Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

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Turglemeister
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#976

Post by Turglemeister »

FtB is so screwed up right now. The name of the blog is so jokes. I'm starting to think that Peezus is and eight year old in a fatsuit.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#977

Post by another lurker »

;) Corylus wrote:
However, a friend of mine found out by accident that there were (up until recently anyways) two html tags for comment blockquoting at his place, one is the usual, and the other is <q aka "quick quotation". This second one being rigged to quote in comic sans so that the commentariat can have an in-joke laugh at the general mockery, and those unsure can know who to mock. Hmm, now, that's somewhat unsporting to the average Joe newbie off to Pharyngula to have a pleasant chat and friendly disagree, I thought.
Yes, but hey, Pharyngula is an intimidating place. It's not for everyone And those who are mocked most surely deserve it no? ;)

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#978

Post by rayshul »

fascination wrote:Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night. If she has this disorder then she wouldn't know whether the man had attended the conference or not. So he may not have heard her speech.
Thank you for coming back to the Pit to try to have a discussion!
She did actually mention it once elsewhere on her blog, prior to Elevatorgate. Rystfn (where is he!!! He's not sick again is he? -.-), as an ex friend, has expressed severe doubts that this is an actual diagnosed condition, though.

somedumbguy
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#979

Post by somedumbguy »

Pharyngula is literally filled with tentacle rape.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#980

Post by AbsurdWalls »

lost control wrote:
AbsurdWalls wrote:
surreptitious57 wrote:
Metalogic42 wrote:
They do this on A+ a lot and it is one of the things that grinds my gears the most. Their ( shitty ) reasoning is that Person of X is better than X person, because X person puts the X first instead of the person. fFucking word order matters now. Do not worry about parsing a sentence, just line up those words in the right order, and no cutsies
I was once taken to task by SubMor for referring to a black as such and and not as a black person because the omission of person was dehumanising. It might be more appropriate to describe them as such but I think it is stretching it beyond reason to label it as he did however. But language is very important over at Atheism Plus now. I have seen a poster been taken to task for referring to hookers as prostitutes even though there is a thread title with that very word in it now. Even hookers as a term has been questioned too. Apparently you can only use it if either you are one yourself or if you have been given permission by hookers themselves. I am all for challenging derogatory and inflammatory language, but some take it way too far. I was also once told that I do not get to define words I write, but if I do not have responsibility for them then who does ? This is why I no longer post there. Too much emphasis on being politically correct and not enough on just debating issues - though I must add that it is not actually a debate forum as such but a safe space for the marginalised - but even so
Yeah, referring to "blacks" as opposed to "black people" sounds racist to me too. It might be because usually people who talk about "blacks" do so as part of the exposition of an idea that is racist, rather than it actually being an offensive term in itself, but I think I should FYI you that it would get my attention.

Not trying to police your language or anything, just saying that other non-SJW people will also judge you for using "blacks".
I admit, I'm not yet really following Rugby, but if I'd be rooting for the All Blacks I'm a racist now? Oh, fuck off...
Were you born this stupid or is it something you've had to work at?

bhoytony
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#981

Post by bhoytony »

I see Phil is lying low after inviting his friend to look down upon us from on high and deliver his wisdom on tablets of stone that we may gaze on them in awe.
Is Phil on another two-glasses-of-Baileys bender or is he just embarassed?

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#982

Post by jimthepleb »

bhoytony wrote:
Tkmlac wrote: One thing I haven't perfected in my new venture into tea is biscuits. How do I pick a good biscuit? I'm a US American, is there any hope for me?
Biscuits have been discussed in some detail on these threads. I suggest you search them for the phrase "Tunnock's Caramel Wafers"
again NOT A BISCUIT...jesus this is the last place i thought i'd have to get all 'language police' on your arses!

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#983

Post by bhoytony »

jimthepleb wrote:
bhoytony wrote:
Tkmlac wrote: One thing I haven't perfected in my new venture into tea is biscuits. How do I pick a good biscuit? I'm a US American, is there any hope for me?
Biscuits have been discussed in some detail on these threads. I suggest you search them for the phrase "Tunnock's Caramel Wafers"
again NOT A BISCUIT...jesus this is the last place i thought i'd have to get all 'language police' on your arses!
As Wee Frank would say - GTF.

fascination
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#984

Post by fascination »

rayshul wrote:
fascination wrote:Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night. If she has this disorder then she wouldn't know whether the man had attended the conference or not. So he may not have heard her speech.
Thank you for coming back to the Pit to try to have a discussion!
She did actually mention it once elsewhere on her blog, prior to Elevatorgate. Rystfn (where is he!!! He's not sick again is he? -.-), as an ex friend, has expressed severe doubts that this is an actual diagnosed condition, though.
Thanks Rayshul, I was unaware of that. I'll try a search later.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#985

Post by Pitchguest »

Spence wrote:Ahahaha, julian's response to Welch is just priceless idiocy. Screencapped here for posterity:

[spoiler]
julian_laden_sitting_in_a_tree.png
[/spoiler]

Firstly, in julian's world, trying to trigger PTSD one-on-one is jus' fine and dandy, but it seems to have escaped julian's awareness that for Greg, this *is* something he does every day. There's his doxxing of Mykeru's ex-wife, doxxing and strange behaviour over Maria Maltseva, trying to get Abbie Smith fired from her job, and on one of the threads on FfTB defending Laden I seem to even remember one of the pharyngula commenters weighing in and claiming Laden had done something similar to them (I wish I could remember who it was or find it now).

Laden has pretty much built a career out of it, but julian is (as usual) willfully ignorant.
Salted something, if I recall.

SC (Salty Current), OM. That's it. She's the one who's got a gripe with Laden as well.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/ ... alty-curr/

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#986

Post by Tigzy »

Further to my earlier post - actually, I think that in the case of certain flora, it is definitely advisable to have a trigger warning.

Trigger warning for Flower allergies:
[spoiler]http://i45.tinypic.com/3007iag.png[/spoiler]

papillon
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#987

Post by papillon »

BarnOwl wrote:Thanks to all for your thoughts and input on the dog situation
Probably a bit late now, but if it was feasible to take him in, I would. (I know, easy for me to say)
I got mine at 15 months old because I didn't want to fund some amateur puppy farm. His owners were letting him go for no other reason than he was too energetic and boisterous.
Turns out it wasn't some fault of his, he just needed the right outlet. He was like a coiled spring.
If you take this pup and can keep him exercised, he won't care if you've got a tenth of an acre or a hundred acres, he'll just be happy and fulfilled.
Have you walked him with your other two yet? If they can walk and exercise together, they'll quickly integrate him into the pack. He's only a pup, so he'll calm down in time, and he'll learn the ropes from your other two.
I wouldn't worry too much about your time and affection being spread too thinly with three rather than two. Yes, they like the human affection, but live completely in the moment. I don't think your two dogs will be spending their evenings ruminating about the good old days when there was just the two of them and you.
Let them get on with being dogs and they'll figure it out.
Oh, and I'd ask the husband to spring for a years supply of the pup's food as a condition of your taking him in.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#988

Post by Bhurzum »

Biscuit = goes soft when stale.
Cake = goes hard when stale.

There's a pun (or ten) in there somewhere :P

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#989

Post by welch »

Corylus wrote:Quick delurk. I thought I would make a quick point as someone who generally observes.

