Ed Brayton Confesses to Cronyism.

In his own words.

I pay no attention whatsoever to the slymepit as I prefer to avoid cesspools full of raging assholes. My initial response, given my affinity for Avi and the source of the accusations, was to dismiss it as much ado about nothing. I believed, with very little thought or effort to confirm,...

So, you're saying that you dismissed the allegations which were accompanied with copious evidence because you dislike the people making them.

...the initial speculation that someone had either gotten his password or that it was the result of some sort of technical glitch.....

And then, you immediately started coming up with excuses for your friend.

...Then I got an email from Hemant Mehta, someone I also hold in high esteem and consider a friend, and he told me that he’d been looking into the evidence and found a powerful case for plagiarism...

Finally, when someone you like tells you that the accusation are backed up by evidence, you then decide to look.

I don't think you know how to do skepticism.  Facts are facts, no matter who tells them to you.  Perhaps you will learn from this and give up your little in-group thinking, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Shocking, Double Standards from Rebecca Watson.

Rebecca Watson has now come out in favor of doxing…when she does it.

As usual, no links so as to deny her money for mendacity.

She starts by recounting her giving the information about someone who made an obvious joke about PC Meyers getting VD and a conference she put on to Meyers, who subsequently complained to the jokers employer.  Yet no suits were filed. More importantly, she has a history of trying to cover her ass by claiming her cheap insults and abuse of privileges given her are just jokes and people taking offense just don't get it.  There's some hypocrisy right there.

She then goes on to criticize the black and white thinking that condemns all doxing.  This from a woman who wrote "If she's drunk, it's rape."  No recognization of degrees of drunkenness.  One sip of wine and a woman is no longer responsible for her sexual decisions.  So I guess black and white thinking is OK when she does it.

This is followed by claiming that "…doxing can be used for good or ill. Like punching.".

Her example of good punching is Buzz Aldrin punching some guy who claims that the moon landings were a hoax and is giving Aldrin a hard time.  He never threatened him, never touched him, yet she condones punching, for talking.  Somehow in her mind, punching for talking is good but punching, in self defense, someone who is repeatedly hitting you (in an elevator, no less) is bad.  I wonder how she would respond to a man who is going from room to room to avoid a wife screeching in his ear for half an hour and finally punching her just get some relief.  I guess it depends upon whether or not she likes you.

She then goes on to misrepresent GamerGate with the canard that is it is all about Zoe Quinn being accused of sleeping around on her then boyfriend.  Get your facts right Becky, She admitted to it.  And its been said before, claiming that GamerGate is about her is like claiming the the First World War was about the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand.  GamerGate is about games journalist using corrupt means to advance a single narrative.  Corrupt means such as colluding on secret lists, shutting down the topic on any forum where they have influence, doxing and, of course the usual dasmseling comes up blah, blah, 'rape' threats, blah, blah, 'death' threats.  None of which have ever been shown to be credible or from even from a GamerGater. 

On the next point she's rig…righ…right.
…
…
…
I had to go gargle with fire after writing that.

For the sake of argument, we'll ignore the possibility that they were self-sent or sent by cronies using sock accounts, Anita Sarkeesian was within her rights in not obscuring the information on the tweets allegedly threatening her.  If you contact someone and fail to take reasonable measures to maintain your privacy, it sucks to be you if they share it.

Truth be told.  If someone is sending threats to actually harm someone, I really don't care what happens to them.  Call the authorities and let them deal with it.  Of course they'll only concern them self with actual threats.  The problem lies in her expansive definition of a threat.

Rebecca Watson believes in the Law Of Attraction, where wishing makes it so.  That's the only way to confuse "I hope someone kills you." with "I will kill you.".  Or, more likely, she is deliberately conflating for rhetorical advantage.

She also mentions slurs.  So, given her history of interpreting things to her own advantage, if you catch her in a lie and call her on it by using the term "liar", you are now fair game, "liar" being a slur and all.  I wonder if she considers it fair to dox a feminist who repeatedly calls anyone who disagrees with her a "misogynist" or a "neckbeard"  Probably not, disagreeing with a feminists puts you in her out group.

The post ends with her threatening to punch people, but I think that is her attempt at a joke.

GamerGate, Orthodoxy vs. Conspiracy

One distinction GamerGaters have missed is the difference between a conspiracy and an orthodoxy.  The line isn't always clear and orthodoxies can have conspiratorial elements and some conspiracies can have minions controlled by the methods of orthodoxy.  Whatever.  Insert the usual caveats about continua and generalities here.

