On November 08 2016 03:26 LegalLord wrote: So you're not fond of "what you actually said was B" "no it wasn't, I said A" "no, you said B" kind of semantic arguments?
What about posts with just a twit in them?
I also assume you are not fond of the "get owned kid, ur post just got destroyed" type of responses that follow the more aggressive brand of long posts.
pretty much. Tweets and posts from news sources and stuff are generally fine. A tweet from some rando making a stupid comment about politics is not.
On November 08 2016 03:52 zlefin wrote: I found Kwiz's counterpost to also be a good case. Quite informative, and the situation does seem clearer now having read the arguments of both sides. The solution is less clear, though several paths present themselves.
tofu -> you're a recent mod? aww, I didn't get to be a mod I highly recommend adding reasons next to all warnings/bans. The issue of strawmanning and counterstrawmanning is unfortunately a real one which has to be addressed sometimes in thread, or else it renders all discussion impossible. it is impossible to argue for or against an undefined proposition, so coming to a clear proposition is vital to making progress. So while you may not want that kind of discussion, some amount of it is necessary, and some judgments of it is necessary to ensure order in the thread.
No new staff was added, there was just some changing around of stuff recently which happens to include me getting mod powers.
On November 06 2016 23:24 kongoline wrote: from the front page of reddit, pretty good summary of Podesta emails
Well, clicking that was a mistake. I should have figured that by 'front page of reddit' you meant the_donald. That's probably the most unsubtle propaganda video I've seen in months.
On November 08 2016 01:25 GGTeMpLaR wrote: This is getting so hype 36 hrs from now we'll know who won
I think its safe to assume that 36 hours from now we'll know who won and there's a good chance someone will be saying some treasonous shit.
This is gonna be superspicy
No kidding. One of the undermentioned aspects of this election has been pushing just how far you can go with free speech. Trump has said seditious things. It's shocking that we've just accepted it as something that is okay to say.
I think you're overreacting
Seems to me they are both low-content posts (and the latter one, in fact, significantly lower). I am absolutely in favour of stricter moderation. I just want to understand what is being moderated.
I am not the only one moderating, but in this specific instance, TeMpLaR is stating his opinion without casually insulting the content of the post he responded to.
On November 08 2016 04:17 tofucake wrote: I am not the only one moderating, but in this specific instance, TeMpLaR is stating his opinion without casually insulting the content of the post he responded to.
Calling a turd a turd is not something that should be discouraged imho. But other than that, ggtemplar is not giving his opinion on the contents, but of the poster (who is overreacting), without saying why.
But fine. I'll just give up again on reporting anything and assume the status quo of haphazard moderation is intended.
I suppose I'll just hold you to moderating by those rules and see how well that works. I'm all for the initiative in principle at any rate. I just hope it will be reasonably fair, and time will tell if it is.
I don't feel that kwiz was strawmanning daunt's positions hard; he may've been using an undercharitable interpretation of things, but legal was using an overcharitable interpretation. having people be clear on what their position is will be an issue (especially if what someone says and what they say their position is do not match up)
On November 08 2016 06:31 zlefin wrote: I don't feel that kwiz was strawmanning daunt's positions hard; he may've been using an undercharitable interpretation of things, but legal was using an overcharitable interpretation. having people be clear on what their position is will be an issue (especially if what someone says and what they say their position is do not match up)
Yes, yes he was strawmanning them hard. When someone tells me that I'm arguing X, and I tell them that I'm arguing Y, and then that person insists that I'm arguing X, then that person is either 1) an imbecile, or 2) a troll. There is no grey area here.
EDIT: I went back and re-read the portion of the thread from June where the subject posts came up. My argument looks fairly clear to me, which is corroborated by the fact that LegalLord accurately recited it. That my argument was reframed by kwizach as an argument in favor of the "indiscriminate violence against civilians" is simply absurd (and a perfect example of outright dishonesty).
I know you believe that, and I disagreed. what a person meant to say, and what they in fact said, and what others read of what was said, can all differ. I don't know why you felt the need to restate your claim that he was strawmanning hard. I added this note because it provides some clarity, not mere restatement of an already known disagreement.
your analogy is also simply inapt, if someone states X, then claims they stated Y, without ever saying they misspoke or were unclear when they said X, but simply assert X and Y are the same, even though they are patently not, then we have a problem. You know what was in your mind, you know what you meant to say, we only know what you in fact said, and what we make of it. There are a great many shades of meaning available. the dispute here is over what was said, and what was meant by what was said, and there are many plausible interpretations, and often there is lot of ambiguity.
very clearly stated theses help of course.
a major part of the claim of the other side, is that you in fact repeatedly argued X, then afterwards claimed you argued Y when called out on it. You of course believe that is not true, but there may be some validity to the assessment nonetheless.
and re: legal's post below, I was looking at what he ACTUALLY said, and I do think you are DEFINITELY being overcharitable when looking at exactly what xdaunt actually said. You of course disagree.
How to handle the matter from a moderator perspective is another, more complicated question, which I leave to the mods, though there are several obvious paths, they are of course aware of them and have acted upon them.
