Happy 3rd Pit Birthday!

[free thoughtpolice]

You don't need to meet. You don't need to ping-pong responses. You don't need $4,300 worth of bullshit.

How much an hour is this guy charging? At $400/hour you get 10 hours to do what? Read 3 blogposts and send the lawyer a letter asking him to specify what was objectionable?

[Cunt of Personality]

http://i.imgur.com/8MugAvT.jpg

[Scented Nectar]

You don't need to meet. You don't need to ping-pong responses. You don't need $4,300 worth of bullshit.

How much an hour is this guy charging? At $400/hour you get 10 hours to do what? Read 3 blogposts and send the lawyer a letter asking him to specify what was objectionable?

IF her story about paying a lawyer is true, then she got talked into paying a retainer. Those can be huge.

[Bhurzum]

Fuck me in the ass, this is fertile grounds for uber-lulz - The Amazing atheist Vs Racist Roo!

Extremely long video by Atheism-Is-Unstoppable4 in response to TAA and his accusations of racism. Be warned, this video will melt your face, give you a migraine and inject drain cleaner directly into your brain!

[youtube]a9kdbT4uqKo[/youtube]

Note: I'm a "fan" of both players in the loosest possible sense. Frankly, I'd rather watch paint dry but sometimes, just sometimes, I find myself watching their stuff.

[Billie from Ockham]

The real error is in thinking that any ability is determined by either environment or genetics, as all abilities emerge from the combination of the two. But if you deny this and continue to approach the question in the way that people did, say, fifty years ago, then he's correct that the proportion of variance assigned to environment is almost always higher than that assigned to genetics. But, again, that view is long dead.

Of course, it's true that biology more or less boils down to genes doing gene things within environments, so yes, in principle you're right that it always comes down to "the combination of the two."

But—and please forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you here—I don't think that invalidates the notion that real-world variance in one ability might be more the result of genetic factors than variance in another ability.

PZ is simply wrong when he declares that "all the evidence shows that the differences in what individuals can do is largely shaped by the environment." We really are born with different capabilities because of our genes.

Being who I am, I look at it in terms of explanatory power, which boils down in this case to squared semi-partials. When you fail to include any interaction terms -- i.e., you look at the question as only nature vs nurture -- you get large semi-partials for both genetics and environment, and people can spend lots of time comparing the two and coming to various conclusions. But as soon as you include the interaction terms, the main effects pretty much evaporate and almost all of the explanatory power is in the interaction. So, when you approach this in terms of real-world variance and a modern model, arguments between nature and nurture are arguments about who comes in a distant second vs a slightly-more-distant third, not who is the most important source of variance.

With the notable exception of whether you can get pregnant vs get others pregnant. That one doesn't have much of an interaction, nor much of a main effect of environment.

[Parody Accountant]

Inspiring news: I'm inspired by PA being inspired by comhcinc. I'm taking tomorrow off from the stinking-up the Pit, to take care of my shit.

If you see me listed in the "Users browsing this forum"... SWAT me.

Also inspiring: At $510, Elyse's moving-day fundraiser has exceeded the $500 goal, with 27 more days to go.

6 donors. "James Billingham."

I'm back. And what a lovely day I've had. Seriously, accomplished quite a few things that I had been letting pile up

Thanks for the motivation commie!

[Billie from Ockham]

Plus, wasn't he one of the people touting the Iberian studies that supposedly show that trans* brains are similar to the transitioned-to, instead of the transitioned-from?

Haven't followed that discussion but it's a fact I also learned from Robert Sapolsky, who is generally awesome and appears to do his homework. Someone helpfully cut out the segment, but I can only urge everyone (yet again) to see the entire lecture.

Read the more recent reviews of that work. That someone as good as Sapolsky would bite without a replication makes me sad.

[Parody Accountant]

How many donors have contributed to the death of elyse now?

[Parody Accountant]

I haven't been here in a while due to being busy with real life, but I just thought I would post this here-

Guess who is now on Twitter... Check out Dr. Richard Carrier (@RichardCCarrier): https://twitter.com/RichardCCarrier?s=09

BTW, excellent work Jan Steen.

Is this real

[Bhurzum]

I haven't been here in a while due to being busy with real life, but I just thought I would post this here-

Guess who is now on Twitter... Check out Dr. Richard Carrier (@RichardCCarrier): https://twitter.com/RichardCCarrier?s=09

BTW, excellent work Jan Steen.

