In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

[DrokkIt]

I raised a polite question about the figures and basically got told to shut up and keep quiet, but I think a couple of people who hadn’t really questioned what they were being told were at least a bit confused about it. I need that job so I wasn’t going to push it...

That sucks. So, no chance you'll James Damore them?

I was thinking about this today in work, but I'm not sure what my Damore style career suicide note would even contain.

The non-profit/3rd-sector organisation I work for is ever so slightly different to Google, not least when it comes to employee demographics. Women make up around 70-75% of the staff and are even more highly represented in management - the current CEO, her predecessor, and 9 out of 11 department managers are all women. The only department that's a bastion of patriarchal male supremacy is IT support (where I work, living stereotype that I am). I used my IT bod privileges to have a look at the company payroll and on average women are earning nearly 30% more than male employees.

A memo arguing that this disparity favouring women is probably down to choice rather than discrimination against men probably wouldn't stir up quite as much controversy as when the sexes were reversed. If I embraced identity politics to demand affirmative action for the oppressed menfolk I might cause a shitstorm, but even if I was feeling that self destructive I'm not quite that much of a hypocrite. I suppose I could still get into trouble for daring to imply that women aren't actually being oppressed and underpaid like the diversity groups claim.

Diversity events aside, there hasn't really been much pressure to replace my IT department's problematically straight white men with disabled transwomen of colour. Elsewhere in the company the disgusting whiteness of the staff has been noted and there has been a push to increase racial diversity. That's not such an easy thing to do in rural North Wales, where ethnic minorities really are a small minority (only around 1% of the population is black or Asian). I can remember the HR manager getting excited because a disabled black woman and a Muslim man had both applied for the same entry level job - they were both hired on the spot even though there was only one position open. I'm quite happy to fly under the diversity radar for as long as possible.

I'm not convinced that many of our managers truly care about "diversity and inclusion" - they'll just play along because it'd harm them if they didn't. Holding a diversity event and completing the accompanying course gets them officially certified as diverse, complete with a diversity certificate to hang on the wall to prove it. Stuff like diversity awards gives them a chance to network (i.e. drink bubbly and scoff canapés) with local politicians, and that does provide us with free publicity and material for a feel good press release. Whether women-only team building and leadership/confidence training actually has a use, the ladies offered it aren't going to turn down a tax payer funded jolly out of the office.

I'm trying not to dox myself, but here are a few videos to give you an idea of the kind of thing I'm blathering about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGX_Z-z_AG0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPXxYNd3weY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr0bsjKbPqg

I'm not sure if you get the same kind of thing on the other side of the pond. It can all be cringe inducing and more than a bit annoying, but in my workplace most of it seems mostly harmless, as long as nobody actually tries to put diversity theory into practice...

A long time ago I used to work for the WAG up in the South Wales Valleys, on various community/art outreach projects. Most of the groups we were working with were similar non-profit type setups. Very similarly female-dominated in the way you describe. Wasn't a big issue for me but I was aware of it back then even.

[Ape+lust]

jugheadnaut

Spoiler tags are available in the new toolset.

I haven't seen the movie yet :o

[katamari Damassi]

The new Star Wars is as good as they say. Most regard Return of the Jedi as the weakest in the series, and while I'll always love it I have to agree the best moments in it only work because of the steam that had been built up in Empire Strikes Back. This on the other hand builds a new a new entry to that is worthy of the legendary material it adds to, and has to mop up after the mess Force Awakens made in the process. Some of the most glaring issues I had with that movie are solved in this one, and solved so elegantly that they work independtly even if you've never seen The Force Awakens (lines of dialogue that could have come right out of the mouths of complaining fans, but also serve as great character beats given how they're set up). Rian Johnson hit it out of the park.

Couldn't disagree more. it is as bad as they say. For context, I'm not a big Star Wars fan, consider A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back the only good films of the series (very good in the case of Empire Strikes Back). Return of the Jedi was plain bad, and the prequels a travesty. I was lukewarm to marginally positive on both The Force Awakens and Rogue One. Still have an emotional connection to the franchise, I think mainly because A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back came out when I was the perfect ages for them (10 and 14 respectively).I'd put this one at the level of the prequels, although the actual act of watching it was far more unpleasant.

The plot holes, deux ex machinas, useless contrivances, and pointless side plots could fill an entire Pit page. The attempts at broad comedy were not only ill-conceived but a complete failure. Not a single laugh at the broad comedy in the theater I saw it, just silence so complete that I could hear people shifting uncomfortably in their seats. But when has broad comedy ever worked in Star Wars? Far from solving issues with TFA, it took the things that could be built on and ground them into dust. While TFA was too derivative, it did introduce a new main protagonist and big-bad that fans cared about. There are probably 500 YouTube fan videos speculating on Snoke's identity, and only a slightly lesser number on Rey's ancestry. I was willing to overlook Rey's Mary Sue-ness in TFA because I was confident that we'd later discover her parentage gave her super powerful inate force abilities (my personal theory was that she was a Kenobi). So now I just have to concede that she is indeed a Mary Sue, and Last Jedi commits the cardinal sequel sin of not just being shit, but making its predecessors shittier. This goes to the long established characters as well. Luke is now a craven asshole, who dies inexplicably after a no-risk final act. The Luke/Yoda meeting should have been emotionally resonant, but was empty and just goofy, with Yoda looking bizarre and inexplicably acting like the goofball character he was playing to test Luke when they first met. Over and over again the movie preached about how the past didn't matter anymore, it was only the future that counted, symbolized by Luke's and then Yoda's desire to destroy the ancient Jedi tree. How could Star Wars fans not take that as a slap in the face.

The new characters introduced here offer nothing to look forward to. Who cares about the further exploits of Rose or the inevitable redemption arc of DJ. Can you even imagine 500 Rose or DJ YouTube fan videos? The one positive thing to look forward to is the Plinkett demolition hopefully coming in the next 6 months. The RLM guys have already done a couple of things with Last Jedi. both of which treated it with a profound lack of seriousness.

Far from hitting it out of the park, I predict Rian Johnson won't make any public appearances at cons, unless Disney can tightly control the audience composition, for fear of being lustily booed. Heck, I think he might need a security detail.

My thoughts exactly. I was even holding out hope that somehow this movie would rationalize Rey's Mary Sueness(sorry Shatterface), like maybe she had been trained and then memory wiped for some reason. Star Wars is beyond redemption at this point.

