User talk:Aneris/Archive3

The PC movement and the SJWs
Hello, after reading some of your opinions, I think you'd be interested in reading Johnathon Haidt's review and commentary on the sociological aspect of the popular PC and SJW movements. It's one of the best examinations and explanations of their whole ethos I've encountered. As a STEM/hard philosophy person, I also found the social sciences perspective to be a refreshing new way of looking at the matter.

As for the more intellectual areas of the ideology, i.e. critical theory, the distinction has to be made between the academic and the popular interpretations. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Critical Theory "situates the critical inquirer in the pragmatic situation of communication, seeing the critic as making a strong claim for the truth or rightness of his critical analysis. This is a presupposition of the critic's discourse, without which it would make no sense to engage in criticism of others." So although critical theory is rooted in some level of cultural relativism, the limits of this are recognized by academics.

The problem is, as with with all ideas, that the public digests them into an easily understandable form - the ephemeral, contradictory worldview presented by the SJWs. They abandon the anthropological origins of critical theory just as the postmodernists abandoned the historical context of relativism. Intersectionality is applied to everything, as opposed to using it in isolated case studies. The logical rigor of academia is replaced by mob rule and emotional appeal. Their exact goals, if any were ever announced, quickly become lost when logically competing standpoints are advocated with equal vigor. This is all driven by the cultural factors outlined by Haidt.

A good example is what the SJWs disdain as "trans-exclusionary radical feminism," which basically resists the notion of transgender people. The reasoning is that gender is a social construct - with no inherent psychological (i.e. predetermined) basis in biological reality until it is taught through socialization. From this viewpoint, people who claim they were "born as a different gender" are no different from those who demand traditional gender roles for men and women on genetic grounds. Either gender is biologically real enough to provide predetermined gender roles for individuals...or it isn't. The SJWs will profess that gender is an imaginary construct, but don't seem to understand the logical problems this viewpoint creates for their transgender brethren.

A larger problem is the Euro-centrism of it all. Critical theory's strength was that its relativist foundations made clear that it could be applied to any given society by changing the variables, but the SJWs lack this nuance. In today's world, where China is the world's foremost economic power and will itself be usurped by India by 2030, colonial narratives fade in the face of economic realities. SJW's are employing a static worldview better suited for 1880, in which Europe dominated all and a simple dichotomy of oppression was much more accurate. Some SJWs may acknowledge that their complaints are invalid outside of the Western world, but this even this admission fails to account for the power of cultural globalization.

Again, all this is explained not by looking at the ideology through an academic lens, but rather by treating it as a cultural shift. Tolerance, however displayed, becomes a form of social capital. Open mindedness, when communicated to others by means of social media, becomes another form of social capital. Individuals compete with one another with ever larger displays of social capital, as the wealthy once competed with ever more lavish clothing.

It is similar to another form of social capital - piety in religious societies. Though religion has a vague basis in rational foundations, the logical problems are ignored in favor of amassing social capital.

As with religion, considering the nature of the groups who are driving the SJW movement, it isn't adequate to examine their ideas critically, unless one only seeks to debunk them. A thorough understanding requires a sociological viewpoint.

Hope you find my thoughts interesting :) Lord Aeonian (talk) 01:17, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello! Always happy to see people who even acknowledge this was a thing (the RW generally doesn't). I know Haidt's work, but may have missed some entries. Thanks for the pointer. I have a collection of entries on what I believe the ideology is about here, User:Aneris/SJWMedia — it's more of an overview of its manifestations that caused media reactions, but below you find what I believe their ideology is about, in some keywords. I also have a number of models and patterns to describe what is usually happening in e.g. in comment sections, and by which social forces it introduced itself into the atheist-skeptics movement, but the RW isn't the place where I elaborate on these things normally. Indeed, the idiosyncratic and often “trivially true” jargon is one feature. Their contradictory beliefs around biology/blank slate/SSSM and trans people essentially blew Freethought Blogs apart, which was long coming. It seems everyone else sees these problems ten miles away, but the SJWs themselves have to be silent about leat they outrage their peers and get kicked out of the safe space. ..., and I think it's more US centrism, since US racial conceptions, cf. Critical Race Theory, are applied to everyone else.  ~ Aneris  08:55, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the main problem can be summed up by trying to use a relativist outlook to support conclusions. The intellectual founders of postmodernism were careful to distinguish it as a tool for understanding the world, noting that one could not make decisions based on this. Essentially, it was cartography. It was producing a good map - not telling you where you should go. There's an implicit assumption within the postmodern offshoots (critical theory etc.) that they are to be used along with some sort of empirical, or at least essentialist, moral system.
 * The modern SJWs disregard this, but at the same time reality creeps up on them because they make exceptions - which groups should I look at via cultural relativism, and which groups need to be changed? The more intellectual ones try to justify their decisions with intersectionality, but such arguments fall apart for the reasons I described above.
 * I like the sociological approach because it emphasizes the populist nature of the community, however. I would bet that most of the Tumblr warriors would not be able to define postmodernism, much less trace the development (and misuse) of the idea to themselves. Their behavior and viewpoints are much better described by models like Haidt's, rather than as (loose) adherence to any philosophical archetype. Lord Aeonian (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Why?
I noticed you redacted the bit on Sarah “Butts” Nyberg, which seems to be a common theme here on the RationalWiki. You gave as reason “deleting libel”. But the evidence was collected from her own Ffshrine site (and from publicly available logs). She was confronted with it, and admitted that it was true, however dogded the more serious allegations (and of course, tried to turn it into a hitpiece on other people, DARVO tactics as you'd expect from the “social justice movement”). Her defenders, like you, are guilty of the slothful induction and further, it's clear that her own claims are taken at face value – as if they have to be believed uncritically. So, for the record, we have evidence against her, but you believe it's libel. Maybe you are just very careful? That doesn't hold. 

