It’s been a long night and a busily obsessive day ahead of me. This is what has been and will be tying me up for a while.
Yeah, first pass page proofs for some book
You’ve all seen it, the increasingly common inept attempt people make to defuse valid criticism of their untenable positions. Most recent sighting for me was this comment at The Mary Sue, which consisted mainly of the commenter saying that no way would any man have pulled the “fake geek girl” routine on Rae Johnston and even if they did no way could she have been clever and snarky enough to leave him in the funniest smoking crater of all time, and then said commenter ended with:
Let the bashing commence I guess.
You’ve seen variations on this trope. “Flame away,” “I’ll get flamed for this,” references to asbestos undergarments and SPF 400 flameblock.
And there’s a commonality among the people who use that trope, generally having to do with shitty argumentation. As Sally Strange said here last week,
Has there EVER been a time when someone preemptively complained about flaming, when the content of their post was NOT eminently flame-worthy? Not in my experience.
Sally’s correct, and there’s a reason for that. Well, two reasons.
Frankly, if even the execrable H*go Schw*zer has seen through this particular pathetic trope, it’s time to stop it. As that post with its triggering comments (and OP) points out, trolls use this trope because it works.
So I’m calling this a New Rule. It covers my posts here, and it should cover every other person’s posts everywhere else online as well. If you tell people to “flame away,” you will not be taken seriously. Because as any well-read atheist knows, the lions took no interest in Daniel whatsoever when he was thrown into their den. They didn’t kill him, they didn’t bat him around; they just sat in a comfortable corner of their den and rolled their eyes at him every now and then as he made a spectacle of himself praying not to be eaten. And afterwards he became the topic of a number of lion in-jokes. Or so I’m guessing. The story may be apocryphal.
I’ve read some of the comments on this post by Richard Carrier, and the comments on his video, and together with all the comments I get declaring that I am the God-Emperor of Atheism+, that it’s all my idea (and that it’s an evil, awful idea), and that Freethoughtblogs has a uniformity of thought dedicated to promoting Atheist+ Purity, I’ve decided to give up and just accept the role that has been foisted on me and all of this network. So, first, I’m launching the new Atheism+ recruitment drive.
Next on the agenda is the coup that has long been in planning. Ed Brayton is nominally in charge of FtB, but as we all know, he’s only my puppet. It’s time for me to emerge from the shadows, depose the frontman, and seize the throne. To Rebel Is Justified! FtB will be my base of operations for world domination.
Next, I will be seizing control of the means of production and the propaganda organs of Atheism+. I understand there is a group of other people who think they are the leadership, but they are mere poseurs — the people have declared that I am the Great Leader, so we shall take care of them with a triumphant Revolution. Any recidivists will be purged in the subsequent purification. Smash the Gang of However Many They Are!
We will then begin Atheism+’s Great Leap Forward, with industrialization and collectivization of the masses to advance the cause, for Great Victory. Peasants Shall Be Workers! All Will Unite Beneath ME!
Finally, appearances will at last conform to the reality that is floating fuzzily about in the heads of our enemies.
This stupid dilatory storm finally arrived in Morris last night, and dumped 4 or 5 inches of wet heavy stuff on us. It’s still coming down heavily, but this morning I braved the blizzard and cleared my driveway and sidewalk…I’ll have to do it again later, since it shows no sign of letting up, and the snowplows also haven’t cleared my street yet.
This is just to let the world know that I’m still alive.
It’s not a certain thing, you know, and it’s a rather disappointing fact of life that I’m not likely to die by getting eaten by a tiger or splattered by a falling meteor, but the prosaic, mundane heart attack while shoveling snow…yeah, that’s the most likely fate for someone like me. Boring, isn’t it?
There’s no way I’m ever going to be allowed into Valhalla, damn it.
Who would win in a battle between an Imperial Super Star Destroyer and a giant space octopus?
Sorry, I was looking at this Akebia flower, and for some reason I felt a compulsion to count the number of carpels, and I did it out loud in the voice of Sesame Street’s Count. It’s been a long day of proofreading and I’m home all alone, and I think I’m getting punchy. I should probably just go to bed.
(via Scienceray)
…that I was responsible for the Thunderf00t fiasco here? I don’t pay any attention to his videos any more, but Richard carried out an amazingly thorough dissection of one of his recent videos that, as seems to be common nowadays, rants and raves about Freethoughtblogs, feminism, me, and of all things, minorities in atheism. I spot-checked some of Richard’s claims about the video — he references timestamps throughout — and was astounded to hear Thunderf00t actually sneer with contempt at the idea of broadening atheism’s appeal to a wider audience.
You know, all these deranged angry anti-social justice atheists are always complaining that FtB is trying to kick them out of atheism, but we aren’t — we don’t have that power or any authority at all (do they even realize that this is just a blog network with no jurisdiction over anything other than our local traffic?) The real situation is that people like Thunderf00t are doing an awesome job of marginalizing themselves.
The Rethuglican from Texas wants us all to appreciate the diversity of causes behind climate change. It might be natural, it might be human-caused, and it might just be magic.
I would point out that if you’re a believer in in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.
Don’t just blame Big Oil! It could also be God’s fault!
