Ed Brayton is a meanie

There he goes again, picking on the distinguished and august Thought Leaders of Atheism, in this case Sam Harris. It’s easy to do; there are a lot of buzzwords that trigger my rage, and Harris is fond of trotting out indicators of inanity like “identity politics” and “politically correct” and, of course, “divisive”.

…why is “divisive” a bad thing? Can you name a single example of progress in our society or any other that was not “divisive”? The push to end slavery was divisive, so much so that it sparked a civil war in which hundreds of thousands died; does that mean we should not have pushed to end slavery? The fight for women’s suffrage was divisive. The fight to end segregation was divisive. The fight for LGBT equality is divisive. Every single movement that resulted in a more fair, just and equal society was divisive. So why do people make such an accusation, as if it was somehow a strike against movements for social progress rather than a point in their favor? This is just lazy, sloppy thinking, and once again the use of buzzwords in place of serious argument.

That last sentence encapsulates Harris neatly.

You don’t expect vampires to be ethical, do you?

You knew this was coming, the perfect example of raging capitalism: old people buying young people’s blood.

In Monterey, California, a new startup has emerged, offering transfusions of human plasma: 1.5 litres a time, pumped in across two days, harvested uniquely from young adults.

Ambrosia, the vampiric startup concerned, is run by a 32-year-old doctor called Jesse Karmazin, who bills $8,000 (£6,200) a pop for participation in what he has dubbed a “study”. So far, he has 600 clients, with a median age of 60. The blood is collected from local blood banks, then separated and combined – it takes multiple donors to make one package.

Let’s consider all the ways this is sleazy.

  • Karmazin isn’t paying the donors in proportion to the value of their blood; a unit of blood is worth a few hundred dollars, and he’s just buying it up from blood banks and repackaging it with a significant markup.

  • If he were paying what it was worth to him to donors, he’d be enticing donors to contribute to him for a pointless exercise in imaginary rejuvenation, rather than to blood banks/hospitals for saving lives.

  • Right now he’s depleting the local blood supply by a small amount for his venality.

  • He’s lying and calling it a “study”. There are no control groups. Participants have to buy in with large sums of money, so he’s selecting for only the rich.

  • There is no good evidence that this is an effective and significant treatment for aging. There is some work in mice, but it’s so preliminary that there’s no way to justify leaping into human trials.

  • Imagine that there are solid, measurable improvements in the recipients’ health. I don’t believe in getting something for nothing; then I would have to ask what are the detriments to the donor’s health of giving blood. Are there long term losses? Short term effects? This ‘study’ is ignoring that side of the issue.

Bad science, weak justifications, and wealthy exploiters literally feeding on the blood of the young, like a swarm of geeky overpaid ticks. They are actual vampires. They should think about that, because there is a universally known literary precedent for how one deals with vampires.

I do think that research into, for instance, stem cell replenishment is a good idea — but let’s not pretend that what this guy is doing is serious research. And if these transfusions do have some beneficial effects, it’s time to have some serious consideration of the ethics of such treatments, and their wider effect on society — two things that venture capitalists and vampires don’t know much about, and don’t care about.

I’m all for removing that statue, too

There is a monument to Christopher Columbus at the Minnesota capitol in St Paul? I had no idea. He was an evil old monster, I’m all for removing anything like that — and there is a petition to remove it and replace it with two statues, one of Prince and another of someone chosen by the Indian community. I like that idea.

But then, I think we should regularly change art anyway. The Columbus statue isn’t exactly equivalent to Michelangelo’s David. It was bought and paid for by an association of Italian-Americans about a century ago, and so what it really represents is a wave of self-promotion by an ethnic community that had been discriminated against (which is a fine thing to do; it’s just too bad they picked such a terrible hero), and isn’t necessarily high art. Of course, Michelangelo’s David was also commissioned as propaganda by Florentines to cock a snook at Rome, so motives don’t necessarily mar great art, but does anyone believe this particular statue will stand the test of time? Does anyone think the Confederate statues that dot the landscape are actually significant works of art? Many of them were mass-produced!

