Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.
So you wont take Thunderfoot to task for lying or exaggerating then.
Yea, those blog wars are pretty involved, one has to choose where to put one's time. I'll agree that those involved are describing their version of reality however the problem(s) come when you try to force others into adopting that version.
The very first post by an Aplusser over at Ophelia Benson's blog ( WRT virginity testing ) was an accusation of hosting child porn with a demand to remove it. Let's think about this for a minute. The image was clearly presented in an anthropological manner and dealing with a cultural issue ( at heart, there was also the whole violating Facebook's ToS thing that spawned it ) so to go from there, anthropology, to child porn betrays a pretty warped vision of reality.
Nobody on A+ even batted an eye that one of their members was accusing someone of a horrific crime. Nobody mentioned that the parents of the girls in the photo are usually present during these examinations and most likely gave the photographer permission. A+ saw what they wanted to see and ran with it without question. They then took that vision and went over to Ophelia's blog and forced her to amend her post to match their sensitivities based on what they thought they were viewing.
They were wrong and this is where having a skewed vision, or version of reality can lead to some pretty serious consequences, like how did Ophelia Benson fare after being accused of being a child pornographer. Anybody care ?
according to the laws of many countries the image is a child sex abuse image (child pyrography is a term I think is best avoided and is often not used in legislation). The context is largely irrelevant. This is why Wikipedia could be blocked in yhe UK for hosting an indecent image of a child.
according to the laws of many countries the image is a child sex abuse image (child pyrography is a term I think is best avoided and is often not used in legislation). The context is largely irrelevant. This is why Wikipedia could be blocked in yhe UK for hosting an indecent image of a child.
There were good reasons for Ophelia to remove the image. "However well-intentioned the reasons for posting it, the image might very well be in violation of (also well-intentioned) laws, with unpredictable and possibly severe consequences," for instance, is a good reason.
Of course, that wasn't the reason the A+ers were giving for demanding its removal, nor the reason Ophelia stated for removing it.
I think his claims about FTB's demise are a bit overstated. Maybe it's just because I'm not as familiar with how you go about calculating pageviews and things like that, but as I understood it his claim was just 'They have 200k visitors during one day last June, and they had 30k visitors during one day now, so clearly they're tanking. Also, their google hangout only got 20k views, which is less than [Thunderfoot's Youtube channel]'. It didn't seem convincing to me.
A+, yes, that's tanking; that can be seen from the lack of posts and the shrinking of the membership down to a tiny handful that bans any new blood. But FTB? They look to still be going strong.
He had some sort of graph, I just can't be bothered to go looking for it again. As to the 20K being less than Thunderfoot's YouTube channel, it may have some significance when he's comparing his popularity vs theirs. He might have done better to compare the views on one of his anti FtB videos, to those of the FtBcon's YouTube channel.
His point WRT popularity is taken though, as of now, the video we're discussing is sitting at 28K views, after just one day.
There were good reasons for Ophelia to remove the image. "However well-intentioned the reasons for posting it, the image might very well be in violation of (also well-intentioned) laws, with unpredictable and possibly severe consequences," for instance, is a good reason.
Of course, that wasn't the reason the A+ers were giving for demanding its removal, nor the reason Ophelia stated for removing it.
Damn, Myriad...you're way better at writing my posts than I am.
Yes, that would have been a better way to attack Ophelia for hosting the image.
It's those well intentioned laws that keep people from uploading pictures of their children in the bathtub to online storage sites so that, if their house burns down, not all will be lost.
After reading the last page of comments I'm amazed so many are still giving Atheism+ any benefit of doubt at all after all this time!
And if any of you are genuinely still surprised by any of the nonsense you see from there, you need to take your head out the sand and start to realise that these people are not rationalists. This is essentially their religion, no different to any loony ideological belief political or otherwise. These are people who believe a man buying a woman drinks is evidence he is a rapist. And where one of their big names felt a woman wearing a T-Shirt at a conference that said she was a skeptic, not a "skepchick" or a "female skeptic", was something so traumatic this was something to literally cry about.
