1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
ETA: Contrarian/Misty for another poster I'd like to see posting, despite agreeing on little (Contrarian got a bit tiresome on vaccines, as I recall, same shit over and over with no meaningful engagment, which I think was the reason for ban?). Contrarian seems unbanned now, if indeed ever banned.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
The "people" who use the St Petersburg Ellipsis aren't worth engaging with. They're not "Russian-sympathetic posters" (that's people like Luckyguy and Dura), they're Putin's weapons.
Yes - they might well be trying to sow dissent and get us to question our motives.
And we ban them.
Perhaps - thinking aloud - if it turns out that a particular server was known to host directly-mandated Putin psyops and PB was a known repository of it then that would have not great implications for the site.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
We face a hellish situation after tomorrow, States changing their election rules ensuring Trump is elected. Then what leading Democrats arrested on trumped up charges, moves to a one party state, martial law and world chaos.
Every time I think Trump is a nutter with no grasp on reality, the haters show they are worse.
I see Musk has gone from "Comedy is legal now" to "Perm ban for anyone changing their name to Elon Musk" inside a week.
Exactly as predicted.
I don’t see how Musk + Twitter are sustainable. I don’t see how Musk is different from a 14 year old boy, for that matter. Thinks he’s very clever, but isn’t. After the Paul Pelosi thing, he’s now had to delete a post where he approved of a quote from a neo-Nazi. He is the loosest of loose cannons.
Well he's not at all stupid, quite the opposite, within his range of expertise.
The management of a social media platform - as opposed to the prior extremely successful use of that platform - evidently does not fall within that range.
Elon Musk reminds me of the billionaires from the Bladerunner movies. Clearly talented at creating something new, but utterly psychologically damaged and mentally unstable.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
When were you banned? Or Ishmael? Or PutinGuy? Or Dura? Or Leon? Or ...
There's a whole panoply of views here. That people disagree with you when you are at best agnostic about defending peaceful countries from invasion by Putin doesn't mean that your views are banned.
Elon Musk reminds me of the billionaires from the Bladerunner movies. Clearly talented at creating something new, but utterly psychologically damaged and mentally unstable.
Or Demolition Man.
He dreams of a Utopian Future where everything is ordered to his liking, while malcontents are banished underground...
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
What gets me about Williamson is how utterly unprofessional his conduct was. Not just for politics; for any business. You just don't send that sort of text message - and if you feel that you need to, take a deep breath and think.
He has many faults, but Musk is clearly very clever.
In a "can't tie his own shoelaces" kind of way...
I saw a suggestion he is bipolar, and bought Twitter during a manic episode and is now on a depressive cycle
As with many people who achieved crazy success before their brains finish maturing around age 25, he has a vast oversized ego, his self-worth depends on external validation, and he has little to no coping mechanisms when facing failure.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
Zelensky is not an angel. Some Ukranian forces are almost certainly committing war crimes. The war will end with some kind of negotiation and peace agreement. Lockdowns have costs, terrible costs for some. Vaccines have risks.
I await my ban proving you correct (the above are my sincerely held views)
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.
David L asked: "So, last week Brazil counted 120m votes in 4 hours. What are the prospects of Americans being able to achieve this on similar numbers within 4 weeks (and arguably more than 2 months if you include any runoffs)? Close to zero I would say. Why do Americans put up with this?"
The United States is a federal system, with the states (and DC) having their own election rules. So, some states will count very quickly, and others won't. In Washington state, for example, we have almost universal vote by mail -- with ballots being acceptable as long as they are postmarked by tomorrow, or dropped in a "drop box" before 8 PM. So Washington counties won't even have all the ballots tomorrow night.
That provision is intended to increase participation, and probably has had a small effect, just as early voting does.
(There were some federal reforms after the 2000 presidential election.)
That system has always struck me as absurd - how long do they wait for USPS to deliver?
Tha US constituion seems to be in a time warp - a second amendment that thinks guns fire one round every 30 seconds and an election timetable that thinks results have to be delivered by stagecoach.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
When were you banned? Or Ishmael? Or PutinGuy? Or Dura? Or Leon? Or ...
There's a whole panoply of views here. That people disagree with you when you are at best agnostic about defending peaceful countries from invasion by Putin doesn't mean that your views are banned.
I was not banned because every one of my points is wholly valid, relevant, acute and brings enlightenment to those shall we say one-eyed fantasists such as yourself who live in la-la land.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
When were you banned? Or Ishmael? Or PutinGuy? Or Dura? Or Leon? Or ...
There's a whole panoply of views here. That people disagree with you when you are at best agnostic about defending peaceful countries from invasion by Putin doesn't mean that your views are banned.
I was not banned because every one of my points is wholly valid, relevant, acute and brings enlightenment to those shall we say one-eyed fantasists such as yourself who live in la-la land.
Is why.
So multiple views are allowed here without being banned. Even yours.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
When were you banned? Or Ishmael? Or PutinGuy? Or Dura? Or Leon? Or ...
There's a whole panoply of views here. That people disagree with you when you are at best agnostic about defending peaceful countries from invasion by Putin doesn't mean that your views are banned.
I was not banned because every one of my points is wholly valid, relevant, acute and brings enlightenment to those shall we say one-eyed fantasists such as yourself who live in la-la land.
Is why.
So multiple views are allowed here without being banned. Even yours.
Yes but not "them". "They" are banned. Actually in the case of Martin today, for no particularly egregious act, apart from seeking to undermine Western civilisation.
The young, impressionable, lost, middle classes have sadly always been attracted to cults. Their listless, privileged lives leave them open to radicalisation Today, these same lost souls gravitate towards cultists at Just Stop Oil & Extinction Rebellion
Maybe if we could see an end to oil and gas exploration, not to mention coal, in the UK it there would be less reason for them to protest.
Given we still need oil, gas and coal for the foreseeable future then it’s not going to happen.
They can protest all they like. All they are doing is pissing people off.
Cheapest electricity now comes from Renewables.
No fossil fuel cars sold after 2030.
"Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer vowed to end the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels and achieve zero carbon energy by 2030. He announced plans for all the country’s electricity to be generated by renewable and nuclear power by the end of the decade. Labour claimed the plans would save UK households a total of £93bn over the rest of the decade – or an average saving of £475 for each household every year."
New fossil fuels exploration will take years to produce anything and will be more expensive than renewables. Labour and Lib Dems plus Greens of course will put an end to new fossil fuel exploration, but we have to wait two years for an election before that can start.
So Keir Starmer has vowed to do what the Tories have already implemented? 🤔
The ban on new fossil fuel cars after 2030 isn't an original Labour idea, it was put in place by the Tories.
In the mean time we need oil and gas for the transition. We can either import that from the likes of Sheiks and Putin, or extract our own.
Fools who want to stop domestic extraction of oil and gas before we transition away from domestic consumption of it do not understand the science of what is happening.
Or have spent the past 8 years nobbling a domestic tidal industry.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
When were you banned? Or Ishmael? Or PutinGuy? Or Dura? Or Leon? Or ...
There's a whole panoply of views here. That people disagree with you when you are at best agnostic about defending peaceful countries from invasion by Putin doesn't mean that your views are banned.
I was not banned because every one of my points is wholly valid, relevant, acute and brings enlightenment to those shall we say one-eyed fantasists such as yourself who live in la-la land.
Is why.
So multiple views are allowed here without being banned. Even yours.
Yes but not "them". "They" are banned. Actually in the case of Martin today, for no particularly egregious act, apart from seeking to undermine Western civilisation.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
The trigger seems usually to be something like vaccine denialism. Coupled with dodgy IP addresses, that doesn't come across as particularly draconian.
