The Ethics of Banning Trolls 754


With genuine reluctance, I find myself obliged to ban Larry from St Louis from commenting on this blog.

I am extremely happy for people to comment on this blog who disagree with my views. It makes it much more interesting for everybody. I wish more people who disagree would comment.

But Larry has a different agenda. His technique is continually to accuse me of holding opinions which I do not in fact hold, and which he thinks will call my judgement into doubt.

Take this comment posted by Larry at 9.35 am today:

I’ve re-read your post on the Russian spies, and once again you’ve proven to be a complete dumbass.

I predicted Russia claiming (in some minor way) those idiots. You didn’t. You thought it was a conspiracy.

You’ve once again self-indicted.

In fact my view on the Russian spies was the exact opposite of what Larry claims it was. As I posted:

I don’t have any difficulty in believing that the FBI really have discovered a colony of Russian sleeper spies in the United States.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/06/those_russian_s.html#comments

This is not Larry being mistaken – remember he claimed he had just re-read my posting. It is rather indicative of a very deliberate technique he has used scores of times, that of claiming I hold an opinion which he believes will devalue my other arguments in the mind of other readers, when I do not in fact hold that opinion.

He most often – indeed daily – does this with reference to 9/11. He tries to divert almost every thread on to the topic of 9/11 and to insinuate that I am among those who believe that 9/11 was “an inside job”. In fact, I am not of that opinion and never have been.

I have put up with this now for months, but Larry’s activities have become so frenetic and are so counter-productive to informed debate, I am not prepared to put up with it any more. I am also deeply sucpicious of the fact that he is able to spend more time on this blog than me, and to post right around the clock (often as with this one at 9.35am – think about it – what time is that in the US?).

Anyway, sorry Larry, your derailing days are over.

.


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

754 thoughts on “The Ethics of Banning Trolls

1 11 12 13 14 15 26
  • Clark

    Sandcrab,

    thanks. I’d overlooked that my language could be misinterpreted. Yes, I did mean “generate 1800 million random numbers, pick the highest 60 million and add them up”.

    “Cherry picking of the data”?

  • Alfred

    Clark,

    OK, when you said: “generate 30 times 60 million random numbers (using the same random number generator, 0 to 100). Pick the 60 million *highest numbers* from this second set and add them all together; call this “B”.

    I thought you meant repeat the first operation 30 times then pick the set of 60 million numbers with the highest sum. I am not sure that this was a sensible reading, but it seems feasible.

    Reading it as you intended, no doubt Sandcrab, who I suspect is vastly more numerate than I, has the correct answer.

    But this stems directly from the normal distribution. The larger the population the longer the tails, which would have been a simpler way of explaining your point. However, your approach has the merit of originality.

    Your inference seems reasonable, although I’m not sure if anyone has actually shown wealth distribution to be gaussian.

    But, interesting thought this may be, it does not negate my original point that if the wealthiest 60 million Indians have more wealth than everyone in Britain combined, then India, in some sense, must be a much wealthier country.

    I guess we have once again shown that with statistics one can prove anything.

  • Alfred

    Sandcrab said:

    Compare Historical Data of Countries side by side –

    http://www.indexmundi.com/

    g/g.aspx?c=in&c=uk&v=65&v=67&v=94&v=118

    Yes, an interesting page, but the GDP numbers are different from those provided by the CIA World Fact Book!

    Another reason, perhaps, to judge wealth on physiocratic principle: i.e., by population, which allows of more credible international comparisons than GDP or national wealth.

  • Stephen Jones

    ——-“But, interesting thought this may be, it does not negate my original point that if the wealthiest 60 million Indians have more wealth than everyone in Britain combined, then India, in some sense, must be a much wealthier country”——-

    Except the figures show that Britain has more wealth than everybody in India combined.

  • Stephen Jones

    —–“Another reason, perhaps, to judge wealth on physiocratic principle: i.e., by population,”——

    What on earth do you mean?

  • sandcrab

    I had a webscry, but didnt find out what happened to India’s economic figures in 2007 Clark. An apparent 40% drop in ppp(!) i guess there might have been an exchange rate economic whoopsadaisies which millions of people got screwed by the cash counters.

    “if the wealthiest 60 million Indians have more wealth than everyone in Britain combined, then India, in some sense, must be a much wealthier country. ”

    Only in the sense that it has 30 times the population, that is all the measure would demonstrate, and one single point on the plot of India’s wealth distribution curve – if we could actualy determine between us or out there, a meaning and value for wealth in India.

    Population on the other hand is easy to define and relatively simple to estimate, so it shouldn’t help or hinder accuracy to quote economic figures in relation to it or not.

