem with the current Prime Minister of Canada is NOT that he is from Alberta.
It is that he is an Evangelical Christian.
@ John Morales
Be carefull, you may encourage an Ibsen mashup…
{the dancing tardigrades shed their whips, paddles and leathers and don once more their robes, lining up again, stage left as The Choir ™ }
{All in Unison}
At leve er — krig med trolde
i hjertets og hjernens hvælv.
{a *click-clack* sound is heard as someone cracks open a frosty.}
Om jeg hamrer eller hamres,
ligefuldt så skal der jamres!
{sound of match being struck, a huge puff of smoke envelopes the choir}
Sannhet på slangens hode skal tråkke…
{*fart*}
Jeg har en sånn umåtelig lyst til å si: død og pine.
{choir breaks up as the tambourines are distributed, the dancing tardigrades start a wild cavort. theophontes casts down baton and leaves in a huff}
[lyrics:
]
theophontes
You have way too much time on your
handstentaclesappendages.Dave Brubeck passed away this morning (12/5).
Shit.
Thanks for the great jazz Mr. Brubeck. You will be missed.
@ Caine
Yes!!!
(Not a moment too soon. Pissed-off punters have gathered pitchforks and firebrands and are persuing theophontes down the cobbled back alleys of The Thunderdome…)
@ chigau
I have minions minioning as I type. I look as if I am very busy.
@ sparks
Dave Brubeck
*gives clenched tentacle salute*
ohohoh
sparks #19
sadsadsad
@ chigau/sparks
His son, Darius, was at my varsity when I studied in Durban (South Africa). The whole family are brilliant musicians.
theophontes, you should avoid minionettes from the planet Minion.
@ John Morales
{clicks linky}
That sounds like the fun park we built on the outskirts of Thunderdome. (Chthon consists of a maze of office cubicles. There .DWG and .PNG files are exchanged for food.)
Ow, crap.
sparks@19,
And he was only 91 – a mere stripling. The last couple of days have seen the deaths of Elisabeth Murdoch, 103 (mother of the more famous Rupert); Oscar Neimeyer, 104 (architect, and designer of Brasilia); and Besse Cooper, 116 (world’s oldest known living person before her death: Dina Manfredini, 115, succeeds to the title).
What’s killing all these people off at once, when they’ve stayed alive so long? Sinister! ;-)
Nick,
Well, it certainly ain’t Dexter.
I see what you did there.
Nick Gotts
Holy shit, I know people who operate with that mechanism installed. It was fine all this time, why would it break/leak/fail now? /headpalm
@ John Morales
Itchycoo Park
(Tar De narkotika fra et gennemsnitsmenneske, så tar De lykken fra ham med det samme.)
Nick Gotts @28
It’s Obamacare’s Death Panels kicking in.
All the cool old guys from when I was a kid are passing away. ):
Wait until ObamaCare takes full effect.
With the money taken away from Medicare, and the limitations on “extraordinary” treatments, all the old people will really need is a nice funeral plan
Hey, this is funny…
ATHEIST spells EATSHIT
Yeah, well… only if you switch the letters around.
Bet you feel foolish now, huh?
Looks like we’ve got a real Mitthead over here.
@ joachim
I’m this hot jackal.
What does that spell … ?
or this: Rakish if smooth ejaculator. ?
Examples may be multiplied with little effort.
Troll gets 0.5/5 for content (because of decent spelling and grammar), 0/5 for effort.
Marcus Aurelius, who you may remember as the old guy in the movie _Gladiator_, wrote:
“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
@ anteprepro #38
I wonder where the whole republican attitude comes from. Hell, the ‘Merkin world view in general. Then I was reading about education in Finland (founded 95 years ago today):
That bit, growing up in an environment of constant “competition and comparison” may well point to something. If that becomes internalised, one will get to a point where one cannot even see the problems anymore.
Society might come apart at the seems, but the individuals continue to see everything through the lense of “each to their own” rather than looking out for society as a whole. The blind spot is grown and re-entrentched with every passing generation. One template, one measure to manufacture individualists (such as USA) as opposed to a system of developing each individual to their own personal excellence – in order to build a winning society for all (Finland).
@ Menyambal
A life-attitude stolen from the Greeks.
I’d like to assure everyone I was attempting humor with my Death Panels comment. I didn’t know someone with a lack of reading comprehension would come in at the same time and post a similar comment and actually be serious about it.
Not to worry, ajb47. Idiots like joachim are a dime a dozen around here. If you’d snarked about elevatorgate it would’ve activated someone else.
@ SGBM
Mrs Snake & S.O.
@ All
Our Ebil Oberlawd ™ has been around for millenia! ( Linky )
Ah, that sucks. I guess I know what I’ll be listening to tonight. *sigh*
When I read “(12/5)” my brain tried to understand that as a time signature instead of a date.
Whoa. Not sure if that’s indicative of too much coffee or not enough.
I’d say the problem our current PM is that his party is allowed to do whatever it wants even though fewer than a quarter of Canadians voted for it.
I guess that’s not really a problem with him specifically, though.
Bad move for your brain.
It would be playable as 12/8, with the new beats 8:5 to the original. (But that’s a hard fucking polyrhythm…. This is 5:4, but you have to divide the quarters to get 5:8.)
Or if I did the math right, you could do it as 9/4 plus an extra 60% of a quarter note. If that helps.* We could count that as close enough for swing.
*It doesn’t help.
Not enough. It is in the nature of coffee that you can never have enough.
Sir Thomas Massey-Massey stands up in the English Parliament and says, “England is not a Catholic country. We should not refer to the holy day of Christ’s birth as ‘Christ-mass’, as the Catholics do. Rather, we should call it ‘Christ-tide’, in the Protestant, and good old English, tradition.”
Somebody else stands up and says, “Well, then, Sir Thomas Massey-Massey, should we start calling you Sir Thotide Tidey-Tidey?”
It’s an Americanism. In the rest of the world it’s 5/12. Ba-da-da-ba-da [etc.]. Much simpler. ;-)
And now I’m wondering what a fifth note would look like. A filled-in ball with a staff leading to a liquor bottle?
Okay, random question for the thunderdome:
You know the statement about how, when people make jokes or talk about things like their misogyny or rape, the people who are ACTUALLY going to go out and do it interpret those as actual support for what they’re doing? They assume they’re allies?
Well, I was trying to find some data to back this up, whether statements by people or some sort of survey, or anything like that. It would be great to have for if I ever got into an argument with a reasonable person who just hadn’t heard it before, and is resistant in the way a reasonable person can be upon learning something new and uncomfortable. In any case, I went back and read the original -and very enlightening- piece about this as well, and… yeah. My google-fu is failing me. Does anyone have an idea of where I should look for that kind of data?
Americans don’t just use archaic measures, they also are perverse at writing dates.
Given that a year is divided into months and months are divided into days, it makes sense to write dd/mm/yy (or yy/mm/dd) for a date, but it’s counter-intuitive to write mm/dd/yy.
(It’s much like writing mm/ss/hh rather than hh/mm/ss for time, given that an hour is divided into minutes and minutes are divided into seconds)
anthonyrosa #53
Do you want to rephrase the “question”?
—-
John Morales
re: date format
I have popped more than a few brain blood vessels trying to convince people that this is important.
John Morales & chigau,
Agreed.
John Morales, 54 – That’s totally one of my favourite pet peeves. I can never be sure wtf date is meant unless the number mentioned is >12.
We hates it, preshussssss!
Anthonyrosa
Try the Social Justice Link Roundup, handily linked in the sidebar. Check under the heading “Rape jokes and other sexist humour” to start with.
Or start with this, taken from there:
* The Enjoyment of Sexist Humor, Rape Attitudes, and Relationship Aggression in College Students
* Effects of exposure to sexist humor on perceptions of normative tolerance of sexism
* More Than “Just a Joke”: The Prejudice-Releasing Function of Sexist Humor
date +%s
ॐ, well before digital computers, astronomers used the ‘Julian date’ to simplify date arithmetic.
Being born after 1970, I have a limited supply of fucks.
Seriously though, I hate the hell out of Google because they still* use Julian dates for archive searches.
*still isn’t even the right word; they never should have started in the first place
To Gen, Uppity Ingrate:
Hey, thanks for the links! That was the sort of thing I was looking for, I was just having a brain-fart and for some reason just could not come up with a way to phrase it to make my Google search actually find what I wanted.
I really appreciate the help, that stuff helps tremendously.
StevoR
You are a self-centered, hateful little fuck. Do you think everything revolves around you and we should all run around on any given thread to cater to your wish to discuss how evil (EVIL, I tell you) those Muslims are? No need to answer that, you’ve already said so right here in the part I quoted, as well as multiple times before.
Why calling for genocide and constant racism is okay, but being a ‘boring troll’ isn’t, is still lost on me.
Rutee Katreya
It’s not ok. I’m not sure why we’re all going along with the “StevoR might be educated if we only try hard enough” hypothesis.
I was mostly for restricting StevoR to Thunderdome, but it would probably be best if he’s banned altogether.
Quite a few nasty and deluded bullies here seem to be addressing some strawperson of their own making but wrongly addressed by my username demonising, othering and bullying me as well as failing to actually read and comprehend the nuances in what I’m actually saying.
Well, I AM NOT THIS STRAWPERSON you have falsely fabricated out of your hate on for me.
This strawperson bears absolutely no resemblance to the real live individual person that I really am.
To be clear read this – and reread, re-re-read and repeat aloud 100 times if that’s what it takes to sink in for you :
I, StevoR, do NOT advocate or support racism.
I, StevoR, do NOT advocate or support genocide.
I, StevoR, accepts that Muslims are human beings.
I, StevoR, object to the way the Islamic religious ideology brainwashes and fucks up Muslims and turns them into Homicide-suicide bombing terrorist fanatics. (Ok that’s just some – too many – but not *all* Muslims granted.)
I, StevoR am just saying that we need to fight terrorists just as much as we need to fight extremist republicans and MRAs. Plus that, like every nation on the planet, Israel has the right to vigorously, militarily defend itself and protect its civilians from genocidal bigots such as Hamas, Al Quaida and Hezbollah.
What about any of this is supposedly racist exactly?
Want to claim I’m a racist?
Then prove it.
Show us all one comment from me – just one – where I specifically claim that people should be judged based on their skin colour NOT their actions or behaviour or ideas.
I think you will find you simply cannot do this.
Note that Muslims are NOT a race nor do all Muslims share a common skin colour nor are most “brown-skinned people” Muslim. In fact, most brown skinned people (for the precious little that it matters) are actually Hindu (Indians) or Catholic (South American) in their belief systems.
Now I freely admit I’m not perfect and have gotten carried away at times, often posting drunk and emotional and overtired. I’ll admit I’m a flawed human in some respects who has been known to get things wrong from time to time. I’ve said as much before and apologised for that when appropriate.
If you can find one instance – just one – where I specifically stated that people should be damned on the basis of the colour of their skins – then I’ll apologise and take whatever reasonable penalty you demand of me.
In return I expect that everyone who has lied about me, abusing and insulting me with ridiculous offensive and totally inapplicable labels such as “racist” will admit that they got me wrong and retract their words, never repeating them and apologises to me as well if I prove them wrong by them being unable to meet this challenge.
So, golden rule, folks; a lot of you have been badly wrong and wa-aay Over The Top in some of your fallacious, hurtful and totally wrong character assessments about me – now is your chance to rethink, reconsider and admit that.
@64. Beatrice :
Wrong – and I’ll note you failed to answer the questions I’ve put to you there.
No.
But when people call me false, offensive names and attempt to bully me then I’m going to call them out on it and why the fuck shouldn’t I?
Gee you sure do have trouble with reading comprehension don’t you?
I think the thunderdome idea stinks. I think it encourages and empowers bullies and ganging up on those who disagree.
Mostly actually I agree with most of what people say here witha few exceptions. Maybe 80 % to 20 %.
I happen to disagree with many of you in concluding that this blog is a bit too soft on Islam & bit too hard on Israel. For that I get called, among a whole lot of other things a “nazi.” Well, go figure what the likely results of that sort of stupidity on some commenters part is.
LIAR AND BULLSHITTER. YOUR OWN WORDS ADVOCATING KILLING SAY OTHERWISE.
QUIT LYING TO YOURSELF. ADMIT YOUR BIGOTRY. THEN, AND ONLY THEN, YOU CAN QUIT LYING TO US.
They, like you, advocated a “final solution”.
@ 70. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls :
The nazis tried to exterminate the Jewish people – just like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the like do.
Also no, I didn’t advocate a final solution – I advocated destroying a terrorist base.
That’s destroying a terrorist base during wartime when it was actively firing rockets at innocent families when its side has launched the war needlessly and plans on committing genocide.
I would NOT bomb Gaza now when it is NOT doing that and would NOT have bombed the Fatah-run Palestinian cities that were NOT firing rockets at the time.
Having made that important clarification, I’m turning the computer off now, walking the dog and will return here tomorrow my time. Or maybe the next day.
I’m so sorry I failed to answer your question in a manner that would satisfy you.
I give this >.< much of a fuck.
Should I remind you of those comments about how you could most effectively kill everyone in Gaza? Yeah, I know, it's not evidence of your bigotry because you were just joking. Har har.
Shithead, you have already been given far more attention than you deserve. You have given enough evidence of your bigotry and it has been repeated to you enough times (just look at previous incarnation of Thunderdome).
Telling how StevoR calls the entirety of Gaza a terrorist base.
And it has the nerve to claim that it is not bigoted.
Telling how StevoR continues to IGNORE the fact that there is more than one way of defending oneself and more than one way of destroying terrorist bases. Some of those ways involve dropping bombs on innocent people and some of those ways do not, and yet StevoR continues to advocate and support the former.
And it has the nerve to claim that it is not a murderous bigot.
Telling how StevoR continues to use to standard racist claim that it cannot be directly quoted saying anything racist while ignoring the clear and obvious implication of racism and racist code terms in virtually everything it says on this subject.
