Papineau v. Manne on Twitter

The snapshot below of the twitter exchange is pretty self explanatory. It might help to know that Papineau is referring to a letter from Manne that the TLS printed, with unfortunately one sentence ommitted that’s unfortunate because the ommitted sentence, as I underrstood it, went into some specifics about how philosophical combat works against women. This missing material is brought up in the exchange.

Part of Manne letter is copied here.

There was quite a bit more to the twitter exchange. I’m putting it up because it vivdly illustrates how a senior philosopher with a great deal of experience of academia, can be quite clueless about a powerful negative feature women face.

And I’d love to hear what you all think.

Unfortunately the links on the snapshot don’t work.

phlosophical babies – a new record?

From the Onion:

“This shatters all previous records,” University of Chicago psychologist Douglas McAllister said Monday. “In all of documented medical history, there is no case of a newborn taking less than four months to develop the mental faculties required to grasp the full extent of this existential nightmare we call life on earth.”

“Considering he already comprehends harsh realities that many people spend their entire fleeting, shallow existences attempting to deny, [6 day old] Baby Nathan is quite the little miracle!” he added.

Though he has not yet developed the capacity for speech, extensive cognitive testing has definitively shown that the shockingly perceptive 6-day-old fully understands and accepts that human beings cannot be trusted, that they remain far too ignorant for their opinions to be reliable, that a lack of self-awareness about their own destructive tendencies pervades the species as a whole, and that most are too ineffectual to successfully pursue even the shallow self-interested agendas that rule their lives.

When giving my 3 day old son a bath in a big training room at the Radcliffe Maternity hospital, I wasn’t even sure he had distinguished himself from the other babies.

Today-ish in the News (multiple links)

“Stephen Colbert Shares Why He Thinks Women Should Be in Charge of Everything” (Glamour Magazine, Aug 15)

“I’m going to do my best to create a Late Show that not only appeals to women but also celebrates their voices. These days TV would have you believe that being a woman means sensually eating yogurt, looking for ways to feel confident on heavy days, and hunting for houses. But I’m going to make a show that truly respects women, because I know that there’s more than one way to be one.”

“I believe gender is a spectrum, and I fall somewhere between Channing Tatum and Winnie the Pooh.”

“Teenage Girls Are Playing Video Games. You Just Might Not Hear Them.” (Kotaku, Aug 17)

“Only 28 percent of the girls who play video games online use voice chat to talk to other players. (More than 70 percent of the teenage boys who play online talk—a lot, as I can attest after years of ethnographic study.)”

“Racial Wealth Gap Persists Despite Degree, Study Says” (New York Times, Aug 16)

“Economists emphasize that college-educated blacks and Hispanics over all earn significantly more and are in a better position to accumulate wealth than blacks and Hispanics who do not get degrees. […] But while these college grads had more assets, they suffered disproportionately during periods of financial trouble.

“From 1992 to 2013, the median net worth of blacks who finished college dropped nearly 56 percent (adjusted for inflation). By comparison, the median net worth of whites with college degrees rose about 86 percent over the same period, which included three recessions — including the severe downturn of 2007 through 2009, with its devastating effect on home prices in many parts of the country. Asian graduates did even better, gaining nearly 90 percent.”

“Here’s What Happened When Janelle Monáe Brought Up #BlackLivesMatter On the Today Show” (Arts.Mic, Aug 16)

“During a performance on Friday’s episode of NBC’s Today show, black singer-songwriter Janelle Monáe was apparently cut off after she began to dedicate a song to victims of police brutality.”

“‘I Was Almost Another Dead Black Male'” (StoryCorp, featured on The Atlantic, July 23) [Video Auto Plays]

“Alex Landau, who is African American, was raised by his adoptive white parents to believe that skin color didn’t matter. That all changed at 19, when he was pulled over by the Denver police for making an illegal left turn. In this StoryCorps animation, Traffic Stop, Landau recalls how police officers pulled him out of the car, began to hit him in the face, and threatened to shoot him. […] [Landau] and his mother, Patsy, remember that night and how it changed them both forever. “For me it was the point of awakening to how the rest of the world is going to look at you,” Landau says. “I was just another black face in the streets.””

“Traffic Stop will make its national broadcast premiere on PBS’s documentary series POV alongside Don’t Tell Anyone (No Le Digas a Nadie), a film by Mikaela Shwer, on September 21, 2015.”