davidthompson

Get Them While They’re Soft And Yielding (3)

If you missed it in the comments, here’s a little creepiness from schools in British Columbia: 

When [parent] Kansas Field Allen heard about the posters, she was shocked. She asked her son to take photos of them so she could post about it on social media and get feedback from her peers. “I’d say 95 per cent of the people are in favour of having the posters taken down, and that’s from all races,” Field Allen said.

The posters in question, which appear across the school district, include this one:

Elsewhere (265)

Matthew Blackwell on empathy, asymmetries and “woke” hostility: 

[Jonathan] Haidt and his colleagues… sought to discover how well conservative and what Haidt terms ‘liberal’ (i.e., progressive) students understood one another by having them answer moral questions as they thought their political opponents would answer them. “The results were clear and consistent,” remarks Haidt. “In all analyses, conservatives were more accurate than liberals.” Asked to think the way a liberal thinks, conservatives answered moral questions just as the liberal would answer them, but liberal students were unable to do the reverse… Haidt and his colleagues found that progressives don’t understand conservatives the way conservatives understand progressives... and it goes a long way in explaining the different ways each side deals with opinions unlike their own. People get angry at what they don’t understand, and an all-progressive education ensures that they don’t understand.

For further illustration, see this and this. Or poke through just about anything here tagged “academia.”

S A Dance on the horrors and hokum of grad school humanities: 

I had never read Althusser’s Reading Capital and I had never read Marx’s Capital, which, perhaps, guaranteed my floundering in grad school given the pervasiveness of Marxist thought in the humanities… I went to graduate school because I found studying literature exhilarating and fulfilling. In my undergraduate honours thesis I analysed the significance of Herman Melville’s allusions to the Book of Job in Moby Dick. I wanted to do more of that: studying and understanding the great works of literature. Instead I was asked to understand how “The Althusserian ‘ideological interpellation’ designates the retroactive illusion of ‘always-already;’ the reverse of the ideological recognition is the misrecognition of the performative dimension.”

And Gad Saad on “toxic masculinity”: 

Think of the male archetype in romance novels, which is a literary form almost exclusively read by women. He is a tall prince and a neurosurgeon. He is a risk-taker who wrestles alligators and subdues them on his six-pack abs, and yet is sensitive enough to be tamed by the love of a good woman. This archetype is universally found in romance novels read by women in Egypt, Japan, and Bolivia… Most of the traits and behaviours that are likely found under the rubric of “toxic masculinity” are precisely those that most women find attractive in an ideal mate. This is not a manifestation of “antiquated stereotypes.” It is a reality that is as trivially obvious as the existence of gravity.

See also this short clip of Jordan Peterson discussing women’s preferences in pornography. 

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Friday Ephemera

I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here. || Chickens, roosters and eye-catching cocks. || An unexpected detail. || At last, an endoscopic camera accessory for your phone. || The big freeze of ‘63. || How to make a kitchen knife out of pasta. || Russians paint a cargo plane. (h/t, Tony) || Parenting of note. || Penguin droppings seen from space. || Today’s word is irony. || Anamorphic sneakers. || An archive of scanned Heavy Metal magazines. || Snow thread. (h/t, Julia) || Luggage of note. || How to cast a 15-ton mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope. || I don’t think those are jellyfish. || Comment seems unnecessary. || “The universe begins in 5… 4… 3… 2…” || Oh, don’t look like that, it’s the reduced sugar brand. || And finally, an elasticated demonstration of the Doppler effect.

A Forehead’s Empty Without Them

From the pages of Cosmopolitan, I bring you fashion news:

The halo brow, the brainchild of 16-year-old Hannah Lyne, took inspiration from one of this year’s brow trends on Instagram. “I was having a conversation with a friend trying to come up with a new idea for a look, and all of a sudden it came to me that I should connect my brow tails,” Hannah said in an interview with PopSugar. “This look was influenced by fishtail brows; seeing the way my brow flicked upwards inspired the idea of just carrying the brow on until it met in the middle.”

They’re “strangely beautiful,” it says here. 

Via dicentra. 

