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
I want to wish everyone in the USA a happy Labor Day. I had planned to travel this afternoon to visit family but the drive always gives me anxiety the previous night. Last night seemed worse than usual (maybe due to the weather) and I got little sleep. I’m tired and anxious now and I’m not sure if I should go because it’s a 3 hour drive and I don’t want to take any unreasonable risks. I’ll have to consider how I feel later before making the decision between going tonight and waiting for morning to see if I feel well enough to travel. Or I may cancel the trip completely and enjoy the long weekend at home.
Us v Th3m also had a pi – the next digit is higher or lower? game.
Somehow I switched digit 20 and 21 in my head, so I only got 19 right.
I has a sad.
Used to be reliable much farther out than that.
If I were Us v Th3m, however, I would have scored people not on the number of right answers, but on the percentage of pi’s digits known. Then vain jackalopes like me could have our bizarrely compulsive efforts to memorize pi to 1000 digits put in a more reasonable context.
When the Syrians came down like a wolf on the fold,
Ahab of Israel sharpened his sword,
And soon the Jordan was running with blood.
Why did they kill?
They killed for the Lord.
When Muhammed ran off to Medina, he swore
He would roar back to Mecca, this time with a horde
Of warriors thirsting for infidel gore.
Why did they kill?
They killed for the Lord.
When the Pope’s Inquisition put thousands in chains,
Their bodies were broken and branded and gored,
And the innocent perished in spasms of pain.
Why did they kill?
They killed for the Lord.
When the Puritans filled all New England with dread,
Hunting down women whose thoughts they abhorred,
They strung up the witches until they were dead.
Why did they kill?
They killed for the Lord.
Now our Born-Agains tell us God gives them the word:
Send infidels off to their blazing reward!
So far-away rivers are running with blood.
Why are we killing?
We kill for the Lord.
Shameless self-promotion here! Trying to get an atheist- and social-justice-centric show pilot off the ground. Check it out! :)
I support neo-natal abortion and incestuous marriage.
CD, did ya know we’re psychic? Thomas said so in the Beyoncé thread. Wanna split the Randi award?
Christian leader denounces Duggar family’s patriarchal movement as ‘truly dangerous’
Meet the sex-obsessed Christian group trying to launch a crusade against television
Gay marriage case sent to Florida Supreme Court
Posner rocks the anti-gay marriage boat:
Slate also covers Posner: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/08/27/listen_to_judge_richard_posner_destroy_arguments_against_gay_marriage.html
Death Row Jesus
Most adequate thunderdome pic ever
@Inaji –
Wait, what?
I could use $300k after tax. Retiring the mortgage would ease a lot of worries.
Hmmm. I’ll have to skip over to that thread…but “death row jesus” is so enticing. Priorities, priorities. Which one first? Aw, hell. Mortgage wins. Death Row Jesus I’ll see you later.
Alverant – from Canada where Labour Day falls on the same day as Labor Day, have a happy both of them!
Thanks Tabby. I’m still not sure about driving. One of my coworkers does the same drive plus an hour says to go for it (she finds it relaxing but I find it long, boring, and lethargic). Other people in my department says to wait if I don’t feel up to it. As much as I want to go, I should probably wait and see how I feel in the morning.
CD:
Death Row Jesus is very white, with stereotypical good lookin’ in a rugged way appearance. I’m sure you’re shocked.
The Hairy Woodpeckers are finally tolerating me enough to get a good shot now and then. The shot I missed though, was an unfortunate sparrow landing on top of the suet block, and losing a healthy amount of feathers to the very upset woodpecker who had staked it out for their own.
Does anyone have a bookmark for the origin of ‘feminist hair’?
I can’t find mine any more.
haha
My bookmark.
Inaji:
Loving your new gravatar pic!
Crip Dyke, I started this last night, but it got late and I ran out of time. On the off chance that you’re still interested, I offer further defense of my reading of the “covet” commandment
Continuing the discussion from here
Crip Dyke, comment 148 in that thread:
I only gave Exodus 20 as an example among a few others, so I wouldn’t concede the premise on the interpretation of it alone, but I’ll take another pass at it:
Your paraphrase under the hypothesis that yach’mod here denotes a state of mind and not an activity:
The narrative context is the same as that for Exodus 20 where the commandment at issue first appears: a landless people receiving by direct revelation the law of the land they have been promised, but have not even seen. Yahweh’s promise to “enlarge your territory” here envisages a setting where, as in the commandments, the actions and property of “neighbors” are at issue, not foreign hostiles. The latter could be assumed to take any opportunity to invade, but it’s hard to put your (idiomatic) “even think” into terms that would warrant condemnation or even particular concern in any of these contexts for the implied Iron Age audience.
To further develop the point about Iron Age Near Eastern culture I made in the other thread, I think it’s important to recognize that ethics, as we understand the term, are simply not in view in the Decalogue of Exodus 20. These terms of the covenant relate to the social order, as agreed between a people and a sovereign: how individuals must behave to sustain it. The preamble identifies the first party. A clause forbids covenants with other parties and states clearly the actions that constitute idolatry, and is followed by a command to reaffirm one’s allegiance weekly. Elders are to be obeyed and adultery is forbidden, addressing inheritance and status within kin groups. Antisocial criminal acts against life and property are ruled out without commentary, and tampering with the integrity of judicial proceedings is forbidden. Notice the social orientation of these precepts; do or don’t do these things in order to sustain the covenant with your lord (ensure social cohesion). They are all actions, so “coveting” as an internal, private matter of thinking or feeling a certain way would stand out as being concerned with a view of ethics that simply isn’t relevant to the concerns evinced and actually did not exist as a concept in the social world in view.
Here’s another example (taken, with commentary, from that page you pointed to):
This seems more conclusive for the viability of my interpretation, and yet the author of that page doesn’t seem to notice. First he seems to read a sequence, or a logical progression in “they covet… they seize” but it’s the extremely common literary device in biblical texts of parallelism: two slightly varied ways of saying the same thing. This is indeed how chamad works, in some cases.
Read at the close of the sequence of civil commandments in Exodus 20, it could be interpreted “defraud” as in this translation of Micah. The sense would be, “Don’t steal… and don’t get clever or casuistic about it either.” But informed by Micah 2, you could also make a case that stealing is an act of the poor against the rich; those who do not have are prohibited from taking unlawfully from those who do. So the distinct act of chamad, as opposed to opportunistic outright theft, would be those who already have much adding to their wealth by dishonestly appropriating the property of their less fortunate neighbors via the imposition of harsh terms of debt, a practice frequently decried in the prophetic and wisdom texts.
Tony @ 18, thank you! That is Amelia, of course.
Bizzare.
I saw Ináji’s Amelia gravatar on her own blog but not here.
Until Tony! mentioned it.
Chigau:
They don’t update evenly.
I posted this in the Lounge but maybe it’s more for the Thunderdome.
Anyone ready for another moral/ethical topic involving videogames? They come from lots of places.
I’m playing minecraft on the Xbox360 with my wife and I’m one of the people that likes to make the game do as much for me as possible so I create things to get resources more efficiently. Villagers are resources.
I applied my creativity to finding solutions to getting the villagers I wanted so I expanded a village to around 40 villagers and created a system where I can choose a villager, push them into a corral, flip a switch to drop them into a minecart and transport them to the place where my wife and I live so we have villagers we want living there.
There inevitably end up being villagers that we don’t want and I want new ones to spawn so I also have another corral that drops them into a chamber where I…
…and then I realized what I was doing. A little bit of slavery. A little bit of eugenics. I’m the type to keep doing what I am doing and ask the programmers to come up with other solutions (and if any of you play and have your own solutions I would love to hear them). but maybe I should rethink this so I was curious about what the rest of you think.
@CJO –
Thanks. No time to comment deeply now, and by the time I do have (trying to get a job application in today, then family business tonight) it will be late, and this type of thing is the kind of area in which I have just enough knowledge (passed on by my awesomely feminist and academically stellar rabbi) to be very interested, but not enough to respond without looking a bunch of things up for myself.
In the short term, I’m impressed that there’s a reasonable argument – and I do believe your argument is quite reasonable – with which I’m entirely unfamiliar to be made about this terribly and famously consequential set of orders/mitzvot. I do find your reasoning persuasive, though only in the sense that it tends to persuade, not in the sense that it has resulted in me being convinced (as yet) of your argument. In particular, I note the well-confirmed fact that restatement is a literary habit of the writers, and that this can help us understand words otherwise less well understood.
Indeed that karaite author uses this when discussing chabad, by comparison with avah. Asserting other verbs in Micah 2 constitute restatement rather than further/new action when they follow chabad is something that I have to seriously consider.
Again, I barely know any Hebrew, and frankly I’m not always perfect even in identifying Germanic-sourced Yiddish words in largely Hebrew contexts (like on the rare occasion I try quite desperately, slowly, and methodically to get through a paragraph or two from Ha’aretz). But it is interesting and you’ve given me enough to move me from “settled interpretation” to “open question”, even if without more time and info to consider I’m still going to tend to side with the traditional interpretation, when and to the extent that picking a side ever becomes necessary.
Thanks for an interesting chat. If I have anything useful of substance to add later, I will.
@Brony:
In a context where actual humans are rarely dropped down a chute to mill around in a new location at the whim of the chute-operator, I’m frankly not that fussed.
While many were appalled when video games advanced to the point and developed in the direction of shooting and killing (think Space Invaders and Centipede) I pointed out that there are these things called “books” which frequently involve war and murder and mayhem and refrigerators. These “books” being read for entertainment present exactly the same ethical issues.
If you are okay with your 19 year old child/niephling/other-loved-one reading a book about boxy characters being shuttled about, yet displaying insufficient brainpower to recognize, much less critique the issues of exploitation and eugenics involved, you should probably be fine with the video game.
The art is not more or less offensive because of the medium. The statement is the thing (though it may be easier or harder to effectively render a clear statement on certain issues depending on the medium, once you’ve identified the [potentially] offensive message, you have to imagine the same message being made, however much harder it might be, in another medium, not the modified message that would be made by placing an identical image/plot/symbol into another medium). Does minecraft really seem to you to endorse the slavery of living things? The eugenic efforts of a Galton or a Goldman, much less a Hitler? Then to me it’s less problematic than comic books (and the movies inspired thereby) that have Superman fighting titanic battles in the midst of populated cities, knowing that some of those super-folk punched through buildings are going to go through not only the buildings but the people inside.
Fuck Foible and the internets Foible rode in on.
And no, Foible, this isn’t intended to be some private slur I’m attempting to hide from you. I’m fully aware of the public nature of this comment. I’d just rather speak to people who know the difference between “intent” and “harm” and who aren’t so arrogant as to assert, not merely evidence fucking free but in contradiction of the most basic facts, that the rights to free association were unquestionable, or at least unquestioned, before 1974. Arrogance that supreme about topics on which a person is so utterly devoid of knowledge should result in contempt – contempt every bit as sincere and deserved as that held for Bush and the members of his administration who felt no need to plan for, or monetarily account for, the aftermath of invading a sovereign country of 30 million people.
I think I’m gonna go download and read a book about a serial killer in the wilds of London, to get the bad taste of Thomas Hobbes and Foible outta my brain.
Thomas Hobbes, I’m familiar with.
Who is this Foible person?
Tony!
foible is here
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/29/a-cautionary-tale/comment-page-1/#comment-843991
so far a drive-by
Tony:
Foible’s Folly: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/29/a-cautionary-tale/comment-page-1/#comment-843991
re: Foible
Ugh. I vote for insta-ban for Foible.
Inaji
Talking of which. Only a couple of months to the next Ben Aaronovitch. That cliff-hanger’s been the source of more speculation in my family than a speculation-factory on overtime.
@Daz:
Is it irresponsible to speculate so much? It is irresponsible not to.
In the Beyonce thread, Inaji said:
(the following is only loosely related to the discussion you and Crip Dyke were having)
It’s been hard to divest myself of this tendency. When typing words like bible, christian, god, mormon, etc (except at the beginning of sentences, natch) I have the tendency to automatically capitalize the words, but I have to remind myself that writing comments at Pharyngula, or on my blog is not the same thing as writing a research paper for class. I don’t *have* to capitalize names and proper nouns if I don’t want to (although, for the most part, I still do, even in the case of names, just not in the case of terms associated with religion and religious beliefs).
Daz:
Oooh. Looking forward to it. I’m still pissed that U.S. publishers changed Rivers of London to Midnight Riot.
Daz, new Ben Aaronvitch? When? When? Want now!
That was quite the cliffhanger, indeed. I’ve had to speculate in solitude, since nobody else in my family will read them (their loss), but speculate I have.
According to The Fount Of All Knowledge, it’s entitled Foxglove Summer and it’ll be out sometime in November.
Four of my family have read them, and we seem to have managed four (ever-swapping and changing) opinions on the binary “gone to the dark side, yes/no” question.
I’m a bit two dimensional, I like Venn Diagrams.
Until just a few hours ago, it never occurred to me that the problems involved with falling into the intersection of
.
[being a Black Person in USA]
and
[being a Woman in USA]
.
are actually larger than the overlap.
(and that is not even taking into account other genders and races and economic status and class and…)
Once again, THANK YOU Horde.
Thanks, Daz! I have made a note.
Reading the back and forth on the Cautionary tale thread, over those who think ‘gamer’ should be eschewed, and those who think ‘gamer’ should stay, I got to thinking about the difference between People of Color and Colored People. Would something like social gamer work?
I like the idea of social gamer, but it ignores the people that play solo. That’s how I usually do except when it comes to games like League of Legends where I need friends to play with or I don’t play at all. It’s very toxic community. But it’s also a lot more fun with others IMO.
I was think cooperative, but ditto. It’s also already a gameplay mode.
Maybe community gamer? Because all the people objecting are trying to build a better community and are community minded, even if they play solo games like Skyrim.
Hmm.
Brony @ 23
The Testificates, the official name of the villagers, are meant to be a resource the player uses in the game. However, many players quickly devolve into slavery and genocide when interacting with them. For those inclined, the villagers arent seen as sapient beings, merely hrmming dispensers of loot that occasionally wander around much like the cows and pigs and chickens. Im not sure there is any way to stop it, even the designers have attempted rewrites (including in the upcoming 1.8 patch for PC) of their behavior to stop such activities and been outsmarted by ingenious players.
There is a popular youtuber that I watch who does exclusively Minecraft called Ridgedog, who is part of the UK group Yogscast. Recently he came up with a system of breeding villagers for his experiments and sacrifices(he was trying to master a mod called Blood Magic) called the Sex Pit, a series of tiered doors covering walls that villagers are placed in and which tricks the game code to keep them reproducing. Half way through creating some good villagers for use in sacrifice, he had the idea to sell them to other players on the server for sacrifice since a couple were also doing Blood Magic. He realized exactly what he was doing almost immediately, and was visible disturbed by the idea. He eventually laughed off the terrible implications and still went through with his plan as it fit within the persona of his online character, a mad scientist and crazed wizard in the form of a handsome adventurer.
He also bred and slaughtered a thousand of them so he could create soulless clones (mob spawner mod I cant recall) that he could sacrifice for their blood to power his altar and magic, and their emeralds to make him rich (done so by dropping them in a smeltery to be melted down). He has since stopped that and is giving them a castle and village that he will lord over from his much bigger and cooler castle.
Mods in minecraft can be crazy along with the ethical implications of what you are doing when using them. For me, I do both. A bit of slavery to create enough of them to get the right drops, but then placing them in specially built villages as mostly free subjects so that they arent killed by mobs and I have easy access to them.
JAL:
Oh, I didn’t mean it like that! I was thinking social gamer as in gamer concerned with social issues/justice, etc.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh.
Well, aren’t I brilliant.
Sorry.
Do They™ still make ’em like this?
Bonny Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart
They™ should.
(It has ninjas.)
Alverant @1
Thank you for wishing me a happy Labor Day. I’m an old union man. A happy Labor Day to you as well.
atrytone:
I’ll bite. Seriously?
@joey, #47:
even if that was a serious position, it was a useless comment. No one cares what particular opinion another holds.
If atrytone advocates for the passage of laws or the browbeating of people who disagree, then we might actually care – about actions, not opinions.
If atrytone actually wanted to change minds on of those who might disagree, atrytone would have made an argument in favor of those opinions.
No action, no argument, just a statement of such a bullshit opinion it’s entirely unlikely it’s seriously held anyway? A bullshit waste of space.
I wouldn’t invite atrytone to make another comment based on the incompetence and worthlessness and lack of appreciation of Pharyngula values of atrytone’s #5.
But, y’know, you, joey, should feel free if you really want to spend the time.
*shakes head sadly*
joey doesn’t have the free will to resist an obvious troll.
@joey
On incest;
The arguments which apply to gay marriage largely apply to incestuous couples. There’s simply no logical basis upon which to deny them the right to marry given the ready availability of contraceptives and abortion. What harm is caused to society or between two loving adults save the shame and ridicule endured by the two? That established, they should be completely and utterly barred from having or adopting children under any circumstances because of the burden that relationship would place on the child. No, Owlmirror, I’m not a troll. I’m dead serious. It pisses me off that the less than 0.1% of people who want to do something harmless can’t.
On neo-natal abortion;
90% of women who are given a Down’s diagnosis choose to abort, however testing isn’t perfect and many cases go undiagnosed until birth. At that time parents should have the option to terminate. There are also cases wherein a neonate’s expenses pose a substantial burden on the family, and rather than let the living children suffer they should likewise be given the option to abort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_Protocol
Also, Crip Dyke, you comment wasn’t helpful. It was an emotional response. I challenge you to formal debate.
Oh my.
Popcorn before bed gives me a belly ache.
atrytone
Why on earth does it matter if Crip Dyke’s comment was helpful or not? For one, she wasn’t addressing you. For another thing, her points-which, contrary to your assertions were logical and rational, rather than emotional-are valid. You didn’t present an argument. You presented an opinion. If you were here to discuss, you should have presented your opinion *AND* your argument. Dismissing you outright because you failed to do anything other than to leave a one sentence comment is not an example of an emotional response. Your attempts to dismiss her comments without actually addressing them are noted.
