Once fewer people die of disease than in war, we should ban the development of new technologies — Garth

Been writing along those lines too, for example, see here.

As I currently see it, reason alone is nowhere near close to sufficient for making such huge changes to the group consensus. Human beings mostly learn by pain, so that is what will be required, lots of pain.

The question I see is, will the necessary pain come in the right dose? Will it be big enough to inspire a true rethinking of the status quo, while being small enough not to destroy everything?

I have no idea of course, but I do have a secret plan for defending myself against the wave of pain that is surely coming. I'm getting old, and am gonna die soon. Get out of jail free card! Woo Hoo!!! :-)

We are the monkeys and rather that pretending we won't launch the missiles, we shouldn't build missiles for monkeys in the first place. — Garth

Amen brother. A philosopher interested in nuclear weapons! It's a miracle, a sign from God!!! :-)

The people each lose their own self-sufficiency — Garth

This does seem a very important aspect of specialist culture. Specialist culture brings great new powers, some of which present grave new threats, and should those threats manifest themselves very few of us know how to feed ourselves. Social chaos would erupt at the moment when the average person concludes they will not be able to replenish their meager food supplies by legal means.

By demanding and pursuing some perfect and excellent way of understanding the world, we really do nothing but discourage our ignorant friends from participating.

It's true that some people just aren't cut out for abstract ideas. This is typically addressed by the group consensus telling we philosophers that we are hogging the conversation if we dare shift the focus away from wandering idle chit chat for more than one minute. :-)

I might rephrase your statement this way. By demanding and pursuing some perfect and excellent way of understanding the world we are shifting our focus away from reality itself to our thoughts about reality. That is, we are choosing a diluted 2nd hand experience of reality over the real thing.

It's boring to be correct...

It's not just boring. When it comes the largest of questions which appeal to we philosophically minded folks, being correct is also largely a fantasy.

Should we even do philosophy at all?

We should, because that's what people like you and I were born to do, and respect for that genetic inheritance is warranted.

But we should do so in a manner which imitates the reality we are trying to understand. The overwhelming vast majority of that reality consists of what we typically refer to as nothing, with tiny little bits of something sprinkled throughout. So if our philosophical experience is mostly silence, with little gems of wisdom contained within that vast space, we're probably on the right track.

It's perhaps interesting to recall that for those engaged in sports their muscles grow not when they are using them, but when they are at rest. Might be true for mental exercise as well.

I am probably taking it too seriously, so I will try not to do so. — Jack Cummins

Welcome to my world! I've been working on that for 20 years, a work still very much in progress.

Don't know if this will be workable for you, but my sanity is preserved by the MANY visits I make to a nearby state park. The peace of nature can be a great antidote to taking human things too seriously. Without that remedy I'd probably be screaming FUCKING NITWITS!!! in every other post.

The reason why your thread is making me extremely anxious is that I am so grateful for this site and fear it will cease to exist or be altered too much. — Jack Cummins

Ok, I hear you. And again, the chances of the site being altered, especially to my specifications, are most likely extremely low. This is likely just an intellectual exercise which will eternally remain only that.

Also, a reminder, even if my scheme was adopted, the Conversation area would still allow members to do just what they are already doing.

And, if my scheme were adopted and everyone left, they would simply set up a new site to replace this one, which apparently has already happened in the past.

I'm not the forum owner, or a mod. I have no clout here at all, no rank, no power, no influence, no nothing. My best guess is that all the mods will reject all these ideas for the simple reason that they are not their ideas. The last time I tried this all the mods wound up yelling at me. This time, they can't be bothered. Nobody cares. Bored to tears. I'll be ignored until the thread dies and then we'll all go back to calling each other fucking nitwits. Nothing will change. Smile and be happy! :-)

I'm sorry to disturb your peace, but really, don't worry too much about any of this.

I'm actually starting to regret making this thread now. I'm definitely saying a lot of ridiculous things at this point. — Garth

If that's true, then wouldn't that make you the bad singer who should just relax and keep singing?

I think your thread raises all kinds of interesting questions, and thus is not at all ridiculous on a philosophy forum.

