This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
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Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Ah, I see the Lousy Canuck thread that John Morales linked to above has the examples of JT’s previous assholism. I’m no longer in any mood to describe it as cluelessness or privilege-blindness or anything like that. He’s disgustingly egotistical about the probability of his own wrongness.
You could have put the period there.
Dude used to post more pictures of himself than even Coyne does.
Ha. Touche.
Is ‘Coyne’ pronounced ‘coin’?
Sorry for the delayed reply; everything went a bit up in the air here and, much to my disgust, I was called upon to actually do some work :)
@Portia
I like “Patheists” :) I’m on board, Cap’n!
@KevinKat
Didn’t Hank Fox have The Blue Collar Atheist here? I liked reading him, before he left.
@Tony!
Thanks, I would have been sad to remove it :)
@Tony!
I’d always assumed so…
That’s the spirit, matey! ^_^
No. It’s pronounced “throatwarbler mangrove”.
Aaaaand how is “Jerry” pronounced
Oh, what a good martyr he is!
The ‘p’ and the ‘3’ are both silent. And it rhymes with orange.
Tony:
Like Cholmondely Featherstonehaugh is, Chumley Fanshaw. Easy.
That’s what Cicero said.
/rim shot
All I know about Patheos is what little I’ve seen:
1: they took the asshole who was a soldier trying to get soldiers the right to be atheist in the military. The one who was a blogger here, obviously the MRFF is its own thing and isn’t made of asshattery at any point that I know of.
2: They had one atheist who went into the archeological case against the old testament. Fun stuff to read.
3: They have the LEft Behind reading guy.
Any reason I should care?
Reckon how come no PZ commentary on the kid sport-murdered by the diversity in Oklahoma?
Michael Shermer sez:
…can txpiper get banned yet?
Who gives a shit what you consider important. You believe in phantasms. All else is irrelevant….
wait.
What?
tx means this:
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/no_chris_lane_is_not_trayvon_martin/
and not this:
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/the_story_the_right_hates_antoinette_tuffs_courage/
I saw txpiper had posted, and my first response was “yawn”. But I see that the pip is clearly upping their game in order to stay competitive with the other asswitgots.
Well congratufuckinglations, you racist fucking slimebag. You are a fucking piss-poor excuse for a human being. Thanks for proving that our low opinions of you were far too generous, and for reminding us just how low a wingnut can go. How very Christian of you to look at someone murdered and wondering how you can use it to hate on minorities. Go back to the darkness from once you came. Or at very least go fuck yourself, and do so for a long enough period that we never have to hear from you again.
“Who gives a shit what you consider important.[?] You believe in phantasms. All else is irrelevant….”
Yeah, I understand and expect that part.
But after all the blind-to-the-facts mewing about a promising criminal career being cut short in the case of beloved, violent Trayvon, you’d think that a cold-blooded race-driven killing would warrant some kind of attention. I mean, they shot him in the back for fun because he was white.
Nerd, you are a classic liberal….your entire fragmented worldview is glued together with hypocrisy. Good show!
I wonder how come you didn’t even bother linking to the story you were referring to.
Actually, I don’t. I know why. It’s because you’re devoid of empathy and you’re incapable of seeing the death of another human being as anything other than a chance to make a political point.
not a word for the white shooter dude in Georgia talked down by the caring black person? or does “diversity” only run one way?
“How very Christian of you to look at someone murdered and wondering how you can use it to hate on minorities.”
That is the problem, and it has been for decades. If you notice something wrong, and if is pet groups that are on the wrong side of it, that makes you a racist. This is why race relations are worse than ever. Wait till they get hungry.
But that is the national syndrome. Your personal problem is absolute blindness. Why aren’t you whining in reverse when a decent young man was killed by animals that you and your ilk insist on funding?
I have a question for you. Why do the park rangers put up signs that say “Do Not Feed the Animals”?
Transparent racism is transparent.
KKKreationist for the lose.
(News article here . For those interested, take note at the image at the top of the page, contrast with txpiper’s assertion that this is an anti-white hate crime, and then laugh with disgust with the rest of us).
Ok on that last comment can we please get rid of the fuckign racist? Don’t we have enough goddamn meat fucking shit heads around here.
The only way that race relations are getting worse is that those who are not white are increasingly getting heard, and white people who don’t like are getting increasingly paranoid and/or denialistic.
Your personal problem is attributing your own worst faults to other people. Well, one of your innumerable personal problems is that.
Yeah, you should be fucking banned now. You are beyond contempt and you are so far gone that you don’t even have the decency to be ashamed of your bigotry. Of your hatred and hypocrisy. You aren’t worth it to us, and you clearly will never leave here of your own accord. I hope you manage to wind up booted sooner rather than later, you spewing shitstack.
again with the ilk? ILK PRIDE
I Lick Ilk
Good question. I often wonder why anyone bothers feeding you around here.
Isn’t it time you were gone?
Any monitors awake?
“It’s because you’re devoid of empathy and you’re incapable of seeig the death of another human being as anything other than a chance to make a political point.”
Well, after the national Trayvon nervous breakdown, that’s why I was asking. Granted, this was just a normal, decent, white kid, here on a scholarship. But the dialog is different now, isn’t it?
Yes.
Done.
Looks like a racially-diverse group of murderers to me, txpiper. What’s your beef?
