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Purgatory : Where is the Ship going?

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  • But I can't count the number of times I've refrained from posting on a mainboard thread because I just can't face the facile bullshit that will be thrown at me for being different. Arguments are fine, I can deal with arguments. But casual, throw-away lines that equate all Americans with shooters, all Republicans with Trump, all conservatives with sadistic assholes who hate children, immigrants, and the poor, all LCMS with backwoods troglodytes, all inerrantists with knuckledragging idiots, all pro-life people with women-hating controlling assholes whose interest in children expires at birth... and by the time you attempt to formulate some kind of answer (clutching your head all the while), at least five other people have piled on to say yea and amen. With not a single argument among them. Just assertion and attitude.

    There is a lot of truth in what @Lamb Chopped says here. That isn't to say that it's only the ship's dominant leftists that are guilty of glib one-liners that don't bother to address the central point being made, but because there are more of them, they have a greater effect.

    Perhaps that's why I used to enjoy IngoB's contributions - I frequently disagreed with him, and several people found some of his more trenchant positions offensive, but he would always address the argument rather than just waving it away dismissively.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I'm going to start a Styx thread to ensure that Host-lite standards are considered as a Ship's business matter in view of some of the comments here.

    In particular, do Purgatory Hosts need to toughen up our approach to criticism of minority or unpopular arguments because of the scorn and contempt they often attract.

    Please move discussion of that issue to the Styx.

    Barnabas62
    Purgatory Host
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Thread started. It's called Purgatory Hosting Standards.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    But I can't count the number of times I've refrained from posting on a mainboard thread because I just can't face the facile bullshit that will be thrown at me for being different. Arguments are fine, I can deal with arguments. But casual, throw-away lines that equate all Americans with shooters, all Republicans with Trump, all conservatives with sadistic assholes who hate children, immigrants, and the poor, all LCMS with backwoods troglodytes, all inerrantists with knuckledragging idiots, all pro-life people with women-hating controlling assholes whose interest in children expires at birth... and by the time you attempt to formulate some kind of answer (clutching your head all the while), at least five other people have piled on to say yea and amen. With not a single argument among them. Just assertion and attitude.

    Is part of the problem that there are no repercussions or sanctions for use of assertions, logical fallacies, selective quoting, generalisations etc? It happens, you object, they carry on as if it didn't matter? That's the vibe I'm getting from you.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I'll forgive you this once, Doc, but that is a matter of Purg Hosting standards and precisely why I opened the Styx thread.

    Barnabas62
    Purgatory Host
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    Bollocks. Apologies.

    I'll c&p it up to Styx.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    Now I'm up a creek in terms of which thread to post on. Yes, sometimes the hosts miss the ball, but it's also the community as a whole. We used to have more people of the "I disagree with your stance and believe that you personally are an asshole, but nevertheless I'm going to stand up for your right to make your point and receive a real answer rather than a series of brush-offs."

    It wasn't just the hosts and admin tasked with catching this crap. The whole crew expected more of each other. And so if we had an unpopular poster (or a poster with an unpopular point of view) and someone else did a flyby blow-off, it was pretty common for another poster to come along and say essentially "that's no answer, put some try into it."

    Now the sense is often much more like "Your point of view (and/or identity) is beneath contempt, and so I won't dignify my answer to you with any real thought. I'll do a hit-and-run pigeon shit attack. And I can be sure of four or five echoes because, hey, unpopular point of view." It's lazy. And it's also impossible to shift, since your only hope (logical argumentation with facts) has been blown off without the dignity of real engagement. If you should be so foolish as to point out what's going on, you are very likely to promote further "point and laugh" behavior (as opposed to substantial answers)--at which point a host probably comes along. But the pattern doesn't change.
  • My apologies. I don't think I can yoink this one to the other thread--or should I, even?
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Lamb Chopped it's a Styx issue. We had an analogous discussion which led to the formation of Epiphanies with different Hosting standards.

    If under current Hosting standards in Purgatory, Shipmates are free to behave in ways which may lead to a more monochrome Ship, should those Hosting standards be changed? That's a Ship's business issue and hence the Styx is the right forum.

    Barnabas62
    Purgatory Host
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Out of curiousity, may I ask, what were the opinions of this poster named Old Andrew? I don't think I remember him.

    A poster I do recall in a similar vein to what's being discussed here is J. Arthur Crank, named after the cantankerous old man on the chidren's show Electric Company. Don't quite remember what all his views were, but I think he posted on issues related to the via media wing of Christianity, and like his namesake he was a bit of a curmudgeon.
  • the question certainly was--it was my answer I was wondering about. Since the answer was essentially, "no, it's the membership."
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited May 2020
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Kwesi wrote: »
    quetzalcoatl: I thought the free speech argument today is mainly a right wing complaint.

