Ban Bossy-Why ‘Feminism’ poisons EVERYTHING (Part 2):- transcript

Many thanks to Linda for creating this Transcript!

[0:00] Thunderf00t: This is your brain. This is your brain on a new wave of feminism:

 

[0:05] clip: “Bossy, bossy, bossy”

“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”

“Being labelled something matters”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”

 

[0:21] Thunderf00t: Yeah. That’s right, what else could possibly explain the lack of women in leadership roles but the word:

 

[0:27] clip: “bossy”

 

[0:28] Thunderf00t: And what better way to correct that than by banning a word?

 

[0:32] clip: “We need to help them lean in”

“Words matter”

“Let’s just ban the word ‘bossy’”

 

[0:38] Thunderf00t: Yes, apparently this is the latest in the string of feminist explanations to explain why there aren’t more women in certain fields. I mean, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in humans. You know, that OUTRAGEOUSLY SEXIST reason why we split up the Olympics by sex.

 

[0:54] clip: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender is a deeply ingrained, socially constructed myth. Which, of course is completely false”

 

[1:03] Thunderf00t: Or the fact that the physical dimorphism is accompanied by behavioral dimorphism as well. You know, it’s a consequence of having that neural net we call a ‘brain’, marinaded in mostly one hormone or another—nah, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in the behavior of humans. It’s all bound to the word ‘bossy’.

 

[1:23] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”

“Being labelled something matters”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”

 

[1:37] Thunderf00t: First we have those feminists, like Rebecca Watson:

 

[1:40] clip: “That’s right, you liberal, intellectual guy, who has a healthy interest in science and skepticism, but who finds feminism distasteful and would rather not hear about it. You are worse than rape threats”

 

[1:54] Thunderf00t: -who told us that sexism in Atheism was so bad, that a woman could get ASKED FOR COFFEE in an elevator. And THAT’S why there aren’t so many women in atheism. While she simultaneously thinks that starting a charity fund raiser by spitefully insulting every, single, male atheist in the audience, is just funnnny.

 

[2:17] clip: “I opened with a joke, referencing the fact that”

“Hello, YouTube. It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. And, I’m guessing that you’ve missed me too. Because I’ve heard that if a male atheist on YouTube goes too long without calling a woman a cunt, his balls will actually shrivel up, and then tuck up inside of him, forming what some call a ‘mangina’”

“Most people, got the joke”

“Most people, got the joke”

“Rule number one: don’t try to be funny, even though you are obviously not funny”

 

[2:50] Thunderf00t: Seriously, you start your video by spitting in people’s faces, and then blame the people whose faces that you’ve just spat in, for not finding it funny.

 

[3:01] clip: “You think that my sarcasm and feminism causes misogyny. In the same way that birds flying south for the winter causes the snow to come”

 

[3:11] Thunderf00t: No, Rebecca. I think that people are pissed at you, was CAUSED by you SPITTING IN THEIR FACES for exactly the same reason that I think smoking causes cancer. And then you portray the fact that they’re pissed off that you spat in their faces, as a reason why you’re persecuted, and people need to give you money. Or maybe that’s the whole point.

 

[3:33] clip: “I’m gonna continue speaking out about feminism and harassment of women online. Why? Because it pisses you off.

 

[3:40] Thunderf00t: And then we have the “pop culture critic” who doesn’t even like playing computer games, ‘cause it’s “gross”

 

[3:47] clip: “And also, videogames—like, I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”

 

[3:54] Thunderf00t: -telling people that the reason that she doesn’t like computer games is because it’s “gross”. Oh, no. That won’t do at all. That doesn’t involve accusing people of sexism or blaming men. Yes, the reason she doesn’t like playing computer games is because of the “sexist depiction of women in computer games”. Especially the ones that involve:

 

[4:14] clip: “shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”

 

[4:17] Thunderf00t: -an argument that is just so mind-blowingly stupid. It’s like calling Victoria’s Secret ‘sexist’ because they only make lingerie in women’s sizes, and that they don’t use an equal number of men to model their lingerie. Yes, the first-person shooter industry demographic is mostly men. Because most girls, like Anita here find that sort of thing “gross”.

 

[4:42] clip from “boom headshot” (Hahaha! Damn)

 

[4:48] clip: “shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”

 

[4:51] Thunderf00t: Look, Anita. Just because you CHOOSE not to play a game that doesn’t appeal to you—that doesn’t make it sexist. You choosing not to play that game DOES NOT mean that you are being discriminated against by an unquestioning boys club.

 

[5:05] clip: “-is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space . . . And all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club”

“I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”

 

[5:24] Thunderf00t: Just like when I choose not to go shopping for lingerie because it doesn’t appeal to me—that’s not sexism, I am not being discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club.

 

[5:35] Now, if that what I was after, there are FAR easier ways to get discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club. Like the one that gave you $160,000 to make some videos.

 

[5:46] clip: “I actually raised twenty-five times what I initially asked for . . . Nearly seven-thousand individuals contributed to make my “Tropes vs Women in Videogames” project bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”

 

[6:03] Thunderf00t: Of which you’ve made four. In two years. $160,000. Or maybe that’s the whole point. Oh yeah, good business is where you find it. And selling victimhood to feminism is just as easy as selling a persecution complex to the religious.

 

[6:25] clip: “Listen, we have an outstanding broadcast here today. I took the time to do a compilation concerning Christian persecution in America. Check this out:

 

[6:35] Thunderf00t: And almost as profitable.

 

[6:37] clip: “There is coming a time very quickly here in America that we will not be able to bring this gospel message the way we currently are. That’s why we are urging you to donate today to continue and expand the work of this broadcast ministry before the lights go out. God bless you.

 

[6:55] Thunderf00t: And now you get this outrageous spinoff that the reason that there aren’t as many women managers is because they don’t like being called ‘bossy’. Because apparently the patriarchy has imbued men with this unholy power not to be discouraged by being called bossy. While these feminists think that women need special treatment, because ‘they’re emotionally fragile creatures than men’. Of course, if I were to say that women are more emotionally fragile creatures and need special protection from being called ‘bossy’ they would instantly label me as outrageously sexist and misogynistic.

