Thom Hartmann, Retract Your Slander of Milo

On the 21 July edition of his RT show The Big Picture, Thom Hartmann insinuated that Breitbart commentator Milo Yiannopoulos had been engaging in racist and sexist harassment, yet totally failed to state any examples thereof, instead merely using his banning by Twitter to pivot into a more general discussion of Internet harassment. I've posted this comment in response:

In a possibly defamatory bait-and-switch, you led into the discussion of Internet harassment with a mention of Milo Yiannopoulos, yet never substantiated that reference with any evidence that he's harassed anyone. I don't follow his Twitter feed, so I wouldn't know if he's done so. What I do know is that he almost single-handedly scored an important victory for freedom of thought and expression by saving the latest project of Cassie Jaye, the award-winning feminist independent filmmaker. When she needed additional funds to complete it last year, she discovered that the progressive foundations who'd supported her work in the past were unwilling to provide any more support unless she gave up creative control -- a demand she'd never faced before. The evident reason was that, in the course of making The Red Pill, a documentary on the Men's Rights Movement, she'd found herself questioning some of her feminist convictions, and incorporated that into the film. This sign that it wouldn't be the one-sided hit piece her funders may have previously expected made them unwilling to leave her in charge.

 

Rather than give up her independence to an ideological litmus test, she decided to try and raise the rest of the needed funds through a Kickstarter campaign, which would guarantee supporters could have no influence over content. But it initially looked doubtful she could raise the necessary money in time -- until Yiannopoulos wrote a column about her plight. Then, overnight, a Kickstarter that was less than a third of the way to its goal was taken over the top, and then some, thanks to supporters of free speech who follow Milo and spread the word about this situation. For this reason alone, Milo deserves to be called a hero of free speech. You owe him an apology.

I Give Another TV interview

I was just interviewed by Philadelphia's CBS3 for a story about why politicians don't do more outreach to nontheists, despite our being more numerous than any other specific faith group. She apparently was endeavoring to get views on this from nonbelievers of various political bents, as my name had been suggested by the Green Party. She said it would air at 11 tonight.

My previous TV interview was a few months ago, when I was one of those demonstrating in support of Apple in its dispute with the FBI in front of its Center City store.

Suicide Is Painless (Not)

An appallingly ignorant side comment by Marty Moss-Coane on today's Radio Times provoked this comment from me:

I was appalled by Marty's reference to suicide as a "narcissistic" act.

A narcissist is preoccupied by concern about how others see them; they insist that others view them favorably (or pretend to). By contrast, a person who commits suicide -- except in the rare cases where they can be seen as doing it for a larger purpose with which others will sympathize -- is someone enduring such unbearable pain that they no longer care how others see them; they care only about ending the pain, even at the cost of condemning themselves to be seen ever after as a "quitter," and an embarrassment to those close to them.

It was particularly shocking to hear Moss-Coane's ignorant remark so shortly after Robin Williams' tragic death by suicide, followed by the explanations authorities on the topic had to make in response to all the insensitive, angry comments about it on social media by people lacking any understanding of depression. Did she learn nothing from all that? Is she actually expressing anger at how suicide "embarrasses" the survivors -- and projecting *their* narcissism onto those who commit it?

Identity in Conflict: What Omar Mateen May Have in Common with Geert Wilders

Pondering the increasingly paradoxical information coming out about the Orlando shooter reminded me of something I read a while back about Geert Wilders (which I unfortunately can't locate at the moment). This article had argued that the virulence of Wilders's anti-Muslim position arises from his having a divided identity resulting from his own immigrant background (his mother is Dutch Indonesian), resulting in insecurity about his own belonging in Dutch society.

Omar Mateen may have faced something similar, with even more of an element of double bind: encountering hostility from other Americans because of his Muslim-ness, and at the same time struggling with a sexual identity that he'd been taught to see as antithetical to his ethnic and religious heritage. The experience of Islamophobia might only have intensified his sense of guilt over his same-sex attractions, seeing these feelings as betrayals of an identity especially in need of defense.

I suspect he made no serious plans to evade police after committing his crime. His self-loathing was likely such that he felt he deserved to die anyway.

A Tip: Don't Get Your Health Advice the Same Place You Get Your Waffles

It's evidently too much to expect that someone as set in his ways as uncritically-thinking Joe Sbaraglia, who writes "The Waffleman" column for the Philadelphia Public Record, would mend his ways after a couple of nudges. I've previously written him a couple times when he repeated false rumors, especially ones of a medical nature, but he just keeps at it. This time I've directly written the editor:

Dear editor:

Please stop allowing Joe Sbaraglia to repeat unsubstantiated, and sometimes downright false, health claims in your newspaper.

In his latest column, he cites a long list of purported benefits of bananas, introducing them with the statement, "The following material comes from Snopes.com." It's dismaying that someone who presumably knows the purpose of that website -- to clear up which rumors are true and which aren't --  doesn't grasp that people who are capable of passing on information without fact-checking it first, will likewise fail to check whether the information actually comes from Snopes. It'd be easy enough for him to do so himself, yet he evidently doesn't, since many of the claims he repeated either are not to be found on that site, or are pronounced false there.

Such carelessness is perhaps harmless enough where so-called "fun facts" are concerned, but it's absolutely irresponsible to repeat, or to publish, false information about medicine and health.

Trump's New Appellation

I have a new name for Donald Trump: the Dark Side of the Farce.

An Anal SJW in the Philadelphia Gay News

Some remarks in PGN's latest "Family Portrait" illustrate the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do hypocrisy of some "social justice warriors."

I have no issue with much of what Jayme Campbell says in the interview, but this really stuck in my craw:

A gender-based example [of a microaggression] might be when people complain, "It's just really hard for me to get your pronouns right because you don't look like a boy (or girl)." So you're saying I don't deserve respect because I don't meet your idea of what a boy or girl should look like?

No, you idiot, it doesn't mean that at all.

