Forum Philosophy Update

I guess that’s one way of putting it, but I’m not arguing against having rules, but that the community should determine and enforce them. But obviously the community can’t have the keys to the kingdom and an authority will have to handle violent offenders who disrupt in action. I’m not advocating a lawless anarchy per se, but more involvement of the community concerning the definition and punishment of offensiveness. Although the analogy of mob rule is succinct, it isn’t quite accurate.

I want to address that a bit more. Suppose you rescue a baby from a burning building and a mini mob arrives to ridicule you. Would you feel ashamed? Of course not. You would only feel ashamed if you actually did something shameful and were called-out by the mini mob.

A proverb is no proverb until life has illustrated it - keats. So you cannot feel shame until your life as illustrated how your action was shameful.

Yeah, that seems reasonable and the lawyers agree :wink: “Tell me the letter of the law that I may find ways around it” :evilfun:

Well, it’s more the thought of my peers shaming me that prevents me from acting shamefully in the first place, so I don’t need them except in my own mind.

I read on youtube:

“you’re stupid!”
“do you often talk to stupid people?”
no reply.

So I think “Do I want to be the guy calling someone stupid?” No, that’s stupid! “Slander is the tool of the loser”, so why would I want to do that? I don’t need anyone to tell me not to act like an idiot… it’s just something that I intrinsically do not want to do, though I don’t always succeed lol

Probably lots of stuff… unfortunately. :confused: I think it’s just part of existing in a duality.

Probably, just as they are being done in workplaces, social groups, hobby groups, organizations. However if the larger group dislikes what the smaller group is doing, if they, for example disagree and think that this is just bullying, they will hopefully come to the defense of that person, or raise the idea that it is more complex. I think you refer to this as a minimob somewhere. Which it certainly could be and for anyone who thinks that the forum social rules are wrong, the liklihood increases that they will think that they will think it is a mob, rather than representatives relaying that behaviors X are disliked by the group. And yes, this can evolve over time. As far as them being vague and undefined, I think they may be more complex than the current list. They will likely allow for more nuance and exceptions. IOW I would guess that the occasional insult would be accepted. Instead of a commandment based list, you would have more of a consequentialist evaluation. Thou shalt not X, replaced by situation based analyses - even if these are often done intuitively.

It may seem like the groups you are in do not use shaming and you do not use shaming or approve of shaming, but in my varied and long life I have not encountered any group that did not punish bad behavior through actions and words which cause shame. These include subtler stuff, like judging but not saying it, being distant and treating other people with warmth. Personally I find that more unpleasant than a blame filled confrontation where issues are aired and I can clearly see what is bothering people about me. Others may have different tastes, but both extremes can and do cause shame.

We can let daddy do everything. Carleas can decide what the infractions are, look at it in a rule based way, ban a couple of people a decade and ignore the commandments. I think this has contributed to low standards of interaction. There is a lot of not really responding to people’s points and other rudenesses that if turned into infractions would put an incredible burden on Carleas, since he would have to go into these discussions and do some analysis. Not fair to him. Demeaning to us to demand/expect a parental role for something we can do ourselves. As it is we have a lot of solipsistic posts made by people who cannot really interact with the ideas of others and really, have no reason to think they need to. Philosophy as expressing opinions. The rephrasing these. I ambiguous could practically be a bot or terribly weak AI, one that questionably passes a Turing test.

It puts a lot of responsibility on members. They probably need to refrain from feeding subtle trolls and the more easy to notice right off kind. They need to demand better responses.

It might not even work. But it is not working now.

I notice that Prismatic is getting precisely this kind of feedback. People have moved from shaming to shunning, formally ending interaction. The problem is, I know it myself, it is easy to get redrawn back in, perhaps before the person moves away. I don’t think any feedback will set Iambiguous in motion to another forum (or change the way he posts.) He seems to content to talk to the ether in a number of his threads. But still, it would be interesting to see what would happen if more people took to shaming, then shunning. Waht would the quality be like in the remaining interactions. Would a kind of forum culture become clearer. Would the loss of frustration dealing with solipsistic posters, lead to a more open dialogue between the others, where people concede points, explore, are honest when they realize they still disagree but the other person made a good point they have no riposte for (yet, perhaps) and so on. My guess is that there would beo some improvement but nothing grand. But hey, we could see and a little improvement would be something.

