We all know that the CoV is essentially broken in two right now.
On the one side is a small group that embraces the US Government, thinks that no media is more accurate and fair than that of the US, consider war a necessary evil to prevent worse, and imagine that the entire world would be better off adopting "American values". This group, while smaller, has an advocate, Joe Dees, who apparently has an enormous amount of time to make posts which completely dominate the forums which we have established.
On the other we have a much larger group of people who mistrust the US Government, disbelieve the US media, oppose war on the grounds that it will only impoverish and gain us enemies, and encourage accepting that people are different, but emphasize that differences are not necessarily a bad thing. Even in this group, all is not well. Some large number of its members consider that the importance they ascribe to the freedom of expression and individual responsibility means that the first group should not be interfered with. We are, they (correctly) say, all Virians and "entitled" to use our forums. A second, probably equally large sub-group disagree. They assert (correctly) that we have been "hijacked", as we can no longer discuss a vast range of topics, cannot even respond to blatantly fallacious material due to the fact that they will likely result in a "war of words", and no longer feel particularly inspired to work towards improving things. This, they say, justifies moderating the forums or ejecting members (the author is in this group).
Other less important issues are present, probably potentially divisive, but at this stage, likely resolvable. Only those noted above do not seem readily bridgeable. At this point, there is no apparent way to reconcile these groups, although I am sure that all three groups being represented by intelligent, principled people, will concur that the continuous fighting between them destroys the value of the community, and drives potential recruits away in droves; leaving the core community to preside over a wasteland of self-destruction and largely (but fortunately not entirely) devoid of reward or joy. Unfortunately, all of them value their own principles to such an extent that none are prepared to budge or regard their positions as self-destructive. No matter who you ask, "honesty" compels them to admit that it is all the fault of the "other" group.
Of course, we are not entirely alone. Lucifer's post reminds us of other communities that are no more, due to not entirely unrelated battles. This does tend to happen more in on-line discussion communities which attract diverse populations than in off-line communities which tend to be more geographically bound and interest driven and thus less diverse or more prepared to put aside their differences. Yet even in "real-world" environments such battles happen remarkably frequently (And getting in a small dig, more under Dubya than ever before). Let me illustrate with a common parable.
A man was walking across a bridge one day, and saw another man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So he ran over to him and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?", the man said. "Well, there's so much to live for!" "Like what?" he asked. "Well... are you religious or atheist?" "Religious," he said. "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" "Christian," he said. "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" "Protestant," he said. "Me too" Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?" "Baptist Church of God!" "My brother!," he said. "Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God!," he said. "My brother! Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!" At which point the man shouted, "Die, heretic scum!" - and pushed him off the bridge!
Apocryphal, I'm sure. But like most legends, it has its roots in a "higher" truth. In 2001, the Hartford Institute for Religion Research published the largest survey of its kind in the United States involving over 14,000 congregations. Here are two of its startling findings: Three of four congregations experienced conflict in the last five years. In one out of four, it was serious and caused a lasting impact. And it isn't just the Baptists. There are now over 2000 Prebyterian churches in the United States, most started through schisms. And yes, the closer alike these churches are, the more they tend to hate each other.
In the meantime, we have lost several opportunities to gain a following. I had rather hoped that like anti-war.com and smirkingchimp.com, both of which added tens of thousands of donating members, and large gifts, through providing similar fare to that which I was attempting to establish on the BBS, that we could establish some relevance outside of the enthusiastic but broke "kernel" community. Instead, our BBS is spammed, our lists trashed and our membership jaded. I suggest that like some of the long dead communities in Lucifer's article, like DALnet, and like thousands of Christian sects, the CoV is coming to a juncture (or has passed it) where we have to recognise what is happening and take some action or suffer similar consequences. I still think that the best solution for the CoV is to recognise and face up to the divisions between us. I say divisions, because this is not diversity. Diversity of opinion is no longer tolerated if it offends our "wrong wing" and simply leads to list bombing and name calling. The danger of imminent termination or fission is much higher than for some other organizations, not only because of the current tensions, but also because we have no clearly defined goals, and thus our membership is held together by the tenuous bonds of the Goals, Sins and Virtues and perhaps an interest in memetics. Even so, I suggest that with marginal good will, we should be able to do better. Now it might sound ridiculous to call for good will at this stage, when it seems that "somebody has to go", but I will try to explain a strategy which may encourage at least a little hope.