And it has the nerve to claim that it is not a racist.
Does StevoR not remember the time I did a sentence by sentence comparison of its odious postings on one thread with the words of one Osama bin Laden’s speeches and found no significant differences in content or tone?
Utterly pathetic.
I’m sure everyone will be waiting with bells on.
And yet of course that is EXACTLY what Israel did in this case and what StevoR is so eager to defend. Or has StevoR forgotten (or deliberately chosen NOT to remember) that the current flare-up was STARTED by Israel doing a targeting assassination of a Hamas Leader, at a time when rocket attacks were NOT being launched from Gaza to any significant degree and that ALL the subsequent rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas were in retaliation to this provocation?
Or that most independent analysts believe the Israeli’s intended, provoked and orchestrated the whole thing, as a means of 1) testing their own battle-readiness and the effectiveness of their previously untested missile defence system in preparation for potential hostilities with Iran, 2) testing the international reaction and response to the possibility of a first strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, 3) demonstrating their own offensive capabilities to the Iranians and others in the surrounding Islamic countries who might get involved in the event of hostilities with Iran as a kind of pre-emptive warning, and 4) degrading Hamas’ existing weapons capabilities in the event of Hamas’ likely support of Iran in the event of Israeli-Iranian hostilities so that the burden of having to face two fronts of hostilities is reduced?
StevoR, pathetic liar, caught LYING once again.
Say what you will about Israel’s intentions in this most recent flare-up of hostilities (and arguments can indeed be made that their actions were not unreasonable given their circumstances with respect to Iran) but do NOT think that Israel was not the initial aggressor in this exchange.
Another rather telling Godwin by pathetic liar StevoR.
Point of fact, Hamas, Islamic jihad, and any number of other radical Islamic groups have NOT, and NEVER HAVE, tried to exterminate the Jewish people. They’ve talked about it, they haven’t ever done it or even begun to try. They’ve made war against Israel, and maybe they might have gone on to attempt genocide if they had won, but they didn’t win, so we don’t know if that rhetoric was truly serious (note that during WWII there were lots of voices in the US advocating for the extermination of the Japanese, but after winning the war, the US didn’t do that, didn’t even think about it).
All they’ve done on the genocide front is talk. Which puts them in exactly the same category as StevoR himself.
Why does the country of Israel exist?
When you see someone advocate or support dropping missiles into neighborhoods where known extremist republicans live, or planning the targeted assassinations of Thunderfoot and other MRAs, then we can take this pathetic statement seriously.
Ah yes. The oldest racist-apologetics trick in the book. The arbitrary redefinition of the term “racist” as self-servingly narrow as necessary to not technically qualify as one, oneself.
And the second oldest racist-apologetics trick in the book. To pretend that all the deliberate racist code-words previously used were in fact meant literally.
As well as the third oldest racist-apologetics trick in the book. The dishonest misrepresentation of the actual accusation (NO ONE actually ever criticized StevoR for “stating that people should be damned on the basis of the colour of their skins”) in order to deflect and distract from the real accusation.
And StevoR has the NERVE to pretend it isn’t a racist.
Utterly pitiful.
SteveoR:
Do you still advocate a preemptive war with Iran?
[Warning: To lazy to blockquote]
For those who might think that StevoR might not actually be racist, behold: An Introduction to Pharyngula’s StevoR
Wanna See Something thread:
“In these circumstances when we’re fighting a war it is NOT a crime to kill the enemy to jail and threaten them and their supporters with severe consequences for their waging war aimed at destroying us.
Because, y’know, war.”
[On Iran] “What if *they* are the one’s starting a war with us?
It may not be our choice. Affordable or not, desirable or not, it might well be a case of them attacking us.
Would you like and let that happen? Would you have the West surrender to Jihadist or Iranian theocratic Sharia rule?
Dammit, I didn’t want to argue this here but some of you are just so fucking blind to reality and think we live in some kind of wonderful ideal world that, sorry, we just don’t live in.
Research Al Quaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the like. How would deal with them? Be realistic. They don’t *want* peace – and nor does Iran. They and Iran want us all gone. Dead or converted. They won’t settle for less. They aren’t prepared to give up violence. How do you deal with that reality.”
Let us not get confused thread:
“@ 82. Nick Gotts (formerly KG):
I forget, do calls for genocide count as death threats?
No, death threats are targeted at individuals not groups.
It isn’t issuing a death threat for example to say that Al Quaida should be destroyed and prevented from ever threatening people again. Death threats also don’t usually apply when aimed at enemy forces during wartime.
Plus I didn’t call for genocide I called for self-defence and prevention of a genocide against well, the whole modern world really. especially the Western world and Israel. You, Nick Gotts are either badly confused and mistaken about what I actually said because of your own reading comprehension failure or are outright lying about me. Either is your fault not mine.
I have also repeatedly stated here that I oppose genocide and clarified a few comments I made when drunk and over-tired.”
“The West isn’t the side of this latest global war calling for genocide or demanding that everyone convert to their faith and accept what they demand.
…The Islamist Jihadists OTOH are not happy to let the rest of the globe alone. They want the whole planet to be ruled by a theocractic Caliph who imposes brutal Sharia law upon all of us. That this sick fantasy is impossible and futile and never going to happen in reality doesn’t, alas, prevent them from trying to make it happen anyhow because, well, their religion.”
“When Jihadists fighting us hide behind their own families and civilians as human shields well that’s the choice and consequence. Do we let them kill our children because we care more for theirs instead? It is a hard and horrible thing and Western militaries, incl. Israels, takes enormous care to avoid causing excessive collateral damage where-ever they can – as opposed to the Jihadists who always try to maximise collateral damage and kill innocents and propagandise any unintended casualties that do result.”
“Palestine isn’t a nation. It is an political idea and old provincial name going back to a colonial period when hardly anybody lived there -and a whole separate issue again.”
“I’m neither racist nor a warmonger.
Islam is an ideology – a religion – NOT a race.
Couldn’t give a shit about skin colour personally and “race” is biologically meaningless bullshit.
As for war mongering well, I’m not calling for any wars. Wish they weren’t happening.
But y’know, we are kinda at war in a few places now whether I or you want to accept that reality or not.
What do you suggest we do when confronted with Jihadist violence and Jihadist grups such as Al Quaeda, Hamas & the Taliban Surrender? Convert? Die? Or fight?
Take your pick.
Got another option? Go ahead, explain it – but will the Jihadists be so generous?”
“@333. Brownian
Oh, it’s not that bad for all immigrants. The white ones seem to have had a grand ol’ time.
You anti-white people are you?…
Actually from what I understand of history the Australian Aboriginals mostly died from diseases they had no immunity too like most indigneous groups in North and South America.
Now okay some white folks did some bad things -whilst many others approached things in a human and kind way buy the understanding of the time which is quite different to how we view things in this era.”
“Well, that’s *your* (erroneous) opinion and I think that’s very, very clearly ridiculously wrong.
Because a “phobia” is defined as an irrational fear.
When Islamist groups such as Al Quaeda, Hamas, Jemaah Islamiyya, etc .. are seriously trying to kill and convert the rest if the world being afraid or concerned about and opposed to them is entirely rational, logical and reasonable.
How much research have you done on terrorism and especially the Jihadists and what they want to do to and impose on everyone else?
I can assure you I treat everybody equally and fairly and compassionately in Real Life therefore your offensive accusation of bigotry is also totally wrong.”
Jesus Freakin’ Christ Obama thread:
“The United States didn’t start this fight. The Jihadists did. This war is what they want, want they got and on *their* fucken heads be it. “It” being whatever explosive fucking ordinance it takes to wipe those fuckers out and stop them killing us and others.
Do you want the USA to win or not?
Gotta be ruthless because, sure as fuck, the enemy are. Totally.
[…]
We gotta take some pretty horrible steps such as this one – not because we want to but because the alternative is worse.
Because our values, our way of life is better and deserves to survive and the consequences for so many other human lives outweight the loss of the few Afghanistani innocents caught upas collateral damage. I agree this sucks but I think that’s just how it is. Its what they’ve forced us to do.
Its Islam trying to murder or enslave us all and given those options (&, yes, that durn well is all we’re given! That’s reality, its sucks and wish it wasn’t but it is!), you fight to win or you surrender.
Surrender means conversion to Islam – the Taliban -Al Quaida variety. Means we impose Sharia law and a global fucking Caliphate upon everybody. Your wife, your daughters, your sons, your country. Forget women having the right to abortion – under Sharia law they couldn’t even drive a car or go outside unaccompanied. Imagine them all and yourself being Islamic, deprived and constricted and suffering so much. Imagine how badly that’d hurt the rest of Humanity and everybody’s future.
No other options. Sadly.
I say we fight.
With everything we have.
As ruthlessly as we need to which is totally.
Turn the Jihadists into fucken glass if we have to. Blast Afghanistan out of existence and into a radioactive sump below sea level if that’s what it takes. Their war and their choice not ours.
Just like a burglar who breaks into your home and threatens to rape your wife or you – you fucken well shoot ‘em dead if you have to!
And we do have to. It sucks and I wish we didn’t but we do.
De-islamicise the fucken planet!
Before they Islamicise it all and committ a far worse genocide. That we all know they intend to do.
Life or death, us or them. Sucks. But is reality.
Nuke ‘em.”
Somebody give that man a geography lesson thread:
“Correcting the record here :
I have *never* advocated genocide actually.
Defending ourselves by taking out the even more ruthless bad guys without (metaphorically – or for that matter literally) pulling punches who wish to comitt genocide against others isn’t the same thing!”
I found the second to last one (which is actually multiple posts) by courtesy of Walton in the “Thunderfoot, Check your e-mail” thread.
There is no such thing as a “fifth note;” but if there were, I guess it could look like that. I would probably go with a bottle of vodka.
Instead, there are quintuplets, which are notated like triplets but with a “5” instead. They can be basically any duration (relative to the tempo),* because they can be made up of notes of any duration.
*But not really. With standard notation, you can’t have any based on irrational (or complex) numbers, just ratios of whole numbers. And practically speaking, your tempo will never be something like q = 13π² bpm.
Beatrice (or anyone who knows and is online now),
I’m curious. Where does the “As for Thunderdome” quote in #64 come from?
Has anyone else noticed that when a troll stumbles into one of these threads and rapidly jacks up the comment count, when I close it and open a new one with a prominent link, these poor saps often get lost and can’t find the new thread? It’s like flunking a basic IQ test, every time.
sgbm,
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/03/southern-man/comment-page-1/#comment-506499
Sorry for not linking the relevant thread in that comment. Will remember next time.
(I grumbled about others not doing this, I know. Sorry.)
Not enough to make up for his previous wankery, but the amazingatheist appears to have done a somewhat feminist video! (basic as it is) maybe progress is being made!
Not just any joking, but “gallows humour“:
The phrase “gallows humour”, of course, originated from an apocryphal conversation during the French Revolution. When informed that the people were hungry and had no bread, Marie Antoinette is infamously said to have replied “lol just hang them all then”.
PZ #87
Yes, indeedy.
What ever happened to scottyroberts?
Ah, thanks Beatrice.
The logo…
Everyone else would much rather you didn’t, you genocidal bigot.
StevoR don’t care, StevoR don’t give a shit.
One of the main defining properties of “gallows humor” is that the dark humor is directed inwards, at oneself or one’s peer group or at least something one is personally associated with, at least a little bit.
It is not gallows humor to make jokes about other people being bombed in a faraway land, while one sits comfortably in one’s comfy Australian home, waiting for the next Sidney Funnel-Web spider to jab a fang through one’s big toe (now that, coming from StevoR, would have been gallows humor).
Well that was a bit surprising.
Prior to that Southern Man thread, I did not imagine that StevoR is racist against black people per se. Now I wonder.
I already tried to explain gallows humor to StevoR, but he gave this brilliant answer.
Here in the US, we call that Republican Humour.
Although, perhaps I ought to have wondered sooner, when he accused Brownian of being anti-white.
Chopin’s big on 22-tuplets. Showoff.
(Op. 9, no. 1. IMSLP won’t let me link the score; grrr.)
— —
I thought you called it Family Guy? ;-)
Oh, for fuck’s sake, am I being stupid tonight.
American Dad
I will now switch off the computer before I embarass myself further.
Ooh, that is delicious.
The 11-tuplet leading into it makes it sound even more slippery. Altogether, ignoring the bar lines, it’s basically a 33-tuplet. (!!!)
11:6 is pretty interesting. I don’t know if I’d ever write it. It’s definitely a showoff kind of move, but it all fits in the piece so perfectly. It would take a lot of practice for me to play it evenly (or oddly, I guess).
Here it is. :)
Again?
SteveoR comes here again to whine??!!
Is he a glutton for punishment?
I thought he hated it here.
Who the fuck does the racist asshat think he’s going to convince?
Thanks to some handy links provided in the last ‘Dome thread, I was able to see for myself that YES, SteveoR is racist. YES, he advocates genocide.
speaking of tone trolls, this comments thread really upset me:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/11/15/because-abortion-needs-to-be-explained-apparently/
the author of the article appeared to be tone trolling the other commenters – not something I would have expected on FTB
e.g. “be polite to forced birthers”
SGBM @97:
Wait.
What?
Anyone have a link to the comment he made (not that I need another reason to dislike the fucker)?
bobo:
In my time at FtB, I’ve discovered that the bloggers are a very diverse group. I don’t believe they’re all atheists. I *think* I’ve heard someone say they’re all feminists, but I’m not sure. It doesn’t surprise me that one would be tone trolling.
While I generally like Crommunist’s blogs, he has a couple of guest commentators, Brian Lynchehaun and HaifischGeweint, who I’m not fond of. As bobo noted in #105 Lynchehaun tone trolls his own threads. HaifischGeweint dislikes people disagreeing with him or asking for evidence for his claims. When there’s posts by either of them, I don’t bother looking at them.
