I Don't Speak German

Bret and Heather and Ivermectin.  Oh my. IDSG returns from it's 17 year absence with a banger of an episode in which Daniel dishes out THE FUCKING TEA on Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying (again) and their irresponsible spreading (in hushed, reasonable voices) of potentially lethal conspiracy theories and bad science re Covid, Wuhan, vaccines, and Ivermectin.  Content Warnings. Podcast Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618 IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1 Show Notes: Bret Weinstein Odysee Bret interviews Yuri Deigin. Yuri Deigin, Lab Made? SARS-CoV-2 Geneaology Through the Lens of Gain of Function Research Indeed, virologists, including the leader of coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli, have done many similar things in the past — both replacing the RBM in one type of virus by an RBM from another, or adding a new furin site that can provide a species-specific coronavirus with an ability to start using the same receptor (e.g. ACE2) in other species. In fact, Shi Zhengli’s group was creating chimeric constructs as far back as 2007 and as recently as 2017, when they created a whole of 8 new chimeric coronaviruses with various RBMs. In 2019 such work was in full swing, as WIV was part of a $3.7 million NIH grant titled Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence. Under its auspices, Shi Zhengli co-authored a 2019 paper that called for continued research into synthetic viruses and testing them in vitro and in vivo: Bret and Heather on Real Time with Bill Mahr on the Lab-Leak Hypothesis CLIP (Bret and Heather on BIll Maher Lab Leak) – starts at beginning of clip. Andersen, et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease, whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms6. Here we review what can be deduced about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 from comparative analysis of genomic data. We offer a perspective on the notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discuss scenarios by which they could have arisen. Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. Garry, Robert. [Early appearance of two distinct genomic lineages of SARS-CoV-2 in different Wuhan wildlife markets suggests SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin](https://virological.org/t/early-appearance-of-two-distinct-genomic-lineages-of-sars-cov-2-in-different-wuhan-wildlife-markets-suggests-sars-cov-2-has-a-natural-origin/691 This Week in Virology 762: SARS-Cov-2 origins with Robert Garry CLIP (Two Covid Lineages in Wuhan Market) – Starts about 39:00 in TWIV762 potholer54, Did SARS-Cov-2 start in a Chinese Lab? potholer54, More “man-made” SARS-CoV-2 lab-leak malarky Scott Gavura, Science Based Medicine, “Ivermectin is the New Hydroxychloroquine” There has been interest in ivermectin since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, because it was observed that at high concentrations it had antiviral properties against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, there was an important red flag in that finding. A few weeks after the initial finding was published, a short paper appeared in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology that described the considerations for using ivermectin as an antiviral. While it acknowledged the antiviral properties of high concentrations of the drug in laboratory (in vitro) experiments, it noted that it would likely not be possible to achieve the same concentrations of the drug in the plasma of the blood, because the drug itself is tightly bound to blood proteins. Even giving 8.5 x the FDA-approved dose (1700mcg/kg) resulted in blood concentrations far below the dose identified that offered antiviral effects: This Week in Virology 766: The Corona Project with David Fajgenbaum CORONA project 18:58, 46:32 “How To Save the World in Three Easy Steps” Clip “Ivermectin End the Pandemic” – starts around 3:30 Bret Weinstein, “COVID, Ivermectin, and the Crime of the Century - DarkHorse Podcast with Pierre Kory & Bret Weinstein” With Dr. Robert Malone (invented mRNA vaccine technology) and Mr. Steve Kirsch. Clip “Bret Doctors as Scientists from CotC” – Starts around 19:00 With Pierre Kory Science Based Medicine, Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 2 Last week, über-quack Joe Mercola published an article entitled “COVID, Ivermectin and the Crime of the Century“, naming it after an episode of Bret Weinstein’s podcast. It features an interview with Dr. Pierre Kory, one of the most prominent proponents of ivermectin for COVID-19 by evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, who has become prominent as a COVID-19 contrarian and spreader of disinformation, particularly about the “lab leak theory” of SARS-CoV-2 origins and now likes to Tweet about “persecution” by Twitter: It also turns out that Dr. Pierre Kory is president of the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and has testified before Congress. During that testimony, Dr. Kory claimed that ivermectin, used with other medicines such as vitamin C, zinc and melatonin, could “save hundreds of thousands of people,” and cited more than 20 studies. The narrative of Mercola’s article is eerily similar to the narratives we heard about hydroxychloroquine a year ago, namely that ivermectin is a cheap, safe, and effective drug that “they” don’t want you to know about that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if not for doctors’ fetish for randomized clinical trials. Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, part three Before I move on to more of the ivermectin conspiracy theorists and potential reasons for them, I can’t help but repeat what I’ve been saying all along about ivermectin. Combining preclinical studies that show antiviral activity against SARS-C0V-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in vitro (cell culture) but only at much higher concentrations of ivermectin than can be achieved with safe doses in the bloodstream with the equivocal clinical trial results lead to a conclusion that this drug almost certainly does not work to treat COVID-19. This is particularly likely given that the highest quality existing randomized controlled clinical trials of ivermectin are all basically negative. I note that when I discussed how poor the evidence for hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 was, I routinely received criticism that I “wanted patients to die” and was “hoping” that the drug didn’t work. I’m getting some of the same nonsense now that I’ve finally been prodded to write about ivermectin. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even though, now that there are safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, the need for a cheap and effective drug that can treat COVID-19 is not as desperate as it was a year ago, it is still acute given how large swaths of the globe still do not have access to the vaccines. Moreover, now that Oxford University has added ivermectin to the protocol of its massive PRINCIPLE Trial of treatments for COVID-19, it is possible that there might turn out to be a benefit due to ivermectin in treating COVID-19, clearly just not as massive as claimed by advocates and conspiracy theorists. I’d be just fine with that, as I would have been overjoyed if hydroxychloroquine had been shown to be as effective as its advocates had claimed it was. It’s just that, right now, the evidence is trending strongly in favor of the conclusion that ivermectin, like hydroxychloroquine before it, doesn’t work against COVID-19 in humans. Gideon M-K; Health Nerd What this means is that, if you exclude some of the low-quality research on ivermectin, the paper goes from showing a massive benefit to no benefit at all. On top of this, there’s an interesting point — even if you don’t agree with these assessments, taking the only three studies that the authors of the meta-analysis considered to be at a “low risk of bias” (i.e. high-quality), you find that these high-quality studies have failed to find any benefit for ivermectin. In other words, while the conclusions the authors came to are very positive, the results section of the paper seems to show that the evidence for ivermectin might not be strong after all. The devil really is in the details with research like this. Jack Lawrence aka TimPoolClips Why Was a Major Study on Ivermectin for COVID-19 Just Retracted? Even if the paper’s authors end up providing an innocent explanation for all this it would be puzzling why it took them so long to notice their error. Whether the final story is one of purposeful fabrication or a series of escalating mistakes involving training or test datasets, this research group has still screwed up in a big way. Although science trends towards self-correction, something is clearly broken in a system that can allow a study as full of problems as the Elgazzar paper to run unchallenged for seven months. Thousands of highly educated scientists, doctors, pharmacists, and at least four major medicines regulators missed a fraud so apparent that it might as well have come with a flashing neon sign. That this all happened amid an ongoing global health crisis of epic proportions is all the more terrifying. For those reading this article, its findings may serve as a wake-up call. For those who died after taking a medication now shown to be even more lacking in positive evidence, it’s too late. Science has corrected, but at what cost? Ivermectin is the new hydoxychloroquine, take four Of course, as Meyerowitz-Katz observed, just the results of the study raised a lot of red flags. Elgazzar 2020, if you take the authors at their word, enrolled over 400 people with COVID-19 and 200 close personal contacts and allocated them either to ivermectin or placebo groups, reporting that ivermectin treatment decreased mortality from COVID-19 by a whopping 90%. As Meyerowitz-Katz observed, if this were true, that would make ivermectin the “most incredibly effective treatment ever to be discovered in modern medicine.” While as a physician I might quibble about that a bit (we do have treatments that are greater than 90% effective at eliminating the diseases or conditions that they treat, especially a number of vaccines), he is correct if you restricted this to antiviral drugs. If this study’s results were accurate and generalizable, ivermectin would be the most most incredibly effective antiviral treatment ever to be discovered. That result alone should have raised a number of red flags, and it did among authors doing meta-analyses who were not ivermectin advocates from the BIRD Group or the FLCCC, which is why they excluded it from their analyses. Meilssa Davey at The Guardian Huge sttudy supporting ivermectin as Covid treatment withdrawn over ethical