Comments

  1. Rev. BigDumbChimp says

    Poor Hyperone. Mommy didn’t love him, the girls shunned him and now he hates them all.

    I sincerely hope all women you come into contact with can recognize what a disgusting little dangerous toad you are and keep their distance or at least have a .38 in their purse just in case.

  2. AJ Milne says

    Funny how in a discussion of physical assault and rape, getting called a racist, misogynist piece of shit somehow equals ‘abuse’…

    Well, have you even seen the numbers on how much horrid verbal abuse goes on in prison? Have you any fucking idea?

    (/I mean, I’ve got a chart here sez the average prisoner has their conveniently self-serving mangling of statistics brutally pointed out to them at least 2.8 times anuallyanally.)

  4. Thebear says

    @ Cicely # 495:

    Please mind the other ditch!

    While guys who’ve got some minor battle-scars from a more or less voluntary scruff might brag, I doubt very much that that would be the case for the kind of violence one could compare to rape.

    Or at least not all… And not all kinds of violence.

  5. Brownian, OM says

    Found it. For anybody sick of actually talking with the little fuckhead and interested in reading about how he’s pulling one of the oldest tricks in the book in order to accord himself the victim status, take a look at this:

    Words are not fists: some thoughts on how men work to defuse feminist anger

    While I’m cautious about comparing the experiences of atheists as a minority to those of women, homosexuals, and ethnic minorities (especially considering that, at least in my community here in Canada, claiming to be an atheist raises no more eyebrows than claiming to be an Episcopalian) this blog entry (which draws heavily on the one linked immediately above) offers some insight as to why atheists might be perceived as “uppity” by merely openly existing.

  6. Hyperon says

    . Criticise any statistics or arguments against as being ‘irrelevant’. Claim more persecution. Argue about the statistics. If really cornered, claim he didn’t really claim that “all” children are homophobic, so any exceptions aren’t applicable.

    I certainly didn’t claim that “all” children are homophobic, and you’d have to be a stupid indeed to come away with such a distorted reading. That’s in addition to being dishonest, because I see you conveniently forget to mention that I cited biological propensity toward homophobia and misogyny as a possible justification for affirmative action as a “correcting” mechanism.

    I’ve supplied lots of statistics in this thread and its predecessor; maybe more than anyone else. I was only proven wrong (and by my own admission) with last statistics I gave, regarding rape in prisons. It’s more than unfair to accuse me of going on anecdotes alone. Now, consider that (a) I’m not trained in the social sciences; (b) there’s an army of posters arguing against me, some of whom are trained in the social sciences; and (c) if I’m right, academics generally wouldn’t be inclined to do studies that corroborate my position. Surely, in light of all this, I should be forgiven if I try to weave some mainly conceptual arguments, and if the opposition as a whole manages to garner more references than I can by myself.

    Also, who do you think you’re trying to kid? Are you insinuating that everyone here who disagrees with me about social issues has arrived at his or her position only through pouring over tables of statistics? Give me a break. I’m pretty sure, in any case, that I’m more diligent about statistics than the average poster here. (My background is heavily mathematical, so it’s simply nonsense to imply that I’m intimidated by statistics.) Inevitably, life experience is going to be important in determining many of our opinions. It’s perfectly legitimate, in many cases, to form “null hypotheses” solely on the strength of life experience and conceptual arguments.

    I’m entirely prepared to abandon these null hypotheses if I think the data are sufficiently compelling. Most of you, however, seem to think that hysterical shrieking, and peripheral carping, are together a good substitute for actual substance.

  7. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Hyperon, you have nothing, and will have nothing but your bigotry, sexism, racism, arrogance and your delusions. You are a stupid fool. Go away. You have nothing cogent to say to us. So why can’t you just leave? Other than mental illness, of course.

  8. Thebear says

    Some people, if faced by massive rebuke for their sad-excuses-for-ideas would STFU or think, or at least find somewhere more welcoming to play.

    This is clearly not the way of the fucker.

  9. triskelethecat says

    @BOS (425)…I, too, have been raped, and have followed your lead and finally killfiled the jerk who seems to think that it’s nothing to deal with. I’m mostly over it now, 30 years later, but even now, some things can set me off and I freak out. I don’t wish evil on persons but I don’t choose to infect my brain with the jerk’s asshattery.

  10. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    I don’t wish evil on persons but I don’t choose to infect my brain with the jerk’s asshattery.

    PZ, can you help cleanse this thread/site?

  14. Brownian, OM says

    Also, who do you think you’re trying to kid?

    Working with statistics is my job. The people I’m managing this very minute have PhDs and MScs in statistics. You may have a better-than-average understanding of statistics, but that’s not hard in this fucking innumerate society. What you do not have is a sufficient understanding of statistics and how they apply to real studies to to even attempt to make nearly any of the claims you’ve made, so go fucking piss up a rope and be very fucking thankful that the only beating you’re getting here is electronic, compared to some of the people whose experiences you’re happy to minimise.

    Feel free to tell everyone online that you’re a master plumber, fuckhead, but if you continue to look blankly at that pipe wrench you’re not going to fool anyone.

  15. Hyperon says

    On the subject of B.S., reading Hyperon’s posts on how a severe beating is more traumatising for a man than rape is for a woman, an idea drifted through my mind.

    Look, it could well be the case that rape is just objectively and categorically more traumatizing than physical assault. I’m just wondering why that is necessarily the case. What, conceptually, is it about rape that is so different? Perhaps the feeling of helplessness? Perhaps because we tell victims that they ought to be heavily traumatized? Maybe it’s because the experience is more “fixed” than a general case of physical assault, and so stays in the memory easier?

    If there is a reason, there has to be some explanation; and if it’s taboo to ask what that explanation is, that is not my fault.

  16. aratina cage of the OM says

    Brownian #506, I so wanted to find that second link during the GLB train wreck, but couldn’t find it even though it had been linked to before on Pharyngula. I thought Q: Since When Is Being Criticized Like Having Your Limbs Blown Off by a Landmine? A: Since That Criticism Came from Someone with Less Privilege Than You had subtle implications for some of the OTT language being used by him in his train wreck posts and wondered if he had ever thought of it.

    I cited biological propensity toward homophobia and misogyny as a possible justification for affirmative action as a “correcting” mechanism. –Hyperon

    I think you are mightily confused here on these issues and because of your muddled state of mind you are jumping to conclusions.

    I’m entirely prepared to abandon these null hypotheses if I think the data are sufficiently compelling. –Hyperon

    I, for one, could care less about whether you keep or abandon your personally held insipid notions. You are not an authority on minority matters, just a shit-thrower and shit-stirrer.

  17. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Hypershit, your experience is irrelevant. Your gut feelings are irrelevant. It is all about the data, which you suck at big time. You and reality do not intersect. So, take your loser show on the road. We, the blog regulars, have absolutely no interest in your problems and inane, insane, racist, sexist, and totally shit filled ideas. Go away. And stay away.

  18. Hyperon says

    Working with statistics is my job. The people I’m managing this very minute have PhDs and MScs in statistics. You may have a better-than-average understanding of statistics, but that’s not hard in this fucking innumerate society.

    What are you saying here? That I need to be a professional statistician in order to make comments about a bunch of statistics? If not, it’s hard to understand what you could be getting at by telling us your credentials.

  19. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    If not, it’s hard to understand what you could be getting at by telling us your credentials.

    Fuckwit, you have shown no understanding of anything. Hence, everything you say is considered a lie at this point. You have no credentials other than as a racist, sexist, bigoted, misogynist shithead. What part of that are you having trouble with? There is no hope for redemption. Go and stay away.

  20. Brownian, OM says

    If there is a reason, there has to be some explanation; and if it’s taboo to ask what that explanation is, that is not my fault.

    Please cite the comment in which you asked why rape is worse than physical assault rather than merely denying that it was.

  22. nigelTheBold says

    Geez, this is the endless thread.

    This always happens when someone with NPD comes barreling through with their own pet ideas of how the world really is.

    When a “null hypothesis” requires many assumptions, the case is lost.

  23. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    “null hypothesis”

    The default hypothesis is that Hyperon is full of shit, and must prove any idea with hard evidence. Which is always lacking. Reality is not kind to the delusional.

  24. Hyperon says

    Please cite the comment in which you asked why rape is worse than physical assault rather than merely denying that it was.

    See, for instance, #340 and #347. I was pretty unequivocal that I was asking WHY rape is necessarily worse than physical assault.

  25. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    Feynmaniac #522

    The law would have to be carefully written to pass a court challenge.

  26. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    I was pretty unequivocal that I was asking WHY rape is necessarily worse than physical assault.

    Asshole/fuckwit, you have to prove your point. Standard science says otherwise, and you are the one who must bear the burden of proof, and your opinion is worth nothing. It is not relevant to anything other than your delusions. What a loser.

  27. Brownian, OM says

    What are you saying here?

    Shall I repeat the next line I wrote to you?

    Here it is:

    What you do not have is a sufficient understanding of statistics and how they apply to real studies to to even attempt to make nearly any of the claims you’ve made

    Shall we go over it again?

    Here it is again:

    What you do not have is a sufficient understanding of statistics and how they apply to real studies to to even attempt to make nearly any of the claims you’ve made

    Still unclear?

    Let me repeat myself for you:

    What you do not have is a sufficient understanding of statistics and how they apply to real studies to to even attempt to make nearly any of the claims you’ve made

    I’ll bold it, in case you want to get some tracing paper and practice writing out the letters yourself:

    What you do not have is a sufficient understanding of statistics and how they apply to real studies to to even attempt to make nearly any of the claims you’ve made

    That good, or do I need to print out a copy, hop a plane to England, and stand over you with a yardstick while you copy it out on the chalkboard 500 times?

    I gave my credentials for the benefit of those that don’t feel like wading through the multitude of threads you’ve befouled for examples of your blatant misuse of statistics as reasons that I know you’re a fucking statistical moron, though perhaps not as fucking moronical as Joe Sixpack or John Hooligan. The first one I saw was your bullshit attempt to use studies to paint Muslims as wanting to kill whites like you (or whatever it is you said exactly) while ignoring studies that I misused in parallel fashion to demonstrate to you a comparable claim could be made about Americans wanting to kill Japanese on the “rapping about genes” thread. After that, I’ve had no interest in what you think are your ‘arguments’.

  28. John Morales says

    H:

    What are you saying here? That I need to be a professional statistician in order to make comments about a bunch of statistics?

    Replace ‘professional’ with ‘competent’ and you have it.

    If not, it’s hard to understand what you could be getting at by telling us your credentials.

    You’re purblind, it’s not hard at all.

    Brownian is calling you out.

  29. Walton says

    Feynmaniac @#522: And this matters why?

    The whole point of the judicial protection of constitutional rights is that it isn’t up for a popular vote, and doesn’t depend on polls. If the poll was “Large majority opposes Supreme Court’s decision on abortion,” or “Large majority opposes Supreme Court’s decision on creationism in schools,” you would rightly say that this doesn’t matter. It is the job of the court to uphold the Constitution, even when this leads to unpopular results.

    I’m not commenting on whether the Court got it right or wrong in this instance; there are reasonable legal arguments on all sides. But the result of a poll doesn’t have, and shouldn’t have, any bearing on the matter at all. What matters is the legal and constitutional substance of the issue, not public opinion.

  30. Lynna, OM says

    Extrapolating these findings to the national level would give a total of over 140,000 inmates who have been anally raped.

    Ah, yes. I suspected that Hyperdude was mistaking “anally” for “annually”, and was just wondering how long it would take him to figure it out. The other shoe dropped, but it certainly took a long time. When your suppositions are so out of whack with reality, it takes longer for the facts to sink in. Beware of confirmation bias.

  31. Brownian, OM says

    See, for instance, #340 and #347. I was pretty unequivocal that I was asking WHY rape is necessarily worse than physical assault.

    Indeed you were. Who typed those comments for you?

  32. Hyperon says

    The first one I saw was your bullshit attempt to use studies to paint Muslims as wanting to kill whites like you (or whatever it is you said exactly) while ignoring studies that I misused in parallel fashion to demonstrate to you a comparable claim could be made about Americans wanting to kill Japanese on the “rapping about genes” thread

    I looked into that some more since the thread in question and discovered that, unsurprisingly, you were wrong. 11% of British Muslims “strongly agree” that the July bombings were justified; a further 11% “tend to agree”; 17% don’t know.

  33. Brownian, OM says

    Going back to 340:

    I also understand that my crime on this blog is heresy.

    What? I’m very upset to hear that you’ve been accused of a crime. How much in fines did you have to pay? Was there jail time? Community service? Instead of blathering on about these fucking whiny rape and assault victims, why aren’t we protesting on the steps of PZ’s courthouse?

