The Periodic Table's Younger, Sexier, Sibling Thread...

[Chilly P.]

YEOW!!!!

[Parge]

All you need is to do it this way:

[spoiler]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p57w5c6kH5E/T ... ture+7.png[/spoiler]

FTFY

Talk about fucking up spoilers! That spoiler never even made it onto the page!

You're welcome.

[SPACKlick]

[spoiler]

Re circumcision campaign:
--It causes unnecessary pain.
--Guaranteed at least some of that will be done to underage boys.
--It does not prevent AIDS even if risk is a bit lower, and spreading the lie that it's protective rather than the truth that barrier (condom) protection is needed, gives false hopes to the circumcised who will falsely think they're immune.
--tl;dr I'm against it.

No one said it prevented HIV/AIDS. No. One. Said. That.

What has been said, and seems to be borne out by the data is that it can make it harder, not impossible, but harder to get HIV/AIDS. It is also not a *replacement* for condoms. Note that UNAIDS is still *very* much behind condoms. But, because there are real issues when you are talking about a lot of catholics getting fed a lot of bullshit by a lot of priests in getting people to use condoms, this is *an additional way to help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS".

That is all it is about, that is how it is being used. There is no 100% way to prevent sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS other than a complete air gap. Even condoms fail, even when used correctly. Not often, but there is a non-zero failure rate. This is not Canada/US. You have to adapt your solutions for the area, and if this helps lower transmission rates, then I can't see being against it because here in honkieland, you don't need it as much.

I don't think that's a good enough reason to promote a painful mutilating procedure. Maybe if there were nothing else, it would save an estimated percentage of people. But there is something else, something much better. Fuck the church and make condoms available. Maybe set up a few local condom factories that will produce locally and make a few jobs too.

I just can't accept backing down and allowing the catholics to interfere regarding condoms. GMOs should be spreading the truth about condoms (since the priests are lying about them) and hand them out like crazy.

Condoms (other than their small fail rate) protect both uncut and cut men alike (and their sex partners). No need to go on a mass mutilation campaign due to some fear of catholic outrage. If protection was complete or near complete (like condoms), I could see the point of it (no pun intended), but if it's a small increase in those who don't catch it, that still leaves far too many people dead even if cut. The best protection that we have so far are condoms, their high protection rate is best for all penises (cut or uncut).
Fight the church and against unnecessary mutilation and pain. Fight for condoms to be taught about and supplied.

It's interesting to note that nobody has commented on how much of a reduction in risk of AIDS/HIV would justify the procedure.

What are the risks of performing the procedure at birth vs at an age of informed consent (13+/16+/18+/21+ etc)
What are the benefits of performing the procedure at birth vs at an age of informed consent?

We do allow parents to make some decisions for minors, like vaccinations etc. but if it's of significant enough benefit that it trumps the child's rights, surely it should be mandatory not optional at the request of the parent. I can't think of any balance of the 4 factors above that would justify making it parental choice.

[/spoiler]

The problem with delaying circumcision into adulthood is that by that time your nerve endings are fully developed, and it becomes a much more difficult and painful procedure. For babies, it's topical anathaesia and antibiotics with the cut healing in a few days. For adults, the recovery time is in weeks.

Also, teenagers have sex. And often without condoms.

Yeah Way to miss the point. Yes the "costs" of the procedure are higher for adults, although I'm not sure about some risks (adults tend to be better at fighting infection, say). The point is what balance of those 4 cost/benefit factors could lead to Parental consent, rather than an expected/mandatory status or one left to the individual to choose for themselves?

[Angry_Drunk]

As for me doing "fuck all", I've done as much as most people here. I tweet about them, I comment about them and I try to engage them in dialogue to a) learn their perspective because I don't "get" what most of them are about and b) try to convince them that their arguments are flawed.

You stick to your ad hominems, I have no control over what you do. But I choose to take the higher ground, so fuck you.

You're right. You absolutely don't "get" what they are on about --- and as a result you are wasting your time in trying to understand their "perspective" or convincing them that their arguments are flawed.

As Welch myself and others have pointed out ad nauseam, Meyers, Watson and crew give no shits about equality, social justice, skepticism, or even atheism. They are New Media Douchebag grifters who have found a market and are milking it for everything it's worth. Every time you visit their sites to comment it's money in their bank (and no, childrens, your ad blockers and anonymous proxies aren't doing fuck-all to hurt their revenue). The only "perspective" that these pustulant wankers have is their own overweening egos. The only "arguments" they care about are arguments that bring in the page-views. By engaging Peezus & the Gang on their own turf you accomplish exactly two things: you give them another page-view that can be reported to their ad network and you give them ammunition to fuel their persecution narrative.

As Welch keeps stating, the only effective strategy for dealing with these schmucks is to refuse to engage them on their own turf. For the love of Zoroaster, listen to the man. He's been dealing with far more competent assholes for longer than Internet Atheism has been a thing.

[SPACKlick]

So it turns out, you can't nest spoilers, otherwise this happens

[spoiler][spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]

How Come?

[Scented Nectar]

If it's that easy, I believe one can get from Canada to Africa in a day or so. By all means, please, solve this "easy" problem.

It should be a lot easier and cheaper to disseminate condoms and proper info about how and when to use them, then it is to go around performing circumcision on all the males.

[Dilurk]

You want examples of me NOT Photoshopping people to make them look ridiculous? You want examples of me NOT calling PZ a fat fuck?

Yeah, that's what I was asking for, you little wank-speck.

As for me doing "fuck all", I've done as much as most people here. I tweet about them, I comment about them and I try to engage them in dialogue to a) learn their perspective because I don't "get" what most of them are about and b) try to convince them that their arguments are flawed.

Well, there's a difference. I don't engage them in dialogue. I don't comment on FTB, I don't subject myself to blocking, banning or selective editing. Trying to convince them is pointless. I talk right over their heads. I suspect that makes them crazy.

By the way, how's that "engaging in dialogue" working for ya?

http://ivarfjeld.files.wordpress.com/20 ... munich.jpg

You stick to your ad hominems, I have no control over what you do. But I choose to take the higher ground, so fuck you.

And a magnificent job you are doing too.

Neville Chamberlain also increased spending to the RAF. We know the appeasement didn't work but maybe it bought some time while they got their defence up.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_aircraft

In the United Kingdom, at the behest of Neville Chamberlain, (more famous for his 'peace in our time' speech) the entire British aviation industry was retooled, allowing it to change quickly from fabric covered metal framed biplanes to cantilever stressed skin monoplanes in time for the war with Germany. Without his work in the early '30s, Churchill would not have had the tools to take on the Germans.

