RationalWiki:Webshites

“”Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

—Dante Alighieri, The Inferno

The following lists of webshites contain really bad sources of information - or really good sources of bad information. Be forewarned, prolonged exposure may result in the following side effects: nausea, depression, high blood pressure, loss of IQ, periodic outbursts of hysterical guffaws, broken keyboards and monitors.

Exemplary material should be submitted to What is going on in the clogosphere? or to Fundies Say The Darndest Things.

Remember to keep both Poe and Scopie's laws in mind.

Conspiracy webshites

One of the worst things about conspiracy theories is the fact they are almost airtight. Every debunking or piece of evidence against it will be viewed as an attempt to "misinform the public", and the lack of evidence for it is viewed as a government cover-up.

The flood of conspiracy theories results in possibly-rational conspiracy theories getting lost in the midst of the noise of newsworthy but disingenuous ideas such as New World Order or the Moon landing hoax.

Not everyone involved in a conspiracy necessarily knows all the details; in fact, sometimes none do.

Gender webshites

While "sex" typically describes chromosomes, genitalia, and other biological markers of biological sex, "gender" denotes the non-biological aspects, such as cultural and religious attitudes and self-identity. Like many things in life, gender ain't so black and white, and the matter is much more complicated than it appears.

For some people, their gender is different from the one they were assigned at birth. These people are called transgender, and the term encompasses many different identities and manifestations, such as trans men and trans women, people who identify as something beyond "male" or "female", people who identify with no gender, and many more.

Many of the webshites in this collection espouse transphobia, a broad term describing bigotry against transgender people, while a couple support some of the nastier forms of radical feminism. Several of them promote the crossover of the two, trans-exclusionary radical feminism.

Internet webshites

The internet, Internet, interwebs, or internets is a global network of millions of smaller computer networks ~~and was invented by Al Gore~~. It is not to be confused with the "World Wide Web" that gives us the www subdomain, any series of tubes you might come upon, or real life.

This collection of webshites reveals the bizarre fringes of the internet, webshites that defy categorization, and those that are sometimes good, sometimes shite. This is also where the classic internet kooks of the past are documented.

Politics webshites

Politics is the means by which public policy is decided. Technically, politics refers to the interactions between people in a given polity (Ancient Greek for the city-states that were dominant during that time), or community. The general application refers to policy-making at a government level; however, it has also come to mean the ins and outs of complex social situations, often having nothing to do with the reason the situation exists — for example, "office politics."

Whatever the system a government uses for its organization (democratic republic, dictatorship, theocracy, etc.), there is bound to be political wrangling for power, glory, and occasionally, the public good. Some systems attempt to keep much of this political give-and-take in the public eye (usually much to the disgust of the public), while in other systems, almost everything save the occasional "announcement" takes place behind closed doors. The difference is mostly based on the degree to which political participation by the broader public is desired or allowed.

Pseudoscience webshites

Pseudoscience describes any belief system or methodology which tries to gain legitimacy by wearing the trappings of science, but fails to abide by the rigorous methodology and standards of evidence that are the marks of true science.

Promoters of pseudoscience often adopt the vocabulary of science, describing conjectures as hypotheses, theories, or laws, providing "evidence" from observation and "expert" testimonies, or even developing what appear to be mathematical models of their ideas. However, in pseudoscience there is no honest attempt to follow the scientific method, provide falsifiable predictions, or develop double blind experiments.

Although pseudoscience is designed to appear scientific, it lacks all of the substance of science.

Racialism webshites

Racialism is the idea that humanity can be easily divided into well-defined categories ("races") that are both broad (each category should include many humans, such as entire continents) and clearly-defined (the categorization method should rarely misidentify someone's "race"). Racialism implies that these races are substantially different from each other and strongly determine abilities and behavior, to the degree that biological classification below the species level is necessary. In short, racialism holds that biology divides humans.

Religion webshites

A religion is a systematic set of beliefs, rituals, and codifications of behaviour that revolves around a particular group's worldview (views about the world at large and humanity's place in the world). Typically, these beliefs center around some aspect of the supernatural (also often referred to as "divine") which is most often expressed as some form of deity, ie., gods and goddesses.

Sexuality webshites

Sexuality is an omnibus term which captures all of the biological and social processes and activities related to sexual activity by humans, and applies to them clinically, culturally, politically and religiously.

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