@ChaosEngine
so spurr makes a mysoginistic assholery game,(which we agree) and to defend the response he receives.you point out that there was/is immense hatred for sarkesian which could translate to real world violence.

am i correct so far?

so we have sarkesian who has a large population that hate her guts.have posted the most vile threats towards her in the form of death threats and i can only imagine other very imaginative physical threats.basically a band of the most repugnant,online thugs and bullies.(i agree with you this is repulsive and disgusting).

am i still on the right page?

ok ok.lets assume your position is correct and lets also assume that sarkesian feels a real threat from this online harassment.

how does this group of vile and despicable people who hate sarkesian connect with a face-punching game? how does this game (distasteful as it is) translate to real physical harm? are you suggesting that this face-punching game somehow would CAUSE physical harm?

if so,please explain how that could be.

furthermore,you gloss over the jack thompson game (also created by spurr) as somehow being irrelevant.yet thompson does not have a security force to attend to his needs,and thompson was making the very same spurious and unsubstantiated claims that sarkesian was making.thompson was actually taking it a step further by trying to bring legislation proving the video games promoted violence.

same argument.
same reasoning and the same impetus for creating a face-punching game.

so why was it a moral imperative to expose spurr as a mysoginist in regards to sarkesian but not a misandrist in regards to thompson?

to take a stand on one and not the other is morally inconsistent.

but ok...not a big deal in the long run right?spurr didnt pay too much of a price for his poor taste,he was working poor to begin with and of little consequence.

and as i have been lectured over and over the past few days:choices/words have consequences.a position i totally agree with,just wish there was a tad more consistency in its execution.

so ok.spurr got what he deserved for putting this distatsteful,or in your words "mysoginistic assholery" of a game out there in the first place.suck it up buttercup..you got what you deserved.

ok fine.

but again,you either willingly or unwittingly ignore that the only person who is facing charges is greg elliot NOT spurr.

you would think that the man who created the actual game would be the focus of the indictment,but no..that goes to greg elliot.

who,by YOUR own standards,was a victim to a massive online group of hateful bullies who targeted him for disagreeing with the political position of guthrie,a well known toronto feminist.guthrie filed charges against guthrie for harassment.while at the very same time her followers had uncovered elliots private contacts and began a smear campaign against him,accosting and berating his family and friends. costing him job,80k in legal defense and is STILL awaiting a verdict after 3 years.

the mans life is in ruins.

and here is a little caveat that you may find interesting.in canada you do not have to prove actual harassment.you just have to "feel" harassed.

so this guthrie woman,along with her minions are abusing a court system to make a political point and using elliot to set a precedent that should disturb us all.

if you cannot see how easily this can be (and IS being) abused to control opinion and silent dissent.i dont know what to tell ya mate.

how many examples do we need where the accuser did so out of pure malice and/or revenge only to pay zero consequences for that abuse?

i implore you to read the link i provided.karen breaks it down quite succinctly.

*ban
60 Second Lectures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBmdbCaqknM

I didn't listen to the video, I just read the comments. I guessed what the video would say, and the comments 100% supported my intuition.

I'm a "second wave feminist." And guess what? There were plenty of "man hating" women back then, just as radical and separatist and angry as these presumed "third wavers."

And we were pretty angry back then. I was one of the angry ones. Until I understood that everyone suffers under the patriarchy. And until I understood that I had to go thru the mad phase so I could change my thinking. It was a growth process, not unlike being a angry teenage.

And then you grow up.

I find it pretty damn funny that literally nothing has changed in 40 years. I heard these same arguments back then.

It's all good. It is better now. Women have much more freedom than they used to have. (When I was a teenager, a married woman couldn't get her own credit card. Everything was in her husband's name. How fucked up is that?)

And there is work to do, including work that men need to do to break free of the crap that the patriarchy traps them with. Nobody can do it for them, though. It is their work.

Please don't lecture me about not watching the video. I know I "should." But I have 40 years of this crap. I don't need any more.