I have no problem with old, pedestrian art being taken down and replaced with new stuff — that’s the kind of change that also brings more money to artists, too. And then, a century from now, Minnesotans can look at the statue of Prince and think about whether to swap it out with something new, too.*

We often revise and modify memorial art. That statue of Columbus originally described him as ‘discovering’ America; that did not go over well in a state with a substantial native population and an even larger Scandinavian population (and, I fear, the sensibilities of the Lake Wobegone set were more influential than the Indians) and it was replaced with a plaque that credited him with initiated the merging of the cultures between the old and new worlds (warning: autoplay video at link!), which is the niftiest euphemism for rape, looting, and genocide I’ve ever seen.

There’s also a Spanish-American War memorial there that had the most revealing change:

The original memorial honored Minnesota soldiers who “battled to free the oppressed peoples of the Philippine Islands, who suffered under the despotic rule of Spain.”

The corrected language reads: “The United States entered that war to defeat Spain, not to free the Filipinos. Most of the battles listed above were fought against Filipinos.”

Yeah, that’s a kinda different interpretation all right.

So sure, let’s not pretend old statues become sacred with the passage of time.

*I know, the music of Prince is timeless, and he didn’t go around maiming and murdering people, but still…we don’t get to dictate the will of our descendants.

Atomic blondes have more fury

My wife and I went on a date last night and saw Atomic Blonde. She enjoyed it — it was the late showing, and she has a tendency to nod off in the theater if there’s any slack in the pacing, but she was bolt upright and wide awake the whole time — and I liked the twisty spy novel plot and shady characters with underhanded schemes. But two major questions were unresolved.

  1. If Lorraine Broughton and John Wick got in a fight, how high would the body count be? Note that I’m not asking who would win, because we all know they would both emerge bloody and battered but victorious, but how much havoc would be wreaked upon assorted minions, passers-by, and crime/spy chiefs? I give the edge to John right now, but only because he’s had two movies and more practice. Lorraine needs a sequel to even it up.

  2. How much did German rent-a-thugs get paid? It can’t have been more than the equivalent of $50K/year, right? Maybe bump it up a bit if they get some kind of hazard bonus, and maybe they’re better off than that with fantastic free healthcare (they need it), but whatever it was, it couldn’t account for the knock-down-drag-out fights they were getting into. Fierce woman charges into a guy, punches him so hard he flies up against a wall; he draws a knife and launches himself into her, she disarms him, stabs him hard in the back, stabs him a few more times in the chest, and he staggers back; he lurches forward again, wham-bam-wham, she pounds him in the face; he reaches for a gun, she throws him down the stairs. What’s his motivation? I mean, if it were me, at the first punch I’d be thinking to myself I’m going to be laid up for a week, it’s going to take more than a couple of ibuprofens to get over this, I’m not getting paid enough for this crap, I think I’ll just take a little nap right here. Heck, just the look on Charlize Theron’s determined angry face would have me backing up and saying “Lady, you win.” But they kept coming!

It’s a very angry movie, and I needed that. It’s also stylish and has a great soundtrack, if you like 80s music. For some reason, Theron reminded me of Iris — I recommend that no one or no thing pick a fight with her.

Get Out! A message for the atheist movement

A couple have a major disagreement. A metaphorical story.

Spouse #1: I want a divorce.

Spouse #2: But no! You can’t! Marriage is so, so important, and we have to stick together no matter what!

S#1: I’m a feminist, and you put a pic of Milo Yiannopoulis with a word ballon saying “Feminism is Cancer” as the background on your cell phone.

S#2: You can change! Or you can learn to tolerate my little quirks. I have to be me, you know.

S#1: You marched in a white nationalist parade!

S#2: Oh, you and your trivial, petty concerns. Our bond is more important. We have to stick together, for the sake of the marriage. We still have things in common: you think Black Lives Matter, but we can still agree that cops have really tough jobs. Why are you tearing us apart?

