On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.
We were wrong.
Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:
The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly.
Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.
These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.
Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.
Where does this leave us?
First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.
Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.
Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.
Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.
We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.
Thank you,
Kickstarter
One can argue (endlessly, cuz INTERNET) as to weather or not 4 hours was enough time, or how the money should be handled, etc. etc. but none of that matters. The point is, Kicksarter does not have and had not earned a reputation for being a cesspool like Reddit is, they got thrown a curve ball, they fixed it. Good for them. Kickstarter is good.
Regarding the money getting through to the project, that is clearly irrelevant. Bad people gave some bad person some money to do something bad. We’ll see how that goes. It will be funny when it does not go as planned.
Anyway, good job Kickstarter and good job Internet for acting responsibly.
CONvergence is the world’s largest fan run science fiction and fantasy convention held in Bloomington, MN on or around July 4th every year. An informal subset of the activities that occur at this huge gathering of people wearing costumes and stuff is a set of panels organized by Skepchick, focusing on various aspects of skepticism and science. I’ll be on a few of the panels this year, as usual.
Science is good at seeing things that you can’t really see. For example, science can provide an accurate three dimensional model of a critically important molecule even though no one has ever directly seen what this molecule looks like. That three dimensional model of the molecule can be used to understand things such as a) how life works and b) how to address some important disease.
Science can measure the exact proportions of each of several elements that are invisible that make up the air. We can sense the air but we can’t see Nitrogen vs. Oxygen vs. CO2 in the air, while Science can. Science can ascertain the invisible and the unpalpable. The actions and effects of those elements in the air are critically important. Were it not for Science’s ability to “see” them we would understand very little about some very important things.
There is a neat device some biology teachers use to get this point across. It is called The Ob=Scertainer. It is a device that demands that a student make the leap from thinking that if you can’t see something you can’t “see” it, to understanding that we can “see” what we can’t “see” if we are just a little smart about it. Or more accurately, if something does not leap to full realization of your usual senses, that does not mean it can’t be understood and no conclusions can be reached about it.
Before I describe that device, a small digression.
Years ago I was teaching a seminar in which we read a paper that would fit well into the modern “skeptics” community (I don’t mean science denialist here, but rather, regular skeptic) very much on the hyperskeptical end of the skeptical spectrum. The paper was about a certain skeleton found at a certain site, a very important one. Everybody who was anybody thought this skeleton was a burial, where a dead guy was put in the ground and covered over. The author of the paper argued that you could not say this. Every tiny bit of evidence that the skeleton was a burial was examined by the author and discounted. At the end there was not one stitch of evidence left uncriticized, unquestioned, in this paper. The students in the seminar all agreed that this set of bones was not a burial, and indeed, may not have even been an articulated skeleton.
One example of the critique involved the measurement of the distance between bones that normally adjoin in the human body. In most cases the distances between articular surfaces was outside the range found in normal humans, suggesting that the “skeleton” may not be “articulated.” In my view, all of these arguments were irrelevant. The bones were all in approximately the right place, the individuals was in a fetal position, sort of, and although it was not clear that there was a hole dug (the nature of the excavation did not allow this) there was a scattering of stones on top of the bones, which were then in turn buried over 60,000 years or so of accumulation of sediment above the skeleton.
In other words, the skeleton was to me clearly a burial, and the students had all been talked out of thinking this by a hypercritical, almost post-modern attack on the original conception. Which is a good thing, even if it is wrong. Evidence unassailed is never as good. But still, the thing was probably a burial.
So, I did this. I told the students that I was going to buy a beer for everyone in the room except the one person who was under 21, and she would have a non-alcoholic beverage of her choice. But only under one condition. Everyone was to write on the index cards I was passing out whether or not they thought this skeleton was a burial (write “burial”) or not (write “not burial”), without anyone else seeing their card. If everyone had the same exact opinion, everyone got a drink. Otherwise, nobody got a drink.
The cards were distributed, stuff written on them, and collected. The decision was unanimous. When push came to shove, when something very important (a beer) was at stake, each student decided that the burial was a burial.
Because a) it was a burial and b) the scales had cleared from the eyes of the students.
Now, back to this device that biology teachers use sometimes. The Ob-Scertainer.
