ILP rules and the permaban of Lys?

Arbiter- nothing you said is wrong, except maybe the ‘unwillingness to explain and justify to others’ which I think Carleas has attempted here beyond obligation.

Any system of rules is going to have grey areas. The authorities are going to have to use their judgment to interpret those grey areas however seems best to them. This can be phrased, perhaps cynically, as ‘doing whatever they fuck they want’.

That’s all true. Now what?

 Well, first le me say Carleas lets me moderate my section my way and leaves me alone to do it. So if anything, it's a semi-feudal republic of city-states.  Second, I can sympathize with what you're saying here, but I've seen it tried and I know where it leads.  Constitutions only work among communities of like minded people with shared values, which ILP is not. In the case of ILP and just about any other forum, a Constitution simply describes the edges of what bad behavior has to be allowed. So for example, the current situation. It's highly unlikely that if this place had a Consitution, there would be anything in it about disallowing people from posting the writings of banned members.  So, it would have to be allowed, which means it would be rampant- anytime somebody was banned, they would get a 'proxy' to post their words for them. And if the proxy just happened to give the banned person the password to their account to cut out the middle man, hell, it's not like you can prove it.  And then what would Carleas do?  Well, he can't* violate his Constitution, so either he's fucked, or he amends the Constitution. If he can amend the Constitution which only exists to bind his own behavior, then we're back to him doing whatever the fuck he wants.   And there's a million instances like this: You tell people they can't say 'shit', and they will say '$hit'.  If you ban them for saying '$hit', they will rant and rave that they didn't break any rules and you're a dictator making it up as you go along.   Seen it a thousand times. 

*It’s worth pointing out the absurdity of this ‘can’t’. Carleas literally owns this place and everything said on it and could make it cease to exist any time he felt like it, and we would have absolutely no recourse. So to say that if he wrote down some rules he ‘can’t’ break them is just stupid.

If 98% of what you have to say on a philosophy forum is not philosophy, 1% are copy-pasted quotes and 1% are your pathetic, miserable attempts at philosophy or mocking it, I mean…

You remember that I initially defended you against the opinions of KT members? I claimed that you know your way in real-life (at least, the American reality of human constructs), and hey, I still claim that - props for that, but that’s just the base, as I said. I admitted that and remained neutral regarding your philosophical prowess, only asking you to provide evidence of your claims and nothing more… the lack of evidence, while making huge claims, is what exposed you, mr. money-is-not-an-abstraction-because-I-can-hold-it-in-muh-hands…

I don’t remember that, because I don’t know to that shit hole or read any of the shit that’s posted there. The only reason I know what’s going on there is because so many people come here to copy and paste it.

Also, don’t try and flatter me. You already said that you don’t understand politics, and now you’re demonstrating that.

bartleby.com/36/1/23.html

Now you’ve got to understand. It was a long long time ago when I realized that what most people around here consider philosophy is well…what you consider philosophy. So I gave up and started talking about whatever I wanted. What I don’t do is go around calling people names, and insulting people’s character when I disagree with them. At least not yours, yet. You know how iambiguous is stuck in that loop where no matter what you say to him he just keeps going full circle and doing what he does? As if nothing would be different no matter what you said to him? That’s what your’re doing about the whole insisting that I search the forums for you thing. You do realize that other people can read these exchanges between us and that you look silly keeping on the way you are without actually doing the search…right? You want to make a point, but you’re afraid you wont be able to, so you take a step back and argue who’s got the burden of proof instead of fishing out the proof yourself. It’s hilarious. You may have to look way back to see anything you might call philosophy, and when you find it, you probably wont feel any different about me, you’ll probably grasp at straws in an attempt to keep feeling like you’re right about something. That’s ok. I’m cool with that. Wait…I just posted a little political philosophy in this very post. Maybe read that part.

Uccisore,

It is true that Carleas did not have to entertain a single post of my and at least attempted some sort of explanations. And I retract my statement about him being unwilling - I think it is rather that he is incapable, with which I am not implying that he is stupid or anything similar, but that most of our judgment-making, especially about things with subtle degrees, is subconscious, and we can consciously explain it only to a certain extent, and the subtler the degrees are, the harder it is to put in words or express mathematically.

I disagree with him and his decision, since I had 1-2 years ago the similar political mindset he has. I think he just considers the views of KT members as undesirable/evil and/or wrong to the point of them not being worthy of free expression, and since they are the minority, it is easier to just ban the few dissidents, than ban the guilty parties from both sides and lose the quantity of members. That sacrificing of quality for quantity is something I personally detest.

But as you pointed out, at the end of the day, he can do whatever he wants.

You’ve got to recognize the distinction between these 2 kinds of statements.

