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.

.


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754 thoughts on “The Ethics of Banning Trolls

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  • glenn

    What an incredibly long and wide-ranging thread! Been away and tied up too much for more than the briefest comment for the past couple of weeks, apart from replying on the 9-eleven thread. Someone else should take part on that, it’s only me and AngrySoba (plus all AS’s mates borrowed from other forums, actually).

    I’m a bit pushed to see what this thread is actually about – but the tone is remarkably improved with the troll cull. Everyone’s learned to ignore trolls who have the impudence to still show up too, so hats off all round.

    Btw, I do remember one of Apostate’s mates who called himself Jaded, but it’s not the same one who was posting here, iirc.

  • sandcrab

    “Blogs such as yours..”

    oops sorry Alfred, thats not my blog i just put the link in there to make it clickable. Sorry again for being so nippy earlier, as often with confrontation it was more about my problems than anything.

    Ah Glenn respect for slaving away in the 911 thread! That thread is a phenomenon now 🙂 Good to hear your comment as always.

  • angrysoba

    ” The Iranian nation has put behind the upheavals of the past three decades victoriously and has gained a deep-rooted awareness of the global realities and Iran’s domestic topics of importance. As the Leader of Islamic Revolution pointed out, on Wednesday, in his meeting with IRGC commanders and members, the Iranian nation act based on its high understanding and experience. This fact manifested itself during the post-election unrests in Iran. The US and the Zionist regime entered the scene during last year’s incidents in Iran and supported the sedition’s ringleaders.”

    Mark, I see you’re cutting and pasting chunks of propaganda straight from Uncle Napoleon himself.

    Tell us about the children of Iran from the days of the Iran-Iraq War and the little plastic keys to Heaven that they wore round their necks. What were they forced to do again?

    Maybe you could tell us about the Tudeh Party and what became of it. Or the fate of modern dissidents in Iran now.

    Well, whatever problems there are in Iran I expect it is all the fault of the Zionists and the Anglos. etc… etc…

  • Clark

    Angrysoba,

    on the 9/11 thread I asked you to “include fewer cynical remarks”. Your comments above are the sort of thing I mean. *You* know who you mean by “Uncle Napoleon”, but I do not. Something like “I see you’ve pasted from : (link)” would be more helpful.

    Also, I do not know of these “little plastic keys to Heaven”. Again, information would be more useful than insinuations.

    I believe that the “West” has repeatedly interfered with the development of Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries. Iran was democratic before Operation Ajax:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Recent_history_.281921.E2.80.93present.29

  • technicolour

    alfred: “The real pacifists, those who would always turn the other cheek, were wiped out before we passed the level of the amoeba.”

    I suppose Ghandi doesn’t count. Or the Quakers who worked as ambulance men during the wars. Or Sweden.

  • de Quincy's Ghost

    “Except as the result of unending conflict — war, murder, rape and pillage, none of us would be here today”

    Is it not conceivable that more people would be here today if “unending conflict” had not killed so many people before they had children ?

  • technicolour

    Mark, sorry to say so, but all I can see are the images of protestors being beaten and tortured. Fisk covered it very well. Naturally this does not mean I think the Iranian should further be bombed, invaded or crippled by crazy sanctions, nor am I unaware of its tragic history and the US crimes in the region. I am also aware that the regime is more moderate than previous regimes, despite its appalling treatment of its own people, if one can describe such behaviour as ‘moderate’.

  • technicolour

    btw meant to say thanks to Clark and Suhayl for previous testimonies. Thanks fellows.

  • Alfred

    Tech:

    “I suppose Ghandi doesn’t count. Or the Quakers who worked as ambulance men during the wars. Or Sweden.”

    Gandhi wasn’t a pacifist. He urged Indians to volunteer for service with Great Britain in WW1. He wanted to prove that Hindus weren’t wimps, and millions of them did serve with the British, thus proving his point.

