Amanda Fucking Palmer

[gumboot]

@Gumboot - I may not agree with you, but straight talking.. I can respect that.

I think it's not actually straight talking in practice. I realise that I would actually need to be more deliberate about explaining my decisions. Most of the time I probably say "this is terrible" and neglect to add that I'm making a conscious but personal decision to ignore it, and then I am occasionally called out on hypocrisy (and perhaps behind my back far more often than I know).

I don't really get why people think that way, but apparently they do. By the same logic I could say "bacon is unhealthy", and then be called a hypocrite for eating bacon.

I mention these things to people because they seem to care. I rarely want to influence their behaviour (if I do I'll say so directly), but offer them an opportunity to make an informed decision; even if that decision is the same as mine -- to accept that the world is a really, really shitty place and that nobody has the power to change it.

Or maybe my motivation is to break people. I think there's only room for idealism when you're ignorant of the extent of the problem. When you realise that the whole world is built of unmitigated awfulness of every kind you can either cry yourself to sleep every night for the rest of your life, or you can give up and accept hedonism as the only sane way.

I'd still refuse shark fin soup, though. I'm sure that makes me a hypocrite.

[Governmentyard]

[VNVObit]

This is Dawkins when someone said they wouldn't know what they'd do if they found their unborn baby had downs:



Horrendous anti-logic; claiming a universal truth for all instances irrespective of parent's capability or willingness to have a child with 'defects'. Wow, absolutist moral stance instead of reasoning the best way forward based on the cicumstances, sounds a lot like the worst aspects of religion to me.

He did apologise but one of those awful apologies where you're sorry for the reactions of others but not for what you said.

Good example there of

Dawkins comments are often framed out of context and in a negative way.

Complete distortion of what he said - taken in context the comment was clearly from his own position of what he would do, in a hypothetical scenario. Most women in fact do terminate if they find their unborn has Downs. Don't underestimate Dawkins. He understands information flow very well. He defined the word "meme". His apparent clumsiness may well be - on occasion - be a finely contrived method of getting important topics into the public domain.

Nope it's not. It's a complete distortion of whathe apparently meant to say but not of what he actually said, which is the actual tweet gravy posted.

I wouldn't call what he posted in his own defense an apology but a justification with an "everyone else just misunderstands me" for good measure, the kind of thing I'd expect from a teenager. Sadly (assuming what he later says is what he actually meant) its a simple case of "forgetting to engage the brain before putting your foot in your mouth" and Dawkins wasn't prepared to admit to that.

What he did say in his tweet was offensive and ill informed. If he finds twitter's 140 character limit too small to get across his message than there are alternatives (e.g. long blogpost with a link in the tweet, email)

His longer explanation is also ill informed, introduces concerns that exist with able bodied children as well (concern about their future when the parent is no longer around) and appears based on the rather vague credo of " a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering". I'm not sure just how strongly he holds that desire given the offense his original rather blunt comment gave.

[gumboot]

Am I alone in not being offended by Dawkins' original words in this instance?

I mean, there are so many better reasons to think he's a shithead. Being on one side or another of [what works out to be] the abortion debate hardly seems significant.

[(o)(o)]

I mention these things to people because they seem to care. I rarely want to influence their behaviour (if I do I'll say so directly), but offer them an opportunity to make an informed decision; even if that decision is the same as mine -- to accept that the world is a really, really shitty place and that nobody has the power to change it.

Or maybe my motivation is to break people. I think there's only room for idealism when you're ignorant of the extent of the problem.

I see swathes of human behaviour and believe changes can be made through memetics - a bit like reversi. So I think ideals serve a purpose as a target to aim for. We've seen slavery largely wiped out and other injustices diminished. On the atomic level people make choices which are often resolve to something binary, but value judgements - especially those relating to morality - are rarely black or white issues. They operate on a spectrum / multi-dimensional spectrums involving complex parameters. If you make an informed decision (that's what counts) that you don't care - can't really argue with that.. that's what I mean by straight talking. Commonly people weedle out of dealing with the matter at hand and employ defensive measures to evade cognitive dissonance.

I tend to apply the harm principle so naah, don't give a flying fuck about Dawkins comment.. he hasn't injured anyone, no crocodile tears here. Woman abort kids every day when they find out they have Downs on moral grounds - it's just another Dawkins smear campaign.

Nope it's not. It's a complete distortion of whathe apparently meant to say but not of what he actually said, which is the actual tweet gravy posted.