So, I agree, there is no arguing or hope of appeasement with a fanatical group but anyone who is willing to do so certainly wins more friends. One side ends up looking adult and reasonable, the other side ends up looking like a fanatic.

[ReneeHendricks]

So it turns out, you can't nest spoilers, otherwise this happens

[spoiler][spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]

How Come?

Patriarchy.

[jjbinx007]

This woman is posting some good things at the moment:



If you scroll down you'll see other tweets including:

saramayhew : "More and more women are avoiding conferences because of female bullies and sister-punisher witch hunts that result in highschool shunning."

Ophelia responds:

"@saramayhew Interesting. Did you see a lot of female bullies and sister-punisher witch hunts at Eschaton? I certainly didn't. I saw zero"

Hang on a minute, isn't this the same line that Thunderf00t got roasted over hot coals for using, except Thunderf00t said "sexism and harassment"?

saramayhew : "Hall spoke up against drama where the majority of women are too scared of being labelled chill girls."

(Ophelia then strawmanned and blocked her.)

saramayhew : "Irony: those claiming they want to make welcome spaces for women have done so in a way that makes women feel unwelcome."

[Oneiros666]

Yeah Way to miss the point. Yes the "costs" of the procedure are higher for adults, although I'm not sure about some risks (adults tend to be better at fighting infection, say). The point is what balance of those 4 cost/benefit factors could lead to Parental consent, rather than an expected/mandatory status or one left to the individual to choose for themselves?

As a Norwegian I find the whole 'debate' about whether or not to fucking slice off the foreskin of baby boys quite unbelievable. In Norway the only ones cut are Jews and Muslims and they are getting hell for doing it (ca 70 % of Norwegians are atheists). I know Americans are often cut and as such it becomes a 'controversial issue' since it's common. But the fact that it's going on is just as horrible as the cutting of little girls' clitorises. Babies can't choose what their parents choose to do with their little bodies, and as such; gender mutilation is a fucking abomination.

[Scented Nectar]

[spoiler]

Totally joking about wanting a car. I had a couple cars from 1988 until 1992. I am a horrible driver. Terrible. I will never let myself drive ever again. Too many close calls. Like the time I almost forgot to brake for a streetcar opening its doors ahead of me. The person with the white cane would have been really pissed off if I had ran them over. Or that time I got off the Expressway onto normal streets but forgot to slow down.

[/spoiler]
The 401 or the "Don Valley Parking lot" ?

The DVP. I got off at the Bloor exit, and found myself going east on Bloor/Danforth, on the part that goes over the DVP and the river etc, SPEEDING towards Broadview where all the cars were stopped at the lights. I noticed only partway across the bridge/overpass that I was speeding and slammed on the brakes in terror. I skidded for quite a distance, and I literally stopped only inches away from the car in front of me (the one at the end of the lineup at the lights.)

[spoiler]

By the time I realized it, I slammed on the brakes and loudly skidded approx a couple dozen car lengths and stopped just barely before the last car stopped at the light ahead. Let's not even go to either of the times that firemen and taxi drivers got mad at me. I don't want to say what I did that accidently pissed them off. But since it's too funny not to tell, there was one time on the highway, I fell asleep for a couple of seconds. You should have seen the look on the face of the driver right beside me, who my car had forced into an entire other lane. I have never seen such a WTF shocked/terror look in my life. I could only shrug and mouth 'sorry'.
:shifty:

[/spoiler]

I still like the slow drive via Highway 7 to Toronto. There is some gorgeous countryside going that way, lakes, rock cuts. I do not like the DVP or 401 anymore. Not sure if you noted you aren't that far from where my sister lives. Maybe we could share some bagels sometime.

I'm in the northwest part of Toronto, to the point where half the mail I get calls it Etobicoke, but I can meet you anywhere in the city. :)

[welch]

PZ has demonstrated that he is not only a coward, but also intellectually dishonest. But if people keep sneaking into leave comments, then he gets to claim some high ground. Why give the fat fuck any ammo? Deprive him of his tools, and make him work for shit, don't just give it to him.

Even better, why don't we attack what he says and does rather than ad hominem like that all the time? Because if we make 5 valid points showing him to be a dishonest hypocrite he'll simply say "These people photoshop me wearing diapers and refer to my appearance" instead of having to refute the arguments put forward.

Wow, you are like the first person to ever think of that. Imagine, if you came along sooner, the war would have been shortened and millions of lives would have been saved.

Why is it that the "high-road" approach is usually championed by people who do fuck-all but have assumed a managerial position for themselves?

Do you have any examples of how you have applied this technique in the wild?

I hate to throw water on the "take the high road" approach...wait, no i don't. To be blunt, it doesn't work. If it does, it's an edge case. Seriously. I have actual data to back this up.

For example, Adobe recently introduced a bug in their flash player installer. For most, you'd never see it, but for IT types, the way we have to do mass installs, it bit us in the ass. A good friend of mine, a sober, rational fellow documented this, documented workarounds, made this known to adobe in a sober, rational fashion, and was pretty much ignored.

I finally got sick of it, and applied my own...unique...take to it, and all of a sudden, there's fucking attention paid to it. This is not the first time this has happened, nor is it just an Adobe issue.

I think i've figured it out. It's easier to ignore the quiet rational guy. It's MUCH harder to ignore the screaming mandrill. Really, really hard. Especially when all its friends are sending you the same email. It's not that I'm stating the problem better, it's that I am really, really good at getting people's attention. When i compare your work to fecophile porn, that's an attention getter.

The high road tactic? That's how it should work. But that's now how the world actually works. Over and over again, this is proven. While I disagree with Reap's tactics in terms of creating new email addresses to comment on PeeZus' blog, the diaper picture? Fucking brilliant. Humor and snark are a great way to get attention. That's important, because if you don't have someone's attention, it doesn't *matter* what your real arguments are. You can have all the logical skillz of the entire planet of Vulcan, and if the person you need to listen isn't listening, what fucking good are those skills?

Right, zip.

So you have to get their attention. Once you have it, well, hopefully you have something more to say, but you have to get their attention before you can make your case, and honestly, the low road is far, far better for that.

[welch]

[spoiler]

Re circumcision campaign:
--It causes unnecessary pain.
--Guaranteed at least some of that will be done to underage boys.
--It does not prevent AIDS even if risk is a bit lower, and spreading the lie that it's protective rather than the truth that barrier (condom) protection is needed, gives false hopes to the circumcised who will falsely think they're immune.
--tl;dr I'm against it.

No one said it prevented HIV/AIDS. No. One. Said. That.

What has been said, and seems to be borne out by the data is that it can make it harder, not impossible, but harder to get HIV/AIDS. It is also not a *replacement* for condoms. Note that UNAIDS is still *very* much behind condoms. But, because there are real issues when you are talking about a lot of catholics getting fed a lot of bullshit by a lot of priests in getting people to use condoms, this is *an additional way to help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS".

