Mykeru, what a Cnut, eh? Discuss.

[Avalyne]

My reaction to a slimepit meme being introduced to a group set up to support some of the people targeted with their memes? I admit, it creeped me out. Still, to the best of my recollection, my response was “Don’t do that here.” Then there was a discussion in which others sympathized with the fact that she wasn’t being heard in the Pharyngula thread. I was coping with other things, including being creeped out, on my own where she didn’t have to deal with them too. Then she sat back and watched social media for a few days.

I don't understand the entirety of that last paragraph.

Here's the way I read it. At some point, a support group was set up specifically for people who had been "attacked" by pitters. This Ellen person, upon feeling attacked or ignored or what have you at PZ 's place, went to the support group for support. They determined that her concern was not sufficiently different from a familiar "slimepite meme" that asserts that unpopular opinions are always attacked/ignored/what have you at PZ's place.

In other words her complaint sounded like a meme that came from the pit, which would have been bad enough on it's own, but was made more egregious being said in a supposed safe-space. That was just too much for the other one to handle.

Cool! You translate Svan! Impressive.

[Steersman]

<snip>
Hey Steers, when you talk to people face to face, as it were, to coin a phrase, as one must, upon occasion, to get across a point, a shot across the bow, one might say, do you use air quotes?

[.youtube]bW8OkSJvhvE[/youtube]

:-) Noooh, but now that you mention it and that you’ve given me – thanks – a model to work from I might try doing so. ;-)

Please record and youtube that attempt :D

You use so many quotation marks that if I can make it through all the qualifiers, I can get stuck trying to figure out when you're actually quoting someone or simply using a cliche. You can use cliches without quotes. I promise most of us will get it. (snip)

I probably overdo that as I think it important to try to identify all of the factors involved – Guestus Aurelius recently had an amusing comment suggesting that the Pit views on Stollznow and company could be neatly partitioned into some 8 segments depending on three binary choices.

As for the clichés and aphorisms, maybe I tend to overdo them, but I frequently find they emphasize and complete the point I’m trying to make – sort of “dotting the eyes and crossing tees” <-- don't need quotes: those colloquialisms do frequently state the case far better than I could manage without a lot of thought and effort; the “words of the prophets are written on the subway walls”<---those are alright.

Thanks for the suggestions – I’ll try to keep them in mind – toujours le feedback. :-)

Mostly, Steers, I can't seem to help but to tease you :)

:-)

Carry on being you, and maybe put in for a clarity module to attach to your humor one?

I’ll go through my Cyberdyne manual and catalog this evening and see which ones might still be available and compatible with my older mainframe. :-)

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

Is there a word for when someone who "jumped the shark" a long time ago does something so ridiculous that the phrase is no longer suitable for their idiocy? Maybe "Oh, he totally Redheaded it now"? Or, "Wow, that guy totally just Nerded himself"?

Firstly, PZ Meyers today posted some bizarre screed he where laughs at women* who complain that their miscarried fetuses (yes, miscarriages; not just elective abortions) have been burned as clinical waste, rather than being given the tiniest bit of respect which we may imagine would be the case, were ever ourselves unfortunate enough to have to experience such a pregnancy.
*He confines his amusement to women, because he is a coward and believes that women are weak. But this issue affects men also, as many of those parasitic infections which FfTB despises are actually a source of great happiness* to both genders.
*"great happiness": this is an emotion* felt by many humans who receive the news that they may become a parent.
*"emotion": that feeling you have when Stephany Svan tells you that what you actually, definitely read a month ago didn't actually happen, and here's the truth, drink this warm milk and everything will be okay.

Here's the link to that: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... n-clinics/

Anyway, secondly, the sick fuck found some bizarre way to humiliate a person who had undergone some pretty fucking serious cranial surgery. This unfortunate person had a chronic disease which causes her skull to thicken continuously through adulthood, leading to increased pressure on the brain. Part of their skull was cut out, and replaced with a transparent plastic molding. Rather than walk around with their brain visible for all to gawk at, this person elected to have their scalp replaced over the top of the implant. Meyers's take on this subject? Totally cuntish, of course:

It was made out of transparent plastic. Now the doctors, of course, covered it up with her scalp and neatly stitched it all together so you can’t even see a scar anymore, but I was thinking, if I had it done, the best thing would be to simply remove all that skin and have my brain pulsing beneath a transparent dome. I’d even pay extra to have some LEDs inserted in patterns in the plastic. Can you imagine how cool it would be to teach neurobiology with your brain hanging out, decorated with little blinking lights?

Maybe someday. A guy can dream.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... ry-option/

Next up is his post which links to an online test of one's religious knowledge. It's completely bogus, of course, just like those online polls he used to love to "pharyngulate" (yeah, those posts stopped once he realized he had become as powerful as a gnat on a cow). This post is all about the comments, where people are tripping over themselves to reveal their almost-perfect score, but justify the missed mark or two with some shit about how "I'm actually really knowledgeable about everything and stuff, but this one thing just totally slipped my mind for this one moment". Cunts.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... /#comments

Here's a real nice one: the scientist PZ Meyers showing off his scientific credentials by linking to an "Epigenetics Conference".
http://i.imgur.com/A9uoEGZ.png
Wow, this guy must be talking about serious science here. Why has Professor Meyers shared with us details about an EPIGENETICS CONFERENCE? Let's have a look at what he's so excited about:
http://i.imgur.com/PMZyYji.png
http://www.portlandhumanists.org/conten ... conference

Ah. No, this is not what any scientist would call a "conference". Put this on your resume, and you may as well add "I did learnz thingz here at this confrinse what astoundedd me".

Please. This is the person who claims to be leading atheism/skepticism because of his scientific credentials. NO. This sad little sack of dung is a fraud, a MAN who will be just whatever you wish him to. Got an infestation of creationists? Call Meyers. Having problems with folk who don't think that newborns are anything more than cockroaches? Call Meyers. Need a PhD to add weight to some bullshit advertisement? Cal Meyers.

[Spike13]

A support group for people picked on by the Pit???
How do these oh-so-gentle should make it through life?
Jesus Christ on a stick...The pit could photo shop dildos coming out of every orifice of me and I would laugh. Then of course I would post back....Douchebags...
Some folks need to lighten up.
Sometimes I really fear that they are building some kind of suicide cult over there.

[SoylentAtheist]

Jesus Christ on a stick...The pit could photo shop dildos coming out of every orifice of me and I would laugh.

Who is saying we would use photo shop?

[Spike13]

Jesus Christ on a stick...The pit could photo shop dildos coming out of every orifice of me and I would laugh.

Who is saying we would use photo shop?

You guys didn't take over my web cam did you!?!?!?

[Steersman]

<snip>
Adam Lee has one of the more frank pieces I've seen about #UpForDebate, at Patheos here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightat ... community/

I disagree with his bottom line conclusion, which seems to be the same as Secular Woman though he works his way toward it a little better IMO. It seems to boil down to: STFU about any possibility of any value of the fetus, because those rabid rightwingers are making headway in curtailing access to abortion. Though he does also allow for "refuting" (as opposed to "debating"), which I think is great - go ahead people, refute away, make your best arguments, let's hear 'em.

Here's what I found refreshing about his piece (given the closedmindedness from Secular Woman, for example):

The secular community has always been defined by debate and persuasion, and it’s right that it should be. .....

Unfortunately, it starts to fall apart in the next paragraph (bolding added by me):

But at the same time, there are some questions that are clearly outside the bounds of legitimate discussion. <strawy examples of arguing against racial desegregation; marriage equality; women's right to vote> If anyone in our community advocated anything like this, there’d be a furious outcry, and no one would accept the disingenuous “but I was just playing devil’s advocate” defense.

What determines which is which? There’s a common thread that runs between all the intolerable arguments, and it’s that they disparage or deny the fundamental equality of some group of human beings. In the secular community, it ought to be an uncontroversial moral principle that all people possess the same rights and freedoms. We don’t tolerate exceptions to this rule, nor should we.

And abortion should be recognized as belonging to that same category of fundamental equality.

Okay, so let's stop there for a moment. Do they truly not see that reasonable people, as well as rabid "anti-choice" activists, could ALSO say that they're in favor of "fundamental equality of some group of human beings" as an "uncontroversial moral principle" yet come to a very different conclusion? That it simply depends where you draw the line as to "human being" or "person"? Are their blinders really so askew?

Indeed. But nice analysis Skep tickle – might be worth the effort for me to go over to Patheos and put my oar in the water – so to speak. :-)

But one thing I’ve kind of noticed in these debates, and which you kind of alluded to, is the rather poor knowledge many people have of “basic” biology; many seem unable or unwilling to comprehend that a fetus or zygote or embryo is a genetically distinct entity with all of the genetic attributes of a human being – hardly a wart on a woman’s body or parasite.

