Perception matters

Atheists have been fighting stereotypes for as long as I’ve been one, and longer: that we’re all Communists, that we’re Vulcan robots, that we’re amoral and likely to rape small children (no, ma’am, you’ve confused us with Catholic priests), that we all think we’re so much better than everyone else. Thanks to the behavior of our Great Atheist Thinky Bigbrain Leaders, though, another one is taking currency fast: that we are all MRA-style anti-woman freaks.

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Lewis’s Law confirmed again

You’ve seen Emma Watson’s speech to the UN. Go ahead, watch it again. It’s worth it, and it’ll highlight the contrast with 4chan’s reaction to it.

Members of 4chan’s b board lost their very minds over this, and embarked on a campaign against Watson almost immediately.

So far, this has included a threat to release hacked nude pictures of her in the manner that other celebrity photos have been leaked over the past two months–complete with a sad little countdown website titled Emma You Are Next. Although this is almost definitely a hoax, it is an incredibly sick one.

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Christina Hoff Sommers…autotuned!

Christina Hoff Sommers came out with a video a short while ago about the oppression of those poor boys who play video games — the feminists are out to get them, don’t you know? — and it was pretty bad. Right away she asserts that people who play games that aren’t violent and sexist aren’t really “gamers”, so she defines away everyone who might disagree with her. Par for the course for that anti-feminist — she’s absurdly illogical.

I couldn’t get through the whole video, but Jonathan Mann did it — by autotuning everything and singing a musical counterpoint. It’s hilarious. Listen, especially if you already hate autotuning.

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About that Science article on ‘science stars of Twitter’

As always seems to happen, people looked at the list which already had the problem of being grossly skewed towards men, and noticed other odd little things. Like, “hey, I follow this science person who has more followers than so-and-so, why isn’t she on the list?” Clearly, there were errors of omission, and oddly, they all seem to skew away from women and people of color. Or maybe not so oddly — it’s striking how often that seems to happen.

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I’m a very wealthy man in many ways

I have discovered the key to great riches: all I have to do is get someone famous to accuse me of being “click-baity” and trolling for cash, and in a strangely perverse turn, people start freely donating to me. Just today, I’ve been given $500 via the donate box in the sidebar! I was surprised, and I thank those of you who donated very much. So I thought I’d tell you all what I’m going to do with it.

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