“Milophelia”
Godalmighty, these people.
Christopher J Benton @ChrisJBenton 1 hour ago
@MAMelby @ImprobableJoe Your call of course, but it’s probably best to leave Milophelia alone. There’s nothing left you can usefully say.@MAMelby @ImprobableJoe To be fair, Milo’s articles are largely text he wrote himself. OK, OK, I’ll be nice now.
M. A. Melby @MAMelby 24 minutes ago
@ChrisJBenton @ImprobableJoe Zing!
But they’re nothing like the slime pit. Good heavens no. Comparing me to Milo Yiannopoulos is nothing like the slime pit at all whatsoever, plus it’s totally rational and evidence-based and humanistic.
Chris Benton used to put a lot of energy into tracking down some of the Twitter harassers; now he acts like one. Sucks to be him.
Melby’s behavior is why I stopped contributing to Secular Woman. I wasn’t exactly an important contributor, I’m sure, but I donated a not-insignificant sum to the organization over the past few years. This puerile, unskeptical, vindictive behavior on her part, though, is (to say the least) off-putting. I no longer want to support an organization that burnishes her credentials.
It is truly, disturbingly familiar.
(“Ofeelya Butthurt”, “Ms. CopyPasta”)
Zing!, indeed.
Is it just human nature that all groups on an issue become a tribe that starts to police itself for purity? This is depressing. None of us is perfect, and Ophelia puts into action the idea of ‘rationality’ instead of just repeating a mantra. She does seem to care about where to apportion belief and what is the truth. Instead of just being part of the herd.
But reasonable people disagree on issues, or haven’t made their mind up on every point of an issue. To banish her for being reasonable just seems to be about purity or identity, not rationality.
For my part, banish me, I’ll take the Groucho on this one (any group that would have me as a member isn’t one in which I’d want to belong).
She does seem to care about where to apportion belief and what is the truth. – See more at: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2015/milophelia/#comment-2603123
Oh crap!. That reads awful! I mean she doesn’t care where her search for truth leads to and appropriately apportions belief and to what is the truth. Sorry!
Just to be fair: Melby claims (both on Twitter and on her blog) that there was an additional tweet of hers, not reproduced here, which (in her words) “substantially changes the impression of a conversation”. The content of the missing tweet was:
I haven’t checked the details (e.g. the timeline); still, for whatever it’s worth, here it is.
Hahahahaha it doesn’t change it at all – it just makes her look that bit more involved in the slime pit behavior. I did her a favor by not including it.
And there are six billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred fifty people who haven’t a clue who these jerks are.
The sequence of the exchange can be seen, for example, here: https://twitter.com/MAMelby/status/638785196943405057
Omitting Melby’s first tweet at least creates the impression that the “Zing!” is a reply also to the offensive nicknaming, instead of only to the second tweet. Deciding how/if this changes the situation is left to the reader.
Ophelia, in fact I read the tweet in question as a mild rebuke. (Alright, I’m a die hard Pollyanna.)
Sigh. I didn’t “omit” it as in go to extra trouble to leave it out – the sequence I screencapped didn’t include it.
I might agree that it can be read as a mild rebuke (provided you ignore the way she’s been shitting on me for weeks) – if it weren’t for that “lmao.” But that “lmao” is there, so no, it’s not a genuine rebuke, it’s more of a snigger.
Melby shits on me, and giggles when other people shit on me, and meanwhile she exchanges jokes with slime pitters. She is not a well-meaning person.
Yep, the lmao does remove any real rebuke from the sentence, I think.
But aside from that, Ophelia, when did you start insisting Melby stop talking…..
…..essentially?
NoxiousNan, upon what basis do you imagine Ophelia has been “insisting Melby stop talking”?
See this?
This is why I’m walking away from Atheism/Skepticism.
It’s simply not *safe* for me to get involved.
Someone says the “wrong” thing, dares look at something differently…
Never mind that additional perspectives are useful, never mind that the intersections are important, never mind that Atheism/Skepticism could be really helpful for Disabled people/people with disabilities – helping us Autistic folks fight the use of torture in the name of “therapy”, and biomed woo, or fighting religious requirements to access basic services, just as an example – it looks like it’s not safe to engage. And completely forget the trans stuff. I just daren’t. I’ll get told I’m “not trans enough” again.
I’m having to tell other people on the Spectrum that it’s maybe best to avoid this community. I thought that this particular section might be safer, certainly better than the wider Atheo-Skeptic mainstream (MRA/Rand-bro central), but it no longer looks that way. Just stick with the various Disability communities – who have their own disagreements and in-fighting, so we’ve got enough on our plates already.
I give up. I don’t have the energy to do all the things I need to do in my own life. I certainly don’t have the additional energy that would be required to deal with getting involved in this community. I can’t risk being involved in a community that looks like it would shred someone completely over a mistake or disagreement.
This insistence that the problem is automatically deliberate evil. The only explanation. And that person is now completely terrible, with no redeeming features whatsoever, and therefore fair game. And fair game to target in absolutely any way the attackers can think of, no matter how outlandish, or stupid, or hurtful. That’s what it looks like. Really. I’m not going to risk it.
One miss-step, real or perceived, and you’re a target.
No thanks.
That’s another marginalised voice gone.
[This was to have originally gone on B&W @FtB – hence the next section: ]
I hope you weren’t thinking about “growing” the movement or anything. Yeah, yeah, I don’t comment much, so no great loss, right? Because I have to firewall, because of the Slimers. I shouldn’t have to firewall from “allies” too. Just in case I make a mistake, or disagree about how to approach a point. So you don’t link my work elsewhere, and maybe decide to continue the “discussion” there. Because I will make a mistake, I will disagree with something, and I fear that there will be no mercy. No difference allowed. So I’m staying quiet.
Because I’m afraid of you.
I shouldn’t be afraid of my “allies”.
John M, In the sequence that Z linked, a few tweets down from the tweet in the OP, Melby asserts that Ophelia is insisting on silence…essentially.
I forgot my /sarcasm. Apologies, Ophelia
Cluecat, thank you for that.