Stop telling me how horrible rape is

[cn: non-graphic discussion of rape, rape apology]

I and most people I know oppose rape and rape culture. One way for people to express this is by saying “Rape is a horrible crime.” While this is true enough, telling me how horrible rape is fails to actually reassure me. In fact, in some cases I find it to be a red flag, something that makes me less inclined to trust you. I do not know if other activists and survivors have similar reactions, but I will provide my own reasons.

Let us first consider a similar statement: “I am not a racist.” While this statement superficially expresses opposition to racism, it is not very convincing for the following reasons:

  • Even people who are unambiguously racist can and will say the same thing.
  • Rather than expressing dislike of racism, the statement instead expresses anxiety that someone (themselves) would be falsely accused of racism. Rather than doing something to address racism, they are instead creating barriers to other people who might try to address racism.
  • The statement shows a misunderstanding of racism as something that is primarily located in a few bad individuals. It makes more sense to talk about racism on a societal level, rather than sorting individuals into the racist or non-racist box.

Each of these three points has an analogue when it comes to saying “Rape is a horrible crime.”
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The nice antitheist strategy

Alex Gabriel has an important essay, “My atheism will not be politically correct“, which discusses antitheism, and discusses the discussion surrounding antitheism. It’s common for many atheists to say that they are no longer antitheists, saying they now realize religion is not the most important problem in the world, and religion sometimes even helps people in times of tragedy. Furthermore, a lot of atheists are jerks and they find more allies among religious people.

Alex’s critique is that all these points, while they may have some merit, are unrelated to the issue of antitheism.  The only question is, would the world be a better place without religion in it?

At the surface, this might just seem to be a disagreement over how we define “antitheism”. But it’s more than that, it’s about how we choose that definition in the first place, and for what purpose. Many atheists choose to define “antitheism” as an extremist position, one that they contrast with their own position. This rhetorical strategy renders oneself more palatable to religious people, basically by throwing other atheists under the bus. Alex prefers a different strategy, where he doesn’t hold his tongue just to make religious people comfortable.

I also unhesitatingly identify as an antitheist, although for not quite the same reasons. I strive for a particular image: a radical queer atheist who is nonetheless very nice. In other words, I aim to break stereotypes. I do not think that this is something everyone needs to do; rather, I myself am well-positioned to do it, so why shouldn’t I do it? And an important part of breaking atheist stereotypes is making it clear that I am in fact an atheist, and why yes I even oppose the “nice” religions and do not think they are very nice at all.

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I liked Richard Carrier, past tense

If you hadn’t heard, Richard Carrier is suing FreeThought Blogs, Skepticon, The Orbit, and several individuals for two million dollars. To learn more, I recommend an episode on the Atheistically Speaking Podcast [eta: correction] about it. If you are interested in helping the defendants, you may contribute to the defense fund here. (Note that I am not personally liable since FreeThought Blogs is incorporated as an LLC.)

The primary subject of the lawsuit is defamation. Since I do not want to repeat any remarks that would risk me getting sued (and apparently merely referring to accusations against Carrier is sufficient), I will simply quote Richard Carrier himself.
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Origami: A nontrivial knot

Origami in the form of a trefoil knot

Knotted Toroid, designed by me.  Based on Thoki Yenn’s Umulius.

Although this blog has a standing ban on nontrivial knots, this piece of origami defies the ban because it knows it can get away with it.

I have two comments on this model.  First, I’ll explain how the choice of paper presents a philosophical problem.  Second, I’ll talk a bit about the inspiration for the model.

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I used to think Santa was a myth

I know I said I’m on blogging break, but I still want to do my monthly repost thing.  This is a classic I wrote in 2011.

‘Tis the season for anecdotes…

I didn’t ever take Santa very seriously when I was younger. Or at least, not as far as I can recall. And I thought that no one else took Santa seriously either.

I mean, kids believing in Santa, that’s just something that happens in the movies, right? There are countless movies depicting little kids who believe in Santa Claus. They’ll write letters to Santa. They’ll wait excitedly at the stairs for Santa to come, deliver presents, and eat the cookies and milk. Kids believe in all these elaborate legends and rituals, sometimes even in the face of disbelief from their parents or older kids.

Of course, in these movies, Santa also happens to be real. But Santa isn’t real. So why should I think that belief in Santa be real? For me, belief in Santa was all part of the mythos, along with the elves, reindeer, and red suit. [Read more…]

Break notice

I’m going on a blogging break until 2017.  But I’ll still be around if you wanna chat in the comments.

Also, if you want to see more of what I’ve been writing lately, I have an ongoing series on The Asexual Agenda about tropes in ace webcomics.

Linkspam: December 11th, 2016

This month’s linkspam is predominantly about trans and gender issues. That might be a coincidence.

Prejudice, “Political Correctness,” and the Normalization of Donald Trump – Julia Serano has enough in here that she really could have written three essays, and then I would put it in my linkspam three times.  I particularly like the middle essay, where she talks about the uses of “political correctness”, and why activists think the word should be ditched even if it includes some genuinely objectionable activities.  I have said such things myself but could never say it so well.

Science isn’t Broken – In the past year or so, there have been many articles about the unreliability of science, and this is one.  I’m linking it just for the interactive toy that lets you try p-hacking.

I’m inclined to believe that science is doing just fine.  It’s journalists who have been too quick to trust an claim just because a study said so, and who are now surprised to find that studies are not so reliable as that.  Working scientists have always known to distrust studies’ conclusions.  This is true in physics too, being a “hard” science does not help.  In my field we don’t really calculate p-values, so p-hacking isn’t a thing, but we still have biases, just ones that are more difficult to characterize.

An epic battle between feminism and deep-seated misogyny is under way in South Korea – This is a pretty interesting read about the South Korean version of the culture wars.  It sounds like misogyny is really bad there.  The feminist organization Megalia is characterized as rather extreme, but in that context it might be warranted, I dunno.  This link was shared by a commenter. [Read more…]