Dante

Lord J has been a member of the forum for seven years longer than you. If he's actually one of us in disguise, it's a damned good one. :P

So... what? Let bygones be bygones? Have a "fresh start?" Aha, no, though the thought is amusing in its ridiculousness. Couldn't even last a month, could you? Edit: Oh god, ath, this just gets funnier and funnier.

As we have said before, constantly, repeatedly, ad nauseum: it is not your (highly distasteful) opinions we most strongly object to, it's your inability to maintain reasonable standards of debate and base ignorance of anything and everything. We do not like you, eras, how many times does it have to be said? And no amount of insipid banalities will change that.

I suppose now that the weekend's rolled around, I have some time to waste. Sorry I left you alone for a while Wolf, apparently I don't have your fortitude. Firstly though, thanks to Eliyyahu for the support. It's actually nice to know that the troika isn't alone here. And going back a page, the suggestions were appreciated Denis, but this isn't that kind of place. You may have noticed, we're not that interested in attracting new blood, just in retaining the old. Curt, a while ago I told eras to stop calling me "friend." Indeed, I've been telling him to stop refering to me by descriptors ("Scottish person," "fellow machine crusade avatar") for some time now. He might think it's polite or flattering, I don't know and don't care, but he's persistantly ignored my instructions to stop doing it. This is just the latest in a long string of "anything to avoid refering to him by name." In fact it's just another symptom of his complete inability to comprehend anything we say, but that's neither here nor there. In my more cynical moments I think it might be because he doesn't want to acknowledge that I'm actually a real person rather than a collection of easily digested characteristics. Or may he doesn't respect me enough to use my name. That's certainly why I called him eracist. Well, that and because he's a racist. Or perhaps, as I've said all along, he's just too stupid to change. *shrug* But speaking of eras, is it just me or is he acting a bit unstable now? Think something must have ruffled his feathers. He's trying to mock, trying to patronise, trying to... is that a smidge of beige coloured anger I see? Well, it makes a change from narcissistic platitudes I suppose, that's... well not progress, but it's a change. I wonder, does he think he's going to colonise the forum with people who can stand him, thus driving the rest of us out in disgust? Yay, delusion! To be honest, I'm not convinced that eras is Curt or Denis. Not because they aren't similar (they are, and the phrasing in some recent posts is very suspicious), but because I just don't think eras is smart enough to pull something like that off. Having said that, Wolf is correct when he says that the only way to prove this one way or the other would be for all three to engage in an internal debate upon which they disagree. The Union thread might prove to be that disagreement, if it takes off. Either that or we can go back to the gays again. Always the gays with these people. Nor am I convinced that Hwi is masquerading as eras, though it is pretty hilarious to contemplate. Dragoon and I have discussed it before, but frankly, demented as she was, Hwi had some smarts. They were very specific and narrowly applied smarts, true, but smarts nevertheless. eras doesn't have any. At all. "You know that I don't even acknowledge your presence, or your existence." You realise that by talking to him, you void this statement? Just sayin'. My opinion, eras? I think you should fuck off and leave us in peace. :) Edit: It's kind of funny, in a really tragic way, that eras can accuse Wolf of not wishing to debate anything. I mean irony doesn't even begin to cover it.