I can well believe that for many women having an abortion is a serious crisis of conscience, and I certainly wouldn’t argue for any serious restriction on the right to have one. But I find the attitudes of many in the Secular Woman cohort to be rather abominable in their cavalier attitudes to human life – methinks well down the slippery slope into “useless eaters” territory.

Again, pointless caveat that I'm prochoice, why do I even bother saying it when to Secular Woman/FTB/etc I am Devil's spawn as are we all here. :roll: (Oh, and Level 2 on the blockbot, ba ha ha.)

Humble-bragging again, eh? I only made it to level 3 (the least odious one if I'm not mistaken). ;-)

[JacquesCuze]

Thanks. I read them. My guess was indeed incorrect, as it seems.

Re: women and men in domestic violence, I think you need to read more about that too.

Here's Jezebel which basically admits what DV researchers and MRAs (I read this first at Glenn Sacks' website in the mid 2000s) have been saying for years:

http://jezebel.com/5509717/domestic-vio ... ive-as-men

1. Women initiate just as much domestic violence as men.
2. Men are bigger and when they do hit back their damage sends women to the ER.

Jezebel diminishes that by describing the women's attacks as "scratch", "slap", but in the end has to duck their loss and reframe the question: "should we really be arguing about which gender commits domestic violence more?"

Not that I would take Jezebel very seriously as a source anyway, but if you just look at the facts it describes and ignore the interpretation, it doesn't contradict what I said at all. In fact it supports it. Both genders are about equally likely to engage in domestic (partner on partner) violence, but men are much more likely to engage in domestic violence that results in serious injury or death. In light of that, the claim that women are just as abusive as men in domestic disputes is highly misleading at best and outright false at worst.

Well I gave you two feminist sources (that I think agree with what I was saying), the point being that I wasn't giving you sources biased in favor of MRAs.

But we must misunderstand each other.

I understood your claim to have been:

I'm guessing the "majority of child abusers are women" thing is making no differentiation between very minor violence and serious/severe child abuse. The same way some MRAs try to claim that women commit domestic violence just as much as men do.

For most people in these discussions, "commit" means "initiates".

men are much more likely to engage in domestic violence that results in serious injury or death. In light of that, the claim that women are just as abusive as men in domestic disputes is highly misleading at best and outright false at worst.

I would also think that for most people in these discussions, "just as abusive" also means who initiates the domestic violence, not who ends up in the ER, but if you believe it means who incurs the most damage, I would say that you moved the goal posts.

Batman is not more abusive than Cat Woman but he is larger and punches harder.
Superman is not more abusive than Lex Luthor but he is larger and punches harder.

That men are larger than women and thus hit harder and do more damage hit for hit is not support for the claim that men are more abusive than women under the common understanding (though I can understand that meaning might be different for gamers.)

If you want to state that when men commit domestic violence women are more likely to be severely injured than vice-versa, no MRA will disagree with you. Yes, that is true.

Nevertheless, the studies show that women initiate as much domestic violence as men thus disproving your original claim:

I'm guessing the "majority of child abusers are women" thing is making no differentiation between very minor violence and serious/severe child abuse. The same way some MRAs try to claim that women commit domestic violence just as much as men do.

[Linus]

Thanks. I read them. My guess was indeed incorrect, as it seems.

Re: women and men in domestic violence, I think you need to read more about that too.

Here's Jezebel which basically admits what DV researchers and MRAs (I read this first at Glenn Sacks' website in the mid 2000s) have been saying for years:

http://jezebel.com/5509717/domestic-vio ... ive-as-men

1. Women initiate just as much domestic violence as men.
2. Men are bigger and when they do hit back their damage sends women to the ER.

Jezebel diminishes that by describing the women's attacks as "scratch", "slap", but in the end has to duck their loss and reframe the question: "should we really be arguing about which gender commits domestic violence more?"

Not that I would take Jezebel very seriously as a source anyway, but if you just look at the facts it describes and ignore the interpretation, it doesn't contradict what I said at all. In fact it supports it. Both genders are about equally likely to engage in domestic (partner on partner) violence, but men are much more likely to engage in domestic violence that results in serious injury or death. In light of that, the claim that women are just as abusive as men in domestic disputes is highly misleading at best and outright false at worst.

Well I gave you two feminist sources (that I think agree with what I was saying), the point being that I wasn't giving you sources biased in favor of MRAs.

But we must misunderstand each other.

I understood your claim to have been:

I'm guessing the "majority of child abusers are women" thing is making no differentiation between very minor violence and serious/severe child abuse. The same way some MRAs try to claim that women commit domestic violence just as much as men do.

For most people in these discussions, "commit" means "initiates".

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, MRAs are accurate in claiming that women commit domestic violence roughly as often as men do, but because that fact doesn't distinguish the severity of the violence, it is a misleading claim. That is what I was attempting to convey, but I now see I wasn't being as clear as I thought I was.

men are much more likely to engage in domestic violence that results in serious injury or death. In light of that, the claim that women are just as abusive as men in domestic disputes is highly misleading at best and outright false at worst.

I would also think that for most people in these discussions, "just as abusive" also means who initiates the domestic violence, not who ends up in the ER, but if you believe it means who incurs the most damage, I would say that you moved the goal posts.

Batman is not more abusive than Cat Woman but he is larger and punches harder.
Superman is not more abusive than Lex Luthor but he is larger and punches harder.

If Jane slaps her husband and John kicks his wife down a flight of stairs, I am comfortable in assuming that most people would with agree with me in calling John more abuse than Jane.

That men are larger than women and thus hit harder and do more damage hit for hit is not support for the claim that men are more abusive than women under the common understanding (though I can understand that meaning might be different for gamers.)

If you want to state that when men commit domestic violence women are more likely to be severely injured than vice-versa, no MRA will disagree with you. Yes, that is true.

Instances of minor to moderate violence between couples are typically not attempts at severe to fatal violence that simply failed due to lack of strength. Your argument might have some merit if it were the case that men and women engage in the exact same type of attacks but with differing results. But that is not the case. As the Jezebel article you linked to points out, women are more likely to engage in slapping and scratching while men are more likely to engage in punching and choking. Women are also more likely to be shot to death by their partner with a gun.

[James Caruthers]

I go on my rant then on catching up on the posts made while I was ranting find these, to which I go :clap: :clap:

And yes, the Safe Space is what was America was to McCarthy, or Christianity was to Inquisitors — a space where you must make symbolic gestures and postures in accordance to the ideology and painstakingly avoid appearing like a conspirator, someone who secretly supports the enemy. This matches perfectly with the idea that people otherwise feel hurt and thus their safe space must stay safe. The Nazis called this their Volkskörper (the body of the folk/the people) which must function and must be protected from subversive elements from inside, im their case the Jews. Note that the conspirators in turn don't belong to a cabal, but always to a powerful, enemy force outside the safe space — satan, the communist, the jewish elites and — surprise — the patriarchy. It matches just too well.

I believe the way it works for these people is something like this:

- I am a good person. I do good things and think good thoughts.
- if someone else is a good person they will agree with me.

- I as a good person have a moral duty to kill the bad persons.
- If someone disagrees with me they can only be a bad person and must be killed.

Something like that anyway.

Really cuts to the core. The Commentariat can hand wave the McCarthy, Hitler and Stalin shit as hyperbole, or say "this isn't McCarthyism, do you see any Communist witch hunts here?"

But the part from Andrew, it cannot be denied. You can read articles written by almost ANY of the FTBloggers who get quoted or linked at the Pit, and they follow the same basic formula:

-Establish that the writer is A Good Person, and the community of readers are Good People (if they agree with the writer)
-Establish and provide examples of The Correct Moral Behavior
-Bring forth the Witch of the Week!
-Establish that the Witch is A Bad Person
-Describe The Bad Person's crimes, both real and imagined
-If The Bad Person has been proven Bad, he or she must now be punished!
-Conclude with a call for mob fervor and righteous anger against the Witch!

Jezebel, Salon, FTB, Atheism+ and Skepchick all follow this format. But of course, you do see it from other social justice groups as well, including AVfM.

[James Caruthers]

Please. This is the person who claims to be leading atheism/skepticism because of his scientific credentials. NO. This sad little sack of dung is a fraud, a MAN who will be just whatever you wish him to. Got an infestation of creationists? Call Meyers. Having problems with folk who don't think that newborns are anything more than cockroaches? Call Meyers. Need a PhD to add weight to some bullshit advertisement? Cal Meyers.

DIE, PZ! YOU DON'T BELONG IN THIS WORLD!

