Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

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Wonderist
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13681

Post by Wonderist »

Dick Strawkins wrote:
Wonderist wrote: (NB: Tim Skellett has recently withdrawn from the formal process, and will be doing his own thing I imagine; he's expressed that he does not feel he can fully support the position that was posted; I'll leave it to him to say more from his POV; I get the feeling it's not a personal thing, but an issue of how the 'structured dialogue' is structured into two 'sides', and he's not fully comfortable being put in that position/grouping).
What exactly is the next step in the process?
Are you planning to keep doing the remaining 4 sections exactly like the first stage, the only difference being the absence of Tim Skellett?
No, I doubt it. Obviously can't predict perfectly, but I expect the process to evolve rather dramatically, over time. Here we are taking things slow, trying to build up some trust in the process, so people don't feel like they'll get screwed over by it. I'm expecting that things will rapidly speed up (again, over time, 'rapidly' being relative here), and that most of the discussion will switch over to the open-to-everyone less-moderated discussion threads.

The way things progressed on Nugent's prior threads, from initial distrust, to tentative participation, to full and open discussion, seems likely to me. But this time around it will start from a stronger basis of understanding, based on these opening 5 steps (which is why going strong on principles in the first step was important, IMO). Instead of basically a lightly-moderated free-for-all mishmash, we should have a lot more structure to work with this time around. Most of the issue have been brought up. They are just disorganized, repetitious, and coming from (more than) two vastly different starting positions/perspectives.

To get more specific, I think that one positive outcome of this structured, common-ground process is that we'll end up dispelling and marginalizing a lot of the vilification and dehumanization that's been going on. For example, one clear point to be made on common ground is that we're all human, all fallible, all make mistakes, all play the 'fool' on this or that issue, and that we should therefore be a bit more forgiving of each others' imperfections and irrationalities (provided, of course, and crucially, that the same courtesy is extended to us in return). This is the result that understanding the Pavlov Strategy, and the problem of noisy signals, can achieve. Sadly, that article is paywalled (as are many articles on this topic; need open access to this stuff!). But some detail can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%2 ... 27_dilemma
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PrisonersDilemma
The Evolution of Cooperation, by Robert Axelrod http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN= ... patternrA/

codelette
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13682

Post by codelette »

cunt wrote:
justinvacula wrote:Richard Carrier's Atheism Plus speech has been uploaded to Youtube. I wonder, was the conference policy violated with this one? Lol. Anyway...I am listening now. This is such a great gift.

[youtube]au2i3xxgv7U[/youtube]
I watched the entire lot of that expecting a lulz pay-off to come at some point. There really isn't one. If you don't count Carrier's continual insistence that actually the atheism+ idea pisses rainbows, shits golden retriever puppies, and gives you a hand-job whenever it's bored. Sounds nice actually, until you remember that scratching the surface off, this is not at all what A+ currently is, and that Dr. Richard Carrier has done the square-root of precisely fuck all to actually build it into his utopian visions.
That Carrier is such a tool. He's promoting the supposed great values of Aplus and under the same breath he's telling atheists to do charity cause PR? Cause we all know that the best thing we get from helping people in need is marketing.
What a useless cunt.

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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13683

Post by Aneris »

Apples wrote:
ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:Nerd of Redhead, the been-there-done-that, ultra-scientist-in residence at Meyers's blog, doesn't understand the meaning of "null hypothesis":
I’m still waiting for them to evidence that feminism is wrong, not just presuppose it ... you and the horde have shown evidence for the conclusion that the null hypothesis is that patriarchy exists, and male privilege exists
I've noticed this too. He's fucking demented. He's like a Christian claiming that the null hypothesis is that Jesus rose from the dead.
What is more annoying that these thinking-challenged people apparently don't know that there are several branches and three waves within feminism:
Wikipedia wrote:Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women
SEP wrote:Feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms. However, there are many different kinds of feminism. Feminists disagree about what sexism consists in, and what exactly ought to be done about it; they disagree about what it means to be a woman or a man and what social and political implications gender has or should have.

Submariner
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13684

Post by Submariner »

Aneris wrote:
SEP wrote:Feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms. However, there are many different kinds of feminism. Feminists disagree about what sexism consists in, and what exactly ought to be done about it; they disagree about what it means to be a woman or a man and what social and political implications gender has or should have.
Yes, I read that SEP article. As I alluded to (but did not overtly state) in my last video, Feminism is a philosophy.



You know, like Christianity.

[youtube]5PH09hgb7DQ[/youtube] :whistle:

EdgePenguin
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13685

Post by EdgePenguin »

Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.

John Brown
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13686

Post by John Brown »

Aneris wrote:
Apples wrote:
ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:Nerd of Redhead, the been-there-done-that, ultra-scientist-in residence at Meyers's blog, doesn't understand the meaning of "null hypothesis":
I’m still waiting for them to evidence that feminism is wrong, not just presuppose it ... you and the horde have shown evidence for the conclusion that the null hypothesis is that patriarchy exists, and male privilege exists
I've noticed this too. He's fucking demented. He's like a Christian claiming that the null hypothesis is that Jesus rose from the dead.
What is more annoying that these thinking-challenged people apparently don't know that there are several branches and three waves within feminism:
Wikipedia wrote:Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women
SEP wrote:Feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms. However, there are many different kinds of feminism. Feminists disagree about what sexism consists in, and what exactly ought to be done about it; they disagree about what it means to be a woman or a man and what social and political implications gender has or should have.
Right. They speak of feminism as if it were denotative rather than connotative, which is highly ironic given their sneering attitude towards dictionary definitions.

What I mean by that is, they put forth the concept of feminism as if its given meaning is universally understood to fit within their narrowly defined world view. Yet, they have no problem switching to the connotative when it suits them. It means whatever they want it to mean. On this day, the definition is rigid, and the next it is nebulous.

It's the same with concepts like "patriarchy," and "rape culture." They mean whatever they want them to mean. They concepts become infinitely maleable and unfalsifiable all at the same time.

Yet, they pretend everything they are saying is denotative.

I don't know that I would call that dishonest, because I honestly believe they don't see the conflict.

