And in that moment, maybe the argument of "I and the 10,000 fellow African Americans marching behind me are greatly concerned about our safety and liberty in today's America" is all the detail you are going to get. It's still a powerful and persuasive message, even if the sign only has enough room for "Black Lives Matter"

And the detractors will be right there convincing people otherwise

They have the time to talk to you

The protests sparked a movement, which has provided many occasions for fleshing out the discussion

Guess who has a bigger chance of convincing an unaware bystander

The civil rights movement knew that the key to get what you want is to kill your opponents with kindness and understanding

So did the anti apartheid movement in south africa

Honesty and kindness and nonviolence are disarming and effective

Attempting to silence people just elicits a defense response

modern BLM is absolutely based on what happened during the civil rights era.

I wasn't alive then, but I think people today don't actually realize how things actually were.

And the perception shifts from "Damn these protesters are violent and uncaring. I hope the police will protect me from them" to "Damn my government is a piece of shit. Time to get a change going!"

These weren't quiet marches and sitins that were allowed to finish and go home

It's all about who the violence originates from

they were met with violent resistence by police, very similar to what happened in Ferguson/Baltimore

Right. with the exception that in ferguson and baltimore, people were burning the city and looting the place

While the civil rights marchers were by and large super peaceful (but bold)

And rhetorically, they were met with the exact same "why do you have to be so loud and forceful about this? Can't you be more nice about it?"

Just like gandhi's movement left the british administration with no option to not cause a riot within their own supporters but to capitulate

Sure the detractors will always swing that verbal bat

It'll only hit if your movement is doing some heinous shit though

In gandhi's case they had nothing to credibly accuse him of

They were faced with either being forced to admit that they're just violent opressors or to capitulate. Guess what

Read MLK's letter from a Birmingham Jail:

The police today can point to the looters and say "See? BLM are terrorists. We're protecting our city!"

africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.

For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

@Magisch And they did this then, too

Yeah, it didn't work then

because there was no substance to the accusation

now there is

We're all seeing the videos of looting

there WAS, then. Look at the Black Panthers

@Magisch That's a media problem, it bleeds it leads

@BradC You're right, and Gandhi did this. He was unyielding yet peaceful. And the british had no recourse. They hated every second of it, but knew they had to give in or face an completly uncontrollable uproar from their subjects.

The peaceful march in Baltimore ran all freaking day, like 8 hours, then toward sunset some out-of-town agitators came in to stir up trouble

And that's the part that got the attention

Right. And it's a tragedy of the modern times

Police aren't above paying people to do violence so they can justify arresting everybody, either.

It's well documented that that's what happened at occupy wall street

Oh, I'm not quite that cynical. I think they were right-wing racist agitators, not police plants.

Or just random people looking for an excuse to make trouble

No, they really do this

There are leaked documents on police officials sanctioning this

ok, whatever. It still proves the point: you can't be "peaceful enough" to "protest correctly"

It's an excellent tool to gain an excuse to break up a protest

You can, you just have to double down on it

@BradC I'm not sure if Magisch's point was one of the ones you listed, but my problem is specifically with you using the term "sexism". Harrassment happens. Perhaps even uneven amount of harrassment (though that's hard to prove since men don't tend to report being propositioned or harrassed by women - I never did). What WOULD have been sexism would be if the treatment of accused offenders or of proven offenders differed by gender.

And have your own movement police your protests and excise troublemakers

People praise how violence-free the women's march was right after the inaguration? I think the fact that they weren't met with police in riot gear had a LOT to do with it.

Also because nobody in power considered it worth responding to

@BradC If 10% of men are fired for taht and 50% of women, it's sexism. No ifs or buts. If 20% or 80% of each is equally fired, it's NOT sexism, institutional or not. It's equality.

