It has been a little while now that this fledgling community has been around and it remains one of my favorite stories about communities. A splinter of a much larger community took it upon themselves to challenge the rest and make a move to a new home. Shedding the shackles that were being placed on them was a bold move, but one that has been fantastic.
The community here is great, but here is my question. Overall, we are amazingly tolerant of others, of the choices they make, and of their beliefs. I would then be curious, if we are such a tolerant group, how do we address intolerance in our ranks? I recently came across what I can only say filled me with pity and sadness. I find it saddening that in this day and age, and especially in this group, there are still such hate-filled people.
But this poses a question: how does a group that is tolerant deal with intolerance within it's ranks? Does our acceptance of others extend to accepting someone that has thoughts and beliefs which are far from the norm within this community, or is there a limit placed on how far from our own values a member of the community may be?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:26PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:02PM
Congratulations on failing English, logic and reason in a single, self-defeating sentence! Perhaps we should "boot" you out?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:19PM
Actually, if you really did take tolerance to that extreme, it'd be self-defeating to the point of non-existence. There would be no point in defining it. This is why the original statement is true. People like you who are trying to cling to that label do so only to save face.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:50PM
This is an age-old debate all the way back to Kant and his immorality of morality.
No, "people like me" suffer acute mental discomfort as a result of hypocritical statements and stupid non-sequiturs. You could say I am intolerant!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:07PM
> No, "people like me" suffer acute mental discomfort as a result of hypocritical statements and stupid non-sequiturs.
There is no hypocrisy there or failure of logic, here. Your mental discomfort is due to a misunderstanding of how the language works. The word neutral must be really hard on you. "Sweden defended themselves against an invading force. THOSE HYPOCRITES!!!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:26PM
Outright denial - the last, desperate line of defence for the defeated.
Yes I fail semantic gymnastics and the sophistry of those who would claim to be a "a little bit pregnant". People who fail to form cohesive arguments and instead attempt to distort the meaning of words. Politicians, lawyers, you...
The word neutral in that context means that they did not take sides in another conflict. Again, it is you who appears confused about the meaning of the word.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:32PM
> Outright denial - the last, desperate line of defence for the defeated. ... Politicians, lawyers, you...
But an attempt to hurt my ego, that's not desperate at all. Mmm hm.
> The word neutral in that context means that they did not take sides in another conflict.
If only you could only apply this lesson to the word tolerance your headaches would cease.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:39PM
Yes, then I too could claim to be tolerant whilst harbouring contemptuous intolerance for anybody with the audacity to hold views in opposition to my own.
Back to your example, being politically neutral in a dispute between 3rd parties has no implication for defending yourself against direct attack. What do you fail to understand?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:44PM
> Yes, then I too could claim to be tolerant whilst harbouring contemptuous intolerance for anybody with the audacity to hold views in opposition to my own.
Well, you're close anyway. It isn't about opposing views, it's about opposing a destructive view.
> Back to your example, being politically neutral in a dispute between 3rd parties has no implication for defending yourself against direct attack.
You see, you do understand the concept of using the right words in the right context to paint the correct picture. You just can't apply it to the word tolerance, and it's causing you physical pain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:36PM
No. Demanding tolerance from others is hypocritical because at that moment it becomes intolerance. This is exactly the same as imposing morality on others being immoral and is something we've understood for centuries.
It does not follow that conflict 2 has any bearing on your neutrality in regard to conflict 1. Now let's revisit the comment I initially replied to.
This is entirely different than your neutrality example. It is an outright fallacy and deserved exposing as such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @03:31AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @08:58AM
You can't claim tolerance whilst being intolerant of anothers views and asking for them to be banned from the site. That is the context, is it not?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @03:26PM
Warmer, but you're still not giving it the love you gave the other example.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aighearach on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:41PM
Coward, in addition to failing English, Logic, and Reason with your awful false accusation, you also failed Courage.
Hint: the most simplistic possible reading of "inclusive" without considering the net effects of a decision is not going to provide a complete understanding of the word, nor is it going to provide you with the understanding that would be needed in order to apply critical thinking.
Example: If you include a nuclear bomb in the buffet menu, timed to explode, will the result be a more inclusive menu, or a less inclusive menu? But... but... but... it has the word "include!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:33PM
It must be a more inclusive menu as nobody in the vicinity would escape the detonation. This by virtue of what the word inclusive means: the menu includes a bomb and all diners are catered for in the blast.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 14 2014, @02:18AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @04:41PM
Depends how quickly someone eats the bomb, I suppose.
Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:32PM
Isn't Ethanol Fueled the one who posted that every site needs a troll (he may used the term "asshole"?), and followed it up with some racist remarks? I thought so.
His offensive posts can't be a surprise, and the journal entry that is the topic of this thread won't be the last. I say "put it to a vote". If we vote him off the island he can just go set up his own blog somewhere and post all the racist crap he wants. Surely he's smart enough to do that if some of us non-non-immigrant Amercains can figure it out. If we don't vote him off the island then we as a community will have decided that his right to spew hate outweighs our right to establish an online community that doesn't want to endure racist remarks.
If Ethanol Fueled really wrote that post as "therapy" (which he claims) then perhaps we are not the right cure for what ails him.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aighearach on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:02PM
"Voting people off" like a "Reality TV" show is a really bad and silly idea, because unpopular people would get voted out along with the offensive and hateful. In fact, the haters would use it to bully people.
Instead you need a clear policy, and some editor or otherwise appointed person make the call. And if they choose poorly, either direction, then people will leave. No way around that though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:23PM
My stance on this is here: http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1261&thresh old=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=30886 [soylentnews.org]
When I finally finish the manifesto/constituion for the site, it will clearly lay out these things.
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Monday April 14 2014, @03:07AM
Thank you. I also do not believe in silencing (ie. banning) disagreeable opinions. Even if they're disagreeable people too. Tolerance (which I would say is an aspect of free speech) is not just for stuff you like or people you agree with.
And as I vaguely recall (having not used it) don't we have the ability to hide posts made by 'foes' ?? So it's not like people can't 'disappear' from their personal eyespace what they disagree with or annoys them. It's not like someone holds a gun to your head and forces you to read their posts.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Monday April 14 2014, @04:37AM
You can mark someone foe, then have foes get a pseudo-moderation to get the score to drop by X points. So if you browse at 0, you can set Foe to -6, so it will always be at -1. Its a bit clumsy though ...
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Monday April 14 2014, @05:28AM
Ah, so that's how it works. Well, silencing someone ought to be clumsy, so no worries :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by M. Baranczak on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:22PM
Banning assholes is a waste of time. As are long boring discussions about the inherent contradictions of freedom and tolerance. The moderation system that we inherited from That Other Site does a pretty good job of filtering out the assholes. So just mod them down and get on with your life.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:55PM
I concur. As is the case with bullies (and trolling is a type of bullying, imho) the best thing to do is ignore them. Trolls identify a forum and seek to cause drama - exactly the sort of thing that this whole article is about. The very best thing we can do as a community is to Keep Calm and Moderate (we should write that down somewhere). Tolerance is fine, but spouting hateful language should come with consequences; those consequences are the resulting moderation. If people choose not to view your posts as a result of their moderation then you aren't booted, you are merely ignored.
I would like to see less discussion about drama and more effective moderation by a userbase that has already proven itself interested in participation in their community. If you have good comments on effective moderation strategies we might employ, or variants on the existing moderation system, I'd love to hear about them.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:53PM
To be fair, I thought Ethanol was purposely trolling on a thread about trolling [soylentnews.org], more as a demonstration of trolling than anything else.
I attributed no real ill-intent to the post, assuming he was just playing the troll. Although replying to Ethanol is risking a rage rant in the best of times, I didn't think it warranted a reply at the time.
Reading his Journal, I'm tempted to believe him when he says:
However, Ethanol isn't the only example that could be found here on Soylent.
Almost every post has a few people that try to turn every issue into a anti-Conservative rant. This is a remarkably juvenile view point that says more about the poster than conservatives. I often attribute such sentiments to youthful inexperience: "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." (A quote [quoteinvestigator.com] that has been around since at least 1875 in various forms and languages).
People should offer citations to back up their claims, and refrain from too much name calling. It seldom helps.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Kell on Monday April 14 2014, @12:07AM
OT - I feel that a more accurate way of phrasing it would be "If you're not conservative by 35, you have no money". Conservatism as a political force (rather than as a cultural force) is tied to money, in my experience. Big business, brokerages, assets trading, resource extraction and so on all support and prosper from conservative politics. Rather obviously, those who have the money wish to keep it. Those who don't have money (typically including the young) would like some of that money either directly, or through improved opportunities to get and keep it for themselves. Hence, large support for Liberal politics amongst the poor.
It seems like IT tech sites are a perfect place for young poor people and wealthy entrepreneurs to collide. I suspect we see more anti-conservative screeds because wealthy people tend to have less to complain about...
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @04:44PM
We don't "vote people off." If "everybody" hates his view, he'll get downmodded and we won't see it anyway.
Freedom of speech is for everybody.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @05:16PM
"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." [wikipedia.org]
Or as the Discordians would say, "Why are you listening to me? Think for your own damn self!" If all we have are PC viewpoints, we stagnate. We need to bring up dissenting viewpoints to qualify why we disagree.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:34PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:49PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:03PM
So... who gets to define what's intolerant? You? Ethanol-fueled? ....
Not tolerating intolerance is itself a form of intolerance. A major difference is that we agree with the one and disagree with the other. Remember the phrase
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
-- Evelyn B. Hall (according to Wikipedia, not Voltaire, though it should sum up his outlook)?
I prefer that approach to an approach of excluding people. I wouldn't know where to draw the line precisely. (Actually, I'd wish the community could draw such lines itself in response to intolerance, but it's too easy for a troll to exhaust community "line-drawing" resources.)
One solution could be to implement a "block" button, where comments by a specific user are automatically blocked for you. I'm not sure that's great, but for me it beats kicking out someone whose opinion is contrasting strongly with the majority.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:21PM
There is no slippery slope. Discriminatory behavior is bad, but if you try to stop it, you're discriminating against it. Oh noes! We should allow discrimination otherwise the mean old dictionary will get us!
The issue isn't the definition of tolerance, it's that the dude is being a racist jerk but it's unclear what to do about it because we believe in free-speech. Silencing him is not the first choice anybody wants to go with. Banning him could (as proven by Slashdot....) cause him to be even noisier since he cannot be banned in a way that'd not affect others who are uninvolved. I don't have an answer to offer right now because, frankly, if I had to solve the problem I'd have to toss AC posting, and I don't think anybody (including me...) would really want to do that.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:39PM
Hey, I noticed that the tone of my previous post wasn't what I had in my mind when I wrote it. Sorry about that - I had a "questioning" tone in my mind: I genuinely meant to ask the question "Who gets to define..." - I honestly don't know.
I'm not saying we should tolerate discrimination... nor am I saying we shouldn't. I'm wondering how to deal with speech I myself find objectionable.
If I could downmod that sort of speech, I'd gladly do so. (To me, the difference between that and censorship is that downmodding only works if the community agrees with me and can be undone by any other (modding) member of the community.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:49PM
Ah, I'm sorry dude. I think I could have intuited that from the rest of your post.
I think the important thing is to understand why it's objectionable. Is it merely an observation or is it intended to harm someone? Was Ethanol Fueled trying to turn people hostile towards Mexicans or was he trying to draw attention to an issue so it can be solved? I do believe this questions can be answered without a whole lot of subjectivity.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by FakeBeldin on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:20PM
Hey, good post! (no mod points or I'd have expressed it that way)
It got me to re-read Ethanol Fueled post top to bottom, and answer those questions for myself. (I actually took it in this time.) I arrived at my conclusions.
