Do you want more or less freedom?

[friends1980]

OP actually deserved more than only my 2 Merits. Also I didn't vote and I think polls should be banned.

Sarcasm alert: my post might contain irony. Or not.

[nullius]

The ovine masses will always choose tyranny over freedom, if they are allowed to choose freely.  It in their innate character as natural born slaves.  This is why the freedom of all choices about government must be prohibited to the masses:  To protect freedom.

If you start with the premise that “all men are created equal”, you thus start by implicitly assuming that your own subjective desires are objectively the lowest common denominator of what all people everywhere must want.  It is a fundamental error.  Mean mediocrities (and worse) do not care about anything other than safety, basic comfort, cheap entertainment, and emotionalist dogmata which they will blindly defend to their deaths.

They do not disagree with your higher principles:  They have no higher principles, and moreover, they lack the mental ability to have higher principles.  They make individual decisions based on herd mentality and the dogmata which they have learned by rote—dogmata ingrained with emotions, and thence defended with the blind passions of the mass-mind.  This is an innate limitation, and an empirically observed reality which cannot be wished away by fantasies about “educating” the ineducable.  Sheep can no more be taught to think than dogs can be taught to sing opera.

Where is the option to vote against allowing votes?

OP actually deserved more than only my 2 Merits. Also I didn't vote and I think polls should be banned.

Sarcasm alert: my post might contain irony. Or not.

By the power vested in me by the god of Bitcoin, I authoritatively ban the whole world from voting on my use of my money.

Don’t reject authority:  Be your own authority.

What is it with people preëmpting my posts as I gather evidence for The Pharmacist:

You know, I'm actually kind of surprised that I haven't seen more of the SJW ideology being espoused on the forum, since it seems to have permeated even the tiniest cracks of the interwebz.  So I don't think bitcointalk is in imminent danger of crazy far-left liberal infiltration--and yeah, should I see any of that nonsense I'll hit the ignore button so hard and fast I'll need a new mouse afterward.

We must be inhabiting different fora.

[FIFA worldcup]

Omg 9 votes for ban the OP.
If you guys ban the Switzerland's AI all you guys are doomed.

Seriously, poor theymos (BTW he banned Satoshi, so he is the problem)

28% of the total votes till now  goes in the favor of "I'm hurt, ban LoyceV"
I am sure all those people who voted on this option are not serious and voted just for the fun. 

[TIDOVEE]

Freedom is good, the misuse of freedom leads back to bondage. I so much wish we continue every other things but ban sarcasm, that has being in my head for long, I definitely know that many rules will change after this bull session, let's every one sit up and be diligent in their works. I don't know if those who actually voted LoyceV be banned are joking, it's not funny if they actually mean it.

[PrimeNumber7]

You are missing one key option:
Give the freedom of the authoritarians to impose restrictions on others, while not applying said regulations for themselves.

The above is reflective of what many leftists are trying to achieve, both here and in various other institutions, such as the education system and colleges.

The forum administration appears to be very libertarian. This is generally in line with my worldview. My experience on this forum has shaped my view that libertarianism is good, but the 'state' needs to wield a modest amount of power. If the 'state' is too weak, a quasi-state will form that will impose restrictions and regulations on citizens without any kind of real accountability. A good example of this would be the major tech social media companies. Social media companies today hold an outsized amount of influence on public discourse, in some cases, the owners want to remain neutral, but in all cases, the employees have their own non-business agenda, and are powerful enough such that they are not held accountable for their decisions. A modest amount of state regulations on social media companies would largely solve this issue.

[nutildah]

I do have to wonder what exactly spurred this topic. I know it has to be something.

You are missing one key option:
Give the freedom of the authoritarians to impose restrictions on others, while not applying said regulations for themselves.

The above is reflective of what many leftists are trying to achieve, both here and in various other institutions, such as the education system and colleges.

The forum administration appears to be very libertarian. This is generally in line with my worldview. My experience on this forum has shaped my view that libertarianism is good, but the 'state' needs to wield a modest amount of power. If the 'state' is too weak, a quasi-state will form that will impose restrictions and regulations on citizens without any kind of real accountability. A good example of this would be the major tech social media companies. Social media companies today hold an outsized amount of influence on public discourse, in some cases, the owners want to remain neutral, but in all cases, the employees have their own non-business agenda, and are powerful enough such that they are not held accountable for their decisions. A modest amount of state regulations on social media companies would largely solve this issue.

You're unironically arguing for more government. How do additional regulations promote "more freedom"? Sounds like your preconceptions of what "leftists are trying to achieve" are 100% in line with your own goals. If you want to tell private businesses what they can and cannot do outside of pre-existing law, you are the authoritarian here. Sorry if Parler isn't working out for you but you don't get to dictate what social media companies can do just because they don't cater to your (supposed) political ideals.