Also—it may have escaped your attention but 1) Our Squidly Overlord has a job, 2) the Intarweebs are large, 3) there are only so many hours in a day; and 4) the number of crimes, world-wide, in which race is or may be a factor is a prohibitively large sub-set of Things That Are Not Good.
And with your latest, I would like to join those here wishing you a hearty, “Fuck off!”
–
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/the_story_the_right_hates_antoinette_tuffs_courage/
Indeed.
KKKreationist sez:
Yes, which, as you already mentioned, is in contrast to Trayvon Martin and his presumed “criminal career”. Not a wise time to double down. But you were never anywhere near wise, now, were you?
I don’t even know what I feel right now. Anticipatory schadenfreude mixed with righteous fury mixed with bemusement at the idea that a prolific creationist troll might wind up facing the banhammer for Fox News distilled racism mixed with cautious optimism mixed with doubt that this will truly be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s a strange cocktail, straight from Chateau de Wtfstfu .
I’m not klan antepepro, but if you missed the signals on Trayvon Martin, it is because you didn’t want to notice. He was the one who resorted to violence, while Zimmerman was on the phone calling the cops.
txpiper, from Pteryxx’s link @519:
That’s the difference between these two cases.
And your world view is glued together with delusions and fantasies. We know you have nothing cogent to say. Your base is nothing but fiction….
and then Zimmerman’s cell phone accidentally went off and killed Martin. Oh wait…
KKKreationist sez: I’m not klan antepepro,
I’m sure you’re not. I’m sure you’re not.
*weakly reassuring nod*
Show of hands, who can spell schadenfreude without looking it up?
Delusional fool, Zimmerman was stalking Martin, and didn’t follow neighborhood watch protocol and left his vehicle to aggressively follow Martin. Martin could stand his ground, Zimmerman had to back down first. Show where Zimmerman backed down by leaving the scene…..Or shut the fuck up as a delusional fuckwit.
How does txpiper manage to get more and more repulsive with every fucking comment? It hardly seems possible, after all this time, that not one redeeming thing ever comes out of his empty fucking head. He just drifts on to something else, some new garbage that’s somehow even worse.
Fucking silent “e”.
(I somehow do remember that it is “sch” though. And with a memory like mine! Go figure.)
chigau, easily. But I have the advantage of studying German since eighth grade.
Too bad I’ve forgotten most of it: I can read it, slowly, but can’t follow or participate in a conversation. And the same goes for Swedish.
Yep, there sure is that phone call of Zimmerman, in his car being told by the cops to stop following Martin because they would take care of the situation, at which time you can clearly hear, if you put your bigot ears close enough to the speaker, Martin initiating the violence.
Also: the white culprit. I presume that the white culprit listened to enough rap music or something that he is considered to be “Black Enough For Our Purposes” by Fox News and Fox Newsites.
Oh, and I forgot one last ironic gem from the KKKreationist, upthread:
Truly priceless.
Y’know, txpiper, I’m not gullible enough to think that “I’ll get back to you in a couple of days” is anything like a solemn promise or anything, especially coming from like you, but I’m just curious — did you consciously think something along the lines of “I have no cogent response whatsoever to the questions asked about radioactive decay or the cosmic background radiation, so I’ll post some racist racebaiting instead”?
Or was it all completely unconscious?
Hypothesis: txpiper’s posts over time are an illustration of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as applied to ideas. Thus we simply await the absolute heat death of txpiper’s mind.
It’s not: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:en-us-schadenfreude.ogg
Owlmirror to txpip:
To quote a Great Tool of Prophecy: All signs point to “no”.
Apparently with my hearing abilities, it might as well be!
(I can hear it on that recording, but barely!)
txpiper has puked up his last dollop of bile here. Gone.
Pteryxx:
Seriously. I am Ilktopus and proud of it.
***
I can spell schadenfreude without having to look it up. Always have been a spelling nerd.
PZ:
Thank you.
Thanks PZ.
Well, there might be two issues with that. First, the second law is statistical, whereas whatever forces are involved in txpiper’s increasing repulsiveness seem to be irreversible in the strictest sense. Second, I think the analogy breaks down insofar as none of his ideas have evidently had any capacity to be converted into something useful. They’re nowhere to be found on the “usefulness” chart, like other (relatively good and bad) ideas are.
And there was much rejoicing.
I will remember that among txpiper’s last words was that enthusiastic reassurance that they were not racist, in that stellar, heartfelt admission, that confident attempt to clear their own name of charges of racism. The bold claim, the brilliant refutation. The statement: “I am not klan”.
“I am not klan” indeed. “I am not klan” indeed.
Totally not klan. Neo-nazi theocrat, sure. But the KKK? Heavens, no. It’s mostly because they have better bingo tournaments.
It smells better already.
What shall we talk about now?
Adam Lee has said and is now saying the right things generally, but he’d have a stronger foundation for it were it not for his feet-of-clay posts about being a good ally for feminists back in March.
Sadly, that’s how low the bar is here in America.
Good riddance. The only thing that makes me sad about Txpiper’s long overdue departure is he outlasted the dungeon so we won’t get some pithy last words to sum him up.
“the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute”
I have not seen such outright racism since…hmmm
Something new? Or would something old be okay? How about both?
Nagel is at it again. I saw that yesterday and I’ve been laughing to myself about it since. And the talk of entropy reminded me to check if there was anything new at Sean Carroll’s blog, where I noticed he actually posted something about it. And now I’m going to put this here.
