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Messages - Tau

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741
Flat Earth Community / Re: Zetetic Council Election Thread.
« on: December 19, 2013, 03:45:51 AM »
I accept the appointment, I suppose.

742
Tausami, I think that the imperial connection, while definitely present, isn't as relevant as the religion itself. For example, Islam was founded when the Arabs were a ragtag band of savage, disunited warlike tribes, preying on each other & anyone else in the area. It was Islam that united them & made them a powerful state that was almost unstoppable as they barrelled out of  Arabia & conquered everything from India almost to Barcelona in about 80 yrs. Christianity unified the Roman Imperial State. Ancient Israelite Faith unified the bickering 12 Tribes under 1st Judges, & then Kings. Certainly, though, it can be said that in all 3 cases, after unification, the governments in question gave a boost to their respective faiths.

Absolutely. However, the religion is not defined by the empire even when the empire is defined by the religion. To a significant extent religions are a blank slate onto which the powerful project themselves. In America homophobes project their homophobia onto Christianity and use it to justify their bigotry, and in the Islamic world misogynists and feudal (war) lords do the same. It's hardly the religion's fault.

743
I've noticed that as well. My theory about it is that religions tend to form at a particular point in an empire's life, and that great empires tend to last for similar amounts of time. Thus, they tend to fall when the religion is at that certain age. This is just my speculation, though.

744
The problem isn't Islam, it's the feudalistic and decentralized system of government in the former Ottoman Empire
Aren't the two the same thing, at least to some extent? Many Muslim governments are based on Islam, and Islam was therefore shaped in a political way.

But couldn't the same be said of Christianity and feudal Europe? I'd argue that the religion is blameless, because when it's taken out of the context of the feudal system it loses most of its problems. American Muslims are not violent any more than American Christians or American Jews, nor are they more misogynistic or heterophobic.

745
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Drugs should be legal.
« on: December 18, 2013, 04:36:34 AM »
Just curious, is it possible to get high from a blunt's second-hand smoke?

Technically? Sure. Realistically? Probably not. If you hotbox a car or a small room bad enough it might be enough to get someone high on its own, but that much smoke would get uncomfortable fast.

746
The problem isn't Islam, it's the feudalistic and decentralized system of government in the former Ottoman Empire

747
If we're going to be doing everything all democraticy in the long term, maybe we should eventually have an election etc. board? Call it administration or something. This would be where people could be nominated, make cases for themselves, and where the election itself could happen. My main reason for suggesting this is that once we start getting a lot of angry noobs again, it'll  be difficult to hold that kind of conversation in FEG.

748
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Yet another one
« on: December 17, 2013, 12:48:53 PM »
Well, this article I found says a Harvard stufy found a negative correlation between gun onwership and murder rates - the less people that own guns in a nation, the higher the murder rate.

http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/

The muders included are not just gun murders, but all murders.  I think the correlation is there because people aren't going to attack someone if they think they'll get shot in the process. 


There are a lot of studies about it, and they all seem to have different results. For example, another study (please don't make me find it) showed that owning a gun makes you several times more likely to die a violent death. I suspect it probably depends a lot on who is offering the funding.

The problem with that logic, about deterrence, is that most murders don't happen on a whim. The thought "what if he has a gun?" rarely goes through the killer's head. Murder is, in most cases, an act of passion.

749
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Should Mods Be Held to Higher Standard
« on: December 17, 2013, 03:48:45 AM »
The mods are generally the most respected members of the forum.
Why does it seem like that quote belongs in a Monster Fail thread?


Well, to the noobs anyway.

750
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Forum rules: Draft 1
« on: December 17, 2013, 02:55:25 AM »
The Council is there to run the Society, not the forum. As far as I'm concerned, forum rules are firmly within the jurisdiction of the forum admins.

I think this is completely necessary.  That is how I believe it was laid out in the beginning.  I am happy to confer with council on things, but ultimately there are three admins that are good at putting their personal feelings aside and dealing with issues objectively.

Oh, okay. I wasn't around for that. I guess the hypothetical addition of new rules will be the admin's job, then.

751
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Forum rules: Draft 1
« on: December 17, 2013, 02:32:29 AM »
Adding more rules can be the job of the council

The Council is there to run the Society, not the forum. As far as I'm concerned, forum rules are firmly within the jurisdiction of the forum admins.

Regarding your proposed list of rules; a rule should be clearly defined and have a specified penalty for breaking it, so that there is as little doubt as possible whether enforcement of it has been done correctly. A rule like "don't be offensive" is so widely open to interpretation that it may as well not exist.