    I mean, surely only someone who’s not “too intellectually and emotionally limited” would make such a claim unless he were actually being persecuted.

  34. SteveM says

    But the result of a poll doesn’t have, and shouldn’t have, any bearing on the matter at all. What matters is the legal and constitutional substance of the issue, not public opinion.

    You are overlooking that such overwhelming opposition to such a ruling represents strong support for a constitutional amendment, which is exactly what some members of congress are proposing.

  35. Alan B says

    I have deliberately kept mouth mouth shut on this subthread about rape. I have no direct experience (gladly). I have no academic training. I have no great piles of statistics. I do have the ability to listen and I think that is one of Hyperon’s problems: he does not listen.

    Yes, I know. He reads what is said but the Internet is a mighty poor way of communicating. The are many sidebands of thought (as E E Doc Smith would put it). There are people on this thread who are OG, as one might say. People who have been around for a long time. They have built up an atmosphere of trust and have shared experiences on sensitive issues, like domestic violence, like rape, like marriage and partnership break-ups.

    When you come into this community, Hyperon, you need to be sensitive to issues. Many of the people who you think have abused you know other people in the community who really have been abused and have suffered. You may not understand why that form of suffering is particularly hurtful to them but they are telling you it is. Their friends are telling you it is and are telling you to back off.

    Listen to them. You may not understand why you are wrong but you are WRONG. Everyone here is telling you that you are wrong. Listen. You have gone past the stage where you can expect reasoned argument. You have cut that off by your insensitivity.

    Back off.

    A genuine apology for the hurt you have caused would help.

    I am trying to put together more thoughts on this, hopefully this evening.

  36. nigelTheBold says

    I mean, surely only someone who’s not “too intellectually and emotionally limited” would make such a claim unless he were actually being persecuted.

    Well, unless they had a martyr complex or something.

  38. Brownian, OM says

    A little cleanup:

    If not, it’s hard to understand what you could be getting at by telling us your credentials

    Like this?

    (My background is heavily mathematical, so it’s simply nonsense to imply that I’m intimidated by statistics.)

    I looked into that some more since the thread in question and discovered that, unsurprisingly, you were wrong. 11% of British Muslims “strongly agree” that the July bombings were justified; a further 11% “tend to agree”; 17% don’t know.

    Unsurprisingly, you lie by omission.

    I disagreed with your conclusion, which is often what happens when someone who actually uses statistics deals with some fuckhead who only thinks he knows what they mean. Let’s review the sentence with the big words again, shall we?

    What you do not have is a sufficient understanding of statistics and how they apply to real studies to to even attempt to make nearly any of the claims you’ve made

  39. Hyperon says

    You have gone past the stage where you can expect reasoned argument. You have cut that off by your insensitivity.

    This is true true. When discussing things on the Internet, I try to be as logical as I can, and this comes with the unfortunate consequence of frequently being insensitive. Substance for me has always been first, and style/tone takes the back seat. But I can see now that often, especially when discussing matters political and social, this isn’t exactly the most sagacious possible approach.

  40. badgersdaughter says

    I take back what I said upthread. i think Hyperon has shown himself to be adequate dungeon material. He’s willfully obtuse, trolling for attention, frighteningly incapable of normal feeling, utterly disruptive, and saddening. We might give him the opportunity to prove he has feelings for other people by apologizing for his weapons-grade insensitivity. Unfortunately it appears his conduct up to this point has disqualified him from being able to restate his case in anything like an acceptable way. I’m not sure that’s possible, anyway.

  41. Thebear says

    Thanks for the great post Alan B

    Personal issues makes it very hard for me to talk to the individual you’re talking to, and far more tempting to talk about him (and in ways that are perhaps not the most constructive) – and looking at things it looks like this goes for more people than me.

    When these things happen it’s allways good for someone with less vested interests to intervene and explain.

    One can only hope that he manages to see that you’re doing him a great favour.

    And once more – thanks.

  42. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Substance for me has always been first,

    What substance? Without evidence to back you up, all you have is delusions, bigotry, sexism, misogyny, and a host of other mental problems. You are not a man of substance. But rather a man of thin ice. Which is thawing, cracked, and ready to cause you to drown.

  43. Carlie says

    Hyperon, Brownian only pulled out his credentials because you said:

    Are you insinuating that everyone here who disagrees with me about social issues has arrived at his or her position only through pouring over tables of statistics? Give me a break. I’m pretty sure, in any case, that I’m more diligent about statistics than the average poster here.

    He was showing that, once again, you are wrong in your superiority complex.

  44. Walton says

    You are overlooking that such overwhelming opposition to such a ruling represents strong support for a constitutional amendment, which is exactly what some members of congress are proposing.

    Which is fine. It is their right to propose a constitutional amendment (though the process is deliberately, and quite rightly, cumbersome).

    But I don’t think that the views of the public have any bearing whatsoever on whether the decision was right. And in a different context – if we were talking about decisions like Roe v Wade or Kitzmiller v Dover, say – everyone else here would say the same. Questions of constitutional jurisprudence are not up for a popular vote, and the instinctive opinions of the uninformed lay public have no bearing on them. How many of the poll respondents do you think have even read the decision in Citizens United, or any of the prior authorities on which the Court relied? How many of them have ever studied constitutional law?

    I just think we need to be consistent here. I support the judicial protection of constitutional rights across-the-board. This necessarily means that the judiciary will sometimes come to answers with which I strongly disagree (for instance, the absolutely appalling decision in Kelo v City of New London). But it’s worth it, because in so many landmark cases – Brown v Board, Miranda v Arizona, Loving v Virginia, and so on – the judiciary have protected the fundamental civil liberties of individuals against the tyranny of the majority. Citizens United may or may not be right in its substantive outcome; but it’s a legitimate exercise of the role of the Court in interpreting and applying the Constitution, and this is a role that I believe, in principle, we should support.

  45. Pygmy Loris says

    NO.

    If you were trying to pass a walnut through your urethra, maybe it would be as painful as childbirth.

    I heard that from a friend of mine who did natural childbirth and passed a kidney stone. She said the latter was more painful. YMMV, of course.

  46. Brownian, OM says

    I try to be as logical as I can

    Really? Then I do pity you.

    Social issues aren’t for you. Stick to the math, if indeed you’re at all good at that.

    I’m outta here for the time being. Y’all have fun with this asshole. Don’t forget to remind him of how lucking he is that he’s not being raped or otherwise physically assaulted, because he seems to think he’s having a pretty hard time of it and all we’re tossing about are words.

    I mean really, if all it takes are words and insults to make Hyperon lose his cool (and admit it), I can’t imaging how traumatising he’d feel if he were actually, physically, raped.*

    *To those of you who actually have been assaulted in such a way, I do not at all mean to minimise your experiences and sincerely apologise if it at all comes across that way, and the worry that I’m really going to start saying things I regret (and may be legally actionable) are one reason I’m washing my hands of this idiot and taking my leave now.

  47. badgersdaughter says

    YMMV, of course.

    Well, with two live births under my belt, one in which the epidural didn’t work, and constant kidney infections from damage due to stones that resulted in the loss of one of my kidneys, I’d still take a stone before another horrendous session in the labor room. Of course, the stakes are a bit higher now that I only have one kidney.

  48. Hyperon says

    Listen to them. You may not understand why you are wrong but you are WRONG. Everyone here is telling you that you are wrong. Listen.

    My tone might be objectionable, and I apologize if it is, but there is no way that any critical thinker worth his salt would be swayed by this blatant ad populum. I’m not going to accept that I’m wrong simply because all the regulars on Pharyngula think I’m wrong.

    And anyway, wrong about what? You don’t say. Everything? Do you even know what’s being discussed, or are you just picking up a bad smell, and taking it on faith that the “cool kids” must be right?

  49. badgersdaughter says

    I’m sorry, Pigmy Loris, I’m feeling grumpy because of Hyperon’s crap. I didn’t mean to sound combative, just pointing out that my mileage did, in fact, vary. :)

  50. Pygmy Loris says

    Incidentally, if I were ever raped, the thing I would be most worried about is painful and long-term physical injuries. Yes, it would be highly uncomfortable, but it would only last for a short period of time. Carrying around broken body parts for months would be in my opinion worse than “trauma”, which I could probably blank out soon enough.

    I am not getting into this argument again, you fucking misogynist piece of possum shit. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Stop, just stop.

  51. Pygmy Loris says

    Walton,

    I think you’re wrong to downplay the importance of mental and emotional health here. In some ways, mental trauma can be more harmful to an individual’s wellbeing than physical injury. Many rape victims end up suffering from depression, low self-esteem, chronic nightmares and fears, and other serious mental health problems through their entire lives. It’s easy to assert that you would be able to “blank out” a traumatic event, but until you’ve experienced it, you have no basis for making an assertion like that. Mental health is just as real as physical health, and just as important to people’s lives.

    I’ve just got to say, thanks.

  52. Thebear says

    Hyperon: I’m going to speak to you, instead of about you just this once. Please listen:

    Your tone hasn’t been the problem. Pharyngula is not the place for tone trolls, and they tend to get eaten alive.

    The problems is that your arguments are wrong, and in this case your wrongness is hurtful to a lot of people.

    If you’re not willing or able to see that you’re wrong, could you please be wrong somewhere else. It would be a lot easier on us and I guess it would also be easier for you.

    There’s no use in replying to this, I will not reply. Either you get it and go away, or you don’t and then I can’t help you.

  53. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Do you even know what’s being discussed,

    Fuckwit, the regulars are about a half dozen steps in front of you are every point. You have no idea what is going on, which is the demolition of your delusions. You need to just go away, as we outclass you at every point. Why can’t you accept that? Or, does you arrogance prevent you from acknowledging the truth? What a loser. Keep repeating that to yourself. I am a loser. Maybe it will eventually sink in.

  54. Hyperon says

    He was showing that, once again, you are wrong in your superiority complex.

    What the fuck are you talking about, Carlie? You don’t even try to make sense anymore. For you, anything is worth posting as long as it pokes fun at Hyperon.

    My claim was that I’m probably more diligent about statistics than the average poster here. Hardly a “superiority complex”, and it was in response to the numerous, unfounded accusations of innumeracy and of not understanding statistics. I didn’t say I’m better with statistics than all posters.

  55. Pygmy Loris says

    Bride of Shrek

    1) I am heartened by the comments here. Obviously there’s one sick and twisted individual but clearly everyone else is against his “opinions” and are soundly rejecting any of his “theories”. You have rounded on him and told him off in various forms and I think that clearly shows who has the better morals and values. You guys give me a warm fuzzy feeling sometimes and that’s why I love being part of this place.

    That sums up my feelings pretty well, too.

  56. strange gods before me ॐ says

    The court exists at our allowance for the purpose of finding the correct substantive outcomes. When it comes to the wrong conclusion, it fails at its justification for existence. Our allowance does not lend moral weight to the process itself, nor lift incorrect findings to citizens’ duty.

    It might be pragmatic to recognize Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, but there is no obligation to do so. It, and other Roberts travesties like Herring v. United States should be provoked in challenge as soon as time and circumstances are favorable.

  57. WowbaggerOM says

    Incidentally, if I were ever raped, the thing I would be most worried about is painful and long-term physical injuries.

    Which, I’m guessing, is why people are pointing out that you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about.

    It seems to me what you’re saying is much like telling a soldier who’s going into combat that, if they get shot or injured in battle, once they’ve healed they’ll be perfectly fine to get on with their lives because there’s no such thing as PTSD.

    Which would make you…let’s see, what’s the term I’m looking for…oh that’s it – a complete fucking idiot.

  58. Hyperon says

    The problems is that your arguments are wrong, and in this case your wrongness is hurtful to a lot of people.

    Wrong ABOUT WHAT? About asking why rape is categorically different from physical assault without rape?

  59. Blind Squirrel FCD says

    , academics generally wouldn’t be inclined to do studies that corroborate my position.

    Do you understand how science works at all?

    BS

  60. Alan B says

    Not safe for many work environments.

    May I present a very old fashioned way of looking at the subject of rape. I am not saying it is “right” but I feel there is enough in it to at least give it some consideration. I use the term “marriage” because it is a term I understand and I live with. If you wish to put partnership, deep interpersonal relationship, whatever you wish, please do so.

    Many girls, young women, go into marriage with high ideals of love, romance, affection, of wanting to share life with their husband. The same goes for many young men. I have talked at length (as I usually do) about my views on that on a previous incarnation of this thread. There is something special about a man and a woman wishing to give themselves to each other “for all eternity” or, to be more realistic, “Until death do us part”.

    The act of physical sharing of two lovers giving themselves to each other in loving intercourse is special to those who feel this way. Giving to each other. Sharing in the most intimate way possible. Demonstrating their desire for a lifelong union where they give themselves emotionally to each other out of love and respect – caring for each other in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, till death do us part.