The GamerGaters are focusing too much on the conspiratorial elements of the gaming press instead of the orthodoxy.  I suppose this is where I should outline what I see as the differences between the two.  Orthodoxies are filled with true believers.  In their minds, minds they are on the side of angels.  Conspirators know that they are up to no good.  The problem for outsiders is determining which you are working against and since we can't get into each others heads we'll never have concrete proof.  We can only go with the weight of the evidence.

I am arguing that the evidence weighs in favor of orthodoxy, for one main reason.  They're clumsy.  Conspirators would have been more adroit in covering their tracks.  Were they competent they would have been a little security minded with their forum, they would have been spaced out their "Gamers are Dead" articles, they wouldn't have bragged about their ability to black list people or otherwise destroy careers and,  they would have been much more subtle in their attempts at quashing dissent.

 The orthodoxy is "Social Justice".  Of course the reason they have to enforce an orthodoxy is that it is an incoherent idea, like a religion.  The dominant sect of social justicism, at the moment, is feminism, with their demands of faith ("listen and believe"), ethereal threats (the Patriarchy, but to be fair they are never clear as to whether or not it is a malevolent cosmic force or a vast conspiracy), circular reasoning (The patriarchy causes the difference in earnings.  The difference in earnings proves the patriarchy), terms of derision for outsiders ("neckbeards", "misogyinists", "shitlords"), ascribing evil motives to dissenters (You just want to continue oppressing women), the attempts of silencing dissent (doxing, false DMCAs, closing threads in forums), and let's not forget the witch hunting.

This is the real issue of GamerGate and it's time to own it.  The problem is the mono-culture in the press.  The source of the corruption is the desire to control the narrative.  The echo chamber in the gaming press needs to be opened (that of the mainstream press as well).  No rewriting of ethical guidelines will do, as long as those in charge of enforcing them are in ideological lock step.   As long as the press is filled with comm. lit. and foo studies majors who were all spoon fed the same psuedo-marxist, Post Modern ideology these things will continue to happen,

---

I've mentioned before that GamerGate needs a specific list of demands.  The Occupoo movement failed for the lack of one and it looks like GamerGate is heading down the same road.

I demured on specifics for the list, not being a gamer, and apparently,
 that made people lukewarm on the idea.  So here's my list.

• The press needs diversity in it's ranks.  A chorus of people of different colors doesn't count.  They need people with different views.
• No personal attacks.
• No misrepresenting people's positions.
• No deflecting from controversies with red herrings.
• No colluding on narratives.
• No financial or personal conflicts of interest, disclosure is not enough, recusal is mandatory.
• Tell the whole story, not just the parts that fit your world view or agenda.

There is my short list.  Perhaps someone active in GamerGate can add to or edit it and put it up as something others can point to.  I believe that this is necessary.  By having a specific list of reasonable demands, you are forcing the press to either admit corruption or get their shit in order.

Why Feminists Hate the Trans-gendered.

The most extreme feminists hate the trans-gendered.  I have no idea what their numbers are so I can't tell if they have a voice beyond their numbers.  However, they do have enough of a voice and aren't systematically excluded from feminist circles, so they need to be addressed.

The reasons for their hatred are easy to infer.  Trans-gendered people are rhetorically inconvenient.  They undermine three articles of faith among feminists.

First. Gender is a mere social construction.  Every person who was born with an X and Y chromosome and junk who felt like a girl all his life and every one who was born with two Xs and no junk (or interior junk, whatever) who felt like a boy all her life, in spite of all the social pressure to behave like their physical sex is undeniable evidence that there is a physical component to gender identity.

Second.  Life as a woman is an unbearable horror.  Every man who goes through scads of hours of therapy and spends thousands of dollars to become a woman shows that being an identifiable woman isn't as bad as being a woman stuck in a man's body who can live as a woman on his time off. 

Third. Cis women are the only victims. One good strategy for winning the oppression olympics  is to thin the competition as early in the game as possible.  By denying that there are real social problems for the trans-gendered or that the same exist they do so.   It's nothing more than a turf battle.

