Be Excellent To Each Other

Really? You're getting upset on Osborne's behalf because someone is calling him 'Gideon'?

Have you seen what these twats have already done, and what they're intending to do this term?

All the more reason not to use weak ad hominem attacks.

..........................................

Yeah, it's all "Gideon's" fault that Greece is about to default, what with him being the great supporter of the Eurozone that he is, and given he and his party have had so much influence over these events and aren't hostages to fortune at all, Ed Miliband would've solved it all etc. etc. blah blah check out this Channel 4 documentary...

... I honestly wouldn't know where to start with this and don't even remotely have the inclination so to do, frankly. I'm happy to have an intelligent debate with anyone, but there are certain basic prerequisites for that, even for me.

Personally I wish you'd start your own thread for this stuff, as I've mentioned before (so I know to stay well out of it), rather than putting it here. I am not interested in any of it.

'Political Banter and Debate Thread'

Cavey - 'Don't post your thoughts about politics in here if I think they're stupid'

Perhaps you could list what minimum standards we have to meet to be allowed to post in your thread?

I'd rather not be drawn on this, I have enough on my plate right now without getting involved in some pointless spat on the internet.

Look, there's just never going to be any agreement; whatever pearls of wisdom I could fairly miraculously come up with would never change yours, Cobracure's or a few others' views, not by one micrometer. So what's the point of even bothering? At best it's frustrating and, more likely, just serves to piss everyone off, including bystanders as well as participants, plus I just cannot be bothered. I'm not putting myself forward as some towering intellect, great debater or whatever, far from it on both counts, but one thing I can honestly say in all truthfulness is that I couldn't give a stuff about ideology for its own sake? This, I am afraid, is a clear distinguishing feature so, if you're looking for 'criteria', that might be a good starting point.

Can't be bothered with this, seriously. Life's too short.

Boris being one of the few to speak basic sense in recent days: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/society ... -news.html

Yeah let's take this bloke's comments out of context to demonize him on the internet and make him lose all of his positions he's worked all his life for. Social justice warrior cunts at their finest.

Nah. It was a fucking dumb thing to say - and he's a man who's in a position where he should be working to encourage both men and women into scientific fields, not discourage. Did some people give him possibly give him more abuse that warranted? Sure - but that's what happens with comments on the internet. Did he fuck up and deserve a public dressing down for what he said? Absolutely.

Am I the only one who hasn't the slightest idea what 'this stuff' actually is? I read the post that came after this as well which included some meaningless waffle around the word 'ideology' and that couldn't have possibly explained less.

Nor me, but I am easily confused

Seriously Bamba, is all this really that fascinating to you? I saw your last glowering post a few days back and thought it best to skip it for all concerned, but now you're back again. Ever thought about adding something constructive to the discussion?

Actually it should be pretty obvious what "this stuff" is. "This stuff" is broadly anything that is fairly obviously based on some grievance or other; you know, the kind of stuff that relies heavily on ad hominem (as others, not me, have noted btw), endless "Evil fucking Tories" type comments and suchlike. That isn't debate, it's just trying to get a rise out of people.

He was wrong to have said it. At my most charitable, he was naive to think it could be seen as being light hearted. But he went on for 7 minutes. It isn't just those 3 points. He should have known a lot better.

He was talking about his personal experience and if that's that people at work tend to fancy each other with messy results, fair enough. Women do cry more than men generally, as Boris pointed out, and it's not actually sexist to say that. Obviously the guy wasn't typifying all women as hapless love wannabes lacking emotional control, but the very worst interpretation has been picked out by feminists and SJWs alike to manufacture the maximum amount of outrage, as usual.

I met my gf at work, she's a scientist, and she cries at the drop of a hat, particularly concerning stressful work things like publication pressure. OMG sexism! Except not.

No that isn't sexist, but were you to state, based upon your experience with your gf, that all women behave in that way, then that would be sexist.

If I'd experienced it several times over 40 years in the same industry, I might make a few remarks about it in an interview in South Korea and not think too much about it.

Which is fair enough, and you'd be wrong to do so, but (AFAIK) you aren't a Nobel award winner and are not an ambassador for your field. Doing so as an ambassador of your field is still wrong, and there are repercussions associated with doing so when you are in such a position.

Have to agree to be honest. To my mind, it was a pretty daft, ill-advised thing to do; we clearly don't have enough women in engineering and science as it is.

