Periodic Table of Swearing

[Guest]

Dear Muslima,

[youtube]kycM8K3R8eY[/youtube]

[Steersman]

Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:58 pm

I think you are terribly unclear on the meaning, implications and ramifications of the word and concept “potential” and that is muddying the waters ...

I think the problem is more that you're focussed purely on physical capability, in which case anyone who has enough possession of their senses or who could say, wield a gun, could potentially rape someone ...

I don’t know that “purely on physical capability” is entirely accurate, although I’ll concede that that is a large part of my position or perspective. However, I think you’re misreading me if you think that I’m arguing that everyone has the same degree of potential. And relative to a later point of yours, I’ll even further concede, at least on a tentative basis, that there may be some men for whom the potential to rape is zero or pretty close to it: maybe they have such a highly developed set of mirror neurons, such a highly developed sense of empathy, that they could no more rape someone than they could put their hand in a fire and hold it there. The premise there being that the imposition of pain on someone else is seen and felt as the imposition of pain on themselves.

However all of that is not to say that I think that trying to quantity both potential and probability is without value. As the 19th century British scientist William Thomson put it:

If you think you know something about a subject, try to put a number on it. If you can, then maybe you know something about the subject. If you cannot then perhaps you should admit to yourself that your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. [Lord Kelvin, 1893]

And it seems those types of numbers are entirely germane to an ongoing and quite controversial topic. For instance there is the relatively recent post at Camels with Hammers on “Schrödinger’s Rapist and Schrödinger’s Racist” discussing an article on the former. And there’s a recent YouTube video by integralmath on the topic which makes some good points, notably the inconsistency in the arguments in that original argument. However, as suggested by his earlier video on the topic and my response to it, I think he, among more than a few others, tends to discount, deprecate and diminish both the actual rape statistics and the women who have been victimized.

For instance, as I indicated in my response, there are fairly credible statistics which suggest that some 15% of the female population of the US have been subjected to “forcible rape”. Now, unless there is a very large percentage of those women who were the victims of serial rapists, the conclusion has to be that some 15% of the male population are in fact or will become rapists even if the other 85% will never do so or become such. Now what the implications and ramifications of that “fact” might be and how well it might justify the “paranoia” of individuals like Zvan is a decidedly moot point – my knowledge of probability and statistics kind of running out of steam at that point. But I don’t think it helps matters to evade questions about the reliability of those statistics and what bearing they may have on other questions about potential and probability.

Tl;dr: More particularly, you said, “I don't think we're wired to rape as a go-to-option.” The thing is that if those statistics are accurate and my interpretation of them is correct then the fact of the matter seems to be that some 15% of the male population of the US do think that about rape – at least given the opportunity.

[JackRayner]

Double check by doing a ctrl-f search of your youtube name on all three of the comment pages. When there are more than 500(?) comments it splits into pages. He has 3 comment pages on that video since there are 1400+ comments. Youtube auto splitting sucks and frequently breaks up subthreads where people are replying back and forth to each other.

Tried it, but 19 out of 20 instances (there were more before...) of my screen name only appear on one page. No other hits (aside from my name at the top) on the next two pages. This exchange occurred within a pretty short period of time...

A while back, in what must have been PZ's most stupidly ironic day of all, he posted a comic strip called something like Feminist Fantasy or something similar. The idea being that what happened in the comic is sadly only a fantasy and never happens for real. So, in the comic, a man asks a women out. She says "no", and he accepts it and goes away.

But...but...it's different! You're only allowed to ask women in Safe Spaces©. Elevators are extremely unsafe for women, dontcha know? :naughty:

[Steersman]

Rebecca Watson doc drops.

I asked this moments ago on WoolyBumblebee’s blog but either she deleted it [hmmm ...] or it is still in moderation (nothing to indicate that though):

Just out of curiosity or as a point of information, what was the supposed justification for Watson dropping those docs? Was there something in that YouTube video that was particularly offensive to her? In which case how would she have managed to have obtained that information?

Or was it some comment from the “dropee” on that Skepchick post [“Speaking Out Against Hate ... Eran Segev”] from which Watson got that information? In the latter case I don’t see any particularly nasty comments there – except maybe from LeftSidePositive – that would have justified that step.

Curious and curiouser ....

[TheMan]

Thought this may be of interest. Not sure if there are similar awards nights in the UK or USA,

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-vi ... 26m8g.html

[disumbrationist]

For instance there is the relatively recent post at Camels with Hammers on “Schrödinger’s Rapist and Schrödinger’s Racist” discussing an article on the former.

Schrodingers Rapist is classic Mind Projection Fallacy: the person who believes in Schrodinger's Rapist is confusing their uncertainty as to whether someone is a rapist with an actual uncertainty on the part of the 'potential rapist' - an uncertainty in their mind is treated like an uncertainty in Nature. Similar in form to arguing that if you roll a pair of dice in the dark and can't see the result, the number is 'potentially' three. No; the number is what it is, and was determined by how and where the dice were rolled. You are simply ignorant of the result and must make use of your intellect to mitigate the uncertainty.

Once you recognize the fallacy, Schrodinger's Rapist and Racist and Black Mugger, etc. dissappear in a puff of smoke: you realize that they are your own intellect's attempts to deal with an uncertain situation using stats, prejudices, and instincts.

[KiwiInOz]

This is a really interesting article by a woman who describes her journey to casting off the mantle/poisoned chalice of affirmative action.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4281772.html

I still think that there is a place for affirmative action when the rules of a system stop people from fair opportunity to access - sometimes you just have to force perception change. But it should cease to be needed once the system has changed.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

MICHAEL KINGSFORD GRAY might like this exchange between "intellects":

SallyStrange: Elite Femi-Fascist Genius says:
September 25, 2012 at 3:52 pm
It is NOT sexist to note that 99% of rapists are men.