I ask, who’s side do you take here? Some of you will say that both sides are talking past each other, and that is correct. Some might then follow through and declare that therefore Both Sides Are Wrong, glossing over the misogyny and racism that one side takes for granted.

But some of us say instead, “Oh no, Spouse #1! Get out! #2 is an asshole with bad ideas!” It seems to me the only rational response: that’s a marriage that needs to end.

But a lot of atheists disagree. At least, that’s what I have to conclude from the last 6 years of abusive behavior by atheists against atheists, who then try to silence disagreement by declaring the inviolable importance of sticking together in the name of the precious Atheist Movement.

In 2016, David Smalley asked, What’s killing the atheist movement?”. His answer: public disagreement about social justice. Reading between the lines, it was clear that it was all the fault of people who criticized other people within the movement. We’re supposed to be quiet, show a unified front, and call each other up on the phone before we dare to disagree publicly. He was completely oblivious to the fact that silence favors the status quo, and that he was taking a side when he demands obedience to the nebulous leadership of the atheist movement.

I slammed him on it. I had a debate with him on his rather obnoxious and ignorant post; you can’t listen to it anymore because it was deleted by its creator. There is still my side of the conclusion, though.

Did he learn anything from this? No. Earlier this summer in 2017, he wrote another post that is nearly exactly the same as the previous, except that now he boldly states who the villain is: How the Regressive Left Is Killing the Atheist Movement. I hadn’t read it before, because I’ve written off any interest in anything Smalley has to say, but it’s an amazing piece of work: he starts by explaining that this is a result of a series of conversations he’s had with people like Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Adam Carolla, Pete Boghossian, and Lawrence Krauss.

Wow. What a diverse collection of dissenting voices. Were Sam Harris and Dave Rubin busy that day? They are the only people I can think of who might have improved on that stellar collection of manifold heterogeneity.

Actually, it’s a collection of bogus conservative atheist bullshit. It’s got everything. Witch hunts. The horseshoe theory. Insistence that he’s the reasonable one. Misrepresentation of everyone else. It’s one long atheist dudebro cliche. All the problems in his first post were exponentially amplified.

It’s not just me. The Thomas Smith at the Serious Inquiries Only blog reamed him out. Which is good, because now I don’t have to address it.

But that’s not all. Smalley then made his garbage post the subject of his talk at Gateway To Reason. Watch, if you can bear it.

Most disappointingly, it was posted by Seth Andrews, who I thought was fairly level-headed. He prefixed it with this message:

At the 2017 Gateway to Reason Conference in St. Louis, David Smalley (host of Dogma Debate) gave his perspective on the challenges and often public divisions among atheist activists, and in regard to online interactions as a whole.

It’s a perspective…uploaded and presented here as a conversation starter, as so many are fervently seeking a fairer, more tempered, and more civil exchanges and interactions between people

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” – Harper Lee

Fairer. More tempered. More civil. Applied to a speech in which Smalley trivializes our differences and begs people to stop criticizing fellow atheists. In which he sets up all kinds of irrational dichotomies. That thing in my imaginary dialog where Spouse #2 suggests that pointing out, as Black Lives Matter does, that cops are murdering people is reasonably countered by pointing out that we can still agree that cops have really tough jobs? He actually says that.

People at that conference applauded and cheered and laughed. Except, I noticed, Alix Jules and a few others scattered around the room. An amazing number of atheists thought that deplorable performance was commendable, including Seth Andrews. My estimation of Andrews has dropped significantly now.

The video already has a large number of positive comments! I’ll give you one example, representative of the kind of atheist who agrees with Smalley.

The skeptic-atheist community broke apart when Cultural Marxism was introduced into it e.g. third wave feminism, identity politics, intersectionality. New rules for behavior and speech were introduced. This ideology even demonised the most prominent and influential atheists like Dakwins or Harris as bigoted, racist, islamophobic white males.
As a counter movement, many skeptics became fiercely anti-SJW. There the division took place.

