May 202013
 

Have to post about the effect of @aratina’s great GreaseMonkey / TamperMonkey script for Twitter…. This reads in a list of the blocked users from www.theblockbot.com and removes them from your timeline. I still think everyone should sign up to Level1 of the block bot given that blocks the stalkers, harassers and fakers on Twitter…. But you can now experience the block bot without having to block anyone. ALSO you can browse #WISCFI, #FTBULLIES, etc…. any of the hashes without having to wade through misogynistic, paranoid, conspiracy led drivel. In fact I found what I thought was a god-bot lurking on #FTBullies and proceeded to be very unpleasant and condescending to her. Serves me right as she turned out to be very reasonable and we actually agreed on secular morality! I’m not used to having reasonable conversations with people on #FTBullies so that was my excuse for being an asshole. (N.B. This does over-ride your followers, no easy way around that. So if you are following someone on the list they will disappear! But why would you follow them?)

I’m concluding this will really improve the level of dialogue and debate as those reasonable voices with something interesting to say have been drowned out by the loud mouthed assholes.  So onto the before and after images :-D >>

#WISCFI  <BEFORE AND AFTER>

image showing slyme removed by script
What happened to the Vac? Now you can actually see what people interested in the conference more than their own self promotion think!

#FTBULLIES <AFTER AND BEFORE **>

image showing slyme removed by script
Amazing! People actually have interesting things to say on FTBULLIES, who’da thunk it… BTW there will be an option to put in custom blocks so if some pesky oolon is hogging the hash you can sweep them away too!

** Making sure you are paying attention! Definitely not a photoshop mistake…

#ATHEISMPLUS <BEFORE AND AFTER>

image showing slyme removed by script

From transphobe, 911 truther and ironically named pundit to actual atheismplus people with useful information about activism not their own petty hate for other people. (OK one dipshit, but guess who is about to be added to the block bot!)

So in short…

INSTALL IT NOW!

 

 Posted by at 8:35 pm
May 152013
 

So there was this fellow called Justicar who gave some “helpful” advice to Jen McCreight on how not to be d0x’d. Well no, actually he was a condescending arsehole who called her a lot of names for tweeting a picture that could give away her location. Rather than be helpful and tell her, he made a video about it. In that video he set himself up as an expert in not being d0xed and how to be anonymous on the internet.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/05/12/justicarintegralmath-wretched-skeevy-piece-of-internet-offal/

Personally I think if you are not in danger it is a good idea to be open… See my “About Me”. Makes it easier for people to realise you are not a stalker or dangerous when your IRL identity is on the line, probably also holds you back if you are attracted to being a little trollish *looks around, moi?*

So is Justicar an expert on not being d0x’d? Well I don’t think he is as he comments as <nym>-<last name> and <first-name>-<nym> on web forums. Now far from it for me to d0x the little weasel but this is not the action of any sort of expert on d0x’ing! In fact I think there is a case to be made that he d0x’d himself since he uses his real name on the web… Is he actually bothered about it? I’m assuming he is, hence no name. Certainly not the action of the person in the video who claimed to be “careful” about his IRL identity, dipshit.

If you really want to be anonymous, I’m assume you need to be anonymous as your IRL work or identity will be at risk from being an atheist/etc. Not that you are a Z-grade skeeze who gets his jollies harassing women on the internet… Here are some *good* tips.

1/ Choose a pseudonym that is totally unrelated to your interests/work/etc (oolon is terrible as I love Douglas Adams!)

2/ Use Tor or some other IP anonymising service on your computer.

https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-windows.html.en

3/ Never mention your work, your location or anything specific about friends and family

4/ No images, google image search can locate you! Also EXIF data in images can be extracted if you upload the image unprocessed. Some cameras/phones even add GPS information, you’d d0x yourself to the nearest couple of meters!

EDIT: Someone pointed out another method, as I got “d0x’d” by the Slymepit doing a lookup on my oolon.co.uk domain. So….

5/ Don’t register any domain names with your real name/address. Use a proxy registration service or just blog on wordpress.com with a pseudonym.

–> Basically its a pain, you’d only want to do it if you were doing illegal things (Harassing women) or actually in danger if outed as atheist/gay/trans/etc. (Edit: Should also say you’d also want to do it if you are a potential target of Justicar and his friends, sort of obvious given the post subject. However not a good state of affairs when atheists are probably in more danger of being harassed by other atheists (than theists/scientologists/anyone!) just because they call themselves feminists as well)

Oh, and never take the advice of “experts”, mine included, do your own research!

 Posted by at 10:31 pm
May 122013
 

So there are two new people blogging over at FreeThoughtBlogs. Good news for all the fans of the network, also good troll fodder for the anti-FTB people? This is an extension and update to a comment I posted here, I’ve added the two word clouds below as I had all the text from the first comments by the anti-FTB brigade so thought it might make for a nice visual aid.

So why not check out the comments from the group of FTB haters who just exist only to “ridicule” FTBs… Would there be a difference in comments from Ally Fogg vs Yemisi Ilesanmi (Yemmy)? Both profess beliefs that could be described as strongly feminist, although Ally doesn’t use the label. Both use terms like patriarchy and rape culture… Ally’s blog is provocatively called “Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men”, surely a red rag to the anti-feminists that hate FTB’s and the “gender feminists” therein? They also use these terms and they elicit derision and hatred from the anti-crowd. Watch out Ally! Yemmy on the other hand is a respected activist, deals with unpleasant homophobic and anti-atheist theists on a regular basis. So while she owns the label “feminist” and “A+” surely this track record of achievement in activism (a common criticism of A+ people is they lack this) will put her in good stead?

Well lets look at Ally’s reception… First comment from an anti-type is analysed by my totally objective brain [not], so take the analysis with however much salt is permissible while keeping your blood pressure under control.

Ally’s Word Cloud:

Ally Fogg word cloud from anti-FTB comments

Big reference to his name there, so he is being referred to directly, “like” is big, overall impression is positive I think its fair to say… So first comments broken down by post and an observation on the overall tone of the debate from the anti-crowd, split by nym.  You can find each post under the links for each blogger which I give above, can’t link here or I’ll spam them both with trackbacks from WordPress.

Intro Post,
- PitchGuest, “amusing” comment
- Metalogic42, pally hello
- Tigzy, appreciative of Edward Woodward joke
- John Welch, one word, wut?
- johngreg, respectfully asks about commenting rules
- Lsuoma, friendly hello
- Skep Tickle, nice welcome, alludes to “outsider” status
- Damion, welcome and gossip about squabbles
- Renee Hendricks, enthusiastic welcome

Tone: A little banter between PitchGuest and an FTB’er but all fairly friendly

Global Inc post,
- Theetar, respectful confusion, very friendly reply to answer
- Damion, “it seems”, respectful comment
- Steersman, “nice analogy” kickoff to comment… Civil bloviating for rest of post.
- Metalogic, very civilly made point, told he misunderstood, takes it very well
- johngreg, civil exchange while disagreeing

Tone: Little spat between John Greg and skockna, doesn’t get too rude.

White society post
- spacklick, respectfully made point
- johngreg, respectful, civil
- PitchGuest, animated, lots of “if we are…”, challenging to the posts viewpoint

Tone: No real antagonism detected

Empathy Post
- Steersman, straight into civil bloviating.
- PitchGuest, pretty normal assholery aimed at me

Where are the anti-crowd? Apart from Steersman’s vast word count they have all gone after the initial excitement in the intro… Did Ally not provide what they are looking for! But overall have to say they don’t really detract from the blog posts or mess up the comment sections (As long as you skip Steersmans comments, but you do that already, right?)

