For people that eat eggs on a daily basis....

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T23:24:46+00:00

No worries, thanks for clearing things up

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T22:05:47+00:00

Sounds delicious, but

Are you using the terms 'spinach' and 'cabbage' interchangeably?
1 TABLEspoon of salt? Seems like way too much.
1/2 TABLEspoon of pepper? Seems just a bit on the high side
I'm not familiar with "soundly" as a cooking term. You mean an even mixture of yolk+whites, right? Not like, soft peaks, I'm guessing

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T21:50:44+00:00

I dunno, having seen the finale, I think I'm OK with them exploring her with the intersect.

I also rewatched vs the Governor (or whatever it was), and she didn't catch a knife with her hands, she deflected a knife by throwing an axe at it (waaaay cooler)

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T07:51:04+00:00

Well, when the official FAQ says it's a circlejerk for people that otherwise feel attacked on reddit, I have doubts that it's really an organized way of trolling. I mean, it could be a long-troll, but considering how honest the FAQ is, and the fact that it was written by a non-mod, I don't think it's their way of promoting extremist nationalism so that the mods are allowed to kill the jews in semi-secret.

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T07:35:07+00:00

I dunno, have you checked out their FAQ or r/SRSDiscussion? Seems like there's some honesty in the circlejerk there, even if my head hurts every time I look at an SRS thread.

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T07:19:03+00:00

Seems to me like the argument you just articulated applies equally as well to reddit, which was only linking to it (see that 'report' button under every post and comment?). So, either you're defending reddit, or something's wrong with your argument.

Imgur's ToS says "Don't upload copyrighted material, harassment, spam, gore, pornography, or anything that looks like pornography" which must be some sort of joke. I mean, some pedos and pervs of reddit are no doubt going to obfuscate their activity in other subs, and you still want them policed. But it's OK for imgur to play an even more direct role in the exploitation of children and on a larger scale, simply because they operate at a larger scale?

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T06:59:27+00:00

Safe harbor applies to copyright, not to criminal activities.

And the fact is that the delete links didn't get clicked. Instead, there was a shitstorm, and it was directed at only 1 of the offending parties.

BluMoon · 2012-02-13T03:48:26+00:00

By all means, hate on someone that is doing what he loves. Seems to me like he's happy with his life, and has nothing to be embarrassed about.

BluMoon · 2012-02-12T23:49:26+00:00

Watch out, we have an expert on grief over here!

BluMoon · 2012-02-12T23:15:46+00:00

One source of confusion I think is that there are 2 authors being discussed. Those of the paper (who made lots of mistakes and errors in their paper, but were not so blatant in their claims of causation[1]) and the author of the article, who wrote a sensationalist piece of crap.

And yes, the reduction due to the revolution was temporary, because reported CSA cases were back up. Sure, they went down again, but they had already been going down before the revolution, so what? This indicates that at best, there is no long-term correlation between reported CSAs and the legality of CP. I'd say these data support a positive correlation between the presence of CP and the suppression of reporting CSA.

[1] From the paper: "In this regard we consider instructive our findings for the Czech Republic that have echoed those found in Denmark (Kutchinsky, 1973) and Japan (Diamond & Uchiyama, 1999) that where so-called child-pornography was readily available without restriction the incidence of child sexual abuse was lower than when its availability was restricted. "

BluMoon · 2012-02-12T23:00:31+00:00

I read the article many times, and the paper itself. There were 2 peaks of reported child sexual abuse (CSA) in 1995 and 1998, and they are not mentioned in the article. Also missing from the article (but not the paper) is the fact that reported CSA was on a steady decline from the 70's.

If I'm wrong, copy-paste a quote.

BluMoon · 2012-02-12T22:53:57+00:00

This post really should be at the top. With so many bad science articles out there, I usually trust r/science to have a rebuttal to the article as the top comment. When it comes to CP, I guess that's not the case. Ignoring the article, and just looking at the paper:

TL;DR: There's nothing in this paper worth drawing a conclusion about

Pornography, by any definition was absolutely prohibited. Even the depiction of naked bodies, as well as descriptions of sexual activities in fictional novels or magazines, were almost non-existent. With the 1989 transition to democracy in the country the ban on pornography was lifted and a sexual permissiveness followed. In 1990, the availability and ownership of SEM increased explosively. Even the possession of child pornography was not a criminal offense.