Louis - it's not easy to go an chat on a forum on which you know in advance that most people will disagree with you. It takes a great deal of concentration and willingness not lose your temper. I sometimes go on theist fora to keep my mind sharp (not to troll) so I know a little of what I speak, that said, I do find myself nearly always liking some people by the end of the conversation. I like people on the whole. Now, for the record, I disagree with some of what you have said and also agree with some of it too. However, I am not going to go into details as you have lots of people to talk to at the moment.

Anyway, I thought I would just tell you the final "convincer" for me about the probity or otherwise of PZ. It was a general point rather than a grumpy outburst in an argument (which can happen to anyone), it was his utilization of comic sans. (WOT?!?) Well, of course, I have no problem with his quoting someone with whom he disagrees in a comedy font: his blog his choice. (If a rather childish one).

However, a friend of mine found out by accident that there were (up until recently anyways) two html tags for comment blockquoting at his place, one is the usual, and the other is <q aka "quick quotation". This second one being rigged to quote in comic sans so that the commentariat can have an in-joke laugh at the general mockery, and those unsure can know who to mock. Hmm, now, that's somewhat unsporting to the average Joe newbie off to Pharyngula to have a pleasant chat and friendly disagree, I thought.

This struck me as the action of someone who is not just too busy to uber moderate, but someone who was either interested in fostering othering behaviour, or someone not smart enough to see this as a possible consequence. The latter seemed unlikely, as he has managed to get to Professor level. It was, as I say, unsporting.

That was it. The final straw. A font.

Yes. Yes. I am a nerd.

No need to reply, just a data point.
That one, I have to give PeeZus kudos for. It's funny as hell if used well, (which would be his real problem.) I liked it enough that I stole the fuck out of it, and it's now a CSS item on my site:

<blockquote class="idiot"></blockquote>

blockquote.idiot
{
padding-left: 24px;
padding-bottom: 12px;
padding-right: 24px;
padding-top: 12px;
font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide;
font-style: italic;
background-color: #d8d8d8;
text-align: left;
text-indent: 12pt;
max-width: 609px;
margin-right: auto;
margin-left: auto;
border: solid 1px #060606;
}

rayshul
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#990

Post by rayshul »

I'm going to report this short from RR... nice little summary of the problems with being skeptical and feminism.

http://richardreed84.wordpress.com/2013 ... ompatible/
welch wrote:How many bordello parties do you have at your workplace? How many organized drinking events? When you're presenting on a work subject to coworkers, how long do you spend regaling them with Tales of Last Night?

There would appear to be a rather wide gulf between the workplace and atheist/skeptic conferences. Funny that.
I have to say, last year's Christmas party was fucking awesome... :)
MadGav wrote:Delurking to winge about pet peev: I'm not a fan of 'diagnosis by internet' and, even in meat-space, personality disorder tends to be used as a perjorative label rather than an actual diagnosis.
I'm starting to agree with you here, especially as the internet diagnosis get more and more random... I don't think it's helpful.

& sorry, I might add this to Damion re: the doxxing earlier -

We had a similar situation when JV put Melody's details on the 'pit. No it's not doxxing per se if the person uses their real name and has that information readily available, but it's not a nice thing to publicise especially if it's the wrong person!!! and Jerry Conlon's doxxing quote surrounding it meant that the doxxing was associated with the accusation. You're right (assuming they got the right person) that it's hard to measure actual harm but it's also not a particularly good thing to do.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#991

Post by jimthepleb »

Bhurzum wrote:Biscuit = goes soft when stale.
Cake = goes hard when stale.

There's a pun (or ten) in there somewhere :P
i read the above as an endorsement of my biscuit fascism.

Pitchguest
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#992

Post by Pitchguest »

rayshul wrote:We had a similar situation when JV put Melody's details on the 'pit.
Just a small correction: Amy's details, not Melody's.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#993

Post by Tigzy »

fascination wrote: Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night...
Minor point of order - Becky had actually mentioned her face-blindness thing prior to the Elevatorgate event: http://skepchick.org/2007/05/waste-time ... r-science/

Not that it makes me any less suspicious of Becky's EG narrative. However, the facts - as far as we can find them - need to be clear.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#994

Post by Steersman »

Lsuoma wrote: [spoiler]
Altair wrote:
Louis wrote:
Altair wrote:...demolished.

Again, thanks for posting a link to a specific event, I prefer to discuss things like this than talk about generalities.
Don't think I said demolished as it happens. Think I said "mostly dealt with". Looks like *I'm* going to have to do all the work myself doesn't it? Fuck a doodle doo.
Somehow I was expecting a longer response.
[/spoiler]I think Louis might get on well with Steerzo...
You might well have a point there, Limphoma, other than the one at the top of your head.

But I sort of doubt it considering my repeated defense of the argument that Shermer's statement - "it's more of a guy thing" - is not at all sexist in response to Brayton's post pontificating from the pulpit on the question of "Shermer and the myth of feminist persecution". When credible pollsters like the Pew Forum note that the ratio of men to women who identify as atheists is 64% to 36% one might reasonably argue that "it's more of a guy thing" is more a statement of fact than anything approaching sexism.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#995

Post by Corylus »

welch wrote: That one, I have to give PeeZus kudos for. It's funny as hell if used well, (which would be his real problem.) I liked it enough that I stole the fuck out of it, and it's now a CSS item on my site: ...
You've put some work into that one!

However, still don't like it. I would never do that.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#996

Post by Angry_Drunk »

welch wrote:
That one, I have to give PeeZus kudos for. It's funny as hell if used well, (which would be his real problem.) I liked it enough that I stole the fuck out of it, and it's now a CSS item on my site:

<blockquote class="idiot"></blockquote>

blockquote.idiot
{
padding-left: 24px;
padding-bottom: 12px;
padding-right: 24px;
padding-top: 12px;
font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide;
font-style: italic;
background-color: #d8d8d8;
text-align: left;
text-indent: 12pt;
max-width: 609px;
margin-right: auto;
margin-left: auto;
border: solid 1px #060606;
}
Marker Felt should be first in that stack, let the 'softies deal with Comic Sans.

Za-zen
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#997

Post by Za-zen »

My case of Greta has paid off.

One point i will pile on is the accusation that tfoot is a sexist. Making that claim unarmed Louis demonstrates you have bought into and are perpetuating the narrative. That really is a case of put up or shut up. Actually put up or fucking withdraw it.

Who else is a sexist by horde common wisdom? Shermer? Dawkins? Harris? Shit isn't it funny, those are the same names who think FFtb are full of shit. Just coincidence.

Dick Strawkins
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#998

Post by Dick Strawkins »

Louis wrote: No one, not RW, not me, not anyone has objected to the mere fact of being hit on. To claim that is a straw man. A really, bone fide, gross misrepresentation of what is being claimed.

Rebecca Watson:
"It’s just something you deal with as a woman, a lot of women deal with this, but eventually it just gets tiring and it starts to wear on me. And, I mentioned that as something that there are other women that don’t like putting up with that at all, and that it would be helpful if people would not see the conferences as a meat market, so much as a place to meet friends and interesting people and have intellectual conversations because that’s what a lot of women are there for. And I had heard from a lot of women who were being driven away from these events because of constantly having men hit on them. Or even groping them or treating them in a disrespectful manner."
So Rebecca wants the conferences to be:
"a place to meet friends and interesting people and have intellectual conversations because that’s what a lot of women are there for"
And remember, they are not there to be hit upon.

