Richard Dawkins loses award for wrongthink

[Major-Tom]

You've stood on so many soapboxes on this forum, you may as well be covered in suds.

[Glorious Hong Kong]

I'm sorry that it took something this petty to tell you that Humanism is a religion just like any other. Religions do not need gods to be considered religions. Atheism =/= Humanism.

That being said, I disagree with Dawkins and Rowling on this issue.

It's something I've known for years now. Communism, wokism, and fascism are no less intolerant, dogmatic, or religious than Christianity and Islam. It's even been argued that Buddhism is actually an atheistic religion with no gods at all to worship.

Merely claiming to eschew bigotry and proclaiming one's support for trans people or women or black people is not enough for these woke extremists. Now, they expect you to enthusiastically applaud and pray five times a day at the altar of wokeness just like they do in China and North Korea, and increasingly, in Hong Kong.

Honestly, I think it was an overreaction but he really should have phrased that tweet better.

The thing is a tweet is quickly written and sometimes badly too. It shouldn be reason to "cancel" someone, specifically after he clarified later. It's not that he has some sort of rowling-esque campaign that keeps going on and on.

I've posted all kinds of poorly worded shit on social media in the past and I've been accused in person (as in literally yelled at) of being an ignorant bigot. I could've been canceled at any time were it not for my strict privacy settings and the fact that a sudden change in government and a sudden shift toward authoritarianism in both my country as well as Hong Kong terrified me into deleting all my old posts.

Not sure why everyone is describing the poll (or previous ones) as biased. I include two opposing choices as usual. You either want the piece of shit canceled, or the "piece of shit" is the victim of yet another woke witch hunt. Yes or no.

[Senkaku]

I also recognize Rachel Dolezal's right to identify as a black person despite her ancestry, whether she "chooses" to do so or not.

simply for daring to ask pertinent questions or for daring to assert that "there are only two genders", or for failing to phrase a certain sentence correctly.

spiteful, hateful conduct by a tiny minority of extremely outspoken trans activists as well as other influential, non-trans SJWs does ordinary trans people a huge disservice by antagonizing those who would otherwise be sympathetic to their cause.

"You call yourself pro-trans? You can't use the word "choose". If you say the words "choose" and "Rachel Dolezal" in the same sentence, even if you don't actually believe trans people have a choice, you are canceled. You're not pure enough for us and we will shut you down just because we can. So STFU, bigot."

Is a tiny little wording error so incredibly offensive to a tiny minority of disproportionately influential, professionally-offended snowflakes that he deserves to have his entire character assassinated and his reputation destroyed simply because he failed to word his tweet correctly?

Simply because he dared to ask a question? This is what cancel culture is. This is why these far-left wokists and cultural Marxists must never be allowed to hold any position of authority, let alone run a country.

if anyone deserves to be canceled, it's these woke vigilante groups who have taken it upon themselves to act as a kind of morality police, supplanting the medieval religious police of centuries past.

infiltrated and divided by woke feminists and far-left SJWs who believe themselves to be morally superior to everyone else and expect normies like us to "decolonize our minds" and "check our privilege" or some such nonsense.

intolerant wokists.

wokeness in all its hideous forms.



shaming men for the "crime" of awkwardly asking a woman out on a date

the hypocrisy of white, middle-class, Western feminists and juxtaposed their hyperinflated victimhood complex

He has refused to jump on the "you're a racist, fascist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic POS" SJW bandwagon for years and years. He has been a staunch bulwark against woke political correctness and cancel culture for years and years

dishonest smears and defamation that have been building up against them will not succeed.

These New Atheists of the Intellectual Dark Web have been and remain my biggest idols to date

anti-intellectual, authoritarian SJWs to divide and pit different groups of atheists against one another so that they may rule over us in perpetuity.
People like Laurie Penny, Rebecca Watson, Big Red, Reza Azlan, Glenn Greenwald, Ezra Klein, and all manner of radical Islamists

do you stand with the woke, cultural Marxist SJWs who would attempt to silence, divide, and bury us for wrongthink?

Ingredients:

- several years of Breitbart articles and Ben Shapiro podcasts
- simmering persecution complex
- as many right-wing contextual cueing terms as you can fit in a given sentence

Instructions:

- mix together, set blender to "high" for 45 minutes
- serve hot without proofreading

I will say, "Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald, radical Islamists" gave me a good chuckle, though, so thanks for that.

He is suspected to have comitted heresy against the Church of Progressive Wokeism and thus was preemptively excommunicated.

You two really do deserve each other lol

[Senkaku]

Trash poll is trash.

Agreed.

