This is The Mended Drum, the thread for off-topic conversations on Pharyngula. Talk about whatever you want.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is The Mended Drum, the thread for off-topic conversations on Pharyngula. Talk about whatever you want.
The Mended Drum is much better than any of the ideas I had rattling around my empty skull.
Pi is exactly three.
I’m ambivalent about the name, but then Thunderdome wasn’t anything I particularly liked or disliked either.
PZ:
Were you going to include a note about the style of moderation for this thread?
So we’ve essentially reincarnated Thunderdome as the old TET under a different name.
So, we have a bunch of Terry Pratchett’s books at my house, but they are mostly read by my son. Is there any special significance or connotation to the name Mended Drum other than it’s a pub in the Discworld books?
Time is a drum that all sentient beings try in vain to mend every day. A flat circular drum…
There is going to be no difference in moderation anywhere anymore.
smhll
I think it’s mostly just love for Terry Pratchett, but it came to my mind as a signifier of a change. It is mended, something that came back better than before.
Now I can, of course, not speak for why the others or PZ liked it.
smhll @ 5:
It was the Broken Drum first, which was burnt to the ground, then the Mended Drum, and it’s a basic part of the life and scenery of Ankh-Morpork. Of course, most of the Watch drinks at The Bucket, but the Librarian hangs at the Mended Drum. :D You can read more about it here: http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/The_Mended_Drum
If we all descended from monkeys, why is there still a monkey in the corner?
I saw this SciFri video and, for obvious reasons, thought of PZ:
hyperdeath #2
I respectfully disagree, Old Chap.
Pi is 22/7.
adios
Cross-post from the Lounge, with minor changes.
I noticed it’s a Pratchett reference.
Which is why I don’t get it, because not everyone reads Pratchett. But it looks like it’s now Official, stamp-approved and all, so oh well, I guess! :)
(I’m putting a smiley not to sound passive aggressive but to show that, while I don’t like the name because it feels very inner-circle inside-joke to me, I’m accepting the name, for whatever that’s worth. It’s not like I’m a regular here, anyway.)
Pie for three…
Delicious!
rq #14
“The Zombie Thread” and “The Thunderdome” were both kinda inside jokes, too.
Tradition!
Somebody say pie?
Yikes. More bad news for reproductive health services for women in the USA.
Link
This bad news comes to you courtesy of the Republican-controlled House and Senate. They continue to say that Republicans are not waging a war on women, but their actions say other wise.
Link
A lot of these politicians are dunderheads who were voted into office in the midterm election, when turnout for more progressive candidates is low. Effing disaster for women’s health services.
The budget cuts at the federal level do not even make sense in the Republican “fiscally conservative” world:
I really hate mosquito bites, sunburns, and especially parts of my skin that have both (like my neck right now). Blah.
chigau
Isn’t the whole new-commenting-rules a spit on tradition? :D
The Thunderdome, at least, was kind of obvious.
Anyway. That was just my opinion. It doesn’t really warrant a long discussion. (Plus I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to have a long discussion with chigau, except perhaps where gardening is concerned. ;) )
A followup to comment 18: “It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.”
That was President Nixon speaking in 1970, when he signed Title X into law.
A lot of the present-day rightwing politicians are dumber than Nixon.
The term “thunderdome” has connotations of violence and of victory–“two men enter, one man leaves” isn’t exactly a motto to inspire useful discussion and respect for other people. Now, I realize it was meant partly as a joke, but the implications were still there, and may have helped foster a poisonous atmosphere. Hopefully the “Mended Drum” will inspire less hostile, more collegial discussions.
And on that note, I would like to apologize to anyone who I hurt with my words in the earlier comment policy change, particularly Giliell. It is all too easy to forget that there are real people on the other end of this comment box, and I let my desire to prove myself “right” overcome my desire to do what was right. Mea culpa.
More rightwing deceptive tap dancing around birth control for women:
Link
rq
huh?
chigau
Never mind.
Nepos
Thank you!
++++
Next we’ll all be roasting marshmallows on the campfire while singing Kumbaya
An abortion clinic needs 573.923 unnecessary things and restrictions but the pill, which can have serious side effects, should be sold over the counter. Yeah, that sounds like “protecting women”.
Athywren @ 10:
You’ll get your head taken off for that!*
Nepos @ 22:
I think most of us have been guilty of that one. This is very nice of you, Nepos, thank you.
*The Librarian is very particular that people use ape.
Speaking of reproductive healthcare, I just got an email update from We Are Ultraviolet:
This is one of the dangers of a 20-week abortion ban.
@Giliell #26:
So there is a hell after all.
So this is the new place. I like it.
Solar energy changing the lives of African women
rq
I understood your #20 but when I tried to form a reply in less than one line,
the space-time continuum began to tremble, so I was stuck with the single word.
When we next have an invasion of the Hovindists, what shall we do with them?
Laugh and shred them. This is not becoming a blog friendly to idiots.
Keep asking them “were you there?” and “how do you know?” Or not.
chigau: could that be because Eddie’s in the space-time continuum?
Raging Bee
I thought Eddie was in Dr. Frankenfurter’s freezer.
chigau
… And thus, you have (probably once again) saved the Universe from extinction. All hail (ouch)!
I like the Mended Drum. Well done, Giliell!
Does anyone else here do astrophotography as a hobby/frustration?
Thank you for that direct order on both of those. A lot of what I find to be toxic is when people continue to talk about someone after they’ve left; that often brings them back in to defend themselves even when they’d originally had no intention of diving back in, and then it continues to drag out. Same with the after – if, in the middle of an argument, someone starts in with the “you’ve always been like this” gambit, it can’t go anywhere good.
Giliell @27: Actually the topic of over the counter (OTC) birth control was a big part of my public health classes last week. Yes, hormonal birth control (the Pill) has side effects, but so do tons of other drugs that are sold OTC, like aspirin or acetaminophen. Most of the major associations of health care providers (obstetricians and gynecologists, and pharmacists) believe that the benefits outweigh the risks.
The biggest benefit to OTC hormonal birth control is that it will no longer require getting a doctor’s appointment. For a lot of women, especially low-income and underage women, that is the major barrier to BC. I agree that price will be a major issues, as will insurance coverage. But the public health benefits would be enormous.
So, with better side effect warnings (DO NOT TAKE if you are over 35 and smoke!), continued insurance coverage, and a reasonable price, I think this could be a real boon to all women in the US.
The Mended Drum?
Community norms include:
???
Right then.
My resolution is
And more and more and more Volstagg. Because it’s hard to hide away Volstagg.
General comment to everyone. If this looks like a fight let me know. I wanted to be a bit more free with the rhetoric since some of what John Morales wrote was quite insulting, but I’m trying to take PZ’s concerns into account. JM seems to think that claims that I just can’t understand their complex thought processes should be convincing about something they still will not explain. Additionally they also seem to think that vague waving at how my mind is innately shaped without an explanation about how and why my mental processes are a problem is also convincing. It’s certainly interesting to me. Those are pretty insulting but I am going to try to keep the excess out. If I could have phrased things differently I would like to hear about it.
I actually like trying to understand where someone is coming from and why they do what they do. It does not always end up well though.
@John Morales 438 (previous thread)
I’m not sure how much farther we can go.
Let me quote your original comment to me in 421 once again, with the rhetorical sigh this time.
1) You observed that an unspecified “they” are OK with my behavior and not your behavior.
2) You make a statement that basically amounts to “they believe what they believe based on what they experience“.
3) You then suggest that I should keep in mind that while I feel good about their approval now I should be aware that I might not get approval someday.
4) #3 hinged on an appeal to my intellectual-honesty as an emotional hook.
This is not even remotely specific and the way you carried it out feels as if you are trying to use me as a tool in your fight. I asked questions to try to get you to inform me of why you did what you did which is reasonable so I could disprove this mental hypothesis of mine. This is reasonable.
In #1 your behavior and my behavior are specific things right in here on pharyngula. I have no idea what I should think about the comparison between our behavior unless you provide specifics on what I bolded in #1. This is nothing but a empty frame with no picture. Why should I care? That’s not hostile either. If a person is vaguely gesturing at some undefined “they are saying” it’s reasonable for a person to want more information. You are giving me abstract emotional impressions.
In #2 What “they believe” and what “they experience” are also specific things in here that can be looked at. I have no idea what to think about what you think about their beliefs and perceptions unless you put a picture in this frame. An equation needs variables to be plugged in to create a graph. Plug some things in so I can see the pattern as well or I can do nothing with what you are saying.
In #3 you basically make a statement of such obviousness that of course I’m going to wonder why you are even talking to me. Of course I might get disapproval some day, and I gave you a comment# for where I in fact did get “disapprobation” (which you now seem uninterested in talking about). Seriously why was this worth bringing up? You also completely misrepresent me in your original version of my paraphrase in #3. You said,
…and I clearly stated in 419 that I don’t know what to feel and in fact I am shocked that I don’t come off as an asshole. So I’ve got some pretty good reasons to be questioning your reading comprehension at the minimum, and be annoyed at your desire to attribute emotions to me that are not there. You do not get to get me to seriously consider your general observations in a way that might alter my feelings and behavior without doing better than this.
Finally in #4 you bring up my intellectual honesty as the emotional hook that is meant to get me confront the fact that I might get “disapprobation”. Disapprobation which you suggested I consider because you think they approve of me and not you oh and by the way everyone has a “worldview”.
I did not impute a single thing, I asked you to show me what gave you a reason to even mention my intellectual honesty, and show me examples of what “they” are saying.
So…
(#438)
You were anything but specific, and good luck with persuading anyone else if you are going to simply suggest that you are far too complex for their simple minds when even basic education always includes some examples or practice problems to help internalize a new concept (your bit of advice about considering their disapprobation). That’s a general feature of how the educational process works. I literally asked you for the tools to educate me.
I asked you to tell me what it is in your experience that makes you feel the way that you do, and I asked why you thought appealing to my intellectual honesty was relevant. And now you just asked me to get your information out of “them” without actually naming them. They do not have to do your job when you are the one who came to me talking about “them”.
And your ability to actually describe what you perceive is not being used. Instead of accepting that I prefer concrete examples to accompany ephemeral abstracts and giving me your examples like a persuasive person would, you use the reasons for my preference in your rhetorical barbs. Seriously. If you did the same sort of thing with a person using crutches it would look awful. Fortunately I’m a very different sort of human creature and quite happy to use the advantages of that as I ask you for reasonable things.
I happen to be hyper-literal. When someone is abstract my mind is flooded with all the possible analogical possibilities and what you need to do if you actually care about being clear to me you will respond by giving me more information about what you are indirectly referring to. Otherwise I have no problem simply keeping the half-dozen or so possible analogs in mind and scanning your interactions for evidence. That is what we all do as humans, I’m simply more specialized in my abilities. I’m perfectly willing and able to take the individual innate differences of others into account without using them like weapons against them.
Your hints are not desirable to me. Explain yourself clearly if you have any hope of sticking in my memory for more than a few days. Or not.
In my #45 It should have looked like,
“1) You observed that an unspecified “they” are OK with my behavior and not your behavior.”
CD @44:
What? No Fandral-love?
@Robert Westbrook, #41:
20 years ago, I took some pictures with this: http://www.ukirt.hawaii.edu/, but technology has moved on incredibly since IRCAM3: http://www.ukirt.hawaii.edu/publications/annrep/1995_1996/ch4.4.3.html so I am woefully out of date.
I do like to visit http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html regularly to get my fix of astronomical pretty pictures.
…and I messed up some italicization. If anyone wants something cleared up please let me know.
Brony @45:
Not a fight in my eyes. That said, I look at this new incarnation of the TZT/Thunderdome as something new, which I think ought to come with a clean break from the past. Basically starting fresh and not bringing up stuff from the Dome. But maybe that’s just me.
(and that doesn’t mean new arguments cannot/will not happen; huh…why is cannot one word, but will not is two?)
Brony: I don’t seem to recall your ‘nym, so I’m assuming you’re relatively new (relative, that is, to the fact that I haven’t been active here in years), so let me give you some advice: don’t engage Morales. Seriously, its a waste of time, we’ve tried before for years. It doesn’t work.
@Tony, #47:
I figure Fandral gets enough action on his own.
AR,
You can’t have been gone that long? I consider myself fairly new and always looked forward to the interesting things you have to say re: viruses. Maybe time goes by faster than I thought.
@Tony
Thank you for letting me know. I stripped out a heck of a lot of amused barbs because I’m not sure how far we should allow ourselves to go when we think we are justified and demonstrate it. This was one bit,
*”Open up.” by Korn
Naturally if John Morales wishes to respond to that they can since I chose to post it. I will simply let them respond and not give any responses of my own since it is extraneous emotional content and i don’t want to turn that into the exchange with them.
@A. R 51
I enjoy figuring people out. But if you think that it would have a bad effect in here I would be willing to consider it.
Yay for Volstagg! Best of the warriors Three. (And it’s nice to see a kickass warrior who is, shall we say, big-boned?)
Tony! #50
Brony’s discussion with John Morales is only a day old, even if it did start in the Thunderdome.
I don’t think he should feel that he should just drop it.
Nepos @55:
Comics fan?
****
chigau @56:
Sorry. Just gave my opinion.
refresh before posting
refresh before posting
refresh before posting
Robert Westbrook @ 41:
I engage in earthly photography as a hobby/frustration/sometimes income. I don’t know anything about astrophotography, but I’d love to hear about it.
A.R @ 51:
Please, learn to speak for yourself, and yourself alone. Do not speak as though the commentariat reached a consensus as to the worth of engaging a specific person. Engaging John obviously doesn’t work for you, and that’s fine, you’re free to ignore him. You should not be ‘advising’ anyone else to not bother engaging with someone.
Also, monitors – this is the type of comment you should not be ignoring.
Brony @54: I will leave that decision entirely up to you. I don’t have a monkey in this circus anymore, so I won’t speak for the commentariat.
Caine @59: I was speaking for myself and only myself, but referencing the fact that the commentariat has indeed been dealing with Morales for years. This is exactly the type of “trying to interpret comments in the worst possible light” bullshit I was referencing in the new rules thread. And I think I have the right to give my advice to anyone I damned well please.
It’s ok everyone.
We will need to talk about these things. Yes I can figure out if I want to talk about something with someone for myself. But things are in some flux right now and I don’t mind seeing the concerns of others about if I should talk about some things with some people.
It’s one of those tough spots where we are somewhat sensitive to things that are difficult to define. I think the reasons for the sensitivities are relevant for figuring things out. Because of that context I don’t think A. R was inappropriate.
Addendum to my 61: and they have the ability and right to ignore my advice too.
JustaTech@43
Thanks for letting me know. That’s interesting. Do you have any links? No, I’m not asking you to “put up”, I’m genuinly interested. I know this argument in favour of emergency contraception, but not in favour of long term contraception.
@Sunday Afternoon #48:
Crikey, that’s a fantastic instrument. I’m not even trying to do science, just trying to make pretty pictures. I imagine getting time on that thing was competitive.
Tony@57, Intermittantly–I don’t like reading floppies, so I don’t follow comics very closely, but I do collect graphic novels. I’m a huge fan of Walt Simonson’s run on The Mighty Thor, which (as you may know) is where Volstagg went from being mostly a bumbling “comic” character to a true, if reluctant, hero.
A. R
John Morales stopped regularly commenting here not long after you did.
The “commentariat” never had a consensus about him.
Your #51 didn’t sound like you were speaking for yourself and only yourself.
And it could have waited until John Morales is actually in-thread.
Nepos @66:
Oh yes, the Simonson run on Thor was *awesome*. I think I still have all of those in single issue form (along with about 10K more comics collecting dust in my garage).
Not sure how much you follow comics today, but are you aware of the new female Thor? The book launched last year and has been a consistently high seller for Marvel (I appreciate the fact that Marvel has Jason Aaron-an atheist and SJ oriented writer-on such a prominent book). I love that more comics are being produced by the Big 2 companies and many are quite well done and selling well (such as the aforementioned Thor and Ms. Marvel).
Also, since you liked Simonson’s run on Thor, you might like (if you haven’t heard of it) his series Ragnarok, from IDW:
There are some lovely images at the link.
Thanks for making me cry.
The Broken Drum – you can’t beat it.
The Mended Drum…?
X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
On what just happened with Rorschach – it plays out to me very similar to what kept happening to sg, and is what I really would like to not see in suspensions or permanent bans. One person says something that is, admittedly, rude, then gets sniped at, which they respond in kind to, but then they’re the only one put in punishment when a large part of what they were doing was hitting back at everyone else. There were at least three separate people (at 398, 415, and 440) making swipes at him, so what looked like him doing a lot of shade-throwing was individual responses to several different people.
I’m not sure where the balance is between “I don’t care who started it, you’re all in trouble” and just picking on the guy who ended up in the middle of the rock-throwing circle, but I think that should be identified as an issue to put on the list.
Chigau: Point to the part of my comment where I mentioned a fucking consensus. I said “we” as in “a large number of people who agree with me” and those people aren’t hard to find. Granted, many of them were driven off of Phayrngula. Also, did you see that bit where I said “let me give you some advice”? Did I say ” the horde has decided”, or “the commentariat has agreed”?
Tony! @68 (remembered the ! this time!), those Ragnarok pics are glorious. I’ll have to check it out.
What I really want to do is get a tablet so I can keep up with comics without having to collect the floppies–especially since Marvel has their digital subscription dealie. Unfortunately a 7″ screen isn’t quite big enough, and the 10″ tablets are frickin’ expensive–I’m waiting for the next generation of tablets to come out and hopefully pick up an older model on the cheap side. Then I’ll go on a massive comics spree.
Marvel takes a lot of grief (and rightly so) for some, shall we say, questionable decisions in their movies (no Black Widow movie? No Gamora action figure because boys don’t like girl action figures? C’mon.) But as you say they are doing some innovative things in their comics line–the female Thor, the Squirrel Girl comic… Funny story, I made up a character called Squirrel Girl for City of Heroes, completely unaware of the Marvel character–I mean, what are the chances that one of the Big Two would have a character named “squirrel girl”? I was pissed. But then I read about the character, and I couldn’t stay mad, she’s awesome. [Where’s Squirrel Girl? Oh, she’s off fighting Galactus.]
A.R.
We’re doing the whole “turning a new leaf” thing and your comment is kinda encouraging hostility towards John Morales. How about you let it go? Brony and John were having a conversation. It’s really unnecessary to tell Brony that engaging John is “a waste of time”.
That’s for Brony to judge, and as I said, it’s encouraging hostility.
Nepos @72:
Oh, I’m right there with you!
I’ve had a series of financial setbacks in the last few years (going through a bout of unemployment at this moment, actually) which have kept me unable to collect comics. So all I can do is follow what’s going on in the comics world. When I do get back into things, I want to start reading on a nice-sized tablet just as you want to do.
Beatrice: Well, I was going to let it go (as you can see from my comment above before I responded to Caine), but Caine and chigau decided that they needed to tell !e what I was saying. Anyway, I’m dropping it now, and I will not be replying to any comments regarding my 51 after this, and I will ask others to do the same in the name of “turning over a new leaf”.
Brony:
Well, I do, because that’s how the poison creeps in, with people holding onto old grudges, and encouraging that persistent hostility many of us have been discussing. I find you to be a scrupulously fair person, Brony, besides which, you’re an adult who can decide who they wish to engage with. There are people who find it almost impossible to let go of the past, and that’s problematic, for everyone. Personally, I have problems with John, but that doesn’t prevent me from engaging with him (as I did in the recent commenting thread).
Carlie:
I think it was the sociopath that tipped the balance, Carlie. Other than that, I don’t think a suspension would have happened. We shouldn’t be discussing someone who isn’t here though, so perhaps it’s better to speak generally.
Tony! @74, oof, sorry to hear that. Hope you get to enjoy comics less vicariously soon!
@Caine #59:
Your photos are fantastic, especially the bees. They’re so challenging to shoot – can you eventually predict when they’re going to lift off from a given flower if you watch them for long enough?
The biggest frustration in astrophotography, at least for me as a relative beginner, are taking high-magnification shots without star trails. Some people aim for star trails, which are of course beautiful in their own right, but to get just about anything dim such as most nebulae, you need exposures that are many seconds or minutes long, and the damned Earth keeps turning. So, I get an expensive (to me anyway) telescope mount that tracks the stars well for two or three minutes, but only if you align the mount with Polaris *perfectly* before you begin. Still working on mastering that. Or you can get a “guidescope” that watches a selected star, and if it moves even a smidgen, it sends commands to the mount to correct it so you get perfectly tight stars over several 5 or 10 minutes. I’m not at that stage yet.
It gets expensive fast.
Fuckit. I can’t pass this up:
This is pretty fucking hilarious coming from you Caine. And with that, I’m out. I don’t have to!e for this shit.
[WTF? Put the knives away. Nothing said here warrants this kind of response. –pzm]
x-posted from the Lounge:
Calling all fans of Mad Max: Fury Road, the director of Fury Road will be writing a comic book miniseries detailing the origins of several of the main characters. The first issue goes on sale today actually. Art is available at the link.