That's fair enough for me.
I don't have any plans to attend such events so whether it's a "meatmarket" or an "intellectual conversation" hangout doesn't make any difference to me so lets not pretend there have been no calls by Watson to make it a safe environment for those women who under no circumstance want to get hit on by members of the sausage fest.

cunt
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#999

Post by cunt »

lol

[youtube]zQ36S3d1CaU[/youtube]

Skep tickle
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1000

Post by Skep tickle »

Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote: Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night...
Minor point of order - Becky had actually mentioned her face-blindness thing prior to the Elevatorgate event: http://skepchick.org/2007/05/waste-time ... r-science/

Not that it makes me any less suspicious of Becky's EG narrative. However, the facts - as far as we can find them - need to be clear.
RW says in the (very short) blog post at that link:
...It’s interesting because I’ve always had a problem with one specific kind of visual memory — faces. I can’t remember a face (short-term or long-term) to save my life, but apparently if all the people I meet every day had faces composed for an Atari game, I’d be okay.
And in the comments:
...I've heard of a disorder in which people just can't remember faces at all, even the faces of long-time friends or relatives. I'm not that bad, as eventually I do learn. Unless a person has extremely distinctive features (say, three noses), it takes me about a dozen times of meeting them before I can confidently identify them in a small crowd, though larger crowds and unfamiliar settings throw me off. ...
(my bolding)

...and, to add to the many times it's been asked, so how exactly did she "know" that Elevator guy had been in the bar & had heard her talking nonstop about how she disliked being hit on so much?

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1001

Post by fascination »

Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote: Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night...
Minor point of order - Becky had actually mentioned her face-blindness thing prior to the Elevatorgate event: http://skepchick.org/2007/05/waste-time ... r-science/

Not that it makes me any less suspicious of Becky's EG narrative. However, the facts - as far as we can find them - need to be clear.
Thank you for the link. Rayshul corrected me up thread. I was going to search on Skepchick later in the day for the previous mention of face blindness but now you've saved me the time! :)

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1002

Post by Skep tickle »

[spoiler]
Zenspace wrote:
Louis wrote:
I'm going to ask you all a question now, a very simple one. Here is Michael Shermer (someone I admire and enjoy the works of very much) saying something that caused consternation:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a guy thing”
Do any of you think that statement is sexist?

How about this:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a white thing”
Do any of you think that is statement racist?

I've changed one single word. The logic, the sense is identical. I've only changed the target. Note, I am NOT asking "do you think Michael Shermer is an evil sexist slimebag who should be put to death in a Feminazi Retraining Camp" I am asking (effectively) if the guy made a simple mistake, just like anyone can do, and make a sexist utterance? It's no great shakes, there's no "gotcha" at the end. Although I'd be really interested if anyone thinks the first one is not sexist and the second one is racist, that would be worthy of examination.

Cheers.
Louis,

Thanks for returning. Not that it likely matters to you, but I was not impressed with your initial pass through the forum. Seeing your posts today is causing me to reconsider that opinion quite a bit. I would also add that I think you are doing a pretty good job of maintaining mostly level headed coherence in a complex, multifaceted conversation, possibly better than I would have done in similar circumstances. So, niceties out of the way, I would like to touch on only two points that you presented. Others are addressing most of the others, from what I can see in my quick skim - hopefully to your satisfaction.

First, the quotes presented, as stand alone comments, are meaningless. As you have said in many of your own responses - context matters. Both of the statements offered are structured such that they need the context of the surrounding conversation to comprise a coherent statement. To the first, I would answer an emphatic 'NO'. But here I have the advantage of knowing the context of that conversation, having watched the presentation and having read the transcript. The second statement I can't offer an opinion, because there is no context to associate it with. For the sake of discussion, lets assume that Shermer was speaking to the lack of minority participation at conventions rather than women (which may have been your intent anyway). Given that context, I would also answer 'NO, it is not a racist remark.' The reason simply being that even a casual observation will indicate the statement is a true observation of reality. There are far fewer minority attendees that white attendees at skeptic/atheist conferences. Unfortunately, when dealing with inherently touchy and hair-trigger topics such as these, casual language (inherent cultural aspects there-in, which you reference elsewhere) will trip you up if not careful, especially when there is a particular group of vultures waiting exactly for that slip up and who are perfectly willing, eager even, to build a large mountain out of that molehill. This is obviously what happened in Shermer's case (BTW - like you I am a fan).

Second, you made the following observation
"In my opinion, you can tell a huge amount about a culture/group from their comedy. From what jokes they tell each other. For me, the best jokes don't "punch down" power gradients, they "punch up". So satirising people in power, that kind of thing, those are the things I find funniest. The court jester mocking the king, the slave in Caesar's ear telling him he's just a man, that sort of deal. Jokes that punch down power gradients are rarely, in my experience, distinguishable from outright bigotry, there's usually something nasty curdling away underneath and it's usually fairly easy to expose."
[/spoiler]
Zenspace wrote:I don't think I've seen this concept presented anywhere prior to this, but it is logical and very relevent. The Pyt, as you no doubt have come to quickly realize, is a bit of a chaotic free-for-all. Quality of the comments and contributions cover the full gamut of terrible to brilliant. Mixed in with all that is plenty of off-color and not always relevent commentary. A lot of people just cannot adapt to this sort of freewheeling structure. Beyond that, however, is your "punch up" gradient observation. This is what the Pyt is for, and its target is FtB/Skepchic/A+. What makes it interesting, at least one aspect of it anyway, is that the Pyt is to FtB as FtB was once to Creationists. The small, annoying, loud critic railing against the bigger, more established power structure that is its target. Is it effective? I would have to say yes, but if you've hung around here long enough, you will know that even that gets worked over pretty thoroughly here. You would have to go back to the reasons the pyt was started in the first place to fully appreciate the history and reasoning behind it. It will also become apparent that not everyone here agrees on even that topic!

Someone recently posted a link to a blog post/letter 'to the pit' that did a great job of explaining this. I've lost the link, but hopefully someone else can provide it.

That's pretty much it for me, already more verbose than intended. Hopefully it was a worthwhile addition to the conversation.
Letter to the Slime Pit: http://rationalugandan.wordpress.com/20 ... slime-pit/

Guest

Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1003

Post by Guest »

VickyCaramel wrote:
Louis wrote:When used as insults terms like "bitch" and "twat" and "cunt" are inseparable from sexism. They are unambiguous negative referents to feminine/female as negative. Incidentally, "prick" and "cock" are inseparable from sexism too for the identical reasons. In all cases that is an act of sexism. There's a contextual difference which I'll get to later, but there's no difference inherent in the actual words in terms of sexism. They are reductive, they reduce a person to some perceived negative quality to do with their sex. That's sexism. Like the words "nigger" or "paki" used as insults are an unambiguous negative referent to race, and perceived negative qualities to do with race, are racist. Same mechanism.
Louis, if I were to decide to call you a dick, it wouldn't because I looked at you and thought, "You are a bit like something I don't like, what don't I like? I don't like dick, so I will call you a dick". And nor would the image of a penis enter my mind, before, during, or after calling you a dick.

Truth is, I like penis. I like penis a lot. (You can quote me on that.)

I'm also very fond of vaginas... I have one of my very own and have lovingly taken care of it for 41 years.

