Maybe, but the last time he even visited the site was on January 13th. Here he is around every day. And the membership at ILP seems to be considerably more varied.
I’m just curious [in all seriousness] to see him walk the talk.
Saying “you seem to have a reading problem” or “you don’t know enough about physics to be arguing it on this [religion] forum” are worthy of formal board warnings, but…
“You know what? You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. It’s obvious to everybody here but you. You aren’t in my league, you refuse to learn anything, or read anything, or think about anything I’ve exposed you to.”
…isn’t. And that is a mild one compered to the many I have seen in merely the past few days.
Nepotism doesn’t work except to feed bigotry.
Let’s all just pretend like we’re our own moderators, and when we wanna ban someone just use the ignore feature instead.
Sometimes I think about what a forum would be like if everyone put everyone else on ignore. Eventually, it’d just be a chat room for people who don’t disagree about anything.
That’s kinda the problem I see with a lot of these spinoff forums. Everyone there is drinking the same kool aid. I’m not talking about one or another in particular, I mean this as a blanket statement for most of the attempts I’ve seen at starting a new forum.
Who wants to be on a forum where no one disagrees? Aren’t philosophers supposed to be arguing about things? Either to see the truth or to live out a virtue or to sway others to a view that might make the world one more like the one in their own ethical view of some utopia?
If you guys agreed with me all the time I would leave this place because I would become bored as fuck pretty quick.
Be honest with yourselves. You like it here because there’s a diverse mix of viewpoints and love it or hate it most of the members here are intelligent enough to adequately deconstruct one another’s positions.
Would it be more enjoyable to sit and talk in agreement about everything? Is that even good for discourse in general? On any topic?
Although I have given a similar speech, some forums are intended to make progress toward a goal. On those forums, disagreement isn’t sought, but rather agreement through ironing out alternate possibilities to proposals. Ad homs on that kind of forum are a serious waste and detriment. They are designed for development above the common denominator, not merely swimming in it.
James, you do realize you’re up against a lawyer in training?
The following was extracted from another post. But I think it has some relevance here. And I will explain after:
“Parting shot :if the overlap is either a textual /contextual absolute, them either a complete inclusiveness, or exclusiveness may be seen (interpreted )as maximum and minimum points of reference.”
To me, the overlap is the primary domain in which most of us (especially on these boards) tend to work as concerns philosophy. It goes to Deleuze’s metaphysical/epistemological point in Difference and Repetition in that what we generally start with are the issues we find repeated throughout the various texts that we tend to read. After that, we refine our understandings through the differences.
Take, for instance, the issue of mind and brain. How many different philosophers have added their tweak on the issue? And isn’t it because of this that the issue tends to be one of the most popular on these boards? And isn’t politics and social issues another?
The thing is it would be ignorantly arrogant to thumb down our nose at this since it is a perfectly natural steppingstone in the process. We have to start with the overlap in order to work our way to the details that define our development as the intellectually and creatively curious.
Even in a focused study, such as mine with Deleuze, the principle applies in that my understanding of Difference and Repetition grows through the overlap of the various texts I have read by Deleuze and about him.
Now the reason I post this is I hear a lot of uppity talk about the quality of what others are doing here. And I assume that the reason these individuals are doing this is because they assume that they are somehow above it, are “authentic philosophers” as it were.
I, personally, find this be a cheap second (if not third) rate tactic in that it comes from a rather adolescent assumption that if one just focuses on the negative, that will act as shortcut to greatness. I, myself in my early years, fell into this trap as a musician heavily influenced by Pink Floyd. The assumption is that if one is perpetually negative, then they avoid the pitfall of sentimentality. But as a further stint as a poet taught me, there is more to sentimentality than big eyed children and puppy dogs. Sentimentality, in truth, is anything that solicits a response without giving the audience any real justification for it. As Tennyson said:
“I distrust any poem that blackens the eyes or holds out its lips to be kissed.”
Take Pink Floyd, for instance, who worked from the artistry of Animals to The Wall where Roger Waters just kind of snarled at you expecting you to feel his pain.