I just finished Margaret Atwood’s The Year of The Flood. Unfortunately, I only learned I was supposed to read Oryx and Crane first when I was nearly finished with that one.
I hope that won’t be too much of a problem, since I really enjoyed … Flood.
Robert @ 78:
Thank you! Yes, you can reach a point where you can predict take-off, but as bees are prone to changing their minds about that, the signals don’t always read true. One of my happiest moments on that kind of thing was getting a shot of a ladybug with wings lifted, prepping for take-off. (I ended up with about 30 shots prior to that though!)
Holy shit, that sounds complex and very intricate. I’ll bet it’s addictive, though. Capturing stars…oh, that’s a rush.
Oh yeah. That’s a given in photography, but much more multiplied in astrophotography.
Yeah, that can definitely be problematic.
Erülóra Maikalambe! Haven’t seen you for a good long while. How are you doing?
Beatrice
For what it’s worth, Oryx and Crake is really enjoyable, too – as much as a collapsing world can be enjoyable.
I read The Year of the Flood just recently (well, in the winter), and I only remembered it was a partner novel to Oryx and Crake towards the end, too. Didn’t bother me one bit!
rq,
My plan is to finish that trilogy, then go on and read everything Atwood has ever written.
It took me a little bit to get into the book but the I couldn’t put it down. Except nearly at the end when those two people suddenly met that one person and I had to put the book away and walk around saying NO NO NO NO NO until I convinced myself they are not going to “work together” or some bullshit like that.
(was that too vague? I don’t want to spoil it for anyone)
Beatrice
Also, I think there’s a third novel in the series, I just can’t remember if it’s out already. (MaddAddam? Looks like it’s out – for a couple of years already. *blush*)
Beatrice
Cross-posting! Ha. Yes, I have to get my hands on MaddAddam now. I love her overall writing, but I can’t say I love all of her books – I liked the Penelopiad, and of course The Handmaid’s Tale (grade 11, and boy did it leave an impression), but I wasn’t so into her Blind Assassin. As examples. That being said, there’s still quite a few of her books that I haven’t managed to read. :)
You know, I was just thinking that it’s not necessarily “regulars” that are a problem–as PZ pointed out, the “regulars” change regularly–but rather the holding of grudges that often made Thunderdome and other threads so darn nasty. Even if one side is clearly right and the other clearly wrong, it’s just kind of …rude…to involve other people in a grudge.
We should have two new ongoing threads. One would be for the airing of grievances. Pissed off at someone? Think someone is a bigoted asshole? Go to this special thread and really let them have it. They may not read it, but at the very least, you’ve had the catharsis of expressing your frustration. And then, when you go to other threads and you see the person posting more stuff you don’t like, you can just refer them to the grievances thread, instead of continuing the grudge in thread.
The other ongoing thread would be for clearing the air. Post something really stupid and feel the need to publicly apologize? Go to this thread and post! Preserve for all time (or at least until the comments get wiped) that you aren’t a complete asshole!
Obviously, the second thread would have to be moderated–letting people argue in their would defeat the point. But the first thread–hell, just put a big warning, “FREE FIRE ZONE.” It would just be a place for people to vent, moderating it would defeat the point.
Anyway, just a thought–I’m not sure the “airing of grievances” would actually work, though it would be amusing. The “clearing the air’ open post would be great, though.
Well, I’ll admit that I’m not particularly good at letting go, no matter how often I watch Frozen.
It takes me a while to develop a grudge, but once it’s there I’m like one of those old elephant cows who remember every fucking puddle they ever wet their toes in.
So I definitely won’t make nice conversation with somebody who hurt me as if that past never happened.
BUT
I’m good with ignoring each other, but that only makes sense if both do so, not if one keeps needleing the other and uses their silence to further attack them unconstested. So what I think could work would be a kind of “no contact order.” You tell somebody to leave you alone and that’s. You don’t reply to what they say, they don’t reply to what you say. If anybody says something truly outrageous the other commenters will surely pick it up.
THat still leaves room for some passive aggressive “some people” gaslighting, but that could be dealt with by the monitors, should their role be expanded.
Giliell @ 91:
Works for me.
Nepos,
Thunderdome was often “airing of grievances” thread. But even that can get out of hand and poison the atmosphere so much it spills into every other conversation and thread.
I’d rather we mellowed a bit. I’m not very good with letting things go either (as Giliell says for herself), but ignoring can also work.
TW violence against women: Cop kills ex wife in front of their daughter
The police not only let him shoot into the car where his ex-wife sat a second time (look whose getting arrested without as much of a scratch), they also hugged and comforted him when he finally surrendered.
They let him make sure she was really dead without intervening or trying to protect her.
They hugged
and
comforted him.
Bastards.
+++
Has preview been turned off?
Giliell @91, yeah, that’s exactly why the airing of grievances wouldn’t work. Now, a restraining order type system might work–witness how PZ’s direct order regarding discussion of a certain commenter who will not be named here was quickly heeded by the commentariat–but I’m sure PZ doesn’t want to have to enforce anti-social behavior orders. (ASBO, what a great acronym.)
Beatrice @93, True, but the problem was that Thunderdome was also used for other things. The thread I propose would be purely for telling off other commenters. No one would have any reason to go in there except to let off steam, thus (in theory) isolating the rest of the comment threads. It would be like the “Anger Dome” from Futurama. (Insert pic of the doctor pacing around and shouting angrily.)
Giliell, I’m getting an error saying my post has timed out, but the post is actually there when I refresh–might be related.
As for your link, I’m going to hug a plushie, they absorb the bad thoughts.
Nepos, Giliell
I get an error saying my post has timed out and then it isn’t posted when I refresh, for at least every third comment. Preview doesn’t work either.
And now for somethig light-hearted before I’m off to bed: 22 US laws about animals
I’m wondering if that thing about rabbits is only for wild ones or alos pet rabbits…
Oh, and Carlie, I forgot to say that if you think I should have also been suspended, that’s fine, I’ll take a suspension.
Are those of you with disappearing preview using No Script? If so, one of the google somethingorothers has to be allowed for preview to work. It’s been working fine for me.
Caine @100, I am using NoScript, so that’s probably the issue for me.
Hah! I tried permitting googletagservices and it was the right one.
Thanks, Caine
Caine
Swamped, stressed, and getting ready to go pick up a kid that was possibly exposed to strep and get her tested to see if that’s what the fever and vomiting have been about. Other than that, I’m great.
As the Thunderdome crashed and crumbled into rubble and dust, a voice was heard, faint but clear:
https://youtu.be/VkNg2RrM_Gg
.
.
.
.
.
.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist the perfect moment for a Mel Brooks reference, and I was feeling a bit creative.
@Robert Westbrook, #65 & #78:
Yes, time on any common user telescope like UKIRT is competitive. My observations were part of my astronomy thesis – I did some of the first IR astrometry measurements using IRCAM3 – the field of view (256×256 with 0.286 seconds of arc per pixel) was just big enough to get both foreground and background stars in carefully selected fields for parallax measurements. My reference observations were of vB 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VB_10 – I’ll need to look up my thesis for how close my parallax was to the published value on Wikipedia from Simbad.
Our target object was this one: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234199479_The_spectrum_of_the_brown_dwarf_candidate_PC00250447, but my measurement uncertainties made my observations of parallax inconclusive.
A facility telescope like UKIRT takes care of things like auto-guiding and more recently adaptive optics (another part of my thesis). With a telescope operator who knows what they are doing on hand, this ensures that visiting observers concentrate on the science measurements. At the time, robot control of telescopes was not mature, so we were observing at the facility at close to 14,000′ elevation. This requires careful preparation and planning of the observations, as the ability to think diminishes substantially through the night due to the effects of altitude.
Nepos and Beatrice, glad I could help!
Erülóra Maikalambe @ 103:
Gad, that sounds an awful time. Best of luck with the kid, I had strep when I was young, and that shit hung on for a very long time.
So now I am confused. (Not a rare thing) What now differentiates the Lounge and the Mended Drum? I know that the Lounge is social, and the Drum is for Off Topic, but are not those the same thing?
Morgan!? #107
The Lounge:
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated
The Mended Drum:
This is The Mended Drum, the thread for off-topic conversations on Pharyngula. Talk about whatever you want.
I’m sure we’ll figure it out.
Eventually.
Morgan @ 107:
Well, for me the Lounge is too, um, sticky sweet. It’s very insider, and it’s a place for support, a place people can talk about very personal stuff. A number of people have recently mentioned that because of the insularity, they don’t feel comfortable in the lounge, so this is a place where people can have off topic conversations and there’s no need to feel as if they have to fit in, in order to talk about something OT now and then.
Short form: I think the Lounge requires an investment on the part of people; the Drum doesn’t.
Taxpayers in the USA fork over about $6.2 billion per year in assistance to Wal-Mart employees who do not earn a living wage.
Wal-Mart can afford to pay a living wage, the owners just choose not to do so. In fact, Wal-Mart cheats the IRS out of about $3.5 billion in taxes every year. That’s more than half of what taxpayers pony up to provide public assistance to Wal-Mart employees. And that’s just the taxes the giant corporation shaves off its bill by hiding money oversees, to say nothing of the company profits per year.
Wal-Mart stashes about $76 billion in assets in offshore tax havens. I guess that does provide a living wage to some accountants and tax lawyers.
An admirable bit of sleuthing and research done by the advocacy group.
Bloomberg Business News link
Lounge: Niceness. No arguing. Sweetness and light. Affirmations. Palsy-walsy stuff. Bonding. Relaxing.
Drum: Anything. Arguments are fine. I FUCKING DESPISE REPUBLICANS. How do Hox genes work? I’m kinda peeved about this other blog. Etc.
Is anyone else having issues with “timing out”?
I’ll go to post a comment, and get a page that says something “timed out”, like I took too long to make my comment.
Just me?
@WMDKitty, #112:
I think I got it too – the preview would not show. I cautiously cut and pasted my comment and was successful when trying again.
PZ @111, you certainly do make the Lounge sound inviting. Assuming one likes large puddles of high-fructose corn syrup and other things sweet enough to make one’s teeth hurt.
Nevertheless, I think I’ll stay there. It’d be a pity to move the pillow fort after I’ve just about got it arranged properly.
Caine</b @ 109
(bolding mine)
I think I’ve been doing it wrong. :/
aaaaand I do bolding wrong too.
Anne, CCL #114
You moved the pillow fort to The Thread Formally Known As The Thunderdome?
Is that a good idea?
chigau
Pillow fight!!!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
chigau @117, no, I’m not moving the pillow fort. It’s staying in the Lounge.
I’m confused about what I can post where though. I think for now I’ll just stay quiet and see how things sort out, because I’d hate to say the wrong thing in the wrong place. Or the right thing in the wrong place. Or whatever. I worry about these things, probably far too often.
Anne, CCL #117
The Lounge is unchanged.
The Mended Drum is like the Thunderdome but the whips and chains and blood gutters are
in storagegone.rorschach @ 465, previous thread:
(I hope this doesn’t count as “sniping”)
I’m not sure how I got in that list, given that I posted several times in that very thread. . .
My free time has dropped precipitously, but I still think of Pharyngula as my “home” blog, for better or for worse. I might someday drop out completely in future due to a bitter argument with someone, or irreconcilable differences with PZ, but that hasn’t happened yet.
I have, recently, been spending a lot of time at File770, and I’ve been very interested in puppy-related drama in SF/F publishing and fandom, but even if I stay away for a while over there, I will probably come back here.
Anne @ 119:
How about thinking of it this way: if you feel something has a wider interest than just for the Lounge, post it here. I hope I didn’t make things worse for you.
Owlmirror, quoting:
I remember the last time Scott Hatfield posted here, and Josh (Spokesgay) was jumping up and down on him, with the occasional side-jump on me, because I didn’t think Scott’s being christian was pertinent in that thread. It was a bit of a mess. Truth Machine was here recently (didn’t go well, but there were specific reasons for that), Sally Strange still comments, but she gets busy elsewhere. Jadehawk and SC drop by now and then. SC was here just a Tdome or two ago. Algernon stopped by not long ago, either. Haven’t seen much of you lately, Owlmirror, but I always notice when you stop by, because your posts are always worth reading.
@Caine, 123:
While I noticed SC and Spokesgay involved in the Recent Unpleasantness, I don’t think Jadehawk had any fights with anyone. A quick google confirms that she was last here (peacefully) in April of this year. I suspect that she’s busy being involved with the Secular Woman organization, which PZ highlighted her posting for.
Caine @122 ( I’m trying to get into the habit of referencing people),
No, actually that helps. I’ll get the hang of the new order of things. I’m just feeling disbrained today.
Caine – no, I don’t think you should have been suspended. I was trying to express that I was unhappy that Rorschach was, given that he was under several complaints from several people at that moment. You’re right that I was violating the order not to talk about him, but I felt uncomfortable being silent when I didn’t agree with the way the whole thing ended. More precisely, I wanted to go tell him that, but felt like a coward if I told him that privately but didn’t express it here too. I was also muddying it with wondering in my head whether “everyone arguing gets a time-out” would be more conducive to keeping such arguments minimized, and I think that garbled what I was saying.
Carlie @ 126:
I understand. While I do think saying I was a sociopath was over the line, I think I would have let it go if it had been up to me, because there’s a persistent belief that I have some sort of serious power here, and I’m going to destroy Pharyngula. That said, I’m the one who decided to make a comment, which in hindsight, was unnecessary and unkind, and I owe an apology to Sven, John, and even Rorschach, who seriously has it in for me. So, I would not feel that my being suspended was unfair.
The thing that tends to startle me the most, and may well be the key thing that scares off lurkers, is the sheer vitriol in some of the arguments here. Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not talking about people responding to slymepitters, MRAs, racists, homophobes, etc.–those people are vile, and I’m all for blasting them.
I’m not really talking about creationists, Ham-bots, and other science-challenged individuals either, because frankly the Horde response to people like that is usually amused disdain more than anything else. Plus, Christians of that ilk tend to enjoy being yelled at, it makes them feel like martyrs.
No, its when people like (name redacted) and (name redacted) went at it in the last, unlamented Thunderdome–that was vicious, vile and unpleasant, and it spilled over into other threads. And it was largely inexplicable to any outsider, since all of the people involved would appear to be “on the same side”. [Yes, yes, I realize that a big part of the fight was whether they were on the same side, but I’m just talking about outside perception.] If these people who are supposedly on the same side, and who often make thoughtful and intelligent comments in other contexts, are metaphorically ripping each other apart, what would they do to little ol’ lurkers like me?
Just a random thought, as I puzzle through the sociological dynamics at play. It’s fascinating, really, because Pharyngula stands midway between heavily moderated sites (like Making Light or Whatever) and the almost completely un-moderated sites.
It doesn’t really matter that much, and in fact I think I saw a review on Amazon or somewhere who thinks it’s better to read Flood first. They cover the same time span but mostly different characters, after all. O&C goes into a few more specifics on the great cataclysm, but not much that can’t be gleaned from Flood.
(just got finished reading Flood, which was a bit of a slog for the first third or so, but better by the end)
Hey, just popping in so I can say hello in this new thread, all shiny and chrome. Can’t stay long, as I have to get to sleep soon, and FUCK ME, does life take every minute of every day so that I don’t have time to come and visit some of my favorite folks?
Sure seems that way.
But hello, and good-night, and I hope to see you all soon, and maybe I can come back later.
Caine, #127:
Caine, Shiva of Pharyngula.
Not that I saw what happened, since I’ve only been peeking in (and never Thunderdome, for fuck’s sake). So I’m not commenting on anything other than the quoted bit.
Really, I think I prefer “Cain the Destroyer.” Or maybe, “Imperator Caine.”
Avo:
*Snort* What, I can’t be Caine the Barbarian, a la Cohen? I have missed you so much! Hugs and hugs and hugs, and I hope you aren’t away for long.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/06/18/transracial-adoption-rachel-dolezal-sot-ac.cnn
THAT’S MY BABY SISTER ON ANDERSON COOPER!
Homophonically, reference to the fantasy Kane would analogically inapposite.
Fuck! There’s been a shooting in South Carolina near a church:
More awful news:
AL city suspends police officers for being members of white supremacist group
Tony!
This should be in the white people thread, too.
Sorry.
You already know that.
I do! For how can one be an effective ‘peace’ officer, or even an effective agent of the law, if one is against some of the most basic and important laws? How can one effectively police, if automatically a large percentage of the population is ‘lesser’, if not actively criminals, in one’s mind?
This mindset, this view that people in positions of legal authority, that people who apparently are allowed to kill me, to kill anyone, because they felt ‘scared’, should be allowed to be part of such organisations as if that won’t color their attitudes on the job is beyond boggling. How can one rationalize it?
The answer being, of course, that the people in power are perfectly fine with that. People of color aren’t ‘people’, apparently. Women aren’t people. Trans men and women aren’t people. Anyone not white, not male, not straight, not wealthy, is simply not an entire person.
And then the cops have the audacity to decry the negative attitude we have towards them. As if it isn’t totally their fault. How dare we various non-peoples criticize them!
Fuck you Brian Johnson and the sparkling white privilege you rode in on.
Caine
I’ll still think of you as Spike, if you don’t mind.
Anyway cheers to everyone in the new digs.
John Morales #135
If we’re going for similarity of name, there’s this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwai_Chang_Caine
…
I didn’t remember the spelling of the character’s name until just now.
…
I now know all of the problems with that TV show but at the time…
I loved and never missed it.
The sibling and I watched every week and giggled at all the slo-mo.
To this day, we refer to David as Kwai Chang Carradine.
Wholly shit!
William Shatner was in an episode!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0623146/
John:
I don’t have icy blue eyes. Or the mark of a fucked up god. (At least I don’t think so…)
Lofty:
That’s fine. You can even call me Spike. :D
Chigau:
:Laughs: That’s actually where my nym comes from. Way back in the days of usenet, I mentioned to Mister that I hadn’t come up with a nym yet. He was in the middle of a marathon of a show he loved, grinned, and said, what about Caine? The rest is history.
Caine
I should have figured it out.
Please give Mister a big hug from me.
WMDKitty:
Exciting! I’m sorry I can’t watch, my wireless is not being video cooperative.
Chigau:
I shall do so. Thanks for bringing it up, because I’m now thinking that getting him the series on DVD or Blu-Ray would make this Xmas a very happy one.
Caine
I have put in a similar request to Sibling (who is in charge of Xmas video acquiring).
Caine (#144), true; to be more specific, inapposite because Kane is amoral, not because of circumstances. Or: I make you to be antithetical to amorality.
(Conan, unlike Kane, is moral, but his morality is indistinguishable from amorality unless one groks Crom)
</geek>
Well, it turns out I’ve been misunderstanding the purpose of the Lounge all along. I thought it was about sharing wider interests (even about contentious topics) and not just personal anecdotes and support. Now it turns out that all that ‘wider interest’ stuff doesn’t adhere to the ‘narrow interests’ of the Lounge, and should be posted elsewhere.
I’m so confused!
Speaking of comics, here is someone I’ve found:
Amazing Screw-On Head
Too bad it wasn’t picked up by the network. It seems infinitely better than most comic book stories.
rq #150
Winnie the Pooh always makes me think of this.
Beatrice@82 and rq@86-9,
I’ve read all three of the Oryx and Crake trilogy – and my feelings are distinctly mixed. I’ve read quite a lot of Atwood, and I think these three are my least favourite, apart from The Blind Assassin, which I couldn’t get into at all. The Penelopiad, Lady Oracle, Moral Disorder, The Robber Bride – all excellent, and The Handmaid’s Tale brilliant. In the trilogy I thought some of the major strands – like the blue people – were a distraction, and in Madaddam there seemed to me disturbing hints of approval for what Crake had done. Atwood’s rather snobby attitude to science fiction: “Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians.” is also a bit off-putting. Has she never read Le Guin? Kim Stanley Robinson> Octavia Butler?
Re: transracial
I haz a question
Is there a term for biracial children who have no contact whatsoever with on side of their cultural heritage?
Around here, a common thing is that a US soldier and a German woman get married, have children and then get divorced, often when his time here is up and they notice that fuck, they need to decide where to make their lives and neither of them is equipped to live in the other one’s country. Usually the father moves back to the USA. Some of them are black and now there are biracial children with a white mother who is often not even aware that there is an issue and no contact to other African Americans.
Prezactly. I comment in the Lounge now and then, but don’t put in the time needed to feel truly “at home” there. I’m lucky enough not to need online support, and if I did, the fact that I use my real name here would be rather inhibiting. So if the Mended Drum can fulfill the OT (or better, FT – Free Topic) role, while helping us all be sweeter, kinder people – great (even though I’m not a Pratchett fan :-p).
Giliell @154 — I don’t know, that’s a good question. Would you mind if I passed it on to my sister?
