Happy 3rd Pit Birthday!

[Kirbmarc]

Laurie Penny writes on the events in Cologne-read it you racist scum.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/fe ... l-feminism
My favorite bit:

For all that these people claim to hate 'Islamic' sexual violence, it seems to fascinate them. In the past three years, I’ve lost count of the white men - and it is almost always white men- who have emailed, tweeted and sent me doctored pictures sharing their graphic fantasies in which feminist harpies like me are stoned to death, fucked to death, genitally mutilated, whipped, burned and gang-raped - not by them of course. By those awful Muslims. There seems to be an almost erotic fascination with the rhetoric of sexual violence these men associate with Muslims - it's so awful that they have to concentrate really hard on the details and maybe save some screenshots to contemplate later in private.

I'm not sure how she can tell it's white men sending her those pictures. :think:
After all don't men of all races have sick fantasies of muslim men genitally mutilating and fucking white women to death?

Sure, Laurie, ALL men who care about what the police doesn't do to prevent rapes and what feminist don't do to denounce rape secretly want to rape you.

Next time troll harder.

Penny gets totally pwned in the first comment:

I'm female; my family includes people from other countries/cultures (not that these should make a difference, but in Penny's mindset of rigid stereotypes they probably do), and I am revolted by Ms Penny's weasel words. Thousand-fold gangs of men brazenly stripping and molesting women in a public place, not being apprehended and media collusion in hushing it up, is a hideously unprecedented crime in peacetime West. Any such culprit would be condemned by any right-thinking person Yet because these culprits are predominantly Muslim migrants, Ms Penny's condemnation has to prevaricate a whole load of scattergun condemnation extended generally at anyone with a Y chromosome, as though most men casually behave in the same way; they do not.

This not a battle of the sexes, even if Laurie Penny is incapable of seeing anything else through her misandrist blinkers. Men and women likewise are appalled by the atrocity at Cologne (and Berlin, Hamberg, Düsseldorf, Malmo, Stuttgart etc). This is a battle for our freedom - something Ms Penny has no understanding of - and why it is being so readily given up to those who abuse it.

Unlike Penny, I'm happy at how UK society treats me - I've had an education, a good job, a happy relationship, choose how many children I have and can dress as I wish and pursue the hobbies I like. The mindset of the migrants who committed those crimes would deny me those choices. They would require me to sit away from my family in a woman-only group at a public meeting (such as that at Hodge Hill, connived at by Labour shadow ministers). They would prohibit me from sports and socialising with men. That's misogyny Laurie; but not the sort of misogyny you care about. May the decent, kind men I know - my husband, sons, father, brothers, friends, colleagues, never have to encounter anyone as hostile, prejudiced and ignorant as you.

By the way, Penny, no, we don't want to see other people harm you. We simply wish that you had a basic amount of honesty and understanding of reality.

Or alternatively, that you stopped being taken seriously by your employers.

[pajh]

The difference between Carrier and a creationist is that a creationist probably believes his own nonsense. Carrier just wants Thunderf00t to be wrong, without actually believing it. So he has to lie to make it appear as if Thunderf00t is wrong. No amount of dishonesty is too much for Dr. Carrier PhD. Only his dumbest fans and his many fictional girlfriends still believe anything he says.

Yes, I'm sure the girlfriends who want anal, choking and facials believe him completely.

[Tigzy]

Penny gets totally pwned in the first comment:

She's getting destroyed by pretty much every comment there. :lol:

[another lurker]

And another good post by Jane the Actuary, the only person on Patheos who is willing to talk about Cologne
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/janetheact ... rmany.html

Ahermit shows up to say that the German RCC is just as bad.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

I bathe in hard water.

Huh huh. Wanna bathe in my hardon water instead? Huh huh.

No, really? Can I spunk my hot man fat all over your titties? Please?

[Stout]

Penny gets totally pwned in the first comment:

She's getting destroyed by pretty much every comment there. :lol:

Holy shit !

Warms the cockles of my heart that comment section does. :burn:

[KiwiInOz]

Penny gets totally pwned in the first comment:

She's getting destroyed by pretty much every comment there. :lol:

Holy shit !

Warms the cockles of my heart that comment section does. :burn:

Even Herman Steinpilz makes an appearance.

[Michael J]

Can I just ooint out that FtB is not down to 2011 figures - it is well below them.

Look at the graph again. The 2011 start point shows Quantcast measuring FtB from zero rapidly rising to normal levels as the software kicks in. FtB only started in 2011.

So the base line needs to be moved slightly to the right - which is well above todays level.

Also in 2011 there were a lot less bloggers on the nascent network than now ....
Plus as has been pointed out the internet has grown.

http://i.imgur.com/NcTEL1i.jpg

What's the reason for that severe dip or non recording of visits just at the start of Feb 2013?

