RationalWiki talk:What is going on in the blogosphere?/Archive8

Recent Cracked article about the troubled teen industry

Friendly reminder that the troubled teen industry article has been rotting in the bottom of the To Do List for God knows how long. I'd start it, but I have exams to study for and TVTropes anime pages to obsessively document tropes in. |₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{ROAD ROLLER DA! Wryyyyyy!} 23:47, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Ooh, I've read a lot on the subject. Maybe I should do it. Narky Sawtooth (Floof!~) 16:59, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Could you direct me to some literature on the subject? I have some paychecks to burn some interest on the topic. |₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{This taste... it's of a liar!} 22:12, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

About the The Guardian Article

The parts of the article referring to what we call people is nonsense that borders absolute nonsense. It didn't have to be; They could have stayed focused on how people can say one thing and mean another. But, they didn't. Instead, it's a cynical view of how "oh no, we're making deception easier!" That's not dis-empowering anybody. People are politely asked to treat others with dignity, and that's about it. If they don't comply, they'll just end up with more people asking them to use different words, unless they're a huge jerk about it. And the article complains about not saying people "suffer" from autism, "even if they do." People don't suffer from autism. People with autism suffer from ignorant people. Narky Sawtooth (Floof!~) 17:18, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Your final point is undeniable but remember this article is written from a left wing perspective, not a liberal one, and should be read in a wider context. Already in the late eighties, it was evident that civility in language might raise consciousness but was not going to bring about any real change. Instead, we got what Tony Judt said: "Pretending we are all separate but equal, he said, “conceals the effects of real power and capacity, real wealth and influence. You describe everyone as having the same chances when actually some people have more chances than others. And with this cheating language of equality, deep inequality is allowed to happen much more easily.”".

It's evident in all aspects of British public life, particularly in education. We respect and value all ethnicities, creeds, family arrangements, abilities etc but if you're a black working class kid you're more fucked than ever. Your chances of being diagnosed with ASD are much lower than a middle classs white kid, but you're chances of exclusion from mainstream education and/or getting arrested are much much higher. But it's OK - the schools have training sessions and special classes and policies and stuff.

Changing the way we speak about others has become a mere exercise in civility or, in too many cases, a fig leaf for deflection onto a different Other. It changes little but gives power an excuse to carry on as usual London Grump (talk) 17:42, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

"People don't suffer from autism". What about repetitive actions and other behaviors that actually can cause self-harm (eye-poking, head banging, etc.)? What about the problems adjusting to different situations due to their tendency to engage in ritualistic behavior? Pretending that diseases aren't diseases isn't helping anyone, and the only reason to be so offended when people call people with autism "sufferers" is that you're upholding the stigmatizing of diseases.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 00:37, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Those are satellite traits. Narky Sawtooth (Floof!~) 07:04, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I usually roll my eyes when I read or hear people pushing the postmodernist idea that if we change language, we will change society. However, the idea that political correctness is the reason for the problems of disadvantaged groups is idiotic.

Does anybody of you who upvoted this thing genuinely believe that it is PC that allows politicians to do budget cuts? Cameron pledged not to cut NHS spendings and yet he did. All the SUFFERING of uk PATIENTS didn’t stop the Tories. How would you blame that on PC? Oh snap, it’s ‘cause they allowed female muslim medical staff to wear sleeves, isn’t it. And this year there were cuts in cancer treatment. I blame Jolie, why would the government need to pay for women who kept their boobs instead of choosing the cheaper option. And all those people with cancer on TV who look so strong and brave - why don't you suffer more expressively?

In addition all these people are under the umbrella term “disabled”. Isn’t that enough to show that they "don’t have the same chances". Should they wear signs or badges? Do you believe that pc has had such a profound effect on society that nobody today knows that having a disability is hard? This guy gal with schizophrenia says that “The Bullshit People Believe Impacts Your Life More Than the Disorder”. And that’s a common sentiment among a lot of people with disability or mental illness. That is not to say that there are no people who suffer. Yet claiming that society has forgotten that having a mental illnesses can be bad is utter stupidity. Parents still go through the stages of grief when they learn that their child has a disabling condition.

But let’s assume that everything that Nick Cohen (he probably would have won Pulitzer by now if we still called them "kykes") says is correct. Even then his argument makes no sense. Since Obama took office, some have claimed that now, that there is a black US president - racism is over in the US. Black people (or should I say "porch monkeys", 'cause I don't want to further disempower them) are fine. They just need to pull up their pants and get a job - I heard a "coon" say that on FoxNews once, so it must be true.

By the logic of the argument made in the article, the recent deterioration in relationships between the police and the African American community is all one man's fault - thanks, Obama. You see – it’s bad for black people to be in governing positions, because that allows the police to kill poor black kids and say "But it's OK - the White House has a black president in it, we have black Attorney General, the 14^th Amendment, and stuff".

BTW you should never elect a woman president, because that will disempower women even further by becoming another excuse for the patriarchal status quo.

I have read a lot of advocacy groups’ positions and expert reports and I cannot even begin to list all the problems that people with and within the community, who work on the issues, face while trying to change laws, institutions and societies, but the use of the term “consumer” instead of “patient” is not among them. If anyone is concealing the problems that’s Nick Cohen with his very simplistic and out-of-touch take on the issue.^{— Unsigned, by: 89.25.56.189 / talk / contribs}

That's okay. Taking down every dumb new argument as it comes up is fun. It's half the reason for editing rationalwiki, really. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:24, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

"I usually roll my eyes when I read or hear people pushing the postmodernist idea that if we change language, we will change society. However, the idea that political correctness is the reason for the problems of disadvantaged groups is idiotic." Yeah, totally agree. That people sometimes focus too much on enforcing PC language instead of actually educating people or eliminating discriminative/oppressive systems is a reasonable claim, but this guy takes that idea and does some seriously crazy shit with it.

"This guy with schizophrenia says..." You got the gender wrong, but great article. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:07, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

"I cannot even begin to list all the problems that people with and within the community" You're talking about Autism Speaks, right? |₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{The retarded vomit of disintegrating!} 17:25, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

No. I haven't even mentioned autism. I was talking about people with disabilities in general.

Also: Even the middle class white guy is unlikely to get diagnosed. Psychiatric care still carries a heavy stigma with it, and so many cases of ASD go undiagnosed. But I'm not in the US or the UK, so I dunno. |₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{The retarded vomit of disintegrating!} 17:25, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Are satellite traits not caused by autism?TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 21:55, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

They're correlated. It also hasn't been ruled out that those satellite traits are caused and/or worsened by the way autistic people are treated. Of course, I'm not saying that *is* what's happening, but it would certainly make sense (person gets ostracized from groups, so they obsess about being ostracized from groups and exhibit compulsive behavior; Boom, OCD). There's also always the fact that exhibiting a severe trait increases the probability of autism being noticed. Narky Sawtooth (Floof!~) 15:17, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd still call that "suffering" TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 00:49, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

But it's suffering from something else. Do people suffer from being black? Of course not. They may, however, suffer from society. They may also possibly suffer from the way society influenced their family's money and education. They suffer *because* they're black, they don't suffer from *being* black. (This here is only a statement of word choice, and I realize it's very open to misinterpretation.) Narky Sawtooth (Floof!~) 23:53, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

So... you know that the phrase "suffering from [insert ailment here]" has nothing to do with any pain or suffering the person experiences but is just a statement that ailment X is active in the person's body, right? People in a coma can still 'suffer from' cancer, AIDS etc. Really, for someone insisting on saying that people "suffer from autism" you're sure taking those words literally (coincidence?). The question on whether it's appropriate to say that people "suffer from autism" doesn't depend on if they suffer due to autism, but on whether it's correct or accurate to describe autism as a disease. Taking a look at the diagnostic criteria for autistic disorder, which merely require social/communicational impairment (introversion, basically) and obsessive/repititive behaviours, I think "autism" is more a broad collection of personality types, rather than a disease. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 03:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Periodic table

Uploaded to RW in 2010 File:Woo_Table_v1.4.png by Human Scream!! (talk) 22:58, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

"A history of left and right in American politics"

Can anyone make sense of that pretentious horseshit? I can't make heads or tails of it, as its historical references jump from late 18th century to mid 19th century with practically no rhyme or reason. Plus, it doesn't even explain what "'left' and 'right' mean". Hotwateramericano (talk) 19:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