That is all it is about, that is how it is being used. There is no 100% way to prevent sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS other than a complete air gap. Even condoms fail, even when used correctly. Not often, but there is a non-zero failure rate. This is not Canada/US. You have to adapt your solutions for the area, and if this helps lower transmission rates, then I can't see being against it because here in honkieland, you don't need it as much.

I don't think that's a good enough reason to promote a painful mutilating procedure. Maybe if there were nothing else, it would save an estimated percentage of people. But there is something else, something much better. Fuck the church and make condoms available. Maybe set up a few local condom factories that will produce locally and make a few jobs too.

I just can't accept backing down and allowing the catholics to interfere regarding condoms. GMOs should be spreading the truth about condoms (since the priests are lying about them) and hand them out like crazy.

Condoms (other than their small fail rate) protect both uncut and cut men alike (and their sex partners). No need to go on a mass mutilation campaign due to some fear of catholic outrage. If protection was complete or near complete (like condoms), I could see the point of it (no pun intended), but if it's a small increase in those who don't catch it, that still leaves far too many people dead even if cut. The best protection that we have so far are condoms, their high protection rate is best for all penises (cut or uncut).
Fight the church and against unnecessary mutilation and pain. Fight for condoms to be taught about and supplied.

[/spoiler]
And if people would stop raping and murdering and assaulting, we'd have no rape, murder, or assault, so insteadwe of people taking preventative measures, we should only focus on that.

No one, *no one* here is disputing condom effectiveness. But to wave your hand and say "well, if we just push condoms harder, the problem will go away" is ignoring the real barriers to widespread condom use in those areas. Those barriers will not come down today, nor tomorrow, and they may never come down. That is the reality. Fuck, you can't even get full condom acceptance in the US and Canada. Yes, it would be nice if the Catholic Church didn't have the power it has, but for now, it does, and that must be dealt with in a manner other than denial. Note, it's not just the Catholics. You do realize that in some areas of sub-Saharan Africa, people still actively believe in fucking witchcraft, right?

As far as the factories thing? Um, do you have any idea of what even a small factory making generic widgets requires, much less one making medical products with high tolerance requirements requires? That's assuming you have the rest of the infrastructure in place. You may have noticed that rather a few of the countries in the areas we are talking about are kind if fucked in the infrastructure

I agree with working for the ideal. But I live in the world that is, and if making things better in THAT world requires some compromises or less than perfect solutions, so be it. Only accepting the perfect solution leads to a lot of nothing being done.

I see circumcision as more harmful than helpful, imperfect or not. Especially since it's avoiding a hugely better solution for no better reason than to kowtow to religion. The truth about diseases and condoms may be news (shocking unwanted news, even) to people brought up to believe in witchcraft and/or jesus, but maybe it's time they were given the opportunity to join the modern world. Instead of kowtowing to old ways, GMOs and other charities should present the truth and the best solution (condoms). GMOs make a fuck of a lot of money (most is wasted though on high salaries and the contrived 'rescue industry'). They could easily set up, if not factories, then simply mass imports of condoms along with teaching how and when to use them and when not to use them (eg; wants to have children with spouse).

Okay, so I'm done here. I have not said, nor has anyone said that this is being touted as a replacement for condoms or what have you. You wish to argue that point, find someone who is actually saying that and have a ball. But it's not me.

You also keep insisting that if we just tell people about condoms, TA DA. Well, given the amount of money and time spent doing that, I can safely say that no, just telling people about how awesome condoms are is not the solution you think it is. Again, you can't even make that work HERE, where the majority of the population doesn't assume that european doctors are lying to them. Your method doesn't work the way you think it does in as close to an ideal situation as you will ever get, and yet you insist that if we just keep doing that, well, it'll work.

I understand the relationship between my head and a brick wall. I know which one will win.

As far as mass imports of condoms working, there's so much naiveté in that statement that i can only conclude you literally know nothing about the entire continent beyond the last "tarzan" movie you watched. Just dumping a bunch of stuff in a place doesn't work. YOu still need infrastructure and all the other inconvenient bits.

Fuck, we tried that with FOOD in the 80s. Remember that? Live Aid? We are the World? Shipped a fuck ton of food to the area. How well did that work out? Not fucking very.

The real world is a really inconvenient place, but it's the one you have to deal with to get anything done.

[AbsurdWalls]

Backs up DPRJones' notion that she is not in the slightest bothered by the 'threats' she experiences, and is playing the professional victim. This is in contradiction to what she claims - so we already know she isn't truthful in these matters.

RE: DPRJones claim.
Sometimes people will minimise the effect that they say a bad experience is having on them if they are ashamed of being upset by it. I joke about things from my past that bothered me, it doesn't mean they weren't a problem.

[welch]

All you need is to do it this way:

[spoiler]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p57w5c6kH5E/T ... ture+7.png[/spoiler]

FTFY

Talk about fucking up spoilers! That spoiler never even made it onto the page!

You're welcome.

Fuck that, you'd ruin good pants that way. Just grip it and rip it.

[welch]

If it's that easy, I believe one can get from Canada to Africa in a day or so. By all means, please, solve this "easy" problem.

It should be a lot easier and cheaper to disseminate condoms and proper info about how and when to use them, then it is to go around performing circumcision on all the males.

Again, no one is stopping you. Let us know how it works.

[AbsurdWalls]

She seems to be advocating a hybrid position between sex positive and sex negative feminism.
In other words, guys, don't make passes in elevators late at night...And by the way, don't make passes to women who are there just for intellectual interests and are offended if you proposition them...And no, there is no way of knowing for sure if a particular woman falls into the 'purely intellectual interest' category or not. :shock:

Strictly speaking, Watson claims to have "told" EG during her talk.

[Mykeru]

She seems to be advocating a hybrid position between sex positive and sex negative feminism.
In other words, guys, don't make passes in elevators late at night...And by the way, don't make passes to women who are there just for intellectual interests and are offended if you proposition them...And no, there is no way of knowing for sure if a particular woman falls into the 'purely intellectual interest' category or not. :shock:

Strictly speaking, Watson claims to have "told" EG during her talk.

As we know for a fact that Watson has told outright untruths about people we do know about, how do we evaluate what she claims about someone we know nothing about?

[AbsurdWalls]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

[comslave]

Well, a discussion on rape culture is long overdue and could actually result in less rapes. There's just so many problems with starting that discussion that it's probably impossible at this juncture. The biggest problem is getting people to accept the concept that most people in our society think that rape is like one of the worst things ever, and as such they don't want to rape someone.