concerns A medical student in London, Jack Lawrence, was among the first to identify serious concerns about the paper, leading to the retraction. He first became aware of the Elgazzar preprint when it was assigned to him by one of his lecturers for an assignment that formed part of his master’s degree. He found the introduction section of the paper appeared to have been almost entirely plagiarised. It appeared that the authors had run entire paragraphs from press releases and websites about ivermectin and Covid-19 through a thesaurus to change key words. “Humorously, this led to them changing ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome’ to ‘extreme intense respiratory syndrome’ on one occasion,” Lawrence said. The data also looked suspicious to Lawrence, with the raw data apparently contradicting the study protocol on several occasions. “The authors claimed to have done the study only on 18-80 year olds, but at least three patients in the dataset were under 18,” Lawrence said. Dark Horse 85: YouTube and The Truman Faux Medical Show CLIP “DH85 Save Three Kill Two” – Starts Around 50:00 Dark Horse 86: They’ve Got That Covered CLIP “DH86 Retraction” – Starts around 19:00 “Scientists quit journal board, protesting ‘grossly irresponsible’ study claiming COVID-19 vaccines kill” Several reputed virologists and vaccinologists have resigned as editors of the journal Vaccines to protest its 24 June publication of a peer-reviewed article that misuses data to conclude that “for three deaths prevented by [COVID-19] vaccination, we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination.” Since Friday, at least six scientists have resigned positions as associate or section editors with Vaccines, including Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Katie Ewer, an immunologist at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford who was on the team that developed the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Their resignations were first reported by Retraction Watch. “The data has been misused because it makes the (incorrect) assumption that all deaths occurring post vaccination are caused by vaccination,” Ewer wrote in an email. “[And] it is now being used by anti-vaxxers and COVID-19-deniers as evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are not safe. [This] is grossly irresponsible, particularly for a journal specialising in vaccines.” The paper is a case of “garbage in, garbage out,” says Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccinologist who directs the Vaccine Datalink and Research Group at the University of Auckland and who also resigned as a Vaccines editor after reading the paper. Diane Harper, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who was founding editor-in-chief of Vaccines, also resigned, as did Paul Licciardi, an immunologist at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Parkville, Australia, and Andrew Pekosz, a respiratory virologist at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Epoch Times, Dr. Bret Weinstein, “Perverse Incentives in the Vaccine Rollout and the Censhorship of Science” * Anna Merlan at Vic; two excellent summaries: 1. 'Why Is the Intellectual Dark Web Suddenly Hyping an Unproven COVID Treatment?' https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5z5y/why-is-the-intellectual-dark-web-suddenly-hyping-an-unproven-covid-treatment 2. 'The Ivermectin Advocates' War Has Just Begun' https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3d5gv/ivermectin-covid-treatment-advocates-rogan-weinstein-hecker Jef Rouner at Houston Press on Bret https://www.houstonpress.com/news/a-possible-new-anti-vaccine-scam-is-on-the-rise-11591162 Decoding the Gurus on Bret & Heather and Ivermectin https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/brett-heather-weinstein-why-are-they-suppressing-ivermectin-the-miracle-cure Bret platforms Geert Vanden Bossche https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNyAovuUxro&t=6s Vaxopedia on Geert Vanden Bossche https://vaxopedia.org/2021/03/14/who-is-geert-vanden-bossche/?fbclid=IwAR3u1myW15pERVxvcopv5NlWBr12QakfzVMHsoHHopLuJWKSUGfockqYhBo ZDoggMD on Geert Vanden Bossche https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEyQi__zTuo Potholer54 on Covid and vaccines etc https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL82yk73N8eoWneZjR0wiidhGkAMOeIYAS QAnon Anonymous feat. scientist on 'Lab Leak' theory https://soundcloud.com/qanonanonymous/unlocked-premium-episode-129-lab-leak-hypothesis-feat-dr-alex-greninger Citations Needed Pod vaccine inequality https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=vaccine Clip from start; Charlie Kirk cites Bret to Tucker Carlson https://twitter.com/uberfeminist/status/1418033997398020102 Eiynah's panel on 'Mergegate' (feat. D. Harper) Part 1 https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations/panel-24-defending-new-atheism-maybe-just-dont-pt-1 Daniel's guest appearance on Decoding the Gurus https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/special-episode-interview-with-daniel-harper-on-the-far-right-idw-criticism  

