sacha wrote:Mykeru wrote:I'm editing through The Beaver's 2012 HFA keynote speech and JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, THIS IS A KEYNOTE SPEECH? My God, it's an hour of Watson bitching about trolls, mean girls and how people weren't nice to her on the internet. If she was a fat no-life neck beard guy no one would listen to her, but since she's a fat pink-haired no-life Skepchick suddenly arguing on the internet has global consequences.
She complains about someone threatening to put a bullet in her head (been there, princess) and not even ten minutes in, I'm begging for a bullet in the head.
Sacha, do tell.
I mentioned that I would be attending on the original Slime Pit. Asked if there were any requests, like a note.
Of course what bothers her the most is
not getting attention, so I posted that in order to get under her skin, I planned to ignore her, and we had a laugh. I'll find the links.
PZ phoned the organiser, telling him someone named "sacha" on a hate forum was planning to attend and that I planned to "cause trouble" and I was a direct threat to Becci's safety.
PZ asked that I be removed from the list and asked that the organiser call Becci to let her know she did not have to worry about her safety, and that I was no longer attending. He called Becci, who wanted to make sure I would not be permitted to attend... blah blah blah
The organiser knew me prior to this, he emailed and told me what was said, asked if they had the wrong person, and wanted my side of things.
I told him about what I posted on the Slime Pit, and the plan was to ignore her, I told him it isn't any secret that I do not like Becci and PZ, and the thread was more about PZ than anyone else. I had no interest in engaging her, I had no interest in her at all. I was attending because of the the others. I offered to give him the links to my comments that PZ was referring to, and told him that I did not want him involved, and I did not need to attend. He thought it was all a bit ridiculous, and told me he has no problem with me attending, but asked if I would use the first name Sophia instead of sacha, like it is on my facebook page (yes, sacha is my real name). I told him that no one calls me Sophia, and Becci may hear numerous people refer to me as sacha. He said he did not care, I told him I did not want to be that close to her anyway, and he told me to go as planned, so I did.
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Well, after watching Rebecca Watson's "Keynote Speech", or any of her pronouncements over the past few years, you get a sense of her rhythm, which is "death threats, rape threats, someone was mean to me" followed by how she cashed this in for more power, either to get someone fired, or removed from an event, or to strong-arm the organizers of an event, mostly based on someone's ill-thought hyperbolic speech, a nasty-gram from someone 1,000 miles away, or just the most uncharitable interpretation of someone's total exasperation with her. However, the sheer volume of death threats, rape threats and the use of the word "cunt" is, of course, a rough measure of Rebecca Watson's total importance. It seems that often porn is inaccessible on the internet due to the bandwidth used in threatening Rebecca Watson.
And all the while, while she's telling these horror stories, she's smiling and playing it for laughs at the same time, forcing her compliant audience into simultaneously holding the thought that this is all very terrifying and, at the same time, highly amusing. If you turn the sound off when Rebecca Watson is speaking, by just watching her you would think she was relating some amusing, but entirely trivial anecdote. I've never seen anyone with such a lack of emotional investment in her own terror.
So, when I got to the point that she was telling the umpteenth variation on a theme I was used to how completely mundane disagreements get filtered through Rebecca Watson's mental oppression conversion program, such as "a forum" (vague, so you can't check) that was "dedicated to hating her" (the whole damn thing, 24/7) had a person (no names, please) that was "going to accost her in some manner" (which covers everything from telling her she's full of shit to sticking an ice-pick in her ear) and how she was able to parlay victim-hood into some form of power. But being ignored as a form of confrontation? That's a new one.
At least, that's how she tells it. However, back in reality, it's just another case of the police, the organizers, her friends and her mother not believing the fucking SWAT team should be called out because someone was mean to Becca on the internet. However, the people in attendance at the supposed Humanist group ooh and ahh over what a very important victim Rebecca is.
If you can tune out Rebecca for a while, and who wouldn't, and just listen to the audience, it's revealing. I can hear one guy doing a sort of smug laugh. I know this guy. He's the older, low-level academic that goes to all the Skeptical Meetups at the public library, wears socks with sandals, has a closely cropped beard and wears a tilly hat like he's on permanent safari and basically holds court in his own mind. He's made in the same smug factory that squeezed out P.Z. Meyers. He's so used to his own sub-moronic minions that questioning him is out of the question. I could make a hobby out of pissing that guy off.
I had to stop watching because my brain was melting, but I have to watch the Q&A just to see if there was anyone brave enough to call bullshit. Not likely. A couple years ago I was at a CFI-DC thang with some guy speaking from the Smithsonian. I noted that the then new Human Origins exhibit at the museum has a big fucking thank you plaque to the Koch Brothers and I questioned taking Koch money, because they do that kind of philanthropic work to provide cover for the rest of their bullshit. The speaker totally smugged out and said "Well, if the Koch brothers want to give us money, we'll take it, heh-heh-heh". Which I interpreted as being a whore, even if you're a well-compensated whore. I thought Melody Hensley was giving me the stink-eye, but I might have just had a bad case of the Watsons.
My Godless, it's all so very fucking sad, isn't it?