Charity and ask for clarification are good; but they themselves have problems and limits.
I based my interpretation on a very literal and direct reading of his post. I'm not sure that "somewhere between aggressive and war crime but less than genocide" is a charitable interpretation but it is the one that a very literal reading of the referenced posts would give you.
At the end of the day we could all learn to live by the "charity rule" and "ask for clarification rule" and that includes myself. Too many of these discussions descend into a "I said you said" game of semantic squabbling and I want no more part in that.
On November 08 2016 07:22 zlefin wrote: I know you believe that, and I disagreed. what a person meant to say, and what they in fact said, and what others read of what was said, can all differ. I don't know why you felt the need to restate your claim that he was strawmanning hard. I added this note because it provides some clarity, not mere restatement of an already known disagreement.
your analogy is also simply inapt, if someone states X, then claims they stated Y, without ever saying they misspoke or were unclear when they said X, but simply assert X and Y are the same, even though they are patently not, then we have a problem. You know what was in your mind, you know what you meant to say, we only know what you in fact said, and what we make of it. There are a great many shades of meaning available. the dispute here is over what was said, and what was meant by what was said, and there are many plausible interpretations, and often there is lot of ambiguity.
very clearly stated theses help of course.
a major part of the claim of the other side, is that you in fact repeatedly argued X, then afterwards claimed you argued Y when called out on it. You of course believe that is not true, but there may be some validity to the assessment nonetheless.
and re: legal's post below, I was looking at what he ACTUALLY said, and I do think you are DEFINITELY being overcharitable when looking at exactly what xdaunt actually said. You of course disagree.
How to handle the matter from a moderator perspective is another, more complicated question, which I leave to the mods, though there are several obvious paths, they are of course aware of them and have acted upon them.
Charity and ask for clarification are good; but they themselves have problems and limits.
If your approach to the interpretation of what a poster says is to ignore that poster's interpretation of what he said and to insist that he in fact said something else, then you're part of the problem, too. Take a fresh look at these two statements:
Every great empire from antiquity onwards slaughtered civilians when necessary to pacify occupied lands.
If we're dealing with a society that is receptive to our ideas, sure. If the society is not so receptive, then it needs to be utterly destroyed first.
Both very clearly demonstrate an objective-based analysis to the issue of killing civilians. Virtually all of my other posts on the topic do the same. To contort that into "xDaunt advocates genocide" or "xDaunt advocates the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians" is simply outrageous. The posts that best illustrate the absurdity of these contortions are these, which no one has cited yet:
On June 11 2016 10:27 zlefin wrote: but it's not; it won't work, let alone work easily. do you concede that point, or are you contesting it?
It has worked very well historically.
...What?
Give me an example. I don't mean of a conventional war like WW2 where countries were in conflict, I mean where indiscriminate killing helped to defeat an organisation along the lines of ISIS.
Every great empire from antiquity onwards slaughtered civilians when necessary to pacify occupied lands.
If the United States were intending to forge an empire and "occupy" ISIS lands then you might have a point.
Since (as far as I know) the goal is for the people in the Middle East to govern themselves in such a way that they do not act against United States interests, an entirely different strategy is called for.
Did the US learn nothing from Vietnam?
The US hasn't fought to win since WW2. The lesson of Vietnam is don't bother half-assing wars.
On June 11 2016 10:43 Mohdoo wrote: If targetting terrorist families helped, sign me up. If it doesn't, don't do it. This should be verifiable and knowable so I don't understand how it is something debated.
And this is really the issue: are we willing to do what is necessary to win? If not, then we should GTFO.
So like I said, this stuff isn't debatable. And I'm simply going to report anyone who does it in the future.
Saying that a society that disagrees with us "must be utterly destroyed" can quite easily be read as "kill literally everyone", but I'm also only reading a single sentence.
On November 08 2016 08:11 tofucake wrote: Saying that a society that disagrees with us "must be utterly destroyed" can quite easily be read as "kill literally everyone", but I'm also only reading a single sentence.
Sure, there's arguably an ambiguity in that one sentence. That happens. My complaint is that people shouldn't take that ambiguity and use it to create some contorted argument out of whole cloth -- especially a very toxic argument -- where there are other posts that clearly illustrate what the larger point is and, especially, where clarification is later provided. Igne said it best a couple of months ago:
On September 01 2016 11:44 IgnE wrote: Instead of those Barrin rules we should just enforce the charity rule, where one side must interpret the other side's arguments as charitably as possible. This xDaunt vs the world argument goes on for way too long when xDaunt clearly lays out his argument on page like xx58 and kwark keeps quibbling with him about the definition of "disproportionately".
The thread degenerates into its shittiest states when people intentionally misrepresent the posts of others, because that's where the argument is no longer on the merits and becomes quite personal. I just want to make sure that the moderation staff fully appreciates the issue and will act on it in the future, which seems to be the case.
Well in the original quote, one reply back he was talking about "mass subjugation" which provides enough context to make it significantly below genocide.
