This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
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
brianpansky @500:
I should have quoted the material relevant to my point. My apologies.
IMO, the belief that kidnapping, taxation, and imprisonment are violence (or forms of violence) qualifies as a false and unsubstantiated belief(s). So why isn’t EL trying to improve their reasoning and standards for their beliefs?
Presumably EL doesn’t believe his own reasoning to be wrong. I’m not sure I like the idea that someone shouldn’t criticise other bad ideas, just ’cause they might have some themselves on an unrelated topic. Given the unlikelihood of the existence of someone who’s right in every belief they own, it seems like a recipe for shutting down all debate everywhere.
Daz @2:
If that’s the impression you got from my comment, then I need to work harder on being clear. I’m not saying that EL shouldn’t criticize other bad ideas or point out bad reasoning. I just found their comments ironic.
I’ll drop it now.
Uh. My previous wasn’t meant as agreement or disagreement with EL or Raging Bee.
Ah I see what you mean. I misread you Tony. Apologies.
I found the catholic = bad beliefs = bad deeds non sequitur much worse.
(from a FB friend)
Annie Bellet withdraws her story ‘Goodnight Stars’ from consideration in this year’s Hugo Awards
What a horrible position Annie Bellet*,and others, no doubt, have been put in. Bullied into a fight they never wanted, and worried by the consequences not only of losing, but of winning.
*whose name I’ve typed as Besant, deleted and then retyped as the same, three times now, for some unfathomable reason.
I go on vacation to visit my parents and everyone decided that this was the time for some infightin’.
Totally not fair. My wife took my boxing gloves. Maybe I can sneak them for a bit…
Xi Jinping Issues Warrant for Daenerys Targaryen
日本語のクラスは。
私の仲間の学生が。
カーク船長のように。
話して停止して。
ほしいんです。
—-
About my Japanese language class.
I wish.
My fellow students.
Would stop.
Talking.
Like Captain Kirk.
…
C’mon, people.
We’ve been at this for years.
Just say a whole sentence!
theophontes #10
There is something with that site you linked…
and my modemrouteripad
can’t get it to link before timeout
…
looks Amusing™, though
theophontes #10
It finally managed to load.
I don’t grok.
@ ranzoid 452
I’m going to give you an honest comment. It will not be what you think.
Guess what! You don’t have the right not to be offended either! So why the fuck should I find this bit convincing? My concern is making sure that all the sides are able to air their grievances. No matter what the gaming company thinks. If they don’t want to be criticized they should not be in a business that directly touches on culture.
Citation please? Not that video. Your specific point. Give me a time point on the video if it’s there.
What the fuck am I supposed to think of a person who posts a 45 minute video and connects none of it to any specific claims? How sturdy are your beliefs that are so far unstated?
Citation please.
@ chigau
Game of Thrones or Xi Jinping?
At first glance the article is a drol conflation of the two narratives. Sadly, the over-the-top hyperbole of GOT is no match for the fairytale cult Xi is weaving about himself. The bloviated titles of Daenerys pale in comparison to the stack of hats Emperor Xi, Bane of Flies, Tigers & Red Herrings, has conferred upon his own head.
theophontes
I haven’t read or watched Game of Thrones and I don’t know much about Xi Jinping.
So, yeah.
wooooshed over my head
George Lucas announces plans to build low-income housing in affluent California community
… thus indicating that she intends to declare war on working class people.
Fucking snob.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/cbc-inquiry-concludes-management-mishandled-jian-ghomeshi-1.3035574
Jian Ghomeshi case probed, finds (duh) that both management and union mishandled the issue, “diluting” reports as they got passed up the chain. A couple of CBC managers quit today, both of them named as having particularly failed (they’d been placed on leave a few months ago).
I seem to have seen a lot of comments on various sites lately where quotes have been denoted like this:
> quoted text.
I’m mildly curious to know if anyone knows where this stems from. (Kinda reminds me of those much-forwarded ‘funny’ emails.
Here’s something that might restore a little faith in humanity-
A Muslim couple on a commuter train in Australia were verbally harassed by anti-Muslim bigot. A non-Muslim woman spoke out to defend the couple.
Stacey Eden-THANK YOU.
Daz @20:
Back in the 90s when I used AOL, I remember people quoted material like this-
>>quoted material<<
Maybe the phenomenon you're noticing is a holdover of that…?
Err…that’s not to say that was the only way people quoted material back then. It’s just one of the ways (and the one I used).
I swear, libertarians love to claim that critics of their philosophy really don’t understand libertarianism.
Tony, #21
I think bigots must struggle with understanding large numbers. They don’t seem to be able to grasp just how large a group of one billion people is.
Email used to use that kind of quote, and still does — but the programs we use display it more prettily.
I’m not sure where it originated.
“that kind of quote” meaning Daz@20.
> The convention of quoting was common in Usenet newsgroups by 1990
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Quoted_line_prefix
Thanks for the replies re: quotes. Seems an odd sort of resurgence, but maybe it’s just that I’ve noticed a few of late.
Saad #25
I get the same feeling with young-Earth creationists and billions of years.
A little bit behind the times, but after watching Tuesday’s episode of Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show about capital punishment … I’m just done. That was way more awful than I can stomach. I had a hard time believing what I was seeing. Bad.
cr @30:
What did you find awful about the episode?
Tony, it’s online, and I guess you’d have to watch it…. if you really want to put yourself through that. With the exception of one of the panelists (who for some reason wasn’t even there with the rest the whole time), there was lots of support for murder and torture, joking/trivializing it, and generally lots of very absurd and shitty things.