  • Clark

    Alfred,

    what are we going to do with you? My argument has nothing to do with gaussian distribution. I picked a random number generator for its utter simplicity. It has equal probabilities of producing any number from 0 to 100. That’s not gaussian, ie clustered about a mean. Its distribution ‘curve’ would be a DEAD STRAIGHT HORIZONTAL LINE, not a bell shaped curve. I picked this as the clearest demonstration that you were reporting upon NOTHING BUT an artifact in the analysis method.

    As per my 9:38 link, the problem with this analysis gets many times worse if we use realistic wealth distribution curves.

    (bangs head against desk and then counts to ten…)

    Sandcrab,

    thanks for keeping me sane.

  • Clark

    We’ve looked at this all sorts of ways, and Britain turns out to be wealthier in terms of money than India every time and in every way, and per capita, Britain turns out to be vastly more wealthy. I’m not the least bit surprised. On this matter, Alfred has been talking nonsense to Avatar Singh and Suhayl Saadi.

    On the statistical matter Alfred has been talking nonsense to me for umpteen posts, on a matter that I made as simple as I could, and didn’t involve opinions in any way. I really thought that the correspondence between my analogy and Alfred’s “richest 60 million Indians out of thirty times that” was pretty obvious, but Alfred has managed to misinterpret this in at least two different ways.

    Several commenters have attested that they find Alfred’s use of the term “genocide” (in relation to Leicester!) completely incomprehensible, on more than one thread.

    Some threads back a lengthy argument ensued when Alfred appeared to be a BNP supporter, but later sort of wiggled out of it.

    It looks like a communication problem of improbable magnitude. This is “You can call me Doctor” Alfred.

    Alfred, what should I do about you?

  • Alfred

    Yes, well while pulling weeds in my front garden it occurred to me that wealth distribution could not possibly be Gaussian since half the population has essentially nothing, or in the States less than nothing when one subtracts debt from assets.

    What does have a gaussian distribution are the means of multiple samples of 60 million numbers between whatever and whatever, which for reasons unaccountable to me you wished me to investigate.

    In fact the proportion of the population in any wealth bracket is unlikely to show any neat statistical distribution since the distribution is affected by things like taxation policy, inheritance laws and the structure of the economy of each particular country.

    But don’t let me prevent you from banging your head on the desk. It might do you good.

    The point you raise may be fascinating but it does not alter the by now generally agreed fact that, as I originally asserted, the aggregate wealth of India measured on a PPP basis is substantially greater than Britain’s.

  • sandcrab

    “The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.”

    http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/

    poverty-facts-and-stats

    So, the wealthiest 1/5th consumes 3 times what the other 4/5ths do *combined*

    The poorest 2/5ths consume just 1/20th *between them* That means the poorest 1/5th consumes less than 1/40th total, or 1/30th of what the top 1/5th consumes.

    Within the bottom 1/5ths there cant be much room left for variation (above the point where people die from starvation and neglect). But within the top 1/5 wealth disparity is still massive going all the way up to families with their own private service and fleets of cruisers and jets.

    Try wrapping your head around *those* stats

  • Alfred

    Clark,

    You say, several commenters have attested that they find Alfred’s use of the term “genocide” (in relation to Leicester!) completely incomprehensible, on more than one thread.”

    Come on Clark, don’t be so gutless, speak for yourself, you don’t have to rely on Richard Robinson or anyone else to justify what you are saying.

    Concerning the use of the term genocide, tell me this: if Hitler had exterminated only half the Jews would that not have been genocidal?

    And tell me this, if entire cities in Britain become essentially entirely devoid of those of long British descent as will happen with continuation of recent past rates of immigration, will you still deny that there has been no replacement, ethnic cleansing, genocide — I don’t give a damn what you call it — of the indigenous population?

    The thing about the BNP is that I questioned the consistency of those such as Craig Murray who advocate Scotch or Welsh nationalism while deriding British Nationalism. I also pointed out the interesting fact that while most people here seem to oppose the war in Afghanistan they regarded as anathema the BNP which to my knowledge was the only British Party asserted a policy of immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    You must also know that I have repeatedly stated here that I believe the BNP is a security services front designed to smear the policies that they supposedly support. As evidence I have pointed to the clownish behaviour of the Party leader — his supposed gaffes involving racist remarks that are videoed and broadcast on the Web, the nose pulling the idiotic marmite stunt, all this notwithstanding that Griffin is a polished operator, a Cambridge-trained lawyer with a good brain.

    I think, therefore, that you personal attack on me is scurrilous and dishonest.

  • sandcrab

    “by now generally agreed fact that, as I originally asserted, the aggregate wealth of India measured on a PPP basis is substantially greater than Britain’s.”