[youtube]OMTizJemHO8[/youtube]

"What is a fetus? A miserable little pile of secrets!" -PZ Myers

[JacquesCuze]

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, MRAs are accurate in claiming that women commit domestic violence roughly as often as men do, but because that fact doesn't distinguish the severity of the violence, it is a misleading claim. That is what I was attempting to convey, but I now see I wasn't being as clear as I thought I was.

Well then show me some instances outside of reddit comments and blog comments where MRAs say women commit domestic violence as much as men do, but then do not acknowledge the severity of the injuries is higher. I have never seen an MRA deny that, and apart from impromptu blog comments, I don't think I've seen an MRA claim 1) women initiate as much as men do, without also stating that 2) male domestic violence against women is more severe.

If that happens it is very rare among the "serious" discussions of the issue, though I suspect that it is quite common for feminists to misrepresent MRA claims in that fashion.

As I 've said, you can see claims 1 & 2 in the leading MRA arguments by MRA leaders (Farrell, Sacks, etc.) and the academic studies about domestic violence should you choose to read them for at least a decade. Here is Glenn Sacks from 2001:

http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_a_2.htm

We agree on this: if you take only half the findings of those studies, it is misleading. My point: MRAs don't really do that. My observation is they report the entire thing.

I would also think that for most people in these discussions, "just as abusive" also means who initiates the domestic violence, not who ends up in the ER, but if you believe it means who incurs the most damage, I would say that you moved the goal posts.

Batman is not more abusive than Cat Woman but he is larger and punches harder.
Superman is not more abusive than Lex Luthor but he is larger and punches harder.

If Jane slaps her husband and John kicks his wife down a flight of stairs, I am comfortable in assuming that most people would with agree with me in calling John more abuse than Jane.

That men are larger than women and thus hit harder and do more damage hit for hit is not support for the claim that men are more abusive than women under the common understanding (though I can understand that meaning might be different for gamers.)

If you want to state that when men commit domestic violence women are more likely to be severely injured than vice-versa, no MRA will disagree with you. Yes, that is true.

Instances of minor to moderate violence between couples are typically not attempts at severe to fatal violence that simply failed due to lack of strength. Your argument might have some merit if it were the case that men and women engage in the exact same type of attacks but with differing results. But that is not the case. As the Jezebel article you linked to points out, women are more likely to engage in slapping and scratching while men are more likely to engage in punching and choking. Women are also more likely to be shot to death by their partner with a gun.

So you are misrepresenting the severity of the violence from women, and the techniques women use.

Read that Glenn Sacks column, it addresses all of this, and it is based on academic research, not your best guesses and not Jezebel's misrepresentations.
http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_a_2.htm

... the research on domestic violence overwhelmingly establishes that domestic assault is not a crime committed by men against women, but instead one committed by both men and women. By using weapons and the element of surprise, women are abusing their male partners as often as vice versa.

For example, veteran domestic violence researchers Richard Gelles, Murray Straus, and Susan Steinmetz, who were once hailed by the women's movement for their pioneering work on violence against women, have repeatedly found that women are just as likely as men to physically attack their spouses or partners.

Studies conducted by the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire in 1975, 1985, and 1992, found that abuse rates were equal between husbands and wives. In fact, the evidence suggests that abuse of wives by husbands is decreasing, while abuse of husbands by wives is increasing.

Cal State Long Beach professor Martin Fiebert has compiled and summarized 117 different studies with over 72,000 respondents that found that most domestic violence is mutual and, in the cases where there was only one abusive partner, that partner was as likely to be female as male.

Studies by researchers R.I. McNeeley and Coramae Richey Mann show that women are much more likely than men to use weapons and the element of surprise. These weapons often include guns, knives, boiling water, bricks, fireplace pokers and baseball bats.

Neither male nor female domestic violence can generally be dismissed as self-defense. According to Straus, for example, roughly 10 percent of women and 15 percent of men perpetuate partner abuse in self-defense. Dr. David Fontes, the director of Stop Abuse for Everyone (SAFE), has also found that only a small percentage of female abusers are acting in self-defense.

It is true, as crime statistics indicate, that women are more likely to suffer serious injury in domestic violence than men are. However, such statistics overstate the disparity because an abused woman is many times more likely to report abuse as an abused man. Many men hesitate to call the police because they assume, often correctly, that the police will automatically treat them as if they are the perpetrator....

http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_a_2.htm

The article continues and the entire thing is worth reading, but from here:

+ domestic violence is mutual
+ mutual domestic violence is exceedingly well documented
+ men hit more, but women are much more likely to use weapons. Weapons and surprise. And ruthless efficiency.
+ men report domestic violence as "abuse" much less often than women

[Skep tickle]

...might be worth the effort for me to go over to Patheos and put my oar in the water – so to speak. :-)

Well now that might be interesting :D
See below for maybe another oar-dipping possibility though it's now 2 weeks old....

But one thing I’ve kind of noticed in these debates, and which you kind of alluded to, is the rather poor knowledge many people have of “basic” biology; many seem unable or unwilling to comprehend that a fetus or zygote or embryo is a genetically distinct entity with all of the genetic attributes of a human being – hardly a wart on a woman’s body or parasite.

Yeah, apparently the going analogy as of PZ's prior post is that a fetus is "like poop". (Now it's "like tinder", but they haven't all caught up yet.)

This AM finally one of them on Twitter replied to my requests for leads to some "facts" that determine whether the prolife or prochoice position is correct - lol, after yesterday I got only pushback for claiming the argument was really about values. One of the pages the respondent pointed me to was this: http://freethoughtblogs.com/biodork/201 ... t-is-poop/ which seems to just be one part of PZ's desperately-faux-science comment rebutting any possibility of any secular pro-life position, expanded to fill her own blog post. Interestingly, Biodork allowed comments critical of her position (at least some of them); she may not have gotten the memo from PZ on that.

My comment back to the person who provided that as well as other suggestions of the 'facts' I sought, was this:

@WhyThaHeckNot Biodork's piece = quite bogus argument. The facts are: 1. Fetus = genetically unique organism at an early stage, capable of development into a unique autonomous human if allowed to develop in utero, and required for the reproduction of human species. 2. Poop has none of those characteristics. Nor do cells from the GI tract found in feces. Nor does any single cell taken from, and genetically identical to, a developed human organism. (Same principle applies to reproduction of many other species, and does NOT help determine whether or when it's ethical, moral, acceptable, etc to terminate an organism at fetal stage.)

I don't know why this should surprise me, but my twitter-colleague focused in on just one part of that:

@Ellesun sure, but genetically unique does not a person make.

Oh, zing. :roll:

I can well believe that for many women having an abortion is a serious crisis of conscience, and I certainly wouldn’t argue for any serious restriction on the right to have one. But I find the attitudes of many in the Secular Woman cohort to be rather abominable in their cavalier attitudes to human life – methinks well down the slippery slope into “useless eaters” territory.

They & their allies seem to be in favor of Roe v. Wade, which I find really interesting, because it does limit access to abortion (starting in 2nd trimester, and almost totally in 3rd trimester), which would seem to run counter to their position that it's women's-complete-and-total-autonomy-or-bust, guess political expediency of the type they deem correct takes precedence? I'm pretty sure this has been pointed out already.

I have tried asking point blank whether they agree w/ Roe v. Wade. No answer yet. ;)

And, finally, this denigration of fetuses to the level of poop 2 weeks ago and incinerator fuel more recently can't possibly fail to trigger at least a few people who have had pregnancies miscarry or result in stillbirth, or had failed infertility treatments, or had abortions. (Again, that has been pointed out before. I'm stunned at PZ's insensitivity, not only to "people" but one might imagine he might at least protect the women!

... (Oh, and Level 2 on the blockbot, ba ha ha.)

Humble-bragging again, eh? I only made it to level 3 (the least odious one if I'm not mistaken). ;-)

Oh Steers, surely that's just an oversight? You have given them so much to work with!

Kinda reminds me, I haven't heard/seen that much from oolon, nor anything from aratina, in months - is that just my good luck, or are they putting their energy onto different endeavors?

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Well, bugger my bum and call me Popeye.
So Radford's letter was all bullshit and I fell for it because I wanted to believe it.

Turns out I need to work harder at this skepticism lark.

I've been reading along, weighing all the evidence for both sides as best I can using sheer logic, reason and impeccable skepticism... and came to the conclusion that I don't really give a fuck about either of these people or who is in the right.

THIS! A THOUSAND TMES THIS!!!

[NalmAspestest]

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd24 ... d10cc3.jpg

Fuck off, spammer.

Love, Gumby

[Brive1987]

Translation: Brive pretty much rules. Very nice.

