Elon Musk promotes free speech...then did THIS! Shocking.

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A lot of the subreddits do end up being echo-chambers. But, they also have some debate subreddits, where different opinions may be shared. You might like DebateAChristian.

So, Twitter is finally dying.

https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/1 ... L1LNjxqHxI

Most free speech absolutists aren't.

A lot of the old internet discussion forums have been dying off.

It looks like Alex Plank started Wrong Planet in 2004. He hasn't posted any new material on the website's front page since 2018.

Some forums in which I participated disappeared from the internet years ago.

I don't know what Mr. Plank's long term plans are for Wrong Planet, but I suspect that even Wrong Planet will eventually go the way of MySpace.

^^^Indeed.

I stopped being a free speech absolutist some time ago. People have the freedom to avoid unwanted speech. Simple as that. WP is not a free speech zone for the simple reason that there are members who are sensitive to or triggered by certain views. But that also has the negative effect that it’s acceptable to attack certain other people for certain other views despite site rules saying otherwise. When mods take action, it can be confusing that some speech on WP is protected but other speech is not.

The pendulum has swung in the other direction since I joined. It’s always been arbitrary and fickle. I recall a time when there was an influx of Christians who were blatantly and often attacked in PPR. Once there were enough complaints about how we were treated, there was a mass exodus of atheists and feminists from WP. I believe that had the consequence of making PPR less interesting.

I don’t mean to say WP really is all that terrible. I still choose to post here, after all. But rules have been arbitrary and inconsistently applied. I will say, though, that people who ARE here now are much kinder than those where were here when I first joined.

Wow! You've been posting here for 15 years! That's quite a lot of devotion. I guess you've seen a lot.



I suppose that it is good to protect certain people, particularly if they are victimized in real life. I mean, someone who is both autistic AND transgendered or gay--that's the worst of both worlds in a lot of places. It is probably better not to pick on them, if we can help it.



Well, I guess the moderators aren't paid much, and get their jollies as they can.



Mass banishments? Political debates might get boring if nobody disagrees. Atheism has been on the rise in the real world. I was wondering what happened to feminism. Feminists used to be quite radical. Now, there seem to be more radical anti-feminist women, leading the charge against abortion, etc.



After 15 years, with rambunctious members being banished along the way, and, I suppose, with few new members showing up (Asperger's isn't quite the fad it was 15 years ago, nor do many people find internet message boards to be appealing any more), and with those who remain getting older and mellower, it might be expected that those who remain are kinder than when you first joined. It looks like the majority of us are senior citizens. As we die off, Wrong Planet can only get mellower and mellower.

Not mass banishment. There were a few who were banned along the way, but I was referring to those who’d gotten mod-spanked at least once and left on their own free will.

The problem with Christianity and the rise of atheism is that many evangelicals are too heavy on guilt. I acknowledge that human nature is sinful and we live in a world that is broken by sin’s influence. We are in need of forgiveness.

But mostly what I hear is that we are worthless and insignificant next to God. Maybe by way of comparison that is true. But I don’t accept the idea that man is worthless. If God is willing to send Jesus to die on a cross for us, we must be worth a lot. So rather than live lives of self-loathing and sacrifice, we should focus on ourselves as individuals and our own interests.

Life should be joyful and filled with gratitude, not filled with dread with nothing to look forward but death.

Anyway…radical feminists are still out there. They’ve just entered a dormant phase until the political powers that be see fit to activate them again. Remember all the pink hats that came out to protest Trump?

On WP, what happened was the radical feminists weren’t just radical feminists looking to calmly and rationally discuss women’s issues. They were committed to rhetoric that was abusive towards men. Some of the younger ones went way too far and got, as you say, banished. We can’t get away with sexist language ourselves, we can’t discuss things like incel or mgtow or PUA because those ideas generalize and belittle women. But you can’t do the same to men either. Radical feminists wouldn’t hesitate to screech at men, report every freaking micro aggression, and otherwise abuse the WP system. I feel like the mods got sick of it. Even some of the feminists who were fairly calm left because they didn’t like that men had the freedom to refute feminist claims.

Or at least that’s what it looked like to me.

So I think it’s good that WP has rules that limit SOME things we can say since true free speech means you can attack someone personally. The negative is that it’s not consistently applied. The Bible has some strong things to say about [censored]. So people attack Christians because of that. A Christian either must say nothing and feel personally attacked, or any answer he might have will earn some [censored]phobic label. I’ve brought that up before and just asked to change the subject only to have someone double-down. I’d report that to mods only to be told that person didn’t break the rules, but if it bothers me I could just not read the post or reply. But also if I DID reply I’d be the one breaking rules.

