Talk:Thunderf00t/Archive6

Weird sentence
In the "At Freethought Blogs" section, the following sentence appeared:
 * "He polled his vlog's subscribers as to whether he was right or not was a good way to do that; perhaps unsurprisingly, they agreed with him."

It might make sense if it said:
 * He polled his vlog's subscribers as to whether he was right or not, thinking this was a good way to do that; perhaps unsurprisingly, they agreed with him.

without the italic emphasis, of course. In the meantime, not being a time-traveling telepath, I trimmed it to say:


 * He polled his vlog's subscribers as to whether he was right or not; perhaps unsurprisingly, they agreed with him.

Mountain, or molehill? You decide... Alec Sanderson (talk) 19:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The original of the sentence did make sense, then this happened. The sentences in the original also made sure to point out which of TF's post they were describing, now any distinction is lost.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, I will leave it alone for now. It can stay in its present trimmed state, or if someone restores it to resemble the status quo ante, that would be nice too. Alec Sanderson (talk) 19:56, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Why leave his name out?
I'm trying to understand the justification for this. We know it, he's owned up to it and it feels important to understand his scientific accolades. 05:20, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * PacWalker is acting up about RW's stance in regards to doxxing, so I doubt the edit was made in good faith. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 05:27, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * He's in fucking Wikipedia as . He's actually known in the world as Phil Mason who videoblogs as Thunderf00t. - David Gerard (talk) 10:23, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

This needs to be more neutral
Not really becoming of a Wiki to say someone has "ill-informed opinions" and such.
 * Thanks for your concern. 14:48, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Pretty much the whole point of this wiki is to point out "ill-informed opinions" (or "bullshit opinions" when we're being less polite) and the people that have them. If that bothers you, too bad. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 14:53, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Men Rights Activist?
Is there a source confirming this, or is this an extrapolation based on his views?
 * His views on feminism & a few other subjects are pretty similar but I don't think he identifies as a MRA. I've changed it to anti-feminist.  06:50, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * As the resident expert, he has not said this phrase. 08:45, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Brief moment of lucidity?
I just saw this on r/Ghazi. Although he takes the occasional poke at Ms. Sarkeesian, its surprisingly less crusade-y than expected. https://youtu.be/pXhnVjQBBaM 50.132.25.145 (talk) 04:59, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You didn't rickroll me you bastard. B& 5evar. 05:01, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute
NPOV Not neutral at all. Comments such as:

"He spent the rest of the video and the rest of his FtB career discussing this "trivial" topic; all of his posts on FTB except for his introductory video were focused on the idea that sexual harassment wasn't such a big deal" is over generalizing, and unrepresentative.

"Mason went into CAPSLOCK MODE in order to prove how correct he was" Obviously an opinion from the author of this part.

"This is certainly evidence of the evil "hive mind." Again, obvious the opinion of the Author

"Coming so late in the day, this was an implicit admission that he didn't know what he was talking about in the earlier posts. Extensive criticism in the comments - including by people who had actually written the policy ­- indicated that he didn't care about the issues involved" Again, Opinion

"Ed Brayton, curator of FtB, defused the toxic atmosphere by kicking Mason off the network with this explanation" Toxic atmosphere?

"From then on, things began to get increasingly he-said-she-said as the exchanges metastasized across the blogosphere" Author is rambling....

"PZ Myers released a YouTube video outlining the decision to boot Mason, arguing that Mason appeared to have only joined FTB to troll it" Boot and troll are not academically appropriate words, and insinuate a bias

"Rather than move on gracefully, Mason has continued to make ill-informed comments on feminism within the skeptic community, to air his grudges, and to display the same immature attitude to criticism, churning out of a series of bitter and increasingly unhinged videos attacking feminists within the atheist community, typically full of strawman stereotypes and anally literal misinterpretations of their comments. " Give me a break, this is OBVIOUSLY an anti subject opinion, and has no place in Wikipedia

"The videos are heavy on strawmen; they misrepresent feminists' arguments to an extent that is either grossly naive or wilfully disingenuous, and propagate stereotypes of feminists as frigid, joyless "professional victims" Yet another opinion that reads like an attack on Mr Myers. This has no business on Wikipedia.

there is more and more and more.

This article reads like an opinion piece on Mr Myers aka Thunderf00t. I am personally very disappointed at the quality of this article, and recommend that it be flagged. It is very obvious to me that someone or a group of someones has contributed to this article in order to further an agenda and discredit Mr Myers.

Please flag this article as NPOV Disputed.