    You are probably right, but it gives me little comfort to find the field deserted by others. It is as if the writings of George Orwell, and in that I include a number of his essays, had never existed.

    Or it's the case that free speech isn't under any serious threat in the west

    Yours certainly isn't.

    Whose do you think is?

    Anyone who disagrees with the zeitgeist on issues such as gender or sexuality for a start.

    Except they're not are they? They may not be given a platform where the gatekeeper for that platform chooses not to, but there are thousands of homophobes and transphobes out there not being prosecuted for their views.

    "Under threat" is not the same as "already gone". If people are actually being arrested for expressing opinions then it's far too late to start worrying about losing the right to freedom of speech.
    Who has the power to call for arrests? Hint, it isn't the left.

    Absolutely anyone has the power to call for arrests.

    Though mostly what the left does is call for people to be fired, to resign, or to be stripped of some kind of honorary award.

    The right is quite good at these too, I gather.

    Businesses can't be arrested, so the call is to boycott.

    The number of (completely pointless) petitions on these topics that I now see on social media has risen markedly.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited May 2020
    orfeo wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    It seems to me that assumptions are both necessary to have any sort of conversation that doesn't disappear into minutiae, and there to be challenged. Don't agree with an assumption? Challenge it.

    An excellent theory. In practice, I don't have the time and energy to leap into every single conversation that lumps all right-wing folk together in an undifferentiated lump. Because there are so many of them.

    I don't correct every post that relies on assumptions I don't share either, but I can't expect other people to self-censor to make up for it.

    At what point in my argument did any notion of self-censoring come into it???

    The point when you were complaining that other people expressing their opinions was somehow preventing contrary opinions being expressed.

    I've no problem with my ideas being challenged. I have a problem with being told I shouldn't express some of them because people are reluctant to challenge them.

    What I talked about was the attitude and tone with which opinions were expressed, as if they were self-evident and immune from challenge and didn't need to be accompanied by any kind of explanation, justification or argument.

    As @Lamb Chopped has since pointed out, crafting a considered post takes a lot more effort than tossing out a one-liner. People wouldn't deliver one-liners if they thought there was a need for something more than a one-liner. So long as people feel they can throw out casual swipes at certain issues (quite frequently NOT even the main issue to hand), confident that they won't get pulled up on it, it actually diminishes the quality of the conversation.

    Because I don't come to the Ship for memes and cheap shots.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Kwesi wrote: »
    quetzalcoatl: I thought the free speech argument today is mainly a right wing complaint.

    You are probably right, but it gives me little comfort to find the field deserted by others. It is as if the writings of George Orwell, and in that I include a number of his essays, had never existed.

    Or it's the case that free speech isn't under any serious threat in the west

    Yours certainly isn't.

    Whose do you think is?

    Anyone who disagrees with the zeitgeist on issues such as gender or sexuality for a start.

    Except they're not are they? They may not be given a platform where the gatekeeper for that platform chooses not to, but there are thousands of homophobes and transphobes out there not being prosecuted for their views.

    "Under threat" is not the same as "already gone". If people are actually being arrested for expressing opinions then it's far too late to start worrying about losing the right to freedom of speech.
    Who has the power to call for arrests? Hint, it isn't the left.

    Absolutely anyone has the power to call for arrests.

    Though mostly what the left does is call for people to be fired, to resign, or to be stripped of some kind of honorary award.

    The right is quite good at these too, I gather.

    Businesses can't be arrested, so the call is to boycott.

    The number of (completely pointless) petitions on these topics that I now see on social media has risen markedly.
    I boycott large companies that produce chocolate because they buy from sources that use slavery and coerced labour. It that a threat? Is that the equivalent of an arrest? Am I threatening their speech?
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Kwesi wrote: »
    quetzalcoatl: I thought the free speech argument today is mainly a right wing complaint.

    You are probably right, but it gives me little comfort to find the field deserted by others. It is as if the writings of George Orwell, and in that I include a number of his essays, had never existed.

    Or it's the case that free speech isn't under any serious threat in the west

    Yours certainly isn't.

    Whose do you think is?

    Anyone who disagrees with the zeitgeist on issues such as gender or sexuality for a start.

    Except they're not are they? They may not be given a platform where the gatekeeper for that platform chooses not to, but there are thousands of homophobes and transphobes out there not being prosecuted for their views.

    "Under threat" is not the same as "already gone". If people are actually being arrested for expressing opinions then it's far too late to start worrying about losing the right to freedom of speech.
    Who has the power to call for arrests? Hint, it isn't the left.