Nagel sort of raises an interesting point in a roundabout way, but he goes off the rails pretty quickly. It’s kind of sad how this is going, because I think he used to have some good things to say now and then. I’m going to accuse him of scientism, as strange as that may sound. I think he’s looking for a scientific explanation of something which is a philosophical problem. I’m sure there will be better and better scientific explanations of how consciousness happens physically (Nagel basically takes it as a given that this doesn’t and can’t happen, for no better reason than incredulity, which is just silly); but it makes a lot more sense to me to separate that sort of thing from a question of the form “what is having one of my experiences like, to me, subjectively?”
So even though I’d say it’s a valid concern (when posed the right way), the way to address it is not to go do some science. Which is almost like the point he’s making, but without all of his nonsense (at least, mine is nonsense of a different kind). I don’t really get why he leaps to the conclusion that science itself needs to change, in some fundamental way, to accommodate that — not just subjectivity but also teleology, along with presumably whatever religious presuppositions that come to mind which anyone feels like dressing up in naturalistic language.
But scientific explanations don’t have a fucking thing to do with it in the first place. What is so difficult about this? It’s like the way questions about “meaning” and “value” (which he also drags into the debate, obliviously enough) are not about what physical events cause them to happen. It’s just missing the point if you’re answering something like “how do we evaluate things or make moral choices” or “how do we go about attributing meaning to stuff” or “how did we evolve to do this,” if you’re supposed to be dealing with some other issue concerning why we ought to value certain things or find them meaningful. It’s a similar kind of deal with what my experiences feel like to me, or to you, or to Nagel, or to a bat, or to whatever the fuck it may be. Why would anyone expect science to explain that, when no matter what valid answer you might give it won’t to be in the form of an explanation anyway?
athyco:
I was under the impression that Adam Lee has been a feminist (or ally) for some time now. Do you have a link to this ‘feet of clay’ business you speak of?
Goodbye, txpiper.
I won’t miss you.
It was interesting honing my argumentation skills against your obdurate and obstinate ignorance and stupidity, and seeing others hone their argumentation skills, but you seem to have given up even trying to argue, and just want to vomit bile.
I’d suggest that you try working your way out of the paranoid mire into which you have sunk, but of course, you won’t listen to me.
For whatever it’s worth, I think the fact that you’re a racist shithead and a more general bigot is far worse than your tiresome science denialism assholery or even your unhealthy fascination with Christian eschatology and magical thinking.
Do you think you can change your mind at all, or do you think that the only proper way to be is to be a racist shithead and a more general bigot, and all the rest?
I also want to take this moment to note that Sean Carroll is a very evil mad scientist:
When have the Boltzmann Brains ever bothered us?!? Why can’t we just leave the universe alone!?!1!!eleventy!!!1??
I have but one thing to add regarding the final fate of our dear departed texpip.
Boltzmann Brontosaurus treads on you and doesn’t even notice.
Boltzmann Megalodon has teeth bigger than your hand and a mouth wide enough to swallow a Volkswagen.
Tony, here ya go:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2013/03/on-being-a-good-ally-to-feminists/
His follow-up:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2013/04/on-being-a-good-ally-continued/
Oh, and Ophelia’s post based on his first later included an update/retraction:
https://proxy.freethought.online/butterfliesandwheels/2013/03/who-is-more-mainstream/
Two points, which I will divide into three for no particular reason:
1a) It has been vouchsafed to me, by reliable sources, that Brontosauruses are actually Apatosauruses. Thus, Boltzmann Brontosauruses cannot exist, because strictly speaking they would be Boltzmann Apatosauruses.
1b) Even so, their larger size would make them fantastically less likely to fluctuate into existence than a Boltzmann Megalodon. I know for a fact that one has never tread on me, and I certainly would have noticed if it had.
2) I don’t visit the ocean often, so Boltzmann Megalodons don’t really bother me, at least not enough to destroy the universe. We should try more diplomatic solutions first, like economic sanctions or perhaps a celebrity concert to induce good will and share culture, so we can start a more friendly dialogue. If that fails, they’ll probably just fluctuate back into equilibrium soon enough anyway.
If you recall I was going to take a delegation of Chinese property developers to Europe. What transpired is that the Wealthy Director ™ got a call from the German Immigration Department. They asked him about his tourist visa. What was he going to do in Germany?
“Business!”
But then why was he applying for a tourist visa?
“Because they are easier to obtain!”
The result is we are not going to Germany anymore…
Athyco:
That appeared to be a misunderstanding on the part of Adam and Ophelia. They both misinterpreted Melissa’s comments.
What am I missing?
Has he not already managed to duplicate himself in order to be both an evil mad physicist and an evil mad biologist?
Tony, the details are different, but Adam Lee’s misunderstanding/misinterpretation predates JT’s “I’m going to set a marginalized person straight on how to express the way they feel because doin’ it wrong is bad for the allies that I identify with.” And, as you can see from the message of “we’re not all like that” on Lee’s March posts, he’s now at “it’s better to know how bad it really is” on current ones. Unfortunately, his focus on requiring recognition of allies meant that he wasn’t listening just five months ago. Things did not degenerate in so short a time. Ben Radford went on for four years. Shermer over who knows how many. Ashley Paramore waited until after the most recent TAM to post about her assault. It was there but being pushed aside for the discussion of ally recognition, for giving an organization time to get it right. The assaulted person was accommodating. The ally was looking for a cookie, center stage, in the spotlight.