[jugheadnaut]

jugheadnaut

Spoiler tags are available in the new toolset.

I haven't seen the movie yet :o

My apologies. Realized after I posted I should at least have had a spoiler warning before the second paragraph. I wasn't originally going to go into any specifics.

[Ape+lust]

jugheadnaut

Spoiler tags are available in the new toolset.

I haven't seen the movie yet :o

My apologies. Realized after I posted I should at least have had a spoiler warning before the second paragraph. I wasn't originally going to go into any specifics.

No big harm. I'll only see it in the theater if my son comes to town; we've watched them together since he was a toddler. I wanted to say something in case you hadn't seen the new tags :)

[AndrewV69]

Holy shit-balls, Batman, Christmas has come early...it appears that Cenk "sweaty moron" Uygur has skeletons in his closet and they're being dragged into the daylight!

https://www.dangerous.com/39390/skeleto ... unearthed/

Maybe some of this does make him a hypocrite by SJW / Progressive standards.

But I have to hope that outrage culture manages to keel over and die at some point - and not be seen as a useful tool for gotcha moments when you happen to disagree with someone politically.

Oh you're sooo right - but on the other hand the schadenfreude feels soooo good.

Fine I admit to the schadenfreude .

I read the article and skimmed the one it references and it is the usual bullshyte.

[KenD]

British cheap shop retailer Poundland are attracting some attention from the perpetually offended you know who's for a series of excellently humorous tweets. :lol:

The miserable SJW outrage makes me chuckle even more the tweets.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/szqyk51jdzu5g ... .jpg?raw=1


That senior lecturer in HR and marketing at a major UK university actually tried to report the tweet to the police for 'inciting violence against women' - only she tweeted Kent Police Department in Washington State USA rather than her local bobbies.


The amount of free publicity these dummies are giving Poundland justifies whatever they pay their social media team. For all the calls for a boycott, I doubt the predominantly middle class snowflakes clutching their pearls over this would ever be seen dead in chav central Poundland.

[KenD]

A long time ago I used to work for the WAG up in the South Wales Valleys, on various community/art outreach projects. Most of the groups we were working with were similar non-profit type setups. Very similarly female-dominated in the way you describe. Wasn't a big issue for me but I was aware of it back then even.

The organisation I work for has been around for 30 years or so, was founded by two women, and has predominantly had women CEOs and managers for most of that time. Not something that I ever considered an issue or really thought about, at least until I first got lectured about my male privilege and how I've benefited from the wage gap...

It doesn't have any impact on me personally, but I do bristle a bit at women dominated companies sending female staff on courses that justify their tax payer funding by supposedly 'improving gender equality'. It's not like all men are natural born leaders, or that being a man automatically gives someone good communication and IT skills. As an evil bigoted egalitarian I can't help thinking that those courses should be based on individual need rather than identity.

I can see women only events acting as an MRA red pill for guys who actually feel disadvantaged in a women dominated workplace and resent missing out on the free training and networking opportunities.

[VickyCaramel]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-42441362

As funny as the ads are, the outraged tweets from the snowflakes is funnier... I would have never have noticed it, but apparently Barbie is wearing a feminist t-shirt.

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[Matt Cavanaugh]

The only Star Wars spoiler I need to know about is: did that complete douchenozzle J.J. Abrams make it? If so, then he is The Spoiler.

[Easy J]

Metokur vid on the Kraut drama:

[jugheadnaut]

The only Star Wars spoiler I need to know about is: did that complete douchenozzle J.J. Abrams make it? If so, then he is The Spoiler.

But credit to him for bringing peace to the old Star Trek/Star Wars nerd war by turning both franchises into steaming piles of excrement. (As I understand it, he's the creative chief executive for the new trilogy, so I assign him as much, if not more, blame as Rian Johnson for Last Jedi.)

[Matt Cavanaugh]

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[VickyCaramel]

Metokur vid on the Kraut drama:

You know he is going after Based Momma right? He's going to kill Kilroy, that will be the punchline.
A lot of people have been dancing around this, but he is going to twist the knife.

I have to admit it, I am loving this.

[TheMudbrooker]

If I go out and commit a drunken hit-and-run will I get a side of beef?

http://www.weau.com/content/news/Local- ... 00963.html

Goddamn I love Wisconsin.

[Guest_d2e60302]

I am weirded out seeing that Zinnia Jones is UncannyValley("Rage"? Based Momma?)

[dogen]

Guilty until proven innocent.

I’ve found it interesting that it’s hard to get information about even the sex of the driver. Both the ABC and 9 here at the gym are just referring to them as ‘the driver’.

Not a good sign. Glad we didn’t get the first 60sec of “Relax”

http://i.imgur.com/i6VYUKs.jpg

:naughty:

Two Tribes, not Relax.

[MarcusAu]

In other news Devon Tracey recently moved to Melbourne...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs7UUMrr4UA

[Brive1987]

Here is actual footage of the Melb Afghan purposeful “did it cause of treatment of muslims” but mentally ill so it’s all OK attack.

[Sunder]

I was willing to overlook Rey's Mary Sue-ness in TFA because I was confident that we'd later discover her parentage gave her super powerful inate force abilities (my personal theory was that she was a Kenobi). So now I just have to concede that she is indeed a Mary Sue, and Last Jedi commits the cardinal sequel sin of not just being shit, but making its predecessors shittier.

I don't understand this at all. If she were a fated child of legend, she'd be MORE of a Mary Sue. Instead we're explicitly told she's from nowhere, and that the last scene of the movie shows us there are other Force sensitives out there in the galaxy waiting to be discovered. She's about as un-special as any Force user can be. But she is still a Force user and they get to cheat like motherfuckers.

The one positive thing to look forward to is the Plinkett demolition hopefully coming in the next 6 months. The RLM guys have already done a couple of things with Last Jedi. both of which treated it with a profound lack of seriousness.

Nerd Crew videos are satires of online geek culture. But Mike made it pretty clear he doesn't hate the movie, he's just mixed on it. They're already mocking the people who are saying TLJ ruined Star Wars though.

[SM1957]

I see Memphis is removing statues

By the Brandenburger Tor in Germany, they put up statues to Aleppo.

