Forum Philosophy Update

He didn’t call you a retard or moron directly and I think that’s a significant difference.

He only moderated because someone complained about the post. Statistics in the business world show that only about 10% of customers complain when they are dissatisfied with a product or service - the others often just stop using the product or service . I don’t know the exact statistics here, but I would not be surprised if it is similar. I think that lots of posters have simply left the discussions.

The “retards” post cannot be undone. Although AutSider appears to be “sorry” for the post, I expect that he would make another similar post in the future.

That has simply not worked. Many threads have been reduced to ad hom fights.

People have made pleas for more decorum and to no avail.

And one must remember that there are posters, like AutSider, who are here with the specific intention to be disruptive - to show the “stupidity” of ILP and ILP posters.

You’re admitting that the pub owner no longer has control… it gets decided by courts and judges based on factors which are out of his/her hands.

I guess that my basic concept of freedom is based on the idea of personal control. If you invite someone “in” then you can ask them to “leave”. And you can force them to leave if they broke the original conditions of the invitation.

Speech is a type of behavior.

That’s his personal choice. And I bet that he won’t let “anyone” come on to the show. That would be unworkable.

Since I think that ‘copyright’ is a positive which encourages creative products, I can’t insist that they give up their copyright. It’s really their choice.
I suggest that he makes other videos which do not use their copyrighted content.

I think that the public interest is better served by the existence of various search engines rather than granting/forcing a special status to one in particular.

There’s a difference between calling someone a filthy Jew and suggesting you want to throw them in an oven, and arguing in favor of the worldview that underlies those feelings.

People can defend capitalism, but they can’t jump in to unrelated threads and call people they’ve had disagreements with pinko scum and suggest that they should starve in a gutter. People can defend the death penalty for abortion, but they can’t harass other users calling them murderers in unrelated threads. People can discuss ideas, but when they take disagreements personal, and follow users into unrelated threads to present their ideas in the most offensive way they can, they’re being disruptive. It doesn’t matter what views motivate that behavior, the behavior is unwelcome.

And the reason it’s unwelcome is that it prevents actual discussion of ideas. By banning that behavior, more philosophy becomes possible. That’s why the bans are speech-maximizing.

For what it’s worth, the Google Memo is a good example of how to make arguments for offensive beliefs. It’s tone is respectful and dispassionate, even if the ideas it contains offend people. It presents arguments, whether or not they are successful. It cites to evidence. While reasonable people can disagree about whether the evidence and arguments entail the conclusions it reaches, it is clearly a good faith effort to make a reasoned argument in defense of a set of beliefs. Autsider was not doing anything like that.

The difference between policy arguments and legal arguments are that policy arguments are about what the law should be, and legal arguments are about what the law is. Policy arguments are not inherently wrong and they are often useful, but in the context of making a case about how a law applies to a situation, they should be a last resort. Policy arguments are appropriate when the law is ambiguous or silent; if the law is clear, a policy argument is most often an argument that the court should find in your favor despite the law, rather than because of it.

The full quote makes this a little clearer:

As I read it, the penalty is in two “phases”:

  1. The imposition of the material costs of printing a reply (i.e. paper, ink, etc, I don’t think this is meant to include e.g. reputational costs).
  2. The chilling of speech that would require the newspaper to assume those costs.

I don’t think this is the part of the rationale that applies here. The marginal material cost is roughly zero, and (dead horse) no one’s being banned for the views they express (though it’s noteworthy that, under Tornillo, it would protected first amendment activity if we were).

I’m using the meaning of broadcast that the court in Red Lion uses, i.e. transmitting audio on the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (and the argument probably extends to transmission on any part of the EM spectrum). ILP is hosted on a server that uses a broadband wireline connection. There may be services that broadcast access to ILP, but ILP isn’t involved with them, and it is likely that most users receive communications from ILP without them ever being transmitted in the radio spectrum.

