The Skeptiko post-trauma thread

Let me emphasise again. The useful threads (as selected by myself, Trancestate, K9, and others) have all been salvaged from the two sub-forums that are closing. They have been moved to other places on the forum - mostly to the consciousness and science forum. Very little, if anything of value will be lost.

I think it is important to remember that we are all human beings - and human being can get upset when repeatedly provoked. Alex has sunk goodness knows what resources into SKEPTIKO, and I have sunk considerable amounts of time as well. I have no doubt that Alex reacted in anger to some of the stuff that people were writing on the forum - but what does anyone expect - if you take a friendly relaxed cat, and repeatedly poke it with a stick, prepare to be bitten or scratched at some point.

@Kamarling Undoubtedly politics was starting to dominate SKEPTIKO, which is why I started a thread to discuss if it was time to curtail it. That ignited an explosion of anger, rather than any real debate - so much for the idea that we, as a community, might debate how the forum is moderated!

Alex sees the Pizzagate issue as being somewhat related to the nature of consciousness - how exactly nests of intense evil can come to exist in this world. If you don't believe the Pizzagate accusations (and I am ambivalent, Alex seems more certain), think of the Nazis, or the Cultural Revolution in China - the truth is that groups of humans can veer off collectively into unbelievable evil. I think it is entirely possible that such movements are orchestrated by non-human entities. However, I rather hope Alex is moving away from that approach because however true his insight may be, discussing it simply generates unbearable amounts of angst.

I suggest you do come back, to discuss the issues you enjoy - it isn't an irrevocable or exclusive decision of course. Remember that 95% of the resources stored here were copied from SKEPTIKO with Alex's permission.

Some people here talk about freedom of speech, as though it is an absolute right on any forum. Well I don't think there is any such right on a forum, any more than anyone has a right to attend a conference and climb on to the stage uninvited and shoot their mouth off. Of course interesting forums are moderated, and of course moderation is subjective.

David

I can understand why people were annoyed about what happened at Skeptiko, and why they are frustrated if they want to vent their feelings and can't post there.

But please let's not get into a situation where the main activity on this forum is arguing about that subject.

Hang on, by posting this aren't you, erm... you know...?

The behavior on Skeptiko from Alex and David which upsets proponents now, has been going on for years against skeptics - bannings with no warning or indication of the cause (or the indication given is specious), mass deletions of posts (particularly resource-rich posts which involved useful and detailed discussion of the research), ass-kissing as a requirement of reinstatement, etc. None of what has happened should be a surprise. It's a useful illustration of how our perceptions change depending upon our likes and dislikes, and the extent to which we think we are removed from becoming a victim. Maybe this could be kept in mind going forward.

Linda

Let's tell that fairly.

Actually, you had taken to being extremely rude to me on a series of occasions, knowing (or suspecting) that I would not intervene on my own account. Alex saw what you were writing, and asked you to contact him before resuming posting - which you decided not to do so. One brief discussion was all you needed to return (I guess you still can if you want).

I don't get paid to moderate the forum, I do it because I very much appreciate what that forum is about, but neither did I enjoy being regularly criticised in public for the actions I took. What few people realised, was that I spent quite some time emailing certain users, trying to get them to moderate their behaviour - you only saw the end result. I pointed out on several occasions that anyone was free to PM me about anything they were unhappy about. You did not do so.

My aim is to help SKEPTIKO get back on its feet again.

David

Let me emphasise again. The useful threads (as selected by myself, Trancestate, K9, and others) have all been salvaged from the two sub-forums that are closing. They have been moved to other places on the forum - mostly to the consciousness and science forum. Very little, if anything of value will be lost.

I think it is important to remember that we are all human beings - and human being can get upset when repeatedly provoked. Alex has sunk goodness knows what resources into SKEPTIKO, and I have sunk considerable amounts of time as well. I have no doubt that Alex reacted in anger to some of the stuff that people were writing on the forum - but what does anyone expect - if you take a friendly relaxed cat, and repeatedly poke it with a stick, prepare to be bitten or scratched at some point.

@Kamarling Undoubtedly politics was starting to dominate SKEPTIKO, which is why I started a thread to discuss if it was time to curtail it. That ignited an explosion of anger, rather than any real debate - so much for the idea that we, as a community, might debate how the forum is moderated!

Alex sees the Pizzagate issue as being somewhat related to the nature of consciousness - how exactly nests of intense evil can come to exist in this world. If you don't believe the Pizzagate accusations (and I am ambivalent, Alex seems more certain), think of the Nazis, or the Cultural Revolution in China - the truth is that groups of humans can veer off collectively into unbelievable evil. I think it is entirely possible that such movements are orchestrated by non-human entities. However, I rather hope Alex is moving away from that approach because however true his insight may be, discussing it simply generates unbearable amounts of angst.

I suggest you do come back, to discuss the issues you enjoy - it isn't an irrevocable or exclusive decision of course. Remember that 95% of the resources stored here were copied from SKEPTIKO with Alex's permission.

David

Some people here talk about freedom of speech, as though it is an absolute right on any forum. Well I don't think there is any such right on a forum, any more than anyone has a right to attend a conference and climb on to the stage uninvited and shoot their mouth off. Of course interesting forums are moderated, and of course moderation is subjective.

Maybe Alex could restore our accounts without us having to grovel back to him for a slice of humble pie? That would be a start.

Yeah, most of the active posting is about psi, with very little about Skeptiko. People will vent. And then it will become a non-issue and we'll wonder why we even cared. (prediction)

Linda

It won't be this way forever Chris.

My feeling is let the frustration out rather than fester. So what if one or two threads are about this? Where's the problem?

Well, I find it a bit depressing, and I thought maybe others might as well. But maybe it's just me.

Alex told me to leave Skeptiko until I'd summarized numerous studies for him, all because I dared challenge his lazy claim that a paper demonstrated something the authors of the paper explicitly stated it didn't demonstrate. His behavior on the forum became outrageous in my opinion, and that was before he bizarrely tapped weiler as a moderator and managed to smugly work in the phrases "biological robot" and "stuck on stupid" into every other sentence he uttered. Cheers again for getting this forum up and running!

He did a similar thing on the podcast this week. One of his guests gave an accurate summing up of AWARE, only for Alex to shout him down and ramble on about Parnia's personal musings and then Van Lommel's. How can you have a serious discussion with someone like that? He makes it impossible to come to any conclusion that's different to his own.