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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13687

Post by Wonderist »

Hmm, in scanning that Wikipedia article on Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD), I noticed this link at the end. Fascinating. :ugeek: This is very much what we've been talking about. Interesting to see the connection to IPD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_trap
Social trap is a term used by psychologists to describe a situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole. Examples of social traps include overfishing, energy "brownout" and "blackout" power outages during periods of extreme temperatures, the overgrazing of cattle on the Sahelian Desert, and the destruction of the rainforest by logging interests and agriculture.[citation needed]

Origin of the concept

The term social trap was first introduced to the scientific community by John Platt's 1973 paper in American Psychologist,[1] and in a book developed in an interdisciplinary symposium held at the University of Michigan.[2] Building upon the concept of the "tragedy of the commons" in Garrett Hardin's pivotal article in Science (1968),[3] Platt and others in the seminar applied behavioral psychology concepts to actions of people operating in social traps. By applying the findings of basic research on "schedules of operant reinforcement" (B.F. Skinner 1938, 1948, 1953, 1957; Keller and Schoenfeld, 1950), Platt recognized that individuals operating for short-term positive gain ("reinforcement") had a tendency to over-exploit a resource, which led to a long-term overall loss to society.

The application of behavioral psychology terms to behaviors in the tragedy of the commons led to the realization that the same short-term/long-term cause-effect relationship also applied to other human traps, in addition to the exploitation of commonly held resources. Platt et al. also introduced the terms social fence and individual trap. Social fence refers to a short-term avoidance behavior by individuals that leads to a long-term loss to the entire group.[1] An example is the anecdote of a mattress that falls from a vehicle on a two lane highway. Motorists tend to back up in a traffic jam behind the mattress, waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic to pass around the mattress. Each individual motorist avoids the opportunity to exit their stopped car and pull the mattress to the side of the road. The long-term consequence of this avoidance behavior is that all of the motorists (except for perhaps one) arrived at their destinations later than they would have if an individual had removed the mattress barrier.

An individual trap is similar to a social trap except that it involves the behavior of only a single person rather than a group of people. The basic concept is that an individual's behavior for short-term reinforcers leads to a long-term loss for the individual. Examples of individual traps are tobacco smoking leading to lung cancer or alcohol ingestion leading to cirrhosis of the liver.
More good stuff at the article, snipped for brevity.

That article also leads to this one, which concept I'm more familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dilemma
Social dilemmas are situations in which collective interests are at odds with private interests.[1] Such situations arise when faced with prioritizing either short-term selfish interests or the long-term interests of a group, organization, or society. Many of the most challenging issues, from the interpersonal to the intergroup, are at their core social dilemmas. Conflicts arise when motives concerning the group are overcome by individual motives. When this happens, others will intervene to restore the balance of the group.

Definition

Social dilemmas describe situations in which the rational behaviour of an individual—defined in pure and simple economic terms—leads to suboptimal outcomes from the collective standpoint (Dawes, 1980; Kollock, 1998). Researchers frequently use the experimental games method to study social dilemmas in the laboratory. An experimental game is a situation in which participants choose between cooperative and non-cooperative alternatives, yielding consequences for themselves and others. These games are generally depicted with a pay-off matrix representing valuable outcomes for participants like money or lottery tickets. Social dilemmas are in fact a "conflict in which most beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people have a harmful effect on everyone" (Aronson, Wilson, Akert,& Fehr, 2007), or vice versa.

Examples

Consider these examples. As individuals we are each better off when we make use of public services such as schools, hospitals, recreational grounds, and highway systems without contributing to their maintenance. However, if everyone acted according to their narrow self-interest then these resources would not be provided and everyone would be worse off.[2]
Good stuff there as well. The distinction between a social trap and a social dilemma is interesting. The dilemma is the end result: People behaving in ways that go against their long-term interests in pursuit of short-term gains. The trap is the psychological mechanism that attracts people to fall into the dilemma in the first place, if I'm reading it correctly.

I think a Kafka Trap is probably a sort of social trap (as well as being a rhetorical tactic), because it's used to enforce a sub-optimal condition of mutual oppression of healthy dissent. Would probably be worth looking deeper into this concept.

John Brown
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13688

Post by John Brown »

EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.
Hey, do you know how to really find out what black atheists think? How about actually inviting them to talk at your event instead of..oh, I don't know...you, Dr. Carrier? Change starts at home, amiright?

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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13689

Post by EdgePenguin »

Its just hit me. I know what is going on with the SJWs like Carrier when they talk about different groups having collective interests - it is good old fashioned, Leninist, Democratic Centralism

You don't get to have a personal opinion.You have to take your concerns to representatives of your socioeconomic group/workers' soviet, where it will be almagamated with the concerns of other people in your subgroup, converted into a group agenda by your group leader, and passed up the command structure until the guys at the top of the SJW movement can determine what the goals of 'the community' should be. From here instructions as to what each group should be doing filter back down the command structure.

And anybody stepping outside this command structure incurs a 'high social cost' as Carrier puts it.

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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13690

Post by Wonderist »

AndrewV69 wrote:
You went there? Fine, I am going to raise the ante with this:

[youtube]vUNFzsNdphQ[/youtube]
For some reason, the recommended videos for that one showed this:
[youtube]s5hSGOpF2to[/youtube]
Poor doggy. :( What is the world coming to when such mutt smut is on YT? :evil:

codelette
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13691

Post by codelette »

EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.
Relevant: viewtopic.php?p=50476#p50476

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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

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Post by Gefan »

AbsurdWalls wrote:...I think it is important to notice (probably most people do) how much the "deep rifts" are really dozens and dozens of personal issues. I think that's the reason why it has not extended into the wider community. There's no real impetus to "pick a side" until somebody wrongs you, and then once you are being called a rape apologist or a chill girl or a mangina or whatever it becomes harder to remain neutral. Of course other people are drawn in without being personally attacked, but that can be as a result of feeling sympathy for somebody who is being unfairly victimised.

Behold the rotten fruit of the doctrine of "the personal is political". It elevated butthurt to a philosophy.

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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13693

Post by EdgePenguin »

codelette wrote:
EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.
Relevant: viewtopic.php?p=50476#p50476
Heh, I figured I might not to be the first person to raise an eyebrow at this rubbish.

codelette
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13694

Post by codelette »

EdgePenguin wrote:
codelette wrote:
EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.
Relevant: viewtopic.php?p=50476#p50476
Heh, I figured I might not to be the first person to raise an eyebrow at this rubbish.
I'm still trying to figure out if this was a freudian slip...
... if atheism is good for people, it ought to be good for racial minorities as well.