John D says:
September 27, 2012 at 12:26 am
@Sally #1:
99% per of all rapists are not men. 60% of all rapists are men.

98% of all rapists of women are men. 80% of all rapists of men are women, and the 12 month chance of a man being raped is nearly the same as a women, when we expand the definition of rape to include “forced to penetrate” another person (which as a just society we should).

Replies to:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/ ... ment-80199
Read the new CDC report on interpersonal violence.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

FIXING A FUCKUP:

MICHAEL KINGSFORD GRAY might like this exchange between "intellects":

SallyStrange: Elite Femi-Fascist Genius says:
September 25, 2012 at 3:52 pm
It is NOT sexist to note that 99% of rapists are men.

John D says:
September 27, 2012 at 12:26 am
@Sally #1:
99% per of all rapists are not men. 60% of all rapists are men.

98% of all rapists of women are men. 80% of all rapists of men are women, and the 12 month chance of a man being raped is nearly the same as a women, when we expand the definition of rape to include “forced to penetrate” another person (which as a just society we should).

Read the new CDC report on interpersonal violence.

Replies to: [url]http://freethoughtblog ... ment-80199[/url]

[CommanderTuvok]

http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/ ... ment-80199

:popcorn:

JohnD has certainly poured some butthurt on the usual suspects. 'Tis amazing how they squirm and wriggle with their logic when their own cod-philosophy is thrown back at them.

[JackRayner]

http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/ ... ment-80199

:popcorn:

JohnD has certainly poured some butthurt on the usual suspects. 'Tis amazing how they squirm and wriggle with their logic when their own cod-philosophy is thrown back at them.

Squirm indeed. Nice find! :popcorn:

(Had to Ctrl+F to find John D from the link, but worth it.)

[Couch]

Going back to Becky's post on those ungrateful harridans who apparently didn't write her an essay after all she did for them: http://skepchick.org/2012/09/please-sto ... calendars/

In the replies to that thread is a link to the original 1999 Skepchick Calender:

http://www.magicdave.com/sccal/sep.htm

Check out the Skpchick tagline: "Think of it as evolution in action"(!). Isn't that sort of talk double-plus-ungood these days?

[KiwiInOz]

http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/ ... ment-80199

:popcorn:

JohnD has certainly poured some butthurt on the usual suspects. 'Tis amazing how they squirm and wriggle with their logic when their own cod-philosophy is thrown back at them.

There might be some useful nuggets in that thread but, fuck me sideways, reading the drivel from the usual suspects is tedious.

[Saint N.]

Ok, random question: Has "The True Pooka" always been such a retard

Yes, yes he has. For as long as he's been on youtube Pooka's had this annoying shtick of presenting himself as being 'above the conversation'. Meaning that he says some retarded shit, people call him out on it, and he acts as if all the people pointing out his stupidity are just not up to speed with his great intellect. Eventually, after enough people keep pointing out his stupidity, he declares how he is 'above all this' and forgets that he was the one the brought up the stupid discussion to begin with. I don't want to dissuade you from arguing with him (because a lot of times it's good for lurkers to see the dimwit getting pwnd on his own videos) just don't expect him to own up to the fact that he doesn't have a leg to stand on in the argument.

Well, the comments I mentioned getting erased by him, in my response to Steersman, were essentially the ones that had the "gotcha" moment.

Yeah, nevermind then. There was a time when Pooka was dumb enough to let the comments stay because he actually believed he had made good arguments. I guess he wised up a bit about not letting himself look like a complete moron in the comments.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/ ... ment-80199

:popcorn:

JohnD has certainly poured some butthurt on the usual suspects. 'Tis amazing how they squirm and wriggle with their logic when their own cod-philosophy is thrown back at them.

They go on in this thread about differentiating between mere "sexual assault" (which is what happens to men) and "rape" (which is what happens to teh wimminz).

I feel like I have recently (within 6 months) read quite a few comments on FfTB which claim that any kind of sexual inappropriateness towards women should count as a rape when compiling statistics. I will have a look and try to provide evidence for my failing memory, but if anyone remembers such things off the top of their heads, feel free to comment.

[sacha]

Coffee? Ted, don't do that

Tea, maybe, if you are lucky!

Now I'm wondering… if coffee is sex, what is tea?

anal

[astrokid.nj]

Not sure if people have already seen this, but I ran into this Vid today. Seems to be from the reason rally.
In addition to internet balls, PeeZus has reason rally balls.

Q: “How do you know that your ability to reason is valid?”
An interesting question considering PZ constantly talks about ‘reason and evidence’ as ways to prove his beliefs. His answer? “Because i’m not a slimy motherfucker like you.”

[youtube]oIp9OGnnfrA[/youtube]

[sacha]

It must have been something pretty harrowing to leave Becky with such rage blindness she forgot all about receiving Jamila's essay and publishing it twice.

She does not even acknowledge Jamila's comment, but pounces on this:

Montesino
09.24.2012

"People are laughing at you because the perception of this post is that when you do a calendar it’s fun and empowering, but when others do it it’s sexist and patriarchy-enabling.

If I read you well, however, I think the point of the post is that the calendar was a mistake in the first place that came from a failure to grasp what atheists and skeptics are like. This is the part you mentioned about being naive. You thought this was a post-feminist community only to learn years later it was not so..."

http://skepchick.org/2012/09/please-sto ... ent-158573

It appears he is speaking of the perception of others in the first sentence, and his perception after that.
The second paragraph seems to convey support for Watson's stance on misogyny in the sceptic community, support of her view that women were being sexualised and objectified by men looking at the calendar photographs, and support of her "realisation" that it was not a good idea in the first place. That perhaps she had "a failure to grasp what atheists and skeptics are like" and believed the community was "post feminist" (whatever the fuck he thinks that means). But now she knows better...

or is it sarcasm?

regardless she ignores Jamilla's comment and responds to the above with this:

no idea.jpg

(31.6 KiB) Downloaded 141 times

Do you reckon she read past the first sentence?