 * Before reading your contribution two things: First, contributions on talk pages have to be signed with four times this ~ symbol. Secondly: We don't follow NPOV. Over here we have a "policy" called SPOV which is the snarky point of view (with science) or rather the scientific point of view (with snark) Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 19:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * First thing: Sign your posts (just put --~ at the end of your posts. Very easy). Second thing: This ain't Wikipedia, this is RationalWiki, there is no Dana NPOV, only Zuul SPOV.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 19:32, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Who or what are Dana and Zuul? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 19:37, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's from the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, where Dana, the love interest of one protagonists, got possessed by the evil god Zuul and when they tried to talk to her, he said, through Dana, that "there is no Dana, only Zuul". It became a meme on the net ever since.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 19:44, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * To address part of the substance of what the new contributor has said: We are emphatically not Wikipedia. Over here there are (some) different standards for (some) things Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * To reiterate, there is no NPOV here. There is only SPOV.
 * And more succinctly, get a life, fanboy. --Castaigne (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Ban her Critics
"Ban her Critics" 15 minutes in and I can't even tell you what the video is about. Is it about the time Anita and Zoe spent at the UN or is it about the UVA false rape case? Seems to spend more time on the latter. It constantly is jumping around topics, quotemining so badly that there are now VISIBLE JUMP CUTS in the video and generally cannot tell the difference between comedy and actual threatening behavior. While we're on the subject, as far as I can tell this video is not Patreon legal (section 15) as it is hardly any of his own work and most of it seems to be owned by NBC and ABC as clips from SNL, MSNBC programs and Jimmy Kimmel seem to be more common than his own voice. Somewhat related, it is now apparent he listens to the Honey Badger Brigade (shown in the description). One quote mine is Zoe saying "It should not be on me to prove this." With context it says "Just go look at my twitter feed!" which is really proof enough. He does make the horrible leap to think that the time spent with Google ideas was to shut down criticism. Can I ask what planet he lives on? There is no supporting evidence this was the objective or even discussed. Wait, he just quoted JFK about peaceful revolution...does this mean he actually thinks violence is the answer here? Somehow he just compared the idea of having optional women only train cars to race segregated buses. Holy hyperbolic mate, does he hear himself think? He also thinks that the hate mob inspired by him would lead to him being banned because...I dunno. This is probably the largest leap.

At the same time, I wonder if he realizes that the reason Anita actually gets invited to do this stuff (like the UN) is because, well, people generally like her and agree with her. If he wasn't so bubbled into the internet as opposed to, I dunno, real life, he would not survive in a forum or debate vs. say Anita herself (not that I'm suggesting she be anywhere near this guy). In short, the biggest problem with the video isn't its content or message, but it completely lacks in one word: FOCUS. I can't even tell what the video is about because it goes so far all over the place!

One thing I find also very interesting is Anita (I think) talks about the cottage industry of her harassers making money off making harassing videos. Oh wait. Did the gauntlet just get thrown down in his own video? I find that funny. 09:00, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's really tragic to see someone who was once reasonably well thought of in the sceptic/atheist community shitting the bed so thoroughly. I think he's part of a larger problem within scepticism, the group of people that didn't arrive at the right conclusion re: Bigfoot etc. via rational thought, but just jumped to what turned out to be the correct conclusion. Given reinforcement from the community that they're super-clever and rational for reaching that conclusion, they then start to think that every conclusion they have jumped to must be correct. When their failures of logic are pointed out, they stake out the rational high ground and claim the irrationality must be with their critics because, well, they're super rational, right, self-evidently, so they can't be wrong. They never actually learned the nuts and bolts of rationality or empiricism, so they're not properly equipped to examine their own faulty claims or any claims made by other people. I don't think it's a coincidence that faux-sceptics in general (within scepticism as described here and the pseudo-sceptics in various denialist groups) seem to have little introspection.
 * In short, they're like people who guessed a few correct answers at the start of a maths test and end up arguing with the teacher over being marked incorrect for the rest of the paper. Queexchthonic murmurings 09:48, 8 October 2015 (UTC)


 * May I just note how deeply pleased I am that, in the Great Atheist Skeptic Schism between those who consider people other than white middle-aged men like me human and those who consider them a distraction from real skepticism, RW is pretty much on the first team - David Gerard (talk) 21:04, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

If Men Acted Like Feminists Round 2
Here's the analysis as I go. Keep in mind that he posted a video with this exact title some time ago, so now there are two of them and I am talking about the later.

Men acted like feminists: Rapid fire quote mine starts the video (like, two minutes of it), so bad that I don't know most of the specific sources but I can tell they're quote mines anyway. He then follows up with a man being hit by a woman in a video, but since the language isn't recognized by me, its impossible to determine not only context but the situation. Worse, the clips are too short to make of anything. Then he goes off on saying marriage is a social construct by which a woman takes ownership of a man. WHAT?! He then talks about how its reinforced by popular media (citing no examples) and culture (again, no examples). I think he's starting to fall into some of the Men Going Their Own Way rhetoric, which is amazing since HE IS MARRIED. He finally gets around to citing some pop culture examples, but the movies he picks are either not supportive of his argument or just plain terrible. "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "Grease", "Dirty Dancing", "Pretty Woman", "Titanic", "Sweet Home Alabama", "Something's Gotta Give", "The Notebook" (Oh this terrible movie again), "P.S. I Love You" and "The Ugly Truth" are his citied examples, but since I don't consider a majority of these films good, I will say no more about them except I think they were all writen by men.

Okay, now we've gotten onto the subject of sex toys. Excuse me while I go dry heave. *Washes face* Okay. He then tries to flip Anita's objectification script backwards. Unfortunately he fails to understand that asking is not the same as commanding. He's also gone back to the "Men are stronger in every way!" line. I think what he is saying with the sex toys line of reasoning is "since men are interchangeable with dildos/vibrators/whatever, they are objectified." At least that is what I think he's saying. Later comes up an article calling for a ban on sex toy robots, with the person calling for it being a woman. Uh...I think this article has backfired. And he includes an over 9000 joke, but the way he wrote it makes it seem like all people killed in video games are men. He then goes on to cite statistics of how some 70% of murder victims are men, but doesn't bother with the nuance of perpetrators. I kinda like how he cites Game of Thrones here, because, you know, feminists have huge problems with the series and its writer.