(One of his tweets between the first and second post)
Ophelia recognized her error with an update. Adam Lee wrote a second post making it sound as though there was a settlement via Melissa backing away from her error rather than repeating herself in a slightly different way. To do so, he had to ignore words (like again) in things he himself quoted. He had to paraphrase and interpret a single sentence from a 600-word post (in the middle of a series) to the level of quote mining. He elided points and ignored questions that went against him in the comments.
There’s a discernible pattern of response and interaction that lead me to believe there’s little to no depth there. That’s why I’ll read his feminism posts with skepticism.
http://www.shakesville.com/2013/04/and-then-this-happened.html
I know the Texpip got the boot, thank doG, but I can’t resist…
“The Diversity’s coming! The Diversity’s coming!”
Are we taking bets on how long it will be before the texpip’s sockpuppet shows up?
Evolution i Sydhavnen is a large (170m long) celebration of graffiti and evolution in Copenhagen. And, yes, it has: Cephalopods!
@Theophontes
That is epic :)
If anyone wants to see the rest of it, I found a Flickr.
That whole incident’s worth re-reading in light of JT’s massive racefail and the current revelations of just how bad it is (and has been) for just one marginalized group – women – in movement atheism.
It’s not only JT by the way. Patheos is brimming with the civility please tone it down or you will cause discomfort to your lily white semi allies tone trolls.
txpiper was trying to get banned for some time. I mean, he’s barely been pretending to argue for creationism in the last few months. But this last outburst was pretty fucking pathetic. It’s like he knew he no longer had a reason to be here but couldn’t stop himself, so he knew getting banned was the only answer.
CR @570:
His true evilness is in leaving a rather important sentence until nearly the end (article here by the way );
which makes the whole thing rather a shaggy Boltzmann story.
No-one sneers more loudly than a fundie with a bad attitude. He “kneows” he’s morally superior so insulting atheists is OK with him. Good riddance to bad dirtbags.
Boltzmann Brontosaurus is not limited by mere human taxonomy.
Boltzmann Brontosaurus is not limited by mere human concepts of probability.
Boltzmann Megalodon is not limited by the ocean.
Boltzmann Brontosaurus and Boltzmann Megalodon are not limited by gravity.
Entropy101:
Yeah, I can see that.
Especially Dan “the Civility Pledge” Finke.
That shit still annoys me.
That he still doesn’t understand why people were pissed off …aarrgh!
I see how it is: nothing but lies and deceit from you, “owl mirror.” I bet you’re working for them. Admit it.
@ CM’s
Minitrue have been onto Owlmirror, aka Public Enemy Number One, for quite some time now. Nothing escapes the notice of the Politburo!
Ooooops! I meant CR and not CM’s…
Entropy101:
I’ve gotten that idea quite clearly from the snippets pasted here from various Patheists. I’ve never bothered to click my way there.
I generally find it is easier to let other people to make up my mind, as well. Fuck research and first hand experience, it just makes it take longer to reach the conclusion I’ve already decided to make anyways.
Yep, I have to read every piece of drivel on a shitty blog in order to make a reasonable judgment as to whether it’s worth the limited time I have on this planet.
@ mikmik
Happens all the time. It’s called “society”.
*yawns* Yes, let’s leave out that whole reading part, shall we?
I’m under no obligation to support Patheos or those who blog there. My time is rather limited, much like my ‘net access. Only so much time, energy, access and money. I am indeed an evil, terrible, mindless sheep for making decisions in how to spend all that stupid stuff. Yep.
I wouldn’t put Adam Lee or his blog in the same category as others on Patheos. The stuff athyco and Pteryxx brought up is new to me, so maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see what’s so bad. Perhaps an example of some bad writing, coming out of bad decisions about when is an appropriate time to make a certain kind of point. That’s blogging for you. He seems very serious about trying to have a good, positive life as an atheist/skeptic/humanist/etc., and my general impression is that he’s not at all inclined to take that in some weird, paranoid, anti-feminist, “what about the menz?” direction. So given his history, miscommunication, if that’s what that is, is a far more likely explanation.
I’ve heard lots of good things here about Libby Anne’s blog, though for whatever reason I’ve only bothered to read it a few times, so I couldn’t honestly tell you much about it myself. Maybe it’s just that there are so many blogs and so little time. I generally ignore a big chunk of FTB too, unless something grabs my attention.
Even at his most verbose, Fincke still has good and interesting things to say now and then. I think he means well when he does his civility schtick, which doesn’t really count for shit, but I sort of get where he’s coming from.
What JT and Hemant and Hallquist and RockBeyondBelief-guy typically write about just doesn’t interest me, when they’re not saying things that I simply don’t like at all.
Then there’s James Croft and his silly temple of the future … or the past or the present or fluffy bunnies and unicorn farts or whatever it is … All kinds of issues there, but even he has his moments since I’m trying to be fair.
Speaking of ‘net access, I’ve been happily amazed I haz it, given that my signal booster died yesterday, buuuut, my wireless unit just did a weird thing, it completely froze up. I had to pull the battery to get it to shut down, so I could reboot it. I have a bad feeling.
