The Refuge of the Toads

[Aneris]

But yes, there are some actors in the "anti-SJW community" (whatever that is) that aren't in to defend their rights, analyze data and criticize stupidity but to outright attack and more or less ban from public discourse an entire side of politics just like the SJWs have done.

Yeah ... I think this year we have seen the first spinnings of that. Just as the SJW's peeled away from scepticism abut four/five years ago leaving us, perhaps we're seeing a cultish "anti-SJW" community begin to form, which, too, will develop its own jargon and have its own clan-signalling methods and its own warrior-leaders. I'm not really talking about the pit so much or old-stagers such as Sargon, but I get the feeling that there are some younger you-tubers not having an atheist/Sceptical background specifically who are animated by an emotional anti-SJWism and have made it their life's work.

Some would argue that this is not new:

Gamer Gate: Three Stages to Obit
OCTOBER 21, 2014 BY CLARK
<bollocks>
[damn length limit]

I wouldn't even know where to begin. The trivially true, mixed with lots balderdash in the format of a “Just So” story.

[VickyCaramel]

McCarthyism really stopped Communism being cool and trendy.

Holy shit.

I made that up to troll CaptainFluffyBunny, but I'm now wondering if it's actually true.

[NoGodsEver]

Explain?

I'd be very happy to participate in some kind of star chamber to determine Vicky's un-pitism.

Though I always thought McCarthyism was Americanism with its sleeves rolled.

This is all very confusing.

Why? No pit rules were broken and I encourage her to speak freely. Just expressing my wonderment that a generally universally reviled concept of overseeing authority would gain traction in a bastion of free speech.

You're surprised that someone who unironically supported Trump would be down with McCarthyist tactics? I don't get it.

[MarcusAu]

McCarthyism really stopped Communism being cool and trendy.

Holy shit.

I made that up to troll CaptainFluffyBunny, but I'm now wondering if it's actually true.

Perhaps, the more accommodating approach that the British government services had to communism in the 1950s, was a better way to handle things than the methods employed in America at the same time.

[NoGodsEver]

One more bleary-eyed observation: The Get Down's lead starlet is Herizen Guardiola-- a name like a Star Wars character. Rightly so. She's the new Carrie Fisher, as far as I'm concerned. Same youthful edge. Same amazing rack.

Those legs tho. Holy shit.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJWUfORDg-y ... fawn&hl=en

[Old_ones]

If I had to guess what stopped communism from being cool and trendy, I'd probably go with Russia.

[Jan Steen]

This George Ciccariello sounds like some kind of Pol Pot who merely lacks the power to enact his fantasies. This is not, however, what makes me particularly angry. Ideology-driven sociopaths, be they communists or neo-nazis, are a dime a dozen. What makes me angry is that morons like him are the enablers of a scumbag like Mr Pussy Grabber. Each time their stupid anti-white rhetoric gains publicity there are almost certainly a lot of white people (not the best and brightest, admittedly) who will rally behind Trump and his kind in protest. Because nobody else, at least nobody in a position of influence, dares to point out that these identitarian SJWs with their hate speech about white people (in particular "cishet white males") are pure and unadulterated racists themselves.

Unfortunately, most journalists and politicians who are not on the Trump/Ukip spectrum seem to have swallowed the line that racism is "prejudice + power", and that therefore there can be no such thing as racism against white people. And so Prof. Ciccariello not only gets a pass, but is openly supported by thousands of his fellow academics. Because, hey, it was only a joke to call for white genocide. And yet, when Tim Hunt made a joke, that was no valid defence in the eyes of the SJWs who went after him (including many academics). Which reminds me yet again that SJWs are total hypocrites.

So, what to do? Call me naive, but I still think free speech is something which should be granted even to lunatics like George Ciccariello. His opinions should be countered by speech, not by physical violence or by going after his job. Expose detestable ideologues like him for what they are, and show what their ideas may lead to (see Pol Pot reference above). If as a result people should decide not to go and study at a university that employs the likes of Ciccariello, then that is to me a reasonable outcome. You don't get rid of bedbugs by killing them one by one when you spot them, but by changing the conditions that make them thrive. We need to change the intellectual climate in which it is acceptable to link skin colour and gender in a negative way to people's identities.

[InfraRedBucket]

Regrets. We could be arguing whether "Peez ran first" right now.

http://imgur.com/UDZjXkQ.jpg

http://imgur.com/6X49ezr.jpg

He auditioned as Hand Solo, a lone masturbating "hero" piloting the Millennium Fuckup aka FTB, to oblivion.

[Jan Steen]

If I had to guess what stopped communism from being cool and trendy, I'd probably go with Russia.

Or the Mao suits.

[Kirbmarc]

I also love the idea of confronting SJW bullshit in court, but where and how can that realistically happen?

Imagine this scenario:

-Jordan Peterson stubbornly refuses to call students with special pronouns

-he's suspended/fired because of that

-he brings his case to court, arguing that the special pronoun rules are against the First Amendment of the US constitution, and that his civil rights have been violated

-he wins. Special pronoun laws are declare unconstitutional. This is a huge blow to SJWs.

Is this unrealistic (serious question, not a rhetoric one)?

And while Jordan Peterson is fired/on suspension

-the school covers his classes with an SJW approved by the fucking weirdos in an attempt to appease them

-more young people (primarily women, because fewer men go to college) are taught bullshit as dogma

-Peterson, financially crippled from years of unemployment, maybe...maybe wins the case.

-the newspapers are filled with SJW editorials about the miscarriage of justice that took place.

That's what support networks like Patreons are for (yes, they can be used to support good causes too: giving money to people you think deserve help isn't immoral or illegal). Peterson could acquire enough support to inspire others in academia and elsewhere. The SJWs aren't invincible, they're just well-entrenched. By playing by the rules and beating them you rob them of legitimacy, which is a huge blow.

[Kirbmarc]

If Peterson decided to fight to special pronoun rules in court I'd be all for supporting him, no matter what I think about his other ideas, and so would be many others. I'd donate to his legal funds, and so would others. He'd inspire others to come out in his support. If he won he'd show the SJW and SJW friendly people that they're not "on the right side of history".

If there's anything that people in the A/S movement did wrong was not to challenge SJW libel like the Grenade post in court.

[CommanderTuvok]

PZ Myers failed to become one of the Horsemen.
PZ Myers failed to become a leader of a successful "Atheism+" movement.

Now, like his mate CJ Werleman, he needs another bandwagon to jump on, and he thinks he has spotted an opportunity, perhaps one that could get him into bed with The Intercept, or some other sugar daddy publisher.

If Myers thinks the Pit Crew have got tired exposing him, mocking him, and destroying his reputation.....boy, is he in for a BIG SHOCK.

I won't be satisfied until PZ is on his knees grovelling in his rags, salt tears streaming down his ruddy cheeks - having lost his home, and using a magnifying glass to looks to scraps of food in a fucking dumpster. The Commander towers over him, and simply points and laughs.

[Karmakin]

There's no big deal about "white genocide". The only big deal is that it shows evidence of SJW assholery/double standards.

By the way there's no big deal about an imminent "black genocide" or "asian genocide" in the US, either. No Black or Asian person is going to die because some idiot no one's ever heard of has a few wires loose.

But on the contrary, this seems to be a big deal to Sargon, Vicky, et al. Why, out of all the people with extreme opinions, did this one grind their gears so much that they feel the need to go between him and his employer? What is so specifically threatening about some guy talking about white genocide, compared to all the other crazies that have popped up on their radar?

