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Dec. 1, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
36:48
537 Board Etiquette

How we can all just get along just beautifully!

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Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It's Steph. It is a very rainy morning, so sorry for all the background noise.
I was going to sing you a song, Stephan in the Rain, but I decided not to.
So I think that I will, just to spend a minute or two, actually more than a minute or two, depending on the length of the rain, talking about...
Some of the rules for the board.
And this is a little DRO with no power to enforce anything other than exclusion.
But I thought it might as well be reasonable since some people seem to be confused and upset and view my decisions as the board administrator as arbitrary that it might be worth going over some of the board rules.
And I'll post this as a sticky on the board so that there's not a whole lot of doubt and confusion.
But here are some of the basic rules that I thought I would go over, and I'll just mention something about recent altercations, actually just the most recent one, so that people have some sort of idea.
So... Somebody who's been fairly aggressive, we'll call him Bibi.
Aggressive, but not quite, at least not in my mind, over the line, which I'll spend a little bit more time talking about now.
He invited everyone to give him feedback on a problem he was having where he might have been stiffed out of his inheritance by his family, and I gave him some suggestions, which I'm sure is no surprise to anyone listening to this podcast for more than 10 or 20.
I mentioned to him that it probably wouldn't be worth it to go after the money, but it certainly would be worth it to reexamine his relationship with his family, which all seemed pretty corrupt and pretty messy on his family's side, and perhaps on his side too.
And so, of course, he got really angry at me, and he said, you know, I knew you were going to say that, and you get off on telling people that you live for telling people that they have to get rid of their family, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And, you know, this is a, you know, talk about, you know, you ask for help, and then you attack somebody who's trying to help you.
Not so good, right?
So then I simply decided to disconnect, right?
So maybe other people would give him more legal advice that would be of help, but I just said, I'm sorry I wasn't able to help.
Good luck, right?
Then he got angry at me again and he said, oh, so now you're not willing to be analyzed the way that you analyze all these other people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Aggression, aggression, aggression. He said, that's all you've got?
Aren't you going to give me anything more?
And I said, no, you're too aggressive.
But you may want to, if you want to look on this on your own about your family, look into the facts that families are interdependent systems.
There's no... It's not a one bad apple in the bunch, right?
Families are interdependent systems in the same way that I was suggesting that prostitution was an interdependent system in that people of like self-esteem tend to cluster, right?
I mean, that's not my radical notion, right?
That's just standard psychology.
People of like self-esteem tend to cluster.
And so then he came back even more aggressively and this and that.
So I banned him. And then, of course, he came back because he didn't want...
This is what's so torturing to these kinds of people, right?
He didn't want people to think that I had gotten the last word and he'd run away or anything like that.
So, of course, he signed in as...
BabblingBrit at BS.com.
He signed up as a new person and said, hey, where's that BB guy gone?
He, you know, have we had another victim on the board or something like that?
And then somebody else was like, yeah, where is that guy gone?
So then this is the modus operandi of these sorts of personalities, right?
For want of a better word.
That they're going to come in and they're going to create hostility and conflict and attack people.
Of all of the wrongs in the world, of all of the evils in the world, I am the one that people choose to attack.
Then, you know, there's aggression, there's, you know, accusations of grandiosity and hypocrisy on my part, all this and that, and no substantiation, right?
I mean, that's... The issue is not, to me, somebody getting mad at me.
The issue is somebody just getting abusive without substantiation, without me attacking them, without clear and objective facts, without a...
I mean, you don't have to have got to training in psychology, but at least if you have some theories that, you know, you can place my pathologies in context or something, that would be great, but...
You know, these sort of just baseless attacks are childish and pathetic, right?
I'm sorry, that's a bit of an insult to childish people, to children who are not naturally that way.
So this is sort of not to go over that thing in any detail, but it's sort of an example, as you can look at with the stuff that occurred last week, that I have no problem being corrected.
I have no problem with people getting angry at me.
We're kind of into the scientific method here, or just basic logic and philosophy.
I appreciate respect as a whole.
If I give you respect, then I appreciate respect in return.
