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

Git wrote:

Eucliwood wrote:

franc wrote:Julian has flounced -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/0Dkt3.png[/spoiler]

And this... just because it screamed to be screencapped -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/CGiOQ.png[/spoiler]

Would he be a good recruit?

Ahahahahaha. You mean well, Eucli, but in this case we (as in the slymepit) have had a lot of history with JF. He's possibly more A+ then the A+ers. Check our archives.

You're kidding, right? S/h/it's just like Steerzo in wanting everyone to spoon-feed s/h/it.

franc wrote:Julian has flounced -

http://i.imgur.com/0Dkt3.png ...

Looks like that was after 1.5 pages in the "Are mods capricious" thread at A+ forum starting here in which he said:

It's been nothing but frustrating trying to introduce differing opinions or trying to explore problems largely because of how they choose to apply rules, against who and for what reasons.

I really can't think of any other way of saying that.

and now you can pull your Bingo Cards out; the playbook is open. Julian gets told that "differing opinions"

really aren't. They are ... tired old wheezes from various apologist or MRA or ableist or whatever sources that have been refuted many time before.

He asks whether a trans-woman who has had bad experiences with feminists might be assumed to be MRA if she wasn't "out" about her being trans; Setar lights into him, including saying Julian has "erased" all the trans people at a+ forum with his comments.

Julian says

For starters there shouldn't be "protecting" of marginalized people. That's the opposite of what should ever be going on. Ensuring they have a seat in any discussion and that their concerns aren't marginalized are more likely to do good. Protecting seems entirely too patronizing, as if it's almost meant to shield from criticism, from self examination and from participation. Much like with liberal attitudes towards Muslims in some quarters.

and I won't copy the replies but it's about "axis of oppression" and suppressing one's "ego" and "tone policing".

ceepolk weighs in with:

I suggest you pay attention, because you are behaving rather poorly at the moment, and I am once again disappointed by your actions.

Later, after Julian has flounced, Catherine pokes back at Setar with

Setàr, please do not assume you are speaking for all trans* people here thankyou. Nice how you’re painting Julian as a transphobe with your bizarre over the top attack.

...setting yourself up as some spokesperson for a hugely diverse community such as transfolk is a totally bullshit maneuver. Even attempting to speak for the comparably large numbers of transfolk within this atheist plus community, is a bullshit maneuver.

And Julian’s point is a valid one: someone who wandered on in here could well be savaged by the ‘unwelcoming committee’ or should we say the hazing crew who pick over the posts of newbies to harp on anything wrong, rather than to praise anything they got right.

Do a poll first of ALL the trans* people as to whether they felt ‘erased’ by Julian’s comment and then I think you might have something to talk about here.

Julian's next-to-last post before flouncing was at Justin's debate invitation thread:

Sun Countess wrote:If an individual wants to debate Justin Vacula as an individual, representing only themselves, they can go for it. They don't need anybody's permission.

No single individual or small group of individuals can be said to represent Atheism+.

What?

Look. If there is any coherency behind the idea of A+, if there is any unifying them, any principles we're supposedly trying to uphold, then someone can definitely step forward on its behalf. The whole point of this was to specify the type of atheist we are and the values we hold.

:popcorn:

At any rate, Julian comes across in these exchanges as being much more reasonable than stuff I recall seeing him post at FtB (Pharyngula, I think).

I just read through, and I was thinking the same thing.

Cunning Punt wrote:

Tkmlac wrote:

rayshul wrote:Men like making women orgasm because it makes them proud to know they done good?

Wow I gotta call the fucking media bitches this is some fucking newsflash worthy shit right here.

You'd think more of them would figure out how, if that were the case...

Do you tell them?

Well, some, but I married the first man I didn't have to teach.

Dilurk wrote:I am seeing a connection between PZ Myers criticism of the gravity lamp and the A+ use of the term privilege. Both are suffering from a lack of understanding of the fields of study involved.

In PZ's case criticism of the gravity lamp, this is a classic appeal to authority as he is a biologist and not skilled in electronics either from physics or from study. Anyone schooled in physics and/or electronics found it trivially easy to debunk the mistakes made here.

In the same way PZ et al. are reaching above their understanding of the field of sociology use of the term "privilege". In sociology, privilege is a term for having an advantage in life that one did not earn for themselves. One easy example would be the idea that someone born into a rich family has privilege over someone who was not. However, coming from sociology which after all is the study of humans in groups, it fails when applied to individuals. Is this theoretical rich child still privileged if they were born blind? Misusing the term privilege by non-social scientists then enables its use as a means of bigotry. A term that is fine for generally describing a group of people in a particular situation is of no use in the personal.

I think what we are seeing is a war between those who think with their pineal gland and those of use who use the upper brain. One side is highly emotional and tend not to examine or even learn about the subject they are criticising. The other side draws in people who actually like to know a bit about what they are talking about before they criticise.

I personally am hoping someone who really knows sociology can confirm my simplistic explanation of what privilege is about. I'd be delighted. Is someone on here schooled in that field?

I can't link to the thread, b/c I forget how I came across it, but I remember reading a forum post where the A+ers were lecturing someone on privilege. Basically, they stated that b/c a person 'can be privileged in some ways yet not in others' that it is completely ok to tell a rape survivor to fuck off if she doesn't agree with them ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!!111111

The term 'privilege' is used recklessly as a tool to silence others. And since everyone is 'privileged' compared to the most sorry person on earth, its *really* easy to accuse just about everyone of having this 'privilege' in order to shut them up.

Lsuoma wrote:

Git wrote:

Eucliwood wrote:

franc wrote:Julian has flounced -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/0Dkt3.png[/spoiler]

And this... just because it screamed to be screencapped -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/CGiOQ.png[/spoiler]

Would he be a good recruit?

Ahahahahaha. You mean well, Eucli, but in this case we (as in the slymepit) have had a lot of history with JF. He's possibly more A+ then the A+ers. Check our archives.

You're kidding, right? S/h/it's just like Steerzo in wanting everyone to spoon-feed s/h/it.

Today I'm mostly being good cop.

windy wrote:

acathode wrote: As a snow-white Swede, all I can say is FUCK OFF. We Swedes never got really involved in the African slave trade or had any colonies, sure, not because or superior morals or anything like that, we just were late to the business and started when everyone else were quitting, but still, that's not my history. The only systemic slavery that ever existed in Sweden was white people owning other white people as thralls during the middle ages. If I as a Swede should feel guilty about anything, it's for having ancestors that fucked with other white Europeans. Then again, they fucked us right back...

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_sl ... Gustav_III

I'm well aware, hence exactly why I wrote:

not because or superior morals or anything like that, we just were late to the business and started when everyone else were quitting

We got "in" on the business in 1784, Britain outlawed slave trade 1807, so I think my description quite accurate.