[Brive1987]

The line between offensive and obscene can be remarkably fine.

http://i.imgur.com/9pddluF.jpg

[Dick Strawkins]

Translation: Brive pretty much rules. Very nice.

Is it?

Are you sure it isn't more Manga recommendations?

[Brive1987]

How very un-postmodern of you.

:|

[Brive1987]

The line between offensive and obscene can be remarkably fine.

Just in case, I'm obviously referencing the gratuitous display of alcohol behind her here. ;)

[Kenteken]

It is pretty obvious that any rational attempt at debate or exchange of ideas is very narrowly defined at the SJW sites. Some subjects( the ones that the leading lights do not hold dear) are more open for discussion,but, your comments are being watched for deviance from the orthodoxy. Do not be perceived as a "dude-bro or a closet MRA you will be outed, shunned and eventually banned under the thinnest of reasons.
Free Thought indeed....

It's a dogma and by now they've admitted to it, if only unwittingly. Jason Thibeault chose to headline the Silverman Heresy with “Silverman's Darwin was wrong moment”, suggesting that their ideology is as bulletproof as the theory of evolution (incidentially im stuck writing on Silverman and dogma). It also has its “historical roots” in this comparison, since Pharyngula started out dealing with Creationists and over time, and with the move to FTB, they simply transported it to social justice. The lack of a rival belief system (as creationism is to evolution) was “fixed” by identifying the commenters on Abbie's blog as the new rival ideology (false). Some even had to “fix” this by literally assuming rival ideologies (heres where they claimed we were right wingers and whatnot). At some point they found MRA and conflated the two (though there are/were certainly a few overlaps). Even this dichotomy is today seen as a fact. To me MRAs as well as SJW are both in identity politics, and are fairly close to me. Anyhow, then some kind of electrolyse happened, and the colourful bunch went over to the emerging “slime pit” and the authoritarian greyfaces stayed at PZ's.

Once stuck with unfun and empathically-challenged authoritarians, and little good content, they had to explain away their failures by invoking misogyny everywhere. If something isn't working its always because of patriarchy, misogyny, old guards or a otherwise corrupt movement, and not — say — boring content, echo-chambers, stifling of debate in favour of a “this. so much this” support-and-dirty-confessions-culture.

And yes, the Safe Space is what was America was to McCarthy, or Christianity was to Inquisitors — a space where you must make symbolic gestures and postures in accordance to the ideology and painstakingly avoid appearing like a conspirator, someone who secretly supports the enemy. This matches perfectly with the idea that people otherwise feel hurt and thus their safe space must stay safe. The Nazis called this their Volkskörper (the body of the folk/the people) which must function and must be protected from subversive elements from inside, im their case the Jews. Note that the conspirators in turn don't belong to a cabal, but always to a powerful, enemy force outside the safe space — satan, the communist, the jewish elites and — surprise — the patriarchy. It matches just too well.

So.much.this.

[Dick Strawkins]

...might be worth the effort for me to go over to Patheos and put my oar in the water – so to speak. :-)

Well now that might be interesting :D
See below for maybe another oar-dipping possibility though it's now 2 weeks old....

But one thing I’ve kind of noticed in these debates, and which you kind of alluded to, is the rather poor knowledge many people have of “basic” biology; many seem unable or unwilling to comprehend that a fetus or zygote or embryo is a genetically distinct entity with all of the genetic attributes of a human being – hardly a wart on a woman’s body or parasite.

Yeah, apparently the going analogy as of PZ's prior post is that a fetus is "like poop". (Now it's "like tinder", but they haven't all caught up yet.)

This AM finally one of them on Twitter replied to my requests for leads to some "facts" that determine whether the prolife or prochoice position is correct - lol, after yesterday I got only pushback for claiming the argument was really about values. One of the pages the respondent pointed me to was this: http://freethoughtblogs.com/biodork/201 ... t-is-poop/ which seems to just be one part of PZ's desperately-faux-science comment rebutting any possibility of any secular pro-life position, expanded to fill her own blog post. Interestingly, Biodork allowed comments critical of her position (at least some of them); she may not have gotten the memo from PZ on that.

My comment back to the person who provided that as well as other suggestions of the 'facts' I sought, was this:

@WhyThaHeckNot Biodork's piece = quite bogus argument. The facts are: 1. Fetus = genetically unique organism at an early stage, capable of development into a unique autonomous human if allowed to develop in utero, and required for the reproduction of human species. 2. Poop has none of those characteristics. Nor do cells from the GI tract found in feces. Nor does any single cell taken from, and genetically identical to, a developed human organism. (Same principle applies to reproduction of many other species, and does NOT help determine whether or when it's ethical, moral, acceptable, etc to terminate an organism at fetal stage.)

I don't know why this should surprise me, but my twitter-colleague focused in on just one part of that:

@Ellesun sure, but genetically unique does not a person make.

Oh, zing. :roll:

I can well believe that for many women having an abortion is a serious crisis of conscience, and I certainly wouldn’t argue for any serious restriction on the right to have one. But I find the attitudes of many in the Secular Woman cohort to be rather abominable in their cavalier attitudes to human life – methinks well down the slippery slope into “useless eaters” territory.

They & their allies seem to be in favor of Roe v. Wade, which I find really interesting, because it does limit access to abortion (starting in 2nd trimester, and almost totally in 3rd trimester), which would seem to run counter to their position that it's women's-complete-and-total-autonomy-or-bust, guess political expediency of the type they deem correct takes precedence? I'm pretty sure this has been pointed out already.

I have tried asking point blank whether they agree w/ Roe v. Wade. No answer yet. ;)

And, finally, this denigration of fetuses to the level of poop 2 weeks ago and incinerator fuel more recently can't possibly fail to trigger at least a few people who have had pregnancies miscarry or result in stillbirth, or had failed infertility treatments, or had abortions. (Again, that has been pointed out before. I'm stunned at PZ's insensitivity, not only to "people" but one might imagine he might at least protect the women!

... (Oh, and Level 2 on the blockbot, ba ha ha.)

Humble-bragging again, eh? I only made it to level 3 (the least odious one if I'm not mistaken). ;-)

Oh Steers, surely that's just an oversight? You have given them so much to work with!

Kinda reminds me, I haven't heard/seen that much from oolon, nor anything from aratina, in months - is that just my good luck, or are they putting their energy onto different endeavors?

I think I've mentioned the Roe v Wade dilemma previously.
As you suggest, the part of that court decision that restricts late term abortions is based on principles (that a viable fetus should be accorded some rights) that are strongly opposed by the Social Justice League.
They try to handwave all objections away by saying 'bodily autonomy' as if these are two magic words that can defeat all arguments.
But you can accept bodily autonomy and still accord some rights to a fetus - just less rights than the pregnant woman.
A woman who is 9 months pregnant can assert bodily autonomy and insist that the fetus be removed.
I don't see a good objection to that (she may, for example, be absolutely terrified of dying during childbirth.)
But we can also suggest that a 9 month healthy fetus - who, lets face it, is already older than the majority of twin births - may be accorded some rights in this situation too - namely the right to be delivered alive and treated with care afterwards.
At that stage in the pregnancy the physical act of removing the fetus from her womb is going to be traumatic whether it is done as an abortion or a birth - and arguably it is less physically traumatic as a viable birth.
Of course if the woman is terrified of the pain of childbirth then a C-section might be best - but in that case why kill the fetus?
Obviously medical emergencies will affect our calculus and in these cases in the rights of the pregnant woman are, for all intents and purposes, the only ones we are concerned about.

I wonder what the response would be to an article setting out a secular case against Roe v Wade, from a SJL perspective.
In other words making the case that Roe v Wade should be overturned for the simple reason that because it fails to give enough weight to the bodily autonomy position that our Social Justice Warrior friends love so much.

[Tony Parsehole]

Time for some debate: where would Pitters like to see the line drawn?

My position at time of print: "If it's legal it should be allowed"

[Tony Parsehole]

The line between offensive and obscene can be remarkably fine.

http://i.imgur.com/9pddluF.jpg

Is this a deleted scene from No Country For Old Men?

[Steersman]

<snip>
They & their allies seem to be in favor of Roe v. Wade, which I find really interesting, because it does limit access to abortion (starting in 2nd trimester, and almost totally in 3rd trimester), which would seem to run counter to their position that it's women's-complete-and-total-autonomy-or-bust, guess political expediency of the type they deem correct takes precedence? I'm pretty sure this has been pointed out already.

I have tried asking point blank whether they agree w/ Roe v. Wade. No answer yet. ;)

I think I've mentioned the Roe v Wade dilemma previously. As you suggest, the part of that court decision that restricts late term abortions is based on principles (that a viable fetus should be accorded some rights) that are strongly opposed by the Social Justice League.