@DVK-on-Ahch-To What if 5x the number of women are harassed as men, but the perpetrators are punished in equal percentages? That might not indicate a problem in enforcement when caught, but it would still illustrate a problem with something

@BradC It could also illustrate that men's biological imperatives makes men want to harass more

If you don't want to call that something (that more women are sexually harassed than men) "sexism", I'd be open to a different term. But it doesn't erase the problem

and that the women with the mindset (sociopathic, no empathy for others) to harass aren't because they don't desire to

Men do have a higher desire to pursue the opposite sex then women. And socipaths or people with no empathy are prone to not taking other's well beeing into consideration when trying to get what they want. Thus, harassment or rape

@Magisch If you want to speculate about biology and urges and whatnot, be my guest. As long as you don't therefore conclude "its totally fine that men sexually harass women at the office"

Sexual harassment is never fine

I just don't think we can change the ratios so that 50% of harassers will be women

I'm less worried about ratios than I am the total amount of harassment

Let's reduce it by everyone

But it's disingenuous to say "this is equally a problem for both men and women", when it is in fact not

It's not equally a problem for both, but it's a problem for both

And solutions have to work towards fixing both

agree

Then you disagree with many feminists on this

That we should work toward eliminating both?

Yea

I've been told many times by feminists that no, in fact they don't care for or want to care for also reducing harassment experienced by men. That these programs should be for women only.

The "but what about the men" response comes from there being actually respected (within the feminist movement) people that really just don't care about men in any way and see them as little more then hurdles to progress

I suppose it depends on the exact details of the program under discussion. I can absolutely see victim support groups or shelters, for example, needing to be single gender

But not office policies on sexual harassment, as we've been discussing

Right

but where does feminists advocating for closing the very few domestic violence shelters for men in this

I've never heard of that. I'd be opposed to it.

I have heard of that

There are many disagreements within feminism

maybe it's because the circles I frequent have lots of progressives in them that I also see more of the crazy end

:shrug: #notAllFeminists

Of course there are

I am a feminist, btw

So I oppose that policy. Problem fixed? All good now? Can I be one of the "good feminists"?

I'm not trying to disparage you

I'm trying to explain as to why I'm skeptical of feminist efforts towards this

Do you think that "men shelters should be closed down"-type-feminists are characteristic of the movement? or an outlier?

Can't say

radfems have a strong voice in the movements

And I really disagree with a lot of their extreme and nonsensical positions

I'm not a fan of demonizing a movement over the actions of individuals

But then why bring it up? If they are a fringe, how do they disparage the movement as a whole?

they do in the public's eyes

The problem is that trying to characterize a movement by its most extreme elements is a tactic of that movement's opposition

Opponents of feminism are doing it on purpose

Right

And the only way feminism can counter that tactic is to rob them of their ammunition by excising the extreme fringes from the main discourse of the movement

right wingers know this, thats why they rail against people like spencer so much

if you agree with the goals, then you should (like me and others withing the movement) oppose those extremes while still endorsing the values

@BradC Yes, that "something" is called human nature. Magisch (I think) covered it earlier, something to do with humans evolving from apes with different biological imperatives between genders. That's not "institutional", just widespread and it's not even "sexism" (it's an innate gender difference, not deliberate different treatment of specific gender)

Î'm first and foremost a realist

I think the biggest obstacle feminism has to obtain its goals is the radicals at this point

See that's my problem with progressive discourse a lot of times. Use of charged and incorrect terms, to shortcut-label something that actually may be a real problem.

@DVK-on-Ahch-To So just because you don't agree with the use of a particular term, that doesn't in fact mean they're being used incorrectly

Is that disparity real? Yes. Should something be done to address it? Yes. Does calling it 'sexism' help to address it? No, not at all, all it does is turns off people who MIGHT have been interested in solving the actual problem but resent being baselessly accused as being part of a wrong problem.

One instance of this is people re-defining sexism to mean power+prejudice

@BradC Words have definitive meanings. I don't hold to postmodernist ideas that they mean whatever someone wishes them to mean.

so they can justify sexism against men by saying "reverse sexism doesnt exist this is just justified prejudice"

And even if we agreed to use a different term (pick your favorite), I firmly believe people would still be opposed, because they disagree with the idea not the term

@BradC You'd be surprised with how many less people would be opposed.

^The problem with redefining established terms is that they elicit an emotional response and have deeper meaning

If not everything that's a problem for women would be called sexism a lot fewer people would care

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I'm not saying people can mean whatever they want. I'm saying that maybe you don't understand the use of a particular term. My favorite example is "rape culture". This one blows people's tops, mostly because people assume what they think it means, but they are wrong. It has a clear definition.

Look into research into how many people "don't consider themselves feminists", which when dug deeper means they agree with first and maybe second wave feminism but not 3rd wave. that's the precise manifestation of this phenomena

don't know that I have the energy to rehash this again. Mostly people don't identify as feminists because opponents of feminism have largely been successful in their smear campaign

@BradC Yes, never tell the truth about feminists, it's called smearing them.