Onto Yemmy, her Word Cloud:
Yemmy word cloud from anti-FTB comments
Uh oh, really doesn’t look that positive from the anti-crowd here. I wonder how the comments on her posts go…

Intro Post,
*crickets*

Why I am an atheist post,
*crickets*

Debunking homosexuality myths posts,
*crickets*

Her book post,
*crickets*

[Jeez, where are they all? Both bloggers were announced to some fanfare so they couldn't have missed her! Ahh, mention A+ and suddenly they all find her below... I'm sure they remember to say welcome and hello like they did for Ally?]

What are anti-A+ ppl afraid of post,
- Damion, helpful links to why A+ is awful, condescension about emotion on A+ forum
- PitchGuest, condescension dialled up to 11, poison the well for poor old oolon [wah]
- Camomile Lox, weird and vague as usual
- johngreg, denying hate and tantrums exist, feigns ignorance

Tone: Bad. The thread goes downhill faster than Eddie the Eagle on meth. PitchGuest “apologises” for being patronising in an incredibly patronising comment. Damion dials up the condescension about Yemmy’s experience on the A+ forum *without* asking what experience she has! PitchGuest carries on his condescending asshole performance to the end of the thread.

Is the A+ label confusing post,
- Phil Giordiana, civil comment. [Shows how much use "civility" is since the content is bullshit about A+, see "narrative" below]
- Theetar, drive by whining comment

Tone: Not too bad (Compared to above), but only Phil here. Phil also goes on to talk past Vall who tries to engage with him. Ignores me as he is toeing the anti line of oolon=troll. He gets steadily less civil as the thread progresses.

Mother Nature poetry post,
- tigzy, troll on!
- Lsuoma, not at all civil, bad pit mod!
- Skep Tickle, not civil, looking for things to be offended about in a poem!
- johngreg, demented rant
- theetar, rude, off topic pot shot at A+ with extremely tenuous link

All the anti-crowd comments direct to Ally were nice hellos or respectful disagreement, just what they always engage in right?

No as Yemmy apparently didn’t have the whiff of Heteronormative Patriarchy that Ally could muster so got no friendly or even unfriendly hellos (Well one “Hello!” from Phil G). First interactions from the anti-FTB’ers with Yemmy were them being condescending assholes and it managed to go downhill from there somehow.

What did Yemmy do to annoy them so much? Why are they so universally welcoming of Ally and universally not so to Yemmy? Personally I’d say these things factor in.

Ally does not call himself a feminist, it doesn’t matter if the duck quacks and lays eggs on a regular basis this will confuse the anti-duck anti-FTB crowd considerably. They are easily confused to be fair.

Yemmy is A+, she is also a great role model for the A+ community, works hard as an activist in marginalised communities and loves what A+ brings to the atheist movement. This is damaging to the anti-FTB/A+ narrative of A+ being a white feminist slacktivist playground where they can pretend to care about the brown/poor/trans/marginalised people.

The narrative, given most anti-FTB/A+ ppl get their cues from each others distorted memes and shared circle jerk it’s not surprising they have a *very* similar reaction to each blogger. Ally is “nice”, Yemmy is “nasty”… These sentiments will have been expressed in their safe spaces, forums, groups on Twitter etc so they all join in as one hivemind. If Ally is too critical or posts something positive about A+ the mood will likely switch the other way and the majority of the anti-crowd with bend with the wind like so many obedient blades of slimy grass.

–> Finally on the “narrative”, I’ve purged references to the “Slymepit/ters” from the original comment and made it “anti-FTB/ers” for a reason. The forum called the Slymepit is just one place that anti-people can build their narrative for each other to stick to. Twitter is at least one other place. Certain drama blogs at ScepticInk network or random Twitter loons blogs would be yet more. So while that place is definitely devoted to building and maintaining the anti-FTB and anti-A+ party line it is not the only one.

Unfortunately this self-reinforcing groupthink results in a large consensus on certain points. You will see the vast majority, if not all, of the anti-A+ people recycle a scripted opinion about Richard Carriers “Us vs Them” sentiment on A+ over and over. Some lovely examples in the wild from Phil Giordiana’s “civil” comment to Yemmy ->

…The problem of A+ is … that those not embracing the label are somehow bad persons (racists, misogynists, rape appologists…etc). Richard Carrier has made this very clear.

Phil, like most of the anti-crowd, doesn’t bother with primary source material. He is happy with the partially digested pieces of information he gets at the Slymepit/Twitter/SkepticInk network etc. So when Richard Carrier said very clearly that he was against the harassers and assholes and its A+ vs them alone, not all other non-A+ atheists this didn’t get through to Phil. He probably never read the actual post he alludes to but has read this meme repeated over and over in the various places these anti memes are promulgated. Have a look here (http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2207) he clearly marks the harassholes as the ones to kick out of the movement, even provides some helpful examples. If Phil et al want to identify with those atheists then good luck to them.

…Ceepolk and Setar are shinning exemples of what not to do (it’s not a personal attack. I don’t know these people in real life, and have never interracted with them online. But their very prominent posts are just shameful…)

Leaving aside the epic stupidity of claiming a personal attack is not a personal attack…. Phil admits he doesn’t know these people, he has never interacted with them on the forum where they post. So it would occur to a reasonable person to ask how did Phil read their “prominent” posts? He must hang out there, right? Newp… Phil again has been getting his confirmation bias handed to him on a plate. In this case at the Slymepit where one post is dissected, out of context, with a very biased interpretation of the posters words.  The posts are only “prominent” because they have accorded the haters an avenue to lie and distort about what was said and present their own narrative. Again, no need to actually read any of the primary source material, let alone *interact* with the objects of his distain and actually discover they are decent human beings. Unlike I’d propose those who dedicate their online life to following them around and trying to find any avenue for attack in their words.

Been a little unfair to Phil here, he is a “reasonable” pitter in that he is not one of the batshit foaming at the mouth types. But this shows a typical window into the mind of the anti-FTB/A+ collective and their thinking processes, or lack of thinking. Rather than join in and find out for themselves they’d rather digest others words and opinions after its been through the anti-FTB/A+ prism of ridicule, distortion and outright lie. And they are deluded enough to call themselves “freethinkers”… Sceptics… Critical thinkers… Hmmm!

 Posted by at 9:54 pm
Mar 112013
 

You may have missed it but copying thousands of tweets out of context, misunderstanding, adding your own completely distorted commentary is apparently now the new gold standard in reporting! You heard it here first… Well actually I got it from this bloke on Twitter, I’m sure he couldn’t be wrong?

Given I am one of those claiming EG smells distinctly of “Obsession for Sad Haters” I guess I’d better try out this “reporting” technique and see how hard it is.

So what is rule one of this reporting technique? Seems to be pick your targets and mine, mine, mine away all day and all night. Given I value my sleep and sanity more than ElevatorGate does I’ll just give it a quick go… #Haters = Joke?

So my good old pals D4M1ON and Chassy Jeff copied me on some random tweets… (See I give up my sources, unlike EG!)