I thought your title was fine.
It indicated to me that she was a creationist, and a student, not necessarily a student of creationism....although to be perfectly honest, there's no firm 'proof' of either. It's POSSIBLE she's neither a student (and is just sitting in on the lecture) or a creationist (and is only asking the 'question' to give the professor a reason to discuss and rebuke it), but I think it's fine to make the assumption(s) she is both unless either is shown to be wrong.

Her parents are definitely deserving of that scorn, but at some point you have to take responsibility for your own beliefs.

She's not a child anymore, she's at university. At that point, it is assumed that you have a reasonable grasp of the basics in whatever you're studying. You can question things you don't understand, but there's a limit. You wouldn't go into a physics lecture and start disputing Newtons laws (on a macro scale).

Wouldn't it be wonderful if, in a few years time, she can look back at this and say "that was the point where I started to question my beliefs"?

Right, and I agree that is how she comes across. I just think the Profs answer was textbook. If she was really just making a statement disguised as a question then you lose nothing by attacking the arguments as if they were asked in all sincerity. Well, apart from time, but I'm assuming this lecture was not for science students. If it was, then my god woman, go away and read the book, this is a lecture for people who have read at least some of the literature etc.

ps. I've not been to NZ no, but I'd love to visit one day just to see Minas Tirith and to ride a Giant Eagle (I've heard they can be pretty picky about where they will and won't take you though...).

I can think of one prominent neurosurgeon running for office that doesn't understand evolution...

Anyway. Seems mean to judge her. Perhaps she comes from a religious background and never had the benefit of a good science education earlier in her life. What better way to challenge our own understanding by attending a lecture and asking questions? If America has enough people brave enough to ask the questions and with enough humility to listen to the answers they are given then perhaps you can hold off on moving to NZ for the moment.

I would hazard a guess that she's not actually a student in this class (possibly not even at the school), but is, at best, 'auditing' the class, and more likely just sitting in on a lecture that's open to all students (and maybe the public) because he's got all those replica skulls there as a presentation, which makes this look like it's not a normal class presentation. I sat in on a number of 'classes' like this when I was 12-13, and even was allowed (indeed encouraged) to participate in the discussions...but I knew more about science than this woman did even at that age, so it's not as outrageous as it sounds.

If I'm wrong, and that is really the level of education required to be a science student at Berkeley these days, we are totally screwed as a nation and the only smart move left is to move to New Zealand. Actually, that's a good move no matter what!

I have chosen a different word..."want". Some people want religion, because they think it helps them somehow. The same can be said for heroin...wanting something doesn't make it 'good'.

You can call it pedantic nit picking, I say the words have quite different meanings (one reason they are spelled and pronounced differently), and if people are lazy and use word/meanings they don't intend, I can't help but try to correct them in order to properly understand them before I can determine if I agree with them....(EDIT: or to determine what part I disagree with. In this case, I disagreed with the specific contention that anyone 'needs' religion, which you've seemed to have somehow read as a slight against religious people, and a directive for them to think as I do...which was certainly not my intent.)

I understand people SAY they "need" religion, but they have the same issue of not distinguishing between "need" and "want". No one has ever, not once, died from a lack of religion...but many have died from an over abundance of it (usually in others).

You would be incredibly wrong in that assumption. Much of my family is religious, as are many of my friends. We often have had respectful, deep theological discussions and they invariably come away with a new view point of what they had taken for granted, while I often come away with only a new example of how religion got it wrong or contradicts itself. I don't lecture them, I give them a chance to explain themselves, then I tell them where they seem to have strayed from reality (for example, with Christians, it's nearly always when they resort to the bible as proof of something).

Me thinks you protest too much, and understand me too little. I don't think I wrote any such dictation, I merely explained how religion is something people 'want' rather than 'need'. It is religion that is zealously judgmental, it's religion that dictates how other people should live and think, I only expressed my wishes on that front (after being prompted to do so by you), not any command. Please re-read.

(I hope you have noticed that I have refrained from targeting any one religion, as my remarks are applicable to religion as a concept and not directed at any sect.)

@newtboy

I'll give you my brother's phone number. He went from secular to devout for a reason. You don't like the word "need"? Then pick another one and stop with the pedantic nit picking.