    Absolutely anyone has the power to call for arrests.

    Though mostly what the left does is call for people to be fired, to resign, or to be stripped of some kind of honorary award.

    The right is quite good at these too, I gather.

    Businesses can't be arrested, so the call is to boycott.

    The number of (completely pointless) petitions on these topics that I now see on social media has risen markedly.
    I boycott large companies that produce chocolate because they buy from sources that use slavery and coerced labour. It that a threat? Is that the equivalent of an arrest? Am I threatening their speech?

    You doing it on your own is not a threat. You attempting to get millions of other people to do the same thing is, yes.

    I've already said that businesses can't be arrested. Businesses and people can both be ruined. And on social media, attempts are made to ruin businesses and people all the time.

    I also don't think that companies have 'speech' in the way that individuals do, though the US Supreme Court appears to have other ideas on that and it's probably not a tangent to explore right now.

    I mean, it's completely trite to point out that arrests are a particular strategy that only exist in a particular context. So what? What social media has done is supercharge the ability of people to take issues into their own hands and treat them as moral issues rather than 'legal' ones, and seek to punish perceived wrongdoers through other means.

    Without the processes and protections of the legal system that were developed over many centuries as people realised that allowing punishment to be handed out at the whims of the crowd or the king was not a great idea.

    It's a new kind of vigilante behaviour. And sometimes it gets wildly out of hand. People have genuinely lost their career over one instagram post or tweet that caused internet outrage, sometimes in contexts where it's actually pretty clear with a cool head that the 'crime' was nothing more than poor phrasing.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited May 2020
    Addendum: I'm not entirely sure one person choosing what brand of something they buy, based on whatever criteria, can actually be called a 'boycott'.

    There are plenty of things I choose not buy for all sorts of reasons, some of them to do with ethical considerations. I suppose you could say I boycott Uber. Except that I spend almost none of my life ever explaining to anyone why I don't sign up with Uber or urging other people to not use Uber. And as I was never an Uber customer in the first place I doubt Uber is even terribly conscious of my actions or my existence.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    Convincing X brand to not use child labour or slavery is not a threat to X brand. Because they are the controller of the £$€, they can enforce compliance on the providers of cacao. All it really does is lessen their profit by a small margin. Which they could pass on to the consumer who would not likely notice.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Convincing X brand to not use child labour or slavery is not a threat to X brand.

    I fail to see how you boycotting is convincing anybody. And indeed, I fail to see how large boycotts are in any way about convincing. They're not a form of argument. They're a form of pressure and coercion. Convincing would be an entirely different strategy.

  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Convincing X brand to not use child labour or slavery is not a threat to X brand.

    I fail to see how you boycotting is convincing anybody. And indeed, I fail to see how large boycotts are in any way about convincing. They're not a form of argument. They're a form of pressure and coercion. Convincing would be an entirely different strategy.
    Really? That seems pretty naive. Most companies with sketchy supply chains know there is a problem. Their bottom line is the only convincing that works.

  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited May 2020
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Convincing X brand to not use child labour or slavery is not a threat to X brand.

    I fail to see how you boycotting is convincing anybody. And indeed, I fail to see how large boycotts are in any way about convincing. They're not a form of argument. They're a form of pressure and coercion. Convincing would be an entirely different strategy.
    Really? That seems pretty naive. Most companies with sketchy supply chains know there is a problem. Their bottom line is the only convincing that works.

    What seems naive is you failing to understand my point was that describing a boycott as "convincing" was not accurate. I didn't actually comment on the effectiveness of the strategy, did I? Only on its nature.

    Describing what you're doing as "convincing" is just a damn sight more polite, and is part of the strategy of trying to put a distance between the kind of pressure and coercion you use and the kind of pressure and coercion, like laws and arrests, that other people use.

    It's not just that you want to justify boycott behaviour, you want it to be seen as nicer.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    I boycott large companies that produce chocolate because they buy from sources that use slavery and coerced labour. It that a threat? Is that the equivalent of an arrest? Am I threatening their speech?

    You doing it on your own is not a threat. You attempting to get millions of other people to do the same thing is, yes.