WTF does that mean? So I follow the thread of the conversation back and it seems to all start with an exchange between Elyse and Rebecca Watson…

Seems reasonable? A sarcastic comment ridiculing the position of the Reddit “free speech” crowd… No one could object to that? Certainly not the #haters who are the ones with a sense of humour… I mean “having” a sense of humour means actually understanding humour not just shouting poo as loud as you can and running away, right? Wrong…

LOL! Seems Sara is so desperate to gain some points against her targets she has a brain-ectomy and shoots herself in the foot. Oh well none of the other #haters would be as dumb? They’ll obviously set her right so she stops making a fool of herself? Wrong…

and

and

So yeah the other #haters are as dumb as pulverised brick as well. But… But… She was only having a laugh? She didn’t really misunderstand such an obvious tweet? Wrong…

The penny is well and truly dropped.

Oh dear… But when Elyse points it out they will all be scrabbling to apologise and *facepalm* and laugh at themselves? I mean the #haters always say they don’t take themselves seriously its the #ftbullies who do that and never have a laugh? Wrong…

So yeah they refuse to respond or carry on digging down to Australia!

Hmmm someone who has the reading comprehension skills of a 6yr old should really have more sense than to claim maturity. Oh wait, no they shouldn’t!

I’m no follower but I’m guessing she is one seriously butthurt #hater who in her attempts to get one over on the targets of her hate often fails miserably because she is as dumb as the now famous Reap Paden brand pulverised brick.

She has form here, I won’t go into the details but suffice to say Sara thinks its a good idea to claim “rag on” is a gendered insult! ROFL! #Haters == Joke!

Wow.. That took me all of 5 minutes. I like ElevatorGATEs new reporting method… Find stupidity (Or not doesn’t matter in his case) … Laugh at it…. Feel superior. #winning

UPDATE: Couldn’t resist adding this in, sums it all up nicely…

 

 Posted by at 11:20 am
Feb 252013
 

So the block bot is dead… I created as a beta to see if it might be a useful service for people not wanting to get harassed by people on Twitter or even get into long boring arguments with known proponents of long boring arguments! I was surprised anyone wanted to use it, let alone the number that did or that they found it a useful tool. So a success in my book even if I failed in my attempt to be “most popular kid in skepticism” as suggested by our favourite internet kook Franc/Felch/Devils Ivanoff himself -

So its too late to add to my friends list now, you had your chance. But fear not – the block bot lives on in the guise of the A+ Block Bot… Now with three levels of nastiness and no unpleasant side effects, like swelling my ego ;-)

 

Long Live The A+ Block Bot!

Go here to read about it and sign up –> www.theblockbot.com

Now its in the hands of the serious A+ crowd here are a few of my favourite comments about the bot and how western civilisation has never experienced such a hideous device of pure peach freezing evil!

As you can imagine things started slowly as we are first and foremost a community of sceptics so no one would leap to hyperbole, right?

Wrong :-) The poor ole block bot is an “atrocity”… Sob!

Yes we really need to worship at the altar of everyone’s opinions to not be an “echo chamber”! Just like those evilutionists who refuse to listen to Ken Ham, A+ is totes an echo chamber …

That’s right report a service for spam that is not actually spamming anyone to prove you have ethics greater than A+…. And Ana above says we need to listen to these “logical” arguments from great “skeptics” in order to not be an echo chamber? Right!

Also nicely proved the bot does not cause anyone to be kicked off Twitter either given half the pit blocked and reported for spam and it is still there!

We even got a “parody” in double quick time, unfortunately lacking in the AI that makes the one and only block bot so unique.

Amidst all this rubbish are the pertinent points, how else to explain the fury at a service that allows people they don’t want to talk to ignore them?

Are we really losing that much by ignoring these Twits?

I’ve said it before, its all about the winning with these guys… Follow away, its been noted idiots often follow idiots so nothing new there.

Once they realised #professionalvictim cookies were available at the Slymepit the block bot was suddenly their best mate.

They get pretty desperate, but the bot wouldn’t take anyone this pathetic. Maybe the A+ bot will be kinder?

Secular Steve helped us out debugging the bot by changing his Twitter id over and over and over… He was a very happy camper, until…

… it sort of backfired when he lost his secular_steve handle :-D (Xanthe did give it back, eventually!)

Some people even turned over a new leaf by accepting the block bot into their lives as their personal saviour… (Not really)

It’s probably best they don’t try and use the bot as they really don’t know how it works. Reading comprehension fail! If you are following someone it won’t block them… Was it all a misunderstanding?

Nope as daft as ever… Maybe a turtle sized tin foil hat will stop us beaming A+ feminazi mind control waves at the poor little dear?

So that’s it, there were more bullshit tweets about “freeze peach” and even a blog post exclaiming the bot leads to less freethought and skepticism! … On Twitter! Yes you heard it here first, scepticism and freethought are conducted through the medium of 140 characters by idiots who express the sort of opinions you have just been exposed to….
Dads army image with character saying we are all doomed! DOOMED!

 Posted by at 10:17 pm
Jan 232013
 

Many people seem to really dislike being called a misogynist on the internet, this post is a response to a particular example of this but if you are not interested in the history the next paragraph and hidden text can be skipped. So how should you react to being called a misogynist? Well read on, I’ll use Reap Paden as my poster boy on how not to deal with a misogyny accusation…

I was recently the star of ReapSowRadio and my new best bud Reap Paden was rather upset about being called “a misogynist” by some bitchfellow atheist-sceptic on a blog post. If you want the background there was a kerfuffle when an atheist activist named Justin Vacula was named as a volunteer leader for the SCA, the person leading the removal of him from that position was one Stephanie Zvan of Freethought blogs. Her petition is here and blog post describing the petition. Many people agreed that he was not suitable given his history, most of which were from Freethoughtblogs.com which is a red flag to a section of the atheist community but others also spoke out. Justin eventually admitted he had made mistakes, but refused to apologise for them.

So Reap Paden disagreed with Stephanie Zvan on this topic. How did he express that disagreement? With a well thought out rebuttal of her points? Not exactly as while he may have made some rational argument against her position this was drowned out by him calling her a “fucking bitch” over and over in a podcast of his. Referred to here and the start of the you’re “a misogynist” accusations to my knowledge. Looking through that thread he was mainly called out on his “misogynistic” language which is an important distinction. It seems that when called a bigot of any type the usual reaction is defensiveness and then often anger as the person *knows* they are not a bigot! Their friends are black/gay/women and they don’t complain about their attitudes or use of language! From here it degenerates into name calling and hurt egos. The thing to realise is that bigotry is a default position for human beings, we are hard wired to make distinctions about people based on their differences from ourselves. When we repeat sexist stereotypes it is often without even realising it, but as a sceptic I would hope this is obvious and something to be welcomed when pointed out as it gives us an opportunity to address it (I’m naive). There is plenty of research showing we are subject to stereotype threat, we are effected by microaggressions. This is well researched social science not a fiction any more than confirmation bias or other cognitive errors. If you think it is fiction then please produce evidence as nearly all the objections I see are “My friend/acquaintance is gay/black/a woman…. and they don’t have a problem with … X”. This is clearly not going to meet any level of proof given in the stereotype threat research this is an unconscious effect built up over years of exposure to negative stereotypes that have intertwined themselves with that persons sense of self worth. They are not concious of this bias against themselves which they have had inculcated in them by a bigoted culture from birth.