That would make sense if the only reason (or main reason) to be in a philosophy forum was to engage in the enforcement of rules. Since it’s not, my answer seems to be obvious.

What???

Yeah, I might do that if I knew what the hell you were talking about. LOL.

My question was asking what happens to the person who disagrees with you guys.

There is no process proposed for deciding on the rules and no reason to think that you will treat any fixed set of rules as binding.

Basically this system of shaming would just “start up”.

One or two or three of you will start shaming someone based on your “personal standards”. Then a person who disagrees has the choice of ignoring it, getting into an argument with you about the “standard” or leaving the forum.

None of which are appealing.

As I just wrote, there is no process for selecting the rules. Are you proposing a vote?

How many members really want to be part of the enforcement?

That sounds good in theory but in practice people are made to feel shame when they have no reason to.
The process of being shamed is unpleasant even when you have no reason to feel shame.

Then if you don’t feel shame, you are shunned. #-o

These are unfortunate and real aspects of shaming and shunning.

You make it seem as if only 'the guilty" would suffer shaming and shunning.

You rescue a Jewish baby and you are ridiculed by the Nazi mob. :confusion-shrug:

That’s a simplistic example. You see yourself as agreeing with the rightness of the shaming.
But what if you don’t agree. What if you are pressured to act in a way which you don’t want to act? Then you are up against the mob. Are you sure that you are not going to cave in to them? If you don’t cave then you’re shunned.

Thanks for that explanation.

I think that you are pulling a lot of normal social interaction under that category of shame/shaming.
For example, I didn’t stop talking to Prismatic because I’m shaming or shunning him, I stopped talking to him because he has not said anything new for weeks. I have already responded many times to his “general problem solving method”, his “psychological angst” and his definition of “perfection”. I’m bored and uninterested now. But that’s not a punishment.

I don’t think it’s realistic to try to punish this. I have been accused of that exact “failing” and I can produce a list of reasons why those accusations are BS. Of course, some days I’m in a bad mood, or frustrated or distracted by other concerns … so I was probably a rude prick some of the time. :evilfun:

:-k Iambig is constantly saying that I’m not responding to his points. :laughing:

“not responding to a person’s point”

When I feel that someone is not responding to my points, I usually think that either I have not expressed myself clearly or the other person does not understood my point. Either way, I’m basically talking Swahili to him/her.

There are instances when he will call me a “libtard” or “Randian thug” or something similar and just refuse to respond to the points. Ironically I’m accused of having both extreme right wing and extreme left wing views. :laughing:

Sure, any instance of not responding to a point is just that, and instance. We all miss points, we all misunderstand, writers responsible also as well as readers for these instances. But patterns are another thing. Intelligence can be a factor, but one can also see patterns of willful avoidance, strawmen use and clear patterns of not reading not just one’s own posts but those of others.

That could have been my ego talking in the previous post.

Maybe he just thinks that my point is so stupid that it does not merit a response. :laughing:

And maybe he’s right. :-k

Ah, reduced to retorting again.

No, I merely speculate that to the extent some come to grasp what I construe to be the profound limitations of philosophy in probing the question “how ought one to live?”, they may well be inclined toward other less problematic pursuits.

Okay, but how do we write about human interactions in what some construe to be an essentially absurd and meaningless world?
One that ends for all of eternity in oblivion? And, as well, in what Camus and others deemed to be a No God world.

I’ve come up with “dasein, conflicting goods and political economy”. Culminating for me in a “dilemma” that seems perfectly reasonable when broaching the is/ought world.

I can then only invite you and others to react to this. To allow folks to explain why that is not the manner in which they react to it.

As that might be construed applicable to the discussions being generated on this thread.

Is there a way to roll that particular boulder up the hill such that it does not roll back down again and again and again and again.

