Lee Moore is hoping for a cease fire.
I think a cease fire could be possible, since I haven’t been firing except when attacked. That makes it easy to agree to a cease fire. Do I want to write about Reap Paden and Atheist Asshole all the time? Fuck no. Of course not. If they would leave me the hell alone I would be delighted to forget all about them.
But Lee wants more than just a cease fire.
I am going to do something about it. In order to facilitate this I am calling for representatives from both camps in these blog wars to sit down with me in what may be the first of many live and public google hangouts to discuss grievances and come back to the world of civil discussion and cooperation. I am also asking for an end to the attacks from both sides as a show of good faith (and not the faith of the religious, but the faith that all atheists share: faith in ourselves—in our humanity and our ability to work together to create a more rational, understanding society).
So I invite you—no, I implore you—to join us in our campaign for cooperation.
If you are interested in being a part of these talks please contact me at [email protected]
Yeah no. Cease fire, hell yes: be my guest. To discuss grievances, hell no. What “grievance” does franc hoggle or any of the rest of them have against me? That I’m ugly and disgusting and should be made to shut up? Yeah I’m not discussing grievances like that.
But don’t let me be a party pooper. If you want to do a google hangout to discuss Reap Paden’s grievance that I eat cat food, knock yourselves out.
Like I said on Twitter, it is a “cease-fire” where only one side has guns. You aren’t doing anything to them, they are trying to destroy you and every feminist they come across. All they need to do is stop being cruel and accept that other people want to talk about feminism and other social justice issues, and the “war” that they started will end. They don’t even have to join in any social justice issues themselves, as long as they stop attacking those people who take part in those activities.
Wait just a dang minute.
The violent, threatening, misogynous, and insulting blog posts have been generated by grievances? I do not see how any one with an ounce of sense or four ounces of reading comprehension ability could see “grievance” in the vicious posts I’ve been reading.
The bizarre sense of entitlement is just staggering.
I said the same thing on Lee’s article, and Justin Vacula told me to make my own terms. I told him I already had. They go like this:
In general: leave me alone. Vacula in particular: withdraw the lies he told about me in his podcast.
Exactly. And there’s nothing anyone can do, at all, on any level, that can provoke a decent person into using sexist or racist slurs, or stalking, or making any sort of threats. If you use those terms or act in a stalking and threatening manner, especially in the face of people telling you the harm they do, you’re a shitty human being no matter how justified you feel in your anger. Their victims are pretty goddamned angry too, but you pretty much never see responses in kind. On the contrary, people on THIS side of the deep rifts criticize each other for going too far in counterattacks for fear of stooping to their level.
I swear people who equate being the victim of a racist /sexist and being referred to as such are worse than the racists/sexists. I can see it coming from someone who’s been described as a racist/sexist, but people who claim to want to stop this one sided war? Makes me want to punch something.
Now isn’t Lee the cutest lil’ ol’ thing you’ve seen in a long time? That sweet naive innocence that makes him think this is just a misunderstanding, like those bad sit-com plots where everything gets all sorted out in 1/2 hour (actually 22 minutes, because 8 minutes are set aside for commercial breaks).
Lee, Lee, Lee. Check out the antics of the anti-FtB crowd. They don’t want civil discussion and cooperation with their opponents any more than racist bullies want civil discussion and cooperation with the black kids they are beating to a pulp. A cease fire takes away all their fun.
Justin V is posturing for the high middle ground as well. He was personally asked to participate, you see, and he’s written a thoughtful post about civil discourse, linking to a jeering article by Karla Porter.
The commentariat there seems as skeptical of a resolution as we are here. I guess there is some common ground after all.
hypatiasdaughter, while I understand your point your delivery was pretty rude.
I have checked out the antics from that crowd and while I find some of their tactics questionable if not horrific I also understand that many of them feel justified. I am also aware that not all of them sink to such depths in their activities. There are decent folks on that side of the fence just as I am sure there are here. Some of them are very much in favor of a civil discussion and an end to any and all attacks. So why not give something like this a chance?
I do not expect this to be resolved in any short order, but I am sure that doing nothing will just keep these fires burning.
Their grievance? Blogging while feminist. I think that sums it up pretty well.
Vacula’s comment section is comedy gold. Bless his heart. He isn’t trying to be funny, but I keep being reminded of Leslie Nielsen in Airplane.
He’s serious…and don’t call him Shirley.