So… Going off topic here as I am just looking at the definition of misogyny. Should be pretty easy given dictionaries hold all the “real” definitions of words in existence, right? Nope. In the call above this was repeated over and over, they “know” what the “real” meaning of the word is and dictionaries back them up. When presented with the recent Macquarie update to the accepted definitions of  the word “misogyny” Reap and his friends accepted this but as it is an Australian dictionary that only applies in Oz… To be clear it is an English language dictionary and is sold across the world. Have a look at Wikipedia this is not something unique to Australia or a bunch on bloggers you disagree with. The meaning of words change and it is not a dictionary that is the causative factor behind this change, it is the culture or cultures within which the word is used. So when you are called a misogynist you are not being called out as the most hideous woman hating bigot in history, as lets be honest can you name anyone that hates *all* women? Seriously, even the Pope doesn’t *hate* women he just has a religiously inspired view of his inherent superiority due to his having a Pope-wang.

The meaning of words change and frankly dictionaries take time to catch up, good on Macquarie for being the first of many. Don’t get me wrong this is far from an absolute, many of these definitions by women commentators in the guardian are not in agreement. But the meaning of words is never an absolute, they have *many* meanings arising from context, be that the way it is used in a sentence or the person stating it. In Reaps case it was clear as the person accusing him of misogyny has this to say about it and it ain’t “You hate all women”. The reaction to further trot out sexist stereotypes and dig holes is quite epic in scale, you don’t want to end up in the same boat as Reap so what to do?

Swallow your pride and accept you have inherent bias and bigotry in your make up because you are human! If you are called a misogynist ask what meaning are they using? Do they mean unconscious bias or a concious anger and hatred of women? Someone accusing you of misogyny is expressing dismay that you are adding to the culture and environment in which stereotype threat and microaggressions thrive.  You’ve probably made a faux pas, dropped a bollock,  gaffed, so just apologise and if you don’t understand what you did then ask for clarification. You are not being insulted, really, the person accusing you could well be angry but that is because they are upset at you adding to this bigotry that likely affects them day in day out. Summon up some empathy and look at it from their point of view and try and understand. What ever you do don’t go the full Reap and dig yourself a misogyny grave so deep that you’d end up in Australia….

Finally focus on this point of view from Crommunist over at FreeThoughtBlogs.com

I don’t support the use of the word ‘misogynist’ to identify people. Not because it’s not nice, not because it’s bad tactics, not even because it’s awkward English. We shouldn’t call someone “a misogynist” for the same reason we shouldn’t call someone “a racist” – because it’s inaccurate and places the blame in the wrong place. Ideas, institutions, systems, and behaviours can be misogynist, but to call a person “a misogynist” is too global to be accurate.

You can remove this behaviour and bias, but you need to acknowledge the possibility it is present first…. Over to you.

 Posted by at 12:15 am
Nov 242012
 

There has been a little bit of a flurry of tweets from the usual suspects in response to a bit of a conversation about @ElevatorGATE being ‘like’ David Mabus. Now if you don’t know who @ElevatorGATE is then you are in the same boat as the rest of us as ‘he’ is anonymous and cowardly. EG is also displaying an unnerving amount of obsession for Rebecca Watson given most of the tweets are about her, the background picture on the account is Rebecca as is EG’s avatar, none of this is flattering. So to the outside observer EG appears to be a little unhinged and a potential stalker at the very least. However if you live on the other side of the fence to the ‘#FTBullies’ then EG is a brave hero fighting the evil Skepchick menace for the greater good of the atheist-sceptic movement… Or something.

There are a lot of ‘parody’ accounts vying for attention in the FTBullysphere of which EG is Top of the Tw*ts at the moment. So I’ll compare the main offenders tweeting with mine as a control who tweets a bit and PZ as another control who is a prolific pro-tweeter. Also EG compared PZ to Mabus and vice versa so it is only fair to see who is worse? I can only objectively look at volumes, timing etc, not nuttyness of the content… But is EG anywhere near Mabus? I’ve looked at the last three months as pulling tweets off using the Twitter API only seems to let me get EGs last 3K of tweets which covers just over this period. Also it is less data to work with so is trivial to analyse.

Who is Top of the Tweeting Twits?

Our comparison is with Mabus, but there are no accounts to check as they are pretty quickly marked as spam and suspended and now he has been re-arrested he is presumably not stupid enough to start again. However fortunately there are a few references to just how prolific he could be -

 His final account was created on November 1st and averaged almost 550 Tweets per day until he was arrested.  That’s some 8,700 Tweets – over half of what I’ve sent on my personal account in five in a half years.

He would spend hours at it. For example, on February 25th I found 25 separate accounts he used. Based on the timestamps of the posts, he started around 7:30am, and posted more or less continuously until about 10am. He continued somewhat more slowly until noon, when I presume he took a break for lunch. He resumed at 3pm, and posted until 9pm that night. I counted almost 700 tweets.

From, Tim Farley: http://skeptools.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/operation-archangel-david-mabus-dennis-markuze-montreal-arrested/

and http://skeptools.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/case-study-notorious-spammer-brought-down-twitter-tumblr-social-media-mabus/

Pretty high benchmark to meet in terms of raw numbers, Total of 8,700 tweets in under a month, 550 a day peaking at 700 observed by Tim Farley.

Meet the Twits

Quote from BreadGod1 to preface the meet and greet

@pzmyers When you start comparing people who disagree with you to Mabus, you deserve to become irrelevant. #FTBullies #Atheismplus

AngrySkepchick  Doesn’t mention anyone directly and never spams the skepchicks or anyone else, good parody account and marked as such (Although I agree with very little of what it tweets)
breadgod1 Does directly tweet people when they respond and also unsolicited, big fan of #FTBullies and #atheismplus. Not marked as a parody account, but it should be.
atheismplus Doesn’t mention anyone directly or try and spam them, good parody account and marked as one (I post at the A+ forum, so not really a fan though!)
GroupthinkBlogs Seems to be more of a personal twitter account than a well thought out parody, not marked as one but at times seems like one. Mostly doesn’t spam and likes #atheismplus but not #ftbullies for some reason.
TheOtherAtheist  Felch Grogan / Franc Hoggle / Victor Ivanoff … A key hater of FreeThoughtBlogs and PZ Myers. Although seems to hate pretty much all of FtBs and Skepchick, makes a lot of use of #’s all of above and ones like #pzmyers as Franc knows he is blocked by pretty much everyone!
Y_U_NO_SKEPTIC  Copy of the ‘U Y NO’ meme but used to ridicule FtBs/Skepchicks everywhere. Does spam directly and seems desperate for targets to respond even though they blocked long ago. Would seem likely there is a finite number of sentences that could start “Y U NO.. ” but this one seems keen to disprove that. Not marked as parody.
ElevatorGATE  Our target and potential Mabus, spends a lot of time blogging as well as tweeting. The focus is without doubt Rebecca Watson but anyone on the periphery will get some insults as well. Not marked as parody and seems very happy with pariah status.
ool0n  Me!
pzmyers  Popular atheist blogger and tweeter with a vast number of followers. Sometimes prone to hyperbole about people he doesn’t like, for example EG – but is it hyperbole? We will see!

Total Tweets

So the total tweets by twit over the last three months ->

So compared to Mabus’s 8000+ tweets in November alone EG is looking like a complete failure at being obsessive. However for pretty much only having one thing to say he is doing well having tweeted a lot more than PZ or pro-hater TheOtherAtheist/Franc/Felch/Victor/Soze. Out of the second-raters EG wins by a long way… It should also be pointed out that he re-tweets a lot, almost half of his tweets are re-tweets – they are not considered here as we are looking at content created by the owner not re-tweets of others thoughts. So in total he is nearer 3K tweets which is looking more Mabus like since Mabus tweeted the same thing over and over and over.

