Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

[katamari Damassi]

looks like Lauren Southern and Boringf00t have re opened hostilities :popcorn:

What's the deal with him anyway? He can't stop posting about how he's "quitting the skeptic movement." He hasn't been involved in the conference circuit for years(for which I don't blame him), and he continues to make skeptical "BUSTED" style videos. So what exactly has he quit? And why can't he stop getting into arguments with people in the skeptic movement.

[MarcusAu]

I think if there is one case where scare quotes are appropriate it's around the phrase 'skeptic movement' (particularly online).

Thunderf00t objected to Sargon et al's comments on the recent shooting - where Russian Deadpool shot his girlfriend.

So what he has decided to vocally disassociate himself from other anti-feminist / skeptic / whatever youtubers.

You can probably check out some of the vids on this - see Vee / Louis Le Vau / Sargon / Uzalu etc etc - but there is diminishing returns if you follow that route. It more about hurt feelings than anything rational.

Noel Plum did a good video on it (if you have the time):

[youtube][/youtube]

[katamari Damassi]

I know I shouldn't bother with Salon, but:
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/28/us-civi ... t_partner/

Giving veterans a hiring preference for federal civil service jobs disadvantages women. This is a story they chose to run on Memorial Day Weekend.

[shoutinghorse]

What's the deal with him anyway? He can't stop posting about how he's "quitting the skeptic movement." He hasn't been involved in the conference circuit for years(for which I don't blame him), and he continues to make skeptical "BUSTED" style videos. So what exactly has he quit? And why can't he stop getting into arguments with people in the skeptic movement.

He's the archetypal boring opinionated know it all twat you often come across in life, be it, work, college, a neighbour or just the bar bore down the pub. Educated and obviously intelligent but with that sneering superiority and condescending tone. The sort you politely avoid.

[MarcusAu]

For anyone that feels that things are getting too much - the one bright spot is that the new Batman movie is very enjoyable:

[youtube][/youtube]

[deLurch]

What's the deal with him anyway? He can't stop posting about how he's "quitting the skeptic movement." He hasn't been involved in the conference circuit for years(for which I don't blame him), and he continues to make skeptical "BUSTED" style videos. So what exactly has he quit? And why can't he stop getting into arguments with people in the skeptic movement.

I am a bit baffled too. He got put off of the youtube "skeptical" community after Vee, Sargon, Mundane Matt, Kraut, Louis & a few others had a livestream chat about the "Sketpic Feminist" murder. Honestly, if you were to say something about there being a "skeptic" movement on youtube, those names would not have come to mind.

[youtube][/youtube]

Thunderf00t initially blamed Sargon (the bigger name) for making jokes at the expense of the situation (which he did not & he specifically avoided treating the subject lightly). They did some back & forth blaming videos. Thunderf00t came back with "how dare you hang out with people doing that, and I caught you laughing at one of the jokes."

I can understand Thunderf00t not appreciating people making light of the subject. But the blame really needs to be laid at the feet of the people actually cracking the jokes. Not the bigger names standing there saying "I ain't touching this with a 10 foot pole." Thunderf00t is reacting emotionally, and not rationally. I think he has a case of the mensies in this situation and it is really making himself look bad.

[MarcusAu]

Just a few months past Sargon was the one that was all about the 'Skeptic Community'. As seen in his stream with Harmful Opinions.

It seems that Sargon now has exactly what he wants to create in group cohesion:- a clearly identifiable 'enemy' to rally against.

Ah well - lots of drama but not much of interest coming out of this. The curate's egg seems more good than bad at the moment.

[deLurch]

Just a few months past Sargon was the one that was all about the 'Skeptic Community'. As seen in his stream with Harmful Opinions.
It seems that Sargon now has exactly what he wants to create in group cohesion:- a clearly identifiable 'enemy' to rally against.
Ah well - lots of drama but not much of interest coming out of this. The curate's egg seems more good than bad at the moment.

Yeah, that is the thing. If you are going to have a "skeptic" channel on youtube, you are going to have to have a hell of a lot more meat than just politics and anti-feminism. Hell, even the bigfoot/ghost skeptics were a slight minor notch above that mess.

[Guest_440911e7]

I can understand Thunderf00t not appreciating people making light of the subject. But the blame really needs to be laid at the feet of the people actually cracking the jokes. Not the bigger names standing there saying "I ain't touching this with a 10 foot pole." Thunderf00t is reacting emotionally, and not rationally. I think he has a case of the mensies in this situation and it is really making himself look bad.

I really like tf00t, so this is all very disappointing, but ultimately, tf00t comes down to joke policing, same as Lindy West saying you can't make rape jokes.

In West's case it triggers rape survivors, in tf00t's case iirc, because it's not politic (literally not pc).

[.img]This%20joke%20was%20in%20bad%20taste,%20skeptics%20can't%20have%20that%20it%20makes%20skeptics%20look%20bad.[/img]

Well, okay fine, maybe Dawkins and Harris should think twice before making a 2 1/2 hour long video from the heart of Kekistan.

But zero percent of the earth has heard of Sargon et. al., and that overlaps quite nicely with the percentage of the planet that has heard of tf00t. The video he's upset with has now had 90,000 views, about 1/3 of that happening after his quitting video. His quitting video has 230,000 views by comparison. Laci Green's red pill video has had 1,000,000 views.

So as bad taste as that conversation may be, who cares and what made tf00t notice that the youngish youtube / gamergate community is filled with bad taste in jokes, and mostly jokes that ain't that funny in the first place?

[feathers]

The Number One Top-Rated gender studies journal, and it's still full of shit:

http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/gasa/31/3

Why do they display a penis with a huge knob with each article? Is that a trigger warning?

Screen Shot 2017-05-29 at 08.51.59.png

(14.07 KiB) Downloaded 249 times

[deLurch]

I really like tf00t, so this is all very disappointing, but ultimately, tf00t comes down to joke policing, same as Lindy West saying you can't make rape jokes.

In West's case it triggers rape survivors, in tf00t's case iirc, because it's not politic (literally not pc).

[.img]This%20joke%20was%20in%20bad%20taste,%20skeptics%20can't%20have%20that%20it%20makes%20skeptics%20look%20bad.[/img]

Well, okay fine, maybe Dawkins and Harris should think twice before making a 2 1/2 hour long video from the heart of Kekistan.

But zero percent of the earth has heard of Sargon et. al., and that overlaps quite nicely with the percentage of the planet that has heard of tf00t. The video he's upset with has now had 90,000 views, about 1/3 of that happening after his quitting video. His quitting video has 230,000 views by comparison. Laci Green's red pill video has had 1,000,000 views.