The CoV dispenses with all of its existing structures. The virus.lucifer.com website is greatly simplified, removing most of the information on it, and instead contains two or three equally prominent links. One to each of the organizations. The first, the "Republican" Church of Virus (which Joe Dees is committed to never leaving). The second, to a more "liberal" Church of Virus. Possibly a third if the "moderated" and "unmoderated" sub-groups cannot agree (although I think that this can be resolved). The new organizations may choose to use some other names, but this is not obligatory. Each group will establish its own servers (which may be leased from Lucifer Media for so long as possible) as well as their their own sites and forums and will fund and manage their own operations. Both will have access to the common pool of historically generated material and will share the benefit of continuity via the virus name at Lucifer.com. Should either group generate a revenue surplus, they will tythe to the Church of Virus which will maintain the common portal. Both groups agree to share the costs associated with maintaining the virus.lucifer.com portal and not to interfere with each other's operations or sites. Both groups agree that in the event that if, in the opinion of David Lucifer, they breach these agreements, abandon the Goals, or the Sins and Virtues established by the Church of Virus, that they will relinquish all rights, affiliation with, and use of the name "the Church of Virus", "CoV", "virus.lucifer.com" and other permutations or related names. In addition, other groups may affiliate with the Church of Virus or its splinter groups on the same basis, and the established groups may further schism and the components shall inherit this agreement under the same conditions. Members are welcome to join either organization or both.
In this way, our goals and principles will be propagated by at least two bodies, both of which will have a much better chance to propagate those goals and interests to their chosen demographics, greatly increasing the probability that our memes will persevere.
I will address further considerations of practicality and the structure which I would advocate for the a new site once this proposal has been considered and discussed (and when I have a minute to spare). It should be noted that this proposal could be put into action by simply "cloning" the existing sites.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Fortunately, political ideologies are not as important in this group as is the propagation of Virian ideals. The most noticeable and increasing schism in the Church of Virus is that on one side you have people who uphold the Virian Way (Refer: Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book Of Five Rings) and want to move it beyond the various mediums of internal discussion. Then there is the people that seem to stray from the Virian Way who are also “all talk and no play.” I have seen it as well as a few prominent others.
The goal of a virus is essentially to propagate, infect, and takeover. However, our goal is to “to compete with the traditional (irrational) religions in the human ideosphere with the idea that it would introduce and propagate memes which would ensure the survival and evolution of our species.” As noncommunicative the group is about progress, I understand that the Church of Virus is not achieving its goal nor is it getting any closer. The constant infighting and the “nowhere discussions” (discussions that do not lend a hand to our cause) are helping to keep the Virian Way hidden from public eyes.
It is quite possible to repair this unfortunate problem, but not without collective agreement and help from every member. If this does not happen within a few months, as an entrepreneur it is my duty to reinitiate the Virian Way through another organization of my own creation. This group would have a foundation for progress. If the Church of Virus cannot, will not, or is unable to transform itself into a structured organization that endeavors to succeed in its goals, then those of us who remain on the progressive side will most likely split from Virus to form a more forward-looking and active version of it. While that is not my wish, it is always best to prepare for the worst.
I want everyone here to ask themselves this question, “What am I doing to further the Virian Way?” I would dare to assume that you are all rational and intelligent beings that are able to decide whether your actions are progressive. If your actions are not, then you or we must be decisive in assigning yourself a goal that does help.
RE: virus: Re:Notice and Proposal of Importance to all Virians
« Reply #2 on: 2003-07-31 13:00:37 »
"Fortunately, political ideologies are not as important in this group as is the propagation of Virian ideals. The most noticeable and increasing schism in the Church of Virus is that on one side you have people who uphold the Virian Way (Refer: Miyamoto Musashi's The Book Of Five Rings) and want to move it beyond the various mediums of internal discussion. Then there is the people that seem to stray from the Virian Way who are also "all talk and no play." I have seen it as well as a few prominent others."