@ 105 bobo
I followed your link and – behold – the author has recanted.
Tony,
I’m referring to his obfuscation of the lyrics about Neil Young in Sweet Home Alabama. I’ve replied further down.
It’s not unambiguously damning. But it makes me wonder.
Has anyone else noticed Leon Trotsky near the end of this Men’s Wearhouse commercial?
Ah, my thanks SG :)
@SG #110 BAAAAAhahahahahaaaaa
This is best best way to sum up my feeling about comrade trotsky via twelve second google image search:
http://imgur.com/r/anarchomemes/etDLB
But I must admit, he had a good look.
I was wondering where I put him.
Well fuck, I didn’t realize I was being redundant. I mean, I should have known, since I usually am, but not usually to such a degree.
And those were friendly examples, among the least egregious of StevoR’s bile-filled spewings.
@ 97 strange gods before me
I know StevoR of old from another blog. You are correct that his bigotry isn’t (or I should say, wasn’t) confined to Muslims. He used to go on rants against “cultural relativism” and “hyphenated Americans” (eg. African Americans). He used to defend Western imperialism on the grounds that you’re either a lion or a zebra and lions eat zebras – and anyway, if the enlightened West hadn’t trampled on indigenous peoples someone worse would have. Oddly, he also used to go on anti-“New Atheist” rants, so it’s strange to find him hanging around Pharyngula.
His old rants are still online but I don’t want to run afoul of the Reset rule:
Linking to old comments to demonstrate the perfidy of a commenter, rather than linking to evidence to refute the commenter’s claims, will be regarded as an abuse of the principle of charity.
Suffice it to say he once ventured the opinion that being black in the US is an advantage because you get extra benefits, and described the election of Obama (the first time) as “the ultimate in affirmative action”.
@Silentbob
I am not surprised. I suppose I should also apologize to him for having black friends, oh dearie me!
Silentbob,
Oh, this is Thunderdome. That rule doesn’t apply here.
The rules about Threats and Identity almost certainly do apply here, though the wording doesn’t obviously indicate this. But, in word and spirit and practice, Reset does not.
StevoR is the guy who assumes that any action at all against the nation of Israel is intended to be genocide. Trying to defend against invaders is not the same as trying to exterminate an entire race for no reason other than their race.
Silentbob:
I’m so not surprised.
He will not go away, in spite of being repeatedly invited to take a short walk off a tall cliff.
Doesn’t apply in this case, as you aren’t linking to evidence of his racism in order to try and win an argument.
No one here is in any way enamored of StevoR, he’s spilled and spewed his hatred and ugliness all over and when he’s not doing that, he finds plenty of time to whine about how awful and mean we are to him.
At any rate, he ventured into Thunderdome last ep to whine about our bullying ways, and has declared at every opportunity how much he hates Thunderdome, because we can be bullies without restriction here. Shorter version: Thunderdome scares him.
@Caine
Also the idiocy that because of the rules no one would say anything about him (or probably to him) if he just kept his damn mouth shut about the topics he has a history in. He keeps doing this inane pattern where he comes in “HEY REMEMBER HOW MEAN YOU ARE TO ME!!!!” seemingly to specifically draw attention to that fact and start those fights again.
Ing:
Yes, he does exactly that, at regular intervals. He started up in the ‘Southern Man’ thread again. It’s seems he feels he’ll explode if he can’t start screaming about all the evil brown people on a regular basis.
I have no idea why it’s so important to him keep hanging out here and trying to convince us to think well of him. It’s not like we’re all going to forget the jaw-droppingly evil garbage he’s said. Even if he underwent a complete change of heart and opinion, it would take a long fucking time for him to earn everyone’s trust.
@Caine
I had the misfortune once of winding up talking to actual NeoNazis and came to a mild epiphany…the Bond movies and comic books are actually right, hate makes you chatty.
Ing:
So it would seem. You can hardly get them to shut up.
The other stuff isn’t really surprising, but
I will say, this does surprise me. I usually don’t read Bad Astronomy, so when I look up a comment by StevoR there I’m not familiar with the context of all his earlier comments, but from my cursory look it seems that even when he was in anti-Israel mode back in 2008, he was basically pro-Obama.
On the other hand, I’ve talked to white supremacists who voted for Obama because they didn’t like Republicans and/or McCain. People are complicated.
Caine,
That’s something that other specimens have exhibited before (remember the Piltdown?) — I reckon 1 is for much the same reason I like it here: one need not restrict one’s expressiveness or erudition because the commentariat here is composed of pretty cluey cookies and it’s a freeze peach zone, and I reckon 2 is just plain desire for acceptance and validation so as to soothe his bruised ego.
(1 is fair enough, but 2 is pitiful in its hopeful neediness)
—
But hey, let me not be entirely negative here: I also reckon he has a 3-digit IQ! ;)
SG:
Indeed. I expect the people you described parsed it as a lesser of two evils. I grew up with an extremely bigoted grandfather (proud Bircher) who used the lesser of two evils often to justify what would normally be an unusual opinion or action for him.
John:
Oh yes. Yes, I do.
Hahahaha, ah Sandiseattle. At least he left an amusing legacy.
… and we have a deep well of memes to draw upon.
In other oddities, I’ve talked to a black man who voted for Romney because he was convinced the economy is going to collapse anyway and he didn’t want a black president to be blamed for it.
I used the 3-digit IQ line recently in meat space.
Oddly, no one got the joke.
(It may be that I spend too much time here.)
SG:
I understand that, but talk about voting against your best interests…
Chigau:
I’ve used it in meatspace. All of two people got it. That’s a bit scary.
Pharyngula spoils the masses for us.
Heh. I noticed Chas esoterically used ‘raisin date’ on the other thread.
(I wonder how many noticed?)
I noticed.
@SG
I’m joining the voluntary extinctions. Doomsday cannot come soon enough.
That’s unfortunate.
If that happened and Romney got elected, Obama still would have been blamed for it.
When the economy comes out of a collapse under his presidency, Obama gets blamed for imaginary things like cooking the numbers and for not making it un-collapse fast enough with his magic presidential powers.
I noticed “raisin date.” Which troll was that? LionIRC-whatever?
@ SGBM
WTF ‽
Why on earth that particular date?
@Rodney Nelson
Yeah, I’m not really concerned when an ignorant white straight dude is not entirely pleased that people don’t like his ‘dissent’.
Ing, may I suggest childfree instead of vhemt?
Funny thing is, this time in history is probably the best it’s ever been.
+++++
Yeah, and as far as I could tell, I didn’t even begin to talk him out of it.
(My earlier wording was misleading: all I can be sure of is he intended to vote for Romney. I haven’t talked to him yet since the election, so I don’t know what he ultimately did. But he was adamant last time I talked to him.)
@ John Morales
FIFY: such political rhetoric is the Raison d’être of EP
I consider myself to be exceptionally funny by saying “Born up a tree” before snacking away on my moss.
theophontes: look up Coordinated Universal Time and Unix epoch.
theophontes,
Why not? Can you think of a better one?
I always notice raisin date. I have a fondness for eggcorns.
theophontes, it was before your time.
cf. http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Memes
(Shame NatGeo is either too incompetent or too pusillanimous to restore old Pharyngula comments — I have forgotten the nym of the specific specimen that unironically came up with that one (cf. #140 above))
@109
Yes, he has. But only because his view would meant that forced birthers were ‘controlling’ the conversation, not because it wasn’t his place to tell women whether or not they are allowed to be angry over being treated as subhumans.
So, still offensive!
@ Beatrice
I, for one, have retracted that position. StevoR, it appears, is far too dyed-in-the-wool to ever be educated in this regard.
This is a better suggestion.
@StevoR
Then just argue this. Do not book-end it with “Islamic” and “Muslims”. (IMHO, xtianity is by far the biggest danger to the planet anyhow.)
If I (or others here) have mischaracterised you, then show this with examples. But the least I expect is that, upon finding that you are wrong, you make ammends too.
@ SGBM/John Morales
[1970-01-01: convenient at the time / arbitrary]
And there I go again, looking for sophistimicated raisins amongst the peanuts.
That would be really cool. (For one, I would like to know when I waddled into Scienceblogs. Not soon after I got extremely hot under the collar arguing with SGBM from atop my high-horse. Them’s were the days!)
[more raisins]
In Afrikaans there are many of these plays on words:
kos my niks —> cosmetics (Transl: “costs me nothing”)
Buy a donkey —> Thank you (Afrikaans: “baie dankie”)
Holy crap, my eyes have been bedazzled by the new layout….
✰_✰
I want my killfile back! *stamps feet*
@ 122 Caine, Fleur du mal
OK, I’ll quote and link to evidence to back up what I said in my previous comment @ 118.
First some notes:
1. This will be long (and painful). Sorry. I tried to select just a few quotes to give the gist, but still ended up with a lot of stuff.
2. These quotes are one or two years old and don’t necessarily reflect StevoR’s current views.
3. StevoR posted these under a different alias, “Messier Tidy Upper”. I’m not “outing” him, he outed himself here (as “Flying sardines”):
4. As far as I can tell, I can’t link to the individual comments from which these quotes were taken, only to the OP. Scroll down for the comment threads.
Now some of StevoR/Messier Tidy Upper’s Greatest Misses:
On “Cultural Relativism”
On Lions and Zebras
On Western Imperialism
On The Ultimate in Affirmative Action
On The Benefits of Being Black
On Obama
On Miracles (srsly)
All the above come from this source.
On New Atheists
All the “new atheist” quotes come from this source.
I needed to stop here:
Wow. Just wow.
*takes deep breath and keeps going*
Silentbob@153,
Thanks for that piece of research! Most enlightening.
I don’t like the goddamned fucking new fonts. Even the word “thunderdome” looks motherfucking cheesy in that font. Rawr! Nerdrage! Change is bad!
That’s glorious.
Racist, imperialist, ethnocentrist, Birther, accomodationist. StevoR is the whole package, isn’t he?
Oh wow. StevoR is even worse than I thought. And here I thought it was just heavy compartmentalization when really he’s just full-on wingnut.
Oh, dear. I read this and all of the problems with this analogy came to mind at once. There’s now a traffic jam.
@SC. 159: Off the top of my head…
– Likening the food chain to a hierarchy.
– Associating “expands”, “builds”, “invents” and “colonises” with lions, a species that does nothing of the sort.
– Saying zebras just roll over waiting to be eaten.
But it’s fun to run with the analogy!
Lions sleep 20 hours a day.
Lions kill less than 1/3 of the animals they hunt.
Lions are adept at stealing prey from other, more efficient hunters.
Lions die of hunger if there’s no other animals to prey on.
What kind of conclusions can we draw from this?
@ Silentbob
Holy Crud. It is going to take me a while to process that quantity of scariness in one go. I have (as SC put it) a bit of a mental logjam right now.
A culture that expands and spreads, builds and invents, explores and colonises is the Borg.
The Borg assimilates (“eats”) other cultures.
Should we be the Borg?
Because symbiosis doesn’t exist in nature, only predator-prey interactions count for cultural analogy. Which cultures get to be the honey guide and which the badger?
Aww, no Chadgething? I haz disappoint. I still want to know why he acted like he didn’t know a damn thing about the Stonewall riots, when, as he claimed, it’s “self-evident” that the riots sparked the development of the modern civil rights movement.
Personally, I would love to know how come cunt is a word use of which deserves to be defended in multiple posts, while at the same time Chadgething chides us for using naughty language and being disrespectful.
I want chadgething to comment on MLK’s letter from a Birmingham jail were he said his biggest problem wasn’t the real racists, but those moderates who were worried about tone and politeness….
Ugh.
I didn’t imagine it was possible for me to feel disappointed with StevoR.
I’m surprised anyone expected better from StevoR.
The part about “hyphenated Americans” is kind of hard to grok, coming from an Australian. Why would he care how “pure” our culture (or our president) is? I guess he’d already allied himself (totally!) with “America” and “Israel” against “Muslims” (never mind all those who don’t support the causes they’re being labeled with) so anything which supposedly threatens those allies would supposedly threaten him too. Okay. I guess I could understand where that’s coming from, as absurd as it is.
But then, there’s not as much black-and-white, categorical thinking when it comes to criticism of new atheists. We get wishy-washy apologetics for Christianity and Judaism, and maybe a generic “monotheism” — though I think I can safely leave out Islam — which is all about blurring the boundaries as much as possible. Lots of “relativistic” thinking and gray areas and more than enough room for doubt (read: belief!). That’s when we hear about how unfair strawmen and over-generalizations and caricatures are, how maybe the OT god was somehow both sort of good and sort of bad, how religion and “faith” can sort of be reasonable sometimes for some people in some ways…. And miracles? Sure, who really knows? All those parts are probably about as reasonable and level-headed as StevoR gets, which is pretty sad.
Perhaps the Stevocake would love Hyphen.
I had an uncle who had this album.
Ugh!
(The comments, it seems are all from Freepland.)
My brain choked to a halt early – he thinks science is a result of Western culture? Unholy cow. I guess history, much like everything else, eludes StevoR.
Funny that Caine and I posted at the same time. Caine has a funny story about working for John Wayne.
It’s worth noting that StevoR’s question about the alternative to the British Empire is quite easily answered, at least with respect to Australia. British settlement did not begin until 1804, no other state had made any preparations for settlement, and after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 the British Navy had an unchallengeable global supremacy, which it maintained throughout the 19th century. So the ethical alternative to settlement and annexation was to declare that Britain regarded Australia as belonging to its current inhabitants, would not settle or annex any part of it, and would prevent any other power doing so. Of course this was never considered, but that was because of British imperialism, not because it would have been in any way impractical.
Janine:
Christ, that man scared the crap outta me. Was hardly worth the money. I kept envisioning spending my young life in prison.
This is actually quite a common trope in Australia. It is perhaps even mildly defensible, in abstract historical terms – if you had to be colonised, who would you rather be colonised by? That is, in the same sense of abstractly discussing whether it’s better to be hanged, pressed or burned at the stake. So the Belgians were worse. Woo fucking hoo.
