Is ableism fine in Epiphanies?

2

Comments

  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    The issue for me is not logic or dispassion. The issue is whether or not pro-euthanasia arguments are permitted on the Ship?
  • HelenEva wrote: »
    As this is a thread about whether abelism is allowed, and as autism and Aspergers have been mentioned, it strikes me that criticising someone for being overly dispassionate or Mr Spock-like could well be abelism against autistm or Aspergers. I have absolutely no idea whether that is in play here. However, criticising someone for being overly logical, worrying away at the facts without regard to the emotions etc. could be interpreted adversely by an autistic person/person with autism and they have their dignity too.

    Those of us with Aspergers are not unemotional or incapable of empathy. We might need to be more deliberate in our empathy but the idea that we don't feel emotions is a damaging (and, ironically) ableist stereotype.
  • HelenEva wrote: »
    As this is a thread about whether abelism is allowed, and as autism and Aspergers have been mentioned, it strikes me that criticising someone for being overly dispassionate or Mr Spock-like could well be abelism against autistm or Aspergers. I have absolutely no idea whether that is in play here. However, criticising someone for being overly logical, worrying away at the facts without regard to the emotions etc. could be interpreted adversely by an autistic person/person with autism and they have their dignity too.

    Those of us with Aspergers are not unemotional or incapable of empathy. We might need to be more deliberate in our empathy but the idea that we don't feel emotions is a damaging (and, ironically) ableist stereotype.

    I entirely agree, of course.
  • Caissa wrote: »
    The issue for me is not logic or dispassion. The issue is whether or not pro-euthanasia arguments are permitted on the Ship?

    For me, there is a huge difference between pro-euthanasia arguments for adults who have declared their wishes prior to, or early on in diagnosis/prognosis; and pro-euthanasia arguments for infanticide of children with disabilities. I would be willing to entertain the former in debate, but I don't see how the latter should even be considerable.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    In the real world, in real life. yes. Not so much on internet discussion forums.

    The thing is, this forum is part of the "real world" and the people posting and reading here are real people. They are not any less people because they're typing at a computer and not sitting around a table together.

    I've mentioned before that I prefer to have dispassionate discussions without people emoting all over the place. Your emotional response tells me that you care about something, but doesn't explain why. You can't expect people's explanations of why something is a problem for them to be uncoloured by emotion, but if all you get is emotion without explanation, you don't have a discussion.

    And I actually think you can have dispassionate discussions under Epiphanies rules, but you have to be very careful about it. But probably no this one.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Goperryrevs wrote: For me, there is a huge difference between pro-euthanasia arguments for adults who have declared their wishes prior to, or early on in diagnosis/prognosis; and pro-euthanasia arguments for infanticide of children with disabilities. I would be willing to entertain the former in debate, but I don't see how the latter should even be considerable.

    The former is covered partially under MAID in Canada. Although at the moment an individual must be at the time of death. The legislation is currently undergoing its mandatory review and we will see what happens. Yes, I know this was not a very Stygian post.
  • For me, there is a huge difference between pro-euthanasia arguments for adults who have declared their wishes prior to, or early on in diagnosis/prognosis; and pro-euthanasia arguments for infanticide of children with disabilities. I would be willing to entertain the former in debate, but I don't see how the latter should even be considerable.

    We have had discussions on the former before - both I think in specific reference to someone travelling to the Dignitas clinic, and in a more general discussion surrounding end-of-life care. I think we could have those discussions again, and Colin Smith's desire to make an advance choice to have himself killed if he started to experience a form of dementia would fit in that discussion.

    With regard to the infanticide discussion, I confess that I find it difficult to see the termination of a disabled baby in late gestation as terribly different from the killing of that same baby shortly after birth. I wouldn't choose either one, but I find it very difficult to see them as different things.

    As for the scenario that you posted in Hell, I think everyone would agree, in the case of adult euthanasia, that if it were to be legal for an adult to request his life be ended, then it should be done with due care, in advance, and with appropriate safeguards to ensure that this wasn't a "heat of the moment" decision made whilst overwrought.
  • In the real world, in real life. yes. Not so much on internet discussion forums.

    The thing is, this forum is part of the "real world" and the people posting and reading here are real people. They are not any less people because they're typing at a computer and not sitting around a table together.