 

[7:28] clip: “-horrible bigots, like Thunderf00t”

 

[7:31]: But these feminists think they are showing just how well women can compete on a level playing-field by saying that women are too emotionally fragile to handle being called ‘bossy’.

 

[7:44] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”

“Being labelled something matters”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”

 

[7:58] Thunderf00t: Ah, the face palm fails me. Look, let me say it once. Let me say it loud and let me say it clear: humans are a sexually dimorphic species. MEN and WOMEN are BIOLOGICALLY different. Which MAY or MAY NOT mean, that women are more biologically, emotionally fragile.

 

[8:21]: However, what we call ‘fair’ in society is equality of opportunity. Which in a sexually dimorphic species DOES NOT guarantee equality of outcome. In simple, simple terms the reason that it’s men who invariably end up shifting a couch up the stairs, is NOT because of sexism. Men are not conspiring to keep the couch-moving trade the “boys only” club with all the privileges and entitlements that come with it. It’s simply that they’re physiologically better-suited for it. You know, the same reason we divide the Olympics up by sex without everyone losing their shit and calling it sexism. If you wanna call it ‘sexism’, it’s simple. You have to show that there was not equality of opportunity. ‘Cause in a sexually dimorphic species, showing inequality of outcome, just doesn’t cut it.

 

[9:20]: But setting aside the 1984-style aspirations of being able to control words

 

[9:26] clip: “This is “Ban Bossy” take one”

 

[9:28] Thunderf00t: Well, I wouldn’t mind so much, but one of the women they have on board was Condoleezza Rice.

 

[9:35] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”

 

[9:39] Thunderf00t: Here’s a radical notion: maybe we should BAN POLITICIANS from telling bold-faced lies to the public to take them into an unjustified war.

 

[9:47] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”

 

[9:51] Thunderf00t: You know, one that’ll kill tens of thousands of people.

 

[9:55] clip: “There are no limits”

 

[9:57] Thunderf00t: -BEFORE we worry about banning the word ‘bossy’. Just sayin’.

 

[10:02] clip: “BAN ‘bossy’ . . . Join us to ban ‘bossy’”

 

[10:10] Thunderf00t: Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. The U.S. Secretary of education saw this, and thought, ‘Oh, ban ‘bossy’. That’s a really good idea. I really want to be a part of that!’

Epic Feminist Fails of our time: ‘Ban Bossy

[0:00] Thunderf00t: The reason that the “Ban Bossy” Campaign was one of the most EPIC face plants of our time, is that it was so incredibly poorly thought out on the most simplistic and rudimentary levels.

[0:17] There’s an irony in telling people to, ‘ban the word bossy!’ It is, well, kind of BOSSY.

[0:22] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”

[0:25] Thunderf00t: I mean, seriously, did no one in this campaign think of the internal inconsistencies here? It portrays women as less suitable for leadership, in that if your dreams of leadership can be undermined simply by being called ‘bossy’, it’s highly questionable if you were ever suitable for making those tough decisions of leadership in the first place.

[0:44]: Then there’s the 1984 police-state solution of BANNING WORDS.

[0:49] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”

[0:53] Thunderf00t: It makes the incredible leap that girls lose interest in leadership when they become teenagers, and then attribute this to the word ‘bossy’.

[1:01] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”

[1:14] Thunderf00t: Even if it WASN’T a pure distortion of the actual original study, it would be one HELL of a leap of faith to NOT attribute the change in boys and girls with adolescence, and instead say, naah, it has nothing to do with adolescence. It’s all down to a SINGLE WORD.

[1:33]: Put simply the, uuh, factual basis of this ENTIRE campaign was BULLSHIT. They claim that being called ‘bossy’ keeps women from leadership. Yet EVERY single example they give of women in leadership says they were called ‘BOSSY’!

[1:52] clip from YouTube, “Ban Bossy—I’m Not Bossy. I’m the Boss.”

[1:56] Thunderf00t: And they STILL ended up in leadership of one sort or another. I don’t think you really thought that one through, did you?

[2:03]: And finally, even if EEVERY single thing they said was true, they’ve just advertised the way to destroy EVERY woman in a leadership role in America.

[2:14] clip from YouTube, “The Doctor Vs The Prime Minister – Doctor Who . . .” and clip from “Ban Bossy”

[2:43] Thunderf00t: I mean you can see ‘em now, all sat around, pumped up and brainstorming in their Donald Trump’s Tower boardroom:

‘We need something short, punchy, catchy—something people will remember. Oh! Alliteration’s good. I know—how about banning a word? But we need a word that starts with ‘b’. Not bitch. That’s a naughty word; we don’t want to ban naughty words, just ones that hurt women’s feelings. Ones we can portray as sexist. Okay—look, sure, I know that ‘bitch’ hurts women’s feelings too. And it can be portrayed as sexist. But look, we just don’t want a feminist campaign with the word ‘bitch’ in the title. Okaay? We need something short, something punchy. Wow! BAN BOSSY! Yeah, ban bossy! Now all we need is a load of women in leadership to say that they got called ‘bossy’ and how it destroyed their chances of leadership. Don’t worry about the inconsistencieees. No one’s that observant. And then we’ll just use their billionaire’s brown-nosed network to get the U.S. Secretary of Education involved with BANNING WORDS. And then all we need is a pretty object to put on the front of it. Yeah, a woman of some sort. Don’t worry, this is a feminist campaign. We only call it sexism and objectification when OTHER people use beautiful women to sell things. Ah! Perfection. What could possibly go wrong?’