It is a box with a certain shape inside. The space inside the box has various little walls or pegs or whatever inside the hollow area. Inside the box is a ball bearing that can move freely around in two dimensions. By tilting the box this way and that one can get a sense for what sorts of obstructions are inside the box, and attempt to draw a map of the interior space.
The students are in this way challenged to draw a two dimensional model of something they can’t see using indirect (and admittedly fuzzy) evidence. It takes time, there are sometimes errors, but they manage.
Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh are in a boat. They are in the middle of a deep, cold lake. If the boat sinks they will die of hypothermia and their corpses will sink to the bottom. There is a device in the boat that will sink it instantly, or alternatively, propel the boat to the safety of the shoreline where there are three martinis waiting for them, but it all depends on all three of them correctly answering a question. Notice that this is different from the scenario above, where the students only had to all agree. The students in my seminar were in fact interested in the truth, while the three people in this boat in this lake are not. So getting it right is the thing.
The question is, “Is global warming real, human caused, and important, yes or no.”
They don’t know who is asking the question. It could be the Heritage Institute, it could be Michael Mann with his finger on a remote that operates the device. But they are told that the best available science will be used to determine if they are wrong or right.
They will all answer “yes.”
Scientists know that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are increasing in the atmosphere. They know that this increases the amount of the sunlight that gets converted to heat staying around on the Earth longer, as opposed to going into outer space. They know that this heat is distributed among several parts of the earth approximately as follows:
Ocean 93.4%
Atmosphere 2.3%
Everything else 4.3%
Everything else includes the land surface of the earth and various ice sheets and so on.
Over the last several decades the overall temperature of the atmosphere, that 2.3% part of the equation, has gone up on average. Given any reasonable time period, i,e 10 or 15 years, it really has never gone down, though it has failed to go up very much now and then. The overall trend is up.
However, we have really good measurements (for the last several decades) for the Atmosphere, and for the surface of (but not the deeper parts of) the Ocean. This means that when the heat goes up more than expected in the Atmosphere, which it has done now and then, we can guess that this involves less heat going into the Ocean or to those other things. Conversely, when the temperature goes up less in the atmosphere than expected, we can guess that the “missing” heat went into the Ocean or one of the other places heat might go. For example, the heat in the atmosphere has not gone up over the last few years as much as predicted by drawing a straight line covering the last few decades, but instead,
Greenland ice cap has lost a lot of ice (which takes up heat).
The Arctic sea has lost a lot of ice (which takes up heat).
The few measurements in the deep ocean that we have show that it has gained a lot of heat.
It all makes sense and pretty much fits together, but there are many who claim that “global warming has plateaued” or that there is a “hiatus” in global warming.
See the extra heat going into the ocean? From Balmeseda, Trenberth and Kallen, 2013. Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat conent. Geophysical research letters 40(1-6).
OK here’s an analogy. You make $50,000 a year. You pay out 10,000 in taxes. Then, suddenly, taxes go up and now you are paying $20,000 a year in taxes. Would you claim that $10,000 a year has disappeared into thin air? No. The money still exists. Its just not you YOUR pocket (you are the Atmosphere) It is now in the Government’s pocket (the Government is the Ocean). And, in fact, since you are so small and the Government is so big, this shift in heat, er, money, will be noticed by you (the person) a lot, but very little by the big giant government.
People can see or feel when it is hot and cold, to a lesser extend they can know when there is drought, when there are major storms, when there are fires, and if they are paying attention they can observe when the sea rises up and eats part of New Jersey. But they can’t see when the surface of the earth, the ground, below your feet, goes up a half a degree, or when the ocean at depth gets a tiny bit warmer. They can see, on the news, the melting of the Arctic ice, but they may not “see” (as in “get”) the connection whereby Arctic ice melts and sucks energy out of the atmosphere that might otherwise have been a heat wave in Paramus.
But Science can see that!
There is not a hiatus in global warming. There is not a plateau in global warming. Global warming has not stopped. However, climate change (including and especially global warming) is one or two orders of magnitude more complex that, say, the plot of this book:
Global warming is slightly more complicated than this, despite the usual commentary by conservative columnists in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, who apparently can’t find their belly buttons.
But you wouldn’t know that from what we often see in the press, among commenters who demand that global warming be simple, or at least, exploit the belief that it is simple to misconstrue the meaning of any evidence of complexity. Shame on them.