It's patently obvious that there are people that are born with a brain body mismatch.  Worse, it is probably an issue of gender identity falling on an inverted normal distribution (an abnormal distribution, wakka wakka), but we'll ignore that for now.  It's a birth defect that can be partially corrected through surgery like a cleft palette.  I'm sure that it is very difficult to determine who the legitimate candidates for reassignment are (Perhaps it should be called "gender corrective"?).  And, I have no idea how one should treat borderline cases.  Nevertheless, the phenomenon  is clearly real.

We also know that gender attraction isn't necessarily tied to gender identity.  A group so disproportionately laden with lesbians should understand this.  I believe that they secretly do but are throwing their rightful allies under the bus for their own agenda.

What Gamergate Needs to Do, But It's Probably Too Late

Shit, I accidentally deleted the first post of this and it was before the Wayback Machine had a chance to archive it.  So Here it is again from memory.

First off, a confession.  I'm not a gamer.  I have yet to master Openttd.  I have a Wii, but I only use to to watch Netflix.  But I think I have something to offer as an atheist/skeptic. We've survived an attempt at co-opting.  The SJWs have been relegated to a few small farm league cons and blogs of dwindling readership, but not without some cost.

Nevertheless, what I think you need to be doing now is simple.  You need a list of specific demands that people can point to and say "This is what you need to do to gain my trust and patronage.".  The biggest reason the Occupoo movement failed was a failure to do just that.

Not being a gamer I am only offering broad suggestions.

• A provision regarding personal conflicts of interest.
• A provision regarding financial conflicts of interest.
• A provision regarding collusion on stories.
• A provision regarding abusive behavior towards dissenters.
• A provision regarding openness of debate.
• A provision regarding any ideological agenda
• Standards of honesty.

These provisions need to be specified precisely.  You don't need another editor saying "Hey, we fixed it, our staff can no longer make Patreon contributions to the people they write about.  We're the good guys.".  This leaves Indiegogo and any number of other means for them to invest in a project that they later promote through their reviews.  Don't give them the wiggle room.

Don't demand heads, or not more than one or tow to serve as examples.

Be ready to forgive.  The only thing the post-Apartheid government of South Africa got right was the Truth and Reconciliation commissions.  It probably prevented a bloodbath.

Go to the grownups.  The editors of these sites are mostly trust fund babes.  The parent companies are more concerned with the bottom line.  They are more likely to listen to you.

As fascinating as I find the whole DIGRA entanglement in the affair, it is tangential.  The so-called journalists in this affair come from the comm. and foo studies departments in their universities.  These are pretend disciplines whose only purpose is to give an academic veneer to political activism.  There's probably a lit, major or two in the mix.  If DIGRA didn't exist, they'd have the same attitude.

It's probably too late but worth a try anyway.

Another Step in Jaclyn Glenns Victim Narrative

First she tried to antagonize the Muslims.  That didn't get the response needed to cast herself as a victim.  Now she is trying to follow in Rebecca Watson's footsteps. 

Way back when, Becky used her sexuality to get attention in the skeptosphere, making sexual jokes, posing for and selling nudie calendars and using the fact that more women would rather go to a tarot and crystal convention that learn some counterintuitive facts at a skeptical convention, to market herself as the female face of skepticism.  It wasn't long before it became obvious that she has nothing of substance to offer.

Upon not getting the clout she felt entitled to she pulled the woman card, complaining that there weren't enough women (her friends) on the panels to satisfy her while claiming that she didn't want quotas.  How you can claim that there isn't enough of something without having a quantity in mind is beyond me.  Upon not getting her demands met she escalated her rhetoric, telling everyone that would listen that women aren't safe at skeptical conventions.

Anyone with two neurons to rub together saw through this and started pushing back and she doubled down.  More importantly she learned from Anita Sarkeesian that there is money to be made in the professional victim racket.  That's all she talks about now, and she must be doing OK with it because she hasn't had to get a real job yet.

Jaclynn, has started the same way, this time with loads of makeup and low cut camisoles, but without much to say.  To be fair there isn't much left to be said about atheism.  It was all said by 1900.  But, every generation or so needs to hear and say it in it's own voice.  For those alive today that started around 2000 and it has all been said, again.  Even the Amazing Atheist has largely moved on to other matters.  This is why she doesn't have anything new to say.

But the fact remains that she has nothing new to say, and she isn't getting the traffic she wants.  So she is laying the groundwork to get into the professional victim racket.

She did the standard video with hand picked comments to show what a bunch of horrible people atheists men are.  She was clever enough to include one that wasn't offensive, but it is pretty much the same strategy.  I just hope it's played out.