[4:04]: This was all actually backed by an impressive array of successful women, most notably was Sheryl Sandberg’s baby. Sandberg is listed as being worth about a billion dollars. A billion dollars is actually quite a lot of money. Just to put that into perspective, let say this video gets 25,000 views. From her wealth, she could pay each one of those 25,000 people an average U.S. salary of about $40,000. So, she can’t be a complete idiot. Right? Eeeh, that’s until you realize that Donald Trump is worth three to four Sandbergs. Crazy thing is, if you watch Sandberg’s TED Talk, you’ll realize that she already understands why there aren’t so many women in leadership. She describes it EXACTLY: ‘women typically want to have children’:

[4:54] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “And from the moment she starts thinking about having a child, she starts thinking about making room for that child: how am I going to fit this into everything else I’m doing? And literally from that moment, she doesn’t raise her hand anymore. She doesn’t look for a promotion, she doesn’t take on the new projects, she doesn’t say ‘me, I wanna do that’. She starts leaning back.”

[5:14] Thunderf00t: And childbearing age comes right bang in the middle of career development. And then, a sophisticated and dynamic job [?] is typical of leadership, of those privileged enough to have those jobs.

[5:27] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “In the high income part of our workforce in the people who end up at the top Fortune 500 CEO jobs or the equivalent in other industries, the problem that I am convinced is that women are dropping out.”

[5:40] Thunderf00t: Being out of the loop for six months or a year-

[5:42] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “Nine months of pregnancy, three months of maternity leave, six months to catch your breath-”

[5:47] Thunderf00t: -makes it much harder to come back and compete at the top of the pile. So she basically describes how they play it safe—they lean back in more supporting roles rather than leadership ones. They lose interest in being at the top of the greasy pole.

[6:03]: After all, is it really worth pissing your life away, fighting to be at the top of the greasy pole, simply so you can say you have three billion dollars rather than one? Really, when you’re on your death bed, do you really believe that you will look back and think, ‘yeah, I’m really glad that I decided to spend so much of my life dedicated to staying at the top of the greasy pole, simply so I can die with a four and a lot of zeroes after my name, rather than a one and a lot of zeroes’?

[6:32]: In fact, to be honest, in your boardroom, Sandberg, if you were privileged with that choice-

[6:37] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “Everyone who’s been through this, and I’m here to tell you, once you have a child at home, your job better be really good to go back, because it’s hard to leave that kid at home.”

[6:46] Thunderf00t: I would say, that leaning back and living life is by far the best choice. Exchanging life for money that you could never possibly spend, is just a fool’s errand.

[6:58] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “When I was in college, my senior year, I took a course called “European Intellectual History”. Don’t you love that kind of thing from college? Wish I could do that now.”

[7:06] Thunderf00t: Seriously, she’s, say, 44 now. Let’s say she lives another 50 years. If she doesn’t earn a single penny for the rest of her life, she would have to spend TWENTY MILLION dollars a year. That’s five hundred times the average salary of an American, just to consume her wealth.

[7:25] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “Don’t you love that kind of thing from college? Wish I could do that now.”
“The numbers tell the story quite clearly. 190 Heads of State; 9 are women . . . And out of 193 world leaders, just 17 are women . . . 80% of political offices being occupied by men . . . less than ¼ MP’s is a woman . . . of all the people in parliament in the world, 13% are women . . . Men occupying the highest ranks in virtually EVERY industry in the world . . . in the corporate sector, women at the top, C level jobs, board seats, tops out at 15-16%. The numbers have not moved since 2002, and are going in the wrong direction.”

[8:08] Thunderf00t: Sandberg describes this women-losing-interest-in-leadership, in detail in her TED Talk. She UNDERSTANDS the reasons. But what I’m missing out on here, is where is the sexism in this picture? WHO is discriminating against the women here? The different representations of men and women she basically describes as being down to lifestyle choices.

[8:33] clip from YouTube, Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders”: “-and I’m here to tell you, once you have a child at home, your job better be really good to go back, because it’s hard to leave that kid at home.”

[8:41] Thunderf00t: WHERE is the sexism in that? Where is the sexism in not finding women at the top of the greasy pole?

[8:50] clip from DNews?: “-men occupying the highest ranks in virtually EVERY industry in the world.”

Many thanks to Linda for supplying the transcript!

On the Failure of Atheist Organizations and Choosing Life!

Y’know I kinda knew it all along that feminism was the third rails here.  You can even see it in the very first video I put up on this subject, that I knew this was going to end ugly (“tactically dumb” I think were the words I used).  I really didn’t have a ‘dog in this fight’ beyond the fact that having all these professional victims trying to pass off the most mild transgressions as systematic and pervasive misogyny in the secular community, really did make the group that took this seriously looks like a bunch of jokers, and then to have ‘leaders’ of the community take an accommodationist stance to such professional victim-hood really doesn’t inspire one with much faith that these are dynamic organization capable of prioritizing and focusing on important goals to achieve results.

Having said that, I don’t really feel too badly about how this all came out.  I certainly learned a lot on the journey about the nature of this community, and why so much (although notably not all) of it is operationally ineffective.

In the current case the problem seems to be quite simple, that a group, notable centered around Freethoughtblogs and Skepchick have mistaken (initially arguably accidentally, but later apparently willfully) the odd troll as ‘evidence’ that the community is ridden with misogynists etc.  Indeed now it seems that folks from these forums almost relish the trolling, as they can then use it to ‘score some online pity’.  This path of ‘embracing victim-hood’ is not healthy for them or the community and ends in this hypersentivity to criticism that really doesn’t do anyone any good (‘use the block and ban functions’ urges Rebecca Watson in 100% VFX terms, and we all know how well that worked out for him!).  For instance they see the word “bitch is a gendered insult that demeans ALL women” (a point which Rebecca Watson of Skepchick assures us is so uncontroversial that almost everyone ‘gets’ it), but will have no problem in using the words “don’t be a dick” in their guidelines for their new ‘Atheism Plus’ forum (whose rules prohibit degrading people using sexual slurs).

Yes, ‘Bitch is a gendered insult to all women’ but in the utterly consistent Utopian world of AtheismPlus, ‘dick’ (mentioned only one line earlier in the forum rules!) does not count as the hate speech of a gender slur.