The “Cultural Marxist” remark gives it away. This is one of those pseudoscientifically racist people who whines about white genocide. That’s the audience for Smalley’s message. He doesn’t care.

Stephanie Zvan was there at the talk. She didn’t like it.

So what the hell did Smalley do in his talk? Start with what he didn’t do: He didn’t address a single one of Thomas Smith’s criticisms. He didn’t modify his thesis, and he didn’t change his examples. The Black Lives Matter/cops have tough jobs was in the talk just as it was in the post—worded differently, but still missing the point Smith notes. He didn’t actually call out the “Regressive Left” specifically, but that’s where his examples of bad behavior came from.

You see, we’re throwing people away in this movement for not being pure and perfect. We’re excommunicating imperfect people willy-nilly, and people are leaving atheism because it reminds them of their old churches that did this. Because, you know, people didn’t actually leave their churches over the god question, despite this being the basis for the atheist movement’s claim to any kind of broad rationality. No, they left because people were mean to each other. Petty mean.

What does he mean? He means holding people to account for things like retweeting white nationalists when those white nationalists make a point someone agrees with. Or at least that’s the part of the situation he mentioned. He left out the content of any retweets in the movement that might fit his description and didn’t talk about any hypothetical tweeter’s response to being criticized for making the error.

Yes. Objecting to racism is now “being mean” to some in the movement. We’re excommunicating people over mere sexism and racism! Not mentioned is that somehow the people being “excommunicated” are people at the top, like Dawkins and Harris, who haven’t gone anywhere, who are still lauded as the leading voices of the movement, who still get speaking gigs at atheist conferences, who are still turned to when the media needs a quote from an atheist.

Steve Shives points out exactly where this split in the community occurred. One flashpoint where the differences crystallized: Rebecca Watson and Elevatorgate. You remember that — when Watson, in response to a late-night suggestion in an elevator said “Guys, don’t do that”, and an angry horde of entitled assholes shrieked and sent rape threats, and an even larger group of atheists looked at the years of harassment and the quiet one-liner with David Smalley’s attitude and declared that both sides were equivalent and bad.

This is what is making the atheist movement irrelevant and ugly: that there are people who close their eyes to injustice, like David Smalley, and others who exploit that to turn the whole thing into foul nest of entitled asshats who prop up the status quo. Where once we were a radical force for a new perspective on humanity, now it’s a home for white nationalism and casual sexism and the same old dogmas, because too many of its advocates consider equality and human dignity trivial, petty concerns not worth calling out members for. It’s populated with people who cannot recognize the distinction between racism and criticizing racism. (You know who else, besides David Smalley, cannot do that? Donald Trump.)

Atheism has squandered its momentum on a defensive old guard and apologists for neglect of events happening in our world. I’m going to have to suggest that we all abandon it. Let’s find an organization that openly states that they want to dismantle the structures of white supremacy and sexist oppression.

Take a listen to James Croft. Humanism is a better future.

Say it ain’t so, Dolly!

I’ve heard of medieval-themed dinner theater before, but this is the first I’ve heard of Confederate-themed dinner theater, where they re-fight the Civil War, with the South usually winning. And it’s a Dolly Parton operation!

Because I had seen the promo video on the show’s webpage, I thought I knew what to expect. It all seems innocent enough until you begin to see relics of the War Between the States: waiters dressed in Union uniforms dropping food on the plates of happy patrons hungry for nostalgia and smiling men on horseback wearing Confederate uniforms. As one colleague pointed out with a mix of horror and delight, recalling the deliberately offensive fictional musical from The Producers, it’s Springtime for Hitler.

Except that this thing has been running for 30 years, and the audience doesn’t see it as parody.

Last time I was in Germany, I didn’t see any Nazi-themed restaurants, or Nazi musical revues. Did I not look hard enough?

Flattery will get you everywhere

A couple of years ago, someone put together a compilation titled “Best of PZ Myers Amazing Arguments And Clever Comebacks”, and I missed it! O, my ego! It just grew two sizes larger!