So the discussion should be about how our social norms result in people feeling like they've been taken advantage of from time to time, and if that's something that we can/want to address. But, two big problems with that.

#1. Makes it harder to demonize people

#2. Might mean that they have to sacrifice something.

So they'll oppose that discussion tooth and nail.

Given the way the actual rate of rape is dropping like a rock, I don't see any use of the phrase "rape culture" being helpful at all. It's basically nothing more than a silencing phrase used to shut men up. The problem is the heterosexual sex=rape in the eyes of so many feminists that they see any sexuality in our society as a sign of rape culture. Unless you're talking about South Africa, where if you haven't been raped yet, there's something wrong with you, the phrase "rape culture" really needs to go away.

[Cunning Punt]

Halfish's blog: http://haifischgeweint.wordpress.com/de ... whiteness/

This is her:

https://www.facebook.com/GeneralPerversion/info

Wait a minute. Jamie?? The new Skepchick's name is Jamie, no? Same person?

ok this is beginning to piss me off;

1. Steersman - Jim
2. Oolon - James
3. Half-gefilte-fish - Jamie James (cuntx2)
4. The new skepchick - Jamie

I've had enough of this shit...

Let''s just call everyone Dave:

[youtube]JF1chLj1fro[/youtube]

Kids in the Hall were great.

[debaser71]

"there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention"

Because through a lot of hard work and pulling teeth, atheism is now pretty much mainstream. Gosh, I can remember when people would tell me, "I've never even met an atheist!". So who wants to inherit this? Who wants to claim this success for their own? Radfems? Fuck that noise.

[comslave]

I have a question - which I dont know if anybody can answer : just this

why does UN Aids (the United Nation's organization to combat the spread of HIV) - why are they pursuing the circumcision of ~20 million adults and children in sub saharan africa and pretending that this will provide a barrier to the spread of the virus? Haven't they heard of condoms?

I'll have a go at this.

I think the reason has to do with population control. Besides preventing AIDS, condoms are a semi-effective method of birth control. If a bunch of white people go into Africa and advocate a method of birth control, they not only have to fight the Catholic Church, but also accusations of racism in implying there should be fewer Africans in the world.

Easy to solve. Make sure that when teaching about condoms, to tell them not to use them when they want to make babies. That way people will still use them when having extramarital sex and not bring home any diseases.

Both the church and the local governments wants lots of babies, even accidental ones. Because when you have lots of unwanted babies, you have suffering, which can be used by religion to exploit with promises and governments to use as blame (it's those other guys who are responisble for your suffering, go kill them).

[LMU]

[spoiler]

PZ has demonstrated that he is not only a coward, but also intellectually dishonest. But if people keep sneaking into leave comments, then he gets to claim some high ground. Why give the fat fuck any ammo? Deprive him of his tools, and make him work for shit, don't just give it to him.

Even better, why don't we attack what he says and does rather than ad hominem like that all the time? Because if we make 5 valid points showing him to be a dishonest hypocrite he'll simply say "These people photoshop me wearing diapers and refer to my appearance" instead of having to refute the arguments put forward.

Wow, you are like the first person to ever think of that. Imagine, if you came along sooner, the war would have been shortened and millions of lives would have been saved.

Why is it that the "high-road" approach is usually championed by people who do fuck-all but have assumed a managerial position for themselves?

Do you have any examples of how you have applied this technique in the wild?

I hate to throw water on the "take the high road" approach...wait, no i don't. To be blunt, it doesn't work. If it does, it's an edge case. Seriously. I have actual data to back this up.

For example, Adobe recently introduced a bug in their flash player installer. For most, you'd never see it, but for IT types, the way we have to do mass installs, it bit us in the ass. A good friend of mine, a sober, rational fellow documented this, documented workarounds, made this known to adobe in a sober, rational fashion, and was pretty much ignored.

I finally got sick of it, and applied my own...unique...take to it, and all of a sudden, there's fucking attention paid to it. This is not the first time this has happened, nor is it just an Adobe issue.

I think i've figured it out. It's easier to ignore the quiet rational guy. It's MUCH harder to ignore the screaming mandrill. Really, really hard. Especially when all its friends are sending you the same email. It's not that I'm stating the problem better, it's that I am really, really good at getting people's attention. When i compare your work to fecophile porn, that's an attention getter.

The high road tactic? That's how it should work. But that's now how the world actually works. Over and over again, this is proven. While I disagree with Reap's tactics in terms of creating new email addresses to comment on PeeZus' blog, the diaper picture? Fucking brilliant. Humor and snark are a great way to get attention. That's important, because if you don't have someone's attention, it doesn't *matter* what your real arguments are. You can have all the logical skillz of the entire planet of Vulcan, and if the person you need to listen isn't listening, what fucking good are those skills?

Right, zip.

So you have to get their attention. Once you have it, well, hopefully you have something more to say, but you have to get their attention before you can make your case, and honestly, the low road is far, far better for that.[/spoiler]

There are enough of us that I think both "high road" and "low road" approaches can be covered, and I think that they should be.

You make a good case for mockery, and let people who make tone arguments take note of it.

I think the advantage of the "high road" approach is that while it won't convince the person or group you are arguing with, it might convince neutral or undecided parties. You aren't arguing to win, you are arguing to be banned for being reasonable. Toward that end it is important to be reasonable and be able to articulate your position, but every time they ban you, they are effectively martyring you.

Remember that we are dealing with political creatures here. They will not be swayed by logic or argument, only by political realities. If they lose all their support, they will change, but not until then. We are many, there's no reason we have to choose only one tool.

[Lsuoma]

All you need is to do it this way:

[spoiler]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p57w5c6kH5E/T ... ture+7.png[/spoiler]

FTFY

Talk about fucking up spoilers! That spoiler never even made it onto the page!

You're welcome.

Yeah, I'm feeling really mean today - no spoiler, and no trigger warning. Suck it up, patriarchy!!!

[Dick Strawkins]

She seems to be advocating a hybrid position between sex positive and sex negative feminism.
In other words, guys, don't make passes in elevators late at night...And by the way, don't make passes to women who are there just for intellectual interests and are offended if you proposition them...And no, there is no way of knowing for sure if a particular woman falls into the 'purely intellectual interest' category or not. :shock:

Strictly speaking, Watson claims to have "told" EG during her talk.

It is easy to verify if she said it during her talk, the video is on youtube.
She didn't.
So she certainly lies about one thing.
Did she say it during the pub session?
Perhaps, but we don't know if EG heard her.
We don't know if he was even an atheist there for the conference.
She says she has a problem remembering faces.
There are a list of things that should raise real question marks for any real skeptic.
Perhaps a man did speak to her in the elevator, but the rest of the story has either been shown to be a lie, or it is so full of unfounded assumptions (that he heard her in the pub say she hated getting propositioned, that he was an atheist, that he intended a bout of hide the sausage rather than just wanted to speak to her) that the most reasonable response is to say - lets face it, you'vr spent 8 hours doing a Dublin pub crawl and then a few more getting even more drunk in the hotel bar; there's no way you are going to remember thing properly.