Here at the forum, what are the true end goals? (besides those for bounty hunters and everybody else who is here solely to make money). I'd like to think its about maintaining an environment that is conducive to productive conversation about bitcoin, cryptocurrency and the blockchain -- an environment that fosters innovation and ideally a sense of community.

To do this, a balance needs to be found between minimizing the suppression of ideas while making sure the forum is not overrun by spammers, scammers and trolls. If we had no mods this place would be a complete mess! At the same time, heavy handed moderation (which I can't say I've ever experienced much of) is no good either.

So here we are - pretty much same as its always been, plus bounty hunters, lol - working on finding a balance that keeps the forum both readable and free. So what's the problem exactly, LoyceV? Forgot what we were talking about here, if I ever really knew in the first place.

At least the second most popular poll response is the one that actually makes sense: banning bots.

[nullius]

You are missing one key option:

You hit on one of my pet issues:  What you aptly term the quasi-state.  I myself have used that exact term, and similar terms (not on this forum).

Give the freedom of the authoritarians to impose restrictions on others, while not applying said regulations for themselves.

The above is reflective of what many leftists are trying to achieve, both here and in various other institutions, such as the education system and colleges.

The forum administration appears to be very libertarian. This is generally in line with my worldview. My experience on this forum has shaped my view that libertarianism is good, but the 'state' needs to wield a modest amount of power. If the 'state' is too weak, a quasi-state will form that will impose restrictions and regulations on citizens without any kind of real accountability.

Leftists (and to be fair: most people) never pause to consider the origin and meaning of the State in the first instance.

In the abstract, a state is an organized group of people who have the power to enforce their will over others.  It may have other characteristics; but objectively, that is its only essential characteristic.

The only characteristic that distinguishes “the State” from an armed criminal gang is some notion of “legitimacy”.  However, this is purely subjective:  It is an expression of the collective nomos of a society.  If the society is an inner-city neighbourhood, then in the eyes of the members of that society, what you and I call “gang leaders” may well have greater “legitimacy” than the official “government”.

A quasi-state that lacks the capacity for direct physical violence, but has de facto power to control people’s communications and even their economic activity, must be judged by its essential nature, and not by mere labels.  What is “public”?  —Is a “state” which is de facto owned by “private” corporate interests a “public” entity?  —What is “private”?  Is a quasi-state as you describe truly a “private” entity?  —What if the technocratic quasi-state is a “private” legal person created by the laws of a “public” entity which, in turn, is de facto owned by corporate interests?  What horrific ouroboros hath been wrought by unthinking modern apes who confuse their concepts?


The foregoing is perforce terse.  Information-dense—a quick notation, not an essay.  The subject matter is not suitable for discussion in the format of an Internet forum.

For my part, I reject all notions of “legitimacy” derived from the dead weight of numbers.  A democratic “state” is in my eyes absolutely no different in kind from the above example of an inner-city neighbourhood gang; it differs only in degree, insofar as it is the largest, most organized, most well-armed gang.  And the “private” corporate creatures which both are created by the “state” according to its “laws”,^* and are the real owners in interest of the “state”, are only other hydra-heads of the same gang.

A good example of this would be the major tech social media companies. Social media companies today hold an outsized amount of influence on public discourse, in some cases, the owners want to remain neutral, but in all cases, the employees have their own non-business agenda, and are powerful enough such that they are not held accountable for their decisions. A modest amount of state regulations on social media companies would largely solve this issue.

I do not think that the owners want to remain neutral.  Furthermore, with control having been divorced from responsibility in the modern corporation, you are confusing the owners with the managers.

* I do not only refer to corporate law in itself:  The entities hereby in question are typically “public” companies whose ownership is controlled via highly regulated stock exchanges.

You know, I'm actually kind of surprised that I haven't seen more of the SJW ideology being espoused on the forum, since it seems to have permeated even the tiniest cracks of the interwebz.  So I don't think bitcointalk is in imminent danger of crazy far-left liberal infiltration--and yeah, should I see any of that nonsense I'll hit the ignore button so hard and fast I'll need a new mouse afterward.

We must be inhabiting different fora.

I was partly alluding to the plain fact that, with some odd twists, much of the DT warring runs along left/right political lines.  In particular, I have observed that certain parties are personally hated and distrusted for their opinions, by the types of persons who are oftentimes even overt in the generality of their biases.

(Partly, I was referring to the objections by sirazimuth and some others to my usage of “he” as a generic singular personal pronoun for a person of unknown sex.)