Now I get it. In a creative writing class where we read various local writers and made critiques of them, I got a luke warm response from my teacher on the writer I was positive on. But when I got negative on another, he got a little more enthusiastic about what I was doing. This was because the negativity gave me an opportunity to be a little more witty than I was in the previous one. But even then, I showed a little appreciation for what the writer was trying to do. It was balanced.
The thing is on these boards is that you tend to get a lot of people who put emphasis on the negative to the extent of seeming one dimensional and, therefore, second to third rate -and really heavy handed.
To give you a counter example, an “authentic” philosopher once said:
“Even the act of making a sandwich implies a question of whether life is worth going on with.”
It just seems to me that only a mediocre mind could fail to see the philosophical potential in anything anyone might say here.
Anyway: Carleas: rock on, brother.
I need to read your arguments here to see what law school is doing for ya. Hoping to steal a little of that mojo for free.
Bring it on.
Sounds kind of negative, sort of a…
I’m not expecting anyone to change anything. I just wanted to verify why the bad was getting worse.
First of all, being a Mod has got to be a thankless job with no compensation. I certainly wouldn’t want to be one. On top of that, there is no objective criterion by which to judge whether an individual is having a negative effect on the discourse or not, which leaves it to doxa or popular notions of what constitutes a respectful or worthy approach. This leaves, as James rightly points to, no other choice than to look for obvious cues, such as racist remarks, while blinding them to the snide remarks that tend to slip under the radar.
And what we should put in mind here is that while trolls are assholes and a form of cancer on these boards, they’re not idiots. They, more than most people, have perfected methods of exploiting doxa and popular notions of what constitutes respectful discourse. They’re the ones that concede nothing while exploiting every concession their opponent might make and slipping in quaint little terms like “erroneous” and, when called on it, raise their hands and argue they are just there for a rational debate at the same time they prop their legitimacy up by making sure their fellow goons are there making their radical notions seem more true than they actually are (the cult dynamic). They are subtle while blatantly exploiting doxa.
At the same time, don’t you think this would make Carleas, as a law student, the ultimate mod in that the endgame of most lawyers is to become a judge? Even as a lawyer, he has to make a focused study of the subtleties at work in an argument (sometimes to the point of statistical objectivity such as when he pointed out how many of your arguments were attacks), something I can relate to since I got kicked off for an attack on Volchok (a true troll who was well schooled in doxa) even though I had included a statistical study that showed that 3 out of 4 of his posts were negative comments with no redeeming intellectual value whatsoever.
The point is that as a law student aiming at the sensitivity to questionable arguments worthy of a judge, I actually have a lot of faith in Carleas’ capability as a mod. I would think this good practice for him. And in provoking him, James, you may actually get exactly what you’re after. Just be prepared to approach the same standards as a lawyer.
I love this board, James
(even if I have problems w/ it as well
(but nothing that good can last forever…
.
And in your behalf,
James,
I had a definite problem w/ Flannel Jesus who got me kicked off for about a month:
Luckily, it was when I was on a 7 week vacation from work due to my broken arm.
That kind of extended weekend would not have worked for me here.
I just hope Flannel Jesus enjoyed his little power trip.
What becomes unreasonable is this thread. I’m sorry guys, I want to agree with you; but I’ve actually been in places with bad moderators. Some of these guys may jump the gun a bit with their warnings, but they haven’t outright banned someone when that someone stands up to set them straight, either.
I have had two such occurrences since I’ve registered on these boards: Felix Dakat and Uccisore.
Both times there was a complaint made against me for how I argued things. People felt they deserved the right to insult me; the first time subtly and the second time not so subtly. I had noticed an actual rule here where such is allowed. I hate that practice and I made the very clear to Felix. He locked my thread because of it, titled: The Psychology of Jesus Christ.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=184829&p=2444409#p2444409
But, he didn’t ban me. In another thread of mine, another Mod had this to say:
Now, I haven’t played nicely, but I’m still here. I think that this thread is a little bit jumping the gun, but I suppose it is something that is needed to be aware of. These are people, guys; not monsters and definitely not perfect.