I'll leave it to others to come to their own conclusions - none of you need me to do your thinking for you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cbiltcliffe on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:50PM
Absolutely. I find it amusing that he gets modded troll, but the responder who called him a "redneck piece of excrement", gets modded insightful.
If you refuse to tolerate views like this guy has, which may be absolutely legitimate in his experience, you're not tolerant, you're politically correct.
There's a huge difference between the two.
If you want to claim that everybody should be politically correct, fine go ahead and do it. But don't do it under the guise of tolerance.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday April 14 2014, @11:54AM
To be fair, the description "redneck piece of excrement" may be accurate. My understanding is that "redneck" is something you choose to be, a particular world-view, rather than something you have no power to change and is thus a fair target for criticism. Correct me if I'm wrong, by all means.
Intolerance of people's choices and views is fine. Intolerance of things they can't change, like race or gender, isn't. Does that really need to be stated in 2014?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by cbiltcliffe on Saturday April 19 2014, @08:34PM
Well, I read the original post before it was apparently deleted. He wasn't ranting about someone being a certain race. He was ranting about most people he saw from that race being lazy. Whether that's true or not is entirely up for debate, but it's certainly something the target of his scorn could change.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday April 20 2014, @09:03AM
"Most people of [certain race] are lazy" is pretty much the definition of prejudice.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by monster on Tuesday April 15 2014, @07:25AM
Just a remark, since I don't know the details (the linked journal seems to have been deleted): A trolling post may correctly be moderated "Troll", but that doesn't mean that any reply should also be moderated that way. In this case it looks like it could have been moderated as "Flamebait" because of the name calling, but is always name calling Flamebait? Bad etiquette, sure, but I'm not sure about the other.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:02PM
Generally speaking, first and foremost do not call attention to such things. They thrive on attention, and the more they get - positive or negative - is actually reinforcement.
Ergo, one of the worst possible things you can do is post it to the front page. The best thing you can do is refuse to publicly engage; when ignored many people will go elsewhere. If you must engage, do it privately.
Now, with that said: this particular rant was possibly written with some emotion behind it (possibly even living up to the poster's username). However, if you push past some of the language there are some valid points.
The biggest issue I have when certain things get brought up is people immediately screaming "Dats Racis!!1" and turning off their brains. When it comes right down to it, humans are not designed to interact with tens of thousands of people and both know and evaluate them all individually. Studies exist which show humans can only really have a close social group of about 130 individuals, which is in flux throughout our lives. New people get closer, old ones get pushed out of our heads. Where am I going with this? We innately group certain things together so we can respond rationally.
Stereotyping is in our nature. We can't turn it off. All we can do is resist it, which is something every person struggles with every day. Realizing it exists helps, but your first response in almost every situation is going to be based on past experience.
The rant in question even touches on the actual issues: cultural influencing politics (social support across generations via shared living, and how this dynamic informs voting), and the indirect effect of stereotypes (e.g. on property values). My personal belief is that the property value thing is cultural, not racial, and is supported and disseminated largely by certain music. I call it the hip-hop culture, and it's not doing a large portion of our youth any favors. But certain socioeconomic profiles are more likely to fall into this trap.
Note I took great care not to say racial profiles; socioeconomics is probably the underlying cause... but this does correlate with certain racial groups in certain geographic areas. Where it circles back around to stereotypes. If you grow up in an area where most underprivileged people are of a certain ethnic background, you may well build beliefs which are not based in reality (or blame the wrong factor[s]). In my humble opinion, this is what causes and promulgates true racism in the modern world.
Engaging such people in private to communicate what I just said may result in various outcomes. It may not always work; this is an area where logic is often not at the fore. But I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and at least try to engage (again, in private) to tease out the real issues.
Pointing fingers and shouting "racist!" and "intolerant!" and trying to rabble-rouse - which, let's be honest, is exactly the purpose of this front-page post - only serves to polarize. That isn't what anyone needs.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Aighearach on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:07PM
If you boot out the disruptive haters, you don't have to worry what they "thrive" on. In that case calling them out is effective.
Ignoring racist haters does not make them go away. It means every single post will have disgusting comments attached. Privately engaging them is not useful or productive.
In my opinion, your blind acceptance of hatred, and encouragement to force the targets of the racist hatred to suffer it quietly, without any encouragement that they're welcome or that the view is not the view of the group, is not well thought out. Actually that is so silly, once you start thinking from the perspective of the victim, that I would suggest perhaps you have fallen into this viewpoint and recite it when the issue comes up while "turning off your brain."
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:30PM
"Booting people out" works only in the real world, where absence of physical presence is actually a real barrier. The question was asked in the context of an online community, and furthermore an online community of tech-savvy users. It's actually quite difficult to boot any real entity out of such a community; VPNs, Tor, and many other tricks guarantee that individual has more ways back in than you have bandwidth to try and keep them out.
I never encouraged anyone to suffer quietly. I never promulgated blind acceptance. I simply pointed out that in communities like this one, certain viewpoints thrive on ATTENTION alone - calling them out is counterproductive. This is what some want. Furthermore, there was no target of the post in question! It was a rant directed at nobody in particular, archiving one man's observations. I responded as such. Again, I reiterate: there was no victim, and the original post is edited to reflect that it does not apply to all or even most individuals of any particular ethnic background.
I would like to draw attention to how you ignore all of the actual points of my post, while continuing an indirect ad hominem against both the original target and also attempt to conflate and group myself with that individual. Actually, your response constitutes more raw hatred than the original which prompted this front page story. You are directly attacking myself and the original poster, whom I may not agree with but has done nothing to harm you directly. These are logical fallacies. I refuse to engage anyone in discussion who stoops to using them, because once you do it is no longer a discussion; you are no longer engaging your mind in reasonable discourse.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Monday April 14 2014, @04:59AM
That's trolls you are thinking about, not racist haters. The typical racist hater thinks his opinion is what everybody thinks secretly and is just shy to say in public. They will see silence as silent agreement. Also, the object of their hatred deserves the feeling that someone speaks up for them. Hate-speech is not only between speaker and audience.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 1) by q.kontinuum on Monday April 14 2014, @05:10AM
Oh, and btw: I don't care if such a post contains some hidden true points. The fact that it starts as a racist piece of crap renders it unfit for any further consideration. The same guy might start a different discussion when he's sober, and raise some valid points there. Or others can raise these points in their posts, preferably without referencing this article. The article in question is a piece of emotional hate-speech, and as such deserves only contempt and emotional support for the targeted group; the comment-section of that article is burned for any rational discussion.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @04:56PM
I feel like there's not really a clear line between the two in the vernacular; e.g. how many of us would have an issue with someone of Ethnic Group A if they were adopted very early by and raised according to the culture of Ethnic Group B, if we respect B but not A? If you do, then it's clearly related to physical characteristics and thus racism.
I can discriminate against a culture without being racist. (Then the term is just bigot I guess.)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tathra on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:13PM
the whole point of tolerance is the refusal to tolerate bigotry. however, its a bit hasty to start wanting to kick somebody out. so long as such remarks are confined to a 'personal' area (journal) rather than being stated out in public (comments), then its not really disruptive. "disruptive" should be the actual measure for deciding whether or not to ban somebody, because its extremely easy to make a case that somebody is "hurting" the community.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EQ on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:19PM
" Tolerating intolerance is not tolerance." Yes it is. It means allowing him to speak, regardless of how offensive you find it. That's tolerance. Note that it does not mean adopting his views, accepting them as valid, or letting them go unopposed, verbally. But to silence them? That's the very height of intolerance. Let him spew. And feel free to either ignore him, mod him down, or actually engage him and demonstrate to him just how wrong he is. Free market of ideas, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:27PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by EQ on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:34PM
versus a net loss of free speech. Which do you value more, freedom or conformity?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @10:47AM
Touche!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @06:20PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:01PM
I believe in the old saying "Your rights end where your fist meets my nose" and with somebody like Ethanol he is NOT being "edgy", he is an outright racist and all he does is troll and derail threads, which was why he ended up getting kicked out of Slashdot.
But frankly there is no need to "do anything about him" if the moderation system is functional because that is EXACTLY what mods and metamods are designed to handle. if EF acts like a douche? His comment gets buried, if he keeps acting like a douche? His account gets buried in karma hell, simple as that.
The problem i have with banning anybody, even when their viewpoints are so disgusting, is the fact that my grandfather fought in WWII and came home in a full body cast from a Nazi Werewulf squad dropping a wall on him yet he supported the Illinois Nazis right to march. he taught me that you fight ignorance with debate and facts NOT by removing their right to be heard, the fact that we had free speech and all subjects were open to debate was what made us on the right in WWII and he firmly believed that until his dying day.
I have seen this approach works first hand as when I was living in Dallas I came across some skinheads using illegals as a tool to recruit, I promptly went around the corner to the craft shop and made up my own little sign that read "ask me about the camps" and anybody who did I told them of my grandfather's experience in WII, especially what he saw entering the camps, about how the boidies were piled up like cordwood, that you couldn't tell male from female, needless to say the skinheads were WAY pissed but the cops, with a big fat smile I might add, said "you have the right to speak, he has the right to rebut" and they quickly packed up and went away.So let EF be as big a bigot as he wants to be, those of us in the community can bury his posts when he spreads his racist shit and by fighting his bullshit with fats might even educate a few people.
Oh and in the interest of honesty? I'm for locking down the border, but not because I fear Mexicans but because an open border not only penalizes those that put in the hard work to come here legally but scumbags like MS13 have taken advantage of the wide open borders to set up a thriving sexual slavery business, with children as young as 6 being bought and sold and the money being used to buy ex-Soviet heavy weapons which are being used to take more and more territory away from the control of law enforcement. All in all its a REALLY bad situation, the illegals are being abused, put in unsafe working conditions, and risk enslavement, the gangs can make money hand over fist, frankly the only ones who see a "positive" from a lawless border is those companies who want to depress wages and profit from other's misery and they can go DIAF as far as I'm concerned.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:58PM
Your title is appropriate. No, your statement doesn't help because tolerating anything, including intolerance is tolerance - by definition.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 14 2014, @02:01AM
That's what's funny about certain words in the English language. When applied to themselves they create a paradox. A literal one, anyway. When all is said and done, it isn't Webster who rules on hypocrisy.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday April 14 2014, @11:19AM
There's no paradox here.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 14 2014, @03:24PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @05:00PM
Ummm...is there such a thing as a figurative paradox?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 14 2014, @05:15PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @05:23PM
I'm not sure I have a firm enough grasp of what you're trying to communicate to make any suggestions, unfortunately...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 14 2014, @05:49PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @06:38PM
"Ambiguity"?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by starcraftsicko on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:29PM
I firmly believe that anyone who doesn't agree me should be put to death after being publicly shamed. Care to disagree?
.
Seriously though, failing that, if I don't like what you say, I will refute if I can, ignore it if it's not worth refuting, laugh at (not with) it if it is laughable.... and learn from it if it is none of those.
.
Beyond that, these may help:
.
"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."
-Voltaire
.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
-George Orwell
.
"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."
- Frederick Douglass
This post was created with recycled electrons.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by yellowantphil on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:34PM
Yes, quite right. We don't need the Thought Police to ensure that every member of the community holds the Correct Opinions.
Clearly, there are times when a person would be better off not sharing a particular opinion, and some beliefs are simply wrong (i.e. that one race is inferior to another one, etc.). But is our community so fragile that one person stating something controversial/incorrect/hateful/whatever is really a threat? "He must be punished! Banished! Named and shamed!" Or we could just refute any claims that warrant it, and move on.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Aighearach on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:15PM
If you think opposing hate speech means you're the "Thought Police," in my opinion it proves 2 things: 1) you're a closet racist 2) you don't have the confidence in your position to admit the truth of it. So instead, you go way out on a limb to defend hateful attacks.