Totally not what I would have expected, given the show’s record on other issues like race, gender, class, etc. If it could be any closer to the opposite of that record, I guess it would have to be a Rush Limbaugh show or something like that. I mean, it wasn’t perfect before, but “disappointing” just isn’t the word.
Daz@29: I’m still not sure where it actually came from, just that by 1990 it was common according to some wikipedia editor. In the “invention of emoticons” thread there’s no quoting at all of any sort.
@ Daz
> Seems an odd sort of resurgence, but maybe it’s just that I’ve noticed a few of late.
* The format has been standard on gmail for, like, forever. It is generated automatically whenever one responds to text.
[China]
Veteran Chinese Journalist Gao Yu Sentenced to 7 Years
Only, Gao was not the person who leaked the document. That was done by a senior party official (likely quite legitimately). “Document No. 9” was simply a convenient way to scapegoat her.
.
Xi keeps bantering on about “Foreign Influences” and the “Century of Humiliation” that China has endured. This to instill a sense of outrage towards everyone beyond China’s borders. I cannot fathom what has got into his head, but it is dangerous and ugly.
Daz
Its also a way of ‘blockquoting’ called greentexting on 4chan, and 4chan gets a fuckton of visitors. More than likely this is just a leak of 4chan culture.
Daz @29: I recall that technique from usenet email in the late 1970s (pre ARPAnet, even). Some email user agent programs did the > quoting automatically on any reply. There was a big hoohah about putting the quoted matter before vs after the new material…
Never mind my post, I found the person whose post you were wondering about and it just appears to be nothing like my post.
se habla espol @37: Late-70s, now we’re moving back! Do you have documentation of that?
APRAnet is from 1969/70, so late-70s would be after.
theophontes: gmail is much, much younger than email; it adapted the conventions that were already in place. Outlook also. Of course, Outlook being a Microsoft product, they managed to get it wrong, so that you frequently got email from Outlook with absolutely no quoting at all.
[China]
For the good order, I attach the full, translated, text of Document 9 here¹ (linky).
There are, of course, references to “neocon !!!elebenty!!2!!!@!!1”, in the guise of “Neoliberalism”. I presume Xi & Co are trying to up the anté in terms of Google bombing. Any democratically minded Pharyngulites may struggle to recognise themselves in the Frankenstein Monster of a Red Herring , that is the CCP’s stated understanding of Western Democracy ™ , but there it is.
This stuff may, or may not, put you to sleep, but it sure as hell will give you dystopian nightmares.
.
¹ The name “Document 9” is derived from a combination of “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and “District 9”.²
² Feeble attempt to make light of a totally fucked up situation.
@ numerobis
I was still in nappies in the times of which you speak. ;p
@Tony!:
It’s merely the Courtiers’ reply.
Looking at Ashley Millers and wishing I could jump in…
I have some strategic ideas about many of the most common arguments and tactics that we face from people on the other side of the rift. If nothing else maybe I can start a conversation about strategy and general patterns in the opposition. Even if my take on it is not right it might get us thinking in constructive directions. Can we maybe list things that we commonly encounter? Hopefully we can find some more simple and effective ways of responding.
For now I specifically have a strategic suggestion with respect to objections coming from ‘pitters that do not like the fact that we judge them because they are ‘pitters’, and often go on to point out that there is lots of other things in the ‘pit.
This argument has traction because of the generally bad view that prejudice and discrimination has in our society (for very good reason). The reality is that we are judging them as individuals them because they choose to interact in a community that allows certain standards of behavior and does not criticize or reject that behavior as a community. Being willing to participate in that community without calling out specific behavior, and just being willing to participate in such a community is something that can be judged and tells us about their character.
The trick is to get this across simply and effectively. They are shitty people for allowing that sort of behavior and supporting the existence of a community that allows it so we call them ‘pitters and condemn them as ‘pitters. Do they enjoy or participate in the ‘pit? If yes we have a simple and easy way to respond.
The difficulty level.
This is hard because the reality of the situation is that we are being discriminatory and to a lesser extent prejudicial based on their community identification, and those words have some power. So doing those things and justifying it in simple language is hard. Lately I have been thinking that we should not be so afraid of those words because the reality is that things like racial, sex and gender discrimination are examples of irrational discrimination. There are rational forms of prejudice and discrimination though. For example a rational form of racial discrimination involves emphasizing people of African ancestry with respect to sickle-cell anemia.
Discriminating based on some group identity is rational when it comes to people in the KKK, political parties and participation in the ‘pit. The problem is in finding ways to use simple powerful words like discrimination, or others that I have not thought of. If nothing else some of you can give me your favorite version.
Thoughts?
Brony #43
Some of the major commenters at Ashley’s are in it for the argument.
They don’t have any deeply held beliefs other than their faith in their own cleverness.
@numerobis #39:
Documentation? We don’ need no steenkin’ documentation!
In 1977, after <mumble> years elsewhere, I started work at a company that was pretty isolated but centrally located among distant usenet clusters, and made itself a usenet hub for its region. Previously, I had no contact with ARPANET, usenet, email or netnews, so 1977 is a benchmark for my recollections.
.
My reference, unclear though it might be, was to the time when usenet was able to use ARPANET transport on some hops, while needing telco-type connections for shorter ones. I don’t recall when ARPANET transport started being used this way, though.
