#ResistTrump today by reading the declassified intelligence report on Russian hacking

@Scildfreja

You’re a thunderbolt

And you’re my light <3

@WWTH

Really, this was point of no return for me. It’s just so incredibly condescending and ‘splainy

And then he goes on to say that he responds to hostility with hostility. I don’t think I was being particularly hostile, was I? I mean, I can be a right shit to people, but I wasn’t especially harsh to that point. One wonders if the very idea that bigotry beats out ‘economic anxiety’ is hostile to @footz in a way that my tone wasn’t…

Who knows

Axe, I’m pretty sure he was misfirin’ at that point, and seeing everything as being hostile. It’s really hard to de-fuse that sort of defensiveness once it shows up. I don’t think you were being hostile – you were annoyed and snarky, maybe, but you had pretty good reason to be!

And yeah, the actual concept of “It could be bigotry” sets a lot of people off. It’s an accusation that a lot of white people take personally (speaking as a white person who sees it a lot in friends and family) since it’s easy to take as an accusation.

… because it is kinda an accusation. Bigotry is real, and innate, and biological, so if a person isn’t explicitly and consciously fighting their internal bigotry, it’s gonna happen. People who aren’t making that effort get defensive about the accusation, and people who are making the effort don’t – because they have personal, first-hand knowledge in just how pervasive bigotry is.

Sorry, rambling, not quite awake! But yeah, I think that’s what that was about.

It’s always weird being complimented on one’s behavior by someone whose behavior one tries to emulate *looks at floor shyly*

http://orig05.deviantart.net/8955/f/2012/028/f/f/blushing_fluttershy___vector_by_regolithx-d4nx3fb.png

Scildfreja Unnýðnes

Please, don’t thank me for being nice and civil. I don’t think you understand entirely where that comes from, or what I do by being considerate and civil to the more hostile people who cross this blog. By extending courtesy to you I am implying that the others here were wrong in being upset with you. I distance myself from them by doing this; I hurt the feelings of my friends and isolate myself from them. They don’t condemn me for it consciously, but it’s just how people work. We are emotionally sensitive to the signals of allegiance, and I violate those signals by talking civilly right now.

It’s part of my own weaknesses. I instinctively open myself to the abuse of others when “it’s for a good cause” – when there is a potential of mending a bridge. There’s no need to go into the details of why, but it’s a very strong instinct that’s hurt me a good number of times and will again in the future. Not only that, but I legitimize what you’re saying, legitimizing the hurt you’ve caused to others here
So, please, don’t.

I am very sympathetic to your position – to treat a person such as myself, singled out from the rest of the group, with civility endangers that social compact among friends (“I will have your back, right or wrong.”). Knowing full well that you could become the target of similar treatment by your peers is a wonderful tool of social control.

That is the border. Let’s go to the middle, shall we? The core misconception we are dealing with here is a common thing amongst – I’m going to call them my “ideological opponents”. I’m not saying you are my ideological opponent, just that this is a quirk common amongst those who are.

” The way I’m using the phrase ‘take them with a grain of salt’ is not the equivalent of ‘disregarding’ them.
Yes, these are assertions – just as claims about Russia, Putin, Wikileaks, the FBI etc are all assertions. One way to be skeptical of assertions is to regard them with caution – that is ‘take them with as grain of salt’. ”

As it turns out, the use of a colloquialism is a strong indication of layered meaning. These phrases usually have an accepted meaning on the surface, and then a real intention buried beneath. Much like Daniel Dennett’s Motte and Bailey description of “faith”, in fact. The phrase is used in one way in an argument, but when pressed, the theist retreats into a second, softer description of the term. God’s not an omnipotent deity, God is just the “ground of all being.”

As noted among the reasons I am ‘suspect’ is that I am a public atheist, so I am quite aware of certain techniques employed among the purveyors of religion in public discourse. Thanks for explaining it so well.