People choose to be religious all the time. There is a different word. They choose religion.

Why?

I have heard people say they "need" it.

I suspect that you have never had a respectful conversation with someone who chose religion. It takes time to get to motive. If you are lecturing them about how they are wrong, you aren't going to hear them.

So, I have a limit to how much time I am willing to spend talking to judgmental zealots who want to dictate how other people should live and think. I've reached it now.

(I hope you noticed that I in no way have defended religion from its excesses and crimes. I have stayed focused on individuals making individual decisions about their own lives. Rather Libertarian of me, isn't it?)

Gotta disagree with you, sweetpea.

I mean, how would you feel if someone lectured you on personal choices you have made that they don't agree with?

The people who don't "fit" the church, any church, leave. Some don't know how, and many do.

If you truly believe in the basic human right to make choices for your own self, you would not talk like this.

Are there some "non-good people" who hide in the church? Sure. They hide outside the church, too.

There is no perfection in this world. Choices are made, choices are lived with, choices are changed.

Respect for fellow human beings, though. That should be our standard, yeah? If we are good people?

insane, back when I was in highschool there was no cops/guards/etc

We even had a smoking section, and guns could be brought on campus.

For smoking section you just needed a letter from parents that they knew you smoked. and on recess the smokers all hung out there.

To bring gun to school, it was during any hunting season. You had to have note from parents that they know. The gun had to be visible, either gun rack in back window of truck or in passenger seat. Rifles and Shotguns only no pistols.

You had to have your Hunter's Safety Course card, Your Hunting License both on you to give copies at office.

You had to leave your vehicle keys with the front office and submit to random vehicle search of the hunter's vehicles only.

So while everyone could go to their cars at recess, or if you had extra empty elective, some of us juniors would drive up to Hardees before lunch and grab fast food then be back before 4th period started, but the hunters had to leave their keys with front office and they could not retrieve them until end of school.

So much more freedom.

Smoking was banned on campus for students only my 10th grade year, but Teachers had the smoking lounge in building. There was a teacher's lounge on each hall, the back hall F where weight lifting, welding, home ec, and vocational classes were was where the teacher's smoking lounge was. Most students friendly with teachers could sneak in there and smoke anyhow.

crazy times.

I had a 84 Camaro and kept a flare gun under seat my dad owned a boat and had couple extra flare guns. So I had that for some crazy reason thinking if someone attacked me, at point blank range I'd put on a huge firework show


Then there was the stereotypes that were proven right not wrong.

The jocks hung out together, the headbangers/smokers hung out together, the nerds, the band folks like me as my senior year I was drum major
and the blacks stayed together all in separate cliques at lunch and recess and before/after school.

stereotypes even went further.

the only highschool girls with babies (during time I was there I stress) were black girls, they had to build a daycare from the old mechanic shop behind the highschool for them. And even though this was the early 90s in the south, you'd hear over the Intercom every 6 months "All Black female students to gym at this time please" where they'd get lectured on abstinence, or condom use, and std's and such.

the only time rest of the student body went through that was in 10th grade they'd take the boys one day, and girls the next day.

We had a blast though as the guys, the protection/std talk was given by one of the football coaches, and during the talk with the guys and showing various "shock images" of std's on penis on the TV, when he got to the "sex ed" portion, he flipped in a Nina Hartley porn intro where a nude Nina Hartley showed the correct way to place a condom on. haha was hilarious looking back before "political correctness" went out of control.

I loved highschool and college.

Graduated high school in 94, got associates in 96, took year off then got bachelors in computer science in 99.

But 89-94 (our highschool here in the deep south is 8th through 12th) most are 9-12, but not here. It's still 8-12th here. So it's nothing seeing 12th graders dating 8th graders. Freaky yea, but not unusual.


If you got into a fight, if a coach was around he'd let the fight finish, unless it got a bit too over the top then they'd break it up. You didn't get suspended, you lost recess privileges usually 3 days plus the starter of the fight got 10 licks of the paddle in principle office, the other only got 1 to 3, or if person was just dominated and got ass kicked you just got detention.