    No, it's not. Attempting to get millions of people to do something is called advertising. There's nothing inherently wrong with trying to get millions of people to act against something. The US Center for Disease Control periodically runs graphic ads to convince people to stop smoking. Politicians run ads saying their opponents are terrible and can't be trusted. Apple ran ads against PC computers. Pepsi ran a whole series of ads against Coke ("Take the Pepsi challenge!"). Greta Thunberg campaigns against doing things that cause carbon emissions. If lilbuddha can get millions of people to refuse to buy from companies that source their chocolate from places that enslave people -- frequently children -- more power to her.
    orfeo wrote: »
    It's a new kind of vigilante behaviour. And sometimes it gets wildly out of hand. People have genuinely lost their career over one instagram post or tweet that caused internet outrage, sometimes in contexts where it's actually pretty clear with a cool head that the 'crime' was nothing more than poor phrasing.

    Yes, but this is a whole other thing. The kind of public shaming you're talking about, where someone says something dumb or rude or merely badly phrased and then is dragged all over the internet because of it, is awful. But it's not an abridgement of free speech. It might make some people not want to talk, but that's not the same thing. It's akin to what @Lamb Chopped was discussing, but with more damaging consequences. And I'd point out that she's making a choice not to post because of "facile bullshit" thrown at her. Is "facile bullshit" a good thing or even okay? No. But it is not a threat to free speech. It makes speaking unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent it from happening.
  • Tories expect to be deferred to; at least British ones do. This is written into the structure of society. The left disrupts this. Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them. This is my final point. Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited May 2020
    Ruth wrote: »
    Attempting to get millions of people to do something is called advertising. There's nothing inherently wrong with trying to get millions of people to act against something. The US Center for Disease Control periodically runs graphic ads to convince people to stop smoking. Politicians run ads saying their opponents are terrible and can't be trusted. Apple ran ads against PC computers. Pepsi ran a whole series of ads against Coke ("Take the Pepsi challenge!"). Greta Thunberg campaigns against doing things that cause carbon emissions.

    I find it genuinely mystifying that you put Greta Thunberg campaigning in the same category as Apple trying to get people to buy Apple products rather than PCs. Greta isn't running a commercial operation to say why her product is better than a rival product for doing the same thing.

    And frankly, I don't think I've heard anyone describe what Greta is doing as 'advertising' until now. The fact that advertising is a means of trying to get people to do something does not, in any logical sense, meant that ALL means of trying to get people to do something are advertising. One is a subset of the other. They are not synonyms.

    A law is also a means of trying to get millions of people to act in the same way. It's not advertising. It's coercion. I mean, can you not tell the difference between social distancing recommendations in relation to coronavirus, which might be considered to be advertised, and actual laws as to what people can and cannot do during the pandemic?

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    I agree with lilbuddha and Ruth on boycotts not being a form of coercion, at least not comparable to threatening someone with fines or jail time.

    We all exercise purchasing power on a daily basis, and the money we give to one business is money that won't be going to another. Surely it doesn't suddenly become coercion if I tell the owners of the second business why I'm not patronizing their place, and what they can do to get my business back.

    An organized boycott is basically just convincing other people, who likely already shared my views to begin with, to do the same thing. And the business remains free to continue with their standing m.o., if they think there
    are more consumers who like what they've been doing, than consumers like me.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    It's akin to what @Lamb Chopped was discussing, but with more damaging consequences. And I'd point out that she's making a choice not to post because of "facile bullshit" thrown at her. Is "facile bullshit" a good thing or even okay? No. But it is not a threat to free speech. It makes speaking unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent it from happening.

    Certainly I'm making a choice to post--or not to post. And I may one day make a choice to stop posting, like many before me. Because no human being has endless endurance, and there are days when the prospect of yet more facile bullshit is unendurable.

  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    To put it crisply: not complying with what an ad is asking you to do carries no consequences.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I'm going to try saying this again, for the third time. The Ship is not here to support campaigns or advocacy, however worthy the campaigns or advocacy may be.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited May 2020
    stetson wrote: »
    An organized boycott is basically just convincing other people, who likely already shared my views to begin with, to do the same thing. And the business remains free to continue with their standing m.o., if they think there
    are more consumers who like what they've been doing, than consumers like me.

    Oh come off it. Now who's being naive? The entire purpose of a boycott is to exert pressure. You're trying to divorce the notion of a boycott from the very goal of having one.

    I'm getting a bit tired of people claiming that everything they do (not on the Ship, more generally) is entirely neutral and dispassionate and completely free from any kind of coercive goals, or is indeed not even goal-oriented. You all know that exerting pressure on people could potentially be seen as 'bad' and so you don't want to admit to ever being involved in such a 'bad' thing.

    These sorts of behaviours are trying to achieve something. So own it.

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I'm going to try saying this again, for the third time. The Ship is not here to support campaigns or advocacy, however worthy the campaigns or advocacy may be.

    Sincere apologies, but I do not undetstand this post. Has someone been advocating a particular cause on this thread?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    No, but it's my observation that quite a few prolific posters see advocacy, over and above expressing an opinion, as a legitimate practice here, and expect the Ship to support them in their advocacy.

