Political discourse on The Comment Section

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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby Kate » Sun Nov 12, 2017 1:03 am

I'm one of those hippies who doesn't believe in feelings being right or wrong. I do believe in facts, and acting based on facts, but I don't think it's wrong to be angry at feeling mistreated. I don't think it's wrong to be angry at what seems to be bigotry. I don't think it's wrong to feel hurt even when a part of you knows the other person in a dispute is right, or to be outraged by the injustice you see. I think feelings are just what they are, and we choose what to do with them. Do we try to resolve our disputes? Do we accept that even if people mean well, it's tiresome to try and keep having a dialogue when we keep getting hurt? Do we lash out? Do we bottle it up? Our choices about how to handle our feelings are what define our interactions and our community.

When people feel hurt enough to leave, it sucks. It sucks whether they've been here five years (those time travelers), or five minutes. It sucks more when it's the former, admittedly, but still, it sucks. I think TCS is a community that largely attracts people who seek diversity of opinions, and the thought that we might be responsible for making someone feel so hurt that they wanted to leave because of a disagreement is probably painful for a lot of us. Or maybe I'm just projecting. It's difficult as hell to have a place where everyone is free to voice their opinions but with the goal of not hurting people, because some ideas are hurtful even if they're genuinely held. Maybe especially because they are genuinely held.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby D-LOGAN » Sun Nov 12, 2017 1:31 am

Right.

This thread- viewtopic.php?f=39&t=10600

And this- viewtopic.php?f=39&t=10666

In particular Noodle-Fox, and I know I've rebuked others for bringing other people's names into threads in the past, and I'm sorry Noddle' if you read this and don't appreciate it, but I'm kinda out of options here, so ... I guess I suck.

Anyway, on the The alt-right's obsession with pedophilia-thread, a forum user accused Noodle of being associated with the alt-right. Now, given my opinion on the Alt-Right (which I know I was naive about in the past, but thanks to users here, including ones I've often been at odds, I feel I now have the proper take on) I feel this is an attack on her character. I feel this is tantamount to calling her a racist or a fascist or a sympathiser or something. I view that as an insult, I view not some far off from calling some associated with neo-nazis or anti-fa, I think that's a very serious thing to throw around and I've said before I'm not staying here if those don't go unchallenged. So can I have a bit of feedback on that?

Now if there's a good reason for her to be called that fair enough. Maybe she said she is or said she sympathises with them or something, in which case I'll retract my objection. But I'd like to know the specifics here.

Now as for the threads I mentioned. A lot went on in them, I think some stuff was edited so I'm not sure if I'm playing with the full deck here, there were references to things I couldn't find, but a lot of accusations against her were made. And I'm not trying to lionize her, I'm not a fan of assuming ill-intent on other's motives which was done, but that I believe was handled in the thread.

What I'm asking for here is I'd like to know what the objections were to what she said speciffically, not what people think her words implied or what historical context or whatever, what she said specifically, and what people's justifications for the accusations against her were.

I'm not trying to interrogate anyone, I'm not trying to tell anyone their opinions are wrong, or they should feel this or feel this, everyone can feel what they want or have whatever opinion they want. This isn't about the forum as much as it is about me and some decisions I've been putting off.

So I've looked through the threads and I don't see Noodle saying all gays are paedophiles or only gays are paedophiles or straight paedophiles aren't a problem or whatever or saying transpeople are useless freaks. But I may have missed something. So due to the sheer amount of posts over the threads, first of all, if people would be so kind, could they tell me what their specific problems were and I'll go from there.

Thank you for for time.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby Marcuse » Sun Nov 12, 2017 1:43 am

D-LOGAN wrote:What I'm asking for here is I'd like to know what the objections were to what she said speciffically, not what people think her words implied or what historical context or whatever, what she said specifically, and what people's justifications for the accusations against her were.


viewtopic.php?f=39&t=10600&start=90#p259946

I'm linking you to my post I made on the thread about this issue. It explains in detail my concerns with Noodle's posts and contains a quote where I have bolded the most problematic part.

In brief;

1. Noodle claimed there was a "gay male pedophile problem"
2. Noodle accused other users of supporting Kevin Spacey when they said there was no gay male pedophile problem
3. I asked Noodle for evidence of her claim in my post, pointed out where I thought what she had said before was insufficient to serve as such evidence, and pointed out that she was deflecting by claiming people supported Spacey.
4. Her response was to write a G+ post which called everyone on the forum "faggots" as an insult, and contained screenshots of our posts which she claimed she'd been charitable in anonymising lest her G+ friends come and troll us. This post was subsequently deleted.
5. I posted apologising to Noodle and saying that I would have taken her seriously had she presented evidence beyond anecdotes for her claim.

The reason I asked for evidence for her claims rather than, as has been claimed, calling her a bigot was because I felt that such a claim was controversial and should be taken seriously. If Noodle had chosen to provide evidence for her claims in order to try to back them up we might have had a discussion about how and why that evidence was or was not proof of her claims. However, that wasn't to be. I do feel responsible for being the person who precipitated this, and I don't think it's a good thing that Noodlefox has chosen to leave. However, I don't believe that people should be able to make unfounded claims of a "gay male pedophile problem", slandering every user on the board who is both gay and male as a potential pedophile, without at the very least being asked for evidence of this.