And yes, every "community" is "fragile" enough that if you include people filled with hatred, other people will not be a part of that community.
By wanting to "include" racists, you've already pushed out most of the people who want to be part of a "community." Mostly only other racists will ever be willing to part of the same "community" as racists.
So when you say you want to include racists in this "community," I say: if I am part of this community, then "those are fighting words!" The choices for me are either to fight you over it, attempting to persuade others to reject haters and have a real community, or to say, wow, that group of people sure doesn't represent me, and isn't something I would want to feel a connection to.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:28PM
This [soylentnews.org] is my response to address this. And, a most relevant quote:
" Having posted a few comments that could be construed as being racist, I have found that people here become extremely offended at comments posted about so-called "colored" minorities, namely Mexicans and Blacks, but when I have posted comments (more than one, for sure) implying that Germans and Japanese are coprophiles, the P.C. Patrol is conspicuously silent. Not a peep out of anybody, in fact. Why is that? Given that, I surmise that critics of my racially-charged humor fall into three categories:
- Thin-skinned refugees from The Other Site who know me and have carried over their vendettas appropriately
- "Colored" minorities who believe that it's okay to lambast races and ethnicities as long as it's not their race or ethnicity
- "White-guilt" Caucasians living in gated communities who find time to become offended in between their trips to the playhouses and bathhouses
If the politically correct critics could be consistent and become upset at all racism, they may have a leg on which to stand, but that they choose to be offended at the slander of a few select groups speaks volumes about what they really believe under all those layers, rather than being champions of truth and justice. "
Finally, I think it's funny that people are using the word "hate" and actually assuming that I'm a racist in real-life. You know nothing about me in real-life. And, like I said in the above-referenced post,
" And you know what? I actually like it here, and I also say really informative thought-provoking shit that doesn't happen to offend a lot of people. So you can either throw the baby out with the bathwater, or you yourself or any others offended can stop being crybabies. "
So that's where I stand, and if the leadership decides to ban me, I won't take it personally and I won't linger. I'm not going to be subject to subtle forms of behavioral control, if they want an example made of somebody, they should do it right, and do it now -- maybe even with a poll, haha!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:43PM
You can't blame us for taking you at face value - at least one of your faces. If you don't want people to think you're a racist then stop posting racist things simply so you can deny being a racist and claim you are being judged unfairly.
You don't get to play both sides of the issue and claim we are intolerant of you. We don't have to put up with your hate. Our contempt for you is based on one thing and only one thing: you. It's not about race or religion or anything else. It is not because you belong to some "group". It's simple: you are going out of your way to post inflammatory racist hate speech and them crying "foul" when people don't like it.
If you post a bunch of non-racist things along with some racist things then you are a racist. The fact that you "like it here" has nothing to do with you posting your racist hate speech. You "like it here" because you you've been allowed to post your racist crap.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:28PM
You won't be banned for an opinion: http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1261&cid=30 886 [soylentnews.org]
While I find your posts on the subject repugnant, I'm not going to silence you because I think you are wrong.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by SpockLogic on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:08PM
"You won't be banned for an opinion: http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1261&cid=30 [soylentnews.org] 886
While I find your posts on the subject repugnant, I'm not going to silence you because I think you are wrong."
We should leave it at this.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by Koen on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:38PM
Well, this *is* real life. Not all of the internet is like a game of WoW, where you can be an gnome which hates & kills orcs.
Nobody takes such "implying" seriously. Don't feed the troll and all that jazz.
- There is no vendetta from Slashdot going on here. Are you paranoid?
- Yes, there are racists among all groups, also among minorities. Them being wrong does not make you right.
- The third category smells very much like hypocrisy, given that you also wrote "Do not allow the Brown (sometimes-) menace to invade your neighborhood -- your life may depend on it!"
Anyway, your conclusion that everybody who does not agree with you belongs to these categories is nothing but a strawman attack.
I do not know any Mexicans, I'm on the wrong continent for that. However, where I live the same rhetoric exists against other groups (Turks, Moroccans...). Nobody chooses their skin-color or their nationality (well, one can change the latter - but there is no point since all nationalities are equally good/bad/imaginary), so it not something to be proud or ashamed about. Believing that some group (white Americans, christian Europeans, whatever) has more rights between some lines on a map than a group who has another color or who just immigrated later than your ancestors is just an illness (you seem to agree with that, since you call your racist ranting "therapy" yourself), nationalism & patriotism (and religion too) are mental pandemics.
Should we hate you for being a racist? No, that does not help.
Should we tolerate your off-topic (on a technical/scientific/nerd website) racist trolling? If we do, this site will become yet another hatefest. If that happens, there will be no more insightful posts (except occasionally from you when you want some karma) because the community will have left.
Should we ban you? I don't think so, because then we also have to ban Anonymous Coward. I think modding you down to "troll, -1" will do. We should also be able to mod journal entries down to keep them from the list on the front page.
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:13PM
Pardon me, that's a fallacy: slippery-slope if I'm not mistaken.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Koen on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:59PM
I think that dismissing every slippery-slope argument as being a fallacy is a fallacy.
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:42PM
I think I didn't dismiss every slippery-slope argument as a fallacy, just the one in the message I replied to (do you really want to imply otherwise or was it just a tongue-in-cheek reply?)
And I dismissed it on the ground of "non sequitur". Tolerating offtopic racist trolling does not necessary lead to SN becoming a hatefest; for this to happen, other condition must be satisfied (as in "additionally required, not necessary sufficient"):
* an abundance of this type of messages: I've seen only one;
* not exist other means to deal with it; given the "abundance", modding as a troll seems sufficient to me
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Koen on Monday April 14 2014, @12:47AM
Yes, my reply was tongue in cheek. Your argument is correct.
I agree that modding as troll is sufficient, as per my post above.
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 14 2014, @03:26AM
Thanks for the confirmation and my apologies for wasting some of your time by "stating the obvious"
(in my defense, I invoke the Poe's law [wikipedia.org]: "on Internet, nobody can see your smile"...
except, probably, NSA... which, dealing with such serious matters as national security, doesn't have any interest to allow for such an interpretation anyway)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Koen on Monday April 14 2014, @08:48AM
You don't need to apologize, I was being facetious.
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:55PM
Ethanol, I had modpoints, so I was thinking on whether to agree with the informative (for letting people know how you think), or just mod you Troll for making a dumb argument. Instead, I thought it best to just bite:
I did not see you saying something insulting about Germans and Japanese. If I would have, I would have called you out on that. Its a nonsensical statement to imply that a whole nation or group of people engages in such activities and the single outcome (and aim) of such statements is to insult people or attract attention. Politicians in some countries do this, but they at least have the excuse of trying to convince the dumb and uneducated.
Nevertheless, even if we follow through for a moment with your claim: two wrongs do never make a right so why on earth do would you think saying something bad about both A and B somehow vindicates you? It has absolutely no relevance whether or not you were called out on it. If you where not trying to do defend yourself, why the hell this post? Are you so devoid of attention that you need this kind of trolling? Do you actually like the discussion about how disgusting you can be? That would make me pretty concerned about my mental health...
Your second argument is similar unimpressive, the fact what people may or may not thing about you in real life has nothing to do with the issue, and certainly does not excuse you from the fact that you, for lack of a better word, are behaving like a dimwitted (because your arguments do not make sense) asshole (because you are insulting people that have nothing to do with your personal problems).
IF you have problems with _specific_ people, you can talk about that (and politeness gets you more compared to swearing in that case). If instead you just are an attention whore, I do not want you here, because I do not have the time nor the desire to read through such crap. In that case, I'd love somebody creates a special -10 modifier just for you (and only allow your account to actually browse at -10).
I usually associate arguments like yours with a lack of intelligence or experience. In your case, I now suspect you actually just say it to get attention. That is rather pitiful IMHO. Try to do something better with your time here, I suspect you will feel more happy. For my part, if you do not improve, this has been the last time that I read (or comment on) your posts.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @05:07PM
*slow clap*
That being said, this is the Internet...if you portray yourself as a racist, I'll take you at your word barring evidence to the contrary. Saying "you know nothing about me" after a long history of posting stuff that makes us characterize you a certain way seems disingenuous. So you shouldn't be surprised when it happens (I'm hesitant to characterize you as that naive, or whether you're operating on a higher level of abstraction that doesn't come across the best in this medium).
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:30PM
How easily the language of intolerance comes to us:
(Score: 2) by Aighearach on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:12PM
Yes, imagine that, if you replace a word with a completely different word, it has a completely different meaning! Sometimes even, the opposite meaning! Z0MG!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:20PM
If anti-racist in the current climate meant anything more than anti-white, I might be inclined to agree with you on a few points. However, the reality is anti-racist in this climate is absolutely nothing more than a code word for anti-white.
(Score: 1) by velex on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:46PM
It all depends on context of course. One thing I was surprised to encounter on my latest short flirtation with men's rights activist groups is that being openly trans there is the equivalent of walking in with a big sign that says "I'm a socialist feminist!" I had expected, "no, you're not a trans woman or whatever, you're just a man who likes skirts and estrogen," not that! Clearly, the men's rights movement does not have the Correct Opinion from my point of view. But what else does it have to do with me? I just left, and I haven't been called a feminist since! (Me? A feminist! lol)
I think I'm with GPs quotes, although I still need to get around to reading the related works. For me, the line gets crossed at affirmative action, that is, policy that requires that individual actors take a course of action different from the course of action that each individual actor has identified as the best action to take in their own enlightened self-interest.
I suppose to put another way, even though I disagree with them, perhaps there is a place for cis woman only scholarships that might encourage more women in tech careers. After all, I'm not the person funding them. Not my money, not my problem. However, some of the proposals that have come out in favor of penalizing male educators and students for the lack of female interest in tech I find just plain wrong. An actor should never be held accountable for the actions of other actors.
Maybe that's a useful framework for pondering whether tolerance, in some tortured logical sense, means tolerating intolerance. The men's rights movement maintains that I'm guilty of intolerance, because I'm a feminist, because all trans women are feminists, Q.E.D. I maintain that the men's rights movement is guilty of intolerance because they're judging me based on the actions of others (and some odd assumptions about what being a trans woman is). We can at least both agree that feminists are guilty of intolerance!
The question is: which actors are asking for policy that would prevent actors from making decisions that are in their enlightened self-interest in certain scenarios? I'm not asking for policy requiring the MRM to accept me as a trans woman who is not a feminist, and the MRM is not requesting policy (as much as they might like to see such policy) that would make gender transition impossible for me on the basis that completing gender transition would make me a feminist. However, we do see feminists requesting policy that would make merely questioning feminism into a hate crime!
Therefore, it is only feminism in the little universe of me, the MRM, and feminism, that is guilty of intolerance in a way that should be punished. Except, how should it be punished?
Well, let's assume that such a law does go into effect that would make publicly criticizing feminism a hate crime, and that based on some future post I make here questioning feminism, I'm promptly taken to the clink. Well, let's assume that judicial review finds that the law is actually intolerant. I have been harmed, so the individuals we can reasonably identify as being responsible for drafting, promulgating, and approving the law (not just the individual congress critters who voted yes) should be punished.
So, I believe my position is that tolerance must not tolerate intolerance, but only for a sufficiently well thought-out definition of intolerance.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Aighearach on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:24PM
Where they are talking about "liberty" and "right[s]" they are talking about the Government.