Is this real

100% confirmed.

[Parody Accountant]

Once my boy Donald Trump wins the Presidency, then you'll all gonna see some real patriotism, mark my words.

Electric fences stretch from sea to shining sea.

Just try to take our jobs, illegals!

Terrorists gonna be flipping their shit when we nuke the middle east.

Putin can't step to my boy Donnie. Russia letting us put our military bases all over their sweet ass.

Kim Jong-Il declares a free democracy before committing harakiri.

China constructs in a new Trump Tower extending up from the Great Wall.

I'd take trump over all the repubelickans. He's crazy. Crazy people with crazy hair. Can't resist.

Sorry Europe, we might get kinda stupid for a while

[Billie from Ockham]

http://i.imgur.com/8MugAvT.jpg

I have estimated the posterior log-likelihood of Dr Richard Carrier PhD being able to calculate a standard error for his probability statement about Jesus to be -47.56 +/- 2.13.*

*nb. the log-likelihood of Dr Richard Carrier PhD knowing how to "read" a log-likelihood is -23.12 +/- 1.98

[James Caruthers]

Fuck me in the ass, this is fertile grounds for uber-lulz - The Amazing atheist Vs Racist Roo!

Extremely long video by Atheism-Is-Unstoppable4 in response to TAA and his accusations of racism. Be warned, this video will melt your face, give you a migraine and inject drain cleaner directly into your brain!

[youtube]a9kdbT4uqKo[/youtube]

Note: I'm a "fan" of both players in the loosest possible sense. Frankly, I'd rather watch paint dry but sometimes, just sometimes, I find myself watching their stuff.

I'd rather take actual Jabba the Hutt's side in a debate than find myself sharing an argument with the "antiracist is a code word for anti-kangaroos" youtube cult leader.

How unfortunate that TJ is also a youtube cult leader of a slightly less stupid variety.

BTW the accusations of racism against Roo are correct since they are largely based in how Roo abuses crime statistics to expressly make the argument that black people are "insanely more criminal" and "just need to stop committing all these crimes." This is an argument white nationalists make all the fucking time and it's an argument from statistics that ironically brushes aside all the OTHER contextualizing statistics to explain why poor people living shitty fucking lives in ghettos, where all their role models are in gangs, with police that hate them MIIIIIIIGHT just find themselves committing a crime at some point.

My view is "there but for the grace of an accident of birth, go I." There's nothing that makes me more moral than Jamal the gangbanger. I was lucky enough to not be born into such an ass-tastic life. In this case, yeah, culture is pretty much the deciding factor.

[Parody Accountant]

Pace Ron, pure random searches are eminently exploitable. In a scenario where half of travelers are searched and the other half waved through, you need only accept that half of your operatives will be caught, while the other half will succeed.

Can't argue with that.

Yes you can. As soon as one is caught put the whole place on lockdown.

But if you can do 50%, why not just do 100 %

[Gumby]

I haven't been here in a while due to being busy with real life, but I just thought I would post this here-

Guess who is now on Twitter... Check out Dr. Richard Carrier (@RichardCCarrier): https://twitter.com/RichardCCarrier?s=09

BTW, excellent work Jan Steen.

Is this real

100% confirmed.

Yep, it's real from what I can see. Completely worth ignoring, he's just doing it for the attention. Although seeing him insist that Atheism+ was a complete success was worth a laugh.

[James Caruthers]

Fair point though that Roo creates some amazing drama. He's truly a lolcow in the making.

I think Bewildered Ape put it best that yeah, the Drunken Peasants are a bunch of no-talent losers, but so is Roo. : D

[Parody Accountant]

Ode to Dr. Richard Carrier PhD.

While working on the probabilities
Of just what "Jesus" is
He discovered, much to his delight
He'd rather play with jizz.

Its good. But its missing a little plop plop fizz fizz for my taste

[Parody Accountant]

It appears it really is Richard Carrier and not some joke POE.

His blog does indeed link to it.
https://archive.is/b7Fcy

He is the very definition of a lulzcow. And the bonus? He has no discernible mental illness (beyond his own over inflated ego), that would ever make us feel bad about laughing at him.

The only downside, is that this guy is now so ignored, it might be to our best interest to not provide him with any attention.

Don't be selfish with a lolcow

[Parody Accountant]

...how the d sneaked in there, I don't know.

Rape.

If the d sneaks in there, it's rape

[Parody Accountant]

Fair point though that Roo creates some amazing drama. He's truly a lolcow in the making.

