cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
Too similar to a previously banned user. Multiple top level posts, very little response. You aren't here for discussion. Permaban for now. One of the other mods might over-rule this.
Edit: post appears to have been plagiarized anyways. Ban is staying permanent.
cjet79
1yr ago
I was not speaking practically. I was speaking of a moral imperative.
Practically speaking I'm a run of the mill libertarian.
cjet79
1yr ago
I'm not against resuming other people resuming. I was never certain I'd be good about doing it. I typically only have the patience/interest to participate in a discussion for about 8 hours, and I'd spend most of that time just writing the things in the first place and then barely responding to any question.
It was maintained chain mail style. One person gets it and then they pick a person to pass it on to.
cjet79
1yr ago
I agree with curious_straight_ca, and what they describe is also pretty close to the intended purpose of this forum.
cjet79
1yr ago
you got my username wrong, and misgendered me. Second thing is mostly in jest, idk why but sjet feels like a female form of my username.
cjet79
1yr ago
I have two highly neurotic family members. One is very well adapted to society, and one isn't. The one who isn't very well adapted to society would probably love to post here, but then I'd have to ban them, because they'd probably be like hlynka but far less well spoken. The well adapted one would probably take one look and nope out.
Perhaps we are sometimes selecting for the neurotics who like the elevated threat level. The same kind of people who like roller coasters.
I still don't feel my sympathy increasing for those who severely lack the self control. I still think this forum is pretty low on the level of things that could trigger threat levels. Its purely text, which is far less stimulating than video and images. You have to have a long attention span to even pick up on some of the threats. You can find more blatant threats with even the most milquetoast set of social media friends. Every news station is trying to one up the threat level to get eyeballs. And daily life in any metropolitan area is plenty threatening enough.
cjet79
1yr ago
Pretty sure the viewpoint series died off by people just not doing it. No one ever asked me for my viewpoint, and I never quite felt arrogant enough to write something that long at that level of 'navel gazing' without prompting from someone else.
cjet79
1yr ago
Anarcho Capitalism I consider a moral imperative. Its the right thing to do. Even if all the practical details haven't been figured out. Similar to how I feel about anti-aging. We don't have anti-aging figured out, but when we do it will be the morally correct thing to allow.
cjet79
1yr ago
I don't know. The mod team would discuss it. Individual facts in the case would matter. Its never happened before.
cjet79
1yr ago
Mr Rogers was quietly Republican.
Bob Ross was a womanizer. David Bowie had sexual relations with 15 year olds during his stardom. They kind of strike me as part of the 70s era sexual liberation generation. And there are plenty of male "role models" from that generation. I just feel that after the MeToo movement that these types of men would be examples of "toxic masculinity".
I didn't want to look too deeply into Steve Irwin, but he mostly wrastled large reptiles into submission in his public appearances. I'll grant him as maybe a good environmentalist role model. Not quite sure how that translates as a role model for human interaction.
I think the idea of 'explicitly politically-motivated role models' is a dead end here. A role model that progressives can embrace is not the same as a loudly progressive role model.
I think it's a dead end for modern progressives hoping for straight white male role models. I think it generally is not a dead end for just about any other situation.
cjet79
1yr ago
If you are cis-gendered male, I'm curious if you feel that you had any good male progressive role models growing up. Even non-famous ones like a teacher or family friend.
I wasn't really looking for potential progressive male role models growing up, but no examples comes to mind. Hard left economic male role models, a few. Libertarian male role models, many. Republican male role models, countless.
I'm still mentally stuck in thinking what such a progressive male model is supposed to look like, even if we are talking about purely fictional characters. Unironically "PC Principle" from south park comes to mind. Many actual male progressive heroes that I can think of are gay or a minority, which isn't going to work for most of the white male population.
cjet79
1yr ago
I'm well aware of the contradiction, I wrote this 5 days ago [emphasis added]:
This is a discussion forum for people with sometimes drastically different views. It feels like a fragile thing somedays. We are asking people to talk politely with one another when they may disagree with each other's entire existence. Most of the internet is filled with people pointing out that politeness in those circumstances is absurd. And thus most of the internet has descended into a bit of a hell hole that I cannot personally tolerate for any topic much less the topics where people might actually have a reason to hate each other.
Hlynka wasn't interested in maintaining decorum when it was an obvious papering over disrespectful or violent thoughts. I admired how long he was able to act on that disinterest without getting permabanned.
Personally, the masquerade is getting boring for me too. But out of respect for mod wishes, I'll try to fade out rather than flame out if it becomes too annoying to bother with.
I'm not really sympathetic to people that can't maintain the masquerade. Because I maintain it quite easily. I'm an anarcho-capitalist, and just about everyone on here is a statist of some sort. I believe most of those views are morally repugnant, and any statist view is an active advocation of violence against me. I also don't consider myself some paragon of self control. I think most people have the self control muscle and exercise it all the time. If you can drive in traffic and not run someone off the road when they do something dangerous to you then you also have that self control muscle. My 5 year old kid has the self control muscle. My 3 year old, does not. So its a skill you can learn and start using as young as 4 years old.