Does anyone including her supporters believe her claim of having no idea who and what that first sentence is referring to?

And how does anything in his entire comment give her reason to refer to him as illiterate bully?

Again, no response, no acknowledgment, no apology to Jamilla's comment. Not even a retraction/admission of being wrong (hah). But jumps at the chance to prove she is a victim, even when it is in response to a benign comment that was not accusatory, or aggressive.

I'm glad she continues to give me more examples of her behaviour, so I do not have to use the same one twice.

[Dick Strawkins]

Not sure if people have already seen this, but I ran into this Vid today. Seems to be from the reason rally.
In addition to internet balls, PeeZus has reason rally balls.

Q: “How do you know that your ability to reason is valid?”
An interesting question considering PZ constantly talks about ‘reason and evidence’ as ways to prove his beliefs. His answer? “Because i’m not a slimy motherfucker like you.”

[youtube]oIp9OGnnfrA[/youtube]

Put PZ up against a creationist, they are toast.
That's why he gets so much adulation from his fans.
The thing is, arguing biology with creationists is about the easiest form of debate you can have. It's about one rung on the ladder above debating flat-earthers.
Even the guys on the Atheist Experience defeat every creationist they encounter (despite the fact that the hosts of the Atheist Experience have little or no biology credentials - and frankly, sound like Watson level amateurs when discussing the subject.)

But put PZ up against a religious apologist and get him to think on his feet?

Then the trouble begins. He is simply not very good at this type of debate.
You get the feeling that he imagines himself as some sort of cross between Hitchens and Dawkins but facing an apologist he comes across as a second rate Matt Dillahunty.

[JackRayner]

To be fair, Sye Tenbuggengate (I think that's how it's spelled. I don't feel like verifying at the moment.) and fellow presuppositionalist scumbags like him are the type of people who I wouldn't give the time of day.

I've got a special place in my heart for people who argue as dishonestly as presuppositionalists do, and while I can't say I've actually stacked their ilk up next to the baboons and compared their irrationality in any fashion, I would wager that the presuppositionalists are worse. I base this on my belief that the baboons, hypocrites though they be, are actually convinced their shit doesn't smell most of the time. The presuppositionalists know their shit reeks, and resort to blatant intellectual dishonesty because they know none of their other arguments will pass the smell test. Worse, is that they like to go around interviewing atheists who are unaware of their tactics on camera just to compile gotcha-moments (Through word games or through editing done in post) that they then use to swindle fellow theists out of more of their goddamned money.

Alright! That's enough out of me! It's almost 3am here, and I've gotta be up in 3 1/2 hours, so I really shouldn't be getting all riled up about these assholes... Seriously though, Sye and his counterparts really piss me off. :evil:

[Philip of Tealand]

Coffee? Ted, don't do that

Tea, maybe, if you are lucky!

Now I'm wondering… if coffee is sex, what is tea?

anal

Pouring Tea into your arse isn't something I'd recommend - everyone to their own of course, I'd be the last person to comment on what floats your sexual boat - I'd just be worried about the scalding!

[KiwiInOz]

To be fair, Sye Tenbuggengate (I think that's how it's spelled. I don't feel like verifying at the moment.) and fellow presuppositionalist scumbags like him are the type of people who I wouldn't give the time of day.

I've got a special place in my heart for people who argue as dishonestly as presuppositionalists do, and while I can't say I've actually stacked their ilk up next to the baboons and compared their irrationality in any fashion, I would wager that the presuppositionalists are worse. I base this on my belief that the baboons, hypocrites though they be, are actually convinced their shit doesn't smell most of the time. The presuppositionalists know their shit reeks, and resort to blatant intellectual dishonesty because they know none of their other arguments will pass the smell test. Worse, is that they like to go around interviewing atheists who are unaware of their tactics on camera just to compile gotcha-moments (Through word games or through editing done in post) that they then use to swindle fellow theists out of more of their goddamned money.

Yep. That's Circular Sye. Slime Weasel of the highest order. IMHO, YMMV, PZ is correct to label him as such.

[KiwiInOz]

Coffee? Ted, don't do that

Tea, maybe, if you are lucky!

Now I'm wondering… if coffee is sex, what is tea?

anal

Pouring Tea into your arse isn't something I'd recommend - everyone to their own of course, I'd be the last person to comment on what floats your sexual boat - I'd just be worried about the scalding!

Tea enema - http://fastingcleansing.com/use-a-colon ... mas-2.html

Coffee enema?

[youtube]http://dNOo37rmyGc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

[KiwiInOz]

Gotterdamerung unt Blast.

[Steersman]

For instance there is the relatively recent post at Camels with Hammers on “Schrödinger’s Rapist and Schrödinger’s Racist” discussing an article on the former.

Schrodingers Rapist is classic Mind Projection Fallacy: the person who believes in Schrodinger's Rapist is confusing their uncertainty as to whether someone is a rapist with an actual uncertainty on the part of the 'potential rapist' ....

Interesting link, more so because the fallacy was first “described by physicist and Bayesian philosopher E.T. Jaynes”.

However (but) .... I don’t think that that is entirely accurate in the case of Schrödinger’s Rapist. For instance, that fallacy:

... occurs when someone thinks that the way they see the world reflects the way the world really is, going as far as assuming the real existence of imagined objects.

