Categories
science fiction TAM

Leave My Elves Out of This

NOTE: This is a time travel entry – it comes from the past! I just got around to posting it today.

I am at TAM still as I write this, though it won’t be posted until I get home since I am, you could say, highly skeptical of the South Point Hotel’s claim that a day of internet access is worth a thirteen dollar fee. So hello from the past, I’m having a lot of fun and hope you are as well.

We just got done watching DJ Grothe interview Richard Dawkins. For the most part I found the discussion quite fascinating, and I really liked the interview format. It meant that DJ got to be a little combative (but not hostile, mind you) and force Dr. Dawkins to clarify some of his points. Generally, it was fun and very interesting.

There was one point where I got a bit riled, however. DJ mentioned an interview that Dr. Dawkins had done yesterday, where he had something to say about fantasy literature. Basically, Dr. Dawkins said that he thinks (though by the time DJ had thrown a couple “hey now, you realize that I’m a giant nerd” salvos his way, he’d backed down to “I wonder if…”) that fiction involving “profligate” magic contributes to children being credulous and thus more susceptible to religion. And he basically came down against fantastical fiction that was not exceptionally hard science fiction.

As someone whose hobby is writing fantasy and speculative fiction, you can imagine I had a rather negative reaction to that statement. Because some day I would like to make some money off of this hobby (not that I’m going to stop writing if I don’t) and no one likes to be pointed at as a possible source of mental decay among children.

I tried to ask a question at the end of the interview, and didn’t get to. Then, while waiting for the elevator and complaining bitterly to my dear friend Micah about this terrible injustice to the fantasy nerds of the world, Micah pointed out that Dr. Dawkins was standing right behind me. I had a moment of utter panic, where I tried to justify just slinking quietly away and saving my cranky point for when I could expand it to a work of total and passive aggressive blog spew. I didn’t want to be that person, however. Somehow I found the courage to walk over to Dr. Dawkins and say, as nearly as I can remember it:

“Dr. Dawkins, I would like to make a point as a writer of fantasy and speculative fiction. Have you considered that if you read these sorts of stories, you might be less likely to accept religion. Because sure, Jesus can turn water into wine, but Harry Potter can kill you dead with two words.”

And then he smiled politely and escaped down the hall, though I’m pretty sure I did speak clearly and loudly enough to be heard. I did not pursue, as he looked rather harried and I didn’t want to be one of Those People.

That done, I now feel like I can engage in some passive-aggressive blog spew, guilt free.

There are a lot of factors coming in to why that particular statement – which likely would have been a throw-away if DJ Grothe weren’t a proud Nerd-American – really set me off. For one, I already get a bit snippy when it comes to privileging science fiction (hard sci fi particularly) over fantasy. It’s an old, old argument and one that can probably raise the blood pressure of anyone that’s spent any amount of time in the fan communities. Suffice to say that I fall on the side of fantasy/scifi-ish spec fic simply because I already live in a universe with our laws of physics, and if I’m going to escape into a book, I’d be quite charmed if the laws of physics wouldn’t read over my shoulder for five minutes because damnit, I happen to like elves. I am well aware of the beauty, majesty, and wonder inherent in the natural world. I am a geologist, and for a reason. But if I want to read a book about elves, I’m going to read a book about elves, and the majesty of the natural world can damnwell amuse itself for ten minutes while I willingly suspend my disbelief.

I also don’t take kindly to people looking down on my hobbies. I don’t think anyone does. And while I’d never claim that most of what I read is “great” fiction (however you define THAT) I take real exception to the notice that reading fiction rots one’s brain in any way. Particularly when my next best option is watching an episode of Lockdown on MSNBC1.

But Rachael, you say – you, of course, being the voice of an actual reasonable person in my head – he’s not talking about you. He’s talking about kids. Sure, fine. I’ve been reading fantasy since I could read. I grew up on books that had pictures of unicorns on the cover. My mother read The Hobbit and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy to my brother and I when we were little, and I don’t think she did it in order to make us more credulous. At least I sure hope not.

I can almost – almost – see where Dr. Dawkins is something from. Almost. If I try really hard, I can imagine what it might be like if a child were given nothing but fantasy works and then allowed to read them in a complete analytical vacuum. A negative effect in that case is perhaps plausible. And I will also be the first to admit that I am not a psychologist, and I have not researched this topic. But there are several reasons beyond my knee-jerk moment of temper that I find this idea highly suspect.

  • There seems to be an assumption that the parent/guardian of the child would actively encourage them to think of the fantasy world as one as real as our own. There may be parents like this out there. I wouldn’t know. But I doubt it’s the majority. I would wager that just about any parent, their child frightened by something that happened in a fairy tale2, would then assure the child that it’s only a story, that the frightening thing is not real.

    And supposing there is a parent who either actively encourages a child to blur the line between fantasy and reality or simply remains completely uninvolved in their child’s developing relationship to literature. Is it then the fault of the fiction the child reads, or the fault of terrible parenting if that child eventually becomes a very credulous adult who is willing to believe in magic? Do we expect that such children would become serial killers if they were fed a steady diet of horror and true crime stories rather than sword and sorcery fantasy? Would science fiction (of the Richard Dawkins approved variety) cause such children to be more grounded in reality if they’re reading things that couple reasonable physics with, say, aliens?

  • Even in the complete absence of parent input, children are quite capable of observing, on their own, that the laws of the fantasy world do not work. Particularly when we are talking, as Dr. Dawkins did, of “profligate” magic, where its existence is intrinsic in the world and its use is simple and matter-of-fact within the story. No matter how hard you pretend that bit of wood is a magic wand, it’s still not going to turn your annoying little brother a dog. No matter how many frogs you chase down in the swamp, none of them turn into princes. And so on. One wonders if this is actually a case for skepticism, since after the fourth time you jump off the back of the couch and do not, in fact, fly even after your best friend SWORE that was fairy dust, you may well start wondering if you were a bit hasty to believe the claims of that Peter Pan person.

    Children also believe in Santa Claus because we tell them that he is real and then deliberately provide evidence that he is real as well – even evidence as simple as presents with a “From: Santa Claus” tag on them and an empty plate with a few crumbs on it, left from when Santa supposedly ate those cookies. If given absolutely no corroborating evidence, how long would a child continue to believe in the myth of Santa Claus, particularly when exposed to peers who are eager to disabuse them of such a babyish notion?

  • As a personal observation, as far back as I can remember, I was very well acquainted with the difference between pretend and reality. When I pretended to be a tiger, I knew very well that I was not actually a tiger. When I pretended there was magic, I knew very well that it didn’t exist. There may very well be some children that simply cannot tell the two apart after they’ve hit a certain age. I would daresay that those children likely require psychiatric intervention.
  • Consider the Christian Literature industry. In the book Rapture Ready, Daniel Radosh points out that there is a lot of general Christian fiction and romance, but not a whole lot of sci fi/fantasy. There’s also the point that there are fundamentalists of many stripes that think Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons are of the devil. Why is this? Are they frightened of a fantastic tale that posits miraculous powers that do not come from their god? Is there some latent fear that fantastical fiction that doesn’t have a religious bent to it may actually negatively effect someone’s beliefs somehow, particularly since these books often utilize elaborate (and completely made up) religious systems? I can’t say for sure, but I think this is a point that really ought to be considered.
  • From what I’ve observed in regards to children growing up Christian – particularly in the more fundamentalist sense of the world – they’re often completely inundated with the Bible, told repeatedly that it is without a doubt true. Rather than picture books of fairy tales, these children often read picture books of Bible stories. I’m really forced to wonder if this constant reinforcement of “No, THESE stories are real” is what is necessary to convince children that they ought to believe them. I rather doubt any parent treats fantasy stories like this.
  • One might point out that it’s not too hard to find people in the scifi/fantasy nerd culture that have some very credulous beliefs. I don’t particularly buy this as proof. Is the rate of credulous belief in these communities greater or smaller than in other groups that form around common interests? And even if that ends up being the case, we are often fond of saying that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Does fantasy fiction encourage credulity, or do credulous individuals enjoy fantasy fiction because they are already prone to a plethora of irrational beliefs and the stories feed in to those beliefs?
    •

    I posit that it is just as likely that if you are well versed in fantastical fiction – and also well aware that there is a solid difference between fantasy and reality – it may actually make it a little harder to believe in religious stories. If you read Lord of the Rings and understand its complete and beautiful mythology AND also know that something so complete and detailed was created by one man, I wonder if that would make you just a little skeptical of other complete and beautiful mythologies, written down by human beings – even if you’ve been told that they’re actually true.