PS: Acharya S getting her uncensored pictures of virginity tests of Nigerian girls taken down suddenly becomes some kind of giant feminist issue rather than an obvious breach of their guidelines. How is it so surprising that it got taken down? They (She) should have assumed this was more than likely, she took the risk to upload it anyway, accept it and move on. Mens rights groups have had stuff taken down that doesnt breach any of their guidelines at all, just because they were critical of feminists, or even implied criticism of feminists, they actually have a genuine beef with Facebook.
Edit:
And I just noticed a wonderful piece of total crazy from Acharya S:
"As we can see from this Google Images search, the photograph is still there – is Facebook going to ban Google Images as well?"
Facebook and Google's search engine are not the same thing, and so far I don't believe they are even the same company so Facebook has no ability to ban google image results either.
I mean I may even be giving her too much credit, she said "the photograph is still there", I wonder if she realises that Google doesn't host any of the images and they don't have any power to remove the images from the internet even if they really wanted to. Its things like this that make you wonder if she even understands how the internet works.
I think his claims about FTB's demise are a bit overstated. Maybe it's just because I'm not as familiar with how you go about calculating pageviews and things like that, but as I understood it his claim was just 'They have 200k visitors during one day last June, and they had 30k visitors during one day now, so clearly they're tanking. Also, their google hangout only got 20k views, which is less than [Thunderfoot's Youtube channel]'. It didn't seem convincing to me.
They are clearly tanking, go watch the video again. The question is at what point will the tank plateau, or if it will continue to be reduced to 911 Truther levels of non-existence. Personally I think it will continue to decline for a little while more before sustaining a relatively small number of dedicated followers. Then again, they could always manage to recruit more radical feminists from elsewhere and have an influx of new people, but of course these will be people joining because feminism not skepticism.
Justicar in his most recent video made an excellent point in response to Thunderfoots. Most of the readers are men, despite all the talk about Free Thought Blogs being female friendly. Because if you remember, the reason they claimed there wasnt more female skeptics coming to the conferences was because of sexism and harassment (despite female attendance having become already far over-represented (ie. very popular with women) at conferences compared to statistically how many female atheists there are) And yet here we have the hub of the most claimed to be female friendly atheist websites out there and its still apparently not attracting the women and men are still overrepresented. Now either there really aren't that many female atheists, they aren't interested in talking about it on the internet, or they just arent interested in FTB either. Im sure FTB would blame the "misogyny" rather than themselves. As Justicar says at the end of the video, maybe a significant amount of women don't actually appreciate being represented as weak helpless damsels who need to be treated with kid gloves by society and hand held through life otherwise they can't possibly make it in the real world.
I like this currently top voted comment from Justicars video:
PixieKirin 5 hours ago
I'm a female atheist and I refuse to be associated with FtB or Atheism+. I would actually feel less comfortable around them at a conference than I would if I were the only female there. They have been shown to be more than happy to exaggerate and outright lie about other people for blatantly malicious motives. Things like "elevatorgate" just show how much they are happy to trivialise sexual harassment and assault. I also don't need my hand holding to communicate with my peers thanks FtB.
Maybe sane women are going to feel more uncomfortable at conferences and not want to go than they were before. I mean if you're a sane woman, why would you want people to think you're associated with a group that literally believes that if she drinks she doesn't have the agency to, and also shouldn't even be allowed to, make any decisions related to sex? Way to infantilise women!! How is it not obvious that they are doing this? Feminists and traditionalists agree, but sane reasonable people that believe women are just as capable of being responsible for their actions as men are find this insulting.
Its like the whole Adria Richards "donglegate" drama, where she claimed those private PG penis jokes by the 2 men, quietly uttered behind her, were going to lead to girls being too traumatised to want to enter tech fields so like "Joan of Arc" (her words) she just had to say something and get this kind of behaviour stopped! Irony is she herself doesnt even work in any technical capacity but rather in PR (essentially a stereotypical female role). But the worse irony is she now makes it worse for all women at these conferences because now men justifiably have to walk on egg shells around them in case they happen to be as ◊◊◊◊◊◊* crazy as Adria, and the women she thinks she's saving (like Joan of Arc, remember!) have to deal with being far more likely to be made to feel unwelcome because of it. Usually the girls who actually are interested in science and tech arent fainting violets, they like joking around and making fun of each other, its the "girly girls" that tend to go into more stereotypical female careers, like Adria did.