A lesson for the Tories here, who think "wokeness" outweighs the economy?
No-one on the Tory side thinks that. We think Labour activists think that, and therefore it's good tactics to get them talking about it, so voters think Labour think " "wokeness" outweighs the economy".
If that's the strategy, I'm not sure the execution is up to par, because mainly the people I notice banging on about 'woke' are the right...
I think it is a mix of both in a way.
a) It is only the right that is fixated by woke. b) However if the right do bang on about an almost non existent issue the non-political may well think it is an issue and think the left are bonkers for being so woke, when in fact they aren't. It is a common practice for all side to play. Make your opponents seem like ideological nutters.
I think if the Tories stick to the specific issues in this space that voters care about (eg the Albanian armada) then they will be fine. If they keep banging on about things that most people don't care about then they will be punished because voters have a long list of things they want politicians to fix for them and will think it is ridiculous for them to be wasting time on marginal issues. What I find weird is that so many people on the right seem to confuse left wing nutters on Twitter with the Labour Party. Some loons staking out extreme woke positions doesn't mean that most left of centre people sign up to the same views.
It's not just some nutters on twitter though. If you ever interact with an educational establishment, or the arts, or a museum, or pretty much any sphere of public life, you will be bombarded by the woke's views on matters of race, gender and the environment in the same way that more pious regimes will bombard you with the tenets of their particular faith, or that communist Eastern Europe would bombard you with the tenets of international socialism.
I've got three kids at school and frequently go to museums and the only things I've ever encountered are fairly mainstream views, eg racism and slavery = bad. But I'm going on a primary school trip to a museum tomorrow and will report back if I am offered gender reassignment therapy or a seminar on critical race theory while we're there!
They’ve taken the shrunken heads off display at the Pitt Rivers and replaced it with a very worthy board on why it is a VERY BAD THING to collect and display other people’s cultural heritage
This is quite some watch. The looks on the faces of the young audience are quite something - all incredulous and scared. Who can blame them when idiots like Solovyov want to send them all to the front to die.
Meanwhile in Russia: top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov was dispatched to address the youth. He lied up a storm, mixed trash talk with biblical references & veiled nuclear threats & told the young to get ready to march to the front as soon as they're old enough. Watch this mess: https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1589391642653786112
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
When were you banned? Or Ishmael? Or PutinGuy? Or Dura? Or Leon? Or ...
There's a whole panoply of views here. That people disagree with you when you are at best agnostic about defending peaceful countries from invasion by Putin doesn't mean that your views are banned.
I was not banned because every one of my points is wholly valid, relevant, acute and brings enlightenment to those shall we say one-eyed fantasists such as yourself who live in la-la land.
Is why.
So multiple views are allowed here without being banned. Even yours.
Yes but not "them". "They" are banned. Actually in the case of Martin today, for no particularly egregious act, apart from seeking to undermine Western civilisation.
The Russian version of Western civilization still seems a bit rough around the edges. Hasn't quite found its borders. Or anybody else's, come to that.
And their window fixings industry needs to learn many lessons.
Russia is pioneering a new type of warfare...destroy the energy infrastructure of a non nuclear power knowing that country is powerless to strike back in their own country because of a threat of nuclear weapons use....quite clever in a twisted way
Explicitly banned by the Geneva Conventions of course.
But then you have also admitted to perfidy not to manage the run of the mill torturing and murdering of civilians
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.
Perhaps so. But we don't try.
It's probably not even a full person, it's more likely 10% of a person's work time editing bot generated responses to sound kind of human.
We face a hellish situation after tomorrow, States changing their election rules ensuring Trump is elected. Then what leading Democrats arrested on trumped up charges, moves to a one party state, martial law and world chaos.
Every time I think Trump is a nutter with no grasp on reality, the haters show they are worse.
They are merely taking Trump and his supporters at their word - both were, for example, calling this weekend for Pelosi to be 'locked up'.
Admittedly taking Trump at his word isn't entirely rational.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
This is what Martin wrote earlier:
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
David L asked: "So, last week Brazil counted 120m votes in 4 hours. What are the prospects of Americans being able to achieve this on similar numbers within 4 weeks (and arguably more than 2 months if you include any runoffs)? Close to zero I would say. Why do Americans put up with this?"
The United States is a federal system, with the states (and DC) having their own election rules. So, some states will count very quickly, and others won't. In Washington state, for example, we have almost universal vote by mail -- with ballots being acceptable as long as they are postmarked by tomorrow, or dropped in a "drop box" before 8 PM. So Washington counties won't even have all the ballots tomorrow night.
That provision is intended to increase participation, and probably has had a small effect, just as early voting does.
(There were some federal reforms after the 2000 presidential election.)
The question can be changed to:
"Why do voters registered in state 1 put up with this?" "Why do voters registered in state 2 put up with this?" etc.
Postal voting is fine as a fallback, but AIUI some states in the US only have postal voting, including California and Washington. Most people are quite capable of getting to polling stations.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
The trigger seems usually to be something like vaccine denialism. Coupled with dodgy IP addresses, that doesn't come across as particularly draconian.
Well we went down the rabbit hole of "dodgy IP addresses" with @Heathener.
Who here now thinks she is a "troll" or "bot" with nefarious intent?
I know they've been consistently overestimated but as a punter you surely have to broadly be backing the Democrats tommorow at the prices.
The trouble is picking the races to do so. IF anything GOP to take the Senate still looks the value call on current polling.
Only if you start poll denying does it look like making sense to back the Dems. But at the point you are going on vibes. (Given how piss poor American polling is and filed with obvious hucksters like Trafalgar then vibes might be the thing to go on)
The key thing for me is that Biden's vibes are that it is going to be a shit night.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
I see Musk has gone from "Comedy is legal now" to "Perm ban for anyone changing their name to Elon Musk" inside a week.
Exactly as predicted.
I don’t see how Musk + Twitter are sustainable. I don’t see how Musk is different from a 14 year old boy, for that matter. Thinks he’s very clever, but isn’t. After the Paul Pelosi thing, he’s now had to delete a post where he approved of a quote from a neo-Nazi. He is the loosest of loose cannons.
He has many faults, but Musk is clearly very clever.
There's a fine line between "clever" and "convincing".
I would suggest that many people (when judging him through indirect reporting) find him convincing. But the more you are exposed to his direct utterings, the less convincing he seems.
There is clearly a bubble of people who are very effective at filtering him - but that still doesn't stop him repeatedly trashing Tesla's stock price, tanking Twitter's ad revenue etc.
And there are at least some bankers and stockholders who may have pause before following him again.
A lesson for the Tories here, who think "wokeness" outweighs the economy?
No-one on the Tory side thinks that. We think Labour activists think that, and therefore it's good tactics to get them talking about it, so voters think Labour think " "wokeness" outweighs the economy".
If that's the strategy, I'm not sure the execution is up to par, because mainly the people I notice banging on about 'woke' are the right...
I think it is a mix of both in a way.
a) It is only the right that is fixated by woke. b) However if the right do bang on about an almost non existent issue the non-political may well think it is an issue and think the left are bonkers for being so woke, when in fact they aren't. It is a common practice for all side to play. Make your opponents seem like ideological nutters.
I think if the Tories stick to the specific issues in this space that voters care about (eg the Albanian armada) then they will be fine. If they keep banging on about things that most people don't care about then they will be punished because voters have a long list of things they want politicians to fix for them and will think it is ridiculous for them to be wasting time on marginal issues. What I find weird is that so many people on the right seem to confuse left wing nutters on Twitter with the Labour Party. Some loons staking out extreme woke positions doesn't mean that most left of centre people sign up to the same views.
