Linz's "Open" Forum

It's funny how Linz is still bragging about his "open" forum, yet he had Jason Quintana quickly enstate a brand-new "photo" rule in order to have an excuse to ban me, specifically.

Under the sudden new rule, anyone not posting a real picture of themselves by the end of the month would be banned. I, however, was not to be covered under that rule... I was banned immediately. No "end of the month" for me. Nosiree, Bob.

So, yes, even Linz bans. Of course, he'll probably call it something else entirely. Doing so would project a better image, after all.

Narcissism is all too alive and well within Objectivism... as usual.

(Edited by Jeremy M. LeRay on 5/05, 4:03am)

Post 1

Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 4:55am

Their loss.

Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 8:34am

I occasionally go over to SOLO to browse around and sometimes I find a posting that is interesting but the infighting and personality bashing is just way too much. In order to even understand the positions of the various factions one must devote many hours, so I've given up. There aren't many people on SOLO that I'd care to meet in real life, in contrast to RoR.

Sam

Post 3

Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 1:12pm

Ditto, Sam.....

Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 3:37pm

Thanks, Teresa. :-)

Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 3:38pm

Sam,

I agree with you. Aside from, perhaps, Bill Visconti, there really isn't anyone there I think I'd care to meet. The egomania thermostat is turned up over at SOLO to a degree that quickly fries the brain.

(Edited by Jeremy M. LeRay on 5/05, 3:41pm)

Post 6

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 4:13am

I had thought that perhaps the demand for full names and current photographs might lead people to act more civilly toward each other since they could avoid the cloak of anonymity, but that seems not to be the case. This happens anywhere, even in live Objectivist clubs as noted in this thread:

http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=5261

I had complete sympathy for the leader of the North Texas Objectivist Society and even sent him a private note of support for his decision to evict the boor in question.

Some people bemoan the splits and schisms that result in people leaving in a huff to start their own forums. I do not see this as necessarily bad. The wide variety of such forums with smaller numbers of active participants allows for a more intimate environment to allow for more opportunities for psychological visibility and bonding which all people crave.

Post 7

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 4:48am

Luke,

As I've said before, I don't think that using a real picture or not really has anything to do with how fair-minded a person is going to be in a chat room or message board. For some reason, a lot of people assume that a person would only use a fake picture if they were going to be up to no good whatsoever.

This is not the case for me, nor has it ever been. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case for me.

It has been my experience that there are certain very important things that must be said -- but are too controversial -- to be said while unmasked. Sometimes, in order to be fully heroic and most fully yourself and most fully honest, you have to wear a mask. Very often, the people who bitch and moan and shake their fists as the people using secret identities are the villains. This is because they would very much like to know how to track down the hero, his or her family members, and who-knows-what from there.

This is why they want to know more... their intentions on knowing more about a given person are anything but a desire for "more personal connection". They want leverage.

Post 8

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 5:40am

I remember when there wasn't such a thing as forums like this. All we had to work with were bare bones message boards and listserv subscriptions. Even then the troll population in the Objectivist realm was extremely weak. Objectivists tend to put up an enormous rational front against such people when they crawl in to disrupt things.

Note the scant use of the Dissent forum here on RoR. I'm really at a loss to understand why SOLO would ban Jeremy, unless it is to maintain some kind of group think homogeneousness.

Post 9

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 7:53am

Luke: ... full names and current photographs might lead people to act more civilly toward each other since they could avoid the cloak of anonymity, but that seems not to be the case.
Mr. JMLR:"...I don't think that using a real picture or not really has anything to do with how fair-minded a person is going to be in a chat room or message board. "
TSI: ... bare bones message boards and listserv subscriptions. ... unless it is to maintain some kind of group think homogeneousness.

I started participating in message boards in 1984. My state senator, Dr. William Sederburg, started one of the first political forums (called "Political Forum BBS"). Real names or not, did not make much difference, but the moderators also kept a closer watch, not for ideological purity, but for simple civility.

Later, I wrote about State Net and Hanna for Whole Earth ("Electronic Democracy") as well as for computer magazines (Data General, PC Today, etc.). Those systems put the daily activity of the state house online for dialup. They eventually became the Library of Congress's "Thomas" system. Back then, these systems were competitive, and one of the quotes was often about the fact our system lets people message to each other, which enpowers coalitions. Civility was not so much of a problem when people were paying $500 to $5000 a year for access.