So as bad taste as that conversation may be, who cares and what made tf00t notice that the youngish youtube / gamergate community is filled with bad taste in jokes, and mostly jokes that ain't that funny in the first place?

It was a boring stream chat that I cut out of early. I bet very few people have listened to the whole thing. I only went back to check on it after thunderf00t made a big deal out of it.

Jokes about horrific events are not uncommon. I think it is in extremely poor taste to shove those jokes into the faces of the friends & family immediately after the tragedy. But that wasn't what was happening in that instance. People are going to talk.

Tech circles will remember with Reiser killed his wife. Tech field went wild with poor taste jokes. And it was a great loss for an extremely good file system I personally was salivating over. rm -f wife. Even all round 'good guys' boing boing couldn't resist some enjoyment of the jokes. ReiserFS the killer file system.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/07/0 ... rfs-a.html

Another side to Thunderf00t's situation is that he sees himself as higher profile and didn't want their jokes rubbing off on him so he felt he had to disavow them immediately. A sensible consideration for himself. His only error was making a big deal about it, and casting blame at the other people in the same bar as someone else made bad jokes.

[MarcusAu]

Yeah, that is the thing. If you are going to have a "skeptic" channel on youtube, you are going to have to have a hell of a lot more meat than just politics and anti-feminism. Hell, even the bigfoot/ghost skeptics were a slight minor notch above that mess.

There is always a tension between entertainment and information. Youtube by it's very nature may bias content makers towards the former.

For as much as I am sometimes critical of him - Sargon has obviously got to do a balancing act if he wants to keep his audience and at the same time have something more than trivial to say.

Though the current proliferation of 2nd or 3rd wave Anti-SJW youtubers may indicate that both the SJW and the Anti-SJW camps are both due to burn out.

We can but hope.

[feathers]

The first is in the home country wherein migration is seen as a mandatory rite of passage into manhood. The second moment is in transit, where the relational masculinity of migrant men and “traffickers” (men who smuggle migrants across borders) is performed and (re)made. The final moment is in South Africa, wherein we observe two contrasting forms of masculinities: hyper masculinity (the idealization of violence and misogyny) and Ummah masculinity (the immersion in God and Islamic Ummah). Both kinds of masculinity in the final moment are attempts by the migrants to recuperate masculinity within a situation of extreme powerlessness. This article invokes the need for mobility research within gender studies, and an attention to a complex, processual construction of identities wherein gender, race, and other differences define the identities of migrants but also the discourses and narratives of masculinities.

You apparently don't understand intersectional hypermasculinity, and frankly I am way too weary too do the psycho-emotional labor to educate you. :ugeek:

I don't really care if a scientific discipline communicates in a jargon that's near-inscrutable to outsiders, arguably physicists do that too, as long as they contribute something of measurable use to society at large. But as far as I can see it, gender studies and its breth... sisthren deliver no valuable insights and are a completely self-sufficient, incestuous branch of cargo cult research.

[MarcusAu]

I don't really care if a scientific discipline communicates in a jargon that's near-inscrutable to outsiders, arguably physicists do that too, as long as they contribute something of measurable use to society at large. But as far as I can see it, gender studies and its breth... sisthren deliver no valuable insights and are a completely self-sufficient, incestuous branch of cargo cult research.

Someone has to provide the training to meet the high demand for GS lecturers and HR department personnel.

[Kirbmarc]

Just a few months past Sargon was the one that was all about the 'Skeptic Community'. As seen in his stream with Harmful Opinions.
It seems that Sargon now has exactly what he wants to create in group cohesion:- a clearly identifiable 'enemy' to rally against.
Ah well - lots of drama but not much of interest coming out of this. The curate's egg seems more good than bad at the moment.

Yeah, that is the thing. If you are going to have a "skeptic" channel on youtube, you are going to have to have a hell of a lot more meat than just politics and anti-feminism. Hell, even the bigfoot/ghost skeptics were a slight minor notch above that mess.

While it's framed as a moral issue, it's ultimately a political issue. Basically by "skeptic" today most Big Name Youtubers mean "critical of the general culture which produced postmodernism, gender studies, the Po-Mo Left, the Regressive Left and the SJWs".

It's a broad definition which includes all different sorts of people. What all those people have in common is that they reject the fundamentally anti-scientific assumptions of postmodernism, like the subjectivity of all narratives, the impossibility of an objective knowledge, the lack of difference between a metaphorical and non-metaphorical meaning, the inevitability of identity, etc.

In this respect the "skeptic" community is a continuation of the Science Wars by other means. The Slymepit itself is part of this "culture war", and we're firmly on the side of objectivity, anti-identity, and the distinction between metaphors/figurative speech and other uses of the language. It's the philosophical difference which caused the "Atheism Rift": one one side you had the "Atheism Plus"/FTB/po-mo atheism brigade, on the other those who rejected the new concepts ("privilege", "the Patriarchy", "racism is prejudice plus power", "intersectionalism" etc.) and new methods of the "po-mo atheism movement".

However while the "po-mo atheists" were overwhelmingly "liberals" or more generally left-leaning, the "anti-Po-Mo" front was and is far more more diverse: it includes generally left-wing people/progressives who dislike po-mo ideas along with center-left or centrist "moderates", libertarians, conservatives and reactionaries.

The political differences between the "anti-po-mo" people started to become relevant once important political events happened which seemed to shatter common assumptions in the "po-mo political narrative", like the continuous progressive march towards the development of an international community which "deconstructed" national boundaries and political institutions in favor of a hierarchy based on "acknowledging oppression" (read: adhering to a post-modern progressive narrative).

Left-leaning anti-po-mo were as likely to be internationalist as po-mo progressives, albeit for different reasons. Anti-po-mo leftist base their internationalism not so much on a narrative as on shared science-based concerns (climate change, freedom of movement of researchers, etc.) or on instituting an international rule of law based on universal human rights concerns. Some Big Name atheists/skeptics, like Richard Dawkins, agree with this view. Thunderfoot leans more or less in this direction, too.

Other anti-po-mo, like many centrists, most libertarians, conservatives and reactionaries, see internationalism itself, and not its po-mo version, as the problem: centrists and center-left "moderates" often see international institutions as something which they don't have a say in, libertarians are wary of powerful governments in general, conservatives privilege national values and identities, and reactionaries want to do away with the rule of law based on universal human rights altogether, to go back to the age of "natural hierarchies".

The first political event which showed the political differences within the "skeptic" movement was Brexit. The po-mo left offered a simplistic view of the Brexit phenomenon as only caused by the "usual suspect" (the racist/sexist/bigoted White Supremacist Patriarchy), a view which was rejected as extreme and cartoonish by most anti-po-mo people (and rightly so).