Edit:
Now, given my opinion on the Alt-Right (which I know I was naive about in the past, but thanks to users here, including ones I've often been at odds, I feel I now have the proper take on) I feel this is an attack on her character. I feel this is tantamount to calling her a racist or a fascist or a sympathiser or something.


I don't know whether it's really an insult to say that someone who has their location set as "kekistan" and has the "kekistan" flag with "shadilay my dudes" as the signature is in some way associated with the alt right. It seems to have been broadcast for a long time.

However, I can say that personally I am very uncomfortable with the idea of threads started on the premise of "this person said something in another thread" because it's a bit too close to getting at the person and not the argument. I would have been more comfortable with a thread titled to the same effect but relying on the broad strokes more than a specific person. There's definitely ways that thread could have been started without being phrased in that way so as to concern so many people.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby Kate » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:15 am

This is all user Kate,just to be clear, not admin Kate. This is long, with many links, and I am hesitant to post it. The only reason I'm okay posting it is because it's all visible in the thread, but I'm going to spoiler it because I don't want to drag out discussion about specific users.

Spoiler: show
Logan, the exact phrase that people were upset by was this: "The reason vocal leaders of LGB are blasting with a double barrel is because you all fucking know the gay male pedophile problem isn't some baseless aspersion, you selfish twat!" here, for full context.

A few people were upset by what they saw as the implication that there is specifically a gay male pedophile problem, because this has historically been a stereotype used to harm gay people. This is how I read it as well, that it was a particularly pressing problem for the gay community as opposed to the straight one. That may not be how she intended it.

gis got as close as anyone did to calling her a homophobe, but it was in reference to that viewpoint:
It is categorically not because of any sort of insecurity about a "gay male pedophile problem", because there isn't one outside the minds of said homophobes.
Context here. And it is a view that, when expressed without any evidence behind it beyond impressions, does indeed come across as homophobic.

Noodle walked it back slightly but still left it open that she's concerned that this is particular problem in the gay community, or at least, that was how I read it here:

I mean, what happened in regards to Milo and Takei? They had sex with men when they were 14 and they talked about it like it wasn't that big a deal - hell, they talked about it like it wasn't an adult having sex with an underage boy. I know 3 gay men who said they had sex with men twice the age (I assume, they said they were underage when they had relations). Now I wasn't even cognizant to the culture surrounding them back then and I'm not saying I do now, I just seem to see something that I hope isn't there after all I've heard and read; the article sounds off-putting when the author went out of their way to say, "Stop assuming gay men are pedophiles! Besides, Spacey advanced on a 14 year old, not someone under 13!"
That was here, for reference.


Tess responded to say that doesn't prove there's a problem with the gay community specifically, and to try and clarify that she wasn't saying that it's okay to harm a 14 year old but there's a relevant distinction in terminology for the term pedophilia. That's over here.

Here and here, Noodle seemed to misinterpret Tess and Aquila (at least, I'm fairly certain she's misinterpreting Aquila's objection to using American standards universally as a defense for Kevin Spacey's actions, I may be wrong).
Okay, you need to explain your view a bit better, because you seem to be claiming that Spacey forcing himself on a minor doesn't really matter since he's technically (the best kind of right!) not a pedophile.
What matters is that he, like other powerful people, hurt many people and got away with it for years because nobody complained.

That includes an underage minor, which - with the way my moral compass works - is just as heinous as him forcing himself on a 12 year old.

Adolescents will never be physically, mentally and emotionally mature to have relations with an adult and it really blows my mind that people are going, "YO HOL UP, SPACEY DIDN'T GO AFTER A 'KID' KID."


and

I'm done talking about this. I want nothing more to do with hearing others trying to weasel Spacey out of being a sick, fucking degenerate; him being gay has nothing to do with this anymore.


I think it's worth noting that no one had defended Kevin Spacey at all; and while she may have misinterpreted it, people tried to be clear that what he did wasn't okay and when she said they were defended it tried to say again that they were not defending him. At no point did I notice her clarify that she is not trying to say that the gay community seems to have a particular problem with pedophilia.

Tesseracts and Marcuse both posted to reiterate that their disagreement with her was over the gay pedophile problem comment, and that it seemed she was conflating the disagreement with that statement and the clarification of the term pedophilia with a defense of his actions. Marcuse I believe said that she was using it to deflect from her previous more problematic statement, which was the thing people had a problem with.

Her next post contained a link to an external G+ post where she called the site at large "faggots" and insisted we were defending pedophilia, while linking to posts that explicitly were not defending Kevin Spacey. I believe she genuinely misunderstood, but the insults were the rule-breaking part.


My TL;DR is that there were certainly misunderstandings, but while some of the people Noodle misunderstood tried to clarify a few times that they didn't mean what she thought they meant, she did not try to deny the rather prejudiced comment that people objected to in the first place. If it was a misunderstanding, that'd be good to know, but there was no indication that it was.

In regards to the alt-right comment, Noodle has indeed made comments, used news sources, had the kekistan flag in her signature, and linked to an external site where she claimed to be sympathetic to the alt-right. I do not agree with people using other users to bolster their assertions in threads (especially users who aren't going to be around to defend themselves) but I don't think the problem is saying she's associated with the alt-right. It's a political movement, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of it being inherently a pejorative to the point that using it to describe someone is insulting until they claim it themselves.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby cmsellers » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:21 am

Logan, I called NoodleFox alt-right because A. she has a Kekistan flag and salutation in her signature, and B. she kept making claims that I've only ever seen in alt-right sources (and sometimes linking to alt-right sources). It's like how if someone had a rainbow flag avatar and cited PinkNews for everything, I'd probably conclude that they were gay.