    Actualy the figures we found did not show it is ‘substantially’ greater. The figures i came across estimates they are within 10% of each other now. What is remarkable is that they are even close to each other considering that, with all things being equal (which Clarks equal distribution model should have demonstrated) India should have 30 times the purchasing power of UK (to support/share with its population)

  • Alfred

    Sandcrab,

    Concerning how the rich live, I see an Indian by the name of Mukesh Ambani has built or is building a 27 story private residence. It will, in fact, be the height of a 60 story building to accommodate high ceilinged rooms. It has a helipad, obviously, and six stories of car parking.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/06/05/indian-billionaires-house_n_50712.html

    But, the British a parasitizing the third world, according to Avatar Singh and are, it would seem, criminally to blame for all India’s poverty.

  • Clark

    Sandcrab,

    yes, that is the state of the world. This is something we must try to change.

    http://www.stallman.org/images/cartoon-economists.png

    Alfred,

    it was only ever yourself that suggested a gaussian distribution for wealth. And it was only you that thought that I was asking you to consider thirty different samples. It was only you that thought that “genocide” applied to Leicester. I’m going to proceed on the assumption that you WILL misunderstand everything everyone says, and post nonsense that starts arguments that never reach a conclusion. Sorry.

  • Anonymous

    Sandcrab said:

    “Actualy the figures we found did not show it [India’s GDP] is ‘substantially’ greater [than Britain’s]. Not according to the CIA Factbook.

    Oh, I thought it was agreed that the CIA figures were the most reliable:

    India GDP World rank 5: $3.69 trillion

    UK GDP World rank 7: $2.149 trillion

    http://tiny.cc/bnvro

    But take what numbers you want and believe what you want.

  • Clark

    Alfred,

    our posts crossed, but my decision remains; I’m not going to argue with you until I see your posts making more sense, more quickly. I scanned the BNP and genocide arguments (trying to help you out on the latter), but now that I’ve been on the receiving end personally I’ve discovered just how frustrating and pointless it is. I really am sorry about this, because you are polite and seem like a decent person. No more arguments means no more “scurrilous and dishonest” attacks.

    Sandcrab,

    Alfred,

    I’m off to bed. Goodnight.

  • sandcrab

    “India GDP World rank 5: $3.69 trillion

    UK GDP World rank 7: $2.149 trillion”

    -I dont even regard these figures as substantialy different between two entities of such massively different size. They are remarkably similar.

    “will you still deny that there has been no replacement, ethnic cleansing, genocide — I don’t give a damn what you call it”

    To make sense you have to give a dam what you call it, and what it is. Its simply not genocide, because that means lots of people were killed -explicitly. I dont think it was ethnic cleansing because that means people were deliberately squeezed out. You would need to substantiate that, but its a bit too late for now as youve used up precious attention credits defending nonsensical language and ‘artifacts in the analysis method’ (good term that)

    – theres plenty of other people wanting to air their opinions in the cybergardens of the distinguished.

    Much of what you have written here Alfred has come across as muddled and unreasonable im afraid, thats no one elses fault, maybe the worlds fault, its a crazy place, im a victim too. Its not fair. I dont give a dam then. Listen to me, i know im right inside its just not clear here. Were not really alone in our folly. crazy troll threads…

    night world’

  • Alfed

    Stephen Jones said:

    “Except the figures show that Britain has more wealth than everybody in India combined.”

    Depends which figures doesn’t it. You don’t like PPP, but if you can get a meal for a buck in Jaipur but it costs 20 bucks in Boston, does it really make sense to say that someone earning 10 bucks a day in Jaipur is not better off than someone earning the same amount in Boston?

    and you ask:

    —–“Another reason, perhaps, to judge wealth on physiocratic principle: i.e., by population,”——

    What on earth do you mean?

    The physiocrats dominated economic thought in Europe before Adam Smith. They considered land and what it could produce, i.e., how many people it could support, to be the basis and principle measure of wealth.

    You may not think a nation of a billion is richer than one of 60 million but there are many ways in which it can be so considered. The late Julian Simon was one economist who thought human brains had real value, hence on population he supported the principle of the more the merrier.

    Winston Churchill’s determination to hang on to the Indian Empire was surely motivated by similar thoughts — the Indian Army, larger than the present US army; the massive pool of industrial labor, etc.

  • Anonymous

    Perverse creature starts talking sense as soon as the other conversationalists announce their intention to go to bed.

  • Richard Robinson

    “sense” ? That’d be nice.

    I’d like to know why he chooses here to post his stuff to so persistently and egregiously, as opposed to any other blog in the world. It’s not like he’s finding anybody that wants to hear it. Is it supposed to have some particular relevance to Mr. Craig Murray ?

  • Stephen Jones

    ——–“i guess there might have been an exchange rate economic whoopsadaisies which millions of people got screwed by the cash counters.”——–

    PPP is supposed to compensate for exchange rate fluctuations.