    I am not going to get ridiculous here and trumpet the super awesomeness of fantasy or speculative fiction as reading material. We all have our own tastes and our own reasons for reading what we do, and we all gain a certain something from what we read, or we wouldn’t be reading it. Some of us (and from a tender age) need a little break from reality now and then, and we’re comfortable with the idea that reality will be waiting for us right where we left it once we emerged. I suppose you could argue “garbage in, garbage out,” but I’ll say this. There’s certainly worse garbage out there than elves.

    1 – No, really, what is with this show? It’s completely awful and without merit – it’s basically like Convict Zoo or something – and yet I can’t look away. I’m very worried what this might say about me as a person.

    2 – And here I mean “fictional story that the parent believes is only a story.” Just to be clear.

    Categories
    oil and gas

    It takes WEEKS to drill 40 feet?

    On Countdown last night, Keith Olberman reported that the relief well is 40 feet away from the well that’s blown out, and it’s expected to take several more weeks to reach it. I thought I’d clarify this, since it may be a little confusing as to why it is going to take several weeks to drill 40 feet.

    Per USA Today the relief well is aimed for a point 18,000 feet deep. From the somewhat nonspecific language of the news article, I’m assuming that the 18,000 feet is the subsea1. This means that the actual drill string for the well will likely be significantly longer than 18,000 feet, since it’s being drilled directionally and is thus not the shortest possible distance from the point they’re aiming for.

    My knowledge mostly relates to how wells are drilled on land, but as far as I know, the principle is the same for offshore drilling. Basically, the actually drill bit is at the end of the drill string, which stretches the length from the rig floor to wherever the bit happens to be at the time. The drill string is effectively a long, long pipe through which the bit can be powered and drilling fluid (mud) can be circulated.

    Drill string is, as you can imagine, not just one insanely long pipe. It’s made out of joint after joint after joint of pipe. This pipe normally comes in lengths between 30 and 45 feet. So basically, when you’re drilling you start with, say, a 45 foot length of pipe. You drill down 45 feet until that pipe is basically at the floor of the rig, then you add another 45 foot length of pipe, then drill down more. And so on. And so on.

    The sectional nature of drill pipe is important in this case because as drill string is pulled from the hole, you also have to break it off a section at a time and stack the pipe on the racks. This process can be done fairly efficiently for what it is, but that doesn’t quite get around the fact that when you have to pull an 18,000+ foot drill string out of a hole 45 (or whatever) feet at a time, it’s not exactly a speedy process.

    And that is, in fact, what’s having to be done, at pretty regular intervals. As close as the relief well is, they really don’t want to miss the Macondo’s2 pipe, and they’re effectively attempting to locate something a bit smaller than a dinner plate. Directional surveys do have error attached to them, so they don’t have a precise enough location on the well they’re trying to hit to just drill blindly.

    So basically what is happening at this point is that the relief well is drilling a little bit (maybe a foot or so, I don’t know for certain) and then they’re pulling up the entire (18,000+ foot) drill string so they can put a magnetic tool down the wellbore to check the location of the Macondo’s pipe. Then they pull up the magnetic tool, put all 18,000+ feet of the drill string back down and drill a little more.

    I think “excruciating” is a fair way to describe this process. But with the care that’s taken, there will hopefully be a very good chance of hitting the blown out well on the first try, which is the really important thing. Playing fast and loose is certainly part of what caused this issue; hopefully some care and precision will get the Macondo killed finally.

    Also, I’ll add that around the time the relief wells started drilling, we had a company meeting. I didn’t end up attending, but my husband did and reported what had been said. It was mostly one of the VPs passing on information about the disaster. One of the things he said is that THE best directional drilling engineer in the business is at the helm of the relief well. So here’s hoping.

    ETA: I found this video released by BP3 explaining (with animations) the drilling process for the relief wells. The narration isn’t exactly scintillating, but I think the animation can really help you visualize the process. I’ll admit, the thing I found most interesting was the enormous range in casing sizes that they’ve had to set. Casing gets set in layers; I’ve never seen this many layers, but then again I’ve never worked on a well at a depth of more than 10,000 feet.

    Note: In the video, they refer to “MD.” That stands for “measured depth,” which is the length drilled. Measured Depth is normally not the same as Subsea Depth, since it’s really a measure of wellbore length rather than a quantification of depth below sea level. In this case, they mention a 13,000 foot measured depth, which may seem a little confusing. They’re talking about 13,000 feet drilled and not counting the additional footage that it takes just to get from the drilling platform at the ocean surface to the ocean floor, which is approximately 5,000 feet.

    1 – Depth below sea level as measured in a line perpendicular to the surface of the sea.

    2 – The proper name of our favorite underwater oil “volcano.”

    3 – I consider this video propaganda-free, since it’s a good representation of the drilling process and at no point does the boring narrator compare directional drilling to “a graceful dive into the Earth’s hallowed seas of rock” or some shit like that.

    Categories
    skepticism TAM

    The Diversity of Skeptical Thought

    There was something of a theme at TAM 8, an informal one I think. A few of the speakers have said some tough things, and I think that they were very necessary. Massimo Pigliucci had a few words to say about the occasional hubris of skeptics. Carol Tavris talked about why people believe the way they do, and how difficult it is to convince them to back off on any belief. Phil Plait spoke on what he sees as a problem of tone in the skeptical movement – his most salient point was to ask everyone who had their mind changed by being called an idiot or worse to raise their hand. There weren’t very many hands.

    I think the most important point in this underlying theme was actually made by someone who did not have a formal speech – Hal Bidlack, the MC. At the beginning of TAM, he said that this would be his last one. Later, I managed to catch him in one of his rare five seconds of standing still, and asked him if he meant as an MC or just in general. He said it would probably be his last TAM ever. And when I asked him why, he said “Creative differences.” Over the course of this Amazing Meeting, he made a few comments, about having learned to not discuss religion with skeptics, and about how we must remember the diversity of politics within the movement as we cannot assume all skeptics hew to the liberal ideology1.

    At this point, I wouldn’t dare to put words in Hal’s mouth. I respect him far too much, and I’m trying not to speculate over his reasons. But I would also be lying if I didn’t say that I was wondering, and this has caused me to do a lot of thinking. I’m upset because I’m going to miss Hal, a lot. TAM isn’t going to be the same without him. And I’m upset because I feel that he’s been on the receiving end of some extremely shoddy treatment because he’s a deist.

    Since I joined the skeptical movement four years ago, I’ve noticed a very real internal unease that has, over time, boiled to the surface: the relationship between atheism and skepticism. There is a massive overlap between these two movements, but it is important to note that not all atheists are skeptics, and likewise, not all skeptics are atheists.

    I am actually one of those skeptics who is also an atheist. I say it in that order because that’s how I think of myself; skeptic first, atheist second2. Philosophical questions of gods hold very little interest for me; I have no patience for those kind of debates. And frankly, the sometimes strident overlap between the two communities has made me uncomfortable. Me, who is a member of both. Perhaps the best example of this comes from TAM two years ago, when Don Nyberg during the papers session effectively said that anyone who isn’t an atheist is a moron, and has no right to call themselves a skeptic. It was a moment that upset a lot of people, including myself – and Hal Bidlack. No one has stated that at the podium quite so baldly since then, but it’s still there at times, in a subtle, uncomfortable undercurrent.

    There is a very fine line that I see, as a skeptic and an atheist. When someone claims the power of prayer has worked, we have a responsibility to question and report. When someone claims that they can prove evolution is bunk and creationism is true, we have a responsibility to question and report. All of these things are claims that happen within the realm of the physical world and have solid evidence that can be collected and considered. Sometimes, such as in cases of false miracles or faith healing or evolution denial, we can conclusively demolish those claims. And we should. There are many, many religious claims that deserve – no, DEMAND – that we turn a skeptical eye to them and give it our intellectual all.