    Gandhi applied the method of non-violent resistance where he thought it would work — against the British. He knew that against the Germans and, during WWII, the Japanese it would be a dead loss! Ghandi realized that the British at some level actually believed the message of the Sermon on the Mount. Hitler, of course, did not and advised the British Ambassador, Arthur Henderson (or maybe someone else), during some nationalist disturbance that Britain should shoot Gandhi and then shoot 50 members of the Indian National Congress every month until the trouble ceased.

    The Quakers are fine people. I knew some who served in the Friends Ambulance Unit — one was a three-time British National Glider champion who turned down a commission in the RAF as a wing commander, but their ideals were never really tested, because they lived in a country that fought the war on behalf of all citizens, including the pacifists. My own father was in two minds, but finished up as a volunteer in the RAF.

    Oh, and the Swedes, they were just smart. They are well-armed neutrals. They build their own fighter jets and have very cool subs driven by near silent Sterling cycle engines producing a nitrogen-free stream of exhaust gas (carbon dioxide) which dissolves silently and invisibly in the ocean.

    In the prelude to WW11 the Swedes refused to allow British military assistance to Finland (100,000 troops promised by Neville Chamberlain) to cross their territory during Russia’s invasion, which was astute, since the Russians were the eventual winners.

  • Alfred

    Ghost:

    “Is it not conceivable that more people would be here today if “unending conflict” had not killed so many people before they had children ?”

    Nah. Population is largely dependent on the carrying capacity of the land, which in turn reflects technological capability. Without a few hundred million years of natural selection to sort the smart from the dumb, our ancestors would have been too dumb to have invented the wheel barrow. In fact, they’d have been too dumb to have descended from the trees, if they’d ever been smart enough to climb them in the first place.

  • technicolour

    alfred: “He knew that against the Germans and, during WWII, the Japanese it would be a dead loss!”

    Can you provide a source, please. Btw non-violence is pacifism.

    Otherwise, interesting tho the history is, I’m not convinced by your attempts to show that Quakers aren’t pacifists; nor, I suspect, would they be.

    The Swedes were ‘just smart’. I agree, it’s smart to pursue a non-violent policy, even if you need deterrents to ensure that you can.

    Jains? Buddhists? Ba’hai? Still alive, I think you’ll find 🙂

  • glenn

    Alfred – actually, rather than the carrying capacity of the land, population growth is far more influenced by how empowered women happen to be in a given society.

    We would expect to see the same population density everywhere in Europe, just about, given locally grown crops are not exactly the staple for most people anymore, should carrying capacity be the significant factor. In fact, it varies hugely.

    Why would the indigenous population of Europe, and Japan for that matter, be going down in many areas, has the carrying capacity diminished? But when women get the ability to choose not to pump out as many babies as their bodies can stand, the population reduces.

    *

    Incidentally, talking about natural selection sorting ‘the smart from the dumb’, you would probably enjoy the film Idiocracy. It’s rather amusing and has just that germ of truth about it. It’s not giving anything away to say your form of natural selection has actually began to act in reverse.

    Far from the ‘smart’ being more successful and having more children, they will tend to have them later if at all – waiting until the time is right and all that. The ‘dumb’ are vastly more predisposed to have children on the other hand, with nary a thought about how they’re going to manage them all. The cumulative effect across many generations is depicted in the film.

  • technicolour

    Since when was war ‘natural selection’? Btw a contemporary of Darwin’s (forget the name, but you must surely know it, Alfred) was working on a smiliar Theory of Evolution at the time; but he concluded that species evolved by mutual cooperation, not competition. Darwin published first and that, Alfred, could be why you think the way you do?

  • technicolour

    Glenn, would love to see Idiocracy, as it sounds funny, but it also sounds as tho it could be worryingly equating ‘dumb’ with poor’. Isn’t it clear that intelligence is innate and universal, not inherited? Anyway, will have to watch it!

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Thanks, technicolour, my pleasure! Sorry, I’ve been rushing around the last few days!

    I agree entirely about Jains, Quakers, etc. and with your general point.