Dunno why you felt the need to write the second paragraph. I would contest the last sentence (maybe it's a pedantic distinction to make). The Charleston shooting was just a few months ago. Certainly more white/black/Asian people are going to die in the near future because of certain people whose minds are warped by hate, probably resulting in blacks topping the list, whites in the middle, and Asians in last place. My point was that this academic, whose name I still haven't bothered to learn how to spell, is exceedingly unlikely to be able to influence anyone to commit violence.

Well, I watched Sargon's livestream talking about this. The reason this is a big deal to him, is largely because holding SJWs to their own standards is the only way to get them to change their opinion on what those standards should be. If SJWs think that getting people fired over having offensive views is the way for social progress, then it should fall on them as well. I'm not convinced that this is the best or even a worthwhile tactic. But I'm not convinced that it's not either. I'm kind of in the middle here.

For what it's worth, in an ideal world, what Sargon wants is for the university to make a sort of intellectual version of "That's not cool". Basically, get a meeting with him, ask him why he tweets the things he does (honestly it's more than this one tweet. The dude seriously makes tweets in favor of violent oppressive authoritarianism all the time it seems) and for the university to explain why he's basically advocating for the deaths of millions of people, and why that's not appropriate. Now, Sargon would like this publicized in some way, to help get the message across. But that's what he seems to want in an ideal world.

[MarcusAu]

I dunno - while entertaining - I really won't have that much difficulty in not giving a shit when some of the usual suspects crumble into insignificance like bleached white dog turds after a hot summer.

Some might say they are at that state already.

[MarcusAu]

Well, I watched Sargon's livestream talking about this. The reason this is a big deal to him, is largely because holding SJWs to their own standards is the only way to get them to change their opinion on what those standards should be. If SJWs think that getting people fired over having offensive views is the way for social progress, then it should fall on them as well. I'm not convinced that this is the best or even a worthwhile tactic. But I'm not convinced that it's not either. I'm kind of in the middle here.

For what it's worth, in an ideal world, what Sargon wants is for the university to make a sort of intellectual version of "That's not cool". Basically, get a meeting with him, ask him why he tweets the things he does (honestly it's more than this one tweet. The dude seriously makes tweets in favor of violent oppressive authoritarianism all the time it seems) and for the university to explain why he's basically advocating for the deaths of millions of people, and why that's not appropriate. Now, Sargon would like this publicized in some way, to help get the message across. But that's what he seems to want in an ideal world.

Well thanks for enacting the labour.

There is another aspect of this though. Currently Sargon is making his money as a full-time youtuber - so there is incentive (or pressure) for him to find more of these causes (no matter how altruistic his intentions). Sooner or later he (or someone in the same situation) is going to find the limits of their influence (or competence) - and people are going to ask what degree of oversight exists for third party Internet activists.

In fact, I think that push-back has already begun following the Trump win, what with the reported youtube subscription bug (and the corresponding 'massive Minds migration'), Zuckerberg's comments re: Facebook, and the identification of 'Fake News' as an issue.

[Tigzy]

Also Greg Laden literally tried to get me kicked out of school for the social/political opinions I hold so some yall need to meditate on that for a bit.

Whoa - wild 'literally' on the loose there. Sure you're not becoming one of them, ERV? :lol:

But anyways - for those considering retaliating in kind when it comes to the SJWs and grassing one up to one's employer, please do remember that SJWs are not above lying when doing this. You all know how it goes: someone (foolishly writing under their real name) makes a tentative tweet about, say, #AllLivesMatter, and any observing SJW will use this as a justification to contact his/her employer about the 'genocidal, white-supremacist racist' in their midst.

Take Peez, and his claim that Nugent's blog is 'a haven for rapists', as another example. Or take what happened to Skep Tickle, where Peez felt her employer ought to be told that she was actually trying to propagate a serious diagnosis of an STD, to his detriment - and if I recall rightly, his 'horde' somehow managed to convince themselves that she had been rifling through Peez's medical records as well. It's testament to the pathetic impotency of Peez's followers that Skep suffered no comeback; but one must shudder to think what might have happened had Peez possessed anything in the way of actual influence.

So we know that SJWs won't necessarily stick to the facts when it comes to reporting some perceived miscreant, and that outright lying is, to them, an entirely acceptable tactic. So I must ask: if it's all about nuke for nuke, are any of you folks comfortable with lying about an SJW when contacting said SJWs employer? And if not, why not?

[Dave]

I also love the idea of confronting SJW bullshit in court, but where and how can that realistically happen?

Imagine this scenario:

-Jordan Peterson stubbornly refuses to call students with special pronouns

-he's suspended/fired because of that

-he brings his case to court, arguing that the special pronoun rules are against the First Amendment of the US constitution, and that his civil rights have been violated

-he wins. Special pronoun laws are declare unconstitutional. This is a huge blow to SJWs.

Is this unrealistic (serious question, not a rhetoric one)?

\

It is unrealistic, as Peterson works for the University of Toronto, so its unlikely that any case involving his employment would be heard in US courts or an amendment to the US Constitution would be relevant.

(Probably ninjaed but anyway)

[VickyCaramel]

So, what to do? Call me naive, but I still think free speech is something which should be granted even to lunatics like George Ciccariello. His opinions should be countered by speech, not by physical violence or by going after his job. Expose detestable ideologues like him for what they are, and show what their ideas may lead to (see Pol Pot reference above). If as a result people should decide not to go and study at a university that employs the likes of Ciccariello, then that is to me a reasonable outcome. You don't get rid of bedbugs by killing them one by one when you spot them, but by changing the conditions that make them thrive. We need to change the intellectual climate in which it is acceptable to link skin colour and gender in a negative way to people's identities.

For the record, I don't think Sargon did anything to contact the university until the media and the twitterati already had, I know I didn't. This is an existing situation.

What people here have been doing is treating a university as if it were any other employer when it isn't. If you think about what a university should be and how they should react, then their line should be along the lines of, "We support freedom of speech, we support diversity of opinion and we will not censor or condemn a professor for expressing his views off campus or on it. A university is a place where we should have these discussions".

Unfortunately, many universities are broken, in which case he might be in trouble. It is far more important to go after these idiotic academic's employers than it is to go after them.

[Billie from Ockham]

George Ciccariello's big mistake was in not preceding his remarks with a "trigger warning" for conservatives....clearly Sargon et al are in dire need of a "safe space"... :bjarte:

Thanks for posting this.

[Billie from Ockham]

Oh, well, if people want to become the right-wing version of the SJWs they're free to do so.

I thought all people here cared about liberal democratic values, but if Vox Day's insane rants about getting SJWs or even simply people you think are SJWs fired for their ideas are normalized as "part of the cultural war" I have to assume I was wrong.

Over-night, it soaked in to me that we (as in: people who post here) vary quite a bit on the Mykeru Scale (which goes from 1 to 11, of course) and that discussions between those with very different scores are some of the most bitter and unproductive. I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done about this, but I've decided to flounce opt-out from the remains of this one.

[Billie from Ockham]

So glad that they brought in a scientist. Non-scientists often get the facts wrong.

Then I got to 4:40 and heard PZ say that "these [greenhouse] gases are largely generated from human sources."

Since when does 4% qualify as "largely"?

But asking a biologist to know about the sources of CO2 is probably asking too much.

