You kind of just proved his whole point there...........

"I think feminism is..."

I'm not sure anyone can claim ownership of the terms definition, but it was originally a fairly hard-line collectivist ideology.

I would have thought only 1st wave feminists could really try to lay claim, everyone else needs to qualify their terms or expect to be misunderstood.

If I was you, I would just stick to "humanist" or "egalitarian". It covers everything you seem to espouse and avoids needless association with the psychotic ideologues.

What part of feminism, as you define it, is not already covered by humanism?

@Jinx
this is why i specifically titled this "third wave",which i am fairly new in understanding,but it does not resemble the feminism that i have been exposed to.

i have many feminist friends who resemble nothing like this "third wave" of feminism.the deeper i delve the more fanatical and zealous i find their positions.

the feminists i know do not hate men.
do not seek to subvert them or marginalize them.
they seek for equality,for human dignity,for a right to be/choose who they wish to be,and they extend that to men as well.

which is very much a humanist approach.

but THIS flavor of feminism is a whole new animal.

if you own a penis,
you are evil.

You should really qualify your entire piece with "My particular brand of feminism..."

If you combined all forms of feminism to establish some kind of mean set of values, the line would be drawn somewhere in the realm of "at the expense of men", or nearby quotas in the workplace rather than merit. Your particular view is fairly moderate and, in my completely not backed up by any sort of empirical evidence opinion, fairly unrepresentative.

For myself, I prefer humanist. All people deserve the same common rights, opportunities etc, and they should not come at the expense of others.

I went through that and suffered under a depression of knowing it, but then i underwent a brand new realisation when i was studying physics. The realisation that in actual fact, nobody on Earth has ever had a better idea about what happens when you die than anybody else. There's no experienced or authoritative perspective on that. It occurred to me because i asked the smartest man i know where he thought existence came from and he said "ask a philosopher".

Everyone's thoughts on it are either an imaginative guess (with no view point being better than the other) or a so-called educated guess based on the laws of physical reality. Well, the laws of physical reality only explain what we can observe (by definition) and furthermore at least some laws have been broken in unusual situations (where did everything appear from/happen from if there is energy conservation in the universe?). Not necessarily an educated guess in other words.

I recognise the way you talk about your 'realisation' with an air of finality, as though you have truly found the final answer. But i ask you, because i have spent my life wondering and years studying - what do you really know about what happens or why we are here?

I think it is equally likely to be a non-existence as it is to be an obscure, impossible to understand, trans-humanist wet dream. Literally anything is possible, and the only reason we limit ourselves to "god" or "nothingness" is because we're so used to waking up and seeing this undeniably weird and wonderful reality that we one day found ourselves existing in. I put it to you that it would be no more remarkable or unlikely to find ourselves in a second, entirely different kind of reality afterwards.

I can't speak to the feminist portion of your question. I am not a feminist; more of a humanist, really. I could assume that having a related ideology might make her jokes more palatable, but it would be only a base assumption.

I asked my wife to view this clip on youtube, without reading the comments on this link. She is not a feminist either, so I simply asked her as a woman, did she find this funny? She said that clip was "mildly amusing" but she did not believe me when I told her that Amy was one of the top female comedians right now. Bear in mind that we don't watch cable, only Netflix and Prime, so she has not had exposure to her comedy skits on Inside Amy Schumer.

I do think Tina Fey is funny for the most part. I love Iliza Shlesinger. Kathleen Madigan puts me in stitches. I would say that this clip https://youtu.be/4wzpYDnqhiI is hilarious and meets your aforementioned criteria. The thing is, I personally find that clip hilarious, and I can't really say that about most of Ms. Schumer's work.

If we take for granted the need for cost cutting, it would be only logical, if not an outright neccessity in a democracy, to leave the details up to the local representatives. Payment of X Euros expected by mm/dd/yy, figure it out yourselves.

Why do it any other way?

Well, you know the three most discussed possibilities as well as I do: shock doctrine, an attempt to force Syriza to commit political suicide, and bureaucratic automatisms.

During the first stages of this facade, I would have put my money square on shock doctrine. The measures are just too damn beneficial to the "there is no society" kind of thinking. It's horseshit, economically, and tremendously damaging, socially.

Replacing Syriza with the Old Guard seems quite appealing, given the behind-the-scenes deals with the nepotistic elite as a means to facilitate a smoother transitition once those pesky commies are out of the picture. The vitriol against Varoufakis is just staggering in this regard. News of the World got nothing compared to what our respectable media has hurled at Varoufakis and Tsipras.

My take on the automatisms on the other hand is rooted in how our politicians and our public has been arguing this entire time. Neoliberalism is the gospel, dissent is heresy. Privatisation is good, cutting wages is good, flexible labour market is good, taxation of wealth is bad, deficit is bad, surplus is good. They drank the kool aid, they are in it hook, line and sinker.

And as a result, the diagnosis is always the same, and so is the treatment. And fuck me for using this ass of a metaphor, given how the language used is the most subtle means of manipulation. "Rescue" the Greeks, "drowning" in debt, "tighten your belt". How about: food only on five days a week, grandma gets to croak on diabetes and your baby boy dies of diphtheria.