It's been a while since we released a new episode and, for one reason and another, it's going to be a little while before we release another (though we still hope to make our monthly quota of two new public episodes and one new backer-only bonus) so, to tide you over, and make sure you don't forget about us, here's the first of our bonus episodes - on Peter Watkins' Punishment Park (1971) - originally released exclusively for our patrons back in January.  If you wish you'd been able to hear this six months ago, consider bunging us some cash. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true  

Become a backer of Daniel or Jack to get exclusive access to a new bonus episode about Grant Naylor's novel Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, based on the TV series.  Featuring special guest, our good friend, podcast legend, the amazing James Murphy. Plus access to all other bonus episodes. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true Content Warnings. Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1 James' Twitter: @JimCrop1916 https://twitter.com/JimCrop1916 James' Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jimslater/posts James podcast (with Kevin Burns), Pex Lives: https://pexlives.libsyn.com/webpage Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dwarf-Infinity-Welcomes-Careful/dp/0451452011 Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers https://ebooks.darknetproxy.com/index.php?page=13&id=49448&db=0 Red Dwarf Season One Episode One https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6hjsak Many other episodes also available. Red Dwarf Season One https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dwarf-Season-1/dp/B00412BX5E Red Dwarf fansite https://www.ganymede.tv/

For Episode 89, Jack takes a break and Daniel chats with Geraldine Moriba and Jamila Paksima of the excellent Sounds Like Hate podcast. Content warnings, as ever.   Podcast Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618 IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1   Show Notes: Sounds Like Hate official website https://soundslikehate.org/ Geraldine Moriba [Twitter] https://twitter.com/GeraldineMoriba Jamila Paksima [Twitter] https://twitter.com/JamilaPaksima Justen Watkins and Alfred Gorman [arrested] https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7mme4/a-leader-of-neo-nazi-terror-group-the-base-was-just-arrested-in-michigan

And so, episode 88 is finally here.  And we found the best way to deal with it.  In this episode, we welcome back the brilliant Eiynah Mohammed-Smith - of the Polite Conversations podcast - to talk about the long shadow of New Atheism.  In the process we also talk about some of the crop of IDW-criticism proliferating these days, and our issues with it.  We also talk about other things.  Rude things.  *Jack blushes* Content Warnings.   Podcast Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618 IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1   Show Notes: Polite Conversations Soundcloud Eiynah on Twitter Eiynah’s Patreon Friendly IDWsphere photo tweet Video connected to those photos. 4chan hate campaign against kink at pride Richard Dawkins wants to lovebomb Iran — with erotica James Lindsay “Woke Jews” tweet James Damore at Portland State (2/17/18) Event hosted by Andy Ngo, introduced by Bret Weinstein. Heather Heying, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian were the panelists. Event disrupted by protestors, which made international news. Anti-Trans Bills and the Bigoted History of “What About The Children” - SOME MORE NEWS Eve Fairbanks, The Reasonable Rebels Donna Minkowitz, Why Racists (And Liberals!) Keep Writing for Quellette John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry Wikipedia, Comparison of United States incarceration rate with other countries The US incarceration rate peaked in 2008 when about 1,000 in 100,000 U.S. adults were behind bars. That’s 760 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of all ages.[27][25] This incarceration rate was similar to the average incarceration levels in the Soviet Union during the existence of the infamous Gulag system, when the Soviet Union’s population reached 168 million, and 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in the Gulag prison camps and colonies (i.e. about 714 to 892 imprisoned per 100,000 USSR residents, according to numbers from Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde).[37][38] Some of the latter Soviet Union’s yearly incarceration rates from 1934 to 1953, however, likely were the world’s historically highest for a modern age country.[39] In The New Yorker article The Caging of America (2012), Adam Gopnik writes: “Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag under Stalin at its height.”[40] Adam Gopnik, “The Caging of America”

Become a backer of Daniel or Jack to get exclusive access to a new bonus episode about 2004's Downfall about Hitler's last days (it's the source of the YouTube 'Hitler gets angry' meme).  Plus access to all other bonus episodes. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true Content Warnings.   Podcast Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1   Show Notes: Downfall at Wikipedia Traudl Junge at Wikipedia Hitler Downfall Parody Memes Ian Kershaw on Downfall Does it help us to understand Hitler any better? My own feeling is that, brilliant though the portrayal is, it does not. It is hard to see how it could - or, indeed, what great enlightenment it would bring if we did know him better (whatever that means). Would we then have a clearer grasp of his hold over the German people, or why so many intelligent individuals in positions of authority were prepared to put his wishes into practice? At any rate, no amount of intuitive acting is likely to make him any more intelligible to audiences which cannot possibly enter his warped mentality. His life has been scrutinised as scarcely no one else’s, but an inner core is still unfathomable. Hitler will always remain in some senses an enigma. Christian Berkel at Wikipedia Bartender “Eric” in Inglourious Basterds, Ernst-Günther Schenck in Downfall. Alfred Zech at Wikipedia AP History 2019 Exam Questions Not even a mention of WWII. The Massaging of History by David Cesarani and Peter Longerich https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/apr/07/germany.secondworldwar "The film Downfall relies on memoirs written by Hitler's allies to distance themselves from Nazism"

