PZ & Thunderf00t

[BaldySlaphead]

Have many of you been following the latest happenings with PZ Myers and Thunderf00t concerning anti-harassment polices for conventions?

In a nutshell, PZ brings TF onto FreeThoughtBlogs and TF immediately posts on the subject of women at conventions and their safety: essentially fallout from the recent DJ Grothe "there is no harassment at TAM" debacle, itself part of the fallout from so-called Elevatorgate.

I can only suggest that people read it to get a sense of what's happened, but the culmination of this, which can be found on the relevant parties' Twitter accounts, is that FT has been booted from FTB after just ten days.

My sympathies very much lie with the idea that anti-harassment polices for conventions are an entirely sensible idea and it has been genuinely shocking and depressing to see how much naked misogyny exists within the freethinkers community.

However, it has been equally shocking to see how the debate about whether anti-harassment polices for conventions are necessary or not has been conducted between two parties that I previous had a great deal of respect for. What is most shocking is the way that skeptical thinking has gone out of the window. The posts between the two have been almost as bad for logical fallacies as something by Hambo.

My feeling is that while I sympathise very much more with PZ's basic position, TF has behaved with slightly more integrity than PZ. Am I alone in feeling that this situation reflects very poorly on all concerned?

[BathTub]

Well I feel it leans slightly the other way. But probably because TF is such a terrible, terrible writer. I love the guy, I donate to his youtube channel, but just as much as he sucks at public speaking it seems he sucks as a writer too.

[E-lad]

From Brayton's latest post:

Other changes are in the works as well, mostly out of the view of the public — new rules, new policies, new ways to make decisions that I hope will avoid these kinds of unpleasant situations in the future.

Oh boy, here we go with the rules, and just why I wondered why the hell they would ever want to build a "community" of Freethinkers.
As far as I am concerned they are well on their way to making sure that anyone on FTB is a conformist, and it just doesn't make sense to me why any freethinker would want to associate with any group that is going to censor them in any way.

I get the uneasy that Brayton is more about wielding his power as the "leader" of FTB than he is about actually allowing people to think for themselves.

Having said that, it was bound to happen, imo. The whole idea was flawed from the beginning and is a perfect example of why I, personally have never 'joined' any groups.

[BaldySlaphead]

Well I feel it leans slightly the other way. But probably because TF is such a terrible, terrible writer. I love the guy, I donate to his youtube channel, but just as much as he sucks at public speaking it seems he sucks as a writer too.

Well, I certainly agree that he's a pretty terrible writer, and I don't think that it's helped at all. As you say, he writes like he speaks, getting bogged down in caveats and burying his point in sub-clauses.

[Weemaryanne]

It's kind of disappointing, yes, but also encouraging. I'm old enough to remember when 1) male privilege and 2) women's rights as something requiring actual work in addition to nice thoughts, were both new concepts. Now a new generation is coming to grips with these complex issues and while everyone doesn't always acquit him/herself admirably, the work is getting done. It's like the gradual ebbing away of religiosity, in that people of the twenty-second century will look back and wonder what the fuss was about.

[lehman scott]

It's like the gradual ebbing away of religiosity, in that people of the twenty-second century will look back and wonder what the fuss was about.

Please please please, let it be so....

*gets down on knees and prays*

Oh wait....

[E-lad]

I have not followed the Tfoot/PZ controversy very closely, however, I thought that after beating Tfoot half to death over his opinions, and Ed formulating a set of rules for Freethought blogs, PZ has the gall to say:

- I’ve been unimpressed with a lot of the timid boundary-setting of the skeptical movement —

The instant free thinkers start playing politics is the instant that they cease to be free thinkers, imo.