    I also agree to some extent with Alfred specifically on Gandhi. He was a very wily lawyer – basically a good man, no question – but the non-violent struggle was a tactic adopted because of the massive population of India as opposed to the relatively small number of Brits in India and because, unlike the Dutch, French, Japanese or almost every other empire, he knew the British of the mid-C20th would not (with occasional shameful exceptions, such as Jallianwala Bagh, 1919; this event made Indian independence inevitable) machine-gun peaceful demonstrators. Yes, I know about the 1942 Bengal famine and there was other violence of course. But Gandhi – originally a dapper legal gentleman in suits and hats – knew the publicity value of all those long marches in sandals, etc.

    He also had the implicit threat of, “You’d better deal with me, or you’ll have to deal with… them and there are millions of them” (‘them’ being of course the guys who were not peaceful).

    Gandhi also to some extent bears some responsibility – along with a number of other people and factors – for the Partition of India. There was also much criticism of him at the time because by raising ideas from the Hindu religion – until then, the struggle had been very secular – as a focal tool against the British, it was thought that he might be unleashing irrational demons. Indeed, tragically, this proved to be the case and contributed to his own death. The ‘Attenborough’ version of Gandhi is largely inaccurate.

    Nonetheless, whatever the contingencies of the time, the imagery of Gandhi as a peacenik retains appropriately powerful symbolism for the world. Truthfully, despite divide-and-rule, I don’t think any of the mainstream Indian leaders around at that time (Jinnah, Nehru, Azad, etc.) – or indeed ordinary people – imagined for a moment that there would be bloodletting on all sides on such an enormous scale; I think they were all shocked and knocked off-balance by it. They lost control for a time, and millions died and were permanently displaced. Madness.

    Lord Louis Mountbatten, of course, bears much responsibility for that immediate debacle, partly because it was he who accelerated the timing and thus accentuated the lack of planning and sense of panic – and he did it for his own glory; he was a vainglorious man. His wife and Nehru, of course, were having an affair but it was a cosy menage a trois. That’s another taboo subject – and another topic for another time!

  • de Quincy's Ghost

    “Without a few hundred million years of natural selection to sort the smart from the dumb, our ancestors would have been too dumb to have invented the wheel barrow. In fact, they’d have been too dumb to have descended from the trees, if they’d ever been smart enough to climb them in the first place”

    That doesn’t seem a very worthwhile answer to the question I asked, there are too many other variables.

    Also, a strategy that produces workable results for an amoeba, or a band of monkeys in the pre-technological environment of a few million years ago, should not be assumed to be optimal for their distant descendants in a massively different environment. These over-simplifications are very dangerous, in the world we have to deal with now.

    [Richard Robinson will be resumed when he’s ready to dig the reincarnation groove. Rattles chains halfheartedly, thinks about going ‘Woo’ again but gets distracted …]

  • Suhayl Saadi

    I’m rushing off back to work right now, a 17-hour day! – so can’t post links re. Gandhi et al, but will try to find some soon.

  • glenn

    technicolour: actually, it wasn’t a poor = ‘dumb’ relationship that was being drawn in the film. It was more an attack on the dumbing-down of society (America’s in particular, of course), to the point that they cared for nothing except rather mindless entertainment. Massive screen TVs, porn, all-in wrestling, people getting whacked in the crotch by a football, et cetera. In fact, a lot of the _really_ dumb people were rather well off. It was a statement on dumbing-down, spoon-fed entertainment, and corporate slogans as conventional wisdom.

  • de Quincy's Ghost

    technicolour – re: contemporaries of Darwin, other theories of evolution – are you familiar with the writings of Gregory Bateson ? Busybusy academic, there was a collection of his essays and papers published in the mid-80s as “Steps toward an Ecology of Mind” (a startling title, and the contents justify it), ranging from ’30s anthropology, through ’50s cybernetics, ’60s psychiatry, and out into some very abstract stuff; in the course of which, he comes back frequently to some very interesting discussion of Alfred Russell Wallace, Lamarck, Samuel Butler, and more. Chewy stuff, if you have a taste for that sort of thing.

  • Alfred

    Tech,

    “He knew that against the Germans and, during WWII, the Japanese it would be a dead loss!