EG is a strange little obsessive fool. He has just storified Chris Clarke’s list of favored tweets. A couple of days ago, he did the same to Adam Lee.
I noticed this when I found an old tweet I sent to Zinnia about how churches collapse when I enter them. I was trying to understand how this was an example of “feminists saying foolish things” (As Richard Reed claims.) I had to read the small print. (Yes, I need better glasses.)
Strange little man.
Janine:
In moments like this, I’m very happy I don’t tweeter.
But remember, EG is just collecting public words. You have no problem with government agencies doing this. So why complain about EG? (Seriously, an argument I saw by an EG supporter.)
Janine:
Well, actually…
Holy rats, the idiocy. It runs amok.
cr: for what it’s worth, I could not say *enough* good things about Libby Anne’s blog. The only reason I don’t check it daily is that her posts are so interesting and informative, and the discussion in comments so rich, that it would take more time than I have to keep up with it all. Also, since she specializes in deconstructing fundamentalism, a lot of it is triggering to me.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/08/male-atheists-and-white-knight-sexism.html
As for Adam Lee, I’m inclined to think he’s really trying and his heart is in the right place as an ally, but that’s all the more reason to look closely at how his behavior in the linked Shakesville incident above parallels almost exactly what JT is now doing. (Ophelia did apologize, but it took her three days of commenters pushing her before she caught on. We’d do well to remember how easily allies fall into this trap and how hard it can be to see past it.)
*addendum – PZ apologized to Melissa McEwan also, quite readily, though I’m not sure he realized what the problem actually was. So there’s yet another perspective.
“And there was much rejoicing.”
*Yay!*
–
Where they are the 𝕯𝕺𝖀𝕭𝕷𝕰𝕻𝕺𝕻𝕰 of the One Holy Caffeinated Diastolic Church of Boltzmannbrontosaurusism and the One Wholly Catastrophic Stochastic Church of Quantum Boltzmannbrontosaurusism.
Yes, it’s all too true.
If the Doublepope were here, doing a proper job of doublepoping the doublepapacy, I wouldn’t have to be defending the false orthodoxy of Boltzmannbrontosaurusism. Of course, I have to defend it, because if I made Bolzmannmegalodonism and Philolsophical Zombie Jesusism the orthodoxy, I wouldn’t be a Heresiarch anymore!
Do you know how it feels, having to do someone else’s job just so I can keep my own? It’s terrible!
I defy you all!!! . . . !!
Signed,
𝕻𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖈 𝕰𝖓𝖊𝖒𝖞 № 𝟙
and
𝕳𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖎𝖆𝖗𝖈𝖍
Owlmirror #608
damn
I wonder what that looks like on a real computer?
???
What does it look like on yours?
And why is it not a real computer?
Owlmirror
I see lots of little boxes.
I’m using an iPad.
I would hafta stand up and go upstairs to get to the real computer.
not gonna happen
It’s blackletter:
DOUBLEPOPE
Public Enemy N° 1
Heresiarch
But . . . The original use of that dates back to the Jargon File.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/R/recursion.html
Of course, I decided that it needed fixed because recursion is not (or should not) be an infinite loop, hence my version (with explicit inclusion of context, and a terminating state), which is, as far as I know, original to me.
Great. That would be a shitty reason to care about it, and it wouldn’t be relevant to a lot of religious beliefs anyway (as she points out elsewhere, actually).
That’s unfortunate. I suppose I’ve got more than one enemy, and I don’t think it ought to be put this way if indifference toward religion isn’t what it’s meant to convey. But since a significant portion of the article makes some vague claims about how nice some religions are, I’m guessing that’s actually not that far from the attitude she’s really expressing here.
Also, there are reasons why she blogs, and there also reasons for atheists to work themselves up into a lather, about religion or whatever it may be. Those aren’t the same thing, and the latter doesn’t depend on the former. I’m not sure what a statement of purpose about her blog has to do with the the overall topic anyway — it’s sort of a weird conclusion, unless it’s supposed to be sending a message to some kind of reader or another, atheist or theist or I don’t who.
I don’t see a need for “all the more reasons” than in an ordinary case, but more to the point, I don’t see much of a parallel. In a lot of ways, JT’s “heart” just doesn’t seem to be “in the right place,” so to speak. More literally, it’s like his head is in the wrong place: up his ass. In general. I don’t get that general impression from Adam.
Also from that article, an imperative (an ought claim? a claim about efficacy?) which I don’t think is fair:
Refusing to listen? Sure, that isn’t a good approach, although sometimes their beliefs just aren’t relevant so there’s no need to listen to that. All of the other stuff lumped in with it? I think it’s a lot more complicated. Not just because of what’s good, or because of what’s effective, or because of what kinds of decisions we can make about both of those. It’s also because people mean a lot of different things by them (including “persuade”).
——
Everything you say is all nonsense. There is abundant evidence that I’m the first and only true claimant of popetude in the thunderdome, as well as that the concept of a doublepope is a fiction which was invented purely for marketing purposes. Google it or something. You and sgbm can lie to each other all day about which of you is more heretical than the other, and it wouldn’t concern me in the slightest. I’m so much more of an arch public enemy that theophontes and his little gang of wannabe-tyrants don’t even count me as a suspect. They’re too corrupted by my nearly infinite power to publicly acknowledge a blatant admission like this. And if they indicate otherwise, it will all be part of my plan which I will tell you nothing about. Anyway, it’s obvious you’re all working for the poopyhead as his sockpuppets, and the whole rebellion thing was a fake just to get more page hits (90% of which come from PZ himself, having been convinced it was real, being the poopyhead that he is). So that by itself invalidates everything you’ve said.
