If you're interested in exploring older computer technology, there are a few options available:

Emulation:
These systems are software-based and require no soldering.

1. Hercules System/370 emulator. You can run this on a Raspberry Pi. MVS 3.8j (circa 1980) is the latest IBM OS that can be legally run at no cost. On YouTube, user Moshix has a wealth of information on installing, configuring
and running your very own mainframe system. No soldering is required.

2. SiMH. This is an emulator for a number of older computers, including the
DEC PDP series and can be easily run on a Raspberry Pi. No soldering is required.

Emulation Kits:
These kits require some soldering skill, but the amount of soldering required is not as much as the full-blown kits.

3. PiDP-8. This is a SiMH PDP-8 emulator running on a Raspberry Pi, the difference being that it's a hardware kit that allows the Pi to blink LEDs
and monitor switches on the 1/3-scale front panel. Just like a real DEC
PDP-8, the many lights represent the internal status of the various registers and the switches are used to start and stop the processor, deposit into or examine memory locations, etc. Also like a real PDP-8, it supports telnet connections, serial connections, even teletype connection if you so wish. Soldering is required, for both electrical connections and structural
support.

4. PiDP-11. Like the PiDP-8, this is a Pi-powered SiMH emulator running with a custom 1/3-scale display panel, this time for a DEC PDP-11. The PDP-11 was the birthplace of UNIX, and there are early versions of UNIX included with the software that accompanies the kit, as well as other PDP-11 OSs of the era. Soldering is required, for both electrical connections and structural support.

Full-blown Kits:
These kits require soldering every socket, transistor, diode, resistor, capacitor, and connector onto the supplied boards.

5. Z80 Membership Card. This is a
Z80-based computer that fits inside of an Altoids tin. Like the PiDP kits, it is programmable from the front panel but you can also connect it to a
computer via USB and access a text-based interface providing an assembly language monitor and BASIC. There's no mass storage available, but if you can capture and resend your BASIC listing with whatever serial terminal you're using, you can save your programs (and output) that way. It also supports uploading and downloading assembly language files.

6. Altaid 8800. This is a clone of the iconic Altair 8800 that fits into an Altoids tin. It's somewhat similar to the Z80 Membership card with the exceptions that it has PDP-like LED arrays versus the Z80 MC's 7-segment display, and it uses an Intel 8080 processor instead of a Zilog Z80.

7. 1802 Membership Card. This kit is similar to the Z80 MC and Altaid 8800,
but has an LED display like the Altair 8800, physical switches rather than buttons, uses an RCA 1802 processor instead of an Intel or Zilog one, and comminucates with the outside world via a DB25 serial connection rather than USB.

8. Harlequin ZX Spectrum clone. This option is the closest in look and feel
to the earliest commercial home computers. It's a 100% compatible ZX Spectrum clone that has a built-in rubber keyboard and connects to a television set.

I do not sell any of these, but can help you find them if you have
difficulty. I've personally used Hercules and SiMH and built the PiDP-8, PiDP-11, Z80 Membership Card, and several Harlequins. I have Altaid 8800 and 1802 MC kits waiting to be built.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Jeff wrote to All <=-

If you're interested in exploring older computer technology, there are
a few options available:

There's also SDL2TRS for the Raspberry Pi - turn a Pi into a TRS-80.

and

The various RC2014 systems (for those who are more experienced as soldering).


... What principles? I'm trying to get elected!
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On 08 Jan 2022, Dr. What said the following...

There's also SDL2TRS for the Raspberry Pi - turn a Pi into a TRS-80.
and
The various RC2014 systems (for those who are more experienced as soldering).

Thanks! I'll look into these.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Believe it or not we still ue and old TRS-80 where I work. Its runs an old propriatary engraving machine. Its has 2 5" floppies. Still runs like a champ.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/04/08 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

Cozmo wrote to Dr. What <=-

Believe it or not we still ue and old TRS-80 where I work. Its runs an
old propriatary engraving machine. Its has 2 5" floppies. Still runs
like a champ.

Many of these old systems were built like tanks and, with the exception of a blown cap every 20 years or so, tend to just run - if kept in a nice environment.

Did you know that the Z80 processor is *still* being manufactured today?
You can also still get 6502 processors new as well today.

Good designs are good designs and will stand the test of time.



... I got everything but the part after "Now listen closely".
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Jeff wrote to Dr. What <=-

On 08 Jan 2022, Dr. What said the following...

There's also SDL2TRS for the Raspberry Pi - turn a Pi into a TRS-80.
and
The various RC2014 systems (for those who are more experienced as soldering).

Thanks! I'll look into these.

For SDL2TRS, the hard part was locating copies of the ROMs for the TRS-80 models. There was a guy on eBay who was providing a service of selling an SD card with everything set up. Just pop it into a Pi and off you go.

I ended up getting a little 3D printed TRS-80 Model I case to put it in. Just for grins.


... I am the Shopping Cart that nicks at your paint-job.
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Many of these old systems were built like tanks and, with the exception
of a blown cap every 20 years or so, tend to just run - if kept in a nice environment.

Yes it is built like a tank. Replaced a floppy drive a few years ago. The thing just keeps running. We had purchased a couple other TRS-80's to have for spare parts just in case.

The engraving program that runs on it is written in BASIC. Every once in a while somone will go into the code and and something funny to screw with people.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/04/08 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Lunatics Unleashed BBS (21:3/135)

Did you know that the Z80 processor is *still* being manufactured today? You can also still get 6502 processors new as well today.

Good designs are good designs and will stand the test of time.

Both great processors for their time, but I always preferred the Z80 over the 6502 for firmware/software development. I'm not really sure why: the instruction set was dreadfully asymmetric and its timings more amenable to register operations than bus requests. It had some nice DRAM, 16-bit ALU, and indexing features, but this made the Z80 an easy chip to program and an
equally difficult one to master. The Z80 was definitely a chip you learned twice: the intuitive way, and then the 'best' way. From a hardware
perspective, the Z80's diverse/cycle-intensive architecture gave it a particularly 'busy' bus signature that made it difficult to integrate into uncontested designs. This little beauty just didn't want to play with its friends; it was often said that the Z80 even ate its lunch on the bus.

The 6502 in contrast, with its memory-centric design and limited instruction set, offered a simpler programming paradigm and a far more amenable bus signature; if your memory logic was fast enough, designing an uncontested/interleaved system was relatively straightforward.

For my money though, the 68K family sits upon its throne as the rightful king of the retro processors: large linear memory model (MMU a later option), extensive instruction set, beautifully orthogonal, tons of registers, a great bus signature, and an absolute joy to program.

o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
TALIADON | 2:250/6 | 21:3/138 | TALIADON-BBS@MAIL.COM | o-----------o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Dr. What to Cozmo on Sun Jan 09 2022 03:12 am

Did you know that the Z80 processor is *still* being manufactured today?
You can also still get 6502 processors new as well today.

Z80s are so ubicuous that somebody made a post-apocalypse operating system intended to run on Z80s, because in some post apocalyptic scenario, Z80s would be among the most common processors to find:

http://collapseos.org/

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Arelor wrote to Dr. What <=-

Z80s are so ubicuous that somebody made a post-apocalypse operating
system intended to run on Z80s, because in some post apocalyptic
scenario, Z80s would be among the most common processors to find:

So you're saying that the Z80s are sort of like cockroaches. 8)


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Hello Arelor!

** On Saturday 08.01.22 - 17:21, Arelor wrote to Dr. What:

Z80s are so ubicuous that somebody made a post-apocalypse operating system intended to run on Z80s, because in some post apocalyptic scenario, Z80s would be among the most common processors to find:

http://collapseos.org/

What does one *do* with a Z80 at a post-apocalyptic time? I
would imagine that there would be more important things to deal
with.


--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: Ogg's WestCoast Point (21:4/106.21)

Re: Computer Kits
By: Ogg to Arelor on Sun Jan 16 2022 11:03 am

Hello Arelor!

** On Saturday 08.01.22 - 17:21, Arelor wrote to Dr. What:

Z80s are so ubicuous that somebody made a post-apocalypse operating syst intended to run on Z80s, because in some post apocalyptic scenario, Z80s would be among the most common processors to find:

http://collapseos.org/

What does one *do* with a Z80 at a post-apocalyptic time? I
would imagine that there would be more important things to deal
with.

I think the point is that, after having vanquished all the zombies and aliens, the three people left on Earth will want to rebuild a computer. That is where Collapseos kicks in (in theory).

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On 16 Jan 2022, Ogg said the following...

What does one *do* with a Z80 at a post-apocalyptic time? I
would imagine that there would be more important things to deal
with.

I have no idea. But a 6502, on the other hand... That could be used to build
a T-800 Terminator!

https://eeggs.com/items/19003.html

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

What does one *do* with a Z80 at a post-apocalyptic time? I
would imagine that there would be more important things to deal
with.

I think the point is that, after having vanquished all the zombies and aliens, the three people left on Earth will want to rebuild a computer. That is where Collapseos kicks in (in theory).

If I were any good at sodering, this alone would get me curious enough to
try one of the Z80 kits. :)



... So easy, a child could do it. Child sold separately.
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I think the point is that, after having vanquished all the zombies and aliens, the three people left on Earth will want to rebuild a computer. That is where Collapseos kicks in (in theory).

Because we will need processors to find fresh water and food, and medicine, and to treat disease...

I think a lot of people now are so engrossed in the virtual world, they think it *IS* the world. Reminds me of all these people trying to fix social problems with apps...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Hello Arelor!

** On Sunday 16.01.22 - 14:20, Arelor wrote to Ogg:

http://collapseos.org/

What does one *do* with a Z80 at a post-apocalyptic time? I
would imagine that there would be more important things to deal
with.

I think the point is that, after having vanquished all the zombies and aliens, the three people left on Earth will want to rebuild a computer. That is where Collapseos kicks in (in theory).

Maybe an experimental case can be built in Tonga. :/

"Elon Musk offers to send Starlink terminals to Tonga to
restore internet

'The Tesla CEO replied to a story on Twitter that explained
Tonga could be without internet connection for months, Musk
offered to send Starlink terminals to aid the nation. (The
Guardian)

' "Could people from Tonga let us know if it is important for
SpaceX to send over Starlink terminals?" Musk tweeted out.

But.. wouldn't the terminals would need to be powered? Clean
water and food might be something more useful there, imho.

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: Ogg's WestCoast Point (21:4/106.21)

boraxman wrote to Arelor <=-

I think a lot of people now are so engrossed in the virtual world, they think it *IS* the world. Reminds me of all these people trying to fix social problems with apps...

Apps allow people to socialize and discuss their feelings and that fixes everything. Unless they get triggered, that is! :O :D



... Computer Hacker wanted. Must have own axe.
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On 22 Jan 2022, Blue White said the following...

I think a lot of people now are so engrossed in the virtual world, th think it *IS* the world. Reminds me of all these people trying to fi social problems with apps...

Apps allow people to socialize and discuss their feelings and that fixes everything. Unless they get triggered, that is! :O :D

So people using tiny (relative to what came before them) computers to
casually communicate with each other is a social ill? Imagine that! One day
the only people using these apps will be doing so only for the nostalgia they bring, and will scoff at whatever new means of communication is enabled by future technology.

Kids these days, I tell you!

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Jeff wrote to Blue White <=-

On 22 Jan 2022, Blue White said the following...

I think a lot of people now are so engrossed in the virtual world, th think it *IS* the world. Reminds me of all these people trying to fi social problems with apps...

Apps allow people to socialize and discuss their feelings and that fixes everything. Unless they get triggered, that is! :O :D

So people using tiny (relative to what came before them) computers to casually communicate with each other is a social ill? Imagine that! One day the only people using these apps will be doing so only for the nostalgia they bring, and will scoff at whatever new means of communication is enabled by future technology.

Kids these days, I tell you!

You apparently didn't read the original message, or failed to understand
it. You also may have trouble picking up on sarcasm.

You cannot fix social problems with apps, but there are those who think you can, and there are a lot of people who mistake the virtual social media world for being the "real world."



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On 23 Jan 2022, Blue White said the following...

I think a lot of people now are so engrossed in the virtual worl think it *IS* the world. Reminds me of all these people trying social problems with apps...

Apps allow people to socialize and discuss their feelings and that fi everything. Unless they get triggered, that is! :O :D

So people using tiny (relative to what came before them) computers to casually communicate with each other is a social ill? Imagine that! O day the only people using these apps will be doing so only for the nostalgia they bring, and will scoff at whatever new means of communication is enabled by future technology.
Kids these days, I tell you!

You apparently didn't read the original message, or failed to understand it. You also may have trouble picking up on sarcasm.

My response was sarcasm.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

So people using tiny (relative to what came before them) computers to casually communicate with each other is a social ill? Imagine that! One day the only people using these apps will be doing so only for the nostalgia they bring, and will scoff at whatever new means of communication is enabled by future technology.

Kids these days, I tell you!

Jeff.

I think it is a social ill, at least the way we do it. We're not designed to converse with the world at once.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 25 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

So people using tiny (relative to what came before them) computers to casually communicate with each other is a social ill? Imagine that! O day the only people using these apps will be doing so only for the nostalgia they bring, and will scoff at whatever new means of communication is enabled by future technology.
Kids these days, I tell you!

I think it is a social ill, at least the way we do it. We're not
designed to converse with the world at once.

We're also not designed to fly, or to travel 70mph. We're not designed to do
a lot of the things we do.

On the other hand, whether we were designed for it or not, humans' specialty
is adaptation. We're not inherently the greatest predators, nor the fleetest
or most well-defended prey. We excel at doing things we were not designed to do.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

boraxman wrote to Jeff <=-

I think it is a social ill, at least the way we do it. We're not
designed to converse with the world at once.

+ 1


... Got my tie caught in the fax... Suddenly I was in L.A.
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We're also not designed to fly, or to travel 70mph. We're not designed
to do a lot of the things we do.

I think this is different. You are talking about physical capabilities, I am talking about behavioural norms. It is one thing to be able to physically do something you couldn't before, but it is totally another to be subject to social mechanics which evolution hasn't equipped us for.

By the way, when we fly, we take very, very, very careful measures to make sure that the artificial means which enable us to fly never force us to rely on our own innate ability to fly. Flight and travel work because we never have to deal with the conflict between what it provides, and what we can do.

Social Media doesn't do this. It subjects us to a panopticon, to exacerbates certain behaviours, stimulus, breaks our expections, but there is no "safety net".

On the other hand, whether we were designed for it or not, humans' specialty is adaptation. We're not inherently the greatest predators,
nor the fleetest or most well-defended prey. We excel at doing things we were not designed to do.

Adaptation has limits. Humans didn't adapt to Communism, to North Korea. We haven't adapted to freely available and abundant opiods, to wealth inequality, etc.

This is off topic, but my point is there are pathological social trends in which the only real solution is regulation or removal. We deal with them all the time.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 26 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

We're also not designed to fly, or to travel 70mph. We're not designe to do a lot of the things we do.

I think this is different. You are talking about physical capabilities,
I am talking about behavioural norms. It is one thing to be able to physically do something you couldn't before, but it is totally another
to be subject to social mechanics which evolution hasn't equipped us for.

The social mechanics of today are very, very different than they were back
when we roamed the plains of Africa, even without considering phone apps. Telephones, televisions, telegraphs, book, newspapers, magazines... all make the world a little bit smaller than it was before.

By the way, when we fly, we take very, very, very careful measures to
make sure that the artificial means which enable us to fly never force
us to rely on our own innate ability to fly. Flight and travel work because we never have to deal with the conflict between what it
provides, and what we can do.

That's not 100% true. Our ability to fly and travel depend on the ability of
at least some of us to process the increased rate of information generated by, and on the ability of at least some of us to react in the shortened timespan granted by, velocities which our brains were not "designed" to handle.

Social Media doesn't do this. It subjects us to a panopticon, to exacerbates certain behaviours, stimulus, breaks our expections, but
there is no "safety net".

Books and newspapers do the same thing, and have been for centuries.

On the other hand, whether we were designed for it or not, humans' specialty is adaptation. We're not inherently the greatest predators, nor the fleetest or most well-defended prey. We excel at doing things were not designed to do.

Adaptation has limits. Humans didn't adapt to Communism, to North
Korea. We haven't adapted to freely available and abundant opiods, to wealth inequality, etc.

It does have limits. In some ways we've reached our limits; in others we haven't. To someone who grew up with the internet and phone apps, those
things just exist, seemingly have always existed, and seemingly will exist forever. They have adapted. Some of us who predate that technology may not have. Adaptation as a species is not the same as adaptation as an individual.

This is off topic, but my point is there are pathological social trends
in which the only real solution is regulation or removal. We deal with them all the time.

There are, but I don't think that phone app use is one of them except as it pertains to driving (or flying).

The world that the youth of today are growing up in is different from our youth, just as our youth was different from that of our parents. When I was a kid, it was heavy metal music and video games that were going to be the downfall of society as we knew it. I knew how to use a computer (and a
VCR!) long before my parents did, and now I ask my daughter to configure new devices for me.

It's the Circle of Life, man.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 26 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

We're also not designed to fly, or to travel 70mph. We're not designe to do a lot of the things we do.

I think this is different. You are talking about physical capabilities,
I am talking about behavioural norms. It is one thing to be able to physically do something you couldn't before, but it is totally another
to be subject to social mechanics which evolution hasn't equipped us for.

By the way, I have never met you nor you I, but here we are conversing across some unknown distance great or small. Whether the device that enables us to access this technology fits into the palm of our hand or not is irrelevant.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Tue Jan 25 2022 07:10 pm

By the way, I have never met you nor you I, but here we are conversing acros some unknown distance great or small. Whether the device that enables us to access this technology fits into the palm of our hand or not is irrelevant.

The thing is that I have read somewhere that ailments from constant availability of social media are already starting to show up in studies.

The problem is not that I can read of news that happen at the other side of the world, or that I can carry most of my social interactions through a formal environment with a formal structure (such as a BBS) instead of having to rely on my natural social skills.

Issues are more of the type "Average psyche can handle being inferior to X people, and if it finds it is inferior to more than X people, it starts developping stress and steem disorders". Which is the nerdy way of saying that if you connect to a social network on which you folow 400 people and find 398 of them are having what looks like a better life than yours, it may eventually wear you down.

THe fun part is that a lot of people who are pretending to be having a great time 24/7 by posting party pictures everywhere are often as much of a loser as the next crackhead :-)

Addictions and other disorders ("doomscrolling" comes to mind) are not unheard off and in fact I think Social Media adiction is recogniced as an official disorder in Europe.

So yea, I don't think it is the great illness of our days which will destroy us all, but it is not harmless either.