“You’re wrong because of X, and X is demonstrable in this or that way.”

As opposed to,

“These cretin imbecile infantile feminine monkey fucking assholes are wrong about X, because based on loose statistics, gross generalizations, and cherry picked historical references I have concluded such and therefore you’ll all a bunch of weakling worthless fucks and you’re what’s wrong with the world, and I"m better than all of you and if you disagree then it’s because you’re stupid. Also, you’re a shit smear and a brown cow and whatever other 3rd grade name calling shit I can come up with.”

mr reasonable, not on KT. I did it back in Rant, remember the exchange with Magnus Anderson?

You honestly think I’m flattering YOU? Hah. I have no reason to do that. I was being as objective as I could be, nothing else. To be honest, most things you do, and say, disgust me, but that does not mean you don’t do some, few other things right. Although if most of your income comes from selling pot and not something that requires actual risks and advanced reasoning and decision making, then you’re worthless when it comes to that, too.
I don’t think you will search the forums for me anymore… you have nothing to search for, and you ARE the demonstration of what the KT people are talking about.

I’m leaving now… let me be the ‘last word bitch’ this time?
Or will you take all the glory for yourself, again…

You’re cracking me up.

Oh, well, it looks like Lys is getting lost in the shuffle.

And speaking of loops to get stuck in: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=179879

Pick one: :astonished: :laughing: :blush: :wink: :-" :banana-stoner:

Aussenseite

I don’t understand why people keep insisting on offering those questions since they’ve already been answered and answered to a point that was very clear and perhaps to a point of exhaustion. The only thing I can think of is that we human beings have such “blind spots”. Our biases certainly complicate and add to those blind spots.

Let me ask you something, Aussenseite. I don’t know how good an example this is but I imagine that you frequent a number of places. You do have a life I’m figuring. Do you knowingly, deliberately and callously break the rules of these places, expecting that you can and will get away with that kind of behavior, simply because you ARE WHO YOU ARE and no one is going to tell YOU what to do ~~~ or do you more or less abide by the rules set up by these places?; for instance, banks, churches, libraries,clubs, restaurants, schools, et cetera. That’s not to say that you’re some kind of a wimp and afraid of your own shadow but intelligent human beings realize, even on a unconscious level, that Rules are set up for a reason. They actually can and do provide harmony, organization and a sense of beauty and balance. You’ve served in the military you said so you must have an idea of the intelligence behind the rule. Try going somewhere where there is a racial riot going on, complete chaos, bedlam, anarchy - what would the rules mean to do you then?

But she was forewarned and persisted; ergo, she was banned, according to the Rules of ILP which she knew about.

C’'mon - look around you. i can’t even believe that you would make a statement like this. Even outside of Rant, there is glowing, glowing, glowing lol evidence of how much freedom of speech is allowed here even though some of it is (reasonably) eventually censored - much of it is not - even to the point of my sometimes being disgusted by it.

Satyr got banned for his speech and Lys or Lyssa whoever was banned for being his mouthpiece, a mouthpiece which to my way of thinking was being blasted more or less all over the place. I believe that if she had simply occasionally quoted him with reference to something which she was posting from her own mind and thoughts, as one would another philosopher or scientist, etc., she wouldn’t have been breaking the rules. This was already explained in this thread.

[b]Limits on freedom of speechThe general public’s understanding of the protections of free speech afforded in the United States by the Constitution are generally broader than the protections actually are. Conservatives are known for defending their pundits by stating that “it’s a free country” - pundits can say what they want, without being “censored” for their beliefs.[8] Ditto, supposedly scientists being paid to produce science can defend their poor science on the grounds that “it’s a free country,” and they can say what they want to say.[9] Technically, yes. The right to free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution. But, it is guaranteed vis a vis the government - not necessarily vis a vis private individuals. [/color While individuals have a high level of protection of their speech against government censorship, these high levels are triggered only by state action - that is, the government’s actual use of power. On the contrary, just as in discrimination law, lower levels of protection attend non-state based limitations on speech. While the Constitution prevents the government from punishing you for your speech (generally unless such speech has as its purpose “imminent lawless action”[10]), …[size=150]the Constitution also cannot protect you from a private organization censoring your speech by taking some private, non-state action against you[/size].[11] In fact, the First Amendment has been held to protect the freedom not to promote views other than one’s own.[12]

So while it’s a free country, and pundits may be pundits, and say what they will, they need not be surprised, and may not claim the First Amendment as a protection, when they are fired for making ridiculous statements. One must also note, too, that the assertion to the contrary by conservative networks only triggers when one of their own gets in trouble - when someone else starts to say something controversial, all of a sudden, they seem to back down.[13][14[/b]

rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Of course, for those who feel that they are “entitled” and “priviledged” to break the Rules, the above will be meaningless and perhaps nothing but a laughing matter but for those who [are] intelligent and capable of recognizing practical wisdom and do indeed also have some “emotional” intelligence, they will be able to see and understand Exceptions and those little grey lines and read between the lines, though I don’t see where any reading between the lines is even necessary.

