The Entitlement of Totilo

Stephen Totilo is complaining. That's the best way to explain his article entitled "A Price of Games Journalism". For two years Bethesda and Ubisoft have been blacklisting Kotaku, apparently over the outlet's habit of leaking upcoming projects.

While I can understand the annoyance at this making things harder for them there is an underlying sense of entitlement in this article. And it starts in the third paragraph:

"Neither company has officially told us that we’ve been cut off. For a time, it was possible to make a good-faith assumption that this was just a short-term disagreement. Maybe their spam filters were misplacing our emails. Maybe they’d get over it. Or perhaps they feared a repeat of 2007, when then-Kotaku editor-in-chief Brian Crecente embarrassed Sony out of blacklisting this outlet for reporting the existence of then-unannounced PlayStation projects."

(Hyperlink removed)

Essentially, Totilo wants to be able to write whatever stories he wants and still get the benefits of toeing the line like a good PR outlet. The problem is that it's not 2007, the rise of Let's Players or independent commentary from people like Totalbiscuit has put huge pressure on the "journalistic outlets" like Kotaku since game companies can get widespread coverage at a fraction of the cost.

And it's clear that they know this. Back in 2007 when the independent coverage was still in its infancy it was wise not to anger outlets like Kotaku. While the publishers had money to influence coverage the outlets still maintained some power since they were nominally independent of the publishers. In 2007 losing Kotaku coverage would have been terrible, in 2013? Not so much.
For the price of getting positive coverage from Kotaku, Bethesda and Ubisoft could potentially get far more from the Youtube creators.


All this means Totilo has a choice. It's publish what you want and face the ire of the publishers and the consequences of their actions, or you can be a good little PR outlet and get all the help and support you want.

While the latter turns you into an untrustworthy shill, the former means you have to do more work in order to publish stories.

And that also seems to be what scares him.

Elevatorgate and Gamergate - on the gatekeepers

As humans we like to organise things. Our ability to recognise patterns ultimately allows us to organise things in ways that make sense to us, whether it's books on shelves, or animals in nature or even chemical compounds. It's something that we're good at to a rather insane degree coming up with a pattern and then organising things to that pattern.

It's something we also do to fellow humans as well. Whether it's the harmful effects that underlay, and underlie, racist ideas or just simple things like "these people like football". This is where the gatekeepers come in. These people, self-appointed in these cases, take advantage of this fact and use it in a way to gain a sense of power.

Elevatorgate can quite simply be described as a shitstorm that resulted from people being stupid in various ways over Rebecca Watson being offered coffee while in a lift in Ireland. If you want a more detailed view, you'll want to look at Freethought Kampala's excellent article on it. My initial thoughts on the Rebeccapocalypse (an alternate, and still better name IMO) at the time was that I didn't care. Turns out I never posted those thoughts outside of a draft. But as the war dragged on so to speak, I did come to care.

The part that's relevant began with Jen McCreight's post "How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy’s Club & Why It’s Time for a New Wave of Atheism" which was a cry for a new wave of Atheism which would ultimately result in the formation of the hilarious group of fail known as Atheism+. My original thoughts were written here. This "new new Atheism" was jumped upon by the members of Freethought Blogs who promoted it with gusto. Especially Richard Carrier, who took a strong "with us or against us" view.

Carrier's view, which would be echoed by the early adopters of the A+ forums, show that this was a push for power. Back in 2012 Freethought Blogs was at its height. PZ Myers was generally seen as the "Fifth Horseman" to the "Four Horsemen" of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris. Jen McCreight was a rising star and becoming prominent in the Atheist/Skeptic movement and Greg Laden was viewed far more favourably then he is now.

When Elevatorgate happened and Dawkins blundered massively by posting the "Dear Muslima" letter in a Pharyngula comment FTB effectively made a putsch. They would force out the old guard that made up the leadership of atheism and take control, moulding it in their image of what they think an atheist should be. No longer would an atheist be defined by their lack of religion, they would be defined by political and social values. They would they would drive out the heretic and make the movement a better place.

It didn't work. This new "wave" that was Atheism+ collapsed through favouritism and the hypocrisy that arises from that, and the rampant thought policing driving away people who had slight disagreements. The movement was ultimately denounced by McCreight and became more insular. The attempt at gatekeeping by FTB ended with a massive loss of influence for them.

Fast-forward three years later and #Gamergate was on the scene. Having danced the dance the first time it was a recognisable tune. The histrionics and attacking of people who disagree, the othering and lies. It was the same tune, but the gatekeepers seemed to differ.

This time the self-appointed gatekeepers were mainly the gaming media themselves.

Now the gaming media have generally held a gatekeeper position for a while, being the place people would go for gaming info basically allows such a thing to exist. Get no coverage and you're probably going to fail. The unethical cronyist practices that have been discovered since the start are an aspect of this. By cozying up to the gatekeepers through close friendships and relationships you can ensure your success and also minimise the damage when the gatekeepers decide to attack certain "problematic" elements.

But from what I can see, with the push back against Gamergate is not just the protection of corrupt practices from the journalists, it's also a push to take control of who is allowed into the hobby.

The biggest difference between the formation of Atheism+ and the push back against Gamergate is that the gatekeepers did not want to make their own "gamer+". Attempts were made with "player" and "gamr" but neither of those would stick. That's simply because they weren't put forward by the people who wanted more power. But why would they?

By making their own gaming with social justice and thought policing, they would have lost. While the scars of Elevatorgate still run deep in the atheist community, the event ended when the gatekeepers made their own thing. Gamergate is a long and (metaphorically) bloody fight because neither side will make their own thing. It's all or nothing, and the gatekeepers stand to lose the most.

Despite all the vilification received and proclamations by the gatekeepers to the contrary, Gamergate is effectively fighting for diversity in gaming. Beyond the "hardcore v casual" debates and the whole "are cow clickers and candy crush players 'gamers'" thing Gamergate ultimately fights to keep the ideal of a gamer being someone who enjoys playing games alive. That's it.

The pushback with the "gamers are dead" and the "everybody is a gamer" articles is simple. To effectively gatekeep you need control of the identity, and by destroying it in that way you can rebuild it and apply the "ideals" that you want and along the way keep the power from being corrupt and cronyistic.

Fighting for a more ethical press destroys the established power they hold, since who would pay attention to such people? While keeping the open, apolitical ideal of who is a gamer destroys the chance to gain more power.

Interestingly such loss there would have a follow on effect, groups like the IGDA or even Feminist Frequency have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. A more ethical press would take a more critical look into such organisations and possibly ask too many unsettling questions. Questions like, "why do you support blacklisting devs?" Or "why does this popular game not face criticism for the supposedly harmful tropes used?" Or even "what evidence do you have to show that video games cause sexism?"

Those groups are trying to be gatekeepers as well, but they rely on other gatekeepers to help them. Take out the linchpin and other groups have to adapt or die.

And the loss of power may be too great a negative for any such group.

More Atheism+ stuff

Now that I think about it, I was a little wishy-washy when it comes to whether I would call myself a follower of Atheism+ and joining the movement.

I think that I would be something of a "fellow traveller" at the moment because the ideals that were laid out are ones that I either agree with or can agree with, but that is because the moderate movement hold broad, generalised views.

What concerns me the most about Atheism+ is that it's a product that will be heavily influenced by FreethoughtBlogs. And that concerns me. FtB has shown itself to be rather dogmatic when it comes to certain social issues.

For example, look at what happened with thunderf00t. He was invited to join FtB, and when he did he - to quote PZ Myers - "wrote during the short week he was here was incoherent, unprofessional rages against feminism and the whole network he was on".

