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

The conversation about obesity (and smoking) has moved on to a point that I no longer feel the need to contribute. But here are courtesy replies to Phil_Giordana_FCD, Dave, jet_lagg and James Caruthers. VAXherd: I don't really have a problem with fat people (maybe a bit of a problem with morbidly ob...

Apparently I am supposed to feel guilty about finding fat people unattractive, and then make myself find fat people attractive, and then eagerly pay for Obamacare to treat fat people, and then feel shame and guilt about not wanting to pay for higher costs of health care due to obesity, and even pay...

TL;DR...No problem with someone being fat, big problems with them telling profit-making companies that their demands need to be met. Indeed. That would fall under my reference to "owning the decisions you make". As a general principle I would add that being unusual for any reason (even one you have...

When their choices in their own lives turn into a campaign for the rest of the world to embrace and get on board the exceedingly unhealthy weight train, it does become my business. Could you point me to the post(s) about that? I've seen people demand that everyone find fat folks beautiful and sexua...

Couldnt that be equally applied to all of our snark about PZ's career? Or even to a meth addict? Questions about what kinds of personal attacks are legitimate or acceptable on the forum have been a lively topic here. I think those discussions covered the issues well. Likewise on the matter of intox...

Do you have any specific grievances? Because right now it sounds as if you agree with the general sentiments stated, but don't think they were stated... sensitively enough? With enough consideration for the way fat people might feel? I'm not sure exactly. My main objection is that the discussion is...

Er... In fact, depending on the healthcare system you have, the way somebody lives their life IS your business. Indeed. Although the question then becomes where to draw the line? Drinking? Smoking? Tweeting while PSTDisordered? Sky-diving? ;-) Yes. And I doubt anyone here would want to give veto po...

James Caruthers wrote:My objection is with the SJW morbidly obese individuals (not those who struggle to lose weight and be healthy) ...

The place where you're going wrong is thinking that people's choices in their own lives are your business. It colors all the rest of your attempts to talk sense and help people.

Now that you've all had a good time with Fat Shaming, I'd just like to note that the discussion has missed the point grandly. â€¦ You sound fat. You sound like a cunt. I know. Sometimes I just can't help myself, Butterface. Sounds like you both took my meaning. That all depends on what you think th...

Now that you've all had a good time with Fat Shaming, I'd just like to note that the discussion has missed the point grandly. Fat Acceptance (echoing the Serenity Prayer) should be about accepting the parts of yourself you can't change, owning the decisions you make about the parts you can, and dism...

Something that may be of interest: Frans de Waal is giving a special lecture on the evolutionary basis of empathy, and it's relevance to social justice. It will be live streamed December 3, 6:00-7:00 p.m. PST: The Bonobo and the Atheist Morality, Religion, and Prosocial Primates Frans de Waal Living...

cunt wrote:It looks like it got out of hand though.

This is the 'pit, cunt. That's what it's here for.

I know you aren't being a jerk about it, but I get bummed when people assert that a degree of almost any other kind is worthless. A Medieval Studies major has (one hopes) spent years looking for small pieces of data in disparate places, absorbing a body of knowledge in a specific and general fields...

â€¦ The fact that [Carrier] took the time to summarize and refute the criticism (rather than just ignoring it or handwaving it away) shows that he takes it seriously. The tone he does it in is irrelevant to me, and I think it should be to you as well. I'm not suggesting everyone run out and become ...

What do you honestly think the reaction of the officers would be in real life? The honest answer is that I would be a laughingstock. Ordinary men understand that we will be held responsible for our actions, and excuses don't count. Thunderf00t didn't dwell on male responsibility, because it's not i...

Suppose you get drunk and you get mugged on your way home. You go to the police and they say: â€œ Man up! Your responsiblity. You got drunk, your fault. We know Jim, the mugger, but what's the problem!? You chose to get drunk, and thus its your fault that he mugged you. You practically asked for it...

Regarding the Thunderf00t video, I shouldn't read the pit first thing in the morning. We teach children to protect themselves in every situation, "Look both ways before you cross the street." Even if someone else is supposed to be taking care not to hurt us (such as car drivers), still we're all tau...

Disliking that video was the last thing I did on the SomeGreyBloke channel before unsubscribing. Hated doing both, but enough is enough. I did the same not two hours ago. :shifty: Crimony. Are you all that sensitive? If you liked his stuff before, I don't see why 2-3 videos should put you off. I pe...

Was this featured already? Melody Hensley was â€œschocked to see so many dislikesâ€ (probably shaking, in tears, too) â€” on a video where some guy mocks Richard Dawkins. Here is the storyfy . Ellen Beth, awesome again, is on top of it, again :D https://twitter.com/EllenBethWachs/status/3819280722...

I still don't see how [postmodernism] applies to scientific research or interpretation of data, and I certainly don't think that postmodernism refers to addressing social or environmental issues using scientific techniques, as PZ seems to believe. I'm not an expert but my impression is that postmod...

