SocialistPunk
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Young Master Smeet wrote:SP,If someone sends a message to this website in the wrong code format, it simply won't appear, that isn't censorship, merely a technical fact of the forum's set up. If someone is persistently disruptive, then it is no different to stop accepting their posts, they're sending English in the wrong format. Pre-moderating posts is no different from a chair at a meeting allowing someone to speak, but then cutting them off when they go off-topic. In fact, it is less censorious than simply banning them from the forum.No topic has been censored on this forum.
We've already done the "the role of moderation is that of a chairperson at a meeting" thing and it was ridiculous then as it is now. The issue of online pre-moderation is nothing like a chairping a physical meeting. At the physical meeting we get to see and hear everything that goes on. Transparency is one of the core principles of the WSM. If the chairperson is being unfair in their judgement it is instantly obvious. Online pre-moderation is done behind closed doors and so the audience hasn't a clue what is going on.
Quote:There is a further point: all censorship — especially censorship of this kind, allegedly exercised for the benefit of the working class — is an insult to the intelligence of ordinary working men and women since it implies that they cannot be trusted to hear or read certain ideas and are incapable of making rational judgements on the merits of rival ideas.Like the person who this quote is from, I like to be able to judge for myself whether or not someone is talking a load of bollocks, or has a valid point.
LBird wrote:SocialistPunk wrote:…for clarification material of a criminally abusive nature does not come under the heading of "free speech"…'Who determines' what is 'criminally abusive'?The problem is, when I ask 'who determines', if not "workers' democracy", those disagreeing with me about the right of workers to determine either 'No Platform' or 'No 'No Platform'', the question is never answered, and it is assumed that 'free speech', or 'free association' or 'criminally abusive' are in themselves entirely unproblematic concepts that are outside of the considerations of "workers' democracy".
SP wrote:That could mean I wouldn't be allowed to set up a web site dedicated to the concept of a green cheese moon, because the sub-committee have decided on behalf of the majority that it is stupid, un-scientific, and therefore unnecessary.Such a body would in essence be an elite.Not if the 'body' is under the control of "workers' democracy", because clearly any sub-committee is answerable to all of us, in the final analysis.If you're asking me that if workers decided democratically, after all the necessary appeals processes, to 'ban a web site', would I then support the ban, my answer is 'yes'. For this to happen, there must be a very good reason, and that reason will have been discussed, debated and voted on, so the necessity of the ban must have been clearly understood.The alternative is for individuals (or elite groups outside of our social control) to have the right to set up any website that they liked, no matter how harmful to other individuals or groups, and how causing of great concern to the rest of us.
SP wrote:I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, LBird.About "workers' democracy"? Yes, it seems so.
What constitutes the abuse of one human by another? Well for the purposes of my post I had to assume we are already under some impression of what that entails, though at present it varies from culture to culture. But in a socialist democracy what is deemed abuse would, I hope, be decided upon democratically by the community. I would like to think that would be the global community, and that it would at the very least cover the basics of what already exist.Regarding the committee. How would the committee be answerable to all of us without all of us being able to access the information they decide, on our behalf, is unacceptable for all of us to view?An easier way is to allow free access to info' and freedom of expression so long as it does not involve the abuse of others. I think we may be confusing the issue regarding abuse and freedom of expression.
Young Master Smeet wrote:SP,in this thread I also mentioned the principle of association, which means people may wish to control the manner of expression. No topic has been censored on this forum, the manner of behaviour of forum members has been censured. All such controls are due to channel limitations, and the need to share the resource. The fact that people can go elsewhere to discuss topics in the manner they choose fit is relevent.Here we go again YMS, or at least I hope not.I understand that internet forums exist to discuss a whole host of topics, and in general they attract those who wish to discuss those subjects. So if a football forum is faced with someone who insists on trying to discuss baking cakes every time they turn up, then the forum members have every right to be annoyed and would surely ignore such a poster, but if necessary the offending poster may end up being barred from the site. But if they are allowed to remain on the football site, yet have their posts vetted and/or deleted, etc then that is censorship.I don't understand the problem you and a few others have in admitting this fact.
Wikepidia wrote:Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other such entities.Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is called self-censorship. Censorship may be direct or it may be indirect, in which case it is called soft censorship. It occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, child pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel.I think it necessary to state once again that the censorship that took place on this site was not regarding cake baking, but issues relevant to this site.
LBird wrote:SocialistPunk wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:But society cannot democratically do the censoring, since in order to vote on what information to suppress society would have to disseminate it, in which case, it's not suppressed. You'd need a technical elite to do the censoring.Couldn't put it any better.
