Apology
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I like free speech.
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Who was this?
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@brad The clearly defined and minimalist structure you've created for the forum (only two rules) and, within that structure, giving meaningful expression to free speech (e.g., Lol-ing rather than banning "f&!k you"...) are much appreciated. Long may it continue.
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@LetTheRedeemed I appreciate your posts and hope the most interesting forum members keep posting energetically and substantively. I take seriously your concern that offensive or politically incorrect content posted on this forum may cause forum members we would like to continue contributing to leave. That is a serious tradeoff to consider when advocating, like I am, in support of brad's minimalist structure with only two rules (allowing offensive posts to continue).
I think my preferences match yours to a large degree--about which forum members' posts to read and wishing to see a greater proportion of informative rather than shit-posts/fighting . But no matter how well-intentioned, adding more rules/restrictions would, in my view, risk a lot more than is lost because of the minimalist two-rule structure at present. See RPF. There is surely a place for virtuous anger, polemics, speculation, challenging Ray's ideas, or finding new links/understandings/context (possibly offensive to some) related to Ray's ideas.
The current structure is good in my view. More rules aren't needed. The structure we're looking for will be ours to create voluntarily. Coercion not needed. .
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@Kvirion I read your post on the other thread you linked to, where you argued that more "structure" in the form of new rules and stricter forum moderation would be needed to avoid this forum becoming "chaotic". You wrote: "a system (like a forum) without constraints and attractors will always be in permanent high chaos."
I am sympathetic to this theory. But I think you're overstating things, drawing a false dichotomy (chaos versus whatever makes a meaningful/interesting Ray-Peat/bioenergetic forum), and missing the most valuable sources of structure that the forum already has (and/or has the potential of). In the mathematical theories of dynamical systems with emergent structure (which I think you're obliquely referring to), there are some exogenous structural features that modelers impose from on high (analogous to forum rules set by a forum admin/founder). Most of the interesting action in those models, however, is "emergent", based on the choices that agents in those models make (akin to how we forum members decide to allocate attention, what to respond to and, most importantly, what to post).
It's of course your choice to avoid this forum if the content (jointly caused by forum rules and the emergent structure created voluntarily by members and their interaction) doesn't adhere to the prescriptive principles you called for. I hope you stay! In the spirit of respectful debate, I wanted to note that, although my preferences over the style of forum content matches yours substantively, I would strongly argue against imposing rules to bring about the desired forum content (which we share, but disagree about procedurally). Hoping those of you forum members calling on brad for more rules/regulation will see what that risks and why the minimalist two-rule forum structure is more than enough for forum members to go forth and generate meaningful and abundant future forum structure with the content of our posts.
Let's be productive anti-entropic agents without asking the admin for the curtailment of speech you're asking for here:
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Therefore, It would be good to conceive some enabling constraints (guidelines) and emphasize that the main attractor is an educational exchange about bioenergetics as a medicine and philosophy...
That can be done with the help of pinned posts, FAQs, and proper moderation.
Examples of enabling constraints:
Forum entries should be
substantive and respectful
with minimal or no personal name-calling
without informal fallacies like a straw man, etc...
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@noodlecat59, a sane separatist. I hope they return.
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I agree the forum should lean more towards free speech absolutism as Brad is doing, but there's very obviously a lot of shitposting going on. How do you deal with that? Drown it out with higher quality posts I guess? I don't know, it's a very hard line to straddle if you want to keep free speech absolutism and not turn into a Charlie.
I did find that moderator making power moves very strange, even though I hate some of the shitposters around here.
Why is it that moderator positions always seems to get filled by people that abuse and over use their mod power? I guess the position is just attractive to people who want to do that.
Which is why I think those positions should be more vetted and given to people who DON'T want them. -
@Hearthfire said in Apology:
there's very obviously a lot of shitposting going on
Not that much.
@Hearthfire said in Apology:
How do you deal with that?
Fuck with them, constructively. Or whatever you would do in real life.
@Hearthfire said in Apology:
Why is it that moderator positions always seems to get filled by people that abuse and over use their mod power? I guess the position is just attractive to people who want to do that.
Which is why I think those positions should be more vetted and given to people who DON'T want them.I wouldn't describe NShan's actions as "abuse" but still understand and agree in the question. Here now there's something resembling a perfect arrangement. "Moderators" can be "moderated" from above, below or beside.
I could go crazy right now. You'd all throw shit at me and brad would cut my head off.
Fundamentally I'm here to talk. The only thing I'm prone to "moderate" is bot/GPT activity.