    It would appear to me that we have a different view of the online world. I use social media, of which this is an example, as a way of warming up to do something constructive and useful or as a way of avoiding doing it. Occasionally while doing that I stumble on a topic that engages or angers me and I end up spending rather more time and energy on it than I should. I know that everyone posting here is real, just as I am real. At the same time we have an online persona which we present to people. That may or may not be the same persona we present to everyone else. It may be close to our real character or far removed from it. In my case that persona is more dispassionate than I am in real life simply because I do not find emotional engagement useful when discussing something divisive. Anger just gets in the way. Plus of course I have no personal experience of abortion to bring to bear.
  • As for the scenario that you posted in Hell, I think everyone would agree, in the case of adult euthanasia, that if it were to be legal for an adult to request his life be ended, then it should be done with due care, in advance, and with appropriate safeguards to ensure that this wasn't a "heat of the moment" decision made whilst overwrought.

    The scenario I posted in Hell is directly lifted from interactions with @Colin Smith; given that he has no problem with the pressure tactics used in Iceland and Denmark to abort Down's babies, and your point (that he agrees with) that in practice infanticide and late-term abortion seem similar*. This is clearly the world @Colin Smith would be comfortable living in. This horrifies me.

    If @Colin Smith showed some concern at the practices in Denmark & Iceland, then on this, your point would stand.

    * I disagree, since late-term abortions are overwhelmingly to do with the safety of the mother, or other exceptional circumstances, which are not an issue post-birth.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Discussion of the scenario laid out in the Hell thread belongs down there. Discussion of abortion belongs on that thread. If you want to let the Crew know what you think should and should not be permissible in Epiphanies and why, this thread is the place for it.

    Ruth, Styx Host
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    I don’t think that seriously asserting members of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens are not human beings, regardless of their physical or cognitive state, should be acceptable on SoF whichever board it is posted on.

    I think advocating non-consensual euthanasia of a category of people, should be unacceptable in Epiphanies and closely hosted if it occurs elsewhere on the ship. Euthanasia of those who lack mental capacity, regardless of cause, is non-consensual - even in the presence of a ‘living will’ - it is a decision taken by others whether for the best of motives or not.

    (By ‘seriously’ I mean that someone declaring “you inhuman wretch” is not really making an ontological statement.)

    I think discussions of end-of-life care, probably do belong in Epiphanies in most circumstances - because such discussions will often involve discussion of people’s own bereavements or impending death, which are hugely sensitive subjects.
  • I entirely agree, @Doublethink.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    Posting to add, I think this is different to debates over when death really occurs - because in asserting someone has died, we are accepting that they have lived.
  • I'm wondering whether it's such a good idea to ask the Crew to legislate on every obnoxious idea that hoves into view.

    We are all adults. We have Hell at our disposal for "emotional discourse," and Purgatory for logical persuasion. We are entirely capable of using those tools to see off any number of dreadful ideas. Why have so many of us lost faith in our ability to do so?

    Epiphanies exists for the sake of those who want a softer, gentler place to deal with certain issues. Fine. But Epiphanies is not the whole of the Ship. The other boards have plenty of ways to make disapproval strongly known, without hauling in the Hosts and Admins to adjudicate what are forbidden topics.

    You are not toothless. You don't need protection to this level. Use what the boards provide you! Slay them with logic in Purg, blast them with insults in Hell, whatever. But can we please stop this endless craven retreat toward protection from disgusting ideas which the lot of us have seen off any number of times in years gone by? We too can shovel shit off the decks.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    I think some ideas are beyond the pale. Does the Ship perfect the advocacy of killing members of any defined group of people for not being human?
  • @Lamb Chopped I think advocating infanticide is on a par with advocating paedophilia.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    @Lamb Chopped I think advocating infanticide is on a par with advocating paedophilia.


    Which means you should be able to argue against it as easily as you do pedophilia.

    If this website is actually committed to serious intellectual discussion, then no intellectual holds should be barred. There is no need to have the Hosts and Admins decide which ideas are okay and which aren’t. I agree with Lamb Chopped. There are plenty of avenues at one’s disposal on this site to eviscerate the argument. Use those. There’s no need to cry to the mods asking them to save us from corrupting ideas.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    Caissa wrote: »
    I think some ideas are beyond the pale. Does the Ship perfect the advocacy of killing members of any defined group of people for not being human?

