Adderall Apocalypse

Taylor Swift Revisited [But Not Really]

2014-09-15T00:02:00.001-06:00

Hey, everyone. So, I know I wrote a blog "article" [partially/mostly] about Taylor Swift about a year ago (ffffffffuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhkk), but I'm a male, cis-het, Hispanic, American human who's not too proud to revisit a subject or reevaluate an opinion or belief in [the] light of new information. Ms. Swift was recently interviewed by the Guardian in promotion of her forthcoming fifth album, 1989. The interview is as chummy and softball as you might expect, but Ms. Swift also shows a surprising amount of introspection [which, yes, would have been any amount of introspection whatsoever, but ykwim]. It's like she actually learned [at least two of] the lessons [I felt] she needed to learn in the past year, namely, that "boyfriend-stealing," [and, therefore, one would assume, "girlfriend-stealing"] is "not a thing," i.e., no one can "steal" your significant other unless they WANT to leave you, and that feminism doesn't [or doesn't have to, or at least shouldn't] have anything to do with "pitting men and women against each other" (this is a critique of feminism that goes at least as far back as the suffrage movement, which, to me, seems to suggest that anti-feminists haven't come up with any new arguments in the past 100-150 years, but that's beside the point). Ms. Swift even adopts the "feminist" label herself! So, hey, credit where credit is due. And in this case, I'd have to say that credit lies with Lena Dunham for becoming friends with Ms. Swift, and, apparently, being a really good influence on her...

Another effort by Ms. Swift to promote her new album was to release a music video for the lead single, "Shake it Off." The song is about ignoring Teh H8erz™. Whatever. I honestly don't care, even though it was co-written by Max Martin, who is basically Satan to me, as a musician—and not in a good way—and I fucking DARE you to look up his previous "works" and tell me I'm off-base! Look—I always say [or at least think] that there's a difference between criticism and "h8in'"—that you can't surround yourself with yes-persons—that you can go ahead and tell "h8erz" to fuck off, but it would behoove you to pay attention to your critics just on the off-chance that they might have something constructive to say. Of course, I'm not sure that most people even HAVE H8erz™—that would require that there be people who give enough of a fuck about you to hate you, and I don't know you [probably], but I'm skeptical that that's the case. [201409171700 edit: I've just realized that, even if you, personally, don't have H8erz, it's still possible that you might fall victim to people who just spread out hate as widely as they can, or target people they see as "vulnerable." This is a slightly different circumstance, but it's still no better for YOU. Sorry.] Ok. On second thought, even though you probably don't have H8erz, if you ever want to ACCOMPLISH anything, you probably WILL have naysayers. But again, you have to learn how to distinguish between naysayers, who can go fuck themselves, and people who are just trying to offer you a realistic appraisal of the risks involved in whatever endeavor you're undertaking. You probably won't have time to analyze each individual voice to determine whether they're a naysayer or, um, the other thing, but you can't get caught in an ideological bubble or believing your own hype, and the only way to learn how to make these distinctions is through experience—where was I?
Oh, right. Taylor Swift. Obviously, she just doesn't have the time or concern for nuance that I do, but who does? You? Don't make me laugh. Or do. Who cares? I don't!

Anyway, Ms. Swift’s video has drawn some criticism for its use [in a certain scene] of primarily black women engaged in a style of dance known as "twerking." I'm not going to comment on whether it was appropriate for Ms. Swift to have a scene in her music video in which she appeared alongside twerking WOCs [mostly], dressed like them, wearing "gold" jewelry of a "comically" exaggerated size and doing whatever the fuck this is. Whatever I could say about it, I can't win, but more on that later. Instead, I'd like to a address what I see as the wrong response to this type of criticism. YouTube "superstar" Phillip De Franco II, in this video, chose to only reference one person—who hadn't seen the video, and use that as a reason [or excuse] to implicitly dismiss ANY criticism of or concern about the video as "speaking out of your ass" and "being angry for angry's [sic] sake," and then to whitesplain about how it wasn't racist and move along, nothing to see here, and there are "real" race-issues we have to deal with in this country, so why are you "wasting time" getting upset about this? In fact, I can hear some of you now saying, "WHY AREN'T YOU TALKING ABOUT FERGUSON INSTEAD OF THIS BULLSHIT!?" Well, I'm talking about this bullshit BECAUSE you're likely to think that it's ridiculous. You see, if you want to be an ally, you have to learn to listen to the concerns of [people from] oppressed groups without reflexively dismissing them, no matter how ridiculous you think their concerns are! It's not your job to monitor and/or police the "ridiculousness" of the grievances of [people from] oppressed groups! You're not the meta-pc-police! How the fuck do you think it looks if you're a white person and your first response to racial concern over the actions of another white person is NOT to make an effort to listen to a wide range of concerns and then try to form some kind of dialogue, but instead to JUMP [out of your way] to defend the white person!? To me, it actually DOES resemble the actions of the police force in Ferguson, which, instead of acknowledging that a grave harm had been committed, and acting in the interest of the community to call for an external investigation, instead "circled the wagons" to protect one of their own at the expense of their already fragile relationship with the community—not to mention HUMAN DECENCY! "So, what, are you calling me a racist now!?" No. Get over yourself! Not everything's about you! All I'm asking is that you acknowledge your own privilege and resist the urge to be reflexively defensive when a member of an oppressed group raises concerns about something!

One complaint in response to this reasoning that I keep encountering is, "I can't win! Even though Elliot Rodger was a mass-murderer—even though he had the option to be basically ANYTHING other than a violent criminal—nothing he could have done would ever have been good enough for the White Knight Mangina or the Feminazi SJW! #ManTears." Look, here's the thing: No one can "win," alright, motherfucker!? Unfortunately, that's just how things are nowadays. I could wax idealistic about not being a knee-jerk reactionary or shutting out opposing viewpoints like I did earlier in this article, or about not becoming "The Thing We Were Fighting Against," but in practice, one tires of refuting the same point a thousand times, especially points that perpetuate harmful misconceptions and stereotypes, blah, blah, blah—aaaand I've gone Full Sarkeesian. #DealWithIt!

Look—the fact that your first concern seems to be "winning" indicates, to me, that you're perfectly content to put your own feelings above the wellbeing of others. Being an ally isn't about being "good enough," or jumping through hoops, or anything like that. Again, it's about acknowledging your own privilege and respecting and listening to the concerns of oppressed groups. What I mean by, "nobody else can 'win' either," is that, well, hey, maybe you're right that no matter what you do, you'll never live up to the expectations of some feminists, but if you're a woman [for example] who gets raped or otherwise assaulted or a black person who gets shot by the police, you'll also never be able to live up to the expectations of people who reflexively jump to the defense of the police and [alleged] rapists and the status quo! Yeah, yeah, I know—"presumption of innocence." Again, as I can only speak for myself, I understand that this is the foundation of our legal system. But unless you're actually a member of the jury, this requirement doesn't apply to you, as an individual! I'm also aware of the possibility [though I keep seeing examples of this turning out not to be the practical outcome] that a mere accusation of rape can "ruin a person's life," but you have to realize that it's seldom a cakewalk for the "accuser" either, and that there comes a point at which automatically standing with the accused does more harm to actual victims of rape than it benefits people who might have been falsely accused, which is, by the preponderance of available evidence, very rare, and let us remember that less than half of rapes are ever even reported to police, and only about 3% of rapists will ever spend a day in prison. Boom! Statistics! What? "Why DON'T they report it to the police!?" you ask in your whinging tenor? Gaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........ <chugs Disaronno> Look—go Google it yourself, and then go fuck yourself, because rape-victims shouldn't have to answer to you about how they handled the aftermath of their assault! And weren't you just the one complaining about how YOU can't win!? Srsly. Fuck. You.

Confessions of a Former Paulista

2014-08-17T21:28:00.000-06:00

I saw Ron Paul on bookTV recently. This got me thinking about all the usual Ron Paul issues. I must confess that, back in aught-seven, I myself was a junior Paulista. But our story today, dear readers, begins slightly before I "discovered" Dr. Paul.

I was raised under what you might call a typical conservative "fundagelical" Christian values system. My parents still operate under this regime of "thought." They're not exactly "single-issue voters"—more like "triple-issue voters": abortion AND Israel AND guns—but they're definitely conservative Republicans. So I grew up very conservative, myself. I often tell the "story" in youtube comments [sections of basically any video that even mentions Rush Limbaugh] of how, while being conservative, we were also relatively poor, and so, during the summer, my mom would take my brother and me [which IS correct pronoun usage!] to the PUBLIC PARK to get a GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED lunch, and I would sometimes bring my little battery-powered radio so I could listen to RUSH LIMBAUGH because [Alanis Morissette irony joke—THAT never gets old *coughcough*]! Then, in high school, I went through this phase in which I thought Bill O'Reilly was right about everything. I even read his book—The O'Reilly Factor! NOT Those Who Trespass! D= His book surprised me a little. From what I remember, he even made some [maybe not quite "progressive," but let's just say] reasonable points about how race, class, and gender really do still matter in this country. I could say more things about Mr. O'Reilly, but maybe some other time.

I should probably point out here that I've always been a voracious reader—I'll read basically anything I come across, including product labels and even the occasional end-user license agreement! So one time, I think around the end of '06/beginning of '07, after I had already been in college for a couple of years, I was doing some cleaning around the [parents'] house when I came across this pamphlet that was basically about jury nullification, but it was about some other stuff as well, so let's go down that rabbit hole, Alice—here, hold my hand. Everything's gonna be ok...

Jury nullification is when a jury ignores the judge's instructions and decides not only on the facts of the case, but on the law itself—well, if we're calling it "nullification," then that means that they've already found the defendant not guilty by reason of "the law in question is bullshit." "Can a jury actually do this?" you ask. Um, yeah, sure, why not? What [legal] consequences will you face? None: "Jurors can never be punished for the verdict they return." That's Radley Balko. He counts as a "source," right? Wikipedia seems to think so. Anyway, some laws ARE bullshit, so what are you gonna do? Convict someone for violating a bullshit law? What are you, a fucking robot!? Be a human being! Didn't you watch The Apartment!?

Anyway, the main point for which the pamphlet was arguing was that America is a republic, not a democracy! And you can see the Ron Paul threads starting to come together. So what does it mean for 'Merica to be a republic and not a democracy? Well, that depends. On one end, you have people who want to restrict voting rights because they'll say, you know, when you give "the blacks" and "the hispanics" the right to vote, they only end up voting for the government to give them free shit by taking it away from decent, honest, hard-working white folk—No! Wait! I meant, "tyranny of the majority" or some shit! Honest! Wait, what!? The majority of voters [not to mention the political leadership] in the U.S. is white!? Well, shit, why don't I stay here and get my story straight while you check out some beachfront property I have for sale in Arizona? By the time you get back, I'll make sense. Promise! ...and, scene! <bows>. On the other hand, The Pamphlet said that a republic is MORE "democratic" than a democracy, because we get THREE votes: in addition to our vote at the poll, we also have the grand jury and the regular jury. This affords us another opportunity (two, actually!) to "vote" on the laws.