I said that same thing a few years back. But then things kept getting worse. So I asked of how they were being chosen. With the method Carleas uses, on occasion, by accident, some good mods will pop up. But it takes only one bad mod to make up for a lot of good ones, just as with laws and ethics.
Good is what is dependable, not what happens to accidentally seem good at the moment. Both good and bad have hysteresis tendencies. The bad causes the good to begin fading away and the good causes the bad to begin fading away.
What is often good in this world is also often undependable. What becomes dependable is most often the ones who have personal agendas or reasons to stick around, whether they use their power for good or evil. It takes a while in each persons life for things to settle down into place and so a good person may seem undependable or even the opposite of what they should be. Some times they just need time. I haven’t yet seen a mod completely abuse their power and they keep doing the work. It would be ideal if we could have perfect people in all of those roles; but then how do we expect them to become perfect without experience?
I think that moderation team here is fairly balanced enough to have a rounded perspective. Moderation is not an easy job. You deal with a lot of complaints and shitheads and you rarely ever get appreciated for it unless you do something even extra for people and you hardly hear anything nice out of people. You are most often dealing with large amounts of negativity and bullshit. You just stop caring after a certain point, I don’t care who you are. Now, some people don’t give up trying after a while and we definitely should commend them, but even that comes at the cost of learning what it means TO give up. We should only ever seek to positively reinforce each other even when we’re tearing each other down. In that manner, they can help us be what we should be and we can help them be what they should be.
This is a group effort and people often expect way too damned much from the people in charge. I see a lot of faces of good people here that I can tell have been here for quite a while. They are consistant and would make great mods, but they don’t step forward to do the job. You get a lot of shit flung on you man, even when you handle things the right way. How can you expect them to put up with it all if you can’t?
Law school is an interesting exercise. The tools of philosophy are definitely involved, but there’s no pursuit of truth. Instead, you take whatever truth you’re given and come up with the reasons why it’s true. If anything, I’ve lost faith in truth, which is not all bad.
You’re right that it’s easier to be negative (and I love that Tennyson line). That supports at least some of what James’ has said here, because while James is criticizing what we’re doing, he’s also offered an alternative, and all we can really do is be negative to his proposal in return. Moderation here isn’t perfect. James’ system isn’t perfect either. The systems would fail in different ways, but they both have their points of failure. I can’t say for sure that the system we have is the best one. I like it better than ones I’ve seen on other forums, but my experiences are not that relevant. And communities aren’t really fungible, so the comparison wouldn’t be properly controlled anyway. But the system we have is the devil we know, and the possibly limitless designs of alternatives would all cost much more to test than finding a successful system would pay out.
Are there incremental changes we could make to get from the system we have to a better system? Incremental changes are cheap.
I think what is lacking mostly is proper communication and mediation. People are quick to anger and it really isn’t their fault most of the time. People often haven’t been given a constructive outlet for that anger. When arguing, people become frustrated when they start losing a debate and/or when they stop being able to properly express their ideas.
The problem also arises with people who bully or ‘troll’ and people who look down on other people instead of realizing them as equals. Even the trolls wouldn’t be so bad if you had proper etiquette already in place with some of the more senior members here. Patience is a virtue, but it doesn’t come at a cheap price.
I would suggest an outlet forum of sorts where people can settle their problems and move on. It would be great if someone could mediate that with a level head and talk to them both calmly to figure out what can be done to settle the matter. People should love to be here if they find their way here and if they love to be here then the moderators love their jobs and they begin to care about the people here even more and so pay better attention to them to prevent squabbles from occurring.
If each person that was able pitched in a little bit to help guide some of these more troubled people here and show them how little their insults and other tools of degradation fail to have any effect, I think you’d see some real results in a bit of time if you stuck with it.
Some of you have already been here for years, so obviously you enjoy being in this place. These trolls and other troublemakers that come here, they’re also highly interested in what we have to say though they don’t always show it properly. If they weren’t, then they wouldn’t be here. Hate is a lie people tell themselves and a lot of people show love through hate because they fail to realize there is a difference. Somewhere in these peoples lives, others have failed them and they have constantly failed themselves and they need somebody to believe in their better qualities.
