Empress
Piggish
Hey I only feminism 69 if you know what I'm saying
You're a chick, right?
...um...I am...
Continued: (Ed) Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)
- Thread starter Stout
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...um...I am...
recursive prophet
Graduate Poster
Well, I see this thread is finally winding down, along with A+. Given how few registered users are logged in there over the last few months-rarely up to 10-I've been amazed that they were able to keep the Potemkin index page updated. But that is finally withering.
When I just checked there were 2 members there and only 4 of the index topics were from today. So it looks to me like the core group who were maintaining the facade are finally giving up the ghost. Hopefully that site will serve as a cautionary tale for those attempting to promote feminism and social justice, both worthy causes.
Somebody here should write A+'s requiem. Try and make it constructive and charitable, if possible.
When I just checked there were 2 members there and only 4 of the index topics were from today. So it looks to me like the core group who were maintaining the facade are finally giving up the ghost. Hopefully that site will serve as a cautionary tale for those attempting to promote feminism and social justice, both worthy causes.
Somebody here should write A+'s requiem. Try and make it constructive and charitable, if possible.
blutoski
Penultimate Amazing
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I think that's a good suggestion. Could we do a postmortem and consider the challenge that skepticism faces in balancing promotion of a progressive social/public engagement with the risk of hitching onto a lunatic fringe.
I think in the past, this has been isolated to a debate about support for atheism advocacy, but it's clear to me that most mainstream skeptical organizations do have a roadmap to address recruitment of underrepresented demographics, religous minorities notwithstanding, so let's hope we can all learn from this.
Somebody here should write A+'s requiem. Try and make it constructive and charitable, if possible.
"Rest In Plus"
Mr. Scott
Under the Amazing One's Wing
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I think it turned out to be something different from what it was intended to be.
It seemed to be intended as atheist skeptics who were interested in social justice.
It was hijacked by radical social justice warriors who happened to be atheists but felt little or no affinity with the atheist or skeptic movements, and had little or no facility for critical thinking.
Their initial call to arms (from Urban Dictionary) was:
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John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
Indeed. And if feminism is a worthy cause, then so is every other form of sexism.
Well, I see this thread is finally winding down, along with A+. Given how few registered users are logged in there over the last few months-rarely up to 10-I've been amazed that they were able to keep the Potemkin index page updated. But that is finally withering.
When I just checked there were 2 members there and only 4 of the index topics were from today. So it looks to me like the core group who were maintaining the facade are finally giving up the ghost. Hopefully that site will serve as a cautionary tale for those attempting to promote feminism and social justice, both worthy causes.
Somebody here should write A+'s requiem. Try and make it constructive and charitable, if possible.
Aye, they're defiantly on the wane. They got what they wanted though, a small group of elites operating in an echo chamber. Quality over quantity, if you will.
I'm wondering whether their wind down had anything to do with the ceepolk's departure. There's a story over on the slymepit that has Ceepolk getting fired from A+. Apparently the issue stemmed from when she rounded on Setar over the Hiroshima thing and the fight moved into the secret area. Ceepolk apparently crossed a line and was let go and it looks like she could have taken several prolific posters with her. When was the last time we heard from the likes of the Entwife, Sylvia Sybil, Buckle ?
I don't know how the 'pit would come to have this information save having a mole in the secret forum.
I was expecting something to be posted live from Skepticon last weekend but nary a word was spoken. Contrast this with the 'pit who had a running blow by blow commentary of all the interesting stuff. The gun incident, RW drinking all the free booze, the photo under the elevator sign.
Even Setar hasn't been posting there lately.
At least we still have the comment section of FtB to turn to for our SJ lulz
I don't buy that unless Jen was very very very naive about SJ. Anybody with any SJ experience at all should know that SJ is incompatible with atheism and critical thinking. All we need to do is look at the concept of Islamophobia for evidence of this. I was surprised to see Ceepolk actually come out and say it, ( hands off the brown people's religions ) but Ceepolk was really a gift to those of us critical of SJ machinations.
There's way too many assumptions that have to be made in order to function as an SJW. Just look at the ridiculous concept of "cultural appropriation".
Speaking of...check out this YouTube video if 10 000 Japanese singing Ode to Joy. Would this be considered cultural appropriation and therefore racist ? In Japan by Japanese SJWs maybe ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6s6YKlTpfw
Diogenes
Muse
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Hopefully in her retreat from all of it she's passed her qualifying exams and is on to finish a dissertation and actually graduate.
She seemed pretty quick to toss her A+ baby into the dumpster maybe she realized the leap from a brilliant idea, boobquake to full on SJ was one she shouldn't have taken so earnestly.
gentlehorse
Master Poster
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I believe that was recursive prophet's point.
recursive prophet
Graduate Poster
Indeed it was gentlehorse. Thanks for clarifying that for me, and to stout for the latest on ceepolk. She was the one who banned me there.
