Ms. Forums-you're all nuts

[Demosthenesian]

(Checks around to make sure this is the pit, and ModCrit is allowed. Yep.)

Ok…

Cold, Tuba, what the hell? “Annoy the natives”? This wasn’t exactly alt.tasteless invading rec.pet.cats, this was three Dopers logging on to another board, respectfully (at least at first) addressing the topic at hand, and getting shitted all over by the natives for no good reason except their lack of groupthink. I read that thread: Daniel exhibited nearly superhuman patience with some of the most disrespectful nonsense that I’ve seen outside of obnoxious gaming boards in a long while. While I might agree that running a post back to the Pit wasn’t a good idea, if we’re going to lay blame for being obnoxious, it isn’t to be laid at the feet of the dopers. There were no rules of conduct broken on the Ms board: as Daniel showed with his earlier postings, this is de rigeur for them and they obviously have had real debates in the past. Nobody said “let’s go over there and kick some ass”… dopers went over of their own accord to discuss the issue at hand. There is no reason to believe they’d be as irrational as the people at Left Behind; feminism is not a religion, not all feminists behave this way, and they had pretensions to intellectual and factual superiority that had nothing to do with the SDMB and everything to do with their intolerance of WrongThink. As Guin said, this didn’t even start here.

While it is ever the instinct of the reasonable person to assume that others will be reasonable as well, and that was no doubt catsix and Guin’s reason for responding to that first post, it was the “invaders” that were treated with disrespect and scorn, not the people on that board. In my (humble) opinion, they did nothing wrong except link back here. While they may be chided for that, there is absolutely no good reason for the heavy banstick to be swung around.

Coldfire, if nobody’s opinions are ever going to be changed, then their own movement is doomed. The existence of feminism itself suggests that one way or another people’s consciousness can be changed. To be at all meaningful, this must include feminists themselves. Guin, Catsix, Daniel and Ender knew that, even if those there did not. There’s no “invasion” when the nature of the invaders is the same as the invaded. There’s just a bunch of people who tried to enter a discussion, were treated rudely for no good reason, and linked back to a thread criticizing their treatment. If the Ms people don’t like the critique, fuck 'em. Their intolerance doesn’t deserve respect.

[Demosthenesian]

Sorry, should have said “four dopers”. Forgot about Ender.

Originally posted by Collounsbury
My graduate degree is in economics, I am quite aware of the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline. I could give a fuck, however, about an ‘epistmelogical’ debate with Marxists. Marxian theory failed empirically, end of story. **

For someone aware of the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline, you seem remarkably quick to dismiss them, or at least particular critiques of them. Several Marxians on this very board and many out in the real world have argued that “it’s never been done”, and given valid reasons. Someone who knows economic theory would know instantly how real-world situations vary from theoretical ones. How can a theory be empirically disproven when only wild variants of it have actually been empirically tested? That’s like saying markets don’t work because of the Russian experience.

Still, that’s not what I’m on about here.

**As to the requirements, they’re not fuzzy per se. It is engaging some of the more abstract theory --e.g. neo-classical, which is in any case hardly my favored school of thought-- in terms of applied economics. An empirical and testable issue in the long run, as seen in the rise of behavioural economics in the past decade. **

Which is your favoured school of thought, then? You’ve dismissed political economy, and I’m somewhat curious.

And what good is application of economics without a framework within which it is tested and judged? The definitions and assumptions that underpin even the testing lies within philosophy, which can be remarkably “fuzzy” at times. Without those, you have no guarantee that your observations prove anything, and that there’s even a connection between your observations and what you think they prove. That’s the whole point of the postmodern critique, even if it goes way too far nowadays.

Surely not hard science but rather more scientific and rigorous than the self-indulgent post-modernist rot bandied about in literature

On that I won’t disagree, except to say that that “Kuhn” fellow I mentioned was discussing the philosophy of science; even the hard sciences require some basic concepts about how knowledge and reality function before you can get anything useful out of them. A common critique of economics (which was what I was getting at) is that it ignores all the other factors in society that are necessary for a market to function. That was partially the basis for the Marxist critique. All those other elements that aren’t so “hard” raise questions about how “hard” economics really is. Add in all those icky political, sociological and cultural aspects and it’s not so easy for economics to get away from all that post-modern rot. Unfortunate, but true.

