TSR Giantlands

[Mistwell]

I have no problem answering that. First, I didn't post there for years.

Surely it was more than one year you were posting there, wasn't it?

Secondly, if you remember I was very explicit in the reason I quit posting there years ago was because he and others seemed to be intent on defending bigotry. Even me from from almost ten years ago, who was flat out wrong on some of my own beliefs, couldn't stomach what it was becoming. Onehorsetown, a mod at the time, asked me to stay to act as a counter voice but it was getting really bad. It's exponentially worse since then.

So you communicated back and forth with him, even when you already knew he was behaving that way, for a time. And it got to the point where you couldn't do that anymore, but it took quite a while. Certainly it was many months.

But you will judge others who have not gotten to that point, though they've been communicating with him less than you did so far, because....?

So unlike you, I actually refused to be part of a group that welcomes blatant white nationalism and misogyny and I left. There are posters there now who flat out take pride in being a bigot as a badge of honor. I want no part of that.

I am not "part of a group" by staying there and refuting what they say when they say it. THAT is the authoritarianism I was talking to Dire Bare about. That implication right there, that by staying and fighting for what I think is right somehow taints me with their views, is toxic. That is not what Popper advocated, that is not how the marketplace of ideas works, that's not what freedom of association means, and that is not a "righteous" position. I am not calling you a coward for quitting - we all have our limits. But I have not reached my limit yet and that should be fine by you and not something you're implying makes me "part of a group" that you were "part of" for quite some time yourself.

 

[Mistwell]

All those lazy folks expressing their upset over toxic, racist, and sexist words and actions! This is a message-board discussion, posting angry thoughts, memes, and tweets is what we do.

Naw you seem to be conflating social media with this message board. Memes and tweets isn't that common here. We discuss things, even things we disagree about. Usually civilly and usually in depth and even point by point. It's the advantage message boards have over some other social media platforms.

There's been plenty of more meaningful discussion in all of these TSR threads too, in case you somehow missed it all.

Those who choose to go into the lion's den and directly confront the toxic elements in our fandom within their own dank corners of the intertubes . . . well, more power to them I suppose, but judging those who choose to stay away from all that toxicity is pretty misplaced.

I am not judging anyone for staying away. I am pissed that people are saying or implying that engaging somehow taints them with the toxicity merely for engaging.

 

[Mistwell]

Who cares who set it? It is still an incredibly low bar.

I care who set it when you outright claim to me about me quoting me that I am the one who set the bar that low and then are unwilling to correct the error when it's pointed out.

 

[Bolares]

Naw you seem to be conflating social media with this message board.

this message board is literally social media

 

[Mistwell]

Sometimes other people say things better than I might. And why should I bother wasting time writing a big dissertation to say the exact same thing?

That's fair. Just don't ding the people who are saying those things better than you might. It's hard enough to fight the good fight when the people on your own side give you crap for supposedly "joining that group" or "knowingly being around those toxic people" as if fighting the fight is the same as joining the other side.

Especially when devil's advocates sea lions are just going to keep ignoring it in order to support some mythical marketplace of ideas wherein terrible bigotry must be treated as equal to all other positions.

The marketplace of ideas isn't mythical. It's what actually changes minds. NOBODY is advocating that terribly bigotry be treated as "equal to all other positions." I don't put the same effort into refuting "all other positions" as I do to refuting "terrible bigotry." It's the backing out from refuting them, and acting like they should simply be dismissed and anyone who comes anywhere close to them should be dismissed, that's treating them special. Refuting "terrible bigotry" requires more hard work and effort, not less. Hand waiving it as "well that's toxic so I will let someone else deal with that, and might make their lives harder for even trying to deal with that" is more akin to treating it as "equal to all other positions."

I get that for you this is an interesting philosophical discussion on how people should treat each other and how even the worst of us deserve some measure of respect, for the rest of us it's just a person defending bigots and bigotry.