I think Bewildered Ape put it best that yeah, the Drunken Peasants are a bunch of no-talent losers, but so is Roo. : D

Best video to lol?

[Parody Accountant]

You guys my friend told me somebody snuck a d in there, so I called a buddy and texted 922. We did everything right

[James Caruthers]

Fair point though that Roo creates some amazing drama. He's truly a lolcow in the making.

I think Bewildered Ape put it best that yeah, the Drunken Peasants are a bunch of no-talent losers, but so is Roo. : D

Best video to lol?

Jacklyn Glenn, especially since I know people on the Pit have a massive boner for her.

[youtube]cnx5I5fdCAA[/youtube]

[youtube]BxSzekv5tdE[/youtube]

There are more of these about Jaclyn when you're done with these two.

[James Caruthers]

You guys my friend told me somebody snuck a d in there, so I called a buddy and texted 922. We did everything right

Not exactly.

I heard you weren't drunk or high.

[Parody Accountant]

Fair point though that Roo creates some amazing drama. He's truly a lolcow in the making.

I think Bewildered Ape put it best that yeah, the Drunken Peasants are a bunch of no-talent losers, but so is Roo. : D

Best video to lol?

Jacklyn Glenn, especially since I know people on the Pit have a massive boner for her.

[youtube]cnx5I5fdCAA[/youtube]

[youtube]BxSzekv5tdE[/youtube]

There are more of these about Jaclyn when you're done with these two.

Got to the bit about not raping toddlers and couldn't stomach the retarded argument.

Well played Caruthers. I'm done on that one though

[Cunt of Personality]

Ode to Dr. Richard Carrier PhD.

While working on the probabilities
Of just what "Jesus" is
He discovered, much to his delight
He'd rather play with jizz.

Its good. But its missing a little plop plop fizz fizz for my taste

Can't please everyone. The Bayesian prior suggested a high degree of acceptance.

[free thoughtpolice]

You don't need to meet. You don't need to ping-pong responses. You don't need $4,300 worth of bullshit.

How much an hour is this guy charging? At $400/hour you get 10 hours to do what? Read 3 blogposts and send the lawyer a letter asking him to specify what was objectionable?

IF her story about paying a lawyer is true, then she got talked into paying a retainer. Those can be huge.

Becky did say there were billing for hours and that her lawyer gave her a good deal :shock:
You have it right with the all caps IF. Hard to speculate about stuff that's shaky at best.

[Guestus Aurelius]

The real error is in thinking that any ability is determined by either environment or genetics, as all abilities emerge from the combination of the two. But if you deny this and continue to approach the question in the way that people did, say, fifty years ago, then he's correct that the proportion of variance assigned to environment is almost always higher than that assigned to genetics. But, again, that view is long dead.

Of course, it's true that biology more or less boils down to genes doing gene things within environments, so yes, in principle you're right that it always comes down to "the combination of the two."

But—and please forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you here—I don't think that invalidates the notion that real-world variance in one ability might be more the result of genetic factors than variance in another ability.

PZ is simply wrong when he declares that "all the evidence shows that the differences in what individuals can do is largely shaped by the environment." We really are born with different capabilities because of our genes.

Being who I am, I look at it in terms of explanatory power, which boils down in this case to squared semi-partials. When you fail to include any interaction terms -- i.e., you look at the question as only nature vs nurture -- you get large semi-partials for both genetics and environment, and people can spend lots of time comparing the two and coming to various conclusions. But as soon as you include the interaction terms, the main effects pretty much evaporate and almost all of the explanatory power is in the interaction. So, when you approach this in terms of real-world variance and a modern model, arguments between nature and nurture are arguments about who comes in a distant second vs a slightly-more-distant third, not who is the most important source of variance.

With the notable exception of whether you can get pregnant vs get others pregnant. That one doesn't have much of an interaction, nor
much of a main effect of environment.

I guess what I mean is this:

Yes, it's all genes + environment.

But.

If a given gene (or combination of genes) yields the same phenotypic trait across varied real-world environments, then isn't it meaningful to draw some sort of distinction between that trait and another one that only manifests within a narrower set of environments?

[Guestus Aurelius]

Not a hard distinction, but one of degree: sensitivity to real-world environmental variability, you might call it.