Yeah I read that "apology". You're not quite getting it. The tweet was part of an ongoing conversation. It was a response to a hypothetical question. Read in-context it was clear to myself and other readers that he was just answering from his own POV. He meant what he said and he said what he meant. This was then plucked out of context and plastered across the interwebs / media :

RICHARD "MENTALLY UNSTABLE" DAWKINS TELLS PREGNANT WOMAN TO MURDER UNBORN BABIES SHOCKER!

The person to whom he responded was not offended at all - nor was she pregnant. Who is he causing offence to? Some random people who capture a fleeting part of a conversation then feel "being offended" is SOME GREAT INJUSTICE? Bollocks to that and Dawkins isn't going to pander to that. Sure he'll issue a half-apology - he has the courtesy to clarify for those who superimposed their biases onto his comments - but it's quite clear he doesn't hold the contemptible attitudes his detractors try and project onto him. So why should he retract what he said? To be honest I think it's playing into his hands. He's quite happy to be provoking consciousness-raising and getting stuff into the public agenda.

The rest of your post was character assassination / vague criticisms. If you have a specific argument against his clearly laid out points?

[gravy]

His longer explanation is also ill informed, introduces concerns that exist with able bodied children as well (concern about their future when the parent is no longer around) and appears based on the rather vague credo of " a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering". I'm not sure just how strongly he holds that desire given the offense his original rather blunt comment gave.

Yeah, he goes out of his way to make what he feels the 'moral and sensible' response would be (think about the corollary, it's utterly appalling)

Given a free choice of having an early abortion or deliberately bringing a Down child into the world, I think the moral and sensible choice would be to abort. And, indeed, that is what the great majority of women, in America and especially in Europe, actually do.

And then further details his own moral position:

I personally would go further and say that, if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare.

It's obvious people can have kids with Downs and for it to be an positive experience thing for them and their children. And some have a much harder time as well. It's pretty much in line with being a parent in general. It's at complete odds with his 'logical', one it's hard to imagine how he came to if his starting point was any understanding of parenting a child with a long term medical problem.

Equating the kerfuffle with an abortion debate is particularly awful and clumsy straw manning.

Complete brain fart on his part and right now he's in a hole and his reaction has been to keep on digging.

Pretty much exactly what (o)(o) is up to here.

[gravy]

Steady on tex. You've at complete odds with yourself. First this:

I see swathes of human behaviour and believe changes can be made through memetics - a bit like reversi. So I think ideals serve a purpose as a target to aim for. We've seen slavery largely wiped out and other injustices diminished.

Which is something I pretty much agree with. Just about every major change (negative and positive) throughout history started with the discussion of ideas.

I tend to apply the harm principle so naah, don't give a flying fuck about Dawkins comment.. he hasn't injured anyone, no crocodile tears here. Woman abort kids every day when they find out they have Downs on moral grounds - it's just another Dawkins smear campaign.

And this: "Lol! It's just words! It hasn't hurt anyone!"

Back to my original point though. Dawkins would prefer everyone was vegetarian! So what? He's a big an idiot as any of us.

[gumboot]

I personally would go further and say that, if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare.

It's obvious people can have kids with Downs and for it to be an positive experience thing for them and their children. And some have a much harder time as well. It's pretty much in line with being a parent in general. It's at complete odds with his 'logical', one it's hard to imagine how he came to if his starting point was any understanding of parenting a child with a long term medical problem.

Is this meant to be relevant? It looks like you're just spewing vacuous emotive shit, here.

Equating the kerfuffle with an abortion debate is particularly awful and clumsy straw manning.

How is abortion in any way a straw man?

[(o)(o)]

Gravy is just throwing mud around and hoping it sticks. " Isn't it awful " etc..

Dawkins is talking about is whether it's morally right to actively choose to turn a bunch of non-sentient cells into a disabled child. What happens after birth is a separate issue.

Most women agree with him.

No idea what the post following that is about at all. It doesn't even make sense.

[VNVObit]

Yeah I read that "apology". You're not quite getting it.

Actually I read more than you appear to think
He's not being thought provoking he's just looking for ways to get his name in the media from time to time and plug his books (which he manages to do when he is addressing people who've had an emotional response).

as for character assassination well then you're the one not getting it, perhaps you need to open your eyes and see the emperor isn't wearing anything

[(o)(o)]

Yeah I read that "apology". You're not quite getting it.

Actually I read more than you appear to think
He's not being thought provoking he's just looking for ways to get his name in the media from time to time and plug his books (which he manages to do when he is addressing people who've had an emotional response).

as for character assassination well then you're the one not getting it, perhaps you need to open your eyes and see the emperor isn't wearing anything

Dawkins is a guy who has spent a lifetime collecting awards in recognition for his enormous input into sciences.