I am sorry to say that if your thread is making me feel really angry. — Jack Cummins

Then please know this. I've had this conversation quite a number of times on a number of different sites, and it never leads to much of anything other than a bunch of people yelling at me. So I doubt you have anything to worry about. So pop open another beer, kick back in your chair, and enjoy yelling at me. I'm here for you! :-)

You are making assumptions that everyone wants this forum to be article dominated. — Jack Cummins

I'm sharing my own vision of what a philosophy forum can be. I'm entirely agreeable that others should do the same.

If the changes you wish for are implemented I will stop using it because all the beauty of it would be lost entirely. — Jack Cummins

Many people would make this decision, as is their right. The good news is that there are already literally a million other forums which use the standard forum model, plus Twitter, Facebook and countless other platforms which allow pretty much anyone to say pretty much anything.

There are other philosophy forums too, though in my judgment most of them have gone in to the crapper for just the reasons I'm articulating here.

My argument is that EVERY SINGLE FORUM on the Internet doesn't necessarily have to be ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME. There could maybe be one or two forums out of a million which try something different. Or not.

I also think people without actual avatar images shouldn't be allowed to post — Garth

My head is shaped like an H and I can't do anything about that. It's all my mom's fault!

So here's an attempt to further define my vision of what an Article section might look like. None of the following is proposed to be a "one true way", but is instead just an effort to begin crawling in the right direction, ie. get more specific.

The goal of the following ideas is to 1) substantially raise the public image of the forum while 2) making the Article section accessible to some number of existing members who are willing and able to rise to the higher standards.

Let's start with some simple changes. One change that would be easy to define is to require a uniform format for all threads within the Article section. Something like this..

TITLE: Each thread should begin with a one sentence description of what the thread is about. This makes it easy for readers to quickly determine if the topic is of interest to them. It also helps the author clarify what it is exactly that they wish to discuss.

SUMMARY: A one paragraph summary can expand a bit on the title. If the author is making an assertion, this would be the place to state that assertion concisely. Something like this...

"It's my contention that X plus Y equals Z, for the following five reasons.

ARGUMENTS: Here the author lays out the arguments which support their contention, one by one by one. Each argument should be numbered for easy reference by readers who wish to comment.

CONCLUSION: Here the author wraps their contention and supporting arguments up in to a convenient package of paragraph or two for easy copy/pasting by readers so they can conveniently link to the thread elsewhere.

----------------------

If every thread in the Articles section used some uniform format like this it would elevate the presentation to a more professional looking form. Many of the existing threads on the forum could qualify for inclusion if they were put in to this format and tightened up a bit.

----------------------

As I imagine it, the thread author would be made responsible for moderating the comment section below their article. This would lift this burden off of the editor(s) and make the thread author responsible for the quality of the following conversation. The thread author would have the power to decide how much off topic elbow room they wish to allow within their thread. If the thread author failed to show up for this job then the editor may decide not to publish them in the Article section again.

The editor(s) would have the final say on any decisions. As example, if a thread author was willing to accept comments containing phrases like "fucking nitwit" but the editor was not, the editor decides the question.

----------------------

So, the price tag for being published above the fold (in the Articles section) would be something like the following:

1) Write an article which is generally of higher quality than the average forum post, as defined and decided by the editor. Present an interesting idea, and put effort in to presenting that idea in an articulate manner.

2) Agree to present the article in whatever format is being applied to all articles in the Article section.

3) Agree to moderate any discussion below the article, and actually show up and do it.

4) Agree not to take up the editor's time with complaints and questions if an article submission is not accepted in the Article section (but is instead placed within the Conversation area).

Link seems to be working, thanks for that. Took a quick look, yea, some interesting ideas there, agreed. Seems to this self appointed authority :-) as an example of a post from an existing member which could qualify for my vision of an Article section, with perhaps just some modest formatting upgrade. See next post....

Refer to my post Against Excellence for the reasons. — Garth

If you'll link to that post for us I may make a visit, thanks.