More like because feminists have been unsuccessful at countering it

@Magisch I don't see a meaningful difference between those two

@BradC Actually, you're wrong on that example as well. Mostly people take the Wiki definition - which if you note includes "normalized" term. And object to that since, as Ben Shapiro pithily pointed out in some debate, "show me any significant segment of population that supports it".

I'm sure in SOME substrata (i'm gonna guess athletes and immigrants from tribal-based cultures) of society may have somewhat more normalization than is typical among majority of Westerners these days. Society as a whole, no.

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Sorry, that was a throwaway example, not an invitation for a new thread arguing about whether rape culture is real. Sure, people can meaningfully disagree about that, but many people think it means something simplistic like "all men rape" or "rapists always get away with it", which is not at all what it means

And that's all I was trying to say about terms

@DVK-on-Ahch-To the feminists also didn't do themselves any favors by shutting down a conference on Male suicide by protesting it, breaking in, and pulling fire alarms.

@Magisch when a "diversity" officer at a major university posts about how all men should die, and there's no significant backlash, it's not about countering anything. The truth speaks for itself.

@BradC Ah, that brings a more general problem from the same issue of discourse. Even if you personally WANT it to mean something nuanced, you (not you personally but progressives in general) specifically - and deliberately - picked the term that intuitively - without reading Wiki definition - would imply exactly what you claim it doesn't imply.

Or, Julie Bindel saying that men should be kept down to 10% of the population, and kept in camps

@DVK-on-Ahch-To well, we're all supposed to psychically KNOW what they mean so....

@RichardU You forgot the hashtag

@DVK-on-Ahch-To yeah, #KillallMen and #MaleTears

MGTOW is a direct reaction to feminism. "We don't need you either ladies"

Amazing that people still don't understand that was a sarcastic joke. "wow, men sure are totes worried about us not needing them anymore!!"

@RichardU MGTOW is more nuanced tahn that and some or even most of it isn't a reaction to feminism per se, but to things that tie into feminist politics.

Then again, since most of MGTOW people can't even agree what MGTOW even is... (e.g. mistaking it for politics, or ironically sometimes PUAery)

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Yes, I know, I was just speaking in broad terms. They are loosely connected to the MRAs, but the Honey Badgers drive feminists up a wall.

holy shit, I'd never heard of MGTOW. That's hilarious!!!

@BradC of course you do. You find the fatality rates and suicide rates to be hysterical.

meanwhile I can see all the women, "ok, sure... you go ahead and do you're own thing... Oh don't worry, we'll be fine..."

@BradC You're trivializing real issues (e.g. custody and divorce inequality). After that, you wonder why people aren't more willing to compromise with your views. Gentle hint: the latter may have something to do with what the former implies on your interest i compromise.

men who'd rather not have romantic relationships? :shrug" fine with me

@BradC I was speaking in broad terms, BTW. MGTOW is much more nuanced than that.

I'm largely just sitting on the sidelines since I'm asexual

sorry, I have about as much interest in learning more as I do about red-pillers and antivaxers. Not interested in the slightest

You should always be interested in learning more

I learned a lot about antivaxxers and have an easier time to disarm them in argument

only so much time in the day. gotta get my MineCraft in

Modpack I hope

@BradC Thereby proving my point.

Nah, vanilla all the way. Made a custom updated version of Skyblock, though, with all modern blocks

:3

I sometimes also play on an anarchy server, 2b2t. Turn off the chat, just try to make it out of spawn without starving

or getting killed

It's a pretty wretched hive of villany, but makes for an interesting landscape

@Magisch Biggest irony is that antivaxxers are typically politically very left (right wing ones do exist but those are in it out of federalist notions and not deep medical interest - they may be OK with vaccines but don't want to be forced by government). It always amuses me how "right wing is against science" despite GMO, anti-nuke, and anti-vax being all left-wing phenomena. Not to mention invention of post-modernism.