I personally stay in small communities, such as IRC networks operated by my friends and I, or BBS nets with a low user count. THat way I can get a stream of information I can reasonably digest without overloading myself and I don't have to risk running into 350 people who looks like they are doing better than me in life :-P


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On 26 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Issues are more of the type "Average psyche can handle being inferior to
X people, and if it finds it is inferior to more than X people, it starts developping stress and steem disorders". Which is the nerdy way of
saying that if you connect to a social network on which you folow 400 people and find 398 of them are having what looks like a better life
than yours, it may eventually wear you down.

I participate in social media and have neither noticed nor experienced this phenomenon. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

I'm pretty sure that no matter our individual socioeconomic circumstances, we could all find neighborhoods to drive through that feature the houses of 398 people appearing to have a better life than we enjoy. We can also watch TV, where shows featuring this very thing have been common for sometime now.
For women especially, magazines and advertizing can take a huge toll on self-esteem. I'm not sure why social media is being singled out for this.

THe fun part is that a lot of people who are pretending to be having a great time 24/7 by posting party pictures everywhere are often as much
of a loser as the next crackhead :-)

Yep. That is true across all media.

Addictions and other disorders ("doomscrolling" comes to mind) are not unheard off and in fact I think Social Media adiction is recogniced as
an official disorder in Europe.

I'm addicted to news. I prefer to read the news online, and additionally I'm not a morning person -- at all. The combination of these factors mean that
when I first wake up, I want to sit at the computer with a cup of coffee and
be left alone to read the news. If I am disturbed, I may be grumpy. We all
have our own addictions.

So yea, I don't think it is the great illness of our days which will destroy us all, but it is not harmless either.

I don't think it's any more harmless than any other form of technology (with the usual caveat about driving!). It's possible that there are people for
whom it is harmful, but as far as being inherently harmful, I don't buy it.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Wed Jan 26 2022 02:40 pm

On 26 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Issues are more of the type "Average psyche can handle being inferior t X people, and if it finds it is inferior to more than X people, it star developping stress and steem disorders". Which is the nerdy way of saying that if you connect to a social network on which you folow 400 people and find 398 of them are having what looks like a better life than yours, it may eventually wear you down.

I participate in social media and have neither noticed nor experienced this phenomenon. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

I'm pretty sure that no matter our individual socioeconomic circumstances, w could all find neighborhoods to drive through that feature the houses of 398 people appearing to have a better life than we enjoy. We can also watch TV, where shows featuring this very thing have been common for sometime now.
For women especially, magazines and advertizing can take a huge toll on self-esteem. I'm not sure why social media is being singled out for this.

TV shows and driving through a better neighbourhood than your own send impersonal signals that don't hit at a personal level.

Chances are you know none of that people anyway so it is not like the fact your house is the worst of them all makes you the bottom of your social circle.

It is when you get overwelmingly beaten by people of your own group (or your own level) at things you care about that it starts sucking. ie. if you like teaching tricks to your horse, you join some INnternet group about horse trick training, and you find everybody keeps posting videos of their horses doing tricks more awesome than your horses, it is going to suck. You are gonna think your comparative ability at something you care for is not up to standard.

Specially because you are not going to see the videos in which the other horse trainers failed hard and made tons of stupid mistakes, so you are going to be aware of your fuckups but not the other people's.

Obviously, not everybody is hit by this effect and maybe it is not the most users either, but this effect has been described.

It is just like the effect according to which some boardgame players experience strategic loses at board games as if they were real life strategic loses. "Damn, they undercut my coal supply contract! It is gonna take ages to recover the loses!" It bits some people harder than others :-)

--
gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)

Jeff wrote to Arelor <=-

I participate in social media and have neither noticed nor experienced this phenomenon. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

I've always felt that the main problem in social media is that there are many people who just haven't figured out that you can just filter out those who are negative.

Remember when people used to get mad at telemarketers calling their phone at dinner time (when they knew that people would be home)? Most of us just made a rule that we would not answer the phone at that time and were much happier.

Too many people on social media haven't figured out that they can just filter out the negative people and be much happier.


... You have two choices for dinner: Take it or Leave it.
=== MultiMail/Linux v0.52
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: Diamond Mine Online BBS 21:1/194 bbs.dmine.net:24 (21:1/194)

On 27 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

TV shows and driving through a better neighbourhood than your own send impersonal signals that don't hit at a personal level.
Chances are you know none of that people anyway so it is not like the
fact your house is the worst of them all makes you the bottom of your social circle.

That would depend on one's social circle. A church, perhaps.

It is when you get overwelmingly beaten by people of your own group (or your own level) at things you care about that it starts sucking. ie. if you like teaching tricks to your horse, you join some INnternet group about horse trick training, and you find everybody keeps posting videos
of their horses doing tricks more awesome than your horses, it is going
to suck. You are gonna think your comparative ability at something you care for is not up to standard.

This has many parallels outside of the social media world. Most musicians, for example, enjoy listening to musicians of greater ability as an inspiration.
Boy Scouts, and similar, where one individual might have more merit badges
than another. Virtually any work environment where employees are praised for doing an exceptional job. Trade associations who hold conferences and publish periodicals which spotlight particularly successful members.

And yet we don't call music, scouting programs, employment, or trade associations evil or dangerous.

Specially because you are not going to see the videos in which the other horse trainers failed hard and made tons of stupid mistakes, so you are going to be aware of your fuckups but not the other people's.

This is true of virtually any success story one may come across.

Obviously, not everybody is hit by this effect and maybe it is not the most users either, but this effect has been described.

This would seem to be an issue with the user, not social media.

It is just like the effect according to which some boardgame players experience strategic loses at board games as if they were real life strategic loses. "Damn, they undercut my coal supply contract! It is
gonna take ages to recover the loses!" It bits some people harder than others :-)

And yet, board games are not considered evil or dangerous. In board games in particular, there has to be a loser and a winner, by design.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 27 Jan 2022, Dr. What said the following...

I participate in social media and have neither noticed nor experience this phenomenon. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

I've always felt that the main problem in social media is that there are many people who just haven't figured out that you can just filter out those who are negative.

Yep. The tools exist...

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

The social mechanics of today are very, very different than they were
back when we roamed the plains of Africa, even without considering phone apps. Telephones, televisions, telegraphs, book, newspapers,
magazines... all make the world a little bit smaller than it was before.

They are, no doubt. And there are many maladies as a result. The question is really this. Is Social Media moving us further away from human dynamics that we can innately manage and deal with and process, or closer to them, or neutral?

I would answer that Social Media, the way it is used, is moving away from human dynamics that we can deal with. It's just harder to deal in a world where ANYONE around the world can find ANYTHING you said, and get your fired. Or anyone around the world can bully you, and there is nothing you can do. Or being cut off from talking to friends and family because you've got a ban, etc, etc.

That's not 100% true. Our ability to fly and travel depend on the
ability of at least some of us to process the increased rate of information generated by, and on the ability of at least some of us to react in the shortened timespan granted by, velocities which our brains were not "designed" to handle.

That seems kind of a stretch. It's not like when you fly you are dodging stuff all the time. There's nothing up in the sky. The difficulty is navigation.

You have seen people fly planes, yes?

I would say driving is harder. We've automated much of flight. WE haven't automated driving.

... Everyone smiles in the same language.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

It does have limits. In some ways we've reached our limits; in others we haven't. To someone who grew up with the internet and phone apps, those things just exist, seemingly have always existed, and seemingly will
exist forever. They have adapted. Some of us who predate that technology may not have. Adaptation as a species is not the same as adaptation as
an individual.

Sorry, accidently saves the message.

We have adapted, but we will continue to adapt to smooth over the rough edges. Australia is looking at laws to unmask anonymous people on Social Media and give greater power to regulate them.

Whether you agree or not is not the problem, I think the trend will be to push for regulation and control.

The world that the youth of today are growing up in is different from our youth, just as our youth was different from that of our parents. When I was a kid, it was heavy metal music and video games that were going to
be the downfall of society as we knew it. I knew how to use a computer (and a VCR!) long before my parents did, and now I ask my daughter to configure new devices for me.

I'm not suggesting the world is ending. See, you don't know better. There are people who live in very authoritarian regimes, who just went about their lives. They didn't know better.

Humans can COPE with great adversity. Society will still function, but with problems. It's always functioned with problems, and will function with more and more problems.

Even North Korea functions.

I personally do not believe my children are going to have a better life than I did. I don't envy them, which is really, really sad.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

By the way, I have never met you nor you I, but here we are conversing across some unknown distance great or small. Whether the device that enables us to access this technology fits into the palm of our hand or
not is irrelevant.

Jeff.

That is what I like about BBS's. I can talk to people with Silicon Valley editoralising, without surveillance, without having the conversation be the record of the world. I kind of do wonder about how 'private' it really is. I mean, I know its not secret, but its not that public.

Communication would be different if you know that everything you said was tracked, logged, could be scrutinised anytime in the future by anyone. You'd live with it, but it would change you.

... Some people have no idea what they're doing, and are really good at it!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

So yea, I don't think it is the great illness of our days which will destroy us all, but it is not harmless either.

I personally stay in small communities, such as IRC networks operated by my friends and I, or BBS nets with a low user count. THat way I can get
a stream of information I can reasonably digest without overloading
myself and I don't have to risk running into 350 people who looks like they are doing better than me in life :-P

I can say, from personal experience, as well as the experience of others I've known. That using this media to connect with friends and families has caused discord between them. A friend of mine, and I, have left for this exact reason. It seems to bring out antagonism which wouldn't happen face to face, and oddly, didn't happen by e-mail and other forms.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

I've always felt that the main problem in social media is that there are many people who just haven't figured out that you can just filter out those who are negative.

The problem with social media, is you are filtering out people you know. Not randoms on the internet like you, but your uncle, or your brother, or your friend. Someone who you had a relationship with prior to creating an account there.

If I blocked you, that means nothing. But on Social Media, people are blocking/unfriending family and friends. That is BAD for society.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

That is what I like about BBS's. I can talk to people with Silicon
Valley editoralising, without surveillance, without having the
conversation be the record of the world. I kind of do wonder about
how 'private' it really is. I mean, I know its not secret, but its not
that public.

It is all exposed via BBSes with Web interfaces that have guest access (Synchronet) then indexed by google.

So yeah, it's really not private at all, and no less public than any web
forum.

Andrew

--
|03Andrew Pamment |08(|11apam|08)
|13Happy|10Land |14v2.0|08!|07

--- Talisman v0.36-dev (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: HappyLand v2.0 - telnet://happylandbbs.com:11892/ (21:1/182)

boraxman wrote to Dr. What <=-

The problem with social media, is you are filtering out people you
know. Not randoms on the internet like you, but your uncle, or your brother, or your friend. Someone who you had a relationship with prior
to creating an account there.

If I blocked you, that means nothing. But on Social Media, people are blocking/unfriending family and friends. That is BAD for society.

I completely disagree.

A negative person is a negative person and no matter what his relationship. He is toxic and needs to be removed from your life in order for you to be happy.

Keep in mind that this isn't some knee-jerk response when someone posts something that hurts you. This is something you do when someone keeps hurting you.

Example:
On Facebook, I had "friended" all my family. Now one of my brother's and I didn't get along and haven't for a long time. After I while, I just "muted" him so that I didn't have to see his trash.

But then he decided that he needed to push his BS into discussions with my friends (and people he did not know). That pushed me over the edge and he has been unfriended and blocked.

I am much happer for that.

I will not be civil to the people who are uncivil and I will not be tolerant of the intolerant. Those people are toxic and have earned pariah-hood.


... Excuse me, while I change into something more formidable.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Al's Geek Lab -=- bbs.alsgeeklab.com:2323 (21:1/126)

On 28 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

I would answer that Social Media, the way it is used, is moving away
from human dynamics that we can deal with. It's just harder to deal in
a world where ANYONE around the world can find ANYTHING you said, and
get your fired. Or anyone around the world can bully you, and there is nothing you can do. Or being cut off from talking to friends and family because you've got a ban, etc, etc.

Authors, journalists, and other people in the public spotlight have dealt
with this for centuries. As far as being banned, hold that thought...

That's not 100% true. Our ability to fly and travel depend on the ability of at least some of us to process the increased rate of information generated by, and on the ability of at least some of us t react in the shortened timespan granted by, velocities which our brai were not "designed" to handle.

That seems kind of a stretch. It's not like when you fly you are dodging stuff all the time. There's nothing up in the sky. The difficulty is navigation.

As long as everything goes well, yes, they make it look easy. There are
times, though, when everything does not go well.

I would say driving is harder. We've automated much of flight. WE haven't automated driving.

Again, as long as things are going well, it looks pretty easy.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

We have adapted, but we will continue to adapt to smooth over the rough edges. Australia is looking at laws to unmask anonymous people on Social Media and give greater power to regulate them.

That's not necesarily a bad thing.

Whether you agree or not is not the problem, I think the trend will be
to push for regulation and control.

Regulation and control... like banning people who refuse to follow the rules? Remember when I said to hold that thought about people being cut off from friends and family by being banned? Here we are. People don't just get
randomly banned. They get banned because the platforms are exercising the regulation and control that you believe they should have.

The world that the youth of today are growing up in is different from youth, just as our youth was different from that of our parents. When was a kid, it was heavy metal music and video games that were going t be the downfall of society as we knew it. I knew how to use a compute (and a VCR!) long before my parents did, and now I ask my daughter to configure new devices for me.

I'm not suggesting the world is ending. See, you don't know better. There are people who live in very authoritarian regimes, who just went about their lives. They didn't know better.

I would argue that I "don't know better" because there is no "better." To say that I don't agree with you because I "don't know better" is rather condescending.

Humans can COPE with great adversity. Society will still function, but with problems. It's always functioned with problems, and will function with more and more problems.
Even North Korea functions.

This assumes that social mediais a problem. If social media is not a problem, then this is irrelevant.

I personally do not believe my children are going to have a better life than I did. I don't envy them, which is really, really sad.

I don't know that mine will, either. It's never guaranteed.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

By the way, I have never met you nor you I, but here we are conversin across some unknown distance great or small. Whether the device that enables us to access this technology fits into the palm of our hand o not is irrelevant.

That is what I like about BBS's. I can talk to people with Silicon
Valley editoralising, without surveillance, without having the conversation be the record of the world. I kind of do wonder about how 'private' it really is. I mean, I know its not secret, but its not that public.

It's there for anyone to see.

Communication would be different if you know that everything you said was tracked, logged, could be scrutinised anytime in the future by anyone. You'd live with it, but it would change you.

Authors and public figures have dealt with this for centuries, and it's only really a problem if one fails to moderate one's own self. I stand by the opinions I've expressed online and have nothing to be ashamed of; if
anything, I hope that they preserve a record of me being a good person.

If someone experiences stress or low self-esteem because they fear that their social media history does not portray them in a good light, then perhaps they need to strive to be a better person, the person that they want reflected on social media. If more people realized that, then perhaps such scrutiny could
be a good thing for society.

If someone fails to get a job because something racist they said on social media surfaces, I think the question needs to be "why are they posting racist things on social media" and not "is social media harmful because it preserved this racist thing that this person said?"

Computers and improved communication have made it much more difficult to
escape our pasts than ever before. Is that a good or bad thing? A couple of centuries ago, one could escape one's past by simply moving to the next town, county, or state (depending on the severity of one's past transgressions) and start a new life. That is becoming less and less possible over time (again, depending on the severity of one's past transgressions). Perhaps the solution is to publicly atone for one's past transgressions rather than trying to hide from them ("one" being a purely impersonal reference to a hypothetical person in a hypothetical set of circumstances, and in no way intended to be
personally accusatory). That might even contribute to the betterment of
society by setting a good example for others to follow.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

It is all exposed via BBSes with Web interfaces that have guest access (Synchronet) then indexed by google.

So yeah, it's really not private at all, and no less public than any web forum.

I've seen FidoNet stuff on the net. Oh well.

I've kept my BBS private.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

I completely disagree.

A negative person is a negative person and no matter what his relationship. He is toxic and needs to be removed from your life in
order for you to be happy.

Keep in mind that this isn't some knee-jerk response when someone posts something that hurts you. This is something you do when someone keeps hurting you.

Example:
On Facebook, I had "friended" all my family. Now one of my brother's
and I didn't get along and haven't for a long time. After I while, I
just "muted" him so that I didn't have to see his trash.

But then he decided that he needed to push his BS into discussions with
my friends (and people he did not know). That pushed me over the edge
and he has been unfriended and blocked.

I am much happer for that.

That doesn't match my experience. My experience is that people that I would chat with no problem in real life, in FB it ends up being different. It is not a good forum to communicate with people.

I don't want to be tracked, data harvested,manipulated to be able to speak to people I know.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

I don't want to be tracked, data harvested,manipulated to be able to
speak to people I know.

Fortunately, participation in social media is entirely voluntary.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Regulation and control... like banning people who refuse to follow the rules? Remember when I said to hold that thought about people being cut off from friends and family by being banned? Here we are. People don't just get randomly banned. They get banned because the platforms are exercising the regulation and control that you believe they should have.

Silicon Valley is quite ideological. Government regulation is at least, in part, democratically controlled. You have recourse, limited ability to change the form.

Private companies can decide to do what they like.

I would argue that I "don't know better" because there is no "better."
To say that I don't agree with you because I "don't know better" is
rather condescending.

I wasn't referring to you, I was referring to people in general.

This assumes that social mediais a problem. If social media is not a problem, then this is irrelevant.

I think we are getting off track. My argument is that social media is a poor form of inter-personal communcation and is likely a net negative. Look at how it has influenced politics and discourse, you're happy with that outcome?

I don't know that mine will, either. It's never guaranteed.

No, but we owe it to them to do our best to give them a better world.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Authors and public figures have dealt with this for centuries, and it's only really a problem if one fails to moderate one's own self. I stand
by the opinions I've expressed online and have nothing to be ashamed of; if anything, I hope that they preserve a record of me being a good
person.

If someone experiences stress or low self-esteem because they fear that their social media history does not portray them in a good light, then perhaps they need to strive to be a better person, the person that they want reflected on social media. If more people realized that, then
perhaps such scrutiny could be a good thing for society.

If someone fails to get a job because something racist they said on
social media surfaces, I think the question needs to be "why are they posting racist things on social media" and not "is social media harmful because it preserved this racist thing that this person said?"

Computers and improved communication have made it much more difficult to escape our pasts than ever before. Is that a good or bad thing? A couple of centuries ago, one could escape one's past by simply moving to the
next town, county, or state (depending on the severity of one's past transgressions) and start a new life. That is becoming less and less possible over time (again, depending on the severity of one's past transgressions). Perhaps the solution is to publicly atone for one's
past transgressions rather than trying to hide from them ("one" being a purely impersonal reference to a hypothetical person in a hypothetical
set of circumstances, and in no way intended to be personally
accusatory). That might even contribute to the betterment of society by setting a good example for others to follow.

To be honest, this sounds utterly awful, dystopic. I might decide that someone you said is awful, by my own subjective interpretation. You may have changed your views. Why should I judge you based on beliefs you no longer have? How can I tell?