I don't consider it an absolute requirement, but certainly respect is preferred.
As I mentioned to a poster earlier this week who got angry at me because he felt that I used the word abuse incorrectly or in an unclear method.
I never know how to say this without sounding condescending, so I apologize for that in advance, but it really doesn't have to be like that.
Relationships, you don't have to be this tough-talking yo-punk, where you have to be aggressive.
Maybe it looks like being assertive to you, but it doesn't look like that to an experienced eye.
It looks like somebody just being kind of a jerk.
If I say something, or if anyone on the board says something that's unclear, attacking them is not good.
Attacking someone for being unclear is not good.
Because either they're being unclear on purpose to mess with your head, in which case, why would you respond to that?
Or they're being unclear because you can't explain every syllable of every post that you put on and you have to assume some things that are taken for granted, right?
Or you get down to, well, you know, it depends what the meaning of the is in this context, right?
So, you just ask for clarification.
You can be polite. You can be civilized.
You can just say, I'm sorry, I don't quite understand how you're using this term.
Can you give me some more information, please?
I mean, that's assertive.
That's mature. That's assertive.
Saying, oh yeah, well, you've been real clear about that term abuse now, haven't you?
That's not being assertive.
That's being a jerk. That's being aggressive.
That's being demeaning. That's just being...
Kind of petty, right?
Kind of immature. Well, not kind of.
It is, right? And I say this with some sympathy as well because, you know, I know that if you have this impulse or this urge or this approach that this is just how you were raised.
This is what happens when you don't intervene on parents who raised you in a rough and tumble and brutal manner, right?
I mean, it's very clear that you weren't taught how to interact in a positive and civilized manner in this instance.
I'm not going to say in all areas of your life that may be the case and I would suspect that it is, but I'm certainly not going to say that for sure.
But if you're punchy, you don't come across as tough.
You come across as insecure.
You come across as insecure.
You come across as not very bright, which is not the case.
Most people on the board are very, very bright, and even the people who are punchy are bright, but it comes across as not very bright, and it comes across as sort of domineering, and it comes across as sort of intimidating, and people who are confident and happy don't go around intimidating others.
Don't go around sort of Yanking at the rug under others and getting angry when they fall over and stuff like that.
That's not the mark of a happy and mature and confident person.
A happy, mature and confident person, when somebody says something that is unclear, says, Oh, I'm sorry, I can't understand that.
Could you explain that a little bit more, please?
That's a civilized and confident way to interact with someone.
Getting all attitudinal and, you know, I guess it was just too much work for you to clarify this if you indeed know what you're talking about.
Like, oh man, don't be such a jerk.
So, I'm sort of inviting people who have those sort of tendencies just to try it on.
You know, just try it on. It won't kill you.
It won't kill you. I promise you it won't kill you.
Try it on. Just try it on. Just try if you have a disagreement with someone and you wish and you believe that they have something of value to offer you.
This is sort of important. If you're going to debate with someone, you have to believe that they have something of value to offer you.
That either they're open to correction if you believe that they're wrong, or that you're willing to be corrected if it turns out that they're right.
And if you don't feel that that's the case, and I have made this mistake, So I'm not, again, I'm in here in the trenches trying to figure out this map a little too.
But I have made this mistake where I'm involved in somebody sort of being pretty aggressive and abusive towards me.
And they then start up another thread, which is totally unrelated to this.
Okay, maybe we've put that behind us and I'll answer this thread.
But it turns out to sort of be a kind of trap and stuff like that.
Anyway, I won't get into details, but I'm sure it's not that unclear to people who've been on the board for a while.
So I make that mistake, right?
So I don't look at the fixedness of personality and the fact that if somebody is aggressive and abusive, it doesn't work.
It doesn't change really very much, right?
At least not without significant intervention and so on.
The other thing that I would like to introduce into the board, sort of, is this a rule?
Is this a rule? Well, we'll get to the rules in a sec.
But the other thing that I think would be a pretty civilized thing, because some of these rules are sort of basic, right?
Like, don't attack people, right?