(I wouldn’t have even brought it up except for the common belief that economics is somehow “above” all the other social sciences and the idea that post-modernism doesn’t touch it.)

[hansel]

Redne, of “I’m here, I have a penis, get used to it.” fame.

The rapist comment seems to arise from a confusion about whether or not you’re the re-incarnation of someone named Redneck, who confessed to a rape on the Ms. boards.

As for the rest of their comments, well, you made quite a splash with your own comments.

[Guinastasia]

If anyone would attempt to troll there, it would be someone from SAAN, since we have a lot of Something Awful crossovers.

[system]

*Originally posted by Demosthenesian *
For someone aware of the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline, you seem remarkably quick to dismiss them, or at least particular critiques of them. Several Marxians on this very board and many out in the real world have argued that “it’s never been done”, and given valid reasons.

Bah, they give whinging excuses and expect a fantasy world to come true. Marxism is a fraud and always has been. General socialist-oriented critiques have been useful for elaborating socio-political mechanisms for regulating market economies but Marxist economics is and always has been complete shit. No economics student in their right mind would study it as economics. Historical interest and of use in understanding the basket-case economies in the developing world which unfortunately had Marxist economic theory foisted off on them.

Someone who knows economic theory would know instantly how real-world situations vary from theoretical ones. How can a theory be empirically disproven when only wild variants of it have actually been empirically tested? That’s like saying markets don’t work because of the Russian experience.

Yeah, wild variants. Stupid motherfucking excuses to hide the fact the ideology is economically unworkable above a very small scale. This sort of idiocy has already been covered adequately in Great Debates on Marxism and free markets in the past week or two, I see no reason to regurgitate.

Which is your favoured school of thought, then?

I have a taste for the emerging school of behavioural economics, with a further preference for a moderate stance on Keynsian versus neo-classical prescriptive (versus descriptive) economics. In short, I am an empiricist.

And what good is application of economics without a framework within which it is tested and judged? The definitions and assumptions that underpin even the testing lies within philosophy, which can be remarkably “fuzzy” at times.

The testing lies hardly lies within the realm of philosophy, other than in a very vague and general sense which one could say the same about all sciences. Scientific method. The testing depends of data and statistical methods.

Prescription (of policy) is something more problematic, insofar as there one gets into the behavioural aspect of policy, in which case Economics becomes muddied with some a priori assumptions. On the other hand empirical testing (post-facto) of response to policies and the integration of larger scientific obs (either from game theory or from obs from empiriccally based behavioural psychology) have helped refine this. It is still, nonetheless well-within the realm of hypothesis testing based on evidence.

The problem of course being in establishing confidence in the data, which in many places leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, tools exist to deal with that.

Without those, you have no guarantee that your observations prove anything, and that there’s even a connection between your observations and what you think they prove. That’s the whole point of the postmodern critique, even if it goes way too far nowadays.

Oh yes, I don’t even know what these words in front of me mean, their meanings are so slippery after all.

Blather.

A common critique of economics (which was what I was getting at) is that it ignores all the other factors in society that are necessary for a market to function.

Common critique by those with but a superficial acquaintance with economics. In any case, too aggresively abstracting away from other factors is largely a neo-classical issue, and insofar as the tools to handle external factors have only recently emerged, along with the data, it is hardly a real critique. Neo-classical at least got a set of theoretical frameworks which has had a reasonable correspondence with reality and actual economic action allowing for a fairly decent theoretical description of observed behaviour, which is what a scientific model is supposed to do.