The day before yesterday I saw the most extraordinary flying beast on my balcony here in Turin. It was flitting from flower to flower, so through the window I thought it was some kind of bee native to these parts. But when I opened the doors and stepped out, I saw a hummingbird! Well I didn’t, of course, but even though I knew it couldn’t be, the impression that it couldn’t be anything else was very difficult to shake: long slender curved “beak” dipping into blossoms as it hovered, wings moving so fast they were a blur… It was a hummingbird hawk moth. Apparently they do occur in Britain in summer, but I’ve certainly never seen one there.
Nick Gotts
re: hummingbird hawk moth
I saw one once, when I was very little, and for years (because I wasn’t sure what I had seen) I thought I’d seen an alien fairy. Seriously. Later, I thought I’d just been seeing things, because I thought I saw a little bird with glass wings and four insect legs, and that couldn’t be possible. It was only a couple of years ago (thank you, internet!) that I discovered what I had seen, and the four-legged impression was due to the way the hawk moth sometimes tucks up two of its legs while hovering. I was very relieved, but sad there are no alien fairies.
WMK Kitty
Of course not, thank you!
Hummingbird Hawk Moth
That’S seriously a much cooler name than German “Swallow Tail”
We used to get them at my parents when my mother had planted pelargonium in front of the windows
Giliell — Will do!
I’m absolutely terrified of moths. In general, I like bugs. I fucking hate moths. My response to seeing them (aside from shriek and run away) is becoming nauseous and my chest tightening with anxiety. Hummingbird moths are just everything I hate about the moths I usually encounter but bigger and grosser. I have encountered one in my life. It was on the outside of the sliding glass door so it couldn’t get to me but just being able to see it so close was incredibly distressing. I fucking hate those things. I actually feel pretty panicked and sick just from talking about them.
I have to stop. No more moth talk for me.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/16/pope-encyclical-value-of-living-world
Other than that, the author is trying to argue that atheists can’t appreciate nature for its own sake. T_T
Wait, what?
Were not the ones who need some extra magical mumbo-jumbo to appreciate a sunset.
Giliell @ 163, Yeah, really. I mean, one of the many reasons I am an atheist is that I think the beauty of the cosmos is even better if it happened according to scientific principles, not because some god willed it into being–how marvelous that the sunset is the photons emitted from a huge nuclear furnace in space, as seen through the molecules in our atmosphere. Science is so darn cool.
I know that I should never, ever, drop a comment with a link that I know, I KNOW!, has the probability of annoying someone. But: Not-so-guilty pleasure: Viewing cat videos boosts energy and positive emotions, IU study finds.
Sorry, PZed. I had to.
I have always loved nature, I appreciate it every day as I try to get my garden in for the year and battle the slugs, and mosquitoes, and the black ants, and the four-lined plant bugs, and thrip, and …… Just this week I found a newly emerged Cecropia moth drying its wings in my raspberry patch, and am thrilled that a pair of catbirds has deemed my yard suitable nesting habitat.
And to appeaze PZed: possible new species of octopus.
I have this feeling that fluffy bunny videos and puppy videos would probably have the same effect…
Giliell,
Didn’t know that and now I’m curious, how do you call Swallowtail butterflies?
Nightjar
You couldn’t because I just mixed up my birds. Sorry, my fault.
The Swallotail butterfly is indeed a Swallowtail.
The Hummingbird Hawk is a Little Dovetail (or pigeontail, I don’t know which version German zoologists had in mind)
Nature gives me trees, trees give me roots, stumps, fallen logs, and glorious singletrack.
Charleston shooting. Don’t know what to say. I’m starting to get numb to this stuff, which can’t be good.
From the BBC on the Charleston terrorist murders:
The shooting prompted angry protests and highlighted racial tension in the city. The officer has since been charged with murder.
Martha:
Just found out about this. Holy shit.
Cue the ‘it was an isolated incident that has nothing to do with gun culture, it is not terrorism because [fill in the blank], we need more guns so this will not happen, he was crazy so we don’t have to look at society, this was the liberal’s/Obama’s/victim’s/atheist’s/abortion doctor’s/secularist’s fault’ from the national media, the older-conservative-white-rich-man-talking-head, and any conservative who wants to make money or get votes.
I’m starting to get numb to it also, but at the same time, I have gotten so cynical about just how this type of shit will be used.
Please, United States, can we actually have a serious discussion about gun violence now?
Latest news is that they’ve caught the Charleston shooter. More coming up on the Lookitall the White People thread.
And with 9 people dead, the state senator is the only one whose name has been released. One woman was spared so ‘she could tell the world about what happened’. One child played dead to survive.
No one is calling him a terrorist yet, and because he’s 21 and white, I have doubts they’ll even call him an adult.
Ogvorbis
Not just gun violence, but racism, too (esp. in this case).
His motives were pretty clear.
Na, not a terorist. Lone wolf, snapped, mentally ill probably.
There will be no world leaders pouring to Charlston, no #jesuischarlston.
“We” can only be white people murdered by brown people. “We” cannot be black people murdered by white people.
But I’ve herad they’re flying the confederate flag halfmast.
Most five-year-olds that I know react to stress by crying and lashing out.
What do you need to do to teach one to play dead?
(rhetorical. I think I know.)
Giliell @117
See? This is why I love reading your comments.
rq @176:
No question on the racism. My bad that I missed that. My point was that this will be spun as a lone-wolf, disconnected from society, a total annomaly, and no, we do not need to actually look at any part of society. Just move along, folks.
I am glad to see that DOJ is opening a civil rights investigation. Or at least appears heading in that direction.
chigau
I don’t think I want to know. :/
Giliell
Well, right now they’re going for ‘mental illness’, I think, possibly ‘atheist’, and ‘motives unclear’. Do I get a bingo? Anyone?
The governor’s been caught on tape crying, but she sees nothing wrong in flying the confederate flag in the first place.
Ogvorbis
No word from the DOJ as far as I can see, yet. I hope there will be an investigation. It’s the least that can be done.
rq #183:
I saw a throw-away sentence in one of the CNN articles. Now I cannot find it. So never mind about DOJ. I must have screwed it up or misread.
Nick @ 157:
We have those here! I followed one once for most of a day, got all of one photo. Gorgeous beings, those.
Ogvorbis @185:
Actually, I think you’re correct about the DOJ-
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/18/obama-on-charleston-ive-had-to-make-statements-like-this-too-many-times
He also talks about gun violence and ooh boy I’m sure that’s got gun activists fired up:
Tethys:
Oh, nice! Every now and then, I get a Eumorpha achemon in the grapes. The closest I’ve come to a catbird is while canoeing at Sweetbriar, hearing a meeowwww coming from high up in the trees. Never have managed a photo, I don’t have big enough glass for such a distance.
@154 – Giliel
In Britain, you hear the terms white culture and black culture, though there are less polite terms as well. I’ve known a lot of biracial and even black children (often adopted) who are culturally white, especially in rural areas, and some white kids in cities whose peer groups are mostly black and culturally, so are they. I’m told it’s increasingly common for biracial people to identify as biracial on the census and forms. We’re asked to identify our ethnicity very often in Britain – in France it is forbidden. How about you?
One thing to remember is that we in Europe don’t necessarily have to follow American models on this one. It might turn out they don’t actually have it all figured out for the best, and in any case, we have different contexts, different and rapidly evolving demographics… Nor do we have to decide all at once. I expect Germany will collectively figure out what terms it needs as it goes along, and possibly change them every generation for quite a while.
So… link dumps are supposed to go here rather than in the Lounge? In that case… I haven’t had time to catch up with this subthread or its predecessor (that’ll have to wait for the weekend), but I made the mistake of opening a Daily Kos e-mail, and now I have way too many tabs open.
Gallery of ASCII art! One cheats with color; another is from the “typewriter newspaper” of 1898.
This German article about the negotiations around the Greek crisis mentions near the end that the EU Commission has publicly talked about the Greek defense budget and sees “wiggle room for a reduction”. In 2013, the Greek defense budget amounted to 2.3 % of the economy; in the EU, only the UK surpasses this (2.4 %). Germany, for example, is at 1.3 %.
“Sneak Attack on Net Neutrality Picks Up Steam in the House”
“The anti-Net Neutrality provisions — buried deep within this 158-page bill — would strip the FCC of the money it needs to enforce its open Internet protections. The provisions would also prevent the rules from remaining in effect until after the court cases challenging them have been decided — a process that could take years.” “Call Congress before it is too late” (link provided).
“Sign the petition: Raise New York’s minimum wage to $15/hour”
“Meet Jerry Hartfield. A judge overturned his conviction 35 years ago. He’s still in prison, waiting.” Three potentially relevant facts: 1) the prosecutors want to try him again, at some point, for some reason, under the assumption that any evidence is left; 2) this is Texas we’re talking about; 3) he’s black.
“Global Temperatures Soaring: 2015 starts off the top of the chart & El Niño is just warming up”
“Global temperatures for January through May 2015 went off the top off NASA’s chart.” Also features Jeb and the Pope.
More to come, I can only put 6 links in a comment without burdening the Poopyhead.
Rich Californians refuse to conserve water and prefer to talk about cold, dead hands.
Partially outdated (updates at the bottom of the article), but still chilling: the Dominican Republic has deprived some 250,000 people of their citizenship “born after 1929 to parents who are not of Dominican ancestry”, specifically of Haitian ancestry, and wanted to dump them all on Haiti. Don’t imagine the humanitarian catastrophe. Try not to imagine the sheer amount of xenophobia + racism.
Cartoon: “Defending the indefensible” on TV
“Rep. Darrell Issa tries to crash House Benghazi meeting, gets kicked out”
“For the record, the meeting he tried to crash was a closed-door deposition by longtime Hillary Clinton adviser Sydney Blumenthal, who no doubt was intimately involved in something-something Hillary Clinton’s fault. So you can see why Issa is so peeved he’s not allowed to listen in on this key testimony.”
“Paul Ryan called out twice in one week for misinforming. This time by Fox News”
“Chris Wallace then called out Paul Ryan for continuously referring to Obamacare as busted or failed. He pointed out that over sixteen million uninsured Americans benefited from Obamacare. Over 129 million Americans with preexisting conditions are now protected. He also pointed out that healthcare costs had risen at the slowest rate in 50 years.
Ryan simply continued spinning Obamacare lies. Chris Wallace was not buying it.”
One more…
“DNC Statement on Donald Trump 2016 Announcement”
“Today, Donald Trump became the second major Republican candidate to announce for president in two days. He adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward to hearing more about his ideas for the nation.”
“Trump—what the village idiot says about the village“: that’s all mainstream Republicanism what he’s saying, he’s just clumsy about putting it into words.
Trump WrestleMania video and animated gif:
“America’s most unscripted tough guy enters the race.”
“Flashback time! Now that The Donald is in, let’s get a preview of how he might manage ISIS and other threats to America and the free world. This is serious presidential material right here.”
Karl Rove calling Trump a “complete idiot” and “a complete moron”. Remember: this is the guy who worked with Incurious George!
Petition: “Don’t take their money.”
“[…] even though the Koch brothers’ efforts are clearly out of step with Catholic social teaching, the Catholic University of America just announced a million dollar donation from Charles Koch to their business and economics school.
The Koch brothers’ past donations to universities have come with strings attached — Charles Koch used a similar donation to veto most of the professors another university wanted to hire with his donation.
Catholic University needs to put Pope Francis’ vision of a church for the poor ahead of the Koch brothers’ radical agenda.”
Caine #188, following from Thetys
Well, adult Urania leilus are making up in here. Not moths but often getting to lights at night…
Just put in an order for $32.00 worth of more embroidery thread. This current quilt I’m working on is going to cost me a bloody fortune.
Okidemia:
Ohhhh, how lovely. It’s been constant rain here, so not much on the insect activity, excepting mosquitoes.
Eeeeeeeeeee, baby girl! (Baby Hairy Woodpecker, first time I’ve been able to get shots.)
Pen:
Over in PZ’s thread about the Charleston shooting, you left this comment:
Can you enlighten me as to how people view the Confederate flag over in Britain (that is, if you know)? I live in Florida, so I’m only familiar with how it’s viewed in the US.
CaineSpikeShe looks like she’s trying to think of a worm joke she’s not been told yet by her dad.
over at “about.com” I just read this sentence:
The dumb. It hurts.
Tony @197
Well, it would be hard to generalize. I am French and British. I arrived in Britain as an adolescent in a completely white area. Some kids painted the Confederate flag on their backpacks and I am about 99.9% certain that they knew nothing about the history of the American South or its racism… or race, in most cases. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a) they couldn’t find the US on a map. b) they had never met a person who wasn’t white. But America has this cultural aura and impact around the world. I would say the confederate flag functioned as a piece of Americana, like US license plates.
That it’s doing the same thing at a funfair in a multiracial neighborhood made me feel more uncomfortable (but only because I know what Americans take the symbol to mean). It has to be said that there are very few Americans here, of any race. I can vouch for the ignorance of most of the British born population on American history. But anyway, half the white people in this neighborhood aren’t British or native English speakers. Two thirds of the black people are African or of African heritage, the rest are Afro-Caribbean. South Asians are the largest demographic by a pinch. Really, if I have to find an answer to your question ‘How is the Confederate flag perceived,’ I would have to say ‘it isn’t?’ Do you see what I mean?
Lofty:
:D They are adorable at this point. They understand gripping the tree, and they place their beak against it a few times, so softly, then just ponder the tree again. A parent generally shows up by then, to give them a bit of food, and to keep teaching them how to handle this tree / feeding yourself business.
marinerachel @ 161:
The closest I can come to this is how fucking terrified of bees I was when I was young, because I have an severe allergy if stung (anaphylactic). Given how common moths are, that must make things difficult for you. (I know when I was young, doing anything outside in summer was an exercise in terror and screaming too much of the time, given that bees have always been very attracted to me.)
Fuck.
I just found out a close friend of mine died.
My condolences WMDKitty.
It happens to those of us with advanced youth.
It was sudden and unexpected, but at least (it looks like) he went peacefully in his sleep.
Right now I’m just trying to process the news.
WMDKitty @203:
Fuck. I’m so sorry to hear that. My deepest sympathies.
WMDKitty, I’m sorry for your loss.
WMDKitty, I am so sorry. That is the very worst sort of news. Sympathies to you and his other friends and his family.
I can post multiple links in here?
I just realized that I’ve seen people do that in the Lounge and at other times I wished I could make a link dump.
Sometimes I can be really selectively dense…:P
I’m sorry to hear that WMDkitty. My condolences. I hope that everything goes as best as it can.
Brony @209:
You can post up to 6 links per comment. More than that, and your comment will go into moderation.
WMDkitty
Headbonks
PZ:
Sadly, no longer surprising.
Caine:
Please. You should know perfectly well by now that I (and I speak for no one but myself) share rorschach’s and Sven’s views generally on this subject. Indeed, the recent comments to which you refer were fairly explicit in that regard. But for rare, ill-advised appearances, I have left, for reasons I believe I’ve made abundantly clear, as, again, you should know perfectly well by now.
WMDKitty
You have my sympathy.
and for all your friend’s family and friends.
On a Kwai Chang Carradine note:
Sibling has informed me that this might be part of my Xmas gift … and other things.
What is an appropriate gift for someone who has just been diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes and has had a toe removed?
I know the conversation has moved on a bit, but hopefully PZ will spend a great deal of time explaining suspensions when he announces new rules. Also hopefully, people here will understand that PZ is putting in a new system and it’s going to take some tuning for him to get it right (by which I mean, achieves his goals of universal domination). Finally, thread-based suspension might be more useful than Pharyngula-wide suspension (a spiraling situation on thread does not necessarily mean a spiraling situation on another).
@ Caine, with h/t to Avo, also nigelTheBold:
You are lacking a sobriquet. Caine, Minion of Shiva, Destroyer of Blogs has a certain cachet. :)
@ WMDKitty: Fuck. I’m sorry. :( My condolences. I never know what to say when death happens, but hopefully the good times and memories will be with you always.
My condolences, WMDKitty
WMDKitty
:( My sympathies.
*headbonks*
Giliell (waaaay back at 154)
Angela said:
I don’t know if that really answers the question, but I think it’s a good starting point for getting more information.
WMDKitty #203
Please accept my sympathy.
__________________________
David Marjanović #446 (previous thread)
O yes, but the irony is lost on her feeble mind (she is known as one of the dumbest politicians here, but not the dumbest – that title is reserved for one MP whose lawyer’s official defense in court was that the MP was too dumb to commit the crime).
But others are even worse, since they delight in the parallels:
There is a reason why Judeonazi is a proper word in these parts.
1. You keep ignoring all the other reasons people have given you, among which (this is not the full list by any means) are time limits that prevent people from reading the entire thread, new commenters who have a difficulty discerning where a particular argument has started and technical limitations.
For example, I took this long to reply to you because when I was glancing over the comments (I try to read everything, but sometimes I need to put a thread in my backlog) I saw you use John Morales’ name and thought the comment was addressed to him.
2. The second situation isn’t on their minds, their minds ARE the second situation. Many people will pay more attention to a particular piece if they think they are the ones addressed, which could save a lot of time on everyone’s part at the expense of a tiny investment on your (and mine, and everybody’s) part.
Yes, apparently some atheist thought that this was a good idea. And when women feel not welcomed because they’re seen as things that need hiding, since they’re clearly not interpellated by this, it’s cause they’re lacking thinky genes.
Pen
Yes, that’s about the same as here. It’s seen as part of the USA, like stars and stripes and bald headed eagles and hamburgers. Part of US culture. I don’t even blame those kids (and quite a few adults). They’re simply ignorant. It’s a powerful statement of the proliferation of racism in the USA, not so much a statement about the rest of the world. Not that I think anybody should display it…
WMD Kitty
My condolences
Thanks for the link, though this doesn’t quite fit the case. There’s probably no term for it since I guess most people aren’t even aware that this is a problem…
From the annals of casual sexism (aka, this book I’m reading, published 2014, on how to write a play)
Those are the (female) options folks.
Apparently women never ever think about the weather when choosing what to wear.
Giliel, silly. Think of the weather? No, it’s all about how I feel on the inside. The external world does not influence me or my choices one whit!
rq, Giliell and Pen Pshaw. Everyone knows that women only choose what to wear based on what they want to signal regarding their availability for sex. Concealing clothes? Her self-esteem is too low to feel that she can announce she is looking for sex. Revealing clothes? She is signaling her availability for sex. No matter which way you spin it, women’s clothing choices are all about saying “I’m here to fulfill your need for sex”. Didn’t you get that memo?
Gen
I must’ve missed that one. And no, I’m not digging through the recycling to find it.
What does sitting around in your undies while being alone at home mean? No guys there so no need to get dressed?
Can I get a couple of opinions? I am working on a blog post about how I see racial pejoratives used in a social context and I realized that I need to split it into two posts.
The first post has to deal with how I see social emotions structured and functionally used (which I will use to get into some general group psychology, how it relates to the use of logical fallacies, and how people act strategically when conflicting socially). First question, I’m trying to use some simple symbols for behavioral logic. Are these were fairly understandable (or if there are better ones) and easy to pick up and use? Or is there a better choice?
(+) = positive, feels good/satisfying
(-) = negative feels bad/threatening
(>*) = approach/fight
(<*) = withdraw/flight
just to complete the set for the future
(~) = pause/freeze
The second post is where I'm going to use the model of social emotions that I'm presenting to get into some things involving the social use of racial pejoratives. In the process I'm going to introduce a spectrum from conscious racism that is a source of role-modeled behavior, to unconscious racism that we all share. I'm calling the conscious stereotype "alpha racists/racism" and the unconscious stereotype "beta racists/racism". Are there any problems with that terminology?
Brony @228
I don’t like alpha racist and beta racist much. I’d prefer words that say something about the type of racism rather than how serious (?) effective (?) it’s supposed to be. What about casual racism (hasn’t thought it through, is repeating a cliche on automatic, thinks its witty), and active or overt or hostile racism (is deliberately campaigning in favor of racist ideas). There’s also ‘lost my rag and used every verbal weapon I’ve ever heard, whether I subscribe to it or not’ racism. That one should have a different name.
I would save unconscious racism for people who are clearly influenced by the racial context but are so unaware of the fact themselves that they don’t give explicit signals. So in your system of social emotions, calling someone ‘aggressive’ and believing it, but it really isn’t true.
@Pen 229
I was a little unclear in how the two posts connected and I think I need to clear that up, but I’m taking your issue about the names seriously. You are right about there being more diversity in conscious and unconscious racists that is worth talking about.
The posts are not as directly related as they once were. The subject of the racial pejoratives post is mostly about areas of tension like how I see some people complain that black people use the n-word (with the implicit and sometimes explicit complaint of “Why can’t I use it too? It’s not fair!”). There are interesting patterns in how such words are used and I wanted to talk about them. Why it’s important that they words exist, the racial group they apply to should get to use them, and why the dominant racial group can’t use them. The post is about one level more abstract than direct conflict between two people.
The content on the social emotions ended up getting too complex for that post because there is a lot more that I see in how people use social emotions when they conflict with words. So I ended up making that a general post that could be applied to lots of things.
