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As of this time @HlynkaCG has been permabanned. I'm posting this message at the top of the thread, because its not really for Hlynka, its for the community to know. There were a few different posts I could have chosen in the modqueue, and many of them were too buried to be visible. The mod team has given him repeated warnings and bans. And I personally reached out to him last ban to warn him that a permaban was likely coming if this behavior continued.
I mostly do not feel this is a good thing, but it is a necessary thing. Hlynka had quite a few quality contributions, and I don't think I was alone in appreciating his often unique (for themotte) perspective. But he repeatedly did it in a way that just wasn't acceptable for the rules around here.
I would like people to have a few takeaways:
Please keep any discussion civil.
No comment on the permaban decision.
I'm surprised at some of the reactions to the "oddness" of Hlynka's views.
They're pretty common classical conservatism (FiveHourMarathon highlighted the "Hobessian" nature of it all) mixed with Gen-X / Millenial combat veteran comedic-fatalism. @JTarrou - think I've missed the mark here?
I understand that some of the drive-by insults were against the rules - and should be. I wonder how much, in Hlynka's mind, they were 40-layer deep irony / edgelord pills. Google the "November Juliet" scene from Generation Kill. Or "Whopper Junior."
Again, as this comment started out, no opinion being offered on the ban decision. I'm just pondering Hlynka's nature.
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.
'polite' being the code word doing a lot of work, here.
You can say that black people are stupid and trans people are deluded pedophiles every day for years, as long as you maintain decorum. That's still 'polite'.
But if someones recognizes that what you're saying there is 'fuck everyone not like me' and responds with 'hey, fuck you too', that person is not being polite and must be eliminated.
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 truly cannot understand why you would deliberately choose to spend so much of your free time in a specific online space when you believe that the majority of users in that space (excluding you) consciously endorse "fuck everyone not like me" as a lens through which they view the world; in which you don't seem to be having any luck persuading anyone not to endorse this worldview; in which you don't even seem to believe that anyone participating in this space can be persuaded not to endorse this worldview; in which I'm not even sure if you want to. It's just such an utterly baffling way to spend one's time. Do you really enjoy telling people "lol, you just hate everyone who's different from you" (not in so many words) only for the mods to tell you to knock it off for the nth time? Like, seriously, honest question - what are you getting out of this?
Why wouldn't you? It's much more fun to speak to people you disagree with - you make contact with their ideas, sharpen your rhetorical tactics and understanding of the subject matter, and maybe you'll learn something or maybe they'll learn something. And those people having moral flaws like "I hate everyone who isn't me" doesn't make the conversations any less interesting! They still have object level claims and complicated reasons for believing them.
Whereas being surrounded by people you agree with is (relatively) more like talking to a mirror. You know what it's going to say, so why bother?
Maybe I'm typical-minding. It really doesn't sound like much fun to me.
I agree with curious_straight_ca, and what they describe is also pretty close to the intended purpose of this forum.
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I don't think you are, most people would find this place unpleasant as is, saying nothing about my hypothetical. But I think my approach is better, and so long as you can get good object-level disagreement out of it there's no reason to be put off by anything else.
I think both are found commonly.
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