    But that fine but important line approaches when we speak about the very basic belief in a a higher power. Someone who claims that they have proof god exists because intelligent design is real and evolution is wrong ought to bear the brunt of skeptical fury. Someone that says that they believe in god and think he just sort of set things in motion and stepped back – such as a deist – is something of a different question, I think. Someone who says that they believe in a higher power not because they necessarily can claim evidence, but because they need that belief or feel in their heart that it is true – that’s not something we can test.

    This verges on these philosophical arguments that I find so immensely tedious, so I will be to the point. We can and have proved that intelligent design is bunk, that creationism is laughable, that literal historical claims from a plethora of holy books are unsupportable. But I challenge you to disprove a deist’s god, who set the great clockwork of the universe in motion and did not meddle further. I challenge you to neatly demolish a higher power who exists as a feeling of love and connection within someone’s heart. Frankly, you can’t3.

    You may find such a “marginal” god or higher power unsatisfying. That’s fine. I’m not particularly thrilled by it either. I’m an atheist, after all. I may not understand (and certainly don’t) how someone can justify a belief in god because they feel the truth of it. That said, it’s not for me to assume that everyone thinks the same way that I do about it, perish the thought at the utter ego it would take to think that everyone should. But let me make my point clear: When we reach the point of discussing a deity or higher power whose presence causes no testable effects upon the universe, we can neither conclusively prove or disprove him, her, or it. And when we have reached that point, it is for our own conscience to decide.

    I have looked at what evidence I feel there is in this matter, and I’ve concluded: probably not.

    That does not mean someone else cannot conclude: I have no idea.

    Or even that someone who finds my position unsatisfying cannot conclude: possibly yes.

    I think that Paul Provenza was being sarcastic during his talk when he said that, “everyone has their process.” But we all do, in fact. We all think about things differently, have different feelings and needs and thought processes. That we all agree on such a myriad of things is, quite frankly, amazing. That we agree on the value of this process called skepticism is even more so. And I think that everyone who is a skeptic, if they are good and honest, does their best both to apply their skepticism to themselves, and to admit that we each have our own sacred bulls that we don’t really want to see gored.

    Perhaps this is a sacred bull of the skeptical atheist, to think that everyone who is a “good” skeptic must of course agree that there is no god.

    I have heard this refrain since I’ve joined the movement, sometimes subtle, sometimes not. Somehow, you’re not a “good enough” skeptic if you’re not an atheist. You’re not a “real” skeptic if you retain the belief in some sort of higher power. You’re stupid. You’re weak-minded. You’re against the cause.

    I find that all incredibly offensive.

    Carol Travris’ talk springs to mind here, and a few of the salient points that she made. One is that we are all naturally biased to think that we are more (insert trait here) than other people. So we are naturally biased to think that we are more rational or more intelligent than others who disagree with us. Another was that once we have made a decision, we have a natural tendency to rapidly strengthen that position and become more extreme in our expression of it. These things should be first in anyone’s mind when there’s occasion to expound on the superiority of a particular position. Is it that my position is truly that superior, or have I thought myself on to that pedestal? Am I really smarter or more rational (whatever that means) than this other person, or have I fallen prey to my own ego?

    No one is rational and skeptical 100% of the time and in every area of their lives; anyone who says otherwise is either fooling themselves or has allowed their own ego to drive the conversation. There is really only one requirement to be a skeptic: a dedication to applying skepticism and its methods to your life and the world around you to the best of your abilities. You are not required to be an atheist. You are not required to be liberal. Thank goodness you are not required to be a libertarian, or I would have gotten thrown against the wall and stoned to death a couple of years ago.

    So you’re an atheist. That’s great. So you think that the world would be a better place if everyone else was an atheist as well. It’s not my place to tell you that you’re wrong; I don’t know what a world of nothing but atheists would look like. But you don’t forward your position by insulting and belittling people. You don’t aide your message by calling anyone who disagrees an idiot. If your aim is to convert people to your way of thinking in a rational environment, insulting them and marginalizing their contribution is not the way to go about it. And you do violence to the cause of skepticism when you use your belief that everyone ought to agree with your 100% of the time to attack those of you who only agree with you 99.99% of the time.

    When I took my introductory women’s studies course, one of the first books that we looked at was called Feminist Thought by Rosemary Putnam Tong. At its most basic, it was a catalog of the many diverse schools of feminist thought, some of them directly conflicting with each other, throughout the successive waves of the movement. But in its own way, it was much more powerful than simply that. It showed the feminist movement as a rich and diverse collection of passionate, thinking women, throughout its history. These women often did not agree with each other, and didn’t have to; the strength of the movement as it grew was built upon the diversity of thought, the many angles from which each challenge could be met, all tied together under the common feminist cause.

    Where is our diversity of skeptical thought? We are not as big of a movement as the feminists, though we could perhaps argue that we are an older movement, one that is simply experiencing a strong new wave today. There were the great thinkers throughout the enlightenment. There was Harry Houdini, and his tradition of thought and investigation. There are the grandfathers of today’s skepticism, such as James Randi. And today there are feminist skeptics, and scientific skeptics, and artist skeptics, and skeptics who specialize in investigating paranormal claims. There are atheist skeptics and agnostic skeptics and Christian skeptics and Buddhist skeptics and who knows what else kind of skeptics. We each have our own place among this diversity of thought and perhaps like the feminists, that diversity – while occasionally providing planes of fracture – will ultimately strengthen our cause by giving us a broad base from which to think and act. We each have our own voice within skeptical thought, and it is not for us to deny others their place to stand and speak.

    I am not asking that atheists silence themselves. In the discussion that is the skeptical movement, no voice should be silenced if we wish to utilize our full strength. However, this also means that neither should atheists seek to silence or marginalize others. We are (for the most part) adults. I should hope we could be capable of discussing and accepting our differences while celebrating our points of agreement, all without resorting to unworthy devices such as ad hominem attacks. It is very possible to disagree with someone – and strongly – without resorting to name calling and insults, unless your aim is to make certain you have one less ally4.

    As atheists, we often criticize the religious for making everything about their religion; you know, That Guy who “gave it up to the lord” and Jesus told him to wear the red shirt. We often criticize the religious for their dedication to their ideology, for their attacks on others who believe differently; you know, That Guy who thinks atheists are just blinding themselves to the glorious truth, that we’re lost and willfully ignorant. We often attack the religious for their refusal to acknowledge our sovereign right to think and feel differently than they do, and the validity of those thoughts and feelings; you know, That Guy who thinks atheists are soulless because we cannot feel god’s love. We often disparage the religious for their dedication to the in-group/out-group paradigm; you know, That Guy who says he can’t be friends with an atheist because we’re not saved and not worthy of respect. We often attack the religious for attempting to exclude all viewpoints at odds with their own; you know, That Guy who thinks atheists shouldn’t be allowed to speak within the community because we don’t have anything good to say.

    You know That Guy? I have heard people eerily like him on occasion at our events, and I don’t like it one bit.

    1 – Hal Bidlack ran as a democrat for congress two years ago.

    2 – If we’re going to do the full labeling litany of political/social beliefs, just for the record, I would be a Skeptical Liberal Feminist Atheist. I quite frankly do not consider my atheism to be that intrinsic to who I am.

    3 – Richard Dawkins basically stated at his talk that if there were an intelligent creator/first mover to the universe (even presumably a non-meddlesome one) everything would look a lot different. I have a lot of respect for Dr. Dawkins, but I think he’s gone a bit over the top on this one. Unless I’m missing something fundamental about physics where we think the current physical laws are as “unintelligently designed” as the biology.

    4 – Put another way, you can be confrontational and strongly opinionated without being a dick. True fax.

    Categories
    TAM

    TAM 8 in quick review

    Back home from TAM 8. I’ve got a couple of long things I’ve written, set off by specific things that happened, but those will keep until I’ve had time to think a bit longer and edit. For the most part, I had a heck of a lot of fun. Can’t wait until next year!

