Fully Baked Left Wing Vegan Cookies

Absolam

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Well, Battlefield Earth is certainly objectively bad. :pac:

Ah now... Scottt Chitwood of IGN, Bob Graham of SFGate, and JoBlos Movie Reviews all thought it was good! And since they are obviously the voices of minorities, according to K4t they are more important. So Battlefield Earth is objectively good? Or at least the subjective opinion that it is good is more important than the subjective opinion that it is bad :-)

K4t

Absolam wrote: »

Ah now... Scottt Chitwood of IGN, Bob Graham of SFGate, and JoBlos Movie Reviews all thought it was good! And since they are obviously the voices of minorities, according to K4t they are more important. So Battlefield Earth is objectively good? Or at least the subjective opinion that it is good is more important than the subjective opinion that it is bad :-)

It's difficult to try to explain something to someone who will not even attempt to understand it, but would rather just win the discussion at all costs, even by consciously refusing to acknowledge reason; and twist everything you say and take things out of context to suit their own argument and agenda. The right of the minority view to be expressed freely is what needs protecting the most in all societies. It's important that we never silence or suppress a view because it is the minority view or we think it is stupid or hateful or wrong or immoral; I never said they were the most intelligent or moral or correct or right views. You're confusing two separate discussions as well and I deliberately didn't reply to your last comment in the humanities thread for reasons I already mentioned. You're a waste of time.

BlaasForRafa

K4t wrote: »

It's a novel; not a BDSM guidebook or safety manual. :pac:

It sounds like it's probably E.L James wish fulfillment fantasy. And like all great literature of the modern age it grew out of Twilight fan fiction apparently.

Absolam

K4t wrote: »

It's difficult to try to explain something to someone who will not even attempt to understand it, but would rather just win the discussion at all costs, even by consciously refusing to acknowledge reason; and twist everything you say and take things out of context to suit their own argument and agenda.

That might be true...

K4t wrote: »

The right of the minority view to be expressed freely is what needs protecting the most in all societies.

But I don't think that is. Freedom of speech should be equally protected; favouring the minorities is a disservice to all.

K4t wrote: »

You're confusing two separate discussions as well and I deliberately didn't reply to your last comment in the humanities thread for reasons I already mentioned.

I'm not confusing them; I deliberately included your assertion from one in another.

K4t wrote: »

You're a waste of time.

I suppose that's a matter of opinion

K4t

Absolam wrote: »

Freedom of speech should be equally protected; favouring the minorities is a disservice to all.

That was my point all along, and in the other thread; but somewhere along the way, in trying to beat me or win the discussion, you ignored that, or simply did not understand it. You have some gall to say that against me now, and attempt to take the higher ground! My point about minority opinions and voices being most important, and the most deserving of protection was simply that; I didn't mean them to receive more protection under the law. You know that, but you clearly saw things about religion you didn't like in my posts and decided to dissect every word of my posts, taking things out of context, and attempted to discredit my views. Which is fair enough, you're entitled to do that, but people reading this should be aware of it, and you should be aware that I will not argue with a person who behaves like that. You only want to WIN, and you'll attack reasonable and logical views, from all kinds of angles, taking whatever suits your argument out of context, and twist them to support your own obvious agenda here on the atheist forum. I will not partake nor give you the pleasure. Good day.

K4t

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

It sounds like it's probably E.L James wish fulfillment fantasy. And like all great literature of the modern age it grew out of Twilight fan fiction apparently.

I can't think of her name, but there's a great review by a lady in yesterday's Sunday Times of the movie. Basically she says she sat in the cinema at the end of the film feeling perplexed at the women crying, asking them why the hell they were crying after the way the lead female character was treated. Women are still victims of control and manipulation by men in western society, and any attempt to discuss it sees attacks and accusations of sexism, by not only men, but women themselves, as you see in some of the posts above. It reminds me of that picture of Stephanie Roche at the Ballon D'or, with Ronaldo and Messi staring at her. That became the story. One radio station posted the caption on facebook "We all know who Ronaldo and Messi wanted to win" and thousands of girls liked it, not realising how it was disrespectful towards Roche who was their on merit and deserved to win on merit, and insulting towards Ronaldo and Messi, and all men, that they would think a woman deserved to win because she was attractive or because she was a woman. Just a small thing, but an insight into our culture. And of course we all know what institution specialises in the control of people, especially of women.