The truth is that words like 'cock', 'dick', 'bitch', 'twat' and 'cunt' are very harsh, sharp words due to their high 'c', 'k' and 't' content. This makes them seem very appropriate for expression strong emotions about somebody... either because you are really pissed off with them, or because you are really enjoying their lovely cock/cunt.
Your fondness for cocks and vaginas aside, what's so terrible about the idea that insults or slurs are reductive? The word "douchebag" doesn't seem, to me, to meet your criteria for harsh, sharp words, but it is an effective insult.

jimthepleb
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1004

Post by jimthepleb »

[youtube]aBbE-v4VTxw[/youtube]

Skep tickle
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1005

Post by Skep tickle »

fascination wrote:Thank you for the link. Rayshul corrected me up thread. I was going to search on Skepchick later in the day for the previous mention of face blindness but now you've saved me the time! :)
Googling "skepchick prosopagnosia" (w/o quotes) brings it up more quickly... :)

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1006

Post by Skep tickle »

BTW, how have you been feeling, fascination? Morning sickness abating at all?

cunt
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1007

Post by cunt »

The word "douchebag" doesn't seem, to me, to meet your criteria for harsh, sharp words, but it is an effective insult.
Nobody cares if somebody calls them a douchebag.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1008

Post by Dick Strawkins »

Skep tickle wrote:
...and, to add to the many times it's been asked, so how exactly did she "know" that Elevator guy had been in the bar & had heard her talking nonstop about how she disliked being hit on so much?
Sorry Dr Tickle, you are attempting to apply 'skepticism' to the question.

Have you no shame?

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1009

Post by jimthepleb »

Guest wrote:
VickyCaramel wrote:
Louis wrote:When used as insults terms like "bitch" and "twat" and "cunt" are inseparable from sexism. They are unambiguous negative referents to feminine/female as negative. Incidentally, "prick" and "cock" are inseparable from sexism too for the identical reasons. In all cases that is an act of sexism. There's a contextual difference which I'll get to later, but there's no difference inherent in the actual words in terms of sexism. They are reductive, they reduce a person to some perceived negative quality to do with their sex. That's sexism. Like the words "nigger" or "paki" used as insults are an unambiguous negative referent to race, and perceived negative qualities to do with race, are racist. Same mechanism.
Louis, if I were to decide to call you a dick, it wouldn't because I looked at you and thought, "You are a bit like something I don't like, what don't I like? I don't like dick, so I will call you a dick". And nor would the image of a penis enter my mind, before, during, or after calling you a dick.

Truth is, I like penis. I like penis a lot. (You can quote me on that.)

I'm also very fond of vaginas... I have one of my very own and have lovingly taken care of it for 41 years.

The truth is that words like 'cock', 'dick', 'bitch', 'twat' and 'cunt' are very harsh, sharp words due to their high 'c', 'k' and 't' content. This makes them seem very appropriate for expression strong emotions about somebody... either because you are really pissed off with them, or because you are really enjoying their lovely cock/cunt.
Your fondness for cocks and vaginas aside, what's so terrible about the idea that insults or slurs are reductive? The word "douchebag" doesn't seem, to me, to meet your criteria for harsh, sharp words, but it is an effective insult.
Do you have a list handy of the 'reductive' words we need to expunge from the language?

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1010

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

Louis. Too much to answer at the mo. Will try to find time soon. Just to answer one question.

[spoiler]
Louis wrote:Lastly (and there was much rejoicing) is number 4) which touches on bits of 2). I think the relevant bit is this:
Arguments over individual issues are not relevant. It's about the right to argue over issues and attempts to poison the well in the atheist community. It's about the tactics being used to do that.
To the best of my knowledge, and please present evidence to the contrary, no one is stopping anyone from arguing over anything within the atheist community. You might find yourself unwelcome at this blog or that blog, just like I might, but I think the actual censorship you are claiming is non-existent. I also think it's non-existent or exceedingly rare that, for example, some group or person is banned from any and all conferences and venues. Who is stopping you from going to CFI conferences or some big atheist conference and arguing your case? Volunteer to host a poster session or a break out talk, ask questions of presenters, try to be a presenter yourself etc. Who's stopping you from going to your local Sceptics in the Pub or something similar and airing your views, or even presenting at such? Again, as far as I am aware, no one.

What IS happening is people are disagreeing with you, and, when stupid shit gets pulled because I think we all know it is getting pulled, not letting you (or me) get away with it. What the fuck is wrong with that? I EXPECT criticism. I LIKE criticism. It's how I learn. That doesn't make every critic worth my time. What IS happening in some places is the people who run those places don't want to deal with specific types of criticism or people. For whatever reason. I agree with you that some of those reasons can/could be nefarious, underhanded etc, but I've not seen evidence of such. Pre-emptively banning Slymepitters is PZ's choice as landlord of the Pharyngula Tentacles isn't in my opinion a bad thing, sorry.

I might not find that fair, I might not care about it, but it's undeniable it's his right to do so. Someone I rather like is John Wilkins of Evolving Thoughts, he has a "don't shit on the carpet" type policy, the comments of his blog are pretty civil (in a way that Pharyngula isn't) and pretty thoughtful (in a way Pharyngula is occasionally, noise to signal again). That's a difference of style not one right one wrong. /b/ has pretty much no rules at all and the quality of the conversation there is commensurately fucking atrocious. I'm not an advocate of Structure Uber Alles, but structure sometimes works. The structure of the paper allows the pen to write on it freely, the structure of a brick, less so. I'm not defending PZ to say I don't mind his structure any more than I am criticising him when I say I like Wilkins' structure too. It's horses for courses.

Now there's another side to the coin of "civility" and "structure", they can be used to stifle discussion, as I am sure you note. "Uppity" black people in the pre-Civil Rights Movement southern US had their discussions shut down by just this mechanism. So yes, it IS a double edged sword to be wielded with care. (BTW, I always advocate this, read Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" if you haven't, it is truly brilliant and explains what I am getting at here perfectly, better than I ever could)

That is not what's happening here though, again to the best of my knowledge. No one is stopping you speak, no one is asking you to bide your time to be liberated, no one is lynching you. What IS happening is people are disagreeing with you. What IS happening is certain current, long standing social structures are being countered to ever greater degrees. Those structures are in the atheist community etc as well as outside them. We're, sadly we've found, not exempt.

Now IF people are publicly identifying pseudonymous/anonymous posters and giving out their real life addresses, well that's fucking disgusting. IF people are editing people's posts to make them say something different, that's fucking disgusting. IF people are lying about people, that's fucking disgusting. It doesn't matter who does it...well actually, I'll take that back...if someone on my "team" does it (urgh, team, yuck) then to me it is MORE disgusting than if the "other team" do it. I want to associate with the people who don't need to do that. And before you leap and go "well why do you post at FtB then? Hurr hurr" I'm posting here now aren't I? I'm trying to engage you aren't I?

I'm going to ask you all a question now, a very simple one. Here is Michael Shermer (someone I admire and enjoy the works of very much) saying something that caused consternation:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a guy thing”
Do any of you think that statement is sexist?

How about this:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a white thing”
Do any of you think that is statement racist?

I've changed one single word. The logic, the sense is identical. I've only changed the target. Note, I am NOT asking "do you think Michael Shermer is an evil sexist slimebag who should be put to death in a Feminazi Retraining Camp" I am asking (effectively) if the guy made a simple mistake, just like anyone can do, and make a sexist utterance? It's no great shakes, there's no "gotcha" at the end. Although I'd be really interested if anyone thinks the first one is not sexist and the second one is racist, that would be worthy of examination.

