I cannot accept that as a reason to simply allow such behavior, unless there is a direct change to the rules that govern such behavior. And yes, I understand the irony of the statement, as I have been prone to it myself in fits of frustration and irritation at its continued spread, which I see as all the more reason why it needs to be held in check.
Indeed, but it's not like either of us can force it. The problem with the advice to eliminate
ad hom isn't that we really want people flaming the fuck out of each other, but, rather, that the constant outcome of such notions over the years at Sciforums is a very literalist thing; it's why I recall a particular dispute with a fellow moderator from some years ago, that one should be able to post functionally racist material, but nobody should call out the racism because that's
ad hom.
That's as archetypal example as I could ask, and in a way I'm not at all surprised and probably never should have, except for the fact that once upon a time it would have been really rude to speculate such behavior about my colleague.
Right and wrong at Sciforums has, for over a decade, been a political question, and not at all related to questions of accuracy, truth, or function. This is what we've cultivated.
And any one of us could have tried to end that aspect over time, and then we would likely have been dismissed for not attending the proper procedures by which people with vested interest avoided moderation so that other moderators with the opposite vested interest could choose to fulfill Burke's aphorism about doing nothing. It took a few years for the trend to really make its point, but we're nigh on eight years past the most glaring threshold, which we can skip for the moment since very little good comes from recalling it explicitly.
And remember, the ban cycle itself is fifty-five days long, which for us means fifty-five days of people complaining if that's really how anyone wants to do it. The staff had a big public dispute about this some years ago, and promoting the complaint required believing that one moderator running a troll through a fifty-five day ban cycle was some act of intrinsic evil, as if nobody could possibly stop another moderator from permabanning someone unfairly. There is very limited authority to wrongly permaban someone, and it certainly wasn't invested in the question at the time. That is to say, we had a massive blowout that cost us the resignation of a moderator for precisely no reason; it comes back to that question of vested interest. The one might withhold moderation for appearance of vested interest, as has been the expectation throughout this period, but others aren't moderating, either, and at some point that means they're okay with the fallacies and trolling and even bigotry.
Apparently, this is what it means to be fair.
I prefer to respect such boundaries as the appearance of vested interest, but eventually the point is clear; the expectation is in place in order to foment and protect bad behavior with which authority sympathizes.
See, the thing about the one I wasn't going to mention explicitly, the original complaint that started the problem had to do with Americanistic hatred of Muslims and Islam; the sympathetic willingness to go after the object of that dishonest and hateful complaint under a pretense of being fair was invested in
atheistic hostility toward theists.
There are so many astounding ironies along the way; one of the great values I have received from Sciforums over the years is the crystallization of certain foggy notions. I can't quite explain the transition from once upon a time when we actually said to ourselves, as a staff and community, that these ill-behavied, poorly-studied, alleged Christians at least served as useful examples of what it all gets a person, to the modern day in which it is apparently supposed to seem really unfair to hurt a stupid bigot's feelings.
I can't quite explain those years in the present context, but it was early in the internet experience, and the empowerment felt incredible. The thing is, we never really did anything with it. And there came a point whereby it was clear what we were on was not really connected in any substantial way to good faith, and it did take a while. But this actually all starts with a very well-intended prejudice toward atheism in particular. And in that context, everything was largely just fine until, first, 9/11, but more directly, the invasion of Iraq. I can still remember this wannabe alpha-type going on about killing all the ragsomethingorother except maybe a few of the women who might be hot enough to ... uh ... right, y'know? When I told him to have another banana, nobody blinked because everybody was smart enough to get that it was a hit against his alpha routine. Fast forward a few years and people aren't smart enough to understand the historical reasons why you don't go after a black man who isn't on an alpha trip that way. The difference is actually what our weird context of being fair means. That is what it was for.
Yet, even still, look at some of these outcomes. I'm not nearly so worried about the two-bit ghost and goblin crackpottery as I am the quite literally
dangerous wingnuttery. It's a functional thing. Don't get me wrong, yeah, a bunch of it is annoying, but I can afford to generally leave that priority to other people. Neither, however, is it particularly easy to miss the detail when it occurs that focus on constraint of fantasy crackpottery is the actual priority. When you look around, how many who are crashing on the crackpottery are going to be there to help you crash on the dangerous wingnuttery? I know that's vague, but neither is actually about those who will or won't in particular.
There is a bit I do sometimes about the difference between sinister or stupid, but we must also temper that with the acknowledgment that I hold people generally are not actively evil insofar as we tend to justify ourselves unto ourselves in some way; there is a possibility that it might appear this is changing, but it appears a psychological or psychiatric dysfunction driving some to celebrate their evil. Most still blame other people, and it's true, in that context, people are still pursuing some abstract notion of right and wrong.
What comes next is the hard part: There is an abstract threshold at which a presupposition of naïveté requires such magnitude as to itself seem inappropriate for denigration of another. It's almost like presuming this bizarre stupidity by which one accidentally hits every mark, except they're all precisely the wrong marks. And so for things like the prejudice and bigotry that have just roared to full-throated political power, we need to presume that instead of wilfully choosing harm, at
every decision object on the flow chart they manage to accidentally choose harm. There is a point at which instead of calling them evil, we are functionally doubting their competency, and neither is that polite, is it?
I can't quite explain, but once upon a time in my American society we showed a contempt toward more communal considerations, including notions like bullying, or even literacy; it was essentially society as a competition or a cooperative endeavor, and Americans have some problems with the latter. And the idea was that liberal arts and liberalistic pseudosciences tending toward secular humanism and moral relativism were just make-believe. It's like the person who denounces "psychology", but raises their children by reverse psychology. I actually know someone like that; to this day he thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and no, you don't want to know the rest of the story about why it's not his fault that his only child is a heroin addict that he won't help.
But that is essentially what is going on; people have started behaving according to the complaint and projection. In the U.S., at least, we cannot afford to overlook this massive, transgenerational fallacy; we all get to live with what it has brought us.
Well, you know. As long as we live through it.
―End Part I―
