Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

[welch]

O NOES! IF RON LINDSAY IS NOT FIRED, AMANDA MARCOTTE SHALL WRITE A STRONGLY-WORDED BLOG POST ABOUT HIM!!!! POSSIBLY SEVERAL!!!

her ego is bigger than even that icebreaker prow of a Hapsburg chin she's sporting.

[Apples]

O NOES! IF RON LINDSAY IS NOT FIRED, AMANDA MARCOTTE SHALL WRITE A STRONGLY-WORDED BLOG POST ABOUT HIM!!!! POSSIBLY SEVERAL!!!

her ego is bigger than even that icebreaker prow of a Hapsburg chin she's sporting.

That was my thought as well - Marcotte will "publicly write CFI off as irrelevant" if Lindsay doesn't get fired? I'm sure he's quaking in his bearded white male CEO boots.

[Dick Strawkins]

So, the WISC has finished and one question remains unanswered:

Which is bruised more, Welch's arse or Watson's ego?

[Za-zen]

So terribly underprivileged. "Please sir, may I have another bowl of gruel?"

::sniff::

NOW OFF TO THE RAID!

I think I ate too much bacon, can we wait a bit?

Yeah, i'm not done with my coffee

And I have to complain about the dry toast!

But...the raid....oh never mind.

Last i heard beccy had told her cuck kilstein to man up and raid, he was all for it until the memory of Rogan triggered a PTSD attack, and his quivering wreck of an excuse of an intellect uttered "i'd rather be murdered than raped".

[AndrewV69]

For those who may be interested Alley Fogg has a post up on intersectionality:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013 ... -privilege

oolon shows up and for the 1st time I can recall gets a giggle out of me. Possibly because I managed to read past his first sentence without falling asleep.

[JAB]

Btw-- The outing of Victor Ivanoff is still, in my book, the funniest thing these idiots have ever done.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... y-stalker/

Just scanned through the comments now. Funnnnny shit.

Makes me wonder what dead immigrant is about to be outed as Justicar.

[welch]

So, the WISC has finished and one question remains unanswered:

Which is bruised more, Welch's arse or Watson's ego?

in terms of area, her ego. My ass is infinitesimal compared to that object.

[Apples]

"In total there are 86 users online :: 15 registered, 1 hidden and 70 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)"

[welch]

For those who may be interested Alley Fogg has a post up on intersectionality:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013 ... -privilege

oolon shows up and for the 1st time I can recall gets a giggle out of me. Possibly because I managed to read past his first sentence without falling asleep.

Lordy, he spends two paragraphs working overtime to get Ally all angry at the 'pit.

[cunt]

"In total there are 86 users online :: 15 registered, 1 hidden and 70 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)"

Hi guests!

[AbsurdWalls]

For those who may be interested Alley Fogg has a post up on intersectionality:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013 ... -privilege

oolon shows up and for the 1st time I can recall gets a giggle out of me. Possibly because I managed to read past his first sentence without falling asleep.

Lordy, he spends two paragraphs working overtime to get Ally all angry at the 'pit.

And thanks to you I now have this song stuck in my head:

[youtube]SyX75NpibdU[/youtube]

[LMU]

Hello and welcome new people! Clarence, dogen, guests, lurkers, and the rest! :)

[Lsuoma]

So, the WISC has finished and one question remains unanswered:

Which is bruised more, Welch's arse or Watson's ego?

in terms of area, her ego. My ass is infinitesimal compared to that object.

Maybe she really is Zaphod Beeblebrox?

[Gumby]

Apropos of the Pit's current tag-line:

When a “Women in Secularism” conference becomes indistinguishable from a “Feminism in Secularism” conference, skeptical women are alienated and marginalized. The “elevatorgate” drama and ensuing schism led myself, and other women, to be left out and ignored. Feminism’s magical man-blaming Patriarchy theory makes its contempt for maleness apparent, but feminism’s contempt for *women* who fail to toe the superstitious party line is often less visible.

I’m an egalitarian—not a Feminist. In short, I find that Feminism is “about equality” the way Christianity is “about love.” When I speak out against Feminism, I’m almost invariably accused of “internalizing misogyny”—of hating women and thereby myself, as Feminists police my womanhood because I take issue with their beliefs. When I speak out against Feminism to the leaders of this particular Feminist foray into skepticism, I’m ignored, and voices like mine are downplayed. When are these Feminists going to “shut up and listen” to people like me?