Also, a “formal debate”? This is the Thunderdome, not the debate club. We bare teeth here and gnash at trolls like sharks in a tank. Though I guess debate happens occasionally between bouts of teeth gnashing.
chigau:
I was thinking much the same thing…I’ve a bag of salted peanuts though. That might work better.
You know how Teh Horde is always kiddin’ about godbots and PZ-bots? Well it seems we’ve been beaten to it: Hitch-bot !
Just read a short story in a vampire anthology (‘By Blood We Live’). The story was a confusing read initially bc it alternated between two different time periods with the same main character, but the differences were subtle in the beginning. In any case, I learned a new word:
Shitsplat:
That’s the Urban Dictionary definition, btw.
theophontes:
I get a error message at your link.
AN error message. Geez.
theophontes
bad link
http://www.hitchbot.me
.
tsk
you computer geeks
tsk
@ Tony, chigau
I swear it wasn’t me!!! Oath to GAWD, ‘k sê!
atrytone
Are you wanting to bring up the Patrick Stübing/Susan Karolewski case? It was in the news again recently, but I can’t seem to find the article.
@any masochists who actually read atrytone’s latest:
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
So here’s where I …oh, wait a minute, I have to finish something:
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
okay, now I …oh, damn still got more:
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
:loud, gasping inhale:
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Right. [wipes tears from eyes, and cheeks, and chin…and neck]
So when this loon says “formal”… formal! …
does said loon even realize that a formal debate would tend to require a, and its hard to believe atrytone hasn’t figured this out, specified topic?
Hey. Hey, Tony!. I challenge you to a formal debate.
I’ll get around to specifying the topic later, but damn aren’t I brave to challenge you to a formal debate?
Wow. A formal debate. How tremendously intimidating! How intellectually brave of atrytone to slap me with that particular glove! Quick, can someone look up what the Marquess said about the difference between a formally leaving an opponent helplessly dangling from the ropes and simply entering the ring with an opponent who routinely dangles helplessly off anything convenient?
Not a fan of lowballing. Highballing is much more fun. As in shots…
Hidden text via [abbr title] and [acronym title] are not viewable on many mobile devices.
Crip Dyke:
All I can think of when I saw the words “I challenge you to a formal debate”, is (I think) an old Looney Tunes skit where Bugs Bunny says “I challenge you, sir, to a duel!”
Not sure why. Perhaps because the two are equally silly.
****
chigau:
That is not the proper way to JAQ. Please try again.
@Tony!, #64
if only atrytone was equally entertaining…
@chigau, #63:
Can I help you?
Extremely unlikely.
your comment was distastful,
but in devotional vigilance,
I challenge you to a formal troll date.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/29/arizona-dark-lord-arrested-for-urinating-on-a-bible-outside-a-homeless-shelter/
Burning and pissing on a bible is against the law? What, is the US a theocracy or something?
Deadly Virtues: Love. Honour. Obey. is a movie about an intruder who takes a couple hostage and ‘seduces’ the woman, by threat and use of violence against the man. I haven’t seen it, but I’m wondering how this can be a good thing. It may be art, but it’s still rape fantasy, with the usual ‘twist’ of the victim deep down liking it, as far as I can tell.
I’m sure people who practice kinbaku will be thrilled as well, since that is what the rapist uses.
Or am I just too narrow minded?
SQB –
Hard to know.
– My first response is: “Ew.” That is the full and complete content of the first response.
After some thought, my response becomes “Ick.”
– Then I wonder who makes this crap, because I can’t concieve of any storylines that result in some revelation about sex, power dynamics, social constructs or anything else that makes this anything other than a variation of violence leading culminating in sex. (Closest excuse I can figure is the original male was abusive, she wanted him to get his, but didn’t want him to be tortured unresonably or killed, and therefore consented. But even then, the upshot is either that she must barter for the outcome via sex, plus, given your statement, she “likes it” because… what? He’s the alpha? Which just plays into MRA “that’s what women want” crap.)
– So I end up with “Gak.” And even if there is some payoff, I don’t want to see any of that crap to get to it. Because “Blech.”
– But as to you being closed minded, why do you ask? Do you want to see it? If so, based on your synopsis, why in the hell would you? Do you want permission? Do you like sex and violence intermingled? Do you want to find an “artistic” loophole to see something like this? Do you want to bait someone here into providing it? Are you a troll?
I support (insert thing here) and (insert other unrelated thing here).
DEBATE ME!
Who threw all these gloves on the floor? And is that a ring drawn in chalk, with hats in it? I’m not cleaning this up!
Fine, fine, fine.
*picks up the gloves, arranges them neatly in a rack with the fingers a-wiggling*
*picks up the hats, and wears all of them Bartholomew Cubbins-style*
*mops*
You missed a spot.
Over there by the whip rack.
*hands chigau the mop*
Be a dear, honey, since I can’t see it.
Besides, all these hats are tippy.
OK. Fine.
.
.
.
Maybe it’s time for a little re-decorating.
New bars for the windows?
Rough cast-iron with sharp slivers would be nice.
WRONG!
A formal debate? Oh wow. Is there a dress code?
Zoot suits for everyone!
Esteleth, thanks ever so much! The hats do suit you.
Daz:
I can handle a dress code, but if this is a “formal debate”, does that mean no coarse language? If so, I can’t fucking handle that :)
Zoot suits with zombies!
Tony!
Hell no. That’s a fucking formality to far.
Daz
I think your zombie link is dead.
Yay, Amelia! ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
Debate is whatcha put on de hook to catch de fish.
I’m a scientist. Have you noticed that scientists never hold debates with each other?
Chigau
Oops, thanks: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
(I quite like “zombie link” as a name for borked links.)
@Knowknot, no, trolling is not my intent. I haven’t been here in a while, started reading along again a few weeks ago, with a few small comments for good measure. Then I saw this, and wanted a second opinion of sorts. I have no intention of seeing it, but I really wanted to know if I’m too narrow minded.
The movie is just a minor film over here (NL) although it is by a well knwon Dutch director. It seems to get positive reviews so far, so I was really surprised, and wanted to know if I’m the only one feeling this way about it (without having seen it). A reality check, if you will.
@Daz, a dress code? Is that like a hanky code?
SQB, do you know if there’s a chance we’ll ever get a killfile back here?
@Inaji (I noticed your ‘nym change), I have no idea. Doesn’t it work anymore? I’ve really been out of the loop. Last thing I remember was that we found a way to make the old one work here.
SQB, no, it quit workin’ with the recent upgrade. I know you worked on the script before, so I thought it was worth asking.
Well, I can look into it, but not at the moment, I’m afraid. It would be great though, if the script itself could be incorporated in the site. Still need the actual kills to be saved locally, probably.
@brianpansky
NO U
Thanks, SQB. It’s not a major thing, really, one of those little luxuries you get used to having.
Inaji, where can I find the current version?
SQB, all I have is this: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Greasemonkey
Unless you need me to copy the script from greasemonkey?
Fuck a Duck, Matthew Black is stupid, obnoxious, and slamming on the bingo, over and over and over.
Yeah, he’s giving a real Dunning-Kruger clinic over there, isn’t he?
A repetitive Dunning-Kruger clinic. He doesn’t seem to grasp that it was PZ who told him to fuck off, either.
Jebus, it’s like arguing with creationists. “Here’s this bad argument, regurgitated verbatim from the site I found it on…”
The proper way to have a productive discussion: Repeat the same horseshit over and over until your interlocutor(s) get so exasperated with your idiocy that they give up , then declare yourself the victor by default.
Oh rats below, he’s never gonna leave. Never.
*Money on “how can I leave if you people keep responding”.
Inaji:
Yeah, that flounce last about 5 minutes.
Heeeey, lookie-something stupid didn’t fall out of lorn’s mouth.
Tony:
I don’t think he managed a whole 5 minutes. I did find it amusing that when he first showed up, he was all ‘Hard Man! Thick Skin!’, then spent the rest of the thread whining about tone and naughty words. Some skin.
Tis permanent now. Thanks PZ.
Tony @ 105, meh. I wasn’t impressed, especially with lorn’s need to use the word niggling in that particular thread. I’ve gotten over sensitive to stuff like that when it comes to someone as deeply stupid as lorn.
<li class="comment byuser comment-author-caine even thread-even depth-1" id="comment-844457">As you can see, each and every user has their own comment class, based on their original login. So theoretically, so much more could be possible. Like a killfile that’s immune to morphing, but also special styles based on the user, so you can highlight your own comments, or gumby someone else’s.
Inaji, could you please try changing line 289?
comments_listshould becomment-list, I think.I’m with Inaji, that comment by lorn was just not particularly objectionable. It wasn’t very insightful at all. People have been nitpicking at Obama since God was a boy. There was a big fuss when he was campaigning about how he didn’t wear an American flag pin on his lapel which spawned all kinds of urban legends about how, after being called on not wearing it he started wearing it upside down. There was even a story that he had someone relieved of their post for pointing out to him that his pin was upside down.
There was a big stink raised over a picture of him not standing at attention properly during the National Anthem which also spawned it’s share of idiotic stories.
Needling Obama over trivialities is not new at all.
SQB:
Okay, did that, but no killfile.
Back to the drawing board, then.
I didn’t want to further defile the Black Knight thread by continuing to address our dear, lately departed troll but I couldn’t let this slide without pointing and laughing uproariously at it:
…Is this…I’m just out of words for how ignorant this asshat is…is he actually claiming that the legs spread/back arched position is the result of them just plunking the model in game straight from their 3D modelling suite of choice without rigging it(rigging means giving it a virtual skeleton of sorts which tells the animator where it bends)? When you model characters in 3D they’re done standing straight either with arms parallel to the ground or slightly out from the sides. So he’s right about that much but I guarantee that no model makes it into a game without being rigged, even if it’s not going to get animated. For one thing, they don’t necessarily know at the time the model is finished whether they’re going to animate it, so they’ll give it to the rigger anyway. Plus they’re still going to want to pose it even if it’s ultimately decided that it doesn’t get animated. And you never know what kind of cut scenes or ads or other unforeseen stuff you might want to use that model for. Fuck, even hobbyists often rig characters even though they know they will never get animated.
I just…BAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA…this guy. I just wanted to point out that this is not just a feeble excuse for not doing a little extra work. It’s a complete and total ignorance of the process he’s claiming expertise in. Not that anyone couldn’t have guess that but still. Roflcopter and lollerskates, etc. etc.
The SO is “weeding”.
Using a propane torch.
Inaji, athaŋiŋ šni
My online Lakota dictionary has failed.
something about ‘cold’?
I just wanted to say, that Goddess loves you all very much, even if you don’t believe in her yet.
zackmartin
How dare you say I don’t believe in her! She is as real as science. She is my friend’s huge kitteh and comes by her name honestly. She demands worship.
Yeesh!
Okay, I’m doing this.
If anyone has any comic books featuring Carol Danvers in her identity as “Binary”, or any appearance by Maria De Guadalupe “Lupe” Santiago [Silverclaw], or any appearance by Bonita Juarez [Firebird], LMK. I would happily buy second hand issues of anything with Danvers as Binary or Santiago (as Silverclaw or out of costume) and most of the issues involving Bonita Juarez.
zackmartin
nuhuh
She told me about you.
The Goddess
Mother Gaia
artrtone #50, thanks for the reply. I genuinely did not know if you were being serious or not regarding that position.
————-
Tony:
But this is what atrytone responded…
Sounds like atrytone presented two arguments why “neonatal abortion” should be acceptable.
Except there *are* no arguments where “neonatal abortion” should be acceptable. Still being the idjit on abortion.
I came across this on my youtube subs and was pleasantly surprised. I thought some of you might enjoy it as well.
^ As I don’t see a description on tthe video once it posted – its a song about why this guy is a “SJW” and he doesn’t think it is a bad thing.
I’ll be scurrying back under the rocks to lurk more now. Have a lovely evening.
joey:
Learn to follow a conversation fool. My comment @53 was in response to atrytone’s comment @51, which in turn referenced Crip Dyke’s comment @48.
Joey, once a fetus is born it has full protection of law as person. It can’t be aborted since it is born. Abortion is cessation of pregnancy. So the neonate is beyond abortion by being born…Which is why it is a stupid argument, “neonatal abortion”.
There is no such thing as “neo-natal abortion.” There is only neo-natal murder.
Nerd of Redhead
^This. There’s already a word for what joey’s talking about: infanticide. It’s telling, joey’s equation of abortion with killing. That’s all I need to know really.
RE: Thick Skin
You can have skin as thick as you want. It can be slammed against with great force and never give way. Luckily for us, Michael Black’s thick skin was more like thick glass. It cracked under the pressure of sharp arguments.
The metaphor feels really tired and hokey to me. I’m kinda sorry that I wrote it, but I’m posting it anyhow.
Oh, joey. Did you freely choose to be so stupid?
Look, one of the first signs of a troll — someone obviously arguing in bad faith — is that they use misuse words. As noted, “abortion” cannot possibly be the correct term to use here, since an abortion is the termination of pregnancy, and in the case of a neonate, the pregnancy has already been “terminated” by birth.
Another sign of a troll arguing in bad faith is that they misuse arguments. The arguments offered cannot possibly be appropriate, because if the parents do not wish to raise a child that has been delivered at term but is otherwise viable — a Down’s syndrome baby, for example — they can do something called “surrender custody“, or “give the baby up for adoption“, and this possibility is simply, deliberately ignored.
And, of course, another sign of a troll arguing in bad faith is that they misuse data sources. The very damn link posted explains that the Groningen Protocol is explictly and specifically for cases where the presence of hopeless and unbearable suffering is present in the neonate, and has nothing to do with merely “posing a burden on the family”.
Congratulations, joey. You Have Been Trolled.
@Seven of Mine #113
Precisely the thoughts that ran through my head! As for MB’s alleged ignorance. Who knows? Maybe he knew that the models can be easily posed and counted on other people’s ignorance just to try and score points. Or he’s repeating some bullshit that he was fed at another website. With how clumsy the argument about character modelling is, I would go with the latter.
Shit!
I meant atrytone in my 129. My apologies.
SQB –
I ignorant me. Not knowed.
Which is to say, sorry for the “trolling” comment. Honestly.
@owlmirror:
Yeah, it’s clear that atrytone was trolling joey and anyone else oblivious enough to take atrytone seriously. The Groningen University Hospital Protocol, frequently abbreviated the Groningen Protocol, has been justified by its draftees and contains language helping to specify the types of cases to which terms like “unbearable suffering” are meant to apply.
To wit:
In writing and lectures the authors and advocates of the Protocol have made absolutely clear that this isn’t about children with, say, Down’s syndrome. atrytone cannot possibly seriously argue in favor of the Protocol **and** argue for the euthanasia of children with Down’s. The first forbids the second. The very fact that atrytone would attempt to cite the protocol in favor of a more general “right to neo-natal [sic] abortion” conclusively proves atrytone a troll.
The fact that atrytone would characterize children with Down’s syndrome as having inevitably miserable lives, much less characterize children with Down’s as murderable, is so sickeningly, disgustingly, horrifyingly, unethically, eugenically ableist that it reflects rather poorly on you, joey, that you take atrytone at all seriously.
Knowknot, no problem. I did drop it out of the blue after having been absent for some time. It’s just that I knew some people in here being into BDSM or related, and just wanted to check with them.
Quiet ‘morning’ here.
I guess everyone is in church.
Chigau:
Nope, unseen / invisible.
zackmartin:
Offler’s gonna bite your head off, man. I rattle the drawers now and then, and Anoia seems happy enough.
Joey, how long have been sitting around, waiting for someone to bring up abortion? Just in case you’ve forgotten, most of us have see enough of your idiotic, repetitive shit for 8 lifetimes.
In a nice example of the kindness of humans:
http://kindnessblog.com/2014/04/29/mma-fighter-rescues-a-baby-dolphin-on-his-day-off/
Goddesses. That’s just the tip of the Goddess iceberg. Which goddess? Which culture? Which tradition? ‘Goddess’ is as useless as ‘God’, just a placeholder.
Along with Anoia, I’m rather fond of Hecate, named my computer after her.
The most useful goddess there’s ever been really did save lives.
Then there’s this goddess
Tony! #140
Thank you. That’s my ear-to-ear smile for the day amply provided for.
—————————————-
Highly important question from an offline conversation:
Ruth Brown or LaVern Baker? I can’t decide.
ot – Just-published story of how Texas AG Greg Abbott (currently challenged by Wendy Davis) raided and destroyed a Houston voter registration group in 2010.
Dallas Morning News via Daily Kos
Daz:
Why not both?
@Inaji:
I’ve been involved in one (1) D&D campaign over the last 10 years, maybe longer. I’ve played one (1) character the whole time.
he’s a devout worshipper of Hecate and we’ve had quite a great time fleshing out the goddess in that world.
CD, a triune, tricksy goddess makes things interesting, to say the least. :D
And there’s the flip side – a whole lot of goddesses I wouldn’t want paying any attention to me. Going with the Greek Pantheon, I wouldn’t really want Hera interfering in my life.
Inaji #146
Oh, I like both. It’s just I’m being pressed to make a decision. My mate likes to play these “tough call” games now and then.
I’m currently leaning toward LaVern Baker on account of this. But then there’s this. Argh!
Daz @ 150, oh, I see. If it was me, I’d tell my mates to stuff it, there’s no deciding between the two. I like them both, but I tend towards Baker ’cause of Think Twice, which is a fantastically filthy song. (Lyrics)
@Daz, Inaji:
Hello? Daz? Have you really considered your options?
ooops. Hadn’t seen your 150.
Carry on.
Inaji #151
I have that on vinyl. :-) (Okay, it’s a repro, but even so.)
Listeners who liked this may also like Toothache Blues by Victoria Spivey & Lonnie Johnson.
Inaji,
Thanks for the link in #151.
I’m in a dark mood today, but that helped.
