Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Myriad]

Myriad,

You are right, fire is a big topic and there are some benifits to it, many actually, but lets roll this down to a simpler example. Person A has suffered 3rd degree burns on thier hand from touching fire. Person B has read that fire causes trauma to exposed skin. Person C is pretty sure you can hold fire without consequence and wants to grab some.

This is closer to someone defending the idea of racism or classism or what have you. Do you still think person B will be a better advocate for don't touch that?

Do you believe that a rational appeal alone is stronger than a rational appeal backed with an emotional appeal when it comes to convincing someone of something?

Finally, do you see how you had to frame the burn victim into an extreme position to contest them? Wanting to ban all fire everywhere..

Is that what the discussions on A+ forums (and the disagreements expressed elsewhere) are about, individuals giving other individuals advice on specific actions? Because most of the discussion I've read has been about universals, such as "Guys, don't do that" and "All men are potential rapists" and "Use of standard pronouns by anyone when discussing any subject marginalizes alternatively-gendered people."

Given that, I think I was justified in positing a position that is universal and guaranteed to be controversial as an example. "Let's all be careful with fire" would hardly be comparable in controversy, while "C, don't grab that fire" would be comparable in neither generality or controversy.

However, let's go with your example instead. C wants to grab some fire. A has been burned before by fire, and B has read about the dangers of fire. Both A and B therefore advise C not to grab the fire.

Do you really think A and B's victim-blaming mentality would be tolerated at the A+ forum? A is the one who was injured. Her right to put her hand where she wants to was not respected. Her admonition to C, tragically, smacks of self-hatred due to gaslighting by the propaganda of the pyroistic culture of victim-blaming promoted by the likes of B. B should therefore be banned immediately, and A given a chance to reread the 101 material, understand that she is part of the problem, apologize, and then change her tune. Of course, if her initial reaction is to claim that her intentions were only to protect C's health and safety, three or four people should shout "Intent is not ******* magic!" at her and then ban her for a week, after which she can get to all the reading and apologizing, if the thread hasn't been closed by then.

And yes, that previous paragraph is only a slight exaggeration of the general perception of how discourse works at A+. For a reference point, consider the analogous example of advising people not to walk alone in dark places at night (about as controversial, in the real world, as "don't grab fire"), and how that's been handled there.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[adamwho]

*They do not allow dissent.

This is false. Dissent is allowed, and often encouraged to move a discussion along. What is not allowed is questioning of certain basic assumptions in the areas where those assumptions are accepted and the conversation is trying to move on to a higher level. For instance if there is a discussion about how a new anti-rape campaign is pro feminism and really generally awesome, a commenter who brings up "I don't think there is any such thing as rape" is not going to be welcome in that thread and will quickly be ejected from it. If they take the same spiel to the I&A section and try again they will likely still get moderated because the evidence for rape is overwhelming and debate over that is not conducive to maintaining a safe space for rape victims. (just as one of many examples).

It certainly isn't false on the /r/atheismplus forums because I read them all and as soon as someone steps out of line I send them a PM stating:

"I noticed you might be at risk of banning from atheism+ for disagreeing/questioning the group consensus"

Typically (9/10 times) the person emails me back incredulous that they might be banned over something so trivial. Then a short time later they are banned.

Now you might imagine that I am picking out some hardened trolls but you couldn't be more wrong. I never get to send PMs to the real trolls because they are banned so quickly. The people I send PMs to are people who want to have a rational conversation and try to back up their opinions with good arguments.... it is just that they have the "wrong opinions" according to /r/atheismplus

The main forum is even worse.

 

[Quinn]

There a precious few contexts in which I think the word "wanker" would have anything to do with masturbation. Wank, yes. But wanker?

I agree. I was being generous for the sake of moving the discussion forward, since "precious few" is still potentially, theoretically greater than zero.