Please watch this video:

[youtube][/youtube]

I already had, but did again, as ordered. I assume that you were making sure that I knew that there are at least two different ways to correct PZ's statement, one of which would be to include the word "net" in the claim.

[Billie from Ockham]

Man the term hate crime is such bollocks.

OK. Yeah, I get you. But it begs the question. Beyond false flags, what percentage of "hate crimes" are due to personal reasons and not due to the desire for ethnic intimidation.

Misusing the term "begs the questions" (as if is means "raises the question") is the worst hate-crime of them all. Just sayin'.

[Karmakin]

Well, I watched Sargon's livestream talking about this. The reason this is a big deal to him, is largely because holding SJWs to their own standards is the only way to get them to change their opinion on what those standards should be. If SJWs think that getting people fired over having offensive views is the way for social progress, then it should fall on them as well. I'm not convinced that this is the best or even a worthwhile tactic. But I'm not convinced that it's not either. I'm kind of in the middle here.

For what it's worth, in an ideal world, what Sargon wants is for the university to make a sort of intellectual version of "That's not cool". Basically, get a meeting with him, ask him why he tweets the things he does (honestly it's more than this one tweet. The dude seriously makes tweets in favor of violent oppressive authoritarianism all the time it seems) and for the university to explain why he's basically advocating for the deaths of millions of people, and why that's not appropriate. Now, Sargon would like this publicized in some way, to help get the message across. But that's what he seems to want in an ideal world.

Well thanks for enacting the labour.

There is another aspect of this though. Currently Sargon is making his money as a full-time youtuber - so there is incentive (or pressure) for him to find more of these causes (no matter how altruistic his intentions). Sooner or later he (or someone in the same situation) is going to find the limits of their influence (or competence) - and people are going to ask what degree of oversight exists for third party Internet activists.

In fact, I think that push-back has already begun following the Trump win, what with the reported youtube subscription bug (and the corresponding 'massive Minds migration'), Zuckerberg's comments re: Facebook, and the identification of 'Fake News' as an issue.

No labour enacted. I tend to play games on my PC and watch YouTube videos at the same time.

I think it's unfair to put any blame (or credit) at the feet of Sargon to this. This is a thing he's commenting on, not something he's started in any way shape or form. Does he have a large platform? Sure. But this was a thing even before that.

[Karmakin]

Oh, well, if people want to become the right-wing version of the SJWs they're free to do so.

I thought all people here cared about liberal democratic values, but if Vox Day's insane rants about getting SJWs or even simply people you think are SJWs fired for their ideas are normalized as "part of the cultural war" I have to assume I was wrong.

Over-night, it soaked in to me that we (as in: people who post here) vary quite a bit on the Mykeru Scale (which goes from 1 to 11, of course) and that discussions between those with very different scores are some of the most bitter and unproductive. I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done about this, but I've decided to flounce opt-out from the remains of this one.

I think that's right. Personally I'm very low on the Mykeru scale (But he's a guy that's been around this shit as long as I have so I give him a pass on his crankiness..hard for me to dislike him), but yeah, some people are much higher.

Personally, my "solution" for the SJW problem is and has always been to create an actual left leaning alternative to collectivist authoritarianism. I still think that's the way forward. And maybe I'm biased because I'm a leftist individualist anti-authoritarian, so I have skin in this particular game...but all the same, I do think that it's an issue that people who for all rights and purposes SHOULD agree with the anti-SJW position in a lot of ways don't because they still want to be socially progressive, because there's simply no infrastructure for that alternative.

[MarcusAu]

No labour enacted. I tend to play games on my PC and watch YouTube videos at the same time.

I think it's unfair to put any blame (or credit) at the feet of Sargon to this. This is a thing he's commenting on, not something he's started in any way shape or form. Does he have a large platform? Sure. But this was a thing even before that.

Part of what he is doing is raising awareness, and then directing groups of people to action (to state things as neutrally as possible).

Even with the best of intentions there are ways that these things can go wrong (and will do if repeated frequently enough).

You are right in that in that his part in this may be smaller than I had thought - but I doubt it will be the last time he tries this sort of thing.

[Jan Steen]

It is well known that SJWs don't like the term 'witch hunt', and will always deny that they engage in such themselves (see for example the Tim Hunt affair). Also, claiming that you were making a joke is no acceptable excuse to them when they consider something you said 'problematic' (again, see the Tim Hunt affair). So I find it amusing when Slate comes to the defence of the genocidal professor by accusing his opponents of partaking in ... a witch hunt, and excusing the offending statements by declaring them ... a joke.

George Ciccariello-Maher, an associate professor at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, provoked the wrath of the internet’s worst people on Christmas Eve when he tweeted, “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. In a follow-up tweet, he added, “To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian revolution, that was a very good thing indeed.” (The tweets are no longer available online, as Ciccariello-Maher has since made his Twitter account private.) In context, it seems clear that he was tweaking white supremacists for their repurposing of the term white genocide, which is disingenuously invoked nowadays to pretend that uncontroversial things like interracial dating are as threatening as the slaughter that took place in Haiti in 1804. But Ciccariello-Maher’s tweets were as good a reason for a witch hunt as any, and what better time to hunt witches than Christmas?

The Slate writer, one Matthew Dessem, then explains that the term 'white genocide' in this tweet was not to be taken literally, but referred to the twisted use of this phrase by white supremacists. Nice try, but the follow-up tweet, which said “To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian revolution, that was a very good thing indeed,” seems to undermine this excuse. The Slate writer does see the problem, because he writes:

It’s perfectly understandable to find a morbid joke about the 1804 Haiti massacre to be in poor taste, but to think Ciccariello-Maher’s statements were “reprehensible,” Drexel’s administration must have no idea about the origins or current usage of the term white genocide.

How does he know that it was just a morbid joke? Can he read the professor's mind? To me, it is far from reasonable to accept Ciccariello's subsequent spin at face value. The guy is a self-declared communist, which means that he is probably fine with mass murder. But if it was not a joke, then the "white genocide", by the prof's own admission ("to clarify"), did refer to actual genocide.

But Dessem is not satisfied with defending the genocidal communist, he needs to vilify his distractors as well:

Breitbart, as usual, was the most openly racist about it; its writer Warner Todd Huston went out of his way to link Ciccariello-Maher to the largest university in Mexico, apparently as a disqualifying factor, and characterized his Twitter feed as “filled with hateful, obnoxious messages, anti-Americanism, slams of President Donald Trump, attacks on Jews, as well as pro-Black Lives Matter and pro-communist sloganeering.”

There is in fact nothing openly racist about the Breitbart piece (and I'm no fan of Breitbart), and the Breitbart writer did not go "out of his way to link Ciccariello-Maher to the largest university in Mexico", because all he wrote about this was:

The professor who describes himself as a “visiting researcher” at El Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales in Mexico also had praise for the “massacre of whites.”

I have not seen Ciccariello's Twitter feed, but I strongly suspect that the characterisation given in Breitbart's piece is largely accurate ("The professor’s Twitter feed is filled with hateful, obnoxious messages, anti-Americanism, slams of President Donald Trump, attacks on Jews, as well as pro-Black Lives Matter and pro-communist sloganeering.").

I had hoped that liberal media would be smart enough to distance themselves from a toxic lunatic like this communist prof with genocidal fantasies, but no such luck. The regressive left seems hell-bent on playing into Trump's grubby little hands.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/201 ... tweet.html

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... -genocide/

[fuzzy]

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/imag ... Rz1k6-YBF-

Yep. My life is over.