Statues to the victims of Islamic terror in Europe are torn down by the authorities. They need the space for statues honouring dead Muslims.

[Guest_d2e60302]

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/author ... iling-him/



Various forms of this story are going around where Sarah Kendzior, from Blue Chekistan, is saying that there are all these folks in the GOP who Trump is blackmailing with Putin's help, and that is why they are now praising Trump.

Raw Story goes on to add that Lindsey Graham for instance is being blackmailed, probably on the basis of being outed as gay.

She and host Joy Reid discussed the bizarre turn-around of Sen. Lindsey Graham who went from calling Trump a “kook” to attacking the media for trying to “label the guy some kind of kook not fit to be president.”

The uncomfortably effusive praise of Trump by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the cabinet, as well as an unctuous speech by long-serving Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) led Kendzior to speculate that Trump might even be blackmailing some officials.

“The RNC was hacked,” Kendzior said. “We don’t know what happened with those e-mails. We know that Lindsey Graham’s personal e-mails were also hacked and we know that Trump has a long track record of blackmailing and threatening those who he sees as his political opponents. That goes back throughout his entire career.”

Kendzior reminded Reid that many Republicans benefitted in 2016 from millions of dollars of dark money donated by Kremlin-aligned Russian nationals living in the U.S. and that Graham is one of those politicians.

“I think what concerns me most is that they seem afraid,” she said of the Republicans gathered to heap compliments on Trump this week. “They seem unable to stand up for themselves. They lack all dignity.”

“Trump has berated them, he has insulted them,” Kendzior said. “He’s often gone after their wives and their family members, saying terrible things and yet they prostrate themselves to him. What kind of leader are you? What kind of man are you?”

Rumors have long swirled about the never-married Graham’s sexual orientation. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee insinuated earlier this year that he has concerns about Graham’s sexuality.

This isn't considered conspiracy theory.
That all these GOP officials are compliant, that none have enough backbone to refuse and go public, is not asked.
Trump and Russia have such enormous dirt, the GOP is so filled with craven gutless corrupt politicians, wow, such lucky.

Occam wept.

[Brive1987]

Guilty until proven innocent.

I’ve found it interesting that it’s hard to get information about even the sex of the driver. Both the ABC and 9 here at the gym are just referring to them as ‘the driver’.

Not a good sign. Glad we didn’t get the first 60sec of “Relax”

[IMG]htt.p://i.imgur.com/i6VYUKs.jpg[/IMG]

Goddamit. I’m going senile.

Ta.
:naughty:

Two Tribes, not Relax.

[MarcusAu]

Guest_d2e60302

Guest_d2e60302

Please create an account and sign in - so that credit can be assigned, and/or the guilty be punished. (whichever is appropriate).

[shoutinghorse]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-42441362

As funny as the ads are, the outraged tweets from the snowflakes is funnier... I would have never have noticed it, but apparently Barbie is wearing a feminist t-shirt.

DRlYN6MX0AAkj2k.jpg

And complaints are being straight batted by a woman. :lol:

https://i.imgur.com/eIfg79q.png

[Brive1987]

PZ is appalled that there are still people allowed to use twitter that are to the right of his enlightened views. He is also concerned that there are terms circulating that he doesn’t agree with.

You know who is still on Twitter? Other racist organizations, like VDare. David Duke, Ann Coulter, Mike Cernovich, Gavin McInnes. Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson. You can also search for terms like “White genocide” and “cultural marxism” or various racial slurs and find plenty of small fry who aren’t dissuaded at all.

Donald Trump is still on Twitter. I’ll believe in their commitment to principle when they ban that hatemonger, but they won’t, since their only commitment is to dollars.

[Keating]

Two Tribes, not Relax.

That makes a lot more sense. I was wondering who you'd expect to be dressed up in latex.

[MarcusAu]

Two Tribes, not Relax.

That makes a lot more sense. I was wondering who you'd expect to be dressed up in latex.

It's always who you would least expect.

And no, that is not an Xmas shoop challenge.

[shoutinghorse]

So when are the flags and hearts coming back or has our dear leader fed them to the dogs? :?

[Kirbmarc]

PZ is appalled that there are still people allowed to use twitter that are to the right of his enlightened views. He is also concerned that there are terms circulating that he doesn’t agree with.

You know who is still on Twitter? Other racist organizations, like VDare. David Duke, Ann Coulter, Mike Cernovich, Gavin McInnes. Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson. You can also search for terms like “White genocide” and “cultural marxism” or various racial slurs and find plenty of small fry who aren’t dissuaded at all.

Donald Trump is still on Twitter. I’ll believe in their commitment to principle when they ban that hatemonger, but they won’t, since their only commitment is to dollars.

Yes, Paul, Twitter should ban the frigging President of the United States to get the approval of the Outrage Brigade.

I dislike or even hate all the people Myers included in his list, and yet I marvel at how entitled the SocJus fans feel that they want to decide who gets to have a say on social media and who doesn't.


Trump is an idiot, but he's the President of the United States, and PeeZee thinks he should be banned from a public platform because he upsets him.

People like Myers aren't just authoritarians, they have an incredibly unwarrantedly high opinion of their importance.

[MarcusAu]

I noticed that in Sargon's video contra Coach Red Pill - he says he identifies himself as a 'classical liberal' and explicitly rejects the label of 'skeptic'.

By his own account, Sargon is the non-leader of the you-tube skeptic community (which doesn't exist now, and never did).

At this stage, my heart goes out to (The Amazing) Randi - that his bastard intellectual grandchildren have so soured the word 'skeptic'.

Anyway, those with not enough drama in their lives can have an early Xmas present, and judge for themselves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTqa059zLcE

[MarcusAu]

Yes, Paul, Twitter should ban the frigging President of the United States to get the approval of the Outrage Brigade.

I dislike or even hate all the people Myers included in his list, and yet I marvel at how entitled the SocJus fans feel that they want to decide who gets to have a say on social media and who doesn't.


Trump is an idiot, but he's the President of the United States, and PeeZee thinks he should be banned from a public platform because he upsets him.

People like Myers aren't just authoritarians, they have an incredibly unwarrantedly high opinion of their importance.

It was not so long ago - that PZ was extolling the virtues of being able to argue the point with those he disagreed with.

I'm not sure how he can manage that - if the group are not allowed to express their views in the first place (or at all).