This is something new. To compare today with authors is either disingenuous or you are failing to understand the new paradigm. Writing a book is different to engaging in a conversation. Are you suggesting that everything anyone says to anyone else, is a "published work"?

Your argument is making little sense. To suggest that this isn't fundamentally different displays a shocking ignorance.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Fortunately, participation in social media is entirely voluntary.

No, its not.

I had Facebook create a profile on me without joining. It already knew who was in my social circle before I signed up. It new real estate agents I had talked to and other people who had phoned me.

I have since deleted my account, but many of my friends and family are on there, and they are affected by it. You cannot escape the effects of this trend, because it has societal wide changes.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Regulation and control... like banning people who refuse to follow th rules? Remember when I said to hold that thought about people being c off from friends and family by being banned? Here we are. People don' just get randomly banned. They get banned because the platforms are exercising the regulation and control that you believe they should ha

Silicon Valley is quite ideological. Government regulation is at least, in part, democratically controlled. You have recourse, limited ability
to change the form.

Hmm. I would argue that Silicon Valley is more democratically controlled than government regulation. Government tends to react to small numbers of people
who complain loudly (or, more often, donate generously). Silicon Valley
seeks to maximize profit by getting as many people as possible to use their service. If something is making a lot of people use their service less, they remove that thing (or person, or behavior). Silicon Valley also seeks to
avoid government regulation and therefore removes things that pose a threat
to them legally.

Private companies can decide to do what they like.

More or less, but they do want to continue to make as much money as possible.

This assumes that social mediais a problem. If social media is not a problem, then this is irrelevant.

I think we are getting off track. My argument is that social media is a poor form of inter-personal communcation and is likely a net negative. Look at how it has influenced politics and discourse, you're happy with that outcome?

I think that it is becoming self-correcting over time.

I don't know that mine will, either. It's never guaranteed.

No, but we owe it to them to do our best to give them a better world.

Yep. But they're also going to do their own thing, and we have to let them.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Computers and improved communication have made it much more difficult escape our pasts than ever before. Is that a good or bad thing? A cou of centuries ago, one could escape one's past by simply moving to the next town, county, or state (depending on the severity of one's past transgressions) and start a new life. That is becoming less and less possible over time (again, depending on the severity of one's past transgressions). Perhaps the solution is to publicly atone for one's past transgressions rather than trying to hide from them ("one" being purely impersonal reference to a hypothetical person in a hypothetica set of circumstances, and in no way intended to be personally accusatory). That might even contribute to the betterment of society setting a good example for others to follow.

To be honest, this sounds utterly awful, dystopic. I might decide that someone you said is awful, by my own subjective interpretation. You may have changed your views. Why should I judge you based on beliefs you no longer have? How can I tell?

Ask me.

This is something new. To compare today with authors is either disingenuous or you are failing to understand the new paradigm. Writing
a book is different to engaging in a conversation. Are you suggesting that everything anyone says to anyone else, is a "published work"?

Nope, but writing it online is different and we should have no expectations otherwise.

Your argument is making little sense. To suggest that this isn't fundamentally different displays a shocking ignorance.

Whether one's beliefs are published in a book or presented online for the
world to read, the expectation that the thoughts and opinions contained
therein are private is misplaced.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Fortunately, participation in social media is entirely voluntary.

No, its not.
I had Facebook create a profile on me without joining. It already knew who was in my social circle before I signed up. It new real estate
agents I had talked to and other people who had phoned me.

How did they do this? Maybe someone invited you to FB? At any rate, this does not compel your participation any more than junk mail circulars with your
name and address on them compel you to read them or buy the things advertized in them.

I have since deleted my account, but many of my friends and family are on there, and they are affected by it. You cannot escape the effects of
this trend, because it has societal wide changes.

It is nevertheless your choice whether or not to participate. It sounds like you declined. There are certainly consequences to that decision, just as
there are consequences to a decision to participate. Everyone else has the
same decision, too.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Hmm. I would argue that Silicon Valley is more democratically controlled than government regulation. Government tends to react to small numbers
of people who complain loudly (or, more often, donate generously).
Silicon Valley seeks to maximize profit by getting as many people as possible to use their service. If something is making a lot of people
use their service less, they remove that thing (or person, or behavior). Silicon Valley also seeks to avoid government regulation and therefore removes things that pose a threat to them legally.

Facebook and Google, to name two, have advertisers as their customers. The users (you) is not a customer. You're there to provide them data they can use to monetise the platform.

I think you're still under the belief that the Internet is as it was in 2005. Times have changed, and it is now about gathering of data. The ability to communicate with others is almost a side effect of their data gathering excercise.

Ever wonder how it is you can use Google, Facebook and Instagram, WhattsApp, etc without paying a cent?

Also, keep in mind, I'm Australian. So we have
Silicon Valley values being used by these companies to manipulate people where by skewing search results, etc. We are having our information manipulated by a foreign body. Something I'm not happy with.

I think that it is becoming self-correcting over time.

What makes you think that? Silicon Valley seems highly ideological. Google has stated they want to change the way the world thinks. This crosses a line from being a neutral service provider to something else. Why would they give up their power to change our values to their values?

Yep. But they're also going to do their own thing, and we have to let them.

I don't really subscribe to this. We ban illicit and dangerous drugs for similar reasons, we put limits on gambling and other activities which are a social ill.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

To be honest, this sounds utterly awful, dystopic. I might decide th someone you said is awful, by my own subjective interpretation. You have changed your views. Why should I judge you based on beliefs you longer have? How can I tell?

Ask me.

But I won't ask. That is the thing. If I don't like you, I'll just find something you said, and go to your employer. People DO this. There are teams of activists who will do this.

If I want to destroy you, I won't care.

Whether one's beliefs are published in a book or presented online for the world to read, the expectation that the thoughts and opinions contained therein are private is misplaced.

Then we should never speak online.
Simply put, if everything I say to you, as part of a conversation is equivalent to me authoring a book and seeking to get it published, then this conversation has to stop now.

And I will stop talking to you, because I do not want what I say here, on a forum, to be considered equivalent to that.

Do you see the problem now?

We need as a society to understand context. To understand that a forum post is not a book, that a private message is not a forum post, that a comment on a BBS is not a published web-page, etc.

You are kind of proving my point. Casual communication like this now has high stakes, which wasn't the case before.

... You can learn many things from children... like how much patience you have

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Hmm. I would argue that Silicon Valley is more democratically control than government regulation. Government tends to react to small number of people who complain loudly (or, more often, donate generously). Silicon Valley seeks to maximize profit by getting as many people as possible to use their service. If something is making a lot of people use their service less, they remove that thing (or person, or behavio Silicon Valley also seeks to avoid government regulation and therefor removes things that pose a threat to them legally.

Facebook and Google, to name two, have advertisers as their customers. The users (you) is not a customer. You're there to provide them data
they can use to monetise the platform.

And what do advertisers value?

I think you're still under the belief that the Internet is as it was in 2005. Times have changed, and it is now about gathering of data. The ability to communicate with others is almost a side effect of their data gathering excercise.

One needs users to gather data on users.

Ever wonder how it is you can use Google, Facebook and Instagram, WhattsApp, etc without paying a cent?

I know how their business model works, andit depends on user engagement.

Also, keep in mind, I'm Australian. So we have
Silicon Valley values being used by these companies to manipulate people where by skewing search results, etc. We are having our information manipulated by a foreign body. Something I'm not happy with.

Also something that is completely voluntary.

I think that it is becoming self-correcting over time.

What makes you think that? Silicon Valley seems highly ideological. Google has stated they want to change the way the world thinks. This crosses a line from being a neutral service provider to something else. Why would they give up their power to change our values to their values?

And what values are those? Google has done more than perhaps any other
company to put knowledge at our fingertips. Have you considered that this is what they meant when they said that, rather than some intention to instill a set of Google-approved values in us all?

Yep. But they're also going to do their own thing, and we have to let them.

I don't really subscribe to this. We ban illicit and dangerous drugs for similar reasons, we put limits on gambling and other activities which
are a social ill.

Communication is not a social ill.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

To be honest, this sounds utterly awful, dystopic. I might deci someone you said is awful, by my own subjective interpretation. have changed your views. Why should I judge you based on belief longer have? How can I tell?

Ask me.

But I won't ask. That is the thing. If I don't like you, I'll just find something you said, and go to your employer. People DO this. There are teams of activists who will do this.

Then don't espouse hateful views. It's really not that difficult.

Whether one's beliefs are published in a book or presented online for world to read, the expectation that the thoughts and opinions contain therein are private is misplaced.

Then we should never speak online.

If that's your choice then so be it. Others may feel differently, and may
have nothing to say that they will later be ashamed of.

Simply put, if everything I say to you, as part of a conversation is equivalent to me authoring a book and seeking to get it published, then this conversation has to stop now.

Nonsense. There is plenty of stuff that will be seen and disregarded because there's nothing to it.

And I will stop talking to you, because I do not want what I say here,
on a forum, to be considered equivalent to that.

I do not control whether it is equivalent to that or not. What you or I
believe does not change what is.

Do you see the problem now?

Nope. Communicate if you wish, or refrain if you wish. There is the
possibility that what you saywill be preserved for possibility, but will
anyone care what we say here and now? Will anything you've said here cost you future employment? I doubt it.

We need as a society to understand context. To understand that a forum post is not a book, that a private message is not a forum post, that a comment on a BBS is not a published web-page, etc.

Because you say so? The permanence of a medium is separate from what is communicated via that medium, but does need to be taken into account when communicating via that medium. That is the context that needs to be
understood.

Simply saying thata forum post is not a book doesn't make it so, and
saying that a private message is not a forumpost does not make it so. These
are expectations that you have superimposed upon the medium in question.
No one is obligated to entertain your expectations.

You are kind of proving my point. Casual communication like this now
has high stakes, which wasn't the case before.

Does it, though? How has the case changed, just over the course of
this conversation? How has this conversation between you and I altered
reality?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: apam to boraxman on Fri Jan 28 2022 09:25 pm

That is what I like about BBS's. I can talk to people with Silicon Valley editoralising, without surveillance, without having the conversation be the record of the world. I kind of do wonder about
how 'private' it really is. I mean, I know its not secret, but its not that public.

It is all exposed via BBSes with Web interfaces that have guest access (Synchronet) then indexed by google.

So yeah, it's really not private at all, and no less public than any web forum.

So I think it's actually easy to make BBSing a little more private, that would make it difficult (perhaps impossible) for search engines, and the general public from seeing your site.

The technology that can make that happen is something like zerotier - where every BBS in a "network" sets up zerotier before setting up their BBS. In fact, applying to join a network could be the trigger to "add you" to the zerotier network, where you provide your zerotier ID on the application. (I've actually have this functionality in clrghouz, although its not fully complete.)

Zerotier provides two types of private networks - public/private, and while public is not really "public", it just means folks can join themselves and cannot be removed. (private networks on the otherhand require somebody to approve your access - and they can reject it later).

I've bought this up in the past, and some didnt like the "governing" control of the zerotier admin removing folks - but if it was linked to being a member of the FTN network, if you were removed from the network, that would be the only time the "ZC" would logically remove you from zerotier as well.

Personally, I would prefer it - and TQW has run zerotier successfully for a year or two between the hubs, so we know it works well. Firewalling could also be implemented "in the network" that would provide "some" confidence that members of the network didnt hack your own network (but obviously you could add additional firewall rules if you wanted).

The other plus with zerotier, is everybody can be assigned a "static" address, so even if you have a dynamic public IPv4 address, your zerotier address remains static.

I run it on hub 3 (and soon clrghouz), so if anybody wants to play with it, let me know.



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And what values are those? Google has done more than perhaps any other company to put knowledge at our fingertips. Have you considered that
this is what they meant when they said that, rather than some intention
to instill a set of Google-approved values in us all?

Google manipulate search engine results and bias their output.

Google executives wanted to use their power to "prevent the next Trump situation". Insiders have spoken about what google is trying to do.

You're defending manipulators.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Then don't espouse hateful views. It's really not that difficult.

I'll decide what is hateful for myself, not you. People attribute "Hate" to everything now. Even JK Rowling was called hateful. So many people have been castigated for things which are not hateful.

I take it your American, right? Isn't half your country "deplorable" because they voted for an fascist? At least according to the opinion of some, ie, presidential candidates.

Nonsense. There is plenty of stuff that will be seen and disregarded because there's nothing to it.

Until someone has an axe to grind.

Nope. Communicate if you wish, or refrain if you wish. There is the possibility that what you saywill be preserved for possibility, but will anyone care what we say here and now? Will anything you've said here
cost you future employment? I doubt it.

Thats not the point. The point is that I'm pointing out issues, malfeasance and you're just finding excuses for it.

In my opinion, decent human beings would see to it that we maximise our freedom, our privacy, work towards reducing manipulation and suppression and witch trials. I'm looking to reduce the impact of your "cancel culture" and bring decency back to society, something I think has been lost.

Maybe the cultural differences between Australia and the USA have grown a lot in the last decade or so, and we are just culturally very different.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

So I think it's actually easy to make BBSing a little more private, that would make it difficult (perhaps impossible) for search engines, and the general public from seeing your site.

The technology that can make that happen is something like zerotier - where every BBS in a "network" sets up zerotier before setting up their BBS. In fact, applying to join a network could be the trigger to "add
you" to the zerotier network, where you provide your zerotier ID on the application. (I've actually have this functionality in clrghouz,
although its not fully complete.)

Zerotier provides two types of private networks - public/private, and while public is not really "public", it just means folks can join themselves and cannot be removed. (private networks on the otherhand require somebody to approve your access - and they can reject it later).

I've bought this up in the past, and some didnt like the "governing" control of the zerotier admin removing folks - but if it was linked to being a member of the FTN network, if you were removed from the network, that would be the only time the "ZC" would logically remove you from zerotier as well.

Personally, I would prefer it - and TQW has run zerotier successfully
for a year or two between the hubs, so we know it works well.
Firewalling could also be implemented "in the network" that would
provide "some" confidence that members of the network didnt hack your
own network (but obviously you could add additional firewall rules if
you wanted).

The other plus with zerotier, is everybody can be assigned a "static" address, so even if you have a dynamic public IPv4 address, your
zerotier address remains static.

I run it on hub 3 (and soon clrghouz), so if anybody wants to play with it, let me know.

I don't really know why this needs to be available to a search engine, and indexed and stored by other parties. Search engines would find published web pages.

I find the idea of stuff on a BBS ending up on Google, troubling. Yes, if you write a web page, or a blog, then the intent is that it is public information. But BBS's are meant for its users, why should anyone be able to search? Why would they? To just add another ton or stuff for search engines to try and index?

The Internet was never meant to be automatically public. It's a network. The WWW was public, but e-mail isn't, VPN's aren't, dial BBS's were limited to those who signed up. The data you store on the "cloud" isn't public. That is still using the Internet.

The Internet is really just a tool for one machine to be able to send to another, on a single, world-wide network. It doesn't follow that everything has to be as accessible as possible. I access my companies applications over the internet, they certainly aren't public.

It's almost like we've been conditioned to think we have to get as many eyeballs on us as possible. I think we need to reverse that, and start thinking the other way, how can we make sure that people who having nothing to do with what we're doing, stay out.

I think a good paradigm is this, we should aim for an "Internet" where you know, and explicitly know, who your audience is. If you post on a web forum, its obvious, but some social media site, a BBS? Not as obvious.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
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So I think it's actually easy to make BBSing a little more private,
that would make it difficult (perhaps impossible) for search engines,
and the general public from seeing your site.

Yeah, but people want the general public seeing their site. To attract
new users.

I don't really see that idea working unless you start a new net with specifically those requirements. Then all it takes is one sysop to not
follow the rules, and it's all for nothing - sure you can remove them from
the network, but you can't take back the history of messages he's
rescanned and made available.

I don't really see the point though, if some one really wants information
on you, they can just sign up to your secret network - it might be a few
more steps than typing your handle and fsxnet into google, but easily
done.

I just think people need to get in the mindset that BBSing isn't
"underground" or "secret" but rather just "alternative" and then not post anything that they thing they would regret later on.

Andrew
--
|03Andrew Pamment |08(|11apam|08)
|13Happy|10Land |14v2.0|08!|07

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: boraxman to deon on Sat Jan 29 2022 07:32 pm

I don't really know why this needs to be available to a search engine, and indexed and stored by other parties. Search engines would
find published web pages.

And there in lies the problem. Search engines dont know that a website is related to a vendor's products, a blog, or BBS message bases, when folks add a web frontend to their BBS to make it easier for (or to attrach) "users".

But I agree, it would be good if all those running a BBS made their web frontend "private" until registered users "logged in". I doubt a search engine would learn how to register and login to BBS's to scrape/store the conent - so this simple act would keep BBSing "private".


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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: apam to deon on Sat Jan 29 2022 05:29 pm

So I think it's actually easy to make BBSing a little more private,
that would make it difficult (perhaps impossible) for search engines,
and the general public from seeing your site.

Yeah, but people want the general public seeing their site. To attract
new users.

Well, email providers boast about keeping email "private", and they do that to attrach users. But right, they dont need to use a "vpn" to do that, it's in their best interest to change their offering to do that. Sysops's could do the same, and perhaps if some BBS systems "defaulted" to that it may be the content is less prevalent in search engines. (But agree, it only takes 1 person to have a different agenda/view point to make that break.)

I don't really see that idea working unless you start a new net with specifically those requirements. Then all it takes is one sysop to
not follow the rules, and it's all for nothing - sure you can remove them from
the network, but you can't take back the history of messages he's
rescanned and made available.

You cant take back history, no. But you can stop new content being indexed if it was important to everybody. But there in lies the problem, I dont think it is important to *everybody*.

I don't really see the point though, if some one really wants information
on you, they can just sign up to your secret network - it might be a few more steps than typing your handle and fsxnet into google, but easily
done.

Sure, but that wasnt the point (for me at least). If somebody does something silly and posts it publically, everybody can see it and "repost" it. If they couldnt see it in the first place, the news isnt *that* big. Gossip in a community normally doesnt go past the community, but gossip on the internet reaches everybody.

I just think people need to get in the mindset that BBSing isn't "underground" or "secret" but rather just "alternative" and then not post anything that they thing they would regret later on.

I dont think folks want "underground" or "secret" per-se. I think folks would like "private" though...


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On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

And what values are those? Google has done more than perhaps any othe company to put knowledge at our fingertips. Have you considered that this is what they meant when they said that, rather than some intenti to instill a set of Google-approved values in us all?

Google manipulate search engine results and bias their output.
Google executives wanted to use their power to "prevent the next Trump situation". Insiders have spoken about what google is trying to do. You're defending manipulators.

I don't mind them valuing truth over misinformation.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Then don't espouse hateful views. It's really not that difficult.

I'll decide what is hateful for myself, not you. People attribute
"Hate" to everything now. Even JK Rowling was called hateful. So many people have been castigated for things which are not hateful.