It's kind of funny—my parents like to blame my boogeyman teachers and professors for my becoming an atheist, but they didn't really have anything to do with it... I credit The Pamphlet for causing me to think about political issues in new ways, which, in turn, led to my thinking about other things in new ways, which, indirectly, eventually, led to my becoming an atheist and a feminist, but before that, I was a libertarian. So it wasn't long after I discovered The Pamphlet that I discovered Ron Paul—oh my, how convenient. I also give him a lot of credit for causing me to think in new ways about a lot of things. Of course, now, I think that Ron Paul is wrong at least 70% of the time [or about at least 70% of the issues he addresses], which is honestly better than most politicians I know of, especially Republicans. But I feel like I needed to go through that in order to learn the arguments against the Paulian stance on various issues. It's very Hegelian in a way. I started at point A (standard conservatism), then moved to point B (Paulian conservo-libertarianism), and finally, wound up somewhere completely different [not that I've stopped moving and am now just standing still]. But I still had to go through point B to get to point C. This itself is an oversimplification, because there was a time in 2009 when I identified as an anarchist. What's funny about THAT is that I stopped identifying as an anarchist a long time ago, but I don't think my beliefs are all that different.

So my point is that while, now, I often disagree with Dr. Paul, I still have a lot of appreciation for him for "inspiring" me to think in new ways and to question things I had taken for granted. Even now, I try to think about new arguments I come across rather than just dismissing them [although I think it's fine to dismiss arguments you have heard before and successfully refuted as long as they're not accompanied by new evidence, and as long as you periodically revisit every argument, even ones you thought you HAD successfully refuted].

Religion is LIKE a Crutch, But...

2014-05-13T15:15:00.001-06:00

[Trigger Warning (TW) for depiction of hypothetical use of a racial slur.]

When I was growing up as a Fundagelical Christian, one of the objections to religion I would hear sometimes was that it was a "crutch." Actually, I would usually hear this FROM religious people as an EXAMPLE of a criticism of religion that THEY [claimed to have] heard. They would then instantly dismiss it without really saying why. I don't even remember hearing [at the time] a full explanation of what it would mean for religion to be a "crutch"—the implication is that religion is for "weak-minded" people who can't handle the fact that nothing happens when you die or whatever. In the process of becoming an atheist, on the other hand, I don't recall hearing this argument [nearly as often] from actual atheists or critics of religion. That doesn't mean that there are no atheists who [have] use[d] this argument in some form. It just means that, for example, this particular "argument" [almost certainly] had nothing to do with my "deconversion." It's just as well, because it's a bad argument. It's clearly a strawman. It's obviously not fair to assert that all religious people are weak-minded and need some kind of collective hive-mind to do [all of] their thinking for them. However, as I implied earlier, this "argument" is kind of a strawman in both directions: On the one hand, there is no criticism of or argument against religion that I would consider serious that would incorporate such an insult, but on the other hand, it would be disingenuous for a person to say that not all Christians are complete idiots and then pretend/insinuate that they had defeated a claim that was in some way foundational [or even relevant] to atheism or anti-theism.

I see this as similar to the case of using the word "delusion" to describe religious belief. RationalWiki defines "delusion" thusly [emphasis added]:

A delusion is an aggressively-held belief that is demonstrably false. It is commonly (but not exclusively) the result of a mental condition, such as schizophrenia

The article continues:

Richard Dawkins, [in] The God Delusion [...] asserted that the question of God's existence was tied to the question of special creation, and then argued that since special creation has largely been demonstrated to be false, belief in God is a delusion ¹

Of course, it IS true that many religions do incorporate these "aggressively-held," "demonstrably false" [or at least unfalsifiable] beliefs. And I realize that the article does mention that "delusion" is not "exclusively" attributable to a "mental condition." I also realize that having a mental condition could potentially contribute to one's "delusional" [religious] beliefs. However, we should be careful about associating religion with mental illness. In our [justifiable] efforts to characterize religion as an unreasonable system of thought, we shouldn't contribute to the stigmatization of or misconceptions about the mentally ill. If anything, "delusional" religious/spiritual beliefs are a "testament" to the human ability to compartmentalize contradictory thoughts & beliefs, which is not a bug, but a feature of the human mind-brain. It is also evidence AGAINST "intelligent" design [unless God is The Ultimate Troll, which, "according to the scriptures," He conveniently is (emphasis on the "HE")].

Of course, there is substantial evidence available for one to make a case that the "delusional" charge is merely a response to the "blindness" charge that Christians [and their predecessors] have been leveling at skeptics since time immemorial! But for now, I'll just focus on one relatively recent example.

A lot of [the lyrics of] Christian music paints a rather bleak portrait of doubt and skepticism [about God/religion]. They tend to see it as a constant struggle to refuse to see/deny the sight of what's right in front of you, and assert that you'll be better off if you "surrender" this doubt to God. The band Jars of Clay and the song "Blind" from their eponymous debut album are no exception. I was just going to post a few lines, but I couldn't. The whole thing was just too "good."

Cynical, just your way
You play the doubting Thomas
Feel the scars and wipe the stains

So you fight, and retreat
And talk yourself out of believing
in any peace that you can't see

Blind words you call
Blind words will fall

You're logical, you can't find
any reason to believe in love
you are blind

Crucify, and deny, pass the blame and burn the mission
Till dust remains and wash your hands

Alright. So this is essentially bigotry against people who have rejected or are skeptical of Christianity:

"You're just PLAYING Doubting Thomas! Why are you so prideful!? Stop trolling and kneel before Lord YHWH, already! Or you'll be sorry! Motherfucker!"

Woah. Hey. What the fuck! Alright, so I guess you're not going to give me ANY credit for coming to the beliefs I hold [or don't hold] in any kind of thoughtful, rational way. Is that what's going on here? What would it take for you to drop that assumption? Seriously.

"You can't believe in love if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master! (Because they're the same 'thing'!)"

Right. And "when I say 'I,' Rabbi, I'm saying 'God'!" It's actually difficult for me to imagine anything more insulting. I honestly don't think I would feel more insulted and dehumanized if Dan Haseltine himself called me a "spic" and told me to sit in the back of the bus—AFTER punching me in the face!

"You only believe in what you can see!..."

Um, you DO know there are other ways of sensing and detecting various phenomena, right? It would be much more accurate to say that I prefer to withhold belief and/or acceptance of claims until they have been empirically verified or demonstrated. Is there something WRONG with that?

"...but you're blind, so because you can't see anything, you must not believe in anything, either!"

OK, so this is where it gets REALLY interesting. Mr. Haseltine is obviously speaking metaphorically here, but that might actually make it worse. Blindness is a disability, whereas the type of "blindness" he's talking about is, as I said earlier, a denial or refusal. If it were a disability, it would only be fair to accommodate for it somehow. But religionists who use the language of disability still blame us for our "condition." That doesn't seem fair. I think they should at least choose one or the other.

This is where it kind of comes back around. "Delusion" is a response to "blindness," but the "opposite" of blindness [in the sense of not seeing what's right in front of you] is actually "hallucination," which IS generally the result of, if not outright psychosis, then at least some kind of altered mental state. And here, we're getting into the same territory we were getting into earlier in which I advised against using language that could contribute to the stigmatization of the mentally ill and/or disabled.

However, there actually is a sense in which religion is or at least CAN BE like a crutch. Religion usually tells people that ["bad news"], they're intrinsically flawed, but ["good news"], the church has some kind of magical solution to this "problem" that will allow you to be fulfilled and become the person God intelligently-designed you to be! I realize it's not the most original observation to say that this is bullshit—that it's like telling you your leg is broken in order to sell you a crutch [as someone said, for example, on a recent episode of "The Atheist Experience"]. But, [as Matt Dillahunty said on last week's TAE show], "There's no god to fill the not-god-shaped hole that's not in your heart." By the way, "God-Shaped Hole" is the name of another Christian song by the band Audio Adrenaline [which, incidentally, has the same syllables and meter as my made-up name. gasp!!!]. And just to show you yet another angle on this, here's a post by Dan Fincke of "Camels With Hammers" on how "sin" is a bullshit term/concept [so to speak].

Well, it would appear that I've tied up this post quite neatly, if I do say so myself. You might have been worried a bit there in the middle, but hopefully I came through all right. This paragraph is mostly to avoid such an abrupt appearance of the tag line, anyway, which I've had for the past 5 years, but it's not like it's something that's beyond questioning as to whether I still need it. Anyway, happy trials, Tyrion!

¹I suppose I should point out that I haven't actually read The God Delusion, so I can only assume that Dawkins was referring to a belief in any kind of "special creation" [not just, say, young-earth creationism]. Maybe there are God-beliefs that don't incorporate any kind of "special creation," but that's not what the vast majority of people mean when they say or think about "God." I would argue that the "special creation" of Deism, though perhaps not "demonstrably false," would, at least currently, fall into the category of "unfalsifiable" or at least "not [sufficiently] clearly defined."

Second Installment of Thread Translation

2014-05-10T01:33:00.001-06:00

First installment/background/notation key here. Moving right along!! The following is [my attempt at] a translation of this thread:

VL: I want some [earings, in case you didn't actually click on the link! :O!] like these for my girlfriend!
EW: haha, why? Yeah, they are pretty! :D
VL: What do you mean, "why?"? THEY'RE FROM STAR WARS!!!
EW: Oooh! OK, they seemed [like it] to me. If you want to give me something like that, I will gladly wear [lit: use] it.
VL: I wish[*] there were "geek" stores where they sold them. :(
EW: They can be made to order. :)
VL: Where!? Let's go!
EW: mmm. I don't know. I'll [have to] look for a place.
[*] Literally, "Allah willing." The word ojalá is very old. It comes from back when Spain was still part of the Islamic Empire. Other such words are hola, and a bunch of words that start with al,(e.g., alcohol, algodon...)

Will our hero ever find awesome Death Star™ earrings for his girlfriend!? Ha! You'll never fucking find out, will you!? Anyway, hey, that was a lot easier than last time! Thanks for reading! And thanks for believing in me! XD "Regular" [in style if not in frequency] content coming soon!

5 Years

2014-02-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

Hello, dear readers! Today is the 5th "anniversary" of this blog. Sure, there was that ~3-year period in which I didn't post anything, but still. I didn't have all that much to say about it at this time. I mostly just wanted to point it out, because the unit of time known as a "year" and the number "5" are COMPLETELY ARBITRARY! That said, a lot has changed since I started this blog. I don't even think I was "all the way" an atheist at the time. That probably took another week or two. Today is also [close enough to] the 5th "anniversary" of the day I started to publicly identify as a feminist. I think I've improved as an advocate/ally for human/minority rights/dignity during this time, but obviously, I still have a lot to learn. Looking back on what I've written, there are times when I'm impressed I that I was that "forward-thinking" that long ago, but there are also times when I'm kind of disappointed in my former self or think, "Wow. That was 'unfortunate' to have written." I hope to write more this year because I do feel like I have kind of a lot to say and I just recently recalled that I've wanted to be a blogger for a very long time—even before I heard the word "blog," or knew what a blog was. ¡Hasta luego!/Happy trials!