[Lsuoma]

So it turns out, you can't nest spoilers, otherwise this happens

[spoiler][spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]

How Come?

JavaScript. 'Nuff said. The first /spoiler will close the scope of all open spoiler tags.

Don't cross the streams!

[somedumbguy]

Well, a discussion on rape culture is long overdue and could actually result in less rapes. There's just so many problems with starting that discussion that it's probably impossible at this juncture. The biggest problem is getting people to accept the concept that most people in our society think that rape is like one of the worst things ever, and as such they don't want to rape someone.

So the discussion should be about how our social norms result in people feeling like they've been taken advantage of from time to time, and if that's something that we can/want to address. But, two big problems with that.

#1. Makes it harder to demonize people

#2. Might mean that they have to sacrifice something.

So they'll oppose that discussion tooth and nail.

Given the way the actual rate of rape is dropping like a rock, I don't see any use of the phrase "rape culture" being helpful at all. It's basically nothing more than a silencing phrase used to shut men up. The problem is the heterosexual sex=rape in the eyes of so many feminists that they see any sexuality in our society as a sign of rape culture. Unless you're talking about South Africa, where if you haven't been raped yet, there's something wrong with you, the phrase "rape culture" really needs to go away.

I don't know what happens at Skeptic Conferences, or how one gets to give a talk there, but it might be useful and fun to have a talk tentatively titled,

"The Debunking of Rape Culture -- A Skeptical Viewpoint"

There are many other aspects of feminism that could be, and should be examined at a Skeptic conference, as I understand the word Skeptic.

I am pessimistic and think the game is lost. Two weeks ago, a Washington Post reporter ran this phony balloney infographic. Bad and wrong statistics presented in a misleading manner. That reporter is a Harvard Grad who considers himself a "wonk".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... see-today/

In an email discussion that was later forwarded around, he wrote, in defense of the post

"Men's rights advocates love to massage statistics to pretend we don't live in a rape culture, but we do and the proper numbers bear this out."

So that's the default view of a Harvard Grad wonk reporter.

So what happens at Skeptic conferences?

What does the range of topics cover? Would a talk on some of the most bogus arguments of feminism fly? Be attended? Be received without tar and feathering? Make a difference?

If not at a Skeptic conference, where would such a talk, on the most bogus arguments of feminism, be appropriate? TAM? TEDx?

[AbsurdWalls]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

"there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention"

Because through a lot of hard work and pulling teeth, atheism is now pretty much mainstream. Gosh, I can remember when people would tell me, "I've never even met an atheist!". So who wants to inherit this? Who wants to claim this success for their own? Radfems? Fuck that noise.

I did consider "Maybe we won?" but I don't think that is it. A lot of progress has been made on some problems, but others remain - and new ones are still becoming apparent. I just don't know if fighting these fights interests that many people.

[LMU]

[spoiler]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.[/spoiler]

I think I see your point. I wouldn't be posting here if there hadn't been deep rifts. But on the other hand, I had been thinking about trying to be more active in the community, and if I hadn't been paying attention I wouldn't even have noticed the rift occurring.

[Lsuoma]

What a fucking load of old bollocks.

[Al Stefanelli]

So it turns out, you can't nest spoilers, otherwise this happens

[spoiler][spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]

How Come?

Patriarchy.

[spoiler]Word...[/spoiler]

[Parge]

ok this is beginning to piss me off;

1. Steersman - Jim
2. Oolon - James
3. Half-gefilte-fish - Jamie James (cuntx2)
4. The new skepchick - Jamie

I've had enough of this shit...

I'd like to take this opportunity to stand up and be counted with other Supplanters and Heels.
Keep an eye out for Diegos, Santiagos, Giacomos, Hamishes, Iagos, Jacobs, Jacqueses, Jaimes, Yakovs, Koppels and who could forget the Seamuses!

[Metalogic42]

I'm a bit late to the game here, but regarding circumcision:

I'm circumcised, and I've never felt upset about it at all, nor can I think of any ill effects I've suffered because of it. If anyone here is circumcised, and wishes they weren't, can you explain why?

[ReneeHendricks]

Where Ophelia Benson makes it all about her. Just...wow:

http://www.freezepage.com/1358535271ABIMUAWYYV

[Outwest]

Where Ophelia Benson makes it all about her. Just...wow:

http://www.freezepage.com/1358535271ABIMUAWYYV

Would you quote a relevant bit? My proxy doesn't allow freezepage through.

[welch]

[spoiler]

PZ has demonstrated that he is not only a coward, but also intellectually dishonest. But if people keep sneaking into leave comments, then he gets to claim some high ground. Why give the fat fuck any ammo? Deprive him of his tools, and make him work for shit, don't just give it to him.

Even better, why don't we attack what he says and does rather than ad hominem like that all the time? Because if we make 5 valid points showing him to be a dishonest hypocrite he'll simply say "These people photoshop me wearing diapers and refer to my appearance" instead of having to refute the arguments put forward.

Wow, you are like the first person to ever think of that. Imagine, if you came along sooner, the war would have been shortened and millions of lives would have been saved.

Why is it that the "high-road" approach is usually championed by people who do fuck-all but have assumed a managerial position for themselves?

Do you have any examples of how you have applied this technique in the wild?

I hate to throw water on the "take the high road" approach...wait, no i don't. To be blunt, it doesn't work. If it does, it's an edge case. Seriously. I have actual data to back this up.

For example, Adobe recently introduced a bug in their flash player installer. For most, you'd never see it, but for IT types, the way we have to do mass installs, it bit us in the ass. A good friend of mine, a sober, rational fellow documented this, documented workarounds, made this known to adobe in a sober, rational fashion, and was pretty much ignored.

I finally got sick of it, and applied my own...unique...take to it, and all of a sudden, there's fucking attention paid to it. This is not the first time this has happened, nor is it just an Adobe issue.

I think i've figured it out. It's easier to ignore the quiet rational guy. It's MUCH harder to ignore the screaming mandrill. Really, really hard. Especially when all its friends are sending you the same email. It's not that I'm stating the problem better, it's that I am really, really good at getting people's attention. When i compare your work to fecophile porn, that's an attention getter.

