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[Reelya]

The fact that there are a lot more stories like that one. Postmodernism's entire rationale is that all truths are relative, and they often write books claiming that science as a whole is a sham. And it's pretty much the postmodernist's theories which have completely taken over major humanities faculties in the last couple of decades.

e.g. the widely-used domestic violence law textbook that talks about specific of Romulus, king of Rome is another example. And the fact that in my life I've heard a lot more anti-science rhetoric from the left than the right. When I was at college, all the non-technical courses were stuffed with science skeptics.

https://heatst.com/culture-wars/neil-degrasse-tyson-says-left-is-just-as-guilty-of-anti-science-as-right/
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/antiscientific-leftwingers-just-bad-those-right/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-liberals-war-on-science/

"Pfft! What has science given us?" is basically a left-wing mantra. I've basically never in my life met a straight-up humanities type that actually defended science as an institution. The only time that's happened has been when it was someone who also dabbled in programming or science to some degree. It's some sort of bizarro world myth, to think that humanities faculties at universities, which are the hotbed of liberalism are in fact stuffed with people who defend science and rationalism. They're definitely not.

People talk about the Culture War between liberal and conservative, but there are other Culture Wars which cross-cut each faction. In the universities the real Culture War is between humanities faculties, which are built around the Postmodernism Theory, and scientific faculties, built around the Scientific Method. There are almost no conservative lecturers in modern universities, so this is where the real lines are drawn.

So the humanities people are constantly trying to chip away at the sciences with "Postmodern" re-evaulations of science as a whole. To make that stick, they have to go deep, often attacking concepts like empiricism, logic, or mathematics as purely sociological constructs, then asserting that they themselves can just concoct their own variants of those things which are equally valid to those used by the "scientific establishment". It's really a turf war. That's where Ari Schlesinger's entire "feminist programming language" thing fits in. It's typical of a postmodern humanities attack on a patch of scientific turf, since they hold that all knowledge is relative, they jump to the incorrect assumption that all knowledge is arbitrary. Therefore things like true vs false and concepts like identity (the object vs not-the-object) must be completely arbitrary too. You can find this sort of attack on the idea of true/false and thing/not-thing in other feminist writings too.

[Neonivek]

Not long ago I got into old psychiatric treatment for the insane... the many theories and treatments they were subject to and what I saw was abhorrent.

Yet the thing I was mad at wasn't the treatments they devised. Yes many of them were horrific, torturous, and sometimes what did work was PURELY incidental.

It was that they started with a theory... and then enacted it... often with little-no actual scientific data to back it up.

A guy suspected that a disease might be causing insanity, or at least some forms of insanity. No one really knew what Insanity was so any theory was as good as any other. So he infected people with Malaria... and went "good enough"... So then it became a common practice.

There was a man who believed the same except his cure was to cut off all the parts of the body you could live without, in hopes that the infected bodypart would be expunged. He would actively tell people to do it and constantly estole its virtues. The crowning achievement in this is that the USA didn't stop practicing it because they knew better... it was because the creator of the technique died and there was no one there to sell the idea anymore.

Better yet their metrics for testing for insanity was often SO extremely subjective and flawed... that they could create any result they wanted.

The problem wasn't the theories or the treatments they devised... It was that if they honestly and rightfully tested it... it would have been stopped right there. That is why they are monsters.

----

Most "Anti-Science" which is more Pseudo-Science honestly...

Is about inferring that a theory is true.

[Reelya]

During my college years I met quite a few people who outright rejected evolution when it was mentioned, but they weren't creationist either. They were all studying "liberal" type courses, and definitely weren't Christians but they didn't seem to have any faith in science or evolution either.

So perhaps part of the mistake is trying to put people into two boxes where you either believe one or the other. i.e. it's faulty logic to say that if you reject the bible you must therefore be a rational science supporter. In Australia we're not a big bible-thumping nation like the USA, but most of the non-bible people I met at college were equally irrational in other ways and just as hostile to science as bible-thumpers.

[scriver]

Over here in Sweden we have an atheistic borderline-sect called the Antroposophists which is a very New Agey, pseudosciency community that among other things are sternly anti-vacc (they're the same group I sometimes talk about that got hit by a epidemic in one of those common childhood diseases some years back), and I'm pretty sure they'd be seen as "Liberal" by American eyes. Lots of "left-wingy", "liberal" people have super weird conceptions and ideas. Just look at California.

[Phmcw]

Who could have known that adopting a label doesn't automatically makes peoples rational!

There is a whole lot of bullshit flying around, but in Sheb's defense, Belgian Feminists didn't degenerate to the extend that you can see in some anglo-saxon countries.
In general gender-related stuff is pretty nice in Belgium, we have nice contraception, ivg, and lgtb-related laws without the crazy extremist stuff.
The consensus seems to be that you're free to do what you want and that we'll rely on the medical community to tell us what we should reimburse (yes, transition is reimbursed, but you have to consult a psychiatrist before since it's serious stuff).