    The ship is a website meant for discussion. It has no officially sanctioned views that I can discern. Some people think dumb gross thoughts. The simplest way to avoid that, on the Internet, is to scroll past what they say.
  • @Lamb Chopped I think advocating infanticide is on a par with advocating paedophilia.

    Okay. Let's say during birth the baby is starved of oxygen and as a result is hopelessly brain damaged and paralysed but capable of breathing unaided. The previously happy parents looking forward to their healthy child are now faced with a lifetime of care without remission.

    What the hell should the parents do? What should they be permitted to do? What role should the state or society play? Why should the parents' lives be ruined? Why should society or the state pick up the expense caring for something that isn't even aware of its own existence?
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    I'm neither advocating for anything to be ruled in nor ruled out at this stage but this requires a bit of response.
    We are entirely capable of using those tools to see off any number of dreadful ideas. Why have so many of us lost faith in our ability to do so?

    This is on the surface of it a lovely idea but one which so often ends up in practice as a disaster as Below The Line comments or boards that aren't carefully modded generally show. Without mod back up people absolutely do not have the tools to stop online debate spaces being toxified. I've seen it so many times. This is an idealistic aspiration not something which I've seen actually work in practice.

    When people regularly get exposed to viscerally unpleasant posts, they might resist for a while but more normally soon vote with their feet and leave. When posters of cruel and unpleasant material see they can get away with sincerely or insincerely posting it to get a rise out of people, then more unpleasant people soon come and settle down and you get a vicious spiral downwards.


    When you see the kind of 'intellectual free for all' type sites idealised by libertarian types, you realise how lucky we are here that there is intensive moderation and some limits.

    Do the limits need revised or did the system work because posting cruel stuff for 'amusement' got sat on quite quickly?

    That's worth discussing but the idea that posters not backed up by carefully drawn rules and intensive moderation can easily see off people who want to advocate Nazism, paedophilia, euthanising the disabled etc. is not correct. Stopping people who greatly enjoy it from depositing giant shits on the living room table is a pre-requisite to having a good discussion in the living room. Exhorting everyone that we can just clear up afterwards and fight the gleeful shitters every evening for fun is a hiding to nothing. There need to be limits, the question is are they currently in the right place. Did the system work well enough?
  • Louise wrote: »
    I'm neither advocating for anything to be ruled in nor ruled out at this stage but this requires a bit of response.
    We are entirely capable of using those tools to see off any number of dreadful ideas. Why have so many of us lost faith in our ability to do so?

    This is on the surface of it a lovely idea but one which so often ends up in practice as a disaster as Below The Line comments or boards that aren't carefully modded generally show. Without mod back up people absolutely do not have the tools to stop online debate spaces being toxified. I've seen it so many times. This is an idealistic aspiration not something which I've seen actually work in practice.

    When people regularly get exposed to viscerally unpleasant posts, they might resist for a while but more normally soon vote with their feet and leave. When posters of cruel and unpleasant material see they can get away with sincerely or insincerely posting it to get a rise out of people, then more unpleasant people soon come and settle down and you get a vicious spiral downwards.


    When you see the kind of 'intellectual free for all' type sites idealised by libertarian types, you realise how lucky we are here that there is intensive moderation and some limits.

    Do the limits need revised or did the system work because posting cruel stuff for 'amusement' got sat on quite quickly?

    That's worth discussing but the idea that posters not backed up by carefully drawn rules and intensive moderation can easily see off people who want to advocate Nazism, paedophilia, euthanising the disabled etc. is not correct. Stopping people who greatly enjoy it from depositing giant shits on the living room table is a pre-requisite to having a good discussion in the living room. Exhorting everyone that we can just clear up afterwards and fight the gleeful shitters every evening for fun is a hiding to nothing. There need to be limits, the question is are they currently in the right place. Did the system work well enough?

    May I point out that I was not "posting cruel stuff for 'amusement'". Firstly, I did not see anything I wrote as cruel. Disagreeable to some people, yes. Cruel, no. Secondly, everything I do online is either for information, amusement or self-promotion so there was no singling out. In fact I find life amusing.