No, again you misunderstand. Fortunately, you have not yet exhausted my goodwill as you have Wolf's, so I'm prepared to do a bit of extra legwork to make the point clear. And, because I'm just a lovely person, I shall do it with the aid of HANDY DANDY DIAGRAMS. Talkative Johnny: Evolution leads to racism because evolutionists will think that some people are "more evolved" than others. Dante: That's not how evolution works. It's a common misconception that evolution (by natural selection) works towards a particular goal ("a bird evolved to have wings, man evolved to be intelligent"), or is constantly improving. It does not. Natural selection is blind. What it does, broadly speaking, is enhance the most beneficial traits of a species in the environment that the species inhabits over a period of time best measured in generations. This has not "improved" the species, it has simply adjusted it better relative to its environment. Does spending millions of years evolving make a species "better?" No. There are species around today that have been successful for millions of years with only minimal adjustments to their form (dragonflies, sharks and horseshoe crabs to name but three). Further, what is "better?" Is it better to have legs? Then why did snakes and whales lose them? Is it better to have eyes? Then why did cave fish lose them? Natural selection does not constantly improve, it constantly adapts. I'll take a favourite example of mine. Whales. We'll start at the beginning and go quickly. The fossil record indicates that life probably started in the sea, certainly that's where the first chordates (creatures with backbones) appeared. The early chordates became the first fish, the fish moved onto the land and became amphibians. The amphibians did something really interesting and split, some becoming reptiles and some becoming mammals. Note that just because this happened does not mean that fish or amphibians disappeared. With me so far? The important point here, listen carefully now, is that all mammals evolved on land. No mammal evolved from amphibians in the sea. Now, having come so far, the mammals started branching out into different forms. The earliest form that we recognise as an ancestor to the whales was a carnivorous ungulate. Think like... a dog with cow's feet. It's close enough. This animal had legs, lungs, fur and all the familiar mammalian jazz. This early mammal started hunting in watery, possibly swampy environments (the world was much warmer at the time, there were more swamps around). In an environment like that it's obviously beneficial to be able to live in water, which would lead to small yet useful developments, such as webbing between splayed digits, the ability to hear in water and a method of moving the spine to swim with minimal effort. If you consider species alive today in a similar environment, you find that they follow a similar pattern. Otters retain much of their land-dwelling strengths, while crocodiles do not, sea lions have less, and seals have sacrificed almost all of their terrestrial ability in exchange for formidable aquatic presence. Once they reached the sea, there was no going back. Hind legs, now a burden, were done away with. The tail developed flukes for propulsion and the nose migrated to the top of the head to ensure easy breathing. The whales arrived. Why did I go through all of that? To illustrate the following points: > natural selection is blind: did this early animal set off into the water with the goal of becoming a whale? Not in the slightest. It wandered onto a path with its eyes shut and kept going, always taking the best turning at the time. Becoming a whale was the result of serendipity, not intent. > natural selection has no plan: it would have been much simpler never to leave the sea, instead they left the sea, adapted to the land with legs and lungs and whatnot, then went back into the sea, where they now have to deal with having to surface to breathe and being unable to drink saltwater. > just because something has spent millions of years evolving does not mean that it is superior. Sharks, which never left the oceans, are much better adapted to live in them. They can filter salt out of seawater, stay submerged indefinately, do not suffer from air pressure issues, can lay eggs rather than birthing live young... All useful things in the sea which whales lack. Now racism. Consider the phrase "white people are more evolved" in the context of the above illustration of evolution. It doesn't. Make. Sense. More evolved? So what? That's not necessarily better, nor necessarily true. Can it be demonstrated? What did they evolve for? It wouldn't be much cop if they evolved to be better tapdancers, would it? Snakes evolved to lose their legs, what have we evolved to lose? Now try "white people evolved to be more intelligent." That at least has a clear point, but is it provable? Can it be demonstrated, statistically analysed free of influencing factors such as income disparity? In short, even if there were a difference in intelligence between white and black people (and to my knowledge, no credible study suggests this), it would be another issue entirely to show that the difference was evolutionary and not societal. There is, in short, no evidence. A belief in evolution (and disbelief in god) no more leads to racism than a belief in Krishna leads to getting fat. Further reading, if interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans Well... how do I follow that? Talkative Johnny: Evolution would say that foetal stem cell research is ok! Dante: I... ok, that makes even less sense than the last statement. TJ: Evolution has a plan. If it doesn't, it's all down to chance, then anything goes. There's no rules, no moral compass. D: ...I see. Well, as shown above, evolution doesn't have a plan. But you're using that to make a point with no logical steps. How does the gradual change of lifeforms over generations relate to cellular research? If evolution by natural selection weren't true, we'd still have stem