My old history teacher used to joke about Sweden being slow on catching up to trends, so much that we embarrassingly tried starting a slave trade operation when everyone else finally got a moral clue and was shutting down theirs. During one rather cold winter week with several days of -20 to -30 C, he also jokingly cursed that we gave the island back to France, because it would've been nice to have a little Swedish island resort in the Caribbean...

Dilurk wrote:I am seeing a connection between PZ Myers criticism of the gravity lamp and the A+ use of the term privilege. Both are suffering from a lack of understanding of the fields of study involved.

In PZ's case criticism of the gravity lamp, this is a classic appeal to authority as he is a biologist and not skilled in electronics either from physics or from study. Anyone schooled in physics and/or electronics found it trivially easy to debunk the mistakes made here.

In the same way PZ et al. are reaching above their understanding of the field of sociology use of the term "privilege". In sociology, privilege is a term for having an advantage in life that one did not earn for themselves. One easy example would be the idea that someone born into a rich family has privilege over someone who was not. However, coming from sociology which after all is the study of humans in groups, it fails when applied to individuals. Is this theoretical rich child still privileged if they were born blind? Misusing the term privilege by non-social scientists then enables its use as a means of bigotry. A term that is fine for generally describing a group of people in a particular situation is of no use in the personal.

I think what we are seeing is a war between those who think with their pineal gland and those of use who use the upper brain. One side is highly emotional and tend not to examine or even learn about the subject they are criticising. The other side draws in people who actually like to know a bit about what they are talking about before they criticise.

I personally am hoping someone who really knows sociology can confirm my simplistic explanation of what privilege is about. I'd be delighted. Is someone on here schooled in that field?

Someone on A+ did say their understanding of privilege was a statistical advantage for members of that group, which is reasonable. Some people even seemed to agree with that suggestion, but it's not how they use it.

If you look at the mean life advantage offered by membership of a particular race or gender versus the breadth of experience that occurs in each that cannot be consigned to oppression on another axis (i.e. you can't get around this by increasing the dimensionality - which they call intersectionality) your actual predictive power for peoples' life experiences and for the perspective resulting from those experiences is going to be pretty shitty. As a result you really ought to treat people as individuals.

@Skep tickle
Ironically enough, Setar is giving shit to an individual (julian) that seems to fit more "oppressed" fields than Setar's invented non-privilege (long hair, being "gifted", not trusting the shrink his parents paid for. Julian is a Black Hispanic from the Brooklyn ghetto (that, if I remember correctly from when Penn Teller's friend wrote that letter...arghh...forgot her name).

Eucliwood wrote:

franc wrote:Julian has flounced -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/0Dkt3.png[/spoiler]

And this... just because it screamed to be screencapped -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/CGiOQ.png[/spoiler]

Would he be a good recruit?

Only if you want to see him explode in rage as I call him a spic over and over.

What I know of Julian is that one day on twitter I got a "You're insane" or "You're crazy" or something tweeted at me out of the blue and then I was blocked before I could respond.

another lurker wrote:

Dilurk wrote:I am seeing a connection between PZ Myers criticism of the gravity lamp and the A+ use of the term privilege. Both are suffering from a lack of understanding of the fields of study involved.

In PZ's case criticism of the gravity lamp, this is a classic appeal to authority as he is a biologist and not skilled in electronics either from physics or from study. Anyone schooled in physics and/or electronics found it trivially easy to debunk the mistakes made here.

In the same way PZ et al. are reaching above their understanding of the field of sociology use of the term "privilege". In sociology, privilege is a term for having an advantage in life that one did not earn for themselves. One easy example would be the idea that someone born into a rich family has privilege over someone who was not. However, coming from sociology which after all is the study of humans in groups, it fails when applied to individuals. Is this theoretical rich child still privileged if they were born blind? Misusing the term privilege by non-social scientists then enables its use as a means of bigotry. A term that is fine for generally describing a group of people in a particular situation is of no use in the personal.

I think what we are seeing is a war between those who think with their pineal gland and those of use who use the upper brain. One side is highly emotional and tend not to examine or even learn about the subject they are criticising. The other side draws in people who actually like to know a bit about what they are talking about before they criticise.

I personally am hoping someone who really knows sociology can confirm my simplistic explanation of what privilege is about. I'd be delighted. Is someone on here schooled in that field?

I can't link to the thread, b/c I forget how I came across it, but I remember reading a forum post where the A+ers were lecturing someone on privilege. Basically, they stated that b/c a person 'can be privileged in some ways yet not in others' that it is completely ok to tell a rape survivor to fuck off if she doesn't agree with them ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!!111111

The term 'privilege' is used recklessly as a tool to silence others. And since everyone is 'privileged' compared to the most sorry person on earth, its *really* easy to accuse just about everyone of having this 'privilege' in order to shut them up.

I am not a historian of feminism or a scholar, but I've seen feminism for a few decades now....

Second wave feminism was critiqued for being about rich white woman. And Third wave feminism was bogged down as all these harpies would get into endless bitch fights about who was more oppressed,

1) the white lesbian or the black heterosexual woman.
2) the able bodied black heterosexual woman, or the disabled heterosexual latina.
3) the disabled heterosexual latina or the white lesbian

Round and round it would go until they came up with the theory of intersectionality and tossed in some privilege theory to taste.

So now, with intersectionality and with privilege theory, rad fems can place a partial ordering on oppression and understand that everyone is oppressed differently, everyone has different privilege, and the important thing to remember is that all oppression stems from straight white men, like my seven year old nephew.

1) the white lesbian or the black heterosexual woman.
2) the able bodied black heterosexual woman, or the disabled heterosexual latina.
3) the disabled heterosexual latina or the white lesbian

seven year old white boy has more power and privilege than
1) white lesbian
2) able bodied black heterosexual woman
3) disabled heterosexual latina

HTH
FIGHT THE POWER!!

juian is generally butthurt about "injustices" (usually, trivial SJW BS); but when he comes across as the sane-one in a conversation...it gives you a great idea of how fucked-up the other party is...

After reading through the Justin Vacula thread again, and the Moderator Meltdown incident again, part of me thinks that Kassiane is pretending to be one of them. Yeah, I know.... you don't have to say it, Poe's law.

welch wrote:

Eucliwood wrote:

franc wrote:Julian has flounced -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/0Dkt3.png[/spoiler]

And this... just because it screamed to be screencapped -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/CGiOQ.png[/spoiler]

Would he be a good recruit?

Only if you want to see him explode in rage as I call him a spic over and over.