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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13695

Post by Wonderist »

Apples wrote:
Wonderist wrote:rorschach/Wagner on ... something?: http://furiouspurpose.me/atheist-courty ... -gentiles/
Rorschach wrote:Let’s bring together normal people and proponents of banning abortions. Or how about, normal people and those who think gays should be killed in Uganda. Or how about this one, normal people and those who think letting Blacks on the bus was a bad idea in the first place, let alone to allow them to sit down.
Yes - if you are not currently licking Stephanie Zvan's bum and loving it (which makes you "normal,") you might as well be 1) trying to ban abortions, 2) advocating the wholesale murder of gay people, and 3) trying to prevent black people from having access to public transportation. Brilliant.

That said, Wonderist - are you still trying to suggest Rorschach/furiouspurpose.me is Martin Wagner? Seems important to get this right.
No. Honest, but sloppy mistake: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=286#p81150

Aneris
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13696

Post by Aneris »

Submariner wrote:Yes, I read that SEP article. As I alluded to (but did not overtly state) in my last video, Feminism is a philosophy. You know, like Christianity.

5PH09hgb7DQ
:whistle:
Haven't seen your last video, but enjoyed the other ones. Wikipedia in all its wisdom sums it up as a "collection of movements and ideologies", not a philosophy. The point there is, it isn't a monolithic entity where everyone agrees on everything. The previous Slymepit quip "the radical notion that women are people AND adults" was also feminist, in PZ Myers sense.

The definition PZ put forth once was very basic. I haven't met a single person yet who disagreed with it. On occasion he throws these curve-balls with other terms that are more contested, but I haven't seen him explaining how they fit into his world view (as pointed out before). I know that the effect of monopolizing a view, and declaring anyone who disagrees "somehow", without really knowing where we actually really disagree, has the unfortunate effect of sending some people the other direction.

I dislike the notion that all my views have to be categorized neatly and that I have to carry them around on my name-tag. My views are complex, in motion, sometimes I haven't made up my mind and withhold adopting a view. Labels have the habit of acquiring all kinds of additional meanings and imagery or they mean something else to another person, making them often more confusing than helpful. I have asked my friends recently, whether they see themselves as feminists (I'm speaking of women here). They said: no. Yet their views are technically very well within feminism.

welch
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13697

Post by welch »

justinvacula wrote:Freethought Blogs to go offline, Rebecca Watson admits hoax

http://www.skepticink.com/justinvacula/ ... mits-hoax/
sigh.

at least try to be original with April Fool's jokes.

welch
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13698

Post by welch »

justinvacula wrote:Richard Carrier's Atheism Plus speech has been uploaded to Youtube. I wonder, was the conference policy violated with this one? Lol. Anyway...I am listening now. This is such a great gift.

youtube]au2i3xxgv7U
christ his voice is EXACTLY what I thought it would be.

That's not a good thing.

welch
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13699

Post by welch »

Angry_Drunk wrote:
Tony Parsehole wrote:
Angry_Drunk wrote:I've had an epiphany! How could I have been so wrong for so long. Instead of exposing the flawed logic and lack of rational thinking on the part of woo-addled religionists I should have been focusing on enumerating the things we agree on. Let's get started:

- The sky is blue.
- Water is wet
...

Hells, we'll have this problem licked in no time.
BUT WHY DON'T YOU AGREE THAT WOMEN ARE PEOPLE?
I barely consider people "people"

Fuck the whole lot of ya'.
But they're so pretty when you douse them in coleman fuel and set them alight. Little sparklers running to and fro, you don't even have to do much but keep them in the road. The screaming's a bit annoying, but I think it adds the right touch to any celebration.

welch
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13700

Post by welch »

ERV wrote:
codelette wrote:Sometimes I wonder if Hensley is just mocking the "poor little rich girl" meme. The other she was so sad over not being able to adopt a second pug...
Last week was bemoaning the fact 'things were tight' and she and her Cabbage Patch Doll husband couldnt afford to eat out every meal anymore. And they 'dont cook', so BAAAAAAAAAW.

But literally like two tweets earlier she was suggesting her friends get laser hair removal treatments because it worked GREAT for her (costs thousands of dollars).

She is so gross.

Gimme one a' them high-powered handheld blue lasers, I'll do that for free. Fuck, I'd buy the laser myself. All I want are the youtube rights.

EdwardGemmer
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13701

Post by EdwardGemmer »

welch wrote:
justinvacula wrote:Richard Carrier's Atheism Plus speech has been uploaded to Youtube. I wonder, was the conference policy violated with this one? Lol. Anyway...I am listening now. This is such a great gift.

youtube]au2i3xxgv7U
christ his voice is EXACTLY what I thought it would be.

That's not a good thing.
...and they wonder why no one wants to go to these things.

Submariner
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13702

Post by Submariner »

Aneris wrote:
Haven't seen your last video, but enjoyed the other ones. Wikipedia in all its wisdom sums it up as a "collection of movements and ideologies", not a philosophy. The point there is, it isn't a monolithic entity where everyone agrees on everything. The previous Slymepit quip "the radical notion that women are people AND adults" was also feminist, in PZ Myers sense.

The definition PZ put forth once was very basic. I haven't met a single person yet who disagreed with it.
John Brown wrote: It's the same with concepts like "patriarchy," and "rape culture." They mean whatever they want them to mean. They concepts become infinitely maleable and unfalsifiable all at the same time.

Yet, they pretend everything they are saying is denotative.
Might have relevance :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXOLbh3soIg

AndrewV69
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13703

Post by AndrewV69 »

codelette wrote:
EdgePenguin wrote:
codelette wrote:
EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.
Relevant: viewtopic.php?p=50476#p50476
Heh, I figured I might not to be the first person to raise an eyebrow at this rubbish.
I'm still trying to figure out if this was a freudian slip...
... if atheism is good for people, it ought to be good for racial minorities as well.
US set for dramatic change as white America becomes minority by 2042
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/au ... ation.race
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... LRFXgzpFoY
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/12 ... year-2043/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-575 ... s-by-2043/

*shrug*

Wait a few more years and all he will have to do as far as minority outreach is concerned is go knocking on doors in his own neighbourhood?