I was not alienated or marginalized in skepticism/secularism until the Feminists and their allies began their loud ideological bleating on my supposed behalf. I’ve avoided conferences because I’ve feared their demands for special treatment via overwrought harassment policies would lead men to treat me differently, in fear of retaliation.

I’ve also avoided conferences because I’m the kind of woman who speaks out against bullplop in all forms, but the whinging witch-hunt sicked on Harriet Hall during TAM2012 has shown me that I wouldn’t be free to do so under threat of public shaming, personal meddling and bluelisting. If even such a benign statement as “I am not a part of your group” can set alight a retaliatory mob, what would happen if I let an honest critique or two slip? Would I be accused of “harassment” too?

We need to treat Feminism as skeptically as any other ideology. We can’t stop with a few of its loudest proponents, because the ideology is tailor-made to encourage more of the same unthinking, divisive ideological application that we’ve already seen. If Myers-Watson bug off after having their hateful sexism outed, others will likely take their place.

So thank you, Ron. Thank you for standing up and using your brain proudly regardless of your age, sex and skin color. Please stick to your guns on this. Please go further in the direction of encouraging criticism of Feminism when possible (if it’s viable, it can withstand criticism, right?). I, for one, will become a happy card-carrying CFI member if you do.

Let’s keep skepticism healthy!

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/e ... tion/P100/

A good comment. I went back and caught up on the comments; there are many calm and rational comments by people who are on Ron's side of the argument. On the other side, I see a lot of poorly-written strawmanning and libel going on.

And of course Elevatorgate is there :roll:

[Lsuoma]

A good comment. I went back and caught up on the comments; there are many calm and rational comments by people who are on Ron's side of the argument. On the other side, I see a lot of poorly-written strawmanning and libel going on.

And of course Elevatorgate is there :roll:

Post 165 by Wendy Hughes/Elizabeth K is also very good.

[Gumby]

For those who may be interested Alley Fogg has a post up on intersectionality:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013 ... -privilege

oolon shows up and for the 1st time I can recall gets a giggle out of me. Possibly because I managed to read past his first sentence without falling asleep.

Lordy, he spends two paragraphs working overtime to get Ally all angry at the 'pit.

When your whole life consists of:

A) desperately and pathetically sucking up to a group of cretins who can barely stand you

- and -

B) toddling up to adults, tugging on their shirts and saying "Have you heard about those meanies from the Pit?"

...it's time to start re-evaluating your life.

[Dick Strawkins]

http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamo ... -universe/

The ftb butthurt waiks begin with Svan, spectacularly missing the point.

In our universe, if Rebecca collected her Skepchick team together for an event, then gave that team a surprise like Lindsay’s speech obviously was to the CFI employees at Women in Secularsim, she would be called unfit for leadership

What if, rather than speaking to the skepchick team, Watson had been speaking to, say student secular volunteers. Does anyone think there's a possibility that she might criticize one or two of them, in public, without warning them beforehand?
Wouldn't that make her 'unfit for leadership'?

[Aneris]

And here is the outrageous talk by Ron A. Lindsay again, as a silent reminder of his crimes against humanity.

I was frankly lukewarm toward the Atheism+ proposal. Also, based on the rhetoric of some of its proponents, and I underscore some not all, it seemed to me to have the potential to be divisive. In fact, according to at least one proponent it was intended to be divisive. Upon further reflection, I’ve become more sanguine about the proposal. To begin, although nomenclature is not irrelevant, it’s not supremely important; at the end of the day, you cannot force someone to call themselves a humanist, so if people prefer to call themselves an Atheist-plusser, or whatever the term is, that’s fine.

I detect only 98,3% approval of Atheism Plus. It is apparent that he must be removed.

I read a blog post by Louise Pennington the other day; she stated that although patriarchy may predate capitalism, we cannot destroy patriarchy w/o destroying capitalism. Is the destruction of capitalism considered part of a social justice program? If so, that position certainly has very significant implications.

This leads me to another set of questions. What is feminism and what are the aims of the feminist movement? There’s a definition that I’m sure many of you are familiar with, a definition supplied by bell hooks, and that is the feminist movement is a movement that seeks to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. In the abstract, that seems about right. But the problem with this definition is it just pushes our questions back further. What is sexism? What actions constitute sexist exploitation? I don’t think you’re going to find unanimity of opinion on the answers to those questions even within the feminist movement.