I'd say it was a gitch by Quantcast

[Suet Cardigan]

Laurie Penny writes on the events in Cologne-read it you racist scum.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/fe ... l-feminism
My favorite bit:

For all that these people claim to hate 'Islamic' sexual violence, it seems to fascinate them. In the past three years, I’ve lost count of the white men - and it is almost always white men- who have emailed, tweeted and sent me doctored pictures sharing their graphic fantasies in which feminist harpies like me are stoned to death, fucked to death, genitally mutilated, whipped, burned and gang-raped - not by them of course. By those awful Muslims. There seems to be an almost erotic fascination with the rhetoric of sexual violence these men associate with Muslims - it's so awful that they have to concentrate really hard on the details and maybe save some screenshots to contemplate later in private.

I'm not sure how she can tell it's white men sending her those pictures. :think:
After all don't men of all races have sick fantasies of muslim men genitally mutilating and fucking white women to death?

Sure, Laurie, ALL men who care about what the police doesn't do to prevent rapes and what feminist don't do to denounce rape secretly want to rape you.

Next time troll harder.

Penny gets totally pwned in the first comment:

I'm female; my family includes people from other countries/cultures (not that these should make a difference, but in Penny's mindset of rigid stereotypes they probably do), and I am revolted by Ms Penny's weasel words. Thousand-fold gangs of men brazenly stripping and molesting women in a public place, not being apprehended and media collusion in hushing it up, is a hideously unprecedented crime in peacetime West. Any such culprit would be condemned by any right-thinking person Yet because these culprits are predominantly Muslim migrants, Ms Penny's condemnation has to prevaricate a whole load of scattergun condemnation extended generally at anyone with a Y chromosome, as though most men casually behave in the same way; they do not.

This not a battle of the sexes, even if Laurie Penny is incapable of seeing anything else through her misandrist blinkers. Men and women likewise are appalled by the atrocity at Cologne (and Berlin, Hamberg, Düsseldorf, Malmo, Stuttgart etc). This is a battle for our freedom - something Ms Penny has no understanding of - and why it is being so readily given up to those who abuse it.

Unlike Penny, I'm happy at how UK society treats me - I've had an education, a good job, a happy relationship, choose how many children I have and can dress as I wish and pursue the hobbies I like. The mindset of the migrants who committed those crimes would deny me those choices. They would require me to sit away from my family in a woman-only group at a public meeting (such as that at Hodge Hill, connived at by Labour shadow ministers). They would prohibit me from sports and socialising with men. That's misogyny Laurie; but not the sort of misogyny you care about. May the decent, kind men I know - my husband, sons, father, brothers, friends, colleagues, never have to encounter anyone as hostile, prejudiced and ignorant as you.

By the way, Penny, no, we don't want to see other people harm you. We simply wish that you had a basic amount of honesty and understanding of reality.

Or alternatively, that you stopped being taken seriously by your employers.

That article is tripe, even by Laurie's standards.

I am baffled by this bit:

The oppression of women is a global phenomenon because patriarchy is a global phenomenon. It’s embedded in the economic and social structures of almost every nation and community on earth. Sexism and misogyny, however, look different across boundaries of culture and religion, as well as across divides of race and class and between generations.

So Patriarchy, a system that oppresses women, is separate from sexism/mysogyny? What the fuck is she talking about?

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

Penny gets totally pwned in the first comment:

She's getting destroyed by pretty much every comment there. :lol:

Holy shit !

Warms the cockles of my heart that comment section does. :burn:

Don't laugh yet. Those comments will probably be the basis for her next paycheck.

[Guest_474c585c]

Where Rebecca Watson celebrates crushing the dreams of a "kid" in low stakes poker in Vegas in order to eat smorgasbord and where she outlines her priorities when she wins $900 million in Powerball:

1. Lawyers
2. icecream truck
3. House
4. Dog

Apparently family and acts of kindness do not figure.

[youtube]uSbRxWwoNsM[/youtube]

thanks Brive. Quell not surprise. whatever ahppened to 'I'm going to donate my legal donations to a equality charity'?

of course, lawyers have served both Stollznow and Radford so well in airing dirty laundry on both sides in terms of false accusations of insider smoozing, cronyism & how to get ahead in skepticism in the easiest way that Watson also didn't get started as the young face underneath an older one.

Of course the appeal of getting that into the open in a court with a increasing number of badly treated former skepchicks able to do a Thunderfoot about her network's Google group content is a great idea when it heats up. Sure. Whatever.


Other unsurprising news about Quizotron flopping AGAIN tonight:


Rebecca Watson (@rebeccawatson) tweeted:
sorry to say that Adam Savage isn't going to make it tonight after all but thank god we still have one Adam left!

[Billie from Ockham]

http://i.imgur.com/NcTEL1i.jpg

What happened at the end of 2012 / beginning of 2013? Some Canadian guy doing an update to the software?

[Billie from Ockham]

What's the reason for that severe dip or non recording of visits just at the start of Feb 2013?

:nin:

[Billie from Ockham]

Now 516 crimes being reported by police in Cologne, 40% sexual.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35277249

Combined with the Swedish situation reported above evidence is pointing to a deliberate, systematic suppression of news of mass sexual assaults for political and ideological reasons. This is going to get much, much worse for the regressive left.

Were any of the victims of the gropings the boyfriend of Glenn Greenwald?

No?

Well, in that case, who the fuck cares?