Certainly the prescriptive issue remains a problem, as noted, but then the science of Economics shouldn’t really be about specific prescriptions beyond a range of workable choices. A biologist, for example, will not be able to tell you what a Oriole will do next, but will be able to describe the menu of behaviour the bird has under a set of circumstances. That is economics. It certainly gets better in dealing descriptively with middle cases (e.g. the range of market structures between monopoly and perfect competition) when one begins to add in game theoretical obs on strategic behaviour and behavioural science’s obs on certain structural analytical errors our rational actors make. These last of course are fairly new and so it will take some time for a fully tested theoretical framework to be hashed out. But that is a matter of empirical testing and theoretical refinement, no namby pamby maundering on philosophy.

Post-modernist crap has nothing new to bring to the table, whatever the self-indulgent fools who promote it think. The critical observations in regards to paying attention to data uncertainty, observational bias etc. have all been made better, more rigorously and before post-modernism by other disciplines. Post modernism (as a whole) is nothing more than intellectual snake oil, or perhaps better the academic equivalent of all those ludicrous piece of shit management and pop biz books (Dow 2 Billion etc.) that get published.

[yosemite]

Because of this thread, I registered with Ms., and happily contributed to the online clothing thread. (I recommended Landsend.com. Woo hoo.)

I have no intention of “pissing off the natives”, and from what I saw, the 4 SDMBers who posted on that thread were relatively civil. At the very least, they didn’t deserve absurd rolleye smileys as soon as they expressed any sort of a dissenting opinion. That’s ridiculous.

I’ll probably post at the Ms. boards more, and I won’t go looking for fights, either. But some of the people over there have weird manners. That’s all I have to say.

[system]

I might add that adding a link to this thread was the height of idiocy, and certainly could not have helped given the comments which had already accumulated. I have no idea what the poster in question was thinking, insofar as a link to a thread where their POV was being scorned could hardly be considered to be… a move to build initial goodwill. Admission that one was directed from SD perhaps, but to the thread was bound to condition hostility.

Not that they seem to be a clear-headed bunch or that it might have really made a difference.

[Demosthenesian]

The testing lies hardly lies within the realm of philosophy, other than in a very vague and general sense which one could say the same about all sciences. Scientific method. The testing depends of data and statistical methods.

That “general sense” was exactly what I was getting at. Even the scientific method comes from somewhere, and even a cursory examination of scientific history and philosophy of science shows that the “pure” scientific method is too often inadequate in explaining how science is actually done, the reasons it is done, and the avenues of investigation. Aristotle wrote about philosophy as well as natural science; Newton wrote about theology as well as physics. It comes down to those terms I used earlier: Epistemology and Ontology. Epistemology: the study of knowledge and of knowing. Do we know what we think we do? Ontology: the study of reality. What is reality, and how does it work?

It’s true that these questions have already been answered… but it’s those answers that are being questioned. That “general stuff” you mentioned earlier: that’s what’s under attack. The foundations of the sciences.

Have you read “structures of scientific revolutions”, by the way?

Prescription (of policy) is something more problematic, insofar as there one gets into the behavioural aspect of policy, in which case Economics becomes muddied with some a priori assumptions. On the other hand empirical testing (post-facto) of response to policies and the integration of larger scientific obs (either from game theory or from obs from empiriccally based behavioural psychology) have helped refine this. It is still, nonetheless well-within the realm of hypothesis testing based on evidence.

The problem of course being in establishing confidence in the data, which in many places leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, tools exist to deal with that.

What methods does one use to do this empirical testing? How do you choose said methods? What possible threats to validity exist, and which can be reasonably excluded or controlled for? And where did those tools come from? How does one determine their usefulness? Who gets to make the judgement call? How do you know the data is correct, the interpretation is correct, that it will be the repeatable, and whether “correct” even means anything?
I’m not saying I disagree with you, but (as you said) there have been many assumptions made by those who looked at already suspect data and found pretty much whatever they wanted to find.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you; as you can see by reading this thread, hansel’s “reconstructed man” bit didn’t exactly hit home. What bothers me is this implied notion that because you study the distribution of scarce resources your discipline somehow gains more legitimacy than other, less “concrete” fields of study into humanity and the human condition. It is a vital field, and it’s useful to be able to employ mathematical models in any social science, but that doesn’t grant it inherent superiority, and it doesn’t make it any more akin to the hard sciences than any other social science.