[youtube][/youtube]

[dogen]

So, what to do? Call me naive, but I still think free speech is something which should be granted even to lunatics like George Ciccariello. His opinions should be countered by speech, not by physical violence or by going after his job. Expose detestable ideologues like him for what they are, and show what their ideas may lead to (see Pol Pot reference above). If as a result people should decide not to go and study at a university that employs the likes of Ciccariello, then that is to me a reasonable outcome. You don't get rid of bedbugs by killing them one by one when you spot them, but by changing the conditions that make them thrive. We need to change the intellectual climate in which it is acceptable to link skin colour and gender in a negative way to people's identities.

For the record, I don't think Sargon did anything to contact the university until the media and the twitterati already had, I know I didn't. This is an existing situation.

What people here have been doing is treating a university as if it were any other employer when it isn't. If you think about what a university should be and how they should react, then their line should be along the lines of, "We support freedom of speech, we support diversity of opinion and we will not censor or condemn a professor for expressing his views off campus or on it. A university is a place where we should have these discussions".

Unfortunately, many universities are broken, in which case he might be in trouble. It is far more important to go after these idiotic academic's employers than it is to go after them.

Your noblesse oblige is phony. Had the professor been fired, you would be crowing that this is the first step in draining the swamp of academia.

[Lsuoma]

We are visiting our puppy tomorrow before taking possession later in Jan.

The expectation is he will look like this:

[i.mg]http://i.imgur.com/SDbfHZ1.jpg[/img]

Very cute, all that white fur will take some maintaining I guess? Do they need to be clipped too?

By the way, my Border Terrier Roscoe is 5 months old now and has been an absolute delight. Deciding to get a dog was the best decision I have made in a long while.

Nice one! I hope we have as good an outcome !

No clipping for us - just a shed load of brushing. I have it on reliable advice that a well groomed Samoyed is a mega magnet. What could go wrong?

[bimg]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/imag ... Rz1k6-YBF-[/bimg]

Yep. My life is over.

Are you going to have to cull and crutch and dip and dag?

[DrokkIt]

Personally, my "solution" for the SJW problem is and has always been to create an actual left leaning alternative to collectivist authoritarianism. I still think that's the way forward. And maybe I'm biased because I'm a leftist individualist anti-authoritarian, so I have skin in this particular game...but all the same, I do think that it's an issue that people who for all rights and purposes SHOULD agree with the anti-SJW position in a lot of ways don't because they still want to be socially progressive, because there's simply no infrastructure for that alternative.

Same really.

My two insignificant cents on this issue:

I think the guy can say whatever he likes and I don't much favour the approach of getting his employer involved. If he breaks some laws then it's for the law to do anything about, brigading tactics suck and I deplore the way in which SJW culture uses them.

I understand the greater point about "using their own tactics against them" but I wonder if these are really his tactics? Do we have any evidence that this specific person has been involved with similar activities before?
Or are we just sticking him in a box with everyone else we don't like and using that to justify it?

I don't like what he said because it articulates an egregious double standard, but so long as it's not being taught in an official capacity then I don't see it's any of my business to get the guy sacked. Everything is just a shite-lobbing contest if we abandon principle.

[jimmyfromchicago]

Virtually every US spy after McCarthyism was motivated by greed or ego not by ideology. McCarthyism really stopped Communism being cool and trendy.

You've got that last sentence almost exactly backwards. In the US and UK at least, pro-Soviet communism waned because of Krushchev's Secret Speech and because even the hard left could no longer deny that the Soviet Union was a repressive shithole. McCarthyism's main effect was that it caused liberals to confuse being anti-anti-Communist with being virtuous. "If McCarthy was anti-Communist, and he was bad, then being anti-Communist must be bad," is sloppy reasoning, but before the fall of the Berlin Wall, many of them fell for it.

Incidentally, the New Left might have rejected old school Marxism-Leninism, but they loved Trotsky, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh.

[DrokkIt]

Incidentally, the New Left might have rejected old school Marxism-Leninism, but they loved Trotsky, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh.

People talk about Trotsky's diaries to me all the time.
I tend to notice their desperate need for 'armed revolution of the workers/oppressed' negatively correlates with their inclusion in those two groups.

[Kirbmarc]

It is well known that SJWs don't like the term 'witch hunt', and will always deny that they engage in such themselves (see for example the Tim Hunt affair). Also, claiming that you were making a joke is no acceptable excuse to them when they consider something you said 'problematic' (again, see the Tim Hunt affair). So I find it amusing when Slate comes to the defence of the genocidal professor by accusing his opponents of partaking in ... a witch hunt, and excusing the offending statements by declaring them ... a joke.

It's OK When They Do It, punching up vs. punching down.

[Bhurzum]

I think the guy can say whatever he likes and I don't much favour the approach of getting his employer involved. If he breaks some laws then it's for the law to do anything about, brigading tactics suck and I deplore the way in which SJW culture uses them.

Agreed.

Also, whilst we're on the subject, I think it's time we culled all the stinky ginger twats and the ginge-sympathising elements of normal society.

https://media.makeameme.org/created/YOU ... 5s59b3.jpg

Pesky no-soul bastards are everywhere!

[jimmyfromchicago]

Damn, Vicky was just shitposting about McCarthyism anyway...I should have known. Shitposting while taking someone else to task for shitposting.

On Cuntariello, I watched some of Sargon's video but tuned out. I can't get too worked up about a professor making some outrageous tweets. If the South African Minister of Police tweeted about white genocide, that would be a problem. Some random academic does it...meh.

The guy not knowing what he's talking about in his subject area would be far worse. His "Make Communism Brutal Again" tweet is more, ahem, problematic, if it reveals that he doesn't know that in communist revolutions, people like him have been among the first ones shot. I doubt it reveals anything of the sort, though---it's just shitposting.

Needless to say, if he goes on lengthy ideological rants in class rather than teaching the course material, or if he designs courses that are simply political diatribes with no real academic value---a left-wing version of a Liberty University course---I'd feel differently.

[fuzzy]

As it turns out, I took some video of those buzzards a couple of weeks ago.

[youtube][/youtube]

That's a lot of birds! Do you have poultry farmers leaving out their culls? It looks like there are plenty of groceries for them.

They seem to be here all year. They don't usually soar that close to me, but they like that valley. There are a couple of upstream ponds that have been used as a trout farm dating from the 1800s fed from a cool spring for happy trout. Might have influenced the birds' decision, some of the nests are in the woods up above me, or must be. In the summers there are tree frogs making a racket. And if you've heard of chronic wasting disease (similar to bovine spongiform encepholopathy) showing up in deer, a number of those a re showing up near here. Also this is the area where an elk herd has been re-established using rocky mountain elk. The ozarks are a plateau of what in my light googling I once learned were the oldest rocks of the continent, this is the southern edge of it where there's more water gouging it out before the flat delta land, so it's the most mountainous part of the Ozarks, the "Boston Mountains".
/tourguide

[fuzzy]

*not been used as a trout farm for decades though so that's

[Billie from Ockham]

Well, my staying out of this didn't last very long....

I understand the greater point about "using their own tactics against them" but I wonder if these are really his tactics? Do we have any evidence that this specific person has been involved with similar activities before? Or are we just sticking him in a box with everyone else we don't like and using that to justify it?

So much this (and thank you, DrokkIt, for making this clearer to me). Even more: if you find yourself using the word "them" when talking about one person (and you aren't doing this to obey the Ontario Civil Rights Commission), then you are losing the battle with your own darker side.