The high road tactic? That's how it should work. But that's now how the world actually works. Over and over again, this is proven. While I disagree with Reap's tactics in terms of creating new email addresses to comment on PeeZus' blog, the diaper picture? Fucking brilliant. Humor and snark are a great way to get attention. That's important, because if you don't have someone's attention, it doesn't *matter* what your real arguments are. You can have all the logical skillz of the entire planet of Vulcan, and if the person you need to listen isn't listening, what fucking good are those skills?

Right, zip.

So you have to get their attention. Once you have it, well, hopefully you have something more to say, but you have to get their attention before you can make your case, and honestly, the low road is far, far better for that.[/spoiler]

There are enough of us that I think both "high road" and "low road" approaches can be covered, and I think that they should be.

You make a good case for mockery, and let people who make tone arguments take note of it.

I think the advantage of the "high road" approach is that while it won't convince the person or group you are arguing with, it might convince neutral or undecided parties. You aren't arguing to win, you are arguing to be banned for being reasonable. Toward that end it is important to be reasonable and be able to articulate your position, but every time they ban you, they are effectively martyring you.

Remember that we are dealing with political creatures here. They will not be swayed by logic or argument, only by political realities. If they lose all their support, they will change, but not until then. We are many, there's no reason we have to choose only one tool.

They'll hear you how? Again, how are you going to get their attention? PeeZus doesn't even let certain people comment, and he's got assistants that can delete or expedite the deletion of comments. So how do they even know you ever said anything?

[Pitchguest]

Where Ophelia Benson makes it all about her. Just...wow:

http://www.freezepage.com/1358535271ABIMUAWYYV

Ophelia Benson, what the fuck is wrong with you?

[welch]

I'm a bit late to the game here, but regarding circumcision:

I'm circumcised, and I've never felt upset about it at all, nor can I think of any ill effects I've suffered because of it. If anyone here is circumcised, and wishes they weren't, can you explain why?

While there are good arguments against circumcision, namely that unless there's a need for it, you shouldn't be cutting people, and in the industrialized world, what little need there is drops like a rock, it's become a breastfeeding/abortion/gun control argument. Sides have been drawn up and the other side is demonized.

There's little desire on either side to even listen at this point.

[ReneeHendricks]

Where Ophelia Benson makes it all about her. Just...wow:

http://www.freezepage.com/1358535271ABIMUAWYYV

Would you quote a relevant bit? My proxy doesn't allow freezepage through.

Here you go:

ophie.JPG

(83 KiB) Downloaded 158 times

[Pitchguest]

Where Ophelia Benson makes it all about her. Just...wow:

http://www.freezepage.com/1358535271ABIMUAWYYV

Would you quote a relevant bit? My proxy doesn't allow freezepage through.

The Bolshoi sounds like “the atheist community.”
The artistic director got acid thrown in his face yesterday. Apparently the Bolshoi is riven with deeeeep rifts. (That’s good, isn’t it? Riven with rifts? Same root, no doubt. I can’t say I use “riven” much. Every now and then though – well it’s the word that fits in the slot.)

…even before police find the culprits – if they ever do – many will connect the attack to the ongoing squabbles and infighting that have been plaguing this jewel of Russian culture.
Most of the squabbles that have affected the theatre have not been about money, but about personal competition, and they appear to have degenerated into nasty attacks on the talented dancer-turned-director.
Before acid was used in Friday’s attack, Sergei Filin had already received numerous phone threats, and his email and Facebook accounts had been hacked.

Interesting. One minute it’s just hacked Facebook accounts, the next it’s acid attacks. Maybe I should start wearing protection.

Hey, Ophelia! Maybe you can buy him some shoes to cheer him up, ey? Ey?

Cunt.

[welch]

Where Ophelia Benson makes it all about her. Just...wow:

http://www.freezepage.com/1358535271ABIMUAWYYV

Ophelia Benson, what the fuck is wrong with you?

She's good at her bullshit, i'll give her credit. She's now managed to equate everyone who disagrees with her with people throwing acid in people's faces.

[Parge]

I'm a bit late to the game here, but regarding circumcision:

I'm circumcised, and I've never felt upset about it at all, nor can I think of any ill effects I've suffered because of it. If anyone here is circumcised, and wishes they weren't, can you explain why?

The following is a TMI warning and shouldn't be read unless you're prepared for a frank discussion about my penis and environs.

[spoiler]I'm half circumcised, meaning I still have half a foreskin. Only the top bit was chopped off. I don't know if this is common or not. That's just how it seems to me. I often wonder if sex would feel different or more pleasurable if I had a full foreskin, but that's not a thought I entertain unless the discussion of circumcision comes up.

What really burns me about my personal genital configuration is that I often get my pubic hair caught in that half forskin. My penis vacillates between tumescence and flaccidity throughout the day. On the trip back down, the foreskin creeps up my bell-end , often taking a hunk of pubic hair with it. Sometimes it isn't a problem. But if I stand up when it's on the way back up, well it feels like there's a cat fight on my junk. Not fun. I've learned to live with it. I can usually casually reach into my pocket to clear the snare. That's hard to do though when I'm on a bike. For that reason alone, I wish I didn't get snipped. The other males in my family escaped the knife because they came into being in Merry Olde Blighty, whereas I made my debut in La Belle Province.[/spoiler]

[Pitchguest]

Gruelling video about the violence in Syria.

Spread the word.

[somedumbguy]

I'm a bit late to the game here, but regarding circumcision:

I'm circumcised, and I've never felt upset about it at all, nor can I think of any ill effects I've suffered because of it. If anyone here is circumcised, and wishes they weren't, can you explain why?

I'm Jewish, circumcised, two kids, and I think that circumcision should end. I am also agnostic.

I also keep kosher, but I understand that any medical reasons for keeping kosher, ie fears of trichinosis, have long gone away. Still, I keep a version of kosher that for me, lets me honor a culture I have been a part of, mainly, due to the philosophical, (but religious) "Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk". That helps me think about the food I eat, and think about our relationship to animals and how we treat them.

So I am circumcised, here it looks a bit like this

[spoiler]http://cigarsmokersland.com/files/how-t ... r-web2.jpg[/spoiler]

But I see no religious or medical need for it. The religious need can probably be performed with a ceremonial nick. The medical need seems to boil down to hygiene in most cases, and since this is not roughly 6000 years ago, the medical or hygiene issues in most cases can be taken care of through modern hygiene practices.

While I cannot tell you with a first person account that there is a loss of sensitivity through circumcision, there seems to be good anecdotal evidence there is, and a facially valid reason to believe there would be.

I find this page interesting, if not 1000% convincing: http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/jewish.htm especially where it states:

Moses Maimonides, the famed medieval Jewish rabbi, physician and philosopher ... Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible. It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally. This gave the possibility to everyone to raise an objection and to say: How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is for that member? In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally.

The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished. The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision.