Take them with a grain of salt. Be critical, instead of simply accepting the piece of evidence. This is a strange statement to make – it encourages people to be skeptical, which is fine, but the strange part is that the speaker always actually means “Don’t believe it.” Evidence for this being that the speaker doesn’t believe it themselves, and will argue against supporting statements.
Take them with a grain of salt is pretty much always used as a statement of “this thing should not be believed.”

You telling us to “take them with a grain of salt” tells us that you don’t think we’re being properly critical. Allow me to clarify this for you. We have been critical of the statements connecting Wikileaks, Trump, and Russia. We have discussed these things ad nauseam on these pages. We have been swimming in a sea of reports from all manner of sources for over a year now.

Our current position is that the CIA report is an accurate, if likely somewhat biased, depiction of the truth. We will run with that until evidence shows otherwise, and are unmoved by suggestions that we haven’t been sufficiently critical. Do you have evidence against this position? It’s the only real part of the initial discussion, so the only part worth following up on regarding Trump and the CIA..

I am glad to learn that you all have thoroughly aired the arguments pro and con regarding these reports, and have come to a firm and universally held conclusion and that the matter is closed.

I was not aware of all these discussions, not having read every comment on every post in this blog.

That’s the only actual point of importance in this whole conversation, so I’ll leave that there. There are two other things, though. Consider the following a dissection.

(yadda yadda snipped)

You misunderstood both myself and my friend OogyBoggles. Those were certainly insults to you. You fail to see where you earned them.

(yadda yadda omitted)

You later go on to say that you didn’t claim racism was not a factor in the election – on the same page in fact.

Yes, it is odd how the discussion went from ‘Putin/Assange conspiracy claims’ to ‘many Trump voters were racists’. I might not have been quick enough on my feet to properly address the change to a completely unrelated topic.

Axe was clearly being reductive – he said so, right in the statement he made – and you use that hyperbole to discredit his entire statement by calling it “over the top”.

Axe was making a very good point – that it was race and not economic status which was the greatest predictor of Trump voters. Instead of asking whether that was true or where his sources were, you just discredit him by saying that he is over-reacting. Axe knows his shit, he’s one of the smartest and best-informed people we’ve got here, and you threw his opinion away. With it you disregarded that this may in fact be a racial issue. You did not act with consideration for those people Axe was speaking in defense of.

Axe may well be very knowledgeable regarding racism among Trump voters. Axe could have saved us all some of this drama by linking to the polling where the ‘EXISTENCE of brown people’ was among the questions asked of voters in the recent election, or anything about ‘fascism’.

Because this is what is literally on the screen:

“White people (women too unfortunately) decided that brown people existing was more scary than fascism.”

But Axe was being reductive in an attempt to discredit my previous comment. Perhaps instead of responding in kind I should have resisted the urge to return hostility with hostility, and been more conciliatory.

OogyBoggles had every right to get upset at you for that, and every right to insult you for that, because that was a shitty thing to do. I’ll assume I don’t need to go into why. Tell me if I do.

If you feel the need to try and explain why my treating Axe with the same tone as Axe used with me is something Oogy had every right to be upset about, you are of course welcome to do so. On my part I do not ascribe to the notion that certain persons should be privileged at the expense of others by means of a ‘double standard’. If it’s shitty, it’s shitty no matter who does it. If it’s not shitty, then it’s not shitty no matter who does it.

As for why I brought that exchange up, it was because you had entirely missed OogyBoggles point. She wasn’t implying that you didn’t vote, she was saying that it’s stupid to not vote, and in the case of Trump vs Clinton, not voting against Trump is implicit support of him. Whether you voted for him or not didn’t come up. You assumed that she was talking about you, specifically. You read a personal attack where there was none.

If that was Oogy’s intent, it was very much obscured by the inclusion of a ‘quote’ that appeared to be attributed to me personally, in a comment that put my name on the top and a reference to me at the end. This was supposedly my ‘brogressive bullshit’.