He's fond of kike...lol
http://i.imgur.com/1QKeT.png
http://i.imgur.com/2KvPL.png

[youtube]ApozFPboUAQ[/youtube]

in b4 tfoot
[youtube]ApozFPboUAQ[/youtube]

lol gdi masakari beat me to it
edit as applicable

acathode wrote:

windy wrote:

acathode wrote: As a snow-white Swede, all I can say is FUCK OFF. We Swedes never got really involved in the African slave trade or had any colonies, ...

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_sl ... Gustav_III

I'm well aware, hence exactly why I wrote:

not because or superior morals or anything like that, we just were late to the business and started when everyone else were quitting

We got "in" on the business in 1784, Britain outlawed slave trade 1807, so I think my description quite accurate.

I was talking about the bolded part, comes off a bit Taslima-ish :whistle: when Sweden did in fact have a slave colony... and since the trans-Atlantic slave trade was at its peak around that time, it's a bit hasty to conclude that it was insignificant. But of course Sweden wasn't a major player by any means, just maybe not the best example of non-involvement in the African slave trade.

masakari2012 wrote:After reading through the Justin Vacula thread again, and the Moderator Meltdown incident again, part of me thinks that Kassiane is pretending to be one of them. Yeah, I know.... you don't have to say it, Poe's law.

Alas, she's no poe. Here's her blog. http://Www.timetolisten.blogspot.ca.

Skep tickle wrote:...Later, after Julian has flounced, Catherine Xanthe pokes back at Setar ...

Correcting which trans- mod/former-mod lit into Setar there. My bad.

Putting this up because 1. I love Foamy 2. The truth is just beautiful in this:

[youtube]jHmDjNCZR3k[/youtube]

Finally... I went away for a week for Christmas, got back on the 27th. It's taken from then until now to catch up! And even then it only was possible by putting Steers and Euchiwood on my ignore list. Now that I'm caught up I'll take E off the list, but I think from the bits I've still seen of S, he'll stay there for a bit longer. Welcome to all the new folks.

Concerning origins... I'm a male white Canadian. As I've mentioned before, I have no idea where I came from as far as my father's side of the family goes. On my mother's mother's side, they came from Scotland as part of the second wave of the highland clearances that saw most of those whose family history had been tied to the land in Scotland forever kicked out to the colonies. On my mother's father's side... he traced back to a boy who was an indentured servant to a family that desided to move to New York from England while he was indentured. Then later had to run away to Canada when he was loyal to the crown after released from service not long before the American War of Independance.

So closer to slave background than slave owner background, but none of that matters because I'm not religeous enough to think the sins of the father bear on the son for some large number of generations.

Steersman wrote:

CommanderTuvok wrote:BTW, Mykeru, I did warn everybody that Steersboy is a "Baboon piece of shit" as soon as he arrived. Actually, he has improved a bit since then, but the Baboonitis occasionally nips at him.

Ah, there’s Cabin-Boy Toothless Fuck acting like a dickhead again. A charge of “Baboonitis” is really rich coming from the guy who flung the turd that Lousy Canuck was homophobic because he happened to make some mildly off-colour comment that D.J. Grothe (I think) wasn’t much interested in women’s vaginas.

Comrade Myers would be proud of you; take a bow.

He's BACK!!! I follow the Blackford/Vacula POV regarding Canuck. Thanks anyway.

:whistle:

Mykeru wrote:

codelette wrote:

welch wrote:

Mykeru wrote:Hensley is obviously gearing up to play victim after having a failed go at some threats:

My last tweet at her 6 hrs ago:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8476/8351 ... 8fdd98.jpg

Just now:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8078/8351 ... 1e19a8.jpg

Man she is such a craven manipulator. And just so bad at it.

Or just leave the silly bitch alone in terms of talking at her. Fuck, it's not like you have to @-message her to get the point across. She's never going to change, so fuckher.

In keeping with spirit of skepticism and fact-checking. Mykeru, you are mistaken. Her reply was directed at another @-message you made after the "goodbye" one.
http://i.imgur.com/8fnGN.png

Nope, going to disagree there. First, I did mention that Tweet when I looked back and saw she was in a reply-to a couple hours previously. However, it was not a direct tweet.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8330/8352 ... f540_o.jpg

There's a difference between tweeting directly at someone as an attempt as conversation and their being included in a tweet at someone else. Specifically a conversation with Greg Laden where they are setting the groundwork for the same bullshit stalking/harassing allegations they always make, even if they are the ones actually stalking and harassing according to their definition of it.

So, really, the only thing that changes is the time scale.

What remains the same is that I didn't have any communication while she went and started trading notes with Greg Laden -- after she claimed she wasn't basing her doxing behavior on Laden's input -- and then returned to tweet at me to stop tweeting her as if I had been tweeting her within some reasonable time frame.

She is still trying to frame her directly tweeting me, and being creepy in the process, as my harassing her.

(No, I'm not spoiler-tagging all the images. Deal)

The way twitter works, there's no difference in where you put the @-nick. The end result is the same, and arguing intent changes this is simply incorrect. If you want to mention her by name just don't use the @-nic, and you're golden.

masakari2012 wrote:Well, I guess that's one way to tell the story. I was looking at it from the perspective that the Nazis achieved global domination before the year 2013. In order for that to happen, either the US would not have built nukes, or the Nazis would have had to obtain nukes before the US.

I think we can rule out the US not developing nukes. The potential was known. Assuming WWII occurred at all, there's the impetus to develop them. The USSR only tested it's first bomb in 1949, after a crash programme and using data gained via espionage. I think Nazi Germany could have done at least as well, if not better and would certainly have had the edge in delivery systems.

mutleyeng wrote: mine too...I love em.
Its the only reason I really go to the Jref forums.
We had a thread there that asked "could the Nazis have won"...or something like that.
I think we pretty much came to an uneasy, slightly disputed consensus that no, they probably couldnt have unoless that had entirely different goals to the ones that actually prompted the conflict.

That depends on what you assume the goals of the Third Reich were (lose points if you say "to kill Jews"). I'd say that they wanted:

Domination of Western Europe - achieved by mid 1940.

Grab the resources of their European rivals empires. This would have been easy with Britain as well as France out of the fight. The Reich would have had a free hand in North Africa and the Middle East.

Smash the Soviet Union. With no distractions, I think the Wermacht could have pulled off Barbarossa.

Become a global superpower to rival or surpass the US - follows naturally from the above.

[quoteThat was my take too. I couldnt really envisage any scenario where Russia would be defeated, and therefore it was always just going to be a matter of time.[/quote]

Really? I have no difficulty in imagining that at all. Stalin was a colossal military screw up. His purges had virtually decapitated the Red Army. He was denying that the Nazis had any plans to attack the Soviet Union even after the invasion began. Army Group Centre got as near as 16Km from Moscow where Stalin - in his first moment of resolution - had opted to remain.

Of course, dealing with the poor roads and the bad weather would have required better preparation than Hitler would allow, and it's pointless factoring him out. It was still close though and the follow up, Case Blue, would probably have gone very differently if the Reich had had unimpeded access to Middle Eastern oil.