(By the way, it seems at the time I write this you can still access his now defunct blog on the network.)

I don't know whether they see it like that but thunderf00t being kicked off of FtB was seen by those outside of the network as a silencing of dissent. Rather ironic when you consider the whole network was apparently founded because of censorship on the part of National Geographic who bought out the ScienceBlogs network. Although whether that reason reflects reality remains to be seen.

While I knew most of the big name bloggers there were pro-Watson during Elevatorgate, up until that point I had never really expected to see dissent, no matter how badly written, from a position to be censored on a website that was apparently founded on anti-censorship.

My last post on Atheism+ worked on the assumption that the moderate branch of the organisation would not create an orthodoxy. The problem is that Atheism+ will be formed mainly from regular readers/commenters on FtB. And considering that they are from a site that has an underlying set of unquestionable beliefs there is a very real possibility that Atheism+ will also adopt a party line that one is required to follow.

Looking at the comments on this post by Greta Christina you can see noelplum99 having his positions misrepresented by others. The word "privilege" is used a few times. If you don't want to read the comment thread, you can watch this video by BigLundi

who goes through the thread for you.

Looking at some of the threads from the A+ forums (yes, they have forums now) some of the comments already seem to show an insular view, this is despite the fact that nobody actually knows what the more detailed position is for the more moderate movement on the broad topics I mentioned in my last post.

To quote the poster BillHaines:

An aggressive group would've banned you already. Unorganized is to be expected; we're like three days old here, give us a break. You're either with us or -- why are you here? Inappropriate is in the eye of the beholder -- and as JM put it, "I just want a space where atheists with a shared interest in social justice can actually discuss it and get stuff done. You are free to form your own groups or continue taking part in whatever atheist community will have you. You can even come and civilly take part in our discussions! But we don’t need to tolerate the intolerant within our own space." So...

(Bolding mine)

This is a comment directed at someone making a suggestion about the name. How dare the user Mefune question the validity of the name? The other question is if Mefune had posted this question later on, when the site became more organised, would he have been banned?

This issue on diversity of opinion was brought up by the user surreptitious57 who made the perfectly valid point that as a movement becomes more diverse there are going to be more people who disagree with positions. The fact that a mod (BillHaines) doesn't seem to get that is a little worrying.

But as I said, I'm not going to support a movement when I have no idea what the movement actually stands for.

Atheism+

Talking about Atheism+ seems to be the thing everyone is talking about so I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and talk about it.

In essence it's supposed to be "Atheism with other things", but it's already starting to look like this isn't the case.

I would say that it looks like Jen McCreight's idea is already being co-opted by Richard Carrier, but that appearance is probably a little deceiving. I can understand the idea that it's being co-opted, FreethoughtBlogs seems to have created their own little clique within the atheist community and I think that the idea that we are seeing a co-option arises from that.

If we accept the idea that Atheism+ is supposed to be a "new wave" like the waves of feminism, it would suggest that we are seeing the formation of two groups within Atheism+, the mainstream and the radical. McCreight being the founder of the mainstream and Carrier the embodiment of the radical.

Jen McCreight is basically the founder of this wave, being the one to make the suggestion to start a new wave and doing something about it. The things that McCreight would like this movement to do is outlined in the post Atheism+: It's time to walk the walk. The items listed would be:

To start us off, here are some issues I envision A+ addressing from a secular, skeptical perspective:

• Racism
• Sexism
• Homophobia
• Transphobia
• Ableism
• Classism
• Ageism
• Neurotypicalism
• Animal welfare
• Environmental issues
• Political issues (Health care, crime, drug laws)

What we would see here is  This would definitely become more pronounced for the last three points and may possibly include "Neurotypicalism", but that's because I don't know what exactly the ideal would be there. Especially considering the issue between high- and low- functioning individuals.

But the basic idea here is also education; to try and get people to change their minds and improve things that way. It also strives to be inclusive (Point 6) but holds a firmer line against those who do not fit in with the values in question.

Carrier's "living document" is here. Reading through what he wrote, and also his comments to criticism indicate that he's the more radical one. The original version of that document had the conclusion:

In the meantime, I call everyone now to pick sides (not in comments here, but publicly, via Facebook or other social media): are you with us, or with them; are you now a part of the Atheism+ movement, or are you going to stick with Atheism Less? Then at least we’ll know who to work with. And who to avoid.

Which has since been changed to (as of 30/8/12):

In the meantime, are you an atheist? Do you identify as an atheist? Then I call upon you to pick sides within our movement (not in comments here, but publicly, via Facebook or other social media): are you with us, or with them; are you with the Atheism+ movement, or do you at least cheer and approve it’s values and aims (since you don’t have to label yourself), or are you going to stick with Atheism Less and its sexism and cruelty and irrationality? Then at least we’ll know who to work with. And who to avoid.

Now when you look at it, there is no real difference between the two comments. What we are seeing here is the in-group/out-group bias in play. In a rather ironic twist it's the same bias that has been levelled at FreethoughtBlogs. But good thing everyone else there is pretty supportive of the concept?

It's also poisoning the well, by automatically assuming that people who don't agree with Atheism+ are sexist and cruel. Good thing that Carrier doesn't have a thing for logical fallacies. Unless you happen to read the comments and see that the section "We believe in being reasonable" once read:

Which means anyone who makes a fallacious argument and, when shown that they have, does not admit it, is not one of us, and is to be marginalized and kicked out, as not part of our movement, and not anyone we any longer wish to deal with.

It now reads (as of 30/8/12):

This means, first, that we believe in being logical and rational in forming beliefs and opinions. Which means anyone who makes a fallacious argument on any matter of real importance and, when shown that they have, does not admit it (when given the chance), is probably not one of us, and if they persist in doing that, is definitely not one of us, and is to be marginalized and disowned, as not part of our movement, and not anyone we any longer wish to deal with.

(I'm showing this because changes to the post aren't mentioned)

Just looking at these changes suggest that while Carrier has toned down the rhetoric, probably because of this tweet he still wants to excise those that he doesn't like.

But this reminds me of certain radical feminists, like Gail Dines, or Twisty Faster. Carrier is arguing for control. Carrier's Atheism+ is designed to control people and remove those who refuse to toe the line.

So that's basically it. What we are seeing is two different groups covered by the same organisation. In the end though we're seeing more of Carrier's views being discussed and that is influencing people on their decision to join the group.


I however am not going to claim that I belong to Atheist+ because they're clearly continentalist. Also, I don't think I need to attach a rather strange label to myself. I will be one of those people that supports the same ideals but won't adopt that label.

Updated: More thoughts on the idea.

Norway attacks

Seven dead in a blast in Oslo and there have been shootings at a youth camp on Utøya. There are unconfirmed reports of between 20-25 people dead on the island. As I write, Dagbladet has a picture of people who may be dead.

They were shot by a man dressed as a police officer. And at the moment nobody has an idea about who did it.

All I can say is that my thoughts go out to the victims and their families.

I feel stupid saying that but I've been watching/listening to the live feed from the BBC instead of getting sleep.

Am I a Rape Supporter?

So I finally decided to watch one of The Amazing Atheist's (TJ from now on) "Hate Week" videos. Mainly because the title "A Feminist" intrigued me for being so specific instead of the blanket terms like "Idealism" or "Individualists".

So I watched it. And being naturally skeptical of the source material he was referring to, since I couldn't find a link for it on the Youtube video, googled one of the phrases to find the source.

What sounded like a rather exaggerated form of "sex-negative" feminism was real. And I'm going to link to it because googling "A Man Is a Rape-Supporter If..." really should be the first Google result instead of wherever it is (I gave up after 4 pages).