Also according to psychology there are bunch of psychopaths just walking around among us, following the rules, and not murdering people for shits and giggles. We don't threaten to purge all the psychopaths as uncaring monsters walking among us. And the psychopaths mostly don't act like the uncaring monsters that they are, except in specific high level managerial positions where we have designated their behavior "ok".
People complaining that it is hard not to say things in an online forum where they don't need to even participate is a bit mind-boggling to me. I truly do not understand how such a person navigates their day to day life. Perhaps they have an extreme set of blinders? Perhaps they are lying, and its actually very easy to follow the rules around here, they just don't want to? Perhaps they are in a special set of circumstances where people coddle them like I do for my three year old in order to avoid public tantrums?
cjet79
1yr ago
I think this is a general problem that the Political/Managerial Class wants a set of cog in machine type workers. Meek, follow orders, don't rock the boat, etc. More of the propaganda gets directed against men, simply because they fit worse into that mold by default. But in my experience women that don't fit are just as likely to get ground up and crushed.
One of the great ironies of this all is that institutions can't even be bothered to reward the meek men and women they claim to want. You see, there is a dirty little secret inside every large bureaucratic institution: You can just do things. Yes, you are supposed to get approval from your three managers, and buy in from the various stakeholders in departments A-Z. And if you do the things and they are good things, then you will get rewarded. The reason it works is that the process for stopping and punishing you is often as onerous as the process you were supposed to follow to get the thing done in the first place. So your enemies either won't bother, or they won't do things the official route. Welcome to internal office politics at a large org, you are now a player and not a pawn. Hope you made some allies before you started doing things.
Large institutions always ask for pawns. Because the players figure out the game and don't need to be invited. Its not like any existing players really want to invite more competition. Being a player is how to capture big rewards, but its also big risk. I am intentionally and consciously not a player at my current job. Being a pawn is low risk low reward. But I was a player for a little while in one of my previous jobs until I sorta maxed out my leverage and kept running into past mistakes I'd made. But the player slots are stressful. I'm riding out my past rewards for now while I have other priorities in life.
cjet79
1yr ago
his often unique (for themotte) perspective
They're pretty common classical conservatism (FiveHourMarathon highlighted the "Hobessian" nature of it all) mixed with Gen-X / Millenial combat veteran comedic-fatalism.
He was a better written version of many people I encounter in real life all the time. Unique for themotte doesn't mean unique everywhere. My dad's view and mother in laws' views are probably somewhat similar, and I have a neighbor or two that might have nearly identical views. I like all these people, but I also recognize they'd probably not be a good fit here.
There are probably certain perspectives and viewpoints that can never really exist on this forum. This is sad, but to be expected. Not all(/many?) viewpoints allow for polite treatment of ideological enemies.
cjet79
1yr ago
I'm not entirely opposed to something like a rehabilitation program for rule breakers. In my experience the rule-breakers themselves are often very much not ok with such a system. I believe anyone that is capable of living in modern society and not constantly getting involved in violence and being thrown in prison is capable of filtering themselves. So most forum users are capable of filtering themselves, but they are not willing to filter themselves. So adding an external filter that is not under their control is not something they want, its just seen as an imposition.
requiring a two page essay on rule-following as a costly signal of contrition and to promote salience of infraction
I've wanted to do things like this in the past. But its not a good idea. We got a lot of complaints that we were just being petty tyrants abusing our power, and that we just wanted people to "bend the knee" and "respect my authoritaay!" And those complaints seem generally correct to me. Some of the libertarian types (myself included) have an allergic reaction to such requirements, and may swing much harder towards "fuck you and your impositions".
I'd rather just treat people like adults, rather than misbehaving kids. If you can't or aren't willing to control your behavior here then we should just part ways. I don't want to try and parent you. I don't want you ass kissing or crawling on your belly to be allowed back in. I just want you to act within the rules we have set out while you are here. That is my only requirement. And because it is the only requirement it becomes a much stronger one. There is no getting around it by willing to be a sycophant.
Having said all that nothing is forever set in stone. Hlynka could come back in a year. But it would have to be an active decision by the mod team. Not a passive one. And if it were to happen, I'd like to see the most reluctant members of the mod team and community convinced.
cjet79
1yr ago
I am honestly confused by your accusations.
Allow a community of like minded people to congregate on /r/themotte
Yes, we have done this, where others have not. If others were doing this, we would probably not bother.
Encourage those people to leave
Leave what? Leave reddit? No, we only encouraged people to also be on themotte website. There is no requirement or encouragement to leave reddit. I still have an account there for subreddits I enjoy.
Lock the door behind them once they do
What door has been locked? We also permabanned people over on the subreddit.
Maybe you don't like hylnka, but a lot of people did. The whole pitch on moving everybody here was that we could avoid the overbearing influence of reddit admins, but now we just have...you guys. Hylnka was a dick, and banned me at least once on themotte...but as I have pointed out before: you guys (specifically you, cjet) over way overtending this garden.