If you get Mrs. VAXherd riled about The Injustices She Experiences As A Woman, one of her big gotos is that back when she had to wait at bus stops at night, saying "I have a boyfriend" did not work. This phrase would have set off Rystefn's "Shag-Alert" if she was within 3 miles of his house. He'd t...

saying "I have a boyfriend" did not work.... In classic Skepchick kafkatrap fashion, the article wants it both ways. If the guy doesn't accept "I have a boyfriend" as equal to "no", then he's sexist. If the guy does accept "I have a boyfriend" as equal "no", then he's sexist: Well, straight guys ar...

The same feminists who discourage women from reporting rape to the police have gathered at Skepchick to agree with one another that women cannot simply tell a man "I'm not interested" to deflect unwanted romantic interest, but instead, it's absolutely necessary for women to hide behind the protecti...

And sorry to hear about your uh, building problem, VAX. Thank you. They assure us that the problem will be fixed. The proposed solution does, of course, involve digging a trench down the main corridor, restricting access to our suite for a few months. Which, in turn, will require finding an alterna...

when you have a ratio of 300:1 people to urinals, I don't care if you ARE checking me out. at that point it is all about efficiency, and no one wants to wait while you figure out which urinal you want to use. Farthest one down, pee, leave. I've only ever encountered ratios like that at major sporti...

Also, looking at what they had planned: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/1292-opinion-research-effort-by-jref-and-women-thinking-free-foundation-will-support-childhood-immunity.html The surveys are being collected by volunteers at events where parents may be especially vulnerable to an...

Just a scientific query on Elyse's skepchic post on GrotheRapeJokeGate They agreed, and gave us ~$5,000 to travel and conduct surveys around the country and for that, they would publish and promote the research for us. I don't quite understand what she means by "peer reviewed" and "published". It c...

218 PZ Myers 10 September 2013 at 9:11 pm (UTC -5) [...] Thatâ€™s postmodernism. Wake up and notice all your assumptions. If youâ€™re a good scientist, youâ€™re practicing postmodernism all the time The headachy thing is that I think this is close to true. The slight virtues of a post-modernist vie...

This is why somebody like Rebecca Watson is still around, she knows how to communicate, she knows how to talk the language of the people she is talking to. RW: "I was soooooo drunk last night. Now my head feels two feet wide and my mouth is like bad asphalt. Hee hee hee." Audience: "Preach it siste...

Sensationalist whiskey-dick in the works of Laden Y. Ellenbeth Hendricks Department of Evolutionary Psychology, University of California [...] I tweaked the automated PoMo generator to churn out Atheist Plus / SJW nonsense instead. I laughed like a bastard at dozens of 'essays' it crafted. Put me d...

Matt is now a joke. I've stopped watching the Atheist Experience because every time I do, I don't see a free thinker. I see a mean-spriited, biased gasbag and find that may, just may some of the criticisms that the religious made of him were accurate. Agreeing with religious people on anything scar...

I don't think PZ is trying to regain credibility. I think he knows that's irretrievable now and will just dig in further. For all these idiots the balance between reason and their emotions and passions is totally out of whack. They are 'driven' by their 'feelings' and the unquestionable righteousne...

Generally speaking the skeptical and atheist communities tend to be better than average at getting around this bias of human nature - but that is only because we have historically been able to pose the question "do you have any evidence for that?" - the foundational question of scientific skepticis...

I think most (all?) people have a world view - a model that makes sense of what's going on and the best way to operate in our environment + what's right and what's wrong. Most of us, I'm guessing have a 'world view' informed by atheism ie value and values must be defined outside of divine command t...

A group who got together and tried to identify and reevaluate prevailing opinions which are skewed by religion or other woo is no bad idea really. But I suspect it could only be useful in identifying problems and not in finding answers. We can take it as a given that pretty soon feminists, Marxists...

Actually I think atheism and skepticism is a personal enabler and it's simple message needs repeating to new people and once understood you are free to go and grow. It's atheism as a world view that then demands an enabling ideology and from that dogma. I don't think we disagree, but it's worth men...

goddamn 'nym wrote:
ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:In which case it definitely never happened.
Surely you wouldn't try to pull the old "you can't disprove the existence of God" trick on me on a skeptic forum?

Don't worry, they're just envious of the Internet Tough Guy cred all these "I totally would be a murderer if only it were safe" people.

welch wrote: Here, the Pit reacts to...something:
http://www.gurl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2.gif

http://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6291332608/h10615AD6/

There are several aspects of this that I find relevant. Complete with intersectionality.

[youtube]O-IcPx9uD0U[/youtube]

Speaking of "fresh eyes". I was explaining tablegate to the wife, and when I got to the "Thor in Thursday" part her eyes got enormous.

"I thought you were going to say, 'Let's keep the Thor in Thorazine!'"

Just thought I'd share.