They try to handwave all objections away by saying 'bodily autonomy' as if these are two magic words that can defeat all arguments.
<snip>

I wonder what the response would be to an article setting out a secular case against Roe v Wade, from a SJL perspective. In other words making the case that Roe v Wade should be overturned for the simple reason that because it fails to give enough weight to the bodily autonomy position that our Social Justice Warrior friends love so much.

I’ve asked that question, more or less, several times – here, and here, and most recently here on Adam Lee’s blog. But as he has apparently just deleted it – it was briefly “awaiting moderation” – here it is again for posterity:

Adam:

We wouldn’t have the right to call ourselves freethinkers if we decreed a set of Approved Opinions for all members to adhere to; only religions do that sort of thing.

Only religions? Sure seems a great many blogs on the FTB network engage in that to a rather extensive degree. You may wish to peruse the Salon article on the related concept of Internet Silos.

There’s a common thread that runs between all the intolerable arguments, and it’s that they disparage or deny the fundamental equality of some group of human beings.

Indeed. And while I should emphasize that I’m decidedly pro-choice, one might suggest that that rubric encompasses many who would apparently still deny the “fundamental equality of some group of human beings” – i.e., fetuses, the denial of which seems to qualify as some serious question begging, at best.

The right to reproductive choice stems from the principle of bodily autonomy, the idea that we own our own bodies and can do with them as we wish. I can’t force you to give a kidney or a lung to me ....

Methinks far too many are making that “principle of bodily autonomy” into an absolute when the facts rather clearly indicate that it is no such thing in a great many areas of society. For instance:

That decision [Roe vs. Wade] was modified by the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld the "central holding" in Roe, but replacing the trimester system with the point of fetal viability (whenever it may occur) as defining a state's right to override the woman's autonomy.

You know whether, for instance, Secular Woman has a plan afoot to repeal that law?

You also said in a comment:

Yes, I agree. A fetus has the same right to life as any other human being - a right which notably does not grant you permission to parasitize someone else's body against their will.

Apart from the loaded word “parasitize”, one might question your scale of values that apparently deems the fetus’ “right to life” – which I’m happy to see you acknowledge is in fact a human being – as being of less importance than a woman’s convenience. What’s next? You all will decide that the convenience of the able-bodied in society is of more importance than the lives of the infirm, the aged, and the mentally handicapped in various institutions?

What an A-class dickhead.

[Linus]

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, MRAs are accurate in claiming that women commit domestic violence roughly as often as men do, but because that fact doesn't distinguish the severity of the violence, it is a misleading claim. That is what I was attempting to convey, but I now see I wasn't being as clear as I thought I was.

Well then show me some instances outside of reddit comments and blog comments where MRAs say women commit domestic violence as much as men do, but then do not acknowledge the severity of the injuries is higher. I have never seen an MRA deny that, and apart from impromptu blog comments, I don't think I've seen an MRA claim 1) women initiate as much as men do, without also stating that 2) male domestic violence against women is more severe.

As I 've said, you can see claims 1 & 2 in the leading MRA arguments by MRA leaders (Farrell, Sacks, etc.) and the academic studies about domestic violence should you choose to read them for at least a decade. Here is Glenn Sacks from 2001:

http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_a_2.htm

We agree on this: if you take only half the findings of those studies, it is misleading. My point: MRAs don't really do that. My observation is they report the entire thing.

I never claimed anyone denied it. I claimed that statements such as "Women commit domestic violence as often as men do" or "Women are just as violent/abusive as men in romantic relationships" are misleading or false. I've seen #1 claimed often enough without #2 to be comfortable with the statement I made. Which merely referred to "some MRAs". Don't take that as some sort of attack on MRAs in general.

I have minor nitpick with your wording also in saying that "male domestic violence against women is more severe". I think it's more accurate to word it "males are more likely to commit severe domestic violence against women" than "male domestic violence against women is more severe". Because males are still at least as likely as females are to commit minor/non-severe acts of domestic violence.

I would also think that for most people in these discussions, "just as abusive" also means who initiates the domestic violence, not who ends up in the ER, but if you believe it means who incurs the most damage, I would say that you moved the goal posts.

Batman is not more abusive than Cat Woman but he is larger and punches harder.
Superman is not more abusive than Lex Luthor but he is larger and punches harder.

If Jane slaps her husband and John kicks his wife down a flight of stairs, I am comfortable in assuming that most people would with agree with me in calling John more abuse than Jane.

That men are larger than women and thus hit harder and do more damage hit for hit is not support for the claim that men are more abusive than women under the common understanding (though I can understand that meaning might be different for gamers.)

If you want to state that when men commit domestic violence women are more likely to be severely injured than vice-versa, no MRA will disagree with you. Yes, that is true.

Instances of minor to moderate violence between couples are typically not attempts at severe to fatal violence that simply failed due to lack of strength. Your argument might have some merit if it were the case that men and women engage in the exact same type of attacks but with differing results. But that is not the case. As the Jezebel article you linked to points out, women are more likely to engage in slapping and scratching while men are more likely to engage in punching and choking. Women are also more likely to be shot to death by their partner with a gun.

So you are misrepresenting the severity of the violence from women, and the techniques women use.

Read that Glenn Sacks column, it addresses all of this, and it is based on academic research, not your best guesses and not Jezebel's misrepresentations.
http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_a_2.htm

... the research on domestic violence overwhelmingly establishes that domestic assault is not a crime committed by men against women, but instead one committed by both men and women. By using weapons and the element of surprise, women are abusing their male partners as often as vice versa.

For example, veteran domestic violence researchers Richard Gelles, Murray Straus, and Susan Steinmetz, who were once hailed by the women's movement for their pioneering work on violence against women, have repeatedly found that women are just as likely as men to physically attack their spouses or partners.

Studies conducted by the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire in 1975, 1985, and 1992, found that abuse rates were equal between husbands and wives. In fact, the evidence suggests that abuse of wives by husbands is decreasing, while abuse of husbands by wives is increasing.

Cal State Long Beach professor Martin Fiebert has compiled and summarized 117 different studies with over 72,000 respondents that found that most domestic violence is mutual and, in the cases where there was only one abusive partner, that partner was as likely to be female as male.

Studies by researchers R.I. McNeeley and Coramae Richey Mann show that women are much more likely than men to use weapons and the element of surprise. These weapons often include guns, knives, boiling water, bricks, fireplace pokers and baseball bats.

Neither male nor female domestic violence can generally be dismissed as self-defense. According to Straus, for example, roughly 10 percent of women and 15 percent of men perpetuate partner abuse in self-defense. Dr. David Fontes, the director of Stop Abuse for Everyone (SAFE), has also found that only a small percentage of female abusers are acting in self-defense.

It is true, as crime statistics indicate, that women are more likely to suffer serious injury in domestic violence than men are. However, such statistics overstate the disparity because an abused woman is many times more likely to report abuse as an abused man. Many men hesitate to call the police because they assume, often correctly, that the police will automatically treat them as if they are the perpetrator....

http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_a_2.htm

The article continues and the entire thing is worth reading, but from here:

+ domestic violence is mutual
+ mutual domestic violence is exceedingly well documented
+ men hit more, but women are much more likely to use weapons. Weapons and surprise. And ruthless efficiency.
+ men report domestic violence as "abuse" much less often than women

I'm not stating guesses. I've actually read some of the research on this stuff and I put more stock in it than anything written by bloggers or writers for sites like Jezebel. That G. Sacks blog doesn't even provide citations for the studies it mentions. I do agree with Sacks that domestic violence is a two way straight and female-on-male violence should be taken seriously. But the fact still remains that men are more abusive in intimate relationships than women are. It's not a fact that needs to be treated as important, but it is a fact that there is no harm in acknowledging.

[Dick Strawkins]

Scroll on by if you're sick to death of, or bored to tears with, abortion arguments.

I don't know why I feel compelled to start off w/ disclaimer that I'm prochoice, and I have some personal as well as professional experience with abortion. But, really, that shouldn't matter (IMO).

Adam Lee has one of the more frank pieces I've seen about #UpForDebate, at Patheos here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightat ... community/

snip---

It's definitely better written than the majority of SJW pieces on this question, but it makes almost the same arguments.

As you mentioned, you cannot compare a developing fetus with an organ transplant. We accord no rights to an organ but most people (aside from SJWs) seem to accord a sliding scale of rights to a fetus - very little rights in the first trimester, more rights but still far less than the pregnant woman in the second, and rights approaching (although never reaching) that of a newborn baby as it gets close to full term.

But it's his point about which arguments should be automatically disallowed that I wanted to comment on.