Yes, I had a fucked up day. The discussion in parliament about the "Greek problem" was a disgrace and high treason of the humanistic ideas that are supposed to be the foundation of the European Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fine-tuned_Universe&redirect=no

Newtboy, I know that I am wearing glasses. The problem is that you don't think you're wearing any. I see everything through the lens of the word of God, you see it through the lens of humanistic naturalism. We both have what is called a worldview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view

Your worldview is grounded on your belief in certain axioms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom

A belief such as the scientific method being the best way to understand the natural world is an axiom. The problem with that belief is that you cannot prove that using the scientific method. It isn't a self-evident truth, it is based on unprovable assumptions. That is the fundamental issue which creates what is called the problem of induction which "calls into question..all empirical claims made by the scientific method"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

If you don't think you have a worldview, or don't know what the axioms of your worldview are, then I am sorry to break this to you but you sir are the one walking around completely blind. You believe your filter is wide when it is actually very narrow.

It's easy to think that you're getting a good overall picture when actually you have simply selected sources of information which agree with your underlying assumptions about what you already believe. You are then simply living in an echo chamber.

You also forget that I used to be an agnostic and I understand that point of view. It's not my failure to understand the atheist and the agnostic, it is that I understand them all too well. I rejected that point of view when I found out there was a God. When you find out there is a God your entire worldview will shatter and fall into itsy bitsy little pieces, and you'll marvel that could be so ignorant as to miss the complete obvious:

Which is that It's completely obvious that the Universe was created and is maintained by an all powerful Creator, it isn't something anyone has to strain to look for. The majesty of Gods creation is constantly surrounding us, and our very existence at this moment is proof positive of that fact.

The theory of Intelligent Design looks for design features in the "code" of the Universe. For a good overview for the application of Intelligent Design to many other fields of science, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYLHxcqJmoM&list=PLC805D4953D9DEC66

Coming at this from the perspective of academic philosophy I think the truth of the matter is ultimately very simple (however the details can be almost infinitely complex and diverse in how we apply them).

Simply put it appears impossible to demonstrate any kind of ultimate ethical authority or perfect ethical principles objectively.

One can certainly assert them, but they would always be subject to the problem of underdetermination (no facts, only interpretations) and as such subjective.

Even strictly humanist systems of ethics like concequentialism and deontology are at their core based on some arbitrary assumption or rule e.g. minimising harm, maximising pleasure, setting a universal principle, putting the concequences before the intention etc. etc.

As such I think the only honest and objective absolute moral principle is "Nothing is true and everything is permitted" (the law of the strong). All else can only truly be supported by preference and necessity. We do not "Know" moral truth, we only appear to interpret and create it.

This being the case it is the opinion of myself and a great many post modern philosophers that ethics is essentially a specialised branch of aesthetics. An important one still, but none the less it is still a study of preference and beauty rather than one of epistemological truth.

By this logic one could certainly argue that the organic "Humanist" approach to ethics and morality as outlined in this video seems infinitely preferable to any sort of static absolute moral authority.

If morality is at its core just a measure of the degree of thought and extrapolation one applies to maximising preferable outcomes then the "humanist" seems like they would have an inherent advantage in their potential capacity to discover and refine ever more preferable principles and outcomes. A static system by its very nature seems less able to maximise it's own moral preferences when presented by ever changing circumstances.


However I'm about to kind of undermine that very point by suggesting that ultimately what we are calling "humanism" here is universal. i.e. that even the most static and dictatorial ethical system (e.g. Wahhabism or Christian fundamentalism) is still ultimately an expression of aesthetic preference and choice.

It is aesthetically preferable to a fundamentalist to assert the absolute moral authority and command of God and while arguably less developed and adaptable (and thus less preferable by most Humanist standards), it is still at it's core the exercise of a preference and as such covered by humanism in general.

i.e. if you want to be a "humanist" then you should probably be wary of placing ultimate blame for atrocities on specific doctrines, as the core of your own position is that morality is a human condition not a divine one. i.e. religion did not make people condone slavery or start wars, human behaviour did.

We can certainly argue for the empirical superiority of "humanism" vs natural authority by looking at history and the different behaviours of various groups & societies. But really what we are arguing there is simply that a more considered and tolerant approach appears to make most people seem happier and results in less unpleasant things happing.

i.e. a preference supported by consensus & unfortunately that doesn't give us any more moral authority than a fanatic or predator beyond our ability to enforce it and persuade others to conform.

"Nothing is true and everything is permitted", "right" and "wrong" can only be derived from subjective principles ergo "right" and "wrong" should probably instead be replaced with "desirable" and "undesirable" as this seems closer to what one is actually expressing with a moral preference.

I completely agree with the sentiment in the video, more freedom of thought seems to mean more capacity to extrapolate and empathise. The wider your understanding and experience of people and the world the more one appears to recognise and appreciate the shared condition of being human.