I looked back to the entire history of xDaunt on this topic. The accusations of supporting genocide are frequent, but ultimately it's clear that what he was supporting is more akin to total war. Which is still a rather over-the-top suggestion that I myself didn't find it reasonable to defend, but it is a few steps removed from genocide and an inaccurate perception of the point addressed by him.
Certainly, there is a way it could be misconstrued and more clarity should be provided. But the way it happened it really just turned into a severe case of context-assumption. Which led to a long point on genocide that missed the point entirely.
Edit: tofucake, welcome to your first "what is racism" discussion as an active mod in the thread. You will enjoy it very much.
LegalLord, total war against a people who are not willing to surrender amounts to genocide. Total war brands every member of that nation an enemy, every child a future soldier who will inevitably pick up arms, every worker a cog in the machinery of war etc. The only reason WWII, which xDaunt cites as a model of fighting to win, didn't end in the extermination of the German people is that they put down arms after only losing 20% of their entire population in the struggle. Total war is no less than a reluctant attempt at genocide, a "we'll wipe you out to a man if that's what it takes to win but we hope you'll give up before then". And while genocide has undeniably effective results, as one can see in the very existence of the United States, it also has really shitty results, for example Ireland or Palestine. It creates wounds that fester for centuries.
It's a shortsighted and morally unacceptable solution to a problem which can be dealt with in better ways. Hell, Vietnam wasn't the only example of a communist guerrilla movement. The Malayan Emergency offered a different outcome with different tactics.
Well let me lay this to bed so that y'all have something to cite in the future when the topic comes up: I believe that a country should do whatever is necessary to win a war if it is engaged in a war. This may include "total war." The point is that strict "morality" or "legality" shouldn't be the main considerations. Winning should be. And to the extent that a nation is unwilling to do what is necessary to win, then it should get out/stay out of the conflict.
On November 08 2016 08:42 xDaunt wrote: Well let me lay this to bed so that y'all have something to cite in the future when the topic comes up: I believe that a country should do whatever is necessary to win a war if it is engaged in a war. This may include "total war." The point is that strict "morality" or "legality" shouldn't be the main considerations. Winning should be. And to the extent that a nation is unwilling to do what is necessary to win, then it should get out/stay out of the conflict.
That only raises further questions. Do you believe that if you're unwilling to torture infants to death if that's what it takes to win the war then you should just completely stay out of all wars? What if there is a moral principle at play? What if it's 1941 and you know the Holocaust is going to happen but you're not willing to nuke Berlin, if that's what it takes? Do you go to war and just hope it doesn't come to that? Because by your argument you'd be forced to say "as there are hypothetical measures I would not take in order to achieve victory then the Jews are just gonna have to burn, rip".
Hell, what if you applied this in all areas of your life. If you see a crime going on and you're not willing to become Batman then you shouldn't bother calling the police. What if we apply it to the rule of law? Logically all laws are imposed with the threat of death, if you disobey the laws then you enter the judicial system, if you fight the judicial system you lose your freedom at the point of a gun, if you fight the gun you die. Does that mean if you're considering making a law against jaywalking you need to ask yourselves "Are we prepared to kill someone who refuses to stop jaywalking and fights us on it? Because if we're not we cannot pass this law."? The answer "no" is fine, you just enforce the law the 99.9999% of the time that someone isn't willing to die over it and if anyone would rather die than stop doing it then you make an exception for them and look the other way because you're not completely insane.
The vast majority of the times half measures are sufficient, not everything has to be black and white. You should make a realistic estimate of what you expect the measures needed to win the war are and go off of that. And if that estimate turns out to be wrong then simply reevaluate with the new estimate. And if the new estimate calls for things you're unwilling to do then simply back out and "lose".
I understand the appeal of "only go to war if you will do whatever it takes to win" but that leaves no middle ground between absolute insanity, literally advocating for genocide if that's what it takes, and pure pacifism. The world cannot operate like that. Nations cannot operate like that.
On November 08 2016 08:42 xDaunt wrote: Well let me lay this to bed so that y'all have something to cite in the future when the topic comes up: I believe that a country should do whatever is necessary to win a war if it is engaged in a war. This may include "total war." The point is that strict "morality" or "legality" shouldn't be the main considerations. Winning should be. And to the extent that a nation is unwilling to do what is necessary to win, then it should get out/stay out of the conflict.
That only raises further questions.
Of course it should.
Do you believe that if you're unwilling to torture infants to death if that's what it takes to win the war then you should just completely stay out of all wars?
On November 08 2016 08:42 xDaunt wrote: Well let me lay this to bed so that y'all have something to cite in the future when the topic comes up: I believe that a country should do whatever is necessary to win a war if it is engaged in a war. This may include "total war." The point is that strict "morality" or "legality" shouldn't be the main considerations. Winning should be. And to the extent that a nation is unwilling to do what is necessary to win, then it should get out/stay out of the conflict.
Do you believe that if you're unwilling to torture infants to death if that's what it takes to win the war then you should just completely stay out of all wars?
EPT