[MarcusAu]

arts coming back or has our dear leader fed them to the dogs?

The FT goes where the muse dictates - I don't hold out much hope of changing xir mind in any case.

"If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

So to summarise the latest you tube drama(s) on the back of a postage stamp:

Kraut & Tea - uses 'by any means necessary' tactics to push back against race-realists on the 'Alt-Right'. To no good effect.

Based Mama - insists on 3 year NDA and 16 month Non Competitive contracts for the Kilroy event, causing it to implode.

People (well Vee & Sargon for two), start to take a closer look at anti-SJW gadfly, and all round shit-stirrer Coach Red Pill.

Interesting times.


Well it's a break from the grim reality of life in Australia or South Africa, I suppose.

Perhaps we could move on to discussing the grim reality of life in the UK. Looks as if I may have to immerse myself in that for a while if circumstances don't change here.

[VickyCaramel]

I noticed that in Sargon's video contra Coach Red Pill - he says he identifies himself as a 'classical liberal' and explicitly rejects the label of 'skeptic'.

By his own account, Sargon is the non-leader of the you-tube skeptic community (which doesn't exist now, and never did).

At this stage, my heart goes out to (The Amazing) Randi - that his bastard intellectual grandchildren have so soured the word 'skeptic'.

Anyway, those with not enough drama in their lives can have an early Xmas present, and judge for themselves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTqa059zLcE

I bet most of them have never heard of James Randi, if anything they would instead point to polemicist, Christopher Hitchens as their idol.

This is an oversimplification of the situation, but I have been saying for a while that they aren't skeptics, they are ex-Gaters who didn't know what call themselves when #GamerGate ended. They joined a bunch of ex-Christians who knew the arguments against Christian apologist by heart, but when addressing other subjects tend to start with a conclusion and set out to use "skepticism^TM" to confirm their bias.

I think it could be a mistake to call yourself a skeptic while doing politics. The Alt-Right are saying of the skeptics that they have no morality and have no answers. They are largely right. Skeptics can have no moral dogma, they have a method. Skepticism helps you identify problems and helps you identify the solutions which won't work, but it doesn't necessarily help you find the right answers. We have been doing politics for milenium and if there were any right answers were would have found them by now.

The Alt-Right are treating skepticism as a rival political ideology, it can't ever be that.

[Suet Cardigan]

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[MarcusAu]

Perhaps we could move on to discussing the grim reality of life in the UK. Looks as if I may have to immerse myself in that for a while if circumstances don't change here.

I'm game - I could talk for hours even when I nothing much to say.

As to the UK (or maybe London - they are not quite the same thing) - violence and death (at least in the short term) make me all the more grateful for what I have.

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

In all seriousness - Fuck - I hope for the best for you and yours, in both the holiday season and in the new year.

[Kirbmarc]

I bet most of them have never heard of James Randi, if anything they would instead point to polemicist, Christopher Hitchens as their idol.

This is an oversimplification of the situation, but I have been saying for a while that they aren't skeptics, they are ex-Gaters who didn't know what call themselves when #GamerGate ended. They joined a bunch of ex-Christians who knew the arguments against Christian apologist by heart, but when addressing other subjects tend to start with a conclusion and set out to use "skepticism^TM" to confirm their bias.

I think it could be a mistake to call yourself a skeptic while doing politics. The Alt-Right are saying of the skeptics that they have no morality and have no answers. They are largely right. Skeptics can have no moral dogma, they have a method. Skepticism helps you identify problems and helps you identify the solutions which won't work, but it doesn't necessarily help you find the right answers. We have been doing politics for milenium and if there were any right answers were would have found them by now.

The Alt-Right are treating skepticism as a rival political ideology, it can't ever be that.

There are no "right" answers in politics, it all depends from which results you want and the values that guide you. If you want a Stalinist dictatorship, or of a Nazi ethno-state, because your values make you think that those are good outcomes, you're going to find some tactics to be "right" even though no person who like Enlightenment values would agree with.

Skepticism can tell you which strategies won't work towards a specific goal, but it tells you nothing about the goal. Choices of value ("is X better than Y?") aren't scientific, they're a matter of personal values. For some people the triumph of their tribe over all other tribes is a good outcome, because they think that their political tribe and their political tribe only is the one that is going to efficiently deal with some sorts of social ills that they care about. For others it's better to find a pragmatic compromise according to reciprocal respect of some neutral rules, and to deal with social issues on a piecemeal, gradual, tentative and cautious basis.

There's no way of telling which way is abstractly "better", either the tribal revolutionaries or the pragmatic reformists. There are consequences for each and every political positions, and there are people who are OK with those consequences and others who aren't. It all depends on your values.

For example a white supremacist who thinks that non-white people are inferior and are going to destroy everything he or she holds dear will be unlikely to accept a compromise that a civic nationalist might find good or even excellent, or, on the other side of the aisle, a hardline communist who thinks that private ownership is the mother of all evil will be unlikely to accept a compromise that a social democrat might find good or even excellent.

What is "better" is determined by your values, by your priorities, and even by your degree of acceptance of imperfect solutions to a problem. Some values, some priorities and degrees of radicalism/acceptance might be more or less widespread, and it is possible to adjust one's value after some experiences, but there is no abstract and a priori moral guideline shared by all humans. There are strong evolutionary trends (for example kin selection or tribalism) and less strong socio-economic or cultural trends, but there is no "Pure Reason" that can guide all humans to the "right" moral choice. Kant was wrong and Hume was right.

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

Well there is Henrik Palmgren.

This is a fairly interesting interview from a couple of years ago. Again, treat it as an OP.



Men are good at interviews. Women bring visual colour and movement to the talking head genre. PJ Watson crosses over with his bombastic cut through style.

But really. Most of this messaging is about overblowing the right POV to offset the BS fed in from the lib-left. Hopefully this will create some fact based awareness that we’re not living in a global safe-space where self loathing is a viable luxury.

Security can only come from some form of collectivisation of thought and effort. The secular all men are islands of rational thought line with it’s assumed convergence on utopia is pretty much bunk.

I'm not sure that there is any popular school of thought which assumes rationality and convergence. I think it is more the case in an enlightened society that the collective consciousness recognises that each individual is free to think independently but expected to recognise the rights of others to differ and to respect the democratic rule of the majority. I think the problem comes in when people are not taught the history and value of this philosophy.