But I must never forget that this apparent superiority is ultimately based on an interpretation and preference of my own and not some absolute principle. The only absolute principle I can observe in nature seems to be that chaos & conflict tend towards increasing order and complexity, but by this standard it is only really the conflict itself which is moral or "good/right" and not the various beliefs of the combatants specifically.

Naked pictures are not really the issue.

If her pictures had been stolen and looked at, but she didn't KNOW that they had been seen, her psychological damage from this theft would have been very different. Wondering who has seen them, being uncomfortable when meeting someone -- has this person seen them? That person? Not happy, not cool. And, in fact, she took back that particular psychological assault by posting this video and claiming her naked body for herself. Here. Look. I want you to look. It's my body and it is a fine body.

The real damage are the personal attacks, exposing personal information, attempted blackmail, active psychological assaults on her mind.

You guys can have your intellectual conversation about the cloud and how to protect yourself.

But that is not the problem.

I had to stop reading the comment stream when I realized it was starting to include crap about -- oh this isn't misogyny, this isn't hatred.

Yes. It is. It is violence against women, and this woman in particular.

And when you ignore that, and focus on the fact that she had made something that was vulnerable to theft... well, we get back to that feminist/humanist trope of -- you are part of the problem. #Not All Men? Well, men who focus on immaterialities while a violent psychological assault is taking place? I'd say #Those Men.

I know you don't mean any harm. I know you aren't #Those Men, not really. But I'm here to tell you that there is new harm being committed when you ignore the actual violent psychological crimes.

I am aware that some of what I have written might sound really stupid in light of the above comments, since I didn't read them. I'm okay with that. It is better than subjecting myself to what feels like an additional violation.

Maybe the designer programmed the language of life in more simpler means than "perfect engineering". Does fucking Dawkins know how to create all of the necessary tools for evolution of a giraffe? I think not. He assumes a lot and he knows nothing. Theoretically, if we are living in some sort of programmed Universe that is somewhat randomized then the actual programming might be for self-replication and change in the simplest means in evolution over time... why would the program pull it all back for a re-drafting to make a current iteration, perfect? It doesn't appear to me that the "magic" of life is into re-drafting for perfection. That is something we have to figure out ourselves... I guess that's the whole trans-humanist sort of thing.

Science is science. No need to try and prove God or whatever does not exist, or is not an "intelligent designer" or "engineer"... focus on the Science! I really do not like Dawkins and I rarely say that about anyone.

Being racist basically refers to being mean. I'm not being mean. I'm a humanist who cares about human rights.

What I said is true that the reason South Africa has so much more wealth than it's neighbors is because European folks built it, and now much of it has decayed.

Actually, I'm an atheist because my local pastor was a cool guy who used to play table football and billiards at my grandmother's pub. And when he realized that many of us couldn't take the stories of the Bible seriously, he never pushed any of his beliefs onto us. So you might say it never took root with me.

The humanistic education of a German gymnasium did the rest. When the internet came along at the turn of the century, with its ready access to the likes of Bertrand Russell and, much later, Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, deGrasse Tyson, it merely pushed my attitude from not caring about organized religion into open confrontation with it. Though to be honest, I prefer not to bring up religion in a discussion, ever. It has the uncanny tendency to derail any conversation.

That said, science, specifically my training as a computer scientist, had no part in it. I was a passive atheist long before I took any of my education seriously, aka university.

You know, all these men who object so much to women being the subject of a sentence or a video -- perhaps @Payback has a point.

Let's have all gender free videos and gender free comments. No more using the word "man" or "woman" or "he" or "she". We will need to make up some new words, but that is easy enough to do.

Which country is it that has made their entire language gender neutral? Sweden or some place like that?

That would be a perfectly humanist world. Which clearly these folks who are so offended when women are discussed would be happy to have, right?

I'm serious. Some radical feminists would absolutely agree with payback.

Gender neutral. AT ALL TIMES. Not just when the topic is actually women.

I'd go along with that. Not that I am a radical feminist. Just a normal one.

Didn't feminists fight so that women could be free (enslaved) to make movies and be on magazine covers like these women are? I am not speaking of the feminist/humanists, or the feminists that actually care about people, but feminists in general...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-war-on-women.html?hp&rref=opinion

Thought of this comment stream when I read this. The last line.

It's been clear to me for decades that men have a rough go of it -- societal expectations and pressures that I would find crushing.

As a feminist/humanist, it has always been clear to me that men have to tackle that on their own. Women have been fighting against societal crap, men have to fight their own fight.

Our fights are different, however. (And we need to hold each other accountable. We need to get up in each other's grill about how we compartmentalize each other, and react to each other from our "lizard brains" -- the non-thinking part. Women do it, too -- example -- as much as I say I like a man to show his feelings, when a man cries, sometimes I recoil instinctively. Operative word -- "instinct". Not reason.)

It doesn't help when someone speaks up about their own problem, and someone else says -- yeah? well? I got it bad too. Shut up!

That isn't going to fix either problems.

If we could talk about how these problems are interrelated, that would be grand, rather than turning it into some kind of competition.