This Is Why I Don't Give Money to Atheist Groups.

The Nashville Sunday Assembly has as their speaker, film fraudster Morgan Spurlock, of Supersize Me infamy.

So apparently, organized atheism is fine with lying as long as he recites the cant of corporations bad, government regulators good.  I guess next it will be Michael Moore.

The Next Stage in Putting on the Victim Suit.

Jaclyn Glenn's plan in getting in on the victim game is going apace.  Some British Muslim did a response to her.  It had a number of the usual apologists tricks, but overall,  it was nothing more than an unconvincing plea for the viewer to study Islam.  Whatever.

The rhetorical trickery is in her weak attempt to spin it into a threat.  At no point does the guy even hint at violence, yet she likens it to a girl sicing her older violent brother on someone who was 'mean' to her (Where have we seen this in real life?  Lemme see, feminists and mystery men in elevators comes to mind.). 

She claims that she is going to put up a video with death threats.  Let's see if there are any credible death threats (y'know where someone actually threatens to kill her.) or her trying to spin wishes for her death or someone pointing out the dangers of offending crazies as death threats.  I know where my money is.

An odd thought occurred to me as writing this.  If I ever get any traffic the predictive nature of these articles will be ruined because she will add spin to her videos to deny it and those who are predisposed to believer her will not look beyond that.

The Beginning of a Victim Narrative.

The most redundant atheist Youtuber is now trying to get into the victim game.

On 14-01-10 Jaclyn Glenn posted a video where she draws an insulting picture of Mohammed.  Gee, who hasn't done that before?  Now all she has to do is wait for the psuedo-death threats to come rolling to to spin the victim narrative for fun and profit.  If she's lucky she might even get a real threat.  I wonder how long it will be before she starts yammering about the The Patriarchy. Dun dun DUN.

Chicks and Charity.

A couple of days ago Heina at 'Skep'chick put up a post regarding how some Christian playing atheist for a year garnered so much more than her favored cause.  I'll skip what's wrong with the whole Christian playing atheist thing and explain what is wrong WLP.

First, it's misdirected.  Women are already attending and graduating college at higher rates than men.

Second, women already have more dedicated assistance programs for them than men do.

These are more pronounced among blacks and latinos than in the population at large.  If your concern is Social Justice (whatever that is), shouldn't your efforts be directed towards those who are the most negatively affected by the prevailing conditions instead of those who happen to share membership with you in a particular interest group?

Third, It's an activist psuedo-charity.  Just look at the intro on their front page.  The first line states that it is a feminist organization.  Further down it says that their curriculum is to "promote critical conciousness about activism and race".  Nothing about critical thinking, Nothing about preparing the girls to enter fields that require that icky math.  I don't know if they are a 501.3c, but if they are the status should be revoked.

And finally, she wrote "Obviously, fundraising isn’t a zero-sum game."  If one is going to use technical terms one should know what they mean.  Fund raising is an almost textbook example of a zero-sum game (although I prefer the term constant-sum).

Sylvia Brown is Dead, Good Riddance.

I learned on the Friendly Atheist that Sylvia Brown has died at 77 instead of 88 as she predicted.  This was followed up with the expected handwringing over the appropriateness of celebrating someone's death. 

Sylvia Brown was evil.  She offered nothing of value, except, maybe, to her immediate family.  She is dead, YIPEE!!

The question to ask is; "Is the world a better place with her in it or out of it?".  For most of us the question is too close to the margins to decide.  In her case it is clearly not.  She defrauded thousands out of their money and lied to parents about the fate of missing children.  The world is better off without her.

I'm not advocating doing the happy dance in front of children who might have cared for the deceased.  They are innocent.  But any adult who chose to continue a relationship while looking past someones evil deserves no such concern.  Her sons are somewhere between 41 and 54.  If they continued a relationship with her it was out of greed or indifference to the harm she does to strangers.  Fuck their feelings.

A picture that comes up frequently in r/atheism is that  of  a man carrying his little girl on his back.  The caption reads something to the effect of If she remembers me fondly after I'm gone I well consider it a life well lived.  I am assuming that the person who made the picture was using his daughter as a proxy for the world in general.

This is why I don't merely defend celebrating her death but advocate it.  Most of us care how we will be remembered after we die.  When we see others celebrating the death of an evil turd bucket we are reminded that we might want to consider our actions will be remembered after we die.

