Continued: (Ed) Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

He presented no arguments here at all, he replied with his usual snark. I enjoy his snark, I have a sick and twisted sense of humor, but that is just me.

He misrepresented Squeegee's posts with his snark, however.

10 minutes of the beginning of a 90 minute video is not enough of the video to determine whether he has reasoned and supported arguments there.

If you can't get past your difficulty with the way he presents things then you probably won't get anything from the video.

You can either watch the thing and see if he has anything of value to say or not.

Look, part of the problems we all seem to have is in making judgments based on one or two comments people make. We dismiss people quickly and determine that we don't have to bother listening to those individuals again. This can be useful in day to day life when we have lots of draws on our attention and little time to spare, however it means we fail to give people a second chance. It means we put people in little boxes and don't bother to see if maybe they do have valuable things to say. It causes rifts and misunderstandings and narrows our view of the world. It creates cliques and factions. It reinforces our own biases. We are all guilty of this.

I like to come to the JREF to remind myself to listen to others, especially if I don't agree with them, especially if they have a different world view. It doesn't eliminate my biases, but it reminds me that I have them. Sometimes I do learn from these other individuals, even if it is just that they are human like me.

Now, this is all a bit of a derail from Mykeru's video, however we are in a thread about Atheism+/FTB and I would hate to see us go the direction they have.

This post comes off as very strange. You encouraged people to watch a long video and some of us (myself included) didn't care for it so we stopped watching. I don't see the issue.
 
He presented no arguments here at all, he replied with his usual snark.

He misrepresented what I said and ascribed motives to me based on nothing but his imagination. It is possible to be snarky and honest. It is possible to be snarky and rational.

10 minutes of the beginning of a 90 minute video is not enough of the video to determine whether he has reasoned and supported arguments there.

As I said, I've watched 15 minutes. And that's certainly long enough to determine whether his arguments within those 15 minutes are reasoned and supported. Given that they aren't, I see no reason to suppose that the arguments past the 15 minute mark will suddenly change dramatically, especially given the evidence of this thread.

This can be useful in day to day life when we have lots of draws on our attention and little time to spare, however it means we fail to give people a second chance.

I've already given the video a second chance. And my every post on the subject bar the one immediately preceding this has been asking for people to give me a reason to give the video another chance, be it that second chance or subsequently a third. So you can't really say that I'm unwilling to give anything a second chance.

In fact, I'm still open to being convinced.

Now, this is all a bit of a derail from Mykeru's video, however we are in a thread about Atheism+/FTB and I would hate to see us go the direction they have.

The way to avoid going the way of A+ and FTB is to try, as much as possible, to make our thinking based on evidence and reason, as opposed to emotion and empty rhetoric. This is the opposite of what I've seen from Mykeru.
 
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Compare notes. Steal **** for the Director's Cut.

Good work on the video. I enjoyed it.

One tip for the director's cut and one minor quibble: You didn't pick up on the pissweak notpology that the BBC put out at the end of Newsnight a couple of days later. Also the music in the video got kind of annoying after a while so I'd humbly suggest either mixing it lower (at least) or putting in more variety somehow (preferred) in future.
 
Recent notes in A+ fora. New animal rights thread! The OP is the type that talks about "animal holocaust" and "concentration camp factory farms", which can be annoying. But the incredibly standard comparison between human and animal suffering and animal intelligence vs edge case human intelligence? Obviously complete no gos, but these are things you really have to cover if you are going to attempt speciesism or debunking it.

Next we have Buddhism. They explicitly cover that it does not get the "religion of brown people" pass that Islam does. Makes sense :rolleyes: .
 
Recent notes in A+ fora. New animal rights thread! The OP is the type that talks about "animal holocaust" and "concentration camp factory farms", which can be annoying. But the incredibly standard comparison between human and animal suffering and animal intelligence vs edge case human intelligence? Obviously complete no gos, but these are things you really have to cover if you are going to attempt speciesism or debunking it.

Next we have Buddhism. They explicitly cover that it does not get the "religion of brown people" pass that Islam does. Makes sense :rolleyes: .

The religion of the saffron people?
 
Well, the person who started the threads I linked to has flounced, and because she was a PoC some are wondering the way things went down were bad... Nah. Some in the Mod thread also speculated that she was a troll, but that is neither here nor there. Naturally, we now get a remedial course about righteous anger.

More interesting is this "reverse bigotry" discussion. My default skepticism of people who use such language remains, but it seems so particularly apt here.

Lovely said:
First of all saying "Rich people are bigoted violent ********" does not say "all". And we get this a lot around here. A phrase does not need to use the word "some" or couch language to make it clear that the "good" people aren't included in criticism.

A supporter coming here to learn or participate, who should lurk and do a lot of reading, is going to have to understand that we aren't going to tell anyone from an oppressed class to say anything nicely when their responding to something harmful.

Let me make this perfectly clear.

In this space, phrases similar to "[Oppressors/Oppressor class] do [oppressive action] and are [non-slur/non-oppressive pejorative] when they do that" will always be allowed.

It is OK on this forum for people to say any of the following:

White people are racist.

Men should really stop catcalling women.

Rich people do real harm to poor people.

Cis people have got to stop with the gender binary.

On this site, the above are even allowed to be said in much harsher language.

