1952. I'm pretty sure that predates Google by a lot.
That seems like quite a generous understanding of the beginning of the skeptical movement. There were certainly skeptics throughout history, and Gardner is a notable figure, but the modern skeptical movement is (as many skeptics keep telling me) based on scientific skepticism - which is why people argue that it should focus on claims that are testable by science (thus excluding ethics, politics, etc).
The concept of scientific skepticism was touched on in Sagan's "Contact", but really it took off as an idea in 1997 with his work "Billions and Billions". So rather than being "before the internet", it really coincided with the internet becoming accessible to the everyday person and we can talk about how the skeptical movement is (according to your logic) synonymous with the Skeptic Society forum.
I'm clearly not the only one "conflating" the forum and the "movement". Looks like a PR issue. Or we're all just wrong, I suppose, that's a perspective that can be taken.
It could be a PR issue, but it's just hard to believe that people can honestly make the mistake of conflating a forum with a movement. And given the amount of trolling and misrepresentation the movement and forum has been subjected to, it doesn't require any stretch of the imagination to try to figure out why people understand so little about it.
Just ask people what they think "safe space" means. Even in this thread the concept is being misrepresented and misunderstood, despite the fact that it's a rigorously defined concept that only requires a quick google search to figure it out.
Do you have some of those peer-reviewed references handy? I'm interested in reading the literature and if you're already found particularly compelling articles I'd be interested to know which ones those were.
One of the earliest papers on the topic can be found here:
Social Consequences of Disparagement Humor: A Prejudiced Norm Theory
with the topic being studied in various different situations, with different measures, subjects, etc, since then.
The issue also ties into stereotype threat (you can get a good overview of the topic in this paper:
An Integrated Process Model of Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance) which basically refers to the finding that highlighting supposed deficiencies in stigmatised groups (e.g. joking about how women are bad at maths) can account for at least some of the gap in scores between stigmatised groups and non-stigmatised groups in a range of tasks.
Then you clearly have no idea what you're talking about as the Aplus forum a has a long Moderator stickie post on "good faith". which according to you has no place there.
http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2104
The primer was put there for members who were complaining about the fact that they were arguing in good faith but still being "misunderstood". Notice how it only talks about how to
avoid being seen as arguing in bad faith and says nothing about how people who are seen to be arguing in "good faith" should be given leniency or treated differently - this is because "good faith" has no place in a safe space.
That's a generic invented example, I want you to show us actual real concrete examples of "discussion techniques" and the "harm" they produce. Casual racism or sexism can be, and is challenged on many forums , including here, has anyone been pulled up for saying "Whoa, a girl on the internet!" on the aplus forum? I doubt it. So what makes it any different?
Just flashing a term like "prejudiced norm theory" isn't going to suffice.
I've presented a couple of articles above but I'm surprised that you think most forums clamp down on casual racism and sexism. Obviously different people will have different experiences and, if this is the case for this forum, then I am very much impressed. However, this would definitely be the exception.
As for the aplus forum calling out the "girl on the internet joke", I doubt a single post would go past without that member being challenged for their comment. I really can't see such a thing being even moderately tolerated.
Ah, I see the problem here. A+ doesn't allow what they're defining as racism and sexism, the "sociology" definition of those words but they do allow, and even encourage bigotry and discrimination, they just label it "punching up"
I don't understand why you put scare quotes around "sociology" there. When discussing a sociological issue, what other definition would be appropriate besides the scientific field that studies the social aspects of humans?
The concept of "punching up" highlights the important difference between attacking someone who is already down versus someone who isn't. It isn't meant to justify attacking anyone (i.e. it's not okay to punch someone just because they're bigger) but rather it reminds us that it's ridiculous to say that "slurs" against white people are equal in harm to slurs against black people.
Even if they have to make stuff up to do it.
An example ?
A couple of pages back I posted a link where one poster was on an anti-male rant. Going on about fuzzy lady brains etc, I'm sure you'rve seen those posts before they show up every few weeks. he kicker though was the line that people ( presumably men ) consider a woman having a period as unnatural.
Let's think about that for a second.
Who on earth thinks like that ? Seriously, if this were the roaring 20s then maybe she'd have a point however we've moved on, we've taken biology in middle school. There are religions out there that penalize women during certain times of the month however, back of the room etc, however they use words like unclean not unnatural.
That post even got a hand clapping gif.
Sorry I missed the link and couldn't find it from a quick search, but from what you've said, are you really surprised that talk of periods is treated as something practically unnatural?
Again, I guess it depends on what circles you hang out in but it certainly was a common belief amongst guys I knew. It wasn't that they literally believed that a woman was possessed or something, but just in the form that they made jokes about it (e.g. "I don't trust anything that can bleed for 5 days and not die!"), or refuse to let their girlfriend discuss anything about their periods.