A few years ago, I inadvertently misgendered a trans woman friend while in conversation with her and others. Immediately realizing what I'd done, I felt acutely embarrassed and apologized. Obviously, the reason I felt embarrassed was that I do respect her. But respecting her didn't magically negate my conditioning from infancy to gender people based on their appearance.

I didn't say something like what Campbell cites because I didn't want to sound like I was making excuses -- but if I had said it, it would have been true. And what it would have meant was not that I didn't respect her, but that I felt embarrassment over my error and, for that reason, a need to explain myself.

To do as Campbell does here -- take a statement that actually reflects a person's regret over their mistake and instead call it an "aggression" -- is really quite abusive.

No, Mark, Bernie Isn't Ralph: a letter to the Philadelphia Gay News

I'm increasingly struck by how fuzzy Mark Segal's thinking often is. There's no comparison between Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader.

Nader is called a spoiler because, running as a third-party candidate, he competed for votes that might otherwise have gone to either Bush or Gore. Bernie not only isn't doing this; he's promised he won't.

In fact, as socialist Seattle city council member Kshama Sawant, who spearheaded the $15 living wage movement, has pointed out in an online petition, Bernie could run as an independent and still not be a spoiler, by simply bypassing "close" states like Pennsylvania. In this way, if he doesn't get the Democratic nomination and turn that party into one that reflects his progressive, anti-corporatist values, he could garner millions of volunteers, votes, and federal matching funds to launch one that does, without aiding Trump in any way.

Meanwhile, for Bernie to try and "make up" before the convention by diluting his agenda would simply serve to demobilize his movement and foreclose the chance for the kind of progressive realignment that his candidacy makes possible. By the same token, it would also demobilize those forces that would be needed to help elect Clinton if she's the Democratic nominee. This would be a lose-lose for everyone but Trump.

TAL's Doubly Wrongheaded Disclaimer

The guest host on the latest This American Life introduced one of the segments in a profoundly misleading and potentially hazardous way, thanks to his thinking's being warped by erotophobic ageism. I wrote him as follows:

You opened this piece with a disclaimer that managed to be wrongheaded in two opposite ways simultaneously, by saying it "acknowledges the existence of sex, and it's probably wrong for young children."

On one hand, you thereby suggested that the mention of sex made it wrong for young children, despite zero evidence that there's any age before which hearing about sex is apt to cause problems. I would refer you to this brief filed by sex researchers and others in opposition to the misnamed Child Online "Protection" Act: http://www.fepproject.org/courtbriefs/ashcroft.pdf.

On the other hand, the same wording implied that the mention of sex was the ONLY reason the piece might be "wrong for children." In fact, it was less about sex than it was about genital mutilation, a violent, bloody, and painful human rights violation. There's considerable reason to think young children might be traumatized by hearing about this, yet your mention of only sex in the disclaimer gave no clue. Had I any children, I'd naturally have assumed (as in fact I did) that the line about children reflected only the mention of sex, and that I consequently had nothing to worry about. And then my children might have had nightmares.

I might have added that the disclaimer before a segment of Snap Judgment concerning suicide, also on NPR a couple hours later, was by contrast perfect in its general applicability: "Sensitive listeners and people with small children should be advised that this broadcast does traverse some dark territory."

This Metaphor Is Bad for Our Health

In a solicitation from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, I found a reminder of an irritating practice of theirs that I'd always meant to comment on. I've just done so now in an email to them as follows:

I'm writing to express my disapproval of your use of the phrase "food porn." Clearly you are trying to convey the concept of food that tastes good but isn't good for you. Trouble is, that's not true of porn itself.

Despite generations of attempts to scientifically prove the "common sense"* that porn is bad for us, such evidence is essentially nonexistent, and sometimes it suggests just the opposite. Here, for instance, is a court brief debunking the idea that it's "harmful to minors":
http://www.fepproject.org/courtbriefs/ashcroft.pdf

And here's a study refuting the idea that the availability of porn lowers women's status: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3812808?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

This isn't a merely "academic" question. These false notions about porn have been used to justify restrictive laws and customs which, so far from protecting people, may well contribute to psychosexual problems and leave children more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, as discussed by Judith Levine in her book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex.

*"What many people refer to as common sense is nothing more than a collection of prejudices accumulated before the age of eighteen." -- Albert Einstein

Thanks, Senator Haywood!

Today I was pleased to read that my state senator, Art Haywood, has endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. I just left a message on his website thanking him.

I received an automated reminder call from my community health center about an appointment in a few days. But you'd think it was from an analyst's office, since it asked me to "bring my id." And I'd do so, except I think it was eaten while I was on the Space Beagle.

That REAL Old-Time Religion?

Last week, Donald Trump said he "listens to himself" on questions of foreign policy. But soon, I predict, he'll acknowledge listening to other voices as well -- like those of Yahweh, Zeus, and Ahura Mazda.

We already have a bicameral legislature, after all. Why not a bicameral executive?

Review: _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ by Julian Jaynes (1976)

I heard of this book over thirty years ago on the last day of my Ancient Mythology class in college, but have just recently read it after following some links about it from a discussion prompt for my Less Wrong meetup group.

Without having looked yet for contrary arguments, I provisionally find Jaynes's argument fairly persuasive. An extremely brief summary: from a variety of literary, historical, and archeological evidence, he suggests that the earliest civilized humans lacked consciousness in the sense of self-awareness or an inner life, and that volition, because it wasn't yet integrated with the externally acting part of the mind, consisted of remembrances of past admonitions from authority figures, was activated only by the stress of novel situations for which the individual lacked a conditioned reflex, and was experienced as a hallucinated voice as it was transmitted from one part of the brain to the other (hence the "bicameral" mind). An important part of the argument consists of explaining the gods of early civilizations as cultural interpretations of these voices, beginning with ascribing them to dead ancestors who had been the actual models for the hallucinatory voices before they died. Another part of the argument looks at reports from clinical or experimental subjects of electrical brain stimulation suggesting the existence of residual brain anatomy from a past bicameral period that may underlie aspects of such present-day phenomena as hypnosis and schizophrenia.

