A modest proposal

due to the influx of unthinking theistic subhumans (which is to say nothign about civil and coherent theists, like citizen rat, only about certain borderline trolls) onto this board, who have nothing better to do than to laugh at certainty, and to compare those who disagree with them to serial killers, or mock their intelligence, I hereby propose the following means of disposing of such trolls (and I do suspect that the identities to which I refer truly are trolls, in the technical, internet jargon sense of the word:

I hereby propose that any person whose atlas count reaches -30 should automatically have their account deleted, all posts by them in the forums deleted too, and their email address banned from creating a new account. thusly, we will be able to keep plausible dissenters and purge this site from infection by unthinking trolls who wish to do nothing other than mock their superiors

Post 1

Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - 2:24pm

Mr. Bisno,

If trolls pose problems to you, can they not simply be ignored? Can their propositions, when irrational, not be brushed aside by those who recognize them as such?

My primary concern with your suggestion is that honest and consistent theists, like Citizen Rat, might be rejected upon their initial arrival as a result of excessive "non-sanctions" wielded against them, which, as some posters here have admitted, are used in the event of ideological disagreement as opposed to mere "troll-like" behavior.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 2

Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - 3:24pm

Robert, G.

Mr. Stolyarov said: My primary concern with your suggestion is that honest and consistent theists, like Citizen Rat, might be rejected upon their initial arrival as a result of excessive "non-sanctions" wielded against them ...

Yes, to say nothing of the possibility that even hard-shell Objectivist atheists, like me, might get banned if certain people, who shall remain nameless, should get miffed with something I say and go around unsanctioning every post I ever made until my count is reduced to -41 again. That wouldn't be good, would it Mr. Stolyrov? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Seriously, I agree with G. in this matter. We can always ignore trolls; and some of us have fun seeing them get befuddled.

If someone were seriously intrusive and offensive, I'm sure our good admin people could take care of the problem.

But, that's just my opinion. I hope I'm not unsanctioned for it.

Regi

Post 3

Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - 4:07pm

Gee Robert, that is the kind of elitist position I've seen other forums take before and the quality of the discussion suffered because of it. Just because someone is unmoved by your devastating argument doesn't mean they have no capacity for thinking. Working out new principles takes time. No one just instantly changes the direction of their life.

The standard set of Objectivist epithets, like "unthinking" and "evasive", reminds of how the Left likes to label their opponents as "racist" or "ignorant". They are entirely useless and counter productive. Objectivists epithets have no power to cajole non-objectivists (since the public doesn't take Objectivism seriously anyway) and should be promptly discarded, or used only in private.

(Edited by Eddie Wood on 5/04, 4:09pm)

Post 4

Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - 4:25pm

Eddie:

keep in mind that i'm not saying that any and all dissent should be banned. just moronic and abrasive trolls. getting down to -30 atlas points isn't easy-- you have to piss off a lot of people to sink that low. thusly, we can be safe that intelligent dissenters will stay and only worthless morons who compare the logic of out position to serial murder will be banned.

Post 5

Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - 4:36pm

also: on second thought, -30 might be too strict a troll threshold. lets make it, say, -55

Post 6

Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 11:00am

Unfortunately Robert my respect for your intelligence has reached a low point....but on a good note, your pomposity would never allow that TRUTH to psychologically wound you.

You're a shocking example of what a little knowledge can do for someone incapable or unwilling to debate difficult issues in an affable manner.
Your misrepresentations of my comments WRT to serial killers marks you as simply "anti", anti truth and my powerful store of knowledge.

Post 7

Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 4:33pm

"You're a shocking example of what a little knowledge can do for someone incapable or unwilling to debate difficult issues in an affable manner."

this coming from someone who chose to mock me and laugh at me when I corrected them on the deliberate misuse of a word.

you're really one to talk here.