The way I understood the piece, it makes the rather cliché'd point that contemporary 'social justice' leftism is a secularized version of strains of thinking that arose out of the Social Gospel from the early twentieth century. This in turn relates to the moral reformism that got out of control during the nineteenth century, and earlier, the "dissenter conscience" in the UK. And ultimately all of this springs from various sorts of religious and political radicalism that arose out of the English Civil Wars. Moldbug thinks he discovered this independently, but this has been a hypothesis that's been around for quite some time. In its broad outline, it is true. The UK was very fortunate to have experienced a counter-revolution that made all forms of religious enthusiasm politically suspect. It's the USA's tragedy that we never had that reaction here. These movements have always had a nasty side, too: Victorian sexual repression, Prohibitionism, anti-sex feminism, war on drugs, healthism, Tumblristas; all these things can be seen as related phenomena. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 20:22, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Smerdis, your response is just as vacuous and incoherent as the blog itself. By the way, do you take neo-reactionaries seriously? Hotwateramericano (talk) 21:09, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Any sources for that, Smerdis? Deofex (talk) 20:47, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Quite a few, actually. With regard to the beginnings, I'd recommend Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down. It's surprising how relevant a pack of seventeenth century religious nuts still are, when you know how to read their material. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 21:03, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure they can be, though that's the path to conspiracy diagrams about cultural Marxism - David Gerard (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Up a few lines William Wilberforce came up. People remember him for pushing the legislation that curtailed the slave trade in Britain and its colonies. Everybody remembers him for that, and no doubt it was a great and good thing. But he was a more ambivalent figure than that. He founded a Society for the Suppression of Vice. He had the London printer of Paine's Age of Reason jailed. All of his actions, for good or for ill, were products of evangelical zealotry. I see a straight line of descent from Wilberforce and his ilk to the more recent prohibitionists, and the anti-porn and anti-smoking crusaders of today. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 00:18, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Every movement has it's zealots.--Arisboch (talk) 19:05, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

It's neoreactionary burble. And is doing rather better on clogs than here - David Gerard (talk) 22:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

What was wrong with Smerdis' response? He's not entirely wrong. You can trace a lot of the American (liberal, middle-class, progressive) sentiment (like the Social Gospel) in America back to religious sentiment - specifically Puritanism. Really, the Puritans are one of the most unjustly despised groups in American history at this point (obviously excluding racial minorities). We have them to thank for a lot of pretty great stuff. Plus, they weren't nearly as sex-negative or anti-fun as they're made out to be. So, while it's true that a lot of modern liberalism derives from religion and "moral crusading", that's not such a bad thing. (Agrajag (talk) 00:23, 20 April 2015 (UTC))

The first genocide of the twentieth century

Wot, no Belgian "The Horror. The Horror" Congo? London Grump (talk) 20:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the answer to that would be that while Belgian rule was unbelievably horrific, it would not meet the standards set out in the Genocide Convention, namely that the relevant atrocities were not committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 23:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

IIRC, Genocide Convention doesn't require intent, only that the action/policy results in reduction in numbers or percantage of people in a given area. This is to prevent the defense of "oh, we didn't know that requiring literacy tests in our language in order to have kids would result in genocide of all the ethnic groups that speak another language, we just wanted to prevent unfit parents". It gets tricky and common sense has to be used, obviously; a city condemning an unsafe building which results in 200 people leaving the city is obviously not genocide even if they are all the same ethnicity. Now if the city had condemned the building because they were of that race, you might have a case.CorruptUser (talk) 19:08, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Eh, I actually don't blame him. His editors/fact-checkers maybe, but not him. People make errors of fact all the time, and the Pope is no less human than the rest of us OR IS HE???? ℕoir LeSable (talk) 17:19, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Nope, actually, he accidentally rewrote history by means of ex Cathedra infallibility. Pope powers are dangerous. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:03, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Papal infallibility is actually invoked very rarely, and it is generally unambiguously understood that everything not so invoked by the Pope is not infallible. - Grant (talk) 18:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I know. Come on. I even cited the terminology Catholic scholars use to describe actually infallible statements. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:39, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but that kind of humour is a bit difficult to express via text. You could just as easily have been talking out of your ass using the same wording. :P - Grant (talk) 20:55, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

The Grauniad article raises a valid point but has two glaring weaknesses:

1. The Pope was actually citing the popular description of the Armenian Genocide as the first of the 20th century - not claiming that it definitely was (my bolding): “In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the twentieth century,’ struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation,”“In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the twentieth century,’ struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation,” (google the transcript version, e.g. this one or this one).
2. The article's last paragraph is just asking questions to the extent that the reader is left wondering whether the Pope is a racist, which I think is rather... tendentious and problematic (if I'm in a diplomatic mood): "The question now is whether the pope’s statement was made in ignorance or if the Vatican was guilty of the sin of deliberate omission. In either case, this has been a bizarre and self-defeating episode. Catholicism is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else: 200 million Africans are followers of the faith. But awareness of history is also increasing in Africa and crimes such as the Namibian genocide can no longer be ignored, whether by accident or design."

So, yes, the article raise awareness of a too often overlooked genocide in what is today Namibia, but the author also kind of shoots himself in the foot with that last paragraph. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:46, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

"...the reader is left wondering whether the Pope is a racist, which I think is rather... tendentious and problematic." Or, we back up a step and say "the reader is left wondering if a man speaking on behalf of an organization that was complicit in Modern Europe's extraction of wealth from the rest of the world literally since the moment that process began has not properly acknowledged its fundamentally racist history never mind taking steps to rectify the effects of that history." Which is exactly, of course, what the blogger is doing. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 03:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Hanlon's razor.--Arisboch (talk) 19:10, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Richard Littlejohn's piece on the UK election.

Why did anyone think that rambling and incoherent garbage would be a good contribution to the blogs section? Hotwateramericano (talk) 21:03, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Supposedly it was "promoted" from WIGO:clogs, although I can't see that it was ever posted there. It was moronic gibberish & I've taken it off this WIGO. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:31, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

No, no, you should spell it as "Yew Kay". Else the dumb Americans will pronounce it as "uck"! 141.134.75.236 (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

It was the only Daily Mail article that I have ever found even remotely informative, granted I am an American who hasn't paid much attention to the elections across the pond so I guess I would find informative, I'm also not as sensitive to his fawning over UKIP since I'm here and UKIP is over there, I can see why people here would be though, since come to think of it, if it was an American writing about the Tea Party that way it would have probably annoyed me. I probably should have kept it in the clogosphere. I can be a bit reckless/clueless at times. Alsto003 (talk) 03:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC) Alex

You might not know this, but Richard Littlejohn has an article on this website. Hotwateramericano (talk) 00:59, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Richard Littlejohn lives on your side of the pond, too, Alsto003, and given Littlejohn's obvious defects of reason you're probably better qualified than him to talk about UK politics anyway. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 12:49, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Joss Whedon's sexism

'Minor Spoilers' So I saw the earlier Joss Whedon articles before they were changed and I read the Twitter comments. They seemed to be mostly irrational fan hate with 'shipping' and plot points like certain character's death, but after reading several articles I can see where they are coming from with Black Widow's tropes. So firstly, the rape joke, prima nocta, was out of place and very similar to quivering quim comment Loki makes to Black Widow in the first Avengers movie. Secondly, the whole infertile story, to me, was that she felt that she gave up the chance to have kids in order to kill more people; this makes her feel like a monster. Lastly, Black Widow was largely irrelevant in previous movies, but now she has a back-story and a larger role in Age of Ultron; though she does have a variant of the damsel in distress trope. Anyways I bring this up since it seems that it has caused a lot of irrationality.--Owlman (talk) 04:15, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Tony Stark's joke was in character; it's been established in his four movies that he's a self-centered, cynical asshole. Black Widow is so far the only female Avenger; that apparently makes her the vessel for the entire hopes of Womanhood, and that's unfair to the character and the people who have to write her parts. It isn't like she chose to be sterilized to make her a better assassin; her backstory is that she comes out of an evil organization that trains assassins, one that saw children as a potential source of divided loyalty. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 16:37, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