Brief Remarks On [The Anniversary of] The Death of Christopher Hitchens

2013-12-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

My first exposure to Hitchens was in 2003 or '04 when I read his review of "Fahrenheit 9/11" in (I think it was) Slate. It was a very negative review. I was conservative back then, so I agreed with it, or at least wanted to agree with it (even though, to this day, I just haven't gotten around to watching that movie). But then I read his column from the week right before that, in which he very harshly criticized Ronald Reagan about Iran/Contra. He basically said that Reagan was either a liar or an idiot. After reading both articles, I thought, "Wow, this guy doesn't care who he pisses off!" And even back then, I could really respect that.

I'm in ur Threadz, Translatin' ur Tweets

2013-11-09T22:58:00.001-07:00

I am posting this blog entry in my "official" capacity as Catie Wayne's (aka Boxxy) self-appointed (but Catie-approved) tweet-translator cum dickpic-screener. I'm posting it here because it wouldn't have fit on twitter. obviously.

I have a dedicated tab on google chrome for twitter:search:"catiewayne", (which is totally not weird or creepy at all... >_>) This also picks up tweets that mention her name but aren't sent to "@catiewayne". I'm only mentioning this because the tweet that mentioned Ms. Wayne, which is in the thread referenced in the next paragraph, mentioned her by name, [and] not by her twitter username, so it's likely that she hasn't seen the thread [yet].

The following is [my attempt at] a translation of this twitter thread, originally in Portuguese ¹. [Note: I requested permission from the OPs to translate this thread so that Ms. Wayne could read it, but as of "press time," they have not responded.] [201312030000 edit1: As you can see in the comments, I actually did get permission later.]

Key:

lit = "literally"
(?) = preceding word is my best guess, but I could be wrong
[words] = interpolation or "paraphrase"
[] = words I left out because there was no need to translate them

Again, this is the original thread.
And this is my [attempt at a] translation:

GV: I have a video that you'd love to see
JC: aiiiii, show me!!!!
GV: [video]
JC: hahahaha² she's funny, clumsy, and looks like Boxxy, but I don't know if it was very good [or not], eh? [].
GV: "looks like Boxxy." She's [the one] who performs [lit: does] the Boxxy character(?) lol
JC: That's not true...
GV: Yes it is, search [for "you see,"][*] lol. Her name is [], Boxxy is one of her characters, she [has now] made new Boxxy videos as well.

[*] [201312030000 edit2: The original tweet said, "pesquisa pra você ver," which, if translated literally, would mean "[s/he] looks for/investigates[**] for you to see," which doesn't make any sense. :-P Therefore, I had to interpolate this into something that did make sense, so I thought that GV might have been talking about the "famous" Boxxy "songification" video, "You See" by Danielson742. But after consulting with GV, I was informed that (in Portuguese, at least), song titles are generally not translated, and that a more "idiomatic" translation would be something like, "look it up, so you can see for yourself."]

[**] [201312030000 meta-edit: the proper conjugation for "pesquisar" in the imperative mood with "você" as a subject would be "pesquise,"[***] so you can see how that would have thrown me off. :-P]

[***] [201312030100 meta-meta-edit: "pesquisa," however, IS the proper conjugation for the 3rd person singular indicative or the imperative with "tu"[****] as the subject.]

[****] [201312030100 meta-meta-meta-edit: No one uses "tu" in Portuguese anymore. {Not in Brazil, anyway,[*****] although I don't know if this is also the case in Portugal.}]

[*****] [201312091050 post-hyper-meta-edit: GV did tell me, "No one uses 'tu' anymore," but I had forgotten the context of that statement (quoted here):
No one uses "tu" anymore
people from the south region use it
but they do not use it properly
they do not... conjugate? xD as "tu"
they say tu but conjugate as "você"
so yeah, tu is not really important
]

Well, I guess that's all for now. I really don't know what else to say. This blog entry was meant more as a language exercise and a service to a "friend" rather than a "real" blog "article." I would welcome anyone who knows Portuguese better than I do to make any necessary corrections. Thanks. :D

¹I don't speak Portuguese, but I have studied the language to some extent by completing some exercises in a small workbook. I consider Portuguese [to be] the most beautiful language, but Italian is pretty close. I actually have a better knowledge of Spanish (3rd place!), but I'm not fluent in that language, either.
²the Portuguese language has no /h/ phoneme (i.e., the voiceless glottal fricative) nor any letter representing the /h/ phoneme. Its letter "h" is silent, as it is in most other Romance languages. For example, I find it funny that Spanish has three letters that can represent /h/ (j, g, & x), but the actual letter "h" is silent! I was not a linguistics major, but I think about this shit ALL. THE. TIME.

Taylor Swift, The Westboro Baptist Church, and Blaming the Victim

2013-08-03T01:55:00.000-06:00

Hello there, dear readers! Before we begin, some notes:

Yes! I’m back! I’m fucking back! Don’t expect a post/article from me every day or week, though. Maybe every month might be moar realistic.

Do you like reading articles that contain a shitload of [square brackets]!? What about “scare quotes”? Ellipses...? If so, then you’re in luck today, my friend! [actually, this has been the case with most of my articles]

I had originally wanted to make this a video, because I thought that some of the jokes and stuff would have worked better spoken than read, but I ran out of time.

Most of the text in the square brackets was intended to make clarifications ['cause, you know how into clarification I am, and, like, it worked so well in the Amplified Bible (right?)] and was going to be inserted into the video as text on the screen, but now you’re just going to have to read all of it, instead of hearing most of it and just reading a little.

I’ll be calling this an “article,” because that’s what it would probably be called in a publication that was actually respected [by anyone].

OK! On to the article!

So I know this is the second straight item I’ve published on the internet [including my most recent video] in which I “talk” about people and events, and as the quote commonly [mis]attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt says: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” But I kind of like to USE discussions of people and events as a way to END UP discussing ideas.

So Westboro Baptist Church is going to hold a protest outside the Taylor Swift concert in Kansas City on August 3rd (today? already?). In the press release announcing the protest, they call her a “proud whore.” Actually, the exact wording they use is “like a proud whore,” [which I believe is the title of a Madonna song? But, hey! I think “whores” SHOULD be proud... or at least not ashamed]. Now, as someone who has almost nothing but outright contempt for Ms. Swift [as a public figure and “artistainer,” not (necessarily) as a person], for many reasons [that have “fuck-all” to do with this], I must say that there’s probably no definition of “whore” that actually applies to her, except maybe WBC’s definition, and I don’t know what that is, exactly, because it wasn’t in their FAQs, but I would think it includes, but is not limited to, anyone who has any sex outside of marriage whatsoever, and even within marriage, presumably in any position other than missionary, or any kind of sex other than PIV, and probably, if you’re a woman, if you “dress like a slut,” whatever that means, but I could be wrong. So if that is their definition of what a “whore” is, then, and this is, of course, only slightly informed speculation, but I think it would be safe to assume that Ms. Swift would qualify for that title¹, as would I, as would almost everyone over the age of 18 [and many people under that age], maybe even some people in the church itself. NTTWNBAWWI² if she were a “whore.” Except...

Not intended to be an endorsement of the original

In fact, Ms. Swift HAS herself been guilty [in her lyrics] of “slut-shaming,” as in her song “Better Than Revenge,” which, when I first heard the title, I thought would have been about how moving on and living your own life and finding happiness in yourself [and in things and people other than some jerk who cheated on you or whatever] is “better than revenge,” but was disappointed to discover that the song was actually just about revenge: “She’s not a saint and she’s not what you think. She’s an actress [...] she’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.” That song is about a girl who “stole her boyfriend,” apparently? [Unverifiable speculative Internet gossip says it’s about Camilla Belle, but who gives a fuck!?] I actually wrote about this subject in this very blog about four years ago, and maybe I would express my opinions on the topic somewhat differently now, but I still maintain that “boyfriend stealing” is not a thing! “Stealing other people's toys on the playground”!? Srsly? Hey Taylor Swift, did you know... That uhm, your boyfriend IS NOT YOUR FUCKING PROPERTY!!! Now I know it sucks to be heartbroken, but if someone cheats on you [or leaves you for someone else], then it’s the “fault” of the person who cheated on you, not the person he or she cheated on you WITH, even if that person knows what they’re doing and is trying to hurt you, it’s still the fault of the person who cheated on you. Does that make sense? By the way, isn’t “boyfriend stealing” what the protagonist of “You Belong With Me” was TRYING to do!? [And I know you might say it’s different because you were actually In Love with him or whatever, but that doesn’t change the practical outcome.]

Then there’s this line from “Fifteen”: “Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind, and we both cried.” Now I know that a common interpretation of this line is that “everything she had” is code for “her virginity,” which is, let’s face it, not [even actually] a thing.³ Virginity is just a term for a state in which a person has not yet engaged in a certain activity. It’s not actually a “thing” that you can “give” to someone. Sex, on the other hand, CAN be that. Anyway, I wouldn’t say that that interpretation is completely incorrect, just incomplete. Abigail is, in fact, a real person, one of Ms. Swift’s friends, and their disembodied heads actually made a video in which they [to be honest] were kind of stalking this “boy who changed his mind,” this member of “the male species,” as Abigail says, and I know the video came out before the song was released, but I don’t know if it was also before the song was written. But she says... well, I’ll just let her tell you herself...

Yeah, kind of silly, I know. Note that she says, “I offered everything! EVERYTHING! Emotionally and physically!” I don’t know if she meant “her virginity,” [if she was a virgin at the time], although it would appear to be included within the set of “everything,” [even though it’s actually not a “thing”; it’s just that most people THINK that it is].

Perhaps it’s telling that the featured “related video”
is this idiot’s story about how she “lost” her virginity.

She DID obviously mean to include sex, because you can’t say “everything physically” if you’re going to exclude sex, but it’s fairly clear that she also meant other things, such as her time, effort, love, devotion, dedication, etc., but even THAT’s not everything she had, unless she literally gave him all of her possessions, like, in garbage bags or something? Maybe a more interesting question is why some people hear “everything she had” and automatically ASSUME that it must be code for “her virginity.” It almost seems like a Pavlovian response. And yet it’s also as if Ms. Swift were saying “Abigail gave everything she had, if you know what I mean...” It definitely speaks to the undue value our culture places on female virginity, which, as I don’t think I can emphasize strongly enough, is not a thing! [Can you tell I’m a huge 30 Rock fan? lol] Now I don’t necessarily want to implicate Ms. Swift in the perpetuation of this regressive cultural meme [duh, all memes are cultural], but I do think she has at least some responsibility to let young women know that while, yes, they should be careful to whom they “give their hearts,” and that heartbreak is unavoidable and they shouldn’t expect that the first person they “fall in love with” is going to be with them forever, they should also not be made to feel guilty, ashamed, or devalued for whatever sexual choices they make, because it really IS, or at least should be, their choice. And I don’t think Ms. Swift is fulfilling that obligation, especially when a lot of her songs and music videos do take advantage of the “Madonna-Whore Complex.” One final note about this before I move on, about the “boy who changed his mind.” I can appreciate that Ms. Swift chose to word it in that way. It seems less judgmental than saying that he never intended to be with her long-term in the first place, or that he was just using her for sex. And it’s ok to be sad when it happens to you, but unless someone is dishonest with you and misrepresents themselves and their intentions from the beginning, which are NOT “ok,” we should remember that there’s nothing wrong with “changing your mind.” It’s completely “normal” and not something anyone should be ashamed of. I’m just not sure Ms. Swift realizes that or really makes it a sufficiently clear part of her message if she does.