[Billie from Ockham]

What's the reason for that severe dip or non recording of visits just at the start of Feb 2013?

I'd say it was a gitch by Quantcast

Please provide P ( glitch | evidence ) to seven decimal places or FLOOOSH!

[Kirbmarc]

[quote="Suet Cardigan]I am baffled by this bit:

The oppression of women is a global phenomenon because patriarchy is a global phenomenon. It’s embedded in the economic and social structures of almost every nation and community on earth. Sexism and misogyny, however, look different across boundaries of culture and religion, as well as across divides of race and class and between generations.

So Patriarchy, a system that oppresses women, is separate from sexism/mysogyny? What the fuck is she talking about?[/quote]

Patriarchy is the whole "system of oppression". Patriarchy is a "matrix of intersectional oppression" that includes sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia and all "marginalizations".

In practice patriarchy is a vaguely defined structure which is the #1 enemy of "social justice". It's everything and nothing depending on what you want to argue.

[Guest_27324df6]

She is saying that despite being comparitively benign by any standard( hypothetically accepting the concept of patriarchy in the first place), patriarchy in the "west" it is just as pernicious and present and as worthy an enemy to fight as the form patriarchy in muslim cultures just happen to take. Patriarchy is eternal, patriarchy is everywhere, feminism is your only salvation, the usual stuff really. Patriarchy can only be diminished, never completely eradicated, kind of like sin. Ultimately, we are only pointing out the sin in the other out of our innate and unsolveable feelings of racial hatred, in order to ignore our own, equally horrible sin. Anything that dares offend the great femen, from manspreading to gang rape, is part of the same, toxic male "force", if you will, a power that spans time and space itself, present in every culture until feminism came and offered us redemption, the only one there can be.

[another lurker]

Otherkin are Fucking Crazy

But don't say that they are not actually ferrets/horses/angels because it will make them sad and they will commit suicide

[youtube]suSfNzAdNBU[/youtube]

[Kirbmarc]

At the end of the day patriarchy is just the power of the unethical "strong" over the helpless "weak".

What SJWs don't want to understand is that strengths and weaknesses are relative: an online mob of outraged citizens is stronger than a single person, for example.

They also don't want to recognize that playing the victim and acting weak can be a strategy to be unethical exactly as being strong. Using the strength of others also makes you strong.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Dan McClellan
7 minutes ago
"Religion" doesn't exist. The boundaries we've drawn around cognitive predispositions common to all humans are completely arbitrary. "Religion" is a reified category that is no more and no less harmless than any other grouping of the products of our cognitive architecture

This guy claims to be a linguist, btw.

Dan told me he is a Cognitive Linguist. So I looked that up. AFAICT, the entire field makes no sense whatsoever.

[another lurker]

I bathe in hard water.

Huh huh. Wanna bathe in my hardon water instead? Huh huh.

No, really? Can I spunk my hot man fat all over your titties? Please?

See the video about otherkin that I just linked?

YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY A PENIS.

[Jan Steen]

The Patriarchy is The Matrix. And just as real.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Kribmarc, I am reminded of what you said about atoms and the chair that you are sitting on. That its all a construct cuz everything is really just atoms in the end.(get it. In the end. Tee hee)

That is what his comment made me think of.

Exactly. It's same mistake. Or better yet, it's the same ideological position. If they wanted to be accurate they should claim that nothing exists, not even oppression, or sexism, or racism, or individuality, or meaning in general. Or reality in general.

They don't, which shows that their position is just a dishonest rhetorical trick which they use to refuse to admit that they're wrong when reality doesn't agree with their pet theories.

I remember a story my grandfather told about when he was in college in the 1930's and the philosophy professor was teaching about solipsism and the concept that nothing is real. One of the students, a big lug of a football player, was getting increasingly steamed. Finally, he jumped up, gesticulated to the window and shouted: "If I grabbed that Greek fellow by the toga, and smashed his head against the trunk of that tree out there, he'd sure enough believe it was real!"

[Stout]

The oppression of women is a global phenomenon because patriarchy is a global phenomenon. It’s embedded in the economic and social structures of almost every nation and community on earth. Sexism and misogyny, however, look different across boundaries of culture and religion, as well as across divides of race and class and between generations.

So Patriarchy, a system that oppresses women, is separate from sexism/mysogyny? What the fuck is she talking about?

That was my favourite part of the whole article, an open admission that all the things "the left" hates about "the west" are also present in every country in the world. Penny qualifies this with her use of the word almost as there's probably some South Pacific tribe out there that's effectively a matriarchy but we can safely surmise that the things about humanity that Penny hates so much are pretty much universal.

It's rather refreshing when we compare it to Myer's comment section where they're doing the same old carrying on about white/German sexism in an effort to downplay the race component in the Cologne/German incidents of NYE. The topic is supposed to be about what happened on that night yet, we're treated to pictures of boobs used to sell doughnuts.

I want a doughnut, brb

The bit about class and generations is just to fill out her word count and minimize the idea that western feminism has indeed made inroads towards equality.

[Billie from Ockham]

Dan told me he is a Cognitive Linguist. So I looked that up. AFAICT, the entire field makes no sense whatsoever.

