:nerd: :sparkle:

:sad:

Do they have boobies there?

A partially clad young lady exposing what he quaintly referred to as her 'boobies'. Mild stuff, really.

(After I refused his initial request to be banned.)

Banned @Jake for posting porn.

Again, this forum is pretty good compared to many other forums. I totally agree with that. It's just no where near as good as it could be. If you don't care about that, if it doesn't interest you, ok, again for the 9th time just lock this thread and we're done. I have no problem with that at all. — Jake

Everyone on the mod team cares about the quality here. In fact, we care about it enough to dedicate a considerable amount of our time working for free to maintain and improve it in every way we can. Because this forum and the community it represents mean something to us. And it's that sentiment and those efforts, along with those of similar-minded posters here, that have resulted in the place rising from nowhere to number one in the philosophy forum world in a remarkably short period of time.

And you know what, we're proud of what we do, and the fact that we don't implement every idea that's suggested is a mark of common sense and good management and nothing to the contrary. The fact that you think you're so special that a rejection of your pet cause (not only by the mod team but by the community at large) reflects in any way negatively on us rather than on you is indicative of nothing more than your false view of your own importance. As is the idea that if there were an elite forum, you would have any access to it.

And that, @Jake, is the last word on the matter.

Without such a clubhouse we can kiss the knowledge posters goodbye — Jake

That didn't happen at the old PF and it doesn't happen here. We've always had plenty of knowledgeable posters. That's almost twenty years of philosophy forums where your prediction has failed to materialize.

TPF is a charity, not a business, and what you ask for requires time and money to achieve. — VagabondSpectre

Even with the resources, it would still a bad idea in my view. It would hurt the community nature of the place, which is based on character, variety, and a certain egalitarianism and tolerance (I hope) rather than just philosophical knowledge. Imagine you're running a bar that's been very successful at attracting a reasonably intelligent clientele who are on the whole happy with the place. Would it improve things to tell half of them that there's a new room just been set up for the favoured ones that they're not allowed entry to because they're just not good enough? Or would that just fuck things up? I say the latter.

Self-respect?

Try writing better posts.

I would like to see some incentive for posting higher quality content hereabouts. — Wallows

We only have sticks. You'll have to find your own carrot.

Please refrain from insulting janitors by comparing them to us. Those people actually get paid. We are somewhere between drudges and the Borg.

Maybe a hidden bunker nuclear war forum?

Well, I suppose this complaint is at least an improvement on telling us the only topic worth talking about is nuclear war.

There might even be a hidden forum here that no one sees until they are invited into it. — unenlightened

:zip:

Yes, welcome!

Could be. If so, I wish him well. Here is not the place for him though.

Banned @Daniel Cox for being a crank and/or troll. Thank you to whoever reported his recent posts, which have now been removed. (Replies needed to be deleted too).

There is some justification in the comparison, I suppose. So, I don't want to argue the toss especially as, as I've said, there's a danger of those who mostly agree ending up thinking they're on completely opposite sides of an artificially created divide. So, I agree with the general sentiment of at least being very qualified if an -ism term has to be used. But by the same token being somewhat qualified in criticism of its use. We end up in a kind of negative discursive feedback loop otherwise.

Believing a position seeks a better result for society has no bearing on whether someone is sexist or not or whether their position is morally supportable or not. If I'm sexist for supporting existing abortion laws then I'm sexist regardless of my motives. Same for Scruton. But I haven't called him sexist. I would characterise his comment as prudish and silly. There are bigger fish to fry in my view.

The idea that the Scruton quotation about masturbation--here repeatedly and bizarrely interpreted out of context--is sexist, but controlling women's reproductive freedom is not, is bonkers. — jamalrob

But your reply to un above was:

Maybe, but then it's just another sexist opinion to be countered with argument. — jamalrob

So, I would agree it's another opinion (sexist or not) to be countered with argument, but not that it's 'bonkers' to think it's sexist especially considering your own interpretation of it. Again, actual differences are probably being exaggerated here by the use of derogatory terms.

Edit: On the comparison to reproductive freedom, which I missed in my reply above. Depends what you mean. I've tried to give a reductio but you said you didn't want to debate it again, so...