Hate Mail Special: Opens up with a straw man about money spent and plaid shirts. Special Snowflake is dropped, then he follows it up with "The more you think I'm wrong, the more right I am." I really do now think his videos are getting worse, or at least further off the deep end into the realm of being a parody of not feminism, but himself. A clip of Sucker Punch is used, which is its own can of worms that I cannot get into, but he's not using it right. Somehow he draws the conclusion from Anita's "everything is sexist" quote mine to Google Ideas inviting a sexist (Anita) to speak to them. "Males criticising males must also be sexist." Where is he getting this idea from? He then cites Anita's statements at the UN and how harassment can take more than just the form of threats of violence as the perpetual "you're a liar" line. But he then perverts this by equating the two and how repeated lines of "You're a liar" is the same as "I'm going to kill you" or something. He then goes back to the argument he lost in the first busted video, which Anita addressed, but he didn't seem to care. Calls Anita princess. How much of a pig can you be? He then goes on to throw in verbatim other people's videos with cheeky music over it. Some of the videos are terrible harassment (like a guy who goes on about fucking his mother in hell), but some are actually pretty tame and ask generally inquisitive questions, like "Why do you feel you don't need to read literature on feminist theory before attempting to rebut it." There are a few videos in here that just make me ask "Uh...what did I just watch?" DAWAHFILMS MAKES AN APEARANCE! Oh man, the lack of context in these hate videos makes it seem like he pulled from creationists just as much (or even moreso) as "feminists". Honestly, I think most of the people in this montage at the end here could file a DMCA here as the criticism doesn't seem to exist.

So, I do somehow think he's gotten worse about this stuff. I'm not entirely sure its complete malice or assuming conclusions anymore as it seems to be confusing all over the place. 06:48, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * He knows who his audience are & how to please them. 07:59, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I'm entirely unconvinced by arguments along the lines of "he's not really a misogynist, he only does it for the ad money" - David Gerard (talk) 09:44, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I look at it this way. He found something to focus on that drives more views, money (and ego) than atheism and decided to focus his energies on that instead. So, I mostly think he's on board with the whole anti-feminist thing as much as most others, but he decided to spend most of his time there as it is a better drive. 09:44, 29 September 2015 (UTC)


 * DO you even realise that "If man acted as feminists" is intended as parody of feminist views, i.e. taking some feminist claim, exchange male with female, and then and cherrypicking just like he considers feminists are cherrypicking, and using the same absurd "proofs" as he thinks feminists are using to prove the absurd claim? 95.40.35.212 (talk) 14:03, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, if you'd actually read what zero posted, you'd see that he acknowledges this fairly directly, and articulates how incredibly badly and in bad faith it is done. I'm forced to conclude that you're not actually interested in any sort of meaningful analysis here, and instead hopped on a mindless "Defend thunderf00t" train.  Please don't point out things "we don't realize" that are directly addressed.  ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 14:21, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

He's now doxxing his critics specifically for his fans to threaten and harass
I read about it here and here. This is looking to be an epic meltdown. PleaseNoIPNumbersThanks (talk) 14:44, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Doxxing of Dawahfilms and Natalie Reed
So, been trying to look into this but failed to come up with anything conclusive. Did TF doc drop either of them? The article at the very least claims he doxed Dawahfilms, but I have not been able to track down when he's supposed to have done that, other than Dawahfilms first name (which is a very common one and hardly a dox). 83.209.120.100 (talk) 18:38, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

NOT NEUTRAL
This article was obviously written by an Anita Sarkeesian follower. This hurts the reputation of rationalwiki. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 178.112.125.234 / talk / contribs 22:47, 29 October 2015‎
 * This comment was obviously written by a Thunderf00t follower. This hurts the reputation of Thunderf00t. Queexchthonic murmurings 23:28, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

LOL. Aleksandra96 (talk) 23:28, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

i dont get this at all how do i disagree here without being labeled a bigot im scurred 16:08, 1 January 2016

What the fuck is a
STEMlord??--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 13:21, 1 November 2015 (UTC)