 Tweets by Day

Looking now at tweets for the days in the last three months we get the following rather confused chart -> (9,10,11 are Sept, Oct, Nov and above that are the days  when there were tweets)

For peak tweets in a day PZ and EG are rather close hitting 85 and 86 respectively, Franc came third with 66. None of these are near the Mabus peak of 700 with 550 a day not being uncommon (As per reference from Tim Farley)… Also all three have declined a lot in that last couple of months to the point of being horribly humiliated by my 30 in a day when discussing the merits of Windows 8 with @lousycanuck and @aratina… So embarrassing but not obsessed with anyone!

Not really clear that EG wins this, but why are there not clear peaks from EG when he produces so many more tweets? Well there is a simple explanation, EG sends tweets pretty much all hours of the day! There is not an hour when he is not sending tweets – ok so not every day but all hours have tweets in every month so there is no clear sleeping pattern. Is EG a plural? I hope so for EGs sake!

Tweets by Hour of Day

Here is the analysis of what hours in the day the three top twits tweet -

So there is clearly a time in the day when Franc Hoggle sleeps, good news there! Also PZ has a definite lull around 6am-10am UK time, although only drops to zero on one hour (9am UK time)..  I assume this is due to travelling since there are clear lulls some months but not others. Unlike EG, who in any given month will always have tweets in all hours, this is disturbing if EG is one person. I can only think of two options if EG is the one person he appears to be (In terms of style of tweeting, language used etc.)
South park obese lazy World of Warcraft player in basement

WoW guy, sat in his basement slowly expanding and nursing a serious case of RSI.

Up in the air film, george clooney
International jet-setter so up at all hours and tweeting constantly, even when flying… Hmm, maybe not.

There is of course the multiple person theory, but having read his tweets I cannot see it.  So EG, if you are reading here is a little advice, get some sleep! I think you’ll likely find that obsession over Rebecca Watson just seems not as important once you get some shut-eye.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/3998620/Lack-of-sleep-really-can-affect-a-persons-sanity-research-shows..html

Could it be as simple as that? All the haters need is a few Zopiclone and 8hrs straight? No, unfortunately, as usual Franc Hoggle rears his ugly head to show it is not that easy as he clearly gets his 7-8hrs a night and he is still nuttier than squirrel poo.

Conclusion

This is clearly hyperbole from PZ etc if you only take into account the volume of tweets. Other factors in the Mabus-like theory favour would be the fact that EG is obsessed with primarily one person whereas Mabus was obsessed with 5000 whining atheists so you’d expect less volume. Also EG creates more content, Mabus just spammed a bunch of links and text to everyone but EG blogs, storifies and tweets on Rebecca Watson constantly. He also seems to never sleep and no hour of the day goes past when he doesn’t want to pontificate on Rebecca Watsons merits or otherwise…

Finally I’d say David Mabus is obviously suffering from mental illness, EG is not mentally ill in my opinion, just obsessed. A lot of us get obsessed with things we feel are important so one persons obsession can look strange to an outsider. So don’t compare EG to Mabus, it does no one any good to exaggerate.

NB: If anyone is interested in scripts/tools etc I used – comment/tweet/email and I may add a bit about the method below. Suffice to say I’m not obsessed (Honest!) and my ‘l33t’ shell skills mean it took less than a hour to compile the info.

 Posted by at 11:22 pm
Nov 202012
 

This will be my last post on the Slymepit, I think I’ve well and truly burned the ‘bridges’ I was supposedly trying to build there, salted the ground and pissed in the pits cornflakes. After my last post “The Slymepit is Full of Misogynists?” I was a little annoyed with the pit, I had actually tried to argue in good faith there, but partly due to my own incompetence in quoting them accurately and partly their own paranoia, it did not go well. I was branded a ‘troll’. I’ve only actually been commenting on the atheist scene since the beginning of this year and hardly bothered on the IT sites I frequent, so ‘trolling’ is pretty new to me. Although it is something I’ve been accusing the Slymepit of doing in regards to prominent members of FtBs. So I thought, fuck it, why not be the troll they accuse me of being… Warning! I’m not sure what I prove with this post other than I can be as childish as the worst Slymepitters, I also did not mean this to be some great social experiment despite how much I might want to revise history.  However I do think it is clear the Pit is not troll-proof and their total lack of tolerance when “FfTB’ers” (www.freethoughtblogs.com) or the Skepchicks (Skepchick.org) react badly to being prodded is more than a little hypocritical. Enter oolon the troll, be afraid, be very afraid…

So how do you annoy a pitter? I did think when first posting on the Slymepit that in Bizarro world what is unacceptable? Saying Rebecca Watson is great and I’m a big fan? Probably. But I just stuck for pretty ordinary piss-taking of their hyperbole about FtBs and playing on their paranoia about the FtB’ers. So really, really, easy… Trolling takes no skill. I’m not patting myself on the back here… Honest!

When prodded how does a pitter react?

They get paranoid…

 Is Oolon attempting to dox and return to the FtB fold? Why on earth would you do that publically?

… Especially if you use naughty words in your examples on how bad epithets and slurs are …

Oolon, why do you keep putting the words ‘nigger’ and ‘faggot’ in your wibble? Are you attempting a googlebomb, or something?

They curtail your ‘free speech’…

Oolon – it’s becoming impossible to read what you say without seeing you as a caricature. Well not ….. OK, goodbye, into the ignore bin you go.

… Even to the point were the “mod” starts threatening his own members with shunning.

Lsuoma wrote: Yeah, dilurk is >>THIS CLOSE<< to going on my ignore list too, due to engaging with Mr. Crazyfuck.

They edit your comments…

“oolon, slimy turd wrote:I moonlight as xxxxxx’s tampon”

oolon… seriously what is your problem. That was completely unprovoked.

… I never said they were funny!

They stalk you…

Al Stefanelli wrote: Apparently, Oolon disagrees with my blog post, today.. <oolons comment>

… Al posts my comment from his blog, this was great fun as the pit seemed totally obsessed with me – earth to pit, I’m a nobody! Being obsessed with Rebecca Watson or Surly Amy is bad enough, but me?? They literally found every comment I made and dissected and analysed it for any evidence of stupidity (Spoiler there was plenty)… As you can imagine I took to posting on purpose on some blogs to bait them (Sorry) they always took the bait, every time! I still cannot quite believe this aspect of it, even Al Stefanelli joining in — he is a respected atheist activist FFS!

They get angry…

Here’s an idea. Let’s not feed the fuck-nutted, jacked up, toadying, jizz shit that is called Oolon. Let’s stop responding to the stupid, insipid, asshat.

… Sooo much of this but Renee Hendricks won the Molly for best take down of an annoying troll.