The key difference ... these days ... between standard, old-school linguistics and so-called "cognitive linguistics" centers mostly on the distinction between vertical and horizontal faculties. A vertical faculty is defined as being computationally autonomous and often encapsulated, such that the underlying mental and/or physiological processes are only used for the function in question. In short, to say that language is a vertical faculty is to say that there are mental mechanisms (and probably brain ares) that do nothing but language. In contrast, a horizontal faculty is "assembled" from various sub-components in a sort of mix-and-match manner. It will not be distinct from any other ability that also draws on the same sub-components.

For a long time, language was argued to be a vertical faculty. But starting with Jerry Fodor, more and more of the field has shifted towards a horizontal view for just about every "higher-order" ability, including language, leaving only perception and motor control (i.e., input and output) as verticals. A cognitive linguist is someone who takes this modern view and specifically argues that there is no clear line between language and semantic knowledge, especially with regard to categorization. They aren't neo-Whorfians, but they come rather close. They are flipping some of the old work on its head. Instead of saying that the basic level of categorization is that which is used spontaneously, they argue that whatever level of categorization is used spontaneously when naming an object is the basic level.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY A PENIS.

c'est ne pas une pi-pi de taille moyen.

[/magritte]

[another lurker]

Dan told me he is a Cognitive Linguist. So I looked that up. AFAICT, the entire field makes no sense whatsoever.

They aren't neo-Whorfians, but they come rather close.

Neo Whorfians?

Like this?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... orfTNG.jpg

[Steersman]

In other news, some are taking a more proactive approach to the potential rape of Western Womanhood by the nefarious Muslim:

[Jan Steen]

The difference between Carrier and a creationist is that a creationist probably believes his own nonsense. Carrier just wants Thunderf00t to be wrong, without actually believing it. So he has to lie to make it appear as if Thunderf00t is wrong. No amount of dishonesty is too much for Dr. Carrier PhD. Only his dumbest fans and his many fictional girlfriends still believe anything he says.

Yes, I'm sure the girlfriends who want anal, choking and facials believe him completely.

Dr. Carrier PhD knows what women really want. He learned that from watching all those porn videos while single-handedly writing his pseudo-peer-reviewed masterpieces.

[Kirbmarc]

Dan told me he is a Cognitive Linguist. So I looked that up. AFAICT, the entire field makes no sense whatsoever.

The key difference ... these days ... between standard, old-school linguistics and so-called "cognitive linguistics" centers mostly on the distinction between vertical and horizontal faculties. A vertical faculty is defined as being computationally autonomous and often encapsulated, such that the underlying mental and/or physiological processes are only used for the function in question. In short, to say that language is a vertical faculty is to say that there are mental mechanisms (and probably brain ares) that do nothing but language. In contrast, a horizontal faculty is "assembled" from various sub-components in a sort of mix-and-match manner. It will not be distinct from any other ability that also draws on the same sub-components.

For a long time, language was argued to be a vertical faculty. But starting with Jerry Fodor, more and more of the field has shifted towards a horizontal view for just about every "higher-order" ability, including language, leaving only perception and motor control (i.e., input and output) as verticals. A cognitive linguist is someone who takes this modern view and specifically argues that there is no clear line between language and semantic knowledge, especially with regard to categorization. They aren't neo-Whorfians, but they come rather close. They are flipping some of the old work on its head. Instead of saying that the basic level of categorization is that which is used spontaneously, they argue that whatever level of categorization is used spontaneously when naming an object is the basic level.

Cognitive linguistics is a huge mess. Their biggest problem is that they cannot even agree about their own terminology.

There is some value to the idea that the line between semantics and pragmatics and semantic knowledge may not be very clear. Syntax and phonology, on the other hand, are "a different kettle of fish", to borrow a Steermanism.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Dan told me he is a Cognitive Linguist. So I looked that up. AFAICT, the entire field makes no sense whatsoever.

The key difference ... these days ... between standard, old-school linguistics and so-called "cognitive linguistics" centers mostly on the distinction between vertical and horizontal faculties. A vertical faculty is defined as being computationally autonomous and often encapsulated, such that the underlying mental and/or physiological processes are only used for the function in question. In short, to say that language is a vertical faculty is to say that there are mental mechanisms (and probably brain ares) that do nothing but language. In contrast, a horizontal faculty is "assembled" from various sub-components in a sort of mix-and-match manner. It will not be distinct from any other ability that also draws on the same sub-components.

For a long time, language was argued to be a vertical faculty. But starting with Jerry Fodor, more and more of the field has shifted towards a horizontal view for just about every "higher-order" ability, including language, leaving only perception and motor control (i.e., input and output) as verticals. A cognitive linguist is someone who takes this modern view and specifically argues that there is no clear line between language and semantic knowledge, especially with regard to categorization. They aren't neo-Whorfians, but they come rather close. They are flipping some of the old work on its head. Instead of saying that the basic level of categorization is that which is used spontaneously, they argue that whatever level of categorization is used spontaneously when naming an object is the basic level.

