Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Stout]

She wasn't fired because her company was attacked by 4chan virgins.

Over on A=, Setar is saying that the attacks were carried out by Stormfront and MRAs. No, he doesn't link to anything.

But who knows, maybe it was......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm1aUjzVz00

Or someone tying to make anonymous look bad

Or....?

 

[Humes fork]

I don't understand how atheism plus could be such an issue. Look at people with accomplisments not reducible to blogging about atheism or feminism. Look at people like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sean Carroll, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Steven Pinker. How much have they bothered with atheism plus? Nothing, really (except Dawkins once made an indirect tweet at them, to their great anger). It's simply not worth their time. They are too busy trying to understand the world and explain their findings to others.

 

[Mr. Scott]

I don't understand how atheism plus could be such an issue. Look at people with accomplisments not reducible to blogging about atheism or feminism. Look at people like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sean Carroll, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Steven Pinker. How much have they bothered with atheism plus? Nothing, really (except Dawkins once made an indirect tweet at them, to their great anger). It's simply not worth their time. They are too busy trying to understand the world and explain their findings to others.

A+ is giving comfort to the enemies of atheism, especially with the suggestion that atheist and skeptic conferences are hotbeds of misogyny, sexual harassment, and risk of sexual assault. Also, their incessant drumbeat that the leading figures of new atheism should be shunned because they are predominantly rich old white men who are clueless about the issues of the underprivileged.

 

[zeggman]

I don't understand how atheism plus could be such an issue. Look at people with accomplisments not reducible to blogging about atheism or feminism. Look at people like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sean Carroll, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Steven Pinker. How much have they bothered with atheism plus? Nothing, really

Personal digression from someone who really has nothing to add to this thread anyway. For reasons which are obscure even to me, my mind had somehow confused "Richard Carrier" with "Steven Pinker". Thanks to your post, they are now disentangled. I appreciate it.

 

[Diogenes]

The entire construct of A+ lies in a subversive wishful destruction of exceptionalism. They've bought into the illogical notion that "equality", rather than having to do with an equal metaphysical value inherent in each human, should be about leveling the playing field in every possible endeavor so that no one individual can ever feel inadequate in comparison to another.

Sounds to me like "I want everyone to be as damaged as I think I am though I'm still going to be more damaged than anyone else."

At least the internet version of this phenomena anyway.

 

[Diogenes]

Cool, works either way for me. Every so often, the thought flashes in my head to go sign up at A+ and interact with "them." The thought vanishes in less than a second after recall of how they treated others...

I stopped posting there soon after I was informed that I'm essentially oppressing my autistic 9 year-old by having him in therapy. You know, the only treatment of autism that has any demonstrated clinical efficacy. Apparently I'm ableist.

I didn't get banned, though.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I stopped posting there soon after I was informed that I'm essentially oppressing my autistic 9 year-old by having him in therapy. You know, the only treatment of autism that has any demonstrated clinical efficacy.

Oh, come on! You don't think you know more about your child than some random stranger on the internet does, do you?

 

[Diogenes]

Oh, come on! You don't think you know more about your child than some random stranger on the internet does, do you?

I know, my privilege doth runneth over, right?

 

[s_pepys]

I stopped posting there soon after I was informed that I'm essentially oppressing my autistic 9 year-old by having him in therapy. You know, the only treatment of autism that has any demonstrated clinical efficacy. Apparently I'm ableist.

I didn't get banned, though.

that sounds terrible! a safe space indeed, it makes me *********** angry!

 

[Mr. Scott]

I stopped posting there soon after I was informed that I'm essentially oppressing my autistic 9 year-old by having him in therapy. You know, the only treatment of autism that has any demonstrated clinical efficacy. Apparently I'm ableist.

I didn't get banned, though.

Ah, I have a word for this. The A+ people and SJWs have what I like to call "notions" -- wonderfully colloquial term I got from a TV movie about a nut who lived just outside a small town and picked fights with anyone about anything. When the townspeople were asked what was wrong with the guy, they just said, "he has notions."

 

[Quinn]

Look at people like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sean Carroll, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Steven Pinker. How much have they bothered with atheism plus? Nothing, really (except Dawkins once made an indirect tweet at them, to their great anger). It's simply not worth their time. They are too busy trying to understand the world and explain their findings to others.

That right there is the problem. We all know how the A+ crowd feels about 'splainers.

 

[Diogenes]

Ah, I have a word for this. The A+ people and SJWs have what I like to call "notions" -- wonderfully colloquial term I got from a TV movie about a nut who lived just outside a small town and picked fights with anyone about anything. When the townspeople were asked what was wrong with the guy, they just said, "he has notions."

This was back when they called their "Information" forum the "Education" forum so I also struck-up a discussion about when anti-ableism becomes enabling.

It was me that "had notions" that they were inviting actual discussion. I was one of the uniformed that was considering becoming active in a secular/atheist environment. I knew of PZ via biology (not directly but through some search or another) and though is blog was interesting at first. Later I realized the obvious...when you're a one note song simply making fun of people all the time there's really not much substance to be found there....long story short I think I'm sticking to being active in biology for the time being.

 

[qwints]

I'm not a libertarian, but I don't object to Michael Shermer being one (and he is the last person demanding everyone must share his politics).

True, but he has said that science provides a foundation for capitalism.

Myers also doesn't understand the fact/value distinction.

Very true, as his posts on the subject make clear. It's somewhat amusing that both he and Harris are so wrong on the subject.