They d0x you…

Despite the “mod” of the site, Lsuoma, supposedly being anti-d0x he never removed the references… Only the original post! So much for Slyme integrity… Even funnier is that I added an “About Me” to my blog some time back as I decided internet anonymity was a bit pointless unless I wanted to be a real troll and do and say illegal things. They didn’t know this and were happy for this obvious threat to remain, fortunately it is meaningless to me, but why do A+’ers say there is a need for “safe spaces” on the internet for atheists again? Oh yeah because idiots like them think nothing of d0x’ing people who have something to lose… JV’s doc drop…

http://skepchick.org/2012/10/secular-coalition-picks-anti-woman-leader-for-pennsylvania/

.. Thunderf00t scares Natalie Reed into silence…

http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/08/10/what-thunderf00t-did-and-how/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/08/10/all-in/

–> Really this should be a sub-section under the following category…

They threaten you…

So, we should casually adopt a rule-of-thumb, if someone targets friends and family, especially someone’s elderly mother and father or enables someone else to do so, then then it should be within the rights of the aggrieved party to hunt that doxer/harasser down and stick an ice-pick into the base of their skull.
Does that seem reasonable to you?

I don’t understand why Oolon is trying to stir up shit about threats. I’ve never threatened anyone, except him. Specifically I threatened to stick an ice-pick in his ear. And it still seems like a good idea.

Well, I didn’t start this one. Apparently the honor goes to either someone involved in that Twitter exchange or one of the followers. It may be one of the “let the minions do the dirty work”. However, as it is a completely false accusation aided and abetted by The Slimy One, should it ever get to the point where they have to kind of sort of back up the “smoking gun” threat quote, it’s the grounds for a civil suit.
I’ll PM you the CPS query. It’s most entertaining.
Ool0n, poster boy for the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Oolon even after you admit to downloading child porn and sending the image off to have the Pit closed down I have no hate for you. None whatsoever. Just pity. You are really, really pathetic tit and I think you know that.
Shut the fuck up for a few days, change your fucking shit-stirring attitude and maybe people will selectively forget about you downloading kiddy porn.

… BTW the ‘kiddy porn’ was on the Slymepit, posted by one of their members. I just joked I had screen capped it and sent to their ISP/Police! If you ever want to be a pro-troll my tip would be to work child porn into it somehow, it really got them fizzing…

{edit: I see from SurelyYouGuest below (Posted ‘kiddie porn’ pic) that the Slyme-view is that I’m making myself a martyr… I can see how they might think that since it is exactly what they do whenever someone from FtBs, A+ or Skepchick treats them poorly (i.e. Bans them for trolling). Although I also thought it was clear from the humorous tone that I was not crying myself to sleep over their ‘threats’. Oh well who knows with the Slymepit, it is just as likely that they have just decided that decrying me as an imagined ‘Martyr’ to the FtB-cause is the best way to ‘beat’ me. Anything for the ‘win’ with those guys ;-) }

BUT…

The Slymepit didn’t do these things. No really… Bear with me… Individuals on the Slymepit did these things. Individuals being pushed by an annoying troll. A troll who I’d like to point out in some defence of myself never resorted to using slurs or degrading language (Not totally true, see apology below) …

If they had to deal with a real troll with no scruples who took every opportunity to degrade and demean them, what would they do?

If they had to deal with someone tweeting thousands of defamatory and insulting tweets to them, their loved ones and anyone vaguely associated with them, what would they do? (See @ElevatorGate, @SammyBoal, @XY and fricken Z)

If the trolls were more than one, they had their own site where they gossiped and giggled about every little thing you ever said and did, what would they do?

I’ll punctuate this part with a link to Rebeccas Page-o-Hate, all just trolling according to the Slymepit, she needs a thicker skin and should just ignore them… Does that view seem at all hypocritical now pitters?

http://skepchick.org/page-o-hate/

An Apology

I’d like to be seen as very clever for my ingenious trolling of the pit, obviously who doesn’t want to be seen as kinda cool n intelligent? Thing is it was motivated by annoyance and a dislike of the pit, there is nothing clever about trolling, take it from me it is the easiest thing in the world! Prod people and see how they react. So I’m only going to get shit from this post, best case I get my usual two readers, worst case I’m known as the idiot who thought trolling the pit was a good idea.

There is one post I’m ashamed of (Sorry Tony not your kiddie porn accusation!) , I knew this person was really annoyed with me and not pretending like Mykeru et al. Xie had been advised by a fellow member who told xyr to ignore me and calm down. But xie didn’t when I was in full on trolling mode and I posted this ->

What was that about the Slymepit not liking thin-skinned victims? Oh yeah they should fuck off the internet and grow a spine… :naughty:

Not my finest hour, I’m sure there are others as when trolling it is sometimes hard to maintain that rictus grin all the while and the nasty child underneath shows its face….

 

 Posted by at 10:46 pm
Nov 042012
 

It is unlikely that anyone coming here does not know what the Slymepit.com is, or what FreeThoughtBlogs.com (FtBs) is. However in the event of some poor lost internet soul coming to this post and wondering what the hell this is all about then the dispute between the Slymepit and all it stands for and FtBs is covered in a couple of posts. For the sake of objectivity there are a couple of descriptions from opponents of FtBs and opponents of the Slymepit here ->

This post covers the dispute as an intro to a ‘letter to the slymepit’ or a defence of it.
http://rationalugandan.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/letter-to-the-slime-pit/

As for those anti-Pit, well pretty much anything PZ Myers has to say on the matter would do, so his latest missive  - http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/12/well-i-wont-do-that-again/

Also definition of misogyny, having one that only includes people that hate all women is not useful given that is likely to consist of pretty much no one.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/10/defining-misogyny/
{edit: Rather than having to read the whole post above I am basically taking misogyny to mean… “Misogyny is contempt, dismissal, hostility, disregard. It’s not just shouting “I hate all women!””}

So onto my fun in the pit, I was reading a few posts from FtBs about gendered slurs and how people often refuse to use racist or homophobic language but quite happily spew out what is misogynistic language. The Slymepit is pretty much synonymous with this aspect of misogyny, members of the pit have on a number of occasions tried to justify using the word ‘cunt’ to describe women they disagree with. I figured that when ‘acting out’ over at their bete noir, FtBs, they would probably not have their best arguments as really all they want is an excuse to shout ‘FUCK YOU FTBS!!1!’… Hence I tentatively posed this question ->

Something struck me about the Slymepit that I have not seen an explanation for. I didn’t bring it up as it is obviously a contentious subject and it has probably been discussed to death on here (I couldn’t see it tho – maybe the old thread). But reading a few posts from Crommunist and Josh the Spokesgay’s comments on gay slurs made me wonder all the more. A lot of people have major issues with the Slymepit due to the use of language here – you are all characterised as saying “Free speech! Its only werds bro!”. For example someone above says

“… that fucking Crommunist…”

in much the same way as I see on here

“… that cunt Rebecca/Ophelia/Zvan…”

same with Twatson, bint, bitch. Even…

“… that faggot Josh…”**

so why do I never see anything like

“…that nigger Crommunist…”

I ask because Josh and others have made some pretty good arguments that slurs like faggot are pretty analogous especially given the level of hate and violence associated with the term. Cunt you may argue is different due to different usages but plenty of women will see it in the same way. But here in the land of words are just words, intent is king… Racial slurs seem to be absent. (Or at least a Google shows lot of “niggers” but they are all in scare quotes – I realise I’ve not been reading much here so this could be my error) Are you all self censoring for ethnic slurs when you justify misogynistic and homophobic slurs as only being words? (You/All = the subset that use/defend the use of slurs)

To be clear I don’t use any such slurs if I can help it as they can offend, annoy and upset by merely being in the sentence. I’m happy to offend, annoy and upset but achieving that through just using a contentious word to degrade a person seems like a self defeating exercise. It is attacking the irrelevant attributes of person when the ideas should be the target IMO.

