Elsewhere (263)

Also from the Andy Ngo article:

The discussion was followed by a Q&A. A PSU alumna from the women’s studies department complained that the stage-to-audience dynamic presented an intimidating power imbalance. “You guys are high [up]. You have microphones. We don’t,” she said. “This is perpetuating the status quo in the hierarchy.” [Philosophy professor, Peter] Boghossian invited her to join him at his next (stage-less) panel on intersectionality the following Monday. She didn’t come.

You’re shocked, I know.

Grudge.
There is, I think, a whiff of bad faith.

“Grammar is a hideous function of white supremacy”
https://twitter.com/TheSafestSpace/status/967383549740552192

Racism detected, outrage ensues.

From the Ngo article:
Helen Pluckrose recalled what one of the police officers had told her: “So why are you so radical and extreme and dangerous that I have to escort you off campus? You seemed very reasonable to me.” She still doesn’t have an answer. (Emphasis supplied.)
So, expressing what until a decade or so ago was (and continues to be among the majority of us) obvious truths is now “radical,” “dangerous” and “extreme.” It would be amusing were the contagion not working its way through the populace like a zombie virus.

“So why are you so radical and extreme and dangerous that I have to escort you off campus? You seemed very reasonable to me.”
It reminds me of one of my early defining experiences as a blogger. During a conversation with a left-leaning commenter who’s spent far too much of his adult life on campuses, I was told that the long, fairly civil discussion we were having, on statistical gender differences in aptitude and interest, would be difficult to have on a modern campus, practically taboo.
I can’t say things have improved in the ten years since.

I was told that the long, fairly civil discussion we were having, on statistical gender differences in aptitude and interest, would be difficult to have on a modern campus, practically taboo.
That’s the first thread I ever read here.
*feels old*

It reminds me of one of my early defining experiences as a blogger.
In rereading that thread, what’s striking is Dawg’s seemingly deliberate misstatement of the issue. That is, the observation that there is a statistically demonstrable spectrum of interests and abilities among individuals within certain demographics is the equivalent of saying all individuals within a given demographic are exactly alike. Obviously, no one made that assertion, yet Dawg persistently argued against it.
Ten years ago, I would have dismissed his/her effort as intellectual laziness or deficiency. Now, it’s becoming clear that such behavior is the result of malevolent intent.

In rereading that thread, what’s striking is…
What’s striking to me is how odd it is to re-read your own comments from 10 bloody year ago. As I poked about, I kept thinking, “Bugger, I should have said this, or not said that, or said this other thing in a less cack-handed fashion.”
Still, training wheels.

There is a blinding flash of the obvious, that whole DNA thing is pesky.
Farnsworth, you hater.
Yes, a common request by cisheteromen reported by plastic surgeons is, “make my ass bigger, please.”
Well, it’s obvious you’re just jealous, because no one has gazed upon you and exclaimed, “‘Dat ass!”

“such behavior is the result of malevolent intent”
Do cult members realize they’ve been inducted into a cult?

It reminds me of one of my early defining experiences as a blogger.
Wow. You’re very patient, David. 🙂

So often I see us running around trying to use facts and reason to talk to these apparent lunatics on the Left. They are not amenable to reason. They do not care what the facts are. They don’t even care if their policies and plans will work. What they are interested in is making us knuckle under.
Yes. But we must meet them half-way. It’s the only reasonable, grown-up thing to do. /sarc

Tangle of coat hangers. I quite understand
May your coat hangers never get tangled.
Though I really like Tangled. The horse and the frying pan.

Tangle of coat hangers. I quite understand
And then there was the Great Earbud Cable Crisis of 2017.
But it’s too soon, too raw. I can’t talk about it.

You should hear me swearing at a faulty mouse, lumpy software or a tangle of coat hangers.
In this particular hovel, faulty mice get executed by meeting a solid surface at a high rate of speed; lumpy software causes me to yell at the monitor – a completely pointless gesture that I hope and pray no one witnessed – and coat hanger tangles get tossed to the floor and told in no uncertain terms to straighten their own damned selves out. Harumph.

Ha! A mere coat hanger tangle? Try tackling a batch of coat hangers on which your father used half a roll of duct tape so they wouldn’t tangle. I remain traumatized.
Our mice work (we have the little bastards on minimum wage and if they try to organize we’ll get a cat). As for the little computer devices, Son of Pogonip’s been using the same one for 15 years. I think the brand is Dell, try it, maybe you’ll have better luck.

Miss Zinnia Jones weighs in with another Deep Thought™ to enlighten us rubes.
Shouldn’t that be “Miss” Zinnia Jones?

Shouldn’t that be “Miss” Zinnia Jones?
Good point, it’s getting so you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.

After Spiny Norman’s first sentence I envisioned something like this:

Was relieved but also a bit disappointed by the subsequent text.
You’ll have to imagine the sound effects yourself, since it’s just a GIF.

I wrote my 1st book review today (not necessarily the first one I’ll post). It’s “The Stepford Wives,” because it’s short and has a simple plot, because I’ve never seen anything written about it that deals with what jumps right out at me, and because the younger, under-50 set may not know there was ever a book behind those two movies.
Now I gotta go clean the bathroom.

Another protester stated: “Nazis are not welcome in civil society.”
Try putting your sound equipment behind glass one night, so the protesters will have to break it in order to shut you up.
They’ll never understand, but others will.

Aelfheld: Yup, that’ll do it. 😄
I just wrote a review of “The Useful Book,” by Sharon and David Bowers, but that was quick. “This is great! Run right out and buy it!” If you buy it thru David, remember (all together, now)—no refunds. Credit note only.

Being stupid has to hurt.
It’s generally how we learn. And we can’t have that. It’s also telling that when “social justice” Mao-lings issue their lists of preposterous, self-flattering demands, immunity from the normal consequences of their own behaviour is usually up near the top.
And let’s not forget Charles Davis, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, and a full-time fantasist, who insists that any hint of consequences for acts of thuggery on campus is “racist” and “unfair,” as it creates “an unsafe and threatening environment” for students who like to indulge in coercive and threatening behaviour. Expecting civility and reciprocal standards is now, we’re told, “white supremacy.” And “whiteness,” says Professor Davis, must be “destroyed.”
Again, this isn’t politics. It’s sociopathy.

“A University of California, San Diego student, Maria Ana Carrola Flores, is suing the school for failing to stop her from protesting President Donald Trump, a decision she says led to her being hit by a car on California’s I-5 freeway”.
Ah yes, everyone is responsible for her actions, except her. I see UC San Diego is churning out a generation of moral titans.
As I said at the time,

Do we think that the “woke” students who amused themselves by blocking the motorway and harassing motorists will eventually come to realise that they were the aggressors? Will any of them empathise with the random drivers on whom they gratuitously imposed themselves in order to seem radical in front of their equally narcissistic friends? Will they, of their own volition, pause to consider how frightening it must be to be driving home, perhaps with the kids in tow, and then suddenly being confronted by a screaming mob sprawling into your path, in the dark, on a motorway, intent on who knows what? And will they understand how unwise it is for a driver to stop for a mob and allow themselves to be surrounded by it? I’m guessing that in each case the answer is no.

And if Ms Flores thinks it was terribly unfair of the driver in question to try to get away from the mob of which she chose to be part, maybe she should consider what can happen to people who don’t.