I'm still very uncomfortable with going after a person's job for what they have done outside of their job, but if your excuse is that people that you associate with your target have done it ... but your target has not ... then you're evil because you are playing identity games. In other words, while I'm not ready to follow Mykeru, I find what Sargon is doing to be much worse.

[DrokkIt]

Well, my staying out of this didn't last very long....

I understand the greater point about "using their own tactics against them" but I wonder if these are really his tactics? Do we have any evidence that this specific person has been involved with similar activities before? Or are we just sticking him in a box with everyone else we don't like and using that to justify it?

So much this (and thank you, DrokkIt, for making this clearer to me). Even more: if you find yourself using the word "them" when talking about one person (and you aren't doing this to obey the Ontario Civil Rights Commission), then you are losing the battle with your own darker side.

I'm still very uncomfortable with going after a person's job for what they have done outside of their job, but if your excuse is that people that you associate with your target have done it ... but your target has not ... then you're evil because you are playing identity games. In other words, while I'm not ready to follow Mykeru, I find what Sargon is doing to be much worse.

Yeah it's like, as far as I know this guy just shitposts things he finds funny and likes to wind people up.

If it transpires he is teaching this at a university then I would certainly oppose it, but ultimately it's not my job to say what can and cannot be taught. If any one tells me (and is serious) that ______ genocide was a good thing then I'm going to tell them to fuck off, doesn't matter who it is.

I like Sargon, and I get that he sees himself as fighting an authoritarian movement, but many fall into the trap of trying to bring about a different authoritarianism so he should steer clear of it.

[feathers]

I don't know about this Herizen* Guardiola, she seems to be religious

http://cliqueimg.com/cache/posts/200387 ... 600x0c.jpg

...on the other hand, I think I might be able to remember my paternoster and avemaria...

https://nypdecider.files.wordpress.com/ ... all&w=1200



*Sounds like herrezen, resurrected

[Service Dog]

I was a teenage Wigger. In the late 80's/early 90's. I worshiped Public Enemy & Spike Lee. Fishbone, Gil-Scott Heron, Prince. So I dutifully read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice, and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, anything about the Black Panthers.

Subsequently, I'm plenty-familiar with talk of 'urban genocide' or alarmist claims that the black man is an 'endangered species'. And one way I differ from whiter-whites, is that I don't think I have to completely expunge myself of racism, to feel guilt-free. I figure it's ok for me to be approx as-racist as an average black person. And... that's Pretty Damn Racist!

I regard alt-right claims of White Genocide the same way I once-regarded rappers telling me to take Farrakhan seriously: I want to know what they're asserting, why they find it more compelling than I-do, what kernel of truth is inside the apparently-false.

I suspect today's White Genocide hipsters are actually derived-from the same influences as today's black power revivalist kids, than with Hitler or the KKK. Even if today's whiteys are reacting directly -against- anti-white radicalism, it shaped them more than Mein Kampf.

Back then, I looked for a place for a whiteboy to fit in to the black radical revolution. Beastie Boys: definitely. Could I milk my Injun & Latino roots? Maybe the Weather Underground were 'my' Black Panthers?...yeah, when I wanted my butthurt to sound stridently doctrinaire. But the goofy White Panther Party were much closer to my heart. They espoused 'Sex, Drugs, & Fucking In The Streets'. I think the alt-right are dudes who feel there's no room for a wigger at the minority house party, so they gotta stay outside fuming. And... that's the SJW's fault-- because they Do want to be an exclusive little club.

All I really know about White Genocide is from a long Sargon livestream vs. alt-right whiteys. Sargon was his blubbery half-socialist self. The alt-righters seized on his 1/4 nigger status (black grandfather). They're pretty sure the other 3/4 is all Jew. Sargon gamely unpacked the absurdity of their White Genocide hyperbole-- the way they assert all sorts of things are tantamount to genocide. (Those here at the pit to equate Sargon with TJ the Amazing Atheist are underestimating the depth of Sargon's analysis.)

In all fairness, the alt-righters insisted on using the UN definition of genocide... which apparently contains the absurd stuff the alt-righters say is happening to whites. I buy that. The EU says adult white women choosing to get their clits pierced is 'genital mutilation' as-is african women who put toothpaste in their pussy to increase pleasurable friction. So, sure, their standard for genocide is probably something Anita Sarkeesian said.

I think the Drexel prof is too stupid to realize the alt-right doesn't mind if their White Genocide is debunked, as long as SJW hyperbole crumbles with-it.

[Billie from Ockham]

Note that if someone invests the spoons to see what his teaching is like, you'll find that his ratings page on one site (koofers.com) has been flooded by negative comments in the last few days (many of which are almost definitely libel) and that his page on the most-popular site (rate-my-professor.com) has been wiped clean, probably in response to the same sort of activity. There was one thoughtful and negative comment that isn't recent on the first site, saying that the material included in the course was biased towards revolutionary communism, but even this comment did not accuse him of making outrageous statements or teaching falsehoods. In short, there's almost no ammo against Ciccariello-Maher on these sites, but quite a bit of tortious if not criminal activity against him.

[Jan Steen]

If the genocidal communist prof were to lose his job, there is one thing we can be certain of: It will not be a loss to science. Not in the least.

I challenge you to produce a title for a hoax paper written for an imaginary journal of racial & post-colonial studies. Give it a try before reading on.

OK. I doubt very much that you have produced anything more ridiculous than the title of one of the actual publications of George Ciccariello-Maher. I mean this one:

Brechtian Hip-Hop: Didactics and Self-Production in Post-Gangsta Political Mixtapes

You think I'm making this up? Unfortunately, no. Ciccariello actually wrote and published this vapid paper in Journal of Black Studies 36(1): 129-160 (2005).

My first reaction was to laugh about it, but on second thoughts, when you consider how many talented PhDs in real scientific fields are unable to find a job at a university, I find it utterly depressing rather than funny.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40027326?s ... b_contents

[DaveDodo007]

I have said nothing I haven't already defended in bigger arenas than this. The reason I am annon is that those cunts WILL come to your house and break your legs. It now turns out that George Ciccariello is fully in support of introducing baseball bats to the legs of people he disagrees with, in the name of "self defense" of course.
http://archive.is/KQtk6

This is a political battle. You would let him run away, I would hunt him down and corner him and have the battle wherever it suits me best in beating him. Your argument is complete bollocks, we are at war with bad ideas, who gives a fuck it we have a chilling effect on them because they are unable to defend them? They only spout these bad ideas where they are not allowed to be challenged.
If the slympit is only ever going to document shit and fight on the SJWs own terms, it will continue to be ineffective.

Forgive me for thinking that the aim of the fight was the ability of people to criticize SJWs without being threatened, to have a free discussion of ideas, to fight bad ideas with good ideas, not with soft censorship. I want to discredit censorship and soft censorship altogether, and let people form their informed opinion. Apparently you want to silence the ideas you don't like.

I want Prof. Commie to carry on spouting bad ideas, it helps others to know what kind of a person he is, and to form their informed opinion on him and on those who support him. I want his ideas to be challenged: I want people to be able to debate him, criticize him, mock him, satirize him, expose him. If his ideas are indefensible that'll be enough, and he and his cronies will gradually be left in the minority. The last thing I want is to censor him/get his employers to fire him just because I don't like what he says.