Now it seems that there is some justification for suggesting that Stephanie Zvan is guilty of that fallacy. And likewise with most religious fundamentalists: many of them apparently really do see the world populated with angels and demons in spite of an absolute dearth of evidence to justify that claim – which probably justifies the argument that they really are delusional if not actually “bat-shit crazy”.

But that seems something completely different from the argument presented in that paper by Phaedra Starling, although I think there are still a few flaws in it and that she is somewhat unclear on some of the nuances of probability – not that those are easy to “wrap one’s head around”, at least for me. But for example this section clearly indicates that she isn’t seeing that every man that she or her sisters meet is in fact a rapist – and is, in consequence, not a case of the “mind projection fallacy”:

When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions.

However, the following betrays (I think or imagine) some seriously problematic misunderstandings of probability:

While you may assume that none of the men you know are rapists, I can assure you that at least one is. Consider: if every rapist commits an average of ten rapes (a horrifying number, isn’t it?) then the concentration of rapists in the population is still a little over one in sixty. That means four in my graduating class in high school. One among my co-workers. One in the subway car at rush hour. Eleven who work out at my gym.

Although one should note in passing that that 1 in 60 could be as high as 1 in 6 which means 40 in her graduating class. But one problem is, of course and as you probably know, that in any given sample population [“graduating class”, “co-workers”, fellow commuters], all she is entitled to say is that, for her graduating class, there was most probably four guys who were rapists, but there could have been as few as zero and as many as 240, although the chance of the latter is vanishingly small. But assuming that there were some 30,000 different graduating classes the following illustrates that fact:
http://i46.tinypic.com/zo8db9.jpg

But in addition to the previous, and I think you may have addressed this point earlier, statistics on the number of men who have already committed rape generally says very little about the probability that any given man in any given situation will commit rape. To suggest the probabilities in each case are the same seems tantamount to arguing that all men are no more than peas in a pod, no more than 60-sided dice, one side of which is labelled “rape”. Kind of sexist, if you ask me ....

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I will now conceed that Scroedinger's Rapist may not be as fallacious as it seems. After all, you have no way to know if the person you meet is a rapist or not. Or if they're a murderer, or a thief, or a neo-nazi (okay, the bald head and swastika tatoo may help). This applies to men and women. Why shouldn't it?

I think I can understand the idea. But boy, would I hate to live my life in such a paranoid way!

[SPACKlick]

what exactly am I stating that is so fucking disagreeable? The standards I stated are factual, it's not esoteric knowledge, and you don't need to be some cunt whose spent the last decade and a half in service to know this.

Rather than appealing to "half the service knowing this", why not link him to the published standards of physical differentiation?

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/marines/ ... female.htm
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/marines/l/blfitmale.htm

However, It's possible, given the reference to the 5th picture, that there's confusion between marines and Royal Marines who I think have the same fitness standards for women (and a far lower proportion of women)

[Steersman]

I will now conceed that Scroedinger's Rapist may not be as fallacious as it seems. After all, you have no way to know if the person you meet is a rapist or not. Or if they're a murderer, or a thief, or a neo-nazi (okay, the bald head and swastika tatoo may help). This applies to men and women. Why shouldn't it?

I think I can understand the idea. But boy, would I hate to live my life in such a paranoid way!

I expect that some people are more affected than others and that some go off the deep end, some maybe not without reason, depending on the details of their experiences and their environment. For instance, Dawkins doesn’t to be too traumatized by his experiences with teachers “whose affection for small boys overstepped the bounds of propriety”. And I think you indicated some similar experiences.

But not easy to gauge the probabilities of any future occurrences as there is a wide range of factors to assess – which probably doesn’t decrease the fear-factor much for many ....

And I still wonder about the actual incidence, in part because the frequency of general assault and battery, mostly of men I think, seems to be quite a bit higher, at least in America ....

[SPACKlick]

I will now conceed that Scroedinger's Rapist may not be as fallacious as it seems. ...I think I can understand the idea. But boy, would I hate to live my life in such a paranoid way!

This is where the A+ lot have missed a point. As well as doing what we can to reduce the risk to all people, we need to lower peoples threat perception.

We should also change how people think they will react to being assaulted/raped. I have been forceably enveloped (partner wanted sex, I wanted sleep, I woke up to find myself being irdden like a rodeo pony) and it didn't phase me even slightly. I was pissed at the breach of trust, I was angry but it didn't destroy my life like rape does to many people, and I think in part it's because I wan't EXPECTING it to destroy my life.

If we can work on the attitudes and perceptions of the risk and effect of rape everyone is better off, probably moreso than reducing the rate and prevalence of rape. Just my 2c.

[rayshul]

Yeah I haven't seen much change in the Slimepit. Lots of yelling, people fighting all the time, arguments, no one agreeing, people telling people to fuck right off, people telling them to fuck right off right back.

Exactly. And graphically too … :-)

Frequently the last resort of those with nothing left to stand on ….

I don't know, I think some people just get tired of arguing a point when they feel like they're getting no traction. I mean you can only spend so much time on one person before going, eh, people who read this will make up their own minds.

[rayshul]

I don’t know that “purely on physical capability” is entirely accurate, although I’ll concede that that is a large part of my position or perspective. However, I think you’re misreading me if you think that I’m arguing that everyone has the same degree of potential. And relative to a later point of yours, I’ll even further concede, at least on a tentative basis, that there may be some men for whom the potential to rape is zero or pretty close to it: maybe they have such a highly developed set of mirror neurons, such a highly developed sense of empathy, that they could no more rape someone than they could put their hand in a fire and hold it there. The premise there being that the imposition of pain on someone else is seen and felt as the imposition of pain on themselves.

That's more or lessly my point on this - that I would suggest that most men aren't really so capable of this.