    My take is that historically, the Ship has been more welcoming of social and theological liberals than a lot of Christian environments, and so some of them seem to mistake this welcome for a manifesto or confession of faith.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    An organized boycott is basically just convincing other people, who likely already shared my views to begin with, to do the same thing. And the business remains free to continue with their standing m.o., if they think there
    are more consumers who like what they've been doing, than consumers like me.

    Oh come off it. Now who's being naive? The entire purpose of a boycott is to exert pressure. You're trying to divorce the notion of a boycott from the very goal of having one.

    I'm getting a bit tired of people claiming that everything they do (not on the Ship, more generally) is entirely neutral and dispassionate and completely free from any kind of coercive goals, or is indeed not even goal-oriented. You all know that exerting pressure on people could potentially be seen as 'bad' and so you don't want to admit to ever being involved in such a 'bad' thing.

    These sorts of behaviours are trying to achieve something. So own it.

    Yes, there is obviously a goal in a boycott, and it probably reflects my personal, non-neutral opinion about something. But I don't think it's pressure in the same way that, say, having someone arrested is pressure. Qualitative difference, there.

    I know someone who was in the habit of making regular donations to a particular political party. Then, however, the party changed its policy on a particular issue near and dear to his heart. When he got the next fundraising letter after the change, he mailed it back to the party minus a cheque, with a note that said sonething like "No donation until you switch back to the old policy."

    Was what my friend did the same as using the coercive powers of the state to force the party to change its policy?
  • Tories expect to be deferred to; at least British ones do. This is written into the structure of society. The left disrupts this. Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them. This is my final point. Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?

    You see, we've got a case right here (sorry, Thunderbunk, but it just happened to be your post that came up first, and provided a view of this stuff in real time. Nothing personal meant by it.). "Tories expect to be deferred to." Think for a moment. Is this true of all Tories? Seriously? Every single one of them, including any that may be lurking on the Ship? Not a one is reasonable or humble.

    You go on to allege damage done by this class of people, of which each and every one of them is the same, and thus each is individually guilty (including our theoretical Shipmate): "Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them." Were I a Tory, even of the most reasonable sort (and seriously, there must be at least ONE in the universe!), I would be quite cross by now. You are attributing a moral crime--damaging people--to the whole class of Tories, without allowances for individuals who might in fact NOT damage people.

    And then your conclusion: "Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?" Now we've slipped from talking about people (the Tories, each and every one of them) to their opinions. Very slick, that. If you had said "Why respect the people," you'd have been on thin ice commandment-wise. But because the focus has suddenly shifted to their opinions, you can get away with it.

    And the final flourish: "Why should anyone respect...?" In other words, there is no sense in even answering said opinions, it is unreasonable to expect anyone on the other side to engage in debate with anybody holding such opinions. Better to ignore or shout them down. Their opinions are not worthy of respect, and (as was made clear in the opening statements about expecting deference and being damaging), neither are the people themselves.

    This is the kind of thing we shouldn't be doing, if we truly want people other than ourselves to be on the Ship. We need to at least admit the possibility of decent humanity in groups whose politics (religion, customs, ethnicity) we don't like, and avoid painting the lot of them with a broad and hostile brush. Because if we do that often enough, they will protest, then finally give up and go away. And we will be left in an echo chamber listening to our own voices, forever immune to new insights.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    No, but it's my observation that quite a few prolific posters see advocacy, over and above expressing an opinion, as a legitimate practice here, and expect the Ship to support them in their advocacy.

    My take is that historically, the Ship has been more welcoming of social and theological liberals than a lot of Christian environments, and so some of them seem to mistake this welcome for a manifesto or confession of faith.

    Okay, thanx. I know you're admin, so I thought maybe you were instructing someone on this thread to stop campaigning.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I'm going to try saying this again, for the third time. The Ship is not here to support campaigns or advocacy, however worthy the campaigns or advocacy may be.

    Depends on what you mean by advocacy. I used to spend all kinds of time in Dead Horses arguing against homophobia and in favor of things like same-sex marriage, and believe me, it was advocacy - I wasn't there just to share my opinion. I hoped to God people would change their minds. If this is just a debating society, what's the point? Why talk about wanting people to have open minds if no one's ever going to change their mind?
    Ruth wrote: »
    It's akin to what @Lamb Chopped was discussing, but with more damaging consequences. And I'd point out that she's making a choice not to post because of "facile bullshit" thrown at her. Is "facile bullshit" a good thing or even okay? No. But it is not a threat to free speech. It makes speaking unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent it from happening.

