The only attack is on your sanity

Muslims aren’t banning red tulips
Atheists aren’t banning Christmas
Feminists aren’t waging war on men
Jacinda Ardern didn’t abuse Australia
Jews aren’t forming a Blarite conspiracy
Charlie Hebdo didn’t attack immigrants
Monsanto didn’t release a “terminator gene”
Anti-harassment isn’t anti-Humanism
Metal music isn’t harming your children
The UN isn’t a Satanic conspiracy
Pizzagate was never real
Wind farms aren’t a health hazard
Jordan Peterson isn’t a Nazi
Anti-retrovirals aren’t a eugenic plot
Vaccines don’t cause autism
Encryption advocates aren’t terrorists
Internet filter opponents aren’t child molesters
Criticism of Hillsong isn’t bigotry
Trump’s impeachment inquiry isn’t a coup
Veganism isn’t an anti-masturbation plot
Opposing “sex-work” doesn’t “demonize sex workers”
Loathing Pell isn’t anti-Catholic
”GLB” doesn’t magically make someone anti-“T”
Considering elders isn’t anti-millennial.

The attack is on your brain
Get your adrenalin firing, use you as a tool
wind you up, watch you go, do what they want.

Maybe they need a bulwark in the comments
Maybe they need a useful fool
Black and white thinking helps you oblige, makes you feel good.

The slightest suggestion of truth and you let the dopamine surge,
in withdrawal, after the let down, you’ll deny your own rage.

The cycle repeats. The army of binary thinking flesh-bots has another new recruit.
Demagogues of all stripes ratchet things up another notch.

~ Bruce

Don’t worry, sample bias will tell you

There’s a moderately funny joke that circulates in various iterations, depending on the context.

How do you know someone’s vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

The reason it’s funny is the same reason it stays funny when you sub-out “vegan” with “paleo”, “intersectionalist” and “into cross-fit”: there are obvious populations of very noisy and intrusive people who’ve adopted these terms as identity labels that they then bang on about ad nauseum at the expense of other people’s personal boundaries.

What could stay funny though, every now and then in conversation, takes a turn down a road where wanting there to be a more serious point to the joke, people find themselves winding up in silly-town.

I’m not going to get into the issue of that passive-aggressive damned-if-you-do type game where a person will pretend not to know they’re in the company of members of the group in question while uttering the joke – all before lying in wait to pounce with a “that proves it!” when someone in said group outs themselves by responding*. Sure, that’s dirty pool, and it’s probably interesting to consider why these passive-aggressives think they’re being clever, but it’s not what this post is about.

This isn’t a “not all vegans et. al.” diversion either. Some people have serious grievances with behaviour coming out of these groups. I don’t want to negate or derail those discussions, at least in as far as they’re serious. This isn’t about that.

What I am on about, and what strikes me as odd, is when some people – scientifically literate people – utter this joke and then go on to treat it as roughly emblematic of serious social science as if the sample bias wasn’t glaringly obvious.

”Aha! But why is it that when I notice a vegan et. al., they’re always being noisy?!?”

Because you don’t notice the quiet ones as easily. Because they’re quiet. Your measurements are being thrown off. All the pieces of your answer are in the joke. Pay attention.

Why would a person with a particular interest in drawing attention to sample bias – especially sample bias in social science – fail to notice this? And why would anyone feel they need this to be more than a joke, even if they were motivated by defensiveness?

It’s not as if criticism leveled at these groups depends on the joke. If you can’t find decent quantitative research on vegans et. al. behaving badly, there’s plenty of material waiting around for qualitative analysis just on Facebook alone. And if you can get decent quantitative research, the joke’s made less than redundant.

Nothing’s hanging on the joke’s literal truth, so why so serious?

There’s another transgression in all of this, and I’ve possibly given an example of it here myself: killing a perfectly serviceable joke by taking it too seriously.

The take-home, I think, is that ideally “chill out, it’s just a joke” should apply equally to the people telling it, too. That and perhaps a few folks need to stop pretending they haven’t left their science hat at home.

~ Bruce

* I’m inclined to append a disclaimer to this post, but…

“I don’t know you”

I’m not sure if it’s just some eastern state thing I’m yet to familiarize myself with, or a genuinely hypocritical phenomena arising out of organized freethought; being dismissed on the basis of unfamiliarity with an interlocutor.