EdwardGemmer
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13704

Post by EdwardGemmer »

Btw I could barely stand to listen to that whole thing, but I also listened to the Amazing Atheist answering questions for three minutes and learned more in that than in Carriers entire screed on The Way Things Ought To Be.

welch
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13705

Post by welch »

Lsuoma wrote:
Steersman wrote:
Jack wrote: <snip>
Jack: I've posted several responses to the opening statements and have received an e-mail response from the Moderation Team on one of them. I just responded by e-mail and just got back this error message:
The following message to <REDACTED> was undeliverable.
The reason for the problem:
5.1.2 - Bad destination host 'DNS Hard Error looking up REDACTED (MX): NXDomain'
A problem on my end or something with e-mail addresses for the moderators? I'll probably pass this along to Michael as well, but I wonder, could you maybe look into it as well? Thanks.
Network problem, likely way beyond your control unless you're running your own network and mail servers at home, in which case this would likely not be Greek to you.
it could be how they're doing antispam? but if so, it would be a really dumb way. (tl;dr some antispam methods involve DNS searches against the IP address of the sending mailserver. While in theory, a great way to tell if someone's using a nonexistent server, it tends to blow up a lot, and is really just a pain in the ass.)

Karmakin
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13706

Post by Karmakin »

John Brown wrote:
EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.
Hey, do you know how to really find out what black atheists think? How about actually inviting them to talk at your event instead of..oh, I don't know...you, Dr. Carrier? Change starts at home, amiright?
This. They could be the change they want to see by giving their blog space, their speaking spots, to some people who might not have the exposure that they do. But no, the goal is to make the other guy sacrifice for their beliefs.

welch
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Posts: 9208
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Re: rape statistics

#13707

Post by welch »

sacha wrote:
AnonymousCowherd wrote:
Dick Strawkins wrote:
sacha wrote:
Dick Strawkins wrote: In response to Sacha's question about evidence for the levels of false claims compared to unreported rapes, I think it is reasonable to use anonymous surveys and police data to try to get a handle on this. It is a difficult question and probably impossible to answer completely correctly but it should be possible to get some kind of generalized figure for the prevalence of each type of incident.
I agree that may be the only way to even begin to have any idea of unreported cases, although I find it significantly flawed, and certainly not evidence

my questions were in regard to the declaration that "there is a large number of unreported cases than the other way around." stated as fact.

Anything I state as fact can easily be backed up with evidence, and if it turns out my evidence is flawed, I will be more than happy to withdraw my statement and give reasons for the withdrawal.

This is a sceptic/skeptic website and thread, after all.
I agree.
If anyone has a good data source, paper, survey result etc, that answers this question, could you link it here please.
FWIW.

The issue of the reporting of sexual assault is notoriously difficult to overcome. The best that anyone has come up with is the various Victims of Crime surveys conducted in various places. These vary in quality, but one of the best is done by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (one summary of "personal crimes" here This is a large survey, done by trained interviewers, who can (technically) get you fined if you refuse answer, so about as good as these things get. The take-away number is that 31% of sexual assaults (which includes male victims) are reported to Police.

Some objections are;
a) it only applies to Australia. But other juridictions show results in the same general range so, while there may be variation, there is no reason to dismiss the ABS result out of hand.
b) it underestimates the actual amount of sexual assualt because, although more likely to report to the interviewer, some people are still reluctant to report at all. This is likely true, but we can't estimate that number.
c) it conflates "sexual assault" with "rape". This is a problem if there are reporting differences between non-rape and rape assaults. Getting respondents to give details of their sexual assaults to an interviewer is not easy, to say the least, so we are unlikely to find out of there are such reporting differences. One difficulty is that after an "incident" occurs, one person may label that a sexual assault, another a rape, and (in theory) the law may disagree with both of them (and vice versa). Technically we can't talk about "unreported rape" (or any other offence) because no offence has been shown to be committed, we can only talk about "unreported incidents" and these may vary in interpretation.

Moreover, we don't really know that the character of the unreported incidents is the same as the reported ones. Radfems tend to assume that they are similar in there various statistical "posters", but there is little evidence of that beyond gross generalisations. If they aren't similar, then conclusions drawn about rape figures based on those reported to police don't generalise to the unreported ones (e.g. conviction rates may be very different for the two cases, even if they were suddenly all reported).

Whatever the actual figure for unreported "possible rape incidents", there is no survey that suggests that the majority of such incidents are reported to police (the closest is the US DOJ which seems to say about 46% are reported, but with a large relative standard error).

False reports, on the other hand, are (by definition) a subset of all reported incidents. To claim that there are more false reports than unreported incidents implies that the number of unreported incidents is less than the number of reported ones, even if every report is "false", which no-one accepts. The more reported incidents that are admitted as "not false", the lower the number of unreported cases there must be to keep them less than "false" reports and, therefore, the greater the ratio of reported to unreported incidents.

Or, in even less clear English, false reports can't outnumber unreported incidents unless the reporting rate is greater than 50+% and, if there are any true reports (which we assume), that number will be higher. So, for example, if there are 100 reports to police, but we think 50% are false, there can't be more than 49 unreported incidents, which implies a reporting rate of 100/(100+49) or about 67%. If the "false" report rate is 20%, then there can't be more than 19 unreported incidents, for a reporting rate of 100/(100+19) or about 84%, and so on. These figures are well outside any survey findings.

Even without knowing the actual false reporting rate, there is no empirical support for the idea that false reports can outnumber unreported incidents. The evidence doesn't conclusively prove that the idea is false, but the weight of evidence makes it very unlikely to be true.

There is more to all this, but surely that's enough!
well done. good work, Sherlock. That is the best response I've ever received on this subject.

As I've said the best way we currently have to determine the statistics is significantly flawed and at best a provisional conjecture.
There is a vast difference in numbers depending on who is conducting the survey, and the same people will respond differently when the question is worded another way. Rape statistics should not include inappropriate touch, sexual harassment, sexual assault without rape, and so on, but it almost always does.

In the western world there is far more of a stigma attached to a man reporting being a victim of rape, whether the offender was male, or female, and I absolutely believe there are huge numbers of unreported rapes when the victim is male. Prior to the change in perspective regarding a woman being raped, and the change in how she is treated when reporting it, which was 40 years ago, I would agree that there were far more unreported rapes against women. Perhaps much more than were reported at all.
Times have changed. In the present, in the western world, I'd rather be raped, than be a man accused of rape.

When flawed statistics are repeated as fact-based evidence, and no gender is specified, the assumption is a female victim, and a male offender, and it perpetuates the notion that women must be believed without any evidence, and that men should be condemned without evidence. That women are inherently "good" and men are inherently "evil".