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Yep, plenty of pseudoscience on the left too

Antivaxxers are most and first of all anti intellectual and anti science

Oy. MineCraft. I'm out, lest I get infected and addicted. :)

StackExchange beats any game out there. Rep, sweet rep! :)

@Magisch Correct. My point was that the narrative that irks me to no end is "right wing is anti-science" despite most anti-science movements being left or apolitical. The main two that are firmly associated with right wing are creationism (due to Abrahamic religons) and Climate Change (due to the propoments inevitably jumping from politically neutral climatological science to politically charged social/political/economic proposals).

Lots of the right wing is anti science though

Especially anti climate science

although thats just corporate lobbyism exerting control

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I think it is worthwhile to distinguish which particular anti-science ideas are most politically relevant.

@Magisch The anti-vax people are not anti-science.

Anti proper science

Right now, clearly climate change is very high on the list

they keep citing that one discredited faked study as if it was science

@Magisch all science should be questioned, otherwise it's religion

sure

@RichardU Yes, and when science is successfully questioned, it changes its mind

@Magisch, there's more to it than that. it is a scientific fact that people are injured by vaccienes every year

But vaccines usefulness has more documented studies for it then the correctness of gravity

@Magisch That's my point. There's 9999 different science branches. Having issues with IPCC (1 out of 9999 if those sciences) cannot be intellectually honestly characterized as "anti-science"

sure they are

@RichardU But far, far less than those that would be injured by getting the disease it is designed to prevent

the alternative is a pandemic of preventable diseases killing millions every year

@BradC are vaccines the only way to stop disease?

@BradC Science ideas cannot be "politically relevant". Application of scientific results to political and economic policies can be. You're confusing the two.

They are a great way to stop disease

@Magisch false dilemma.

They are the best way we've come up with yet to do so, yes

You're welcome to invent a better way

there's a reason smallpox is almost extinct

@Magisch it's coming back with a vengeance in the USA

because of anti vaxers destroying herd immunity

yes

@Magisch Three's from my observation two strands of anti-vaxxers. ones that doubt usefulness of vaccines. Another ones the safety (but NOT usefulness). They do tend to hang around all together (sadly, i know plenty of antivaxxers so much observational data points there)

@DVK-on-Ahch-To (scratching my head) Not sure what to call it then. Climate change is an immediate and relevant issue in US politics. Agree? Certainly more than, say, nuclear power

(at least at the moment)

@DVK-on-Ahch-To there is a third group which is concerned about the amount of vaccines given in such a brief period of time to children.

@RichardU (Without any meaningful scientific basis for their concerns)

@Magisch there aren't enough anti-vaxers to account for the growth.

There are

herd immunity is very fickle

in some towns antivaxxers accumulate

@BradC have you studied the subject at all?

allowing the virus to take hold and adapt there

It's not strictly linear

@Magisch I'm aware of epidemiology

tbh I'm in favor of actually mandating vaccines for kids

the most necessary ones,

@BradC Climate change is an issue that is MADE to be an immediate and relevant issue in US politics by the statist side. I have yet to be convinced that it actually IS. Leaving aside predictive inaccuracies of most models, let's assume they are accurate. Most political/economic consequences of a reasonably modest warming are a mixed bag, not drastically negative (they suck if you live in low-surface small island, admittedly. But not in mid-Canada).

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Thats where you're dangerously wrong

@Magisch but that's the point. They are forcing HPV vaccines on small children

Science is almost unanimous on global warming

@RichardU I lump them as subgroup of second "safety" group :)

It demands action from us now. very painful and lifestyle curtailing action

Our children and children's children will already hate us

the only thing we're able to change is how hard we wreck the planet

@BradC Actually, on nuclear power, you're way wrong. there was a TED talk recently that covered it - basically, you can't realistically fight global warming without drastic, dramatic realignment of nuclear power policy.

@Magisch Science was almost unanimous in rejecting Pasteur's germ theory, as well as Galileo's work. Who was right, the majority, or the ones who went against it?

My favorite response: "what if we make the world a better place, and it turns out the risk wasn't as bad as we thought?"

@RichardU The one that had evidence (pasteur)

today, thats flipped

@RichardU Anti-vaxxers aren't Galileo

not sure how we ended up here from BLM and feminism...

oops, guess that was my fault, I brought up antivaxxers

@BradC if the majority of scientists decided that gravity no longer existed, would we all shoot off into space?

@RichardU If scientists decided to no longer pay any attention to evidence (of things falling to the ground), then they would no longer be doing science. they'd be doing something else

@BradC So, what good is "consensus" in science?