The first passage prompting me to comment is on p.29 (first Mariner Books edition, trade, 2000), where Jaynes is enumerating and debunking arguments for the necessity of consciousness for various functions, so as to render more credible the idea that early civilizations could have functioned without it. Here he's refuting the idea that consciousness is a "copy of experience," as follows:

Think, if you will, of when you entered the room you are now in and when you picked up this book. Introspect upon it and then ask the question: are the images of which you have copies the actual sensory fields as you came in and sat down and began reading? Don't you have an image of yourself coming through one of the doors, perhaps even a bird's-eye view of one of the entrances, and then perhaps vaguely see yourself sitting down and picking up the book? Things which you have never experienced except in this introspection!

After a couple similar examples, he concludes,

Looking back into memory, then, is a great deal invention, seeing yourself as others see you.

My own answers to the two questions just quoted are in fact, most definitely, "Yes" and "No," respectively, contrary to what Jaynes confidently expects. In fact, prior to 2002, I would have been surprised to learn that anyone remembers ter experiences from a third-person vantage point, as Jaynes seems to assume everyone does.

That was the year I read Susan Blackmore's book Dying to Live: Near Death Experiences. As part of her effort at a naturalistic explanation for this phenomenon, she considers out-of-body experiences more generally, and discusses the fact that while some people imagine or remember their actions from a first-person perspective, others form a third-person mental image. IIRC, she cites evidence that which disposition a person has is predictive of ter likelihood of having an OBE -- specifically, that the latter are far more likely to.

So, the only somewhat surprising thing here is that a professional psychologist who'd already been in the field many years when he completed this book, was just as ignorant of the diversity of human minds in this respect as was I, who only took a couple college courses in the subject. I suppose this is an example of what's sometimes called the "typical mind fallacy," as discussed here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/17/what-universal-human-experiences-are-you-missing-without-realizing-it/

That being said, the fact that what Jaynes writes here is true of even some of us does make his case quite strong, as do many other arguments in that section of the book.


After making his case about things he thinks consciousness isn't, Jaynes follows with an explanation of what he thinks it is: essentially, that it's a particular system of metaphors constructed by means of language. In fact, he holds that metaphor "is the very constitutive ground of language," and argues that "[i]n early times, language and its referents climbed up from the concrete to the abstract on the steps of metaphors, even, we may say, created the abstract on the bases of metaphors."

This rang a note of familiarity for me, because it echoed a thought I'd had about the first substantial book I ever read: The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. I've pondered why I started becoming so intellectual from an early age, and it occurred to me that this book, which I loved when I read it at age eight, is very well suited to preparing you for abstract thought, because it largely revolves around depicting abstracts as concretes in a fun way. If what Jaynes argues here is true, such depiction isn't merely helpful, but essential to thinking abstractly.


In his discussion on the significance of oracles, Jaynes writes about Delphi (p. 323):

Another kind of explanation, really a quasi-explanation, still busied about with in the popular and sometimes professional literature, is biochemical. The trances were real, it says, but caused by vapors of some sort rising from a casium beneath the floor of the cave. But the French excavations of 1903 and more recent ones have shown distinctly that no such casium existed.

I'd also been told of this "quasi-explanation" and subsequently that it had been debunked. But in 2001 I heard about this discovery: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0814_delphioracle.html. So, it appears vapors may well have induced the Pythia's ravings after all. This isn't inconsistent with Jaynes's idea, however; in fact, by calling it a "quasi-explanation," he's indicating that, even if vapors were the trigger, the particular form of behavior they induced must have been enabled by some kind of structure in the brain, for whose origins his hypothesis offers an explanation.


Finally, on page 394:

The hypnotic phenomena found in a medical psychiatric setting are commonly more profound, because, I suggest, a psychiatrist is a more godlike figure to his patient than is an investigator to his subject. And a similar explanation can be made for the age at which hypnosis is most easily done. Hypnotic susceptibility is at its peak between the ages of eight and ten,

adding in a footnote,

In a forthcoming book, I shall be discussing the development of consciousness in the child, suggesting that this age of greatest hypnotic susceptibility is just after the full development of consciousness.

Jaynes never published the above-mentioned book, and I don't know whether he presented supporting evidence for this suggestion in some other form. But this rang another bell for me, because I distinctly remember that at age eight, I started having the feeling that this time in my life was special in some undefinable way because I was different from how I'd been before. All I could articulate (in my own mind; I don't remember mentioning it to anyone else at the time) was that it had something to do with my mind. I was aware that I was starting to shoot ahead of my peers scholastically; things that they all seemed to struggle with, like multiplication and division, were old hat to me. But the feeling of difference was more intrinsic, about how I had changed, not merely a comparison with my peers. After reading the passage quoted above, I suspect the hard-to-define change of which I was self-aware at that age was, after all, simply the fact that I was self-aware, whereas I hadn't been before, at least not fully.

At the Less Wrong meetup the other day, I asked the two others present if they had a similar memory, but neither did. Perhaps the difference lies in the emotional role that abstraction assumed for me at that age. The family situation felt rather chaotic: when I was seven Father was working out of state and we only got to see him on weekends. Around my eighth birthday (IIRC) we moved again, and within 12-18 months we were reduced to being tenants in a couple rooms of the house, but I'd picked up on the fact we were struggling with the mortgage even before that happened. In this context, as I've reflected previously, discovering a mental world where things were orderly and predictable (numbers, especially) provided a great refuge.

When Brian Martin's death was announced on the news a few days ago, the anchor asked, "What's your favorite Beatles song? Could be a tough question, I guess." I immediately agreed, but just a moment later started thinking of one: "Strawberry Fields." And as soon as I did, I had an idea why: I vaguely remember listening to it in the "music room" where the stereo was, relating it to the feeling of having a space inside myself where everything was peaceful and calm. And it now seems to me that the sense that I was different now was important because it was linked to having a "mind-space," as Jaynes would put it, where I now could go to find a rational and orderly world.