If times are changing and the circles you hang out in are more liberated, then that truly makes me happy. The problem is that a lot of women in today's generation have had it drilled into them that their periods are unnatural and that they should basically be ashamed of them. Different women will have differing levels of comfortableness about it but a woman who is insecure about an inevitable bodily function can be found almost by picking any woman at random in a crowd.
I'm not quite sure whether that was supposed to be the "anti-male rant" or not though, I assume there was another bit?
Here's one for the problematic jar. Setar, a straight guy is criticizing a gay group, the HRC over their request that trans flags be stifled during a demonstration. Sometimes even straight up homophobia get a pass over on A+ if it's done by an insider.
I'm not quite sure how it's homophobic to point out the bigotry of gay groups, even if they are minorities that doesn't make them immune from messing up. A good argument can be made for the problematic aspect of a privileged person telling a minority group what to do, but that would be an extra issue that doesn't change the facts of the issue.
1. How have you determined that the person making such a joke has had their "prejudice increased"? What does that mean? How was this tested? How are you even defining prejudice?
Science - it's a wonderful thing. It has been measured in a number of ways; in terms of attitude, we have things like the hostility index. Perhaps the more accurate measure is how it manifests in behavior, and this has been measured by looking at how people would attribute funds to minority groups, or how they would rank them on certain factors, or whether they would hire them, etc.
2. How did you determine that making a covert bigot to go overt through making him think he is not alone to be a negative? Did you just bring him out of the closet so that society at large that does not believe such things can spot him and chastise him? How exactly again did you determine this to be a negative?
That's a good point, unfortunately it's not the society we currently live in. Plus, by the time we get around to chastising them, it's probably too late as they have already become more gung-ho about discriminating against minorities.
Hello everyone, I've been following this thread and its precursors for a while now and finally registered so I could join in.
Mr. Samsa said: (I have to figure out how to include that in the quotes one of these days)
This has been bothering me for a while. A+ is said to be a 'safe space', but AFAIK that's not a term.
It's a valid sociological concept. It is most certainly a term.
Certainly there can be safe spaces, for victims of abuse, or for people with suicidal tendencies, or for people with paranoia. What you cannot have however, is a safe space in general. In a safe space, particular types of communication are disallowed, or closely monitored. That's what makes it a 'safe space'. It cannot however be a 'safe space' for everyone. Obviously A+ is not and is not intended to be a safe space for MRA's, or for Christians. The question then remains, who is it a safe space FOR? What aspects of reality are to be mitigated against to make the participants feel safe? Is it a safe space for transgenders? For women who feel objectified by men? For people with Aspergers? For people who suffer from paranoia? The criteria for making it a safe space for transgenders are different from those that would be applied for making it safe for women who live in fear of male aggression and they would, imo, be hard to combine.
To reiterate, I don't think 'safe space' is a valid concept, unless there is a 'for' attached. A safe space is directed towards a specific group of people who have particular issues, or it's nonsensical.
It's an attempt at a safe space for all minorities. The fact that it's difficult to accommodate for all minorities is a given, and well-accepted on the forum (and similar ones), which is why nobody will claim that it's perfect. But if we were going to argue that an application of an idea is flawed because it's imperfect, then we've ruled out nearly every idea humans have ever come up with and tried to implement.
Mr.Samsa,
Let me reiterate the sentiment that has already been expressed, that you do a very good job of explaining some of the reasoning behind A+.
This does not of course, imply that I agree with any of it. I'd like to ask a few more questions.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Whenever someone has an opinion on how someone else should feel, that should of course be dismissed. I have the impression it's a strawman, as I rarely if ever witness people opining on how others should feel. Ethnicity, gender or other handicaps don't even enter into it.
It would be nice if people never told others how to feel, but unfortunately it's no strawman. Minorities experience it on a nearly daily basis.
The other aspect you mention in the example, is how they "should handle it". Here I disagree entirely, assuming that the purpose of the "handling" is to achieve a desired outcome. If the handling includes shouting. sulking, or throwing household items, then for me that comes under the heading of how they should "feel" (unless the thrown items injure someone). Personal experience can't IMO trump rational analysis there, so ones membership of whichever group shouldn't be a factor.
It depends on what their aim is. In a safe space like the A+ forum, or when someone has been attacked in some way, their response is not an attempted to rationally debate the philosophical axioms underpinning someone's racism or sexism. It is to vent, to blow off steam about how bad society or an individual has treated them.
When it comes to them setting up an actual attempt to educate or change minds, rational analysis does come into it. However, it is still problematic when privileged people attempt to tell minorities how they should approach an issue. There is a difference between working with groups to reach a desired end, and reinforcing a horrific history of abuse from privileged groups onto minorities.
This is a novel concept for me. A viewpoint is not objectively correct or incorrect, applicable or inapplicable, but it lacks "merit"? How do I get myself some of this merit so I can win discussions on Internet forums?
On a more serious note, what DO you mean by "merit" here? Can you give an example?