So basically "Eve's Daughter" (ED for brevity) of "Eve Bit First" has decided to make a list that women, and men like myself for the purposes of discussion, can use to determine whether a man is a rape-supporter.

So according to this list I am a rape supporter, regardless of my actual beliefs because I've answered yes to a few of the statements. In reality, where the positions people take are not dependent on a list designed to support a presupposed position I don't condone any rape at all, but in this case my actual positions aren't important because that isn't the topic at hand.

Although this list is supposed to determine which men are "rape supporters" the correct answer is 100% of them. This is a view that ED has made in other posts such as this one entitled "Women's Lives Need a Trigger Warning where she wrote:

Dear men:

Die.

No, seriously. This is a rant, and it’s about you, personally. You, personally, are a shit, because statistics indicate there is an almost 100% certainty that you have either committed a rape, or wanted to commit a rape, or knowingly assisted or defended someone who committed a rape, or mocked a woman who was raped. And no, I’m not dropping links to tell you what you should damn well already know.

The comments thread of the post that I am responding to supports this claim where she wrote:

Nor did I state or imply that all men commit rape. I said in a separate post that nearly 100% of men either are rapists, would be, would assist a rapist, or are rape supporters, and most commenters who have critiqued this post have agreed that, yes, nearly all (or “all”) men support rape according to this list.

This is someone who already has a hatred of men. I don't think that anything will change her mind short of probably all men dying from some disease that's caused by a human variant of Wolbachia. But this is the internet, so I can say whatever the hell I want, just like she can say whatever the hell she wants.

With knowledge of this in mind let us move on.

So let us see these points that make a man a rape-supporter.

First we have:

He has ever sexually engaged with any woman while she was underage, drunk, high, physically restrained, unconscious, or subjected to psychological, physical, economic, or emotional coercion.

Overall it is a little broad, but many of these points are valid. Some, like being physically restrained, are dependent on other factors. Misa Akane, the author of the blog, The Last Lemurisian has mentioned that she likes restraints as a kink. I suspect that this opinion wouldn't matter to ED because restraining a woman, even if it's consensual, would still represent the oppression of women which is pretty much what she writes here on an post about BDSM where she suggests that BDSM and rape fantasies are a coping mechanism.

The next point is:

He defends the current legal definition of rape and/or opposes making consent a defense.

Which doesn't make any sense to me. The current legal definition of "rape" for my state may be found here. What part am I supposed to disagree with? It would have been nice to know what ED defines rape as. I've tried to find a definition on her blog, but I haven't come up with anything. Am I supposed to argue for a broader definition or a narrower definition or what? Is ED's definition of rape similar to that of Dworkin who said that all heterosexual sex was rape? ED has stated that she didn't define rape, which really makes this point meaningless.

And then we get the part about consent. Does she mean consent can't be used as a defence ever? Or that I shouldn't prevent people from using consent as a defence?

The next two points are:

He has accused a rape victim of having “buyer’s remorse” or wanting to get money from the man.

He has blamed a woman for “putting herself in a situation” where she “could be” attacked.

Both of these points are ones that fall under the "blame the victim" label. The first point you have to ask does ED believe that all rapes are true? That no woman lies about rape? Here is a story from India where a group of people used rape in order to blackmail a man. Here is a story from the US where the woman blackmailed a man she slept with. As to the latter Girlwriteswhat at Owning Your Shit probably explains this better then I could as does Misa Akane. Ironically I don't really want to actually discuss the second point because the point in question is like a razor-thin wire that is covered in grease. The most I will say is that I don't believe that rape victims should be blamed for what happened to them.

The next points all fall within the sex industry:

He has procured a prostitute.

He characterizes prostitution as a “legitimate” “job” “choice” or defends men who purchase prostitutes.

He has ever revealed he conceives of sex as fundamentally transactional.

He has gone to a strip club.

Of course, as ED clarifies in the comments, this means nothing about the poor exploited sex workers, it's all about the consumers. See as long as we men are evil and dirty we will exploit women regardless of whether they actually want to do that job or not. Yes there are people who are forced into sex work, and the people who do are the scum of the earth, but ED is tarring all prostitutes with the same brush.

In the comments ED also said that this list does not cover sex workers. That's probably because there are sex workers out there who do it because they like sex or they like stripping and they've found ways to get paid to do what they like to do. Ironically she would like SA laws on prostitution because they punish the consumer. You see SA law says that you are allowed to be a prostitute, but the Johns aren't legally allowed to pay you.

And conceiving of sex as fundamentally transactional? Technically that can apply even to fundamentalist Christians who consider sex only for procreation.

He is anti-abortion.

He is pro-”choice” because he believes abortion access will make women more sexually available.

Here is where I will defend ED's words here. This is not a contradictory set of statements. A man can be pro-choice but wouldn't be considered a rape supporter if it wasn't for selfish reasons. However, and this hasn't been clarified, it might also boil down to ED believes that all men believe this, as if men are say, lions, and that this is the real reason we men can be pro-choice.

He frames discussions of pornography in terms of “freedom of speech.”

He watches pornography in which women are depicted.

He watches any pornography in which sexual acts are depicted as a struggle for power or domination, regardless of whether women are present.

The last point means that even gay men can be rape-supporters. But it's not just men who discuss pornography in terms of "freedom of speech". The Australian Sex Party also discusses porn in terms of "freedom of speech".

In an interview with Beat Magazine, porn star and candidate in the 2010 Victorian elections, Angela White said regarding the censorship of one of her movies:

“It was really upsetting because it was actually with one of my best, best girlfriends and we made a video where we did candle wax play,” says White. “We’re talking about two girlfriends - two consenting adults - expressing their sexuality and wanting to play with candle wax but it was censored and not allowed.”

But in the context of this list the banning of one of her movies is probably a good thing because it breaks a few of the items on the list.

Incidentally does "watch[ing] pornography in which women are depicted" mean that I support rape if I watch porn with actual women in it, or with men who are pretending to be women? If it's the former then it's a rather misogynistic statement to make since it's dehumanising women who work in porn. I guess if you are of the opinion that they are dehumanised anyway then why bother humanising them. If it's the latter then it's just weird.

He characterizes the self-sexualizing behavior of some women, such as wearing make-up or high heels, as evidence of women’s desire to “get” a man.

Because women don't want to get a man. In fact they don't seem to have any desires at all. Women apparently don't want sex, instead, as her statements in the comments section clarify, it's that women undergo societal pressure to desire sex. It's as if women are some kind of asexual being.

He tells or laughs at jokes involving women being attacked, sexually “hoodwinked,” or sexually harassed.

Don't laugh at the wrong jokes.

He expresses enjoyment of movies/musicals/TV shows/plays in which women are sexually demeaned or presented as sexual objects

Oh Fuck. I watched Italian television when I was last in Italy and all they do is present women as sex objects. Even in their version of Wheel of Fortune.

And what about watching a movie like I Spit on Your Grave, a movie that's about a women who is gang raped and gets her revenge by killing the perpetrators?

Good thing I don't like plays like The Vagina Monologues what with all the rape in it.

He mocks women who complain about sexual attacks, sexual harassment, street cat-calls, media depictions of women, or other forms of sexual objectification.

♫ One of these things is actually relevant. Everything else is just doesn't belong. Can you tell me which thing is actually relevant by the time I finish my song? ♫

The answer is "sexual attacks". Arguing against that would make you a rape supporter. In some cases for everything else the mocking may be relevant, like a woman complaining that men only pay attention to her looks when she dresses in a way that emphasises her looks more then anything else. But of course three points earlier it was said that women don't actually do that.