    Further, nothing in my comments came remotely close to advocating Nazism, paedophilia, or euthanasing the disabled. The closest I came was indicating support for anyone making the decision to euthanase a new-born because it had severe, and I mean severe, and long term health issues requiring permanent care and only then because no one should be put in the position of being a life-long carer and I had gone to some length to establish why I do not regard a new-born as fully human. You may disagree with my definition and prefer some other definition of what it is to be human but I am emphatically not advocating euthasing the disabled.
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    edited August 2020
    I was talking in general terms about the categories other posters such as Goperryrevs were suggesting might be banned, and I apologise for slipping in my language when I should have said people with disabilities.

    My opinion of the content of your posting as cruel (though actually callous might be a better description) stands and 'amusement' was your own word. I'm quite happy to leave other posters to make up their own minds on it.
  • Louise wrote: »
    I was talking in general terms about the categories other posters such as Goperryrevs were suggesting might be banned, and I apologise for slipping in my language when I should have said people with disabilities.

    My opinion of the content of your posting as cruel (though actually callous might be a better description) stands and 'amusement' was your own word. I'm quite happy to leave other posters to make up their own minds on it.

    Nor am I in favour of euthanasing people with disabilities. I was discussing the new-born with very severe and long term health problems requiring life-long care. If you regard the new-born as people, that's your choice. I don't for reasons I have previously stated.

    And I did use the word "amusement" but since I am on Facebook for amusement, here for amusement, and on a railway forum for amusement, and currently listening to Man U versus Copenhagen FC for amusement, I'm not sure why it's such a big deal. I was reacting to everyone getting incredibly serious over an internet discussion. Why is anyone online other than for amusement?

    Later tonight I plan on doing some writing which will also amuse me but be productive as well.

  • @Lamb Chopped I think advocating infanticide is on a par with advocating paedophilia.

    Yes. And acting as a Ship full of people who agree on that, we once saw off a poster who was advocating that shit. We didn't need to beg the hosts and admins to make special rules about it--he got properly clobbered in Purg and Hell.

    I think we should have faith in ourselves!
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    edited August 2020
    I can think of two posters who were either advocating paedophilia or using it to smear others and both to the best of my memory got planked* and not before a lot of Hostly attention too as well as many posters being disgusted. Admins have had to remove outright racists in the past as well, but this happening without the host/admin apparatus coming into play isn't often the case. People who post very extreme stuff usually end up removed or flouncing after hosts have ruled against them. The normal process usually works but can take a long time.

    Hence my question as to whether the current rules are working for people or whether they think something has gone wrong/needs attention?




    *it's a long time ago I could be wrong, but one certainly did and the other was very active in Dead Horses where Tony and I were warning him, my recollection is that the Admins acted but I'll see if I can check.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    @Lamb Chopped I think advocating infanticide is on a par with advocating paedophilia.

    Okay. Let's say during birth the baby is starved of oxygen and as a result is ...
    ...unable to follow simple Host instructions.

    For fuck's sake. This, and related posts, are clearly in violation of @Ruth's instruction to keep this Stygian. Do this shit in Hell.

    -RooK
    Stygian Babysitter
  • ECraigR wrote: »
    If this website is actually committed to serious intellectual discussion, then no intellectual holds should be barred.

    Why? Why must all serious intellectual discussion be unconstrained? Where is that written? What law in what nation prescribes that?
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    It's written in the beginning of Wilfrid Sellars' essay "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man," where I get the phrase "no intellectual holds should be barred" (Sellars, In the Space of Reasons, p.369).

    I'm not aware of any nation that has legally mandated it, but presumably a nation's laws have no bearing on how serious intellectual discussion is carried out, unless there is a nation of pure thinkers (the Germans, according to Heidegger, cf "Introduction to Philosophy--Thinking and Poetizing.")

    It is furthermore advocated to those of us who become the semi-official guardians of information and ideas (We Happy Librarians) in many of our library science courses and professional codes of ethics.

    I think it's a good rule to abide by because thinking is hard and ideas are valuable wherever they may be found. If an idea is clearly stupid then demonstrating it to be should not be difficult, assuming everyone is engaging honestly and whatnot. There are, of course, good examples of this standard failing, and I understand Louise's concern and believe to be a valid one. I just also think that an environment such as the Ship where robust debate is encountered on almost all subjects is a good environment for ensuring that stupid ideas do not flourish.
  • Everywhere has an Overton window - I am arguing that calling people sub-human and advocating infanticide should fall outside ours.