JAQing off. Clearly.

This brings me to the concept of privilege, a concept much in use these days. Let me emphasize at the outset that I think it’s a concept that has some validity and utility; it’s also a concept that can be misused, misused as a way to try to silence critics.

Sealed.

[youtube]e09snMu4www[/youtube]

All so familiar.

[Trophy]

And Gumby, I love that your "puking" pic is a cat :D. *high five*

[Za-zen]

A good comment. I went back and caught up on the comments; there are many calm and rational comments by people who are on Ron's side of the argument. On the other side, I see a lot of poorly-written strawmanning and libel going on.

And of course Elevatorgate is there :roll:

Post 165 by Wendy Hughes/Elizabeth K is also very good.

Second that, imagine the confusion of stepping away from the broad base skeptical movement for a couple of years, and when you comeback you find it full of ideologues, with platforms screaming dissent is triggering! Dissent is victim blaming! Dissent is massyoggany! Now shut the fuck up and listen, and if you din't get it after we tell you how it is, then you are a disingenuous, bad faith, sexist, woooomannnn hater, and by the way, we are now the feminist progressive alliance of lefty hipsters.

[Gumby]

And Gumby, I love that your "puking" pic is a cat :D. *high five*

I think I found that pic here many months ago!

[Gefan]

For those who may be interested Alley Fogg has a post up on intersectionality:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013 ... -privilege

oolon shows up and for the 1st time I can recall gets a giggle out of me. Possibly because I managed to read past his first sentence without falling asleep.

Lordy, he spends two paragraphs working overtime to get Ally all angry at the 'pit.

He may actually be more boring than he is obsequious. No mean feat, that.

[katamari Damassi]

Maybe I'm stupid, but there's really only one obvious reason to pack up a merch table early, right? Stuff ain't selling?

I'm sure it's Justin's and Lindsey's fault.

[Za-zen]

The pit invades CFI, my contribution;

I'll add another, and very revealing name to the purge attempt by the ideologues.

Edwina Rodgers

Crime: Not a lefty.

Action: attack blog after attack blog, letter campaign, and a petition, hauled over coals and forced to justify her appointment to the mob.

More wymyn in leadership! What they actually mean is more if them in leadership.

[cunt]

You noticed that sales of surly-ramics leapt up following the Harriet Hall TAM flounce?

[Gumby]

This brought to you from the Ironic Department of Irony:

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd24 ... 0faefe.jpg

http://www.skepticalrobot.com/raygun-ladies/

They should aim that motherfucker at themselves.

[cunt]

Set phasers to "jew".

[Corylus]

Has anyone been looking at EBWs twitter feed?

@EllenBethWachs: I hereby publicly and loudly support @RALindsay. Everyone is entitled to a voice.

EllenBeth has been given the total and complete shaft by the BubbleBloggers and their Commentariat, and she's been very vocal about her dissatisfaction, disappointment and their douchebaggery. She gets totes props from me, all around.

Yep. Her past behavior may have been less than stellar, but all i'm seeing of late is someone who had their blinders ripped off and is honestly seeing how things actually are for the first time in a while. Good on her for the learning.

Yes, good for her. I suspect I know what has happened with her.

I had a lightbulb-over-head moment when thinking about Daniel Dennett on how a tendency toward incorrect beliefs can be ignored if they lower large disaster risk, but are still bad.

Smoke detectors biased toward false alarms are no doubt preferable to those biased toward the more costly errors (failures to detect actual fires); but that doesn’t mean that a false alarm is a cause for celebration. If a smoke detector came onto the market that detected every actual fire without ever sounding a false alarm, that would be the one to purchase. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 2009

EWB had the the normal thinking process that:

• Lowlifes exist.
• The property of being a lowlife is a moral wrong.
• Moral wrongs require condemnation:
• Lowlifes must be condemned.

Unfortunately, she also appeared to have her lowlife detection settings set to maximum sensitivity. This probably due to unthinking (and maybe thinking), constant priming on the part of certain bloggers. Now, having this setting means that you don't miss many lowlifes (yay!) but you do have the alarm screaming at you a lot: leading to stress and general grumpiness.

The one time you know for sure that you have a false positive is when you set off the alarm yourself. For example, I know precisely when my smoke (not lowlife) detection kit is giving me a false positive, this is just due to my habit of using it as a form of kitchen 'timer.'