He supports sexual “liberation” and claims women would have more sex with (more) men if society did not “inhibit” them.

The reason "liberation" is in commas only makes sense when you read this post. The argument of that post in a nutshell is actually that point in the list.

He states or implies that women who do not want to have sex with men are “inhibited,” “prudes,” “stuck-up,” “man-haters,” or psychologically ill.

But I don't really see how this means he supports rape. I could understand it if it was in a checklist titled say "A man is a douchebag if..."

He argues that certain male behaviors towards women are “cultural” and therefore not legitimate subjects of feminist attention.

Finally, after all the stupid something that is valid. But only when it comes to rape. But I guess when one works on a fucktarded definition of rape that only you know then this statement applies everywhere.

He ever subordinates the interests of women in a given population to the interests of the men in that population, or proceeds in discussions as if the interests of the women are the same as the interests of the men.

So in the first part it's that men should believe that women's issues are more important. So fuck men's health issues like prostate cancer because it only has about the same death rate as breast cancer (same statistical probability in Australia too, 1 in 9). Because such a discussion on its own subordinates the interests of women.

There are times when issues are important enough that discussing them over other issues is in the best interest of society. Prostate cancer is a pretty good example since men are less likely to go to the doctor then women and people know less about it considering that it affects men at the same rate as women.

The latter part is pretty judgemental by assuming that the interests of women is automatically the opposite to that of men.

He promotes religious or philosophical views in which a woman’s physical/psychological/emotional/sexual well-being is subordinated to a man’s.

And how exactly does misogynism = rape? Does it follow that misandrism = rape? What about misanthropy?

He describes female anatomy in terms of penetration, or uses terms referencing the supposed “emptiness” of female anatomy when describing women.

What the fuck is this supposed to mean?

He defends the physical abuse of women on the grounds of “consent.”

Isn't that a contradiction in terms? But then again this list means that there are no possible ways sexual practises that count as not being abusive.

He defends the sexualization or sexual abuse of minor females on the grounds of “consent” or “willingness.”

Right, a contextless statement. I'm really going to be able to discuss this. Is this about consent laws in general? Or "close-of-age" laws? What exactly does this mean?

He promotes the idea that women as a class are happier or more fulfilled if they have children, or that they “should” have children.

He argues that people (or just “men”) have sexual “needs.”

We do? I know some men who don't like children, I know women who don't want to have children. I don't understand where exactly this is coming from. Now I would have thought that such ideas exist simply because as a species we have a desire to breed, unless you are ED who says in the comments:

For your first point, is there any evidence of a “drive” to reproduce in women outside of social pressure? No, obviously not. We can’t separate people from their social conditioning. In the meantime, though, telling women (and men) that they experience innate biological pressures like a “need” to sexually engage with others or an “urge” to reproduce is used to justify (and encourage) sexual objectification and exploitation, as I previously discussed.

ED believes that women don't have any sexual desires, instead it's a product of social conditioning. Just like how people (or men) don't have any sexual needs.

He discusses the “types” of women he finds sexually appealing and/or attempts to demean women by telling them he does not find them sexually appealing.

So it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. This is another one of those statements that mean that even gay men are rape-supporters because they don't find women sexually appealing. Unless you read the comments where you find:

If you’re not “attempting to demean women” by saying you’re not sexually attracted to us, then no, obviously this does not apply.

Apparently this statement only exists because some men make stupid comments on news stories about rape.

But I'm not gay, so I support rape if I find a woman sexually appealing or unappealing for whatever reason. It doesn't matter if it's her body shape or her intellect I support rape because I dare to have preferences in my choice of women.

He sexually objectifies lesbians or lesbian sexual activity.

And your point is? How does this mean that a man supports rape? There is a pretty big disconnect here between this statement and what the premise of the topic is.

And now the last bloody point:

He defends these actions by saying that some women also engage in them.

Because women are just blameless perfect beings that should not be held to the same standards as men.

The hypocrisy is just astounding.

But what conclusions can I draw from this? On it's own this is quite possibly one of the greatest troll pages of all time, but I looked around on this blog to try and understand some of the points that she made, should I consider this to be a Poe? It would be a very elaborate one, but it might be one nonetheless. However I'm inclined to believe that this is genuine. That ED really hates men and also by extension women.

The comments on women not having sexual desires of their own makes me think that she considers women to be immature, child-like even. And that men making these women think that they want sex is akin to a child molester grooming their victim. And in that sense it makes me think that ED considers women to be mentally inferior, that they are easily controlled and conditioned, that they are puppets and that we men are puppetmasters.

But would I call ED a misandrist? No, neither would I call her a misogynist. I would say that she is a misanthrope. She hates men because they perpetuate what she considers the oppression of women, but hates women because they are oppressed, or at least because they act in ways that she does not like. Naturally she apologises for them, but her manner in doing so appears to betray an underlying hatred of her own sex.

But am I a "rape-supporter"? As I said at the start, no. I'm not. But to ED that doesn't matter because I have a penis and therefore I automatically do.

Literally an eye for an eye

It's such a good saying, but it's also one that I get the impression that people don't understand very well. But it might also be that I've come up with my own interpretation of the adage. I always interpreted it as a form of justice with a defined start and end point. So if someone attacks you and cuts off a finger then as a form of justice you get to cut off the finger of the person who attacked you. That's it. No escalation of retribution and the attacker has no right to then cut off one of your fingers since he's already done that. Of course in this day and age we have managed to move beyond such things and have come up with a system of monetary reimbursement and imprisonment instead of actually committing the same crime in the name of justice.

The reason I bring this up is that under Sharia law in Islam such a form of justice exists under the name Qisas. Granted the actual concept is a bit more complex and the teachings of it depends on the school of jurisprudence that it followed in the respective Sharia following country but the underlying premise is the same. Punishments should be proportional to the crime in question.

Discussions on this have started appearing again after Iranian courts suspended the blinding of Majid Movahedi after he threw acid in the face of Ameneh Bahrami back in 2004. In 2008 Bahrami took advantage of this concept during the trial when she suggested that he be blinded so he may see what she is going through.

Personally I'm a little conflicted. I clearly understand the arguments made when people say that it's a cruel punishment because it is cruel, but I don't really see why that means that this punishment is necessarily wrong.

This article on iranian.com suggests that Bahrami is unable to empathise with Movahedi by asking for this punishment. The fact of the matter is that I can't really empathise with him either.

This is a man who couldn't take "no" for an answer and did this simply because he was hoping that the attack would end pretty much the same way it did for Burt Pugach. Pugach hired three men to attack Linda Riss, a woman he'd had an affair with, by throwing lye in her face simply because she had gotten engaged to another man. In the end Pugach ended up marrying Riss.

Movahedi had decided that Bahrami was going to marry him no matter what. When he threw the acid on her face he didn't care about her. In the end he left a woman disfigured and in the end blind after surgery to save the sight in her one remaining eye failed due to an infection.

This man has utterly ruined her life. I'm sorry but I can't empathise with such a person. I've tried but I really can't. The only thing is that I empathise with him losing his sight and becoming unable to continue to experience the world as he knows it. I think that but then I remember that he made that decision for another person.

There are two other points that I would like to make. The first is a comment that you can find on other websites which is:

“His mother phoned my parents. She asked for mercy,” said Bahrami in an interview.

“She said that Majid would always work for me if he could keep his eyes. But now it’s too late,” she said.

The thing was that this was the plan Movahedi had. She would be defenceless and he would sweep in and take care of her for the rest of her life. In other words rewarding him for his behaviour. The mother might as well have offered some sort of "rehabilitating marriage" to make the comparison with my next paragraph more blatant.