When such casual and common use of language becomes a matter of heated debate, arguably you have already been rendered operationally impotent by your political correctness.  Take another example.  The founder of atheism plus is quite candid about being ‘banned’ from the internet by her boyfriend, while doubtless if I had similarly imposed such restrictions on my girlfriend I would have been labeled a misogynist intent on subjugating women (“WHY NOT JUST TELL HER TO GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN!” etc) and she a propagator of destructive submissive female stereotypes, a gender traitor and therefore a rape culture enabler etc etc.  This is the disproportionate destination you arrive at when you are so sensitive to criticism: seeing the most banal activities that you engage in everyday as fine and healthy but as evidence of horrible sexism endemic in society when anyone else does it.  It also seems to have enabled a formidable cognitive dissonance in these folks.  For example many of these people consider “you’re only a feminist because you are old fat and ugly” as some great evil that should get you pilloried, but have no problem in thinking that saying “you’re only a misogynist because your privilege as a member of the patriarchy means you don’t ‘get it’ ” is some great argument winner.  In both cases the statement may well be perfectly accurate, but even if they were, the arguments constitute little more than personal mudslinging, while the more virtuous path would have been to actually address the argument, not the person.  Yet the latter example here is typically considered by such folks to be an argument winner, but the former beyond the pale as an ad hominem.  The cognitive dissonance is formidable.

However, going back to the original problem though, personally I wouldn’t give such trolls the time of day.  Example in question, coughlan616 in a recent exchange (over a month ago at the time of writing) ended up suggesting that he had performed needless sexual exchanges with my mother.

Inject yourself into the free speech arena? Better be ready for the slings and arrows! However that does not mean those who have not injected themselves into that arena are ‘fair game’.  For those with an interest, this was the full exchange.

Did I go ballistic at this and get a load of ‘secular leaders’ to write letters of support saying that this sort of hate should not be tolerated?

Did I campaign for a code of conduct for the atheist community etc?

Did I demand that anyone who opposed my proposed changes be driven out as C.H.U.D.s, as rejecting my proposals clearly meant that they endorsed Coughlan’s views?

Did I sit there crying at how unsafe this made me feel until someone paid attention?

No! I just ignored him.  If he wants to use his freedom of speech in the open arena to be a dick, that’s his affair. However there are of course some limits, and arguably coughlan crossed those in this case. Not by insulting me, as I’ve CHOSEN to inject myself into the public domain, and in such a free speech arena you have to suffer the slings and arrows of that arena.  This is not true however of my mother (see ‘YOUR MOTHERS A WHORE.. and other stuff‘.  She did not inject herself into the public arena, and is not therefore fair game.  Nor is impersonation, and various other elements such as slander and liable etc, but outside that, everything else, within a VERY broad remit is pretty much fair game.

This is in stark contrast to the way in which the ‘atheism plus’ people apparently think things should go, where one of them says that saying something that hurts someones feelings should be regarded in the same fashion as physical assault.

This is simply bullshit, and it is a damning indictment of everyone in that room that not one of them, not PZ Myers, Rebecca Watson or Jen McCreight actually stood up or questioned this proposition that would involve no less than the abolishment of the first amendment.

AtheismPlus, as defended by PZ Myers, Rebecca Watson, Jen McCreight and other is about as popular with their own base (freethinkers?) as venomfangxs arguments are with his audience!  A religious man would say ‘God is trying to tell you something there!’

Indeed the mere fact that even with their ‘home audience’ (secularists and rationalist?) they can only get a video rating comparable to that of venomfangx should be giving them a warning that a lot of people actually have issues with what they are saying.  I mean did they not think this through merely on personal-gain-logistical-grounds?  That if just one person finds their comments hurtful, then they will be prohibited from talking about it on freethoughtblogs and skepchick or get prosecuted for ‘assault’.

However, I’ve become increasingly of the opinion that these people are functionally incompetent, to the point where ‘being drummed out of such a community’ is not actually a punishment but a welcome and valuable gift.

My opinions of this were further backed up by checking out the google ‘web interest’ stats on this which show that I actually have a sizably bigger footprint that freethoughtblogs (both comfortably unique search terms).  Not bad seeing as I’m only one guy and pretty much only work on this half time!

So according to Google Insight, ‘Thunderf00t’ has about twice the web interest of Freethoughtblogs. I’m not a big player in the grand scheme of things.  -Freethoughtblogs CLEARLY make a disproportionate amount of noise for their size.

So yup, I figure I’m pretty much done with these hapless noise makers.

Done with those folks who think patronizing ad hominem/ ’emperors new clothes’ style arguments like “you just don’t ‘get it’ ” is some great cerebral, thoughtful and persuasive argument.

-I’m looking ahead and choosing life!! (que upbeat music)

I’m getting back to making videos that can appeal to everyone, not just some petty drama of just how incompetent certain fractions of the secular community are.

There are bigger fish to fry!

FTB and the conspiracy to defraud/ Drawing a line under this pointless crap

Chuckle, so my evil HAXOR skills have earned me the honor of a dozen or so blog posts telling me what an evil, evil man I am.

Pah, N00b, Neo would have just re-clicked the subscribe button!

The bizarre thing is the principal horror seems to be over something I did NOT actually do.  Namely that I DID NOT drop anyones docs!, and what’s more docs they had already ‘officially’ sent me on their mailing list.

-So how to turn something I did NOT do into an evil act of malice?

Why by speculating of course!  The argument continues like this, ‘but you are an evil haxor, therefore why should I trust you when you say u wont drop docs’.  That’s right, in the absence of any actual doc dropping, speculate that they MIGHT doc drop!  Oddly enough the one question such folk will never directly answer, because they know the answer as well as you, is ‘do you think I would drop anyones docs?’

Thankfully FTBers don’t apply this reasoning to their own, such as the good man PZ.  He was clearly dishonest to me about the deal when I came on board at FTB (freedom to blog about what I wanted my ass! ‘rip into anyone you want’ my ass!)…..  He ‘HACKED’ a phone system by ‘stealing’ a passcode and using it to ‘break in’!! ‘He’s dishonest! Unspeakable, it’s a unconscionably horrific breach of trust… he should be drummed out of the community as a pariah etc etc’ /sarcasm

Why shouldn’t he drop someones docs too?  After all, on paper he officially has access to all the personal details I do!