Real horrorshow, it appears you are applying different changes to this hypothetical than I did.

Real horrorshow, it appears you are applying different changes to this hypothetical than I did.

Skep tickle wrote:At any rate, Julian comes across in these exchanges as being much more reasonable than stuff I recall seeing him post at FtB (Pharyngula, I think).

Yes but being 'more reasonable' than either the A+ average or Julian to date is setting the bar pretty low, since in both cases "Good Morning" is treated like a declaration of war. However, the fact that he suddenly acquires the ability to recall the past and reason logically suggests to me that quite a bit of his previous frothing and squealing was affectation. Why bother doing all that hard 'thinking ' stuff when you can just pitch a fit and get the result you desire. I suspect he wasn't weaned properly.

Can I just to say what a pleasure it is to witness the slow, lingering death of Atheism+.

CommanderTuvok wrote:Can I just to say what a pleasure it is to witness the slow, lingering death of Atheism+.

Since we all predicted this well in advance, do we get Randi's prize? How will we split it up?

Setar wrote:Vancouver Police Department: Pedestrian safety means pedestrians need to look out for themselves.

No, seriously:

An analysis shows the actions of the pedestrians as the primary causal factor in approximately 50% of the incidents and it is imperative that pedestrians realize their actions may be putting them at risk.

I don't drive and I want to give the VPD a massive fuck you for this. This is not the problem. We pedestrians know full well that we're not fucking protected at all. We aren't surrounded by 2-tonne steel cages with seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, etc. We know full well that we are at almost all times feet or even inches away from many of these cages moving at speeds in excess of 50 km/h and will be lucky if we survive an encounter outside of a parking lot. I have seen a pedestrian get hit by a car that was turning left from a full stop at a reasonable speed/acceleration -- the pedestrian flew up into the air and were lucky to have their fall somewhat cushioned by hitting the hood of the (undamaged) car. Anyone who doesn't realize this is fucking dense.

Or, perhaps, a privileged-as-hell (compared to us mere pedestrians) driver. See, in BC, we do have red light cameras, but they're only active 25% of the time*, because apparently having them active all the time would be bad because it's a "cash grab" or some bullshit. And yet, the amount of times where I've been cut off or almost hit by someone who ran a stop sign or red light is impossible to count.

But no, apparently we pedestrians just need to pay more attention. FSM forbid that we ask the people in the massive steel cages to do that.


This is to say nothing about how letters to the local papers regarding transit are usually from drivers who whine about not wanting to pay more to have to drive. Not driving has given me a massive insight into how privileged drivers tend to be -- most drivers seem to think it's perfectly fine to give me a sort of 'sorry!' look when they run a light/stop sign and almost hit me. Because, y'know, they can't be assed to take an extra second and STOP =/

Oh yes, of course, someone asserted that pedestrians might be as often responsible for accidents as the drivers. How dare they. The poor poor pedestrians don't deserve a share in blame for accident statistics, right?

Oh god, are you serious? They seriously sit there in the thread moaning about "underprivilege" and "privilege" as if that means that they're wrong. How dare someone even consider that it's a split in half thing! THAT BOTH DRIVERS AND PEDESTRIANS ARE IRRESPONSIBLE ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT ON THE ROAD. HOLYSHIT. THAT'S VICTIM BLAMING! BLAMING PEDESTRIANS! NO ONE SHOULD EVER SAY THAT A PEDESTRIAN IS AT FAULT... BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ONES WHO AREN'T IN A CAR! THEY'RE THE ONES WHO END UP MEATPILES!

LET'S NOT EVEN MENTION THE FACT THAT THE PEDESTRIAN ISN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS HURT WHEN SOMEONE MUST SWERVE OR ABRUPTLY STOP TO MISS SOMEONE. ONLY THE PEDESTRIAN GETS HURT. PILE UPS DONT HAPPEN! MULTIPLE COLLISIONS, BACK PROBLEMS, AND INJURIES DON'T HAPPEN. NO UNDERPRIVILEGED DRIVERS EITHER - NO OBESE PEOPLE IN THE SEAT WHO WOULD BE HURT EVEN MORE. NO SICK PEOPLE DUE TO POVERTY OR OTHER THINGS. NO ONE WITH ASTHMA.


I can't believe there are that many fuckers over there who seriously don't acknowledge that a pedestrian vs vehicle accident harms more than just the poor, weak pedestrian. Yes, poor them. But they can and do cause accidents too.

Nope, instead they act like someone in the driver's seat is SOOO DAMN SAFE in accidents. Are you fucking kidding me?! Oh yeah, the "steel cage" can't work against you in an accident! nope! anti-lock brakes come in SO HANDY all the time too. Even when you have to suddenly stop! GENIUS... those anti-lock brakes are to help prevent swerving from LOCKED BRAKES, especially on slippery surfaces. You are not supposed to have an attitude of reliance on them, or think they're just so great, or life savers, however.

Dude, I'm fucking glad this guy doesn't drive. It's for his own good too. He'd end up in an accident, and be all "omg, how did I get so hurt in this SAFE CAR OMG."

Someone that acts like they've hardly driven trying to judge everyone else generally.



Since Setar wants to use his little anecdotes, I'll give him some of my own: I myself stepped out in the road once and almost got hit because I didn't look left and right again after standing for 30 seconds on the curb (I had already looked left right left, but time had passed). I turned around and there the vehicle was, in my face. God, but I bet if they saw that on tape, and saw other people criticizing, me, an INNOCENT PEDEZTRIAN.. they'd be all "omg, privileged assholes! how dare you insinuate that it was the pedestrian's fault she almost got hit!"

God, he acts like he just knooows most drivers absolutely suck at driving and are mean, dangerous peoplez.

Meanwhile, Black Svan is still butthurt over Ed Clint's evo pysch takedown of Queen Bee.

"http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamo ... sychology/"

Not providing direct link to the Cesspit.

Setar wrote:Vancouver Police Department: Pedestrian safety means pedestrians need to look out for themselves.

No, seriously:

An analysis shows the actions of the pedestrians as the primary causal factor in approximately 50% of the incidents and it is imperative that pedestrians realize their actions may be putting them at risk.

I don't drive and I want to give the VPD a massive fuck you for this. This is not the problem. We pedestrians know full well that we're not fucking protected at all. We aren't surrounded by 2-tonne steel cages with seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, etc. We know full well that we are at almost all times feet or even inches away from many of these cages moving at speeds in excess of 50 km/h and will be lucky if we survive an encounter outside of a parking lot. I have seen a pedestrian get hit by a car that was turning left from a full stop at a reasonable speed/acceleration -- the pedestrian flew up into the air and were lucky to have their fall somewhat cushioned by hitting the hood of the (undamaged) car. Anyone who doesn't realize this is fucking dense.