During the -post-1977 era, the rfc 561/733 series and usenet mail practice were made compatible, as was the SMTP. This allowed better use of ARPANET as a usenet transport for email and news.
I may have been conflating the mail user agent with the news user agent. They were so similar in function that at least one unified user agent, for mail and news, became well used.
I just read an article at Gay Star News about a study out of China that found 90% of women married to gay men suffer abuse.
The article didn’t provide a link to the source, nor any secondary link to follow.
In addition, while the article mentions this:
it doesn’t elaborate at all. The rest of the article discusses the lack of sex reported by several participants and how some women didn’t know their husbands were gay until after marriage.
re: se habla espol #43
We’ve got lumps of it round the back.
@ Tony
To be frank, that number does sound very high, particularly as a generalisation of circumstances here. On the other hand, it may well be true of the group interviewed:
May imply that people not suffering abuse would be unlikely to form part of the study.
On the other hand, in spite of Mao’s admonitions that “women hold up half the sky”, there is a very strong tendency to patriarchal ways of doing, sexism & abuse of women. Indeed, the “Five” I linked to previously, were specifically targetted for taking a strong stance against marital violence, aimed at women. Their slogans, like:
Were aimed at the general state of affairs in too many relationships. The focus on gay partners inflicting such on their cis wives, probably says more about society in general. And, perhaps something about the people conducting the study. Bigotry against homosexuality is just as strong as sexism on this side of the pond.
.
Linky: The Inspirational Backstory of China’s ‘Feminist Five’
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite #43:
This is a most interesting comment, and I have tried to give a detached analysis as this seemed to be the only way to give a cogent answer. Firstly —
Who owns the SlymePit?
Does it even have an owner? Given its unusual and convoluted history, and its anarchic nature, this is the fundamental question. We all know who the boss is at Pharyngula, who the boss is at Butterflies & Wheels etc., but the SlymePit?
From what I’ve seen of this place, there seems to be a hard core of about 10-15 members who seem to dominate discussion, making up possibly 98% of content. It would seem rational to write these people off, but what of the rest? What about those who joined but abandoned ship?
Maybe the simplest solution is to hold people accountable for their actions and comments, wherever they make them.
I tried the Administrators link at the SlymePit home page but it is unavailable to non-members.
Tony! The Queer Shoop, #24 here, #146 there
Actually, the majority of libertarian brands do not promote apathy, nor selfishness, nor dogmatic adherence to property rights.
Only the American stem seems to do that.
What gives you that idea? Their language about freedom and individualism is just a (transparent) way of disguising effectively the same thing. To the extent they undermine systems that work toward progressive goals, it makes no difference to me or anyone else whether that effect is intentional.
And are we really talking about the majority of brands, or is that supposed to be what most libertarians (worldwide) actually think? There might be many “brands” which aren’t especially popular among libertarians as a group. Counting the number of those is not telling us what most of them actually do. I also assume we should be talking about libertarians in the world now, not what self-described libertarians thought historically.
On my own comment at #49, I don’t really think it hit the mark; I’m a slow typist, and I’m prone to waffle, so many of my comments are abridged. Some may have thought I was suggesting the idea of being ‘softer’ on SlymePitters, which is definitely not my point.
I was however interested in the concept of blog ownership, and the responsibilities that entails. I note that the general opinion at FtB is that blog proprietors have infinite rights regarding the policing of their blog (based on the comments at the recent post on Jerry Coyne).
If the Slymepit is a type of Collective, but with each member acting as a proprietor and exercising those infinite rights separately, is it rational to denounce someone based on membership of the Slymepit? Would calling out somebody’s nastiness be an infraction of proprietorial rights? Technical questions, yes; but until there’s a definitive answer as to who owns the site, an interesting thought experiment.
No. How could anyone possibly think it might be?
Tony@24,
The thing is, the “version of libertarianism” held by left libertarians/libertarian socialists doesn’t:
That’s simple fact. You may say they should stop calling themselves “libertarian” if they don’t want to be confused with the ratbags who’ve colonised that term. Pragmatically, perhaps they should, But should socialists feel obliged to stop using that term because Hitler called himself a “national socialist”?
Nick Gotts #53:
Coincidentally, it’s Libertarians who think that way. My main interest is the question of the Slymepit’s ownership, and whether simply being a member there is a transgression in itself (see Brony SJ Cenobite’s comment #43).
You know those YouTube videos which show Americans being unable to name countries pointed out to them on an atlas (usually the ones they want to invade)? And you remember the responses (generally quite justified) which suggest that an equivalent proportion of Brits or whoever wouldn’t be able to identify the same countries either? Well, I have a demonstration that my fellow countrymen really can be as thick as pigshit. It’s the response to a particular question in a recent (properly balanced) survey carried out in the UK (hint: the true value is 12.7%):
Q. Approximately what percentage of people currently living in the UK do you think were born outside the UK and later moved here (ie are immigrants)?
0%-10%:
Oops, sorry, tab focus slipped on that. Try again, Woods:
0%-10%: 11%
11%-20%: 24%
21%-30%: 23%
31%-40%: 18%
41%-50%: 8%
51%-60%: 6%
61%-70%: 5%
71%-80%: 3%
81%-90%: 2%
91%-100%: 1%
Yes, 1% (or about 11 people out of the statistically-balanced group of 1093 surveyed) thinks that everyone except themselves, their mum and dad and their pet dachsund, Colin, was born outisde the UK (and, to be honest, Colin is a bit suspect). Fucking hell, UKians! Get a grip.