I appreciate you enacting the labor to explain that. But your explanation makes no sense whatsoever, either. Could it be that, like Economics, all of Linguistics is not even good enough to be wrong?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Cognitive linguistics is a huge mess. Their biggest problem is that they cannot even agree about their own terminology.

Linguists who can't get the words rights. :doh:

[pajh]

The difference between Carrier and a creationist is that a creationist probably believes his own nonsense. Carrier just wants Thunderf00t to be wrong, without actually believing it. So he has to lie to make it appear as if Thunderf00t is wrong. No amount of dishonesty is too much for Dr. Carrier PhD. Only his dumbest fans and his many fictional girlfriends still believe anything he says.

Yes, I'm sure the girlfriends who want anal, choking and facials believe him completely.

Dr. Carrier PhD knows what women really want. He learned that from watching all those porn videos while single-handedly writing his pseudo-peer-reviewed masterpieces.

Wait, what are you saying he doing with his other hand whilst he was writing?

[Shatterface]

Dan told me he is a Cognitive Linguist. So I looked that up. AFAICT, the entire field makes no sense whatsoever.

They aren't neo-Whorfians, but they come rather close.

Neo Whorfians?

Like this?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... orfTNG.jpg

Officially the nerdiest cartoon ever:

http://www.loglan.org/Texts/UorfCartoon.gif

[Kirbmarc]

Dan told me he is a Cognitive Linguist. So I looked that up. AFAICT, the entire field makes no sense whatsoever.

The key difference ... these days ... between standard, old-school linguistics and so-called "cognitive linguistics" centers mostly on the distinction between vertical and horizontal faculties. A vertical faculty is defined as being computationally autonomous and often encapsulated, such that the underlying mental and/or physiological processes are only used for the function in question. In short, to say that language is a vertical faculty is to say that there are mental mechanisms (and probably brain ares) that do nothing but language. In contrast, a horizontal faculty is "assembled" from various sub-components in a sort of mix-and-match manner. It will not be distinct from any other ability that also draws on the same sub-components.

For a long time, language was argued to be a vertical faculty. But starting with Jerry Fodor, more and more of the field has shifted towards a horizontal view for just about every "higher-order" ability, including language, leaving only perception and motor control (i.e., input and output) as verticals. A cognitive linguist is someone who takes this modern view and specifically argues that there is no clear line between language and semantic knowledge, especially with regard to categorization. They aren't neo-Whorfians, but they come rather close. They are flipping some of the old work on its head. Instead of saying that the basic level of categorization is that which is used spontaneously, they argue that whatever level of categorization is used spontaneously when naming an object is the basic level.

I appreciate you enacting the labor to explain that. But your explanation makes no sense whatsoever, either. Could it be that, like Economics, all of Linguistics is not even good enough to be wrong?

It depnds on what you're talking about. Applied lingustics, and especially corpus based lingustics, produce some testable claims which are subject to falsification.

For example in the never-ending "nigger-cunt" debate I produced some hard data from the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and the BNC (British National Corpus) which showed evidence that "cunt" is stastically used to refer to man equally if not more than to women in the UK, and therefore that the claim that "cunt" is a gendered insult is rather specious.

The claim "cunt is a gendered insult towards women" is therefore a testable one, assuming that corpora are a good stastical representation of a variety of a language.

In general all claims about language use and collocations can become testable by constructing corpora. The problems come with the construction of corpora which suitably represent the variety of a language for the purposes of analyzing the feature that you want to analyze.

[Billie from Ockham]

Cognitive linguistics is a huge mess. Their biggest problem is that they cannot even agree about their own terminology.

I guess I see that, too. But questions concerning mental architecture are what I care about most and I happen to agree with the idea that language is not a module.

[free thoughtpolice]

Cognitive linguistics is a huge mess. Their biggest problem is that they cannot even agree about their own terminology.

I guess I see that, too. But questions concerning mental architecture are what I care about most and I happen to agree with the idea that language is not a module.

So you're saying Newton's Principia Mathematica is a rape manual?

[Billie from Ockham]

I appreciate you enacting the labor to explain that. But your explanation makes no sense whatsoever, either. Could it be that, like Economics, all of Linguistics is not even good enough to be wrong?

I'll try again.

In theory, there are two main type of mental mechanism: those that are self-contained and include all the necessary resources to do their tightly-specified function (e.g., the visual system) and those that are actually built when needed out of parts that other mechanisms might also need to their functions (e.g., whatever it is that solves complex problems). The former are vertical faculties; the latter are horizontal faculties. For a long time, people thought language was a vertical (aka "modular" in Fodor-speak). You even had people arguing for specific brain areas, such as the well-known Broca's and Wernicke's Areas. But started in the 80s, the prevailing view starting shifting towards more and more of the "higher-order" abilities of people being of the latter sort, instead. And one group really pushing this view is cognitive linguistics.

[Billie from Ockham]

So you're saying Newton's Principia Mathematica is a rape manual?

If you have not (yet) realized that all Western science is a rape manual, I cannot help you. I prescribe two Anitas per day and a Marcotte every weekend.