Of course, if Oogy did realize I missed the point, could have clarified along with an admission that the comment was poorly worded and accepting responsibilty for that.

But the actuial post would seem to indicate either Oogy did mean to attribute the quote to me, or spectacularly fails at expressing meaning in English.

Misuse and misunderstanding of language. It’s a very common thing – everyone does it, especially on the internet. Words are hard. The following really sort of ties the whole problem together for me:

” If people have a theory about a conspiracy I’m not sure what legitimate gripe anyone should have about acknowledging it for what it is.”

Calling someone a “conspiracy theorist” does more than just say that they have a theory about a conspiracy. It also calls into question their legitimacy, the validity of what they say, and their general ability to be reasonable. It’s used specifically to de-legitimize someones’ position. It’s a statement of ridicule, well-used to discredit someone by associating them with ridiculous positions. If you’d like, I could possibly get you a semantic map of the term. I’d have to check my database.

I suppose this notion of ‘de-legitimizing’ could very well explain the glee that comes with the speculation as to my status as a ‘911 truther’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’. Heck, throw in the fact that I’m an ‘atheist’ (nudge nudge wink wink) and that I’m a ‘man’ and there’s pretty much no reason to read my posts with all the respect one requires for one’s own posts.

I won’t embarrass you in front of your friends by asking whether you think that the posts about my YouTube videos are efforts to ‘poison the well’ with regard to… well, pretty much everything I might write, ever.

Words are not atomic things with one mechanical meaning. They have a deep and involved context which evokes emotion, aggression, social status, and concepts beyond the dictionary definition. This is the Connectionist theory of knowledge. It’s something everyone knows, really, but a certain subset of people rail against it. It’s usually an unconscious protest, but it’s a cause of a lot of confusion, hostility, and argument. It’s also a favourite tool of trolls – use terms with explicit meanings that are benign, but send emotional cues which are anything but.

(And yes, I chose the term “dictionary definition” there intentionally.)

Indeed, ‘dog whistle’ terms like ‘mansplaining’ and ‘brogressive’ are very well accounted for by such a theory. It triggers the emotions of like minded individuals, helping with their social cohesion and allowing them to attack without guilt the scapegoat wearing the appropriate label. People on the ‘inside’ are also thereby warned not to come to the defense of the selected target. Bonding of this type can be very strong. One can prove their worthiness of inclusion in the group by getting a boot in when the opportunity arises.

My troll-radar is poor, but I’m pretty good at detecting people who are rational. This helps me figure out when to pay attention and when to feel safe in ignoring an argument. Rational people are generally open to communication, and enjoy learning new things. They enjoy being proven wrong, and when someone tells them they’re wrong, they listen – they assume that they’re wrong for a little while, absorb the new information, and then come to a conclusion later. They ask questions when they’re confronted with new things. They doubt themselves and are cheerful in changing their minds about something.

It sounds like such individuals would not respond to a tentative suggestion with hostility merely because it went against a belief they have decided to adopt. Is that what you observed among your friends in the comments on this post?

At the moment I’m afraid I don’t see these things in the conversation you had above. I have seen these traits in a number of the people you’ve confronted and argued with, though.

In any case, you’ve made your position clear and did not feel it necessary to prop up your arguments with hyperbole, deliberate strawmanning, or even making fun of my ‘nym!

If you’d like to continue the conversation, I suggest you look back at Axe’s statement about the racial nature of Trump’s election. Start asking questions if you’d like. Challenge the position if you must, but do so respectful of the fact that there are millions of Americans who disagree, and have a lifetime of personal experience with which to supply them evidence.

I am, of course, aware that people have a lifetime of experience which supplies them evidence about the world. I myself have experiences!

I happily accord respect to other people’s opinions in exchange for respect for my opinions. Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t. This isn’t my first go ’round on the internet.

tl;dr

With regard to the recent drama: we seem to disagree on some points, and agree on others.