Absolam

K4t wrote: »

That was my point all along, and in the other thread; but somewhere along the way, in trying to beat me or win the discussion, you ignored that, or simply did not understand it.

Perhaps you should have made that point, instead of saying something different then? Had you done so, I wouldn't have disagreed with you (on that point)

K4t wrote: »

My point about minority opinions and voices being most important, and the most deserving of protection was simply that; I didn't mean them to receive more protection under the law.

So again you single out minorities as being most deserving of protection; if not under the law then what? You can't have it both ways; if all opinions deserve equal protection, then minority opinions are not most deserving of protection.

K4t wrote: »

You know that, but you clearly saw things about religion you didn't like in my posts and decided to dissect every word of my posts, taking things out of context, and attempted to discredit my views. Which is fair enough, you're entitled to do that, but people reading this should be aware of it, and you should be aware that I will not argue with a person who behaves like that. You only want to WIN, and you'll attack reasonable and logical views, from all kinds of angles, taking whatever suits your argument out of context, and twist them to support your own obvious agenda here on the atheist forum.

Win what? I'm pointing out your view is not logical; you can't give someone special status and at the same time claim they're being treated equally, regardless of the context.

K4t

Absolam wrote: »

Perhaps you should have made that point, instead of saying something different then? Had you done so, I wouldn't have disagreed with you (on that point)
So again you single out minorities as being most deserving of protection; if not under the law then what? You can't have it both ways; if all opinions deserve equal protection, then minority opinions are not most deserving of protection.

Win what? I'm pointing out your view is not logical; you can't give someone special status and at the same time claim they're being treated equally, regardless of the context.

For example, look at hate crime; I of course disagree with hate crime legislation, which can give minorities unequal protection under the law, but I do agree with the state collecting hate crime statistics and research. Minority views do deserve more protection, just not any more than other people's views under the law! My example of Russia the other day you clearly could not get your head around, so you simply dissected my post, took lots of things out of context, and were happier to earn some sort of victory. You're just trying to win all the time and it's tiresome. I'm not playing. Please go away.

Absolam

K4t wrote: »

Minority views do deserve more protection, just not any more than other people's views under the law!

So if they're not getting any more protection under the law, what protection are they getting?

K4t wrote: »

My example of Russia the other day you clearly could not get your head around, so you simply dissected my post, took lots of things out of context, and were happier to earn some sort of victory.

I got my head around it fine thanks, you simply seemed unable to justify your proposition that anyone who would favour criminalising homophobic or racist speech would also favour the criminalising of anti-homophobic or anti-racist speech.

K4t wrote: »

You're just trying to win all the time and it's tiresome. I'm not playing. Please go away.

There's nothing to win here; I'm simply questioning your assertions. You're quite entitled to not reply if you don't want to discuss what you said.

K4t

Absolam wrote: »

I got my head around it fine thanks, you simply seemed unable to justify your proposition that anyone who would favour criminalising homophobic or racist speech would also favour the criminalising of anti-homophobic or anti-racist speech.

It doesn't need justifying. It's simply true. My Russia example was meant to explain why it is true, but I either didn't do a good job of it, you don't understand, or as I think myself, you are unwilling to understand.

Absolam

K4t wrote: »

It doesn't need justifying. It's simply true. My Russia example was meant to explain why it is true, but I either didn't do a good job of it, you don't understand, or as I think myself, you are unwilling to understand.

If it's simply true, you can justify it. However, I don't believe it is true; as I said, if you're in favour of limiting homophobic or racist speech, you'd only be in favour of also limiting anti-homophobic or anti-racist speech because you also favour levelling the field of discussion or are in favour of limiting speech generally. If you are solely opposed to homophobic or racist speech (say on the basis of being opposed to homophobia or racism) you'll have no problem with speech that advances your position; to wit, anti-homophobic or anti-racist speech.
So it is simply true that someone who is solely opposed to homophobic or racist speech would not necessarily favour the criminalising of anti-homophobic or anti-racist speech.

