Thunderf00t, check your email

I’ve sent you a couple of official messages. Acknowledge them, please.

As for your latest uninformed complaint about the Skepchick harassment policy at Convergence, I’ll just make a few criticisms.

  • Yes, the policy says you can’t harass people for their religion. Please note: “harass” and “offend” are not synonyms of one another. I offend Catholics all the time, but one thing I do not do is go stand outside the church on Sunday morning and heckle everyone going in.

    Note also that this is a skepticism and science track at a science-fiction convention. There will be Christians, Buddhists, pantheists, and pagans in attendance. It would not be appropriate in this context to deny theists any participation.

  • Your argument that people would use the clause asking that everyone respects requests to stop doing things as opening the door to requiring everyone to respect requests from Islamic fanatics to wear burkas is so ridiculous that it made me giggle. This is Convergence, a science-fiction and fantasy convention. Have you ever been to one?

  • Further misreading: that the policy acknowledges that the Skepchick/FtB group can only monitor what goes on in our party rooms does not mean that there is no larger domain that can have anti-harassment policies enforced. The con administration has been quite clear in how they expect people to behave, and has told us exactly what they will not tolerate…and we’ve been working with the con security. They are taking harassment very seriously, and had taken steps even before we signed on to improve the environment.

    You don’t seem to understand that these conventions rely on enthusiastic participation by as wide a slice of the population as they can attract, and consider making it safe for women a high priority.

    Also, fear this right down to the trembling hairs on your endangered scrotum: all of the security staff at Convergence that I have met with in the last few months have been women.

  • We cannot throw people out of the conference because we are not the hosting organization. Convergence is. And they have and will continue to throw people out who can’t respect reasonable boundaries.

Also, as a scientist, I would expect you to understand empirical results. These SF/Fantasy cons have been going on for years and have been immensely successful — I often tell atheists/skeptics to go to these things just to see how a large convention (5000+ people) is well-managed and still fun. You can stare at pieces of paper and invent hypothetical reasons why they are objectionable, but the reality is that when they happen, they work.

Thunderf00t replies

I’ll confine myself to addressing just two points in his rebuttal.

  1. He accuses me of strawmanning his argument by claiming that he’s taking a black and white view of anti-harassment policies — that they should be either do-nothing or full-weight-of-the-law. He now explains that that’s not the case, he endorses using all kinds of intermediate levels of enforcement.

    Then I’m left wondering exactly what the point of his outrage was? That makes it sound as if he’s agreeing totally with what many of us are saying: we want these policies in place because they offer women recourse and support. Richard Carrier has very carefully laid out the intent and function of these policies. Perhaps Thunderf00t can read that and clarify whether he disagrees or not? Because his current posts try to have it both ways.

  2. Speaking of strawmanning an argument, here’s a beautiful example.

    IT WAS IN A BAR. I enjoyed it, she enjoyed it (she left a comment specifically saying so, just to remove all doubt (see MyLegMYCHOICE!)), AND I NEVER HAD TO CONSULT HER, NOR APPLY FOR PERMISSION FROM THE CONFERENCE, IN ORDERS SIGNED IN TRIPLICATE SENT IN, SENT BACK AND BURIED IN SOFT PEAT FOR THREE MONTHS AND RECYCLED AS FIRELIGHTERS etc etc. Indeed had I had to fill in the paperwork along with ‘permission to bite your leg in a horseplay photo’ form under conference interpersonal contact rule 144 b) 2, it would have probably kinda killed the moment, and neither I nor she would have got our mild thrills for the night. It’s boys n girls have fun in bars!

    I said precisely the opposite. These are situations where I agree — nobody is saying you have to fill out forms to play, and it would be ridiculous to do so. However, it’s also problematic. He doesn’t feel he ever had to consult her? What?

    I have heard this complaint many times. A woman goes to a bar at a meeting because she wants a drink, she wants to join in the conversation (because that’s where a lot of the informal talk goes on), and discovers that there are guys there with this attitude that groping is now permitted because the only reason that “girls” are there is to “have fun in bars”. Some women are there to flirt and enjoy a little horseplay…many are not.

    This really is the problem. You need to interact with people first to discover if they’re fellow companions out in the spirit of a little physical fun (you don’t need to formally ask; I presume in this case there were cues to say it was OK), and you cannot assume that every person there is willing to have you fondle them. Especially at a skeptics/atheist conference, where people sign up to learn about a philosophical/social position.

    Surprise. There are a lot of women who go to these meetings to be taken seriously and discuss serious topics, and have zero interest in having their legs grabbed. Not even in the bar.

Molly Rene has some choice words for people who confuse bars with brothels.

Outing Thunderf00t

Thunderf00t has been getting threats from an angry Muslim who has been taking a shotgun approach to threaten and extort, and has actually been tossing around documents labeling his brother as Thunderf00t. So he has decided to give up his pseudonymity and reveal his actual identity: say hello to Phil Mason.

I guess he can’t be threatened with having his real name revealed now.

Thunderf00t under attack again

We’ll have to see how long this video remains available. Thunderf00t, the well-known godless anti-creationist creator of fine youtube videos, is routinely targeted by Christian/creationist scriptbots to downgrade his videos and even get them banned, and he’s had enough — this clip takes the youtube management to task for kowtowing to the ignorant god-crowd. It was, of course, deleted by the youtube management, but not before it got copied to many other places.

It’s actually rather sad to see. There have been a lot of shenanigans like this recently, and I’ve gone from regarding youtube as merely poorly managed to suspecting that they are actively evil.

VenomFangX vs. Thunderf00t

Ah, the weird, wild world of the interwebs, where one actually finds people calling themselves “VenomFangX” and “Thunderf00t” squaring off to do battle. VenomFangX is one of the lower denizens of Youtube, a creationist notorious for the arrogant confidence with which he states the ridiculous and ignorant. Thunderf00t is a calm rationalist and defender of science and evolution on Youtube, and they recently did battle.

VenomFangX, unable to actually outargue and outreason Thunderf00t, made a series of legal accusations, that Thunderf00t was violating copyright, and convinced Youtube to briefly yank his account. Thunderf00t shot those accusations down, and made a legal claim in reply, that abusing the copyright act had serious penalties associated with it, and demanded a public retraction and apology.

Thunderf00t won, and got VenomFangX to concede and read a detailed apology on camera, which is now on Youtube. I have to give it to VenomFangX, he actually managed to read it with a little dignity and about the same amount of sincerity you’ll find in his creationist videos — but I doubt that he has really learned anything from the episode, other than to be more careful about making actionable statements.