It also leaves a door wide open with a welcome mat for malevolent, vindictive reporting of rape by women, against innocent men. This is not uncommon. The statistics do not include the reporting of rape, if the police find she is obviously lying, or if she recounts her accusation prior to a full report being made.

It also allows male victims of rape to be so marginalised as to almost not exist, which increases the unreported cases by a significant amount. What is being considered as "rape" against women, would never be taken seriously if a man were to report the same incident.

It does an enormous disservice to women who have truly been raped, and to men who have been raped when those statistics are not gender specified, and repeated as evidence-based fact. Rape is not a woman's issue. It is a human issue.

There is a considerable advantage to those who happen to have female genitalia, both as accuser and as potential victim, that advantage is maintained, supported, and defended by a good majority of women as well as men.

There is some bizarre code of Omerta among women. We all know how easily the current system can be used against innocent men, and we all know women who wouldn't hesitate to make false allegations against men who they felt scorned by.

The pussy pass has a massive amount of power, and very little responsibility.

I simply cannot let anyone perpetuate the inequity without speaking up.

For those of you who are new, I'm an attractive older woman who knows first hand just how easy it is to use that power, and I will continue to be a lifelong outspoken Gender Traitor until I'm dead.

From what I've read, underreporting of rape by male victims bounces anywhere between 50% to 90%. It's a real problem in the US military as well, where only 1 in 15 male victims will report as opposed to 1 in 5 female victims. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... shame.html for what it's worth on that one.)

That's why I've been telling friends who ask why I keep bringing up male victims of rape/sexual assault "Because it's a HUMAN problem. You can't tell men "it only matters when it happens to a woman" and be seriously surprised that they don't take rape as seriously as you want them to. I GUARANTEE you know a guy who's been raped/molested/sexually assaulted, and yet you've told them, in different ways "yeah, no one cares". Well, if you don't care about them, why should they care about you."

It's a human problem, not a women's problem, not any gender's problem. The sooner we start talking about it as such, the better a chance we'll have to improve things.

Skep tickle
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13708

Post by Skep tickle »

codelette wrote:
EdgePenguin wrote:
codelette wrote:
EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. ...
Relevant: viewtopic.php?p=50476#p50476
Heh, I figured I might not to be the first person to raise an eyebrow at this rubbish.
I'm still trying to figure out if this was a freudian slip...
... if atheism is good for people, it ought to be good for racial minorities as well.
I transcribed a couple minutes of it, didn't hear that line but there's plenty else.

Around 23:00 he's talking about "What are we doing to meet the social needs of atheists?" Special interest groups in large local organizations; he favors bowling and roller skating.

Then, "So to get back to that first goal, increasing the number of atheists…"

Transcription from 23:17 – 26:25:
Obviously focusing on education in (or and] science, reason, and skepticism…but if you want to make atheists, that’s one of the first things you’ve got do, I mean that besides getting people to read the Bible… [laughter]

But the other is broadening the appeal of atheist organizations and atheist events to women and minorities. And that’s been improving lately. And one way to do that, of course, actually probably the chief way to do that, if not the only way it can be done, is to start giving them leadership roles, be responsive to their concerns, and treat them well when they show up. You know, those kind of obvious things. These were issues that we were talking about 3 or 4 years ago, there’s been a lot of improvement on this, a lot of understanding of this goal, but this has been a part of what atheism plus has been trying to advocate.

Now, to give an example, if you want more black atheists in your membership of your organization, then you have to show that you actually care about their concerns. To give you an example of some concerns I’ve heard from black atheists is that local black atheist communities are very interested in - their main issues that they’re struggling with are not creationism in schools, they’re more concerned with inner city poverty and prison reform, for example, those aren’t the - that’s not the whole list, but that’s an example of these things that are very seriously important to their community, and so we might want to at least give an ear to this and think about - if there’s anything we can do to help them with these issues.

And that just brings out the whole general concept that you should actually ask women as organizations, local organizations and national organizations, actually ask women and minorities - a lot of them, not just a few of them - what would get them to attend your events, become members of your organization, and financially support it, and then take their answers seriously. And this is something that we have been talking about over the past 3 years, and I think atheist organizations are starting to get it.

But to give you a bonus example, that goes back to what I was talking about before, about that education, the importance of our promoting the ideas of teaching logic and critical thinking and science and whatnot. If education is a major factor in making more atheists, and there are studies and statistics that suggest that it does, and making more atheists is your goal, then shouldn’t the disparity that often exists in education between white and black neighborhoods be of major concern to the atheist community. [applause]

So this is an example of something that’s flown under our radar because we’re focusing on science education, critical thinking, and we’re sort of not noticing the fact that there are already huge disparities in these social scenarios that we really should pay attention to and try to figure out a way that maybe we as atheists and the atheist community, can do something about.

Certainly if you want more atheists we’re going to have to do that.

So the basic idea is, are we as a community – a community of atheists - going to care about stuff like sexism, deception, poverty, crime, corruption, injustice, or only care when it has to do with increasing membership and revenue? Well, the answer is, only when it has to do with increasing membership and revenue, of course.
Haha, April Fools, what he really said in the last part was:
So the basic idea is, are we as a community – a community of atheists - going to care about stuff like sexism, deception, poverty, crime, corruption, injustice, or only care when it has to do with religion?

Cunning Punt
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13709

Post by Cunning Punt »

welch wrote:
justinvacula wrote:Richard Carrier's Atheism Plus speech has been uploaded to Youtube. I wonder, was the conference policy violated with this one? Lol. Anyway...I am listening now. This is such a great gift.

youtube]au2i3xxgv7U
christ his voice is EXACTLY what I thought it would be.

That's not a good thing.
The word "dweeb" comes to mind.

welch
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Posts: 9208
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13710

Post by welch »

EdgePenguin wrote:Still watching the Richard Carrier car crash.... his ideas about black atheists (at ~24:00) are cringeworthy. Apparently, there is a list of concerns (inner city poverty etc.) which black atheists are supposed to care about, seperate from the ones white atheists are supposed to care about. Maybe he wants to make them feel welcome by giving them their own drinking fountains too?

I'm not entirely sure that treating ethnic minorities as homogenous groups, with collective interests determined by their ethnicity, is quite as socially just as you think it is, Richard.

Every time I tell my non-honkie friends about that shit, their response is "Yeah. That's what white folks think. What can you do."

welch
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13711

Post by welch »

Cunning Punt wrote:
welch wrote:
justinvacula wrote:Richard Carrier's Atheism Plus speech has been uploaded to Youtube. I wonder, was the conference policy violated with this one? Lol. Anyway...I am listening now. This is such a great gift.

youtube]au2i3xxgv7U
christ his voice is EXACTLY what I thought it would be.