Surprisingly, though, the average would-be-UKIP-voter is just as ill-informed as the average non-would-be-UKIP-voter, estimating the immigrant population of the UK at merely twice its actual value. That’s the really telling statistic, that the median is out by a factor of 100%, most likely due (by my interpretation) to the bias in the press and the rhetoric of unprincipled vote-seeking politicians. Fucking scum.
And I forgot to include the source for the survey:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/19/britain-uncovered-survey-attitudes-beliefs-britons-2015
Apologies.
Rich Woods @56, 57 & 58
What’s even worse is that 25% believe half or more of the people living in the UK were born elsewhere.
@ Nick Gotts #54
Yup.
Libertarianism applies to anarchists of various stripes. It is frankly bizarre how the term has been appropriated by anti-socialist propertarians (to give them their correct term). Or that they tend to be so completely naive as to the origins of the term.
Let me try and illustrate by way of analogy: It is almost as bad as calling a dog a “right wing cat”, then gradually omitting the “right” and the “wing”, until they are left calling a dog a cat. It was bullshit from the beginning and it remains bullshit. Are we to start calling cats “left wing cats” to ensure we don’t confuse people into thinking we are actually talking about “right wing cats”, ie dogs.
So yes, whenever you have the opportunity, tell so-called “right-wing libertarians” to take their propertarianism and get knotted.
There are differences between right-wing and left-wing libertarians. However, they’re both utopian ideologies with immense practical obstacles to overcome before either could be inflicted on humanity.
As I said before, I’m dubious about socio-political ideologies which require everyone, without exception, to act altruistically and benevolently towards everyone else. So while left-wing libertarianism isn’t as odious as right-wing libertarianism, it’s equally as ineffectual in the real world as anarcho-capitalism.
Al Dente@61,
I don’t disagree; as an ex-anarchist/libertarian socialist I’m very much aware of the flaws in that political philosophy. That doesn’t make it reasonable to ignore the huge differences – which are almost if not quite as large as those between socialists and “national socialists”.
@ Al Dente
Oh Lawdy!
“Canine cats” and “feline cats” again?
Oh Laaaaawdy!
Though libertarians have only a few examples of their principles being applied in practice, they do not face “immense practical obstacles”, rather, they face immense political and military obstacles. Particularly from Authoritarian regimes.
The current example of a working libertarian political entity, is Rojava in Western Kurdistan. In spite of a massive onslaught against its three cantons by the islamo-fascist Daesh (ISIS) it has managed to maintain and improve the conditions of its communities. The recent and ongoing tribulations in the Kobane Canton should be evidence enough of how strong the community there is. Their libertarian system is working most effectively even under onslaught from better armed religious fanatics, vindictive neighbours (Turkey & Syria) and sanctions by USA & Europe (who condemn their PKK as a “terrorist organisation”).
Historical examples are also to be found – such as the Syndicalists in Spain, prior to the take-over by Franco’s fascists and his Nazi allies. Or look into the ancient past – to places like Çatalhöyük, in Anatolia (present day Turkey). There have been societies that have run successfully very much along libertarian principles. Not “utopias”, but lived realities.
Perhaps you should read the article I linked to. Or just try and follow the news occasionally.
I’ve mostly outgrown the habit of hate reads, but I just can’t quite shake Jerry Coyne. He’s at it again on Israel, and there is so many errors that I can’t be bothered with at 3.25am. No links, but Coyne seems to think that Social Justice Warriors are fomenting a second Holocaust, while his commenters as per usual decry the Islamization of America.
[Daesh]
Der Spiegel: Secret files reveal the structure of Islamic State.
How some vindictive former Baathists actually run the show.
For fuck’s sake, those pitters on Ashley Miller’s blog. I can’t even. They can’t even. They cannot possibly not understand that having sex with someone so intoxicated that they can’t walk on their own is rape. They cannot possibly not understand that ordering more drinks with that person beforehand and then pretending to drink more than you, by hiding your drinks and shit like that, isn’t intentionally trying to get that person drunk as well. And even if the latter isn’t accepting, the former still fucking applies. Fucking dishonest, amoral monsters.
(I also can’t even grammar. But that’s typical.)
anteprepro, #66
Thanks for the warning, Won’t be scrolling down for comments when I go there. I can’t stand that shit.
Saad: Same. I’ve only skimmed through the two of the three threads, and mostly just see replies to the bullshit, and it is still infuriating and sickening. I can’t do it. Major kudos to the people who can take it, who wade in there and deal with those fuckers.
Steersman asserts that rape is successfully prosecuted at a lesser frequency than burglary and robbery because people don’t ask to be burgled and robbed.
Steersman later asserts that I am a “twat” for saying that rhetoric is disgusting and that analogy inappropriate.
Steersman next asserts that Allison’s statements about alcohol should be judged by the standards of the “intoxication defense”, linking to its wikipedia description and quoting some of what he believes is relevant. Of course, the intoxication defense, as his own links make clear, is a defense against conviction of a crime. The crime for which Allison may face conviction is not specified.
…throughout, he maintains he’s not engaged in victim blaming.
Yay for chutzpah!
I saw your response to Steersman re: the intoxication defense, Crip Dyke. Good work. Informative, a good rebuttal, and entertaining. If only Steersman and his fellows had the capacity for shame.