[Suet Cardigan]

ED article of the day is about Rationalwiki:

https://encyclopediadramatica.se/RationalWiki

[Parody Accountant]

I think Elyse should call herself the Wilt Chamberlain of being raped if she gets to #6

[James Caruthers]

ED article of the day is about Rationalwiki:

https://encyclopediadramatica.se/RationalWiki

Holy run-on sentences!

Reading that is painful. They need some editors. It also sounds more angry than most ED articles, which is a clear sign it's in need of a rewrite. ED is supposed to be laughing at the drama, not being caught up in it.

RationalWiki is still shit though.

[free thoughtpolice]

I think Elyse should call herself the Wilt Chamberlain of being raped if she gets to #6

She still won't earn the Magic Johnson award. :ugeek:

[welch]

I am starting to wonder if this Ahmed kid from Texas was a troll. He actually took a bunch of clock parts and rebuilt them into a suitcase. He basically made a timing device in a suitcase. The damn thing actually had an alarm go off in one of his classes. If I were a teacher and an alarm went off in a suitcase it would freak me the shit out. He was looking to get in trouble and he did.... and he got invited to the Whitehouse because he knows how to use a soldering gun.

12036480_10153611431793536_4986692408681483324_n.jpg

Okay - So think of it this way. Which one of you would be willing to take this "clock" through airport security? In my opinion you would be dragged off to a special room where Homeland Security would grill you for a day.

I will at least say this. It was 100% appropriate for the school to call the cops. They would not be doing their duty if they had ignored this.

Rubbish. They never thought it was a bomb. The cops have clearly stated this. If they thought "it could be a bomb", for reals, then you do the things such a device requires:

1) CALL THE BOMB SQUAD.
2) Evacuate the school and maybe surrounding neighborhood.

you know, the shit you do when you actually think you have something that could be an explosive device. They did *none* of that, because they knew it wasn't a bomb. What they thought is that he was trying to make a hoax bomb, because his answer of "It's. A. Clock" wasn't "deep" or "encompassing" enough for them. They have an engineering teacher there. In fact, that was the first person he showed it to. Oddly, the *guy who supposedly knows about 'lectronics* wasn't alarmed at all.

Because it wasn't a bomb, and they knew this. They just didn't like that his story wasn't the one they wanted him to have.

Again: they never. at. any. point. though it was a real bomb. Their actions prove this.

[welch]

Because any deviation from randomness (whether it's 50% or even 1%) is exploitable. It's just math.

[....]
100%* random is non-exploitable. They will face no advantage no matter what they do.

*Note that STRICTLY speaking nothing is ever truly 100% random but that's another issue altogether.

Two things:

1. It MIGHT be possible to exploit the system. But it doesn't mean that is possible to exploit the system or that the terrorists would know how to exploit the system. In short, your premise includes a posit of perfect information and the ability to act on it rationally. [....]

2. You're not considering the populations and resources. You had 762 million passengers in the US last year. You can't check them all. You can't even come close. By engaging in both profiling (higher likelyhood targets) and random selection (all targets regardless of likelyhood) you can simply utilize your resources to greater effect.

[....]

Now, beyond that, I don't see how any of this is going to really work. The whole process is complete shit:

Washington (CNN)The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that the acting administrator for the Transportation Security Administration would be reassigned, following a report that airport screeners failed to detect explosives and weapons in nearly every test that an undercover team conducted at dozens of airports.

According to a report based on an internal investigation, "red teams" with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General were able to get banned items through the screening process in 67 out of 70 tests it conducted across the nation.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/ ... ing-tests/

June, 2015, and we still can't find jack shit. But we have to dump our perfume and honey in the trash... Fucking idiots.

[....]

The purpose of screening & searches is not to catch every single terrorist. It's to deter terrorist attempts (or drug dealing in another context) in the first place by making them exceedingly difficult.

Pace Ron, pure random searches are eminently exploitable. In a scenario where half of travelers are searched and the other half waved through, you need only accept that half of your operatives will be caught, while the other half will succeed.

Recruiting and training operatives is costly in time & resources. Even something as profiling based on ethnicity or surname or country of origin will serve as a deterrent, as the terrorists must then recruit from a much smaller demographic.

As Tribble notes, the searches currently being conducted by the TSA are kabuki, a joke, designed to make Americans think the gov't is doing something to make them feel better. It's about as effective as the placebo Airborne™ people take to guard against catching colds on a plane.