Cheers.
[/spoiler]
I'm going to ask you all a question now, a very simple one. Here is Michael Shermer (someone I admire and enjoy the works of very much) saying something that caused consternation:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a guy thing”
Do any of you think that statement is sexist?

How about this:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a white thing”
Do any of you think that is statement racist?

I've changed one single word. The logic, the sense is identical. I've only changed the target. Note, I am NOT asking "do you think Michael Shermer is an evil sexist slimebag who should be put to death in a Feminazi Retraining Camp" I am asking (effectively) if the guy made a simple mistake, just like anyone can do, and make a sexist utterance? It's no great shakes, there's no "gotcha" at the end. Although I'd be really interested if anyone thinks the first one is not sexist and the second one is racist, that would be worthy of examination.
Aplogies if this is repetition. I'm not going to read subsequent posts befor replying. Life's too short.

Depends on the context. Most important question is, is it a true reflection of the status quo? It makes no value judgement. Shermer wasn't saying that's how it should be, just that's how it is, for WHATEVER REASON. You will find that Paula Kirby has the same opinion borne of experience trying to find speakers. How can it be wrong to state an apparent fact? if it is sexist, then that is purely technical. Without recognition of the status quo, you are unlikely to find a solution if you think it's a problem. This is one of the problems with Benson and her ilk. They look for the most uncharitable interpretation they can find and won't accept anything else. Shermer apologised for his phrasing (which he shouldn't have to) but of course he's wrong and must apologise for his sexism, apparently.

BarnOwl
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1011

Post by BarnOwl »

Dick Strawkins wrote:
Skep tickle wrote:
...and, to add to the many times it's been asked, so how exactly did she "know" that Elevator guy had been in the bar & had heard her talking nonstop about how she disliked being hit on so much?
Sorry Dr Tickle, you are attempting to apply 'skepticism' to the question.

Have you no shame?
IIRC the claim was made that RW has "transient prosopagnosia." Convenient, that. MKG and I (and perhaps some others, I dunno, I have transient phpBBagnosia) had a discussion about this in the original PToS thread here.

Tigzy
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1012

Post by Tigzy »

fascination wrote:
Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote: Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night...
Minor point of order - Becky had actually mentioned her face-blindness thing prior to the Elevatorgate event: http://skepchick.org/2007/05/waste-time ... r-science/

Not that it makes me any less suspicious of Becky's EG narrative. However, the facts - as far as we can find them - need to be clear.
Thank you for the link. Rayshul corrected me up thread. I was going to search on Skepchick later in the day for the previous mention of face blindness but now you've saved me the time! :)
>Go into Slymepit
>See a woman has made an error in her reasoning based on lack of facts
>Smiling, I oppress her by pointing out the fact she was missing
>Because atheism is more of a guy thing
>Look of horror comes over woman's face as I exercise my entitlement of telling her where she went wrong
>She begins to tremble
>Tears well up in her eyes
>I can tell she is paralysed by fear at the oppression she is receiving
>All is lost to her now
>Male Slymepitters begin to cheer and clap
>Sacha, Skep Tickle and Rayshul begin to shriek and cry
>I feel my erect penis bump against my laptop
>'Th-thank you,' the woman finally says, from behind a mask of tears. 'I -I needed the link...but you've saved me the time...thank you.'
>I lean towards my monitor, a devious, patriarchal smile spreading across my face.
>And I tell her, 'It was my privilege.'

Altair
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1013

Post by Altair »

Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote: Thank you for the link. Rayshul corrected me up thread. I was going to search on Skepchick later in the day for the previous mention of face blindness but now you've saved me the time! :)
>Go into Slymepit
>See a woman has made an error in her reasoning based on lack of facts
>Smiling, I oppress her by pointing out the fact she was missing
>Because atheism is more of a guy thing
>Look of horror comes over woman's face as I exercise my entitlement of telling her where she went wrong
>She begins to tremble
>Tears well up in her eyes
>I can tell she is paralysed by fear at the oppression she is receiving
>All is lost to her now
>Male Slymepitters begin to cheer and clap
>Sacha, Skep Tickle and Rayshul begin to shriek and cry
>I feel my erect penis bump against my laptop
>'Th-thank you,' the woman finally says, from behind a mask of tears. 'I -I needed the link...but you've saved me the time...thank you.'
>I lean towards my monitor, a devious, patriarchal smile spreading across my face.
>And I tell her, 'It was my privilege.'
Dude, it's been a long time since I've laughed this hard at a post! :icon-lol:

cunt
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1014

Post by cunt »

A woman has made an error? Why do you hate women so much.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1015

Post by Skep tickle »

Tigzy wrote:[spoiler]
fascination wrote:
Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote: Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night...
Minor point of order - Becky had actually mentioned her face-blindness thing prior to the Elevatorgate event: http://skepchick.org/2007/05/waste-time ... r-science/

Not that it makes me any less suspicious of Becky's EG narrative. However, the facts - as far as we can find them - need to be clear.
Thank you for the link. Rayshul corrected me up thread. I was going to search on Skepchick later in the day for the previous mention of face blindness but now you've saved me the time! :)
[/spoiler]
>Go into Slymepit
>See a woman has made an error in her reasoning based on lack of facts
>Smiling, I oppress her by pointing out the fact she was missing
>Because atheism is more of a guy thing
>Look of horror comes over woman's face as I exercise my entitlement of telling her where she went wrong
>She begins to tremble
>Tears well up in her eyes
>I can tell she is paralysed by fear at the oppression she is receiving
>All is lost to her now
>Male Slymepitters begin to cheer and clap
>Sacha, Skep Tickle and Rayshul begin to shriek and cry
>I feel my erect penis bump against my laptop
>'Th-thank you,' the woman finally says, from behind a mask of tears. 'I -I needed the link...but you've saved me the time...thank you.'
>I lean towards my monitor, a devious, patriarchal smile spreading across my face.
>And I tell her, 'It was my privilege.'
:lol: :clap:

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1016

Post by AbsurdWalls »

Skep tickle wrote:
Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote: Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night...
Minor point of order - Becky had actually mentioned her face-blindness thing prior to the Elevatorgate event: http://skepchick.org/2007/05/waste-time ... r-science/

Not that it makes me any less suspicious of Becky's EG narrative. However, the facts - as far as we can find them - need to be clear.
RW says in the (very short) blog post at that link:
...It’s interesting because I’ve always had a problem with one specific kind of visual memory — faces. I can’t remember a face (short-term or long-term) to save my life, but apparently if all the people I meet every day had faces composed for an Atari game, I’d be okay.
And in the comments:
...I've heard of a disorder in which people just can't remember faces at all, even the faces of long-time friends or relatives. I'm not that bad, as eventually I do learn. Unless a person has extremely distinctive features (say, three noses), it takes me about a dozen times of meeting them before I can confidently identify them in a small crowd, though larger crowds and unfamiliar settings throw me off. ...
(my bolding)

...and, to add to the many times it's been asked, so how exactly did she "know" that Elevator guy had been in the bar & had heard her talking nonstop about how she disliked being hit on so much?
I'm like that. It used to be a nightmare meeting people for first-dates as I would have absolutely no idea who I was expecting after meeting them just the once. Not prosopagnosic though.

