If thou gazest long into the Pit, the Pit will also gaze into thee

For God's sake man, have some backbone.

It is utterly awful to see someone willingly subjugate themselves to clear and obvious bullying.

I'm confused. According to Turd of Dedhead, Shermer is a "proven rapist". Must be some of that new wave skepticism that I don't quite have the hang of yet Something's not right here. I'm very intrigued what the outcome of all this will be. It appears that some of the people involved have completely...

Phoebe_Caulfield wrote:Oh, and why is being hyperskeptic a bad thing? I don't get it.

Asking questions is bad. Humans are fallen, terrible creatures who must understand their fallibility and willingly sacrifice themselves to enable the next witch to be drowned.

I'm waiting for the one big walk-off. In these groups, there's usually at least one person who is smart enough to see the writing on the wall. As soon as that happens, they will start savagely feeding on each other, and the whole thing will collapse. It's inevitable, because their philosophy is foun...

Some astonishing mental gymnastics there. Evidence can include testimony, but testimony isn't automatically evidence, because of, among other things, lies. That is why a court goes to great trouble ensuring that testimony meets criteria. These people appear to have no grasp of analogy, burden of pro...

Restaurant sites seem to use it a lot too. I think Cracked did an article about it. Meanwhile, I've really got to stop read the Pit and do something constructive, like actually watch Downfall. An absolutely superb film. I enjoyed the Fuhrer temper meme for a bit, but I always (boringly) tell people...

As I'm a relative newcomer to observing most of this drama, am I right in thinking that the charge of 'hyperskepticism' is simply what most people would call, er, skepticism?

I feel like Mugatu during the big reveal in Zoolander.

That Skepchick post.

Just pause for a moment. Skepchick is a collective that is supposedly built around scientific enquiry. That post is utterly embarrassing. Hysterical, neurotic, and embarrassing.

These people make the good intentions of a movement a laughing stock. It's incredible.

The easiest thing to do at this point is delete & apologise, and throw someone under the bus.

Lsuoma wrote:Man, someone's spun up a fleet of AWS EC2 hosts and is hitting the Pit, hence the slowness.

Beginning to block.

I'm sure you know this, but Amazon will be happy to know about abuse.

I fear the real world is about to collide with these people in very, very ugly fashion.

They're not a political movement. What's their endgame? What's the policy goals they're looking for? It's all very vague and hidden. When they reach what maybe should be the goal, they'll move the goalposts yet again. They're a tribalistic movement. People itching for the struggle, for the fight. T...

I think it is far too simplistic to think that the accomodationist/confrontationalist debate is somehow a forerunner or the schism. I was active online throughout that period and firmly on the confrontationalist side of the debate. I haven't changed my overall position on that question and many of ...

"To these people asking for evidence on these accusations: Missing the point. Believe survivors."

I keep seeing this sentiment again, and again, and again.

It chills my blood. Appalling.

"Minimisation of potential harm is a perfectly rational way to choose a belief in the absence of unequivocal evidence."

Now, that doesn't stand up very well, does it?

<snip> Maybe a questionable principle of jurisprudence as it does seem tantamount to "guilty until proven innocent" with some sticky ramifications, e.g., Krauss & Shermer might actually have to prove their innocence before a charge of libel could stand. Although I hope FftB has deep enough pockets ...

Dunning's piece is a good read (he usually is), but to be fair he's been excoriated by Myers over his legal and ethical troubles, so he has a reason to be annoyed. I think it is worrying how much group hysteria appears to have affected FTB. Myers must be out of his mind to do this; either he is righ...