It would be the same kind of "punishment" that Filippo Melodia was hoping for when he kidnapped and raped Franca Viola in Italy in the 60's. Melodia had tried to court Viola and had failed to.Instead of going to prison he would undergo a "rehabilitating marriage" a practise designed to protect the "honour" of the raped girl (it also automatically extinguished the rape charge for the man, so no ulterior motives there...). Viola refused and Melodia went to jail for 11 years.

Both Melodia and Movahedi committed their crimes for a reason. They wanted to get the girl no matter the cost. Melodia spent 11 years in prison for his crimes. Movahedi will lose his eyes.

The end of this Time article probably makes the most sense of this issue. By blinding Movahedi all that will happen is that he will be an additional drain on the system. But prison for any amount of time would be the same. Money that could be spent on whatever social welfare there is in Iran would either go to support a prisoner or a blind man. Odds are the blind man would get more social support.

The second point is one of forgiveness. There are people out there who think that she should forgive him and not go through with revenge. However forgiveness is a conclusion. There are many factors that lead to the resolution of an event like this. Getting justice would be something that is on the road to forgiving. Who knows, she may feel sorry that she asked for this punishment later on in the future, but at present all Bahrami has at the moment is that her attacker has not been given his punishment, and she is probably feeling that she has lost her life in the process. People are expecting much from a woman they don't know when the chances are if they were in the same position they would make the same decision that she did.

The point is that forgiveness is not something that you do willy-nilly. It has meaning and purpose and is not really something that is given lightly.

I think that it is possible in time Bahrami will come to forgive her attacker, but the important part of that statement is "in time".

Juliar Gillard?

So Labor decided to implement a carbon tax. Oh no the world is going to end. Yep, soon we'll see our mining industry sent overseas because it'll be cheaper to mine Australian uranium in China or something.

So of course our leader is now being called "Juliar Gillard" by some people. Stupid people.

To call her that shows such an ignorance of pretty much everything to do with politics at all. Maybe the tax is a stupid idea, maybe it isn't, but in this sense it's beside the point.

The whole "Gillard is a liar" thing is the stupid bit.

It's clear that the whole carbon tax thing is a concession to the Greens. And the reason has nothing to do with saving the Earth, or at least appearing to. It's simply political. By saying that they are going to introduce a carbon tax it ensures that the Greens will support Labor, and that support is actually pretty crucial.

In July the new Senate will convene and the balance of power will change from Xenophon and Family First to the Greens. For Labor to pass legislation they would have to deal with other parties, and the Greens are the logical choice.

So of course Gillard had to come up with some sort of incentive to get them to side with her and proposed this carbon tax. By the looks of it the Greens are happy and Gillard will have an easier time running the country.

I think people must forget that we have a hung parliament and a Senate that can be potentially hostile when they go about calling Gillard "Juliar". A situation like this is one where you need to do quite a bit of politicking to get things done. Would these same people be complaining if Abbott had won and declared that the Liberal government would be implementing such a tax?

Would these people be saying that it's fine politicking from the Liberals or would they be just as vitriolic?

Andrew Bolt, Muslims and Australia

I don't read too much of The Advertiser when I'm not at Uni. At Uni I can get the paper for free, so I get it. The Internet has allowed me to get my news from sources like the BBC and the ABC (the Australian one obviously). If I go shopping I'll usually pick up a copy if there are any available, since sometimes it's good to get some idea of what is going on in the state.

Anyway, I seem to have missed something very interesting. It seems that there has been some debate about multiculturalism since David Cameron made his speech saying that it had failed and some people read an article by Andrew Bolt. I'm assuming that the Bolt article is this one.

Of course Andrew Bolt being Andrew Bolt has of course managed to tie this to Muslims because, well I don't really know, they... do... different things? It really is more a rant against Sheik al-Hilali and Muslims in general then actually discussing "multiculturalism".

The only real comment I want to make about the article is that "they teach funny sounds that aren't English" is not a reason to be angry at a group. Seriously, it isn't. Maybe Bolt is happy to live in a monolingual world but other people aren't. It doesn't mean that they're going to not speak English.

I honestly find this really ironic that The Advertiser decided to publish this. Islam has a pretty long history in South Australia. The camel drivers that were brought to Australia in the 1860's were Muslims. They transported goods through the outback to the various towns there and were vital to the development of the region. Of course they needed places of worship and built mosques. The first mosque was built in Maree around that time and the oldest mosque in a major city was built in Adelaide in 1888.

There have been Muslims in this state for about 150 years and clearly they've utterly ruined it. Oh wait, they haven't. They've been here living their lives peacefully and helping to build the country and there wasn't a problem.

Then we see everything change and all of a sudden they're a bunch of people who refuse to integrate at all, won't learn our language and want to destroy our way of life. That's not the case at all. History has shown us that it's quite the opposite.

I missed Monday's letters in the paper. I'm glad, however, that I got to read yesterday's. At least enough people who had their letters published showed that we aren't all morons.

More Wikileaks

So this Wikileaks stuff is still going, and there are two things that I would like to mention.

The first is that Kevin Rudd, the current Minister for Foreign Affairs and former PM has gone on record stating that Assange shouldn't be blamed for the leaks.

And former PM John Howard has also stated something similar.

It's good to see that two people who probably won't have the most flattering things said about them (Rudd is a control freak - US Embassy, Canberra) and Rudd has said that he is providing consular support. It's good to hear that our country is actually doing something.

The other thing is this "insurance.aes256" file that Wikileaks uploaded about a year ago. Since Assange's arrest people have been speculating on what will happen to this file.

So I'm going to jump on the rampant speculation bandwagon.

I think the file contains one of three possibilities:

1. Nothing
2. Uncensored documents
3. Stuff that's really important for various countries

Personally I'm leaning towards #3. Wikileaks has most likely managed to get their hands on some pretty interesting documents that they haven't released for whatever reason (right now I'm guessing insurance) which could be really damaging. Perhaps it's a bunch of "plans to deal with Wikileaks" from various countries, who knows.

The reason I think #3 is that these would be documents that are potentially damaging now, but, when they become irrelevant could simply be released later on.

#1 is more of a jerk move. It might not be nothing, it could just be a text document that says "thanks for downloading this for us". And #2 depends on the nature of the uncensored documents.

I guess we'll just have to be patient and find out when they release the password.

Mr. Squiggle Dies

Norman Hetherington, the man behind Mr. Squiggle died yesterday aged 89. Mr. Squiggle was Australia's longest running children's show.

I loved watching that show as a kid. For those who don't know Mr. Squiggle was the man from the moon, who came and visited us in his pet rocket named Rocket and would draw these pictures from canvasses with squiggles and lines and dots. When he finished it was up to Rebecca, who was basically the token human, to orientate the picture correctly so we knew what it was.

As to the title, Norman Hetherington was Mr. Squiggle. As well as creating the show he drew the pictures and gave Mr. Squiggle his voice. To pretty much every Australian who watched the show as kids he was Mr. Squiggle.

Assange and Australia

Well the debate over Wikileaks does not look like it will die down any time soon. The one thing that I've noticed is that "cablegate" (God I hate that '-gate' suffix) seems to have angered people in some way that makes little sense to me.

For some reason posting all of those Iraq war documents was ok for some reason but leaking diplomatic cables? He should be executed. I've noticed that on the JREF as well and it seems to defy logic. Then again logic seems to go out the window when thousands of diplomatic cables are leaked to the world.

But that brings me to the point of this post. The ABC reported that Assange believes that Australia has abandoned him. Or as he put it on the Guardian Q&A with him:

I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian citizen - does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated like David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties.