What I'm referring to is that people are claiming that valid ideas are being rejected on the sole basis that they are privileged when, in reality, this is completely backwards. It's not rejected because they are privileged, but rather it is because they are privileged that their viewpoint is often woefully wrong (and that is why it is rejected).
Everyone has privilege with regards to everyone else (admittedly, Bill Gates' lack of privilege may be a bit limited). Everyone has unique experiences that nobody else has had. To enable communication in spite of this enormous hurdle, people talk about their experiences. Some have even written books about them, so I can have some sense of what if was like to be in the Belgian trenches of WW1. In the case of being black/female/transgendered/paranoid/depressed and the like, there are whole bookcases out there to read.
Undeniably. Different people have different experiences and different kinds of privilege - hence why these people adopt the notion of intersectionality.
Beyond that, we are social creatures, we are conditioned to empathise, to have a sense for what others are feeling. There are some who lack this ability, or refuse to use it, but most people actually listen to others and mentally put themselves in their shoes if you give them a chance. On A+, this chance is not given to anyone, regardless of which groups they belong to.
To paraphrase: experience is not magic!
Except that there is a difference between being empathetic, and trying to misapply unrelated experiences to make claims that invalidate the experiences of others. In other words, being black means that you can empathise with the discrimination women face. However, being black does not mean you can tell women that they should just "lighten up" and feel "flattered" when guys honk at them, give them wolf whistles, or chat them up in inappropriate places.
Wait a moment please. We are communicating on the Internet, where I can be black, white, Inuit, a 13 year-old hermaphrodite in a wheelchair, or a hyperintelligent shade of the colour blue, for all anyone knows. Various minorities often experience some discrimination in their lives, yes. But on the Internet? If you don't want to be discriminated against for being blue, be pink. It's easy to not be discriminated against here and you don't need a special forum for it.
Of course if you want to share yourself, your personal problems, beliefs and frustrations, then that does rather take away from your anonymity. So if you were to claim "to share their identity and their feelings without being discriminated against", that would make more sense to me. Is that though, what you meant? And is that a need they have that goes beyond sharing with their Facebook friends?
Discrimination doesn't need to be directed at an individual for it to make them feel stigmatised. If someone posts a story about people who happen to be black doing something stupid, a person responding with: "Ha, stupid n****s!" is still going to affect black people. What they want is a place where such attitudes, beliefs, and language are not allowed.
Ideally, forums (particularly skeptical and freethinking ones) would already be on board with this, but unfortunately there is this misguided belief in "free speech" which stops them from preventing such attitudes. Sure, there's the advantage that "all viewpoints are able to be dismantled" (which honestly rarely happens), but it has the obvious downside of making minorities feel unwelcome and so they avoid the area.
To verbally abuse people as is routine on A+ is pretty serious. It is to me, at least. It's the Pharyngula comments section squared; one of the most unsafe spaces I could find myself in online. YMMV.
Thanks in advance if you choose to respond.
Abusing someone doesn't threaten a safe space. It's not nice behavior, certainly, but unless the abuse comes in the form of discriminating against minorities, then it has nothing to do with a safe space. Of course, many safe spaces have rules against personal attacks and insults, and the implementation of these rules will differ from forum to forum for various reasons, but even if there was a complete failure to punish any form of (non-discriminatory) abuse, it still wouldn't affect its status as a safe space.
@Qwints and Mr. Samsa: Here's a challenge for you, and a way to provide evidence that A+ is as you envision it. Try starting a thread asking why PZ hasn't ever returned to make even a short few posts or in any way been openly supportive of the forums; anywhere! I triple dog dare ya!
It won't happen. I think you both know no matter how diplomatically you framed the OP-you know, you are asking in hope someone can provide links to where he has been supportive elsewhere and you just missed it, w/e-it would not be appreciated by the guardians of the sacred secret forum. But aren't you a little bit curious about why such a vaunted guru like PZ has distanced himself from the only forum just for A+?
Can anyone tell me if any of the more notable SJW's have ever made any positive public statements about the A+ forums? Is Setar, ceepolk, et al the A team there?
Hi RP. At the risk of being called a 'chicken' and having clucking noises made at me whilst people flap their arms, I will have to decline your challenge. It would obviously be hugely disrespectful to "test" or experiment on the forum to satisfy personal curiosity, and I would hope that anyone doing such a thing would be banned.
With that said, I personally don't care what PZ thinks of the forum. I'm not sure what insults are allowed with the JREF censor, but suffice to say that I don't like him very much and I'm glad that he's not treated as a "leader" or "face" of the A+ movement.
As for other 'notable figures' not taking part on the A+ forum, I don't see why it's a big issue. Many of them contribute to the A+ movement itself, and many participate on various other A+ communities. Perhaps some of them just aren't fans of forums or don't have that much time to dedicate to them.
A lot of them did explicitly distance themselves from the A+ movement due to the threats and comments they received, and although it's understandable, it is unfortunate.