Some (but not all) anti-po-mo leftists, however, were Euro-friendly or wary of the more practical consequences of Brexit, like its effects on the survival of a common market in the EU, or on the free movement of people (including researchers), or on scientific cooperation and developments. Thunderfoot, for example, defended the Remain argument in a famous hangout with Sargon, arguing that Sargon's fears of a EU army were speculative, that his concerns on lack of accountability of European institutions before the European public applied also to UK institutions and the UK public, and was concerned by the effects of Brexit on British and European cooperation in terms of economics and of science.

Sargon, on the other hand, dismissed Thunderfoot's concerns as baseless and stuck to his guns, arguing the the EU was an out of control, unchecked power that was only going to grow more and more powerful in the future, and the British sovereignty was a net good that needed to be preserved.

As you can see Brexit was the beginning of a political rift within the "anti-po-mo" front. After Brexit most centrist/center-right figures in the anti-po-mo community, along with leftist Euroskeptics, felt empowered. Their side had won, after all, and had done it against the odds. Anti-po-mo people who weren't Euroskeptic lost some of their power, especially since the dominant leftist/Euro-friendly narrative was that Brexit was a victory of the Bigoted Side over Progress.

As a result most prominent critics of the postmodern Left or of the Regressive Left or of SJWs tended to lean more towards the Euroskeptic side. After all most of their new audience was made up of Euroskeptic people who saw Brexit as a victory, and had started to pay them attention after they were demonized by the Po-Mo progressives as the Bigoted Ones. Some people stuck to their Euro-friendly or just anti-po-mo leftist principles. Other shifted their views more to the right.

The next important political event was the 2016 US election. Most anti-po-mo leftists were skeptical of Hillary Clinton and tended to lean more towards Sanders in the primaries, especially once Sanders started to look like a serious contender while Clinton associated herself with identitarian, po-mo feminist figures, like Lena Dunham, or promoted herself along po-mo feminist lines, for example having prominent figures declare that all women who didn't vote for Clinton were substantially "sister punishers/gender traitors", that Sanders' audience was only made up by sexist "BernieBros", even that Sanders' more practical and less po-mo identitarian concerns were part of a continuum of "white supremacy" ( :lol: ) as one of Clinton's campaigners infamously said.

I don't think that Clinton did this out of a genuine belief in po-mo ideas, but as an effective tactic to limit the success of Sanders among women and minorities. To a certain extent it worked, since Sanders had very low levels of support in the American black communities (which is baffling seeing as Clinton was the one who had previously expressed ideas like the "superpredator" concept), mostly due to the demonization of his anti-identitarian, anti-po-mo ideas.

However this tactic, while successful in the primaries, was a disaster in the general election. Trump managed to attract the overwhelming support of the white working class, which allowed him to win Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, while Clinton alienated many white working class Democrats and many Bernie Sanders supporters and underestimated Trump's appeal.

In the "skeptic" community the 2016 election led to more rifts. Throughout the primaries most left-leaning or even centrist "skeptics" supported Sanders, while the libertarians went their own way, most the conservatives supported Trump despite some reservations and the reactionaries backed Trump (who's not a reactionary as much as he is a Tea Party populist) as a way to shift the Overton window.

After the primaries, when it became clear that the choice was between Clinton and Trump, things changed. Both candidates were deeply unpopular with most anti-Po-mo "skeptics" for a variety of reasons: Clinton mostly for her support of Po-Mo identitarian ideas and for her connections to Po-Mo think tanks, Trump mostly for his terrible track record on vaccinations, climate change, support for faith schools, the EPA, gutting the ACA and for project which were perceived either as absurd (the Mexico wall) or as illiberal (the "muslim ban").

At the same time, though, a confused project emerged on the political right. Reactionaries, many conservatives and some paleo-libertarians/civic nationalists started to see Trump under a new light, as a way to reverse the perceived damage done by progressives in general and by the Po-Mo progressives more specifically. Most of the reactionary, conservative or paleo-libertarian/civic nationalist "skeptics" weren't overly fond of Trump, but saw him as the lesser evil when compared to Clinton.

At the same time some of the left-wing or just centrist "skeptics", or those who simply disliked Trump's ideas about climate change, vaccinations and the environment, or saw him as an incompetent buffoon, saw Clinton as the lesser evil. Thunderfoot himself, for example, made a couple of videos on the 2016 election, where he expressed his disgust with Trump's positions and lies, while also reporting on some of Hillary Clinton's lies as well. Support for Clinton was lukewarm at best even in "skeptic" left-leaning or simply centrist circles. Most supported her against Trump more than for her policies. Clinton was in general a fairly unpopular candidate, and her uninspired campaigned focused on attacking Trump and preaching a generic idea of "unity" didn't help.

After Trump's victory (again, one which happened against all odds) the pro-Trump or at least anti-Clinton "skeptics" felt even more empowered. A few saw Brexit and Trump as the start of a populist/conservative/reactionary revolution, which was supposed to exclude the po-mo left from serious political discourse at best, to marginalize the entire progressive/left wing part of politics at worst.

At the same time the anti-po-mo left saw Clinton's defeat as a chance to reform the left to ditch the po-mo left and go back to policies based on practical concerns rather than on po-mo identitarian ideologies. This didn't happen, though: instead of admitting their mistakes the Democratic bigwigs doubled down, supported the narrative of Hillary Clinton being just an innocent victim of the Evil Bigoted Brute, and marginalized the anti-po-mo left even more.

The rift between the anti-po-mo and anti-Trump "skeptics" and the pro-Trump ones progressively grew more and more, especially after the many conspiracy theories made during the campaign (Pizzagate, the Golden Showers document) led way to a regime of "alternative facts" and "fake news", where Trump surprisingly and implicitly adopted po-mo tactics and language to support his claims and decisions.

In the case of Thunderfoot this culminated in his twitter fights with former fans of his who had shifted towards a pro-Trump position and saw him as someone who refused to see the light on this issue. Thunderfoot made a couple of videos who criticized pro-Trump "skeptic" media darlings like Lauren Southern and Milo Yannopoulis. He received a lot of criticism from other "skeptics", from Sargon to Dave Computing Forever to others.

The recent "divorce" of Thunderfoot from the Youtube "skeptic community" is simply the result of his political differences with people like Sargon, who have gone on to side with LePen in the French elections and with the Conservatives in the incoming UK general election, albeit with some differences and criticism, and people like Thunderfoot, who has carried on with his substantially bipartisan criticism of both the po-mo left (see his last video on Sarkeesian and "cultural appropriation") and of the anti-science elements within the right (his response to the Prager University video on CO2).