It's actually the problem I have with 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner'. Back in the 60's, the movie was a big deal. A liberal father finds out his daughter wants to marry a black man (oh noes!). It was actually more popular in theatres down south than up north, surprisingly. But no, it was not just any black man, he's Zeus come down from Olympus to grace us mere mortals. He's rich, intelligent, caring, has an advanced degree, etc etc. Ok, yay, it's great that Hollywood could tackle interracial marriage, but today? His entire character can be summed up with "Marty Stu", which makes for a horribly unwatchable movie. Same with women in movies now. Yes, Hollywood has a problem, but if every female role has to be a Social Justice Poster Child either there will be terrible films or no female roles. CorruptUser (talk) 17:52, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree that Tony Stark is a misogynist womanizer, but I think a rape may go to far when you are trying to show that. I definitely agree with Smerdis about Black Widow's past being dark and I agree with CorruptUser that not every female character, or any character for that matter, can be written without some trope; I can see how some people were disappointed that she had a more romantic role in the movie. Though I don't agree that romance hurts her character or that a rape joke made by Tony makes Joss Whedon a sexist, as some blogs have said. I think Hollywood tends to go overboard when it comes to representation of minorities by either making them into a Mary Sue/Gary Stu or important because they are the goal e.g. a damsel in distress or a magic negro. Regardless, I think Black Widow received more significance inAge of Ultron than in previous movies and I did enjoyed the movie nonetheless.--Owlman (talk) 01:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The joke was Stark saying he'd "bring back prima nocta" if he were king of Asgard. (That's the Harry Potter version; in Latin it's ius primæ noctis. It's mostly a legend. Maybe we need an article.) I think it was intended to be a reference to Braveheart. To make this a "rape joke" actually requires quite a bit of backstory supplied by the audience. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 03:24, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Backstory? Nah, the audience just needs to know the meaning of the phrase and the rape-y aspect would be pretty obvious. That said, I doubt a lot of people know what it's supposed to mean. I for one didn't before I looked it up just now. I mean, yeah, it's clearly pseudo-Latin for "first night", but that doesn't tell you a lot. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 07:33, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, I'd love to see Tony even try to invoke the right of the first night on an Asgardian woman. All Asgardians are super strong compared to humans. As for the representation of minorities, the reason why they made the man from 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' so brilliant in every way was to highlight that literally the only reason someone could have a problem with the man was because he was black. And I'm not sure how I'm supposed to see Black Widow's admission as particularly horrifying given that just before she makes it, Banner points out that it's impossible for him to have kids. Maybe he's sterile from all the gamma radiation, or maybe it's because exposure to his bodily fluids can kill people. After all, one drop of his blood wound up diluted in a bottle of soda from Mexico and killed Stan Lee. - Psycho Gecko, 7:19, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Supporting the right

So... a thing that's happening with Geller. It's that people are taking assertions that what someone is saying with their free speech being morally wrong, and twisting that into a suggestion that it should be forbidden. No one is doing that. You're allowed to have shitty awful opinions, and you should expect to be condemned for pushing them in public. There's no free speech issue here at all, except on the part of the attackers, who are not being defended by anyone. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 16:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Probably a better fit for clogs than blogs. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 16:04, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

free speech being morally wrong, and twisting that into a suggestion that it should be forbidden - As slippery slopes go, that's a short and shallow one. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 03:18, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

"I think we should kill Smerdis of Tlon" not an immoral thing to say. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 17:06, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Of course not. None of us deserve anything but death. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 05:58, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Anti-vax list - own up.

Hands up if your name is on there. *puts up hand* -PsyGremlin^Hable! 12:54, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I feel shame at not being on it. Mayo2017 (talk) 15:05, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

My criticism of anti-vaxxers has never left my Skype contacts, so I doubt I'm on there.ConfusedLiberal (talk) 18:46, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I was not expecting my name to be on there. Probably someone else with the same name, though, as I only use my legal name on facebook, and in that case it's not the shortened version. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 13:24, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Goldstein University?

Freudian slip already? London Grump (talk) 20:06, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Eep, sorry, fixed. I've been listening to an audiobook of Orwell's 1984 and it just... blep ℕoir LeSable (talk) 20:14, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

What's Freudian about Goldstein? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 20:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

"Goldstein" is, at least in the USA, a stereotypically Jewish name. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 21:14, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Most surnames ending in -stein are typically seen as Jewish. Dunno how that'd make it Freudian, though. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:23, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Because nose = dong, duh. WalkerWalkerWalker 03:06, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

>.< 141.134.75.236 (talk) 12:26, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Parapraxis that reveals unconscious intent, Goat, I fee1 old. 86.129.189.63 (talk) 07:49, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

#killallwhitemen

I don't understand how it's an example of male privilege that #killallwhitemen can be seen as a joke. Especially since men make up 77% of murder victims. Should #killallwhitewomen be taken more seriously?TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Source if there's more? It looks like 1 person thinks it's silly, maybe ask them. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 22:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Men make up 77% of murder victims and 90% of murderers, according to your same source. Very few, if any of these murders are racially motivated. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:01, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I posted this article, and I agree male privilege has nothing to do with it (although the author seems to think it does). It's pretty much what Weaseloid said. If it were, say, "kill all blacks" or "kill all Muslims", then it would be taken as a more credible threat and carry that sort of weight, largely because those groups are more likely to suffer from racially-motivated violence in the western world (per capita, at least). OTOH, if you lived in South Africa or the Middle East where racially-motivated violence against whites are currently more prevalent, "kill all whites" would have that sort of weight as well while the other two aforementioned examples would not. And even in the west, the gravity of the threat varies with location -- for instance, "kill all Asians" would have a much stronger credibility if it were posted by someone in Brisbane or Auckland than in San Francisco or Manchester. Like the article said, it's all about context. So not so much white privilege, but [Insert Relevant Ethnicity Here in This Location at This Point In Time] privilege.

At least, that's how I read it. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 02:09, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that I wasn't threatened by it because of white male privilege. More like, I wasn't threatened by it because it was a hashtag. Nor would I join in a petition calling for her job for posting this. Obviously she comes from a milieu where that kind of carrying on may win applause, and she failed to trim her message to her audience when she posted on something with a broader readership. Even people whose politics are different from mine still deserve to eat. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 03:02, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I never said that #killallblacks would also be taken as a joke. Blacks, a minority, make up about half of murder victims, and there has historically been more racially motivated murder for them as well. Just thought it was unnecessary to bring gender into it.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 00:55, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Well there has (historically and contemporaneously) also been more violence against women perpetrated by men than the reverse. Also, when talking about social justice & identity politics, "white men" or "cis white men" are often cited as the most privileged group, so there's nothing unusual about "bringing gender into it". Also, "dead white men" is a common trope. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:38, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Considering the outrage over this, I better not hear about "It's just a joke!" ever again from a dudebro. Cykosys (talk) 05:20, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

That's one good reason I'm not outraged. May be the ciswhite privilege talking here, but I would never have taken it for anything other than a joke, and... I think that's a good thing. If anything, this is a problem where too much "safe space" is at least a little bit to blame; on social media there is no such thing. Don't post anything on the Internet you're unwilling to share with the world. You are not entitled to "safe space" here. It is in fact faintly ridiculous that anyone fancied they ever were. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 05:27, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

What's wrong with safe spaces? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 08:27, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Not a whole lot, in private meatspace. But in digital media, anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. Again, what this is about is what happens when among-friends tropes and rhetoric get displayed to a hostile world. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 03:46, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no civility on the net, only politics, so yes, if you post something on the net, you can expect people dragging out private conversations in the open to take a shit on you (and contrary to naked photos, no-one has a problem at all with that kinda behavior here).--Arisboch (talk) 21:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Right. My only beef is with her apparent expectation that she could use a racist and sexist hashtag on a public forum without some backlash. And with trotting out the tired cant that the fact that she's not a ciswhitemale means she can't be racist or sexist.