In this bumper edition, we begin a projected trilogy of episodes on James Lindsay, Twitter's favourite anti-Critical Race Theory obsessive and bullying prick.  This time, we track the earlier part of James' career as a professional reactionary, leading up to the embarassing 'Conceptual Penis hoax' of which James still seems inexplicably proud.  Daniel demonstrates (to a Jack still groggy from all the AstraZeneca nanobots coursing through his brain) that James was pretty much always the obnoxious douchebag he is now, but simply needed to learn through experience (of being called on his bullshit) how to successfully present his obnoxious douchebaggery as a profound quest to save Western civilisation from standpoint epistemology or something. Content Warnings.   Podcast Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618 IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1   Show Notes: James Lindsay [Twitter] https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames James Lindsay [Wikipedia] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Lindsay James Lindsay's PhD Dissertation, [Combinatorial Unification of Binomial-Like Arrays] https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/723/ Joe Rogan - Exposing Social Justice with Peter Boghossian & James Lindsay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlqU_JMTzd4 CPAC 2021: James Lindsay on How Critical Theories Work to 'Tear Apart' the Values of America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad5ldf8jXI8  Serious Inquiries Only (formerly Atheistically Speaking) https://seriouspod.com/ AS83, Category 5 Shitstorms, with James Lindsay http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as83-category-5-shitstorms-james-lindsay/ AS84, James LIndsay Part Two http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as84-james-lindsay-part-2/ Peter Boghossian "Proud of Being Gay" [Tweet] https://web.archive.org/web/20150501060350if_/https://twitter.com/peterboghossian/status/527862167152758784 James Lindsay, [Not Pride and Not Prejudice: Is "Pride" Right for Uses Like "Gay Pride?"] https://web.archive.org/web/20170717143654/http://goddoesnt.blogspot.com/2014/10/not-pride-and-not-prejudice-is-pride.html "Knowing him, and having bothered to discuss it with him more thoroughly, Peter's point is that the term "pride" carries certain meanings (here: in reference to achievement, in particular) that may make it somewhat inappropriate to apply to a concept like "gay pride." As he has done in the past--controversially with groups wedded to certain other terms and ideas connected with them--he has asked for a disambiguation of the term "pride" in this context. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though for some legitimate reasons, there was a rather substantial blowback to his request to carefully consider the terminology being employed as dispassionately as possible." Greta Christina, [Peter Boghossian, and What Gay Pride Actually Means] https://the-orbit.net/greta/2014/11/01/peter-boghossian-and-what-gay-pride-actually-means/ "Okay. Fine. As a fully licensed and registered LGBT person, I will spell out to Peter Boghossian what, exactly, “gay pride” means. (Actually, to be precise, I will point out what “LGBT pride” means.) "LGBT pride does not mean being proud of having been born lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans. "It means being proud of having survived. "It means being proud of living in a homophobic, biphobic, transphobic society — a society that commonly treats us with contempt at best and violent hatred at worst — and still getting on with our lives. It means being proud of flourishing, in a society that commonly thinks we’re broken. It means being proud of being happy, in a society that commonly thinks we should be miserable. It means being proud of being good and compassionate, in a society that commonly thinks we’re wicked. It means being proud of fighting for our rights and the rights of others like us, in a society that commonly thinks we should lie down and let ourselves get walked on — or that thinks we should be grateful for crumbs and not ask for more. It means being proud of retaining our dignity, in a society that commonly treats us as laughing-stocks. It means being proud of loving our sexuality and our bodies, in a society that commonly thinks our sexuality and our bodies are disgusting. It means being proud of staying alive, in a society that commonly beats us down and wants us dead." AS191: Everybody Is Wrong About God, with James Lindsay http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as/ AS192: Everybody