A Flag for Blatant Contradictions
Posted by deleted 9 years, 1 month ago to The Gulch: Feature Requests
I think if someone consistently makes contradictory claims that we should be able to flag their comments as an alert to others that it is on our radar. If I walked into the gulch and saw some of these remarks and thought they were typical for this gulchonline place I'd hit the pavement. There has to be a way of letting new comers know that certain things are not okay with the bulk of objectivists in here and I don't want to scare the shit out of people the minute they land. People find their way here to get AWAY from that kind of non thinking.....
Having these ilogical or anti Objectivist comments a different color would not be less helpful to me. I would rather be able just to ignore them. My complaint with them is signal to noise ratio.
You're a failed Turing test.
You often remind me of the person that walks in on a conversation about a topic that he knows little or nothing about and rather than listen, tries to participate as if he does have some knowledge.
I can't stand this behavior, esp in large meetings. Some people feel the need to talk just to talk, repeating points that were just made, etc. It's possible for me to do it about public policy because I don't follow it that closely, but I try damn hard not to make assertions outside my area of knowledge.
I may be guilty of jumping into a conversation that I perceive as "some politician used an inappropriate word; Yay! Let's talk about how other politicans can use that to advance their career." I may jump in saying this is a bunch of crap instead of digging in to see if there's something deeper under the juvenile serface.
Please ask me, in another thread if it makes sense to avoid tangents, if I'm saying something confusing or contrary to objectivism.
I am also fearful of CG's idea of having certain areas where certain words or thoughts aren't allowed. A very slippery slope.
I think anyone with the intellect to seek out this site also has the intellect to see the idiocy in certain comments. That being said, obviously if someone is being disruptive for its own sake, a moderator would have the ability to ban them since it is there site.
I just wonder how Dagny would have reacted if Galt had said "you either agree with me, or you're dead to me". Galt believed in his own persuasivness enough to feel he could prove his direction was the right path.
If some are seeing this as an overreaction then perhaps consider that you haven't been reading all of his comments for the last 18 months.
I agree that first impressions could run someone off, so if the person involved is being that pigheaded about things, and has been for years, I understand the idea of getting rid of someone like that.
If all you say is true, this person is certainly no Dagny. Dagny was my first crush, so I wouldn't want to sully her good name.
I would have figured I would have been kicked out long ago.
Harry M
And with regards to that, I can objectively say that I have seen more than my share of entries on this board from certain people who make themselves readily apparent that are unequivocally, entirely composed of, um, "A".
Regarding the inconsistency flag, many (maybe most) discussions involve people thinking the other person holds two contradictory propositions. The interesting part is working out why that is. Do they disagree fundamentally, e.g. one person is anti-objectivist and thinks “good people put others' interests ahead of their own” or do they disagree on some fact or reasoning. It seems to defeat the entire purpose of a discussion website if every time we see something that doesn't sound right we click a button instead of discussing. It's basically a second downvote button.
Another thought I had is to have Categories where certain ideas can and cannot be discussed. For example, religious people wanting to discuss how religious people can be objectivists could have a Category where criticizing the very notion of religion or religion and objectivism is prohibited. There could similarly be a Category for people who accept religion is incompatible with objectivism. People wanting to discuss how to support/oppose candidates could have Category where criticizing the idea of supporting/opposing candidates. The point is to keep people from being distracted by tangents if they don't want to be. The hard part with this idea is keeping the number of Categories manageable.