Ceepolk's demise comes as no surprise I suspect, to most here. After they had banned all those of privilege I think it was inevitable they would go at it among themselves. You know, the battle for who was the least privileged and all. With a group of egocentric pontificators like those at A+ there has to be targets for scorn. I've seen many other sites where something similar has gone down. A+ was just the most flagrant example.
blutoski
Penultimate Amazing
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I'm not sure if that was the problem, though. They're not the only segment of skepticism to draw an equivalence between skepticism and specific social causes.
In an earlier post, I drew attention to the original founding vision of 'modern skepticism' which probably goes back to Paul Kurtz. Kurtz deliberately set up a two-pronged organization in 1980 as follows:
- Council For Secular Humanism (CSH) - advocacy of "humanist values", including free speech, freedom of religion, racial and sexual equality
- Council for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) - investigating paranormal claims
Kurtz argued that Humanism was Applied Skepticism.
For various reasons, these were restructured in 1991 as follows:
- Center For Inquiry - "foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values"
- CSH - advocacy of "humanist values", including free speech, freedom of religion, racial and sexual equality
- CSI - investigating paranormal claims
The merger was not entirely material - the underlying philosophy was that the directors did feel there was really one mission. Specific social advocacy naturally follows from critical thinking.
IIRC, DJ Grothe has gone on record several times saying that gay rights advocacy was the inevitable obligation of all critical thinkers. ie: that skepticism and gay rights have so much in common that they are essentially a shared movement.
No: I think the problem was that they unwittingly failed the site curation balance between letting people convey their thoughts versus tempering uncivil or mentally unstable activity.
qwints
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Regardless of the outcome of the atheismplus forum, reading critical threads like this makes clear to me that there are problems in the atheist and skeptical communities worth addressing. Hopefully, the flaws of this particular criticism doesn't prevent the valid points from being addressed.
I'll certainly say that this discussion has illuminated me on the extent people harmonize their political preferences with other beliefs. Lots of people seem to be convinced that their world view is coherent and comprehensive, and that those who disagree aren't just wrong on a particular issue but on everything.
I'll certainly say that this discussion has illuminated me on the extent people harmonize their political preferences with other beliefs. Lots of people seem to be convinced that their world view is coherent and comprehensive, and that those who disagree aren't just wrong on a particular issue but on everything.
Squeegee Beckenheim
Penultimate Amazing
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As you've popped back in, qwints, is there any chance you could link to the research I asked you to last time you were here?
MarkCorrigan
Героям слава!
Please tell me you see the irony.
qwints
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@Squeegee, here's another study I find persuasive.
On the other hand, here's a meta-analysis that found no result.
@Mark, I don't. I'm talking about people I've talked with both here and on atheismplus.
On the other hand, here's a meta-analysis that found no result.
@Mark, I don't. I'm talking about people I've talked with both here and on atheismplus.
Diogenes
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If anything atheismplus.com has resulting in me having less empathy and less sympathy for self-identified SJW folks than I had before. The levels of narcissistic self-enabling reached heights that I honestly thought were only possible in fiction. There are people that, apparently, have such a delicate disposition that their internet access probably should be supervised or restricted in some way for their own health.
I did learn what kinds of language to look out for that will tell me the train is about to leave the station for crazytown, so that was a very useful lesson. Anytime I see "privilege" come up in a non-academic context I'll know it is time to ask for the check and vacate the premises.
Squeegee Beckenheim
Penultimate Amazing
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From the study itself, page 7:
In other words, it cannot be determined which is the cart and which is the horse.
I also question the methodology. Self-assessment isn't a particularly reliable way of assessing the factors they're exploring. Furthermore, the whole stuty seems to be based around Anderson's flawed studies. And, rather than assessing changes in people over time, what they did was survey people from grades 9 through 12 and then compare them with predictive modelling.
Where they do compare aggression and violent video game playing to see whether one is predictive of another, they only do so for grades 11 and 12, which is exactly the same as the previous studies they were criticising and the flaws of which they claimed they did this study to eliminate. Also, while they claim to account for third variables, they only account for those in grade 11. In other words they controlled for variables such as violent home life, marijuana use*, etc. in the grade 12 children by using survey results gathered from an entirely different set of grade 11 children.
And I question whether those results actually say what they claim they do. They claim that frequency of violent video game playing in grade 11 significantly predicted aggression in grade 12, but that aggression in grade 11 didn't significantly predict violent video game playing in grade 12. However, if you look at figure 3 with the controls for external factors, you'll see that there's a 0.08 correlation between aggression in grade 11 and violent video game playing in grade 12, and a 0.08 correlation between violent video game playing in grade 11 and aggression in grade 12. That's exactly the same.
To be fair, though, most of these criticisms are noted by the authors in the discussion section, and they also make the point that there is no indication that it is the violence, rather than the increased competition and pace of violent video games which have these effects (if, indeed, such effects exist). In fact, two of the three authors have published another study which purports to show that any effects are the effects of competition and that violent content is irrelevant. I've not yet read this study, so can't comment on the contents, but I thought it was an interesting thing to note.
*And I would love to know whether they thought being a heavy toker was likely to make you more or less violent.
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