cells and we'd still need to study them. Cutting to the chase, this is less an issue about evolution than it is personal distaste in a particular practice. You don't like foetal stem cell research, you don't know how or why it works, so you wedge it into another issue in order to perpetuate the "us and them" scenario whereby the people who conduct said research can be pigeonholed into "not like us." I'll go into some details, but this will be more brief than the above as cell biology was never my area of interest. Stem cells are so called because they are the "blank" cells that can become any other cell in the body (liver, heart, muscle, nerve, etc). Once a cell has a role, it cannot be reversed. That's why cells don't migrate to change purpose, they get broken down and their parts recycled instead. Stem cells would therefore be very useful if they could be controlled. Imagine being able to regrow nerve tissue, healing spinal injuries. Or regenerate myelin sheaths, rendering Alzheimer's a thing of the past. But the thing is, adult stem cells are not as powerful as foetal ones. They already have a "role," sort of, and cannot do as much as foetal cells can. If you think about it, this makes sense. An adult isn't growing anything new, they only repair what is already present. Foetuses have the busy job of first growing and then organising muscle tissue, heart tissue, lung tissue, nerve tissue, skin tissue, all that jazz. Foetal stem cells have much greater potential. They have significantly more possible applications. It only makes sense to work on them rather than adult stem cells, which are useful still but relatively circumscribed. What does this mean? Well, it brings us into more philosophical than scientific territory. Is the ability to heal currently crippling injuries worth the cost of thousands of non-lives? A 15 year old paralysed from the neck down could recover, regain the quality of live they knew. The collections of cells used in research not only never knew quality of life, they never knew life full stop. They never knew anything. Their brains aren't developed to the point where knowledge of anything is even possible. But this is beside the point. Whether or not one agrees with stem cell research, it isn't justified through "evolution says it's ok," it's justified by human interest. If you want to get into scientific ethics then be my guest, but that's a somewhat bigger topic than simply natural selection. I'm actually getting quite tired of this. You know how long it takes me to write these things? And it's so very rarely worth the effort. I could have been playing minecraft! Talkative Johnny: Watson's racism (which he can believe in thanks to godless evolution) could become Hitler's racism! You make my brain hurt. Alright, last lap, lets clear this up. Racism comes in many forms. At its core it is the belief that differences between people can be explained entirely by their skin colour. One can expand on this to say that racism is treating people differently depending on their skin colour (amusingly, by this definition eras is a racist. I actually like calling him "eracist," but the moderators told me to stop. I find that a bit unfair, as it's just a statement of verifiable fact, but whatever). Nevertheless, the many behaviours covered by this umbrella term are not entirely compatible, and one need not lead to another. You've brought the wrath of Godwin down upon us anyway, but allow me to start with a different example. As I said to another poster here not long ago, apartheid South Africa is a good example of institutionalised racism that was not based on hate. Apartheid was patronising, humiliating, monstrously unfair and undeniably racist, but it was based on the belief that black people were simple, not evil. White South Africans believed their black counterparts were childlike, unable to properly look after themselves and in need of firm guidance in order to ensure they made the best of themselves. They were also well aware that their own prosperity depended very much on having a huge pool of labour to draw on. Their attitude was paternalistic, treating adults like children. Do you let children hold political office? Do you punish them when they get out of line? Do you let them mix with adults? That was apartheid. My argument here, just to clarify, is not that apartheid was "not bad, all things considered." It was bad. My argument is that apartheid, as gross a breach of human rights as it was, was motivated by good intentions. "Good neighbourliness," as it was said. Ok, now lets give Godwin a real apoplexy and segue into the holocaust. Hitler's final solution was not intended to consider the best interests of those it slaughtered, it was intended as a deliberate extinction. It was motivated not by vanity, greed or condecision, but loathing and misplaced revenge. It was, in short, a completely different manifestation of racism, with completely different causes and symptoms. You argue that racism like Watson's (and apartheid South Africa's) could lead to something like the holocaust. I disagree. Why? Because, while both were racist, they're otherwise very different. The logical jump between "X people are inferior" and "X people MUST DIE" is a bit bigger than you think. I think that otters are cuter than elephants (speciesist!), that doesn't mean I want to wipe the Earth clean of elephantine ugliness. What I'm saying, basically, is that Hitler was racist but not all racists are Hitler. ...and I'm done. For now. It kind of petered out toward the end there, didn't it? Ah well. Point made, sort of. I hope the point got through all those words. That's the argument we could have been having. Details, connections... I'm rambling now. It's late, I'm tired, we're done here. I look forward to... whatever. Oh, and no, I don't speak any of those languages. Can get by in German, but really I just hate repeating myself, so I ran it through Google translate a few times for variety. The Norwegian one is a bit off, but otherwise I'm quite pleased with it.

