If you were a mental health professional then would there be rules about diagnosing someone that you have never met?
I also find that as I get older I get more upset when discussing certain topics. It happens because I have become informed about a problem in our society. I think it is a good thing to be informed about what is going on in the world and want to talk about it. It is easy, however, to get frustrated you have to point to the same information every time the topic comes up.
I think it would be helpful to not make assumptions about other people (unless you have statistical evidence that he was âconsistently making people uncomfortableâ) or Cowicide. I do not know what exactly he said that prompted the ban, but I do know that it is extremely easy to say something hurtful and out-of-line when you are talking about a polarizing topic. This does not mean that someone is incapable of judging how their actions affect others.
Please stop talking about Cowicide like you know him and you just know what is going to happen when the ban is lifted. It is not helpful.
There was that one, and this one on Coryâs post about why he wasnât going to boycott Enderâs Game.
Antinous / Moderator says:
July 9, 2013 at 2:36 pm
This is why black activists have learned that they can only trust white liberals so far, why feminists have learned that they can only trust their sympathetic men friends so far, why LGBT people have learned that we can only trust our straight friends so far. No matter how much they want to be helpful, the fact that they can fall back on privilege inevitably deforms their perspective on the matter. They will always end up retreating to doing whatever they damned well please because, ultimately, it doesnât directly affect them.
I donât see a problem there. Heâs as entitled to an opinion as any of us. Itâs strongly worded, but no more so than much of the discussion.
Shrug.
Again, though: As someone else pointed out recently, discussing the activities of others behind their backs is Not Particularly Cool. Antinous still has the option of speaking for himself, if he so wishes; if he doesnât, I would assume that he doesnât particularly want folks speaking in his name either.
Can we get this back to general points rather than individuals? Please?
As an aside, whether people go to see the movie or not wonât affect how much money OSC makes from the Enderâs Game movie:
TheWrap reported Card wonât get any money from âEnderâs Gameâ movie ticket sales. His fee was already paid because he inked the deal a decade ago, and it included no backend. Although he has a producing credit in the film, he did not have any creative say, according to the outlet.
Iâm not sure how to feel about his views. I disagree with some of the more radical socialist views, and yet I love Wizard of Oz. I think Susan B. Anthony was great for womenâs rights, and yet she was a horrible racist. I love Star Trek bug Gene Roddenberry was a bigtime jerk. Ludwig van Beethoven was an asshole. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a pervert. I wish Iâd thought of all that back when people were jumping all over Cory for his view, because I agree with him, up to a point.
It may factor into how eager the studio is to option his other books. Indirect but real.
More important, it affects me. Itâs a statement I want to make. I donât care whether anyone notices it or not, it feels like the right thing to do. Iâm not going to worry about defending it or advocating for it; the point has been raised and folks can and should make their own decisions about it.
It occurs to me that olâ Cow must be having nearly as much fun as Tom & Huck when they attended their own funeral. Maybe more so, since we know it ainât actually terminal, so he doesnât have to feel bad about breaking our hearts.
Iâm no Cowicide by any stretch, but Iâd be tickled beyond belief if I got banned for some offense or other and my absence caused a thread of a tenth as many posts as the 150 there are here so far.
Our naughty bovine buddy may be pleasantly surprised at the depth of his influence here. Hell, maybe heâll schedule a biannual banning just for the occasional ego boost.
My main problem is that the type of moderation tended to lend itself to an insular community, and at times was downright capriciousânot surprising from a blog that is vehemently anti-misogynist (a good thing imho) but is currently running a series on hip-hop and has two editors who post about pinups (*scratches head*). It wasnât just one person, but Iâm sure everyone knows who Iâm talking about when I say that once the smart-aleck, belittling reply came your way, it was time to stop talking if you didnât want a ban. And it wasnât always clear exactly what would earn you a smart-alecky, belittling reply.
While I tend to disagree with libertarians on a number of issues, hereâs one instance I can think of where I think moderation goes a bit off the rails. And Iâm still not entirely certain how I ended up banned from Disqus, something thatâs only an issue if Mark posts a Cool Tools entry (wah!)
Having said all that, BoingBoing is still one of my favorites, and still one I check on a daily basis. And I love that thereâs not a solitary editorial direction. And I especially love that we can have *gasp* differing opinions these days without one party getting banned for doubleplusungoodthink.
I decided a long time ago that I would separate the art from the artist. Simply put, if you dive deep enough into someone, you will find something you donât like, and possibly abhor. But the artist is a bit irrelevant - itâs the art that matters. Enjoying their art doesnât mean you support their private views. Or perhaps you might not like one work by an artist for a moral reason - but you genuinely like another work. Liking the one work doesnât mean you like or support something else the artist has done.