This is a very important point to address, and I'm glad it's been brought up now. What is the role of those who don't have the time or money to contribute to organized efforts but spread word of mouth and forward posts to get people interested? I'm probably in the "all talk and no play" category, except that I am rather evangelical in private. As much as I would hate to lose my place here due to lack of contribution, I would understand if that were the desire of the group (to be more group-action-oriented).
The concern is still, however, what to do if we can get people interested but they are greeted with low and mean-spirited attitudes, whether directed at them or just bad behavior in public? It's embarrassing, and the list is rather sparse now for fear of provoking more of it. A division seems extreme but might be the necessary way. I've seen more than one attempt at separatism already, and I don't think it's a bad idea... but I still hold out a cockeyed optimism that we could all just behave like civilized and honorable gentlepersons (heh)! THEN, we could more fully address bringing people to our healthy, attractive home. I have a hard time inviting people to a ghost town like something out of a Stephen King novel!
you have been FnoRded, may the farce be with you..
Re:Notice and Proposal of Importance to all Virians
« Reply #3 on: 2003-07-31 15:46:15 »
i, personally, am all for expansion and further development. but at the same time, are we not attempting to be selective with who we seek out? aren't we seeking a certain type of person?
if we aren't, i think i've missed the point a good deal myself (as i have acused joe dees of many times).
'twas to my understanding that we at Virus were seeking out people that were (while not necessarily of like mind) similarly structured intellectually, emotionally and memetically. bringing in compatible formatting while maintaining intellectual and ideological diversity to fill in our own sink holes and gaps.
the reason i play devil's advocate so much is that so much, historically, has come from someone questioning one thing or another. in fact, it is the hallowed Socratic Method that i am practicing (or trying to). and i would rightfully have someone do the same for me, were i able to find someone able, ready and willing.
as of late though, emphasis has been placed into more of a consensus oriented mentality. while i notice and recognize the potential good this can do for us, should we really be concerned about the "aquisition" (so to speak) of new members? i mean, if we can't agree on much right now, as it is, then perhaps soliciting and spreading new memberships should be placed on a backburner. i introduce people and try to get other people involved, but only people that i assertain would both benifiet from this group and would also in turn benifiet the group as a whole. so far, few people i have found fit both criteria.
and almost as an exercise in random, it was mere chance that i found this web site/mailing list/community roughly three years ago (i forget exactly how long ago it was). it clicked. it worked for me. it was sweet.
almost a year later, i ended up leaving the group for exactly what is going on now. only to return within a week or two. something drew me back here. i am a virian. for better or worse, i think this is a cause with sticking with.
here i've occasionally found people who agree with me wholeheartedly. but moreso, i've found a diversity that satiates my thirst. a diversity of ideas and resources that just aren't readily available for me elsewhere. and if we can sort things out, and continue moving forward, so we can actively apply natural selection within our own community and bring in memetic diversity (if memes are to though what genes are to DNA, perhaps lack of memetic diversity is equatable to inbreeding?) to keep us changing, adapting, and generally evolving.
i do not believe that any split would benifiet either group, or the whole. of course, that is my opinion, and i could very well be wrong. but, it is something to consider.
-putting down the faux horns and being something other than devil's advocate for once, athenonrex
RE: virus: Notice and Proposal of Importance to all Virians
« Reply #4 on: 2003-07-31 10:12:11 »
Dear Hermit,
I think that the dichotomy is slightly exaggerated. No doubt I would be lumped into group one (pro-American, Pro-Israeli, Pro-Western) but your description of this group is somewhat extreme. I can see elements of my beliefs in both "sides" of the schism. I know you do not want to argue small stuff and your examples, but I would like to make some things clearer none the less. I believe we have much more in common here than we realise.
1. I distrust all governments, but sometimes or even mostly I agree with the US Government (being the embodiment of the US people) and its actions. My posting such opinions is normally in reaction what I perceive as anti-American posts. Joe Dees, like me occasionally, feels he is restoring balance but challenging what has become anti-US dogma here.
2. No one has claimed that "no media is more accurate and fair than that of the US". If they did they are mistaken. The US media is flawed, but then again so are almost all mass media systems. Even the BBC is accused of rampant bias. There is little point in moaning about the US media unless a suitable benchmark is established to measure rival media systems. It is one thing to say "The US media has commercial interests filtering the news", it is quite another to add "so we must give it equal status as the Iraqi Information Minister's pronouncements".