 * What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little SJW? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in STEM fields, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Tumblr, and I have over 300 confirmed anon hates. I am trained in sending emails and I’m the top doxxer in all of /pol/. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will send you egg tweets with haste the likes of which has never been seen before on the net, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying opinions over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my keyboard. Not only am I extensively trained in hacking, but I have access to the entire arsenal of /baphomet/ and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shitlib. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, anti. - David Gerard (talk) 08:26, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * ???--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 08:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Arisboch, do you even meme?--Petey Plane (talk) 14:41, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Not enough, perhaps?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 16:56, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * He was answering by way of example. People who think their science/tech(usually tech) education make them smarter than others.  ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 14:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * More succinctly, people who think that STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths) are the only true academic subjects, and that anything the least bit 'soft' - particularly humanities subjects - is woo unworthy of serious consideration. And as they are proficient in a STEM subject (and it's usually the T), they are clearly perfectly equipped to answer any science question, hard or soft, at least as well as an actual expert. And their interpretation of anything in the sphere of the humanities and arts is obviously more logical and more sciencey than someone with expertise in either of those fields, because science. Basically, scientific method cargo cultists who summon Messrs Dunning and Kruger every time they enter a conversation. Queexchthonic murmurings 14:54, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That's... less succinct? But more precise and accurate.  ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 20:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * While I agree that Mason's attitude may be questionable, but I think that it is only natural to consider hard sciences superior than soft ones. Soft science is useless in discovering the cosmos, which is a far more important mission for humanity. I'm just saying that gender studies degree isn't gonna win you much importance. I think that soft sciences and social sciences need to take a back-seat to let more useful experiences. EuroBurro (talk) 13:04, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Horseshit. What's often called 'Hard' science is science on easy mode. Difficult science is science where you can't design experiments as powerful as you would like because you're working with human subjects and are thus constrained by ethics. Difficult science involves multiple unavoidable confounding factors that make it very difficult to be determine causation. Difficult science involves working with data that are qualitative, or where quantitative scores are highly subjective and thus highly variable and unreliable. Difficult science involves meticulous experimental protocols that still flat out fail with depressing frequency. Difficult science means not knowing how transferable your results are to other parts of the world, and having a field of research questions so staggeringly large that the entire human population is insufficiently large to answer them. Can you really say that a field that is all of those things is a 'lesser' science? Queexchthonic murmurings 13:28, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Horseshit indeed. That's a weird value judgment to make that somehow "discovering the cosmos" is "a far more important mission for humanity" than trying to better understand humanity itself.  How is understanding variations in the terminal velocity of a pulsar more "useful" than developing a better understanding of depressive disorders or persistent income inequalities?  I'm in no way disparaging STEM sciences, but to say they are superior in usefulness in relation to social sciences is silly.  Also, as Queex pointed out, in many ways, the "soft" sciences often require significantly more rigor and work for their results to have true validity than "hard" sciences that have consistently repeatable results.  --Petey Plane (talk) 14:37, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Because studying about humanity gives the entire world less than things like astronomy. If half of the people studying relationships between humans chose to spend their time uncovering the mystery that is our universe we would have a much better understanding of our existence. Of course people should have a choice, but I don't see how anybody would pick classes in human relationship dynamics instrad of discovering new worlds and taking humans one step closer to setting foot on other planets. EuroBurro (talk) 18:51, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Virtually nobody working in Astronomy is moving humans even an inch closer to setting foot on other planets. Astronomy research is, among the physical sciences, generally the least likely to directly result in practical technology (it still makes engineering contributions though; making telescopes with 39 meter apertures is difficult, as is getting a 6.5 meter telescope to the L2 Lagrange point). Successfully modeling fusion layer asymmetries in evolved massive stars (which are believed to be a key mechanism in core collapse supernovae) doesn't do anything to make long term space travel possible, nor does measuring deviations from a blackbody curve in the spectra of main sequence A stars, nor does analyzing exoplanet light curves in an attempt to detect bow shocks that would be indicative of planetary magnetic fields. We do all of the before mentioned research because it's absurdly cool, not because we think it's going to put people on other worlds some day.ChrisB (talk) 07:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Still horseshit. Narrow-minded & unimaginative too.  "The mystery that is our universe" is composed of many things, & not all of them are stuff you look at through a telescope.  You might feel that the goal of setting foot on other planets is more beneficial than, say, the goal of reducing crime or reducing poverty on earth.  Other people would feel the exact opposite.  Ultimately, as pointed out above, it's a value judgement.  If you want to argue the point on a utilitarian basis, as you seem to be suggesting, then my contention is that it's better for society that research and scholarship is carried out in as wide a range of fields and specialisms as possible to expand human knowledge in all directions rather than concentrating on a narrow set of disciplines and goals.   20:30, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I really think that discovering what we have yet found in the universe is far more important than any other thing. If more people spent their life doing something useful, like putting a man on Mars, instead of taking gender studies classes, or pursuing a Liberal Arts major, this world would have come much further. I just can't see how a person would want to waste their life on studying humans when they could have been the one to discover a new planet, or even life itself.  EuroBurro (talk) 22:48, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You're just repeating the same bare assertions based on your own interests & incomprehension of other people's. If you don't find humans interesting, frankly this is your loss & no amount of "I just can't see how" is going to convince anybody else you're right about this.  04:19, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * So what do you advise the Mars mission crew to do when they have a disagreement about something while stuck in a spacecraft halfway to Mars? If only there were people who studied how to discuss and resolve conflicts... --Ymir (talk) 06:21, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's time for the big reveal: the field of science I was describing above was, in fact, (drumroll) MEDICAL SCIENCE. drops mic Queexchthonic murmurings 11:42, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Use of his "scientist" profession as a shield from criticism and pseudo-scientific practices
I believe that mention of examples where Thunderf00t engages in behavior that runs contrary to how scientists should act when engaging in discussions where scientific data. One particular point about it that I'd like to see included is something which I believe could be the thing that pushed F00t over the edge with his vendetta against Laughing Witch. Specifically, this: https://mancheeze.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/wow-something-new-female-scientist-does-a-video-showing-patriarchy-exists-gets-attacked-by-manchildren/. The video linked in the article is a video by Kristi Winters, a social scientist, entitled "Evidence that patriarchy is a real thing". It's a pretty solid video, with a link to an actual study by Pew Research that she references in her video: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/14/women-have-long-history-in-congress-but-until-recently-there-havent-been-many/. Unfortunately, we see Thunderf00t's "attempt" at addressing the video filled, not with any actual honest scientific attempt to rebut the video, but with a whole load of straw-men, name calling, and flat out dismissing an entire field of science because it does not fit his agenda, showing truly astounding ignorance of those fields.