You apparently want the communists/SJWs to go into hiding and become martyrs of free speech, because fuck them, that's why. It's the exact same kind of arguments SJWs use. "Oh, those ideas are horrible, better make sure that they're not allowed around!" Who decides what's the next idea that shouldn't be uttered in public, lest the Online Morality Police strikes again? Maybe it's anti-theism, those anti-theists guys are so "hateful" of the poor oppressed religious folk after all, how can we allow our children to hear bad things about the good saint Mother Theresa! Sad!

And by the way I think that this is illiberal derail is going to backfire just like the SJW attempt to silence any critic of their stupidity backfired. SJWs will finally have some real fuel for their victimhood routine, and their moronic ideas will look edgy and appealing to the young because they're prohibited, just like "racial realism" looks edgy and "cool" because it's shouted at.

If fighting for soft censorship is your political war then we're not on the same side. Toodle-oo, live long and prosper, I'll carry on defending your right to say things I don't like, but here's when we part ways.

I agree with your earlier comments to me about the problems with vigilantism. I just have an empathy problem when a bad person is brought down by their own shitty tactics. I may not join in with that fight against the white genocide professor, but I'm also a lot less likely to go out of my way to show that person the empathy they refused to show others.

As for the above equally thoughtful comment, I wonder about the limits of earnest argument. Will Lindy West ever realize that she is full (to bursting) of shit and that she has harmed a great many people and has devoted her life to an inherently broken ideology that was really all about her taking power? I don't think they will.

The SJWs will always have fuel for their victimhood routine. They manufacture it and the mainstream media runs with it. Think of Brianna Wu, who is obviously a terrible person and a grifter. She's running for a political seat now and the mainstream media will not tell the truth about her and never will. Same with Randi Harper, Sarkeesian, PZ, Carrier. Christ, the Friendly Atheist is still trying to go with the "well, we don't know what happened" shit with respect to the accusations against Shermer, et. al.

SJWs never put themselves in a position to be questioned by sensible people. They stay in their own little bubbles and the media reports what happens in that bubble. This is why Milo Yiannopoulos can be booted from Twitter for saying that Leslie Jones looks like one of his ex-boyfriends and Leslie Jones can literally tell her followers to "get 'em" (inciting targeted harassment!) and she is the victim who gets all kinds of extra opportunity even though she isn't funny and her whole schtick is sexually harassing white men who subsequently express discomfort.

I also want the stupid people to be challenged, to be forced to debate in public, but they usually don't. That trans man who debated Jordan Peterson comes off looking like a crazy person to people like us, but it doesn't matter. He has tenure. He has the MSM defending him as a victim. He's high on the progressive stack.

What we should be urging is more challenging of ideas, not mere expression of ideas. So those lunatics who harassed Jordan Peterson because he wouldn't use their made-up pronouns should rightfully be allowed to ask him why. But then Jordan Peterson should be allowed to challenge them on equal ground, not with law enforcement and the college administration opposing him by default.

I'm a big supporter of free speech and hate the bias against us conservatives I also recognize how counterproductive it is for the left and the liberals. Whilst we on the right have our share of extremist nutbags they tend to get called out, punished or learn to keep their mouth shut. On the lefty/liberal side their extremist nutbags are running rampant in the MSM and social media. If you think this isn't being shown when people visit the ballot box then you have been living under a rock these last 18 months. It is not like we have uncovered some amazing inspirational charismatic leaders all of a sudden, they are just as insipid as we have had for the last two decades. Though we are winning with ease or competing in places we where dead and buried before.

[dogen]

If the genocidal communist prof were to lose his job, there is one thing we can be certain of: It will not be a loss to science. Not in the least.

I challenge you to produce a title for a hoax paper written for an imaginary journal of racial & post-colonial studies. Give it a try before reading on.

OK. I doubt very much that you have produced anything more ridiculous than the title of one of the actual publications of George Ciccariello-Maher. I mean this one:

Brechtian Hip-Hop: Didactics and Self-Production in Post-Gangsta Political Mixtapes

You think I'm making this up? Unfortunately, no. Ciccariello actually wrote and published this vapid paper in Journal of Black Studies 36(1): 129-160 (2005).

My first reaction was to laugh about it, but on second thoughts, when you consider how many talented PhDs in real scientific fields are unable to find a job at a university, I find it utterly depressing rather than funny.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40027326?s ... b_contents

If that's what it takes to trigger you, I strongly suggst you avoid following the Real Peer Review twitter account.

Yes, academia has a big problem with the level of scholarship in some disciplines (often social science). But the way to fight back is through vigorous on-campus debate, not online mobbery.

[Billie from Ockham]

My first reaction was to laugh about it, but on second thoughts, when you consider how many talented PhDs in real scientific fields are unable to find a job at a university, I find it utterly depressing rather than funny.

While I am also depressed about this, too, I can understand it. The students are asking for more of these worthless courses and majors, so the schools are simply hiring people to meet the demand. And it didn't all happen in a top-down manner, where the worthless profs came first and the courses and majors came later. Yes, there was some top-down, but a lot of it was bottom-up. Or maybe I should stop playing the nature v nurture game (to which the correct answer is always: "that is a false dichotomy ... it's an interaction") and say that the idiot students and idiot profs have teamed up to create these worthless courses and majors.

Should a school refuse to provide the courses and majors (and therefore the profs) to meet the demands of the students? Some school have done this and not been hurt, because they are good enough schools to not need to cater to idiots. But other schools don't have this luxury and some are public institutions that feel obligated to provide what is being asked for, no matter how silly. And in the current economy, adding more Women's and Gender Studies profs means adding fewer (and replacing fewer) profs in all other areas.

In another ten years or so, when it is clear that students leaving with one of these worthless degrees are either unemployed are have jobs that do not use their degree, then it will start to shift back. That's the metric used by most public institutions to judge a major: whether the students with the degree are using their degree about ten years later. But it's still too soon (and/or they have whined and argued that they need more time). Odds are, the economy will fix the problem before the death of these majors opens up more tenure-track slots for the sciences. In the meantime, departments like mine will continue to train the next generation of Chinese scientists, capitalizing on the fact that these students pay full tuition, often don't need to be given stipends as grads, and are here to learn as opposed to get drunk and then laid (with varying amounts of consent).

Shit. Now I'm even more depressed.

[VickyCaramel]

So, what to do? Call me naive, but I still think free speech is something which should be granted even to lunatics like George Ciccariello. His opinions should be countered by speech, not by physical violence or by going after his job. Expose detestable ideologues like him for what they are, and show what their ideas may lead to (see Pol Pot reference above). If as a result people should decide not to go and study at a university that employs the likes of Ciccariello, then that is to me a reasonable outcome. You don't get rid of bedbugs by killing them one by one when you spot them, but by changing the conditions that make them thrive. We need to change the intellectual climate in which it is acceptable to link skin colour and gender in a negative way to people's identities.

For the record, I don't think Sargon did anything to contact the university until the media and the twitterati already had, I know I didn't. This is an existing situation.

What people here have been doing is treating a university as if it were any other employer when it isn't. If you think about what a university should be and how they should react, then their line should be along the lines of, "We support freedom of speech, we support diversity of opinion and we will not censor or condemn a professor for expressing his views off campus or on it. A university is a place where we should have these discussions".

Unfortunately, many universities are broken, in which case he might be in trouble. It is far more important to go after these idiotic academic's employers than it is to go after them.

Your noblesse oblige is phony. Had the professor been fired, you would be crowing that this is the first step in draining the swamp of academia.

