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

Kirbmarc wrote:

Steersman wrote: Indeed. But seems a remarkably large number of people have never heard that aphorism before. Or never managed to integrate it into their personas.

Reminds me though of a brief conversation I'd had with Ophelia Benson several years ago in which she insisted that it was "the worst aphorism ever invented". I geddit - most people get it - that words can sting and hurt. But frequently they're the only alternative on tap other than a two-by-four up alongside the ears - at best.

The worst part about this is that people like Benson, who insist that words hurt "just like" physical assault, are more than ready to tell you that you should die in a fire, or that you should insert a rusty porcupine up your ass just because you politely criticized their ideas.

According to Benson's own standards that's the equivalent of breaking someone's nose just because they lightly tapped you on the shoulder. But it's all good because they're the Good Guys and you're the Bad Guy.

So they're not even consistent about their own rules.

I sympathize with your argument, but I kind of get the impression it partakes something of The Frankenstein Fallacy, something Aneris seems to have coined:

A Frankenstein fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when the diverse views within a group of people are assumed to occur in one representative member of the group, typically with the aim to present the group members as being hypocritical, holding double standards or inconsistent views. ....

The fallacy is related to the straw man, but unlike it, the views really exist in different individuals of the group, just not in this particular configuration in one person. It is thus like a Frankenstein monster pieced together from different parts, that originally belonged to different people. Noting hypocrisy, double standards or inconcistency in that way is not always a Frankenstein fallacy, for when a group has some shared values, it can be expected (sometimes) that the members duke it out whether they accept conflicting versions of beliefs.

And, relative to Benson, I note you said "like Benson" so you're not really condemning her for that. And I kind of get the impression that those who are "like Benson" are not prone to the "die in a fire" meme. That it is the many of those outside her Pale who are guilty of that hypocrisy. Though I don't think it really helps that she's so quick to anathematize "discouraging words".

I'm enjoying this KiA thread

Steersman wrote:

Kirbmarc wrote:

Steersman wrote: Indeed. But seems a remarkably large number of people have never heard that aphorism before. Or never managed to integrate it into their personas.

Reminds me though of a brief conversation I'd had with Ophelia Benson several years ago in which she insisted that it was "the worst aphorism ever invented". I geddit - most people get it - that words can sting and hurt. But frequently they're the only alternative on tap other than a two-by-four up alongside the ears - at best.

The worst part about this is that people like Benson, who insist that words hurt "just like" physical assault, are more than ready to tell you that you should die in a fire, or that you should insert a rusty porcupine up your ass just because you politely criticized their ideas.

According to Benson's own standards that's the equivalent of breaking someone's nose just because they lightly tapped you on the shoulder. But it's all good because they're the Good Guys and you're the Bad Guy.

So they're not even consistent about their own rules.

I sympathize with your argument, but I kind of get the impression it partakes something of The Frankenstein Fallacy, something Aneris seems to have coined:

A Frankenstein fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when the diverse views within a group of people are assumed to occur in one representative member of the group, typically with the aim to present the group members as being hypocritical, holding double standards or inconsistent views. ....

The fallacy is related to the straw man, but unlike it, the views really exist in different individuals of the group, just not in this particular configuration in one person. It is thus like a Frankenstein monster pieced together from different parts, that originally belonged to different people. Noting hypocrisy, double standards or inconcistency in that way is not always a Frankenstein fallacy, for when a group has some shared values, it can be expected (sometimes) that the members duke it out whether they accept conflicting versions of beliefs.

And, relative to Benson, I note you said "like Benson" so you're not really condemning her for that. And I kind of get the impression that those who are "like Benson" are not prone to the "die in a fire" meme. That it is the many of those outside her Pale who are guilty of that hypocrisy. Though I don't think it really helps that she's so quick to anathematize "discouraging words".

Thanks for the clarification. Although the "die in a fire" meme was simply an example of the "strong rhetoric" used by people who, like Benson seems to suggest, argue that words are harmful enough that they can reasonably compared to "stick and stones".

I'm talking specifically about those who argue that "micro-aggressions" are harmful and then indulge in "strong rhetoric" when they think that the target deserves it. There seems to be a trend of people who act this way.

Steersman wrote:

Billie from Ockham wrote:

Steersman wrote:Hat-trick and then some: "Woot! All your bases belong to me!" :-)

How can you get that quote/meme wrong?

(Don't answer. It was rhetorical.)

Well, it was also wrong. Unless you're going to bust my chops for using "bases" instead of "base" - seems rather picky. And all of the sentences/phrases seem to have a consistent theme:

*Groan*

rayshul wrote:I'm enjoying this KiA thread

I wonder about your bias Rayshul - aren't you embedded deep in enemy territory, surrounded by white males on a day-to-day basis?

nb the reddit link mentions the current fracas with Micheal Phelps being asked to carry the USA flag.

There was a story some years ago (sorry I can't find the youtube clip) when Phelps was confronted at an Olympic games press conference by an NZ reporter - asking (in jest) if he was not ashamed that he had won more medals in the games as an individual, than the entire New Zealand Olympic team.

Really? wrote:As for the Nye segment, it's telling that Nye was funnier than the "comedians." You can tell he has a funnier, nimbler mind for comedy than those two affirmative action cases. It's not even the jokes that are bad. Go ahead and joke about making a celebrity sex tape on Mars. That can be hilarious. But...and here's the main problem with so many things...they put ideology over creativity or humor. Instead of playing along like real comedians and mining humor out of the subject matter, the committed the cardinal sin of comedy: they said no.