Beatrice @ 155, welcome. It’s a good song, especially for dark moods. It’s really good if you have it playing serious loud, and are caught belting out the lyrics by unsuspecting people, like neighbours…
Nor Aphrodite. Is there any mythological woman ever that benefited from Aphrodite’s interference? At least on a theoretical level some Achaean women might have benefited a bit from Hera. Theoretically. Abusive jerk leaves home for 10 years, and you don’t have to deal with him again until he comes home super-rich? That’s a better intervention than even a well-sculpted block of stone got from Aphrodite.
CD:
True. Even so, I’d be warier of Athena than Aphrodite, Medusa and Arachne, all that.
Monster dogs doin’ a full court howl sing to Ulali, making me smile.
Thanks again to Seven of Mine, Inaji, and others with the issue of use of “folks” on the previous thread. The distinctions were very helpful. I’ll be sure to avoid it’s use with respect to larger group categories in the future and reserve it for situations where it’s obvious that the usage is inclusive.
Also thanks to Crip Dyke and Arawhon for the perspectives on my minecraft concern. I guess I agree that this one is not so important but it disturbed me at the time.
RE: Tony‘s topic at #34
The idea of if we should capitalize names of religions or holy books is an interesting one to me. I’ve often wondered about that in places like Facebook or comments around the net. There is a balance in using common textual indicators of respect that is not always useful in social disagreements.
A similar subject is that of designations for authority figures (or at least socially important figures) in terms of names that we use. In the Black knight post someone brought up the the idea of referring to Anita Sarkeesian as “Anita” was inappropriate for the same reasons that we don’t tend to call Richard Dawkins “Richard”. I’m not really upset by Weedless Monkeys‘s point because I think it’s an interesting question.
I have had the urge to simply refer to him as Richard when he acts in ways that are inconsistent with what I think an authority should act like in places where the discussion of his behavior as an authority are relevant (and I have done so in at least one post on Pharyngula). I think that in addition to being rude, it’s a valid indicator of social displeasure in a leader, but there might be other angles to consider.
Thoughts?
A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook. Some of it applies to my situation with the guy I’m interested in (I went into great detail about my frustrations last night over in the Lounge, so I won’t bring it up again, but suffice to say, I’m in the grey area). Mostly though, I question treating complex interactions as if they can be answered with a FUCK YES or FUCK NO.
http://markmanson.net/fuck-yes/
****
Brony:
Thing is, Richard is the name he goes by. Anita is the name she goes by. Why not refer to either of them as such?
This is kinda cool. (Now I just need to work out how to search Flickr by tag-name; though just picking a page at random and browsing is sort of fun anyway.)
Etiquette question: is posting a new topic late in a Lounge or Thunderdome considered a derail, or just par for the course?
(Sorry as per my own logic I just possibly made a faux pas.)
Seize:
Nothing is off topic in the Lounge or Thunderdome. You can talk about what you want, when you want. There are often multiple ongoing conversations people are taking part in, but they’re public, and anyone is free to join in if they desire. Or you can start your own subject.
Brony
My first reaction to this is that referring to someone by their last name in writing (for me) is not so much a sign of respect as it is formality. If I’m writing a formal essay, I refer to everyone by last names. If I’m talking to someone or about someone verbally, I’d either use first names, or if I do use last names, I’d use a Mr., Mrs., Ms., etc. prefix. Internet commenting falls somewhere in the middle. Sometimes I use first names as I would in casual conversation, but out of habit, I’ll sometimes fall back to using last names as I would in an essay.
–
My perspective is clearly not the only one, and I could easily be convinced to change something that would really take little effort to change. I just don’t connect the last name usage with respect in my own mind.
Seize:
Also, nothings a derail.
First names, surnames: I use surnames when it’s someone I don’t know, so it would be Dawkins and Sarkeesian. If I’m feeling all polite, it would be Mr. Dawkins / Ms. Sarkeesian.
I was raised up to never be familiar where there was no familiarity. Using someone’s first name when you don’t know them can be used in a condescending and unpleasant way, so I avoid it. Personally, I don’t much care for people using my first name unless I know them well enough for them to do so.
As a child I noticed that, in fiction, female characters were always referred to by their given name, male characters by their family name.
I also noticed this in main-stream newspapers and magazines.
I figured it was because the males kept their whole name all their lives.
The females changed their name upon
change of ownershipmarriage.Thanks Tony. I appreciate the clarification.
I figured I’d post this there because you all are my fellows in enjoying a good argument.
Do you ever find yourself passionately pining that you were having an honest argument when you’re engaged in a dishonest one?
Over on Jezebel, were I ordinarily make my lair, we had a recent influx of VERY CONCERNED commenters complaining about how the new “Yes Means Yes” law had criminalized the majority of sex acts. One concerned citizen challenged me to explain how a rapist attacking another person could not be considered a rape victim, unless they said “yes” to their victim.
Well, derp, as even the most cursory appraisal of the new CA law will show, “yes means yes” does not refer only to verbal consent. Thus taking actions which indicate active, informed consent = consent under the law.
This of course is all worth saying for the interests of readers or bystanders but as I was writing my comment, I just thought to myself: “If only this person I type to really needed to be educated on these facts.” There are so many things I could teach them, both theoretically and from a purely practical, field-guide perspective! If a person was genuinely concerned about eliciting emphatic indicators of consent from a prospective sexual partner, I could in a half-hour make a dozen concrete recommendations. Yet it is obvious that as soon as a reply to a “concerned” party with a concise, accurate answer, they stop talking to me and turn their attentions to another commenter who is trying to inform them but has ceded more rhetorical ground than is wise, or better yet has made a factual error in their argument.
I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised that a rape apologist wants a victim more than a dialogue partner.
Seize: Both are pretty stream of consciousness. The new ones just pick up right where the old ones left off. There’s really no order to it.
Chigau:
I think it’s more to do with the infantilization of women, keeping that ‘oh, they’re like children’ thing going, whereas men are accorded respect because they’re men.
Inaji:
I’ve heard this before, but have never understood it. Of course my lack of understanding doesn’t mean I won’t respect the wishes of others.
I don’t know how prevalent it is elsewhere, but I’ve seen a tendency in areas of the South to refer to people as Mrs/Mr “first name”. I’ve been called “Mr. Tony” before, which always struck me as odd. Tony’s my name, so why not call me that? What does the addition of “Mr.” add?
I had a GM at one restaurant who *insisted* everyone call her Mrs. Sylvia, rather than just her first name Sylvia or Mrs. ‘last name’. Never fully understood why, but I just speculated it had something to do with wanting people to view her respectfully. I figured respect was something to earn, not to attempt to force upon people.
Seize @ 170
Constantly. It’s extra tiresome because they all think they’re being so subtle and cleverly disguising the fact that, in the case of your example, they’re really just trying to tiptoe up to the line between maybe possibly not quite consensual sex and actually really real rape rape.
Tony:
Calling me by my first name without asking is a presumption of intimacy. I’ve noticed that people who do that tend to be arrogant asses with an interest in dominating people. (Not all, mind you, but a whole lot.)
Distance and respect. A hangover from the ruling / servant classes.
@ Tony
I’ve always thought of the Mr/Ms First Name thing as being somewhere between being on a first name basis with someone and still being on a Mr/Ms. Last Name basis with someone.
I’ve also seen it used by people of younger generations toward people they know well but aren’t related to…kind of the same way you don’t use your parents’ or grandparents’ first name or address aunts/uncles as Aunt/Uncle Whoever.
In the case of your ex-boss it seems to me like maybe trying to achieve a little familiarity while still keeping a sense of authority.
Or I may just be full of shit.
Inaji
That’s something I’ve never experienced/felt, but the fact that others are bothered by it is more than enough for me to change my habits. Thanks for saying so.
I haven’t had many post-childhood interactions with people where surnames were used, unless it is a stiffly formal occasion. Even my professors in college went by their first names with the students. It may just have to do with the areas I have lived. In any case, I certainly haven’t meant offense by it and am happy to discontinue the practice.
Toska:
Yeah, I think things are much more casual than they used to be. I don’t get all pissy with someone who presumes to use my first name, but I do appreciate being asked, as in “is it alright if I call you ______?”, which I also do with other people. It’s how I was raised, but I think people younger than I am don’t much care about that sort of thing anymore.
I have something to add about using formal title before either first name or last name.
I found association of “Mizz” or “Mister” with the first name to be very prevalent within the black community in Washington DC. I first heard my black colleagues use it for patients and I quickly adopted it because it seemed very polite. This usage was generally well-received particularly by older patients.
Notably, I did have a white patient rebuke me once for using it with him. I called him “Mister [First name].” He seemed to find this term of address childish and instead asked me to refer to him by “Mr. [Last name].”
Eventually for some reason I asked my father, a white man and a Missourian by way of several metropolises, what he thought about “Mizz/Mr.” He said that in his day (which was not a good day) using a formal term of address for a black person was a show of extreme favoritism and unusual respect. He recommended that I never address any black person of any age without using such a title, and to then ask them how they wanted to be addressed and abide by their preference.
I always feel odd when talking about race from a white perspective but here I hope it adds a dimension in addition to revealing my level of privilege and ignorance.
A while ago one of the grocery stores where I shop required the cash register people to address customers by their given name if they used a discount-card at time of purchase.
I didn’t like it. At all.
They have since stopped doing that. I expect it was not popular.
This argument is so common that the actual trope for articles about rape legislation and the lack thereof are tagged “RAPE RAPE” on Jezebel. You know, to differentiate it from other things, like table tennis.
Normally I just leave typos to the one god we all hail but in that comment 181, “trope” should be “tag.” Clearly I have been on TV Tropes too much today.
Safeway? This happened with hilarious results when my male (unmarried) partner and myself (female) were buying some groceries together. Mr. and Mrs. [Woman’s Surname] were wished a very good night! For additional laughs, my surname is not a nice surname. It is a homonym for a silly word in my language. Me and my partner had a good laugh about it when we were out of the store.
FFS, I hope PZ gets rid of seversky.
Chigau:
I wouldn’t either. At all.
Seize
Safeway it was.
When my (unmarried) SO used my card he was always called Mr. Myfamilyname.
Good thing my given name is unambiguously Female™.
Tony!
I think seversky is the current front-runner in the race for MVP on Team RTSHOAOTIT*
*Repeat The Same Horseshit Over And Over Til It’s True
Awesome acronym, that. Rolls right off the tongue IMO.
@ chigau
What a silly antique policy! I really hope they’ve gotten rid of it by now, but wouldn’t bet my ass on it. I mean, just think of the trouble they’d encounter with same-sex couples! Who’s to say my female best friend buying Clorox with me isn’t my wife?
@180 Chigau
– I hate this as well. A lot. And especially since instructions to do so generally appear to include the “value” of being “friendly.” Customers coming back for the warmth and all that. Interestingly, the 3 local business I do frequent as a result of a sense of connection never use my name. They’re just open, interested, and present.
– Though I am often tagged as a very “friendly” person, and for some abstract definition I think I am, and would want to be in any case. But I honestly believe that any greater than embarrassing success I’ve experienced has been because there are two conditions necessary prior to “friendly”… some kind of interchange that trespesses the general and obvious (however minimal, however nonverbal), and some indication of respect of the specific individual. Nothing formal, just present.
– But as for formality, there are situations in which I very much and very categorically like the more formal misters and mizzes, namely in the presence of salesmen of the automotive and Amway variety. I find their attempts in using a given name to minimize social distance for a purpose insanely bothersome, and find that uses of my given name over any given period serve only to increase that distance to something surpassing anything possible at less than light speed throughout the same period.
– The cumbersome (or probably just counter to habit and intent) formalities tend to quiet things a bit.
I was also raised long enough ago to be taught yes / no Ma’am / Sir in response to anyone older than myself.
To me, another person’s name is “sir” or “ma’am” until they request otherwise. It takes down the socioeconomic noise level in a conversation so that your conversation partner can negotiate the status they desire in the conversation. Ain’t anything wrong with that, my pap would say.
(There are some implicit gender assumptions which can be hell of problematic there, btw, as CD has taught us.)
Inaji:
Does Iyéska mean ‘interpreter’?
– Also: I have had amazing luck with the following: “What do you prefer to be called, Mr/Ms [insert name here].” Granted, I’ve never needed to use this in a situation that caused me to be confused by gender, so someone else will have to speak to that.
– But one case it’s been very useful is with Russians, who (in my experience) tend to be comfortable answering directly… saying “Mr/Ms [insert name here],” or stating something else. It’s been especially helpful when they’ve initially offered (or been introduced as) something that was given because “Americans never get it right,” or “Americans don’t give a shit.” (ie, Oh! You actually said Ludmilla!)
Tony!:
It has three meanings:
1. Mixed blood (a person who is mixed blood, it has also been used for halfbreed.)
2. Translator
3. A ghost which stands at the crossroads of the visible and invisible worlds.
Inaji –
I have to say this.
Your gravatar looks VERY much like Florence, one of our precious ones.
And seems to be performing the culinary “ice cream cone” hold we find so dear.
Non sequitir.
Has the barley been brought in?
@Inaji, #195:
Holy fuck, I really get that word. What a great one generally, and for you. Reminds me of nepantlera/nepantla which I used for a bit (by invitation).
@197 Crip Dyke
Hit me deep as well. A really beautiful, evocative and tightly woven set of meanings.
Not to mention visceral. For me, anyway.
Knowknot:
Aaaaaw about Florence. Yes, I love those little fists too. Amelia was eating an oat flake there, which she had in her patented death grip. :D
Yes. Mister has had a bunch in the oast already.
CD:
Oh, awesome fierce, that!
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about changing my nym to just Iyéska, but I’m worried that might be too fucking much after the change from Caine to In´ji. What do you think?
Erm, Ináji. Geez.
In one of my favourite SF stories there is a character who is described with a word that means both ‘translator’ and ‘god’.
I can do Iyéska on my keyboard.
If it doesn’t bother PZ, go for it.
Inaji:
I just noticed something…there are two different fonts for the ‘I’ in your nym (I just noticed bc I thought I misspelled your nym).
Chigau:
If it doesn’t bother PZ, go for it.Should I drop a note to the guardians group?
@Ináji:
Liminal figure?
Psychopomp?
@chigau:
[?]
I note that “translate” need not refer to language.
Inaji –
You asked CD, so please know I don’t mean to butt in, but…
Don’t have a clue about the grammar, but do the two together mean “arise, iyéska?” (The colors of the latter being untranslateable, at least without the help of a heart and belly like Gregory Rabassa’s. Which I don’t expect to be getting.)
Because golly.
Owlmirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Word_for_World_Is_Forest
.
Ináji, Iyéska
Should I drop a note to the guardians group?Can’t hurt.
Fuck it, Inaji/ Iyéska. Just do it. It doesn’t seem like there could be any reason PZ would be pissed. It’s a beautiful word. It’s a beautiful description of you. I think it functions fine in a descriptive sense, but my nym, for me, also contains aspirational meanings.
“Right Reverend” is a joke that you shouldn’t take anyone seriously because of who they are. No one should be “revered”. But it also contains the hope that I will never think of myself as worthy of being revered, that I will never take myself so seriously that critiques of my actions or words are harder to access merely because they are critiques of my Right Reverend self. When I read it, it reminds me to be something that I want to be. Other aspects of the ‘nym also contain these personal reminders to be a better person than I would ever be if I didn’t make a conscious effort to push myself to be better.
My ‘nym is a post-it I leave all over FtB telling me that I should be – and can be – the ethical, rockin’ person that in my most hopeful moments I would like to think myself capable of being.
Imagine if all over FtB you left yourself reminders that you are, you can be, and you should hold yourself accountable for being nothing less than:
If that scares and thrills you, then make the change.
Owlmirror:
Liminal figure?Psychopomp?
Part of Lakota cosmology, part of Mitakuye oyasin, the concept of all things being interconnected.
CD:
My ‘nym is a post-it I leave all over FtB telling me that I should be – and can be – the ethical, rockin’ person that in my most hopeful moments I would like to think myself capable of being.You are all that and more.
If that scares and thrills you, then make the change.It does, and done.
Knowknot:
Don’t have a clue about the grammar, but do the two together mean “arise, iyéska?”Um, it sort of would, but the grammar is all wrong.
‘nym changes are no problem
Iyéska is within The Rules™.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/08/06/the-new-rules/
Chigau @ 211, *phew*. I sent a note along to the guardian group anyway.
Iyéska – I think that is a wondrous and fitting ‘nym for you. For the sake of the rest of us, it might help follow if you added a little (“formerly Inaji”) to your next few posts on various threads, but I see no reason not to change it.
WRT women’s names, as much as I hate the infantilization that comes with using her given name, what really gives me the chills is the (thankfully almost dead) custom of referring to a woman solely by her husband’s name. if you read etiquette books up through the 1980s even, the proper way to address Herbert Hill’s wife is “Mrs. Herbert Hill”. First names were for friends only. For example, take a gander at this obituary from 1941. You know that saying “a proper lady only has her name in the papers twice: when she’s born and when she dies”? If she was married, she didn’t even get that much.
Iyéska
Noice!
(The Spook waves a friendly paw to celebrate the new ‘nym.)
Thanks, Carlie & Lofty! I’ll drop a post into the lounge about the change.
Carlie, it’s interesting, in the obituary, the women survivors are all allowed their own name.
Iyéska – true. I put it down to all three of them being noted writers/journalists, so making more of a “news” story to put the names people would recognize in, but I don’t know that.
@Carlie, #213:
Eh, it would be mildly helpful in the Lounge, I’d guess, but seeing how the ‘nym change is wordpress-global (entirely retroactive to previous comments), it’s not that problematic without any notices at all.
The only place it will be difficult is reading previous threads where people used @Inaji without a comment #. Comment numbers only or comment number/name conjunctions will all be continuously readable.
Crip Dyke:
That’s not the case anymore. I noticed when the new format began that nym changes aren’t retroactive any longer.
Since the FtB upgrade, on older threads the old ‘nym changes are back, in all their glory.
Tony!
hmmmm
Well, well, well.
Iyéska, a toast to a new ‘nym! I admire the ways this word speaks of you.