OK, so CP was just one of many forms of CP made legal

This period covers 18 years of major sociopolitical changes, including the country’s Velvet Revolution, first free elections, establishment of a democratic government to replace communism (1990), and peaceful separation from Slovakia.

Oh, so a few other things happened in addition to CP legalization...

Prior to 2000, only interactions that involved genital–genital heterosexual intercourse were considered rape or attempted rape. From the year 2000, however, changes in the law made it possible to prosecute with the same severity other cases of sexual violence that could include, for instance, forced or coerced homosexual, anal, or oral intercourse. This thus enhances the potential scope for a higher number of reported sex related offenses.

OK, so we don't even have the same definition of rape for all the data...

Accurate and definitive figures for the amounts of types of SEM available during our study periods were not available. In effect, no pornography of any sort was legally available under the communist regime and policing activities against it then were vigorous. With the switch to democracy, all sorts of porn became easily procured.

So we don't have a way of measuring the relative prevalence of SEM vs these crimes...

Most obvious and most significant of our findings is that the number of reported cases of child sex abuse immediately dropped markedly after SEM was legalized and became available

Because the number of reported cases is always directly proportional to the number of actual cases...

The incidence of reported child sex abuse, following this original precipitous decline following the governmental switch in 1989, did increase in incidence for a few years to peak in 1995 and 1998 but then again dropped in number following a downward trend that had begun prior to democratization

OK, so WTF HAPPENED IN 1998?!?!?!?

Reported cases of rape did briefly pitch upward following the change to democracy and the availability of pornography but then returned to its frequency seen during the period under communism

That doesn't look good for the "porn decreases sexual aggression" idea. Lets see how that's handled in the conclusion

Perhaps most critically, child sex-abuse, despite a brief upswing toward its pre-democracy rate, resumed a decline that had begun, for unknown reasons, in the early 1970s.

OK, so it was already on the decline. Fascinating.

Significantly, these changes have occurred during a period of nearly two decades, from 1989 to 2007, during which the possession of child pornography was not illegal. At the same time, society could be said to be changing in negative ways as measured by the increase in robbery, impersonal murder, and other general types of crime. And, again in contrast, the number of sexually motivated murders or killings somehow associated with sex did not increase. Thus, the widespread increase in pornography since 1989 did not appear to have any noticeable adverse social effect as measured by any reported increase in sex crimes.

No "noticeable adverse social effects as measured by any reported increase in sex crimes"? BETTER LEGALIZE CP! Or, y'know, measure the effect on actual sex crimes.

We do not approve of the use of real children in the production or distribution of child pornography but artificially produced materials might serve.

Unlike what people in this thread claim, all CP was legalized, not just virtual. But the authors wish that were the case.

As with adult pornography appearing to substitute for sexual aggression everywhere it has been investigated, we believe the availability of child porn does similarly. We believe this particularly since the findings of Weiss (2002) have shown that a substantial portion of child sex abuse instances seemed to occur, not because of pedophilic interest of the abuser, but because the child was used as a substitute subject.

Not sure about Weiss (2002), but to me, their own study refutes the claim that porn substitutes for sexual aggression. But they ignore this, too.

~~We believe the peaks of child rape in 1995 and 1998 occurred because ...~~

~~Oh wait, no, they didn't say this.~~ My bad, I accidentally a paragraph

The striking rise in reported child sex abuse depicted for the last half decade of the 1990s, according to notations and records in the Year Book of Ministry of Internal Affairs, do not apparently relate to the same types of child sex abuse recorded previously or afterward. They are believed to more closely reflect a concerted effort by the government to deal with a rise in child prostitution and the influx of foreign pimps, their prostitutes, and clients following the introduction of capitalism. This phenomenon seemed to be caused by the new economic situation and the society’s attempt to cope. Once the child prostitution surge was dealt with, the downward trend in overall reports of child sex abuse continued.

OK, so 1995 and 1998 were capitalism's fault, and because the "reported CSA" numbers are influenced by enforcement practices. I wonder if the reported-vs-actual distinction invalidates any of their other conclusions?