However all of that is not to say that I think that trying to quantity both potential and probability is without value. As the 19th century British scientist William Thomson put it:

If you think you know something about a subject, try to put a number on it. If you can, then maybe you know something about the subject. If you cannot then perhaps you should admit to yourself that your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. [Lord Kelvin, 1893]

That's a fair point, but I'm not sure it's possible to study who isn't able to rape. I assume that I, being an alpha-type personality who holds grudges, would be capable of rape, although how to get the point where I'd decide that was an option is going to be through a lot of different mental hurdles. It's highly unlikely, but I would count myself amongst the "potentials" simply because I don't know exactly what my capacity is for vengeful actions.

I think asking if you'd be capable of rape is such a loaded question, particularly to men, that any study would wind up heavily biased (although in what way I'm not actually sure). So I guess I can only talk shit and speculate, not very skeptical of me.

Tl;dr: More particularly, you said, “I don't think we're wired to rape as a go-to-option.” The thing is that if those statistics are accurate and my interpretation of them is correct then the fact of the matter seems to be that some 15% of the male population of the US do think that about rape – at least given the opportunity.

I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that 85% of people aren't capable of rape - I'm happy with ignoring the serial rapists and stick with that statistic, because it probably evens out, more or lessly, across all the other people who could rape but didn't. I can see that 15% being broken up into various types of people, with various types of reasons or backgrounds to the situation. Other groups of people can be thought of the same way - women, for example, or different races (did I read somewhere that in one Scandinavian country only one race of people were committing the rapes? Not sure.).

I don't think 15% of people who are capable of rape at some point in their lives in some specific circumstance warrants the need to be afraid of a particular subset of people, particularly considering that only 11% of that 15% are likely to attack a stranger (stats check?).

I have done a bit of poking around on rape statistics and to be honest it's fucking hard to work out what these stats mean and the situations they occur in, though.

[rayshul]

quite drunk so not sure if making much sense, though.

[SPACKlick]

You're making plenty of sense rayshul.

What would be perfect is if we had statistics for

#Hours males in situation A, number of violent or sexual assaults
#Hours females in situation A, number of violent or sexual assaults

Then we would be able to compare the risk. As the stats are, it's very hard to tell anything. If S'sR is right and women do take every reasonable precaution and live in fear and men just ignore the risk and the figures showed the level of attack were the same, then we do have a problem, because it's the same despite the added risk avoidance.

I'm currently trying to put together a survey that will help me get some data for my local area, but on a straw poll among my online contacts, S'sR is way overstating the case and most of the precautions (don't walk down a dark alley alone while drunk) are exactly like my precautions. I'm just not scared when I take them, it's just part of life.

In every situation where you are intereacting with people or even visible by people you're playing a strategy. What steps you take to minimise your risks depends on your view of the costs and levels of those risks, and how well you evaluate the available information.

More and more as this is discussed I'm coming to believe that the watsonian bunch don't evaluate situational information well, aren't confident in themselves and view the risks as either more costly or more likely than I believe they are.

[JackRayner]

what exactly am I stating that is so fucking disagreeable? The standards I stated are factual, it's not esoteric knowledge, and you don't need to be some cunt whose spent the last decade and a half in service to know this.

Rather than appealing to "half the service knowing this", why not link him to the published standards of physical differentiation?

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/marines/ ... female.htm
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/marines/l/blfitmale.htm

Here's the thing, and you can see it throughout the comments that I managed to screen cap, I was waiting for him to actually state that he had an issue with the data I threw out before I would post those links. That's why I kept asking what his issue with my reply to HTArcade was. Not until the very end, which he then made disappear, did he make it known that his objection was about my sharing anecdote by saying that all of the females in my company fell out of the 10 mile forced march.... But this isn't true either, because his very first reply was to my plainly stated "Marines have lower standards for females, here is how...". I couldn't care less about his objections to my qualifier about being a veteran Marine. He tried to turn these into issues long after the fact.

However, It's possible, given the reference to the 5th picture, that there's confusion between marines and Royal Marines who I think have the same fitness standards for women (and a far lower proportion of women)

It was considered. However, both the GAO and DOD are U.S. entities. But again, he never plainly stated that he had an issue with my actual data, only that I made appeals to "personal experience", or whatever.

Like, no shit, I had those links at the ready. I didn't even know what the minimum time was for females on the flexed arm hang. (I never cared. I've never thought very highly of a test which is, essentially, the easy half of a dead-hang pull-up, in which you are timed on how slowly you can lower yourself down...) All he had to do was say "Prove that your data is true", or "I don't believe your data", but he didn't give me either. Just nonsense and deflections.

And with the way he just memory holed away every comment of his and mine that made it obvious that he was full of shit and had nothing real to object to from the start, I'm disinterested in engaging that character again. Just like with the presuppositionalists, I don't give dishonest arguers the time of day. :snooty:

[CommanderTuvok]

Funny to see PZ calling Sye a slimy mother fucker. Is that a gendered epithet?

Anyway, Sye Tenbuggengate is a complete wankstain. It's just a pity that PZ has joined him in the wankstain stakes in the last year or so.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Long story short, the rating scale indices they use are only ordinal scale measurement and that doesn't allow for the kind of arithmetic and statistical analyses they performed. Everyone does it, everyone shouldn't, because it imputes more into the data than is actually there by treating it as interval scale or more and it just isn't. The authors themselves say the effects they found are small, but make great play of their statistical significance, yet it exactly that significance which their data precludes.

Of course, this criticism doesn't apply to the difference in starting salary, right? So they are correct in saying there is a statistically significant difference in initial salary offered.
The criticism of reliance on statistical significance instead of magnitude is spot on, and is actually a problem throughout sociology, economics, and medicine.
See two papers on the subject:
The Earth is round (p < .05)
The Cult of Statistical Significance.