My aim in this draft is to keep the set of rules as concise as possible, while still maintaining clarity. This is intended for members' benefit, so everyone knows exactly where they stand.

That wasn't exactly a final list. I was just quickly writing down the rules you originally had and the ones we've discussed since. Obviously they'd be written better than that.

752
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Should Mods Be Held to Higher Standard
« on: December 17, 2013, 02:23:23 AM »
With great power comes great responsibility and whatnot. The mods are generally the most respected members of the forum. They should have to be respectable, moreso than others. Certainly it shouldn't be too strict, but if a mod starts acting like EJ it should be grounds for demodding. Anything stricter than that is probably unnecessary. We do want people to actually take the job, remember.

753
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Forum rules: Draft 1
« on: December 17, 2013, 02:19:57 AM »
The less rules the better. The shorter the better. Then if a rule isnt broken as such but the poster is obviously not good for the site, then mods should use their initiative.

I agree with this. The rules should be good, but simple and short. Keep it to, say, ten.

1. No personal attacks
2. Post on topic
3. Personal information
4. Don't alt obnoxiously
5. Use appropriate channels
6. Don't be offensive
7. No excessive BBCode or whatever we decide this rule should be
8. Always post in the appropriate board
9. Respect the OP
10. Moderators have discretion to moderate outside the scope of these rules within certain circumstances

Adding more rules can be the job of the council

754
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Forum rules: Draft 1
« on: December 17, 2013, 01:25:19 AM »
Make a rule against the obvious exploitation of loopholes.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with that, though.  I foresee abuse if a single mod can just decide such a thing on their own. I think we'd be better off making them jump through a few hoops first.

755
Hmm. How about:

Council Chair: This would be whoever gets the most votes. If there's a tie, it will be chosen randomly by a coin flip or whatever. The position will last a year (apart from this first run), unlike the other positions which will last 6 months. The chair has veto power. They also have another of the three positions. For example, the Chair could also be one of the Flat Earth Theory representatives from DDDDAts's suggestion.

I agree about only having five positions.

756
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Forum rules: Draft 1
« on: December 16, 2013, 07:37:23 PM »
I say leave that up to moderator discretion, but always warn the user first.

Of course. Like I said, there should be a process. Otherwise we end up with unclear moderation, and the angry noobs will get persecutory delusions again.

757
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Forum rules: Draft 1
« on: December 16, 2013, 07:25:23 PM »
Maybe we could have a process to ban members who haven't explicitly broken rules? Like, they could be nominated for bamhammeration by the council and there could be a vote among the moderators or something like that. Maybe there would have to be better checks and balances than that.

No, I don't think that's fair to anyone. People should know if they can be banned for something before they make the decision whether to take the action or not.

A better way of doing this is to simply add new rules as we discover behaviours that are undesirable. That way, the new rule applies equally to everyone. I intend to revise the Manifesto to formalise the process of adding new rules once we have a finalised set of rules.

Well, I mean it for situations like TK. When a poster is taking advantage of the rules, there should be some way to stop them. There are going to be loopholes in whatever we come up with, and angry noobs will abuse those loopholes to no end unless we have a method to deter them from doing so. It would of course only be able to be used in extreme circumstances.

758
I can't vote for anyone because I don't know what is they're meant to represent. At the moment people are being voted for because of popularity not what they're capable of.

I'm worried that this self defined council will just be an elite club of friends that don't actually do anything. This council could actually divide the forum.

One of the things the council could do is decide on a coherent voice of flat earth theories and update the F&Q. If they do that I would vote for a council member who knows something about flat earth theory. At the moment I can't nominate or vote based on anything but popularity.

I also don't see why you need to rush it. If you want to speed it up a bit put some milestones in place.

i.e.

Ask people what they think the council should do - 2 days

Summarise the answers and structure the purpose of the council- 1 day

Put together three options based on the summary of what the council should do and vote on them- 2 days

etc...

If that's what the council's going to be about, I'd like a nomination. I've put too much damn work into that FAQ to stop working on it now.

Here's a question: what can't the council do? Should they be allowed to be moderators? Should they be allowed to be admins?

759
Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Forum rules: Draft 1
« on: December 16, 2013, 01:51:23 PM »
Maybe we could have a process to ban members who haven't explicitly broken rules? Like, they could be nominated for bamhammeration by the council and there could be a vote among the moderators or something like that. Maybe there would have to be better checks and balances than that.

760
Well, but that's the thing. We don't know what we're voting for, and it really does matter. Are we voting for a constitutional committee? Because if so I'm inclined to vote based on who's cleverest, not who's most likely to actually get things done.

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