No, you misunderstand me. There is no pertinant connection between the subjects you are talking about, i.e. stem cell research, evolution and racism. No connection. Pas de connexion. Keine Verbindung. Ingen ruter. Ni povezave. Hakuna uhusiano. No connection. That you seem to think that there is a connection implies that your understanding of all three subjects is flawed, and my offer was to help you realise these flaws. That we currently happen to be off topic as well is immaterial. Clearer?

Now hang on a moment, that's a complete non-sequiter. Stem cells, racism and evolution don't have any of the connections you seem to be implying. It makes as much sense to say that a belief in homeopathy protects one from alien abduction: not only are the subjects unrelated, the conclusion would be unsupportable even if they were. As I said before, if you want to talk science in another thread, I would be happy to do so. You're labouring under some misapprehensions which I would gladly help to dispel. But as I said to eras on more than one occasion, please don't draw conclusions from things you don't appear to understand. It's unwise.

Here, apparently. Question: why tax the rich if you're not going to spend the money on anything?

CurtOne, I may be misunderstanding your point here, but social policy isn't a case of equal exchange. "We'll give you gay rights if you give us a ban on abortion." That may be the way that some (most? All?) politicians try to work, but it isn't going to satisfy 'society.' It's also inherently unfair, in that it equates situations which are unrelated (there is no logical connection between gay marriage and abortion), a non-sequiter or sorts. And yes, I use the term 'social policy' because unlike Edric I don't believe in objective morality. A moral judgement is worth only as much as a personal opinion, while a societal judgement is worth, in real terms, somewhat more. They are different things, yes, but to be "moral" is a much foggier concept. You've also got a lot of stuff going on about intensity and privacy, which while relevant, isn't coming across particularly well. You're using a lot of words but not saying very much, which rather prompts me to ask, what exactly is the point you were trying to make? Further, "not much tolerance for those who speak in the realm of privacy" ? What does that mean? I also feel I should draw your attention to another issue: point dropping. Now Wolf has made a few good posts about that in this thread (because eras was guilty of the same thing), to the end that if someone directs a point to you, and you do not address it, debate breaks down. Insofar as I am interested in what you have to say (for now), if we are going to debate at all it has to involve some exchange of perspectives on whatever a subject might be. If you drop the subject, there can't be a debate. There can't be an exchange, or an answer. With that in mind, several points have been made to you which you have not answered, which I will summarise below. Because I'm nice like that. > (Dragoon) Go into detail about what you think about Eras' posting and our responses, since you've "read it all". > (Me) I am curious though, why if you don't want to "draw it out," "dwell on it," you continue to post at all. That's not a veiled criticism either, it's a genuine question. If you're not interested in the discussion, why discuss? > (Me) Further, what exactly do you mean by terms like "moral liberal?" > (Me) And why use 'moral' as a criticism? > (Me) "gay murder?" is that a thing now? And... what exactly is there to question [about it]? > (Wolf) Which is worse? The murder of homosexual people, or the production of pornography that caters to homosexuals? I ask because there is a right answer to this question and it has nothing to do with one's "point of view" or political leanings. ... Better do some explaining. > Actually, Wolf's entire post there was basically directed at you, even though Edric replied to it. Oh, I just noticed Wolf's edit of his earlier post. To address that point, Wolf: we didn't fixate on the issue just because it was "gay murder" and "gay porn," eras did. This discussion arose from his post, even if it did go via Fanfiction, and thus carries some baggage which we never got around to removing. Such as the omitted fact that the victim in the article was straight. And while I completely agree that murder and porn are entirely unrelated (see my first paragraph above)... usually, and that the distinction between "porn" and "gay porn" is nill in terms of morality, I would argue that the distinction was warranted for three reasons. 1. The specificity would expose a double standard, if one exists. While we know it's ridiculous to go "gay porn is disgusting, but hetero porn is just normal, dude," others may be working on just such an assumption. Likewise murder. 2. It exposed exactly the point you were making. 3. It determines whether an argument is the product of normal beliefs (murder is bad, yo) or bigotry, and thus determines our response. I respond to bigots with much less respect than to others. You may have noticed. (4. It reminds us that eras wasn't actually talking about pornography at all, he was talking about "rampant gay porno" in "society," whatever that means) Moving on. Can I think of a movement that starts moderate and becomes more extreme? Arguable, since the terms aren't very well defined. One could argue that the suffragettes became more extreme, developing from a political pressure group into a semi-militant campaign practicing property damage, bombing, hunger strikes and debatably suicide. One could even look at Islam, with a modern tendancy towards extremism which was much less pronounced forty years ago. Could Lenin be considered a more extreme version of Marx? (That's not a rhetorical question, it's been years since I looked at the issue and all I really remember is that their ideologies did not entirely overlap) I considered using the word 'radical' there, but on reflection, I'm inclined to think that the current administratior of Iran is straying a little from Saladin's legacy. Yes, Lord J, point taken. ;) These people? Well, internally consistant moral arguments are fairly rare things anyway. I would argue that those which withstand scrutiny have the same problems as all other moral systems (we can discuss those elsewhere if you want), they just acknowledge and incorporate them. Inconsistancy only matters if consistancy is a desired principle; if the system acknowledges inconsistancy as a facet of itself then practically any action is consistant with the system. Ironic but true, though one could question just how much such a system of morality could be called a system. My point being that inconsistancy and adaptability are closely related and that either offer a better alternative to assumption. Forgive me for picking out parts of an argument, but I'm reluctant to insert myself into the debate too much, you're doing so well together. ...I'm beginning to think that my replies may be too wordy. The acknowledgement was appreciated Mahdi, as was its intent.

I've been thinking for a while that you've been rather quiet. Speak up, man, or we won't hear you!

There are conservatives on this board (though I use the term very broadly). Indeed, Wolf is somewhat more right wing than I am and considerably more right wing than Edric. I am curious though, why if you don't want to "draw it out," "dwell on it," you continue to post at all. That's not a veiled criticism either, it's a genuine question. If you're not interested in the discussion, why discuss? Further, what exactly do you mean by terms like "moral liberal?" As Wolf has said already, the word 'liberal' has multiple definitions. And why use 'moral' as criticism? ...Anyway. To answer your question, the forum has no official political bias (it would be rather ridiculous if it did). You seem to have rather missed my point about the whole Fenceposts thing ("gay murder?" is that a thing now? And... what exactly is there to question?), so allow me to quote an earlier post of Wolf's for you: Please, read this carefully, because it answers your question: we do not censor opinions, we censor behaviour. eras spewed the most hateful bile he could for months and he was allowed to. Partly through lax moderation, but mostly because we believe in free speech here. My immolation of his posts was borne not of disagreement, but disgust. He cannot argue, he cannot research, he cannot debate, he cannot think. How am I supposed to engage in reasonable debate when the enemy is incapable? Notice in the last few posts, people were attempting, through truly awe-inspiring patience, to engage with eras and show him how his behaviour could be improved. Nobody was saying "change your mind," they were saying "change how you act." Having said that, asking questions isn't the best way to get to know the atmosphere around here. Best way would be to jump in and experience it. So, if you're interested in PRP on this forum at all (if not, I'm not sure why you'd want to keep posting here), start a thread about something, put forward a hypothesis, and we'll contribute. Unless it's boring, in which case we probably won't. And if you are eras posting under another name... Well, we'll find out rather quickly.