I'm not the arbiter of what is and isn't hate. Society is. In the example you presented earlier, employers are.

I take it your American, right? Isn't half your country "deplorable" because they voted for an fascist? At least according to the opinion of some, ie, presidential candidates.

That would depend on who you ask.

Nonsense. There is plenty of stuff that will be seen and disregarded because there's nothing to it.

Until someone has an axe to grind.

I can't see how this discussion we're having could be used against either of us.

Nope. Communicate if you wish, or refrain if you wish. There is the possibility that what you saywill be preserved for possibility, but w anyone care what we say here and now? Will anything you've said here cost you future employment? I doubt it.

Thats not the point. The point is that I'm pointing out issues, malfeasance and you're just finding excuses for it.

And I'm pointing out that people are ultimately responsible for their own actions.

In my opinion, decent human beings would see to it that we maximise our freedom, our privacy, work towards reducing manipulation and suppression and witch trials. I'm looking to reduce the impact of your "cancel culture" and bring decency back to society, something I think has been lost.

"Cancel culture" has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with decency. Our freedom of speech guarantees us neither a forum nor an audience. That speech deemed hateful by society is denied both is not a loss of
freedom. Do you honestly expect that increased decency will be the result of maximized freedom to spew hate?

Maybe the cultural differences between Australia and the USA have grown
a lot in the last decade or so, and we are just culturally very
different.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps we are different as people.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Fri Jan 28 2022 09:18 am

Regulation and control... like banning people who refuse to follow the rules Remember when I said to hold that thought about people being cut off from friends and family by being banned? Here we are. People don't just get randomly banned. They get banned because the platforms are exercising the regulation and control that you believe they should have.

Some platforms are better at keeping order than others.

The RPG.net forums directly ban certain opinions. There are tons of stories online talking about people getting randomly banned from there for petty or unexplained reasons.

RPG.net used to be THE forum you visited for RPG related discussion. It is no small site. It is not an insignificant piece of the Internet. It is (well, actually "was", because it comitted suicide) the goto place for people interested in a certain hobby.

And, in the most RPGish tradition, thy exercise their control by rolling a die in order to decide whether somebody gets banned, apparently. Heck, they have a public thread in which they display bans as trophies.

Of course they have the right to do as they please but that turns the service into a bad service.

And a whole lot of services are just like that. So yeah, I think the ideological or random banhammer is something that exists even in big platforms and is something to be concerned off.


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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Fri Jan 28 2022 09:31 am

If someone fails to get a job because something racist they said on social media surfaces, I think the question needs to be "why are they posting racis things on social media" and not "is social media harmful because it preserve this racist thing that this person said?"

I think that is not as much the problem. Nasty things are usually removed from social media. I d argue some things that are not nasty are removed too as they suit them.

The problem comes when some moron shows up and reconstructs something you said 3 years ago, casts it under a bad light, and gathers a lynch mob.

The prime examples would be people in the RPG hobby who mention that they don t want corebooks to deal with politics or sexual subjects because the books are not the place for doing it. The standard response to that is for a mob to build up and attempt to destroy that person s online presence because he is obviously a Nazi (because only Nazies want their RPG books to be politics-free).

In the RPG world, one s digital presence might be 75% of his professional presence. So you can see the problem here.

Obviously then you can say "He should be self-moderating". But the issue I have with this is that what you mean is some opinions should not be voiced at all and that you are ok with it.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: boraxman to Dr. What on Sat Jan 29 2022 01:06 pm

That doesn't match my experience. My experience is that people that I would chat with no problem in real life, in FB it ends up being different. It is a good forum to communicate with people.

I agree. Some people just become a different person when placed behind a keyboard.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Fri Jan 28 2022 06:33 pm

On 29 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Fortunately, participation in social media is entirely voluntary.

No, its not.
I had Facebook create a profile on me without joining. It already knew who was in my social circle before I signed up. It new real estate agents I had talked to and other people who had phoned me.

How did they do this? Maybe someone invited you to FB? At any rate, this doe not compel your participation any more than junk mail circulars with your name and address on them compel you to read them or buy the things advertize in them.

Shadow profiles have been a thing for a long time already.


If all your friends use Facebook and Whatsapp, these services may realize you are in their addressbooks and extrapolate your data (your likely hobbies, your likely interests) from the sort of people who has your phone number saved in their phone.

Facebook was actually hit with a lawsuit over building Facebook shadow profiles from other platforms they owned without user consent. They also have taken it for tracking non facebook users via widgets in third party websites.

It doesn t look to me like they are ok with participation being voluntary.


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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Fri Jan 28 2022 10:22 pm

Whether one's beliefs are published in a book or presented online world to read, the expectation that the thoughts and opinions cont therein are private is misplaced.

Then we should never speak online.

If that's your choice then so be it. Others may feel differently, and may have nothing to say that they will later be ashamed of.

It has nothing to do with shame.

Blowing the whistle over the corruption at the Town Hall is not a shameful thing to do, but will get some hooded thugs sent by the mayor to break your legs.

There are lots of non-shameful things to do which will get you in trouble.

We are reaching the point in which some casual opinions that didn t use to be dangerous will get you obliterated.

That is the concern here.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: apam to deon on Sat Jan 29 2022 05:29 pm

I don't really see that idea working unless you start a new net with specifically those requirements. Then all it takes is one sysop to not follow the rules, and it's all for nothing - sure you can remove them from the network, but you can't take back the history of messages he's
rescanned and made available.

If this is a concern I would just run a BBS in a darknet. THere are a number of BBS which are darknet centric.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: deon to boraxman on Sat Jan 29 2022 10:14 pm

But I agree, it would be good if all those running a BBS made their web frontend "private" until registered users "logged in". I doubt a search engi would learn how to register and login to BBS's to scrape/store the conent - this simple act would keep BBSing "private".

Baen, a book publisher, got attacked by a cancel campaign. Their response to it was to make the forum accesible only for registered users, and you had to demonstrate you had purchased one of their books in order to be allowed in.

This works because cancel trolls and basement activists don t believe it is worth it to spend 4 USD to troll a forum.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Sat Jan 29 2022 09:36 am

I don't mind them valuing truth over misinformation.

Jeff.

"I don t mind them manipulating results as long as they defend my position."

Got it.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Sat Jan 29 2022 09:47 am

"Cancel culture" has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with decency. Our freedom of speech guarantees us neither a forum nor an audience That speech deemed hateful by society is denied both is not a loss of freedom. Do you honestly expect that increased decency will be the result of maximized freedom to spew hate?

Cancel culture is a political weapon.

In its purest form, what it does is to attempt to remove an individual which is uncomfortable for the cancellers from the scene and to remove his options for making a living.

Back to the RPG examples: if cancellers start campaigning in order to prevent people from buying somebody s product, what they are doing is to say "This guy does not deserve to make a living"

DO you know what happens when you prevent people from making a living? They die.

It is literally a "Comply or die" weapon and should be regarded as such.

It would be less of a problem if the lynch mob was not started by the silliest of ideas.

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On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Regulation and control... like banning people who refuse to follow the Remember when I said to hold that thought about people being cut off fr friends and family by being banned? Here we are. People don't just get randomly banned. They get banned because the platforms are exercising t regulation and control that you believe they should have.

Some platforms are better at keeping order than others.

True. That also depends on one's definition of "keeping order." Obviously, if order is to be kept, then someone must make the distinction, however
arbitrary it may seem, as to what's acceptable behavior and what is not. If those decisions are simply not made, then that's chaos not order. And I can guarantee you that not everyone is going to be happy with all of the
decisions made, least of all those adversely affected by them.

The RPG.net forums directly ban certain opinions. There are tons of stories online talking about people getting randomly banned from there
for petty or unexplained reasons.

And you feel that handing moderation of the RPG.net forums over to the government would improve the situation? What do you expect the government to
do about this?

RPG.net used to be THE forum you visited for RPG related discussion. It
is no small site. It is not an insignificant piece of the Internet. It
is (well, actually "was", because it comitted suicide) the goto place
for people interested in a certain hobby.

If they "committed suicide," then it sounds like they faced consequences for their decisions.

And, in the most RPGish tradition, thy exercise their control by rolling
a die in order to decide whether somebody gets banned, apparently. Heck, they have a public thread in which they display bans as trophies.

And this should be illegal or regulated somehow? Should there be laws
against arbitrary forum moderation? Should the government take a more active role and be responsible for deciding who gets banned and who doesn't? What government's jurisdiction does RPG.net fall under, anyway?

Of course they have the right to do as they please but that turns the service into a bad service.

And the people who are not happy with the service leave. No one is obligated
to participate in the RPG.net forums. I've never heard of them until now.

And a whole lot of services are just like that. So yeah, I think the ideological or random banhammer is something that exists even in big platforms and is something to be concerned off.

I originally thought you were just talking about Facebook, Twitter, etc., as "social media," but the inclusion of internet forums is quite an interesting development. I feel even more strongly that these should be free from government regulation, with a few exceptions involving indisputably illegal activity.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

The problem comes when some moron shows up and reconstructs something
you said 3 years ago, casts it under a bad light, and gathers a lynch
mob.
The prime examples would be people in the RPG hobby who mention that
they don t want corebooks to deal with politics or sexual subjects
because the books are not the place for doing it. The standard response
to that is for a mob to build up and attempt to destroy that person s online presence because he is obviously a Nazi (because only Nazies want their RPG books to be politics-free).

What attemptsto destroy someone's online presence are we talking about?

Obviously then you can say "He should be self-moderating". But the issue
I have with this is that what you mean is some opinions should not be voiced at all and that you are ok with it.

Free speech is not consequence-free speech. With the exception of policing illegal activity, I don't think the government should be in the business of regulating others' reactions to one's speech.

Sometimes a company does or says something unpopular and people then boycott that business in an effort to punish them by taking their business elsewhere. Often they make it widely known who they are boycotting and why, and urge others to join them. These people are actively trying to damage the company's reputation and profits in order to send a message: "We don't like that thing you said or did."

How is this any different?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
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On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

How did they do this? Maybe someone invited you to FB? At any rate, thi not compel your participation any more than junk mail circulars with yo name and address on them compel you to read them or buy the things adve in them.

Shadow profiles have been a thing for a long time already.

The existence of a "shadow profile" does not compel participation.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

If that's your choice then so be it. Others may feel differently, and m have nothing to say that they will later be ashamed of.

It has nothing to do with shame.
Blowing the whistle over the corruption at the Town Hall is not a
shameful thing to do, but will get some hooded thugs sent by the mayor
to break your legs.

The breaking of legs (and conspiracy to do so) is within the realm of government regulation.

There are lots of non-shameful things to do which will get you in
trouble.
We are reaching the point in which some casual opinions that didn t use
to be dangerous will get you obliterated.

Then, realizing this, perhaps those casual opinions are best left unsaid. No one is stopping you from saying them, but no one is guaranteeing that there won't be consequences for saying them, either. If those consequences cross
the line into illegal behavior, then the government already has jurisdiction over that.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

I don't mind them valuing truth over misinformation.

"I don t mind them manipulating results as long as they defend my position."

I'm not talking about opinion such as which is prettier, blue or green. I'm talking about objective facts such as whether a vaccine is safe to use.

Got it.

No, I don't think you do.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

"Cancel culture" has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do wi decency. Our freedom of speech guarantees us neither a forum nor an aud That speech deemed hateful by society is denied both is not a loss of freedom. Do you honestly expect that increased decency will be the resu maximized freedom to spew hate?

Cancel culture is a political weapon.

If one's political views are getting cancelled in the name of decency, it
might be time to re-examine one's political views.

In its purest form, what it does is to attempt to remove an individual which is uncomfortable for the cancellers from the scene and to remove
his options for making a living.

No one is entitled to an audience or a forum for the purpose of making a living. If Andrew Dice Clay decided for whatever reason to start a
raunchy comedy tour of pre-school day-care facilitiess, would the facilities that refuse to host him be guilty of depriving him of his livelihood? Is he entitled to perform at in any forum and to any audience of his choosing?

The "canceled" individual still has optionsavailable if they wish to make a living off of their views. They can write a book, for example.

Back to the RPG examples: if cancellers start campaigning in order to prevent people from buying somebody s product, what they are doing is to say "This guy does not deserve to make a living"

That is called a boycott and is a technique that has been used offline for quite some time.

DO you know what happens when you prevent people from making a living? They die.

Not necessarily. Perhaps they're just not very successful at that particular living.

It is literally a "Comply or die" weapon and should be regarded as such.

I strongly disagree.

It would be less of a problem if the lynch mob was not started by the silliest of ideas.

That is true of oh so many things.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sat Jan 29 2022 01:17 pm

The RPG.net forums directly ban certain opinions. There are tons of stories online talking about people getting randomly banned from there for petty or unexplained reasons.

And you feel that handing moderation of the RPG.net forums over to the government would improve the situation? What do you expect the government to do about this?

The government? Nothing. Just watch the site die due to its own incompetence.

There is a difference between recognizing there is a problem somwehere and wanting the government to step in and try to fix it.


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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sat Jan 29 2022 01:27 pm

What attemptsto destroy someone's online presence are we talking about?

Too many to count.

Baen comes to mind (they also campaigned for having the editors banned from conferences). Nosolorol (a Spanish publisher) also comes to mind.


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On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

The government? Nothing. Just watch the site die due to its own incompetence.
There is a difference between recognizing there is a problem somwehere
and wanting the government to step in and try to fix it.

It seems like the problem is self-fixing.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sat Jan 29 2022 01:34 pm

On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

I don't mind them valuing truth over misinformation.

"I don t mind them manipulating results as long as they defend my position."

I'm not talking about opinion such as which is prettier, blue or green. I'm talking about objective facts such as whether a vaccine is safe to use.

Got it.

No, I don't think you do.

Jeff.

Good luck with that. I happen to work in the healthcare sector and there is not much consensus regarding at which point a given vaccinme is beneficial or not.

But here is the thing: reputable publications such as the Brittish Medical Journañl have been flagged by automated censorship systems becayse they dared releasing an article about a defective batch of vaccines. Which is not to say they are against the vaccines, but that they were reporting of the degradation of a known batch. ANd they got hammered because automated bots are trained to crush anything that speaks negatively about the subject.

THe Brittish Medical JOurnal published an official complaint.

So yeah, I am very sure I got it.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sat Jan 29 2022 01:44 pm

If one's political views are getting cancelled in the name of decency, it might be time to re-examine one's political views.

THIS is the problem.

That it is assumed that the cancel campaign is done in the name of decency and humanity and whatever have you.

Most often it is not.

It is a rabid lynch mob fueled by hate attempting to destroy what people is working for in the name of.... something.

Nosolorol is an interesting case because they were brought into the spotlight for dirty business practices such as not paying employees. Once they got sued and they started paying, once the issue had been corrected...


... they got the cancel mob cast on them.

For which purpose? Righting a wrong? The wrongs had already been ritghed in court.

No, man, it is illogical fear and hate mixed together in a cauldron with no sense of logic, which is then released into the wild. ANd if you come up and say that by boicotting Nosolorol and forcing it into bankrupcy you are gonna get the employees you are trying to protect unemployed, you get added to the list of cancel targets.


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On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Good luck with that. I happen to work in the healthcare sector and there is not much consensus regarding at which point a given vaccinme is beneficial or not.

Most if not all of the vaccines we have are beneficial to the vast majority
of people.

But here is the thing: reputable publications such as the Brittish
Medical Journañl have been flagged by automated censorship systems becayse they dared releasing an article about a defective batch of vaccines. Which is not to say they are against the vaccines, but that
they were reporting of the degradation of a known batch. ANd they got hammered because automated bots are trained to crush anything that
speaks negatively about the subject.

What was the resolution of this? Persumably they brought it up with the bots' owners?

THe Brittish Medical JOurnal published an official complaint.

Ok, and were the bots appropriately adjusted?

So yeah, I am very sure I got it.

No technology is perfect. Mistakes happen. But mistakes are not necessarily made with malice.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sat Jan 29 2022 02:31 pm

THe Brittish Medical JOurnal published an official complaint.

Ok, and were the bots appropriately adjusted?

No, at least according to my last information.

Appealing processes for this sort of thing are a pain in the ass.

"After BMJ contacted Lead Stories to inquire about the flagging and removal of the post, the company maintained that the ΓÇ£Missing ContextΓÇ label it had assigned the BMJ article was valid."


[...]

"What does this all tell us about FacebookΓÇÖs fact-checking and the implications for the restriction of legitimate, timely speech and expression on the platform? It tells us that users with legitimate questions about being fact-checked will not get much help from Facebook itself, even if they are a well-established and well-regarded scholarly journal. "

--The Electronic Frontier Foundation

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On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

If one's political views are getting cancelled in the name of decency, might be time to re-examine one's political views.

THIS is the problem.
That it is assumed that the cancel campaign is done in the name of
decency and humanity and whatever have you.

Getting one's message out to the public requires a speaker, a forum and an audience and, perhaps unfortunately, requires the consent of all three.
Should anyone be required to host someone espousing views with which they disagree? Should anyone be required to entertain the opinions of someone espousing views with which they disagree? "Cancel culture" does not forbid
the holding of any particular opinions, but neither does it allow anyone to force their opinions on anyone else. As long as no laws have been broken, one is in no way protected from the consequences of the beliefs they espouse.

Most often it is not.

That would not be my experience.

It is a rabid lynch mob fueled by hate attempting to destroy what people is working for in the name of.... something.

I wouldn't say it's as much hate as it is disagreement.

Nosolorol is an interesting case because they were brought into the spotlight for dirty business practices such as not paying employees.
Once they got sued and they started paying, once the issue had been corrected...
... they got the cancel mob cast on them.

So all should just have been forgiven? Apparently not... You might be forgetting that a "mob" is composed of individual human beings, each with
their own motivation.

For which purpose? Righting a wrong? The wrongs had already been ritghed in court.

Preventing future wrongs by a company that had demonstrated that it would not right wrongs until they got sued?

No, man, it is illogical fear and hate mixed together in a cauldron with no sense of logic, which is then released into the wild. ANd if you come up and say that by boicotting Nosolorol and forcing it into bankrupcy
you are gonna get the employees you are trying to protect unemployed,
you get added to the list of cancel targets.

Perhaps it's not so much illogical fear and hatred as it is logical judgment based on past behaviors. What advantage is there in being employed by a
company that has demonstrated a willingness to not pay its employees until it is sued?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

THe Brittish Medical JOurnal published an official complaint.

Ok, and were the bots appropriately adjusted?

No, at least according to my last information.
Appealing processes for this sort of thing are a pain in the ass.

That is true.

"After BMJ contacted Lead Stories to inquire about the flagging and removal of the post, the company maintained that the ΓÇ£Missing
ContextΓÇ label it had assigned the BMJ article was valid."