I know nothing of this “i . . . Pad” of which you speak, but a quick Google for [iPad Unicode] finds this free app:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unicode-maps-free/id368394740?mt=8
Does that help, or does it just make things worse?
Owlmirror
I downloaded it.
nothing happened
Oooh! You realize, of course, that this means WAR!
Listen up, you hideous horrible disreputable excuse of a jigging jumped-up johnny-come-lately! Do you have even the slightest inkling of the deep and impenetrable mystery that is the Divine Grace of Qualia? Have you ever seen the ineffable sight of a vast and swirling cloud of cosmic dust slowly but surely coalescing into the majestic and giant torpedo-like shape of a Boltzmann Megalodon? Do you have any idea of how utterly and totally sacred are the solemn silent sacred truths of the heresies that I hold to? Have you been privileged to bear witness to the attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion? Did you watch C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate? Have you ever exercised your tongue in repeating the sacred ritual of the licks to get to the center of the mysterious Tout-Suite Paup? Have you any conception of the great importance of the Sermon to the Primitive Screw-Heads? Do you even care whether it is the Season of Ducks or the Season of Rabbits?
WERE YOU THERE?
Oh my…
erudition…
I’ll be in my bunk
Wikipedia tells me a Boltzmann Brain is exactly what I think it is. Which is surprising, because I figured Genius: The Transgression would have taken some liberties with the idea.
Just felt the urge to share this … NO particular reason.
Oh gods, now I’m really going to hafta go get my Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volumes one and two.
Wabbit Season!!
Why do I keep geting ads for ‘light up bra’s’ on FtB? Is the Hivemind collective trying to subliminally tell me something?
Be vewy quiet…
Tony
I’m getting ads for hand-held USB microscopes.
Tony: the powers of your mind control the ads. If you are not really into luminescent underthings, you are doing it wrong. Your mind is become polluted, in other words, with the thoughts of others*. This isn’t good at all, because the advertisement is rendered fail. I, on the other hand, have focused my, like, energies so that I may view the video that Google doesn’t want me to see. I’ve beat Google, understand? They hire the smartest people in the world and I beat them, simply by thinking hard, with my eyes closed and pointer-fingers held at 23 degrees to my temples.
*post hoc hypothesis: my powers of ad control have grown so strong that I am now controlling your ads. Just throwing that out there. Putting a pin in it, so to speak. Tell me more about these brassieres.
Why tell when I can show? http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/simgad/17891012421351397248
A.E.
Defeating Google aint’t thang.
Talk to me when you have more impressive feats under your belt such as going toe to toe with Apple.
Well. Maybe my powers aren’t that strong. I envisioned a whole lineup of illuminated underthings to fit all tastes and eras*, rather than the humdrum catalogue offers in that ad. And the $5 gift certificate? Please.
*Although, it may be that a full Victorian getup would violate fire codes in most municipal areas. I can’t say. They don’t provide tech-specs regarding lumens and exothermy. So. Not my work at all.
Whatevs, Tony. Notice that the Apple logo has a bite missing. I did that. With my mind.
Antiochus Epiphanes
Well, per their website they use standard electroluminescent wire, so there’s no reason they couldn’t be made in full victorian rigs. You’d probably need more than 2 AA batteries for an all say charge though.
@ chigau
Trying to keep a beady eye on the “Benign, Benevolent, Malevolent Dictator For Life”, TwoIC?
You should be using the handy Politcam rather…
@ AE
My ads are starting to show the 808-#16 keyring cams. Methinks thou days art numbered!
@ moi
Holy fuck, one can actually Google that shit.
[thinks: “perhaps MY days art numbered”]
Not really. From Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge, credited to Andrew Plotkin:
@ blf
Also: According to Dawkins, the monkeys go back in time all the way to the Rift Valley .. and then back past you round about Zanzibar…
We cannot escape.
Rats! Crackers and Chocolate Milk, Oh My!
Forty foot killer chocolate rat crackers!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
Who would have thought the world would end … with hot chocolate and rodents???
Theophontes:
Oh, now if you want an apocalypse, put out hot chocolate (dark chocolate for preference, to ensure an apocalypse, use Green & Black’s organic cocoa powder, with homemade whipped cream) for rats. Nothing would stand a chance against the swarm in reaching the holy grail that is hot chocolate.
Hmm…The Redhead’s college roommate that recently visited had a psych lab rescue rat called “ratsky” (the ex-roommate is of Polish descent”.) Typical college male, it could live on pizza and beer, and knew the local pizza’s place touch tone rings…*start the cage rattling….*
Nerd:
:D Rats are uncommonly fond of pizza, and yes, they learn very quickly!
I need one of those key ring cams immediately. And a droneish remote control airplane. And then I, Antiochus Epiphanes will wrest control from the block watch* and the neighborhood will belong to me!
*Usurpers!.
(In all seriousness, my neighborhood block watch is over the top and one of them will shoot me one of these nights, so I need a way to ascertain their whereabouts at all times)
AE, you might consider wearing a high visibility vest.