Regardless, I'd suggest discussion of that particular point belongs in the thread where it originated rather than this one.

Brian Shanahan

K4t wrote: »

I can't think of her name, but there's a great review by a lady in yesterday's Sunday Times of the movie. Basically she says she sat in the cinema at the end of the film feeling perplexed at the women crying, asking them why the hell they were crying after the way the lead female character was treated. Women are still victims of control and manipulation by men in western society, and any attempt to discuss it sees attacks and accusations of sexism, by not only men, but women themselves, as you see in some of the posts above. It reminds me of that picture of Stephanie Roche at the Ballon D'or, with Ronaldo and Messi staring at her. That became the story. One radio station posted the caption on facebook "We all know who Ronaldo and Messi wanted to win" and thousands of girls liked it, not realising how it was disrespectful towards Roche who was their on merit and deserved to win on merit, and insulting towards Ronaldo and Messi, and all men, that they would think a woman deserved to win because she was attractive or because she was a woman. Just a small thing, but an insight into our culture. And of course we all know what institution specialises in the control of people, especially of women.

Well, the Sunday Times writer should not have been perplexed at the attitude of so many others in the cinema beside her, because it is an attitude that her paper, and the other papers in the criminal empire of Rupert the Dirty Digger, has done so much to foster (admittedly not as much as the Daily Heil has done, but nobody is as misogynist as D'acre). She knows full well that she is working for a deeply misogynist organisation, yet she still pretends suprise when she sees the results of misogynist propoganda. She is part of the problem, not the solution.

robindch

Links234 wrote: »

So this brings us right back around again to my initial post on the subject, are you saying criticism and calls for boycotts are bad? Because you're offering absolutely nothing about why this is bad, no argument against the criticisms or why they're wrong, etc.

So far as I can understand jank's post, you have to bear in mind two points of reference.

Firstly, "liberals" (who, I believe, are fully synonymous with "lefties") should support all public expression, regardless of form or content; (b) "feminists" are fully synonymous with "liberals".

In this context, it's therefore hypocritical for a "feminist" to protest "Fifty Shades of Gray" as doing so would amount to an abridgment of the unlimited license for public expression clause to which all the world's "liberal lefties" signed up as soon as they were able. Hell, as soon as they were born!

This name-calling non-logic reminds me of Pauli's comment "Well, that's not even wrong".

.

robindch

A Letter to My Children About Fifty Shades of Grey - in which a mum writes a letter to her kids about the film. Can't say that I disagree too much with what she says (if what she says about the film is true), but it's ruined by the way in which she says it.

http://www.bonbonbreak.com/letter-children-fifty-shades-grey/

Shrap

robindch wrote: »

A Letter to My Children About Fifty Shades of Grey - in which a mum writes a letter to her kids about the film. Can't say that I disagree too much with what she says (if what she says about the film is true), but it's ruined by the way in which she says it.

http://www.bonbonbreak.com/letter-children-fifty-shades-grey/

Yeah, agree totally with her. What's your take on the way she says it though?! Can't spot anything weird about it except the over-flowery stuff directed at her "precious darling children"....

Oh, and btw, while I've not seen the film or read the book (life's too short and may be considerably shortened by the bile that would rise within me), I've read enough of the "book" reviews to know how shockingly badly written it is, how shallow/one dimensional the characters are and what a desperately bad message the story is to anyone, especially kids so I'm sure the review is pretty spot on.

robindch

Shrap wrote: »

Yeah, agree totally with her. What's your take on the way she says it though?! Can't spot anything weird about it except the over-flowery stuff directed at her "precious darling children".

Well, yeah, she's certainly a little unctuous about the whole thing which is off-putting. But if she's describing the film accurately, then yes, it sounds like it does depict an "abusive" relationship - the kind of thing which should be condemned or ridiculed. Haven't seen the film though and I'm not likely to

The more serious point is - well, do women actually take relationship advice from films like this? Do people take travel advice from The Hobbit? If they do, then I think that's something which deserves condemnation or ridicule much more than the film itself.

