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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
 Posted - 08/31/2013 : 22:36:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Yes. Good question, Dave. As much as you agree with the content under the hyperbole of the post, I can't believe that you are blind to how much Myers made it about himself and his supposed dilemma by heaping tasteless and tactless melodrama onto it. Not you. You are too good at spotting that kind of stuff. |
Well, you're certainly not helping me see it. Were I in Myers' shoes, I doubt I'd have written about it much differently than he did. I think if it were someone I were really gleeful about seeing go down, I wouldn't have talked about it as a dilemma, but rather just said, "look at how Mr.X fucked up this time!" |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2013 : 22:57:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Kil
Yes. Good question, Dave. As much as you agree with the content under the hyperbole of the post, I can't believe that you are blind to how much Myers made it about himself and his supposed dilemma by heaping tasteless and tactless melodrama onto it. Not you. You are too good at spotting that kind of stuff. |
Well, you're certainly not helping me see it. Were I in Myers' shoes, I doubt I'd have written about it much differently than he did. I think if it were someone I were really gleeful about seeing go down, I wouldn't have talked about it as a dilemma, but rather just said, "look at how Mr.X fucked up this time!"
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It didn't matter who it was. It was the catch that mattered. Sorry. And there was also more than two ways he could have written that. The dilemma crap was just phoney hand wringing. He didn't decide in mid blog what he was going to do. If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. He opens with being handed a grenade with the pin pulled out of it and he ends it with a "boom." I have no idea how you can read that and not see how Myers went over the top with it. Did you ever think the "boom" wasn't going to happen as you read it? Maybe if he had written about his dilemma in a historical context, about how he decided what he should do... But he didn't. He wrote it in present tense complete with a hyperbolic literary device and drama. And in that way he made it about himself.
Do you really not see why so many people are turned off by Myers style? Do you think we are all "the haters" as you call them? Here he has an important thing to say on a serious matter and he turns it into "boom." I don't get what you don't get.
The issue is really what is important, however. So how the news was delivered doesn't matter in the long run, I guess. But jeeze. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 04:38:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Dave:
Why would he be gleeful, anyway? It's a horrible thing. |
Yes. Good question, Dave. As much as you agree with the content under the hyperbole of the post, I can't believe that you are blind to how much Myers made it about himself and his supposed dilemma by heaping tasteless and tactless melodrama onto it. Not you. You are too good at spotting that kind of stuff.
Boom. |
Has it occurred to you, Kil, that sometimes the reality of human actions are actually melodramatic? And that reporting these situations may require a modicum of melodrama? |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 09/01/2013 04:43:43 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 05:12:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Kil
Yes. Good question, Dave. As much as you agree with the content under the hyperbole of the post, I can't believe that you are blind to how much Myers made it about himself and his supposed dilemma by heaping tasteless and tactless melodrama onto it. Not you. You are too good at spotting that kind of stuff. |
Well, you're certainly not helping me see it. Were I in Myers' shoes, I doubt I'd have written about it much differently than he did. I think if it were someone I were really gleeful about seeing go down, I wouldn't have talked about it as a dilemma, but rather just said, "look at how Mr.X fucked up this time!"
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It didn't matter who it was. It was the catch that mattered. Sorry. And there was also more than two ways he could have written that. The dilemma crap was just phoney hand wringing. He didn't decide in mid blog what he was going to do. If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. He opens with being handed a grenade with the pin pulled out of it and he ends it with a "boom." I have no idea how you can read that and not see how Myers went over the top with it. Did you ever think the "boom" wasn't going to happen as you read it? Maybe if he had written about his dilemma in a historical context, about how he decided what he should do... But he didn't. He wrote it in present tense complete with a hyperbolic literary device and drama. And in that way he made it about himself.
Do you really not see why so many people are turned off by Myers style? Do you think we are all "the haters" as you call them? Here he has an important thing to say on a serious matter and he turns it into "boom." I don't get what you don't get.
The issue is really what is important, however. So how the news was delivered doesn't matter in the long run, I guess. But jeeze.
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I suspect PZ wrote it with suspense that way to recapitulate how it hit him (emotionally and intellectually). It showed his journey from at first feeling a need to expose what he heard, while not yet having permission to do so (also not knowing if doing so might cause more harm than good to the accuser), to at last receiving a go-ahead to pass the information along. In other words, PZ's suspenseful telling helped to express the dilemma he'd been handed -- likely this is a common dilemma for those who are confided in by victims. It was a good way for PZ to recap his thought processes for the consideration of others who might find themselves in the same situation.