Five Words That Will Make Me Cease to Take You Seriously.

Ok.  They're not all words, but "parts of speech" doesn't work it a title.  Nevertheless some terms are so devoid of meaning, deliberately obfuscatory, overused and misapplied, or have such negative implications about the person using them that once I hear them used, I'm finished listening.  This list is comprised of terms that Lefties like to use.  I'm sure the the Right has a similar set, but I don't even listen to them any more, and consequently, haven't heard them.  So, here it goes.

The ism suffix:  Far too many people think that simply calling someone a (parameter)ist suddenly makes the parameter under question an invalid one to use when forming expectations about someone.

The one most often egregiously used is "classism".  Class matters.  When one looks at the social mobility of the children of immigrants versus that of the native populations in first world countries, it becomes apparent that after a couple of generations in a mostly free society, most families have reached their natural level.  A lot of immigrants are poor, or working in well paid but low status businesses.  Their children rarely are.  This is because most immigrants are intelligent ambitious people form countries where that wasn't rewarded.  Once they're in a country where those traits are rewarded, they reap those rewards.

When you meet someone whose family has been in the slums or trailer parks for generations you can make reasonable assumptions about their ability, work ethic and ambitions.

Yes that is classism and it is valid.

I've also heard ridiculous terms such as "speciesism", "heightism", "sizeism", and the most ridiculous of them all "ableism".  Somehow not hiring someone because they aren't able to do the job is bad.

Of course this is all a rhetorical trick to get people to think of those judgments as equivalent to racism.  See, they are all "isms", therefore all bad.

Denialism/Denialist:  This term was first applied to those who question the fact or the degree of the holocaust.  And at the time I didn't object to this because it was clearly being applied only to nut-bars.  But then I saw the term being applied to Norman Finkelstein.  My cursory examination of his position leads me to believe that his arguments regarding people hijacking the holocaust for current personal or political gain are worth considering.  But he doesn't deny it happened.  I don't know if he is correct or not, but he doesn't belong in the same class as those who denied it happened.

Then it was applied to those who question the degree of, and the degree of human contribution to global warming.  It is used to imply that they are corrupt, just working to make the case for "big oil", because that who funds their grants.  Funny how those who support the alarmist position are never considered to be corrupt, just making the case for "big regulatory bureaucracy".  Nevertheless, it is used to impugn the men rather than refute their augments.

Now it has been used against anyone who waits for evidence in support of a rape accusation.  They are now "rape denialists".

Social Justice:  An action or situation, where the concept of justice even applies is either just or it isn't.  "Social Justice" is just a term of art used to evade the fact that someone is being denied proper justice, to further some purported greater justice.  If frequently comes in the form of "It's OK to deny you this position in favor of this less qualified candidate because someone who looks like you did something bad to someone who looks like him in the distant past.".  

When the wronged party and the party perpetrating the wrong or both are dead before the situation can be remedied, the sad fact is that justice will be eternally denied.  Further injustice is just that.  It's not remedial.  It just adds to the amount of injustice in the world.

Progressive:  This may just be applicable to American political discourse.  It is usually applied to small 's' socialists, those who tolerate a free economy to the degree that it provides the wealth for them to redistribute and the actors in the productive portions of that economy do as they are told.  Some time between the wars those with these beliefs hijacked the term "liberal" form those who support liberty.  To see how liberal they really are, ask them how many laws and regulations they want repealed.  If they name anything beyond the narrowly personal, I'll eat a vegetable. 

As an aside, I think we should take the term back, instead of using clumsy terms like "libertarian".  Maybe the Australians can help with this since their Liberal party is actually a liberal party.

Once the hijacked form of the term became recognized as referring to those who support the banning of sodas beyond a certain size and the exhalation of water vapor they needed a new term and the settled on "progressive".

It's clever rhetoric.  Who could be against progress in a world that has benefited greatly from progress in manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, medicine, communications, hell, damn near every field of human endeavor, including politics.  Of course they gloss over the fact that those advances came about because of proper liberalism.

They use the term "progressive" to imply that their policies will bring forth more of what has happened in the past.  Of course progress is really just change, it doesn't specify the nature of change.  If you're in a car speeding towards a cliff, progress is the last thing you want.  If your country is progressing towards the states of Britain or the U.S. in the seventies, you want a Thatcher or a Reagan to hit the brakes and throw it in reverse.