Or, perhaps, a privileged-as-hell (compared to us mere pedestrians) driver. See, in BC, we do have red light cameras, but they're only active 25% of the time*, because apparently having them active all the time would be bad because it's a "cash grab" or some bullshit. And yet, the amount of times where I've been cut off or almost hit by someone who ran a stop sign or red light is impossible to count.

But no, apparently we pedestrians just need to pay more attention. FSM forbid that we ask the people in the massive steel cages to do that.


This is to say nothing about how letters to the local papers regarding transit are usually from drivers who whine about not wanting to pay more to have to drive. Not driving has given me a massive insight into how privileged drivers tend to be -- most drivers seem to think it's perfectly fine to give me a sort of 'sorry!' look when they run a light/stop sign and almost hit me. Because, y'know, they can't be assed to take an extra second and STOP =/

Oh yes, of course, someone asserted that pedestrians might be as often responsible for accidents as the drivers. How dare they. The poor poor pedestrians don't deserve a share in blame for accident statistics, right?

Oh god, are you serious? They seriously sit there in the thread moaning about "underprivilege" and "privilege" as if that means that they're wrong. How dare someone even consider that it's a split in half thing! THAT BOTH DRIVERS AND PEDESTRIANS ARE IRRESPONSIBLE ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT ON THE ROAD. HOLYSHIT. THAT'S VICTIM BLAMING! BLAMING PEDESTRIANS! NO ONE SHOULD EVER SAY THAT A PEDESTRIAN IS AT FAULT... BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ONES WHO AREN'T IN A CAR! THEY'RE THE ONES WHO END UP MEATPILES!

LET'S NOT EVEN MENTION THE FACT THAT THE PEDESTRIAN ISN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS HURT WHEN SOMEONE MUST SWERVE OR ABRUPTLY STOP TO MISS SOMEONE. ONLY THE PEDESTRIAN GETS HURT. PILE UPS DONT HAPPEN! MULTIPLE COLLISIONS, BACK PROBLEMS, AND INJURIES DON'T HAPPEN. NO UNDERPRIVILEGED DRIVERS EITHER - NO OBESE PEOPLE IN THE SEAT WHO WOULD BE HURT EVEN MORE. NO SICK PEOPLE DUE TO POVERTY OR OTHER THINGS. NO ONE WITH ASTHMA.


I can't believe there are that many fuckers over there who seriously don't acknowledge that a pedestrian vs vehicle accident harms more than just the poor, weak pedestrian. Yes, poor them. But they can and do cause accidents too.

Nope, instead they act like someone in the driver's seat is SOOO DAMN SAFE in accidents. Are you fucking kidding me?! Oh yeah, the "steel cage" can't work against you in an accident! nope! anti-lock brakes come in SO HANDY all the time too. Even when you have to suddenly stop! GENIUS... those anti-lock brakes are to help prevent swerving from LOCKED BRAKES, especially on slippery surfaces. You are not supposed to have an attitude of reliance on them, or think they're just so great, or life savers, however.

Dude, I'm fucking glad this guy doesn't drive. It's for his own good too. He'd end up in an accident, and be all "omg, how did I get so hurt in this SAFE CAR OMG."

Someone that acts like they've hardly driven trying to judge everyone else generally.



Since Setar wants to use his little anecdotes, I'll give him some of my own: I myself stepped out in the road once and almost got hit because I didn't look left and right again after standing for 30 seconds on the curb (I had already looked left right left, but time had passed). I turned around and there the vehicle was, in my face. God, but I bet if they saw that on tape, and saw other people criticizing, me, an INNOCENT PEDEZTRIAN.. they'd be all "omg, privileged assholes! how dare you insinuate that it was the pedestrian's fault she almost got hit!"

God, he acts like he just knooows most drivers absolutely suck at driving and are mean, dangerous peoplez.

Oh, and get a load of this

I really don't have much respect for drivers. Whenever I see a dead animal on the road, I think, "That animal had to die. Not because someone needed food, not because it was a threat to anyone, but because some stupid asshole zipping along just can't be bothered to slow down. Most pointless death ever."

I hate how hung up some of these assholes get on their stupid little puttputt wagons. As if their entire identity is wrapped up in this cold, lifeless, emotionless pile of metal and plastic.

-The_Laughing_Coyote



Of course, when a dead animal is on the road, it had to be that someone just ran it over and couldn't be bothered to slow down! They MUST BE ASSHOLES. No, can't be that animal, being an animal, rushed out into the road or popped up out of nowhere or wasn't seen - Drivers are assholes, and road kill is automatically proof of this.

I dont approve of blaming either way - people that see roadkill they don't like and bitch about how uncaring animals are... nor people that see roadkill and automatically think "Drivers are assholes" or "I'd want to teach that driver a thing or two."

They just don't believe in innocence. Nope, just guilt.


What a judgmental, assumptive asshole. All of them (all meaning those guilty of the femtheism) are, in many ways. Gee, lemme add "drives" to my list of reasons I'm an asshole, along with "goes to slymepit." Fuck you, coyote.

masakari2012 wrote:[youtube]ApozFPboUAQ[/youtube]

Thunderfoot's initial argument about YT & Twitter is pretty much crap. If what he said was as true as he wishes it to be, there be neither mod tools or channels for that matter. Anyone has the right to mod their twitter/Facebook/YT account as they see fit.

I mock Myers et al for how they do it, because they're the first to castigate creationists for doing the exact same thing. It's the hypocrisy in how the action is applied I have issues with, not the action itself. If someone wishes to strictly define their interactions in social media, they have that right. The woman in question is Yet Another Annoying Hipster, but she's not wrong in this case. You do your point no favors with at kind of logic.

Furthermore, as it turns out, people have a right not to listen to you, or me, or anyone else. We may not agree with that, and indeed, there are a lot of reasons why that's not good. But if you have someone who is only showing up to spout drivel, and they never even try to make a fucking point, what good are they? What is gained by allowing them to participate on your channel? I mean, you can keep them around as a mockery target, but that's about it. In that case, I see participation moderation as a good tool, and mind you, one that is used in the academic arena.

You can't go to an academic debate, start calling one of the participants a fuckwit, and expect to be either taken seriously or allowed to stay. If one is behaving in a way someone else finds abusive or even incorrect, they have the right to exclude one from that forum.

Now, if that person regularly rails at other groups for doing the same to them, then I think it only fair to call them a hypocritical halfwit. That doesn't negate their right, but if they are taking an action that is only bad when used against them, then they have little ethical consistency and should be publicly called out for it.