The worst part about this theater is that it creates perfect targets: the security lines themselves. "Oh, they won't really get a bomb through that." "They don't have to, you fucking idiot. Look at the atlanta security area: lots of people packed into an enclosed space with a low ceiling, all the walls, floors and ceilings reinforced. They haven't removed the targets from the range of possibility, they've just moved the targets."

and yet in all this time, nothing has happened. Because the terrorists won. We've paranoided ourselves into this moronic state, and now, all they have to do is a couple of lazy PR efforts or set up some half-wit with a "new bomb" and we obligingly twist our bowels into another layer of knots. Why the hell would they spend the time to do shit, we're doing it all for them.

It's such nonsense.

[welch]

Peez, being a bitter little man on his Milo Sexbot thread.

PZ Myers

18 September 2015 at 11:02 am

I don’t know if Michael Nugent has given up on me. I’ve given up on him.

Dude, no - no, my billionaire Playboy centerfold ex girfriend did *not* dump me. It was actually *me* who dumped *her* skank ass, okay?

I'M STILL HERE! I'M STILL HERE! I'M STILL HERE!

[welch]

The (Final?) Cost of Ben Radford’s Libel Bullying: About $5K
http://skepchick.org/2015/09/the-final- ... -about-5k/

Though Radford may still change his mind again and decide to sue me, I’ve closed the fundraiser and collected the funds. The total funds raised were $9,606. After 3% + $0.30 per transaction payment processing fees totaling $356.58, the final sum was $9,249.42.

My lawyer has sent me what we both hope will be his final bill for this matter, assuming that Radford doesn’t move forward on his initial threats.

The bill totaled $4,984.22.

It came with a very helpful itemized list showing every minute my lawyer worked on this case, which amounted to quite a few hours of work. And remember: this is for a case that never went to court, and hasn’t actually resulted in a filing (yet). Also, I’ll say that my lawyer was very, very kind when it came to the final tally of hours worked.

A large part of that cost was due to the initial vagueness of Radford’s threat, and our repeated attempts to gain any kind of understanding of what exactly he felt was libelous and what actions he wanted me to take. There were several letters sent to Radford’s attorneys and even an in-person meeting, none of which resulted in any satisfying answers, which is the point at which I went public.

Another detail to note is that to hire my lawyer, I needed to come up with a retainer of several thousand dollars. I couldn’t go public at that point, so I needed to use credit cards to do it and hope that I could come up with the money later (which I did, thanks to many of you who donated).

Again, I’m detailing all this publicly so that you truly understand the enormous cost of protecting speech and that you bear it in mind the next time you hear someone make threats to sue for defamation.

After deducting the cost of my legal fees, I’ll be left with $4,265.20 from the fundraiser. I’ll have to pay taxes on the full $9,249.42 that I collected, which I estimate to be $2,312.36 for federal and $739.95 for state, so $3,052.31 total. Yikes.

Still, that leaves a total of $1,212.89 that I’ll have leftover to donate as soon as I get a solid indication that Radford has left me alone for good. As I mentioned previously, all leftover money will go to either anyone else Radford has threatened or the EFF. I’ll post an update once I’m able to do that.

Ah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... She got so over-billed it's not even funny. Or as the joke goes:

A lawyer died and was met by St. Peter at the pearly gates.
“There must be some mistake,” the lawyer complained.
“Why is that?” asked St. Peter.
“Because I’m only forty-two years old!” exclaimed the lawyer.
“Oh? According to your billed hours, you are eighty-seven!

Anyway, you get a letter like that, a simple and short letter back requesting Radford specify the offending pieces and why they are libelous is all that is needed. If you hear nothing, you move on. If you get something back that isn't a specific answer you write a second letter that says "hey, clearly you didn't read the first letter, try again." You tell them that until they are specific in their charges, there is nothing to discuss and you consider the matter closed.

You don't need to meet. You don't need to ping-pong responses. You don't need $4,300 worth of bullshit.

Lawyers have forgotten more about parting suckers from money than Watson dreams possible to know.

[RonSwanson]

Pace Ron, pure random searches are eminently exploitable. In a scenario where half of travelers are searched and the other half waved through, you need only accept that half of your operatives will be caught, while the other half will succeed.

Can't argue with that.

Yes you can. As soon as one is caught put the whole place on lockdown.

But if you can do 50%, why not just do 100 %

You can't keep it on lockdown forever.

[free thoughtpolice]

Alleged Slymepitter Rich Sanderson has been harassing social justice jihada WMD Kitty over at patheos:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danthropol ... #comment-2

[Lsuoma]

Apparently VW has been caught fitting a device to some cars to disguise pollution levels. When it determines emissions are being checked it reduces the emissions for the duration of the test.