Maybe some posters are being scared off by low quality posts. I don't know. — five G

I do know. A key problem is that many of the most interesting writers were scared off of forums years ago. You know, forums have a serious brand problem with many people. This is a big challenge and I don't have a super clever solution to it.

The interface is the best I've seen — five G

Agreed, and 1) I've been looking at forums for 20 years, and 2) coded my own forum system from scratch and 3) am absurdly fussy about interface issues.

and it wouldn't hurt my feelings to be hidden in the background. — five G

I think the next step for my posts is to further define an article section as I imagine it. It seems we should be able to conceive of an article section so that the public face of the forum is considerably improved, while still offering an opportunity to many existing posters, if we just raise our games a bit.

Coming up next...

Surely we don't want them to have to keep intervening like some government. — Jack Cummins

Surely I do want such intervening. If the goal were to raise the quality of content on average, there is no other option.

Again, such intervening doesn't have to happen everywhere. The Conversation area can be much as what we have now. If someone wishes to call me a dimwit piece of shit clueless asshole who has no fucking clue etc, they can still do that, in the Conversation area. :-)

I like the clash-of-personalities model better than the magazine model. What my books can't give me is an unpredictable collision of hundreds of personalities. — five G

To clarify (again) there's nothing about what I've suggested which prevents a clash of personalities.

Also, my suggestions do not require a choice between the water cooler model and the magazine model, but instead make both available. All my suggestions do is reorganize the relationship between the two models so that the magazine model is above the fold, and the water cooler model is below the fold. The point of this is to make it more likely that you will be able to witness collisions between more interesting personalities.

Actually no one seems to be doing anything. — Brett

That seems a reasonable theory. I don't know what the behind the scenes situation is, so I'm just speculating. If your theory is generally correct, then we might explore why no one wants to be a mod, or at least act like a mod.

My theory, again just speculation, is that the mods have become bored with ruling over what is so often just an ego food fight. If true, I can certainly understand that as I'd feel the same way.

I don't believe that you believe that none can understand your ideas about that nature of thought. — praxis

Whether readers can understand is largely unknown here. It does seem true that this topic routinely fails to engage. That used to frustrate me, but lately I'm learning not to worry about it too much.

Having just read the OP, unless I've misunderstood it seems that all you're suggesting is to make the FORUM link on the top menu only visible to registered users and to publish rejected articles to the forum. — praxis

Basically, yes. Existing users wouldn't see that much change. But, ANY change is typically unwelcome.

Anyone can scout out and invite new members as it is. — praxis

True that. But we rarely if ever do that because we don't care enough about the forum to bother. At least in part that could be because in it's current form the forum quite often doesn't merit caring about.

I don't see this as a problem with this forum specifically so much as it is a problem with the "water cooler" publishing model that almost every forum uses. That model is a recipe for content quality decline, as we see on pretty much every site built upon user generated content.

My guess is that it would only decrease new membership because many would be put-off by having to register before seeing the forum. — praxis

Read the proposal again please. In that proposal, the publicly visible section of the forum would be dominated by edited content. Articles approved by an editor, and comments approved by the thread starter. This is the same publishing model used by every TV station, every radio station, every print publication etc. Only in the land of social media is edited content considered to be a radical proposal.

A key challenge we've not yet addressed is that forums have long ago been branded as junk piles by the more interesting thinkers and writers. It may be too ambitious to think that justified bias can be overcome, I could see that point.

People like StreetlightX should be given a number of warnings about personal attacks then they’re suspended for a time. In fact StreetlightX should not be a mod. — Brett

This might be addressed by confining such posters to the Conversation area. They don't necessarily need to be banned, but just removed from public view so that when new people arrive on the forum they aren't immediately confronted with an ego shit show. Once new people join the forum they can see the Conversation area, and if they with to participate there they can make that choice.

This is just a guess, but I suspect Street is a mod because no one else is willing to do the job. If true I'd speculate that this is because former mods understandably became bored with managing what is often a junior high school ego shit show. And now with fewer mods of lower quality, the ego shit show stuff gets worse. Such a race to the bottom is extremely common across the forum realm.