‘Indeed, given his hatred of me, why shouldn’t he leak docs himself, then blame me for it?  I mean if you read his posts, is there any level the bilious odious man wouldn’t go to fulfill his vindictive vendetta of hatred of….. etc etc.’

-Wow, I can engage in inventive filled paranoid rambling about crimes people MIGHT commit as much as FTB!

However all this time I had been working on the basis that FTB had a significant media footprint, which I now think is wrong.  Put simply, even though FTB have a LOT of skeletons in the closet, and engage in some pretty cheap and vindictive scheming (I wouldn’t have stayed long associated to such a group, even if they hadn’t expelled me first), the bottom line is they are a small group, they are kings of a small hill of beans (I’m still getting more hits than 10 of their bloggers having been gone for a month! see below): they simply are not worth the time when there are bigger fish to fry!  So let me take this opportunity to draw some sort of line under this (I know that sentence alone will have bought rapturous applause from many sectors!).

Bear with me on this…. this is going somewhere!

From my evil haxor skills, FTBer were saying the following on their secret mailing list about a month after I was thrown off.

“Plus, TF had more hits than ten of our bloggers today.  Please tell me he is not getting paid for them.  And that we are divvying up his spoils.”

Firstly FTBers are actually suggesting, not only an intention of stealing, but to do it as a group and to share their ill gotten gains from this fiscal theft.

Secondly, I laughed my ass off when I read that.  Even after being gone from FTB for over a month, I’m still one of their prize bloggers!  If they were the significant organization I initially thought they were, their petit conspiracies would have been a bigger burden on the community, and my whistle blowing more pertinent.  However that’s simply not the organization FTBs is.

Anyways, Ed Brayton, the guy who holds the purse strings responds thusly.

“I haven’t even given any thought to the point at which I would stop paying him. The blog was killed on July 1. I could call that the end or pay him for hits in July, which were not unsubstantial. Or at this point I could just tell him to go fuck himself.”

Lets try to draw a line under this Ed.  DPRJones has a charity event coming up for Medicine Sans Frontier. You can donate ALL my ‘not unsubstantial’ earnings to this charity event (try to keep it dignified Ed, make sure you let people know where the money came from), and then you can delete my blogs hosted on FTB.

To be honest, I wouldn’t want to be seen to profit off petit drama like this (I never monetize videos that deal with this sort of thing), and I’m sure FTB would likewise agree.  Indeed it would be nice to see FTB follow my lead on this and donate all the revenue generated from this pointless drama to the same charity.

From my chair, that pretty much draws a line under this.

This request has been personally sent to Ed Brayton.  Balls in his court now.

Skepchick go approval seeking from ‘White Male Privilege’

So having gotten roundly called for her shameful behavior at TAM (The Amazing Meeting), Amy ‘crying over a T-shirt’ Roth from Skepchick has gone approval seeking! Not from female bastions of the secular community like Harriet Hall (who clearly was distancing herself from folks like the evermore erratic and fringe Skepchicks), but ironically from what under almost any other circumstances the Skepchicks would call the ’white male privilege’ of the secular community.  However in reality she has not actual got any! NONE!

Ronald Lindsey, Dave Silverman and Nick Lee have all ‘spoken out against hate directed against women’ on Skepchick.

Y’see this is one of those ‘dissent from Darwin’ type stunts that the Discovery institute would pull.  For those who don’t know the dissent from Darwin thing was done to create the appearance of dissent when in fact essentially none existed, just like skepchick are suggesting that there is all this ‘hate against women’ when in fact essentially none exists (beyond criticism and/or trolling).  So how did the Discovery Institute and Skepchick achieve such a remarkable feat? Why by using language so broad that anyone and everyone, including myself, could agree with it.

In the case of the dissent from Darwin the statement was basically that all theories including evolution should be subject to critical scrutiny (well of course! who could disagree?), and in the case of Skepchick it’s ‘speak out against hate against women’ (well of course! who could disagree?).  Now firstly, if someone had asked me this question, my immediate response would be ‘why is Skepchick embracing sexism on this issue? Shouldn’t we be against all hate, irrespective of gender?’  Indeed at least two of the respondents actually elucidated to this. Kudos to:

Dave “American Atheists stands by all its members, supporters, and allies, and we will not tolerate hate directed at any of us. Period” Silverman, and Ronald “Hate-filled invective has been directed at many different people, male and female” Lindsey.

Then of course my second question could be, ‘why are you asking me such loaded questions?’  Really what do you expect me to say? is there ANYONE who would disagree with that position?  I mean if these people had been asked to speak out against hatred against males? or blacks? or puppies? how would they have responded? “No hatred against all of the above is obviously okay”?, of course they wouldn’t.  It’s such an obviously manipulative question.  Thankfully most of the respondent gave measured answers not far off where I would have planted my banner.

I would have started with the obvious and fair first question.

“do you think there is a real problem with ‘hate against women’ in this community? “

I’ve got to say I’ve seen essentially NONE.

I’ll tell you what I have seen, I’ve seen people get called idiots for saying and doing stupid things, y’know stuff about elevators (Rebecca Watson) and T-shirts (Amy Roth), although it is very conspicuous to those who can read what is obviously not said, that NONE of those who speak out against ‘hate against women’ actually specify that they think either Amy Roth or Rebecca Watson had a valid grievance in either case.

Indeed, while Amy Roths introduction to Nick Lee was glowing, if she had actually bothered to read what he wrote, she might have found precious little support for either her or Rebecca Watson.

“Not every flirtation is unwelcome attention, until one side announces it is, and then it should stop.”

So according to Nick there was nothing wrong with what happened to Rebecca Watson in the elevator. NOTHING.

“It is also complicated by the right of people to say what is on their minds even if it makes us feel uncomfortable.”

And there’s Amy ‘crying over the T-shirt’ Roth CLEARLY rebutted in the very next sentence.