All of that said, I also think that:

MRA groups that place male circumcision alongside Female Genital Mutilation need to learn how to a) prioritize, and b) pick their fights, and c) make a compelling argument because they are often wrong, annoying, and people are right to call them on it.

And I also think that while ending the practice of circumcision is best in the short, medium and long run, that fuck that shit, Germany is the last country on the planet to be taking the lead on this. If they want to support it fine, but they should out of some sense of history, let some other nations lead the way.

[skepCHUD]

Did they catch the perp that threw the acid in Ophelia's face?

[somedumbguy]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

So could a pitter or MRA make up a reasonable talk taking down one or more of the most bogus feminist arguments and expect to have such a talk accepted at Skepticon, or at TAM, or at ... where would be a good place for that?

It might be a useful exercise to get a group to put together such a talk, 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 40 minutes? Making it as brilliant as a group editing project could be, and then propose it at these conventions.

If it is accepted, fantastic, see what conversation occurs after that.
If it is not accepted, okay, well after several rejections, that should be pretty telling as well.

[Lsuoma]

I'm a bit late to the game here, but regarding circumcision:

I'm circumcised, and I've never felt upset about it at all, nor can I think of any ill effects I've suffered because of it. If anyone here is circumcised, and wishes they weren't, can you explain why?

I've been blind since birth, and I've never felt upset about it at all, nor can I think of any ill effects I've suffered because of it. If anyone here is blind, and wishes they weren't, can you explain why?

[Mykeru]

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

The problem is the atheist community has always had a divide between critical atheists who reject theism on skeptical grounds and those atheists who are the stereotype theists promote of being atheists because, without religion, anything is possible. Girl Write What did a video "Atheism, You Asked for It..." that explains the dynamic that I am not linking to for the umpteenth time.

Which makes sense. Atheism isn't a philosophy or even an ideology, so people bring all this shit in with them. One would hope this shit was skepticism, but that is hardly the case.

Look at "Atheism Plus", are they skeptics? Do they hold onto anything skeptical and rational methodology except as window dressing? And perhaps it has always been like this, but see the next comment:

Because through a lot of hard work and pulling teeth, atheism is now pretty much mainstream. Gosh, I can remember when people would tell me, "I've never even met an atheist!". So who wants to inherit this? Who wants to claim this success for their own? Radfems? Fuck that noise.

And there lies the problem: A take-over by the skeptical movement by something entirely irrelevant to it. I think the reason for this is exactly the same reason a nut like L. Ron Hubbard had such a bug up his ass over psychiatry and wanted to supplant it. Because under the eye of psychiatry, Hubbard was a fucking loon.

So why would an entirely irrational and anti-skeptical ideology try to take over the skeptical movment? Hmmn...

[UnbelieveSteve]

I thought their issue with Reap's language was the use of bitch...now it's motherfucker??

Ah, you mean the word that Physioproffe left on a blog post recently?

huh, i left his comment there for the lols.

[Mykeru]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

So could a pitter or MRA make up a reasonable talk taking down one or more of the most bogus feminist arguments and expect to have such a talk accepted at Skepticon, or at TAM, or at ... where would be a good place for that?

It might be a useful exercise to get a group to put together such a talk, 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 40 minutes? Making it as brilliant as a group editing project could be, and then propose it at these conventions.

If it is accepted, fantastic, see what conversation occurs after that.
If it is not accepted, okay, well after several rejections, that should be pretty telling as well.

If The Slyme Collective wants to script it, I can produce the hell out of it. Do it seriously, well documented, well-reasoned, irrefutable, so we can watch it shot down.

[Metalogic42]

@Parge:

[spoiler]All other things being equal, would it not be best to say that you wish you were either fully snipped, ornot at all? Although, I can see how a certain percentage of circumcisions being botched would be a good case for eliminating the practice in general.[/spoiler]

@somedumbguy:

Well, while I have no way to know whether I've suffered a loss of sensation, I've never found myself wishing I was more sensitive. Everything's always seemed to work just fine, although a larger sample size would be nice :lol:

@Lsuoma:

I don't think that works. If I were blind, everyone could easily point to severe difficulties, such as being prone to bumping into things, or not being able to enjoy paintings. What I'm asking for is examples of (metaphorically) what paintings I can't enjoy, or what things I bump into, because I'm circumcised.

----
Just to clarify, I do agree that it's not *necessary*, but it seems to me to be pretty low on the list of issues (Dear Muslima...)

[AbsurdWalls]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

So could a pitter or MRA make up a reasonable talk taking down one or more of the most bogus feminist arguments and expect to have such a talk accepted at Skepticon, or at TAM, or at ... where would be a good place for that?

It might be a useful exercise to get a group to put together such a talk, 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 40 minutes? Making it as brilliant as a group editing project could be, and then propose it at these conventions.

If it is accepted, fantastic, see what conversation occurs after that.
If it is not accepted, okay, well after several rejections, that should be pretty telling as well.

I think it would be a waste of time because it would only likely inflame tension and so exaggerate the effect I was talking about. A better response would be to focus on the other stuff that the movement could concern itself with. If it's difficult to do that then Mykeru is right, this "movement" doesn't make sense.

[AbsurdWalls]

The Bolshoi sounds like “the atheist community.”
The artistic director got acid thrown in his face yesterday. Apparently the Bolshoi is riven with deeeeep rifts. (That’s good, isn’t it? Riven with rifts? Same root, no doubt. I can’t say I use “riven” much. Every now and then though – well it’s the word that fits in the slot.)

…even before police find the culprits – if they ever do – many will connect the attack to the ongoing squabbles and infighting that have been plaguing this jewel of Russian culture.
Most of the squabbles that have affected the theatre have not been about money, but about personal competition, and they appear to have degenerated into nasty attacks on the talented dancer-turned-director.
Before acid was used in Friday’s attack, Sergei Filin had already received numerous phone threats, and his email and Facebook accounts had been hacked.

Interesting. One minute it’s just hacked Facebook accounts, the next it’s acid attacks. Maybe I should start wearing protection.

Wow, what a horrid thing to say.

[Mykeru]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

So could a pitter or MRA make up a reasonable talk taking down one or more of the most bogus feminist arguments and expect to have such a talk accepted at Skepticon, or at TAM, or at ... where would be a good place for that?

It might be a useful exercise to get a group to put together such a talk, 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 40 minutes? Making it as brilliant as a group editing project could be, and then propose it at these conventions.

If it is accepted, fantastic, see what conversation occurs after that.
If it is not accepted, okay, well after several rejections, that should be pretty telling as well.

If The Slyme Collective wants to script it, I can produce the hell out of it. Do it seriously, well documented, well-reasoned, irrefutable, so we can watch it shot down.