Disagree with you here, SP!YMS's argument amounts to:If you haven't been to the moon, you can't know that it's not made out of green cheeseOf course we can censor 'information' which we can know about, and think is socially dangerous/unethical/undesirable, without every individual having to experience it personally.A democratically-elected sub-committee can do the 'dirty work', not YMS's political dream of a self-selecting 'technical elite'.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, LBird.If a sub-committee is democratically elected specifically to view and remove material that may be deemed unacceptable to the majority, and for clarification material of a criminally abusive nature does not come under the heading of "free speech", they then become a small group that get to decide what the majority can or can not view or hear.That could mean I wouldn't be allowed to set up a web site dedicated to the concept of a green cheese moon, because the sub-committee have decided on behalf of the majority that it is stupid, un-scientific, and therefore unnecessary.Such a body would in essence be an elite.
Hi LBird,I don't agree that censorship is inescapable, well at least in theory. In practice it might be a different matter as I discovered a couple of years ago, much to my horror.I agree with ALB, that what people are allowed to do and say are different matters, though back then ALB seemed to take a different approach to full freedom of expression.
Young Master Smeet wrote:But society cannot democratically do the censoring, since in order to vote on what information to suppress society would have to disseminate it, in which case, it's not suppressed. You'd need a technical elite to do the censoring.Couldn't put it any better.
A weird thread indeed.I recall a couple of years ago setting up one to discuss censorship within a socialist society and within the socialist movement and whether or not it was compatible with the principles of the WSM. At the time censorship was being used to control the contributions of several forum members.My views on censorship had been formed in my early exposure to the SPGB and Socialist Standard articles, such as the one in the link provided by ALB in the opening post of this thread, from which the following two quotes are taken.
Quote:There is a further point: all censorship — especially censorship of this kind, allegedly exercised for the benefit of the working class — is an insult to the intelligence of ordinary working men and women since it implies that they cannot be trusted to hear or read certain ideas and are incapable of making rational judgements on the merits of rival ideas. Those who favour censorship always assume that they are somehow superior to ordinary people and have the right to decide what ordinary people should or should not hear. Censorship is an elitist policyQuote:WE STATE unambiguously that ALL censorship is anti-Socialist and anti-working class.I found that a number of SPGB members either denied censorship was being used or that a little was necessary for maintaining control.
Bad news I'm afraid Vin.To borrow a common phrase that has even been uttered only a day or two ago. It would be up to the future socialist democratic community to decide.
ALB wrote:In an article in today's Times on the Green Party's proposal for a "citizens income" , Philip Collins, their chief leader writer (and Blair's former speechwriter) claims:Quote:It was Thomas More, in his Utopia of 1516, who first suggested the idea of a basic income, paid as a right of citizenship to all.I always thought that on the island of Utopia money was completely abolished so that any idea of people being "paid" a monetary "income" wouldn't make sense.On checking I see that right at the end More's traveller says:
Quote:the use as well as the desire of money being extinguished, much anxiety and great occasions of mischief is cutoff with it, and who does not see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders,treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are, indeed, rather punished than restrained by the seventies of law, would all fall off, if money were not any more valued by the world? Men's fears, solicitudes, cares, labours, and watchings would all perish in the same moment with the value of money; even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems most necessary, would fall. But, in order to the apprehending this aright, take one instance:-"Consider any year, that has been so unfruitful that many thousands have died of hunger; and yet if, at the end of that year, a survey was made of the granaries of all the rich men that have hoarded up the corn, it would be found that there was enough among them to have prevented all that consumption of men that perished in misery; and that, if it had been distributed among them, none would have felt the terrible effects of that scarcity: so easy a thing would it be to supply all the necessities of life, if that blessed thing called money, which is pretended to be invented for procuring them was not really the only thing that obstructed their being procured!It is for this, not for proposing any pathetic scheme for a basic income, that More has been held in high regard by socialists.Earlier the traveller had described the use the people of Utopia put gold and silver to:
Quote:They eat and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable appearance, though formed of brittle materials; while they make their chamber-pots and close-stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls but in their private houses.This, no doubt, is from where Lenin got his idea that in socialism public urinals would be made of gold (not that the Bolsheviks could or did do this, but then they weren't establishing socialism only state capitalism).
ALBAny idea as to where in More's "Utopia", Phil Collins gets his idea of a basic income for every citizen?
Vin wrote:SocialistPunk wrote:Who decides what is and isn't useful for human needs and how that mechanism would work.It's about what mechanisms are put in place for deciding what is or isn't beneficial for humanity?Even so you are dealing with Lbird's Strawmen. No socialist would disagree with what you say above. Of course, such things will be subject to democratic process.LBird denies that there will be 'specialists' : medical researchers etc because these will know more than the rest of us and would therefore be an 'elite'. So the question you need to address is 'will all members of society have to have deep specialist knowledge of complex scientific issues covering the whole spectrum?'Because this is LBird's position. If you disagree with him then you are a Stalinist like the rest of us
I am neither defending nor attacking anyones position (though I don't get the impression LBird wants a future without doctors, scientists or engineers). I am merely trying to find out if either side of this discussion could apply their theory or opinion, provided they have one, to the simple thought experiment I offered up.