There's something quite depressing about that segment. Abraham Lincoln with zest for life and knowledge, versus young "comedians" from the Idiocracy who don't know and don't care.

gurugeorge wrote:

Really? wrote:As for the Nye segment, it's telling that Nye was funnier than the "comedians." You can tell he has a funnier, nimbler mind for comedy than those two affirmative action cases. It's not even the jokes that are bad. Go ahead and joke about making a celebrity sex tape on Mars. That can be hilarious. But...and here's the main problem with so many things...they put ideology over creativity or humor. Instead of playing along like real comedians and mining humor out of the subject matter, the committed the cardinal sin of comedy: they said no.

There's something quite depressing about that segment. Abraham Lincoln with zest for life and knowledge, versus young "comedians" from the Idiocracy who don't know and don't care.

Yes, it's pretty depressing. Nye tried his best to make Mars research appealing to people who don't care about anything but themselves and making themselves look like good little ideologues who toe the line. Hell, he even tried to say that their kids could dream to be the first person on Mars and they didn't care. He tried to get them more excited about technological progress and they didn't care.

There could have been plenty of jokes to be made about life on Mars, or about space in general. They didn't care, they had to bring in Trump and ISIS and how they don't give a damn about anything.

Steersman wrote:

VickyCaramel wrote: Sticks and stones will break my bones, words will never hurt me.

Indeed. But seems a remarkably large number of people have never heard that aphorism before. Or never managed to integrate it into their personas.

Reminds me though of a brief conversation I'd had with Ophelia Benson several years ago in which she insisted that it was "the worst aphorism ever invented". I geddit - most people get it - that words can sting and hurt. But frequently they're the only alternative on tap other than a two-by-four up alongside the ears - at best.

Steers - we weren't originally talking about the power of words to 'hurt' in the SJW sense that the ideas conveyed by these words can damage the delicate psyche.

We were talking about aggressively shouting at people going about their business who don't want to be shouted at. This is an issue of public order and the freedom of people not to have their day ruined and their blood-pressure elevated by somebody who either wants to start a fight with them or humiliate them by making them back down when they're angry.

All societies put limits on how much you are allowed to verbally wind up your neighbours or frighten them. Even Canada. Even in the The Land of The Free I saw that Cobb person on "Welcome to Leith" who was imprisoned for quite a lot of years for "terrorizing" which is basically persistent aggressive shouting while holding a gun. I know that the gun is quite a big part of it, but so too is the shouting and the existence of this law does indeed recognise that the state has a duty to protect people from fear caused by aggressively expressed intentions.

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:I must be getting old.

I'm 1 hour 42 into Batman Vs Superman, and I dig the movie. Might be the other DC movie I like beside Watchmen.

I bought the movie. Tres bon.

piginthecity wrote:
...

All societies put limits on how much you are allowed to verbally wind up your neighbours or frighten them. Even Canada. Even in the The Land of The Free I saw that Cobb person...

Who is the Cobb person - and what has he done that was so offensive?

[youtube][/youtube]

Skep tickle wrote:"The Red Pill" opens in October, in NYC then LA.

Tickets for the NYC showings go on sale August 26th.

http://www.theredpillmovie.com/see.html

I for one await the stink that this will kick up if the tone is even slightly sympathetic.

Hey cisiess, The Paris Review served me something very pythy.

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016 ... hard-time/

“He only knew a drawing was good if it got him hard,” writes Dian Hanson of Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland (1920–1991). I’ve been spending my evenings drooling over “Tom’s men,” as they’ve come to be called—famously erotic, fabulously gay, and achingly virile.

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-c ... 051915.jpg

Da fuck?!? It's not Finland Friday, n00b!

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:Da fuck?!? It's not Finland Friday, n00b!

I WORK WEEKENDS, my sense of week day is disrupted. Nice microagression, Phil. I'm on the phone with Pyt HR right now.

Wait, FT told me to go fuck myself.

*sighs* *unzips*

Here's one for Steers:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpag ... _id/160197

Skep tickle wrote:"The Red Pill" opens in October, in NYC then LA.

Tickets for the NYC showings go on sale August 26th.

http://www.theredpillmovie.com/see.html

Seems like one of those movies that will be carefully crafted to give nobody any reason to change their position at all, one way or the other. No MRA going in will not come out an MRA. No feminist going in....well, no feminist will go in.

Seeing other interviews with the author makes confirms my suspicions.

DrokkIt wrote:

Skep tickle wrote:"The Red Pill" opens in October, in NYC then LA.

Tickets for the NYC showings go on sale August 26th.

http://www.theredpillmovie.com/see.html

I for one await the stink that this will kick up if the tone is even slightly sympathetic.

Don't worry, it won't be. I have "a feeling" that this movie will "move" no-one.

sp0tlight wrote:

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:Da fuck?!? It's not Finland Friday, n00b!

I WORK WEEKENDS, my sense of week day is disrupted. Nice microagression, Phil. I'm on the phone with Pyt HR right now.

You know what, I can buy that excuse.

Kirbmarc wrote:

Steersman wrote: Indeed. But seems a remarkably large number of people have never heard that aphorism before. Or never managed to integrate it into their personas.

Reminds me though of a brief conversation I'd had with Ophelia Benson several years ago in which she insisted that it was "the worst aphorism ever invented". I geddit - most people get it - that words can sting and hurt. But frequently they're the only alternative on tap other than a two-by-four up alongside the ears - at best.

The worst part about this is that people like Benson, who insist that words hurt "just like" physical assault, are more than ready to tell you that you should die in a fire, or that you should insert a rusty porcupine up your ass just because you politely criticized their ideas.

According to Benson's own standards that's the equivalent of breaking someone's nose just because they lightly tapped you on the shoulder. But it's all good because they're the Good Guys and you're the Bad Guy.

So they're not even consistent about their own rules.