Is Wrong About God, Part 2 http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as192-everybody-is-wrong-about-god-part-2/ David Chivers, ["Book Review: James A. Lindsay's Everybody is Wrong About God"] https://thehumanist.com/arts_entertainment/books/book-review-james-lindsays-everybody-wrong-god/ "Given that Lindsay feels most people don’t intellectually believe in God anymore, his next main inquiry is an exploration of what people do mean when they say they “believe” in God. He argues that most of these people are actually articulating a more subtle need for community, comfort, and a set of morals, which they then equate with God. God is the embodiment of their ideas on what makes a good life. But once personified, they confuse their ideas of what makes for a good life with the actual individual they have created and then stubbornly argue for the existence of the said character, i.e. “God.” "Lindsay calls on atheists to recognize this phenomenon and change their arguments accordingly, addressing the needs that God personifies for the person rather than the actual belief in God. This is the next step of “post-theism.” Society must find ways to fulfill those needs in a secular way. Once those needs are addressed and met in those other ways, the need for “God” will quickly and naturally fall away." AS237: James Lindsay and Eli Bosnick on Social Justice http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as237-james-lindsay-eli-bosnick-social-justice/) AS238: Eli and James, Part 2 http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as238-eli-james-part-2/ AS239: Eli and James on Trigger Warnings http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as239-eli-james-trigger-warnings/ Crisis and Trigger Warnings: Reflections on Legal Education and the Social Value of the Law https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4076&context=cklawreview "Abstract: In the same moment that law schools are embracing neoliberal strategies in response to the economic crisis caused by declining admissions, students in the classroom have begun to agitate for advance content notices (or “trigger warnings”) to alert them to any potentially trauma-inducing course materials. For faculty who have already adopted a defensive posture in response to threats to eliminate tenure, this demand feels like an additional assault on academic freedom; one that reflects a distressing student-as-consumer mentality. From this vantage point, students are too easily cast as another group of adversaries when, in actuality, students are straw targets who have little power compared to the real threat—the unchecked corporatization of legal education. This essay attempts to redirect faculty outrage back to the proper mark by decoupling the trigger-warning movement from the broader phenomenon of the neoliberal law school. It presents an alternate reading of trigger-warning mandates: as a student critique of legal pedagogy that demands access and opportunity for all students to fully engage in classroom discussions that can be difficult and are often painful. Trigger warnings give lie to the myth that law is based on dispassionate and objective legal analysis. Seen this way, trigger warnings invite students to become partners in the production of knowledge, while allowing faculty to maintain intellectually rigorous classroom environments. Faculty cannot afford to view students as antagonists. Instead, students should be enlisted as allies in our efforts to challenge the orthodoxy of market-based solutions to the legal education crisis." Katie J.M. Baker, "Teaching Rape Law in the Age of the Trigger Warning." https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/teaching-rape-law-in-the-age-of-the-trigger-warning "You're in a Harvard Law classroom, which is supposed to be this advanced, high-minded environment, and when we got to rape, the conversation totally devolved into bullshit," one Harvard Law graduate said. "I don't need to pay Harvard tuition to hear men be dumbasses." "Criminal law is a required class, so even students who want to practice tax law or litigate intellectual property cases must participate in "rape week." It also means that professors who aren't necessarily experts in the field sometimes teach it. For many students, that's where the problems start. "Some hate when professors insist on using the Socratic method, a common law school teaching practice in which students are cold-called and mercilessly questioned, because a rape survivor might have to argue an accused rapist's case. Others don't understand why professors engage with students who make insensitive remarks about victims such as "What if she looked older than 12?" or "Is it still rape if it wasn't consensual but he really thought it was?" instead of shutting them down. Some law students even told BuzzFeed News that they chose to skip their "rape week" classes completely rather than seethe in silence." AS296: Life in the Light of Death, with James Lindsay http://atheisticallyspeaking.com/as296-life-light-death-james-lindsay/ SIO44: Debunking the Conceptual Penis Stunt with Eli Bosnick https://seriouspod.com/sio44-debunking-the-conceptual-penis-stunt-with-eli-bosnick/ SIO45: James Lindsay, Co-Author of the ‘Conceptual Penis’ Hoax Paper https://seriouspod.com/sio45-james-lindsay-co-author-of-the-conceptual-penis-hoax-paper/ Very Bad Wizards https://www.verybadwizards.com/ VBW Episode 116: Pain, Pleasure, and Peer-Reviewed Penises https://www.verybadwizards.com/116 VBW Episode 118: We Don't Love Them Hoax https://www.verybadwizards.com/118 The conceptual penis as a social construct https://www.skeptic.com/downloads/conceptual-penis/23311886.2017.1330439.pdf "We conclude that penises are not best understood as the male sexual organ, or as a male reproductive organ, but instead as an enacted social construct that is both damaging and problematic for society and future generations. The conceptual penis presents significant problems for gender identity and reproductive identity within social and family dynamics, is exclusionary to disenfranchised communities based upon gender or reproductive identity, is an enduring source of abuse for women and other gender-marginalized groups and individuals, is the universal performative source of rape, and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change. "An explicit isomorphic relationship exists between the conceptual penis and the most problematic themes in toxic masculinity, and that relationship is mediated by the machismo braggadocio aspect of male hypermasculine thought and performance. A change in our discourses in science, technol-ogy, policy, economics, society, and various communities is needed to protect marginalized groups, promote the advancement of women, trans, and gender-queer individuals (including non-gendered and gender-skeptical people), and to remedy environmental impacts that follow from climate change driven by capitalist and neocapitalist overreliance on hypermasculine themes and exploitative utilization of fossil fuels." Skeptic Magazine [writeup] https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/conceptual-penis-social-contruct-sokal-style-hoax-on-gender-studies/ "Assuming the pen names “Jamie Lindsay” and “Peter Boyle,” and writing for the fictitious “Southeast Independent Social Research Group,” we wrote an absurd paper loosely composed in the style of post-structuralist discursive gender theory. The paper was ridiculous by intention, essentially arguing that penises shouldn’t be thought of as male genital organs but as damaging social constructions. We made no attempt to find out what “post-structuralist discursive gender theory” actually means. We assumed that if we were merely clear in our moral implications that maleness is intrinsically bad and that the penis is somehow at the root of it, we could get the paper published in a respectable journal." Charmaine Chua, The Slow Boat to China https://thedisorderofthings.com/2015/01/05/the-slow-boat-to-china/ "The captain tells me that the Ever Cthulhu, like all other ships, never stops for a break. It continues traversing the globe’s surface in 45-day rotations, reaching one end of its route and turning around almost immediately. Container ships are monuments that move, and 100, 000 of them ply the oceans at any given moment. In 2014, the Ever Cthulhu traveled a total of 103,000 sea miles — halfway to the moon. All that distance, all that steel, all that power. Yet, even ships as large as these require very little human labor: a few seamen to navigate, engineers to monitor the ship’s internal workings, others to keep watch, clean, fit, change the oil. The Ever Cthulhu itself has a crew of 22 men – four German, one Polish, seventeen Filipino, and one passenger: myself. Across the world’s ocean, 1.5 million invisible seafarers toil on three to nine month contracts to bind the world together through trade, though they remain, for the most part, isolated in their cabins and mess rooms, retained on precarious short-term contracts, and kept away from their families – indeed, from most of the world. The third mate, a young Filipino, tells me that all his sacrifices are worth it for a salary that pays much more than he could possibly hope for on land. In some sense then, as a container of both aspiration and drudgery, one might think of the ship more as a space than an object; a floating island of both hard labor and the possibility of better futures. "This trans-pacific passage is of particular interest to me because it is by far North America’s largest trade lane, and accounts for nearly twenty million TEUs in U.S. trade alone. This U.S.-China market is dominated by large U.S. retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot – companies notorious for cutting labor costs by using the enhanced mobility of labor to shift work to third parties, erecting cruel hierarchies in both their Chinese factories and U.S. stores. Transoceanic shipping is, in large part, responsible for these widening inequalities: since shipping operates beyond the territorial spaces governed by labor regulations, it allows corporations to do away with the hard-fought democratic and labor rights struggled for and earned within local labor contexts. The internationalization of the supply chain, in other words, is aided by increasing innovations in the speed and efficiency of the shipping market. As a result, circulation has been folded into the production process, becoming a field of experimentation for value-generation in its own right. Of course, there are highly uneven aspects to this story of logistics. Even as members of the International Longshore and Workers Union [negotiate their contract under embattled circumstances](http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/PMA-vs-ILWU-Negotiations-Jeapordized-Ports-Congested-2014-11-04) on the west coast of North America, indentured truck drivers [struggle against overwhelming legal barriers](http://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/port-truck-drivers-on-strike-dispatch-from-los-angeles-long-beach-ports) to unionization in Oakland and LA, port workers in mushrooming Chinese ports can scarcely dream of ILWU wages or safeguards, and factory workers around the world toil under the poverty line. The world of logistics looks very different indeed from the perspective of Taiwan, California, or the Ocean."   