Oh man. When you have a good case, present it straightforwardly. Don't try to punch it up with juvenile insults like adding a leading T to Watson's name. Not even once. That's just stupid. It doesn't make the argument more persuasive; in fact, it makes it about five times less so.
Persuasive writing 101. Come on, man.
Do I need to start giving lectures on this at skeptic conferences?
Oh man. When you have a good case, present it straightforwardly. Don't try to punch it up with juvenile insults like adding a leading T to Watson's name. Not even once. That's just stupid. It doesn't make the argument more persuasive; in fact, it makes it about five times less so.
This ^^. Below is a link that goes into incredible detail on the face recognition problem RW suddenly developed. Not that I think it matters all that much given her profile. In a way I have to admire her. I mean there are countless attention whores in the cyberverse, and RW has succeeded on a level I'm sure most of them really envy. My only concern is she and A+ will provide the theists with lots of quotes they will claim speak for most atheists.
Hitchens CAN (or sadly, could) drink and still be at his best, but Twatson seems like a more typical dumb lush. I mean all that weird stuff about PZ having sex on stage, and the appallingly mean laughter about how she picked on that woman assigned to help her. I wonder if she would have said that stuff on stage had she been sober. Well, she is a sociopathic twat, so maybe she would, sober or skunk drunk. You're probably right.
Incisive argument.
Why would any of you want to be associated with that sort of thing?
Oh man. When you have a good case, present it straightforwardly. Don't try to punch it up with juvenile insults like adding a leading T to Watson's name. Not even once. That's just stupid. It doesn't make the argument more persuasive; in fact, it makes it about five times less so.
Persuasive writing 101. Come on, man.
Do I need to start giving lectures on this at skeptic conferences?
This ^^. Below is a link that goes into incredible detail on the face recognition problem RW suddenly developed. Not that I think it matters all that much given her profile. In a way I have to admire her. I mean there are countless attention whores in the cyberverse, and RW has succeeded on a level I'm sure most of them really envy. My only concern is she and A+ will provide the theists with lots of quotes they will claim speak for most atheists.
Amazing evidence in Rebecca's "How to Ruin Christmas" lecture that she is self-obsessed, sociopathic, doesn't actually have the face blindness she claims, and thinks there's nothing wrong with lying.
This lecture:
- Opens with 10 minutes of attention whoring.
- Exhibits her gleeful cruelty in gaslighting her handler, accomplished with serial lying.
- Shows she's unable or unwilling to empathize with other people's feelings.
- Shows her saying she'd "lie about everything" to her kids, suggesting something about her ethics regarding honesty.
- Shows her saying, "lying is a good thing," and "lying is good because it's really funny."
I can't watch the whole fifty-one minutes, because of RW-fatigue, so here are some parachute points:
- 10 minute opening about "me, me, and me": 00:22
- She says, "I am, in fact, a dick": 03:42
- Shameless cruelty toward handler: 04:00
- "I'm going to lie to my kids about everything": 21:40
We tolerate lying dicks who admit to being lying dicks because we assume they won't be lying dicks to us. We, the atheist community, tolerated it, but now, Rebecca's a lying dick to us. Lesson learned.
Boxing (or MMA) fights. They never refer to "the white guy" or "the black guy" or even "the bald guy", it's always the guy with the "black trunks with white trim" even if the other guy has black trunks with beige trim.
I remember reading about a minor crisis when a black boxer and a white boxer were about to fight and they both brought black trunks. There was panic as the commentators did not know how they would differentiate between the two of them.
Rebecca would have accomplished nothing in the Atheist and Skeptic community if she'd been male. Her claim that the Atheist and Skeptical community is unwelcoming to women is a shameful lie. She milked us and then turned on us, and will do it again and again to subsequent groups.
Hmm, either you didn't pay attention to the whole story, or you're deliberately misrepresenting what happened. The story, as she tells it, is that she planned to set her handler up by asking for more and more ridiculous things, and had a bet with someone else over whether the handler would take it or not. It was pointed out to her that this was actually cruel rather than funny so when she met her handler she took her to one side and told her about the bet. She then used the handler to wind up the person she was betting with, culminating in the handler texting him and saying that she quits.
A pointless, trivial and uninteresting anecdote, for sure. But cruel towards the handler? Not at all.
