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Notes -
What if our fundamentals are exactly backwards?
New to The Motte, looking for constructive, critical discussion.
Here's an example of what I mean by a "fundamental":
Every economic system that has seemed credible to most people since the dawn of civilization has revolved around the legal establishment and safeguarding of property through the concept of ownership.
But what is ownership? I have my own ideas, but I asked ChatGPT and was surprised that it pretty much hit the nail on the head: the definitional characteristic of ownership is the legal right to deprive others.
This has been such a consistently universal view that very few people question it. Even fewer have thought through a cogent alternative. Most people go slack-jawed at the suggestion that an alternative is possible.
Here's something from years back, before I'd zeroed in on the perverse nature of ownership:
Anyone want to brainstorm a viable alternative to "ownership"?
/images/17459352527399495.webp
doubt
doubt
I for one do not welcome our robot overlords.
Okay, reading everything you have posted so far, I think you are using ChatGPT to generate some or all of your posts, and what isn't coming from ChatGPT seems to be mostly snarky, condescending, and belligerent. Or maybe that's ChatGPT too.
You have a steep hill to climb very quickly: convince me otherwise or I am going to suggest to the other mods that we just start banning with prejudice anyone who looks like "Har-de-har let's unleash ChatGPT on the Motte with a random hot take it can defend to the death."
Amadan, I asked for examples. Please provide them. Otherwise, you're operating on undisclosed, private definitions of "belligerent" and "condescending" and "snarky". Not fair.
Okay, so that's how it's going to be.
I was going to let you have some some rope, but here I am looking at a queue filled with reports on your snarky, condescending, belligerent attitude towards all comers. You have managed to antagonize a truly impressive number of people in a short time. You clearly believe yourself to be the cleverest boy in the room, and boy are you having fun showing everyone how very very smart you are and they aren't.
I didn't respond to your previous rather demanding retort because (a) I was busy and (b) I didn't feel like it. We're volunteers here, and we are not actually obligated to justify ourselves to your satisfaction. We will usually try to explain our decisions, even to people complaining about being modded, because transparency is important, and the health of the community depends on there being some level of trust in our reasonableness and fairness. Obviously we still don't please everyone, but so it goes.
You, however, are a new member who just arrived and has immediately started some shit. We owe you very little and earning your goodwill is worth only the degree to which we care to see you stick around, which is a rapidly diminishing proposition.
Now on the one hand, you are a prime example of what @ZorbaTHut created this forum for: to allow people to come here and test out their craziest, wackiest, most fringe ideas, to argue for things outside the Overton Window, beyond the pale, or otherwise just too out there to be taken seriously anywhere else. In a sense, we want whack jobs, cranks, ideologues and extremists. We welcome them. They do have a habit of pissing people off and getting reported a lot (because most of our members, even if they pretend they are open-minded and devoted to free speech and willing to hear anybody out, still tend to be depressingly normie when it comes down to it, and use the "Report" button to register their disapproval or offense at opinions they don't like). But I have been trying to factor in that you are kind of providing what we want: a novel perspective earnestly defended. (Yes, I am convinced now I was wrong about you using an LLM, or at least you're definitely not using an LLM for the snide, condescending, and snarky bits.)
On the other hand, you really are being a flaming jerk in almost every post. You've pissed off a lot of members, you've got multiple mods now saying "What are we going to do about this guy?"
So when I read this entitled, demanding whine that I "please provide examples" like you are snapping your fingers at a waiter who's slow to bring you your water... you are exhausting what little charity I have to extend to you.
Most of your posts have been reported for various levels of antagonism and obnoxiousness. You're being heavily downvoted, which sometimes just means someone taking an unpopular position (and we don't like to mod based solely on someone being unpopular) but often it means someone who's making a real ass of himself.
You want "examples" of you being "belligerent" and "condescending" and "snarky"? No, I am not going to go collect all the plentiful examples you have provided and paste them here. You know why? Because you are, if nothing else, clearly very intelligent and well-spoken, someone who knows how to use words and is well aware of the power of words. In other words, you know damn well what you're doing. You want to argue with me. If I quoted a dozen or so objectionable things you've said so far, you'd argue with each and every one of them and want to litigate my interpretation and tell me I'm wrong, and think you will somehow "win," like the SovCits who think the right words will render a cop unable to issue them a speeding ticket.
So bluntly, I don't care if you think I'm "not fair." Trust me, I've heard that before. Yes, I will use my "undisclosed, private definitions" to decide if you're being unpleasant and uncivil. I am deciding you're being unpleasant and uncivil. Knock it off, now, and don't tell me you "can't stop what I don't know I'm doing." You know. Either that, or you have reached the age you are with a staggering lack of social grace and self-awareness, which is sad but still doesn't get you a pass.
If you continue to engage people the way you are currently engaging people, we will give you a timeout (a temporary ban), and if you come back and continue doing it, the bans will get longer. Frankly I would like you to continue contributing but if and only if you can do so without antagonizing everyone you argue with. I am not optimistic, but you are duly warned and our grand experiment in letting any random person come in and throw their glass at the wall continues.
That's OK. You can't be clear and specific about your prohibitions. I would have been pleasantly surprised if you'd responded directly and honestly. You refuse to get specific because it would put your own standards for snark, belligerence, and condescension on the table, open to discussion. Yes, I definitely know exactly what I'm doing -- and I definitely know exactly what you're doing. That gives me a leg up, because what I'm doing isn't remotely what you've characterized it to be. But no matter.
I'm here for the ideas. You're here to maintain and expand the reach of the site. Basic conflict of interests. Your work is to make sure people don't get pissed off. My work is to piss people off so that they start fucking thinking for themselves. You could care less about that. We're not a good fit. Like you've said more than once (in more polite terms), you don't give a shit about the ideas -- neither mine nor anyone else's. Your job is to take care of egos. Fuck ego -- mine, yours, and everyone else's. You, me, they really don't matter two toots compared to the effects of what we do and say that will go on forever. I'm looking to that. In light of that, narcissistic butt-hurt means precisely squat.
I came back to the post today to say "thanks and good luck" anyway. The post served my purposes well, and I'm back to work on my book. I really appreciate all the responses I got, even the snarky, condescending ones. (I don't run to Papa Admin when people get behavioral with me -- I just put them in their place, and then they go running to him. 😆 Not my first rodeo, dude.)
So, thanks everyone, there were some great points made, good insights, good questions in there amidst all the chaff. I've benefitted. Hope you did, too. ttfn
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