So... when she set off another person's lowlife detection alarm, that is when she went from the above to:

• Lowlifes exist.
• The property of being a lowlife is a moral wrong.
• Moral wrongs require condemnation:
• Lowlifes must be condemned...
• ...Careful: not everyone is a lowlife.

So while Ellen only started calling out vilification when a target herself, the reason seems to be more subtle that simple hypocrisy - and much, much more of an unpleasant experience for her self-image and ego than she deserves.

It seems that this realization is trickling down to more and more people – maybe even to the extent that we may have to start warning people not to take their batteries out of their alarms. Not there yet but getting there.

[Apples]

It seems that this realization is trickling down to more and more people – maybe even to the extent that we may have to start warning people not to take their batteries out of their alarms. Not there yet but getting there.

Julian Francisco -

[deLurch]

Yes I am juvenile, but I've made my peace with that. As for lacking humor, well it makes me laugh.

Yes, humor is subjective. I do think that making fun of people solely based on their appearance on their own is one of the legitimate grievances that crowd has. Unlike the juvenile humor of the Three Stooges, these are real people with feelings and emotions. I am also not a big fan of websites like People of Walmart. For me, it is the type of humor that should have been given up a long time ago on the grade school playground, and I do honestly view it as a form of useless bullying.

Of course the next question is what do you do about it as adults. As a general rule, ignoring it is a smart route to take on the internet as a whole. I can also understand individual blogs & forums opting to ban comments or people who make such comments on their blogs. It's a personal choice of the level of decorum you want for your website. But by the same token, if you think making fun of people based purely on their appearance is bad, I wouldn't run around calling people neckbeards.

[welch]

It seems that this realization is trickling down to more and more people – maybe even to the extent that we may have to start warning people not to take their batteries out of their alarms. Not there yet but getting there.

Julian Francisco -

That one I need time to buy. Has he actually changed, or does he just have a new target to bitch at.

Funny how to this day, no one ever took his threat of violence against another one of Ophelia's commenters seriously even though it was almost the same "threat" as the one that caused a year-long Ophie freakout.

[jjbinx007]

[Corylus]

It seems that this realization is trickling down to more and more people – maybe even to the extent that we may have to start warning people not to take their batteries out of their alarms. Not there yet but getting there.

Julian Francisco -

Hah! If I have read this correctly (which is not a given as twitter confuses the hell out of me) then someone I had filed under 'deafened by alarms' in having his biter self bit.

Sigh, of course, there may be a small proportion of individuals for whom the constant shrieking is something that they find it hard to function without. That would be an unpleasant place to be in . :cry:

[Apples]

It seems that this realization is trickling down to more and more people – maybe even to the extent that we may have to start warning people not to take their batteries out of their alarms. Not there yet but getting there.

Julian Francisco -

That one I need time to buy. Has he actually changed, or does he just have a new target to bitch at.

Funny how to this day, no one ever took his threat of violence against another one of Ophelia's commenters seriously even though it was almost the same "threat" as the one that caused a year-long Ophie freakout.

I think he sees himself as a more pure SJW than all the other SJWs - in a way he is - his flounces from A+ and Pharyngula showed some character - but he does still appear to be a self-centered professional tantrum/flame thrower with no apparent sense of humor.

[Dick Strawkins]

It seems that this realization is trickling down to more and more people – maybe even to the extent that we may have to start warning people not to take their batteries out of their alarms. Not there yet but getting there.

Julian Francisco -

That twitter feed is illuminating in regards the comments of the other participant who is chastising Julian for not being sufficiently deferential to post modernism.

[Za-zen]

Holy shit, Julian is a slymepitter, i really thought he was too far gone down the rabbit hole to ever surface. Good for him for regaining his critical thinking skills, and spotting the crazy for what it is. Same for Ellenbeth, both Julian and Ellen were soaked in the koolaid, but hey, how many atheists do we have running round, who were once trying to save people for christ.

[Cunning Punt]

They all live in a bubble which will continue to shrink and shrink until it pops into oblivion, leaving only a vague memory of a handful of batshit fringe crazies who were the catalysts for a short-lived infiltration attempt.

's a

That's a mighty impressive avatar you've got now. Doesn't Sacha like men with beards?

[jjbinx007]

What you won't read on FTB/A+/Skepshit any time soon is...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/ma ... ng-extract

because he's an old white cis guy.