It doesn’t seem that it can be done to me. But then I’m not an objectivist.

Who is “we”?

Camus was writing about that absurd and meaningless world and yet he found personal meaning and happiness there - without God and with oblivion.

Why is he not a reasonable example for you to follow?

And other philosophers have managed to handle no God and oblivion - Epicureans for example.

Stoics had God and oblivion.

So what the hell is wrong with those philosophies beyond “I’m not convinced”? Why aren’t you convinced?

Seems like you have a cornucopia of options. You dismiss everything as an “intellectual contraption” and then you have nothing in a world rich with possibilities.

Bah, humbug.

Oblivion tomorrow but alive today.

A speck of dust in a universe which would not exist without the dust that forms it.

Cool running. You’re one “bad” ass.

Two responses 1) I think people feel shame and judge each other a lot in normal social interactions. 2) I am being polemical, or following Serendipity’s polemics for a few reasons. A little context: most of my life I have hated ‘shaming’ and would have been on your side of this debate just because I saw the word shame. When I arrived in this discussion, however, I realized that I do things in normal social interactions - when what I consider negative patterns to be present and, for example, one person is responsible in the main for them - that will, if the other person respects me and listens, will likely be shaming. The truth is I am not focused on his or her shame. I am focused on expressing, with some of the emotion present at least, what I see as what they are doing and the effects of this. But even though I am not focused on shame, I think it is unlikely that anyone will change unless there is a transitional state of shame. I am not trying to get them to feel bad about themselves in some long term way, but, damn, if they respond with ‘YOu know, you are right…’ as part of some longer explanation reaction, and this almost always includes some shame on their part, it feels great, I feel respected AND I respect them, often a lot, at least for that time. I am not hoping they will be moping around even later that day. So for the sake of exploration philosophically and, yes, to be or join polemics, I decided to take responsibility for the likely reaction of anyone on the receiving end of what I consider a normal social interaction. Let me see if it feels/seems defensible to consider it part of my intention, instead of just tacitly knowing it is a byproduct of my actions. Shame is a motivator. I think it is a huge motivator when we shift off patterns that people we give a damn about confront us - private, professional, leisure environs all. I certainly feel shame when my wife points out shit I am pulling. And without that, I think I would not really have heard her, gotten it, understood, taken responsibility, gotten underneath the habit. I mean, who wants to notice that stuff. Except long term I do. And I want others I interact with to notice that stuff also.

Though stopping talking to someone in most normal social interactions will lead to them feeling shame (or, if unable to introspect AND they have not been doing anything wrong anger, perhaps or sadness). But I am not suggesting you need to intend shaming. I think this is what happens, but you are doing a minimal personal (rather than communal) shunning. If more people do that a person may notice that they are not getting the response they want. Natrual consequences, great.

Of course one can be in error. But honestly responding still gives information. OK; phyllo said I wasn’t responding to him or I don’t respond to him in general, but no one else is saying this, so either we have a communication problem or he is off in some way. HOwever if a bunch of people start saying it and they seem like fairly smart people, this is good information also. Now it is time to evaluate 1) the forum is a good fit - perhaps the paradigmatic differences are so great or the experiential differences are so great, then it is very hard to bridge and/or 2) if ‘I’ have a problem I need to look at. Probably in working this out, being open to the possibility of 2, shame will be present. That shame will motivate something, change of venue, change of self, added care in responding to see if they are right and so on.

Sure, that’s because you have not convinced him that abortion is either morally right or wrong. So any points you raised about his behavior, assumptions, interactions, beliefs is a failure. AS if the only motives present are his, as if he does not have effects on the world. Only people he sees as objectivists have effects on the world. And negative ones (LOL) so any not giving him a solution that works for him to his conundrum is mere noise. If he was just one step more aware he might say How dare you focus on me and what I think, do and write? That doesn’t prove abortion is right or wrong and you have not agreed with me.

In any case that’s my take. You may not have responded to some of this points, but I will bet you responded to him and what he wrote and how he interacted. And I will bet you encountered blankness yourself on many an occasion.

