Meshugger

I think we're talking about different things here. I am talking about the fracturation of homogenous societies into heterogenous ones and the shift of financial and political power to outside ones borders and its corresponding natural response to it.

We've done that already here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63035-family-issues/?hl=%2Bfamily+%2Bissues lol, fair enough. Back to topic though, the Trump phenomenon is a simple reaction to demographic and economic changes that has occured the last 40 years (globalism vs. nationalism) in the US and western world at large and it will not disappear by labeling him on an "ism" and call it a day, as those accusations are superfluous compared to the problems arised. You raise some interesting points So lets say I agree with you...what exactly is Trump going to do to to address this " demographic and economic changes that has occured the last 40 years " Please give specific examples of what you expect to see As for Trump himself, you can read it yourself: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions I'll reserve comment for how it will turn out for the time being. He's still the chaos agent.

While i do not disagree with the Golden Rule and I find Game theory being fine and dandy in itself, i do however find them insufficient to answer the problems that we are currently facing, often tied in humans being inheritly irrational. Bear in mind, I have no clear solutions myself, just pointers in the right direction.

Sure, but teach them what? What future would you like them to inherit when you are gone and how to achieve it?

We've done that already here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63035-family-issues/?hl=%2Bfamily+%2Bissues lol, fair enough. Back to topic though, the Trump phenomenon is a simple reaction to demographic and economic changes that has occured the last 40 years (globalism vs. nationalism) in the US and western world at large and it will not disappear by labeling him on an "ism" and call it a day, as those accusations are superfluous compared to the problems arised.

What the heck are you talking about? Who claimed anything of this sort? You seem irritated and insecure. Please tell me about your mother.

Now, now. We all know that evil is passed through a membrane of another dimension and just seem to pop up spontaniously into existence. No event is related to a previous one and causation is outside of the human experience. There are no interconnecting stages of civilizations and they always fall because of the lack of moral virtues of the civilizations that followed them. Anyone arguing otherwise is only doing it because of projections of their own fears, of which are of course stemed from repressed sexual desires, most often from not being able to be sodomized by their father figures. Our best scientists of the mind have determined that long ago, you fools.

Pretty much. Those Soldiers of Odin-guys are a symptom of when trust in law enforcement and authorities is in a low. These will fizzle out when trust has been re-established.

He is the best ****poster around we are all loving it.

The guy who blew the whizzle on Rubio's foam parties to the media and ardent opposer of Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz has been found dead just before the Indiana primaries, just a coincidence of course. http://www.urbanophile.com/2016/05/02/indianapolis-blogger-gary-welsh-dies-in-apparent-suicide/ Matt Palumbo on how opponents underestimated Trump and the five stages of realizing their errors http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/05/05/matt-palumbo-donald-trump-hillary-clintons-worst-nightmare/ Oh god, please, please, please. I want to see Hillary scream like a harpy on live television all while Trump being so smug that the internetz implode.

You do realize that your argument has now morphed into "having laws is a slippery slope in itself", right? Nope, you're completely wrong. Please, do educate me how "crime" isn't a human activity and "a peaceful and ordered society" isn't an arbitrary term. lol, twisting and turning & more twisting and turning. The key word is "arbitrary term", as in not set in any principle. "A peaceful and ordered society" is set on principle of no violence and following the law. "A great discussion" is an arbitrary term though. Now, links please or examples of forums with proper moderation according to the requirements in my previous post please.

Reiterating a claim without any evidence to substantiate it doesn't make it true. It's an axiom, silly. An axiom, you say? lol, no. The term slippery slope is not a slippery slope in itself. Regulate any term of human activity in the name of an arbitrary term leads to over-regulation because it ends up with a small group of arbiters deciding for the many. Same thing. You do realize that your argument has now morphed into "having laws is a slippery slope in itself", right? Nope, you're completely wrong. How about you musing the rest of the forum of the golden medium of forum moderation with quantitative results, what constitutes as a middle ground and how to measure the greatness of a discussion instead? And please, no paywalls.

Reiterating a claim without any evidence to substantiate it doesn't make it true. It's an axiom, silly. An axiom, you say? lol, no. The term slippery slope is not a slippery slope in itself. Regulate any term of human activity in the name of an arbitrary term leads to over-regulation because it ends up with a small group of arbiters deciding for the many. Same thing.

False dichotomy. There's some excluded middle ground between "we don't moderate unless some really heavy poo-flinging happens" and "nobody is ever allowed to say anything that could possibly be construed as offensive". Again, it places judgement on what a middle ground is on the hands of one or a few instead of allowing discussion grow organically and only act when the snails and ****roaches arrive. Sure, you can treat the forum as a private garden with the most excellent gardener of excellent discussions, but i have seen too many times gardeners burning down their respective gardens in a hissy fit when the trees and the flowers didn't get along as they wished. Whereas I didn't. Reiterating a claim without any evidence to substantiate it doesn't make it true. It's an axiom, silly.