@ anteprepro
I am feeling the same way. I read Steerman’s rape apologetics e-pistle that he linked to (advocating that women should film their own rape for future reference – for if it ever goes to court) . Horrifying to see quite how screwed up the guy’s thinking is. And Michael Nugent has built his little Haven for just such people.
@ Crip Dyke
Great work. You are a much tougher person than I am.
@theophontes:
Stolen.
to both anteprepro and theophontes: thanks for the positive reinforcers. Skinner says that will help quite a bit.
[sarcasm for Skinner, not for anteprepro & theophontes, in case some were wondering]
Uh-oh. You said he has created a haven for rape apologists. Expect a few thousand words of denial any day now.
CD
Steersman also called me a t**t and then denied it was a gendered insult…
Does Steersman even know what a genderef slur is?
Since in his delusional mind, he isn’t a misogynist, he thinks nothing he says reeks of misogyny. We know better.
I would wager that Steersman knows exactly what a gendered slur is.
Al Dente #61
I don’t see where any libertarian socialist organisation should require “without exception” altruistic and benevolent interactions in order to work, no more than democracy does. Of course, it usually best that people behave both altruistically and with benevolence, but that is not an absolute requirement.
See any self-managed organisations (there are many more examples of self management in action than mass libertarian experiences), people are not interacting always in the best ways, and it doesn’t mean that these structures are not viable.
He probably read about it on wikipedia
anteprepro, I couldn’t resist. But I just scrolled through quickly to read one or two steersman posts. And that was more than enough. Also, I noticed that Edward Gemmer person’s avatar was showing up quite a lot. From what I’ve seen of his posts on Heina’s blog, he’s a bit of a bigoted shit too. No thanks.
@Nerd, #77:
@ PZ
I have only given one example (in Steersman), but they are easy to multiply. I would rather not, at this juncture, as I currently find it stressful to wade through all the thick shit that people like Steersman so gormlessly spew.
I am willing to believe that Michael Nugent did not intend his blog to turn into exactly what it is today. I am sure that, apart from this, he strives for all manner of positive outcomes in the atheist community. Where he succeeds in his intentions he likely does good, and it is this that lures the Steersmans of the Internet to such a contradictory space – maintained by an otherwise upstanding member of the atheist community, who simultaneously gives them free reign, within that same space, to undermine all that person claims to stand for.
@ Okidemia
Actually, in the example I gave of Rojava, there are certain rules of the game that are enforced.
For examples:
Institutions must always have two co-presidents, one man and one woman.
Women’s councils have veto power over decisions that affect women.
Minorities (eg Assyrians) in Rojava have at least 10% representation, even if they do not make up 10% of population
But these rules are no more “coercive” than are the rules in a game of football. The rules are set up to encourage diversity, encourage participation of women and minorities. They are set up to prevent zero sum politics. And they appear to be working. Very well.
theophontes (恶六六六缓步动物) #83
Yep. Same for ZALN. Gender equality is most often one of the pillar of libertarian orgs and one of the very first to be implemented in these experiences. Which makes sense since the very first coercive social situation experienced by a majority is patriarchy.
Amazingly, full parity obtained via co-leading of electoral mandates has just started in France for the very basic subdiv (cantons). One wonders why it took so long to have codirection been mandatory as a simple way to respect parity in politics (because obviously voters could not make the shift naturally).
Democracy may be the lesser of many evils, but democrats are rather slow in making inner issues get a fix. Do they think that parity will endanger the foundation of republics?
CD 70
I am endlessly amused by Steers’ unofficial position an (the?) intellectual giant of the pit.
I defended them before, but Cracked has a… potentially problematic article out.
No Fat Tourists: 5 Rules Of Life As A Prostitute In Vietnam
An excerpt:
The girl in question is was 15 when she started. I’m not sure how to feel about the article.
Fuck. This happened about a month ago,and I didn’t hear about it until now.
But it’s exactly why I’m a social justice warrior.
@Jacob Schmidt:
Not reading the pit, I wouldn’t be in any position to judge, but your statement is one of those things that becomes funnier the more true it is.
@ Okidemia
Democracy has lost the plot somewhat. Libertarians work to create a situation where democracy is defined in terms of diversity and rises out of the individual, up through society. In many ways it harks back to earlier democratic principles. Originally it was a very bottom up institution (at least in the idealised form¹) in its early days in Athens.
Compare this last with ‘Merkin style democracy that focuses on choosing supermen (and perhaps soon, a superwoman.) to run a fundamentally discriminatory and hierarchal society. Perhaps, as the gap between the 1% and 99% widens, America will find itself in real crisis and have its very own Seisachtheia leading to real democracy?
Perhaps. However, in actuality, the opposite is true. I would rather say it is a prerequisite for real democracy (in line with Libertarian ideas). Parity is the path by which viable & equitable rules can be made to create a republic. Anything else would compromise the basis of a republic through vested interests. A republic that allows more than one set of rules, or does not create a level social field, is by its nature corrupt and anti-democratic².
.
¹ There is, of course, a lot of things to criticise about the actual expression of these ideals. In practice, there was still major discrimination against woman, foreigners & the like. Hell, they even had slavery – the very opposite of democracy.
² Consider the very undemocratic and anti-republican Peoples’ Republic of China. Hell, G.O.P. Republicans too! “Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi.”
[co-ed soccer rules]
There is a variation I have heard of (my Google-foo fails me) where goals can only be scored by women. Anyhow, the point is that a simple change in the rules of the game can bring about very interesting, positive, outcomes.