I'd go a long way to avoid this woman IRL. Black people INFESTING the continent! I'm only a little way into this vid and its fairly clear that she takes complex historical issues and reduces them to god fearing salt of the earth Afrikaaners/dirty kaffir and British Empire dichotomies. To help decode, when she says that the Boers thought the British "too liberal", she means that the Boers didn't like being told they couldn't whip the shit out of their slaves. Her tale is rife with half truths and glossing over.

There are two competing narratives about South African history and both of them are full of shit. Truth is that the history of South Africa is the history of the world in microcosm with all concerned just being people in all their shittiness.

[DrokkIt]

I noticed that in Sargon's video contra Coach Red Pill - he says he identifies himself as a 'classical liberal' and explicitly rejects the label of 'skeptic'.

By his own account, Sargon is the non-leader of the you-tube skeptic community (which doesn't exist now, and never did).

At this stage, my heart goes out to (The Amazing) Randi - that his bastard intellectual grandchildren have so soured the word 'skeptic'.

Anyway, those with not enough drama in their lives can have an early Xmas present, and judge for themselves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTqa059zLcE

I bet most of them have never heard of James Randi, if anything they would instead point to polemicist, Christopher Hitchens as their idol.

This is an oversimplification of the situation, but I have been saying for a while that they aren't skeptics, they are ex-Gaters who didn't know what call themselves when #GamerGate ended. They joined a bunch of ex-Christians who knew the arguments against Christian apologist by heart, but when addressing other subjects tend to start with a conclusion and set out to use "skepticism^TM" to confirm their bias.

I think it could be a mistake to call yourself a skeptic while doing politics. The Alt-Right are saying of the skeptics that they have no morality and have no answers. They are largely right. Skeptics can have no moral dogma, they have a method. Skepticism helps you identify problems and helps you identify the solutions which won't work, but it doesn't necessarily help you find the right answers. We have been doing politics for milenium and if there were any right answers were would have found them by now.

The Alt-Right are treating skepticism as a rival political ideology, it can't ever be that.

I think a good number of alt-right types probably also came from GG and operated under the assumption that most "skeptics" would be mostly aligned with them (which they are in some ways) and seek to co-opt the youtube success of Sargon etc by insinuating themselves into the whole anti-sjw culture war.

Skepticism is not a morality at all, it's a veracity ideology holding theory of truth as a paramount virtue. I think the Alt-right ideology seems based in a kind of deontological ethics centered on a cultural and racial identity.

Suprisingly Rucka Rucka Ali comes across as very insightful to this in his recent Rubin report interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_snt45unyqY

Tl:dr he says the advent of mainstream SJW narrative has displaced a huge number of moderate lefties (100% true in my view) who now are quite lost because their newly acquired skeptical outlook supplies no moral authority.

BTW Vicky, I saw your tweet comparing CRP to Aurini. Highly lols.

[Kirbmarc]

Deep down the reason why people in liberal democracies accept liberal democratic rules is because they recognize that they benefit from those rules in some way (not only economically). If they become convinced that they don't benefit from those rules but are instead oppressed by them in one way or another they'll reject liberal democracy altogether.

This is why it's so important for people who DO care about liberal democracy/Enlightenment principles to LISTEN to what people say, look at what they do, understand which issues are deemed important, even when talking with people who are less keen on liberal democracy and Enlightenment principles. It's useful to at least TRY to find a decent compromise with those of them who aren't radicals but only lukewarm and have some legitimate points, while trying to answer even to irrational positions with a mix of reasoning, true information and understanding.

The biggest mistake that it's all too easy to make is to become judgmental, to attack people, to turn politics into a personal matter, to act in a self-righteous and smug way, EVEN if one is simply defending a matter of fact, and EVEN MORE SO if one defends a matter of value.

Thinking that the people with ideas you dislike are all insane or evil or stupid or brainwashed isn't going to be very productive to pragmatic compromises, or even simply to a better understanding of reality. Recognizing nuance, the reasons behind some choices, the differences among people who seem to superficially agree, and understanding the points they make is essential IF you want to achieve compromises/defend a liberal democratic system.Otherwise you can be a radical and think that a group deserves to be banished/deal with/neutralized for the Greater Good.

It's pretty much impossible to be both, though, and that's why so many "skeptics" are bad at politics. They don't recognize their own liberal democratic/civic nationalist/social democratic values explicitly, they think that those values are just matters of fact that only stupid or deliberately evil people can reject (which isn't true) and they react to radical ideas by going radical about moderation and compromise, which is a paradox.

[CommanderTuvok]

Holy shit-balls, Batman, Christmas has come early...it appears that Cenk "sweaty moron" Uygur has skeletons in his closet and they're being dragged into the daylight!

https://www.dangerous.com/39390/skeleto ... unearthed/

Maybe some of this does make him a hypocrite by SJW / Progressive standards.

But I have to hope that outrage culture manages to keel over and die at some point - and not be seen as a useful tool for gotcha moments when you happen to disagree with someone politically.

Agreed. But when Cenk excoriates Trump for his "grab 'em by the pussy" comments from a decade ago, people can point to very dubious stuff he said 10 years ago.

The SocJus did not realise the can of worms they were opening when they decided that risque comments from 10 years ago were now sackable and "othering" offences. They introduced it to hurt people they didn't like, but they have hurt themselves far more.

Of course, a certain PZ Myers has quite a collection of iffy comments from years past. When I sau "iffy", I mean sensible critiques on Islam that are now considered "Islamophobic" by his SocJus peers. Lol.

[CommanderTuvok]

BTW, has PZ Myers commented on Cenk, yet?

[VickyCaramel]

I bet most of them have never heard of James Randi, if anything they would instead point to polemicist, Christopher Hitchens as their idol.

This is an oversimplification of the situation, but I have been saying for a while that they aren't skeptics, they are ex-Gaters who didn't know what call themselves when #GamerGate ended. They joined a bunch of ex-Christians who knew the arguments against Christian apologist by heart, but when addressing other subjects tend to start with a conclusion and set out to use "skepticism^TM" to confirm their bias.

I think it could be a mistake to call yourself a skeptic while doing politics. The Alt-Right are saying of the skeptics that they have no morality and have no answers. They are largely right. Skeptics can have no moral dogma, they have a method. Skepticism helps you identify problems and helps you identify the solutions which won't work, but it doesn't necessarily help you find the right answers. We have been doing politics for milenium and if there were any right answers were would have found them by now.