Apparently from the records of Winters' and F00t's discourse, Laughing Witch appeared in those comments as well, and while her comments are obviously no longer there by virtue of having deleted her account, it would go some way to explaining why Thunderf00t decided, 10 months after the event, to send his hate mob after her.

Also worth including I feel would be examples of how he blatantly quote-mines his opponents, like with Anita Sarkeesian and his constant use of the "I'm not a fan of video games" snippet from one of Anita's talks, as well as a good deal of other examples. There's also some more pretty damn good examples of how Thunderf00t engages in pseudo-science here: http://confrep.com/blog/?p=50. What do you guys think?
 * I think we can use this exchange. Apart from that, you might want to have a look here: Thunderf00t/Criticism of Tropes vs. Women 09:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Renaming Criticism of Tropes vs. Women
(Taken from the other talk page since it's been too quiet) I'm thinking with the way this is going we may want to change the article name to something more encompassing like, "Criticism of Anita Sarkeesian". Also, since I'm here, do we want to take a stab at a different sub article like "Criticism of Feminism" or something? Collect all the nonsense so its available. 05:34, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This is an article about a specific internet personality. I see no reason to repurpose it into an article about something else.  07:53, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstood me. I want to propose taking this article: Thunderf00t/Criticism of Tropes vs. Women and changing it to Thunderf00t/Criticism of Anita Sarkeesian. I would also like to create another article like Thunderf00t/Criticism of Feminism as a more general debunking point. 00:05, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Discuss it on that article's talkpage. 18:44, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I did. But nobody said anything. 06:06, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably because the author of that essay has vanished & nobody else gives a fuck about it. Do as you like with it.  14:11, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I am the author of most of it now though. Huh. Fuck. How did I get roped into this one? 04:28, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Patreon
I'm sitting here with a collection of jumbled thoughts similar to what Logic Bomb came up with before and I am beginning to see a point here. I have the feeling thunderf00t is milking patreon support to disguise his blatant anti-feminist videos. I'm sitting here going back through my mind on how all his anti-feminist videos are not in the patreon-actually he only says that in the video description, its not actually true. That being said, his videos on things like pseudoscience, creationism and so on have basically declined hard in quality. What once was a pretty well reasoned takedown is now just a video laced with internet memes and clips from television with no coherent structure. So I am sorta thinking about this question: What is going on? He already said he made primarily his money from youtube, so is he just churning out low quality videos to make bank and call it good or is this still a sincere activity for him? The cracks are showing harder and harder. 00:03, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

RE: 36 Questions women have for men
I haven't gotten to watch this yet, but the thumbnail alone is disturbing. Its a picture of a woman (I assume from the video), with the text overlay: "Monitor Punching *Warning*". I'm sorry, but the imagery here isn't even ambiguous or possibly saying a point. It just feels like I can draw the conclusion: Thunderf00t endorses violence against women. That's it. 11:37, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Heh, nah, he's just saying he thinks the questions they ask are so dumb it makes him want to trash his monitor. Admittedly some of them are pretty groan-worthy... "How does it feel to be the same sex as Donald Trump?" Lol. One of the interesting things I've seen, though, is that the reply to "Why is it your first instinct to doubt women who have been sexually violated or raped?" typically (i.e. it's not exclusive to Mason) goes "Because in America, it's 'innocent until proven guilty', not 'guilty until proven innocent'" when that's the exact sentiment being objected to: women get presented as lying attention whores until proven otherwise. But apparently only guys accused of rape deserve the benefit of the doubt. >.> 142.124.55.236 (talk) 12:29, 31 January 42016 AQD (UTC)
 * To me the imagery is striking. The sort of thing when I look at I wonder how in hell anybody green lit this with even the most basic of decency. Especially after that game where you punch Anita was made. While I'm there, I'm now seeing hentai of her. I wish I was fucking kidding. 22:33, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I saw his video and I don't see a whole lot to disagree with. I must disclose I am a slight fan of Thunderf00t's, so I may be biased. Zero, I hope that last line of your first comment was sarcasm. What bothers me is that the warfare here has not really turned out to be productive so far. Instead it has just ideologically polarized people to where you're either a feminist or an anti-feminist, in much the same way as the New Atheists vs Progressives debate has done. It really bothers me and I like to think these ideological conflicts aren't inevitable. Pbfreespace3 (talk) 04:19, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Another BoN drops in to whine
Anyone get the feeling this article was written in a somewhat lazily? It's clearly biased and irrational against men in general (unlike most feminists). Very sad to see the 'you're either with us or a men's right activist' nonsense being ejaculated here. Considering the content of the official Wikipedia pages on 'GamerGate', 'Anita Sarkeesian' and so on it seems that not even basic criticism of these heroic social justice warriors is permitted on the internet. Having checked through the 'sources' on this article, I'm left with a lingering sense of disappointment at the lack of basic research. There are very few that are not unbiased, they're essentially worthless tabloid crap to me in deciding whether the conclusions are correct. Didn't even have read down a few lines to see a feminist circle gender-based insult. 'STEMlord' indeed, because education and achievement is deserving of mockery. Why not label him a mansplainer in the same sentence and save me from wasting my time reading this partisan nonsense further?