** NB I got shot down and lost any shred of arguing in good faith from the Slymepit because what was actually said was… “that faggy Josh”, which I have on very good authority (Aratina Cage) is not that different from what I ‘quoted’ above. However the Slymepit is not forgiving of even the slightest mistake, especially if you are disagreeing with them… In fact that is a defining characteristic of how they go about their business; hyper-sceptical analysis of everything FtBs/Skepchick say while not applying the same rigour to their own work.

So what were the arguments presented to counter my point? Well there were not many and to be fair my ‘mistake’ in terms of faggot/faggy probably put them on a back foot…

The UK doesn’t see it as misogynistic

Usually this line goes, in the UK no one sees the word cunt as misogynistic, therefore it is fine to use it! Some examples as it is hard to believe anyone would seriously posit that as an argument for the non-offence caused by using a word. You might as well say no one in the apartheid era South Africa thought using nigger was racist therefore… Also what is it with us Brits that we get to say what is misogyny and who is allowed to be offended by it? I obviously missed a citizenship memo or something as it is news to me… Quote from the pit ->

“I don’t tend to use the word “cunt” but, having lived in the UK for a while I understand that it’s meaning in working class speech is pretty much the same as “dick”.”

The irony that many on the Slymepit criticised A+ for saying “Don’t be a dick”, as using a gendered slur, is burning bright. But really does it matter that in one place in the world this use of the word cunt is fine? I’d personally strongly disagree with the basic premise as a Brit I know plenty of people who would say cunt is a misogynistic slur. However this is to miss the point by a country mile, especially as the internet is not confined to the UK and the audience the Slymepit plays to is worldwide.

“…my taboos are based on my knowledge and experience of the history and cultural environment in which I live. Cunt, bitch, and twat do not have the vile histories of oppression that n*gger and f*ggot do.”

In this persons opinion these words used to put down, ridicule and shame women do not have the vile history of oppression that nigger and faggot do. Well the ‘privilege’ word is bandied about rather a lot but in this case his experience of oppression, or rather understanding of it as I doubt he is a gay or black, does not tally with many many women’s experience. But that’s all right ‘cos his knowledge and experience are all that is needed to make a moral judgement on the use of oppressive language! The lack of empathy and understanding of women’s history of oppression is depressing…

“Where I live cunt and twat means a bastard . No gender specifics”.

“Most of us are from the Commonwealth where cunt, twat, dick etc aren’t misogynistic, just good old fashioned and excellent abuse.”

Again with the, “Where I live…”, rubbish. But here the context is specifically missed out, I clearly say that my objection is to these words being applied to women and specifically women they are criticising. They are using gendered slurs to refer to women they seem to have major problems with. This is a mile away from saying “hiya yer old cunt” to a mate in the UK… A mile away from “wassup nigga” for whoever likes to address their friends this way.

“Nigger and faggot are words I doubt I’d use as I believe they have universal connotations of racism and homophobia.”

So they don’t want to be seen as racist or homophobic, but misogynistic? What we are referring to are statements like these from the Slymepit, and its probably necessary to put some here to make it clear what the objection is – few selected at random ->

 Clueless bint. And by bint, I mean cunt.

…here’s proof that two of the FfTB regulars are utter cunts 

…wastes-of-space like Twatson

…stupid bitch knows all.. she has overcome her own biases and blindspots.

Rebecunt Twatson**

** As coined by a Slymepitter, although interestingly only ever ‘Twatson’ is used on the new pit forum, Slymepit+… Are they ashamed of something?

{edit: Correction from the pit, this was apparently a joint effort on the original pit. Phil Giordiana came up with Rebecunt and Justicar came up with Twatson. So that told me! Maybe ‘Twatson’ is kept as some monument to the fallen given Justicar burnt his Slyme bridges?}

There are also lots of references to the feminists they don’t like being too fat, too ugly, too old or whatever you can think of other than a reasoned argument on why they disagree with them. I won’t even bother mentioning the constant photoshopped images that are sooo hilarious!

Anyway back to the arguments as to why cunt, bitch, twat etc are fine for everyday use in the pursuit of profit and critical analysis of feminist views.

I just ‘choose’ not to use certain words

This was a bit of a bizarre one but given so many asserted this I suppose it needs to be addressed. They seriously suggested the use of words is just a ‘choice’ like putting on a pair of black or brown shoes in the morning. It is not in their vocabulary to use homophobic, racist or gendered slurs and that is the only reason they do not utter them… Honestly, they said this…

“I never ever use the words nigger, or faggot, except in expository or explicatory discourse. That’s not self-censorship, it is because those are words I just do not use; they are not part of my everyday vocabulary.”

“I am in the subset that defends (i.e. doesn’t give a shit about) the use of slurs, though I don’t use them myself. That’s about as amazing as noting that I defend the right of men to cross-dress yet remain in jeans and a T-shirt. They are just clothes, but they’re not MY clothes.

“I never call black people niggers, because I choose not to; I never call gay people faggots, because I choose not to; I almost never call any woman a cunt, because I choose not to; I never call kangaroos roos or kangas, because I choose not to (neither do I ask them to tie me down Bruce, but that’s another kettle of aboriginals, that is); I never call oolons intelligent, because I choose not to.”

So word selection is just a choice, no motivation behind it whatsoever. Bullshit, clearly bullshit. Mental gymnastics are required to dismiss the reality that they don’t use the words faggot and nigger to describe gay and black people respectively is because… Well one of their own says it nicely…

“I’m fairly new here, but I believe I’m gonna state the obvious about this: Because it’s terrible to imply that our disgust for someone has anything to do with their sexuality or race.

Let me fix that for hir, Because it’s terrible to imply that our disgust for someone has anything to do with their GENDER, sexuality or race…

But for some reason no one made that leap… It IS terrible to imply that your disgust for someone has anything to do with their gender! Be that gender male, female or anything in-between. Your intent is not the issue, unless that is after it being repeatedly pointed out that using those terms in that context implies you do have disgust problems with their gender or think their gender is fair game as an avenue for attack. It is not fair game to attack a woman because she is a woman or any specifically female attributes any more than it is fair game to attack a PoC for their colour or any supposed racial characteristics they may have.

Woman X said twat once therefore it is ok for me to use that term

The most egregious offender here is Dick Strawkins who, if PZ had not banned Poes, I would be tempted denounce him as one. Some of Dicks finer moments…

“The term “twat”, however, is used by Rebecca Watson live on the SGU, so it cannot be placed in the same category as “cunt”.
I therefore don’t have a problem with using that term when it is appropriate.”

Given Dick and his mates opinion of Rebecca Watson I almost choked on my cuppa reading that, he uses Rebecca as his arbiter of words he can and cannot use! Anyway the stupidity carries on here…

“OK, you cunts.
Let’s see what you can do now.”

“The lines were spoken by Chloe Grace Moretz as ‘hitgirl’ in ‘Kick-Ass’, a movie written by a British woman, Jane Goldman.
It would seem curious that a word like this was used if it is universally recognized as a misogynistic slur against women. “

Hmm spoken by a female character and written by… A woman! The context is important, does Dick think Chris Rock is racist for his niggers routine? Or even more worryingly he heard Ice T use the term in one of his songs so feels fine using it down in South Central LA? I’d like to see that…

Fuck you, I can say what I want

For all their prevaricating and rationalising this is what they mean. A few of them came out and said as much, the offence exists in the mind of the person hearing the word so fuck them. Again I doubt they would apply that logic to racist or homophobic slurs, no in fact I know they wouldn’t as that was the whole point of my question. So full circle and there is no explanation from the pitters of why nigger, faggot etc are mostly absent from the pit but cunt, bitch, twat etc are prevalent.