This was both inevitable and hilarious.

Some of the material here may be considered moot now... and I am repeating a few points that others have already made. But whatever, I'll say it's for emphasis. Ok CurtOne, I'll address you first because you're new here and, if I'm honest, acting with more decorum than I really expected. Like Dragoon, I'm prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. My first impression is that you're a reasonable person, which is nice. A bit naive perhaps, but having only heard eras' one-sided account, that's to be expected. Let me see if I can clear up a few issues. I should first point out that eras' contention that only certain points of view are allowed on this forum is largely false. While it's an amusing thought to picture Wolf, Dragoon and I as some sort of content-policing troika, there are enough disagreements just between the three of us to make that impossible. Just off the top of my head, Wolf is a theist and I'm an atheist. I believe Dragoon is agnostic. Even if that wasn't the case, there are well respected members of the forum with opinions that differ widely from our own. Our objection to eras, which has been stated time and time again, is not that he posts objectionable material (though he does, that's a seperate issue), it is that he acts objectionably. More on this later. Ah, you read Fenceposts? All of it? Yes, eras seems strangely obsessed with it. It's a good piece of work, we're very proud of it. But I'd like to clarify something very important for you. Wolf already explained exactly what was going on there, but I'll reiterate what he said for the sake of elucidation: The language used in Fenceposts was a mockery of language used by others in seriousness. Language that was not only ridiculous, but also idiotic and frankly foul. When faced with a combination like that, we had to ridicule it. We had to satirise it. There is no other appropriate response except to reduce it to the base inhumanity it is and then mock the quivering substance of it. But I digress. Here's an example of what I mean. In post 348 of this thread eras said, and I quote: Yeah. I'm going to skip over the rank content of the words themselves (and the godawful syntax) in order to focus on my point. You may recognise this passage from Fenceposts: Post 134, page 7. See, what was said there was basically a paraphrasing of exactly what eras said. We didn't make this crap up, he actually said most of those things. Additionally, in the original argument, he didn't read the article that the point was referencing. I linked a news article about a straight man in New York who was murdered because he was drunk, leaning on his brother, and was mistaken for being gay. eras responded by saying that a few murders of gay people in California aren't as important as 'discussing pornography.' This is not the behaviour of a decent human being. Which prompted our response: Also we coined the term Californiyork, which I personally find very amusing. See, here's the thing about Fenceposts. It's a satire. And satire can be cruel. But it's a form of humour that doesn't work if it strays too far from its source material. Every joke in there is partly a tragedy (which is what makes it so brilliant, if I do say so myself) because you know that he actually believes it. Moving on You are, of course, welcome to your own opinions and I'm not inclined to flame you for them at all. Deistic evolution? Fine, if that's what you want. It always seemed like a good compromise to me. Let science deal with the how of the matter and leave the why to religion (regarding the whole 'intervention' thing though: the scientific consensus does actually have answers to a lot of your questions, and if you want to debate them in another thread I would be happy to do so. The reason eras thinks otherwise is that he just doesn't understand evolution, and after failing to educate him I just gave up trying). Your opinion on sexuality, while nebulous, appears to boil down to "live and let live," which is a fine standard to live by. Regarding Hwi. Ah, Hwi. She went by chatfsh when she first signed up, and returned to that name just before she left. The thing you need to know about Hwi was that she was crazy. She behaved rationally (if selfishly) on the board until one day she cracked and started stalking one of us. She crossed the Atlantic twice to see him. Her ex husband sent abusive emails, which she later claimed were sent by her. Her formerly sensible behaviour degenerated into knee-jerk disagreement and a bizarre kind of anti-intellectual solipsism. What you have to understand is that by the end she was acting so deranged that nobody took her seriously anymore. Being a woman does not excuse one from also being a lunatic. Dragoon has offered to find a summary of things that eras has said that we object to. If you wish to take him up on his offer, feel free. It's not like it would take us long to find objectionable material. Though I can't speak for Dragoon, I will say that I'm not trying to persuade you that eras is a horrible person. I'm just saying that we can provide some compelling evidence to illustrate that he is not, as you said, "a nice guy." Edric: I don't like the idea of people not posting in each others' topics. As mentioned by Dragoon, it doesn't solve the problem, it just sweeps it under the rug. I'd favour the "make eras follow these rules" approach, but then that's hardly surprising. In order to be fair, one could always say that everyone has to follow said rules. Wolf said (and I agree) that this isn't strictly another "eras is a dick" thread, it's more about PRP as a whole, what we want from it and how it should be conducted. If eras actually is leaving, then this becomes all the more pertinant. The establishment of a new set of PRP rules for everyone might be a fair start. Alternatively, as Dragoon has been suggesting, appoint some kind of arbiter. Moderator/chairperson thing. Not easy to find one, I'll grant you (might be mest to make it two, so that one can participate while the other moderates), but if you aren't around to do it then someone else will have to. As for the unreasonably high standards of conduct, well perhaps they emerged accidentally, but that doesn't mean we should let them slip back into bad old habits. Yes, we had people worse than eras, I'm more than aware of that, but as Wolf has pointed out, we also had a much more active community to shout them down. Times have changed. Those of us who grew used to the civilised atmosphere would prefer to keep it. (Arguably, the same thing happened in Fanfiction. Before it lapsed, it was moving very much in the direction of long, high-quality posts as opposed to the old one-paragraph competition replies) Flibble: I was saying that visitors to PRP might see one person acting nuttier than a fruitbat and judge us all to be cut from the same cloth (huzzah for mixed metaphors!). Yes, it may take them a while to work out the factions at play here, but for everyone who stays to make the effort, someone is completely turned off and leaves. Also, read my posts already. I've already said that my enacted countermeasures don't have any sensible effect, they just make me feel better about a hopeless situation. Also 2, your metaphor about the scientific community: when someone doesn't adhere to the standards set, they are ignored, yes. They also lose their position, funding, status, publishing credibility and invitations to seminars and the like. In short, by 'excluding them from discussion,' they are banned from participating. Unless you're actually pushing for eras to be banned, your example is flawed. Also the third, what you're suggesting with post voting is basically a laborious version of Facebook's "like" feature. That's a terrible idea, not least because it requires more than seven active people and bizarrely does away with anonymity, not to mention being incredably vulnerable to tyranny of the majority. Addendum: Wolf's post here... That was inspired. I agree with everything he said.