    The Good
    I liked almost all of the talks, though I missed a lot of the stuff on Sunday just because I slept late (non-alcohol-related upset tummy) and had to leave early to catch my flight.

    DJ Grothe gave me a goodbye skeptical hug when we were headed out of the hotel! Squee!

    As always, the SGU dinner was a highlight of my TAM. I even wore a dress for it this year, and I never wear dresses. And of course the two hours of live SGU in the morning were definitely worth dragging myself out of bed earlier than I ever get up for work these days.

    I got to make an angry vagina hand puppet with Sean Faircloth in the feminist skepticism workshop. That’s right, you heard me. And Sean Faircloth gave an extremely good speech on Friday. I wanted to vote for him (Sean Faircloth for… for… EVERYTHING!) and to throw dirty big handfuls of cash at him and the Secular Coalition for America.

    Hanging out with everyone was fun, of course.

    I really enjoyed the “interview” format that was used for both Randi and Richard Dawkins.

    Simon Singh and his epic, epic hair.

    I feel like there was something of an unofficial theme this year of skepticism directed toward ourselves as a movement. Massimo Pigliucci, Phil Plait, and Carol Tavris all took a turn at this, from looking at the trouble our egos get us in to (Massimo), to how we can often work counter to our own goals (Phil), to an acknowledgment that it’s really easy for us to think that we’re more whatever (such as: skeptical) than everyone else (Carol Tavris). I think these are really important points that need to be made, and probably more than once. Massimo pointing out that skeptics are for the most part not, in fact, scientists, is one that struck a real chord with me. I’ve run across some people who consider themselves skeptics who are also global warming deniers, and claim to have read the literature. I’ve probably had more environmental science education than a great many of them, and let me tell you, the literature doesn’t make a lick of sense to me; I think anyone that lacks the specialized training but still thinks they can better understand/analyze/interpret the data may very well be beyond hubris and in to some new, terrifying realm of pure ego.

    I regained a lot of respect for Michael Shermer this year, actually. And his power point was only mildly embarrassing instead of an abomination that threatened the fabric of space and time itself. So good on him.

    Really, I can’t be that descriptive about the good, since so much of it was good, and it all sort of blurs together in a big ball of awesome.

    The Bad
    Really don’t like what they did with the seating this year. I know that it was necessary to take away the tables so that we could fit enough seats in. But could we maybe put an inch or two of space between each of the seats? I know I’m kind of tubby, but those chairs are narrow enough that it wasn’t a comfortable situation for anyone with broad shoulders.

    I was also kind of annoyed about the reception. This was my first year of doing it, but everyone told me that it was basically a reception like you’d expect it. Instead this year they tried to have some kind of guest conversation in the middle of it, on the floor where almost no one could see. It’s a bad idea to tell people to come expecting one thing and give them something completely different. If I’d known it was supposed to be “shut up and listen to the guest” time, I could have come prepared for that instead of being half drunk and in the mood to chat with my friends. I ended up stomping off like a big flaming drama queen (since I was kind of drunk and not terribly rational) after being told that my talking to a friend was “ruining” the reception. I get the impression a lot of other people ended up leaving to talk.

    This was Hal’s last TAM, due to “creative differences.” I’ve got a lot more to say about that, but it will be its own post. Needless to say, I’m going to miss Hal a lot and I don’t think TAM will be the same without him, his cheery outlook, and his bad jokes.

    I still miss being on the strip. I don’t really like feeling like I’m just trapped in the hotel, probably because I’m not a big fan of just hanging out and drinking. I really need to get better at meeting new people.

    I did not have the money to go see Roy Zimmerman. Boo. I also did not get to have my much anticipated crab dinner due to scheduling conflicts. Double boo.

    The Bizarre
    The moon hoaxer that was following Phil Plait around and then tried to get in Adam Savage’s face during his talk. That was very, very strange. I thought Adam handled it really well, though. He’s probably pretty used to that crap, sadly.

    The guy that had a “question” for Randi, which turned out to be him wanting to tell us all about his “ability” to magically fix post operative nerve damage. There was a collective facepalm when he said that could “even do it over the phone.” He apparently filled out the paperwork for the Million Dollar Challenge.

    Okay, this was a fun bizarre, but when I was at the SGU Steve Novella sat at my table for a little while. And said the word “fuck” like three times. Which just seemed so strange considering you never hear him cuss on the podcast, of course.

    And seriously, what the hell was up with that terrifying green packing-foam-like thing masquerading as cake during lunch on Saturday? Proof of aliens? Just maybe.

    Categories
    2012 liveblog movie

    2012: The world ends in an explosion of bad dialog

    1425: So here goes. I’m watching a horrible movie for the first time, and I’m going to try to write down my thoughts as I have them. We’ll see if something clever results. Until then… previews. Whee!

    1429: Ooh, Saturn’s rings. How ominous. And the sun apparently has indigestion, but at least it looks pretty.

    1430: A taxi runs through a puddle and capsizes a little toy boat. I have a feeling this is what “writers” refer to as “foreshadowing.” With “scare quotes.” I also find it amusing that the Indian actors are all speaking with stereotypical Indian accents, instead of, say, speaking Hindi.

    1432: The highest neutrino count ever! OMG!!!!!1111 The neutrinos are causing a physical reaction WHAT? They’re making a new form of radiation and… uh… boiling water with it? I agree with you, Indian smart dude. That’s impossible. Except instead of impossible, I’d probably just say “stupid.” Congratulations, movie. It’s only been three minutes and I am already completely incapable of taking you seriously.

    1435: And then black dude who was talking to the Indian smart dude gets to meet the president. “Mr. President, I have grave news. A script writer just threw up a physics text book and Roland Emmerich is making it into a movie.”

    1436: Oh, of course the world will end when the US has a black president. Perhaps it’s just that a prophecy of global doom sounds more convincing when uttered in rich, African-American tones.

    1438: The Chinese. They are doing something sinister. Good to know.

    1438: And now it’s 2011. Okay then. And someone wants a lot of money from a rich middle eastern guy. And there’s this Heritage organization thingy that’s making off with the Mona Lisa and replacing it with a fake one. Did I just wander in to the wrong movie? Is this the Da Vinci Code?

    1441: “The Mayan *** calendar which predicts the world to end on December 21st of this year due to destructive solar forces.” No it doesn’t.

    1441: John Cusack, didn’t you used to be in good movies? And I agree with David – why do the heroes in these movies always have to be deadbeats?

    1442: everyone is staring in wonder at a huge crack in the street. Which is apparently the result of a “mini quake”? Um… no. If there’s that kind of surface displacement, it would be a significant earthquake.

    1443: John Cusack is apparently a quirky writer who drives a limo and has an estranged wife with an asshole new husband/boyfriend whom his kids like more than him. What a unique and interesting character setup. /sarcasm

    1445: Old white guy that doesn’t like his son. Who cares? And then there’s a large ocean wave for no apparent reason.

    1446: Okay, so the art thing is a theft/conspiracy thing and some French guy’s car gets blown up at precisely the most dramatic moment when he’s trying to call someone.

    1447: “Get your stupid ass to Yellowstone, I don’t want to miss all the fun when it finally blows.” …are you serious?

    1447: The earth quakes have nothing to do with plate tectonics and the “surface cracks” aren’t from normal quakes? What, pray tell, are these not normal quakes? Planetary indigestion? The Earth about to fart out a contrived plot point?

    1449: The timeline. How ominous. Also, way to be obvious about the scripted love interest.

    1450: Okay. So if this all has nothing to do with normal tectonics, why the hell would Yellowstone blow? Other than because it’s in the script and they’ve got a good special effects budget for it?

    1451: John Cusack, you are the worst dad ever. Hey kids, let’s go check a dead elk in a dried-up, creepy lake bed that’s been cordoned off with an ominous fence. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

    1453: What the hell are these people doing in Yellowstone? Measuring temperature, which is increasing at .5% per hour, without any sort of logical explanation. These people are geologists. You can tell because geologists TOTALLY wear pristine white lab coats. It’s not like they ever encounter, you know, dirt.