A few years later, when FidoNet was going strong, I wrote an article for Loompanics about the opposite problem: sysops with iron fists. There was no doubt about their right to run their BBSes as they saw fit. The point was that if you start off limiting debate -- even limiting the allowed topics of debate -- then you defeat the purpose of having online discussions in the first place. I was warned on the Stock Market net not to defend Michael Milken. I was dropped from the International net as soon as I subscribed because I began each of three posts to different people with Hello in their native languages and one of the "rules" was that only English is allowed on FidoNet. The creation of such rules is why Tom Jennings (one of the founders) dropped out of FidoNet management. The best story from that article was about the woman who was called into her boss's office because she used the word "niggardly" in an email.

Currently, I write the monthly "Internet Connections" column for the ANA's Numismatist magazine. I surf the web, looking for reliable sites and I participate as a user on several boards. Because coin collectors are rightfully paranoid about giving out personal information, everyone has a username and the avatars are often coins, money vignettes, or cartoons, etc. (Mine is the girl from Detroit Edison stock certificates.) In particular, Coin People (www.coinpeople.com) allows more confrontation than does Coin Talk (www.cointalk.org). Coin Talk allows almost no debate. I say this, you say that. No more replies are allowed; they are deleted and you get a message from the moderator telling you to stop. On the other hand, the usenet newsgroup rec.collecting.coins is old-fashioned in that there are only username and no pictures. As a usenet newsgroup, it is plagued by religious and homophobic spammers and for over a year now, maybe two, Greeks and Turks have been defaming each other over old times not forgotten.

Groupthink homogeneity is always a problem in a religious debate, and that is what political or philosophical problems are. Even in the physical sciences, once you get into the non-repeatable theorizing, people lose their civility. Industrial Research magazine used to have a columnist who brought out challenging ideas. (How can carbon dating be accurate when new carbon-14 is being created at unknown rates by cosmic rays entering the atmosphere?) People would cancel their (free) subscriptions over those essays.

When Sense of Life split into two boards, I participated in both, as did others, but I found that RoR offered more in the way of readable ideas and thoughtful presentations. The owners here have corralled people for writings that I found tolerable and interesting; and when that happened, I bowed out for a few days. But I respect the writers here, even, (or especially) the ones with whom I have the least consonance. There are limits, of course. Personally, I feel that Objectivists in general kowtow to conservatives in general because the latter wrap themselves in the flag. But this is not my message board, so, while conservative demand that the owners of RoR relegate me to Dissent (or cancel my sub), I would never do the same. Perhaps that is the sin of cultural relativism, what Rand qua Francicso called "the sin of forgiveness."

Post 10

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 10:46am

I generally feel that it is bad form to comment on a forum except on that forum itself. Of course, since this forum is referred to there as FRoRd, (Guess to a kiwi that sounds like fraud) and since my postings here and the postings of others on all sorts of websites were subjects for discussion and derision on that website, I will make a few comments.

When I began posting on RoR and SOLO-P, I did not have a personal picture available. While that was simply a matter of curiosity here, some people on that site, especially the principals, were quite upset, even lecturing me on how to use a scanner, and so forth. Nevertheless I posted regularly, made a few comments to which people took exception (such as claiming that Rand had sued Rush over their 2112 album - I said that I was going on reliable hearsay, was branded a Brandroid liar - and then someone posted that Rand had indeed had her lawyer send them a letter threatening to sue, but had filed no suit - I was vindicated but no one acknowledged this fact or apologized) and so I was labelled a "suspect." There was then the silly matter of accusing me of being William Scott Scherk posting under an alias - he had been banned, apparently for comparing someone to a seashell, and then posting an image of a seashell. All the while I contributed articles, maintained a blog, and otherwise played by the rules and contributed much of value.

Yet some pet lap-dogs such as a certain Mr Weiss continually engaged in hectoring me, never contributing anything of their own. And Weiss never had a photograph at all, no blog, no description, just a lot of spewing venom. I did post an image that I suggested he might use as an avatar, shown here. I am almost tempted to go look him up, but not quite.

I think the fray over avatars is bizarre. Once a screen name is established, only that user can post under it. A reputation will be built up based upon that relation, but any avatar posted could simply be faked and proves nothing in any case.

The one problem I do have with posters is that they often do not fill out their profile. I think everyone who posts to this site should at least give some general background, even if vague and approximate. Age, a short bio, general geographic location, general interests and education and life experience and so forth provide a crucial context for understanding where a poster's underlying assumptions are derived and the context from which to address them.

I'd find it much more helpful to know if you are an adolescent academic raised as a liberal leftist who recently read Rand or are a mature blue-collar worker who read Rand 30 years ago but have been busy living your life rather than trolling web fora and starting flame wars.