His "clarification" is fucking stupid and meaningless and just amounts to some hapless post-hoc ass covering. There's no way in Hell that he could've "not intended to disparage" trans people by comparing them to Rachel Dolezal and saying you'll be "vilified" for intentionally misgendering them. That's disparaging and there's a zero point zero percent chance that he's too stupid to realize that before he posted it. Writing "Discuss." on Twitter is not "an academic question" and it's not "misconstruing" it to see it as a snide invitation to post whatever transphobic screeds people have waiting in their drafts.

Dawkins is already a pompous dickwad with a propensity to stick his nose into business he knows next to nothing about and say offensive things, I don't see anything wrong with an organization that had given him this honor for contributions to public scientific communication revoking it when he goes and participates in stirring up a distinctly un-scientific mob frenzy.

tl;dr: He threw a nade in the right corner. Much?

I literally do not understand what this post says, like on a linguistic level

[Nakena]

I've posted all kinds of poorly worded shit on social media in the past and I've been accused in person (as in literally yelled at) of being an ignorant bigot. I could've been canceled at any time were it not for my strict privacy settings and the fact that a sudden change in government and a sudden shift toward authoritarianism in both my country as well as Hong Kong terrified me into deleting all my old posts.

Not sure why everyone is describing the poll (or previous ones) as biased. I include two opposing choices as usual. You either want the piece of shit canceled, or the "piece of shit" is the victim of yet another woke witch hunt. Yes or no.

Because the poll questions are supposed to be asked from a neutral viewpoint. The answers are loaded with viewpoints and insertions. If you want to write or reporting about some ongoing event you'd have to be objective, no matter how much or less sympathize with a side or party in the conflict or oppose the other. That is not a very popular viewpoint in those days I admit.

So basically I would simply have asked: "Do you agree with Dawkins having his award being revoked over the tweet?"

Answers:
Yes
No
Other

[Galloism]

Agreed.



tl;dr: He threw a nade in the right corner. Much?

I literally do not understand what this post says, like on a linguistic level

It's like someone typed it, translated it to japanese, then to arabic, then to Russian, and then back into English, all using google translate.

[Picairn]

Ingredients:

- several years of Breitbart articles and Ben Shapiro podcasts
- simmering persecution complex
- as many right-wing contextual cueing terms as you can fit in a given sentence

Instructions:

- mix together, set blender to "high" for 45 minutes

I will say, "Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald, radical Islamists" gave me a good chuckle, though, so thanks for that.

You forgot Paul Joseph Watson and PragerU in the ingredients.

[Porkbelly Low]

Not sure why everyone is describing the poll (or previous ones) as biased. I include two opposing choices as usual. You either want the piece of shit canceled, or the "piece of shit" is the victim of yet another woke witch hunt. Yes or no.

Your choices are both extreme. If I believe Dawkins is a bastard but canceling bastards is wrong, which choice do I pick?

[Senkaku]

Ingredients:

- several years of Breitbart articles and Ben Shapiro podcasts
- simmering persecution complex
- as many right-wing contextual cueing terms as you can fit in a given sentence

Instructions:

- mix together, set blender to "high" for 45 minutes

I will say, "Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald, radical Islamists" gave me a good chuckle, though, so thanks for that.

You forgot Paul Joseph Watson and PragerU in the ingredients.

Whatever it is, you'd think he'd eventually learn that this sort of ridiculously florid rage-prose doesn't really pass the smell test, but I guess not.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

I literally do not understand what this post says, like on a linguistic level

It's like someone typed it, translated it to japanese, then to arabic, then to Russian, and then back into English, all using google translate.

Missing apostrophe perhaps - 'nade

[Senkaku]

Now, they expect you to enthusiastically applaud and pray five times a day at the altar of wokeness just like they do in China and North Korea, and increasingly, in Hong Kong.

Ah yes, notably "woke" Communist China, where African immigrants are ghettoized and forced onto the streets and foreigners have to stick swabs up their asses just to get into the country, and the woke-worshipping North Korea, where state propaganda extols the superior racial purity of the Korean nation.

Come on, the term conflation is just getting to a totally absurd point here. It's clear "woke" no longer has any meaning besides being a pejorative you can scream to describe whichever enemy you're angriest at at any given moment.

Not sure why everyone is describing the poll (or previous ones) as biased. I include two opposing choices as usual. You either want the piece of shit canceled, or the "piece of shit" is the victim of yet another woke witch hunt. Yes or no.

It's so fascinating to me that you assume everyone is as angry as you are about trivial Twitter spats and awards from obscure organizations.

[The Reformed American Republic]

I mean he won the award fair and square. His views on other stuff are null.

This. This movement to punish everyone not 'forward thinking' enough is more than a bit much.