I don't think it's "an attack on her character" to say that someone is part of the alt-right. While it's true that the parts of the alt-right which are most active IRL are Nazis, the online alt-right is made up of 4chan-influenced shitposters, and I get the impression NoodleFox is part of that tradition, not the Nazi one.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby D-LOGAN » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:23 am

Thank you Marcuse. This is helpful. Now before I continue, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not challanging your take, just giving my reaction to what you're saying. This is just a response not an argument.
Marcuse wrote:I'm linking you to my post I made on the thread about this issue. It explains in detail my concerns with Noodle's posts and contains a quote where I have bolded the most problematic part.

In brief;

1. Noodle claimed there was a "gay male pedophile problem"

And if someone believes there is a problem with paedophiles in the gay community is that a bad thing? There is certainly a paedophile problem within the community of males attracted to females. I hesitate to call paedophiles attracted to boys gay or paedophiles attracted to girls straight because I don't believe they're within the same group. I think being a straight man means being attracted to women and being a gay man means being attracted to men, and boys and girls don't fit into that. But I understand people just using the terms as a shortcut. But I also don't believe calling a man who molests underage boys gay is a slur against gays anymore than calling a man who molestes girls straight is a slur against straight peoples.
And I think people deserve the benefit of the doubt on that matter.
And I'll be honest, I don't know much about the gay community, but a lot of gay dudes I know personally have speciffically told me that problem is there, at least in my country. With people not making much of relationships between older men and teenage boys below the age of consent, and they thought people would make a much bigger deal if it was girls going out older men, and reasoning it was due to people not being as protective of boys as they were with girls.
I don't believe these gay dudes were being homophobic or saying all gays were like this or members of the alt-right, just pointing out a problem they saw. And I don't know if they were exagerating or what, I'm just saying what I was told.

Now I'm pretty pro-male, but I don't think someone pointing out problems men have, like violence and whatnot mean they're being misandrist or saying all men are violent, just pointing out a problem they see. I certainly wouldn't accuse a woman who speaks of problems among men as being a sympathiser of Valerie Solanas right off the bat.

So if that's what Noodle said that's objectional, or enough to say she's associated with the alt-right, I don't think that's fair.


2. Noodle accused other users of supporting Kevin Spacey when they said there was no gay male pedophile problem

Well I wouldn't have reached that conclusion, and I think it's important to try as best we can to assume good intent on the motivations of other users.

3. I asked Noodle for evidence of her claim in my post, pointed out where I thought what she had said before was insufficient to serve as such evidence, and pointed out that she was deflecting by claiming people supported Spacey.

People can get hung up on words and definitions when it comes to stuff like this- "He's not a paedophile, technically he's an hebephile", "he's not a hebephile, that's someone whose solely attracted to adolescants, when clearly he's just an opportunistic predator" etc.
It's a derailment I see happening a lot. But as I say we should all try and not assume ill intent on other's motivations. Which includes her, I don't think she was given that either in regards to her pointing out there was a problem within the community means she was making accusations against the entire group.

4. Her response was to write a G+ post which called everyone on the forum "faggots" as an insult, and contained screenshots of our posts which she claimed she'd been charitable in anonymising lest her G+ friends come and troll us. This post was subsequently deleted.

Well that's bang out of line. Insults are not to tolerated.
5. I posted apologising to Noodle and saying that I would have taken her seriously had she presented evidence beyond anecdotes for her claim.

The reason I asked for evidence for her claims rather than, as has been claimed, calling her a bigot was because I felt that such a claim was controversial and should be taken seriously. If Noodle had chosen to provide evidence for her claims in order to try to back them up we might have had a discussion about how and why that evidence was or was not proof of her claims. However, that wasn't to be. I do feel responsible for being the person who precipitated this, and I don't think it's a good thing that Noodlefox has chosen to leave. However, I don't believe that people should be able to make unfounded claims of a "gay male pedophile problem", slandering every user on the board who is both gay and male as a potential pedophile, without at the very least being asked for evidence of this.

And I don't think saying there is a "gay male paedophile problem" is slandering everyone here both gay and male. I think the fairest interpretation is that someone is saying there is a problem in this community.

Now as I say Noodle was very out of line in a lot of ways, but I don't think stating she believes there's a gay male paedophile problem is one of them unless there's more to that, that's specifically about her, not what what other people throughout history have said or done, we all answer for our own words and actions.

Now that brings me back to what I believe the insults directed at her were, namely calling her associated with the alt-right and in the the same thread, Gisambards (and again I don't like bringing other people's names into other threads, but I'm airing stuff out here, so what can I do?) essentially stated Noodle called transpeople "useless freaks", again, that's a huge accusation. Has she said that? If she has, sure that should be called out. But I'd like to know where we stand on that.

Now again, I don't approve of insults on the forum, but it looks to me like those from Noodle' have been handled, if not I'd be bringing that up, but I need to know it works both ways.

Now, is there anything else before I go forward?
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby gisambards » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:37 am

D-LOGAN wrote:Now that brings me back to what I believe the insults directed at her were, namely calling her associated with the alt-right and in the the same thread, Gisambards (and again I don't like bringing other people's names into other threads, but I'm airing stuff out here, so what can I do?) essentially stated Noodle called transpeople "useless freaks", again, that's a huge accusation. Has she said that? If she has, sure that should be called out. But I'd like to know where we stand on that.