You're right, the measurment type criticism doesn't apply to the salary variable. But here is another problem with that, and I think the authors missed a trick there. Instead of letting respondents choose the amount of salary, they forced them to choose one of seven (why always seven?) salary levels, which differed by units of $5000, an amount which ended up being larger than the eventual difference in average salaries offered. Why they did this I don't know, but it takes a perfectly good (essentially) continuous variable and treats it like the Likert scales used in the rest of the paper. That, in turn, messes with the assumptions of the t-test they used to show a significant difference. They also end up with two groups with very different SD's, which might violate the homogeneity of variance requirement as well. This can be checked out, or moderated, statistically, but they don't say what procedures they used and I don't have their raw data, so I can't tell if the stats are kosher or not. Tyrant, aren't I.

Looking at their Table 1, you could hypothesise that the difference in the results doesn't reflect what the authors believe. For example, if there is more variability on one group of respondents for whatever reason, forcing them to choose only certain values of salary may result in larger differences in the value selected than the respondent intended, and I note that the SDs in the "female student" group are 20-60% higher than in the "male student" group. Again, there are ways of checking this out, but the simplest was to just use the whole range of possible salaries. I'm not claiming that's any sort of proof, but I think that plumping for a significant difference without a closer examination of the data is a bit premature.

And the authors don't state anything to show that the respondents actually made any note of the sex of the applicant, nor any measures they took to ensure they did notice it. FWIW, I've read hundreds of similar applications and I don't think I ever looked at, or even noticed the name on the front until after they were short listed. I may be unusual in that regard (as, perhaps, in may others), but it does make it a possibility for at least some respondents. Bit of an oversight given that it is the main variable of interest.

Anyway folks, you are now leaving the twilight zone. Control of your internet forum has been returned to you.

[JackRayner]

I will now conceed that Scroedinger's Rapist may not be as fallacious as it seems. After all, you have no way to know if the person you meet is a rapist or not. Or if they're a murderer, or a thief, or a neo-nazi (okay, the bald head and swastika tatoo may help). This applies to men and women. Why shouldn't it?

I think I can understand the idea. But boy, would I hate to live my life in such a paranoid way!

Except this isn't just what "Schrodinger's Rapist" is. Schrodinger's Rapist isn't "I don't know if you are a rapist or not", it's "Hey, rapist? Don't rape. And make it fucking obvious that you aren't going to rape me by adjusting your behavior around me in absurd ways, as in, stay as fucking far away from me as possible."

The fifth and last point: Don’t rape. Nor should you commit these similar but less severe offenses: don’t assault. Don’t grope. Don’t constrain. Don’t brandish. Don’t expose yourself. Don’t threaten with physical violence. Don’t threaten with sexual violence.

Shouldn’t this go without saying? Of course it should. Sadly, that’s not the world I live in. You may be beginning to realize that it’s not the world you live in, either.

http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest ... ing-maced/

"Shouldn’t this go without saying? Of course it should. Sadly, that’s not the world I live in." = Rape is bad, but not even decent men know this.

What a fucking misandrist CUNT! I mean, what type of charitable reading is one supposed to give to that?! More than I'm willing, that's what type... :hand:

[SPACKlick]

FWIW, I've read hundreds of similar applications and I don't think I ever looked at, or even noticed the name on the front until after they were short listed.

I'm the same here, the name couldn't possibly affect me because I only notice it once I've decided to get back in touch with you.

[SPACKlick]

The fifth and last point: Don’t rape. Nor should you commit these similar but less severe offenses: don’t assault. Don’t grope. Don’t constrain. Don’t brandish. Don’t expose yourself. Don’t threaten with physical violence. Don’t threaten with sexual violence.

Shouldn’t this go without saying? Of course it should. Sadly, that’s not the world I live in. You may be beginning to realize that it’s not the world you live in, either.

http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest ... ing-maced/

"Shouldn’t this go without saying? Of course it should. Sadly, that’s not the world I live in." = Rape is bad, but not even decent men know this.

What a fucking misandrist CUNT! I mean, what type of charitable reading is one supposed to give to that?! More than I'm willing, that's what type... :hand:

I can think of a vaguely charitable reading. In that she's trying to say while this applies to rape, as we've been discussing don't forget it also applies to these still bad but less severe crimes, and that there are plenty of people out there who DO cross the line.
And that attempted expression was written by someone with poor communication skills.

That's as charitable as I can be.

[Za-zen]

Take a look at this, especially the latest period, and draw your own conclusions.

http://www.statscrop.com/www/freethoughtblogs.com

Maybe they're learning their lesson that whilst generating drama does get them pageview spikes, it in the long term in financially damaging. Their hits go off a cliff face after the initial spike of interest to see what madness they're spouting.

We are all aware that their reputation is that of a cheap tawdry tabloid amongst the a/s movement, maybe they're realising that it doesn't pay to be, unfortunately like a cheap tabloid, they are staffed with cheap talentless drama generators. You can't make fine wine out of urine.

[SPACKlick]

can someone more bored and knowledgeable than me correlate those spikes with events?

[JackRayner]

PZ Lyers has a new post in which he attempts to show why he hates MRA's. Read the original post first:

And then see what the scumbag has to say about it: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... pise-mras/

Way to misrepresent the whole fucking post, PeeZee, you lying, cowardly, scumbag! I have to wonder if he even actually read it, or if he's just parroting what someone else sent to him. I have a real hard time accepting that PeeZee is fucking stupid enough to not understand what the fuck he reads.

Summary of post: My wife has become totally disillusioned about motherhood since she realized that the sugar coated trash she was fed by society and the media she consumes is nothing like the real thing. I'm doing OK, because I came into this with expectation that it would be fucking tough. I'd like to thank the men in my life, to include the MRM, for preparing me for the realities of fatherhood.