It is this difference that Red Lion turns on. There’s a limited amount of radio spectrum, and to my knowledge the government owns all of it. That scarcity is what makes the Fairness Doctrine permissible there in ways that it isn’t in the newspaper industry or the internet.

I’d prefer to be called stupid outright than have it veiled in implication, which is a greater insult because it dances around the rules and garners apparent support of the board. This is an issue I had on a motorbike forum with the mods who didn’t allow anyone to call anyone stupid, but to imply it was encouraged for comedic value. Then some guy signed up with the name idiotsavant, so everyone got away with addressing him as idiot on a technicality lol

How do you know that and why does it matter? Was Dan’s point only valid if someone complained?

Probably. I left for some months before returning about a week ago. What’s the use of complaining? I’m complaining now and meeting nothing but resistance lol. But I didn’t leave for ad homs, but dogmatism. People want to be right and don’t play fair, which is cheating, which is akin to stealing, lying, and is immoral and unethical. When someone makes a good point and you refuse to acknowledge it, it’s like cheating in a card game, which is like stealing. And why hang around people like that? How could I complain? The community has to police itself.

So, once a transgressor, always a transgressor?

How does he manage to survive that other forum? The rules are about the same:

[i]- Aggressive or slanderous messages, as well as personal insults and critics, the coarseness and vulgarities, and more generally any message contravening the French laws are prohibited.

  • Messages who promote - or evoke - illegal practices are prohibited.
  • If you post informations which come from another site
    , look first if the site in question doesn’t forbid it. Show the address of the site in question in order to respect the work of their administrators!
  • Please post your messages only once. The repetitions are unpleasant and useless! [/i]

knowthyself.forumotion.net/register

Did anyone plant the seeds? No, probably not. I’ve lived it. There was a forum that was abandoned for a couple years with no mods whatsoever and we survived until the financial plug was pulled then the site vanished. Actually, the talk at the end was that the lack of mods was the best thing that could have happened to the place because, with the exception of Dan, mods escalate rather than moderate. They’re typically power-drunk napoleonesque authoritarian overloads seeking an ideological echochamber via itchy trigger fingers. MGTOW actually showcases their banished like trophies of conquest, apparently replacing the notches on the bedposts from the wooing of women with the sniping of men for not demonstrating acts of submission by dutifully introducing themselves as-ordered which is the precise definition of Napoleonic (power in compensation for inadequacy). It’s hard to find a decent board where I’m not feeling like I’m walking on eggshells.

Pleas to whom? The police? That’s my point… .they have to take it into their own hands to police themselves. James told you to “Slow your puny ass down. Get a little patience and stop being such a pain in the ass then maybe one day you can do something worth while yourself.” I called him out on it and if Aaron or someone would have backed me up… I’m just saying we can’t rely on the creation of monsters to fight our monsters because then we’ll need monsters to fight those monsters and so on. Communities should be able to hold themselves together without babysitters and it just takes a few guys to get it started.

Then how does he survive the other forum? Is ILP stupid and the other place is not? What’s the difference and what is he doing different here that he’s not doing there?

Heck, you can be sued for anything. I can sue you because I don’t like you, but the judge would find it frivolous. Someone could sue the pub owner now and take it all the way to the supreme court and possibly establish new precedent so that the next time it wouldn’t have to go all the way to the supreme court as the lower court would have precedent. The only difference is that hasn’t happened yet. I’m not advocating for anything that doesn’t already exist, except the precedent.

How did smoking laws come about? The pub owner doesn’t have control over who smokes? Maybe the pub owner doesn’t wish to wash his dishes or he wishes to sell booze to minors. Lots of ways the pub owner doesn’t have control. So you’re arguing the pub owner should be allowed any nefarious activity he wishes simply because he owns the pub and I’m the villain for defending the public?

I think it depends why you’re asking them to leave. You can’t ask them to leave on the basis of race, religion, etc

Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term “private”.[44] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rig … 4#Title_II

A private club is something not open to the public, like my house.

I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t allow someone on, but maybe.