Every time I come across words like that, I immediately begin to expect some sort of political or social agenda. I can't take an article with that sort of twitter-esque insult in the first lines seriously. Just move it down a paragraph or something.

I don't even know how the editors of this wiki article can claim to be rational without providing any actual links to the egregious rubbish within the article. It seems being guilty of rudeness is enough for the overly-emotional editors on this site to judge someone an enemy of correct thinking. But I'm sure they have their reasons. This article doesn't even begin to examine the veracity of the issues being claimed against the likes of Anita Sarkesian and other newly-graduated low-profile feminists preferring instead the glossing over of the 'facts' as if they were irrelevant in light of the clear prejudicial bigotry this woman has suffered. Surely the heart goes out to the young women so much that they must speak only the abject truth not requiring further examination. Indeed ALL of Anita Sarkeesian's critics must be haters and sexist unworthy of fair representation. We wouldn't want to give too much attention to these MRA shitlords. Less educated (BA in social and political thought or equivalent worthless liberal degrees) peons might come to believe it. Sadly we must all recognize I think the irrationality of mankind. It seems that only in the light of history can be examine events in a truly detached manner.

How about a section outlining the criticisms and accusations in more than just general terms. I somehow doubt that will happen however because the jury is already out on this one. No need to bother with petty things like evidence. I'd like to have at least a basic summary of some of the allegedly sexist things this man has said before I consign him to the rubbish heap of my long-term memory. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 2.24.120.22 / talk 02:25, 17 March 2016


 * Thanks for ticking pretty much all the boxes: "I thought this was RATIONALWiki", "social justice warrior", "censorship!", "feminists are professional victims", "the humanities are worthless". The article links directly to a bunch of his videos wherein he says things discussed in the text. --Ymir (talk) 03:36, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

STEMlord
Anyone who even moderately likely TF will immediately stop reading at that paragraph. 17:26, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It's a real phenomenon though. People who are casually dismissive of broad classes of analysis and evidence because they arbitrarily declare them to be irrational.  We get them on here all the time.  What do you propose?  ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 17:33, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, I fully agree. I think it just shouldn't be in the intro -- it's a very substantive claim that makes more sense in the context of all his other nonsense ideas. Maybe put it in a section further down (as I did)? But fans will still hate RW for having it. 17:41, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Hm. Sounds totally reasonable.  I feel like I'm supposed to argue but I've got nothing, that's a reasonable change.  ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 17:49, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the fanbase will be fine. If you check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TgsFp_DqYI "DrawCuriousity threatens copyright claim over TENS SECONDS of video!", you can see that his fan will call out on his shit in the comments. So we have that going for us. Hmmm... I think we haven't got a section about this video yet. But hopefully that was only a single offence that he did. Mofosyne (talk) 17:40, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Fun:Thunderfart
pls pls pls pls pls

with this embedded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfspZMTQVJw

22:55, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * How about no thanks. 07:33, 30 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Be Funny And Not Just Stupid - David Gerard (talk) 09:43, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * good advice for everyone.Jackinthebox (talk) 00:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

RW vs the Facts (again): Laughing Witch
Incidentally, this exchange in the comments on Dr. Winters's video also featured since-deleted comments by Laughing Witch where she presumably took the side of Dr. Winters, and this appears to be the thing that motivated Thunderf00t to proceed to doc-drop the YouTube feminist LaughingWitch in a series of videos as well as directing his followers to mass downvote her business on Yelp. This occurred ten months after she had emailed his employers trying to get him fired asking them if they were okay with the kinds of behavior he was engaging in online.

The Letter
That's going to be longer, because every bit shows just how grotesque RationalWiki's take is (as usual). Back in reality, Laughing Witch rallied other SJW on YouTube to get Thunderf00t into trouble. Her baseless assertions were that Thunderf00t was a nazi, commanding over 300k+ nazi followers, who attack on his behalf; that he was a revisionist/Holocaust denier, supports Hitler and viewed the Holocaust as a good thing, and more. How the RationalWiki manages to portray her as a poor victim, and as if she stated the truth, is not a mystery, but just example case #231337. It gets better. Laughing Witch sent her nice letter with these assertions to police, press and Thunderf00t's employer. The quote above looses the press and police part, downplaying the case. He resided in Czech Republic at the time where her accusations are Serious Business, and indicte a crime. That is also omitted, because the RationalWiki sees her as the victim.

The Campaign
Laughing Witch also asked fellow SJWs to do as she did, and called it a “campaign”. Jenny McDermott, Bewildered Ape, Kevin Logan and HannibalTheVictor13 said they supported it, she hints at more/others. HannibalTheVictor13 dropped out after it was discovered that he was a paedo (yet another among SJWs), and a sex offender. At the time of the campaign, Thunderf00t took care of his father who lived out his last month due to terminal cancer. Though he uploaded other videos, but hey, the moral high ground of the RationalWiki is showing, again, when we learn about the ten month delay, portrayed as a vindictive late response because [Laughing Witch] “presumably took the side of Dr. Winters” in some feminist arguement. What a nonsense. The actual reason why he responded late is tactically omitted, again. RationalWiki style reporting in a nutshell. What it brought to the fore again?