Damnit <q> tags don’t make comic sans now :(
It’s that “Western culture” is somehow science and civilization itself. Let’s not forget that is supposed be “Judeo-Christian” — that will come in handy later, when we decide who exactly we’re rooting for. We’re just supposed to forget about the influences from Greeks, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Africans, Asians of all sorts…. For some odd reason, we only ever get as far as white nationalists from the 18th and 19th century colonial empires, slap “Western culture” on it and shove “Judeo-Christian” in there for a bit of back-story.
Someone recently quoted Tacitus:
Sorry, I meant to say It’s odd that “Western culture”…. blah blah blah
OOoooh, I can’t wait for that fucker, SteveoR to pop back in here and whine again.
Thanks for all of that SilentBob.
CR:
Apparently. I just recently finished reading Spice: The History of A Temptation by Jack Turner. It was a fascinating look into a small window of history. One thing which came up fairly often was that every time Eastern Trade was revived, there was a steady influx of Arab science, which seriously helped “western culture” along. I don’t imagine that would sit over well with StevoR.
The opening quotation marks (but not closing ones!) in blockquotes look even sillier when they’re nested…
Tony:
You forget, Tony, StevoR finds Thunderdome, with it’s lack of an authoritative rule, to be ooga booga scary.
CR:
Yeah, I am not digging the new ‘design’.
Me neither. I want my killfile, my Comic Sans and my Gumby.
Rodney:
Me too. We’ll get the killfile back, as SGBM will work on that. Comic Sans is whenever PZ gets around to fixing the q tags. Last time, that took about forever.
I personally very much dislike the term “Judeo-Christian”.
I quote from Wikipedia, where the main thrust of my objection* to it:
—
* It’s often merely used to seem highbrow.
—
PS I see what you mean about the preview, Caine; when previewing this comment the rendering is well and truly fucked-up.
John:
I try to go with ‘Abrahamaic Religions’ instead. I do slip at times, though, and there’s “Judeo-Christian”, out of habit.
Mr. Myers. I wasn’t sure exactly where to post my concern to. So, forgive me for posting it twice. I’ve been a silent reader for some time now, and your science blogs are of interest to me. I was fortunate enough a couple years back to see you speak. I found you informative, and somewhat humorous in your presentation. I am posting this here since the page I’m commenting about is not allowing comments. I don’t follow or understand some of the pettiness that seems to follow your blogs. Your “dungeon” page is odd, and something I would expect to see on a different type site. Maybe a yahoo group for teen boys. I have to wonder if you ever stop and think of what some of your fellow colleagues like Eugenie C. Scott for example would think? It is immature, and some of what you say about these people is not backed up with proof. If you are going to call someone racist then show proof of why you believe this. It is the responsible thing to do. Someone could say that they don’t advise anyone to let their young daughters alone with you, because you are a pervert. Do you see what my problem is with this accusation? It can damage a person, and once it is out there, people latch on to it. It can damage the reputation of a person for years. Based on a suggestion. Mr. Myers, you are a intelligent man. I feel it is time for you to behave as one. Shame on you for losing your sight, acting irresponsible, and behaving like a juvenile boy.
But by this point, if that had any merit, we should really be speaking of “Christo-Islamic” tradition, right? I’m sure StevoR will go right along with that.
marymurphy #187
Your concern is noted.
MaryMurphy:
It’s not the least immature, it’s informative. No proof? Did you try clicking on all the links? The fuckwits in the dungeon have left evidence of their fuckwittery littered all over the damn place. We know, we get to deal with them every day. Like we’re dealing with you.
Every time a troll says racist garbage here, PZ needs to keep it here on his site and link to it on a dedicated, permanent page? How would that be “the responsible thing to do”? How would it be good at all?
Yes, people can make shit up, like you just did. But is it simply incredible to you that racist trolls comment here from time to time?
They shouldn’t have actually said racist garbage (which is different from other people making shit up about them, like you just did). If that damages their reputations, that’s a very good thing.
Oh Mary. I love how you request proof for something about which you know nothing. The dungeon denizens are there for good reason. Every single one of them left ample evidence as to their infringement of PZ’s rules. Just because you weren’t around to see it happen doesn’t mean he didn’t have good reason for the banning. Oh, and you are aware that these things can be googled, aren’t you? In some cases where the comments are truly hateful PZ has deleted them but for the most part the idiot’s words are still there.
MaryMurphy is accusative towards PZ:
Leaving aside that boys are (definitionally) juvenile, it is to PZ’s credit that he is still youthful at heart.
(There, there &mash; I will not shame you for behaving like an old fogey)
CR:
A person could be tempted to think, with the recent influx of disgruntled MRAs, that the whole purpose of marymurphy’s veddy concerned post was simply to get in another shot about PZ being a prevert. Especially as one dpitman was screeching the very same thing in two separate posts in two threads.
“Mistress Mary, Quite contrary,
How does your dudgeon grow?”
John:
Beautiful.
Mary,
For the most part the inhabitants of the Dungeon have to work hard to be banned. PZ rules this place by benign neglect. It takes serious trolling for PZ to notice them enough for them to get banned.
consciousness razor, Caine, Fleur du mal I’m sorry, I do believe that I posted my thoughts to Mr. Myers. Since this is a open thread I will look into your replies. I would still like to address this to Myers.
Here are two people that have no link proving that one is a racist, homophobe, and the other a stalker to his ex.
1. Bob Stevensson Racist homophobe with poor impulse control and no coherence at all.
2. Jim Klingenberg Creepy stalker dude. Posted treacly pleas of undying love to his ex here on Pharyngula, revealing both name and location — grow up, guy, and move on.
As for my hypothetical scenario of Mr Myers and his perversions is pretty clear to be a hypothetical situation. My point is I can think this of someone just cause I find them “creepy”, and it insinuates they are a “molester” to young ladies. which is clearly just a opinion. Without evidence, it is just that. It is irresponsible to attack someone’s character in such a manor. If you do not like me using Mr. Myers in my hypothetical situation, then it proves my point of how irresponsible his behavior has been.
Now here is where the boy behavior comes in. My list of immature name calling by a well educated adult.
troll, sockpuppet (what is a sockpuppet), Very icky misogynis, Pig-stupid, twit, asshole, A cupcake (how ironic to use a derogatory term used to insult a gay man), douchecanoe, and Pervy, These were just used in half the names used on his list. I quit combing it, and felt this is enough to make my point.
Umm??? Yeah, okay. John, this is a big boy conversation.
I did not catch the events with Bob Stevenssen. But I have been around long enough to trust PZ’s actions.
As for Jim Klingenberg; here is the story. One of the regulars ended a relationship with him. Jim did not take it well. He posted a number of pleading messages to the regular, going so far as to use the regular’s name. PZ did the only reasonable thing he could do, he deleted all of the messages when he banned Jim.
This is not some plot by an immature child as you earlier claimed.
Too late, you already have taken shots.
Then e-mail Prof. Myers, Murphy. (Hint: you have to get your nose out of the dungeon to find his e-mail address). You don’t get to command a personal audience in an open thread, especially one which, being unmoderated, doesn’t grab PZ’s attention much.
Your one and only aim seems to be getting slurs in regarding PZ. If you were all that offended, I doubt you’d keep bringing them up.
Troll is a well-know internet term, as is the behaviour of one trolling. Are you familiar with this thing called Google, by chance? If you don’t know what a sockpuppet is, what in the fuckety fuck are you moaning about? Do your fucking research first. It’s another well-known phenomenon. Look it up.
Misogynists exist, dear, and they tend to be quite noisy. We don’t care for them here. As for them being ‘very icky’, I agree. Pig-stupid? It is rather insulting to pigs, I grant you. Nothing wrong with twit or asshole, they make up a large portion of the population, unfortunately. Now Cupcake is a meme, one originated by me. It is not anything to do with gay men and as someone who is bisexual, you wouldn’t find me using gay slurs. Click the link: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Cupcake
Douchecanoe, douchecake, douchebiscuit and many a variation on douchebag are happily used here, given the history of douching and how anti-woman it happens to be. As to pervy, well, some people are, ya know.
Honestly, “Mary”, if you’re going to clutch your pearls and have the vapours over such things, stop looking for them.
Also, marymurphy, I have a question for you. How many people will know the real names of most of the people listed in the dungeon? How will their reputations be damaged?
Your formatting is terrible.
Jesus Fucking Christ – if you’re going to insist on posting, “Mary”, learn to fucking quote correctly. What in the hell is it with trolls not knowing how to fucking quote? Is this some super huge mystery now?
It is? We’re all male, are we, including you, Mary?
Weren’t Mary and Murphy previous morphs of Pilty?
Caine and anyone else, was there anything about the Jim Klingenberg situation that I was wrong about or lying about.
Well, blockquoting requires one to string together several characters in a meaningful way. Need I say more?
Janine:
Nope. That was a terribly distressing event, which resulted in at least one regular leaving for PET. The meatspace info revealed by Jim left zero choice as to his posts, they had to be deleted.
Oh dear. Mary, it would appear that in addition to not knowing how formatting works you also don’t understand how the internet works. With a few exceptions the comments that got those folks banned are still available to anyone who cares to look for them. If all you have is two instances out of the seventy or so denizens of the dungeon it’s quite clear that you’re cherry picking in order to grind a particular axe.*
Care to back up your assertion of childishness with something other than evidence-less assertion?
*mixed metaphors: the most tastiest kind.
Nepenthe:
I suppose not, but I do find it incredibly disheartening that so many people are such idiots that they don’t understand quotation.
Hmmm, you know who quoted just like ‘Mary’ and was recently banned? That Christtestter critter.
For weeks, people were telling that stupid asshole how to do simple formatting.
Yes, I’d say it didn’t take at all.
marymurphy:
Then you have done that which you did not desire to do.
Almost seems that it’s the terminology that offends you, rather than the personal charges those words connote.
(Blind, irresponsible, juvenile, unbecoming — those are the charges you have made about PZ)
—
So, you are a big boy? ;)
A Boy Named Mary…
Just doesn’t have the same ring as Sue.
Janine, to answer your question about reputations? Have you ever used Google? Most employers do, and with it many of those names may come up with their identity as well. People often use the same username on various accounts. So you tell me.
As for my formatting, I agree. I have not used html codes since I am not a blogger, website designer, and myspace is dead no longer have use for them. I no longer have the desire, nor the patience to learn them again.
No I am not a boy. I often would tell my son that when he acted in a childish way. So, no penis here.
Caine, Fleur du mal I do believe you were deprived of the breast as a baby, and then into adult hood. You really are a moron.
marymurphy @220, well then, how is it “a big boy conversation” if you’re not a big boy?
This is a blog, not PZ’s email inbox. This is an almost completely unmoderated part of this blog, meaning PZ probably won’t respond here.
Many of them can be cited with evidence. So what exactly do you expect? Take one of your own examples:
Should revealing information about someone have been left here, just so you wouldn’t be able to find some way of doubting any of it ever happened? Is that really such an extraordinary fucking claim for goddamned skeptic like you?
Nonsense. If PZ did something wrong (your “hypothetical” claim was that he’s a “pervert” and should be kept away from his daughter, so that apparently means incest and pedophilia), then I’d be totally satisfied by his reputation going down the tubes. IT WOULD BE A GOOD THING. If he brought that shit up on others’ websites, they would completely justified in erasing it and telling people all about what a fucking asshole he was.
If that is the fucking case, marybrown, if those trolls were so concerned, they could avoid saying racist and/or sexist shit. The onus is upon them, no one is forcing them to say these things.
You do not need to put on the tights and cape for their sakes.
Guess what? I do not have a blog. I can not even begin to design a website. I never had a myspace page. Yet I learned simply so I could communicate better. It is not difficult.
Fuck you, you paramecium ignorant pissant.
This is your idea of an insult? Do better, Cupcake, that’s abysmal.
It has been my experience that once you start attacking a commentor for their spelling, formatting, and punctuation, then follow up with personal jabs at my gender instead of the content of my posts, then you pretty much cannot defend any further such negative behavior.
Funny thing there. Creationists have brought those charges against PZ in years past. Somehow, PZ has gotten by.
marymurphy:
I quote someone you admire:
(Nasty things, petards)
Yeah, somebody who doesn’t understand where al gebra came from….
B!U!L!L! F!U!C!K!I!N!G! S!H!I!T!
You fucking liar, you trollish charges have been addressed. You are now whining because you do not want to defend your charges, which have been shredded.
Fuck you and fuck that high horse you rode in on.
(Glances below editing window…)
‘You may use these HTML tags and attributes:…’
Hmm. But, y’know, the examples below are very confusing. I mean, they’ve these mysterious little greater and less than signs next to ’em… Hold on…
(Scratches on pad a while with pencil… Eventually breaks pencil in frustration, throws on ground…)
… it seems to be some sort of system of inequalities. But whoah… it’s a tough one.
Me, tho’, I’m glad the Church Lady is here to ensure that proper decorum is followed.
I mean, really, you people. The filth, in particular, is getting to be a complete load of fucking balls*.
(*/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhxhvEXpsKc … whatinhell is going on with links, or is that just in preview?)
Hahahahahaha, oh we have a genuine fuckwit here, folks. “Mary”, you’re the one who keeps bringing up gender – remember how it’s a big boys discussion? Hmmmm?
Oh did I upset the Myers sheep?
AJ, whenever you insert a link, the preview is a major fucking mess – it posts okay, just ignore what the preview looks like.
Janine, I don’t seem to have the time you do.
marymurphy:
Leaving aside your lack of cogency, your incompetence at employing a consistent grammatical person is no less than your grammar or employment of markup.
(Care to elucidate how you figure that “attacking a commentor ” [sic] implies that such further behaviour cannot be defended?)
No, Cupcake. You’re being mocked. I know it’s difficult, when you most likely have a 3 digit IQ. Don’t worry, we’ll go slow for you.