It's not just some nutters on twitter though. If you ever interact with an educational establishment, or the arts, or a museum, or pretty much any sphere of public life, you will be bombarded by the woke's views on matters of race, gender and the environment in the same way that more pious regimes will bombard you with the tenets of their particular faith, or that communist Eastern Europe would bombard you with the tenets of international socialism.
I've got three kids at school and frequently go to museums and the only things I've ever encountered are fairly mainstream views, eg racism and slavery = bad. But I'm going on a primary school trip to a museum tomorrow and will report back if I am offered gender reassignment therapy or a seminar on critical race theory while we're there!
They’ve taken the shrunken heads off display at the Pitt Rivers and replaced it with a very worthy board on why it is a VERY BAD THING to collect and display other people’s cultural heritageheads.
At the risk of falling foul of Anabob's list, I couldn't resist.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
This is what Martin wrote earlier:
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
Artifical Darwinism. We demand pro-Russian posters who can string an argument together and respond to counter-argument. We hope that by culling those who fail this basic requirement, the general standard of pro-Russian poster will improve. There are tentative signs (the current, unbanned, poster fingered by some as a troll) that this strategy is working
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
This is what Martin wrote earlier:
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
Or PB moderators don't want to get the site sidetracked into arguing with Russian propaganda. At some point noise just drowns out discussion.
Your "why not" is a strawman - several posters did just that.
You can have a different view of where the mods should draw the line, but that's just your view along with everyone else's. I don't think you can reasonably argue that they shouldn't be drawing that line.
A lesson for the Tories here, who think "wokeness" outweighs the economy?
No-one on the Tory side thinks that. We think Labour activists think that, and therefore it's good tactics to get them talking about it, so voters think Labour think " "wokeness" outweighs the economy".
If that's the strategy, I'm not sure the execution is up to par, because mainly the people I notice banging on about 'woke' are the right...
I think it is a mix of both in a way.
a) It is only the right that is fixated by woke. b) However if the right do bang on about an almost non existent issue the non-political may well think it is an issue and think the left are bonkers for being so woke, when in fact they aren't. It is a common practice for all side to play. Make your opponents seem like ideological nutters.
I think if the Tories stick to the specific issues in this space that voters care about (eg the Albanian armada) then they will be fine. If they keep banging on about things that most people don't care about then they will be punished because voters have a long list of things they want politicians to fix for them and will think it is ridiculous for them to be wasting time on marginal issues. What I find weird is that so many people on the right seem to confuse left wing nutters on Twitter with the Labour Party. Some loons staking out extreme woke positions doesn't mean that most left of centre people sign up to the same views.
It's not just some nutters on twitter though. If you ever interact with an educational establishment, or the arts, or a museum, or pretty much any sphere of public life, you will be bombarded by the woke's views on matters of race, gender and the environment in the same way that more pious regimes will bombard you with the tenets of their particular faith, or that communist Eastern Europe would bombard you with the tenets of international socialism.
I've got three kids at school and frequently go to museums and the only things I've ever encountered are fairly mainstream views, eg racism and slavery = bad. But I'm going on a primary school trip to a museum tomorrow and will report back if I am offered gender reassignment therapy or a seminar on critical race theory while we're there!
They’ve taken the shrunken heads off display at the Pitt Rivers and replaced it with a very worthy board on why it is a VERY BAD THING to collect and display other people’s cultural heritageheads.
At the risk of falling foul of Anabob's list, I couldn't resist.
Danny never let go of Peachy's hand. And Peachy never let go of Danny's...head.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
This is what Martin wrote earlier:
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
Yes, that's not an original viewpoint, its one @Leon has been rambling about for weeks, especially post-lagershed. Its been taken apart time and again too, but Leon hasn't been banned for those ramblings which rather takes apart your theory that such views are banned.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
The trigger seems usually to be something like vaccine denialism. Coupled with dodgy IP addresses, that doesn't come across as particularly draconian.
Well we went down the rabbit hole of "dodgy IP addresses" with @Heathener.
Who here now thinks she is a "troll" or "bot" with nefarious intent?
"Coupled with"
Read @rcs1000 's posts on this. He is far from an absolutist.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Robert has in the past set out the criteria for banning (I don't mean the pineapple on pizza or dissing Radiohead versions but the real versions). Use of a false email, continually changing IP addresses and various other technical things that he can see as administrator. He mentioned some the other day in relation to DJ41 (I think that was the name). Indeed at the time he said he was not necessarily banning obvious trolls as they were amusing and made some good points on unrelated (to Russia) matters.
As I said downthread I think the Russian troll factories don't get value for money but I am inclined against banning as I think there is an entertainment value from the most obvious ones. It also allows us to hone our arguments against the pro-Russian propaganda and see what their lines of attack are. For the same reason I would recommend reading the Hindustan Times which pops upon my MSN feed and has a very pro-Russian editorial line.
This idea of climate change "reparations" being banded about at COP27 could be utterly politically toxic for Sunak. I hear he's considering it, which is astonishing.
I can see why worldwide NGOs and Davos Man would push for it, but I really hope he isn't taken in by it.
I see Johnson has gone straight in and opposed it. Another sign that Rishi is too easily subject to establishment capture, and Johnson is loitering in the wings waiting for him to fail.
Reparations is a politically loaded word and should be avoided for that reason, but it's in the interests of countries in the developed world - such as the UK - to help mitigate the effects of climate change in the developing world. If we don't, the mass movement of peoples escaping the consequences of drought, flood and famine is only going to get greater. Handing over some money and sharing technology are both going to play a role - the latter a far greater one than the former.
The really meaningful battle is going to be around the transfer of greentech to the developing world and whether that should involve compulsory licensing.
We need to do whatever is required to mitigate worldwide net emissions to zero as quickly as possible. I support that.
"Reparations" suggests guilt. It suggests large payments to developing countries to atone for past sins which, since Britain was the first country to industrialise, could be vast and punitive. There will never be an amount that would be deemed satisfactory. It will be viewed as a foreign aid scam, which is already quite unpopular. It's political dynamite.
A lesson for the Tories here, who think "wokeness" outweighs the economy?
No-one on the Tory side thinks that. We think Labour activists think that, and therefore it's good tactics to get them talking about it, so voters think Labour think " "wokeness" outweighs the economy".
If that's the strategy, I'm not sure the execution is up to par, because mainly the people I notice banging on about 'woke' are the right...
I think it is a mix of both in a way.
a) It is only the right that is fixated by woke. b) However if the right do bang on about an almost non existent issue the non-political may well think it is an issue and think the left are bonkers for being so woke, when in fact they aren't. It is a common practice for all side to play. Make your opponents seem like ideological nutters.
I think if the Tories stick to the specific issues in this space that voters care about (eg the Albanian armada) then they will be fine. If they keep banging on about things that most people don't care about then they will be punished because voters have a long list of things they want politicians to fix for them and will think it is ridiculous for them to be wasting time on marginal issues. What I find weird is that so many people on the right seem to confuse left wing nutters on Twitter with the Labour Party. Some loons staking out extreme woke positions doesn't mean that most left of centre people sign up to the same views.
It's not just some nutters on twitter though. If you ever interact with an educational establishment, or the arts, or a museum, or pretty much any sphere of public life, you will be bombarded by the woke's views on matters of race, gender and the environment in the same way that more pious regimes will bombard you with the tenets of their particular faith, or that communist Eastern Europe would bombard you with the tenets of international socialism.
I've got three kids at school and frequently go to museums and the only things I've ever encountered are fairly mainstream views, eg racism and slavery = bad. But I'm going on a primary school trip to a museum tomorrow and will report back if I am offered gender reassignment therapy or a seminar on critical race theory while we're there!