[Cnutella]

Other unsurprising news about Quizotron flopping AGAIN tonight:


Rebecca Watson (@rebeccawatson) tweeted:
sorry to say that Adam Savage isn't going to make it tonight after all but thank god we still have one Adam left!

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/12 ... 00x400.png

Noted skeptic Rebecca Watson spends money on Powerball tickets because it's buying a fantasy; my equivalent is the schadenfreude of yet another of her half-assed ventures failing. I would feel bad about that if she wasn't such a massive cow.

[Kirbmarc]

Cognitive linguistics is a huge mess. Their biggest problem is that they cannot even agree about their own terminology.

I guess I see that, too. But questions concerning mental architecture are what I care about most and I happen to agree with the idea that language is not a module.

I agree with that idea, too, but I also think that cognitive linguistics is not the right approach to the question of whether language is or isn't a module.

[Kirbmarc]

I appreciate you enacting the labor to explain that. But your explanation makes no sense whatsoever, either. Could it be that, like Economics, all of Linguistics is not even good enough to be wrong?

I'll try again.

In theory, there are two main type of mental mechanism: those that are self-contained and include all the necessary resources to do their tightly-specified function (e.g., the visual system) and those that are actually built when needed out of parts that other mechanisms might also need to their functions (e.g., whatever it is that solves complex problems). The former are vertical faculties; the latter are horizontal faculties. For a long time, people thought language was a vertical (aka "modular" in Fodor-speak). You even had people arguing for specific brain areas, such as the well-known Broca's and Wernicke's Areas. But started in the 80s, the prevailing view starting shifting towards more and more of the "higher-order" abilities of people being of the latter sort, instead. And one group really pushing this view is cognitive linguistics.

I guess that the question of whether lingustic faculties are vertical or horizontal depends on which lingustic faculty you are considering. For example the ability to discriminate between two different phonemes (tin vs bin) is different from the ability to formulate pragmatic inferences ("Bill might be home" "Oh, so you're not sure?"). The latter is very likely horizontal. It's hard to say whether the former is horizontal or vertical.

[Billie from Ockham]

I guess that the question of whether lingustic faculties are vertical or horizontal depends on which lingustic faculty you are considering. For example the ability to discriminate between two different phonemes (tin vs bin) is different from the ability to formulate pragmatic inferences ("Bill might be home" "Oh, so you're not sure?"). The latter is very likely horizontal. It's hard to say whether the former is horizontal or vertical.

I completely agree and shouldn't have been so dogmatic above. For example, the evidence that the grapheme-to-phoneme conversation system is a module (or close enough) is pretty strong.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

Where Rebecca Watson celebrates crushing the dreams of a "kid" in low stakes poker in Vegas in order to eat smorgasbord and where she outlines her priorities when she wins $900 million in Powerball:

1. Lawyers
2. icecream truck
3. House
4. Dog

Apparently family and acts of kindness do not figure.

[youtube]uSbRxWwoNsM[/youtube]

Becky:

I bought some Powerball [lottery] tickets...the jackpot is so high that it's actually almost a good bet...

You fucking moron. You profess to being a SKEPchick? You profess to be anti-woo? You profess to being pro-science, and pro-reason? You are a fucking moron.

A "good bet" on a random outcome is determined by analyzing the balance of loss, gain, and chance. In the case of the Powerball, your risk is low. Maybe $5 any time you play, assuming you don't blow your retirement fund in one go...Which leads to chance.

Unless you cash in all your non-liquid assets and buy millions of tickets, your chances of winning remain essentially the same: tens or hundreds of millions to one. This leads to gain.

Last week the Powerball jackpot was hundreds of millions. But this week, it has passed an arbitrary point which you now consider worth a punt. This is where you become a moron. What the fuck could you do with 900 million that you couldn't do with 600 million? The chance of winning is the same, and your exposure is minimal ($5). So where the fuck does reason and skepticism and science come into this decision to bet this week and not last week? You are, you fucking cretin, revealing the exact lack of statistical understanding - mixed with pure human greed - which has allowed gambling to survive so long and so strongly within human societies.

Let me be clear, it doesn't bother or annoy me one atom that people do this. What pisses me off is that Becky pretends to represent public understanding of the sciences, and gets paid to do so, while she is actually nothing more than a third-rate chancer with a third -rate degree in a third-rate subject. She is a fraud, on the level of Sylvia Browne.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

I bathe in hard water.

Huh huh. Wanna bathe in my hardon water instead? Huh huh.

No, really? Can I spunk my hot man fat all over your titties? Please?

See the video about otherkin that I just linked?

YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY A PENIS.

You...I...how do you fucking dare challenge my penile identity? I was born as a penis, and this is all you need to know. Fuck, what a disgusting piece of dismissive shit you are.

LSUOMA: block xir please.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I appreciate you enacting the labor to explain that. But your explanation makes no sense whatsoever, either. Could it be that, like Economics, all of Linguistics is not even good enough to be wrong?

I'll try again.