    1455: “The Earth’s crust is destabilizing.” …wait, what? What does that even mean? Are all the silicates spontaneously breaking down or something? Maybe the mutating neutrinos think that silicon is the breakfast of champions. I think that just may be the most vacuous sentence I’ve written in my life.

    1456: “All our fancy machines and the Mayan’s saw this coming thousands of years ago.” Heavy-handed writing is heavy-handed.

    1459: The apocalypse is going to start in Hollywood. Of course. I like the really awful and insulting tutorial video to explain the basic science term vomit. Wow, and they dug up Charles Hapgood’s (continental drift denier) stinking corpse. So if I got this right, the mutant neutrinos are going to melt the mantle and thus allow the continents to skate around the surface of the Earth, because as we all know, melted mantle is slicker than WD-40.

    1504: So John Cusack’s former wife’s new boyfriend is a total slime ball. I’m sure we’ll all be totally sad and stuff when he dies. /also sarcasm

    1505: Wow. I love the crack opening up in the middle of a grocery store with just a little bit of shaking and wobbling. That’s… wow. Stupid. stupid is definitely the word I’m looking for.

    1507: Once again, it sucks to be poor.

    1508: Wow. Those are some AWESOME bad accents.

    1509: I love how the rich passengers for the sooper seekrit escape ships get informed they need to go via text message.

    1511: Ugly handbag dog: Check.

    1512: Any bets that the obnoxious kid with the bad Russian accent will die?

    1513: California is going DOWN! ROFL

    1513: “When they tell you not to panic, that’s when you run!” Also hilarious.

    1514: John Cusack said the F-word. And did the little girls just seriously whine about her hats getting left in their collapsing house? These people have some priorities.

    1515: WOO WE ARE RUNNING AWAY FROM THE COLLAPSING EARTH. This definitely beats running away from the cold air in The Day After Tomorrow.

    1516: STUFF RANDOMLY COLLAPSES OH NOES

    1516: OMG HE JUST DROVE HIS LIMO THROUGH A COLLAPSING SKY SCRAPER AHAHAHAHAHA

    1516: …it was a 10.9 earth quake! Hopefully they meant in moment magnitude. :P And again with this “destabilizing” crap.

    1519: AHAHHAHA AND THEN THEY FLY A PLANE BETWEEN TWO SKYSCRAPERS THAT ARE FALLING OVER SPECIAL EFFECTS FOR THE WIN AND THEN SHIT EXPLODES ALL OVER THE PLACE

    1520: …and LA is a giant sink hole? What?

    1521: You know, guys, we didn’t literally mean that California was going to slide into the ocean. That’s kind of hilarious.

    1523: And then the token black scientist has a moment with his dad, and I tried really hard to care but couldn’t. David: “Oh look, an emotional moment between two characters that have had no development.” Well put, my friend.

    1524: …they’re going to put normal gas into an airplane? Buh?

    1525: I am so glad that cell phones will still work at the end of the world. They must not be using AT&T.

    1526: At any point, does John Cusack get to drive a normal car?

    1527: Conspiracy dewey decimal system between Roswell and Marilyn Monroe. ROFL If only the nuts really did this kind of filing, that would be AMAZING.

    1527: Time for John Cusack to now drive an RV in a completely ridiculous situation.

    1528: Supervolcano eruption: You’re doing it wrong. How are these people not getting flash cooked? Shut up blond stoner dude. You don’t even get a last line.

    1530: The back of the RV is on fire. That’s hilarious. Because getting hit with a giant magma bomb totally wouldn’t knock the RV over. And John Cusack’s wife better wave her hands harder so that he can see her. Right next to the airplane.

    1531: John Cusack jumps a randomly forming fissure with the RV. Since no collapsing skyscraper is involved, I am less impressed.

    1532: If John Cusack is too stupid to just grab all of the maps and run to the airplane, he totally deserves to fall into hot lava.

    1532: I’M RUNNING FROM THE PYROCLASTIC FLOW! I’M RUNNING FROM THE PYROCLASTIC FLOW! NOW I’M FLYING AWAY FROM THE PYROCLASTIC FLOW! ROFL Okay, movie, you have finally one-upped The Day After Tomorrow.

    1534: Anyone else think it would have been funnier if the ash clogged up the airplane’s engines? Just throwing that out there.

    1535: “We need to bring people who can contribute.” Okay, then WHY did you auction off tickets to the highest bidders? I’m sure stupid blonde lady with the handbag dog has a lot to contribute. Maybe she’s the world’s bitchiest nuclear physicist.

    1537: Bored now. Can we please get back to blowing things up? Your manufactured moral conundrums are unconvincing.

    1540: I am so confused now. Is token black scientist in Las Vegas with the weird Russian people? What’s going on? What was that little scene even about?

    1541: It’s very considerate of global destruction to pause so President Black Guy can make a speech. Except then it takes him out halfway though HAHAHA

    1545: Oh, if only we had a copilot! Douchey plastic surgeon guy can pilot! You know what I don’t get? Why does he keep insisting that he can’t fly if it’s the only way he might survive? I’d be all, “Totally, I’m an ace pilot. I’m so awesome I flew an airplane into the past so I could punch the Wright brothers in the nuts.”

    1546: I am so glad the giant ash cloud showed up just in time for the heroes to fly another plane out of it.

    1547: SWEET THERE ARE CASINOS TO FLY THE PLANE BETWEEN AS THEY COLLAPSE. No wonder they stopped in Las Vegas; luckily they were able to successfully wed the two themes of this movie in one scene.

    1549: Why are there Buddhist monks in my stupid disaster movie?

    1550: I like how one of the more tectonically active regions of the world is totally untouched by the global disaster so far. But that’s because plate tectonics is a lie.

    1551: Hats make you feel safe. Good to know. I want to come up with a character so shallow that her defining characteristic is “a thing for hats.”

    1553: They’re going to refuel in Hawaii, which is composed of active volcanoes. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

    1553: Oh look, Hawaii is a mass of lava and burning buildings. Which collapse. I’m so surprised.

    1554: The only two black people still alive get together. I think that they’re supposed to have chemistry or something. “This book is part of our legacy now. Why? Because I’m reading it.” Wow. Could we have just stuck to the bad science and at least had some reasonable writing?

    1556: Dear movie, please just stick to the explosions. Thanks.

    1557: Okay, okay, it sucks to be part of humanity and not a rich jerk. I GET IT.

    1558: You know what I want to know? If it’s like a 9.4 earth quake and buildings are toppling like dominoes, how the hell are people managing to stay standing?

    1559: David: “SWEET are they going to kill the Pope?”

    1600: Yes David, there is a Santa Claus.

    1600: Oh look. The Sistine Chapel ceiling broke with a crack dividing the outstretched hands of Adam and God. Your subtlety. It leaves me stunned.

    1600: The Earth’s crust has started to shift? HAHAHAHA THE SCIENCE JUST GOT DUMBER AND I CAN’T EVEN FATHOM HOW THAT IS POSSIBLE

    1601: So with tectonic plates scooting around like frisbees covered with industrial-strength lube, we finally get to kill the people on the cruise ship that we don’t give a shit about. That’s nice.

    1602: Hypothesis: The tectonic plates are actually made of a completely frictionless material, kind of like Chow Yun Fat’s pants in Stranglehold.

    1602: Tsunami. You’re doing it wrong.

    1605: John Cusack and his wife have a moment. So full of not caring. Guess it’s the setup for when douchebag plastic surgeon boyfriend dies.

    1606: “The crust has shifted by almost 23 degrees to the southwest.” What does that even MEAN? So then the guy asks if that means the north pole is now in Wisconsin, and then the geologist (he is wearing a WHITE COAT) says that’s actually the south pole now. Because the continents are sliding around like clowns on banana peels and the magnetic field is shifting too or something what? OH MY GOD YOU STUPID MOVIE AT LEAST KEEP YOUR OWN BULLSHIT “SCIENCE” STRAIGHT ARGH.

    1610: “The whole world shifted by 1000 miles.” HAHAHAHA YEAH BECAUSE WE RAN OUT OF GAS BOOYAH PLOT DEVICE. Suddenly instead of an ocean, there’s China, just out of nowhere. It does tend to creep up on you. Instead of magically not running out of gas, they just magically moved all the land masses.