[Tony Parsehole]

O NOES! IF RON LINDSAY IS NOT FIRED, AMANDA MARCOTTE SHALL WRITE A STRONGLY-WORDED BLOG POST ABOUT HIM!!!! POSSIBLY SEVERAL!!!

HAHA!
Laughing my ass off right now at how pathetic Marcotte's tantrum is.

[Tony Parsehole]

Amanda Marcotte is spearheading a campaign to get Lindsay fired:

*sigh*
Too bad for her nobody will listen and nobody will care. It would be news if she wasn't moaning about something.

[Pitchguest]

Nothing like another schism to revitalize this misogynist haven. A moment, I need to readjust my britches.

I've been looking at EllenBeth's twitter feed for a while now and it's like she's a completely different person. The incident when the horde turned on her must really have flipped a switch - and I never thought I would say this so soon, but I like it. And it's not just because she's saying against the horde, that's too simple. It's the overall picture; she's so much more balanced in her approach to issues now than she used to be, and the more I see, the more remorseful I feel. Because it seems to me that she went out of the frying pan and into another frying pan, as it were, and it kind of shows.

It's like that feeling you get when you read about how another member from the Westboro Baptist Church has left the church and has now undergone a total face-heel turn because they used to be so brainwashed. And the loathing you felt towards these people slowly turns to pity, because you start to realize how naive you really were to feel that way in the first place.

And oddly enough, that's how I feel about EllenBeth right now. Basically you start to wonder if these people really are as hideous as they seem to be, or if it's merely a front that can torn open with a simple lashing. One push.

Huh, that schadenfreude turned way more profound than I first intended. Erm. Bitches ain't shit?

[codelette]

I welcomed myself back, bitches.
Been reading here on and off, but staying off the conversation because of no time (I guess I had a bad case of Grethaitis). Anywho, the new batshit crapfest: awesome!. Also noticed that even EBW and Angry Julian finally realized that some of the fuckers we've been mocking for months are indeed using "privilege" as a crutch.
I almost feel like rejoining twitter just to write "I told you so, bitch". lol

[Tony Parsehole]

Codelette is back! Yay!
Welcome back, slag.

[Pitchguest]

I welcomed myself back, bitches.
Been reading here on and off, but staying off the conversation because of no time (I guess I had a bad case of Grethaitis). Anywho, the new batshit crapfest: awesome!. Also noticed that even EBW and Angry Julian finally realized that some of the fuckers we've been mocking for months are indeed using "privilege" as a crutch.
I almost feel like rejoining twitter just to write "I told you so, bitch". lol

Fuck off, woman! :mrgreen:

Oh, who am I kidding. Welcome back! The kitchen's missed you. :dance:

[deLurch]

Irony is that one task I have for work this weekend is writing reviews of 2 recent medical publications in women's health, in 400 words or less (each). (Couple of months ago one of the papers I chose was on iron deficiency in women, but it was on associated symptoms, not causes.) The 1990's papers are too old, I have to pick new ones for this purpose.

How does the age of a study in any way make it a poor study to cite?

Sure if there are newer studies out, they may have larger sample sizes, or may have more studies that either provide additional supporting evidence of a claim. Or there might be improved methodology in newer studies. But I would think a well done study with a large sample size and appropriate controls done in the 90's should beat out a newer quick & hasty smaller sample study with no control group.

[codelette]

I made myself comfy by removing my shoes. As a inhuman woman of the Pit, I know mah place.

[TedDahlberg]

And oddly enough, that's how I feel about EllenBeth right now. Basically you start to wonder if these people really are as hideous as they seem to be, or if it's merely a front that can torn open with a simple lashing. One push.

Huh, that schadenfreude turned way more profound than I first intended. Erm. Bitches ain't shit?

In my experience almost no one is as bad (or as good) as they seem. But what it takes for someone to change... definitely difficult to say. EB's "push," for example, was rather extreme. If that's what it takes, we should probably not expect too many others to follow. On the other hand I get the impression that a fair few people are only going along with what they think is the consensus view. If the influence of, say, Myers and Watson fades, those people are likely to move on.

Of course, I could just be full of crap :)

[Pitchguest]

Love this post on PZ's latest:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... ent-621384

Better a hundred times a whiner than once a plagiarist, is what I always say.

I have no idea what you mean by this comment.