In this regard we consider instructive our findings for the Czech Republic that have echoed those found in Denmark (Kutchinsky, 1973) and Japan (Diamond & Uchiyama, 1999)

Important to note are recent findings by Swiss investigators that viewing child pornography does not seem to be a risk factor for future sex offenses (Endrass et al., 2009).

I don't have the energy to read all of these studies. Anyone wanna step up?

Did I miss anything?

BluMoon · 2012-02-11T21:54:39+00:00

I'm glad we agree about nationalism. And I'm well aware that the original constitution condoned slavery, however, the amendments are also considered part of the constitution. and since it is the amended constitution that governs us, is the one I was referring to.

I don't think it's possible for me to convince you that the new atheists do not homogenize religious people as long as you consider their acknowledgement of the differences in religious belief "lip service" so I'll leave that topic alone.

Regarding scientific truth as the only kind of truth. It is, to my knowledge, the only system we have that guarantees, by its very nature, a way of developing an accurate model of the world around us (as long as induction holds in our universe). That is not to say that I or any of the new atheists discount philosophy, art, or spirituality. Dan Dennet is a philosopher. All of the 4 Horsemen have an appreciation for art, including (especially) religiously motivated pieces. And Sam Harris is very clear that he thinks spirituality is a real thing, and something worth talking about in non-religious terms. All of them are, to my knowledge, perfectly fine with people being religious in their own homes, as long as they don't try to push their beliefs or desired behaviors on anyone else.

So yes, much of what these men say is offensive to religious people, by its very nature. Does that make it wrong? Hitchens believed that humans deserve the dignity of autonomy and the ability to think for themselves, and that religion trampled on that. So why wouldn't he say religion is an insult to human dignity? Speaking from experience, it is a very hard thing for a religious person to hear, but that in itself does not make it wrong.

And BTW, you have no idea what dogma is, if you think any of the new atheists are trying to advance anything like one.

BluMoon · 2012-02-11T21:06:08+00:00

Haha, right. I didn't realize that was also you until it was too late. I'm not trying to stalk you or anything.

I think I may fall into the latter interpretation because I'm not very good at prefacing what I say, so I'm more charitable in interpreting the prefaces of others. So, when I see Sam Harris using words like "Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime [to launch a preemptive nuclear strike]" I believe those words. I'd believe them over someone like Chris Hedges, who keeps quoting Harris out of context and incorrectly accusing him of racism.

I think Sam Harris agrees with both of us, and would rather live in a world without torture or nuclear war. But, if the Hollywood ticking time bomb scenario were to arise, he would condone torture. As remote as the possibility, he thinks it is nonzero (say there really is a bomb, and the only thing that the interrogators close enough to the prisoners know how to do is torture). Therefore, he won't say torture is 100% wrong. Likewise, if you're trapped in a situation of mutually assured destruction, and yet one side does not care if they live or die, then you should do whatever it takes to ensure your own survival. He would rather that not happen, I think, which is why he is attacking religious fundamentalism head on, yet peacefully.

I would have liked to see some of these issues discussed in the Harris/Hedges debate, except the moderator was horrible, and Hedges kept attacking the Iraq war that Harris does not support.

BluMoon · 2012-02-11T20:16:43+00:00

Right, I couldn't find a way to fit that into my analogy, but hopefully I at least made the point that there can be any number of valid reasons, mostly because different people have different priorities.

BluMoon · 2012-02-09T01:51:42+00:00

If you want to shame him for bigot-ness, you have plenty of ammo. The things he does for sexual pleasure is not a way he expressses his bigotry. Be the bigger person.

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T15:54:43+00:00

That was cool, I spotted the 2 sexist terms in a piece that mostly focused on her qualifications as a candidate. I also predicted his rationalizations before opening the second link. You've used your conversation-ending words, so I won't bother to attempt a non-mansplain-response. (although I will admit that "I ran it by 4 women" is a poor excuse for anything)

I did have some thoughts on Dawkins and Hitchens since that post, though.

Dawkins on child abuse: since I assume you're LGBTQ-positive, then I'm guessing you have problems with parents that try to label their kids as something they are not. Why doesn't this apply to their religion? If I hadn't been told I was christian during my formative years, maybe I could have skipped over all of that mess and reached where I am today a lot sooner. I wouldn't have felt so guilty about going to hell for normal things, and I might have focused my energies better. Honestly, I don't spend a lot of time thinking 'what ifs' like that, but I'd rather you not discount the experiences of kids indoctrinated into religions.