    (Am I saying everyone with these ideals maintains them perfectly? Of course not. Marriage has its ups and downs. Sometimes marriage is entered into without that kind of concern and respect for each other. I would suggest that such a marriage almost becomes fraudulent.)

    A woman generally gives more emotionally into that bonding (that is my anecdotal assessment). She is the one who opens her body to her husband. Commonly, she is the one who is more emotionally committed to the whole process. Hopefully, every wife gains the physical and emotional pleasure that this ultimate bonding can achieve. For a religious person, this joining as one flesh is especially poignant because it, and the pleasure it should bring, is commanded by the God they worship.

    Having set the scene, now consider rape. Rape is defined in English Law (or it was last time I looked) as “carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will”. The ultimate act of joy and union and commitment that she wants to give and share with her husband (current or future) is forced on her with threats or real violence by someone who she does not want to share herself with. What was there for joy, sharing and commitment is seized, degraded, trashed. She is utterly disrespected by the rapist. He does not want to share anything with her. He just wants power over her body and her emotions. He wants to have the feeling that he can ride rough-shod over any feelings she might have.

    No wonder a woman would feel degraded, trashed, treated as dirt by a rapist who is the antithesis of everything she wants in one with whom she shares the greatest intimacies. The tragedy is that many women feel shame when it is the man who should be ashamed of himself for abusing the body and the emotions of a woman just for the feeling of power over her.

    I am not a woman (there’s a blinding glimpse of the obvious) and maybe I am wrong. I do know some women for whom this would be relevant in part or as a whole.

    Hyperon wanted to know what makes rape different from assault. I would suggest part of it is the emotional impact that this appalling crime has.

  61. Carlie says

    Hyperon, you are using bad arguments. You are misunderstanding data, and have been told exactly how you are misinterpreting it, and that has nothing to do with feelings or emotions or “soft science”. You are using numbers as if they mean something they don’t, and that is simply wrong. You sniffed at the concept of reification, but you’re a roaring example of it. Even worse, because you’re reifying numbers that don’t even exist the way you think they do.

    You have also been given, over the last few threads you have participated in, many, many links to actual research papers that both have and explain data. You have refused to even acknowledge them, and have admitted that you haven’t read most of them. For example, you haven’t said a word about the callback studies involving sending out identical resumes with male or female names; possibly because you know you can’t twist those conclusions around, but more likely because you never read it in the first place.

    Asking for information and having it handed to you IS giving you data. You not following the information is your own fault, not the fault of the people who have handed it to you on a platter.

    Instead of using that information, you’re the one who is using random logical fallacies, misinterpreting what’s there, and displaying extraordinary confirmation bias in every single one of your statements. You’re affecting the attitude that you are the only one arguing from a point of dispassionate logic, but in fact you are the only one who is arguing from a basis of nothing but your own opinion and prejudices.

    If you want to be taken at all seriously, you need to go back and click on all the damned links you have been given and read them, then either ask questions or make comments on the actual data. Otherwise, all you’re doing is blowing smoke.

  62. Jadehawk, OM says

    Wrong ABOUT WHAT?

    your pathetical presumption (what you mislabel a “null hypothesis”) that psychological damage is less bad than physical damage, and that psychological damage is caused by not sucking it up and keeping quiet about a problem (both of these are evident from your comments on rape in this thread and in the privileged white male thread)

    don’t care if you phrase it like a question. it’s still a question of the “have you stopped beating your wife” type.

    oh, and you’re also wrong about presuming naturalistic causes for everything, as you have done with homophobia and misogyny.

    in general, you haven’t said much that you weren’t wrong about in one way or the other.

  63. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    About asking why rape is categorically different from physical assault without rape?

    What a sexist bigoted fuckwit you are not to understand the difference without us having to explain it to you, which did happen upthread. That has been our point all day. You just keep on proving you are a delusional fool without any hopes of becoming a sane, rational man. You have nothing of interest for us. You have nothing cogent to say on anything. You are just a shitheaded delusional fool. Go and stay away.

  64. John Morales says

    H:

    My tone might be objectionable, and I apologize if it is, but there is no way that any critical thinker worth his salt would be swayed by this blatant ad populum.

    There’s no issue with your tone.

    It’s your opinions and their self-justifications that grate.

    As for ad populum, have you considered that you’re speaking of people’s subjective experiences, and that such an appeal is not therefore fallacious?

    Your rhetorical Empyrean affectation doesn’t fool anyone; you’re defending yourself of accusations of misogyny by belittling the significance of rape via ad hoc comparisons.
    Yet you act surprised when you fail at both.

    Perhaps your mirror neurons are atrophied, or perhaps their training has been perverted.

  65. nigelTheBold says

    Wrong ABOUT WHAT? About asking why rape is categorically different from physical assault without rape?

    No. About asserting it is not categorically different. It quite obviously is different, as the effects are substantially different (except possibly in cases of extreme assault).

    The empirical evidence is that rape is substantially different from assault.

    Why is it different? I couldn’t give you a real answer, as I’ve never studied the psychological trauma caused by rape, nor have I been raped. Other people have studied the psychology of rape. Their books are available. I suggest you avail yourself of a library. Other people have been raped, and have tried to report to you the effects of the rape.

    If you were at all interested in finding the answer to your question, you would’ve listened. But, in spite of your protestations, you are not logical about this at all. You are not even analytical.

    As you said earlier: I have no hypothesis. I just have facts, and the facts are that rape causes much greater psychological trauma than your basic nightclub altercation.

    If you are truly interested in the “why,” start reading the research.

  66. David Marjanović says

    Extreme lower canines in domestic pigs that were probably bred for it. :-S

    In contrast…

    Flowers! :-) Click… and click… and click… and click…

    Maybe an ex-SciBorgs ITiot works there?

    :-D :-D :-D

    True enough, although I sincerely doubt that unreported male-female rapes are going to boost the numbers of male-female rapes by around 55%. Anyway, all that matters here is that it is possible, in consideration of the figures we have, that more male-male rapes occur than male-female rapes (at least in the US). It’s therefore unfair to regard my opinions on rape to be somehow discriminating against women.

    …and…

    It gives us a good order of magnitude estimate

    It’s really funny to watch how strongly you want to believe. :-)

    Do you seriously believe that 3/4 of all male-female rapes are reported?!? Of course you don’t. Even you aren’t that clueless, though you try hard.

    Stop trying to lie to yourself. It’s not working. Your innumeracy and illiteracy is obvious even to yourself.

    In comment 481 you even quote a sentence that flat-out contradicts what you had said about it several times before… how many letters in that sentence did you even read!?!

    Hyperon’s posts on how a severe beating is more traumatising for a man than rape is for a woman

    Nonononono. He didn’t mention psychological trauma at all, and obviously didn’t even think of it. He simply didn’t think that far.

    Who but a rapist has so clear a motivation to minimise the awfulness of rape?

    A sociopath does, because others having empathy confuses him to no end… he has none, so how is it possible others do? Clearly it can’t exist, and we’re just teasing him for shits & giggles.

    Surely, in light of all this, I should be forgiven if I try to weave some mainly conceptual arguments, and if the opposition as a whole manages to garner more references than I can by myself.

    Scientists never forgive. If your manuscript doesn’t withstand peer review, it doesn’t, and we’ll all recommend rejection.

    (Spaghetti western: Dio pardona… io no)

    (My background is heavily mathematical, so it’s simply nonsense to imply that I’m intimidated by statistics.) Inevitably, life experience is going to be important in determining many of our opinions. It’s perfectly legitimate, in many cases, to form “null hypotheses” solely on the strength of life experience and conceptual arguments.

    Do you know what this quote shows?

    It shows that you still haven’t understood what a null hypothesis is.

    That’s among the utter basics of statistics. Have you no shame?

    I’m just wondering why that is necessarily the case. What, conceptually, is it about rape that is so different? Perhaps the feeling of helplessness?

    That’s one reason.

    Why are you still here? Why haven’t you clicked on the link in comment 402? You should be reading right now, and for the rest of the day.

    And this time please try to read for understanding. Try to read letter by letter rather than guessing what a word means by eyeballing its shape.

    What are you saying here? That I need to be a professional statistician in order to make comments about a bunch of statistics? If not, it’s hard to understand what you could be getting at by telling us your credentials.

    Easy: you’re wrong, and Brownian is qualified to tell you so.

    Was that so difficult?

    Indeed you were.

    No, he was at the same time asking whether rape should be considered more traumatizing than other forms of assault. Pay attention to “would” in comment 340, “necessarily” in comment 347.

  67. Pygmy Loris says

    I’m sorry, Pigmy Loris, I’m feeling grumpy because of Hyperon’s crap. I didn’t mean to sound combative, just pointing out that my mileage did, in fact, vary. :)

    You’re fine :) I only have one friend who has experienced both, so I appreciate the different perspective.

  68. Hyperon says

    Carlie,

    If you want to be taken at all seriously, you need to go back and click on all the damned links you have been given and read them, then either ask questions or make comments on the actual data. Otherwise, all you’re doing is blowing smoke.

    Funny that you don’t actually bother to give examples of links I supposedly haven’t clicked on. Amazing that you’d write that kind of post, in which you fling extreme charges without providing even a semblance of supporting evidence, and wind it up by accusing me of “blowing smoke”.

    Jadehawk,

    your pathetical presumption (what you mislabel a “null hypothesis”) that psychological damage is less bad than physical damage

    It isn’t obvious how we can compare psychological damage and physical damage in terms of suffering caused. I suppose one way to address this question empirically might be to have an opinion poll regarding what is worst out of broken limbs and the memories of some past traumatic experience. It isn’t obvious what results such a poll would yield.

  69. negentropyeater says

    Hyperon,

    About asking why rape is categorically different from physical assault without rape?

    You are not merely asking this question. You are also asserting that :

    Incidentally, if I were ever raped, the thing I would be most worried about is painful and long-term physical injuries. Yes, it would be highly uncomfortable, but it would only last for a short period of time. Carrying around broken body parts for months would be in my opinion worse than “trauma”, which I could probably blank out soon enough.

    So you can’t understand why so many rape victims are emotionally traumatized for so long because you think the only worrying aspect of rape are the long term physical injuries (which btw you think will only last for a short period of time).

    So not only are you an insensitive asshat, but also an incoherent one.

  70. Brownian, OM says

    Sorry, I tried to work for a bit, but this train wreck is just too gory to stop rubbernecking.

    Do you even know what’s being discussed, or are you just picking up a bad smell, and taking it on faith that the “cool kids” must be right?

    I called it in #419. Please, for the love of all, somebody take one for the team and be this puke’s prom date. You don’t have to kiss him, you don’t even have to dance with him. Fuck, I’ll wear a dress and give him a handjob myself if it prevents him from stockpiling pipe bombs in retaliation for getting booted off the dodgeball team. But no touching my breasts! I’ve been hitting the pub harder than the gym as of late and I’m a little sensitive about them.

    *Crunch* Oh, and there’s another bad play at #555. Let’s look at it on replay:

    I didn’t say I’m better with statistics than all posters.

    Yeah, I called that one way back at #492:

    If really cornered, claim he didn’t really claim that “all” children are homophobic, so any exceptions aren’t applicable.

    See Carlie? He’s not better with stats than “all” of the posters, just “more diligent than the average” poster here. Bait-and-switch-you’re-wrong. At any rate, he’s just backtracking because his appeal to authority is less persuasive than mine (would that he understood argument as well as he thinks he does: he never would have made such a rookie mistake.)

    Seriously, this claim of his of being some sort of outside-the-box freethinker would be much less ironic if I weren’t predicting his moves like I were staring at a fucking anvilhead and calling for rain.

    The reason I can do so so easily? Like I said: he’s a dime-a-dozen. Some fucking freethinker.

  71. Walton says

    Having set the scene, now consider rape. Rape is defined in English Law (or it was last time I looked) as “carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will”.

    Not any more. See section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which replaced the common-law definition of rape:

    (1) A person (A) commits an offence if–

    (a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,

    (b) B does not consent to the penetration, and

    (c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

    (2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.

    In English law, both men and women can be victims of rape. However, since the definition of the offence includes penetration with a penis, the offence of rape cannot be committed by a woman. Other forms of coercive sexual activity are charged as “assault by penetration” or “sexual assault” under sections 2 and 3 of the Act.

    Just FYI.

  72. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Yawn, Fuckwitted shithead, you are a bore. Repeating inane claims means you have nothing. Try going to a library, preferably at a university, and start learning some real facts and information. You and reality have separated. You need to change that, but you can’t do that posting here. Only by going back and actually learning some material, and becoming familiar with reality, can you change that. But I don’t see that happening due to your arrogance.

  73. Alan B says

    #549 Hyperon asked me:

    Do you even know what’s being discussed, or are you just picking up a bad smell, and taking it on faith that the “cool kids” must be right?