That comes from the military transgender ban thread:
NoodleFox wrote:I'm all for trans rights. I'm a pro person, an egalitarian. BUT I'm also a realist: do you think it's a good idea to have people who have been statistically proven to be physically and mentally unstable and have a suicide rate of 40% in everyday life on the front lines?
To have a trans person who sees themselves as something else, who will eviscerate their body and constantly undergo horrific and painful procedures to feel normal, be able to proclaim, "Yes, I am healthy to join the military. I'm stable enough to fly a helicopter into an area where I'm going to be shot at. I'm going to be able to stand around doing nothing for hours on end, follow orders clearly and concisely, and I'm definitely able to stay clam when I'm being shot at."

This was an argument in support of banning all trans people from the American military. To be clear, I don't have an issue with the part about statistics, although I do disagree with it - it's the second paragraph that is certainly hard to interpret as anything other than an attack on the competence of trans people as a group, and I would also argue the description of the transitioning process is intentionally written so as to make it, and thus the people who go through it, seem horrifying and freakish.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby Crimson847 » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:44 am

gisambards wrote:
Crimson847 wrote:If you don't care about respecting the feelings of someone who says bigoted things, then why do you care if I say you didn't do so? If it was never your goal to be nice to such a person then why does it matter to you if I say you weren't?

Frankly, if you want to strike back at someone who's hurt you, that's your decision and your prerogative.


I don't not care about respecting the feelings of someone who says bigoted things, but I'm not going to prioritise their feelings over my right to challenge those statements. The problem is your dismissal of my challenging those statements as being nothing but overly emotional attacks on their character, as seen by your referring to me challenging her opinions as "shaming her as a bigot" or "dismissing her as a self-deluded homophobe" or "striking back at someone who's hurt me" - all of which imply irrationality and make it sound as if all I was doing was insulting someone because they said things I don't like, and this is very insulting. As I have said, I am not going to stop challenging beliefs I think are genuinely prejudiced just for the sake of not wanting to hurt the other person's feelings, and I don't think this is a remotely irrational outlook - quite the opposite, actually. As I mentioned in the other thread, I think all that would be accomplished by a forum bending itself over backwards to accommodate members who are consistently rude and bigoted would be to make that forum no longer welcoming to those they are rude and bigoted towards - and if it has to be a choice I don't see any reason to prioritise the first group over the second.


I'm not sure how we got from me saying "you said something insulting" to you reading that as "you're irrational for saying what you said". I've been trying to criticize actions rather than insult the people who took those actions, and I don't know where I went wrong in that attempt.

Kate wrote:There's a difference between being civil and bending over backwards to be accommodating in an argument. I genuinely did not see anyone being treated the way you describe, Crimson. If you could please point out how you feel they were with specific examples, either viewtopic.php?f=57&t=10359 or in PM, I would appreciate that.


Okay. Regarding "dismissed as a self-deluded homophobe":

gisambards wrote:
NoodleFox wrote:The reason vocal leaders of LGB are blasting with a double barrel is because you all fucking know the gay male pedophile problem isn't some baseless aspersion, you selfish twat!

The reason LGBT people are angry at Spacey is because the way he chose to come out seemed to directly link his homosexuality and abuse of a minor - by appearing to use his homosexuality as an excuse for that behaviour - and the reason that angers LGBT people is because linking homosexuality and paedophilia is a common and extremely damaging stereotype frequently used by homophobic people to justify their homophobia. It is categorically not because of any sort of insecurity about a "gay male pedophile problem", because there isn't one outside the minds of said homophobes. Obviously there are homosexual or bisexual paedophiles, but I've yet to see any remotely trustworthy evidence that they're considerably more common than heterosexual ones.


To wit:

1. Anyone who thinks there's a "gay male pedophile problem" is:

A) A homophobe, since only homophobes think such things
B) Self-deluded, since they just believe this to justify their homophobia and not because of anything real or external to themselves

2. Since only homophobes think this is true, it's not a claim worth taking seriously.

Noodles just got through saying in the quoted post that she thinks such a problem does exist (whatever the hell "gay male pedophile problem" is supposed to mean). Ergo, she's a self-deluded homophobe and what she's saying isn't worth taking seriously because only homophobes think it's true. Hence, "dismissed as a self-deluded homophobe".


Regarding "sincerity and presumed motives attacked by an admin":

Marcuse wrote:Noodle. I strongly suggest you actually read what you yourself posted before you start casting aspersions saying people defended paedophilia on TCS. No, what you read on twitter doesn't count. No what you read on Slate doesn't count. People here differentiated between people who have a sexual attraction to children, with a guy who in one instance attempted to engage in sexual behaviour with a minor. While that might certainly suggest he might have those feelings, it is (as Tess said) irrelevant to the other point that people were responding to, which is the thing I linked before and took the liberty of bolding that section which I think most people are taking the most umbrage at.

To restate, you made a claim that there is a "gay pedophile problem" and indicated that you believe there is a specific problem among gay men that makes them tend towards, suffer more greatly from, or exhibit more behaviour which we classify as pedophilia. The problem with that is your evidence is anecdotes from two other actors who claimed they'd engaged in sexual behaviour as minors themselves and some stuff about people you know personally. If you didn't think people would react to that kind of a claim being backed up with nothing but that, then I'd recommend reconsidering the method by which you choose evidence with which to support your statements.