People are allowed to express their frustration at their oppressors, and the bad things that oppressors do.

Being "rich" is not a protected class. (Hah, at least not technically legally... even though they have all the protection they need where I'm from.)

SubMor said:
Abusing anyone is wrong. Do note that saying "(majority group) (does/believes) (bad thing)!" is not abusive, however.

The problem isn't the mere existence of rich people who are bad; it's that economic systems of oppression exists because of the efforts of rich people who are bad (and the other rich people who don't act in resistance to those bad actors). If the majority of rich people favored measures of equality, a statement like "rich people are bigoted" would be nonsensical. The statement only matters to the extent that rich people's choices (both personal and political) affect the rest of society. This definitely doesn't mean that all rich people are bigoted/etc.

It's also not equivalent to "all (minority group) people are (offensive label)" because of social power dynamics. "All (minority group) people are (offensive label)" is damaging to the extent that (minority group) exists in a state of marginalization—if a white person goes to a country where white people are not the political majority, that isn't the same as if they go to a country where they are actively oppressed (if any such country exists). The weight such a statement carries depends entirely on its social context.

I understand why some people find generalizations about groups of people distasteful without regard for whether those groups are privileged/oppressed, but to the extent that language is a social action, when we're considering the effects of our language, that distinction is actually relevant.

This may come down to something like a difference in moral reasoning—person A might prefer to prioritize a rule (e.g., "don't generalize") whereas person B might prefer to prioritize consequences (e.g., "don't cause harm," which might only discourage generalizations which cause harm).

It most certainly does not. Noting the existence of power differentials and the consequences of those disparities does not in any way condone mistreatment of those who belong to privileged groups.

Linky.
 
It is OK on this forum for people to say any of the following:

White people are racist.

Men should really stop catcalling women.

Rich people do real harm to poor people.

Cis people have got to stop with the gender binary.

:rolleyes:

So basically they won't bother using one teeny-tiny qualifier word ("some"), because... ? !@#$ the non-minorities?
 
:rolleyes:

So basically they won't bother using one teeny-tiny qualifier word ("some"), because... ? !@#$ the non-minorities?

You must construct every sentence with utmost care in order to avoid any hint of offence, ritually kowtow to all less-privileged entities present, and abjectly and instantly apologise if somehow offence is taken anyway.

I can say any offensive things I want.

Because I am oppressed, you scumbag!
 
Atheism Plus : we manufacture more offence before 9 am than most people do all day(tm).
 
You must construct every sentence with utmost care in order to avoid any hint of offence, ritually kowtow to all less-privileged entities present, and abjectly and instantly apologise if somehow offence is taken anyway.

I can say any offensive things I want.

Because I am oppressed, you scumbag!

This is pretty well what happen to Nok Lek, a Thai woman, who brought some interesting discussions to A+. She quit before getting banned. Amadan was the only one who made sense during the whole debacle. It is clear that A+ is not interested in the opinions of minorities from non-Western countries since they might challenge the dogma of the clique.

This is as close as a religious cult as you can get; read the "Giant basket o'links" (bible), follow the rules religiously, otherwise you get excommunicated.
 
You must construct every sentence with utmost care in order to avoid any hint of offence, ritually kowtow to all less-privileged entities present, and abjectly and instantly apologise if somehow offence is taken anyway.

I can say any offensive things I want.

Now now, not just any offensive things. Only "non-slur/non-oppressive pejoratives" are allowed! Because even words of righteous anger have to be meticulously crafted to fall within rigorous SJW guidelines, and couched in ridiculously protracted and elaborate terminology.
 
I finally figured out what bothers me about the Social Justice movement as it generally manifests and it has nothing to do with the goal of justice or fairness. It isn't even the reliance on politics, ideology, and emotional appeals rather than evidence that bugs me the most.

No the thing which irks me is the same thing that I find so distasteful in evangelical religion and semi-cults like Alcoholics Anonymous; the concept that we are all sinners and that we need to be saved, and the preacher has exactly the solution we need.

As with religion, the person has to be convinced that they are spiritually sick and they lack agency to fix the problem themselves. With religions it is 'original sin' or 'evil' that people are unable to overcome and with SJWs it is the omnipotent corporation, society, racism or patriarchy that we are powerless against. In either case we are sick with sin or racism or sexism and we have to admit we are sick and that are powerless (lack agency) to change. Also, like religion, the refusal to admit to the sickness (sin/racism/sexism) and submit to the solution (salvation/adoption of politics and ideology) is seen as definitive proof of the sickness. This type of logic cul-de-sac is what I find so repulsive about religion and many activists' approach to social justice issues.

I developed this aversion of this tactic by falling for it several times in my life. Now I simply refuse to play the game of accepting the dogma that we all are sinners/racists/sexists and that we cannot move forward (whatever that means) until we admit our sin/racism/sexism.

Actions are what counts, not religious (or quasi-religious) penance and salvation. What I am interested in is what actions I can do to promote true equality, I am not interested in joining a cult or adopting a faith-based ideology.

That fact that such an quasi-religious ideology has infected that atheist/skeptic movement is doubly shameful because we of all people should know better.
 
Have Richard Dawkins and Rebecca Watson made peace? A few episodes back of the SGU, she positively referred to his book The Magic of Reality. Doesn't fit well with a boycott.
 

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