VickyCaramel
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1017

Post by VickyCaramel »

jimthepleb wrote:
Guest wrote:
VickyCaramel wrote:
Louis wrote:When used as insults terms like "bitch" and "twat" and "cunt" are inseparable from sexism. They are unambiguous negative referents to feminine/female as negative. Incidentally, "prick" and "cock" are inseparable from sexism too for the identical reasons. In all cases that is an act of sexism. There's a contextual difference which I'll get to later, but there's no difference inherent in the actual words in terms of sexism. They are reductive, they reduce a person to some perceived negative quality to do with their sex. That's sexism. Like the words "nigger" or "paki" used as insults are an unambiguous negative referent to race, and perceived negative qualities to do with race, are racist. Same mechanism.
Louis, if I were to decide to call you a dick, it wouldn't because I looked at you and thought, "You are a bit like something I don't like, what don't I like? I don't like dick, so I will call you a dick". And nor would the image of a penis enter my mind, before, during, or after calling you a dick.

Truth is, I like penis. I like penis a lot. (You can quote me on that.)

I'm also very fond of vaginas... I have one of my very own and have lovingly taken care of it for 41 years.

The truth is that words like 'cock', 'dick', 'bitch', 'twat' and 'cunt' are very harsh, sharp words due to their high 'c', 'k' and 't' content. This makes them seem very appropriate for expression strong emotions about somebody... either because you are really pissed off with them, or because you are really enjoying their lovely cock/cunt.
Your fondness for cocks and vaginas aside, what's so terrible about the idea that insults or slurs are reductive? The word "douchebag" doesn't seem, to me, to meet your criteria for harsh, sharp words, but it is an effective insult.
Do you have a list handy of the 'reductive' words we need to expunge from the language?
Hehe, we can then send a memo to the UN.

I was reading all this stuff at work today... ya know, the real world. It is just so far removed from reality. Can you imagine walking onto a building site and saying, "Listen up guys, new rule..."

What a fucking waste of time.... twats!

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1018

Post by fascination »

Za-zen wrote:My case of Greta has paid off.

One point i will pile on is the accusation that tfoot is a sexist. Making that claim unarmed Louis demonstrates you have bought into and are perpetuating the narrative. That really is a case of put up or shut up. Actually put up or fucking withdraw it.

Who else is a sexist by horde common wisdom? Shermer? Dawkins? Harris? Shit isn't it funny, those are the same names who think FFtb are full of shit. Just coincidence.
All of the "big names" are not with them (with the exception of Myers). Jillete isn't , the horsemen aren't (Dawkins, Harris, no one knows about Dennet) , none of the popular You Tube Atheists are (DPR Jones, Thunderf00t, etc),Shermer isn't (Mr Deity stood in support of Shermer), Ayaan Hirsi Ali isnt, Randi isnt , etc. The list of people that FTB hasn't attacked and pissed off in the Atheist and Skeptic community is very small now. What would concern me if I were FTB is the amount of minorities and women who were on the other side of the rift. That is who they are supposed to be reaching out to, yes? For example, Why do I know of more black women on our side of the rift? Heck, not even mentioning commentators there are several well known POC that are women that don't agree with the FTB party line. I can think of these women off the top of my head: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bridgitt Gaudett, Heather Henderson. I noticed that none of these women are speaking at WIS 2.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1019

Post by d4m10n »

rayshul wrote:
& sorry, I might add this to Damion re: the doxxing earlier -

We had a similar situation when JV put Melody's details on the 'pit. No it's not doxxing per se if the person uses their real name and has that information readily available, but it's not a nice thing to publicise especially if it's the wrong person!!! and Jerry Conlon's doxxing quote surrounding it meant that the doxxing was associated with the accusation. You're right (assuming they got the right person) that it's hard to measure actual harm but it's also not a particularly good thing to do.
I'm going to assume you meant Roth rather than Hensley. Correct me if I'm mistaken.

As I was saying to Dr. Strawkins earlier, I don't see 'doxxing' as a single category, but a gradient of possible harms or probable threats. Posting home addresses or calling up employers is at one end of that spectrum, the almost certainly threatening and/or harmful end. The details posted on Ms. Roth were a really bad move, those on Mr. Conlon not so much. It's all about foreseeable harm, IMO.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1020

Post by Zenspace »

Skep tickle wrote:[spoiler]
Zenspace wrote:
Louis wrote:
I'm going to ask you all a question now, a very simple one. Here is Michael Shermer (someone I admire and enjoy the works of very much) saying something that caused consternation:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a guy thing”
Do any of you think that statement is sexist?

How about this:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a white thing”
Do any of you think that is statement racist?

I've changed one single word. The logic, the sense is identical. I've only changed the target. Note, I am NOT asking "do you think Michael Shermer is an evil sexist slimebag who should be put to death in a Feminazi Retraining Camp" I am asking (effectively) if the guy made a simple mistake, just like anyone can do, and make a sexist utterance? It's no great shakes, there's no "gotcha" at the end. Although I'd be really interested if anyone thinks the first one is not sexist and the second one is racist, that would be worthy of examination.

Cheers.
Louis,

Thanks for returning. Not that it likely matters to you, but I was not impressed with your initial pass through the forum. Seeing your posts today is causing me to reconsider that opinion quite a bit. I would also add that I think you are doing a pretty good job of maintaining mostly level headed coherence in a complex, multifaceted conversation, possibly better than I would have done in similar circumstances. So, niceties out of the way, I would like to touch on only two points that you presented. Others are addressing most of the others, from what I can see in my quick skim - hopefully to your satisfaction.

First, the quotes presented, as stand alone comments, are meaningless. As you have said in many of your own responses - context matters. Both of the statements offered are structured such that they need the context of the surrounding conversation to comprise a coherent statement. To the first, I would answer an emphatic 'NO'. But here I have the advantage of knowing the context of that conversation, having watched the presentation and having read the transcript. The second statement I can't offer an opinion, because there is no context to associate it with. For the sake of discussion, lets assume that Shermer was speaking to the lack of minority participation at conventions rather than women (which may have been your intent anyway). Given that context, I would also answer 'NO, it is not a racist remark.' The reason simply being that even a casual observation will indicate the statement is a true observation of reality. There are far fewer minority attendees that white attendees at skeptic/atheist conferences. Unfortunately, when dealing with inherently touchy and hair-trigger topics such as these, casual language (inherent cultural aspects there-in, which you reference elsewhere) will trip you up if not careful, especially when there is a particular group of vultures waiting exactly for that slip up and who are perfectly willing, eager even, to build a large mountain out of that molehill. This is obviously what happened in Shermer's case (BTW - like you I am a fan).

Second, you made the following observation
"In my opinion, you can tell a huge amount about a culture/group from their comedy. From what jokes they tell each other. For me, the best jokes don't "punch down" power gradients, they "punch up". So satirising people in power, that kind of thing, those are the things I find funniest. The court jester mocking the king, the slave in Caesar's ear telling him he's just a man, that sort of deal. Jokes that punch down power gradients are rarely, in my experience, distinguishable from outright bigotry, there's usually something nasty curdling away underneath and it's usually fairly easy to expose."
[/spoiler]
Zenspace wrote:I don't think I've seen this concept presented anywhere prior to this, but it is logical and very relevent. The Pyt, as you no doubt have come to quickly realize, is a bit of a chaotic free-for-all. Quality of the comments and contributions cover the full gamut of terrible to brilliant. Mixed in with all that is plenty of off-color and not always relevent commentary. A lot of people just cannot adapt to this sort of freewheeling structure. Beyond that, however, is your "punch up" gradient observation. This is what the Pyt is for, and its target is FtB/Skepchic/A+. What makes it interesting, at least one aspect of it anyway, is that the Pyt is to FtB as FtB was once to Creationists. The small, annoying, loud critic railing against the bigger, more established power structure that is its target. Is it effective? I would have to say yes, but if you've hung around here long enough, you will know that even that gets worked over pretty thoroughly here. You would have to go back to the reasons the pyt was started in the first place to fully appreciate the history and reasoning behind it. It will also become apparent that not everyone here agrees on even that topic!