Moreover, you then seem to have conflated people saying that gay people don't have a pedophile problem (which clearly doesn't preclude the existence of gay pedophiles, but merely asserts they're roughly in line with the general population in terms of presentation and appearance) with a defense of the actions of Kevin Spacey. This is a gross misrepresentation that appears to have been the result of a conflation of the general with the specific. If I was being uncharitable, I'd say that it seems you're choosing whether to apply statements to the general or specific depending on whether they fit your prior interpretation of events. Saying Kevin Spacey is a gay pedophile doesn't prove a pedophile problem, nor does it disprove it, it is materially irrelevant to the situation and whether it's bad or not. Kevin Spacey's actions are reprehensible, but they form nothing more empirically useful than any of the other anecdotes we might present. Nothing about suggesting that we don't have any proof of a "gay pedophile problem" justifies or legitimises Spacey's behaviour.


1. Accusing someone of not reading someone else's posts (e.g. "please actually read my post next time, kthx") is pugnacious enough; accusing them of not even reading their own posts is quite a bit further. You guys fairly objected in the past when I made similar comments to Logan during an argument, and it's even harder to deal with coming from someone in a position of authority like an admin.

2. Prefacing something with "if I was being uncharitable, I'd say..." doesn't negate the rest of the sentence. I mean, if I told someone "if I was being uncharitable I'd say you're a drooling idiot", I would fully expect them to take that as an insult. Likewise, attacking someone's motives doesn't sting any less because the person conceded that it's "uncharitable" for them to do so before doing it anyway.
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Re: Harvey Weinstein and Victim Blaming

Postby Fun With Mr. Fudge » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:46 am

Kate wrote:I'm one of those hippies who doesn't believe in feelings being right or wrong. I do believe in facts, and acting based on facts, but I don't think it's wrong to be angry at feeling mistreated. I don't think it's wrong to be angry at what seems to be bigotry. I don't think it's wrong to feel hurt even when a part of you knows the other person in a dispute is right, or to be outraged by the injustice you see. I think feelings are just what they are, and we choose what to do with them. Do we try to resolve our disputes? Do we accept that even if people mean well, it's tiresome to try and keep having a dialogue when we keep getting hurt? Do we lash out? Do we bottle it up? Our choices about how to handle our feelings are what define our interactions and our community.


Agreed. I would also add that finding fault with a position that someone feels strongly about is no worse or better than disagreeing with someone who's indifferent, so long as the disagreement is based on facts and reasoning. The fact that someone's feelings were hurt by a dissenting voice doesn't mean that the dissenter expressed themselves in a hurtful or unfair manner. I've met people who sincerely held/hold racist views. The fact that their beliefs are sincerely held doesn't suddenly make it a "dismissal" of the person to point out when their claims are incorrect and damaging. That's why this statement...

Crimson847 wrote:Regarding the bolded: I suspect getting dismissed as a self-deluded homophobe and having her sincerity and presumed motives attacked by an admin may have had something to do with it as well.


...completely baffles me. According to my reading, Marcuse, Gisambards, and others rejected Noodle's claims on the basis of them being empirically unjustified as well as damaging. They also criticized the way in which she presented her points and responded to objections. I find it odd for you, Crimson, to characterize their responses as a hostile attack. It's even odder when I consider that the above quote comes from a post in which you criticize an unrelated claim for lacking empirical support:

Crimson847 wrote:With that in mind, my question is this: what is your evidence for a unique obsession among the alt-right with smearing their opponents as pedophiles? All you've presented here is a few anecdotes about alt-righters doing this.


I post that here to point out that, wording response length aside, there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between what you did with the above question and what others did for the most part when challenging Noodle's claims about "the gay pedophile problem." I'm not calling you a hypocrit, by the way. I'm literally trying to understand how you see that (or challenges to unfounded claims in general) in contrast to how you see the responses to Noodle.

Perhaps one could argue that you you didn't question anyone's motives or make a value judgment (though I would point out that questioning the validity of a claim is itself a kind of valuation), but I think it's fair to say that Gisambards and Marcuse didn't do so baselessly or in a needlessly hurtful way. As I see it, they responded to the structure and content of an indefensible position that Noole tried to defend in a hostile and logically flawed manner. And given the implications of Noodle's arguments (i.e. that there's something especially pedophilic about homosexuals and that people who disagreed were defending a pedophile), it seems almost impossible not to at least make an implicit value judgment just by pointing out what was wrong with her claims.

That said, you clearly seem to think they could have handled it in a more civil way. So what would that way look like?


D-LOGAN wrote:And if someone believes there is a problem with paedophiles in the gay community is that a bad thing?


This seems akin to when white people argue that there's a problem with black on black violence. Yes, violence is a problem, but to suggest that it's specific to black people ignores the fact that "most violent crimes are committed by people who are the same race as their victims." If, for example, there is a pedophile problem in both the straight and LGBT communitities, then there's just a pedophile problem. Sexual orientation shouldn't be a focus unless the idea is to characterize people who identify a certain way as being more of a problem and thus a "worse group." It's a tactic commonly used to justify prejudices.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby D-LOGAN » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:59 am

Kate wrote:This is all user Kate,just to be clear, not admin Kate. This is long, with many links, and I am hesitant to post it. The only reason I'm okay posting it is because it's all visible in the thread, but I'm going to spoiler it because I don't want to drag out discussion about specific users.

