SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(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/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(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/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(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/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(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