That reminds me, several years ago one of her flying monkeys offered to kneecap somebody for her on twitter. I retweeted this back at her, and tweeted at her about her hypocrisy at not calling out this behaviour and instead laughing at it. She then cherry picked some of my tweets that mentioned "kneecapping" and blogged that i was threatening her.

Well, I screencapped the whole thing and saved it to Picasa. Would you believe that google deleted those images? Picasa has has censored me before when there was images making jokes about cunts and the images just disappear without warning. I can only guess that she complained and had them all removed because the majority were pretty innocuous.

But how the fuck do you do that? It is hard enough to contact Google anyway, but to say, "I made some violent tweets that make me look bad and somebody documented it, can you remove them please?"

piginthecity wrote:
Steers - we weren't originally talking about the power of words to 'hurt' in the SJW sense that the ideas conveyed by these words can damage the delicate psyche.

We were talking about aggressively shouting at people going about their business who don't want to be shouted at. This is an issue of public order and the freedom of people not to have their day ruined and their blood-pressure elevated by somebody who either wants to start a fight with them or humiliate them by making them back down when they're angry.

I was taught another little phrase as a child which was, "Six of one, half a dozen of the other".

The guy getting called a nigger was a cyclist. Cyclists generally deserve to get shouted at, to obey the rules of the road (which it seems most of them don't think they need to obey), or to stop riding around like lunatics, or to get the hell out of the way and stop taking up the whole road (Shit, I hope Mykeru is reading this), so two things occur to me...

Would sounding your horn at them constitute aggression and an infringement of the cyclist's right to continue being a menace on the roads?

And what kind of exchange between the two parties happened before one side went nuclear with the word "niggger"?

I can see a situation with a cyclist standing in the road blocking traffic, shouting abuse at passing cars, would that all be forgiven just because somebody replied to his abuse with the 'N' word?

Ape+lust wrote:If I'm killing the Pit, may as well kill it good.

That's so fuckin funny I think a little bit of shit came out. :lol: :lol: :lol:

I love the look on monkey Peez's face. He actually looks like he's thoroughly enjoying it.

Ape+lust wrote:Buzzkill.

Those pygmy yetis are gonna die of radiation sickness.

Brive1987 wrote:

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:I must be getting old.

I'm 1 hour 42 into Batman Vs Superman, and I dig the movie. Might be the other DC movie I like beside Watchmen.

I bought the movie. Tres bon.

I'm glad there's at least three of us. Wasn't a big fan of this version of Lex Luthor, and the Justice League setup was ham-fisted. But other than that... pretty good. Ben Affleck might be my favourite Batman (if you don't count Conroy).

Keating wrote:I thought the Clintons were the ones taking bribes from the Russians:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/ca ... mpany.html

Everyone takes bribes from the Russians. Havent you gotten your check yet?

Really? wrote:

dogen wrote:

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:Hey, Billie o' Ockham and anybody else on the 'pit that have contributed to writing a college class textbook; do you at least get a sizeable chunk of money out of it? I just got the list for my eldest's classes. I've paid less for running automobiles.

Nope, maybe a couple of grand. It's the publishers who make out like bandits.

Haven't contributed to a textbook, but I know that dogen is right. The publishers make the money. The professors don't get a lot of money. If it makes you feel better, teachers don't assign their own books as much as you'd expect. There's a stigma against it to prevent the kind of self serving situation you might imagine.

If it makes you feel better, it sounds like your eldest is taking some real classes, not women's studies classes. (Though those textbooks are shamefully expensive, too.)

I was able to make out like a bandit by getting older editions of the required text. On average once a semester there would be some material that wasn't included in my edition, but often as not I could find it online. A bit of extra work on your part as a student, the page numbers don't match, which is irritating, and you need to have a yes-I-am-this-cheap-no-I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude when you get noticed in class, but you'll pick up the books for pennies on the dollar.

gurugeorge wrote:

Really? wrote:As for the Nye segment, it's telling that Nye was funnier than the "comedians." You can tell he has a funnier, nimbler mind for comedy than those two affirmative action cases. It's not even the jokes that are bad. Go ahead and joke about making a celebrity sex tape on Mars. That can be hilarious. But...and here's the main problem with so many things...they put ideology over creativity or humor. Instead of playing along like real comedians and mining humor out of the subject matter, the committed the cardinal sin of comedy: they said no.

There's something quite depressing about that segment. Abraham Lincoln with zest for life and knowledge, versus young "comedians" from the Idiocracy who don't know and don't care.

Last night I watched some of David Cross's latest special on Netflix. Holy fuck was it terrible. Just god awful. It was all LOOK HOW STUPID AND EVIL THOSE RED PEOPLE ARE. And I'm more on the left side of things. But I no longer find that sort of thing cute or funny or anything. All I can think of is "DO YOU WANT TRUMP? THAT'S HOW YOU GET TRUMP"

I'm sure it has it's audience. And that's fine, I guess. But it's making the problem worse, not better.

The rise in modern racism is an expected reaction to an elitist, out of touch, arrogant culture that tells them that racism is wrong.

deLurch wrote:

HunnyBunny wrote:The Religious Studies & Philosophy Department has just sent an email to say they have arranged school-wide subscription access to the NY Times. This is apparently a "good resource related to different culture and international-mindedness". My limited experience suggests it is The Guardian with funny spelling, but I'm not sure on the regression scale for US media. Can anyone confirm for me?

The New York Times does better than most US news outlets in terms of thoroughness of their research and investigation. But it does seem to have been slipping off the rails here or there in the past few years.

If you are searching for the best non-biased news source, the best suggestion I have come across to date is Rueters. Beyond that, you have to scour the news from multiple sources & even off the beaten path sources in some cases in order to get a solid look at the bigger picture.