PeeZee's interpretation: MENz RULE! WOMMENZ SUCK!!!1

Oh, and, favorite part? How PeeZee says this guy isn't worth shit for working 10 hours a day to provide for his family because the wife is locked away at home with the little child-tyrant...except she isn't;

Two years later, she's back at work and still miserable. She's successful, but at the cost of not seeing much of our daughter.

Keep up the great work, PeeZee! :clap:

[JackRayner]

Peezee, from the same post

But there’s a victim here, his wife. She’s quit her job to dedicate herself full time to raising their child

Did he totally miss the part where dude-bro said he quit his fucking job and worked from home just so he could be around to help?!

I was providing everything; in fact I'd quit my job as the head of a design agency to work freelance so that I could be at home to care for both of them.

Poor woman. She's a victim! FUCK THE PATRIARCHY!!1 :violin:

[Trophy]

Yeah read that. The guy is an asshole. In fact, anyone who lives with someone else and says, "I do everything!" is a cluless retard, unless of course they live with a quadriplegic.

And PZ Myers did not misrepresent the whole thing. In general, what PZ does is quite simple: he tries to carve a simple narrative. In PZ's world, there are no shades of gray. Humans are either assholes, douchebags, and sexist, or nice and moral. That's why he just chops off the parts of the story that could pull a shade of gray over this guy. The guy sounds like a smug asshole but it is obvious that he also cares about his family, you know, people have flaws and that's normal.

[SPACKlick]

Tried to post

Ok, I hate to be disagreeing again but I think you missed something int he article PZ

On his wife he says <blockquote>She had taken a year's leave from her work for a major bank,</blockquote>
and
<blockquote>Two years later, she's back at work and still miserable.</blockquote>

About his own career he says
<blockquote>I'd quit my job as the head of a design agency to work freelance so that I could be at home to care for both of them.</blockquote>

So when you say
<blockquote>This guy does nothing. His wife is on non-stop baby duty all day long, while he’s off interacting with adult human beings</blockquote>

You've got this particular story backwards. Sounds liek the guy has given up a lot and does do a lot and the relationship is struggling.

His point is that his wife (note only his wife not all women) has unreasonable expectations fostered by the media she reads and the general media. Yes he attributes this as a response to feminism which it in part may be.

MRA's say plenty of vile things, why create a mountain out of a field?

To find I am now blocked from commenting on PZ's blog. I don't think I've commented on Pharyngula before. So what gives?

[cunt]

Sounds like your average married life rant to me. I doubt he's really saint dad and she's just some idiot who's been brainwashed by cosmo. Whatever, I don't care.

"PZ rides to the rescue" is always funny though.

[JackRayner]

To find I am now blocked from commenting on PZ's blog. I don't think I've commented on Pharyngula before. So what gives?

Interesting. I guess that hunch I had, about not even bothering to attempt to comment, was justified. I heard he's so afraid of any of us going over and commenting on his blog, that he's preemptively blocking anyone who posts here. I guess it's true. :think:

What a neurotic character he is...

[cunt]

Tried to post


To find I am now blocked from commenting on PZ's blog. I don't think I've commented on Pharyngula before. So what gives?

What with the same username you're using here?

[Scented Nectar]

To find I am now blocked from commenting on PZ's blog. I don't think I've commented on Pharyngula before. So what gives?

Interesting. I guess that hunch I had, about not even bothering to attempt to comment, was justified. I heard he's so afraid of any of us going over and commenting on his blog, that he's preemptively blocking anyone who posts here. I guess it's true. :think:

What a neurotic character he is...

Yes, he said somewhere (I didn't bookmark it though) that he puts all people who post here into his filter. So, you'll not see your name in the dungeon because he's pre-emptively filtered you. He leaves those out of the dungeon, probably so that he doesn't look as ban-crazed as he really is. He's not very honest in anything he does.

[ERV]

Ive been watching my partners kids for the past two weeks. It is the hardest thing I have ever done, and it has completely reenforced my decision not to have children. I am mentally and physically exhausted. I physically could not do this for an extended period of time and maintain my own health (gym/sleep/proper diet/sanity) or productivity at work. I have no idea how parents do this, certainly not single parents. And these two kids are good.

'Parenting' is nothing like you see on TV/movies/advertising, and I do not blame anyone for their disillusionment. But I dont think it has anything to do with gender. Fatherhood and Motherhood get whitewashed, and I know men and women who (before kids) idealize the situation.

That Reddit post could be a spark to start a frank, interesting discussion about parenting, reality vs pop media, and the effects when the two worlds collide. Too bad Myers is more interested in bitching than having an interesting discussion.

[SPACKlick]

What with the same username you're using here?

without the capitals but yeah... although someone :whistle: is now posting as spacklick3 and posted the exact same post. Small world ey?

[cunt]

Wow, they're really jealous that the guy makes the amount of money he does.

[LMU]

That father's post actually reminded me of my own parents. I was too young to remember how it was when I was born, but when my younger sibling was growing up my mother had PPD and my father basically took care of all of us. When she went back to work her hours were long and she'd sleep when she got home so my father basically raised us during that period.

[JackRayner]

That father's post actually reminded me of my own parents. I was too young to remember how it was when I was born, but when my younger sibling was growing up my mother had PPD and my father basically took care of all of us. When she went back to work her hours were long and she'd sleep when she got home so my father basically raised us during that period.

Wow. So, you mean there are instances in which someone stating "In short I do just about everything." isn't a smug asshole or a clueless retard? How wild. Trophy almost had me convinced for a minute there...

[LMU]

That father's post actually reminded me of my own parents. I was too young to remember how it was when I was born, but when my younger sibling was growing up my mother had PPD and my father basically took care of all of us. When she went back to work her hours were long and she'd sleep when she got home so my father basically raised us during that period.