No, I'm sure you don't. :hankey:

(As a testament to how thick 'Tis/Rodney really is, checking the source code in Chrome for the post above nets me this result:

Code: Select all

class="comment byuser comment-author-rodneynelson even thread-even depth-1 clearfix"

Hasn't even *tried* to change it since "strange gods before me" pointed it out. Do you really think you're fooling anyone, Rodney? Idiot.)

[deLurch]

http://i.imgur.com/KzewwPA.jpg
Somehow I don't think this was Svan's ideal scenario.

If someone was hoping to demonstrate that CFI remains committed to discourse and the process hashing over differing positions in the course of an open and civil dialogue, that person might be doing the Monty Burns' evil finger tent right now.

Devil's Advocate:
Lindsay's statement can be taken two ways. It can either be taken as sincere face value effort to make some feel welcome, or as a sarcastic forced statement.

Obviously Lindsay's been dealing with a lot surrounding this conference. And the kerfuffle surrounding the mere idea that Jason Vacula might attend has probably been a nontrival issue for him to deal with. With that statement alone, I could easily see Lindsay attempting to put his best foot forward on a difficult situation, yet poorly choosing words that could be interpreted two different ways. What if Lindasy dropped the word "Officially" or if he had dropped the word "CFI" down to something like "Welcome to the conference." That statement could still be interpreted to be sarcastic. Heck, he may have made that same statement over & over again to many people at the conference, especially speakers, and he might not thought much about it.

There has been a lot said about not automatically ascribing malign intent, to people words & actions, and how we should perhaps be a little more charitable in our interpretations. Unless someone can show me specifically how Lindsay would only say that sarcastically to Justin, I think it is the best course of action to interpret it in a more favorable light. Don't let paranoia and a filtered lens get the best of you, as it has the FTB crowd.

[codelette]

lol, this shit's precious!
http://i.imgur.com/nQoxM4o.png

Pot. Kettle. Black.

[Tigzy]

@Pitchguest

I saw that too, and duly LOLed.

[Pitchguest]

Who knows, maybe Rodney's comment about dehumanizing women was plagiarized from another known source. :doh:

[Lsuoma]

This brought to you from the Ironic Department of Irony:

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd24 ... 0faefe.jpg

http://www.skepticalrobot.com/raygun-ladies/

They should aim that motherfucker at themselves.

Looks like one for reGreta...

[Apples]

Who knows, maybe Rodney's comment about dehumanizing women was plagiarized from another known source. :doh:

The fact that PZ bans sharp but civil critics like Drosera but keeps around proven sock-puppeting plagiarists like Ulysses-'Tis-Rodney and senile toothless partial-birth-abortions like Turd of Redhead (whom even fellow commenters now freely advise newbies to ignore) tells you all you need to know about Pharyngula.

[Pitchguest]

Women in Secularism 2 turned out to be way more entertaining than I anticipated.

Props to Justin and Karla, and Ron Lindsay, for making this conference more interesting for those who didn't have the IMMENSE PRIVILEGE to attend, and special props go out to the Skepchick/FtB/A+ crowd for hoisting themselves on their own petards giving the rest of us something to laugh at. Thank you, from the bottom of my red, black, almost certainly inhuman heart.

Anyway, that's me done for the night. Sleep tight fellow misogynists/non-humans.

[cunt]

And oddly enough, that's how I feel about EllenBeth right now. Basically you start to wonder if these people really are as hideous as they seem to be, or if it's merely a front that can torn open with a simple lashing. One push.

Huh, that schadenfreude turned way more profound than I first intended. Erm. Bitches ain't shit?

In my experience almost no one is as bad (or as good) as they seem. But what it takes for someone to change... definitely difficult to say. EB's "push," for example, was rather extreme. If that's what it takes, we should probably not expect too many others to follow. On the other hand I get the impression that a fair few people are only going along with what they think is the consensus view. If the influence of, say, Myers and Watson fades, those people are likely to move on.

Of course, I could just be full of crap :)

Ellen-Beth hasn't changed. She just changed targets when they hurt her fee-fees.

[Zenspace]

A good comment. I went back and caught up on the comments; there are many calm and rational comments by people who are on Ron's side of the argument. On the other side, I see a lot of poorly-written strawmanning and libel going on.

And of course Elevatorgate is there :roll:

Post 165 by Wendy Hughes/Elizabeth K is also very good.