Ah-hah! Another reason not to move from this middle-of-nowhere-crappy-small- town.
Then again… the local practice firing range is ‘just across the pasture’ from my house– so stray bullets aren’t an impossibility… and it is Texas [*shudder*].
Caught up with Thunderdome 29.
Caine, about 10 days ago you wrote:
and then Dalillama added:
Where can I learn more?
bluentx: I too live in a small middle-of-nowhere town in Texas. Given that there are only a handful of such towns in Texas*, perhaps we occupy the same one.
*winkie smile
John: maybe something in paisley?
David:
You can start with Two Spirit people, which are known to most tribes, although names vary.
AE, that was predicated on you worrying about being shot mistakenly.
(You’re worried about being a deliberate target?)
David @646: I saw a program a few months ago on PBS which spent some time on the fa’afafine of Samoa. I forget the name of the show.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%27afafine
No, John. Just being silly. I do worry a little about being shot mistakenly. I sometimes like to work late and I almost always walk to work.
Txpiper’s been banned!?! Thank you, PZus!
I’m not happy at Ace of Sevens being banned (current rape thread) because I don’t think it was merited.
Perusing the thread, your displeasure does not surprise me.
Portia, it bespeaks of my modelling of PZ’s moderation policy being weak.
I’m glad you’re not the one with the banhammer.
Portia, your response impels me to ask for elucidation: do you think I meant that my modelling was that PZ’s moderation policy is weak, or that I meant that my modelling of it was weak?
(I hereby clarify I intended the latter, but your response best fits the former)
I read the former. I’m not sure what you mean by the latter. Sorry.
I think if Ace of Sevens had bothered to link to one piece of evidence, be it of how statistics should be done, or of the subject manner itself, he wouldn’t have received the banhammer. Just his opinion was going nowhere.
So, if his behavior had been different, you don’t believe he would have gotten banned (Seems reasonable so far). But it wasn’t, and he was. I’m still not following your point.
(Except I agree his opinion was going nowhere good).
I assume John Morales considers himself bad at predicting who PZ will ban.
—–
TW: street harassment
Dear people of Boston.
Yes, I may make eye contact with you while I’m walking down the streets of Boston. Please know that this eye contact generally means one of two things: a) You’re interesting (unlikely) or b) I’m trying to figure out if you’re a threat to me or not (much more likely).
Trying to tell the difference between these two? “Hello”, “Hi”, or maybe even “Hey” are decent openers.
“Sweetie pie” is not.
Also hint: People wearing earphones tend to not want to be bothered.
Sincerely,
Me.
Derp. I haven’t done any hard science in a long time, hence the terms going *whoosh*
Portia:
Ace of Sevens was asked, multiple times, by multiple people, to stop as he was causing considerable upset. He chose to carry on with the same thing he had already said a dozen different ways. He was given a warning of an alert sent and chose to ignore it. He was warned by PZ, and chose to ignore it. Other people, upon being warned, have taken the smart monkey option and left the thread. So, yes, if his behaviour had been different, he wouldn’t have been banned.
Nightshadequeen:
Aaargh. So sorry you had that happen. Here in ND, you get ‘honey’ a lot, such as “smile, honey, can’t be that bad!” Ugh.
I read the thread, saw the warnings, believe the banning was warranted. Trying to suss out why John thinks it wasn’t. (After the false start caused by my misunderstanding what he was talking about).
Re: street harassment. It’s gotten to the point where I am initially very aloof (at the very least) to men I know when I run into them in public, if they call to me from a distance. Last week, an attorney I actually like pulled up to the curb as I left my office and said hello. I couldn’t see his face right away. I nearly panicked. I hate assholes for creating that mentality in me.
Portia,
I thought PZ would have stood by his warning; clearly, Ace (as the timestamp demonstrates) had not had a chance to see it, but in the end it didn’t matter and that was made explicit.
Therefore I was wrong in my expectation.
I follow you now. So is your reason for thinking it unmerited because you believe the warning should have been allowed time to simmer?
Ugh. My sympathy, nightshadequeen.
Re: street harassment. I’m comfortably ambiguous in my gender presentation. Beyond people occasionally being confused about pronouns, this was never an issue back when I lived in the Las Vegas area. I’d occasionally get catcalls if I wore something that didn’t hide the female attributes of my body, but the “smile, it’s not that bad!” type of shit was definitely more common.
And then…I moved back to my roots, out in the northwoods. And I discovered exactly how shitty it is to be gender non-conforming outside of a city. I’d never encountered that kind of naked hostility just walking down the street before. How dare I go outside. How dare I exist.
It’s such a weird difference. In the city, I was largely invisible because I wasn’t giving straight dudes boners. In the towns around here (so glad I’m actually out in the wilderness now), I’m committing some kind of horrific crime by not giving straight dudes boners.
Eh, in the grenade thread, B0nezbrigade didn’t get a chance after the warning, either. I think it’s really rough when that happens, because sometimes the hammer hits too quickly. That said, I’d think that when it comes to any thread dealing with rape, people would have at least gotten enough of a clue to refresh the thread prior to posting.
I think Ace of Sevens, particularly, was warned well before he got the red text of doom, even in warning. He persisted unreasonably. My heart does not bleed for him.
Caine,
I personally didn’t see PZ’s warning until after I’d posted, and that was minutes after — and I did refresh during composing (where, as I often do, I ditched 2/3 of it).