Because if you think that they're so dumb that you want to attack them, or so corrupt or so nasty or whatever that you want to attack them, then...
Obviously, there's no point in conversing with them, right?
If somebody doesn't speak English, you don't yell louder, right?
It's still not going to make them understand English, right?
So, if you feel the urge, again, set a count to ten, figure out if you've been in these situations before, and so on.
Now, the other thing that I think would be useful on the board...
And this would be a topic for a whole podcast, but I think that I won't do that, at least not now.
But apologies.
Apologies are a wonderful social lubricant.
And apologies are a beautiful way of admitting faults, of building trust, of everybody in every relationship, no matter how wonderful you are, is you're going to do things that upset the other person, that are, you know, snappy or whatever, right?
And the very important and mature thing to do is to apologize.
You have no idea, if you don't sort of have this habit, how much power there is in an apology.
It really is astounding. And how much everyone thinks, because of their own experience with their family, if this is the way your family was, That if you apologize, people seize upon that with triumph.
And they use it to grind you down.
And if you admit fault, then until the end of time, this will be trotted out for you.
So every single time, if you say, well, I'm sorry, I lost my temper, then you will be marked as the family person who has the bad temper.
And then you'll be in the passive-aggressive game where other people will needle you until you get upset and then say, oh, here comes the famous temper.
And so if you admit fault in a lot of people's families, if you admit fault, then it becomes a strike against you that you will never, ever live down.
So admitting fault is handing the reins of power to other people, yea, and to the very jaws of eternity.
But you don't want to make the unjust mistake of transposing your parents onto everyone else.
Because then it will ensure that you will have a hard time getting out of the orbit of these kinds of people, right?
Where you project, you create.
Anyway, we don't have to get into that right now, but just take it from me.
I would say that with most people who have not indicated severe signs of pathology, it is a good idea, if you've done something wrong, to apologize.
And see how they take it.
And if they seize upon it with triumph and use it to grind you down and so on, then just never interact with that person again, right?
But most people, like on the outside, they view apologies, you know, like it's that old thing, like it takes a big man to apologize or I'm going to be the bigger man and so on.
I don't believe in the bigger man thing because...
It's cold up here in Canada.
No, I don't believe in the bigger man thing, because then it's like, it's a part of a subtle triumph thing, like I'm going to be a bigger man than you and apologize, and that makes me better, and so my apology is a kind of domination.
I don't believe in any of that stuff, but from the outside, when somebody apologizes, my respect goes up enormously, because that's somebody who's got some courage and some integrity and so on, right?
So we've had some of those on the board, and I just say, give it a shot, right?
I mean, if you have sort of been mean without evidence and without rationality, If you have been mean, then I would suggest that it would be well worthwhile apologizing.
And you know, right? I mean, it doesn't take a Law& Order episode to get you to understand the situation.
You know. Then apologize and see, right?
I mean, I would say that most people will look upon that as a very manly or mature or womanly act.
I mean, just give it a shot, right?
Apologies are highly underrated in social interactions.
They can be very powerful. And they can really thaw increasingly icy relations very, very quickly.
So that's sort of another aspect.
Now, most people who have these tendencies will at this point, or actually will have far long ago, will have the following argument rolling around in their head.
Well, Steph, how hypocritical can you be?
You have podcasts where you tear into people, mind, body, and soul.
You attack people. You've even attacked board members.
With raised voice, hostility, how is it that you can say that abuse is bad, right?
Well, but that's to conflate two, well, three things, two of which are related and all of which are central to everything that we've talked about here.
And it's just, again, this is how difficult it is to bring philosophy into your life.
Now, Violence, of course, has two flavors, right?
Attack and defense. And everybody decries attack and everybody says that defense is a regrettable necessity.
You shouldn't go around provoking people.
In order to attack them, that's passive aggression, when they get mad at you.
But if somebody does attack you repeatedly, and you attempt to inform them that they're attacking you, and they continue to attack you, and they escalate, and they pull other people in, and they ignore these statistics and the facts, and they ignore your arguments that you laboriously, say, over the course of an hour in a call-in show, that you lay out, and they don't do...