Derek Colanduno is host of Skepticality, official podcast of Skeptic Magazine and the Skeptics Society, which Shermer founded . http://www.skepticality.com/about-us/ But, of course, in his role as policy-enforcer today, Colanduno could have just been responding to complaints lodged by people who'd ...

Derek Colanduno is host of Skepticality, official podcast of Skeptic Magazine and the Skeptics Society, which Shermer founded. http://www.skepticality.com/about-us/ But, of course, in his role as policy-enforcer today, Colanduno could have just been responding to complaints lodged by people who'd p...

She was raped on four different occasions? I'm sorry, but seriously??? What are the odds? That seems pretty far fetched. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but statistically, that's pretty unbelievable. I read her stories. They are sad and they appear believable. Her article was well-written and nice...

I'm trying to respond to the claims made about me on FtB, but I can't seem to post. Either I get sent to a login screen where I'm trying to use my Google account (doesn't work) or it gets stuck in perpetual purgatory. [...] He claims "the Slymepit" (putting us all in the same basket) portrays this ...

bhoytony wrote:I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Dr fucking Who. Now all the children will want to play.

In college I knitted my (now) wife a fifteen foot long multi-colored scarf. She wore it everywhere for years. So there.

Sadly, I can imagine a doctor receiving nothing more than a private e-mail accusing him or her of impropriety, and freaking out. Even just as a computer guy, in that position I would take the e-mail straight to my boss and the appropriate office. If an accusation from an anon source arrived in his ...

Are we to seriously believe that Richard Sandersons tweet about oolons comment, has put women's lives at risk - and nearly cost Avicenna his job and career? How is that even remotely possible? Technically, I work for a University Hospital. They can be very strict about such things, both from regula...

Scented Nectar wrote:
Tribble wrote:For Ms Nectar, the NSFW version: Kilts & Cocks -- http://scotsmen.tumblr.com/
It seems kilts are a genre of porn. Learning something new every day! :)

"When correctly viewed, everything is lewd."

[youtube]Pva35TFiBfI[/youtube]

Omnibus reply post: And apparently you have currently got a little fire putting a bit of ash in one of San Franciscos water reservoirs. Yow! It's a fire the size of Chicago near Yosemite National Park, hitting the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, affecting water and electricity for San Francisco, 300Km away....

California is suffering from progressively severe water shortages. Farmers are having to let certain crops die out or replace them with crops that don't require as much irrigation due to water quotas. But uhm, no worries, some future genius will fix this problem. Somehow. Someday. This is quite vis...

Regarding the Ashley Paramore (Heathy Addict) Conference Assault. RazorBladeKandy has just posted a walk through of her video from an MRA perspective. I think it's perceptive and fair (if a bit long). The commenters pointed out an older video by DarkMatter2525 that might illustrate the context of th...

Next, I plan to describe the experiment, but I'd like to keep these posts short. So let's check in with you here. Anything unscientific or unclear so far? No, please continue. For the experiment we needed to build a model of the real world situation. This meant creating a game that people could pla...

All science so far! Sorry for the delay; had other demands on my time. As an example of what social scientists do, I'll be referring to my own dissertation. The area was Social Networks, and the focus was on whether your position in a network could give you power, aside from any skills you might ha...

I didn't interpret that clip as "I don't understand it, therefore it's wrong." I interpreted it as Feynman showing a great skeptical attitude about the general kinds of conclusions he hears from an average social scientist (and probably, VAX, judging the worst, though perhaps more vocal, of the fie...

I hate to criticize Richard Feynman, but that was "I don't understand it, therefore it's wrong." He tried working outside his field on a few occasions and didn't do very well. Looks like he should have learned more from that than he did. I don't know, he did pretty well in physics for a bongo-playi...

[hostile] No, the difference is that social sciences speak to things people think they already understand, and frequently say things they don't want to hear. It's like everyone's a biblical literalist and we're studying fossils. [/hostile] Sounds like a lot of topics discussed in the Manosphere. Sp...

I hate to criticize Richard Feynman, but that was "I don't understand it, therefore it's wrong." He, of course, had many sensible things to say, and made many significant contributions - enough that some have called him "our patron saint" [Leon Lederman, The God Particle]. But he also made, I think...

The thing that gets me riled up enough to go keyboard warrior is that most fields are judged by their best practitioners, but mine tends to be judged by its worst. No one looked at the Cold Fusion bunglers and said "Ha ha! Chemists are ALL booger heads!" But let a social scientist say something stu...

The types of Psychology and Sociology that I've seen the slymepitters hate on most tend to comes from areas such as Theoretical Psychology, Critical Social Psychology, and general Critical Theory (or basically anything based on social constructionism). The last survey I recall suggested that 15% of...

Richard Feynman on social science. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaO69CF5mbY I hate to criticize Richard Feynman, but that was "I don't understand it, therefore it's wrong." He tried working outside his field on a few occasions and didn't do very well. Looks like he should have learned more from t...

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