On the other hand, I've tried to stick up for her against overreactions because of this b/c free speech and all that. I also tend to be annoyed by the suggestion that my willingness to let this slide has more to do with "white male privilege" rather than familiarity with hashtags as things that may not be meant literally. I knew enough about that toxic milieu, for instance, to know that #solidarityisforwhitewomen is not in fact about solidarity with white women. (And that the actual explanation will be tiresome unless you're seriously into other people's inner pathologies.) So yes, I assumed that the hashtag was meant to be either ironic or over-the-top provocative, and in either case was not a serious threat. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 16:23, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

So... the conspiracy theorists link

I'm pretty sure that's a blog post showing a rebecca watson video about a paper we linked a month or two ago on WIGO:World. So... just putting that out there. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 17:36, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

So... what?... That's how the blogosphere works. ωεαşεζøίɗ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

So it takes 5 clicks to get to the actual study there, and the focus of the blog post was a minor secondary experiment. Providing the original paper was all I was trying to do. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 13:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

You could add a direct link to it in the WIGO entry if you think that's important. But your comment above seemed to be implying that the WIGO entry was pointless or invalid. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:48, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Lego Universe

A lot more went wrong with Lego Universe than having to moderate for dongs. I was in the beta for that for a long time. It was borderline unplayable as a multiplayer game due to the ridiculous amounts of child protection stuff they did in it. Just to be able to type numbers (not phone numbers or house numbers, just number digits like 1 or 5) had to have BOTH parties in the conversation provide a valid driver's license that was vetted by the moderators, and that's just one example. X Stickman (talk) 17:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

And you can circumvent it very, very easily. Moral panic vs gaming, again.--Arisboch (talk) 17:29, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Minecraft deals with it by Mojang not running multiplayer servers itself, and a cloud of small businesses running the servers and policing them by local policy - David Gerard (talk) 17:34, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

It was actually ludicrously hard to circumvent the chat filters in Lego Universe because they didn't have a blacklist of blocked words, they had a whitelist of allowed words. And ALL numbers were blocked. So you couldn't say "you need to kill 2 more of that enemy to finish the quest" because "kill" and "2" were banned. So were "two", "<3", ">1", "t w o", "II" etc... You also couldn't request a trade (even though trading was in the game) because any phrases along the lines of "give me x" or "I want x" were banned too. At absolute best you could could communicate freely by using periods as morse code but the chat windows were so small that it became impractical to have a real conversation doing that, and a mod on a random patrol would stop you anyway. X Stickman (talk) 18:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

You mean people didn't just get around numbers with whitelist words? ("I need twin tea sticks items for this quest.") Regardless, even though COPPA compliance is surprisingly strict, that sounds like a nightmare case. It reminds me of how stringent the word filters on Neopets was/is, and how one could get dinged/silenced for using too many rather inoccuous phrases (such as, almost universally, the word "grape"). It's understandable why a kid-friendly MMO would want a whitelist rather than a blacklist, though; it's much easier to circumvent a blacklist than a whitelist. That doesn't necessarily mean a whitelist by itself is unnecessarily strict either -- Pirate101 for instance uses a hybrid system with three levels of chat that parents can set:

• None -- Can't see or send typed messages, but can see/send from an unusually thorough menu of preset messages available to players of all chat levels, including player-relevant quest info, battle tactics, and other requests (e.g. "I need to defeat [Ninja Pigs] for [Hattori Hamzo]!" "[Player], have [Hawkules] and [Wild Bill Peacock] attack [Guy Fox]!" "Don't heal me!" "Have [Wu Tang] defend [Bagha Khan]!"). Indicated by speech bubble with an X through it beside name.
• Limited -- Whitelist. Words not on the whitelist are colored yellow when entered into chat and replaced with ellipses. Can also use the preset menu. Indicated by speech bubble beside name.
• "Full" -- Blacklist. Words not on the whitelist appear as ellipses ('...') to anyone on Limited chat, but appear normally to other "Full" chat members. Blacklist words are colored red when entered into chat and also replaced with ellipses. Requires making at least one credit card purchase and needs to be activated through the parental controls.

As for the new Lego game, I'm curious as to how they'll handle all this and if they've learned anything from Universe. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 20:20, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Other kids' MMOs have this problem, and solve it various ways. Bin Weevils allows free typing but has lots of roaming mods; Club Penguin only allows preprogrammed words and phrases; Animal Jam defaults to a whitelist, but if you're a paying member you can get parental permission for free typing - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Another thing that's odd about Lego Universe and the dong problem is that you couldn't build anything in the public areas, only in your private "home" space. And other people COULD visit that, but only by invite. Seems like that'd be a lot easier to dong police than they're making out. X Stickman (talk) 18:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Reddit

Has anyone else been following the fallout? It's been hilarious. First they tried to create an /r/FatPeopleHate2 sub of which the top posts were bashing the admins. Now that it's been banned, /r/all is now flooded with several camps: a whole bunch of /r/PunchableFaces posts featuring CEO Ellen Pao, a smattering of /r/Conspiracy posts claiming Reddit "is no longer a place of free speech" (youkeepusingthatword.gif), trending posts from /r/FatPeopleHate4, /r/FatPeopleHate5, and /r/FatPeopleHateHD, and a handful of /r/Circlejerk posts making fun of the entire mess.

Thankfully, none of the subreddits I follow closely are too affected by this to particularly care about FPH's ban, so I'm just gonna sit here with my popcorn.gifs and wait for the whole mess to blow over. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 02:26, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

It may cause a fork along the lines of 8chan.--Arisboch (talk) 02:55, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

http://voat.co , which is melting under the strain. Wonder how they'll deal with a userbase composed entirely of stupendous assholes - David Gerard (talk) 11:28, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

There's "/fatpeoplehate/" on 8chan, may be founded by emigrants from reddit.--Arisboch (talk) 11:45, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The same way reddit did? Marginally increased revenues. (I have a low opinion of reddit as a community-at-large) ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 13:34, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

They're also claiming that this is proof that "SJWs" now control the site, and that r/shitredditsays and r/subredditdrama are the ones who do all the brigading and harassment. They even dug ViolentAcrez's firing back up as proof of SRS's "harassment." ConfusedLiberal (talk) 18:28, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The subreddit's mods' specifically hosting a campaign of harrassment against imgur staff for deciding to not automatically transclude their five minute hates to their own front page is what triggered this clamp-down, by the way. Not the daily anonymous hate on strangers.

Yeah, that's how I understood the reason they got singled out (a lot of Redditors are now asking why /r/coontown and other blatantly racist subs get to stay up). I also suspected it's because /r/fatpeoplehate kept making it onto the front page. ConfusedLiberal (talk) 18:52, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

If there's one thing reddit is good at, it's making illegal or at least grossly negligent behaviors into an unrelated "free speech" debate. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:46, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Very true, Reddit is the internet's capital for free speech fundamentalists. ConfusedLiberal (talk) 18:52, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

TOP. MINDS. - David Gerard (talk) 14:07, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Of course Voat take Bitcoin. - David Gerard (talk) 00:51, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Survivors UK

I was pretty surprised to hear the claim that MRAs weren't up in arms over the Survivors UK budget being cut (and was told of her somewhat immature Twitter response to another author who was an activist for the Survivors UK cause), so being the type to give folks the benefit of the doubt, I decided to do some poking around of my own on Reddit (namely the notorious /r/MensRights subreddit). This is the sole post about the budget slash that I found:

• [Activism/Support] "Ah, the signs of an egalitarian society progressing! - UK's biggest male rape charity Survivors UK has state funding slashed to zero despite 120% rise in men reporting sexual violence and seeking help" 10 Days Ago 268 Points, 20 comments

Well, that seems like something, right? Well, let's compare that to what's currently the top frontpage post on /r/MensRights...

• [Unconfirmed] "Tyler Kost is still in jail after a FULL YEAR, despite Facebook chats proving that 13 high school girls conspired to frame him for sexual assault" 22 hours ago 2092 Points, 170 comments

Barely an eighth of the karma. Even a post calling for the subreddit to donate to SurvivorsUK registered with 65 points. Also note the "Unconfirmed" tag on the Kost post -- to quote a /r/MensRights mod commenting, "As has been pointed out in the past, the Facebook chat photos are... not inconsistent with a group of girls some of which have been raped. [They] do not prove that he is being framed." They're essentially being enraged over a single case that isn't even conclusively proven to be a conspiracy just yet.

Of course, now that this New Statesman article is out, the MRAs are bound to have noticed, right? Well...

• [Anti-MRM] "A male rape charity has had its funding slashed to zero. Where are all the outraged men?" 2 days ago 1077 Points, 91 comments

Yep, not until they're called out on it does the attention come. A lot of the comments are essentially going "What are you talking about? There was a LOT of outrage!" Right.

Thankfully, most of the other posts regarding SurvivorsUK in other subreddits showed more promising ratios and provided good publicity for the charity, such as /r/WorldNews (5326/6534), /r/UnitedKingdom (942/480), /r/Egalitarianism (64/64), /r/FeminismForMen (20/20) and so on. Nothing on other MRA haunts like TRP though. How odd.