When will people learn that these kinds of feminists are terrible even for the women they claim to want to help? Oh sure they can claim they are about "equality" and about allowing women to be seen as just as capable as men all day long, but look at their actions, look at their beliefs, and that is just a position impossible to defend with even the barest scrutiny. Essentially when are we going to learn that these kinds of feminists are just as "misogynistic" as the traditionalists they claim they want to get away from? I am confident eventually that will become more commonly understood, eventually.
Well, there is modern science, the Internet, penicillin, the eradication of smallpox, democracy, equal rights for women, minorities and gays. Might count for something, perhaps?
What a bloody idiot this guy it. Show me a culture that has done more for the world. I'm eagerly awaiting.
How did he get semi-famous anyways? He is just a bum with a blog.
Well, there is modern science, the Internet, penicillin, the eradication of smallpox, democracy, equal rights for women, minorities and gays. Might count for something, perhaps?
What a bloody idiot this guy it. Show me a culture that has done more for the world. I'm eagerly awaiting.
He got famous for 2 main reasons. As far as I'm led to believe, he was and probably still is well qualified as a biologist. He had a well regarded anti-Creationist blog for many years banded about fairly often that I recall, and the second part of this is he started becoming more present at atheist conferences with the likes of AronRa etc. Then of course the Watson incident happened and then we found out who actually had these ideological religious feminist views the whole time, and we have seen them depart from skepticism, literally and figuratively.
I wonder what the anti-My Little Pony thing is about? Is it because they have a certain disliking of bronies, a disliking of the way that it's spawned so many memes, or is it because they buy into the erroneous article which declared it racist, homophobic and anti-intellectual? An article which was written condemning the show before the author watched a single episode and which piqued the curiosity of some 4Chan members who then watched the programme, told other 4Chan members "actually, this is pretty good", which got other 4Chan members watching and which created the whole brony movement in the first place.
If you listen to enough of them speak, to me its clear that its a method of shaming men into feel like less of a man, that they are either like children or like women (because maybe they think thats an insult). Its why if women speak out against them, they will even start attacking them for "acting like a man". But honestly folks... they really are all about equality and breaking down gender stereotypes, honest. Though as an aside I think its also related to the whole "fedora" "neckbeard" insults as well, which is so bizarre I dont even know what goes through their minds. Not once have I ever seen an anti-feminist/anti-atheism+er wear a fedora, and most I've seen dont have any neckbeards, so either Im missing some joke, or I havent given them enough credit for crazy.
So, basically, they don't think that men should watch My Little Pony because it's a programme aimed at little girls? That doesn't seem very open-minded.
Oh he's back on his atheists not dictionary atheists nonsense now is he? Where he insists that atheism isn't about your position on the existence of deities, instead it's about... well about being an American liberal.
Essentially when are we going to learn that these kinds of feminists are just as "misogynistic" as the traditionalists they claim they want to get away from?
Oh he's back on his atheists not dictionary atheists nonsense now is he? Where he insists that atheism isn't about your position on the existence of deities, instead it's about... well about being an American liberal.
Yup, I lost interest in his blog when he went down this path.
His blog used to be about interesting biology, plus the occasional atheist post. Then he seemed to get a taste for attention, and started doing silly things like poking nails through biscuits and photographing it, and I frowned a bit. Then he just lost the plot completely, and his blog was invaded by the most illogical group of people Ive ever witnessed, and I havent been back.
PS: Acharya S getting her uncensored pictures of virginity tests of Nigerian girls taken down suddenly becomes some kind of giant feminist issue rather than an obvious breach of their guidelines. How is it so surprising that it got taken down? They (She) should have assumed this was more than likely, she took the risk to upload it anyway, accept it and move on..........
I couldn't figure out why FtB got involved in this in the first place. Ophelia and Richards focus was on Arachaya's quest to reactivate her Facebook not the Stop Virginity Testing issue.
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.
: 
This is jaw droppingly stunningly stupid....