3. War happens. As a former soldier you know well that war is hell, but whilst ideologies exists to clash and there is competition for limited resources - there will be war.
4. Some parts of the world would be better off adopting Western values. It is perfectly normal to champion one's values attempt to propagate them. That Western value are winning some memetic wars against legacy systems is not America's fault.
5. Joe Dees often posts brilliant material but he can of course be vituperative and somewhat obsessive in his arguing. He is a dissenter and heterodox who simply clashes with the political dogmas in this church. More power to him. How we handle differences and dissent is crucial to how we develop.
I know you are trying to sort out this difficult problem of acrimonious and off-putting internal squabbles. I think the solution to this is clear rules of engagement, earning each others respect in areas where we do not disagree and finally some sort of restatement of our shared values which includes the rules mentioned above.
Perhaps we also need a natural, external threat?
A church based on reason is fine, but what are we doing to avoid what happened to the last attempt to create such a church? The one that ended with the Reign of Terror?
I trust you, probably the most brilliant person I have ever encountered, will have some refreshing insights into how we can do this.
It is high past time for me to reply to Hermit's continued cavalcade of calumnies directed at me, and so now I shall. First, he accuses me of plagiarism, and then accuses me of flooding the 'Serious Business' section of the BBS with biased reportage. The funny thing is that he did not complain about himself when he was doing it. In fact, he almost filled the first 12 pages of the "Current News" thread with a deluge of stories from such 'objective' sources as the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent, the Progressive, Znet, the Yellow News, and so on, by such 'unbiased' authors as Robert Fisk (whose serial inaccuracies have become so legendary on the Net that they have spawned the neologism 'fisking', which means a point-by-point factual rebuttal), John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and others of this ilk. He did so with only minimal commentary, mostly reserved to highlighting passages or interjecting gratuitous and vicious mal mots. When I attempted to discuss some of the blatant fallacies there included, he curtly replied with the following (on page 13):
In future, would posters please use one of the existing "Serious Business" threads, or begin a new thread under "Serious Business" to hold discussions of news articles, rather than posting to "Current News".
Discussion - as opposed to news - posted to this thread will in future be removed, as it reduces the value of the current news thread.
Thank-you for your cooperation.
So I cooperated, and did precisely what he asked. But that, too, was surpassingly more than he could stomach. Apparently, having any opinion appear that is not a clone of his, however wrong his has proven to be (and it has been proven wrong all the way from Afghanistan to Iraq), was exceedingly offensive to him, and he wants it STOPPED. By all means at his totalitarian-minded disposal. To post , largely without commentary, biased stories from slanted sources was obviously OK as long as HE was doing it, but obvoiusly, when someone (read me) began posting far different perspectives from much more respected sources, such as Foreign Affairs Magazine, Policy Review Magazine, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Wilson Quarterly, the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yprker, and so on, it was not OK with him. He started labeling what he had previously been doing himself 'plagiarism', even though a simple Google search was sufficient to find the author and source, and 'list flooding', even though he had been doing the same thing himself, but was unable to find as many fringe sources that agreed with his erroneous take on the issues as I found mainstream, widely respected sources that pointed out the errors of the others and set the record straight. And what was then wrong with the picture that was right when HE was doing it? Nothing except that someone besides himself was wielding a palette knife
But why would he do such a thing, huh? What is it that he was wanting and trying to achieve, exactly, and why?
Well, he actually told us. In a recent email, he stated that, and I quote: I had rather hoped that like anti-war.com and > smirkingchimp.com, both of which added tens of thousands of donating > members, and large gifts, through providing similar fare to that which > I was attempting to establish on the BBS, that we could establish some > relevance outside of the enthusiastic but broke "kernal" community.