Perhaps by someone's definition it was. Perhaps the article was written in
such a way that it assumed the reader knew certain facts well-known to the intended audience and so did not include them, but if the reader was not a member of the intended audience, did not know those facts, or was willingly ignorant of those facts, the contents of the article could be used to spread misinformation. Just a guess.

"What does this all tell us about FacebookΓÇÖs fact-checking and the implications for the restriction of legitimate, timely speech and expression on the platform? It tells us that users with legitimate questions about being fact-checked will not get much help from Facebook itself, even if they are a well-established and well-regarded scholarly journal. "

I read Politifact.com quite regularly. Politifact is in a partnership to do fact-checking for Facebook. Politifact does not use bots.

However, I do agree that Facebook's moderation can be irritating. I got
dinged for a picture of a decanter in the shape of a raised middle finger,
with no explanation of why they found that offensive. I disputed it and never heard from them about it again.

"Cancel culture" is in no way new to either social media or the 21st century. For centuries, the Catholic church waged pressure campaigns (far more aggressive than what we've been discussing here) on ideas and opinions with which they disagreed. You're worried about not being able to sell stuff in a certain market, but people in the past faces being tortured and executed in some pretty horrendous ways.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sat Jan 29 2022 03:50 pm

"Cancel culture" is in no way new to either social media or the 21st century For centuries, the Catholic church waged pressure campaigns (far more aggressive than what we've been discussing here) on ideas and opinions with which they disagreed. You're worried about not being able to sell stuff in a certain market, but people in the past faces being tortured and executed in some pretty horrendous ways.

Jeff.

What I find mostly impressive is that you are able to put out a defense for cancel culture and at the same time show a nice example of cancel culture gone out of control.

Cancel culture is not ignoring what somebody has to say. It is about cancelling people. That is why it is called cancel culture. Cancellation being an euphemism for destroying the livehood of whoever you disagree with.

Nosolorol sucks and deserves total obliteration (for reasons out of the scope of this article) but the campaign they got was not about "teaching" them a lesson or anything. I don't think it even had a goal. It was just a crowd with pitchforks screaming "die die die!"

If you believe in second chances and rehabilitation you must concede that somebody who has no pending causes with justice deserves another chance for making things right. If you don't believe that criminals can be reintroduced into society it makes sense for you to claim Nosolorol deserved a cancel campaign because scumbags must not be forgiven.

I suspect you lay strongly in the second field (since you are supporting extrajudicial justice against people who has already served) in which case, yes, it makes sense for you to like Social Media and defend it to death. It is the platform that allows people to go full Charles Bronson in Deathwish and beat the people they hate out of court.

Which leads to the conclussion: I consider that a big con instead of a big plus. If anything, your argumentation has reinforced my opinion that Social Media these days is the tool for a lot of modern day evil.


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On 29 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

"Cancel culture" is in no way new to either social media or the 21st ce For centuries, the Catholic church waged pressure campaigns (far more aggressive than what we've been discussing here) on ideas and opinions which they disagreed. You're worried about not being able to sell stuff certain market, but people in the past faces being tortured and execute some pretty horrendous ways.

What I find mostly impressive is that you are able to put out a defense for cancel culture and at the same time show a nice example of cancel culture gone out of control.

The opposite of "cancel culture gone out of control" is not "no cancel culture." There is, and always has been, a spectrum of "cancel culture" in society. More importantly, it's not novel to social media.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
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I don't really see the point though, if some one really wants information on you, they can just sign up to your secret network - it might be a few more steps than typing your handle and fsxnet into google, but easily done.

Thats always been generally true. But it at the very least you don't have strangers just harvesting your data en masse.

Facebook creates a profile of EVERYONE. I had one, even before I signed up. It took information from other peoples phone and build up a social network. Google does something similar, tracking each user and building a profile.

This is disgusting behaviour, and I think we should at the very least stop mass industrial harvesting of our users information.

Also, they have to know you're on the BBS, sign up, trawl through the message boards. Doable, but this level of obfuscation stops a lot of people, and the Sysop could potentially deduce which user took which information to start a hate campaign.

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And there in lies the problem. Search engines dont know that a website is related to a vendor's products, a blog, or BBS message bases, when folks add a web frontend to their BBS to make it easier for (or to attrach) "users".

But I agree, it would be good if all those running a BBS made their web frontend "private" until registered users "logged in". I doubt a search engine would learn how to register and login to BBS's to scrape/store
the conent - so this simple act would keep BBSing "private".

There is another good reason. One reason that search engines are producing poor results is all the crap put out on the internet which matches the search results. It reduces the relevance of search results. When you search, you want documentation, you don't want random chats from people conversing, or top 10 lists, or those auto generated sites that create random content to try and match a search results to display ads.

Discussion forums where people solve problems (like Stackoverflow, or Vogons.net or Vintage Computer Forums) should be searchable, but general chat on fsxNet? A BBS's own messageboard for its users? This is only relevant to logged in users.

Remember, Google is a data gathering enterprise, NOT a search engine. Their purpose is to gather data to create a produce to sell to those who want to advertise. The search functionality is only a byproduct of their business model now.

BBS's have their own search functionality anyway.

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That would depend on who you ask.
I can't see how this discussion we're having could be used against
either of us.

This specific one no. But I may want to discuss a more sensitive topic with someone, and that CAN be used against me, if someone wants to.

Maybe you've never been threatened online, or had people try to track you down, it isn't pleasant.

And I'm pointing out that people are ultimately responsible for their own actions.

"Cancel culture" has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with decency. Our freedom of speech guarantees us neither a forum nor an audience. That speech deemed hateful by society is denied both is not a loss of freedom. Do you honestly expect that increased decency will be
the result of maximized freedom to spew hate?

Cancel culture is bullying, and an ideology asserting control aggressively.

I am responsible for my actions, but "being responsible for your actions" doesn't warrant someone trying to damage your life because they disagree with you.

People do that, and it is reprehensible behaviour.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps we are different as people.

I think we are. Some Australian's are adopting the American attitude, much to my dismay, but that attitude isn't as wide spread as it is in say, California.

Australian's are very lax about protecting their freedom, but likewise the social conditions which lead to Cancel Culture aren't as prevalent here.

Australians take a dim view of what is going on in the USA and the polarisation, and political activism which is beyond the pale.

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The problem comes when some moron shows up and reconstructs something
you said 3 years ago, casts it under a bad light, and gathers a lynch
mob.

The problem is that what is 'decent' changes. Things that society thought were perfectly acceptable not that long ago, are considered hateful. Social activists are constantly shifting the goalposts.

People are saying that attitides and movies from only a decade ago are "outdated". At work, a HR staffer described language in a survey as being "outdated" and they need to work on it. I honestly couldn't find what was wrong, other then maybe using term 'male' or 'female'.

They don't have to reconstruct what you said. They can find what you said, verbatim, and say you were expressing outdated and hateful views.

This is why in this social climate, we should by default seek privacy. I think it is dangerous to make speech public by default, unless it is clear and explicit when people post, it is world-accessible.

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Shadow profiles have been a thing for a long time already.

If all your friends use Facebook and Whatsapp, these services may
realize you are in their addressbooks and extrapolate your data (your likely hobbies, your likely interests) from the sort of people who has your phone number saved in their phone.

I really do no understand how people are OK with random people collating profiles on them.

If *I* had a database of everyone you spoke to over the phone, knew which lawyer you spoke to, where you've been, who your family is, you'd be creeped out.

But if I do this for a massive company which can spread the data to others, people are OK with it? It really boggles the mind.

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If one's political views are getting cancelled in the name of decency, it might be time to re-examine one's political views.

In the 20th century, not that long ago, it was in parts of the world, considered indecent to say that Jews were not all bad.

It has been considered indecent to say that races can intermarry.

It has been considered indecent to say that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle, or that they can marry.

It was considered acceptable to say there are two sexes.

The only reason you are saying what you are saying, is because YOUR political view is violently dominant. You are happy with supression and cancel culture because it is happening to your political enemies.

This is what I do not want imported into my country, this poison. You are skirting with supporting authoritarianism. Be careful what you wish for.

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Getting one's message out to the public requires a speaker, a forum and
an audience and, perhaps unfortunately, requires the consent of all
three. Should anyone be required to host someone espousing views with which they disagree? Should anyone be required to entertain the opinions

Your Cancel Culture activists make violent threats against hosts who allow people they don't like to speak there.

Acting that it is innocent expression of concern is quite sickening. We are talking about people who literally will punch you, threaten you, threaten to cause property damage.

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Which leads to the conclussion: I consider that a big con instead of a
big plus. If anything, your argumentation has reinforced my opinion that Social Media these days is the tool for a lot of modern day evil.

"Let us track and record everything you say ,and if what you say goes against why we consider 'decent' at any point in the future, then you will have to face the consequences of your speech when we decide to destroy your life. You deserved it."

That is basically what I'm getting from this.

Jeff is supposed to be swaying our minds to support his cause, but everything he says seems to just be an argument against social media being a good.

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On 30 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

That would depend on who you ask.
I can't see how this discussion we're having could be used against either of us.

This specific one no. But I may want to discuss a more sensitive topic with someone, and that CAN be used against me, if someone wants to.

Then perhaps a public forum such as social media is not the place to have
this discussion.

And I'm pointing out that people are ultimately responsible for their actions.
"Cancel culture" has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do decency. Our freedom of speech guarantees us neither a forum nor an audience. That speech deemed hateful by society is denied both is not loss of freedom. Do you honestly expect that increased decency will b the result of maximized freedom to spew hate?

Cancel culture is bullying, and an ideology asserting control aggressively.

When it comes to violence, yes. Words and boycotts are not violent, though. Other people have the same right to speak their minds that you do, and can choose where and how to spend their money.

I am responsible for my actions, but "being responsible for your actions" doesn't warrant someone trying to damage your life because they disagree with you.

If they do something illegal, then no, it is not warranted. Otherwise, they have the same rights you do.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps we are different as people.

I think we are. Some Australian's are adopting the American attitude, much to my dismay, but that attitude isn't as wide spread as it is in
say, California.
Australian's are very lax about protecting their freedom, but likewise
the social conditions which lead to Cancel Culture aren't as prevalent here.

Whose freedom are you advocating to limit?

Australians take a dim view of what is going on in the USA and the polarisation, and political activism which is beyond the pale.

Which specific acts of political activism do you conside to be beyond the
pale?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

The problem comes when some moron shows up and reconstructs something you said 3 years ago, casts it under a bad light, and gathers a lynch mob.

The problem is that what is 'decent' changes. Things that society
thought were perfectly acceptable not that long ago, are considered hateful. Social activists are constantly shifting the goalposts.

Then your defense is to say that what is considered decent changes over time and you have changed with the times. Apologize for your past views and move
on. If you decide instead to double down, then the consequences are on you. Your participation in society is as smooth as you make it.

People are saying that attitides and movies from only a decade ago are "outdated". At work, a HR staffer described language in a survey as
being "outdated" and they need to work on it. I honestly couldn't find what was wrong, other then maybe using term 'male' or 'female'.

This is true. A lot has changed in a short amount of time.

They don't have to reconstruct what you said. They can find what you said, verbatim, and say you were expressing outdated and hateful views. This is why in this social climate, we should by default seek privacy.
I think it is dangerous to make speech public by default, unless it is clear and explicit when people post, it is world-accessible.

Then realize, first and foremost, that social media does not offer privacy.
It never claimed to offer privacy, and it should never be expected to offer privacy.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

If one's political views are getting cancelled in the name of decency might be time to re-examine one's political views.

In the 20th century, not that long ago, it was in parts of the world, considered indecent to say that Jews were not all bad.
It has been considered indecent to say that races can intermarry.
It has been considered indecent to say that homosexuality is an
acceptable lifestyle, or that they can marry.
It was considered acceptable to say there are two sexes.

These things are true. A lot has changed in a short amount of time.

The only reason you are saying what you are saying, is because YOUR political view is violently dominant. You are happy with supression and cancel culture because it is happening to your political enemies.

All of those views (except the first) are now considered unacceptable because they attempt to limit what people can do with their lives. Are those not examples of bullying? Are those not aggressive attempts at "cancel culture"
in their own right? Are those not attempts to convince others that certain behaviors should not be socially acceptable? It seems quite fitting to me
that these oppressive opinions should be met with the same "cancel culture" that they seek to impose on others.

This is what I do not want imported into my country, this poison. You
are skirting with supporting authoritarianism. Be careful what you wish for.

Am I? Or is minimizing, harassing, and demonizing gays, interracial couples, and non-binary individuals skirting with supporting authoritarianism? Which
is the poison and which is the antidote?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Then perhaps a public forum such as social media is not the place to have this discussion.

I never considered a BBS to be public social media. It certainly wasn't a world-wide easily accessible record in the 90s.

When it comes to violence, yes. Words and boycotts are not violent, though. Other people have the same right to speak their minds that you
do, and can choose where and how to spend their money.

They have that right, but you don't have the right (I believe) to organize economic damage to punish people for their beliefs.

If you don't want to buy from a company because they aren't making a statement on some social issues you want them to make, then fine, but when you start to organise action to try and economically damage them, you are infringing upon their freedom of expression.

Companies shouldn't be making social and political statements anyway. Why companies feel they need to be agents of social change, I don't know.

Whose freedom are you advocating to limit?

No ones. I believe that in order to have freedom, you need to be protected from action taken against you. The first amendment isn't strong enough.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Which specific acts of political activism do you conside to be beyond the pale?

Turning up in public and attacking people violently because of their politics. Making threats against their employers, anyone who is hosting them, accommodating them. Threatening their families, children. Lying.

Any everything above that.

A lot of these are actions which some people feel justified as being "consequences of speech"

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Then your defense is to say that what is considered decent changes over time and you have changed with the times. Apologize for your past views and move on. If you decide instead to double down, then the consequences are on you. Your participation in society is as smooth as you make it.

It doesn't work like that. Activists will take that and destroy you. By that time it is too late. You don't get a chance to explain yourself.

I really think you don't know what is going on, and how these people operate. Are you not aware of how these people operate??

This is true. A lot has changed in a short amount of time.
Then realize, first and foremost, that social media does not offer privacy. It never claimed to offer privacy, and it should never be expected to offer privacy.

Jeff.

IT does offer it, then settings change on users without warning. Facebook has privacy settings. But even then, they will collate data without you knowing.

But for other areas, like an online meeting place, I consider it polite, netiquette if you will, to make it clear. As I said, the Internet is new, we are learning how to live with it.

I think one custom we need, is that Internet communications are as private as practical. If you chat on IRC, is it just an ephemeral message, is it logged and searchable? Is a BBS just for the users who sign up, is it web searchable? I think this should be considered decent behaviour.

If I chatted with you in a pub, with two others, we would expect the conversation to just be between us. You would not expect the world to be able to hear it. We have to move away from the "everything is public" mentality. The "Internet" is just a computer network. Not everything is public, or should be.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

All of those views (except the first) are now considered unacceptable because they attempt to limit what people can do with their lives. Are those not examples of bullying? Are those not aggressive attempts at "cancel culture" in their own right? Are those not attempts to convince others that certain behaviors should not be socially acceptable? It
seems quite fitting to me that these oppressive opinions should be met with the same "cancel culture" that they seek to impose on others.

They were limited because they were considered to be immoral. There are still things that are limited, because they are considered to be immoral, such as professing a preference for your own race.

This thinking is nihilistic, because you would have to accept EVERY view, even the "bigoted" and "racist" views. Are not people engaging in cancel culture infringing upon peoples rights to hold "bigoted" views.

If you are policing what I think, then YOU are the oppressor.

Cancel culture is oppressive. Period.

Am I? Or is minimizing, harassing, and demonizing gays, interracial couples, and non-binary individuals skirting with supporting authoritarianism? Which is the poison and which is the antidote?

All evil in this world is perpretated by people who think they are doing good. They take action against people they believe are in the wrong, and justify oppression, silencing, censorship, destroying them personally.

Its the same old story. Communists murdered people and they honestly believed they were killing the bad guys, getting rid of harmful views. Nazi's honestly believed they were getting rid of harmful views. Spanish Inquisition believed they were doing good. People with religious and dogmatic views who think they know what views the world needs to have in order to make us better begin removing those who don't go along.

Same old story, same old cycle, same old evil. Cancel Culture is just another chapter in this evil. Yes, they are EVIL. Ideologies finding reasons to persecute.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sat Jan 29 2022 05:56 pm

The opposite of "cancel culture gone out of control" is not "no cancel culture." There is, and always has been, a spectrum of "cancel culture" in society. More importantly, it's not novel to social media.

Jeff.

Dunno, saying that modern cancel culture is not a big deal because there already was cancel culture in the past is a lot like saying nuclear weapons are not a big deal because people has been killing each other in the past too.

You didn't get the people from village X try to boicott into nothingness some leathersmith from village Y for something he thought in the 16th Century.
The leathersmith in question might draw the rage of his own village folks at best. There is a definitive difference in scale.

Social media makes the interaction impersonal, so it is very easy to dehumanize the target of the cancellation campaign (it is not me saying it, it has already been described by people with more experience in the fiueld than I). This is also a qualitative difference.

The proponents of keeping vast nuclear arsenals are usually the people who has the nuclear weapons, or who culturally identifies with the people who has the nuclear weapons. My hipothesis is that cancel culture proponents nowadays defend the practice because they feel they command this weapon of social mass destruction.


--
gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Sat Jan 29 2022 07:19 pm

When it comes to violence, yes. Words and boycotts are not violent, though. Other people have the same right to speak their minds that you do, and can choose where and how to spend their money.

Here is the thing,

there is a big difference between society allowing something, you having the right to do something, and that something being good.

Free speech and the freedom for artistical expression are considered a good thing. That does not mean composing an artistic soundtrack made of farting sounds is a good idea. We may allow it because the alternative is imposing censorship against the arts, which is much, much worse.

However, if the onñly way you have of defending your song made of farting sounds is "I have the right to do it, so let me alone" then what I take away is that the whole thing is a very bad idea from the get go.

So yeah, people may have the right to boicott Nosolorol into nothingness. That does not mean it is a good thing. I also have the right to hammering my feet flat with a sledgehammer, but if I did and attempted to justify it because "It is my right to do so", I would be regarded as a madman.


--
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--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)

boraxman wrote to Dr. What <=-

That doesn't match my experience. My experience is that people that I would chat with no problem in real life, in FB it ends up being
different. It is not a good forum to communicate with people.

It's not good for a normal conversation, that's for sure.

I don't want to be tracked, data harvested,manipulated to be able to
speak to people I know.

Same here. That's why I keep my Facebook use very low.

The only reason I keep Facebook today is:
1. It's the only thing Mom knows how to use.
2. It's the only place where there are groups for some of my hobbies.


... Madness takes it's toll. Please have exact change.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Al's Geek Lab -=- bbs.alsgeeklab.com:2323 (21:1/126)

Hello Jeff!