If we only experienced art from people we were perfectly aligned with and in agreement, we wouldnât experience much art at all.
Gotta say I totally agree with Antinous on that one; I would prioritize compassion over discussion of Austrian economics any day. And honestly the guy probably got off light compared what Xeni mightâve told him.
Did you actually read the article in question? Xeni wrote about how insanely expensive cancer treatment is, how even with insurance people are still bankrupted by it, how it is shameful anyone should have to beg for money for it. The full extent of her âanti-capitalismâ was to point out that meanwhile providers are drowning in profits, and to return a link to Michael Moore.
To which Julien, who I can confirm did little but post libertarian talking points, decided the important thing was to post some libertarian talking points - that he himself notes could be considered callous toward her. And Antinous decided it was, and informed him that as a result he was enforcing the donât-just-post-talking-points rule.
If thatâs going off the rails, I donât think they go to a station I like anyway.
I donât know. I disagree, somewhat. It was callous, yes, but Iâm not sure it warranted a ban. That could be, though, that I somewhat agree with the libertarian point, which is that costs are already socialized through insurance, and costs have continued to rise here in the U.S. above and beyond inflation ever since fairly ubiquitous health insurance came into play. There are two solutions that come to mind here: flat out socialize the thing, or knock out the supports from under health insurance so that doctors canât just, say, order a barrage of tests for a hypochondriac just because the insurance company is willing to pay. The latter is happening anyway, because health insurance companies are realizing itâs unsustainable. Does anyone really think we canât have a conversation about why a Tylenol costs $50 at a hospital, because having that conversation might hurt the feelings of someone whoâs seriously ill?
Because this is absolutely true:
By shifting healthcare costs onto taxpayers (by force) you are not promoting charity and solidarity, but you are allowing providers to charge more. Itâs economics 101, a simple subsidy.
Or at least, it is, if you donât have other controls in place (OH NOES TEH DEATH PANELS!!!1!one!)
Iâve seen it too often, and seen and heard too many horror stories. I know one lady whose grandson was injured at a baseball game. Itâs a small-town hospital, and the nearest center for trauma is in St. Louis, about 100mi. away. The hospital requested permission to transport the boy to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, and the familyâterrified that the boy might die, based on the doctorâs descriptionâconsented. They loaded the boy into a helicopter and transported him to Barnes, and the hospital attempted to hang a $150,000 bill on their insurance company. I should mention the boyâs mother works for a major health insurance company. The entire amount was denied. Then, the hospital billed the family for the full $150k amount. I live in an area where, due to the economics of the region, I have a house that would run you about a half-million to a million in LA but $110k here. They owe more money on a one-way trip to St. Louis than my house is worth. And why? Because the hospital was sure theyâd get away with charging way more than the already outrageous cost of an emergency medical transport.
Again, I donât totally agree with the libertarian viewpoint, but they do have some points at times; in the case of that comment, theyâre absolutely right about AMA licensing and The author going through serious medical treatment should have no bearing on the validity of that viewpoint; rather, it would be more constructive to let more impartial, level-headed folks to deconstruct some of the more absurd claims in that (such as that the FDA is more of a hindrance than a help, or that Medicare and Medicaid are super-cereal terrible.)
Really, my main problem was with how insular the BB comments section had gotten. The content of the 'site has always been diverse; the comment section, however, tended to get way too insular toward the end, with dissenting opinions being removed because feelings.
Context, man, context. Just as you should split off a new topic right now if you want to continue to discuss healthcare issues, Julien Couvreur should have discussed his adherence to the Mises religion somewhere other than where he tried to do it. In my opinion anyway.
Iâm obviously not opposed to wide-ranging, rambling conversations, but if I was venting my feelings over the absurd cost of my cancer treatments, or otherwise broadcasting emotionally charged personal information, and a one-note armchair economist tried to refocus my conversation to grind his favorite adze, Iâll bet nearly anyone else observing would think to themselves, âJeebuz, what a compassionless schlemiel that guy isâ, and I donât think callous insensitivity is the best way to convince people of the validity of your viewpoint. So personally I conclude that Antinous did him a favor by temporarily banning him. We all occasionally need to be told our zipperâs down.
He sometimes got a little too personally invested in comment threads where he shouldâve recused his moderator powers, but rather abused said powers. That generally only happened on threads about the shit-state of health care in the US and on LGBT issues.
Not to say that I donât miss him, though, because I do.