    Certainly I'm making a choice to post--or not to post. And I may one day make a choice to stop posting, like many before me. Because no human being has endless endurance, and there are days when the prospect of yet more facile bullshit is unendurable.

    Which would not be a good thing for the Ship. But it wouldn't be because your freedom of speech was abridged. I'm not in favor of the facile bullshit. But let's be clear on what's really happening.
    orfeo wrote: »
    I find it genuinely mystifying that you put Greta Thunberg campaigning in the same category as Apple trying to get people to buy Apple products rather than PCs. Greta isn't running a commercial operation to say why her product is better than a rival product for doing the same thing.

    Because commercial advertising and public advocacy aren't all that different. She's not selling a product, no, but she's trying to change minds, she's trying to sway people. She doesn't have to buy time on TV - she gets it for free.
    A law is also a means of trying to get millions of people to act in the same way. It's not advertising. It's coercion. I mean, can you not tell the difference between social distancing recommendations in relation to coronavirus, which might be considered to be advertised, and actual laws as to what people can and cannot do during the pandemic?

    Laws are very different from advertising and advocacy, as they're not aimed at changing people's minds. And lots of laws are not coercive. In a well-run society laws reflect what that society actually wants. We have laws against auto theft not to coerce millions of people into not stealing cars but because the vast majority of us think it's wrong. When laws do force a change in behavior -- say, for example, laws limiting what banks are allowed to do -- the general idea is that a relatively small group of people change something they do because overall it's good for society. When a law in a relatively free society forces a change in everyone's behavior, if people are pretty much on board with it, they'll cooperate -- so people where I live are by and large abiding by the stay-at-home orders right now. If people are pretty much not on board with a law, it will be an abject failure, eg., the Volstead Act.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    [x-post with @ruth and @stetson ]

    Oh and @stetson this repetition on my part was sparked by this from @Ruth
    [facile bullshit] is not a threat to free speech. It makes speaking unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent it from happening
    and the exchange on boycotting and exercising pressure that followed.

    I agree with the observation that expressing certain views here, mostly small-c conservative views, is regularly "made unpleasant", and if this is challenged, as @ruth's statement implies (quite probably unintentionally), the defence, presented as insurmountable, is "but nobody is preventing them from being expressed". That is perhaps a legitimate tactic of activism, but not a good way of nurturing debate.
  • Just to be clear, Ruth, I am not arguing that my freedom of speech is being abridged. That was somebody else. I'm simply arguing that my life is being made a weariness--which some would regard as a feature, not a bug.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I agree with the observation that expressing certain views here, mostly small-c conservative views, is regularly "made unpleasant", and if this is challenged, as @ruth's statement implies (quite probably unintentionally), the defence, presented as insurmountable, is "but nobody is preventing them from being expressed". That is perhaps a legitimate tactic of activism, but not a good way of nurturing debate.

    What is the point of debate, in your opinion?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    stetson wrote: »
    Okay, thanx. I know you're admin, so I thought maybe you were instructing someone on this thread to stop campaigning.

    For the avoidance of doubt, and for the second time on this thread, if I or any of the rest of the Crew post without host or admin tags on, we're posting as posters, not as Crew.
  • Tories expect to be deferred to; at least British ones do. This is written into the structure of society. The left disrupts this. Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them. This is my final point. Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?

    You see, we've got a case right here (sorry, Thunderbunk, but it just happened to be your post that came up first, and provided a view of this stuff in real time. Nothing personal meant by it.). "Tories expect to be deferred to." Think for a moment. Is this true of all Tories? Seriously? Every single one of them, including any that may be lurking on the Ship? Not a one is reasonable or humble.

    You go on to allege damage done by this class of people, of which each and every one of them is the same, and thus each is individually guilty (including our theoretical Shipmate): "Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them." Were I a Tory, even of the most reasonable sort (and seriously, there must be at least ONE in the universe!), I would be quite cross by now. You are attributing a moral crime--damaging people--to the whole class of Tories, without allowances for individuals who might in fact NOT damage people.

    And then your conclusion: "Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?" Now we've slipped from talking about people (the Tories, each and every one of them) to their opinions. Very slick, that. If you had said "Why respect the people," you'd have been on thin ice commandment-wise. But because the focus has suddenly shifted to their opinions, you can get away with it.

    And the final flourish: "Why should anyone respect...?" In other words, there is no sense in even answering said opinions, it is unreasonable to expect anyone on the other side to engage in debate with anybody holding such opinions. Better to ignore or shout them down. Their opinions are not worthy of respect, and (as was made clear in the opening statements about expecting deference and being damaging), neither are the people themselves.