And I agree. I would be willing to fight to prevent the government from arresting people for saying mean things, providing that it isn't a threat, or a lie that causes financial harm.
But at the same time, I would be willing to fight to prevent the government from requiring social communities to accept people who say such things.
And if hatred is accepted here, that would be disgusting, and I would leave and never look back. Accepting hatred is not "inclusive," it destroys inclusivity. Being inclusive implies that it is people who are wanting to be part of an inclusive group that are being included. You can't build a social community without shared values.
Just because your crazy uncle is Free to say crazy obnoxious things doesn't mean you can bring him anywhere with you. If you bring him to a restaurant and he spews racism and other patrons complain, you're going out the door; that is Free Speech working.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:07PM
Buddy, I'm not going to promise I'll share anything with you, not even an opinion. I'm not in a community with you, is it clear?
What I can promise you: I'll respect your opinions even if/when I won't agree with or even when I laugh at them if I consider them ridiculous, and I'll respect you as a human being. But you know what? The same goes for ethanol-fuelled.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:08PM
This is the best place I've found to put this, in-between all the "tolerance doesn't mean tolerating intolerance" nonsense, so I'll reply to you.
Free speech, as it applies to law, only says the law can't punish it. Whoopdee-doo. So, at least as far as the First Amendment is concerned, you can carry on a vendetta (as was done against Brendan Eich), and you're in the clear! Yay, you got to seriously fuck up someone's life because he said something you don't like, and it didn't violate the First Amendment because you're not the government!
Is that the kind of society we want to live in? I would argue no. I would argue that we should let everyone speak his mind and, even if their opinions are totally whacked like Ethanol-Fueled's are (I've only read a little, but I don't think I agree with him much based on what I read), we shouldn't discriminate against him in employment, etc., just because he has some weird, discriminatory ideas. I don't think we should say to white supremacists (or black or Asian or whatever supremacists), "Your opinions are disgusting, so you can't work here." If they put up inappropriate posters by their desks, or insult people for their race, or otherwise DISRUPT THE WORKPLACE, then sure, get rid of them. But just because they think things you don't like? That's thoughtcrime.
So what about here. Well, someone earlier said Ethanol-Fueled was banned from Slashdot; maybe he can enlighten us on whether that's true. If it is, I think it's just another example of Slashdot slowly circling the drain. I remember when the only thing Slashdot banned was a single comment on Scientology, and that was only because they lost a court case, and they responded with a front-page anti-Scientology education story to punish those who forced their hands against free speech on Slashdot. That's the Slashdot I want to remember -- not a Slashdot that bans accounts because they post racist nonsense.
So, I think we should try to model the Slashdot of old and go to great lengths NOT to ban accounts or their posts on this site. Being a bastion of free speech worked for Slashdot for many years; it will work for us, too. NCommander already basically said he wasn't going to ban accounts for their views; I think that's the right approach. As far as alienating members of the community who won't "tolerate hate" ... all I have to say to that is that the Internet requires a little bit of a thick skin, and it's bad for many reasons not to have a thick skin, so we should encourage our users to develop one. Having a thick skin means you don't get offended easily and therefore don't waste your time trying to take revenge on those who offended you, or feeding trolls, or caring too much what other people think of you. We want to model Slashdot, well ... we're going to get the GNAA. And if Slashdot could handle the GNAA, and Goatse trolling, and Ethanol-Fueled, we can, too.
---linuxrocks123
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday April 14 2014, @01:23AM
I was banned, but I trolled there for many years, saying way worse than what I said here. However, I often had excellent karma and frequently pulled +4 and +5 comments right up until the moment when they banned me. They even finally published one of my submissions in spite of years of trolling. I had been trolling Slashdot professionally logged in under that username since around 2008, and was not actually banned until 2012-ish, and the funny part was that I had mellowed considerably well before I was banned.
The ban was probably not a result of the community -- many people enjoyed and modded up my trolls as well as the majority of my comments, which were serious.
The ban was most likely was due to the increasing influence of advertisers, and having people like me around would be very bad for an entity looking to get bought-out.
You know how I found this place? I posted an anonymous troll in Slashdot and somebody replied anonymously with a link to Soylent news, inviting me to join! But, it seems that I'm not part of certain individuals' visions of their circlejerk utopia, hence this needless Streisanding of a tasteless joke to the front page and this rancorous debate.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 14 2014, @01:45PM
I'm sorry, I have to disagree with this, as far as the part about Brendan Eich. Eich was not an employee. He was the CEO. CEOs and other executives are not employees in the normal sense of the term. If he was some low-level coder, then yes, it would have been absolutely wrong to dismiss him just for making a publicly-visible political contribution (though it may have been legal, not sure about that though, that depends on state law). The company's CEO is the public face of the company, so the company has every right to be picky about who fills that seat. Should a company overlook the fact that someone is a KKK leader when they apply for a CEO position there? Of course not; that would reflect extremely poorly on that company. It's no different here. Brendan's values clearly did not reflect well on the company, so there was likely (we don't really know) pressure on him to willingly step down.
Here's another example: a company selling Kosher foods wants to make a TV ad, and needs a male actor. Mel Gibson wants to audition for the part. Should the company be required to overlook his infamous anti-Jewish outburst and consider him for the part? Of course not; they'd be destroying their own reputation with their customer base by airing a commercial with him in it, so they have every right to discriminate based on someone's opinion.
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Wednesday April 16 2014, @02:35PM
For certain extremely visible positions -- essentially political positions -- this may be the case. However, the position of CEO of Mozilla wasn't such an extremely visible position, at least until some people decided to make it that way. I don't know what the exact job requirements of the position would have been, of course, but I would imagine it would be setting the direction for the commercial activities of the Mozilla Corporation under heavy guidance of the sole shareholder of that corporation, the Mozilla Foundation. He wouldn't have been making speeches day in and day out; he would have been supervising high-level technical employees, perhaps making and reviewing budgets, stuff like that. Despite the title, he wouldn't have been the "big boss" by any means: the CEO of Mozilla Corporation reports to the Board of Directors, which are chosen by the Mozilla Foundation, which is the organization really in control (yes, they have a weird org chart). One complaint Mozilla had about this whole thing is that the none of the few (less than 10) employees who tweeted that they wanted Eich to resign actually reported to him, either directly or indirectly.
---linuxrocks123
(Score: 3, Insightful) by xtronics on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:32PM
Actually, it is promoted by politicians that seek to divide us - it is exploited by sports broadcasting for profit. ( People identify with "their team').
I tribal situations, outsiders were seen as a threat - identifying them as such appears to be part of the fabric of humanity. Not likely to just get rid of it.
In the end we have to teach that there is no 'we' and no 'them'. Rand wrote about this to no end - and of course was hated for it. It takes work, cognitive effort, to see and judge people as individuals. But people are generally lazy - and practice subjectivity and intrinsic philosophy.
I would hope that people would teach their children the 4-R's - Reading, Riting, rymatic and reason..
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:38PM
You should check out the Standford Prison Experiment [wikipedia.org], and other experiments on that. I highly recommend you may want give people links to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality [hpmor.com] which is probably one of the first pieces of fanfiction to really really make me think as it applies rationalism and logic to much of that universe while being extremely well written, including topics such as conformity, groupthink, etc. As a warning, the first few chapters are NOT the best, but I recommend it to anyone who likes Harry Potter and needs a good dose of rationality in their lives.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 14 2014, @01:49PM
The problem here is that you're completely ignoring culture, and saying that it doesn't exist. Culture does exist. Groups of people do share, in general, certain values and customs and practices, so it is entirely possible to generalize people by their group, and this is precisely what we do when we speak of a culture. Yes, there's always exceptions to the generalization, which is important to keep in mind, but that doesn't make the generalization worthless.
(Score: 1) by moondoctor on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:48PM
there's a line, that will be defined by the community. that line will in turn define the community.
i believe that racism is not to be tolerated. in my opinion the comment you referred to has no substantive value at all and moreover is truly revolting and should be removed from this site.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by starcraftsicko on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:17PM
IANAL but
The day we (or any website) starts acting to remove/censor posts based on their content, they can be held responsible for the posts that they don't remove (or don't remove fast enough). Removing the post, ignorant and misguided as it may be, sets us on the slippery slope to closing this site forever.
This post was created with recycled electrons.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:20PM
My official stance on this is here: http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1261&cid=30 886 [soylentnews.org]
For legal reasons, there are two large things that may require us to delete an account based on their posting. One is required by safe harbor protections for compliance with DCMA takedowns (the law actually requires we terminate accounts) (summarized here: http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/Incorporation/Uni tedStates#.C2.A7_512.28i.29_Conditions_for_Eligibi lity [soylentnews.org]), or if ordered by a court of a law on a topic of unconstitutional speech (this is very narrowly defined, and we can try and fight this type of takedown in a court of law and have a reasonable chance of success).
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by moondoctor on Monday April 14 2014, @01:14AM
i can believe that...
perhaps removed downvoted to oblivion never to be seen again.
(Score: 2) by Koen on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:48PM
Let them drink hemlock [wikipedia.org].
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:57PM
There is a paradox with tolerance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance [wikipedia.org] . You can't have tolerant society, deal with it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:31PM
That paradox only exists in the context of the overly-broad definition of the word tolerance. For example: There is a significant difference between preventing gays from entering an establishment and preventing the preventing of gays entering an establishment. The first is discrimination, the second is just the opposite, but the word tolerance doesn't offer any distinction of those two contexts.
In short: No, you still don't get to be a victim when there are consequences to your racist behavior.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @05:21PM
Not to mention the distinction in my mind between physically barring someone's entry into an establishment, and banning a user from a website where they can make another account or just post AC.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Appalbarry on Sunday April 13 2014, @06:57PM
Sometimes in life the only useful response is to say:
Because you're an idiot. OK?
And then walk away.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:05PM
And it's not only California and the other border states. The country is being overrun by illegal aliens and they are a massive problem in every state from crime, to hospital emergency rooms being shut down due to non-paying illegal aliens, to their children overcrowding our schools.
We have to do something about this problem, and looking the other way is not an option.
(Score: 1) by Professr on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:15PM
Perhaps we should invite them over for tea? I think that would be nice
(Score: 1) by dpp on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:12PM
I find the majority of extremely intolerant people are this way due to their ignorance - whether they're general xenophobes, racists, homophobes, mysogynist, etc.
So the best way to oppose ignorance is to educate their ignorance.
Sometimes learning something new, which might change something one has erroneously believed a fundamental truth, might be a bit easier to digest when it's laced with humor/irony. Not to be "mocking" but more to point out the "silliness" of a false truth/belief.
It's one of the reason's I really enjoy Stephen Colbert's "Colbert Report". He'll tackle some belief by seeming to agree - by reconstructing/composing the argument and exposing the flawed logic by highlighting key ridiculous points. Obviously it's best to avoid a straw-man argument...and seek out true equivalency if you're providing related examples.
Once you can laugh at yourself it lets your guard down.
My 2cents - mix a little humor in to make the education pill a bit easier to digest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @02:53PM
It's one of the reason's I really enjoy Stephen Colbert's "Colbert Report".
That is actually one of the reasons I really dislike the colbert report. Instead of actually discussing the issue. It holds the messenger up for ridicule. Rush Limbaugh uses the same technique and I feel he is a blow hard too. I despised this when people did it to me in grade school. I still despise it.
They are not giving you news. They are selling you an opinion. Their opinion and their writing staff (who are usually staffed with comedians).