I have never come across anything "woke" in real life, or any issues through schools etc.
My kids school is great, my only frustration recently is that we were asked at very short notice to bring in wooden spoons this morning for a project they're making today for Remembrance. I didn't have any wooden spoons in, and all the local shops were cleared out of them too due to a mad panic of other parents also trying to source the same thing at the same time. Eventually found some, but a bit more notice next time would be convenient.
Other than that, no issues whatsoever.
What? You don't have any wooden spoons? Other parents don't have wooden spoons? Surely everyone who has a kitchen has at least two? I have at least 6. Mysteriously, only one of them has a handle of what I consider a satisfactory length i.e. one where the spoon end can nestle where the base of the pan meets the rim and the handle can balance on the opposite rim, for the large frying pan. This is, I concede, one of the more minor issues which has been tackled on these boards. But I am still surprised by your lifestyle decision.
Ever wondered what that hole was for?
That looks alarmingly like shop bought sauce though
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
This is what Martin wrote earlier:
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
Well that doesn't sound unreasonable on the face of it. But my problem is that Russian trolls are paid to troll. Vlad clearly thinks he gets some value out of these individuals. What value is that? It surely can't be to my benefit, or, more to the point, that of the site owners? This place isn't a closed room - in theory anyone can come in - but we treat it like a private conversation. I'm quite happy to disagree with, say, theuniondivvie about the qualities of the SNP, or Bart about planning, or kinabalu about the desirable size and function of the state. But none of those people (I don't think) are being paid to talk to me. I don't expect any of them do anything with my views but think "Huh. He's wrong." When people are being paid to join in the conversation, though, you have to treat them much more circumspectly. I'd be very interested to hear what an amateur Russian thinks. The views of people being paid to be Russian I am much warier of.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.
Perhaps so. But we don't try.
It's probably not even a full person, it's more likely 10% of a person's work time editing bot generated responses to sound kind of human.
The issue I have is that whoever the person is they are not here to debate. No attempt to engage properly in discussion. Now there are others like that here too, but these are different. They are here to gain a foothold and then start pushing the same tired narrative that Ukraine can't win and should negotiate. In the end there will be negotiations, but I hope its when the Russians have withdrawn from their illegal invasion.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
The boundaries are at the edges, obviously. And you may notice the atlases of your so-called 'oblate spheroid' hypothesis are also flat. You mucked up there, didn't you? And ships navigate the way you would on the roads in a city - on a flat plane. Again, obvious.
We face a hellish situation after tomorrow, States changing their election rules ensuring Trump is elected. Then what leading Democrats arrested on trumped up charges, moves to a one party state, martial law and world chaos.
Every time I think Trump is a nutter with no grasp on reality, the haters show they are worse.
There's no respectable position on Trump other than "hater".
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Indeed, not up to me, or you. I don't agree with all bans (miss Isam for example, even though I disagree with him on almost everything, he was engaging and worthy of debate) but I think the mods balance things pretty well overall. I'd have no interest in a PB.com filled with comments like those posted, for whatever reason, by our recurrent friend(s). Nothing to engage with (and no meanigful engagement for those who try). Pointless posts. You can skim over them, for sure - and there are plenty of others - but without periodic culls we could end up with much more noise than signal.
If we are so scared of the idea of Zelensky not being an angel that we have to ban anyone who says he is not an angel then we are all in big trouble.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
Zelensky is not an angel. Some Ukranian forces are almost certainly committing war crimes. The war will end with some kind of negotiation and peace agreement. Lockdowns have costs, terrible costs for some. Vaccines have risks.
I await my ban proving you correct (the above are my sincerely held views)
Russian battle mage Mikhail Vasiliev, who is known for advising Russian mothers to give birth to more children so that they would not be so afraid to send their sons to war, died in the war in Ukraine on November 6, 2022. P.S: hope his mother has multiple children https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1589615504116748289
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
The boundaries are at the edges, obviously. And you may notice the atlases of your so-called 'oblate spheroid' hypothesis are also flat. You mucked up there, didn't you? And ships navigate the way you would on the roads in a city - on a flat plane. Again, obvious.
I mean, is that the best you can do?
I fear MM may be new to the world of flat-earthers' arguments
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
This is what Martin wrote earlier:
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
Well that doesn't sound unreasonable on the face of it. But my problem is that Russian trolls are paid to troll. Vlad clearly thinks he gets some value out of these individuals. What value is that? It surely can't be to my benefit, or, more to the point, that of the site owners? This place isn't a closed room - in theory anyone can come in - but we treat it like a private conversation. I'm quite happy to disagree with, say, theuniondivvie about the qualities of the SNP, or Bart about planning, or kinabalu about the desirable size and function of the state. But none of those people (I don't think) are being paid to talk to me. I don't expect any of them do anything with my views but think "Huh. He's wrong." When people are being paid to join in the conversation, though, you have to treat them much more circumspectly. I'd be very interested to hear what an amateur Russian thinks. The views of people being paid to be Russian I am much warier of.
I was offered money to talk to you, Cookie, but it wasn't enough.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
The boundaries are at the edges, obviously. And you may notice the atlases of your so-called 'oblate spheroid' hypothesis are also flat. You mucked up there, didn't you? And ships navigate the way you would on the roads in a city - on a flat plane. Again, obvious.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Surely whether it's worth engaging with depends on whether it has any merit. That must be for the site owner to decide. Otherwise you'll end up never sweeping the floor and just "engaging" with the dirt.
Russia is pioneering a new type of warfare...destroy the energy infrastructure of a non nuclear power knowing that country is powerless to strike back in their own country because of a threat of nuclear weapons use....quite clever in a twisted way
Whilst you are here SovBot, would you like to field a question on where Russia sees the Polish-Ukraine relationship these days? Do you think they really are that lovey dovey in 21st century, or the peoples still hate each other?
A secondary question if I may. In early days of Putin’s failed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some of the early tanks crossing the border were sporting old Soviet Union flags - in your opinion why were they doing that?
A tertiary question if I may. In early days of Putin’s failed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some of the early tanks crossing the border were sporting military No.1 parade uniforms - in your opinion why were they doing that?
Driver asked: "That system has always struck me as absurd - how long do they wait for USPS to deliver?"
Here's the Washington state law: "Ten days after a special election held in February or April, ten days after a presidential primary held pursuant to chapter 29A.56 RCW, fourteen days after a primary, or twenty-one days after a general election, the county canvassing board shall complete the canvass and certify the results. Each ballot that was returned before 8:00 p.m. on the day of the special election, general election, primary, or presidential primary, and each ballot bearing a postmark on or before the date of the special election, general election, primary, or presidential primary and received no later than the day before certification, must be included in the canvass report." source: https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=29a.60.190
Because the counties begin counting on election night, the results for most Washington elections are known by the next day, and nearly all within a week.
For the record: I prefer in-person voting, for all who are capable of it -- but recognize that any Republican candidate who proposed going back to it here would be accused of "vote suppression".)
Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright is a whole novel with no e in it.