You have what looks like a fundamental misunderstanding of what social media really is. It's not what you want it to be. It is not, nor was it ever designed to be a completely unfettered arena of idea battles. It's a way for people to do thing at their own comfort levels, and if that means only talking to the three people they like, that's not wrong.

Oh man! This is an awesome bit on how to counter "check your privilege":

[youtube]Dc6SLxOPRrs[/youtube]

Badger3k wrote:

EveryMan wrote: A little research turned up this...

[youtube]_8LAOBexgxg[/youtube]

I knew she was a drinker, but I had no idea how far gone she was. I'll suggest she needs some professional help at this point.

You forgot: TRIGGER WARNING !

Watson is definitely up close and in your face from the very beginning. Gah! A little warning next time. I just ate! :shock:

Digging around way back in the thread and found this, thought it could use some more attention. Check out the top comment by Canadageist.

masakari2012 wrote:youtube = ApozFPboUAQ

Another good one. I don't agree w/ him that social media is an open marketplace of ideas, but otherwise he once again makes good points (some of them the same ones as in part 1, some different).

Reasonably minor point: the title he chose for these videos, "Why 'Feminism' ..." seems off to me. I hear him addressing "How 'Feminisim"....", not "Why". (People here have discussed "Why", at times.)

In this video he critiques comments in a video by Monica Harmsen (she says she's President of UMichigan SSU, & that person is in that role, & photos match). Her youtube channel is here but I don't see her anti-Tf00t video there: http://www.youtube.com/user/LittleKropotkin

Funnily enough, LittleKropotkin's "Favsies" include "A Professional Cunt" at http://www.youtube.com/user/Coughlan616, whose youtube channel blurb says (in part):

About A Professional Cunt

Richard "The Dick" Coughlan...

Im male, white, heterosexual & British all of which I couldnt give a dead donkey's sunday morning shit about...& I will openly abuse & laugh at anybody who thinks otherwise

Since 2008 Ive had many battles, fights, wars, relationships, friendships, fall outs, lovers, haters, fanboys, 181 censored videos, death threats, doc droppings, hatemail, fanmail, and obsessive stalkers...I'm so Cool

I cover religion, politics, nationalism, racism, extremism, & the odd conspiracy in the form of rants, rebuttals, pwnage, humour or unscripted patience testing ramblings.

Im politically left to varying degrees but people who watch my videos think im a fucking twat whatever the topic ...

His own favorites list (on the right) is headed "These cunts are quite good :)" and in (on the left) is headed "SUB TO THESE MOTHERFUCKERS".

So he's Coughlan616, formerly coughlan666, about whom Tf00t made a video in 10/2010 suggesting he was unstable and might have histrionic personality disorder and so on.

Almost 2 months ago Coughland616 posted a video called "Your revolution sucks!!" which seems directed at FtB/Skepchick/A+: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZvmjqzg6E (didn't want to have his ugly mug staring out at the screen any more than necessary).

I'm not asserting anything like guilt by association. I'm just thinking it would be interesting to see him, a "favsie", show up at a conference that had all the rules in place that she or at least others who agree w/ her about Tf00t might feel were reasonable.

Oneiros666 wrote: I will never understand people like Greta Christina.

1. Let's say she had cancer and had to quit her job. Would it be okay to beg for money? No, it fucking wouldn't. It's fucking unacceptable to beg for money and expect to get it just because you have a fan- following. Especially when the person begging for money a) has a spouse with income of her own and b) obviously isn't poor to begin with.

I don't really have a problem with begging as such, even if the justifications are sometimes a bit hazy (as long as there isn't outright misrepresentation). But since this appears to be a recurring thing, why not start some sort of "FtB emergency fund" with any unneeded fan contributions? I doubt every blogger there is as financially secure, has as many fans and as good health coverage as Greta and Ed, so many would be just as much or more in need of support if something happens. But they'll be left to the mercy of the fans while the more popular bloggers buy some luxury items with their windfall, how social justicey is that?

masakari2012 wrote:Real horrorshow, it appears you are applying different changes to this hypothetical than I did.

Well, what are the parameters of your hypothetical? You mentioned Einstein getting killed by the Nazis and General Relativity. I don't see Einstein, ensconced in the US, as being in much danger. Even if he was killed, he wasn't the only physicist in the world, General Relativity would have been developed anyway. Clue me in.

real horrorshow wrote:

rayshul wrote:My family kept slaves. Fucking everyone did. That's how shit got done. That said, African slavery was more like indentured work. (Well. Sometimes. ^_^)

Everybody is descended from both slaves and slave keepers. There are two reasons for this:

1. Slavery/indenture/vassalage, call it what you like has existed all over the globe since we stopped being hunter-gathers and built permanent settlements (and it still does). For most of recorded history, the only way to produce enough of a food surplus to support a tiny minority of aristocracy/priesthood/merchants was for more than 95% of the population to be engaged in agriculture or related trades as un-free labour.

2. Slave owners fuck slaves.

I can get very irritated indeed when Black Merkin academics -and their lick-spittles - go whittering on about "slavery" as if the African slaves bought by N American land owners in the 18th and 19th centuries are the only slaves there have ever been.

I actually had a fucking textbook in a college-level course that claimed slavery was invented in Virginia in the 1600s. I wish I was making that shit up.

Lsuoma wrote:
Ahahahahaha. You mean well, Eucli, but in this case we (as in the slymepit) have had a lot of history with JF. He's possibly more A+ then the A+ers. Check our archives.

You're kidding, right? S/h/it's just like Steerzo in wanting everyone to spoon-feed s/h/it.[/quote]
Lsuoma, how the hell is inviting someone to the forum wanting everyone to spoon-feed someone?

OHH... I get it. How dare I ask a question about someone you guys are talking about that I don't even know. Look, I don't know about any archives, and I'm not going to assume there's information set up somewhere with files already on him. I've not heard of him here. And if you have that attitude toward me even asking if someone should invite him here, why even put it in archives? Everyone should stalk the shit out of the person until they have the answers themselves right? No one should ever ask someone who knows them if they suck or not!

I've never behaved like this. If I mention someone from somewhere else X doesn't know, and they ask a simple question about them, I'm not going to go "omg, look it up, you want me to spoon feed you information about someone you've never heard of. It's like facts on subjects - google etttt." I'm just going to answer the god damn question and accept that someone doesn't know who the fuck it is. It's not like I asked them for a god damn profile or biography of them. Fuck you, Lsuoma. You go too far with this "spoon feed" crap. You exaggerate just about any question. Any wondering of information can be twisted into "asking omgeveryone to spoon feed you information."

I didn't ask you, Lsuoma. I know it's a terrible idea, so I will never ask you anything unless it has to do with yourself. So don't worry about it.

Fuckin' histrionics, how do they work?

Thread on "The dictionary atheist debate" begun today by hyperdeath at a+ forum: http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3520

(So I guess "debate" isn't a ban-inducing word there...yet.)