And if the moderator of a site wishes, he can always put problem children on probation. Of course, if you run your site like a cliquish private fiefdom, sycophancy may be more important a posting quality than consistency to the major duomo, and getting banned under those circumstance would seem more like a compliment than an insult to me.

Ted Keer

Post 11

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 11:13am

Mr. Jeremy M. LeRay wrote:

> It has been my experience that there are certain very important things that must be said --
> but are too controversial -- to be said while unmasked. Sometimes, in order to be fully
> heroic and most fully yourself and most fully honest, you have to wear a mask.

I couldn't disagree more with this. If you have the courage of your convictions and believe in your positions and ideas, you should be willing to stand openly while proclaiming them and take both credit and responsibility. If you are inciting such hatred in others that you need to fear retribution, those actions don't belong on an intellectual forum such as this. In that case, don your mask and, like "V", take some real action. But in the marketplace of ideas, I have lowered levels of respect for those unwilling to stand openly behind their ideas. I'm sorry if that offends you.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 12

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 12:06pm

But in the marketplace of ideas, I have lowered levels of respect for those unwilling to stand openly behind their ideas. I'm sorry if that offends you.

It doesn't "offend" me in the slightest. In fact, I have no real understanding of how this term, "offend", is really defined.

For some people, to be "offended" means that you have spoken something verifiably untrue about them. For yet others, to be "offended" means that you have spoken something verifiably true about them, yet it just does injury to either their agenda or their ego. Either way, I just don't like the term. It's vague to me, and the concept itself has always been prone to be employed by manipulative, foppish dandies to silence others and get their own way at all costs.

With that said, in direct response to the statement above, my response is that you are correct.... it's a marketplace of ideas. That's why I say that it's the ideas themselves that matter as merchandise, not the person peddling them, or whether they reveal themselves. Only the quality of their ideas-as-merchandise matter and, perhaps, the reputation of the seller as an idea merchant.

To drive home my point, take the case of Ebay. Do you ever see the seller's faces? No. All you get is a handle, a rating for that seller, and a description of the seller's merchandise itself. Yet, am I very likely to see you complaining about a "lowered level of respect" for those sellers because they are "unwilling to stand openly behind" their merchandise? No. You are probably mature enough to acknowledge that such trivialities are important in an online transaction service.

Well, it's no different here. Our ideas in these forums are our merchandise, and we are the peddlers of our thoughts... for others to examine and, perhaps, "buy". After all, how often do we hear the response, in response to our ideas and statements, "Okay, I'll buy that" or "Sorry, I'm not buying that".

This is my point... because that, I think, is the only way to approach an online forum for Objectivism, the philosophy of ideas and of commerce. I am being totally faithful to both these points, and approaching these forums as an Ebay for Ideas.

Another bottom line here is that, perhaps, most of you who profess to being bothered by a lack of a picture are really, on some level, wanting coming in here wanting much more of a human connection or something, right off the bat, and that everybody having a picture would make you feel more cozy-comfortable, and that perhaps you might want to hang out with some of these people in real life.

Well, I've experienced firsthand that that's incredibly naive, and I'd like to think that I'm more realistic than that. The fact of the matter is that there are many, many far too unbelievably malicious, sadistic, and egomaniacal people online who have committed their entire online lives to simply terrorizing and traumatizing anyone they can get their hands on... I've experienced these sub-human cancers myself, long before I ever discovered Objectivist forums. So, now, as a matter of routine policy, I do not post my picture and I instead let my ideas speak for themselves. If I click with someone on the basis of my ideas alone, then it's a much more likely thing that there might be some true safety and compatibility there and, then and only then, might I brook the issue of revealing myself more fully.

This is just too treacherous and rotten a world nowadays to do otherwise.

Post 13

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 12:08pm

Ted,

At first I thought that picture of yours was of a gremlin. But now I realize it's that "world's ugliest dog" monstrosity.

The person who owns that abomination, is truly a dog lover.

Post 14

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 12:15pm

CJS wrote in Post 11 of this thread:

If you have the courage of your convictions and believe in your positions and ideas, you should be willing to stand openly while proclaiming them and take both credit and responsibility. If you are inciting such hatred in others that you need to fear retribution, those actions don't belong on an intellectual forum such as this. In that case, don your mask and, like "V", take some real action.

I agree completely at least with respect to intellectual forums like RoR.

Other forums for creative anachronisms and so forth actually benefit from colorful pseudonyms. The Second Life phenomenon illustrates this quite well. In addition, subversive activities that take moral actions to undermine immoral laws also benefit from anonymity, hence CJS's "V" comment. Those Internet forums rely heavily on anonymity to achieve their goals. Even the Founders published the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius" so we can certainly appeal to their example.

