archives (@archives@cobalt-blue-gear-wyrm.x10.network)
Who Gets to Speak On Discord, Who Gets Banned, and Why That’s Always Political in Spaces with No Politics Rules
So, a thing I find very interesting about how fragile the esteem of egos of people on Discord is that it is very common for admins and moderators to ban or make fun of people who leave. Essentially, they are responding to being rejected or not chosen, so they think it is reasonable to retaliate.
A Discord server I am lurking in has a “no politics” rule and is a religious, esoteric, and philosophical server. What I find very funny about this is that politics is:
“Politics is who gets what, when, and how.”
— Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (1936)
I find it very funny that the most minimal form of being “not political” in a virtual community is a Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ). I was part of an IRC chaos magick channel when I was a teenager, and I submitted to a zine under my old handle (which is not Rayn) when I was 20. No, I’m not going to reveal the name I wrote under, which was published in chaos magick zines back in the day, because I’ve had a bucket of crazies following me around since 2008, with the insane network of anarchists circa 2020 being the latest instance.
ChanServ was a bot used on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) networks to manage channel operations such as bans, who got voiced, and permissions. Think of it as an early, early moderation bot. In an IRC TAZ, everyone who entered got all the permissions from Chanserv, so anyone could ban, voice, unban, deop, or op anyone else. No one had more power than anyone else, so there was minimal negotiation over channel resources. A TAZ is still an inherently political construct; however, it is a minimal political construct because there is minimal negotiation of resources and an equal, random, and chaotic authority structure. That’s not Discord, though.
Discord inherently has a hierarchical system defined by roles, a TOS, and members are expected to abide by the rules of that server. So, when you say there is a no-politics rule on Discord, you are inherently contradicting yourself because Discord is structurally political in how you, as a moderator, interact with others. How people negotiate conversations and interact with each other to access the resources of your Discord server is inherently political.
What prompted this was me observing a typical pragmatic versus moral realism argument that you’d see in any philosophy course. I’m an academic and a computational scientist, but I don’t try to shut down any arguments with that, because that’s an explicit fallacy and a dishonest, bad-faith tactic.
Technically, I am a biologist. Yes, I have a biology degree and a biotech degree. I also have philosophy, mathematics, and computer science and engineering degrees under my belt. I have to work with people like this on a daily basis, and I find them insufferable, so the last thing I want to do in my free time after looking at stacks of dumbass papers is argue with people on Reddit or Discord when I could be fucking, getting fucked, or spending time with my husband. But, alas, they have no life. Keep in mind, as a computational biologist that reviews a lot of shit, I get paid to argue. These idiots are arguing on the Internet for free! The reason why Redditors, Reddit moderators, and Discord moderators get shat on so much is that all of their labor is unpaid! People with lives don’t take it that seriously!
On to the convo:
A new person in the community defined morals as: morals = {a, b, c} exhaustively. An established member of that community responded that, for them, morals are either {x, y, z…}, non-exhaustive and polymorphic, or not inherently defined by the tradition itself but supplied externally by the individual. The new person replied, effectively, “According to my definition of a, b, c, that still constitutes a moral framework.” An established member who is also a scientist pushed back as if no definition of morals had been proposed at all, when in actuality they were disagreeing with the scope and applicability of the given definition, not the act of defining itself.
By the way, the symbolic way I’m defining this is ambiguous. You have no clue what anything is; however, it is ontologically defined, and the logic makes sense. That is the problem. An ontological definition was given, so arguing that no definition was proposed—simply because they disagreed with it—is in bad faith. This is especially egregious when they rely on their authority in an irrelevant profession. Personally, I am a constructivist, poststructuralist, pragmatist, instrumentalist, and anti-realist, so I don’t care too much about the realism of the ontological propositions and expressions. I am pointing out logical mistakes.
A well-known issue with scientists is that their curiosity can outstrip their morality. Basically, an ethics board composed mostly of scientists with no ethics, legal, or philosophy degrees will do bad things and saturate the political sphere they occupy with advocates and lobbyists to bend the laws to their interests. So, a board with no philosophers is really bad.
Morals and ethics are philosophical problems. To my knowledge, many people who sit on ethics boards that seriously address ethical issues have philosophy, and not just astronomy, degrees. Relevant degrees include psychology, sociology, theology, philosophy, etc. For example, I have a philosophy degree, so I am technically qualified and credentialed by a university to have these discussions. An astronomy degree alone does not make someone qualified to discuss ethics—maybe if they also had a theology degree?
The thing I find really funny about this group is that they avoid dilemmas. Morals and ethics are developed through ethical dilemmas. Their response to any type of dilemma is to exert their local authority and exclude, deny, or shut down conversations.