My purpose in choosing “alpha racist” and “beta racist” was going to include a discussion on how the term “alpha” is pretty much abused all over the place. It’s mostly used as “a person who dominates everyone around them”. But an “alpha” is context specific (you can be an alpha programmer, soccer player, librarian…) and includes a role as caretaker of a group. That gets into the idea about conscious racists actually role-modeling and propagating racist behavior. “Beta-racists” include everyone in one context or another. The term should not be used without the person using it realizing that it applies to them too. The idea would be for it to be somewhat subversive, but I asked around here because I had some concerns of my own (people using beta-racist and not realizing it should include themselves for example).
I’ll think about the examples you mentioned. There should be names descriptive of how the racism works, I’m just hoping for something catchier and in current social use (like alpha and beta).
Tony,
Thanks for the heads up on Furiosa #1. I just called and put the last copy at the local comic shop on hold for my husband for Father’s Day.
*shifty eyes*
Yes, for him. Just for him. That’s what it is.
Caine #132:
I’m pretty sure you can be anything you want. I know I wouldn’t argue.
Me too, you! I’ve missed having time to hang out. I try to skim once in a while, but I haven’t had much time to participate.
I’m hoping that changes.
This is where random linkspam now goes? okay…
Serious warning on the new Furiosa comic. It’s everything hateful that they *didn’t* do in the movie. Extensive review by Ana Mardoll, including images, at Shakesville
When I go camping, I choose clothes that are comfortable in a wide range of temperatures, and that protect me from adverse weather. I wear boots that protect me from cactus spines or other foot/lower leg threats. I choose footwear based on the terrain I will encounter. I wear pants that let me walk through various kinds of brushy stuff without snagging or letting the thorns through to my skin. I wear a hat that protects me from high altitude sun and that doesn’t blow off in the slightest breeze.
At home, I choose clothes for comfort and for ease of care (must be washable, etc.)
I do not choose clothes to advertise my sexual availability, or non-availability.
Last time I looked, I’m still a woman despite the fact that I don’t choose my wardrobe based on the male gaze.
@Brony #230 – That makes it a little clearer where you’re going. It’ll be interesting to see where you go with it.
I was possibly quite quaintly shocked when I was in the US and a black guy started using the n-word while he was in a conversation with me, mostly to talk about himself (in the third person, whatever…) Is that really considered a proper way of doing things: he stands there saying ‘n-word’ whenever he means ‘black’ while I remember to say ‘African-American’ throughout? Would anyone expect to maintain that throughout a long-term relationship? Or was it an unusual circumstance in the first place?
Pen 235
Basically, yes.
@236 – Dalillama – hmmm, the American terms of debate again. No, it’s not that I want to use the n-word. It’s that I’d like other people not to use it when they’re talking to me. Sorry, I actually kind of assumed that was self-evident. Ok, a) it’s not my country, b) I can always leave a conversation I don’t want to be in.
So you really don’t have boundaries around that kind of thing, huh? Your link doesn’t explain why not, so I’m going to have to assume… I don’t know what to assume, actually.
Pen,
You asked, based on an inte
Pen:
One thing to remember about the N-word is that when it’s used by white people, it’s a reminder to blacks of the history of the term. A history of oppression, discrimination, brutality, and dehumanization. It’s a reminder to “know your place”.
But the word itself isn’t evil. It depends on the context. When black people call one another the N-word (or refer to themselves that way) it’s more about reclaiming the word and empowering themselves. There’s no power dynamic going on there whereby black people can oppress, discriminate, brutalize, or dehumanize each other (not in ways that come close to approximating the power dynamic set up by white supremacy).
Certainly blacks can internalize racism (and we do). But they cannot do much more than that. All the racism in this country-from the individual examples we see all the damn time to the larger, more structural examples like racist policing practices such as Stop & Frisk or Broken Window, to the mass incarceration of African-Americans, to the more subtle forms of racism, like racial disparities in sentencing or implicit racial bias-comes from white people and white supremacist ideology and practices. It is that position of power over black people that provides the racist foundations of the N-word. Remove that, and it’s a word without much power. At least that’s how I view the term.
That said, I don’t like the word. I don’t use it. To me, it’s still too powerfully connected to white supremacy to be effectively reclaimed. It’s still used far too much. It’s not like terms like idiot or moron, which are (arguably) distanced far enough from their original uses to be reclaimed as words that are not slurs against people with mental disabilities. The N-word is still in use today (I just read a story somewhere about some white guy up in the north US who used the word to black people). It hasn’t lost that racist baggage and probably won’t anytime soon.
There are similarities between black people using the N-word and LGBT people using the term queer as an umbrella term. I actually like the word queer, bc it’s not difficult to use it in conversation with someone. I remember listening to a speech from Hillary Clinton when she spoke before the U.N. (I think; memory may be hazy) in support of worldwide LGBT rights. She used the acronym, but in speech, it’s very clunky and her use of it multiple times just stood out to me. I thought that ‘queer’ would have worked better. But I know that other LGBT people disagree-for many of the same reasons I disagree with blacks using the N-word. ‘Queer’ as an insult is still around and used by regularly used by homophobes.
****
Brony:
I thought this link might help you in figuring out how to discuss racism-
http://sociology.about.com/od/R_Index/fl/Racism.htm
Pen
(no computer right now, hence formatting)
You asked, based on an interaction you had with an American, in the U.S, how things are in the U.S. relating to the use of that term. Why are you complaining that I gave you a link to a discussion of the use of that word in a U.S. context?
Here is an informative post on the N-word and who can use it, who cannot, and why. As well as the different meanings inherent when different groups of people use the term. It’s a blog post from 2010 by Luvell Anderson
Prosthetic hands made smaller, now to fit the rest of the population.
Bugger, try again
Prosthetic hands made smaller, now to fit the rest of the population.
One might consider that African American youth culture took up “nigga” as a self-designation precisely because it’s offputting to many white people (among other reasons). Not saying I approve or that I can say whether such a term can be “effectively reclaimed” in Tony’s words, more like saying nobody should really give a damn whether or not I approve or consider the term effectively reclaimed. (I am white, to be clear)
re: N*gg*r
I use it in precisely one situation: discussion (academic or otherwise) of the term itself because it’s hard to discuss something without referencing and defining the thing itself. Otherwise you end up tap-dancing around this vaguely-defined Bad Thing without being able to get into the history of the word or why it’s now considered a Bad Thing. (Same with other slurs, by the way. I may not like them, but I believe that being able to discuss them, in order to educate others, is a good thing.)
Using it as a slur? Completely out of the question.
(And yes, I’ll admit I kinda side-eye black people who use that particular word. I get the concept of reclaiming the word and thus, the power of the word, but given the long and, ah, colorful history of this word, I’m not sure it’s possible to reclaim it the way we’ve done with “queer”.)
@ Dalilama and Tony – guys, I am listening to you but you keep telling me white people can’t use the n-word, which is agreed and is absolutely not the point.
I’m going to try once more and then I’ll drop it. To me it’s a normal expectation of all conversations that it’s a shared space and people will gravitate towards shared terms. Before long, an American and a British elevator mechanic in the same room are either talking about lifts or elevators, but not both at the same time. Also, in a conversation, the terms used will gravitate towards the highest level of formality expected of any person present. If a student is expected to call a teacher Mr Smith, a different teacher who is used to calling Mr Smith ‘Brian’, will nevertheless use ‘Mr Smith’ in conversation with that student.
Based on that, my expectation is that conversations about race would follow these rules and that black people would choose some commonly acceptable word like ‘black’ when they’re discussing racial issues with white people (not necessarily at all other times). I’m wondering why they would deliberately choose not to do so (not whether they can or why they can or what it means), It looks to me like that choice would function to express and/or maintain racial divisions and maybe that is the reason? But I’m also prepared to hear that the particular person I was talking to was a bit socially challenged. Or that you think my ‘normal’ expectations of conversations in general don’t apply in the US anyway.
Pen:
I guess I’m not going to have any answer for you, bc I really don’t understand what you’re asking. I thought you were asking why some black people felt like using the N-word was acceptable, so I answered that. I also covered other material I thought might be relevant to that subject. But I guess I was wrong. Maybe someone else can figure out what it is you’re inquiring about, bc I’m lost.
@ Tony!, WMDKitty:
Both of you have brought up queer, but perhaps a better example would be f*g? That’s very much a pejorative still in use, with some people attempting to reclaim it. Queer just seems… reclaimed*. :) Just a thought that came to me reading these comments.
As to the N-word itself, the question I always end up asking my fellow white dudes (and my experience has been it’s-always-dudes) who care about this is why in hell do you want to use the word**? You know you’re just going to look like a jerk, and protestations about the Black Linguist Cabal just make you look even worse.
* Outside of homophobic assholes who haven’t gotten the memo that trying to insult someone by calling them queer is like walking up to a stranger and loudly telling them they’re a duck. You’ll get a raised eyebrow and a shake of the head at best — it’s just confusing! On the other hand, I’m an SF Bay Area native. My perspective is probably just a wee bit skewed, and I’ll preemptively concede the point to anybody who lives in an area where disco recently went out of style.
Ignore that **. I had nothing else to say there.
Ok, having reread what you’ve said, I *think* I have some idea of what you’re asking, Pen.
I think it comes down to the choices people make when using words. Some people use the word ‘n*gga’ bc that’s simply the word they use to describe themselves. If that’s how they identify, why should they change the terminology for others’ benefit?
Come to think of it, if I’m accurate in understanding you, it reminds me of a conversation I had several times with a co-worker a few years back. Not only could he not understand why I’d refer to myself as a F*G, he told me “you can’t do that”. I kept telling him that I can, indeed do that, because I’m referring to myself. I can identify however I want. His problems with the word were his problem. I do not have such a problem. He never was able to understand the idea of minority groups reclaiming words to self-identify.
I think perhaps you’re expecting the wrong things in a conversation.
Pen @ #246:
Let me take a stab at this, with the caveat that I am an old white woman with an interest in language. I believe you’ve answered your own question. The common behavior in your country is to choose some commonly acceptable word. I do not believe such is the process here. You stated:
In general, all interaction between races in the U.S. is war – either subtle or overt. ( I know, no generalization is worth a damn, including this one.) Most people in this benighted country believe that racism is a black problem, to be somehow solved by blacks. Of course this is not true. Racism in this country is the white person’s problem, and it is ours to fix.
In such an atmosphere, African-Americans using the n-word in conversation with whites is a subtle but powerful reclaiming of their personal power and I do not fault them for it in the least. They are not trying to perpetuate racism, they I believe they are simply reclaiming their personhood. I hope this makes some sense.
Winds are up to 50mph, the thunder grumbling is way beyond loud, the rain is hitting, hard, and several tree branches have cracked and broken already. This sure as hell doesn’t feel like June. I’m gonna go hide in bed.
Caine, please send your storm to California.
I just bought this Chris Hadfield book. It’s very pretty.*
It’s a tree book and I got it almost entirely on points and a gift-card.
.
.
.
*huge understatement
@pen 235
Short version, I tend to look at language based on what the emotion is doing during it’s functional use as social evolution continues. I’m interested in seeing if anyone thinks what I think I’m seeing makes sense. If anything it’s something I’m trying to get better at.
In addition to what racial pejoratives mean to different groups I try to notice how and why they get used. Looking at how the n-word is functionally used is actually pretty complex. The one I’m interested in talking about has to do with wondering what a people would do with a word like that if they were still struggling to end the shitty treatment they have been getting by the dominant culture (and I would be happy to hear any criticism from anyone).
I see it as a social tool, and a perfectly reasonable one at that. It seems to me that the word being ruled off limits to us is a reminder that the country is still a racist place. As long as the black community feels the sting of prejudiced and discrimination, that word used by us is not only a reminder of what things are like now, but of all the racism that got us to this point. As a group we have been downplaying any mentions of how history effects black people today. We try to pretend that racism is over. We focus on black people being violent and pretend it’s innate, and when white people are violent it’s “mental illness”. We show up at protests and point cameras at any little bit of violence we can find and portray it as a riot.
Hell yeah it’s a social tool. Avoiding that word and doing what I can to shame whites using it is the least I can do. If we want to earn the right to use it we can end the racism problem. And even then it’s probably best to wait until people harmed by it’s use are gone.
I see something similar with the word “privilege”. A lot of white people just hate that word being used, and I’ve had people try to pressure me to use some euphemism. But they don’t realize that the emotions they feel are the whole point of the word. It’s supposed to sting. If somehow they successfully got people to stop using it someone would just pick a new word and all of the same emotions would eventually transfer over to that. It’s a necessary social tool, and of course the dominant group will tend to act in its own interest so there is a tendency to oppose the word. This sort of process is probably a big factor in the evolution of language. I’m tired of playing intergenerational “whack-a-mole”. I’m happy with the word.
There are similar games being played with sexism, homophobia… someone at Ally’s place tried to tell me homophobia was “tired and overused”. We can be such whiny people sometimes…
@Tony 239
Thanks! I seem to remember that material being the same as the material you posted on your blog when you used that Aamer Rahman video on “reverse racism”.
The link at 241 is new to me though. I’ll look at my draft after reading it.
What atheist did? I can’t puzzle out the origin from that tweet, and couldn’t find anything with a reverse image search. It seems almost like something that an anti-atheist would make, but it’s also sadly within the realm of possibility for today’s dudebro atheists.
The “product of his times” argument to be revamped.
Dawkins and Hunt don’t qualify.
Newton and Feynman qualify beacause they are DEAD.
chigau (違う) #257:
That’s how I feel! Newton and Feynman get a pass because they never had a chance to participate in this discussion.
I feel a little bad, but I’m willing to give Asimov a pass (what with his propensity for sexual assault by pinching asses), but not Harlan Ellison (who pinched Connie Willis’s breast, for fuck’s sake), because Asimov’s ass-pinching was a product of his times. (I was about to say that this conversation didn’t exist then, but it did. I’m just willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t engage that discussion, because it was still fringe.)
The fact that Dawkins is willing to excuse sexist behavior is just beyond the pale. He’s not even as old as fucking Harlan Ellison, for fuck’s sake. He has no excuse. Not in this day and age.
We’ve come a long way since 1976.
Avo #258
Connie should have given The Tiny Perfect One a punch in the nose.
(just chigau is OK)
Jurassic
ParkWorldPark* was good, but it needed more Jeff Goldblum.* to hell with it, it will always be Jurassic Park for me
@ Tony, Brony & Morgani
OK – thanks! I’m getting that it’s how you do things and it’s likely to happen again, so I should come up with some strategy other than just standing with my lower jaw slung around my ankles for ten minutes.
That’s beyond awful but it explains so much. I’m so sorry.
Caine re: our little bet
Sadly I couldn’t catch the birds on camera (i.e. my phone), even after I took a strategic position near a mulberry tree where they feed. It’s like they knew I was there. Clever girl…
So instead here are the flower pictures in its fruiting stage. The flower is a species of Biarum, most likely Biarum pyrami, but could also be Biarum bovei.
It’s the only flower I know whose fruiting stage is as beautiful, if not more so, than the flower. Not to mention that the thing looks pretty alien. The fruits themselves pose a problem – it’s not well understood how the flower manages to spread its seeds, but spread they do.
What is understood is how they are pollinated and it’s gruesome. The male and female parts of the plant always mature at different times. The flower exudes a nasty odor (it’s supposed to be similar to excrement, though some have rotting smells and one subspecies has a sweet smell, either way I never managed to distinguish its smell from that of all the dog crap nearby) which attracts flies which are then trapped in the bowels of the plant by nasty barbs.
Hope you like it.
Giliell #221
If people aren’t aware of it, why is that a problem?
In Russia and Ukraine there are similar demographics. Foreign exchange students are various communists from around the world would date women and return to their counties. The women would raise the children by themselves (there are many single mother families there, since even local men aren’t too keen on raising a family or taking any responsibility) or are abandoned by their mothers (also not a unique situation since the number of abandoned children in those countries is extremely high). It’s very rare for those children to know anything about their fathers at all.
The problems they face aren’t that they weren’t brought up in their fathers culture but the extreme racism there. I don’t see how culture would change that. And what culture would that be? The fathers are from all over the world – US communists, South Americans and Africans.
______________________
Brony #228
I think that emoticons like ? and ? or anything similar (there are tons to choose from) would work better.
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chigau #257
The more I think about that argument the more annoyed I become. Why doesn’t anyone say that MLK was a product of his time? Was Oskar Schindler any less a product of his time than Adolf Eichmann?
Time can play a role when we’re comparing people or moralities that span centuries or completely different sociopolitical circumstances (modern morality is unlikely to be pragmatic in a hunter-gather society, for example). But other than that there are no excuses.
Speaking of racism, today’s SF Debris two-part review is a must. Particularly the second review – “Judgement Day” (the first is Star Trek and not as poignant, but still good and relevant).
Keep in mind that this review was scheduled a month in advance and isn’t a response to the recent terrorist attack.
‘Tis the season for Baptists to get together at the Southern Baptist Convention in Georgia. This year, the baptists are declaring “spiritual warfare” on gay marriage, but it sounds more like plans for a violent uprising. The baptist leaders offered an “assassinate Hitler” analogy.
Atlanta Journal link
“Bonhoeffer” is a reference to a pastor who was part of the group that plotted to kill Hitler. As Rachel Maddow said, the head of the Southern Baptists this week said pastors “are going to have an assassinate-Hitler moment if the Supreme Court says that gay people can be married.”
Rand Paul has added to the long list of bogus quotes attributed to the Founding Fathers of the USA.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/rand-pauls-first-two-books-are-full-of-fake-founding-fathers
Yeah. So, Republican presidential candidates, why do you have so much trouble when it comes to quoting the Founding Fathers? Is it possible that you are trying to jam Tea Party politics down their long-dead throats?
Scott Walker repeated a quote from Jefferson … but, um, Jefferson never said, “That government is best which governs least.” Link
Rand Paul and other conservatives see themselves as the heirs to the ideals/concepts of the Founding Fathers. It is kind of hard to inherit something you made up. They are, however, creating their own legacy of plagiarism, lying, and fuzzy logic.
Alexanderz, that’s a very interesting looking plant, quite vibrant on the colour front! Thank you. The rotting scent technique is pretty common, quite a few things have carrion flowers. I’ll never forget the first time I was around a flowering Hawthorn the first time.
Young Dove.
@AlexanderZ 263
Those symbols are specifically supposed to represent the approach/withdraw to fight/flight spectrum of responses. My goal is to get across the way I see people act with respect to the objects in an argument. I tend to see discussions, arguments and fights online as functionally the same as how the style of fighting called grappling works. Objects are like limbs, parts of language that pivot and transform are like joints, force and torque are like emotional force and rhetoric.
For example when I see arguments about rape and sexual harassment it is very common for hyper-skeptics to simply defensively flee from the object of discussion in people they respond to. It’s why getting them to specifically deal with actual situations that have occurred in the atheist community is like pulling teeth. Instead they retreat into abstracts where it’s possible to bring up hypotheticals, objections and more that could apply to some situation somewhere. This lets them keep the conflict spinning so that a series of examples can not be examined and connections demonstrated and outlined. In that situation part of any strategic response must include efforts to drag them back to specifics. (I view insulting philosophical questions as the attack version).
So I’m trying to find the best symbols to represent the how people move towards and back off of what they are arguing about depending on strategic needs.
Oops. I meant to conclude about that I’m not sure that emoticons like that would work for approaching or withdrawing from an object.
How did you get those emoticons to appear in your comment anyway AlexanderZ? I might be able to find something I can use in WordPress and Powerpoint without too much trouble.
Rowan @ 253:
Oh, I would if I could. I well remember SoCal with no water. Not fun. It’s been nothing but rain here for over a month now. Well, the obligatory hailstorm, too.
Caine #267-268
Thanks for the dove pics! I particularly liked the second picture where its eye is closed and you can see the eyelid.
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Brony #269-270
Oh, so you want to represent the movement itself. Can’t help you there, sadly.
I copied them from the emoji wiki entry. The Apple ones work best for me for some reason. But WP has explanations on how to use both emoticons and emojis. Don’t forget to install the appropriate fonts if you can’t see come of them.
Do we need to wait until a moderated comment is approved? Or is there a system to report that you had one moderated?
I needed to quote something that was likely to trigger it.
As far as I know, you have to wait for PZ to release it. I’m sure he will recognize your name. Today he is busy with socializing.
Thanks for letting me know Nerd of Readhead.
Brony @255
I’m just wondering, how will you decide what emotion is present? It seems particularly difficult on the Internet. Are you thinking mainly of real world interactions? Or are you at a level where fight/flight would be demonstrated by stays/goes away.
“On Friday, a post by writer and activist Clementine Ford struck a chord – among you, readers, and among thousands of Australians fighting to stamp out victim shaming across the country.
Ford’s post, calling bullshit on a Facebook post by Sunrise—which asked, “when will women learn?” in regards to a horrific nude photo leak affecting hundreds of Australian women this week—drew the support of thousands on Facebook. Because, plain and simple: sharing photos sent in confidence (without consent) is a cyber crime. It’s damaging, not only to the victims, but to the overarching fight against the insidious tendrils of rape culture.