You’re not understanding… the videos were of his appearance on those shows and is not something he can duplicate. So if you went on a news show, you could not show it to your friends. It’s not right. Or it would be like Carleas claiming copyright to our conversation and blocking it from being read since he owns the medium.

Why is it rather? Why not both? Google can be public and all the others can compete.

The other engines suck. Thread on that viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193229&p=2677657&hilit=google#p2677656

Besides, google owns youtube and the whole world, essentially. You can’t compete with google.

I just want one medium where freedom of speech is protected and the private entities can compete with that.

Oh so he was hounding (forceful) and disrupting other conversations? I didn’t know that and haven’t seen that evidence. But if that is true, then I suppose you’re right.

No need to explain per above ^

Yes, yes, I see now.

Oh I see. Is that the terminology that is accepted and used by the courts or is it something you’re defining for ILP?

That’s a bit like my suspicion and so my next line of thought is wondering how ILP is different from a broadcaster with regards to “infinite expansion of its column space”? Tornillo regards newspapers and if ILP were a newspaper, then someone being banned for a view would be, as you said, legal. But how do we classify ILP? Space is infinite per se, but it’s also not limited. ILP can be updated in realtime, but not newspapers. It would seem ILP is more similar to a radio broadcast than a newspaper.

Oh ok, so scarcity is the issue. Because there can be an unlimited amount of competition, the fairness doctrine is no longer necessary to ensure fairness. I get it now. Thanks for the education! That was fun :slight_smile:

I still think it’s not quite fair though. I still see the vast amount of information as being one-sided, regardless of the unlimited bandwidth (as does the president). The country and perhaps the world is divided 50/50 and that isn’t what I see online. What do you think explains that? Do you think, maybe, the techie people tend liberal? So it would seem per the google memo uproar. If that is so, then is it a type of scarcity? What could be done about it?

That’s your preference but it’s hard to moderate. A direct insult was either written or not and that makes moderating it straightforward.

Yes, an indirect insult can be very subtle and clever and that can make it entertaining.

If posts are only moderated after a compliant then only maybe one in ten insulting posts will get attention. That’s not consistent enough to discourage the behavior since most of the time you can “get away with it”.

Actually I thought that Dan’s point was weak. It was based on his particular interpretation of what “civilized” means, shifted the context from philosophy forum to church and appealed to emotion.

Sure, there’s a lot of ego here and preaching and closed minds.

I don’t see how you can force people to acknowledge a point. It’s not a set rule that it has to be done.

Lots of nasty places have wonderful constitutions. The USSR had a particularly beautiful one.

You have to go there and see for yourself.

Go ahead and plant.

The ordinary poster has no power beyond the ability to post. The mods have more resources which are more effective.

You can try to make him feel ashamed or guilty by posting. If he ignores you, then all you can do is post more. There is no consequence to him if he does not accept your posts as a serious consequence.

A forum can be stable while the level of discussion is poor … typically the thoughtful people leave quickly but the “thugs” remain. So babysitters would probably make it a better forum.
It depends on the mix of people involved.

My advice is to go there and read the posts. Decide for yourself.

That’s unfortunately true.

And the pub owner has to waste his time and energy on the lawsuit. And money on lawyers. He could go bankrupt before it’s settled. Even if the ruling is in his favor, he may not recoup his loses.

I think that you missed my point, which was that simply by putting a webcam into the pub, the owner seems to lose control over the establishment which he previously had. He now has bunch of obligations placed on him. At the same time, those who appear on the webcam, seem to have no obligations. They have a lot of new rights.

Sounds odd to me. Why should it be that way?

“nefarious activity”? You’re arguing that the owner can’t even unplug the webcam.

There is state sanctioned discrimination. “Affirmative action” is state racism and sexism. There is state endorsed hypocrisy.

The law will force a bakery to make a cake for a gay wedding but it will not force a bakery to make a cake for a Nazi wedding.

I understood. He can make other videos which convey his message and which do not use copyrighted content.