Nick @54:
Thank you for correcting my ignorance.
****
I wonder how this will play out.
1000’s of balloons will bring the Internet to the far corners of the earth.
The rum is gone.
I am angry, surly and in pain.
Who can I kick?
CD , etc RE: Steersman
He’s like the William Lane Craig of the ‘pit as compared to the Ray Comfort masses. He’s as “not even wrong” as the rest of them but, because he coats his misogyny with a thin veneer of academic sounding rhetoric, he passes himself off as reasonable to a slightly more educated audience.
@ chigau
I went and got really high today. High as a kite ….
(Drinking mojito now, to bring me back down to earth.)
This happened today.
What a potential meeting of the minds.
@Seven of Mine:
yeah, he recently said that someone, somewhere (he doesn’t specify who) is “noisily insisting” on removing due process rights from those accused of sexual assault and rape. (He might actually be right if he was talking about post-conviction rights and if he’s talking about “substantive due process” – i.e. the incorporation of the bill of rights onto the states – given different efforts at state civil commitment post-incarceration, but that’s not his gambit, nor was it what he said.)
When I challenged him on it, he was all kinds of wrong and citing all kinds of even-wronger. I can see him as a WLC type given the fact that he is going off on due process rights without understanding them at all. There’s too much to go into here, but if you’re interested in what I’m talking about it’s over on that Ashley Miller thread, here.
That’s my comment. If you want to be fair to Steersman, you’ll read his #123 #129 and #130 just above my comment (and possibly my #128…ignore my #127 it’s on a separate topic).
Janine: I am somehow simultaneously surprised and not surprised.
Janine @95:
Part of me is surprised, and part of me is not. They’re both grade-A assholes.
Gift
I’m not sure what to think about this. The intent was probably to horrify people, and I was horrified… but I doubt it was for the intended reason.
Sure, people shouldn’t buy/adopt animals if they are not prepared to care for them and especially shouldn’t just leave them somewhere but…. dogs are not children are not dogs are not children.
Just… NO.
Janine
Birds of a feather…
The only thing that keeps amazing me is how much clout those misogyny trolls have gotten. I personally wouldn’t call CHS a respectable scholar, but she’s mainstream meadia.
beatrice
With you there. People stop that shit. All the things that would have been perfectly OK with a dog (like giving it a seperate place to eat) are decidedly NOT ok with a child.
Hey Poopeyhead!
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/study-on-the-evolution-of-bilateral-symmetry-suggests-one-of-humanitys-oldest-ancestors-had-tentacles/
Wow. That’s some of the worst science writing I’ve ever seen. It manages to badly mangle the original press release, which in turn manages to completely obfuscate the conclusions of the original paper.
The paper uses details of neuroanatomy to argue for the monophyly of the lophophorates. Lophophorates are the three phyla of animals that have a U-shaped tentacled feeding structure called a lophophore. Most recent studies separate these three phyla into a couple of different sub-branches of animal evolution; this paper argues that they represent a single group of most-closely-related phyla. If so, this would mean that the lophophore evolved once. Otherwise one has to argue that it either evolved twice (or 3 times) or evolved once and was then lost in various other phyla. Fine.
But none of that has anything whatsoever to do with the ancestral bilaterian, nor any ancestor of humans (FFS). All 3 lophophorate phyla are members of a group of bilaterians called Lophotrochozoa (also includes mollusks and annelid worms, among others). That large group is distantly related to another large group of phyla called Ecdysozoa (arthropods, roundworms, some others). In turn those two groups are more distantly related to the Deruterostomes, which includes vertebrates including humans (and starfish etc.).
The ancestral bilaterian gave rise to all 3 of those large groups. All the lophophorates are within one of them. The conclusions are therefore specific to the lophotrochozoa.
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Best case scenario: poor translation from the Russian.
damn, the more you know, the more full of bullshit the internet appears.
DO NOT BELIEVE IT
typo: Deuterostomes
Re Steersman and the discussion at Ashley Miller’s:
Here’s what boggles my mind. I can understand the stubborn refusal to call what Shermer did “rape.” Way back when I was first exposed to the idea that “sex with someone too drunk to consent = rape,” I had some of the same juvenile, barracks-lawyer reaction that gets dragged out by the pitters. (You know, “how drunk is too drunk,” “what if they’re both too drunk, are they both rapists?” etc.) I’m not proud of any of that, but I can understand the reaction.
But even back then, I absolutely knew and agreed that “sex with someone too drunk to consent” was a shitty thing to do, to put it mildly. Whether you called it rape or “taking advantage” or some other euphemism, it was not something I would have done, or condoned a friend doing.
So it continues to floor me that even though, as Ashley capably laid out, the undisputed facts are that Alison was very drunk, Shermer was not*, and sex occurred, Shermer still gets this unqualified defense. I don’t see any of them saying that “well, he’s not a rapist as I define the term, but he is an awful human being and Alison was right to warn women in the community about it, and PZ was right to pass along that warning.” Nope, it’s all full-throated defense of Shermer, with Brian Dalton making cutesy little videos about “see, just say no to wine!” and James Randi brushing it off as “boys will be boys,” and secular “thought leaders” posing for fun group photos with a guy who — even if you accept all the flawed semantic arguments about what counts as “rape” — is at a minimum a very shitty human being who preys on people with low defenses.