In theory, there are two main type of mental mechanism: those that are self-contained and include all the necessary resources to do their tightly-specified function (e.g., the visual system) and those that are actually built when needed out of parts that other mechanisms might also need to their functions (e.g., whatever it is that solves complex problems). The former are vertical faculties; the latter are horizontal faculties. For a long time, people thought language was a vertical (aka "modular" in Fodor-speak). You even had people arguing for specific brain areas, such as the well-known Broca's and Wernicke's Areas. But started in the 80s, the prevailing view starting shifting towards more and more of the "higher-order" abilities of people being of the latter sort, instead. And one group really pushing this view is cognitive linguistics.

Is that revisionist view based on brain-science, or their asses?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I appreciate you enacting the labor to explain that. But your explanation makes no sense whatsoever, either. Could it be that, like Economics, all of Linguistics is not even good enough to be wrong?

I'll try again.

In theory, there are two main type of mental mechanism: those that are self-contained and include all the necessary resources to do their tightly-specified function (e.g., the visual system) and those that are actually built when needed out of parts that other mechanisms might also need to their functions (e.g., whatever it is that solves complex problems). The former are vertical faculties; the latter are horizontal faculties. For a long time, people thought language was a vertical (aka "modular" in Fodor-speak). You even had people arguing for specific brain areas, such as the well-known Broca's and Wernicke's Areas. But started in the 80s, the prevailing view starting shifting towards more and more of the "higher-order" abilities of people being of the latter sort, instead. And one group really pushing this view is cognitive linguistics.

I guess that the question of whether lingustic faculties are vertical or horizontal depends on which lingustic faculty you are considering. For example the ability to discriminate between two different phonemes (tin vs bin) is different from the ability to formulate pragmatic inferences ("Bill might be home" "Oh, so you're not sure?"). The latter is very likely horizontal. It's hard to say whether the former is horizontal or vertical.

It is vertical or horizontal that all this makes my brain hurt?

[Lsuoma]

Did any other Seattleites nearly shit themselves this afternoon?

The result was good, and even better, it might send Peezy all ranty?

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Feefles has basically dropped off the radar since she left FfTB? I think this demonstrates pretty well that the the Peezy 'n' Twocows show were whipping up the batter for the pancakes of their flock outrage and clickbaits as the primary business model. Feefles got played like an accordion...

[some guy]

Noted skeptic Rebecca Watson spends money on Powerball tickets because it's buying a fantasy ...

Seems like a good use for that patreon money. (Probably what those who contributed were buying, too.)

[DaveDodo007]

The $58 Million Frivolous Lawsuit Against Richard Dawkins is Finally Over.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... ally-over/

[Kirbmarc]

Last week the Powerball jackpot was hundreds of millions. But this week, it has passed an arbitrary point which you now consider worth a punt. This is where you become a moron. What the fuck could you do with 900 million that you couldn't do with 600 million? The chance of winning is the same, and your exposure is minimal ($5). So where the fuck does reason and skepticism and science come into this decision to bet this week and not last week? You are, you fucking cretin, revealing the exact lack of statistical understanding - mixed with pure human greed - which has allowed gambling to survive so long and so strongly within human societies.

Well to be fair whether or not a bet is good depends on the payoff.

If I offered you 3$ for 1$ bet on whether a coin is going to end up heads or tails you should accept the bet, since the expected profit of that bet is (assuming that the game isn't rigged):

Ep = -$1*(1/2) + $3*(1/2) = $1

so for every dollar you bet you stand to win (bet plus profit) $2. You should play, because in the long run you're expected to win a lot of money (and the good who proposed this bet is probably a moron...or a philanthropist).

In the case of the Powerball, the probabilty of winning, since you pick 5 balls out of 69 and 1 out of 26, is 1 in 292,201,338.

Since the payoff is of $1,3 billion (1,300,000,000), the minimum bet is $2, the expected profit is:

Ep= -$2* (292,201,337/292,201,338) + $1,300,000,000*(1/292,201,338) = -1.99999999316+4.44898715693 =2.44898716377

So for every 2 dollars you bet you stand to win (bet plus profit) roughly $4 and 45 cents. Becky is (kind of) right, this is a good bet....in theory.

In practice, in order to see some returns you should consistently play with these exact same odds for a certain period of time. The longer you'd play the higher your probability of getting returns would get. But (and here's the but) the powerball jackpot doesn't always stay the same, and even if it did you don't have enough chances to play to make the game rewarding from a practical point of view in your lifetime.

You'd need to play 146100669 times (1404814 years and counting) just to have 50% of chances to win.

Alternatively you could bet on all the 292,201,338 combinations for $2, spend $584,402,676 and be sure to win $1,300,000,000, for a net gain of $715597324. But who has that kind of money (and the time to write down all those combinations) anyway?

For every bet there's a payoff high enough which makes it theorethically a good bet. Even for a bet with very low odds. This doesn't mean that it's pratical to get rich by playing.

[some guy]

... Since the payoff is of $1,3 billion (1,300,000,000), the minimum bet is $2, the expected profit is:

Ep= -$2* (292,201,337/292,201,338) + $1,300,000,000*(1/292,201,338) = -1.99999999316+4.44898715693 =2.44898716377

So for every 2 dollars you bet you stand to win (bet plus profit) roughly $4 and 45 cents. Becky is (kind of) right, this is a good bet....in theory. ...