No, that’s not the same situation. If Carleas had a conversation with me and claimed that his part was covered by copyright, then I would not be able to distribute his part of the conversation. I could still do whatever I want with what I said.

So you’re implying that meaning of implication is too hard to discern and so isn’t that an implication that moderators are stupid? Anyway, if in doubt, a mod could inquire for clarification. But all that’s beside the point since I’m arguing that the community should be capable of policing itself and then we wouldn’t need to worry about lettering the law perfectly. Because the alternative is “Well, some crimes must be allowed because we can’t construct a law properly.”

I agree but why is it not entertaining to read “There are no gods, retards”? Do you seriously think he thinks theists are retarded? No, of course not. It’s an unconsciously clever synopsis of an ideology. Insult is insult and we’re just arguing over the form it should take, which is completely arbitrary. Reminds me of Captain Sparrow’s argument “So you agree my proposal is sound in principle; now we’re just haggling over price.” youtube.com/watch?v=Qs8lTUW9uFY

Yeah I agree with that, but the point was Dan’s action worked… or it appeared to. Anyway, it was the right response. To that you said “only because someone reported it” which was beside the point, which is: anyone else could have taken the same action. The fact that mods exist leaves people thinking, “Well, policing the community isn’t my job, so… :-” "

So what would you have said?

That furthers my point that the police cannot enforce morality. “We can’t protect you because we can’t spell out to the letter every crime that can exist and the presumption that we can would make us monsters.”

So they don’t observe their own rules?

I can’t do it alone.

Prohibition doesn’t work. Public shaming does.

That’s why more people need to agree in order to make it a serious consequence to the ego, which is why James was here.

Yeah, my theory is that evolution of communities favors the most immoral and underhanded since the nice people leave. The mods are supposed to protect against that, but they can’t. They can’t be everywhere and they can’t discern implication and they can’t force people to admit when they are wrong, among many other things, including the fact that power itself corrupts.

I read some, but I have so much to read and have to prioritize. And it occurred to me that he had been a member here for 3 years, so we don’t have to leave ILP to make discovery. What changed in Autsider? How did he survive for 3 years here if he’s such an inherent monster incapable of change?

That’s the way it is now. A precedent would change that and make it less expensive.

We could say that because he decided to charge money for drinks, that he now has a bunch of obligations put on him. Because he opened his doors to the public in effort to make money, he now has a lot of obligations. So putting up a webcam introduces new obligations.

No they have the same rights as before, the freedom of speech. The only time you forfeit the freedom of speech is when you are not considered public.

If you come to my house and I don’t like the way you talk, I can ask you to leave. You don’t have freedom of speech at my house. But if I invite the public to my house by putting up a sign “all are welcome”, then I’ve made myself public and cannot ask you to leave on the basis of your speech. Also if you come to my house and use my equipment to address the public, then I cannot ask you to leave on the basis on your speech. I cannot do those things ethically, anyway, but maybe legally because the law has been perverted, but not ethically for sure.

I can’t let friends ride motorcycles on my land because, even if I compel them to sign documents, they can still sue me for injuries that I had nothing to do with. Even if they don’t sue me, their insurance companies can. There is no way for me to protect myself and share my land with friends. And yet Google and ILP can get away with censoring of speech with complete immunity? Google can take away people’s rights, but I cannot?

An insurance agent told me a story: A guy left a bar drunk with the bar owner’s knowledge, drove past the flashing crossing gates on railroad tracks and killed a guy inside a phone booth. Who got sued? The phone company because they had the most money.

Unplug? If it’s unplugged, then what are we discussing?

I agree that’s bullshit. This is where Autsider would argue that it’s not just the state, but the jews who are pushing for homosexuality in order to eliminate the white race since they’re in charge of the government and media. Google fired Damore for arguing facts that offend the diversity narrative.

Something like 1% of the population is homosexual, but it’s plastered all over everything and continually rammed down our throats.