Wow. So, you mean there are instances in which someone stating "In short I do just about everything." isn't a smug asshole or a clueless retard? How wild. Trophy almost had me convinced for a minute there...

I don't mean to say that she didn't do anything, just that my father did far more. Also I think she had reason for being that way, but my father did pick up the slack. I don't know how appreciative she was of him, that's not really my business, but she did at one point accuse him of molesting us (he didn't) which was terrifying (I think it was a case of misplaced anger. She was angry at someone else for something else, but didn't realize it and so invented a reason to explain the anger she was feeling.)

[disumbrationist]

But for example this section clearly indicates that she isn’t seeing that every man that she or her sisters meet is in fact a rapist – and is, in consequence, not a case of the “mind projection fallacy”:

When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions.

No, this is the Mind Projection Fallacy: she points her finger at a man and says "you are Schrodinger's Rapist." She's externalized her own lack of certainty. Notably the original article is, as you mentioned, less guilty of the fallacy than others who have mindlessly repeated it.
Part of the problem is that she started from a concept few, if any, understand: Schrodingers reductio ad absurdum of quantum measurement. That is, after all, what it was: Schrodinger was trying to show that the the Copenhagen Interpretation lent itself to absurd conclusions; the authoress of Schrodingers Rapists took that 'absurdity' and defended it as a rational conclusion. She could have written a nice, sensible article about how women mitigate risk using simple, everyday concepts.

[AndrewV69]

Ive been watching my partners kids for the past two weeks. It is the hardest thing I have ever done, and it has completely reenforced my decision not to have children. I am mentally and physically exhausted. I physically could not do this for an extended period of time and maintain my own health (gym/sleep/proper diet/sanity) or productivity at work. I have no idea how parents do this, certainly not single parents. And these two kids are good.

You will really never know if you are up to it till you actually do have children yourself. The greatest issue IMO is they come with no warrenty or instruction manual, and no two are exactly the same. Oh yes, another issue is you can not send them back either, not even with a restocking fee.

When my kids were born I went from having zero patience to having all the patience in the world. My kids were good also, but like dogs they required exercise every day else they would tear the house apart.

I think I would like to have more, even though at this stage of my life I do not have the energy I once did, and once more I would have almost no free time. You really have them for very short period of time before they are out the door and out and about in the world. Twenty years can go by in a flash.

'Parenting' is nothing like you see on TV/movies/advertising, and I do not blame anyone for their disillusionment. But I dont think it has anything to do with gender. Fatherhood and Motherhood get whitewashed, and I know men and women who (before kids) idealize the situation.

That Reddit post could be a spark to start a frank, interesting discussion about parenting, reality vs pop media, and the effects when the two worlds collide. Too bad Myers is more interested in bitching than having an interesting discussion.

If you are around small children when you are growing up and help with them, you have no illusions. I have a sister-in-law who has over ten children. The older ones help with the younger ones, and I have yet to just drop in unannounced and find the house in a mess. Her eldest boy just got married to a girl with a similar background (large mennonite household) and you can bet your last dollar they both have the experience and the knowledge to cope.

[cunt]

My two best friends through school married each other when they were 20 and had kids soon after. I'd get this all the fucking time. "He/she never does anything... I do all the work" from the both of them. Eventually I started asking where they wanted me to pin their medals. I was considering getting actual medals made up.

Sounds like this guy is just blowing off some steam on the net, and his wife is probably doing the same somewhere else. Fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck PZ and his socially maladjusted commenters.

[LMU]

I don't mean to say that she didn't do anything, just that my father did far more. Also I think she had reason for being that way, but my father did pick up the slack. I don't know how appreciative she was of him, that's not really my business, but she did at one point accuse him of molesting us (he didn't) which was terrifying (I think it was a case of misplaced anger. She was angry at someone else for something else, but didn't realize it and so invented a reason to explain the anger she was feeling.)

Reading that I think I sound unsympathetic to her and that I should try to clarify. Both my parents were working full time jobs, except that hers left her much less time to help raise us. It was sort of the reverse of the stereotypical husband works and wife raises kids family. I know she felt she was working for our benefit and felt guilty about not spending more time with us.

[AndrewV69]

No, this is the Mind Projection Fallacy: she points her finger at a man and says "you are Schrodinger's Rapist." She's externalized her own lack of certainty. Notably the original article is, as you mentioned, less guilty of the fallacy than others who have mindlessly repeated it.
Part of the problem is that she started from a concept few, if any, understand: Schrodingers reductio ad absurdum of quantum measurement. That is, after all, what it was: Schrodinger was trying to show that the the Copenhagen Interpretation lent itself to absurd conclusions; the authoress of Schrodingers Rapists took that 'absurdity' and defended it as a rational conclusion. She could have written a nice, sensible article about how women mitigate risk using simple, everyday concepts.

I am going to rear up on my hind legs and state here what I did on the baboon board when it first came up, that I am not entirely unsympathetic to the "Schrodinger's Rapist" point of view.

At the time if I remember correctly I compared it to being awarded a "door prize" while riding a bicycle. After that you are always going to be a bit wary of a parked car with someone in it when riding past on your bicycle.

Shit happens people. But there is no need to start shrieking every time you see a car parked on the opposite side of the road, which in my view is the take some people have on this whole business.

You can argue till the cows come home that the woman who ordered me off the elevator in the hospital because I am a man was unjustified in doing so, but I did understand, and I left. I did let her know that I was leaving her the elevator all by herself, because I did not feel safe being alone with her in a busy hospital in the middle of the day.

The expression on her face was priceless.

*shrug*

Whatever makes you feel "safe" I guess, but I am going to let you know when you have crossed the line between reasonably prudent, and going for gold in the oppression Olympics.

YMMV