There’s a common thread that runs between all the intolerable arguments, and it’s that they disparage or deny the fundamental equality of some group of human beings. In the secular community, it ought to be an uncontroversial moral principle that all people possess the same rights and freedoms. We don’t tolerate exceptions to this rule, nor should we.

And abortion should be recognized as belonging to that same category of fundamental equality. The right to reproductive choice stems from the principle of bodily autonomy, the idea that we own our own bodies and can do with them as we wish. I can’t force you to give a kidney or a lung to me, even if you’re the only compatible donor and I’ll die without one. The idea of coerced organ harvesting from unwilling people shocks the conscience, as it should. Why should a uterus be treated any differently? Why should this otherwise uncontroversial idea be suddenly open to debate when a woman becomes pregnant?

In other words we should aim to treat all people equally and make sure we do not deny the fundamental equality of some group of human beings.
But isn't that exactly the stance that many anti-abortion people take?
They regard the pro-abortion side as denying the fundamental right (to life) of a group of human beings (namely the unborn.)

I don't agree with the anti-abortion crowd for reasons I've stated previously (I don't accord an early stage embryo with the same rights as a person), but I can recognize that they do have a logical argument and one that is worth debating - even for the reason of helping moderate people on the sidelines (rather than the anti-choicers) be more certain of why they should be more supportive of pro-choice policies.

I've also seen a comparison made, in some SJW pieces, between slavery and the abortion question.
We don't debate slavery these days so why should we debate abortion rights?
They are both in the same category of things #notupfordebate right?

In a way they are.
However, imagine you are having the slavery debate not now, but in 1860 in the US.
Some parts of the country think slavery is detestable and should be banned.
Other parts think it is perfectly fine and the majority of the population support it.

Isn't that similar to how abortion is considered worldwide?
In many countries the majority of the population do consider abortion to be completely unacceptable in all but the most extreme emergency cases.In other countries they are fine with abortion on demand.

What happens when we draw a line on the sand and say:

"That's it. The abortion question is answered. Not further debate is necessary."

OK, it may be fine for those living in places where abortion is available, but what about women in Ireland, Poland, The Philippines?

Are abortion rights #notupfordebate for women in those countries? :think:

[JacquesCuze]

You can find many of Glenn Sacks' sources here at his source page:

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?page_id=1000

[DownThunder]

I think I've mentioned the Roe v Wade dilemma previously.
As you suggest, the part of that court decision that restricts late term abortions is based on principles (that a viable fetus should be accorded some rights) that are strongly opposed by the Social Justice League.
They try to handwave all objections away by saying 'bodily autonomy' as if these are two magic words that can defeat all arguments.
But you can accept bodily autonomy and still accord some rights to a fetus - just less rights than the pregnant woman.
A woman who is 9 months pregnant can assert bodily autonomy and insist that the fetus be removed.
I don't see a good objection to that (she may, for example, be absolutely terrified of dying during childbirth.)
But we can also suggest that a 9 month healthy fetus - who, lets face it, is already older than the majority of twin births - may be accorded some rights in this situation too - namely the right to be delivered alive and treated with care afterwards.
At that stage in the pregnancy the physical act of removing the fetus from her womb is going to be traumatic whether it is done as an abortion or a birth - and arguably it is less physically traumatic as a viable birth.
Of course if the woman is terrified of the pain of childbirth then a C-section might be best - but in that case why kill the fetus?
Obviously medical emergencies will affect our calculus and in these cases in the rights of the pregnant woman are, for all intents and purposes, the only ones we are concerned about.

I wonder what the response would be to an article setting out a secular case against Roe v Wade, from a SJL perspective.
In other words making the case that Roe v Wade should be overturned for the simple reason that because it fails to give enough weight to the bodily autonomy position that our Social Justice Warrior friends love so much.

The hardline SJW stance of abortion at any pre birth stage is reminding me of the life of brian sketch with loretta. Namely that rights are often meaningless, ineffectual and even comedic when they are not simultaneously considered with practical implications for the reality of the situation.

If a woman has let another entity grow within her for ~9 months, then even if she is afforded the absolute unwavering right to an abortion, there are few reasonable ways in which she can be returned to a non-pregnant state, even fewer which are safe. All the rights in the world cannot magically will away a foetus from inside of her. These real options, as you say, open the possibility for the foetus to remain alive.

The hardline stance has raised a few disturbing thoughts for me. If you consider an abortion to be removing the consequences of becoming pregnant, you must define what "consequences" are. I think most people would regard the death of a foetus, especially a late term one as an unfortunate side effect of freeing yourself from the consequences of pregnancy.

However, the thought has occurred to me that there are people who consider the continued survival of the foetus growing into a child, to be an ongoing consequence. One that may affect them in later life, and so a loose end that must be addressed.

A disturbing thought, however in the context of people who use terms like "parasite" to describe unborns, people who openly espouse anti-natalism, hell, even use terms like human privilege....I don't think my concern is too outlandish.

[Linus]

You can find many of Glenn Sacks' sources here at his source page:

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?page_id=1000

Okay, I'll take a look tomorrow.

[Dobby]

[quote="DeepInsideYourMind"

Bunkum ... *anything* that happens can be brought up as evidence ...

"Here's our discussions in which she admits she made it up"

"Here is her partner agreeing that Karen has agreed this"

"Here are her twitter comments where she changes her mind"

etc etc


Nothing in pre-trial negotiations is confidential[/quote]

You *might* have been right if the lawsuit itself was about this Stollznow agreed to enter into some sort of contract. But on the issues of this case? Totally inadmissible.

Unless you care to show me that this case was brought in a jurisdiction where the equivalent of Federal Rule of Evidence 408 http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_408 is not in effect.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Yes we are the Trotsky to their Stalin.

Cue photoshop of Laden putting an ice pick through his own foot.

Some of us would prefer a Trotsky free zone. If only to protect our vegan cupcakes.

[AnonymousCowherd]

So let me get this right, if one of them puts you to the block bot,all of them by proxy put in a complaint against you....even if you never contacted them before.
Twitter allows this?

You ARE new here, aren't you.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Scroll on by if you're sick to death of, or bored to tears with, abortion arguments.

I don't know why I feel compelled to start off w/ disclaimer that I'm prochoice, and I have some personal as well as professional experience with abortion. But, really, that shouldn't matter (IMO).

Adam Lee has one of the more frank pieces I've seen about #UpForDebate, at Patheos here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightat ... community/

I disagree with his bottom line conclusion, which seems to be the same as Secular Woman though he works his way toward it a little better IMO. It seems to boil down to: STFU about any possibility of any value of the fetus, because those rabid rightwingers are making headway in curtailing access to abortion. Though he does also allow for "refuting" (as opposed to "debating"), which I think is great - go ahead people, refute away, make your best arguments, let's hear 'em.

Here's what I found refreshing about his piece (given the closedmindedness from Secular Woman, for example):

The secular community has always been defined by debate and persuasion, and it’s right that it should be. We wouldn’t have the right to call ourselves freethinkers if we decreed a set of Approved Opinions for all members to adhere to; only religions do that sort of thing. There are legitimate debates to be had: about, say, the moral case for vegetarianism, or the wisdom of gun ownership, or the advisability of human cloning, or the diplomats vs. firebrands question of how to do political activism. And yes, there’s even room for debate about what there should be debate about.

Unfortunately, it starts to fall apart in the next paragraph (bolding added by me):

But at the same time, there are some questions that are clearly outside the bounds of legitimate discussion. <strawy examples of arguing against racial desegregation; marriage equality; women's right to vote> If anyone in our community advocated anything like this, there’d be a furious outcry, and no one would accept the disingenuous “but I was just playing devil’s advocate” defense.

What determines which is which? There’s a common thread that runs between all the intolerable arguments, and it’s that they disparage or deny the fundamental equality of some group of human beings. In the secular community, it ought to be an uncontroversial moral principle that all people possess the same rights and freedoms. We don’t tolerate exceptions to this rule, nor should we.

And abortion should be recognized as belonging to that same category of fundamental equality.

Okay, so let's stop there for a moment. Do they truly not see that reasonable people, as well as rabid "anti-choice" activists, could ALSO say that they're in favor of "fundamental equality of some group of human beings" as an "uncontroversial moral principle" yet come to a very different conclusion? That it simply depends where you draw the line as to "human being" or "person"? Are their blinders really so askew?

Lee goes on:

The right to reproductive choice stems from the principle of bodily autonomy, the idea that we own our own bodies and can do with them as we wish. I can’t force you to give a kidney or a lung to me, even if you’re the only compatible donor and I’ll die without one. The idea of coerced organ harvesting from unwilling people shocks the conscience, as it should. Why should a uterus be treated any differently? Why should this otherwise uncontroversial idea be suddenly open to debate when a woman becomes pregnant?