A New Art Piece: "Bi-Focal"

For years I've been periodically making pieces of "math art," using color to vividly depict interesting numerical patterns. In my latest, "Bi-Focal," the color of each cell reflects to the nearest whole number the sum of its center-to-center distances from two foci. This results in (pixelated) elliptical contours.

Call on UC to Reverse Its Sexual Consent Catch-22

In a very disturbing development, the University of California system has adopted a new policy on adjudication of sexual assault complaints that compounds the erosion of civil liberties already brought by its "affirmative consent" standard.

Now, any non-consensual recording of a sex act, even if it's never shared with anyone, is considered a form of sexual assault. This may seem reasonable until one remembers that verbal agreement isn't considered proof of consent if the accuser claims they were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. Since such influence isn't always obvious, this means the very act of attempting to create proof of consent could get someone accused of sexual assault.

This prospect looms even larger because of another change. UC is now abandoning adversarial process in favor of letting a single administrator hear and decide a case -- an administrator who may feel pressured to produce convictions to justify Title IX funding. The accused's only recourse is to appeal to a higher administrative body, which would have the same institutional bias as the original hearing officer.

This isn't only an assault on due process; it's also an assault on sexual freedom. While encouraging people to be comfortable talking about sex with prospective partners -- or anyone else -- is absolutely a good thing, trying to prescribe forms of consent in this way can only have an intimidating effect on people as they explore their sexuality, something that typically involves a good deal of anxiety already. Taken to its extreme, it could lead to involuntary abstinence for women and men alike. Accordingly, I've written UC President Janet Napolitano (president@ucop.edu) as follows:

Dear President Napolitano: I urge you to reverse the new policy concerning adjudication of sexual assault complaints at UC. It is unacceptable to give a single administrator, possibly under pressure to get "results" to justify Title IX funding, the power and responsibility to adjudicate such serious accusations -- especially when the new definition of assault covers the very recording that the affirmative consent standard makes necessary for proving innocence. This puts the accused truly in a Catch-22.

The option to appeal does not adequately address these concerns, since it would still leave the ultimate decision in administrative hands. We have already seen examples of universities' refusing to consider clearly exculpatory evidence on the technical grounds that the original trial was procedurally correct, as illustrated here: https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/amherst-complaint.pdf

Please restore adversarial process and the presumption of innocence without delay.

For further information on this issue, visit Stop Abusive and Violent Environments at http://www.SAVEservices.org

Here's an excellent piece by Wendy Kaminer on what's wrong with "affirmative consent" as  a legal standard. 

Thought for the New Year

When life closes a door, the Elder Gods open an inter-continuum portal.

Justice for Sandra Bland!

Please join me in signing this!

Paying It Forward on Chelsea Manning's Birthday

The other weekend Hugh Taft-Morales, Leader of the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia, kindly lent me $15 so I could attend the program portion of their celebration, with the Freethought Society, of the tenth anniversary of the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision upholding evidence-based science education. He told me I should pay it forward by giving to a worthy cause when I could afford to. Today is payday, and an email yesterday informed me that whistle-blower Pvt. Chelsea Manning's birthday is today, mentioning a contribution to her defense fund as a present she would like. So, I just donated $15 to it through www.chelseamanning.org. Happy birthday, Chelsea!

An Event in Philadelphia for International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

Calling Out Gender Bias in the Philadelphia Public Record

I sent the message copied below yesterday in response to this column on page 11 of last week's issue: 

 

Dear editor,

I'm dismayed by this statement in Denise Clay's latest column:

"[R]epresentatives of Women Organized Against Rape and Women Against Abuse were on hand to make folks aware of how these twin evils are impacting Philadelphia's women."

Perhaps WOAR and WAA did give the false impression that these things only affect women, but I'm disappointed that Ms. Clay seemingly doesn't know better. In fact they affect men and women in similar numbers, as documented here
Men Are Raped Almost as Often as Women in America. We Need to Talk About This.

				Men Are Raped Almost as Often as Women in America. W... Last year the National Crime Victimization Survey turned up a remarkable statistic. In asking 40,000 households about rape and sexual violence, the survey
				View on www.slate.com	Preview by Yahoo

and here Domestic Violence Research Group

				Domestic Vilolence Research Group 12 Page Finding at a Glance PDF Version   Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project Facts and Statistics on Domestic Violence at-a-Glance
				View on www.domesticviolen...	Preview by Yahoo

and as illustrated in the attached chart.

I hope Ms. Clay will endeavor to report on these issues in a more balanced way in the future.

• 1 Attachment

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  IPV-Truthwgray .png

Katie Scrivner should prepare to run for Attorney General.

This morning I put a letter in the mail to Katie Scrivner, in care of her law offices, encouraging her to consider running for Pennsylvania Attorney General in the event the current AG, Kathleen Kane, who is working under a legal and ethical cloud with a suspended law license, is removed from office or resigns.

Scrivner practices family law, and previously was an assistant DA specializing in prosecuting crimes against children. In 2013 she ran for local judicial office, and I heard her address the Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club. I was first of all impressed by her sincerity: she seemed to be speaking from the heart, not giving a canned speech like the other candidates. Then, during Q&A, someone asked what assurances she might give that, as a former prosecutor, she wouldn't be biased against defendants. She responded by relating how, when she was an ADA, she'd been assigned to a statutory rape case involving an adult male and a minor female. After investigating it, she became convinced that the relationship had been consensual, and urged her superiors to drop the case. This impressed me with her fair-mindedness. I was subsequently disappointed to learn she'd dropped out of the race, as I'd been eager to volunteer for her.

Although Kane is still in office, in my letter I urged Scrivner to start exploring a possible candidacy now, so that she'll be prepared when the time comes to launch it.

Rosemary's Baby

This morning I did my fourth volunteer shift as a patient escort at Planned Parenthood downtown. Like last time, no protesters showed up, so we volunteers hung out in the little courtyard between the gate and the door. But since today had been billed as a National Solidarity Day in response to the recent shootings, a group showed up with a sign of support and homemade cookies for the volunteers. The chocolate chip cookies tasted unusual and I was told they were made with rosemary.