    This is the kind of thing we shouldn't be doing, if we truly want people other than ourselves to be on the Ship. We need to at least admit the possibility of decent humanity in groups whose politics (religion, customs, ethnicity) we don't like, and avoid painting the lot of them with a broad and hostile brush. Because if we do that often enough, they will protest, then finally give up and go away. And we will be left in an echo chamber listening to our own voices, forever immune to new insights.

    Whilst I think ThunderBunk went to far, they do raise a valid point that not all opinions and choices are equal. If we assume that someone voting Tory is informed and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government, whether that be the Windrush scandal, homelessness, library closures, sure start closures, increasing child poverty, work capability assessments etc. etc. An informed choice to vote for the continuation of that IS a moral issue and I struggle to get past that. It isn't a game or an intellectual exercise it's people's lives, including friends of mine who have suffered as a result.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    @ruth x-post again, I think this answers your "what is the point of debate" question too.
    Ruth wrote: »
    Depends on what you mean by advocacy. I used to spend all kinds of time in Dead Horses arguing against homophobia and in favor of things like same-sex marriage, and believe me, it was advocacy - I wasn't there just to share my opinion. I hoped to God people would change their minds. If this is just a debating society, what's the point? Why talk about wanting people to have open minds if no one's ever going to change their mind?

    Okay, fair questions. I think there's a difference between advocacy based on argument (and Dead Horses was a rigourously hosted environment designed to ensure that it was argument that took place) and tactics like the one you inadvertently described earlier: effectively silencing opponents without engaging. I don't think that flew in DH, and it didn't use to fly in Purgatory.

    There's also a difference between engaging in advocacy and assuming the Ship is there to back up one's particular flavour of advocacy.

    There's a difference between posting on a variety of topics whilst devoting special attention to those especially dear to one's heart, and posting almost exclusively to engage in advocacy. Maybe our definition of crusading has slipped.

    And finally, it's about our motivations. Is our advocacy ready to be challenged, or do we come here with an open mind behind our advocacy? We should be on both ends of that question in your last sentence. Not just here to change minds, but here, potentially, to have our minds changed.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    Okay, thanx. I know you're admin, so I thought maybe you were instructing someone on this thread to stop campaigning.

    For the avoidance of doubt, and for the second time on this thread, if I or any of the rest of the Crew post without host or admin tags on, we're posting as posters, not as Crew.

    I'm sorry for not recognizing that protocol about the host tags. Of course, I've seen it many times, but I wasn't really thinking about it when I read your post.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Just to be clear, Ruth, I am not arguing that my freedom of speech is being abridged. That was somebody else. I'm simply arguing that my life is being made a weariness--which some would regard as a feature, not a bug.

    Yes, sorry, I wasn't clear in my attribution of this idea.
    You are attributing a moral crime--damaging people--to the whole class of Tories, without allowances for individuals who might in fact NOT damage people.

    The generalization is the sticking point. I lose it a little bit every time someone generalizes about Americans here, as if all 330+ million of us were operating in lock step. But at the same time, I recognize some truth in some of those generalizations: Americans are individualistic, Americans don't know very much about other countries, etc. And I think some allowance has to be made for generalizing, as there are traits that show up strongly in groups. The hard question is at what point does a generalization become too sweeping and/or unfair?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Whilst I think ThunderBunk went to far, they do raise a valid point that not all opinions and choices are equal. If we assume that someone voting Tory is informed and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government [...]

    I disagree. They may not be as aware of the detail of those issues as you and be better informed on others. They may have other priorities in their voting choices that you are unaware of, and - who knows? - they may have considered other factors in the issues you list that you haven't.

    But you can't even get beyond the hypothetical example before saying "these choices that differ from mine are all clearly morally wrong and such a choice is inferior" from at least the word "harm" onwards. I don't think you're going to win anybody over to your point of view with an opening salvo like that.

    That might give you some satisfaction in having seen off these people you clearly consider morally inferior, but it's not going to help you understand what makes Tory voters tick or - heaven forfend - cause you to call into question any of your own convictions.
  • Tories expect to be deferred to; at least British ones do. This is written into the structure of society. The left disrupts this. Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them. This is my final point. Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?

    You see, we've got a case right here (sorry, Thunderbunk, but it just happened to be your post that came up first, and provided a view of this stuff in real time. Nothing personal meant by it.). "Tories expect to be deferred to." Think for a moment. Is this true of all Tories? Seriously? Every single one of them, including any that may be lurking on the Ship? Not a one is reasonable or humble.