NYT used to be "The Paper of Record" -- ie, it was the widely considered the most reliable and newsworthy paper. Over the last decade or so, it has largely been living off its reputation and has moved further left in its political leanings. Its still one of the better US papers, but is much sloppier more biased than it used to be.

Personally, I find Bloomberg News very good. It tends to be business focused, but has a fair bit of general news as well, and it seems not to push a general editorial bent on its reporters and commentators. I have actually heard a Bloomberg Views piece supporting concealed carry, despite Mikey's well known stances.

deLurch wrote:

HunnyBunny wrote:The Religious Studies & Philosophy Department has just sent an email to say they have arranged school-wide subscription access to the NY Times. This is apparently a "good resource related to different culture and international-mindedness". My limited experience suggests it is The Guardian with funny spelling, but I'm not sure on the regression scale for US media. Can anyone confirm for me?

The New York Times does better than most US news outlets in terms of thoroughness of their research and investigation. But it does seem to have been slipping off the rails here or there in the past few years.

If you are searching for the best non-biased news source, the best suggestion I have come across to date is Rueters. Beyond that, you have to scour the news from multiple sources & even off the beaten path sources in some cases in order to get a solid look at the bigger picture.

NYT used to be "The Paper of Record" -- ie, it was the widely considered the most reliable and newsworthy paper. Over the last decade or so, it has largely been living off its reputation and has moved further left in its political leanings. Its still one of the better US papers, but is much sloppier more biased than it used to be.

Personally, I find Bloomberg News very good. It tends to be business focused, but has a fair bit of general news as well, and it seems not to push a general editorial bent on its reporters and commentators. I have actually heard a Bloomberg Views piece supporting concealed carry, despite Mikey's well known stances.

HunnyBunny wrote:School has started again here in Hong Kong. My daughter attends a private English-medium school, which adheres to the prevailing 'all cultures/religions are great, unless it's white' ethos. I'm expecting Self-Flagellation for Whites Only as a PE class option any day now.

The Religious Studies & Philosophy Department has just sent an email to say they have arranged school-wide subscription access to the NY Times. This is apparently a "good resource related to different culture and international-mindedness". My limited experience suggests it is The Guardian with funny spelling, but I'm not sure on the regression scale for US media. Can anyone confirm for me?

Forgot to add, it is probably the most internationally focused of the major US papers.

VickyCaramel wrote:

Kirbmarc wrote:

Steersman wrote: Indeed. But seems a remarkably large number of people have never heard that aphorism before. Or never managed to integrate it into their personas.

Reminds me though of a brief conversation I'd had with Ophelia Benson several years ago in which she insisted that it was "the worst aphorism ever invented". I geddit - most people get it - that words can sting and hurt. But frequently they're the only alternative on tap other than a two-by-four up alongside the ears - at best.

The worst part about this is that people like Benson, who insist that words hurt "just like" physical assault, are more than ready to tell you that you should die in a fire, or that you should insert a rusty porcupine up your ass just because you politely criticized their ideas.

According to Benson's own standards that's the equivalent of breaking someone's nose just because they lightly tapped you on the shoulder. But it's all good because they're the Good Guys and you're the Bad Guy.

So they're not even consistent about their own rules.

That reminds me, several years ago one of her flying monkeys offered to kneecap somebody for her on twitter. I retweeted this back at her, and tweeted at her about her hypocrisy at not calling out this behaviour and instead laughing at it. She then cherry picked some of my tweets that mentioned "kneecapping" and blogged that i was threatening her.

Well, I screencapped the whole thing and saved it to Picasa. Would you believe that google deleted those images? Picasa has has censored me before when there was images making jokes about cunts and the images just disappear without warning. I can only guess that she complained and had them all removed because the majority were pretty innocuous.

But how the fuck do you do that? It is hard enough to contact Google anyway, but to say, "I made some violent tweets that make me look bad and somebody documented it, can you remove them please?"

"Help! Someone is using Picassa images to harass me!"

Dave wrote: "Help! Someone is using Picassa images to harass me!"

Ophelia would do that, though. I dimly recall something about her badgering an admin of the old RDF boards to remove negative posts about her.

Tigzy wrote:

Dave wrote: "Help! Someone is using Picassa images to harass me!"

Ophelia would do that, though. I dimly recall something about her badgering an admin of the old RDF boards to remove negative posts about her.

Indeed. I was trying to answer Vicki's question of how does one do that?

For those few who care, Michelle J just made her first and last appearance at the Rio Olympics coming 6th out of 8th in one of the Qualifiers.
She was probably only there because the Aussie Champ hurdler Sally Pearson is injured.
Does she, perchance, have any other talents?


https://media.giphy.com/media/H3icFKyg9fxbW/giphy.gif

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:Hey, Billie o' Ockham and anybody else on the 'pit that have contributed to writing a college class textbook; do you at least get a sizeable chunk of money out of it? I just got the list for my eldest's classes. I've paid less for running automobiles.

You get between 7% and 15%, depending on publisher, usually at the lower end, now that ebooks are becoming more popular for texts. It used to be much higher. But, as flattered as I am that you'd ask me, I have given away every text that I've written, so I'm not sure about this.

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:

dogen wrote:Nope, maybe a couple of grand. It's the publishers who make out like bandits.

Goddamn, that's what I thought. I do believe that is why they don't do more e-books. Nobody would have any qualms about pirating the stuff.

The new trick seems to involve not actually downloading the text, but reading it off the publisher's website. This way, the students pay for access for one semester and then their password expires. Now, I'm sure that someone could just "rip" the text off the site while they have access and then pass along a pdf, but they've brought down the price to reduce the incentive. Plus, the extra bits like being able to tap on a word and have the definition pop up wouldn't work (and that's one thing that students really like). In any event ... from what I understand ... the cut for the author is only a few dollars per "user" per semester.

