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Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

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I'm beginning to think that PZ has completely lost it.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyng...freethoughtblogs/pharyngula+(FTB:+Pharyngula)
Jason Thibeault finds an excellent post on io9 about recent sexist dust-ups in geek communities. It compares ReaderCon (SF), DefCon (hacking), and TAM. It’s a good objective article on the topic, and I’m afraid TAM comes off the worse in the comparison, and DJ Grothe appears to be an evasive jerk who rejects the solutions found in every other organization.
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They call it "Third Wave Atheism"?

The Third Wave was an experiment to demonstrate that even democratic societies are not immune to the appeal of fascism. It was undertaken by history teacher Ron Jones with sophomore high school students attending his "Contemporary World" history class as part of a study of Nazi Germany.

The experiment inspired the book "The Wave" and several movies, which show logos involving a red wave bent to the right which is strikingly similar to the A+ logo.
Now I don't mean to imply that they actually intend to build a fascist movement - they lent the term from "Third Wave Feminism". But neither do I think it's just coincidence that the meme of "The Third Wave" made it into a movement based on radical ingroup/outgroup thinking.
 
Marquis de Carabas said:
Plussers sharing how their lack of privilege harms them, in which we learn that "gifted" people are an oppressed class: http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=740
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Holy crap! They oughta go ahead and ban TheAtheist, now. You can't give a street fighter like him that much material and then try to have a heated (and on that forum, ultimately far too personalized) argument.

Can any "normal" (if there can said to fairly be such) person read that thread and not think of a psych ward group therapy session? It's all like "Oh yeah, well I'm more ****** up than you are and I want to shout it to the world!"

There is something distinctly disturbing about the turn this whole thing has taken. I've spent most of my life around radicals from various social and political groups, gays, transgenders, and people with rocky social histories. I don't know that I've ever seen them so happy/willing to congregate, though. They were always individuals. This sort of groupthink, as I said, is rather disturbing.

I think we should start < A or A minus. Atheists minus the sanctimony and asshattery.
 
Marquis de Carabas said:
Is he there?

If he joins, he should probably just name himself TriggerWarning.
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He's there. Someone linked above to a thread where some of Teh Enlightened were trying to school him.... literally... suggesting he ought to go to the Education sub-forum to learn the catechism before having discussions with us seriously devoted humanist/feminist/inclusivist/transgenderist atheists. (I paraphrase, but not by much.)

When the a.m. link was posted he was taking a lot of flak, but frankly he held his own and the mods pretty much stepped in and told the regulars to shut up with the personal arguments. Frankly, I like TA, warts and all. And I don't think this lot could take him on in a debate if their lives depended on it.

ETA: Here's the link to the thread in question. TA is on familiar ground. The sloganeers are not.
http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=504&sid=795cd49dd857640cb9c92e60868a3e4d
 
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Foolmewunz said:
Holy crap! They oughta go ahead and ban TheAtheist, now. You can't give a street fighter like him that much material and then try to have a heated (and on that forum, ultimately far too personalized) argument.

Can any "normal" (if there can said to fairly be such) person read that thread and not think of a psych ward group therapy session? It's all like "Oh yeah, well I'm more ****** up than you are and I want to shout it to the world!"

There is something distinctly disturbing about the turn this whole thing has taken. I've spent most of my life around radicals from various social and political groups, gays, transgenders, and people with rocky social histories. I don't know that I've ever seen them so happy/willing to congregate, though. They were always individuals. This sort of groupthink, as I said, is rather disturbing.

I think we should start < A or A minus. Atheists minus the sanctimony and asshattery.
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There's a kind of feminism that tells girls and young women "Don't limit yourself! There's nothing you can't do!" It might be a bit naive and starry-eyed, but it seems a lot more useful than this endless list of misery.

I would have hoped that some of the people posting on the thread who have problems of perception might look at some of the others and thought "Hey, my life can't be that bad. Look at him."

I wonder is there a parallel thread where people can list all the ways they're privileged over almost everyone else who ever lived?

Because I live in the modern Western world an infection that would have killed me can be cured in a few days.
Because I live in the modern Western world I've never been really hungry in my life.
Because I live in the modern Western world I've never had to worry about a foreign army occupying my country.

... and so on.

If someone were really brave they'd post a "because I'm a white heterosexual male" one, but not me.
 
bpesta22 said:
I think the most frequent A+ fallacy is labeling. If they can label you, they get to dismiss what you say without having to show how your argument is faulty. Let's start a list:

misogynist
tone troll
privileged
Jaquing off
rape apologist
chill girl
queen bee...
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Can I request the Stud Muffin label?
 