Zombie Movie

Jordan Peterson tries to speak at Grant Hall, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Monday, March 5: 

Elsewhere (264)

Further to the first item here, biologist Heather Heying on the Mao-ling urge to shut down thought: 

When banal observations like “men and women are different heights” prompts the accusation that I’m both brainwashed and a Nazi, it’s clear that this was not good faith protest. It is true that the authoritarian-left is denying biology, but the deeper truth of the situation is perhaps even more concerning. The incoherence of the protesters’ responses and the fact that the walkout was scheduled in advance suggests something darker: the protesters are “read-only,” like a computer file that cannot be altered. They will not engage ideas — they will not even hear ideas — because their minds are already made up. They have been led to believe that exposure to information is in and of itself dangerous.

Via TomJ in the comments, Helen Pluckrose on the same: 

The problem [for the protestors] was that both of the people [invited to speak] had penises, those penises were white and, as far as anyone knows, responsive to those of the opposite gender. They were hegemonic penises and this was problematic… Resolution of the hegemonic penis “problem” was first attempted via the invitation of not one but, ultimately, all five members of the tenured and tenure-track Women’s Studies faculty at PSU… They all declined to attend, one insisting it was inconceivable that the discussion could be had in good faith given the participation of [James] Damore and [Peter] Boghossian.

Again, the word projection comes to mind.

Kirsten Grind and Douglas MacMillan on “diversity” in practice at Google, and attempts to hide it from public scrutiny: 

YouTube last year stopped hiring white and [East] Asian males for technical positions because they didn’t help the world’s largest video site achieve its goals for improving diversity, according to a civil lawsuit filed by a former employee. The lawsuit, filed by Arne Wilberg, a white male who worked at Google for nine years, alleges… YouTube recruiters were instructed to cancel interviews with applicants who weren’t female, black or Hispanic, and to “purge entirely” the applications of people who didn’t fit those categories.

Short version here. 

And Chris Rossi on the creep of “social justice” and wasting class time with voodoo: 

Friday Ephemeraren’t

Yes, another chance to throw together your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. But on the upside, you’re getting quite good at it. I’ll set the ball rolling with a chap who does this better than you do; an archive of poltergeist clattering and other “occult” recordings; a “desk companion” of note; two ladies, some silver paper and a dash of Dunning-Kruger; and a heartwarming illustration of overdue consequences. 

Oh, and via Damian, this. 

Elsewhere (263)

Further to the last item here, Andy Ngo on attempts to discuss ideas versus recreational outrage: 

“James [Damore] argues, accurately, that there are differences between men and women,” evolutionary biologist Heather Heying said during the panel discussion. “This is a strange position to be in, to be arguing for something that is so universally accepted in biology… You can be irritated by a lot of truths, but taking offence,” — here, Heying paused as hecklers shouted and began to walk out — “is a response that is a rejection of reality.” A non-student protester then yanked the cables from the sound system and shoved the equipment to the ground, breaking an antenna. She was promptly detained by police. “[Damore’s] a piece of shit!” she screamed as she was issued a citation for criminal mischief in the second degree. “Even the women in there have been brainwashed!” Another protester stated: “Nazis are not welcome in civil society.”

Today’s word is projection. Video here. 

Nikita Vladimirov on more “social justice” psychodrama: 

Activists at the University of Vermont have intensified their protests against the school this week, blocking rush hour traffic on Thursday while demanding social justice related reforms… The protesters remained in place [blocking a busy intersection] for about three hours… causing traffic congestion that eventually began to impact neighbouring towns, and even caused problems for the UVM Medical Centre, creating 15-minute delays for ambulances that were headed to the hospital.

Arrest them, and expel them, and maybe this will stop. Anything less will be regarded as encouragement.

And Dave Huber offers a reminder that opportunist outrage isn’t confined to students: 

[University of Delaware law professor,] Sheldon Pollack thought that the academic hoax The Conceptual Penis As A Social Construct was pretty damn funny, and decided to send it along to a male colleague and his son. However, that dread auto-fill feature placed the address of a female colleague on the message. That colleague asked what he meant by the message, indicating it was “inappropriate.” Pollack fully explained what had happened and apologised for the error. Half a year later, the erroneous recipient initiated a formal complaint about the matter… Pollack says the university’s human resources department also recommended that he attend sexual harassment counselling as a result of the incident.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Today’s Words Are Churlish And Vindictive

Via Darleen in the comments, a telling illustration of “social justice” psychology:

“This is what it’s like to be a black student at New York University,” Nia [Harris] wrote in her Facebook post. “You go to a dining hall during February and you see ‘Black History Month Meal’ plastered outside the entrance. You walk inside the dining hall only to find ribs, collard greens, and mac and cheese.”