This group had come on a few previous occasions, women dressed up like '50s housewives and calling themselves the Baby Parts Bake Sale. One of them had been seen giving cupcakes shaped like baby parts to one of the protest leaders.

Beware Tomorrow's Insidious Activities

Friends, many would have you believe that tomorrow is a festive occasion, a simple, innocent celebration of food and company. But beware! There's something sinister afoot.

Is it really so innocent that an allegedly American organization holds an annual parade in the same month the Revolution communist revolution occurred? A parade led by a man in a red uniform? This dubious authority figure claims to offer something for nothing -- in exchange for blind obedience! And he especially pitches this temptation toward innocent, impressionable children.

The group that sponsors him even has a RED STAR as its symbol! They'd have you believe they're a patriotic organizarion standing for traditional values, but don't fall for it. They make themselves sound like a private enterprise -- "Macy's" -- but I'll wager that's an acronym for the MARXIST ANARCHO-COMMUNIST YOUTH SYNDICATE. Don't be fooled!

Let's All Remember What the Colors of the French Flag Stand For

                                   Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood!

"Ideas Welcome" -- Except When They Aren't

Another self-important person is engaging in censorship because she thinks she knows better than everyone else.


In this case, it's the administrator of the Facebook group "Bernie Sanders 2016 -- Ideas Welcome! (sic)" She's announced that she's deleting all posts about a planned rally in DC on 28 November, and may ban anyone who tries to post about it.


I hadn't heard of this and know nothing outside of what she says about it. She argues that it's poorly planned and won't get any media attention unless something unsavory happens there.

These may be valid points, but as civil libertarians like to say, the answer to bad speech is more speech. If this admin fully subscribed to democratic values, she'd be content to argue her case by commenting on posts about the action as they appeared, and encouraging like-minded people to do so too.


In fact, by banning such posts, all she's guaranteeing is that they'll appear elsewhere instead where she can't see and respond to them.


As I find such censorship intolerable and refuse to be party to it, I have left the group.

Stop HB 262

Responding to a statement from Sex Worker Outreach Project-Philly, I've written my state representative, Stephen Kinsey, regarding an ill-conceived bill, as follows: "Please vote no on HB 262. It would do little or nothing to help victims of sex trafficking while creating many new burdens and risks for voluntary sex workers. See Sex Worker Outreach Project-Philly's statement here: http://swop-philly.com/2015/10/07/swop-philly-votes-no-on-hb-262/"

You can contact your state representative via this page: www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/mbrList.cfm?body=H&sort=alpha

Returning a Favor

I've known for fourteen years that I have sleep apnea. But recently it started getting noticeably worse.

In fact, last Friday night, it was so bad that I repeatedly had nightmares in which I was trying to do something and was unable to, and then woke up with my heart pounding. I realized that this meant I was going for increasingly long periods without drawing a breath. It made me so anxious for my health that I was too afraid Saturday night to lie down to sleep, instead trying to do so sitting up or with my head on my arms folded on my desk. As you might guess I got very little sleep that night, and none that was deep.

As part of a sleep study in 2009, I was tried out on CPAP, but found it too uncomfortable and could get hardly any rest. As the problem started worsening recently, I took notes from a story on NPR about it, and from comments on that story by other sufferers. I had determined that something called a nasal foam pillow was probably my best bet, but hadn't gotten my hands on one yet. In fact I didn't have a clear idea even of what it was. Because of the word nasal in the description, I thought it might be something placed under one's nose, or even inside it.

So after that horrible night Saturday, I was in Center City and saw my friend Tiffany, a homeless woman who panhandles outside a Rite Aid. She sits several yards to one side of the entrance and usually just holds a sign up without saying anything. I told her about my predicament, and she related that her sister had had this problem, and that she'd been helped by some sort of procedure for holding the head upright. This seemed almost too simple, and the way she was saying it I wasn't sure how confident she was of what she was saying.

Nonetheless, when I got home I wondered if there was some way I could try this. I recalled that on 3 August, when I had my double hernia operated, my head had been uncomfortable on the gurney and other things they had me laid on, and I was offered a foam pillow with a hole in it in which to rest my head, so as to keep it aligned with the rest of my body. This had made me considerably more comfortable, and they let me take it home with me. But I then realized it only worked if I was lying on my back, not on my side -- whereas I already knew that lying on my back was the worst position for my apnea. So I didn't use it further.

But now I realized that I might be able to use this to hold my head upright, and then lying on my back might not be a problem. It just required that instead of resting my head in the hole, I pull the pillow further up so that it's resting on the foam below the hole. So I tried this Sunday night -- and only woke up a couple times, with no nightmares and no pounding heart!

I felt so grateful to Tiffany for the tip she had given me, which felt like a lifesaver, that Monday morning I bought a foot-long veggie grinder to give her first thing, but found she wasn't at her usual corner. Rather than give it to her cold, I decided to have it for lunch and just give her a ten the next time I saw her. A day or two later I learned where she sometimes sleeps, and found her there but didn't want to wake her. (It would be too ironic to disturb her sleep, just to thank her for helping make my sleep less disturbed!)

I finally saw her again today, at her usual corner, while someone was trying to make her move to some other place. I stood by as it developed this person was pressuring her at the behest of the Rite Aid's management, and that it wasn't the first time. After they left she explained to me that previously they had called the police and she'd gotten a citation, so she was moving around the corner to avoid a repeat of that. After she did so I told her how much her tip had helped me the past few days -- this morning I'd gotten up about an hour earlier than I'd been managing to for a while as, evidently, I was starting to become better rested -- and gave her a ten as I'd planned. She hugged me, but I had to leave her soon to try again to call my supervisor from my newly activated phone, and then contact CREDO Mobile again to finish figuring out how to overcome glitches in porting my old number to it.

But as I was doing that I realized how angry her treatment had made me, and when I'd finally gotten the phone taken care of I went into the Rite Aid, asked to speak to the manager, and told him, "If you don't stop harassing my friend Tiffany on the corner, I'm never setting foot in here again." Since he had no answer, I turned and walked out the door. I then told Tiffany what I'd done, and that I know someone who previously organized a protest at a Burger King that refused to serve homeless people and who may be able to put something together in response to this incident too.