    Do you always go out of your way to be gratuitously offensive?

    Might I respectfully suggest you try a little humility? One of the contributors here has the tagline “Still Learning”. It’s a good concept.

  74. Hyperon says

    Marjanović, I’ve already acknowledged I was wrong with the statistics I quoted on rape. (I read “anally” as “annually”.) Read the fucking thread.

    It shows that you still haven’t understood what a null hypothesis is.

    So you assert, arbitrarily, without anything approaching a supporting argument.

  75. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    So you assert, arbitrarily, without anything approaching a supporting argument.

    You have no supported argument, so STFU. Go and say away fuckwitted sexist racist bigot.

  76. Feynmaniac says

    Walton,

    If the law contradicts ideas of fairness and equality the burden falls on the law to justify it. However the Supreme Court supposedly conceives I don’t want it mindlessly applying the law with no regard to morality or consequences*.

    In any case, I saw the poll as further evidence that the system favors businesses at the expense of both the wishes and interests of the population. The opinion of the population in a decision that undermines democracy shouldn’t be dismissed outright.

    ____
    * Logician Kurt Gödel claimed to have discovered a loophole in the US Constitution that allowed a dictatorship. He unwisely choose to bring up while getting his citizenship (at the annoyance of Einstein, who was helping him). Luckily, the judge was an understanding man. Anyway, if the logic of his argument held I doubt anyone would accept it in practice.

  77. Jadehawk, OM says

    It isn’t obvious how we can compare psychological damage and physical damage in terms of suffering caused.

    …. seriously…?

    OK, I’m officially convinced he’s a book-case sociopath. No person can actually be this clueless about the effects of psychological damage, unless they have never actually “felt” anything, ever. :-/

  78. Jadehawk, OM says

    So you assert, arbitrarily, without anything approaching a supporting argument.

    “null hypothesis” has been defined for your benefit upthread. you have ignored that definition, just like you ignore everything else that doesn’t suit you, and continue using that term incorrectly.

    at the most charitable, what you’re talking about are axioms. or default hypotheses; more realistically, they look like prejudice and premature conclusions turned into presumptive truth-claims. either way, they’re not “null hypotheses”, and your misuse of the term just shows that even if you really are as numerate as you claim(which I doubt, from your multiple fuckups on that prison-rape thing), you’re still a sloppy thinker who doesn’t use language very precisely.

  79. Hyperon says

    See Carlie? He’s not better with stats than “all” of the posters, just “more diligent than the average” poster here. Bait-and-switch-you’re-wrong.

    No, you lying fucking, word-twisting tosspot. There was no bait-and-switch: “More diligent about statistics than the average poster ” was EXACTLY what I said to start with.

  80. Alan B says

    “And so to bed”
    Another day, maybe another thread?

    (Closest I’m ever going to get to a Haiku)

  81. Qwerty says

    PZ should change the name of this tread to “the thread hijacked by Hyperon.”

    I was going to suggest to Hyperon that he change his subject from rape (which he apparently has never experienced but thinks he knows a lot about) and assault (which, again, is something I doubt he has experienced) to something simpler like the weather, but….

    He’s probably a global warming denialist too.

    Oh, well, yawn, yawn. A few more comments and there’ll be another episode of the never-ending thread.

  82. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    No, you lying fucking, word-twisting tosspot.

    That sounds like you fuckwitted sexist bigot liar troll idjit. You have nothing to offer us, nothing to talk to us about, just your delusions. Which we don’t care to share. What a loser…

  83. David Marjanović says

    Substance for me has always been first

    Hah. A cheap prejudice supported by 0 to 2 anecdotes and/or a paper you didn’t manage to read for understanding, that’s what has always been first for you.

    I’ve already acknowledged I was wrong with the statistics I quoted on rape. (I read “anally” as “annually”.)

    That wasn’t the only error by far. In fact, if that had been your only error, your case would be better supported than it is, as SC of all people pointed out in comment 491. Your biggest mistake was to compare estimated and reported numbers…

    So you assert, arbitrarily, without anything approaching a supporting argument.

    I gave an explanation of what “null hypothesis” means.

    Surely you have a statistics textbook at home? If not, just read the Wikipedia article on “null hypothesis”.

    While you’re at it, also read the one on the Dunning-Kruger effect. But don’t forget comment 402 either.

  84. Brownian, OM says

    OK, I’m officially convinced he’s a book-case sociopath.

    Hardly. He’s just a run-of-the-mill dolt who’s probably got some aptitude in one field (I’m assuming he isn’t lying about having university-level math training) and makes the mistake of thinking he’s a polymath. Your average university chess or philosophy club is so full of these guys they stack ’em like cord wood to make bleachers for debates and tourneys.

  85. Hyperon says

    “null hypothesis” has been defined for your benefit upthread. you have ignored that definition, just like you ignore everything else that doesn’t suit you, and continue using that term incorrectly.

    I searched the thread for “null hypothesis”; I can’t find this definition you talk about. But I know what a null hypothesis is. It’s a provisional, “default” hypothesis, adopted on the basis of the evidence at hand, which is susceptible to being falsified by sufficiently strong data. Exactly compatible with how I used the term above.

    You really must be reaching deep if you have to resort to twisting my use of “null hypothesis”.

  86. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    It’s a provisional, “default” hypothesis, adopted on the basis of the evidence at hand,

    Which is considered the prevailing (social) scientific explanation. Which is not yours fuckwit. Your explanations are not supported by any evidence, but rather your prejudices. We know that. What a loser.

  87. Jadehawk, OM says

    Hardly. He’s just a run-of-the-mill dolt who’s probably got some aptitude in one field (I’m assuming he isn’t lying about having university-level math training) and makes the mistake of thinking he’s a polymath. Your average university chess or philosophy club is so full of these guys they stack ’em like cord wood to make bleachers for debates and tourneys.

    well, he’s the first person I’ve ever seen who isn’t capable of grasping even theoretically that psychological damage cuts deeper than physical damage. But who knows, maybe in the depths of toxic-masculinity culture this sort of thing is drilled into them to the point where they become incapable of acknowledging or identifying anything that even remotely looks like a feeling, and thus turn into such pseudo-sociopaths.

  88. David Marjanović says

    The act of physical sharing of two lovers giving themselves to each other in loving intercourse is special to those who feel this way. […] Demonstrating their desire for a lifelong union

    Sometimes I feel like a gibbon among bonobos…

    I searched the thread for “null hypothesis”; I can’t find this definition you talk about.

    Near the beginning of comment 282.

    But I know what a null hypothesis is. It’s a provisional, “default” hypothesis, adopted on the basis of the evidence at hand

    Wrong, wrong, and wrong, respectively.

    Really, this is like when Alan Clarke (or was it RogerS?) simply refused to accept that evolution means “descent with heritable modification” and repeated over and over that it meant atheism. It’s painful to watch how you insist on being wrong.

  89. Jadehawk, OM says

    I searched the thread for “null hypothesis”; I can’t find this definition you talk about.

    so you’re inept. is anyone surprised by this? here: Roughly, it means “there’s no correlation, no causation, nothing, the data are purely random, nothing happened, nothing to see here, go along”. (What it means precisely differs between statistical tests, but it’s always a version of the above.) The purpose of a statistical test try is to reject the null hypothesis if it’s wrong.

    or shorter: a null hypothesis is that X happened purely by chance/randomly

    But I know what a null hypothesis is. It’s a provisional, “default” hypothesis, adopted on the basis of the evidence at hand, which is susceptible to being falsified by sufficiently strong data. Exactly compatible with how I used the term above.

    you don’t get to make up definitions for terms. your definition is still wrong; it’s kind of irrelevant that you’re consistent with your own mis-definition of the term.

    You really must be reaching deep if you have to resort to twisting my use of “null hypothesis”.

    ain’t us doin’ the twistin’

  90. Hyperon says

    Your biggest mistake was to compare estimated and reported numbers…

    I guess you’re the type who learned algebra by slavishly memorizing a bunch of dumb rules. (Uncharitable speculation is chic here, and I think I’ll join the party.) There is no law stating that we can’t compare estimated and reported numbers. The statistics I quoted were intended to give a rough, order of magnitude comparison. I admitted that it didn’t allow for unreported male-female rapes, so it’s not like I was oblivious to what I was doing.

    My essential point was only that rape is a relatively unisex phenomenon, and I think the data we have is sufficient to establish this, even if I was wrong in interpreting the data originally.

    But this really is becoming tiresome. Everything I say is interpreted in the most uncharitable possible light.

  91. Brownian, OM says

    No, you lying fucking, word-twisting tosspot. There was no bait-and-switch: “More diligent about statistics than the average poster ” was EXACTLY what I said to start with.

    I never said you didn’t in either of my comments. Try reading for comprehension, math-whiz.

    What you do is make such a claim (unsupported, of course) with relatively vague and meaningless terminology, and then jump on any poster who mistakes your obvious intent for your actual words. It’s like you’re playing ‘Simon Says’. “Brzzt! I didn’t say ‘Simon Says’! You’re out!”

    See, this is what you do, and I’m going to spell it out for you just so you know there is no fucking mistaking who has the better understanding of human nature here, you fucking little freak.

    Let’s take the claim in question:

    [1] I’m pretty sure, in any case, that I’m more diligent about statistics than the average poster here. [2] (My background is heavily mathematical, so it’s simply nonsense to imply that I’m intimidated by statistics.)

    Both are appeals to authority, and that’s all [2] is, so let’s toss that one away since it’s of no value other than perhaps helping you ejaculate on a Saturday night. But [1] is more than that; it’s a deliberately vague statement meant to intimidate opponents and set a little trap, exactly in the way you used it against Carlie (I’ve seen you do this before and may even have called you out on it on the “Rapping about genes” thread, but I’m not about to go back and dig it up) It’s a subtle little “Gotcha!” you like to use so you can attack your attackers if they make the mistake of misreading whether you said “all”, “most”, “many”, “the average”, or whatever. It is indeed a bait-and-switch.

    If it is not, then please explain what it was meant to convey: are you better at statistics than me? Than Jadehawk? Than David Marjanović? Who, then? What proportion of commenters? And who cares? If the people who are arguing against you are actually part of the group that’s better than you at understanding statistics, then who gives a flying fuck about how many others you’re better than? Is it an appeal to probability? Are you trying to imply that you’re better at understanding statistics than 51% of the commenters here so therefore you’re at least 51% likely to be right? The statement has absolutely no value, and is in fact a waste of words for one who claims to be making “logical, unemotional” arguments.

    See, it’s this kind of stuff that reveals you as a poor thinker who’s been able to intimidate a few people around around the pub with your ‘debate’ skills and think that means something. Like I said, I’ve seen your kind more often than I’ve seen cows, and I live in fucking rancher country.

  92. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    But I know what a null hypothesis is. It’s a provisional, “default” hypothesis, adopted on the basis of the evidence at hand

    Not only do you not know what a null hypothesis is, but it also appears that you are a Bayesian. And a subjective one at that.

    *ducks instinctively, in case respectable subjective Bayesians are about*

    Just look at the damn wikipedia entry please.

  93. Qwerty says

    David M – Thanks for the link to the Dunning-Kruger effect. I laughed when I read the below:

    “The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. ”

    For some reason the phrase “the unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority” reminded me of a certain poster.

  94. Opus says

    It’s at times like this, reading the crap spewed by the HyperIgnorant one, that I almost wish that reincarnation were true. It would be worth it just to see this dude reach a breaking point, pick up a cudgel and administer a thorough beating.

  95. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    I guess you’re the type who learned algebra by slavishly memorizing a bunch of dumb rules.

    Your dumb rule is that you think you are even adequate, much less smarter than everyone else. You are nothing but an idjit fuckwit. What a loser…

  96. Jadehawk, OM says

    well, he’s the first person I’ve ever seen who isn’t capable of grasping even theoretically that psychological damage cuts deeper than physical damage. But who knows, maybe in the depths of toxic-masculinity culture this sort of thing is drilled into them to the point where they become incapable of acknowledging or identifying anything that even remotely looks like a feeling, and thus turn into such pseudo-sociopaths.

    actually, I take that back. I mean, he’s still the only person I’ve ever known who was unable to imagine psychological damage like that, but he’s not the first who seems to think that mental effects are somehow not quite “real”. the dude in the atheism and sex thread was the same about orgasms not induced via sexual stimulation (and about psychosomatic pain too, actually).

    So this seems more common than I originally thought. Some form of subconscious dualism? forgetting that the brain is a physical organ in constant communication with the rest of the body (and not just as a receiver, but also as a sender)? I don’t know…

  97. Qwerty says

    Hyperon: But this really is becoming tiresome. Everything I say is interpreted in the most uncharitable possible light.