    In the same way, I hope, advocating for rape, genocide, and slavery would.

    This is not the fine detail of a philosophical argument, it is fundamental and basic.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    Thanks, I had to look up Overton window. I hadn't come across the concept before.

    I disagree, but I've already stated as much and why. These ideas should be challenged and proven worthless, not mandated by the powers that be as being unacceptable for any kind of reasoned discussion.
  • I don’t think that seriously asserting members of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens are not human beings, regardless of their physical or cognitive state, should be acceptable on SoF whichever board it is posted on.

    I think advocating non-consensual euthanasia of a category of people, should be unacceptable in Epiphanies and closely hosted if it occurs elsewhere on the ship. Euthanasia of those who lack mental capacity, regardless of cause, is non-consensual - even in the presence of a ‘living will’ - it is a decision taken by others whether for the best of motives or not.

    (By ‘seriously’ I mean that someone declaring “you inhuman wretch” is not really making an ontological statement.)

    I think discussions of end-of-life care, probably do belong in Epiphanies in most circumstances - because such discussions will often involve discussion of people’s own bereavements or impending death, which are hugely sensitive subjects.
    I'm certain that out respective countries that there are people who would advocate all sorts of positions we'd find abhorrent. There are cultures which do all sorts of things: leaving disabled children and the elderly out in the weather to die was normal in the Canadian north in the memory of people I've met earlier in my life. I understand the position and why. I would never consider and at the same time get it.

    So no, we don't need excessive policing of what we post about. We need robust discussion, and it helps if we think before posting.
  • Certain ideas shouldn't be given the time of day because to do so implies they have intellectual standing. Holocaust denial is a prime example. We do NOT need to give holocaust deniers the podium, least of all to prove how "fair" or "intellectually capable" we are.
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    Just adding this in case it's useful to discussion but so far as I know the Ship isn't a blank slate for intellectual discussion - it has values
    1. Don’t be a jerk – Lively, intelligent discussion is what we’re about. Jerkish behavior includes racism, sexism (and all the other negative -isms), plus trolling and flaming

    Traditionally this is enforced by Admins (not hosts) and comes after a long process. People really have to work at it to get planked under C1 but (and the Admins can correct me if I have anything wrong) that's the current model as I understand it.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    I agree that certain ideas have no intellectual standing, and I sympathize with your position on holocaust deniers. However, denying holocaust deniers and similar ideas of worthless provenance the ability to express their ideas feed that the narrative they subscribe to, which holds that they, holocaust deniers and their ilk, are seeing clearly whilst all of us who deny the validity of such an idea are not seeing clearly. It's a clever rhetorical and belief-status trick, but it's one I think should be confronted head-on and full-throatedly. It will not die if it is simply relegated to the dustbin by shadowy powers deciding right and wrong ideas.

    Those of us who think have the awesome responsibility of thinking for those who are not, and for demonstrating those who are not the errors of their ways. It is difficult and arduous, but one I believe is necessary for the free-exchange of ideas and the pursuit of knowledge.

    In the case of advocating termination for those with in-born cognitive disabilities, this is a surprisingly widespread idea and I confess to holding a position similar to Colin Smith's at one time. I was convinced of the error of my ways by many things, one of which was encountering people who vigorously and competently denied the validity of such an idea. I believe the Ship can be a vehicle for the dissemination of such thoughtful and cogent thinking that disabuses such erroneous thinking.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    I'd also like to state that even though I disagree with many posters on many issues, I think most of them present extremely cogent and well-thought out arguments against positions I or others hold. I don't post as much as I could because I'm quite busy and am a slow thinker, so responding to comments and arguments is a whole thing for me. Currently I'm posting as much as I am because I'm avoiding writing a thesis and priesthood tasks.

    I trust fully in the competency of the Ship's crew and crewmates to enforce common-sense standards of civility and decimate any stupid idea that floats aboard.
  • ECraigR wrote: »
    Thanks, I had to look up Overton window. I hadn't come across the concept before.

    I disagree, but I've already stated as much and why. These ideas should be challenged and proven worthless, not mandated by the powers that be as being unacceptable for any kind of reasoned discussion.