Post 15

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 12:36pm

If you have the courage of your convictions and believe in your positions and ideas, you should be willing to stand openly while proclaiming them and take both credit and responsibility. If you are inciting such hatred in others that you need to fear retribution, those actions don't belong on an intellectual forum such as this.

This is completely your opinion and one, I might add, that I'm convinced is completely wrong.

What I post are ideas. And for you to say that my ideas are suddenly "actions" is slick, fast, and sloppy. What's more, to say that my ideas "don't belong in an intellectual forum", much like one "such as this" is, first, sheer lunacy bordering on neurological impairment and, secondly, pure priggery (if that's even a "real" word, which I now insist it be).

In that case, don your mask and, like "V", take some real action.

Again, you play a deliberate game of semantics, for the purpose of pure antagonism. Are you suggesting that someone go out and start a domestic bombing campaign rather than flesh out ideas instead? Because your choice of lingo is starting to smack of that.

Even the Founders published the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius" so we can certainly appeal to their example.

My point exactly. Merely speaking words is oftentimes to place onesself in danger enough. Why you then say that you agree completely with Mr. Small in his call for everyone to "take action" rather than put forth provocative ideas under a state of anonymity is utterly beyond me.

Post 16

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 12:49pm

Gentlemen, ever heard of a certain Alice Rosenbaum?

What matters is not how one represents oneself. You can sign legal documents with an X if you like - or assume any alias you wish so long as you do not do so for fraudulent purposes. The problem is when you misrepresent yourself.

Yes, that was the world's ugliest dog, a ratlike breed with a degenerative disease, he died a while ago. To me, it is not looks but behavior that matters in the long run.

Ted

Post 17

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 1:03pm

And for you to say that my ideas are suddenly "actions" is slick, fast, and sloppy.

Now, wait a second, Jeremy. The act of posting your thoughts here or anywhere is indeed an "action." You had me at "merchandising," I agree with that, but to claim such merchandising isn't an action is a mistaken conclusion.

That's like saying you took no action while writing and publishing a book of ideas.

Post 18

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 1:22pm

Teresa,

What you're pointing out is a matter of semantics, albeit perhaps an important one.

Some would say that physically doing something is "taking action". Some would say that merely presenting ideas constitutes "taking action". Well, either there is a distinction, or there is not. Obviously, however, there is a threshold. I'm pretty sure that ideas alone do not cross that threshold.

My reason for drawing the distinction between ideas and action, was to stand up to this sloppy and contradictory statement which, at one point, states that ideas are actions that I should "stand openly" for, and then says that, instead of posting ideas on this intellectual forum (huh?), I should take some "real action".

I couldn't disagree more with this. If you have the courage of your convictions and believe in your positions and ideas, you should be willing to stand openly while proclaiming them and take both credit and responsibility. If you are inciting such hatred in others that you need to fear retribution, those actions don't belong on an intellectual forum such as this. In that case, don your mask and, like "V", take some real action.

More specifically, notice the following comments:

your positions and ideas

(Here they are ideas)

those actions don't belong

(And now, voila! They are actions)

those actions don't belong on an intellectual forum such as this.

(And, what's more, they are now being defined as "actions", for the express purpose of attempting to illustrate their "not belonging" in an "intellectual forum such as this". That's what I'm talking about as being "slick". It's quite convenient, this shell game. You really do have to keep your eye on the nut here.)

take some real action.

(And, finally, voila! again. They are, now, not real actions. By default, they can only be ideas once again.)

All of this convolution -- tangled and relentless as it is -- can only indicate one true purpose: to make me look corrupt, no matter the means by which to do so. To accomplish this, a series of invalid insults are hurled at me... that my ideas are these 1) "hostile, inciteful actions", then 2) "mindless actions which do not belong in an intellectual forum (in other words, there is no intelligence behind them), and then 3) not actions at all but, rather, just cowardly ideas without action.

In short, first he says that ideas are actions, then he immediately says that they're completely not. Well, he can't have it both ways. Either they are or they're not. He needs to make up his mind. He seems to want to have his cake and eat it, too, most likely for the purpose of trying to intimidate and confuse me into silence and to, hopefully, confuse others into thinking I am being some sort of hypocrite worthy of them joining in some crusade to help silence or perhaps just disregard me.

(Edited by Jeremy M. LeRay on 5/06, 1:38pm)

Post 19

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - 1:24pm