For years those videos played just fine, then after Trump was elected, suddenly they were copyrighted. Schiff isn’t even a fan of Trump, so I don’t know what the deal is. There are videos from 2006 when Schiff called the housing bust and consequently ridiculed that are now blocked. He can’t reproduce that. How can he reproduce 2006-people laughing at him?

Probably have to ask Carleas for an authoritative answer, but I think he owns our conversation and you couldn’t do whatever you wanted with your conversation on ILP.

CNBC would invite people on the show who would argue with each other and now CNBC is claiming ownership of those debates even though CNBC had nothing to do with the debates except to air them.

Carleas is being careful because nowadays companies can turn off websites or web hosting on a whim just because the owners of them emotionally feel like doing so where his occupation as a lawyer he’s trying to I think make sure no laws are broken concerning online interactions to make sure no threat against the forum manifests itself hence his extreme paranoia.

It’s understandable given the last year and a half how many websites have been shut down ironically in a nation that prides itself on free speech. Right now there are many trying to identify the difference between free speech and hate speech where under the newly defined definition of hate speech are trying to silence others. This is problematic for ILP because many of us are definitely not politically correct in the conventional sense where I am sure there are some that would like to see this forum gone. Thankfully our administrator is a representative of the law, let us hope the government doesn’t change the laws regarding online interaction or communication.

[Well, eventually they’ll try to anyways as it is inevitable…]

This place is unique for a philosophy forum in that, where else can you see different ideologies debate each other in a single place under a singular forum platform? I’ll tell you now not anywhere else as all other forums tend to be echo chambers where only one ideology is allowed or represented where yet still others are persecuted. Here multiple ideologies are allowed to compete, debate, and argue against each other. Here at ILP we have democrats, republicans, marxists, nationalists, autocrats, libertarians, liberals, anarchists, multiculuturalists, ethnic identitarians, cynics, pessimists, nihilists, materialists, idealists, religious, irreligious, and one world government enthusiasts in one single spot debating each other. This doesn’t exist much elsewhere [It use to be more widespread in years past but not any more as the internet has aged.]as there are fewer places left to have this kind of exchanging dialogue. This is probably the reason why I keep coming back as all of that makes ILP unique.

Here-here, I’ll drink to that. :wink:

If we’re still around, a decade or two from now, will look back on the early 21st century as the long lost golden age of internet freedom, thanks in part to venues like ILP.

That’s a good point.

Really? I wasn’t aware of that. Some are dying from lack of participation. I get a lot of email from admins just-about begging for someone to come participate in their garden, motorbike, whatever forums. I’m not sure if Twitter or mobile devices killed them.

Free speech includes hate speech.

100 Chicago Professors “Propose To Exclude Viewpoints They Find Objectionable”

I know of a couple small places and probably it’s only because they are small that it is so. As soon as the herd thunders in, they trample on everyone’s rights.

What’s to talk about in an echochamber? I need someone to disagree with me or I wouldn’t know what I think. How would I know I advocated for free speech unless someone else didn’t? We need enemies.

Where are the Nazis? :laughing:

If Hillary had been elected, none of this would be happening. Not that Trump has done anything, but people are reacting to fear itself.

If Hilary had been elected we would have ground troops in Syria and God knows what tensions with Russia. I have little doubt she would have continued the harshest treatment of whistleblowers - he was worse than Bush - since we are talking about free speech.

I don’t know about wars and I can’t base anything on evidence, but it sure feels like if Hillary would have won it would have been status quo and no one would have thought twice about a jew-hating youtube video. The sentiment at the time was “Oh that’s just stupid; who cares” and now it’s “OMG hate speech!”

zerohedge.com/news/2018-01- … nvironment

Is there anyone here who supports to restriction of speech? If not, is there anyone who can play devil’s advocate to argue their position? I’m curious if there is any merit and why anyone would hold such a view.