When people refuse to try to learn how to get along in a semi-peaceful nature (given the nature of how some debates heat up) then you’ve got to be able to demand respect and the regular members here need to be able to demand respect, too; and know that you’ll be able to back them up. That trust.
What I’ve noticed of my best friendships is that you always wind up fighting in some way or another eventually, but you’re still able to be friends after. Negativity is a disease and it’s something that should be felt sorry for, if anything. It is a horrible, horrible way to live life. granted there will always be those beyond what anyone can do for them.
The really sad part is that some day they might come and try causing problems for you in a variety of ways. That is why it’s important to have a strong community and a strong core group of moderators. It’s a given that some of us have lives outside of this and there’s nobody saying they shouldn’t live those lives, too. What you do here will seep over into those lives and enrich both beyond measure.
What you and everyone here chooses to do in this moment and each moment after matters. it is a hard road, but you don’t have to go it alone. None of you do.
As I have always said: we have to be wary of the Bad Faith of thinking we can come up with any system that will make it all work like some fine tuned machine -especially when it comes to human interaction.
And I can see how law is a matter of manipulating the truth. But then, isn’t that what philosophy does in a sense? People on here talk a lot about “the truth”. But the best description I have found for the term is that offered by Rorty: an intellectual construct that seems sufficiently justified. Where a lot of confusion on these boards comes from is confusing the term “truth” with the term “fact”. A fact is a small isolated system of cause and effect that can be easily demonstrated such 1+1=2 or water, at atmospheric pressure, will start to boil at 212 degrees. A truth is the conclusion we reach via data: an accumulation of facts that give certain effects. And what you have to consider with data is the facts and possible facts that are missing. For instance, we can think of evolution as a truth. It seems sufficiently justified through the data. At the same time, there is no way of knowing that there isn’t some man with horns and cloven hooves planting all this evidence in order to throw us off his trail. Another example would be statistics that show how many smokers tend to die earlier due to given diseases. But what is missing are the possible facts of how many of those people would have died anyway due to, for instance, genetics or environmental factors. We, of course, accept this the argument (the truth) against smoking because of the informal data any smoker experiences: the fact of hacking, loss of breath when engaging in certain activities, the stained teeth, etc., etc…
And it is this precarious nature of “The Truth” that allows philosophy to work the ways it does and, consequently, delegates it to the function of producing perspectives rather than truths. And it is this similarity to what a lawyer must do that makes the practice of law a kind philosophy in action with clearer guidelines about how to do so. Like any philosopher, a lawyer must play the subjective through a considered manipulation of the objective. So you’re loss of faith in the truth seems like a perfectly natural step in the process of a lawyer. Like philosophy, the art of law is as much a matter of resonance and seduction as it is anything. But then isn’t ideology, in other words, the very superstructure that directs all our social interactions, about resonance and seduction?
As far as the devil we know: yeah! This board has pretty much allowed me to do what I have needed to further my process and reprimanded me when I was, admittedly, getting out of hand. It is serious, but not serious to the point of seeming stuffy. Given my approach, some of the other boards would force me to brace myself to the point of being too uptight to engage in the kind of creative free-play I do here. Facebook’s philosophy boards allow me even more freedom in that everything drifts to the bottom and is impermanent. But I need more of a balance between the two than that. I need those moments when I’m working towards something worth holding on to. I sometimes need to know where the last post I have made is so I can build off of it.
And idiot: amen brother!
You’re preaching to the choir here.
You can incrementally get closer to what works best by incrementally filtering volunteers a little more toward those skills and dedications. The structure of exactly who is doing what doesn’t have to take place immediately. If you accrue enough skilled people, you can go to the better structure. But merely having mods who are skilled in those ways and thus could, except for their time, run the whole show, causes the better result to start taking place even without the new structure.
The documenting is important no matter what you do else you can’t study the results over time so as to see what needs improving. The documenting is what allows Science to progress. Be a little more (incrementally) scientific by keeping information that can be used in statistics, just like all businesses do with at least their accounting.
What you don’t ensure to get better, you can be sure will get worse.