Oh, I thought that if he got fired, I would think that a pity because it is always nice to have idiots around like this spouting about genocide of the oppressors. But apparently you know my mind better than I do. What else does it say in your crystal ball?

[VickyCaramel]

Virtually every US spy after McCarthyism was motivated by greed or ego not by ideology. McCarthyism really stopped Communism being cool and trendy.

You've got that last sentence almost exactly backwards. In the US and UK at least, pro-Soviet communism waned because of Krushchev's Secret Speech and because even the hard left could no longer deny that the Soviet Union was a repressive shithole. McCarthyism's main effect was that it caused liberals to confuse being anti-anti-Communist with being virtuous. "If McCarthy was anti-Communist, and he was bad, then being anti-Communist must be bad," is sloppy reasoning, but before the fall of the Berlin Wall, many of them fell for it.

Incidentally, the New Left might have rejected old school Marxism-Leninism, but they loved Trotsky, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh.

I already said this was a made up fact that I threw out to bait those that were on a witch hunt for McCarthyists.

[Billie from Ockham]

Note to people who like to use the "edge-lord" defense: it only works when it is at least vaguely plausible.

[Dave]

In another ten years or so, when it is clear that students leaving with one of these worthless degrees are either unemployed are have jobs that do not use their degree, then it will start to shift back. That's the metric used by most public institutions to judge a major: whether the students with the degree are using their degree about ten years later. But it's still too soon (and/or they have whined and argued that they need more time). Odds are, the economy will fix the problem before the death of these majors opens up more tenure-track slots for the sciences. In the meantime, departments like mine will continue to train the next generation of Chinese scientists, capitalizing on the fact that these students pay full tuition, often don't need to be given stipends as grads, and are here to learn as opposed to get drunk and then laid (with varying amounts of consent).

Bolding mine.

Interesting metric. I suppose alot can be hidden in the meaning of "using." Or is there a get-out-of-jail-free card for traditional majors? I can think of very few friends from college who are "using" their majors in any sense of the word. Only two come to mind -- both poli-sci majors, one writes opinion papers for a fed agency and the other is an actual politician. I cant think of any from my own thoroughly useless in the real world undergrad fields, including two who got Ph.Ds. Or does it count as "using" a math major if you are designing user-interfaces? I suppose those I know who went on for medical degrees are "using" their bio and chem degrees in some sense, although the one I know who was an english major certainly isnt. Are the historians who are now lawyers "using" their degrees? What about the one who is now a technical writer?

[DrokkIt]

That's the metric used by most public institutions to judge a major: whether the students with the degree are using their degree about ten years later.

Virtually nobody I went to university with uses their arts/media degrees at all. I only do so tangentially, and at great cost to any 'real' career I might have had.

Harsh realities.

[Brive1987]

Well here is the perfect opportunity for the wet left of the Pit to express condolences to PZ while ignoring the fire in favour of granting it "freedom to burn"

http://i.imgur.com/TXGIsc3.jpg

The only point here I give a real shit about is that he chose a song with the following lines:

I take the children to church on Sunday
A sign of the cross at the door
And I pray
That never used to happen before

To honour PZ's distress I'm re-cutting the "Tainted Love" vid.

.............................................................................................

On an even weirder note. Today is 10,000 day. As a great person once said:

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

It's been a blast.

http://i.imgur.com/W4Dhzug.jpg

[Brive1987]

btw if anyone has ever wondered about my avatar - it was in instant homage to dear departed Southern.

http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 88#p146888

[Jan Steen]

Brechtian Hip-Hop: Didactics and Self-Production in Post-Gangsta Political Mixtapes

You think I'm making this up? Unfortunately, no. Ciccariello actually wrote and published this vapid paper in Journal of Black Studies 36(1): 129-160 (2005).

My first reaction was to laugh about it, but on second thoughts, when you consider how many talented PhDs in real scientific fields are unable to find a job at a university, I find it utterly depressing rather than funny.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40027326?s ... b_contents

If that's what it takes to trigger you, I strongly suggst you avoid following the Real Peer Review twitter account.

Yes, academia has a big problem with the level of scholarship in some disciplines (often social science). But the way to fight back is through vigorous on-campus debate, not online mobbery.

Ideally, yes. But I don't see nor expect much of a debate on-campus. The real scientists at most universities are probably too afraid of the administrators and too wary of the expected pushback to speak out against the pseudoscience spouted by many of their colleagues in the social sciences. And besides, obvious crap can be ridiculed in any forum. Your suggestion sounds a bit like "let's keep this among ourselves."

[DaveDodo007]

btw if anyone has ever wondered about my avatar - it was in instant homage to dear departed Southern.

http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 88#p146888

Southern is dead? :(

[Jan Steen]

My first reaction was to laugh about it, but on second thoughts, when you consider how many talented PhDs in real scientific fields are unable to find a job at a university, I find it utterly depressing rather than funny.

While I am also depressed about this, too, I can understand it. The students are asking for more of these worthless courses and majors, so the schools are simply hiring people to meet the demand. And it didn't all happen in a top-down manner, where the worthless profs came first and the courses and majors came later. Yes, there was some top-down, but a lot of it was bottom-up. Or maybe I should stop playing the nature v nurture game (to which the correct answer is always: "that is a false dichotomy ... it's an interaction") and say that the idiot students and idiot profs have teamed up to create these worthless courses and majors.

Should a school refuse to provide the courses and majors (and therefore the profs) to meet the demands of the students? Some school have done this and not been hurt, because they are good enough schools to not need to cater to idiots. But other schools don't have this luxury and some are public institutions that feel obligated to provide what is being asked for, no matter how silly. And in the current economy, adding more Women's and Gender Studies profs means adding fewer (and replacing fewer) profs in all other areas.

In another ten years or so, when it is clear that students leaving with one of these worthless degrees are either unemployed are have jobs that do not use their degree, then it will start to shift back. That's the metric used by most public institutions to judge a major: whether the students with the degree are using their degree about ten years later. But it's still too soon (and/or they have whined and argued that they need more time). Odds are, the economy will fix the problem before the death of these majors opens up more tenure-track slots for the sciences. In the meantime, departments like mine will continue to train the next generation of Chinese scientists, capitalizing on the fact that these students pay full tuition, often don't need to be given stipends as grads, and are here to learn as opposed to get drunk and then laid (with varying amounts of consent).

Shit. Now I'm even more depressed.

I'm not as optimistic as you are :)

I mean, many of those gender/race/women studies majors will probably find jobs in local bureaucracies, HR departments, journalism, highschool teaching, etc. They are not necessarily unemployable, because the people who give them jobs will for the most part have no idea about real academic accomplishment either. Many will be mightily impressed by a master's thesis about the Brechtian Undercurrents in the Postcolonial Songs of Bob Marley.

Most universities are run as a business, which means that if there's sufficient demand there will be a course to meet the demand. In that respect, Gender Studies etc. are even in a favourable position, because they are cheap. No labs needed -- just office space, a few academics, and some computers. Actually, I'm surprised that astrology is not yet re-introduced at some universities.

[Billie from Ockham]

Dave & DrokkIt & anyone else who cares -

As you might expect, the definition of "using a degree" varies widely and is argued about intensely (as it can be life or death for a dept or program). I've been on one of these committees and it was non-stop BS and academic politics, as we were judging a mass communications dept. In the end, we (but by no means was it unanimous) decided that almost anything from traditional journalism through PR work and political staffer to non-fiction author (not yet published OK) would count, plus (as always) any vaguely related academic position. They ... er, I mean we ... pretty much made it impossible for them to fall below 33%, which is already a pretty low standard. I almost made a joke about including phone-bank work, as that seemed related, but kept my cowardly mouth shut, as I didn't yet have tenure.