[Reelya]

Yeah, a lot of it does depend on who you're talking to and in what context. e.g. if talking to average on-the-street women about feminism, you're going to get predictably mainstream, sensible views, most of the time.

That's why those "but that's not what feminism is about" articles don't quite hit the mark. Feminism means whatever the person using it as a label wants it to mean: there can be 7 billion exact meanings. How you determine the "real" meaning of a group-identifier is by looking at those in power in the movement, and judging their words and actions.

Try going to a college and talking to people in the Women's studies courses, and you're likely to find much more extreme views than "uneducated" feminists on the street. Exactly what those are will also depend on who's running the faculty there. Could be extremist lesbian separatists who hate transgender people for example (University of Melbourne <= 2015). The difference is between normal people vs people making, or hoping to make, their living out of being activists for a cause. Sensible activists who might be willing to critique the sources don't get offered entry-level teaching jobs in those sort of faculties.

[Sheb]

Who could have known that adopting a label doesn't automatically makes peoples rational!

There is a whole lot of bullshit flying around, but in Sheb's defense, Belgian Feminists didn't degenerate to the extend that you can see in some anglo-saxon countries.
In general gender-related stuff is pretty nice in Belgium, we have nice contraception, ivg, and lgtb-related laws without the crazy extremist stuff.
The consensus seems to be that you're free to do what you want and that we'll rely on the medical community to tell us what we should reimburse (yes, transition is reimbursed, but you have to consult a psychiatrist before since it's serious stuff).

Again, I suspect that's partly because you get first-hand experience of Belgian feminists, whereas the anglo-saxon exemple you hear the most about are the one that are ridiculous.

Of course, my feminists friends also get called extremists and feminazis when they complain the FB let groups that exist for the only purpose of sharing stolen naked pics of women, but clamp down on article discussing periods.

[Neonivek]

Which might also be due to the "All porn is evil because it demeans women" reaction that existed until... early 2000s I think... maybe 2010.

Though it is kind of a unfortunate narrative if that is related.

Though I somehow DOUBT that is what were in people's minds like this was somehow Jack Chick harassing roleplayers again.

----

Can Trump do something stupid? We need a topic change.

[Phmcw]

Again, I suspect that's partly because you get first-hand experience of Belgian feminists, whereas the anglo-saxon exemple you hear the most about are the one that are ridiculous.

Of course, my feminists friends also get called extremists and feminazis when they complain the FB let groups that exist for the only purpose of sharing stolen naked pics of women, but clamp down on article discussing periods.

That's possible, but even on the 'net when I see a proposition by Belgian feminists it's usually something reasonable and important.
When it's by American or British ones it's usually both trite and inflammatory. The whole gender theory and privilege theory definitively plays a part there, I swear those things are designed to make the left inefficient and impopular.

And you'll always be called everything on the Internet : since you are exposed to at least thousands of peoples the worst among them will be pretty damn bad. And they are usually venting frustrations which makes them sound even worse.

[Reelya]

Which might also be due to the "All porn is evil because it demeans women" reaction that existed until... early 2000s I think... maybe 2010.

One interesting question is whether widespread porn is a result of the patriarchy, or it's the result of the breakdown of the patriarchy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Feminist claim porn is tool a of the patriarchy invented to control women, but the fact was that "the system" heavily suppressed pornography, in the same way that anti-sex feminists want to. So the case might be that previous social mores - chivalry, anti-porn, marriage,etc had effects that constrained both genders. Sure, freedom is better, but if you advocate individual freedoms we need to expect good and bad to come with that. "Complete freedom as long as you do it the way I want you to" isn't a workable strategy.

Of course, my feminists friends also get called extremists and feminazis when they complain the FB let groups that exist for the only purpose of sharing stolen naked pics of women, but clamp down on article discussing periods.

I think "clamp down on articles discussing periods" is a bit of a mischaracterization of the incident:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/woman-gets-censored-by-facebook-because-she-blogs-about-periods-a6725176.html

When Ms Weaver tried boosting her post on Facebook, her advertisement was rejected. Boosted posts are paid for and appear higher in News Feeds so there is a better chance of the audience seeing them.
According to Facebook, the post violated their Ad Guidelines, which state: “Ads are not allowed to promote the sale or use of adult products or services, including toys, videos, publications, live shows or sexual enhancement products.”

So yeah, the headline is bullshit. She was not censored because she merely blogged about feminine hygiene. She tried to run a paid advert so that everyone would see her posts, and it was that paid advert which they rejected, based on the FB guidelines which disallow adverts for anything that promotes/discusses the "sale or use" of any adult product. And in this case they classified feminine hygiene products as a type of adult product. In the same vein, you can't run an ad promoting condom use to halt the spread of AIDs either, even though that's an important health topic for both genders.