They are using a sales technique. This demonstrates it in 59 seconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydchCy5WF_I [youtube.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selling#Selling_metho ds [wikipedia.org]h niques [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Selling_tec
Usually specifically choice architecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_architecture [wikipedia.org]
The idea is sell you something small 'a chuckle' to upsell you an idea that is not your own. Comedians use it all the time. Basically they start off with small lame jokes and build you up to bigger ones. By the end you are laughing at racist and/or intolerant jokes. Performers call it the 'warm up'. If you watch long comedian specials you will notice they lead off with personal stories and anecdotes. Then by the end they are telling 'you might be a redneck' jokes. Which are just a form of intolerance. Colbert and Rush both do the same sorts of things. Notice that the opinion they want to sell you is at the end of the show (usually second to last segments). The beginning of the show is full of fluffy celebrities talking or 'heart warming' stories.
Car dealers will use it to sell you a bigger stereo that you do not need. They do it by limiting choices to sort of ridiculous and sort of reasonable. Where the sort of reasonable is what they really want to sell you. Even though the 'reasonable' idea may be *very* ridiculous held under a different set of circumstances.
Oh he is funny. I think Rush is too. But to consider them as sources of news/opinion worth listening to? Not so much.
mix a little humor in to make the education pill a bit easier to digest
Unfortunately it is not just being used to make it easy to digest. It is being used to sell you an idea. One that may not be your own.
They use these techniques all the time to manipulate people. If you do not think you are being manipulated you are the mark.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DrMag on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:24PM
It seems the separation between intolerance that should be allowed (and even, to an extent, protected) with intolerance that should be decried is the target to which that intolerance is directed.
"<such and such a belief> is wrong..."
That's ok.
"<such and such a belief> is wrong, and anyone who believes it should..."
That's not ok.
The nature of freedom requires that we can equally hold opposing beliefs, thus intolerance of necessity must be tolerated.
What we don't need to tolerate, however, is abuse of any form of any individual for whatever reason.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:24PM
My pale, hairy ass. This community is less tolerant than most. Though we are not homogeneous in our beliefs, we get damned bent out of shape when whatever they happen to be are confronted with someone believing differently. The ones who preach tolerance the loudest are in fact the least tolerant of beliefs that conflict with their own.
Need an example? Check how many people thought donating money to a political cause should be grounds for firing in one of several articles on the subject, here [soylentnews.org]. Then ask yourself whether they would have supported the same for donating to a cause they believe in. Tolerance? I don't see any.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:33PM
> Check how many people thought donating money to a political cause should be grounds for firing
That's a convenient misrepresentation, appealing to the idea of persecution.
Don't generalize. This particular case was one of giving a man power in an organization where acting on his beliefs could hurt others - both employees and potentially the organization itself because its ideals are antithetical to the man's beliefs.
Ignoring the context of the issue is to lie about it. If Eich were hired to be a janitor, or a regular code monkey or pretty much any other position without the power to harm other people through the conscious or subconscious application of his beliefs, then hardly anyone would have cared.
Now, here is where we see if all the people saying "don't hate, educate" are right. Are you able to change your mind on this case? Or will you ignore the context and continue to repeat the lie?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:47PM
Don't generalize? You just did.
He was not in a position to act on his beliefs, as far as anyone knows. Believing marriage should be one man and one woman is not the same as hating gays. I know plenty of people who don't give a damn about what people do in their bedroom but do not want marriage redefined.
CEO of Mozilla is not governor, chief justice of the state supreme court, or even a single legislator among many. He had absolutely no power to affect the legality of gay marriage in his position.
Those were the specific circumstances and the specific issue. Intolerance of that viewpoint and the demonization done to anyone who disagrees with you are so far from tolerance that you need to measure the distance in AUs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:52PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:53PM
But he was in a position to change the employee benefits of same-sex couples that worked for Mozilla.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:00PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:10PM
> Why would he?
While often rationalized, bigotry is not rational.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:19PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:08PM
> Did anyone ask him? No.
Yes, he explicitly refused to explain himself. [cnet.com] Leaving any reasonable person to believe he did it for the same reason everyone else did it, because they don't think gay people deserve to marry, aka bigotry. That you would argue that he's got some super-secret not-bigoted reason to interfere with gay people's lives is the kind of rationalization that demonstrates just how ridiculous your position is.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:16PM
Demonization and bigotry on your part right there. You cannot combat injustice with hatred and expect anything good to come of it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:35PM
> ...we don't have any reason to believe he would have except for the propaganda that painted everyone opposed to gay marriage as hating gays.
He put his own money into a campaign intended to discriminate against gays. We certainly do have reason to believe he'd act on his beliefs... again.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:51PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:15PM
You actually never have answered it.
You've claimed he never acted on his beliefs, which was then belied by the point that he did, in fact, do so, and it was that action that caused the whole scene in the first place.
Then you claimed that "his reasons" were being unfairly attributed, because he'd never been given the opportunity to express what they really were. That, too, was shown to be false.
Then you claimed that, having acted once on his beliefs, whatever they are, is no reason to expect him to act on them again, from a position of authority where doing so could do real damage. That's as much a wild-ass guess as playing the lottery, and crosses far over the border of "naivety." He's offered absolutely no reason that anyone should extend that level of faith in his sense of rational behavior, and (arguably) plenty of reason that no one should.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:05PM
> He was not in a position to act on his beliefs, as far as anyone knows.
Of course he was. The CEO both sets the tone of employee policies as well has final say over specifics.
> Believing marriage should be one man and one woman is not the same as hating gays.
Of course it is.
"Believing marriage should be between people of the same race is not the same as hating black people."
As anyone else reading along can see, "don't hate, educate" doesn't work. The best anyone can expect is to use people like you as a foil to expose the poor logic used to rationalize bigotry. But sometimes that is too demoralizing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:14PM
I'm pro-gay-marriage, dipshit, or rather I'm opposed to saying the government has the right to say they can't. I simply do not demonize people who believe other than I do and allow that they may have a perfectly reasonable position.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:30PM
> I'm pro-gay-marriage, dipshit, or rather I'm opposed to saying the government has the right to say they can't.
I'm pro equal rights, dipshit, or rather I'm opposed to saying the government has the right to stop discrimination.
> I simply do not demonize people who believe other than I do and allow that they may have a perfectly reasonable position.
I simply do not demonize the KKK and allow that they may have a perfectly reasonable position.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:31PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:37PM
> And there's that demonization again. It's a lot easier to hate than think, isn't it?
The KKK holds that miscegenation is against the bible. You haven't even tried to demonstrate how that is any different from those who hold that gay marriage is against the bible.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:48PM
I've no need to. It wasn't my point. My point is you're unwilling to tolerate a viewpoint different than your own long enough to consider the possibility that people can think differently than you without being evil incarnate.
And since you've done such a masterful job of that for me, allow me to say thank you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:55PM
>I've no need to. It wasn't my point.
However, it was my point. That you can't reconcile the contradiction demonstrates the hypocrisy of your position. That's how analogies work.
> My point is you're unwilling to tolerate a viewpoint different than your own long enough to consider the possibility that people can think differently than you without being evil incarnate.
Yes, that is the point. It is wrong to promote inequality, ergo anyone who promotes inequality is wrong. They may do it out of ignorance but they are still doing evil. Nothing hypocritical about that position.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:13PM
Sooooo close there. Now if we can get you to consider the possibility that he did it out of ignorance, and therefore it was wrong to metaphorically lynch the guy without knowing, we could make a rational human being of you yet.
Truth be known there are plenty of other reasons, quite rational and not requiring hatred, for his position but that's for another discussion. To dissect an analogy is to miss the point it was intended to make.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:25PM
> Now if we can get you to consider the possibility that he did it out of ignorance,
> and therefore it was wrong to metaphorically lynch the guy without knowing,
Yes, there should be no consequences for thoughtlessly hurting people.
> Truth be known there are plenty of other reasons, quite rational and not requiring hatred,
> for his position but that's for another discussion.
Bigotry is always rationalized. No one says "I think we should treat some people like shit for no reason whatsoever." In fact, I'm going to challenge you cite just one example of societally accepted discrimination for which the proponents just said "We just hate them, no reason, we just hate them, so fuck'em!" Sure, there is the occasional dumb-as-rocks tribalist who is mentally incapable of coming up with a rationalization, but any organized bigotry will have a whole host of "quite rational" reasons to justify their discrimination.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:38PM
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:42PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:50PM
> I'm quite enjoying myself demonstrating hypocrisy.
FTFY.
To say that you believe in equal rights but think it is reasonable for people to be against equal rights is hypocrisy.
To say that you don't think the government should have the ability to stop gay marriage but think it is reasonable for people to use government to try to stop gay marriage is hypocrisy.
(Score: 3) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:05PM
I think it's possible for someone to be either factually wrong or morally incorrect and still be a reasonable person with a right to believe any damned fool thing they like and act in accordance with that. Anything else is advocation of fascist thought policing.
Witness how I argue with your hatemongering self instead of advocating you and your ilk be banned. Ever the optimist, I hold out hope that if not you then someone reading this will be coaxed from darkness and hatred into the light of reason and tolerance.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:11PM
> a right to believe any damned fool thing they like and act in accordance with that.
Then here we completely differ. An opinion is not a right, it is a responsibility and acting on that opinion in a way that deliberately and explicitly hurts others is absolutely untenable.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:24PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:28PM
> I simply will never be arrogant enough to say I am the one true arbiter of what is right.
But you are arrogant enough to say that you are the one true arbiter of what is wrong.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:52PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:58PM
> Oh no, I'm not the one true arbiter of anything.
Clearly you think you are the one true arbiter, else you wouldn't have complained about being demonized. If the KKK is bad enough that any comparison of their beliefs to your beliefs is demonization then you are explicitly making a judgment. You just disagree with me about where to draw the line.
> Also, I'm more Machiavellian than that.
Surprise, you are a foil
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:12PM
There's a difference between complaining and pointing out the hypocrisy of bigots complaining about bigotry.
I disagree with you on how to handle conflicts in beliefs. I would not fire someone for being a Klan member, I would simply adjust my opinion of their intelligence accordingly.
I believe in freedom for assholes to be assholes because the minute we lose that freedom, any other right can be taken simply by calling you an asshole for wanting to keep it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:15PM
> I disagree with you on how to handle conflicts in beliefs. I would not fire someone for being a Klan member,
> I would simply adjust my opinion of their intelligence accordingly.
You seem to be trying to make an analogy. Let's make it more accurate.
Should a klan member be CEO of a company with black employees?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:33PM
Nope, I threw you a bone in yours so I could bring this up. You really, really seem to want to talk Klan. It's not a bad tactic; it brings up plenty of old hatred and gets you probably 50% of the people instantly on your side. Problem is, I'm not biting. It's just a way to spread more hate by false association.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:46PM
> I'm not biting. It's just a way to spread more hate by false association.
If it is a false association, explain why it is false.
The klan deems one group of people to be unworthy of equal rights.
Anti-gay marriage people deem another group of people to be unworthy of equal rights.
An unsupported declaration that the analogy is false is the kind of cop-out that comes from cognitive dissonance.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:57PM
You should probably look up cognitive dissonance else I'll end up quoting Inigo Montoya at you and nobody would enjoy that.
The analogy is fine if your goal is falsely associating racism with not being a gay rights cheerleader. You're not asking for an open mind or the indifference that true equality manifests as, you're asking for cheerleaders and calling everyone else bigots. You're wanting to associate something most people agree on to this issue where you are in the minority. It's not a bad tactic, it's just too transparent a ploy for your current audience.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:11PM
> The analogy is fine if your goal is falsely associating racism with not being a gay rights cheerleader.
The fact that an obvious case of discrimination has powerful connotations is not an argument against it being an accurate analogy to another form of discrimination.
