This #manosphere #glossary documents the more common terms of art, neologisms, and memes used by men's rights activists, pick-up artists, Men Going Their Own Way, and other denizens of the manosphere.

#RationalWiki #mgtow
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Manosphere_glossary

The term Lost Cause of the South refers to a number of interpretations of the American Civil War from an effectively pro-Southern perspective. All wars in history have had complex, nuanced reasons for their occurrence, but the idea of the "Lost Cause" is a classic example of #denialism, where the conflict is reframed to minimize or even completely ignore the primary cause of the US Civil War; the existence of #slavery. This #mythos makes reference to a number of different themes, and these appear in various pop culture sources and persist to this day.

Almost immediately after the war ended in 1865, the defeated Southern states had to form a coherent reason why they had engaged in a rebellion against the Union. Such reason could not highlight the centrality of slavery to the Southern cause, but instead had to minimize, or even deny, the role of slavery.

…

#RationalWiki #lostcause #lostcauseofthesouth
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_South

A logical #fallacy is an error in the logic of an argument that prevents it from being logically valid or logically sound, but need not always prevent it from swaying people's minds.

Examples of fallacies include the straw-man fallacy, in which one distorts another person's argument, which often makes his or her argument easier to attack. As with most fallacies, the straw-man fallacy may result from sloppy thinking — or, more dubiously, used on purpose. The ad hominem is also a common fallacy where you attack the person who makes the argument, even though the validity of an argument is likely entirely independent of the character of a person who makes it. This is frequently used in political discourse. Another common fallacy is the non sequitur, in which someone takes premises and then forms a conclusion that the premises do not logically support.

#RationalWiki #logicalfallacy
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy

This is a list of fields of endeavors and concepts that have been regarded as pseudoscientific by (1) organizations that are representative of the international scientific community and/or (2) mainstream skeptical organizations. They may have explicitly called a field or concept "pseudoscience" or used words to that effect. Also included are important concepts associated with the main entries, and concepts that, while notable, have not elicited commentary from mainstream scientific bodies. Notable parodies of pseudoscientific concepts are also included.

#RationalWiki #pseudoscience
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_pseudosciences

#Libertarianism is, at its simplest, the antonym of authoritarianism. The term was coined at the end of the 18th century (in the sense of metaphysical libertarianism), first being used politically in Joseph Dejacque's letter to Proudhon titled "On the Human Being, Male and Female" and was used mainly for self-identification with anarcho-communism and labor movements. Albert Jay Nock and H. L. Mencken were some of the first prominent figures in the United States who used libertarianism. However, Murray Rothbard was most responsible for popularizing libertarianism to describe a political and social philosophy that advocates laissez-faire capitalism as a panacea for virtually everything. Non-libertarians view this as synonymous with oligarchic plutocracy after the fashion of the American Gilded Age. Meanwhile, the reality-based community tends to realize that one cannot just yank economic theories out of the air and magically expect them to work.

#RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Libertarianism

Richard Eimer Lensk is the Hannah Professor of Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the genetic mechanisms and ecological processes that drive evolutionary change, and has attracted worldwide recognition for the immediacy of its insights into this usually unseen "force."

In June 2008 the popular science magazine New Scientist printed a story about Lenski's twenty-year project examining the #evolution of E. coli. They reported that, as a result of several beneficial mutations, his organisms had acquired the ability to metabolize citrate — or more correctly an ability to transport it through the cell wall prior to metabolizing it. This was an entirely new ability for this species — an increase in complexity provided by a beneficial mutation. This beneficial trait was then fixed in the population by natural selection.

#RationalWiki #richardlenski #naturalselection #ecoli
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Richard_Lenski

Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. (a.k.a. "Lyn Marcus" when he was in the Socialist Workers Party) was a very special kind of #cult leader/American political animal, a perennial candidate for President and the ultimate wingnut/moonbat, encompassing both the extreme left and extreme right.

The LaRouche organization attempts to recruit followers from across the political spectrum. Though his organization has been active in other countries (particularly #Australia and Germany), his home base and constituency has traditionally been largely American.