Well I'm sorry Kate but that's exactly what I'm doing. There's no two ways around it. Let's just get it over with it, I don't like this any more than you trust me.
Logan, the exact phrase that people were upset by was this: "The reason vocal leaders of LGB are blasting with a double barrel is because you all fucking know the gay male pedophile problem isn't some baseless aspersion, you selfish twat!" here, for full context.

A few people were upset by what they saw as the implication that there is specifically a gay male pedophile problem, because this has historically been a stereotype used to harm gay people. This is how I read it as well, that it was a particularly pressing problem for the gay community as opposed to the straight one. That may not be how she intended it.

Historically is not on Noodle Fox. She's responsible for her own words and actions, not those of other people. That's not to say people can't be suspicous about stuff like this but just as I say she should be fairer with other people's motivations, people should be that with hers.

gis got as close as anyone did to calling her a homophobe, but it was in reference to that viewpoint:

And when Gis' essentially said she called transpeople useless freaks. We need to talk about that.
here. And it is a view that, when expressed without any evidence behind it beyond impressions, does indeed come across as homophobic.

True but because something MIGHT be X should we assume it's X and have a go at someone for it? That's part of my criticisms for her.

Noodle walked it back slightly but still left it open that she's concerned that this is particular problem in the gay community, or at least, that was how I read it here:

I mean, what happened in regards to Milo and Takei? They had sex with men when they were 14 and they talked about it like it wasn't that big a deal - hell, they talked about it like it wasn't an adult having sex with an underage boy. I know 3 gay men who said they had sex with men twice the age (I assume, they said they were underage when they had relations). Now I wasn't even cognizant to the culture surrounding them back then and I'm not saying I do now, I just seem to see something that I hope isn't there after all I've heard and read; the article sounds off-putting when the author went out of their way to say, "Stop assuming gay men are pedophiles! Besides, Spacey advanced on a 14 year old, not someone under 13!"
That was here, for reference.

Which I think the most charitable view would be to assume she was speaking about a problem within a community not suggesting everyone in it was a paedophile or that this is the only place it exists.

Tess responded to say that doesn't prove there's a problem with the gay community specifically, and to try and clarify that she wasn't saying that it's okay to harm a 14 year old but there's a relevant distinction in terminology for the term pedophilia. That's over here.

Here and here, Noodle seemed to misinterpret Tess and Aquila (at least, I'm fairly certain she's misinterpreting Aquila's objection to using American standards universally as a defense for Kevin Spacey's actions, I may be wrong).
Okay, you need to explain your view a bit better, because you seem to be claiming that Spacey forcing himself on a minor doesn't really matter since he's technically (the best kind of right!) not a pedophile.
What matters is that he, like other powerful people, hurt many people and got away with it for years because nobody complained.

That includes an underage minor, which - with the way my moral compass works - is just as heinous as him forcing himself on a 12 year old.

Adolescents will never be physically, mentally and emotionally mature to have relations with an adult and it really blows my mind that people are going, "YO HOL UP, SPACEY DIDN'T GO AFTER A 'KID' KID."


and

I'm done talking about this. I want nothing more to do with hearing others trying to weasel Spacey out of being a sick, fucking degenerate; him being gay has nothing to do with this anymore.


I think it's worth noting that no one had defended Kevin Spacey at all; and while she may have misinterpreted it, people tried to be clear that what he did wasn't okay and when she said they were defended it tried to say again that they were not defending him. At no point did I notice her clarify that she is not trying to say that the gay community seems to have a particular problem with pedophilia.
And at no point did she say, as far as I could see that gay community has a particular problem.


That's my point. I can't ask of her to be fairer with assuming intent on others and not ask the same of them for her.
Her doing her wrongs can't stop me from pointing out what I believe was wrong of others.

Tesseracts and Marcuse both posted to reiterate that their disagreement with her was over the gay pedophile problem comment, and that it seemed she was conflating the disagreement with that statement and the clarification of the term pedophilia with a defense of his actions. Marcuse I believe said that she was using it to deflect from her previous more problematic statement, which was the thing people had a problem with.

Her next post contained a link to an external G+ post where she called the site at large "faggots" and insisted we were defending pedophilia, while linking to posts that explicitly were not defending Kevin Spacey. I believe she genuinely misunderstood, but the insults were the rule-breaking part.

And that was most certainly fucked up and I'd say that to her face if need be.

My TL;DR is that there were certainly misunderstandings, but while some of the people Noodle misunderstood tried to clarify a few times that they didn't mean what she thought they meant, she did not try to deny the rather prejudiced comment that people objected to in the first place. If it was a misunderstanding, that'd be good to know, but there was no indication that it was.


To me that appears close to assuming ill intent on her part until clarified otherwise which is what I'd adviuse her not to do.

In regards to the alt-right comment, Noodle has indeed made comments, used news sources, had the kekistan flag in her signature, and linked to an external site where she claimed to be sympathetic to the alt-right.

What comments? And are these news sources ones only alt-righters use? Does using them make you associated with the alt-right.
And the alt-right doesn't own the Kekistasn flag. To my knowledge the Kekistani thing was either started or popularised by people who not only aren't alt-righters but actively despise and have had public spats with them.