The hangout in question is merely the straw which broke the camel's back.

[Kirbmarc]

I think that the rift between Thunderfoot and Sargon/Kraut/Dave/Vee&co was pretty much inevitable, they have very few things in common other than the dismissal of the po-mo epistemology.

Thunderfoot is much closer to Dawkins or Harris than to Thomas Sowell (who by and large is Sargon's reference when it comes to politics) or Mencius Moldbug/the Alt-Right (which have become more popular in "skeptic" circles). Thunderfoot deeply disliked Brexit, Sargon is very much in favor of it. Thunderfoot is very critical of Trump, Sargon sees him as the lesser evil when compared to the po-mo left and Clinton. Thunderfoot sees attacks on climate change science, on vaccinations, on the freedom of movement and common market as serious concerns, Sargon cares more about defending British sovereignty, limiting immigration and limiting the impact of the po-mo left, by backing the right if necessary.

[Brive1987]

I think that the rift between Thunderfoot and Sargon/Kraut/Dave/Vee&co was pretty much inevitable, they have very few things in common other than the dismissal of the po-mo epistemology.

Thunderfoot is much closer to Dawkins or Harris than to Thomas Sowell (who by and large is Sargon's reference when it comes to politics) or Mencius Moldbug/the Alt-Right (which have become more popular in "skeptic" circles). Thunderfoot deeply disliked Brexit, Sargon is very much in favor of it. Thunderfoot is very critical of Trump, Sargon sees him as the lesser evil when compared to the po-mo left and Clinton. Thunderfoot sees attacks on climate change science, on vaccinations, on the freedom of movement and common market as serious concerns, Sargon cares more about defending British sovereignty, limiting immigration and limiting the impact of the po-mo left, by backing the right if necessary.

You know. When I get down and need a little pick me up, I set myself the goal of tracking down a Holocaust site on Google Maps.

This one brought me cheer today.

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

Ps whats this green shit bro?

[Kirbmarc]

I think that the rift between Thunderfoot and Sargon/Kraut/Dave/Vee&co was pretty much inevitable, they have very few things in common other than the dismissal of the po-mo epistemology.

Thunderfoot is much closer to Dawkins or Harris than to Thomas Sowell (who by and large is Sargon's reference when it comes to politics) or Mencius Moldbug/the Alt-Right (which have become more popular in "skeptic" circles). Thunderfoot deeply disliked Brexit, Sargon is very much in favor of it. Thunderfoot is very critical of Trump, Sargon sees him as the lesser evil when compared to the po-mo left and Clinton. Thunderfoot sees attacks on climate change science, on vaccinations, on the freedom of movement and common market as serious concerns, Sargon cares more about defending British sovereignty, limiting immigration and limiting the impact of the po-mo left, by backing the right if necessary.

You know. When I get down and need a little pick me up, I set myself the goal of tracking down a Holocaust site on Google Maps.

This one brought me cheer today.

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

Ps whats this green shit bro?

Apparently I'm a mod?

How did that happen?

[Malky]

And you guys ain't all black. Don't know how you've managed to escape internet justice, appropriating Negro heritage for your colonist garrison game.

Lsuoma can tell you all you want to know and more about this game I'm sure ;) :lol:

[Brive1987]

I think that the rift between Thunderfoot and Sargon/Kraut/Dave/Vee&co was pretty much inevitable, they have very few things in common other than the dismissal of the po-mo epistemology.

Thunderfoot is much closer to Dawkins or Harris than to Thomas Sowell (who by and large is Sargon's reference when it comes to politics) or Mencius Moldbug/the Alt-Right (which have become more popular in "skeptic" circles). Thunderfoot deeply disliked Brexit, Sargon is very much in favor of it. Thunderfoot is very critical of Trump, Sargon sees him as the lesser evil when compared to the po-mo left and Clinton. Thunderfoot sees attacks on climate change science, on vaccinations, on the freedom of movement and common market as serious concerns, Sargon cares more about defending British sovereignty, limiting immigration and limiting the impact of the po-mo left, by backing the right if necessary.

You know. When I get down and need a little pick me up, I set myself the goal of tracking down a Holocaust site on Google Maps.

This one brought me cheer today.

[i.mg]http://i.imgur.com/wIwNsoO.jpg[/img]

Ps whats this green shit bro?

Apparently I'm a mod?

How did that happen?

You have to fuck up. I conjured Damion onto Sargon's, you jihad-johnnyed Aneris.

:clap:

[Brive1987]

Every tweet contains a human story.

[Hunt]

I know I shouldn't bother with Salon, but:
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/28/us-civi ... t_partner/

Giving veterans a hiring preference for federal civil service jobs disadvantages women. This is a story they chose to run on Memorial Day Weekend.

Fuck vets in the name of diversity.

Maybe we really do need another world war.

[Za-zen]

What a piece of shit.

Getting into a silly ruck is one thing, but hitting someone in the head with a piece of metal can kill or leave disabled. I hope he goes to prison.

Especially since from the video it looks like at least in one occasion he hit a guy (red shirt guy) who was trying to calm things down, or at least talk it out with others. That's particularly vicious.

As I said earlier, he REALLY puts effort into the swing. Attempted murder is what he should be looking at.

Striking someone on the head not directly threatening you with violence (no sjw tards, being a trump supporter does not constitute directly threatening you), with a weapon can only be viewed as a premeditated attempt to kill that cannot be mitigated by a self defence argument. Ergo attempted murder.

[Za-zen]

[
The cunt with the chainsaw is going to run out of gas, that's when you get to axe him ;)

@Piggyinthemiddle My position is, that all conflict is tragic, you've cast me neatly into an ideological box to serve you argument. Not one of my posts expresses "steadfast loyalty" to what you refer to as a murderous death cult. Though your characterization of the PIRA as such demonstrates a lack of knowledge as to the PIRA, and an overall stewed down, limited understanding of the Irish conflict. but let's hop past that, and get to my politics. I'm a Republican, because Monarchism is fucking stupid. I don't really give a fuck what flag flies over the society i want to see organized as a republic, though I do identify more with the Irish nation, than the British one, as the irish nation aren't a bunch of belligerent cunts still hanging onto the legacy of when they were an evil empire, and riddled with vapid nationalism. And really when your national song is still some wank appeal to a deity to protect an inbred, right of birth, physical embodiment of the nation incarnate as lifelong head of state, you've lost me. So yeah, to stew it down for you, Britain is a retard of a country that i'd rather not be forcibly taxed to maintain.