[CommanderTuvok]

Looks like whiter than white fraud Shaun King has joined The Young Armenian Genocide Deniers. At least that what I am seeing on social media.

Lol.

[ROBOKiTTY]

Dunno why you felt the need to write the second paragraph. I would contest the last sentence (maybe it's a pedantic distinction to make). The Charleston shooting was just a few months ago. Certainly more white/black/Asian people are going to die in the near future because of certain people whose minds are warped by hate, probably resulting in blacks topping the list, whites in the middle, and Asians in last place. My point was that this academic, whose name I still haven't bothered to learn how to spell, is exceedingly unlikely to be able to influence anyone to commit violence.

A shooting isn't "genocide", otherwise you'd also have to admit that the Paris shooting was "French genocide" and that the BLM guy who shot five cops was committing "law enforcement genocide". Dylan Roof was arrested, not put in charge of shock troops to hunt down uppity blacks.

There is no institutional support for mass killing of any specific group in the US, and it's extremely unlikely that there will be in the immediate future, no matter what the SJWs think.

If we want to talk about the most deadly terrorist groups in the US they're not white supremacist terrorist, they're muslim supremacists, so I don't see how you can be so sure that black people will "top the list" of people who are going to die because of "minds warped by hate".

Never claimed it was genocide. Genocide for any group in North America is not likely in the near future. You should probably reread the original post to see what exactly I was responding to.

Why did I say black people will 'top the list'? Because according to stats published by the FBI, of all the racial hate crimes they track, 66.5% were motivated by anti-black sentiments, 21.2% anti-white, 4.6% anti-Asian, and 4.5% anti-native. Many people on this site like to think that hate crimes are mostly fake, but unless I have a reason not to, I'll trust stats from an agency that actually tracks the info.

By the way, Robokitty (allow me to type your username this way please, it's easier), if you have some ideas about a "better alternative" to liberal democracy I'd like to hear them. I remember you propose more AI control of specific sectors, but that seems to be a really vague and unlikely system. If you have something more detailed, speak up.

I don't have a better alternative. I don't need to, because that wasn't my point. My point is an abstract one, and it has to do with the human tendency to see whatever we have as the best possible thing. For example, humans erroneously see themselves as the pinnacle of evolution. Liberal democracies have a tendency to circlejerk over how democracy running on capitalism with heavy government intervention is the best possible system. It becomes a cult of worship that stifles debate, as any thought of reform could be slapped down with the cry "That's undemocratic/unconstitutional! You want to go back to tyranny/taxation without representation?"

Considering the widespread appeal of the ideas of caliphate in muslim communities in the west and in the MENA countries I'd say that it's far more than a "blip". Also Saudi Arabia finances, not stops Islamists. The idea that Saudi Arabia somehow prevents the caliphate ideas instead of spreading them is the propaganda of the Saudi lobby.

You're normally quite reasonable, but I fear Islam has become a blind spot for you. Really, the Middle East is only a matter of national security only because the west want to maintain their projection of power there for various reasons, many of them outdated Cold War-era goals. If the west just left the Middle East alone, it would cease to be a security concern.

As for Saudi Arabia, considering the caliphate has a stated goal of conquering Mecca and overthrowing the kingdom and has no problem accepting allegiance from any far-flung warlord, it would be suicidal for the kingdom to finance them. It's fairer to say that there are elements amongst the massive royal family that would like to topple the kingdom and institute an even stronger theocracy.

Liberal democracy both empowers a barely educated and easily manipulated mass and a festering elite

Show me a political system which prevents both of those things. The majority of people don't educate themselves about all the nuances of politics or science and never will. They simply don't have either the time to educate themselves or the skills to do it or the interest to do it. And people in liberal democracies are in general better educated than those in other systems. Festering élites exist in every system.

Note the term 'empower'. Most systems opt for an elite that gets fat off the uneducated and miserable masses. Democracy gives power to the people, who are just as likely to vote themselves back into a dictatorship without a robust tradition of democratic thought. And even with such a tradition, people like Hitler and Erdogan still happen. Yes, people in liberal democracies are generally better educated, but a cynical analysis says that's only because educated workers make productive taxpayers. The system is not good because of its intrinsic goodness, but because the interests of the people and the rulers tend to intersect more often than in dictatorships, and its faults must be criticized harshly lest we start to look upon it as a secular altar.

Successful systems are all reliant on perpetual growth. If someone ever decides to drop out of growth they're quickly crushed/wiped out by those who do. Non-democratic countries have wasted fossil fuel just like liberal democracies. Fossil fuels have simply been the most efficient way to produce growth.

But non-successful systems easily survive alongside successful systems. Many third-world dictators milk their people dry at the cost of an even worse tomorrow. They call for foreign aid and debt forgiveness and then use that money to fatten the bank accounts of their cronies. It's not a pleasant life for the average people, but it's stable and not reliant on growth, and any challenger is more likely than not to make things even worse. Geopolitics really is not survival of the fittest, at least if we define fitness as economic success.

Liberal democracy is much more malleable to change than other forms of government.
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The US constitution has been changed in the past plenty of times, and nothing says it can't happen again. The US constitution is actually much easier to change that the constitution of, say, Italy.

Is it though? I've mentioned the US constitution and its worship. It's basically a 19th century system with no provision for universal education or healthcare. They barely managed to fit an education system inside it, and there are still people who claim that's unconstitutional, and the homeschooling community continues to churn out fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists.

Short terms and term limits mean that politicians only look a few years ahead at most, rarely challenging to stop the inertia pushing them along. And reelection campaigns cost money, which must come from somewhere, and the people paying expect to be repaid in some fashion. So much money is wasted in that process of covert corruption that it might as well be streamlined to make for better efficiency. Why not elective monarchy, for instance.

[Dave]

Dave & DrokkIt & anyone else who cares -

As you might expect, the definition of "using a degree" varies widely and is argued about intensely (as it can be life or death for a dept or program). I've been on one of these committees and it was non-stop BS and academic politics, as we were judging a mass communications dept. In the end, we (but by no means was it unanimous) decided that almost anything from traditional journalism through PR work and political staffer to non-fiction author (not yet published OK) would count, plus (as always) any vaguely related academic position. They ... er, I mean we ... pretty much made it impossible for them to fall below 33%, which is already a pretty low standard. I almost made a joke about including phone-bank work, as that seemed related, but kept my cowardly mouth shut, as I didn't yet have tenure.

Still seems, as you basically imply, an exercise in BS, and an odd metric for what I will call, "classic majors" (as opposed to classics majors, although I suppose classics is one of the classic majors). In a large sense, those were never intended to prepare a student for a career in that field. Im not even sure what "field" some represent outside of academia. Perhaps I still have an outdated understanding of college as I attended some time ago and at one of the institutions that could afford to tell the idiots to fuck-off.

Never-the-less, I agree with Jan that it seems the Women's Studies majors (which dept has often been around for 30 years) and Racial Theory, etc are getting positions in Title IX offices, and HR and diversity departments (academic and govt and corporate) and similar places. As long as the legal and political enviornment create a niche for such offices, these people will continue to be employed, easily at rates above a 33% when the bullshit is factored in.