I mean, this is a community that does not accept such arguments from anyone else. James Randi didn’t just laugh at the dumb suckers who fell for Uri Geller’s parlour tricks and tell them to smarten up in the future, and he didn’t just shrug it off when Benny Hinn’s audience paid money for his “faith healing.” Penn Jillette doesn’t just praise John Edward as a good cold reader and blame the bereaved who buy it — he expresses great anger and moral outrage at what “woo merchants” like Edward do. And this is true even though in many cases, there is no realistic hope of a criminal prosecution of any of those people. In fact, Penn & Teller called their show “Bullshit!” and use that term, and those like “woo,” because they’ve been advised that calling people frauds could get them sued. And yet, somehow, they’re able to see that people who they can’t prove in a courtroom are guilty of even a civil wrong, let alone a crime, can still be shitty people who deserve to be called out and shunned. Except when it’s a guy who gives good blurbs for their next book, I guess. Or when the victims are young women who are supposed to be the just rewards of famous men anyway.
Sorry everyone, this turned into a longer rant than I intended. I know I’m preaching to the choir here.
*I’m ignoring the James Randi version of events where they were both drunk, as even Shermer doesn’t seem to agree with that.
^^^^^
Rant on, Screechy Monkey. Rant right on. I’ll just leave some grog and bacon and chocolate for your refreshment–even the righteous need to pause and refresh, right?
Janine, #95
Hmm. I wonder what that would be called. I don’t think they can even be qualified as thought leaders.
Screech Monkey, that was very on point.
@101-102: What Sven said. That was a botch of an article. The take-home message is right there in the title of the paper: monophyly of the lophophorates. It doesn’t even mention chordates or deuterostomes or anything about them in the text!
I love it when you speak French.
Richard Dawkins being an ass, episode 101687221
I guess it’s sniping at trigger warnings, misrepresenting their nature and objective, of course.
But yeah, I need more open discussion about whether I’m actually a human being. There simply isn’t enough of it.
Screechymonkey
People are getting him to say out loud what women should be morally obliged to do to prevent rape and he’s weaseling around like nothing.
They know that. They know that once they have to define their terms, they sound like Saudi Clergi. That’s why this “personal responsibility” schtick is such an ever-moving goalpost. There’s always something more you could have done, another inch you could have added to the neckline.
A woman gets harassed and assaulted, they look at her behavior and draw the line of “reasonable precaution” just on the other side of what she did. She walked home? She should have called a taxi. She was raped by the driver? She should have taken a friend. The friend raped her? She trusted the wrong people….
Anyone looking for coasters?
Stackable brain specimen coasters reveal a 3D view of the human brain.
@ CD
I’ve followed that thread over at Ashley Miller’s a bit. Kudos to you for having the intestinal fortitude to engage him. I usually get a few sentences into a Steersman post, go cross-eyed, and then give up.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-:
Jesus Christ, fucking Dawkins.
Yes, you should have your pre-conceptions challenged, be given challenging ideas, as part of university education. That is NOT the fucking same as being made to feel unsafe. And he spits with contempt, saying that those who aren’t Strong and Brave enough to deal with being made to feel unsafe, in general, with no qualifications or specifications of what “unsafe” entails to Lord King Dawkins, are simply unfit and unworthy of a college education. That is absolute fucking nonsense, with not a shred of empathy or nuance. It is intellectual dishonesty presented with haughtiness and spite. It is an excuse to dismiss people’s legitimate discomforts and concerns because he personally does not care about such things. It is, in a word, Dawkinsian.
Tony!
Want!!!
That’s such typical Dawkins. The deliberate conflation of harassment, bigotry and actual threats to physical safety with safety from ideas is fucking repulsive. “If you’re not willing to have your basic humanity challenged and debated, you don’t deserve an education.” What a vile human being he is.
“If you’re not willing to have your basic humanity challenged and debated, you don’t deserve an education
Yeah, that’s so easy for Dawkins, the quitessential white rich cis straight male to say.
What does he mean by “basic humanity”? Does his sexism count as his basic humanity? Because he seems quite unwilling to have that challenged.
Seven of Mine wasn’t doing a direct quote. That was a mockery of Dawkin’s position on the subject (specifically his word games regarding the word “safe”).
Oh, oops. My bad. Though that doesn’t say much about Dawkins that I thought that was a direct quote.
Any sufficiently privileged utterance is indistinguishable from a Dawkins tweet.
@Daz: Uffish, yet slightly frabjous #20
> > quoted text.
Don’t know about 4chan, but this was a standard reply indentation in various email programs (I myself sometimes use this for instance in skype when quoting something). Another was adding hashes. The idea was to be able to quickly read an email conversation in times of text-only emails:
Yeah, good idea, thanks Sal ;).
Rob
> I’ll lend you the tools
> Sally
>> Hey Sally, where do you think I can borrow a some wood tools for my art project?
>> Rob
Here’s a present for beer lovers- Kentucky Kölsch. Unfortunately, I think you need to be in China to purchase the beer:
*****
And a present for rum lovers- Diplomatico rum. From the same company as above.
I wouldn’t mind trying that rum.
He probably means Amanda Marcotte. I got into a back and forth with Steers and a few others a while back; there was a derail about Marcotte supposedly wanting to remove presumption of innocence and habeas corpus for rape accusations.
—
I see it fairly often on Ally’s blog. I dunno where it started.
Alan Moore’s new comic book series, Providence, will address two of H.P. Lovecraft’s prejudices-homophobia and anti-Semitism. Here is an excerpt of an interview with Moore:
@Giliell, 94 in the “It’s traditional” thread
Hmm, not sure what exactly you are responding to, but that looks like a straw enemy.