Shrap

robindch wrote: »

The more serious point is - well, do women actually take relationship advice from films like this? Do people take travel advice from The Hobbit? If they do, then I think that's something which deserves condemnation or ridicule much more than the film itself.

I suppose in the same way they take relationship advice from Mills and Boon or Cecilia Ahern. What can I say? There was a good article recently on the 50 shades phenomenon (wish I could remember where I saw it) which examined this female fantasy of being powerless and at the mercy of men's decision making (thereby absolving the woman from having to take any charge of herself and being entirely passive in her own sexuality).

This element is present in all chicklit really, whether abusive relationships are being described or not. Think, the "tall, dark, handsome misunderstood one" who you first rejected turns out to be man of your dreams when you had followed your heart after one who turned out to be crapping all over you, but as it happens, the other guy was right about your needs all along.....and you can't be trusted to make good decisions for yourself.

This "being whisked off your feet" by the moneyed, handsome guy is sold to us all from an early age as desirable. I can't tell you why we encourage this "ambition" but you see it in women's behaviour all the time - the overwhelming competitiveness to make yourself as sexually attractive as possible with the aim of "winning" your man (as if what you think or do has nothing to do with it). With the other side of the fantasy coin in the case of this book/film being that even the mousy, insecure virgins get to be picked up and "given" a life outside what she thought was best for her.

Can't say I ever subscribed to it, but pick up ANY women's magazine for tips on how to compete in the game of giving your life to someone

jank

Links234 wrote: »

Anyway, to your point about Iona...

You're asking me, what if a completely different bunch, called for the boycott of a completely different movie, for completely different reasons? Yes, I might consider that situation somewhat differently and my reaction to it might not be the same.

So this brings us right back around again to my initial post on the subject, are you saying criticism and calls for boycotts are bad? Because you're offering absolutely nothing about why this is bad, no argument against the criticisms or why they're wrong, etc.

Again, I have to reiterate, now for the 4th time that anyone is free to call for a boycott and critise any movie, book or play they wish. Nowhere did I say it was 'bad' nor did I say it was 'good' either. You are clever enough to know there are generally more than a binary choice on some object or human construct could be only good or only bad. Is cheese bad, well its tastes good, give me blue cheese and crackers any day of the week, but eating pounds of the stuff may not be good for your heart. So in essence this binary choice that people gravitate towards is all completely pointless.

My initial post was not a reference to the moral or artistic quality of the movie or the books. My initial post was made in reference to the unlikely alliance of christen conservative asking people to not see the movie, (going so far as you cannot see the movie in small Donegal town because its 'peverted' http://www.thejournal.ie/buncrana-cinema-fifty-shades-1923084-Feb2015/) and self labeled feminists even though the target audience are adult women themselves. You will notice that men by and large are not bothered by this movie and are bemused by the hype surrounding it.

In conclusion, if one cannot find the irony of this alliance nor indeed find the father ted references funny in taking the piss out of both sides, then I cannot do more to explain it to you as one is taking all this a tad too seriously.

Gbear

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/23/academy-strange-relationship-with-race-on-display-oscars-2015

An absolute shambles of an article from the Guardian, comparing one of the leftiest of lefties (Sean Penn) to a white supremacist and saying Neil Patrick Harris isn't gay enough.

I think, when you see some of the articles on the Guardian that are trying to drum up controversy to funnel people towards their site, it's easy to forget that most people don't believe this ****e.

That's the problem with the whole "PC gone mad" thing. There are clear examples of it in the media or a few fringe loonies, but it's easy to extrapolate that to mean it's pervasive in society, when most people aren't that silly.

Turtwig

This is my personal pet peeve. I hate people referring to publications solely. List the journalist and publication responsible for the garbage. Journalists often freelance between multiple publications e.g

"Stephen W Thrasher wrote this trash in the Guardian. "

The reason being is that many publications have decent writers. Journalism itself is at such a low ebb singling out bad publications isn't going to help fix anything. People need to avoid the ****ty journalists. Of course, the irony here is that the ****ty articles will probably be shared more than the good ones. Still, it's best that folks are made aware of who the terrible writers are. Save their time.