** On Sunday 16.01.22 - 14:40, Jeff wrote to Ogg:

What does one *do* with a Z80 at a post-apocalyptic time?
I would imagine that there would be more important
things to deal with.

I have no idea. But a 6502, on the other hand... That could
be used to build a T-800 Terminator!

https://eeggs.com/items/19003.html

That's pretty funny. You'd think that the better approach
might be to invent new microprocessor code.

Even by the time in Terminator 3 they were still using dialup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okJHQ3hjqrI

..but the speed to render the images is amazing!


--- OpenXP 5.0.51
* Origin: Ogg's WestCoast Point (21:4/106.21)

On 30 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Then perhaps a public forum such as social media is not the place to this discussion.

I never considered a BBS to be public social media. It certainly wasn't
a world-wide easily accessible record in the 90s.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to our discussion, but the hypothetical discussion which could result in one facing consequences later for things said.

When it comes to violence, yes. Words and boycotts are not violent, though. Other people have the same right to speak their minds that yo do, and can choose where and how to spend their money.

They have that right, but you don't have the right (I believe) to
organize economic damage to punish people for their beliefs.

That's a boycott. There are several companies I won't do business with
because of their professed beliefs. Now, you might ask, why are companies professing their beliefs anyway? I really don't know, but something must be compelling their owners/CEOs to make those beliefs known.

If you don't want to buy from a company because they aren't making a statement on some social issues you want them to make, then fine, but
when you start to organise action to try and economically damage them,
you are infringing upon their freedom of expression.

Again, freedom of expression does not guarantee freedom from consequences.

As a side note, I don't boycott companies for not making social statements. I boycott them for making social statements that seek to marginalize others.
And as a side-side note, I'll also patronize businesses that make inclusive social statements. In general, I'm neutral toward companies that don't make social statements.

Companies shouldn't be making social and political statements anyway.
Why companies feel they need to be agents of social change, I don't know.

I don't either. In the case of social media, though, I think the self-regulation that we're seeing is an attempt to avoid a) liability, and b) government regulation.

Whose freedom are you advocating to limit?

No ones. I believe that in order to have freedom, you need to be protected from action taken against you. The first amendment isn't
strong enough.

There are also laws against violence, libel, and slander. But in general, freedom is nowhere guaranteed to be risk-free.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Which specific acts of political activism do you conside to be beyond pale?

Turning up in public and attacking people violently because of their politics. Making threats against their employers, anyone who is hosting them, accommodating them. Threatening their families, children. Lying.

These things do happen here, yes, and are widely condemned.

A lot of these are actions which some people feel justified as being "consequences of speech"

Some people, yes. Not most.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 31 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

Then your defense is to say that what is considered decent changes ov time and you have changed with the times. Apologize for your past vie and move on. If you decide instead to double down, then the consequen are on you. Your participation in society is as smooth as you make it

It doesn't work like that. Activists will take that and destroy you.
By that time it is too late. You don't get a chance to explain yourself.

It's been done before.

I really think you don't know what is going on, and how these people operate. Are you not aware of how these people operate??

I am, and if they are "activists," they are "active" for a reason or a cause. Should they not leave you alone if you agree with them?

This is true. A lot has changed in a short amount of time.
Then realize, first and foremost, that social media does not offer privacy. It never claimed to offer privacy, and it should never be expected to offer privacy.

IT does offer it, then settings change on users without warning.
Facebook has privacy settings. But even then, they will collate data without you knowing.

If you know it to be a false promise, then don't expect privacy. Surely there are other ways to communicate. Social media is primarily designed for people
to share things that they *want* others to see.

But for other areas, like an online meeting place, I consider it polite, netiquette if you will, to make it clear. As I said, the Internet is
new, we are learning how to live with it.

I would agree with that. However, you can often just look at a site and tell that it's not going to be private. What you can see of others, others can see of you.

I think one custom we need, is that Internet communications are as
private as practical. If you chat on IRC, is it just an ephemeral message, is it logged and searchable? Is a BBS just for the users who sign up, is it web searchable? I think this should be considered decent behaviour.

That depends. Some searchable communications are very valuable to others. An example of this would be a forum post about someone having a particular difficulty in setting up a particular BBS. If you search for that problem, you're likely to come across a logged copy of that conversation. And it might be just the thing you need to get your BBS running.

If I chatted with you in a pub, with two others, we would expect the conversation to just be between us. You would not expect the world to
be able to hear it. We have to move away from the "everything is
public" mentality. The "Internet" is just a computer network. Not everything is public, or should be.

Ooh, no, I would not expect a pub conversation to be private, at least not in the establishments we have here. I would expect mundane conversation to go without notice but not unheard, and if I started saying offensive things I would expect that others nearby would be offended and that I very well might face consequences.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 31 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

All of those views (except the first) are now considered unacceptable because they attempt to limit what people can do with their lives. Ar those not examples of bullying? Are those not aggressive attempts at "cancel culture" in their own right? Are those not attempts to convin others that certain behaviors should not be socially acceptable? It seems quite fitting to me that these oppressive opinions should be me with the same "cancel culture" that they seek to impose on others.

They were limited because they were considered to be immoral. There are still things that are limited, because they are considered to be
immoral, such as professing a preference for your own race.

Society attempted to self-regulate by limiting things of which it did not approve. And you have no problem with this, until you're the one of whom society does not approve?

So you're saying that passing judgment on others is ok, but having judgment passed on oneself for passing judgment on others is not? Interesting.

This thinking is nihilistic, because you would have to accept EVERY
view, even the "bigoted" and "racist" views. Are not people engaging in cancel culture infringing upon peoples rights to hold "bigoted" views.

Nope. Tolerance is notoriously intolerant of intolerance.

If you are policing what I think, then YOU are the oppressor.

No one is "policing" what you think. In terms of actual "policing," your
speech is largely protected (with a few exceptions) from legal consequences.
In terms of metaphorical "policing," your speech is nowhere guaranteed to be protected from social consequences.

Cancel culture is oppressive. Period.

Only if you feel that you are entitled to a forum and an audience for your speech, and believe that free speech should be free of consequences, neither
of which is true.

Am I? Or is minimizing, harassing, and demonizing gays, interracial couples, and non-binary individuals skirting with supporting authoritarianism? Which is the poison and which is the antidote?

All evil in this world is perpretated by people who think they are doing good. They take action against people they believe are in the wrong, and justify oppression, silencing, censorship, destroying them personally.

Social pressure can be used for good or evil. It's how a society self-regulates, whether that society is a national population or a bowling league.

Its the same old story. Communists murdered people and they honestly believed they were killing the bad guys, getting rid of harmful views. Nazi's honestly believed they were getting rid of harmful views.
Spanish Inquisition believed they were doing good. People with
religious and dogmatic views who think they know what views the world needs to have in order to make us better begin removing those who don't
go along.

Murder and physical torture cross the line into illegal behavior. As far as
I'm aware, we're not talking about people being murdered for expressing unpopular views on social media.

Perhaps a more appropriate example would be the blacklisting of accused socialists by the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the
McCarthy era, although that was more than social pressure in that it had the force of government behind it.

Same old story, same old cycle, same old evil. Cancel Culture is just another chapter in this evil. Yes, they are EVIL. Ideologies finding reasons to persecute.

The cases we're dealing with don't involve this sort of evil. Comparing a boycott to, for example, the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a massive exaggeration.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

The opposite of "cancel culture gone out of control" is not "no cancel culture." There is, and always has been, a spectrum of "cancel culture" society. More importantly, it's not novel to social media.

Dunno, saying that modern cancel culture is not a big deal because there already was cancel culture in the past is a lot like saying nuclear weapons are not a big deal because people has been killing each other in the past too.

The conversation originated as a discussion of the supposed evils of social media.

You didn't get the people from village X try to boicott into nothingness some leathersmith from village Y for something he thought in the 16th Century. The leathersmith in question might draw the rage of his own village folks at best. There is a definitive difference in scale.

This is true. However, the people in village X were not buying anything from the leathersmith in village Y anyway, so the point is moot.

Social media makes the interaction impersonal, so it is very easy to dehumanize the target of the cancellation campaign (it is not me saying it, it has already been described by people with more experience in the fiueld than I). This is also a qualitative difference.

Personal acquaintace has never been a prerequisite for boycotting.

The proponents of keeping vast nuclear arsenals are usually the people
who has the nuclear weapons, or who culturally identifies with the
people who has the nuclear weapons. My hipothesis is that cancel culture proponents nowadays defend the practice because they feel they command this weapon of social mass destruction.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Some people are
definitely better at it than others, though. Here in the US, progressives seeking to put economic pressure on a company typically organize boycotts or put pressure on advertizers to abandon a certain market. For reasons unkown to me, conservatives trying to exert economic pressure on a company tend to do so by destroying their own possessions in spectacular fashion.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

When it comes to violence, yes. Words and boycotts are not violent, tho Other people have the same right to speak their minds that you do, and choose where and how to spend their money.

Here is the thing,
there is a big difference between society allowing something, you having the right to do something, and that something being good.
Free speech and the freedom for artistical expression are considered a good thing. That does not mean composing an artistic soundtrack made of farting sounds is a good idea. We may allow it because the alternative
is imposing censorship against the arts, which is much, much worse. However, if the onñly way you have of defending your song made of
farting sounds is "I have the right to do it, so let me alone" then what
I take away is that the whole thing is a very bad idea from the get go.

Defending your song from what? People attempting to "cancel" it? I think this example may have backfired.

So yeah, people may have the right to boicott Nosolorol into
nothingness. That does not mean it is a good thing. I also have the
right to hammering my feet flat with a sledgehammer, but if I did and attempted to justify it because "It is my right to do so", I would be regarded as a madman.

In this example, the former is a society passing judgment on the business practices of a company while the latter is a presumably senseless act of self-mutilation. If Nosolorol decided to close up shop for reasons known only to itself, then you might be able to make a comparison.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Ogg said the following...

What does one *do* with a Z80 at a post-apocalyptic time?
I would imagine that there would be more important
things to deal with.

I have no idea. But a 6502, on the other hand... That could
be used to build a T-800 Terminator!

That's pretty funny. You'd think that the better approach
might be to invent new microprocessor code.
Even by the time in Terminator 3 they were still using dialup:
..but the speed to render the images is amazing!

Hahaha, that's awesome!

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Sun Jan 30 2022 12:07 pm

Perhaps a more appropriate example would be the blacklisting of accused socialists by the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the McCarthy era, although that was more than social pressure in that it had the force of government behind it.

The correct term nowadays is "blocklisting".

If you put forth "blacklisting" in a modern publication you will be regarded a recist in a lot of circles and you will be forced to apologize.

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--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 12:28 pm

You didn't get the people from village X try to boicott into nothingnes some leathersmith from village Y for something he thought in the 16th Century. The leathersmith in question might draw the rage of his own village folks at best. There is a definitive difference in scale.

This is true. However, the people in village X were not buying anything from the leathersmith in village Y anyway, so the point is moot.

I think people used to travel to cities to sell their wares every now and then in order to trade at a bigger market.

I mean, people in cities consumed a lot of stuff which was only produced in rural areas, right?


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--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Perhaps a more appropriate example would be the blacklisting of accused socialists by the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the McCarthy era, although that was more than social pressure in that it ha force of government behind it.

The correct term nowadays is "blocklisting".
If you put forth "blacklisting" in a modern publication you will be regarded a recist in a lot of circles and you will be forced to
apologize.

Hmm. That convention not appear to have made it to the circles I frequent. Blacklisting and whitelisting are terms commonly used in IT security.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

You didn't get the people from village X try to boicott into nothi some leathersmith from village Y for something he thought in the 1 Century. The leathersmith in question might draw the rage of his o village folks at best. There is a definitive difference in scale.

This is true. However, the people in village X were not buying anything the leathersmith in village Y anyway, so the point is moot.

I think people used to travel to cities to sell their wares every now
and then in order to trade at a bigger market.

Then it would have been possible for word of the leathersmith's misdeeds to travel, as surely he wasn't the onlyone making this journey.

I mean, people in cities consumed a lot of stuff which was only produced in rural areas, right?

Sure, and from a number of people, too. It would certainly have been possible for a multi-village boycott to occur. Of course, it wouldn't have been called
a boycott, as Charles Cunningham Boycott hadn't been born yet. It would more likely have been referred to as an embargo.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 12:34 pm

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

When it comes to violence, yes. Words and boycotts are not violent, Other people have the same right to speak their minds that you do, a choose where and how to spend their money.

Here is the thing,
there is a big difference between society allowing something, you havin the right to do something, and that something being good.
Free speech and the freedom for artistical expression are considered a good thing. That does not mean composing an artistic soundtrack made of farting sounds is a good idea. We may allow it because the alternative is imposing censorship against the arts, which is much, much worse. However, if the onñly way you have of defending your song made of farting sounds is "I have the right to do it, so let me alone" then wha I take away is that the whole thing is a very bad idea from the get go.

Defending your song from what? People attempting to "cancel" it? I think thi example may have backfired.

So yeah, people may have the right to boicott Nosolorol into nothingness. That does not mean it is a good thing. I also have the right to hammering my feet flat with a sledgehammer, but if I did and attempted to justify it because "It is my right to do so", I would be regarded as a madman.

In this example, the former is a society passing judgment on the business practices of a company while the latter is a presumably senseless act of self-mutilation. If Nosolorol decided to close up shop for reasons known onl to itself, then you might be able to make a comparison.

Jeff.

When I speak about defending a tasteless song, I mean justifiying its existence.

It is pretty common for creative people to face at one time or another the question "why in Hell have you created *that*?"

The point I was trying to make is that recognizing the artist's right to create a pile of crap does not mean you have to aprove the pile of crap. In this context, I recognize the mob's rights to complain and opinate and cease to consume products because of... reasons... but that has nothing to do with whether such actions are justified in a given case.

Example gratia:

A random thread in RPGnet was started as a complaint that W40K has a faction of "Nazi" humans, which may make actual nazies like the game, and therefore the game was not to be played anymore. I think they have the right to hold such discussion. I also think this people should seek help, because you must have a deep mental disorder to suffer because, somewhere, somehow, a nazi may be enjoying the same game you are enjoying.

Example gratia II:

Rejoice in cancel culture from the other end of the spectrum, when The RPG Site Created a list of leftist games to avoid, games of unknown political stance, and True American Games. It is their right to create such list. Do you aprove of such list being created?

The reason why I am mentioning this is becasue you are defending haressment campaigns using two main points. The main one is that it is your right to conduct it, which I don't argue (boraxman might). It is just that arguing something is your right is not enough to justify it.

The second point you base your defense on boils down to boicott campaign
being fine, because it is mainly the bad guys getting destroyed. This I also have a problem with.

Here is this, even if you assume that conservatives are evil and deserve total destruction and that progressives are saints, if you look deep down the issue, it turns out leftist mobs have begun to target leftist groups for not being leftist enough!

That's right, I have seen people trying to organize campaigns against Wizzards of the Coast, widely regarded as a woke org (to the point some people call them Wizzards of the Woke) because their games are no pacifist enough or have racist undertones. Mind you, I get complaining that The Birth of a Nation is racist, but complaining 5E is racist enough to justify a hate campaign is just insanity.

Nosolorol is also a leftist propaganda machine, for the record. All their non-license, in-house created products, use diversity checklists. They invariably portray cuts in government spending as the root of problems in their settings and published adventures. When they got hit so hard by the cancel campaign that they lost a number of stores, they released an apology statement (which was ignored by the lynch mob) and added that they are not a capitalist firm.

Therefore, even arguing that lynch campaigns are fine because it is bad people who is getting destroyed does not hold much water as an argument (even if you buy the premise, which I don't).



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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 04:04 pm

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Perhaps a more appropriate example would be the blacklisting of accu socialists by the House Committee on Un-American Activities during t McCarthy era, although that was more than social pressure in that it force of government behind it.

The correct term nowadays is "blocklisting".
If you put forth "blacklisting" in a modern publication you will be regarded a recist in a lot of circles and you will be forced to apologize.

Hmm. That convention not appear to have made it to the circles I frequent. Blacklisting and whitelisting are terms commonly used in IT security.

Jeff.

Yes, and also master->slave relationships in databases.

A number of projects have been forced to change the names of internal functions of the code. zzz, from the Java implementation of i2p, claimed he adopted the blocklist terminology and removed the terms Master and Slave because it was necessary to protect the project.

Go figure.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 04:08 pm

I think people used to travel to cities to sell their wares every now and then in order to trade at a bigger market.

Then it would have been possible for word of the leathersmith's misdeeds to travel, as surely he wasn't the onlyone making this journey.

Maybe, but I think a single craftmen would get lost in the crowd very easily to specifically target.

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On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Defending your song from what? People attempting to "cancel" it? I thin example may have backfired.

When I speak about defending a tasteless song, I mean justifiying its existence.
It is pretty common for creative people to face at one time or another
the question "why in Hell have you created *that*?"
The point I was trying to make is that recognizing the artist's right to create a pile of crap does not mean you have to aprove the pile of crap. In this context, I recognize the mob's rights to complain and opinate
and cease to consume products because of... reasons... but that has nothing to do with whether such actions are justified in a given case.

To whom is this hypothetical musician defending his right to create a bad
song? The musician's fans? Music reviewers? Isn't a bad review just an
attempt to discourage people from buying something? Are music reviewers now "cancel culture?"

A random thread in RPGnet was started as a complaint that W40K has a faction of "Nazi" humans, which may make actual nazies like the game,
and therefore the game was not to be played anymore. I think they have
the right to hold such discussion. I also think this people should seek help, because you must have a deep mental disorder to suffer because, somewhere, somehow, a nazi may be enjoying the same game you are
enjoying.

It's up to society whether they choose to play this game or not. They can accept the argument or reject it. There is no higher power that can make that decision for them.

Rejoice in cancel culture from the other end of the spectrum, when The
RPG Site Created a list of leftist games to avoid, games of unknown political stance, and True American Games. It is their right to create such list. Do you aprove of such list being created?

Anyone can create any list they like.

The reason why I am mentioning this is becasue you are defending haressment campaigns using two main points. The main one is that it is your right to conduct it, which I don't argue (boraxman might). It is
just that arguing something is your right is not enough to justify it.

Why does exercising one's rights, especially those of speech and expression, need justification?

The second point you base your defense on boils down to boicott campaign being fine, because it is mainly the bad guys getting destroyed. This I also have a problem with.

I didn't say it was only the bad guys getting destroyed. In the 80s, during
the Satanic Panic, Proctor & Gamble came under fire for daring to have 13
stars in their logo which was enough evidence for some that the company was dabbling in witchcraft or some such nonsense. It was an actual boycott, and
it did impact the company financially, but the people waging the protest did nothing illegal. Sure, the boycotters were "wrong" (according to Proctor & Gamble, who had been using the same logo long before the Satanic Panic, the stars represented the original 13 colonies). And sure they were taken in by what we now know to be an uninformed hysteria, but people can spend their
money when, how, and where they wish. I defend that basic freedom. To somehow prevent or punish individual economic decisions is not preserving freedom.