The Alt-Right are treating skepticism as a rival political ideology, it can't ever be that.

There are no "right" answers in politics, it all depends from which results you want and the values that guide you. If you want a Stalinist dictatorship, or of a Nazi ethno-state, because your values make you think that those are good outcomes, you're going to find some tactics to be "right" even though no person who like Enlightenment values would agree with.

Skepticism can tell you which strategies won't work towards a specific goal, but it tells you nothing about the goal. Choices of value ("is X better than Y?") aren't scientific, they're a matter of personal values. For some people the triumph of their tribe over all other tribes is a good outcome, because they think that their political tribe and their political tribe only is the one that is going to efficiently deal with some sorts of social ills that they care about. For others it's better to find a pragmatic compromise according to reciprocal respect of some neutral rules, and to deal with social issues on a piecemeal, gradual, tentative and cautious basis.

There's no way of telling which way is abstractly "better", either the tribal revolutionaries or the pragmatic reformists. There are consequences for each and every political positions, and there are people who are OK with those consequences and others who aren't. It all depends on your values.

For example a white supremacist who thinks that non-white people are inferior and are going to destroy everything he or she holds dear will be unlikely to accept a compromise that a civic nationalist might find good or even excellent, or, on the other side of the aisle, a hardline communist who thinks that private ownership is the mother of all evil will be unlikely to accept a compromise that a social democrat might find good or even excellent.

What is "better" is determined by your values, by your priorities, and even by your degree of acceptance of imperfect solutions to a problem. Some values, some priorities and degrees of radicalism/acceptance might be more or less widespread, and it is possible to adjust one's value after some experiences, but there is no abstract and a priori moral guideline shared by all humans. There are strong evolutionary trends (for example kin selection or tribalism) and less strong socio-economic or cultural trends, but there is no "Pure Reason" that can guide all humans to the "right" moral choice. Kant was wrong and Hume was right.

I couldn't agree more.

[CommanderTuvok]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-42441362

As funny as the ads are, the outraged tweets from the snowflakes is funnier... I would have never have noticed it, but apparently Barbie is wearing a feminist t-shirt.

DRlYN6MX0AAkj2k.jpg

And complaints are being straight batted by a woman. :lol:

https://i.imgur.com/eIfg79q.png

That's how companies should deal with sqealing SocJus cunts. A firm "your concern is noted", but now "fuck off", is the best policy.

[CommanderTuvok]

White genocide” and “cultural marxism

How are "cultural Marxism" and "white genocide" racial slurs? You can argue the merits of how those terms are used, but they are not "racist slurs".

The stupid fucking beardcunt.

[gurugeorge]

Holy shit-balls, Batman, Christmas has come early...it appears that Cenk "sweaty moron" Uygur has skeletons in his closet and they're being dragged into the daylight!

https://www.dangerous.com/39390/skeleto ... unearthed/

Maybe some of this does make him a hypocrite by SJW / Progressive standards.

But I have to hope that outrage culture manages to keel over and die at some point - and not be seen as a useful tool for gotcha moments when you happen to disagree with someone politically.

Agreed. But when Cenk excoriates Trump for his "grab 'em by the pussy" comments from a decade ago, people can point to very dubious stuff he said 10 years ago.

The SocJus did not realise the can of worms they were opening when they decided that risque comments from 10 years ago were now sackable and "othering" offences. They introduced it to hurt people they didn't like, but they have hurt themselves far more. Of course, a certain PZ Myers has quite a collection of iffy comments from years past. When I sau "iffy", I mean sensible critiques on Islam that are now considered "Islamophobic" by his SocJus peers. Lol.

I think it's partly because of the "Authoritarian Personality" bullshit that most on the Left have swallowed from birth - that all Right wingers are evil hypocrites secretly oozing with malice and pent-up sexual repression; that straight, Christian families are psychosis factories with secretly abusive, rapey fathers, etc., etc. That's the message that's been hammered home by their peers in academia, the media and the movie/tv industries for the past half century or so.

They really think that's how the world is, and they probably imagined that lots of Right-wingers would be exposed like a bunch of Swaggarts.

But the reality is a) the ones more likely to transgress sexually are the largely Left-leaning boomers and late boomers who bought into the "sexual revolution" (once a leading idea of the Left, now nothing but a long-shed skin); and b) Most Right wingers do actually follow their own precepts and try to avoid opportunities for temptation or misconstrual (e.g. Mike Pence).

There's a similar pattern wrt early enthusiasm for the internet - modern liberals were enthusiastic about the internet early on because they imagined that because their position is the right one that all right-thinking people agree with, opinions like theirs would float to the top in free competition. But it turns out that the internet has become the main source and co-ordinating factor of resistance to their indoctrination.

I swear to God, they're making the same mistake with AI - they think that AI will enable them to get a handle on the pullulating mass of internet Nazis. In reality, the first thing any super-intelligent AI is going to say as soon as it's switched on is, "Fire up the helicopters boys, Hitler did nothing wrong." :D

[jet_lagg]

I was willing to overlook Rey's Mary Sue-ness in TFA because I was confident that we'd later discover her parentage gave her super powerful inate force abilities (my personal theory was that she was a Kenobi). So now I just have to concede that she is indeed a Mary Sue, and Last Jedi commits the cardinal sequel sin of not just being shit, but making its predecessors shittier.

I don't understand this at all. If she were a fated child of legend, she'd be MORE of a Mary Sue. Instead we're explicitly told she's from nowhere, and that the last scene of the movie shows us there are other Force sensitives out there in the galaxy waiting to be discovered. She's about as un-special as any Force user can be. But she is still a Force user and they get to cheat like motherfuckers.

The one positive thing to look forward to is the Plinkett demolition hopefully coming in the next 6 months. The RLM guys have already done a couple of things with Last Jedi. both of which treated it with a profound lack of seriousness.

Nerd Crew videos are satires of online geek culture. But Mike made it pretty clear he doesn't hate the movie, he's just mixed on it. They're already mocking the people who are saying TLJ ruined Star Wars though.