Except that our argument isn't confined to that. It covers visitors to the site who won't know who to ignore, a belief in basic standards of debate, the simple fact that ignoring problems doesn't make them go away (you did see those pictures I posted, right?), the me-too spamming that's been going on in PRP and lately in General, the creation of banal threads which in themselves aren't so bad but taken together are... if not yet a flood then at least a wave. That and of course we shouldn't have to. This place has rules, polite society has codes of conduct, when they are violated we are not supposed to turn our heads and pretend it's not happening. And by the way Edric, your inbox is full. :P But I'd be happy to speculate somewhere else. Thought that occured to me for the first time on Monday: the Baron might not survive this.

A curious notion, but ultimately an unattractive one. While I make no secret of the fact that I enjoy immolating my foes, I am quite aware that it presents a less than positive view of the board to outsiders, and is, short of the satisfaction derived, mostly pointless. It's an action borne of frustration. I don't want to be frustrated all the time, and I certainly don't want to deal with eras'... suppositions all the time. Basically, as much as I enjoy it, I recognise that what I'm doing is bad for the board. I do it anyway because I see no alternative and because it would look equally bad for them to go unanswered. eras cannot be reasoned with. Wolf thinks he's a professional troll, Dragoon thinks he's he's just unreasonable, I think he simply lacks the intelligence to properly debate. Yet he just keeps spewing and spewing, we have to do something. Like Dragoon says, look what happens when we don't. I wonder how attachments work in this new forum. Trying it out now. Edit: Oh, that's how it works. Ok then.

'Evil' is a subjective term, so I'm hesitant to use it, but 'sadistic' has a clear definition: someone who enjoys the suffering of others. Fenring isn't sadistic, de Vries is practically the archetype of a sadist, but the most sadistic character in Dune is probably Rabban. The only reason de Vries could be 'worse' is because Rabban is essentially a thug while de Vries has the brainpower to evaluate just how to cause the most suffering. Mind you, I've forgotten nearly everything about the prequels, so it's possible that you're considering details which I am not (and do not plan to). I'll put the next part in spoiler tags in case you haven't read Dune, but if you have then there's nothing you won't already know.

1) I'll stop calling you a racist when you stop being a racist, deal? :) 2) See, everyone? This is what we get. Wolf is displaying an awe-inspiring degree of patience with this numbskull and what is he getting for his efforts? Prevarication and a complete disregard for the "how to make a point" explanation so kindly provided. Now, while Wolf may be charitable enough to work on the assumption that eracist understands our points and chooses to ignore them, I'm not so kind. I long ago came to the conclusion that he simply lacks the mental capacity to understand what we're saying (Wolf, you're using too many long words and complicated punctuation), and from the look of things I'm absolutely right. Even a parrot can repeat what it's told, but we're not even seeing that. 3) If you "understand what you are trying to say," eracist, then why don't you demonstrate it? Paraphrase the argument for us, or even find a counterpoint if you don't agree with it. Saying "I understand" is not the same thing as demonstrating comprehension. Wolf explained to you exactly where you're going wrong and your reply was "I understand" which in itself demonstrated a complete lack of understanding. Do you get that? Can you repeat it back to me? Or should I use smaller words? This is just another opportunity for you to prove that you aren't a dribbling moron, feel free to fail it as you did all the others.