Basically, you’re in discussion with a self-identified free-thinker, rationalist, Humanist or whatever – often from New South Wales in my experience – and they try to shut you down with the likes of a cliquish “sorry, I don’t know you”. The thing is, the shut-down is neither pertinent to the content of what you’re saying, nor suited to the circumstance; it’s not like you’re actually in their personal space – as much as they may pretend to own the place, you haven’t crashed their tea party.

The setting will be a mutual friend’s Facebook timeline, or a freethought organisation’s page, or so on; an ostensibly neutral territory that may be purposed to someone’s whims, just not your interlocutor’s. The setting is somewhere where at base, the validity of what you argue isn’t contingent upon you having standing or being a stakeholder.

You’ll make your argument, you’ll make no effort to flatter or offend and you’ll make it critical, all of which is perfectly acceptable in any community aspiring to call itself a home to freethought. Then someone will snap at you – usually someone vain – sniffily asking “who are you?”, or otherwise proclaiming your status as alien as if it counters the content of your claims, or warrants that they not even be considered.

I mean, they can refuse to consider what you’re saying, and unless they have some degree of executive responsibility, you can’t expect to force them to tell you why. It’s just that they do tell you why, and the reason why is a bit shit. A bit shit, and a bit indicative of a deeper problem.

Not for the first time, I’ve just had a short discussion with someone online who imagines that they’re open-minded and critical, and that it’s the people who’ve blocked them that are failing to live up to the best rationalist ideals. And not for the first time, I’ve subsequently seen my argument dismissed on the basis of my lack of familiarity to an interlocutor.

The irony here, is the insistence on identifying as open and critical, while simultaneously enacting a motivated shut-down of an argument on the basis that it’s alien. In any given instance, this kind of contradiction is funny. The fact that it seems to get repeated so often is not. Certainly within communities aspiring to freethought it should be regarded as pathological.

Maybe I’ve just been incredibly unlucky in running into this kind of thing repeatedly, or maybe I just bring the worst out of “Freethinkers”, but the vain bunker mentality is not a good look for movements that advocate critical thinking and criticize cults.

~ Bruce

Adventures in Ipso Facto Land…

There’s a golem of rubbish that rears its ugly maw every now and then, spewing invective and irrational sanctimony whenever The Enemy’s Enemy gets something right, in spite of how often they get things wrong. Or at least, when The Enemy’s Enemy doesn’t mess up as badly on some singular point as does The Enemy. The upshots are romanticised while the down-sides are de-emphasised, ignored, or actively written off as non-existent – accounts to the contrary being propaganda of The Enemy.

Supposedly you’d know this if you were tuned-in to The New Paradigm, or had taken The Red Pill, or availed yourself of whatever other means of squinting with head askew required to parse complete garbage into high truth.

The particular denizen of Ipso Facto Land I currently have in mind is the Putinophile – the breed of supposed lefty that simply on account of the transgressions of the United States of America, views a murdering theocratic tyrant as a flawed hero. “USA bad, ipso facto Russia good”. With the recent release of Citizenfour, which reminds certain folks of Russia’s protection of Ed Snowden – all out of the good of Putin’s heart, no doubt – you’ll possibly have to listen to these tuned-in types prattle on about Russia just being misunderstood.

***

Putin’s regime, devoid of strong opposition as it is, is leading its people to tolerate gays, only while respecting tradition in the process. Leaders have to take The People with them.

Pussy Riot? They were needlessly provocative. They could have couched their concerns in a less obscene tone. And let’s remember, religion was horribly persecuted under Stalin – you have to expect that today’s Russian Orthodox is a religion still licking its wounds while shivering in fear. Pussy Riot should have taken that into account before sinking the boot in.

Why don’t more lefties understand Putin? The guy is sending troops into Ukraine to fight neo-Nazi militia. Ipso facto that makes him progressive. The right-wing never fight amongst themselves. What’s wrong with you? Are you a Right Sector supporter?

Tony Abbott said he was going to shirt-front Vladimir Putin, and Tony Abbott is right-wing, ipso facto…

Russia Today, or RT as the kids say nowadays, isn’t a bad thing. Why, “state television” is just right-wing propaganda designed to make “public television” look evil. RT is just like the BBC, or PBS or the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – wholesome, and not at all like the Murdochracy.

It’s not a “prostitution of journalism”!