It’s a dodge. A transparent piece of obstructionism, and an attempt to try and convince fence sitters they’re the ‘reasonable’ ones. Of course they want to ‘talk’, because ‘talking’ means they don’t have to do anything at all except pretend they’re interested in listening – and I suspect that, like one of Reap’s podcasts, ‘listening’ really means ‘shouting over and abusing the other person’.
Be nice to Lee, people.
But Lee I think what you just told me gives the game away. I was saying again that we weren’t going to sit down and talk about their “grievances” and you said
without a discussion they have no motivation to stop.
Yet we do. We would love to stop, right now.
What does that show?
That we are not the ones firing, we are the ones being fired upon, and we don’t need any extra “motivation” for stopping. They, on the other hand, want to extort a platform for their imaginary “grievances.” What grievances? That our skulls are too soft when they kick us?
So, not so much ‘decent folks’ as a bunch of obsessive, harassing stalkers.
Justified
by
what?
Seriously, Lee. Name ONE single grievance they have. And not something that was a reply to something they said first, but an actual grievance that inspired one of them to act. Something that “justifies” the constant vitriol and insults and stalking and threats they’ve engaged in ever since.
Wow. So being a decent person, living a life of something other than spite, trying to get out their own message instead of always just responding to others, none of this motivates them? Really?
Nah, that side of the fence is pretty much defined by pretending that lack of basic human decency is striking a blow for FREEZE PEACH.
If they think their ideas on what the skeptic movement should be are so good, why not just promote them? Why not let the free market of ideas decide which one is more attractive to people, and let people self-select into their group? Why spend all their energy trying to rip down another part of skepticism rather than just advertising how great their part is so that they thrive?
Why, it’s almost like they know they wouldn’t win on a level playing field.
These comments are hot to death. Terrorist fist bumps for everybody! 😀
LOL!
OMG, seriously, you think hypatiasdaughter’s sarcastic was “pretty rude”??
…
Hee hee hee…
Okay, now that I’ve stopped giggling, seriously, if that’s rude, how do you characterize the obsessive stalking, and the insistence on being “free” to use gendered slurs, and the photoshops, and all that?
In fact, there’s a challenge for them: can Lee have any of those people on for an interview and talk solely about what they stand for. what they think skepticism should look like, what they think the main issues are, what they think should be done and how those problems can be solved, without once going on the offensive against anyone else? Are they capable of saying what they are for rather than what they are against? I would think not.
If that’s what they’re telling Lee, it’s just classic. “Either they discuss grievances with us, or we don’t stop. No motivation, you see.”
Orly? So we’re not doing anything to them that it’s worth stopping for the sake of stopping? We’re not bothering them? We’re not stalking them, bashing every word they say, calling them names, dehumanizing them, degrading them, photoshopping them, making up insulting nicknames for them?
No motivation. No motivation. Do I lack motivation? What a joke! How I would love to see it stop! No bribes, no perks, no incentives, no further motivation – just cessation would be such a treat. But not them, oh no, they need a sweetener – a discussion of grievances.
It’s classic. Classic, classic, classic.
I wonder if Lee planned it. Hey Lee, did you plan it? Good plan if so. Test: who wants to stop, no questions asked, and who doesn’t want to stop without a bribe? Oh, really? You peeps want to stop and you other peeps don’t? Innnnnnnnnnnnteresting.
BTW, my dad told me once that “eating cat food” was a common joke about old people, before social security came along and senior citizens were able to afford better. So it’s a hit at age, I think. Ageist as well as misogynist! Classy gentlemen.
I don’t think you should feel obligated to work it out with Paden or Vacula either, They both owe you an apology for using you as a punching bag to take out their anger at feminists on. However, I would love to see a real time discussion with an informed atheist, feminist like you and one of the credible heads of a freethinking group, who doesn’t think organized freethinkers shouldn’t tackle those issues.
That serious discussion is stalled by people clowning for attention and dragging this out.
That may be so, Lee, but those aren’t the ones expressing interest in this.
For Vacula and Paden, this would be PR and a publicity stunt, nothing more.
There’s no reason to give them the air time.
Lee… as you’ve been told already, our grievance is absolutely simple:
-Stop posting hateful, misogynistic rants about FtB bloggers and Skepchicks.
-Stop screaming about Nazis, witch-hunts, and McCarthyism every time someone on “our side” says “hey… you know what? That thing you said on that show? it feeds into misogynistic stereotypes. Maybe you could reconsider it or something?”