Still, quite telling about MRAs and how they work, don't you think? ℕoir LeSable (talk) 19:00, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

"Someone's talking shit about us, time for us to show how much we care!" ArcticVixen (talk) 11:22, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it's because this was the UK? As an American, I probably would have noticed it earlier if something similar had occurred in New York or Los Angeles; I'm sure I'm far from the only one, and there are a lot more people in the US. I think the Tyler Kost mess is a false equivalence precisely because of that, an issue in a country with close to 5 times as many people will probably get the attention of a larger total number of people. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:18, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, feminists often get more outraged and give more attention to when a public figure says something they deem sexist than about how women are treated in Muslim countries. The point is that just because people don't react to something as much or aren't as outraged by it doesn't mean they think its less important.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 02:36, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

To be doubly fair, the concern trolls who point this out only seem to care about it solely so they can hit feminists over the head with it and further their dismissal of the idea that there's still sexism in the developed world. (see: not as bad as) ConfusedLiberal (talk) 19:06, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Well it's the same kind of faulty logic that the person who posted this is using.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 23:00, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal article is terrible

This article is total garbage. It draws conclusions based on the most incredibly tenuous connections. Apparently if you don't think the government should collect as much taxes (since all they do is overfund a few big departments and still borrow money anyway), that means you're pro-poverty. And since domestic violence is somewhat more common in poor households, you're pro-domestic violence. And since LGBT, women, and "people of color" are statistically more likely to be the victims of domestic violence (by some unspecified margin), you must support homophobia, misogyny, and racism. It also strawmans the hell out of anyone who isn't fiscally liberal, telling us to "Remember the fiscal conservative mantra: 'Low taxes good! High taxes bad!' High taxes are bad — unless we don’t call them a tax. If we call it a penalty or a fine, that’s just peachy. And if it’s disproportionately levied by a racist police force on poor black people, who have little visibility or power and are being systematically disenfranchised — that’s even better". Who says fiscally conservative people have no problem with taxes as long as they are called fines? I'm pretty sure they're for less government interference as a whole, which means less fines. Plus, saying that people who support fines are racist against black people is the same as saying people who support having to pay for auto insurance is sexism against men. This article also claims that fiscally conservative people support the war on drugs, which is a bald-faced lie. I'm surprised that more people haven't downvoted this logically broken, "no no no, this is what you ACTUALLY believe" nonsense.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 23:26, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I despise fiscal conservatism too, but I could make better points than this "handsome hipster." Hmm, there's an idea for an Essay page. ConfusedLiberal (talk) 03:00, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Sounds awesome. BTW, who did you vote for last time? - David Gerard (talk) 14:04, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

This is one of the false dichotomies that poisons political debate the most, in my opinion. As a French guy, I see a lot of communists telling me that I /obviously/ don't care for the plight of workers since I'm not one of them, as if governmental intervention was some kind of religion to be followed by the letter or some kind of all-powerful problem-solving hammer to be used without restraint or reason. I think this article should also go in the clogosphere for the sheer jackassery the author manages to deploy. NewFrenchHotness (talk) 14:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

It plays a little too much to broad generalizations, but the idea that social policies and economic policies are intertwined is absolutely correct. It's hard to get past that hurdle if economic policies aren't there to give a hand up to those in need. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 14:58, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Still nonsense. The article simply negates the idea that one can be sympathetic to the LGBT community without necessarilly wanting laws to be made tailored to help /them/ in particular (amongst others). Reducing political debates to results versus results only is rather ugly and nonsensical, as reforms can take years if not decades to show these results and thus more or less anyone can spin any statistic in a way that supports them, even if most of the praise should go to the people before them. This article more or less states that if you're not completely with him, then you're in the other camp, which is a gross fallacy. NewFrenchHotness (talk) 15:52, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

"that one can be sympathetic to the LGBT community without necessarilly wanting laws to be made tailored to help /them/ in particular (amongst others)." In other words: "one can have nice feelings about something without wanting to go to the trouble to support meaningful change that would actually help, thereby letting them have all the benefits of a clear conscience without making any real sacrifice or putting in any real effort." "as reforms can take years if not decades to show." In other words, action is futile, so don't bother to work for change. Just change the way you feel. " more or less anyone can spin any statistic in a way that supports them." In other words: "empirical data is irrelevant when it gets in the way of my right to feel good about myself." Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I received a different feel. It was that these policies were enacted that show a real detrimental effect in the real world these policies were not supposed to have. Instead of sticking with the proclamation that this is how it should be, no matter what, it is good pragmatic governing to fix the issues with good evidence of harm. Ignoring real tangible evidence is not right...and denialism is wrong quite frankly. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

First of all: I work voluntarily in a french charity that aims at promoting LGBT rights and providing information on LGBT matters (CONTACT, if you want a name). I agree with part (most, in fact) of their legal aims (gay marriage, gay adoption, mostly, as I consider that these aren't particularly geared towards giving anyone special rights and don't constitute government intervention), but not all, and this doesn't stop me from working with them. I am not saying this to toot my own horn: but do know that I do put in work and time towards advancing causes I believe in, and that I do not satisfy myself with just "having the right ideas". I'm not completely opposed to government intervention all the time, but I do think that problems that come from societal attitudes must be solved by society and community first, not government.

In short: do not presume that I put in less work into my ideals than you, just because I do not share the same exactly the same views on how to make these ideals become a reality. But moving on...

My results versus results point doesn't mean that I do not believe in cold, hard facts, or that pragmatism is a bad thing: but I do think that government intervention is a tool that should ideally not be used, unless in dire cases, and that arguing for government intervention in one direction or another tends to make the opposition of ideas and ideals that politics should be disappear in the background. Example:

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jun/22/dick-cheney/dick-cheney-number-terrorists-has-doubled/ It's true that the number of terrorists has gone up in recent years, at least according to Politifact. Does it mean Obama's policies encourage terrorism ? Not necessarily. NewFrenchHotness (talk) 16:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

"Government Intervention" for every program presents a false dichotomy, especially when only highlighting failures to cast every government program as one. the programs intent, and their performance, is required. Grouping everything as government intervention = bad, no government = good, is childish in my opinion and dismisses the nuances of reality. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 17:04, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Back to the article, I don't see a problem with acknowledging that there is a material/economic dimension to what is typically placed under the rubric of "identity politics." It's pretty obvious that the marginalization of people of colour/queers/women, etc has economic dimensions and causes, and that those two axes (the economic and the social) reinforce each other to the benefit of privileged groups. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:22, 22 June 2015 (UTC) (talk) 17:04, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I mainly consider government intervention to be a necessary evil that should be carefully examined before any use is made of it. Yes, it is better if things can get made without it. Y'know, no bureaucracy, just the shared will of a bunch of people wanting to do the same thing, no one watching over your shoulder and breathing down your neck, spirit of innovation and industriousness, all these things. That's the extent of my point. NewFrenchHotness (talk) 17:25, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I think the article has some very valid points to it, but I think the way it paints any 'fiscally conservative' sentiment as inherently supportive of poverty as it currently exists in the US—thus antagonizing the very people it should be trying to convert—detracts from those points. Wanting a smaller government doesn't necessarily mean you want social security to be downsized too. Cutting back on military expenses or taxes that hit poor people the hardest, for example, doesn't seem socially detrimental to me. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 17:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

That's very true. On the other hand I am getting royally sick of people (socially liberal/fiscally conservative) repeating the need to get rid of government regulation completely, and then when you question the nitty gritty programs (ACA, poverty programs, banking regs, food safety) they back off and acknowledge those are really needed. Then 10 minutes later they are repeating the same damn mantra that any regulation is bad. Including notable politicians who repeat this. After you have conversations like this 5, 10, 15 times what is the issue then? -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:52, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

