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> "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com> <extropians@extropy.org> Tolerance for Dissent on ExtropiansDate: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 10:22:49 -0700
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>Michael Wiik writes
>
>> Thank goodness extropians only consider 2/3's of [these notions]
>> list to be appropriate targets.
>
>and to Eric Chen Yixiong, Joe Dees writes
>
>> Oh my. The extropians are not gonna like you. They are going
>> to call you a troll and a socialist.
>
>Each remark contains a strong note of complaint. In the
>first, Michael Wiik seems to be implying that pointed criticism
>of ideas is somehow inappropriate. Or is Michael referring to
>ad hominem attacks? If so, would he kindly produce examples?
>
There is, on this list, a roaming pack of socioculturally ludditic conservatives poorly disguised as libertarians, who routinely practice collective rugby scrum pile-on attacks on anyone they suspect might have possibly put forward something possessing the slightest whiff of the items Michael Wiik enumerates. These are the people who tend to impart a rather self-contradictory flavor to what is advertized as a forward-looking list, and are responsible for some progressives feeling that they have to keep their membership and participation here a 'dirty little secret', and for some others not tarrying long. Their jihadically intolerant take-no-prisoners blatantly memebotic scorched-earth warfare pogram has the unfortunate result of skewing the median, or at least the most vociferously and frequently enunciated, opinion of this list to a point somewhere between John Birch and William Pierce.
>
>And Joe Dees believes that soon Eric will be accused of being
>a troll. This is completely incorrect, if not paranoid. Very
>few people are accused of being trolls, and none are who provide
>reasoned discourse (such as Eric is doing).
>
I did not make the statement in question to Eric. However, I have been accused, by those trolling for progressives to slander, of trolling for retros to hand a reaming. Such sellf-righteous-wing people seem to have a highly developed sense of psychological projection which proves to be rootless with respect to logical coherency or factual reality. I have even been told by one fellow of such an ilk that I am in cahoots with and a relative of a person whom I have never met and who is not a relative of mine, so far as I know. Such bizarrities do not merely border on the absurd; they foursquare cross over and pitch a puptent on the property - as when someone tells me that they know what my name is and I do not; it is equally twilight-zone nonsensical when a pack of similarly enthralled zombic memebots attempted to mailbomb me off the list and when, rather than buckle under, I replied to their flood of posts (without initiating any myself) in kind, this droogie mob then attempt!
ed, in their own special zealously fervent and fanatical church-lady way, to engage in a revisionism of list history, easily refutable by recourse to the list archives, by accusing me of the mailbombing that they themselves engaged in against me, and attempting to blame me for the flood they directed to me, and to which I merely responded.
>
>And what the devil is this "accuse" you of being a "socialist"?
>That's making it sound as though being a socialist or having
>some socialist beliefs is a necessarily reprehensible view, or
>as though criticisms of those with socialist beliefs were
>devoid of real substance (but consisted only name-calling).
>
I understand what the person was saying even though I did not type the comment; this particular extremist clique uses words like 'liberal', 'socialist', 'collectivist', etc., or the more vague yet ominous "I know what you are", as if once they invoke these supposed curses, the person to whom they apply or misapply them is magically discovered, discredited and defeated.
>
>No one should expect to voice any view that is not subject to
>criticism, and to sometimes powerful, convincing, and yes,
>embarrassingly accurate criticism. It's the price that should
>be gladly paid in the free exchange of ideas.
>
At least I am often granted the amusement of receiving misapplied and ineffectual ad hominem epithets as if they actually said something about me rather than about their posters.
>
>Russell Blackford writes
>
>> I am uncomfortable about list rules. I think anyone should
>> be free to say pretty much what they like.
>
>Hear! Hear!
>
>> If someone becomes too annoying, he or she will simply get
>> universally plonked.
>
>Well, no. But that person should expect that fewer and fewer
>of his or her posts will actually be read.
>
>> Moreover, if offensive material is being posted the answer
>> is surely to reply with more speech, not to impose censorship.
>
>Absolutely!
>
>Lee Corbin
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