Although the possibility exists that Assange may have broken Australian law when it comes to leaking some documents (the ACMA blacklist comes to mind), I don't see how leaking US diplomatic cables are a violation of US law.

What disturbs me more is that we have foreign politicians calling for Assange to be executed/assassinated and we have not heard a single thing from the Government. No "don't assassinate our citizens" or anything like that. Basically the Government have thrown Assange to the wolves.

It is here where I can see the parallels to David Hicks. While countries like the UK and France were getting their citizens out of Guantanamo Bay the Australian Government did nothing for David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib were left to rot in that prison because the Government at the time had more important people to worry about like Schapelle Corby or Bali 9 or Van Tuong Nguyen.

The impression at the time was that the Australian Government cares more about drug traffickers then people accused of being terrorists. Now it seems the Government prefers to look the other way when politicians and pundits from other countries are calling for the death of one of their own citizens.

It does make you question whether there is any point in being able to claim that you're an Australian.

Republicans

I'm starting to think that the republican movement is full of idiots. Why exactly would you bother holding a plebiscite on a republic around the same time as a royal wedding?

How the hell could anyone think that this is logical?

In a way I'm pretty happy that they are that stupid because I do lean towards the monarchist side of the debate, but honestly.

What I do think is stupid is this whole "plebiscite" business. Quite frankly I don't think it means anything if 80% of the people wanted a republic or only 50.1%, until the republicans figure out a model of government that will appease a majority of people in the majority of states holding plebiscites would be pointless, especially during a time when more people are going to support a monarchy then support a republic.

Hung Parliament

At the moment that is what Australia might be facing. The ABC is tipping that Labor will have 72 seats and the Coalition (Liberal party, National party, and the Liberal National party) will have 73.

The Greens managed to win Melbourne and there will be four independents, from Denison (Tasmania), New England, Lyne (both NSW) and Kennedy (QLD).

These are the people that the major parties will have to woo to be able to make a government. It would be interesting to see what the Liberals will do given that the latter three MPs are all former National party members who left for differing reasons. In my opinion Labor have the easier job forming a government and actually running it.

The Senate results have made it clear that the Greens will be running the show this time, and they are more likely to support Labor's policies then the Liberals and I'm sure that Abbott knows it.

But the count isn't over yet and some cases the count is close.

Boothby, my electorate, has a difference of about 1000 votes with only 77% of the vote counted. The possibility that Labor will take this seat is still very real. If the State election is anything to go by it will take about a week to find out who wins.

SA itself had a pretty big swing towards the Greens, and because of people who filled out the how to vote cards, gave many preferences to Labor as well. The most common trend was that people weren't voting for Labor.

Neither leader has conceded defeat but I would like to point out something that Tony Abbott said. He said that this election was a "referendum on the political execution of a prime minister". He might be right but this election was telling in another way. Abbott didn't win. This very fact tells us that although the people might not like what happened to Rudd they don't trust Abbott. I suspect that this was the reason that people voted for the Greens in the Senate.

There are three other things that I might as well point out. First the Australian Sex Party, although they failed to win any seats, had a pretty good turnout for their first time with 1.99% of the national primary vote. They polled worst in SA with 1.66% of the vote, and best in NT with 4.43% of the vote. In NSW, QLD and Victoria they managed to get about 2% of the vote.

Secondly, at present, Family First have failed to win any seats in the Senate this election. However uncounted ballots in SA may change this. The ABC results page for the SA senate election has had the Liberals and Family First flip-flopping between them getting the last seat.

Lastly it's the end of an era of sorts. Wilson Tuckey, a man known for his comments ranging from somewhat silly to inane, has lost his seat of O'Connor losing to Nationals candidate Tony Crook.

Based on what happened in the state election earlier this year I think it will be about a week before we figure out if we really do have a hung parliament and how many Independents/Greens the parties will have to convince to join them.

Psychic finds body

Just not the body that she was looking for.

The psychic was trying to find 6 year old Kiesha Abrahams who has been missing since July 31. But on Sunday the police called off the search and are assuming the worst.

So this woman, who hasn't been named, got a feeling that there was a body at Nurragingy Reserve.

The Herald Sun reported:

Detective Chief Inspector Pamela Young from the State Crime Command Homicide Squad said the woman who found the remains was from the local area and had been trying to locate schoolgirl Kiesha, who vanished from her Mount Druitt home 11 days ago.

However the torso was that of an adult woman, believed to be Kristi McDougall, and not Kiesha.

So basically it looks like the woman just happened to be "lucky" and found a body. But when it comes to "psychic detectives" it doesn't count as a "hit".

If it turns out to be Kristi McDougall then hopefully the Police can bring her killer (or killers) to justice, and if not then I do hope they find out who it is. When you think of it that way then it doesn't really matter what the motivations of the finder were, a family will get closure.

Sunrise Political Debate

I never expected to see those three words in the same sentence. For foreigners who happen to read this Sunrise is one of those breakfast shows, I usually have that playing in the morning because David Koch's voice keeps me up. Anyway, they pointed out that many people didn't know who they were voting for and had their own little "debate" between Wendy Francis from Family First and Fiona Patten from the Australian Sex Party.

This was the debate:



Now they covered a few issues from each party. They discussed Family First's idea for "G-rated" billboards. The Sex Party's idea for ending the tax exempt status for religion (that's all religion not just certain religions) and they also discussed each sides opinions on the proposed internet filter and gay marriage.

Essentially they pretty much disagreed on everything, but they both agreed on a Royal Commission that looks at sex abuse in all areas, even the sex industry, something that the Sex Party were happy to mention in a press release. However Patten (the leader of the ASP) suggested a commission looking just at religion.

On gay marriage Francis' argument was basically "the Marriage Act states this so that's the way it should be", and stated that marriage was very important to Australia.

The outdoor advertising thing was the more enlightening thing. Essentially Francis came across as saying "I want this because I don't want to have to explain, to my young children, what certain words mean."

Although she did say that "Australian Sex Party" would be ok on a billboard, it doesn't mesh with her intent. The little kid is still going to ask "mummy, what's sex?" regardless of whether it's from an ad for the ASP or one of those ghastly "want longer lasting sex?" billboards (their solution? A nasal spray).

There is very little to say on the internet filter. That was probably the weakest point from Patten, probably because she got some of the information wrong. One of the criticisms of the leaked blacklist (some of which I wrote about here and here) was that as well as blocking sites that had things like child porn, it was also blocking legal adult content and websites on other legal content. Patten came across as saying that the blacklist didn't have any illegal content on it at all.

Overall though I would have to say that the winner was the Sex Party. Although Francis would disagree though. Apparently there was a phone poll that said that Family First won.

I know that some people think that Family First won. I personally have trouble seeing it. Francis made a big song and dance about the ASP being a lobby group for what can best be described as "Big Porno". She also seemed to think that ending tax exempt status for religions would affect charities like Lifeline or the Salvation Army even though nobody has said that they would be affected.

I also don't think that it's ok for a cathedral to spend millions on a tower when there are homeless nearby because the Salvo's feed them.

Also, I know quite a few people who do not consider being homosexual a "lifestyle choice".

I'm not alone when it comes to saying who won. On Youtube here or here most of the commenters said that the ASP won. Same goes with the people on Crikey and even on Channel 7's thread asking about the winner.

To finish there are two other things I would like to point out. First is this from Catherine Deveny and I suggest you read the comment from James L in this SMH article .

Family First's preference deals

It doesn't really matter that they approached everyone (so I'm assuming One Nation as well) but Family First approached the Australian Sex Party for a preference deal.