-Let go of Elevatorgate already.
Seriously.
It’s gotten old.
-In fact, stop using the Christian Persecution Complex every fucking time someone throws a mild-as-all-fuck criticism at you.
-Let us be both atheists and social justice activists
In a phrase: leave us the fuck alone.
Why is this so fucking hard for them?
ding ding ding!
I second this. And Lee, while you’re at it, why don’t you challenge them to just stick to their blogs and discussion forums and quit trolling everybody else?
A cease-fire would be what you’d get if everybody agreed to loathe each other silently. I’d be pretty okay with an agreement like that, and in fact I think it’d go a ways toward indicating that everybody involved has the discipline and good faith required to hold any kind of civil discussion. What Lee wants is a great deal more than a cease-fire, and Lee, it’s too much. The stopping happens before the discussion, not after.
(Btw: “We are used to being cornered and fighting our way out” — well, no, actually. Not for being an atheist, anyway.)
This call for “sitting down and talking” would have more credibility if almost literally this whole thing wasn’t about talking, listening, and the severe failure on the part of certain people to do the latter of the two when it came to a woman saying simply “guys, don’t do that.”
great1american1satan – oh yes, it’s a hit at age. One of their names for me, as I was just saying on Twitter, is Ophie McPrune. So droll. Of course they don’t want to stop – they’re having too much fun!
Lee, I second carlie’s request @14. Re-read it carefully, please, then provide a single justification for the relentless viciousness.
It has to be easy, right? You should be able to pop it off the top of your head like you’re saying the ABCs. So have at it. I am sure everyone here would love to have some clarity around even one justification. If you believe we’re being dense, feel free to use small words and to explicate so there’s absolutely no misunderstanding.
I would like to invite Dr King and his supporters and members of the Klan to sit down together in the spirit of fellowship and mutual resect and see if we can’t sort out these little disagreements once and for all.
And in the meantime, as a show of good faith, I would ask both sides to hold off on the lynchings.
But if they stop with the bitching and cunting and cries of ‘misandry’; the referrring to non-existent things like witch-hunts and feminazis and femistasi; the obsessive stalking and fake twittering and photoshopping and so forth, they’ll be left only with their substantive points, which would mean…
Oh.
But someone has to stand up to the overly emotional professional victims and the white knights who want to have sex with them.
The thing is, “we” could agree to a blank slate. Forget everything that happened prior to this second and only judgement folk based on their behaviour here on out. OK. The fake accounts still exist, the obsessive forums still exist, the obsessive blogs still exist, the obsessive youtubes will still be made, the potential (being generous) bad faith appearance of some people at WiS will I’m sure still happen. So we could start with a blank slate and within a fortnight at most we’d be back with the same scorecard of sleaziness.
“Baby, stop being so mad and let’s talk about this. I won’t hurt you this time. It’s just that some times you make me so MAD. I love you, baby, I don’t mean to hit you, you just make me hit you because you just won’t listen to reason. Be fair, baby, unlock the door and let’s TALK. Don’t make me have to break this door down, baby, calm down and stop being so emotional! DON’T MAKE ME BREAK THIS FUCKING DOOR DOWN!”
OK yeah, I went there.
What the hell, why not.
Lee, I’m sure the intent of this pow-wow was noble, but in reality the whole concept is fucking laughable (forgive my rudeness) and frankly, fucking ignorant of nearly two entire years’ worth of abuse, bad faith, rank doube standards and egregious dishonesty.
That, especially, is fucking ridiculously shit-my-pants laughable. This essentially says that without some kind of public and false confession from their targets, the sexists and misogynists that have spent the better part of two years insulting, threatening, lying about, misrepresenting, quote-mining and harrassing feminist and female and transgender atheists and skeptics are going to continue with that treatment – as if they’re somehow compelled to act like pre-adolescent schoolyard douchebags; as if they somehow have no fucking choice but to constantly and obsessively troll those they’ve identified as their Enemies; as if responding to endless lies and abuse is equal in intent and effect to lies and abuse.
As if there is no possible reason in the fucking universe to not act like spoiled, entitled, insecure little brats who perceive major threats to their privilege from anyone who steps into their corner of the playground and who arc up and invoke the goddamn Nazis at the slightest dissent or disagreement.
As if simply acknowledging that behaving like a toxic fucking arsehole for no reason is a destructive, negative, hurtful thing isn’t sufficient “motivation” to just fucking stop doing it.