Astonishingly, this happened on a talk page on PZ Myers, in a discussion about libelous claims made by PZ Myers against Michael Nugent — which you, interestingly, defend uncritically. In other words, somehow PZ Myers accusation “defending & providing a haven for harassers, misogynists, and rapists” is not considered libel by you, and you further believe it uncritically. As you believe Sarah Butts. Of course both characters aren't unrelated. They belong by pure coincidence (roflmao) into the same tribe, to which you also belong. This is particularly noteworthy since in both cases you sided against the position of evidence. The evidence is stacked against Sarah Butts, and it's stacked against PZ Myers exposing your extreme tribalistic attitutes.

Interesting double standards, you have there! But maybe you are just a kindred spirit, since Myers (danger! your irony meter) himself harbours and defended a self-described child rapist. Another layer of hypocrisy, charactertistical of this entire situation with the and your  (and other cognitive-mental) issues.

Blatant multi-dimensional double standard and comical hypocrisy aside and back to Butts: it's already in the definition of “edgelord” to post “references to Hitler, Nazism, fascism, or other taboo topics which are deliberately intended to shock or offend readers” as the Urban Dictionary notes. How is it libel then to describe someone as a neo-nazi, then? Readers should perhaps be informed that Mona and her gang are very quick to sort people into various othering categories. Yet another double-standard.

We are also asked to believe Sarah Butt that it was merely posted in jest. I've seen the chat-logs and they don't corroborate the alleged “just for fun” attitude. It looks like opinions held in sincerity (see below). And as we've seen such attitudes are surprisingly commonplace in your Authoritarian tribe, which is filled with paedophiles and supremacists (see several spectacular cases, HannibaltheVictor13 convicted pedo in the YouTube SJ community, Ogvorbis at Freethought Blogs, Sarkeesian's convicted pedo twitch-TV mod etc.) The same can be shown with fascist attitudes which glue very well with the “social justice movement”, and it's critical race theory and other convictions. To conclude with some more evidence: here's a documentation on Sarah Butts: watch it! It's going to be disgusting, feelings that soon will include you, should you continue in this fashion. Here's again the medium piece where she admitted to things. Consider yourself informed. Of course, I left out some of the more comical double-standards, like how “edgelord” somehow became socially acceptable, while others are vilified for much less. ~ Aneris 04:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Tchiya Amet
So, you're over at the Slymepit. What's the deal with the egging of this Tchiya Amet lady over to PZ Meyers? I mean, it's pretty clear that if you look at her blog what's going on. --Castaigne2 (talk) 05:11, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Was busy the last days and are running behind many pages. I have no idea who Tchiya Amet is, but if you have some specific thing, I can look for this when I catch up the next days. Cheers. ~ Aneris 06:03, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You mean this, I guess. People there generally think PZ is a hypocrite who must maintain a façade, so that his commentariat likes him. They also generally think that his positions, and that of his colleagues are motivated by other things than noble ideas they claim to have. It has been a motif to appeal to their own alleged principles especially when inconvenient for them, because everyone knows they are going to squirm and find excuses. Of course PZ and his folk don't understand the criticism, perhaps deliberately. They tend to make this about particular subjects, when most people actually don't agree on these things and momentarily care about other contexts (i.e. in context of the Slymepit, people are not concerned whether position A or B is true, which gets discussed but everyone is typically in three minds about this, but whether the alleged principles and claims made by Myers and his gang are consistent with THEIR, i.e. Myers etc, position). And of course, they are usually not. They can overlook everything and forgive everything when they like someone, but are quickly foaming at the mouth over little things (or untrue things) if they dislike someone, aka the personality type.
 * ...when they like the conclusion, how that conclusion was arrived at is irrelevant. When they like the behaver, the behavior is acceptable; when they dislike the behaver, the behavior is not.
 * ~ Aneris 15:09, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, I meant this, which was listed in the Clogosphere News. Looking at Amet's blog myself, I can't make head or tail of her supposed accusations. I'm just wondering why the Slymepitters would send (what is to me) an obvious nutbar over to PZ as if they were going to count some coup over it. I'd've told them it wouldn't work in their favor. --Castaigne2 (talk) 15:55, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That's this, isn't it? Look at the first link above, here is it again. This is because PZ Myers advertised his principles in the past, and there is of course a certain context around this all, where accusers are generally believed and where — thanks to Intersectionality — being female and black add up, and give extra crediblity to claims (as you know in SJ ideology, evidence, facts etc aren't independent of the person who brings it up). Of course such ideas are frequently at odds with skepticism. To deal with that, they invented a new term at FTB called "hyperskepticism". Doubting accusations etc fall under hyperskepticism, which is by definition and according to FTB the "wrong kind of skepticism". In other words, PZ Myers is now hyperskeptical, technically. So, this is is holding up the mirror to him, among other things. ~ Aneris 16:18, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Christian West
Why delete, may I ask? 04:10, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Reason one, I gathered the RW essentially has no audience who would care (worse than I thought). Reason two, I don't explain, no interest in abusive users typical for the RW. Reason three, lack of motivation to finish this. ~ Aneris 12:04, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

You've been cooped
-  Kitsunelaine  「Beware. The foxgirls are coming.」 21:45, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Slymepit
Thoughts? 04:29, 15 February 2016 (UTC)