That's not a good thing.
The word "dweeb" comes to mind.
dweeb would be a step up. He's just a fucking hipster.

Guest

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13712

Post by Guest »

ERV wrote: Thats not the Orthodox Christian garb. That is Catholic.
http://distilleryimage3.s3.amazonaws.co ... 98fe_7.jpg
That is a glorious hover hand.

Wonderist
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Posts: 868
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Contact:

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13713

Post by Wonderist »

Very useful Firefox add-on for all your lost comment needs: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... rea-cache/

Be sure to check the notes about modifying the hidden settings. Unfortunately, by the time I thought of it, the default 20 entries wasn't enough to cover my first limbo'd comment at Zvan's. I upped mine to 50 for now, to see if it'll handle the drop down list okay, but aside from that minor hiccup, it's a pretty fricken nifty add-on.

Aneris
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13714

Post by Aneris »

welch wrote:
Cunning Punt wrote:
welch wrote:
justinvacula wrote:Richard Carrier's Atheism Plus speech has been uploaded to Youtube. I wonder, was the conference policy violated with this one? Lol. Anyway...I am listening now. This is such a great gift.

youtube]au2i3xxgv7U
christ his voice is EXACTLY what I thought it would be.

That's not a good thing.
The word "dweeb" comes to mind.
dweeb would be a step up. He's just a fucking hipster.
He is a sexist.
Richard Carrier on the Atheist Community wrote:We have money, we have manpower
Hihi, their rules...

Lurkion
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13715

Post by Lurkion »

Cleverbot. Someone else did something similar before, but it amused me.
cleverbot.png
(45.47 KiB) Downloaded 276 times

justinvacula
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13716

Post by justinvacula »

[youtube]0EDoEzOymkk[/youtube]

24:11 - Matt talks about talking about disagreements in private before going public :o

Dan
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13717

Post by Dan »

Wonderist wrote:rorschach/Wagner on ... something?: http://furiouspurpose.me/atheist-courty ... -gentiles/
I don't think it's Wagner. I think he's a cunt from Melbourne Australia that claims to be an E.R Doctor.

Wonderist
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13718

Post by Wonderist »

For those wondering WTF I'm going on about wrt the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, here's a simple demonstration of the Tit For Tat strategy, where you try to beat this simple strategy. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/playground/pd.html See if you can beat TFT (called 'Serendip' in the game).

Note that this scenario involves zero 'noise': you can always tell if the opponent is 'cooperating' or 'competing', there are no mixed signals (analogous to misunderstandings and misinterpretations in our current 'deep rifts' situation, where such miscommunications/noise are rather common). In noisy environments, TFT actually doesn't do that well. It still does okay, if the noise level is low enough. But Pavlov does better, usually. So, while TFT is often touted as the 'best' or 'optimal' strategy, as indeed this website also does, it actually doesn't translate that well into real life scenarios, unless communication between people is very clear and not subject to misinterpretations. When there are misinterpretations, however, Tit For Tat devolves into Eye For an Eye (leaving everyone blind; well, except for the last person, who becomes king/queen of the blind).

Still, getting familiar with TFT in a non-noisy environment can help to understand the significance of Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in the first place, and how mutual cooperation can beat 'us vs. them' thinking in the long-run (again, to prove this, try to actually beat TFT in the link above). Being unable to beat it (by more than one turn) by cheating/competing against it should prove eye-opening at least for some people (it was for me when I first came across Axelrod's book).

To make it interesting, let's see who can get the highest average score (coins per turn). (Honour system.) To start things off, I'll do a random strategy by flipping a virtual coin for each turn:

Before playing, here are the random moves I'll play, from a quick random spreadsheet (C for Cooperate, D for Defect, which is called 'Compete' on that site):
CCDCCDCDDCCDCCDCCCCCDCCDC

Here's the results: After 11 rounds, the 'wizard' ended the game, so I only got to play:
CCDCCDCDDCC

Final result: 28 coins, 11 rounds, for average score of 2.55 coins per turn. Can anyone beat that? :popcorn: (If you can remember them or take note of them, try listing your moves, too, though this is just for fun, so it's not strictly necessary.)

Wonderist
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13719

Post by Wonderist »

Oh, just to clarify, I mean try to beat that score using your own preferred strategy, not just a random strategy like mine. That was just for establishing a baseline score to beat.

Wonderist
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13720

Post by Wonderist »

Dan wrote:
Wonderist wrote:rorschach/Wagner on ... something?: http://furiouspurpose.me/atheist-courty ... -gentiles/
I don't think it's Wagner. I think he's a cunt from Melbourne Australia that claims to be an E.R Doctor.
Yes, I goofed: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=286#p81150

Karmakin
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13721

Post by Karmakin »

I just got 2.64. That was basically using a strategy of DCCDCCDCCD

Submariner
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13722

Post by Submariner »

Wonderist wrote:Oh, just to clarify, I mean try to beat that score using your own preferred strategy, not just a random strategy like mine. That was just for establishing a baseline score to beat.
Scored a 3 by all "C"'s 30 coins.

Metalogic42
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13723

Post by Metalogic42 »

Wonderist wrote:For those wondering WTF I'm going on about wrt the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, here's a simple demonstration of the Tit For Tat strategy, where you try to beat this simple strategy. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/playground/pd.html See if you can beat TFT (called 'Serendip' in the game).

Note that this scenario involves zero 'noise': you can always tell if the opponent is 'cooperating' or 'competing', there are no mixed signals (analogous to misunderstandings and misinterpretations in our current 'deep rifts' situation, where such miscommunications/noise are rather common). In noisy environments, TFT actually doesn't do that well. It still does okay, if the noise level is low enough. But Pavlov does better, usually. So, while TFT is often touted as the 'best' or 'optimal' strategy, as indeed this website also does, it actually doesn't translate that well into real life scenarios, unless communication between people is very clear and not subject to misinterpretations. When there are misinterpretations, however, Tit For Tat devolves into Eye For an Eye (leaving everyone blind; well, except for the last person, who becomes king/queen of the blind).

Still, getting familiar with TFT in a non-noisy environment can help to understand the significance of Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in the first place, and how mutual cooperation can beat 'us vs. them' thinking in the long-run (again, to prove this, try to actually beat TFT in the link above). Being unable to beat it (by more than one turn) by cheating/competing against it should prove eye-opening at least for some people (it was for me when I first came across Axelrod's book).