As someone who grew up around a lot of people involved in healthcare in various capacities I will say that, just as some people defraud private insurance companies, there are people who grossly abuse Medicare/Medicaid and some of the state-run programs. To cite one of the people alluded to above, a rheumatologist, there are a disproportionate number of these people (small total number, but a higher percentage than the privately insured people) who show up at her office and claim "fibromyalgia" (the existence of which is currently disputed), fake seizures, are seeking to get their worker's comp extended after their issue is completely cleared, etc. I can't see anything wrong with people arguing the government shouldn't be funding this, nor do I think that position is unique to "fiscal conservatism". As Andrew Cuomo said, being progressive doesn't mean being supportive of wasteful spending. That, to me, would seem to cut both ways; it's also true that wanting to cut spending doesn't inherently make you support inequality. This also implies that nothing other than government spending can Impact these problems; I work at a nonprofit that, among other things (I'm in the adult day programs), helps provide jobs for disabled adults. Yes, my agency gets state funding, but we get plenty of funding from sources like wealthy donors, people paying for the products, and companies that have contracts with the relevant work division in the agency. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:17, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

claim "fibromyalgia" (the existence of which is currently disputed) Only by fuckwits. I go to fibromyalgia and immediately see the "yes this shit exists you fuckwits"-level FAQ from the NIH. You need to get less of your medical knowledge from Facebook memes - David Gerard (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Could we have a little less aggressivity and actually argue on the core elements of everyone's arguments ? Fybromalgia is indeed real, but the fact remains that people shouldn't be able to get away with this kind of things, and that these possible cases of fraud give people with far, far less moderate positions weight to their claims. Charity isn't perfect, but neither is government intervention. One can support light government intervention and presence in the lives of the citizenry while still recognizing that a safety net of sorts is necessary that everyone's right to life (not in an anti-abortion way) is respected and guaranteed. NewFrenchHotness (talk) 12:07, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where your medical degree is from, the aforementioned rheumatologist said that, at bare minimum, a lot of people make it up because it's very hard to disprove. I'm not in any way arguing for the abandonment of Medicare/Medicaid or state programs, I'm all for not spending money on fraud and there are lots of things that could be done which aren't. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:52, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

TBoNL, could you at least acknowledge that your statement '"fibromyalgia" (the existence of which is currently disputed)' was complete bollocks? I mean scare quotes and all. You should be ashamed. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 14:01, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

As long as there isn't telepathy or a truth serum used in diagnosis some people will try it. I'm not commenting on the reality of the disorder, but I've seen some really terrible people try stupid things to get on disability. The reality is that fraud exists in both private and public insurances. Taking away a program that helps 9 people because one person is an asshole (highest estimate of insurance fraud based on latest research), who usually doesn't even get away with it, is fricken psychotic. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 14:11, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, and I would oppose that to the bitter end. It's all about finding the right balance, and recognizing that while the horror stories exist they're aberrations and not the norm. And quickly; the status of fibromyalgia is apparently less debated than the physicians I know represented it to me, I'll take some time to thoroughly check it over (I don't doubt what you say is correct, I just want to make sure that I see it for myself). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Out of interest, what kind of physicians were they? I know that here in the UK that sometimes GPs (I think the equivalents of family doctors in the US) can be out of true with medical research, largely due to having to be Jacks of all trades and there not being a robust system in place to make sure they are up to speed with the research. Apparently you often need to 'break through the crust' to get access to doctors who know what they are doing. I'd assumed it was a quirk of the British system, but I guess it could be just as prevalent else where. On the other hand, if its specialists in a related field that are pooh-poohing the condition, that's a bit terrifying. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 14:34, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the ones I'm thinking of were/are general practitioners, maybe there was some debate about it years ago that they didn't know had been resolved or something. By the way, I did have my own look and can conclude I was wrong, glad that someone pointed it out. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:07, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I think everyone has been in the same direction here so far. There are people out there, including major business folks and politicians, that seem to think what is a good business decision or part of doing business in a private setting is a reason to shut down public health care. Such as denying care that is inappropriate, fraud, or denying care that isn't affordable...or accusing public health care of dropping people from coverage for being too expensive when private insurance companies do it constantly. That's pretty screwed up to me. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:11, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Generally I think liberals should avoid this kind of puritanical thinking. "Either you are a democratic socialist or you are secretly a right-winger who hates the poor and minorities and queers" is just as hyperbolic as "raising taxes on the rich makes you a communist" from the wingnuts. There are many people who sincerely believe that market-based solutions is the best way to help the poor, and rational people can disagree about what is the best way to help the poor. Noting that social and economic positions are not entirely separate from each other is a fair point, but it seems like more of an angry takedown of libertarians and moderates than anything else. Most liberals also wouldn't accept the opposite, that if you are "social conservative but economic liberal" then they'd still be called conservative if they are Christian theocrats who don't support gay marriage, no matter how much they agree with Bernie Sanders on economic/fiscal issues. The fact that more people are supporting liberal social positions such as gay marriage and opposing police brutality should be seen as an unconditional good thing, we shouldn't be eviscerating their entire political philosophy and shame them when they're not being liberal enough. Hentropy (talk) 22:02, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't seem angry...it seems exasperated. Even if it was angry, being angry doesn't preclude someone from being correct. I do see that exasperation in that most of those who I have that conversation with, who express themselves as "social liberal, economically conservative," don't really get that economic and social policy are very intertwined and the history of those free market solutions failing. Also that regurgitating "free market" as a solution without any clue how it would even be possible is not a solution. I am all for free market solutions if someone can even articulate how it would happen and acknowledge falsifiable results. Not just that something would come along on faith. Many didn't suddenly work in the past so that's why those programs exist now. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not so much about being right or wrong. As I said, reasonable people can debate and disagree on these issues without it devolving into the same, tired old fight between "you hate the poor and also are racist" vs. "you're a communist who wants to round people up into gulags" that seems to dominate much of left vs. right discussion, particularly on the internet. Yes, social and economic issues intersect more often than we tend to think about, but at the same time they're not one in the same in 100% of issues. Someone can indeed be "socially liberal, fiscal conservative" without being a secret neocon who wants to steal milk from orphans so the rich can have a bigger jet. You can scoff at anti-progressive movements and write them off if you want, but they are growing and it's this kind of "Agree with 100% of what I say or you're a bad person" brand of progressivism that pushes and alienates people toward it.Hentropy (talk) 20:58, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Porn Addiction Isn't Real

Whew! That's a load off my mind. I was worried I might have a problem. Turns out, it was all in my head. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words... -Psycho Gecko 04:50, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I find that article very frustrating, perhaps even irresponsible. The research (at least as described in the article) only compares porn addiction with substance addictions without commenting on the more obvious parallels in other psychological addictions such as gambling addiction or shopping addiction. & While it's no doubt important to study how these different kinds of addictions manifest themselves at a neurological & a behavioural level, I don't think that's enough to write any of them off as "not a real addiction" as the Beast does. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:31, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Using the same terminology for physiologically distinct phenomena is probably a bad idea. But "porn addiction isn't real" is a much worse headline than "Porn addiction isn't necessarily similar to other addictions" for informing people. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:43, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

But the concept of physical addiction vs psychological addiction as (behaviourally) similar but distinct phenomena has existed for a long time. Again, it would be a lot more useful if we could place this research in the context of other compulsive/addictive behaviours rather than just singling out porn addiction alone as not being a proper addiction when the only reference point cited is drug addictions. ωεαşεζøίɗ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:57, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for Blog Article: an examination of 4chan’s trolling culture, neo-fascism and the inspiration for the Charleston terrorist.

This might be interesting in examining the Internet's neo-fascist movements such as the Daily Stormer.

Please sign your posts. If you think it would be a good addition to the listing, go ahead. I personally think trying to blame the Charleston shooting on 4chan culture is a bit of a stretch, but that's just my opinion. ConfusedLiberal (talk) 17:39, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

David Brooks is wrong.

Social conservatism is an interesting beast. It fights different battles every generation, with a few of the same ones thrown in(typically with respect to gender). Its influence is diminished by the passing of time and the recognition of progress, but you can already see the next generation of it rising in the social fabric with gamergate and its ilk. It's all well and good to tell them to stop fighting homosexual rights, because that battle is lost in the social consciousness. But there will be a time when a new alliance much like this one opposes future social progress, with many of the same arguments.