@Tony! & chigau –
That’s actually wonderful news to me!
back when I whipped out Max Dick McMacho on that one libertarian thread, I was terribly disappointed to see that I couldn’t do progressive nym changes and have them stick around. Having Max Dick McMacho fall, withered away to nothing, from that thread was a sadness to me. Especially b/c I had worked hard to have each comment contain 10% more straight. Being able to add that lift to my turgid prose is a tremendously large tool I’m proud to possess.
Of course, it also means my opinion on the utility of an announcement was tragically misinformed, but still: large tool! How could I be anything less than buoyant?
…buoyant?
Cheers to the new nym, Iyéska!
So the day after I admitted to having a problem, that it’s not normal to eat two big plates of dirty rice and then spew most of it into the toilet, Cracked posted an article on the subject full of disturbingly familiar stories::
http://www.cracked.com/article_21430_5-unexpected-things-i-learned-from-having-eating-disorder.html
I thought chewing some gum would keep my mouth busy and stop me from needlessly shoving food in there, but I’ve gone through the whole pack and I’m still craving some enchiladas. Or ramen noodles. Or hash browns. Or biscuits and gravy. Or more of that mac and cheese which I already ate a huge bowl of for dinner.
I feel so damn hungry, but I can’t tell if it’s real hunger or just a compulsion I’ll immediately hate myself for succumbing to as I rush to the bathroom.
Lovely nym, Iyéska! I love hearing the stories about people’s nyms, and how they arrived at them. I have always wondered if anyone would recognize where mine is from, but no one has mentioned it yet, if they have. I think because it is fairly close to Yakuza (which most people would recognize) many people read it as such.
@yazikus, #226:
No, I never read it as “yakuza”, but I did, if you remember, read it as “yaki zeus” (cooked/fried greek god).
Also, is it possible this is you?
Because I love Strictly Ballroom and Michael Franti.
Does anyone know a good, free statutory mark-up tool for US law?
Thanks.
MM, Pteryxx, and Yazikus, thank you! Yazikus, I don’t know the story of your nym, but I would like to know.
The new blockquotes are wonderful.
Homosexuality is a chronic condition
After 9-year-old fatally shoots instructor with an Uzi, gun range raises age minimum to 12
Jesus Statue Has Human Teeth
MO company offering adorable ladies pocket shotguns because we’re screwed as a country
@Crip Dyke,
Whoah, flashback to 2006! Yep, that was me, I had forgotten about that account! My brief and unsuccessful career at blogging =)
@ Iyéska
It really isn’t an exciting story, but the name of a rare nocturnal butterfly from the novel Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire by Jose Manuel Prieto. And the new blockquotes are indeed fancy!
samihawkins @ #225
You are correct. It is not normal to be eating the way you are eating. First, it is important to see a doctor and get checked for blood sugar irregularities. Craving high glycemic carbohydrates can be indicative of high or low blood sugar which can lead to diabetes. There is a way to break the horrid cravings. I have done it and it works but it is far from easy. Force yourself to eat nothing but protein for two to four days, drinking plenty of non-sweetened liquids. If you try this and fail, don’t feel like a failure. It is akin to telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking. Doesn’t work that way.
Also, the emotional component of eating disorders is critical. Basically, take your condition very seriously and seek medical help. I wish you well. It can be handled.
I love non-retroactive ‘nym changes!
I love the new blockquotes!
Too much love for the Thunderdome?
Too bad!
yazikus
I’m going to go read that book because the title sounds awesome.
*Painful sigh*
The disabled child across the street is screaming bloody murder again.
*Sigh*
Who’s most likely to lie about rape…?
My quiet little hamlet has been party central for the last four days, getting progressively noisier and drunker. (Labor Day Weekend is a big thing here – a thousand+ peoples descend on Almont.
Iyéska
Where in hell do they stay?
Chigau:
Everywhere.
Every year, there’s about 20 to 50 people sleeping on my property, and everywhere else. It’s been storming though, so they were packed into the Vet’s hall and the churches, mostly.
@Iyéska
If it persists more than 4 hours, y’know….
OMIG
Where would things have gone if Neo had taken the blue pill?
Up, up and away.
Must dash, things to do someplace that is else!
Knowknot:
*Snortle*
@244 Anne
OooH! ooHh! Getting references! ooooOHooo!
Oz!
Also: “Hey man! Where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity!”
And in context, even more so.
knowknot,
:D
@knowknot, #246:
Circus monkeys are sooooooo republican.
Holy crap. I guess I started a conversation. I wish I was not so busy, I’ll try to have more to say later.
The reason I was thinking about these little things we add as indicators of respect is that I have a bit of a tendency to be “fluid” with these. They are social tools and one can omit or add them in context specific manner for many reasons both polite or rude. Sometimes omitting something that indicates a “social distinction” or “social elevation” can be used in a socially strategic way but these are things that should not be done lightly or without thought and I can have a tendency to be dramatic when I “turn on” that part of myself so I get curious about these things.
Meester is gonna cook up a Cheese Strata (wif homegrown poblanos) for us. I’m happy.
That sounds delicious! I’ve roasted a chicken and some fingerling potatoes this morning and am about to embark on my first canning adventure. I’ve got a flat of beautiful tomatoes, and I’m planning on making sauce out of them and then water-bath canning. Any tips or advice from those who have canned before?
Taken from the Good Morning America thread because this is a derail and totally OT
AAARGH!!!! Who the hell hired the hack who wrote this, and why do they have a job writing things when I bloody well can’t get one?!? Is this something you can get by with in journalism school nowadays? A SPELLCHECKER IS NOT THE SAME THING AS COPYEDITING GODDAMNIT!!!!! It’s not just here, it’s fucking everywhere; every book I’ve read in the last decade plus, news articles, all over the fucking place! Is there no such thing as editors anymore?
Sorry it this is a bit of an overreaction, but seriously, it drives me up a wall.
Woah, really? This person wrote Instead of recent catastrophic events occurring in Ferguson, MO,, and no one caught it? Oy.
Back in the day, I used to be a proofreader, reading for all the usual and content / context. I guess people don’t do that anymore.
Well, sure – now they’ve replaced all the catastrophic events with brand new body cams. It’s awesome!
Mister tells me that in the Dickinson newspaper, he read the phrase hussel and bussel (hustle and bustle), which no one had a problem with, apparently.
Today in an article someone used ‘innocents’ as the adjective.
rq
Genius!
Just googled cheese stratta…wowee zowee! That sounds awesome…
Tony @ 258, it’s yummy, and it can be made super basic if you don’t have much in the house, or embellished with pretty much anything you want if you have lots in the house.
Ohhhhhhhhh, it smells so good! Hungry. Very hungry.
yazikus
I started canning stuff last year. I am still very much a beginner. I’ve been using the Ball Canning Discovery Kit. It’s basically a plastic basket that makes placing/retrieving the jars from the water real easy. You can only do 3 jars at a time with it, but that’s all I’ve ever needed to do at once.
http://www.freshpreservingstore.com/ball-canning-discovery-kit-6-pc/shop/383367/?CCAID=FPPTPD1PRDTL
I wish I had real experience to give you useful tips, but tomatoes (as I understand it) are among the easiest veggies to can. Find a recipe online and go for it!
yazikus
Addendum:
I like to use the oven method for sterilizing my jars. I don’t have a dishwasher and stove space is at a premium when I’m canning. There have been concerns raised about oven sterilizing and thermal shock breakage, but I’ve never had a problem myself.
awakeinmo
A dishwasher for canning? Please clarify!
rq, I think you can use a dishwasher to sterilize your canning jars.
awakeinmo
Thanks! I’ve got a big pot & basket combo that will fit about four jars. I do have a dishwasher, I hadn’t thought of using that!
Huh, I’d never heard of that!
*files away under ‘Good To Know’*
rq
Yeah, dishwasher for sterilizing the jars. I’m not sure if you need a certain setting, should you use soap, etc…
Also, according to the National Center for Home Food Preservation:
Huh. Well, I’ll still continue to sterilize anyways. I’m a bit paranoid like that.
awakeinmo
*high five*
Me, too. Something about putting long-term food into unsterilized jars just doesn’t sit well. Even if they will be sterilized afterwards.
And also, a guide to jar sterilization methods:
http://readynutrition.com/resources/jar-sterilization-methods-made-easy_17122012/
yazikus @226: Isn’t ‘yazik’ a transliteration of the Russian for ‘language’? I vaguely remember someone (I think you) mentioning the Battle of Stalingrad in a long-ago thread. So something Russian, I’m guessing.
re #270: My feebly firing neurons tell me it was probably yubal who made the Stalingrad reference.
Trigger Warning: graphic images of a child’s injuries
This is NOT the result of a fall at the playground
Fuck the school.
Sorry to butt in, but I thought people might like to know in case they haven’t already heard:
Source
Lots of people in the comments saying that somehow James Randi being in charge of the James Randi Educational Foundation ruins the organization in such a way as to make them withdraw their support. Love those fairweather assholes who make up the Troo Skeptics.
Tony!
That poor little kid!
I especially like the “We didn’t see what happened. But we know she fell.”
Fuck that school indeed.
Oops. messed up the bold, there…
Tom Foss @273:
Thanks for that.
How could he ruin it anymore than that shitstack DJ Grothe?
Tony! The Queer Shoop @276: That’s a very big question. Presumably Randi might let girls in, and they have cooties.
Tom Foss:
By the way, you’re not butting in. For one, this is an open thread for the discussion of any topic at any time. For two, I personally find your comments around FtB to be well thought out and quite informative and I look forward to reading what you have to say.
Tom Foss:
My, my. Whatever will he do now?
Thanks for that info, Tom.
Tony! The Queer Shoop @278: Aww, thanks, and right back at you. I always appreciate your perspective & voice. I don’t stop in on the Thunderdome often, so I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t stepping on any toes without preemptively apologizing.
ah good
I do like a fire.
@ Iyéska
Kewl … and your new nym sounds like a battle cry as The Horde storm over the parapet:
¡ IYÉSKA !
@ Awakeinmo
[tomatoes]
Check out Greta’s recipe post: Susie Bright’s Ridiculously Easy, Amazingly Delicious Roasted Tomato Sauce
I made a whole lot of this recently. Pretty damn awesome.
PS: Don’t be shy to add a large red-hot chilli-pepper or two to the mix.
To sanitise bottles or jars in the dishwasher (the water’s not boiling, so they’re not sterilized), run it without detergent on the shortest setting. That’s how I clean out my empty beer bottles before putting more homemade beer in them…
Tony!
From their perspective, Grothe is the best thing that ever happened to the JREF. Randi could ruin it by not being an openly anti-feminist, callous shithead.
@Theophontes, #282:
For those familiar with Bright’s famous description of the La Maze/birthing class she took and what she learned about oranges in the class, we become a might curious about her treatment of superficially similar fruit.
:le sigh:
Waiting for NiceGuys to show up screaming about how we can sooooooooo see that they aren’t rapists before they rape now, and shut up about schroedinger, feminazis!
NOTE: this post brought to you by Sarcasm™. Sarcasm™ the name you shouldn’t trust in language! Sarcasm™ a product of the CripDyke family of companies.
I was very confused for a moment til I read the caption under the picture. >.>
theophontes
That is really interesting. I’ve never made a sauce via roasting and blending. And I DO have a stick blender. I am certainly going to try this recipe. Hopefully, in the next few days. Thanks much for the link!
There’s a Crip Dyke family of companies?
@248 Crip Dyke
:) Yeah.
Privilege pants. Dominant drawers. Birthright bloomers. Trouser tyrants.
I say pants them all.
Pants the 1%!
Hippo Dignity!
What do we want? Anthropomorphic ass-coverings in cuts suitable for artiodactyls!
When do we want them? As soon as we can get them first-world organ-grinders into the sweatshops!
@Tony!, #290:
Turkey basters are amazing things, aren’t they?
What’s a good way to convince teenagers (non-US) that dressing up as ‘Indinans (American)’ for fun, is Not A Good Idea™?
Ha! CD @ 292, I just learned a new word. artiodadtyls And I are one! ;-) (aka the fatass, genetic ya’ know)
@Sili:
Hrm. Depends on kid, of course, but with teenagers I expect a certain amount of ability to do research an maintain some attention.
What about saying, “Good idea! Let’s do some research on what kinds of dress the indigenous folk of the Americas wore so we can do it right!”
A few seconds of targeted google search later, and you get pages about actual cultures written by the actual people of that culture. Appropriation becomes education. Then, after they get just enough information to feel superior to their peers, you can introduce them to cultural appropriation – one of the pages, if not many more – in your search will have to mention that! Pretty soon, as an excuse to demonstrate their superior information, they’ll be out noting that feathered headdresses weren’t worn by the same people who wore beaten-copper jewelry, so why is Alex Appropriator wearing that copper ring on their pinky finger while throwing on a feathered headdress?
As a master-class, you can “randomly” pick out an article from a newspaper next week about catholics being up in arms about some comic sketch in which one of the actors wears a nun’s habit. “Randomly” observe that although they have the right to do, that might actually hurt someone’s feelings. “Randomly” remember your earlier research and observe, “I wonder if the Penobscott or Oneida feel any better about ‘dressing up indian’ for fun?”
They’re teens. It’s okay for it to be a process that takes a bit to get the fuller message across.
On the other hand, if they’re ready for a straight up statement like, “Ugh, kids, that’s something I don’t like. It’s cultural appropriation, which hurts people and often functions to make stereotypes worse. … What, you aren’t familiar with cultural appropriation? Well, let’s google it together, shall we?” then give them that. I’m assuming from your comment above, however, that if the easy way worked you would have done it already and not posted here.
Susan Calman on the death penalty. I find it kinda sad that she’s almost unknown to anyone who doesn’t listen to Radio 4.
@296 Crip Dyke
Damn. Now I know what’s wrong with me. I’m still a teen.
Where have you been all my 13 + ≤ 6 ?
13 + ≤ 6
excuse me
I must go to the xcelmobile.
Oh ffs *rage* (warning for rape apology like whoa)
HuffPo: University Of Kansas Considered Community Service Too ‘Punitive’ For Rape Punishment
Lying ignoramiscent scumbag.
@ #300
Yeah. When I take an allergy pill, I’m really saying “please rub a cat in my face.”
Sorry to be flip about the subject, but the constant stupidity of the apologists is getting to me.
@ Pteryxx
How is that even possible (that was somewhat rhetorical)? I did not have to get far into the article before the part where the guy admitted that he kept going after she said no! If that is not a confession worth prosecuting…how do those of you still willing to try to change our systems from the inside keep doing it? On so many of the issues we are facing I just want to totally gut the systems we have and start fresh. I mostly keep my rhetoric in check so i don’t make things harder for the people who are working in the system to talk strategy.
“nonconsensual sex” is a nauseating euphamism.
also people *don’t know* that birth control pills are taken every day at the same time, because of lack of sex ed and horrorphobia of ever discussing such icky things. Except for right-wingers who follow Rush Limbaugh’s lead.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/03/rush-limbaugh-does-not-understand-how-birth-control-works
And this is why *correct* sex ed information should be a fucking human right. *seethe*
@Brony: I don’t even know half the time. Sometimes people actually listen and real information starts to get out. This crap used to go unchallenged everywhere from local comment sections to legislatures.
It’d be nice to just declare society “rape-blind” as folks try to do with “color-blind” and magically have everything fixed, if that actually worked. For that I basically go to science fiction. <_<
Sili:
Pointing out that Indians are not dead, they are living, breathing people with histories, and rich, rooted cultures. People who have suffered through many genocide attempts, have been mass slaughtered, consciously infected with a disease they had no resistance to, so the death toll was high. People who lost their homelands, and were herded like animals onto reservations. People who still live with mass amounts of bigotry aimed at them.
We are not fucking stereotypes, we are people. Perhaps the teens can manage to think a bit and be more creative in costuming than to settle for being bigots.
TP: Woman Who Is Just 12 Weeks Pregnant Charged With Child Endangerment
Care2.com:
I got Mister started on the Rivers of London series. I should have enough time to argue the whole ‘did they embrace the dark side or not’ business with him before the next book is out. I’m more toward the not side, given how strong the inner copper is with the character in question. I suppose I’m viewing them a bit like Severus Snape.
*perks up*
What? Where?
Oh, never mind.
I didn’t want to spoil it, so I didn’t read too far into the wiki page, but Rivers of London sound like interesting series.
Iyéska
I tend to agree, with a heavy dose of ‘show I’m still useful/show that I should be let fully in on the spooky side of things like Peter, who isn’t half the copper I am, is’.
Beatrice
I heartily recommend them. The U.S. edition of the first book was released as Midnight Riot rather than Rivers of London for some asinine reason, so don’t be fooled into thinking there’s an extra book. There’s only four out so far.
Dalillama:
Yes, that too, especially as it was already demonstrated that May was able to figure out lux sans help. I think it’s been shown that May has the potential to become a truly great wizard. Where that potential goes…
Also, I kept experiencing brain slips from Grant & May because of Fowler’s Bryant & May.
http://www.themarysue.com/telepathy-successfully-demonstrated/
Iyéska
It is to be hoped that the Faceless Man isn’t powerful enough to turn it into a (Bel)Zedar situation, to borrow from a different ‘verse.
Not familiar; should I be?
Dallilama:
Christopher Fowler has a series of books, the Bryant & May mysteries, who are the two principals in The Peculiar Crimes Unit in London.
They are enjoyable books, rich in actual details and history of London, but they are also true meanders, in that the books and the characters do a great deal of wandering, rather directly working through the plot lines. Sometimes, I’m very much in the mood for a Bryant & May wander, other times, not so much.
I’ll bring the disagreement here so I don’t distract from more important issues.