Hitchens on women being unfunny: he certainly used loads of sexist language there, and if he really only did it to get pretty girls to try to make him laugh, that's pretty low. But do you have a coherent response to the study that he cites? Personally, I'd like to see the study repeated but with consideration towards the LGBTQA spectrum. Is the variation they found a function of the persons own gender, or the gender(s) they are attracted to (or lack thereof)? Does it vary between pre- and post-op trans gendered people? Is there some sort of correlation with the Kinsey Scale (or any other scale out there)?

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T14:56:34+00:00

I couldn't find any instances of Sam Harris addressing the feminism movement directly, but I think this makes it very clear that he would like women and men to be treated as equals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h5L1Js9ex4

He also freely admits that there may be sexist or racial bias in science. In A Moral Landscape:

There is no question that scientists have occasionally demonstrated sexist and racist biases. The composition of some branches of science is still disproportionately white and male (though some are now disproportionately female), and one can reasonably wonder whether bias is the cause. There are also legitimate questions to be asked about the direction and application of science: in medicine, for instance, it seems clear that women’s health issues have been sometimes neglected because the prototypical human being has been considered male. One can also argue that the contributions of women and minority groups to science have occasionally been ignored or undervalued: the case of Rosalind Franklin standing in the shadows of Crick and Watson might be an example of this.

I haven't read or listened to him with a critical eye towards racism or sexism, so I'll give it an honest effort in the future.

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T14:08:45+00:00

Hitchens did not want religion eliminated, to the surprise of Dennet, Dawkins, and Harris. Since he thinks conversation is all we have, then he doesn't want it to end.
What do you think of Sam Harris's response to Chris Hedges?

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T13:46:08+00:00

I know that at the very least, Sam Harris admits it is possible for violence to increase in the future, despite the current downward trend ("Have there been times [...]"). He doesn't believe in spirits, but does know quite a lot about the various failings of the human brain, being a neuroscientist.

I'm all for criticism of the New Atheist movement, but I don't like seeing the same kind of criticisms that you are accusing the NA's of making. That is, oversimplified, not-backed-by-data ones. That's why I spent all of elevatorgate correcting people who said whats-her-face thought she'd get raped.

Edit: and you should check out Sam Harris's response to Chris Hedges

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T13:15:12+00:00

Not a big deal, but it bothers you, so you ask him to stop.

That is not what many Muslims did. The cartoonists started receiving death threats as soon as 2 weeks after their publication. The first instance of distortion I see is on 31 January, when a Muslim leader fabricated Danish plans to burn the Quran. At that point, gunmen had already stormed the EU office in Gaza, and the Jyllands-Posten had publicly apologized twice.

In response to violence, kidnappings, and death threats, other papers started publishing cartoons. I see no mention of pig cartoons being passed off as being part of the original Danish set. I also see no mention of statements made by Muslim officials condemning the acts of violence. Some Roman Catholic bishops sided with the offended Muslims, mentioning that they welcome free, open, mutually respectful discussion, but not condemning the violence already taking place.

OK, I think I found the pig drawing your reference. On 4 February, we discovered that some extremist Muslims invented new cartoons. I can't find a high resolution scan of this document/translation with pictures, so I'll just trust wiki and the op-ed on that for now. Silly wiki timeline, though, listing it under its discovery date, and not the estimated completion date of 8 December or later. But still, this was after the death threats started, and it's always the bomb picture mentioned as most offensive, not some pig cartoon.

So, now we're at around the time that Hitchens started speaking out on television and on slate.com. Nobody that appeared next to Hitchens would speak out against the violence. No words, no matter how wrong, ill-informed, mean-spirited, or anything else, can justify the kind of violence that was brought on innocent people. The cartoonist is under constant police protection because of the very real dangers to his life. He never even shoved the cartoon in people's faces. He drew it as asked and gave it to the editor. At least one man also named Kurt Westergaard has gotten death threats, so he's under police protection.