Calling someone an idiot for acting like an idiot does not become ‘hate against women’ simply because the person in question was a woman.  This is one of the two general categories of the ‘hate against women’ that Skepchick encounters.  Look it’s obvious, how would people respond if I ‘embraced victim-hood’ like the Skepchicks.  That is any time anyone said anything ‘nasty’ against me I simply claimed that this was just sexism and misandry?  Yup, I would expect exactly the mockery that the Skepchicks get.  Far from sexism, this treatment represents equality in the secular community in that these people (the Skepchicks) are being judged on what they say and do, rather than on their gender.

The second general category of ‘hate against women’ Skepchick encounters is people trolling them.  Now it’s my reckoning that of the three ‘leaders’ Skepchick have thus far got to ‘speak out’ on this, two probably have no idea what trolling is.  Trolls do not hate anyone; they just get off on how easy it is to control people, particularly people who are hypersensitive on an issue (e.g. feminism) by pushing the right psychological buttons.  Skepchick is grade A trolling material and are seen to be some of the most easily puppeteered people on the webs.  What trolls will do is type some manipulative reactionary shit into a comment box and then laugh as those being trolled dance like puppets on strings.  With experience it’s easy to spot most trolls.  To be honest it is shameful that the Skepchick are so easily trolled as it shows their grotesque naivety to the interwebs.  So how can I be so sure that the Skepchick is just getting trolled?  Well it’s very easy, unless you actually think that there are really hundreds of atheists who are looking to rape Rebecca Watson (in which case the atheist community would have a huge fractional population of folks intending to be rapists and the ‘leaders’ response would be ENTIRELY inadequate), SHE’S BEING TROLLED!  Her ‘rape threats’ are exactly as valid as the ones I got on my first video that addressed this,

I’d just like to say thunderf00t should be raped, and I want to rape thunderf00t so he loosens up a little bit, and also thunderf00t is too ugly to rape.

Oh Noes, I’ve got multiple rape threats.  Where are all the atheist leaders speaking out against hate directed against men in the secular community?

and to be honest her parading these around like a ‘trophy proof’ of misogyny in the atheist community at conference after conference makes her, and anyone else who is taken in by it look as stupid to the new internet savvy generation of atheists as Oprah and the 9000 penises that she was worried a pedophile syndicate had ready to rape children.

Really leaders, you are showing your age in the internet generation to be taken in by this sort of thing.  There is only one way to win against a troll.  DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS.

Skepchick do not only openly violate this law, they put up glowing neon signs saying ‘we seek out and feed any and all trolls’.  On the internet this is almost as bad as feeding the gremlins after dark then throwing them in a lake Superior, then complaining about the gremlin infestation, it’s the equivalent of putting a big sign on your own back saying ‘kick me’ then crying about the ‘sexism’ of those who kick you.

Ana from the Young Turks pretty much calls it like it is on this segment.

Other than that, where are these people who ‘hate women’?  Does anyone actually have any evidence for this ‘hate against women’ that is NOT someone being calling out someone for saying or doing something outrageously stupid, or being trolled, or some mixture of the two?

In which case I have to ask these Leaders, who exactly are these people that they talking out against?  Where are they?  If no one actually knows, then why are they speaking out against a problem that doesn’t exist?  Inquiring minds need to know!

Skepchick: Embrace Victim-hood!

Westboro Baptist Church being allowed to perform the protests they do highlights exactly how much the US as a whole recognizes the importance of free speech.  Of course I don’t agree with WBC, but it nonetheless underscores the high regard that first world nations have for folks to have the freedom to express themselves. Y’know its one of those ‘I disagree with what you say, but will fight to the death for your right to say it‘ type things.

Now lets compare this attitude to that of Surly Amy (Amy Roth) over at Skepchick.  She was apparently reduced to tears simply because someone wore a Tshirt (see below).  Not only that, she seems to be working on the delusion that she has the privilege that the rest of the world owes it to her to make sure she is never offended.  In her own words:

“I think one of the most hurtful things I experienced while attending TAM was Harriet Hall’s Tshirt that she wore three days in a row. I told her through tears, in the speakers’ lounge, that it was dehumanizing and gender/color blind and very hurtful to me specifically as a person who does have to deal with harassment regularly.”

Yes this is exactly the T-shirt that Amy Roth describes as “dehumanizing”

If you are banging your head on the desk in disbelief at the moment I just want to remind you that this is a girl who blogs regularly on skepchick, and has been supported by freethoughtblogs.  She’s also the girl who makes those little ceramic pendants that many people wear (or maybe used to wear at conferences before Amy’s crying over a Tshirt antics).  Indeed the only way I think you might have a chance of explaining her self-centered position to Amy is though the concept of reciprocation.  How would she feel if I were to be in tears because of people wearing those little ceramic pendants at conferences, suggesting that they indicate people support her anti-freespeech position, and that merely wearing these pendants is ‘dehumanizing’ and ‘very hurtful to me’, with the clear expectation that everyone else should conform to behaviors that I do not find hurtful or offensive: anything less would just be hateful.

Yup, I’m pretty sure Amy would fairly quickly come around to the position that just because someone takes offense at a t-shirt (or similar), no how matter how hysterical the outburst, it really should have no impact on the way conferences are run.

Now it turns out Amy Roth has since issued a ‘clarification’.  It’s often said that a clarification is not made to make oneself clear, but to put oneself in the clear.  Regrettably that only works if you are honest and/or competent, rather than just the shamelessly self serving ‘Rebecca Watson’ type attempt to rewrite history.

So initially Amy writes:

July 17, 2012 at 11:32 am“I think one of the most hurtful things I experienced while attending TAM was Harriet Hall’s Tshirt that she wore three days in a row. I told her through tears, in the speakers’ lounge, that it was dehumanizing and gender/color blind and very hurtful to me specifically as a person who does have to deal with harassment regularly.”

Well that seems pretty clear to me as to what Amy thought the score was, and then one day later this becomes:

July 18, 2012 at 9:42 am  “So know that just a ‘silly tshirt’ did not reduce me to tears. Sadly, there was a lot more going on.”