And on a campus where grievance is currency, heads had to roll:  

Two Aramark employees have been fired by the food service after preparing a meal at NYU during Black History Month that was deemed racially “insensitive.” Reports suggest that the employees are African-American, though Aramark has not confirmed details about the ethnicity of the fired employees.

It’s hard to miss the class connotations of all this “woke” status-signalling. Someone who can spend around a quarter of a million dollars on attending a fashionable university feigns outrage over a menu option and then campaigns until two working-class employees are humiliated and left jobless for some sub-microscopic sin – i.e., failing to intuit the ever-changing fashions of campus “social justice” - all while the sophomore in question publicly gloats and declares her own victimhood.

Imagine the kind of utter bitch who would delight in doing that.

Friday Ephemera

This thing here. (h/t, dicentra) || I’m assuming that what we’re looking at isn’t food preparation. || A pleasing tense. || “Who would have known playing God could have such terrible consequences?” (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Bridge Constructor Portal is a game. || Police dog entrances of note. || Liquor store parking. || Snow labyrinth. || Papa’s person is ringing; a mystery unfolds. || So many questions. || For 96 minutes. || Augmented climbing. || Making soap by hand. || “The highest standards of scholarly peer review.” || She does this better than you do. || Video title of note. || Tweeted riposte of note. || Underwater hiking trail, Brazil. || One More Brick is also a game. || This is one of these. || And finally, Dinosaur, a short film by Nathan, aged four, with a little help from his dad.

Space Travel Is Patriarchy And Therefore Bad

Or put another way,

The patriarchal race to colonise Mars is just another example of male entitlement. The presumed right to use and abuse something and then walk away to conquer something new is a hallmark of colonialism.

No, really. It says so here. The author, Marcie Bianco, is quite adamant on this point. One might almost say feverish:  

The desire to colonise [space] — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something, to any type of body, and to use it at will — is a patriarchal one… It is the same instinctual and cultural force that teaches men that everything — and everyone — in their line of vision is theirs for the taking. You know, just like walking up to a woman and grabbing her by the pussy.

Apparently, and for reasons that aren’t shared, exploring space is not about ambition, curiosity or survival, or even a hope of distant profit; it’s all about “gendered power structures” and “men giving up on the planet they have all but destroyed.”

Naturally, Ms Bianco has a degree in Women’s Studies and has taught “social justice courses” at Rutgers University and John Jay College.

Update, via the comments:

It’s odd how articles of this kind, by self-declared feminists, seem determined to, as it were, erase and marginalise the choices and agency of other, more accomplished women. Are we to believe that Gwynne Shotwell, the President of SpaceX, is a mere dupe of The Patriarchy? According to Ms Bianco, our “queer public intellectual,” yes. 

And what about these ladies here? Are their minds not their own? And has anyone told them this, to their faces? I wonder how that would go down. But this is a standard pattern for dogmatic feminism. Just as Ms Bianco acknowledges only “the menz” who complain about her writing and its laughable conceits, while ignoring the numerous women who also find her article insulting, incoherent and absurd.

And so a question comes to mind. If you were a young woman in search of role models, who might be more likely to inspire? Carolyn Porco, a planetary scientist who worked on the ground-breaking Voyager missions and was Head of Imaging Science for Cassini, and who speaks enthusiastically about exploring – and colonising – other planets? Or Marcie Bianco, a third-rate scold with a Women’s Studies degree?

Answers on a postcard, please.

She’ll Ruin The Leather

It’s once again time to hack our way through the deep artistic underbrush of Sandrine Schaefer. Specifically, her 2012 performance piece Ambulation, shared below in sadly abbreviated form, and in which Ms Schaefer presents her buttocks to the world and shifts her weight from heel to toe, while her shoes emit the sounds of her “travels in Mexico.”

Hey, I’m just reading what it says here. 

Apparently, the sounds coming from her footwear are “a reward for the curious witnesses that neared her body.”