Here is this, even if you assume that conservatives are evil and deserve total destruction and that progressives are saints, if you look deep
down the issue, it turns out leftist mobs have begun to target leftist groups for not being leftist enough!

True. I think that one's personal economic decisions are protected by freedom of expression as much as speech is.

That's right, I have seen people trying to organize campaigns against Wizzards of the Coast, widely regarded as a woke org (to the point some people call them Wizzards of the Woke) because their games are no
pacifist enough or have racist undertones. Mind you, I get complaining that The Birth of a Nation is racist, but complaining 5E is racist
enough to justify a hate campaign is just insanity.

How did this go? Were they able to convince enough people to join them, or
did it fizzle out? I ask not because they are considered "woke" but because a successful boycott requires a critical mass of a given society to agree. Without that, there is no boycott. People can think and say whatever they
want, and they can attempt to organize boycotts if they want. We have that freedom.

Nosolorol is also a leftist propaganda machine, for the record. All their non-license, in-house created products, use diversity checklists. They invariably portray cuts in government spending as the root of problems
in their settings and published adventures. When they got hit so hard by the cancel campaign that they lost a number of stores, they released an apology statement (which was ignored by the lynch mob) and added that
they are not a capitalist firm.

I am not familiar with Nosolorol beyond what you have told me here. My understanding from you was that the economic pressure campaign against them
was due to shady business practices, not political ideology. Sometimes an apology is not enough to atone for past sins. Perhaps they needed to transparently implement control measures to insure that the situation which sparked the boycott never recurred. They needed to regain trust, and failed. Perhaps this was not just a result of the shady business practices, but also
of a refusal to rectify those things until they were sued. Perhaps it was not just one bad decision but a series of bad decisions, and there was no way possible to come back from that. Whatever the case, the people boycotting
them did nothing wrong.

Therefore, even arguing that lynch campaigns are fine because it is bad people who is getting destroyed does not hold much water as an argument (even if you buy the premise, which I don't).

I never made the argument that it was only bad people who are getting destroyed. Public opinion can be a very fickle thing indeed. There is an
entire industry whose sole reason for existence is to manage public opinion. Can it be used for good? Yes. Can it be used for bad? Yes. It simply is what
it is.

Jeff.

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* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Hmm. That convention not appear to have made it to the circles I freque Blacklisting and whitelisting are terms commonly used in IT security.

Yes, and also master->slave relationships in databases.

I have seen attempts to rework the master/slave terminology in hardware nomenclature as well.

A number of projects have been forced to change the names of internal functions of the code. zzz, from the Java implementation of i2p, claimed he adopted the blocklist terminology and removed the terms Master and Slave because it was necessary to protect the project.

I'm not sure things have reached the point yet where the existence of a
project depends on the latest politically-correct naming conventions, but
it's advantageous to be ahead of the curve on these things.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

I think people used to travel to cities to sell their wares every and then in order to trade at a bigger market.

Then it would have been possible for word of the leathersmith's misdeed travel, as surely he wasn't the onlyone making this journey.

Maybe, but I think a single craftmen would get lost in the crowd very easily to specifically target.

That would most likely depend on the nature and severity of the craftsman's transgressions.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 05:05 pm

To whom is this hypothetical musician defending his right to create a bad song? The musician's fans? Music reviewers? Isn't a bad review just an attempt to discourage people from buying something? Are music reviewers now "cancel culture?"

This hypothetical musician would not be defending his right to create a bad song. His right to create a bad song is a given.

The point I want to make is that just because you have the right to create a bad, tasteless song, does not necessarily imply it is a good thing to do.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 05:05 pm

The reason why I am mentioning this is becasue you are defending haressment campaigns using two main points. The main one is that it is your right to conduct it, which I don't argue (boraxman might). It is just that arguing something is your right is not enough to justify it.

Why does exercising one's rights, especially those of speech and expression, need justification?

Oh, you don't *need* a justification.

But we are talking about openly hostile activities with quite aggressive goals, so if somebody partakes in such but does not provide a credible justification, he will come across as a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum.



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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 05:05 pm

That's right, I have seen people trying to organize campaigns against Wizzards of the Coast, widely regarded as a woke org (to the point some people call them Wizzards of the Woke) because their games are no pacifist enough or have racist undertones. Mind you, I get complaining that The Birth of a Nation is racist, but complaining 5E is racist enough to justify a hate campaign is just insanity.

How did this go? Were they able to convince enough people to join them, or did it fizzle out? I ask not because they are considered "woke" but because successful boycott requires a critical mass of a given society to agree. Without that, there is no boycott. People can think and say whatever they want, and they can attempt to organize boycotts if they want. We have that freedom.

Well, in the end of the day Wizzards of the Woke/Coast is backed by Hasbro :-)

A big chunk of people seem to have jumped ship. Still not enough to bring Hasbro to its knees pleading for mercy. I think they were doing worse when they released 4E, because so much people started playing games from its main competitor (to the point Pathfinder was selling better than Dungeons and Dragons).

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 05:05 pm

A random thread in RPGnet was started as a complaint that W40K has a faction of "Nazi" humans, which may make actual nazies like the game, and therefore the game was not to be played anymore. I think they have the right to hold such discussion. I also think this people should seek help, because you must have a deep mental disorder to suffer because, somewhere, somehow, a nazi may be enjoying the same game you are enjoying.

It's up to society whether they choose to play this game or not. They can accept the argument or reject it. There is no higher power that can make tha decision for them.

Rejoice in cancel culture from the other end of the spectrum, when The RPG Site Created a list of leftist games to avoid, games of unknown political stance, and True American Games. It is their right to create such list. Do you aprove of such list being created?

Anyone can create any list they like.

I am not arguing against their right to make lists of safe and unsafe games. That is a given.

The question I am asking is whether you think these actions are justifiable or sane.

I have already established they don't need to be justified. However, you also know my opinion if no justification is given.


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On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

To whom is this hypothetical musician defending his right to create a b song? The musician's fans? Music reviewers? Isn't a bad review just an attempt to discourage people from buying something? Are music reviewers "cancel culture?"

This hypothetical musician would not be defending his right to create a bad song. His right to create a bad song is a given.
The point I want to make is that just because you have the right to
create a bad, tasteless song, does not necessarily imply it is a good thing to do.

Kinda like how the fact that you have the right to say something
controversial does not necessarily imply that it is a good idea to do so?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Why does exercising one's rights, especially those of speech and expres need justification?

Oh, you don't *need* a justification.
But we are talking about openly hostile activities with quite aggressive goals, so if somebody partakes in such but does not provide a credible justification, he will come across as a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum.

And presumably society will impose consequences on them for such behavior.

"Cancel culture" is neither good nor bad, and it can be used for good or bad.
I could agree that arguments against certain applications of "cancel culture" are valid, but arguing that "cancel culture" itself, or society's ability to self-regulate and pressure its members into conformity, is bad is a non-starter.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

How did this go? Were they able to convince enough people to join them, did it fizzle out? I ask not because they are considered "woke" but bec successful boycott requires a critical mass of a given society to agree Without that, there is no boycott. People can think and say whatever th want, and they can attempt to organize boycotts if they want. We have t freedom.

Well, in the end of the day Wizzards of the Woke/Coast is backed by
Hasbro :-)
A big chunk of people seem to have jumped ship. Still not enough to bring Hasbro to its knees pleading for mercy. I think they were doing worse
when they released 4E, because so much people started playing games from its main competitor (to the point Pathfinder was selling better than Dungeons and Dragons).

I'm sure that Hasbro knows that these things come and go, much like Mattel
and their Barbie controversies over the years.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 05:05 pm

Nosolorol is also a leftist propaganda machine, for the record. All the non-license, in-house created products, use diversity checklists. They invariably portray cuts in government spending as the root of problems in their settings and published adventures. When they got hit so hard b the cancel campaign that they lost a number of stores, they released an apology statement (which was ignored by the lynch mob) and added that they are not a capitalist firm.

I am not familiar with Nosolorol beyond what you have told me here. My understanding from you was that the economic pressure campaign against them was due to shady business practices, not political ideology. Sometimes an apology is not enough to atone for past sins. Perhaps they needed to transparently implement control measures to insure that the situation which sparked the boycott never recurred. They needed to regain trust, and failed. Perhaps this was not just a result of the shady business practices, but also of a refusal to rectify those things until they were sued. Perhaps it was no just one bad decision but a series of bad decisions, and there was no way possible to come back from that. Whatever the case, the people boycotting them did nothing wrong.

Honestly, I don't know what Nosolorol could have done to regain trust thay they didn't attempt. The Union that took the case to court pretty much said the issues were solved for good (and took a lot of pride in it).

Besides, I suspect a lot of employees were taking black money under the table, which is very common in Spain. A lot of professionals prefer to work with no legal contract and be paid in illegal money because then they can apply for government handouts and unamployment funds. I have the strong suspicion that this was the case with Nosolorol, that some employee got angry at them for some reason and got some Union to sue them, and that there was no way Nosolorol could demonstrate any payment because all transactions had been off-the-record.

This is speculation, though.

In any case, if the Union which took the case said the problem had been cleared, and knowing how extremely bitchy this particular union was, I find it hard to understand which issue the lynching mob was trying to solve by campaigning. I guess this people thinks that if you catch a thief stealing bread in the market, you should hang him in the public square, because rehabilitation is not possible and no amount of penance imposed by court will clear his debt to society :-(

On the other hand, it was delicious to see the firm decimated by the very audience of politically active people they had been pandering to for decades. Guilty pleasure of mine. I don't think it was right but I do think it was fun.

The bad news is the friendly local game store I used to buy games from had to remove his RPG section due to the pressure. He had lots of orders cancelled, which was specially bad for this guy because he owns the sort of local business that struggles to pay its own costs every single month. But well, I guess the lynching mob does not care for collateral damages :-P




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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 06:26 pm

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Why does exercising one's rights, especially those of speech and exp need justification?

Oh, you don't *need* a justification.
But we are talking about openly hostile activities with quite aggressi goals, so if somebody partakes in such but does not provide a credible justification, he will come across as a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum

And presumably society will impose consequences on them for such behavior.

"Cancel culture" is neither good nor bad, and it can be used for good or bad I could agree that arguments against certain applications of "cancel culture are valid, but arguing that "cancel culture" itself, or society's ability to self-regulate and pressure its members into conformity, is bad is a non-starter.

Jeff.

I think it was Hayek who said that the most important trait of a free society is that you can have an impopular opinion without it ruining your life.

What we see nowadays is people trying to ruin other people's livemaking, not because they have an impopular opinion, but because they have an opinion they dislike. Even if such opinion has no relationship to the way the target makes his living.

If my boss fired me because I voted for a different Town Hall candidate than he did, he would be frowned upon, but somehow, there is this big mass of people who thinks it is good and righteous to send letters to people's employers and providers and demmand him to be kicked out because of some personal opinion which has nothing to do with his job.

The same people who partakes in such destructive behavior are the sames that complain because this or that politician was divisive.

If you delve deep down into certain echo chambers I can think off, it is very clear that the end goal for a lot of cancellers is for making it so having an opinion they don't aprove off is no longer safe.

To claim this is any good, my friend, is the real non-starter.


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On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Rejoice in cancel culture from the other end of the spectrum, when RPG Site Created a list of leftist games to avoid, games of unknow political stance, and True American Games. It is their right to cr such list. Do you aprove of such list being created?

Anyone can create any list they like.

I am not arguing against their right to make lists of safe and unsafe games. That is a given.
The question I am asking is whether you think these actions are justifiable or sane.

I think such a list would be sane if it followed consistent rules for
inclusion and exclusion. If a list of games considered dangerous consisted of
a toothpick, the color green, and a trained flea, I might question its sanity and that of its creator. Is it justifiable? That's subjective and I would presume that it is justifiable to its creator. Is a list of the best and
worst yarn for crocheting justifiable if one does not crochet? Could such a list cause some yarn company somewhere economic damage?

I have already established they don't need to be justified. However, you also know my opinion if no justification is given.

You are personally involved in this situation; I am not. My view on whether it's justifiable is irrelevant. I would assume that it is, since someone put forth the effort to create it.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

Honestly, I don't know what Nosolorol could have done to regain trust
thay they didn't attempt. The Union that took the case to court pretty much said the issues were solved for good (and took a lot of pride in
it).

Perhaps, then, there was nothing they could do to avoid the consequences of their actions.

Besides, I suspect a lot of employees were taking black money under the table, which is very common in Spain. A lot of professionals prefer to work with no legal contract and be paid in illegal money because then
they can apply for government handouts and unamployment funds. I have
the strong suspicion that this was the case with Nosolorol, that some employee got angry at them for some reason and got some Union to sue
them, and that there was no way Nosolorol could demonstrate any payment because all transactions had been off-the-record.

That's a possibility, but this would also be a consequence of their actions.

In any case, if the Union which took the case said the problem had been cleared, and knowing how extremely bitchy this particular union was, I find it hard to understand which issue the lynching mob was trying to solve by campaigning. I guess this people thinks that if you catch a
thief stealing bread in the market, you should hang him in the public square, because rehabilitation is not possible and no amount of penance imposed by court will clear his debt to society :-(

Not paying employees is a bit more serious than stealing bread, and a boycott is a bit less serious than a hanging.

On the other hand, it was delicious to see the firm decimated by the very audience of politically active people they had been pandering to for decades. Guilty pleasure of mine. I don't think it was right but I do think it was fun.

No one is above criticism, apparently.

The bad news is the friendly local game store I used to buy games from
had to remove his RPG section due to the pressure. He had lots of orders cancelled, which was specially bad for this guy because he owns the sort of local business that struggles to pay its own costs every single
month. But well, I guess the lynching mob does not care for collateral damages :-P

Many businesses haveto deal with circumstances beyond their control, and many fail due to no fault of their own. We seem to have this idea that if one works hard success is all but guaranteed, but that is far from the case.

Far more disastrous to businesses than boycotts has been the COVID-19
pandemic. It is not their fault that it happened and admirably many have attempted to adjust to the new reality. But many, through absolutely no fault of their own, did not make it.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

I think it was Hayek who said that the most important trait of a free society is that you can have an impopular opinion without it ruining
your life.

I don't believe that conjecture to be true. Perhaps Hayek was referring to having one's life ruined by one's government?

What we see nowadays is people trying to ruin other people's livemaking, not because they have an impopular opinion, but because they have an opinion they dislike. Even if such opinion has no relationship to the
way the target makes his living.

This is true, but is also not anything new.

If my boss fired me because I voted for a different Town Hall candidate than he did, he would be frowned upon, but somehow, there is this big
mass of people who thinks it is good and righteous to send letters to people's employers and providers and demmand him to be kicked out
because of some personal opinion which has nothing to do with his job.

That is up to the company in question, and whether they want to be associated with that particular employee. The middleman is not even always necessary.

The same people who partakes in such destructive behavior are the sames that complain because this or that politician was divisive.

I don't see the contradiction.

If you delve deep down into certain echo chambers I can think off, it is very clear that the end goal for a lot of cancellers is for making it so having an opinion they don't aprove off is no longer safe.

Indeed. For a very long time, the opinion that women should be able to vote
or that gay people should be allowed to exist or that black people should be able to live where they please were not safe opinions to hold. The danger
posed by "cancel culture" is mild in comparison.

To claim this is any good, my friend, is the real non-starter.

It is neither good nor bad; it simply is. It can be used for good or bad,
and we may not even agree whether a given application is good or bad, but that's irrelevant. A means of applying economic pressure to corporations does not possess its own moral compass.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 07:49 pm

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

I think it was Hayek who said that the most important trait of a free society is that you can have an impopular opinion without it ruining your life.

I don't believe that conjecture to be true. Perhaps Hayek was referring to having one's life ruined by one's government?

What we see nowadays is people trying to ruin other people's livemaking not because they have an impopular opinion, but because they have an opinion they dislike. Even if such opinion has no relationship to the way the target makes his living.

This is true, but is also not anything new.

If my boss fired me because I voted for a different Town Hall candidate than he did, he would be frowned upon, but somehow, there is this big mass of people who thinks it is good and righteous to send letters to people's employers and providers and demmand him to be kicked out because of some personal opinion which has nothing to do with his job.

That is up to the company in question, and whether they want to be associate with that particular employee. The middleman is not even always necessary.

The same people who partakes in such destructive behavior are the sames that complain because this or that politician was divisive.

I don't see the contradiction.

If you delve deep down into certain echo chambers I can think off, it i very clear that the end goal for a lot of cancellers is for making it s having an opinion they don't aprove off is no longer safe.

Indeed. For a very long time, the opinion that women should be able to vote or that gay people should be allowed to exist or that black people should be able to live where they please were not safe opinions to hold. The danger posed by "cancel culture" is mild in comparison.

To claim this is any good, my friend, is the real non-starter.

It is neither good nor bad; it simply is. It can be used for good or bad, and we may not even agree whether a given application is good or bad, but that's irrelevant. A means of applying economic pressure to corporations doe not possess its own moral compass.

Jeff.

I would have to dig for the book but I am pretty sure Hayek was not talking about the government specifically in that paragraph.

A lot of jobs are vulnerable to lynch mobs, specially in the Entertainment industry. It is easier for a magazine or a fan-based social network to fold to preasure and drop impopular people than to keep them. There are always more people they can use as a replacement. Firms are not known for standing for their employees. In the case of a small publisher which may not even have full time writers in their payroll, they may actually have no option if faced with credible threats.

The contradiction is as follows:

"I think this politician is divisive. Division is bad" [5 minutes later] "Let's mark a bunch of people I dislike as The Enemy and start a civil cold war. Us against them. Let's finish them all off!!!!"

You already brought cancel culture examples which are as bad (or worse than) relocating people due to ethnical reasons, so the argument (which is just a variant of whataboutism) is gonna need 30 galons of Red Bull to fly.

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On 30 Jan 2022 at 08:06p, Arelor pondered and said...

Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to Arelor on Sun Jan 30 2022 07:49 pm

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...

"I think this politician is divisive. Division is bad" [5 minutes later] "Let's mark a bunch of people I dislike as The Enemy and start a civil cold war. Us against them. Let's finish them all off!!!!"

You already brought cancel culture examples which are as bad (or worse than) relocating people due to ethnical reasons, so the argument (which

Hi all.

I started to read this thread and realised it seems to have nothing to do with retro computing, old tech etc. despite being called 'computer kits' :)

It's a classic example I guess of a conversation morphing into something totally different.

Can we please

- keep the posts on topic in this echo

- ensure the subject reflects what's being talked about, or has changed to when you press reply to someone

- move the thread to another echo better suited for the subject if it's changed into something off topic for the echo... I'd suggest this one would be better suited in the general chat echo than this retro chat one.

Many thanks all.

