And since I've started a feedback thread - It bothers me when moderators attack posters and threaten punishment in the main forum rather than through the standard moderation process, i.e. in private. It doesn't happen often but several different moderators have done it. One consequence is that it can sometimes be hard to figure out whether someone is speaking as a moderator or just a forum member.

Well, it was stupid to begin with, and then Tarsky (aka @alcontali, I believe) took it to the next level.

I deleted it because unexplained Starcraft analogies are not a sound basis for geopolitical discussion.

Also yeet (@Tarskian).

Tarsky (aka alcontali, I believe) took it to the next level. — SophistiCat

Hatred for the US is pretty common here on the forum.

@T Clark,
Agreed.
It would be welcome if the arguments were cutting, but the tone respectful. Most people have little choice as to where they live/are born. It is their ignorance that can be changed by themselves if they so desire....well in most of the "free world" anyway, however you choose to understand "free world" and the level of one's own ignorance. Nothing more than an opinion.
empathetic smile

Hey @Baden and @fdrake”, I find @Carlo Roosen"’s posts and discussions interesting and worthwhile.

Perhaps "Nuclear crisis – 2024 and the strategy of a nuclear war" was not the greatest OP, but, given the existential threat even limited nuclear war poses, it was worthwhile enough.

The fact that we are still here, given that we have long been on the brink of a terminal event, is remarkable but not comforting. The several nuclear powers are maintaining/upgrading the bomb components and delivery systems. The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is still close to midnight.

Nuclear war is a perennially philosophically relevant topic, given that it would delete The Philosophy Forum together with its moderators and contributors with unappealable finality.

"Nuclear crisis – 2024 and the strategy of a nuclear war" was not the greatest OP, — BC

Agreed, but it wasn't beyond the pale here on the forum.

Beyond the pale - Of a person or their behaviour: outside the bounds of what is acceptable, or regarded as good judgment, morality, ethics, etc.

From beyond + the + pale (“wooden stake, picket; fence made from wooden stakes, palisade; bounds, limits; territory or defensive area within a specific boundary or under a given jurisdiction”), suggesting that anything outside an authority’s jurisdiction is uncivilized.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is insufficient evidence that the term originally referred to the English Pale, the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages; or to the Pale of Settlement (Russian: Черта́ осе́длости (Čertá osédlosti)) which existed from 1791 to 1917 in the Russian Empire, where Jewish people were mostly relegated to living. The first attestation of this English translation of the Russian in the OED is 1890. — Wiktionary

Agreed, but it wasn't beyond the pale here on the forum. — T Clark

There has to be a line. This was across it.

Drawing lines isn't the point; it's placing the line so that potentially useful discussions are not casually discarded by moderators whose judgement is fallible, and may be under the influence of severe hemorrhoidal itching.

The moderators have proven ability to head stupid threads off at the pass, so you can afford to be generous.

Can I borrow your Anusol please?

severe hemorrhoidal itching. — BC

Sounds nasty. I hope never to experience it.

I never needed it. Try a sitz bath.

Beyond the pale — T Clark

"The Pale of Settlement included all of modern-day Belarus and Moldova, much of Lithuania, Ukraine and east-central Poland, and relatively small parts of Latvia and what is now the western Russian Federation.

I thought the Pale was ancient, but its institution was 1791, and it lasted until 1917. Under Tsar Nicholas I, the Pale shrank but became more restrictive--like it was not already severe enough.

The relevance of this discussion to anything but piles and pales has concluded. I will close the thread.