    I suggest you go read a book. “War and Peace” come to mind.

  98. Carlie says

    Funny that you don’t actually bother to give examples of links I supposedly haven’t clicked on.

    You mean examples like this?

    For example, you haven’t said a word about the callback studies involving sending out identical resumes with male or female names; possibly because you know you can’t twist those conclusions around, but more likely because you never read it in the first place.

    Which, if you have trouble finding it, is in the exact same comment that you just referenced?

    Dude, the posts are all still sitting here. They haven’t gone anywhere. You can’t possibly expect someone to go back through them now and re-link to them all again just because you refused to click on them the first time they were handed to you. They’re still there; all you have to do is READ.

  99. Brownian, OM says

    Oh my non-god, how could I have missed this gem?

    But I know what a null hypothesis is. It’s a provisional, “default” hypothesis, adopted on the basis of the evidence at hand, which is susceptible to being falsified by sufficiently strong data. Exactly compatible with how I used the term above.

    Hey Hyperon, are you more diligent with biology than the average commenter but still wonder monkeys still exist if we evolved from them too?

    What kind of math did you study, anyway? “Better than average at statistics” indeed.

  100. SC OM says

    Gah. The main thing affected by my current illness is my joints, and particularly my wrists, but I’m going to type this out if I can.

    Marjanović, I’ve already acknowledged I was wrong with the statistics I quoted on rape. (I read “anally” as “annually”.) Read the fucking thread.

    Do you understand that this is not the only, or even the most important, way in which you were wrong there? Do you understand what people pointed out to you – that even if you had read that right, the comparison was meaningless? Do you understand what Brownian was trying to say to you about the use of statistics in the contexts under discussion? Do you understand that this is completely irrelevant to the subject of violence in a sexist culture, because no one is denying (and I made it explicit on the previous thread) that this doesn’t only have serious negative effects for women?

    You don’t have a clue what a null hypothesis is (or better, what they are) in a multivariate analysis. The suggestion that an explanation for a phenomenon – real or pulled out of your ass – based on your imagination or anecdotal experience or extremely partial knowledge constitutes a null hypothesis is wrong on so many levels that I wouldn’t know where to start.

    I’ve supplied lots of statistics in this thread and its predecessor; maybe more than anyone else.

    I haven’t followed your posts at all, so this was the first of your links I’ve clicked on. I have little doubt that if I clicked on the others I would find similar problems – the data are problematic, you’re not interpreting what people are saying correctly, the numbers aren’t contextualized, you’re not appreciating the limitations of the methods or data, you’re misunderstanding how the data relate to the issue under consideration, the data don’t relate to the matter under discussion, or the matter under discussion isn’t a social-scientific question to begin with. (No, I don’t want you to link to anything. You ignore what people say to you about the links you provide, and I don’t believe you’re capable of fully understanding people’s criticisms.)

    Now, consider that (a) I’m not trained in the social sciences; (b) there’s an army of posters arguing against me, some of whom are trained in the social sciences; and (c) if I’m right, academics generally wouldn’t be inclined to do studies that corroborate my position.

    No, you consider (a) and (b). You shouldn’t be pontificating in an area in which you understand neither the substantive evidence nor the relevant methods. (c) is ridiculous. There are vast literatures on several of the subjects that have been discussed. People have spent years or careers researching gender inequality, sexism, sexual (and other) violence, the effects of rape, the difficulties of compiling rape statistics,…

    It is no one’s job here to educate you. Take a class. Go to Google Scholar or Amazon and type in the related search terms. (One way to find good recent work is to search for something like “sociology gender inequality syllabus.”) (I say this knowing you have no sincere interest in learning, but maybe someone else does.)

    Surely, in light of all this, I should be forgiven if I try to weave some mainly conceptual arguments,

    No, you shouldn’t. You’re callously weaving your idiotic “conceptual arguments” around subjects that are personally painful for many people reading this. You haven’t demonstrated in any way that your motives are good, and in fact have clearly shown that they are quite bad. You came with a stupid selfish axe to grind and you ground it on other people.

  101. David Marjanović says

    There is no law stating that we can’t compare estimated and reported numbers. The statistics I quoted were intended to give a rough, order of magnitude comparison. I admitted that it didn’t allow for unreported male-female rapes, so it’s not like I was oblivious to what I was doing.

    My essential point was only that rape is a relatively unisex phenomenon, and I think the data we have is sufficient to establish this, even if I was wrong in interpreting the data originally.

    <headdesk>

    You’re still wrong, because the reported number of male-female rape have to be multiplied by a factor of about 3 to 6 to become comparable to the estimated number of male-male prison rapes (if we can calculate the latter from the actually given estimated number of men who have been raped in prison). This factor reverses your conclusion (your “essential point”).

  102. Hyperon says

    Wrong, wrong, and wrong, respectively.

    It’s not wrong. You adopt a null hypothesis on the basis of the evidence you have. Then, when you get new data, you test your null hypothesis. If the new data can plausibly be accounted for given the null hypothesis, you retain the null hypothesis. If not, you reject it. Basic, high school stuff.

    Now, you patronizing little twerp, button your lip.

  103. Owlmirror says

    (My background is heavily mathematical, so it’s simply nonsense to imply that I’m intimidated by statistics.)

    You’re not intimidated by statistics; you’re intimidated by anyone who isn’t you, to the point where you will rape statistics and assault truth with the blunt instrument of your overblown ego.

    It’s perfectly legitimate, in many cases, to form “null hypotheses” solely on the strength of life experience and conceptual arguments.

    Then it follows that the “null hypothesis” of Pharyngula that you are an insecure bullying sociopathic disingenuous narcissistic misogynistic racist spin-doctoring bullshit artist need not be rejected.

    I’m entirely prepared to abandon these null hypotheses if I think the data are sufficiently compelling.

    So far, you’ve not given the data to compel the abandonment of the Pharyngula consensus. But hey, good luck with that.

    ===

    When discussing things on the Internet, I try to be as logical disingenuous as I can, and this comes with the unfortunate consequence of frequently being insensitive sociopathic. Substance Bullshit for me has always been first, and style/tone takes the back seat.

    Fixed.

    ===

    I’m not going to accept that I’m wrong simply because all the regulars on Pharyngula think I’m wrong.

    Would you care that you’re wrong? Evidently not, since you ignore all of the evidence that you’re wrong…

    But I know what a null hypothesis is. It’s a provisional, “default” hypothesis, adopted on the basis of the evidence at hand, which is susceptible to being falsified by sufficiently strong data. Exactly compatible with how I used the term above.

    And the “null hypothesis” that you are an insecure bullying sociopathic disingenuous narcissistic misogynistic racist spin-doctoring bullshit artist remains unfalsified.

    Hurrah for science!

  104. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    You adopt a null hypothesis on the basis of the evidence you have.

    That is the null hypothesis, shithead which you must falsify. Your hypothesis is totally and utterly irrelevant, just like your other manureheaded opinions fuckwit. What a loser…

  105. Brownian, OM says

    Jadehawk, he’s just denying it for the sake of his argument. He’s not incapable, just very, very stupidly stubborn.

    They’re still there; all you have to do is READ.

    To be fair, he never said he was at all good at reading, just better than the average poster at statistics, (though clearly not good enough to understand the null hypothesis). Who knows? Maybe he can’t write either, and that’s why he keeps making unsupportable claims and fallacies.

  106. Hyperon says

    I’ve had enough of this. The insults are too cumbersome. It destroys any possibility of serious discussion.

  107. SC OM says

    My essential point was only that rape is a relatively unisex phenomenon, and I think the data we have is sufficient to establish this, even if I was wrong in interpreting the data originally.

    What the hell are you talking about?

  108. Jadehawk, OM says

    It’s not wrong. You adopt a null hypothesis on the basis of the evidence you have. Then, when you get new data, you test your null hypothesis. If the new data can plausibly be accounted for given the null hypothesis, you retain the null hypothesis.

    no, that’s a “default hypothesis”; you don’t test the null hypothesis, you test your own hypothesis against the null hypothesis.

    WTF? are you dyslexic?

  109. Carlie says

    The statistics I quoted were intended to give a rough, order of magnitude comparison.

    Which they don’t do, which is what people have been trying to explain to you over and over. You can’t have even a rough order of magnitude comparison when you’re comparing two sets of data that are so wildly different from each other. It is not an order of magnitude comparison.

  110. SC OM says

    I’ve had enough of this. The insults are too cumbersome. It destroys any possibility of serious discussion.

    Then Go. Away.

  111. David Marjanović says

    Now, you patronizing little twerp, button your lip.

    Instead, I’ll go to bed. It’s a quarter to 3 at night, I haven’t got enough sleep this entire week, I’m already so tired I forgot the gumby code in comment 602, and…

    …you moron. Read the Wikipedia article already. You don’t adopt a null hypothesis based on any evidence, your statistical test tells you in advance what the null hypothesis is, and then the evidence rejects it (or not)!

    See the rest of you all next subthread. I predict Hyperon will be banned by then – not for trolling, not for wanking, not for insipidity even, but for stupidity.

  112. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    I’ve had enough of this. The insults are too cumbersome. It destroys any possibility of serious discussion.

    What serious discussion? That requires you to have supporting data for your inane, insane, and misogynic ideas! Which wasn’t there, and you know it! So, until you have real facts behind you, there cannot be a serious discussion! Just your prejudices against reality, and your prejudices will lose every time…

  113. Brownian, OM says

    It’s not wrong. You adopt a null hypothesis on the basis of the evidence you have. Then, when you get new data, you test your null hypothesis. If the new data can plausibly be accounted for given the null hypothesis, you retain the null hypothesis. If not, you reject it. Basic, high school stuff.

    No. You’re absolutely wrong, fuckhead. Maybe you mean some layperson’s understanding of the ‘default’ position or some such pleb-speak, but that is not the null hypothesis.

    So, when questioned on very basic statistical terminology, the ‘heavy math’ guy gives a definition that one might forgive Joe Sixpack for fucking up?

    Why don’t you roll us another spliff, genius?

  114. OurDeadSelves says

    I’ve had enough of this. The insults are too cumbersome. It destroys any possibility of serious discussion.

    Thank goodness. I’ve been waiting for hours for you to fuck off so we could get to talking about the truly important things like bacon, lesbians, and spanking.

  115. Kyorosuke says

    Alan B @ 536 suggested that Hyperon’s problem was that he didn’t listen. If I may be so bold, I think his problem is that he’s an authoritarian, racist, misogynist asshole.

    Jadehawk:

    Remember that most sociopaths are very good at manipulating people and hiding their true intentions (like Johan Liebert*); Hyperon gave himself away as a Herculean shitbird right away.

    *If Hulu works in your country, you should totally be watching this show.

  116. Carlie says

    What serious discussion?

    I’m sure he’s been typing in a very serious tone of voice.

    I do have to say, though, Hyperon’s definition of a null hypothesis has injected a large dose of levity into the discussion. I’m quite enjoying giggling at him thinking that he has any idea what he’s talking about when he writes stuff like that.

  117. David Marjanović says

    Just one more thing, Hyperon: there is such a thing as an ignorant highschool teacher who doesn’t understand their very own subject. I’ve known some. Looks like you’ve known some, too.

  118. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Thank goodness. I’ve been waiting for hours for you to fuck off so we could get to talking about the truly important things like bacon, lesbians, and spanking.

    Yes, the Redhead decided to send me out for chicken last night instead of cooking gumbo. That gumbo is in process. *Homer Simpson about Donuts* Homemade gumbo..

  119. Brownian, OM says

    I’ve had enough of this. The insults are too cumbersome. It destroys any possibility of serious discussion.

    No, the fact that you’re a fucking retard and din’t know it destroys the possibility of any discussion, serious or not.

    Maybe when the scary Muslims come with their bombs you can distract ’em enough with your definition of the null hypothesis. If I recall correctly, the 9/11 hijackers all had university educations. I’m sure they’ll be appalled by your stupidity long enough for you to get the upper hand.

    Seriously, come back just one more time and tell us how smart you are. I’m holding my sides, but I’ve still got some chuckles in me.

  120. Hyperon says

    You don’t adopt a null hypothesis based on any evidence, your statistical test tells you in advance what the null hypothesis is, and then the evidence rejects it (or not)!

    What, so the statistical test has a mind of its own? Precisely where in the fuck do you think the null hypothesis comes from? The Black Lagoon? Obviously it is adopted on the basis of evidence at hand prior to a statistical test. In practice, this evidence is often non-statistical. So, for instance, you could test the null hypothesis, acquired on the basis of “folk biology” (which turns out to be slightly false) that the sex ratio is 50:50.

    Now I’m not responding to any more of these cheap insults and idiotic, uncharitable misrepresentations.