    I do take this point, and can see how Hell, or another new ‘no holds barred’ board could facilitate this. But it sure as shit shouldn’t be tolerated in Epiphanies.
  • Various:

    --I wonder if one option might be to revive Dead Horses? Discussions that weren't incline to constant carefulness about feelings could go there. Sensitive discussions could still be in Epiphanies.

    --Personally, I usually avoid Epiphanies, for fear of accidentally hurting someone. I've been on the Purg and Hell boards for close to 20 years. I'm used to those ways of posting, with all their variations. I try not to hurt people.

    I also know that I don't know everything. I've got a lot to learn, and I'm not always aware of that about a particular idea. Plus with life differences, different cultural assumptions, etc., it's really hard work to post as carefully in Epiphanies as I need to. And if I get distracted...

    --Question re posting in Epiph.: is the carefulness meant specifically to protect the Shipmates who are directly affected by the topic? Or is everyone supposed to be careful with everyone? Just looking for clarification.

    --I'm slightly surprised by the idea upthread that posts should be restricted according to the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. That's not necessarily a bad guideline. But we already have our own Commandments.

    Long time since I read the UDHR, but IIRC I liked it. (Goes back to Eleanor Roosevelt's time, doesn't it? Or she was a proponent, or something.) While I think in terms of right & wrong, civil rights, and human rights, I don't have the UDHR fixed in my mind. It doesn't get much airplay here. AFAIK, the US still hasn't signed it.

    So making that a guideline doesn't come naturally to me.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Thanks, I had to look up Overton window. I hadn't come across the concept before.

    I disagree, but I've already stated as much and why. These ideas should be challenged and proven worthless, not mandated by the powers that be as being unacceptable for any kind of reasoned discussion.

    I do take this point, and can see how Hell, or another new ‘no holds barred’ board could facilitate this. But it sure as shit shouldn’t be tolerated in Epiphanies.

    Right. Well this is the third or fourth time since the Epiphanies boards were created that some sort of big snaffoo has erupted. I vote on packing up Epiphanies as a failed experiment and moving on. A safe space for
    emotional discussions is fine on the face of it, but as Colin Smith’s posts have indicated, it’s clearly possible to arrive at bad ideas from personal experience. If only some of those ideas derived from experience are worth protecting then it’s not necessary to have a whole board.

  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Re. UDHR, the principal drafter was John Peters Humphrey from Hampton, N.B. Canada. Thirty minutes from where we live.
  • ECraigR wrote: »
    Well this is the third or fourth time since the Epiphanies boards were created that some sort of big snaffoo has erupted. I vote on packing up Epiphanies as a failed experiment and moving on.

    I dunno. I think these things take some time and experimentation before they're gotten right. The creation of Dead Horses was just before my time, but I don't know how long that took to get established properly.

    Personally, a kind of understandable consistency would help me. That the Admins totally shut down a thread about men, but didn't immediately stomp down on posts advocating the murder of disabled newborns (and now, not even newborns - up to at least 6 months, no problem!) makes me confused as to what is sensitive and acceptable, and what is beyond the pale.

    I also wonder how straightforward the 'portmanteau' policy is on this - at the point the thread was no longer about abortion, and instead about euthanasia of infants, that should have been immediately split and sent to Hell / somewhere else, even if it wasn't stopped altogether. But while we were/are waiting for some official statement or decision, I wasn't willing to leave those assertions unchallenged wherever they're being made.

    I do think the Hosts have been great. And I do appreciate that everyone's a volunteer, and it's not always easy to get things right, it's not a full time role, and people are spread around the world... and I know the job is unenviable. But... the Styx is for our opinions, so here are mine.
  • And I do appreciate that everyone's a volunteer, and it's not always easy to get things right, it's not a full time role, and people are spread around the world... and I know the job is unenviable. But... the Styx is for our opinions, so here are mine.
    Thanks for that, we appreciate your appreciation and the time taken by you and others here to express your opinions.

    At the risk of breaking my NDA, I can report from the admins' lounge that we are lying in deckchairs in a gin-sodden, heat-drenched stupor trying to plot a course that seems sensible to us and taking what's being said here into account. This will take time due both to the considerations you mention and the complexity of the issue, and the outcome may not take the form of a policy announcement. We are trying to pay attention though.