[Uan aa Boa]

So it's bad for "woke cultural Marxist SJWs" to vilify someone for having an incorrect opinion, but fine for you to vilify the AHA for having voiced an opinion you don't like? Pots and kettles my friend.

And are trans people really "disproportionately influential, professionally-offended snowflakes"? Because influence exists out in the real world beyond Twitter and it doesn't look to me as if trans people have very much of it, or occupy any positions of power. Based on the recent experiences of Elliot Page they can't even say that they are trans people without comments sections filling up with fury at their mere existence. Why are we focused on the intolerance of SJWs when someone asking others to refer to them with a different pronoun sparks such rage?

I don't hang out in NSG too much but I can already see people kind of glaze over when you start on this "woke cultural Marxism" nonsense. I doubt you'd recognise cultural Marxism if Jurgen Habermas burned your house down.

[Nakena]

Agreed.



tl;dr: He threw a nade in the right corner. Much?

I literally do not understand what this post says, like on a linguistic level

It's real covfefe hours.

[Senkaku]

I mean he won the award fair and square. His views on other stuff are null.

Generally, if you win an award for having done something positive (like contributing to public understanding of science, or winning a race), and then you go out and undercut your achievement with something negative (like contributing to public misunderstanding of science, or revealing you were doping), you run the risk of losing the award. Not sure why so many people seem to struggle with this concept!

[Yamato-Kankoku]

This 'black or white' thinking of 'either you are with us or against us' is truly divisive. The more accurate truth lies within the shades of gray. This matter is more complicated than simply 'Dawkins is a bigoted transphobe' versus. 'Dawkins is a stalwart champion against the political correctness nazis undermining atheism''. Dawkins is engaging in meaningful discussion concerning a controversial topic, and the stern censuring of all 'heretical' opinion merely shuts the door on debate and discussion on better understanding the issues at play here. Furthermore, creating this fear of reprisal culture where any objective thinkers and sceptics are silenced and alienated for wanting to pry open the jar of worms, is truly counterproductive. People should not be afraid of asking questions because the topic is so sensitive and controversial, but then again, gender/race discussions are not the only controversial topics are they? As for the analogy between race and gender identity, both can be considered social constructs based on biological characteristics. Yes, we can only be male or female (and rare mutations resulting in the intersex condition), but the way we choose to express ourselves is subjective. On the other hand, race is a bit more diverse than biological sex as it comes in various permutations of the human 'phenotype'. Race can be quite ambiguous, and it cannot be instantly determined, whereas biological sex is obvious upon examination of reproductive organs (unless mutilation has occurred, but we shall not take this into account).

When transgender people are identifying as certain genders (or any lack thereof) they can successfully adopt the form and style of the gender they are seeking to emulate. In some cases, the concept of 'passing' is possible for those who are able to realistically appear (in the public eye) as the gender they are choosing to identify as. But what is being adopted here is clothing, accessories, cosmetics, behaviour and gesticulations, whereas with race, there is not so much an accompanying piece of clothing you can adopt to match a certain racial phenotype. You can perhaps change your hair and try to tan or bleach your skin tone to pass as a different race, and this is more just self-customization as you would on an avatar in an online game, perhaps? Emulating a different race seems similar to the concept of emulating a different gender, but in this situation we need to distinguish the biological from the socially constructed.
Genetics and phenotype cannot be modified the same way clothing and appearance can. Biological sex cannot be altered the same way that hair and skin tone can be (although you can only do so much with your skin, it is very difficult to go from one extreme to the other without drastic measures).

It seems to be that identifying as a different race, as in the Dolezal situation, a white woman identifying as a black woman, can be the same technique being employed (self-transformation of the physical form) but it carries the misconception that behaviour is a function of race, when it is not. Behaviour is a preconditioned characteristic retained during one's formative years. In this case, as a biological male it is possible to act and imitate a 'feminine personality', but it is not possible to imitate a 'black' personality because in this case you would actually be imitating a cultural personality associated with black culture and black people, but it is impossible to imitate a phenotype as there is no associating behavioural idiosyncrasy/personality trait attached to a child who is born of one race or another, we are just empty vessels at birth that become shaped by society and certain 'genetic predispositions'. The fact that we have as a species become the subject of so much taxonomy (being labelled into so many departments and niches) (gay, straight, bi, trans, black, white, latin, middle eastern, native, asian, mixed, etc) is what motivates people to transform themselves, to blend the terms and express themselves further. If there were no distinctions in our language, and we were merely either male or female humans but no distinction between the sexes in manner of dress and deportment, would we really be having these discussions? These are all terms which do not really matter but are simply identifiers for us to distinguish reality. So to that extent, it is unrealistic to identify as the opposite sex due to biological factors (you cannot take out all your reproductive organs to become the other sex, as much as you try), but it is realistic and understandable to identify as different genders and races because these are less concrete and set in stone (e.g. You can change your clothing to pass as female, you can change your appearance to pass as another race). Human beings like to play dress-up, and they like to act in the way that makes them feel comfortable. They also want to be treated the way they choose. When the reality does not match the expectations, it seems that chaos unfolds. Humans need to realize what can and cannot be changed. It reminds me of that saying: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
If you can successfully pass as a different race or gender, then no one should know the difference and it is very much possible to do so, but if you are not quite passing yet, it is merely a concept of the inner self not matching societal expectations.