But overnight, in a move that rewards abusers, and punishers the whistleblowers, Clementine Ford has been banned from her own Facebook page, after violating “community standards” by publishing screenshots of online abuse sent to her account. ”
Full article: https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/arts-and-culture/facebook-bans-clementine-ford-from-own-account-for/fd1f105b-a0c8-4465-825b-f55b19eb0bb2.htm
We have the morning off.
SO is surfing the intertubes and has just dicovered chem-trail theorists.
Which is leading to black ops choppers and orgonite down-spouts and…
He’s having a hell of a good time.
@Pen 276
A little bit of everything. The full blogpost is now up. It’s my observations of lots of textual conflict within a framework constrained by models of emotion. The general focus is in how in-group/out-group bias twists perception and behavior as I see it. The general approach is:
*Identify the object(s) in text a person is responding to.
*Identify how a person is relating to that object(s). (Do they respond to your point(s)? Are they being specific/abstract? Would they feel good or bad about how they relate to the object?)
*Identify which emotion or emotions match the possibilities.
*Use possibilities as hypotheses (not assumptions) and attempt to disprove with careful questions and comments.
I made this modified Plutarch wheel with valance (feels good(+)/bad(-)) and approach information (“(*)= approach-flight) added to the axes. That wheel is applied to how a person is interacting with/relating to a defined “object of discussion”, which can be just about anything from the main subject, to examples, to reasoning and logic.
>The annoyance-rage spectrum is (+)(>*) because people tend to approach the thing and responding to rage feels good or satisfying. Think some sort of challenge, contrast, contradiction, or attack.
>The serenity-ecstasy spectrum is (+)(>*) because people tend to approach the thing they are positive about. Think an insensitive white male at a social function trying to solve a race, sex, or gender based problem and bringing up a pointless anecdote.
>The apprehension-terror spectrum is (-)(?*) because people tend to withdraw from the thing they are negative about. Think being vague and abstract about a concept someone fears like rape or sexual harassment or personal deceptive behavior.
?= replace with a less-than sign. Some html issue was causing a truncation.
>The pensiveness-grief spectrum is (-)(>*) because these are things we feel bad about and want to solve if we can, but don’t risk direct personal damage or threat. We are sad about a hurt friend, or a broken valued item and will approach for example. (I think this one might be more complicated).
Specific real world examples are critical to thinking in these terms.
Example: a person repeatedly doing unwelcome and useless philosophical explorations involving rape is essentially doing dominance behavior as multiple approaches at. They are either attacking something they don’t like (people trying to solve rape), or they are approaching something they like (hurting people they view as a threat). It could be conscious or unconscious. Both may be present but at different priorities. Each motivation will have clues in test. There may be other ways of looking at this example too.
Example: a person who fears efforts to solve rape may stay abstract and philosophical or legalistic while conflicting with people who are talking about specific examples. This is a fear based retreat from specifics into abstract realms where just about any objections can be brought up.
I’m not claiming any of this is perfect. I’m assuming that I’m going to need to expand, correct or other somewhere. But I’ve really wanted to get how I view social conflict out there.
I just realized that the use of less-than and greater-than signs and maybe asterisks has also caused some distortion from html. The picture will clear it up I hope. Some of it is wrong like ” information (“(*)= approach-flight) ” is not what I originally typed :P
Cross posting from the Grim Motive thread-
PSA:
In the wake of the extrajudicial execution of Michael Brown, Jr at the hands of former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, PZ set up the thread Good morning, America to discuss matters of race across the United States. The thread runs two pages and is a great resource for anyone wanting to read about racism in the US. Among the many functions of the thread:
• documenting cases of police brutality
• documenting examples of racism in the civilian population
• documenting examples of racism in popular culture
• amplifying the voices of People of Color, whether writers, bloggers, activists, politicians
• linking to scholarly articles on the subject of race
Those are just off the top of my head. The thread is chock full of links, so it may take time to load for some people. It is very, very information dense. As a result of a function of WordPress, threads automatically close down after 3 months. When that thread closed, PZ set up the Later this morning in America thread. When that was closed, he set up the Reagans morning in America has acquired a different resonance thread, and when that one shut down recently, he started up the Look at all the white people thread.
I recommend all of these threads for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of racism and the myriad ways it manifests and influences people in the United States. There is no particular reading order for the comments in the various threads, so anyone can dive in, click a link and learn (although many times all the information at the link has been copied to the thread).
In addition, while the threads focus to a large degree on the racism faced by African-Americans, they are not limited to such. There are links to various articles, blog posts, news sites, books, and social media posts regarding racism affecting other People of Color (such as people of Hispanic, Indian, and Asian descent).
While the threads are focused on collecting information, there are occasional discussions between posters, so please don’t think you can’t chime in with your thoughts or opinions.
Lastly, while there have been a handful of commenters who have regularly contributed to those threads (chief among them, rq, who has been doing this for nearly a year; Pteryxx and I have also contributed a good deal of material), anyone can swing by and drop off links to whatever material they feel is suitable. And don’t worry about overlapping with someone else’s posts. It happens (though not as often as one might think).
@Avo, also nigelTheBold, #258:
[1] I’m not sure what you mean by giving him a pass — is there a reason to not just say that he was a serial sexual harasser/assaulter?
[2] I’m not sure that “product of his times” is that mitigating. What about all of the other science-fiction writers / science writers who weren’t serial sexual harassers/assaulters?
I seem to recall seeing something somewhere that Asimov had some awareness that his behaviors were way over any sort of line, by having characters in his fiction reflect on similar scenarios.
I may be thinking of this and/or this.
Brony @ 280 – I’m reading your post and finding it very interesting, but I really need to read it again to wrap my head around it. I think I understand some of the things you mean by social emotion now. Can I ask you another cultural question before I have another read?
I’ve been told that in America it’s rude to discuss race, religion, politics, sex. Well… here we are doing it, in what I think is a majority American group, but it is true that I don’t see it done much in ordinary social environments in the US.
Do you think it’s true that it’s usually ‘not done’? If so, how do Americans feel when they find themselves discussing those kinds of topics, in various environments (independent of the topic or their personal position)? Do they feel as though they are transgressing a social norm? If so, what motivates them to do it? Do they have role models or ‘rules’ for how such discussions ‘should’ be done?
For comparison, so you can see where I’m coming from, in France these kinds of issues are routinely discussed in formal and casual social situations all the time so peoples’ behaviors, expectations and emotions are partly pre-defined and regulated by instruction and example from an early age. People’s emotions often center around the meta-level of the discussion, rather than the content – although they also care whether they succeed in ‘passing’ ideas which are important to them, obviously.
Pen @283:
While there is some degree of truth to that (depending on the situation), one thing to remember is that with 310 million+ citizens of the US, not everyone feels the same way. Many, many, many people discussion religion, politics, sex, race, etc.
There are many others who feel uncomfortable talking about these issues too.
There’s a popular refrain I’ve heard many times-don’t discuss politics or religion at a bar. The idea there (I think) is that such topics are controversial or incendiary, and discussing them at a bar while you’re drinking will go badly. I’ve managed to discuss such topics while drinking, and I know others have, so I’m not sure that it’s inherently a bad idea.
Then there’s the group of people who never seem to want to talk about certain topics, like gun violence, race relations, abortion, etc. I’ve heard people say “this is my opinion about X and I’m not going to discuss it”. There’s the refrain from conservatives in the wake of gun violence “liberals and Democrats are politicizing guns again, during this time of tragedy. Now is not the time to do this.”
I think a lot of the people who say “don’t discuss X” are trying to stymie discussion of that particular subject.
@Pen 283
This part first. One of my best friends is a guy from France named Cyril, I find many people from France refreshingly direct about many things. There is more of a sense of the “root of the problem” and a social desire to do something about it, for some things at least.
Any questions you need to ask feel free to ask. Perspective and what are called “neurodevelopmental issues” are complex. I’m worried about how people with autism feel about how that post looks given our differences in emotional arrangements, surely I can handle a person from France.
I’m giving my general impressions here and the impressions of other people will be important to finding the real common denominator for this behavior. I agree that there is a great reluctance in discussing the issues that you point out. But there will be more than one reason and I suspect that it has to do with a general “this is explosive shit over here, handle with care.”
We are discussing it here because we have waited long enough to discuss these issues. I think there is a hunger to discuss it but social conventions…
There is a bias towards avoiding such topics and I think it has a root in how the major social groups that had to live with one another acted during this countries’ history. Religion has simultaneously been extremely important, diverse and sensitive in our history. That is what created this custom in my opinion. So I think that it’s an old social compromise.
There is still a tendency to respect this norm in many places (it’s a norm I chafe against), but as these things become more important to us with respect to solving problems I believe that this norm will continue to fade. This might be one reason for the paranoia among the religious right. As for how these things are “supposed to be discussed”, historically speaking I think that it’s been locked up in political campaigns and various “societies” that have come into being as a result of being concerned about these issues (both good and bad ones).
I’m sure there is more to it than that, but this is my take on it.
You know, if you want to go for “product of their time” they got to do at least as well as my grandpa: born in 21, eight years public school, life long miner. If he could treatwomen with respect and respect their bodily autonomy, I don’t see how somebody else with so much more privilege gets a pass.
Religion a taboo subject for discussion in the US? But it’s everywhere in real* space. From what I hear, it’s not uncommon for people meeting for the first time to ask what church you go to. Politicians bring it up in practically every statement made in public. Also, politics seems to be very much on people’s sleeves with party affiliation being almost like a tribal identity.
That’s my impression from my vantage point here in Canada, where it really does seem kind of rude to talk about religion or politics except in specific environments and circumstances.
*vs. fictional–strangely, most television shows and mainstream movies seem to avoid religion except in a surface way or to enforce the idea that spirituality and faith are good for one’s character.
@Giliell @286
I can’t express how much it bothers me when people use that excuse for sexist men of my mother’s generation (born in ’42). Or those prior. Mum and her fellow feminists spent decades raising the awareness of the people* of their own and the generations before who were in power as they became adults. They fought for abortion rights and against sexual harassment, for equal pay settlements and job classifications, for inclusive language and against domestic violence, for no-fault divorce and criminalisation of marital rape. It’s not like Dawkins and Hunt (or Asimov and Ellison for that matter) spent the 60s through the 90s in a subspace anomaly, unaware that sexist ideas and behaviour were wrong and as such shouldn’t be tolerated anymore. Nope. Not a product of his time, rather a product of his own selfish and bigoted entitlement.
*those, who, unlike your grandpa, needed some re-education.
@ Tony!, responding to Pen:
Don’t forget the workplace ritual dance of pretending these issues don’t exist.
These topics are just inherently too disruptive. Unless you have seniority at the office. Then it’s fine to tell racist “jokes” in the break room or talk about how the Democrats are destroying the country and can’t we go back to the good old days. /flashback to that horrible temping job
Or, if you like hobbies like military modelling and wargaming, the Friendly Local Hobby/Gaming stores that play Fox News, the staffs that talk about “those damned Liberals”, etc.
I bet they still wonder why I spend my money online.
Ibis
It’s basically saying they took the worst ideas prevalent during their upbringing and then were unable to do shit about it.
Also, you know, 5 years ago I was a more racist, more sexist person.
I have evaluated a lot of my positions since. Should I just have turned around, put my fingers in my ears, saying “but this is my tiiiiii-iiiiime, nanananana?
@ Brony #285
I was at a talk some time ago, after a play about inter-ethnic violence in Jamaica. So, there was this black guy there who introduced himself as having Aspergers and he basically wanted us all to explain to him in a few simple words what was this race game thing we all spend our time playing at and why does it go wrong so damn often, If you think of race as a social construct and social constructs being exactly what people with Aspergers struggle with… I can’t even describe how much I was empathizing with his situation.
PS – thanks to everyone who’s telling me about US customs.
@ Ibis 287
Well you see there was this American who was my husband’s client and he asked me what I liked about Europe and I said I really liked the fact that there was a lot less religion here. Only he turned out to be some kind of Evangelical and my husband asked me not to that again. And then he had to remind me at least once. I don’t really expect people to be that religious in the same way that I don’t expect them to be toting guns around.
Re: Religion
I have the impression that religion is a taboo subject for those who don’t like it. Because yeah, be on any general US based forum, tell folks that something bad happened and they will pray, pray, pray for you. Or they tell you about their church*. But once you say “please don’t offer prayers” or “I don’t go to church” things become sour. Suddenly you’re shoving your atheism down their throats by mentioning its existence.
Here in Germany people don’t do a lot of religion and even those who do generally don’t care about you. So the topic doesn’t come up often. If it does it’s not a reason for tensions or stuff, unless you get into a political discussion about the RCC or something.
*Nothing wrong with sharing something about your life, and if that church is a big part of your life, well…
Speaking about hyperbole, i just got this email from the secular global thinky tanky:
Emphasis mine
Which also shows that they’re not too careful whether people actually ever subscribe to them or not.
Much VIP! So donors! Very think tank!
Sounds like an amazing opportunity not to be missed, Giliell. :P
@Pen
Ah. Okay. Yes. Religion might be a subject a more secular person might want to avoid *because* it’s not so taboo. I get the impression that in much of Europe, people are more free to talk about religion in the abstract or as a social/political subject because few are going to take it personally. One’s personal religion is more of a private affair. Religion in American culture is far more public, more often exposed, and (imo) more intrusive.
Libby Anne is reviewing Michael Farris’s book Anonymous Tip and this week’s segment had a telephone conversation, the beginning of which was uncomfortable for me to read–it caused me anticipate more and worse forthcoming– so that I had to go away for a while before continuing (Peter is a lawyer, Aaron his friend from church):
I mean who does that?
I also find it strange how, on reality shows, the contestants feel no reticence whatsoever in sharing with the world how religious they are. I know it’s not at all weird for them, but it makes me feel embarrassed for them when they do it. Either that or it makes me annoyed (no, God didn’t make the other team’s taxi run out of gas so you could make it to the pit stop first).
@Giliell
Ha! [snorffle] You know what that reminds me of? The promotion of AVFM’s conference (now cancelled for want of
dupesdonorsattendees) or of The Sarkeesian Effect.Most Very Important Person Political Gathering. Of Top Big Thought Leaders. Big. Big. Bigger.
I wonder if it irks these Thinkee Leaders when a dumb chick like me, who doesn’t even have a college degree, *dares* to reject all the great thinkee they’re doing for me, and all on the grounds that they are sexist, rape-apologizing assholes.
How *dare* I reject their leadership? Dawkins, Krauss, and the rest of them should “think” about stuffing their brilliant minds up their brilliant asses.
Out of the Nest (and not so happy about it).
Cowbird. These are parasitic birds, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds.
Also, 550$ for a 1.5 days conference?
With 2 speakers confirmed so far?
They are clearly NOT interested in having the plebs there…
@Ibis3
When it comes to public communication and religion that is a pretty good description. Religious affiliation is how many people understand social interaction here. Even in the safest areas when people find out you are an atheist either their brains get derailed and confused, or your existence is a threat. All statements about Christianity and Judaism must be positive (Islam is the mirror opposite) and the presence of atheists disrupts the social flow. What Giliell mentions in #293 is a good example.
Race, politics, sex and gender issues tend to have similar effects. Frankly the whole thing has me respecting the importance of unifying cultural narratives in general social and personal psychology. I think that atheists as a community have been neglecting that because of the ties with religion and we forget that whatever religion is, it’s also a natural expression of what we are.
I’m seconding PatrickG in #289. In employment social contexts religion or politics is often either generally taboo, or it’s pervasively present and tends to shape the culture. Negative portrayals of religion or party and associated issues trigger defensiveness which makes discussions tricky. It also gets you a negative social vibe which can create problems when it comes to workplace politics.
@Pen 292
Culture and society are complex things for me too.
Autism and it’s spectrum is a thing that is always in the back of my mind when I write about Tourette’s Syndrome. People with autism and I are mirror images in things that are difficult to generalize about. We are extremely close in that we both have sensory hypersensitivity, both have enhancements in rule-based mental processes, both have altered social filters and behaviors and some other things. But each of those categories are “flavored” differently making bias issues when I write potentially deadly things. I think of TS as “autism + externalized behaviors”. I suspect that people with autism are hyper-systematic with objective things where I am hyper-systematic with subjective things. TS even has culturally sensitive and culturally insensitive features.
I have hopes that what I see in society is what is weaker or missing in autism (and vice versa, people with autism see many things I tend to not notice as readily). It would be nice if my writing ends up filling in gaps for people.
Behold the Bristles of Doom!
Anna Elizabeth
But why would you worry your fluffy pink ladybrainz if they can worry them for you???
Police racism in Israel:
Hundreds of Ethiopian-Israelis clash with police in Tel Aviv protest:
@rq #303 – Oh, I *know*, Hun. It’s such a shame, this girl just can’t comprehend the great Thinkee’s thinkie processes.
I’m so dumb, that I wouldn’t even spend all my rent money to hear what the rape apologists thinkie about things.
After I got away from the cult I was raised in – Southern Baptists – I can just smell the stink of a cult from a long ways off, and Great Thinkee Leader Dawkins smells just like a Mormon, a Scientologist, or any of those others. Great pronouncements, deaf to criticism, persecution complex?
Yep. Even this dumb bunny can tell a cult when she smells it.
“From singing the soundtrack to the civil rights movement to living in self-imposed exile in Liberia, Nina Simone never chose the easy path. As a new documentary is released, we look at the angry, lonely life of a soul legend”
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/22/nina-simone-documentary-what-happened-miss-simone?CMP=share_btn_fb
10 images of wildlife from the Serengeti
There are images of lions, a cheetah, an aardwolf, wildebeest, a grounded hornbill, an impala with her young, a herd of water buffalo, a leopard, a herd of gazelles, and the first documented image of a melanistic serval.
Hyperbole is dead. They are killing it. I’m certainly at the point where every time anyone refers to something in more emotional language I WANT TO SEE IT.
@Giliell 294
But people won’t attend if they don’t think they are the bestest, brightest, richest, thinkiest, leader ever! However will they get attendees?
@rq 295
I love a good doge reference :)
@Anna Elizabeth 297
But you are daring to contrast/contradict the bestest, brightest, richest, thinkiest, leaders! How could you possibly have anything worthwhile when you dare to stand out somehow! Why I dare say they will soon point out how ablist you are by pointing out their cranio-rectal insertion. For shame….
Brony @301 – do you have any thoughts on this social contagion stuff?
(Researcher assigns groups tasks in which they’ll experience conflicts of interest and equity, but also plants a fake group member whose job is to ‘lead’ the group’s emotions.)
@309 – Sorry – social contagion should read emotional contagion.
@Pen #283,
The biggest answer to your question is context. Growing up in Texas, stating your church affiliation was part of introductions and was used as a cultural shorthand for behavior/beliefs. You knew if some was Southern Baptist, you didn’t invite them to a bar, or in high school, to the dances. If they were Mormon, you didn’t offer soda. If they were from the crazy church that did the “abortion” scene as part of their yearly Haunted House at Halloween, you said your pleasantries and avoided them.
At most work places it’s considered not polite to bring up until you are at least acquainted with someone, and could be reasonably sure you wouldn’t offend them. I actually had the most success locating other atheists by assuming all were religious and if someone said something not-glowing about religion in general rather than a specific one, I’d ask if they knew of Tim Minchin. If they did, I’d clued them into the fact I was a ‘friendly’ and if they didn’t I could waive him off as “just a comedian I enjoy.”
Now that I don’t live in Texas, religion seems a lot more backseat and would be considered rude to be an early conversation starter.
As far as the actual adage “don’t talk religion or politics at the dinner table” it’s a tacit admission that no one (especially in the same family) is capable of actually agreeing, and a more pleasant meal can be had among families who avoid those topics.
Rawnaeris #311
That ‘what church’ thing is so far outside my experience, I can’t even …
On an other note:
it’s Monday night, why are they having a loud, outdoor party?
oooh
raining
run inside
@chigau, 312, yeah…I’m still, what? 10 years later? figuring out how much of what I found normal that others, even in the States, would find insane.
*shrug* if you’re curious I have other stories. The church I grew up in started out small and liberal and I watched it change and grow to fundie as I grew up/got older, so I feel like I’ve seen both sides of that coin.
Huh.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/02/chapter-3-anti-minority-sentiment-not-rising/
I had no idea Italians were so bigoted (per the data on the page linked: 61% unfavorable view of Muslims, 21% unfavorable view of Jews (which looks low, but is one of the higher percentages listed), 86% unfavorable view of Roma).
I wonder what’s going on there?
I don’t think Italy has ever quite let go of fascism.
This might seem like a dead horse at this point, but I still want some closure on the subject of video game violence.
I think I can convincingly argue against the idea that the last decade’s mass shootings were caused by violent games;
For one, the fact that the shooters owned game consoles and violent games is meaningless. Gaming is a popular hobby in people under 30, so it’s unsurprising from a statistical standpoint that the shooters would play video games.