So, we face a choice of accepting the decline with a smile, or doing something to rescue the situation. I go back and forth on that myself.

Further, this prevents duplicity, in which a malicious person can pretend to be the owner of a previous thought, when they are not. Imagine a person lying that was they previously posted was now wrong. — Philosophim

If a discussion is about ideas instead of people, who cares who is being duplicitous? And anyway, none of us are the owner of any of these ideas.

However, all that said, I do agree that removing the screen names would probably kill the forum. It's a fun idea, but not too realistic. And the reason it's not realistic is that most of us most of the time are here in service of emotional agendas more than intellectual ones. It's the human condition. Once we have enough food to eat and a place to sleep out of the rain, ego agendas tend to become our primary concern.

That's what I don't get. — Kenosha Kid

Are you trying to understand Trump voters? Or is most of your effort going in to rejecting them? This isn't a challenge or complaint of any kind. Just reaching for whatever further clarity can be found.

I brought up Sanders just to demonstrate that it can be reasonable to consider radical change in some circumstances. It can be reasonable to 1) consider radical change in general, and then 2) unreasonable to choose a particular form of radical change.

If it is true that radical change to the American political system is required, then Sanders and Trump voters may have some level of rational agreement. They may largely agree on item #1 above, but obviously not item #2.

To the degree the above is true, the situation may not be as 100% polarized as is currently being portrayed in the public conversation. There may be some degree of unexplored meeting ground available.

And here is Hippyhead. Asked a civil question, he lied in answering. On being called on it, you see his evasion above. His just a barely polite, "F*** you!" And no reason for it.

Being myself pretty good with words in an amateur sort of way, I can be clearer. Fuck you, Hippyhead. You're revealed as a liar and a troll. All others take note, for what it's worth. — tim wood

And he wonders why I'm not eager to give him the attention he is demanding.

Isn’t it reasonable to think that if we can’t explain something that we don’t understand it well? — praxis

It's also reasonable to consider that the audience may not be capable of understanding a particular topic and there's not really anything the author, perhaps any author, can do about that. The limitations can exist on all sides of the conversation. Sometimes such limitations must just be cheerfully accepted.

I’m interested in the subject and I think other views and understandings may help me understand it better. — praxis

Yes, my point exactly, other views may help us understand the topic better. There are many people all over the world who write on such topics, and I'm sure many of them do so better than myself and others on the forum addressing such topics.

Without some organized effort to attract quality new members then all of us are basically stuck reading the same people saying pretty much the same things over and over again for years. It might be fun to take on the challenge of addressing this limitation of our experience here. Or, it might simply be too threatening a process of change to survive here.

rather than leaving philosophy in the hands of the academic elite — Jack Cummins

Please note that I've made no mention of the academic elite, whom I personally do not judge to be elite at all.

I know that you wish to end the conversation — Jack Cummins

I don't wish to end it. I just know from long experience where it is headed. Nowhere. And that's ok, no problem. I just enjoy exploring ideas, that's all.

These are not bad suggestion Hippyhead, but it is a different model from what the forum is intended to be. — Philosophim

Yes, it's a different model than what is here currently, that's of course true. It's also different than the vast majority of forums, also true. And to me, that's what makes it interesting to consider. But of course, that doesn't automatically make it interesting to anyone else.

But it might also eliminate non-professional philosophers like me. — Gnomon

I also have no philosophy training. We would NOT be eliminated. Say it again, we wouldn't be eliminated. Our posts would just be re-organized in to a less visible area, unless we could meet standards set by the editors. What those standards might be is an important area of examination.

Why not put an end to this and start a topic that explores your nature of thought, using the “magazine model” or whatever model you like. — praxis

Why one or the other? Why not both?

As you know, I've already written on the nature of thought about a hundred times. At least the way I discuss it, the subject appears to not be of much interest. But that's ok. Perhaps I suck at explaining it, that could very well be the case. A solution could be to bring in many more writers who can do a better job of engaging readers.