Except that the actual present day value (i.e., the lump sum payout) of that 1.3 B jackpot is only $806 million (62% of the 30-year "annuity" payout), and then you will get hit with 39% federal tax (and more if the state you live in has income tax).

So if you are the sole winner, you'll net only about $490 million. Meaning that from an investment standpoint, it is still a loser.

(And there will be a non-trivial probability that (I'd guess >50%) that there will be more than one winner.)

[katamari Damassi]

Elyse has dropped off the radar. Whatever happened with her arrest? Is she finally in the padded cell?

[katamari Damassi]

Also, does Atheism Plus still exist? I must be feeling nostalgic tonight.

[dogen]

Last week the Powerball jackpot was hundreds of millions. But this week, it has passed an arbitrary point which you now consider worth a punt. This is where you become a moron. What the fuck could you do with 900 million that you couldn't do with 600 million? The chance of winning is the same, and your exposure is minimal ($5). So where the fuck does reason and skepticism and science come into this decision to bet this week and not last week? You are, you fucking cretin, revealing the exact lack of statistical understanding - mixed with pure human greed - which has allowed gambling to survive so long and so strongly within human societies.

Well to be fair whether or not a bet is good depends on the payoff.

If I offered you 3$ for 1$ bet on whether a coin is going to end up heads or tails you should accept the bet, since the expected profit of that bet is (assuming that the game isn't rigged):

Ep = -$1*(1/2) + $3*(1/2) = $1

so for every dollar you bet you stand to win (bet plus profit) $2. You should play, because in the long run you're expected to win a lot of money (and the good who proposed this bet is probably a moron...or a philanthropist).

In the case of the Powerball, the probabilty of winning, since you pick 5 balls out of 69 and 1 out of 26, is 1 in 292,201,338.

Since the payoff is of $1,3 billion (1,300,000,000), the minimum bet is $2, the expected profit is:

Ep= -$2* (292,201,337/292,201,338) + $1,300,000,000*(1/292,201,338) = -1.99999999316+4.44898715693 =2.44898716377

So for every 2 dollars you bet you stand to win (bet plus profit) roughly $4 and 45 cents. Becky is (kind of) right, this is a good bet....in theory.

In practice, in order to see some returns you should consistently play with these exact same odds for a certain period of time. The longer you'd play the higher your probability of getting returns would get. But (and here's the but) the powerball jackpot doesn't always stay the same, and even if it did you don't have enough chances to play to make the game rewarding from a practical point of view in your lifetime.

You'd need to play 146100669 times (1404814 years and counting) just to have 50% of chances to win.

Alternatively you could bet on all the 292,201,338 combinations for $2, spend $584,402,676 and be sure to win $1,300,000,000, for a net gain of $715597324. But who has that kind of money (and the time to write down all those combinations) anyway?

For every bet there's a payoff high enough which makes it theorethically a good bet. Even for a bet with very low odds. This doesn't mean that it's pratical to get rich by playing.

This is nothing more than gambler's ruin. The house wins because the house can afford to continue playing, whereas the gambler cannot.

[Cnutella]

A+ has a mild resurgence of posting over Christmas and the New Year, but by the usual suspects only. Countess Isolde (not a real countess) spoke words of heresy by suggesting that the term "male privilege" be retired in favor of "masculine privilege" for reasons too involved and boring to recount here, although there was a hint of awareness in the post that harping on constantly about male privilege might not be the best way to win friends and the culture war.

Elyse got a poorly done tattoo of a quote from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schimdt" two days ago, and then was moaning about how lttle money she has in her bank accunt last night, so hopefully the tattoo was a freebie. I suspect it wasn't, though.

I know nothing about either her court case or Banders's court case (if that's still going), but I haven't really been paying attention to the wacky goings on in Elyse world other than what crops up on Twitter.

[Cnutella]

Oops. All typos in the write-up above were actually completely accidental and are a good lesson in why it's important to re-read and edit posts before hitting "submit". A lesson I will continue to ignore.

[paddybrown]

Attitudes toward the natural philosopher in the early Roman Empire (100 B.C. to 313 A.D.)

Isn't it supposed to be written "100 BC to AD 313"?

Actually it should be BCE and CE. He wrote this thesis as recently as 2008 , yet apparently this Atheist "historian" still takes his era naming from someone he doesn't believe ever existed.

-

To be fair, even if he used BCE and CE, he'd still be basing his dates on someone he doesn't believe existed, because it's the same dating system as BC and AD, based on Dionyisius Exiguus' estimate of the birth of Jesus. Calling it the "Common Era" is claiming the Christian dating system is universal, when in fact there are other dating systems in use across the world that are just as valid. I submit to you therefore that BCE and CE are far more "culturally imperialist" than BC and AD. So there.

[ffs]

Oops. All typos in the write-up above were actually completely accidental and are a good lesson in why it's important to re-read and edit posts before hitting "submit". A lesson I will continue to ignore.

Blame the patriarchy

[Brive1987]

I am sad today.