This question seems to have no right or wrong answer, it is subjective and a topic deserving of deep contemplation and discussion. Those who would censor such discourses and enforce arbitrary legislation of 'superior morality' upon others using such tactics as outlined in the OP are truly pushing us all backwards.

[Agraelia]

Doing this to Dawkins is a crime.

Cancel culture, just as much as the right maga's shit, needs to be washed away as both are a cancer to our society. Both wings have extremists that need to be snuffed out with extreme prejudice.

Like is this what we as humans have come to? Bickering over the tiniest shit ever? We have a chance to fully reach the stars, end climate troubles, work on poverty, hunger, work on better deterrents against disease, and what are we doing about it? Complaining against potato dicks and "ooo british man hurt my feelings!"

Fuck humanity man.

[Galloism]

I mean he won the award fair and square. His views on other stuff are null.

Generally, if you win an award for having done something positive (like contributing to public understanding of science, or winning a race), and then you go out and undercut your achievement with something negative (like contributing to public misunderstanding of science, or revealing you were doping), you run the risk of losing the award. Not sure why so many people seem to struggle with this concept!

IIRC, Hitler never lost his 1938 "Man of the Year" award.

[Vassenor]

Doing this to Dawkins is a crime.

Cancel culture, just as much as the right maga's shit, needs to be washed away as both are a cancer to our society. Both wings have extremists that need to be snuffed out with extreme prejudice.

Like is this what we as humans have come to? Bickering over the tiniest shit ever? We have a chance to fully reach the stars, end climate troubles, work on poverty, hunger, work on better deterrents against disease, and what are we doing about it? Complaining against potato dicks and "ooo british man hurt my feelings!"

Fuck humanity man.

So what exactly has been taken away from him?

[Nilokeras]

Ah GHK: supposedly a champion of liberal tolerance, but has never met a reactionary he didn't want to lick the boots of in a 3000 word screed

[Uan aa Boa]

Since the SJWs are apparently out to end our freedom of speech, can someone explain why the AHA should not give and withdraw an award that it literally invented in whatever way it sees fit?

[Kubra]

Generally, if you win an award for having done something positive (like contributing to public understanding of science, or winning a race), and then you go out and undercut your achievement with something negative (like contributing to public misunderstanding of science, or revealing you were doping), you run the risk of losing the award. Not sure why so many people seem to struggle with this concept!

IIRC, Hitler never lost his 1938 "Man of the Year" award.

It ain't an award. Technically, you've been person of the year once.

[Agraelia]

Doing this to Dawkins is a crime.

Cancel culture, just as much as the right maga's shit, needs to be washed away as both are a cancer to our society. Both wings have extremists that need to be snuffed out with extreme prejudice.

Like is this what we as humans have come to? Bickering over the tiniest shit ever? We have a chance to fully reach the stars, end climate troubles, work on poverty, hunger, work on better deterrents against disease, and what are we doing about it? Complaining against potato dicks and "ooo british man hurt my feelings!"

Fuck humanity man.

So what exactly has been taken away from him?

The award, a symbol of international recognition of his work, and in partial credibility and a clean reputation.

[Major-Tom]

Doing this to Dawkins is a crime.

Cancel culture, just as much as the right maga's shit, needs to be washed away as both are a cancer to our society. Both wings have extremists that need to be snuffed out with extreme prejudice.

Like is this what we as humans have come to? Bickering over the tiniest shit ever? We have a chance to fully reach the stars, end climate troubles, work on poverty, hunger, work on better deterrents against disease, and what are we doing about it? Complaining against potato dicks and "ooo british man hurt my feelings!"

Fuck humanity man.

I mean...you're the one that seems to be complaining about it, as opposed to those other things you mentioned.

[Vassenor]

So what exactly has been taken away from him?

The award, a symbol of international recognition of his work, and in partial credibility and a clean reputation.

So he's still able to speak and has lost exactly zero platforms, but has apparently still been cancelled.