The Masses:  Has this term ever come from someone who is not a smug douche?  When it comes to manga, sports, video games, kangaroo racing and a lot of other things, I'm the masses.  I don't give these thing s much attention.  That doesn't mean I can't recognize a bad story, a dropped ball, a boring game,  or a poor jump, if kangaroo racing is even a real thing.

Referring to people as "the masses" is probably the most dismissive piece of rhetoric ever invented.  When you hear it, you won't have to look far to find someone in a fedora with a beard or a curly mustache, who studied comm or literature.

Can Authortarians Even Attempt an Honest Argument against Liberty

So, if you think Salon is a neutral journalistic blog, think again. They're reprinting Alternet articles. I wonder how many they've reprinted from Reason or The Freeman. This article is the usual attack on straw libertarians, so I'm not going to address the whole thing here. Fortunately the author, someone called R.J. Eskow, probably a lit or comm major, offered eleven questions and I'm going to answer them.

Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy examples of "spontaneous order"—and if not, why not?

The answer to most of these is "sometimes", so I'll address them one by one.

Unions

Sometimes, When there is no state regulation forcing employers to negotiate with them, when workers are free to decide themselves whether or not to join, when they aren't bribing politicians for their benefit, when they aren't using force against people, when they aren't vandalizing property, when they aren't using mob action to physically impede people who are just going about their business, then they are an example of spontaneous order.

It's not that hard.

Political Parties

They are when the state recognizes them and singles them out for special benefits/regulations

social movements like Occupy

The name itself gives it a way. They are physically placing themselves in spaces that belong to others against the owners wishes.

It's the force thing again. Are you beginning to understand?

Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which should be recognized and rewarded?

Of course. In a free economy production is recognized by allowing the producers to keep or sell what they produce and by allowing them to pay for the assistance they may need in producing. Everyone places different values on all the goods produced and consequently the value of the work used to produce them. The way to aggregate this is through prices in a free market.

Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are also employing market forces?

Duh, as long as they aren't using force, themselves or through agents.

Is our libertarian willing to admit that a “free market” needs regulation?

Too nebulous to answer. Laws against mislabeling products, sure. Laws preventing someone from offering a shuttle service because the taxi companies and bus driver unions own the politicians, fuck no.

Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what’s wrong with governments that regulate.

Yes, it is the best way to protect liberty. Clearly, it's not perfect. The problem with regulation is that it is preventing otherwise free individuals form making mutually beneficial exchanges. It also drives the misapplication of resources by distorting the information contained in prices.

Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn’t exist without government in order to preach against the role of government?

Of course. When the government sets itself up as a monopoly, or takes your money to provide its option, leaving you to use it or pay double, you have little choice.

Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property?

This is a huge point of contention among Libertarians, and I haven't resolved my position yet.

Does our libertarian recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace?

That is just an empty assertion. Camping stores opperate in a market place, competing for customers, inventory and facilities. I don't camp. What happens in that market is a null factor in my life and I am a null factor in their business. That is a market. Whether or not I vote, the state is still negating a large portion of my working life by taking a portion of my wages/profits against my will.

Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms?

Not nearly to the same degree as big government. Avoiding large corperations is difficult. Avoiding the government is impossible. Then, when the corporations buy the government, we are really fucked.

Does he think that Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were “parasites”?

You realize the King and Gandhi were fighting government coercion, don't you? Although not perfectly. I'm sure that if they lived to achieve power themselves they would have introduced a different batch of state control into peoples lives.

If you believe in the free market, why weren’t you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas?

Hey dumbfuck, "free marketplace of ideas" is a metaphor. Whose final judgment? You and your yuppy friends, who spend more time polishing your rhetorical skills than actually learning anything.

I'm livid.  I'm not even going to edit this one beyond eliminating the squiggly red lines.

FTB: Dawkins Bad, Blah Blah Blah.

So FreeThoughtBlogs has launched another attack at Richard Dawkins.  There is also a bullshit petition up as well.  This time it is for failing to conflate different types of molestation.  Unfortunately the whole interview is behind a paywall but the offending statement seems to be this:

Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild paedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.

Is this so horrible?  All he is doing is recognizing that social moral development is something that happens over generations.  Each generation figures sees one to a few things wrong and corrects them.  Is it fair to disdain those earlier beliefs?  Yes.  Is it fair to condemn those who held and lived their lives according to those beliefs, rarely or never hearing any different.  No.  It is no more fair to blame some 15th century guy for thinking that semen contained little people, or a 19th century guy for believing that time was constant.