    I'd just like to pick up on how I* see Epiphanies on the back of this comment:
    ECraigR wrote: »
    I vote on packing up Epiphanies as a failed experiment and moving on. A safe space for emotional discussions is fine on the face of it (...)

    I don't think it says anywhere in our various commandments and guidelines that Epiphanies is a "safe space". The Epiphanies Guidelines say:
    This forum is for serious discussion of these topics and will be allowed to reflect all widely held views, even if they are considered offensive by some

    In Epiphanies I* see us as seeking to provide a measure of equity in the discussion rather than a "safe space".

    (@goperryrevs, the emphasis on equity is, I* think, one of the core reasons why the "men's issues" topic ended up being moved, although it was a tough call).

    To use the image linked to above, agreeing to the discussion inevitably involves putting one's head above the fence and thus running the risk of being hit by a stray ball.

    We've talked before about the need to exercise self-care; sometimes people may need to duck beneath the fence for their own safety. This does not grant a licence for people to throw balls carelessly, still less deliberately target others, and refereeing the debate in that respect is part of the H&A remit.

    A big part of this discussion, and the one upstairs, is working out how best to balance our appetite for serious discussion with the desire not to indulge views largely deemed to be beyond the pale, especially when there is a high emotional content. This needs to be thrashed out beyond Epiphanies.

    ==

    *for the avoidance of doubt, this is me posting as me, not issuing an admin proclamation. As I say, our views aren't fully settled yet.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    --Question re posting in Epiph.: is the carefulness meant specifically to protect the Shipmates who are directly affected by the topic? Or is everyone supposed to be careful with everyone? Just looking for clarification.

    I'll point out that you don't know which shipmates are directly affected by a particular topic. There are plenty of shipmates who do not personally fall in to group X (whatever X is), but have a sibling, child, spouse, or other deeply beloved family member who falls in to that group. Plus there are plenty of lurkers who read, but don't post.
  • Thanks very much, @Eutychus.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    @goperryrevs, the emphasis on equity is, I* think, one of the core reasons why the "men's issues" topic ended up being moved, although it was a tough call).

    On that note, my main problem with all that was that it wasn't moved, but that it was just closed. If it had been moved, then the conversation could have been refined and continued elsewhere. As it was, it just ended abruptly.
  • @goperryrevs apologies for my mistake. I can't recall why we did that, but I seem to recall there being good reasons for doing so at the time. I think there was an invitation to start a fresh thread elsewhere. But it's probably not helpful to revisit all that now.
  • ECraigR wrote: »
    I agree that certain ideas have no intellectual standing, and I sympathize with your position on holocaust deniers. However, denying holocaust deniers and similar ideas of worthless provenance the ability to express their ideas feed that the narrative they subscribe to, which holds that they, holocaust deniers and their ilk, are seeing clearly whilst all of us who deny the validity of such an idea are not seeing clearly. It's a clever rhetorical and belief-status trick, but it's one I think should be confronted head-on and full-throatedly. It will not die if it is simply relegated to the dustbin by shadowy powers deciding right and wrong ideas.
    Giving those ideas light feeds them. The growth of belief in fringe ideas is in large part because the internet gives them soil to grow.
    Confrontation as they occur is correct, but giving them room to grow isn't.

  • Perhaps Epiphanies, being a newer board, is still being located within our consciousness and understanding. The content may not represent the name.
  • Perhaps Epiphanies, being a newer board, is still being located within our consciousness and understanding. The content may not represent the name.

    That's a very good point. Due to the subject matter, there's always going to be a tension between creating a supportive enough atmosphere for posters to feel safe enough to share stories and personal experiences while allowing more challenging ideas to be discussed. It's also going to take a while for Shipmates to get used to it being very different in style and tone to Dead Horses.

    Again, a personal view. I don't like Gin, but heat drenched stupor is about right.
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    Maybe there needs to be a provision for us when someone attacks a whole group in a dehumanising or outrageous manner to say - 'take those views to Hell' in the same way that when a poster insults a person they are told to take it to Hell?


    These are my personal views - authoritative views come from the Admins only.

    The kind of free speech absolutism some contributors are advocating has been a failed experiment all over the internet to the point where online discourse is almost synonymous with garbage, conspiracism and hate speech for many people. This is not a goer for me.