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In the mathematical theories of dynamical systems with emergent structure (which I think you're obliquely referring to)
No, those "mathematical theories of dynamical systems" apply only to the particles on a physics level.
I'm writing about biological Complex Adaptive (eco)Systems instead. Moreover, the anthropological complexity of humans adds another level/layer of complexity to it - and it cannot be modeled or predicted. (We are more than ants...). See No Laws Entail Evolution or Computational Irreducibility.But let's get to the point. Chaotic systems usually don't like to stay this way, after some time of interactions, some constraints emerge. But such constraints are usually suboptimal and temporary - they evolve! (systems are far from equilibrium) Some of such systems survive most collapses.
But enough theory, let's get practical.
If we allow an ecosystem (like this forum) to be almost totally free, then some "wild" spontaneous constraints will emerge with time but in most cases, they will be suboptimal. i.e., promote local optima like the most brutal or outspoken/heated, but not the most in-depth discussions. Or they can create cliques or "movements" like anit-VA RPF. This will discourage more calm/peaceful/gentle/thoughtful users from participating (as many others warned).
Therefore, it would be much better to consciously and thoughtfully create enabling constraints that will support wise discussion in the spirit of Ray Peat before the wild constraints emerge spontaneously...
And by constraints, I don't mean the bars of the cage, but the scaffolding that helps the grapes grow...
So, the choice is easy, we can have a free forum, which in time will become free from in-depth discussion, or a forum that will proactively encourage and nurture honest wisdom exchange.
And we have a lot of practical examples of such.
A free (unregulated) market of food became a market of most cheap and toxic i.e. PUFAs, pesticide-loaded fast food...
A free market of Internet ideas became mainly a tribal conflict of superficial ideas and marketing deceptive click-bait articles...
A free market of research papers journal points promotes the most politically correct articles, not the most insightful/innovative.As we all remember Ray was non-violent, joyful, wise, and generous in his discussions. Let's keep it this way.
Free doesn't mean free from effort. True liberty requires a lot of conscious work...
Panta rhei... | Liberté 🏴 | It depends... ;-)
A little Learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
~Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism -
@Kvirion based comment… took the words right outta my mouth
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"True liberty requires a lot of conscious work." - Kvirion
Thank you.
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@T-3 I used to think like that, but I became compelled by the state of entropy yielding lower quality outcomes — and determined instead, that one must rely on a first principle of incredibly sacrificial discipline, to yield anything sustainable and worth while.
Good ideas need to Win. they don’t do so adhearing to libertarian principles — I’ve yet to see a libertarian president. Their current strategy is 150 years of education to fellow nerds about the advantages of libertarianism, lol.
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Thank you @ThinPicking and @LetTheRedeemed. Glad we're sharing that point of view and values.
@ThinPicking - I like that movie too!
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Bunch of crying losers in this thread, all that energy generated and you guys are using it for this?
Thank God that @Brad, a level-headed person, is in charge of this forum and not any of you people. Anonymity and freedom of speech remains king above all.
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@The-New-Sun You either don't have a well adjusted life full of women and children (where you call everyone nigger and look for jews behind every bush), or you live another life online.
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@LetTheRedeemed As I said before, thank God a level-headed person runs this forum and not a longhoused freak like you.
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The proverbial longhouse means running a society on feminine methods of advancement and social cohesion.
An honor society would crush your skull in for disrespecting it's members.
learn the difference.
The honorary and the sacred have been staple virtues of the most patriarchal societies for thousands of years.
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@LetTheRedeemed This is an internet forum regarding bioenergetics, the last thing it needs is people spouting their glorified ideals and enforcing censorship or a conform to a particular order of thought.
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Correct, regarding bioenergetics... Running off normies with inflammatory language that does nothing to improve discussions relating to bioenergetics, isn't bioenergetics.
Honestly this convo need go no further than asking the hypothetical question, "what would any of the scientists/Ray Peat (the folks who developed the concepts this forum exists for), have to say about the deconstruction of high thought, with culture war inflammatory talk?" and if they banned inflammatory language, no one would complain and the ability to vigorously debate the topic would still be possible...
look, I don't think youtube or twitter should ban people for saying the "n-word," they are sold to the public on the auspices of total free speech where a word no matter how bad, can be argued over. If they were institutions for discussing a specific topic, like this forum, then freedom to speak inflammatory words is not germane to that specific topic -- only the right to disagree with said topic ought to be held in high regard, and this maintains the functional value of free speech (disagreement), without obvious emotional derailments, thus maintaining a professional environment.
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@T-3 Thank you!
