Antipodean fruit grower statement

[nothingcomestonothing]

The antipodean fruit growers site is down. A statement from the owner reads in part:

What I fear more than losing my site, being sued, or dealing with police is living in a world where [redacted by me as would be against MN talk guidelines] while normal people are not allowed to even discuss it.

The mob has already planned subsequent targets. Should we stay down, they will then attack 'gender critical' communities - especially those ran by and for women. No place can exist online which criticizes [redacted], and nothing would excite them more than this power and domination struggle being inflicted on a female space instead.

Posted for info.

you can put that spin on it if you want. It's equally a bigoted person being bigoted.

It’s not bigotry if the woman has encountered the sea lion before.

it’s the woman’s lived experience

Again, you misunderstand. The woman appears to be bigoted until then end of the strip when most people have realised she's speaking from experience.

The reason why this cartoon became so popular is that it revealed a truth many people online understand, they've had the experience of "why is everyone so intolerant to that person just asking questions" changing to "oh, I see" once they've seen them in operation a few times.

The skill of a good cartoon, like a good joke, is to get the reader/listener to fill in the blanks of things not explicitly shown, and their joy is in the "a-ha!" moment. Rather than laying it all out so the reader/listener can simply absorb what's in front of them.

Personally I file this one under "thought-terminating cliche cartoons", along with that xkcd one about "consequences" and the bad one about the paradox of tolerance.

Trying to contort any given debate into a cartoon is not terribly productive.

Still, maybe better than all calling each other "kiwi farms users" which is apparently a thing on Twitter now. I guess "Nazi" wasn't strong enough. 😂

The sea lion overhears a woman having a private conversation with her husband, in their car. He follows them home, into their house, into their bedroom, overnight and won't even stop after breakfast.

It's stalker behaviour.

The woman doesn't like stalkers.

And to defend the sea lion very much demonstrates the sea lion's lack of self awareness.

Yes, the move from 'She's got a random prejudice' to 'bloody hell, I hate sea lions too' is entirely driven by the sea lion.

I refuse to believe anyone's this dense. We're still having our rims spun. Good think there was a lull in the real part of the conversation anyway.

you can put that spin on it if you want. It's equally a bigoted person being bigoted.

You're completely overthinking that she dislikes sea lions, I don't think it was meant to be an analogy for race.

Still, maybe better than all calling each other "kiwi farms users" which is apparently a thing on Twitter now. I guess "Nazi" wasn't strong enough.

It's an in-group thing that most normal people will not understand.

Glance down this page wondermark.com/2014-errata/ and the cartoonist explains all.

The sea lion is a pain in the arse.

So, I hear the TRA protest outside of the Cloudflare office was even less impressive than the protest by piss soaked ‘Trannies’ outside the EHRC?

(don’t smite me mumsnet, it’s the name of the protest group, hence my capital T!)

Exactly, that's the name of the "art group"

I accidentally saw a photo of the “art”. I had been trying to avoid it. I really feel for anyone who happened across the “artistic” protest while it was in process.

I reckon that sort of thing doesn’t turn up in “how to make friends and influence people”, well maybe it would in any rewrite influenced by queer theory… deconstructing social norms and all that.

Josh is doing his usual MATI stream later (I’ll watch on Odysee) which should bring us all up to date with the Keffals Kerfuffle.

we may need a new thread, this one is almost full!

This complete misunderstanding of sealions and the police thread this week have completely blown my mind at understanding how 'not everyone gets it'.

I'm going to listen to that this evening when I finish off my woodshed tidying as I can't bear to listen to my usual 6 music with all the doldrums on today so thanks for that @TheClogLady

It's not really working very well if it has to be explained at such length.

The cartoon taken at face value is a statement by someone who is expressing a bigoted and prejudiced attitude and refuses to explain her bigotry.

This can go on as long as you like, but it's not proving your (general your) points.

Alternatively the complete failure of securing universal validation of your viewpoint has completely blown your mind.

The sea lion cartoon, in my view, is poorly designed, ill thought out and fails to make the point you think it does. No doubt disagreeing with you is "sea lioning".

I read a very interesting essay the other day, Mary Harrington pointed to it on Unherd, about the kind of abstract thinking that is developed by deep reading. One of the things it suggested was that lack of development of that capacity means that people who read can't really access all the meaning in the text.

It struck me that this explains a lot of what we see now with people responding to things like comedy, or literature, or even children's books, in a way that seems completely inappropriate. They can't read reflectively or dialectically or see ambiguity that allows the reader to come to conclusions for what it is.

As far as that cartoon goes, at the beginning we don't know if the women's statement is based on anything or nothing. But you have to be able to understand that there is a sub-text, that the character has thoughts or feelings beyond what we see depicted, in order to realize that. Otherwise we assume what the caption shows is all there is. By the end we can see that yes, there were other underlying reasons for her statement, we don't know, still, what her original beef with sea lions was.

But there are a lot of people who no longer seem to be able to have that kind of interaction with even a cartoon.

No doubt disagreeing with you is "sea lioning".

No-one thinks this or has said it.

But yeah, just make stuff up if that suits you.

The sea lion cartoon, in my view, is poorly designed, ill thought out and fails to make the point you think it does. No doubt disagreeing with you is "sea lioning".

Sealioning is a well known term, Lass. You don't get to make up your own upside down definition and expect other people to adopt it.

Trying to contort any given debate into a cartoon is not terribly productive.

Agree.

Sea lions gonna sea lion.

It's only when you see it in action, and gradually come to understand what's happening, that you process it as a strategy.

What I don't get, is how deliberate it is.

Is the sea lion simply lacking in self awareness or is he employing a deliberate strategy?

If the aim is to change people's minds then it's a crap strategy.
If the aim is to use up peoples energy and leave them exhausted and frustrated, then we need to grey rock them!

You don't get to make up your own upside down definition and expect other people to adopt it.
That is pretty much the TRA playbook.

It is.

Lass - the sealion isn't 'disagreeing', that's isn't what is happening in the comic.

You might need to have another read of it. I get that you don't get it. I understand you might be deliberately not getting it in order to downplay the behaviour. But come on, you can't pretend that you think this is about 'viewpoints' and 'disagreements'.