The thing is, we can't attract many more better writers until the existing content of the forum is raised to a higher level. Or at least until the existing content is organized so that the good stuff is front and center, and the not so good stuff is hidden away somewhere where it won't distract and discourage new prospects.

I am not saying that I don't want to see quality material but that in having to submit work it would destroy all the spontaneity and probably drive many away. — Jack Cummins

Yes, it would drive many away, agreed. My point is only that the mass publishing of a lot of junk drives many away too. They come in off a Google search, immediately find a bunch of crap, hit the back button and are lost to us forever.

I would certainly not have taken part in the site at all if it had been devised in this way

Again, in my proposal the Conservation area would allow you to do everything you're doing now. You just wouldn't be published above the fold unless you met the standards established by the editor, which I'm guessing you could meet if it interested you to do so. Maybe you'd have to work harder, and maybe that would be a good thing?

Yes, I could have taken part in the lounge conversations but I probably would not have bothered because it would be just like being a nobody in the audience. — Jack Cummins

Well, hate to break it to you, but you are a nobody. Me too. Few of us actually care too much about what others are writing, except to find something we can use to fuel our own writing. Not saying that's good or bad, but it is largely the reality of philosophy forums. Point being, being published above the fold doesn't automatically make anyone take us seriously.

If everything had to be scrutinised, who would do it.? — Jack Cummins

That's a good question. If no one will do it, then we'll just have to settle for a forum that's pretty much exactly like every other forum on the Net.

If this thread was started and pushed hard by the forum owner, I might very well volunteer to be an editor for free. But managing the status quo is not of interest here. And whether I would be judged a qualified editor is of course another question we don't have an answer to.

Here's another pitch. There are about a billion sites online which are very similar in form to this one. What's the point of being just another site replicating what everyone else is already doing?

BTW, thanks for engaging. I don't really expect this thread to go much of anywhere, so you can probably rest easy and not trouble yourself with too much concern.

Imho, Kennedy is a particularly interesting case.

He seems to have single handedly saved Western civilization during the Cuban Missile Crisis which, if true, would seem to be a bigger accomplishment than pretty much any other president. On the other hand, it was Kennedy's failure to convince the Russians he couldn't be bluffed that was the cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis. So, he fucked up way bad, and then fixed his own mistake just in the nick of time.

Kennedy was a very intelligent person with a cool head on the job, but was also wildly irresponsible with his personal life, leaving himself wide open to blackmail by foreign powers, the mob etc. Such contrasts within any single human being are always interesting.

I would suggest we shouldn't judge presidents by whether we agree with them or not, but by how successful they were in achieving their stated goals. So for example, by this standard Reagan deserves a much higher mark.

This is because it would mean that any full discussion would have to be approved officially, almost like having to get published. — Jack Cummins

Yes, exactly like having to get published. Thus, the editor(s) will be careful about what articles they publish, as they should be. There's no way around this. If the goal is quality, there has to be editing. There is no magic bullet solution which will inspire the best writers to participate here while allowing everyone and anyone to say whatever they want.

If editing the conversations under an article is considered too time consuming for staff, it may be possible to make the article writer the mod of that thread, thus shifting the burden of editing comments on to them as a condition of being published prominently. If they drop the ball or wander off etc, then their future articles may be declined.

I have looked at some other forums and not bothered to join because they seem to have have less freedom than this one. — Jack Cummins

In my proposal there would still be plenty of freedom, in the Conversation area. Nobody is taking away freedom, we just wouldn't be rewarding mediocre and worse content by giving it prominent display.

We might keep this in mind. This is a particular kind of forum. A philosophy forum. Not just any forum. A philosophy forum.

My suggestions above would not be appropriate on the vast majority of forums. Who needs editors on a Britney Spears fan club forum?

Also, food for thought. If we were challenged to raise our game to the very best that we can do, and were rewarded when we succeeded, we just might become better writers.

I hear you, we're all struggling to understand this phenomena.

The best I can do for now is to try to draw a line between 1) the decision to vote for a particular candidate, and 2) the concerns which lead us to consider radical alternatives to the status quo.

Considering radical alternatives may be rational if the status quo is sick enough. But choosing a particular radical alternative may indeed be irrational.

What I'm floating for consideration is a notion that while Trump voters may be stupid in their choice of a particular candidate, their grasp of how sick the American political system is may exceed our own. It may not be as simple as they are stupid and we are sensible. We can at least explore a theory that the system is sick enough that a decision to roll the dice was not entirely without merit.

In 2016 and 2020 voters faced a choice between very traditional candidates and a radical departure from the norm. Once the primaries were over there was no middle way choice. If one feels the system is very sick, voting for a radical departure may contain at least some element of rationality.

Imho, the phenomena is not limited to Republicans, as Bernie Sanders is a pretty radical departure from the norm too. One doesn't have to be a confederate states MAGA hat racist to come to the conclusion radical alternatives are now necessary. One can come to that conclusion as a liberal too.

One problem I see is that it's not going to be possible for Bernie voters to win over Trump voters to more sensible radical solutions so long as we are focused on yelling about how stupid Trump voters are. If we're serious, we'll stop doing that, and look for common ground. If we're not serious, then we are stupid too, and that will be our common ground.

The problem of course with removing names would be the difficulty in tracking the conversation. — Philosophim

If the conversation is perceived as being between people, then removing screen names is obviously going to generate confusion, agreed. But if the conversation is perceived as being between ideas, then it doesn't matter who typed what, and screen names become unnecessary.

However, to argue against, in the real world philosophy forums are primarily about ego, so removing screen names would likely cause the forum to collapse in about two weeks, and so there would then be neither egos or ideas, game over.

and I'm not sure it would sit well with people. — Philosophim

I'm sure that it wouldn't sit well, agreed. But then, this is a philosophy forum and the job of a philosopher is to be inconvenient and unpopular. :-)

I've been living in forum land for 20 years now, and it's amazing to me what an absolutely fixed rigid idea we have about forums. All forums on the Internet, every last one, absolutely have to be pretty much exactly the same in format, or everyone starts totally freaking out, yelling about crimes against humanity and so on. :-)

So maybe try reading the question for comprehension and then answering it — tim wood

Better questions will be rewarded with better answers.

My goal is to figure out how someone boasting of sexually assaulting women is seen as charismatic, especially by women. That's a reduction of what I can't get my head around. — Kenosha Kid

It may help for you to find further clarity on whether your goal here is to understand, or reject.

Everyone is deep, deep, deep in to rejecting right now, for very understandable reasons. Given that this is already happening about a billion places in every form of media, it might be more interesting to shift the focus here to trying to understand.

Or not. To each their own is agreeable here.

s there anything even arguably correct coming out of the Trump right? Anyone at all? Anything at all? — tim wood

I've addressed this already in other posts above, which you are free to read should it interest you to do so.

The answer to them should be that philosophy is about trying to remove bias — Philosophim

One way of removing the primary source of bias on philosophy forums, male ego, would be to remove all the screen names so that nobody can tell who said what.

That's ignorance, and that's the condition of us all. Stupid is when you buy it, take it home, and keep it, when it shouldn't be either bought, taken, or kept. — tim wood

Ok then, you are smart, smart, smart and those people over there are stupid, stupid, stupid. Given that every other post on every philosophy forum is basically making this same point, the pattern seems a bit tiresome.

It won't remove him. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If successful, conviction would remove him from any future run for high office.

I agree that removing him in the next 10 days is very unlikely.

What's a euphemism for stupid? They are stupid; we may as well say so. — tim wood

If making a mistake automatically qualifies one as stupid, then we all are stupid.

Anyone else think this impeachment is a terrible idea? It's totally doomed to faliure — Count Timothy von Icarus

I thought this too, until my wife informed me that what is required is a two thirds of vote of whatever senators show up for the vote. If true, then Republicans could get rid of Trump simply by not showing up for the vote. No finger prints on the murder weapon, so to speak.

The right thing to do? Is dealing with all the underlying shit that lead to Trump and make him irrelevant. That won't happen in the US though. — Benkei

Nor on this forum.