    1611: WOO NORMAL CAR TO DO SOMETHING STUPID IN! So they’re going to drive the FREAKING CAR out of the back of the plane because a casino knocked off the landing gear. LOL.

    1612: Aw. Hot Russian dude is going to die. Boo.

    1613: They try to make us believe for an instant that hot Russian guy will survive. But I know this is a disaster movie. I am not fooled. And all he gets is a lame little explosion instead of a skyscraper erupting from nowhere and falling over on him or whatever the shit the screen writers came up with while sniffing glue.

    1615: They’re airlifting elephants with helicopters. What?

    1618: It’s nice to know that even for the end of the world, we’ve outsourced to the Chinese. Very thrifty.

    1619: And now random Buddhist monk dude just happens to show up in time to pick people up.

    1620: So, what you’re trying to tell me is that the people in charge of the arks are assholes? Wow, I never would have guessed.

    1621: There goes nice Indian dude and his family. I actually feel vaguely sad about this.

    1623: And now the geologist dude is wearing a bowtie. Because that’s totally what geologists wear too.

    1623: Starting to be dragged down by disaster movie fatigue. Rocks fall, people die, rich people are jerks. We’ve got it. Can this movie please just end? And it’s only been an hour. What the hell are they going to do with the rest of the movie?

    1626: I must have missed something. I have no idea why some of the rich people are being left outside of the ships. It’s kind of funny, though.

    1629: The blonde lady is calling for her handbag dog. Wow. And the dog makes it, which is hilarious. I love her flipping off the rich dude who tried to ditch her.

    1633: Aw, impassioned speech. Now they’re going to let the rich people and Chinese workers in. That’s nice of them.

    1634: I see we have arrived at the random machinery portion of this movie.

    1634: Douchey McPlasticSurgeon died, and as I predicted, I did not care.

    1636: Aw, bye bye random Buddhist monk dude. I like how this tsunami is so ridiculous it’s pouring OVER the Himalayas.

    1637: Big Russian dude THROWS his kid in slo-mo up onto the ramp and then falls to his death. AWESOME.

    1638: “I know those kids.” That little girl is obsessed with hats, I’d know her anywhere!

    1638: Jesus, annoying politician dude, STFU already.

    1639: Is it me, or do they have the same female countdown announcer as there was in Spaceballs? It’s always good to have a computerized voice telling you how much time you have before death. Very comforting.

    1640: AND NOW WE’RE RUNNING AWAY FROM WATER HAHA

    1641: Save the little girl and the handbag dog. Excellent.

    1642: Where did all this water come from anyway?

    1643: They’re going to crash into Mt. Everest because they can’t start their engines. Awesome.

    1645: It’s a suicide mission, so of course John Cusack will go. And kiss his ex-wife beforehand, because that’s cool even though her boyfriend JUST GOT PUT THROUGH A GIANT MEAT GRINDER.

    1645: And the little boy follows him. Of course. Predictable much?

    1647: Oh, there’s your problem. Some Chinese dude’s leg and a douchebag plastic surgeon are stuck in the hydraulics.

    1648: The tension. It is so thick and dramatic. Like curdled milk. Or possibly blood in the streets.

    1450: And so the little boy comes up out of the water. And where’s John Cusack? He is letting the Dramatic TensionTM build. It will be so. Surprising. When he comes up.

    1653: Aw, awkward romance between the only two black people on the boat. So awkward and contrived.

    1654: Oh look. The little girl has yet another hat.

    1654: And another contrived romance, this one between John Cusack and his ex. That is so original.

    1656: The seabeds have equalized. That’s nice.

    1656: And now ships full of rich white people are going to invade Africa where the dry land is. Nothing could possibly go wrong there.

    1658: And we end with a power ballad, except it’s not even sung by Aerosmith. 2012, you are the TaB of disaster movies. You’re not even good enough to be Diet Coke.

    So that was a disappointing movie. More explosions, less talking. Seriously. Just an hour and half of nothing but explosions and shit falling over would have been much better.

    Categories
    politics Uncategorized

    On being unemployed

    I’m incredibly lucky, and I know it. I’ve got a job, and a good one. I’m going back to school in August and will receive a more than reasonable stipend. I’m now married, and to someone that has a very stable job with a salary that we could both easily live on as long as we were a bit austere in our spending.

    But you know, I see shit like this1:

    ANGLE: Well, I said that it had spoiled our citizenry. That’s a little different. They’re not spoiled. What has happened is this system of entitlement has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job.

    And it momentarily robs me of my ability to speak coherent English. After some jumping up and down and arm waving and gurgling shrieks of rage, I’m able to once again communicate like a semi-literate human being.

    So here goes.

    Dear Sharron Angle:

    Fuck you. And I say this in all seriousness, knowing that I have made a conscious effort to tone down my normally salty language for this blog and I’ve now officially blown it in this post. Fuck you. Your original quote was insulting. Your pathetic attempt to wiggle out of it during this interview has crossed the line into the willful degradation of millions of Americans. So yes, fuck you.

    Your response shows that you have never faced unemployment. It reeks of the lazy entitlement of someone who has never lived in fear of what will happen when the benefit checks stop coming in the mail. It stinks of privilege, of the sure, arrogant knowledge that, well, I’m okay, screw everyone else.

    You know what’s sad? I actually used to buy into that disgusting lie. I used to cuddle with my privilege at night and tell myself that people who depended on the social safety net were just lazy, they obviously didn’t want to work as hard (HAHAHA) as me, so screw ’em. And this, despite the fact that my father was a union steward when I was little, and I can even remember a little bit about what it was like to be on strike.

    You know what changed that? I got laid off. And then when I got another job, I got fired. And then suddenly there was nothing between me and losing my house except for my unemployment check and a rapidly draining savings account.

    So let me tell you what it’s like. It’s been five years since that time, and it’s still all very vivid in my mind.

    Being unemployed is carefully calculating the exact amount of money you’ll need to pay your mortgage and all your bills, then adding in the bare minimum of calories you’ll need to survive – in the form of ramen noodles, most likely – and then dividing that out into precisely how much of an hourly wage you need, so you know what jobs you can actually afford to apply for.

    Being unemployed is realizing that the jobs for those wages are too infrequent, and trying to figure out where you can shave off more money. Well, it’s almost summer so I can just not turn on the air conditioning. I’ll survive. I won’t turn on lights to save on my electricity bill. I’ll stop driving my car so I can probably get away without insurance.

    Being unemployed is applying for job after job after job and being confronted with a deafening silence on the other end. No one bothers to tell you any more if you didn’t get the job. They just bin your resume and you have to assume you’ve been rejected, without even the closure of a recorded phone call or a form letter. It’s being rejected, every day, constantly, and never even being told why.

    Being unemployed is calculating the cost difference between birth control pills and just having to buy more feminine hygiene products, because it’s a way to save a few bucks a month.

    Being unemployed is lying on your resume to make yourself look less experienced, so maybe you’ll have a better chance of landing an entry level job.

    Being unemployed is assuring your mom that no, it’s okay, I’ve still got plenty of money left in my savings account, don’t worry about it. Because your parents have already supported your far too much since you moved out, and you feel horrible even thinking about asking them for money and hope that it won’t come to that – or that it won’t get worse and come to you having to move back in with them. It’s feeling so grateful that you want to cry when your mom insists on paying for your health insurance, because you were just planning to let it lapse and keep your fingers crossed about not getting sick.

    Being unemployed is walking everywhere or begging for rides from your friends, because you want to save your gas budget for the week just in case you actually get an interview and you can’t afford bus fare either.

    Being unemployed is spending hours on hold with the unemployment office, because their website is down and you have still have to go through the humiliating process of proving that you’ve been looking for a job if you want your next check.

    Being unemployed is feeling guilty when a friend buys you dinner because you can’t afford it, even after you’ve bought that friend dinner dozens of other times when you were making good money. Because you feel like no one should be spending money on you.