Too rude? The time for politeness has passed with these wankers. Long, long ago.
Your friends are irredeemable and you’re enabling them. Fucking stop it.
Lee, you’ve already blown your credibility with your first comment in the thread:
You know, there has never been a movement, no matter how horrific, that didn’t feel justified to its own proponents. The unearned sense of entitlement is one of the key problems here. Acting like it’s a sign of willingness to come to decent terms shows you have no idea what’s going on.
Lee Moore: “I am sure that doing nothing will just keep these fires burning.”
“cease fire”, “doing nothing” what’s the difference?
Who would show up to such an online grievance session with internet bullies who will just fire when ready?
It’s pretty clear what is ad hominem and what is not. People should be able to recognize an ad hominem even from people on their own side of an argument, so if there really are people who want a reasonable discussion, the first thing they should do is make it clear to people on their own side of the “debate” that ad hominem attacks are not constructive.
Is anyone doing that?
I do not expect this to be resolved in any short order, but I am sure that doing nothing will just keep these fires burning.
If “dong nothing” includes not spewing pointlessly hateful and unhinged crap at people who have done no wrong, then I, for one, think “doing nothing” is the best thing Lee and his chums can possibly do to make things better.
PS: Anyone else here notice Lee came here to say that people on his side “felt justified” in their stupid hatred, but didn’t stick around to state even one specific grievance of theirs? It’s perfectly obvious he knows how full of shit he is.
wait… hold the presses. I have to apologize.
Here all along I thought that bigots, racists and misogynists only behaved in the ways they do because they like doing things that they know and feel are unjustified.
You’re saying some of them actually BELIEVE what they say? Well that makes it all better then!
My bad, I just misunderstood all this time.
This is indeed a classic.
So you find their actions questionable and horrific, but you understand that they feel justified. How very charitable of you.
Are Ophelia, Rebecca, PZ, FtB et al justified in wanting to be left the fuck alone by obsessive trolls? Is anyone over there charitable enough to do that? Or is it just too much fun seeing how riled up you can get someone you don’t like and have essentially “othered” and dehumanised to the point where you don’t care how your actions affect them?
What your friends feel, the poor lambs, is irrelevant because what they’re doing is wrong, harmful, disproportionate and fucking unprovoked. They are not defending themselves and they are not even responding in kind.
What they are doing is also, incidentally, completely unjustified because noone over “this side” of the feminism skeptic fence is trying to destroy the joint (as is the common accusation), just widen their personal skeptical focus and encourage the movement as a whole to adopt social justice as a common cause.
If your friends can’t handle people doing that without experiencing uncomfortable feelings that justify two years’ of obsessive hatred, they – and their enablers and apologists – can frankly fuck right off because we’re better off without them.
Wait, so Paul Elam actually felt justified in saying that some women are “freaking begging” to be raped?
Hm. Oddly enough, it changes nothing.
Speaking of which, has Vacula repudiated A Voice For Misogyny since he posted that article of his there? If not, that’s a pretty good indication of how well any “dialogue” would go.
Perhaps I have an overly contentious nature, but why, exactly, is “resolution” a worthy goal?
I understand their positions. I’ve read their dog-dick dumb arguments. it’s not confusion that drives my opposition to these goofballs. Hell, it’s only when confusion about their position presents the opportunity for interpretation, allowing me and others to use our functioning brains to rearrange their malicious gibberish into something minimally cogent, that anything resembling a defensible point emerges. It’s when they “clarify” their stance that my problems with them become clear.
I don’t want to be associated with them or part of a “movement” with them any more than I want to sit down with a bunch of whack-a-doodle Tea Party knuckle-draggers and have a “dialog” about their dumbass ideas. I know what they are. As long as they have those ideas, I will not be on their side. Same with these “anti-FtB” jackasses.
Is there something they want to say that Thunderf00t hasn’t already wasted 20,000 words on?
Lee Moore, if a hypothetical Ophelia Benson and a hypothetical Anton A. Hall were in a discussion moderated by you, you’d call him down if he said, “And I don’t know if she’s called me that [misogynist] since then; I don’t care; maybe, fuck her.”*? Or would that be an acceptable example of FREEZE PEACH? You know, his feelings and opinions and everything?
And, to keep things flowing, you know–would you let this hypothetical Anton A. Hall characterize his out-of-the-blue interaction with Ophelia as “The first few exchanges were pretty pleasant, I feel” without knowing what those first few exchanges were?