I get the distinct feeling that most of the claims that the shooters were obsessed with specific violent games, or that they played them for over 16 hours at a time daily, were probably just media hyperbole. I wouldn’t be surprised if the shooters were found to all have relatively balanced game libraries with a lot of non-violent games as well. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they played games for more reasonable lengths of time, and the media exaggerated how much they played due to many non-gamers not understanding how time intensive video games can be.
Pretty much all of the shooters had some kind of obvious, more believable motive than just wanting to replicate games in real life. For example, Aaron Alexis was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who thought that his mind was being probed by radio signals, and Anders Breivik was a political extremist who thought that liberals were going to let muslims take over Norway. I’m a little less sure about this, but I heard that one of the columbine shooters was actually a literal psychopath, and the other was suicidally depressed. All of these motives and character traits seem like far more believable reasons why someone would go on a shooting rampage.
Games alone can’t be the problem. There are millions of gamers who go through their lives without becoming spree killers. So, for example, insisting that Adam Lanza killed those kids because of video games is about as helpful as saying that he killed them because he had Asperger’s syndrome.
With all of that out of the way, I still feel a bit uncomfortable about the actual research that’s been done. Most of the experiments kind of give hints that they might be poorly constructed, like using small sample sizes or exaggerating the implications of minor effects on aggression. Even so, some of it does seem at least slightly convincing, if not indicative that you can blame games for spree killings.
I’d still kind of like it if someone, preferably someone with some expertise in this area, could explain what the actual consensus is regarding what effects, if any, violent games have on people. Whether this will vindicate my current beliefs or make me rethink them, I can’t say.
Does anyone ::hee hee:: need a good ::heh heh:: laugh? I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I read this article about a white woman with bad makeup who claims she was attacked by black men at a Walmart. Let’s just say ::hahahahahaha:: she’s not convincing anyone.
@Pen 309
Emotional contagion is a pretty basic feature of how social communication works. It’s probably also a simpler version of the same system that make things like memes work.
It seems to me that a society or even a defined group within it has a kind of emotional “baseline” that is sort of like a “zeitgeist” or “general emotional vibe”. I spend a lot of time paying attention to that baseline because I’ve always had to watch for emotional subtleties in the people around me (for many reasons, potential bully plotting, making sure I am not being socially inappropriate…). We have ways to orient a group emotionally for rapidly responding to things. The rest of the time we absorb what’s in the mix around us.
Like any other part of human communication it too can be used as a tool. People with an authoritarian streak like me who don’t take personal flaws into account tend to watch this vibe for other reasons. Here is an article by Dennis Prager that always bothered me. He argues that people have a moral obligation to act happy. No matter what is actually happening in your life he thinks that you have to put on a sunny disposition. We must act happy. How very convenient for a person like him.
We are a society that tries to get certain people to shut up about their problems. Acting how you actually feel about your life is sending information out socially. I find it unsurprising that a white male conservative would want everyone to play pretend about what is wrong in their life. He is in a dominant social position where he has the resources to deal with his problems and the system is set up to advantage him.
This is a recipe for invisibility for the poor, racial minorities, sex and gender minorities and many others in terms of daily social exposure. This prevents people from finding others around them who might be facing similar problems (I’ve seen tons of similar underlying issues in social justice circles). This prevents people from actually knowing how bad things really are around themselves. So rather than actually letting people express what they feel and society responding by helping one another fix problems we should avoid infecting him with our feelings.
emergence
I own a few games consoles, have played and enjoyed — and still do play and enjoy — some very violent games (am currently working on DooM 3).
I’m the last person who’d pick up an actual weapon and start attacking people with it.
I’m sorry, did you just say that these shooters were all mentally ill, and therefore prone to violence?
That’s… wow. Okay, you need to back the fuck up, there, because people with mental illnesses are several times more likely to be the victims of violent crimes.
No, games aren’t the problem, but neither is mental illness. The problem is a gun-culture, fuelled by gun-makers, that embraces and glorifies gun ownership, vigilantism, and violence, and doesn’t care who gets hurt or killed as long as there’s a profit to be made.
emergence @318:
You’re treading dangerously close to claiming there’s a causal relationship between mental illness and acts of violence. Please don’t do that without strong evidence.Here is an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Swanson, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine. He’s one of the leading researchers on mental health and violence.
____
Here’s something I found related to your overall inquiries-
What does science say about the purported relationship between video games and violence?
Why video games I wonder (well, aside from them being a convenient scapegoat)? What about violence on television? What about violence in cartoons? In the movies? What about violence in sports like football or hockey? What about violent books? There’s so much violence in USAmerican society that to pick out one element of pop culture and proclaim “That’s it! Video game violence is the reason mass shootings are happening!”
Nepos:
I stumbled across this and thought you might be interested-
How Marvel’s Amazon deal will stifle comic book piracy:
****
I may have to get a Kindle one day. Now if someone would knock on my door and offer me a job, I could start making the money to do that (I did apply to 3 more jobs today, so hopefully I find something).
Brony
If I may chime in…
That article is such a load of crap. It completly ignores why somebody might be unhappy. No look at the roots, just look at the symptoms. Now, I have a tendency for depressive bouts. I’ll call them “depressive” cause I’ve never been officially diagnosed. I know that I can spiral down into unhappiness and that I actively need to work against it by:
1. Focussing on the good things. Because my brain tends to fog them out and only see the bad things.
2. Adjust my thyroid medication. Hashimoto’s disease has rushes, especially when you’re stressed, so about every person I know with it has learned to listen to their body and add some 25 mü
3. Create happy moments.
I acted happy for years, because I was taught as a child that I must not be unhappy. If I was unhappy, I was a bad person. I was letting my parents down. I had no reason to be unhappy. Me being unhappy was just me being too stubborn and stupid to see that my parents were right. And no, I wasn’t raised within the Quiverfull movement. So I acted happy. I spread happiness around me. Until I completly broke down. I was lucky. Thanks to people on Pharyngula who had taught me that it was OK to be unhappy and that it was OK to seek help, I was able to make an appointment with a therapist before I tried to kill myself.
So fuck Denis Prager.
Now, when I’m at my job I’ll still “act happy”. Creating a positive classroom climate is part of my job, it’s an important skill. I’m really good at it*. If things are really bad, like a death in the family or something like that, I will let people know.
*How good am I at making people feel relaxed? My first wisdom tooth extraction went really, really wrong. I was in horrible pain for a week, painkillers no longer worked, I needed full anaesthesia and I was kind of traumatised by this. Before I’d go to the dentist and just get work done without anything because I hate the numb feeling. Nowadays I get painkiller for everything and I soak the chair.
BUT, I immediatly made a follow up appointment for the second wisdom tooth, now at the dental clinic, because I know things wouldn’t get better. The extraction went well and during one of the check ups the surgeon said it was such a pleasure to work with me. I was always so happy and relaxed and friendly.
Something happy: Look at the latest Questionable Content
Sorry about the whole mental illness thing. That was stupid of me. I suppose that there’s this common image in people’s heads of a generic “psychopath”; someone who, for whatever reason, is compelled to kill people, a la Norman Bates. I get the feeling that nothing like that really exists. This was just something that I had heard somewhere, and if it’s offensive towards people with mental issues, I’m sorry to have been insensitive. I wasn’t trying to suggest that the first two guys had mental illnesses; I don’t consider conspiracy theories or political extremism to be mental illness.
I think that part of the problem with the game violence studies is that, even though a more intensive study with more people over a longer period of time would be unethical, these smaller studies are inherently limited in what they can reveal. Here’s my main question about these studies; what reason is there to think that violent word associations or blasting someone with loud noises in a controlled setting translate into aggressive or violent behavior in the real world? There’s a world of difference between choosing to give someone spicier hot sauce and going on a killing spree. In particular I don’t see why having your imagination focused on combat is all that worrying. Lots of people have imaginations that are focused on stuff that they don’t do in real life.
I kind of wish that I had more to go on than just a couple of articles. It seems like for every researcher who insists that there’s a clear link between games and real-world violence, there’s another that says that there’s no proven link at all. What I’d really like is to get a clearer view of what the full body of research actually shows and a clear view of which researchers are saying what. I’d like to know what the researchers’ actual opinions are on how much of an effect games have on people, and what they suggest be done.
In the end, I am still a bit worried that my opinions are influenced by the fact that I enjoy games with combat, but I suppose that bias is unavoidable.
MOre witch hunting lynch mob feeding frenzy against poor Hunt.
Also damn funny.
brony @ 320 –
That’s true. When I was in Asia, with no hope of understanding people’s words and consequently very focused on all kinds of emotional and interpersonal expressiveness, I REALLY noticed the change in emotional vibes as I crossed the borders.
The idea of demanding happiness of other people as a way of shutting them up isn’t one I’m familiar with. On the other hand, in my circle, the idea that if you were unhappy, you got what you wanted or even listened to was also very much not on the table. The pattern was: if you were going to get listened to, it happened before you had chance to get unhappy. If you weren’t going to get listened to, you could be unhappy all you wanted but the response was going to be ‘tough shit’.
– re: gaming and violence
Not quite the same thing, but I was a bit surprised by this article, that listening to ‘extreme music’ regulates and soothes emotions. Then again, I use it that way too, though not metal! I’m not sure if there’s an easy distinction that music doesn’t involve ‘acting out’ violence against people. I think it rather does sometimes, in words.
I wonder if context makes a difference with violence and games. My daughter plays Watchdog and shoots up Chicago with an assault rifle. Both Chicago and guns are as close to her reality as the Death Star and light sabres. In other contexts, the line between fact and fiction might be more blurry: the environment is familiar to the player and the guns are on sale at the shop down the road. Would it make a difference?
If I’m really angry or upset, I listen to metal. The drums and the downbeat can help me focus, and if nothing else it quiets my thinking when I listen to the lyrics.
I’m mentally ill, diagnosed BiPolar and PTSD, and I’ve played video games all of my life. I’ve never even gotten a parking ticket. I have been bullied, emotionally abused, sexually and religiously harassed, and annoyed by foolish men like Dennis Prager. Perhaps learned men like Prager, and the others of his ilk, could learn a lesson from the Good Book, like cramming that Good Book in their cake holes.
Rorschach’s temporary suspension has been lifted.
Giliell,
I saw that! I approved very heartily. While that’s not drawn by the usual author of QC (he’s on a break), it’s entirely in line with what he’s said on the topic. He’s said that calls to have someone be “critical” of Claire is absurd – anyone who voiced something transphobic would be swiftly excluded from the social group as depicted, and Jacques has no apparent interest in destroying a character or introducing a new character for the point of making a POINT and then destroying them.
:D
But, but, but Esteleth!
Excluding someone from a social group just because they’re a bigoted scumbag who dehumanises somebody for the sake of “making a point” is a terrible lynching witchhunt etc!
Right, Giliell. Absolutely.
As it happens, I find QC to be highly entertaining, as Jeph Jacques lives in an area I used to live in, and the strip is set there. Like, obviously set there. I’m pretty sure I know the exact street address of Coffee of Doom and where Marten and Faye’s apartment is. Jacques carefully files off serial numbers when necessary – the local college is not actually called “Smif,” for example – but it’s a paper-thin disguise. All of the characters – including Claire – are the sorts of people one would reasonably expect to find there, and while I’m hardly claiming the place is a utopia (it is not, and there are in fact serious problems), a person with the views and attitudes depicted would have a “oh, okay, no biggie” reaction to Claire. Because that’s the local culture. I ran into Jacques awhile back (we share a mutual friend, as it happens) and he was laughing over someone who’d contacted him being confused as to what sex Tai is, and being baffled/outraged that no one in QC-verse was boggled by her. Women like Tai are ordinary there.
Quite apart from that, I’m bugged by the fact that people would insist that Marten would have a problem with Claire. Marten’s the son of a pro-domme and an openly gay nightclub owner. There are references to him being aware of his mom’s profession when he was in primary school (there’s a strip where his mother references having to prevent him from taking some of her gear to show-and-tell), and if he has any issues with his dad, they’re not displayed. While of course it’s possible that Marten could be transphobic, it’s somewhat unlikely.
Pen, #328
Hey, this lover of so-called “extreme music” is not surprised at all! I listen to a lot of aggressive/heavy music pretty much regardless of my mood, because I like it, but when I’m angry or upset listening to some particular genres/bands* helps a lot. It’s funny that when people find out about my taste in music the reaction I usually get is something along the lines of “but you’re such a calm and balanced person, how can you listen to that stuff!?” My answer has always been “it’s because that stuff helps me calm down”. I just always felt like it was a way to effectively drain all the anger away without hurting anyone or breaking anything, but most people seem to assume that it should be a source of more anger instead. Now I have something else to point them to, thanks for that link :).
I don’t play video games, violent or otherwise, and I’ve often wondered if it works the same way for some people, draining the anger rather than fueling it. But I have no idea if it’s analogous or if it’s as simple as that.
*For a long time now my go-to band when I desperately need to calm down and shake off a lot of anger/stress/frustration is The Dillinger Escape Plan. Not my favourite band (though I obviously love them), but the most soothing to me for some reason.
@Giliell, 332:
Heh. I was thinking of imitating a sealion a bit there myself. . .
(and so on and on)
Come to think of it. . .
@Giliell, 327:
Owlmirror
If you practice a bit you could become a Celebrity Atheist Thinky Leader Con artist.
+++
Very good article on trans allyship for cis folks
I found this entertaining:
Dawkins
Judy Schmidt, @spacegeck:
Nailed it.
And a recent (long!) article on Dawkins: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/09/is-richard-dawkins-destroying-his-reputation
The last paragraph is a nice way of phrasing “Dawkins is trolling for atheism!”, but there ya go.
Giliell @337:
With a bit of tweaking, you could come up with the anagram CATLICK out of that. No idea why that popped into my head.
@emergence 318
As one of the people with a mental condition that is associated with more aggressive and violent behavior (I note your apology, I’m good) maybe if I explain how I minimize my excesses and view video game violence it might help. Tony’s replies basically follow my experience of the issue.
I have not had a problem avoiding being inappropriately aggressive or violent with people since I was a child (though online arguments have been an exception), but I still had a problem with aggressive and violent expressions directed at objects I was frustrated with for a long time. I was pretty much the Tourette’s Syndrome stereotype for years when it came to yelling at video games. I had in fact created a behavioral habit that was accepted among my peers, reinforced a set of behaviors and had lots of little bits of motivated reasoning I used to keep it going. All while my neighbors probably thought my wife and I were always fighting.
The video games were an outlet for preexisting instincts, impulses and emotions. I had to develop control over ALL expressions of aggression and violence with no exceptions in order to get out of that habit. What would person with a problem with inappropriate violence and aggression against other people feed off of? Things consistent with the habits that they learned and developed. So for people who already prone to problematic behavior against other people video games and even things like sports culture can be bad influences and worsen the tendencies they already have.
For people without such tendencies this is not a problem. I played lots of violent video games and it never worsened my behavior towards other people.
I don’t think there is anything wrong in principle with thinking about how mentally ill people interact with video games. The problem is that “mental illness” is a very broad term that includes brains with innate issues, brains with innate qualities that can become problems later in life, brains that are basically fine from a hardware standpoint but become “ill/broken” in a social context through socialization and choices, brains that have features that are perfectly natural but are often expressed badly in a modern context and more. Connections between mental illness and video games could be informative in principle, but the value of those connections will be in understanding the general brain systems that have many presentations in human beings. The same systems can be involved in violence in many contexts, and may not involve violence in other social contexts.
It’s just too easy for society to use us as a convenient scape-goat with no other reason than to avoid thinking about how a non-mentally ill person could do horrible things because of culture and choices. I think the general profiles that Tony pointed to are far more informative:
*Social isolation. Whatever kind of human they are to that point is left to spin their wheels on their own, or with a very small chosen selection of people (often awful people re: Elliot Rodget)
*Substance abuse. People take a drug for the psychological effect. Some of those effects make problems worse.
*Preoccupation with weapons. The tools of dominance and aggression.
*Bullying victims. They were role-modeled by other social predators and eventually responded in similar fashion but at greater intensity.
*sigh*
Ok, when the power goes out THREE fucking times while you’re running a PCR, and just because the thermocycler remembers where it was and restarts the program every time you think “heh, maybe all is not lost”… you are being too optimistic.
Of course all was lost. Gah. I’m going to cry over it now like the overemotional female scientist that Tim Hunt said I am.
</random vent>
@Giliell 324
Of course it did not think about why someone might be unhappy. That would require Dennis Prager to be concerned with why you might not be happy. It’s all the same to him, a background noise that makes him feel infected and contaminated.
I had not heard of that disease, thanks for the education. It’s perfectly reasonable for people suffering from such conditions to be able to express their unhappiness in a way that helps them.
I’m glad to hear you have an outlet. Your story echoes a lot of people who basically are told to shut up about what is wrong (hiding who/what you are, what you suffer from…) because you are bumming someone’s vibe. It’s disgustingly selfish at some of the most basic of social levels.
This is where we get to reasonable things. Children being impressionable is a variable to consider. But I still wish we went the route of role-modeling that people should get to express how they are feeling and society should try to work on everyone’s problems that they can help with in their immediate vicinity. (But some people use “trying to help” in bad ways too, this stuff is tricky…)
It was probably good to go right back to the dentist for other reasons. Avoiding reinforcing a fear connection for example.
Sugar’s “Beaster” plays that role for me, although I often skip “Walking Away” at the end. :)
Black Dhalia Murder is that band for me. I don’t dislike them on a normal day, but when I am completely and utterly pissed off, they are my go to music…come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve listened to them since my last job, almost 2 years ago now…
I really don’t want to come across as a pest, so if people are getting tired of talking about this with me, you can just say so and I’ll drop the issue. Regardless, I still feel like I haven’t gotten any real closure when it comes to this violent video game thing.
Simply put, this actually kind of important to me. Games are one of my favorite mediums for storytelling, and I feel like gaming would lose something if action, adventure, or horror stories couldn’t be told with games. Violence can add an extra sense of danger, stakes, or “epicness” to stories, and making it illegal or frowned upon for game developers to use combat mechanics would take that away.
I’m fully aware that my love of games might be causing me some confirmation bias, and that I’m probably just looking for someone to tell me what I want to hear. Even so, if there is a possibility for methodological flaws or exaggerated conclusions in these video game violence studies, it would also be wrong for me to simply accept what the anti-game violence researchers are saying.
I came here to talk about this stuff specifically because a lot of the bloggers here seem to have a fairly good grasp of how science is performed. I’ve seen articles by bloggers here that both take flawed scientific studies to task for their errors, and also defend scientific studies from invalid criticisms. They seem like the kind of people who would be able to detect dubious methods or conclusions in game studies on either side of the debate.
What I’d really like is if someone on here with a background in science, be that PZ or someone else (I don’t know if there are any other scientists who have blogs on the site), were to steer me in the right direction. If no one on the site can help me, or is too busy to help me, I’d accept being referred to someone else, or even given some suggestions on stuff to read.
I’d like to know if the studies done either way in the video game violence debate have any flaws in their methodology or conclusions. Is there any merit to the idea that combat-oriented video games actually increase aggression or violent behavior in any way? Are the various word association and hot sauce tests performed by anti-violent game researchers valid ways to test that hypothesis? Do any of the criticisms of these studies made by other researchers expose actual problems with the studies?
I don’t know if I have an over-idealized view of FTB, or if I’m asking the wrong people for information about violent games and real-world aggression, but I consider this to be worth a try. I’m sorry if I’m coming across as demanding or obsessive by posting this. That’s not my intention.
emergence @345:
Please remember that this blog and this thread are not run or hosted by anyone other than PZ. It’s his blog. When you refer to an “over-idealized view of FTB”, it almost sounds like you’re expecting other bloggers to chime in here (which they can if they want, but it doesn’t happen often, in my experience). While some of the commenters in this thread have their own blogs, none of them has their own blog on FtB. So if you’re looking to get opinions of the bloggers on FtB, you’ll have to go ask them, on their blogs. I don’t mean any of this to be rude. You are perfectly fine asking your questions here. I just feel if you want the answers you’re seeking, you may have to branch out and ask other people, bc it might simply be that there aren’t enough people here in The Mended Drum who are knowledgeable enough on this subject to assist you further. I recommend Jason over at The Lousy Canuck. He’s a big gamer and freethinker. Perhaps he might be able to answer some of your questions. I think his email address is available at his blog, or perhaps you can reach him on Twitter.
@emergence 345
I don’t see you as a pest personally, and I have sympathy for someone with strong feelings about something and little experience with a relevant area of science literature. It took me three years before I got enough of a grasp of brain science before I felt comfortable enough to make some fact claims.
One problem is that what you are requesting is a little on the heavy side and so it is not a casual thing, and most of us are not versed well enough to do the sort of analysis you want. You want:
*A good enough general view of the field of violence and how it relates to video games to know what sorts of experiments are being done, how they work, what the results mean and how to judge them well.
*A good enough general view of two sides of a dispute involving the role of video games (and entertainment in general) in violence to be able to identify where bias, poor approaches or other problems might be affecting the research.
*A good enough general view of the limits of the current research as it relates to your fears.