Exi5tentialist says (bolding added by me):

I don't think dictionaries describe the meaning of words. They summarise the primary usages of words in a way that is traditionally limited by the amount of space available in a printed dictionary. Even then they cannot do justice to what a word means. The meaning of all words is flexible and subjective. If I agree any meaning, it is purely for the sake of argument. ...

Seems like this would render all attempts at communication pretty much moot. It makes easy work of the conference rules "debate" though, since the conference organizers can just write down whatever words they want, and then since the words are all flexible & subjective, each person can read in the rules whatever they want to. Problem "solved". :roll:

real horrorshow wrote:

masakari2012 wrote:Real horrorshow, it appears you are applying different changes to this hypothetical than I did.

Well, what are the parameters of your hypothetical? You mentioned Einstein getting killed by the Nazis and General Relativity. I don't see Einstein, ensconced in the US, as being in much danger. Even if he was killed, he wasn't the only physicist in the world, General Relativity would have been developed anyway. Clue me in.

Not the first time I've seen this, although I've resisted commenting up to now. Einstein's theoretical foundation of general relativity was largely completed by 1915. How would the Nazi's change that? Build a time machine?

Skep tickle wrote: Reasonably minor point: the title he chose for these videos, "Why 'Feminism' ..." seems off to me. I hear him addressing "How 'Feminisim"....", not "Why".

I have considered this exact same point and wondered if it was a UK English thing as opposed to a US English thing.

On other issues, I disagree with Thunderf00t in this regard.

I do think it is fair for PZ to close off comments on YouTube. I think it is reasonable for him to say, come to my blog to comment. For PZ, his blog his primary, for Thunderf00t, YouTube is primary.

What I think is unreasonable of most bloggers/youtubers most times is to

a) Then run the designated commenting place as unfairly as PZ does and claim you support speech
b) To ban have a promiscuous, easy ban policy of banning people willy nilly and claim "well they can comment on their own blog, I haven't taken away free speech". No, but you have made it much more difficult, if not impossible for them to be part of a conversation and dialog with your ideas. It's a disingenuous claim to allow a conversation of 97% supporters of your ideas, toss out the dissenters, and claim you are having a conversation, or dialog, and are interested in speech, and that you're not just monloguing.

welch wrote:
The way twitter works, there's no difference in where you put the @-nick. The end result is the same, and arguing intent changes this is simply incorrect. If you want to mention her by name just don't use the @-nic, and you're golden.

Ok, how about I put two tweets in sequence:

First, the last tweet made by Hensley after I unequivocally told her goodbye:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8376/8355 ... 8a58_o.jpg

And then her next tweet 6 hours later, during which the only thing that happened was her being included in a tweet directed at Laden:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8078/8351 ... 1c08_o.jpg

Re "Up Drunk and Personal with Rebecca Watson"

Watson says...

We had talked about that on Skepchick actually because we had found that a blogger was criticizing the way some women were dressed at a conference and I think the point on Skepchick was made that yeah, let's, you know, yeah she didn't dress the way that you feel is appropriate for your job or whatever or for this conference, it's not within your safety zone. But she's expressing herself, she's legal, she's not walking around naked, what's the harm? Let her be. And I think that's a good point. I think that we need to be accepting.

Okie dokie!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _shirt.jpg

ReneeHendricks wrote:Oh man! This is an awesome bit on how to counter "check your privilege":

Dc6SLxOPRrs

Thanks for that, Renee. Having been on the receiving end of the 'check your privilege brigade', I can hardly wait to use this technique the next time it pops up.

Skep tickle wrote:Thread on "The dictionary atheist debate" begun today by hyperdeath at a+ forum: http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3520

(So I guess "debate" isn't a ban-inducing word there...yet.)

Exi5tentialist says (bolding added by me):

I don't think dictionaries describe the meaning of words. They summarise the primary usages of words in a way that is traditionally limited by the amount of space available in a printed dictionary. Even then they cannot do justice to what a word means. The meaning of all words is flexible and subjective. If I agree any meaning, it is purely for the sake of argument. ...

Seems like this would render all attempts at communication pretty much moot. It makes easy work of the conference rules "debate" though, since the conference organizers can just write down whatever words they want, and then since the words are all flexible & subjective, each person can read in the rules whatever they want to. Problem "solved". :roll:

He is right about dictionaries; what words mean depend on the understanding of particular speakers and listeners. If a speaker and a listener can't agree what a word means, they just shout at each other. Dictionaries don't often help with that, because they only cover the most general meaning of a word, outside of any context. Dictionary based arguments are the most retarded arguments in existence.

Mr Danksworth wrote:

ReneeHendricks wrote:Oh man! This is an awesome bit on how to counter "check your privilege":

Dc6SLxOPRrs

Thanks for that, Renee. Having been on the receiving end of the 'check your privilege brigade', I can hardly wait to use this technique the next time it pops up.

You bet. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I'm amazed more of us haven't thought of *exactly* this when being on the receiving end of that crap.

xinit wrote:

justinvacula wrote:This is hilarious!

http://skepchick.org/2013/01/thats-not-bullying/

Can I just 'pull a Greta Christina' and say that there's so much wrong with this I don't have the time to comment?

Pull a PZ and pull a random comment from it without reading the post itself or any of the other comments... and then ascribe everything that commenter said to the writer.

Wow! I hadn't paid skepchick that much attention. Reading the comments this is atheism+ grade crazy. Perhaps as the third corner of the bermuda triangle of skeptism, skepchick should receive the same scrutiny here as FTB? What you guys think?
Sorry i'm way behind, desperatly trying to catch up. Seems you guys are writing quicker than i can read!

EdgePenguin wrote:

Skep tickle wrote:Thread on "The dictionary atheist debate" begun today by hyperdeath at a+ forum: http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3520

(So I guess "debate" isn't a ban-inducing word there...yet.)

Exi5tentialist says (bolding added by me):

I don't think dictionaries describe the meaning of words. They summarise the primary usages of words in a way that is traditionally limited by the amount of space available in a printed dictionary. Even then they cannot do justice to what a word means. The meaning of all words is flexible and subjective. If I agree any meaning, it is purely for the sake of argument. ...

Seems like this would render all attempts at communication pretty much moot. It makes easy work of the conference rules "debate" though, since the conference organizers can just write down whatever words they want, and then since the words are all flexible & subjective, each person can read in the rules whatever they want to. Problem "solved". :roll:

He is right about dictionaries; what words mean depend on the understanding of particular speakers and listeners. If a speaker and a listener can't agree what a word means, they just shout at each other. Dictionaries don't often help with that, because they only cover the most general meaning of a word, outside of any context. Dictionary based arguments are the most retarded arguments in existence.