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I don't have anyone else to blame for my inadequacies.
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I have to take responsibility for my failures
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I don't have an easy excuse for when other people don't like me.
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I get to be looked on with suspicion when I'm alone with a woman or a child
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I get blamed for abuses in history that occured before I was born
because I'm a white heterosexual male... professional victims assume I'm a racist, a misogynist, an ableist, a homophobe, or whatever -ist they wish without ever meeting me.
 
Foolmewunz said:
There is something distinctly disturbing about the turn this whole thing has taken. I've spent most of my life around radicals from various social and political groups, gays, transgenders, and people with rocky social histories. I don't know that I've ever seen them so happy/willing to congregate, though. They were always individuals. This sort of groupthink, as I said, is rather disturbing.
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We are all individuals!!!!!
 
Piscivore said:
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I don't have anyone else to blame for my inadequacies.
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I have to take responsibility for my failures
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I don't have an easy excuse for when other people don't like me.
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I get to be looked on with suspicion when I'm alone with a woman or a child
because I'm a white heterosexual male... I get blamed for abuses in history that occured before I was born
because I'm a white heterosexual male... professional victims assume I'm a racist, a misogynist, an ableist, a homophobe, or whatever -ist they wish without ever meeting me.
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**** you, hater.
 
Piscivore said:
because I'm a white heterosexual male... professional victims assume I'm a racist, a misogynist, an ableist, a homophobe, or whatever -ist they wish without ever meeting me.
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Yeah ... :( ... stuff like this from the 'privilege' thread linked above:
Because I am a woman I avoid eye contact on the bus, for fear of inviting harassment.
Because I am a woman I usually modulate my speech, knowing that expressing myself as strongly as a man might I'm likely to be labeled a bitch.
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... really irritates me.
 
Acleron said:
I'm beginning to think that PZ has completely lost it.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyng...freethoughtblogs/pharyngula+(FTB:+Pharyngula)
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It compares ReaderCon (SF), DefCon (hacking), and TAM. It’s a good objective article on the topic, and I’m afraid TAM comes off the worse in the comparison, and DJ Grothe appears to be an evasive jerk who rejects the solutions found in every other organization.
Click to expand...
Readercon permanently bans a guy who physically harassed a woman multiple times, but only after a lot of pressure.

TAM has no official policy on harrassment in 2012, but the "TAM harrassment" reported in the article consists of someone making parody Surly Amy jewelry. If they had something more serious, I guess they're keeping it to themselves. Dawkins' (and others) which were made online outside of TAM do not automatically get attributed to TAM and its organizers, mmkay? Female presence plummets 25%, from 40% to 30%, but that reflects empowered women doing what they please, and not being harrassed.

DefCon also has no official policy on harrassment, and one woman attending makes some popular "Creep" cards which can be passed out to peope at the conference who behave inappropriately. Many security guards at the conference not only get the cards, but wear them proudly on their DefCon badges. People passing out the cards are frequently asked, "If you don't like DefCon, why don't you just stop coming?"

I've never attended any of these events, but I've interacted with the TAM and DefCon attendees in places like this. I was pretty sure DefCon would be more unabashedly sexist than the other two, and my reading of the article PZ cites comfirms that. I agree with you, if his conclusion based on this evidence is that TAM is the worst offender, and the most resistant to correction, he's lost it.

On the other hand, I've never thought PZ was very rational outside of pure science topics.
 
zeggman said:
Readercon permanently bans a guy who physically harassed a woman multiple times, but only after a lot of pressure.

TAM has no official policy on harrassment in 2012, but the "TAM harrassment" reported in the article consists of someone making parody Surly Amy jewelry. If they had something more serious, I guess they're keeping it to themselves. Dawkins' (and others) which were made online outside of TAM do not automatically get attributed to TAM and its organizers, mmkay? Female presence plummets 25%, from 40% to 30%, but that reflects empowered women doing what they please, and not being harrassed.

DefCon also has no official policy on harrassment, and one woman attending makes some popular "Creep" cards which can be passed out to peope at the conference who behave inappropriately. Many security guards at the conference not only get the cards, but wear them proudly on their DefCon badges. People passing out the cards are frequently asked, "If you don't like DefCon, why don't you just stop coming?"

I've never attended any of these events, but I've interacted with the TAM and DefCon attendees in places like this. I was pretty sure DefCon would be more unabashedly sexist than the other two, and my reading of the article PZ cites comfirms that. I agree with you, if his conclusion based on this evidence is that TAM is the worst offender, and the most resistant to correction, he's lost it.

On the other hand, I've never thought PZ was very rational outside of pure science topics.
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The idea seems to be that what matters is not the degree of harassment, but the complexity of the policies put in place. As Readercon showed, having an over-rigid policy can be meaningless, and will often be counter-productive. Praising people for the policies they supposedly have in place is meaningless. It's the atmosphere that counts.
 
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