Anyway, if this is going on, if the attacks continue, then there is a principle of self-defense.
And the principle of self-defense is aggression, but it's aggression against aggression, and it's aggression when people have been given every opportunity to cease their aggression, to apologize, and so on.
So when you put an idea out there, and then you get attacked for it, and then you explain your idea, and you continue to get attacked, and then you point out the contradictions in those who are attacking you, and they continue to attack, and then you put out the facts, and they continue to attack, and then you put out more arguments, and they continue to attack, and then you lay out the argument in syllogistic form, and they continue to attack, well then, for me, the gloves come off.
So, for me, the gloves come off.
And if you have a grave difficulty separating self-defense from attack, then you kind of need to do some more basic things than post on the board.
You're not ready to post in a sort of Socratic corner of the world where we try to exchange reason and logic and facts and jokes.
So if you really can't tell the difference between attack and defense, then you're not ready, right?
I mean, no disrespect intended, but you're not ready, right?
And you need to study some logic, you need to study some more of the basic ethics and so on, and read some good stuff that's out there and so on.
Now, of course, then certain people will be thinking, but Steph, they weren't attacking you.
I mean, physically. Well, of course, I wasn't attacking them physically either, right?
But, Steph, did they hit a nerve that makes you so angry, right?
This is the basic idea of passive aggression, right?
That you keep needling someone until they get angry, and then you call them crazy, right?
That's just basic. That's Psych 101.
And so then people will say, well, gee, they really must have hit a nerve.
And therefore, when you're yelling at them, angry and so on, that it must be something in your life and so on.
Well, we also do extend the principle of self-defense to include others who cannot defend themselves, right?
So, if you come across somebody who is Holding up a liquor store, you have the right to shoot them if they have the store owner, if they've got a gun to the store owner's head or something and there's imminent violence and so on.
Most people who believe in the non-aggression principle and in self-defense would very comfortably say that you have the right to aggress against someone on behalf of somebody else who can't We can't defend him or herself.
Well, certainly in the podcast on prostitution, that would be my argument.
Like it or not, right or wrong, it certainly falls into that category of defending the prostitutes.
That's the best that I can do.
I can't trail people around and talk them out of going to prostitutes.
Look at how difficult this conversation was.
Of course, I'm not really trying to debate people on the far side of issues, ever.
I'm not trying to sway people on the far side of issues.
I don't try and sway communists.
I try and sway people in the middle, right?
I mean, just like any doctor, right?
You try and work on those who are the most likely to be savable, right?
So the question of attack versus defense is very important.
And certainly, if somebody is not preying on a third party, Then, for me, it's hard to...
Sorry, there's a couple of conditions under which I believe that self-defense or defense on the part of others is justified in terms of getting angry.
Obviously, the exploitation of children and the helpless and those who've experienced such trauma that they can't make good decisions and so on.
I think that's perfectly valid.
You know, one of the things that's just amazing is, right, people...
It's empathy for the Iraqi citizens who were being murdered as part of the invasion that everyone was like, wow, you know, that was beautiful, that was empathetic, that moved me to tears, and I appreciate that.
But boy, you know, we shed tears for Iraqis that we don't have any control or power over and can't change or affect or save.
But boy, when we step over the...
Prostitutes on our streets, we shrug.
No sympathy for the prostitutes, lots of sympathy for the Iraqis.
Let's just say I don't think that's a very consistent approach to empathy.
Now, the other sort of aspect that I would like to talk about is escalations, right?
Escalations will occur on the board where people will get angry and other people will engage and so on.
I would certainly suggest that you don't escalate.
I know that it's a great temptation, right?
I know that you want to sort of get in there, mix it up and win, win, win, win, win, but you can't get rationality out of escalating abuse on both sides, right?
You just, you can't. You can't get, you can't.
If you're interested in the pursuit of knowledge or truth, you're simply in a war of ugly wits and will and bad language or hostile language with other people.
If somebody slams you in some way over a post of yours, You can write back and say, I really don't like it when you do that.
That's pretty harmful.