Someone recently posted a link to a blog post/letter 'to the pit' that did a great job of explaining this. I've lost the link, but hopefully someone else can provide it.

That's pretty much it for me, already more verbose than intended. Hopefully it was a worthwhile addition to the conversation.
Letter to the Slime Pit: http://rationalugandan.wordpress.com/20 ... slime-pit/
Thank you, Skep tickle! :D

fascination
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1021

Post by fascination »

Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote:
Tigzy wrote:
fascination wrote: Welch made some great points above but I just wanted to point out one thing, Louis. Watson claimed to have a rare disorder called prosopagnosia. It is a type of face blindness. She had never mentioned this before but only mentioned this after Elevatorgate when pressed about certain details and asked to identify the man from a picture of the bar that night...
Minor point of order - Becky had actually mentioned her face-blindness thing prior to the Elevatorgate event: http://skepchick.org/2007/05/waste-time ... r-science/

Not that it makes me any less suspicious of Becky's EG narrative. However, the facts - as far as we can find them - need to be clear.
Thank you for the link. Rayshul corrected me up thread. I was going to search on Skepchick later in the day for the previous mention of face blindness but now you've saved me the time! :)
>Go into Slymepit
>See a woman has made an error in her reasoning based on lack of facts
>Smiling, I oppress her by pointing out the fact she was missing
>Because atheism is more of a guy thing
>Look of horror comes over woman's face as I exercise my entitlement of telling her where she went wrong
>She begins to tremble
>Tears well up in her eyes
>I can tell she is paralysed by fear at the oppression she is receiving
>All is lost to her now
>Male Slymepitters begin to cheer and clap
>Sacha, Skep Tickle and Rayshul begin to shriek and cry
>I feel my erect penis bump against my laptop
>'Th-thank you,' the woman finally says, from behind a mask of tears. 'I -I needed the link...but you've saved me the time...thank you.'
>I lean towards my monitor, a devious, patriarchal smile spreading across my face.
>And I tell her, 'It was my privilege.'
That was pretty good! But now you've scare off Louis!

fascination
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1022

Post by fascination »

Damn. I meant to type "scared off Louis".

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1023

Post by fascination »

cunt wrote:A woman has made an error? Why do you hate women so much.
It's almost as misogynistic as using "Cunt" as your username! :)

Mykeru
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1024

Post by Mykeru »

Lsuoma wrote:Tidies and Fuglemen, I give you:

The Mildew Pit!
Does Opie Benson ever get tired of losing?

sacha
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1025

Post by sacha »

Tkmlac wrote: I'm a US American, is there any hope for me?
nope

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Re: BoobquakeVille

#1026

Post by LMU »

AbsurdWalls wrote:
LMU wrote: Actually given how vague wind's initial accusations were, is it possible that they were serious when they said they were just guessing about the secret forum? Nobody believed Richard Feynman either.
It's out now. Wind suspected for a while that there was a secret forum. Her suspicions were confirmed when she got a PM from a friend who didn't realise she didn't have access to the secret space. The PM was something like "People are gossiping about you in this thread, you might want to look."
Thanks I missed it!

Also Zenspace, you mentioned a letter to the pit, perhaps you were referring to this: http://rationalugandan.wordpress.com/20 ... slime-pit/

It you want stuff about the start of the pit then this is good: http://freethoughtkampala.wordpress.com ... vatorgate/

and don't forget the phawrongula wiki.

Apples
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1027

Post by Apples »

Over at Atheism + Stochastic Terrorism, Kbonn offers one of the more accurate summaries of the situation in the "Are our Moderators Fascist Twats?" thread:
kbonn wrote:1) Some people treated wind pretty badly. Change the subject matter, and the players involved, and the mods wouldn't or shouldn't have allowed it to continue, nevermind participate in it. Flewellyn also lied, but partly to try to get wind to divulge how she came by the information, when lying didn't work, he tried to guilt it out of her. Ceepolk basically gaslighted wind for the same reason(telling her who her friends are or aren't, claiming posters on JREF were her enemies or something?). I haven't seen any real response to the others who have raised this issue(though maybe I missed it?). Submor was the only one who tried to get wind to explain why it was bothering her, and get some meaningful discussion out of it. If the players in this had been different it would not have been tolerated by the mods. Submor just posted that long time members shouldn't(and won't) be treated differently, I agree. I get that people are worried about what information might be divulged. But Wind didn't do anything wrong, she received information. Wind has no responsibility to report anything to anyone, she didn't deserve the treatment she got.

2) I think a private/secret forum is fine for support purposes, but if is has non mods, it shouldn't be used to discuss other forum users (RE: moderation). There has to be some accountability to how people are handled. The mods are public, and we have spaces to take issues regarding mods. If there is a secret forum who membership is secret (but includes the mods), and they discuss users other than themselves and how users should be handled, that is a big problem. If certain longtime members get to discuss other users with mods, and potentially how they are handled or how much slack is given to new people/not the in group, then we basically have secret mods. Any discussion of users regarding potential moderation should be private and between mods only, or public if it includes more than just mods. I don't think that is too much to ask for. I am not suggesting that this happens, so this point is purely hypothetical, though I think some people here might be worried that it isn't.

Anyways, hopefully this is productive and things can move forward. I likely won't be back on until tomorrow, so take care until then and have a good afternoon/evening/morning/whatever.
But then global moderator Ceepolk helpfully sets the record straight:
ceepolk wrote:oh this is complete crap, kbonn, and you are full of it. Completely full of it. this crap is mass media "journalism."

and information you are not privy to is none of your fucking business.

quit trolling.
Not to cyber-diagnose or anything, but anyone who voluntarily hangs out near Ceepolk is a masochist of the highest order.

http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic ... start=1625

KiwiInOz
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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1028

Post by KiwiInOz »

jimthepleb wrote:[spoiler]
Dick Strawkins wrote:
It's certainly not on the basis of the standard way we agree upon the meaning of words, namely to use the meaning that is present in dictionaries.
For example the commonly agreed meaning of 'cunt' not a sexist epithet - certainly not in the UK and UK influenced territories (Ireland, Australia NZ etc).



Are you suggesting that we simply accept the US meaning?
On what basis should we do that?
[/spoiler]
I have a HUGE problem with this lexical warfare strategy from the FtB crowd.
If this is the case then were Franc to have said: 'If i were a woman i would kick OB in the 'fanny'' would that be ok then, as a kick in the arse is less problematic than one in the vagoo? 'cos here in Britain at least the word means exactly that (vagina not arse)..... two nations separated by a common language and all that
Same, same. It cracks me up when I hear USAnians say that they are rooting for a team. In NZ and Australia (and possibly the UK) rooting refers to the act of sexual congress, otherwise known as fucking.

Much hilarity.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1029

Post by jimthepleb »

fascination wrote:
Za-zen wrote:My case of Greta has paid off.