And, of course, speaking of regressive memes [and this is, perhaps, the one she’s most well-known for], Ms. Swift has also been “guilty” of having these fantasies of being an archetypal, disempowered, blank female character whose aspirations are solely fixated on attaining some romantic goal involving a similarly blank, archetypal male character in some grossly traditional [as in “Traditional Values”], heteronormative, clichéd fairy tale that obviously doesn’t reflect anyone’s actual experience, although it may reflect the fantasies of [her] fellow individuals who feel they require external [sources of] validation. I mean, it would be one thing if only one [or even just a few] of her songs were about things like that, but that’s simply not the case.

Oh, and by the way, did you even READ Romeo & Juliet? Or The Scarlet Letter? You know Romeo & Juliet each fucking kill themselves at the end, right!? “Oh, but I wanted a happy ending!” [that’s what he said?] Ok. Fine. Whatever. Who am I to tell you what to say in your own songs? Why don’t we just go around misappropriating and bastardizing other literary classics!? Like, I’m gonna write a song referencing Oedipus, but in the end, he’s, like... NOT gonna fuck his mother? Then, another time, @taylorswift13 wrote what she called “A Midsummer Night’s Blog.” Oh, great. Another reference to a work of Shakespeare you’ve never fucking read! When does this shit end!? [I humbly and sincerely apologize if you actually have read or even just seen a performance of that play... Just kidding.] Why don’t we just take a look at that really quickly? But just the first paragraph. I’m not THAT much of a masochist!

I’m writing you on a summer afternoon in Nashville. All the idealistic [um! I think you meant IDEAL!? Maybe!? What, are the markers of a perfect day trying to talk to you about ending world hunger or something!? Joining the Sierra Club!?] markers of a perfect day are presenting themselves right now in this moment [ugh! Kill me now!]. I mean, we’re talking chirping birds, blinding sunshine, a just-the-right-amount breeze [ah, ok. “a just-the-right-amount breeze.” Could you have maybe worded that a little MORE awkwardly?].. There’s the distant sound of power washing from someone else’s deck and my feet are up on the patio table [Seriously? Feet on the table? Gross!]. I just ate a really awesome sandwich. Such a simple, good day. And so I just wanted to say hi. [so... maybe you should have called it “A Midsummer Day’s Blog”!?]

And don’t even get me started on her song “Mean”... On the other hand, I don’t think I’m going to want to keep writing articles criticizing [overcriticizing?] and analyzing [overanalyzing?] the oeuvre of one Taylor Swift, so I might as well get this out of the way and Speak Now⁴ on this subject so it doesn’t burn a hole in my stomach or give me an aneurism. [j/k! That’s not really how I deal with upsetting shit! lol] Ok, so this song is about a critic who said “mean” things about her. “Presumably,” it’s about Bob Lefsetz, who was a supporter of hers in the beginning, but after her, let’s say, sub-par [to put it kindly] performance at the 2010 Grammys, he said that she had basically shot herself in the foot and that she had “shortened her career.” He probably went too far, but as a critic, he is allowed to do that, and he was basically the only critic [maybe even one of the only people?] saying anything like that, and I think it was primarily a matter of his “misunderestimation” of the forgiving nature of “The American People.” Now, I was a victim of bullying during school [I know, shocker⁵], as was Ms. Swift, purportedly. So I think she knows the difference between bullying and criticism—even harsh criticism. She even said in an interview that the song was “about a critic who hated [her] [...] and all of a sudden, it became an anthem [sic] against bullies in schools, which is a refreshing and new take on it.” Yeah, except for the fact that you wrote the song as if it were ABOUT a bully. She accuses the song’s antagonist of “picking on the weaker man,” and says, “Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me.” Those lines definitely make it sound like she’s talking about a bully, not a critic. And in what universe is she the “weaker” person, and how much “bigger” would she need to become to be too “big” to “hit”? Even when she wrote this song, she was probably the biggest recording artist of that year. She had already won 4 Grammys, including Album of the Year, and shifted millions of units. And what does she mean by “hit”? “He negatively evaluated some aspect of my performance as a musical artist/entertainer! That makes me feel bad!”? That does not, in any sense, constitute “hitting” you. And then she says, “You have pointed out my flaws again as if I don't already see them.” Um, yeah. I know it's annoying if a parent or friend or acquaintance does that, but if your “flaws” are artistically relevant, then it’s kind of a part of a critic's job to address them in some way. Whether or not you can see your own flaws isn’t exactly the point. He doesn’t do what he does for your benefit. He doesn’t work for you. “And I can see you years from now in a bar [...] with that same big loud opinion [...] washed up and ranting [...] drunk and grumbling on about how I can't sing.” Ooh. How dare he? I guess someone hit a nerve with you... Well? Can you sing? The fact is that your voice is what Randy Jackson would call “pitchy, dawg.” Things like whether or not you can sing in tune are some of the few things in art that are not subjective and dependent on individual tastes. I know there’s more to being a great singer than accurate pitch, but to most people who give a fuck about music, I believe it’s generally regarded as the absolute minimum requirement for being a great singer, but if you can’t reliably sing in tune, then you’re going to have to compensate for that deficiency in some other way. And to me, there’s an important distinction to make here. There’s a difference between being a great singer [in a technical or “mechanical” sense] and having a great voice [or you could say “great-sounding,” or even “pleasant-sounding,” and this, of course, is subjective]. There are people who exemplify both of those traits⁶: People like Freddie Mercury, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, etc. [the least controversial examples I could think of “off the top of my head,” unless you’re a racist and/or a homophobe! :-P]. Then there are people who are technically great singers, but don’t have what most people would consider “great” [“great-sounding”] voices, like Roger Waters or Weird Al or maybe Clay Aiken [not to put all three of them in the same category as artists, OF COURSE]; and people who have great voices, but aren’t necessarily “technically great” singers, and I guess an example of that would be Justin Timberlake [who I believe has been steadily improving in that area throughout his career], or maybe Donald Fagen [of Steely Dan]; but there are also people who are neither of those, but are still considered great singers because their voices are so iconic and distinctive and influential and culturally important, such as Bob Dylan or Mick Jagger. And then, there are people who are none of those things, like Britney Spears, and I think I would put Ms. Swift in the same category in terms of her singing ability, although not in other areas. [This was not (intended to be) a comprehensive list of classifications of singers according their level of “greatness” (or lack thereof). For example, it didn’t mention people like Björk & Thom Yorke, who are both great singers, but in “non-traditional” ways]. And I am having trouble finding professionals in the field who agree with me about this in regards to Ms. Swift, but I generally expect more from [one of] the most successful singers in the fucking world than just being an ok singer. So I guess I wouldn’t say that Ms. Swift “can’t sing.” It would probably be more accurate to say that her singing ability doesn’t even come close to meriting all of the accolades she has received. But that’s not really WHY she has received those accolades. Most of them are the result of the one legitimate music-related talent she does possess [which even I would not dispute], which is her ability to just crank out pop songs [dozens every year, though most of them don’t make it onto her albums] that many/most people consider “catchy” and become gigantic, monumental, unavoidable, inescapable hits. And yet, I also have this theory that what tipped the Grammys in her favor in 2010 [the year she won the most Grammys] WAS the Kanye West incident, which very likely gave her sympathy among the voters, but further discussion of that topic is beyond the scope of this article... Of course, near the end of the song, Ms. Swift starts getting mean herself: “All you are is mean, and a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life...” [And note how her voice goes up when she says “liar” and “pathetic”] Yikes! So basically, the message of the song turns out to be: “Don’t be mean, you asshole, piece of shit, scumbag mother-fucker!” Way to maintain the moral high-ground! Great example you’re setting for victims of bullying... Now it SHOULD go without saying that it’s one thing to recognize the general accuracy of the idea that when a person criticizes you unfairly or too harshly or insultingly [or even just unconstructively], or “talks shit” about you, especially someone who is not a professional critic and in an area other than their specific field of criticism, it tends to say more about the person who criticized you than about you yourself. And it would have been one thing if she had written a song that was actually about the problematic subject of bullying, because it is an experience that a lot of people go through, and I can appreciate when musicians write songs about the problems of us commoners, but what Ms. Swift did was different. But I realize that this song HAS [purportedly] helped people who have been bullied get through those terrible situations, and maybe THAT’s what’s important, [and] not whether or not Ms. Swift was legitimately a victim [of anything] as she portrayed herself in [the context of] this song [which she wasn’t]. I don’t know...

Anyway, I guess the point I’m trying to make is that Ms. Swift is not a “whore”; she’s a serial monogamist. There’s a difference; it’s just not necessarily a moral difference.

Now, I’m not sure there’s anything I could say I like about the Westboro Baptist Church; they might be some of the worst people on earth, definitely in the western world, but one thing they do is... they kind of give self-righteous hypocrites a “taste of their own medicine.” For example, they tell a lot of people who identify as Christian that they’re going to hell, even some people who themselves GLEEFULLY inform us “sinners” at every opportunity that we’re the ones who are going to Hell. What they’re doing with Ms. Swift is along the same lines. They’re calling a woman who has been guilty of “slut-shaming” a slut. They’re “slut-shaming” a “slut-shamer,” and I can definitely appreciate the irony in that, and the irony that they’re doing this even though Ms. Swift explicitly has the goal of being a “good role-model,” [and I've thought about what it means to be a “good role-model,” but I'll have to think about and research it some more if I'm gonna make a definitive statement on it, and whether or not Ms. Swift actually qualifies as one] which she tries to accomplish by not getting crazy with the partying or whatever. For example, [she claims that] she doesn’t use drugs or even really drink alcohol [which is also a drug]. Of course, this is just more proof of what a bunch of clowns the WBC is, and that no one outside their church could ever meet their standards for moral conduct. And they’ll be protesting at the fucking concert! Around a bunch of Ms. Swift’s fans! And her fans are fiercely loyal and notoriously vicious in their attacks on those they felt have insulted or slighted her in some/any way [hi, guys! :D], so it might actually be kind of fun to see this insane, rabid, hate-filled cult go up against... the Westboro Baptist Church!

who saw this coming?

But none of what I’ve said up to this point is actually why I wrote this article. I wrote this article because I wanted to talk about blaming the victim. You see, some of the coverage of WBC’s announcement of their protest included pictures of Ms. Swift from the red carpet at the 2013 MuchMusic awards wearing a Herve Leger bandage dress, [clingier than Ms. Swift has a history of being with her numerous boyfriends (j/k :-P)], and you can’t see it in this picture, but she’s also wearing heels by Christian Louboutin. When I saw this picture, my first thought was, “OMG! I want to fuck Taylor Swift! I did not know that about myself. What else don’t I know about myself?” I guess this shouldn’t have surprised me. She is an attractive young woman [although I've always thought her eyes were kind of weird, but whatever. I guess with that much makeup, it's hard to tell?]; I just never thought of her as “sexy” until I saw this picture. I mean, first of all, “dat ass” [who would have thought, right?]. Secondly, there’s this tiny convexity(?) in the area between her pubic region and her navel, [you see it, right? Is there a name for that or something?] and I don’t know why, but I think that’s just ridiculously hot on a woman [I know. I’m weird. idgaf]... Anyway, now I can kind of understand the thought process: the twisted, fucked-up, morally degenerate, sociopathic thought process behind blaming the victim. I mean, I could easily argue that I would never have even entertained the idea of fucking Ms. Swift if I hadn’t seen her wearing that dress. And if I were a naïve, sexist asshole, I could extrapolate that line of thought onto a rapist, and assume that maybe “provocative” clothing on a woman is some kind of “trigger” for a rapist. However, research “suggest[s] that victim attire is not a significant factor. Instead, rapists look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness, which, studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing.” And I don't think the intention of the referenced article was to “blame” women who display “signs of passiveness and submissiveness”; it's just reporting what the research has shown. One obvious solution to this is to empower women. There are many ways for this to be accomplished...