An Elementary Psych text could get you a bit of money (being the single largest market in terms of dollars per year in the US), but it really needs to be a course with a big book and a large percentage of the students to make serious money. Something like half a million Americans take an Intro Psych course each year.

Hunt wrote:

DrokkIt wrote:

Skep tickle wrote:"The Red Pill" opens in October, in NYC then LA.

Tickets for the NYC showings go on sale August 26th.

http://www.theredpillmovie.com/see.html

I for one await the stink that this will kick up if the tone is even slightly sympathetic.

Don't worry, it won't be. I have "a feeling" that this movie will "move" no-one.

I don't think it needs to move anyone to upset people. Just showing Paul Elam etc to be anything other than women-hating liars is highly counter-dogma.

The few times I've suggested to feminist friends that the science behind the stats they are quoting might not be conclusive (i.e. not even saying they are wrong) it's been met with anger and accusations.

Karmakin wrote:
Last night I watched some of David Cross's latest special on Netflix. Holy fuck was it terrible. Just god awful. It was all LOOK HOW STUPID AND EVIL THOSE RED PEOPLE ARE. And I'm more on the left side of things. But I no longer find that sort of thing cute or funny or anything. All I can think of is "DO YOU WANT TRUMP? THAT'S HOW YOU GET TRUMP"

I'm sure it has it's audience. And that's fine, I guess. But it's making the problem worse, not better.

The rise in modern racism is an expected reaction to an elitist, out of touch, arrogant culture that tells them that racism is wrong.

I think that what's happened is that progressive values and culture have become thoroughly elitist. The Left these days is often out of touch with the working class, or in general with people who work for a living and aren't part of an "oppressed class". The message that working and middle class white men who don't work in academia get from leftist and progressive media is that they've evil, disgusting, stupid, uneducated, gross, a drain on society, etc. It's little wonder that they rally around the movements who still accept them.

Even many working and middle class non-whites feel pretty detached and alienated by the leftist elites.

Hunt wrote:

DrokkIt wrote:

Skep tickle wrote:"The Red Pill" opens in October, in NYC then LA.

Tickets for the NYC showings go on sale August 26th.

http://www.theredpillmovie.com/see.html

I for one await the stink that this will kick up if the tone is even slightly sympathetic.

Don't worry, it won't be. I have "a feeling" that this movie will "move" no-one.

I dunno, there was a bit of a minor stink about it a while ago because the Feminist director, who'd gone in with the usual SJW sensibilities, had found herself becoming more sympathetic to the MRAs than she thought she'd be going in.

Her change of heart led to some fretting from the likes of the We Hunted The Mammoth re. regrets about funding, etc. Last I looked into it, she said she was certainly going to include some Feminists for balance, but it seemed like she was also determined to present the MRA case fairly.

It'll be interesting to see, anyway.

Just to be a misogynistic shitlord:

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

Who would have ever suspected that Hillary give lots of head?

Kirbmarc wrote:

gurugeorge wrote:
There's something quite depressing about that segment. Abraham Lincoln with zest for life and knowledge, versus young "comedians" from the Idiocracy who don't know and don't care.

Yes, it's pretty depressing. Nye tried his best to make Mars research appealing to people who don't care about anything but themselves and making themselves look like good little ideologues who toe the line. Hell, he even tried to say that their kids could dream to be the first person on Mars and they didn't care. He tried to get them more excited about technological progress and they didn't care.

There could have been plenty of jokes to be made about life on Mars, or about space in general. They didn't care, they had to bring in Trump and ISIS and how they don't give a damn about anything.

Well, this is where I beg to differ, slightly.

Yes, looking at the overall "Big Picture" of things, making life , human life, multiplanetary is important. Heck, right now, despite the "Universal Odds" being against it, we might be the only living creatures with intelligence in the Universe. Or Earth might be the only world to currently host life. I don't believe either of these things, but, if true, then a single event could conceivably wipe out all life in the Universe.

Thus, - and for other reasons like intellectual curiosity, economic expansionism, political plurality, even evolution - I view the exploration and eventual exploitation of Space as a logical imperative.


But this view is informed by a lifetime of space geekery. And its not widely known about or widely shared.

More to the point: Mars. NASA has spent about (right off the top of my head) 20 billion over 30/40 years on Mars probes. About half of the missions didn't reach the planet or something happened once they got to orbit. Of all these probes only two Vikings 1 and 2 ever tried to search for life. And this was all the way back in 1976/77 when I was entering Kindergarten and first grade. The results, as can be found all over the web, were initially against life in 2 of the 3 three experiments (which most scientists at the time took as conclusive no life), but since then new information about Mars soil and a reanalysis of a seeming biological pattern in the data have muddied the waters. The next mission to search for actual LIFE will be the European Space Agency/Russian collaboration due to take place in 2022 or thereabouts. So from 1977 to 2016, just what HAS NASA been doing on Mars?

One probe was sent to check for methane in the Martian atmosphere (biosignature). But other than that? Sending endless probes to try and find out if the planet has ever had water. Yes, that's right. Most of the missions since 1977 have something to do with water, and most of them can't even find out if there is CURRENT EXTANT water on the planet. I can't tell you how frustrated that made me reading papers and results that came out since the late 1990's that all involved Martian water and were (until very recently) all INCONCLUSIVE. Studying Martian geology. And sending back really cool (for space geeks) panaromic pictures of the rocky, frozen, Martian desert. Several landers have functioned as weather stations. The landers themselves, while often carrying increasingly sophisticated labs-on-chips and computers, are in many ways disgustingly primitve. Most are far smaller than a golf cart and weigh under 100 pounds. Curiosity is the exception: about as big as a gulf cart, and weighing almost exactly a short ton (2000 pounds). It's the rover that needed that strange landing involving a parachute and retropropulsion because its too big to land via any parachute alone in the thin Martian atmosphere. Why do I call most of the landers primitive? Because of their limitations. Curiosity, for example, even with an RTG generator (and not all Martian landers have that) can only travel 300 feet per hour. These vehicles take YEARS to travel a few dozen miles (if they survive that long). If they even tip over once, that's the end of the mission. They can't be repurposed for other scientific experiments, often can't dig into the soil at all (or more than a few inches), and - in part because of the Planetary Protection Protocols - are kept deliberately away from some of the most interesting terrain features we've discovered. And on top of all that, NONE of them possesses anyway to pass their samples back to Earth.