And if that doesn't satisfy you, Kil, what kind of clinical literary prose exposition would be the officially authorized, sanctioned style to describe what PZ felt the need to report? And where does the morality of "literary devices" rank versus the moral issues in the actual accusation? At the top of the list? In the middle? At the bottom? Or on a whole separate list of essentially irrelevant nitpicking points?
By the way, I think your last sentence cancelled all your "stylistic" arguments. But jeeze indeed. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 09/01/2013 05:21:22 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 06:13:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Dude
The hyperbole he engaged in when "reporting". It's a serious issue, potential jail or career ending consequences for his target. |
I outright reject either consequence. "Jane Doe" was specifically not pressing charges, and "career ending" is blatant hyperbole since skepticism specifically disavows positions of trust.
Also:| I have to reject your analysis. Rape is a serious crime and a serious problem. It is massively underreported, something insane like 90% never get reported. That host of problems associated with reporting it, employment loss, social stigma, ptsd, and so on...all of those things would be mitigated (along with the personal consequences of the rape itself) if more people understood the magnitude of the problem. |
More victims being traumatized by authorities will not help more people understand the magnitude of the problem. The magnitude is in evidence, more case studies will not make it more clear. What's needed is education and activism, not more women willing to become martyrs for the cause.| I also don't think that you have fully thought your position through. If you can argue that a rape should not be reported, then you are also saying that no rape should be reported in order to protect the victim from the consequences of reporting it. |
WTF? My position is certainly not that no rapes should be reported, and that doesn't even logically follow from not wanting a single rape reported. My position is to support the victims. If the victim wants to report, then help the victim report. If the victim doesn't want to report, then don't report.
And again: this applies to any crime. If you know your neighbor's mail is being stolen, you ask your neighbor what they want to do about it. You don't just call the cops. If you know your friend's ex is failing to pay child support, you ask your friend what they want to do, you don't just email their divorce judge. You support the victim, period.
Your response, once again, ignores the victim in favor of some just-world fantasy where it's the police and courts that reduce crime, instead of education and outreach.| Every unreported rape enables the rapist to repeat their crime, maybe vs the same victim, maybe vs a new one. |
Even reported rapes enable the rapist to repeat their crimes, when the police antagonize a victim into recanting and thus "officially clearing" the rapist from any wrong-doing. Only six percent of rapists are convicted, and unless you're willing to argue that the recidivism rate among them is 0%, nearly 100% of them are enabled to re-offend by being released after "paying their debt to society."| I understand the emotional desire to protect a rape victim from further trauma, but leaving their rapist free comes with another (worse) set of consequences. |
Again, the just-world fallacy. Reporting a rape doesn't come close to guaranteeing a person won't rape again. 75% of reported rapes result in no arrests. 25% of people arrested for rape are not prosecuted. 37% of people prosecuted for rape are not convicted. 21% of people convicted for rape are given probation. 100% of rapists who don't die in prison are eventually freed to rape again, after somewhere between 30 days and 30 years.| All rapes should be reported to police. |
In a perfect world, I would agree. But we live in a messy place; a culture that thinks that having some talent at high-school football is more valuable than a girl's right to not be violated, humiliated and harassed; a culture that still thinks that "she was asking for it" is an affirmative defense; a culture in which women appearing on national news to disparage women who get raped as sluts fails to drop the network's ratings in any significant way.
We live in a culture in which it's deemed more important to get women to report rape after the fact than it is to proactively get men to not rape. Until that changes, arming women with knowledge of high-likelihood rapists and the techniques they use is far more valuable than going to the police. And to do that, we don't need any more horrific anecdotes ending with therapy and distrust.
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The only one engaging in logical fallacy here is you. I guess I'll call it the "perfect world" fallacy.
I acknowledge that all the things you list, prosecution rates, recidivism, etc are legit and real problems. The difference being that you are choosing to just accept them as inevitable and then justify your own position with a dismissive handwave "in a perfect world..."
What a load of shit man!
These very real problems can be addressed. They are not just unfortunate facts of life that just have to be accepted. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 09:48:54 [Permalink]
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Mooner:
By the way, I think your last sentence cancelled all your "stylistic" arguments. |
I was commenting on Myers. Not the accusation. Being a classless jerk doesn't mean that what's being alleged isn't true.
Mooner:
And if that doesn't satisfy you, Kil, what kind of clinical literary prose exposition would be the officially authorized, sanctioned style to describe what PZ felt the need to report? |
How about a straightforward telling of what happened? Remove the melodrama and the hyperbole, and maybe even show some modicom of saddness over the situation? I know that's not Myers style, but he could have risen to the occasion. Or maybe not.