What good is it? Well, it's not magic. It doesn't become capital-T- "TRUTH" just because the majority of scientists endorse it. But you also can't just wave it off as it if isn't meaningful.

(wait, I forgot, were we talking about vaccinations? or global warming? Or creation vs evolution?)

(The arguments all seem similar in parts)

With global warming, like 97% of climate scientists (not just random scientists in a survey) say the earth is warming, that we are the cause, and that it is a serious problem that requires action.

Similarly, is there a scientific consensus on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines?

YES

Are there known side effects? Yes, unfortunately.

Are those known side effects worse than getting the original disease? HELL NO

To complete the trifecta: Is it possible that fossils might be discovered some day that would force scientists to rethink certain parts of evolutionary theory? Sure. Has that happened yet? Nothing that has made evolutionary theory weaker, no.

@BradC Evolution has weak points too. The Cambrian epoch drives people nuts.

@RichardU Perhaps. But it has the distinct advantage of also being true. Certain fussy details that we don't yet completely understand don't mean we toss it all out and say "God must have done it!"

(I used to be a creationist, too)

@BradC we can't say it's truth, we can say we believe it's true, but it's not a certainty. Every belief should be challenged or we don't learn. Also, evolution does not explain the origin of life.

@RichardU Evolution doesn't claim to explain the origin of life, that's "biogenesis", which is a different area of study/research.

But regarding "truth" vs "believing its true", I agree, mostly.

But that doesn't mean that scientific "belief" is the same as, say, theological "belief".

Why? Because its ultimately verifyable

Now I might not have the knowledge (at this moment) to evaluate some scientist's claims about certain subatomic particles, but I can (at least theoretically) verify them.

Perhaps read some books, get some degrees, repeat the research myself.

Or pay some other scientists that I trust more to repeat the study instad

Now practically speaking, there isn't enough time in my my life (or money in the world) for me to actually verify all that stuff, but its at least possible to do.

That is explicitly not true for some other kinds of knowledge, like spiritual belief. You can believe it if you like, but you can't (even hypothetically) verify/validate/replicate it

@BradC As for religious belief, Pascal's wager is enough. Far better to believe than not.

But yes, at some level we have to accept what some other people tell us, we have to accept their expertise, or trust their experience, or trust that if they are wrong that other scientists will correct them

But the way to approach science is with eternal skepticism. If you want to mess with your own head, study quantum theory.

ok, someone should sum up the discussion so far for me so I don't have to read all of that^^^^^^^^^^^...

@AaronHall here goes....

Yeah, Pascal's wager is basically throwing in the towel: "I don't actually have any evidence to support my claim, so I'm going to guilt you into it instead"

(feminism and BLM were discussed for a long time. Recently we somehow got into anti-vax, nuclear power and global warming

now, somehow, we are discussing Pascal's wager for belief in God

huh

a bit of a wide-ranging discussion

Anyway, I used to be a conservative Christian, am now an atheist, so I'm very familiar with both creationism/evolution arguments as well as stuff like Pascal's wager

@BradC no, it's quite the opposite. It is a very rational decision. If I believe in God, and I am wrong, I'll never know it, and will suffer no real effects. On the other hand, if I do not believe in God and am incorrect, the consequences are dire. If I believe in God and he exists, then I am happy. The belief in God therefore is the better risk.

@BradC are you an atheist or an agnostic?

Pascal's wager was originally an argument for a sect of Catholicism that no longer exists. So that begs the question: which God? Do you pick the one with the worst eternal punishment? In that case, it's Islam all the way. And if you actually have an argument for one particular god or another, then make THAT argument, instead of Pascal's wager

Yep, you're an actual atheist.

more like anti-theist by the looks of it.

Ah, the definition discussion. I call myself an atheist, depending on the context. But by that I mean "I haven't seen any convincing evidence for God". Maybe you'd call that agnostic, but whatev

I'm an atheist naturalist. I don't actually believe anything exists beyond spiritual (no ghosts, no afterlife, no souls, no angels, gods, or demons)

But again, that's because I find evidence for those things unconvincing

(There are about 3 more things wrong with Pascal's wager, this is a good article on the topic: alternet.org/story/149920/…

I don't consider myself an anti-theist. Still married to a conservative Christian wife with 3 believing kids.

ok, well... I hope you all have a great weekend! :)

Bye, Aaron!