Yup in just one day, a T-shirt goes from “dehumanizing”, “gender/color blind” and “very hurtful” to now just a “silly tshirt”.  Think someone is trying to shamelessly rewrite history there Amy!

But this is peanuts compared to the Skepchick dishonesty.  Initially Amy writes:

July 17, 2012 at 11:32 am “I said I was glad she felt safe and that I wouldn’t have sent 22 women to the event if I didn’t think it was safe for them either. So who was she talking to?”

Bravo Amy for saying how you think TAM is safe.  Great so what was all the ‘we want a policy and to lynch someone at TAM’ tantrum of FTB and skepchick all about?

Oh wait…. wait… Amy is about to retell the story….

July 18, 2012 at 9:42 am “I hope that Harriet will realize why it was so hurtful and why I was offended by both the front and the back. Some of us have been harassed at events and do not feel safe. The shirt was also hurtful to those in that context as well.”

Bravo Amy, Bravo (slow hand clap), so now we have two sequentially, mutually inconsistent accounts of ‘history’ from the same person, both given within about a day of each other.  One in which TAM is safe, and that’s why you have worked to send people there, and in the other versions of ‘Skepchick’ history, where you worked to send people to an environment that was not safe, indeed that you worked to send women to an environment populated by “gropers and PUAs and drunk fumblers“.  **SLOW HAND CLAP**

Amy concludes with this:

“I have a lot of respect for Harriet, I hope that at some point she will realize that she could have sent the message she wanted without using the name of the blog I write for in the wording and that it was unnecessary.”

and

“I will continue to try to be a better person and I will continue to try to help other people get involved and to set an example of kind, productive, proactive behavior in hopes that more people will follow my lead than the those who want to mock and belittle.”

The sheer double standards here is knee weakening!  Not two posts from one her blog entries on Skepchick, Rebecca Watson is saying that people (notably myself and Paula Kirby) who disagree with them on reason based arguments, actually all think they are a Totalitarian Nazis clique. (FACEPALM)

The last person I saw with such a relish for playing the professional victim was Dawahfilms.  Now Rebecca ‘Rape threat’ Waston just can’t resist the temptation to play the victim again.  I guess it’s like trying to teach an old dog new tricks 😦

Great Amy, so on one hand you are reduced to tears because someone uses the name of the site you blog for, and on the other you have no problem with that same blog suggesting that someones reasoned argument is invalid because you (skepchick) claim they think you are nazis.  Wow a great double whammy there of professionally playing the victim and wholesale well poisoning.  That’s right, professional victim Rebecca ‘rape threat’ Watson leading the Skepchicks effort to ‘set an example of kind, productive, proactive behavior in hopes that more people will follow my lead than the those who want to mock and belittle.’ by suggesting that those who disagree with her think they are Totalitarian Nazi.  Damn not seen anyone so zealously eager to embrace victim-hood since dawahfilms.

Feminist reduced to tears by T-shirt

Good God, your know someone is on the fringe when you cannot tell the difference between someone pretending to be a crazy feminist, and a skepchick-type feminist expressing their opinion.  That’s right, feminism in the secular movement has reached poe-tastic proportions!

The things you ‘learn’ at a skepchick conference! and no, he’s actually being serious.

So lets see if you can tell me which one of the following is someone pretending to be crazy, and which is a serious feminist (being supported by who else but ‘Freethoughtbloggers’ and skepchick).

Is it a)

There has been a lot of sexually harassing by text (textual harassment) at TAM, and therefore the skeptichicks are planning to implement a policy banning such harassment at their conferences.  To ensure that women feel safe at conferences this policy will strictly prohibit people sending unwanted text messages, specifically including the following:

( . ) ( . )

8====)
😉
=P

or is it b),

…that wearing a T-shirt at TAM saying that says ‘I’m a skeptic, not a skepchick, not a woman skeptic, just a skeptic’ constituted such powerful and dehumanizing harassment, that it reduced a grown feminist to tears, forcing her to spend the rest of the conference with her mother.  Then eventually when she simply couldn’t take the devastating harassment of the T-shirt anymore, she had to change her flight and leave early.

Well if you answered a), sorry to say you are wrong.  Textual harassment was from a parody site of ‘freethoughblogs’.  In reality it was one of those fearless feminist types, Amy Roth, who ended up crying because she didn’t like someones T-shirt at a conference (TAM).  What’s more is the absolute vanilla level of meek criticism that was required to turn this steely eyed feminist into blubbing girl.  I kid you not, it was no more than this T-shirt.  Seriously, this is not being mean, this is just like one of those “WTF is she going on about? there is no way she can possibly be that fragile and thin skinned”, type things.

Here’s the actual text of her describing the event, but if you can’t be bothered to read it, here is the video form (see 46s onwards):

This takes being thin skinned to a whole new level.  I mean really this level of offendability makes the ‘war on christmas’ people look positively sane, rational and thickskinned!  Really, did you ever see any of them in tears because someone wore a T-shirt slightly disparaging to xmas?  If they had would they not be laughed off the planet?  Then why should a feminist get any more slack than the craziest of the fundamentalists simply because shes calls herself a skeptic of sorts? And no surprises this horrible ‘harassment’ suffered by Amy was promoted by freethoughtblogs.

However deep at the bottom of this I can’t but help feel the skepchick-types REALLY needed something to be offended about, and they defiantly need to be the victims of something!  There clearly wasn’t any sexual harassment at TAM, without even a single instance of someone being asked for coffee in an elevator.  Then of course TAM had a sexual harassment policy in place.  Really what is left for the skepchick-types to get hysterical about?  Well, by a T-shirt saying they are “not a skepchick” of course- oh the horror… the horror.

Remember, if you oppose the T-shirt harassment policy at future conferences then you must be a bigoted, rape enabling, misogynistic radical woman hating MRA and you will get called an asshole before getting blocked for being a ‘troll’! It’s part of the inclusive forward thinking policy of this blog to promote equality. -jk or skepchick-style-feminism logic?