And then if they apologize, then maybe you can continue.
If they don't, and they attack you more, then, of course, you can report it as abuse on the board, or you can email me, or you can simply disengage from the conversation, right?
Certainly, I am interested in the possibilities of isolationism, right?
So that if people are just abusive and nobody responds to their posts, is that something that we can live with?
Or is that a way? Can it be self-reinforcing?
Oh, sorry. Can it be self-enforcing this kind of stuff?
I'm very interested in that.
But in order for that to occur, people have to stop engaging with those who are aggressive.
And I have to remember that as well right after that too, right?
I was talking about this with Christina last night, right?
I mean, I certainly went through my life with everyone thinking, you know, certain people in my life were, like, good and nice and kind, and I should be good to them, and they were all crazy and nasty and corrupt, and I couldn't get people to see that.
So I don't trust sometimes enough, and because of my own issues, right, I don't trust enough the board members to see that somebody's being aggressive or abusive, right?
I have to point it out, which only inflames them, whereas of course for anybody with the eyes to see it's very clear what's going on without me having to go in and point it out.
That's just my own history that I need to continue to work through.
So, what are the rules?
What are the rules?
And you can go over, if you like, the justification in your own mind as to whether or not something that I spend time, energy, money, and resources on is mine to control.
If you have a big problem with that, if you feel this is some sort of public space, then there are some wonderful socialist forums over in other areas of cyberspace that would be a far more appropriate home to you.
So, that would be something that I would suggest would be a better place.
If you don't think that I have the right to, as I mentioned the other day, if you don't think that I have the right to remove people, to lock the gates after people leave, after someone leaves, and to ban him from reentry to my swimming pool if he makes a habit of peeing in the swimming pool, I mean, this is my livelihood, right?
This is not only an existing source of income for me, but it's something that I hope to grow into a full-time livelihood.
If I'm making my money off my swimming pool and somebody comes in and pees in it, if you don't think that I have the right to prevent that person from returning to my swimming pool, then you may not have gone through any of the basics of property rights.
And that's not something I can address with you.
Certainly, I've done it a number of times before, and there's lots of good writing about property rights out there.
That would be something to deal with, but I can't.
I can't help you with that in the moment.
I do have that right to prevent somebody who pees in my swimming pool from coming back in.
Whether or not it was a source of income for me or not doesn't really matter.
It's not a massive source of income by any means, but it is something that I'm working to build and so on.
Especially if my friends are using the swimming pool.
That's no good. So the rules are, of course, don't initiate abusive language.
If you feel angry, don't post.
If you feel angry, don't post.
If something somebody does stings you, that's their intention.
Don't post. Don't engage.
Don't engage. Don't engage.
Don't engage. Don't engage.
If you do engage and it escalates, then you have to withdraw.
And don't withdraw in a sort of snippy way where it's like, well, clearly you're far too irrational and evil to debate with and blah, blah, blah, so I'm going to spend my time in more productive ways.
Because that parting shot stuff is not going to soothe the ruffled feathers of the board, right?
So you simply stop posting and it will peter out, right?
The great thing with this sort of stuff is you have to read it.
And there is no filter for a person.
You can sort of filter out somebody's individual stuff, so sorry about that.
But you can, of course, see their avatar, and you can see the last reply on the main page, and so on.
So if you don't understand that something that someone says Ask them for clarification.
If they're making absolutely unwarranted statements about things like property rights and logic and reality and epistemology and so on, then send them...
If you want to correct them, then don't try and teach the university course in the paragraph, but rather send them to materials and say, these might be of use to you.
This is the framework that we use to discuss these things here, which might be helpful for you if you want to sort of engage in a way that makes sense to people here.
Don't say, look, you retard, go read this stuff so that you start sounding like somebody vaguely intelligent.
That's not the right way to do it.
That's certainly not an inviting kind of way, and it just tells us all about your family and your teachers rather than being a helpful instruction to somebody else.
So, you know, it's the general philosophy that I have, at least, which is treat people as well as you can the first time you meet them, and after that, treat them the way that they treat you.