    Can you provide a source, please.”

    What I said is only an inference, certainly. But it follows logically from the facts of Gandhi’s career: for example, his urging fellow Indians to serve in the armed forces with the British in the War with Germany. Arthur Herman’s “Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age” provides a highly readable account of Gandhi’s career.

    “alfred: Btw non-violence is pacifism.”

    But for Ghandi, non-violence was to be applied where it was likely to work, although he recognized that it might not, which is why he said that those who participated in non-violent protest must be willing to lose their lives for the cause. He had no time for whimps! But the fact that he urged participation by Hindus in the Great War confirms that he believed non-violence to be a tactic, not a universal principle.

    “I’m not convinced by your attempts to show that Quakers aren’t pacifists; nor, I suspect, would they be”

    I have sat through enough Quaker meetings to be able to assure you that Quakers are very uncertain about almost everything including pacifism. As a child, I recall one of the kindliest of those attending the local Quaker meeting was an elderly engineer who did OK in the war making shells for the Navy. He once expressed the view that war was a necessity to control the population! To be quite truthful, he may not in fact have been a Quaker. He probably attended meeting to accompany his wife, who was an Elder of the Society of Friends.

    “The Swedes were ‘just smart’. I agree, it’s smart to pursue a non-violent policy, even if you need deterrents to ensure that you can.”

    No the Swedes do not believe in non-violence if, as you insist, non-violence equals pacifism. The Swedes will definitely give you a bloody nose if you invade their territory. But they are neutrals, which means they will not participate in other peoples wars. Which is, I believe, very sensible, and which is why I favor British neutralism and why I have advocated a new political party: DNTDFBNP, or Definitely Not The Damn Fool BNP. The party would adopt most of the BNP platform (out of the EU, out of NATO, massive devolution, trade protection to maintain Britain’s engineering and high tech skills base), but without the nose-pulling, knuckle-dragging idiot bodyguards and all the other ridiculous or offensive crap. And it would absolutely explicit in its recognition of the equality of all British Citizens of whatever origin, but it would share with the BNP a commitment to terminating mass immigration (something which, as Stephen pointed out to me the other day, the British Government cannot do under its present EU commitments) for all the economic and other reason I have stated elsewhere. (Oh, dear, this will surely send you, my dear friend, into orbit!)

    “Jains? Buddhists? Ba’hai? Still alive, I think you’ll find :)”

    Show me an unarmed state without the protection of an armed state and I will show you a country about to lose its independence.

  • Alfred

    Glenn,

    “Alfred – actually, rather than the carrying capacity of the land, population growth is far more influenced by how empowered women happen to be in a given society.”

    No, in the long-run, the space is filled by those who will fill it. In Europe, the indigenous populations have a low fertility, but the population is nevertheless growing through immigration and reproduction by immigrants who tend to be much more fertile than the indigenous population. Muslims in particular are demonstrating that their social policies are more intelligent than those of the post-Christian West.

    “We would expect to see the same population density everywhere in Europe, just about, given locally grown crops are not exactly the staple for most people anymore, should carrying capacity be the significant factor. In fact, it varies hugely.”

    Actually, you do see approximately the same population density throughout Europe and it is generally very high. Britain for example has twice the population density of Pakistan. And the reason that the population density of Europe is high is that Europe was the first region of the World to undergo a technological revolution in agriculture.

    Of course, in the short run, many things impact population, including insane social policy. But in matters of survival, numbers always count. Only numbers count. If the indigenous European women prefer fornication and shopping to raising kids, so be it. They will become extinct. But it takes a while.

    “Far from the ‘smart’ being more successful and having more children, they will tend to have them later if at all – waiting until the time is right and all that. The ‘dumb’ are vastly more predisposed to have children on the other hand, with nary a thought about how they’re going to manage them all.”

    The state of affairs you describe is only a temporary anomaly resulting from the transient triumph of liberal thought. Before that, the children of those unable to support children generally died young. Adam Smith explains all this. Smith was the first social Dawinist. Well maybe not the first, but he was certainly before Darwin. And in the future, we will go back to something similar.