I just have trouble imagining how these SJWs would handle an underpriveleged dating a privileged. I have this intuition that some of them have racial purity leanings

Unless we're talking about a situation involving a loss of agency by someone, I really doubt that anyone on the atheismplus forums would have a problem with relationships between people of different races or genders. I certainly don't.

A+ agreed with what she did, right from the first post. We have one black woman vs 2 white men and the SJW credo dictates that they must support the less privileged. It' a matter of principal.

I certainly had no problems with her actions unless I'm missing something. She 1)reported a violation of conference policy; 2) took a photo of someone in a location without an expectation of privacy; and 3) Publicly talked about that incident. One of the people involved in the incident has apparently publicly apologized. That's reasonable. The unreasonable stuff - the death threats, the DDOS, and the firings are all things that have been done by people not in the original exchange.

 

[RandFan]

I'd like to take a moment and thank qwints for being involved with the discussion. Thank you very much. I appreciate your tone and willingness to concede points and consider arguments.

 

[recursive prophet]

Driving the tiny atheist/skeptic community away from their missions and into this unnecessary conflict for their personal political activism and career ambitions is inexcusable.

Sure looks to me like this is what's happening. What's sad is I doubt most of the SJW's leading the charge are at all conscious of it. Yes there are still sexist elements at play in our culture. Some of it will inevitably find it's way into the s/a community. I believe it is far less than what you see in the larger society, but it still does exist and gives those exploiting that reality some valid claims to chant.

For me it brings to mind something like those who believe in a woman's right to choose on abortion becoming upset by the way Alabama and other bible belt states are rolling back the clock, so they vote Republican out of spite. (or just abstain)

@Humes fork: Good post. I tend to agree it might be best to ignore them, as Richard should have instead of posting that Dear Muslina letter. But I also think Scotty has a point. I'd be surprised if some choice comments aren't already being quoted on a few of the Christian sites.

I forget who mentioned the A+ ban list, but I can assure it hasn't been updated since like September. I was banned over 2 months ago and my nick still isn't on the list. I think they finally realized it was an embarrassment.

 

[Quinn]

She 1)reported a violation of conference policy;

According to the accounts I've read, she "reported" it to her Twitter feed before she notified the conference officials. If that is true, I don't call that "reporting a violation," I call it "making a spectacle."

2) took a photo of someone in a location without an expectation of privacy;

By the strictly legally-actionable definition of expectation of privacy, I agree with you. And I think adhering strictly to that legal definition, rather than to any common-sense understanding of how not to be a douchebag, is the the only way to attempt to salvage a shred of justification for that action. In other words, while it was not an illegal act, I don't think it was in any way a reasonable one. Apparently the conference organizers agree, having amended their code of conduct accordingly.

The unreasonable stuff - the death threats, the DDOS, and the firings are all things that have been done by people not in the original exchange.

I agree all those things are even more unreasonable (some by several orders of magnitude) than the action that prompted them. That doesn't make the original action any more reasonable.

 

[RandFan]

I forget who mentioned the A+ ban list, but I can assure it hasn't been updated since like September. I was banned over 2 months ago and my nick still isn't on the list. I think they finally realized it was an embarrassment.

If true then more evidence of a lack of transparency.

 

[Rrose Selavy]

Unless we're talking about a situation involving a loss of agency by someone, I really doubt that anyone on the atheismplus forums would have a problem with relationships between people of different races or genders. I certainly don't.

Wow! No problem with relationships between different genders!
Why should that even be an issue? Who even suggested otherwise, even in the
alternate reality that is the Aplus forum?

 

[qwints]

Wow! No problem with relationships between different genders!
Why should that even be an issue? Who even suggested otherwise, even in the
alternate reality that is the Aplus forum?

Mr. Scott was discussing how people would react to people with different levels of privilege being in a relationship. ("an underpriveleged dating a privileged.") Gender and race are both axes of privileges, hence my response.

 

[Stout]

I certainly had no problems with her actions unless I'm missing something. She 1)reported a violation of conference policy; 2) took a photo of someone in a location without an expectation of privacy; and 3) Publicly talked about that incident. One of the people involved in the incident has apparently publicly apologized. That's reasonable. The unreasonable stuff - the death threats, the DDOS, and the firings are all things that have been done by people not in the original exchange.

No, I wouldn't expect you'd have a problem with her actions as you fail to see that she used a very very weak example of sexism to go public and score SJW points at someone else's expense. We know from her tweeted definition of racism that she's a hardcore SJW player and as we all know, being an SJW is all about the takedowns, the sticking it to the privliged, punching up, as they l;ike to say at A+.

An adult would have quietly let those guys know that she was overhearing things that made her uncomfortable and I'd go so far as to speculate she was looking for something, anything to raise this kind of fuss in order to direct attention to herself.

We've all seen that this is how SJWs like to work through reading A+. First they set up a "safe space" ( yea I know the stated reasons ) but it's obvious that the safe space concept is to facilitate the bashing of white males where those white males who may take issue with being bashed are effectively coerced into silence through the threat of or actual banning.

Take that quote I posted earlier today, where the poster is on about people thinking that women having periods is somehow unnatural. This is one clear cut case of hardcore misandry that's going to go unchallenged even though anyone reading it did the same wtf ? as I did.

On A+, in the safe space, nobody dares challenge this for what it is. Oh but misandry isn't a "thing", as they like to say over there. Well, dears, yes it is and I don't give a rip about reasons for being misandrists, racist etc. and the fact that the Aplussers have to make things up to make their points is well [ abelist slur ].

So donglegate a set up ? Wouldn't doubt that for a minute.