Kids didn't act up at all most times. And the reason was Corporal Punishment. Not private paddling either.


Once I was having a bad day, me and "highschool" sweetheart were having a bit of a spat. We sat next to each other so we were bickering a bit during class. Teacher had yelled at me to shut up and do the work. I sighed "Leave me the fuck alone"

bad move.

She called me to front of class and I got 5 licks of paddle in front of everyone. They'd stick finger in your belt loop and yank it up tight to put that extra sting on it. Embarrassing as hell! Even female older teachers who didn't paddle hard, it was just too embarrassing to get paddled, so kids behaved.


And of course if you refused paddling which you could but you'd take a zero for the day's work. few of those in a semester and no matter how hard you worked you were flunking that semester.


But the system worked.

It wasn't until they went crazy insane on political correctness, stopping corporal punishment, and putting cops/rent a cops/guards in schools and after the No Child Left Behind was signed into law, they severely dumbed down kids forcing the smartest to learn at the slowest kids pace. Doc's prescribing SSRI's like candy to kids in MASSIVE quantities, that schools in today's culture are crazy.

Ok, I'll explain it.

It's a comedic piece, not a lecture on reproductive health.

It doesn't matter if condoms are 97, 80 or 50% effective. They are being used as a stand-in for something that HAS a 97% consensus on its accuracy.

Granted, it's not a completely perfect analogy (they are comparing efficacy to consensus), but it's poetic licence. In other words.....

it's a fucking joke.

As for writing people off, everyone is entitled to make mistakes, but really at this point climate deniers are up there with creationists, homeopaths, and flat earthers. There's only so much slack we can cut them, before we move the fuck on and say "If you believe that shit, you're an idiot"

Since you brought up unusual punishments, let's take stoning people for adultery (which exists in both the Koran and the Bible). When was the last time someone was stoned to death by a group in the U.S., U.K., Australia, or even Malaysia for adultery? Hundreds of millions of Muslims and Christians around the world seem perfectly fine ignoring that part of their holy texts. Just because something that we find distasteful today is written in the holy text doesn't automatically make the religion evil nor does it suddenly force the practioners to behave like savages.

You need to look at the specifics. Take a look at the countries where stoning actually does still occasionally happen and who actually carries it out: Iran, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. Invariably when it does occur it happens in rural areas where there are people who still actually live like it is the middle ages, with extreme poverty and little education to speak of (other than religious). Sure, the book gave them the idea but it wasn't the only factor in play and to ignore these other factors or the fact that honor killings are in fact common across a wide number of cultures with varying religious backgrounds (even the Romans did it) is what would be truly intellectually dishonest.

As for extremists--they exist in all religions including Christianity. It wasn't a mob of Muslims who attacked Charlie Hedbo--it was two deranged individuals. And while some Muslims might have applauded the attack others denounced it, such as the hunderds of thousands of Chechen protestors who who were upset with the cartoons but didn't think violence was the right response (see article here).

Again, it's a complex issue that can't be boiled down to "Islam = Good/Bad." Islam as practiced by ISIS or Boko Haram? Yeah, there's some dark shit going on there. Islam as practiced by average citizens in Kuala Lumpur or Boston? Not so much.

But again, moderate statements based on reason and facts are not what sell books, generate online clicks, or fill lecture halls to capacity.

He was great. The women were good dancers, but I was sick to my stomach at the sexualization of their dress and their movements. I know that makes me an old fogey, and yes, there are lots of men and women who think it is just fine.

BUT FUCK ALL. The women were wearing bathing suits, for FUCK'S SAKE. They imitated SEXUAL ACTS for FUCK'S SAKE.

Yes, I'm an old fogey. Don't bother coming here to lecture me on my old fogeyness. I GET A FUCKING OPINION HERE TOO.

Ya'll get to post these videos and have fun with them. I get my own fun of PISSING ON YOUR FUN.

It's even steven, as far as I am concerned. I suffer a little bit, and you suffer a little bit. EVEN STEVEN.

(He was great. Don't like the sexualisation of him, either, but at least he was dressed.)