If youth, throughout all history, had had a champion to stand up for it; to show a doubting world that a child can think; and, possibly, do it practically; you wouldn’t constantly run across folks today who claim that “a child don’t know anything.” A child’s brain starts functioning at birth; and has, amongst its many infant convolutions, thousands of dormant atoms, into which God has put a mystic possibility for noticing an adult’s act, and figuring out its purport. Up to about its primary school days a child thinks, naturally, only of play. But many a form of play contains disciplinary factors. “You can’t do this,” or “that puts you out,” shows a child that it must think, practically or fail. Now, if, throughout childhood, a brain has no opposition, it is plain that it will attain a position of “status quo,” as with our ordinary animals. Man knows not why a cow, dog or lion was not born with a brain on a par with ours; why such animals cannot add, subtract, or obtain from books and schooling, that paramount position which Man holds today. But a human brain is not in that class. Constantly throbbing and pulsating, it rapidly forms opinions; attaining an ability of its own; a fact which is startlingly shown by an occasional child “prodigy” in music or school work. And as, with our dumb animals, a child’s inability convincingly to impart its thoughts to us, should not class it as ignorant. Upon this basis I am going to show you how a bunch of bright young folks did find a champion; a man with boys and girls of his own; a man of so dominating and happy individuality that Youth is drawn to him as is a fly to a sugar bowl. It is a story about a small town. It is not a gossipy yarn; nor is it a dry, monotonous account, full of such customary “fill-ins” as “romantic moonlight casting murky shadows down a long, winding country road.” Nor will it say anything about tinklings lulling distant folds; robins carolling at twilight, nor any “warm glow of lamplight” from a cabin window. No. It is an account of up-and-doing activity; a vivid portrayal of Youth as it is today; and a practical discarding of that worn-out notion that “a child don’t know anything.” Now, any author, from history’s dawn, always had that most important aid to writing: an ability to call upon any word in his dictionary in building up his story. That is, our strict laws as to word construction did not block his path. But in my story that mighty obstruction will constantly stand in my path; for many an important, common word I cannot adopt, owing to its orthography.
...
and so on.
With a draft completed in 1936 and publication in 1939, 21 years before the foundation of Oulipo and 30 before Georges Perec's La Disparition! Wright deserves more recognition.
This kind of thing is amazing the first time it's done, or the first few times, and it's good discipline practice at any time, but Oulipo have kinda fizzled out creatively. I prefer Oupeinpo.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
The boundaries are at the edges, obviously. And you may notice the atlases of your so-called 'oblate spheroid' hypothesis are also flat. You mucked up there, didn't you? And ships navigate the way you would on the roads in a city - on a flat plane. Again, obvious.
I mean, is that the best you can do?
Well, you've convinced me.
In that case, I'm trying to raise funds to create a rocket, so I can go up really high and take photos of the Earth. In honour of another aviation genius, I'll call it the Hughes. And to prove other doubters wrong, I'll make it steam-powered.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Why can't your good self and others wear the mantle of being our own "out there" posters, without also facilitating trolls who are not engaging in arguments?
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
This is what Martin wrote earlier:
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
Well that doesn't sound unreasonable on the face of it. But my problem is that Russian trolls are paid to troll. Vlad clearly thinks he gets some value out of these individuals. What value is that? It surely can't be to my benefit, or, more to the point, that of the site owners? This place isn't a closed room - in theory anyone can come in - but we treat it like a private conversation. I'm quite happy to disagree with, say, theuniondivvie about the qualities of the SNP, or Bart about planning, or kinabalu about the desirable size and function of the state. But none of those people (I don't think) are being paid to talk to me. I don't expect any of them do anything with my views but think "Huh. He's wrong." When people are being paid to join in the conversation, though, you have to treat them much more circumspectly. I'd be very interested to hear what an amateur Russian thinks. The views of people being paid to be Russian I am much warier of.
Wait, what? You're not being paid? It's my main source of income.
But on a serious note, I'd rather we deal with professionals here - I'd rather something straight from the horse's mouth, wouldn't you? Aren't we privileged to get the official Russian line on the whole thing.
Russia is pioneering a new type of warfare...destroy the energy infrastructure of a non nuclear power knowing that country is powerless to strike back in their own country because of a threat of nuclear weapons use....quite clever in a twisted way
Whilst you are here SovBot, would you like to field a question on where Russia sees the Polish-Ukraine relationship these days? Do you think they really are that lovey dovey in 21st century, or the peoples still hate each other?
A secondary question if I may. In early days of Putin’s failed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some of the early tanks crossing the border were sporting old Soviet Union flags - in your opinion why were they doing that?
A tertiary question if I may. In early days of Putin’s failed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some of the early tanks crossing the border were sporting military No.1 parade uniforms - in your opinion why were they doing that?
Or the Cosmonauts who arrived at the ISS in March wearing yellow and blue. They were not supporting Ukraine...
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
The boundaries are at the edges, obviously. And you may notice the atlases of your so-called 'oblate spheroid' hypothesis are also flat. You mucked up there, didn't you? And ships navigate the way you would on the roads in a city - on a flat plane. Again, obvious.
I mean, is that the best you can do?
Well, you've convinced me.
In that case, I'm trying to raise funds to create a rocket, so I can go up really high and take photos of the Earth. In honour of another aviation genius, I'll call it the Hughes. And to prove other doubters wrong, I'll make it steam-powered.
Do you wish to invest?
You're just another round-earth conspiracist trying to con us sane people out of funds we could otherwise use to campaign for the flat truth.
A lesson for the Tories here, who think "wokeness" outweighs the economy?
No-one on the Tory side thinks that. We think Labour activists think that, and therefore it's good tactics to get them talking about it, so voters think Labour think " "wokeness" outweighs the economy".
If that's the strategy, I'm not sure the execution is up to par, because mainly the people I notice banging on about 'woke' are the right...
I think it is a mix of both in a way.
a) It is only the right that is fixated by woke. b) However if the right do bang on about an almost non existent issue the non-political may well think it is an issue and think the left are bonkers for being so woke, when in fact they aren't. It is a common practice for all side to play. Make your opponents seem like ideological nutters.
I think if the Tories stick to the specific issues in this space that voters care about (eg the Albanian armada) then they will be fine. If they keep banging on about things that most people don't care about then they will be punished because voters have a long list of things they want politicians to fix for them and will think it is ridiculous for them to be wasting time on marginal issues. What I find weird is that so many people on the right seem to confuse left wing nutters on Twitter with the Labour Party. Some loons staking out extreme woke positions doesn't mean that most left of centre people sign up to the same views.
It's not just some nutters on twitter though. If you ever interact with an educational establishment, or the arts, or a museum, or pretty much any sphere of public life, you will be bombarded by the woke's views on matters of race, gender and the environment in the same way that more pious regimes will bombard you with the tenets of their particular faith, or that communist Eastern Europe would bombard you with the tenets of international socialism.
I've got three kids at school and frequently go to museums and the only things I've ever encountered are fairly mainstream views, eg racism and slavery = bad. But I'm going on a primary school trip to a museum tomorrow and will report back if I am offered gender reassignment therapy or a seminar on critical race theory while we're there!
I have never come across anything "woke" in real life, or any issues through schools etc.
My kids school is great, my only frustration recently is that we were asked at very short notice to bring in wooden spoons this morning for a project they're making today for Remembrance. I didn't have any wooden spoons in, and all the local shops were cleared out of them too due to a mad panic of other parents also trying to source the same thing at the same time. Eventually found some, but a bit more notice next time would be convenient.
Other than that, no issues whatsoever.
What? You don't have any wooden spoons? Other parents don't have wooden spoons? Surely everyone who has a kitchen has at least two? I have at least 6. Mysteriously, only one of them has a handle of what I consider a satisfactory length i.e. one where the spoon end can nestle where the base of the pan meets the rim and the handle can balance on the opposite rim, for the large frying pan. This is, I concede, one of the more minor issues which has been tackled on these boards. But I am still surprised by your lifestyle decision.
Ever wondered what that hole was for?
That looks alarmingly like shop bought sauce though
Blame google. But yes suspiciously unlumpy. Plus where's the glass of wine (actually I prefer fino sherry when I'm cooking) by the side of the cooker.