PZ Meyers then tries to compare Dawkins to William Lane Craig, "As for that excuse about not judging behavior of an earlier era by our modern standards…I've heard that before. From William Lane Craig, to justify biblical murders." Apparently, Meyers doesn't seem to recognize justifying the actions of a putative omnipotent, omniscient being with fallible real people, another example of their usual conflation.

In and excerpt form later in the interview (I don't know how close it is to the above quote.), Dawkins says:

I think we should acknowledge it ... But the other point is that because the most notorious cases of paedophilia involve rape and even murder, and because we attach the label 'paedophilia' to the same things when they’re just mild touching up, we must beware of lumping all paedophiles into the same bracket.

It's clear that Dawkins is saying that it is also important recognize degrees of molestation.  We don't treat the guy who pockets a bag of Skittles in the 7-Eleven the same way we treat someone who holds it up with a gun.  Of course these are the people who equate an invitation to coffee to an attempted rape.

Greta Christina and Alex Gabrien have echoed Meyers' position.

They're just going after another target on their enemies list.  If one of their allies made the same statements they would be making the same arguments I just did.

A Prediction about Rhetoric from Feminist 'Skeptics'

Mr. Deity just posted one of his great skits.  In what is usually the begging segment he made some thinly veiled references to the sexual assault accusations against a number of prominent skeptics.  He used the term "gossip".  As far as I know he is the first person of any prominence to do so.  I and a few other zero prominence commenters have, but only in comments.

Now that it has happened, I predict that Greta Christina, Stephanie Zvan, Rebecca Watson, HealthyAddict, SulkyAmy, BlagHag or someone of their ilk will come out with something to the effect of 'blah blah blah...gendered insult...blah blah blah...misoginy...blah blah blah...silencing tactic...blah blah blah...patriarchy...dismissal...'

Now I'm going to have to follow them to see what happens...Shit!

The List.

Some years ago, when I was naming a group of people who are going to the camps when I'm king (None of this modern European powerless monarchy crap, I'm talking Louis XIV absolute monarchy.) to my boss, he suggested that I should just build a fence around myself and call the rest of the world "the camps".  That's not entirely unfair.

Nevertheless, I've decided to keep a list, as people are added,  and link to articles where the reasons are given.  So here it is:

• The people at the DMV and auto insurance companies who determined the dimensions of the forms I have to carry around to drive. Forms Form Factors.
• The people who wrote the Flash player at Adobe.

Rebecca Watson further marginalizes herself.

As usual, no links to ad revenue generating sites.*

Her piece opens with a link to her attack of Ron Lindsay's speech. Note that she doesn't link to his speech, but to her ad revenue generating page that talks about it. This is a woman who has already bragged about directing her detractors to pages that generate money for her (If anyone should read this and remember in what video she did this please tell me and I'll add a link). Here is the actual text of the speech.

She then links to his repsonse to the criticism he recieved where he likens her mendacity to that of the dictatorship of North Korea. To be fair that was a bit of rhetorical excess, for which he later apologized. It is more akin to that of a marketer for a homeopathic medecine company (Wait, didn't she major in the techniques of marketing bullshit, y'know Comm?). Which is immediately followed by her usual name calling ("male supremecist") and victim posturing which is furthher followed by another link to another ad revenue generating page, the threat page that has no threats. She then links to the above mentioned apology while still complaining that he stands by pointing out her dishonesty regarding the crux his talk.

The next paragraph is just a link to the ad revenue generating page of a crony that pretty much echoes her.

It the next paragraph she links to yet another ad revenue generating page of another one of her cronies containing a letter from those whose behavior Lindsay was calling out, demanding an apology for, y'know, calling out the behavior, and mentioning others that she claims exist. In that very same sentence she resorts some "yer either fer us or yer agin", type rhetoric by claiming that CFI now needs to "restore their reputation as "...a humanist organization that cares about women...". Apparently she doesn't understand that feminists != women.

Then some bland committee-speak tweets from CFI about them discussing the matter.

The then posts' CFI's board's bland, say-nothing statement and rightly criticizes them for that. I'm sure she would have been satisfied with nothing less than Lindsay being fired, tarred and feathered and put up in a pillory with a "misogynist" sign. I am disapointed with them as well. Were I in charge I'd probably say something like: "We value open discussion, censuring those who disagree with the opinions of a few hysterics and strategic grievance mongers does not further that. Fuck you. If disagreement and holding you to high standards of honesty in debate hurt your precious fee-fees go to A+". But, that's probably why I'm not in charge of anything.

