I’ll let him agree or disagree with you, assuming he can parse the excuse you’re trying to give him here.
I’m also not sure why you keep trying to bring Kris_Asard’s comment into this as if it’s an out for Bernel’s position. It was a standalone comment saying the we have to find a general way to counter the regime’s weaponisation of Internet memes. He never implied that meeting threats with threats is the only way to do that, or that a guillotine image could only be interpreted as a threat – in any context.
Kris can’t be blamed for someone else taking that comment and using it as the basis for an extreme view, but Bernel doesn’t get that same out for his behaviour.
If that’s the case, that’s where he went off the rails. And despite the fact that numerous people corrected him and clarified their position, he stuck to his false equivalency.
But you know what, if you want to be the lawyer for a client who didn’t ask for your help and hasn’t done much for his own defense, I’ll leave things there without speculating why.
I’m also not sure why you keep trying to bring Kris_Asard’s comment into this as if it’s an out for Bernel’s position. It was a standalone comment saying the we have to find a general way to counter the regime’s weaponisation of Internet memes. He never implied that meeting threats with threats is the only way to do that, or that a guillotine image could only be interpreted as a threat – in any context.
It’s not a standalone comment, it’s the parent to this entire discussion. It defines what b00fh is talking about when he says “We don’t counter it; we embrace it. Start working on these guillotine gifs already!”
I’m not blaming Kris, I’m not blaming anyone. I’m saying systems of online communication corrodes context and this is exactly what happened here. Kris’s comment is essential context, and the core of Bernel’s objection.
If that’s the case, that’s where he went off the rails. And despite the fact that numerous people corrected him and clarified their position, he stuck to his false equivalency.
The problem is that people both simultaneously ‘corrected’ him and appeared to reinforce his view.
No-one is saying you are. You’re trying to use his comment as the basis of an “out” for bernel, but it really isn’t.
Not really. No-one who responded to Bernel gave a Like or any other support to @b00fh’s comment except for @armozel, and they did it long after Bernel derailed the orginal topic to this one.
I’m not interested in obtaining an Out for Bernel, my vested interest is for people to take a more critical view of systems of online discourse and how misunderstandings propagate.
I didn’t see that. Thanks. I would assume that the Like was more an objection to @b00fh’s comment. That still doesn’t imply that Kris agrees with him that a guillotine gif can only be interpreted as a violent threat equivalent to the Kingsman video. But like I said, if you want to defend Bernel on that basis, it’s your time to waste.
Then you’re derailing a derail, which is quite a feat. There are meta topics on this site for you to discuss that or start your own topic.
I have a motive, that’s not a derail. If you regard this as a court for Bernel then that’s up to you, I’m trying to extract something of value from this sordid mess.
I regard this as a topic to debate Bernel’s contention, which is why I haven’t been the one acting like a defense attorney who’s pretending he’s lowering himself to appear in on behalf of his client for a grander purpose.
Wow, I guess the most sophisticated way to do that is to demand the world understand that “He got a Like from Kris, which implied to him that his point was clear.”
Gee, if people don’t get it straight what the motives for Kris’s Like were, then how are people ever going to understand that misunderstandings can happen on the internet?
The point is not what Kris’s motives were, the point is what Bernel understood Kris to mean when the BBS system helpfully gave him a notification that Kris liked his comment.
As opposed to the argument that Bernel was supposed to cross reference the people he was arguing with, with the likes on b00fh, to infer that people weren’t agreeing with b00fh.
Thanks for a good summary of the start of this discussion. Nice to see that someone is able to read comments in context and follow a chain of arguments.
To be clear, if you take an article about, for example, rich people paying almost no tax today, and illustrate it with a historical painting from the French revolution of a nobleman being executed it makes perfect sense to me. In that context the picture is a warning about how this things can end not a call to start killing people.
I thought I made that more clear in my next comment: “I said “restore a more polite political climate”, which isn’t quite the same thing as being civil while the other side can do whatever they want. Not that I have an answer, but I’m pretty sure threatening people with guillotines isn’t one.”
I’m aware which side is worst today, but the goal is not to lower the left to the same atrocious level but to make sure the right stop. And as I said, I don’t have a good answer. In this specific case, turning the meme into “mind controlled Trump killing Americans” may do some good in making the right look like fools.
As pointed out multiple times, the guillotines aren’t a specific threat; they are a warning. A warning that history shows that the pendulum always swings back, and the farther it travels to the right, the more energetically it eventually swings left.
Do you think posting guillotine images on (left-leaning) BoingBoing in a discussion about an aspect of emergent right-wing populism contributes to lowering the left to that level?
Yes or no answer, please, to ensure that things are clear (“not always” is also an option). Then we can follow up in more detail.