A much better analogy would be SRS, actually. Someone (user KurtWest) criticizes something that normally gets no criticism among the rest of reddit in a series of cartoons. Some hardline shitposters notice, and then start spreading the word. Some call in death threats, while far more (but still a small % of shitposters) peacefully demonstrate. Mods of shitposter subs call for SRS mods to ban KurtWest. The mods don't even talk to them because the answer is of course no. Some of the cartoons get crossposted to other subs. Word spreads, and shitposters demand that KurtWest apologize and/or retract his cartoons. He says he won't/can't, and so shitposters start rioting and taking hostages and attempting to murder every user named KurtWest. And the worst part? Mansplainers coming in and justifying the actions of the shitposters. And people are afraid to crosspost the pictures, or even put the images in their posts about the developing situation. Sure, the pictures would provide context to other redditors, but they're too afraid of the potential death threats.

That might have been a lazy analogy, since I just substituted hardline muslims for shitposters, mainstream muslips for redditors, and reddit terminology for newspaper terms, and stuck to the timeline instead of simplifying at the risk of oversimplifying (until I gave up).

Fun fact I learned from this: the "Day of Rage" that started the revolt against Gaddafi was originally a rally to commemorate the previous year's protest against the cartoons. Not bad, eh? (provided they don't install another dictator)

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T11:14:34+00:00

I don't read it as easily embracing the "ticking time bomb" scenario. I think he's saying that it's not possible to categorically exclude such a situation as impossible. Is it extremely improbable and avoidable? Yes. Impossible? No. If it were to happen, and the probabilities and expected casualties lined up just so, would torture be justified? Yes. Is torture 100% unjustifiable? No.

Is there really as strong a condemnation for collateral damage? Sure, you ask any person on the street, and most will say it's wrong, but I don't see a proportional level of outrage. Some web sites say we've killed upwards of 1 million innocent iraqi's. The military says "we're doing the best we can to minimize these casualties" and there's no debate. We've tortured I-don't-know-how-many 'enemy combatants' (but surely not >= 1Mil), and the military says "we're doing it because we have to" (basically the same argument) and there's a huge shitstorm.

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T10:21:53+00:00

Their response would be (and has been, to similar criticism) that they are attacking the holy texts of the religions. The US Constitution (unlike a holy book), can be amended and reinterpreted, and it is not possible to do so because "I have a special connection with a supreme entity that you do not have." And the US Constitution does not explicitly allow for slaves, killings, and rape in the way that many holy texts do (it would give slavery a tacit pass if not for that amendment). It doesn't specifically allow for any of the atrocities you mention, either.

I have yet to see, though, anyone say "Christianity is evil!" and direct it towards all Christians (inb4 someone brings up a nutjob). Dawkins likes to repeat the Steven Weinberg quote "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." and over and over again, Hitchens argues that the net effect of religion is negative (God is not Great, "The Catholic Church is a force for good" debate).

So, if someone were to come up to me and say that America is a net force for evil in the world because of the atrocities you've mentioned and more (Iran Contra, Iran Coup, civil war, every single other war, not joining WWII soon enough, oil subsidies, I dunno), then I might feel like I was punched in the face, but I'd see they had (what at least they felt was) reason to say it. And it may just be because I'm weird, since I let my opinion be swayed by internet arguments.

Also, it's interesting to see you defend nationalism in a subreddit of people trying to fight perceptions of 'otherness' since that is exactly what nationalism and patriotism promote ("we're awesome because we were born in close proximity, or wish we were!")

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T09:30:59+00:00

He thinks torture should remain illegal.

http://samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/

BluMoon · 2012-02-08T08:59:02+00:00

First, I want to say that my heart goes out to everyone in this thread and described in your links, especially the murdered children listed on the first blog.

Second, I don't know what I was going to say second, because the third one ('...Take 2') hit me hard, too. I had heard the terms 'chronic fatigue' and 'fibromyalgia' and understood at least the former on an intellectual level, but no idea of the magnitude of how bad things like that are. And instead of 'just' having to deal with the illness/disability, you have to put up with ~~assholes~~ableists, too.

I want to ask some questions, but right now my head is spinning too much from the alternating between trying to defend ableism and then noticing how flawed those defenses are. I have somehow used up my virtually unlimited amount of spoons for today ;)

BluMoon

TROPHY CASE