Hi, I'm a long time reader of Slate Star Codex and I used to post on the Reddit forum until I got banned. There are a few reasons that I believe I got banned.
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Uncharitably claiming that Leftist censorship was a threat to the rationalist community
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Advocating for violence
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Not being kind
I understand why all of these things could have been a problem on the Reddit community, but I would like to know if they're still going to be a problem here, since I don't want to invest a lot of time creating a profile and having good-faith discussions with people if I'm only going to be banned again. Here are the reasons that I think these three issues shouldn't be a problem anymore.
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I was right, and everybody who disagreed with me was wrong. The fact that the community had to move here proves it. I'm not expecting an apology but I think that time has proven me correct on that score.
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Violence is a completely justifiable response to tyranny. While calls to violence may be against Reddit rules (and the community was right to ban me from Reddit because my rhetoric could have caused problems for the mods) there are no such rules here. In fact, rdrama (which helped set up this offsite community, and whom you should all be grateful to) actively encourages calls to violence. If a rational and logical case can be made for violence then I think there is no good reason not to hear that case out. If you're forced to censor people you disagree with because you're unable to make a stronger case for pacifism over violence in the open marketplace of ideas, then you should question whether your pacifism is actually a worthwhile philosophy.
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Kindness and truth are different terminal values. If you optimize for kindness then it is self-evident that you will have to sacrifice truth at some point. Obviously the Reddit community has chosen kindness as its terminal value, but I'm hoping that this offsite community is enlightened enough to choose truth.
I'm linking to a few articles from my Substack here so you have a few examples of my style of writing and can make a better judgement about whether I would be a good fit for the offsite community. I'm also on rdrama where my username is sirpingsalot. If you think I'm not a good fit for the offsite either, then no hard feelings - I'm happy to take my ideas to more sympathetic communities instead. I just don't want to put in the effort of investing time and energy here if I'm only going to get banned again for the same reasons.
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Notes -
Don't do that, you know better.
I honestly can't find a better way to describe him. He writes an entire Substack that is self-contradictory ("my ex-wife tried to exploit me because my family is wealthy; I'm smarter and better than everyone else and should be in one of the top twenty slots ruling the world" versus "hi, I'm an ordinary guy like you, the rich only get rich by exploiting everyone else and promoting their dumb kids into jobs they don't deserve, so rise up and pull them down and take over yourself!")
He's metaphorically putting his own head on the chopping block - 'you feel you have been cheated out of what you deserve? burn it down!' while 'I should have one of the top slots' meaning that for the person under him to get the slot, that person should burn him down.
How else would you describe "kill them all - including me" but not recognising that is what you are calling for except as idiotic? And who behaves idiotically? An idiot.
Don't give me that. You know, at the very least, the difference between "This argument is idiotic" and "You're an idiot." I didn't warn you because I disagree with your assessment; there are a lot of people I think are idiots and/or raging assholes, but if someone calls them an idiot and/or a raging asshole, I'm going to mod them because that's not allowed.
That's the mod policy, fair enough, go ahead. But I'm not shifting on this. It's not merely that the argument is bad - all of us can make a bad argument now and again - it's the entire attitude. I've read through his Substack and merciful God. If I expand on the impression that made on me as to this person's character, intellect, and likelihood of ending up ruining a lot of lives, "idiot" is going to be the mildest epithet I attach to them.
All of which notwithstanding, you are perfectly within your rights to smack me over the knuckles for it.
EDIT: And I won't even try seeing how near I can step up to the line with "If it's okay to say 'this argument is idiotic', can I say 'this argument could only have been constructed by an idiot'? I mean, I'm not directly saying 'you are an idiot'?" 😁 I don't mess around with word games and rules lawyering like that.
@Amadan is moderating you for tone, not content. Please let's not get into the «but this particular idiot is such an idiot I deserve lenience for my tone» once again. Sure, bureaucracy is not without its pitfalls, but legible and respected laws are valuable. Normalizing ad hominems at such fringes is only the first step to the collapse of decency across the board.
You can easily express your distaste and condemnation for his entire attitude without setting yourself up by using a direct insult.
Moreover he's clearly not an idiot in terms of raw intellect. This really isn't the problem here.
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