  121. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Yes, that is the presently accepted (social) scientific accepted hypothesis. If you don’t know that, you are definitely a loser… What a loser…

  122. Brownian, OM says

    What, so the statistical test has a mind of its own? Precisely where in the fuck do you think the null hypothesis comes from? The Black Lagoon? Obviously it is adopted on the basis of evidence at hand prior to a statistical test.

    Oh fuck, stop, I can’t take this. I am actually crying here.

  123. Gyeong Hwa Pak, Pikachu para lang sa iyo. says

    Hyperon is mad that you guys ain’t praising his intelligence, so now he’s gonna run away because you’ve thrown too much facts at him.

  124. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Bah, blockquote fail #622

    obviously it is adopted on the basis of evidence at hand prior to a statistical test.

    Yes, that is the presently accepted (social) scientific accepted hypothesis. If you don’t know that, you are definitely a loser… What a loser…

    Hyperon, you are a loser…

  125. Carlie says

    I’ve had enough of this. The insults are too cumbersome. It destroys any possibility of serious discussion.

    So, Hyperon is learning that when you play with the big kids, a brash attitude and ability to BS doesn’t get you anywhere.

    So, for instance, you could test the null hypothesis, acquired on the basis of “folk biology” (which turns out to be slightly false) that the sex ratio is 50:50.

    What do you even mean by that? The null hypothesis that a population should be 50:50 male:female is based on meiosis and fertilization probability calculations, and only holds in diploid sexually reproducing species with gender that is genetically determined by 2 chromosomes. Are we about to find out how little you know about population genetics too?

  126. cicely says

    Thebear, up ’round about 500 or so:

    Please mind the other ditch!

    While guys who’ve got some minor battle-scars from a more or less voluntary scruff might brag, I doubt very much that that would be the case for the kind of violence one could compare to rape.

    Or at least not all… And not all kinds of violence.

    It’s okay; I’m watching the ditch. (I dunno; these backseat drivers….)

    I meant it as a bit of dark, thick-and-gooey snarkiness for Hyperon. After all, if he can project his feelings and thoughts (and thoughts about what his feelings would be, if he were to be raped) onto others as a reflection of the Real World, surely he doesn’t object to a little back-projection of what some other men think and feel, as reflected in the aforementioned bragging, onto him.

    Whether that bragging is the majority reaction, and whether it is relevant, is completely beside the point.

    snark, snark, snark

  127. A. Noyd says

    I hope you’re gone, Hyperon, but if you’re not, here’s a little gift for you.

    Why emotional trauma is different from physical trauma is this: we are dualists by nature. We see our bodies as an extension of ourselves, so we automatically put bodily injuries at a distance. But our selves are ourselves. What emotional trauma does is injure the “self.” It changes who you are suddenly, violently, and against your will. And while depersonalization sometimes does accompany emotional trauma making it feel like you’re dispassionately observing from the outside, it’s not the “whole you” that’s “observing” and, you’re still not who you were before when reintegration happens.

    That someone can change who you are is a far, far deeper violation than mere physical injury. The only way to get a sense of distance from mental trauma is by becoming an emotional cripple, which doesn’t fix anything. Healing from it requires learning who the new you is and it requires being a stranger to yourself while you do so. And sometimes you’re left with scars to your mind forever outside your control, like panic attacks, which yank you suddenly back into stranger-hood, sometimes to relive what happened. Even sleep can’t guarantee escape.

    So, Hyperon, go ahead and say that you would be more worried about damage to your physical body if you were raped. Everyone else here understands that the physical damage you speculate about wouldn’t be to the body of the person typing to us now. It would be to the body of whoever was left.

    (This is just a little knowledge for your benefit that you’re no doubt going to ignore or try to twist around. If you go for the latter, I won’t be seeing it because you’re killfiled. I just wanted this out there.)

  128. Jadehawk, OM says

    What, so the statistical test has a mind of its own? Precisely where in the fuck do you think the null hypothesis comes from? The Black Lagoon? Obviously it is adopted on the basis of evidence at hand prior to a statistical test.

    *blink* *blink*

    a null hypothesis is most emphatically NOT the previously accepted hypothesis! a null hypothesis is a hypothesis in which effect X doesn’t exist. and yes, the statistical test comes with one pre-determined and completely unrelated to existing hypotheses of various effects on the data-set, since the way to test to see if effect X is real is to test it against the “null hypothesis”, i.e. something like “what would the data look like if X didn’t exist?”

    it’s not a real hypothesis, it’s sort of the opposite of what you’re trying to find evidence for; because science only disproves, you need to work with the opposite of what you think might be true. that’s the “null hypothesis”: “what should the data look like if I were wrong”?

    how does one get to study math and not know that? how… worrisome :-/

  129. OurDeadSelves says

    That gumbo is in process. *Homer Simpson about Donuts* Homemade gumbo..

    I am so jealous! Since I’ve been avoiding doing anything more strenuous than looking at my computer or playing videogames, I resorted to eating canned chili this evening. The horror!

  130. John Morales says

    H:

    In practice, this evidence is often non-statistical. So, for instance, you could test the null hypothesis, acquired on the basis of “folk biology” (which turns out to be slightly false) that the sex ratio is 50:50.

    Nope. You’d be testing whether, if that were your hypothesis, it would be expected by chance or otherwise, to a certain degree of certitude.

    You could, of course, just show your math.

    As to statistical evidence being “often non-statistical”, well. Heh. Good one.

  131. Jadehawk, OM says

    I am so jealous! Since I’ve been avoiding doing anything more strenuous than looking at my computer or playing videogames, I resorted to eating canned chili this evening. The horror!

    if anyone cares, we’ll be having buttery salmon with rosemary, and spaghetti squash with roasted garlic(and even more butter).

    yum….

  132. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    I am so jealous! Since I’ve been avoiding doing anything more strenuous than looking at my computer or playing videogames, I resorted to eating canned chili this evening. The horror!

    I may bring home the bacon, but the Redhead cooks it. So I’m online and playing computer games until called for dinner. Unfortunately, it looks like dinner may be about my bedtime…

  133. OurDeadSelves says

    if anyone cares, we’ll be having buttery salmon with rosemary, and spaghetti squash with roasted garlic(and even more butter).

    yum….

    … Now you’re just trying to make me sad. :(

  134. Pygmy Loris says

    Dinner, a topic I can get into :)

    I had delicious chicken fajitas with black beans and Spanish rice. Yum.

    Homemade gumbo and salmon do sound delicious, too.

  135. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    I’m having an olive loaf sandwich with Doritos for dinner. Hyperon…you are probably no longer reading, but the fact is that you have no grasp of hypothesis testing, basic statistics, or how to use wikipedia. Empathy is also not your strong suit, but I suggest an exercise that might help you with that. Some time this week, learn a card trick. Then try to teach it to a dog. Then, you will understand the frustration with which your “theories” have been met.

  136. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Between the chicken, Sunday’s New Years Chinese, last weeks pizza, and tonight’s Mardi Gras gumbo, lots of plan overs. The Redhead won’t have to cook for at least a week (TFSMFMO*)

    Thank FSM For Microwave Ovens.

  137. Gyeong Hwa Pak, Pikachu para lang sa iyo. says

    Hyperon go shove your narcissistic pseudo-intelligent bigoted head up a goats ass and shut the fuck up already. Arguing with you, you pompous twit, is completely pointless because you’ve deluded yourself with a false sense of intelligence.

  138. Katrina says

    We just finished thick center-cut pork chops roasted in au-gratin potatoes with a side of baby peas and mushrooms with garlic.

    Oh, and an eastern Washington Sangiovese.

  139. Sven DiMilo says

    frozen pizza
    Red Baron, Classic Crust, Supreme

    The null hypothesis that a population should be 50:50 male:female is based on meiosis and fertilization probability calculations, and only holds in diploid sexually reproducing species with gender that is genetically determined by 2 chromosomes.

    Debatable. I believe that Fisher’s argument for the optimal 50:50 sex ratio applies as well to (e.g.) turtles with temperature sex determination. Smeared out a bit over time and subject in the short term to variation due to weather, if there is any heritable variation in propensity to nest in sun vs, shade, etc., you should still get 50:50 over time.

    I think.

  140. Rawnaeris says

    Man I need to lean how to cook. You people are making me drool. @ Antiochus Epiphanes I love olive breads.

  141. Carlie says

    And frequency-dependent selection would also tend to favor an overall 50:50 ratio, at least in species that don’t have hermaphrodites. I was oversimplifying, trying to give him one concrete example with easily intuited maths.

    We had leftovers for dinner. Not really good ones.

  142. Gyeong Hwa Pak, Pikachu para lang sa iyo. says

    I am sorry if my response sounded particularly angry. I just lost my driver license, my ATM card, my frat membership card, my GameCrazy membership card, my library card, my Starbucks card, My yogurt/salon/tea shop rewards card, fifteen dollars, and a nicely engraved wallet.

  143. Miki Z says

    I think I’ve just witnessed the birth of creationist statistics. The Null Hypothesis&tm; begins with specified stupidity.

    Other qualified people have said it, but I’ll chip in. My background is not “heavily mathematical”: I have an M.S. Mathematics. I am not a statistician — that’s a different but related skill. Still, Comment by Hyperon blocked is just spouting absolute stupidity and wrong.

    —

    Brownian@396:

    You can’t swing a dead cat in a second-year poli sci or econ class without hitting a few of these, but not to worry; they’re way too scared shitless to hit you back with one.

    (emphasis added)

    And almost none of them will stick around to the fourth-year or grad-school classes, where they would learn:
    a) How useful these models are
    b) How many flawed/unrealistic assumptions they rely upon
    c) How humane people compensate for the injustices the models disregard.

  144. triskelethecat says

    @Jadehawk: I’m coming over to your house for dinner! Sounds absolutely wonderful.

    To all: I’m SO glad I killfiled the jerk. Just reading the quotes that you all have responded to tells me that he won’t learn from all the information that you have given him.

    @Alan B: Your NSFW comment, read at home, was wonderful. Many kudos to you for saying it.

    Night all!

  145. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    Finally I can get back into this thread again. I was staying away because a certain poster was causing my blood pressure to rise. I’m sure Rorschach can explain to anyone who doesn’t know (I’m thinking of a certain poster) how ungood that can be.

  146. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    Rawnaeris: I too love olive breads. However, this is what I meant by olive loaf. It is suprisingly enjoyable for a garbage-meat. But it is garbage meat, nonetheless.

  148. AJ Milne says

    (Clears throat…)

    I’d just like to point out that this evening, at approximately 21h50 ET, I landed jumps off two three-or-four foot snowpark kickers in a row–the first time I’ve ever landed anything on a board that wasn’t either (a) a one-foot-high hop off a mogul or (b) a not-exactly-intentional-and-not-real-graceful two foot drop off of a cornice into extremely forgiving powder…

    … and ‘kay, for the record, on the second such kicker, I was, in fact, going so slow that I barely stuck the landing, and had to put a hand down. First probably looked a lot prettier…

    … and yeah, it took me somethin’ like four tries until that actually happened, in which I explored many new and interesting ways of not landing them… And that’s not counting the four or five runs before I was able to psyche myself actually to go right off the lips of the things properly…

    Point is: I went over these on purpose. And landed.

    And yes, I’m bragging. But dammit, this really was an achievement. I just don’t do aerial. Or didn’t used to. Apparently, I do now.

    (/End bulletin.)

  150. Desert Son, OM says

    This past weekend my girlfriend and I made honey Dijon salmon with lemon wedges, garlic potatoes, and steamed asparagus. Lovely.

    Everything I say is interpreted in the most uncharitable possible light.

    That’s because everything you’ve said is most uncharitable . . . to put it in the mildest possible terms.

    I’ve had enough of this.

    Huzzah! Don’t let the door hit you as you leave. :)

    Let’s have some music! Play it loud!

    Still learning,

    Robert

  153. Desert Son, OM says

    Gyeong Hwa Pak,

    I am sorry if my response sounded particularly angry. I just lost my driver license, my ATM card, my frat membership card, my GameCrazy membership card, my library card, my Starbucks card, My yogurt/salon/tea shop rewards card, fifteen dollars, and a nicely engraved wallet.

    My sympathies. That sucks.

    Congrats to AJ Milne! Snowboard aerials, I presume? (I’m an old skier, but content to remain on two planks instead of trying one, and very content now to stay atop the snow rather than above it :) )

    Still learning,

    Robert

  154. Desert Son, OM says

    Jadehawk, OM,

    my boyfriend is not allowed to eat asparagus…

    I understand completely. The side effect is sometimes . . . pronounced.

    Still learning,

    Robert

  155. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Just finished my small bowl of gumbo. Tasty, but I think it will improve after sitting. Now to bed.