Mooner:
And where does the morality of "literary devices" rank versus the moral issues in the actual accusation? |
What Myers reported and how Myers reported it are separate issues. But if you see nothing wrong with how Myers reported the problem, how can I explain why so many of us have stopped reading him?
This is strictly a side issue. And I see that am pissing into the wind again. But again, I do wish the allegation would have been handed to someone who isn't so polarizing. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9691 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 11:55:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
These very real problems can be addressed. They are not just unfortunate facts of life that just have to be accepted.
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I interpreted Dave's post as acknowledging that these are real problems that need to be solved, and not just accepted as being there. But he refused to throw the victim under the bus without her consent as you suggest we do.
Rape victims need to have the opportunity to say no to more emotional trauma.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9691 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 12:00:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
But again, I do wish the allegation would have been handed to someone who isn't so polarizing.
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Maybe she couldn't find anyone else with the cojones to go public with the warning/accusation, given the celebrity status of Shermer.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 12:05:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by Kil
But again, I do wish the allegation would have been handed to someone who isn't so polarizing.
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Maybe she couldn't find anyone else with the cojones to go public with the warning/accusation, given the celebrity status of Shermer.
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That could be. But I doubt it. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 12:34:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by Dude
These very real problems can be addressed. They are not just unfortunate facts of life that just have to be accepted.
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I interpreted Dave's post as acknowledging that these are real problems that need to be solved, and not just accepted as being there. But he refused to throw the victim under the bus without her consent as you suggest we do.
Rape victims need to have the opportunity to say no to more emotional trauma.
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Oh, I also think he knows the problems are real.
I also am not suggesting that we inflict more trauma on trauma victims needlessly.
Suppose that in your town 10 rapes are reported in a month. You can be sure the actual number is probably 100. If 10 reports is the status quo, and our system stagnates there only being able to bring 6 of those to trial and convict only 4.... what would happen if 50 or 60 (or all) were reported? The signal has to rise above the noise to get action taken.
I'm also saying that we need to fix the problems with police and the justice system that cause victims to be further traumatized by the process. Fix the problems that give us such a low conviction rate. Work to overcome the cultural and social stigma rape victims face for reporting a rape. Increase the legal penalties to the same or more as those for gun crimes (20 year no parole minimums).
None of the problems are immune to correction. Sheltering rape victims and encouraging them to not report the crime (by telling them it is ok to not report it) only sustains the status quo. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 13:26:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Mooner:
By the way, I think your last sentence cancelled all your "stylistic" arguments. |
I was commenting on Myers. Not the accusation. Being a classless jerk doesn't mean that what's being alleged isn't true. |
I personally haven't seen cause to think PZ is a classless jerk. That doesn't mean he's not a jerk; I may very well have missed something. But reporting this case was in itself (however stylistically expressed) a class act IMO, so I think it clear, at minimum, PZ's not entirely lacking in class.
Mooner:
And if that doesn't satisfy you, Kil, what kind of clinical literary prose exposition would be the officially authorized, sanctioned style to describe what PZ felt the need to report? |
How about a straightforward telling of what happened? Remove the melodrama and the hyperbole, and maybe even show some modicom of saddness over the situation? I know that's not Myers style, but he could have risen to the occasion. Or maybe not. |
I already expressed my opinion that the "suspense" style of his post had a practical purpose beyond being self-aggrandizing or just to irritate his haters. ("They see me bloggin', they be hatin'.") Also, you've already written that the manner of PZ telling the tale was not particularly important. So why now -- of all times -- this intense, continuous disparaging of PZ? I won't presume to know your motivation for sure, but I suspect you strongly disliked PZ well before this incident. I think a lot of the people who privately support Shermer in this mess are striking out at the messengers and others who support the accuser/victim, because attacking the victim as some of Shermer's open supporters do looks, and is obviously incredibly dickish. I worry that you may be unwittingly playing into the hands of both types of Shermer's supporters.
Mooner:
And where does the morality of "literary devices" rank versus the moral issues in the actual accusation? |
What Myers reported and how Myers reported it are separate issues. But if you see nothing wrong with how Myers reported the problem, how can I explain why so many of us have stopped reading him? |
I'm assuming you mean quitting reading him before this incident? (Correct me if my assumption is wrong, please.) If so, isn't that preexisting dislike of PZ coloring your perceptions now? (I have a tendency to do that, myself. For instance, if Ken Ham were to suggest that in crossing a street, one should look both ways first, I might be tempted to just look straight ahead. So I can sympathize.)This is strictly a side issue. And I see that am pissing into the wind again. But again, I do wish the allegation would have been handed to someone who isn't so polarizing.