I submit that your qualifications are a neutral and informed moderator are sadly lacking.
*Quote taken from A-News Podcast: Episode 30. Podcast presented by Lee Moore; comment made by Anton A. Hall.
**tweets from 11 January 2013
There will be no “resolution” as long as people like Lee Moore keep pulling shit like characterizing Reap Paden’s hateful podcast,( in which he spent at least five minutes (that was all I could listen to) screaming that Stephanie Zvan is a “fucking bitch” over and over, and over again) as a “heated disagreement” and pretending that calling Paden’s behaviour there “sexist” is somehow as offensive as what he did himself.
There’s simply no equivalence there, and until the fence sitters like Lee can bring themselves to admit that obvious fact they are just being part of the problem.
Well, I was going to second carlie’s comment #15 :
But now I can’t.
Because I’ve been beaten to it at least a couple of times by tonyinbatavia #30 among others. I’ll have to settle for just agreeing completely and saying “well said carlie.” Well said carlie.
@34. edithkeeler :
Well, in theory at least, if they *were* genuine in their offer to cease firing those they could stop what they’ve been doing in those regards, take down the worst of the blogs and youtube clips, scrap the trolling and fake accounts (or at bare minimum stop attacking using fake accounts) and thus provide some real good faith evidence that they are serious here? An apology on their part as well would be even better.
@36. mandrellian :
I’ve heard of wetting yourself laughing and I’ve heard of terminological inflation and hyperbole but, yuck, that’s really not an image I wanted in my head thanks all the same.
That part tho’ I fully agree with.
Want a ceasefire? Okay, step one order your forces to stop firing. Give it a while to register with the other side and then maybe start talking and negotiating reasonably. You don’t get a ceasefire by continuing to fire and making demands of the enemy to stop and talk whilst you’re still doing firing on them.
PS.
Although I’m not sure exactly what there is to “negotiate reasonably” about here.
Hmm, a quick glance at the comments over there shows Sir Paden of Misogyny scuttling poor Lee’s dream of détente. So much for that, then.
@ ^ Kelseigh Nieforth : maybe Lee could cut Sir Paden loose and go his own way, making his own truce by stopping what xes doing even if Paden and others won’t? I don’t know if that’s possible but we could hope couldn’t we?
One day my son wandered by as I was trying to choke my way through a Reap Paden video freak out. I’d read about the guy, but it my first and only attempt to actually watch him in action. *shudder*
So anyway, my son watches for a minute, and then says, “What the hell is wrong with that guy?”
Thus happened an unplanned teaching moment, in which the Spawn and I discussed the value and importance of not being a human shit stain, with examples.
So I guess I have Reap to thank for that.
@50: bless that mouth-breathing sack of crap.
That’s the reason I watch/listen to The Atheist Experience when my daughter’s around – to teach her how to spot a shitty argument, a weak premise or a dangerously stupid person (seriously, some of the callers to that show are so bone-headed it’s painful to listen to – but worth it for the responses from the hosts).
Okay, my daughter’s only two but you’re never too young to learn how to spot bullshit 🙂
Lee
What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed the same way. Find one, then I’ll believe you.
From lilandra:
There’s a lot to unpack here.
1. What does “tackle those issues” mean? Which issues? The issues of whether pursuing, say, the goals of feminism within the skeptical movement is appropriate? Or the issue of why the skeptical movement is so dismissive/hostile/oblivious/adjective towards women within the movement? Those are totally different things. It’s one goal to work towards the betterment of humankind and another to hash out internal obstacles to success pursuing any skeptical goal.
2. There is an assumption that it’s acceptable to be a “credible” leader even if you don’t care about how women are treated. Credible to who? And based on what criteria?
Hmm. Now who else do we know that loves to call for “live and public” debates to settle some sort of controversy that only exists in their minds?
This, plus the crap about how WiS should ‘teach the controversy’, so to speak, and the whole FTBorg cabal silencing all dissenting opinions…I’m amazed that the anti-SJ crowd are still taken seriously by any skeptics nowadays, since they appear to be cribbing their arguments from the creationist playbook.
@ ^ Setár, genderqueer Elf-Sheriff of Atheism+ :
Does the abbriev.* SJ meaning Social Justice?
* Why is abbreivaition such a long word?