 

[theprestige]

Please pardon my monstrosity, but do you really mean to say "exactly the same" as if there are no significant differences between men and women which legal systems should take into account? To take one very obvious example, what rights did Roe v. Wade grant to non-women people? To take a less obvious one, what rights did United States v. Seeger grant to women people?

STOP RIGHT THERE.

Your narrow view of gender is privileged, hurtful, and unacceptable. You will immediately include references to trans*, ab*, un*, non* and quasi* persons in all your comments on gender.

Or we will ban you.

Also, using women's experiences to make a rhetorical point is privileged, hurtful, and unacceptable. Don't do it.

Or we will ban you.

/aplus

 

[RandFan]

On the use of wank(er)...

It's my opinion that we could all use a good wank guy in our lives.

 

[recursive prophet]

Well, he doesn't have a trace of a Dutch accent in the video, and his youtube profile says he's in the US.

As for H'ethetheth, wherever he's from, I'm guessing he's a fan of the Fast Show.

OK, his hairdo is pure midwest, and I agree his accent is very American though I've known Dutchmen who also had one in English. They are renowned for their linguistic skills. As I said I was going by post times, which can be misleading.

H'eth however IS from Holland, and quite a wit. I loved his exchanges with the legendary humber on the wind cart thread saga. No TV. Never saw the Fast Show.

 

[Foolmewunz]

@Foolmewunz, AA is fine, I usually suggest Apos or Apostate but I will answer to just about anything and if there is no hostile intent I don't seek to manufacture it. How do you shorten your name?

Like you, I accept any abbreviation that's not mean-spirited. FMW is the most common, but some people use Wunz. I've even had a couple of clever debaters use "Fool" (hyuk hyuk!). I don't report them - I think it's funny.

ETA: Just not FoolmewInz, as below, okay?

@Foolmewinz and Krikkiter on "Dogpiling".

Krikkiter has a valid point. When should a respondent self censor to avoid dogpiling? There was a thread on anxiety and dogpiling at A+ and quite a lot of discussion in the Mods capricious thread. No one can offer a definition of dogpiling that is actionable. I have noticed that when people at A+ are the third or fourth or fifth to respond they, and I, will start placing the comments in hidden text so that they don't overwhelm. I can't see that there is much else that can be done. This communication format and the asynchronous communication pretty much guarantee that a minority opinion will be responding to lots of people.

Thus far, you're just getting a lot of responses, the content of which you may disagree with, but they're civil and in their way, productive. It may continue in this vein, but I've seen here (and there) lots of threads where the seventh poster just has to get in "What a bunch of whacktards!" and ten others follow. That's the only thing I'm asking people to keep an eye on. It's not actionable here unless you break the MA (nothing in the MA about dogpiling).

 

[kellyb]

I am not sure that was ever the intent. It seemed more of the "lets use 'skepticism' to show why the politics we already agreed to disagree with are wrong" thing.

My biggest problem with FtB/A+ is that I think that 95% of people who go there all agree about almost 100% of the issues brought up. However, many of us disagree strongly with the solutions that the FtB/A+ in-group propose, and therefore we are the enemy.

I don't completely disagree, but I think a lot of people have gone there with different ideas. I, personally, really really wanted it to work, like the Reason.com etc world is effective for libertarians. I wanted for there to be a leftie version.

 

[kellyb]

I think a lot about "elites" and their rule. The new Kings and aristocrats. But now it's the Divine Right of Capital instead of the Divine Right of Kings.

Is a society free of democracy really the most free"?

 

[Doctor Plop]

I was far more offended at trying to rhyme Buckle with chill and ill...

Syllableist.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

I think Dawkins was responding to the rhetoric in the comments section with a hasty generalization. The thing is that he replied in context to the comments but only his comments stand out. The people that were blowing it out of proportion in the comments have been forgotten and only his comment stands on his own looking silly.

You mean to say, his comments were taken out of context, to make him look bad?
That sort of thing never happens to Dawkins!

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I don't know why my quotes your quoting disappear when I try to quote it, but if there is a way, perhaps someone could help me out.