That's it. That's all the public has seen done on Mars since 1977, and the people likely to discover if there really IS life on Mars aren't even likely to be Americans now. NASA does have a plan to visit Mars with a manned mission - sometimes in the 2030's supposedly. I say supposedly because that is several Administrations away, and Congress the Presidency have been canceling programs and running NASA like a chicken with its head cut off since the early 70's. To Congress its a jobs program for their districts, which is why the expendable and totally too expensive to be flown (unless 4 to 5 billion per year was added to the current NASA budget...hah! Pigs will fly, first) Space Launch System is being built using old Space Shuttle parts and old space shuttle contractors. To Presidents NASA means a very few appointed positions , and a chance for a Prestige program or two. And since Congress often is of the party opposite the President, both sides often fight to cancel or defund the others programs. So NASA gets nowhere, esp the manned part of NASA, which is why humans have been futzing around in Low Earth Orbit for 40 years and why we can't even fly our own crew to the ISS anymore(though hopefully that changes next year with commercial crew).

Given the ascension of identity politics, the crappy economy , the seemingly endless wars and the fact that this election seems to be a choice between a large haired, large-mouthed idiot, and a conniving, above-the-law, identitarian warmongering psychopath (Hillary) is it any wonder those comedians couldn't give two shits and a giggle about Mars? Maybe ten, more likely 20 years ago when the Cold War seemed to end and things seemed hopeful and the economy was much better, I'd have taken your side of things. But now people are hurting, people are confused, people are scared, and it's not like NASA is dropping a colony on Mars anytime soon. In fact, if someone does set up an actual working colony on Mars before 2050, I'm willing to bet it will be Mr. Elon Musk and Space X. And though it pisses me off, it does seem like the glory of finally discovering life on Mars (or that there isn't any) will fall to the ESA and the Russians. I understand now why the average person in the USA doesn't care about that.

jet_lagg wrote:

Really? wrote:

dogen wrote:snip
Nope, maybe a couple of grand. It's the publishers who make out like bandits.

Haven't contributed to a textbook, but I know that dogen is right. The publishers make the money. The professors don't get a lot of money. If it makes you feel better, teachers don't assign their own books as much as you'd expect. There's a stigma against it to prevent the kind of self serving situation you might imagine.

If it makes you feel better, it sounds like your eldest is taking some real classes, not women's studies classes. (Though those textbooks are shamefully expensive, too.)

I was able to make out like a bandit by getting older editions of the required text. On average once a semester there would be some material that wasn't included in my edition, but often as not I could find it online. A bit of extra work on your part as a student, the page numbers don't match, which is irritating, and you need to have a yes-I-am-this-cheap-no-I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude when you get noticed in class, but you'll pick up the books for pennies on the dollar.

I looked for used copies, but it seems I'm late on draw. I can't really do too old of an edition because she's already self-conscious about being younger than most of the other kids. I told her to dye her hair red and wear goofy glasses, but she failed to be amused.

Karmakin wrote:
The rise in modern racism is an expected reaction to an elitist, out of touch, arrogant culture that tells them that racism is wrong.

I think it's more to do with the fact that the (Post)modern Left has been incessantly calling things racist that aren't actually racist for so long, that the term is losing its power as a term of opprobrium (which it formerly had on the basis of real, verifiable racism).

The Bait and Switch (or Motte & Bailey) trick has been pulled too many times ("We've decided, on the basis of our unfalsifiable, Postmodernist, intersectional-identitarian ideological mental spaghetti, that this thing you're doing is "racist" - you wouldn't want to be thought of as a racist would you?").

That certainly gives a bit of cover to real racists, but I don't think they'd have had that cover if the term hadn't been broadened to near-meaninglessness.

I also agree that it's partly an elite/plebs thing too, as many have discussed; but I think the major part of the problem is what's been happening in the academy since the 90s, and deeper, what was happening in philosophy decades before then.

It's also got something to do with the unwillingness of the Left to own up to actual theoretical and practical mistakes, and that goes back to the late 19th century when the revolution that Marx and his friends were predicting was just around the corner never came; through the failure of Marxism to economically out-compete capitalism, as it had been predicted to do; through to the failure of Marxist regimes to even be more humanistically "nice" than capitalism (as demonstrated by Khruschev's secret speech of 1956, revelations of the horrors in China, Cambodia, etc.). It's the tale of the brushless fox writ large - if the facts contradict our glorious narrative, so much the worse for facts, reason, logic and evidence.

This is not to say I don't see any validity in Left-wing thought at all, just that there's been an accumulation of evasion on the Left as they've seemingly blithely ignored these evident failures and sailed on into the glorious future, without any humility to admit some error in their calculations whatsoever. That evasion has resulted in the modern academic form of Left-wing thought - the aforementioned Postmodern intersectional identity politics - that's almost completely un-tethered to reality in any way whatsoever.

I know that more serious Left-wingers, who hold to the older, rational form of Leftism are pissed off by this. Amongst other things, it's led to people who virtue signal that they're on the "Left" but are actually global elitists, effectively betraying and belittling the working-class people who's interests the Left was traditionally supposed to stand up for. e.g. Labour in the UK wouldn't be in the trouble it's in now, if it had sided more with its working class constituencies. Effectively, Labour should have stood for Brexit, as Tony Benn and others did on previous occasions when the question had come up bigly.