No, they don't "deserve" respect, the argument deserves respect because of the people watching it. Because the only way to make things better is to engage, and not with anger and dismissiveness and righteousness (though I feel those things plenty) but with reasoned discourse.

The idea that we shouldn't even talk to bigots is toxic. That's how bigots win. That's how you cede the ability to communicate to those who are open to being persuaded, to the worst messages.

No one here I was calling for the pundit to be killed. We're not calling for violence against him or bloodshed. The people that he supports on the other hand... The people who you continually defend... The issues that you continually attempt to conflate...

Your equivocation is misguided at best.

I have not "defended" the people he "supports" and I challenge you to find one single quote from me backing up that accusation. YOU are conflating my engaging with them, and my saying that association with a person does not taint you with the views of that person, with somehow supporting those views. And I am saying that is toxic. Your refusal to make a distinction between a person with bad views, and a person communicating with them, is as you put it "misguided at best." Though I prefer the term lazy.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Surely it was more than one year you were posting there, wasn't it?



So you communicated back and forth with him, even when you already knew he was behaving that way, for a time. And it got to the point where you couldn't do that anymore, but it took quite a while. Certainly it was many months.

But you will judge others who have not gotten to that point, though they've been communicating with him less than you did so far, because....?

Two points. Back then, it wasn't nearly as bad, and there were many posters (and even mods, like the aforementioned OHT) we did not subscribe to his message. It started getting worse and worse, which is what drove most of us out who didn't want to be part of that. Even me, who held on to some questionable beliefs myself back then*. That was more than 5 years ago. In that five years, it's escalated exponentially, to the point where posters are bragging about being bigots, and others have called for the eradication and violence towards the "mentally ill woke leftists out to ruin the game". I could give you a perfect analogy, but again, that would be a political analogy of how group dynamics have changed over the past decade. I'll just say that after all this time, if someone still likes to frequent that group when those types of comments are made? Yeah, I feel comfortable judging that.

I am not "part of a group" by staying there and refuting what they say when they say it. THAT is the authoritarianism I was talking to Dire Bare about.

You are an active member of that group. Currently. so yeah, you are "part of that group" regardless of what you tell yourself. It's the literal definition of being part of that group. So when I say "unlike you", that means I am no longer part of there, haven't been for years, and you still are. That's not a comment about your character, it's a comment that unlike you, I am no longer an active poster there. That's it. Accusations of engaging in authoritarianism by making an observably accurate statement? You're a smart guy. Smarter than this.

*For those that care, transparency is important to me, so to be transparent, I was raised in a rural farming religious family and spent time in the military right after. So when I got out, I considered myself a conservative. However, being an analytical logical thinker, when I was presented with new objective information to analyze, I realized I held some incorrect assumptions and beliefs, and around 2007ish went from conservative to independent, and by 2015 was pretty far into supporting progressive ideals. Fairness and equality are important, and over the past decade, it's clear which "side' supports that and which are fighting against it.

 

[Riley]

I am not "part of a group" by staying there and refuting what they say when they say it. THAT is the authoritarianism I was talking to Dire Bare about. That implication right there, that by staying and fighting for what I think is right somehow taints me with their views, is toxic.

Mistwell,

Perhaps you could define this “authoritarianism” that you are accusing us of? It seems a fairly nebulous concept, divorced from the common political concept

Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of a strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.[1] Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government.[1] Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchicin nature and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.[2][3]

In an influential 1964 work,[4] the political scientist Juan Linz defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities:

1. Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.
2. Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency".
3. Minimal political mobilization, and suppression of anti-regime activities.
4. Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.[5][6]

Minimally defined, an authoritarian government lacks free and competitive direct elections to legislatures, free and competitive direct or indirect elections for executives, or both.[7]

Authoritarianism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It also seems fairly divorced from Authoritarian personality or Mirriam-Webster definition of authoritarian

1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authorityhad authoritarian parents
2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the peoplean authoritarian regime

Definition of AUTHORITARIAN

of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority; of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

 

[billd91]

And it is of my opinion that the person who fosters and encourages that behavior is at some point culpable. I do not buy into the "I was just playing a personality" or "We're entertainment, not news, and any reasonable person should know what we say is so outrageous it shouldn't be believed" defenses.