Post 8

Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 2:28am

The exec list is currently debating the issue of how strictly and by what rules we should moderate users. On the one hand, by letting the clearly non-Objectivists post, it could be good practice arguing against them. On the other hand, we could practice arguing against non-Objectivists on many other boards, and their presence here hijacks conversations and possibly drives away more people than it entertains. We should come to some decision and have a more explicit policy shortly.

In the mean time, if you un-sanction them down to "moderated" status, at least they can't post as frequently! :-)

Post 9

Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 4:26am

there should be a fair amount of leeway before a person starts running into trouble. we dont want to just anyone who dissents. I was thinking instead, as shown by the fairly low atlas counts that I picked as the ban thresholds, that someone would essentially have to be really obnoxious before its sensible to get rid of them. otherwise, we look like elitist peikoff clones

edit: we dont want to ban just anyone who dissents. sorry for the typo
(Edited by Robert Bisno on 5/06, 10:16am)

Post 10

Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 5:02am

> just occurred to me a sort of broad sketch of how to determine which dissents are or arent worth bothering with. I am posting this here for notation purposes and do not mean to make any policy recommendations with this post. i've already made those.

for purposes of this post, I will assume that the opponent is completely civil and honest. not talking about trolls here. assume they are fairly articulate and intelligent too. how is it to be decided if it is worth the effort to bother with them or not?

the answer, it occurred to me, lies within objectivism's hierarchical, tree like structure.

insert a really crude diagram here:

politics aesthetics
| . . . . . . . . . |
| . . . . . . . . . |
-----ethics --------
..... |
epistemology
..... |
metaphysics
sorry about the redundant periods, but SOLO's text editor wont let me have wide swaths of blank spaces. just try to ignore them, they mean nothing.
anyway, the point is, the higher up the tree the disagreement is, the less fundamental the disagreement, and thusly the less forgone the person is. so, for example, all other things being equal, the slipknot fan is technically less forgone than the hard core mystic.

so, if the the disagreement is strictly in politics, then its fairly up the tree, and thus isnt that big a problem.

if the disagreement is in something really fundamental, like epistemology or metaphysics, the person is probably too gone. the less fundamental the branch which is being debated -> the less fundamental the disagreement -> the more "compatible" they are -> the more worthy of continued attention they are. again, all other things being equal.

if its in ethics..... tough call.

Post 11

Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 5:49am

Jeff:

Except in the case of a grossly destructive troll, in my opinion, the advocates of the arbitrary should not be banned. They can always be ignored, and in many cases should be.

Observe that those who are defending the arbitrary always seek to maintain a pretense at reason. The Creationist does not say, � I admit that reason does not support my belief in god, but I am going to believe in him nonetheless.� The Deist does not say, �I know that nothing justifies faith, but I am sticking to it anyway.� Instead, they try mightily to conjure up some sort of argument, i.e., something to give their position at least a rudimentary appearance of reason.

They should be engaged in debate, up to the point of thoroughly exposing their positions to be arbitrary and/or false -- but debating beyond that simply helps them maintain a pretense of rationality. Banning them gives them (false) ammunition to use against Objectivism; it helps them spread the notion that we are afraid of certain arguments and points of view. Ignoring them gives them nothing -- except the opportunity to change their minds.

Incidentally, some of the refutations I have read at SOLO have been so brilliant, so thoroughly devastating, that they should be permanently categorized and posted somewhere on the forum. Best arguments against faith, best arguments against god, best arguments against utilitarianism, etc. It would provide potent intellectual ammunition for the newcomers to the war for man's mind.

Post 12

Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 10:19am

I agree completely. on the other hand, some people start to sound just obnoxious enough, and just stupid enough, that one has to wonder if they are really debate the issue or just cause trouble. for example, david mayes' blatantly misuse the word "epistemology" and then laughing at my correction thereof.

Post 13

Friday, May 7, 2004 - 12:21pm

Greetings.