  156. Rawnaeris says

    /Completely off any current topic: There are times I love my state and there are times where not so much. This is currently one of the latter. The ads are starting for Texas Governor. The one I just saw was claiming that being a sunday school teacher was a plus for the guys personality. Oh well, at least I know one more person I’m not voting for.

    /end semi rant

  158. AJ Milne says

    Snowboard aerials, I presume? (I’m an old skier, but content to remain on two planks instead of trying one, and very content now to stay atop the snow rather than above it :) )

    Yep. And thanks.

    It was one of those ‘should I even be trying this?’ things. I’m not exactly young, either–nor small, and this does make aerials… erm… a bit more of a thing. We’re talking here about an airframe some six feet long, some forty years old, and not much below 200 pounds in weight.

    And I’ve a friend around my age who also boards who, when I first started messing around with jumping a bit (just little edge jumps, mostly as a balance drill, and at the suggestion of a rather younger coach who, I suspect, had no idea when she suggested this just how many years I was carrying around), intoned ‘Silly old man, tricks are for kids.’ And probably wisely.

    But for all of that, I’m in pretty good shape, my legs, especially, are strong, I’m always on the thing, and always managed everything else I tried to do with it, eventually. Got to thinking: I can do this. Just a matter of working up to it in a fashion sufficiently incremental I don’t naively break anything off on the way…

    And I’ve got this absolutely great board for it this year–this monstrous thing built exactly for such unlikely endeavours as launching all that mass into space… I’ve come to love what I can do with it when still mostly in touch with the ground. Such an agile thing. It began to seem almost wrong not to try to get some air under it…

    It was like I was spurning the thing. It wanted to fly. This was only right. All I needed was a solid night to work on it.

    (/Oh… and really good kneepads.)

  160. Bride of Shrek OM says

    AJ Milne

    Seriously, it’s liek you’re speaking a second language- I understood almost none of that but I believe that it was an event worthy of some form of congartulations.

    ..you see I was born and bred in the tropics, you know palm trees and coral reefs and all that. I will admit here and now that I have only once seen snow in my life on the ground and I have never seen it fall from the sky. I think you’re all making it up and some guy comes around at night spraying it all around.

    My born-in-35-degree-weather brain refuses to accept that there’s places on the planet it gets cold enough for the fucking AIR to freeze and drop out of the sky.( at this point I should admit I was a climatologist prior to becoming a nurse then a barrister so the seriousness of my statement shuld be treated with scepticism)

  161. Gyeong Hwa Pak, Pikachu para lang sa iyo. says

    They issue cards? I thought that members were branded.

    Yeah, other frats thinks we’re weak because we don’t. (At least, our American chapters don’t.)

  162. Desert Son, OM says

    AJ Milne,

    I’m not exactly young, either–nor small, and this does make aerials… erm… a bit more of a thing. We’re talking here about an airframe some six feet long, some forty years old, and not much below 200 pounds in weight.

    You’re made of sterner stuff than I! A couple of years ago I had a bad knee injury playing soccer and I thought that was as good a time as any to hang up the aerials; I’m a couple of years shy of 40, but it sounds like I match your size. I spent a long time doing physical therapy and jogging to get the knee back in shape to where I’m comfortable carving at high speed, but I have hung my jumping up, with fond memories, and salutes to those who still can.

    My father got hit by a snowboarder (which is a control issue, not a snowboarder issue, I mean to say) a couple of years ago, hard enough to knock him out for half a minute or so, and since then I’ve gone the helmet route, as well. Dad’s given up skiing: he developed congestive heart failure and an atrial flutter in December (though he’s doing great now and tearing it up in the garden and with his friends at tennis, thanks be to medical science!) and the blood-thinners make a dangerous fall on the mountain a bit more to consider than before, so he’s hung up the planks after sixty years.

    One of my brothers is an avid snowboarder and loves it, though he confirms your advice about the knee pads. I’m glad to hear you’re having fun: a snow-covered mountain on a quiet day is a beautiful place to spend some sporting time, bright sun or cloud-cover alike. Cheers!

    Still learning,

    Robert

  163. Pygmy Loris says

    Two-person luge just seems like an odd idea to me. I can understand the impetus behind the luge. Hurtling down a track on the verge of losing control would certainly be an adrenaline rush, but what would possess someone to say “That was fun. Wonder what would happen if someone was laying on top of me?”

  164. blf says

    Hyperon is mad that you guys ain’t praising his intelligence, so now he’s gonna run away because you’ve thrown too much facts at him.

    Did it ever try to read any of the links suggested?

  165. Desert Son, OM says

    Bride of Shrek, OM,

    Years ago I was acquainted with a woman from Singapore who lived in Scotland as a student at the University of Edinburgh, and she, like you, had never seen snowfall.

    One day in January it snowed, and a bunch of us from the student flat complex went outside to see it. The woman from Singapore, aged 28 at the time, joined us, and it was a wonderfully “magical” (in the emotional sense) experience to watch her running up and down the pavement, sliding, and giggling riotously. She stuck out her tongue to catch flakes, we helped her build a (little) snowman, we threw very wet and mushy snowballs (it wasn’t a very good snow for packing), and she just laughed the whole time, even when she slipped and fell (which was often), a cascade of childlike giggles and guffaws (I don’t mean that condescendingly; on the contrary, the memory is a very happy one). We all played outside until dark, then went in for hot tea and cocoa.

    All of which is to say that, should you ever see snowfall first hand, I hope it is as giddily delightful for you, as well. Commiserations on your recent troubles, too.

    For my part, north of the equator, it was always hard to imagine Christmas occurring in summer, or the converse, winter in July. :) It’s a marvelous universe.

    Still learning,

    Robert

  166. Rorschach says

    but what would possess someone to say “That was fun. Wonder what would happen if someone was laying on top of me?”

    Yeah, and mixed pair luge might get particularly distracting I guess…..

    As to snow, I’ve seen some once in the last 8 years, and that is quite ok with me.Incidentally, that was on Xmas day, which is supposed to be middle of summer around here.
    Included in this comment is a subtle message about clothing considerations for people travelling to Melbourne,AU, btw.

  167. Feynmaniac says

    My father grew up in Central America and saw snow for the first time when he was about 30. It was in Edmonton (which is at about the same latitude as Moscow) in the middle of winter. He went out of his hotel, walked one block, and then ran into a 7/11 where he bought a big cup of hot chocolate. He stayed in the store for about an hour and then ran back to his hotel.

    Apparently it didn’t deter him since we ended up moving there. I’ve also lived in Puerto Rico, northern Ontario, and south Florida (when I was 11 we went one summer without any air conditioning in our house). Suffice to say, I’m not someone who easily complains about the weather.

  168. Feynmaniac says

    Hyperon,

    Do you agree that 50 years ago there was deep sexism in the culture?

    If so, do you honestly think that all or most of that has been eliminated and that any inequality that now exists is the result of inherent differences of the sexes?

  169. Kristjan Wager says

    I am sorry if my response sounded particularly angry. I just lost my driver license, my ATM card, my frat membership card, my GameCrazy membership card, my library card, my Starbucks card, My yogurt/salon/tea shop rewards card, fifteen dollars, and a nicely engraved wallet.

    Man, the penalties are getting rough. Just exactly how much were you speeding?

    No, seriously, sorry to hear that – it’s a real annoyance when that happens?

  170. Kristjan Wager says

    No, seriously, sorry to hear that – it’s a real annoyance when that happens?

    Why did I write a question mark at the end of that sentence?

  171. Janine, Mistress Of Foul Mouth Abuse, OM says

    My born-in-35-degree-weather brain refuses to accept that there’s places on the planet it gets cold enough for the fucking AIR to freeze and drop out of the sky.( at this point I should admit I was a climatologist prior to becoming a nurse then a barrister so the seriousness of my statement shuld be treated with scepticism)

    Bride, you have not lived until you watch the water vapors in your breathe freeze as soon as you exhale. It is a beautiful sight but, damn, it hurts. This happens at about negative fifteen or about negative twenty five for you. I know from personal experience that at at around -30 C, a cup of water throw on glass freezes instantaneously.

  172. Jadehawk, OM says

    I know from personal experience that at at around -30 C, a cup of water throw on glass freezes instantaneously.

    another fun thing to do is to throw a cup of boiling water in the air; it’ll come down as snow. awesome stupid fun :-)

  173. Gyeong Hwa Pak, Pikachu para lang sa iyo. says

    No, seriously, sorry to hear that – it’s a real annoyance when that happens?

    I would be less depressed if I had lost it walking around campus or in class. But I lost it at the gym in the lockeroom, (I don’t usually lock my locker.)

  174. Blind Squirrel FCD says

    another fun thing to do is to throw a cup of boiling water in the air; it’ll come down as snow. awesome stupid fun :-)

    Not to mention the sound like thunder that the ice on the lakes make when it expands and contracts with the temperature. Nothing like lying on the ice, wasted and tripping to it! (or so I hear:-)

    BS

  175. Kel, OM says

    Applied for a new job today, not really my expertise but it’s offering $10K more than what I’m currently getting. Hopefully I get it, mainly because I’m fed up with my current job where I’m getting paid way below what I could be getting.

  176. WowbaggerOM says

    another fun thing to do is to throw a cup of boiling water in the air; it’ll come down as snow. awesome stupid fun :-)

    No shit? Wow. I’ve never seen snow and I probably won’t get a chance to see any this year either – I’m heading up to Queensland (almost, but not quite, BoS country) for my 20th HS reunion; between that and the GAC I’ve reached my maximum travel budget for the year.

  178. boygenius says

    AJ Milne,

    Kudos on the aerials. My suggestion would be to get out of the resort/skate park environment and go free-ride somewhere. Somewhere with lots of powder. In the back country. Involving helicopters and/or snowcats. I know it’s expensive but once you have experienced four straight days of riding 15-20K of vertical/day without crossing another persons tracks, you’ll never want to ride a resort again.

    My informed recommendation would be Baldface. Heaven on Earth!

    *Disclaimer: Back country riding is highly addictive. This commenter should not be held responsible for financial implications of this advice. Please read prospectus carefully.

  180. Feynmaniac says

    Kel, OM

    Applied for a new job today, not really my expertise but it’s offering $10K more than what I’m currently getting.

    Good luck!

  181. frankosaurus says

    @106

    See, Frankie-babe

    67 is admirable, I hope to one day make it there. And 67 is a magic number. last two digits of canadian confederation. Last two digits of its centenary (wow!). And people born in ’67 include Julia Roberts and Boris Becker. However, when you add them together you get 13 – unlucky. Add those together – the number 4 which is very unlucky in chinese numerology, so if you are having an off year, that could be why.

    maybe I overestimated the 20-40 crowd though. Seems to be quite a few seasoned vets in the mix. But I think the majority is still in there.

  182. frankosaurus says

    @106

    See, Frankie-babe

    67 is admirable, I hope to one day make it there. And 67 is a magic number. last two digits of canadian confederation. Last two digits of its centenary (wow!). And people born in ’67 include Julia Roberts and Boris Becker. However, when you add them together you get 13 – unlucky. Add those together – the number 4 which is very unlucky in chinese numerology, so if you are having an off year, that could be why.

    maybe I overestimated the 20-40 crowd though. Seems to be quite a few seasoned vets in the mix.

  185. Kel, OM says

    Good luck!

    Thanks. Last time I applied for a job, I got an email back about 6 weeks later saying the job has been withdrawn.

  187. frankosaurus says

    Do you agree that 50 years ago there was deep sexism in the culture?
    If so, do you honestly think that all or most of that has been eliminated and that any inequality that now exists is the result of inherent differences of the sexes?

    lets say I take the radically unexpected perspective and say 1950s society wasn’t more sexist. How do we measure these things? Assault and rape statistics? Or is it more along the lines of the (whiggish) desire to cast unquestionable condescension on the past.

  188. Alan B says

    Good morning laddies and gentlewomen!

    Just in case our friend is around, I would like to make 2 points, one trivial so let’s get it over with first:

    He claims that he is smarter at statistics than the average reader (or was it contributor) on this site. If he were really so much smarter would he use the word “average”? How is this statistical skill defined? How is it measured or assessed? Is he comparing the mode, median or mean of this assessment? If the mean then is it the arithmetic mean, the geometric mean, the hyperbolic mean, the anorexic mean?

    [Ed. You made that last one up didn’t you?]
    Yep but it stands for all the others that I couldn’t be bothered to look up. Alan B.

    He thinks he is smarter. OK. My nul hypothesis is that he is no smarter than the rest of us. (I could, of course, be wrong but to date there are no data to suggest that he is smarter than the average bear, Booboo.)

    It is a comment that is so vague and meaningless that I really wonder whether any statistician in good standing would say it …

    The more important point. Repeatedly, he has challenged us to come up with a reason why rape is more serious than other forms of assault. I came up with a reasoned argument based on emotional/psychological impact. Many might think I am wrong. Fine. David thinks that I might be comparing baboons and bonobos. I think I understand what he means but that is not the point.