Now these are the policies of the ASP. They want things like comprehensive sex ed in schools, same-sex marriage, protection for sex workers, ending tax exempt status for religions, you know, all the stuff that Family First stand for.

In some sort of parallel dimension.

But naturally Family First are trying to distance themselves from such a monumentally stupid decision:

Family First federal chairman Bob Day said no preference offer was made and that raising the issue was part of a Sex Party campaign to discredit Family First.

Yep because when you do something that stupid it must be because your opponents want to discredit you. That must be it.

The ABC article gives the "official" reason as to why Family First contacted the ASP:

It said Family First was keen to know where the Sex Party was directing its preferences so it would not inadvertently favour the Sex Party.

You know how you don't inadvertently favour the party? By doing what the ASP are doing and give them the lowest preference possible. But I suppose that didn't dawn on them because we all know that One Nation are the party you give the lowest preferences to.

Attorney-General's Department sure likes black highlighters

The Sydney Morning Herald managed to get their hands on a report that says the government pretty much wants ISPs to record all our browsing history.

Unfortunately it seems that Claudia Hernandez, the department's legal officer and person who handles FoI requests, tried to be helpful and highlighted all the important bits for the SMH. Too bad the highlighter was black, and the important parts is apparently 90% of the document.

Now unlike the CIA who've only just realised that they were using them accidentally, the government did this deliberately.

The Document

The document can be found here.

The proposal page is very enlightening:

Mandatory Data Retention Proposal

Telecommunications data is information about a communication, but does not include the content of the communication. Examples include subscriber information and call charge records.

[10 censored paragraphs follow]

That's the entire proposal that we're allowed to know. The contents of the document has a background a section A that discusses... something, and a section B that discusses something else, but Hernandez was kind enough to tell us that B.2 is "defintions" and B.3. is "Illustrative data". And C. is "Industry Feedback".

Of the background section, the "What is telecommunications data?" section is mostly unscathed, but it has the sentence:

This includes information about the identity of the sending and receiving parties ('A and B parties'), when a communication started and stopped, and the type of communication [censored]

The next section is "How important is telecommunications data?". The answer, apparently, is very. Of 5 paragraphs, one is uncensored, and is basically "The UK found that such a policy was helpful when it comes to solving crime".

Then we get four pages of what looks like a contents of some sort, but it's completely censored. Then four pages of a table, at least we know that the numbers are some sort of "Requirement", but what they are means nothing.

Most of the definitions get off unscathed, however the definition for Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS) has the last line censored, so I know that it is aggregating information into a core network of some sort.

All the illustrative data (it's another table) is censored.

The "feedback" is not actually any feedback, it's a request for feedback. They are asking ISPs to consider 8 questions, of which we're only allowed to know 5.

So basically you can learn nothing from this document.

The Reasons

But the SMH didn't stop there. They've also given us the reasons from the AG department.

Under "Decision" Hernandez wrote:

3. You will see, however, that I have made some deletions to the documents. ...

Which is, quite clearly, an understatement. It wasn't "some deletions", most of the document is censored. There are two pages that don't have black highlighter. The "Information Sheet" page, and the title page.

Then there is, in paragraph 11 under "Reasons for Decision":

Further, subsection 36(1)(b) [of the Freedom of Information Act] requires that it also be shown that disclosure would be contrary to the public interest. I have considered the particular circumstances of the request and those factors which are specific to the facts at hand. Although I acknowledge the public's right to participate in and influence the processes of government decision making and policy formulation, given the early stage of this consultation, the premature release of the proposal could, more then likely, create a confusing and misleading impression. In addition, as the matters are not settled and proposed recommendations may not necessarily be adopted, release of such documents would not make a valuable contribution to public debate. Rather, I consider that release of such documents may lead to premature unnecessary debate and could potentially prejudice and impede government decision making

Yep. The premature release of the proposal could create a confusing and misleading impression. Clearly the answer to that problem is not any form of transparency at all but instead it's to get out the black highlighter.

And why? Because it might lead to "unnecessary debate". This is not an unnecessary debate. The government is potentially suggesting, and Electronic Frontiers Australia put it best, that "if it's logged (or could be logged), the A-G wants it saved."

Frankly I find it more insulting that they even bothered to give the SMH something. If you're going to censor most of the document you might as well not release it at all.

The Greens are annoyed and will probably look into this during their Senate inquiry. Maybe they'll get a more transparent version if the document. They might know what the other two questions in the "feedback" section are and also the four completely censored definitions.

Perhaps they'll be kind enough to tell us what they are.

#stupidscientology or yes, not logic

I'd like to join in the twitter thing using that tag, but I don't have an account and I can't be bothered making one. If you have one I suggest that you tweet using that tag.

John Dixon a councillor in Cardiff (that's in Wales in case you don't know) made the following tweet when he was in London:

“I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.”

Naturally CoS decided to complain. Ok, maybe they have the right to, but seriously. Would you really complain about that? Would you?

Now I knew that CoS was thin skinned. Clearly I didn't know how thin it was.

The article I linked to above states the CoS claimed that the comments "impinged on the right to religious freedom". I'd like to see their reasoning for that, especially considering that Scientology isn't a religion in the UK.

Reading the Google update page for #stupidscientology a few people have pointed out that an anagram for Scientology is "Yes, not logic". That probably explains the reasons for this complaint.

Don't understand the science therefore religion

Since my last post on the Australian Vaccination Network I've been reading various posts from the AVN site.

I found a post there called "When 'Science' Becomes Your Religion". The title of this post is the summary for the AVN one.

It's a very standard anti-science post by Meryl Dorey (the head of the AVN) who doesn't actually understand the science behind the thing that they don't like. In this case it's vaccination.

Of course the post opens with pretty standard "I like science", "the scientific method is great" sort of statements and then goes downhill pretty quickly.

It all starts here:

This is why, when I first started to look into the vaccination issue after my first son’s reaction over 20 years ago now, the thing that took me so much by surprise was how little science actually went into the development of this medical procedure which we have been ‘worshiping’ for over 200 years.

Yep. Very little science went into the development of vaccination. It just popped out of nowhere, no observations, no testing, nothing. It's not like Edward Jenner (who is, by the way, mentioned in the AVN post) followed the scientific method of the time to come up with his vaccine.

And it's not as if we've stopped testing vaccines. It's no secret that sometimes vaccines don't work, or people have a reaction to them, and because of this we have to keep on coming up with safer vaccines for diseases. Take smallpox, the earliest known instance of vaccination for this disease was in China in the 1500's, the method had at worst a 2% mortality rate. The Jenner's vaccine had a rate of about one in a million. If we are to make the vaccines available for more people we are going to have to work on them.

But I don't think that matters to her, since it was her child who happened to have a problem with the vaccine, so therefore she's going to spread "information" that might kill more children. James Cherry in the 1999 paper Pertussis in the Preantibiotic and Prevaccine Era, with Emphasis on Adult Pertussis wrote that between 1922 to 1931 in the US there were about 1.5 million cases of which 73 000 people died. About 4% of people died of the disease before the vaccination. Another examination from 1983-1992, well after a vaccine was introduced, had 34 325 cases with only 56 deaths. That's only 0.1% of cases.

You may consider the ancient Chinese method to have an unacceptably high mortality rate, but remember that smallpox typically would kill up to 40% of people who contracted the disease.

I know what I'm writing sounds cruel, but this is one of the cases where people have to accept that no matter what you do there will be people who will die or be injured from either the disease or the vaccine, but that it's also our job to make sure that as many people aren't injured or killed from either.

Discouraging people from vaccinating themselves or their children does not protect anyone. I said before that the smallpox vaccine of Jenner's time had a mortality rate of one in a million. If you didn't vaccinate anyone you would have saved one person, but chances are 350 000 people would have died if those one million people all caught smallpox.