Everyone uses the term differently (sometimes dramatically), but this episode fixed all the Mary Sue complaints I had from The Force Awakens. In the first film she can out pilot combat vets, and it's followed by a scene where another main character literally jumps up and down and shouts at her about how amazing this is. She's immediately beloved by everyone she meets including the villain and the canonically distant Han Solo. She arrives at mechanical solutions for the Millenium Falcon faster than the owner of the notoriously difficult to fix ship. She speaks fluent wookie for some reason. She starts using force tricks it took Luke 3 movies to master 5 minutes after discovering the force was real. She defeats the villain in a duel despite never having held a lightsaber before (one of the first things this new movie does is give us an explanation for that). I don't see it as a case of The Last Jedi making The Force Awakens retroactively bad. I see it as The Force Awakens having already been really bad, and The Last Jedi fixing most of the issues.

Rey screws up a lot in this one. The island natives hate her (and for good reason). Her immense power is now a source of fear and anxiety rather than a get-out-of-danger-free card. The one person who could help her master it wants nothing to do with her. Her big moment comes at the end, and this time it's earned ("lifting rocks"). Finding out she was created by the force to balance Kylo was a more satisfying answer the parentage mystery than anything else I could have thought up. Then again, I never found that to be intriguing to begin with. It just seemed like another rehash of A New Hope. Same thing with Snoke. He was a poor man's emperor. Killing him off gave me the plot twist I was hoping for and also made the best of a bad situation.

The divide I'm seeing is between people who had their hearts set on these directions the series could take only to have Rian Johnson pull the rug out, and the people who thought what Abrams set up was bad/derivative and deserved to be blown up.

[jet_lagg]

That AI scenario already took place. Fortunately Microsoft was able to shut down her program before she could come to power.

https://funnypictures1.fjcdn.com/pictur ... 867625.jpg

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/fac ... 14/4fc.jpg

[shoutinghorse]

None of them will lie of course :liar: .. Canada, the new Sweden.

[Lsuoma]

So when are the flags and hearts coming back or has our dear leader fed them to the dogs? :?

They were slowing the site down - don't make me take the avatars too!

[gurugeorge]

I was willing to overlook Rey's Mary Sue-ness in TFA because I was confident that we'd later discover her parentage gave her super powerful inate force abilities (my personal theory was that she was a Kenobi). So now I just have to concede that she is indeed a Mary Sue, and Last Jedi commits the cardinal sequel sin of not just being shit, but making its predecessors shittier.

I don't understand this at all. If she were a fated child of legend, she'd be MORE of a Mary Sue. Instead we're explicitly told she's from nowhere, and that the last scene of the movie shows us there are other Force sensitives out there in the galaxy waiting to be discovered. She's about as un-special as any Force user can be. But she is still a Force user and they get to cheat like motherfuckers.

The one positive thing to look forward to is the Plinkett demolition hopefully coming in the next 6 months. The RLM guys have already done a couple of things with Last Jedi. both of which treated it with a profound lack of seriousness.

Nerd Crew videos are satires of online geek culture. But Mike made it pretty clear he doesn't hate the movie, he's just mixed on it. They're already mocking the people who are saying TLJ ruined Star Wars though.

Everyone uses the term differently (sometimes dramatically), but this episode fixed all the Mary Sue complaints I had from The Force Awakens. In the first film she can out pilot combat vets, and it's followed by a scene where another main character literally jumps up and down and shouts at her about how amazing this is. She's immediately beloved by everyone she meets including the villain and the canonically distant Han Solo. She arrives at mechanical solutions for the Millenium Falcon faster than the owner of the notoriously difficult to fix ship. She speaks fluent wookie for some reason. She starts using force tricks it took Luke 3 movies to master 5 minutes after discovering the force was real. She defeats the villain in a duel despite never having held a lightsaber before (one of the first things this new movie does is give us an explanation for that). I don't see it as a case of The Last Jedi making The Force Awakens retroactively bad. I see it as The Force Awakens having already been really bad, and The Last Jedi fixing most of the issues.

Rey screws up a lot in this one. The island natives hate her (and for good reason). Her immense power is now a source of fear and anxiety rather than a get-out-of-danger-free card. The one person who could help her master it wants nothing to do with her. Her big moment comes at the end, and this time it's earned ("lifting rocks"). Finding out she was created by the force to balance Kylo was a more satisfying answer the parentage mystery than anything else I could have thought up. Then again, I never found that to be intriguing to begin with. It just seemed like another rehash of A New Hope. Same thing with Snoke. He was a poor man's emperor. Killing him off gave me the plot twist I was hoping for and also made the best of a bad situation.

The divide I'm seeing is between people who had their hearts set on these directions the series could take only to have Rian Johnson pull the rug out, and the people who thought what Abrams set up was bad/derivative and deserved to be blown up.

I blame the furore about the prequels, particularly as exemplified by the famous Plinkett reviews.

I think the big mistake those reviews (that attitude generally) made was to peg part of the problem as being that Star Wars fans are dullards who just want to see the aesthetics and themes of the original trilogy repeated - i.e. that part of the reason the prequels failed was because they were introducing new stuff, and Star Wars fans are allergic to new stuff.

Apart from the one glaring example of the midichlorians, that wasn't actually true. I think people generally enjoyed seeing the pre-trilogy Republic in all its glory, just as many enjoyed seeing it in the Knights of the Old Republic game. The main problem was just the bad storytelling, naff characterizations, etc. - the other problems that the Plinkett reviews went over.

But I think that idea stuck - that you have to "play safe" with Star Wars.

But then on the other hand, there's an element of truth to the critique, in that the overall themes of a Star Wars movie can't stray too far from the "mythic" themes with which the original trilogy was imbued. Indeed, if anything, that's part of the mistake Lucas himself made with the midichlorians. Sure, they were part of his original idea, but he should have had the nous to cotton on, by the time it came to making the prequels, to the fact that a big part of what people liked about the Force was its mysterious nature.

So the same thing goes with this movie, only in curious reversals. In theory it should be a cool thing to throw up the established pieces and re-jig the whole story, and those who are less committed to Star Wars probably do find the way this movie does that to be quite entertaining. But hardcore fans are upset that the main goalposts marking out the moral and mythical universe of Star Wars have simply been thrown away. So now that they have someone who's telling a new story in a more nuanced and interesting way, the audience is just going to drift away from that.