“As for the cunt argument, I will say once again, it is those that take offense and create drama over a word, that are in control of how it affects them. My speaking the word cunt has no power at all, unless someone gives it power. I am not victimising them by uttering the word. They are victimising themselves by allowing it to affect them.

I am not responsible for how others choose to feel. Dictating what is acceptable language, and demanding that everyone comply is an attempt to control others. It is a power trip. It will work with some people, they will allow you to control them. It will not work with everyone, in fact it will have the opposite effect on people like me. “

Words have no power to oppress people, the victimisation is in the mind of the hearer , just a complete empathy loss? The ‘power trip’ bit is ironic given this is exactly what makes the words have real effect, someone in a position of power over you using demeaning language hurts you. They’d accept this in the case of nigger and faggot, but in the power balance where women are oppressed somehow the same does not apply.

My explanation? Well it would be pure speculation but it seems pretty clear that misogyny and misogynistic language is no where near as taboo as racist or homophobic language in our society as a whole. So basically the Pitters think they can get away with it without being branded bigots, sad thing is in a lot of quarters this is true, they can. They also hate the feminist ideas espoused by Ophelia Benson, Stephanie Zvan, Jen McCreight, Rebecca Watson, etc. etc. and part of their mission is to undermine their efforts so trolling for effect works well for them here. They have little in the way of actual well though out argument so what is left for them?

Conclusion

So given the title, is the Slymepit full of misogynists? In my opinion, no… Shocking conclusion! But I’d say it is full of misogyny and misogynistic language, it is my privilege to not dehumanise and reduce the people themselves to an ‘ist. It is true that they are perpetuating the view that misogynistic language is ok, this is their right, the internet is a ‘free speech!’ free for all… Just don’t expect to be free of criticism for it.

Also one other thing, I usually say some Slymepitter believe… or say… etc. But in this instance it was clear that pretty much no one felt I had even the merest bit of a good point. They are of one mind here… Cunt, twat, bitch when applied in vitriol to your female opponents is not to be criticised. The usual word-police, PC mind control tropes are trotted out and no one there not adhering to this view would survive. I only saw one express the opinion that ‘Twatson’ is not for him and he doesn’t like it…  So hyper-sceptically I have to say that all the Pitters did not join in, but my argument spanned a long period and only one tangentially chimed in with that point, on ‘Twatson’ only.

{This post has been long in the writing as I got waylaid by a bump in the road, but to be clear I started this well before that incident and my attitude to the Slymepit has not changed as a result. This is not meant as an admission of dogmatic pride but I believe I am on the fence/neutral only about two things laid out in that post which no one has been able to refute to my satisfaction.}

 Posted by at 12:34 am
Oct 302012
 

I’ve been inspired to write a little bit about what made me the man I am today. No not that, I’m talking about the sceptic bit… It all began many years ago in my childhood, my parents decided we would move to a house in the middle of a park in Northampton, UK called Delapre Park. Not any house but a 400 year old former dairy and larder for the big house, Delapre Abbey,  next door. I was to find out there was more to this house than met the eye…
Picture of Delapre Abbey, my childhood house is to the side, you can see the window in the attic
For one the ‘Abbey’ looks like a pretty bog standard UK mansion made for the rich of its time, however it stands on the foundations and parts are extant remains of a Cluniac Nun abbey dating to 1145 AD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delapr%C3%A9_Abbey). This nunnery was founded by the 2nd Earl of Northampton, Simon de Senlis, who built Northampton Castle (Now unfortunately little more than a hump and some stone by the Train Station!). It would have hosted Eleanor of Castilles body (Wife of Edward I) as she made her way around the UK after her untimely death in 1290 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_cross). The Nuns would have tended to the wounded and the dead in the Wars of the Roses, Battle of Northampton, in 1460 AD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Northampton_(1460)) and those that fell were buried in the grounds….

… As a child I was very happy to learn that the dead from a battle in the Wars of the Roses were under our front garden. I was even happier to find when digging a drainage channel that a number of them were disturbed and dealt with by the local Archaeologists and clergy to lay them to rest (I wasn’t allowed to keep a skull and my Dad told me off whenever I dug too deep, spoil sport). I was ecstatic to find out that Simon de Senlis’s coffin was found under our kitchen doorstep, but his body was no where to be found… Well actually the missing body gave me the creeps so I looked it up (Delapre Abbey was the local records office so great for historical investigation).Whereupon I found my house was condemned by the Church as a desecration of the ‘Great and the Good’ of Northampton! Simon was not the only elder statesman exhumed when the dairy and larder was built, the Chuch was not happy! Eeek, so my ghost story starts like a staging of Poltergeist in Northampton with a condemned house desecrating a graveyard.

I’ve missed a bit out,  before I found out all this history I knew about the former occupant of the house, a lone man, who went a little insane. He was interviewed by the local paper as having regular conversations with the various ghosts in the house, gardens and Abbey. It was too much for him obviously. So he left. So we moved in. I was not yet a teenager and living in that house was at times scary as hell. I’d sometimes get to the bottom of the stairs, feel freezing cold, and panic and not be able to move until a call or a noise from my family broke the spell. I’d lie awake at night hearing “creak…creak…creak…creak…”, a sound exactly like someone, something, walking back and forth in the attic. If you look in the picture above at the far right there is a window on the end of our house, that is the attic window, see anything in there? I often did at night, hurrying past not looking too closely, taking the dog for a walk. Then it got worse, a lot worse.

I’d wake in the night not being able to breathe, an invisible force was holding me down… A scream of a crow and a dark shadow flying towards my face… A figure in the corner of the room and a presence I could feel as pure malevolence. I was unable to move while this went on, only able to see the figure in my peripheral vision. Then it would break and I’d run to my parents room drenched in sweat and scared shitless.

By now if you are a sceptic, you know the punchline. Sleep paralysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis) is a well defined condition and is often brought on by stress. My childhood self with all this excitement and knowledge about the ‘paranormal’ nature of where I was living got overly stressed or who knows what. Now to counter any ‘spiritualists’ who will say I’m rationalising what was a real supernatural experience I’ll let you know what cured it, and it didn’t involve exorcism! I was reading books, magazines, anything on ghosts and the paranormal at this time, one of which, ‘The Fortean Times’ had an article on UFO’s and sleep paralysis. It clicked into place, I did more research, was convinced it was my own brain doing it and it went away. In fact I spent a lot more time in the gardens at night walking the dog rather than the hurried stressed walks I’d previously had, actively looking for ghosts and scaring the hell out of any friends who stayed.

I totally lost my fear of the dark as a result and would happily walk through the darkest bits of the woods on my own. To steal from Sagan, knowledge was my candle in a ghost haunted childhood.

But since it is Halloween… I’d hear the ”creak…creak…creak…creak…” pretty much every night I listened for it despite my new found scepticism. But unlike like idiots in horror films I never, ever, EVER, opened the attic hatch and looked up there to see what was making that damnable noise. So not quite the perfect sceptic I’m afraid. Sleep well.

 Posted by at 11:57 pm