All sorts of weirdness
Jesse Singal notes some rather large mistakes in That Review at SBM.
Jeez. That’s quite a howler, and it’s a howler that is damaging to Zucker, i.e. a perceived Enemy of the Cause. That’s not how one is supposed to do these things.
“Science-based.”
But of course they have to respond to an imaginary version of the book, just as they responded to an imaginary version of J.K. Rowling’s essay; otherwise, their acolytes might learn what the actual arguments of those opposing them are, and might realise that they’re reasonable.
Just as Christian leaders tell their congregants that atheists are Satan-worshipping baby eaters who hate God because they want to sin. They don’t want anyone finding out that atheists have merely failed to be convinced, yet, of the veracity of their claims due to a lack of evidence in favour of them, and a vast amount of evidence against.
It’s standard cult behaviour.
tigger, are you trying to say you haven’t eaten any babies? Hand in your atheist card AT ONCE! Why, I eat six babies before breakfast.
This is pretty far OT, but I find that despite their generally too permissive views on trans shit both Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog are really pleasant to listen to. Been binging the entirety of the non-Patreon Blocked and Reported for 2-3 weeks and it’s really refreshing to hear words like “empathy” and “compassion” out of Lefties.
BKiSA, agreed; while I think Singal and Herzog are far too indulgent of the ideological precepts of TRAs, and consequently far too dismissive of gender-critical commentators such as Graham Linehan as “just TERFs”, they are the kind of lefties that reasonable people can understand and have a reasonable conversation with.
Consequently, they themselves are personae non gratae among the Twitterati, with Herzog enjoying in-person sticker campaigns labelling her as a TERF around Seattle and Singal being widely known as a tranny-chasing harasser for the thought crime of…being concerned about children making permanent, life-altering decisions at the behest of credulous or unscrupulous doctors and therapists.
They’re a good antidote for people who want some interesting ideological space not dominated by the Ben Shapiros or Jordan Petersons or even Andrew Sullivans and Sam Harrises of “the discourse”. (Though I also recommend the last two especially for people interested in alternate takes on things that also aren’t bat-shit crazy even if you don’t necessarily agree with everything they say, I understand that they aren’t exactly popular around these parts, so I’m not going to waste more of my fingers on them than that.)
Truth about Herzog & Singal. In general I give up on podcasts a minute or two in, because of the boredom and amateurishness; Blocked & Reported is one of the few exceptions.