On a related note, there's a multi-quote feature. It's the quotation marks button on the lower right. Click that to quote multiple posts, mark the final post with the "Quote" button.

Just to add on Kmo's example for multiquote you wind up with this:

me saying something

responding to me

And my subsequent response.

It looks like this while composing:

[quote=US]me saying something[/quote]
[quote=Someone else]responding to me[/quote]
And my subsequent response.

To embed, cut the first close quote tag [/quote] and paste it at the end of the second quote. It looks like this while composing:

[quote=US]me saying something[quote=Someone else]responding to me[/quote][/quote]
And my subsequent response.

With this being the output:

me saying something

responding to me

And my subsequent response.

 

[Wildy]

I am not zooterkin, nor British, nor female. But I will say that while I agree that there are contexts in which the term "wanker" can clearly imply masturbation, there are also contexts in which it just as clearly has nothing to do with masturbation or anything sexual. I will further say that the limerick in question was about as clear an example of the latter as one could ask for, and that only someone going out of their way to find something to be offended by could possibly mistake it for the former. Calling it "sexual poetry" is such an obvious and egregious mischaracterization that I find it hard to believe it's not intentional.

The accusation came from one of the popular members, so it must be completely valid. I mean look at the justification, it uses the "there was a young woman" and that coupled with the word "wanker" means that it was a sexual poem.

This thread does show some blatant gaslighting from the mods, how else can this be posted at the start of the thread:

"3) Making such a limerick exclusively about any individual and/or in a dedicated safe space is sexual harassment and a violation of our rules."

You then see piegasm say that nobody accused him of sexual harassment.

And I echo previous comments that if that is the A+ standard for "language that might trigger an unwanted sexual response," then everyone who has ever dropped an F-bomb on that board, in any context, should be subject to the same treatment.

As far as I can tell that depends on how popular you are. If you're triggered by the f-bomb, and are a newbie, then it sucks to be you. If you're an established and popular member, BRING ON THE BANHAMMERS!

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Wait... "rape culture" is a "well established thing"?

Where, pray tell, is the undeniable evidence for rape culture?

It's on the Internet silly.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

ETA And if all words which derive from sexual meanings make a space unsafe for women (delicate little flowers that we are) what do you make of the liberal use of the F-word by many of the regulars over there? Isn't that sexual talk which creates a chilly climate for women?

I guess we'll either have to expunge the following words or place trigger warnings: wood, arouse, perky, excite, spank, penetrate, steamy, bone, pork, cowgirl, wet, throb, etc.

 

[Mr. Scott]

emotion as a valuable intellectual tool

This has been one of my criticisms of A+ as it's manifested on the A+ forum: the glorification of emotion. My request here that it be defended was ignored, giving me the feeling (which my intellect tells me must be wrong) that everyone had me on ignore.

Will someone defend the bare assertion (Ipse dixit^WP) that emotion is a "valuable intellectual tool?" To me, it comes across as an oxymoron.

Why is the invocation^WP of the fictional Vulcan race a fatal blow to augments that emotions are not such a valuable intellectual tool? Isn't this invocation an appeal to emotion^WP fallacy? I'm starting to see "I am not (and you are) a Vulcan" in the same class as the Chewbacca Defense^WP.

Isn't the defense of emotional argument a form of anti-intellectualism?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

My request here that it be defended was ignored

Your request wasn't ignored. AA's last post in this thread contains the following at the end: "(Note to self, left off at post 4967) ". Your post was #4980, meaning that AA simply hasn't got to it yet.

 

[Wildy]

I guess we'll either have to expunge the following words or place trigger warnings: wood, arouse, perky, excite, spank, penetrate, steamy, bone, pork, cowgirl, wet, throb, etc.

 

[Rrose Selavy]

I'm ahead of ya, already posted in this thread but yes, so appropriate....


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8939120&postcount=2903

 

[Wildy]

I thought I saw that posted here in this thread before.