Most of us will betray a principle of non violence, if indeed we espouse one, as most of us will justify violence in certain circumstances, that justification nigh always requires cognitive dissonance. I rarely find violence justifiable, but what i do is attempt to understand where the violence emanates from. I do appreciate the absurdity of those who flag wage their military off with fanfare and pride on jaunts around the globe, who shriek in horror when death and destruction comes to their own shores.

I'll end that your quip about Croke park was amusing, but doubt that the English rugby team will be playing any games in Manchester for a while, incase they get massacred.

You must be continually disappointed, the way reality consistently refuses to conform to your black and white thinking.

Case in Point: Republics are good, right ? We're clear about that. Definitely republics. Well, what was the world's first republic ? That's right it was England. Who was the world's first head of state of a republic ? That's right, it was Oliver Cromwell. What do you think of Oliver Cromwell ... Errr ... I didn't quite catch that .... Sorry ... Come again ... Would you like to have a little lie down Ms Hensley ?

Jesus Christ I'm now convinced you've received your historical and political education from sun tabloid editorials. Next claim; Of course England is the birthplace of democracy and The House of Commons the mother of all parliaments! Right! There are not enough Lols. Go fucking read.

To the wekass point you were actually trying to make; "Cromwell did a lot of bad shit so republics aren't always good, gotcha hahaha" I didn't realise I had to qualify my Republicanism by pointing out it doesn't embrace the fucking Iranian form. (Smiley face eye roll lol internet hugs)

[Clarence]

Kirbmarc this is for you! :) ;)

[Kirbmarc]

Striking someone on the head not directly threatening you with violence (no sjw tards, being a trump supporter does not constitute directly threatening you), with a weapon can only be viewed as a premeditated attempt to kill that cannot be mitigated by a self defence argument. Ergo attempted murder.

Yeah, I'd say I'd agree. Also there's the aggravating factor of lying in wait to consider, since Bike Lock Guy was hiding among a crowd of others when he hit Red Shirt Guy in the head.

In criminal law, lying in wait refers to the act of hiding and waiting for an individual with the intent to kill that person or inflict serious bodily harm to that person.[1] Because lying in wait involves premeditation, some jurisdictions have established that lying in wait is considered an aggravating circumstance that allows for the imposition of harsher criminal penalties

Concealing his face and deliberately bringing a weapon also count as premeditation. This wasn't someone impulsively grabbing a bike lock during a fight, it was someone who deliberately set out to harm others with a weapon for a political purpose. It's a serious crime and should punished with a stiff sentence.

Police should also (and probably will) look for other evidence that might prove premeditation, like (for example) expressing the urge to "bash fascists" or "punch nazis" on social media. IF Bike Lock Guy wrote anything along those lines (and it's not impossible) then it will come out in the trial. Hopefully this will make people think twice before advocating violence on others just for their political opinions.

[Spike13]

Yeah well, the ancient Romans don't really stand up for themselves much these days.

Ozzies eunt domus!

http://www.thelin.net/laurent/cinema/ph ... /27928.jpg

Now you are just being offensive.



I was born in New Zealand.

Wow! A hobbit! ( that's where they come from right?)

[Kirbmarc]

Kirbmarc this is for you! :) ;)

WTF is this shit? :lol:

Plot twist: the guy who wants the fascist ethno-state is actually a Jew, just like weev. He hates Jews because he hates himself for being a fat basement dweller. :bjarte:

[Clarence]

Kirbmarc this is for you! :) ;)

WTF is this shit? :lol:

Plot twist: the guy who wants the fascist ethno-state is actually a Jew, just like weev. He hates Jews because he hates himself for being a fat basement dweller. :bjarte:

I don't know the guy who made the video. I thought he was making fun of real white nationalists. You know the ones who think Sargon is a cuck, Milo should be in jail (or worse) because he's gay, that sort of person.
I thought it was funny. Seems at least you agree on that.
Please don't think this shitlord has any sympathy (beyond live and let live) for those like Richard Spencer.

[Oglebart]

I know I shouldn't bother with Salon, but:
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/28/us-civi ... t_partner/

Giving veterans a hiring preference for federal civil service jobs disadvantages women. This is a story they chose to run on Memorial Day Weekend.

Fuck vets in the name of diversity.

Maybe we really do need another world war.

A few civil wars may help out too!

[Spike13]

looks like Lauren Southern and Boringf00t have re opened hostilities :popcorn:

What's the deal with him anyway? He can't stop posting about how he's "quitting the skeptic movement." He hasn't been involved in the conference circuit for years(for which I don't blame him), and he continues to make skeptical "BUSTED" style videos. So what exactly has he quit? And why can't he stop getting into arguments with people in the skeptic movement.

I think it started with brexit and then Trump, many in the YT sceptic community took a different side than he did. ( he was a bit salty over it) Then he raised a warning on the rise of new tubers who used the point and laugh style of commentary becoming popular. I think what he was says me was that he'll continue to make his vids, but wants to be an island as opposed to being lumped in with the old their channels.

I think he had a point on style over substance being a game of diminishing returns. The way he presents it, well, T-f00t can easily come off as a cunt.

[Shatterface]

I know I shouldn't bother with Salon, but:
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/28/us-civi ... t_partner/

Giving veterans a hiring preference for federal civil service jobs disadvantages women. This is a story they chose to run on Memorial Day Weekend.

Fuck vets in the name of diversity.

Maybe we really do need another world war.

I used to work with ex-offenders, including helping them find work. They were mainly male because the prison population is mainly male. Helping ex-offenders find work is mysogyny, just like helping someone who lost both legs and half their face in an IED attack, or a firefighter injured rescuing children from a burning building.

[Kirbmarc]

Kirbmarc this is for you! :) ;)

WTF is this shit? :lol:

Plot twist: the guy who wants the fascist ethno-state is actually a Jew, just like weev. He hates Jews because he hates himself for being a fat basement dweller. :bjarte:

I don't know the guy who made the video. I thought he was making fun of real white nationalists. You know the ones who think Sargon is a cuck, Milo should be in jail (or worse) because he's gay, that sort of person.
I thought it was funny. Seems at least you agree on that.
Please don't think this shitlord has any sympathy (beyond live and let live) for those like Richard Spencer.

Nah, I know you're more a civic nationalist/libertarian type, don't worry. I was just reacting to the video by finding it funny and absurd, and pointing out that those who are obsessed with Jews often are themselves Jewish (like Andrew Auernheimer/weev, who I think it's as close to the video as you might get, and who - interestingly enough - dated the current SJW-bot Shanley when she was a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädchen.)