In other words, his stated aim is to subvert the stated purpose of the CoV (to formulate a rational yet infectious religion), and to hijack it in order to convert it into just another anti-American, anti-Bush hate site, for the sake of his ideological unction combined with the possibility of extracting filthy lucre from fellow US and Bush haters. I strongly consider such a plot to be an undermining and betrayal of the high ideals for which virions are supposed to stand. He objected to someone (me) providing differing (and extremely academically credible) perspectives from his, and criticized my actions as 'list spamming', although they were nothing other than what he himself had previously done, with the caveat that I, unlike the 'ideologically pure' Hermit, included several articles with which I personally or politically disgreed (as long as they were reasonably well done), something which I cannot cite a single example of him doing. I also object to his referring to 'Republican' and 'Liberal' wings on the CoV, for several reasons: 1) Many liberals, such as Michael J. Totten, Norman Geras, Christopher Hitchens and Paul Berman, support the Bush administration's War on Terror and the US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. It must've been particularly galling for Hermit when I posted their essays. 2) Many Paleoconservatives, such as Patrick Buchanan, Roberty Novak and Charley Reese (whom Hermit once approvingly cited), oppose these actions. 3) I myself am a social liberal, a fiscal conservative and a foreign policy realist. I am aso a registered democrat, but my candidate is not out there. I cannot support Bush in the next election (and did not vote for him in the last - I was a Gore voter) due to his domestic social and fiscal policies; for instance, his antiabortion stance and his desire to blur the line separating church and state, and the fact that he is squandering our Clinton-engineered chance to pay down the national debt (economically, both tax-and-spend Democrats and borrow-and-spend Republicans are bad news for our country's fiscal health down the road), with his voodoo-economics supply-side tax cut (his dad labeled Reagan's fiscal policy correctly) in the middle of a necessarily costly global-in-scope military program, but I cannot stomach the Islamofacistically appeasatory stances, as far as foreign policy is concerned, of the nine Democratic dwarves currently running against him. For instance, they widely criticized Bush for his 'bring them on' remark, as encouraging attacks upon our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I saw it as a lucid ploy to morph those foreign countries into jihadist flypaper, so they could die against well-armed and on-guard military troops on foreign soil rather than murder thousands of clueless civilians here within out own borders, as they did in 9/11 (remember that? It's been less than TWO YEARS). By both parties, From Carter on (the hostage crisis paralysis) through Reagan (the Beirut barracks and embassy bombing and out subsequent withdrawal), through Bush I (our flight from Somalia) and Clinton (his desultory cruise missile lobs after major Al Quaeda attacks), appeasement has been tried, and has simply emboldened the Islamofascist terrorists to new and more massive attacks, culminating in the 9/11 atrocity. Thus, for the first time in my voting history (since I was 18), I may find myself sitting out the next election. But I am more discerning than the kind of neanderthal Bush-hater (a doppelganger clone of the neanderthal Clinton-haters of the past) who in an unconscious, reflexive, unintellectual, nonanalying, prejudiced and knee-jerk fashion, either supports or opposes any policy whatsoever, foreign or domestic, simply because of its author, or his/her political party.
Re:Notice and Proposal of Importance to all Virians
« Reply #6 on: 2003-08-03 06:00:56 »
If the CoV is to flourish (something which I think should happen), we need to expand our membership. Which brings us back neatly to where I began.
There are at least two viewpoints here, which are utterly at odds with one another, but as other contributors to this thread have observed, not central to sharing the goals of the CoV, avoiding our 'sensless sins' or adopting our 'Virian Virtues'. What these groups are called is not particularly relevent, as I think that the existing labels have become so meanless as to be nearly indistinguishable. The appelations I used were intended as identifiers, not characterizations.
Both perspectives may have appeal to the wider community on their own, and perhaps, when dealt with in a civilised fashion (as I consider Jonathan Davis to have done in his latest post) joint discussions may be of interest to a small number of people. Trying to stick to the point, in the main, I doubt if a literally interminable discussion holds much of a draw for the CoV. Unfortunately, civilised discussion, as Joe Dees has once again made apparent, is not the norm and I would suggest that the resulting mess has no appeal to anyone that the existing members wish to see sharing membership in the CoV.
As stated in our founding introduction http://virus.lucifer.com/about.html, we are an evolving and memetic organization, and in order to increase our ability to propagate our memes effectively, we are proposing and implementing a number of steps in the hope of increasing the appeal and marketability of the CoV.
As announced by David Lucifer in [ David Lucifer,"Emergent reputation system in beta", 2003-08-01 ] , we have a mechanism in beta which will allow us to implement a 'sumucracy' [From sumuos: respected or revered and -cracy:a system of governing] which will recursively and adaptively provide weight to those members of the community who are recognised by the community as being respected. This mechanism is proposed to allow the community of the Church of Virus to "self-moderate" the image which it presents to the world.