SOLO's reputation thus far has been that of an open forum, where a variety of viewpoints is appreciated and their discussion is encouraged, even in the instances where this may provoke heated disagreement and even occasional frustration. The latter two, in my judgment, are inevitable outcomes of a state of toleration, and ought to be embraced rather than restricted.

David Kelley writes on this subject in Chapter 5 of Truth and Toleration:

Rational knowledge is acquired by integrating the facts, by sifting and weighing the evidence, and a vital part of this process is open discussion and debate. We should encourage this process. Rationality means integrity, a loyalty to the conclusions of one's own mind. We should honor this, even in a person whose conclusions we disagree with. Rationality requires justice, adhering strictly to the facts in judging other people, and applying moral standards impartially. We should practice this. And a rational person is independent. Above all, as I said in "A Question of Sanction," let's encourage this virtue within our own ranks. Let us welcome dissent, and the restless ways of the explorers among us.

Yes, ladies and gentlement, individuals exist whose minds dictate them to express disagreement with some of the even fundamental views that we, Objectivists hold. This does not, however, preclude their intellectual honesty nor their willingness to recognize rationality where we can explain it to them with sufficient patience and persuasive capacity. Examine, if you will, Citizen Rat's analysis of my article, The Orwellian Popular Culture of Modernity, in which he has shown advocacy numerous times for capitalism, the "Enlightenment era's standards of excellence," an opposition to nihilism and modern pop-culture, the modern anti-standards, anti-conceptual mentality, and even altruism itself, which he called a nihilistic perversion of benevolence, something David Kelley himself would strongly agree with. Are these not values that we can derive, and can traces of certain values not exist in other individuals as well, even those that are not even as close to Objectivism as Citizen Rat?

http://solohq.com/cgi-bin/SHQ/SHQ_Forum.cgi?Function=FirstUnread&Board=2&Thread=556

I understand that Mr. Bisno's suggestion is not intended to deter participation of those like Citizen Rat, and I commend him for this recognition. However, I am also aware, periferally, of the Exec List discussion, which has prompted Mr. Rat to depart from this forum and, from what I know of it (please correct me if I am wrong) has explored more extreme approaches to the "problem" of theists and other non-Objectivists on this forum.

Mr. Landauer stated, with regard to the idea of engaging non-Objectivists in discourse for practice, that this can be done at other, more general forums. But the risk encountered in such a situation is our alienation at those forums for not being "mainstream enough" (whatever that means in the eyes of the shifting modern paradigm) as well as a dearth of fellow rational thinkers to assist in addressing the cascade of irrationalities that will be heaped upon us. Let me give you an example:

In December, 2003, I posted Henry Emrich's article, "Why They Fear Us," on The Free Republic (a very tolerant, competently-managed, and high-traffic forum, where the discussions get quite intense on occasion): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1048820/posts. I received quite a few responses, both from virulent, name-calling fundamentalist theists, as well as intelligent, eloquent theists who thought that they could use reasoning and facts to support their position (I disagreed, of course, but commended them for the effort!). Had I been facing them alone, I would not have, for sheer lack of time, been able to refute their comments. I happened to enjoy the helpful commentary of one, Hank Kerchief (i.e. Reginald Firehammer), whose words accounted for some of the responses and allowed me to focus on others. Nevertheless, we still could not cover them all because there were just too few of us. There were also a lot of undecided individuals, who were curious about the nature of Objectivism and desired explanations. I wish I could have provided more than time allowed. Here, at SOLO, we certainly enjoy the abundance of rational thinkers to facilitate a response to any request for assistance or a refutation of any irrational argument that we see. This is the advantage of engaging non-Objectivists on Objectivist turf.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 14

Friday, May 7, 2004 - 2:22pm

I fully agree with Mr. Stolyarov on this. It's tremendously instructive to argue against even the most egregious errors and confusions, which can come in myriad forms. I have often had the experience of only understanding fully an opinion or formulation of Ayn Rand's after struggling to understand or respond to another's objection to a position I knew to be correct on independent grounds. And, of course, there is always the chance that one has misunderstood the other side's views.