And much like this generation denies the previous one's role in opposing civil rights era reform, the next will disassociate itself with the homophobic crowd. And act indignant if you imply that their religion had anything to do with it. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:44, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

What will be the next front between the social conservatives and social liberals (probably the rights of the T among LGBT)?--Arisboch (talk) 19:46, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't even imagine. Transgender acceptance has a long way to go, and needs lots of liberal support, but it doesn't seem like the next big thing that's knocked into a giant wedge issue. What scares me is the notion that, without realizing it, I'll be on the wrong side of history next time. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:51, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't be so pessimistic. Just 'cause you are a fallible human being like anyone else doesn't mean, that you'll invariably do that kind of mistake.--Arisboch (talk) 20:01, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

(EC) It's nice he's telling people they should act a little bit more like Jesus, but the second part is startlingly nasty towards people who don't believe being bereft of something critically important. Like that people who aren't just like him don't even have the language to think about morality or goodness, spiritual poverty (not believing like him) is related to joblessness, and can't even tell between right and wrong. It's bafflingly arrogant and stinks of foul pride. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Gamergate is relevant but for different reasons, when it comes to contemporary "social conservatism" there's too strains in my view, an outwardly religious/traditionalist view that sees widespread acceptance of GSMs as something that will bring the downfall of society somehow, and a more "libertarian" brand that is generally fine with these things happening in private, but don't want to "see it" in media or don't want it discussed at length and react negatively when they think gay is being "pushed on them". You can liken it to King's famous "White Moderate" in the 60s, people who have no problem with social progress so long as it doesn't inconvenience them personally. That's not to say there aren't socially reactionary manosphere twats in GG, only that I find the latter much more than the former, with the whole movement being partially a reaction to what is perceived by them as heavy-handed progressive shoehorning.Hentropy (talk) 05:22, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Recursion detected

I followed a link at the outrage culture Salon piece and ended up back at rationalwiki. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I read Salon, so I read RationalWiki, so I read Salon, so I read RationalWiki, so I read Salon, so I read RationalWiki, so I read Salon, so I read RationalWiki.... Crow7878 (talk) 20:13, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Doxxing

I had already figured Chu was smug and tiresome, but really ... an argument in favor of doxxing? (Yes, in the wake of Prop 8, gay rights activists took off the gloves, threw out the rulebook against confrontations and recriminations, and started combing through voting records and donor records to name and shame.) That's what he thinks turned the tide in favor of same sex marriage? If he's citing us, I'm mildly embarrassed for the site. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 03:28, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Well voter registration and donor information are public info so, with my understanding of doxxing, it isn't doxxing.--Owlman (talk) 04:46, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Doxing is the practice of obtaining and revealing personally identifying information (such as names, addresses, places of employment, relatives) of people who use the Internet, typically in a highly public manner as a call to arms against the target. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 12:14, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Doxing search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent. This is the definition I was referring to. Since the info is public it isn't doxxing.--Owlman (talk) 00:03, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you missed the "or" in your definition. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 05:20, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, he was referencing the CEO of Mozilla specifically in that article, with people digging up his donations to anti-gay causes. It's not really doxxing. At the same time, I wonder how Chu would have reacted if he lost his job because of his blog posts years ago that may or may not be his ideas today, and whether that would attract or repel him from the movement. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it can lead to backlash in the long-term, while the 60s and 70s brought impressive social change in a small amount of time, the backlash also created 12 years of reactionary and popular Reaganism, which created a political environment that ensures that we can't have nice things like true universal healthcare. Marriage equality wasn't won solely by righteous indignation or fuzzy moderation, it was won with a conjunction of the two, which is true for many of these kinds of movements. Hentropy (talk) 07:37, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

I suppose the point is that doxing and outing, however you define them, are value neutral methods. They're either legitimate tactics for any side in a quarrel, or they are for none. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 01:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a fair point, but is it actually comparable in this case? I can't think of a recent example of someone who has expressed liberal/progressive views in years past being fired from a major corporation for those views specifically. I would personally say that gay marriage in the mid-00s had a mostly marketing problem, by trying to paint it as some new civil rights movement, comparing themselves to blacks during segregation, which many people not only scoffed at but many racial minorities were offended by. When it switched to "we should recognize love no matter its form" and when time showed that states with gay marriage did not turn into hellholes, that was when the tide started to shift, and shift quickly. He's mixing correlation and causation a bit. I don't think anyone's mind got changed because the CEO of Mozilla got fired or because people got dogpiled on Twitter, if anything it just entrenches people more. Hentropy (talk) 03:53, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

The most obvious counterexamples to me are the gay people who were quite happy to stay in the closet. The bigger the activist you become, the less likely you are to respect that choice. This may be more of my time than of some others. One particularly tragic case involved a former marine who charged one of Manson's cultists who was trying to murder President Gerald Ford in San Francisco. Harvey Milk outed him thinking that "behold, the gay hero" would do the cause some good. He did not enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame, and went on to die young in unfortunate circumstances. I really don't care whether the obscure source you got personal information from was a "public record" or not; moral arguments shouldn't hang on that kind of technicality.

At any rate, Chu is simply wrong. Bad, overbearing tactics do alienate. Of all the activists, the ones I hold in greatest contempt are the anti-abortion cranks and PETA style vegans. Their misguided attempts at shaming and displaying anger at their chosen enemies are what moves them from "people I don't agree with" to "crackpot public nuisance". It's not surprising that anti-abortion and animal rightsery are two of the driving wheels of domestic terrorism in the USA, either. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 04:42, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong I am not saying what they did helped or was ethical I just didn't think it was doxxing. Regardless I think if you can remove people from power who will do real harm then that is great, but don't do it in a way that people will start diverting the conversation to your actions. Also terrorism always comes from people who feel oppressed (whether they are or not) so constantly being inflammatory does damage for advocacy. Though agree with Chu that outrage and direct action gets things done, if the bigots are growing from your actions then something isn't working.--Owlman (talk) 04:54, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Summary of Sarah's blog entry linked from the article: "It's only doxxing, if the others do it."--Arisboch (talk) 07:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Ellen Pao's Resignation

Can it be confirmed that she stepped down due to the harassment? I have no doubt in my mind that she was a scapegoat, and being not only a woman but a woman that sued for gender discrimination at one point acts as a hate amplifier. But as far as I know, it was the board that told her to step down, because they didn't think she could achieve their growth targets. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if she was appointed in the first place to act as a lightning rod while they made unpopular changes. ConfusedLiberal (talk) 15:30, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

She says not, but I'd be amazed if it weren't a factor - David Gerard (talk) 16:57, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Have we become Arthur Chu's personal blog or something? The dude was good on Jeopardy I guess but I wouldn't call him a trusted cultural critic, especially since he was gleefully making jokes about "gamers" being killed during the hottest heat of GG and generally acted indefensibly. While most of the bullshit Pao put up with was vile, she still presided over PR nightmare after PR nightmare and it's certainly not unreasonable to ask her to leave considering. Hentropy (talk) 02:12, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I suppose the bottom line is that Pao's tenure as CEO of Reddit did not successfully build value for the site as a brand or a community. Whether she personally made all the bad (firing a mod whose work was one of the site's linchpins) or unpopular (closing several abusive forums) decisions that caused trouble for the site, whether she was brought on to be the figurehead and lightning rod while these unpopular premade resolutions were put into effect, or whether she was the victim of behind the scenes manipulations -- there isn't any among these narratives that turns her convincingly into a victim of online sexism. Mostly because there's none of those narratives that makes it look like she was doing a good job at her appointed task, whatever it was. It's true that whoever made the decisions, their fallout led to an online shitstorm that did the site no favors, but how much of that stuff is really going to reach a CEO? I just hope she got a nice golden parachute. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 04:10, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Apparently, the decision to delete some of the more toxic subreddits was a decree from the board of directors, and their last defender was ... Ellen Pao. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 01:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

If David Futrelle's reporting is accurate (as it tends to be), someone else let her take the fall. --Maxus (talk) 03:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

John Oliver video

Not a lot of point in posting it when it is unavailable because the poster has not made it available in my country really imo. I guess this is one of those 'if youre not in the US then tough' videos. Oldusgitus (talk) 12:33, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Try this YouTube link. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 13:33, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm... on checking that's the same link. Works fine from my works PC which, I believe, is apparently in Germany from an internet point of view. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 14:00, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Well I originally posted this video and I was unaware it wasn't available. Try these alternative links. [1] [2] This one has poor quality.--Owlman (talk) 02:03, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Block the page

This page isn't blocked to BoNs like WIGO:World, so please block it. Faunas (talk) 15:01, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

What for, was there some increased vandalism and/or trolling by BoN's lately?--Arisboch (talk) 15:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Why does it matter?TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 04:20, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Isn't this page and pages like it just for already registered RW editors to edit? If so, it should BD blocked. Faunas (talk) 11:07, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Why? Scream!! (talk) 11:22, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Are you sure about that, Faunas? I don't recall it ever being the case, unless there was some short-lived crisis drama I missed. Bicycle^wheel 18:01, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