Seriously, though, I really don't get the obsession with the Jews. Criticism of Israel I can get. Criticism of Judaism as a religion I also can get, especially the ultra-orthodox who are as bad as Mormons or Amish or other nutty cults. But the obsession on who's a Jew and who's not is really insane, especially since most Jews are more as secular as the average European, and have a full scale of political opinion which runs from Ayn Rand to Leon Trotsky (and everything in between). To believe in global Jewish conspiracies is as absurd as believing in fairies or unicorns.

Then again many Far-Right wingers (or conversely, in their own way, the SJWs) are far too obsessed with ancestry. Genetic differences between groups exist, but they don't produce policies or structures, they're more of a matter of statistical inclinations than evidence of a collective group-mind. Obsessing with a person's ancestry is in most cases pretty pointless, it's far more useful to understand what exactly they believe and think and what they're capable of. On a statistical level differences may matter more (there probably will be more male firefighters than female ones, or more Asian mathematicians than black ones) but this doesn't mean that if someone passes a threshold and is qualified we should care about their sex or ancestry.

I think that both the left and the right need to go beyond group identity in order not to give fodder to in-group morality and out-group hostility, and instead discuss policies on their merits, without attacking the messenger. I'm more left-leaning myself but I see merits in some right-wing ideas, like civic nationalism, if they're implemented rationally instead of being dictated by conspiracy theories or collectivist thought.

Individual rights, responsibility, and a pathway to citizenship that requires you to do something to integrate in the new country and to get acquainted to your community are fine to me, even though I also support public welfare to help people in need of it, public healthcare in order not to let people being screwed over by Big Pharma, free contraception to reduce teen pregnancies and reduce abortions (while still allowing abortion, but trying to reduce its use as a contraceptive), rules on wages and on jobs to protect workers from predatory measures, and a rational approach to anti-discrimination laws, which defends individual rights rather than collective ones. I'm also for more control over the power of corporations, closing tax loopholes for investment trading and having more rules on Wall Street, as few limits on free speech and individual drug use as there can be as long as this doesn't lead to individual and proven harm, and measures to contain climate change and promote renewable energies.

In general I think that if right-wing and left-wing sane people were allowed to discuss issues and isolate the nutters and those who write deliberately incomprehensible screeds (like most of Post-Modernism) on each side we'd have liberal democracies that would function much better. For example left-wing secular people could make religious right-wingers understand the dangers of unregulated religious education by showing them how this increases insularity and a close marketplace of ideas in the muslim communities, and conversely right-wing people could make left-wing people understand why personal responsibility matters by showing data on what happens to communities where isolation and a victimhood narrative is fostered.

Hell, I've done both on Facebook while discussing an article from Deutsche Welle on muslim religious education and the frankly idiotic black separatist events in US universities and in Paris, and I've gotten people on both sides of the aisle to agree with me!

The problem with all this is that the Internet is a great place for shit-stirring, provoking, trolling, insulting each other, creating echo-chambers and avoiding to confront issues. That's bad for everyone. A little bit of trolling is fine to shake things up and provoke thought, but too much verbal fights, and especially thought-terminating cliches like "cuck" or "racist" (or, to a certain extent, also "SJW") are counterproductive.

Also people who advocate censorship for harmless (even if odious) ideas are cunts, people who advocate violence for political means are double cunts and people who practice violence for political means need to be locked up, this should go without saying of course but you never know in these times.

By the way I've changed my mind a bit on Sargon, I have a much more negative view of him right now, not so much for his opinions (which I don't always agree with but aren't insane) but for his shit-stirring and pandering which really doesn't help much. He's also a little bit of a hypocrite on freedom of speech, which is another minus IMHO.

[Ape+lust]

http://imgur.com/PG2CGty.png

[Shatterface]

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

John Noakes has died. He was a childhood hero of mine. For those unfamiliar with his name, he presented the children's programme Blue Peter in the Seventies. Much of that was teaching kids how to build Christmas decorations out of clothes hangers but Noakes did a lot of out-doors adventuring for the show including a five-mile free-fall (record breaking at the time) and a memorable bobsleigh run.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Kirbmarc]

Let's take, for example, the issues of law enforcement in the US. A heavily militarized police, the many failures of the War on Drugs, mandatory minimum sentencing, the prison-industrial complex and lack of good legal representation for poor people, as well as prison terms for people who don't pay debts or child support (this is where the MRAs have highlighted a real issue that others have ignored, for example, credit where credit is due), are issues that should be considered important by everyone.

It's also OK to make it clear that due to a series of reasons (higher rates of poverty and poverty traps, and lack of parental figures due to previous high rates of incarcerations, living in urban areas, lack of good education etc.) this has affected black communities disproportionately, and might create vicious circles of poverty, incarceration, more poverty and more incarceration. It's good to bring up real issues in black communities.

But to preach that "there's a genocide of black people in the streets" or that "the US law enforcement agencies are racist" or "nothing has changed since Jim Crow, there's a New Jim Crow" or "we don't care about the problems in poor white communities, they have white privilege" is highly counterproductive. Not only because it's blatantly false shit-stirring, but because it hinders a rational argument on law enforcement and associated issues in the US.

It turns even real concerns into slogans, it gives room to complete basket cases to make themselves seem reasonable, it fosters rage, lack of understanding, equivocations, dismissals of real problems. It doesn't lead to reforms and gradual changes for the better, it leads to political polarization, to identity politics, and eventually to more room for demagogues to exploit those identity politics on both sides of the aisle.

But if you dare point these things out you're often called a "racist" (even when you're saying nothing about race) or a "cuck" (which doesn't mean anything, really).

[Shatterface]

I don't really care if a scientific discipline communicates in a jargon that's near-inscrutable to outsiders, arguably physicists do that too, as long as they contribute something of measurable use to society at large. But as far as I can see it, gender studies and its breth... sisthren deliver no valuable insights and are a completely self-sufficient, incestuous branch of cargo cult research.

Jargon is fine. I don't work in the sciences but even so half the communication in my office will include jargon or acronyms of some sort. (One of the acronyms is GIS - pronounced 'jizz'. Bosses seem oblivious to what we are laughing at).

But there's an expectation that the jargon actually stands for something beyond itself. It would be obvious to any member of staff if someone was simply combining random buzzwords into meaningless sentences.

If you can't tell the condensed mode of speech required for efficient communication within your discipline from word salad it's generally because those words are ill-defined in the first place.

[Kirbmarc]

Same thing for trans rights. There are real problems for trans people, like anti-trans violence, or lack of adequate mental or physical care, or real discrimination. Those are issues worth addressing. The debate on "gendered bathrooms" can also be faced in a rational way, although I have to admit that it's a controversial one, and that cultural assumptions play a role that cannot be just hand-waved away, and (for example) to call someone "bigoted" for not liking the idea of a Muscato going into a woman's bathroom is stupid.