The post in question that I made responding to danishdynamite at #43.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/03/i-watched-the-latest-thunderf00t-video-so-you-dont-have-to/comment-page-1/#comment-846247
Iyéska’s response to me.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/03/i-watched-the-latest-thunderf00t-video-so-you-dont-have-to/comment-page-1/#comment-846259
The unspoken issue here for me is one of strategy in social conflicts. I am interested in the reasons for the upset at my strategy. Strategy in social disagreement is a thing that does not always work so well when you say what you are doing and why as the situation is unfolding. I’m not judging anyone else’s strategy here, but I’m also not willing to adjust my own without good reason. If there is a better way of achieving the same ends via a different means I’m willing to listen. But so far all I see is people who are upset that I simply acknowledged what people disagreeing with us are saying.
danishdynamite wrote in #43,
I chose to acknowledge some of the general nature of the wider disagreement between the factions in the atheist/skeptic movement from the point of view of the people that don’t want to deal with social justice issues. I did this for specific strategic reasons. My response to danishdynamite,
I responded by mentioning the the wider disagreement for multiple reasons:
Acknowledging fundamental issues more neutrally up front can create useful emotional connections with someone that might otherwise start swinging punches earlier.
Acknowledging fundamental issues with many commonly encountered bad arguments more neutrally up front can make the person whose arguments are taken apart easier to deal with. It can show that you are trying to act in good faith (if not to one’s opponent than to some in the audience).
Related to this are Seven of Mine‘s response at 58 and SallyStrange‘s response at 59.
Seven of Mine
I realize that there is no definition of the basics that would let atheists and skeptics that want to work with social justice do so, and let PZ address issues important to feminism. If you consider my second paragraph that is where I set things up to address this. You should know that I would already agree if you consider other comments that I make. If you did not know I would be interested in why you might think that I would think that the definition of “basics” in question was a valid one.
I agree that it is fickwittery but I often don’t pull out the guns right away. I can understand reasons for why some do pull out the guns right away, and I don’t tend to criticize specific people who do. But that is not always my style. While I do make mistakes because I am not a woman, or a racial minority, or many other things, one thing I can usefully do is use my privilege to talk to people in the same social group and I adjust my hostility situationally.
SallyStrange
I agree with you as well. I also believe that such a definition would be completely fucking wrong. I also don’t want the atheist/skeptic community perpetuating bigotry. But simply mentioning the other perspective as a means to establish things is not a thing I find to be a problem. I have no problem with your response to danishdynamite in 45, but just because I contrast with other approaches does not mean I am a problem. I need more than that.
Brony
Actually, I tend to gloss past a lot of comments that you make because you have a writing style that I find tedious to read. I’m also often fairly exasperated at the fair and balanced approach you take even to people who are saying blatantly odious things. I get that you’re trying to leverage your privilege to get someone to listen where they might not listen to someone else but sometimes I feel like you take that to an extreme that legitimizes some really repugnant ideas.
I answered this partly above but the rest goes something like “because I’m not fucking psychic.” You didn’t say anything that remotely gave any indication that you wouldn’t consider any definition danishdynamite came up with to be perfectly valid, just different from most of PZ’s regular readership.
danishdynamite didn’t make an argument, good, bad, or otherwise. He made a dismissive, entitled comment that should have been derided for what it was, not addressed as if it was a thoughtful, if misguided, observation.
@ Seven of Mine
Noted. If you can offer constructive criticism on my style that is better. I’m not saying it’s your job to give such criticism but just not liking my style is not helpful.
Except that it’s not fair and balanced. Look at the second part of my reply to danishdynamite again .
This is not fair and balanced. This is me stating my position on the wider social conflict. Acting neutral emotionally and having a strong opinion in the substance is strategic. I’m still not seeing a problems is is more than personal distaste.
Except that I’m not legitimizing repugnant ideas. I’m displaying an emotional neutrality and objectively describing the ideas and then taking a strong stand against them.
And if that is a good general rule, you should also not act psychic with respect to assuming that I am being fair and balances when I say things like what was in the second part of my response to danishdynamite. Ask me questions.
Except for the second part of my reply where I explained that lots of atheists and skeptics came to the movement for different reasons and that he needs to learn to share and see that the problems caused by religion are more widespread in society.
Also when using a strategy I don’t always do some things right away. I try to proportionally change my rhetoric when I think it will be useful. I’m sorry if you don’t like that but I have reasons that need more than the fact that you did not spend a lot of time looking at my comments. Like I mentioned above I’m not complaining when others do differently for their own reasons that I may not understand.
You are right, he did not make an argument. He offered an opinion. But it’s hard to untangle the basis of an opinion without drawing out the argument. There are different ways of doing that and I used mine. Once the argument appears different things can happen depending on how it plays out.
I’m not saying that anyone has to do things the way I do. In fact it’s often just fine for there to be multiple ways of arguing going on at once. But if I’m just contrasting with others that is something I’m not prepared to see as a problem at this point.
fair and balanced ≠ all opinions are equally valid
Seven of Mine:
Took the thoughts straight outta my head.
Brony
If you think this:
Is expressing a strong opinion or taking a strong stand against something? I don’t even know what to tell you. All it says is “some people came to atheism for different reasons than you did.” The second sentence doesn’t read to me as if it’s being addressed to danishdynamite at all. It reads to me like a general “you” like something everyone needs to learn to do. I get no sense of disapproval from it whatsoever. It’s just some friendly advice.
Because when Brony speaks, intent is fucking magic. When you address repugnant ideas as though they’re things reasonable people can disagree about it, it legitimizes that idea. I didn’t say you were doing it deliberately. My impression of a lot of what you write is that your attempt to come off as emotionally neutral completely defangs the substance and makes it read like mealy-mouthed accommodationism. To me. In my opinion.
You asked me why I didn’t automagically know that what you meant by “it depends on your definition of basic” was actually “it doesn’t depend on your definition of basic” based on your other comments. My response was that I actually don’t pay a whole hell of a lot of attention to your comments. Don’t act like it’s something I brought up completely apropos of nothing as a reason for you to change your approach.
Also? Spare me the passive aggressive faux apology for doing things in a way I don’t like. I objected to a thing you said, you asked for clarification and I gave it. Do with it what you will.
Brony
As for this:
I’m not sure I can articulate it better than to say you spend a hell of a lot of words on ideas that could be expressed much more concisely to the point that I feel like your actual meaning gets completely obscured.
Another way of describing what I am doing is that when one is trying to kill ideas there is more than one approach. One can put a flame thrower on the whole mess, or one can draw out the offensive parts and just kill that while leaving the rest. Both have their place.
If someone does not like how I am saying what I am saying, and I am not speaking to them, ask questions. The whole problem with the “fair and balanced” meme being tossed around here is that it is neither fair or balanced because of how fox news (and other news organizations) arranges the whole thing as a one-on-one fight without enough context. I’m speaking of different sorts of fights for different sorts of people and I think that is a fair point.
@Seven of Mine
That is what I hear out of many on this side of the cultural conflict. Women, racial minorities, and more. Am I wrong?
The “@danishdynamite” at the beginning is what made it to him.
You are right to think that what I said to danishdynamite was meant to be taken as something everyone should do, because it was and I included myself in that. Is something about “You need to learn to share, and figure out how the harm is really being spread around” not inclusive enough? That sort of “you” language on issues that has to do with behavior and not immutable categories like race is at a least as rude as a “Fuck you”. I was lecturing.
Intent is discovered when asking questions, especially when you are criticizing someone speaking to someone else and tailoring what they are saying. I know that intent is not magic, why do you think I’m just listening after a couple of questions in that thread when it comes to women in refrigerators syndrome? My intent is meaningless there. My intent is everything when it comes to why I said what I said to danishdynamite.
I did not address a repugnant idea as though it was reasonable. I addressed danishdynamite feelings about the idea which are what they are regardless of the legitimacy of the idea. Once the logic came out I was going to attack that. I legitimized precisely what I intended when I communicated to danishdynamite.
That was me getting him interested in engaging. People with bad ideas are very often sensitive about them and not every approach requires a flamethrower. What am I doing that makes you want to emphasize that it’s your opinion?
On street harassment in Cairo:
http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/cairo-on-camera-shocking-footage-shows-what-its-like-for-a-woman-to-walk-down-the-street-in-egypt/story-fnh81ifq-1227047586425
@Seven of Mine
It would help if I knew for sure what part you thought was passive aggressive. I just want to be sure.
@ Crip Dyke
Spaghetti junctions (La Maze in Sanfran?) birthing oranges…?
I have only heard of Susie via Greta, but it sounds like I should check out her writing.
…
@ meta
This is a non-issue. PZ has always been careful to mark his posts. The current format of FTB more than adresses this issue by seperating out topics. Just in terms of (science) basics, he posts a lot.
{waves little tardigrade claw in the air}: Let’s not be gettin’ greedy y’all.
To give a little bit more information, I let it get personal because it’s unavoidably personal.
“Altered Attribution of Intention in Tourette’s Syndrome”
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=104224
I know that times will show up where intention problems arise, and I try very hard not to let it get personal even though in reality it is. It’s not the fault of the person who is confused, or the person who I get too harsh with. But there is not much else I can do but ask questions and try to do better. That is what you do when something involved in emotional processing whacks moral judgements. I use lots of words because every single communication is done strategically. I wish it was not, but this is what I have to work with right now.
@ Brony
This is the last comment I’m going to make on the subject because I doubt anyone else reading Thunderdome gives a shit at this point.
You’re taking a statement I made about your commenting style in general and acting like I meant it specifically about this situation. The comment about your style legitimizing repugnant ideas comes from me explaining why I wouldn’t have guessed your meaning in this case from your previous commentary. It was part of me explaining why I have a tendency to skim past your comments. So, no, danishdynamite’s comment wouldn’t qualify as repugnant, just obnoxious but that’s neither here nor there.
Why do you think “lots of us came to the movement from different places” is equivalent to “I disagree with the broader argument on the other side”?! Seriously, why? I have no idea how you expect someone to get that meaning out of what you actually typed. And what “side” do you think this guy belongs to? He complained about Tf00t’s focus on feminism as well so why are you assuming he’s necessarily an anti-feminist (not sure what other “other side” you could mean) as opposed to simply being apathetic and entitled?
I think you’re grossly overestimating how clear you’re being. And I don’t know, maybe that’s something you can’t help and I don’t know what to do about that. But the problem here isn’t me misunderstanding an idea you expressed clearly.
Christ. I just caught up with that thread.
Danishdynamite: “Hey, why don’t you blog about why I want you to blog about?”
The only correct response to this is: “Don’t tell people what to write about.”
End of conversation.
Daz:
When it comes to blog comments, that one is the ultimate in pissy selfishness. As though there weren’t pages of interesting posts on a wide variety of subjects, which they could happily read. As though there weren’t a squillion blogs out there, focusing on whatever their narrow interest happens to be.
Personally, I wish PZ would only ever address the Highly Important Problem of where the hell my missing socks go. I am, indeed, furious that he’s never ever mentioned my AWOL lower-leg coverings, and intend to never read his blog again. Except, of course, that I have to read it in order to leave comments demanding that he pay attention to my absentee hosiery.
I also noted right away that danishdynamite used the words fans (for the commentariat), implying that we’re nothing more than mindless sycophants who don’t really care about feminism, we’re just sucking up to our favourite chat show host!
Yeah.
@Seven of Mine
Some of this will sound look like I might be yelling, or many other possible reactions that are hard to interpret because of the internet. All I can say is that I am not angry or anything else but tired because this is what I have to deal with all the time because of what my brain is. I’m doing my best to just be honest about my feelings and I’m hoping somehow this will be constructive because frankly I’m a little worried that social justice as a general thing will not know what to do with human beings with innate problems in areas that have to do with looking like you care about social justice. Why do you think that many of the youtube videos on Tourette’s have to do with people that have problems saying things that are implicitly socially problematic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOfeW9qsNV8
Successfully working myself into a community like this one is literally one of the hardest things a person like me can do.
I’m trying really hard here and hiding on the fringes of community is not a thing I want anymore.
This sentence is related to why I reacted the way I did. Personal opinions on how my general style or what you think “everyone” thinks of me feel is unnecessary and assuming. Sure you are allowed to do it but don’t be surprised when it has unintended effects. Let me be as honest as I can. My emotional reactions don’t have as much in the way of precision and often inside my head simple disagreement gets an autonomic response higher than the average human. I have to constantly, consciously step my responses up or down in intensity based on past experience.
So you literally took an emotionally sensitive situation and made unnecessary personal asides? Why you have a tendency to skim past my comments is completely unnecessary to the issues you and others brought up. If a particular comment is in question stick to that and read that one and any others necessary for context. Leave out the personal crap or you basically just give me the right to get personal back. You and others also treaded on deeper issues and I’m trying very hard to keep in mind you did not mean to and did not know you were doing so. But that does not change the fact that you did.
Serious question. This entire exchange has been a situation of having my lived experience with my immutable innate characteristics stepped on by people who have no idea. Do I get to just respond with “Fuck You” or other exclamations of what I see as “fuckwittery” and expect that to be accepted without explanation? I do not think that would be constructive. Given what you, Sallystrange, and Iyéska did, and the emotional impulse and language issues I struggle with I’m frankly happy that the worst I accidentally left in was passive aggression. Passive aggression that I still hope you point out because I still want to get better at cutting it out.
I tailored my response to danishdynamite on multiple levels because that is what I have to do and like it or not that runs the risk of outside parties not knowing what I getting at because I have to consciously pay attention to what is implicit social information for you, on multiple sides of any social situation.
I’ll try one more time by dissecting precisely what the meaning in that comment was while responding to your last comment and I get to do that no matter how tired you are because the person with the mental condition that has to do this all the time is speaking about what he deals with all the time. This community values that sort of thing.
I am still open to suggestions, but I understand if this exchange has burned some of you because I let it get to me. In my experience most people don’t give a fuck when I try to get detailed about the specifics when a social situation with me gets complicated (it’s why I try to be obvious about my flaws upfront). They can’t see past the moral minutiae (minutiae to me, and that matters even though I try to act like it’s not) and all the same general crap that I hear from every other unprivileged group then follows. I often can’t afford to care if the style of my comments is not to someone’s taste because my energy is devoted to other things.
This is not just opinion and not just criticism. It’s assumptive criticism and implicitly accusatory with respect to what I know.
This is assuming I am not aware of the differences in what the sides of the social conflict in the atheist/skeptic community are over “the basics”. This is assuming that I did not realize that it’s dismissive of PZ and feminist concerns. This is assuming I don’t know that it’s completely fuckign wrong. This is assuming that I don’t know that the position of the other side perpetuates bigotry.
At least four accusations delivered via assumptions instead of questions asking if I thought these things. I get to be annoyed by that.
My response to danishdynamite (dd), fully parsed apart.
If you see a problem with how my brain is arranging things relative to my intentions give me some specifics because that is what is needed with mental issues involving alterations of emotional connections to language. I have to spend conscious effort paying attention to “normally” implicit social rules. There will be times when the responses are tailored so specifically to a person’s social position and perspective that it will not seem to make much sense to the rest of you. Since it’s a communication between me and another person you should take extra care with that. It’s not meant for you.
This directs the content to danishdynamite and should be enough to indicate that the context of what fallows is to be interpreted by them, to them. (It was not in my original Thunderdome post but that should not matter, you were all in the thread criticizing Thunderbutt and it was there).
From dd’s perspective this should read like a statement that the his definition of “basics” is under question. Questioning his definition of the basics is not intellectually neutral (it is emotionally neutral). When he offers his definition of basics in future comments they get attacked as objects more independent of the person who holds them which for some people results in better persuasion.
“that” refers to my “‘basics'” in quotes in the previous sentence. The quotes around basics implicitly acknowledges the broad community disagreement. There is nothing wrong with just admitting people disagree neutrally as a part of an exchange on emotionally charged issues. The second part is telling him that there is disagreement. My lecture at the end puts me in the camp that disagrees.
This directly addresses core disagreements between people in the community supporting social justice, and the people who don’t like them. It’s not neutral because a community has to meet the needs of all of it’s members, and that is a pre-planned possible position for following comments.
Saying that people become skeptics/atheists by many reasons disentangles the object “religion” from the collection of social behaviors that it includes. Those are the behaviors that this community and social justice is supposed to be concerned with. It is not neutral because people who don’t like social justice like to keep the problem a nice featureless block called “religion” in their minds and don’t try to think past that. Fleshing out the distinctions is a pre-planned possible future position. This is me setting up an argument against dictionary atheism and dictionary skepticism (if that is a thing, I think it is).
This is me reinforcing my position against dictionary atheism/skepticism, and reinforcing my assertion that what we complain of in religion is a collection of social behaviors that are more widespread than just the simple box “religion”.
This is me lecturing dd with an impersonal “you” that in context has nothing to do with innate characteristics like race, sex, gender, mental illness or other. This is an impersonal “you” directed at behavior that so far seems appropriate given what I have been told about inclusive language. We are not an inclusive group when it comes to behavior. Telling him that he needs to share and lose ignorance while implicitly speaking about what I think the community should be is not neutral.
I hope I made it obvious.
My assumptions were based on his original comment and those assumptions were all modifiable by whatever reality would have unfolded. A good tentative and modifiable assumption is that this person did not want anyone talking about feminism at all (which is supported by his appeal to “basics”).
There is an extent to which we all base our actions on predictions about what we see as common patterns. I’m not the only one making assumptions here because responses to me in that thread were also assumptive. Additionally the approach of simply hosing down individuals with anti-social justice ideas with hostility also contains assumptions about how one should respond to people. Avoiding insulting assumptions is something we all have problems with and frankly may be unavoidable in a meta sense. The way we handle the accuracy of our assumptions is more important.
Oh I know for a fact that I have trouble being clear and I have to spend more energy on being clear than anything else. Telling me that is like telling a person in a wheelchair that they can’t walk.
You know when an inappropriate time is to lecture someone about reasonable doubt and how absolutely terrible incarceration is and you’re so very glad that two people accused of murder were found not guilty? Do you know when it would be a good time to shut up about that?
When the person you want to lecture was friends with the murder victims and is heartbroken at seeing all her grief dredged up again. Yeah, that’d be a good time to shut the hell up and show compassion instead of trying to turn it into a teaching moment.
Fucking hell, dude. “I’m so happy these two skinheads are free, because prison is awful.” Fan-fucking-tastic for you. Maybe don’t say that to the woman grieving her murdered friends at this exact moment?