I have the word 'Kek' below my Avatar thingy. The alt-right don't own it anymore than the Aryan Brotherhood own the shamrock.

I do not agree with people using other users to bolster their assertions in threads (especially users who aren't going to be around to defend themselves) but I don't think the problem is saying she's associated with the alt-right.

I'm saying it's a problem for me.
Let there be no ambivilance about that.

It's a political movement, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of it being inherently a pejorative to the point that using it to describe someone is insulting until they claim it themselves.

So you comfortable with it being used on her?
cmsellers wrote:Logan, I called NoodleFox alt-right because A. she has a Kekistan flag and salutation in her signature

To my knowledge amongst the people behind the flag or getting it popularised were the likes of Jeff Holiday, Bunty King, Sargon of Akkad etc. I can look into it and get more speciffic.
But people I'm fans of.
Am I an alt-righter?

and B. she kept making claims that I've only ever seen in alt-right sources (and sometimes linking to alt-right sources).

So you read alt-right sources? See what I mean. This is a dangerous path to go down. And not a fair one in my opinion.
It's like how if someone had a rainbow flag avatar and cited PinkNews for everything, I'd probably conclude that they were gay.

Okay, but again I don't think the alt-right have sole ownership of the Kekistan stuff. In fact I know of many people who use it to mock the identitarian nature of the alt-right.
I don't think it's "an attack on her character" to say that someone is part of the alt-right. While it's true that the parts of the alt-right which are most active IRL are Nazis, the online alt-right is made up of 4chan-influenced shitposters, and I get the impression NoodleFox is part of that tradition, not the Nazi one.

I think the commonly accepted nature of what it is, is enough to suggest it is.
I really do.
Marcuse wrote:I don't know whether it's really an insult to say that someone who has their location set as "kekistan" and has the "kekistan" flag with "shadilay my dudes" as the signature is in some way associated with the alt right. It seems to have been broadcast for a long time.

Are we going with the assumption that people with a fondness for Kekistan and shadily are close enough to the alt-right to be associated with them then?
However, I can say that personally I am very uncomfortable with the idea of threads started on the premise of "this person said something in another thread" because it's a bit too close to getting at the person and not the argument. I would have been more comfortable with a thread titled to the same effect but relying on the broad strokes more than a specific person. There's definitely ways that thread could have been started without being phrased in that way so as to concern so many people.

I concur, but the cat's out of the bag now aint it.

Now just to clarify I say all this not to justify or cover-up the clearly objectional things Noodle said and did, but there are other issues I need to get straightened out. What does and doesn't fly here. I aint my forum and I got no right or wish to tell people how this place should work.

This is for my own edification.

So how we going with this? Is there more? May as well get it all out of the way now.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby gisambards » Sun Nov 12, 2017 3:04 am

Crimson847 wrote:I'm not sure how we got from me saying "you said something insulting" to you reading that as "you're irrational for saying what you said". I've been trying to criticize actions rather than insult the people who took those actions, and I don't know where I went wrong in that attempt.

I've not said you called me irrational - I said what I find insulting is that you've consistently characterised my challenging of Noodle's arguments as nothing but trying to insult her, simply because I've been open about my belief that those arguments come from a place of prejudice. Particularly insulting is your description of my behaviour as just "striking back at someone who's hurt me", because that's directly saying that you think my only motivation is getting my own back because I feel personally insulted (which doesn't even work in this case, because I'm not a gay man). This clearly implies an irrationality, because surely someone who goes around insulting people needlessly instead of debating is acting irrationally.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby sunglasses » Sun Nov 12, 2017 3:16 am

Logan: Re kek.

Yeah, kek started out as something else. But, much like the swastika originally was a Buddhist symbol, I'm rather certain that if you post it people are going to associate with the third Reich.

Not the original meaning, sure, but it was subverted.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby D-LOGAN » Sun Nov 12, 2017 3:25 am

gisambards wrote:That comes from the military transgender ban thread:
NoodleFox wrote:I'm all for trans rights. I'm a pro person, an egalitarian. BUT I'm also a realist: do you think it's a good idea to have people who have been statistically proven to be physically and mentally unstable and have a suicide rate of 40% in everyday life on the front lines?
To have a trans person who sees themselves as something else, who will eviscerate their body and constantly undergo horrific and painful procedures to feel normal, be able to proclaim, "Yes, I am healthy to join the military. I'm stable enough to fly a helicopter into an area where I'm going to be shot at. I'm going to be able to stand around doing nothing for hours on end, follow orders clearly and concisely, and I'm definitely able to stay clam when I'm being shot at."

This was an argument in support of banning all trans people from the American military. To be clear, I don't have an issue with the part about statistics, although I do disagree with it - it's the second paragraph that is certainly hard to interpret as anything other than an attack on the competence of trans people as a group, and I would also argue the description of the transitioning process is intentionally written so as to make it, and thus the people who go through it, seem horrifying and freakish.

That is not her saying transpeople are useless freaks.
And while I absolutely disagree with any ban of transpeople from the military in any country, people who do for the reasons stated, have a perspective that I think they should have a right to share.
Her argument wasn't that transpeople are useless freaks or bad people or stupid people. I disagree with both the language and reasoning used here too. But it's unfair to charactise what she said here as suggesting transpeople are useless freaks.
I'll back you up on countering the idea that transpeoples are anything other than individuals and should be treated as such, but I absolute am I aginst by the accusation you made against her, and if she'd said that about you I'd be calling her out too.
Fun With Mr. Fudge wrote:This seems akin to when white people argue that there's a problem with black on black violence. Yes, violence is a problem, but to suggest that it's specific to black people ignores the fact that "most violent crimes are committed by people who are the same race as their victims."