These statements he puts out are based on a foundation of decades of inquiry and reasoning.

But you say he's just flogging books... ?? Mmmmkkkaayyy....

[gravy]

I personally would go further and say that, if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare.

It's obvious people can have kids with Downs and for it to be an positive experience thing for them and their children. And some have a much harder time as well. It's pretty much in line with being a parent in general. It's at complete odds with his 'logical', one it's hard to imagine how he came to if his starting point was any understanding of parenting a child with a long term medical problem.

Is this meant to be relevant? It looks like you're just spewing vacuous emotive shit, here.

Really?

Dawkins says something a path of action is LOGICAL and MORAL yet there's a bunch of people that take the implicitly LESS MORAL and LESS LOGICAL route but have a positive experience.

I mean it's an easy point to understand. Start with observables and explain those rather than having a messianic beliefi in shit in you've made up in your head.

What's that got to do with the pro choice / pro life debate?

[gravy]

Yeah I read that "apology". You're not quite getting it.

Actually I read more than you appear to think
He's not being thought provoking he's just looking for ways to get his name in the media from time to time and plug his books (which he manages to do when he is addressing people who've had an emotional response).

as for character assassination well then you're the one not getting it, perhaps you need to open your eyes and see the emperor isn't wearing anything

Dawkins is a guy who has spent a lifetime collecting awards in recognition for his enormous input into sciences.

These statements he puts out are based on a foundation of decades of inquiry and reasoning.

But you say he's just flogging books... ?? Mmmmkkkaayyy....

Genuine question, what's Dawkins actual contribution to science?

[VNVObit]

[

Dawkins is a guy who has spent a lifetime collecting awards in recognition for his enormous input into sciences.

These statements he puts out are based on a foundation of decades of inquiry and reasoning.

But you say he's just flogging books... ?? Mmmmkkkaayyy....

I am not disputing his academic credentials but they are completely irrelevant to the matter being discussed.

He effectively stood up in a "pub" and shouted out his views to get attention. If it was unwittingly done then the apology would have been a real apology not some justification that blamed the reader for misunderstanding him.

As for flogging books the reference to his book was unnecessary to get his point across, so yeah that's just gratuitously plugging books. The fact that passed you by suggests you need to open your eyes a bit more than you do.

I also noted one of commenters saying that this latest outburst had breathed some life back into the Dawkins site.

Unlike you I am not laughing at you or your position I just think you are taking what he says in this case at face value with no critical evaluation.

[gumboot]

Is this meant to be relevant? It looks like you're just spewing vacuous emotive shit, here.

Really?

Dawkins says something a path of action is LOGICAL and MORAL yet there's a bunch of people that take the implicitly LESS MORAL and LESS LOGICAL route but have a positive experience.

I mean it's an easy point to understand. Start with observables and explain those rather than having a messianic beliefi in shit in you've made up in your head.

Of all of the people who've had a Down's child, I do not know how many had the test and chose to proceed despite the result; but these appear to be the only ones whom Dawkins condemns. Those to whom the information is not available practically get a free pass even within the 140-character limit.

People are encouraged to think about what they're going to do with the result before they take the test, so I suspect that that set is actually pretty small. Of those who choose not to take the test, I suspect at least some of them see it as a choice not between a healthy or Down's baby, but instead between a Down's baby and no baby at all. This doesn't fit within Dawkins' model, so they're out too.

Of course the logic in this thought exercise speaks for itself. Given the trivial choice between two outcomes, choosing the one that results in the less healthy child seems to be indistinguishable from taking a condition and inflicting it directly on what would otherwise be a healthy child. The fact that this option might still have an objectively happy outcome has no bearing on whether or not it is logical or moral according to the assumption he laid out, where one of those assumptions was that the alternative would have been happier.

It might even be better to give birth to a heroin-addicted baby if you're confident that you have a sufficient supply of heroin for the lifetime of the child. In fact, the truly happy option might be to kill the child (any child, Down's or not) with a heroin overdose before it could possibly experience any pain or sadness.

Well, that's what he said... I expect him to stick to it. Does he have any children?

Actually he hedged the whole thing with "might". It could be that he considers the model described to be incomplete, and that it's merely a starting point for discussion where one can bring in further considerations appropriate to one's own situation.

I mean, that would be the normal interpretation of what he said.

What's that got to do with the pro choice / pro life debate?

Nothing at all. Why should it? This is your tangent, here.