We then see more of the usual accusations of hate as evidenced by disagreement and the usual attacks on dissenters of radical feminism.

For some reason she then puts up a twitter exchange between two people I'v never heard of about an entirely different matter.

Now for what I think she believes is a great kick in the nuts. She is "...finished supporting Center for Inquiry.". This statement is followed by a list of what she has done to support it and making similar claims about TAM. I have no idea how much of what her efforts brought to these events and organizations. But is readily apparent that the people who run these things have found that the price is too high, in terms of division, diversion and detraction (alliterave fun time) and they are no longer inviting her.  I wonder if it is really just revenge because she isn't getting any paid speaking gigs from these people any more.

She is now unambiguously calling for a boycott of JREF and CFI. Good. I hope the Freethought Blogs and A+ crowd follow suit. These are not appropriate venues for interest group politics. Having that crowd gone would make these conferences safe spaces for those who wish to hold and express their own opinions.

In her penultimate paragraph she again conflates feminists with women and has come up with a new way phrase bifurcate the world. "The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.", which is just more "Yer either fur us or yer agin us.".

Good riddance.  People who apply skepticism when it suits their narrative and resort to all the rhetorical tricks employed by creationists, scientologists and the various truther groups when it doesn't, really aren't skeptics.  They can have their marginal junior conferences where the triple ouroboros of FTB/Skepchick/A+ can consume itself into oblivion.

---

*at least until I can figure out how to embed scripts that detect ad blocking software into my blogger pages.  Then those who have it installed will get links and the rest will be redirected to the ad blocker sites.

The Tale of rebecca Watson and a Woozle.

Rebecca Watson is now claiming that 1/3 of all women in the U.S. military are raped.  Her source is an article in a small town newspaper called the Battleboro Reformer.  The writer of the 'article' isn't even a person it is an activist group called 'The WOMEN'S FREEDOM CENTER'.  Does the article even cite a source?  Sort of, but it is conveniently behind a pay wall, so it can't be evaluated.  Every other claim the 'article' makes in unsourced.

If there isn't any conflation in the research or between the research and the reporting, of actual rape and any of the usual things feminist like to conflate with rape, I'll eat a vegetable.

The funniest thing is that the article Becky cites doesn't even claim what she claims.  The research was among women who use the V.A. for medical care.  This is something less than 10% of veterans do (for very good reasons), so it is hardly very good sample selection.

This is an example of cherry picking data and modifying it just enough to claim it was an error if and when called out on it.  Later someone can cite her and do the same.  This is done recursively and before long you have a convenient woozle, the stock-in-trade of feminism.

More evidence that Stephanie Zvan dosn't get skepticism.

Apparently, she thinks gathering statements that support your narrative is how you do it.  People point out that there is no evidence that the feminist whining is anything more than a few hyper-sensitive or strategic complainers.  Her response:  to gather a bunch of whines from years back from people who are whining about trivialities.

I guess it is time for me to chime in on the Ron Lindsay's comments at 'skeptic' conference for feminists. Basically he said that the 'privilege' argument is a silencing technique, and this is wrong. It is a rhetorical trick used to dismiss an argument or demand for evidence for a claim, when the one using the term 'privilege' can't do so. It's not silencing, it's evasion. It is a hybrid of the ad homenim attack and a claim of special knowledge. After all only a Clear can see your Thetans. Silencing is shouting down those with whom you disagree. It is creating speech codes that define disagreement with the orthodoxy as hate speech. It is vandalizing the posters of the heretics. It is removing their papers from distribution boxes. And a whole slew of other things. That's what he should have said.

I can only guess why he chose to speak in the terms he did. Aaannnd I'm going to do so now. When you are dealing with people whose favorite tool is rhetorical shenanigans, the temptation to give them back some of their own is huge, and I doubt any of us can completely resist it. But it is short sighted to do so. Ultimately it detracts from any future credibility you might have and alienates potential allies. After all, is there a reasonable person who takes Rebecca Watson or P.Z. Meyers seriously left, or are all they have left listening to them nothing but fellow ideologues?

BTW this is why I only listen to and read the MRA's, in spite of the fact that I agree with them on almost every point. Maybe I'll elaborate on that later.