Does anyone have their Cupcake Bingo card out?
The syntax is reminiscent of Christstttuttererwhatever, too.
Janine:
I don’t have mine out, but if I remember right, we’ve filled quite a few squares already.
Baaah-aaahh.
JESUS FUCK, how do people this stupid even exist? “Marymurphy” is a liar.
I have access to a lot of information about commenter identities, and I can tell you this: “Marymurphy” is a dpitman sockpuppet. Banned again.
SallyStrange, it is about fucking time! It is your turn to be sheared. PZ needed a sniny new sweater and socks.
Caine, you had the wrong troll.
You are bad and you should feel bad.
*snort*
Oh dear, oh dear, how shall we sleep?
Marymurphy has called us sheep.
With such wit how will we cope?
With mocking rhymes, or so I hope.
Dammit.
Called it! Janine, I got ‘dpitman’ in #194.
Caine, I am bad and I feel bad.
Wow. So dpitman doesn’t have a penis, eh? That might explain why he’s so obsessed with Brownian’s.
Janine:
Aaaw, c’mere, us shoops will cuddle and have a drink. I hope PZ remembers to leave memorial links on dpitman’s headstone. Wouldn’t want there to be no proof or anything.
I am working on a bottle of côtes du Rhône.
Aww… it was chewy, but PZ done took it away!
Marypitman was forbidden fruit.
John:
Well, if someone could get through to Chadgething, we’d have another chewtoy. I get the feeling that the fuckwit thinks Thunderdome is another site, not another thread.
What amuses me is the way sock-puppeting trolls imagine that adopting a female ‘nym will give them some sort of leeway here.
(Must make for a shit-load of cognitive dissonance, when they essay that tactic)
Lucy Van Pelt is H.R.
Good grief! I know I post this the other day.
Just try to spread some cheer.
A MRA lying??? *Full fake pseudo swoon onto the extra heavy duty fainting couch, to the applause of the Pullet Patrol for dramatic swoon*
Nerd, does the Pullet Patrol™ have a Stealth Squad?
That is a backhanded compliment in a way. Having a female ‘nym on too many blogs is likely to get one spurned.
So, what do you want? We should leave up any comment, even if they contain private information, just to humor some random jackass?
Let’s try your method of explaining an issue: whatif I went a-digging and found out your name, your address and your workplace; took pictures of you, your friend and family; recorded information about your schedule (“works out at gym X every friday at 4 o’clock”) and then posted the whole thing here.
Do you think it would be OK for PZ to delete that post? Or do you think he should leave it up as “evidence”?
Finally, this is a private site. PZ has every right to ban anybody for any reason. He doesn’t need to provide any evidence or justification. The only limitation is when it comes to actual libel, and we’re far from that, especially since there’s no reason to think that there’s any relationship between screen name and real life name. My passport sure as hell doesn’t say “LykeX”.
So, in summation; you’re an idiot, whining about nothing. Go away.
I shouldn’t just leave windows open. I forget that it doesn’t automatically reload to show new comments :(
It’s okay, LykeX, the chewtoy’s time was limited here.
You mean the Lilac Berets? The Kninja Knitters are also available for stealth operations.
jeeeez people
How ‘stealth’ is it if you advertise?
Another one for the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” files.
If you accidentally run someone over with your car and kill them, there is going to be an investigation.
If you accidentally shoot them… oh well, shit happens. Anyone saying otherwise wants to steal our guns!!!
Sir Patrick Moore, legendary astronomer, has died at the age of 89, passing away peacefully in his sleep.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20657939#
An icon may be gone, but he absolutely will never be forgotten. RIP Sir Patrick, you brilliant brilliant man.
From John’s link:
There is always a bullet in the chamber and you always clear the chamber before doing anything with a handgun besides shoot it. Ugh. Some people are too dumb to live. Sadly, the universe does not mete out those consequences justly.
IANAL, but this is pretty clearly negligent homicide (even if that’s not the exact term).
Oh, quick, look over there. A sounder of boars. Or is it an exaltation of larks? I can’t be sure. Let’s get closer so we can determine what they are? Quickly! Quickly!
Cross-posted from B&W:
So, over at the ‘pit, our good friend Reap is dropping docs on me:
This is that dumb piece of shit Reap Paden’s idea of holding me accountable for calling him a fucking moron.
Cross-posted from B&W, with the link to page 670 of the pit removed (thanks to Markovbaines for the heads up):
So, over at the ‘pit, our good friend Reap is dropping docs on me with the express intent to intimidate:
Now watch all the ‘pit fuckers claim that it’s “holding me accountable”, not “trying to intimidate”—the same lying, coward fuckers who insist that PZ’s comments are directed at “anyone who disagrees with him.”
What a miserable bunch of deluded, lying fucks.
Brownian, you sit to shit? Shame on you, that’s not manly…or something.
Seriously, they are incredibly loathsome assholes, getting their giggles over doing active harm. And people continue to defend this garbage on the basis of “oh hey, it’s just talk, man.”
I know they are fools, one more stupid and useless than another, but this sounds like a threat. That’s really not on.
(waves at any slimers who might reproduce this as “OMG, they are shitting their pants over there”)
Obviously Reap is just expressing concern for Brownian’s gastrointestinal health. Everyone knows that squatting, not sitting, is the most effective way to move one’s bowels.
Beatrice:
But they aren’t creepy stalkers, no, no. *eyeroll* Remember all the fussing Hoggle did over being outed, how it would harm him and his family, do damage to his pillar of the community rep and all that? Funny how if it’s them, it’s a bad, bad thing, but hey, it’s perfectly okay for them to do to someone else!
Not at all. This is just Reap’s way of attempting to look intelligent. You can see him stroking his chin as he writes “Soooooooo.. let’s do this instead…. we can call him Anthony K.” as if he were some brilliant general, discussing tactics in his war room.
Anthony:
Mmmm. He’s a general in the same way Chadgething is one. Well, you’ll have them stymied for a while with the name change – whatever will they do now?
Escalate.
Anthony:
*Sigh* Yes. They were doing that anyway, seems they hardly need a reason to do so. They are such a…sensitive bunch. I hope you’re keeping handy stacks of evidence.
Gosh, for folks who think skeptics should stick to skepticism, they sure do spend a lot of time on extracurriculars like stalking.
Actual reply to Reap on the Slymepit:
Never. It never has. Until Reap of course.
Anthony:
Um, stupid question, I know, but how does the idiot figure this ^ ?
I knew your name, but that’s only because you linked to a photostream of yours at one time. It’s hardly being shouted all over the ‘net.
Tell me, Brownian, er Ian, I mean Anthony, what did you do to the poor, bullied slymepitters? Did you tell them they were a bunch of misogynist jerks or something?
Fuck! Ya’all just had to drag in a steaming heap of Reap!
Well, I’d used it on Atheist Nexus and in other places. It was hardly a well-kept secret. So that’s their excuse.
As one ‘pitter put it in response to Reap’s post:
@Rodney:
I accurately described Reap Paden as dumb.
#280
lol!
That’s what you get for being honest on line.
so, about that misogyny thing, out in the real world:
http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/
p.s. I am always checking the news, and have a habit of sharing interesting stories that i come across. if that is something that should not happen here, please let me know!
Janine:
Reap is just an anagram for his real name: Rape.
How am I meant to recognize Brownian’s posts now that he’s going by some kind of pseudonym?
bobo, this is exactly the thread for sharing those sorts of things.
I’m often imitated, but never replicated.
The line.
The brilliance.
The snark.
The humour.
Speaking of anagrams, I put Anthony K into the internet anagram server, which spit these out:
Hank Tony
Ankh Tony
Khan Tony
Thank Yon
Hanky Ton
Hanky Not
Ant Honky
Tan Honky
Yak Nth No
Yak Nth On
You could always use one of these, Anthony, then they could lie about how they figured out your name from that. I kind of like Ant Honky.
Ogvorbis:
You left out the most important thing: the sexiness, man. The sexy sexiness.
This almost as if Black Francis/Frank Black became known as Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV.
Tan Honky is my favorite.
I think we have a winner!
Ophelia blogged about the Pakistani women being stalked and harassed and what does that ass Julian have to say about it? This:
The li’l photo of himself.
Nah, too obvious. When it is that obvious, I get suspicious.
Aw, now you no longer have the shibboleth. How will we ever identify the slimepitters now?
LOL @ Chas. Well played, sirrah.
They’re the ones who simply disagree with us.
#298 Caine, I was just reading an article about the double standard – men are studs – women are sluts- and one particularly ‘astute’ commenter regaled us with this theory:
yes, so the ‘slut’ label refuses to die cuz women can’t stop fightin over the menz!
Rey:
By their mild, polite and reasoned dissent shall you know them.
Bobo, quoting:
Oh FFS. Some days, you just have to be amused at how much tortured reasoning they put into their apologetics.
Ah. So look for the smoking jacket and monocle.
“I’m so super-studly the womenz should be throwing themselves at me but somehow I can’t get laid.”
I had a “Nice Guy” phase once.
It lasted as long as it took for me to meet other Nice Guys and realise they’re total assholes.
I don’t quite understand the logic of that. So you aren’t really exposing someone’s identity if you can discover it. I guess that means it only counts as unethical if you reveal someone’s name without being able to find it.
How does that work?
It means even the Slymepitters recognize that Reap Paden, P.I.’s fantastic legwork took less effort and brains than it does to refill a salt shaker.
PZ:
Like magnets and tides. Mysteriously.
The decent men I’ve known have been well aware of the “permanent sexual immaturity-sex” option. Being decent, they took another path.
***
Oh, yes.
Brown…er…Anthony…er…Ian:
Yes, but what does this mean for the queue? Inquiring minds want to know!
****
And I still cannot seem to preview the comments…
mary:
You need to get it out of your head that the only person who is going to respond to you on AN OPEN FUCKING FORUM is the blog host.
If you don’t want anyone else to respond, send an email. And get in line. PZ get’s lots of hate mail. Yours won’t be any different. In fact, you’ll fit right in with all the other idiots.
Oh, and you’re a massive dumbfuck.
marymurphy:
Then what the fuck is your immature, condescending, ignorant, ass doing involved.
You proved in your first post-in the Lounge of all places (because for all that you’ve been lurking a while here, you somehow haven’t quite mastered the ability to read for comprehension)-how mature you are.
Yet you’re trying to lecture PZ. On his blog.
You’ve got guts.
They belong in the Slymepit.
maryFUCKINGDUMBASSmurphy:
Why I do believe we have our very own HYPERSKEPTIC in the ‘Dome.
I thought they were a dying breed.
Caine @214:
Wait, christtestter was banned???
Not being online all day every day is so totally cutting into my ability to keep up with this blog :)
Tony, you are just a bit late to the party.I am going to reveal the plot twist. Marymartin was actually dpitman.
(Sorry, I had to tease.)
Tony:
Yep. I sent an alert and PZ took a look and decided on the appropriate action. By the way, “MaryMurphy” was “dpitman”, and has already been banned.
maryFUCKINGDUMBASSmurphy:
You must have a high opinion of yourself if you think anyone here gives two shits what you have to say. You discredited yourself in your first fucking post.
Perhaps if you had a *true* grievance with PZ and posted in a reasoned manner, you wouldn’t have been met with the response you have. As you have chosen to criticize PZ with the manner of a petulant 11 year old, the response you’ve gotten is commensurate.
Tony, will you please stop arguing with a day old post.
Janine:
He’ll get there. He missed out on the fun because of work, so let him argue away. :D
Damn.
Getting banned in the ‘Dome.
I’m there now.
Sorry.
You know what was funny about dpitman getting banned? His being a skeevy asshat in two other threads wasn’t enough for a banning – PZ told him, in *huge* red letters, that he was confined to posting in Thunderdome. So what does the dope do? Morphs and starts up with the “MaryMurphy” business.
What was really funny about that act was how quickly dpitman reverted back to acting like a troll. Claiming to not having enough time to figure out how to format as am attempted insult was rather piss poor.
(One of my grandfathers used to refer to some things as being piss poor. I have come around to really liking that term.)
I really wanted christtestter to answer my question about why someone’s choice of online ‘nym would make someone unreliable.
*sigh*
Now I’ll never know.
He had weeks to answer that, chigau. He was never going to do so. Nothing was lost.
butbutbut
Janine
I did so want to ask about xis own ‘nym.
christtestter
christ testter
christ tester
christ teste
I mean, waht?
I’m disappointed that I have to be in the Queue for Ghey Secks with Anthony K., but I guess I’ve waited this long…
On a serious note, I really don’t understand the pit people sometimes.
[Patrick Moore]
:'(
*clenched tentacle salute*
@ chigau
christ‘s testes?
The tardigrade’s Chinese ‘nym does not exactly instill confidence.
@ Mattir
{theophontes checks ticket carefully.}
Oh noze!!!
theophontes
I have alot (really alot) of Canadian Tire Bucks,
does that get us upqueueue for browntony?
@ chigau
{tap tap, tappity tap}
Canadian Tire Bucks.
Holy Heffer, that is cool. I think it time that the Politburo starts to issue its own currency. Then we can all be
In Hong Kong, almost all the bank notes are issued by private banks (the guBmint only issues plastic HK$10 notes of late). There are many banks … and lots of different types of banknotes.
The local term is “VIP”. In English and in Putonghua. You want to sell anything, just stick a “VIP” sticker on it and you are in business.
When we start printing our Thunderdome Drachmas, we’ll buy our way onto the Ghey Secks VIP Queue.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/12/05/why-im-not-afraid-of-a-nuclear-iran/
Well it’s been noted several times here that anyone who includes “rational” or “skeptic” or “truth”* in their nym is almost certainly an irrational, credulous liar.
*Truthmachine being an exception – although I did think his nym indicated a rather swollen ego.
:(
Ha ha
*wipes tear*
:)
Now if only I could fit a reference to Diogenes in there somewhere.