Of course, it is a fact that women who aren’t dressed “sexily” also get raped, and ultimately, all the blame for crimes such as rape must fall on the perpetrator. And people [rightly] say that “there is evil in the world” [and I could write a whole other article unpacking that statement], and that people must take precautions to reduce the risk of unwanted events [befalling them], and I agree that, as a purely practical matter, you are at lower risk of unwanted events befalling you if you avoid walking alone at night in places with higher crime rates [even with a gun or other weapons], or getting “blackout drunk” [I know from personal experience that nothing good can come of that!]... On the other hand, while many rapes do occur with at least one party under the influence of alcohol, most rapes do not occur in the middle of the night in a dark alley [even in “the bad part of town”]. For example, the vast majority of rapes are committed by an acquaintance of the victim. Also, people confuse taking actions that [may] “increase the risk” of an event with failing to take measures that “could have prevented” it [note the assumption that the event could have been prevented, which isn’t necessarily the case], which sort of implies that the victim carries at least a small amount of “blame,” which is, by definition, “blaming the victim,” which is NOT COOL⁷! One who would make such a statement must think about what they’re arguing. There will always be someone who will get “blackout drunk” or walk home alone or even “dress like a slut” [or do all three simultaneously, and as noted above, it's not as though “dressing like a slut,” whatever that means, has actually been shown to “increase a woman's risk” of being sexually attacked], so do you really intend to argue that a woman shouldn’t do those things so that her potential attacker will instead attack someone else, who does? Clearly, the proper focus is on getting [some] men [and, yes, some women] to stop raping, not making women [and, yes, some men] feel guilty for/about the circumstances surrounding their rape.⁸

Woah! Holy abrupt ending, Batmanglij! Anyway, thanks for reading! “See” you again next time [whenever the fuck that will be]! Happy trials!

¹Even without “unverifiable speculative Internet gossip,” I would be very skeptical if Ms. Swift were to claim that she is a virgin, mostly because she's 23 now and even I was “only” a virgin until I was 24, and that was only because of how I was raised, and I'm kind of just assuming that her parents didn't raise her in such a crazy-religious way as mine raised me, but I could be wrong...

²“Not That There Would Necessarily Be Anything Wrong With It.” Kind of a modification of “NTTAWWT” from Seinfeld.

³See this great video by Laci Green that “penetrates deeper” into this topic.

⁴see what I did there?

⁵ ...was Amy Schumer's nickname in high school, apparently?

⁶me, for example [:-P lol j/k]

⁷If you don't believe this, then let me know why and maybe we can talk about it... read this first, please. Thanks.

⁸Here, I didn't include prison rape, which is, of course, a horrible crime. In a sense, men are made to feel ashamed of being raped in prison in the same way that women are made to feel ashamed of being victims of non-prison rape [especially by men] due to the common belief that if a man gets raped in prison, it is kind of “his fault” for having “committed the crime” [or having been wrongfully convicted!] in the first place, and that the rape could have been “prevented” if the victim hadn't committed the crime [or hadn't been wrongfully convicted]. But then, the rapist would have just raped someone else, who had, so it's the same argument...

Labels

2010-06-25T14:17:00.001-06:00

I don't like to refer to people in terms of labels. This seems reductive to me. When one person refers to another person by a label, this doesn't magically transform the reality of who that person is. A person is not whatever label is applied to them. A person is a person. It's "ok" to use labels (e.g.) to simplify a person's position on an issue as long as the label-user (and his/her audience, if any) acknowledges this fact.

In a sense, it's "cool" for a group of people with common goals or ideals to refer to themselves with a label because (perhaps) it makes them feel like part of a "team," or a "club," or whatever. It might even increase their ability or desire to achieve that goal! Human beings are genetically tribal animals.

I often eschew taking sides, joining groups or teams, or labeling myself. I'm not even very fond of the "atheist, theist" labeling system. These aren't two monolithic, "black and white" divisions of people.

If I must label myself, I think an acceptable label would be "clarificationist." That's what I'm always pursuing: clarification.

Have I made myself "clear"?

Logic, "Common Sense," and "The Wrong End Of The Telescope"

2010-05-19T00:39:00.011-06:00

[Note: This is kind of a response to JohnJ's post "The Case Against Atheism," [201308031125 edit: this blog no longer exists. :'( ] in a "roundabout" way.]

Lately, I've been trying to figure out how to deal with life and my problems rationally, and recognize emotion when it arises within me and prevent it from interfering with logic. For example, a lot of people seem to confuse "common sense" with logic or rationality. This is a mistake. It's actually very easy to "fool" common sense (see: the Monty Hall problem).

Another all-too-common mistake is "looking through the wrong end of the telescope." For example, I assume (and I'm sure that JohnJ does as well) that there is an "objective reality" that's observer-independent. The reason I assume this is that the universe existed before there were any observers (I'm sure JohnJ has his own reasons). I often make the analogy that this "objective reality" is like a picture. But it's obvious to me that the only way available to us to see "the big picture" is through science/reason: one "puzzle-piece" at a time. One of the positive aspects of this is that there are correction mechanisms, for example, if the pieces don't all fit together, then that's an indication that someone has made a mistake. I don't believe that anyone has or will show us "the big picture," so we have to try to piece it together ourselves.

It seems problematic to me that throughout history, people have claimed to have access to a "full" or at least "better" view of this "picture" through some other means than discovering it for themselves in verifiable ways. The claims of these people have often been shown to be false—earth is not the center of the universe, nor is it flat, nor is it sitting atop the backs of turtles or elephants or whatever—and don't even get me started on "mind-body dualism." [Personally], I'd be at least a bit reluctant to believe anything I was told about the missing parts of the puzzle by those who have been (continually) demonstrated to be incorrect regarding the pieces we do have.

Another way of "looking through the wrong end of the telescope" is to assume that the "law" governing the universe is some kind of "intention," i.e., to assume that things happen because they were "meant" to happen. The only "laws" governing the universe are the laws of physics, the fundamental forces, [blah, blah, blah...] I wonder, if the leaves on a tree could "think," if they would think that their existence was the "purpose" for the existence of the tree to which they were attached, or the existence of trees in general. I'm sure that the "odds" of any specific leaf appearing at any specific place on a tree are quite small. But probability isn't the "law" that governs the universe, either. The "law" is cause and effect (and let's throw some "quantum mechanics" in there "for good measure"). The interactions are just too complex for us [given current technology] to predict with absolute certainty what will happen next, so probability is a heuristic we've developed to help us achieve at least some degree of certainty.

So, for example, our explanation for how we got here should include as many events in this "cause and effect chain" as possible. Of course, we've made significant progress in this area. To say that we were the intended result of the big bang, one would (please correct me if I'm wrong) either have to project intentionality onto the laws of physics or claim that the "initial conditions" were intentionally set to produce us (which is what JohnJ seems to claim), but I think one would still need to produce an argument for how this makes sense, because, given the inefficiencies of the process, among other imperfections, it certainly doesn't make sense from an engineering perspective.

I'll grant that if the "initial conditions" of the universe were different, then the current state of the universe would be different as well (of course, this seems like a tautology). The problem I see here is that to claim that there was a purpose for the universe and that we are a part of that purpose, the question remains, "why us?"

In other words, it seems JohnJ's claim is that (P) if the "initial conditions" had been any different, then we wouldn't be here, (Q) "therefore," the "initial conditions" had to have been "set" intentionally. But it doesn't seem to me that the conclusion follows from the premise. The "other side of the coin" is that before we could have existed, a myriad of other events happened [read: had to happen] first that did not per se have anything to do with us, and that those events ocurred over the humanly inconceivable span of 13.7 billion years. You'll notice that the language I used in the previous sentence was that of "looking through the wrong end of the telescope." Perhaps I should have said something like, "Due to the 'initial conditions' of the universe, there was this really long, intelligence-less, intention-less, 'cause and effect' chain of events that resulted in the present state of the universe, including, among other things, us. What, if any, are the implications of that?" At this point, the argument becomes: There was [let's say, "for the sake of argument"] only one set of initial conditions that could have resulted in a universe where our existence was possible, but those initial conditions also resulted in all this other "stuff" that seems pointless and stupid if, indeed, the (or at least one "major") intention behind the "creation" of the universe was our eventual existence. Unfortunately, this no longer seems like an argument [not to be flippant, but you'd be better off saying that the "intention" of Hamlet was to tell a story about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].

Note that my argument is not that "anything's possible given infinity," it's that a specific (causal) chain of events was possible given "the universe." In other words, a chain of events leading to the present indisputably did happen, and we should (eventually) be able to show ("beyond reasonable doubt") how it happened (through natural processes). At this point, the only question [I can see] is, "Why was it possible?" or "Why did it happen?" Of course, I wouldn't claim to know the answer. "Why" is an idea, and ideas are products of minds, which are products of brains, which are products of biology and evolution, which is a product of self-replicating molecules, which are products of chemistry... [blah, blah, blah]... my point is that minds [at least, "mind as we know it"¹] emerged long after the "big bang," so I'm skeptical that "why" "existed" before it. This is the point of [the idea of] "emergent order": that "order" emerges from "chaos" without intelligent direction, rather than through the process by which we, who are [presumably] intelligent, build things such as machines with a plan and a purpose beforehand. This is why [some] people say things like, "We don't need 'god' to explain [xyz]" (regardless of whether or not "God" would be a "better" explanation, which I don't think would be the case anyway, but that's a different argument).

Another question this "initial conditions" argument raises is, "What about the future?" Are future beings going to think that they were part of the "purpose" of the universe? Would there be any way to find out who (if anyone) was correct?

Here, I'll briefly note that even if there is a creator, it does not follow that there is an "objective morality" [*cough*Euthyphro*cough*]. I'll also note that I don't really have major problems with religion [ideology] per se. My [major] problems with [ideology] begin where it tries to act as a stop sign for inquiry (e.g., through "dogma"). I just think that any claims about "knowledge" or "truth" or "reality" should be verifiable.

¹ I'm not saying that there could not possibly exist any other type of "mind" than the mind we know about, but if a person proposes that it exists, it needs to be discovered, or at least coherently explained, before I could have a discussion about it with anyone. As I often say, "speculation = masturbation."

Another Formspring "Question"! Yay! >_>

2010-04-29T12:58:00.005-06:00

Q: you're an idiot

A: for future reference, please submit all *questions* in the form of a QUESTION! DICKHOLE! and I'm the idiot... ok. thanks!