The deaths of journalists like Anna Politkovskaya, whistleblowers like Alexander Litvinenko, and opposition leaders like Boris Nemtsov could all just be coincidental. Just like the “at least 29 journalists” that Joan Smith claims were killed in connection with their criticisms of Putin’s regime – they could have all just written bad restaurant reviews. People get shirty over all sorts of things.

And why hasn’t Joan Smith been bumped off by Putin yet, if he’s so terrible?

***

Increasingly it seems, you’ll be told, along with the afore mentioned kinds of evasions, that RT and Russia really care about Palestine, and that the Kremlin (which RT tows the line of) would never cynically use a Middle Eastern nation as a proxy for its own interests. The US would, ipso facto…

Never mind that you may be able to recall all of the criticisms of the US Government made in Citizenfour, and may very well agree with every single one of them – if you don’t obsess over what a hero Putin is, you’ve missed the point. You’ll be told to watch the documentary again, or with unintentional irony, be told to “think about it”.

If you don’t experience the paradigm shift, then supposedly you’re not getting to the truth.

It’s almost as if not being able to articulate a serious criticism of Western hypocrisy of their own, their entire pretence rests on an ipso facto argument arising from the delusion of a heroic Russia.

~ Bruce

(Photo Source: Dion Hinchcliffe).

If you’re not trolling, and you’re not a bigot, you’ve no reason to ‘like’ “The Mind Unleashed”…

It’s gone off like a pig in a cake shop; the amount of ‘likes’ the viral Facebook page, “The Mind Unleashed”, has attained (currently around two and a half million, with oodles of shares and likes – marketing manna from heaven!) Like many other viral Facebook pages, it lures people in with affirmations, platitudes of dubious worth, plagiarised conspiracy theorist memes, and dangerous medical misinformation served up as wisdom.

The target audience is the superficially-leftish end of the spectrum; the well-meaning but politically naive, and those who just don’t like to see the underdog kicked; from people who haven’t had the opportunity to acquire genuine critical thinking and/or research skills, to the histrionic-sanctimonious; the aspiring George Galloways; the would-be-cult-leaders.

I have a special loathing for the piece of disinformation, beloved of “The Mind Unleashed”, and oft repeated without reference to anything other than anecdote, that cannabis can cure cancer. Aside from anecdote never being a good basis for medical advice, this rubbish is just plain wrong, and could encourage people with cancer to disregard sound medical advice from oncologists. People have already been killed by this kind of thing.

This may be sinister, but it’s not this sinister aspect of “The Mind Unleashed” that I want to draw attention to.

The sinister aspect of “The Mind Unleashed” I want to address belongs to the general category of being-overtly-shit-to-members-of-social-groups. “The Mind Unleashed” is anti-Semitic. To be on board with “The Mind Unleashed”, is to enable the hatred of Jews.

I trust that at least some new-age-type-folk may object to such hatred.

***

Continue reading “If you’re not trolling, and you’re not a bigot, you’ve no reason to ‘like’ “The Mind Unleashed”…” →

Rousing Departures Glossary Entry #1: Epistemic Analingus

Epistemic analingus:

(I) The idea, inferred or stated clearly, that the truth of a proposition rests upon its utility to an adored or politically useful individual.

(II) The practice of distributing charity in interpreting arguments on the basis of a potential interlocutor’s utility, or relationship, to one’s self.

See also: Brown-nosing; self-serving bias.

~ Bruce

A short mention – Neil on debate versus dialogue

Last week, Neil posted a brief little gem on the difference between dialogue and debate. I’d just like to expand on this a little, because it’s something that’s been going through my mind a bit of late, what with what this Rousing Departures thing is all about…

Neil ponders a few distinctions surrounding the adversarial nature of debate versus the cooperative nature of dialogue, and the idea that debate can stimulate dialogue. At the risk of being adversarial (or am I being cooperative?), I’m not so sure it’s entirely that clear-cut. It can be clear-cut if you want; you can have debate-and-that’s-that, or debate I think, can be far more integral to dialogue than in just the role of stimulating it. I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘stimulate’.

All I’d like to say at this point, is that at base, I think debate is best viewed as being a bit like a particle collider. You have two cases wound-up and fired into a direct collision with each other, the various statements, assumptions and arguments being broken down into their base components according to their respective strengths. What you are then left with is the job of interpreting the results of the collision, which requires some kind of team.

I think I’m going to use this analogy again sometime in the near future.

~ Bruce