[HalfMooner's emphasis] |
I'm glad you (sometimes) see the style matter as relatively unimportant. But you end with a minor, but real, instance of blaming the victim for having chosen PZ, a well-known scrapper, to tell the tale. Seems to me, were I in the position of the accuser, I'd surely want a fighter on my side. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 09/01/2013 13:27:26 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 14:28:32 [Permalink]
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Mooner:
So why now -- of all times -- this intense, continuous disparaging of PZ? |
Well no. I brought it up much earlier in this thread. And I'm going on about it now because I'm responding to you.
Mooner:
I think a lot of the people who privately support Shermer in this mess are striking out at the messengers and others who support the accuser/victim, because attacking the victim as some of Shermer's open supporters do looks, and is obviously incredibly dickish. |
I'm not attacking the victim. And if you have paid any attention to my writings over the years, including the last TAM thread, you will see that I have been critical of Shermer for various reasons over the years. I even wrote to Skeptic about him. Nope. That's not it.
Mooner:
I worry that you may be unwittingly playing into the hands of both types of Shermer's supporters. |
So I should just keep quiet?
Mooner:
If so, isn't that preexisting dislike of PZ coloring your perceptions now? |
I don't think so. Maybe. But I read the post over and over again to make sure my observations were fair, because my feelings about Myers is pretty well known and I knew if I brought style up there would be push back. I'm telling you. I honestly don't know why you guys don't see what I see.
Mooner:
But you end with a minor, but real, instance of blaming the victim for having chosen PZ, a well-known scrapper, to tell the tale. |
Oh come on. My wish that it had come from a less polarizing source is not victim blaming. If any criticism about anything at all is going to be considered victim blaming, then I give up. Myers and company are completely above reproach and that's that. Gotcha. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 15:53:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
The difference being that you are choosing to just accept them as inevitable... |
Yeah, addressing them proactively with education and outreach is exactly the same as accepting them as inevitable.  |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26024 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2013 : 15:57:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Sheltering rape victims and encouraging them to not report the crime (by telling them it is ok to not report it) only sustains the status quo. |
If and only if one does nothing else to address any of the problems. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2013 : 01:34:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Well no. I brought it up much earlier in this thread. And I'm going on about it now because I'm responding to you.
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I didn't express that well, but what I meant by "now" wasn't "suddenly just now," but "since his disclosure of the accusation." And yeah, you have a very good point about simply responding being a way of preventing an issue from being dropped!
| I'm not attacking the victim. And if you have paid any attention to my writings over the years, including the last TAM thread, you will see that I have been critical of Shermer for various reasons over the years. I even wrote to Skeptic about him. Nope. That's not it. |
No, I have not followed all that. And also, again I have a failure to communicate. Sorry if that seemed to you to be attack upon you. I did not mean it that way. As background, I was trying instead to summarize the position of Shermer's supporters, both the overt and convert supporters, post-accusation. I've never thought you were in either category, nor that you habitually or grossly attack victims.| So I should just keep quiet? |
Well, maybe selectively and without sacrificing your own values. Just look at me as an example, I miscommunicated twice just above. Better I should have stayed quiet.| I don't think so. Maybe. But I read the post over and over again to make sure my observations were fair, because my feelings about Myers is pretty well known and I knew if I brought style up there would be push back. I'm telling you. I honestly don't know why you guys don't see what I see. |
And I honestly don't see what you see. Maybe, to clarify what your thoughts about PZ, you need to write a whole separate essay? (If so, I gently suggest you concentrate on issues with him that predate the accusations.)| Oh come on. My wish that it had come from a less polarizing source is not victim blaming. If any criticism about anything at all is going to be considered victim blaming, then I give up. |
But you strongly imply that the accuser/victim had chosen the wrong spokesperson when she selected PZ. She, after all, chose him, and you said he was the wrong choice. As I'd said, this was a minor sort of "blaming the victim." It's not like saying the victim was dressing provocatively and was thus "just asking for it," but it nevertheless is casting blame on the victim, something that we all should be sensitive about. I do not condemn you for that relatively innocent faux pas, but I do point it out. Why do you not see that as a case of blaming the victim, however minor?| Myers and company are completely above reproach and that's that. Gotcha. |
That's a strawman argument, and a misunderstanding/mischaracterization of what I wrote. I hardly think PZ and the FtB people are "above reproach." Never said it, don't believe it. But I still can't think of a better advocate for the victim/accuser to have chosen than PZ, simply because he never backs down as long as he thinks he's right. And if that's a character flaw, then I think we need more flawed characters of that type on this planet. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 09/02/2013 02:04:25 |
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Unbelievable