The Gloating
Laughing Witch gloated on a video about her letter campaign, believing that it was successful and got Thunderf00t fired. She was mistaken. She also said she was immune due to owning her own company and stated that employees must behave (i.e. employers are right to fire employees if they do things in their free time the employer disapproves of: that's how left wing SJWs are). She shows her letter including her name underneath, and even points at it saying “here's my letter. See my name? I put my name there”. She also used a picture of herself on her channel, the same which she had on her company's page. On RationalWiki, that becomes Thunderf00t doxing. This is also how we know what she wrote, and to whom she wrote it. She explains it herself.

The Reply
Thunderf00t shows her video (remember where she even points at her name) and her company's Yelp page to mock her for shilling for her own business and says that people can say truthful things (which are obviously not so nice) on the owner, Laughing Witch, comparing that to an infamous company that was in Gordon Ramsey's show. His rationale was that while his job is safe, coercing and threatening YouTubers with “concerned” phone calls and letters was setting a dangerous precedent. He however agrees that people are of course free to write such letters, but that such a “door swings both ways”. Thunderf00t also requested that Laughing Witch should offer a “groveling” apology to the YT community. For the record, I disapprove of the Yelp reference, and did then, and it was clearly an appeal to write bad reviews, but doxing it was not. He showed an eye-for-eye “taste some of your own medicine” approach.

The Yelp Business
Mere days later, Laughing Witch (with her husband) appears on a local TV programme and claims fake reviews where killing her business. Thunderf00t and his followers were portrayed as a sort of cyber-criminals. She asks people to donate 25k to a fund, ostensibly to secure the jobs of her employees. How Yelp reviews have such an effect on their bathtub renovation company (!), mere days later, remained a mystery. Another YouTuber found out from official records that the company was in debt of 25k before this whole episode went down. Also, Yelp quickly cleared up the added reviews, but in SJW land, her action was ultimately successful. She was portrayed as a poor victim that did nothing wrong, Thunderf00t as a business destroying cyber-harasser. This version was adopted by David Futrelle and PZ Myers, and is another episode in the Bizarrro Universe (in which also Richard Dawkins is a white supremacist, and Rebecca Watson merely requested “guys don't do that”). Laughing Witch deleted her channel to destroy the evidence, i.e. another feminist was being silenced in SJW jargon. But she quickly made a new channel for damage control and propaganda purposes, where she then spoke of cyberharassment against her and that the FBI was involved and watching. It petered out from there.

The Pretzel Propaganda
And now, for the laughs read the RW description above again. Doesn't it state the exact opposite as far as the quartertruth can be bent? Even her lies are portrayed as truthful, and it's maximally downplayed. Nothing of a campaign, either. Nothing about how she gloated and pointed to her own name. Nothing about letters to police and local media, too. Nothing about Czech laws and the intended serious effects. Her view of chilling effects, as promoted by the SJWs, with de-platforming and in favour of social coercion through a tyranny of a majority is also the editorial position on the RationalWiki. RW hero PZ Myers, who endorsed McDermott and other SJWs, has called for actual workplace harassment (of a female physician), just like Laughing Witch. Of course the RationalWiki is silent about this, too, but then disapproves when Thunderf00t shows a Yelp page. The whole affair is interesting, for it is a crystal clear case where we have video material of the people boasting themselves what they did. That is, what happened is completely out in the open, on tape, and stated by everyone. Laughing Witch has deleted her side, of course, as is good memory-holing practice among SJWs in order to create their familiar narrative. But her and the other's statements are video-quoted in countless videos. Mirrors probably exist as well. But as usual, despite having everything mouseclicks away, the SJW side, including of course the RationalWiki manage to twist even that case into a pretzel, painting vile liars whose attempt could lead to serious consequences as the poor victims. To be fair, the RW editors don't need to lie themselves, but can rely on a community of bullshitters, fact-challenged individuals and frauds, like PZ Myers or David Futrelle, whose reporting is about as reliable as that of the Nazi Wochenschau news. Not only is this not rational (I know the name thing), it is meeting perhaps only the standard of fiction-writing. Consider how slightly less clear cases are being handled here. How reliable are any such “he said — she said cases” (this is not a fluke, many more such cases are known).