ॐ, heh.
Oh, I saw. That’s probably why I had him on my mind.
Sometimes, I like being able to make things more obvious to vision-impaired people than to us ordinary lugs.
I’ll respond more later. Just one thing to note :
I may and do disagree with many commenters here but y’know what I’m NOT a bad person and I do have a lot that’s positive to contribute here. Don’t let the strawpeople that some have nasty asswipes here have constructed fool ya.
@ 172. Nick Gotts (formerly KG)
Bzzt. Major history FAIL on your part there Nick Gotts. The First Fleet arrived and established the first British Colony in 1788. British colonies were well established by 1804.
See :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fleet
Or any good history text on the subject.
Dunno where you got 1804 from but big error there. Not unexpected from you of course.
@ 176. consciousness razor :
Nope – I never said that. Learn to read for comprehension next time’ k?.
Also Greeks & Romans are included under Westerners y’know right?
@ 170. Caine, Fleur du mal :
Shit you are ignorant Caine aren’t you? Yes. Western culture has produced the scientific method which was invented or discovered if you prefer by Sir Francis Bacon in 1620. The early Greeks – also Westerners had other more philosophical but essentially proto-scientific methodologies and ideas – and were Westerners. The inventors of the telescope, figures like Galileo Galilei, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Charles Darwin were of course Westerners. Chinese and Arabs and others did make some very useful and good observations of things like supernovae, eclipses and comets but did not understand these through the scientific method but instead believed in superstitions like astrology.
More replies to come – maybe tomorrow, maybe earlier, when I have time and energy and have ready.
You are a horrible person and I’m not the least bit interested in those moments when you decide to play pretend as a decent human being. You aren’t fooling anyone here.
SG, any thoughts on when we’ll have our killfiles back?
StevoR,
Could you please please please fuck off?
You despise non-Westerners and consider any contribution made by them (near-)worthless. Totally not biased, that. Just fuck off already. I don’t care about your replies, they are obviously going to consist of more hate, bigotry and general stupidity.
Spare us, please. I’m begging you. Stop commenting here. Fuck off already.
Seconded.
You have nothing but bigotry to contribute, a contribution we don’t want. You have nothing else to offer us. What a stupid fuckwitted bigot.
Thirded. Trash can for the trash…
@ 181. Caine, Fleur du mal
Not scary so much as just a disgusting cesspit of nasty bullies who have no valid arguments to offer only abuse, strawpeople and their own revolting lies and bile.
I’ve been bullied in my life enough not to seek out any more of it, thankyou. )(In advance and probably in vain.)
Also shame on you and PZ for allowing a thread so transparently dedicated for bullying those you disagree with like this to go on. But then I guess some of you nastier and stupider commenters do find it hard to hold your own when limited to a civilised, reasoned discourse where insults and casting aspersions are held out of bounds.
There’ s a lot I like about this blog and a lot I agree with but then there’es also some really batshit leftwingnuts who I can’t stand and who seem totally detached from reality as I see it.
I just hope maybe, just maybe, I can get some of them and some of the lurkers to actually think and consider a few different points of view that are a bit more realistic.
Meself? I was madly far left wing once, eventually realised how wrong (& anti-Semitic) I’d been. I probably overcompensated for a while. My views have indeed evolved over time and I’m willing to admit that I’m wrong if and when I am. Yeah, I’m a fucked up all too oft overtired, drunk, fucked up human. Yeah, its possible I’m wrong, always. Same as everybody fucken else. You guys realise that too right?
But know what? That doesn’t make me a bad person and I wouldn’t fucken hurt or discriminate against anyone. I have my own opinions on things but that doesn’t mean I mistreat or judge people on their skin colour and I’d give up my seat on the train for an African-Australian or Muslim Australian just the same as I’d do for a Caucasian-Australian.
Politically, well neither leftwing nor rightwing has all the answers or is right on everything. Left gets some right and so does the rightwing and vice versa. All up as I’ve said before I probably agree with the (tyranny of the) majority position here about 80 % to 20%.
I’m a feminist, an environmentalist, a secularist, an anti-racist and also pro-space exploration, pro-technology and science incl. nuclear and pro-USA, pro-West and pro-Humanity in general. I judge on the evidence not the ideology. On the individual not the “race” which is bullshit anyway , no such thing as fucken race and we’re all the third species of chimpanzee after bonobos. I’m also being fucking appallingly misjudged by some folks here wot dunno how to read!
Oh & its PZ’s blog and he controls what happens to me, not my haters here. Pretty sure I’ve broken no laws here and hope to keep making positive contributions of various things on various issues because whilst I might hate some of the commenters, I do love this blog and wish to make it better not worse by my presence.
@348 & 350. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls & Beatrice :
You are wrong – and the answer is no.
You despise non-Westerners
Not at all. I pity them.
I believe in the values of equality, liberty, fraternity.
I believe in human rights, in feminism, in looking after the environment and esp. fighting Global Overheating. In the pursuit of happiness and a better quality of life for all.
You don’t?
Don’t you ever even think you might have been wrong and misjudging me?
Because that is the reality.
StevoR is right that British settlement began in 1788, not 1804. This does not, of course, make any difference to my main point: that one alternative to British settlement and annexation was no settlement and annexation by anyone, enforced by the British Navy.
Well, this is plainly false.
@158. anteprepro :
Nope. I’m a pragmatic realist not a wingnut. Also why do you say that, calling me name sand not addressing the actual substance of what I’ve said? Perhaps deep down you realise I am correct and you cannot argue only name-call?
SteveR
Did you say the things attributed to you in #153?
Do you still stand by them?
You’re right; we DO need a continuous infusion of jokes about fucking daisy cutter bombs being the best solution. They’re as vital as coffee.
Bzzt! Major history fail by StevoR there: Ibn al-Haytham. Not unexpected from him of course.
Nick Gotts,
But who would have brought civilization to the savages then? Surely they were much better off once the settlers came to murder them, steal their land and their children.
Umm, in your haste to correct the year, it seems you forgot to address the actual point, namely:
How is that invalidated by correcting the year?
And it just popped right out of the blue with no precursors, too.
You’re drawing up a massive caricature, here. Muslims did a lot of work with regard to the scientific method, especially in emphasizing experimentation over simple observation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method#Ibn_al-Haytham
Yes, they had their fair bit of superstition, but so did the west, so I’m not sure what the point of that is. Hell, we have people in the west to this day who explain events by appealing to angels and demons, so that whole line is just a red herring.
Finally, much of what we have from the Greeks, we got through the Muslim world. While European scribes were busy copying hymnals, Muslims were copying, commenting on and improving on Aristotle. If they hadn’t preserved those text, who knows what would have been lost.
Thanks to those Muslims scholars, European scientists weren’t starting from scratch, but had a long tradition to draw on; a tradition that not only preserved Greek knowledge, but expanded upon it.
You might be able to defend the idea that the precise modern version of the scientific method was produced by western culture (I’m not even sure if that’s true, but let’s just say it is), but it would be simply dishonest to ignore all the work that lead up to it.
Tell us more about hyphenated-Americans, StevoR.
Hope springs eternal.
And, of course, nuking Muslims.
Calling Australian Aboriginal people savages was sarcasm, of course. Although, I feel dirty writing it even in the attempt to mock StevoR.
You mean like believing that Newt Gingrich’s election would magically have produced a moonbase?
@355.Nick Gotts (formerly KG) :
Thankyou.
Of course, being realistic you’re suggested alternative was never going to happen. Human nature and thinking of the time being what it was / is. The world i(& our past history) is as it is not as we’d wish it to be.
What happened to the Indigenous First Australians was terrible and wrong I agree. I also think we should do what we can now to make amends and recognise their sufferings. I live on Kaurna* land and I appreciate that but cannot change the past.
A pity I agree.
@356. nms : Is it? Your supporting evidence for that proposition would be ..what then?
&&&&&
* See :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaurna_people
I’ve seen the Fountain of Tears at what used to be Colebrook house, I don’t fully appreciate but *try* to appreciate what happened to them. Yes, it sucks badly (massive understatement)and I am torn by this but what can I do?
Oh, lord love a duck, then Get. The. Fuck. Out. Go, shoo, scat, there’s a whole wide internet out there awaiting your amazing contributions of ass-pulled bigotry, Cupcake.
It’s not wanted here. Nor are you.
The trashy fuckwitted asshole bigot gets facts wrong when it goes against its bigotry. News at eleven.
As I said, you have nothing whatsoever to offer this community other than arrogant stupidity.
I’m sure any genocidal maniac you care to name would have provided people with exactly the same assurance.
StevoR,
Go away.
One of your more hilarious commenting escapades springs to mind, which incidentally KG also just mentioned.
I wouldn’t have thought that “pro-moon” would be an ideology, but there you go.
So what? It was an alternative, within the capabilities of those making the decisions, and one you ignored in your apologia for British imperialism.
@363. nms : Yes, hope does spring eternal. I’m human, I’m fallible, I’m willing to be convinced if the evidence is there. As for hyphenated Americans, dunno really.
@365. Beatrice : Did I *ever* call them savages? Really? Because, no I don’t think so. Not that exactly.
@366. Nick Gotts (formerly KG) :
You mean like believing that Newt Gingrich’s election would magically have produced a moonbase?
Imagine you are in a flooded river being swept downstream to your death. Imagine there is one person throwing you a rope to grab onto to save your life. You don’t like this person. You know he is an ugly, cruel person who has committed many evils. But. You either grab this rope or you die. Do you grab the rop and try to save save everything or commit yourself to drowning out of spite and mistrust? That’s analogous to how I felt then.
Gingrich would’ve been an awful president. I hated having to support him. On the moonbase – on human expansion and future survival I felt I had no choice. Moot question now anyway. Hey, could’ve been worse, could’ve been Rick Perry or Santorum making that vital all-important pro-space exploration offer.
Really, really wish it had been Obama saying what Gingrich said in Newt<i(on)'s only good speech.
Also given a choice between Obama and Mittens – I’d have gone Obama in a heartbeat – not that I could voted in the US anyhow.
&&&
“Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics – and you’ll get ten different answers. But there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us, it’ll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes – all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars.”
– Commander Sinclair, Babylon 5, Season 1, Episode 4 “Infection”
*hurk*
Hey Caine, who runs this blog again? You or PZ?
Pteryxx:
Move over, Pteryxx, there’s going to be a lot of traffic in the vomitorium.
Um, do you really want PZ to step in and arbitrate? He’s already slapped you down once that I know of.
I missed that.
StevoR,
You are a piece of shit.
—-
If enough of us ask, can one of the monitors send PZ an email about StevoR?
I know that Thunderdome is (nearly) unmoderated, but StevoR har really surpassed quite a number of haters that have been banned in the past.
Gosh, isn’t it a difficult situation when evidence and ideology (and Babylon 5) collide.
Does StevoR put anyone else in mind of a Very Serious Person?
Oh, lets see… stop stereotyping and demonizing Muslims, apologise for your racist slurs against Obama and African-Americans in general as quoted @153 above, learn what “cultural relativism” means…
What’s the matter, Cupcake? Seems to me if an intelligent person found a place to be a cesspit, they’d leave. Just trying to help you along, sweetpea, seeing as you tend to take a long time to get a clue.
After all, you’d never find me at the slymepit, because I do think it’s a cesspit. Then again, I have a fair amount of brain cells and I’m honest.
So, have a protip: Recognise when you aren’t wanted. Go the fuck away. Go to the moon. Please.
@375. Pteryxx :
What’s that mean?
I pity them because they don’t have the opportunuities and advantages we do (incl. and esp. women and the non-hetereonormative) because of our priviledged Western lifestyles and opportunities. That wrong of me somehow? Stuffed if I can figure out how.
No I’m not a cultural relativist.
Not aware that’s a crime. Is it? Or is a culture that exploits women, has, say, slavery or human sacrifice equal to one that, say, y’know doesn’t?
Beatrice, I’ll pass your post on to PZ.
@382. aine, Fleur du mal :
I wish I could Caine, I really wish wish I could.
As for intelligent, meh. Never claimed to be that if memory serves. Stubborn, and fucked up sure.
If it helps I’m heading to bed now~ish. Too drunk and tired. Will consider and reply to other comments later.
that’s Caine sorry. Obviously.
Oh, thanks, Caine.
No problem, Beatrice. All done and sent.
@379. Beatrice:
See that’s be the bullying name calling rather than the actual argument.
(Looks at hands, arms, legs, feet, sniffs, rechecks.) Nope. I’m a carbon based, mostly water (& okay, quite a bit of beer human being.
Haters? No. Not so much I think. I don’t hate you. Dislike and think you’re wrong sure but not hate.
Done nothing to deserve banning in my view. PZ gets final say not you.
StevoR@374,
Srsly? You’re quoting a piece of adolescent cod-philosophy from an SF series as a justification for supporting a lying scumbag like Gingrich?
Er, no, it isn’t. The scientific consensus is that the sun will become too hot for life on Earth to be sustainable (unless some kind of space shield is set up I suppose) in somewhere upwards of 500 million years. Not exactly our most pressing problem. Moreover, even if our descendants survive this, the current majority view among cosmologists is that most of the visible universe will have disappeared from view in about 100 billion years due to the accelerating expansion of the universe, and what’s left will eventually, and inevitably, become unable to support life.
That’s exactly parallel to, and exactly as stupid as, the common theist trope that if we don’t live forever, everything is pointless.
Damnit!
I finally got up the gumption to get in the Brownian line. And now there is no one in front of me. Because they’re all in the Anthony K. line.
And I can no longer use the ‘ball of Brownian Motion’ semidemijoke.
In my business, a VIP is a ‘Volunteer-In-Parks.’ Hmmm.
I’ve always wondered about that. Diogenes was looking for one good man. The Marines used to look for a few good men. And found them. Was Diogenes just too picky? Or are humanity getting more honester?
There are some conversations to which you have had a great deal to add. But, like all of us, you do have a blind spot. You make yours quite a bit more visible, though.