In Europe it’s against the law to challenge the holocaust and one can serve years in prison over it. I think the reason is that it disrespects the victims by making them liars, like telling Buzz Aldrin he didn’t walk on the moon and getting punched for it:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlbYOKSSaIE[/youtube]

(Now that I watched the video, the fact that he didn’t pacify the guy by swearing on his bible is a bit suspicious. Is he afraid to swear on it? Would he have to swear on it in court? If he would swear on it in court, then wouldn’t it be easier to swear on it to make the guy leave rather than making such protest followed by slugging the guy? Opinions on that would be cool.)

So should we make a law that prohibits folks from making conspiracies about the moonwalking? Why not? Why allow disrespect of the astronauts who risked life and limb?

Heck, why stop there. It’s a slippery slope, right? We can slide on down to the crime of hurting people’s feelings. “You called me a name so you can go to jail!”

Why not outlaw climate denial? After all, our earth is at stake, right? “Life in prison for advocating the destruction of earth!”

Where does it end and who gets to decide?

Why must truth be guarded so rabidly?

Freedom of speech is the only mechanism for establishing truth, so censoring speech for the sake of truth is therefore the undermining of its very own underpinning and it the philosophical equivalent of sawing off the limb you’re sitting on. It’s madness!

“Beware when fighting monsters that you don’t become a monster.” As soon as we embark on a crusade of righteousness we’ve become monsters: armed clergy.

I am saying that it’s hard to discern. I didn’t think that Mr. R’s suggestion to “fall off a ladder” was insulting. And after rereading it I still don’t. I’m surprised that you take it as an insult.
My opinion is probably the result of having fallen off a ladder and permanently damaging my body. Any more similar falls off ladders could leave me paralyzed. So although gravity doesn’t increase consequences, damage does accumulate as he suggested.

He should not have said that you were being tacky.

So the pub owner gets added obligations but the patrons have no added obligations even if the owner has a clearly expressed policy on use of the webcam and the patrons have agreed to the policy. Is that your position?

So if I’m a Jew and I invite the public to my house for some roasted lamb and then someone starts yelling anti-Semitic, anti-meat, or just personal insults, then I can’t tell him to stop and I can’t tell him to leave??
( Maybe “throw the filthy Jews in the oven” stuff :wink: )
That’s the correct ethics?

The owner can unplug the webcam if a patron is saying something that goes against the owners policy? Now I’m really confused because in the last example you seemed to be saying that the homeowner has to allow his “equipment” to be used. And you also seem to be arguing that with respect to media companies in general.

I don’t know the details of what the policy was or why it changed. But if it was copyrighted material, then they can ask that it not be broadcast.

Well, he has made threads in the past where he said that theists are mentally ill and delusional. But at least he wrote some arguments in those threads.

The Religion and Spirituality forum is described as "For intuitive and critical discussions, from spirituality to theological doctrines. Fair warning: because the subject matter is personal, moderation is strict. "

In fact, the moderation is not strict. It has become a forum for bashing theists.

I have tried to keep the discussions at least a bit philosophical. But I’m tired of it.

That he presents no new information, no argument and that his post is one insult. And he has a choice of either posting relevant content or getting banned.

I can’t picture a forum situation where shaming would be a positive.

I don’t think that’s true. As long as there are enough “nice” people around then they “crowd out” the “nasty” people. The “nice” people go quiet or leave when a certain threshold of “nastiness” is exceeded.
Policing helps keep the “nastiness” in check by presenting real consequences to the “nasty” people for their behavior and giving them motivation to change. It reduces the rate of growth of the “nasty” population.

Some guy calls Buzz a liar and Buzz is supposed to “do” something for the guy to show that he is not lying?

What if Buzz does swear on the bible and then the guy just says that Buzz lied while swearing on the bible?

Do you really think that the guy would say that he was “completely wrong about his allegations” and walk away “converted”?

I don’t think so.

Are you going to “intervene” in the “shooting” thread?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193836&start=100#p2693785

Yes.

Don’t let him off the hook. I want to see some serious shaming. :evilfun: