Something I have noticed...

Solipist.

This post begins as a direct reply and moves into a more general explanation of things I believe are problems within ILP. I consider it entirely subjective, which would seemingly contradict one of my more minor points. This is true if one ignores the fact that ILP supplies a context for every discussion here. Furthermore I predict some may take the final paragraph to serve as a justification for whatever it is they hope to argue as to how I might be a hypocrite in this regard. Do not make the mistake of believing that I advocate standards that do not apply to me. I have openly admitted that I regularly fail, and that sometimes I purposefully engage in the very behavior I would like to see removed from ILP. Anyway…

But aren’t you the same guy who told me there is no way to qualify one’s opinions as necessarily being any better than anyone else’s? It is nice to see you have come to the realization that clearly some opinions are bullshit. This is, I believe, called growth.

Gamer, the approach is part of the end itself. And there is a difference between being witty and being wise, though I admit the two are not exclusive, one must take care to note one is for entertainment, the other for enlightenment, and that these two do not always happily co exist. If you believe you can do both, as per your particular talents, then I wouldn’t have a problem with you. I just don’t see how fixating upon particular posters accomplishes either one.

Not that I haven’t done the same as you, I have in some instances… just that I was always aware that I was being petty, at least in relation to and in regards of the Truth. Perhaps you see it as something else, something more grand and noble. However,this only explains your pique, if, and only if, you are upset because I do not recognize your inherent genius. This assumes that I know enough to know what motivates you, and that this knowledge is a sufficent premise to justify a conclusion. Either that or I take you at your word, and I am sorry, I require more than that.

My apologies. I like you Gamer, I really do. But, to me, it seemed as though you went astray long ago, and I have only your word now as to your sincerity. I think ILP should require more than that. It is very easy to say, ‘disregard what I am doing, because this is why I am doing it.’

If I seem stern now it is because I am more given to judging the act first, rather than the actor. This, to me, seems the most fair. Though I suppose I could see why some would think it instead to be the most unforgiving.

With ILP banning people over ad hom and homework it admits, as per the forumlations of its rules, that the post is not, in fact, divorced from the poster, and that people are responsible for the actions they carry out here. The choice of limiting this to just ad hominem and homework threads is, while not arbitrary, severely inhibited from the purpose of fostering genuine dialogue to the degree that genuine dialogue requires transmittable ideas that are meaningful to those beyond the transmitter himself, or herself.

This is applicable to everyone, be they a supposed expert or layman. A common complaint about Dunamis, before it all became personal, was his misuse of terms, i.e., he used words in contexts and with meanings sometimes in opposition to their generally accepted (at least by members here) usage. he didn’t promote understanding, rather lengthy and overwrought debate about particular words or ideas, over and over again.

We all remember those threads. What we don’t remember is that he never, finally, made plain his own suppositions, rather we mistook his vehemence as being sublime understanding. Maybe he would have gotten around to explaining in full, or maybe he did and I just missed it, but he would then, having garnered this reputation, be subjected to constant attack. Not his ideas, but himself. The actual poster.

This, to me, was beyond idiotic. Like fighting a fire with cylinders of gasoline. And as I knew it would, it became par for the course. Since, in truth, no one here is really as bright as they like to think they are, we would rather continue the lie that we understood, and that we still understand, the nonsense. This leads to our only recourse, vitriol, and the eventual bannings that come with it. Either this or, if the poster in question is less eloquant, we ban them before things get out of hand. See: Jennyheart.

But eloquance and vehemence do not make something true. Forgotten in all these exchanges and this petty one upsmanship is the very name of this website. Philosophy, literally translated, means love of philosophy. Thus ILP means I love the love of wisdom.

Not I love wisdom itself, rather, we love the love for wisdom, the pursuit of it. I never for one second honestly believe that I would become wise by reading ILP, that I would attain the Truth. To characterize my previous post is to miss the point I was trying to make. It is the pursuit of wisdom that we should engage in, as per our involvement in a site that says we love the love of wisdom.

What I think ILP’s proper role in this is all is not to be confused with elitism or insisting that we all argue over objective facts… ILP should simply facilitate discussions wherein we express our love for the love of wisdom. And for the literal minded this does not mean love poems dedicated to Wisdom. This means engaging in dialogue as a sincere pursuit of the object of our affection.

Dunamis was the golden calf. By obsessing over him, we agreed to pretend that he was wise, and thus made him the focus of our attentions. But, even assuming that wisdom is an attribute, it still must be expressed, and it is through the expression alone that we can, at same time, engage with it and appreciate it.

Instead we deny it, or, accepting it, we mock it. When I would go from thread to thread asking how a person knows what it is they claim to be the case, what I am looking for is something that makes sense, something I can appreciate, something I can love. I would do this because, it is rare when anything posted here makes sense at all, because I am not wise, and neither is anyone else who frequents this place. But rather than blithely assume that all expressions here are of equal value, I like to sometimes challenge those that sound interesting, simply it is through the process of dialogue (genuine dialogue) that maybe I can learn something appreciable.

I had assumed that this was what philosophy was… that we could know something, that it would appear at least true to us, and that we could love it. I suppose if I were mistaken it could be debated, but even then it would be something I might know, that might appear true to me, and something I might love. You can date the departure of the kinder, happier GCT from the moment this site became much more personal and hateful. Consider it merely an extension of the environment. And for that, don’t ask a separate standard of me, to be that which you do not ask of yourselves. If you find my replies cruel, pointless, snide, petty, whiny, complacent, deranged, and over boastful, well, that is what passes for love for the love of wisdom at ILP. Why should anyone feel inclined to do differently? Sometimes I may try, though I invariably fail… and my attempts at something I deem better are not because of something inherent about the rules of ILP, it is in spite of it.

GCT,

Sure, we all pursue our own interests here, and everyone has to start where they are, and if their astute or just plain damned lucky, they find growth - personal growth within the community.

No small part of the issues involved is the conversational -vs- formal debate gap. There are threads running here that are about the same as I might enjoy with the eighteen year old clerk at quickie mart. And the conversation is probably more meaningful with the clerk. Still, every once in awhile, there will be a little spark. Perhaps someone, knowingly or unknowingly, will provide a different perspective, a new context that sets off a new way of seeing for me. That is what holds me, you, and most of the regulars here. Is the soup thin? Some days you can look through the forums and there isn’t a single thing of interest, or there may be a dozen threads you want to engage. It’s been this way since I joined ILP.

I’ll still say that opinions are still just opinions and that there is no one perspective that allows us to come up with an external definition of what is Truth and what is bullshit. You’ve admitted that on any given day you can write profoundly and the next write pure crap. Yup. We all suffer the disease. It seems important to me to remember that all is perspective and context. What is profound insight to one is mundane crap to another. I think that is pretty much what growth is all about. You’re right to say that no one is particularly bright here, but I think that is precisely the point. We all inhabit our own space of understanding and experience, and it is in this, that the pursuit is born. Whether dippy doo conversation in Mundane Babble or a rigorously formal discussion in Philosophy, it is the constant experiencing that is the pursuit.

OK, there’s a lot of water in the soup, but there is enough good stuff to sustain us if we work at it.

The personality/ideas issue. It would be wonderful if everyone separated ideas from the member posting, but alas, it doesn’t happen. Not in ILP, not anywhere I’ve ever been on the internet, not in real life. The number of people who can hold the two separate isn’t one in a hundred. And so we create tin gods and paper devils. It may not be right, but it is what it is. Asking for the abstraction and separation of people and their ideas may be an ideal, but in a community of, guess what? - people, that makes it all “personal”, with all the the strengths and weaknesses of a community of humans.

Consider: If every person who joined as a member were capable of performing the love of wisdom ideal, why would there be any rules? There would be no need for moderation because life would be perfect. But reality is a little different. We’re dealing with humans, and you know what that means…

I’ve watched the formation and failure of a number of “internet communes”. All were set up by a handful of “free thinkers” who were going to be the expression of this ideal or that. And each might have succeeded if there weren’t any humans involved.

Finally, ILP is a community in the full sense of that word, with all the frailties and strengths of the human condition. I’m in for the game.

I basically agree with everything you wrote there, CGT. Hopefully you understand that we share your “vision” for what ILP is all about, and that our decisions are made based on that vision as a goal. The posting style of people we ban is typically a style that does not suit that vision of facilitating healthy and constructive discourse where possible. We all have off days, but to be banned you would typically need to show consistency in your negativity coupled with consistency in your unwillingness to adhere to our warnings/requests.

I do not miss the kinder gentler GCT, I like your posts now just fine, even the one above. If ILP took a “turn” to the personal or mean-spirited, maybe it was just a phase. We all have moods.

When you say my stance is:
‘disregard what I am doing, because this is why I am doing it.’

I have no idea what exactly it is that I did other than show up mid-stream in deep conversations and heckle people with pseudo-profound quips.

Why? Cause I was bored and felt left out. I dared to think maybe it wasn’t me, it was them, obfuscating things and choking off any real learning.

When Dunamis posted his pic I said “great, you finally let us see you, now can you let us see YOU, instead of your emotional monotone? Can you post in MB or write a poem?”

That day, that moment, marked D’s breaking point at the time, and I scurried to make up, maybe even kissed up a little, because I felt guilty. Xanderman hasn’t spoken to me since – that alone is evidence that I did something ugly, something evil.

I don’t pretend to know what it was yet. You came in in the middle and saw something of your own design, not the truth. You missed huge chunks of my story. Thirst also would complain that I lost my stride. No. I just ran out of things to talk about. Hm, let’s see: death, check, courage, check, truth, check…

So I became selfish, only posting about myself, stimulating conversation about ME. Know thyself, as they say. I stopped checking in every day, I know I missed millions of opportunities, millions of fine posts and topics that went under my radar and I am the less wise for it, my heart is not limitless, my love for love of wisdom has limits.

But I was always one of the good guys. I’m incapable of being mean, like Greedy Dick, for instance, who was not one of mine BTW. He was missing a piece of his soul, he used his freedom to hurl insults. I just want to make sure you know I was not Greedy Dick, that may sound stupid. But I just wanted to be clear.

I regard the political type as someone who is amoral in an incomplete fashion. One would have his moral convictions yet plenty moral fexibilities, as he would have it. Perhaps this type is running this community. Balance, a concept that has been repeatedly stressed here by them, which is ever to blance the right and the left. What GCT is doing is to urge them to constrain their moral flexibilities in favour of establishing their political right based on their basic convictions, at least to an extend that is more than themselves, or some among themselves.

The reality is that some of us are less moral than others. Some of us give expression to their amorality, while the more moral among us react to that expression in order to defend their moral convictions. Then the amorals react back, Dunamis as the foremost example. This process tends, if not already has, tightens regulations of this site in general.

What detrop is suggesting, at least the principle idea underlying it, is to push ILP towards a democratic left. This is in discordance with the moral balance that the moderators strive, because for instance, threads by Dunamis where amoral events abund stretch their moral flexibility to an offensive extend. They would want to intervene and try to balance rightwards, which they did via pm, then Dunamis had no choice but to manuover a kamakazi into the Hegal Christianity thread. Finally he gave his last expression of amorality, not political leftwing, via someone else.

The problem for Dunamis is morality, humanity, but not politics. He is non political, or at least publicly so, he is alwas philosophical pure. The problem here is political. Dunamis motive does not concern moderators, who nevertheless have to take the similar types of behaviour into consideration. Therefore, reflections on personal motivation, personal experiences, personal morals, would be irrelevant for the moderators purpose. The moderators are not willing to, or more naturally not able to, alter their foundamental moral political convictions.

But still, we talk of our moral actions and reactions from posting experiences. We are immediately beyond politics in this respect though obviously, involuntarily. We are not ripe enough for our fruits, in the words of Fritz.

I think the choice is between being philosopher or being player. If you try to be both, you always end up philosophically refuting your politics, along with the morality that politics compells you to take. You reach intellectual impass of indertermination because of philosophising under influence of herd instinct. What you get is matured philosophy, yet you fail to integrate that with actuality and your existentiality with it. Politics is essentially non philosophical and mostly anti, do not speak of being profoundly philosophical while speaking of tightening the regulations et cetera. It is immediately ungenuine in the sense that you are not truely acknowledging your purpose, you are excusing, conflicting inside.

Apply for a moderator position and wear a tie as you post, or extinguish your political flame once and for all and be a complete philosopher. Karl Marx decided to give up philosophy at the time he wrote his manifesto as a licence to kill. He who breaks silence no longer remains a philosopher, so says Nietzsche, what stunning insight.

Uniqor,

Enjoy the luxury of either/or as long as you can. :smiley: The world’s preocupation with bringing you to heel will happen soon enough.

Sure tent, and let me enjoy it here once more. In retro, I tried to simplify the problem and put things in the base context. So it is relevant on that account. And that gives cause for posting for me. In content, I stated that the conversations between GCT and Gamer have already reached beyond the place from where you as a moderator can find practical advise. Also, when we try to relate these deeper conversations to politics about governing ILP, we make the mistake of decadence. We speak under influence of subtle political ideas. Which we already encompassed by virtue of personally reflect upon out own experinces and feelings. You concern yourself, that is what takes to be non political. As soon you commite yourself towards a certain political principle, you cease to be a creative philosopher, voluntarily or involuntarily. My post above was for those involuntary ones.

Talking about my personal experience now, which is irrelevant to this topic and which you can move to somewhere else. I stopped finding Dunamis offensive a year ago. I hope he knew that and I have a feeling that he did. And I hope those who find Dunamis offensive look inward, instead of keep going on and on about how this place should be run in a politically correct manner. What those are doing is essentially ignoring and casting aside something more important than ILP. I did not name those in names because I do not know who they are at all. My current non political position arises due to my final conviction that ben fundamentally does not want a democracy. Due to this postion, I said what I said with relevance to the issues here.

So, you are probably too drawn in by this whole issue. I am offering you a shade to chill, tent, assuming that you are hot. I am not here to tell anybody to leave the thread or forget about the moderation problem, even though that mght be a good idea. I mean, When Gamer and detrop fight, you want to log off fast otherwise you are stuck onsite for the day for nothing. I noticed that detrop is right now at a happy place with a happy face, nevertheless speaking vehmently against Fritz devoid of rational concerns and entirely ignore my post for him. Gamer, the things you do. How can you expect us to help your merge with the universe by syndromatically hurting those among us who believe that you were not GreedyDick.

“Gamer, the things you do. How can you expect us to help your merge with the universe by syndromatically hurting those among us who believe that you were not GreedyDick.”

Explain to me how I hurt people and I will cease at once.

Uniqor,

Do you understand that you betray your own “political” POV? Let me make this as simple as I know how.

Running a website whose content is philosophy has absolutely nothing to do with philosophy itself. As a friend pointed out to me, not all things are philosophical.

This is an internet website owned by Ben.

Ben, with a little bit of help from staff, makes the rules.

Members are invited to participate and abide by the rules.

Members who don’t abide by the rules are invited to leave.

There is absolutely nothing philosophical about this.

Confusing content with pragmatic form and function isn’t uncommon, but neither does it produce any effect other than blah blah blah. I love grey, uniqor, but I also know when and how to act in black and white. More importantly, I even know the difference.

I appreciate the opportunity to reflect, to assess, to watch the ebb and flow of events, but finally, one acts in the concreteness of real experience and not in ethereal abstraction.

Sorry for the delay, tentative.

I understand how I betrayed my ideology in your framework, but I also understand how my ideology stands beyond your frames. Here, my saw and axe, catch by the drift that one simply does not be a philosopher after genuine commitment to some political stance, make sure you catch them with a clear head alone. To elaborate realistically, when I start to draw up an equation of Arrow Debreu competitive equilibrium and manifest a chart of jurisdiction for ILP, I would be merely subphilosophising under influence of basic ethical principles and microeconomic axioms upon which my symposium constitution and Baysian mathematics are grounded.

The actual actions of running it pertains to subphilosophy, as I have explained above. Philosophy itself is the questioning of the politics of running it. The politics here is not about identifying who is the owner of the site or who constitute the moderating team, or how they interact to come up with the rules. It is not about whether ILP should be structured as the biparlimentary UK government or as the trifeet standing situation of America, based on analysing a survey of member ethos, because all these pertain to decided and predetermined ethics of democracy. The politics is about descaling Western democracy as a whole into the ministate to which our 21st cetury sixth living dimension, cyberhood, belong. It is capitalism versus communism on the existential level, in the end, so far.

Here there is a chance to conduct an experiment. But you do not believe my rant since chance is one of those things that are not universally visible. I blame you not. But I show you the picture that once we philosophise, that is, once we take the stance of demolishing commonplace democracy and the semi or quasi democratic endeavours in the confusion, by grounding some political principle based on cap versus com, then we are commencing our downgoing, our subphilosophising, our tragedy, where we work towards a cmoprehensive system of running and moderating employing economics and mathematics, but then, we would be actively styling ourselves, and styling on an altogether grander dimension. Following these efforts, following successful moderators go home after a hard day of work at ILP and talk proudly to the wives about how satisfactory and challenging the day has been, I would be back into this very thread with a new post, in the same spirit yet calling for a new philosophy, a new politics, a grander style.