#RationalWiki #lyndonlarouche #uspolitics #germanpolitics
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche

Anatoly Karlin (Анатолий Карлин), known as powerfultakes, is a #Russian white nationalist, anti-vegan activist and #homophobe who supports the Russo-Ukrainian War. Karlin has admitted to finding 14 year old girls "hot" and once posted a picture of a 14 year old girl on his Twitter account. In 2019, Karlin admitted to being a "racist and very happy with that", after posting how much he dislikes black people on Reddit. On his website, Karlin promotes an animal-based #ketogenic diet and has boasted on Twitter that he eats insects He also supports other low-carbohydrate quackery such as the Atkins diet and carnivore diet.

#RationalWiki #anatolykarlin #WhiteNationalism
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karlin

The idea that the #Joseph of the Old Testament was #Imhotep is a mixture of the usual "Biblical history" pseudo-historical distortion, with a bit of crossover appeal to the lunatic fringe "Alternative" #Egyptology nuts. It's a kind of anti-intellectual, anti-historical supermarket, with something for everyone.

Jason Colavito has traced the historiography of the connection between #pyramids and Joseph's grain silos to the late antiquity and early medieval writers Julius Honorius and Gregory of Tours. Honorius' Cosmographia, probably written in the 4th or 5th century CE, specifically mentioned that the pyramids were Joseph's granaries, whereas Gregory's 6th century History of the Franks alluded to the same idea, but without using the word "pyramid".

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#RationalWiki #Bible #oldtestament #pseudohistory
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Joseph_was_Imhotep

#Jesus, otherwise known as Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity (in case the name didn't give it away), and also a prophet in Islam, while "The Patron Saint of All Things Republican" actually "was" a socialist Jew from the Middle East. "Jezus" is made the king of Poland.

In #Christian theology, Jesus is the son of God, born to the Virgin Mary (just take her word for it). His function in the divine plan was that of the scapegoat, the human sacrifice which allegedly atoned for the very same fall of man which his father had planned all along. Once that necessary step of the scheme had been completed, Jesus became the original zombie (or at least lich) in the process, after which he conjured up a zombie army (Matthew 27:52). The Quran views Jesus as a Muslim, the prophesied Messiah, and the predecessor of Muhammad.

#RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jesus

@DrALJONES Effective altruism (EA), aligned with longtermism, is a movement to change the world through making carefully-targeted charitable donations — not only through making carefully-targeted charitable donations, but that is the overwhelming focus. Philosopher Peter Singer started the idea and buys into it big time, pushing it hard wherever he goes. Effective Altruism is also pushed by Bay Area technolibertarians, and artificial intelligence existential risk groups, including MIRI (Machine Intelligence Research Institute). The latter, of course, consider themselves an obvious beneficiary — if not the obvious beneficiary (i.e., self-dealing).

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#RationalWiki #effectivealtruism
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Effective_altruism

#Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and known as "Persia" by the West until the mid 20th century, is a large and populous country in the Middle East. As a Shia country in a region dominated by Sunnis, it has traditionally had hostile relations with most neighbors. These neighbors include Turkey, the Gulf States like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the former Soviet Turkic republics, and the rowdy neighbors Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iranian national identity is closely tied to its status as the continuation of the ancient Persian civilization. One of those Persian dynasties, the Safavids, was largely responsible for Iran's mass conversion to Shia Islam. Iran's capital and largest city is Tehran.

Iran is one of the ancient cradles of civilization, being home to the Elamite kingdoms, the ancient Median culture, and the massively powerful Achaemenid Empire. …

#RationalWiki #iranhistory
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Iran

Intelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy.

Intelligent design proponents like to make a lot of noise about academic repression and denial of academic freedom. Beyond the whining are very few specific examples, and usually upon closer scrutiny even these examples seem duplicitous.

Ultimately, intelligent design is just a #newspeak rebranding of #creationism; though it uses scientific jargon, it is not science because it violates the principle of methodological naturalism, is not falsifiable, and does not use scientific methodology.

#RationalWiki #intelligentdesign
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_academic_freedom

The #HPV #vaccine is a vaccine that immunizes against various forms of human papillomavirus, depending on which vaccine you get. There are three vaccines currently in existence. The vaccine is relatively recent; the first shot became available in the United States in 2006.The shot is so pivotal to human health that it is currently on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines. …

In the earliest days of scientific taxonomy, a European rabbit was incorrectly taxonomized as a distinct species, Lepus cornutus. It is now believed that the rabbits were actually normal rabbits that had been infected with Shope papilloma virus, a virus that causes keratinous carcinoma, and appears as horned growths around the infected rabbit's head.