Second that, imagine the confusion of stepping away from the broad base skeptical movement for a couple of years, and when you comeback you find it full of ideologues, with platforms screaming dissent is triggering! Dissent is victim blaming! Dissent is massyoggany! Now shut the fuck up and listen, and if you din't get it after we tell you how it is, then you are a disingenuous, bad faith, sexist, woooomannnn hater, and by the way, we are now the feminist progressive alliance of lefty hipsters.

I can really relate to the Wendy Hughes post as that is pretty much my story. I was an enthusiastic follower and occasional poster on many of the major atheist blogs several years ago: Pharyngula, Greg Laden, Skepchick, Daylight Atheism, et al. As I think I've mentioned before, I sensed something turning sour at PZ's place around the time of Crackergate and gradually lost interest in all those sites. As with Hughes, a couple of years go by when, one day, the Deep Rifts somehow shows up on my radar, about last October, IIRC. My first reaction was WTF happened? Some quick googling pretty much gave me the main bits. Then I popped over to Pharyngula, now FtB, and got toasted pretty quickly. Same with a couple of other sites when I tried to make inquiries. So I wrote off all the FtB/Skepchick related sites and Daylight Atheism as hopelessly lost causes. About this time Skeptic Ink came on line and I started following several of the writers there. Big Al's departure from FtB was reported there, I checked him out and one of his early Post FtB posted referenced the Slymepit and recommended checking the place out. The Pyt had come up occasionally in my reading, mostly - but not always - in a negative light, but I respected Al enough to follow his advice. The rest, as is said, is history. I'd found my new home. The place was a breath of fresh air.

Now please continue to fuck off!

[BarnOwl]

From the "Annoyed" post comments at Pharyngula:

PZ Myers
19 May 2013 at 2:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Vacula spent the entire conference sitting at the very back of the room, against the wall, hunched over his phone pounding out tedious and selective commentary. Every once in a while, when someone said something obvious about men, he’d suddenly clap very, very loudly and very strangely — the whole rest of the room would be sitting quietly, finding nothing of note in the comment, when this one lonely man at the back would erupt into applause.

Oh, Karla Porter was sitting back there with him, keeping the Brave Hero company.

They really made no impression on the conference at all, rarely moving from their cozy hidey-hole. I understood he was wearing a t-shirt with some ‘appropriate’ message every day…but he so rarely stepped out of his zone, that I never saw it or had an opportunity to read it. He was a very bad billboard. He wasn’t much of a presence at the con at all — he might as well have stayed home.

Isn't that last part what they should have wanted? He didn't interfere with or disrupt their conference at all. The drama was their own creation.

But it's almost as if they wish he had threatened them or been violent in some way. All that fretting and moaning about "danger" for nothing. I won't hold my breath waiting for any of them to post something to the effect of "Hey, I was all worried about threats and harassment at WiSC2, and you know what? NOTHING HAPPENED, except that they ran out of gluten-free organic raspberry muffins at the breakfast buffet. Boy do I feel dumb and ridiculously paranoid."

[Lsuoma]

Sara Mayhew on Ron Lindsay's thread:

Don’t criticize The Oprah Winfrey of Skepticism™.

Many Skepchicks and self-described feminists have bullied me. There are many other women who’ve experienced similar hatred from women like Watson, Hensley, Roth. The difference is that I don’t presume to speak for all women in secularism and skepticism. They do. They speak of “women in skepticism experience _____” and “women atheists” think X.

They dismiss the opinions of women who don’t agree with some of the things they do. These feminist leaders aren’t listening.

Rebecca’s brand was built on the idea that women in skepticism are chicks. She made a mess with bringing sexiness and partying into the idea of promoting women in skepticism, however well intentioned. It’s a mess that she isn’t doing a good job of cleaning up.

I’m sure in the early days of podcasting a snarky skeptic chick was novel. It’s old now and the movement has grown; there a plenty of women who do real-world education, research, writing, outreach, organising and popularising who deserve the resources, attention, and speaking positions that are squandered by Waton to promote her stale self-serving pseudo empire.

I think the description of Twatson as "The Oprah Winfrey of Skepticismâ„¢" deserves general currency...

[KiwiInOz]

Hey, are you the one who does reviews of atheist websites on your Christian blog thingy? :P

Hi, Tigzy.
The answer is no. But that sounds hilarious. Feel free to let me know this blogger of whom you speak.

Perchance you are this Clarence, then?

[youtube]J-W-a7ZLpFs[/youtube]