Makroth – Agent of the Great Degeneracy
January 11, 2017 at 5:15 pm

@Scildfreja Unnýðnes

People flipping out when accused of bigotry really annoy me. How about they ask themselves and their accusers WHY? HOW? ”How is my attitude not alright?” Actually talk about it. Instead, they throw a fit. It’s such a childish attitude.

I hate those people, too!

Did someone do that in this thread? Or are you just making a point about accused people ‘in general’?

http://static4.fjcdn.com/comments/3339712+_79b8f4eec58e28a793f12ad8da0f1969.jpg

And he just keeps digging.

I am very sympathetic to your position – to treat a person such as myself, singled out from the rest of the group, with civility endangers that social compact among friends (“I will have your back, right or wrong.”). Knowing full well that you could become the target of similar treatment by your peers is a wonderful tool of social control.

We’ve never bullied Scildfreja for being civil to people before. We’re not going to start now. Stop trying to use her civility to guilt trip and manipulate the rest of us. It’s tacky as fuck.

Heck, throw in the fact that I’m an ‘atheist’ (nudge nudge wink wink) and that I’m a ‘man’ and there’s pretty much no reason to read my posts with all the respect one requires for one’s own posts.

Oh, won’t somebody please think of the poor oppressed atheist men!?

Plenty of people here are men. Plenty of people here (including myself) are atheists. You’re just acting like a typical slymepit type. Are you pretending movement atheism doesn’t have a misogyny, racism, and Islamophoia problem now?

Scildfreja does not have to worry about the people on this blog turning on her as a form of social control. lol, k.

‘Mansplaining’ is a dogwhistle term now? lol, k.

weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee

January 12, 2017 at 9:08 pm

And he just keeps digging.

” I am very sympathetic to your position – to treat a person such as myself, singled out from the rest of the group, with civility endangers that social compact among friends (“I will have your back, right or wrong.”). Knowing full well that you could become the target of similar treatment by your peers is a wonderful tool of social control.”

We’ve never bullied Scildfreja for being civil to people before. We’re not going to start now. Stop trying to use her civility to guilt trip and manipulate the rest of us. It’s tacky as fuck.

Your scapegoating, bullying, and in-group mob mentality is tacky as hell – but as has been pointed out so articulately by Scildfreja we are all human, all too human.

“Heck, throw in the fact that I’m an ‘atheist’ (nudge nudge wink wink) and that I’m a ‘man’ and there’s pretty much no reason to read my posts with all the respect one requires for one’s own posts.”

Oh, won’t somebody please think of the poor oppressed atheist men!?

Why exactly do posters here even mention such trivialities unless it is supposed to be ‘relevant’ to the actual arguments I make?

Nope. Your silly denial means less than the actual citation of such ‘facts’ in place of arguments here.

Plenty of people here are men. Plenty of people here (including myself) are atheists. You’re just acting like a typical slymepit type. Are you pretending movement atheism doesn’t have a misogyny, racism, and Islamophoia problem now?

Are you pretending that I have exhibited any of those execrable qualities? Or just attempting to tar me with the same brush?

Think before you answer.

NO U

@proudfootz,

If you do not know the community you’re attempting to be a part of, perhaps it would behoove you to lurk and read the comments of said community before posting.

As it is, your intent still remains unclear.

PeeVee the (Noice) Sarcastic

January 12, 2017 at 9:29 pm

@proudfootz,

If you do not know the community you’re attempting to be a part of, perhaps it would behoove you to lurk and read the comments of said community before posting.

As it is, your intent still remains unclear.

One needs to have a manifesto of ‘intent’ now?

I’m not stalkerish enough to check, but it looks to me like you are newer to this blog than I am.

WOW….

proudfootz, please step away from the computer….NOW!

This will not end well.

you just accused me of threatening Scildfreja AND demonstrated that you do not know what the definition of the word ‘dogwhistle’ is.