All possibilities, but the phenomenon is real - some people repeatedly, for example, simply restate their opinions and in doing so it is as if this responds to counterarguments, when it does not. We are all fallible. All social groups are fallible. Still, patterns emerge and the feedback that people are experiencing these patterns is part of social life. Yes, some parts of Japanese culture and British culture will be even more reticent than you to express blunt shaming, as a couple of examples, but they sure as shit manage to convey it indirectly.

Perfect question. But you know the answer. The ‘we’ is him. God forgive me I looked at the post you quoted

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=193363&start=125&p=2694639&view=show#p2694639

and notice how there is a gesture at making it relevant, but it is in fact simply a repeat of his question. One that does not aid this community or further the discussion.

He thinks there is no way to determine moral behavior. Of course one can still discuss group norms and how to practically make these work for those present, without thinking of this as objective morals. But in any case, the thread is not meaningful to him. He cannot have a position on the thread, since he views it in moral terms only. It is irrelevant to him.

His issue is irrelevant to us. It is about him.

It’s a form of narcissism everything gets sucked towards his ‘need’.

And one need not be on objectivist to respond negatively to this. I would guess if he was a chimpanzee, he would either have to change or be shunned. YOu can’t just keep pointing at the nits in your own hair and demanding to be groomed. You gotta do other shit to be appreciated. And if you keep pooping in the water source…

That’s good stuff!

Lots of folks like that. With some people it takes a lot of neural energy for me to decipher what they are trying to convey. I can’t figure out if it’s me or them. With some, English isn’t their first language or there are geographical differences in dialect that makes communication difficult.

I do that because I stand alone without backup. One-man protests don’t work too well. Plus, prism could be my mother and I get plenty of bullheadedness from family :confused:

But you said: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=193363&start=100#p2694373

Well if you know the rules aren’t going to be enforced, and you’re here, then the rules don’t matter to you. That’s where it leaves you in this game.

That reminds me of this thread…

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=193671

I think, but I am not sure, that the topic interests me. I just don’t know what they’re saying. But they seem too. Like some kind of twins language. But since they seem to be getting something out of it, OK. I can’t complain about that since it is contained. I just avoid the thread, or check in actually, to see if I can get a grip on it.

And there is the English as second language issue with him. But even with that slack. Or, her, I guess. I hope Prism isn’t your Mom.

You said you signed up knowing specific rules were in place. I wanted to know what those rules are. For instance, you may have liked the rule of not insulting someone. Ok, but that’s a rule that would exist anyway because no one likes to be insulted. The only difference is how you want offenders punished. So it’s better to say that you signed up knowing punishment would be demerits rather than shaming-by-peers because the rules would be the same regardless if daddy were here or not.

Well we can propose one.

Hence the purpose of judges. No one person can change the rules and no one person can consider them unbinding.

No, it already exists, but is subdued by the existence of the authority because it’s their job, not mine, currently.

Well, yeah, but the alternative is: a mod will issue warnings or bans based on their “personal standards”. Then a person who disagrees has the choice of ignoring it, getting into an argument with the mods about the “standard” or leaving the forum.

What I had in mind wouldn’t be organized, but would rely on a handful of good seeds planted, as in members who could teach others by example. Carleas is a good example because he’s so fair-minded in speech. He notes when members make good points, he admits errors, and just generally has a good tone that I think should be copied.

I think when people make good points, people should quote it and say “good point!” Why only negative feedback? Why only punishment? Lead with both hands: one has a stick and the other a carrot. I think if more people started doing that, it would catch on.

I think I see what you’re saying… you may be led to feel shame in error. Yes, I suppose that’s true, but on the other hand, there should be other members who could come to your defense as well.

Yup. Well, luckily there are always more than just nazis. Just don’t go bragging about rescuing jewish babies on stormfront :laughing:

How else am I to have a moral compass?

I’m asking myself if I’ve had better luck appealing to one person to change his mind or a group of people. Groups seem more open-minded. What do you think?