> You're wanting to associate something most people agree on to this issue where you are in the minority.
Yeah, that's the entire point of an analogy - to show that a principle everybody agrees on applies in a situation that not everybody has figured out yet. In other words, if A is true and B is very much like A then B is also true.
The only point you've even come close to making is that comparing the kkk to prop-8 is a difference in degree but not in kind. Explain why there is a difference in kind or concede.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:07PM
Should a klan member be CEO of a company with black employees?
Yes, if he is otherwise qualified. Here is why.
Opinions are not binary. You cannot say that a KKK member is racist, but a random stranger in the street - who is not a card-carrying KKK member - is not a racist. Obviously, that stranger can be far more racist than ten KKK members taken together.
So there is no objective criteria for declaring someone a racist. There is no even clear understanding what a racist is. Take, for example, a man who proclaims that black people are superior. Can he, in your test, be a CEO of a company with black and white employees? Is he a racist, BTW?
The requirement that you propose would result in elimination of all CEOs because the only acceptable candidate would have to be ignorant of social issues and have no opinion on extremely important subjects. How such a candidate can be a good CEO? He'd make a good janitor in a church, at most. CEOs are expected to have an opinion on everything that occurs within the company, and then on a dood deal of stuff that occurs externally to it. Every CEO just has to have a bunch of opinions that you would find displeasing if you only knew them, unless everything in the company is perfect. You can hold the CEO responsible for wrongful actions, but not for wrongful thoughts. It's not 1984 yet; but it concerns me that so many modern thinkers belive that there ought to be arrest and punishment for thoughtcrimes.
I read through most of the discussion, and what strikes me is that 99% of comments discuss punishment for EF's crime... but hardly any posts discuss the crime itself. Such as, what is exactly wrong with EF's rant, and why exactly his statements are incorrect. This is the attitude of a lyhcn mob, not of a fair judge in a courtroom. Compare to the episode of witch-burning in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:22PM
> You cannot say that a KKK member is racist, but a random stranger in the street - who is not a card-carrying
> KKK member - is not a racist. Obviously, that stranger can be far more racist than ten KKK members taken together.
What? Are you seriously arguing that we should ignore someone's explicit racism because we can't know what is in the secret hearts of people who have not demonstrated any racism? Really? You think that's logical?
We should hire NAMBLA members to be pre-school teachers because of all those pedos who haven't joined NAMBLA.
> Take, for example, a man who proclaims that black people are superior. Can he, in your test, be a CEO of
> a company with black and white employees? Is he a racist, BTW?
Of course that's racism and no, he shouldn't be put in a position of power over non-black people. The key here is that in an egalitarian society demonstrated bigotry is a disqualifer for being given power over those you've demonstrated your bigotry towards.
> EF's crime
Whatever he wrote was TLDR for me, don't really care because he has no power.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:50PM
Whatever he wrote was TLDR for me, don't really care because he has no power.
Why then do you think he wrote something racist? A judge has to learn what the accused actually did. Or, perhaps, we should follow the method below?
Are you seriously arguing that we should ignore someone's explicit racism because we can't know what is in the secret hearts of people who have not demonstrated any racism?
No; you simply cannot give preference to the stranger. As I said, he could be more racist than a random, barely involved, KKK member. You don't know what is in his heart; but lack of knowledge does not amount to lack of guilt. If you want to be fair, you have to apply the same yardstick to both candidates.
We should hire NAMBLA members to be pre-school teachers because of all those pedos who haven't joined NAMBLA.
So pedos drop membership in NAMBLA. Now what? Hint: judge people by what they do. Order a background check if you have to. NAMBLA membership will be detected as a red flag; but so will be a bunch of other activities that correlate with pedophiles. If in doubt, reject.
Of course that's racism and no, he shouldn't be put in a position of power over non-black people.
OK. But notice that black racism is accepted by the society. There are many "black $_" but no "white $_" for any value of $_. Is this fair?
But my point there was that you cannot find anyone on this planet who is/was absolutely devoid of any racist thought at any time of his life, even if later on they realized that race and being a good person are not the same.
Since you haven't read the EF's rant, there is only one racist sentence in it, at the very end. The rest of the rant applies to citizens of Mexico, regardless of their genetic makeup. This is why I asked about the specific crime that EF is accused of. You could do s/Mexican/Canadian/g and it would be the same rant. I am afraid that many, like you, haven't taken time to read through the piece. But it's your duty if you want to be a judge.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Monday April 14 2014, @12:01AM
> Why then do you think he wrote something racist?
I have no opinion on what he wrote because I haven't read it and I am particularly interested because he has no power.
> No; you simply cannot give preference to the stranger.
That philosophy is so ridiculously nonsensical - demonstrated failure of fitness for the position is a disqualifer, full stop.
> OK. But notice that black racism is accepted by the society
Sure, because when you are racist but you don't have the power to systemically apply that racism, nobody gives a shit. The key here is POWER. Whenever you talk about bigotry, you must consider the balance of power. If you don't consider power, then you're just playing word games and not looking at how the racism affects real people.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday April 14 2014, @12:13AM
because when you are racist but you don't have the power to systemically apply that racism, nobody gives a shit
I strongly disagree here. Racism is a state of mind, and an afflicted person is dangerous. A single racist will beat you up in the street because you are wearing wrong color of skin. A group of racists will kill you and dispose of the body. A team of racists in power can start a World War.
As an analogy, you probably wouldn't be OK with a 20 y/o man who loves to talk about walking into his old school and shooting everyone inside. You wouldn't say "Nah, he has no gun, it's safe." Why then do you say "Nah, he is a racist, and he would oppress another race, but it's OK because he can't do it right now."
In that vein, what makes you think that EF has no power? I, personally, have no clue who he is. What if he is a mayor of some city, or a Police Chief, for example? Even being a shift supervisor at a poultry plant is enough to practice racism. I'd say all of us have enough power to be dangerous to others if we want to.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Monday April 14 2014, @12:14AM
> I strongly disagree here. Racism is a state of mind, and an afflicted person is dangerous.
Your entire point is based on ascribing power to individuals that they generally do not have. When they clearly have some power, then we can cross that bridge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:19PM
>Believing marriage should be one man and one woman is not the same as hating gays. -The Mighty Buzzard
>>Of course it is. -Angry jesus
>>"Believing marriage should be between people of the same race is not the same as hating black people." -Angry jesus
I don't think "the same" means what you think it means...
>>As anyone else reading along can see, "don't hate, educate" doesn't work. The best anyone can expect is to use people like you as a foil to expose the poor logic used to rationalize bigotry. But sometimes that is too demoralizing. -Angry jesus
Your conclusions are not logical, and you are the foil. Do you have no sense of irony?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @01:02AM
If $$==free speech, then yes he does/did have to ability to act on his beliefs. Whether it's his or effecting an employees salary.
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:23PM
From the Mozilla Project's official rules:
(i) Inclusion and Diversity
The Mozilla Project welcomes and encourages participation by everyone. It doesn’t matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you: we welcome you. We welcome contributions from everyone as long as they interact constructively with our community, including, but not limited to people of varied age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views.
Mozilla-based activities should be inclusive and should support such diversity.
Some Mozillians may identify with activities or organizations that do not support the same inclusion and diversity standards as Mozilla. When this is the case:
(a) support for exclusionary practices must not be carried into Mozilla activities.
(b) support for exclusionary practices in non-Mozilla activities should not be expressed in Mozilla spaces.
(c) when if (a) and (b) are met, other Mozillians should treat this as a private matter, not a Mozilla issue.
Mozilla didn't fire Eich, and didn't force him to resign. He resigned because so many other people were being intolerant assholes that he felt if would be best for the project that he did. But don't say he was acting against Mozilla's rules: Mozilla says that as long as he keeps his beliefs to himself *WHEN INVOLVED WITH MOZILLA*, __NOT__ WHEN VOTING OR ENGAGING IN NON-MOZILLA POLITICAL ACTIVITY*, he can think, say, and do whatever he wants. I see no reason anything should be different just because he's CEO. The CEO is responsible for enforcing corporate policy, yes, but that can be done without agreeing with every tiny little aspect of the corporate policy he's been hired to enforce. Most semi-intelligent people can follow and enforce codes of conduct they don't entirely agree with. He starts pulling benefits for gay couples who are Mozilla employees, call for his head _THEN_. Not before.
Unfortunately, it's too late for that case ... the intolerant people won.
---linuxrocks123
(Score: 1) by Angry Jesus on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:30PM
> I see no reason anything should be different just because he's CEO.
Let me guess:
You don't believe that structural racism is possible.
That if someone isn't outright, loud and proud about practicing discrimination, then they aren't discriminating.
That deeply held beliefs do not bias a person's decision making process.
Right?
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Wednesday April 16 2014, @02:24PM
Yes, Brendan Eich founded Mozilla and then stayed with the project for 15 years so he could one day finally be in a position to MAKE GAY EMPLOYEES' SPOUSES GET THEIR OWN HEALTH INSURANCE. MWA-HA-HA-HA! ...oh, wait, he outright stated he didn't want to do that. Hmm.
Sure, it's possible he could have been a passive-aggressive asshole toward gay employees if he'd been allowed to stay on. The time to deal with that would have been after he'd actually done that, because most people, no matter what their private political beliefs, don't act that way.
---linuxrocks123
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:59PM
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:10PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by FakeBeldin on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:32PM
Funny thing: I just looked through the thread you linked and got the following impression:
Most are of the opinion that his opinion makes him unfit to be CEO - but plenty are also of the opinion that firing someone based on that person's opinions is extremely dubious, if not outright crossing a line.
Tolerance? I don't see any.
I looked at what you linked and saw something else.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:40PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:12PM
Exactly who was fired? Nobody was fired. So, employees of a corporation shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion about the impact and ramifications a newly-hired C-level executive will have on said corporation?
Second, this wasn't "a political cause". This was a religious-led attempt to deny - under force of law - equality to a segment of the population. All because of their imaginary friend.
No. This is not arguing about a bailout. This is not CFL vs. incandescent light bulbs.
This is reprehensible tyranny, and calling people out on such fuckery is not intolerance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:30PM
You read that, Fluffeh? Now go look in the mirror, and sort yourself out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:44PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by velex on Monday April 14 2014, @01:39AM
Ach, going off topic. My thing is that well, should he have been fired? No. Was he "fired" in the way we mere mortals understand it, again, probably not. I highly doubt he's scrambling handing in applications to Burger King and Target trying to get a job before his buffer runs out and he can't make rent. Then there's the whole thing of why the Mozilla foundation wasn't aware of this donation?
Is this guy really not that bad of a person, just has some reason to oppose gay marriage while being a-ok with gay folks? Who knows?
My thing is I was watching Firefox om-nom-nom my workstation's memory yet again, and the thought occurred to me that at some point, that thing was gonna have ads too. Then I asked myself whether I really wanted to give money to the Mozilla foundation.
My rule is that I never give money to folks who would use that money to lobby for legislation that will make my life more difficult or else directly use that money to give me a bad day (happened before). (For example, any business that advertises itself as Christian I make sure to avoid, since I don't think it would be in my best interest or the owner's best interest to exchange goods and services. The owner doesn't want me as a customer, and I don't want to give him my money. Win-win.) It's kind of unclear which case that is, if any, here.
My answer was no. So I installed SeaMonkey, which yes I know is still Mozilla, but it ended up running better than Firefox+Thunderbird. So, I'm now a SeaMonkey user. I don't think I'll go back to Firefox.
Nobody can force me to use Firefox. That's just the reality of it. If the Mozilla foundation really wants me to use their soon-to-be ad-laden browser, well, "firing" the guy was a nice gesture, but SeaMonkey is better for my use-case as it turns out.