    Being unemployed means that when you do spend money on yourself, because you’re so fucking depressed about the constant rejection that you just can’t handle it any more, and a flavored tea from Starbucks is so cheap and so nice on a hot day, that when you’re done drinking your treat you realize what you’ve done, and you shouldn’t have spent that money, and then you throw your treat up because you’re so upset with yourself.

    Being unemployed is being asked by some entitled asshole why you aren’t working for McDonald’s, they’re always hiring2, because it apparently just doesn’t matter if you want to be able to pay your mortgage. And it’s also wondering if maybe they’re right, if maybe it’s somehow your fault or your bad planning for buying a house and then (five years later) getting laid off.

    Being unemployed is slowly losing your respect for yourself, one day at a time, because you’ve known all your life that you should be working to earn your keep, and no one will give you a job.

    And you know what? I was lucky. I had an understanding roommate who was helping me pay my mortgage at the time. I had an amazing, supportive family and a lot of amazing, supportive friends. I had a lot of warning that I was going to get laid off, almost six months when my department at AT&T barely made its quota of people taking voluntary retirement, so I saved a lot of money. And maybe some of that stress and fear I felt was my own damn fault, because right at the start of my unemployment I sucked most of the life out of my savings account flying to England twice to see Mike – which I can’t honestly say I regret, since that probably directly lead to us getting married this last year.

    But none of that changes certain things. None of that changes the constant, crushing depression of getting rejected for jobs, day after day. It doesn’t change the fact that people treat you as if you’re unemployed because you just don’t want it enough or because you’re lazy – because after a while you start believing those things and your self-worth goes even more down the shitter. It doesn’t change the utter guilt you feel every time you cash one of those unemployment checks, guilt that makes it impossible to feel relief that you’ll be able to keep your house for another month, because everyone’s told you that you didn’t earn that money, despite the fact that you’ve been paying in to unemployment insurance every working day of your life.

    So fuck you, Sharron Angle. I invite you to find out what it’s like to be unemployed with a mortgage, or unemployed with debt, or unemployed with a family to support – or just plain unemployed with no one to care for but yourself. It’s not fun. It’s not easy. It’s hard enough without people like you looking down your noses. It must be nice to pander to the privileged, who have convinced themselves that they’ll never be unemployed, that they’ll never need the safety net. It’s all a lie. It could happen to anyone.

    Maybe it should happen to some people.

    1 – Actually I watched the entire interview because I was curious. I link to the Huffington Post piece because they have a convenient transcript, not because I’m taking their word for it.

    2 – Particularly today, this ignores the fact that there are more people that need jobs than there are jobs. But I guess you just must not want it hard enough if you’re not willing to hunt down the other applicants and, I don’t know, kill them.

    Categories
    feminism skepticism

    PZ wants opinions from us womens

    At Pharyngula: the Woman Problem

    It’s actually very refreshing to see someone from the male half of the species asking this question and requesting opinions. From a feminist standpoint, I’ve long considered PZ to be an ally to the cause (and a feminist himself) so he hasn’t disappointed me here.

    I already voiced my opinion in the comments, but since this is my blog and I can say whatever the hell I want, I’m going to repeat myself here and expand it a bit.

    So, how can we get more women involved in atheism and/or skepticism? I’m looking at this from more the viewpoint of skepticism, mostly because I don’t even have a passing handshake with organized atheism.

  • Make events more kid-friendly/provide some sort of childcare – In his post, PZ links to a post by Skeptifem that is well worth the read. One of her major points is that women are often very busy, and that how busy we are often goes unacknowledged. I think one of the really pertinent things here is child care. Now, a lot of skeptical households might be all manner of progressive and enlightened, but women still tend to bear the burden of housework. (One example here.) That likely makes it a lot more difficult for a woman to make it to an all-weekend event, for example, because she would have to either put off that work (the vacuuming can wait) or arrange for someone else to take over (the kids probably need someone to feed them). Making major events/conferences child friendly to the extent that there’s either activities for the kids to engage in while mom’s listening to lectures or providing on-site babysitting (I’d daresay even for an extra, reasonable fee) would probably enable a lot more attendance from women. And I’m saying this as a woman who doesn’t have kids and isn’t planning to in the near future – I just don’t think that people in my situation make up the bulk of women that might want to be involved in organized skepticism.
  • Make an effort to include more women from the top down
    Oh noes, not affirmative action! What the fuck ever. I don’t think all women are shrinking violets that would shy away from attending a giant sausage fest of events. I’ve gone to a great many events (for various organizations) where women were very much in the minority. But I also know that I was not entirely comfortable in doing so – and would often seek out other women if my discomfort level got out of control – and this even though I don’t have a problem being confrontational and I’m reasonably intimidating when I want to be. The more women you have at your event, the more welcome other women will generally feel there. And the way you advertise your event as a safe and interesting place for (feminist) women is by having having female speakers – or in a pinch, outspoken male allies. So go out of your way to find more woman.

    I think the dearth of female speakers/presenters at events may be produced by a sort of negative feedback loop. Women are sometimes treated as if we don’t have anything interesting to say, therefore we are not given opportunities to speak, therefore anything interesting we might have to say is not heard by a broader audience. There aren’t many women who are “big names” within the skeptical movement, compared to men. A lot of that fame within the movement feeds on itself. If you’ve got a little fame as a skeptic, you get asked to speak at an event, and thus you are more famous and get asked to more events. Unless you’re given a platform to pontificate upon, it doesn’t matter how interesting and erudite you are. You won’t be heard.

  • Continue working to make skepticism mainstream for women
    Someone in PZ’s comments pointed out that there’s plenty of female attendance at woo events. I’d lay good money that those sort of events are strongly aimed at women, because it’s very socially acceptable for women to be into all sorts of unscientific shit. Encourage women to shy away from the hard rationalism of science and then give them somewhere that their socially acceptable “intuition” can have free reign and be praised, you’re damn right they’re going to feel comfortable and happy going to those kind of events. So what can we do about that? Prominently advertise the women who are involved in skepticism and do our part to making rationality and intellect laudable female traits. Continue the general work of science cheerleading and promotion of skepticism, but make certain that women are involved in that as well. Promoting skepticism with an all (or almost all) male face unfortunately just contributes to the image that skepticism is male territory and women have no place there.
  • Make the environment safer/more welcoming
    We have varying degrees of comfort about sexist jokes. Personally, I know I am completely unbothered at times, and at other times I’m as offended as hell. Not all women are like me. Some are more sensitive or less sensitive. But if you foster an environment where it’s okay to make sexist comments or jokes, and the only male reaction to it is either laughter or a dismissal of female complaints, you can’t really blame some of the women for just checking out entirely. This even comes down to individual responsibility of attendees. If you want to see more women at conferences, then when one of your fellow men gets creepy at some poor woman whose only mistake was being in his presence while in possession of breasts, you’d damnwell better tell him to knock it the hell off. If you really want more women at these events, then you’d better want us there for our contributions, and not just because you want someone that you can hit on.
  • Don’t insult our intelligence
    Enough with mansplaining. Seriously. And the next person to claim that my pitiful ladybrain just can’t handle math is getting punched in the face. I mean it.
    •

    There are probably other barriers to female attendance. If you look for the comments on PZ’s post from someone with the nick Cerberus, she makes some really good points as well – like how often libertarianism is given a free ride, and how that may really put some people off. (I tend to tune out the libertarian stuff, since I am so, so very done with it.) The big thing is that there are barriers, and acknowledging them is the first step to taking them down.

    And is this a problem that actually does need to be addressed? If we’re just in this for show and to pat ourselves on the back, well, in that case it’s fine to dismiss the potential contributions of a great many people because getting them involved is too much effort. If we’re just in this so we can feel superior to all those poor schmucks who just aren’t rational enough, then it’s a nice ego boost to shake our heads and cluck our tongues about all those sad women, who just can’t do skepticism because they’re wired to be “intuitive” and “feeling,” whatever the fuck that means.

    If we’re serious about our cause and our mission, however, then we’ve already waited too long. It’s a problem and a sad waste that we’re missing out on so many people that could otherwise be contributing. It’s a problem and a base hypocrisy that some are not casting a skeptical eye at our own social institutions. And it’s long past time things changed.