The so-called trolls have one problem and his name is Putin. He doesn't believe Ukraine has a right to exist, he's said so. He thinks he's a re-incarnation of Peter the Great and his country have the right to revert to the European boundaries as they were a century or two ago.
The 'just stop oil' loons are missing a trick, they should protest in Moscow. The Russians are sending oil and gas to any country that will take it. Demand they desist or you'll nail your head to the nearest tank.
And while the protestors are away, they can eliminate any of their dependence on fossil fuels. Surely they're not still guzzling it? Cut yourself off until the government see sense.
When a management with a reputation for brilliance takes over a company with a reputation for bad economics, it is usually the company that keeps its reputation.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We have posters who post alternative views and are not banned. The ones that can string an argument together and use punctuation other than '....'.
DJ41 is an example of a relatively new poster who has not been banned, despite some indications of suspect behaviour (as detailed by RCS) due to otherwise meeting the above criteria.
So what exactly is/was the complaint with Martin10? Dodgy VPN? Used too many "e"s?
Obviously @rcs1000 can ban whomever he wants but it is a shame.
Surely whether it's worth engaging with depends on whether it has any merit. That must be for the site owner to decide. Otherwise you'll end up never sweeping the floor and just "engaging" with the dirt.
Slightly different. You/we can ignore posters. I'm sure you have a list of posters you simply skim over. I certainly do.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
The boundaries are at the edges, obviously. And you may notice the atlases of your so-called 'oblate spheroid' hypothesis are also flat. You mucked up there, didn't you? And ships navigate the way you would on the roads in a city - on a flat plane. Again, obvious.
I mean, is that the best you can do?
Well, you've convinced me.
In that case, I'm trying to raise funds to create a rocket, so I can go up really high and take photos of the Earth. In honour of another aviation genius, I'll call it the Hughes. And to prove other doubters wrong, I'll make it steam-powered.
Do you wish to invest?
That’s obviously a foolish investment - there’s no Quantum AI Blockchain in that pitch.
Is it only me who thinks Desantis would be more of a disaster for America and the world than Trump? Trump was worryingly erratic and his rhetoric could be dangerous but at heart he was Democrat who was too disorganised to properly mount a coup or even get Obamacare repealed. Desantis has all of the dangerous MAGA beliefs with the additional worries that he actually believes them and is smart enough to carry them out.
If Trump gets in he will be more ruthless and extreme this time no doubt...the MAGA crowd are much angrier now
This whole trying to generate strife and division thing is very tedious. It doesn’t work and, even if it did, this site doesn’t matter in the scheme of things
Someones having a bad day...im making a statement of fact....maybe you find the chaotic modern world too much for you....
The four-dot ellipsis is weird, isn't it? Stands out, you'd think it would be avoided by now.
What also stands out is the sentence structure of short clauses separated by ellipses with no punctuation save for an opening capital letter. Very odd the number of new posters we get using that unusual and distinctive style.
Especially as the four-dot ellipsis is an atrocity that should be dealt with by an immediate and aggressive use of the ban hammer, if not the space cannon.
Agreed. Added.
• Heavy lifting • Colour me … • IANAE/IANAL • Feature, not a bug • Ad hom • This • It’s a view • North of • As I’ve said passim • One of those irregular verbs • Late of this parish • Nail. Head. • Unspoofable • …. (four dot ellipsis)
That's 'This' as a complete comment? We are still allowed, under your proposals, to use 'this' within a sentence, such as this one?
I think this board should go past banning words (such as 'this') and ban using individual buttons. I think a day without Lusing a button 'twixt "W" and "R" on our laptops should be fun!
Would make referring to d Milliband a tad confusing, no?
We face a hellish situation after tomorrow, States changing their election rules ensuring Trump is elected. Then what leading Democrats arrested on trumped up charges, moves to a one party state, martial law and world chaos.
Every time I think Trump is a nutter with no grasp on reality, the haters show they are worse.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
The "people" who use the St Petersburg Ellipsis aren't worth engaging with. They're not "Russian-sympathetic posters" (that's people like Luckyguy and Dura), they're Putin's weapons.
Yes - they might well be trying to sow dissent and get us to question our motives.
And we ban them.
Perhaps - thinking aloud - if it turns out that a particular server was known to host directly-mandated Putin psyops and PB was a known repository of it then that would have not great implications for the site.
The west is slowly waking up to the dangers of the Russian disinformation strategy. Russia has limited resources yet chooses to spend huge amounts paying people to try to sow division and hatred in other countries by means of social media. One assumes that Putin believes it is money well spent.
The height of his ambition appears to be to drag the west down to the same bleak and miserable level most Russians endure. Where we know someone to be one of his agents we would be stupid not to stop them. As others have pointed out that in no way prevents pro-Russian views being aired and debated.
You remind me of those naive souls dancing around on the roof in Mars Attack (I think, ) waving welcome signs to the aliens. Two seconds later the aliens blasted them to kingdom come.
It could well be that Donald Trump will win both the Republican nomination and the presidency. Two key moments that may turn out to have sealed the end of the US regime were in January 2021 when Mike Pence refused to activate Article 25 and the following month when so many Republican senators voted to acquit Trump at his second impeachment trial.
Now it's down to a few state judiciaries to find him guilty of commercial and financial crime, tax fraud, charity fraud, etc., but they seem to be having an awful lot of difficulty in pulling their fingers out.
It's nearly 2023 already and the guy hasn't got anywhere near any handcuffs or a courtroom dock, let alone a prison cell.
After the state judiciaries have wimped out, it will be down to Mary Trump, and er... a reborn Lincoln Project maybe? Saturday Night Live is unlikely to have much of an effect.
"Stop Trump" - which is so necessary - is looking somewhere between weak and pathetically weak.
A big announcement in the next fortnight, huh? Is he waiting for Elon Musk to reinstate his Sh*tter account?
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
How the heck do you make out that dissenting voices on Ukraine are 'not allowed' ? Your good self and Dura_Ace have been at the forefront of giving sane, alternative views (and thankfully your negativism has, IMO, been proven wrong so far).
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I don't think our "sane, alternative views" (tyvm) have been anything to do with who should win. Just that I for example have counselled against war by twitter report (sozza @Nigelb but that classic look at the Russians getting a shellacking which turned out to be video game footage being a case in point).
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
The Earth is flat. Convince me otherwise.
Can you point on a map where the boundaries of the flat Earth lie? And then explain how world trade navigates those boundaries?
The boundaries are at the edges, obviously. And you may notice the atlases of your so-called 'oblate spheroid' hypothesis are also flat. You mucked up there, didn't you? And ships navigate the way you would on the roads in a city - on a flat plane. Again, obvious.
I mean, is that the best you can do?
Well, you've convinced me.
In that case, I'm trying to raise funds to create a rocket, so I can go up really high and take photos of the Earth. In honour of another aviation genius, I'll call it the Hughes. And to prove other doubters wrong, I'll make it steam-powered.
Do you wish to invest?
You're just another round-earth conspiracist trying to con us sane people out of funds we could otherwise use to campaign for the flat truth.
We should not talk like this; we cannot afford to split; that's what *they* want.
We need to get proof. *They* are working with the Illuminati and the Lizard People to fabricate all this so-called evidence for their fake hypothesis. It doesn't matter how much we use our valid arguments and proofs, they will just create more CGI photos as 'evidence'. I mean, they even say man landed on the Moon!
The time for words is over. It is time for ACTION!
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
The "people" who use the St Petersburg Ellipsis aren't worth engaging with. They're not "Russian-sympathetic posters" (that's people like Luckyguy and Dura), they're Putin's weapons.
Yes - they might well be trying to sow dissent and get us to question our motives.
And we ban them.