What if I tried to guide you in your efforts since I had to “learn how to learn”? Others might be willing to help when there are some specific questions to chew over. You have vague fears because of the strength of your affection for video games and as someone who was also a big gamer until recently I sympathize.
If you can get more specific about what you are afraid of I’ll use my pubmed sleuthing skills to find you some reviews (general discussions of the current status of a field) and from there you might have an idea about what experiments you want to tackle first.
To give you some hope, I don’t think that you have to fear loss of violence in video games as storytelling or an experience.
zanyisspectrum @348:
PZ decided to make some changes to Pharyngula to make it more welcoming to newer readers, lurkers, and regular or semi-regular commenters. That included making changes to the Thunderdome, which has morphed into this place-The Mended Drum. While it’s still a place for off-topic discussions, basically, this won’t be the space for the kind of no hold’s barred arguments that once went on here. For more information, I suggest reading these threads:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/06/13/commenting-changes-coming-2/
(^^that one has a LOT of comments)
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/06/16/still-pondering-commenting-rules/
They aren’t specifically about the ‘Dome, but they relate to PZ’s overall desire to make some changes to Pharyngula. Hope that helps.
Oh, I see. Never mind my politeness above.
zanyisspectrum:
The disparaging comment about SJW’s is such a giveaway.
I was going to say something too, I just had not thought of the right words yet.
After all I’m not an orifice, leopard or a giant phallus and it’s pretty much impossible to soak anything more than “I don’t like you” from that effort.
I dunno where that jackass came from, but I’d love it if he’d return there. Permanently.
zanyisspectrum @352:
There is plenty of reason to bring that up. Your disparaging comments about SJW’s indicates a certain mindset that is not often welcome around here. That much hasn’t changed about Pharyngula.
And btw, this is actually the thread to take discussions that are not relevant to other threads, which is why I did so.
Because apparently the reality I described is dependent on if I am an authority figure.
@zanyisspectrum 355
Uptight is also pretty non-specific. I’m just enjoying the observations. You came in, sprayed general community dislike around and used a disagreement between other people as a means to spray some more (you would have actually substantively taken part in the issues other wise).
@zanyisspectrum 358
Curious, are you saying that where you come from it’s common to expect to be welcomed to a place and people you insult as you arrive? Fascinating. In my experience people tend approach a community they want to be welcomed in differently.
zany, The Mended Drum is the thread for off topic discussions. Which discussion thread are you veering off from, and what is the topic you wish to discuss?
I’ve just sent my first ‘Alert’ from The Mended Drum.
zany, perhaps they took an uncharitable view of your comments there because your comments were uncharitable.
@zanyisspectrum 363
You are not displaying evidence that you are here on good faith. You are in fact displaying the opposite. It’s pretty hard for you to claim “uncharitable” with what Tony quoted at 350.
Trying to limit things by “nice in this thread” is simply avoiding the clear and unambiguous insults. You could actually reverse this by addressing things that have been brought up, but since you don’t you additionally do not appear to be “up for anything”.
zany, people who are resistant to the slightest criticism often try to denigrate the messenger, it is true, but denigration is not my mode or method. Your comments were uncharitable and attempted to be provocative. To what end, might I ask?
The denigration of people who fight for social justice you used it a clear indicator of the type of individual you are. And that’s the type of individual that often finds themselves not welcome here. If you were truly here (at Pharyngula) to participate, your first comment would not have been what it was. You can continue this dance all you want, but you’re fooling no one.
Alas and alack, dear friends, (especially zany) but I must bid you adieu. Morpheus beckons.
@zanyisspectrum 368
Your arrival where you decided to simply insult a group of commentators for one thing. By being so non-specific you basically leave it up for all of us to figure out who you are talking about which implicitly gives many people the right to be insulted and challenge you.
It would also be nice to know why you feel you should be welcomed to a community that you insult on arrival.
Finally the fact that you seem to think that it’s ok to drag an argument that was about on-topic issues to your personal dislike of this community deserves an explanation. You literally contributed nothing to the topic.
G’night, Morgan! Sleep well!
This is for zany.
@zanyisspectrum 374
It’s up to you when you want to stop but at this point I feel obligated to point out that I’m only continuing because I have a natural fascination with offensive and antisocial behavior.
Your apology makes no sense because it refers to me and not you, it’s literally not an apology and only present for rhetorical and combative purpose. You can’t apologize for my perceptions, it’s not possible.
I have no obligation to care about altering the opinion of someone who arrives at a community with nothing but insults and actions that risk escalation of interpersonal conflict. With that behavior I simply don’t have to care. If you are being honest other communities interested in being successfully communal will also reject you. If you are here under false-pretenses I have even less reason to care. Your own behavior bites you either way.
You offer no evidence that you understand what PZ is exasperated by and make no effort to apply it to your situation. Your appeal is empty of meaning.
Hmmm, don’t Slymepitters, gamergaters, anti-feminists, Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies etc. use SJW are an insult and routinely speak disparagingly of people who advocate for social justice (bc advocating for people to be treated better is such a bad thing)? Our resident zany individual reminds me of that crowd.
Brony:
I think it’s precious zany thinks you’re trying to change their mind on anything.
@Tony 377
Yes. But to be honest my troll-fu involves avoiding referencing of groups and identifying behaviors as much as possible. I rather enjoy finding the best most group-independent ways of figuring out how these things work.
Tony! — Okay, so I’m not the only one picking up on that vibe.
I’m willing to give this guy a chance, but he’s pretty much blown it right out the gate with that “SJW” remark.
Bedtime. I’ll see if it’s my move for primate chess tomorrow.
I wonder who you are.
Let’s try that edit:
Nope. It’s still disparaging of people who advocate for social justice. It still is a statement that PZ’s irrational critics and delusional opponents of FtB would make. Divorced from reality, unevidenced, poor reasoning skills on your part. I’m with chigau-I wonder if you’re someone who was previously banned who has come back under a new nym.
It is going to be interesting* seeing how the community here deals with trolls testing the waters in light of PZ attempting to reformulate rules. Why, it’s almost like they’re trying to derail attempts to fix the things they complain about! Shocking, that.
* For certain values of interesting equivalent to /facepalm. Said facepalm is meant to express approving sentiments towards the general attitude of commenters here. This postscript included because I know I’m unclear sometimes.
Incidentally, that link at #383 is to this:
http://www.playboy.com/videos/jaclyn-glenn-playboy-video?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=Playboy&utm_campaign=Playboy.com&linkId=15087297
Someone is trolling for the lulz.
PatrickG @386:
I think PZ’s comment way upthread may help illuminate his approach to trolls (even though he was talking about creationists)-
Tony!:
Indeed. However, the influx of rules-lawyers feels notable. Despite the lack of officially announced rules. Might just be my bias.
Several generations ago “idiot” was a specific technical term used to describe one type of mentally deficient people. Nowadays it’s just a generic word used to describe dimwitted dorks.
Does it appear to anyone else that zanyisspectrum is trying the JAQ routine?
@ Al Dente:
I refer you to my comment @389. In short: duh. Longer form: No, you’re not the only one. They’re rather pathetically obvious.
I fucking hate people:
3 yo racially abused for dressing up as Elsa from Frozen
I don’t know what I hate this woman more for: abusing that 3 year old or raising her own kids as horrible racists.
Giliell — Six of one, half-dozen of the other?
zanyisspectrum
To be fair, personally I don’t want to be welcoming to asshats who start their commenting career with:
Read more: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/06/23/the-hopeless-arrogance-of-milo-yiannopoulos/#ixzz3dy7SQuqY
New commenting rules can only be successfull if obvious trolls like zanyisspectrum are dealth with before they derail entire threads (like xe is doing on teh menrioned Milo thread).
zanyisspectrum is fooling nobody; they show themself to be a girning troll from the very first. I look forward to their eventual removal.
Well, that is what you are doing….with your own version of your group think. Your verbiage is that of a troll. Bye-bye.
zanyisspectrum if you turned up at my orchestra rehearsal and instantly proclaimed that you hate orchestral music and that the band sounds terrible, I don’t see why we would be under any obligation to be accommodating if you subsequently expressed a desire to join us.
Can’t you see how ridiculous your approach appears?
zanyisspectrum, what exactly is your disagreement? Because so far we’ve only seen you gratuitously complain that PZ is a poopyhead. That’s not a disagreement, that’s just you being an annoyance for your own amusement. Everybody else is not amused by yet another obvious troll following the same pattern of a thousand obvious trolls before them…
zanyisspectrum, well if you will make it so obvious! Maybe if you’d been just a little more subtle …
Good for a chuckle, anyway :-)
Don’t you love it when trolls attempt to gain the high-ground by crying ableism, ageism, or whatever (only when it is convenient, of course, because they don’t actually give a fuck), and simultaneously use gendered insults?
This reminds me of a small child playing hide and seek and thinking that hiding their face with their hands makes them invisible. Nah, we can see you…
Look at the clown attempting to get their digs in before their inevitable ban. It’s such a tragic way to spend such a lovely morning.
Farewell, troll, we hardly knew ye.
Well, one point for spelling Myers correctly, although that gets deducted for misspelling Rorschach, and an extra point for doing so while trying to lob a zinger.
Hi zany!
I’d like to welcome you!
As you haven’t brought up a topic of discussion, I’ll start. Bunnies. Do you like them?
re: Obvious troll of obviousness
Interesting, the attempt to fake Nice for the first few seconds…
Though I will say the approach we have taken in addressing zany have violated the spirit of the new commenting attitudes and what not. Just one or two comments in and we have pounced on them because their comment, specifically “SJW”, triggered an alarm in our head. What if they really were a new person Just Disagreeing, rather than a morphed pitter or a wingnut intentionally trolling? What if the alarm bells in our head were false alarms, what if the dog whistles we hear was just the wind? Then it would be us chasing away yet another new commenter. At this point I think we have ample evidence to show that there is something up with zanyisspectrum, and that they deserve criticism. But we didn’t know that just based on the first comment.
I see two ways this can go:
We can continue to justify pouncing on trolls who send out somewhat obvious signals, which is one of the ways we chase away other commenters and was one of the things we wanted to change in the first place.
We can try to be as friendly and charitable as possible, and turn the other cheek and let dishonest pitters and other assorted fuckwads put on their flimsy masks and prance around, derailing and harassing and sealioning and making a mess of things.
We could try to find a middle ground between these, but ultimately we need to decide whether or not:
1. We can be trusted to detect trolls right out of the gate.
2. It is okay to tackle suspected trolls.
Is 1 true, is 2 true, are both true, or are neither? That is what we need to ask ourselves.
Well. This is new. What was wrong with Thunderdome?
Oh, Zany’s here. Fun stuff.
Translation: “would it help if I retro-actively edited out the intentionally insulting term I used in my intentionally insulting comment and replaced it with the proper one?”
Let’s try this out in a hypothetical situation.
Sen. Dwight D. Fuckhead, R, SC: “I support the right of private business not to hire n***ers, because ni***ers are all lazy.
Interviewer: “You may have blown your Presidential bid with that remark, Senator.”
Sen. Dwight D. Fuckhead, R, SC: “… would it help if I called n***ers “people of colour”?”
Interviewer: “Not an awful lot, no.”
Yeah, I know. The two terms are not even nearly comparable. But I feel like this illustrates the concept well. Sure, people are objecting to the specific word, but they’re also objecting to the attitude which the statement obviously illustrates. Changing the word doesn’t change the attitude.
Dawkins:
:Snort: What a jackass.
Nightjar:
Fuck, that’s no end of frustrating! I’m so sorry.
Bird-wise, I had such a great moment yesterday – a young female Hairy Woodpecker allowed me to get a series of shots of her engaging in grooming and tick removal. A rare moment!
Anteprepro @ 408:
Or, people could just learn not to leap every time a bit of bait is dangled, and not bother responding until there’s something substantial which is worth responding to.
Thumper:
The “lack of moderation”, and the combative attitudes associated with it. This replacement is just for off topic conversations, with none of the implications that it is a place for unrestrained hostility.
Caine, yup, that would be the appropriate middle ground. (The phrasing of my post presented a false dichotomy when I probably shouldn’t have). I think we really need to harp on being patient and only treating someone as a troll if they have given a damn good quantity of evidence to confirm that they are. Or at least go by the Three Post Rule or something. The knees are still jerking way too quickly.
Anteprepro @ 414:
Agreed. Also, didn’t PZ say in one of the change threads that he’d prefer to deal with trolls, rather than have an exploding thread? Well, something like that anyway. I think the best thing to do when someone like zanyisspectrum shows up is to send an alert (reminder: anyone can sent an ‘Alert: suspected troll’ to PZ via the ‘contact a monitor’ link), then go on casual ignore, unless the person in question brings up something of substance which can be tackled.
zanyisspectrum is banned.
He has definitely been around here before; he’s using an unusual fake email service that has been used by a couple of other banned trolls who started poking away about gamergate. From the content and url, I suspect zanyisspectrum previously posted as “neckbeardmysoginisticgamer” and “ducky1349”. Those accounts are banned, too.
Good. But I am betting on a return.
Yeah, we already know he’s willing to try multiple pseudonyms.
Caine, good point, I always forget about the alert function personally. (I have sent one alert, ever)
Also: “neckbeardmysoginisticgamer” is basically carrying around a “Haha, I dare you to ban me!” sign. Can’t say I am surprised that it is one of the morphs zany has been in. Can’t say I remember the ducky nym though. Imagine they haven’t lasted long under any nym.
@Caine
I just want to tell you how much I’m enjoying your photographs. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing them. Please keep them coming.
I think that it’s valuable to dissect some trolls for the real-time examples of irrationality, illogic and desire to fight instead of deal with topics. It’s one thing to read about fallacies and such. It’s another to see them outlined in person. I very clearly pointed out their specific behavior and precisely why it was a problem. They became a good example.
But I am biased because I enjoy this. So don’t think I’m not taking the idea of disruption from this seriously. It would be nice to get clearer ideas of what they limits are. I would like a chew toy every once in a while though.
zanyisspectrum has certainly been a very easily dissected example. Baby troll is making me feel like a troll. (Pitch perfect except for the gendered stuff in the middle).
Their “contribution” to the other thread was not even remotely on-topic. They directed things towards their feelings about PZ, not the topic. Again it was the social conflict that was their focus, transferred to PZ instead of “regulars” or spotted leopard phallus orifices.
Then they try to appeal to agism and ablism like they actually care about using people as tools in a conflict when they called Tony “The Queef Shoop”. Wasn’t lack of genuine concern for a group needing social justice one of the parts of the definition of “SJW”? It’s funny how much of that term is actually projection.
And finally they call strategic social cohesion from shared experience “group think”. Group think is supposed to appeal to a group strongly holding a belief in the face of contradictory evidence due to lack of genuine engagement with the evidence. Can anyone even point to a single comment where zanyisspectrum engaged with any specific substantive observation about their behavior?
This stuff is pretty amazing should be clearly demonstrated for others.
Ibis3 @ 420:
Thank you so much! I was beyond thrilled to get that grooming and tick removal moment. I got some shots of a Downy Woodpecker mum busily trying to grab enough suet to appease her chicklets hiding out in the lilac tree, and hopefully, a feeding moment on the tree outside my window. I still have to sort through all those photos.
Let me be a bit more clear here. Everything I did with zanyisspectrum was deliberate and with specific reason.
*I invited them to discuss “community culture issues” which is a pretty objective way of phrasing their general problem with this community. I was more pointed and challenging with the “At the moment you are basically using a disagreement and tempting an escalation “cause Pharyngula/FTB/whatever sucks.”, but it was true and worth pointing out. Maybe it could have been phrased better.
*In here I very specifically said why what they said and did was a problem. When they revealed their nature by refusing to engage and choosing only actions that serve a community conflict role while derailing the topic in the other thread I tried to do so in a way that would be crystal clear to all concerned.
It’s pretty much the transparency that I hear critics of this place say they want.
Brony
Oh, I’m not only talking about children, I teach adults atm.
I agree with you that we should be a good role model in dealing with emotions, but in a normal school setting there’s enough opportunity to do so in context. In the run of a schoolweek you will be happy, sad, angry, annoyed, proud and disappointed about things that happen in school. There’s going to be conflict and you can use those “teachable moments.” But they don’t need to deal with my pain and anger from outside.
+++
I don’t understand the allure this place has on assorted slymers. I don’t. KNow, they believe we’re horribly wrong and we are horrible people. And that they are the good guys. But, you know, going to a place with no intention to change those people for the better and just to annoy the fuck out of them and taking up some of their time does not make you the good guy, it makes you the baddie.
I know, the ultimate goal is to make us stfu, but by now they should have noticed that it isn’t working either…
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more surreal: Dawkins compares the Twitter critique of HUnt to stonings
Stonings? Yes, I must say, whenever I read Dawkins’ twitter, or whenever I read anyone like Dawkins discussing Hunt, the thing that immediately comes to mind is getting stoned. Very appropriate.
Brony @ 423:
None of which was necessary. Most people have been around here (and elsewhere on the ‘net) to recognize pure bait when they see it. People here take the “feed the trolls!” too seriously, and it’s acted upon without discretion. When a troll bothers to bring up a differing view on a substantive issue, fine, feed away. Otherwise, send a fucking Alert and be done with it, and let PZ handle it, as he has said is his wish, more than once.
No one is changing the world by responding unnecessarily to blatant bait. If people would have simply gone on with their conversations here, rather than jumping at the bait, over and over, zanyisspectrum would have gotten bored, and PZ would have waved the banhammer, no fuss, no muss. Not every single fucking thing is of great bloody import.
Giliell @ 425:
:Near Fatal Eyeroll: I guess being crucified and burnt at the stake wasn’t dramatic enough.
Everyone, turn off your irony meters. Then take out the batteries. Smash them for good measure. Then drive them several miles away, and bury them. Then drive back home, build a bunker in the basement. Tell all communities in the area to do the same. Everyone should enter their bunkers and seal the doors. Then, you should enter a lead-lined iron coffin, and then, and only then, can you read the following.
Dawkins said the following, in a reply in Giliell’s link.
I hope for God’s sake you all followed my instructions. There could be massive casualties from this if even one irony meter was left on to measure this comment. But it just must be presented. My God have mercy on our souls.
I think maybe by “human beings” he meant “men.” But maybe I’m too cynical.
Caine,
Thanks. It was just four samples so it could be worse, but these are the four samples for which something keeps going wrong at some point in the process. So it was already a repetition of a repetition of a repetition (although it was the first time in my hands) and it is frustrating. It’s also delaying a paper submission. Today’s repetition worked, though, now let’s hope all the next steps work too.
Wow, must have been a special moment indeed and it made for some great photos! Some years ago I had a similar rare moment with a grooming hoopoe, possibly one of the most beautiful birds we have over here, and I still remember how special it felt. It really is one of those moments that you know may not happen ever again and being able to capture it is such a great feeling.
Stoning. Sheesh. Booooring.
What’s a guy got to do to see a good drawing and quartering these days anyway?
And yes indeed anteprepro, that is some dirty-bomb-grade radioactive irony there.
Dawkins:
Uh, but…oh, fuck it. I’ll content myself with a “Richard, please, just shut the fuck up.”
Nightjar @ 431:
Wow, spectacular shots, Nightjar! That is an amazingly beautiful bird, and that must have been one hell of a moment. Sometimes, you just can’t believe your luck, even when in the middle of shooting.
Exactly. Those are times when I feel so privileged, it’s just sheer joy.
Hi Drummers, if ever there were an off-topic topic, this is one. Caine mentioned birds removing ticks while grooming. I did not know that birds could get ticks. Duh. My question is this: I have heard it reported when wild animals such as deer or bears die, their ticks, of which there are often many, disembark post haste. To our zoologists, is this because of a chemical change in the blood such as reduced oxygen level, or falling body temperature, or something else? I think this is just one of those tidbits of useless information that would be handy to have in one’s arsenal and available to deploy during otherwise dull conversations at obligatory gatherings. Grin.
anteprepro #429
…. I … I – no, that’s it. We can pretty much pack up the internet and go home; your succinct encapsulation says it all. I just wanted to thank you for your presentation of the matter, which cannot be bettered in this world or any other.
@anteprepro #429, I must have fucked one of those steps up because my irony meter *still* exploded and is currently a heap of smoking rubble. (I checked)
Morgan @ 434:
I suspect they know the blood has stopped flowing. I don’t know anything about ticks though, outside of the fact that I absolutely loathe the little fuckers.
Y’all know how white dudes are always getting stoned by women. with words. Those mean ‘ol, “Stop contributin to my oppression” words. It’s such a tragedy.
Good thing that’s not another act of misogynist violence against women that is used to keep us from getting too uppity Dawks is using as a tactic to silence uppity women, else Richard would look like a complete ass.
Oh. Wait.
@Caine 427
First let me say that I do take seriously concerns about how, when, why and to what extent we should challenge one another, new posters, lurkers who might want to be more active AND people who are here under false pretenses for conflict only. I want to understand your concerns and I’m willing to accept whatever PZ eventually comes up with.