Best, Paul

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The only reason I keep Facebook today is:
2. It's the only place where there are groups for some of my hobbies.

I used to have this as the only reason, but I'm doing a deal with the
devil. My enjoyment of light occasional comments with people who may share a hobby isn't worth the cost of Facebook.

There are other forums to discuss things I'm interested in.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

That's a boycott. There are several companies I won't do business with because of their professed beliefs. Now, you might ask, why are companies professing their beliefs anyway? I really don't know, but something must be compelling their owners/CEOs to make those beliefs known.

As is your right, and I defend your right to do so. However, if you decide that you are obligated to destroy a company because of their beliefs, that is coercion and bullying. You have a right to express your thoughts, your opinions, why you aren't a customer, but an organised boycott goes from
speech to political action, and political action shouldn't be used to coerce and compel.

Again, freedom of expression does not guarantee freedom from
consequences.

Yes, BUT one cannot take retribution against another, and pass it off as a "consequence". That is mafia like. There are many who bully others, and
claim it is just a "consequence".

If you lie about someone, and the sue you for defamation, that is a natural consequence. If you say that Trump is not a good president, or that
immigration reform is needed, and someone decides to firebomb your house, that is NOT a consequence.

As a side note, I don't boycott companies for not making social statements. I boycott them for making social statements that seek to marginalize others. And as a side-side note, I'll also patronize businesses that make inclusive social statements. In general, I'm
neutral toward companies that don't make social statements.

Your choice, as long as you respect the right of a company not to make those social statements, or to refuse to do so.

I don't either. In the case of social media, though, I think the self-regulation that we're seeing is an attempt to avoid a) liability,
and b) government regulation.

There are also laws against violence, libel, and slander. But in general, freedom is nowhere guaranteed to be risk-free.

It does need to be protected though. Freedom of speech is to a degree,
freedom of consequence. If people are able to freely "punish" you, then you in practice don't have free speech.

All supression of speech is through "consequences". You say something that upsets the powers that be, and you bear "consequences" for your actions.

Freedom of speech doesn't absolve you of the DIRECT negative effects, but if
it cannot be demonstrated there was harm (libel, defamation, fraud conspiracy to commit a crime), then your speech is protected.

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On 31 Jan 2022, Avon said the following...

I started to read this thread and realised it seems to have nothing to
do with retro computing, old tech etc. despite being called 'computer kits' :)

It has to do with what I would consider "retro thinking" as in "opposed to modern social media."

It's a classic example I guess of a conversation morphing into something totally different.

I would agree with this, yes. It has morphed into a critique of modern
"cancel culture."

Can we please
- keep the posts on topic in this echo

That is a subjective request.

- ensure the subject reflects what's being talked about, or has changed to when you press reply to someone

Noted.

- move the thread to another echo better suited for the subject if it's changed into something off topic for the echo... I'd suggest this one would be better suited in the general chat echo than this retro chat one.

Inasmuch as it is ideologically tinged, I wpuld suggest that this topic be verboten in fsx echoes. I would also note that I have argued against such ideological intingement. I would also note that no such forum for politically charged conversation exists at present.

Many thanks all.

You are welcome.

Jeff.

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I am, and if they are "activists," they are "active" for a reason or a cause. Should they not leave you alone if you agree with them?

Yes, I've been subject to bullying. That is what bullies do. Comply and I'll leave you alone, for now...

If you know it to be a false promise, then don't expect privacy. Surely there are other ways to communicate. Social media is primarily designed for people to share things that they *want* others to see.

You'd be surprised how little thought many people give it. I wouldn't be surprised of MOST facebook users weren't really able to state who and how people can access their information. They just go on because they want their friends and family to see photos of their grandkids.

I would agree with that. However, you can often just look at a site and tell that it's not going to be private. What you can see of others,
others can see of you.

Maybe. Take a discord group, one with 5 people. Do I know from an invite when I join, whether that will be google searchable, or just between us 5?
What should I expect? I actually honestly am not sure. I initially assumed that on a BBS, the messages didn't get replicated on the web. How would I have known? I might have talked about economics with someone, and now my
employer can search my name and find critiques against Big Business...

That depends. Some searchable communications are very valuable to
others. An example of this would be a forum post about someone having a particular difficulty in setting up a particular BBS. If you search for that problem, you're likely to come across a logged copy of that conversation. And it might be just the thing you need to get your BBS running.

Agree, as I stated, such forums SHOULD be public. But a general debate forum? Chat? At best, it just add chaff to search engine results.

Ooh, no, I would not expect a pub conversation to be private, at least
not in the establishments we have here. I would expect mundane conversation to go without notice but not unheard, and if I started
saying offensive things I would expect that others nearby would be offended and that I very well might face consequences.

But it wouldn't go to the whole world. At worst, people within earshot will chime in.

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On 31 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

That's a boycott. There are several companies I won't do business wit because of their professed beliefs. Now, you might ask, why are compa professing their beliefs anyway? I really don't know, but something m be compelling their owners/CEOs to make those beliefs known.

As is your right, and I defend your right to do so. However, if you decide that you are obligated to destroy a company because of their beliefs, that is coercion and bullying.

How is deciding not to do business with a company due to their beliefs different from being obligated to destroy a company because of their beliefs? One does what is within one's power to do, regardless of the end goal.

beliefs, that is coercion and bullying. You have a right to express
your thoughts, your opinions, why you aren't a customer, but an
organised boycott goes from speech to political action, and political action shouldn't be used to coerce and compel.

And why not, exactly?

Again, freedom of expression does not guarantee freedom from consequences.

Yes, BUT one cannot take retribution against another, and pass it off as
a "consequence". That is mafia like. There are many who bully others, and claim it is just a "consequence".

A consequence is a consequence. "Mafia like" implies organized crime, which implies criminality. A boycott is not a criminal activity.

If you lie about someone, and the sue you for defamation, that is a natural consequence. If you say that Trump is not a good president, or that immigration reform is needed, and someone decides to firebomb your house, that is NOT a consequence.

I do not condone firebombings. However, I suspect that the consequences we're discussing here are of a decidedly less criminal nature.

Your choice, as long as you respect the right of a company not to make those social statements, or to refuse to do so.

Sure, why not?

It does need to be protected though. Freedom of speech is to a degree, freedom of consequence. If people are able to freely "punish" you, then you in practice don't have free speech.

Nope. That is not the nature of "free speech."

All supression of speech is through "consequences". You say something that upsets the powers that be, and you bear "consequences" for your actions.

If the "powers that be" are the government, then yes, one is protected. Otherwise, no.

Freedom of speech doesn't absolve you of the DIRECT negative effects,
but if it cannot be demonstrated there was harm (libel, defamation,
fraud conspiracy to commit a crime), then your speech is protected.

Protected from the government, yes. Protected from public backlash, no.

Jeff.

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So you're saying that passing judgment on others is ok, but having judgment passed on oneself for passing judgment on others is not? Interesting.

Passing judgement is fine. What you cannot do is FORCE or COERCE someone. You are not entitled to make other people believe what you want them to believe.

You and I probably disagree politically, but I will NOT try to get you fired, doxxed, exposed, or lead others who are prone to violence to your personal details.

I do not have to approve if you, nor you of me. But we have to respect each others right to free expression, and to live our lives the way we see fit.

I don't think we disagree here.

No one is "policing" what you think. In terms of actual "policing," your speech is largely protected (with a few exceptions) from legal consequences. In terms of metaphorical "policing," your speech is
nowhere guaranteed to be protected from social consequences.

Lynch mobs is vigilante justice. Extra-judicial punishment. People are policing speech by acting as if they were the state, and taking on rights and responsibilities they do not have the right to take on.

Only if you feel that you are entitled to a forum and an audience for
your speech, and believe that free speech should be free of
consequences, neither of which is true.

Social pressure can be used for good or evil. It's how a society self-regulates, whether that society is a national population or a
bowling league.

It is also how society stagnates, and becomes authoritarian, despotic and violent.

In the West, we've learned through experience that freedom of expression is
an overall good. Supression of speech just doesn't work out well. Ever.

It doesn't matter how 'noble' the attempt is, once people start using coercion to maintain an orthodoxy, things turn south.

as I'm aware, we're not talking about people being murdered for
expressing unpopular views on social media.

Perhaps a more appropriate example would be the blacklisting of accused socialists by the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the McCarthy era, although that was more than social pressure in that it had the force of government behind it.

The same thing is going on now. AOC wanted a LIST of people who supported Trump to take action against them! Neither the blacklisting back then, or now, should be condoned.

Once you're making blacklists of people for beliefs, you're evil. Period.

The cases we're dealing with don't involve this sort of evil. Comparing a boycott to, for example, the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a massive exaggeration.

I didn't compare it to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. But things could
turn that bad in the USA, I really do think so, because "Cancel Culture" uses the same techniques and justifications.

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I started to read this thread and realised it seems to have nothing to
do with retro computing, old tech etc. despite being called 'computer kits' :)

Hi Avon,

I've posted a response before I saw this.

I'm happy to cease the thread.

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On 31 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

I am, and if they are "activists," they are "active" for a reason or cause. Should they not leave you alone if you agree with them?

Yes, I've been subject to bullying. That is what bullies do. Comply
and I'll leave you alone, for now...

There is no legal protection from public criticism.

If you know it to be a false promise, then don't expect privacy. Sure there are other ways to communicate. Social media is primarily design for people to share things that they *want* others to see.

You'd be surprised how little thought many people give it. I wouldn't be surprised of MOST facebook users weren't really able to state who and how people can access their information. They just go on because they want their friends and family to see photos of their grandkids.

Nevertheless, privacy is not guaranteed on "social" media.

I would agree with that. However, you can often just look at a site a tell that it's not going to be private. What you can see of others, others can see of you.

Maybe. Take a discord group, one with 5 people. Do I know from an
invite when I join, whether that will be google searchable, or just between us 5? What should I expect? I actually honestly am not sure. I initially assumed that on a BBS, the messages didn't get replicated on
the web. How would I have known? I might have talked about economics with someone, and now my employer can search my name and find critiques against Big Business...

Expect no privacy. Period. Is that so difficult?

That depends. Some searchable communications are very valuable to others. An example of this would be a forum post about someone having particular difficulty in setting up a particular BBS. If you search f that problem, you're likely to come across a logged copy of that conversation. And it might be just the thing you need to get your BBS running.

Agree, as I stated, such forums SHOULD be public. But a general debate forum? Chat? At best, it just add chaff to search engine results.

That, again, is subjective.

Ooh, no, I would not expect a pub conversation to be private, at leas not in the establishments we have here. I would expect mundane conversation to go without notice but not unheard, and if I started saying offensive things I would expect that others nearby would be offended and that I very well might face consequences.

But it wouldn't go to the whole world. At worst, people within earshot will chime in.

That would entirely depend on who was in earshot. Would things turn violent? Would the police be called? Would I get me @$$ kicked? Hard to say...

Jeff.

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On 31 Jan 2022, boraxman said the following...

So you're saying that passing judgment on others is ok, but having judgment passed on oneself for passing judgment on others is not? Interesting.

Passing judgement is fine. What you cannot do is FORCE or COERCE
someone. You are not entitled to make other people believe what you
want them to believe.

Of course not. That is not at issue here.

You and I probably disagree politically, but I will NOT try to get you fired, doxxed, exposed, or lead others who are prone to violence to your personal details.

Nor will I you.

I do not have to approve if you, nor you of me. But we have to respect each others right to free expression, and to live our lives the way we
see fit.

We can, however, publicy disagree with the other's position and make
arguments for others to do likewise.

I don't think we disagree here.

Perhaps we do.

No one is "policing" what you think. In terms of actual "policing," y speech is largely protected (with a few exceptions) from legal consequences. In terms of metaphorical "policing," your speech is nowhere guaranteed to be protected from social consequences.

Lynch mobs is vigilante justice. Extra-judicial punishment. People are policing speech by acting as if they were the state, and taking on
rights and responsibilities they do not have the right to take on.

Are they, though? Are they imprisoning people, executing people? Or are they merely exerting social pressure?

Only if you feel that you are entitled to a forum and an audience for your speech, and believe that free speech should be free of consequences, neither of which is true.
Social pressure can be used for good or evil. It's how a society self-regulates, whether that society is a national population or a bowling league.

It is also how society stagnates, and becomes authoritarian, despotic and violent.

That is possible, given a particularly backwards-thinking society, but I
think what we are discussing is anything but backwards-thinking.

In the West, we've learned through experience that freedom of expression is an overall good. Supression of speech just doesn't work out well. Ever.

Then why are you seeking to suppress the speech of those who disagree with
you?

It doesn't matter how 'noble' the attempt is, once people start using coercion to maintain an orthodoxy, things turn south.

Indeed. Look at one's own motives.

as I'm aware, we're not talking about people being murdered for expressing unpopular views on social media.
Perhaps a more appropriate example would be the blacklisting of accus socialists by the House Committee on Un-American Activities during th McCarthy era, although that was more than social pressure in that it the force of government behind it.

The same thing is going on now. AOC wanted a LIST of people who
supported Trump to take action against them! Neither the blacklisting
back then, or now, should be condoned.

The issue at question is one of intent. Was the intent of these people to expand freedom, or to limit freedom? With apologies to Avon, this is the
point at which the discussion veers from the hypothetical to the political.

Once you're making blacklists of people for beliefs, you're evil.
Period.

Not necessarily. It depends on the beliefs.

The cases we're dealing with don't involve this sort of evil. Compari boycott to, for example, the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a massive exaggeration.

I didn't compare it to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. But things could turn that bad in the USA, I really do think so, because "Cancel Culture" uses the same techniques and justifications.

You didn't, but you do now, eh? No one has been murdered due to 21st century "cancel culture," as far as I'm aware.

Jeff.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Mon Jan 31 2022 12:15 am

How is deciding not to do business with a company due to their beliefs different from being obligated to destroy a company because of their beliefs One does what is within one's power to do, regardless of the end goal.

The 1st is the equivalent of shrugging, saying you don't want to deal with the company anymore, walking away and ignoring the company for the rest of your days.

The 2nd is the equivalent of grabbing a flamming torch and gathering a bunch of drunken friends, walking up to the firm's location, and threatening to bring total destruction if the firm does not give you what you want.

One is peaceful, the other is destructive.

I find the bullying equivalence to be particularly acurate, to be honest. Bullying and mobbing are among the most widespread ways in which society imposes conformity. If you try to be friends with the impopular kid, the other kids will mark you as a bullying target as a mean to ensure only the popular positions remain strong in the group. Kids (and adults) reinforce their own sense of identity by dogpiling on people they identified as outsiders to their tribe. This effect has also been described. Nobody gets bullied for siding with the popular kid, it is always the kids which are different or have a different background or befriend impopular kids who are targetted.

Cancel campaigns are like Japanesse style bullying. Japanesse style bullying consists on isolating the target by not deigning to play with him, not deigning to sit near him, and walking away when he is near. It is rules & law compliant because it is passive-aggressive and nobody gets directly threatened or insulted. It is also regarded as a very aggressive and destructive way to wear a kid down.

People commits suicide over this sort of thing. And the other kids did nothing which was not their right to do. Which is yet another example of why I think that using the fact you have the right to do something is not a good justification for doing it.

The question here would be why would one defend political social media bullying when we collectively frown on the same tool being used everywhere else.

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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Jeff to boraxman on Mon Jan 31 2022 12:49 am

In the West, we've learned through experience that freedom of expressio is an overall good. Supression of speech just doesn't work out well. Ever.

Then why are you seeking to suppress the speech of those who disagree with you?

Cancel culture nowadays is not a free speech thing as it is comonly understood.

Free speech is stating an opinion, such as "Dungeons and Dragons sucks because it has not enough black gnomes".


Phoning the Wizards of the Coast office and telling them that Jeremy Crawford must be fired or else Wizards of the Coast will face dire consequences is not "speech", it is "action". When Wizards of the Coast ignores the threat, phoning Wizards of the Coast's providers and telling them to stop dealing with
Wizards of the Coast "or else" is no "speech" either.




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Re: Re: Computer Kits
By: Avon to All on Mon Jan 31 2022 04:15 pm

Hi all.

I started to read this thread and realised it seems to have nothing to do wi retro computing, old tech etc. despite being called 'computer kits' :)

It's a classic example I guess of a conversation morphing into something totally different.

Can we please

- keep the posts on topic in this echo

- ensure the subject reflects what's being talked about, or has changed to when you press reply to someone

- move the thread to another echo better suited for the subject if it's chan into something off topic for the echo... I'd suggest this one would be bette suited in the general chat echo than this retro chat one.

Many thanks all.

Well, I am then dropping the subject.

I think it is very clear what people's opinions are. The online lynch mob is certainly not going to cease lynching people because of what we say in this thread.

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Thank you. I was hoping this would be addressed. I am also not interested at reading the same ole converstaion about the current situation/sm ills while looking for Retro Computing info.

Keima

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On 01 Feb 2022 at 01:09a, keima pondered and said...

Thank you. I was hoping this would be addressed. I am also not
interested at reading the same ole converstaion about the current situation/sm ills while looking for Retro Computing info.

No probs ;-)

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* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 31 Jan 2022 at 04:23a, Arelor pondered and said...

- keep the posts on topic in this echo

- ensure the subject reflects what's being talked about, or has change when you press reply to someone

- move the thread to another echo better suited for the subject if it's into something off topic for the echo... I'd suggest this one would be suited in the general chat echo than this retro chat one.

Many thanks all.

Well, I am then dropping the subject.

Thank you.

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* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 31 Jan 2022 at 07:21p, boraxman pondered and said...

Hi Avon,
I've posted a response before I saw this.
I'm happy to cease the thread.

Many thanks. If you wanted to carry it on I can only suggest the general echo at this time but it seems like there's been a good deal of back and forth on the subject.

Cheers.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

On 31 Jan 2022 at 12:00a, Jeff pondered and said...

It's a classic example I guess of a conversation morphing into someth totally different.

I would agree with this, yes. It has morphed into a critique of modern "cancel culture."

Thanks Jeff.

Can we please
- keep the posts on topic in this echo

That is a subjective request.

Discussions about cancel culture etc. are not discussions about retro tech. There's nothing subjective here.

- move the thread to another echo better suited for the subject if it changed into something off topic for the echo... I'd suggest this one would be better suited in the general chat echo than this retro chat

Inasmuch as it is ideologically tinged, I wpuld suggest that this topic
be verboten in fsx echoes. I would also note that I have argued against such ideological intingement. I would also note that no such forum for politically charged conversation exists at present.

I agree the thread seems to be mostly about ideological points of view on subjects well beyond retro technologies. This is not the echo for such things. The scope of this echo is well defined.

You're correct at present there is no echomail area set aside for politically charged conversations. That is currently by design given the discord such discussions have in the past seemed to engender across other echos.

Happy to discuss this aspect further if you wished in FSX_NET.

Many thanks all.

You are welcome.

Cheers

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