The Ob-Scertainer requires that a student admit that she or he can know something unseeable. Modern medicine does that too. As does every electronic device you use, pretty much. And so does understanding climate change.
We don’t have time any more to mess around with denialism, false balance, and willful ignorance. Get on board or get a D, or even an F.
Strive we must, education in which, especially the men who lead. Thank you.
Actually, I feel bad for her … I think she just choked. One chokes under these circumstances. Of course, one should not if one wishes to rise to the top of the pageant thingie. Such as.
NOTE: I’ve rewritten this post and redone the graphic. The original map on which I based the reconstruction, provided by the USGS, is distinctly different than the one the USGS provides today. The difference is, in fact, rather dramatic. In comparing the older and newer versions of the maps, I have decided to assume the later, more recent, version is more correct. I admit to being a little annoyed at the USGS providing a truly bogus map on their web site, but that is water under the bridge, as it were. So, the following post is edited a bit and a new graphic is provided. Thanks to wehappyfew for pointing out the likely error on the map.
There have been times in the past when there was very little ice trapped in glaciers. During this time, sea levels were higher because that water was in the ocean (most of it, anyway). It has been a long time since then. However, with global warming, more and more glacial ice is returning to the sea and this contributes to sea level rise.
The amount of fossil carbon that needs to be released into the atmosphere to cause most of the glacial ice to melt is not known. We can’t directly use ancient time periods to assess modern sea level rise by measuring the sea levels from those periods because there has been too much other stuff going on in ocean basins and along current coast lines. But, we can estimate that there was very little glacial ice during, for example, the early Eocene, and the transition of Carbon in the atmosphere to the formation of glaciers might be under 800 ppm. So, if we double the current amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, maybe that would melt all the glaciers. There was more methane in the air at that time as well, but we are releasing plenty of methane as we also release Carbon, so that’s not much of a problem. The biggest factor is probably this: The configuration of continents have changed since that time to increase the likelihood of glacial formation at the poles, so returning to some Eocene (or other) atmospheric CO2 value may result in much less melting. But that’s OK, because we can certainly increase the amount of carbon to more than around 800 ppm!
If we release CO2 at approximately modern rates (baed on population size), and have population increase up to a point, thus increasing CO2 release (in other words, do nothing significant to mitigate Carbon release, increase the number of people actively releasing it, and population goes up towards 8 or so billion) we can reach over 1000 ppm by 2300 AD, or sooner. That’s surely enough to melt most of the glaciers except bits and pieces in the coldest regions of Antarctica.
It is estimated (see this web page.) that there is about 80 meters of ocean trapped in glacial ice. There are plenty of web sites out there that allow you to add ocean height to see how coastal regions would change, but the ones I know about don’t go to 80 meters. So, to find out what North America would look like, I found a map that has pixels to indicate altitude, with different colors representing topography, at a fine enough level to work with.
The USGS has a map with color coded topography. There is a color break at 60 meters, which is much less than the maximum possible sea level rise. The next break is at 114 meters. That is higher than sea levels will rise. However, if sea level rises to about 80 meters, it will do so unevenly (it may, for example, be much higher in the Carolinas). Then, as sea level rises, the land will be pushed down various amounts by the weight of the water, so 80 meters might be considered a minimum estimate of rise in some areas. Even more important, I suspect, erosion would cause important changes. If you look at, say, a 60 meter topo line in a region made of something other than hard rock, you have to assume that transgression of the sea including the effects of erosion would move way inland in some cases, beyond that topo line.
So, since we are at present looking for an 80 meter contour line easily located on the right scale map, and we only have 60 and 114, but the real contour line we are probably looking for is higher than 80, we could round UP to 114. But that would almost certainly depict inundation of areas that won’t actually be inundated. So, what I’ve decided to do is to put the ocean at 60 meters, then make a grey area (to reflect, well, this being a grey area!) between 60 meters and 114 meters. With ALL of the ice melted, the shoreline will likely be somewhere in this grey area, probably covering all of it (and more?) along the south coast and probably much less in Maine. Either way, Florida is toast. Wet soggy toast.