And…despite what I said about feminists in WP history, at least you CAN discuss women’s issues and argue from a feminists perspective. INCEL/MGTOW are…pretty much banned topics. If we’re allowed to discuss women’s issues from a perspective that generalizes all men as patriarchal, isn’t only fair that we can discuss feeling victimized by women?

Those topics aren’t relevant for me. I’m married and trying for a 5th child. But my point is that WP moderation has always been left-leaning and unfriendly towards anyone with “normie” ideas and values.

Then there are those issues that sit right on the line of what’s acceptable and what isn’t. I’ve systematically destroyed discussions that brought up CRT. I suppose that makes me a racist. But in the case of discussing CRT evidence has always been on my side. Literally no one makes the news talking about CRT anymore and it has faded into irrelevance. I think I’ve only gotten away with dismantling CRT here is because for a white man to even discuss CRT much less oppose it means he’s racist. You cannot adopt a CRT position without inherently generalizing and attacking individuals because of skin color. It is, like radical feminism, too extreme in it’s methods.

Wow! You've obviously been highly committed to Wrong Planet, for most of your adult life. Maybe you should apply to become a moderator, so that YOU can dish out some spankings.

It seems that incel, MGTOW and PUA would be highly relevant to autistic folks. On a Venn diagram, there is probably a huge overlap between autistic men and incels. Some of the incels get so mad that they go on shooting sprees. And, I can understand the emotional states that might cause one to go in that direction. I've been there myself, mentally, but fortunately got through it, without harming anyone, and things worked out. Pick up artistry might help some autistic men in gaining the confidence to approach women--unless there is something to it that I don't know about. I haven't looked at it closely. I used to watch Sandman's MGTOW YouTube channel every day--he is still at it. I don't know how he can do it, unless he is also autistic. He has been producing one video per day for many years. I think that he has some interesting insights, but I don't need a daily helping.

About the Feminists--my theory is that they are less active because of demographic shift--there are fewer young people than there used to be, and young women would have been more active as feminists on college campuses, etc. Baby boomers are exiting the job market en masse, leaving a lot more opportunities for the less-numerous younger people. Also, women are beating the pants off of men these days, both academically and professionally. The patriarchy is pretty much dead. Younger women now are probably more focused on building their careers, and less focused on social justice.

I thought that Critical Race Theory was just a bogeyman invented by Fox News. Like the "woke" M&M candies, the "woke" Legos toys, and the "woke" Mr. Potato Head dolls. If they aren't bashing George Soros, then they are bashing CRT.

^^^Tempting, but I’m not going to touch the topic of men’s issues. Incel is about women owing men their bodies. I can’t get behind that. If you want sex with a woman, start by finding a woman worthy of you. If you can’t find that woman, then she doesn’t exist and you’re better off without sex. PUA is really just applied psychology. I’ve accidentally used PUA tactics not knowing it was PUA and it worked. But I also don’t hate women.

Regarding CRT, it’s actually a thing. Defenders insist that it’s nothing more than a legal theory. To summarize: all white people are racist, therefore their institutions are racist. It lumps all white people into the category of racial oppressors with black people as their chief victims.

Yes, it goes deeper than that once you get into its origins, of course. But in simplest terms it’s a variation of Critical Theory, which suggests that the failure of Marxism was due to the replacement of one hegemony with another, thus maintaining a power structure of a poor working class at the mercy of an oppressive ruling class elite. Soviet communism only shifted the hegemony from monarchists to academics. Nothing meaningfully changed for the workers and peasants, those communism promised to always protect. Any time conditions got worse, it was blamed on bad actors within the party still corrupted by capitalism, or it was interference from the United States. CT puts the blame on hegemony.

CRT takes that a step further by pointing out the WHITE hegemony that has always denied POC progress. They aren’t ENTIRELY wrong. Think about desegregation. They didn’t bus white kids to black schools. They bused black kids into white schools. Were black people involved in making those decisions? No. White people took away black rights under slavery, and under civil rights gave black people rights under WHITE PEOPLE terms. CRT’s goals will never be achieved as long as white people maintain the hegemony. It will require a hegemonic shift in which blacks have complete control. The best white people can do is acknowledge their racism and stay out of the way.

CRT is claimed to be strictly a legal theory discussed in graduate programs. The Fox News Bogeyman you mentioned is typically that CRT is taught in elementary school. Supposedly its concepts are too advanced for elementary school. However, instances are known of elementary teachers using curriculum that essentially teach white kids that there is something wrong with being white, that their skin color is something to be ashamed of. So it’s a lie to say CRT isn’t being taught at that level when its foundations are clearly being taught. Moreover, teachers are required to have college degrees. Part of that requires training in social issues to include CRT, which in turn will have an influence in what teachers do in the classroom. The idea is that black people are unable to generate change through the usual political pathways, but can cause change through the education system.