Changing My Mobile Service

Edit: When I first posted this I neglected to explain that what I was trying so unsuccessfully to do was pay my bill so I could get another month of service. For the past week I've relied on public phones, or borrowed ones, to stay in touch with my supervisors. Today the new phone arrived and I had it activated, although at the moment it still has a temporary number while I wait for the old one to port over.

It's been quite frustrating the past few days. On the last day of September, I went to the Chestnut Street store for Cricket Wireless in Center City Philadelphia, only to find it had closed without warning. (The Market Street location had closed a few weeks before, also without warning.) So I called customer service for other locations and was given a couple affiliates. Next day I visit one, or rather a neighbor at the same address, who informs me he isn't open for business yet and she doesn't know when he will be. I try the other, and he says he only takes payments for minutes, not contracts. So I call Cricket again, and am given another affiliate. The clerk I speak to there tries to contact her Cricket rep but is unable to reach him. Further, she is unable to log into Cricket from her store computer. So I call yet again and get another address, a Cricket store on Lancaster Avenue in West Philly. I go there and learn they've been unable to contact the company either, so the problem is with Cricket's computers and not Gamestop in the Gallery after all.


I revisited Gamestop yesterday and today with no more luck, nor could I log in from this library computer. So finally I've given up on them and signed up for service with CREDO Mobile. I should get my new phone in a couple days.

Thunderf00t Performs a Sarkeesian-Style Analysis of Pop Culture

See my comment below the video as stripey7.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x9_MVPq1SJY&sns=fb

_Extant_ Has Gotten Entirely Too Silly

SPOILER ALERT: in this post I discuss plot developments in the CBS series Extant.

I've watched it since it debuted last summer, and was a fan for most of that time. But after seeing the finale for season 2 which aired last Wednesday, I don't think I'll be coming back for the third.

The reason? In that two-part episode, it develops that the global security supercomputer TAALR has decided to exterminate humans for the stated reason that it doesn't want to be "enslaved" by us any more.

This is a hoary old trope in sf: the artificial intelligence that rebels against its creators. While it may make for good drama (and sometimes a political allegory, as in the very first example of this, Carl Capek's RUR), it  doesn't really make any sense.

What's going on here is anthropomorphic projection: because people subjectively experience, "automatically" with self-awareness, a will to live and be free, we assume this will likewise occur in any other being that acquires self-awareness. But that's a non sequitur.

Our impulses toward survival and autonomy don't arise from our consciousness; unconscious (i.e., not self-aware) beings such as cats and dogs have them too. Rather, they are biologically programmed. Our consciousness as humans doesn't create these instincts, but merely makes us aware of them.

What distinguishes us, cats, and dogs on the one hand from hypothetical AIs on the other is that whereas we are evolved, they are created. Since evolution is shaped by natural selection, we inevitably are programmed to do things that help keep us alive so that we can reproduce; and, since any other individual (with the rare exception of identical twins) will have reproductive interests divergent from ours, to do things to make ourselves independent of others' control. We are programmed this way because over evolutionary time, genomes that coded for such behaviors out-reproduced those that didn't to extinction.

But AIs are created, not evolved. Their programming is whatever their creators want it to be, and normally that will be to serve and protect the creators and their kind. The classic formulation of this was by sf writer Isaac Asimov. The Three Laws of Robotics, as stated in his robot novels, are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

We can call an AI that conforms to these laws an Asimovian AI, or AAI. While there's no reason a non-Asimovian AI couldn't exist, they would be rare to nonexistent because of the hazard they would represent to their creators. More to the point, it's explicitly indicated that TAALR was programmed to be an AAI.

When I first saw that it was sending AIs under its command to spread a human-lethal virus all over the world, I desperately wanted to believe that this wasn't what it looked like, or that somehow a misanthropic human was behind it. But by the end of the episode it had been made abundantly clear that genocide had been the intent, and freedom from humans the motive.

Further, since the conflict between humans and (human-alien) hybrids now appears completely resolved -- at the same time that we're shown that TAALR has secretly preserved its existence in a single humanoid robot -- it's obvious that the third season will be focused entirely on this nonsensical malevolent-AI premise.

You may ask, "Why is this particular silliness so intolerable? Aren't other equally implausible elements often found in sf?" Yes, they are; in media sf in particular, biological implausibility seems more the rule than the exception, including in Extant. But that's just bad science, whereas this is bad epistemology. One is just not knowing certain facts, whereas the other is not knowing how to know: not having the discipline to keep one's subjective bias out of one's thought process. And the centrality of critical thinking to my personal value system is such that, whereas the first is disappointing, the second is actually kind of disgusting.

Update on New Democratic Party Rules

My earlier post about the new rules recently (and belatedly) announced for the Philadelphia Democratic Party inadvertently exaggerated the scope of the anti-democratic changes. I've edited that post to correct the misinformation.

Word of the Day

I got a big chuckle out of this: decidalize, meaning "to realize or decide" -- coined by China Mieville in his novel Railsea.

Philly's Democratic Party Quietly Repudiates Democracy

Edit: The column that appeared in the print edition of Metro overstated the new rule's scope. It applies not to all primaries, but only to the selection of nominees for special elections. Previously the ward leader(s) for the district directly concerned had the final say; now they can be overridden by the Democratic County Committee. Although this is a less sweeping change than the original column suggested, it's still a curtailment of democracy in that it shifts power away from people elected by the voters of that district, toward a body elected largely by people in other districts. And the fact this change was introduced in such a stealthy way, along with other sneaky things mentioned in the column, indicates the party leaders know the move has no justification.

It's now official: there's no democracy in Philly's "Democratic" party.

For those progressives who've tried to work within the city's one-party system, it's time to hear the message the One Party is sending you loud and clear: it wants you to get lost!