Member or not, I find some of the name-calling and finger-pointing a bit over the top. Personally, I had very few dealings with Rebecca when she was here, but she's way down on my list of people to hate. I just wish she'd shut up, frankly, as she's really got nothing to add to the equation that I couldn't get from chatting to a good friend who's a skeptic feminist and humanist. I expect keynote speakers and lecturers to bring something other than their fleeting celebrity to the lectern.
But I don't think we need to keep repeating "Twatson" or calling names. (I'm not totally innocent of that - I use disparaging comments, too.) It keeps the level of debate right where the ideologues want it, and I'd rather it was elsewhere.
I'm one of those people who had no idea who RW was before Elevatorgate and was only vaguely aware of the Skepchics. If her goal was to become one of the biggest celebrities in the skeptic community, she definitely succeeded.
In the end, looking at the big picture, to me it looks like the skeptic communities desperate drive to bring in more women has come back to bite them. I never saw the male dominance of the atheist/skeptic community as a huge problem, which of course makes me a "sexist" and "misogynist".
It is just a reflection of the fact that males are more likely to be atheists and drawn to scientific skepticism(why this is, I don't know). It has nothing to do with a "patriarchy" trying to exclude women, which makes no sense when you consider how most males in the skeptic community are social liberals opposed to sexism. To suggest otherwise is to support conspiracy theories.
I didn't know about RW claiming some kind of facial recognition disorder before reading this thread, or that many photos were produced of the bar area that night and she couldn't point out the Elevator Guy. The evidence against her having it is pretty convincing(60 Minutes had a story about this disorder last year, but I claim no expert knowledge about it). For the longest time, even though I disagreed with her interpretation of what happened, I was always willing to give her the benefit of the doubt about the Elevator Guy, and so I believed he existed. Now I am not so sure.
What I am sure of is that the name-calling should cease. It's immature and hurts your case.
Maybe, but it seems a sound case to me. The unnecessary and tactically foolish name-calling aside, there is a clear logical argument and considerable evidence supporting each step.
Here's the link again. Perhaps you could point out a weakness in the actual argument, such as something they got wrong or overlooked.
To be fair, while name calling is indeed superfluous and probably at least partially infantile when used to debate, to say it "hurts the case" is a tone argument.
To be fair, while name calling is indeed superfluous and probably at least partially infantile when used to debate, to say it "hurts the case" is a tone argument.
Well, we're not on the A+ forum, so I don't see anything wrong with complaining about that. It does undermine the argument, for some people; it's unnecessary and detracts from what is otherwise a sensible case being put.
Hmm, either you didn't pay attention to the whole story, or you're deliberately misrepresenting what happened. The story, as she tells it, is that she planned to set her handler up by asking for more and more ridiculous things, and had a bet with someone else over whether the handler would take it or not. It was pointed out to her that this was actually cruel rather than funny so when she met her handler she took her to one side and told her about the bet. She then used the handler to wind up the person she was betting with, culminating in the handler texting him and saying that she quits.
A pointless, trivial and uninteresting anecdote, for sure. But cruel towards the handler? Not at all.
I watched it twice and didn't catch that. How different is planning to gaslight her handler, compared to actually doing it, in so far as her mindset is concerned? So, she needed someone who was not a sociopath to dissuade her. Conceding this minor revision, my point stands. I rest my case.
I see this as an issue of functionality versus factuality.
It shouldn't undermine the case if all audience members and participants are critically focused merely on logic and reason. For some atheists, for instance, such a 'softer' approach to illogic (say, theism) smacks of intellectual coddling.
But, functionally, I would probably agree with you in the sense that to address an audience that does not already appreciate mere facts and evidence as the primary basis for forming personal views on a topic, needing to pretty-foot an argument to avoid any potential or likely offensiveness is most likely to actually win people over (because people connect more with nice folks than with veracity sharply demonstrated).
When I went to the 9/11 truther forum it struck me as juvenile with all the childish insults. I've no illusions that JREF is without pettiness and I would be dishonest if I claimed to always be above it. But I think we are better without it.
If you're focussed on just logic and reason, where does the name-calling come into it in the first place? That's why it doesn't help, it weakens the logical case, because it is totally unrelated to it, and raises doubts about the rest of the arguments.
If you're focussed on just logic and reason, where does the name-calling come into it in the first place? That's why it doesn't help, it weakens the logical case, because it is totally unrelated to it,
That's a classic (instead of the new popularized and, in my mind, false type of) argumentum ad hominem.
Someone being a douche while also being entirely correct doesn't have the latter nullified because of the former. But, yes, it also doesn't mean the former is at all necessary, reasonable, or useful.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