(Excuse me. I had to rant about this somewhere, because I sure as fuck had the decency not to pick a fight over it in front of said grieving friend.)
Brony
You are trying way too hard.
Just ease off a little.
You do not need to explain everything.
You do not need to respond to everything.
Keep reading and resist the urge to repond to everything.
No Brony. I answered a question YOU ASKED.
Please take chigaou’s advice.
@Azkyroth, from Lounge #474 (the one immediately before the present Lounge, #475) in #172 of comments’ page 2 (making it really #672:
I wanted to respond to you before too much time had gone by, but even this is going to be an insufficient treatment.
1st: Thank you for being willing to ask an honest question that isn’t 101. If your question was, “Why do transsexuals exist? Now that we have made gay sex legal, why don’t they all just fuck men?” I wouldn’t have been able to find any more wrong with it than with the gender-wiki nonsense, but I also would have expected you to be able to find at least the beginning of a good answer on your own. This is the type of question that isn’t 101 and can’t be handled with a simple google search. Plus, I’m not just any random trans* person. I’m a trans* person who has a long history of openly discussing intense and complicated questions about trans* experience. Further, as you mentioned, my statement in Lounge 474 #(5)91, here is pretty clearly in contradiction with the spirit of your gender-wiki quote.
This doesn’t occur in a JAQing context, you’re not refusing to educate yourself on easy topics, you’re not assuming being trans* = being a noted authority with the skills to discuss complicated topics, and you haven’t broached the option of making me an educator, you’ve allowed me to choose whether or not to take on that role for myself, then communicated with me in a manner that respected my choice.
So let’s make it super-clear from the get go, that I’m good with you. Okay? So now when I go off on the quote, you won’t take it personally, right? This is about the quote, not any person – not even the persons that were involved in creating it.
Brony @ 332:
That whole comment is a good example of many things which are wrong. That post is entirely too long. Work more toward clarity and conciseness. Don’t be so afraid of being somehow unfair that your meaning and intent get utterly buried under a landslide of excess verbiage.
You seem to have a great need to come off as super rational, giving equal weight to all opinions, the unemotional angel rushing in. As has been pointed out to you, all opinions do not merit equal weight. A lot of your unintentional muddle could be prevented if you paid more attention to the comments preceding your efforts in the comment box.
Short form, pay attention to Chigau @ 334.
MM:
Jesus. I am so sorry your friend had to suffer this insult on top of grief.
@anyone curious about transsexual v transgender and a fuller discussion of gender-wiki’s treatment of “transsexualism”.
FTR, the genderwiki quote again is:
Is that genderwiki quote incorrect, Azkyroth asks.
The answer? Well, let’s see [letters to ID crucial spots/phrases in the quote are mine]:
a) Certainly incorrect: there’s only one concept of transsexualism? Really? Since fucking when?
b) yes, that’s correct. For many senses of “flawed”. It’s true despite many concepts of transsexualism b/c any concept of transsexualism I can remember seeing in actual use is flawed in one way or another. And yet that tells us very little, doesn’t it? Especially since it leaves open the possibility that one concept is flawed for being based on positive integers and another one is flawed for being based on negative integers. Seriously, there’s no meat here. So the follow up has to be really good or that will kind of retroactively convert this first bit into absolute bollox.
c) arguably yes, but not at all certainly so.
What? Are you utterly moronic?
First:
You’ve got a great gender neutral singular thing going there with “one’s”. Then you throw it away on “their”? I have lost all ability to even. Moreover, I have lost all ability to Strunk & White. May FSM have mercy on their keyboards. And even more mercy on their readers. I pray some of their readers are pirates, or better yet midgets, or better better yet yet midget pirates, that FSM may all the more quickly yank out their eyeballs with faster-than-light noodly appendages, in Its mercy.
Second:
Please, please PLEASE explain the concept of transsexualism to me without making any distinction whatsoever, in any way, between balls and brains. Draw no distinctions that could categorize gucci handbags differently from vas deferens. Got those no distinctions ready? Good. Now elaborate on the concept of transsexualism so as to make the meaning unambiguous to your readers. When you get done, make sure you feel comfortable that you’ve drawn no distinctions whatsoever between gender and sex AND that whatever you’ve written could only be interpreted by your averagely-literate audience in exactly the way you intended.
You have 12 minutes for this exercise.
a) Should.
Should only.
Should.
Should not.
Wow. I’m getting some serious fucking arrogance off this. What about you? Are you making sure that the word “transsexual” is never used in any of your jokes? It’s never to be used ironically to communicate your disdain for terms that hypersexualize even while the doctors that coined it claim freedom from accountability because they **intended** to communicate an entirely sterile medicalization of bodies. It’s never to be used in a course on sex and gender that wishes to introduce students to a variety of words that were important in the 20th century struggle to get a better grip on sex and gender? It’s never to be used by a person who feels more comfortable with that language than with transgender? It’s never to be used in a statement interpreting inter-community struggles to assert that “transgender” became a crowbar used against the transsexual community in a way that left non-transsexual people as the “authorities” invited to speak about transsexual lives because, hey, it’s really about “transgender” anyway? It’s never to be used to illustrate how language is unstable, that persons with similar gendered and sexed histories can embrace different labels largely because of being born a decade apart?
We’re not allowed to say language is not entirely stable? I’m glad you’re here to tell us these things. If you weren’t here to ban the use of words, why, words important for various reasons now might be overtaken by a political tide later. We certainly wouldn’t want that!
b) Medical term. Medical fucking term? Oh, yes. Doctors have entirely too much power in the lives of trans people, what with their gate-keeping and their keeping of gates and their damn kate-peeping on top of it. The answer is clearly to take a word that desperate, oppressed, underprivileged people wrenched out of the control of the medical establishment and used to create things that could truly called “communities”, put that word back in our pockets, sneak into the hospitals unseen, then, when the office is empty, return it gently and carefully to the centers of the desks of the doctors that rightfully own the word, preferably with an anonymous letter of sincere apology.
Because
Tuskeegeerespect for medical practitioners and their specialized knowledge.a) Ah! Right! Of course!
We wouldn’t want to use it for someone who intends genital surgery but lives in a fucked up country where it’s not provided by insurance, or where an individual mistrusts the medical establishment because
holy fuck can I say Tuskeegee enough times?some bizarre personal phobia, and as a result has not had a phalloplasty.If you allow the word to be used regardless of one’s surgical status, how can strangers know what’s in your pants? Because that’s the important thing, isn’t it? That the term broadcasts an image of your genitals to all and sundry? Wouldn’t want to use the word “transsexual” in a way that didn’t do that!
b) “realignment”? “Realignment”?
What the fuck are you realigning? You with your “in transsexualism gender=sex” paradigm intended us to understand what by your phrase “realignment surgery”? Are we talking about something entirely fucking different here? Is this genderwiki bit written merely about those whose dicks used to hook to the left but now, through modern surgical miracles, have dicks that point straight?
If there’s something going on more than realigning, if there something or something being realigned, why doesn’t the genderwiki say so? It’s almost like the wiki’s ability to communicate on these topics is so primitive it doesn’t know how to express its own ideas about sex and gender without hopelessly contradicting itself and confusing its readers.
Huh.
And I care about this every bit as much as I care about the desperate situation created when white people are offended by the use of the form of the n-word that drops the last consonant, when that term is used by Black folk creating hip hop art.
yes. It should be used sparingly. It should never be thrown around just because some few identify THEMSELVES as transsexual. No autonomy here! It’s not sparing enough!
or at least it’s not sparing enough of the people who count!
@the Mellow Monkey, #333 and Iyéska, #338:
I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about. I’m not really reading today’s Brony (though, Brony, if you’re reading, this isn’t a statement that I never read you, it’s a today thing), if it’s in there somewhere.
But i kinda suspect it’s on that thread about the guy getting 17 years for murdering someone on his porch.
looks like I saved folks nothing when I read the bit from PZ about too little to be justice, thought about what i know about criminal justice in the US, and consciously chose not to go use that thread to tell PZ his enthusiasm for long sentences isn’t my version of helpful.
Discussions of the state of our incarceration system can be had any day of the week. It sure as hell doesn’t have to be there.
But now I’m thinking it was had there anyway.
Poop.
Crip Dyke @ 340
The story I had to rant about was actually not related to anything I’ve seen posted on Pharyngula, but something in my family. A loved one’s friends were murdered by white supremacists and two of the accused were just found not guilty. This loved one peacefully wished for some form of justice without any reference to retribution or even prison time. Someone she knows (I hesitate to call him a friend in this context) lectured her about how she doesn’t know those two men are guilty and how dare she imply they deserve prison and blah blah inappropriate time to make this point blah. For extra inappropriateness, he posted a link on her FB wall about Henry McCollum and Leon Brown to make his point about how good it is not to convict, because wrongly convicted black men are exactly like never convicted white supremacists in his mind.
I didn’t want to make it worse, so my response was just to express my sorrow that her grief had been reawoken and give my “may they be inflicted with empathy” speech, which is about the worst thing I ever wish on anyone. I just had to vent and “skinhead murder” seemed a touch more appropriate for the Thunderdome than the Lounge.
So the battle for freedom from religion in schools just started up here in South Africa again, here’s one article about it:
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-09-03-religion-in-schools-watershed-case-to-ensure-teaching-and-not-preaching/
The organisation driving it is http://www.ogod.org.za/, facebook page on https://www.facebook.com/ogod.org.za. There’s a closed discussion group as well, but many of the discussions take place in Afrikaans.
Exciting times!
I’m going to take a break from anything but the Lounge for a bit. While I’m still not willing to accept that I should have to avoid neutrality when I’m not asking others to avoid hostility, I have screwed up enough in here for a while.
Iyéska You are right about being concise and clear.
Seven of Mine
I was not clear enough in asking you for the criticism I was looking for. That was my fault.
chigau
Thanks for trying to help.
@Brony:
I didn’t happen to read what was going on for you, Brony, but I hope your break is productive. Your 7^3 seems promising.
@The Mellow Monkey:
Thanks for being willing to discuss a completely horrible thing just for my edification.
On the plus side, at least your “friend” has given you reason to believe the criminal justice system is as perfectly accurate that legendary statistician.
Marcotte and Echidne debunking a crappy study claiming men get harassed more than women online. Have handy for the next wave of BS.
CD @ 339:
As soon as I saw what you were addressing, into my head popped:
How do you do
I see you’ve met my, faithful, handyman
He’s just a little brought down
‘Cause when you knocked
He thought you were the candyman
Don’t get strung out
By the way I look
Don’t judge a book by its cover
I’m not much of a man
By the light of day
But by night I’m one hell of a lover
I’m just a sweet transvestite
From Transsexual, Transylvania
I’ll get me coat…
In the “How you know your career has burst through the bottom of the barrel” category, Nicholas Cage will be starring in…
Left Behind.
Although, acting-wise, it’s just about his speed.
Harassment doesn’t need curse words to be harassment
A Woman’s Room Online: An immersive experience of the daily harassment women face online.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/05/illinois-anti-lgbt-group-libraries-need-more-books-about-same-sex-parents-dying/
Leaked images of celebrities will be on display at an art gallery.
That is fucked up beyond belief. Way to violate their privacy even further.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/23/5640678/playing-with-privilege-the-invisible-benefits-of-gaming-while-male
These are just the first 12. There are 13 more (and I’m sure it’s by no means a comprehensive list).
so, is it that cockroaches are feeling empowered to come out from under the rocks… or is it simply that they feel there’s no more rocks to hide under so they might as well just say what they really think?
Is this the end of something, or just the beginning?
Ichthyic:
I think the frustration of not being able to enact here what has been fueled and enacted in Uganda is boiling over.
Texas school districts militarize campus cops with free surplus weapons, armored vehicles
Baton Rouge cop resigns after he’s caught texting desire to ‘pull a Ferguson’ on ‘n*ggers’
Put your Shame Suit on!
Well lookee here: Study finds that prayer has no effect on heart bypass surgery
Iyéska
re: shame suit
My, how quaint.
40 years ago, I wasn’t allowed to wear a skirt to school.
*psst* tony…
that study is from about 10 years ago.
it’s even been discussed on Pharyngula by PZ before.
Ichthyic:
Well shoot. I saw it on my Facebook feed, and thought it was current news. Ah well. Thanks for setting me straight.
Tony!
Surely you jest?!
Iyéska re: the shame suit
This breaks my brain. “We’re not displaying a discipline record because the students would know what the violation was even without the words.” I just can’t even…wut?
Chigau:
Heh. Some 43 years ago or so, back in Catholic school, girls had to wear a plaid jumper until 7th grade, then we got to wear…a plaid skirt! Well, the time being what it was, we had a method for rolling said skirt until it was showing some leg. If we got caught, we were made to kneel on the rough asphalt to see if our skirts touched the ground. If they didn’t, we were caned and made to kneel on the asphalt for one to two hours.
Golly.
Too much sun without a hat, today.
*ahem*
40 years ago I wasn’t allowed to wear trousers to school.
.
Iyéska
Wow. I thought that only happened in the movies.
Today was my mandatory annual “prove you’re healthy enough to be around patients” exam.
This exam consisted of:
(1) a review of my vaccination records (were I due for any boosters, these would have been administered)
(2) a review of my list of allergies
(3) a review of my current medications
(4) a check of my blood pressure
(5) the placement of a PPD
and
(6) the question, “In the past year, have you had any significant health events?”
I’m … skeptical … of the purpose and merits of this.
Chigau:
The nuns at St. Anne’s were old school. Very old school. So were the rest of them (monsignor, priests, bishops, all that.)
Esteleth
(6) is a bit vague.
and … vague.
What information are they after?
Chigau:
Hospitalizations and surgeries, I gathered. I mentioned that I broke my arm, and the examiner pooh-poohed.
Chigau:
I expect they are trying to work around risky behaviour, looking for drug/alcohol use and what is considered to be risky sexual behaviour.
Oh, I forgot! They also asked if I smoke, and if my “no” was “not now” or “never.”
Ah. So snake-handling and a crack lab are probably not OK.
This was just marvelous:
So. We’ve had 4 or 5 power outages in the last couple of hours.
Is the end near?
My SDA school made the girls kneel to prove their skirts touched the ground, too.
—
for the oh FFS file:
GoFundMe removes abortion fundraiser following anti-choice protest
Bailey went direct to Paypal and has since raised the rest of the funds for her abortion.
Ooh ooh ooh!
They’re doing a radio show of Good Omens.
Iyéska #241
I love your new gravater! It’s the cutest rat ever.
Do they even bother to ask your permission?
The Mellow Monkey #333 and 341
That’s horrid. It’s beyond horrid. The fact that a “friend” would use that opportunity to lecture your loved one about “morality” is simply revolting.
—————–
I haven’t been here for awhile and missed the entire kerfuffle about VG. Too bad, because that’s something I’m knowledgeable about. But, since I’m in a rant mood from reading all those missed posts and comments…
There is no term for a gamer who cares about social issues (like Iyéska had suggested), but there is a word for people who play VG and lash out rabidly (often with slurs, harassment and anything else they can through without moving their precious ass) whenever their favorite game/character/console/feature is criticized – fanboys (or fanboi).
There is a difference between them and gamers. A gamer is not someone who plays games, just like a reader isn’t someone who read one “X for dummies”, nor a movie-goer someone who only sees Michael Baywatch movies, nor a comix reader is someone who only read Penny Arcade. It takes more than that. Gaming cannot be defined by people who never played 20th century games, or who only play AAA shooters. Gamers are people with good understanding of all (or most) game genres, knowledge of VG history, a large experience in both indie and AAA games, and the ability to enjoy games from any decade.
I have no doubt that some people who harass Anita Sarkeesian there are true gamers, but I’m happy to report that there seems to be an inverse relationship between how much “gaming-cred” someone has and the hatred towards Sarkeesian. The people who point out the misogyny, homophobia and racism in VG, the people who are now banning the hateful trolls on gaming sites and creating a better environment overall are much closer to real gamers than the vicious fanboys.
In related news: A new indie game with a female protagonist (who also happens to be a ninja) has recently been funded. It’s a platformer that also tries to deal with bullying and shame.
AlexanderZ @ 375:
I disagree with this.
Firstly (where is Josh to see my use of ‘firstly’…I love using that word which, IIRC he hates) I don’t like the term. It’s sexist and belongs in the dustbins of years gone by. At a guess, I imagine it was coined at a time when people thought males were the only ones interested in pop culture entertainment like video games or comic books. Not only was that not true back then, it’s still not true now.
Second and more importantly, I don’t think this is anything approaching a universally understood definition of the term. I’ve been reading comic books since I was a child, and in that time, I’ve seen the term ‘fanboy’ applied to comic readers who are obsessed over some aspect of comics. Maybe they’re obsessed with a particular writer or artist. Maybe they’re obsessed with a particular character or superhero team. In all the instances I’ve seen the word used, it denotes a person who is obsessed with some aspect of comic books.
NOT someone who is obsessed with comic books and lashes out at others.
If there’s a term for that type of person, I’m not familiar with it, but I don’t think it’s right to characterize them as fanboys.
As for this:
This is pretentious bullshit.
A ‘gamer’ is someone who plays games. There are no official rules that determine who gets to be a “true” gamer and who doesn’t. Same with movies. Same with comic books.
Don’t play ‘No True Gamer’.
The above definition might not be the one you use, but yours cannot be expected to apply to the rest of the planet. If you want to be exclusionary, that’s your choice (a wrong one in my opinion), but don’t expect the rest of the world to conform to your beliefs on what constitutes a gamer.
AlexanderZ that’s a load of No True Horseshit that serves no purpose except to distance you and a group you identify with from abusers and harassers. It’s classic othering. Not helpful in the least.
RE: “fanboy/boi” I always have taken it to mean someone who is very tribal about the things they like. If they play League of Legends, they hate DOTA2. If they play Call of Duty, they hate Battlefield. If they play Path of Exile, they hate Diablo 3. They will cheerfully mock people who prefer their hated game but tribaI != abusive. I also get the impression that, when the “boi” spelling is used, it’s more derisive than fanboy/girl.