Uh, because abortion isn't the same as harvesting an organ? An organ wouldn't develop into an autonomous person if left in place? Besides which, the analogy they're drawing is between being forced to have something done to you (that by omission might affect another person), and being restricted from having something done to you (that by commission would definitely affect another person, IF you think a fetus reasonably counts as a person)?

He goes on:

What makes this especially infuriating to women and other uterus-havers is when issues of justice that affect their lives every day are treated like an idle thought experiment of no real-world consequence.

Oh. Grrr. Go ahead & lump all "women" (not to mention "and other uterus-havers") together as a group that all share that One Opinion - The Secular Woman Approved Opinion? - on this.

Besides which, many women thinking about abortion weigh the same considerations. Even for those who decide quickly & readily to have an abortion, it's from the viewpoint of knowing that if they don't, the pregnancy will end up turning out a real, live child. (Barring unforeseen events like miscarriage, etc.) Thinking of the fetus in utero as the series of steps before that real, live child is not an idle thought experiment.

Again, pointless caveat that I'm prochoice, why do I even bother saying it when to Secular Woman/FTB/etc I am Devil's spawn as are we all here. :roll: (Oh, and Level 2 on the blockbot, ba ha ha.)

The problem is not confined to abortion. For "rationalists" the preferred way to settle a dispute is, in theory, by rational debate and argument. But that assumes that the other side will also accept rational argument, and that the rationalist themself is prepared to follow their own argument to its logical conclusion - however unpalatable that may be.

But in practice, once one side says "nuh, not gonna be sensible" the strategy collapses and the urge is to reach for the baseball bat ( or something worse) to drive home the point. When the other side has a bigger baseball bat, the options get limited and it appears the preferred one is to discipline the troops and wait for a better time.

As for following the argument through, Singer has been cited as someone who will do this, despite the outcome being unattractive to most. Even non-SJWs can baulk at it. That says there is a limit to what rationality can decide, at least in the area of moral choice. To me, that means we just have to work things out on a case by case basis as best we can, without regard to grand ideological prejudices. That's where the SJWS come unstuck and those who prefer to "muddle through" are more, to my mind, humane.

These people talk as if they are running a political party and preparing for an election, so close ranks and cut the chatter.

No, thanks.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Jesus Christ on a stick...The pit could photo shop dildos coming out of every orifice of me and I would laugh.

Who is saying we would use photo shop?

You guys didn't take over my web cam did you!?!?!?

No. It's far worse than that.

[Gumby]

Anyway, secondly, the sick fuck found some bizarre way to humiliate a person who had undergone some pretty fucking serious cranial surgery. This unfortunate person had a chronic disease which causes her skull to thicken continuously through adulthood, leading to increased pressure on the brain. Part of their skull was cut out, and replaced with a transparent plastic molding. Rather than walk around with their brain visible for all to gawk at, this person elected to have their scalp replaced over the top of the implant. Meyers's take on this subject? Totally cuntish, of course:

It was made out of transparent plastic. Now the doctors, of course, covered it up with her scalp and neatly stitched it all together so you can’t even see a scar anymore, but I was thinking, if I had it done, the best thing would be to simply remove all that skin and have my brain pulsing beneath a transparent dome. I’d even pay extra to have some LEDs inserted in patterns in the plastic. Can you imagine how cool it would be to teach neurobiology with your brain hanging out, decorated with little blinking lights?

Maybe someday. A guy can dream.

Myers is closer to his 'dream' than he realizes.

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd24 ... 165ced.png

[windy]

And yes, the Safe Space is what was America was to McCarthy, or Christianity was to Inquisitors — a space where you must make symbolic gestures and postures in accordance to the ideology and painstakingly avoid appearing like a conspirator, someone who secretly supports the enemy. This matches perfectly with the idea that people otherwise feel hurt and thus their safe space must stay safe. The Nazis called this their Volkskörper (the body of the folk/the people) which must function and must be protected from subversive elements from inside, im their case the Jews. Note that the conspirators in turn don't belong to a cabal, but always to a powerful, enemy force outside the safe space — satan, the communist, the jewish elites and — surprise — the patriarchy. It matches just too well.

Speaking of that, irony overload:

revolution.png

(37.66 KiB) Downloaded 306 times

Nice analysis, but has this person ever read the blog they're commenting on? :bjarte:

[James Caruthers]

Hahaha, I posted about that around 10 pages ago, Windy. Al Dente is just... Wow, that's an impressive level of blindness.

The word is "patriarchy" for the SJWs, by the way. ;)

[windy]

10 pages ago?! Goddamnit. That's like getting ninja'd by the geriatric ninja from Samurai Fiction.

http://vintageninja.net/wp-content/uplo ... csuppa.jpg

[DeepInsideYourMind]

[quote="DeepInsideYourMind"

Bunkum ... *anything* that happens can be brought up as evidence ...

"Here's our discussions in which she admits she made it up"

"Here is her partner agreeing that Karen has agreed this"

"Here are her twitter comments where she changes her mind"

etc etc


Nothing in pre-trial negotiations is confidential

You *might* have been right if the lawsuit itself was about this Stollznow agreed to enter into some sort of contract. But on the issues of this case? Totally inadmissible.

Unless you care to show me that this case was brought in a jurisdiction where the equivalent of Federal Rule of Evidence 408 http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_408 is not in effect.[/quote]

Reading further would bring you to : The practical value of the common law rule has been greatly diminished by its inapplicability to admissions of fact, even though made in the course of compromise negotiations, unless hypothetical, stated to be “without prejudice,” or so connected with the offer as to be inseparable from it.


So unless Baxter and Karen put "without prejudice" on every email and communication ... they are admissible as evidence of admissions of facts in the case ... "No that didn't happen" "Yes I used the wrong phrase" etc etc ... which is pretty much what the "agreed" statement said (and therefore the prior communications must have said)

[zenbabe]

My reaction to a slimepit meme being introduced to a group set up to support some of the people targeted with their memes? I admit, it creeped me out. Still, to the best of my recollection, my response was “Don’t do that here.” Then there was a discussion in which others sympathized with the fact that she wasn’t being heard in the Pharyngula thread. I was coping with other things, including being creeped out, on my own where she didn’t have to deal with them too. Then she sat back and watched social media for a few days.

I don't understand the entirety of that last paragraph.

Here's the way I read it. At some point, a support group was set up specifically for people who had been "attacked" by pitters. This Ellen person, upon feeling attacked or ignored or what have you at PZ 's place, went to the support group for support. They determined that her concern was not sufficiently different from a familiar "slimepite meme" that asserts that unpopular opinions are always attacked/ignored/what have you at PZ's place.

In other words her complaint sounded like a meme that came from the pit, which would have been bad enough on it's own, but was made more egregious being said in a supposed safe-space. That was just too much for the other one to handle.

Thank you.
I think you can only make that interpretation if you already know what the Svanatee is talking about though.
But, as I've said before about her communication style, it's good for one very important thing, and that is to lend so much confusion about her meaning that it can mean anything she wants it to mean at any point in time.

And as to being tossed onto the Block Bot and suspended, welcome to the club :)
I was thrown on there at level 2 when I'd made about five posts here and perhaps two tweets (I'm making up numbers but it was back at the beginning), had found a handful of pitters to follow and had been followed by one other who is on the bot. So there I was, all shiny and new, and suspended within the first couple of days on Twitter. Oh, and I wear the label of being an abuser. Which is just..... a stomach churning joke.

[Scented Nectar]

I gotta say... I don't think Clarence really did any bragging about how often he has had sex or how many partners he has had. He did share a few details of some past exploits... but it was a pretty average sort of description. As I recall he got spanked by someone and had a good time with a 19 year old "cutie". This was about the extent of what he wrote. I don't think he said he had a giant and constantly throbbing jones that could split diamonds... or anything like that...

Maybe bragging isn't the best word. But I'm not sure how to word it better.

"Over-sharing" perhaps?

Over-sharing in an attempt to impress. Or so it seems to me. I'm not a mind reader so this is opinion rather than a statement of fact, but that's how I perceive him most of the time. Usually I say nothing but yesterday, his begging to share his underaged-looking pictures caused me to lose my cool (to use an old expression).

[guest]

The line between offensive and obscene can be remarkably fine.

Just in case, I'm obviously referencing the gratuitous display of alcohol behind her here. ;)

Watson did mention on Twitter . Surprized?

Rebecca Watson ‏@rebeccawatson Mar 21
Waiting for my producer to set up today's YT video shoot. Passing time with this prop bottle of red wine. This should go well.

Well, a functional prop. RT @BillKossmann: Just a prop? Bummer.