The proposed mechanism will work as follows:
Rated members [Refer http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=;action=foo ] will evaluate one another's 'Reputations', which vary from a 1 (should be banned) through a 7 (A pillar of the community)]. A computer algorithm converts this assigned 'Reputation' into:
an 'Influence' which is a determination of how much weight a member's opinion carries, calculated from the Reputation such that in a community of N members one level 7 member will have as much influence as N level 4s, and one level 4 will have as much influence as N level 1s. as well as
'Equity', being the percentage of the total influence wielded by a member.
For the purpose of evaluating 'Influence' and 'Equity', unrated members are allocated a 'neutral Reputation' of 4. The upside of not being rated is that you cannot receive a low rating. The downside, aside from possible accusations of apathy, is that an unrated member cannot rate others, nor can they receive higher ratings. The choice as to whether to be rated or not is left to the individual members.
Posts made will be assigned a 'Visibility score' which is determined by the 'Influence' of the poster. Other rated Virians may 'applaud' or 'smite' a post, upon which, the 'Influence' of an 'Applauder' will be added to the 'Visibility score' and the the 'Influence' of a 'Smiter' will be subtracted from it.
We will be replacing our current method of establishing whether a Virian is a 'neophyte', 'acolyte', 'congregation', 'vector' or 'archvector' with one based upon the "Equity" of the Virian. In addition, a category will be established for the 'Uninfected' which will include those who are not members of the BBS (the outside world).
We will establish score thresholds for posts which will determine who is able to see the posts. In this way, only posts which achieve a sufficiently high 'Visibility score' will be available to the 'Uninfected', allowing us to determine how we present ourselves. Naturally any Virian will be able to affect the visibility score of any post, in such a way that a post made by somebody with great influence can be reduced below this threshold by a number of Virians 'smiting' it, and that made by a low 'Influence' Virian may be boosted to be visible to the 'Uninfected' by a number of Virians 'applauding it'. Similar mechanisms will be used internally, to the extent that a sufficiently low score will relegate material to 'The Pit' while a sufficiently high score will boost material to 'The Best of Virus'. Material which has a sufficiently high score will be sent out on the mailing list interface. The same mechanism will apply to mail being received from the list.
This approach we hope, will solve many of our current 'image' problems, and do away with claims of the nature of "I'm a better/more important Virian than you" something that never has been, and hopefully never will be a part of our paradigm.
Unfortunately, there is, if my surmises are correct, a drawback. And that is that little or no material of the kind that I labelled as "conservative", "NeoCon" or "knee jerk Republican" is going to be visible to the outside world. Which, I think, is going to annoy no-end those members of the CoV who support this perspective. It also precludes the CoV as being seen as desireable by those who enjoy such material (no matter how little appeal I think the CoV is likely to hold for the majority of such people).
The proposed schism was designed to eliminate these potential drawbacks. It does so by allowing the "Joe Dees' America First" (merely an identifying label until somebody suggests another, seeing the strenuous objections to the identification used previously) to establish their own "perspective" of the CoV, and for the "liberal group" (which in my opinion does not include knee jerk Democrats - or knee jerk anythings for that matter - although it does of course include democrats (note the capitalization)) to establish their own perspectives of the CoV. Indeed, as previously intimated, other groups may choose to form and present still other perspectives. These groups will maintain their own memberships and ratings (although nothing precludes a Virian from joining multiple groups), and more importantly, their own BBS boards which will allow them to present their perspectives in as an attractive a format as they choose to their chosen demographic. Each group benefits in that their prefered memes are not diluted and their forums are not disrupted by viturperation. The CoV as a whole benefts, because we increase the number of demographics to which we appeal and because, hopefully, members will be less reluctant to advocate the CoV to others due to the reduction in the possibility of embarrassment.
The "liberal group" has been working on what and how we should be doing things in order to achieve a broader appeal and greater degree of attractiveness to new members and in so doing, greatly increase the total CoV membership and revenues. Revenues that we need to be able to develop the CoV. The question is whether the "Joe Dees' America First" group wishes to establish their own project to do the same, or if they would rather operate within the consensus of the evolving Church of Virus.