Perhaps - thinking aloud - if it turns out that a particular server was known to host directly-mandated Putin psyops and PB was a known repository of it then that would have not great implications for the site.
The west is slowly waking up to the dangers of the Russian disinformation strategy. Russia has limited resources yet chooses to spend huge amounts paying people to try to sow division and hatred in other countries by means of social media. One assumes that Putin believes it is money well spent.
The height of his ambition appears to be to drag the west down to the same bleak and miserable level most Russians endure. Where we know someone to be one of his agents we would be stupid not to stop them. As others have pointed out that in no way prevents pro-Russian views being aired and debated.
You remind me of those naive souls dancing around on the roof in Mars Attack (I think, ) waving welcome signs to the aliens. Two seconds later the aliens blasted them to kingdom come.
What exactly have I written that strikes you as naive?
Is it only me who thinks Desantis would be more of a disaster for America and the world than Trump? Trump was worryingly erratic and his rhetoric could be dangerous but at heart he was Democrat who was too disorganised to properly mount a coup or even get Obamacare repealed. Desantis has all of the dangerous MAGA beliefs with the additional worries that he actually believes them and is smart enough to carry them out.
If Trump gets in he will be more ruthless and extreme this time no doubt...the MAGA crowd are much angrier now
This whole trying to generate strife and division thing is very tedious. It doesn’t work and, even if it did, this site doesn’t matter in the scheme of things
Someones having a bad day...im making a statement of fact....maybe you find the chaotic modern world too much for you....
The four-dot ellipsis is weird, isn't it? Stands out, you'd think it would be avoided by now.
What also stands out is the sentence structure of short clauses separated by ellipses with no punctuation save for an opening capital letter. Very odd the number of new posters we get using that unusual and distinctive style.
Especially as the four-dot ellipsis is an atrocity that should be dealt with by an immediate and aggressive use of the ban hammer, if not the space cannon.
Agreed. Added.
• Heavy lifting • Colour me … • IANAE/IANAL • Feature, not a bug • Ad hom • This • It’s a view • North of • As I’ve said passim • One of those irregular verbs • Late of this parish • Nail. Head. • Unspoofable • …. (four dot ellipsis)
That's 'This' as a complete comment? We are still allowed, under your proposals, to use 'this' within a sentence, such as this one?
I think this board should go past banning words (such as 'this') and ban using individual buttons. I think a day without using a button 'twixt "W" and "R" on our laptops should be fun!
BE fun?
Gah! I spent ages composing that. It was surprising how many times I had to go over it spotting the odd e which had evaded four or five readings. And I still failed!
Unsurprising, its such a useful letter that it becomes hard to write without it, a great philosopher once wrote how e's are good.
The great philosopher wrote about how Ebeneerzer is good. How dare you try to shoehorn a drugs reference into such an iconic quote, which definitely wasn’t the No.1 single the week that Radio 1 decided to run a drugs awareness campaign!
A sample of the views on Sir Gavin from Tory MPs we've spoken to today:
1. “An absolute little sh***. Thoroughly incompetent, thoroughly pathetic.” 2. "He's always been totally pleasant to me... I am fine with him!" 3. “A bully, no two ways about it”
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
On what serious topic do you think no dissenting voices are allowed on?
The Ukraine war.
Edit: but it changes. Lockdown when they were happening, for example; vaccines, etc
There’s nothing wrong with dissenting voices on the war. There’s everything wrong with very obvious Russian trolls, trying their best to provoke dissent on any subject.
1. Russian-sympathetic poster arrives posting content which seeks to undermine "The West's" orthodox view on eg the Ukraine war, but also democracy, the US, Jaffa Cakes, etc 2. Everyone says "you are a Russian-sympathetic poster posting content which seeks to undermine...etc 3. Russian-sympathetic poster says what about freedom of speech, etc while continuing to seek to undermine...etc 4. Russian-sympathetic poster is banned because everyone is focused on him and therefore the accusation of troll become self-fulfilling.
A real shame imo because if they are a Russian-sympathetic poster then why not engage. Let's hear the Russian-sympathetic view. We are just sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting la la la. It's a shame, especially so on PB of all places.
He/She/(they but I doubt it) wasn't wrong when they said on certain topics PB is like an echo-chamber with no dissenting voices allowed.
We never get the Russian viewpoint
We get “aren’t the woke/WWC/gays/whoever dreadful we should fight them.
It’s all about division, never anything interesting
When a management with a reputation for brilliance takes over a company with a reputation for bad economics, it is usually the company that keeps its reputation.
Two more thoughts on all-mail voting, since it seems to disturb some of you: First, I oppose it because ballots are not necessarily secret with postal votes. (Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the UK sometimes has problems for that very reason. ) When I was keeping track of vote fraud cases -- and they are now rarer than when I began in 2000 -- the fraudsters almost always used postal ballots. In fact, I was surprised when I learned that the chronic vote fraud in eastern Kentucky did not rely on postal ballots; The men offering the bribes were willing to assume the voters would keep their end of the deal.)
Second, because the bases of the two major parties are so different, it is almost impossible to think of a change in voting rules that does not benefit one party, For example, since felons are far more likely to be Democrats, the Democratic Party often favors allowing them to vote. Or, since members of the armed services are more likely to be Republican, the Democratic Party has not always made it easy for them to vote from overseas.
Democratic leaders often believe that their voters are less likely to vote than Republican voters, and so Democratic leaders often favor all-mail ballots because they think that makes it easier for their marginal voters.
We face a hellish situation after tomorrow, States changing their election rules ensuring Trump is elected. Then what leading Democrats arrested on trumped up charges, moves to a one party state, martial law and world chaos.
Every time I think Trump is a nutter with no grasp on reality, the haters show they are worse.
And results here of an experiment looking to see what messages and material various types of US voter get steered to online. Sure enough, on the MAGA Right it's dreadful.
Maybe it’s just me, but the poppy and remembrance build-up seems much more muted this year. It’s almost how it used to be. That is a very good thing.
I think that's because QEII is no longer with us, she was the nation's main surviving link to WW2. Without her we're into a completely post-war era for politics and national psyche. Remembrance events will forever be diminished without her presence as someone who lived through WW2 and contributed to the war effort.
Comments
ETA: Contrarian/Misty for another poster I'd like to see posting, despite agreeing on little (Contrarian got a bit tiresome on vaccines, as I recall, same shit over and over with no meaningful engagment, which I think was the reason for ban?). Contrarian seems unbanned now, if indeed ever banned.
And we ban them.
Perhaps - thinking aloud - if it turns out that a particular server was known to host directly-mandated Putin psyops and PB was a known repository of it then that would have not great implications for the site.
https://theathletic.com/3770928/2022/11/07/fsg-liverpool-for-sale?source=user-shared-article
But that does not mean that you won't have your views questioned strongly by others - as well see on all sorts of topics.
I get it we are at war, one way or another, with Russia. But does that mean we jettison every critical and questioning faculty for that effort.
Some PB-ers I really do believe think that they are on the front line and hence their aggressive postings on the subject. Whereas they are but a plane ride away from the actual front line if they are so motivated (note: they are not).
There's a whole panoply of views here. That people disagree with you when you are at best agnostic about defending peaceful countries from invasion by Putin doesn't mean that your views are banned.
He dreams of a Utopian Future where everything is ordered to his liking, while malcontents are banished underground...
But for the shall we say "out there" posters, of which Martin was the most recent, what is wrong with picking apart every point they put forward so they have nowhere else to turn and indeed we convince them of our position.
Some Ukranian forces are almost certainly committing war crimes.
The war will end with some kind of negotiation and peace agreement.
Lockdowns have costs, terrible costs for some.
Vaccines have risks.