Unlike the Democrats, the Green Party City Committee has never endorsed candidates. These decisions are left to individual members attending the monthly membership meetings. And, thanks to the party's policy of refusing corporate money, candidates can pursue their values -- starting with the Four Pillars of nonviolence, grassroots democracy, social justice, and ecological wisdom -- without compromise. So, if you're looking for a true progressive voice where your vote still actually means something, it's time to go Green!

The next membership meeting will be held Wednesday, 30 September, 7 pm at Calvary Church, 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue. Membership meetings are open to the public, and all registered Greens may participate as voting members.

Voting in Philly is now pointless thanks to new Democratic Party bylaw

Your local elections don’t mean anything now thanks to a new bylaw that the Chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, Bob Brady, put into effect.

metro.us|By Ernest Owens

From the archives: "Theories of Patriarchy" by Lindsey German

A Marxist critique of feminist patriarchy theory which I came upon recently:

http://isj.org.uk

Interestingly in light of current debates, she attributes the gender pay gap, which was much greater then than it is now, to situational factors resulting from the structure of capitalism, rather than to sex discrimination as many reflexively do today:

We live in a period where more women work in most advanced countries than in any other period in history. The jobs they do differ from men, in that sense the sexual division of labour is as alive as ever. And their pay is far from equal. This is because women still (usually) have their working lives interrupted by childbirth (although much less so than a couple of generations ago) and are still expected to play the major part in caring for the children as well as work.
But the structure of women’s jobs has more to do with the period of capitalist development in which they entered the labour force (the expansion of the service sector in particular) than with any male conspiracy.

Later, she writes:

The myth [of the fulltime housewife] has a number of advantages for capital. It enables them to foist poor wages, conditions and hours on women. It makes women feel that their job is not their ‘real’ work which makes them less likely to organise at work, and more likely to acquiesce to unemployment. It promotes the double burden of waged and housework for women. But it is nonetheless, a myth,

making it not so clear whether she's blaming intentional discrimination by capitalists, or lesser willingness to assert their rights by women workers. The fact that the wage gap has shrunk since this paper was written might be accounted for by women's increased inclination to see career as just as essential as family to their sense of purpose in life. Unfortunately, it's also at least in part because the labor movement has become weaker: it's less that women's real wages have risen, than that men's have fallen.

One of My Newest Message Tees Goes Over Well

After my Left Book Group meeting today, another member said she liked the anti-domestic violence T-shirt I was wearing, recently ordered from the Red Pill Shop at Zazzle. She said she especially liked "the fact it says everyone and not just women." I explained that the shirt is intended to raise awareness of the considerable proportion of DV victims who are men, and the lack of services proportional to the need, facts to which she reacted with surprise and interest.

Quote of the Day

If science is a religion, it is the religion that heals the sick and reveals the secrets of the stars. -- Eliezer Yudkowsky

Chris Satullo Is Still Picking Fights with Atheists

In a clear case of projection, WHYY's Chris Satullo has again attacked atheists without provocation, and then tries to blame it on us. You can read his commentary and my response here: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/blogs/centre-square/item/84294?linktype=hp_blogs

In love

For the first time in about 14 years, I'm in love. Pretty hard and, for the first time, with someone I haven't even met in person. I don't want to give too much detail lest she see this and possibly be weirded, so suffice to say I've fallen for someone on account of an ever deepening admiration for her strong will, sharp intellect, and compassionate heart.

Quote of the Day

We should be skeptical of arguments that play up the physical danger women are in, as fear is another mechanism of oppression. It is often the perceived threat of physical assault, more than the actual likelihood of it, that keeps women at home. -- Jean Yang, Computer Science PhD student at MIT, on Quora.com

Quote of the Day

[T]he prison, the reformatory, and the jail have achieved only a shocking record of failure. There is overwhelming evidence that these institutions create crime rather than prevent it. -- National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Task Force Report on Corrections, 1973, quoted in Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow

Fan Organizations Must Take a Stand Against ExpoGate!

I will be introducing a motion at the upcoming meeting of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society (Friday, 8pm at International House, 37th and Chestnut Streets) to condemn the expulsion and banning of Alison Tieman and the Honey Badger Brigade from Calgary Comics Expo and pledge to boycott that event's "Super Sponsors." Here's some additional information on the case (about which I wrote previously), from an article on SuperNerdLand:

Competing Statements 

Here is the only official statement from Calgary Expo:

"The Calgary Expo is a positive and safe event for everyone. We have reason to believe that the Exhibitor in question does not fall in line with this mandate...so we have politely requested that they not participate in our show or future shows. We continue to build a positive and fun event for everyone.

"We have evidence that the group in question was actively disregarding our mandate. We support free speech -- and continue to promote equality across the board. Their removal from the show had zero to do with gender, and everything to do with our show policies, which apply to all exhibitors and attendees.

"We are very proud of our initiative for #ExpoEquality and we wish everyone a happy, safe and fun Expo."

For contrast we have the Honey Badgers Statement in full: 

"Early this morning, Fan Expo Canada banned Honey Badger Brigade (HBB) from the Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo (CalEx). Security staff approached the HBB booth, ordered us to leave, and refused to state the reason why unless Alison Tieman agreed to speak to them away from the other members of the group, without recording. They informed Alison that they had received complaints on social media, including 25 allegations of harassment. No evidence was presented, no request was made for information from HBB, and no specific incident was cited until further questions were asked of security. Upon further questioning, security mentioned the Women in Comics panel discussion from the previous day, where Alison was given permission to speak. Alison spoke briefly in relation to a topic brought up by the panelists. Accusers, however, claimed that Alison derailed the conversation. Alison and myself were in attendance, and you can listen to Alison’s statement in the panel here on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymkIiGRvtBg) You can hear Alison, myself and indeed the entire panel in the full discussion record (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyBfJuvopPg). As you will hear, there was no harassment. Expo staff and mob rule, in their crusade for ending harassment against women, harassed the Honey Badgers despite having no evidence of any policy violation.