    The short answer is the site’s software is crap. GDP PPP continued to rise although nominal GDP dropped because of Exchange Rate Fluctuations.

    http://www.indexmundi.com/india/gdp_per_capita_%28ppp%29.html

  • Stephen Jones

    —–“Depends which figures doesn’t it. You don’t like PPP, but if you can get a meal for a buck in Jaipur but it costs 20 bucks in Boston, does it really make sense to say that someone earning 10 bucks a day in Jaipur is not better off than someone earning the same amount in Boston?”——-

    If all they spend their money on is eating out that would be correct. However the restaurant meal is cheaper in Jaipur because the cost of services are cheaper. The cost of a kilo of rice in Jaipur is the same as the cost of a kilo of rice in Boston, and a television set, hardly a luxury, will cost you 70% more in Jaipur.

    And you are comparing the very rich. Whist the cost of haircuts remains fairly stable as a proportion of income throughout the world (it was noticing that the poor well as well-groomed as the rich that let to the development of the concept of PPP)the rich are not going to have three haircuts a day, and the fact you can hire 45 dalit sweepers in Hyderabad for the cost of a part-time Hispanic nanny in Manhattan isn’t going to be that useful.

    —–“Oh, I thought it was agreed that the CIA figures were the most reliable:”—-

    No, we agreed the CIA was giving PPP figures and they are not the best figures for comparing the incomes or wealth of the richest percentiles.

    —–“The point you raise may be fascinating but it does not alter the by now generally agreed fact that, as I originally asserted, the aggregate wealth of India measured on a PPP basis is substantially greater than Britain’s.”——-

    Except we have no figures whatsoever for comparative wealth of the two countries after the year 2000, which shows the UK ahead. And why on earth should we use PPP to judge wealth? What sense does it mean to say that if you have $50,000 in US government bonds in India you are five times richer than a guy who has $50,0000 government bonds in the US? If it were true the guy in the US could simply catch a plane and increase his wealth five-fold.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Here come the spambots!

    Sorry to be ridiculously pedantic, but ‘Scotch’ is a drink, Alfred. It’s ‘Scottish’ nationalism.

    And along with the spambots, here comes the BNP, the bampots. Of course, most people regard them as anathema, they’re a bunch of racist opportunists (they’re against imperial war but seem also pathologically obsessed with, and opposed to, all-things-Muslim; that’s new, it used to be ‘blacks-yellows-and-browns’ before but they know that’s a loser nowadays) with links to Nazis, fascists, etc.

    However, as with most parties/ political groupings (trade unions, etc.), I do think that some degree of state infiltration of the BNP is likely. If you look at the career of someone like Fascist Italian politician, Roberto Fiore, a very good friend of Griffin, one can only be uplifted by the relative lack of support for the BNP in the UK compared to the massive support for Fascists in Italy. So, such policies – ‘International Third Position’ (which sounds like something out of either the Kama Sutra or the Approved Manual for Honeytrap Spies)- don’t seem to have done any harm to Italian Fascism, quite the opposite. Of course, there is very strong and ongoing tradition of Fascism in Continental Europe.

    However, when Searchlight magazine assert that Fiore is an Italian state intelligence asset – which of course he may well be – one has to point out that the same accusation has been leveled at Searchlight itself!

    Perhaps they both/ all are state assets. In which case, perhaps elements of the state raise such political entities in order to provide cover and leverage for its own nefarious activities and simultaneously to make the mainstream parties look good by comparison as well as to keep the pressure on mainstream parties, who tend to end-up feeling that they have to pander to some extent to the agendas of the Far Right. There is usually more foregrounded Far Right activity in the UK during Labour Governments.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6798146.ece

  • Stephen Jones

    ——-“The thing about the BNP is that I questioned the consistency of those such as Craig Murray who advocate Scotch or Welsh nationalism while deriding British Nationalism”——-

    Your argument would only have the semblance of coherence if you said deriding ‘English’ nationalism. British nationalism is by definition inimical to Irish, Welsh and Scottish nationalism.

    And even then your argument would only be true if the Scottish or Welsh Nationalists were demanding the forcible repatriation of the English.

  • Alfred

    Sandcrab said:

    “”India GDP World rank 5: $3.69 trillion

    UK GDP World rank 7: $2.149 trillion”

    -I dont even regard these figures as substantialy different between two entities of such massively different size.”

    What’s that supposed to mean?

    Anyhow, Britain just added a trillion quid to the national debt. At that rate India’s wealth relative to Britain will be infinite.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293940/Real-debt-Britain-78-000-family–twice-official-figure.html

    Will the Avatar and Craig Murray’s anglophobic Irregulars be happy then. Probably not.

1 11 12 13 14 15 26

Comments are closed.