"What would you do?" Atheists

The point of this show is to create extreme situations and see how people react. It's not about displaying how people normally act. He mentions that he doesn't know personally of any atheists who would make a scene like that, but he probably isn't familiar with any of the other situations on the show. There are plenty of setups where Christians verbally abuse Muslims and the like too.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 23:01, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

They would never do an example of a black guy mugging someone while holding chicken and food stamps, that would be considered perpetuating negative stereotypes in a very harmful way. Most would not see that simply as an "extreme example". Media depictions of atheists are always of hateful loudmouths that go berserk at the mention of god, and this certainly feeds into that stereotype. In addition, it also feeds into the rampant persecution complexes that American Christians have nowadays that are also wildly unrealistic and never happen.Hentropy (talk) 17:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

You put your finger on the nose here. "What if this Jewish shopkeeper were greedily stealing from his customers?" would get due response too. I've only been explicitly attacked for being an atheist by an authority figure once in my life, but you know what? That's more than fucking enough for me to have no tolerance for negative stereotype perpetuation. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 17:33, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Is creating a scenario where atheists act rude really the same as making blatant racist caricatures of minority races? The point of creating the scenario was to provoke reactions from bystanders, not to make the most comically over-offensive portrayal ever. It's not like the atheists were also burning bibles or wearing fedoras. Once again, if the scenario was fundamentalist Christians harassing a Muslim, or a white person being racist against a black person, nobody would freak out over how it perpetuates negative stereotypes, especially this site.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 22:09, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

The difference is that Christians and whites, being in the majority, don't have to actually deal with any negative consequences of stereotypes. Even though Christians harass Muslims regularly, but yet "Muslim-hating Christian" is not a stereotype that hurts all Christians. If a white person does something racist towards black people (like gun them down), that doesn't become a stereotype that hurts all whites, they become "bad apples" and "crazy loners". In short, no one assumes anything bad about you just because you're white or Christian. Atheists and really any non-Christians on the other hand are assumed to have warped morals or to adhere to certain negative stereotypes until they prove otherwise. Chances are if someone did do what you suggested on the show, there would still be complaining about anti-white racism or slander against well-meaning Christians. Really there's just no reason to even drag identity politics into a show like this in the first place, but atheists are safe targets because of widespread bigotry against them and the relatively small population of them. Hentropy (talk) 23:05, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

As a white man, I can tell you I absolutely have to deal with negative stereotypes which adversely affect my life. I work at a day program for disabled adults, and there are an alarming number of people who think men have no place doing that kind of work; not because it's beneath them (although you occasionally run into that too), but because according to them to work with this population requires some quantum of caring power that's somehow unique to women. Working alongside those people certainly makes my life more difficult, but I can't get worked up over it because my work with my clients is much more important than niggling over my social standing among coworkers. And on numerous occasions I've been assumed to be "ignorant of struggle" or some such because I'm from an upper middle class background, and apparently the relative lack of melanin in my skin prevents me from "truly understanding the world" (one would think the ASD would be sufficient for that, and it has the added benefit of actually making some sense). No one is free of stereotyping, because everyone being the same cuts in every direction. I'm also an agnostic who openly wears an upside-down cross knowing I'll be stigmatized for it, and I really can't bring myself to care. The stereotype about someone who sneers at the mention of a god 100% applies to me, ergo there's no reason for me to fight it. There's not really much point in getting enraged over it, people are always going to find reasons to dislike you. Perhaps I'm fortunate enough not to live my life beholden to other peoples' feelings about me, or to not be singularly fixated on pointing out every last wrong the big bad society has done to me (i.e. not freaking out over a TV show or a good satire; oversensitivity is another one of those traits that everyone has in common). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:05, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Every person on Earth can claim to have experienced some sort of prejudice, however that is not what I'm talking about in the slightest. The difference is how these things tend to be portrayed in the media. White people aren't portrayed as people who are privilege blind and "don't understand", in fact, damn near every Hollywood movie about civil rights and black liberation have had Heroic White People as their main character, to the point where it's become a well-known trope. Sorry, if you heard "you just don't get it because you're white", you were probably in a discussion about social justice and just got done trying to whitesplain (or some other 'splain) at someone. And notice how I never mentioned men, that's because men DO suffer some negative stereotype reinforcement in media, as far as "men can't take care of children or be nurses, etc etc." That is real, and that is harmful. Hentropy (talk) 02:54, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I was dealing with a couple melanin theory idiots, one of whom had a thing for Louis Farrakhan, who thusly tried and failed to gauge my intelligence. In any event, I've seen the "white people don't understand" a few times, but only a few times, and I could actually understand the reasoning most of the time. With regard to the Heroic White People, as a history guy it depends. Sometimes it's quite obviously forced, but if one is trying to do something historically accurate it's sometimes necessary (i.e. if you were to do a movie about abolitionists, you couldn't possibly leave out William Lloyd Garrison). In any event, now that I reread it I would tend to agree with your point in broad strokes, I'm not quite sure what I didn't see there the first time (sometimes takes me a few tries to get the big picture, but usually I eventually get there). I guess the real difference is that I don't really think too much about it, not that I disagree. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 09:51, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Science is Untrustworthy?

I think Cracked could be doing a service by highlighting junk science and some of the problems of modern science but saying straight-up that "You can't trust science" is basically the same position that people opposed climate change science, evolution, and vaccines use. So it might have a decent message with a bad and clickbaitey title (I know, I know, Cracked has never done that before...) Hentropy (talk) 21:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Cracked has had a bit of a problem lately with whoever titles their articles. It's well-known among regular readers. You'll see it mentioned all the time in the comments about how Title Guy has given an article the worst possible title for the contents, or how Title Guy has changed one to make it more clickbaitey. Psycho Gecko 00:36, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes it can get bad but this time it looks particularly egregious... it seems to be getting more shit in the comments than normal. Saying you can't trust science is sort of a dangerous assertion beyond the normal Title Guy shenanigans. Next week: 7 Reasons Why Calling Them Title Guy in the Comments Makes You a Transphobic Racist.Hentropy (talk) 00:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Eh, that's just a bad opinion. That was actually something that was legitimately dangerous considering how that premise would easily lead one to complete dismissal of the field of medicine. A better comparison would be similar to if that article they had on ambulances was titled "Drive to the Hospital Instead: Why You Should Never Ride in Ambulances". Crow7878 (talk) 17:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Cracked has gotten steadily more desperate for ad revenue. First it started with Auntiememe dominating Photoplasties with stuff recycled from the main articles (she now has her own fake Photoplasty contest for this purpose, and she has admitted it's just to increase site traffic). Then "Title Guy" started messing with the titles. Then the original draft titles started prioritizing clickbait over accuracy, only to get edited by Title Guy anyways. Most recently they've started reposting popular articles to the front page feed.

Site owner Demand Media has even stated that they use algorithms to pick article topics based on how likely people will click on them, since clicks = $$$. That's why there's been a steady uptick in articles on social justice advocacy, because their algorithms state that it's the hot topic of the internet, and people will flock to the pages to engage in flamewars in the comments. The most recent article shared in the WIGO was stormed by the "anti-SJW" crowd to kindly explain to the ex-Wiki editor that she is just a thin-skinned whiner and needs to suck it up. Blitz (Complaints Box) 18:31, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

This new article was actually written in December/January; they appear to be running it now as a filler, which is why it reads like filler. (And was apparently edited way down.) - David Gerard (talk) 20:46, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The question becomes when is it okay to cut Cracked loose when it comes their clickbaitey social justice articles. When you have to ignore the motive behind writing the article, the title, and a third of its content to get to the few interesting/funny/insightful nuggets, do they sorta stop becoming credible? Cracked is still fine in my book, but it's becoming pretty clear that their social justice articles are just being put through an algorithm that will make people argue about it, devoid of any genuine understanding of these issues and nuance in general. Considering the fact that pretty much everyone who does a social justice article is a very privilege cishet white man, it almost seems like some kind of low-information bizarro white/mansplaining. Hentropy (talk) 16:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

You appear to be throwing in random SJW jargon terms in the hope that if you try enough you'll throw a Yahtzee - David Gerard (talk) 21:28, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Seriously that is cringeworthy. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 21:27, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

You'll be happy to know the Cr*cked article I just added brings a small amount of science to the table - David Gerard (talk) 23:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)