You're Wrong About podcast on Political Correctness: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270/8355175-political-correctness Samuel Hoadley-Brill on James Lindsay and CRT: https://conceptualdisinformation.substack.com/p/james-lindsay-v-critical-race-theory?r=7v05d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy  

In this News Roundup episode, we take a look at the 'debate' between Professor Richard Wolff (public face of Marxism these days, sadly) and 'Destiny' (AKA Steven Bonnell II), a liberal YouTube livestreamer, and Bonnell's total lack of real and honest curiosity about socialism.  We then take a look at Nick Fuentes' extremely not mad reaction to YouTuber Thought Slime's video about him, and discover various things about Nick, including why he doesn't believe in dinosaurs.  Or, y'know, the Holocaust.  We also check in on Bret (Weinstein) and Heather (Heying) (of the Dark Horse podcast) to correct some of their pernicious bullshit and see what they think the cops should be allowed to do to protestors who are DESTROYING CIVILISATION.  Daniel draws the various threads together and, in a stunning third act twist, reveals what all these things have in common. Content Warnings Apply.   Podcast Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618 IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1   Episode Notes: Destiny, "You Are Just WRONG! -- Richard Wolff Debate Gets Heated" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcA5szcnESY Matthew Gault, "Twitch Streamer Destiny and an Economist Debate Capitalism, Achieve Nothing." https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg8x77/twitch-streamer-destiny-and-an-economist-debate-capitalism-achieve-nothing "Twitch streamer and philosophical gadfly Steven “Destiny” Bonnell II spent 90 minutes of his day on Wednesday debating the merits of capitalism and socialism with noted economist Richard Wolff. Thirty-five minutes into the “debate” and the pair were arguing over the basic definitions of capitalism and socialism—economic systems whose relative merits and performance they were supposed to compare. It was not how either party had said they wanted the conversation to go. It was also a clear picture of the state of online-led political conversation—one side stalls the conversation to demand strict definitions and gaming personalities soak up too much time and attention. [...] "The pair went back and forth, both often heated. Wolff is old school and a college professor. His style was collegiate, sometimes condescending, and often sounded like a lecture. Destiny is used to debating on the internet where talking fast and fussing about specifics throws off an opponent. It was a weird pairing." Rad Shiba's video on Richard Wollf, 'A Wolff in Marxist Clothing' https://youtu.be/JG7FhC2LeGE   ThoughtSlime, "Nick Fuentes is the hate nerd" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eRoYhTQDuo Nick Fuentes response on AF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzBo3NcurE Nicholas J. Fuentes | Responding to Th*ught Sl*me's Hitpiece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX4QO8nPKFQ Avi vs Nick Fuentes On the Holocaust and Trans Issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qlCoYLfSc Dark Horse Podcast Q&A 76th DarkHorse Podcast Livestream, "Should Police Be Allowed to Kill Rioters" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7wWmzmBw6I&t=3414s Starts at 56:54  

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This episode sees the return of popular guest David Gerard - reluctant expert on crypto currency and author of Attack of the 50ft Blockchain and Libra Shrugged - to tell us about Bitcoin and the Nazis.  Content Warnings, as ever, but an especial TW this time for discussion of a suicide. Podcast Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618 IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1 Episode Notes: David's... Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidgerard Site: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard/overview The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism by David Golumbia (https://twitter.com/dgolumbia): https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-politics-of-bitcoin   Brenna Smith at Bellingcat on the 'Bitcoin Fairy': https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/02/03/why-500k-donation-to-right-wing-causes-does-not-signify-return-of-bitcoin-fairy/   Craig Wright copyright claims, Grayscale, Mt. Gox, Reddit on Ethereum, the French Bitcoin neo-Nazi: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/01/27/news-craig-wright-copyright-claims-grayscale-mt-gox-reddit-on-ethereum-the-french-bitcoin-neo-nazi/   Thread: https://twitter.com/davidgerard/status/1350174661590577155   Neo-Nazi BTC Tracker: https://twitter.com/NeonaziWallets