To make it interesting, let's see who can get the highest average score (coins per turn). (Honour system.) To start things off, I'll do a random strategy by flipping a virtual coin for each turn:

Before playing, here are the random moves I'll play, from a quick random spreadsheet (C for Cooperate, D for Defect, which is called 'Compete' on that site):
CCDCCDCDDCCDCCDCCCCCDCCDC

Here's the results: After 11 rounds, the 'wizard' ended the game, so I only got to play:
CCDCCDCDDCC

Final result: 28 coins, 11 rounds, for average score of 2.55 coins per turn. Can anyone beat that? :popcorn: (If you can remember them or take note of them, try listing your moves, too, though this is just for fun, so it's not strictly necessary.)
I did: CCCCCCCCCCC.....
Your average number of coins was 3.00 .
Serendip's average number of coins was 3.00 .

I did: DDDDDDDDDDD.....
Your average number of coins was 1.33 .
Serendip's average number of coins was 0.92 .
(The game tells me I was "flirting with an inconceivably foul fate the whole time". I noticed here that I started off with a large advantage, which dwindled slightly with each round. In my first game, we were even the whole time. Interesting.)

I did: CDCDCDCDCDC.....
Your average number of coins was 2.80 .
Serendip's average number of coins was 2.30 .
(In this game, we were evenly matched on D's, and I pulled slightly ahead on C's.)

I did: DCDCDCDCDCDCD.....
Your average number of coins was 2.50 .
Serendip's average number of coins was 2.50 .
(This was the opposite of the last round; we were matched on C's, and I pulled ahead on D's. It also lasted 13 rounds instead of 11.)

AndrewV69
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Posts: 8146
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13724

Post by AndrewV69 »

In other news, I joined Facebook so I could ask someone about a question concerning her paper on Sentencing Disparities. So I thought I would look up Abbie on Facebook and got distracted here at this talk here:

PZ Myers (Pharyngula, University of Minnesota-Morris) and Abigail Smith (ERV, University of Oklahoma)
Epigenetics: new and exciting, but not quite magical 15:40
http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/1682

*shakes head*

That was then, this is now. How far has PeeZuss Christ has fallen? A lot.

Skep tickle
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Posts: 5357
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13725

Post by Skep tickle »

Skep tickle wrote:FWIW, my post at Lousy Canuck is still in moderation; mentioned here >24 hrs ago: viewtopic.php?p=80575#p80575 ...
FWIW, my post at Lousy Canuck is still in moderation; mentioned (& posted) here >48 hrs ago.

No links in it. No photoshopped images. No insults, to my reading. Not directly on the OP topic but relevant in explaining further a quote from me embedded in the OP, to which PZ responded in reply #1, making assumptions about what I said and meant.

Oh, well. I might as well edit down PZ's reply #1 in the Lousy Canuck thread "Defamation is not disagreement" to point out an apparent contradiction:
Wait…she listened, & all she took from it was 1 or 2 sentences which she then misinterprets ... ?

<snip>

But of course we have to accept the personal testimony of women’s experiences. In that case, it would have been totally injust to simply say, “oh, she’s a woman, therefore she’s lying”.
Right! It would always be totally "injust to simply say" that, though of course if they've ever demonstrated someone actually making such a clueless and prejudiced statement, I missed that part.

To go with the clipped PZ quote above for a moment: I guess because PZ says I misinterpreted rather than lied, and Jason could have let the post through (but didn't, or hasn't) in which I followed the link to show what my entire quote was & tried to show my work, therefore dismissing my comments is not "injust" - unfortunately, it seems simply like business as usual over there.

TheMan
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13726

Post by TheMan »

Wonderist wrote:For those wondering WTF I'm going on about wrt the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, here's a simple demonstration of the Tit For Tat strategy, where you try to beat this simple strategy. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/playground/pd.html See if you can beat TFT (called 'Serendip' in the game).

Note that this scenario involves zero 'noise': you can always tell if the opponent is 'cooperating' or 'competing', there are no mixed signals (analogous to misunderstandings and misinterpretations in our current 'deep rifts' situation, where such miscommunications/noise are rather common). In noisy environments, TFT actually doesn't do that well. It still does okay, if the noise level is low enough. But Pavlov does better, usually. So, while TFT is often touted as the 'best' or 'optimal' strategy, as indeed this website also does, it actually doesn't translate that well into real life scenarios, unless communication between people is very clear and not subject to misinterpretations. When there are misinterpretations, however, Tit For Tat devolves into Eye For an Eye (leaving everyone blind; well, except for the last person, who becomes king/queen of the blind).

Still, getting familiar with TFT in a non-noisy environment can help to understand the significance of Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in the first place, and how mutual cooperation can beat 'us vs. them' thinking in the long-run (again, to prove this, try to actually beat TFT in the link above). Being unable to beat it (by more than one turn) by cheating/competing against it should prove eye-opening at least for some people (it was for me when I first came across Axelrod's book).

To make it interesting, let's see who can get the highest average score (coins per turn). (Honour system.) To start things off, I'll do a random strategy by flipping a virtual coin for each turn:

Before playing, here are the random moves I'll play, from a quick random spreadsheet (C for Cooperate, D for Defect, which is called 'Compete' on that site):
CCDCCDCDDCCDCCDCCCCCDCCDC

Here's the results: After 11 rounds, the 'wizard' ended the game, so I only got to play:
CCDCCDCDDCC

Final result: 28 coins, 11 rounds, for average score of 2.55 coins per turn. Can anyone beat that? :popcorn: (If you can remember them or take note of them, try listing your moves, too, though this is just for fun, so it's not strictly necessary.)
You got more than Serendip!
After the final round, the score is:
You have 18 gold coins, and
Serendip has 13 gold coins.
Your average number of coins was 1.64 .
Serendip's average number of coins was 1.18 .



BUT you were flirting with an Inconceivably Foul Fate the whole time!

I clicked compete except for once and I lost that round......

Guest

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13727

Post by Guest »

28 coins. 2.8 in 10 rounds. CDCDCDCDCD

apparently the boring and obvious wins :P

TheMan
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Posts: 709
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:56 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia.

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13728

Post by TheMan »

and this when co-operating the whole time....

You and Serendip got the same amount!
After the final round, the score is:
You have 39 gold coins, and
Serendip has 39 gold coins.
Your average number of coins was 3.00 .
Serendip's average number of coins was 3.00 .