What I would really love is Konqueror and K-Mail from KDE 3, but c'est la vie.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 14 2014, @01:55AM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by That_Dude on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:27PM
The greatest weapon of the fascist is the tolerance of the pacifist.
- Suicidal Tendencies
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:17PM
More broadly put: "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cmdrk on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:38PM
Outing and ostracizing someone, no matter their beliefs, is pretty shitty. I can't believe we're already seeing this crap posted here.
I really don't want to abandon this site, I like the technical news posted. That said, if it turns into yet another news aggregator that claims to be a bastion of free speech, yet actively moderates or removes those with views that conflict with the majority, I'm out.
Just my 2c
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:02PM
I posted my position on this here: http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1261&cid=30 886 [soylentnews.org]
I'm not sure what you mean by "moderate" in this context; people will likely downmod bigotted comments and such even with the reworked system. Staff get mod points the same as regular users, but we don't have unlimited mod points like the other site.
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:57PM
Speaking with my admin hat on, should we ban users for having such opinions? Since we've gone live, we've only issued one IP ban (since lifted), and banned accounts of the original /. editors which were "stolen" (those accounts will be given to their proper owners should they want them). The IP ban was against the person stealing those accounts in question (I had meant to preregister them, but in the insanity of golive, it got overlooked)
Many people say they support "free of speech", but in truth, they mean "freedom to say what I agree with". There was a time in this country where promotion of equal rights between races/genders/all people would have been considered blasphemy, illegal or worse. In the 1970s, in the United States, a campaign against the LBGT community lead by singer Anita Bryant was successful in repealing gay protection laws in many states. This attack on the LBGT community only was curbed when the battle came to California in the form of the Briggs Initiative and Harvey Milk, an openly gay City Supervisor for San Francisco, worked tirelessly to fight it (Wikipedia has excellent information on the subject, as does the film "Milk").
The moment you take away the right to say something (or any right at all) is the moment you create a predict, and a trip down a slippery slope. If we ban people for a specific opinion, then what stops us from banning you from holding an opinion the community things is wrong and abhorrent. Where does it start and where does it end?
I personally find intolerance repugnant, but I won't take away the rights of bigots just because I find it so. You have the right to spew garbage, I have the right to ignore you. Except as required by law*, no one will be banned or have their comments deleted due to just stating an opinion, no matter how unpopular it is. Moderation will judge if an opinion is valid or not; no one has the right to go to Score: 5 just because they believe they're right.
(and as an aside, bots don't have rights, if we start dealing with mass amounts of botspam, I have *no* problem banning those accounts and/or IPs. I also don't have a problem with banning people for abusing their rights; if someone starts crapflooding in every thread/story over and over, that's grounds for a ban. When I finish the manifesto, it will clearly lay out what is and isn't bannable offenses; stating an opinion will not be on it).
* - safe harbour laws require we ban repeat offenders of the DCMA, and at least in the US, there is a very narrowly defined section of "unprotected speech" which we may be required to take down if we're ever court ordered to.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by cmdrk on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:59PM
Thanks for speaking up, NCommander. I completely agree with your position.
(Score: 1) by dpp on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:09PM
Excellent post.
Perhaps I'm just being optimistic, but I feel that it's important for the ignorant to be able to speak so that others can respond - in the hopes of educating them.
For those that don't/can't/won't learn and continually make ignorant/hateful/hurtful posts - we can mod them into oblivion and let them know what the majority thinks of their posts.
I've defended people's rights to say things which I found repugnant and I also try to speak out and educate / present an opposing view.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:40PM
> I personally find intolerance repugnant, but I won't take away the rights of bigots just because I find it so. You have the right to spew garbage, I have the right to ignore you.
What if they go as far as to attempt to incite violence?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:56PM
That's actually one of the exceptions to constitutionally protected speech as defined by SCOTUS. Required reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio [wikipedia.org]
As for an answer, I don't have one yet. I'm tempted to use the SCOTUS test for this, specifically imminent lawless action test, where:
These later decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action
That being said, its unlikely anything posted to here will meet this heavy burden (likely to incite criteria). I'm going to mull on this awhile before making a rash decision. I apologize for not having an immediate answer for you, but as I said, this is a very slippery slope.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:49PM
Thanks for addressing this. Honestly, I had no idea it would blow up into the shitstorm that it did. Sure, I expected a few people to comment, and that I allowed comments in that journal allowed anybody the opportunity to prove me wrong or just say I was an asshole. Or, hell, maybe even agree.
People here with thin skin are slippery-sloping and typecasting me into this skinhead persona who typed that journal in his brick basement wearing his vintage SS uniform, copy of Mein Kampf lit by a lone candle in the darkness, Skrewdriver playing in the background (which is amusing, the only complaint I have about it all is that they're advocating censorship). HATE SPEECH!!!1!!! As if I wasn't chuckling and laughing the entire time writing that, as if all of that (and worse!) hasn't already been said publicly by people like Carlos Mencia or George Lopez, As if I crapflooded every discussion with it, and not kept it on my journal, as if my only reason for coming here was to be racist. And touching upon what was already said, the motivations of people who go out of their way to react so strongly are suspect. Freud called it the Reaction formation, [wikipedia.org] and a common example of that is a latent self-loathing homosexual going out of their way to be vocally anti-homosexual. Americans have a couple congressmen and preachers who have served as high-profile examples of the latter
The funny part about all this, is that I'm part Mexican and Native American, very obviously dark-haired/brown-eyed etc.
That being said, this is a discussion that needs to be had, because this will happen in the future. If not me, somebody else will inevitably say something controversial. I will capitulate and remove the journal after some hours, after this discussion has run its course, but at the same time I will lose a lot of respect for many in this community, and will foe them after I identify them as being pro-censorship and possibly with the guilt of latent racism that motivates them to behave so outwardly anti-racist. So, everybody wins. The journal gets taken down, and all of the pro-censorship whiners have outed themselves. And I'm very convinced that, had every instance of "Mexican" been substituted with "German" or "Japanese," this wouldn't have been blown out of proportion as it is being now.
I do apologize to you and the other leadership if this has all inconvenienced you, but then again I hadn't expected there to be so many crybabies coming out of the woodwork and going so far out of their way to whine. And to the pro-censorship crybabies? Fuck You.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:11PM
Its fine. While some people do get annoyed about posts about the site, I think they're healthy and help get discussions on our direction and management out in the open. Getting this posted got a good discussion going, and gave me an opportunity to stand on my soapbox.
I see crapflooding as disruptive behaviour personally which is why a ban would happen for those who enganged in it, regardless of the content in it. That being said, if people were crapflooding because we the staff did something horrible (i.e. beta), then its something we need to address than using a banhammer. Banning is serious business, and I hope in the life of this site that we only ever have to ban bots, and the number of real bans will remain in single digits (I'm not naive enough to believe we'll never have to ban someone for disruptive behaviour).
Removing the journal is your choice; as I said you have the rights to any opinion, though we have the right to ignore it. The problem is w/ the internet and text-based medium, its hard to tell when people are serious and when they aren't. I personally thought you were, and while I find bigotry disgusting, I will defend bigots right the same as anyone elses. It is at least nice to see you're just a professional troll vs. an actual bigot though :-).
As I said, its easy to say "freedom of speech for all" right up until someone says something you don't like. I'm an advocate for civil rights, and I will defend them until my last breath. I will defend the rights of those who would censor or deny rights for an opinion, for race, gender, social status, etc, as everyone has rights, even if I think those opinions can go straight to hell.
Still always moving
(Score: 2, Informative) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:26PM
You seem to have gone out of your way to paint yourself as a victim in all this, even going so far as project what you think others think of you. How can you claim that's what others really think of you? You seem to claim that just because you say something derogatory about or against others it doesn't mean that's how you feel about them, and just because you say those things it doesn't define who you are. You don't want anyone to judge you by the things you say, because your words don't represent who you are simply because you say them?
So which parts are true? Which parts are you? How long do you get to hide behind "I said it but I didn't mean it to get this kind of response" or "just because I said it doesn't mean you get to judge me on it" or "I expected people not to like what I said but I didn't expect them to voice their opinion as vehemently as I stated mine"? Do you really believe your anti-<insert race or nationality of someone other than you here> rhetoric? If so then why protest so much when others label you based on it? Why apologize for causing more of response than you intended, if in fact you did expect a negative response?
If you're just trying to be a troll because you get off on saying inflammatory things, then why are you so defensive about it? If that's who you are why not embrace it? And if you're not trolling, if you just honestly believe the things you say - the ones that people other than you find offensive - then embrace that. Calling others "cry babies" because they voiced their opinions about you sounds to me like you're being ... a cry baby.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:28PM
I am not trying to paint myself as a victim, I'm a big boy and I knew damn well what I posted would offend some people. The only reason why it's coming off that way is because that journal got blown WAAAAAYY out of proportion, and now that there's a very animated discussion about it, I am obligated to say something about it. Had this not been blown out of proportion into a rancorous and well-populated debate, I certainly wouldn't have tried to shove it up your asses -- this discussion is proof enough that you are good enough at shoving others' shit in your own faces. It seems it is many of you, rather than I, who have "gone out of their way" to Streisand-Effect a tasteless piece of humor. In fact, the only reason why I'm actually responding and not laughing in private is because I am an active participant in this community.
In short - lighten the fuck up. Seriously. Are you all so desperate for your two minutes' hate and lacking any good stories about Microsoft or Slashdot Beta to pounce on? Of all the good articles I've submitted and posts I've posted here you're all gonna jump on one bad journal post and demand that I be drawn and quartered for it? I'm not asking for leniency as much as I am saying that you cannot avoid encountering people who are going to say something that angers you, either here or out on the streets. Rage makes people tacky, it makes their hair stand out on the back and messes with their complexions and they forget to zip.
Yeah, I miscalculated how big of a shitstorm it would become. No, let me rephrase that -- I miscalculated how many people here are itching for the chance to be disgustingly self-righteous over something they would have laughed at had it come from the mouth of a Hispanic comedian. Is it offensive? Sure, but definitely not offensive enough to warrant the attention it's getting from all of you.
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Monday April 14 2014, @12:21AM
This certainly sounds a bit like "look, look! look what they're saying about me!":
Slippery slope and Godwin in one sentence? I guess it's true that "slippery slope" is now the Godwin of disagreements.
Blown out of proportion? Maybe to you but not necessarily to those who were very offended by it. Blaming others for taking offense sounds like you don't want to own any part of the responsibility for posting it. If you really meant it as only a "tasteless piece of humor", let me tell you that you failed miserably at the "humor" part of it.
No one is "desperate for your two minutes' hate". I would bet that the people who you offended felt strongly about this type of "speech" long before you posted your journal entry, and will feel strongly about it long after this community is just another page on archive.org. Of course we're all going to encounter people who are going to say something that angers us, but those who say it simply for the purpose of angering others are due the level of venom they elicit from those they went out of their way to anger. Claiming that you don't like people who react negatively to stuff you say for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of them is disingenuous. You may not like it when they react in a way that you can't anticipate or control, but you enjoy pissing people off just because you can. That doesn't make you evil, but it does earn you their contempt and disrespect.
I think you miscalculated several things, and one of them is that you think the people who were offended by what you said are to blame this "discussion". And I think it's fair to say no one knows, or even cares, that you claim to be a "Hispanic comedian". No one here knows you in real life, and you can (and do) say things that you then wave off with a "just kidding/didn't mean it" dismissiveness. And no one here cares about who you are in real life, only who you are here. And around here you have established yourself as offensive, trollish and racist.