False dichotomy. There's some excluded middle ground between "we don't moderate unless some really heavy poo-flinging happens" and "nobody is ever allowed to say anything that could possibly be construed as offensive". Again, it places judgement on what a middle ground is on the hands of one or a few instead of allowing discussion grow organically and only act when the snails and ****roaches arrive. Sure, you can treat the forum as a private garden with the most excellent gardener of excellent discussions, but i have seen too many times gardeners burning down their respective gardens in a hissy fit when the trees and the flowers didn't get along as they wished. Point being, I rather have mods who puts more emphasis on a hands-off approach than on a hands-on one. Trying to run a pursuit for the golden middle ground is a slippery slope to hugboxes.

This statement bears a quote of it own.

"Should not be tolerated" is approaching the problem from the wrong angle. I don't want less discussion, I want better discussion. Rules that facilitate a constructive exchange of ideas. Mods who step in before problems become problems. Research says that the overwhelming majority of toxic behavior is coming from people who are otherwise perfectly civil - this suggests that you could probably get great results simply by reminding them to conduct themselves with decorum when things start to turn nasty, before their brain kicks into full-on poo-flinging mode. So the arbiter on what is a better discussion is up to one on the expense of others. The only logical conclusion of such practice is a hugbox as there is no universal rule of decorum fit for all people. For example, "your mom"-jokes are unacceptable for southern europeans while for northern ones it complete flies over their heads as the concept of a cheap shot insult to ones mother is no different than to any other person and cheap shots are socially acceptable to begin with. So what's left is a bunch of arbitrary rules ending leaving everyone afraid of insulting one another and words like "[whatever]-ism!" or "you're a [whatever]-ist!" are used as killing words to end the discussion, not to make it any better. The phrase "toxic behaviour" is a good example as it so soft that it's practically meaningless. Kinda like George Carlin talked about back in the day:

That's the beauty of the situation. Forums always have armchair moderators, each with an ironclad vision of "how stuff should be done". The hilarious twist this time is that their behavior (and others) is simultaneously the genesis of the "problems" (because they decided there is a problem) AND the results. Since were not hard enough on them they lose the ability to communicate in a civil manner. Or something. We try to keep things loose and this is not an echo chamber where we all have to agree. All opinions are welcome within the forum rules. We cannot read every post in every thread so if a post offends your sensibilities please feel free to make use of the Report button conveniently located at the bottom of every post, and we will take it into consideration. What? Alum and I have already stated what we believe the problem to be - the lack of strong rules regarding basic civility, and the lack of enforcement on what is already there. I mean, c'mon, read the anti-trolling rule - it's a complete joke, and is basically inoperable. The anti-harassment rule? Better, but still pretty weak - only the first two sentences are of actually any use, and even those aren't hardly ever enforced. So what's the result? Simple: you get a bunch of trolls or frequently troll-like people such as Bruce and Obyknven and Volourn and...who are able to freely peddle their nonsense and/or literally perpetually terrible behavior up and down the forums, and then, as a result of being around these people for a prolonged period of time, you get the malcontents like Aluminium, KaineParker, and I that are just so sick of these people that we just stop giving a crap about rules that either aren't there or aren't really enforced. I frequently disagree with the vast majority of the people on these forums on pretty much every issue imaginable...there are only a few people who literally never, ever conduct themselves in an even half-way courteous manner, and there are only a few people who are just so intellectually lazy and intellectually dishonest that there's no point in even trying to have a discussion with them - all the times we've tried, we've been stung...and yet, they keep spewing their baloney bullcrap all over the forums constantly, eliciting replies from others in these faux "serious" "discussion" threads, both of which change the direction/focus of the thread and make it an unbearable and useless mess. It just gets old. I honestly don't even know why I bother at this point. Maybe I shouldn't, and should just stick to the less serious threads I like such as the NFL threads and stuff in the tech section. Lisa, I know that you mean well, but sometimes you just have to accept that there are people different from you. You know, when i was little, i wanted the world to be just like it was at my own tea-party. Where we would all come together and laugh. But i soon realized that other people had hopes and dreams completely different from mine, and that you just can't invite the whole world to your own tea-party. ...and you wouldn't like it if Milhouse would decide on how to run your tea-parties either, now would you Lisa? ...or perhaps you would? *snicker* Mooom!! I am just kidding with you *snicker* But you see Lisa, it's all part of growing up and it is something we all have to do. Thanks mom *Que Simpsons ending-music*

Go on, don't stop now. What rules should be in place? Care to give an example of what kind of discussion, or posts, should not be tolerated?

I sincerely hope that the guy gets himself that porn moustache that he always wanted.

I....I don't know

Gifted1 vs the forum:

Cruz is the gift that keeps on giving. Look at his frowns of worry as Fiorina falls down the stairs.

Case in point, I just invoked the nanomachines-meme.

*wipes away a tear* This has got to be the single most tortured metaphor I've ever seen on this forum. Now, now, no need to get emotional for a coffe break-metaphor. Besides, poetry and art has taught us more about the human condition than any thesis from a university. [citation needed] Genius, beauty, suffering, strength of will are machinations of the human mind, of which cannot be quantified or measured, neither can they be reproduced through the gathering empirical data. But they can be expressed through words, pictures and sounds, all of which who resonate to the human soul. Never underestimate the power of memes.