The only real problem is the nonintellectual emotional elements introduced by some in an attempt to make their arguments more forceful or intimidating. I speak of sarcasm, winking icons, condescension, taunts, etc. Invariably such behavior escalates into what can only be characterized as rationalistic flame wars. It is true that sometimes it is the Objectivists who get the cycle rolling with a mildly (or not so mildly) insulting implication, which one cannot really expect the other side to leave hanging. However, I believe it is most often the anti-Objectivists who arrive with the chip on their shoulder, sometimes hiding it at first to be sure.

Of course, the best response is to pretend one has not noticed the nonintellectual content of a post and continue to politely argue one's case. This gives the other side a chance to save face, should they later realize they were wrong. (It also makes it easier to admit one's own error, if it slowly should dawn on one that the opponent has a point!)

But I admit that it is hard to resist answering a barb, especially if one can think of a more clever one oneself. So I propose a solution for those cases that result in a vicous cycle of abuse. When a discussion threatens to degenerate into a quasi flame war, any reader might notify Admin, who will then edit the clear insults out of the last pair of messages, appending a short note. Or perhaps merely post an instruction to tone down the debate without editing anything.

In the rare case where someone is to be expelled for a bad attitude, Admin might notify the person in advance but give him an opportunity to make one last purely intellectual post, to which no one is allowed to reply on that thread. This lets the offender have the last word to an extent, which is often all he wants. And the sense of an essentially intellectual orientation here will be strengthened.

[Actually I can see some problems with that last suggestion, but I'll let it stand.]

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 5/07, 2:48pm)

Post 15

Friday, May 7, 2004 - 3:46pm

Cripes, Rodney, a bit convoluted, no? You trying to emulate bureaucrats? :-)

Let it rage, I say. Let it never be said that SOLO does not acknowledge the enormous value of engaging with its philosophical adversaries. A forum facilitating such debate was long overdue when SOLOHQ came along. And let's not get too precious about "insults" - folk are inevitably going to lose their rag from time to time. It's only in cases of chronic, persistent & ever more irrational ad hominem (such as Mr Emrich) & clear dishonesty that one need take action.

Look at the number of posts on the various threads. Is it not the case that those threads where folk are agreeing with each other & patting each other on the back (which is important, necessary & valuable too) attract few posts; those where our adversaries have taken us on, attract many?

Ringfencing those areas where adversaries may strut their stuff may be a satisfactory alternative to the status quo for those who come to SOLOHQ to get away from contemporary bullshit; banning them, however, is simply not an option.

Linz

Post 16

Friday, May 7, 2004 - 5:04pm

To add to the convolutions, I should have mentioned that I disagree with Mr. Stolyarov that Objectivists should make common cause with conservatives or others who have deep disagreements with our outlook. They can be useful for such tasks as stuffing envelopes, perhaps, but not in any intellectual work.

I will debate with them as civilly as I can anytime, however.

Post 17

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 10:08am

I agree 100% with Lindsay. I have always quoted Ayn Rand on this subject, from her essay, "The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus." Rand writes:

It is obvious that a boat which cannot stand rocking is doomed already and that it had better be rocked hard, if it is to regain its course�but this realization presupposes a grasp of facts, of reality, of principles and a long-range view, all of which are precisely the things that the "non-rockers" are frantically struggling to evade.

I believe this statement applies as much to Objectivism as to any other -ism or any other issue in the sea of discussion. Let this continue to be a forum for boat-rocking.

Post 18

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 10:52am

Chris, Linz,

Chris: I agree 100% with Lindsay.

Weather Forcast: Exceptionally cold temperatures and a hard freeze are expected in low-lying areas of hades this afternoon.

Post 19

Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 11:13am