Again, I'm going to have to air on the side of what I think is fairest here, and as such pointing out there's a violence problem in the black community or white community or purple community doesn't go hand in hand with saying they're all bad or the worst of all or the only people with a problem. I believe you can point out problems within communities without being prejudiced against them. And no ammount oif "well when other people say it, they often mean it as..." would in my opinion make it fair to just make that assumption.

If an English person points out that us Irish have an alcohol problem. They're right. That is something we do have a major problem. I wouldn't immediately rush to the conclusion they're a hibernophobe. They might be, but I'd need more than them just pointing out an issue.

Now you can make the point of course that something's a little too close for comfort with the way someone's talking, and it can make your spidey-sense tingle, and it never hurts to be a little suspicious. But I don't think it's fair to just jump to the conclusion that someone's being bigotted.

If, for example, there is a pedophile problem in both the straight and LGBT communitities, then there's just a pedophile problem.

I guess, but I think there should a freedom to talk about issues without having to rush to include others out of fear of being considered a bigot by default unless you clarify.

Sexual orientation shouldn't be a focus unless the idea is to characterize people who identify a certain way as being more of a problem and thus a "worse group." It's a tactic commonly used to justify prejudices.

Again, individualism. Is the person in question using it that way? That's what matters.

And yeah I know it's somewhat naive, and I've stuck my neck out for people time and time again and been let down, but what's the alternative? Assume the worst about people all the time?

sunglasses wrote:Logan: Re kek.

Yeah, kek started out as something else. But, much like the swastika originally was a Buddhist symbol, I'm rather certain that if you post it people are going to associate with the third Reich.

Not the original meaning, sure, but it was subverted.

There's some stuff I can look up and add that I think'd make my point better.
You'll have to bear with me on that one.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby Tesseracts » Sun Nov 12, 2017 3:45 am

Quick reminder that nothing about being a mod or admin is incompatible with participating in debates. We try to hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior, but we can't remain neutral in all arguments.

Personally I do believe Noodle was being dishonest and I said as much, I expressed doubt that she sincerely believes I was defending Kevin Spacey, because there is no evidence I did such a thing. It felt like a cheap jab in the tradition of Trumpesque claims like "Obama is a Muslim."

You can make mods and admins angry and the position of authority doesn't mean we won't call you out on your nonsense. I don't think it would be fair to me or any other mod or admin to say we can't defend ourselves from such revolting accusations.
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Re: Political discourse on The Comment Section

Postby Fun With Mr. Fudge » Sun Nov 12, 2017 3:52 am

D-LOGAN wrote:
Fun With Mr. Fudge wrote:This seems akin to when white people argue that there's a problem with black on black violence. Yes, violence is a problem, but to suggest that it's specific to black people ignores the fact that "most violent crimes are committed by people who are the same race as their victims."

Again, I'm going to have to air on the side of what I think is fairest here, and as such pointing out there's a violence problem in the black community or white community or purple community doesn't go hand in hand with saying they're all bad or the worst of all or the only people with a problem. I believe you can point out problems within communities without being prejudiced against them. And no ammount oif "well when other people say it, they often mean it as..." would in my opinion make it fair to just make that assumption.

If an English person points out that us Irish have an alcohol problem. They're right. That is something we do have a major problem. I wouldn't immediately rush to the conclusion they're a hibernophobe. They might be, but I'd need more than them just pointing out an issue.

Now you can make the point of course that something's a little too close for comfort with the way someone's talking, and it can make your spidey-sense tingle, and it never hurts to be a little suspicious. But I don't think it's fair to just jump to the conclusion that someone's being bigotted.

If, for example, there is a pedophile problem in both the straight and LGBT communitities, then there's just a pedophile problem.

I guess, but I think there should a freedom to talk about issues without having to rush to include others out of fear of being considered a bigot by default unless you clarify.

Sexual orientation shouldn't be a focus unless the idea is to characterize people who identify a certain way as being more of a problem and thus a "worse group." It's a tactic commonly used to justify prejudices.

Again, individualism. Is the person in question using it that way? That's what matters.

And yeah I know it's somewhat naive, and I've stuck my neck out for people time and time again and been let down, but what's the alternative? Assume the worst about people all the time?


It's a question of emphasis and effect. If a problem exists across all communitites in a set, but you only focus (and publicly for that matter) on one community, at the very least it's unhelpful unless there is some reason that the problem would have to be solved in a community-specific way. And even then, why not focus on your own group as well?

But really, I don't have to imply or believe there's an active prejudice to point out that if every group has the same problem, it doesn't help to consistently/almost exclusively declare that one group in particular has it. If said group is often stereotyped with respect to that problem, then to keep specifically tying the group to that problem in a public way is not just unhelpful but damaging, regardless of intent.

And if the person adding to this damage is informed of what they are doing and provided with facts/well-reasoned objections but still responds with hostility or simply ignores evidence, then they're arguably helping to spread a hurtful stereotype, perhaps knowingly. I don't need to worry about intent to see that as a problem or point out that it has more or less the same effect as if someone with ill intent were doing it.
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