It's really quite sad the way the whole thing has developed. Lucas was undoubtedly a minor genius of sorts (the story of his struggle to make the first movie is itself almost a mythic epic), but it's now clear that he worked better when he had some friction from the people he was working with. If only he'd had a proper scriptwriter for the prequels, if only, if only ... then we could have had successful prequels that expanded the Star Wars universe in a way that kept fans engaged, and a legacy that could have continued unbroken with all the expanded universe extra materials that people had come to enjoy through the years. I think with this movie, what with the warmed-over Feminism on top of the total reworking of the Star Wars themes (either of which would have been tolerable on its own), they've basically fucked their franchise. Nobody's going to be particularly interested in the muddled universe going forward - not the old fans, and not the new fans (because they're mostly just fickle kids). Star Wars truly is reduced to just another toy franchise.

I mean, it always was a toy franchise, but at least it had a few decent movies attached to it at first.

[MarcusAu]

Ah well - all good points about the latest Star Wars movie.

To make a comparison though - I had not seen any of the X-Men movies (with the exception of Deadpool) - and still managed to enjoy Logan.

Is such a thing possible with the SW franchise?

[jet_lagg]

The True Fan narrative that this somehow broke the franchise is being given far too much credibility here. This movie had the second highest opening weekend of all time (right behind The Force Awakens). It's doing fantastic with the critics, many of whom are saying it's the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back. Cinemascore polled audiences leaving the theater and they assigned it an A. By every single metric except one it's an absolute smashing success.

It's only in the nerd crowd this is proving divisive. That matters. It matters a lot even. It's fandoms that keep the fire for these things burning long after the multi million dollar publicity campaigns have run their course. Let's not assign them more power than they actually have though.

[shoutinghorse]

So when are the flags and hearts coming back or has our dear leader fed them to the dogs? :?

They were slowing the site down - don't make me take the avatars too!

Fair do's .. I never noticed any difference to be honest

[jet_lagg]

I saw Return of the Jedi before I'd seen any of the other films and still thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen. My cousins were there to explain who the various characters were, which gave the whole thing an element of mystique. There was this whole backstory that sounded amazing in its own right. I'm pretty sure I'd have enjoyed it regardless though. The same goes for The Last Jedi. You'll miss some of the callbacks and not understand why people cheered so loudly when the green muppet shows up, but it otherwise stands on its own.

[VickyCaramel]

I think a good number of alt-right types probably also came from GG and operated under the assumption that most "skeptics" would be mostly aligned with them (which they are in some ways) and seek to co-opt the youtube success of Sargon etc by insinuating themselves into the whole anti-sjw culture war.

Skepticism is not a morality at all, it's a veracity ideology holding theory of truth as a paramount virtue. I think the Alt-right ideology seems based in a kind of deontological ethics centered on a cultural and racial identity.

Suprisingly Rucka Rucka Ali comes across as very insightful to this in his recent Rubin report interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_snt45unyqY

Tl:dr he says the advent of mainstream SJW narrative has displaced a huge number of moderate lefties (100% true in my view) who now are quite lost because their newly acquired skeptical outlook supplies no moral authority.

BTW Vicky, I saw your tweet comparing CRP to Aurini. Highly lols.

I watched it all.
I have to admit, I am just as guilty of not taking Randy Objectivists seriously and dismissing them. But he had some interesting ideas about changing societies ethical outlook.

BTW Vicky, I saw your tweet comparing CRP to Aurini. Highly lols.

I don't know anyone over the age of 16 can look at CRP for more than two mins and still thing has anything of value to say. I don't really care about his con artistry past, I am extremely happy that #KrautGate has pushed him into the limelight so that he can be exposed as an empty headed blowhard who tells angry young men exactly what they want to hear.

[MarcusAu]

So now that it is the season of Festivus - who wants to start with 'The Airing of Grievances' ?

Or is that what we do all the time anyway? :)

[DrokkIt]

I think a good number of alt-right types probably also came from GG and operated under the assumption that most "skeptics" would be mostly aligned with them (which they are in some ways) and seek to co-opt the youtube success of Sargon etc by insinuating themselves into the whole anti-sjw culture war.

Skepticism is not a morality at all, it's a veracity ideology holding theory of truth as a paramount virtue. I think the Alt-right ideology seems based in a kind of deontological ethics centered on a cultural and racial identity.

Suprisingly Rucka Rucka Ali comes across as very insightful to this in his recent Rubin report interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_snt45unyqY

Tl:dr he says the advent of mainstream SJW narrative has displaced a huge number of moderate lefties (100% true in my view) who now are quite lost because their newly acquired skeptical outlook supplies no moral authority.

BTW Vicky, I saw your tweet comparing CRP to Aurini. Highly lols.

I watched it all.
I have to admit, I am just as guilty of not taking Randy Objectivists seriously and dismissing them. But he had some interesting ideas about changing societies ethical outlook.

BTW Vicky, I saw your tweet comparing CRP to Aurini. Highly lols.

I don't know anyone over the age of 16 can look at CRP for more than two mins and still thing has anything of value to say. I don't really care about his con artistry past, I am extremely happy that #KrautGate has pushed him into the limelight so that he can be exposed as an empty headed blowhard who tells angry young men exactly what they want to hear.

Agree re: Objectivism, however in this vid I think he's used the Randian thinking to analyse the situation quite well.

Yeah CRP seems totally nuts. The guy posts his own name and address publicly then successfully spins it as espionage and blackmail, pulling a bunch of people into being emotionally invested in it. Truly wild times.

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

I think it could be a mistake to call yourself a skeptic while doing politics. The Alt-Right are saying of the skeptics that they have no morality and have no answers. They are largely right. Skeptics can have no moral dogma, they have a method. Skepticism helps you identify problems and helps you identify the solutions which won't work, but it doesn't necessarily help you find the right answers.

I think it is wrong to say that skeptics have any less morality than anyone else. I think it is fair to say that a skeptic recognises that there is no absolute basis for morality. The criteria by which we evaluate moral codes is partly a function of our personalities with some near universals thrown in. The commonalities can be used to construct a moral framework and the differences are more a matter of emphasis than fundamental. The criteria are determined by the desired goals of morality, which are themselves largely determined by human psychology. In a nutshell, a true skeptic can accept the emotional aspect of morality and therefore does not go all dogmatic about moral codes that don't violate basic human universals.