AlexanderZ:
No. By the time people start passing out on yard space, they are beyond drunk.
Ichthyic:
Color you red you say?
here you go
bite me.
And have a nice day.
Ah, the poetry. It shines so bright, like a light from heaven, transmuting words into symphonies and symphonies into orgasmic supernovae.
Chas:
Tsk, you best run off to a shame hut for that one. It’s not as if it’s mistreatment.
Oh, I shall. Thanks ever.
Daz @ 381, or as Joss Whedon would say, “Ah, the fine art of debate!”
Ooo, ooo, ooo!
I have a new fantasy. It’s where the misogyny trolls get completely obsessive with their planning, working up such a terrible, terrible misogyny-bomb that it takes the combined efforts of all the misogyny trolls on the internet a full year to assemble, arm, and detonate.
No, I wouldn’t like being the target of the bomb, but think about, however horrible it might be for the person/s targeted, 364 days a year where the misogyny trolls are too obsessed to post.
With some luck, they might even end up targeting one of their own who was insufficiently ideologically pure and dedicated.
:sigh:
It’s really pretty bad when they make you wish that they only destroyed lives in a brief frenzy once a year, isn’t it.
SJW cabals, eh? Mmph, so many cabals, so little time.
College wrestler filmed himself raping an 18 year old. Was arrested. Thankfully. Ugh, the comments though. Not victim blaming, but rape enabling. The whole “don’t drop the soap” or “he’s gonna get what’s coming to him HURR HURR”. I tried to interject some sense, but I get the feeling it will fall on deaf ears.
Iyéska @385:
Are you part of more than one SJW cabal? Have you been holding out on us? ::sniff sniff::
Fucking Wes Aaron and his fucking gun apologetics. Again.
If I had hair on my head I’d pull it out.
Tony @ 388, I just read your post over yonder, and it was a tour de force. I agree, agree, agree, agree.
@Tony!, #388:
I’ll look it up. I would have anyway, but one overlooks an Iyéska endorsement at one’s peril.
@Everyone:
Lord, there was so much this summer, but I haven’t forgotten that many of you were interested in a Crip Dyke Online Gender Workshop.
There’s a new post up today, and I’ve worked hard over the last week to get some formatting done so it’s not so daunting to put up a new post. Also, the exercises are laid out for the next 3 posts, and 2 of them are mostly written. I’m hoping to get back to a regular schedule with these things, Insh’PZ.
A long-distance friend of mine has extra tickets to a Bad Religion concert. I’ll just have to listen to the Process of Belief on repeat to soothe the sadness resulting from my inability to make the trip.
Why is it that I can’t ever – not even once – remember to include a damn “read more” break in my posts?
@Tony!, #376:
Also? He and Ed have both made disparaging remarks about the intellects of those who use the phrase, “I, for one, …” which makes me delight in using it (or firstly) in their [internet] presences.
I see the gun-masturbation lobby turned up again then. Oh fun.
::The Queer Shoop offers popcorn to Daz and Crip Dyke for use in gundamentalist thread #8429, but only for eating, not throwing::
****
Crip Dyke:
I’ll have to remember “I, for one…”, especially if I can combine it with ‘firstly’. Hmmm, I haz an idea…rubs shoop paws together with the dastardly look of Snidely Whiplash, as a plan forms in his head…lightbulb moment!
Tony!
Firstly, I for one (yay!) am thankful for the corn which is popped. Thank you.
Secondly, have an ale or other beverage of your choice on me.
Oh, and have some more Cramps. No day is complete without musical blasphemy.
Daz:
That was great! Made me LOL.
****
Crip Dyke:
In the gun thread, you said:
I know it’s aimed at Wes Aaron, but I’m wondering if in the world of this hypothetical…how effective *are* deterrents?
Tony!:
Check your e-mail for a comment For Your Eyes Only on deterrents and Wes Aaron.
@Daz & Iyéska:
Speaking of the Cramps, I’ve never liked them all that much. Don’t hate them or anything, just never on my list of faves. But curiously:
1) wikipedia lists them as proto-Psychobilly. I always thought of them as proto-Surf Punk. Hmph. I’ll probably not go back and listen to albums repetitively in order to make a finer distinction here & since if I agree with the Pfft!, but it does make me wonder.
2) the video Daz linked to on the thread about misogynistic entitlement to women’s bodies was titled like so:
I leave it to you to decide if that’s more irony or woody.
3) Lux Interior’s singing has always intrigued me. It’s like he grew up singing along with someone who loved a flanger just a little too much, but had no idea that was an electronic effect.
The absolute last thing I expected to find while searching through my favorite comic book sites is the cover to some issue of The Rifleman back in 1960. I wasn’t around back in ’60, but did ‘wood’ become a euphemism for ‘dick’ more recently, or was it also around back then? Because if so, that cover…Oh boy, that cover.
Crip Dyke
Hmm. Well the Cramps never described themselves as psychobilly and I seem to recall they denied having anything to do with it, but they were definitely very influential on the genre. I’d go with garage-surf-punk myself as a description, though there’s a dash of rockabilly in there too.
Heh! I never spotted that.
Well if we’re talking strange psychobilly vocals, Sparky takes the crown, I reckon.
Tony!
The grin on that chaps face…
Oh yeah!
I haven’t been able to access FTB for almost a month and here it is again! I have an old computer, and I was thinking I’d have to do major upgrades, but here y’all are again! Wish I didn’t have to work in 7 hrs, but I can’t wait to (try) to catch up on my lurking.
drewl @403:
Don’t lurk. I can’t pass the popcorn to lurkers.
@Daz:
The 12″ was…painful.
Crip Dyke
Shoulda taken the compromise option…
There is no compromise.
There is only assimilation!
Tony! @404
.
I would(n’t lurk) if I could get away with it. I work ‘back of house’, so by the time I get home to read, y’all have said anything I could say, but better. I have learned so much here, I just haven’t had much more to offer here than “I agree” or “I hadn’t thought about that in that way”. Also, it takes me forever to type anything.
.
I will say that lurking here since 2007 (or so) has given me many ideas and tactics to use in real life dealing with bigots and idiots (especially when they are friends and family). That’s why I’m so glad to be able to get back here again.
.
I will try to post more, tho….
@Daz:
Thank you.
I love that song, and it’s been a while since I had that Big 10″ pounding inside me.
Inside my ears, you filthy creature. My ears.
Also? Why the hell does this come up with Aerosmith as the artist when I looked up the lyrics? I wasn’t under the impression that Aerosmith made music. Didn’t they just smith Aeros or something. I can’t remember anything they smithed I’d call musical, that’s for sure.
Not sure how assimilation works in this case. Wouldn’t nineteen inch be a bit wide for most, *ahem,* turntables?
Crip Dyke
Big Ten Inch was the record I learned to jive to, many many moons ago.
As for Aerosmith, ugh! They’re like a bad clone of Brownsville Station minus the talent and the sense of humour.
it’s all the blood.
it’ll wash off.
eventually.
*toothy grin*
that one started a debate about Templeton, since for once, they actually admitted they had failed to prove prayer works; they basically had no choice, if they published the paper, but I suppose they could have tried to bury it completely.
still don’t trust them as far as I can throw them, but that day, at least they were honest.
Tony! #376
OK, how about “hardcore gamer” then?
I’m not going to give up on an identity that was mine well before most of those flea-ridden mouth-frothing imbeciles were even born. If I do it means they’ve won. They managed to define an entire media. I’m not going to give them that victory. It’s a betrayal of all the men and women (Roberta Williams was the one who established the gaming industry as it is and invented the adventure genre; Sarinee Achavanuntakul is arguably the most experienced gamer alive today and the one who first created a site for documenting gaming history) who’ve contributed to gaming over the years.
Besides, I think I have reality on my side. Every time a male gamer shows his support for Sarkeesian’s work it’s always someone who is at least 30 years old and/or who has a large gaming experience. The attacks on Sarkeesian come from 4chan\v\, not MobyGames or the like. It’s clear that age and experience play a role here.
Let’s stick with “fanboi”, then. Most of Urban Dictionary’s definitions and examples for the term circle around computers and gaming. Trash-talk is much more common in games than anywhere else (besides WWE, probably) so it makes sense to modify the word to apply to that crowd only.
That’s true. Then again, I don’t see any women harassing male players, do you? I say that for the time being the term is spot on – it’s shows what lies at the heart of this, namely misogyny.
Seven of Mine #377
It’s not othering. Elitist, perhaps, but not othering. At least no more than calling a misogynist, “misogynist”.
I’m not saying that by voicing their opinions or acting as they do they automatically lose the right to be called “gamers”. I’m saying that people of certain age and who lack certain experience are also the ones likely to harass women. I’m saying that because I’m having a hard time finding a counter-example: anyone who is known for their contribution to gaming is either quite on the subject or condemns the sexist pigs. Whereas the opposite is all too visible: people like Thunderf00t, who have never been known to have any opinion on gaming ever, are the ones leading the “defense of gaming”.
Let me reiterate my point from the previous comment. There likely are hardcore gamers who also attack Sarkeesian and harass women in gaming. I can’t think of a single one of the top of my head, but their actions won’t revoke their “gaming cred”. However, the fact that they are so hard to find speaks volumes about what this mess is really all about – man-children defending their last bastion of sexism while presenting themselves as “real gamers”.
They aren’t. Their knowledge of gaming is only slightly higher than their knowledge of evolution, psychology, anthropology and anything else they like to use to defend their retrograde ideals.
You say re-branding them is not helpful. I disagree.
Most news articles reporting on these events say something along the lines that women are now beginning to develop games, or some other drivel. Bullshit. Women have always been developing games. There wouldn’t be a gaming industry if it weren’t for women. Long before John Romero oozed his way into the gaming world claiming to make us “his bitch” (real ad), Williams had already created and defined many aspects of modern games.
Log on to your favorite game (but not with your friends – you’ll get a biased sample otherwise) and say something positive about its competitor. How likely you are to get cheerful mockery vs abuse? If my experience is at all relevant then you’ll like to get racial and homophobic slurs within half a minute from your statement. Do it while playing a female character and you’ll get misogynistic slurs as well.
Combine and amplify that and you’ll get the attacks on Sarkeesian. If the same tactics are coming from the same direction I don’t think it’s a big leap of faith to think they’re also coming from the same people.
Iyéska #378
It sounds dangerous. Why are they coming to your town anyway? Do you have police/neighborhood watch to protect you?
Tony! #400
Aren’t you the innocent one :)
There lots of similar covers and pages in the Seduction of the Innocent gallery of Superdickery (caution: that site used to be infected will all manner of malware. I don’t any virus notices now, but make sure you antivirus is on).
Look at Suffering Sappho as well, while you’re at it.
Crip Dyke
I’m writing here because I’m not sure you’ll want it in the workshop thread. I’ll won’t be doing it anyway for a couple of days at least.
Regardless, thank you very much for these workshops, and thank you especially for the last one. You are extremely courageous, extremely brave and extremely strong. It was very important and very helpful to me to read that piece. I probably shouldn’t say any more – I’m embarrassing enough as it is, but keep at it – you’re restoring my faith in humanity with every word. With every breath.
————————————
Tony, Seven and Inaji,
I wrote a reply a few hours ago, but it’s still lost in limbo. PZ willing it’ll show up eventually.
leaving this because I’m so pissed off. Just saw local Fox news say that the anti-gay protest against Dallas signing Michael Sam was cancelled “due to death threats”. Right, and it had nothing at all to do with the protest being a fake from the very start, which nobody but LGBTQ Nation seems to have gotten right.
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/09/dc-lobbyist-who-wants-to-ban-gays-from-nfl-plans-dallas-cowboys-protest/
But Burkman can say those nasty gay activists sent him death threats and that’s worth credulously repeating during halftime of the fuckin’ Dallas Cowboys season opener in Dallas. I’m sure that won’t color anyone’s view of the local LGBTQ community AT ALL.
Tony. my ten year old nephew dropped his head when i presented him with that Rifleman cover.
What ever you do, do not look up “The Joker’s Boners”.
Yeah. Right.
Nisi Shawl is working on a book she describes as Belgian Congo Steampunk. I happily await this story.
And for anyone who has read Douglas Nicholas’s Something Red and The Wicked, a third book, The Hounds of Hell will be out in March. Yay!
And, Unbound, the third book in Jim C. Hines’s Magic Ex Libris series, will be out in January. Yay!
Thanks for posting a new thread, CD, and mentioning it here – with my erratic reading of Pharyngula since June, I’ve missed seeing several of the threads. Having caught up in my own time, I don’t exactly want to derail any of the threads, but I have to vent somewhere, and…
WHAT THE FLYING FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?
Is it just me, or are some participants being not at all honest when they say astonishingly myopic things like “I do not have the faintest idea what gender is” — what, not even the slightest smidgen of a clue from having existed on the planet earth as a sentient being for some number of years (presumably a number greater than ten); or when they say things like “I didn’t see how any of this was related to gender”, when the parallel argument would be like denying e.g. racially-motivated discrimination in Ferguson, MO was related to race, as if declaring gender-blindness of a kind related to colour-blindness of the “I don’t see colour, I just see people” type.
I read a certain number of these sorts of comments and even with a good deal of leeway am failing to see how they could be honestly made in good faith. Did they fail to read any of the opinions of other people and notice people had completely different approaches? Have they got the empathy of a stone and less understanding than one? What is going on with all that?
</vent>
Xanthë:
re-confusion about gender: I’m not the most well versed on the subject myself, though I like to think I’ve learned a lot by interacting with people at Pharyngula, and learning to chuck my preconceived notions of the world out the window. Though I haven’t checked out that thread, I do have a little clue what you’re talking about. The comments section of this article at ‘It’s Pronounced Metrosexual’ are filled with lots of people that are downright homophobic and transphobic. The post is intended to give definitions to a wide range of terms associated with LGBTQI individuals. The blog itself is by Sam Killerman:
I stumbled across it the other day, and Killerman seems to have set this blog up as a resource for those who want to know more about social justice issues, such as feminism, queer advocacy, anti-racism advocacy and more. He’s put up multiple privilege lists which are pretty helpful as well.
I waded in a few times to some of the comments, but damn there was a lot of vileness (many of the comments were from a few years ago, but I figured it’s still good to add some progressive opinions in there, no matter how much time had elapsed).
****
Janine:
I stumbled across ‘The Joker’s Boners’ a few weeks ago. Hilariously awful.
Tony! The Queer Shoop,
thanks for your thoughts. Expressing confusion about gender would not surprise me at all; professing not to have any idea whatsoever, after about four or five of these threads now and many differing views offered by other participants, seems blatantly disingenuous to me.
Incidentally, Killermann is best known for the ‘Genderbread Person’ which is often used as an illustration of different concepts of gender and sexuality – what is not so well known is that (as Patience Newbury of the Cisnormativity blog has pointed out at length) he seems to have plagiarised most of it from a 2005 infographic copyrighted to four authors whom he is yet to credit. He seems like another toxic ‘ally’ like Hugo Schwyzer or Charles Clymer, a gross opportunist publicising ‘insights’ into a community that he isn’t a part of, by outrageous appropriation and plagiarism.
Okay, this is too good not to share: He’s claiming to prove, “scientifically”, that the ice bucket challenge is a “satanic ritual” – with a sidetrip to abortion, ancient Egyptians and blood sacrifice of virgins.
http://beforeitsnews.com/religion/2014/08/yikes-100-proof-ice-bucket-challenge-is-a-massive-satanic-ritual-busted-sent-to-the-stars-2477080.html?utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fb4in.info%2Fedfe&utm_source=direct-b4in.info&utm_medium=facebook-post&utm_campaign=&utm_content=awesmsharetools-fbshare-small
Cover your ears!
Tony!
My personal favorite is the Archie one, though Batman is always a strong contender.
—
Special thanks to PZ for finally approving my comment.
@ AlexanderZ
You’re arbitrarily defining “gamer” so it excludes a group you don’t wish to identify with. It’s othering.
“Misogynist” has a definition outside the confines of your skull. Calling someone displaying misogynist attitudes “misogynist” is not othering them; it’s describing them. The way you defined “gamer” and “fanboy” are idiosyncratic to say the least. You’re redefining words in a circular way such that gamers are not abusers because abusers aren’t “real” gamers.
Bullshit. You should know this if you spend any time reading around Pharyngula. Misogyny and abusive behavior are not traits more common to the young and/or inexperienced. Claiming they are is unfair to the young and inexperienced who also manage to be decent people and it minimizes the scope and scale of the problem.
Quiet on the subject, i.e. condoning the behavior.
This is sheer nonsense which makes no sense absent your circular definition of “gamer.”
Just call them misogynist fuckwits or some variant. There’s no reason to go through all this “they’re not real gamers” except to distance yourself and a label you identify with from them. Othering.
I’ve had plenty of perfectly civil conversations with randoms in online games about competing games. Also, I didn’t claim that tribalism and abuse were mutually exclusive. All I said was that my understanding of the term “fanboy” has no connotation of abusive.
I wasn’t even talking about exactly which people are attacking Sarkeesian. I was objecting to your arbitrary definition of “gamer” and “fanboy” such that you could exclude the abusive people from the label “gamer.”
AlexanderZ:
You are othering. Stop that.
Oh now that is just pure, grade A bullshit. Stop that, too.
Xanthe! Very good to see you again, how are things going?
Hi Iyéska! Love your avatar and the new nym!
All things considered, it’s pretty damn good! I’m coming up to 2 years of hormone therapy which still seems to be slowly doing its work feminising me (hooray), and I changed my name back in May/June — that process took about seven weeks from start to finish and getting a new birth certificate issued. As a consequence June, July, and August have been fairly epically busy for dealing with all of the bureaucratic fallout involved: new drivers’ licence, new bank account, updating details with social security, medicare, taxation, electoral roll, passport, superannuation, utility companies, and so on, and so on. Even getting a new transcript of my academic results under my new name. Best of all: very little in the way of transphobic micro-aggressions from the myriad customer service people handling all those things has been a really good experience. So to summarise, I’m very, very happy with how things have gone this year, and am hopeful of further improvements. :)
I do actually read Thunderdome a bit more often than my delurking might indicate — whereas I’ve more or less given up on being able to catch up on the Lounge. :(
Xanthë @428:
I’m so glad to hear that!