    Incidentally, at the beginning of the 20th century, even Liberals worried about the bizarre biological consequences of their own social policies, and were enthusiastic advocates of eugenics. Unfortunately, Hitler’s obscene and loony perversion of these ideas, put the whole question on hold for a century. If we don’t deal with it soon, we won’t be smart enough to do it ever!

  • Alfred

    Tech,

    Your understanding of the evolutionary ideas of Alfred Russel Wallace are somewhat confused.

    In fact Wallace and Darwin co-published their shared but independently formulated theory of evolution:

    “Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection” is the title of a joint presentation of their two scientific papers read to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858.

  • Alfred

    Suhayl,

    Re: Gandhi,

    A good summation. I’d question only one point:

    “Jallianwala Bagh, 1919 … made Indian independence inevitable.”

    I would argue, on the grounds stated previously, that Indian independence was inevitable well before 1919 because some of the most powerful forces within the British elite, in particular the Rhodes-Milner group, were committed to it.

    But there’s no question that Jallianwala Bagh, better know to the British as the Amritsar massacre, was a shameful occurrence, described by Winston Churchill in Parliament as an act of “atrociousness.”

    But perhaps this colossal blunder, not to say brutality, by General Dwyer (he was booted from the Army on his return to Britain) was influential in bringing Churchill and other imperialists to the realization that they were on the losing side of the argument.

  • Alfred

    Ghost said:

    ” a strategy that produces workable results for an amoeba, or a band of monkeys in the pre-technological environment of a few million years ago, should not be assumed to be optimal for their distant descendants in a massively different environment. These over-simplifications are very dangerous, in the world we have to deal with now.”

    Here we go: the put down with no rational argument to back it.

    If what I said is a massive and dangerous simplification, tell us what is the correct understanding of our predicament before we all go and kill ourselves living by the old book of rules.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Yes, that’s right, Alfred, it was a catalyst.

    Re. Iran, I agree that the regime there is committing human rights absues on a large scale, esp. against young people. people in gerenal are very scared. It’s like after Revolution, one hears. However, the UK and USA have a very poor record in their dealings with Iran and I think it best if they keep a distance – the people there do not want US/UK interference/ intervention again and it would be completely counterproductive.

    The Tudeh Party and liberals/ leftists/ secularists were crushed by the regime in the 1980s; the theocrats were enormously strengthened by Saddam Hussein’s Western-sponsored invasion – see, counterproductive.

    Who is backing the terrorists who blow up mosques in Iran? Any interesting question. is it the Pakistani ISI, those rent-an-assassins, or Saudi Arabia, or the USA? or a combination of the above? I don’t know the answer to this particular question. Perhaps someone else does.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Sorry, my typing is fraught and barely intelligible, a silly computer system here where I am, not my usual one, blame it on that! Yes, the atmosphere without the trolls is much less tense, much more normal. I’m sure there will be spirited discussion but it won’t be nasty and vicious. I’m sure the trolls will return – with their long tongues – but we shall be ready to continue, regardless!

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Yes, well, Pakistan is a very big country with much empty space, mountains, deserts, fields, etc. But it’s population continues to grow rapidly – a product of chronic underdevelopment and wealth mal-distribution. I think it’s about half the size of Iran, which means it’s like France and the UK, combined (in size). France is twice the size of the UK with the same population as the UK. Apart from the north and south of Scotland, much of the middle and south of England seem very congested and suburban (when I drive down, once you hit Leeds). We’re lucky in Scotland, that way. Atrocious weather though! Most of the Pakistani population now lives in towns and cities. This is new.

  • de Quincy's Ghost

    “Here we go: the put down with no rational argument to back it”

    Why is that fair ? Those were the examples you gave, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to question your assumption that they’re applicable.

    “If what I said is a massive and dangerous simplification, tell us what is the correct understanding of our predicament before we all go and kill ourselves living by the old book of rules.”

    I do not know, I am not preaching a One True Answer, fits all sizes, efficacious in every case. But I agree that this is the risk.

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