Half a million cars are being recalled.

I wonder if any member could help me with a suitable image which might represent this naughty manufacturer being punished in some way for the transgression, perhaps by something being done to one of their cars?

[Service Dog]

That muslim kid's clock was ok,
and his bomb-hoax prank was first rate,
but he really knocked it out of the park,
building this sexbot prototype:
[youtube]OFSbFBo9LOw[/youtube]

The sequel is rarely better than the original,
but I guess Moore's Law overrides.
http://www.zajefajna.com/pics/th_e17b1f ... 0b3865.jpg

PZ's sexbot dirtytalk is Carrier-esque.

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

Apparently VW has been caught fitting a device to some cars to disguise pollution levels. When it determines emissions are being checked it reduces the emissions for the duration of the test.

Half a million cars are being recalled.

I wonder if any member could help me with a suitable image which might represent this naughty manufacturer being punished in some way for the transgression, perhaps by something being done to one of their cars?

http://i.imgur.com/fyJQAUv.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/8ROug5D.jpg

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

http://i.imgur.com/iEW9XVC.jpg

[MacGruberKnows]

Guestus Aurelius, Peez has to be a blank-slater. After all, he absolutely hates Pinker. In Peezville, that's how the world works. In Peezville, you don't hate someone because of what they say, do, or stand for; you hate what someone says, does, or stands for because you hate them.

I remember him saying "Plasticity is all! Plasticity is all!" So blank slates and plastic. Or plastic blank slates or something.

[Really?]

PZ's sexbot dirtytalk is Carrier-esque.

It's just odd that PZ is so critical of dudes fucking robots, even though dudes fucking robots is certainly not rape and harms absolutely no one. There's no human woman involved (trans or otherwise), so there is zero risk of harm to the women he cares about so much.

But PZ is willing to host blog posts about how HIV-positive people have no responsibility to report the status to a partner. He also hosts a blogger who fucked around on his wife, potentially giving her diseases, and another blogger who was accused of rape.

[free thoughtpolice]

http://i.imgur.com/iEW9XVC.jpg

These days we have "The War Against Tires":
[youtube]uPddr5pd-CE[/youtube]

[Skep tickle]

Shocking transmisogyny in the PZ Milo thread. I'm surprised none of the remaining Horde, now TERF free, have picked up on it.

No, it’s not. That paragraph makes no sense. Male gametes have a higher frequency of novel mutations than female gametes, but it’s not because Nature is intentionally tinkering with men to keep women happier. It’s because males produce gametes profligately in a process that requires a series of cell divisions, and the reproductive machinery has a fixed error rate. More cell divisions yields a higher frequency of error. Females set aside a small number of gametes early in development, suppress cell divisions, and produce ova with fewer deviations from the initial genetics.

"MALE gametes"? What in the fuck does that mean? What makes a gamete male? How can you tell if you don't ask the gamete?

"Males" produce gametes profligately? Excuse me, but this is obvious transerasure.

How does he define "male" and "female"? Why won't the Horde ask the TERF to clear this up?

But, ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed that you all had a mother and a father. Women are produced by the same fusion of ‘experimental’ sperm and conservative ova as men. Nature is tinkering with all sexes equally, if you need to anthropomorphize it.

Whoa. Everyone had a "mother" and a "father?" What about people who had two fathers, but still emerged from their father's vagina?

<snip>

:clap: :clap: :clap:

In other words, "IOWWDI".

Multiple choice question time! Which phrase below best defines or describes "biology"?
a. Fad whose time has come & gone
b. Tool of the patriarchy
c. TERFdom incarnate
d. Science of life in all its forms and phenomena

[Service Dog]

I think it's unfair that when Elyse has sex with many men, we all look down on her and say she's a slut.

But when Richard Carrier has sex with many women, we all admire him and say he's a stud.

[Really?]

I think it's unfair that when Elyse has sex with many men, we all look down on her and say she's a slut.

But when Richard Carrier has sex with many women, we all admire him and say he's a stud.

It's that goddam virgin/passed-out-whore complex striking again.

[Really?]

I think it's unfair that when Elyse has sex with many men, we all look down on her and say she's a slut.

But when Richard Carrier has sex with many women, we all admire him and say he's a stud.

It's that goddam virgin/passed-out-whore complex striking again.