Xanthë, I’m so glad things are going well! Love your name choice, too. I’ll think of you as Caterina (as in Sforza).
There is no supreme ideal of beauty and these women are stripping down to demonstrate that:
Caterina is good for me, I approve of any variations along that general theme :)
It stopped s***wing a few hours ago but overnight temp is gonna be 1°C.
Haven’t picked the tomatoes…
Chigau,
Ouch! I was just thinking of you when I read the news. Hope you can rescue some tomatoes.
So. Are tomatoes like grapes? Do you have ice tomatoes now?
Dhorvath
(Hi! How are you?)
It’s been rainsnowing all but not reeealy cold.
There are very few tomatoes and if they really freeze, in the morning, before they thaw, I’ll just pick them and put them in the freezer.
Well, Dawkins is up to his typical nonsense.
He favorably linked to this article, which is a very sophisticated and soft spoken “take dat, libruls”, insisting that liberals should be supporting IQ testing, because….liberals were the original ones who supported IQ testing: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119332/iq-excuse-egalitarianism-vs-meritocracy
He then retweets this whine from Russell Blackford
And then straight from the horse’s ass:
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/508940881047879680
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/508867073796505600
Here’s a good one (or two, rather):
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/508670870542622720
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/508335022294986755
So now Dawkins is trying to out-Islamophobe fucking Sam Harris, apparently.
I see no one has taken his Twitter away from Dawkins.
And Blackford has his fee fees all upset bc he doesn’t like being called names. Poor thing. Bless his heart.
I disagreed with someone today. Someone I call a friend. I didn’t call her a douchebag. I was able to disagree with her without calling her names. Makes me wonder if there’s a reason I call some some people douchebags. Perhaps it’s something about their beliefs and opinions…
Blackford is much like Dawkins: An ivory tower sophist who is just fine being rude and dismissive or even being outright hostile and nasty, but they will simply not tolerate anyone doing so whilst using uncouth language, for that is the way of the Lesser Folk.
Remember Tony!, it’s always Just Disagreeing. They are Just Disagreeing with you, you should be Just Disagreeing with them, it is all Just An Opinion, Man, so can’t we all just ignore what the implications of those Opinions are and just sing Kumbaya already? You people and your caring about shit, and being actually personally affected by it or something, is like totally harshin’ my buzz.
Agreed.
Since they ‘both’ are a product of the meat and electricity that is a yuman,
what is the difference?
anteprepro @441:
Oh, I get it.
Let me give it a try.
I shouldn’t be angry and upset over the continued efforts of those on the right to deny LGBT people their basic rights bc, like that’s just their opinion, right? Neither I, nor they, should think through the implications of their views. We should just like, totes just agree to disagree. I shouldn’t say anything harsh or mean to them bc it’s just their opinions and stuff, right? We should just say our piece and go our separate ways.
How did I do?
Dawkins seems to be incredibly wed to his Vulcan view of thought processes. There is logic and emotion and they cannot mix. There is feeling and there is thought and they cannot mix. Oh, what, you have thoughts about your feelings? Your feelings manifest as thoughts? Holy shit, your emotions influence what thoughts you have and thoughts influence your emotions!? By god. Well I guess you just aren’t Vulcan enough. Correct that problem so you can be perfect like good ol’ Spockins.
Someone just stuff a Tribble in Dawkins’ mouth so he’ll shut up already.
Tony!, that sounds just perfect. You are learning Militant Apathy well. Now you just gotta learn to be selective and hypocritical about it in just the right fashion and I think once you do you receive an honorary position of authority on any gaming or humor website, or you get an honorary doctorate in the Sophisticated field of your choice. I still don’t know what I will choose when I finally graduate into the ranks of the Elite Apathists!
I used the word “douche” to describe this horrible person:
Science denialism plain and simple – and like homosexuality, gender dysphoria is no longer considered a mental illness. But yes, I really approve of second-rate philosophers tone trolling language choices like “douche” only because I’m like, . </sarcasm>
*spit*
::peeks around to make sure I’m in the Thunderdome, rather than the Good Morning, America thread, where I first posted this; ok, I’m good::
For something completely different than the Spock Dawk, these grilled cheese sammiches look tasty!
Xanthe @447:
Hmmm, TDSB…
The Douchnozzle ScumBag?
Total Douche Shit for Brains?
Xanthe: And of course, that person you called a douche was being perfectly civil. Wasn’t even using naughty words or anything! He was just being Troo Skeptical! Why do you gotta be such an Extremist?
——–
That required way too much sarcasm out of me. And yet it also wasn’t enough. I feel like I need to take a shower.
Damn, those sandwiches do look good. Though I really do get confused as what qualifies as “Grilled cheese” sometimes. Add enough ingredients and is it really grilled cheese anymore? At some point you reach the breaking point, and it strikes me as similar to taking a turkey sandwich, adding ham, bologna, salami, chicken strips and sausages, and still calling it just a turkey sandwich.
Tony! #448
ah
I understand now.
anteprepro:
Are you a grilled cheese elitist?
Why can’t I find a good clip of the ‘wheat toast’ scene from Five Easy Pieces?
What is wrong with the YuTub?
@Xanthë, #447:
As a friend and a fellow trans* person, I’d like to critique some content. I hope you can separate the critique of content from critique of you.
I really think you have something quite wrong in your previous comment, here:
This is literally false. The following is directly from DSM5.org and represents the official position of the APA:
I don’t know why you made your original statement, and am sure that whatever the reason it certainly wasn’t a bad motive, but please don’t pass on false information. Intent really isn’t relevant if the info is false.
Thanks.
Crip Dyke, certainly I can accept the critique, but would point out that the discussion and terminology related to the change of the diagnosis from ‘gender identity disorder’ (in DSM-IV and revisions) to ‘gender dysphoria’ (in DSM-5) highlights the unusual nature of the condition within the organisation of diagnoses in the DSM-5, and that it is not considered an illness, however the reason for “its categorization as a psychiatric or a medical condition” was necessitated by the wish “to avoid jeopardizing either insurance coverage or treatment access”; the Rationale also points out that…
So I am inclined to think the point of issue here is one of semantics; a fine reading of the rationale for gender dysphoria as a diagnosis in the DSM-5 clearly no longer considers it a mental illness or disorder, but as a mental condition requiring specialised treatment, and this has been acknowledged by the removal of the stigmatising language characterising the condition as a “disorder”.
Two further notes – above I linked to an Internet archive of the Proposed Revision pages for the DSM-5, owing to the APA removing all of the revised materials from the web prior to final publication; I would be highly surprised if the final published revision represented a complete reversal of the proposed revision.
Second: the proposed revision I cited also indicates gender dysphoria related diagnoses were likely to be “separated from the sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias”; nevertheless, Julia Serano was notable amongst commentators for being extremely critical that the DSM-5’s paraphilia working group had not only retained the separate diagnosis of autogynephilia, but had added a ‘matching’ paraphilic diagnosis of autoandrophilia, as well as ramping up the previously defined ‘transvestic fetishism’ to be renamed as ‘Transvestic Disorder’. The retention of these paraphilias within the DSM-5 somewhat resembles the retention of ‘ego-dystonic homosexuality’ as a diagnosis in the printings of the DSM-II and III from 1974 up until 1987.
If Hyman Rosen reads this: FUCK OFF AND DON’T COME BACK.
Today is my busy day — first priority on getting up was to review lab protocols for today, my morning is going to be spent in lab, I’ve got classes all afternoon, and then this evening is dedicated to our summer research students’ presentation. I had only an hour budgeted for the blog this morning, and I just spent a half hour of that tracking down all the little flecks of shit that banned asshole left everywhere.
Banned is banned. You are GONE. Everything you post will be deleted.
I am so fucking furious at the complete waste of my time that rather than carefully deleting only the most recent crap, I’m going to go in and use a shortcut: a global search for all comments from Hyman Rosen, ever. And then I’m going to hit the delete button.
If anyone else encounters this jerk in the comments, ignore him. His comments will not live for long.
#454 / Chigau: first hit on Google (wheat toast scene five) for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wtfNE4z6a8
Is that not it? At work so I can’t really watch it…
Rosen also whined at me that banning him was completely equivalent to physically throwing someone out of a bar or public meeting. That means that sneaking back on is completely equivalent to burglary, I guess.
#460 / PZ – the problem with posts like this is that they make me REALLY curious to know what horrendous crap he was posting. Sort of the Steisand effect by proxy?
Have a good and productive morning in the lab.
By the way, my running group is doing a social event tonight – a tour of the red light district led by a sex worker (ex-worker, I think). She’s asked for any questions people can come up with. So, here’s your chance: anyone have any questions about prostitution in Amsterdam? It’s 15:30 now, and the tour starts in four hours. Let me know on the thread and I’ll try to get questions answered and posted…
Derek Vandivere
re: Five Easy Pieces
The important word was “good”.
Also something that will play on a ‘mobile device’.
re: Hyman
There is a Hyman-shaped hole in several threads, if you really care.
chigau
re: mobile devices
Are there video sites and/or formats to watch out for as being problematic for mobile devices?
Daz #463
I really don’t keep track.
I just shut the tab and move on.
oh
I can’t play most of the videos that Mano Singham links, whatever that format is.
chigau #464
Ah well. Thanks anyway.
I have a “thing” about video, both embedded and for local use. I wish they’d (you know; that nebulous “they” who decide on such things) just pick an industry standard and stick to it.
#462 / Chigau: Geez, everybody here’s always moving the goalposts… What’s your definition of ‘good,’ by the way?
For the link I sent, it looks like the content owner had just disabled it for mobile. I know iPhones used to not be able to play YouTubes. Here’s another version that (I think) doesn’t work on my Android phone because it uses Flash:
http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/576068/Five-Easy-Pieces-Movie-Clip-Side-Order-Of-Wheat-Toast.html
Here’s the script: http://www.empireonline.com/features/classic-scene-five-easy-pieces
Here’s one that plays on my Android phone: http://cms.springboardplatform.com/embed_iframe/2653/video/898327/what003/whatculture.com/5
Here’s another one that played on my Android phone (strangely, seems to reference the same YouTube that won’t play directly): http://entertainment.time.com/2013/02/05/griddle-me-this-10-memorable-movie-breakfast-scenes/slide/five-easy-pieces/
Hope one of these suffices…
More than sufficient, Derek.
Can you tell I used to work tech support? (and am getting really tired of studying how ruleset inheritance works in cross-server situations with the Pega Rules Processing Engine? It’s really fascinating).
Anyway, enjoy.
Derek @461:
You’re not the only one who’s curious. I can’t recall reading much by Hyman Rosen, but I do remember responding to something he said yesterday (it wasn’t anything offensive, IIRC).
IIRC Hyman Rosen is one of those “above it all” plausible deniability types i.e. a vile bigot.
This
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/20/saying-you-should-abort-is-as-wrong-as-saying-you-may-not-abort/
is the thread where Hyman was banned.
He is erased but the traces that remain show why he was banned.
Seven of Mine #425, Iyéska #426
I’m not convinced, but I’ll stop digging. I still think I’m on to something – I’ll take it elsewhere, though.
You’re particularly right about the age thing. I meant to apply it to gaming only, but it’s stupid anyway I put it. Sorry.
There is one thing I’m not prepared to drop:
…or afraid to speak up, or don’t know how to touch the issue, or have lost the faith in their ability to change anything or a thousand other reasons. What you’re doing is a black&white dichotomy nonsense. It’s like you don’t have enough enemies already so you want to make even more on the side.
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
Tony! #431
I love Melanie Gaydos. She’s a model and a Rammstein fan who was hired for one of their clips. The result is fantastic (Youtube).
Derek Vandivere #461
I’ve missed my time window, but I’ll be happy to learn what she had to say about women trafficking into prostitution (particularly from former soviet countries).
What is being done to help those women? What are the relationship between them and the dutch nationals? Are the foreign women being expelled or are they being protected by the government and/or NGO? What is done to make sure they could sue/be a witness in a trial of their pimps/kidnappers? Are there any compensations for the time they’ve spent in sex slavery?
AlexanderZ @ 472
People aren’t psychic. It makes no difference whatsoever how you justify your silence in the privacy of your own skull. If you’re not condemning it, you’re tacitly condoning it. You’re not giving the people doing it any reason to think you disapprove. And I promise you, the people doing it think everyone thinks the way they do. In their minds, they’re brave heroes speaking uncomfortable truths. They take the silence of others as approval.
Scientists Would Like to Remind Us Being LGBT Is Not A Mental Disorder:
Study: Science and religion are not only incompatible, religious areas being left behind:
A lot of that is stuff we’ve already known, but the article probably isn’t aimed at us.
****
When scientists give up:
****
Female physicists worldwide fight sexist stereotypes:
****
Virginia bar closes woman’s tab because she’s breastfeeding:
People continue policing women’s decisions, like it’s any of their damn business. I could see it if she was pouring alcohol down her baby’s throat. Society frowns upon women drinking while pregnant. Now are we going to see women being policed more after they’ve given birth too? Oh what am I saying, women are policed all the damn time.
****
This is nauseating.
Teens dump a bucket of urine, spit, and feces on a teen with autism:
Awww, poor caesar is mad he got banned, so he had to immediately create a sockpuppet account only to get banned after 2 comments. Geez, what a damn fool.
Not sure if it’s even possible to be more transparently a sock puppet than he just was. “Hi, my name is coincidentally m3ta and I coincidentally just happened upon this particular thread, coincidentally moments after some guy who totes isn’t me was banned and I thought to myself ‘I know I’ve never seen this blog before but there can’t possibly be any context I’m unaware of at work here’ and made a meta comment about how that ban was totes unjustified.”
Seven of Mine: That was, hands down, the most hilariously pathetic sock puppet ever.
Seven of Mine:
I never understood why he commented here. His views don’t exactly mesh well with many of the commentariat. Then to create a sockpuppet account? I mean come on! If the blog owner tells you he wants you gone, why would you come right back in?
I wonder if he’ll pull a Reap Paden…
I mean I guess he could have introduced himself as caesar’s sock puppet or named himself that but I suppose even caesar’s too smart for that.
Eh, no great surprise that, among caesar’s many and varied faults, is a lack of respect for the boundaries of others.
As for why he commented…probably masturbating to the thought of being the lone voice of reason in the echo chamber or some such shit.
Cry, ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the puppets of sockyness.
Daz:
Ha ha.
Btw, is there a story behind your new gravatar?
I want a new gravatar, too.
Tony!
Not really, I just wanted summat a bit silly. It’s Nigel Molesworth.
Oh, not-actually-holy cannibal crackers, batman.
Stop the world, I want to get off.
Caesar will never be able to successfully sockpuppet, given the absolute rancidness of his views about…everything.
Since I have a cold and can’t actually taste anything,
I really need to stop ‘adjusting the spices’ in the curry.
Me too! So, this is probably a dumb question, but how does one go about changing it?
yazikus
You need to set one up here.
@ Xanthë, #456:
I have no real idea of the scope of my powers here on Pharyngula, because I have (I think wisely) never pushed them. (And because I don’t have a blog of my own, so I have no real idea of how the WordPress tools work, other than the ones immediately necessary for constructing a post.) If I ever got a note from PZ that I was treading on his toes, i would back off quickly. It’s his blog. I didn’t come here to have my own blog, I came here for PZ’s content and the community that he is ultimately responsible for building.
But I haven’t got a note from PZ saying I’m treading on my toes, and the power to create an OP didn’t come with a demand from on high that every post has to have specific exercises within it or some such. He granted me the power to create posts because people asked for that, as they wanted to discuss things and wanted to be able to read a coherent discussion, which is best done without wading through the much larger and multi-topic discussions of the Lounge and/or TD. It originally came in the form of liking the idea of a workshop, but nothing in what PZ said limited me to **only** workshop posts. I said as much in my “power mad drunk with intoxicating power” post – not least so that PZ would see it and, if reserving the right to make an occasional post outside of the workshop series was going to upset him, give him a chance to clarify that to me in a backchannel right away before I did step on any toes.
So now, before the “workshop” series has really developed specifically to the point that this issue would be relevant, the topics of gender dysphoria, mental illness, the DSM, and stigmatization (and their various intersections) is being discussed here.
I want to make an OP about this, but am concerned that that would come across as something that SHOULD piss PZ off were i to do it: taking a commenter-commenter argument to an OP so that I can “win” by effectively “shouting louder”.
Fortunately for PZ and everyone else concerned (and also for my continued ability to make workshop posts) I won’t do that. I don’t want to do something that even hints of such behavior.
So before I do, I wanted to invite you to say anything you feel you’d like, including, “No,” about the idea of me making an OP here. Such an OP, if made, would not be “neutral” in terms of having no conclusions flowing from the facts as I understand them. I would try to be “neutral” in the sense of presenting multiple arguments and the facts that are deemed important by people other than me, rather than saying that there’s a limit on the facts that are relevant, and that relevancy limit happens to be large enough to encompass only the facts that support my conclusions.
It would use ethical analysis and make ethical conclusions – and it can be hard to see one’s positions or actions critiqued as unethical (which, by the by, I don’t know would happen to you in my OP b/c I would be critiquing conclusions you didn’t actually state, though I suspect that we disagree about the ethical implications of certain things). But it wouldn’t be “about you” at all.
Nonetheless, I feel concerned about how this might come across. If you want to say something here, that’s fine. If you want to e-mail me and say anything you want (Including, “No!”) in private, that’s fine too. You know my e-mail.
With love and respect,
Crip Dyke.
Daz, thanks, lets see if I did it right…
Maybe it takes a minute?
yazikus:
What’s that an image of?
Maybe it’s one of those coronagraphs, or something?
It is leaves, arranged by artist Andy Goldsworthy. There is a documentary about him called Rivers and Tides that I highly recommend. I find his work to be really stunning.