I have no idea if you are a good person or not. Based on your writings regarding Islam (and other non-Western societies), you are not someone I would want to meet in meatspace.
And we have a perfect example right there.
So, StevoR, do you still favour a preventive war against Iran? With nuclear weapons?
@PZ Myers : I respect you and like this blog.
I’m happy to abide by your judgement.
Please let me stay and keep contributing. I’ll try to do so positively & follow what conditions you set.
Nick:
Yabbut, that’s Stevo’s idear of heaven, man.
I liked B5 as much as the next person, but I get the distinct feeling that the bulk of it went a sailing far over Stevo’s head.
@ 391. Ogvorbis:300-year-old Wood Elf :
I don’t know and it is not my decision to make.
:falls over laughing:
I’m okay. Really. Truly.
StevoR
Don’t act more stupid than we already know you are. It’s perfectly obvious I wasn’t talking about you hating me.
I am seriously sleep deprived. I should start working, but Imma try to nap a while. Have fun with the resident bigot.
PS. I don’t agree with all my own past statements and have since apologised for (& clarified) some of them too.
oh, ya hadda go there. Where do ya live sonny?
So you have moved from advocating a war with Iran (which, as a side effect, would cause millions of civilian deaths, even in a best-case scenario) to being not sure if you really want the war or not. Wonderful. So you are not about killing millions of civilians to eradicate a minor annoyance (yes, even an Iran with nuclear weapons would be, at best, a minor annoyance). You really are a piece of work, y’know?
that should be ‘at worst, a minor annoyance). Sorry.
StevoR #352
chigau,
He’d even let them use his bathroom!
Ok, where does that come from? I got the meme, but I wasn’t here yet at its nascence. A racist politician said that he would let a black person use his bathroom, or something like that..?
What is the definition of “Benevolent Racism”?
StevoR
No, you have not apologised. You have claimed to be sorry for being offensive, not for what you have said.
Go talk to Graeme Bird.
Isn’t it telling that StevoR should so boldly point to Francis Bacon and the classical Greeks/Romans as the ones responsible for the development of the modern scientific method, but completely ignores the OTHER vital link in that chain, ie the Islamic scholars who preserved, extended and expanded (yeah they did more than just copy stuff, you know?) the classical texts and enabled their transition back to Europe where they could then be incorporated into the youthful education of people like Francis Bacon, without which the poor man would have had about as much chance of successfully developing the scientific method as an ice cube in hell?
Because Muslims just don’t register in StevoR’s view of the world.
A thoughtful post on what religion can and sometimes does provide to the poor.
I hope some of you will have a read and argue about it. The topic, that is, not the name of the magazine or their position on immigration or some such, but the topic presented. Its Pharyngula material, from the other side. I found it provocative, particularly Kaplan’s description and analysis of Turkish slums, as a 99% atheist myself, because I don’t see the advance of atheism and rational thinking in any way replacing the functionality of religion in this example, as is often advance that it can here and throughout the rational reality based community. Can anyone make the argument that it can?
this is a test
whoop — ‘advance’ should read ‘advanced’
@md
I’m not quite sure what argument you’re trying to make. Skimming through the article, I see him attributing all sorts of nice things to religion without the slightest evidence that it’s actually responsible. E.g.
Note that those two countries, Algeria and Egypt, also both have 90+ percent Muslims. So, why are they not the same wonderful paradise countries? Whatever make Turkey different, it’s not religion.
Furthermore, I seriously question some of the attributions. Apparently, crime used to be a much bigger problem in the 80s. Yet, I think they were still Muslim back then.
Also, note the distinction “crime against persons“. That’s significant because Turkey has some issue with drug smuggling, forming a bridge into Europe. I guess religion doesn’t help with that.
Finally, I notice that all of this has to do with enduring poverty, not eliminating it. Personally, I’d much prefer not being poor to being poor and dealing with it gracefully.
So, right off the bat, I have to say I’m not impressed. I’d like to know why you are.
md:
So religion helps people cope with being poor? Christianity has made a cult of being poor for 1800 years. Hermits, monks, telling the peasants that they will get theirs in the afterlife. Here in the US, much of Christianity has embraced, wholeheartedly, the right-wing economic policies that helped to close down the ceramics factories of Western Pennsylvania, that make it far more profitable to import manufactured goods from third world countries with no unions, no minimum wage, no OSHA, and even less hope. Right wing religious groups even go so far as to blame the poor for their economic conditions via the execrable Prosperity Gospel — the poor don’t accept Jesus in the right way so God does not reward them with prosperity. Thank you, no. I’ll stick with secular groups working for economic opportunity, sustainable industry and agriculture and business, and equal rights for all human beings.
md gotta watch those rice christians. they will turn on you in a heartbeat once you run out of rice
One other little thing that bugged me. It’s not relevant to the argument, but…
That’s just disgusting and manipulative, yet the author seems to highlight it as something positive.
Even putting on my religious hat, I don’t understand that. In fact, putting on my religious hat makes it even worse. If I was still a believer, I’d call this “pastor” a servant of Satan. This commercialization of the sacred offends my atrophied religious sensibilities.
—I’d like to know why you are.
The description of the Turkish slum if taken at face value, impresses me, yes, because I believe religion isn’t going away anytime soon in the Islamic world. With regard to our own rising working class poverty, yes id prefer to see order over dysfunction. Can religion contribute to that?
I dont think im giving into hyperbole when I say the rationalist movement believes that the history-long example of man and his irrational, religious thinking can be overcome by simply replacing it with rational thought. I just don’t believe it likely, therefore I think its important to watch what people actually do. Turkey is a geopolitically important country, we should try to understand them as best we can. Not all irrational thinking is the same.
Ogvorbis — regarding Tabi’s story, do you think she’d have been better off had she skipped church, and started reading Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus (Im a fan, but…), found some local lad to take out to the shed for a shag (gov pays for birth-control, and if I get pregnant, my children’s well being), and started smoking cannabis (its legal in two states now, dontcha know)? We are always going to have relative poverty, always (though objective conditions will often rise). What is best for the poor to believe? Inner fortitude matters. Do you think Tabi wants to discuss sustainable agriculture practices, or whether trans-genders should be able to enter both sets of public bathrooms? Which is not to say those arent things worth worrying about, but that she’s worried primarily about her own life and travails, and should be. How should she approach it?
hmmm, the author of the blogpost most definitely does not. The post story, maybe so. But, if you’re interested, the Pastor is writing into the comment stream over there and the blogger questioned him on that.
Dont’cha think that the poor should be given stories of a reward after this life in exchange for obedience to authority in this life?
md believes that submitting to authority is the answer
I don’t
Irrelevant. The question is, can religion uniquely contribute to that? Can religion provide some benefit that no secular means can do? If you think so, I’d love to hear an example. It would be the first.
Remember, anything that has to do with community, education, ethics or tradition can be done by secular means.
So, are you arguing that religion can’t be gotten rid of or that it shouldn’t be gotten rid of?
I’m wondering if we’re talking past each other here. Would I prefer a helpful, beneficial religion to fanaticism? Of course. Does that mean that helpful, beneficial religion is better than helpful, beneficial secularism? Not in a million years.
Contribute what? Irrationality, bigotry and demented reasoning. The following is cogent reasons for PZ to let you stay:
.
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
*Crickets chirring*
Actually, no it’s not often advanced here, where most of the regulars recognise that atheism alone is not enough – and indeed, that many atheists are right-wing shits. What reduces crime and other social pathologies is not religion as such, but social solidarity: the perception that one is part of a social formation within which one is valued, and from which support is available. This may be local, as in the Turkish slum example (assuming it’s honestly reported), or wider. It is the most religious parts of the USA that have higher levels of practically all social pathologies; while reducing income inequality, which encourages social solidarity, correlates with lower levels of these pathologies: abundant evidence of this is available here. Lower income inequality also appears to correlate with lower levels of religiosity.
Nerd,
You forgot
,
,
and
,
Uniquely, yes, you are right LykeX, that is the proper question. I don’t know that answer, but do stories an examples like this give you any pause at all?
You point out that community, education and all the rest can be done by secular means. Lets agree for now it can be done (im not so sure about ‘community and tradition’). Is it being done? Do people want it done? Can you provide examples of peoples, once poor and religious, transformed by rationalist thought and materially and spiritually (in the broad, emotional sense of the word) prosperous?
Answer, I dont know. Can it be gotten rid of? How? Blogpost by aetheist blogpost, sure. Rounding up the religious, burning their holy books, tearing down their holy places, and forcibly educating rational belief, of course not. Though if the Soviet Union and Mao’s China are any example, that may be the only effective way. Not that you were suggesting such a thing.
Should it? Pragmatically, based on the history of the last century, no I don’t we should much try. I think we ought to be quite skeptical of mass movements aimed at converting people to some set of beliefs, whatever they might be. In principle I do think we’d be better off, but Im always left with a question. If so many people are religious, does it have some value, some important function to humans that I dont’ understand? The post I shared brought me back to that.
Possibly so (although “always” is a very long time), but the degree of relative poverty is most certainly alterable by policy, and the evidence is overwhelming that reducing it is beneficial.
By all means keep arguing, StevoR. Your ilk can only give further proof of how immoral you are when allowed to speak.
“…which he took entirely out of his White Western ass, with no precursors and no competition whatsoever!”
“Yeah, these other non-white guys did stuff but they weren’t important because they’re stupid and WHITE MAN BEST”
You can say that until you’re blue in the face, that doesn’t make it true.
Of course you’re pro-nuclear technology! We need it to nuke
Mordorthe Middle East?“…which take preference over everything else.”
“…unless they’re Arabs.”
“My ideology is the only one that is rational!”
“…unless they’re Arabs.”
Western Europe – although rationalist thought was only part of it, and may be more an effect of the welfare state than a cause.
An effective welfare state. The decline of religion in western Europe shows no sign of ending, or even slowing down. The US religious right appear to understand the connection well enough.
If so many people get cancer/dementia/atherosclerosis, does it have some value, some important function to humans that I dont’ understand?
@Beatrice 403
The bathroom thing comes from a quote from a Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple.
Okay, Preview told me that my previous post was going to come out looking like a dog’s breakfast and it looks fine. Why is the computer lying to me?
Nick, Im an American, forgive me, but to take an example with which im familiar, crime in New York City has decreased dramatically in the last 2 decades.
What you are arguing here seems congruous with Kaplans observations on Turkish slums, and yet, its hard for me to believe social solidarity and valuable social formation has increased in NYC in the recent past. Do you? Have evidence for it? The equality trust link you provided is broken, prob as a result of the new website. Googling that site and skimming the topics I see “Imprisonment” as one. And its starts out with an interesting claim
“In the UK, despite falling crime rates, imprisonment rates have been climbing steadily for decades…”
Well, isn’t it plausible that crimes rates are falling because imprisonment rates have climbed? Isn’t that a plausible explanation for NYC, also? It would mean relatively few people commit a high percentage of crime, and when they are imprisoned, crime falls. Tell me where i’ve got it wrong.
Nepenthe, Preview seems to behave very strangely with how it displays links now. It’s worse than useless when it comes to a post containing a link. No way to tell what’s broken and what isn’t.
Gee, you think it supports your fukckwittery? It refutes it, as US of A is becoming less religious.
Religious folks don’t read past abstracts on evidence. Hence, they don’t realize and acknowledge reality has a liberal bias.
Nepenthe,
Thank you!
–An effective welfare state.
Or a declared state-religion perhaps? Either way, or both, I agree that the results has been a less religious people. The story is not over for Western Europe though.
—The decline of religion in western Europe shows no sign of ending, or even slowing down.
Even among its new immigrants? I like to read Kenan Malik as much as the next guy, but is he the trend or the exception?
md,
Thanks for alerting me about the link. I’ll try again.
With regard to imprisonment and crime, you may or may not be right: rates of violent crime at least have shown reductions across a wide range of societies over the past couple of decades, and the cause or causes are disputed; but this is only one of many social pathologies which correlate strongly with income inequality.
Perhaps. I’m not sure why existentialism, sex, and recreational drugs are impediments to “inner fortitude”. (Poverty means you just can’t deal with ideas beyond “Jesus good. Work good.”? Poverty means you should renounce pleasure or else you’re not good?) I’m also not sure how that post supports the idea that religion is good for poor people (whatever that means); the commenter just asserts this. Rouzzo’s story doesn’t seem to support it, since she started pulling herself up by the bootstraps long before she started attending church.
I’m not sure why you’d think we’d argue about the title of the magazine. It’s right there on the masthead.
Can’t find the link (as I have stated before, I’ll need lots of practice for even a white belt in googlefu!), but I seem to remember reading a paper a few years back that traced environmental lead contamination and crime rates — the crime rate followed, up and down, about five to ten years after the environmental lead levels. Point being, there are many things that can alter crime rates.
ah the iconic, quiet muslim turkish slum
SteveoR:
You’re the one who keeps complaining about this atmosphere.
You clearly don’t have much problem with it, since you Keep. Coming. Back.
You can give up the whining too.
You’re not convincing anyone.
You’re a trigger happy racist thug.
Am I the only one who sees “It’s better for the poor (or whatever disadvantaged group you want to designate) to stick to the comfort of Religion” as being, essentially, “The Truth? They can’t handle the Truth!”?
–
—If so many people get cancer/dementia/atherosclerosis, does it have some value, some important function to humans that I dont’ understand?
Analogy fail. People dont choose cancer. Yes yes, religion often transmits from parents to children. But free will exists on some level, eh? You must believe it does, or else you wouldnt toy with the idea that people could freely choose not to believe? The future is either unwritten, or it isn’t — in which case its futile to try to change it.
cicely,
No, you’re not.
It’s obvious that poor dears need something spiritual to keep them going, they couldn’t handle their lives otherwise. /sarcasm
(which of course might be true for some individuals, but certainly not for any arbitrarily chosen group such as “poor people”)
@cicely
Nope.
