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

cornsail said:
Was the "gelato guy" incident pre-conversion PZ? Or how about his original article bashing "dictionary atheists"?
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I'd have to go with post conversion. Dictionary atheists mentions SJ and gelato guy is in the same year. The PZ Myers isn't a feminist video dates his non feminist comments to 2010. I'm wondering whether he got his ass handed to him, privately, after Skepticon 3
 
d4m10n said:
It may well be hypocrisy for him to give himself a special pass nowadays, Dissolution. I'm not fully convinced.

Is there a morally significant differences between a joke about sex that offends no one and violates no conference policies and a joke about sex that offends someone who expected not to hear sexist jokes because of stringent policies already put in place? Does it make sense to say these two situations are all that comparable?
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Myers didn't know at least one of the women that he made sex jokes at, so he had no way of knowing whether they'd be offended or not.
That they weren't is just good fortune.

He also believes that such events should have well defined anti-harassment policies and has posted about it extensively, so the fact that there wasn't one in place is irrelevant.
He backed Adria Richards when she complained about sexual jokes at a conference, so why does he give himself a pass to do exactly the same thing?
He backs their code of conduct, which expressly forbids sexual language under their harassment section, but doesn't see similar and probably worse behaviour as harassment.
 
Dissolution said:
Myers didn't know at least one of the women that he made sex jokes at, so he had no way of knowing whether they'd be offended or not. That they weren't is just good fortune.
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Fortuitous for PZ and for Kate and for Skepticon as an institution.

Dissolution said:
He also believes that such events should have well defined anti-harassment policies and has posted about it extensively, so the fact that there wasn't one in place is irrelevant.
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You don't have any evidence to show that he believed that, or had even thought about this problem at all, back in 2010. I maintain only that he did nothing wrong at the event in 2010.

Dissolution said:
He backed Adria Richards when she complained about sexual jokes at a conference, so why does he give himself a pass to do exactly the same thing?
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If you really want to know why he gives himself a pass, you'll have to ask him.

That said, I don't know why you call these two situations "exactly the same thing" when I've already pointed out at least three potentially salient differences:

1) PyCon attendees agreed to the PyCon 2013 Code of Conduct, which includes the statement that "Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue," whereas Skepticon III attendees agreed to no such thing.

2) Adria relied on that Code of Conduct to provide a certain sort of experience and she was disappointed as a result. Kate tweeted happily about her experience at Skepticon III.

3) Professional conferences are not quite the same beast as free student-run recreational conferences, in terms of the social decorum expected of attendees.
 
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If one's goal is to make PZ look bad it seems a foolish strategy to me to harp on something he did that most people wouldn't consider a big deal on the implicit basis that it doesn't live up to his own standards (that readers will be aware of to varying extents if at all). Since PZ's Adria Richards article was mentioned in contrast, wouldn't bringing up that be a much more compelling criticism?
 
Wow. This is just amazing. Melody Hensley tweeted that she will contact the commanding officers of anyone who "harasses" her for trying to tell her that her Twitter PTSD isn't comparable to PTSD.

Well, this is one way for skeptics to win over the heartland:

Military/ex-military combat folks: there are groups that have higher statistics of PTSD than you. You need to educate yourself.
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Feel free to ask her to clarify her thoughts, but she'll likely block you.
 
Wow.

I honestly didn't think the hypocrisy could stun me anymore, but reading the Ogvorbis post--especially the second link, which I'll put up again, and in which Ogvorbis specifically says takes place when he was older than the first time--and seeing how much sympathy and support a literal rapist gets, and then contrasting that with the vitriol launched at Radford, Krauss, etc., whom even if they are guilty of everything they are accused of does not even come close to rape... it's awful. Amazingly, terribly awful. This is beyond mere hypocrisy.

Usually, the A+ stuff is just stupid, like the 'Twitter PTSD' thing (sure, Melody, I'm sure that hostile tweets are just like being in a literal war zone). But the Ogvorbis thing is really, honestly awful.
 
Skiltch said:
Wow.

I honestly didn't think the hypocrisy could stun me anymore, but reading the Ogvorbis post--especially the second link, which I'll put up again, and in which Ogvorbis specifically says takes place when he was older than the first time--
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Of course he was older the second time than he was the first time. That is a logical necessity. The fact remains that he described himself as being 12 years old the second time.
 
cornsail said:
Of course he was older the second time than he was the first time. That is a logical necessity. The fact remains that he described himself as being 12 years old the second time.
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The way I read it was that he was 12 years old the first time he raped, and still older the second time. "The age difference was even greater", he said, which implies to me like he was substantially older.
 
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SimplyAghast said:
Wow. This is just amazing. Melody Hensley tweeted that she will contact the commanding officers of anyone who "harasses" her for trying to tell her that her Twitter PTSD isn't comparable to PTSD.

Well, this is one way for skeptics to win over the heartland:



Feel free to ask her to clarify her thoughts, but she'll likely block you.
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OK, now we know this is all a put on. Nobody could be that stupid.
 
d4m10n said:
So glad you asked. http://storify.com/D4M10N/conversation-with-melodyhensley-and-improbablejoe
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Wow

I read some of her Twitter feed last night. I'll give her that she was diagnosed with something but I'm not buying it's PTSD from reading the internet.

She appeared to be arguing with a trans* about who belongs in the trans* community ( and ignoring all that stuff I learned about genderqueer last year, right here on this very thread ) and calling some guy an MRA harasser.

I'm thinking about a certain type of mechanical clock right now, one typically associated with Germany or Switzerland.
 
I think pretty much anybody who uses a phrase like "that's 101 stuff" can safely be ignored on almost every topic.
 
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