[Gumby]

Oh crap I remember that now. Some of the Twitter-PTSD SJW crowd set up some sort of chatroom or backchannel so they could sob about how people (not just pitters ) were meanies to them. EllenBeth went there for 'support' and was promptly attacked by the others for some supposed infraction. This is when EllenBeth first realized that hey, the opponents of these perpetually butthurt morons just might have a point. Dick "I don't memorize the internet, I AM the internet" Strawkins might have some links. EllenBeth discusses it at length in her "my cats are my gods" blog.

[guest]

It's also still a possibilty, and a likely one at that, that Karen Stollznows accounts were generally correct. I am still mostly unsure about this issue, as the information we have isn't good enough, but the remaining bit leans towards believing her, still.

+++ speculation +++
I think she had something going with Radford, and said that she was shy and liked the attention. I know only bits and pieces, but we don't know from her how far their romance went. Only Radford claims they were lovers (is this correct?). Its likely they had an affair or something, perhaps nothing serious or long from her point of view. It ended either before Baxter entered the picture or with him. There seems to be not an awful lot of time, so my bets are, she liked Baxter better but it was not known.

Ben increased his efforts, Karen tried to bring across that he should let it go but wanted to maintain a “lets be friends/colleagues” status quo. Ben didn't get it or didn't want to and perhaps felt the needed to double his efforts because of Baxter. It escalated a few times but it must have been “restorable” otherwise it would have blown up then. Relationships can be a mess. She seems to have forgiven his transgressions somewhat, but Radford was so to speak already in debt with her. At some point there was a last straw and she went to the powers that be, and put previous issues on the table as well. The cases where either not as severe to third persons as she thought they would be, or it could not be substantiated. A lot of emotional stress you have all the time can be invisible and the incident was just a 5 minute confrontation. Only the 5 minutes are then actionable, not day in and day out of anger and frustration. So Radford got a slap on the wrist and everyone else left unsatisfied, it burned money and sucked away motivation and they were pissed at Karen because of all the hassle for little or nothing (from their perspective).

She felt the unfairness of this and was angry and was encouraged when others spoke out, and wrote that piece without naming him. But that one was screwed up by PZ Myers and the SJW hordes who feast on such things and who wanted to instrumentalize it. Then Radford felt his reputation was damaged and knew that its going to be tough for Karen to prove this. Eventually he went ahead to court to protect his reputation and because he knew how the evidence is.

Then we have the “joint statement” where I wrote that its unconvincing if released only by one side. Well. But what I now find rather puzzling that two men who courted the same women negotiate and draft documents and not beat each other up. Weird.

in a time where hysteria & finger pointing & humblebragging about who's the winner in a opression olympics of skepchick attention seeking for most hurt feelings & who most suffered sexism and chill-girl attacks,

your theoretical "decision of Stollznow's to stand up for herself against Radford's being a creepy dick" couldn't be worse timed.

[Gumby]

So let me get this right, if one of them puts you to the block bot,all of them by proxy put in a complaint against you....even if you never contacted them before.
Twitter allows this?

You ARE new here, aren't you.

Just wait until we tell him about what happened on the elevator! MIND. BLOWN.

[Scented Nectar]

Twitter account was suspended suddenly, presumably because my account was blocked and/or flagged as spam by multiple people in a short time span. I haven't really tweeted very much at all, and certainly nothing coming close to violating any terms. All I had to do was agree not to misbehave anymore and my account was re-activated, at which point I saw some references to BlockBot and found my account had been added to the list.

As I recall what happens when you get added to the blockbot, all the people who subscribe to it automatically block you and report you for spam with the end resuly being you get suspended (or something like that).

So, to protect my twatter account I blocked certain users including the blockbot account. Here is my list of blocked accounts (no special criteria beyond being a waste of oxygen till I got to over 20) :

Blocked By Me » your blocked users_20130829-221012.png

It just seems like such a toxic environment, and I pity these people for not having the simple courage to expose themselves to a range of ideas and opinions.

I believe the way it works for these people is something like this:

- I am a good person. I do good things and think good thoughts.
- if someone else is a good person they will agree with me.

- I as a good person have a moral duty to kill the bad persons.
- If someone disagrees with me they can only be a bad person and must be killed.

Something like that anyway.

In the screencap you posted, Zinnia Jones bemoans the fact that she can't go out without a bra like she used to (when she was a man, I assume). I wonder, who is forcing her to wear one now, other than herself? I guess self oppression counts in the oppression olympics.

[Scented Nectar]

"Over-sharing" perhaps?

How about "lying"?

We'll never know for sure. Well, short of truth serum and a polygraph machine. :D

[Southern]

"Over-sharing" perhaps?

How about "lying"?

We'll never know for sure. Well, short of truth serum and a polygraph machine. :D

[youtube]N-TZ8Z5S9rI[/youtube]

[zenbabe]

Scroll on by if you're sick to death of, or bored to tears with, abortion arguments.

I don't know why I feel compelled to start off w/ disclaimer that I'm prochoice, and I have some personal as well as professional experience with abortion. But, really, that shouldn't matter (IMO).
massive snip

Always appreciate your posts, Skeptickle.

What's particularly maddening about the Secular Woman's statement about abortion is that it's so extreme it forces those of us who are pro-choice to defend ourselves as pro-choicers, even to feel compelled to share personal details that we shouldn't have to share just to defend our position. It reminds me of the "no harassment" policies they wanted in place at conferences, and the accusation that went right along with it that said "anyone who is against us is privileged because they haven't been raped!". It forced a few people to say "uh, I've been raped and I still think this is bullshit". Why should anyone ever have to reveal something like that just to have a chance at having a different opinion being acknowledged by them?

The cherry on top of the Orwellian sundae is that the different opinion is NEVER acknowledged by them, regardless of how much those opposed might share about their own lives and reasons for disagreeing. The lived experience of anyone in opposition to them is dismissed and ignored, and often reframed to mean something it doesn't.

Feh!

[Parody Accountant]

I'm glad we got you back. :) Now I wonder what's with the Service Dog, kinda reminds me of him.

Thanks! Yeah. I love this place.

Service Dog was so delightfully bizarre with his imagery. He photoshopped with MSPAINT or something, but he pulled it off like a motherfucker.

[Dick Strawkins]

Oh crap I remember that now. Some of the Twitter-PTSD SJW crowd set up some sort of chatroom or backchannel so they could sob about how people (not just pitters ) were meanies to them. EllenBeth went there for 'support' and was promptly attacked by the others for some supposed infraction. This is when EllenBeth first realized that hey, the opponents of these perpetually butthurt morons just might have a point. Dick "I don't memorize the internet, I AM the internet" Strawkins might have some links. EllenBeth discusses it at length in her "my cats are my gods" blog.

Her blog posts around that time are probably the best sources.

http://mycatsaremygods.com/2013/06/16/i ... lar-woman/

[Gumby]

Thanks Strawkins. I'm on my phone so researching links is a major hassle.

[Parody Accountant]

He typed that URL from memory.

[zenbabe]

He typed that URL from memory.

:lol:
It's funny cuz it's probably true

[Brive1987]

The line between offensive and obscene can be remarkably fine.

Just in case, I'm obviously referencing the gratuitous display of alcohol behind her here. ;)

Watson did mention on Twitter . Surprized?

Rebecca Watson ‏@rebeccawatson Mar 21
Waiting for my producer to set up today's YT video shoot. Passing time with this prop bottle of red wine. This should go well.

Well, a functional prop. RT @BillKossmann: Just a prop? Bummer.

LOL

But it may not be the same one ....

"Delivery for a Ms Watson"

http://i.imgur.com/rYEOQF0.jpg

[CuntajusRationality]

So let me get this right, if one of them puts you to the block bot,all of them by proxy put in a complaint against you....even if you never contacted them before.
Twitter allows this?

You ARE new here, aren't you.

Just wait until we tell him about what happened on the elevator! MIND. BLOWN.

I assume it was something like this?
[youtube]jWnK1luCWyQ[/youtube]

[Cliché Guevara]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new ... 180950278/

While questions remain for future research—such as examining the difference between seduction and coercion—the team hopes these findings start to break down double standards about what constitutes acceptable sexual advances. As they conclude in their paper: "The results from this study can provide a language for young men to describe sexaully coercive experiences and acknowledge that males can be victims of coercion by females, which can begin to challenge the notions of traditional masculinity and hypersexuality."

[Scented Nectar]

We'll never know for sure. Well, short of truth serum and a polygraph machine. :D

[youtube]N-TZ8Z5S9rI[/youtube]

Hulu usually doesn't work in Canada, but that one did. I hope they've changed their rules about that.

[Sulman]

I assume it was something like this?
[youtube]jWnK1luCWyQ[/youtube]

Substitute the blood for coffee, and that was pretty much the story.