    Categories
    books

    Hugo Novels 2010

    I just finished reading the last of the novels nominated for a Hugo Award this year. I thought I’d write out a few brief thoughts on each, since this is my first year of trying to be really conscientious about my Hugo votes. I’m almost done with the nominated short stories, and then I’ve got about a month to get through the rest of the packet. So I think I can do it, I’m just going to have to do some skimming when it comes to the “best related work” category.

    Boneshaker – Cherie Priest
    Of the nominated novels, I would have to say that this one is the most fun. It doesn’t claim to be profound, it doesn’t try to be artsy, it’s just a good, enjoyable read with solid characters and an entertainingly built alternate America, one that involves both steampunk and zombies. I loved it. In keeping with the zombies, I could even feel comfortable saying that I devoured it. If it was a movie rather than a book, I’m betting several critics would use the word “romp” to describe it. This is one I’d definitely recommend to my friends.

    The City & The City – China Miéville
    I’ll admit this up front: this is the only book I didn’t actually finish reading, and I feel very ambivalent about it. I started reading The City & The City shortly before I came down with mono, at which point when I tried to read, nothing made sense anyway. Even before I got sick, though, I found the start of the book to be something of a slog, though I tried very gamely and got about a third of the way through. The central concept, of two cities interwoven where people just learned to not see the other city, never really made sense to me. I found it annoying rather than interesting, which is not a good basis for reading a book. By the time I was well enough that I could manage to make sense of the English language again, the book was long overdue and I couldn’t renew it, so I just returned it. I feel like maybe I didn’t give The City & The City quite a fair shake, but at the same time I’ve been unable to find the motivation to check the book back out and try reading it again. Which pretty much says all that needs to be said about my feelings.

    Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America – Robert Charles Wilson
    I struggled a bit with this book as well, for about two thirds of it, though I did finish it and found the downhill third to be fairly satisfying. Ultimately, I felt like the novel was much more about the post peak-oil apocalypse setting rather than the characters. And don’t get me wrong – the setting was extremely clever and entertaining and well-thought-out, but I had a difficult time enjoying it when I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. Part of this is due to a narrative style that I think owes a lot to 19th century adventure stories (think: how Watson talked about Holmes) which gave the book a lot of its atmosphere. Unfortunately it also seemed to keep all of the characters at arms length, and I had a hard time really following what they were doing and why. For example, when the narrator asks the woman he’s in love with to marry him, she says yes – and my immediate reaction was, “what the — as far as you’ve described, she doesn’t even like you that much.” I like clever settings as much as the next person, but I need a little more than that to really love a novel.

    Palimpsest – Catherynne M. Valente
    The only true fantasy offering this year – I take this under the authority of the Denver public library, which has “science fiction” stickers on all the rest. I read a lot of fantasy, and I wanted to like this book, I really did. It had its neat points; the characters were interesting for the most part, and the setting was very well crafted. But in the way that Julian Comstock focused a little too much on its setting, I think maybe Palimpsest focused a little too hard on its characters, and a lot of times the plot felt like an afterthought. I will also admit that I am not a fan of the writing style that Valente used. I think that more articulate or educated people might describe it as “lush” or “rich,” while throwing in an “erotic” somewhere for good measure. I can take erotic or leave it when it comes to fiction, but to me “lush” often equals “prose that gets in the way of the actual meaning.” There were times when I felt like the language was obfuscating or needlessly complicating the authors point – though maybe I missed it, maybe the language was the point – and felt annoyed or bored rather than enraptured. I will also note that I’m one of those philistines that doesn’t like poetry (with only a few exceptions) so I tend to prefer the workmanlike to the fancy, particularly when we’re talking about anything longer than a short story.

    WWW: Wake – Robert J. Sawyer
    I’m already a fan of Robert J. Sawyer, so I was primed to like this book. I also wasn’t disappointed. Often the speed at which I read a novel indicates just how much I like it (since I steal more time to read then) and I powered through this one in only a few days. My only real complaint about the novel was that many of the plot lines seemed incomplete, or like they’d just been dropped before the ending. I recently found WWW: Watch at the library, which provides an answer to that problem. This was the first of a series, not a stand alone book. That makes it harder to judge as well; as part of a series, of course it will feel unfinished when compared to the other books. I thought the story was generally very interesting, as well as the characters, though I’m still not one hundred percent on how I feel about his treatment of consciousness developing on the internet. Then again, I also don’t think I could have done any better. Either way, this is another one I’d recommend to my friends as an enjoyable read.

    The Windup Girl – Paolo Bacigalupi
    The first half of this book took me a ridiculously long time to read. The second I finished in one day. At first, I really wasn’t sure about the story, or the characters, though the setting was very fascinating from the first page. But it grew on me, and surprised me, and demanded that I think about things that I wasn’t all that comfortable thinking about, which doesn’t happen all that often when I’m in novel reading mode and just want to find a fun story about space marines shooting aliens. (Note: This story does not involve space marines or aliens, though people do get shot.) Of the 2010 nominees, this is the only one with an ending that I could not possibly have predicted, even two pages before I read it. This is the one that surprised me, and kicked me in the head, and made me want to read it again just to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything. I wasn’t sure about the book at first, but once I got in to Bacigalupi’s writing style and invested myself in the world he’d created, I found it very compelling and – most importantly – enjoyable. It’s an uncomfortable story with uncomfortable heroes about uncomfortable topics, and I think it was beautifully done. I’ve still got a month to mull it over, but I think this is where my vote will end up.

    Categories
    earthquake stoopid volcano

    Italy in Geological News

    First a volcano-related item: How did the victims of the Plinean Eruption of Vesuvius die – a summary from io9, of an article assessing how the victims of the Vesuvius eruption died. It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with how freaking scary pyroclastic flows are that they died from being flash-cooked by the extreme heat of the flow, rather than suffocated by it.

    And then, Italian scientists who failed to predict L’Aquila earthquake may face manslaughter charges. Argh. Argh argh argh. Considering how inherently unpredictable earthquakes are – more unpredictable than volcanic eruptions or tsunami – I was primed to be ticked off from the instant I read the headline. The article mentions foreshocks (one of them a 4.0) but the problem there is that you can only really classify a foreshock in hindsight. Was the magnitude 4.0 the prelude to a bigger earthquake, or an earthquake in its own right? There’s no way of knowing for certain until after you get hit by (or fail to be) by a much larger quake.

    “Those responsible are people who should have given different answers to the public,” said Alfredo Rossini, L’Aquila’s public prosecutor. “We’re not talking about the lack of an alarm, the alarm came with the movements of the ground. We’re talking about the lack of advice telling people to leave their homes.”

    This is the ultimate in damned if you do, damned if you don’t situations. If you warn people to leave their homes because a natural disaster is imminent and it doesn’t happen, you catch flak – think about the complaining that came after the tsunami that did hit Hawaii wasn’t the monster wall of water that makes up journalistic wet-dreams. But if you don’t tell people to clear out of their homes because there’s the possibility of an inherently unpredictable event occurring, then you get in trouble for that as well. Hindsight is 20/20, particularly when it comes to earthquakes. Though this:

    At a press conference after the meeting, government official Bernardo De Bernardinis, deputy technical head of the Civil Protection Agency, told reporters that “the scientific community tells us there is no danger, because there is an ongoing discharge of energy. The situation looks favorable.” In addition to the six scientists, De Bernardinis is also under investigation.

    Also really doesn’t help. Small earthquakes might release some stress on a fault, but that also might add stress to a different portion of the same fault, or another fault nearby. The environment of stress and faulting that goes on beneath us is too uncontrolled and not well mapped enough to allow for the incredibly accurate modeling you’d need to be able to say something like that. So if that’s something the seismologists in question were telling the government, shame on them. But I also have a hard time imagining any geologist worth his or her salt saying that unless they were simultaneously on some kind of mind-altering drug regimen, so I’d really like to know just who in the “scientific community” De Bernardinis was referring to. For all I know, the “scientific community” is a bright blue space elf that only he can see.

    What a horrible situation. And way to make “Italian seismologist” a very unappealing job title.

    Categories
    Uncategorized

    For Janiece

    Now you no longer have to try to imagine the fluffy dress.