If it's not obvious, I'm not calling Elyse a whore when she's down; I honestly want her to get help. I want nothing for for than her two kids to have the loving, dedicated mother that she is inside. I was making reference to the "virgin/whore complex" that we hear about from Jezebel so much.

[Bhurzum]

I was making reference to the "virgin/whore complex" that we hear about from Jezebel so much.

Speaking of Jezebel...

Trigger warning - massive pig knackers covered in shit.

[ffs]

[youtube]ePpjEBFcUUs[/youtube]

Meanwhile has pz commented on how vicious and objectifying women are who use vibrators and dildos to pleasure themselves? A facsimile man attached would be one thing, but instead they reduce them to JUST being a penis, in their complete control, and objectify them by reducing them to LITERAL objects, representing their only 'valued' role?

Truly disgusting

[MacGruberKnows]

And

Caine
18 September 2015 at 4:12 pm

Zibble:
Anyone who wants sex or affection without the complication of having to deal with an actual human being with agency and the ability to say “no” is a creep.

How interesting. I find judgmental assholes to be on the creepy side.


Read more: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... z3m9gA9c5K

was said with no irony involved.

[Old_ones]

That muslim kid's clock was ok,
and his bomb-hoax prank was first rate,
but he really knocked it out of the park,
building this sexbot prototype:
[youtube]OFSbFBo9LOw[/youtube]
(snip)

Yeah, I have a confession to make. I objectify Shoe0nHead every time she makes a new video. James Caruthers asserted that lots of people at the pit have a massive boner for Jacklyn Glenn, but if I had my pick, it wouldn't even be close.

[Lsuoma]

I was making reference to the "virgin/whore complex" that we hear about from Jezebel so much.

Speaking of Jezebel...

Trigger warning - massive pig knackers covered in shit.

That pig needs Carrierrelief! Stat!

[Guestus Aurelius]

https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyrobots/top/

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I am starting to wonder if this Ahmed kid from Texas was a troll. He actually took a bunch of clock parts and rebuilt them into a suitcase. He basically made a timing device in a suitcase. The damn thing actually had an alarm go off in one of his classes. If I were a teacher and an alarm went off in a suitcase it would freak me the shit out. He was looking to get in trouble and he did.... and he got invited to the Whitehouse because he knows how to use a soldering gun.

12036480_10153611431793536_4986692408681483324_n.jpg

Okay - So think of it this way. Which one of you would be willing to take this "clock" through airport security? In my opinion you would be dragged off to a special room where Homeland Security would grill you for a day.

I will at least say this. It was 100% appropriate for the school to call the cops. They would not be doing their duty if they had ignored this.

Rubbish. They never thought it was a bomb. The cops have clearly stated this. If they thought "it could be a bomb", for reals, then you do the things such a device requires:

1) CALL THE BOMB SQUAD.
2) Evacuate the school and maybe surrounding neighborhood.

you know, the shit you do when you actually think you have something that could be an explosive device. They did *none* of that, because they knew it wasn't a bomb. What they thought is that he was trying to make a hoax bomb, because his answer of "It's. A. Clock" wasn't "deep" or "encompassing" enough for them. They have an engineering teacher there. In fact, that was the first person he showed it to. Oddly, the *guy who supposedly knows about 'lectronics* wasn't alarmed at all.

Because it wasn't a bomb, and they knew this. They just didn't like that his story wasn't the one they wanted him to have.

Again: they never. at. any. point. though it was a real bomb. Their actions prove this.

Yes, I think the underlined part is the main problem. Thing is, there is a somewhat retarded law in Texas about hoax bombs, so keeping this in mind they did nothing wrong and just applied what Texas law says. I guess.

It is still fucking infuriating, though, and I'm glad to see the kid get such massive support.

[Service Dog]

I think it's unfair that when Elyse has sex with many men, we all look down on her and say she's a slut.

But when Richard Carrier has sex with many women, we all admire him and say he's a stud.

It's that goddam virgin/passed-out-whore complex striking again.

I've acquired the other
complex from them both. What's it called? ...Oedipal... Yeah.

I've got Late Stage Oedipal Complex: I wanna tear my eyeballs out.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

The worst part about this theater is that it creates perfect targets: the security lines themselves. "Oh, they won't really get a bomb through that." "They don't have to, you fucking idiot. Look at the atlanta security area: lots of people packed into an enclosed space with a low ceiling, all the walls, floors and ceilings reinforced. They haven't removed the targets from the range of possibility, they've just moved the targets."

and yet in all this time, nothing has happened. Because the terrorists won. We've paranoided ourselves into this moronic state, and now, all they have to do is a couple of lazy PR efforts or set up some half-wit with a "new bomb" and we obligingly twist our bowels into another layer of knots. Why the hell would they spend the time to do shit, we're doing it all for them.