Just yesterday, Buzzfeed Video posted a video on their Facebook page called ‘The Vagina Song’, performed by Keith Habersberger and his band, Lewberger. The song contained lyrics detailing the physical process of menstruation: “Where the uterine walls shed after monthly gestation.” The video was not censored by Facebook.

In October this year, Facebook censored an ad for a women’s health device, kGoal, a tool that strengthens pelvic floor muscles. The tool, which is partially inserted into the vagina to assist with pelvic floor muscle exercises, helps strengthen a muscle group that weakens with age and pregnancy.

... but that's apples and oranges, Buzzfeed's uncensored video wasn't an advert. Both the banned adverts were ads about things that get inserted in vaginas. Comparing that to a non-banned non-advert isn't a fair comparison. Her posts about vagina health are still there, she just can't run an advert about it. Overall C- journalism.

[LoSboccacc]

1984 getting closer fast https://archive.fo/uwSzo

[Sheb]

That's not the incident I was referring to, since my stuff occured in the French-speaking interweb.

[TempAcc]

Obama is hard at work making sure the US grip over individuals get ever tighter, and I don't get any hints of Trump willing to tear those things down. Have fun 'murica.

Anyway, for once I agree with Reelya, humanities are infested with people you'd find more akin to conspiracy theorists and new age cultists than rational people that adhere to the scientific method. You don't have to look too deep to find people in sociology and women studies courses refusing to study about western philosophers because they were white, people that think the scientific stablishment is bad and should be brought down because it was mostly born out of western society, people that have no religion and yet think african sorcery is somehow a real thing, trans exclusive feminists that believe trans people (transwomen, in particular) are the result of a government backed conspiracy to deconstruct all feminist efforts and even substitute women for transwomen, which are supposedly more submissive and controllable because transition therapy = brainwashing in their minds, that menopause is a social construct, etc.

Baseless historical revisionism is also a staple of this environment, like the Romulus wife beating law thing Reelya mentioned, the spanish inquisition only targetting women, how ancient egypt was the most feminist civilization ever, etc.

[Loud Whispers]

Hmm. The BBC reports that it's not just the former MI6 agent. Apparently the CIA confirmed to the BBC reporter Paul Wood, that they have multiple videos of Trump 'with sexual content' which were taped during his 2013 visit to Russia.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/bbc-medewerkers-cia-hebben-bevestigd-dat-er-meerdere-trump-seksvideo-s-zijn~a4447246/

Claims about a Russian blackmail tape were made in one of a series of reports written by a former British intelligence agent.As a member of MI6, he had been posted to the UK's embassy in Moscow and now runs a consultancy giving advice on doing business in Russia. He spoke to a number of his old contacts in the FSB, the successor to the KGB, paying some of them for information.
They told him that Mr Trump had been filmed with a group of prostitutes in the presidential suite of Moscow's Ritz-Carlton hotel.
I know this because the Washington political research company that commissioned his report showed it to me during the final week of the election campaign.
The BBC decided not to use it then, for the very good reason that without seeing the tape - if it exists - we could not know if the claims were true.

The BBC have no such confirmation

But they do http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38589427

Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file - they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was "more than one tape", "audio and video", on "more than one date", in "more than one place" - in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg - and that the material was "of a sexual nature".

My Volkskrant would never dare to put words into the mouth of the BBC. They were somewhat late with adding the link to the BBC article in their own article though. Back when I posted there was no link yet.

The BBC decided not to use it then, for the very good reason that without seeing the tape - if it exists - we could not know if the claims were true.

Volksrant just fake newsd you m8

[Phmcw]

This situation is actually damn worrying : American secret services and law enforcement services are obviously doing a political waltz, leaking unverified info left and right, opening inquiries very loudly and closing them as some kind of political announcement.

My take on the FBI opening an inquiry very near the end of the election was that since the boss of such a huge organization took the risk of doing such a controversial move, he must have had something solid to back him up.
In the end nothing happened. I mean, nothing.
He didn't get fired in a spectacular fashion, and he didn't provide novel and explosive information justifying such a move. What happened?

Can you, as a chief of the FBI make a political move like that based on nothing? If he has nothing why isn't he fired, or even arrested? If he has something why don't we know?

For those "golden leaks" we have a very bad situation : the information leaked is not only unverified, it's based on testimonies of Russian sources. Short of Russia actually providing the tapes and the evidence of corruption, it's unverifiable. So now those idiots at buzzfeed published something that will only feed the rumor mills, while endangering the sources if anything in there is true.


Why has the whole thing been leaked? Is it a basic smear campaign compiled by an agent that fed bullshit to anti-Trump for money? Do the Russians somehow (and quite hilariously) developed a golden shower-based method of control of the US now?