Comments

 * I fully agree with all of the above points. I think the article has some unfair criticisms. 02:04, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with none of it - David Gerard (talk) 22:59, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Let's have a debate page. Or something. another Jewish conspiracy by (((Laurogeita Hamabost)))  (talk) 23:02, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm unsure what's there to debate. David's comment is bizarre. The factual bits either happened, or they didn't happen. Of course they did happen. We know this because Laughing Witch herself shows it. Likewise all of Thunderf00ts actions and statements are public. You can dispute whether this level of distortion as in the article is commonplace on the RationalWiki — I think it is, and know numerous cases like this one. But it's arguable, since you can dispute and deny everything until its demonstrated, case by case. And then you can deny that X cases are enough to count as commonplace. Such disputes are however unresolvable, because believers in social jusfice — more a religion — ultimately don't care about evidence. But if that comes out, it's good enough for me. How this is sustainable for this project is another question. ~ Aneris 19:34, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Saying go to youtube is not a citation. 20:13, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * When the debate is regarding the contents of a youtube video(s) it sort of is. Arawn Emrys (talk) 20:39, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Nope, even then "search youtube" is vague as fuck and represents hiding in ambiguity. Might as well be "research it yourself, sheep" at that point.  Specific content ought to be contestable with specific citations.  ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 20:57, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * You're a True Believer anyway, and I'm not interested in argueing with you. You can play obtuse all you want. It's not vague at all. You type “laughing witch” into youtube and dozens of videos come up. Since the a/s community tends to do the Socratean cite-comment style, you'll see Laughing Witch's assertions easily. Comically, your paragraph has no source at all and of course whoever wrote it could write what they wanted, as long as it was in the desired direction. Of course, when you don't like the direction, you drag your feet, revert even trivialities, no source matters and every sentence must be fought through. You increase costs for others, while keeping it cheap for yourself and your narrative. The high costs make it infeasible to correct such articles, hence it's pointless, and nobody should bother. This is merely an example case that shows all of this another time, for transpareny reasons. Those who care can watch the sources below:
 * Here are a few mirrored videos from LW's channel, from where her statements were taken.
 * Laughing Witch Mirror Video 1
 * Laughing Witch Mirror Video 2
 * Laughing Witch Mirror Video 3
 * Laughing Witch Mirror Video 4
 * Though there isn't much to quote-mine when someone shows their name, and says “that's my name there”. But you see more/other context from her directly as well. Here's her TV appearance:
 * Bathtub News 1
 * Bathtub News 2
 * Their debt records are exposed here. Then, of course, there's Thunderf00t's side.
 * He talks about one of these “concerned” letters in an unplugged off the cuff manner. I didn't compare whether it's the same letter Laughing Witch sent, or whether this is one of the others.
 * '''This is Thunderf00t regular main video, featuring the gloating clips of LW (the ones mirrored above). Watch at least that.
 * Thunderf00t's editing can be tendentious and obviously, he has opinions, but the point are the primary sources of LW and others he shows. '''
 * He then made a short recap of sorts as it was ongoing.
 * And then another regular style longform follow up, incorporating whatever seemed relevant to him at the time.
 * Here's a mirror of the second coming of Laughing Witch, with her FBI claims. Maybe you want commentary and summaries from others. Well, you can pick your poison, there are aplenty. Here is Noel Plums row, with other context and tangents:
 * Noel Plum discusses letter context, Bewildered Ape etc
 * Noel Plum discusses the apology episode
 * Noel Plum discusses the bathtub news
 * Noel Plum discusses King Crocoduck's involvement
 * This should give you lots of additional context. If you need even more, Vicky Caramel of the Slymepit made a playlist with many more videos on this matter, from all sides (e.g. Sargon, Kevin Logan, Kristi Winters etc). I'm happy to be shown wrong, if you have the evidence, but my confidence comes from the fact that your take is certainly wrong, even if you find some issue with mine. ~ Aneris 01:11, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Here's the result, about two weeks later. Nothing happened. Only ingroup editors can edit such articles, and nobody did. The RationalWiki is obviously fine with spreading obvious, and extreme falsehoods, and not just in this case. Here, Laughing Witch points at her name underneath an extreme smearing letter (claiming Thunderf00t was an actual neo nazi), but to the RationalWiki it becomes him "doc-drop the YouTube feminist LaughingWitch". You cannnot make this up. Instead of seeing the glaring problems, RationalWikian board member "disagree" or in Percy's case laugh it off. ~ Aneris 16:21, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Wait — did you expect someone else to just buckle down and make all of your proposed edits for you? When is that how any article has worked on this site, ever? Also, I do laugh it off when you literally barge into conversations and say stuff like (partial quote):
 * "RationalWiki is actually PZPOV. Basically, what PZ Myers thinks is also the editorial position here. If he doesn't like someone, or something, you also don't. In the rare cases he likes something, or someone, the RationalWiki will follow along. He's also frequently quoted, unless, his words might make him look idiotic, then the PR team will rather sweep it under the rug and are suddenly not so keen on including the quotation. "What PZ Says" goes as far that it even overwrites fully documented video evidence."
 * You even go ahead and say "It's quite comical actually." — quite the double standard for you to lament me laughing at it, then, isn't it? And by the way; insisting that your Slymepit source covers the matter "from all sides" seems unlikely. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 17:06, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * First, The playlist is not a "source", but a playlist with sources. Kevin Logan, Kristi Winters et al are anti-TF (and pro LW). Others on the list sympathize with TF to varying degrees. It also has nothing to do with likelihoods, but with looking at the names and what they have said. Also, you know almost nothing of the Slymepit and what you learned is mostly false. Secondly, don't try the "why don't you edit" stuff yet again. Look what happens: example 1: FGM (note that the article lost about a third of good sources including major human rights organisations). Or, example 2: Coyne/Pinker vs Watson/Myers, fully sourced with proper context and all. This thing continued, by the way, this time with a YouTuber named Miles Powers. But why cover pseudo-science debates on the RationalWiki? *Rollseyes* It's already established without a doubt, Percy, that you drag your feet, obstruct and do everything to delay corrections in the "wrong direction". I wrote this above already, and it hasn't changed since then. If someone is disliked, however, lying and slandering without sources goes easy and practically writes itself, just see the responses. It should be trivial to correct things. But it needs weeks and every tiny point must be rubbed under your nose, or fought through, and you are still not willing to get it. Of course, if you are caught pants down, and things are not favourable for your agenda, you rather sweep it under the rug. So if you can't portray LW as a victim of Thunderf00t, at least not mention her campaign and workplace harassment against him. Another fun fact: you call the postmodernist hack "Dr Winters", yet it's not even once "Dr Mason". :D ~ Aneris 21:55, 29 September 2016 (UTC)