Brianpansky @124:
I think Giliell’s response was to The Vicar’s claim that Superman (and Thor) could end poverty:
I don’t think either one could use their powers to put an end to poverty. Giliell’s point is that super-strength, super-speed, flying, invulnerability, heat vision, etc are not abilities that would allow one to end world poverty.
So a certain city in Georgia, Cochran, has decided to fly a “Christian flag” over city hall and the courthouse for a week for a “bible reading week” event.
Ed has something up about it. The article is here.
Me? When I read about that flag flying over that small town’s buildings of public authority, I can’t help but smell a hundred flowers.
Goddammit.
3 more Cosby accusers step forward.
This brings the total to 41. Forty-fucking-one.
Someone appears to be having fun mocking the Dawk on Twitter.
Rape apologist #7971 has been defecating quite a bit in this otherwise good thread.
Saad @129:
Ugh.
Initially I thought he was just naive.
Sure does seem like I was wrong.
He’s a fool and an accommodationist.
One thing I’ve learned is they’re all like that.
Who the hell enters a discussion about sexism and rape culture on a feminist blog and tries to do that? I guarantee you 99 times out of a 100 it’s a misogynist just sea-lioning.
Stiglitz video: “The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them,”
Main Points (from linky):
1. “make it at least fair that those at the top pay at least the same share,” that we don’t have these distorting provisions which weaken the economy and create more inequality.
2. It is “the way our economy works that creates this inequality”.
3. “We are transmitting advantages and disadvantages across generations, and that is the most important factor in creating this inequality of opportunity.”
So… Washington DC. MacDonalds manager bullies employee in front of customers. Customer, who in their own words is “very obviously gay”, complains. The manager says they don’t care what the customer thinks, and another employee calls him a faggot. They then serve him a raw burger.
The fuck?
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2305
re Thumper #133
While I generally think sue-at-the-drop-of-a-hat culture is a disaster, this is one case where legal action would be absolutely reasonable, justified and beneficial to all except the shitheads. What kind of small-minded bigot do you have to be to behave in such a vile manner? I hope the company has to pay a very, very high price for this and consequently make sure other customers don’t get so badly treated in future.
Downright bizarre.
I worked at McDonald’s for a couple weeks. Everything was standardized, including the cooking times. You would need to deliberately fuck with the stove to undercook the meat.
I’ve been mulling over an idea for a while, and a recent post shook it loose. In the online hate wars, a pattern in the opposing strategies jumped out at me.
The sociopaths:
– do what they want, which is inherently rewarding for
– large numbers of trivially replaced minions
– that summon each other
– and show up ready to fight
– using obfuscation and provocation
– that gets gish-galloped into play
The social justice activists who oppose them:
– do what they must, which is inherently taxing for
– small numbers of hard to replace veterans
– that would rather the antisocial bullshit stop already
– because they have to constructively counter every lie
– and block every disposable account
– when they have better things to do
Call it r– and k-selection if you want, but either way their clock is faster, which means they’re the beatdown. And when you’re up against a beatdown, you play control. Indeed, control-style tactics have been developed naturally in response to the aggression: Moderation is removal, block bots are sweepers, easily linked timelines and debunking are disruption, etc.
But that’s only useful if there’s an abatement at some point, when the beatdown runs out of gas. I can’t see that happening while the sociopaths are left unharmed by their gleeful harassment. (And burgeoning terrorism.) Until then it’s going to be nothing but board clearing, and who wants to change diapers forever?
At the same time, playing to win is why everyone hates lawyers: It makes you an asshole. Is it worth switching from honest engagement?
Jacob S,
If it hasn’t touched the stove, it’s not cooked.
Tony,
I dunno if it’s the strength that is in dispute, but the access to advanced tech. Thor or The Supe’s parent civilization have technology that we can’t fathom; it beggars my credulity that none of that tech could fit people out with a hot plate once a day.
Dhorvath #138
Actually (love that word) soaking in vinegar denatures the protein.
Which is kinda like ‘cooked’.
——
Is that a new bike?
It seems blue-er.
Oh, hey. Dhorvath here. Mostly lurker, sometimes commenter. I got a new job. It rocks, but leaves me way less time to keep up here. Hope all is well with those who I am missing here, but not on the book of faces.
Well, that answers my next question.
chigau,
Same paint, different background. I couldn’t find the original photo.
Dhorvath
ohno
It’s like that damned dress!
More fun to ride.
I’m not sure what you mean. Judging from the pictures, the surface of the meat was cooked, just not the inside.
A good thing too, else we wouldn’t have mayo.
A life without mayo is ….
no
no
not going to go there
@ Dhorvath
Au contraire Rodders!
Time to invest in a sous vide machine!
@ chigau
Matjes Haring for supper tonight. Omnomnomnom.
What about yoghurt? Sour cream? …. Hell, if nothing else, at least Crème Chantilly!
.
Really good weather today …
theophontes
Wonderful flight!
Could you attach a paint-ball launcher?
@ chigau
Absolutely!
The cluster of people there are a group of engineering students from University of Hong Kong. They are trying to build a UAV aircraft as part of their studies. They were pretty taken with my video goggles.
(Perhaps there’s work for me as aerial robotics instructor? What with Xi’s clampdown on corruption, the building industry is looking dodgy. It is driven entirely by corruption. I may need a new job.)
NEW THREAD.