But a rational debate is hard to have when there are nutty ideas like the fact that biological sex doesn't exist, that there's a "sex spectrum" or that trans people were ALWAYS and completely of the gender they identity as, that gender is "fluid" and "changes every moment" (which makes it a meaningless word, just a synonym for personality) or that we need to legally impose the use of new pronouns, personally chosen by anyone who wishes so.

To say nothing of the fact that people are expected to find someone who doesn't transition, like Muscato, "100% a woman" just by Muscato's personal identification as a woman.

[Ape+lust]

Commence bawling.

Abandoned by her family, she's realizing no one is coming for her.

(Happy ending: she was adopted, a huge stroke of luck for a 4 year old)

[MarcusAu]

Apparently I'm a mod?

How did that happen?

I always thought of you more as a mocker.

[MarcusAu]

Wow! A hobbit! ( that's where they come from right?)

Despite the state of my feet I am not a hobbit...I'm from Orcland.

[Brive1987]

[im.][/img]

Commence bawling.

Abandoned by her family, she's realizing no one is coming for her.

(Happy ending: she was adopted, a huge stroke of luck for a 4 year old)

Cunt. And cunts.

[Brive1987]

Bless him.

[MarcusAu]

[img.]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... d_Shep.jpg[/img]

John Noakes has died. He was a childhood hero of mine. For those unfamiliar with his name, he presented the children's programme Blue Peter in the Seventies. Much of that was teaching kids how to build Christmas decorations out of clothes hangers but Noakes did a lot of out-doors adventuring for the show including a five-mile free-fall (record breaking at the time) and a memorable bobsleigh run.

[youtube.][/youtube]

I never could work out exactly what 'Blue Peter' was in reference to. I'm guessing it was a Pictish thing related to painting yourself with woad and running sky-clad into battle...especially in the winter months.


But who knows if that explanation is Spot On.

[Brive1987]

Corey's a corker at the mo

[Shatterface]

Blue Peter was the navy flag meaning 'outward bound'. I suspect the term was better understood by post-war programme planners.

[Brive1987]

Hmm that would be "Corby"

[Karmakin]

Let's take, for example, the issues of law enforcement in the US. A heavily militarized police, the many failures of the War on Drugs, mandatory minimum sentencing, the prison-industrial complex and lack of good legal representation for poor people, as well as prison terms for people who don't pay debts or child support (this is where the MRAs have highlighted a real issue that others have ignored, for example, credit where credit is due), are issues that should be considered important by everyone.

It's also OK to make it clear that due to a series of reasons (higher rates of poverty and poverty traps, and lack of parental figures due to previous high rates of incarcerations, living in urban areas, lack of good education etc.) this has affected black communities disproportionately, and might create vicious circles of poverty, incarceration, more poverty and more incarceration. It's good to bring up real issues in black communities.

But to preach that "there's a genocide of black people in the streets" or that "the US law enforcement agencies are racist" or "nothing has changed since Jim Crow, there's a New Jim Crow" or "we don't care about the problems in poor white communities, they have white privilege" is highly counterproductive. Not only because it's blatantly false shit-stirring, but because it hinders a rational argument on law enforcement and associated issues in the US.

It turns even real concerns into slogans, it gives room to complete basket cases to make themselves seem reasonable, it fosters rage, lack of understanding, equivocations, dismissals of real problems. It doesn't lead to reforms and gradual changes for the better, it leads to political polarization, to identity politics, and eventually to more room for demagogues to exploit those identity politics on both sides of the aisle.

But if you dare point these things out you're often called a "racist" (even when you're saying nothing about race) or a "cuck" (which doesn't mean anything, really).

To put my tinfoil hat on, I think at least to some people, there's a reason why they don't want to dismantle, for example the prison industrial complex. They don't want to get rid of it...they want to take it over and use to their own ends.

But yeah. That's why I'm on this side and not that side. I think all the things mentioned in the first paragraph are really important things that have to be dealt with. And yes, I'm willing to say that in the US at least, it disproportionately hits the black community. BUT. You can't fix that problem ONLY for the black community. I think some people have the idea they can shame people into not being racist, or I guess more specifically being "anti-racist" (I.E. actively having bias to counteract the "old biases"). I see absolutely zero reason to say that works.

That's what I tell more pop progressive people when they complain about the rise of white nationalism. You wanted more identity politics, now you got it. This is what it looks like. Congrats. What..you thought only one side would play? That's simply not how this works!

[Ape+lust]

Bless him.

Characters in that thread...

http://imgur.com/HcWBDGY.jpg

[Pitchguest]

Swedish worker laws right now: fucked.

My brother was fired from his job because he allegedly harassed his coworkers. When he asked for evidence they said no. When he called HR they said no, and they said his employer doesn't have to provide evidence if they don't want to. To me, this is absolutely insane and I suggested he take it higher but he wanted to move on. Now he was denied a job due to "bad references" - he didn't name he worked at that other job so he has no idea what that means. Did they do a background check? When he asked for an example, they said no. Apparently this is legal.

http://new2.fjcdn.com/comments/You+gave ... 531bc1.png

He has a three year old daughter. This is fucked.

[Kirbmarc]

I think some people have the idea they can shame people into not being racist, or I guess more specifically being "anti-racist" (I.E. actively having bias to counteract the "old biases"). I see absolutely zero reason to say that works.

It's the dream of all utopian thinkers to get rid of Wrong Thought peacefully, through social shame, to correct all social ills, to finally have the Right Kind of People that will lead to the paradise on earth. All religions want this, all authoritarian political movement want this. It never works. People keep having Wrong Thoughts and questions and independent thinking in general, so you set up an authoritarian "temporary state of emergency" to carry people towards the goal. Then the "temporary state of emergency" becomes permanent and starts eating its own creators, until it's nothing more than a self-referential tool for playing power games, and the original intent is largely irrelevant.

That's what I tell more pop progressive people when they complain about the rise of white nationalism. You wanted more identity politics, now you got it. This is what it looks like. Congrats. What..you thought only one side would play? That's simply not how this works!

Many simply don't believe that they're doing anything wrong, that the white nationalism was just there and it simply became evident, because Nothing Has Changed and white people are Just Evil, especially white males. Many of them aren't interested in changing things, only in having the right to be angry and resentful forever and ever. They actually welcome white nationalism, since they want an enemy to fight.

[CommanderTuvok]

Tiger Woods arrested for DUI.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBAWeqXUAAE0qjZ.jpg

Ouch. :lol:

[feathers]

Ps whats this green shit bro?

[youtube][/youtube]

[Linus]

My mind will be changed to what? That gender studies isn't loaded with hogwash?