If I'm being charitable in the extreme and assume it really all was meant just as a joke and nowt more, then it was a pretty stupid joke. (Sure I read somewhere, though, that he more or less said he really did think some of the stuff he said though anyway?)

Just beggars belief that someone with such intelligence can apparently have so little self-awareness and fail to see the importance of what he says as part of such a public forum? Surely the utter tumbleweed reception after 30 seconds in should've told him all was not well also? Amazing, really.

A storm in a teacup. At worst a silly joke that in no way merits the backlash. Now his career is in ruins and there are plenty of disgusting worthless cunts out there who haven't ever contributed anything to science who are revelling in absolute bloody glee about it. It's the best they could ever hope for, because you don't get a Nobel Prize for lording over social justice on the internet. Cunts.

When I was a biological scientist, I think it was a 50/50 split in the lab, but of the 3 professors in the department, only one was female. Certainly, there were more male group leaders than female.

He was also asked if he meant it jokingly and would like to apologise, and he said he did mean it jokingly, but that it is also true and stands by it (that women hinder science by crying and he would prefer single sex labs as they would be less distracting).

I think if he had just come out and apologised unreservedly he would have been fine.

Oh, I'm not suggesting he should have his career in ruins or anything like that, just saying it was a pretty reprehensible and foolish thing to say (IMO).

Seems to be the way of things now; one strike and you're out, say something on Twitter etc. and you might well regret it, esp. if you're in the public eye.

Even if it went unreported, it remains that he should have not said it, and that he should have known not to say it.

I'll need a citation for that. Unless of course that's just the extrapolation designed to make it sound awful.

Again with the unexplained 'this'. I reads posts on this forum. Sometimes I comment. I don't know what to say aside from that because I've no idea what I'm even responding to here.



My last 'glowering' post was to add some personal experience of staffing methods on both sides of the public/private sector fence which was pretty relevant to what was being talked about at the time. Feel free to skip over anything I said but chucking weasel words at me while trying to pretend that, what, you're doing the entire forum a favour or something, is just nonsense. You clicked Post Thread on an internet forum. Get over yourself man.



"Anything that is fairly obviously based on some grievance or other"? That's such a broad statement as to be utterly meaningless! People hold political opinions for all sorts of reasons and legitimate grievances are surely right up there in terms of validity! Ad hominem attacks are pointless of course, but things get pretty salty around here at times (your chum EBJ is the king of such things but I note you're never rushing to pull him up for "this stuff") and it's hardly a deal breaker; unless you make a massive deal out of it, as you keep tying to do. You're going to get stuff like 'evil fucking Tories' in these discussions because people genuinely believe some of the actions of that party to be evil. The fact that you started this thread doesn't mean you get to tell people which opinions they're allowed to espouse and which aren't fit for discussion. You do seem to think that you do for some reason, but you don't man, really.

With 3 people there is always going to be an imbalance...

For what it's worth, as far as I remember, there was a fairly clear imbalance in the lab I was in. Of the order of 100% in one direction for people actually working in the lab who weren't undergrads. (And for that matter, the undergrads diaplyed a heavy imbalance in the same direction)

I call twats twats, to be sure, but if Cavey disagrees with me I don't call him a twat because he isn't one. Sometimes he's a bit wrong, but generally polite and respectful. The same for others I respect on this forum (a very short list). It can't be said for plenty of others here who revert to 'hurr durr EVIL TORIES hurr durr' at every applicable story while demonstrating identical behaviour which they'd otherwise rail against if the situation was reversed, otherwise known as hypocrisy.

I'm hugely outnumbered by women here. There are more than 50% working here. It's a female director, I have a female boss, etc etc. It doesn't bother me in the least, but having said that there are a huge number of initiatives and support efforts for women in science now designed to give them a leg up in training and advancement. Tough shit if you're a bloke; no special help for you, you'll have to get by on the patriarchy for your success.

Yes. I do hope that one day we can get a bit more focus on the terrible plight of men in the workplace.

Yes you've done that before Craster. Ignore any struggles faced by the individual and focus only on their sex. If they need help and they're a man fuck them and point to the historical success of other men as a mitigating reason. Totally fair and logical.

Your company doesn't offer you any training at all? No one will give you any support or assistance if you ask? Wow, yeah, that's pretty awful; you should probably leave.

Well, d'uh.
[edit]Huh, actually, I guess they'd only actually have to be two of them to outnumber you.