Think this is the BEST strategy?

Guest

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13729

Post by Guest »

i guess the point is to see if you can actually beat 3.00 with any other strategy that involves competing

Metalogic42
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Posts: 1252
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13730

Post by Metalogic42 »

Ok, now for an interesting experiment. I'm going to play again, this time working under the assumption that Serendip is an average human being, complete with biases, desires, emotions, etc., and play as I would against a person.

I'll be nice to start off. People are basically good, right? (C) (coins 3:3, average 3:3)

Ok, maybe s/h/it thinks I'm a nice guy. I'll try to throw him for a loop and gain an early advantage. (D) (8:3, 4:1.5)

I don't think s/h/it likes that too much. S/h/it knows the rules; I'm expecting a compete, so I will too. (D) (9:4, 3:1.33)

This is going to be bad if we both compete every time. I'll offer the hand of friendship for a few turns. (C) (9:9, 2.25:2.25)

One more for s/h/it to get the message. (C) (12:12, 2.40:2.40)

Either s/h/it will decide to cooperate with me because I have been, or will compete again to take advantage of my niceness. Either way, compete! (D) (17:12, 2.83:2)

Success! I came out on top. I've got about 10-13 moves, so I'll coop again to trick s/h/it into a coop later. (C) (17:17, 2.43:2.43)

There goes my advantage, that bastard. Compete!!!! (D) (22:17, 2.75:2.12)

And here it comes again. Gonna take a gamble and compete again in hopes of gaining a large advantage. (D) (23:18, 2.56:2)

Well that didn't work. Maybe we can coop for the rest of the game and I'll still come out ahead. (C) (23:23, 2.3:2.3)

Or not. Game over, with a tie.

John Greg
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13731

Post by John Greg »

Skep tickle, the nasty, nasty tease, said (http://www.slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... 213#p81213):
FWIW, my post at Lousy Canuck is still in moderation; mentioned (& posted) here >48 hrs ago.
Toiletbowl plays very fast and loose with ethics when it comes to allowing (or not) a post to get through his moderation vacuum. Generally speaking, he is a kind of archetypical Laden in that he only lets through posts that fall into one of the following categories:

1. Agree with the toilet.
2. Disagree with the toilet, but presented in such a way, and with additional post edits, moderations, and/or deletions, to present the poster as a liar, or fabricater, or otherwise flawed.
3. Ban hammers on, then off, then on, then off, randomly, along with deletions, to make the poster appear to be a liar and or otherwise disingenuous piece of shit.

I mean really, the bottom line is that the toilet is simply an unscrupulous, unethical, and highly immorally menadacious puff of swamp gas that wants to be Greg Laden.

Floosh!

'nuff said.

Skep tickle
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Posts: 5357
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:04 am

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13732

Post by Skep tickle »

Hello lurkers.
In total there are 50 users online :: 3 registered, 3 hidden and 44 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)

Pepsi
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Posts: 18
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13733

Post by Pepsi »

I don't understand the letters, but my rounds: Cooperate, 3. Cooperate, 6. Cooperate, 9. Cooperate til 15... And I think the game is broken. I can't choose an option. Closing out now.

debaser71
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Posts: 841
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2012 10:03 am

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13734

Post by debaser71 »

good guys finish first
tit for tat, start with a cooperate

You and Serendip got the same amount!
After the final round, the score is:
You have 45 gold coins, and
Serendip has 45 gold coins.
Your average number of coins was 3.00 .
Serendip's average number of coins was 3.00 .



Think this is the BEST strategy?

John Greg
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Location: New Westminster, BC, Canada

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13735

Post by John Greg »

CCCC; CDCDCD; x gold coins, eh? What teh fuck are you people babbling about?!?

Michael K Gray
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Contact:

Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13736

Post by Michael K Gray »

John Greg wrote:CCCC; CDCDCD; x gold coins, eh? What teh fuck are you people babbling about?!?
They've become archaeologists, and are now dating their horde of Roman Coins.

Skep tickle
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13737

Post by Skep tickle »

Apples wrote:
Metalogic42 wrote:http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... ools-here/

Jeez, what a depressing bunch.

"I have never made an April Fool’s joke in my life, and this certainly isn’t one."

"I am glad to share this sentiment with you, PZ. I hate april-fools-gotcha jokes."

"I never could work out why April Fools day was such a big thing. It struck me too much as a bullying tactic. I’m glad to say I’ve never gone there."

"Never had the slightest use for April 1st idiocy."

"I hate April Fools’ Day. It’s a day for taking advantage of other people’s trust in order to make them feel stupid for your own sadistic amusement. No thanks."

"Thank you! Fuck I hate april fools."

"fuck this stupid day"
April Fool's jokes are vicious harassment and totes oppressive to people who are marginalized by their incredible narcissism and humorlessness.
Yowza.

Another one from that thread: "With a teenaged boy in the house, April 1st tends to be the most annoying day of the year."

I don't know what his teenager is like, but I really treasure sharing humor in various ways with my kid (now a teenager), at every opportunity, like my dad and I used to do. And that includes my kid pulling one over on me today for April Fools; I laughed when I'd realized I'd been had.

Skep tickle
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13738

Post by Skep tickle »

Michael K Gray wrote:
John Greg wrote:CCCC; CDCDCD; x gold coins, eh? What teh fuck are you people babbling about?!?
They've become archaeologists, and are now dating their horde of Roman Coins.
Yeah, well, just watch that they don't slip anything into their horde of Roman Coins' drink.

John Greg
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13739

Post by John Greg »

Ah, yes, I see.

Hmm.

....

Let's all joyously return to condemning the evil, the true, true evil that is April Fools day ... or summat.

I mean seriously, a renowned, respected, nay, revered PhD has compelled us to do so.

Yes.

....

Or, is that No!?!

Say, by-the-by, and on the sly, how many match packs does it take to become PeeZus Myers, renowned, respected, nay, revered PhD?

John Greg
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Re: Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

#13740

Post by John Greg »

Say, by-the-by, and on the sly, how many match packs does it take to become PeeZus Myers, renowned, respected, nay, revered PhD?
I should clarify.

I am only an Arts Degree with an associated thingamabob guy (Ooh, guys, don't do that!!), so I really do not have any idea whatsoever of what I speak of.

....

Eh?

Misogynist fuck! Degree-rape enabler.

Locked