The difference between science and philosophy is that science is a little less messy and more defined. We can all see something and agree on what we see, right? The difference with philosophical questions and moral dilemmas is that they are relatively open-ended and ambiguous. It’s really amusing to me how those who try to argue philosophy are uncomfortable with indefinite answers that are open to interpretation.
It’s just funny how they tacitly assume that they are the only academics in their field in existence and that their opinion on things is the consensus, especially on metaphysical issues where there is no consensus. No human knows what the right thing to do is all the time. It’s great to know that they have somehow achieved a level of inhuman perfection.
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michael_martinez (@michael_martinez@c.im)
Now that he is retiring from the U.S. Senate, this coward who betrayed the country for Donald Trump has turned over a new leaf and begun to speak his mind. He was probably one of many Republicans in Congress who privately trashed Trump throughout his first and second Presidencies while publicly supporting all of Trump's anti-American initiatives.
#america #thomtillis #news #socialmedia #lotr #harrypotter
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qaris (@qaris@mas.to)
Misogynoir - Examples in Media, Literature, and Beyond (LIVING DOC)
link below:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15g5U0kiDf1kbR8etnBCbaSoWauJuXYZW-GrNIGaJJUs/edit?gid=0#gid=0
#Misogynoir #Misogyny #Digital #Online #Internet #SocialMedia
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qaris (@qaris@mas.to)
Misogynoir in Digital Spaces by Dr. Kay Coghill
link below:
https://digitalmisogynoir.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
#Misogynoir #Misogyny #Digital #Online #Internet #SocialMedia
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snoopy10 (@snoopy10@ohai.social)
#SocialMedia #epstein #andrew #trump
Warum lässt der #Prince den #Baby #Trump nicht hochgehen?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clymxxlm3xzo
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tinoeberl (@tinoeberl@mastodon.online)
🛌 Wissen fürs Kopfkissen: 📖
Social Media: Was gute Kommentare wirklich ausmacht.
Oft sind Kommentare irritierend, haben anscheinend keinen Bezug zum Beitrag oder sind sogar beleidigend. Das verwirrend viele Menschen, lässt sich jedoch leicht erklären: Viele wissen nämlich nicht, dass es für #Kommentare im Internet #Qualitätskriterien gibt. 😉
#DigitalesVerhalten #Netzkultur #Community #Netikette #Kommentarregeln #socialmedia
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100D (@100D@mastodon.social)
Je suis l'un des fondateurs du Hip-Hop avec mes frères Kool DJ Herc et Grandmaster Flash.
#SoulsonicForce #HipHop #Culture #MusiqueElectro #OldSchoolHipHop #Music #Socialmedia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J3lwZjHenA&list=RD9J3lwZjHenA&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0_U7NPewu4
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100D (@100D@mastodon.social)
Une fois que vous avez été touché par Miles, vous avez changé pour toujours.
#Scratching #ElectroFunk #Music #Socialmedia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHhD4PD75zY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYRrIBqKsJ4&list=OLAK5uy_m789U0dt-J4aLVd7p-dXJxSfDliep-NT0
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stevenwick7 (@stevenwick7@mastodon.social)
Something feels off on TikTok. Creators are losing reach, features are broken, and trust is gone. Was this the price of keeping the app online—or the moment it stopped being ours?
Under American-majority ownership, TikTok has returned online—but not to business as usual. Users report broken features, shrinking reach, and growing fears that surveillance and censorship have replaced the spontaneity that once defined the app
#socialmedia #culture #lifestyle #happeningnow
https://newsmeapp.com/rip-tiktok-how-americas-favorite-scroll-came-to-a-sudden-stop/
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diraquel (@diraquel@masto.pt)
Yesterday I did a lecture for high school students on mis and #disinformation , focused on #SocialMedia.
Today, I moderated a panel on the #SocialHistory of forests fires in Portugal.
It's been a while since I felt I was doing proper #SciComm, although that's my day job.
Intriguing, right? 😏
Maybe I need to change some things.
#SaturdayNightThoughts
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RivLibPop (@RivLibPop@mastodon.social)
Epstein-Thiel connection. We already know Epstein was looping him into discussions with the Russian Ambassador Churkin in 2016, but here - back in 2015 - he’s introducing Thiel to his Kremlin handler Sergey Belyakov who organises a meeting
#Politics #Epstein #EpsteinFiles #SocialMedia
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p (@p@pixelfed.social)
Epstein-Thiel connection. We already know Epstein was looping him into discussions with the Russian Ambassador Churkin in 2016, but here - back in 2015 - he’s introducing Thiel to his Kremlin handler Sergey Belyakov who organises a meeting.
#Epstein #EpsteinFiles #Politics #SocialMedia
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