Much like you just did in your previous post?

I would be interested to hear about what incentives / opportunities females in your workplace get that men don't, though.

I also had a feeling that you were self-employed and worked at home, but I guess that's not true*.

*Unless this is all a highly elaborate joke about being married

@Bamba (emphases added)



OK, I think we can both agree that I was not, even at all, suggesting that private companies are ALL (or anything like) 'humming machines of efficiency', and in fact clearly said the exact opposite.

Similarly, I equally did not say that the public sector 'flushes money down the toilet for a laugh', and in fact offered my own hypothesis as to why inefficiencies seem to creep into the equation over time, albeit said this was an unintended consequence (and therefore not a conscious decision or intention at all).

So basically, then, your entire post is facetious, provocative and, most importantly, is based on a deliberately false premise from start to finish, which I'm somehow expected to defend/answer to despite not saying or thinking anything of the sort, and if I don't do so I need to "get over myself" (oh, with a nice little 'weird belief' thrown in for good measure to up the ante, despite my having taking quite a lot of effort to explain my reasoning). The reason why I didn't answer you (and why to have done so would've been fucking tedious for everyone else reading), then, should now be crystal clear? Good.

Your latest post:



I like "my chum" EBG and yeah, we agree about some stuff, but most certainly not all the time. See above. (Funnily enough, though, I don't feel the need to forensically dissect and nit-pick _every_single_thing_ that he, or indeed any of my other some-time detractors have to say)

Seriously, I'd have a lot more respect for you if you just called me a cunt and had done with it. I really would.

Now if you'll excuse me etc.

It was in direct response to you talking about differences based entirely on sex.

Also, it's well known and accepted that something is necessary to get women into STEM fields, because we've been failing to do it for decades. Positive discrimination works, unquestionably. Now, if your specific field is denying you an opportunity as a man that a woman would be offered, that's a bad thing and should be addressed. But note that I'm pretty sure that nobody at the top of your field has ever stood up in front of a global audience of their peers and intimated that men are a distraction in <your job> and should be segregated off because they can't handle the pressure.

Actually, intimated is the wrong word. Flat-out declared, is probably better.

You said "public sector/nationalised companies are, by their definition, NOT optimally efficient". Obviously it's then a complete mystery how I could think you were claiming public sector = inefficient! Yes, I used a bit of hyperbole in the way I stated it but you're far from above that yourself, and if you're having to stoop to taking everything 100% literally just to prove how worthless my post was then I think you're barrel scraping a bit there.



I'd take issue with the adjectives facetious and provocative; just because you don't like what I said doesn't mean I did it solely to annoy you, as convenient as that would be for you. Note also that my accusation at you needing to get over yourself isn't based on whether you reply to me or not. You're perfectly welcome to ignore me entirely of course. What I continue to take issue with are your attempts to police what people are even allowed to say here and on that score you absolutely need to get over yourself. I suspect this was entirely clear and you're just conflating stuff to strengthen your faux-exasperation at all 'this stuff'.



No, you wouldn't. You'd just point at it as yet another example of 'that stuff' that you so tiresomely have to deal with when anyone who's not on your approved list opens their mouth.

Hush, you tedious pair.

</pointless>

Don't you start.

Yup, no probs.

Wow. We're lucky you come here at all!

You are. I remain baffled that I'm here.

You're here for the same reasons that I am I suspect, ergo there are loads of interesting people here with divergent views about stuff, and for every one of "these type" of discussions, there are three, five, ten others that are great.

I purposely avoided this, my old politics thread, precisely because it seems to be a red rag to a bull to some people. (Conceded, I sometimes don't help either)

Personally I'm looking forward to the BBQ where I can actually meet some of these guys and gals I've been speaking with for 10 years or more, and I'm not planning on mentioning politics once - only beer and Champagne.

The bbq are awesome

Challenge accepted!

I am so going to make you talk about politics!

Curio, you're a bad, bad man. I'd prefer my Beex maiden voyage not to involve my getting beaten up or made to do hideous drinking challenges.

Wait! That's optional? You fiends!

Okay. I'll just drink your champagne then!

CPI back into positive (just), at 0.1% for May, a net increase of +0.2% from April.

Not sure exactly where this belongs, but Bruce has popped up in this thread a few times.

https://twitter.com/profanityswan/statu ... 5195717632

L-lol