Richard E. Shope identified the cause of the horned growths of some rabbits in the 1930s and pioneered the study of viruses as cancer-causing agents.

#RationalWiki #hpvvaccine #antivax
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/HPV_vaccine

"If humans descended from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?" is one of the most frequently asked questions about #evolution. It can be phrased in different ways, regarding smaller mammals, fish or basically any animal alive today that resembles any evolutionary ancestor — although the monkey example is most prominent, because of the much greater resemblance between humans and chimpanzees (sharing 98.8% DNA).

Some creationists ask questions like this thinking they've made a real zinger you can't possibly answer, and that all of evolution thus falls apart. Such people generally have little interest in your answer, let alone in any serious discussion of the issue. Some major creationist institutions actually warn creationists against asking this question, explaining that the very question itself is based on a blatant misunderstanding of evolution.

#RationalWiki #creationism
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/How_come_there_are_still_monkeys%3F

#Homosexuality is the sexual and/or romantic attraction of an individual to another of the same gender and/or the same sex. Save for sexual orientation, homosexuals share all the varieties of humanity with heterosexuals, who are attracted to the other sex, or bisexuals, who might be attracted to people of either sex. There are no tangible social, moral, or cultural differences shared by all gay people that would somehow differentiate any gay individual from their culture at large.

Homosexuality has a very long history, being written about and depicted since the invention of writing and depicting respectively. Notably, homosexuality was depicted in ancient Greece, China, and Japan, thousands of years ago. Homosexuality is also found in virtually every culture around the world, as well as numerous non-human animal species.

#RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Homosexuality

#Homophobia is the irrational fear or hatred of homosexuality, non-heterosexual people, or anything or anybody that deviates from a strictly normative heterosexual approach to sexuality and sexual identity.

Homophobia is common in both the developing and developed worlds. Examples of this range from laws prohibiting gays to marry or adopt children, to hate crimes committed against gay people to the hateful and violent lyrics of some Jamaican reggae performers and the criminal codes of many African and Middle Eastern nations. As of 2014, 76 countries currently have laws against homosexual activity; in seven of these, the death penalty may apply.

The peer-reviewed Journal of Abnormal Psychology defines homophobia as "an emotional or affective response including fear, anxiety, anger, discomfort, and aversion that an individual experiences in interacting with gay individuals, which may or may not involve a cognitive component."

#RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Homophobia

The #Holocaust, known by many Jews as The Shoah, was the systematic and deliberate #genocide of ethnic #Jews, #Slavs, #Roma, #homosexuals, #transgender people, #handicapped people, and political opponents by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. This program of mass murder occurred in various methods, including mass extrajudicial executions, #pogroms gas vans, forced labor in concentration camps, and gas chambers in Nazi extermination camps. The most heavily used death camps were Auschwitz, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka, which the Nazis built across occupied Poland. Nazi Germany and its Axis allies murdered approximately 17 million people in the course of the Holocaust, about 6 million of them Jews.

#RationalWiki #nazigermany
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Holocaust

Adolf Hitler was the leader of the German Nazi Party from 1921, & then the chancellor and eventually Führe, of Nazi Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945.

Hitler was Austrian by birth and came to power in Germany by way of a series of legal and extralegal maneuverings. His decidedly toxic message of #racism and #antisemitism is summed up in his manifesto, Mein Kampf, which he wrote while imprisoned in the 1920s after trying to lead an idiotic coup d'état against the Weimar Republic. The book may permanently damage your intelligence. It is known for being badly written and poorly thought out.

After being released from prison in 1924, Hitler began gathering popular support by denouncing the Treaty of Versailles, promoting Pan-Germanism, and fearmongering over communism. Most notoriously, however, Hitler popularized the international Jewish conspiracy theory, blaming the Jews for everything that was wrong with interwar Germany…

#RationalWiki #adolfhitler
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

@seanmunger
Yes that's right, the #manosphere has largely merged into the alt-right.

RationalWiki started covering the Men's rights movement (MRAs) in 2009
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement

#Gamergate starting in 2014
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gamergate

and the manosphere also starting in 2014
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Manosphere

We devote two main pages to the #altright
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alt-right

and a glossary
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alt-right_glossary

#mra #RationalWiki