And thus did I lie in 435. I’m pretty sure I know why md wants poor people to avoid Camus.
Why, yes, people choose poverty!
Imagine poor people getting… ideas!
Or escaping from the social controls built into Religion?
(Was I not supposed to say that out loud?)
–
If you say so, jackass. Did Greek and Roman cultures just pop into existence out of the void and remain isolated in “the West”? What about Greeks and Romans who don’t fit the mold of “Westerners”?
If somehow they all count, how were they an influence on “Western culture,” if it’s supposed to be a given that Persians, Arabs, Africans and Asians of all sorts were not?
Why is it that racist shitpiles like you so rarely manage to spell out the implications of their ignorant fuckwittery for everyone else? Is it because you’re too fucking stupid to recognize how ignorant it is? Is it because you do know but don’t like being spit on for being the ignorant, racist assholes that you are?
Why is that we always go around in circles with you? Why is it that all of the other people on the planet are barely worth mentioning, just worth your delusional “pity” and abject fear?
Nope. There are choices which people willfully choose. They do not need to “freely” choose them, if that’s supposed to mean nothing caused those choices.
But an honest, sincere belief isn’t something you can simply “choose” to have in any case.
It’s not “written,” but if you’re just going to speak in meaningless clichés, there’s little point in discussing it or what is or isn’t “futile.”
Why is that relevant? The point of the analogy is simply that the fact that something is widespread tells you absolutely nothing about whether it is beneficial.
Actually, over historical time, the transmission rate must be well over 95%; I would guess over 99%; and the choice of adhering to no religion has only been available to any significant number of people for a century or so.
I’ve updated the killfile: http://tinyurl.com/7e6xqa2
+++++
BTW, does anybody still have a copy of Daniel Martin’s last update to his killfile (the one that worked back at ScienceBlogs)?
Not the 2009 version at userscripts.org/scripts/show/4107 — obviously I can still get that one — but the updates that were pushed out from snowplow.org/martin/greasemonkey/killfile.user.js ?
It might still be in your Firefox profile folder. If you’ve got it, could you upload it somewhere for me? I suggest zipping it and uploading to anonfiles.com if you don’t have another preference.
I’ve updated the killfile, which I’m having trouble linking to until PZ whitelists it again.
pharyngula dot wikia dot com/wiki/greasemonkey
+++++
BTW, does anybody still have a copy of Daniel Martin’s last update to his killfile (the one that worked back at ScienceBlogs)?
Not the 2009 version at userscripts.org/scripts/show/4107 — obviously I can still get that one — but the updates that were pushed out from snowplow.org/martin/greasemonkey/killfile.user.js ?
It might still be in your Firefox profile folder. If you’ve got it, could you upload it somewhere for me? I suggest zipping it and uploading to anonfiles.com if you don’t have another preference.
If one of the monitors is currently monitoring, dpitman just took a dump on the Ham thread. (Crossposted)
How is a social safety net the same thing as religion? What Dogmas or ceremonies or rituals are inferred from Welfare? Totalitarian Communist regimes can possibly be argued to be state-created religions when they demand love for their leaders and imagine them as divine beings, but the basic concept of providing support for the poor and disadvantaged isn’t the same thing.
There’s no difference culturally between an immigrant family who has moved to a country after one or two generations and a family that’s lived in the same place for a millenium. If an immigrant moves from a heavily religious state to a less religious state they will be more religious, but that will change as they acclimate to the culture.
I like that it says “hush” now instead of “kill.”
But it’s too bad that it forgets everyone I had marked for certain death.
No, definitely not: this is a bizarre piece of nonsense propagated by Rodney Stark, without anything in the way of evidence apart from the fact that the USA is more religious than western Europe. Most European states have had declared state-religions as long as they have existed. The decline of religion is much more recent, largely post-WWII, i.e. during the period that effective welfare states have existed – and has gone further in France, which does not have a state religion, than almost anywhere else.
SG:
I have it installed and checkmarked, but no luck, I’m not seeing a thing. I’m using Firefox 16.
Ethics is religion, remember? So is culture and anything else which isn’t entailed by the nonexistence of gods. That seems to be the one thing godbots and dictionary atheists can agree on. Atheists may not have much to claim, but it’s ours damn it!
Oh, and one can add Australia and New Zealand, both of which show a decline similar to western Europe, and neither of which has a state-religion. An interesting question, which we are unfortunately likely to see tested, is whether destroying the welfare state would lead to reversing the decline of religion.
So, uh, I realize this was awhile ago, but on the list of things about Turkey, this was cited:
This is only true if “persons” is defined as “men.”
Violence against women is reaching endemic levels, mostly so-called “honor” killings.
Caine, let’s try some troubleshooting.
Can you put about:addons in your URL bar, go to the Greasemonkey scripts, right-click on FtB killfile, click Edit ( it might ask for a preferred text editor: the path to Notepad is probably C:\windows\system32\notepad.exe ),
and Ctrl-F for the line that begins with commenttopxpath
paste that line here.
Okay, I hope I have the right line here:
commenttopxpath: “//ol[contains(concat(‘ ‘,@class,’ ‘),’ commentlist ‘)]/li”,
sigbit: “.//cite[1]”,
replaceXpath: “child::node()”,
mangleBefore: null,
mangleAppend: null,
tabXpath: null,
precedingBit: ”,
followingBit: ”,
sigUserMatch: ‘$2’,
sigHrefMatch: ‘$1’,
aHrefAttribute: ‘href’, // sometimes title
get sigpat() {
Okay, I see the problem. Just a minute.
Michele Triblaut over at the Guardian, disagrees. with that last clause.
scuse, Michele Tribalat.
Somehow Wikia served you the old version again. I think this is just a serverside caching thing, and it’ll work itself out over the next couple days.
In the meantime, you can go to http://tinyurl.com/cr2n6h6 and where it says “Clear the cache of this page?” click OK.
Then try http://tinyurl.com/br84bez to install it again.
It that still doesn’t work, try http://tinyurl.com/bsgmnpw but I don’t recommend this last one, it’ll probably screw up your automatic updates for killfile in the future, and to get the updates working again you’ll have to go to the usual PharynguWiki Greasemonkey page and reinstall it (after this current caching problem goes away).
My killfile is working just fine.
Did I just get lucky?
Firefox 17.0.1
PZ wrote:
Hypothesis: quite possibly these trolls click on the ‘notify me of follow-up comments’ box; without constant e-mail reminders hitting their inbox of what the current thread is, they not only lose interest, they lose track of when the thread closes and a new one opens in place of it. (Noticed this phenomenon elsewhere, e.g. with some of the dedicated trolls on say Manboobz.)
Working!
Thank you very much, strange gods before me ॐ rational skeptic seeking truth for friendship, possibly more.
Obviously I’m doing something wrong because I’ve dumped the old killfile, cleared the cache, loaded the new killfile, and end up with nothing.
chigau,
Probably. Different physical locations will get different servers, some of which have the updated version already, others of which will need their caches purged.
So what if she disagrees? I see evidence that over a span of a decade and a half, the same demographic of Algerian immigrants to France have become increasingly religious. So what? That’s one statistic out of many, and it’s hardly evidence against a general trend. What other factors is it leaving out?
A broader group is described toward the end:
In what sense are these people acclimating to the culture? For your argument to work, you must have assumed that they had acclimated in substantial ways to the culture. Showing that some people keep their religious traditions (or return to them) isn’t enough.
Sorry to hear that, Rodney. The only other thing I can think of is suggesting you edit it manually. If you want to, follow along with the instructions to Caine in #458 up through “Edit”.
Then here are the changes.
commenttopxpath: "//ol[contains(concat(' ',@class,' '),' commentlist ')]/li",should be
commenttopxpath: "//ol[contains(concat(' ',@id,' '),' comments_list ')]/li",and then
var scenariolist = {freethoughtblogs:[{scenario:wordpressScenario,xpath:"//ol[contains(concat(' ',@class,' '),' commentlist ')]/li[1]/descendant::*[self::cite or self::span][1][self::cite]"}]};should be
var scenariolist = {freethoughtblogs:[{scenario:wordpressScenario,xpath:"//ol[contains(concat(' ',@id,' '),' comments_list ')]/li[1]/descendant::*[self::cite or self::span][1][self::cite]"}]};I don’t have time or patience for a full response to Tribalat, but the article reads like a watered-down version of the racist scaremongering we see from right-wing Christians and atheists alike. She starts out with a piece of obvious bullshit:
No reference is given, and I’d be astonished if anyone had ever made such a claim: there never was a period before WWII when there was any significant number of Muslims in France, and anyone pretending there was would instantly and rightly be dismissed as either ignorant or a liar, so there would be no possible advantage in doing so.
As for the decline in the proportion of children of Algerian immigrants professing no religion between 1992 and 2008, despite what Tribalat says there is an obvious explanation: when an aspect of your culture is under attack, there is a strong tendency to defend and assert it.
Oooh, YES! Thank you, SG. You’re so patient.
*What* is with all the tone trolls?
Over at Butterflies and Wheels, the latest incarnation of Chadgething:
He also defends the right to free speech, saying that vile speech is totes ok as long as you don’t directly call for the murder of someone. Implying it is ok however!@!
Nick, regarding your assertion that an effective welfare state will attenuate religion over time, Im going to make what I think is a plausible assumption that im too lazy to evidence: new immigrants to western Europe use welfare at or perhaps even above the rate of native populations.
If that is so, and the statistics that Tribalat cite are true, why isn’t Islam withering among its young? Have we not waited long enough for the welfare state to work its rationalist machinations?
Rodney:
Okay, I did all that and it didn’t work either. Did it all again, nothing. So I clicked on ‘New User Script’ in Greasemonkey and up popped the killfile in notepad. I selected all and deleted it, then pasted in the one from http://tinyurl.com/br84bez
*cough*
So, md, why exactly shouldn’t poor people be reading Camus instead of their Bible?
(I’m going to operate on the assumption that md simply didn’t see the numerous posts asking this question.)
sgbm ॐ rsstff, pm wrote:
Updated and tested to be working nicely on both Firefox and Chrome (the latter with tampermonkey installed instead of greasemonkey); thanks very much for your work. Incidentially, when did the word ‘kill’ get changed to ‘hush’? That’s a much better word for dismissing the words of irritating commenters from sight.
When you assume you make an ass out of you, but not me.
http://oxrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/3/542.short
http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract?dp_id=5515
Short answer: it depends on location and data used.
SG, I don’t suppose there’s any hope you’d be willing to take over the Text Formatting Toolbar? The developer isn’t interested in keeping it updated. I really, really miss that add on.
I strongly suspect you’re wrong, because most people who “use welfare” are over 60, and immigrant populations are younger than non-immigrants. But in any case, this is irrelevant, because I did not assert, and do not believe, that those “using welfare” are likely to be less religious than those who do not; indeed, I suspect the opposite. What I’m suggesting is more a societal effect than an individual one: it is the general sense that there is an effective secular safety net, that if you become sick or unemployed, and when you become old, the state will help you, that I propose has made the difference. Young Muslims in France are likely to feel precisely the opposite: that the state is their enemy.
TFT ver. 0.1.4.10 is still working on my version of Firefox, but then I have Nightly Tester Tools loaded, which can cause a skip of the compatibility with the latest FF version needing to be run when updates occur.
Caine, thanks for helping Rodney. Your suggestion should work. I will pray to the brontosauruses just in case.
It doesn’t seem to be copylefted, so I couldn’t do so publicly. I’ll have a look at it later to see if the fix is within my threshold of laziness.
+++++
Xanthe,
Late September. Those using Greasemonkey’s automatic updates should have received the change soon afterwards.
Nerd:
*scampers off to do stuff* Oh gods, it still works! Eeeee. Thank you, Nerd. You’re all so patient with my idiocy today.
Yay! Than you SGॐ, thank you very much.
Oh, nice!
To elaborate #480 slightly: I “suspect the opposite” because both use of welfare, and religiosity, decline with educational level.
I find it interesting that you misinterpreted my claim in the particular way you did: like most rightists, you appear to have difficulty thinking about social questions on anything but the level of individuals’ responses to their specific circumstances.
re: Text Formatting Toolbar: maybe BBCodeXtra could be helpful? I’ve been using it since forever, as I don’t want toolbars eating up my limited screen.
For what it’s worth, TFT 0.1.4.10 is working with FF 17.0.1, and I don’t use Nightly Tester Tools to force it or whatever.
Okay, I’ve just done a cosmetic update which moves the “[hush][hide comment]” into the same line with the nym, like it used to be.
Serverside caching issues again I’m sure. No support offered this time unless this change breaks the whole killfile.
*runs away*
Weed Monkey:
I have BBCodeXtra, I don’t like it. No blockquote (yeah, I have it under custom, but it’s annoying) and I prefer the toolbar.
My killfile has been hushfile since October 4.
Really? It’s just one button, which can toggle the extra toolbar open and closed whenever you need it.
And I already have too much crap in my context menu. :)
I don’t know why I just now got “hush.” Greasemonkey 1.5…. Not many options to pick from except “Require secure updates” which I have checked.
CR:
Thanks for letting me know. I am so used to using TFT. Now that I have it back and my tabs on the bottom, where they belong, I’m better now.
Nick, have to run for now. Your last comment is interesting and Id like to respond. I’ll just close with saying Im enjoying the conversation.
StevoR
Sorry to be the one to inform you, but it won’t matter. If the death of the Sun doesn’t end us, it’ll be the collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda which will happen about the same time. If we dodge that bullet we’ll have to contend with the “big rip” or entropy death or some other mega catastrophe that will occur a finite distance in the future. This universe is a death trap, and it will erase us and all memory of us eventually.
“And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'”
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
Caine:
That’s odd. For me it’s the first selection beyond ‘clipboard’.
Certainly it’s a personal preference. My old laptop’s screen is only 800 pixels tall so I don’t want anything extra on it.