Ask me anything

Dr. Manhattan on the Phenomenon of the Existence of Life

2010-04-05T15:00:00.005-06:00

Scene: Mars.
Dr. Manhattan to Laurie Juspeczyk:

In my opinion, [the existence of life is] a highly overrated phenomenon. Mars gets along perfectly without so much as a microorganism. See: there's the south pole beneath us now. No life. No life at all, but giant steps, ninety feet high, scoured by dust and wind into a constantly changing topographical map, flowing and shifting around the pole, in ripples ten thousand years wide.

Tell me... would it be greatly improved by an oil pipeline?

Formspring Me

2010-03-18T16:00:00.002-06:00

I'm bored. I'm sure there are "many" people who find me intriguing. Go ahead and ask questions. About anything. [except for "doc drop" questions!] http://formspring.me/AderalApocalyps

New YouTube Video: "PresentSex/LovePhilosophizing (Part 1)"

2010-03-11T12:02:00.007-07:00

Hey, dear readers! To make up for my 3-month absence, I'm sharing a video...

[transcript soon... and stay tuned for part 2... yes, there's a part 2...]

I'm Not Saying That Steven Crowder Condones Racism... [New Youtube Video]

2009-12-22T14:59:00.003-07:00

I've mentioned Steven Crowder here before. He's... well, this is how I usually put it: "Steven Crowder, budding conservative pundit/'comedian,' ostensible journalist, professional-troll-in-the-making, and all-around closet-case..." (just kidding about the "closet-case" part... he has a girlfriend. No, really! He told me himself! And we all know that every guy who has a girlfriend is totally, completely, 100% straight, right? Yeah... anyway...) I just caught him, let's say, not being very careful about the comments on his videos or his replies to them. Keep in mind, I'm always very [but reasonably] cautious about accusing people of racism, and I'm not accusing him of racism here. I'm not even accusing him of condoning racism, but... that's not the only thing going on here. But let me be clear in stating that I unequivocally condemn any hate directed at anyone, including [especially] people who are guilty of it themselves. I'm pretty sure I'll make an in-depth, follow-up blog/video on this issue soon.

Video: "Does Steven Crowder Condone Racism?"

[contents of description bar below for those of you who'd rather not click your mouse more times than absolutely necessary]

IMPORTANT: I do not hate Steven Crowder. I have no ill will toward him. I give no indication of that anywhere in this video. Please do not use this video as "justification" for threatening him or his family, friends, associates, or anyone else he might care about!

Update: Any questions about authenticity should be cleared up by the fact that Steven Crowder admitted that this video and the screenshot were authentic. Also, Steven asked me to take down the video. He confronted me about it on facebook chat. Without giving me enough time to consider, and because I'm such a nice guy, I indicated that I would remove the video, or at least wasn't going to keep it up permanently, because this question isn't even relevant to whether or not Steven Crowder is an accurate reporter, a demagogue, a liar, or anything else. But after conferring with others more experienced than myself, I've realized that this isn't just between him and me. For his part, he claims that he wasn't paying attention well enough and didn't see the racist parts of homertalk's comment. (Ron Paul Newsletter, anyone?) I would grant him that I see his case as highly plausible. I mean, it's difficult to comprehend the monumental stupidity that would have been required for him to have done this *intentionally.* But even assuming he's telling the truth, you could still say, "That's what you get for being the kind of act that racists happen to like," or "You made your bed, now sleep in it." It's even possible that this could be a distraction from "the real issues." But I'm pretty sure he still doesn't get it... you know... what the "real" issues are... one who asks for compassion and fairness when he seems to have such trouble showing it himself...

Steven Crowder's video

We already know Steven Crowder doesn't really care too much about facts or objectivity...

Steven Crowder video comments pages (the comment in question should be on the last or next to last page. As of 8:09 pm GMT, 22 December, 2009 Steven has deleted his own comment but not homertalk's)

Screen capture

Audra Shay

Orygyn's video

Obviously, the word "nigger" can mean different things in different contexts. Homertalk was obviously using the word as a slur. I'm not saying that Steven Crowder *noticed* the use of that slur or the slur right after it... [in fact, I, personally, would say it's most likely that he didn't]. I'm just putting this out there as a public service.

On a final note, again, I'd like to point out that even if Steven Crowder does condone racism, that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not his reporting is factual. Those are two distinct questions.

[short link to this post: http://bit.ly/7YsXPA ]

TheAmazingAtheist: Braodcastings of Blogtv For Make Benefit Glorious Website of FreeSpeechVids.com

2009-12-20T00:05:00.006-07:00

theamazingatheist- Broadcast your self LIVE

Donate to FreeSpeechVids!

Oh... wait... nevermind... don't donate to FreeSpeechVids... sorry! nothing to see here, people! move the fuck along! :-(

"It's the End of the World As We Know It!"

2009-12-17T23:37:00.006-07:00

...and I feel fine. Anyway... in case you didn't know, twitter is down. Everybody panic. As a public service, I typed "twitter" into my google search engine for you all. According to the almighty interwebz, some "Iranian Cyber Army" has apparently hacked the world's most [potentially] superficial social networking/media site. Updates at 11... please stand by... I got my radar up and my finger on the pulse of the universe... right...

I should mention that before I typed "twitter" into the google search field, I typed in my twitter handle, "AderalApocalyps." I thought one of the results was quite amusing. You see, it was about two months ago that I had my first discussion about atheism on twitter with JohnJ (who I've mentioned several times here). It seemed as though, at the time, he had some misconceptions about atheism. Somehow, Austin Cline of atheism.about.com became aware of the twitstorm and contributed his two cents. This is the "amusing" search result I mentioned. Enjoy!

By the way, please leave a comment letting me know how you're coping with the "twit-apocalypse." Thanks.

I'm Speechless [New "Infomercial"]

2009-12-17T13:15:00.005-07:00

I don't know if you've seen a lot of infomercials lately, but many of the newer ones contain some not-at-all-veiled sexual references. I mean, you can't even call them "double-entendres" anymore! I think this might be the most blatant example I've seen thus far. There's nothing wrong with this, but I guess I'm just used to some level of subtlety. It seems like the current trend in this variety of marketing is to [continually] explore [new frontiers in] how anti-subtle a commercial can become. It's like an arms-race of anti-subtlety! I'm not sure whether or not I think it's funny, though. Maybe I'll get back to you on that...

Seriously: "I need a handjob dot com". Mind-boggling. Not that I don't need a handjob... but I digress.

[h/t: Martin Pribble. thanks! :-D lol.]

EDIT: ok... I think I get this now. This type of product used to be called "as seen on TV," and because the commercials were played on tv, they had to conform to certain FCC standards of propriety, but the standards on teh Interwebz are much looser, so it's not surprising that the manufacturers of these products have since been trying so hard to "see what they can get away with." ...but I'm sure you already had that figured out.

New YouTube Video: "Thoughts on Slavery and the Bible"

2009-12-15T00:51:00.008-07:00

For your convenience, here's the "script" I was loosely working from:

Hey! Adderall Apocalypse here! The other day I was in TogetherForPeace/Jack's blogtv room and one of the things we were talking about was the Bible's stance on slavery. Basically, what he was saying was that the Bible (NT) does provide a basis for the abolition of slavery. But he says that the New Testament writers who talked about slavery weren't very concerned with the political activism; they weren’t very concerned with telling the governments of that time that slavery was wrong and they should abolish the practice. They were more concerned with "freeing peoples' spirits." Well, first of all, I don't believe that people have "spirits" the way Jack believes that we do. Secondly, it doesn't really make sense... if God exists and is all-powerful, I would think he’d be able to free slaves, but instead, all he decided to do was, what, make them feel better, in effect? I think that if I was a slave, I’d rather be not a slave than just be made to feel like Jesus loves me or whatever, but that’s just my perspective... what do I know?

So it seems fairly clear that if God exists, he cares a lot more about "cosmic justice" than actual justice here on earth. Obviously, I don’t believe in God or "cosmic justice." I suppose it makes sense that if God and the afterlife is eternal, this life would be less significant—but don’t you see how logically unworkable this is? That God created an entire universe so that 13.7 billion years later, he could insert souls into some monkeys living on a rock in the middle of nowhere so they could live for 70 years, if that, and then, afterwards, face eternal judgment? And then either be with him forever or be tormented forever for their so-called sins? Isn’t it obvious that the afterlife is an idea people made up to combat their fear of death!?
(anyway...)
Another thing he said (and I find that a lot of Christians think this) was that the abolitionist movement was largely Christian; [and] they were inspired to become abolitionists largely because of the Bible. But I think that almost everyone back then was a Christian, right? So there were just as many people who were pro-slavery who could use the Bible as justification for owning slaves as there were who were using the Bible to support their opposition to slavery. So I think it would be more instructive to look at the effects of the enlightenment on the views of the people back then regarding slavery because that was an important period of time for the development of the concept of rights. Now, I don't necessarily believe in "rights," but that's a completely different video. The point is that you're not going to see rights being mentioned or discussed anywhere in the Bible. What you'll see in the Bible is, for example, "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," because God said so, but the real reason for the law against stealing in the Bible is that it’s disruptive to a society, especially above certain levels. This should be obvious to you. So that's as far as the Bible goes: "don't steal." Maybe from that, you could extrapolate that if you can't steal another person's property then maybe a person has a right to their own property, and you can go from there, and I suppose you could do the same with other "rights" like life and liberty, but it seems to contradict the idea that God is the one who wrote the book when, (I’d assume that) he knew all that stuff, but we had to figure it out for ourselves. It’s almost like we didn’t need God or the Bible to come up with those ideas. I would, of course, suggest that this is the case. [links on what the Bible has to say that could be interpreted as being relevant to the issue of slavery]:

Does God approve of slavery?

What the Bible says about slavery

The infamous religioustolerance.org page on slavery in the Bible

You’ll notice that you can use parts of the Bible to argue either way. You might be tempted to say that this is a paradox. But as I’ve said in my blog, I have proposed that there is no paradox, only contradiction. We can argue about that later, I’m sure...

My point is the main verse that Jack was emphasizing in his blogtv room says that in the kingdom of God "there is neither slave nor free, male nor female," etc., so from that verse, the next logical step is that we are all equal in the eyes of God, and the next logical step FROM THAT would be that slavery is wrong. Ok. Fair enough. I would think that if God really were against slavery, he would have just come right out and said it, but we can go with your explanation... but if slavery is wrong and the Bible is opposed to slavery, it just seems unfortunate that nobody figured that out until 1700 years after the Bible was written.

That reminds me: another thing people like to say is that there are absolute moral laws and, therefore, there must be a moral law giver, and that moral law giver is God. But if you look at history, you’ll see that culture dictates morality, not the other way around (not that I necessarily believe in morality, but again, different video). The system of morality in the Old Testament, for example, says that eating shellfish is an abomination (The NIV says, "you are to detest" shellfish, but whatever). But then, later on, some other people came along and tried to figure out what Old Testament laws they were still supposed to follow and which they could ignore. They split them up into three different categories: moral, civil, and ceremonial laws, but just from reading the Bible, how can you tell that there needs to be three different categories? There doesn't seem to me [to be] any obvious way to distinguish between them. But even if there were, it still seems inconsistent. Did God change his mind? Does he do that? I thought he was perfect, right? Again, you can find parts of the Bible to support either side of that argument. [links]:

Does God Repent?

"does god change his mind?"