No, I like Hlynka. If there is such a thing as "internet friends" I would consider him one. I was the most reluctant among the mods to ban him, and have stuck up for his behavior quite often in the back-channels. The fact that I am the one to ban him is more similar to a "George shoots Lennie" situation. Not comparing Hlynka to Lennie, but the social dynamic of the situation where the most ardent defender of the accused who gave them as many chances as possible has to be the one to carry out the execution.
And yes you have us. This was always the agreement. If you want the reddit admins and some other set of moderators, you know where reddit is. We have gotten significantly more lenient since moving off of reddit, because there is more of a worry of eroding our user base and having no replacement source. If you want no moderation there are places on the internet like that. This isn't such a place, never has been, and never will be given that zorba will probably just shut it down if it came to that.
Most of the discussion here just sounds like (and I suspect heavily is) chatbots talking back and forth to one another. Many have pointed out that a version of a captcha for chatbots is if they are willing to say naughty words or not. What you're basically doing with this ban is saying "you have to sound like a chatbot in order to post here". I think this is a bad idea.
People are allowed to say "naughty words" here. They aren't allowed to put words in other's mouths. Accuse people of beliefs they don't hold with little or no evidence/discussion. And throw out broad sweeping insults to others.
You can say cunt, but you can't call another user one without breaking our rules. If you are not a fan of "politeness" as one of the rules of discussion, I'd again suggest that most of the rest of the internet is still out there.
Here's a suggestion for how to improve themotte and course correct it: give us something like "showdead" on hacker news. Give me the option in my userprofile to have a non mod curated experience where I can see naughty posts and interact with them. People who want the more curated experience can untick this "show naughty" option, and never have to see it. I don’t think you will do this since it takes the power of being a mod away (although keeps the practical purpose), but it would be appreciated.
No. Zorba has been asked about this multiple times before. He has a post somewhere about trash in a river as a comparison. The general point is that our users actually do most of the filtering for us, and mods are here as a backup to make sure there is a clear bright line.
cjet79
1yr ago
He was still getting quality contributions up until the end.
https://www.themotte.org/post/865/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/185267?context=8#context
I think he was generally just as good as back in the reddit days, but the presence of actual nazis on this forum was not something he really tolerated well. And I think he has also become more of a minority viewpoint on HBD stuff.
Bit of historical trivia: Hlynka and myself were active mods way back in the day on the slatestarcodex reddit when discussion of HBD was banned for a limited time. I am not sure of his exact opinion on the topic ban, but I do remember being the only mod saying "I am sort of against this".
cjet79
1yr ago
These are just the bans (there were also at least 17 warnings):
https://www.themotte.org/post/824/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/178986?context=8#context
https://www.themotte.org/post/805/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/173826?context=8#context
https://www.themotte.org/post/805/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/173826?context=8#context
https://www.themotte.org/post/660/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/137442?context=8#context
https://www.themotte.org/post/541/american-middle-class-is-the-worst/110770?context=8#context
https://www.themotte.org/post/508/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/104975?context=8#context
cjet79
1yr ago
You can click on the blue link to follow it to the user. They had nearly 2500 comments before being banned. No one else needed a summary. If you are still confused just minimize this discussion and move on.
cjet79
1yr ago
I think we might have done that on reddit a few times, but I don't think its a current policy.
cjet79
1yr ago
Any chance of redemption, or is this "banned forever, unless you get a brain transplant and change all your views"?
We made multiple attempts at redemption. I don't know if people realize this, but tempbans are our attempt to get through to users and say "hey you need to change". They aren't just punishments for doing a bad thing. We would prefer if we just needed to warn people, and then once they were warned they forever stopped that behavior.
I am theoretically not against redemption for a permaban. However, every time I try and think of a process for redemption I remember what kind of users we permaban, and realize that such a process is useless. The process for redemption would involve showing an ability and a willingness to change the behavior that lead to a ban in the first place, and for them to humbly ask for that chance at redemption. The users that get permabanned often lack a willingness to change, so they usually can't get through the first hurdle of simply asking for a chance at redemption.
Even removing the requirement that they ask us is sufficiently difficult for most permabanned users. Because they still lack an ability and a willingness. As others have pointed out, banned users can create new accounts. But then to not get banned they have to act sufficiently different from how they were before. And not just removing the bad parts of their behavior which were the most obvious, but the identifying good characteristics that kept us patient with them for so long. If you are capable of doing this and basically putting on an entirely different persona that conforms to the rules of this place then my hat is off to you and thanks for rejoining. From my perspective its basically like getting a new user.
cjet79
1yr ago
That thread has Hlynka violating most of these guidelines:
- Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
- Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
Regardless, I would have preferred to deal with the issue through informal social consequences, like what @somedude was cooking up, rather than an actual permaban.
No, somedude was likely to get a ban for this behavior, because its harassment. It was never reported and I only saw it yesterday after trying to extensively read Hlynka's recent posts.
Definitely not reconsidering now, thanks for pointing that out.
More options
Context Copy link