As you can see, a schism is not being forced on anyone, a choice is being offered. The one thing which is not going to happen is that we continue with the current unhappy situation. Anyone wishing to discuss this further is welcome to do so formally, on this thread, or join the ongoing discussions on our channel, #virus either through IRC at irc.lucifer.com:6667 or via the web at http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=54;action=chat.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Two Points: 1) The ratings scheme, while sincerely intended, is wide open to manipulation and abuse, since it depends upon the objective evaluation of transparently biased people. I already have a mental picture of hermit licking the pavlovian spittle from his jowly chops at the juicy prospect of he and his ideological minions reflexively smiting all the posts authored by people on their Nixonian political enemies list, regardless of their objective merit, in order to drive any posts by their authors, to the 1-banning/blackout stage, and thus enforcing a partisan party-line conformity upon the CoV, and likewise knee-jerk applauding each other, regardless of whether such applause is actually deserved by the content of their posts. One look at the 'karma' ratings is enough to tell objective people that this is already happening. He himself forsaw/admitted to as much with his statement that "...little or no material of the kind that I labelled as "conservative", "NeoCon" or "knee jerk Republican" is going to be visible to the outside world." Notice that this material does not have to actually FIT such labels; it is only necessary for its exclusion for hermit and his minions to so label it 2) The idea of 'wings' of the CoV runs foursquare counter to the concept of truth, which is singular, not multiple, and which ideally should be determined by means of intersubjective concensus, by combining varying perspectives upon the selfsame object. I think that the truth of matters under dispute should be settled by clothing the skeleton of logical argument with the flesh of supporting evidence. As the saying goes, a person with one watch always knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure.
A minor reinstatement, where Joe Dees no doubt inadvertently created a misrepresention through selective quotation and a few uncommented highlights observing that Joe Dees' apparently does not think very highly of the membership's ability to form judgements of the value of his perspectives. On this point, it is perhaps worth emphasising a not terribly subtle point that Joe Dees may not have grasped, which is that in order to save an enormous amount of time and effort, not to mention untidyness, the proposed semucracy encourages the formation of an "intersubjective concensus" through the ratings of posters and their posts by the general membership of the CoV, rather than having to wade through, and potentially respond to, every posting which is made, irrespective of the membership's opinion of the poster or material's worth. Joe Dees
Two Points: 1) The ratings scheme, while sincerely intended, is wide open to abuse, since it depends upon the objective evaluation of transparently biased people. I already have a mental picture of hermit licking the pavlovian spittle from his jowly chops at the juicy prospect of he and his ideological minions reflexively smiting all the posts authored by people on their Nixonian political enemies list, regardless of their objective merit, in order to drive any posts by their authors, to the 1-banning/blackout stage, and thus enforcing a partisan party-line conformity upon the CoV, and likewise knee-jerk applauding each other, regardless of whether such applause is actually deserved by the content of their posts. He himself forsaw/admitted as much with his statement that "[Reinserted] if my surmises [that the majority of the CoV are "liberal"] are correct...little or no material of the kind that I labelled as "conservative", "NeoCon" or "knee jerk Republican" is going to be visible to the outside world." Notice that this material does not have to actually FIT such labels; it is only necessary for its exclusion for hermit and his minions to so label it Hermit
If Joe Dees really feels that his "America First" advocacy will draw members to the CoV (which is a primary reason for this forum's existence), and that supporters (I won't insult them by calling them minions) of the "Joe Dees' America First" perspective are either apathetic or have less 'influence' than the "liberal" CoV membership, then he should seriously consider accepting the schism offered. Surely if either of the above are true, then not to accept the proposal would be extremely hypocritical. And if they are false, why has he been dogmatically promoting this perspective by flooding the CoV with plagiarised material. making it appear that this represents the CoV over the opinion of what he considers a majority, and strenuously assaulting those who have attempted to disagree with him? Joe Dees
2) The idea of 'wings' of the CoV runs foursquare counter to the concept of truth, which is singular, not multiple, and which ideally should be determined by means of intersubjective concensus, by combining varying perspectives upon the selfsame object. I think that the truth of matters under dispute should be settled by clothing the skeleton of logical argument with the flesh of supporting evidence. As the saying goes, a person with one watch always knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