The following in itself may or may not have bearing on the above (I’ll leave that for you to decide) but the above does have a lot of bearing on Carleas’s decision ------------ but aside from that, I can’t understand for the world of me how some people do not realize that freedom of speech at least in my book needs to come with some semblance and consciousness of a sense of responsibility for the words which are being spoken or written. Freedom of speech does not mean total freedom - as has been explained by the above excerpt - at least I hope that it has been explained.

Petition to unban lys:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=188355

Some rules are important. Arbitrary rules that are based on ideologies or social factors that are out of favor either with society or the individual, should absolutely be challenged. No social progress can be made without taking a look at the rules and changing them. In the case of a dictatorship (like this forum) rules sometimes even NEED to be broken to change the idea, to progress if/when necessary. Unjust laws, in history, were always only changed and challenged by the societies that were being oppressed. Women’s Sufferage, Civil Rights… there is a long history of social protest that moves society to a more just society by breaking the rules, by challenging rules that aren’t good for said society. I’m not comparing this to what Carleas has done to Lys, but I honestly and fervently believe in the idea that peaceful social anarchy is the only way that society progresses. Institutions, communities and societies struggle and stagnate when there is no social progress, no change that is in the best interest of said society. There is a great book I read some years ago called ‘Voices of Protest!: Documents of Courage and Dissent’ by Erik Bruun, Sheryl Lechner and Frank Lowenstein that covers a lot of ground but includes a lot of examples of why we have to challenge rules to progress.

I have always been one to challenge social norms and laws that I find to be against ones liberties and freedoms. I have never backed down in this. From the time I was small and was kicked out of catholic school for challenging why nuns were allowed to hit us with rulers for not following prayer time, or praying to God at all. To my marching in parades, signing petitions, and speaking out the fight to allow gay marriage. Times I went to the local county board meetings to change local tax laws that were unjust and unfairly leveraged higher income people with higher property tax rates to cover the lack of property tax in the county… these are just a few examples. Some times you have to turn the tables in the establishment to notice that you have dust and roaches under the floorboards.

Aussenseite

I can admire you for your pro-active stance and activity. But tell me, weren’t there rules even within that? I used to protest, peacefully (we aren’t all fanatics) outside of an abortion clinic and one of the rules is not to go within a certain distance, feet of the door. Now, if we had done that, or charged in there, or deliberately restrained the women from going in there, we would have been hauled off before a judge and perhaps go to jail. I didn’t really see any point in going to jail, especially, being that I have children, and what purpose would that have served and in what way would i have been making any reasonable statement by doing that? So, rules are important and I would say that more then just some (as you put it) are important. I wonder what ilp would look like to a person coming in for the first time - if most everyone in here for a large part, simply copied and pasted, copied and pasted, text from other posters, even that text not being from a banned poster.

I do agree with you in that certain rules need to be changed. As far as the society which is ILP, part of this society could care less whether Lyssa is banned or not, myself included though I did say I have no problem with her returning; part of this society believes that because she broke particular rules, she needs to be banned. And then there is the part who disagree with her banning. We’ve been over this before, but tell me, what do you think should be (hate that word, should) the tipping point when it comes to breaking a rule? If someone deliberately flaunts the fact of not caring about a rule, whether or not people think it’s fair or not, wouldn’t you say that it is the responsibility of that person to accept the consequences? Doesn’t the behavior itself dictate the attitude of that person?

According to the excerpt which I put in here earlier, Carleas does have a perfect right to ban her whether or not some people agree with that decision… whether or not they agree or disagree with what constitutes the reality of what can be or cannot be posted. She acted in a way that was against the rule. That is the reality based on her behavior and the Rules. Let’s say that everyone came in here and broke that rule, spamming the forum with the text of a banned user. Then some might have the right to think and perhaps rightly so, that it’s an unjust law but then again my thinking may not be right here. The bottom line here is that the forum belongs to Carleas even though in one respect one can say it also belongs to the people and there really is not such a terrible degree of unreasonable or unfair rules in here as a few may think.

From the time I was small and kicked out of catholic schools…I understand this. I grew up in a catholiic orphanage so I perfectly understand how unjust or unfair a rule can seem to be and sometimes is. At the same time, being an adult now and having grown up, for the most part, lol I can now see the part some rules do play for a smooth-running environment, like ilp. I was also a rebel and I even ran away once but they found me and brought me back. Who knows what might have happened to me had they not found me. Of course, I have never been able to see the wisdom of being hit with rulers. That did hurt my knuckles. And when I ran out, my corporal punishment was such that I felt a really hard and hurtful paddle on my derriere. So I can see where some rules are justified and some aren’t and where some consequences for our actions need to be changed or softened.