Thanks for [reading]...

Fuck You, Twitter!!! [Or: Fuck You, Humanity!!!]

2009-12-07T12:51:00.010-07:00

Twitter is down right now for scheduled maintenance? Are you fucking kidding me!? It's the middle of the day in all parts of the U.S.! But, hey, don't worry! They should be back within 30 minutes... which is only a motherfucking eternity in terms of twitter time!

EDIT: 12:54 PM MST. And we're back! ok. 3 minutes. not so bad... (no, I'm calm... I've been calm this whole time, what's wrong with you...)

RE-EDIT: 12:31 AM MST ["the next day"]. I've decided to take a short break from twitter. In all likelihood, this will merely mean that I'll just end now instead of being on there for another 4 hours before falling into bed. Whatever. But who knows. The reason for this is that the person I talk to the most on twitter (and the internet in general), with whom I disagree about a lot of things, but still usually enjoy talking to (JohnJ, who you might remember from a previous blog) mentioned "Palin Derangment Syndrome" tonight, which I granted exists. But then I showed him this essay by Cenk Uygur titled "The Irrefutable Stupidity of Sarah Palin" (ouch! Obviously, Uygur wasn't going for subtlety!). This was John's reaction to the essay:

That's an excellent example of Palin Derangement Syndrome. Thanks.

To be fair, I suggested that he send me a full-length message detailing why he believes Cenk suffers from PDS. I'll let you know if he responds.

I'm considering... well, I don't know. The fate of humanity is starting to look pretty bleak if two seemingly/supposedly¹ rational people can operate from two completely different conceptions of reality. I'm almost too stunned to be able to speak right now. Anyway, I'll let you know my next course of action. Thanks for reading, MOTHERFUCKAZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!

¹Look: John is supposed to be one of those "sane" conservatives. Maybe I should just stop giving him "the benefit of the doubt." I don't know. I feel like I can actually discuss many of "the issues" with him intelligently. But that's not the point! The point is that he seems more intelligent and rational, let's say, than your "average" conservative. So if (emphasis on "if"!) I were to conclude that he were "crazy" and it wasn't worth discussing certain issues with him, then I'd also have to conclude that there are tens of millions more Americans who may be even crazier and even less "worthy" of discussing those issues with whoever among us is sane. I'll remind you: I'm not intending to be dismissive. I'm only using this language because John basically called Cenk Uygur crazy, at least in that one area, by "accusing" him of having "PDS." So John is the one who was being dismissive (or if you wanted to be more gracious, you might say that he was being dismissive, "too," since he might have thought that Uygur was being "dismissive" of Palin). But is it really such an either/or thing? Could there exist a reality in which neither of them were crazy? or both of them were crazy? OK! This is starting to drive me crazy! Anyway! This is the bottom line: I find Palin (let's say) unimpressive in many areas. As far as I can see, she still has a lot of work cut out for her if she wants to be a serious "contender" in the political "arena." (OMFG! I can't stand the sports analogies that have crept into our political language!) My experience listening to Cenk Uygur is that he usually has a firm grasp on/knowledge of the issues. Maybe I could say the same thing about John, but the problem remains that we're seeing two different things when we look at reality! How can we overcome that!?

"What's Wrong With Me!?"

2009-12-05T15:22:00.008-07:00

Hello, readers! If you follow my twitter or youtube activity, you'd know I'm majorly addicted to the "fringeelements"¹ (real name: Ryan Faulk, I guess) channel on youtube. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, I'll provide some background. He could be classified as an anarchist, but it would be more accurate to say (and he says this himself) that he supports an "emergent" government. I'm a lover of ideas. I want to hear as wide a variety of ideas and viewpoints as I can. It doesn't matter how "out there" they are as long as they're not ideas that I've heard before and have seen enough relevant evidence to conclude that they're stupid/wrong. So I don't necessarily agree with everything Ryan says,² but a lot of what he says is new to me (relatively, at least). However, a lot of other people on youtube (TheAmazingAtheist, Thunderf00t, HowTheWorldWorks, etc...) don't seem to like what Ryan has to say or they casually dismiss him or whatever. Anyway... because of this, I've been asking certain people who are critical of Ryan, "what's wrong with me?" Here's the exchange that occurred when I asked this of twitter/blog "friend" JohnJ (who I believe agrees with Ryan about a lot of things, although I'm not sure). I've found that a major source of disagreement I usually have with John is that he seems to be culturally conservative, whereas I'm basically culturally "liberal," I guess. No, wait. That's not a very meaningful way of putting it. (Not to sound condescending, but) what I really mean is that I prefer solutions to social problems based on evidence rather than tradition and that although I recognize the importance of individual/personal responsibility, I also realize that there are a lot of things that are beyond the control of the individual.³ Anyway... without further ado, here's the transcript of our "conversation":

AderalApocalyps hey, @johnj2427. I can't stop watching fringeelements (fka confederalsocialist) on youtube. what's wrong with me? lolz...1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps What's wrong with you? Well, I could start with your blind faith in government to solve all our problems.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And then there's the tendency to group everyone who doesn't think like you do under one label.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Also, there's your belief that if something isn't the way you think it should be, it's because people are stupid bigots.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And there's your arrogant refusal to acknowledge that no one is good enough to rule another without their consent.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And lest we forget, there's your belief that you know everything and people not as smart as you are idiots.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 ok... 1st of all (to paraphrase Dara O'Briain), I don't think I know everything. If I did, I would stop...1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps And how could I forget your insistence that ppl aren't responsible for their choices b/c we're all just chemical reactions?1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Then there's the juvenile tone you adopt when you mock someone because you don't understand them.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps If you want a more detailed list, it's going to have to wait.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 um... I'm looking forward to that(?) btw... I'd like to see quotes in your analysis too (in context would be a plus...)1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps But I really should include your belief that Christians are the only group in history to have never suffered persecution.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 for the record, that's not what I believe. I believe that right now, in the US, Christian persecution is less common than "avg."1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps I don't disagree there. In fact, I think I demonstrated that on my blog recently.1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Right now, in the US, Christian persecution is less common than average: http://is.gd/5bIjh1 day ago from TweetDeck

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps But what does that have to do with Peter being crucified on an upside-down cross?1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 um, 1st off, I don't think I claimed it did (2ndly... he wasn't. but I digress...)1 day ago from web

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 idk ur experience growing up, but churches I went 2 put alot of (I'd evn say "excessive") emphasis on James 1:2 & Matt 10:22, etc1 day ago from web

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 did I do/say something wrong? Do I hafta sleep in the doghouse tonight? Can't understand why ur mischaracterizing me like this...1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Well, you asked. If I made a mistake, I apologize for it and want to correct the record.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 I mean, let's keep in mind... you were responding to my admission of partiality toward videos made by a guy who's an anarchist!1 day ago from web

JohnJ2427 @AderalApocalyps Oh. I thought you were asking more generally. Silly me.1 day ago from TweetDeck

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 ultimate:-P... anyway, yeah, srsly... I'm addicted... ha-ha-ha...1 day ago from web

AderalApocalyps @johnj2427 just blindsided me... not fair bro... (I'm still a little dazed... but maybe that's because I haven't eaten really...)1 day ago from web

Ok. Still there, boys and girls? Was that intense, or what!? I don't even have to respond to most of John's "statements" in this exchange as, like I said, [many of them] were rather obvious and blatant mischaracterizations. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was trying to have fun or make a point or something. Another explanation is that he might have been slightly upset at a comment I made on a video by conservative, um, "comedian," Steven Crowder,⁴ in which he propagated the myth that the peace symbol was a representation of the Apostle Peter hanging from an upside-down cross (not to mention the myth that Peter was actually hung on an upside-down cross... or the myth that there was an Apostle Peter, but, anyway, "that's neither here nor there"...). One thing I said in my comment was, "This video wasn't so bad until you went full-throttle with the Christian Persecution Complex bullshit." Oops! I don't know. That might have hit a nerve. But I was quick to clarify what I meant by that when given the opportunity! In any event, I'm going to try not to think that he really sincerely [literally] believes what he was saying about me. That would just be too ridiculous.

Thanks for reading! Happy trials! Especially, have a good time really trying to understand the positions of people you have discussions with! ;-D

¹He used to make videos as "confederalsocialist," but that account was suspended, for some reason. So, file another one in the "fuckyoutube" section!

²This is, of course, not even that important! Can we as a society please get over the idea that "I like you" means "I agree with you" or "I agree with you" means "you're smart"? For example, I usually find twitter/blog "friend" JohnJ, who I will bring up again later on in this post, personable, and think he's probably smart in a lot of areas, even though I'm sure I disagree with him well over half of the time. I think, if there are any significant conflicts between us, it might be over our views of science, which is important, but I think that's something we can work on. Of course, regarding Ryan, something that might be a major caveat is that he was at one point, unfortunately, a "white nationalist," or at least claimed to be one. But I think that he can be forgiven for that because he has since renounced white nationalism, and explained his reasoning behind doing so to my satisfaction, at least. As I said in an earlier blog, I don't like to jump to conclusions that people are racist. For example, I wouldn't assume that John is racist just because of the baggage of the loaded wording of the title of his blog: "A Johnny Reb in a Yankee World [Subtitle: Bearing Witness To The End Of

America

Because Someone Has To Do It.]" Why do I find that title so disconcerting? I honestly don't care about political correctness.

³Oh, well excuse the fuck out of me for trying to have a little fun at the expense of fairness. I hope I'm not offending anyone reading this and I'm certainly not directing this at John himself, but you have to realize that one of the dangers of playing at the beach is that you risk getting sand in your vagina. So my characterization of John here was unfair. At least I'm doing him the service of admitting it now and attempting to explain his actual position: I'm sure John would say that he's very much a proponent of pragmatic, evidence-based solutions to social problems. He merely happens to believe (on faith, no less! *gasp*!) that more freedom is always the best way to solve problems (although that might be an over-simplification). I would tend to agree, but one area of contention might be in regards to what "more freedom" actually means. Then there's the complicating factor of "conflicting freedoms," which I don't even want to get into right now. What I gather from what he's written on the topic is that what John actually believes about tradition is that a practice or belief or policy becomes tradition because it has "stood the test of time" and "works" in some way, in the pragmatic sense of the word. I would say that what I believe about tradition is exemplified in "Weird Al" Yankovic's brilliant holiday jingle, "Weasel Stomping Day." Incidentally, as a side note, I would also say that what I believe about social norms is exemplified in the Twilight Zone episode, "Eye of the Beholder."

⁴I'm not going to provide a link to this video. You can find it yourself if you care so much. I don't care if you think Steven Crowder is funny or whatever. I don't. It's fine with me if you're a fan of his, but I just can't take him seriously... or comedically (right, not a real word, I know). A lot of humor has to do with making accurate observations. Hence the phrase, "it's funny 'cause it's true." It's hard for me to laugh at a guy's jokes who I believe consistently makes (I'll be nice here) inaccurate observations. But I was planning on writing more on that later...

Hello, Technorati!

2009-11-24T18:21:00.001-07:00

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There Are No Sound, Rational Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage

2009-11-24T17:21:00.009-07:00

After looking at some of the reaction to my last political blog, I realized that this isn't acknowledged often enough. I'm not saying this is an absolute truth, just an observation. That said, I often think there's not enough of an effort to understand why people oppose gay marriage. I don't want to seem pedantic, but I feel as though I must break down this issue as clearly and basically as possible.