[ABCbits]

I'm disappointed with the vote option, we're in Bitcoin Forum, but there's no option to make bitcointalk.org uses public permissionless blockchain
Every member should run bitcoin bitcointalk.org core and reserve 20 TB storage to store all spam post permanently.

[nutildah]

Every member should run bitcoin bitcointalk.org core and reserve 20 TB storage to store all spam post permanently.

Let's start uploading the entire forum to the BSV blockchain, if only to make BSV nodes require 20 TB of storage.

[SFR10]

This forum offers more freedom than any forum I've ever seen, but unfortunately, I often see people petition for less freedom.

https://canduh.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/but-why-meme-generator-but-why-84103d.jpg

Few reasons:

• They might be an attention whore of some sort.
• There might be a valid reason behind those petitions that aren't clear enough for us or we just misjudged their motives.
• They have a mind of their own and that's what they think is the best route.
• It gives them great pleasure to see others suffer in some way.

- Based on the "issue behind the creation of this thread", I didn't find FullNode's reason to be a valid one, and personally, I classify him/her as the third one on my list.

[LoyceV]

Please add "Ban users who submit proof of authentication and report posts" to your poll questions.

I'd love to, but that would be way too serious.

Forum needs a little, just a tad bit more of stricter rules, and I think there'd be a better balance to things than what there currently is.

So you're saying you want less freedom. Or only less freedom for others?

On a somewhat more serious note: what's prompting you to create this thread, OP?

This is: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5293230.msg55681694#msg55681694

That was the direct reason to create this topic, but it's been stewing for a while seeing topics asking to bring back Newbie jail, ban Newbies from creating topics or banning alt accounts.

Where is the option to vote against allowing votes?

Don't vote

I'd hope we'd manage to stamp out far leftism and far rightism as strongly as possible from the forum along with any pro authoritarian peeps that come along who want their privacy sacrificing to big data farms.

It sounds pretty authoritarian to want to stamp out pro authoritarian peeps.

ban users who don't capitalize sentences

How this option sticks out from the rest cause it's not capitalized makes me want to vote for this

It annoys me too, but it's part of the forum's mission to be as free as possible.
Users who write ALL CAPS are worse though.

Now, as part of my freedom, I want to make a petition to stop people from making a petition.

Go ahead, nobody is stopping you

I think level of democracy is optimal here.

Lol, I don't think Bitcointalk is a democracy at all. I'm okay with that.

Omg 9 votes for ban the OP.
If you guys ban the Switzerland's AI all you guys are doomed.

I'd say those 15 (44%) out of 34 voters (I'm not counting myself) get why I created this topic.
I'm just stirring the pot a bit

The ovine masses will always choose tyranny over freedom, if they are allowed to choose freely.

I notice it in the news too: many people want more government and more regulations, even though we have a large government with large taxes and more laws than anyone can read already. They always want to force other people to do what they believe is right.

28% of the total votes till now  goes in the favor of "I'm hurt, ban LoyceV"

Don't count votes, count voters. It gives a higher percentage.

I am sure all those people who voted on this option are not serious and voted just for the fun. 

You think?

Give the freedom of the authoritarians to impose restrictions on others, while not applying said regulations for themselves.

Isn't that the basis of all restrictions? People cherry pick which rules they follow, whether it's spamming a forum, traffic rules, or murder.

At least the second most popular poll response is the one that actually makes sense: banning bots.

Apart from the popular opinion that I'm an AI, I'd love to have a posting bot again. I can think of many good uses for it.

I'm disappointed with the vote option, we're in Bitcoin Forum, but there's no option to make bitcointalk.org uses public permissionless blockchain
Every member should run bitcoin bitcointalk.org core and reserve 20 TB storage to store all spam post permanently.

Currently, 100 GB is enough. I'd love to see what happens to a truely decentralized forum, and I've seen interesting posts from theymos about it, something like: a system similar to the custrom Trust list could be used to decide who's posts you get to see and filter out the spam.

[FullNode]

Freedom ends where that of others begins. 
Similarly, one person's rights end where another's begin
 

[LoyceV]

I just realize i can't see pool result without voting, so i would add "Ban people who make poll, but people must vote to see result"

Or just wait: (Voting closes: December 02, 2020, 08:24:12 PM)
I had to vote too to see the results.

Not if you include index size, edit history, all deleted posts, all merit transaction, etc.

Deleted posts isn't that much data. Editing I'm not sure, but I doubt it'll even double the amount. All Merit data is just 20 MB.

Maybe we should store all images on blockchain as well to preserve history.

So far for decentralization

[Pmalek]

The rules of the forum are clear and very easy to keep to; in summary what one has to do is not plagiarize, spread malwares or spam the forum. Not so difficult, right?

Basically, don't be a cunt in any way. It's really not that difficult.