The problem with trying so hard to offend people is that when you succeed you've rightfully earned the "Offensive" merit badge. You went out of your way to be offensive, you succeed beyond your expectations, and now you think it's the people who you offended that are at fault. It's almost as if you're just an innocent bystander in this. It sure would be nice if all those people who are posting things that you don't like would stop to consider how their comments might affect you. Who knows, maybe they are? Or maybe they're just non-Hispanic comedians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @04:26AM
Yeah, we already got that from your journal byline:
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:56PM
I'd probably be inclined to troll-mod a bigoted post as "funny". On the grounds that it should be painful to be laughed in your face if you really believe in what you said/posted.
Besides, it is rarely that bigots are "monochrome": it is not unusual to see interesting ideas or insightful info in other topic.
Hell, happened to me quite a lot with the notorious "cold fjord" on the disreputed green site - I couldn't stand his subversive trolling (e.g. he managed to derail a good argument by nit-picking on words and driving the discussion into irrelevant; or making use of pissing context: "oh, if we're bad, imagine others"). But on other topics, he did mark good points.
(besides, I find myself missing him sometimes)
As for pure trolling (controversy or offence just for the sake of it), there's the Troll mod: I wouldn't hesitate to use it
My PoV: nah, would not worth using bans on the ground of bigotism. Life can be boring without colourful characters.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by zim on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:58PM
This place is going to be mighty empty.
And you'll have a nice little echo chamber like the vast majority of internet forums are.
Don't be like facebook. In free and open discourse you're allowed to DISLIKE things.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:24PM
I agree and the only other caveat I would add is the banning of those that put users of the site at risk, as an example a few years back Slash had an AC troll that thought it was "funny" to post images reporting to be relevant to the topic at hand (say pics of a new game or hardware if that was the topic) but which were in reality child porn pics. In a case like that I could see banning the IP address but I can't see banning someone simply because their viewpoint may be considered offensive.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:43PM
This falls not only the category of unprotected speech, but something we'd likely have to involve the feds for; just clicking on a link to child porn can actually be illegal in the United States and there are specific requirements w.r.t. reporting and such. Such a user will get IP banned + we'd remove these posts as well as invoke law enforcement. An explicate policy on this needs to be drafted on consultation of a lawyer.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:01PM
Well it was a few years ago but IIRC the guys at Slash tried to get LEO involved, it turned out the scumbag was using multiple revolving proxies in a dozen countries making busting the guy damned near impossible to bust him, too many jurisdictions. At the end of the day they just had to have a mod sit there and remove any posts by this douchebag until he got tired of playing whack a mole and went away.
But this is one of the reasons why i think the CP laws in the states really need to be changed, the possession laws were written when you had to physically go out and acquire the item in question, now it is quite easy to make a fake link so that the person thinks it was something innocent and end up getting that garbage cached on their PC merely by being rickrolled.
And I do agree speaking with a lawyer would probably be wise, after all its a small site now but what happens when you start seeing scumbags like the above, or someone posted terrorism threats? I know the safe harbor statutes can be tricky and having exactly what happens if a post is illegal under federal law written up under the TOS would probably be smart, but IANAL so take that with a grain of salt.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 18 2014, @04:51PM
knGfB5 http://www.qs3pe5zgdxc9iovktapt2dbyppkmkqfz.com/ [qs3pe5zgdx...kmkqfz.com]
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:15PM
If they're a troll: ignore them. Don't write a story about them and post it on the front page. If they aren't a troll but have a well reasoned, but different, point of view to you, then debate them. If you really want to decrease the incidence of trolling, then I suppose we could allow ignore filters so individual users can filter out posts from people they consider to be a troll.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:33PM
You can already do this to an extent. Set them to foe, then set foe posts to -5 as a makeshift killfile. Its not great, but until something better is implemented, this works fairly well.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:56PM
Good idea. Hadn't thought of that.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by codermotor on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:30PM
Disclaimer: this is my opinion.
This story should be mod-ed "Overrated", and put into the "Seriously?" department.
Your objections seem at first read very rational, very low-toned and written with sincere concern for the feelings of others. But the undertones smack a little bit of trying to incite a virtual lynching of someone with whom you violently disagree.
To paraphrase the subject of this story:
You don't like intolerance, yet you show your own version of intolerance. I smell fear.
If you don't like the way someone thinks or acts, understand why. Make sure you don't repeat their mistakes. Then teach others. Don't rabble-rouse. Don't incite mob behavior. Don't become self-rightous. Do learn. Be tolerant.
I was once told by a very wise person, that life is a one-man inside job. Worry about yourself. Understand that it's a zero-sum game to try to control anyone other than yourself. One cannot insult, offend, embarrass, or hurt the feelings of another. One chooses whether to feel insulted, offended, embarrassed, or hurt by another.
This is not the kind of nonsense story I expect to find on a tech news site. This is not why I came to Soylentnews. But I accept that maybe others find these things worthy of discussion. I don't have to like it, but I will tolerate it ;) , because I don't like monocultures. And BTW, if you had not pointed to the journal, most of us would have never read it. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
(Score: 1) by broken on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:36PM
It looks like Fluffeh was trolled and it gets posted to the front page. I guess this makes it a very successful troll. I don't know how anyone could take a post like this seriously.
Sure, this site may have a problem with trolling via user journal entries. I don't see any reason to handle them any differently from comment trolls: either ignore them, or allow journal entries to be down-modded so users with delicate sensibilities can set their view-threshold high enough that they don't have to be offended.
(Score: 2) by zim on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:47PM
Your intolerance of what he says/or is. Is just as bad as his opinion of what others say/or are.
Most everyones an "IST". Of some form. Some just admit to starting the classification of who they don't like at race.
Until people stop banding together based on their race. You'll always have someone excluding based on race.
At least most races can complain about it.
As a white guy i'm not allowed to play the race card. Ever.
Even for exactly the same equal/opposite situations.
I'm not allowed to be offended at the term cracker. I'm not allowed to be offended at blackpeoplemeet.com commercials.
Yet flip those to the other equivilant. Oh hell no. You're getting reamed by the world!
(Score: 1) by gishzida on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:44PM
I am Jewish. I chose to be Jewish. When I was asked why I wanted to be Jewish{[1] I explained it:
"When I was small I was kicked and beat, and spit on, sworn at and picked last for kick-ball. I spent my whole life being a loner and being hated or disliked for good or bad reasons... most of the reasons I was bullied was because I was an easy target. So why do I want to be Jewish?" I replied. "I won't be alone any more."
So I'm Jewish right? No according to some of the Orthodox Jews. I'm not Jewish enough for them but I certainly am Jewish enough to feel the wrong end of other people's intolerance... or other people's ignorance.
There has been a long ongoing debate about where to draw the line on "intolerance", "hate speech", "bigotry", or "denial of history". My simple line is this: "Hate Speech is still free speech. The trouble comes when people begin to act on their hate speech. If they act on their words then they should be considered anathema... ". Saying "I hate you" with words is one thing. Saying hate with a burning cross or a loaded gun or a rope is another. The speech might be incitement but are war games incitement?
The poster who was "singled out" by this post [that's a kind of hate speech too] had some "informed" words to about Jews. I clarified his error. 'Nuf said and no remarks flew back and forth... Later when I posted a journal saying maybe I should not comment on "political" stuff here any more this poser singled out was the first to step forward and say he didn't want me to be silent.
I've had words from others here like "Hey Jew Boy...!" [soylentnews.org] which were much closer to the Good All Amerikan Skin Headed Boy". I didn't piss my pants and run for the wings. I told a joke instead... which got up-modded. Hate speech from ACs is more to be feared than from someone who is willing to use their own identity to say unpopular things.
So from my experience I would rather have Ethanol Fueled say what he feels than someone play the anonymous coward with true and ominous hate speech.
Now as for the original poser-- I DO NOT like what you have done here. Who appointed you the judge and jury? You have made "Front Page" hate speech without actually saying "So and So is a immoral and evil scum sucking friend of all of the bastards that don't believe like "we" do so let's put him in the public square, shame him, mark him as an EVIL ONE..."
Uh, guess what? That is they way ALL hateful pogroms begin-- singling out someone's because of some alleged moral or ethical superiority. One can easily see this in the words of a recent American President, no, not Obama, George W. Bush [wikipedia.org]. Does he happen to be one of your friends? Has Bush's words made the world a better place to live. Sure. The Iraqi's are good friends and customers of the Iranians. The Afghans and the Pakistanis hate the U.S.
If we are going to paint people with scarlet letters , are we truly morally superior? The empirical answer is-- no.
[1] Unlike some other religions there are specific rules about Jewish converts. One of the rules outlined in the Talmud is the requirement to ask the proposed convert: "Do you not know we are a people that has been brutalized and downtrodden and unpopular, and our ways are very different from the ways of the rest of the world?"
(Score: 1) by willie3204 on Sunday April 13 2014, @11:34PM
Tolerance is bunk. Agree or disagree, understand. And then move on with what you got.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday April 14 2014, @12:18AM
Glancing through Ethanol-fueled's diary, it appears to be an appropriate and measured use of intolerance right up to the clever crown jewel, announcing he was forced to insert weasel words, diluting his profound message, in a noble attempt to satisfy a ruthless (and imaginary) groupthink. I only wish we could all hate half as well as Ethanol-fueled.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday April 14 2014, @01:03AM
Something about singling someone out like this in a story feels really, really wrong. It doesn't matter if he wishes he was Hitler's wife, this was wrong.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @01:13AM
I'm an AC and intend to stay an AC. Though I've seen many posts that only regard AC posts as trolls, no matter the content. Talk about intolerance relating directly to this site. As with my rebuttals on those posts, this one will likely not be read as I'm "late to the post game" yet again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @06:23AM
As another AC for life, I read everything at -1. I certainly read your post and agree that the hate of ACs is quite silly. At least we can post here, unlike at some other sites...
And before anybody wants to point out that perhaps I'm the previous AC discussing with myself, it's true, you don't know if it's so or not. But the parent AC knows and that's all I really care about here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 14 2014, @11:36AM
Glad to see I'm not the only AC lifer. Many times I find having a user name can actually have a chilling effect in some instances, on the Op and others. Of course I have to wonder if it might be that someone else might/dis agree with someone that they normally would/wouldn't just because of their user name.
I think more sites should have AC posts. Granted you're going to get trolling. Though there is just as much without AC posts, just look at any "main stream" news site.
We're not the only ones who know we're not the same poster, the site admins do as well. I guess not having an account and leaving less of a trail all over the internet, makes you less of a person and not worthy of an opinion.
Take care my AC friend.
(Score: 1) by cybro on Monday April 14 2014, @02:52AM
Not your personal army.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Serial_Priest on Monday April 14 2014, @03:36AM
As someone once said: if you want to know who rules you, think of who you aren't allowed to criticize.
You can't have a marketplace of ideas if you subsidize some and tax or outlaw others.
Do you think that someone's opinion is wrong? Then tell us why it's wrong. Don't try to incite people to tear down someone else's ideas. Show them why your ideas are better, instead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday April 14 2014, @07:16AM
Other people are not your prize lawn for you to manicure with a tweezer, isn't that simple enough? Then stop treating them as if they are and maybe given enough time you'll not only happen to discover your own flaws but also the decades-long trails of shit & stupidity we're all dragging behind us. You might even start to understand some of it.
In fact considering the ridiculous nature of it the article submitter is far more likely to be an actual troll than Ethanol-fueled, and such "stereotypically über-PC" trolling is getting too old and dumb: if anyone truly is that stupid they might just possibly deserve everything that's coming no matter how "sad" they pretend to be.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))