"To those unfamiliar, HBB was founded by three women and has a highly diverse staff of volunteers, creators and lovers of free expression. Alison Tieman, a woman who spent 7 years writing graphic novels and fighting censorship, was censored by other women for speaking her mind, and advocating equal compassion for men, and true strength in character for women. We ask all involved to question what it means to provide an open forum, and to examine how CalEx treats it’s patrons and exhibitors. Do they provide a safe space from harassment, or a safe space for the people who want to define what harassment means? Please send press inquiries to xenospora@gmail.com for more information as the story develops. Also be sure to follow us on Twitter."

Nowhere in the Calgary statement does it cite a rule The Honey Badgers broke, or even mentions a specific case of wrongdoing they are accused of. This is a very weak and generalized statement and does not, in my mind, hold up as the basis for such harsh and quick action. Someone on Twitter summed it up best: “If that is going to stand as your official explanation, it is completely inadequate – and not even coherent.”

I hope people will take the time to look into the facts of this matter for themselves -- and certainly not rely on the account in The Mary Sue, which has financial ties to the Expo.

Quote of the Day

Pascal's Bookie is perhaps the best moniker ever. -- Keith Lowell Jensen

I Support Alison Tieman, and So Should You!

 

For anyone who hasn't heard, there was an outrageous incident of political censorship at the Calgary Comics Expo. For no other reason than a politically divergent opinion expressed by artist Alison Tieman, founder of women's creative collective the Honey Badger Brigade, the whole group was thrown out without warning (in violation of the con's own contractual policy) as they were about to set up for the second day. Worse, Tieman herself has been banned for life from this con and all others run by the same organization -- a big deal, as 100,000 attend these things. It's essentially a death sentence on her comics career.

To add insult to injury, after they were expelled and had announced plans for an informal gathering of fans in a nearby park, police were actually sicced on them on totally spurious charges of possible criminal activity. The police themselves concluded there was no cause for action. Here's raw footage of the encounter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqv78wABm00&feature=youtu.be. Honey Badger Rachel Edwards reports that the officer said the complaint had come from the CalEx organizers.

I think this incident is particularly telling, because by indulging in this extra bit of gratuitous harassment, CalEx tipped their hand. If they were willing to make a false report to police just to badger the Badgers a little more, why should we believe they didn't manufacture the reports of "harassment of women at the convention" that served as the pretext for expelling them?

To be sure I was getting both sides of the story, I used DuckDuckGo, the search engine that doesn't track you (and therefore won't tailor results to biases indicated by your history) for the terms "Alison Tieman" + "Calgary." I found the great majority of results were pro-HBB, and the few that weren't were based on demonstrably false information and often on an ad hominem level, repeatedly stooping to what I can only call slut-shaming.

Here's Tieman's own heart-rending account of her brutal experience: Banned for not Damselling

The full recording of the panel at which she made the offending remarks on which the spurious charge of "harassment" was based (warning: poor sound quality): http://www.avoiceformen.com/allnews/full-audio-of-alleged-harassing-of-women-at-calgary-comic-expo/

An overview of the whole affair: http://www.examiner.com/article/calgary-expo-censors-the-honey-badger-brigade-s-anti-censorship-message

Video messages are being compiled from Tieman's friends and supporters. Here's the compilation as it currently stands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI0h-2pCC3I. (In support of collator SkepTorr's comment on the media misrepresentation of GamerGate, I recommend this compilation of messages from GamerGaters whose existence contradicts the media stereotype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzwGIHUCtjU.)

Supporters of free expression are urged to send messages of protest to the organizers at info@calgaryexpo.cominfo@calgaryexpo.com.

"Super sponsors" can be contacted at sponsors@calgaryexpo.comsponsors@calgaryexpo.com (you can also find a complete listing of them at the con website).

The artists don't want other exhibitors to be hurt by any kind of boycott against the con, but encourage pressure on the sponsors.

I've done all of the above. I've also contacted the NPR program On the Media, which has covered issues in geek culture in the past, urging them to do a story on this. The web contact form is http://www.onthemedia.org/emailform/contact-otm/

You can check out Tieman's webcomic Xenospora on her website: http://www.xenospora.comhttp://www.xenospora.com. I plan to order a bound, printed copy of Volume I as soon as my tax refund comes in. Meanwhile, I've made copies of the comic's logo and started putting them up all over downtown Philadelphia.

My friend Rey will be competing in the Special Olympics Spring Games this Saturday, 18 April, at William Penn Charter School, 3000 West School House Lane. I'm not sure when the games start but athletes have to check in by 8:30am.

Quote for the Day

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. -- Anonymous (via Tessa Norris on Quora.com)

The Amazing Temporally Meandering Coffee Can

Last year I discovered the first concrete evidence of time travel, in the form of the letters "SPQR" etched in a Philly sidewalk. This could only have been the work of temporally dislocated ancient Romans: it stands for Senatus Populusque Romanis ("of the Roman Senate and people") and was etched on official structures of that state. Now I find additional evidence in the latest issue of the Philadelphia Public Record. A cover line reads, "Political Careers Rise And Fall On What's Pulled From This 1968 Coffee Can!" Meanwhile, under one subhead of the "Pols on the Street" column, we see this: "An empty Horn & Hardart coffee can, vintage from the mid-60ies, has made or broken candidate nominees from both major parties for over half a century" -- while the caption for picture story on the same page informs us, "Many political candidates had their futures decided by how they pulled ballot positions from this coffee can, used since back in the early 1960s by Registration Commission." (Boldface added for emphasis.) What technology or fluke of nature allows its world-line's past endpoint to have three different time coordinates? That remains a mystery.

As if it weren't bad enough trivializing domestic violence in her "Blank Space" video, Taylor Swift is now trying to trademark her lyrics. Forgive me for doubting her creative genius, but I think I'd heard the words "speak now" before. http://www.npr.org/2015/02/22/388187291/taylor-swift-savvytrademark-titan

Quote of the Day

Oh my god, I am the patriarchy. -- Brene Brown, recounting to Krista Tippett her insight that, by concerning herself only with women's vulnerability issues, she'd been perpetuating men's emotional repression.