It’s not that I’m in favor of racism. It’s wrong to deny people rights based on skin color. But suggesting that white people should be made to feel guilty just for being white, or that I’m “fragile” if I disagree? I don’t think that does anything to help the cause. You can’t solve racism with more racism.

Critical Race Theory seems to be rather deep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

People with autism might be a different identity group. But, that identity group might be more biologically grounded rather than socially constructed.



With the election of President Obama, I had thought that our country had moved past racism. With the election of Trump, and the activities at Charlottesville, it seemed that our progress may have been an illusion.

Certainly being born into the socially-constructed category of "White" is not your fault. But, being born into that particular socially-constructed category does bring with it a lot of advantages. On the other hand, being born with autism brings some socially-constructed disadvantages.

I'm not entirely disagreeing with you. But the charge of systemic racism doesn't really stick. Well...it does, but not how "they" say it does. I would agree that the US government was systemically racist under slavery and Jim Crowe. Black people ALREADY have the same rights and privileges since the abolition of slavery. So our government isn't systemically racist on that front. Where government IS still systemically racist is where it creates unnecessary victim classes by granting minorities special protections and privileges. It's not that people should feel free to live without fear of oppression because of skin color. It's just that granting special privileges infringes on the rights of an individual to be independently creative and productive. It's still slavery, just a different form. Plus, it reflects a horrible (admittedly white) idea that minorities are incapable of intellectual achievement and personal advancement.

Remember: It's not wrong to want to help people. But special privileges and "protections" that serve no purpose but to maintain the status quo is not "helping." While I disagree with the most important tenets of CRT, there is one point I strongly agree with--White people have "helped" enough. The best way you can help ANYONE, regardless of race, is stay out of their way.

I'm not sure one can honestly claim a group that is regularly denied rights actually has the same rights as everyone else.

They may in theory have the same rights as everyone else, but not in practice. Oppression by private entities is still oppression and the state has a duty to intervene. If the state fails to intervene they can't pretend to actually guarantee equal rights since they're literally choosing to not guarantee equal rights.

Here is John Oliver on Critical Race Theory



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICp1vGlh_U

Unsolved Mysteries: Do Any Republicans Know What Critical Race Theory Actually Is?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofjZH80y3g

Hahaha!

I think many Republicans know just enough about CRT to be dangerous.

CRT really is a deep and convoluted theory. I’ve only commented on the parts of it that are relevant.

I mean—have white Europeans and their American descendants done horrible things to black people? Yes. Do white Democrats have a long-established pattern of oppressing blacks, or at least holding them to a lower class status? Absolutely. And that situation doesn’t seem to be improving any time soon. Look at the history of the most impoverished areas of the USA and how carefully the oppression narrative has been controlled by lawyers, politicians, and community organizers, and it’s no surprise so many people among minorities hold CRT to be more than “just a theory.” It’s theory in the same sense as music theory, not theory as in scientific theory. It’s a narrative and a worldview told from lived experience (aka anecdotes) rather than objective evidence.

You have to see it from a black person’s perspective. Typically if someone says all white people are racist oppressors, a white person will tend to find that objectionable. We all want to see ourselves as essentially good people. So why would we be hateful towards blacks? That doesn’t make any sense. So we don’t want to believe something without evidence, right? So it’s reasonable to ask for evidence, specific evidence that a government system that guarantees individual rights regardless of color is inherently racist.

Now, a black person arguing CRT will point to personal experience, or how a cousin was treated when he got arrested for drug possession, and so on while white people do drugs all the time and never get arrested or killed by police. Ok, fine. Where are all the white people who are doing drugs? Is it possible white people are more discreet about it, or are there really that few white people doing drugs? Where is the evidence? And the black person will ask who came up with the scientific method, or who came up with our justice system that demands evidence for probable cause and trials. And the answer is inexorably white Europeans. Of course there’s no evidence of white people committing crimes. Why would there be?

A MOST EXCELLENT example of this in action is the Canadian medical care system. It’s free for everyone, and the few actual Canadians I’ve discussed this with love that system. But there is a dark side to Canadian health care. People of color, immigrants, and ESPECIALLY First Nations have often reported being denied access to health care. Maybe not denied outright, but defo have faced more hurdles and red tape. And so outcomes for minorities are significantly dreary as opposed to white Canadians.

Now ask the question: where is the evidence? Where are the records of patient visits that document care given to minorities versus white people? Aaah, now that’s where this gets tricky. Canada passed a law forbidding collecting data on race. It was believed that collecting race data would skew the system resulting in unfair treatment. There’s no evidence because of government mandates against collecting that kind of data. Doesn’t mean that the experiences of Canadian minorities isn’t real. It just means Canada can pretend it isn’t real if that’s what it takes to get a good nights sleep.

From a black CRT perspective, our system is by white people for white people, and black people get f*** all. And if you want evidence that any of this is true, that means you’re a racist.