Edit of edit: Cross-posted edit.

at least a couple of liberal-leftish members here are in favour of existing, or even more extensive, obstacles to getting an abortion. — jamalrob

Existing, in my case. Anyhow, it's a false equivalency. In the case of abortion, there's a balance of rights to be considered between the unborn child (of whatever sex) and the pregnant woman. There's another life at stake. There's no such obvious conflict of rights in implying a restricted or traditional role for women as opposed to men. That's purely a matter of allowing men more freedom in a comparable domain. And consider that you could use the equivalency to accuse someone of sexism for disagreeing with infanticide. Anyway, I agree we should keep things in perspective with regards to Scruton's comments (on all issues). It's a pity it tends to become polarising as it seems to me he's a borderline case where you could be on either side without having massively conflicting views.

Yeah, probably was a bit overkill there. :smile:

(The issue of why and how eyes become near-sighted is an interesting one but maybe a digression).

There are literally millions of verified cases of LASIK and glasses correcting short-sightedness, which is evidence that those solutions can be effective. You saying a couple of vague sentences about the mechanics of eyesight isn't. For example, there are other parts of our bodies that are "flexible" but resist permanent changes to shape. Plus, have a look at the diagram below and there's no reason what you said, even in theory, should have enough effect in changing the shape of the eyeball or the lens in such a way as to cure any significant level of myopia.

Anyhow, the main point is if you want to argue for this method working, show the evidence. If you can't, consider that you might be misleading people and potentially wasting their time on an important issue for them.

And yet a fox in the woods is no bother to him. Priorities...

So on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being no justification and ten being absolute justification, I'm going to give a 6/10 on his sacking as a government advisor (marginally agree), a 2/10 for his hypothetical sacking if he hadn't been on the government payroll (disagree), a 9/10 on his sacking as a writer for the tobacco thing (strongly agree), and a 10/10 for a potential ban on him ever engaging with a clitoris again (no-brainer).

It's pseudoscience. No amount of faffing about with visualisation and movement is going to match redirecting light through external lenses or burning an excess off your cornea to reshape your own. I've had LASIK done. It works great in most cases, and that's what I'd recommend unless the degree is very minor, in which case, do what un said.

Well, you've promoted it enough now and I think you know we're not going to change policy on where we put OPs solely for your benefit.

Just on the last point, that it's difficult to untangle his motives doesn't mean he shouldn't have been sacked. While it's right we ought not make decontextualised or disproportionate accusations of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, it's the responsibility of those on the government payroll to be careful with their use of language. If they're not, they shouldn't complain when their loose talk isn't given a charitable reception.

They will now... :brow:

It's a fair point to bring up. I suppose if an unscrupulous person lied to help people for money, I wouldn't criticize them. Nor would they deserve any plaudits in my book. But Scruton was not delegitimized in this instance just because he was paid or because he was a conservative, he was delegitimized and fired primarily because emails were leaked that suggested he was actively seeking financial reward to help a tobacco company harm the public. In other cases, yes, you'd need to look at the history of the individual's views and whether they were consistent with what he or she was being paid to promote. As long as everything is absolutely out in the open, there shouldn't be an issue.

His delegitimization with regard to accusations of anti-semitism and Islamaphobia is more questionable. It's much harder to untangle his motives there.

If you're writing paid advertisements / lobbying for a company or industry, you shouldn't be passing that off as authoritative content. He abused his position as an academic for money. And his actively seeking ways to help tobacco companies harm people even more because he wanted even more money place his motives well past the suspicious and into the blindingly obvious as far as I'm concerned.

But this character dissection of Roger's rotten insides is a tangent of questionable relevance to be fair.

it's an excellent article — fdrake

:up:

I mostly feel sorry for him/amused by his silliness on clitoris's.

For this previously mentioned issue though:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1382831/Writer-fired-over-tobacco-links.html

"In a leaked e-mail, he was shown to have suggested that the cigarette company extend his two-year-old contract by a further £12,000 a year in return for his placing of articles in the media defending smokers' rights.

In the e-mail, Prof Scruton advised the company that it could avoid giving the health department details of its cigarettes' ingredients by claiming that to do so would give away "trade secrets"."

He deserves to be called a few names. Which I will leave to the reader's imagination.

@S, considering the fact that you managed to squeeze six pages out of this in a matter of hours, I'd like to hire you to help me sell holy water to the Evangelicals. @Hanover's going to do the lawyering for us.

Worse shit has happened to better people. And that's a line I've had to use on myself from time to time too.

Just give it a few months of posting in others' discussions please, Wallows. It's no big deal. You still have more discussions than anyone else on the site as far as I'm aware.

You could improve immediately by stopping the self-indulgent whinging. You didn't even answer my concerned PM to you when you were pissing gibberish all over the site, which PM was the option I preferred to banning you.

Anyway, we're off-topic. As usual, I'll leave this open for another little while for any comments on @räthsel's banning and then close it again.