[Angry_Drunk]

Lord have mercy ya'll are obsessed with your wangs.


[spoiler]So here's a wang for you to enjoy:
http://www.theangrydrunk.com/wordpress/ ... o-dick.jpg[/spoiler]

[welch]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

So could a pitter or MRA make up a reasonable talk taking down one or more of the most bogus feminist arguments and expect to have such a talk accepted at Skepticon, or at TAM, or at ... where would be a good place for that?

It might be a useful exercise to get a group to put together such a talk, 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 40 minutes? Making it as brilliant as a group editing project could be, and then propose it at these conventions.

If it is accepted, fantastic, see what conversation occurs after that.
If it is not accepted, okay, well after several rejections, that should be pretty telling as well.

If you do a video about feminism, congrats, you've created a distraction from the immediate issue that will be used in precisely that fashion.

The immediate issue isn't feminism, that's a related issue. The immediate issue is the conduct of the FTB/Skepchick/A+ lot. I don't care about what version of feminism they believe in. I care that they are hypocritical assfaces using Scientology tactics.

For instance: If you think "mansplaining" is bad, great. But don't then mansplain and blow it off because when you do it, it's okay. If you think online threats are always bad, awesome, but that means they're JUST as bad when someone you agree with uses them as when someone you dislike uses them. If you're going to bag on creationists and ID'ers et al for selective memoryholing and banning, then when you do it, IT'S ALSO WRONG.

On and on. If you're going to do a "Butthurt 2012" tour about all the mean things people say about you, and how they use sexual statements to hurt you, you don't get to shit on people from the stage, and you don't get to use virginity as an insult. If you're going to be so outraged when creationists and theists quote-mine you, then YOU DON'T GET TO FUCKING QUOTE MINE.

Pretty much the *entirety* of my problems with that lot is that they *refuse* to live up to the standards they *demand* everyone else lives up to. If they at least did that, if they were at least consistent, ethically, morally, and in action, the fact they support some fucked-up form of feminism would bother me not at all.

Feminism is not the problem here, and if that's what you choose to attack, you are making a major mistake.

[somedumbguy]

[spoiler]

It's time to re-establish the atheist / skeptic community and exclude them from it. They can have their feminist conferences and the actual skeptics can do the actual skeptic work. I know people are going to say "You're just like the FtBers" and the answer is "No we aren't. You can come here and disagree with us, that's fine, but you can't co-opt a community of skeptics and say "You're all crazy gender feminists now, or you're outta here!".

I'm beginning to think the online Atheism movement might be a bubble.

I've not studied this in great depth, but it seems to me that most of the energy in organised online Atheism/Skepticism is going into either meta stuff about the movement or into internal feuding. I think that a lot of people are drawn into this either because they like drama, or because they see elements of it as being unjust and they are energised to oppose the injustice. This is one of the reasons why these problems seem so big, there isn't a lot of other stuff to compete with them for attention.

The consequence of this would be that healing the "deep rifts" in the community would actually shrink it.

So could a pitter or MRA make up a reasonable talk taking down one or more of the most bogus feminist arguments and expect to have such a talk accepted at Skepticon, or at TAM, or at ... where would be a good place for that?

It might be a useful exercise to get a group to put together such a talk, 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 40 minutes? Making it as brilliant as a group editing project could be, and then propose it at these conventions.

If it is accepted, fantastic, see what conversation occurs after that.
If it is not accepted, okay, well after several rejections, that should be pretty telling as well.

[/spoiler]

If The Slyme Collective wants to script it, I can produce the hell out of it. Do it seriously, well documented, well-reasoned, irrefutable, so we can watch it shot down.

Yes, that would be half the fun :(

[Chilly P.]

Yeah Way to miss the point. Yes the "costs" of the procedure are higher for adults, although I'm not sure about some risks (adults tend to be better at fighting infection, say). The point is what balance of those 4 cost/benefit factors could lead to Parental consent, rather than an expected/mandatory status or one left to the individual to choose for themselves?

Apologies. I got my brain stuck on the last sentence and MEGO over what went before.

[Eucliwood]

So, I'm watching some anime, and there's some sexy sexual harassment going on. I decide to put it in the TVtropes engine to see what tropes are there so I can find other anime with this steamy harassment going on. (Note that in anime I've seen the harassment go both ways, so don't think I only enjoy watching female on male harassment being Played For Laughs)

This is a bit random, but FtB really needs to look at this - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... maleOnMale
They are so deep in that shit, they don't even mention male victims (on their own, not when someone else has just criticized them about it), ever. They go out of their way to be sex-specific in discussions about it.

Let's not forget about this
[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/pR04y.png[/spoiler]

Anyway, here's what I'm talking about:


Onto the trope page:
[spoiler]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... maleOnMale

Double Standard Rape: Female on Male
"Obviously if you're watching a scene with a woman tied to a bed while a man forces sex on her, the final act of that movie will involve said man getting shot in the face by Bruce Willis. If, on the other hand, it's a man being tied down and forced into sex by a pretty lady, well, you're watching a wacky romantic comedy."
—C. Coville, Cracked, 6 Romantic Movie Gestures That Can Get You Prison Time

A Sub Trope of Double Standard. Rape is a special kind of Evil, beyond kicking the dog or any of the other acts of villainy in media. But there seems to be one exception: when the victim is a man and the attacker is a woman. Men are stereotyped as constantly wanting sex and of being stronger in general than women. Therefore, the idea that the man could have either not consented to sex with a woman or been incapable of fighting off a female aggressor if he did refuse sex is simply not taken seriously. Another commonly-held notion that the idea of female-on-male rape challenges is the false idea that since men have erections, they enjoy the sex, and hence is not rape or not as traumatic as any other kind of rape. The consequence of this line of thought is this trope

. A man raped by an attractive woman is considered a lucky man, and a man being raped by an unattractive woman is comedy gold. For a trope that suffers a similar attitude, see Hot for Student. Some forms of Gender Rarity Value could be considered a sub-trope. Often involves the Bed Trick, Love Potion or other fantastical means of sex. Compare The Unfair Sex, Double Standard Rape Sci Fi, Double Standard Rape Female On Female, Double Standard Rape Male On Male, Black Comedy Rape, Double Standard Rape Divine On Mortal, and All Women Are Lustful. See also All Abusers are Male, Double Standard Abuse: Female on Male and All Women Are Doms, All Men Are Subs.[/spoiler]
And it's not even just on TV. Just look around for some articles and see people's reactions to them. Attractive woman? "Hot mama! Wow... he said he was a virgin right? He should feel lucky, dude. what the fuck."
Unattractive woman? "Ew, lol haha! Gross! I feel sorry for him."
Raped while committing a crime: "Haha, he got SERVED."