I'd like to think its about maintaining an environment that is conducive to productive conversation about bitcoin, cryptocurrency and the blockchain -- an environment that fosters innovation and ideally a sense of community.

But we don't really have that, do we? We have an environment with productive discussions about Bitcoin and anything Bitcoin-related. Most other coins are referred to as either shitcoins and they are being called scams. Not to mention that if I wanted to find someone to talk to about Ethereum or Polkadot and learn something new, I don't know where I would do that on Bitcointalk. 

[jademaxsuy]

what is SWJ forum?

Yes, I agree that there are some saying that forum has kimited from when in fact they can post all they want if it does not violate the forum rules. There are just people that are insensitive in regards with other people and that because they too have different culture and way to respond base in the culture they are in. Here in our place if someone fall while sitting on the chair, we laugh a lot, if someone get hit by them while walking around we do not say sorry, we will get mad.

I think getting freedom in the forum depend on the user on how he perceive things around.

[pugman]

So you're saying you want less freedom. Or only less freedom for others?

What I am saying is, bring a balance to the forum, there needs to be a basic guidelines regarding signature campaign in the forum. Keep the freedom as is, but ban the users that allow excessive spam to occur(aka managers).

That was the direct reason to create this topic, but it's been stewing for a while seeing topics asking to bring back Newbie jail, ban Newbies from creating topics or banning alt accounts.

I don't think it will ever be easy to figure out how to ban alt accounts, cause everything is IP based. PayPal still struggles to find out who's alt account belongs to who, and bans random accounts, so banning alt accounts is well, difficult to say the least.

As for newbie jail, it is kinda good that it isn't there anymore. Merit system handles out trash newbies anyways. Freedom is fine, some rules need to be brought-forth.

what is SWJ forum?

Yes, I agree that there are some saying that forum has kimited from when in fact they can post all they want if it does not violate the forum rules. There are just people that are insensitive in regards with other people and that because they too have different culture and way to respond base in the culture they are in. Here in our place if someone fall while sitting on the chair, we laugh a lot, if someone get hit by them while walking around we do not say sorry, we will get mad.

I think getting freedom in the forum depend on the user on how he perceive things around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior#:~:text=Social%20justice%20warrior%20(SJW)%20is,%2C%20civil%20rights%2C%20and%20multiculturalism.

[PrimeNumber7]

You're unironically arguing for more government. How do additional regulations promote "more freedom"?

In Democracies, the government is accountable to the people. Private companies are accountable to the market, however, if they have a large enough market share, they also control the market. Take YouTube, for example, content creators have to follow YouTube's rules in order to be able to publish their videos and advertise using YouTube's platform (monetize their videos). If YouTube has a rule that you don't like, you have the option to publish your content on another platform, however other platforms do not have the same reach that YouTube has, and you will not earn nearly as much posting on a competing platform. Therefore, content creators will adjust their content to follow YouTube's rules. In effect, YouTube is not accountable for its rules or policies. Modest government regulations could shift some rulemaking onto the government, who would be accountable for bad rules/regulations.

I do not think that the owners want to remain neutral.  Furthermore, with control having been divorced from responsibility in the modern corporation, you are confusing the owners with the managers.

Modern tech companies have their founders have ownership structures in which their founders own a special class of shares that give them control of their companies. They are also the heads of their respective companies or have substantial influence over the heads of their companies.

I would like to believe that Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be a neutral institution so as to maintain public trust in it as an institution. Facebook has a very liberal employee base, so this is oftentimes difficult.

Dorsey on the other hand appears to be using Twitter as a propaganda tool for the far left.

Give the freedom of the authoritarians to impose restrictions on others, while not applying said regulations for themselves.

Isn't that the basis of all restrictions? People cherry pick which rules they follow, whether it's spamming a forum, traffic rules, or murder.

In the US, there are countless local Democrat officials who were telling their constituents not to travel within minutes of traveling themselves. They are imposing restrictions on their constituents, and not following the restrictions themselves, and exempting their own political interests from said restrictions.

[Yogee]

Four votes for "Turn Bitcointalk into SJW forum", really? I'm hoping it's a vote to troll the poll. Go to social media where many wokes live if it's not hehe.

I've read in some comments that Loyce is an AI so the ban Loyce should also count for ban bots.

[Lordhermes]

Freedom? I haven't seen any user complaining of not having freedom here, every forum is guided by a common rules to follow, so definitely, failure to abide with it gets you not having freedom.
Spammers and plagiarist mostly have issues of freedom, so no voting poll to ban spammers?

[decodx]

I've read in some comments that Loyce is an AI so the ban Loyce should also count for ban bots.

Nah, LoyceV is more like a 'super bot', an AI that controls many bots. Just look at how many sock puppet accounts he has!