    You go on to allege damage done by this class of people, of which each and every one of them is the same, and thus each is individually guilty (including our theoretical Shipmate): "Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them." Were I a Tory, even of the most reasonable sort (and seriously, there must be at least ONE in the universe!), I would be quite cross by now. You are attributing a moral crime--damaging people--to the whole class of Tories, without allowances for individuals who might in fact NOT damage people.

    And then your conclusion: "Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?" Now we've slipped from talking about people (the Tories, each and every one of them) to their opinions. Very slick, that. If you had said "Why respect the people," you'd have been on thin ice commandment-wise. But because the focus has suddenly shifted to their opinions, you can get away with it.

    And the final flourish: "Why should anyone respect...?" In other words, there is no sense in even answering said opinions, it is unreasonable to expect anyone on the other side to engage in debate with anybody holding such opinions. Better to ignore or shout them down. Their opinions are not worthy of respect, and (as was made clear in the opening statements about expecting deference and being damaging), neither are the people themselves.

    This is the kind of thing we shouldn't be doing, if we truly want people other than ourselves to be on the Ship. We need to at least admit the possibility of decent humanity in groups whose politics (religion, customs, ethnicity) we don't like, and avoid painting the lot of them with a broad and hostile brush. Because if we do that often enough, they will protest, then finally give up and go away. And we will be left in an echo chamber listening to our own voices, forever immune to new insights.

    Whilst I think ThunderBunk went to far, they do raise a valid point that not all opinions and choices are equal. If we assume that someone voting Tory is informed and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government, whether that be the Windrush scandal, homelessness, library closures, sure start closures, increasing child poverty, work capability assessments etc. etc. An informed choice to vote for the continuation of that IS a moral issue and I struggle to get past that. It isn't a game or an intellectual exercise it's people's lives, including friends of mine who have suffered as a result.

    No, you absolutely may NOT assume that they are OK with the harms you mention. They may be, or they may not be. For all you know, they may be desperately struggling to reform their party from within, and you haven't been told. Tories are no more clones of each other than Republicans are of each other. It is entirely possible to be a Republican (I was) and to be actively working for the downfall of Trump and all his evil--to advocate for immigrants, especially the children--to demonstrate in the street over his attempts to destroy Meals on Wheels, the EPA, various National Park protections, and so forth. It is possible to love what is good about a party (and let's be serious, there has to be SOMETHING good about it, even if only historically, or where do the zillions come from who embrace it? We are humans, not demons to love a thing purely for its evil) while hating with a purple passion the evil that party leaders have embraced and that has corrupted an organization you hold dear.

    I understand that friends of yours have suffered; that is not reason for your logic to suffer. And before you bite back at me, may I say that I am in the parallel situation in the U.S. as a (mostly) white woman married to an immigrant, with a biracial child, and a whole community of immigrants I love and serve--and get to hear the current occupant of the White House term "animals" and watch him busily searching out ways to deport them and even strip them of their hard-earned citizenship. I had a dying sister whose continuing medical treatment depended entirely on whether Congress could defeat a deranged POTUS of my own party.

    In such circumstances, the thing to do is NOT to consign a whole group to the flames of hell; what you want to do is to PERSUADE them to re-evaluate their party's policies, to reconsider their own involvement, to push them to reform their party from the inside, and finally,if there is no other way, to urge them to leave that party. If you do these things, you might actually accomplish something. But tossing a whole load of humanity into the "I give up on you" category isn't going to help at all.
  • I don't particularly want my conviction that people starving to death because their benefits have been cut off is wrong challenged. Nor my conviction that deporting British citizens because they're black is wrong.
  • So either don't read those threads (assuming anyone can be found who is idiot enough to hold those opinions) or use your gifts of logic to slay them where they stand.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    I don't particularly want my conviction that people starving to death because their benefits have been cut off is wrong challenged. Nor my conviction that deporting British citizens because they're black is wrong.
    There are people who sincerely and fearfully believe that gays will go to hell and that they might end up there too merely for entertaining the idea that this belief might be mistaken.

    Not only do they "not particularly want" that conviction overturned, they are shit scared of the eternal consequences of it being overturned. Should they therefore be left unchallenged?

    (also what @Lamb Chopped said).
  • Yeah, I see no point in engaging with ludicrous comparisons.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Seriously, why is it ludicrous? Your conviction matters to you and I respect that. I know people who sincerely believe what I wrote about gays. I see absolutely no reason to question the depth of that conviction or to assume they are less intelligent or well-informed than you.

    (You only have to go and look at this thread to see how difficult it can be to disengage from such a mindset, however intelligent one is).
  • One is demonstrable, provable harm happening in this world. One is possible, unprovable harm in the next. They're not remotely comparable.
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