That the "Conceptual Penis" hoax isn't evidence of anything about Gender Studies, as I clearly stated. I don't know how anyone could have read that as "gender studies isn't loaded with hogwash".

That the hoax will destroy the credibility of gender studies once and for all to my knowledge hasn't been claimed by anyone much less the article from Skeptic. It's just another piece of evidence and probably not as damning as non hoax papers that are published like the feminist glaciology one much less the overall pomo nonsence that dominates the field.

No, it isn't a piece of evidence. And yes, the Skeptic article did present it as evidence. From the Skeptic article:

Conclusion: A Two-Pronged Problem for Academia

There are at least two deeply troublesome diseases damaging the credibility of the peer-review system in fields such as gender studies:

1. the echo-chamber of morally driven fashionable nonsense coming out of the postmodernist social “sciences” in general, and gender studies departments in particular

Part of the fault may fall on the open-access, pay-to-publish model, but the rest falls on the entire academic enterprise collectively referred to as “gender studies.” As we see it, gender studies in its current form needs to do some serious housecleaning.

There is no way around the fact that the publication of this paper in such a journal must point to some problem with the current state of academic publishing. The components of the problem are, it seems, reducible to just two: academic misfeasance arising from pay-to-publish, open-access financial decision-making; and unconscionable pseudo-academic inbreeding contaminating, if not defining, the postmodernist theory-based social sciences.

A few comments from others:

You will find it hilarious, infuriating, a mortal wound on some of those we oppose, or even an unethical act.

Please forward this link to the best hoax since Sokal owned the postmodernists.

brilliant hoax paper

This is glorious.

Spectacular, gentlemen. Truly.

[d4m10n]

Of course the penis hoax it is a piece of evidence. It isn't terribly dispositive, given the journal, but at least two academic peers let it go by.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[Billie from Ockham]

I'd like to echo one paragraph in a great post.

At the same time the anti-po-mo left saw Clinton's defeat as a chance to reform the left to ditch the po-mo left and go back to policies based on practical concerns rather than on po-mo identitarian ideologies. This didn't happen, though: instead of admitting their mistakes the Democratic bigwigs doubled down, supported the narrative of Hillary Clinton being just an innocent victim of the Evil Bigoted Brute, and marginalized the anti-po-mo left even more.

Many of my left-leaning friends and colleagues at work keep saying that we only have to wait four years before everything will swing back and be fixed. Some even are happy about the possible repeal of the ACA, on the grounds that "next time" we'll get single-payer. The only thing that they really worry about is another SCOTUS appointment. Otherwise seem to believe that they'll be back in power by 2021 and all will be fine. They are underestimating how little support the Democratic Party enjoys from normal people.

The Democratic Party could well get another wake-up call in two years when they fail to take back the Senate and make minimal gains in the House. Odds are, however, that they will simply quadruple down, which is why I believe that they are wrong about this only lasting four years. And a switch to Pence in the next year or so won't magically fix what's wrong with the current opposition.

[jet_lagg]

I don't really care if a scientific discipline communicates in a jargon that's near-inscrutable to outsiders, arguably physicists do that too, as long as they contribute something of measurable use to society at large. But as far as I can see it, gender studies and its breth... sisthren deliver no valuable insights and are a completely self-sufficient, incestuous branch of cargo cult research.

Yes, physics and math gives us engineering, while gender studies has nothing remotely like that. It's worth noting that there are subfields in physics and mathematics that have no obvious real world application though. I still think those areas of study are worth it for their own sake. The difference is the jargon there can be unpacked, whereas gender studies proponents react to any such attempt with extreme hostility (and as we talked about a while back, when maneuvered in to a corner Plotnitsky couldn't explain Lacan's "the penis is an imaginary number" wank even with 4,000 words to do so. "It's a metaphor... for what I'm not sure."). Gender studies as a field isn't even talking about anything. What appears deep falls in the "not even wrong" category. What appears superficial is sometimes true, but also... superficial. So what's the point at all? They're on par with beat poets as far as truth seeking is concerned, except that poetry at least is pleasant to listen to.

[Mr. X, Indeed]

I know I shouldn't bother with Salon, but:
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/28/us-civi ... t_partner/

Giving veterans a hiring preference for federal civil service jobs disadvantages women. This is a story they chose to run on Memorial Day Weekend.

That's ridiculous. For Memorial Day they should be celebrating those that died and took themselves out of the hiring pool. They helped women. That article should be a Veterans Day story. A news organization should know the difference. Salon's editors should do some basic research.

[Karmakin]

I don't really care if a scientific discipline communicates in a jargon that's near-inscrutable to outsiders, arguably physicists do that too, as long as they contribute something of measurable use to society at large. But as far as I can see it, gender studies and its breth... sisthren deliver no valuable insights and are a completely self-sufficient, incestuous branch of cargo cult research.

Yes, physics and math gives us engineering, while gender studies has nothing remotely like that. It's worth noting that there are subfields in physics and mathematics that have no obvious real world application though. I still think those areas of study are worth it for their own sake. The difference is the jargon there can be unpacked, whereas gender studies proponents react to any such attempt with extreme hostility (and as we talked about a while back, when maneuvered in to a corner Plotnitsky couldn't explain Lacan's "the penis is an imaginary number" wank even with 4,000 words to do so. "It's a metaphor... for what I'm not sure."). Gender studies as a field isn't even talking about anything. What appears deep falls in the "not even wrong" category. What appears superficial is sometimes true, but also... superficial. So what's the point at all? They're on par with beat poets as far as truth seeking is concerned, except that poetry at least is pleasant to listen to.

My personal opinion is that Gender Studies should be the engineering in and of itself, to be honest. If it was doing it correctly, what it would be doing is providing a framework to analyze and understand real-world scenarios. It would be something part of a social work degree (or similar). What it is, right now is making the assumption that they can make these overly simplistic models (like patriarchy theory) that works to describe all of human civilization. It WANTS to be a math or a physics, but it can never be that. Human society is just too damn complicated for any concept of a universal model.

[feathers]

Yes, physics and math gives us engineering, while gender studies has nothing remotely like that. It's worth noting that there are subfields in physics and mathematics that have no obvious real world application though. I still think those areas of study are worth it for their own sake.

True, there is some amount of (fundamental) research which cannot be directly translated into cellphones and flying cars, or of which we don't really know whether it even leads anywhere. You could, for example, argue (and unfortunately some people do) that developing elaborate constructions to observe earth-like planets in star systems we'll never get to visit is a useless pastime. Still, even that kind of research gives us insights about our position in the world that I can't discern in anything gender studies has to bring to table.

There's certainly sociological research that does give us such insights, but gender voodoo is closer to theology.