Oh, wait. It’s on YouTube. I just read the comments.

  • Pz myers is a douchebag SJW.

  • maybe avoid this guy in the future, he’s a twat!

  • PZ is an idiot and an asshole.

  • SJW morons will be SJW morons. Myers is one disgusting primate.

  • I’m sorry, but PZ is a douche.

  • PZ Myers gives a bad name to atheists…just so you guys know, he hurls rape accusations at fellow atheists when they disagree about feminism…

  • This guy is a total moron trying to look like an intellectual.

  • fuck PZ. shes a weak ass bitch.

Momentarily nonplussed…but then I realized these are comments on YouTube, and my ego inflated another two sizes.

You should not date Nate

Nate has an interminable web site in which he talks about how unique and special and hardworking he is, and how he abhors 95% of what other people like (it’s a kind of negging), and how he wants to meet a special someone for a vacation date. Maybe magic will happen!

I think “magic” is his special secret word for sex.

Anyway, after going on and on about his unusual creative lifestyle and how he’s sure there are very few women who could possibly be interested in him, he lays down his requirements for a date:

As far as age is concerned, if you are somewhere between 22 and 35 that’s just fine. If you have a slender, healthy body, a reasonably slim waist, and a very pretty face then, quite frankly, you sound like heaven to me!

How prosaic and predictable. Just another marketing guy trying to pick up girls.

By the way, it’s even worse than that: he markets nutritional supplements, the shiny new ploy for snake oil salesmen, and he hates the FDA because it is an inept, deplorable, and useless organization.

I think those are his special secret words for “knows I’m a con artist and a quack”.

Friday Cephalopod: Undead Squid Penis

First, a little background:

When squid mate, a male transfers its sperm to a female enclosed in complex structures called spermatophores. These are accumulated in the spermatophoric sac, a storage organ inside the mantle cavity, before ejaculation through the penis. Squid that spawn in shelf waters and epipelagic waters of the open ocean usually have short penes hidden completely inside the mantle. Males pick the ejaculated spermatophores from inside their mantle with a specially modified arm called the hectocotylus, to transfer them to the female. Females spawning in shallow water have special places for spermatophore attachment on the body, both externally (skin ring around the mouth, and back of the head) and internally (oviducal gland openings near gills) (Nesis, 1995). As female squid lack a vagina, the use of a highly articulated arm (hectocotylus) for transfer and placement of spermatophores is more precise than by means of the comparatively poorly articulated penis.

So male squid have penises deep in their mantle. Many species have short penises, and they also have a specialized arm, the hectocotylus, that they use to reach in to their own mantle to scoop up ejaculate and then place it in the appropriate place in a female.

Other species lack the hectocotylus, but instead have a long penis, as some investicators discovered. They are also capable of erections, which was a surprise.

A mature moribund male of the greater hooked squid Onykia ingens (Smith, 1881) (38.5 cm mantle length, 1180 g body mass) was caught on the Patagonian slope south of the Falkland Islands (July 2006, 53°20′S, 59°31′W, 1050 m depth). When the mantle of the squid was opened for maturity assessment during processing of the catch onboard, the penis of the squid, which previously had extended only slightly beyond the mantle margin, suddenly started to erect. It became rigid and quickly elongated to 67 cm total length, almost the same length as the whole body of the animal (mantle, head and arms; Fig. 1). Immediately after elongation, several spermatophores were ejaculated from the penis tip.

So not only do they have penises capable of erection, they can get erections when dead and partially dissected, which means I can now show you a zombie squid dick pic.

Mature males of deep-water squid Onykia ingens with cut-open mantles showing non-erect (A) and fully erect (B) penes.

(blame Tommy Leung)

Arkhipkin AI, Laptikhovsky VV (2010) Observation of penis elongation in Onykia ingens: implications for spermatophore transfer in deep-water squid, Journal of Molluscan Studies 76(3):299–300.