Yeah, that's an utterly bogus defense because even when their broadcaster says "They have no credibility. No reasonable person would believe them," it's obvious that their broadcaster intends for their shows to influence people and their opinions.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I am not "part of a group" by staying there and refuting what they say when they say it. THAT is the authoritarianism I was talking to Dire Bare about. That implication right there, that by staying and fighting for what I think is right somehow taints me with their views, is toxic. That is not what Popper advocated, that is not how the marketplace of ideas works, that's not what freedom of association means, and that is not a "righteous" position. I am not calling you a coward for quitting - we all have our limits. But I have not reached my limit yet and that should be fine by you and not something you're implying makes me "part of a group" that you were "part of" for quite some time yourself.

Authoritarianism has nothing to do with people shaming you for interacting with someone, or even discouraging it. It's entirely about the state exercising unchecked power. I'm pointing this out because for someone who's interested in people avoiding the extreme poles of discourse you're repurposing some of the worst examples of bad faith, both-sides rhetoric.

You think the people I talk to suck? Well you must be an Authoritarian, cause...those are, like, bad people, right? And apparently when a private citizen who isn't in government tells another private citizen to shut up that's about free speech? Let's just cut the chase and rail against the dreaded Woke Mob!

Only other thing I'd note is that just as you've thrown yourself into a one-person-vs.-everyone-else battle royale (and one that has the unfortunate requirement that you keep saying you don't like all of this guy's opinions...) consider the fact that being the lone voice of reason among Pundit's fans is not necessarily helping anything. More grist for the mill, more reasons to keep them animated and assured that their positions are worth arguing for.

 

[Mistwell]

Oh. And as to Popper?

Dude was right about the Tolerance of Intolerance. Dude was wrong about constantly debating fascists and bigots, though. You can't debate them any more than you can talk someone out of a cult. Giving them a platform to make baseless claims and bad faith arguments just gets their message out.

But you can and people have. Popper did. It was his entire thesis. Twisting his tolerance of intolerance idea to be something it was not is not wisdom.

It's just hard work and requires education and practice.

Never debate a Bigot. He'll probably never concede and no matter how ridiculous his positions are, he'll still manage to convince a part of the audience of his claims. Especially since you're giving him a position of presented equal authority and reasonability.

You're not trying to change the mind of the bigot. You're trying to change the mind of the people watching the debate. If your view were the view of everyone throughout history, the bigots would have won every time. I mean, the Scopes Monkey Trial couldn't have happened if people took your position. Your position, to me, looks like the easy way out. Your position to me looks like "It's hard work, so why bother." You're not giving someone a position of equal authority and reasonability by debating them - they already have that position before you arrived, because they already have people on the fence listening to them and not hearing the other side. You're simply ceding that communication platform to them by being dismissive.

You cannot accept Intolerance in a Tolerant society. Not in a political space, not in a public space. It must be shunned and silenced with no quarter given. No measure of debate, no line of reasoning, no moment's hesitation. Savagely curtailed, and shamed for it's temerity, is the only way to defeat it. Anything else gives it soil to grow in.

This is a laughably wrong position which isn't supported by any history except maybe Maoist China and Stalinist Russia. Public spaces MUST accept intolerant views in order to be a free society. Acceptance doesn't mean agreement - it does mean however that freedom includes putting up with the existence of people who we deeply disagree with. But the heart of freedom of speech and assembly and press and the entire first amendment and liberalism itself embodies the idea that the political and public space must allow for the existence of intolerant and objectionable and offensive views. Only authoritarians believe otherwise. You've put yourself into the position of puritanical orthodoxy.

I sure hope you don't call yourself a liberal. Because what you wrote could have been written by any authoritarian in any era. Pick your Cultural Orthodoxy from any society in any era and they would have agreed with you with the same fervor.