    For over a decade Dead Horses was for most of its existence 'hosting lite' and so very maximally free speech and as a result led to people being subjected to episodes of what we might dub the 'Colin Smith Effect' over and over again - though in those days it was usually horrible views about gay people. There's a tension between maximal free speech and its harms ( it works best for privileged people who don't realise their privilege and have no skin in the game, it drives off many other people who deal with enough prejudice in their day to day lives, one persons 'unemotional' 'coolly detached' debating point is dehumanising and insulting and agonising to many others and just callously discounts what that's like for them). You will always get those who want to take on all comers, but mostly if you ask people to share space with those who dehumanise them, while it might seem like a spiffing and exciting debating game to some, the reality for many is that it's just another load of racism or ableism or all the other isms getting chucked in their face - it's being asked to undergo racist or other kinds of harm.

    There's a tension in Epiphanies between trying to stop these harms disproportionately/inequitably affecting people from minorities and demands that it 'reflect all widely held views'. It can take time for hosts to get buy in to stopping people like Colin Smith because their views were seen by others as 'widely held views, even if they are considered offensive'. If you look back at the thread just before Colin Smith got going there was a very good discussion about disability and abortion of the sort we wanted to be able to have. Perhaps we should have been able as hosts to tell him to take his views off to hell?

    People posting dehumanising stuff will never not be controversial. One of the things we've been trying in Epiphanies to make more room for minority voices and reflection is precisely to try to stop people debating these raw painful topics like they're in a 1st arts philosophy tutorial or a debating society where it's all a game to score points or show off how logical and 'detached' your position is while treating human suffering as something you're too superior to have to worry about. This is a key difference from Dead Horses and given the reaction to Colin Smith's posting, I can't see how going back to the Dead Horses model helps at all. His posts were perfectly allowable within the Dead Horse model. I wouldn't have been able to do anything about them as he wasn't breaking C3/C4. Also what others have said, this is going to take time to bed down because finding a new balance between those tensions is not at all simple.
  • Louise wrote: »
    For over a decade Dead Horses was for most of its existence 'hosting lite' and so very maximally free speech and as a result led to people being subjected to episodes of what we might dub the 'Colin Smith Effect' over and over again - though in those days it was usually horrible views about gay people.

    True, but it had the benefit that that stuff was corralled in DH, and people who didn't want to be exposed to that didn't have to go there.
    Louise wrote: »
    If you look back at the thread just before Colin Smith got going there was a very good discussion about disability and abortion of the sort we wanted to be able to have. Perhaps we should have been able as hosts to tell him to take his views off to hell?

    It is the law that a sufficiently disabled foetus (which includes conditions such as Down syndrome) may be aborted up to birth. I don't think that the letter of the law is as far from the Colin Smith position as some people think. I certainly find it hard to consider killing a newborn infant and a foetus at 36 or 38 weeks gestation to be different acts. My solution to this is the opposite of Colin Smith's, but is his position really so far away from the current legal position that it should be excluded from discussion? Your point that the discussion should perhaps be hosted somewhere outside Epiphanies seems on the surface reasonable, although experience suggests that it's not possible to have concurrent discussions in Purg and Hell on a topic without ongoing cross-references between the two. In fairness, those discussions were usually the same discussion, but divided by angry shoutiness - I don't think we've tried a vertical topic slice such as you suggest here.

    (Yes, it's also true that what is legally permitted, and what actually happens, aren't the same thing. Actual practice is further away from Colin Smith than the law.)
    Louise wrote: »
    One of the things we've been trying in Epiphanies to make more room for minority voices and reflection is precisely to try to stop people debating these raw painful topics like they're in a 1st arts philosophy tutorial or a debating society where it's all a game to score points or show off how logical and 'detached' your position is while treating human suffering as something you're too superior to have to worry about.

    I don't see those things as opposites. I think it's entirely possible, and reasonable, to have a dispassionate discussion that includes concern for human suffering. (And, of course, vice versa - the rhetoric spewing from your choice of hate group is never logical or dispassionate, and positively rejoices in human suffering.)
  • I don't think that the letter of the law is as far from the Colin Smith position as some people think. I certainly find it hard to consider killing a newborn infant and a foetus at 36 or 38 weeks gestation to be different acts.
    Not just newborn. Read the Hell thread. Up to at least 6 months. From what he’s said, I’m sure he’s happy to go higher.
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