Again, which doesn't mean escalation, right?
Escalation is pointless on a board, right?
I mean, you just keep plugging away, and if people see, then they see, and if they don't see, you stop debating.
But, you know, you don't lower yourself to that level of debate.
It's not debate. You don't lower yourself to that level of abuse.
If there's a third party involved, like prostitutes, then you can be as passionate and aggressive as you want if that third party can't defend himself or herself or whatever, right?
So really, that's sort of the major stuff to do with the board.
I don't mind sarcasm.
I would also sort of, the stuff that I get a little bit weary of, this is sort of personal, so you can take from it what you will, but this is just sort of stuff related to me.
Obviously, you're a fascist, you're a dictator and all this kind of nonsense, which was beautifully parodied by Tuttle the other day.
That stuff is just ridiculous, and that stuff will get you banned.
I have the rights to ban people without notice and permanently, and that's what I do.
I don't ban people for a day or a week because I'm not going to come back and check and blah, blah, blah.
I'm just going to ban you.
If you can't figure out that calling...
A philosopher sadistic or calling somebody who has claimed, at least I make the claim to try and do what I can to heal the injuries of the world.
If you call me a fascist, then you've labeled me evil.
If you call me a dictator, you have labeled me evil.
If you say that I'm using violence, then you have labeled me as evil.
If you claim that I'm sadistic and that I love getting off, I get off on telling people that their families are problems that they need to really look into and, you know, whatever.
Then you're calling me evil, and you don't get to call me evil using my property, right?
You can call me evil all you want.
You can start your evil board complaining about me.
But you sure as hell, you can expect it all you want, but it's never going to happen that I am going to spend all of my resources Giving you the hard disk space and the software and the bandwidth to call me evil.
That's something that's not going to happen.
I absolutely guarantee you that.
So, before you sort of discharge that weapon and call me evil, Just understand that it's going to get you banned.
And if you call other people evil on the board without extensive knowledge, reasoning, facts, and so on, and evidence, then I'm going to ban you as well.
Evil is not a term that we use lightly.
Evil is a term that I use.
Evil is not a rhetorical device, right?
Calling somebody evil is not a rhetorical device.
So, certainly flinging around the term evil about people on the board without extensive evidence and so on, and...
Supporting posts and so on, I mean, that's a no-no.
Evil is not a word to use lightly.
And similarly, calling somebody grandiose, and of course I get this a lot, right?
So somebody posted yesterday, oh, you know, because I did the post on Prostitution Part 3, or I did the podcast, Where I was saying, you know, there's a devil on your ear who's whispering and I'm trying to save your soul and so on.
So, of course, this person then assumed that I thought I was Jesus Christ when, of course, I'm using the rhetorical devices to try and show the escalation that is involved in denying empathy for the helpless, especially the abused.
And yes, of course, dramatical flourishes, pauses, absolutely.
You know, dramatic flourishes all over the place.
Because that's not an argument.
That's me trying to reach another human soul.
And you can do that with logic.
But of course, as anybody knows who's listened to this for a while, I believe that logic and emotion are two sides of the same coin.
So when I'm trying to reach and convince someone, yes, I will use emotional terms.
I will use rhetorical flourishes.
I will use dramatic pauses.
Absolutely. Because I'm trying to get past the false self.
And I'm trying to get to the true self.
And that's not a very easy thing to do.
And that requires the utmost sincerity combined with a great deal of passion and a great deal of clarity and rhetorical flourishes, which are more than mere ornamentation, but actual ways of impressing and getting past.
Because the true self takes things very seriously.
It doesn't mean the true self can't have a lot of fun, but the true self does take things very seriously.
And the false self...
It only takes attacks and criticism seriously.
Everything else is to be made fun of and to be made light of and to be dismissed with a shrug and a smirk and a scowl.
But the true self takes the soul and salvation and mercy and virtue and empathy.
It takes all of these things very, very, very seriously indeed because they are very serious topics.
So when I use this kind of language to try and connect with someone, People will generally, in one form or another, say that I'm grandiose and I've got a messianistic complex and all this kind of stuff.