@doubtthat #43
This has been my thinking for quite a while as well. The greater the schism the better. There is no possible advantage to having a movement that can begin to outwheigh the cost of having to share it with the likes of “Dear Muslima” as well as Thunderfoot, Vacula, Stefanelli, Blackford, Stangroom, Kirby, Paden, Shermer etc. etc. If I had to choose between an atheist/skeptical/humanist movement that included these people and no atheist/skeptical/humanist movement at all, I would chose the latter any time.
doubtthat @43:
Precisely. You don’t want “resolution” with that bully at school who targets you for no other reason than you’re the brother of someone he didn’t like, scientists don’t want “resolution” with fundie creationists and nobody with half a mind wants “resolution” with the Phelps clan.
I wanted that wanker to stop the abuse. We want them to shut the fuck up. We want them to leave us alone.
We’d like them to realise that the only reason we’re their “enemies” is because they decided we were.
But I think at this point that’s all a pipe dream and that there’s little – if anything – to be gained by sitting down with people whose actions and words have revealed them to be as concerned with “respectful dialogue” or “civil discussion” as creationists are with learning real science.
@carlie #15
Oh yes, our old friend “only disagreeing”. As I have previously stated elsewhere, there’s no major point coming from the feminist side of the schism that a decent person could fail to agree with. There just isn’t. If we peel away all the layers of strawmanning and distortions (conflating “X is a shitty thing to say/do” with “X is/should be illegal“, conflating “Guys, don’t do that” with “freaking out just because a guy invited her for coffe“, conflating prohibitions against “both-babes” at conferences with “talibanesque” dress-codes, conflating months and years of obsessive cyber-stalking and bullying with “only disagreeing”, conflating anti-feminism with the “unpolitical”, “non-ideological” postition etc.), what we are left with are some very simple appeals to basic human decency:
* Respect women’s boundaries (and not only on the condition that their boundaries don’t interfere with your desire to have fun at women’s expense).
* Make sure women are protected from harassment at conferences.
* Don’t grope them.
* Don’t objectify them.
* Don’t threaten them.
* Don’t call them bitches or cunts, or use other gendered slurs.
* Don’t spend months/years obsessively stalking them online.
* Don’t bring up their level of attractiveness or “fuckability” in response to their ideas, their arguments or their work.
* Don’t insist that every woman on the planet behave in ways that increase her own chance of getting raped just to give you the benefit of the doubt, and then blame her for behaving that way if she ends up actually getting raped.
* Etc, etc.
If you’re going to “disagree” with any of this, the reasons available to you are the sexist, misogynistic, moronic kind. The reaction to the comment in my gravatar is the reduction ad absurdum of any claim that this is not about misogyny. There’s simply nothing in that whole video that a non-misogynist could possibly object to, which is why the “other side” have yet to present anything even remotely resembling a real disagreement on principled grounds, and never will.
* the only reasons available
“while I understand your point your delivery was pretty rude.”
You are defending and enabling far, far worse.
You know what, people who use horrific tactics, no matter how justified they feel, are bad people.
One of Reap Paden’s socks left this comment –
I “keep going on and on” only in response. I have no interest in talking about Reap Paden as such. I never said a word about him – I wasn’t aware of him, apart from faint name recognition with no content – until he did that screaming podcast where he called Stephanie a fucking bitch over and over.
Or maybe by “you keep going on and on, and on” he means not that I write about him but just that I write, period. Well yes that’s true. I do keep going on and on, and on in the sense of writing columns and blog posts. I plan to keep doing that in the future. I don’t plan to shut up already in order to get thugs like Paden to leave me alone.
Why do people like Justin Vacula, Lee Moore and Reap Paden, who are clearly lacking both in intelligence and any kind of moral sense, and who are also cowards (I notice Lee has made his one little trolling comment and scuttled for cover), have positions that seem to have a degree of power in certain sectors of what one might call the sceptical discommunity?
Is anr.apartmentj.com down for anyone else?
Oh, that’s what xe meant! I wondered what the Jesuits had to do with any of this….
Yes, down for me too.
@mandrellian
Always good to start young! 🙂
These folks are atheists too, right? Do they use the same tactics (name-calling, insults, fake twitter accounts, etc.) in their arguments with religious folk over the existence of god, etc.? Or do they reserve those “big guns” only for fellow atheists they disagree with? Just something I’ve been curious about for a while.
Abuse logic.
The abuser believes the victim deserved deserves punishment for their actions. The “punishment” is far out of proportion for the initial grievance. When people talk abut the disproportionate abuse, the enablers whine that people are ignoring the initial offence.