The post moves on to discuss the scientific method. That's what I would be saying if Dorey actually understood what a "theory" was and how that relates to the scientific method. Like a creationist Dorey seems to think that a theory is something closer to a hypothesis:

Now theories, as you can imagine, are not proven. They are a way of explaining why something behaves the way it does. They are AN explanation – but not necessarily the ONLY explanation.

This statement completely ignores the fact that theories come about through repeated testing, verification by many different scientists with plenty of evidence supporting it. Until shown otherwise, for all intents and purposes, it is the only explanation.

But apparently the science behind vaccination was disproved when Merrill Chase discovered that the body also used white blood cells to protect the body. She mentiones this obituary which says that he revolutionised immunology, not overturned it.

However in talking about this we do get the following:

We have known since the 1940s that, though antibodies are part of the immune system, their existence in the bloodstream does not indicate immunity. Instead, it indicates exposure.

(My bold)

Well duhhh... That's how most of the immune system works, exposure to infection etc. causes antibodies to be produced to fight it (although apparently there are some antibodies that appear without any exposure). Funnily enough she mentioned that two paragraphs beforehand. But because it isn't just antibodies alone that confer immunity it means that all the science is wrong.

She then uses the paper Measles outbreak in a fully immunized secondary-school population to say that immunised people can get sick. Although the abstract says that was the case, it also said that the seropositive (those that expressed the antibodies) students didn't get measles, but 14 of 74 seronegative did, even though they had been immunised. In other words if you aren't expressing the antibodies odds are you're more likely to get measles.

How this disproves any theories involving vaccination confuses me. From the comments Dorey made to a commenter who said the exact same thing it sounds like it doesn't work because some people got measles, even though the people who had antibodies didn't get the disease. And also because the herd immunity doesn't do what she thinks it does.

She talks of money, and apparently that all of Western medicine relies on vaccination to work or something and various other conspiratorial nonsense.

She then attacks those who oppose her. Yep, Skeptics are evil and if science was a religion they would be the Jesuits (I wonder why people always choose Catholics as a comparison? It's probably because their actions are better known...). Apparently:

Like the Jesuits, the Skeptics look down on those who don’t worship science in the same way they do as barbarians and somehow less than human. Perhaps it is this attitude to others – as lesser beings – that enables them to act in the cold, calculating and often immoral way they do?

Yep, it's not that her straw-skeptics (or sceptics if you prefer, although personally I prefer "skeptic") don't like her for the "information" that she peddles, it's because she doesn't worship science. Clearly the latter is the correct reason. In a way though she does explain what skepticism is:

Scepticism involves having a reasoning mind, questioning everything, never taking facts at face value and treating accepted wisdom with distrust until being shown the proof to your own satisfaction.

It might not be the best definition, but compared to some definitions I've seen from creationists, conspiracy theorists, and their ilk, it's quite good. But I don't suspect she applies this to herself. Her straw-skeptics apparently want to stop others from being skeptical, and also send her mean emails.

She then makes a list, which starts with the HCCC complaint. Apparently the complaint from the McCaffery's upset her. She also writes:

Dana’s parents have charged me with harassing them. They also said that I had invaded their privacy, perhaps because when their daughter’s death was reported in the newspaper, I rang the public health unit to ask if there had been a laboratory diagnosis of whooping cough.

Well of course. It's all just a big mistake. Let's just ignore the fact that she rang the health unit the day before Dana's funeral and that she stated that their daughter "supposedly" died from pertussis (see this Lateline transcript). I'm sure the family just overreacted to being asked to hand over their recently deceased daughter's medical records to a complete stranger.

I like point 3:

3. A group was set up on Facebook and Twitter called Stop the AVN. Though our organisation is acting within the law, these skeptics feel that they have the right to use any and every means within their power to shut us down. The implications of such an effort are shocking and one has to wonder why there apparently is no legal recourse when such anti-competitive, anti-democratic actions are taken?

How dare a group of people take advantage of their right to protest to create a group that opposes what the AVN does. It's not anti-competitive, and it's not anti-democratic. What I think is more anti-democratic is the AVN's opinion that nobody should be allowed to protest them.

Points 4 and 7 are also related to protest. 4 is that "they" (no evidence as to who) rang her advertisers and asked them not to advertise. 7 is that "they" (again) contacted places where she was/is to speak asking them to cancel.

I may as well point out that points 2, 5, 8, 9 and part of point 4 are unsourced. Perhaps I'm being too much of a skeptic to not blindly accept these points on faith alone.

Point 10, however, merits some discussion:

10. The McCafferys contacted the ABC to complain about a program I was on regarding the current whooping cough epidemic. Even though I quoted the government’s own statistics and had the information I was discussing peer-reviewed by a doctor who works as a reviewer for such prestigious publications are the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine, the ABC made a finding that the information was not correct. They didn’t say that my statements were incorrect but that the interviewer had mixed up the years we were talking about, quoting 2001 instead of 1991. The McCafferys have taken this information and used it in many public places to state that I had provided the ABC with incorrect information – a statement that is verifiably untrue.

And the McCafferys have every right to do so. If they believe that something breaches the ABC Codes of Practice they can complain about it. I don't know what the show was, so I can only guess as to which codes they base their complaint on. By the sounds of it the ABC found that they had breached either code 3.2, 4.4 or 5.3, which has to do with accurate content.

Frankly I'm starting to get a little scared at how anti-speech the AVN seems to be. It looks like they should be allowed to say whatever they want, but if someone does something they're being oppressed by the man.

She then asks us whether the skeptics are defending science. Unsurprisingly the answer is no:

All of this is supposed to be a way of defending science. But the thing is, science does not need defenders – if science is true and evidence-based – it can easily defend itself.

The science of the skeptics needs defending however because it is not true science – it is a faith-based conglomeration of twisted facts, lies and anger which form an evil perversion of the study of life and the world around us.

Yep. Apparently you don't need people to defend science, because apparently true science is so perfect that there is not a single way that you can interpret information differently. It's funny to read the second paragraph, since it's typically projection onto opponents.

She then spins the criticism as a sign that they are being successful, and the reason is apparently because people want to stop them from ensuring "free and informed vaccination choice".

We then get a list of stuff that is, again, unsourced. Is Gardasil the most dangerous vaccine ever produced? Did parents really let their kids be used for clinical trials without knowing? I don't know, it looks like I'm supposed to just accept it.

At least Dorey accepts that her organisation is dangerous but not for the reason she thinks. The actual reason is that by fearmongering and spreading misinformation that vaccines will injure your children and don't work it will cause far more people to get dangerous diseases that are more likely to kill them then the vaccine. In 2004 the Muslim states in Nigeria banned the polio vaccine because they claimed that Americans wanted to make them infertile or that they would spread AIDS. What happened was that more children contracted polio and were either crippled or died from the disease. The very reason that there are people here in Australia who want such an outcome for our country are the reason why AVN is dangerous.

Dorey believes the reason she is dangerous is:

If you are a scientific Jesuit; if you have based your career and your income on maintaining the status quo in regards to Western Medicine; if you will benefit from the sale of drugs and vaccines, the AVN is a very dangerous organisation indeed.

That's right, she thinks it's because of money. She may not believe that the Queen is a reptilian or that the Illuminati caused all disease, but she does believe in Big Pharma conspiracies.

She argues that she's there to make sure that people are fully informed. I don't think that's the case. She wants to stop people from being vaccinated by exploiting the fear that parents have when it comes to their children. But does she care that she may be causing far more harm then she thinks?

That is the question.