I await my ban proving you correct (the above are my sincerely held views)
Without naming names we have enough of our own pigheaded people who are unwilling to back down from positions even when they have nowhere else to turn and aren't convinced that they're wrong even when they pointedly are - without importing more paid trolls from abroad to supplement their number.
Is why.
Putin must love that.
Nevertheless it is the way football has gone and we just have to put up with it, unless we start following the German model of fan-ownership.
Meanwhile in Russia: top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov was dispatched to address the youth. He lied up a storm, mixed trash talk with biblical references & veiled nuclear threats & told the young to get ready to march to the front as soon as they're old enough. Watch this mess:
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1589391642653786112
And their window fixings industry needs to learn many lessons.
But then you have also admitted to perfidy not to manage the run of the mill torturing and murdering of civilians
Admittedly taking Trump at his word isn't entirely rational.
"But the ukrainians cant strike back in russia whilst the russians can destroy ukraines energy infrastructure at will leading to a miserable and freezing winter for many ukrainians. It is possible by january zelensky becones very unpopular"
Pretty out there pro-Russian. Why doesn't PB just point out calmly why Russians can't destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure and why Ukrainians won't freeze and why Zelensky won't become very unpopular.
Let's imagine the guy is a salaried Russian psyops operative. All of a sudden he is far smarter than the collective brains of PB? Why not take the argument apart and have this guy question his own position.
Or is he very, very stupid. In which case see above.
Or we don't even want to give those pro-Russian views airtime. I do get that. PB doesn't need balance. But I for one am very interested in what those views are.
"Why do voters registered in state 1 put up with this?"
"Why do voters registered in state 2 put up with this?"
etc.
Postal voting is fine as a fallback, but AIUI some states in the US only have postal voting, including California and Washington. Most people are quite capable of getting to polling stations.
Who here now thinks she is a "troll" or "bot" with nefarious intent?
Only if you start poll denying does it look like making sense to back the Dems. But at the point you are going on vibes. (Given how piss poor American polling is and filed with obvious hucksters like Trafalgar then vibes might be the thing to go on)
The key thing for me is that Biden's vibes are that it is going to be a shit night.
I would suggest that many people (when judging him through indirect reporting) find him convincing. But the more you are exposed to his direct utterings, the less convincing he seems.
There is clearly a bubble of people who are very effective at filtering him - but that still doesn't stop him repeatedly trashing Tesla's stock price, tanking Twitter's ad revenue etc.
And there are at least some bankers and stockholders who may have pause before following him again.
Your "why not" is a strawman - several posters did just that.
You can have a different view of where the mods should draw the line, but that's just your view along with everyone else's.
I don't think you can reasonably argue that they shouldn't be drawing that line.
Read @rcs1000 's posts on this.
He is far from an absolutist.
As I said downthread I think the Russian troll factories don't get value for money but I am inclined against banning as I think there is an entertainment value from the most obvious ones. It also allows us to hone our arguments against the pro-Russian propaganda and see what their lines of attack are. For the same reason I would recommend reading the Hindustan Times which pops upon my MSN feed and has a very pro-Russian editorial line.
"Reparations" suggests guilt. It suggests large payments to developing countries to atone for past sins which, since Britain was the first country to industrialise, could be vast and punitive. There will never be an amount that would be deemed satisfactory. It will be viewed as a foreign aid scam, which is already quite unpopular. It's political dynamite.
The whole debate and language needs reframing.
Rishi needs to be far smarter about this.
But my problem is that Russian trolls are paid to troll. Vlad clearly thinks he gets some value out of these individuals. What value is that? It surely can't be to my benefit, or, more to the point, that of the site owners?
This place isn't a closed room - in theory anyone can come in - but we treat it like a private conversation. I'm quite happy to disagree with, say, theuniondivvie about the qualities of the SNP, or Bart about planning, or kinabalu about the desirable size and function of the state. But none of those people (I don't think) are being paid to talk to me. I don't expect any of them do anything with my views but think "Huh. He's wrong." When people are being paid to join in the conversation, though, you have to treat them much more circumspectly.
I'd be very interested to hear what an amateur Russian thinks. The views of people being paid to be Russian I am much warier of.
I mean, is that the best you can do?
Russian battle mage Mikhail Vasiliev, who is known for advising Russian mothers to give birth to more children so that they would not be so afraid to send their sons to war, died in the war in Ukraine on November 6, 2022.
P.S: hope his mother has multiple children
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1589615504116748289
Here's the Washington state law: "Ten days after a special election held in February or April, ten days after a presidential primary held pursuant to chapter 29A.56 RCW, fourteen days after a primary, or twenty-one days after a general election, the county canvassing board shall complete the canvass and certify the results. Each ballot that was returned before 8:00 p.m. on the day of the special election, general election, primary, or presidential primary, and each ballot bearing a postmark on or before the date of the special election, general election, primary, or presidential primary and received no later than the day before certification, must be included in the canvass report."
source: https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=29a.60.190
Because the counties begin counting on election night, the results for most Washington elections are known by the next day, and nearly all within a week.
(For those wondering how the system works: https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/wa_vbm.pdf All vote-by-mail is popular here, and is spreading to other states.
For the record: I prefer in-person voting, for all who are capable of it -- but recognize that any Republican candidate who proposed going back to it here would be accused of "vote suppression".)
This kind of thing is amazing the first time it's done, or the first few times, and it's good discipline practice at any time, but Oulipo have kinda fizzled out creatively. I prefer Oupeinpo.
Do you wish to invest?
But on a serious note, I'd rather we deal with professionals here - I'd rather something straight from the horse's mouth, wouldn't you? Aren't we privileged to get the official Russian line on the whole thing.
The 'just stop oil' loons are missing a trick, they should protest in Moscow. The Russians are sending oil and gas to any country that will take it. Demand they desist or you'll nail your head to the nearest tank.
And while the protestors are away, they can eliminate any of their dependence on fossil fuels. Surely they're not still guzzling it? Cut yourself off until the government see sense.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/6/23443871/elon-musk-twitter-permaban-impersonation-parody
The height of his ambition appears to be to drag the west down to the same bleak and miserable level most Russians endure. Where we know someone to be one of his agents we would be stupid not to stop them. As others have pointed out that in no way prevents pro-Russian views being aired and debated.
You remind me of those naive souls dancing around on the roof in Mars Attack (I think, ) waving welcome signs to the aliens. Two seconds later the aliens blasted them to kingdom come.
https://twitter.com/BrewDog/status/1589568345170661376
https://twitter.com/BrewDog/status/1589579252747288576
We need to get proof. *They* are working with the Illuminati and the Lizard People to fabricate all this so-called evidence for their fake hypothesis. It doesn't matter how much we use our valid arguments and proofs, they will just create more CGI photos as 'evidence'. I mean, they even say man landed on the Moon!
The time for words is over. It is time for ACTION!
1. “An absolute little sh***. Thoroughly incompetent, thoroughly pathetic.”
2. "He's always been totally pleasant to me... I am fine with him!"
3. “A bully, no two ways about it”
https://twitter.com/AliFortescue/status/1589625818762084353
We get “aren’t the woke/WWC/gays/whoever dreadful we should fight them.
It’s all about division, never anything interesting
Second, because the bases of the two major parties are so different, it is almost impossible to think of a change in voting rules that does not benefit one party, For example, since felons are far more likely to be Democrats, the Democratic Party often favors allowing them to vote. Or, since members of the armed services are more likely to be Republican, the Democratic Party has not always made it easy for them to vote from overseas.
Democratic leaders often believe that their voters are less likely to vote than Republican voters, and so Democratic leaders often favor all-mail ballots because they think that makes it easier for their marginal voters.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63530374