If I'm getting this right, a White woman who started a failed MeToo org for people in STEM only to be accused of racist harassment herself was exposed as having created an account where she pretended to be a nonexistent queer Native American professor at Arizona State University.
And she was exposed after trying to ditch the account by claiming the prof died of COVID and doing this bizarre eulogy thread to her.
This must have been a pretty successful run as the eulogy thread is filled with people claiming to have known the Native American prof and liked her.
Some people in the eulogy thread are mentioning "Hopi talismans" she was sending them, so did she actually send out fake Hopi talismans to people? Not the most important detail, but I'd still like to know.
Seems like she was hoist by her own petard as the fake account's followers got mad that ASU didn't put out an official eulogy for her, suspecting anti-queer and anti-indigenous bias, which in turn prompted this and initiated the unraveling:
Been reading about it lately, and IMO the failed Mongol/Chinese Yuan invasion of Java is perhaps a more interesting story overall than their invasion of Japan (which gets more notice). Would make a great tv series.
The conflict began when Kertanegara, a colorful Javanese king who styled himself an avatar of both the Hindu god Shiva & the Buddha, responded to Kublai Khan's demand to accept his sovereignty by branding his envoy's face w a hot iron, cutting his ears, & sending him back.
The Khan sent a massive punitive expedition of 1,000 war junks in response. Meanwhile, expecting an invasion, Kertanegara scrambled to consolidate his own power, invading neighboring regions to strengthen himself, & dealing w betrayals & rebellions along the way. Eventually, he
The more I read of Prostasia, the more like a boutique pedophile advocacy org it seems, even if for non-offending pedophiles (though even that seems less & less clear), & the more the stuff about protecting kids seems like an afterthought or a convenient framing for other goals.
Why is an org that brands itself as primarily about child protection hosting "sexual liberation panels" about why "fantasies aren't abuse?" Why does the workshop promo specifically reference fetishes involving baby roleplay with stuffed animals & pacifiers?
By their own admission, Prostasia is not merely a child protection org. They fight "the abuse of human rights in the name of children," "bigotry" & "unchecked government surveillance." They don't mean bigotry against or surveillance of children.
All feelings re: NB, puritan panics, uncritical disgust reactions, etc, aside, IMO it's clear that one of their main goals is advocacy for the rights of pedophiles, even if just non-offending ones, & not just as a way to make kids safer. They should just be explicit about this.
They might even have more success that way than by pretending the tortured "not ALL child abusers" takes or pro-lolicon & child sex doll advocacy are really part of an evidence-based approach to keeping kids safe.
Not only did the prosecutor make the false claim that 13 year old Adam Toledo had a gun, which they are now trying to downplay, the video, which is genuinely horrific (be warned) makes it clear he had his hands up when they shot him.
I'm already regretting watching the video. Don't really have the stomach to watch a 13 year old gunned down. Also not sure if sharing it is right or not, except that it clearly shows the cops murdered him, contra whatever they say.
Article on the gun. Specifically, the spokesperson for Cook County State’s Attorney now says the County Assistant State’s Attorney, who claimed that "he has a gun in his right hand," had "failed to fully inform himself before speaking in court."
Revisiting this several years on. I still think Boyer and Atran are largely correct about how to understand religion. The divide between "elite" and "popular" religion, in particular seems more and more salient to me all the time.
Roughly, elite religion, which researchers previously considered representative out of their own bias, is the product of sociological & psychological outliers, & gains broader social purchase primarily through coercion, but quickly loses its hold without that. It's where most of
the most salient differences bw religions are at their most pronounced. Popular religion, by contrast, seems more deeply similar everywhere, and includes a lot of beliefs/practices previously dismissed by researchers as not representative of their respective religions, but which
One of the most stunning exchanges I've ever seen on here, branching out into multiple, simultaneous threads, quote tweets, etc. Can't capture it all, but here are some of the main branches. Politics twitter has nothing on engineering twitter. If you've got a few min, be amazed.