I’d welcome citation of some good examples those “non-post modern” critiques, by the way. I’m always up for some reading.

[mrblue92]

Well, Daniel, I don’t think if I’d equate an insult with someone SHOOTING at me… Straw man much? It’s not like their posts could have potentially flown out of your monitor at you. Besides, one could make the same analogy that the homeowner told you to go away and you just flicked him off, then he fired a shot into the air.

My opinion is that there was a question of etiquette being breached by both parties. When that’s the case, that neither side has a monopoly on good behavior, then both should have the good sense to recognize their share of the fault and take responsibility for it without having to bitch about how the other guy done him wrong. Adults need to get past the emotional need of justifying their own mistakes or peace can never be obtained.

The position that “the other guy was more mean, he should apologize first” is silly and juvenile. IMHO–YMMV.

[Coldfire]

*Originally posted by Demosthenesian *
**(Checks around to make sure this is the pit, and ModCrit is allowed. Yep.)

Ok…

Cold, Tuba, what the hell? “Annoy the natives”? This wasn’t exactly alt.tasteless invading rec.pet.cats, this was three Dopers logging on to another board, respectfully (at least at first) addressing the topic at hand, and getting shitted all over by the natives for no good reason except their lack of groupthink. I read that thread: Daniel exhibited nearly superhuman patience with some of the most disrespectful nonsense that I’ve seen outside of obnoxious gaming boards in a long while. While I might agree that running a post back to the Pit wasn’t a good idea, if we’re going to lay blame for being obnoxious, it isn’t to be laid at the feet of the dopers.**

Wrong. You’re visiting their boards, and are obviously disagreeing with the masses there. Now, I’m not saying your opinion is better or worse than theirs, but how would you feel if someone from www.conspiracies-r-us.com came here to talk about black helictopters and alien autopsies?
It certainly wouldn’t go down all that well with our crowd.
And your move to their board didn’t go down well with the crowd over there. This is in and of itself not a crime, but I think you’re a little naive for reading a few threads there and coming to any other conclusion than that you were going to be attacked for your opinions. They’re obviously not looking for an informed debate, nor are they looking for differing opinions. So why offer them?

What you do on other boards is of course your business. When you identify yourself and your friends as a group of Dopers, it becomes ours, too.

**There were no rules of conduct broken on the Ms board: as Daniel showed with his earlier postings, this is de rigeur for them and they obviously have had real debates in the past. Nobody said “let’s go over there and kick some ass”… dopers went over of their own accord to discuss the issue at hand. There is no reason to believe they’d be as irrational as the people at Left Behind; feminism is not a religion, not all feminists behave this way, and they had pretensions to intellectual and factual superiority that had nothing to do with the SDMB and everything to do with their intolerance of WrongThink. As Guin said, this didn’t even start here. **

No. But it certainly was brought here, wouldn’t you say?

**Coldfire, if nobody’s opinions are ever going to be changed, then their own movement is doomed. The existence of feminism itself suggests that one way or another people’s consciousness can be changed. To be at all meaningful, this must include feminists themselves. Guin, Catsix, Daniel and Ender knew that, even if those there did not. There’s no “invasion” when the nature of the invaders is the same as the invaded. There’s just a bunch of people who tried to enter a discussion, were treated rudely for no good reason, and linked back to a thread criticizing their treatment. If the Ms people don’t like the critique, fuck 'em. Their intolerance doesn’t deserve respect. **

Think whatever you want of them. Just don’t post on their boards giving them a link to a rant about them on THIS one.

It seems so easy to me.

[zut]

*Originally posted by Demosthenesian *
Cold, Tuba, what the hell? “Annoy the natives”? This wasn’t exactly alt.tasteless invading rec.pet.cats, this was three Dopers logging on to another board, respectfully (at least at first) addressing the topic at hand, and getting shitted all over by the natives for no good reason except their lack of groupthink.