Also, I decided to focus in on this map a bit and depict the US east of the Rockies. At this scale, the west coast is fairly uninteresting using this method (the continental margin is right at the coast, so it is very steep). And, the transgression effect, the sea moving laterally across the land after a rise, is probably very locally variable and unpredictable there anyway.
One of the interesting things I discovered is that when defining the zone between 60 and 114 meters, that turns out to be a fairly narrow strip along much of the coast. This is what one would expect if somewhere in that zone is the original high strandline from the last time sea levels were that high (a few million years ago or so). So that’s cool.
Amazon has sent a letter to all of its associates based in Minnesota. All Minnesota based associates are being thrown out of the Amazon Associates program as of July 1st. This is because the State of Minnesota passed a bill that Amazon does not like. Amazon may well have a good reason to not like this (or any other) bill, but I’m shocked and dismayed that the response is to strike out against its loyal associates.
This is where fine print rears its ugly head. If the contract between associates and Amazon was a normal business contract, it would not likely be possible to terminate it with just a few days notice. At the moment, Minnesotans who use the Associates program, collectively, have a gazillion links on their web sites and blogs pointing to Amazon, and Amazon will continue to reap the benefits of those links (or force Minnesotan web developers and bloggers to spend considerable effort undoing the links), while Amazon will not be holding up their end of the bargin.
This affects me a little … I’ve got some Amazon Associate links, though the total income they bring in for me is very small. Still, that is how I was paying the server fee for The X Blog (or at least most of it most months).
I’d love to change the associates links to Barnes and Nobel, but the last time I looked at their associates program it sucked and was difficult to use. Maybe I’ll have another look.
This, by the way, is why THIS IS TRUE even though I appear to the the only person on the planet who sees the impending end of civilization as we know it!
Deliverance at Hand!: The Redemption of a Devout Jehovah’s Witness is James Zimmerman’s fascinating story of growing up as a zealous Jehovah’s Witness. It is a gripping account of the unique difficulties and all-consuming nature of belonging to an insulated, apocalyptic community. James is held up as a shining example for other youths in the religion, is given unprecedented privileges, and spends his youth proselytizing. He may very well have knocked on your door.
But as he matures, fissures begin to form in the bedrock of his fundamentalist Jehovah’s Witness belief system. Is the bible the literal, infallible word of God? Can the story of Noah’s ark really be true? Are these the final days before Armageddon? Will the Witnesses soon inherit paradise while the nonbelievers are destroyed? Is the day of deliverance truly at hand?
As James’ doubts grow, so does his predicament: Leaving a religious community that teaches its members to shun former members would have deep and painful ramifications. He must make the decision between intellectual honesty and his way of life.
At this point I think you can only PRE ORDER it but go ahead and do that!
Bob Alberti is a friend of mine in Minneapolis (actually, he was even my student for a few weeks). I was rather startled to see is very scary face staring at me from the Internet this morning (see above). All I can say, is if you run into this guy, watch out! His snark is very, very sharp.
From the Star Tribune article featuring Bob:
A recent study declared Minneapolis parks the best in the nation. We also have another fine natural resource: technology pioneers/comedians who go on the Internet and smack down snooty New Yorkers. Which brings us to Bob Alberti.
…
“When I was a kid, I went from living in Queens, where my mother was cruel and wouldn’t let me swim in the overflowed sewers in the streets, to living on a lake in Minnesota, and I knew what I liked better.”
“I am a professional insult comedian.”
Bob invented two things before he started his career as a Vilification Tennis master: He invented gaming and he invented the internet!
I’ve noticed a lot of Internet chatter about the Mantis Shrimp lately, and I don’t know what that is about. But it could be this:
How would you design an experiment to test each of the hypotheses suggested here?
(Also, I note that I do not endorse the contents of this video. Spiffy music and a smart sounding voice tells our brains this must all be true and accurate but most YouTube videos like this in areas I now about are full of mistakes. If you are an expert on this stuff feel free to make comments or corrections below. Also, my reference to “cold fusion” is snark, in case that was not obvious.)
is James Zimmerman’s fascinating story of growing up as a zealous Jehovah’s Witness. It is a gripping account of the unique difficulties and all-consuming nature of belonging to an insulated, apocalyptic community. James is held up as a shining example for other youths in the religion, is given unprecedented privileges, and spends his youth proselytizing. He may very well have knocked on your door.