One point i will pile on is the accusation that tfoot is a sexist. Making that claim unarmed Louis demonstrates you have bought into and are perpetuating the narrative. That really is a case of put up or shut up. Actually put up or fucking withdraw it.

Who else is a sexist by horde common wisdom? Shermer? Dawkins? Harris? Shit isn't it funny, those are the same names who think FFtb are full of shit. Just coincidence.
All of the "big names" are not with them (with the exception of Myers). Jillete isn't , the horsemen aren't (Dawkins, Harris, no one knows about Dennet) , none of the popular You Tube Atheists are (DPR Jones, Thunderf00t, etc),Shermer isn't (Mr Deity stood in support of Shermer), Ayaan Hirsi Ali isnt, Randi isnt , etc. The list of people that FTB hasn't attacked and pissed off in the Atheist and Skeptic community is very small now. What would concern me if I were FTB is the amount of minorities and women who were on the other side of the rift. That is who they are supposed to be reaching out to, yes? For example, Why do I know of more black women on our side of the rift? Heck, not even mentioning commentators there are several well known POC that are women that don't agree with the FTB party line. I can think of these women off the top of my head: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bridgitt Gaudett, Heather Henderson. I noticed that none of these women are speaking at WIS 2.
Socially engineering a ghetto.
Much like A+ with abuse victims.
Let's assume for a moment that they succeed in bringing a large quotient of PoC, women and the differently-abled (shit this pc bollocks is exhausting.) Their new demographic will find themselves in a community that is largely derided by the larger AS community and once more marginalised.
How will this be a 'success'?

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1030

Post by Steersman »

Mykeru wrote:
Lsuoma wrote:Tidies and Fuglemen, I give you:

The Mildew Pit!
Does Opie Benson ever get tired of losing?
Probably. That might be part of the reason she tends to use “parallel logic” and engage in innuendo and yellow journalism – like asserting that Shermer said “exactly that” in referring to her “misquote” of him saying “it’s a guy thing”.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1031

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

Louis wrote:
Metalogic42 wrote:
Louis wrote:When used as insults terms like "bitch" and "twat" and "cunt" are inseparable from sexism. They are unambiguous negative referents to feminine/female as negative. Incidentally, "prick" and "cock" are inseparable from sexism too for the identical reasons. In all cases that is an act of sexism. There's a contextual difference which I'll get to later, but there's no difference inherent in the actual words in terms of sexism. They are reductive, they reduce a person to some perceived negative quality to do with their sex. That's sexism. Like the words "nigger" or "paki" used as insults are an unambiguous negative referent to race, and perceived negative qualities to do with race, are racist. Same mechanism.
This wasn't a response to me, but I have something quick to say about it anyway. If "cunt" is sexist because it reduces a person to some perceived negative quality to do with their sex, what about "asshole"? That reduces a person to some perceived negative quality to do with their GI tract, doesn't it?
Last time I checked both traditional sexes of human, and all trans*/intersex people too, almost exclusively possess arseholes. I'm struggling to think of any case I've heard of where someone doesn't. It's not a negative referent SPECIFIC to a person's sex. It's simply a negative referent. Insults are ALL negative referents of some kind or another. Those that refer to sex, race, sexuality, etc have "splash damage" (don't know where that term came from, but I like it) of one kind or another. They insult the person BECAUSE of their sex. I.e. they are saying you are bad because you are this sex or like this sex and this sex is bad. That's the nature of a sexist insult.

I should be clear about one thing, this isn't a complex or massive issue, it's not really that debatable as far as I can tell from my limited reading. It's also not that damning. One point I am trying to drive home is that I think everyone, me very VERY much included is "trivially sexist" or "trivially racist" or whatever. We inherit sexist (etc) ideas from the culture around us and parrot them unthinkingly. We also don't know if we're doing something sexist a lot of the time because we simply have never had to consider it from that angle. This applies to everyone, men women etc etc etc. It's a cultural universal not a woe is me or a condemnation. It's not a moral failing or cause to wear a hair shirt, it just is. Like I said, the trick is to realise it just is and try not to do it. Are you going to fuck up? Sure! I do it all the time! No big deal, raise a hand (like Toby Flood did after kicking straight into touch from a kick off at Welford Road this weekend) and say "my bad". What the fuck is the big deal with that?
It's very debatable. Cunt is only 'necessarily sexist' if you define it that way. Who says it is an insult based on it's gender specificity? That's just one point of view. It's an insult because it refers to part of the human sewage system which emits a lot of yucky fluids, and as Vicky says, it's a sharp sounding word. You could argue that people who see it as sexist are projecting their own bigotry onto other people. I sure there are bigoted origins for many words. The origins are mostly buried in the past, why dig them up and create offense where none would otherwise exist, unless it's to create offense to bolster the politics?

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1032

Post by sacha »

welch wrote:
justinvacula wrote:Kudos to Lewis for engaging in discussion.
You have the oddest definition for that word ever.

The fact that I'm not interested in the "conversations" with Louis, makes the ability to catch up here, quite easy right now. I can just scroll on by page after page

cheers for that

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Re: BoobquakeVille

#1033

Post by Zenspace »

LMU wrote:
AbsurdWalls wrote:
LMU wrote: Actually given how vague wind's initial accusations were, is it possible that they were serious when they said they were just guessing about the secret forum? Nobody believed Richard Feynman either.
It's out now. Wind suspected for a while that there was a secret forum. Her suspicions were confirmed when she got a PM from a friend who didn't realise she didn't have access to the secret space. The PM was something like "People are gossiping about you in this thread, you might want to look."
Thanks I missed it!

Also Zenspace, you mentioned a letter to the pit, perhaps you were referring to this: http://rationalugandan.wordpress.com/20 ... slime-pit/

It you want stuff about the start of the pit then this is good: http://freethoughtkampala.wordpress.com ... vatorgate/

and don't forget the phawrongula wiki.
LMU - Thanks. Skep tickle provided the rationalugandan link already (now bookmarked for future reference), but the other two are new to me. I'll check them out, too.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1034

Post by welch »

Steersman wrote:
Lsuoma wrote: [spoiler]
Altair wrote:
Louis wrote:
Altair wrote:...demolished.

Again, thanks for posting a link to a specific event, I prefer to discuss things like this than talk about generalities.
Don't think I said demolished as it happens. Think I said "mostly dealt with". Looks like *I'm* going to have to do all the work myself doesn't it? Fuck a doodle doo.
Somehow I was expecting a longer response.
[/spoiler]I think Louis might get on well with Steerzo...
You might well have a point there, Limphoma, other than the one at the top of your head.

But I sort of doubt it considering my repeated defense of the argument that Shermer's statement - "it's more of a guy thing" - is not at all sexist in response to Brayton's post pontificating from the pulpit on the question of "Shermer and the myth of feminist persecution". When credible pollsters like the Pew Forum note that the ratio of men to women who identify as atheists is 64% to 36% one might reasonably argue that "it's more of a guy thing" is more a statement of fact than anything approaching sexism.
That's how it read to me, that Shermer was making an observation of current reality. he never said nor implied that women aren't capable on any level of speaking at conferences, or that they'd be bad at it.

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Re: Slyme Pit Orgy, Sponsored by Vicky's Bewbs

#1035

Post by cunt »

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... -each-one/

That thread took a turn for the awesome. I think noelplum99's biggest fan turned up after the banning and seriously brought the pain. They really have no idea what to do when somebody gives no fucks.

Locked