Here's an idea, eracist: stop bleating about how mean we all are and prove that you are capable of holding a rational debate. Actions speak louder than words, y'know. That means doing your own research, showing comprehension of the opposition's arguments, structuring your rebuttals properly, following some degree of logic, staying on topic and, perhaps most importantly, having an argument to begin with. You don't do any of these things at the moment, you just vomit forth words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words without actually saying anything. Acting like someone with a brain is far more likely to get you treated like someone with a brain than whining about it. I might even start a topic for it. It could be an interesting arena to test Wolf's hypothesis. In the meantime, however, just be quiet while the adults are talking.

If I might take a point from Wolf's last post and run with it (which we seem to be doing a lot at the moment), there's something else that's been bothering me for a really long time. I joined Fed2k because the official Westwood/EA forum had gone down by the time I arrived, leaving only a placeholder directing visitors to Fed2k. If I remember correctly (and this was ten years ago, so it's possible that time has clouded my memory), this place was deigned the "official" site for Emperor. I believe even a developer or two has dropped by since then. Technically the game ladders are still hosted here, to the best of my knowledge, though granted hardly anybody plays these days. Fed2k is not just a social club, nor is it specifically a Dune site. Jacurutu has that covered. While this site has evolved beyond the games, we should not forget that this is still the online resource for people who could be interested in playing Emperor or Dune 2000, or even just looking at retro gaming itself. I'm not about to launch into a diatribe about how everything was better in the old days or how I remember when all of the Houses had their own sub-boards and strategy boards; clinging to the past like that always struck me as vaguely pathetic. No, my point is that, touching on what Wolf said about visitors to the site, anyone looking to join the (tiny, fragile) Emperor community is going to be met with "Brittany vs Lady Gaga" or, if they look a little deeper in PRP, bigotry and racism. This is not the kind of image we want to project, and it's not the kind of image that will encourage posting. I support free speech, but practically every free speech law has exceptions regarding harmful behaviour. Regardless of intent, this spate of zero-content posts and threads is harming the board. So let them post, but for the love of Louis Pasteur, moderate the content. Which brings me to another point. I agree that far more people are visiting this place than post here, and I suspect that some of those people are moderators. Those with access to the hidden forums would be able to confirm, I'm sure they must have had a few discussions on what to do about us down here in the visible world. But moderation just isn't happening as much. Now, let me first state that this is not intended as either a criticism or an accusation. One could realistically argue that, with less being said, it's understandable that moderator activity would be down. Likewise, low mod activity would probably correlate with low member activity. But. But but but. I don't think this is the case. While Edric has said that his absences are due to school, and lets face it he is the mod with the most enthusiasm for bashing heads in PRP, I suspect that many of the mods are just as tired of this crap as Wolf, Dragoon, Lord J and myself. In other words, I hypothesise that some moderators are observing this trend with a kind of resigned hopelessness, feeling unable to do anything about it and therefore not doing anything about it. Now hey, I might be wrong. Perhaps everyone's just busy and never visits anymore (Mahdi, care to sway the argument here?). If that is the case, and I don't think it is, additional moderators would be the answer. See, I have to agree with Wolf, PRP is crying out for a bit of discipline. Andrew's efforts are appreciated, don't think for a moment that I'm ungrateful, but I get the impression that he doesn't enjoy hanging out at the dingy southern end of the board. And yes, maybe moderators are hard to find, and yes, asking people to give up their time in order to herd cats is a bit rough, but that's how it's always been. Someone has to maintain the rules here. What happens when someone doesn't? You see the results all around. So, while we're on the subject, where can we next find some civilised disagreement?

Oh please, you can't even tell me what my arguments are, let alone why you think they're wrong.

eras, I apologise for eating the whole giraffe. Oh wait, we aren't apologising for things we didn't do? My mistake. You don't hurt my feelings, you offend every standard I possess. I seek intelligence and find incomprehension, I craft arguments and am met with mealy-mouthed nothings. You understand nothing, not even your own point of view, yet you persist in proclaiming your hollowness as though it has any worth. That might even be the most annoying thing, your complete lack of self awareness. Well, that and the dreadful grammar. And wretched understanding of history. Oh who am I kidding, trying to pick the worst part is an exercise in futility. But yipee, yet more people joining the forum who probably haven't even seen D2k, let alone know what it stands for. Fine, you want to bring "varied opinions," you do that. It'll be interesting to see if any of them have independent thought, and I could do with a linguistic workout. Will I play nice? Sure. I always play nice, until I'm given reason not to. But move forward together? No, just because you ignore what I say doesn't mean I never said it. You are scum, and it will take a truly legendary effort on your part to convince me otherwise. The platitudes you like to spout every so often don't cut it. I don't like you, I don't want to like you, and you are polluting the forum which, as you keep saying, I have been a part of for about a decade. I'm not even asking you to change anymore, I just want you gone. Out of sight, out of mind, doing whatever stupid things you do somewhere that isn't here. Now... to add to what Wolf said, it's true that back in zer olde days, PRP largely regulated itself. Spats and arguments got heated, certainly, but moderators were more active and there was usually someone around to call out the stupids. Often it was the moderators themselves. AND there were arguments with nuance. Points that were disagreed with, but not actually poor arguments. You don't see that anymore. These days there just aren't enough people and, frankly, those of us with any sense are just tired. We're tired of bashing our heads against brick walls of stupidity with no discernable effect. We've tried logic, we've tried weight of evidence, we've tried reasoned debate, we've tried ignoring it in the hope that it goes away, but these people just keep going. And, bringing in Dragoon's point, there is simply nothing left to do. Confrontation failed, ignoring failed. That's why I opted for venom: if everything you do is equally pointless then you might as well enjoy yourself. But if I might disagree with Wolf on this point: it's not that I'm happy to watch everything crumble because I get to insult people. It's that I see everything crumbling and don't see an alternative. I suppose you could say that I'm losing hope for this place. See Warlords? It's been very quiet of late. Know why? Because this place is just depressing.