But I have to be honest, I believe there is a place in social change for challenging that last group of people openly and for demonstrative purposes. I even think there is a place in our society for people who just like to fight with words for fun but that it needs some social rituals like we have for physical conflict. However I’m not arguing that I be allowed to confront every person like zanyisspectrum, or for any particular level of allowed textual combat. I want to find out what the divide looks like between us so that we can figure this out better.
It’s not necessary to you. Something not being necessary is not the same as it being harmful though. I want to know what harm you are concerned about.
<blockquote cite=""Most people have been around here (and elsewhere on the ‘net) to recognize pure bait when they see it.</blockquote cite=""
That begs the question of why a person should avoid "pure bait"? What is often called "bait" is a major force in problematic internet behavior. It's attacks in a conflict.There should be opportunities for people to learn about that, and I'm interested in why you might think that Pharyngula should not be that place.
Why was I not discrete and what discretion would you like to see? I’m willing to have that discussion and even mentioned an area where I thought I might do things differently. I am and was in fact extremely detailed and diverse in how I approach potential and guaranteed conflicts. I’m willing to take some constructive criticism and add to my toolset.
This was about a troll that actively avoided substance for reasons that clearly had to do with posturing in a conflict. Something I have seen people face many times around here and a thing I like to understand how to personally deal with in more than one way.
I’m willing to entertain the possibility that this is a kind of person we should simply ban and that is all, but not without reason. As long as PZ is still thinking about rules I’m going to advocating for things that I think are important when it comes to community conflicts. But I won’t do it thoughtlessly and I’m interested in other positions.
Citation needed. Bait is bait because it has features that attract attention in a conflict context. That is thing full of depth and subtlety likely to be equal to motivated reasoning. It’s an important thing and worth attention.
But not all communication here or in threads will be mere discussion. There will also be arguments and more. I’m interested in what you think the limit should be. I consider a conversation that dissects and as objectively as possible identifies generalized reasons for why behavior is unacceptable, offensive and socially damaging to be worthwhile.
And again, not everything is of import to you. I don’t see why I should stop considering this important.
Brony,
Interesting. A space like a nursery for trolls where they are purposefully treated very tenderly by volunteers in order to figure out exactly what is going on in their heads would be helpful in understanding them. You could be like Jane Goodall, but for trolls.
Though I doubt they would willingly go there because they aren’t coming here to be understood in the first place.
Maybe they could fill out exit forms with questions like, “Could you describe as plainly and specifically as possible what is it you hoped to achieve by commenting on that thread?” Of course that wouldn’t work either because they’d just write down some foggy talking points, recite a lie, make a sockpuppet and come back to yell about what a poopyhead PZ is again.
If only things were that easy.
Any of us hoping to understand what is going on with people like zany have our work cut out for us.
Brony @439:
::nods in agreement::
Honestly, whatever makes creationists tick is also what is making these trolls tick. If one could ever get past the Gish Gallops and insults to what the misunderstanding or motive to lie beneath it is, it would be helpful.
Brony,
Maybe you might set up a separate blog and invite trolls from Pharyngula to visit it? If PZ doesn’t want them cluttering up the comments here, you could dissect their thought processes there.
I’m not sure if that’s been done before.
@Jackie 440, 442, 443
I would not put it quite like that, and even I am not sure about a place specifically for fighting like I once was. Though I still find the idea interesting. More below.
Many of the ways that I can choose to respond certainly feel bad so it’s no nursery suggestion. But there are a range of ways of responding based on how the person presents themselves. It just so happened that zanyisspectrum had many signs of being purely interested in social conflict. I gave him clearly stated things to respond to and ways to demonstrate that they had good intent. Their responses were very informative.
I still took them and everyone around me seriously as a person though. I told them precisely what was a problem and why it was a problem on the chance that something might get through someday, and did it in a way that made it clear to others watching.
I have also successfully de-escalated too. I give individual treatment and like to learn new distinctions for when attempts for de-escalation should happen, or when being friendly is warranted. In fact zanyisspectrum’s I make the distinction that zanyisspectrum was precisely the sort of person with whom conflict was likely inevitable, and I still left them places to change that. That first post did not obligate kind treatment in any event.
Some will come anyway. Also the main value would be for anyone who wants to see these arguments and behaviors functionally dealt with so they can do the same when they have the opportunity and ability. But training people to functionally be trolls is not remotely the idea. In fact I want a list of what people would be worried about precisely so I could come up with specific solutions and answers.
Every response contains information about them. zanyisspectrum was extremely evasive, deceptive and strategically selective at a lot of levels and there are things I still did not point out. And I saw people respond to them in ways that I did not thinks of so I learned too like Tony replacing his euphemism for SJW. We don’t really compare troll*-fu in an organized manner and I think that is a bad thing.
I have noticed precisely the same thing. And inconsistencies in how the atheist/skeptic community has traditionally confronted creationists with respect to how we are now getting all of these calls for reduced tone and more civility. With that attitude I don’t know how they ever handled being compared to Hitler.
There are good and bad reasons to consider that or something like it. I was considering an image board related to social justice (“social justice league”, lol). The environment would be focused, like the social environment many of them use (an image board is a neutral, and pretty fun actually) it could attract the sort of people that could be practiced on and that could be strategically planned for and splash damage minimized.
But it would also be removing the conflict from the context that is important and risks becoming something that it should not. Broader contact with lots of other discussion is important to make it functionally useful and appropriate. It would also need a hard to determine minimum number of dedicated people willing and able to take moral and ethical social conflict seriously. I enjoy it but I know it’s no game.
Added to the negatives AND positives I realize that making sure people conflict for the right reasons is extremely important. I’ve tried hard to be a good ally by fighting for other people’s reasons, not mine (it’s nice when they coincide too). Privileged people fighting for their own reasons often screw up and this could be a place to get constructive criticism.
I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years.
*Noting that the term troll is one to be careful with because it describes how someone feels about a social disruption. Well meaning people and deliberate attackers can produce the same feelings. I “devils advocate” myself compulsively. I have to do something with all of that emotion :)
There is at least one “him” in my post above. That was unintentional. I’ve been better about that and slipped.
From the annals of you can’t make that shit up.
Now I’m sure you’ve heard of Pegida, the German xenophobic and often neo fascist movement that has inspired many right wing assholes across Europe.
Many of those groups used the initials of their town/region: Legida for Leipzig and such. Now there’s currently a fascist mob threatening refugees in the small town of Freital. Guess what they’re calling themselves.
Frigida
I thought it was the anti fascists making fun of them.
emergence:
I had a thought about the possible relationship between video game violence and meatspace violence. We know that the rate of violent crime in the United States has decreased every year over the last two decades:
We also know that the consumption of video games by USAmerican citizens has increased since 1994.
Given all that, wouldn’t it stand to reason that if video game violence caused violent crime that violent crime would have gone up since 1994? Instead, violent crime has gone down. Again–every year since ’94.
____
Here are some links you might find useful:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/10/video-games-violent-study-finds
http://www.sciencealert.com/definitive-study-finds-zero-link-found-between-video-game-and-youth-violence
____
Also, I’d like to point out that violence in this country doesn’t come from just one source. We see it glorified in multiple sports. We see it in books, movies, and on television. We’re surrounded by violence. I think many people latched onto a scapegoat-in this case video games-as a rationale for violence; regardless of evidence to support their contention.
Incidentally, the attempt to link video games to violence reminds me of Frederick Wertham’s crusade against comic books in the 1950’s.
Brony:
It’s not necessary for anyone. There is no need whatsoever for people to jump at obvious bait like trained fleas. This is not the same as addressing something of substance, and jumping at obvious bait is one of the things that makes for a more hostile environment and a commentariat that’s more at home with being vicious in general. If people would simply do what PZ has asked, that would reduce hostility, especially when that hostility is at other peoples’ expense.
How many of you responded to Nightjar upthread, about her shitty day? I can answer – none of you, because she posted in the middle of a bait dangle, and guess what got prioritized? That priority is all manner of fucked up, and it needs to change.
Christ, I am seriously starting to grok why so many people have wandered off.
Caine,
I don’t know about anyone else, but I read threads here and in the lounge from the bottom up instead of the top down so that I know what’s being discussed now. I never saw Nightjar’s comment.
I don’t know why it would drive anyone away. I’m not trying to be hostile. I was just having a conversation that I thought was within the new parameters.
Sorry you had a bad day, Nightjar.
@Caine 448
I don’t think that we are going to get much farther.
If at some point you are willing to explain why what is necessary for you is necessary for me I will be willing to consider it. Until then I refuse to accept flea and bait metaphors when I presented a description of why bait is bait and how it’s a problem worth attention (that I can unpack).
Behavior and strategy IS substance when it is the object of discussion. If you take a look at my comments again you will see that this is what I spent my time doing.
What part of what PZ said are you referring to? I have the threads open and would like to see. PZ also said things about not being willing to tolerate certain kinds of people and not being nice to certain kinds of people. I would like to get more specific with you if you become willing.
I described four groups of people and how we should think about interacting with them,
I have no reason to think that you have seen a single thing that would lead you to believe that I would treat 1-3 like I did 4. I am not treating you like I did zanyisspectrum.
It’s like you did not even read my comment. So I really don’t have a reason to respect your appeal to “…a commentariat that’s more at home with being vicious in general.” when what I said up there was literally the opposite of a general increase in “viciousness”. It was an outline for how to think about the kinds of people we want to have different ways of responding to.
Since PZ has stated that we are talking about changes in hostility and not elimination of it I would like you to point out where I was hostile at other peoples’ expense. In fact a lot of what I did up there was fairly objective descriptions of behavior as criticism which is going to feel hostile to people like that. I’m interested in what you mean by “hostile at other peoples’ expense”.
I am sorry that Nightjar had a shitty day.
People often have trouble switching emotional streams and that is one of the reasons the Lounge exists. I wish it was possible for us all to be more emotionally flexable in a place that is going to contain some arguments from time to time. (I realize that is a reason to talk serious about these things and is a reason why I’m being serious about this).
None of that excuses you complete inability to explain why I should feel differently, do differently, or why your representations of my comments are flat-out wrong. I literally have no reason to know what you grok.
Brony @450:
Normally I don’t have trouble putting my thoughts on paper (or online in this case), but I’ve been having trouble trying to figure out how to explain my opposition to Caine’s criticism of you (and her opposition to engaging our latest troll). Your comment above encapsulates so much of what I’ve been thinking, but couldn’t find the words for.
*cross posted with the Lounge*
PSA
PBS is having a short series on the First Peoples. The Redhead is watching, and I am DVRing.
/PSA
I bought hiking boots today.
Zamberlans.
$200 down from $295. (Sam Vimes made me do it.)
Since it’s probably the last hikers I’ll ever buy, probably a good deal.
They are so comfy, I may wear them to bed.
Hooray for new boots.
trapeziumsyncs
Have you read the whole thread?
Have you read comment #416 by PZ?
trapeziumsyncs
Banned because they were previously banned.
That was your second comment.
Why are you doing this?
Do you really think you can get away with it?
Oh, an anagram. How clever.
I see our latest troll is only at the first stage of the five stages of responding to banning – denial. Will there be bargaining next, or will they skip straight to anger?
It’s probably pointless to ask, as I’ve inquired so many times of so many trolls, but why are you here? You know you’re not welcome. You know you’ve been banned. What is it you’re hoping to accomplish? Is this all just for fun? You want to pop in, make some inane comments, get banned, rinse, repeat? Are you here to pester us? Pester PZ? Get your “banned from Pharyngula” badge?
I just can’t comprehend why someone would do this. Maybe you’re high. Or drunk. Or both.
I entirely concur with the literal meaning of this. The intended meaning, not-so-much.
It amuses me mildly how this commenter (humbleboasting as they are of their analytic dispassion and purportedly distinct and unusual viewpoint) buys into the trope that the unnecessary needs justification.
—
In passing, reading this thread makes reminds me that that self-righteousness and self-confidence are only weakly-dependent distributions.
(Also, the Sahara was once verdant, but that is an unnecessary observation)
—
Finally:
Heh.
Way I see it, much like terrorists got away with imposing security kabuki upon those who purport to war on terror, so have trolls got away with imposing niceness kabuki upon the commentariat via PZ’s directions.
(Obvious troll is obvious, yet your so-timid response is toeing the threshold of acceptable civility here, now)
Wow. If those words are true, then that’s some rare honesty.
Your attempts to get a rise out of me by tweaking my nym or poking fun at my pic and appearance are quite droll.
Hey, Slymie.
Between you and me, Tony doesn’t grok how it satisfies you merely to know you’ve successfully annoyed someone. That’s because he’s a nice guy.
(And, hey, whatever validates you, right? ;) )
The only fools that banned trolls fool are themselves.
You share enough in common with the Slymepitters to be lumped in with them. You lie about the number of bannings PZ performs. You lie about him being a hypocrite and you’re lying about him being a liar.
To borrow a phrase from Nerd, you’re a liar and a bullshitter.
You can’t be bothered to back up anything you say with any sort of evidence, thinking, I suppose that people will accept what you say at face value.
Or perhaps you don’t, because you’ve clearly been reading and obsessively stalking this blog as evidenced by your awareness of the different nym’s Caine has used over the years. Maybe you know people aren’t going to believe what you say around here, and spout your drivel nonetheless. You just want to spout your creationist style beliefs for all the world to see. At least until you get banned and then come back again.
But since you’re in such a friendly answering-questions-mood, perhaps you’ll enlighten me-why are you opposed to efforts at seeking justice and equality for people whom society has shit on? Why are you opposed to equality for LGBT people and women? Why do you hold such disdain for social justice advocates?
Incidentally, John’s use of [meta] has a specific purpose. Take the time to rub your two brain cells together and you *might* be able to figure out what that purpose is. I don’t have high hopes for that.
I have no idea what they’re gitting out of it.
I mean, ok, aparently they see themselves as the noble avengers who are punishing he baddies, but honestly, to me they’re looking like the villain of a high school movie.
trapeziumsyncs, save it for the rubes.
Both you and I know the banhammer comes when PZ awakens, after which you will (like any addict) consider how long you may endure before you must make a new login and scratch your itch.
Well that’s illustrative. The fool is opposed to a distorted and not at all accurate version of the actions of most people who advocate for social justice (I won’t try to assert-unlike *someone* here who makes wild accusations and assertions without a shred of evidence presented…probably thinks they’re a “skeptic” too-that there are no social justice advocates who act in unsavory ways, but the vast majority act nothing like this bizarro world mischaracterization). So rather than actually attempting to gain a true understanding, the nitwit goes on with the delusion. So sad.
It’s so odd that anyone actually believes this hyperbolic distorted rhetoric. That whole quoted portion is like a view into the Twilight Zone, only that person seems to think that crap is real. Ah well, a deluded troll’s gotta troll I guess.
What this actually means: when i say something racist and they point it out it makes me look bad and i don’t like it. I may be making racist, sexist, whatever, comments and hurting others with my attitudes but i’ve decided i’m a well meaning , good intentioned individual that knows what real racism, sexism, etc, are, and therefore i should be able to get away with whatever i like. The real crime is making me accountable for the shit i say and do.
Seriously, whenever you read: “Their mad accusations of racism against anything and everything”, you can safely translate it as “i think it’s funny to say racist shit”.
Oh look. Another troll who whines incessantly about this supposedly ubiquitous horrible behavior on the part of social justice advocates and yet somehow never manages to produce a single specific example. Must be a day ending in ‘y’.
@ zanyispectrum
(No, I’m not bothering with your stupid anagram).
You are aware that makes no sense, right?
Then follows some incredibly sweeping generalisations, among which are hidden the catalysts for two separate requests:
– define “true feminists”.
– define “real racism”.
Then it ends with the catalyst for a third, framed as a hypothetical: I am a well-intentioned individual. I am firmly in favour of trans* rights. In a conversation defending the right of trans* individuals to use the toilet assigned to the gender which they identify as, rather than the one which they were assigned at birth, I refer to trans* people as “trannies”.
Does the fact that I am a well-intentioned individual who is actively defending trans* rights make my use of that word any less offensive to any trans* people who may be listening?
I didn’t imply that at all. Read more carefully. I am offering a hypothetical which is intended to show that the mere fact that someone is well-intentioned does not at all make their words any less offensive. It is entirely possible to be very offensive towards the very group you are attempting to aid, and the mere fact you are well-intentioned and attempting to defend a disadvantaged group should not give you a pass on using language which denigrates that group, intentionally or otherwise.
I’d rather talk about Nightjar‘s bad day – it seems we have a few issues in common, from time to time. Though I’m far more likely to complain about the extraction robot dropping the sample box AGAIN.
Labwork rocks. :P
(And for the record, I didn’t reply earlier, because it takes me two fucking days to catch up with all my threads after being away for a day-and-a-half, and The Mended Drum is a bit lower on the list than other threads.)
Yeah, it’s so unusual of PZ to ban people from his own blog after they come here and insult him, insult his commentariat, break the rules and generally are as disruptive as they can be. Superweird….
This “PZ is a ban happy inquisitioner” bollocks is a popular meme among the kind of idiot that thinks that insulting people and misrepresenting them is a well intentioned, mature way to engage in meaningful conversation….and pitters…
The reality is that PZ bans very few people and doesn’t even erase their comments in all cases. But you know, whining about someone moderating and running their own blog is almost like having a valid argument against those horrid SJWs that call me out for using gendered insults…
Your complete avoidance of all my questions is noted.
@489
No.
But your continued misrepresentations are really cute, i’m sure it makes you feel good to pretend that you have an argument.
I seem to remember you quoting something about mad accusations that distract from real problems or something like that….Hmmmmmmm……
I think trollykins is referring to “meme” being coined by Dawkins. And, being a black-and-white thinking fool, they can’t distinguish between criticizing some things a person says and condemning them as “an evil misogynistic puppy killing rapist”.
rq, damn, that sounds like a whole lot of fun too. Or maybe not. :P
Yeah, endless ways things can and do get fucked up, whether you can blame it on a machine or not! Like that time I messed up a few time points while doing enzyme kinetics because the radio was on and the results of the latest champions league draw came on… “What?! We’re playing who!? Wait, where was I… oh fuck!” Yeah.
***
Not particularly interested in this this obvious and boring little troll, but since I’m being mentioned in this “to feed or not to feed” argument I just want say two things:
1. I’m not at all bothered by other people feeding trolls like the one we have here now, personally. I do think it is unnecessary and boring as hell because this is such an obvious and predictable specimen, but if other people want to play a bit before PZ takes care of them that’s fine by me. I’m not sure at this point if it breaks the rules or not, but I seem to remember that PZ never particularly liked when we fed banned trolls and this one most surely is a banned troll.
2. Of course I appreciated your comment to me Caine, but I don’t expect old-Thunderdome to be like the Lounge in terms of getting lots of sympathetic comments to a random vent about the last frustrating (but also funny in a tragic way) thing that happened to me. I prefer this thread over the Lounge precisely because I don’t feel the pressure to be as supporting with everyone and attentive to every comment, so I expect others to be just as free not to pay any attention to me if I post in the middle of an argument about a completely unrelated thing!
So the troll doesn’t like SJWs because PZ Myers was mean by banning xir from his blog. Quelle horreur as the Québécois would say. That makes perfect sense, if you don’t think too hard about it.
@ Seven of Mine
I’ve noticed this about a lot of FtB’s detractors. They seem to be unable to wrap their heads around criticisng a person’s position on one thing, while agreeing with them on another. You either hero-worship a person and support everything they say, or you hate them and disagree with everything they say. The concept of a nuanced approach is beyond them.
Dawkins is fantastic when it comes to evolution, biology, and criticism of religion. He is fucking terrible when it comes to equality, social justice, and the support of disadvantaged groups. It’s not a complicated distinction.
@ Thumper
I think it’s common among reactionary people in general. Another example would be people who, when feminists talk about curtailing harassment, anti-feminists hear “all flirting is harassment”.
I think our friend zanyispectrum makes a very good job of demonstrating what that kind of shit is useful for. Basically by ignoring the idea of a nuanced position and pretending that any criticism or disagreement equals complete repudiation, they fashion themselves a tool they can use against people who are making criticisms they don’t want made. So “Richard Dawkins has repeteadly demonstrated a very problematic attitude towards social justice issues and equality” becomes “Richard Dawkins is an evil misogynistic puppy killing rapist” which allows them to pretend that the people making the original criticism are irrational, blood thirsty, oversensitive, abusive fanatics that are just acking for a “witch hunt”, and therefore must be wrong and what they were critisizing must not be a problem at all. Because Dear Muslima, essentially…
Ahh, them hateful SJWs
Let me tel you about my hateful SJW day
First I woke the kids and made them breakfast. Then I took them to school.
Then I went grocery shopping.
Then I went to college.
Afterwards I drove to the refugee centre and brought them donations.
Then I went to Ikea to buy a birthday gift.
Now I’m home for a short while before I pick up the kids for their ballett class.
I tweeted support for trans folks in between and retweeted some other stuff.
I hope I make it till bedtime before I’m arrested for crimes against humanity.