Sorry, I’ve have to agree with Coldfire and Tuba. Let’s take a look at the first words in the first posts in the other thread by the other Dopers:

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
Um, so you have a problem with a guy actually caring about and enjoying the fact that you feel pleasure?

Originally posted by Cat Six
I’ve read this entire thread several times, and still I have to admit that the only poster I’ve agreed with is Guinastasia. The problem here isn’t men, and it’s not this ‘patriarchy’ bit either. The problem is that so many women have chosen to spend their lives looking for places and times that they’ve been victimized - and as the old adage goes you see what you look for.

*Originally posted by Pielorinho *
Okay, a quick fair’s fair: I (and Cat six) found this thread based on Guinastasia’s heads-up on another message board, The Straight Dope Message Boards. Y’all will be flattered to know what an impression you’ve made over there ;).

Look at this from their point of view: first Guinastasia rolls in implying everyone is an idiot, then Cat Six agrees and lectures everyone on what’s wrong with them, and finally Pielorinho admits that there’s a whole 'nother board out there making fun of them.

Just how could this not be perceived as a trolling invasion? Sure, it wasn’t a full-bore, guns-a-blazin’ flame-fest, but it did look like a concerted effort by members of another board to post contrary opinions with a dash of holier-than-thou attitude.

I should clarify that I’m not criticizing the opinions of the Dopers that posted on the other boards, but the perception given (albeit inadvertently) was of a troll invasion. Whatever good points were made pretty much got obscured by the initial condescention illustrated above, and the understandable reaction of the regulars to a bunch of upstart newbies. A shame, really, but if you really want people to listen to what you’re saying, initial impressions matter. Here’s an example of people who had the best of intentions, but said things that could be easily misconstrued. Predictably, they were.

[catsix]

Yeah, and I was just thrilled that someone linked back to this thread.

Since I was actually trying to participate in the discussion, I had an immediate reaction to seeing that link posted over there. That reaction was a nice sinking feeling and “Oh shit, there goes any hope that this will lead to rational conversation.”

So thanks, as if trying to participate in the discussion there as a chick with a differing opinion than the Ms. Mainstream wasn’t already hard enough, someone had to go and post a link to the place where frustrations are vented.

Yes, trying to talk to people who villify you if your opinion is different is hard, stressful, frustrating. Yes, sometimes it’s necessary to vent that frustration. It is NOT a good idea to show the people you’re trying to have a meaningful conversation with the places where you vent your frustration when the attempt becomes very stressful.

Other than that, I don’t see anything wrong with being there and expressing an opinion as a feminist, because that’s what the board there purports itself to be: a place for feminists to express themselves. That my opinion dissents with some of theirs is inevitable. The eye-roll response to that is juvenile, and I’d be just as disappointed if someone here used nothing other than an eye-roll smiley to respond to a new poster.

If their ideas are really rediculous, we can take 3 minutes to refute them with facts.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

Collounsbury: if you want to know what I was thinking when I posted the link, check out my post here on this thread explaining what I was thinking. As I said there, I was wrong to do so, and I apologize for doing so – but I was doing so because I thought it was the right thing to do, not in order to troll them. I generally think that when people are being attacked, they have a right to respond to the attacks; thus the link. My reasoning was wrong: their right to respond to attacks is outweighed by the necessity of preventing an inter-board flame war. But I wasn’t doing it out of maliciousness.

Mr. Blue, they didn’t shoot a gun at me, but then, I wasn’t trespassing in their yard. I’m sure you’ve studied analogies at some point in your past. If I felt I had done wrong by them, I’d apologize. But I don’t believe I did. I apparently did the moderators here wrong, by creating a mess for them to clean up, and it’s to them that I apologize.

And Guin, though I respect you too, give it a rest telling me to give it a rest, will ya? I’ll work though this stuff how I need to, and I hope you’ll do the same.

Daniel