And yet, I'll happily continue to be called a "dictionary atheist". Because that's what atheism is - simply a lack of belief in gods. Adding on to that actually changes the basic meaning of the word.

Lsuoma wrote:

Git wrote:

Eucliwood wrote:

franc wrote:Julian has flounced -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/0Dkt3.png[/spoiler]

And this... just because it screamed to be screencapped -

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/CGiOQ.png[/spoiler]

Would he be a good recruit?

Ahahahahaha. You mean well, Eucli, but in this case we (as in the slymepit) have had a lot of history with JF. He's possibly more A+ then the A+ers. Check our archives.

You're kidding, right? S/h/it's just like Steerzo in wanting everyone to spoon-feed s/h/it.

Fuck off Lymphoma. It’s Jim or Steersman.

And if you hadn’t put your head in the sand – or some other place where the sun don’t shine – by putting me on ignore – you might have noticed that I’m a long way from wanting to be spoon fed. Conventional wisdom and group think – how do they work? Dickhead.

Skep tickle wrote: Exi5tentialist says (bolding added by me):

I don't think dictionaries describe the meaning of words. They summarise the primary usages of words in a way that is traditionally limited by the amount of space available in a printed dictionary. Even then they cannot do justice to what a word means. The meaning of all words is flexible and subjective. If I agree any meaning, it is purely for the sake of argument. ...

Predictably, a total failure to check up on, or even think about, an assumption plucked out of the air. The daddy of all dictionaries the OED does not and never has given a shit about "the amount of space available in a printed dictionary". By 1884 it was publishing unbound "fascicles" because it was a work in progress, not completed until 1928 and published in ten volumes. The second edition came out in 1989 in twenty volumes. The third edition will never be printed because it's now gone on-line. Yes, if you want your own paper copy in a reasonably affordable and manageable size, there will be compromises, but the main project has always attempted to be comprehensive. No word is taken out, for example, marked 'obsolete' or 'archaic' maybe, but not removed.

Seems like this would render all attempts at communication pretty much moot. It makes easy work of the conference rules "debate" though, since the conference organizers can just write down whatever words they want, and then since the words are all flexible & subjective, each person can read in the rules whatever they want to. Problem "solved". :roll:

My emphasis:

The meaning of all words is flexible and subjective.

If you're ever rushed to hospital for any reason you'd better hope that's not true. It is typical of the po-mo bullshit that SJWs thrive on though. To quote you a joke popular in the common room in my undergrad days:

How many philosophers does it take to change a lightbulb?
That depends on what you mean by 'lightbulb'.

Spence wrote:

real horrorshow wrote:

masakari2012 wrote:Real horrorshow, it appears you are applying different changes to this hypothetical than I did.

Well, what are the parameters of your hypothetical? You mentioned Einstein getting killed by the Nazis and General Relativity. I don't see Einstein, ensconced in the US, as being in much danger. Even if he was killed, he wasn't the only physicist in the world, General Relativity would have been developed anyway. Clue me in.

Not the first time I've seen this, although I've resisted commenting up to now. Einstein's theoretical foundation of general relativity was largely completed by 1915. How would the Nazi's change that? Build a time machine?

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/s6vGv.jpg[/spoiler]

sacha wrote:

Steersman wrote: linking one Sacha Wiley-Shaw to the great poster tear-down extravaganza?

I did a search for "sacha" to see if there was a comment directed towards me, so I could respond.

Wiley-Shaw spells it SASHA

it's bad enough we share the same first name.

Sorry about that Chief. I had looked in several places, but couldn’t find anything for certain within the time I had so went with what at least sounded right.

Dictionary atheism is fine with me. All of the social issue stances I hold now (non-discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality etc) I held while I was a believer. If there turned out to be a god of some kind that revealed itself I wouldn't suddenly change my mind on whether we should allow all people in society equal rights.

As a dictionary atheist I feel I can tell someone what I am and they'll have a general idea that I don't buy into their god/gods. But if this Atheism+ shit redefines words to mean atheism has some built in dogma then the very idea of atheism becomes as pointless as feminism. I once called myself feminist because only backwards assholes believe in subjugation and oppression of women and I sincerely believed that anybody who believed women were equal to men were feminists by default. Once I actually started to pay attention to feminism, and specifically the feminists at the usual places mocked freely here, I began to realize that the word feminist was redefined from what I originally thought it was. I used to think feminism was simply equality and respect for women (perhaps at one time in history it was that), but when I read and listen to these modern feminist speakers and writers and am amazed at the nebulous social pseudo-science bullshit, the conspiracy theories, the professional victimhood for page hits and money and the desire to stamp out all opinions they don't like, I am reminded of the mindset I saw all too often in my religious days.

CommanderTuvok wrote:

Steersman wrote:

CommanderTuvok wrote:BTW, Mykeru, I did warn everybody that Steersboy is a "Baboon piece of shit" as soon as he arrived. Actually, he has improved a bit since then, but the Baboonitis occasionally nips at him.

Ah, there’s Cabin-Boy Toothless Fuck acting like a dickhead again. A charge of “Baboonitis” is really rich coming from the guy who flung the turd that Lousy Canuck was homophobic because he happened to make some mildly off-colour comment that D.J. Grothe (I think) wasn’t much interested in women’s vaginas.

Comrade Myers would be proud of you; take a bow.

He's BACK!!! I follow the Blackford/Vacula POV regarding Canuck. Thanks anyway.

:whistle:

And if none of you have any more evidence - you know, the stuff that is supposed to differentiate "us" from "them" [creationists, baboons, etc.] - than that - and I've asked and none has been forthcoming - then you can all take a bow. If the foo shits ....

16bitheretic wrote:Dictionary atheism is fine with me. All of the social issue stances I hold now (non-discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality etc) I held while I was a believer. If there turned out to be a god of some kind that revealed itself I wouldn't suddenly change my mind on whether we should allow all people in society equal rights.

As a dictionary atheist I feel I can tell someone what I am and they'll have a general idea that I don't buy into their god/gods. But if this Atheism+ shit redefines words to mean atheism has some built in dogma then the very idea of atheism becomes as pointless as feminism. I once called myself feminist because only backwards assholes believe in subjugation and oppression of women and I sincerely believed that anybody who believed women were equal to men were feminists by default. Once I actually started to pay attention to feminism, and specifically the feminists at the usual places mocked freely here, I began to realize that the word feminist was redefined from what I originally thought it was. I used to think feminism was simply equality and respect for women (perhaps at one time in history it was that), but when I read and listen to these modern feminist speakers and writers and am amazed at the nebulous social pseudo-science bullshit, the conspiracy theories, the professional victimhood for page hits and money and the desire to stamp out all opinions they don't like, I am reminded of the mindset I saw all too often in my religious days.

Brilliantly stated and I completely agree.