Not to offend anyone, but in all sincerity, expounding arguments against people who oppose gay marriage is a bit like arguing against religious people or creationists. They're wrong, but there are many levels at which a person can be wrong. A person may incorporate many correct ideas into a worldview or philosophy that is fundamentally wrong, and vice versa. Furthermore, unless you know a person well, it's difficult to tell whether or not they're being intellectually honest about being wrong. With that, let's just dive right in...

All of the arguments against gay marriage I've ever heard (though I do not rule out the possibility that there are arguments I have not heard that might be sound and rational) can be categorized one of four ways:

Religious arguments¹
Appeals to tradition²
"Slippery-slope" and other idiotic, fear-based arguments
"Social-engineering" arguments

Furthermore, in my relentless effort to be masochistically thorough, (and though some of them may seem like strawmen, I assure you that you could find at least some people who will need to be convinced of any given item on this list), and as a reminder to everyone just how far the discussion needs to progress in (at least parts of) the U.S., let me assert that the following items have been established far (miles, light years, even!) beyond reasonable doubt:

Attraction and a person's sexual orientation are not "choices," neither can they be influenced simply by being around people of another sexual orientation.

There is no "cure" for homosexuality (just as there is no "cure" for heterosexuality).

There is no "agenda" to try to "turn your kids gay."

God is not going to pour judgment upon us if we legally recognize gay marriage.

The "gay lifestyle"³ may be something of a "choice," but not only is that completely irrelevant when it comes to the question of whether or not gays should be allowed to marry, but also, I find it difficult to believe that a married gay person would even be able to maintain that "lifestyle."

The idea that the prohibition of same-sex marriage is not discriminatory just because "gays can still marry people of the opposite gender" is fallacious. In what other area is there mandated by law any similar type of "one-size-fits-all" policy?⁴ Doesn't that sound a little communist to you?

On a related note to the previous item, it is unreasonable to suggest that a gay person who wants to get married should just marry someone of the opposite gender. How would you like it if you were forced to marry someone to whom you were not (nor possibly could be) attracted?

Gay marriage (and the struggle for the legal recognition thereof) is analogous to interracial marriage ("and [...] thereof") because in both cases, we're talking about a pair of consenting adults.⁵

On a related note to the previous item, there is not a "straight line" (nor, I would assert, any clear or reasonable or probable or plausible pathway) between legalizing gay marriage and "legalizing marriages" other than those between two consenting adults, and to claim that there is such a "slippery slope" is propaganda and a scare-tactic, completely detached from reality.

In the long run, anything other than full marriage-equality (as long as there is something called marriage that is recognized by any level of government) for consenting adult gay couples is just "separate-but-equal-2.0" and is in direct conflict with both our founding documents (you know, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and stuff) and the idea(ls) of America, not to mention that mantra they indoctrinate children to recite daily in our public "education" camps (which, if I may add, was written by a SOCIALIST!!!1!11cos(0)).

This issue is not about obtaining "moral approval" of gay couples (or homosexuality in general) from anyone, although that couldn't hurt. Nor is it a partisan issue. It's about equality under the law (equal recognition, treatment, rights, and responsibilities).

Ok. Now that we have those items settled, let's continue...

Too often, same-sex marriage-proponents (SSMPs) ignore categories 2 – 4 of the opposing arguments or conflate them with the religious category, which, among other things, gives cover to people who use those types of arguments, allowing them to say things like, "Hey, I'm not religious! Don't pigeonhole me with those people! There are other reasons to oppose gay marriage!" But that doesn't mean there are any good reasons!

Another practice that is too common is for SSMPs to accuse gay marriage-opponents of hatred. Again, I don't want to be or appear pedantic, but people should always be careful about accusing other people of things like hatred (or racism) because it generally shuts down discussion and escalates tensions. In any event, no one should jump to such conclusions about anyone else (Joe Wilson, Sgt. Crowley, Barack Obama, anyone?). Besides, you don't have to hate gays to want to deny them the right to marry a fellow mutually consenting adult, [just like a person doesn't have to be a racist to be an asshole (again, see the example of Sgt. Crowley)]. We should be able to recognize that these traits aren't necessarily connected. We should realize that everyone is human and not demonize anyone over a simple disagreement (or even a disagreement resulting from bad faith or ignorance). On the other hand, we shouldn't be afraid to call people out when we have solid evidence that they're lying (or being intellectually dishonest, or hateful, or racist, or whatever).

Fear can be a very powerful political tool. There are many people who seem to believe that allowing gay people to marry each other will have catastrophic social consequences. Well, as it just so happens, I saw a post on Andrew Sullivan's blog a few months ago (in response to a post by Steve Chapman in the reason.com blog) in which he addressed that concern, and I can only say that such fears are (at best) wildly over-hyped.

Some people seem to think that the main reason people get married is to raise children, but that ignores all the other reasons people get married: love, security/stability (financial or otherwise), etc. Some people seem to think that society will be better off if only straight couples are allowed to raise children or (at the other end of this segment of the spectrum of possible views on this topic) that, all other things being equal, children will be better off if straight couples raise them (there are, of course, positions in between those two). Even if this is true, which I doubt, it is not a compelling reason to deny gay couples either the right to get married or the right to raise/adopt children (or to damn children who could otherwise be part of a family to childhood as orphans).

Another point of contention in this issue regards implementation. The "standard" thinking on the pro- side is that the "definition" of marriage should be expanded to include couples of the same gender (where it's not already, remember, this is a state-by-state deal...), although there doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to do this. There are generally three ways: ⁽¹⁾popular vote, ⁽²⁾legislation, ⁽³⁾state supreme court decision. This can become complicated, depending on how far down the rabbit-hole you want to go (in terms of analysis). I could possibly write an entire blog post on this topic alone.⁶

The "standard libertarian" thinking on this issue is that marriage should be "privatized," which means that two (or more) people can formulate whatever agreement or have whatever ceremony they want among themselves, and the government will not be involved at any level. Then, if the people want, they can ask that the government sanction or recognize unions in some way. The details don't really matter as long as there's no discrimination of the aforementioned types. This seems, to me, like a better solution, although I've never heard anyone, anywhere, actually propose anything like this.⁷

Let's remember my main point here. On the most fundamental level, I'm not talking about implementation or federalism or any of the other minutiae accompanying this issue. The most fundamental point I have to make is that gays are just as human, just as American, as the rest of us. The love between two gay people in a committed relationship is in no way inferior to that between two straight people in a similarly committed relationship. Neither is there any reason that their relationship should be considered inferior (or different) by the law.

We must acknowledge that the most important consideration in this discussion is empathy. Sometimes it's easy to believe that certain people (let's call them "conservatives") lack this characteristic. They so often emphasize personal responsibility, (which is, of course, important), but sometimes (seemingly) at the expense of acknowledging the possibility that everyone may face circumstances beyond their control. But I know (or believe) that most of them do take that into account. I sometimes think that if everyone who opposed gay marriage really knew gay people with whom they could empathize (specifically, gay couples who wanted to get married), their opposition would fade. Is that too much to expect?

¹These can be dismissed out of hand, as a government policy based explicitly on a principle from any religion or combination of religions would be a clear violation of "separation of church and state," or the "establishment clause," if you want to get technical.

²These, too, can be dismissed assuming we've established that a proposed policy is more pragmatic than the current, "traditional" policy, and/or that the protection of human rights/liberties necessitates the abolition of the tradition in question, which is certainly the case in the present example!

³For now, let's give people who use this term the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're talking about something that actually exists in the real world, however stereotypical or cartoony or strawmanish it sounds.

⁴Well, in hindsight, I suppose that characterizing the restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples as a "one-size-fits-all" policy isn't "entirely accurate." Perhaps I stated this idea more accurately in a previous post:

Legally, in the U.S., marriage is simply a contract (that happens to come with many privileges and responsibilities). I see no reason and can think of no other example in which we deny two individuals the right to engage in a voluntary legal contract that harms no one!

⁵We can talk about recognizing unions between pairs of consenting adults who are, for example, closely related to each other when there's a demand for it, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

⁶Ok. I'll take a stab at this. To those who think that rights should be determined by popular vote, I must ask, "How would you feel if you had to ask 260 million people for permission to marry the person you love?"

⁷On a related note, why aren't there more libertarians in this country? Or are there a lot of people who are libertarian, but just don't know it? Someone help me out here! Thanks.

And Now For Something A Little Less Serious (Menstruation)

2009-11-22T17:21:00.009-07:00

This is a reply to a post (about something called "The Diva Cup") by my blog-pal Rebekah over at jauntydame.com, whom I love... a lot... like really... like... "♥" status... like seriously... Anyway... I was going to post this directly as a comment on her page, but then I thought that maybe it's not the kind of thing her readers want to see. So if you want, read that post first (but no trolling, ok!?), and then come back and read the rest of this one. Thanks...

First of all, I'd like to thank you for sharing this! I'm so glad you're comfortable talking openly and honestly about things like this. As a student/researcher of the universe, I am continuously fascinated by the inner workings of the human species of gene-transportation unit (in addition to all other varieties of gene-transportation unit, of course)! I find it a little frustrating that some people seem so disgusted by such conversations. I never look down upon an opportunity to improve my understanding of how (any aspect of) the universe operates!

Now if you'll please forgive me for being such a terrible person... can't... resist... "immature"... humor... agh...
That was quite a gushing review of this product!

Mr. Garrison: "I'm sorry, but I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die." (South Park)

Wow! This product gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "two girls, one cup"!

I can't wait to see "Two Divas, One Cup: The Musical"!

The difference between the two sizes (and the fact that you use the larger size) doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. As Kid Bengala has said, "The elasticity of the vagina is something surprising!"

This goes to show you how much Freud needed to learn about women... If only he had known how many more nerve-endings there are in the clitoris than the vagina... oh well, he could be a real douche sometimes...

And Now For a Random Quote From the Pharyngula Files!

2009-11-20T12:33:00.004-07:00

One blog I read often is Pharyngula. One of the boxes in the sidebar always contains a random quote of the "religious nutjob" variety. When I went there today, I instantly recognized the quote:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked, his wrath towards you burns like fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night, that you was[sic] suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep.
["Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preached July 8, 1741. In Ola Elizabeth Winslow, ed., Jonathon Edwards: Basic writings (New York: New American Library, 1966) p. 159.]

Yes. Jonathan Edwards. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Always held in high regard in our household. We were all big fans of that "fire and brimstone" stuff. Special thanks for contributing to my childhood/adolescent immersion into Puritanism, Tabletalk Magazine!

Obviously, this sermon is completely ridiculous, but maybe you wouldn't know that if you underwent similar immersion through the entirety of your upbringing. We can't judge people, but we must challenge one another to question our beliefs. If something is true, then it should be independently verifiable.¹ In our search for truth, though we may be dependent upon the (again, independently verifiable) work of others, we must remember that "authority" means absolutely nothing.

¹There may be some who claim that "nothing can be completely independent!" This is a different discussion, but for our present purposes, I reject that claim as false, or at least irrelevant. Don't believe me? I'm not stopping you from looking into it!