Sorry that rambled off the starting point a bit, but that's my general overview of the situation.

Thanks for the replies regarding textbooks.

I only know of two kinds of racism: a dislike or fear of those who look different (based on nothing more than appearance) and the application of stereotypes or general beliefs about the correlates of race to specific individuals (simply because they are members of that race).

Is one of these so-called "modern racism"? Are there more than just these two?

gurugeorge wrote:

Karmakin wrote:
The rise in modern racism is an expected reaction to an elitist, out of touch, arrogant culture that tells them that racism is wrong.

I think it's more to do with the fact that the (Post)modern Left has been incessantly calling things racist that aren't actually racist for so long, that the term is losing its power as a term of opprobrium (which it formerly had on the basis of real, verifiable racism).

The Bait and Switch (or Motte & Bailey) trick has been pulled too many times ("We've decided, on the basis of our unfalsifiable, Postmodernist, intersectional-identitarian ideological mental spaghetti, that this thing you're doing is "racist" - you wouldn't want to be thought of as a racist would you?").

That certainly gives a bit of cover to real racists, but I don't think they'd have had that cover if the term hadn't been broadened to near-meaninglessness.

I also agree that it's partly an elite/plebs thing too, as many have discussed; but I think the major part of the problem is what's been happening in the academy since the 90s, and deeper, what was happening in philosophy decades before then.

It's also got something to do with the unwillingness of the Left to own up to actual theoretical and practical mistakes, and that goes back to the late 19th century when the revolution that Marx and his friends were predicting was just around the corner never came; through the failure of Marxism to economically out-compete capitalism, as it had been predicted to do; through to the failure of Marxist regimes to even be more humanistically "nice" than capitalism (as demonstrated by Khruschev's secret speech of 1956, revelations of the horrors in China, Cambodia, etc.). It's the tale of the brushless fox writ large - if the facts contradict our glorious narrative, so much the worse for facts, reason, logic and evidence.

This is not to say I don't see any validity in Left-wing thought at all, just that there's been an accumulation of evasion on the Left as they've seemingly blithely ignored these evident failures and sailed on into the glorious future, without any humility to admit some error in their calculations whatsoever. That evasion has resulted in the modern academic form of Left-wing thought - the aforementioned Postmodern intersectional identity politics - that's almost completely un-tethered to reality in any way whatsoever.

I know that more serious Left-wingers, who hold to the older, rational form of Leftism are pissed off by this. Amongst other things, it's led to people who virtue signal that they're on the "Left" but are actually global elitists, effectively betraying and belittling the working-class people who's interests the Left was traditionally supposed to stand up for. e.g. Labour in the UK wouldn't be in the trouble it's in now, if it had sided more with its working class constituencies. Effectively, Labour should have stood for Brexit, as Tony Benn and others did on previous occasions when the question had come up bigly.

Sorry that rambled off the starting point a bit, but that's my general overview of the situation.

I think a lot of the Left's actions stem from the rise of the conservative right. The right vilified and asserted that the left was unpatriotic, irreligious and a threat to "our way of life" as the Soviet threat emerged. It seems to me that the left entrenched and dogmatized in reaction to threats from the right, the apogee of which was the neocons success in George W Bush and that whole disaster.

Billie from Ockham wrote:I only know of two kinds of racism: a dislike or fear of those who look different (based on nothing more than appearance) and the application of stereotypes or general beliefs about the correlates of race to specific individuals (simply because they are members of that race).

Is one of these so-called "modern racism"? Are there more than just these two?

It's to do with the definition the Pit was mulling over a while ago that "racism=prejudice+power", in such a way that racism ceases to be defined by action or intent, but rather by group membership and the Original Sin of "white/male privilege" determining the "colour" (if you will pardon the pun) of behaviour, with the obviously absurd result that black people logically cannot be racists, even if they're shouting, "Kill Whitey" (or that Islam has nothing to do with Islam, etc. - it's all the the same ideological syndrome).

This is the problem when you shift your ideological basis for liberalism from individualism to collectivism (i.e. when liberalism takes on the collectivist memes of Leftism strictly so-called, as it did out of intimidation through the early to mid part of the 20th century). It's really an echo of the old base/superstructure thing of Marxism, similar logic.

One's group membership is supposedly almost wholly determinative of one's behaviour, where the group is defined by its closeness to or distance from "power", arbitrarily defined. Exploiter/exploited, oppressor/oppressed, white/black, male/female - your membership of these groups is what either determines your actual behaviour, or gives it a bad/good tone, almost regardless of actual intent and behaviour.

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:

gurugeorge wrote:

Karmakin wrote:
The rise in modern racism is an expected reaction to an elitist, out of touch, arrogant culture that tells them that racism is wrong.

I think it's more to do with the fact that the (Post)modern Left has been incessantly calling things racist that aren't actually racist for so long, that the term is losing its power as a term of opprobrium (which it formerly had on the basis of real, verifiable racism).

The Bait and Switch (or Motte & Bailey) trick has been pulled too many times ("We've decided, on the basis of our unfalsifiable, Postmodernist, intersectional-identitarian ideological mental spaghetti, that this thing you're doing is "racist" - you wouldn't want to be thought of as a racist would you?").

That certainly gives a bit of cover to real racists, but I don't think they'd have had that cover if the term hadn't been broadened to near-meaninglessness.

I also agree that it's partly an elite/plebs thing too, as many have discussed; but I think the major part of the problem is what's been happening in the academy since the 90s, and deeper, what was happening in philosophy decades before then.