This is the ring of the eternal teturn, the being and becoming that constitute the ring. We can walk it with full discernment and affirmation, or we can drift along it with semidiscernment and quasinegation by not doing much, not even subphilosophising much. Along this ring, not enjoying the Moment of cyberlife, not opening to the Augenblick where existence spreads itself in perspectivism, but instead reactively relying on brick stone rules that are necessarily fixed in dunamis and lack in potentia, is to bring upon a gloom of unsatisfaction over the state, is to remain content with the following ethos,

which comes from the Nachlass, with unoriginal translation, but original emphasis on the original M words. Oringinal translation and its full context is available in the 2nd volume of Heidegger’s lecture course, English version by D F Krell.

Uniqor,

I have no problem with the concept of constant evolution of both form, function, and ideology. That occurs whether we would choose it or not. But there is also structure, structure that must remain in a semi-stable form. Is this moderation or mediocrity? I suppose it all depends on one’s perspective and sense of responsibility to either structure, or to ideology. While one must be amenable to changes in ideology, there needs to be recognition of the necessity to deal with obdurate reality as well. We all fall along a continuum in this. I’m a bit of a pragmatic, so while I enjoy the vista afforded considering the forest, I do not ignore the trees. If this is mediocrity, then it is for those who disagree. I understand the passion and pursuit of the edges, but mundane balance is finally its’ own wisdom.

Patently erroneous Obw, it’s easy as can be.

It takes one of three utilities that simply mask the originating IP, a username change and poof … instant access.

As with life, locks only keep out the honest people.

Beware the IP masker and packet sniffer.

Mastriani, long time no see. You are the only Sicillian I know of, besides the Corleones, of course. I long to hear a local girl to sing the theme, “speak softly my love”, in local dialect of course. Like Nietzsche, I have a mild but nevertheless passion for Italian women. When they make those pasta blocks, it reminds me of the countryside Chinese making dumplings in everyway. No, I am not mistaking your gender. I am simply opening the chatterbox with an old social oppurtunity.

Right, let me cut straight to the shit. Gimme vino,

Me and detrop are planning on a communist takeover. Before we make the moves, we need you to take a ride around the FBI and CIA with your tripple wagon… the rest is best said via pm.

tentative, The dying heroes are Dunamis and so on, the babbling mobs are coming in one after another. No, I did not manipulate the quote from Nietzsche to taylor fit the case at hand. It just happned that I read it last week. The lord works in mysterious ways. But I am bring out old craps, craps in the sense that we have ruined their freshness and significance a long time ago. This moderation matter of ILP will be a refreshed hot debate, perhaps, when most current members are replaced by a completely new gen. The job is safe, tent.

Whatever matey. I am a CCNA. Are you? If not, I probably know more about it than you. Sorry to pull that one.

Uniqor,

I appreciate your idealism and that of those who wish that the world would strive for perfection,but alas, it isn’t to be. All systems of thought and of act evolve slowly,if at all. The new generation will bring the same tired old complaints about intellectual freedom that they don’t expect to pay for.

I love the fact that you landed on this particular remark, and previously emphasising it as the main force behind your stance. It corresponds perfectly to,

Cap versus Com.

tentative, you are idealism-friendly, which means that you are the perfect subject of study for idealists. I will watch you, man, for this very reason. I guess obw is like you in this way. You are all very material and earthly bound objects that establish idealistic objects most lucidly and strongly.

yin yang, yang yin, yang yang, yin yin, yang yin yang yin, …

You guys (GCT and gamer) have inspired me in this thread this evening.That heavy poetry didnt go unnoticed and,i just could’nt accept not let letting you know. Thanks. Some uncanny combo of elements inspired me this evening…,and this thread was in the brew. :slight_smile:

(i havent been inspired in so long)

LMMFAO CCNA … that’s called an apprentice certification, and no I’m not. Otherside is, and you might want to go back to school paisano, because in the black hat arena, what you know wouldn’t fill a thimble of piss in an ant colony. Router configuration takes a floppy, telenet and four minutes, if you don’t have to run a decrypt utility, because it isn’t your router. Try setting up four different Reqbridges for sixteen different browse and search infrastructure components, all on different harnesses and working different code base, not including the fenced portions which have to be addressed separately.

I deal with eighteen different guys, none of whom has a certification or a degree, who can shred a network or just plod around it, and not leave any footprints that an expert wouldn’t find.

Before you start twitching, you might want to look up a few utilities and then reference it against a couple of black hat blogs and see what you come up with, invaluable to know how the underbelly of a thing works, outside the rules.

I spend half my “internets time” on servers I’ve been banned from … some repeatedly.

When they shred networks, do they use cheese graters?