By "liberal", if hermit means anti-US, anti-Israel and anti-Bush, as voluminous past posts from his cabal would strongly suggest, then the CoV has ALREADY been morphed by he and his into just another political hate site, and all that remains is for the last vestiges of legitimate dissension to be excised from it. A major issue that direly needs to be perused by the CoV is the cancerous contemporary expansion of violent and virulent mutations of religious memesets; for they are adamantly opposed to all the Virion virtues and embrace many of the Virion sins, and are committed to the elimination of precisely that for which we stand. Although there are (at least) as many violent mutations as there are religions, the most presently vicious and bloodthirsty by far is the militant and terrorist Wahhabist Al-Quaedan mutation of Islam. Although hermit and his minions have not been remiss in attacking Zionists and fundy Christians, they have not only been reluctant to consider the depredations of Al Quaedan Muslims and the fallacies inherent in their fantasy ideology, but have actually actively opposed such studies, and attacked those (including me) who have suggested same. I, too, wish the CoV to prosper, but not at the irredeemable cost of it's "Virion soul", which would be the inescapable result if it adopted an exclusionary and subjective ideological mindset and memetically filtered out all facts, evidence and logic that run contrary to such preconceptions. It's original purpose would then be mangled beyond recognition; it would then not be a site that studied memetics or was attempting use the fruits of such studies as tools in order to engineer a both rational and infectious perspective, but rather would have pledged itself in thrall to an irrational and hate-motivated pre-existing agenda, and just become another cog in the wheel of yet another intolerant memeplex. If he TRULY wants to make members and money and has no compunction concerning how this is accomplished, he could turn this site into a fundy Christian apologia site, without much more loss of credibility or integrity.
Re:Notice and Proposal of Importance to all Virians
« Reply #10 on: 2003-08-04 05:53:33 »
Dees:
Quote:
The ratings scheme, while sincerely intended, is wide open to manipulation and abuse, since it depends upon the objective evaluation of transparently biased people.
I agree that there is a chance that the rating system will be abused and will fail. Yet, on the other hand I do not see it being likely. Personally I'm not going to vote posts down to not being viewable unless the content is really offense and would disgrace, discredit, and harm the productivity of the CoV. This does include spamming the list with 5 message about how this or that is justified from any political stance. We have a section for that on the BBS and for the most part that is where it should stay. I must note though, you have been doing a good job in my eyes lately. (Not that I expect it to matter to you.)
I think if used correctly the rating system will help the CoV in the end. If not, then at least it was a learning experience. As Dr. Sebby would say.....
Safe from the pain and truth and choice and other poison devils See.. they don't give a fuck about you, like i do. Just stay with me, safe and ignorant, Go back to sleep Go Back to sleep
There's absolutely no reason to trust the membership to use the peer rating system honestly.
Trust falls into the same category of irrational systems (like belief) when sufficient reason cannot be produced to justify its approach. To place faith in another, or rather, to be confident that one's actions (decisions, opinions, etc.) stand true to the Virian Way on the sole basis that the actor is accepted as a Virian is irrational because it is an infallible prejudice. As Hermit said, "Anything that is provisionally true is at least theoretically falsifiable."
I still disagree with the peer rating system and I do accept the majority of Joe Dees' comments in this thread as truth.
> > "The idea of 'wings' of the CoV runs foursquare counter to the concept > of truth, which is singular, not multiple" > > One truth, one church, one pontiff then? > One CoV, one truth, no pontiff. > ---- > This message was posted by Kharin to the Virus 2003 board on Church of > Virus BBS. > <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=54;action=display;thread > id=28917> --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to > <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
Re: virus: Re:Notice and Proposal of Importance to all Virians
« Reply #14 on: 2003-08-04 14:59:37 »
----- Original Message ----- From: "metahuman" <hidden@lucifer.com> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 6:21 AM
> There's absolutely no reason to trust the membership to use the peer rating system honestly.
You don't have to. You only have to assume that the majority of the most highly respected members of the community will use the rating system honestly.
The system is the most fair and most objective system that I have come across. If you have a better system, please describe it.
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