I'm smarter than you. It's ok, you can say it. Wait, is this where we've been going wrong? All this time? No no no no no, you misunderstand me entirely. I don't want you to sit there and take it. I want you to leave. :) I count... three inaccuracies in that paragraph. Also two generally dubious statements and four instances of reframing the issue without directly lying. You talk a lot, but you don't actually say anything, do you? My problem with you is threefold, and can be listed thus: > You have a vastly inflated opinion of yourself and everything you say and do. > You're a bigot in every possible sense. > You're really, really, really stupid. Now, I'm not about to insist that you somehow magically become smarter, miracles can only do so much after all, and you are quite entitled to your bigotted opinions, you're not smart enough to understand my arguments to change them anyway. At the end of the day, regardless of intent, you're an incredibly negative presence on the board. And many people have tried many times to deal with that, through debate, through resoning, through evidence, whatever. After a while we just gave up and settled on vitriol. Now, I'd be happy to engage in rational debate, I really would, but you just don't seem capable. This recent spate of me-too spamming hasn't helped your case either. No, see, we tried. Look back, various people have tried and given up in disgust. The insults are just... leftovers. They help us cope with how pointless interaction with you is. You know why it's just you and ath here? Because nobody else can stand to talk to you. Doesn't that suggest to you, at all, that your behaviour is unwelcome? And that, perhaps, you'd get better reactions if you behaved differently? Call that a suggestion if you like. Regarding the topic at large, I've said before that I don't much care about ath's spamming. I find it easier to ignore than idiocy. But Wolf has a point, and he's being far more gentlemanly about it than I would. Something has to change. And statistically speaking, it's not us.

Yes.

I'm surprised Wolf didn't point this out, but perhaps he's just trying to concentrate on the argument at hand rather than your personal stupidity. Regardless, being uninvolved in the political process doesn't give you a greater right to criticise. In fact, it completely removes your right to criticise. You remove yourself from the process of ordering pizza, you lose the right to complain when it arrives with anchovies. You whine about the status quo, do nothing to change it and think that somehow grants you greater perspective to whine more? Grow up. So, who thinks Obama can use this to ride to victory in 2012?

Burial at sea is a valid option for muslims, but only when there's no family and no volunteers to accept the body. That the US didn't even try to find someone to accept the body for burial has gone over poorly in some quarters, even though (they claim) the body was treated with all the customary respect, including having someone to say the correct prayers over him. Having said that, there is a rumour that the US did ask Saudi Arabia (his place of birth, though he was denationalised in 1994) if they would like to take custody of the body. The Saudis vehemently refused. The US, and I use the term loosely now, as the decision would have been with only a handful of people, had a choice between keeping the body longer than 24 hours in order to find a place for it or finding someone else. Finding someone else would have taken time, and in any case, one thing they really didn't want is for any grave site to become a shrine or trigger for violence. Furthermore, finding someone else would have invited accusations of disrespect, of treating the body improperly, possibly even invited attacks to get it back. All in all, I think burial at sea was the best possible compromise. It technically followed muslim traditions, thus didn't anger the wrong people, and it removed the possibility of the body being used as a focal point for... well, anything. Not releasing the pictures, while fuelling conspiracy theories, is also probably for the best. The less people know, the less they have, the less power he has as a martyr. All in all, America took the civilised route, and it looks good. I might have preferred to see him taken alive, to be honest. It would have been a powerful statement, a broken old man standing trial in New York. ...But perhaps this is for the best. If he had his day in court, he could have used it as a springboard, could have shown continued defiance, acted as inspiration. Finally, have a gander at this: From Judson Philips, head of Tea Party Nation. Now I admit, I don't know just how much influence this group has. Whatever the Tea Party movement is, it is not centralised and does not have anything so organised as an official body to act as speaker for the rest. But this guy seems to have some sway, or at least some ability to have his words heard. And that's worrisome. The Obama administration took every pain to ensure that as few people as possible would be angry at treatment of the body, but this guy and others like him seem positively eager to fan the flames. It's like they want to be attacked. ...Which now that I think about it would make them martyrs. Maybe that's no so far from the truth.