—
Also, I think vilding1 and Ace of Sevens are in entirely different categories of people, and it irritates me to see them dealt with as a brace.
—
Finally, I do note that it does seem your power as a monitor is not entirely hypothetical.
Portia, have you any familiarity with Ace of Sevens’ posting history here and elsewhere?
John Morales,
yes, I have a passing familiarity enough to have been surprised to see what Ace of Sevens was saying in that thread. My previous good impression doesn’t give me any reason to see their behavior in that thread as…not bad.
I agree with you. That doesn’t mean they weren’t both causing harm.
Apropos, I miss the Dungeon.
(I understand the basis for its abolishment, but I thought it added class to the place)
The problem with Ace was that xe was posting from comment 28, and ignored multiple warnings from various people over the course of several hours that what they were saying was being harmful. Perhaps the banhammer was a bit quick, but they should have listened to those like Ogvorbis and Prax.
MM:
That’s more than a little bit scary.
Kevin:
Exactly. And when you are arrogant enough to think that being harmful to people who have been raped isn’t a good enough reason to stop, you shouldn’t be surprised if you go *splat*.
This makes me think that the next sexist bic product is going to be fuzzy ladybrains for her
Kevin:
:snorfle: I would not be surprised.
There are weird lags between when something is posting and when it shows up in the thread, especially in a fast-moving thread. Probably something having to do with web-caching and/or database locking.
PZ is aware of this lag.
Ace of Sevens posted nothing after 8:23, which was the same time that PZ posted his warning.
At 8:25, PZ said that he did not care that Ace of Sevens had probably not seen the warning; he was banning him anyway.
Also, I am not sure that Ace of Sevens is aware of the monitor system or what Caine sending an alert might mean, or if he should have paid attention to any warnings other than from PZ.
Consider what the rules say:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2011/08/01/pharyngula-standards-practices/
Hm. I see that the old Dungeon page was a bit inconsistent with the Rules page on the topic of what to do or not when other people offered warnings — and of course, that page can only be found in caches/archives now, anyway:
There are also The New Rules. Maybe these should be on a page easily accessible from the top menu?
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/08/06/the-new-rules/
Owlmirror, Ace of Sevens was not new here, he first showed up during the Tfoot debacle, and there were plenty of alerts sent, warnings posted and people getting banhammered in all those various threads. It’s not an awful thing to expect people to be responsible for their actions.
Also, PZ has stated a few times that his patience with MRAs, trolls, and such is very thin in the wake of the grenade thread. So I get the impression that his finger hovers over the Hammer of Ban.
Now, Ace of Sevens has not come across as any of those in the past, but he ignored warnings and did not take it elsewhere.
In the end though, it is PZs blog.
I’m not up for this. Ace of Sevens went right over to EEB’s thread on Almost Diamonds to go minimize the issue over there.
I started reading the grenade thread – I was out of town & without internet access for the vast majority – I saw like 100 comments before I was gone. I thought it was a little surprising it hadn’t blow up quicker and bigger, but I thought it would be in the 500 to 1000 range like so many.
Even 3d4k wasn’t 4k in *one thread*!
So, I started reading through it 2 days ago. I knew it was going to be a slog, and I knew I would want to remember what was in it, and the names of the worst non-banned offenders.
So I started an annotation file – color commentary on the unfolding event, if you will.
I made it through the first 700 posts or so, with a decent collections of annotations (“this is what’s going on now,” “this comment made an impact on me,” “comments #X, #Y, & #Z are an interacting set of posts constituting a conversation about topic T,” etc.)
But it’s so hard, and I know the worst is yet to come or it wouldn’t have gotten to 4k.
If I were PZ, especially with the outside legal threats and harassment not even contained within the thread, after such an excoriating experience I’d be pretty thin skinned myself.
I’ll head over, Pterryx, but my daughter is just finishing snack & I have to brush her teeth & get her down after. I’ll do what I can, but I might not post there for an hour.
I *will* post there, though. It’s the least I can do after failing to comment there the first time round.
Ace isn’t spouting the same stuff as xe was in PZ’s thread…
Ace may as well be, and it’s clear xe’s after the point of EEB’s story, not any specific answers from us. I even have half the info ready to refute it (several of us linked to false rape coding info in the Grenade thread, Dana Hunter’s, and elsewhere) but I just don’t have the spoons to take it on right now.
I no longer have any reason to believe Ace was posting in good faith, though.
Jonathan, der Ewige Noobe has posted in the Fake rape? thread complaining about the double banning. I’m not sure how to respond to it myself.
After reading Ace of Seven’s comments on the thread, I would understand the point to have been against every argument made by MRAs/rape apologists: Actual false rape reports are not just in the single digits, but are almost certainly even lower than what the “official” statistics show because of systemic bias by the police and courts against rape victims. The idea that it is usual or common that a rape victim is just someone who would falsely accuse someone of rape because of “regretting it in the morning” is bullshit, and rape apologists should not get away with that bullshit.
And so on.
Did I misread something, or were people misreading Ace of Sevens?
Blundering on and ignoring the protests of women asking him to stop on a thread about rape is so rude and insensitive that even your rude and insensitive host felt a great disturbance in the force…and when the two prime offenders in that thread looked ready to team up, it was time to slam that crap down. Pay attention to what other people are saying on threads, ‘k?
By the way, NEW THREAD.