And again, this is not a reasoned argument from evidence.
So calling me delusional, calling me grandiose, calling me messianistic, calling me all of these kinds of things, you know, I'll correct you once.
I mean, calling me insane is different from calling me evil, right?
Of course, calling me insane is a total contradiction, because if I was insane, I would never listen to the fact, I would never be able to process that I was, and so on.
So it certainly is designed to hurt.
Like, I totally get that. It's designed to hurt me and it's designed to make me feel insecure and designed to make me look at myself with the skeptical eyes of the false self and I get what it's all about.
That's not as bad as calling me or calling somebody grandiose and delusional and megalomaniacal and so on.
It's not quite as bad as calling someone evil.
So for that, I'll give you a warning.
But if you do it again, then I'm going to ban you.
Because if somebody is delusional, you don't debate with them.
So obviously, you don't think I'm delusional if you're telling me I'm delusional.
And of course, if you have no evidence, and there's no evidence that you could really get from a single podcast, That would explain that situation or that sort of issue or question.
So the fact that I use sort of rhetorical flourishes and try and really connect with people's true self is not evidence of being insane.
But also, of course, it's not very complementary to yourself, right?
If you're listening to and posting on the boards of someone you consider megalomaniacal, delusional, and has a Christ complex, then That's not really a good sign for your own mental health, right?
So this is, again, the spear that goes both ways, right?
A spear is a stick sharpened on both ends, right?
Anything that you use to attack my integrity or intelligence, given that you're listening to podcasts and posting on the board, doesn't show you in a very good light, right?
Well, let's not get into all of that.
So I think you sort of get the basic idea behind that.
Yeah, so don't escalate.
Don't engage in aggressive and demeaning debates with people.
I mean, this is the basics, right?
Don't call people evil.
That's immediate. You know, that's immediate ban.
No warning, right?
Calling people delusional or megalomical or whatever and so on is a warning for me.
I'll warn you and then if you do it again, I'll ban you.
There's no coming back from a ban.
I don't have the time or energy or desire.
To do that, and my primary focus is to keep the board a safe, happy, and enjoyable place to discuss ideas.
That's my mission statement, if you want to say.
And if you get upset that I've banned people and seem shocked and surprised, well...
Again, I don't really know what to say.
I mean, I've been fairly open that I have gotten rid of my mother and my father and my brother and my extended family and a number of friends for reasons that I have gone into to do with them being sort of corrupt or mean or vicious or undermining or whatever.
So it just amazes me that people think that this is some sort of abstract philosophy or maybe they think I'm lying about my family.
But if I can do that to my own flesh and blood, I'm not sure exactly why people think that I'm going to have some sort of major problem doing it to somebody I've never met who is using my resources and making my perusing of the board unpleasant.
I don't know these people.
So what makes these people think that they're shielded from being ejected from my environment?
When I've done it to my family, I don't see why people would have any particular shock that I'm going to do it to anonymous strangers who are abusing my resources.
So, again, maybe people have a tough time taking philosophy seriously, but I'm telling you, right, the standards are the same, and it's no big harm for me to click on the ban button, and I will absolutely do it in a heartbeat because I believe in philosophy, and I believe I believe in anarchism and I believe in the DRO system and I believe in private property and the virtue thereof.
So this is a philosophy in action, right?
And it just sort of amaze me that people then get all shocked and appalled and horrified and start calling me a statist and so how bad it is and this and that and the other.
So this is sort of the general things around board etiquette that I sort of wanted to go over.
If you don't, I mean obviously the board is purely voluntary.
If you do enjoy discussing ideas and you can correct other people with good humor and good graces and you can enjoy yourself and it can be a warm and fun place with which to talk about ideas or in which to talk about ideas.
So it can be a wonderful little tribe of happy philosophers We're correcting each other and updating each other with information and challenging each other in positive ways and sharing jokes and so on.
I mean, that's what it's going to be.
I absolutely guarantee you that, even if it's me and two other people at the end of it, right?
That is absolutely the standards that are going to be retained.
So I hope that this makes sense to you.
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