Freethoughtblogs and PC Lyers

So PZ Myers is the man who gave me his personal assurances that Freethougthblogs really didn’t have any interest in controlling the content.

This was evidently a verbal assurance made in bad faith.

The rough time-line is one week before I was banned, PZ sent this to some mailing list Freethoughtblogs has:

Pretty much speak for itself!

Well that’s basically what I did, and what’s more I even told them on their mailing list.  Then ~1 week later, PZ kicks me.  Maybe he wasn’t joking about that ‘Except me. I’m perfect, don’t you dare say otherwise‘ bit, or maybe this was one of those ‘many a true word spoken in jest’ type things.  Indeed how quickly opinions can change when it’s him who is getting ‘ripped into’

There was no open consultation in this group about what anyone else thought of my ideas prior to my expulsion, giving this a very totalitarian ‘execution by fiat’ type feel.  Everyone else on the groups was told of my ‘expulsion’ AFTER it happened, I mean hell, they wouldn’t have wanted an actual discussion or to give anyone the possibility to dissent about what is permissible ‘freethought’ on ‘freethoughtblogs’ now would they!

Now I really didn’t care about offending these people at this point as on their mailing list I had already been accused of being a ‘rape culture apologist’ (FFS, I don’t think I’ve even touched on the subject), guilty of ablism, devaluing addicts, an not being careful between challenging islam and outright racism.  All of this based on NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER (well that’s unless you are happy to count rumors as evidence).

Heard a rumor? Not a problem on FTB where rumor are fact until proven otherwise. Napoleonic Justice reigns, Guilty till proven innocent!

To be honest, I was hoping that there would be a higher standard of conduct than that, but the chatter made it clear that FTB really was somewhere between a bitching slimepit, and StrawmanCentral.  It was also plain to me from just watching the chatter on this mailing list that there was a significant amount of bullying of weaker members/ opposing viewpoint.  If this was an academic environment I would have called bullshit on them in an instant, however by this time it was clear the standard of people that I was dealing and that as a group they were essentially a lost cause.  I was happy to write a blog there, but I certainly wasn’t going to waste my time ingratiating myself with such people.

Incidentally FTB claims that it can deliver ~150 k ad impressions per day, which could mean as little as ~15k hits per day (~10 ads per page).  I was pulling in ~ 10-15k hits per day on my blog until I was blocked. FTB never paid me a penny **EDIT Ed Brayton contests this point, see comment below** (again something that PZ said they would), but to be honest I have little interest in such things.  Integrity is MUCH more important than money on such issues.

So I blogged about something which, I thought they were way off base on, namely the disproportionate amount of time they gave sexism compared to other subjects, and the way they attacked, strawmanned and demonized people who bought up sensible concerns.

I had expected that PZ Myers (an university lecturer) would at least keep his word on the academic integrity thing, but to be honest, after about the 3rd day after posting my second article, it was clear that wasn’t worth spit.  When a man is willing to jettison the value of his word so readily, I was under no illusions ‘ If you see something you don’t like, rip into it. ‘ in reality meant that you should only rip into it as long as PZ thought it was okay.

However, I was not going to be bullied into submission by a bunch of second raters, and so despite a series of threats, and Ed Brayton making it clear that if I felt PZ hadn’t kept his word I was free to leave ‘and not let the door hit your ass on the way out’, and that ‘no one would miss me’.  That’s right, the fact that PZ was lying to people faces to get people into the blog really didn’t phase anyone at freethoughtblogs at all!  Nor did such explicit threats on the mailing list seem to phase anyone else (no one stepped forward to question such action), which I think shows that bullying is just so widespread on FTB that it is just the socially accepted norm (that’s unless like me, any of the competent people there simply regarded FTB as a lost cause, or at least a cause not worth fighting for, and just got on with their own thing).

Y’see this is the slippery slope of becoming intolerant to criticism, eventually it will consume you to the point where you cannot take any criticism…. where you become intellectually soft and are happy to strawman people en mass for simplicity, then ban them when they call you on your bulk strawmanning!

Strawmanning: it’s easier than addressing the actual arguments.
Banhammering: a great way of getting rid of those who call you on your strawmanning!

Anyways, it turns out the ‘cover story‘ for PC Myers banning me was that I made an argument that existed nowhere outside of his head.

Look, I wanted to present a ‘first inspection’ case with some real data, that FTB really wasn’t representative of the wider community that I had experienced.  To me it was obvious that the community I was aware of at conferences, and on youtube was widely different from FTB on the issue of feminism.  People like Rebecca ‘Rape Threat’ Watson were widely regarded at conferences as a toxic asset (no matter if she had been an asset previously) who left a bad taste in the mouths of most people.  This is certainly true on youtube, where ZOMGitscriss can put up a video with her in, and her ratings go from something along the lines of 95 % positive to something along the lines of Venomfangx.

Association with the likes of Freethoughblogs or Skepchick is about as toxic to a videos reception as some of VFXs less savory opinions.

Unremarkable claims require unremarkable evidence, and so I did what was sensible, I simply put up a spoken word version of my blog, and PZs reply (who views really are seen as vanilla on freethoughtblogs) and asked people who watched to the end who they thought was nearer the mark, my views or the views that could pass as the plurality on freethoughtblogs.  Sure there will be some bias in the data, but not enough to nullify the point that FTB are widely seen as off base on this point.  I mean it could be easily examined.  PZ could read both my post, and his reply on his YT channel and see what the voting would be like, I would guess that he might make 60:40 in his favor (not far off his post-hoc justification for banning me video).  But of course, PZ was mostly interested in challenging the methods, rather than the conclusion.  Personally I think this is an unremarkable claim, and as such requires unremarkable data, which it has is scads!

Anyways, that’s pretty much my experience of the slimepit of ‘Freethoughblogs’ the PC Lyars.  It’s not the whole story yet though.  It turns out that freethoughtblogs are not only happy to ban people as a typical creationist would (for something that they never actually said), but are perfectly happy to actively support the abuse of copyright specifically used to stifle active debate.   More on that later.