By the by just to give Mr Thrasher the benefit of the doubt. It's only if he's a frequent contributor of nonsense should we avoid him. Every journalist is entitled to their barmy moments.

KomradeBishop

I think there's good justification sometimes, in using particularly egregious publications, to reduce the credibility of a particular article or journalist - if you take for example, Reason magazine, it has an incredibly long history of promoting highly dubious/disreputable viewpoints, so I think it's justified to discard it out of hand; it's important for practical reasons, as time-wise it's just not practical to keep on giving something benefit of the doubt every time it comes up, when it has an extremely long and well established history, of being highly dubious.

So, Reason would have a very high 'shítty journalists/articles' ratio, across most topics, whereas the Guardian would be a lot more mixed.

Gbear

Turtwig wrote: »

This is my personal pet peeve. I hate people referring to publications solely. List the journalist and publication responsible for the garbage. Journalists often freelance between multiple publications e.g

"Stephen W Thrasher wrote this trash in the Guardian. "

The reason being is that many publications have decent writers. Journalism itself is at such a low ebb singling out bad publications isn't going to help fix anything. People need to avoid the ****ty journalists. Of course, the irony here is that the ****ty articles will probably be shared more than the good ones. Still, it's best that folks are made aware of who the terrible writers are. Save their time.

By the by just to give Mr Thrasher the benefit of the doubt. It's only if he's a frequent contributor of nonsense should we avoid him. Every journalist is entitled to their barmy moments.

I'd agree to a certain extent, but with the collapse of print media I find it very hard to give the benefit of the doubt to online publications that scrounge around for any old controversial rubbish for the sake of some add revenue.

I've read buckets of great articles on the Guardian but it's clearly home to a cohort of the sort of loonies this thread was created for. That wasn't the only silly article about the Oscars or the first load of nonsense I've read published on their site in the past few months.

Mark Hamill

jank wrote: »

My initial post was made in reference to the unlikely alliance of christen conservative asking people to not see the movie, [SNIP] and self labeled feminists even though the target audience are adult women themselves.

You seem to be ignoring how different the reasoning behind both calls to boycott are. The conservatives are calling to boycott because it contains sex and light bdsm, while the femanists are calling to boycott it because it romanticises a horribly abusive relationship (that happens to involve sex).

(going so far as you cannot see the movie in small Donegal town because its 'peverted' http://www.thejournal.ie/buncrana-cinema-fifty-shades-1923084-Feb2015/)

From the article you quoted:

In a statement on Facebook, Buncrana Cinema said:

Hey folks. The real reason we aren’t showing 50 Shades of Grey is because the distributor didn’t give it to us! Unfortunately, as a small community run cinema, we don’t have the capacity to run 4 shows a day, 7 a days a week! Anything else you hear is made up!

Turtwig

Gbear wrote: »

I'd agree to a certain extent, but with the collapse of print media I find it very hard to give the benefit of the doubt to online publications that scrounge around for any old controversial rubbish for the sake of some add revenue.

I've read buckets of great articles on the Guardian but it's clearly home to a cohort of the sort of loonies this thread was created for. That wasn't the only silly article about the Oscars or the first load of nonsense I've read published on their site in the past few months.

Oh by all means list the publishers. That's wholly important. My gripe is solely with not mentioning the journalist as they can move around and there's nothing worse than getting sense of deja vu and realising you read this shyte before just for a different publication.

Komrade, I have an author strike system:
Three strikes and I won't read your articles/contributions for a year. Then you get two chances. Or one, depending on how bad the thing was. Anyone can change their opinion, improve their quality of writing, have topics where they're emotionally attached to their viewpoints etc. Including ourselves! So I think it's only apt to keep an open mind and read the less reputable stuff every now and again.

