There are a fair number of newbies coming on to the site, which is great, but a couple of them are hateful, like the one who tried to refer to your host yesterday as a “kike faggot who runs this site” with “a fine hooked nose as any other degenerate kike”. Needless to say, that person has been vanquished to the hinterland for antisemites for committing a big-time Roolz violation. But I wanted to let other new readers/commenters know that there are guidelines for commenting here, called, in Chicago argot, “Da Roolz“. You can find them on the left sidebar or at the preceding link. They may seem long, but I find them useful for ensuring civility and reasonable discussion on this website. If you haven’t read them, please do before posting.
And if you want to send me wildlife photos (I welcome good ones), read the sidebar post “How to send me wildlife photos.”
Thanks!
Thanks Jerry, Da Roolz really help keep your site a haven of sanity on the web. We appreciate them and you.
Wow, that’s awful!!
Antisemites are so depressing, yet so predictable. I used to spend a bit of time on white nationalist sites like Stormfront. What becomes clear is that “White Unity” is clearly a myth. The true believers on that site are united only by hatred of Jews, nonwhites, and feminists. Take away the hate and white unity evaporates, as there are endless squabbles over who and what really counts as “white”. Are Spaniards really white? Are Greeks? Are Slavs? Are the Irish? Are Italians? Or do only Germano-Celtics count as truly being of the “white race”? And how genetically racially pure do you have to be in order to be considered “white”? 95% 100%?
Not to mention that if Jews really control everything, how come people aren’t converting to Judaism in droves? Oh, no, evil Judaism is really about ethnicity and racial purity and nepotism. Then why do so many Jews marry out? You’d think if Jews were that concerned about racial purity and wealth preservation, they’d be more inbred than the 17th century Hapsburgs. And why isn’t every Jew rich? If the Jews secretly run everything, why have we never had a Jewish POTUS or VP? The world’s richest man isn’t even Jewish (and tweets some antisemitic conspiracy theories). The majority of Congress isn’t Jewish. Antisemitism is just so irrational when you make any type of close examination of its beliefs.
“Racialists” are people who divide humanity into very discrete, non-overlapping groups, as if we are as different as circles, triangles and squares. Its chief problem is…it’s not an accurate description of humanity! It’s a completely wrong model of reality that will inexorably lead one to massive errors in judgement about others.
The reason the racialist model persists despite its incredible inaccuracy is because it is very simple, and feeds into our base instincts of 1) feeling superior to others 2) tribalism and 3) blaming others for our troubles.
Therefore, it will be particularly common among people in the lower ranges of intelligence and morality.
Show me an ardent racist, and there will be a better than average chance that they have a double-digit IQ and a history of anti-social behavior.
I suspect that the person who made the nasty comments was most likely a 13 year old boy.
Or an adult with the mentality of that teen.
There are several reasons why I could not run my own web site. But one is that I could not take the troll b.s.
We have a F.B. group for our small-ish suburban and pretty wealthy town. Among the posts announcing garage sales and lost dogs and such, there is always the sprinkling of terrible political and racist rants. It’s like the anonymity of online brings out the worst in some people.
Same here in rural Klickitat County. The absolute obtuseness of the MAGA types is astonishing.
I believe that there is still deep-rooted anti-Semitism in Christianity, particularly those of the evangelical stripe. They only support Israel because of their belief that this is a requirement for the Second Coming. Minor detail – all Jews who do not at that time convert to Christianity will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire.
Christian and white supremacist antisemitism are but drops in the bucket compared to the vast sea of Islamic antisemitism, which is vastly more dangerous these days (e.g., the Chanukah massacre at Bondi Beach).
Totally agree, world-wide for sure. But I still think that within the US, evangelical Christians are significant contributors.
During my stint as an Evangelical in the 70’s¹ there was an ethnically and culturally Jewish member of the congregation, who was very well thought of. It was considered a feature, not a bug. YMMV.
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¹ Before the current political Christianism. I have previously touted Tim Alberta’s The kingdom, the power, and the glory : American evangelicals in an age of extremism.
Interesting, but had the person converted to Christianity? That would be a big “win” 😊
Yes, “born again”.
(But balance that against the apostasies of myself and who knows how many others. They won some and they lost some 🙂. Sort of Evangelical detransitioning; maybe call it “unborn again”.)
I don’t know how our host manages the website so well. I have subscribed since 2016. I am a financial planner with very little exposure to science. This website has been a treasure of knowledge for me. I have bought and read books such as Prof Coyne’s WEIT, Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, Sapolsky’s Behave & Determined, Sean Carroll’s The Big Picture, Hitch’s End of Faith, and so on. Thanks to Jerry and all the fellow subscribers for sharing your knowledge. A curse on the trolls.
Also there are the other posts where readers share their books, music, and movies. From these I have found some real treasures.
Me too. Most of my new book and movie recommendations come from the comments sections here!
I know you must be a tough guy with thick skin, but just disgusting what you must see coming in to your inbox at times. I have worse to say about it, but it’s not publishable. Thanks for the work you do to create this great web site. I look forward to reading it everyday. Like other non-scientists, I have been exposed to many fascinating ideas here for which I am grateful.
That explains the tightening of moderation. It is sad, that you as our host have to endure this.
I can only offer (for what they are worth) my sympathy and my perspective in that this site is one of the most sane places talking about US politics.
Even tho in the past decades I’ve been mildly chastised once or twice, I’m a big fan of da roolz. The editors of the publications I write for have made me very aware of what a chore and a pain it is to stop a message board turning into filth and anarchy.
D.A.
NYC
Thanks, Jerry, for enforcing Da Roolz. I rarely leave comments, but do enjoy reading the contributions made by readers, which very often nicely supplement the material you provide. It’s a pity that you have to deal with such hateful garbage as the comment you cite above.
+1
I know I shouldn’t laugh about something so awful, but our vocal antisemites are so predictably stupid with their turns of phrase. It’s the polite ones in respectable places that bother me—but I’m not running the site and they don’t have my email!
Thanks for sharing scenes from the dark side.