Yes, I’m sure the Catholic church feels justified too.
I thought this was fairly basic psychology. Once you’ve attacked another person there are two logical options. Either a) you’ve behaved badly or b) they deserved it because they’re a bad person. You don’t want to believe you’ve behaved badly, so obviously the other person did – regardles of the facts.
Plus anyone with a huge sense of entitlement will feel justified – regardles of the facts.
And people who make a habit of thinking twice about whether they’re justified are more likely to stop before they do a bad thing in the first place.
Besides, shutting up already worked SO well for Surly Amy.
http://skepchick.org/2013/01/will-there-be-more-surly-grants/
@rumtopf
There is an email at the bottom of the article for anyone, from either side, to contact.
It is obvious that each ‘side’ does not like each other, which is fine. Hopefully everyone can stop listening to the ‘real’ trolls who flame the fire(on both sides) and start to judge people on their merits and actions again.
Didgya, it might be easier if all you have to do in order to ‘stop listening’ is avoid certain blogs or comment sections. But if you’re waking up to daily hate mail, if people are contacting you outside of blog posts or comments to insult or hound you on your horrible wrongness, it’s a little hard to ‘stop listening’, wouldn’t you say?
I’m dying to know who the trolls fanning the flames on this side are. really.
Funny how they can never answer that question, huh, Jadehawk. I’m disappointed that Lee did the post and cowardly dash instead of listening to the concerns about his proposal. Kinda casts an even bigger suspiscion over his motives.
Yeah, he’s not answering at his place, either.
@Bjarte #58
Also:
Conflating parody with impersonation. (Ophelia “Baddy Bad Shoes” Benson, Adam Lee, PZ, and even WIS of CFI have people (or is it just one sad person doing all of it?) impersonating them on Twitter. The mildewy crowd shrugs it off as parody even though the impostor accounts go through as much trouble as using uppercase “i” for lowercase “L” and vice versa so that their profile links are indistinguishable from the real person’s profile link.)
Y’know, for someone who just went to a lot of trouble saying he wanted to have a conference, this Lee guy suddenly seems unwilling to talk to us when we’re actually responding to him.
Who does he think he’s fooling?
@Aratina
Yes, I also forgot conflating equal treatment with special treatment. (Because obviously men suffer so horribly from all the different behaviors on my list that it is only fair that women also get their share, right..)
jenniferphillips @74:
And, didgya, in case you think jenniferphillips must be mistaken, don’t overlook Pteryxx’s link at comment 71. Would you like an indicator from the other point of view? Here is Commander Tuvok from the slymepit:
I’m reminded of the story of the cloth-headed teacher who thought that the solution to a victim who fought back against a bully was to have the victim and bully shake hands. Of course, the bully used it as an opportunity to continue intimidating a victim who wanted nothing to do with him…
Is there anyone associated with FtB who is obsessively making photoshops and videos of Reap Paden? Is there anyone associated with FtB who make parody accounts of Slymepit members?
Janine wrote:
Oh, Janine. Don’t you know that it’s slymepit policy? False equivalence is totes okay when you’re up against teh ebil feminazis and femistasis and their mangina allies.
Given the disparate number of, say, signatures in Adam Lee vs. Rocko’s petition, and the disparate number of members of FtB and the StupydityHole, it’s easy to see why he didn’t style himself “Commander Data.”
Ugh, I made the mistake of trying to communicate on Justin Vacula’s blog post, and the entire conversation devolved into demanding that I proved “cunt” was sexist and them asserting “I HAVE THE RIGHT TO INSULT YOU!!!!1!”
Way to reconcile and move the conversation forward.
Maybe someone should just write up a post called “Words Mean Things,” that we can link them to whenever they want to rehash the endless discussion about why sexist slurs are, in fact, sexist…
Ophelia – keep doing what you’re doing. You’re magnificent.
Lee – fuck off.
I don’t want this “schism” to be healed. Ever. Lee and his ilk have self identified as creatures I have no interest in ever knowing or being associated with, regardless of how their surface game may change over time.
They are not worthy of our time or attention and never will be.
What arbor said! Those aren’t “deep rifts,” they’re “protective moats.”
QFT. I vote we widen the moats and add some alligators. I’m not interested in discussions with those suffering from SIFOTI* syndrome.
——
*Someone is feminist on the internet.
I’d feel better if we could get some gators for our moats.