KomradeBishop

Turtwig wrote: »

Komrade, I have an author strike system:
Three strikes and I won't read your articles/contributions for a year. Then you get two chances. Or one, depending on how bad the thing was. Anyone can change their opinion, improve their quality of writing, have topics where they're emotionally attached to their viewpoints etc. Including ourselves! So I think it's only apt to keep an open mind and read the less reputable stuff every now and again.

That's a useful system, though there are some journalistic sources you have to be very careful of, as they are designed specifically to put out propaganda - I'm very careful not to subject myself to much/any of that where I am able to find enough discreditable information about a publication, because I believe everyone (including myself) is susceptible to being taken-in/fooled by poor sources like that.

Being fooled into believing the wrong information, can completely destroy your ability to think critically about and actually learn a subject (and I mean completely - to the point that you won't even be aware of faults in your thinking) - it can set you back years, or even permanently; economics is, in my view, the single worst topic, when it comes to this - it's so bad, that even the vast majority of economists are not aware of the massive faults in what they believe.

That said, there'd be a very big difference between a journalistic outlet that is putting out propaganda (I'd have zero tolerance to that), and e.g. an author making an honest mistake (which I'd have no problem with, given an openness to learning from the mistake on the authors part - which is a good approach to learning).

jank

There has been many a bad radio interview but the gold standard of the so called 'car crash interview' now belongs to Natalie Bennett, Leader of the UK Green Party.
With the UK general election now almost two months away and mainstream parties struggling, minority parties are leading the race to mop up votes in an effort to be the power broker in any future Westminsiter government. There has been a Green surge seen in the Polls which of course leads to more media attention on their policies....

Its bad..., its so bad I thought at one stage she was going to pull a sicky live on air.... (Did she have her 'flu' when she thought you can build 500,000 homes with 2.7 Billion?)

If a party has grand plans to provide state funded goodies to would be voters at least have the pretense that you have costed it. Fans of shinnernomics and utopian Socialist Party/AAA/PBP economic policy, please take note for GE 2016.

At least any TV debate Natalie Bennett presents herself in would be fun to watch.

robindch

jank wrote: »

[...] the gold standard of the so called 'car crash interview' now belongs to Natalie Bennett, Leader of the UK Green Party [....]

A nice own-goal there - your clip slagging off the "left" for doing a bad interview starts with that ongoing story of Malcolm Rifkind -- former Conservative Foreign Secretary, former Conservative Defence Secretary and one or two other roles under both Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher and Conservative PM John Major -- extending the free market into the purchase, by people he thought were representatives of a Chinese company, of access to high-ranking diplomats.

#oops :rolleyes:

jank

robindch wrote: »

A nice own-goal there - your clip slagging off the "left" for doing a bad interview starts with that ongoing story of Malcolm Rifkind -- former Conservative Foreign Secretary, former Conservative Defence Secretary and one or two other roles under both Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher and Conservative PM John Major -- extending the free market into the purchase, by people he thought were representatives of a Chinese company, of access to high-ranking diplomats.

#oops :rolleyes:

Only Malcolm Rifkind? lol The 'cash for access' is a generic political scandal which has implicated both establishment parties, the Tories and Labor alike. Jack Straw former Labour Defense Sectary under Blair and Brown has been implicated like Malcolm Rifkind.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-24/senior-british-ex-ministers-accused-over-cash-for-access-claims/6240902

This actually ties in nicely with my previous preamble as to why so many people are now looking for alternatives than the traditional big two of British politics, whereby media focus is now on these new emerging parties with (the above) consequences of car crash radio.....

Nodin

jank wrote: »

Only Malcolm Rifkind? lol The 'cash for access' is a generic political scandal which has implicated both establishment parties, the Tories and Labor alike. Jack Straw former Labour Defense Sectary under Blair and Brown has been implicated like Malcolm Rifkind.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-24/senior-british-ex-ministers-accused-over-cash-for-access-claims/6240902

This actually ties in nicely with my previous preamble as to why so many people are now looking for alternatives than the traditional big two of British politics, whereby media focus is now on these new emerging parties with (the above) consequences of car crash radio.....

...or car crash TV, for that matter.
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/jaw-dropping-insight-into-ukip-airs-32052/

jank

Wrong thread Nodin