It's also got something to do with the unwillingness of the Left to own up to actual theoretical and practical mistakes, and that goes back to the late 19th century when the revolution that Marx and his friends were predicting was just around the corner never came; through the failure of Marxism to economically out-compete capitalism, as it had been predicted to do; through to the failure of Marxist regimes to even be more humanistically "nice" than capitalism (as demonstrated by Khruschev's secret speech of 1956, revelations of the horrors in China, Cambodia, etc.). It's the tale of the brushless fox writ large - if the facts contradict our glorious narrative, so much the worse for facts, reason, logic and evidence.

This is not to say I don't see any validity in Left-wing thought at all, just that there's been an accumulation of evasion on the Left as they've seemingly blithely ignored these evident failures and sailed on into the glorious future, without any humility to admit some error in their calculations whatsoever. That evasion has resulted in the modern academic form of Left-wing thought - the aforementioned Postmodern intersectional identity politics - that's almost completely un-tethered to reality in any way whatsoever.

I know that more serious Left-wingers, who hold to the older, rational form of Leftism are pissed off by this. Amongst other things, it's led to people who virtue signal that they're on the "Left" but are actually global elitists, effectively betraying and belittling the working-class people who's interests the Left was traditionally supposed to stand up for. e.g. Labour in the UK wouldn't be in the trouble it's in now, if it had sided more with its working class constituencies. Effectively, Labour should have stood for Brexit, as Tony Benn and others did on previous occasions when the question had come up bigly.

Sorry that rambled off the starting point a bit, but that's my general overview of the situation.

I think a lot of the Left's actions stem from the rise of the conservative right. The right vilified and asserted that the left was unpatriotic, irreligious and a threat to "our way of life" as the Soviet threat emerged. It seems to me that the left entrenched and dogmatized in reaction to threats from the right, the apogee of which was the neocons success in George W Bush and that whole disaster.

I actually agree with that as well. It's just a big pendulum swinging left and right.

Karmakin wrote: I actually agree with that as well. It's just a big pendulum swinging left and right.

And its AUTHORITARIANS (often totalitarian authoritarians at that) all the way down...

Ah, thanks. I never took the idea that "racism = prejudice + power" seriously enough to be able to remember it now. I guess that I should store in right next to "literally now means the exact opposite from literally."

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:I think a lot of the Left's actions stem from the rise of the conservative right. The right vilified and asserted that the left was unpatriotic, irreligious and a threat to "our way of life" as the Soviet threat emerged. It seems to me that the left entrenched and dogmatized in reaction to threats from the right, the apogee of which was the neocons success in George W Bush and that whole disaster.

I see what you're saying, but in that case the vilification wasn't entirely without basis - a goodly portion of the diehard Left really does hate its own kind, and always has, because everything traditional, classical liberal and conservative is what (in terms of the ideology) stands in the way of the coming Utopia, therefore it must be evil and must be gotten rid of by any means necessary.

The mistake was to tar all people on the Left with the same brush. NALALT, NAMeALT, NAWALT, NAMuALT, etc.

Which is often ironic, because the reason why "not all" is because many of the footsoldiers in an ideology (or a religion, or a quasi-religious secular ideology) aren't actually all that au fait with its depths and logical implications. They just want to do something nice, and think of the ideology's goals, its nice aspect, its forward-looking positive aspect, and don't think through the implications, and the fact that the megadeaths in Soviet Russia, China, Asia, etc. may actually be the result of flaws in the logic.

But what am I saying?! It's such considerations as these that lead one back to classical liberalism, and perish the thought that I'd be trying to convince any Left-inclined Pitters to get back into the fold ;)

Bearded cunt, Anjem Choudary convicted to inviting IS support in the UK:

GOT to be Islamophobia, right?

paddybrown wrote:The Proposition Blues Band in action!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/X1UaK ... 57-h643-no

You all keep playing the same three notes over and over in that video. What are you, a Grateful Dead tribute band?

Lsuoma wrote:Bearded cunt, Anjem Choudary convicted to inviting IS support in the UK:

GOT to be Islamophobia, right?

Woo Hoo! - I'm going out to celebrate.

HunnyBunny wrote: My daughter attends a private English-medium school

So, like, they teach her how to hold seances in creepy old victorian mansions?

HunnyBunny wrote: The Religious Studies & Philosophy Department has just sent an email to say they have arranged school-wide subscription access to the NY Times. This is apparently a "good resource related to different culture and international-mindedness". My limited experience suggests it is The Guardian with funny spelling, but I'm not sure on the regression scale for US media. Can anyone confirm for me?

Once upon a time, The NYT was a top-notch, objective paper (though always solid liberal in Op Ed). Nowadays, it's not quite as deep-end, cloud-cuckoo-land, SJW as the Guardian, but it does have a decided SJW bias running throughout.

free thoughtpolice wrote:Move over Michelle Jenneke, a new Pit sweetheart?
[youtube][/youtube]

Too much self-mutiliation.

Hunt wrote:Seems like one of those movies that will be carefully crafted to give nobody any reason to change their position at all, one way or the other. No MRA going in will not come out an MRA. No feminist going in....well, no feminist will go in.

Seeing other interviews with the author makes confirms my suspicions.

Perhaps she is a good documentary maker and intends to show things for what they are, and not try to tell people what to think. Her prior works should lay out here style.

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:Too much self-mutiliation.

We are, like, freakishly similar, aren't we?

gurugeorge wrote:The mistake was to tar all people on the Left with the same brush. NALALT, NAMeALT, NAWALT, NAMuALT, etc.

I believe it's spelled NAMBLA.

Billie from Ockham wrote:

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:Too much self-mutiliation.

We are, like, freakishly similar, aren't we?

Perhaps cosmetic surgery could help.