It's such nonsense.

The actual fact of the matter is: airport TSA is bullshit.

If a terrorist wants to hit hard, there are all kind of places to do so without all the hassle of passing through airport TSA. Bombing a TGV at full speed would give a bodycount far superior to any airplane (save maybe an extended A380). Blowing one or multiple bombs in a TSA line would also give a huge bodycount, with the bonus of instantly fucking up the whole system. Can you imagine the level of paranoia if such an attack were to happen? What would be the next security solution then?

Terrorists can strike almost anywhere, anytime, so I don't see what's so special about airplanes that demands such measures as are in place or discussed here, except to give an illusion of security or of just plain old 'we're doing something about it'.

Even with a 100% screening (like full body scan for everyone) it would still be ineffective, because any terrorist fucker can blow themselves up in the line to the scanners.

In my opinion, which is worth shit, there are no solutions. None, not even partial ones. There will always be risks and there's jackfuck anyone can do about it except accept the fact and live with it.

[Steersman]

<snip>
He is. he tweeted men and women were identical as far as the brain is concerned, that makes him a behaviorist and Blank Slater.

Not to mention demonstrably wrong.

Plus, wasn't he one of the people touting the Iberian studies that supposedly show that trans* brains are similar to the transitioned-to, instead of the transitioned-from?

Haven't followed that discussion but it's a fact I also learned from Robert Sapolsky, who is generally awesome and appears to do his homework. Someone helpfully cut out the segment, but I can only urge everyone (yet again) to see the entire lecture.

[.youtube]Erexuu8PTo8[/youtube]


Standford University, Robert Sapolsky: Human Behaviour Biology (PLAYLIST)

The source of transgenderism is certainly an interesting topic; almost as interesting as the question as to why it’s so important to identify, if not judge, people based on differences in various physiological and psychological attributes, and how they correlate with sex, gender, or race.

But relative to the former, while Sapolsky is no doubt a clever fellow, and I should make an effort to watch more of his videos, I kind of get the impression he’s gone off the rails and into the weeds on the question of transgenderism, at least based on the title of that segment you linked to, i.e., “A trans person's brain is similar to that of the gender they identify with”. Like, so what? Particularly if the similarity is outweighed by many differences.

No doubt the brains of some MTF transsexuals have some similarities with “the [female sex] they identify with”. For instance, from the paper that Sapolsky was apparently referring to (based on his use of the phrase “bed nucleus of the stria terminalis”):

However, two subsequent post mortem brain analyses revealed that MTF transsexuals had a female-like central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) with respect to its size (Zhou et al., 1995) and number of neurons (Kruijver et al., 2000). Another post mortem study published recently reported female-like volumes and neuronal densities of the interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3) in MTF transsexuals (Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab, 2008).

But one similarity does not obviate the fact that there are, apparently, many more similarities with those of the gender they do not identify with – for instance, this study that came up recently. Consequently, the question seems to be the degree to which “we” should give much credibility to or support for the claim or feelings that the transgendered are “trapped in the wrong body”. It seems that if people are not prepared to accept the argument that the majority is deluded in perceiving people such as Bruce Jenner and Zinnia Jones as being male – a status that isn’t changeable short of a massive increase in the capabilities of gene-replacement therapy – then “we” are forced to conclude that Jenner, Jones, and company are the deluded ones for rejecting those facts.

Now, it may suck that many MTF transsexuals in particular have perceptions that don’t comport with the facts. But it sure seems an “odd” solution to suggest or condone glossing over or trying to change those facts when a more rational solution seems to be to change or modify the perceptual machinery that leads to those erroneous conclusions, e.g., eyeglasses, and various actual delusions: the way things look ain’t necessarily the way they are (spinning dancer, aliasing).

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Apparently VW has been caught fitting a device to some cars to disguise pollution levels. When it determines emissions are being checked it reduces the emissions for the duration of the test.

Half a million cars are being recalled.

I wonder if any member could help me with a suitable image which might represent this naughty manufacturer being punished in some way for the transgression, perhaps by something being done to one of their cars?

That's the one you were looking for, I guess?