You think of ilp as a dictatorship? You think that because there has to be some rhyme and reason, some censorship, that that qualifies as a dictatorship?! Go to a country where there is a dictatorship and come back and tell us what you think - then. Take another look at the posts in here.

What would you call Know Thyself? Ah, yes I know there is no banning over there but I may be wrong. I think there have been people kicked out (and I think that in some cases it might have been a good idea) but in other cases, I would be curious to know why. But there is a dundgeon there, right, where someone can still reside and still post provided others go there to visit on visiting days. I may also be wrong about that. I wonder what Socrates would think if he took a look there or especially Aristotle. What would he think? I wonder what both would say in comparing ilp to Know Thyself - oh, boy, how I could wonder about that. I would be really interested in knowing that. Maybe I could hunt up some real philosophers outside there somewhere and ask them to come and take a look-see or to join up for awhile. I really wonder what their conclusions might be, how they would critique the places. You might think I’m being a little ludicrous or silly here but I really do wonder and I may just give that some thought.

As far as the dust and the roaches being under the floorboards - not to call Lyssa a roach, not at all, but figuratively speaking, perhaps one can see her deviating so far from a rule that others have abided by - as her being the roach which has created all of the dust which has cropped up in here. Again, I’m not calling her a roach.

I don’t really think that any of this is going to be resolved the way everyone wants it since we all see with different eyes but it doesn’t really matter at this point. The bottom line - look before you leap and think before you act and think before you say yes to others and think before you abide by their standards. If we can’t do this, we have to accept the consequences, and why wouldn’t we since we were so fervent in believing we knew what we were doing. We all have to pay the piper in one way or the other.

Just remember there’s nobody more zealous than a recent convert, and libertarianism has its flaws as well.

Ehh, I doubt it. Carleas is pretty good about allowing views he finds personally odious on here, and in private he’s spoken more strongly against censorship than most of the moderator staff. Lys or Satyr’s message is irrelvant to me: Satyr was banned, it makes sense to me that being a proxy for a banned user’s posts should be an offense. Lys was warned to stop doing it, she kept doing it, she’s banned. Seems about right.

Just so.

You would think that stating the situation in the most logical way you can should make realisation hit home, wouldn’t you?

It’s a comprehension issue. Sometimes people think someone is a good writer because the writer is hard to read, and they think that he’s smarter than them because hard to read stuff must be really powerful complex stuff. But sometimes the hard to readness of it is just a bunch of window dressing to try and obfuscate a view thats actually simple, and retarded. Then other times a person doesn’t like a certain writer because they are clear, concise, to the point and logical…and those kinds of writers are hard to disagree with, and if you disagree with them then it’s a hard thing to cope with simple truth right in fronf of you.

Just a thought that occurred to me seeing the new and already locked thread about tolerance…

Couldn’t everybody who was bothered by Lys simply use the ignore function on her? Since there are obviously more people who want her here, than those who do not…

I know this won’t change the decision, but it is just another indicator that this is about censoring a certain type of ideas, not a specific person because they are disturbing.

Blocking is useful when a particular user has a problem with another user. It is not the solution for spam, nor is it the solution for someone acting as a proxy for a banned user. Since Lys’ ban is based on her spamming and acting as a proxy for another user, the option for other users to block her does not impugn the legitimacy of her ban.

Who administrates and who moderates on the webforum “Know Thyself”?

I have only just joined both sites so cannot comment with any degree of authority but I like new forums for it is always a different experience because each one is unique in its own right. There does seem to be bad blood between the two sites and particular individuals but I have zero desire to add to that as that is not how I roll. I am far more interested in the informed opinions of those wiser than me on all matters philosophical and non philosophical also. Already see that Fixed Cross here and Satyr at Know Thyself have fundamentally different worldviews to mine which I openly welcome. And from reading Satyrs own words over there he seems to be an intelligent man and wise beyond his years. But he can be incredibly offensive to his peers though they seem to take it much as he gives it and as someone who believes in absolute free speech my self cannot complain about anyones discourse. I will only be posting over here for reasons of practicality as there are only so many forums one can be active on even if you do have twenty four hours free every day as I do. But I shall still read Know Thyself on a regular basis. Apparently not much philosophy is discussed on this forum in spite of its name so will try in my own insignificant way to add to that deficiency. As I am genuinely interested in serious debate and so hopefully can contribute material of substance. Now there is no more I can say at this point in time other than to wish both sites all the best