We don't need political labels for this. The basic idea goes back at least as far as Aristotle:

Poverty is the cause of the defects of democracy. That is the reason why measures should be taken to ensure a permanent level of prosperity. This is in the interest of all classes, including the prosperous themselves. — Aristotle—Politics, Book VI, Chapter 5

Therein lies the major problem of the day (not Trump being a corrupt racist self-serving dick, which he clearly is and so requires no debate).

I'd put it this way, the super-rich have a strong enough combination of economic, technological, and informational resources to transform functional democracies into mere nominal ones that serve their interests and this process is continuously accelerating right under our noses.

Yep.

Both sides are disgusting for different reasons. I can agree with almost every criticism made of Trump while not going along with the agenda of everyone making the criticisms or accepting that the way the criticisms function has much positive benefit. So, it's not because I don't care, it's because I do that I'd prefer to zoom out and focus on what the root cause of American (and, increasingly, European) democratic dysfunction is. And that's a neoliberal-driven plutocracy that escapes scrutiny while everyone's having food fights in the playpen. So, yes, I'm aware that what the Trumpists are doing amounts to a mass assault on truth, but it's essentially just a more brazen (and transparently so) attack on the interests of the public made possible by decades of more subtle attacks that have embittered and disempowered them to the point of desperation. And they are not going away. So I have no problem with you calling out @NOS4A2, but he's preaching to a choir that is never going to listen to your song. And there are some good reasons for their intransigence that you'll never understand unless you change your tune.

Alright, I'll put you on hold. @NOS4A2?

@Wayfarer Trump is obviously a corrupt scumbag, piece of shit etc. but he's just a symptom of neoliberal plutocracy, not the cause. For that, see Reagan and especially Clinton. Only Clinton did it with a smile rather than a sneer and with implicit rather than explicit racism. So, it's a real stretch to imagine any moral basis for establishment attacks on Trump. What the opposing gang of plutocrats fear is not Trump but populism in general and more specifically Trump, by shaking things up, making left-wing populism viable. The real enemy is not Trump, it's the plutocracy and that runs both sides of the political divide. Shilling for either is to slit your own throat on the altar of a god that hates you. So, I'd ask both you and @NOS4A2 to drop your knives and join the resistance. :naughty:

We modelled the format from the way it was done on the previous site, but, yes, we'll likely introduce word limits on questions and maybe reduce the number of OPs in future.

That's the spirit!

Always open to feedback.

Time to be stoical? :grin:

Well put. For which reasons we're not going to make dramatic changes in moderation, but we do miss stuff or don't get to it quickly enough, so if you, @Isaac, or anyone wants to help increase quality, please flag discussions you feel are unworthy of the place.

Nothing to do with anything you said. The modding standard here is pretty much as it was at the old place and we had plenty of guest speakers there. In fact, Massimo complimented the content but was worried about the volume despite our reassurances he wouldn't have to answer everything. Anyway, we'll plough on.

That's the bad news. The good news is we've opened up the discussions now, so anyone can post there. Yay!

Eh, anyway, we put a lot of effort into this and did our best to make it work. And I'm proud of all of us and the community as a whole for trying. :clap:

"They buy a lot from us".

Of course, Trump's most notable export to Saudi Arabia was a licence to murder American journalists. Although I think they overpaid for that as he's likely to be giving it away for free soon.

:up:

That just means whoever wants to start a discussion on that can do so somewhere else in the forum.

Because the site permissions are defined by category, they don't allow us to separate the intro discussion from the OP question discussions (which we had to keep exclusively for the questioners and for Prof. Pigliucci), so you can't comment in the main introduction thread anymore. But you can certainly start other discussions that comment on the issues in those threads (they just have to be in a different category).

Just to add that the way we've organized this with Prof. Pigliucci is that he'll answer the five OPs gradually and then he may, if he has time, follow up on some of the discussions. Obviously, there's a lot of information in the OPs, so we appreciate any responses we get and we hope those reading enjoy the event and learn something from it.

Anyway, the requisite period has passed, so I'm going to close this again.

The refusing moderation bit was refusing to accept us editing out personal information from the questions, first about his mother then about this father. But what got him banned in the end was his setting up of sockpuppet accounts and posting with them.



We don't fully understand this either.

That's bannable? — creativesoul

Yes. But taken in context.

Massimo has now joined the site. :smile:

(By the way, I ask that members please observe decorum and not send Prof. Pigliucci any unsolicited PMs. I expect he's likely to have enough on his plate with the questions here. Thanks.)

Incidentally, the sockpuppet accounts were @Vespasian Stark and @Spirit12. I won't go into more detail, but if you see anything odd, please report. Thanks.

Yes, this was very unexpected.

@Mark Dennis had his membership privileges removed for refusing moderation and threatening legal action against the site because we edited some personal information out of his proposed question to Prof. Pigliucci. He was finally banned today for setting up two fake membership accounts.

We're hoping he'll have time during this first week of December. If I get any firmer information, I'll let you know.

Rocky Balboa, is it? I remember that movie where he pretended to have bone spurs so he could dodge fighting in Vietnam and concentrate on being a racist real estate mogul while he raped women on the side and perfected his toupee. True American hero.

We had quite a few posts from @Mark Dennis and I'd rather not clog up the discussion with them. As a very bare summary, he found the OP guidelines too restrictive, requested removal of his OP, and we removed it. I don't anticipate any other issues but if there are please feel free to mention them. We'll do our best to accommodate reasonable requests to modify OPs, but we can't make any promises on that.

@Mark Dennis I thought we already edited out the personal stuff by PM?

Please just abide by the rules anyhow.

Cheers. By the way all, in order to make sure no-one else accidentally (or otherwise!) posts in the Guest Speaker discussions apart from Prof Pigliucci and those chosen to participate, I've had to set custom permissions for this category, which means that for the moment at least, no discussion here, including this one, can be commented on by regular members.

Edit: Topics listed here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/categories/32/massimo-pigliucci

Right up my street. On mah kindle now. :strong:

PMs have been sent inviting contributors to begin discussions. All of those who contributed a developed question/set of questions in the form of an OP have been contacted and OPs will begin to be visible from now.

Again, we much appreciate everyone's help in getting this event off the ground.

Where are you from in the USA — Mark Dennis

He's not from the U.S. But wherever he's from, he's doing a great job of discrediting White House spin by presenting it here in a form so easily refuted. Maybe he's a closet never-Trumper.

Among all the terrible stuff Trump has done, the only part that is potentially comprehensible to Trump supporters is that he took a booming economy and turned it into a trillion-dollar deficit. No president in history has been that incompetent. There have been presidents who suffered catastophes and needed to run high deficits to dig themselves out of them and presidents who have been gifted booms and squandered most of the proceeds on wasteful wars, but no president bar none has managed to take an economy as good as the one Trump got handed on a plate and go that far into the red. It's a uniquely Trumpian failure, the result of which is a bunch of new billionaires laughing all the way to the bank while inequality skyrockets and the inevitable crash rolls around the corner.

Looks good. On the list.

Jason Stanley - How Propaganda Works

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691173429/how-propaganda-works

We've now updated Prof. Pigliucci on this discussion and as we've got enough material to choose from, we'll close it for now. Many thanks for all your efforts and enthusiasm. More information to come soon.

When experiencing undiplomatic impulses, walk slowly away from computer. Lock door to computer room. Throw key out nearest window. Spend hours searching for key. Return with renewed sense of etiquette.

Sure thing. :up:

No, I didn't see anything mod-worthy at the time and looking at it again I still don't.