Vin wrote:SocialistPunk wrote:How about a little thought experiment. A test of both sides of the debate.John Oswald on the Marxist Animalism thread provided a link to a rather informative and disturbing video on YouTube about a surgeon experimenting and ultimately performing a monkey head transplant. I assume the experiment at the time had to go to a hospital ethics committee to be sanctioned.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGpmTf2kOc0What mechanisms would both LBird and his opponents on this thread propose a democratic socialist society put in place to control this type of "research"?It is not related to the discussion as we all agree that science and scientist will be under democratic control. LBird is not talking about ethical decisions. He is talking about – for example – a vote on the truth of a theory of say how cancer is formed.he says that there should be no 'specialists' as these would be elites. We must all understand and vote on the truth of string theory for example.He also believes that in socialism there will be a class of workers that will democratically control science
Hi VinMy point in using the monkey head transplant was not simply about ethics. It is also about the use of, or validity of areas of research. Who decides what is and isn't useful for human needs and how that mechanism would work.It's about what mechanisms are put in place for deciding what is or isn't beneficial for humanity? So I ask both sides to provide a scenario for the example I used. If neither side thinks that is a valid question, fair enough, keep on at each others throats.
Hi BrianI'm not asking for a blueprint for the future revolution, just a thought experiment, an idea, fanciful speculation if you wish. There's no harm in people expressing their ideas and oppinions.
How about a little thought experiment. A test of both sides of the debate.John Oswald on the Marxist Animalism thread provided a link to a rather informative and disturbing video on YouTube about a surgeon experimenting and ultimately performing a monkey head transplant. I assume the experiment at the time had to go to a hospital ethics committee to be sanctioned.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGpmTf2kOc0What mechanisms would both LBird and his opponents on this thread propose a democratic socialist society put in place to control this type of "research"?
LBird wrote:Socialist Punk wrote:Another thing, I've seen other forum members post stuff and never engage in discussion. Can any of us say we answer every question, enquiry and criticism put to us?Well, I always engage in discussion, but it seems the SPGB/WSM doesn't do 'discussion' about 'democratic science', if Vin's last thread is anything to go by.I suppose it's just easier to catalogue me with 'Stanislav', for most posters. Not you, though, SP!
I certainly don't lump you in with Stanislav.I know you get up the noses of some on this site, but I see you as a fellow socialist who is willing to engage in debate about your ideas. You have your issues of disagreement with some Party members on this forum, but who doesn't have disagreements. Within the SPGB there is probably only one area of unanimous agreement, that socialism is a a global, moneyless system of common ownership and democratic control of the worlds resources by and in the interests of the global community.I guess some see it a lot easier to just ban stuff they don't like. Never thought I'd see that call coming from socialists. I suppose the articles I read in the Socialist Standard, when in my teens, critiquing various aspects of control used by capitalist governments across the globe, were never written with the internet in mind.I guess the irony of calling for a ban on a bloke claiming to be from a former communist country is lost on some here.
alanjjohnstone wrote:This poster has made no attempt tp respond to the replies to his previous message. He has no intention of debating or discussing what he post. He is exactly what he accuses others of being….a parasite …leeching off a website for those who seek to engage in political exchange, sucking up its energy…draining it of vitality…bin him, moderator !!No don't "bin him". That's heading down the slippery slope of censoring for control, whereby you ban all that you disagree with or find difficult and even boring. Something that I and others, including Moderator 1, argued against a couple of years back.I agree on the whole this person seems to be a troll, I even have my doubts he is who he claims to be. He's probably posting the same hit and run stuff on every socialist, communist, left wing internet site he can find, thinking he's rattled a few cages. The internet is crawling with this type.I say, anyone so inclined as to publicly post the following line about themselves, deserves to be heard purely for entertainment purposes.
stanislavdoskocil wrote:I was a rather regular individual, but I believed in a certain conviction that would rouse me above the collectivists and made me truly great.But back to my point. Such people are unfortunately common place in the world and as socialists we come across the same tedium again and again. We set ourselves up as targets for it, because of what we believe in. If we try to avoid it for an easier political life, what's the point in being a revolutionary socialist? It's unlikely we'll change the minds of people like this, but the audience can make up their minds as to who has ideas that count for something and who is full of time wasting hot air.If Stanislav wants to post such…err…hard hitting…stuff. I say show it up for what it is, use it as practice if nothing else. Another thing, I've seen other forum members post stuff and never engage in discussion. Can any of us say we answer every question, enquiry and criticism put to us?