    Right or wrong. Stupid and naive or deep with significance.

    [Ed. Fat chance on the second].

    I came up with something that attempted to answer his question. He has ignored it totally in his subsequent comments and instead hammers on at people who he claims have assaulted/raped him with their vitriolic comments. (Came to the right place but with the wrong attitude, IMHO.) I would challenge him to show where I have abused and assaulted him if I really cared. He has no excuse to ignore an attempt to answer the very question he was asking.

    This suggests to me that he is not actually interested in the answer. (The nul hypothesis is that he is not interested. To date, there is no evidence to reject the nul hypothesis.

    (Now, there’s a blinding glimpse of the obvious!)

  189. John Morales says

    Sigh. The Frankosaurus wants the argument clinic.

    lets say I take the radically unexpected perspective and say 1950s society wasn’t more sexist.

    Let’s not.

  190. Feynmaniac says

    Oh great, frankosaurus is now on the case.

    First I unleashed Hyperon here by an offhand remark. Then frankosaurus is here saying “1950s society wasn’t more sexist” because of my questions to Hyperon. In certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as I have, they would throw themselves on their swords.

    I apologize to everyone.

  191. frankosaurus says

    Hey, I didn’t want your challenge left hangin’. But I think it’s a valid question. How do you measure sexism? Or is it something one rather feels in the bones.

    me and hyperbot disagree sharply, of course. Anyone who thinks assault and rape are equal because they both cause unpleasant sensations isn’t really in tune with this human species of ours.

    p.s. present temperature in Edmonton is -3C. This ain’t your dads winter, sad to say.

  192. Alan B says

    Kel, OM

    All the best for your new job quest!

    2nd thoughts: Is that the worst piece of poetry ever? If you think so, try:

    http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/

    Highlights: no less than 3 epic poems on the Tay Bridge along with those of only 1 stanza on Sunlight Soap and Beecham’s Pills. I am NOT joking … The Dundee Flower Show is awesome in its awefulness.)

  193. Alan B says

    Seems we have snuck past the mystical 666 posts (the hextuple Nelson) while The Boss sleeps …

  195. Rorschach says

    First I unleashed Hyperon here by an offhand remark. Then frankosaurus is here

    Who are those people you speak of ??

    *looks lovingly at killfile*

  196. John Morales says

    frankosaurus, you’re pitiable in your neediness.

    To indulge you, then, “How do you measure sexism? Or is it something one rather feels in the bones.” is very vague (and not dichotomous!).

    I’m no sociologist, but the method would seem to be straightforward:
    * To measure it, you first have to define it, and specify the population to which it applies.
    * Then you determine a metric, in however many degrees of freedom are necessary.
    * Then you sample the population, and apply your metric, extrapolate and you have your measurement.

  198. Feynmaniac says

    frankosaurus,

    How do you measure sexism? Or is it something one rather feels in the bones.

    I might regret this…

    If you are looking for metrics there are several of them. Percentage of females with college degrees vs. males, percentage of women in positions of power (eg. CEO, professors, politicians), wage disparity, amount of domestic of violence against women, etc. You can also see opinion polls about the acceptability of things like domestic violence or women’s suffrage.

  199. Miki Z says

    “Anecdotal” evidence is the number of cases affirmed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, under the Equal Pay Act, under the 14th Amendment, etc. which resulted in substantive changes in treatment of women.

    Some of the overturned laws/practices were paternalistic (see Orr v. Orr, Wilson v. Southwest Airlines) and removed some of the privileges of being female as being incompatible with equality — it’s a true drive toward equality, not an intent to elevate women at the “expense” of men.

    As soon as it’s cast as “us vs. them” it becomes a sexist argument.

  200. frankosaurus says

    well hang on feynman, despite the fact that you’re only looking at sexism from one side, men against women, you’re also neglecting the definition of it as a “belief or attitude” about inferiority or competency, etc. Those metrics would turn up a greater presence of gender roles, I have no doubt of that (though I am curious about how domestic violence has changed). But are they really turning up beliefs and attitudes, or are they just things we impute? Just trying to be a good researcher here.

  201. Stephen Wells says

    @701: inasmuch as human gender roles are not fixed (they vary between different cultures and time periods), they result from beliefs and attitudes, no?

  202. frankosaurus says

    i know the laws favoured distinction among the genders, and had the man in more powerful standing. Still, I don’t know if you can make the leap to this being a belief or attitude about inferiority. If you want to hear what people thought about these laws, or what gender meant, then there are speeches by politicians, religious leaders, newspaper clippings. I don’t know if I’ve come across any that talk about inferiority,or at least moreso than today.

  204. Walton says

    Frankosaurus,

    At a forum on gender equality, I remember hearing an anecdote from the 1950s: a job advertisement appeared in the national press for the post of librarian at the House of Commons. The advertisement specifically stated that only men need apply. When a woman wrote to the Commons offices inquiring as to why the post was not open to women, she received a reply explaining that “the job involves the use of ladders.” Apparently it was deemed self-evident that women were incapable of using ladders.

    At my own university, Oxford, most of the colleges were not open to women until the 1970s (though there were a few women-only colleges; the last one, St Hilda’s, started admitting male undergraduates last year). Women could not become voting members of the Oxford Union until the 1960s, and it was highly controversial even then. And there were many other examples of institutional sexism at the time. Women who worked in the civil service, or taught in state schools, were required to resign when they married, as it was considered inappropriate for a married woman to have a full-time career.

    The same was true in politics. Although there were a few women in British politics in the mid-twentieth century, both the Conservative and Labour parties were dominated by all-male groups; the Conservatives by the “old boy network” of those educated at public schools and Oxbridge, and Labour by the virtually-all-male trade union movement. Margaret Thatcher, to her great credit, broke the mould in becoming Prime Minister; but she had to contend with a great deal of institutional sexism during her career, with her political opponents describing her disparagingly as a “grocer’s daughter”. Even in Thatcher’s government, there were few other women in senior positions; it is really only since the 1990s that the number of female politicians has dramatically increased.

    I don’t hold what you describe as a “whiggish” view of history, arguing that the past was always less civilised than today. That’s a strawman. Gender equality, and other forms of equality, have fluctuated up and down in different periods. Some societies in history treated women as property and subordinated them completely to the wishes of their male relatives; others accorded them much greater equality and autonomy. But the 1950s were certainly not a high point for gender equality, at least not in the UK (I’m less aware of the history of other countries in this regard).

  205. Walton says

    As to domestic violence, it’s impossible to compare statistics, since it was much less commonly reported in the past. The historical attitude was that such things were private matters, and they rarely came to the attention of the criminal justice system. Similarly, child abuse – often quite vicious – occurred regularly in homes and boarding schools, but was much less likely to be reported than today, and people were much less conscious of the problem.

  206. Thebear says

    Arrgh – the stupid! It burns!

    Sexism is a value jugdement, so the only meaningful way to measure it is by todays common standard.

    By that standard the 1950s were rapantly sexist. That is so evident it’s not fun asking the question.

    The atavistic male-du-jour seems to equate sexism with hate against women. That’s mixing two issues that doesn’t mix well. I haven’t any good data, but I would guess hate against women weren’t very common in the 1950s. A good man doesn’t hate his belongings after all…

  207. John Morales says

    Walton,

    Apparently it was deemed self-evident that women were incapable of using ladders.

    Well, duh.
    Women wear dresses.
    It would be unseemly.

  208. Bride of Shrek OM says

    See now I thought it would be hard for us to climb a ladder while wearing our usual stiletto heels.

  210. Feynmaniac says

    frankosaurus,

    I had this problem with you on the thread. You seem to place greater emphasis on what people say rather than what they actually do.

    If you want to hear what people thought about these laws, or what gender meant, then there are speeches by politicians, religious leaders, newspaper clippings.

    Well the question becomes whether the speeches or clippings you find are actually representative of the time. In any case, even if you choose this way of looking at it I still think society today comes out ahead. If you look at the popular show at the time The Honeymooners the joke “… one of these days … Pow! Right in the kisser! One of these days Alice, straight to the Moon!” would hardly be acceptable today.

    A little closer to what you asked, look at Phyllis Schlafly and crazy shit she has said. The fact that she had influence in politics at the national level in the past is absolutely frightening. Today, her just-as-dumb spawn Andy Schlafly is reducing to homeshooling a few children and being the laughing stock of the internet with a blog masquerading as an encyclopedia. This is a sign of progress.

  212. windy says

    I don’t hold what you describe as a “whiggish” view of history, arguing that the past was always less civilised than today. That’s a strawman. Gender equality, and other forms of equality, have fluctuated up and down in different periods.

    It could be argued, for example, that universal suffrage was enacted relatively early in Finland partly because it was less civilized…

  213. Rorschach says

    Hm, tried to get these separate but no luck…

    Link to Bill Maher on CNN, a chat with Larry King and one with Anderson “Silverfox” Cooper from the other day,regarding Haiti, Congress.

  214. Miki Z says

    8 of the 10 Americans arrested for kidnapping in Haiti have been released on their own recognizance. The two remaining are the organizer and her employee.

    Story here.

  215. SC OM says

    If you want to hear what people thought about these laws, or what gender meant, then there are speeches by politicians, religious leaders, newspaper clippings. I don’t know if I’ve come across any that talk about inferiority,or at least moreso than today.

    And my “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” was heard across the internet. What the fuck is wrong with these clowns that they think they’re asking edgy questions. Yes, there are historical materials that allow us to study this over time (and comparatively). They’re what people have used for decades to do just that, systematically and cognizant of the limitations of content analysis and other methods. They’ve written thousands of articles and books, of which people legitimately interested in answering their questions can readily avail themselves.

    No one has any interest in your ignorant blatherings and insincere questions, or in spoonfeeding you basic concepts or citations. Go study. You have a lot to learn.

  216. AJ Milne says

    My suggestion would be to get out of the resort/skate park environment and go free-ride somewhere. Somewhere with lots of powder. In the back country. Involving helicopters and/or snowcats…

    This is, naturally, on the agenda. My recent Whistler thing was simply amazing, and I spent a lot of time jumping off the groomers into the powder. My board’s a (very) wide 165, and I’m more than comfortable with swinging all that plank around even in much closer quarters, so I’m good for deep stuff all right… Had an amazing time coming down from the peak into places no one else had been yet, soaring through all that lovely stuff. Kept eyeing the heliskiing brochures, thinkin’… ‘kay, that sounds pretty much incredible…

    But I was also travelling with my lovely wife, who’s an avid skiier, but who has no great fondness for that stuff herself–she’really prefers groomers. And it was also my first serious foray into powder, and I didn’t bring any avalanche gear, so the back country was pretty much out, anyway.

    And, sadly, there’s no real alpine anywhere near me, so I’ve got to travel to get into stuff like that, and with the job and the kids, it’s not like there’s going to be a lot of time for that in any given season. Whereas, with the park stuff, there’s a place in the Gatineaus just 20 minutes from my door in downtown Ottawa. I’ll slip out at night after dinner, zip out there to work on technical stuff under the lights for a few hours, take the kids on weekends, noodle around with technique while I’m escorting ’em. Small hill, so really the only way to make it really interesting is to work on skills like that. It’s a lot of ice, a lot of serious edge control–keep mine so sharp you could probably shave with ’em. But it keeps me in tune.

  218. Aquaria says

    lets say I take the radically unexpected perspective and say 1950s society wasn’t more sexist. How do we measure these things? Assault and rape statistics? Or is it more along the lines of the (whiggish) desire to cast unquestionable condescension on the past.

    OMFSM–you really are a fucking moron.

    Not more sexist?

    Well into the early 70s in America, it was perfectly legal–perfectly fine, for an employer to tell my mother, a skilled and highly educated nurse anesthetist with five years of recognized employment at the hospital where she worked, that it was okay to hire a man fresh out of anesthesia school and pay him double her salary, no working call, no working weekends–because he “had a family.”

    Never mind that my mother was a divorced woman raising three children by herself. Never mind that she went to the exact same anesthesia school as that bozo, graduated with honors while he did not, and even left school with more recommendations/references. Never mind that she had a wall of letters of commendation from her superiors at the hospital for her excellent work and had dozens of letters from patients attesting to the excellence of her care for them.

    None of that mattered.

    Just because she had a vagina, her work was worth half what a man’s was.

    When my mother tried to get a lawyer to represent her to grant her equal pay–not even more pay, just equal–not a single attorney would represent her.

    Not one. They knew they couldn’t win a case getting a better-qualified woman to be paid what a man was. No judge would rule in her favor. Not back then.

    Just how the fuck is that not sexism?

    Anyone as appallingly ignorant as you needs to DIAF. Seriously.